Ask HN: Where do you find unknown knowledge? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where do you find unknown knowledge?

16 pointstuyguntn8 comments

Most of engineers are curious people. People are fascinated when they learn and explore new things.

As an engineer where do you find new knowledge?

* Engineer related topics (like new way of architecting/designing your software, gotchas/failures in microservices, simple fascinated algorithms and so on)

* Real world physics/chemistry (why explosion happens, how metal is formed, why stars explode and so on)

* Human/social knowledge. (why we buy products, why we love, why brexit happened)

Please share your source of knowledge, youtube or google doesn't make sense.

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My way of approach to learning;

Actively maintain non-stop curiosity about everything and Train yourself to quickly grasp the "kernel" in any subject i.e. learn to identify the "heart of the matter". When it comes to learning there are no time constraints, no competition and nothing matters outside of "grokking it" to your own standards.

Do lots of Internet research, Identify offbeat subjects/people, Browse bookstores and keep buying Books :-)

Always be on the lookout for something different from the commonplace and the norm. Generally, the "populace" only looks at the obvious, popular and the lowest common denominator. Hence identify people/books who are contrarians, look into nooks and crannies of various subjects and try and understand their viewpoints. Breadth of mind and a willingness to give-up cherished beliefs when proven wrong are a must.

The Strange Loop conference always have interesting talks (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_QIfHvN9auy2CoOdSfMWDw).

If you're not reading the Economist Magazine then it's not a bad place to start.

'Economics' stuff is a hidden gold mine worth mining.

I started playing with Java because a finance newspaper in Spain was sold with the Java Alpha3 SDK CD (yes, I'm that old).

This magazine is pretty biased though, and most opinions are mainstream.

YouTube & Google are where I go. For anything super specific, if it's within my capabilities, I learn by building attempting to build it, and then seek for feedback on what I've built.

Also, traveling, talking to interesting people, and trying new things.

occult book stores, VX forums, popular mechanics, under snapple lids. :)

All sort of stuff; it cannot be summarized just one or three.

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