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

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

#601

Post by PeterStuer » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

majortennis wrote: post #493

PeterStuer wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have many reservations and am very critical of the financial system. But the concept of interest on loans is not a "scam'. The interest in it's simplest form is just a value appreciation of the time value of money [1]. Would you rather have $100 today, or $100 next month? How about $100 today vs $102 next month? Still rather in the today camp? How about $105 next month? That is the interest. It is the value derivat…

I didn't say interest on a loan was a scam I think compound interest on mortgages is. A fixed price interest would make sense like you borrow £100 , you pay back £110. 10% interest. But my understanding on a compound interest mortgage is the bank says something like 2% interest. and they take the £100 and x by 1.02 and just spam ='s on the calculator until the actual interest percentage is like 180%. You shouldn't ha…

While I appreciate your concern, the problem with what you call 'actual' interest percentage is not what reflects the financial transaction.

As stated above, money has a 'time value'. Getting $100 today has a different value to you than getting $100 somewhere in the future. So to know whether a deal is interesting, I do not just have to know how much I will be getting back in return for my investment, but when. Getting back $180 as a single lump sum payment in a year is different than getting 12 monthly payments of $15 each month for the next year, even though in both cases you will have payed me back $180 looking back.

The interest rate the bank quotes, in your example 2%, is the percentage amount by which your outstanding IOU to them will be increased at the end of the month, before you make your monthly payment.

Now this was an example of a simple fixed interest rate. In practice there are unlimited kinds of formulas that can have variable interest rates over time tied too other things, capped or uncapped, and even then that is just one of the things that goes into a payments plan. So unless you have nailed down all the other factors, comparing just interest percentage A with interest percentage B, typically in the final haggle, tells you little.

This is why I advice always looking at the series of monthly payments that you will have to make over the duration of the loan repayment, and compare these with the series of monthly payments due under a competing proposal.

Banks will screw you over in more ways than you can imagine, but quoting a compound interest rate as opposed to a total amount repaid at the end of contract (which btw is often much longer than the repayment period or even unlimited in time but that is another story) isn't where it is at.

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

#602

Post by exergy » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

clarry wrote: post #517

rfc wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, I'll bite. This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous statement. I wasn't wealthy when I started investing. Hell, the first dollar I put into my long term portfolio was when I was living in my car! I started with ~$200 that I made from doing a collection of odd jobs (mowing lawns, computer repair, moving dirt, etc.). Every extra penny I made went into investing into a moderate portfolio focusing on…

A bit of calculation would show that a lot of people have no chance of building "great passive income" in 10 years. They simply do not have enough income to save that much. "I started with $200" tells us nothing useful. I can start with $5 and have great passive income if I'm making $100k and wife is making $70k and both of us are capable of saving a good chunk per year. I can start with $5000 and have little more th…

There is most certainly a category of people who cannot save at all because some combination of life factors lead them up shit creek, but there are plenty of low income people who could do with a lesson or two from Mr. Money Mustache. He has various case studies involving low income people and there are legions of journal entries on his forums where people earning pittances have nevertheless saved enough to be secure. Many have saved enough to retire early.

Nothing is one-size-fits-all of course, but I'd much rather be surrounded by those kinds of 'can-do' types who don't sit around waiting for life to come to them.

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

#603

Post by teekert » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

smrr723 wrote: post #558

teekert wrote: post #255

I learned docker-compose in roughly one hour. It changed my mind on Docker as adding extra complexity to: docker-ize all the things and update with docker-compose up -d! I guess this does depend on some prior experience with docker and perhaps on me avoiding docker-compse because I thought it was docker for pros. Instead, it's docker for dummies.

What resource did you use to learn it?

I wanted to start running Home Assistant using Docker (on my main server instead of a dedicated Raspberry Pi with Hass.io) and came across this page [0], search for "Docker Compose", I copied the yaml, ran docker-compose up -d and boom. Shortly afterwards I added mosquitto and sabnzbd to the yaml and all three now update very easily and everything became very portable. Before I was keeping docker commands somewhere in an md file.

Edit, I hope to learn Traefik reverse proxying in one hour next ;)

[0] https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/docker/

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

#604

Post by aazaa » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

Two suggestions.

1. Research a daily exercise routine that requires no equipment class, or gym, can be finished in 30 minutes and can be done while traveling. The goal should be to increase flexibility and strength, but not necessary build muscle. This stacks the deck in your favor against the main enemy of fitness - failure to do some kind of activity every day.

2. Understand the periodic table. It's one of the most successful mental models in science, and the basic principles can be grasped quickly. The most important division is the columns (groups). The column an element appears in tells you the ratio with which it will combine with other elements to form compounds. From table salt to amino acids, these rules predict elemental compositions of the things in this world you interact with all the time but may only rarely think about. From there, you can predict the products of reactions that you know nothing about. This macroscopic predictability can be explained rigorously through quantum mechanics or heuristically through Lewis theory, depending on how deep you want to go. For simplicity stick to the 8 main groups. The transition metals are a can of worms best opened after grasping the rest of the table.

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

#605

Post by pps43 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

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 knots is that there are so many, and even the most popular ones have serious problems.

For example, everyone recommends bowline, but it's unsafe without securing the working end. Everyone recommends square knot, but it's easy to tie incorrectly (getting a granny knot instead).

Figuring out which knots to learn will take a lot longer than an hour. Here's my list:

Overhand loop, figure eight follow-through, adjustable grip hitch, trucker's hitch, kalmyk loop.

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

#606

Post by puranjay » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

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…

My no. 1 recommendation to any young person learning to cook is to master three things:

1. A good fried rice

2. A good stir fry

3. A good omelet

These three things alone will mean that you'll have substantial, delicious food at the ready. They're incredibly flexible in terms of ingredients and need minimal skill. A stir fry or fried rice can take any vegetables or meats you have at hand, and an omelet can take everything from ham to mushrooms.

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

#607

Post by pps43 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #222

mantap wrote: post #95

Earlier 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.

> 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. I'm sure I've used a sheet bend at least three times in the last year in random situations. I haven't used the zeppelin bend, but I would say having an easy-to-learn-and-tie-but-effective knot "in your kit" is quite useful; you never quite know when it…

European death knot is much easier to learn than zeppelin bend.

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

#608

Post by WhiskeyJack55 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

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.

I like that. I've heard people say to always keep dating your partner, but how you said that makes me see that with a different angle.

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

#609

Post by maire » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

koliber wrote: post #338

Understanding 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…

The way I look at it is compounding just changes the effective interest rate.

Continuous compounding is e^rt. Just subtract straight interest from this and you discover the maximum return of compounding over just collecting interest. Most compounding periods are much less than continuous.

I think this would take less than an hour. ;-)

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

#610

Post by innocentoldguy » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

xouse wrote: post #121

People think touch typing takes a long time to learn, and getting good does take a while, but it only takes about an hour to memorize the alphanumerics and which finger types what well enough to break the hunt and peck looking at the keyboard cycle forever. Once the cycle is broken just typing casually is enough to eventually achieve mastery. It's only that one or two hours that really suck, and then that week or so…

I’d even go a step further and learn Dvorak. It’s surprising how much more relaxed your typing becomes vs. Qwerty.