Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?
172 comments
Learn how to take care of yourself first. That includes:
* learning to cook and prepare your own food.
* learn proper sleeping habits and make a routine that feels comfortable.
* learn to exercise - pick an activity and do it consistently with some goals in mind.
* learn to budget money and manage expenses.
* learn to groom yourself and maintain a regular cleanliness routine
* learn to entertain yourself alone - without the internet (ex. reading a book, telling a story, etc)
* learn how devices you own work and how to troubleshoot/repair them (ex. fridge, ac, oven, car)
The general theme I have is that "the things you own, end up owning you", if you are not accountable for them. Start with the things you can't get rid of like your body and then question everything else you introduce into your life to eliminate clutter.
Examples: - if you don't know how to prepare food your diet depends on what restaurants offer and you have little control over ingredients, portion size, calorie intake...
- if you pass out in front of the tv and wake up on the couch it is unlikely that you will feel motivated in the morning. Likely you will pick up McDonald's breakfast on the way to work cause you are running late.
- if you give up on exercising your body you will quickly feel powerless when you have to move something heavy.
* learning to cook and prepare your own food.
* learn proper sleeping habits and make a routine that feels comfortable.
* learn to exercise - pick an activity and do it consistently with some goals in mind.
* learn to budget money and manage expenses.
* learn to groom yourself and maintain a regular cleanliness routine
* learn to entertain yourself alone - without the internet (ex. reading a book, telling a story, etc)
* learn how devices you own work and how to troubleshoot/repair them (ex. fridge, ac, oven, car)
The general theme I have is that "the things you own, end up owning you", if you are not accountable for them. Start with the things you can't get rid of like your body and then question everything else you introduce into your life to eliminate clutter.
Examples: - if you don't know how to prepare food your diet depends on what restaurants offer and you have little control over ingredients, portion size, calorie intake...
- if you pass out in front of the tv and wake up on the couch it is unlikely that you will feel motivated in the morning. Likely you will pick up McDonald's breakfast on the way to work cause you are running late.
- if you give up on exercising your body you will quickly feel powerless when you have to move something heavy.
It's a bit bewildering how many people (mostly men) there are around that cannot cook properly. They have lived their entire life depending on others to eat something decent. Learning to cook is often cited as a way to impress and woo others, but the primary beneficiary is oneself. Being able to cook well is freeing.
It's easy to practice because you have to eat anyway. When you end up with leftover ingredients, come up with a way to use that in a different meal. Repeat every day, and soon you will be a master.
I can almost always improvise a good meal for a group with no recipes, using only ingredients at hand.
It's easy to practice because you have to eat anyway. When you end up with leftover ingredients, come up with a way to use that in a different meal. Repeat every day, and soon you will be a master.
I can almost always improvise a good meal for a group with no recipes, using only ingredients at hand.
I disagree. Some people cut their own hair or build their own furniture and would say everyone needs to know how to do that stuff instead of depending on and paying someone else. There's a reason cooking is also a profession, and there's nothing wrong with depending on them.
People who like to cook don't seem to understand that others (like me) just hate cooking and have zero interest in learning since it wouldn't bring me any benefits. I can order healthy food, I'm not overspending, and I can eat stuff that would be a pain in the ass to cook at home. On the other hand, I also hate exercising, but it brings health and mental benefits that are undeniable.
In summary, just like I don't want to cut my own hair or building my own furniture, I have no problem paying a professional to prepare my food.
People who like to cook don't seem to understand that others (like me) just hate cooking and have zero interest in learning since it wouldn't bring me any benefits. I can order healthy food, I'm not overspending, and I can eat stuff that would be a pain in the ass to cook at home. On the other hand, I also hate exercising, but it brings health and mental benefits that are undeniable.
In summary, just like I don't want to cut my own hair or building my own furniture, I have no problem paying a professional to prepare my food.
People don't _require_ furniture or a haircut (i.e. you can survive without them). Everyone _needs_ to eat. Opting out of knowing how to take care of your own basic needs just because you can currently pay someone else to do it seems very shortsighted.
Fair enough. So assuming you need a house to survive, do you need to know how to build one? If your toilet breaks, do you know how to fix it? Again, some people would argue that calling "the guy" is always shortsighted and wasteful because you can do it by yourself. Cooking is no different. Maybe a couple of decades ago, but not today.
The difference here, that parent was pointing at, is that you eat every single day. You might need to fix your toilet one day, or get a house a few times in your life, but eating is something that you can't get around.
Just like you shouldn't depend on someone to dress your, bathe you and wipe your ass for you (even though that's a whole profession too), depending on someone else to cook for you because you can't, puts you in a vulnerable spot.
Just like you shouldn't depend on someone to dress your, bathe you and wipe your ass for you (even though that's a whole profession too), depending on someone else to cook for you because you can't, puts you in a vulnerable spot.
I don’t think that those are good analogies. Cooking for yourself is more akin to bathing yourself or wiping your own butt. It’s super easy if you grow up assuming that you should be doing those things yourself and unbelievably expensive if you pay others to do it for you.
Do you have advice for someone that did not grow up assuming they should be cooking for them self?
I've been making an effort to improve myself and it has been rewarding but honestly cooking for myself has been one of the steepest learning curves in my life. It is starting to pay off after months of effort motivated by a once-a-century global disaster.
This is not an approachable skill, at all.
I've been making an effort to improve myself and it has been rewarding but honestly cooking for myself has been one of the steepest learning curves in my life. It is starting to pay off after months of effort motivated by a once-a-century global disaster.
This is not an approachable skill, at all.
Speaking for myself; one of the most meaningful pieces to me was understanding the "why". For example, if you read a cookbook, it will tell you precisely "what" to do. A good cookbook or a recipe-like youtube video will tell you "how" to do it. If all you ever do is make that one recipe, the "what" and the "how" can get you there if that is how your brain works (mine doesn't).
Understanding "why" this step is before that step, or "why" the temperature needs to be as it suggests, or "why" the ingredients are in that ratio... that unlocks an entirely new level of cooking. Now you can go off-recipe or make ingredient replacements to accommodate what's in the fridge or try something you've never even seen before with reasonably high confidence that it will come out well.
It is like the difference between memorizing your multiplication table and really understanding multiplication. Or the difference between being able to follow directions from point A to point B and knowing the area well enough to chart a path to the destination regardless of roadblocks.
In any case, I am a science nerd (as I assume many of you are). For me, the show Good Eats (or honestly, most of what Alton Brown does) was a refreshing and educational angle that developed and supported a lot of my understanding about "why" as it relates to food.
Understanding "why" this step is before that step, or "why" the temperature needs to be as it suggests, or "why" the ingredients are in that ratio... that unlocks an entirely new level of cooking. Now you can go off-recipe or make ingredient replacements to accommodate what's in the fridge or try something you've never even seen before with reasonably high confidence that it will come out well.
It is like the difference between memorizing your multiplication table and really understanding multiplication. Or the difference between being able to follow directions from point A to point B and knowing the area well enough to chart a path to the destination regardless of roadblocks.
In any case, I am a science nerd (as I assume many of you are). For me, the show Good Eats (or honestly, most of what Alton Brown does) was a refreshing and educational angle that developed and supported a lot of my understanding about "why" as it relates to food.
Unfortunately a lot of online recipes and cookbooks are for people looking to make something different and special, not looking for an everyday meal.
Being a home cook (as opposed to being a chef) is actually a lot like programming. Learn a few simple patterns and you can recombine them in different ways. Look for patterns in any recipes that you follow and then you can reuse them in other situations. I can give some examples.
Basic cream sauce from fat (butter or pan grease), liquid (normally milk or stock), flour and seasoning.
The many ways of cooking eggs.
Basic grilled cheese
Seasoning with salt and pepper
tasting and adjusting as you go
Pancake variations
Biscuit variations
Quick-breads
Temperatures of doneness for meats (there are charts, get a good meat thermometer).
Chopping (you really need at least one good knife).
For example, I can make a very nice sandwich by combining white sauce, a fried egg, and a grilled cheese. (Put a fried egg and cheese and inside the sandwich, lightly coat with white sauce, fry as with grilled cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
I make biscuits, boil pasta or veggies and cover them with a very similar white sauce.
Boil macaroni and some broccoli, add cheese to the white sauce heating until it melts, combine both in a baking pan with some breadcrumbs on top, bake until it looks set (25-35 minutes at 350(f) is a good bet).
Basically the idea is to learn a few basic recipes (each a different ‘sub process’ or function) and use or them combine them with other ingredients that you have.
Taste every so often to ensure that you don’t make something inedible. Give it your full attention.
Sometimes you’ll make something truly weird and other times you’ll make something amazing and different that no one’s ever had before.
Just don’t burn your house down and don’t deep fry anything until you’ve got plenty of experience and know the dangers.
Obviously the recipes I’m giving are very vague, thats kind of the point as it is all up to your taste, which is different from mine. The key is paying attention to what you think is good.
Being a home cook (as opposed to being a chef) is actually a lot like programming. Learn a few simple patterns and you can recombine them in different ways. Look for patterns in any recipes that you follow and then you can reuse them in other situations. I can give some examples.
Basic cream sauce from fat (butter or pan grease), liquid (normally milk or stock), flour and seasoning.
The many ways of cooking eggs.
Basic grilled cheese
Seasoning with salt and pepper
tasting and adjusting as you go
Pancake variations
Biscuit variations
Quick-breads
Temperatures of doneness for meats (there are charts, get a good meat thermometer).
Chopping (you really need at least one good knife).
For example, I can make a very nice sandwich by combining white sauce, a fried egg, and a grilled cheese. (Put a fried egg and cheese and inside the sandwich, lightly coat with white sauce, fry as with grilled cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
I make biscuits, boil pasta or veggies and cover them with a very similar white sauce.
Boil macaroni and some broccoli, add cheese to the white sauce heating until it melts, combine both in a baking pan with some breadcrumbs on top, bake until it looks set (25-35 minutes at 350(f) is a good bet).
Basically the idea is to learn a few basic recipes (each a different ‘sub process’ or function) and use or them combine them with other ingredients that you have.
Taste every so often to ensure that you don’t make something inedible. Give it your full attention.
Sometimes you’ll make something truly weird and other times you’ll make something amazing and different that no one’s ever had before.
Just don’t burn your house down and don’t deep fry anything until you’ve got plenty of experience and know the dangers.
Obviously the recipes I’m giving are very vague, thats kind of the point as it is all up to your taste, which is different from mine. The key is paying attention to what you think is good.
I'd recommend starting out with recipes, or books aimed toward beginners. I was in this spot, and Bittman's "The Basics" book was amazingly useful.
It certainly takes a lot of time to learn, especially as an adult without another person to teach them, and the wasted time and money from a failed dish can be greatly discouraging.
It certainly takes a lot of time to learn, especially as an adult without another person to teach them, and the wasted time and money from a failed dish can be greatly discouraging.
The approach I took in college was to ease in to it, not by slowly dialing down the amount of times I ate out, but by buying boxed meals and adding to them:
Buy a cheap food that you can stand that is boxed (mac and cheese, canned soup, ramen) and add some vegetables or pre-cooked meat you like to fill it out. Cook the vegetables with the meal and follow the directions on the box. Even after eight years, I still do this several times a week to have easy cooking days.
Next, try cooking something a little more involved but use a prepared base. Buy pasta or a pizza crust and add your own toppings plus store-bought tomato sauce, for example. Again, the directions should be on the packaging.
Next, choose some foods that you like but don't know how to make yourself. Find a simple recipe and pair it down to the bare minimum. For example, I like lasagna so I found a simple recipe that only had a half-dozen ingredients and bought noodles that don't need to be pre-cooked.
Mix it up with a fully prepared meal (either order take-out or a frozen pizza or something) once or twice a week. When you get started cooking, it can be easy to miss a key nutrient that you need and having a cheat-day where you eat something you're more used to and can't mess up makes things much easier.
When you're starting up, stick to 1-2 cuisine types. Each cuisine has its own staples and commonly used spices, that they combine in different ways. Figure out what makes good staples for your chosen cuisine and how to prepare them (not necessarily from scratch). Find the commonly-used spices and add them to everything, experimenting to see how much you want to add.
