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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?

#891

Post by glofish »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #858
glofish wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not how it works at all. The fallacy here is that a human body is a machine with well-defined intake and output. How would one even know what is "exactly" the right amount? Over a year we consume 1 million calories. If one were just 0.1% off of systematically eating more (or less) than required then according to your model one would end up being 200 pounds fatter or 200 pounds leaner ... do you think that anyon…

0.1% of 1 million calories is 1000 calories, which corresponds to about 0.3 pounds. If someone gains or loses 10 pounds in a year, that means they were around 35000 calories away from equilibrium throughout the year, which is more like 3-5%. So a 5% calorie deficit or surplus would have a fairly small effect during a single year, but over a decade or a lifetime the effect is huge.

oops, I sure got my digits wrong

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

#892

Post by burmer »

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…

The secret to cooking corn: put the corn in a pot of cold water and set the burner to bring it to a boil. When the water boils the corn is done, and never overcooked. May require some fiddling, but this has always worked for us. Scrambled eggs are similar: creamiest eggs are cooked slowly. Essentially put eggs and cold butter in a cold pan and stir while slowly heating up until they are done.

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

#893

Post by totololo »

jobigoud wrote: post #806
shoo wrote: post #69

For the lame definition of valuable: if you are not in the practise of negotiating, try to negotiate in more situations and see what happens! Attempting to negotiate will not harm your situation when dealing with another party making you a genuine offer. Even if you are a very mediocre negotiator, you might be able to easily eg obtain a somewhat higher salary when starting a job versus just accepting a given offer if…

> Attempting to negotiate will not harm your situation when dealing with another party making you a genuine offer. I'm not sure what you are basing this on. I can say for certain that it's not true for me. Maybe it's only true in some negotiation contexts. I sometimes sell stuff on the Internet. I put in a price and say this is firm. Many, many times, people contact me, and the first thing they do is try to negotiate…

Are you using price negotiation as an example or are you reducing negotiation to price? Because these writers will say negotiation is everywhere (in relationships, dating, friendships, corporate politics, getting good customer service, any sort of search for a favorable compromise in any sort of way).

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

#894

Post by jonnycoder »

aazaa wrote: post #604

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…

Your first point reminds me of this talk about consistency in training and why russian wrestlers are supposedly always the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbCcWyYthQ

I've been applying this concept 5 days a week to do 20 min of exercise. It's so much easier to do more in the long run by doing it everyday and not going all out exertion.

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

#895

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

swarnie_ wrote: post #828
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…

3. Just don't put your eggs in the fridge? Who does this?

Eggs in the USA and Canada are washed before being packaged and sold in grocery stores. This washing eliminates a natural protective coating, which allows bacteria to permeate the shell. This means the eggs now require refrigeration.

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

#896

Post by dragonsngoblins »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #204
harrisonjackson wrote: post #16

CPR/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 would add a few things I learned to improve your memory: 1. Care about the subject 2. Focus on memorizing it: This may seem dumb, but how many times have you forgot where you placed your keys? If all you do is momentarily state to yourself "I set my keys here" when you put them down, it's almost hard to forget. 3. Don't eat white sugar or white flour processed, or other foods that may cause you to loose concentrati…

I've always been confused by people talking about losing things like keys/wallet a lot. I take them out of my pockets and put them on a flat surface when I get home which means they are always in one of like 4 different places tops, but in two of them the vast majority of the time (dining table or desk).

Surely there are natural places those things end up?

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

#897

Post by swader999 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #509
swader999 wrote: post #471

Learn Wim Hof's breathing technique. https://blog.spire.io/2018/05/20/wim-hof-breathing/

Or maybe not: http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/07/28/breath-holding-m...

Don't do it while driving or near water. Same goes for trying to sleep - avoid this around water too.

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

#898

Post by hartleybrody »

chirag64 wrote: post #752
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

Quizlet is great if you're looking for pre-built decks, as you mentioned. As far as I'm aware, there's no spaced repetition feature, which is the main value in Anki.

Also, one of the values to me in using Anki is creating the cards myself. It allows me to mull things over and decide what part of a fact is important, and how I'd like to recall it.

Relatedly, the value isn't necessarily in reading someone else's study guide before a test, it's in creating your own study guide. That process helps you understand and retain the material far better.

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

#899

Post by RobertRoberts »

0xffff2 wrote: post #810
RobertRoberts wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch this, incredibly simple method that made me actually like omelettes. (I hated them growing up) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10etP1p2bU "Really good" is subjective. It's the very notion something is possible and that you can do it that I see as valuable. Practice makes perfect, nothing can be perfect the first time you learn it.

Pepin himself starts out his video by saying that the omelet is the dish that he would judge a chef by, implying that it demonstrates all of the skills of the chef. I'm not sure how this is supposed to demonstrate that you can learn to cook in an hour.

I wouldn't say "learn to cook in an hour", but I would say it gives you the confidence that you /can/ cook, and even learn to make just one thing good enough for just you. (an actual achievable goal)
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