Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?
What are some skills (technical or not) you think someone should consider acquiring in 2020?
- Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it.
- Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn about ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed and the interplay of those three variables. There's a fantastic multi-part tutorial on Reddit that can help you learn these things. I don't have the link handy but you can Google for it.
- Set a goal of cooking for yourself at least two nights a week and eating leftovers two nights a week. Buy a binder and some clear inserts and start to put together your own book of favorite recipes.
- Take a nightly walk.
- Listen to classical music. This one didn't come to me until my 40s but I finally realized: there's a reason that this music has been popular for 300 years. Opera is great, too. Listen to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". Download the KUSC app and listen to the amazing Metropolitan Opera broadcast every Saturday morning at 10 AM Pacific.
Highly recommended, but definitely pricier than acquiring it all yourself.
Kroger now has a recipe thing where you can add it all to your cart, so we went back to that for the time being.
Blue Apron tends to focus on interesting recipes. Hello Fresh tends to be a bit more focused on fresh ingredients. But honestly I couldn't really tell them apart.
Alternatively, several super markets now sell kits you can buy with the ingredients and directions.
I recently got one, and I've been cooking at home a lot more often as a result. I think more people would cook their own food if they knew how to make it taste really good.
To each their own but imo a sous vide is a big, expensive, plastic waste of counter space.
Sous vide opens up a wider selection of cuts that can be used, which traditionally do not cook well on a grill or in a pan.
Skirt steak, for instance, which has great flavor, but is difficult to cook correctly, can be cooked perfectly in sous vide.
Sous vide takes out the guesswork for getting the insides to the right temp. Then just get the pan as hot as possible for quick sear in a pan for the outside.
I understand this point, the point of sous vide is consistency, but I disagree that not everyone can get the timing right. With practice, anybody absolutely can get it right. And if they have hundreds of dollars plus the counterspace to throw at a sous vide machine, they have the resources to cook a couple "bad" steaks before they start getting it right.
> And if they have hundreds of dollars plus the counterspace to throw at a sous vide machine
Exactly how much counter space do you think a sous vide machine takes up? Maybe there's some out there that are huge, IDK, but most of the consumer grade ones sold are like half the size of a wine bottle and can be attached to any container. You could probably even attach it to a kitchen sink if you wanted to.
Still, I also understand the appeal. More precise, less issues if something interrupts you, and perhaps the best benefit is batch cooking steaks. Especially when starting, using sous vide can help you focus on getting the sear right and not ruining your steak.
Plus, with thicker steaks, you often need better pan temp control or the use of an oven to help get it to cook evenly. And that's just an extra layer of hassle that takes time to master as well.
But I concede it can also be a crutch for a relatively easy cooking skill.
Yes, you have to clean the pan. This is precisely why I use a torch to sear my meat. Even with the few times I use a pan, I prefer it because the reduced time on the pan means less oils splattering around my stove top, and I do think that the pan is still an easier clean this way. But that can all be avoided by using a good torch.
I will say though the sous vide does work really well for some things. Batch cooking of chicken breast, venison in nearly any form, and various cuts of pork that you want rare but want to make sure it’s safe to eat.
2. You heat the pan as hot as possible, way hotter than normal, so that you can sear with only 10-20 seconds per side. Some use a torch instead.
Cook a steak, and then put each side in a hot pan for 3-4 minutes?!
I've seen such steaks (I don't have sous vide myself), and they look like the perfect rare done steak. A nice pink shade throughout, with a beautiful crust.
But, what science?
Experimental results: drool
Experiment status: success.
Materials needed: more steak
Timeline: now
Most likely something from The Food Lab when talking about food and science.
I love sous vide for tougher cuts that need a long cook time, but using a sous vide for a ribeye is just pointless.
Your viewpoint is totally valid, though I still encourage people to give it a try for themselves. They don't even need a circulator the first time they do it, although I do think they're worth the money. A lot of restaurants actually sous vide their steaks before searing them, so if someone's sous vide steak is coming out terrible then I suspect something really went wrong in the process. Either not enough salt and seasoning was used(sous vide calls for a lot of salt), or they didn't properly sear the steak.
I think most people mess up on doing it all in a pan due to the fact that they go from at least fridge cold to the pan. Put one on the counter, salt it, cover it and let it sit for an hour or two and most people will be surprised at how well of a steak they can produce in a pan. If one really wants a good crust, leave it salted and uncovered in the fridge to dry for 3 day. It takes a lot of energy to evaporate moisture and you need the moisture out of the surface to brown a steak rapidly.
That being said I use my sous vide machine to bring them to temp as it also does a better job of distributing the salt and garlic I like to use.
It's like anything else, you must invest the time and energy to get the quality. Restaurants simply abstract this away by increasing the cost.
If I'm making a quick soup for the evening; I'll use store-bought stock, if I'm making it for a huge group of friends, I'll put in the time to make my own.
Home made spaetzle is a great, quick noodle (and since I've got Celiac, it's an easy noodle to make GF) that takes about 5 minutes to actually make, 3 minutes to boil, and 5 minutes to brown on the stove top. Using it for Mac-and-Cheese is almost faster than the Kraft stuff.
And with anything that is a learned skill, cooking is slow at first; but as you get better at the basics it speeds up the process. As an example, it used to take me almost 2 hours to change my oil on my car; now I can do it as fast as a shop (~20-30 minutes).
The biggest thing that it all comes down to is time/money tradeoff, if I can convince myself that something is more worth the time it takes to do than the cost of someone else doing it, I can usually make it happen.
It's great for rice, beans, sauce & soup bases. Plus, it doesn't heat up the house in the summer. But I think it's limitations make it a poor suggestion for a novice cook.
I haven't cooked much beef in it that hasn't become part of a stew, but my experience cooking chicken and turkey is that it comes out incredibly juicy and flavorful. Even better if you have the air fryer/convection add on. I've done turkey in it for the past several years for potlucks and family meals and it always gets rave reviews. For beef, part of the appeal was that I could brown it, saute aromatics, and then cook it in the same pot.
Last year I transitioned to 95%~ whole food plant based eating and used it a ton for black beans (I've since switched to low sodium canned black beans just for convenience) and now every 3 days I cook a bunch of peeled potatoes and baby carrots in it for my lunches.
I put in some water, hit the broil button to pre-heat the water and peel my potatoes. By the time I'm done peeling the potatoes and have dumped the baby carrots in the water is boiling and I go ahead and set it to manual for 16 minutes and put the lid on. 20-25 minutes later it beeps and I manually vent the valve and get my meal prep containers out, fill them up, 30-40 seconds to clean the pot and I've got lunch for three days. It's great!
Also reading fiction, though how exactly it helps one is beyond me, but it offers glimpses into other worlds. For example I read recently 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', I doubt its richness of detail, and evocation of place and time, etc can ever be captured in a film or even a miniseries, and on top of it is choc-full of tid-bits of information.
Poetry is play and learning to play with language can open up new worlds. Here is a favorite of mine.
Again by Ross Gay
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92019/again-586e779b0...
This book[1] compares poetry to music. There are many genres and styles of music, and it is likely that you don't like all genres. Enjoying poetry is about trying to find the "genre" of poetry that moves you.
[1] Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems - Stephanie Burt
As with all natural language, production and interpretation of poems is subjective. Poetry is just an attempt to use natural language without the constraints of prose, in order to accomplish things that are not possible with prose.
Some poets may have a goal to convey a particular idea or emotion. Others may just want to create something moves the reader. Still others may not care about the reader at all. All of these things are okay.
But seriously, I think we can all agree that among the literary arts, poetry is the most likely to be accidentally uninterpretable. Due to its cultural context it is also the area where uninterpretability is the most likely to be accepted. This creates an environment where you run a serious risk of developing a culture of meaninglessness.
Some poetry is made to make you laugh like Billy Collins' Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun in the House.
Some poetry is purposefully inscrutable and difficult because the author wants you to work to understand them. A good example of this might be r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r by E.E. Cummings.
