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Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

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Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#1
I'm 33. I just learned, today, that there is no such thing as a paprika plant and that paprika spice is simply dried, ground bell/mild peppers. It seems relatively obvious in hindsight given that I'd never seen or heard of a paprika plant, but the fact I'm learning this so late in life is a bit staggering.

It got me wondering - what other simple facts slip by us sometimes until the obvious is made apparent?

For fun, a few others I've had occur over the years:

- I thought "having allergies" and "being allergic to something" were entirely distinct concepts. The former is a non-lethal, relatively mild inconvenience experienced seasonally by many. The latter is "I die if I eat that crab." The extreme differences in effects and differences in how people spoke about these words caused me to assume they were entirely distinct concepts until my early 20s.

- I did not realize that the musical artist "Flo Rida" (pronounced Flow Rye-Duh) was, you know, referencing the state, until someone pointed it out to me. It's much more apparent when written :)

relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1053/

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#3
It's surprisingly hard to change other people's minds, and probably easier to have your own certainties confronted and rebutted.

Basically, belief in a given world view, religion, or even something apparently (mis)fact based like a belief against AGW is not grounded in facts but is something else: you venture into rocky waters thinking logic and proof will change that belief. People hang onto their beliefs remarkably strongly, evidence and argument not withstanding.

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#4
Opossums can grunt like pigs. I thought I had a pig living in my yard, because I heard grunts and squeaks (babies) passing by under my window one summer morning. Got a trailcam and it's a possum.

If you collect knives you will cut yourself more often, even if you are good at handling knives. The big-picture reason "more knives, more cuts" makes sense. But how does that work out in the little picture? This is due to specific reasons you probably don't anticipate until you have some hindsight.

If you can imagine it, you can probably build it, do it, design it, or construct it somehow. I never realized how pessimistic I was about this concept until someone said "it doesn't have to be this way" and it was like a huge lightbulb went off and I sat there with my mouth hanging open. Basically, nothing has to be that way. Some things will _probably_ be a certain way. But confusing those two principles propagates lots of really unfortunate stuff in our world, because we think "reality" is formed by the latter, and basically give up or don't try anything new.

Eating hard breath mints can break your teeth. Huh? And also: Duh!

Spinach is healthy. It can also send you to the ER with oxalate issues like kidney stones. You can be a skinny green-diet superstar and spinach, almonds, etc. will absolutely stab you in the back.

You can lose tons of weight while eating boxes of candy bars. People will warn you not to do that, but there are easy workarounds for all of their concerns.

Pickle juice can hydrate you. But it can also destroy you in one of the most comical ways possible.

That's all I got for now

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#5
It took me around 25 years to figure out that the piece of clothing we call in french a "pullover" (yes, say that with a strong french accent) is actually an English word describing how you physically put on the piece of clothing.

It's hard to describe how much this felt like a french word for all this time. To be honest, I even thought it was local jargon... We typically call it a "pull". Everyone does it, it's the word.

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#6
There are peppers that are commonly used for paprika.

It's like growing different varieties of pea for mange tout or sugar snap. So you aren't that wrong.

It took me far too long to realise that the word spelled segue and the word pronounced Segway were one and the same!

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#7
Learn from those much less experienced than you in the workplace, such as interns.

As they are new and learning they are often more receptive and tend to pick up new practices you may discount.

Whilst they may not be as good as you at your job now, the new practices may eventually replace your own so get in on the ground floor. CF. docker containers Vs "monolithic" 3 tier systems, nosql Vs SQL DBs, newer programming languages, all happened to me in the last 10 years, and I'm thankful I had the foresight to learn from them.

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#9
You don't know what other people are thinking, and they don't know what you are thinking.

If you make yourself fat and then lose weight you will have excess skin.

Walking 3 miles a day is life changing.

Paying your mortgage off can leave a sense of emptiness, like what next?

If you have 3 people in your life actively looking out for your interests you are very fortunate

It rains more in the afternoon

When you ask people hard maths questions their pupils dilate

Going out with your wife for dessert on a Friday night after 30 years of marriage is better than tech

Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?

#10
This week I learned that a 3% credit card fee is a similar cost to offering 30 day terms on B2B transactions of you have to borrow from the bank to cover it. Only you get better cash flow and customers can get rewards.

And thanks to this post today I learned there is no such thing as a paprika plant. I'm 38...

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