For example, Italian food uses a lot of pasta or pizza crusts. Fresh pasta tastes much better than boxed pasta, but isn't shelf-stable. Pasta cooking times are short but generally somewhat precise. To cook Italian pasta, you'd want to learn how to tell that pasta is fully cooked.
Mexican food uses rice and tortillas instead of pasta and pizza crusts. Pre-cooking your tortillas makes a huge difference. Cooking rice in a rice-cooker is easy, and it's do-able in a pot. The trick to cooking rice in a pot is that, since it's steam-cooked, checking the rice early can really slow down and mess-up the process. The first several times will be slow and messy, but once you figure out how long to wait it's actually quite low effort.
Buy a cheap food that you can stand that is boxed (mac and cheese, canned soup, ramen) and add some vegetables or pre-cooked meat you like to fill it out. Cook the vegetables with the meal and follow the directions on the box. Even after eight years, I still do this several times a week to have easy cooking days.
Next, try cooking something a little more involved but use a prepared base. Buy pasta or a pizza crust and add your own toppings plus store-bought tomato sauce, for example. Again, the directions should be on the packaging.
Next, choose some foods that you like but don't know how to make yourself. Find a simple recipe and pair it down to the bare minimum. For example, I like lasagna so I found a simple recipe that only had a half-dozen ingredients and bought noodles that don't need to be pre-cooked.
Mix it up with a fully prepared meal (either order take-out or a frozen pizza or something) once or twice a week. When you get started cooking, it can be easy to miss a key nutrient that you need and having a cheat-day where you eat something you're more used to and can't mess up makes things much easier.
When you're starting up, stick to 1-2 cuisine types. Each cuisine has its own staples and commonly used spices, that they combine in different ways. Figure out what makes good staples for your chosen cuisine and how to prepare them (not necessarily from scratch). Find the commonly-used spices and add them to everything, experimenting to see how much you want to add.
For example, Italian food uses a lot of pasta or pizza crusts. Fresh pasta tastes much better than boxed pasta, but isn't shelf-stable. Pasta cooking times are short but generally somewhat precise. To cook Italian pasta, you'd want to learn how to tell that pasta is fully cooked.
Mexican food uses rice and tortillas instead of pasta and pizza crusts. Pre-cooking your tortillas makes a huge difference. Cooking rice in a rice-cooker is easy, and it's do-able in a pot. The trick to cooking rice in a pot is that, since it's steam-cooked, checking the rice early can really slow down and mess-up the process. The first several times will be slow and messy, but once you figure out how long to wait it's actually quite low effort.
First and foremost get a thermometer, until you can trust you experience, cook meat with a thermometer. You will get better results. I am color blind so I use a thermometer to this day.
Then start with the basics, as they translate between meat and most non-starch vegetables:
Learn to fry. Learn to grill. Learn to broil. learn to roast. learn to stew.
breading and frying a mushroom is no different than breading and frying a chicken strip other than some temp adjustments and length of time. Frying is not the healthiest but it can be offset some with better healthier oil. That being said, it covers up a multitude of food sins. As log as you let fried food drain and dry it's hard to mess it up.
Second learn the 5 basic tastes salt, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami and how they blend. Sweet and salty blend, sweet and sour blend to tart, sweet and bitter cancel each other to brine. Sweet will dominate umami, salty will enhance umami, bitter and sour will compound each other. Once you know these it is really easy to taste ingredients and know if they will go together. It also gives you the knowledge of how to undue over flavoring. If it's too sour you can usually offset with sweet to get it to tart. If it is too bitter you can usually balance it with salty and sweet to mute it.
Learn to make a starch, take your pick noodles, rice, potatoes etc. Then learn to enhance them with your 5 basic tastes.
Learn to make 3-4 vegetables, green beans, broccoli, squash are all really safe and hard to get wrong. They can be bland without enough salt but are pretty safe, they still don't really taste bad if you overcook them.
So basically learn to cook meat, a starch and some vegetables and flavor it, you would be surprised how far you can get with a steak, salt and pepper (salty, bitter, umami). Same with a piece of chicken, a lemon, salt and pepper (sour, salty, bitter). Stick to your basic ingredients for flavor, salt, pepper, sugar, lemon, msg or soy sauce (but remember soy sauce brings salty and umami in one package), should cover the basic flavors. Once you have this you can taste other ingreedients and know how they will blend into a flavor profile. Take the chicken example what if we reduce the lemon and pepper and add mustard. Mustard brings both sour and bitter. I honestly never tried it, but I know I could make it into a dish that taste good.
Most vegetables can be treated like meat when seasoning, starches not so much stick to salty and umami for now with starches.
Once you are comfortable with that, learn to use butter creams, eggs and cheeses in dishes particularly your starches.
Once you are comfortable with that expand on spices and learn how to make a mirepoix and the Cajun variant. You would be surprised how much this mix enhances even the most simple dish. This is where you level up, people will talk about how good you cook when you get to this basic level of cooking. At this point you will have the knowledge to decide if you want to keep going or if you are comfortable with your skills. You will be able to create a decent meal no matter the ingredients you have on hand at this point. From here it is really if you want to get into more nuanced disciplines of cooking e.g bread baking, BBQ, sous vide, etc.
If you get your meat to temp without overcooking, have a good handle on the basic tastes, can make a handful of vegetables and a starch, you will have a good foundation. This can be achieved in 2-3 months of cooking at least 2 times a week.
Then start with the basics, as they translate between meat and most non-starch vegetables:
Learn to fry. Learn to grill. Learn to broil. learn to roast. learn to stew.
breading and frying a mushroom is no different than breading and frying a chicken strip other than some temp adjustments and length of time. Frying is not the healthiest but it can be offset some with better healthier oil. That being said, it covers up a multitude of food sins. As log as you let fried food drain and dry it's hard to mess it up.
Second learn the 5 basic tastes salt, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami and how they blend. Sweet and salty blend, sweet and sour blend to tart, sweet and bitter cancel each other to brine. Sweet will dominate umami, salty will enhance umami, bitter and sour will compound each other. Once you know these it is really easy to taste ingredients and know if they will go together. It also gives you the knowledge of how to undue over flavoring. If it's too sour you can usually offset with sweet to get it to tart. If it is too bitter you can usually balance it with salty and sweet to mute it.
Learn to make a starch, take your pick noodles, rice, potatoes etc. Then learn to enhance them with your 5 basic tastes.
Learn to make 3-4 vegetables, green beans, broccoli, squash are all really safe and hard to get wrong. They can be bland without enough salt but are pretty safe, they still don't really taste bad if you overcook them.
So basically learn to cook meat, a starch and some vegetables and flavor it, you would be surprised how far you can get with a steak, salt and pepper (salty, bitter, umami). Same with a piece of chicken, a lemon, salt and pepper (sour, salty, bitter). Stick to your basic ingredients for flavor, salt, pepper, sugar, lemon, msg or soy sauce (but remember soy sauce brings salty and umami in one package), should cover the basic flavors. Once you have this you can taste other ingreedients and know how they will blend into a flavor profile. Take the chicken example what if we reduce the lemon and pepper and add mustard. Mustard brings both sour and bitter. I honestly never tried it, but I know I could make it into a dish that taste good.
Most vegetables can be treated like meat when seasoning, starches not so much stick to salty and umami for now with starches.
Once you are comfortable with that, learn to use butter creams, eggs and cheeses in dishes particularly your starches.
Once you are comfortable with that expand on spices and learn how to make a mirepoix and the Cajun variant. You would be surprised how much this mix enhances even the most simple dish. This is where you level up, people will talk about how good you cook when you get to this basic level of cooking. At this point you will have the knowledge to decide if you want to keep going or if you are comfortable with your skills. You will be able to create a decent meal no matter the ingredients you have on hand at this point. From here it is really if you want to get into more nuanced disciplines of cooking e.g bread baking, BBQ, sous vide, etc.
If you get your meat to temp without overcooking, have a good handle on the basic tastes, can make a handful of vegetables and a starch, you will have a good foundation. This can be achieved in 2-3 months of cooking at least 2 times a week.
That would be true if by cooking you mean boiling some pasta for 10 minutes or eating some scrabble eggs. That's hardly cooking.
Even if you don’t “cook”, you can learn to be a food assembler.
Meal prep IIFYM style can be super easy. I cook a lot of things in my pressure cooker for 4 servings at a time (oats, chickpeas). I often just get veggie soup and add chickpeas for lunch. It’s way more satisfying than most of the quick things you can get near an office.
A lot of the staples that are disappointing when bought are amazing when you cook from scratch (aforementioned steel cut oats and chickpeas). Don’t get instant anything... it’s just too sad.
Meal prep IIFYM style can be super easy. I cook a lot of things in my pressure cooker for 4 servings at a time (oats, chickpeas). I often just get veggie soup and add chickpeas for lunch. It’s way more satisfying than most of the quick things you can get near an office.
A lot of the staples that are disappointing when bought are amazing when you cook from scratch (aforementioned steel cut oats and chickpeas). Don’t get instant anything... it’s just too sad.
> learning to cook and prepare your own food.
> learn to budget money and manage expenses.
if you've never done this before, i very, very strongly suggest you look at how much eating out is costing you.
my wife and i are saving literally thousands of dollars a month.
> learn to budget money and manage expenses.
if you've never done this before, i very, very strongly suggest you look at how much eating out is costing you.
my wife and i are saving literally thousands of dollars a month.
My experience is the same. Also when two people cook it is far easier and quicker. Learning to cook also gives you freedom. You can vary the taste for the same dish. One thing to note - its safer to cook veggies than meat if you are still learning. But one tends to get better in this art.
Looking at my monthly eat-out cost is a real wake up for me.
If I don’t have prepared food or a snack it’s very easy to be tempted to grab something quick and overeat.
If I don’t have prepared food or a snack it’s very easy to be tempted to grab something quick and overeat.
Quarantining made me realize just how much I spend on food and alcohol. And while don't get me wrong, I love a good meal and a night out with friends, we will definitely be reeling that in a bit even after all restrictions are lifted. And a night in cooking a great meal and opening up a nice bottle of wine (that is much cheaper than anything we could buy at a restaurant) can be very satisfying too.
One thing that is a bit hard to get around is that we live in a city, and some friends are single, and that going "out" to a public place like a bar or restaurant gives them the feeling that they haven't "given up" on meeting someone for the night, but going to someone's house means its orders of magnitude less likely that someone will just pop up. Even amongst married friends, the spontaneity of having someone just happen to be at the same place you are is a big thrill that just isn't going to happen if they are sitting in my living room. I live in a neighborhood where there is a main drag where most bars/restaurants are, so this happens fairly often.
But taking a step back, my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come.
One thing that is a bit hard to get around is that we live in a city, and some friends are single, and that going "out" to a public place like a bar or restaurant gives them the feeling that they haven't "given up" on meeting someone for the night, but going to someone's house means its orders of magnitude less likely that someone will just pop up. Even amongst married friends, the spontaneity of having someone just happen to be at the same place you are is a big thrill that just isn't going to happen if they are sitting in my living room. I live in a neighborhood where there is a main drag where most bars/restaurants are, so this happens fairly often.
But taking a step back, my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come.
> my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come.
this is somewhat inherent in the system. they message you that you need to be out and about to be happy. it's the capitalistic way. Also a bit of why a lot of jobs work you so hard so you are too tired to form any thoughts on the system at large.
I think a more sustainable economy is what america (and the world) needs. the growth at all costs has been very, very bad for our world. for instance, one unintended consequence of mass manufacturing of food is that to get reliable, consistent bread they stripped everything that made it good (including time spent fermenting) and then added in a few choice macro nutrients and now, I suspect, those types of products are causing problems health wise on a macro scale. if people went down to their local baker and bought naturally leavened breads with more wholesome flours instead of wonder bread et al we might as a country be less sick. there are other examples of long term costs associated with short term thinking. (rise in allergies and planting male only trees because of a 1940s department of agriculture recommendation come to mind but there are others) not to say it's all been bad but there have been many bad outcomes.
this is somewhat inherent in the system. they message you that you need to be out and about to be happy. it's the capitalistic way. Also a bit of why a lot of jobs work you so hard so you are too tired to form any thoughts on the system at large.