Each of these examples is meaningful in its own different way. I think trying to decide what has meaning is hard because you might automatically discard a work of art that is "just for fun". Isn't play meaningful?
I am sure the same applies, to e.g. William Blake.
For me the first piece that spoke to me is When the Frost is on the Punkin by James Whitcomb Riley, that we had to memorize in 7th grade (he's buried here in Indy).
The first line:
>When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
This immediately triggers fall in my brain. The smell of damp hay and decaying leaves. The morning chill and moisture in the air as the frost begins to quickly melt as the sun comes up.
The second line:
>And you hear the kyouck and the gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
If you've ever seen a turkey in person, and heard it start making a fuss, it's a pretty unique sound. They can also be quite flamboyant and arrogant as they strut around a field. I immediately think of that sound, the herky-jerky movements, them posturing to challenge you before they charge.
Later:
>They's somethin kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
>When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here
Those first few days when fall really sets in, when you start to get that frost and the leaves are falling and you have that wonderful musky aroma of their decay, there's something almost magical about it and you just stand there drinking it in. This takes me there.
A bit later:
>But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
>Of a crisp and sunny monring of the airly autumn days
>Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock -
>When the frost is on the punkin and fodder's in the shock.
Again, the smells and chill of that crisp and often damp air with all of those aromas starting to rise as the sun comes up. The beautiful reds and oranges and browns and champagne yellows of the leaves of the changing trees
>The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
There's something about wind blowing through standing corn that is almost ready to harvest, I read this and I hear that, 'rusty russel of the tossels' is a perfect description.
>And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
As the laves have started to fall in great numbers and you traipse through them they do make a rasping sound mixed with this every so slightly wet sound as mositure trapped between them makes them peel and tangle.
>Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
>Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
>And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
I can almost feel that fuzzy, sweet, crisp taste of warm cider lighting my mouth up and warming me.
>With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage, too!
Boom! Always makes me feel the cool air, catch a hint of memory of the smells of fall and want some warm biscuits slathered in apple butter and the wonderful porky-vinegar magic that is souse.
I prefer Tolkein's applicability of art over auteur theory and allegory. A work of Art applies in many different meanings. Allegory and auteur theory exist as a valid interpretation and are too limited to see the whole picture of what art can do. An artist can intend to write a meaningful poem that conveys love and sadness, an audience member can see that as a foolish endeavor. Both are right, when the poem is executed in a manner that provides fuel for both flames.
Especially concerning self-help books: aren’t most of these books written for those who simply don’t have enough courage to listen to their own common sense?
There is room for a minor hypocrisy in your average criticism of high concept fine art that seeks to express an idea that pushes the field forward despite it not being a complete, popular or useful product. Programmers are doing the same all the time in hobby projects and sometimes they blow up to a massive scale, the same in fine art.
Self help books hit multiple marks, it depends how broadly you see common sense. They help keep a very self-focused individual up to date with the culture and provide extra insight into common problems people can have. They can be used by the reader to explore a thought that is related to what is being read. They can be used as a reference point in a relationship. They can be a starting for point for people with psychological issues to begin the climb back up to a healthy state. They provide a window into another person's perspective on the world and that can be entertaining in itself.
This board is highly focused towards a certain set of goals and a certain set of outcomes. There are a bunch of perspectives that get trimmed in the comments, which is inline with the stated objective of this place as a technology incubator. Any derision or negativity to fields that don't have an immediate application in the tech field are going to be given more leniency than other windows into negativity, like flat-earthers, religious comments and lazy criticism of tech from other fields. That's part of what makes HN what it is. Independence in commenting (and content) has become a limited phenomena online.
"Meaning" may be present but is irrelevant if the experience is the same—what evidence do you want? Getting something out of poetry? Many people clearly do, if that's the test.
I would also suggest getting an anthology like 'The Golden Treasury' or Anthony Quiller-Couch or Robert Penn Warren (Six Centuries of British Poetry) or G B Harrison. They are available often in small pocket editions, which one can carry around with one.
When you get past the level of limericks and children's poems level, suddenly you have interpretive choices to make because the precise flow and timing of sounds can work different ways and some work better than others, and as a reader you have to bring an interpretive faculty to these works. When you get to something like John Donne's poetry, you're now deep in "every bit of timing and inflection matters."
For children's poetry to get started, Belloc's 'The Bad Child's Book of Beasts' or the Looking Glass Book of Verse are high quality collections. Then it's worth getting something like a Norton Anthology of Poetry as a way of reading very widely very quickly to find out what appeals to you right now, and explore that further.
Many people recommend the Oxford Book of English Verse. I don't, because I think Quiller-Couch had insipid taste and his editing ranges from the uninspired to the positively atrocious (what he did to John Donne's 'The Ecstasy' is horrid). I have found Garrison Keillor's 'Good Poems' to be particularly approachable, high quality collection of verse. I also suggest Ezra Pound's 'ABCs of Reading', though you shouldn't take what he writes about Chinese as anything other than a metaphor for his topic at hand.
Spend time with Shakespeare, of course. I recommend the Oxford complete works. I do not recommend the Yale complete works. Did my wife and I have a tiff about that? Yes, we did. Was I able to demonstrate by reference to passages that I was right? Yes. Do we only have the Oxford in the house now? Yes.
Robert Frost's complete works are cheaply had and a necessity for someone studying modern poetry. Two or three poems of his are butchered in every school class, and the full range of what he worked on is generally ignored, because it can require a very finely tuned ear to hear and interpret the force that his longer, narrative poems can produce.
But really, once your ear starts to come together, dig through the Norton anthology and use it as pointers to further things to read.
Those of a more Scottish persuasion might prefer Robbie Burns.
It's a collection of epitaphs for the cemetery of a fictional town, and each one basically tells a story. Fiddler Jones[1] and Blind Jack[2] (coincidentally, both about fiddlers) contain a few of my favourite verses in all literature.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_River_Anthology [1] https://www.bartleby.com/84/60.html [2] https://www.bartleby.com/84/74.html
- intense dedication to imagery - his poem Danse Russe, which to me us just about the silly things we do in privacy where no one is around - the fact he was a doctor and churning out an insane quantity of poetry
WCW inspired me to write my own poetry mainly because of that last point. I struggle to describe software engineering in that format, sadly!
It's been around since the early 1900's and has lots of good articles and podcasts, even a poetry magazine.
If you're American, it's nice because it focuses a lot on American and Midwestern poets.
And if you're in the Chicagoland area, it has events and its new headquarters downtown is considered an architectural treat.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv4-yypZ7srAlzk_MQCRaLQ
They'll slowly post the next step of the guide throughout the year. Subscribe and follow along to learn!
1. Cooking causes awe in Dutch people 2. Eating healthy is cheaper that eating out, and easier that many may think.
BTW, you Dutch guys should stop putting butter on everything, eating hagelslag by the ton, and drinking yogurt instead of water. It might be cheap, but terribly unhealthy :).
I have friends who do too but it's not because they don't know how to cook, it's because they don't like to and don't wanna bother and can afford the luxury of having someone else to do it for them.
1. planning meals (may be minimal if you can ad-hoc quickly)
2. walking/driving to the grocery store
3. cooking
4. cleaning
It can easily be more expensive for an individual person (or even a couple) to cook than it is to eat out. (I think this makes intuitive sense too, since there are economies of scale and efficiencies with how restaurants are run.) If you love cooking, then you are doing it for fun---thats great! But I think for people who don't like cooking, it can be rational to eat out for most meals.
Many people are not paid at an hourly rate, so this analysis may not make sense for them.
(Also, where I live, there are plenty of healthy and cheap places to eat out at.)
It doesn't particularly bother me to eat the same thing everyday, but some people absolutely hate it. I am good friends with someone who absolutely refuses to eat leftovers, ever.
Anyways, these people I'm talking about upthread still go to work everyday, do their own laundry, clean their houses, scrub their toilets, do their yardwork, do their taxes, work out regularly, run errands, and probably hundreds of other things that cause minor inconvenience. It's not like they are doing nothing but sitting on the couch poking at their phones.
