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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?

#721

Post by toomuchtodo »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #294
ralusek wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication being that you just don't communicate between the time you first met and now?

> The implication being that you just don't communicate between the time you first met and now? That's not how I meant it. My point is that day-to-day life can be so consistently busy or hectic, that couples can spend way less time together than at first. And when you have kids, grad school, careers, etc., you can end up with a surprisingly long stretch of being more like business partners than soulmates. There may n…

My partner and I had several years of couples therapy together, and I can confirm your thesis in thread is spot on, great comments. You have to be able to grow together, live through the parts where that new relationship energy and passion are burning lower than they used to (and not act out destructively because of it, lots of ways to accomplish this, limited only by negotiated boundaries of the relationship), but still be able to check in with each other to ensure each other's needs are being met.

IMHO marriage is about finding a teammate, not a soul mate. It is more of a business partnership than about fairy tales and romance, and I think too many folks don't understand that upfront. TLDR: You are looking for a life cofounder; choose wisely.

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

#722

Post by eschneider »

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…

Without a doubt, CPR.

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

#723

Post by tempsy »

Basic options trading.

Most people should learn how to use a covered calls strategy to build income outside of owning stock outright.

With a covered call, the idea is to sell/write out of the money call options with a strike price higher than what it is today. You collect this premium while still owning the underlying stock, and if at expiration the shares are lower than the strike price you wrote the option for it expires worthless and you keep the premium. If it expires in the money, then you are "assigned" and you will sell the shares you have at the agreed upon strike price while still keeping the premium.

It's the least risky options strategy, safer than owning stock outright, and can create steady income for you in the form of the options premiums.

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

#724

Post by jldugger »

> Are there any quick wins that 30 ~ 60 minutes of intense concentration can generate?

Well, the _most_ valuable ones were probably taught to you in kindergarten, eg tying ones shoes, writing your name, etc. ;)

I feel like in my profession (AI/Devops/SRE), a lot of knowledge is high risk (you never end up using it) high reward (if you do need it, it's super valuable). Look at those 'things every programmer should know about X' pdfs. They're like 100 pages long and full of obscure stuff programmers don't actually need to know. Similarly, the LDAP for Rocket Scientists book most folks don't need to know, until you're trying to debug and authentication issue, adding a new schema, or trying to speed the system up.

If there is anything truly simple yet valuable, it's probably pretty basic, like 'know your IDE, know your VCS'. And probably kinda meta -- learning about learning. Random ideas:

- An hour running through chapter 10 of the git book can help users understand what git is actually doing

- an hour running through a debugger tutorial on your IDE of choice can make up for a lifetime of printfs

- learn a note taking system like Stanford Notetaking system

I suspect what people really want from this question is more "whats the most valuable thing people haven't yet learned in an hour?" Which kinda depends on the person, no? But I do plenty of interviews, and here's a small idea set:

1. Learn statistics. Virtually nobody knows anything about them. Even AI engineers can't discuss the central limit theorem. I'm still re-learning this stuff but it seems dang useful for discussing how to tune alerts.

2. Learn spreadsheets. With the advent of google docs and shared storage, spreadsheets you make are basically for life. That dramatically changes the cost benefit analysis of planning documents. Learning how to build and reuse them can help in a variety of contexts.

3. Use git for settings and configs, even personal and minor stuff. I have my homedir in git, and that forms a framework for studying settings. Learn a new timesaving vim setting, add it to git and it's mine for life. Add a new shell alias, and it's available on every system I use regularly -- I have a Chef cookbook for setting up my user that includes checking this repo out.

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

#725

Post by saalweachter »

Spend an hour learning whether you can safely attempt something.

There are two complimentary problems: some people don't realize that they can do something, and will never attempt it because they assume it requires training and skills and materials and time beyond their reach; other people don't realize that they shouldn't do something, because it is dangerous, because it is illegal, because it would require far more resources than they can reasonably devote to the project, because they just aren't good enough.

Regardless of which camp you tend to fall into, spend an hour every now and again determining whether something you're thinking about is feasible. Maybe you discover, "Huh, it's really easy to repair my running toilet, and very little can go wrong in this case". Maybe you discover, "Wow, if I screw up that electrical work I could electrocute myself or burn my house down, and I'd still have to get it inspected in my jurisdiction anyway so I might as well hire someone.". Maybe you discover that your startup idea would require an absurd amount of capital and would probably only ever have razor-thin profit margins at best, maybe you discover you could make a reasonable living self-employed.

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

#726

Post by EADGBE »

kasey_junk wrote: post #542
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…

Perhaps "being able to change your oil" is actually "knowing how to change your oil" or "why you should change your oil". The knowledge is the power in it, and it compounds into a lot of menial DIY tasks that one may or may not be interested in always doing.

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

#727

Post by JshWright »

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 missed the first step in cooking Jasmine rice: Return it to store and buy Basmati rice instead.

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

#728

Post by geerlingguy »

jackbarclay wrote: post #414
oeuviz wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let us proceed to the real challenge: christmas lights. How can you avoid the guaranteed swearing the following year?

Wrap them around a piece of scrap cardboard.

Alternatively go buy a few of those orange plastic extension cable wrap things from the electrical aisle at a big box store (either the plastic ones that are flat, or the big circular ones with a handle). I've had them for a decade, and every year I wind up my cords on them, and they always unwind easily the next year.

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

#730

Post by reubenswartz »

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…

This is so important. I don't know if you can "learn to cook" in an hour, but you can probably drive to the store, buy some vegetables, come home, and make a great salad with an awesome homemade vinaigrette dressing in less than an hour. I try to eat fairly healthy, but having a salad that's easy to make that I actually crave (oh no, I've turned into an old person) most days at lunch is amazing. It's fast, and I have great energy all afternoon.

Here's my default dressing: salt & pepper to taste. Bit of lemon juice. Bit of dijon mustard. Balsamic vinegar and EV olive oil. Adjust relative quantities to taste and based on what you have in your salad. Gets rave reviews and could not be simpler. ;-)

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