I think a more sustainable economy is what america (and the world) needs. the growth at all costs has been very, very bad for our world. for instance, one unintended consequence of mass manufacturing of food is that to get reliable, consistent bread they stripped everything that made it good (including time spent fermenting) and then added in a few choice macro nutrients and now, I suspect, those types of products are causing problems health wise on a macro scale. if people went down to their local baker and bought naturally leavened breads with more wholesome flours instead of wonder bread et al we might as a country be less sick. there are other examples of long term costs associated with short term thinking. (rise in allergies and planting male only trees because of a 1940s department of agriculture recommendation come to mind but there are others) not to say it's all been bad but there have been many bad outcomes.
I hear you- I think an alternate way to view this is that I had acclimated myself to preferring the short-term dopamine hit of going out to a nice meal or having drinks with friends over the long term happiness of being more financially secure. I do truly feel a lot of this stems from my single days when you had a zero percent chance of meeting someone unless you were out someplace. Now its just a very antiquated habit.
I do a lot of cooking, and agree there as well. We have a lot of processes that sped up our food preparation and maintained say 90% of the original quality of the product, but those losses add up and while there is much we can measure in terms of what makes our food good in terms of taste and nutrition, there seems to be much we can not. There may only be a subtle difference between chicken soup made with canned stock or bullion when you are sitting at the table, but I make my own stock, and often find a bowl of soup made from it for lunch will fill me until dinner easily, a can of Campbell's, not so much.
Especially since quarantine started, I have done tons more cooking, often of rich "slow" food. My friends have asked how much weight I have gained, and I have actually lost a few pounds despite getting much less activity in. I find myself much more content with smaller portion sizes, perhaps the net calories are actually fewer.
I do a lot of cooking, and agree there as well. We have a lot of processes that sped up our food preparation and maintained say 90% of the original quality of the product, but those losses add up and while there is much we can measure in terms of what makes our food good in terms of taste and nutrition, there seems to be much we can not. There may only be a subtle difference between chicken soup made with canned stock or bullion when you are sitting at the table, but I make my own stock, and often find a bowl of soup made from it for lunch will fill me until dinner easily, a can of Campbell's, not so much.
Especially since quarantine started, I have done tons more cooking, often of rich "slow" food. My friends have asked how much weight I have gained, and I have actually lost a few pounds despite getting much less activity in. I find myself much more content with smaller portion sizes, perhaps the net calories are actually fewer.
Living in Europe, I remember the staple of every neighborhood was a bakery and with every meal there was bread on the table. The day started and ended with that loaf. The best I can say for the part of the US i live in now is artisan bakeries that make desserts.
> those types of products are causing problems health wise on a macro scale
I suspect the same thing with most of the food supply in the US. Markets are very good at driving the price of good down while maintaining the quality just "good enough" to satisfy the consumer. Ex. you can get a hamburger for $1 at McD's or 6 nuggets for $1 at BurgerKing. I don't think large scale agriculture can provide high quality food to the masses.
> those types of products are causing problems health wise on a macro scale
I suspect the same thing with most of the food supply in the US. Markets are very good at driving the price of good down while maintaining the quality just "good enough" to satisfy the consumer. Ex. you can get a hamburger for $1 at McD's or 6 nuggets for $1 at BurgerKing. I don't think large scale agriculture can provide high quality food to the masses.
How do you managed budget and food?
Not who you are replying to but I recently (2.5 months ago) started using YNAB again and have fallen in love with it. The last time I tried it was when it was desktop software but their newer web-based version with transaction import/sync is a game changer for me.
As for food I can't really help there. I ended up writing my own app to manage/track expiration dates for what I have but that's barely the tip of the ice-burg. I hope to integrate with my recipe app (Paprika) to work on meal-planning and picking recipes I like while trying to use up the stuff that will go bad first.
As for food I can't really help there. I ended up writing my own app to manage/track expiration dates for what I have but that's barely the tip of the ice-burg. I hope to integrate with my recipe app (Paprika) to work on meal-planning and picking recipes I like while trying to use up the stuff that will go bad first.
Used YNAB a lot to develop discipline, then switched to Lunch Money [0]. It's being worked on by a solopreneur; she's awesome.
The app is, I think, a natural evolution for the YNABer who got the discipline and now doesn't need to track every single dollar all the time.
[0] https://lunchmoney.app
The app is, I think, a natural evolution for the YNABer who got the discipline and now doesn't need to track every single dollar all the time.
[0] https://lunchmoney.app
Thank you for the shoutout, and that's wonderful to hear! :D
this is a very un-HN answer, and i wish i had something sexier for you, but: Excel.
we look at statements from our various accounts, enter into a data tab, then group expenses into categories: house (elec, water, cable, etc), food, vehicles (gas, tolls, oil, loan, etc) fun (spotify, netflix, etc).
as the saying goes, you cant manage what you dont measure.
we look at statements from our various accounts, enter into a data tab, then group expenses into categories: house (elec, water, cable, etc), food, vehicles (gas, tolls, oil, loan, etc) fun (spotify, netflix, etc).
as the saying goes, you cant manage what you dont measure.
Mint from Intuit. The free level works quite well for me.
Definitely a good, broad list that can apply to everyone. I feel like the last two are especially relevant today in a world where the internet dominates my generation and we're in a culture that replaces instead of repairs.
I am definitely guilty of failing on your second to last bullet, and I should work on that.
I am definitely guilty of failing on your second to last bullet, and I should work on that.
Re: replace instead of repair, one issue is that replacement parts for e.g. electronics can end up being more expensive than a new and updated replacement (with factory warranty).
I've tried to fix a deep fryer I got for free, the switch was broken but it was a pretty generic flip switch with a light in it, the local electronics shop had a replacement for like €2 or so. That didn't fix it though, I suspect there's a temperature safety somewhere inside that isn't working right anymore. So far I've had it filled, warmed up, tried out, turned off, cleaned, opened up, etc four or five times already without having fixed it.
It'll be €40 to buy a new one. It's probably fixable, or I could probably replace only the heating unit, but just the heating unit (that is compatible with this one) is likely impossible to get and no cheaper than a new one.
But that's just one example. I for one am interested in seeing products that cost more but that are of provable higher quality and repairability.
There's some youtube channels that disassemble electric tools and point out at all the small or big things that make it good or bad / cheap, things like the kind of plastic used, bushings vs bearings, open vs closed bearings, etc.
I've tried to fix a deep fryer I got for free, the switch was broken but it was a pretty generic flip switch with a light in it, the local electronics shop had a replacement for like €2 or so. That didn't fix it though, I suspect there's a temperature safety somewhere inside that isn't working right anymore. So far I've had it filled, warmed up, tried out, turned off, cleaned, opened up, etc four or five times already without having fixed it.
It'll be €40 to buy a new one. It's probably fixable, or I could probably replace only the heating unit, but just the heating unit (that is compatible with this one) is likely impossible to get and no cheaper than a new one.
But that's just one example. I for one am interested in seeing products that cost more but that are of provable higher quality and repairability.
There's some youtube channels that disassemble electric tools and point out at all the small or big things that make it good or bad / cheap, things like the kind of plastic used, bushings vs bearings, open vs closed bearings, etc.
I used to have a similar list of things to do daily on my whiteboard. These are items that I can easily stray from and have to remind myself to come back to and reinforce.
In my personal experience, these things have a much great impact on my well-being and quality of life and they are within my control. In contrast with ideal of how I think society/world should be.
If you become accountable to the things that are within your control (ie. thoughts and actions) you will quickly notice that trying to control things beyond that is futile and a source of frustration.
In my personal experience, these things have a much great impact on my well-being and quality of life and they are within my control. In contrast with ideal of how I think society/world should be.
If you become accountable to the things that are within your control (ie. thoughts and actions) you will quickly notice that trying to control things beyond that is futile and a source of frustration.
++ pick up a social hobby that you enjoy doing with others
++ Learn to meditate
++ Creativity is fostered by learning deep and wide. Learn something outside of computers... etc
++ Learn to meditate
++ Creativity is fostered by learning deep and wide. Learn something outside of computers... etc
These seem obvious and fundamental yet devalued by school in terms of preparing kids for the “real world”. This disconnect only seems to be getting worse from my perspective.
My mom was very involved in our education and used to say “education starts at home”.
I feel like this mindset is not shared in today’s society to our detriment.
I feel like this mindset is not shared in today’s society to our detriment.
Ha, paramount, this is important above all for a healthy mind and soul to be productive
Amazing points. Thanks!
I'm reminded of:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ~ Robert Anson Heinlein
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ~ Robert Anson Heinlein
Hmm, I can design a wall, analyze a diaper and butcher a sonnet.
Analyzing is the last thing I'd want to do with a diaper...
I would also add, "build a fire", "set an effective snare" and "catch a fish".
The TV series _Alone_ is a great insight into what are the absolute minimum requirements for survival.
Smelting metal still is the skill that makes you the king.
Bonus points: Start a fire with feathersticks and a ferro rod.
I have a new favourite quote.
All useful except butchering a hog - a human being does not need to eat hogs to survive and thrive.
Maybe living in the inner city. I know a great many people who feed their family through hunting. In my area, if there were to be a supply chain issue and food was hard to come by, knowing how to turn an animal to food is an important thing to know. I'd say that is likely more important that conn'ing a ship. Anyway, let's not get to pedantic. "A human should be able to feed themselves and their family."
That's the type of mentality that holds people back. Butchering a hog is just like processing a deer or elk. I've done all three and there is something about the experience that brings a greater feeling of respect and authenticity of where meat comes from and how certain cuts can be cooked.
Perhaps, but a life without bacon isn't a life worth living.
If you're a shy person who would like to do better in social situations - learn to dance.
Becoming a dancer opened up all sorts of doors for me. It made me comfortable in social situations from small-talk in intimate groups to public speaking in front of large ones.
I even ended up married and living in a foreign country. Currently I'm learning the language and making some progress. All of which I can trace fairly directly to learning to dance.
Caveats:
You need to like the music! So pick a form that's compatible with that (if there is one).
Don't go into this looking for a hook-up. Those people are greatly disliked by most of the people in the scene.
Obviously this is open to confident people too, but shy people will likely get more out of it because the structured nature of dance classes compensates for lack of confidence.
(Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)
Becoming a dancer opened up all sorts of doors for me. It made me comfortable in social situations from small-talk in intimate groups to public speaking in front of large ones.
I even ended up married and living in a foreign country. Currently I'm learning the language and making some progress. All of which I can trace fairly directly to learning to dance.
Caveats:
You need to like the music! So pick a form that's compatible with that (if there is one).
Don't go into this looking for a hook-up. Those people are greatly disliked by most of the people in the scene.
Obviously this is open to confident people too, but shy people will likely get more out of it because the structured nature of dance classes compensates for lack of confidence.
(Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)
What maybe surprised me most about learning to dance is how much you learn about signaling and how important signaling is to get two individuals work as one. Giving and reading signals was never my strong side, but it have improved a lot after learning to use signals in dance. The way I hold my hand or some light pressure on the back tells the one I'm dancing with what I plan for us to do and it often even works when I do moves the partner have never done before
Martial arts and partner dancing are two sides of the same coin: in the former, one maintains distance and predicts movement so one can break synch with an opponent by surprising, taking advantage of and increasing brief errors. In the latter, one maintains distance and predicts movement so one can synch with a partner by signalling, covering up for and decreasing brief errors.
Can't recommend it enough. I suspect most developers will enjoy the pattern orientated nature, and being able to strip things down to their building blocks and create something new. Once it starts to make sense to you, the possibilities become truly endless. I had planned to learn a decent amount of cha in the last 18 months... that never quite happened, but I became a mean Kizomba dancer instead.
> You need to like the music!
If you're approaching dance with a view to finding new realms of aesthetic experience, reserve judgment on whether you like the music. Some genres of music are meant to be enjoyed more in your body than in your head, or may come from an unfamiliar culture, so you'll need to be dancing for a while to get it.
If you're approaching dance with a view to finding new realms of aesthetic experience, reserve judgment on whether you like the music. Some genres of music are meant to be enjoyed more in your body than in your head, or may come from an unfamiliar culture, so you'll need to be dancing for a while to get it.