It's not my kinda thing, personally. Mostly because food in general just isn't at all important to me.
Just seems a bit convenient and masturbatory.
* https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/10/work-its-... * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/05/the-s... * https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-grocery-industry-confronts-a-new... * [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3639863/
Vomiting their ideology upon strangers on the internet and watching youtube (or some other video platform).
Sure, websites and phones save us so much time but there's always another thing to do. If we're not doing something we are wasting time aren't we? The opportunity cost gets higher every time technology becomes more efficient. Some of us aren't even safe from the constant feed in the toilet.
One could argue that struggle is the prerequisite to growth.
A podcast I listen to calls this "ordinary misery" and stresses the need to bring as much of it into our lives as we can stand.
I agree that doing more has plenty of avantage, but is there something specifically about cooking?
Have you ever sew piece of clothes that you regularly wear? Most people never did... yet for something that will be used for hundreds of hours, we pay 20$+ for it instead of taking a few hours to do it. Why are we arguing about cooking ourself but not sewing our own clothes?
Cooking our own food is simply a tradition that stayed with us, nothing else. It doesn't make more sense to do it ourself, than making our own clothes.
You can live without clothes (at least in certain climates) - you can't live without eating.
It's not just tradition, it's more core to our survival.
I mean sustenance and cooking is one of the fundamental activities required to continue living. Defintely ranks higher than any other skill i.e. sewing etc. Although, still quite important to do that as well.
It satisfies those two core urges we all have to some degree.
With respect to the ancestral comment about getting confused looks when refusing to eat with someone, they likely aren't confused because you would eat food you cooked, they are confused because you don't want to spend time with them. Personally, eating out for lunch with my labmates, coworkers, friends, family, etc. is the highlight of my day.
OMG, this was definitely SO true of my grandma when she was alive. She would frequently go gambling and the casino gave her free food and she wouldn't eat it. She'd claim she didn't like it, all of it, couldn't stomach it, not even a bite. So she'd pack a lunch.
It kinda bothered me because as far as I'm concerned if food is free as long as it's not rotten/unsanitary or meat (I'm a vegetarian) and I'm hungry, I'll happily eat it, even if it doesn't taste good.
(The casino's food is/was just fine, btw)
"Just fine" is very low bar, my mom is an excellent chef, to get the same tastiness and attention to detail you have to pay quite a lot of money. Even eating her sandwiches on the go can be better than a high end fast food stall.
I suspect this is because people have a small repertoire of food which is largely designed specifically for their palette. I know that I have a very strong preference for the way I cook foods. But I also can't handle certain foods, notably olives, mushrooms, and raw tomatoes.
> Further on the food front, people who cook seem to be more heavily affected by fasting, or less willing to tolerate it.
This has not been my experience, but N=1 because I'm the only person I know who regularly fasts. I'm fine cooking for others while fasting too.
1. Fast all day out of laziness: no food in the house, in the middle of something, one more thing, etc. etc.
2. Get incredibly hungry all of the sudden
3. Optionally push through for a couple more hours upon which my hunger subsides somewhat
4. Desperately need food, upon which I order out or walk down the street for something
I end up eating 1-2 meals a day, and while many tell me I'm basically doing an awesome job at intermittent fasting, it doesn't feel that way.
I'm trying to cook more.
I think there's nothing wrong with this. (Though of course I'm biased.) The intermittent fasting seems to benefit my concentration and energy, even if the fasting happens to be unintentional and due to distraction or laziness. The only externality is if you end up eating a lot right before sleeping, which tends to impact my sleep and digestion. As long as you avoid that and are getting enough calories and nutrition, I don't see the issue.
I'm working on it
I would assert that most people who eat out regularly have spent some time amount of cooking for themselves (once again anecdotal) and are not just ignorant of the concept of cooking. Their cost calculus weights time, socializing, and mental load greater than their refined taste preferences and the cost saving. I really doubt anyone who is over the age of 20 hasn't cooked a cycle of meals for themselves.
But one day I was watching Gordon Ramsey work with a home cook and the home cook was trying to keep up with Ramsey.
It was amazing because Ramsey kept his whole cooking area so clean and organized, and the home cook's area looked like a tornado passed through. At that point I had an epiphany and started trying to keep organized like Ramsey.
Pretty quickly I became very efficient and clean in the kitchen. This is a skill that takes practice and experience and is as integral to cooking as the actual cooking.
Now I think about the order I do things, the order I use my tools, tool placement, tool cleanup, and surface cleanup as I cook. The result is that very rarely do I have more than a single pan (or two) to wash after cooking, and the kitchen is usually cleaner when the meal is done than when I started.
I put this to the test, last Thanksgiving when I cooked a large meal for 5 people over the course of several hours and when I was done I did not have a single dirty dish (other than those being used for serving/eating) and my dishwasher was empty. It felt good because just a year prior I would have had a destroyed kitchen with a sink full of pots and pans and dirty counters.
I call it "kitchen craft" (like field craft) and if you work to practice it, it gets better every time you cook. And it makes cooking so much easier. For instance, making something like tortillas from scratch used to be a huge endeavor because I'd have such a big mess to cleanup afterword. It seemed daunting. Now I will make tortillas on a whim because I wan't a breakfast burrito and my kitchen will be clean before the pan is even hot enough to cook the tortillas.
I used to cook but stopped years ago. I like having a huge variety of food options on-demand. I like being able to order delivery, do something fun and/or productive while waiting for the food, and then continue as soon as I finish eating. Or I can walk to a restaurant and get some exercise in before and after eating.
I have a small kitchen and a short attention span. I could stockpile it with dozens of fresh ingredients every day and cook from 7 different cuisines every day of the week, but it's much easier if I don't have to do that. Time is the most valuable resource in the universe, and I don't get much enjoyment from cooking, so having the privilege to eat out for every meal has made me a lot happier on average.
I don't buy the argument that removing those sorts of obstacles and inconveniences makes you depressed. Maybe in cases where physical activity is greatly reduced, but that's just a correlation and not a given. If you're self-sustaining and not mooching off of others, I think you should do whatever makes you happy, and if that includes never cooking, cleaning, or driving again, odds are you'll be happier and better-off for it. If you enjoy cooking, go for it, but if you don't and don't have to, why do something that doesn't make you happy and erases a not-insignificant proportion of your entire existence? Life has more than enough hardships and inconveniences to throw at you in other ways.
If I can make double or triple what a maid service charges per hour, it makes no sense to do the lower wage jobs by myself. It’s the same thing with hiring delivery services. Take amazon prime for example..When you can get caught Bay Area traffic for 40-60 mts at a time, it makes no sense to do a milk and bread run. I spend less, waste nothing, save time and eat better because I know exactly what to order and how much.
It reminds me of my childhood back in India when the corner store would deliver provisions and vegetables every weekend even without us ordering because they knew our eating habits. Same with milk man, vegetable vendor, flower girl and even the plumber/electrician who came once in 3 months for a check. There was no contract, no insurance and no order forms. It was small communities making sure there were jobs and income for all within small neighborhoods. They operated as clusters even with one billion people. Compared to that, it’s pure chaos here wrt domestic time management. I really appreciate all the services available these days. I have been american for a few decades and it wasn’t like so earlier.
Example: I grew up in a large joint family. In the family kitchen, everyone had a chore. Often around 20-40 mts time investment each benefited 12 people’s meals. Cooking for myself or even two people is at least one hour. My time is better spent doing other things. I would rather hire a cook.
Otoh, it’s also a timesaver and money saver if we could have a hired a cook to feed 12 people, but the family had seniors, kids, teens and working adults and stay at home moms. It was also a way for our grandmother to teach us family recipes and chores. That was invaluable. We also learnt time management, budgeting and cooking informally. Those are life lessons. Priceless. Now this..As an adult in a nuclear family, it’s a drain on my time. And time is money too. Ditto with driving.
