How to play poker. It's the advice I'd give my younger self if I could go back in time. An hour is more than enough to learn the rules and basic strategy.
But why?
Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
571–580 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#572Understanding compound interest thoroughly. Compound interest is probably the most powerful "force" governing out lives. It is crucial when borrowing money, especially for longer terms. It is crucial when saving and investing. It is crucial in self-development, where a tiny 5% improvement in some area of your life per year can mean that you are twice as good at something in 15 years. It is important when evaluating a…
There is this nice book called "The Slight Edge" which builds on this whole idea in general and how it is applicable at every facet of life. It is really an insightful book and atleast you will slightly change about how you think about stuffs.
I'm reading *Atomic Habits right now and the author talks about how building small improvements on top of each other can eventually deliver great gains. The trick seems to be identifying just what it is to work on.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#573On the contrary, it has taken me years to unlearn compound interest. When you start with relatively little, compound interest is relatively very unhelpful - it compounds wealth and benefits people who have started with something more than you. Twice as good at nothing is still nothing.
Exactly. People talk about compound interest as of it can make you rich. It can't. It might multiply your wealth by 2 or 3 in a country where the difference between rich and poor is a factor of 100.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#57430~60 minutes is really a vague amount to time to learn something new. Maybe you could learn the basics of trading in that time.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#575Understanding compound interest thoroughly. Compound interest is probably the most powerful "force" governing out lives. It is crucial when borrowing money, especially for longer terms. It is crucial when saving and investing. It is crucial in self-development, where a tiny 5% improvement in some area of your life per year can mean that you are twice as good at something in 15 years. It is important when evaluating a…
It is true. It is crucial to understand any kind of growth situation which are predominent in life. For instance, one of my friends who is a teacher wanted to explain sustainable development to his highschool students by showing the effect of cutting too much trees if this doesn't match the trees growing rate. He asked me to solve the not so trivial equations with a series and found myself returning to the same maths used for the interest computation.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#576CPR/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've always been under the impression that for people living in multifamily housing, changing oil yourself isn't an option. It isn't "your" driveway (everyone else parks their car in the same garage), and I've never seen anybody do it. Lease terms might actually prevent oil changes, but I haven't confirmed that any place.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#577How 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…
3. Don't store eggs in the fridge, and don't frikking wash them!
Why not in the fridge?
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#578How to fight and take a punch. People are capable of taking much more punishment then they think. With an hour of practice, you can overcome the initial fear and act much more rational when push comes to shove. I understand that this is not just "intense concentration" while sitting behind your desk, but that is exactly the point of learning, get out of your bubble.
I suggest Brazilian Jujitsu. The rolling aspect of training trains you mentally to not to panic and problem solve the situation, deal with pressure, build cardio and relearn how to breathe, and adapt to different body types. Unlike striking martial arts, less worry of CTE.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite knots to add to your list are adjustable grip hitch (AGH), siberian hitch, and zeppelin bend. The AGH is super easy to tie and very versatile. The Siberian is useful for tying a rope around a static object such as a pole or a tree. Bends are rarely useful for me since I rarely need to join two ropes together, but if you are going to learn a bend, you might as well learn the most beautiful one.
Yeah I think the zeppelin bend is the greatest knot ever, extremely secure and 100% jam proof (jam proof means the knot is easily untied even after extreme loads). I can’t think of any other bend that has those two properties, usually it’s one or the other
I like the Alpine Butterfly Bend, https://www.animatedknots.com/alpine-butterfly-bend-knot, mostly because I already know/use the Alpine Butterfly Loop.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
#580How 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…
Haven't seen the videos, but I was taught the "proper" way of wrapping audio cables when I took an audio recording class, and now I obsessively wrap all my cables that way. So much more useful!
> So much more useful!
The only cables I really deal with are network cables and extension cords and I've always just done the wrap-around-your-palm-and-elbow-method. What am I missing out on?