> (Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)
Which is another skill you could learn in a short amount of time - a basic sense of rhythm. Tapping along with music or a metronome works, doing something more complicated with two hands is also an option. There's both online and offline drum / percussion lessons you could take; doesn't have to be much, you get the basics pretty quickly.
Same can probably be said about basic music theory. I've tried a few times but I still don't really get it though.
Which is another skill you could learn in a short amount of time - a basic sense of rhythm. Tapping along with music or a metronome works, doing something more complicated with two hands is also an option. There's both online and offline drum / percussion lessons you could take; doesn't have to be much, you get the basics pretty quickly.
Same can probably be said about basic music theory. I've tried a few times but I still don't really get it though.
I'd an Aunt who recommended amateur dramatics for the same reason. I didn't follow her advice, unfortunately.
Would you still recommend dancing to a short 5.3'' male? Are tall strong males preferred in dancing? I don't know how equal those classes are but on tv you see those couples dancing and there is definitly a ''role'' to play for the male (like picking up the woman etc.).
Picking up your partner is something that mostly happens in performances rather than social dancing. Plus it's more about body mechanics than brute strength. I have plenty of short male friends who dance.
Note also that 'male' and 'female' roles don't really exist these days in the dances I do. YMMV with scenes.
Note also that 'male' and 'female' roles don't really exist these days in the dances I do. YMMV with scenes.
How did you learn how to dance?
I'm not the person you're asking, but will share my thoughts anyways.
I learned when a friend dragged me to a "taster" class at a local social dance venue. It was fun, so I went the next week. At the beginning of the next month, I enrolled in a "progressive" series (lessons that built on one another, unlike the "taster" classes that start from scratch each time).
Under normal circumstances, I think that's be best way to learn: at a venue where people dance socially. It's really something that's best learned in person and a class at a social dance venue means you can immediately practice what you just learned, with other people who just learned it. (Versus, say, a class at a dance studio, where you may take a class and then just go home.) Unless you live in New Zealand, that's probably not an option right now though.
For many dances, there's good content online. I dance Lindy Hop, so that's what I'm most familiar with. If you enjoy (or, at least, don't hate) Jazz music, I think it's a great option to start with. ilindy.com has a free high-quality intro course, including (last I checked) material you can practice by yourself. I'm less familiar with it, but jaminjackson.com also has a free intro course that I've heard good things about.
I learned when a friend dragged me to a "taster" class at a local social dance venue. It was fun, so I went the next week. At the beginning of the next month, I enrolled in a "progressive" series (lessons that built on one another, unlike the "taster" classes that start from scratch each time).
Under normal circumstances, I think that's be best way to learn: at a venue where people dance socially. It's really something that's best learned in person and a class at a social dance venue means you can immediately practice what you just learned, with other people who just learned it. (Versus, say, a class at a dance studio, where you may take a class and then just go home.) Unless you live in New Zealand, that's probably not an option right now though.
For many dances, there's good content online. I dance Lindy Hop, so that's what I'm most familiar with. If you enjoy (or, at least, don't hate) Jazz music, I think it's a great option to start with. ilindy.com has a free high-quality intro course, including (last I checked) material you can practice by yourself. I'm less familiar with it, but jaminjackson.com also has a free intro course that I've heard good things about.
Pretty much this, and I also started with Lindy.
- Learn to edit well, it's how to write well. Nothing opens doors like clear writing. For sources of quality edited writing, read The Economist, Quanta, and the first novels by authors who wrote 20th century literary fiction. Their later ones had less editing.
- Negotiation + game theory. Learn the traditional methods, and then forget everything you know about them because the real world has changed and broken the assumptions that went into the formal theories, but you need it as a foundation.
- Basic vehicle maintenance and repair. Even if it's just buying an ODBII connector for fault reading and being able to trace fuse box connections. Also, learn to drive stick, or be dependent in an emergency on someone who does.
- Learn confidence and humility by mastering a common physical skill like an instrument, singing, or performing monologues, etc. Not stupid tricks, but something where other people are objectively way better than you are and plan to be embarrassingly bad at it for at least a decade.
- Negotiation + game theory. Learn the traditional methods, and then forget everything you know about them because the real world has changed and broken the assumptions that went into the formal theories, but you need it as a foundation.
- Basic vehicle maintenance and repair. Even if it's just buying an ODBII connector for fault reading and being able to trace fuse box connections. Also, learn to drive stick, or be dependent in an emergency on someone who does.
- Learn confidence and humility by mastering a common physical skill like an instrument, singing, or performing monologues, etc. Not stupid tricks, but something where other people are objectively way better than you are and plan to be embarrassingly bad at it for at least a decade.
For writing and editing I recommend listening to Death of a 1000 cuts, a writing podcast by a guy called Tim Clare. He critiques the first 250 words of somebody's novel each episode in an incredibly entertaining and edifying way. I learnt a lot from him.
What are the best quantitative resources on learning negotiation?
I didn't encounter much in the way of quantitative stuff other than DeMesquita's "Logic of Political Survival," and related papers and code, which is what people should understand after they have read the foundational books like Getting To Yes, Influence, Never Split the Difference, the guidebook to negotiations A-Z from The Economist, etc.
People who haven't read laterally in it tend to only have one or two tools that have worked for them up to their level. Haggling, bargaining, and auction models aren't really negotiation. Reality is, it's the process of price discovery, often with people who are looking for rules they can break and points of leverage.
People who haven't read laterally in it tend to only have one or two tools that have worked for them up to their level. Haggling, bargaining, and auction models aren't really negotiation. Reality is, it's the process of price discovery, often with people who are looking for rules they can break and points of leverage.
Thanks for this reply. Who is the author of Influence?
Also, have you heard anything on salience models?
Also, have you heard anything on salience models?
Robert Cialdini wrote Influence
I have done some private development on salience models and use them informally with spreadsheets. DeMesquita expands on them with his predictioneers model, which there are a few repo's of code for.
To understand salience models, I think people need a background in traditional negotiation so that they can have the tools to apply to the model once they develop it. It's the why behind the model. Negotiation overlaps with organizational psychology and business strategy, and these days, political tactics as well, but for someone who doesn't have a background in this and who are the sort of person who still tells recruiters and hiring managers their current/last salary, it's not useful to throw them into the deep end.
To understand salience models, I think people need a background in traditional negotiation so that they can have the tools to apply to the model once they develop it. It's the why behind the model. Negotiation overlaps with organizational psychology and business strategy, and these days, political tactics as well, but for someone who doesn't have a background in this and who are the sort of person who still tells recruiters and hiring managers their current/last salary, it's not useful to throw them into the deep end.
Killer info, thanks!
> - Learn confidence and humility by mastering a common physical skill like an instrument, singing, or performing monologues, etc. Not stupid tricks, but something where other people are objectively way better than you are and plan to be embarrassingly bad at it for at least a decade.
I would personally recommend martial arts for this. You get a useful skill (eventually), there is no skill ceiling, and there are always people better than you.
I would personally recommend martial arts for this. You get a useful skill (eventually), there is no skill ceiling, and there are always people better than you.
I mean, whatever floats your boat really, but when exactly are martial arts useful? The average person might use them once in a lifetime. A year's worth of voice lessons and pretty much any non-trained person will love hearing you sing along to any song, and you will make them want to sing. It's a way to relate to people and make friends in nearly any social situation.
Even if you're just more into the kinesthetic work, dance will pay more dividends and be more useful for basically the same reasons. Breaking is especially fundamental and nearly always works.
Again, do whatever works for you. But martial arts are really very rarely a useful thing to have learned. (And to be fair, performing monologues per the OP's suggestion is about as un-useful as martial arts relative to singing and dancing.)
Even if you're just more into the kinesthetic work, dance will pay more dividends and be more useful for basically the same reasons. Breaking is especially fundamental and nearly always works.
Again, do whatever works for you. But martial arts are really very rarely a useful thing to have learned. (And to be fair, performing monologues per the OP's suggestion is about as un-useful as martial arts relative to singing and dancing.)
Martial arts are useful especially because when you are proficient, you are less likely to use the art.
Not being afraid of a confrontation makes you more confident, serene, and less likely to have a confrontation. I am skilled in a martial art that's quite popular these days, and which had an unmistakeable, positive effect on my demeanor; you don't use the martial art once in a lifetime, but every day for a lifetime without actually using it. (I also enjoy dancing. Both martial arts and dancing are good activities to make friends)
Not being afraid of a confrontation makes you more confident, serene, and less likely to have a confrontation. I am skilled in a martial art that's quite popular these days, and which had an unmistakeable, positive effect on my demeanor; you don't use the martial art once in a lifetime, but every day for a lifetime without actually using it. (I also enjoy dancing. Both martial arts and dancing are good activities to make friends)
> The average person might use them once in a lifetime.
Depends on your perspective. On the one hand, I haven't had to fight anyone, and would like to keep it that way. On the other, I'd like to be able to if necessary.
Martial arts is the only activity other then programming in which I have reached flow state. I suspect dancing/yoga/etc also reach this state, but I don't know because I've never done any of these seriously enough to get to that point.
Aside from these, like borroka said, it has an affect on your demeanour and world view, which is honestly the biggest benefit.
> very rarely a useful thing to have learned.
Also, it makes good resume filler if you're just barely getting your career started. Not quite as good as being an Eagle Scout, but non negligible.
I've just made a lot of personal improvement through martial arts, and figured I'd bring it up in case someone else would enjoy it.
Depends on your perspective. On the one hand, I haven't had to fight anyone, and would like to keep it that way. On the other, I'd like to be able to if necessary.
Martial arts is the only activity other then programming in which I have reached flow state. I suspect dancing/yoga/etc also reach this state, but I don't know because I've never done any of these seriously enough to get to that point.
Aside from these, like borroka said, it has an affect on your demeanour and world view, which is honestly the biggest benefit.
> very rarely a useful thing to have learned.
Also, it makes good resume filler if you're just barely getting your career started. Not quite as good as being an Eagle Scout, but non negligible.
I've just made a lot of personal improvement through martial arts, and figured I'd bring it up in case someone else would enjoy it.
Good explanation of the benefits of practicing a martial art. I think any type of activity that involves both coordinated motion and cardio is a good candidate for achieving flow states.
Re: martial arts. What type do you recommend?
Re: martial arts. What type do you recommend?
I've only studied Okinawan Karate at an OSMKKF school, so I can't speak personally to any others.
However, I have friends who have had good experiences with MMA, and Capoeira is on my bucket list to learn.
I honestly don't think the particular style is as important as the fact that you have proper training in that style.
However, I have friends who have had good experiences with MMA, and Capoeira is on my bucket list to learn.
I honestly don't think the particular style is as important as the fact that you have proper training in that style.
This is not a skill but something I do everyday, that I found to be rewarding.
While I'm in bed and before sleeping, I take two minutes to be thankful for the day. I would go from the beginning of the day and be thankful for things I have. In this world where everyone seems to be so focused on achieving new things, creating and being more productive. I believe we all should take some time to be just thankful for what we have.
Have a fridge? be thankful for that. Got you uber to go to places? be thankful. Got money to eat for the day? be thankful. Made a contribution to make life better for other people? be thankful.
Once per day for 2mins, hit the pause button, stop thinking about productivity and being a better version of yourself. Accept who you are and be thankful for it.
The other benefits of this for me personally, is that I train my brain to remember things I did during the day.
While I'm in bed and before sleeping, I take two minutes to be thankful for the day. I would go from the beginning of the day and be thankful for things I have. In this world where everyone seems to be so focused on achieving new things, creating and being more productive. I believe we all should take some time to be just thankful for what we have.
Have a fridge? be thankful for that. Got you uber to go to places? be thankful. Got money to eat for the day? be thankful. Made a contribution to make life better for other people? be thankful.
Once per day for 2mins, hit the pause button, stop thinking about productivity and being a better version of yourself. Accept who you are and be thankful for it.
The other benefits of this for me personally, is that I train my brain to remember things I did during the day.
Gratitude list! I started one a few years ago when life was very very tough and it ended up being one of the things that kept me going.
I also made a timeline of my life with all the major events on it. Puts the whole thing in perspective.
Both good tools, especially in tough times.
I also made a timeline of my life with all the major events on it. Puts the whole thing in perspective.
Both good tools, especially in tough times.