Example: it costs $6.99 for A2 milk from Whole Foods delivered free. $5 tip for $40 worth of deliveries. The cheapest A2 milk in a store is 9.99/three cartons at Costco. That’s one hour shopping+driving plus gas. And I can’t buy in small quantities. I can’t manage groceries on a week to week basis. Net net, the seemingly more expensive option is the cheapest one.
Not including the carbon footprint benefit. One person delivering to ten homes on a route is better than 10 people driving to different stores to pick up milk. Time. The arrow of time goes in only one direction. Can’t reverse time and hence it has become more valuable. Take communal time and communal value for money too.
If I were a mom dropping off my kids at two different schools, that time shopping and driving for milk runs is better spent as quality time with my kids. Even if it’s pure comfort factor. Kicking back and watching a movie is totally worth the money. It’s hedonism at a very small price. Discomfort is not a virtue nor is it a teachable moment.
There is a quality I’d like to call ‘slack’. It’s the stress adjustment factor. If your inner space is taut and always stretched end to end, it would snap. Makes you inflexible. Frayed. No ‘give’ to personality. That has a huge impact..esp with relationships even if it’s with yourself. Slack makes it better. Let’s you live longer and better without snapping. Avoiding discomfort is a survival skill.
Having said that, discomfort is essential to children. It is an experience and a teachable skill. Interestingly, I have been observing that we pad our younger generation’s life and make them soft by catering to their every need while parents fray and become brittle. When the kids grow up, they are never going to understand ‘discomfort’ and when it becomes unavoidable (as it goes in life) and unable to adjust, they are going to break down.
Adults need to embrace slack and pass on discomfort to the next generation. They have rightly been dubbed entitled. And we are no longer children and our time in discomfort training camp is over.
Sure, but for my situation it works out that by cooking the majority of the time I'll be able to retire 1-2 years earlier.
Save $10 a day on food most days ~= $3000/year, over 20 years ~= $60k.
I also enjoy eating out more as it is more of 'treat' (and less of a chore to some extent).
I've come to a point where I can whip up a recipe and improvise some, but that's after years of following recipes, experimenting and eating a fair share of disappointing meals.
Learn the fundamentals. Binging With Babish on YouTube is an excellent show to learn with its Basics With Babish series.
There are methods to help. Over cooking vs undercooking is because of guesswork. Remove that by buying an Instant Read thermometer. Over and under season? Taste as you go, add more seasoning if it needs it.
Also, make sure you find a consistently good recipe. Allrecipes is a crapshoot even though it's consistently a top Google search. Another poster mentioned Kenji Lopez who tests the crap out of his recipes. I'd also recommend Alton Brown having solid but accessible recipes. America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated and Bon Apetit for when you're getting more advanced. More beginner friendly stuff like Budget Bytes tends to be less flavorful, but typically simple enough and cheap enough you don't feel bad screwing up.
Basics with Babish is decent, at least the early episodes, for helping explain and visualize some of the basic skills.
But again, it's a skill that requires practice. I've been cooking consistently for years and I still can't spin up a recipe from memory or by feel. I mostly rely on trusted recipes and maybe do my own riff if I've done something similar before.
Also, can’t more highly recommend reading anything by Kenji Alt Lopez. A google of nearly any food you want to cook plus “kenji” will lead you to accurate, well explained, scientific based approach to cooking it. Or just pick up a copy of the Food Lab.
https://shop.americastestkitchen.com/special-issues/cook-s-i...
My only complaint is sometimes they are way more steps and more exspensive sets of ingredients than other recipes. But often it's worth it for vastly superior results.
That's why I liked Serious Eat's Food Lab where Kenji also breaks stuff down but in an accessible set of recipes. Similar to Alton Brown's Good Eats, also a great resource if you like understanding the chemistry going on in your cooking!
A lot of recipes you find online are really guestimates on the amounts, so you never get the same result as the author. People are very bad about guestimating volumes, like "about 2 tablespoons of oil" when they really used half a cup.
Or high-heat nonstick cooking with like one teaspoon of oil in the pan, heating it to nigh-smoke before adding anything else. LOL. Or steel or cast-iron temp + fat combos that make no sense and are guaranteed to give you a bad time. Either lots and lots of recipes are nonsense on this front, requiring modification of one form or another to be reasonable, or these people have magical pans that I do not.
You're learning after-all, and learning while hungry is not a good combination. If you burn the food and then have to eat it, you're going to have a bad time, negative reinforcement, etc. Order something else, like pizza, munch on that as you learn this new skill of cooking.
Cook with stuff you like! That way even if you screw it up you're left with stuff you mostly don't mind. Can't count the number of times I've screwed up meat sauce, and ended up eating a pound of meaty-tomato slop that tasted just fine albeit wasn't recognizable as any type of dish.
Also go easy on yourself. Recognize that this is a whole skill set that people spend their whole lives cultivating (just like software). You'll start to develop an intuition.
Make sure you have the right equipment you need too. I probably spent two years thinking I couldn't make eggs, turns out my pan was warped.
As for overcook / undercook as other have suggested, get a good stick thermometer and use it religiously. I have cooked since I was 8 years old in a family of excellent cooks and went to culinary school and to this day I still use a thermometer.
Take 2-3 hours on Sundays and cook some food. It's not hard.
Maybe if you're scraping the bottom of the barrel in ingredient quality and buying a lot of rice and beans.
- Add salt/pepper/spices by hand if you can. Shakers/larger-volume canisters lead to over-application, but it's so easy to grab a little bit of salt, apply, taste, and do it over again until you hit the right mark
- Learn how to cook in a single pot - stews/soups/etc. Saves on cleaning, and broths packed full of nutrients
- Use a crock-pot/slow-cooker. Dead simple, very low risk, produces significant quantities of food
- Learn about portion sizing. So much of over or under cooking is applying the same technique and timing to two different quantities of food. 16 oz of steak cooks differently than 8, same for veggies. Buying the right portions consistently solves so many problems
- Given the point above, learn about an oven -- convection vs. radiant heat. Convection cooking is fast, easy, and awesome.
- Learn how to store stuff properly. You'll spend a fortune if you regularly trap your veggies in air-tight containers. Many of them don't need and are worse-off in those containers. Learn what stuff should be near or away from other vegetables. Good example: if you put your avocados and tomatoes next to your cucumbers, kiss the latter good-bye -- they'll go bad way faster due to the gas emitted by the two others
- Finally, it goes without saying -- not everyone likes what you do, so it's ok if your most exquisite dish doesn't go over perfectly with everyone.
Was not aware of the differences in veggie storage. You do have a lot more seasoning control not in a shaker and that's how it is done in a professor kitchen. Thanks!
Overall, there can be nuance in all of these things, but you don't need to stress yourself with that nuance in so many cases.
Restaurant chefs have known about 'mise en place' for years. Cutting and measuring most of your ingredients before cooking makes cooking simple and easy. Yeah, there are more dishes to wash, but it makes up for the eventual headaches.
But I hear you on the burning. I've burnt plenty of things in my time. I think any cook worth their salt has. Story time: an executive chef I once worked for had a keychain that looked like a pewter ingot. She said one evening as they were finishing their shift, they thought they could leave a 30 gallon pot over very low heat to make a reduction over night. When they arrived in the morning, the pot had mostly melted and the stove was on fire. Her keychain was part of the melted pot, her reminder to never do that again. Live and learn (and hopefully don't burn the house down)!
Baking is like quantum physics.
So much less packaging.
I spend less on more food and what I eat is largely organic, pasture raised, grass fed and often from local farms.
And I really enjoy cooking, so that probably helps. I love using my hands, and I usually don’t have any music on so I have a lot of nice time to think while I’m cooking.
Plus the people around me love eating delicious morsels I produce and I occasionally get a rain of compliments.
Sometimes I follow recipes, sometimes I do my own thing, and sometimes it’s a mix.
