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Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#541

Post by 8ytecoder »

sharadov wrote: post #509
the_gastropod wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a suspicion this kind of living, in part, explains why so many people are miserable. I feel like removing every inconvenient thing from your life, and "having someone else do it for you" must make your ability to handle discomfort atrophy to the point where the tiniest unpleasantness feels like a catastrophe. Like muscles, your brain, your immune system, etc., we need a little discomfort / struggle once in a w…

We are becoming one trick ponies, only defined by the work that we do. There is something about cooking, doing things with your hands that is fundamental to the human experience. I cook, but I also like to order in, sometimes I just microwave stuff. It depends on your mood.

This, so much. Saying this in earnest, I've stopped tying my identity with my work and it feels liberating. I'm not bothered by people who think I "can do so much more". May be but I'm happier.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#542

Post by riffraff »

whatshisface wrote: post #257
PhaseLockk wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Is there any evidence that tweets have meaning? I could easily imagine a world where posters fool themselves into thinking the words they wrote contained their intentions, while readers fooled themselves into thinking they had uncovered those intentions." As with all natural language, production and interpretation of poems is subjective. Poetry is just an attempt to use natural language without the constraints of pr…

Actually, that speculation about tweets sounds pretty realistic to me... But seriously, I think we can all agree that among the literary arts, poetry is the most likely to be accidentally uninterpretable. Due to its cultural context it is also the area where uninterpretability is the most likely to be accepted. This creates an environment where you run a serious risk of developing a culture of meaninglessness.

as everybody else in Italy, I had to study the Divine Comedy (which is an incredible work, and I'm glad I had to), and part of doing that is learning multiple interpretations of a single line, variations of people who have read and re-read the work over centuries. It really easily convinces you that, if the art itself can have a given meaning, still many interpretations are bonkers and there might be no hidden meaning at all.

I am sure the same applies, to e.g. William Blake.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#543

Post by whatshisface »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #305
whatshisface wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that poems have meaning? I could easily imagine a world where poets fool themselves into thinking the words they wrote contained their intentions, while readers fooled themselves into thinking they had uncovered those intentions.

I could say the same thing about certain engineering types who simply parrot paragraphs of academic vocab.

Definitely no argument there. It's not a competition between art and science to see who is more pointless, it's about humanity striving for point-fulness.

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#544

Post by [deleted] »

chrissnell wrote: post #100

Some suggestions: - Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it. - Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn ab…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#545

Post by lastres0rt »

exdsq wrote: post #433
take_a_breath wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also skeptical of "optimizing" every part of our lives. Cell phones allow us to do so many things more efficiently than in the past. But what are people actually doing with that freed up time?

Scrolling hacker news...

See? What's productive about that?

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#547

Post by amatern »

chrissnell wrote: post #100

Some suggestions: - Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it. - Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn ab…

Cooking: while in grad school we started a cooking club, which has since evolved into a cookbook club. One person chooses a cookbook, and then tells the group which main dish they will prepare. Others chime in with side dishes, desserts, etc. The group gets together to discuss the book, the challenges, the triumphs, etc. It is one of the things I look forward to!

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#548

Post by smegma2 »

webdva wrote: post #527

Skills to acquire in 2020, ye Hacker News reader? A wee bit of abstract mathematics knowledge, so that you can better think in abstract terms when solving problems. The hardest of problems require the usage of and familiarity with advanced abstractions. Abstract mathematics knowledge provides that great—and profound!—capability.

What kind of abstract mathematics?

Re: Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

#549

Post by elbear »

criddell wrote: post #530
mudlark wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could afford it, and there were nice eateries, I would love to eat out.

I don't understand it, but I can eat the same thing at home for breakfast every day of every week for years and not get bored of it. If I ate at the same restaurant every morning, I'd be sick of it before the end of the week.

Who says you would have to eat at the same restaurant? When I was always eating out I was going to multiple restaurants. I avoided going to the same place too often so I wouldn't get bored with it.
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