- Take an improv class. It's excellent for building confidence, meeting new people, learning social skills, practicing creativity, being funnier, and generally having a really fun evening once or twice per week.
- Writing posts or making video tutorials is really great. Can be profitable, lead to professional growth, but also it's a great hobby and a fun way to create some value. Even if you don't become a successful/professional blogger/youtuber, it feels awesome to record a tutorial, see the views go up, and receive comments from people who found your video helpful. Also it develops writing/speaking skills, motivates you to learn the topic in more depth, clarifies your thoughts and understanding, gives you valuable feedback from more experienced people, grows your audience.
- Gamedev and Computer Graphics are REALLY fun to do. For people here I recommend Godot and Houdini, it's incredibly interesting, entertaining, and satisfying.
Here's a quick tutorial that I've made on procedurally generating a pretty landscape with Houdini:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20
- Writing posts or making video tutorials is really great. Can be profitable, lead to professional growth, but also it's a great hobby and a fun way to create some value. Even if you don't become a successful/professional blogger/youtuber, it feels awesome to record a tutorial, see the views go up, and receive comments from people who found your video helpful. Also it develops writing/speaking skills, motivates you to learn the topic in more depth, clarifies your thoughts and understanding, gives you valuable feedback from more experienced people, grows your audience.
- Gamedev and Computer Graphics are REALLY fun to do. For people here I recommend Godot and Houdini, it's incredibly interesting, entertaining, and satisfying.
Here's a quick tutorial that I've made on procedurally generating a pretty landscape with Houdini:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20
Learn a handful of knots. You don't need to know the entire boy scout manual, but solid understanding of 4-5 knots - be it a trucker's hitch (adjustable), improved clinch (fishing/permanent), half hitch, etc - will be the right tool for the moment. When we go camping, we end up bringing a handful of tarps and paracord. Always fun to see the monstrosities people come up with as we try to string up a sun/rain shelter.
Learning the bowline, trucker's hitch, and double half-hitches will get you the most value for your time in my opinion. They're all I've ever needed for moving or camping.
Figure eight! Learned it recently to tow a canoe. I was always towing them with a two half-hitch and trucker’s hitch. I think I like the double figure eighth to attach to the car better than two half hitch.
Taut-line hitch or Tarbuck is my go-to. Use it half the time, the double half-hitch the other half.
If I had to pick one, it would be engineering. Learn how to break down a large problem into parts, and then tackle it. But everyone here likely knows that.
So my pick is sales. When I was presenting my thesis to the assessor, he was unimpressed. It was a bachelor's thesis, technically simple, but it attacked the problem from a different angle and had better progress than some PhD students working on the same project. My supervisor congratulated me on the presentation. I told him my assessor wasn't as impressed. He replied, "Maybe you didn't sell it well enough."
Since then, I got a little obsessed in finding out how to sell things better. A lot of people get the wrong impression of sales. They think it's an overdressed guy trying to put their foot in the door and promise anything for a sale.
Sales is simple. You have something that someone wants. Something other people wish they had and probably even spent a lot of money trying to patch themselves. They would happily part with money to get someone else to handle it. The trick with sales is to simply to find those people and explain your product in such a way that they throw money at you. There's no need to be good with words or be charismatic. Just explain the product well and explain why it's worth it.
It applies to many other parts of life too - getting a job, getting a date, hiring, pitching for a startup or scholarship. The first step is understanding what you have and why it's better. The rest is just articulating that well.
So my pick is sales. When I was presenting my thesis to the assessor, he was unimpressed. It was a bachelor's thesis, technically simple, but it attacked the problem from a different angle and had better progress than some PhD students working on the same project. My supervisor congratulated me on the presentation. I told him my assessor wasn't as impressed. He replied, "Maybe you didn't sell it well enough."
Since then, I got a little obsessed in finding out how to sell things better. A lot of people get the wrong impression of sales. They think it's an overdressed guy trying to put their foot in the door and promise anything for a sale.
Sales is simple. You have something that someone wants. Something other people wish they had and probably even spent a lot of money trying to patch themselves. They would happily part with money to get someone else to handle it. The trick with sales is to simply to find those people and explain your product in such a way that they throw money at you. There's no need to be good with words or be charismatic. Just explain the product well and explain why it's worth it.
It applies to many other parts of life too - getting a job, getting a date, hiring, pitching for a startup or scholarship. The first step is understanding what you have and why it's better. The rest is just articulating that well.
Learning the art of influence/story telling is a super power. It doesn't even have to be better as it could just be more confidence in that it is good enough.
Learn to sew. And to repair and maintain your things more generally, but sewing seems much more overlooked than e.g. car maintenance in this thread, even though more people wear clothes than own cars. You can fix minor rips in your clothes quickly before they turn into major issues. You can do basic alterations by hand (e.g. hemming). I like to put loops in my towels so they hang better on hooks and to embroider my initials on cloth items I might lose. Recently, I repaired my roommate’s rocking chair — the seat is made of canvas, which had torn along a stress point, so I sewed it back together by hand using a thick piece of replacement canvas to add reinforcement. With a sewing machine, I was also able to make a weighted blanket (much cheaper than it would’ve been to buy) and a couple of cloth face masks. Learning a bit about garment construction and fabric properties will help you evaluate clothes, so you can tell if something won’t last just by looking at it in the store, so you can spend less time buying clothes. You can also learn enough about basic hand sewing to get started attaching fabric to other fabric in like 15 minutes.
Also, get some kind of physical hobby that doesn’t involve looking at a computer. It’s nice to spend some time on evenings and weekends not staring at a screen, and I find that doing things with my hands is grounding.
Also, get some kind of physical hobby that doesn’t involve looking at a computer. It’s nice to spend some time on evenings and weekends not staring at a screen, and I find that doing things with my hands is grounding.
Being able to read and digest a profit & loss (P&L) statement and a balance sheet. It's not a common skill and yet it's also not particularly difficult; with a small bit of self-training you can do it extremely fast. You'll be able to scan the financials for a public company in a minute or two and get a good overview of its financial condition. It's a critical skill for investing and financial independence over time. Nobody showed me how to do that and I didn't have to read any technical books (I point that out because to some people it can be a very mind-numbing, boring subject), I self-taught out of personal interest in the stock market and business in general when I was young. With a few hours of self-education pretty much anyone can learn how; with some practice over time you'll get better and faster at it and reading financials will become second nature. It's a few hours of effort to learn an important part of a simple language (the language of financial literacy) that the vast majority of humanity can't understand and yet it's one of the most valuable languages in existence: the numbers & documents that make up the world of all commerce.
it's something I've been meaning to learn for a while but never quite found out how to go about it. Pointers are welcome.
While it's not exactly a viable skill to learn at the moment, I found learning a social partner dance to be eye opening.
(Slight aside: I started with Lindy Hop, which is typically danced to Jazz music. It has its roots in a variety of Black dances and grew out of the Savoy ballroom in Harlem starting in the late 20s. It's certainly not the only dance that teaches these skills, but I think it's a good choice.)
At the core, it's about communication and collaboration; communication and collaboration with the person you're dancing with is the essence of a partner dance. You want to make space in the dance for a balance your ideas and your partner's, and so whether you're leading (initiating movement) or following (responding), you want to share your ideas and listen to your partner's. Non-verbally. In real time. Over a lossy communication channel.
Beyond that, you're communicating and collaborating with other dancers sharing the floor. Unlike some dances, there's no macro-level choreography that keeps dancers from running into each other. You need to pay attention to your surroundings, understand how your movements are going to affect others, and adjust as the situation changes.
During classes or practice sessions, communication and collaboration with peers and instructors is also important. It's silly, but dance classes were the first time I ever really learned how to listen to and give constructive feedback in a kind and effective way.
All of that said: it's a bit like math. You'll start by counting (literally, perhaps), not with an understanding algebra or combinatorics. It won't feel revolutionary at first. You may not have any epiphanies until your instructors take of the "kid gloves" and at least reveal that "improper" fractions are just fractions and that it's a-okay to subtract a larger number from a smaller number. (And just like math, you can go as deep down any rabbit hole as you'd like. One day, after a few years of dancing and hundreds of hours of classes, I spent a full hour-long lesson exploring the complex topic of: walking forwards and backwards.)
(Slight aside: I started with Lindy Hop, which is typically danced to Jazz music. It has its roots in a variety of Black dances and grew out of the Savoy ballroom in Harlem starting in the late 20s. It's certainly not the only dance that teaches these skills, but I think it's a good choice.)
At the core, it's about communication and collaboration; communication and collaboration with the person you're dancing with is the essence of a partner dance. You want to make space in the dance for a balance your ideas and your partner's, and so whether you're leading (initiating movement) or following (responding), you want to share your ideas and listen to your partner's. Non-verbally. In real time. Over a lossy communication channel.
Beyond that, you're communicating and collaborating with other dancers sharing the floor. Unlike some dances, there's no macro-level choreography that keeps dancers from running into each other. You need to pay attention to your surroundings, understand how your movements are going to affect others, and adjust as the situation changes.
During classes or practice sessions, communication and collaboration with peers and instructors is also important. It's silly, but dance classes were the first time I ever really learned how to listen to and give constructive feedback in a kind and effective way.
All of that said: it's a bit like math. You'll start by counting (literally, perhaps), not with an understanding algebra or combinatorics. It won't feel revolutionary at first. You may not have any epiphanies until your instructors take of the "kid gloves" and at least reveal that "improper" fractions are just fractions and that it's a-okay to subtract a larger number from a smaller number. (And just like math, you can go as deep down any rabbit hole as you'd like. One day, after a few years of dancing and hundreds of hours of classes, I spent a full hour-long lesson exploring the complex topic of: walking forwards and backwards.)
Surprised no one has mentioned learning a second language yet. I'm currently learning Spanish (one of the easier ones for native English speakers like me to learn, especially being from the American Southwest) and finding myself suddenly understanding conversations between people I walk past at WalMart has been one of the more gratifying experiences I've had.
It's hard to say whether this skill will afford me new opportunities in the future, but it's immensely satisfying and I think it's useful because it has changed the way I think about language in general. It's hard to explain, but when I only knew English, words were the concepts that they symbolized. Of course I knew intellectually that "dog" is just a symbol for the animal, but I couldn't separate them subconsciously, if that makes sense. Now that "perro" is also a symbol for the animal, and it's ingrained in my mind enough that I don't have to translate it to English, it's as if words and things have been "decoupled". Unfortunately I'm finding it hard to articulate why that revelation matters. Basically, learning another language expands your mind in a unique way. It's just something you have to experience.
It's hard to say whether this skill will afford me new opportunities in the future, but it's immensely satisfying and I think it's useful because it has changed the way I think about language in general. It's hard to explain, but when I only knew English, words were the concepts that they symbolized. Of course I knew intellectually that "dog" is just a symbol for the animal, but I couldn't separate them subconsciously, if that makes sense. Now that "perro" is also a symbol for the animal, and it's ingrained in my mind enough that I don't have to translate it to English, it's as if words and things have been "decoupled". Unfortunately I'm finding it hard to articulate why that revelation matters. Basically, learning another language expands your mind in a unique way. It's just something you have to experience.
¿Hola, qué tal?
As to new opportunities, having multiple languages certainly makes it easier to vote with one's feet. (two years to acclimatise as a fresh immigrant may seem like a long time, but that may well be very short compared with the timescale of political change in one's birth country.)
Languages can not only be explored in breadth or in depth, but also open up side quests of culture, music, etc. I would say one of the most significant benefits of attending an international school (presumably the Asker is past this point, however) is learning to habitually rephrase, paraphrase, gesture, etc. in order to accomplish things with people with whom one shares little vocabulary and not necesarily much more culture. Surprisingly, one may find these skills even come in handy when attempting to communicate with people who nominally share one's mother tongue and national culture...
(It's also rewarding because the learning curve is relatively quick. At the beginning, one is only able to understand the sorts of conversations mothers have with very small children at WalMart, but before any of those children reach university age, one has gained the ability to read authors in the original.)
As to new opportunities, having multiple languages certainly makes it easier to vote with one's feet. (two years to acclimatise as a fresh immigrant may seem like a long time, but that may well be very short compared with the timescale of political change in one's birth country.)