Keeps me on my feet, and dextrous, even going to the store is a bit of exercise since I walk there.
All in all, a wonderful part of my average day and week usually.
Now "home made pasta" starts with flour and eggs.
As for economy, you will find it once you've built up a good stock of spices and non-perishables and begin to optimize things by--for example--making chicken stock from the bones of that bird you roasted for dinner, or freezing the extra tomato paste from the can that you used 1/3 of.
This is coming from a guy who spent the first 15 years of his tech career eating out every single meal before meeting a girl, getting married, and then eating 6 of 7 weekly dinners at home.
That said, I eat out 80%+ of the time. Because I’m lazy.
For context, I studied in the US and moved to London for work right after graduation.
However, when I'm in a relationship, we tend to cook a lot more. The economics works out better, lower incremental cost of 2 vs 1 at home but double the cost (nearly) eating out. Also with 2 people cooking / cleaning, the time it takes for 1 person reduces quite a bit.
Advantage of stew / curry is they can be frozen and later thawed and reheated. Over time though it got really monotonous for me. I like good food, and importantly variety.
Feels like there is some opportunity here. A way to scale home cooking for a bunch of individuals. Like if a few people in close proximity, say in the same apartment complex, rotated responsibilities for cooking. You can get bulk savings, time savings and variety.
— Mise en place (Get everything you need prepped)
— Clean as you cook
Get a bunch of small glass dishes and get all the ingredients you need measured, chopped and placed into those dishes. This will make combining them effortless when cooking.
If you've done prep, you'll have some down time while cooking. As you finish using pans and utensils wash them and put them away. By the time you're done cooking you'll also be almost done cleaning—save the pan that needs to soak a bit in the sink.
I use stainless steel mixing bowls, lighter and cheaper than glass and they stack really well. A large cutting board (24x18) helps you work clean.
But curious about any other approaches to "No look" you have!
Toss the cast iron and stainless steel skillets and buy nonstick skillets, cheap or expensive. When they wear out, replace them.
I've gone through more than two sets of cast iron cookware trying to "season" them properly. "Seasoning cast iron" never works, either consistently or well. It is little more than marketing horseshit the iron cookware industry feeds to foodies who cannot resist the perfect skillet they imagine exists on the far side of the hill.
Tangential anecdote: For a few years in college I had a single cast iron skillet as my only pot or pan. It's all you need to make tacos, soup, noodles, bread, shepherds pie, or a host of other things. Being deep enough to hold a few servings of food for a couple people and being able to go in the oven go a long ways toward its versatility.
Blasphemy! (As someone raised in the southern US)
In all seriousness, the biggest difference I've found in properly keeping up cast iron is using the right cleaning method.
Water. Or just a bit of highly-diluted dish soap.
I know there's ways to do proper coating (oven clean, etc), but most of the time I just hot fire mine on a gas burner with some oil. Works fine.
Also, there's no way in hell I'd cook cast iron on an electric top. (though I don't have experience with induction)
And finally... cook things with more fat. Bacon in the pan frequently goes a long way towards making it happy.
I ditched my (expensive) non-stick pans two years ago and bought a decent stainless steel pan and a cast iron pan (since then I've also upgraded to SS stockpots and sauce pans).
This was the best thing I've done in the kitchen. My cast iron pan is the best pan I've ever used and is as non-stick as any "non-stick" pan I have used. I cook pancakes, omelets, and fried eggs without any sticking and minimal oil. It is may daily cooker.
My stainless is okay for things like omelets and fried eggs but it takes more skill and understanding of the pan and I still sometimes end up with lots of sticking. But for things like meats, pan sauces, or grilled cheeses I love it.
My advice to any home-cook is to ditch the non-stick pans, buy a cheap 12" cast-iron pan, and a decent SS pan and watch a few videos about using them (e.g., SS pans needs to be heated to the point where the Leidenfrost effect occurs). These two things can transform your cooking and open a world of high-temp searing, pan sauces, and stainless steel tools (I can't stand using plastic spatulas any more, like when I use my teflon coated griddle).
Also, keep Barkeepers Friend on hand for cleaning SS pans (otherwise life is hard)
I am surprised BlueApron isn't doing well as they taught me how to cook, what to get, in a relatively simple instructions.
Once you know how to cook, you don't really need the training wheels any more, and the cost of their overhead is just that: extra cost.
I have a hard time imagining them beating grocery stores / delivery long-term.
Maybe if they get enough customers to get economies of scale so large they can offer meals cheaper than grocery stores, despite their extra overhead (meal planning, recipe development, and software maintenance come to mind immediately).
Cooking edible food is easy for most people, they are either lazy or like me sometimes where their appetite is gone. Following recipes is more bothersome than you think for a lot of folks, programmers don't find it that bad given they are used to reading monotone instructions.
I was actually thinking about opening an online food service for people with diabetes/weight problems/specific goals where you can get good food delivered to your home. The recipes aren't that different for someone doing keto and suffering with diabetes type 2. They can generally be combined for example.
Finding ingredients for a keto low carb diet is hard if you are vegetarian/vegan and there is ton of problematic information out there. Recipes are not clear, it won't taste good and frankly speaking, it is expensive if you get the ingredients in low quantity due to the demand.
People need a dietician + food without jumping through many hoops. That way, More people can be healthy.
It was also boring (for me) in that in order to save time and money I'd end up having to make a larger portion of one thing and then eat the same thing all week.
If I'd eat out every day both lunch and dinner I'm going to pay roughly $800/month compared to my usual $300/month for groceries.
I get home around 6:30 and go to the gym in my apt until around 7:30, then after I've showered and had my protein shake it's now 8:00 and I'm tired. Prep to eating to cleaning up can take an hour or more for me, and I try to go to bed around 10 if I can to wake up for the next day at 6. If I have to go to the grocery store that can take another hour out of my free time after work. Morale is low, freetime for hobbies are low, and the only way to maximize this time without cutting into fitness or sleep is to go with a premade meal from trader joes and be done with it.
Homecooked meals made a lot of sense when you showed up at home at 5:30 with that pot roast your wife started at 2:30 steaming and plated for you on the table, but that's not the world we live in anymore.
Be careful... my wife gave me a drill one year and I’ve since renovated two houses and now have a small fortune in tools.
If you don’t have a garage, basement or backyard for it, your local community college might have a “maker lab” with all sorts of high end woodworking, metal working, laser cutters and 3D printers...along with meetups and evening classes to boot.
However, once I owned a house and had to do renovating/updating, I ultimately found it frustrating.
Some jobs are incredibly frustrating if you don't have the exact tool to make it easier.
The likelihood the angles and geometry of your home are square is, IME, near 0. Even measuring and re-measuring multiple times, I end up with a lot of wasted, mis-cut material.
YMMV, but I always found when you add up the time spent and material cost, it's nearly a wash to just pay someone else to do it.
I would agree that often projects to fix up your home can be more frustrating than satisfying, unless, like you said, you have the right tools and some prior experience.
Building things that sit in your home (furniture) is likely a bit less frustrating & rewarding, even without the perfect tools and experience.
Start small and work your way up. Make a cutting board, fast forward a couple of years and you'll be building cabinets. Fast forward from that and you'll be shaving backs on a Windsor chair.
In my experience, the only way to do less of that in the future is to do more of it now.
I dunno. For some tasks the time it takes to find somebody else to do it, be available to let the person in/out, and settle payment is much larger than doing it yourself; the lead time is orders of magnitude larger, and doing it yourself gets the bonus that you can do it whenever is best for you, instead of negotiating your agenda with a busy person.
By the time I message 3 electricians, coordinate to let them in the house, get a bid and have someone do the job, and finally get it done, I could've just youtubed and googled my way to doing it myself. Maybe I have to pick up a tool or two along the way but eventually you reach an inflection point where you have the tools you need for multiple jobs. I think the biggest tool purchases I've made in the last 18 months are a brad nailer, a finish nailer, and a 4 ft level.
