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Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#681

Post by bardworx »

cactus2093 wrote: post #634
stakkur wrote: post #491

Marcus Aurelius' Stoic idea of winning the morning. This means doing your best to make the most of the first part of the day: arise early and jump into doing the most important tasks of the day. Practice good habits. Then, as the day expands and becomes less in your control, you've 'won' the morning. I use 'win the morning!' almost as a mantra, and just that single, simple idea been life-changing.

I like the sound of this but what does it look like in practice? By "arise early" are we talking like 4 or 5am, or just early enough to get to the office slightly before 9am and be the first one there by a few minutes? By "jump into the most important tasks of the day", would you consider working out to be one of those? It's important in the long run to do consistently, but on a given day it's not usually what I woul…

You can nitpick any idea into oblivion but the gist is: figure out what is the most important thing for you to do in the morning to be productive and do it.

And if going to the gym in the morning makes the rest of your day productive by providing you with lots of energy and a clear head, then yes, going to the gym is the most important and productive for you to do in the AM.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#683

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

relativeadv wrote: post #586
localhost wrote: post #291

I would say focus on building a solid, functional body vs. say focusing on goals like "how much can I lift?" or "how much do I weigh?" or "how fast can I go?". Those goals, while laudable, can also cause you to break down your body in your quest to achieve them. An example from literally yesterday. Over the past few months, I struggled with medial knee pain that was limiting my ability to walk up stairs and do other…

There is beauty to the simple goal of "I want to lift x amount one day." Instead of worrying yourself to death over whether you are "functional" or not. I've seen so many regulars at my gym over the years still doing the same stuff, still looking the same, still lifting the same, still doing kettlebell goblet squats and farmers walks and step-ups and whatever else have you. I realize what an elitist knob this makes m…

"I want to lift x amount one day" is not for everyone, it's what lead me to destroy my spine. I went years without any problems and I was in the best shape of my life, but I never thought about the level of compression my spine was taking on.

I ended up having multiple bulging discs from C5-C7, a severe disc herniation in T8-T9 (which happened mid workout, very painful), L4-S1 herniations and L4-L5 breaking away chunks of my vertebrae. I eventually had to get emergency surgery on C5-C7 due to the narrowing of spinal cord.

I still "work out" with resistance bands, but I'm never allowed to properly lift weights again thanks to my foolishness. It's horribly depressing and I don't wish this on anybody.

Moral of the story is you might be just fine and have the skeletal structure to support lifting, or it could be a ticking time bomb like in my case. Lifting goals should carry disclaimers about the possible dangers.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#684

Post by baroomba »

mywittyname wrote: post #576
msluyter wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've learned the most and gotten the most bang for the buck from using Cook's Illustrated special edition magazines. For example, Skillet Dinners1[1], my copy of which is well worn. The writeups that go with the recipes really help train one's intuition about cooking. Over time, I've gotten much better at knowing when to adjust ingredients or cooking times for a given recipe. https://shop.americastestkitchen.com/spec…

ATK is great for beginners because they test their recipes and their recipe amounts are literally the same as they used in the tests. A lot of recipes you find online are really guestimates on the amounts, so you never get the same result as the author. People are very bad about guestimating volumes, like "about 2 tablespoons of oil" when they really used half a cup.

Heh, I run into a lot of recipes where they have you cook in a tiny amount of oil and dump the pan out a couple times but you're still supposed to be "sautéing" whatever's in the last batch. Yeah, OK. Double the initial oil, add it again after each dump since there's still none left after the first time. Or else we're not doing what you claim we're doing, recipe. Which may also be fine, but still.

Or high-heat nonstick cooking with like one teaspoon of oil in the pan, heating it to nigh-smoke before adding anything else. LOL. Or steel or cast-iron temp + fat combos that make no sense and are guaranteed to give you a bad time. Either lots and lots of recipes are nonsense on this front, requiring modification of one form or another to be reasonable, or these people have magical pans that I do not.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#685

Post by andrewzah »

kbrackbill wrote: post #463
andrewzah wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like coding but with none of the frustrations. You can’t get stuck midway because you have an incompatible version of carrots. All you need is ingredients and a good repertoire of recipes to draw from.

Huh, I feel the exact opposite- it's like coding with a bunch of extra frustrations like shopping and cleaning, and the possibility of messing up in an irreversible way (burning something, for example).

Cleaning isn't so bad if you handle it immediately and treat it as a meditative experience. I just think about whatever while washing dishes or throw on a relaxing podcast occasionally.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#686

Post by brailsafe »

chrissnell wrote: post #100

Some suggestions: - Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it. - Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn ab…

I discovered at 22 (now 28) that most cities have young person and student programs for inexpensive tickets to the symphony. $20 for any ticket in the house is a great way to spend 10 or more nights a year.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#687

Post by tomaskafka »

localhost wrote: post #291

I would say focus on building a solid, functional body vs. say focusing on goals like "how much can I lift?" or "how much do I weigh?" or "how fast can I go?". Those goals, while laudable, can also cause you to break down your body in your quest to achieve them. An example from literally yesterday. Over the past few months, I struggled with medial knee pain that was limiting my ability to walk up stairs and do other…

For others reading this - this is what good physiotherapists do. Changing the movement patterns and balancing the body instead of prescribing painkillers.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#688

Post by baroomba »

whatshisface wrote: post #188
billfruit wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learn to enjoy poetry. There is so much of great poetry in English, but I think it is not being read and appreciated enough. It is a kind of mental challenge like doing a puzzle, to unlock the full vivid meaning. Also reading fiction, though how exactly it helps one is beyond me, but it offers glimpses into other worlds. For example I read recently 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', I doubt its richness of detail, and…

Is there any evidence that poems have meaning? I could easily imagine a world where poets fool themselves into thinking the words they wrote contained their intentions, while readers fooled themselves into thinking they had uncovered those intentions.

If you try reading poetry and get something out of so reading, does it matter whether they "have meaning"? It's the practice, and its effect on you, that matters. Like Zen. You've missed the point if you think there's anything valuable to be found, something concrete you can dig up and take hold of, that when you find it you have it and someone gave it to you.

"Meaning" may be present but is irrelevant if the experience is the same—what evidence do you want? Getting something out of poetry? Many people clearly do, if that's the test.

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