Languages can not only be explored in breadth or in depth, but also open up side quests of culture, music, etc. I would say one of the most significant benefits of attending an international school (presumably the Asker is past this point, however) is learning to habitually rephrase, paraphrase, gesture, etc. in order to accomplish things with people with whom one shares little vocabulary and not necesarily much more culture. Surprisingly, one may find these skills even come in handy when attempting to communicate with people who nominally share one's mother tongue and national culture...
(It's also rewarding because the learning curve is relatively quick. At the beginning, one is only able to understand the sorts of conversations mothers have with very small children at WalMart, but before any of those children reach university age, one has gained the ability to read authors in the original.)
Learn to Knit or Crochet. There are a bunch of fun benefits! First, it's not hard. Second, you really can make nice things that last a long time and are useful. I personally have been on a sweater kick. Look or Aran and Gansey sweaters, they are very fun. Third, it gives you something to do other than endlessly scrolling on your phone.
With my hands and wrists (from being at a keyboard for years), I find knitting to be more comfortable. Also, if you do it correctly, the motion is different from typing and therefore actually helps with repetitive strain in the wrists.
With my hands and wrists (from being at a keyboard for years), I find knitting to be more comfortable. Also, if you do it correctly, the motion is different from typing and therefore actually helps with repetitive strain in the wrists.
One simple magic trick, no matter how cheezy, even if it uses a cheap prop from a magic shop. Be able to do it smoothly and convincingly, while saying you are rusty and out of practice.
It's not going to give you a "great expansion of possibilities", more like an "occasional ability to charm your way into an improved situation". Bang for the buck, though, I tellya.
It's not going to give you a "great expansion of possibilities", more like an "occasional ability to charm your way into an improved situation". Bang for the buck, though, I tellya.
Card tricks are good for this one. My great-grandfather had one (that I've now forgotten) that he'd use to entertain all of us as kids.
Yep, my one is a card trick. Two cards. I keep them in my wallet.
See also:
How to do 2 simple magic tricks--and why you should learn them - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/smarter-living/how-to-do-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Magic/comments/6u42om/whats_in_your...
See also:
How to do 2 simple magic tricks--and why you should learn them - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/smarter-living/how-to-do-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Magic/comments/6u42om/whats_in_your...
Being handy and having the relevant tools turns a lot of multi thousand dollar problems into hundred dollar problems and hundred dollar problems into non-issues. Having fewer smaller problems makes life less stressful.
Does it need to be said that everyone should have a basic toolbox / toolset and fasteners around? A set of screwdrivers, spanners, hammer, nails / screws, glue, tape, pliers, etc shouldn't take up more space. A (cheap) multitool or multifunctional pocket knife would already do most of those.
I encourage everyone to develop at least a basic familiarity with the skills required to maintain the things that keep our modern lifestyle humming along but I was talking about making it to a substantially greater skill level than that.
You can change a water heater with two shark-bite fittings, an adjustable wrench (and a screwdriver if it's electric instead of gas) and maybe a little help from YouTube and there's a ton of bang for your buck in that. There's very little automotive maintenance you can't do with a basic socket set and some screwdrivers and pliers and there's a ton of bang for your buck in that as well. But those kinds of basic tasks can be gateway drugs into developing more and more skills and as you develop more skills you wind up wanting the tools that make application of those skills more efficient.
Eventually you wind up at a level of available skills and tools where your only sources of expensive problems are people and not things, you are more limited by time than money, you've considered registering an LLC so you don't have to do as much lying when purchasing from companies that usually only sell B2B and you've unsubscribed from the advice subreddits in several fields because you realize that they're just full of idiots who can regurgitate textbook advice but don't have sufficient understanding of the constraints the people asking the questions are likely working under.
You can change a water heater with two shark-bite fittings, an adjustable wrench (and a screwdriver if it's electric instead of gas) and maybe a little help from YouTube and there's a ton of bang for your buck in that. There's very little automotive maintenance you can't do with a basic socket set and some screwdrivers and pliers and there's a ton of bang for your buck in that as well. But those kinds of basic tasks can be gateway drugs into developing more and more skills and as you develop more skills you wind up wanting the tools that make application of those skills more efficient.
Eventually you wind up at a level of available skills and tools where your only sources of expensive problems are people and not things, you are more limited by time than money, you've considered registering an LLC so you don't have to do as much lying when purchasing from companies that usually only sell B2B and you've unsubscribed from the advice subreddits in several fields because you realize that they're just full of idiots who can regurgitate textbook advice but don't have sufficient understanding of the constraints the people asking the questions are likely working under.
Learning to fight: or more precisely learning an alive martial art (one that entails sparring)
Getting tapped out or beaten up over and over develops a kind of calmness and humility that transfers well to other situations in life. After you've fought someone on stage in front of friends and family, it's difficult to find other experiences particularly scary.
It lets you tap into a number of deep and ancient aspects of being human, in a safe and productive way (assuming you are able to find a good, disciplined school, and not one run by people with egos).
Getting tapped out or beaten up over and over develops a kind of calmness and humility that transfers well to other situations in life. After you've fought someone on stage in front of friends and family, it's difficult to find other experiences particularly scary.
It lets you tap into a number of deep and ancient aspects of being human, in a safe and productive way (assuming you are able to find a good, disciplined school, and not one run by people with egos).
What I would like is a "LifeSkills LongTerm University". A lot of the things recommended here I have learnt - only to forget again over time. CPR being one such (and each time I learn it the song to play as you pump the heart gets changed)
But the main point is, I could happily subscribe to a Sunday every 6 months, for car maintenance, or for woodcraft fire lighting, or for knots and Maker and ... and ...
I guess this post is the right question, but the next question is where do I learn these things - and a one stop shop would be ideal.
But the main point is, I could happily subscribe to a Sunday every 6 months, for car maintenance, or for woodcraft fire lighting, or for knots and Maker and ... and ...
I guess this post is the right question, but the next question is where do I learn these things - and a one stop shop would be ideal.
Learn outdoor skills.
Go camping, hiking, trekking, canoeing etc. It keeps you in shape, and is great to decompress and enjoy yourself.
Go camping, hiking, trekking, canoeing etc. It keeps you in shape, and is great to decompress and enjoy yourself.
How do you get started? I never did that as a kid and now that I’m older living in a beautiful place I’d like to try it out, but I have no idea how to get started. I own hiking shoes that I barely ever used and a Swiss Army knife but that’s it... no backpack, no tent, nothing. I wouldn’t even know where to go or what to do when the night comes. I live in Switzerland.
I would say start small. Find a hiking trail - a real hiking trail - withing 10-30 minutes drive, and walk it weekly or so. Once you're comfortable with that trail, broaden your horizons for where you want to hike.
Eventually, you may want to do more/go on a hike further out then is a reasonable drive. At that point, find a campground near where you want to hike. If they offer rentals of some sort, great! If not, you may want to purchase a tent. If you do this, be sure to test it for a night by your house. Nothing quite as miserable as trying to figure out new gear in production (Yeah, the phrasings weird, but I couldn't figure out the right way to say it).
Most of this I kinda rephrased from my time in scouting, so my apologies if I translated it to words badly.
Eventually, you may want to do more/go on a hike further out then is a reasonable drive. At that point, find a campground near where you want to hike. If they offer rentals of some sort, great! If not, you may want to purchase a tent. If you do this, be sure to test it for a night by your house. Nothing quite as miserable as trying to figure out new gear in production (Yeah, the phrasings weird, but I couldn't figure out the right way to say it).
Most of this I kinda rephrased from my time in scouting, so my apologies if I translated it to words badly.
Here's a couple links. I glossed over them, and they seem like decent resources.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/setting-up-a-campsite-498429 - Setting up camp 101. Doesn't go over how to pitch a tent, but that'll get covered with the tents documentation.
https://veggievagabonds.com/camping-for-beginners/ - Camping 102, bit more in depth.
https://thebackpackinghiker.com/hiking-and-wild-camping-in-s... - Assumes experience, but covers Switzerland specifically, so you may find it useful.
https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/destinations/swiss-natio... - The Swiss National Park appears to have campsites and hiking trails. I've had good experiences with the US National Parks, but haven't been out of the states (yet).
https://www.tripsavvy.com/setting-up-a-campsite-498429 - Setting up camp 101. Doesn't go over how to pitch a tent, but that'll get covered with the tents documentation.
https://veggievagabonds.com/camping-for-beginners/ - Camping 102, bit more in depth.
https://thebackpackinghiker.com/hiking-and-wild-camping-in-s... - Assumes experience, but covers Switzerland specifically, so you may find it useful.
https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/destinations/swiss-natio... - The Swiss National Park appears to have campsites and hiking trails. I've had good experiences with the US National Parks, but haven't been out of the states (yet).
The answers from 082349872349872 and BoiledCabbage are better then mine. Go with their suggestions.
Better advice is probably to either find an outdoor store near you and ask them about local hiking groups, so you can learn from others rather than needing to study it all from scratch. Or look online and find a local hiking or outdoors group for their advice.
In switzerland, you can easily work up from day hikes to hiking refuge to refuge to pitching your own tent. (for your first hikes, shoes and a portemonnaie will suffice; in accessible areas the general rule is "if there is a view, there will be a restaurant.")
trails: https://map.wanderland.ch/?lang=en&photos=yes&logo=yes&seaso...
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/hiking-switzerland/45239794 (TIL that trail maintenance is
refuges: https://www.sac-cas.ch/en/
We don't usually bother with trail maps (as everything is well signposted and difficulty-graded[1], and we do dayhikes so rarely leave a drainage) but they're readily available in analog and digital formats. PostAuto allows you to do through-hikes as well as loop-hikes or there-and-back-agains. I find Swisscom to have the best backcountry coverage, if that's important to you.
(if you'd rather learn in a group, I'm sure you have a local hiking club.)
a short guide to the types of people you're likely to encounter on the trail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBDSHMQWvXA
Finally, if you start hiking you'll be able to start participating in the Swiss National Sport: guessing where people come from based on their trail greetings.
(guessing is easy mode, hard mode is playing what in the States is known as the Mennonite Game: figuring out a possible personal connection to people you've just met)
[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/hiking-switzerland/45239794 TIL hiking trails were recently added to the Constitution by referendum. https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/...
trails: https://map.wanderland.ch/?lang=en&photos=yes&logo=yes&seaso...
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/hiking-switzerland/45239794 (TIL that trail maintenance is
refuges: https://www.sac-cas.ch/en/
We don't usually bother with trail maps (as everything is well signposted and difficulty-graded[1], and we do dayhikes so rarely leave a drainage) but they're readily available in analog and digital formats. PostAuto allows you to do through-hikes as well as loop-hikes or there-and-back-agains. I find Swisscom to have the best backcountry coverage, if that's important to you.
(if you'd rather learn in a group, I'm sure you have a local hiking club.)
a short guide to the types of people you're likely to encounter on the trail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBDSHMQWvXA
Finally, if you start hiking you'll be able to start participating in the Swiss National Sport: guessing where people come from based on their trail greetings.
(guessing is easy mode, hard mode is playing what in the States is known as the Mennonite Game: figuring out a possible personal connection to people you've just met)
[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/hiking-switzerland/45239794 TIL hiking trails were recently added to the Constitution by referendum. https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/...
Salesmanship. You have to sell yourself and your ideas in many life situations anyway. Why not do it with a maximum impact? And it brings in money if you choose a marketing/advertising job path or start your own business.
More broadly, you also have to sell yourself at a job interview, and then sell your ideas continuously at work.
Behavior and empathy. People often have a reason for doing the things that they do which differs wildly from the reason they state in words.
General fitness. I've exercised most of my life, and I am constantly helping people start out. I am not a professional athlete, but I have a vast general knowledge of anatomy, physiology, training plans, etc. It makes learning new things ("I'd like to run a marathon") so much easier, safer and more efficient if you have some foundational knowledge.
-> Logical fallacies, being able to name the reasons why an argument has problems is a great skill to have and it's kind of interesting.
-> Linux terminal, amazing how much more fun using a computer is with just the terminal (also a browser to Google the commands)
-> Wood working, it's fun to cut timber and build things, especially if you have an office job like myself.
-> Linux terminal, amazing how much more fun using a computer is with just the terminal (also a browser to Google the commands)
-> Wood working, it's fun to cut timber and build things, especially if you have an office job like myself.