This is true...it might be square on one plane and off on the other. That's what the 6 foot long levels are for by the way. It's good to find someone who has the tools and expertise to apprentice from -- either at a local cc or just hire them and ask if you can do some of the work. I went through several contractors before I found the guy I like to work with...I guess its the same in everything...but once you figure stuff out like that blasted little semi-hidden copper pin that's between you and a replacement shower valve, a lot of cost savings can be realized. The first time I replaced that thing, the plumber charged me $270. The second time I replaced it, I paid $19 for a part at home depot and did the rest myself.
The other thing is I can't find good plans. If I have a plan to follow, it makes all the difference, I don't know enough to figure it out as I go. Like right now, I've been wanting to build a pool stick holder. Probably one that is on the ground, not attached to the wall. Even the sites I look at that have plans you pay for, they don't seem that helpful.
It's like coding...in the beginning, yes, its useful to modify someone else's similar project as you learn, but after awhile, its much easier and more engaging to start with a blank sheet and just start typing.
Started with a 3D printer for me, then a membership to Techshop. Few years later I have a garage filled with woodworking / metalworking, diy cnc machines, laser cutter, welding, and automotive tools. It’s a slippery slope.
How is this a skill?
I think most people fall into a Passive Listening model when getting into symphonic or chamber music. The book suggested above would certainly push an average listener closer to an 'active' model.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-think-about-exer...
I agree. It's funny how when I was young I would only listen to one type of music, like it was some kind of tribal loyalty. Now I listen to all kinds of things, and I've learned to hear the difference between really good music and stuff that's just manufactured for corporations.
(Ironically, what got me to expand my musical horizons was Apple's corporate promotion, back when you used to get a free iTune each the week on the iTunes store, by picking up a card in Starbucks, or buying a bottle of Pepsi from the vending machine at work.)
Getting back to classical, I also recommend apps for KDFC/San Francisco, KING-FM/Seattle, RTBF Musiq'3/Brussels, RTHK4/Hong Kong, and RTÉ LyricFM (Dublin?). I used to be a WQXR/New York fan, but it lost its way after the New York Times sold it. I've heard good things about WRR/Dallas, but haven't tried it yet.
KING-FM-HD2 is awesome background brain lubricant when you're working on something hard and mathematical.
If anyone else has any favorite classical stations, please reply.
My bookmark straight to the music streamer page is below uBlock a few of the banner ads and you are set.
All of the above, I find cooking is an incredible skill that many people underestimate greatly.
Here are the things that I do for my cooking for every week or every two weeks.
+ 30-45 minutes grocery shopping including driving.
+ 30-60 minutes per day to cook daily dinner and prepare breakfast.
+ 10-15 minutes to clean up.
And what I think it solves/helps/improve our family daily life:
+ Food quality is definitely way better than outside. We have good amount of vegetable, fruits, fresh meat/fish/poultry and other dairy products.
+ Lots of time saving for not going out, spending time waiting, driving, moving the whole family around.
+ The cost is very low, probably around 1/3 of eating out.
We do spend a day or two to eat out or eat carry-out food.
While this takes time (months/years) to get a good skill at cooking and minimizing the time, this is so far one of the best skills I have had and I do think people should invest in it.
https://chrissnell.com/cookbook/womc.pdf
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. For newcomers to the book, I highly recommend the cheese enchiladas recipe and the anticuchos recipe. Anticuchos are not authentic Tex-Mex but they are very much tied to San Antonio and that recipe is probably the best in the book if you make it with good quality steak.
- Learn an instrument. Just for fun. You don't have to play in an orchestra or a band.
I came to this thread expecting it to be about tech skills, glad to see this comment at the top. Overall, I'm more grounded and happier for it (and less depressed).
I use manual cameras, or digital cameras in manual mode / with manual lenses because that's how I learned photography in 1990's
I like to cook, 95% of our meals are home made, I can prepare a whole week worth of meals in abut 3 hours, including cleaning. I usually just improvise, my wife says I can make a delicious meal out of an empty fridge...
Yet music somehow eludes me - and it is THE thing I have always wanted to be proficient at way more than any of the above. I just don't have any idea how to approach it. Let's say I get a musical instrument - be it a piano (keyboard), a guitar, saxophone or percussion. What's next? Practice the notes until I'm "touch-typing" them? Then try to mix and match? Try to play some sheet music or repeat what I've heard before by brute-forcing? I am actually able to re-create a simple melody by trying the keys on a toy keyboard, but in all the other areas (woodworking, cooking, photography) I went almost straight to improvisation - which I enjoy the most - and I have the feeling that in music there is some set of basic skills required to unlock this, yet I don't know what it entails. Woodworking is all about hiding the imperfections, photography is about selecting the best shots / being prepared for lucky timing, and an imperfect meal can be (usually) fixed with herbs/spices/salt. Music is either spot on, or too far off to be tolerable - am I missing some middle ground opportunity here?
but most importantly, play songs you like! sing along! play around with the lyrics! whatever!
> Build something.
Build something that the world actually needs. Something where you're using your unique skills and privilege to help improve the world a bit - help others who are a few rungs below you.
Have a plan for how you're going to do the most good you can with the time you have left. Helping others (humans and sentient non-humans) is the best path to long-term happiness in my opinion.
If woodworking or car repair isn't your jam, volunteer to help the needy. Or if you like the stage join a drama club or comedy club or whatever else you can do to enrich other people's lives.
When I try and cook new dishes, I do it by theme. The theme can be:
* Ingredients (eggs, poultry, grains, tomatoes)
* Courses (breakfast [eggs, pancakes from scratch], dinner, desserts [flan, custard]
* Execution (baking, sauté, oven)
* Cuisine (Mexican, Thai, French, Puertorican)
You will easily overlap the themes the more you cook, the themes are a starting point.
Two of my favorite books that the audience here might appreciate are The Food lab[0] and Cooking for Geeks[1].
* [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science-eboo...
* [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Geeks-Science-Great-Hacks/dp/...
I’m not doing too badly by this list and I’m relatively happy.
What are you guys eating if you're not already cooking/eating leftovers 4+ nights a week? This is absolutely mind boggling to me... I eat out maybe 1-3 times per month, I don't think I would even want to go out more than that.
Are people actually eating out 3 or more times a week? I'm convinced that you aren't actually saving that much time vs cooking.
I cook for three and that's generally in the 10 minutes prep, 20-45 minutes cooking, 15+ minutes cleaning. And that's dinner. It adds up. Eating truly fast food takes 5-15 minutes.
If fast food were reliably better for you I think it would be a wash. Financially I used to order out in NYC and get two+ days meals out of a single Indian seamless order for $30 and no cooking time.
The compromise, I think, is cooking a meal 2x quantity and freezing half for a week, but then you get into some very tiresome food routines.
It also open the doors to so many other genres as well that you might not appreciate as much than when you enjoy classical.
Post-rock is mostly instrumental and some bands uses classical instruments to complement the guitar, bass and drum. It's an interesting mix
an example from a recent album I listened this week: https://besides.bandcamp.com/track/ich-bin-wieder-da-2
An example from literally yesterday. Over the past few months, I struggled with medial knee pain that was limiting my ability to walk up stairs and do other activities (see other list of goals from above). I had a bunch of observations (pain only when going up stairs, pain goes away oddly enough when running up stairs, clicking noise in knee before onset of pain) but I hadn't spent time trying to root cause it.
I had done a bunch of Google searches but to no avail (with scary things like surgery showing up on the list). But then of all things the YouTube algorithm came to the rescue and recommended this: [1]. Turns out it was a weak Gluteus Medius that allowed my femur to rotate medially which in turn caused the kneecap to track in an unnatural way. Once I knew this, I "fixed" it in a day. But it won't stay "fixed" unless I focus on strengthening that muscle.
Figure out what you need to do to provide you with sufficient functional strength, focus on root causing pain and then addressing it. Don't ignore the foundations of your body.
Plus rock climbing is fun and mentally challenging, like chess with your body.
It's a true full-body workout (including the brain).
