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?

#51

Post by Wistar » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

IvyMike wrote: post #14

One minute: what a dechoker is and how to use it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkqgexP_NNE One hour (because as easy as it looks you're gonna have to do it at least 4 times): deboning a chicken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfY0lrdXar8

I think to match Pepin, I'm gonna have to do it at least 4,000 times.

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

#52

Post by aaron695 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

Depends what you know.

Learn to Torrent, steal from media companies.

Learn to cook another meal, steal from food/delivery businesses.

Learn about DOI's and Sci-Hub and steal from Academia.

Learn how to log into your financial management plan and make a change, steal from the banking sector.

Learn CPR, steal from death.

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

#53

Post by dokem » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

arvinsim wrote: post #18

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...

I remember learning these before but due to not finding any use case for them, I already forgot how to do them properly. Only thing I regularly tie nowadays are my shoelaces. EDIT: Grammar

I’ve also learned a number of knots. The only knot I ever really tie is the tautline hitch. The average person cannot string up a piece of rope and remove all slack because all they know is the granny or square knot. This knot is also incredibly simple and versatile. If you are reading this do yourself a favor and learn this over the next 5 minutes. The bolin should also be learned because the tautline hitch cannot be used for rescue purposes.

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

#54

Post by kqr » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

unlinked_dll wrote: post #28

How 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…

I don't think this is the most important thing out of all things you can learn in a full hour, but it is easy enough and not well known enough that I encourage you to keep spreading the message.

My father in law was very surprised when I could just walk away holding one end of the coiled garden hose and it uncoiled itself neatly with no kinks. The trick was, of course, that I was the one who wrapped it this way the day before!

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

#55

Post by kqr » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:56 AM 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...

This ties in to how I like to say the rope may be one of the greatest inventions of mankind.

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

#56

Post by kqr » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

I don't know if an adult can do it in an hour, but learning to ride a bike is very useful/freeing.

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

#57

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

Go through your expenses and identify waste. Even if you’d don’t keep a budget check your credit card statements etc. cancel unrequited subscriptions, haggle utility bills, refinance loans, etc.

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

#58

Post by monkeycantype » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

Hirigana

Or

Hangul

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

#59

Post by devnonymous » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 7:02 AM UTC

A lot of devtools and configuration oddities can be learnt in an hour or less. One can become a fairly proficient/well informed user of any of these. The $VALUE for any/all of these are huge !

  * keyboard shortcuts for your preferred UIs
  * vim (/ your preferred $EDITOR)
  * tmux
  * make
  * readline
  * strace
  * gdb
  * valrind
  * tcpdump
  * wireshark
  * basic bash
  * all sort of server configs:
     - nginx
     - apache
     - postfix
     - ldap
     -...
  * compiling the linux kernel
  * understanding the sysctl tunables
  * pick a binary file format and understand it
  * pick a protocol and understand it
  * man proc 
  * iptables
  ...
  ...

You get the general idea. Personally, I sometimes feel the only reason I am respected by my colleagues is simply because I know a little about a lot.

If you have an hour to spend, don't look for the biggest bang of the buck / the most valuable. Explore something small that you use all the time / wish to understand better but didn't take the time.

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

#60

Post by dokem » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 7:03 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #57

Go through your expenses and identify waste. Even if you’d don’t keep a budget check your credit card statements etc. cancel unrequited subscriptions, haggle utility bills, refinance loans, etc.

But looking at my credit card statement gives me anxiety.