The ability to pause before reacting and realize you have the option of saying nothing. It allows for more self awareness in a conversation. You don't always have to have something to say. A lot of engineers I've worked with fail to grasp this and come across as know-it-alls who over share.
Learn how to write a 650 word summary, pitch, or blog post. Really learn it and focus on concise and engaging writing. My ability to write well at that length has helped me so many times in my life with blog posts, cover letters, documentation entries, marketing, raising money, and web content.
A surprising resource for this was a book called Manly Art: They Can Run-But They Can't Hide by George Kimball. It's a collection of boxing writing. Stories about boxing matches are usually quite short, about 650 words. Conveying the stakes and action of a boxing match in short form is hard to do well. This book demonstrates the balance between brevity and color.
Learn how to write a 650 word summary, pitch, or blog post. Really learn it and focus on concise and engaging writing. My ability to write well at that length has helped me so many times in my life with blog posts, cover letters, documentation entries, marketing, raising money, and web content.
A surprising resource for this was a book called Manly Art: They Can Run-But They Can't Hide by George Kimball. It's a collection of boxing writing. Stories about boxing matches are usually quite short, about 650 words. Conveying the stakes and action of a boxing match in short form is hard to do well. This book demonstrates the balance between brevity and color.
Learn to swim well by going beyond just staying afloat.
Understand the physics of moving through the water. Learn to lean on your chest to achieve proper balance in the water. Grasp how to "catch" the water with a high elbow position. Breath properly on both sides. Etc.
It's fun to swim well and it will help you live a healthier life.
Understand the physics of moving through the water. Learn to lean on your chest to achieve proper balance in the water. Grasp how to "catch" the water with a high elbow position. Breath properly on both sides. Etc.
It's fun to swim well and it will help you live a healthier life.
Take lessons. I was a competent (but not good) swimmer, I even took a swimming course in college (where I became good, but forgot it after years of not swimming). At 30 or so I took a 4 week course with an instructor, and had 1-on-1 training (mostly, she had two true beginners there as well). I swam laps working on specific details while she worked with them, I got dedicated attention just before they arrived and after they left.
There were a lot of things about the mechanics of swimming I "knew", but had not internalized (as evidenced by my form and approach to the water). It was a good experience for me, and I ended up swimming for exercise for about 6 months after (shoulder injury took me out of it and I lost access to that pool).
There were a lot of things about the mechanics of swimming I "knew", but had not internalized (as evidenced by my form and approach to the water). It was a good experience for me, and I ended up swimming for exercise for about 6 months after (shoulder injury took me out of it and I lost access to that pool).
Economics.
Many people have no idea what economists actually work on. Economics is not only Macroeconomics. It is a consistent theory of human behaviour. It tries to understand social behaviour and human interactions using a very small number of hypothesis.
It genuinely gives a new light on how you understand social phenomena.
Many people have no idea what economists actually work on. Economics is not only Macroeconomics. It is a consistent theory of human behaviour. It tries to understand social behaviour and human interactions using a very small number of hypothesis.
It genuinely gives a new light on how you understand social phenomena.
Partner that with Statistics. There's little about statistics that's in line with our expectations. From simple things like the Monty Hall problem, to Markov chains or complex sampling.
Basic therapeutic massage is a skill that will last a life time. Most people (but not all) can pick this up easily and use it to ease sore shoulders, arms, backs and lower back pain (stay away from the neck). It mostly involves prodding around the muscles to find the tense/tight area that needs some direct pressure applied by the thumb. This causes pain at first but after 10 minutes the muscles relax and the original pain is reduced.
The mildly irritating thing about this skill is that once you learn it you can keep your friends and family up and running but, likely, no one will be able to do the same for you.
The mildly irritating thing about this skill is that once you learn it you can keep your friends and family up and running but, likely, no one will be able to do the same for you.
Become proficient in CBT for yourself, especially the part that deals with cognitive distortions - even if you're not depressed.
I have now internalized things like all of nothing thinking, mental filters, personalization, etc that whenever my mind tries to pull a fast one on me I'm able to quickly rationalize the negative thought by seeing the cognitive distortions in it.
But like everything this requires a lot of practice to do mentally (I nearly did it for 1 year with pen and paper first - actually I made a web app for myself to do it but you have to write it down in the beginning)
I have now internalized things like all of nothing thinking, mental filters, personalization, etc that whenever my mind tries to pull a fast one on me I'm able to quickly rationalize the negative thought by seeing the cognitive distortions in it.
But like everything this requires a lot of practice to do mentally (I nearly did it for 1 year with pen and paper first - actually I made a web app for myself to do it but you have to write it down in the beginning)
For backend engineers out there, knowing how to build a simple GUI will help make your tools more accessible to a wider audience. This makes your work more visible, and therefore more valuable to stakeholders.
Applied a bit more broadly / generally: Dogfooding. Switch to being the client / consumer of what you're working on. Or just watch other people use your stuff, be they other developers or end-users.
Statistics and bug reports only tell part of the story. I've learned a lot just from watching someone else work with the app I worked on back when with a camera mounted to the phone.
Statistics and bug reports only tell part of the story. I've learned a lot just from watching someone else work with the app I worked on back when with a camera mounted to the phone.
Learn how to use emacs. Next learn how to use org-mode.
Rhetoric.
Communicating effectively with others will open up more opportunities than any other skill. It’s also a great way to learn more about others and yourself.
I expect many participants here to be strong in the logical aspects of rhetoric and would suggest focusing on social interaction, understanding the audience, playing with different presentational styles, receiving and giving feedback, and the part I find most difficult, figuring out and acknowledging what you want to achieve in a given interaction.
Communicating effectively with others will open up more opportunities than any other skill. It’s also a great way to learn more about others and yourself.
I expect many participants here to be strong in the logical aspects of rhetoric and would suggest focusing on social interaction, understanding the audience, playing with different presentational styles, receiving and giving feedback, and the part I find most difficult, figuring out and acknowledging what you want to achieve in a given interaction.
If I'd need to pick only one, I would say: "learn to learn".
In the era of internet, where every piece of knowledge is available, I'm so surprised to meet so many people that are unable to learn things by themselves, relying on other non-remote people.
Sometimes you can sound like an asshole when a friend asks you something very specific and you answer: "why don't you Google it?", but IMHO you're doing him a favor.
Sometimes you can sound like an asshole when a friend asks you something very specific and you answer: "why don't you Google it?", but IMHO you're doing him a favor.
Learn golf. On the surface, it just seems like a game but it has plenty to teach about competing against yourself. Just as in life, the goal is to get a tiny bit better as compared against yourself yesterday. Most of it is a mental game. Patience and frustration will be the first things you will experience, but unlike learning skiing you won't have to worry about hurting yourself. It's an incredibly complex game simply because of the variety of skill involved. Full swing shots, pitching and chipping, sand shots, uneven lies and putting. Course management is also a strategic aspect that requires experience and skill.
Most of the time you will be paired up to form a group of four, so you will probably experience the feeling of being out of place and uncertain of how to act (rules, etiquette). This will help with practicing dealing with uncomfortable situations if you are more introverted. The reason why golf is addicting for many of us is that once you get ok at the game, you start to enjoy the improvement or just the addiction of hitting a great shot where you had planned to hit it. The outdoor aspect is also a big bonus, especially if you start walking 18 holes.
Most of the time you will be paired up to form a group of four, so you will probably experience the feeling of being out of place and uncertain of how to act (rules, etiquette). This will help with practicing dealing with uncomfortable situations if you are more introverted. The reason why golf is addicting for many of us is that once you get ok at the game, you start to enjoy the improvement or just the addiction of hitting a great shot where you had planned to hit it. The outdoor aspect is also a big bonus, especially if you start walking 18 holes.
Here are some things i'm thinking carefully about at the moment
Combination of: 1) Really thinking about what i value in life (and its monetary cost) 2) Index funds and living cost efficiently (Learning the type of risk here is important - i.e. volatility risk)
This is nothing new to many, but to me it was a revelation. When you start plugging numbers into a calculator as opportunity costs of current purchasing decisions the numbers are incredible. Ben felix - youtube (9/10) Mr money mustache - blog (7/10) - imperfect but useful for putting things in context
The rates are debatable but often 7% yearly is quoted. Example, instead of buying a 40,000 car, put it in stock market for 30 years and get just 6% return you've got 229,000. Thats a large percentage of retirement for simply deciding not to buy a new car
To me this seems like a cheat code for turning the difficulty down on life. We've got enough things to worry about other than personal finance.
I personally feel strongly about this, some might disagree: News. Have a look here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-mark...
Makes it clear why so much of the most read and quotes articles are of such bad quality. (There are still many good news outlets!, just large swathes of the largest ones are terrible) Something like 70% of the uk new market is owned by 3 papers or something like that.
I'm sure you can quibble with some of the things ive written here but i feel the general direction holds.
Combination of: 1) Really thinking about what i value in life (and its monetary cost) 2) Index funds and living cost efficiently (Learning the type of risk here is important - i.e. volatility risk)
This is nothing new to many, but to me it was a revelation. When you start plugging numbers into a calculator as opportunity costs of current purchasing decisions the numbers are incredible. Ben felix - youtube (9/10) Mr money mustache - blog (7/10) - imperfect but useful for putting things in context
The rates are debatable but often 7% yearly is quoted. Example, instead of buying a 40,000 car, put it in stock market for 30 years and get just 6% return you've got 229,000. Thats a large percentage of retirement for simply deciding not to buy a new car
To me this seems like a cheat code for turning the difficulty down on life. We've got enough things to worry about other than personal finance.
I personally feel strongly about this, some might disagree: News. Have a look here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-mark...
Makes it clear why so much of the most read and quotes articles are of such bad quality. (There are still many good news outlets!, just large swathes of the largest ones are terrible) Something like 70% of the uk new market is owned by 3 papers or something like that.
I'm sure you can quibble with some of the things ive written here but i feel the general direction holds.
"The rates are debatable but often 7% yearly is quoted. Example, instead of buying a 40,000 car, put it in stock market for 30 years and get just 6% return you've got 229,000. Thats a large percentage of retirement for simply deciding not to buy a new car"
I completely agree with you. Many people would like to have an extra activity generating passive revenue but not spending and saving is exactly the same thing. It can be hard to be consistently frugal though.
I completely agree with you. Many people would like to have an extra activity generating passive revenue but not spending and saving is exactly the same thing. It can be hard to be consistently frugal though.
The skill of energy. Energy is the one metric to optimize for by default. Energy to me has been health and excitement. Health is sleep, nutrition, movement, mindset, and relationships. Excitement is doing something that I enjoy, often seemingly providing more energy than it takes.
The skill of recognizing the need for difficult conversations, then having them. A 20 second awkward, difficult conversation saves 20 days or 20 months of unfortunate use of my time. There is a general form of this, that if it’s easy to arrive at the answer, but hard to act, that’s probably the right direction. Or, the obstacle is the way.
The skill of recognizing that everything makes sense when I know the full story. Especially in relation to other people. When someone else doesn’t make sense to me, it’s almost always a problem with me, not having the full story. I have not encountered an exception to this yet. This injects empathy and objectivity at a broad level into one’s life.
The skill of habits and routines executed on priorities. This is the difference between being busy doing stuff all day and never accomplishing anything, to making consistent progress toward what’s important.
The skill of recognizing the need for difficult conversations, then having them. A 20 second awkward, difficult conversation saves 20 days or 20 months of unfortunate use of my time. There is a general form of this, that if it’s easy to arrive at the answer, but hard to act, that’s probably the right direction. Or, the obstacle is the way.
The skill of recognizing that everything makes sense when I know the full story. Especially in relation to other people. When someone else doesn’t make sense to me, it’s almost always a problem with me, not having the full story. I have not encountered an exception to this yet. This injects empathy and objectivity at a broad level into one’s life.
The skill of habits and routines executed on priorities. This is the difference between being busy doing stuff all day and never accomplishing anything, to making consistent progress toward what’s important.
Re: energy, maybe add mood and a lot of things: Realize they are subtle, that there is often no direct cause or correlation. Some issues are because of experiences throughout the day accumulated, or something from hours ago (e.g. food); others accumulate over months or years, e.g. stress, lack of sleep, a nutritional deficiency.