Every single ailment that I've had that is not an injury disappeared when I got into shape (and read Sarnos book).
Sarno's argument is essentially that emotional distress (mainly, rage) manifests itself in the body through TMS (tension myositis syndrome), and that depending on the person this expresses itself as a number of different ailments (sciatica, back and neck pain, migraines) with the same underlying cause (stress that results in decreased blood flow and oxygen deprivation which cause pain in the related area).
You know the picture. Spent tons of time playing video game and works in an office since forever. I can't afford physical therapy, but working out + good posture makes the pain goes away "magically".
I say "magically" because I am not doing anything to target it, just go to the gym and literally do whatever for 30-40 minutes every other day.
I realize what an elitist knob this makes me sound like but I decry all of this because I've been there before and made the same mistakes. I like your example because you mention a specific issue you had that you then went on to fix. I know of many who train this way when they have no ailments whatsoever.
I ended up having multiple bulging discs from C5-C7, a severe disc herniation in T8-T9 (which happened mid workout, very painful), L4-S1 herniations and L4-L5 breaking away chunks of my vertebrae. I eventually had to get emergency surgery on C5-C7 due to the narrowing of spinal cord.
I still "work out" with resistance bands, but I'm never allowed to properly lift weights again thanks to my foolishness. It's horribly depressing and I don't wish this on anybody.
Moral of the story is you might be just fine and have the skeletal structure to support lifting, or it could be a ticking time bomb like in my case. Lifting goals should carry disclaimers about the possible dangers.
I hope the recovery is going smoothly now at least :/
I did dead-lifts several years prior to the injuries and stopped those when I had a funny "clammy skin" sensation in one of my arms; it freaked me out a little and I hated deadlifts anyway so I always thought it was just my excuse not to do them, but in retrospect I think that was probably a wise decision.
Not saying there is nothing wrong with having lifting goals either. But there are definitely diminishing returns to your health in regards to the amount/intensity of your exercise routine for sure.
So I really think if you are an athlete/ex-athlete and you really know how to train - go for it. My main goal was not to have a back pain ever again.
Swimming/soccer/tennis are other sports I'd put in the category of aesthetically pleasing.
This means doing your best to make the most of the first part of the day: arise early and jump into doing the most important tasks of the day. Practice good habits. Then, as the day expands and becomes less in your control, you've 'won' the morning.
I use 'win the morning!' almost as a mantra, and just that single, simple idea been life-changing.
I guess what I'm saying is, I feel like if you put the right spin on almost any series of morning activities you can call it winning the morning. So it's not very prescriptive advice that I can use to be more productive. It's almost a tautology - to be more productive, start your day by being productive.
And if going to the gym in the morning makes the rest of your day productive by providing you with lots of energy and a clear head, then yes, going to the gym is the most important and productive for you to do in the AM.
You might like this newsletter/podcast: dailystoic.com
the quote from hemmingway "write drunk, edit sober" comes to mind, if you replace drunk with tired
"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."
- not Mark Twain.
Setting a central focus for the morning, and working to accomplish it before noon is critical. If I cannot finish whatever it is, I usually become so incensed that that drive lasts me the rest of the afternoon.
...and I track every day in my Google Docs journal. I lay out the thing I want to accomplish that day, and then just break it out to the steps needed to accomplish it before the day gets filled with distractions.
It turns out, this simple journal is the one habit I've that's lasted more than a year - it's become invaluable. of all the GTD, Pomodoros, Google tasks, etc... ...all I ever needed was a list in a doc that was broken into dated sections.
Squat and deadlift.
Eating healthier.
Doing something kind for someone else every day.
Honesty.
Listening to people you disagree with.
Driving safer (this is the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis).
Meditation.
Start with "Fix Rounded Shoulders" and "Fix Anterior Pelvic Tilt" if you have not already done so. Plenty of great advice on YouTube on those topics.
There are also more economical options like small group training classes.
Deadlifting (and squatting) is arguably the most important full body exercise you can do, and the staple of every single marvel super hero body transformation, but the risk threshold is fairly high for a beginner.
If you want to stretch, try ROMWOD. A bit intense but likely the most impactful in terms of results.
Doing movements like deadlifts for reps (when fatigued!!) is a recipe for disaster.
Doing yoga (yeah, I know) has fixed my hip flexor issues and got my lower body lifts to near PR levels again.
Rippletoe teaches low-bar squats (because of reasons), most people do high-bar squats.
Isn't that part of "acquiring" the skill; learning to do it?
Detailed workout guides and clear, simple visuals of proper form on hundreds of exercises.
It's odd to me you picked deadlift to call out as dangerous.
The deadlift is certainly dangerous, but only in the sense that almost any large lift is dangerous for the untrained. But in my experience, the deadlift is a very natural motion for me and most people who I've seen get into lifting heavy. Fixing people's natural instincts is usually just pointing out a few cues--if you look up deadlift workshops most are are only an hour long. And if you are lifting too much weight, you just drop it.
The squat is a much more complicated motion: squat workshops are usaully full-day events, and the ways it breaks down tends to change as you add weight, so just getting the form is a long-term process. It's also a more dangerous lift if you have too much weight because you're under the bar.
1. Hunching your back. This can cause slipped discs and some muscle issues.
2. Trying to controlled-lower the bar to the ground. Contrary to the policies of a lot of gyms, you should get to the top of your deadlift and basically drop: you might keep your hands on it to keep it from rolling away after it reaches the ground, but you definitely don't want to try to slow it down as you lower. If this is too loud for you, use bumper plates or a deadlift platform. This is pretty much guaranteed to cause you severe soreness and tightness as you go up in weight, which will likely clue you in that you are doing something wrong, but if you persist or jump right up to too high a weight, you can tear muscles or ligaments.
Both of these can cause pretty serious long-term injuries. But they're also both pretty easy to fix.
Sumo deadlifts are easy enough for a novice and are relatively lower impact. Form strictness is less of an issue for most people with these, and are a good starting point for deads.
If you read in depth on the subject, most people are saying it can fall pretty fast: controlling the bar seems to be mostly directed at making sure it takes a straight line down and doesn't hit your knees.
However, some people are saying that they lower it slower to get more work per rep.
All I will say is that my personal experience is that trying to over-control the lower has caused issues for me, and a few other people I've known who deadlifted, and these were always fixed by the cue, "Just keep your hands on it and otherwise let it drop."
And the flipside is definitely clear: if you watch any high-level deadlift competitions, tons of competitors will just completely let go of the bar, and I'm not aware of any injuries caused by doing this.
That said, I'd love to see actual data, as the only information I have found here (including my own) is just appeals to authority.
Exactly! I, personally, would not do ANY heavy lifts when starting out.
Lot's of great exercises with near-zero risk of injury available. Why start with something that might wreck your spine?
Yes, they're not really a beginner exercise
> "Fix Rounded Shoulders" and "Fix Anterior Pelvic Tilt"
Build strength bit by bit instead of follow every Athlean-X nitpick ;)
This is just false. Sure, the untrained should get some instruction on proper form, and start with manageable weights, as with any exercise. But deadlifting is the least dangerous of the power lifts, and far less dangerous than half the activities in the average WOD.
> Start with "Fix Rounded Shoulders" and "Fix Anterior Pelvic Tilt"
Definitely don't. These are non-scientific maladies invented by fitness personalities to convince you to pay for their specialized expertise to fix your particular biomechanical imperfections. You don't need perfect posture as a prerequisite to benefiting from deadlifting, or any kind of exercise. If you're physically capable of doing the movement, even if your version of the movement is imperfect and not adhering to the mechanical ideal, you're able to benefit from it.
If you can perform a full burpee (from standing to the floor) then the benefits are huge. You can also scale and go from standing to plank position or use a swimming pool (stand in the pool near the edge, jump onto the ledge and then back into the pool and go into squat position underwater).
You will be getting a shitload of hypertrophy with all this bodyweight exercising though so you'll look shredded if your body fat is low.
