I used to always stand up to wipe. At one point in my adult life, there was a conversation and I realized everyone else does not do this. Then I tried wiping while sitting down. So much easier.
Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
611–620 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#612If when you coil a long cable or hose you find yourself fighting a twist as you coil… then you should learn to coil in an alternating overhand/underhand style. Google a video. Basically when grabbing the next hunk of cable you alternate between your thumb pointing away from you down the cable and your thumb point back up the cable to you and things just sort of happen right. When you uncoil the cable it will be layin…
This genuinely makes a huge difference with extension cords, garden hoses, etc., but reversing my grip never made this "just happen" the way the videos said it would. For anyone else who struggles, the main goal is to twist every other loop in the "wrong" direction, which negates the previous twist. This still forms a spiral shape, but as you create loops, the loose end alternates between laying on top of the loop and tucking under it. You can accomplish this without reversing your grip if you just alternate your twists instead.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#613I used to be a smoker. I started at a very young age. For the longest time I would carelessly flick cigarette butts.
One day it dawned on me that I was littering.
Odd thing was I never littered outside of that. In fact cleaning up litter was part of my job at the time.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#614• Just be kind to women
• If you like a girl, tell her she's pretty
• Buy a girl some flowers and watch her appreciate it
• Just make her laugh, women love a guy with a sense of humour
• Just let her know how you really feel if you like her
• Just hold the door open for her
• Just ask her out, the worst she can say is no
• Just find a girl that likes you for you
• Just listen to her and show her you care
• Just be a gentleman and pay her compliments
• Just be yourself!
• Just stop trying and the girl of your dreams will come into your life when you least expect it.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#615Not using an electric toothbrush. First time I used one it felt like I'd had a proper dental cleaning. An extremely half-assed effort with that kind of brush beats a thorough one with a manual brush. I thought they were a gimmick, but no, they're amazing.
I had the exact same experience. I always thought that the electric toothbrush was something for lazy ppl, then only recently - spotting one of the best electric brushes heavily discounted - I bought it. I felt I never had my teeth so clean. A game changer.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#616This is for people who lift weights. Do you get calluses along the pads of your hand, just below your fingers? You are probably gripping the bar incorrectly. This also applies to pull-ups/chin-ups grip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OK-S3ZJZxQ . TL;DR: grip the bar across the joint at the bottom of your fingers instead of across the middle of your palm. This doesn't apply to bench pressing (a push), but applies to…
Good for callus prevention, but probably bad for actual serious "pulling". I remember this video from 10+ years ago, when powerlifters were still doing the alternate grip for DL. Now more or less everyone hooks and depending on hand size, you need bar much lower on pads to have extra finger length wrap around bar for thumb to securely hook. Smaller the hands the lower on palm you need for good hook, every extra mm you get on that thumb counts. Which makes a huge different depending on bar diameter, typically 25-32mm where women bar thinnest, then deadlift bar, men standard, then garbage cheap commercial bars. If you have big hands it might not matter much, but medium/small hands could be pulling 100s of lbs less. That said, it's not dogmatic GOMAD tier of bad advice from Rippetoe, this is pretty good advice to get newbies especially women to start lifting, along with everyone wearing tights now to prevent shin scrapes. Ultimately, if you want to pull weight fast, you have to hook and heavy weight over 100s of reps will roll in hands and form calluses anyway, IMO best to invest in a nice razor pedicure shaver and keep up with hand health.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#617I think I was in my late twenties when I found out I had been tying my shoes wrong all my life. There is a correct and an incorrect way to do it. This affects not just how the knot looks (straight vs crooked), but also how easily it becomes untied: https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/theres-a-better-way-to-tie-...
The linked article mentions that the "strong" knot is unlikely to come undone. This knot will not come undone: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm And you can still untie by pulling on one of the ends. Though you have to make sure that while untying, you don't allow the loop to go over the other end of the shoelace.
Yes! This is just about as strong as the standard childhood shoelace knot + double-knotting, but it's faster and doesn't need to be picked apart. I do get it tangled during the untie sometimes, but it's still worth it.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#618Not really "wrong" but at some point in the last couple years I was using my microwave, putting something in for a minute, and for that I've always input 1:00 but suddenly I realized how obvious it was that I can just be inputting 60. As long as you can easily modulo the time, this works for the range 1 minute (60) to 1 minute 39 seconds (99). Technically you could also do this for times like 2:65 instead of 3:05 but…
I (almost) exclusively use the "Start (+30 s)" button to set time. It's very rare for me to microwave things more than 3 minutes (6 rapid button presses), I normally do 60 or 90 s. The microwave starts going as soon as the first button is hit.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#619When my then-gf/now-wife and I first moved in together, I got really mad at her because she kept "hiding" my stuff when I left it out for more than a day. I couldn't find anything! At some point, I yelled, "It's like you don't even want to see any of my things when I'm not using them!" Then I stopped for a second. For the first time in my life, it made sense. The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No…
yah there's a saying surrounding that I believe, cluttered space, cluttered mind. I think there's something to it, keeping a bunch of stuff in sleep mode in some back corner mental stack of your mind that gets subliminally refreshed each time you visually glance over strewn clutter.
Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
#620Proper hand washing. The only good thing about the pandemic. I wonder how many colds I could have avoided by spending 20 seconds soaping up instead of 2.
To add to this: don’t touch your eyes when you’ve been in public places and touched unsanitary surfaces. Your eyes are a really easy path into the body for pathogens.