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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?

#751

Post by ticmasta »

MS90 wrote: post #666
greyhair wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thirded. I worked as a farm hand on a nearby dairy farm through high school, then six years as a mechanic before going to college. As a farm hand, you learn early how to arc weld, or cut steel with an acetylene torch, along simple carpentry and plumbing, as well as mechanical maintenance on equipment. It isn't all just feeding and milking cows. You also learn to deal with shit. Literally tons of it.

I'm willing to bet that cattle ranchers and dairy farmers deal with more bullshit per capita than any other profession.

but they don't even have BAs and PMs...

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

#752

Post by chirag64 »

krosaen wrote: post #561

Setup and learn how to use Anki to practice spaced repetition. Going forward you can now decide what you would like to remember (so long as you are willing to spend 5-15 mins a day reviewing)! People's names, that command you always look up, your credit card number, interesting statistics (e.g number of passenger miles per death for bicycles vs cars vs planes) foundational facts in your field that will allow you to p…

There's also Quizlet which is similar but I find it better because you can preview entire pre-built card decks on it which makes it searchable on google

https://quizlet.com

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

#753

Post by the_watcher »

harrisonjackson wrote: post #731
kasey_junk wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are right; I probably could have thought of a better example, but the oil-change seemed to apply to more people. Personally, I'd say I've saved a lot of money learning to fix a sprinkler, replace a ceiling fan, unclog a drain, fix a leaking faucet/pipe, painting the interior of a house, etc - more of the homeowner DIY than the car owner. The equipment needed for these is usually less than the cost of hiring a pro…

These are all things I wish I felt more comfortable doing. When I buy a home, I plan on getting better at all of these, and investing in doing them with my kids while they're young. I'll always remember how much money my most handy friends saved in college while always having the nicest apartments.

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

#754

Post by nolanhanz »

oeuviz wrote: post #391
unlinked_dll wrote: post #28

How to properly wrap cables. A/V and cable techs are super anal about this and it takes just a few minutes to learn, it will change your life. Cables should never be coiled in the same direction. It creates kinks when unwound and make it extremely likely for knots to form (ever leave your headphones in your pocket?). If a cable isn't being installed permanently it should be "wrapped" using a technique called "over-un…

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

Rolled up newspapers work well for this too, albeit I doubt a lot of us here get a newspaper delivered everyday anymore

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

#755

Post by Broken_Hippo »

rbavocadotree wrote: post #626
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #188

If you've been married for a while, learn who your spouse is now . (I mean in a good way, by taking an hour to rediscover what his/her hopes and dreams are, what interests they've gained / lost, etc.) He/she is probably a pretty different person than the one you married. It's easy to overlook that.

This is a great start. You should spend an hour a week having a conversation about your shared future, whatever that may mean to you.

I don't think my spouse and I could fill an hour a week with this - plus we would dread the conversation. It sounds like work.

Don't get me wrong, we talk about it. If one of us has thoughts about it, we share at the time or soon after. But it isn't like we lead busy lives or have children or in general, have a lot of upheaval in our lives. We are both over 40, and aren't changing rapidly at this point. There simply isn't that much to discuss.

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

#756

Post by rb808 »

lurker458 wrote: post #750
tempestn wrote: post #144

How, and why, to invest in a simple portfolio of index funds. Split between equity and fixed income based on your risk tolerance, and diversify equities globally. This will give you a low-cost, set-and-forget investment portfolio that you can add to over time without ever having to worry about what you should buy or what the market might do. Just add to it regularly over time, and end up with solid retirement savings…

any advice on how to invest in ETFs while in Europe ? Vanguard is not available and local banks charge high management fees.

there are Vanguard ETFs in some European stock exchanges. https://global.vanguard.com/portal/site/home

But Vanguard aside there are loads of low fee ETFs from ishares, amundi lyxor, etc eg https://www.xetra.com/xetra-en/instruments/etf-exchange-trad...

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

#758

Post by atwebb »

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…

If you haven't read it, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a great read. I have cooked for years and it was a short, easy read with lots of applicable tidbits. I recently tried out the Salt methods on a check steak and it is significantly better and similar to a strip cut in tenderness and flavor.

Clarifying butter and slower cooking my omelettes has been fantastic, along with salt early in the mixing bowl and letting it sit for a minute.

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

#759

Post by Broken_Hippo »

bostonpete wrote: post #489
Fnoord wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that applies to being together, not necessarily being married. Nowadays, we don't all live in a religious dominant society (anymore) where it is required or normal to marry.

Marriage is not a strictly religious institution.

Very true: My marriage is legal. We didn't actually care if we were married or not, but boy oh boy immigration would rather us be married. So we are. We'd be together nonetheless, marriage was just the means of doing so.

But I think the poster's point was that this advice is basically advice for long-term relationships and really shouldn't be viewed under the light of marriage only. Since many folks don't have to be married to be a family, a good number of folks are skipping that step.

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

#760

Post by Broken_Hippo »

lsiebert wrote: post #7

How to do various knots comes to mind. Square knot, A sheet bend, clove and trucker's hitch, prusik, the alpine butterfly knot, and bowlines can all be learned rather quickly, then practiced so they can be remembered easily. http://paracord550milspec.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/How...

The problem with this is practical use. I so rarely need to knot something securely or in a special way that it doesn't seem worth the time to learn. I can look things up if I find a use.

What practical uses do you use knots for?

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