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

#1

Post by newsbinator » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

A lot of what hackers do takes years of building knowledge upon knowledge. That's also true for physicists, marketers, salespeople, managers, etc.

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

For example an average person, if focused, can learn to read (but not understand) Korean decently in under an hour.

A person can also learn a few guitar chords and possibly play a carefully-chosen song in that time.

But those aren't valuable skills in themselves.

Do you know of any simple + valuable wins in your area of interest?

("valuable" intentionally left vague)

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

#2

Post by mister_hn » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 5:56 AM UTC

Git. It has few commands and can be rapidly learned in one hour, mastering commands such as

Git fetch

Git pull

Git commit

Git push

Git merge

Git log

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

#3

Post by vinhboy » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 5:57 AM UTC

Learn how to use deals site to save a ton of money: https://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9

I can't overstate how much money you will save by simply setting up alerts on sites like SlickDeals and learning the basic lingo like YMMV, B&M, PM etc...

At the very least learn about the TofuVic's purchase point for toilet paper so you don't waste money wiping your ass.

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

#4

Post by adamnemecek » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

Basic reverse engineering. Download hopper and hack away. Nothing more hacker than that.

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

#5

Post by mappu » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

Keyboard shortcuts for Excel + what exactly a Pivot Table is

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

#6

Post by sachop » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

Go to featured articles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Learn something interesting within few minutes everyday.

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

#7

Post by lsiebert » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

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...

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

#8

Post by peteforde » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

There's a growing realization that you can completely side-step the need for Single-Page App frameworks like React using websockets and the morphdom library.

Projects like StimulusReflex (Rails) and LiveView (Phoenix) allow developers to build complex, reactive modern apps faster and easier by rejecting the need to even have client state.

https://github.com/hopsoft/stimulus_reflex

https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_view

I haven't been this excited for a web technology since Rails came out.

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

#9

Post by mk89 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

mister_hn wrote: post #2

Git. It has few commands and can be rapidly learned in one hour, mastering commands such as Git fetch Git pull Git commit Git push Git merge Git log

This.

I would add -> understand how git works. The difference between merge and rebase, what Head is, what Tip is, etc.

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

#10

Post by Bootvis » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

Obligatory XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/519/