I would love a whole essay on your “skill of energy”! Can you expand on this with examples. This is a lifelong question for me and I’d be grateful for any advice you can add on the topic.
For me : It has been being mindful around my son. I realised that me being constantly distracted when he was playing was causing me a lot of stress and him to throw a lot of tantrums. Instead, I now consciously bring my attention back to him and I've noticed that I am a lot less stressed and so is he :) . The mind does drift off as it is wont to do but bringing it back is key. Good luck!
Understanding Logical fallacies.
In these days of bad news reporting, it is good to recognize logical fallacies in reports.
Instead of getting someone's opinion, it helps to focus on the actual data that is mentioned in the report. If the writer is using logical fallacies, they are trying to manipulate me. If they have clear logic, they are trying to inform me.
Then as second step, you can evaluate the data yourself, or even question it. See where you can find the source, or see other data. This step is more checking if the statistical evaluations are correct, or if there is p-hacking or any other problem. It must also follow basic common science. And if not, this should be explained.
What I usually find (>90% of the articles that I find interesting) is that the reports are conflicting and even the data is conflicting. The evidence/science is often incomplete and filled in with unfounded theories. And knowing this, it reduces the amount of information that is important in the articles.
So technically logical thinking is a way to compress all the data, without loss of information.
Then as second step, you can evaluate the data yourself, or even question it. See where you can find the source, or see other data. This step is more checking if the statistical evaluations are correct, or if there is p-hacking or any other problem. It must also follow basic common science. And if not, this should be explained.
What I usually find (>90% of the articles that I find interesting) is that the reports are conflicting and even the data is conflicting. The evidence/science is often incomplete and filled in with unfounded theories. And knowing this, it reduces the amount of information that is important in the articles.
So technically logical thinking is a way to compress all the data, without loss of information.
In American Boy Scouts, Pioneering merit badge. How to tie anything to anything, how to make shelter, how to lever/hoist things.
Although I hated Language Arts classes growing up, the skill of writing clearly has been hugely beneficial to me in my career. I was the last to be laid off from a company closing down and received a large retention bonus to stay to the end because of my status reports. Technically, I was somewhat junior on the team.
First aid.
Become a volunteer as a first-aid responder. You will learn and practice how to react in a lot of unusual situations (kids choking, burns, wounds, people fainting...), learn more about healthcare-related subjects, and live incredibly unusual experiences. It's a highly rewarding skillset.
Become a volunteer as a first-aid responder. You will learn and practice how to react in a lot of unusual situations (kids choking, burns, wounds, people fainting...), learn more about healthcare-related subjects, and live incredibly unusual experiences. It's a highly rewarding skillset.
Learn to play polo, to sail, hunt, fish and play golf. Those people all seem to have plenty of money.
* walking the DOM as a data structure, query strings wont get you that
* walking the file system recursively as a data structure
* regular expressions
* so much of any projects documentation can be automated
* once you fully appreciate an understanding of data structures algorithms write themselves
* walking the file system recursively as a data structure
* regular expressions
* so much of any projects documentation can be automated
* once you fully appreciate an understanding of data structures algorithms write themselves
Seconding regular expressions. Even for non-developers, they can be hugely useful in word processing and spreadsheets. If you ever need to find or replace text that isn't exact, then you should check it out.
Ever had to do something like look for every timestamp in a document or every word ending in -y or -ies, but it was tedious and time consuming? Regex can turn the solution from minutes of manual checking into seconds.
This is a pretty good introduction: https://blog.usejournal.com/regular-expressions-a-complete-b...
Ever had to do something like look for every timestamp in a document or every word ending in -y or -ies, but it was tedious and time consuming? Regex can turn the solution from minutes of manual checking into seconds.
This is a pretty good introduction: https://blog.usejournal.com/regular-expressions-a-complete-b...
* Cooking gourmet foods; risotto, steak, learning how to make specific dishes: carbonara, spaghetti, chicken cordon blue, bangers and mash etc.... (I like to cook and love to eat)
* Work on your own car; learn basics: changing oil, light bulbs, air filters, adding wiper fluid. Learn more advanced: brake pad and rotor changes, fluid flushes, keep building this skill and you'll have fun getting dirty and saving money
* Learn how to get your partner or preferred partner gender to cum; this could be fun and exciting for both of you
* Learn how you like to cum
* Learn about money, stocks, 401ks and budgeting basics
* Work on your own car; learn basics: changing oil, light bulbs, air filters, adding wiper fluid. Learn more advanced: brake pad and rotor changes, fluid flushes, keep building this skill and you'll have fun getting dirty and saving money
* Learn how to get your partner or preferred partner gender to cum; this could be fun and exciting for both of you
* Learn how you like to cum
* Learn about money, stocks, 401ks and budgeting basics
Being strong. It's like a secret super-power (not that I'm STRONG, just better than average) and it strengthens your bones and makes your body more robust in general:
“In robust training for this life, which is itself a continual fight with some form of adversary or other, the aim should be to form that solid and adamantine fiber which will endure long and serious attacks upon it, and come out unharmed from them, rather than the ability to perform sudden and brilliant feats, which often exhaust the powers in show, without doing any substantial good.”
-- Walt Whitman
“In robust training for this life, which is itself a continual fight with some form of adversary or other, the aim should be to form that solid and adamantine fiber which will endure long and serious attacks upon it, and come out unharmed from them, rather than the ability to perform sudden and brilliant feats, which often exhaust the powers in show, without doing any substantial good.”
-- Walt Whitman
Learn any martial art, to any level of competence, at any time of your life. This will give you 100 times more self esteem and leave you feeling more centred than any self-help book you could ever buy.
Not a lot of these suggestions have anything to do with a partner. Mostly solo skills, except maybe dance.
Maybe we could come up with some that would enhance ones time spent with a partner/spouse?
Maybe we could come up with some that would enhance ones time spent with a partner/spouse?
I suspect a lot of the things that have been listed could be done with a partner - dancing, and exercise being obvious ones.
I recently started taking up pottery. My results are mostly terrible, but it is still fun. As a result of covid the local school closed their workshop, but the teacher arranged for us to be able to collect hunks of clay, and she'd fire it when we returned it a week or two later.
My wife is amused at my work, but kinda pleased I've got a fun hobby, so she joined in. We built a few things on our dining table, and when she got her fired pieces back she was pretty pleased with the process.
I recently started taking up pottery. My results are mostly terrible, but it is still fun. As a result of covid the local school closed their workshop, but the teacher arranged for us to be able to collect hunks of clay, and she'd fire it when we returned it a week or two later.
My wife is amused at my work, but kinda pleased I've got a fun hobby, so she joined in. We built a few things on our dining table, and when she got her fired pieces back she was pretty pleased with the process.
I met my wife through sports, and we still do mostly the same sorts of things together we did while dating. If we were ever to stop those activities, I suppose I'd ask her what suggestions she might have.
(currently we joke that at that point we'll have to "learn to use walkers together")
(currently we joke that at that point we'll have to "learn to use walkers together")
- aligning multi-party interests
- understand and manage the complexity
- finding a way to keep moving forward
- keeping things in balance
- knowing when to stop arguing
- accepting better solutions
- when stand corrected, have the courage to say "you are right, i was mistaken"
- understand and manage the complexity
- finding a way to keep moving forward
- keeping things in balance
- knowing when to stop arguing
- accepting better solutions
- when stand corrected, have the courage to say "you are right, i was mistaken"
If you have a friend with mid/big grocery shop, I would highly recommend you to hang there often.
If you have free day and can spare it there, Try it. you will learn tons of things from marketing, trading, negotiation, customer service, etc.
(by the way my family owns a grocery shop, and I have also spent much of my free teen-age time at my uncle's grocery super-store which is kind of a mini wall-mart with 15000+ skus.)
I am a HN lurker. study biology. far from the tech world. but I love following. far from everything on HN I understand in depth. however, I find a community of people interested in the situation of the world, so although my field of study is far from the usual insight perceived in this community, 0s and 1s are not that far from the line of thought in molecular biology with genetic backwards engineering of DNA ┌(・。・)┘
Learn how to do things you would normally pay somebody else to do.
For example learn to service your car, repair your home, etc.
Your things may last longer, you can save a bunch of money, your better half will be impressed, you learn how basic stuff in the real world works and you’ll get some time off the screen.
For example learn to service your car, repair your home, etc.
Your things may last longer, you can save a bunch of money, your better half will be impressed, you learn how basic stuff in the real world works and you’ll get some time off the screen.
When I was 16 I worked part time at an auto mechanic's shop just doing odd tasks, like sweeping, moving stuff, doing inspections. I didn't know much about cars. One of the mechanics there was a fairly young guy. You could tell just by looking at him that he was not happy to be there. He would smoke all day in the shop - not very safe, and strictly forbidden. He was studying for the CCNA exam, looking to get out and start a career. When he found out I programmed and used linux, he was really excited. We would talk about networking tech a lot. One time I told him I wanted to learn about cars so I could do all of my own maintanence. He said, "Keep learning computers, so you can make enough money to pay someone else to do it." At the time, that was a disappointing non-answer, but I know now that there was wisdom in it.
A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system has been invaluable to me personally and professionally. It takes a decent amount of work, but it doesn't feel like the knowledge I accrue slips through a sieve anymore, maybe 15% versus 50%.
Do you use any special software for that?
Nothing too specialized.
I use Google Bookmarks to "queue" up readings that I want to review; generally I don't let this exceed ~10 (otherwise I know I'll never get to them). I use Google Keep to jot down raw thoughts/notes (e.g. if I'm learning a new concept or hear something interesting on a podcast) throughout the day. Then, every weekend I review all of these notes (say between 10 and 60) and "structure" them into organized domains (e.g. sociology, biology, finance, psychology, history) and clean them up before putting them into OneNote.
I generally don't check my OneNote so often - except if I know I have notes related to a topic and I'd like to review them (say antifragility or neural annealing) - but the two-step process of writing down the notes, then revisiting/refining them later tends to aid my retention substantially.
I'd say during an average week I spend about 1-2 hours on this process. Sometimes, if I've been inundated with new information, it can be up to 4-6 hours, especially when I have a lot of queued readings to go through. Overall though I've considered it well-worth the investment.
I use Google Bookmarks to "queue" up readings that I want to review; generally I don't let this exceed ~10 (otherwise I know I'll never get to them). I use Google Keep to jot down raw thoughts/notes (e.g. if I'm learning a new concept or hear something interesting on a podcast) throughout the day. Then, every weekend I review all of these notes (say between 10 and 60) and "structure" them into organized domains (e.g. sociology, biology, finance, psychology, history) and clean them up before putting them into OneNote.
I generally don't check my OneNote so often - except if I know I have notes related to a topic and I'd like to review them (say antifragility or neural annealing) - but the two-step process of writing down the notes, then revisiting/refining them later tends to aid my retention substantially.
I'd say during an average week I spend about 1-2 hours on this process. Sometimes, if I've been inundated with new information, it can be up to 4-6 hours, especially when I have a lot of queued readings to go through. Overall though I've considered it well-worth the investment.
Still trying to "master" this skill, but "learning" how to observe, learn, shift through the noise, and apply that knowledge in a reasonable turnaround time.
Learn how to touch type. Honestly, it's worth it.
Basic first aid (CPR, pressure bandage, etc.) to help yourself and others. And repeat the course every once in a while to refresh the knowledge.
Get an MBA. It will open your eyes to business decision making and make you chuckle next time people rant against them.
Acting. It's given me so much confidence to tackle any problem. Luckily I have a great Coach.
Non-determinism. Hackers are so used to finding a logical, elegant solution that we sometimes forget that social behaviour is not deterministic and that, when judging others, we do neither have perfect knowledge nor we are entitled to fully know and understand the motivations of others.
I have no skills
negotiating maximum compensation for the difficult and challenging work you do as a computer scientist
you mean lego brick worker?
* Fixing things
* Weightlifting
* Cardiovascular exercise
* Sewing
* Weightlifting
* Cardiovascular exercise
* Sewing
What are other skills like this, that you have, that you expect many participants on Hacker News lack, and that have greatly expanded the possibilities available to you?