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Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#541

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

clarry wrote: post #517
rfc wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, I'll bite. This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous statement. I wasn't wealthy when I started investing. Hell, the first dollar I put into my long term portfolio was when I was living in my car! I started with ~$200 that I made from doing a collection of odd jobs (mowing lawns, computer repair, moving dirt, etc.). Every extra penny I made went into investing into a moderate portfolio focusing on…

A bit of calculation would show that a lot of people have no chance of building "great passive income" in 10 years. They simply do not have enough income to save that much. "I started with $200" tells us nothing useful. I can start with $5 and have great passive income if I'm making $100k and wife is making $70k and both of us are capable of saving a good chunk per year. I can start with $5000 and have little more th…

Here's something you can learn in less than an hour:

Most retail "investing" is really just skimming money from workers and giving it to shareholders.

Real jobs-and-opportunity-building investing isn't particularly encouraged by the markets. It's much easier to make money with various techniques that rely on the political manipulation of asset prices - like property, stocks, crypto, and corporate image - than by actually doing and making useful things at a reasonable price.

Which is why stock is such a contentious issue in the startup world. The operating rule is that you don't share profit with ordinary workers unless it's unavoidable.

Ideally if you're a funder you don't even share it with founders. That's more challenging to organise and happens less frequently, but if you're a founder it's naive in the extreme to assume you'll be spared any attempts to make it happen.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#542

Post by kasey_junk »

harrisonjackson wrote: post #16

CPR/Choking/First Aid course is probably close to an hour. How to change your own oil - probably lots of other money-saving home and auto DIY things... Speed reading and memory tricks can be a multiplier on learning other skills. How to use automation tools like Zapier and IFTTT - again, a force multiplier. You might be interested in this book https://www.amazon.com/First-20-Hours-Learn-Anything/dp/1591... - the auth…

I’m always amazed when the “change your own oil” option comes up in these discussions as it’s a very classic example where having specialized tools s and doing it a lot really speeds you up. And it’s a dirty job without a lot of intellectual interest. Further you can get it done for you in 10 minutes for approaching minimum wage.

Unless you work on your car for fun and have things like a lift sitting around it seems like a fairly useless thing to do yourself.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#543

Post by growlist »

greyhair wrote: post #449
collyw wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure that only applies to certain people. I stay fairly skinny no matter what, though I do move about a lot.

How old are you? My father was thin until he turned 27. He was never huge, but at 27 he was 170lbs (6'2") and at his peak, around age 65, he was a little over 200. He warned me about that. At 27, I was also 170 lbs (6'2") (I am nearly a clone of my dad), and then slowly gained weight. I briefly ballooned to 215 around age 31, but hammered that back down to 185, but since then it has slowly climbed to 200 (at age 60).…

Start lifting :)

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#544

Post by samfar90 »

sshine wrote: post #150
sgillen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both things change how you think temporarily. I think they both do so in such a way that you can identify and emotionally deal with stuff that would otherwise remain unresolved.

I'm sorry, but there is a fine line between dealing with stuff and smoking weed, one of which involves dealing with stuff, and the other postponing dealing with stuff.

This statement , "postponing dealing with stuff.", is not true, at least not for everyone. At least in my case and according to several testimonies I read/heard.

I have never been more apt to deal with issues than since I started smoking weed.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#545

Post by csours »

johnlbevan2 wrote: post #373

Learn how to ask a question. Think of all the times you've seen poorly worded questions on Stack Overflow, in support tickets, etc. Think of the power that being able to get answers to your questions has. Most of us are good at asking questions where we're working within our comfort zones, but struggle when we're on unfamiliar territory (e.g. I'll ask a better question if I have some issue with my code than I would i…

A valuable resource I've used for myself and for people who ask me questions: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#546

Post by WillDaSilva »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #176

How to cook for yourself, really, really good food. I no longer crave restaurant food, and all of the really important things I learned about cooking take just the time to read it, hear about it and then try it. All without any special hardware. A few examples: 1. Cooking jasmine rice: rinse it first, 1 c. water to 1 c. rice ratio. Bring to boil, turn down heat to lowest setting. Leave lid /the entire time/. Fluff th…

You mentioned cooking jasmine rice using a 1:1 ratio of water to rice, but rice generally can't be cooked using a linear ratio like this. As you increase the amount of rice being cooked, and change the size/shape of the cooking vessel, more of the water will be lost as steam. It's easiest to use a rice cooker, which will allow you more flexibility with regards to how much water/rice you used, but if you don't have a rice cooker (or anything that can work as a rice cooker) then I'd recommend the method where you cook the rice in a covered dish in the oven.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#547

Post by progval »

Learning to use a fire extinguisher. It's not hard, but not obvious either. And you don't want to have to figure it out on your own when you actually need it.

I personally had a training course at work, but I guess you can also find videos on the internet.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#548

Post by sillysaurusx »

gambiting wrote: post #384
sillysaurusx wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. If you said 10 minutes I'd agree. But if you can learn a bit about programming in an hour, you can learn enough cooking in an hour to make a yummy meal. The simplest example is a pork steak. Throw it on the skillet and wait awhile. Turn it over and wait awhile. You now have a pork steak. It's delicious.

That's not cooking, that's following instructions. It's like saying that you can learn programming by opening Visual Studio, clicking "new console project", typing in printf("hello world\n"); in between the braces and hitting play is "programming". It kind of is, but you've learnt nothing. With the pork steak how long is "wait awhile"? 10 seconds? 60 seconds? 10 minutes? All of those yield completely different result…

That's not cooking, that's following instructions. It's like saying that you can learn programming by opening Visual Studio, clicking "new console project", typing in printf("hello world\n"); in between the braces and hitting play is "programming". It kind of is, but you've learnt nothing.

Whoa, that took me back. That's literally how I learned programming when I was 13 or so. (I'm completely serious; I begged my mom for a copy of Visual Studio off of ebay. It was called Visual C++ 6.0 back then, or something. Nehe legacy tutorials were the shit! https://nehe.gamedev.net/)

I think everyone learns differently. The first thing you'll learn is that as long as you're standing next to the skillet, it's very hard to cook a pork steak too long. It'll always end up delicious.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

#549

Post by sunstone »

superhuzza wrote: post #327
dokem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also learned a number of knots. The only knot I ever really tie is the tautline hitch. The average person cannot string up a piece of rope and remove all slack because all they know is the granny or square knot. This knot is also incredibly simple and versatile. If you are reading this do yourself a favor and learn this over the next 5 minutes. The bolin should also be learned because the tautline hitch cannot b…

Just so you're aware, the bowline is considered somewhat dangerous because it has a high chance of being tied incorrectly. The only real advantage it has over a double figure 8 is that it's easier to untie after dynamic cinching. https://rockandice.com/climb-safe/climb-safe-rethinking-the-...

Interestingly, the bowline and the cat's claw are the same knot, but the cat's claw uses two rope ends rather than one and it's very simple to tie, unlike the tricky bowline.
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