Squats easy for you? Try pistol squats.
For a year I've been exercising in my backyard with a podcast in my ears, maybe during a group phonecall for work, while thinking between programming sessions, etc.
Now I realize that 100% of these people are full of shit. I got jacked. Whenever I've mentioned this to someone, they'll say something like, yeah but you can't get as big as $bodyBuilder, like Ronnie Coleman.
The truth is I think very few people have actually tried a serious daily bodyweight regimen. Most people don't have a reason to try, they just go to the gym if they want a daily workout. And then we, including myself, have the human tendency to regurgitate ideas we've heard from others rather than from personal experience.
This is why I chose resistance training - the gym is on my way to work and I am willing to spare about an hour and a half daily to fitness. My research indicated I'll get better results with that time at the gym lifting weights than body weight training.
It can also be less efficient though in the sense that it can sometimes require a pretty big jump in both strength and technique to go from one progression to the next, so you can get stuck for awhile. With weights you can of course just keep adding a little bit more. But the plus side of this for bodyweight training is that apart from just strength, you also get improvements in muscular coordination, balance, flexibility, and body awareness.
You don't really have to choose though--you can do both! They complement each other quite well.
But anyway, what does that have to do with comparing burpees to squats/push ups? :)
One arm push ups are way harder than normal ones. It's not something I've tried working on yet myself, but I think you build up by doing things like archer push ups with the other arm assisting less and less until you don't need it anymore.
Neither is kindness. (And forced kindness can be patronizing.)
It's also worth learning how to do well.
I can see why you would think this. Lying successfully ultimately takes more work than being honest. Being honest is like swinging a golf club or tennis racket correctly. It feels awkward and unnatural at first, but eventually gets easier. Honesty definitely is a skill, though.
Or maybe specifically giving honest feedback to others.
It's a skill to be honest faster, and with less hesitation. The faster you can be honest, the more benefits you reap from it.
Kindness is similar. You want to be kinder faster, with less hesitation.
Otherwise, it will feel forced.
Nonsense. The skill of honesty is fighting your instinct to lie. If you actually try to always be honest, you'll discover that it's not as easy as you are claiming.
> Neither is kindness. (And forced kindness can be patronizing.)
Well, let me ask you, when you decided to leave a comment, did you make that decision with kindness in mind? :)
- Board game/trivia group at your local bar
- Join Toastmasters
That’s a great low risk drill to get started. It’s low risk because it works and you’re in an environment where respectful interruptions like that are acceptable. Good luck and if you get stuck, feel free to reach out.
Also, if you're a guest of the host of a party, you can approach people and just ask "So, how do you know $host?" Perhaps these are both effective conversation starts or questions because they begin with "how" as opposed to a who/what/when sort of question.
- Start conversion with something you notice about the other person, the event, the surroundings ("the color of your watch matches with your sweater - stylish!", "is this stuff boring or is it just me?", "you know why they put that thing over there?")
- Topics: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams
- Repeat the last few words of the other person and look asking. The person will continue the subject s/he's talking about
- Connect and imagine the other guy. "I am a writer" - "A writer! I always wanted to be one but always stop after one page of writing. I imagine you must be very disciplined"
- Avoid RAPE (Religion, Abortion, Politics, Economics)
- You can always say nothing and just stay there. Often the other person picks up the conversation once you're past a few minutes.
- Try looking people into the eye while walking around, and force yourself to not look away. This is a nice training for looking strangers in to the eye in a cold approach. Once you got that, talking to strangers becomes much less intimidating.
- Eventually people will ask you what you do for work / or what you did today. Have something ready that sounds interesting.
...why is this guy randomly talking to me? Are they selling something?
> - Start conversion with something you notice about the other person, the event, the surroundings ("the color of your watch matches with your sweater - stylish!", "is this stuff boring or is it just me?", "you know why they put that thing over there?")
...oh god, this is boring...
> - Topics: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams
...this is wildly veering _super_ boring and way too personal.
> Repeat the last few words of the other person and look asking. The person will continue the subject s/he's talking about
...okay, they're not selling me anything, they're an axe murderer.
> Connect and imagine the other guy. "I am a writer" - "A writer! I always wanted to be one but always stop after one page of writing. I imagine you must be very disciplined"
...at least they seem sloppy, maybe if I leave the venue quietly they'll forget I was there.
> Avoid RAPE (Religion, Abortion, Politics, Economics)
1. Avoids topic that involve materialised ethics. 2. Uses _rape_ as a funny acronym.
More evidence of axe murdering tendencies.
> You can always say nothing and just stay there. Often the other person picks up the conversation once you're past a few minutes.
...I don't think standing silently in the corner and staring is going to diminish the axe murderer impression you just made.
> Try looking people into the eye while walking around, and force yourself to not look away. This is a nice training for looking strangers in to the eye in a cold approach. Once you got that, talking to strangers becomes much less intimidating.
...what did I just say about staring? Because now you're _staring people right in the eye and not looking back_. Fun thing you learn early as you learn masking autism, people _way_ overrate looking others in the eyes.
> Eventually people will ask you what you do for work / or what you did today. Have something ready that sounds interesting.
"I kill people. With an axe and/or facial recognition."
You're not going to befriend everyone you talk to, but you're not going to befriend anyone you don't talk to.
Oh, for sure, I'm not saying this approach won't work for you. I'm saying that if you're using that approach you're being using strategies designed mostly by abusers, that are inherently abusive (now, whether you are an abuser depends on whether you realise that and whether you stick to it after realising that), and that you _shouldn't do that_.
> You're not going to befriend everyone you talk to, but you're not going to befriend anyone you don't talk to.
I don't have to try and befriend everyone I meet. There are social contexts specifically designed for making new friendships, and quite helpfully they usually also provide a framework for approaching new people. And between meetup.com, OkCupid, interest-specific subreddits, Discords and Twitter, it's easier than ever to find should spaces that are tailored to however specific your social needs are. There's zero excuse for cold approach.
DM me if you'd like someone to talk to.
No, I mean, it might be hard to imagine to a person who believes into might makes right as strong as you apparently do, but a couple of tiny restrictions actually makes it _easier_ to make friends.
And, y'know, no, I don't have much of history of abusive. I knew a few abusive people, but they mostly focused on others. Another thing that might be hard to imagine for you, I suppose.
> DM me if you'd like someone to talk to.
LOL, no.
I'm not sure what you mean here, can you explain? What did I say that makes you think this?
I actually am a victim of abuse. It took me a long time to understand that strangers who talk to me aren't trying to hurt me. It really took a lot of work, and still takes a lot of work.
I enjoy making friends almost anywhere, unless I'm on a date. Life is boring and meaningless without human connection and community. I believe your mindset is in the minority, and I suggest you find a therapist to work on why you think all strangers are abusers.
People assume that even at networking, social gatherings, or speed dating events. Doesn't matter what their initial impression is as you can change their later impression.
> ...oh god, this is boring...
That can be said for anything. The point is to make them contribute and prevent a one-sided conversation.
> ...this is wildly veering _super_ boring and way too personal.
That's why progression matters. You can also refrain from asking them directly, like for example: "let me guess, you're an arts student/interior designer" Most people would correct your assumption, and now you're talking about occupation. Or you can segway that to recreation "I could've sworn that you're the (assumed occupation) type. You seem like you do plenty of (activity related to assumed occupation)" The person would again correct the assumption, or if not, you can change the subject or push through. Either ask directly "so what do you do instead?" or share a detail about yourself/the subject that'd bait the person into asking or sharing theirs.
> ...Axe murder...
Most people respond friendly. If they are part of the contrary, move on.
They literally wrote "cold approach," so no, this does imply approaching strangers in random situations.
> That can be said for anything. The point is to make them contribute and prevent a one-sided conversation.
It implies tying people in an unwanted conversation and then trying to leverage inevitable anxiety to get them to say something personal.
> That's why progression matters. You can also refrain from asking them directly, like for example: "let me guess, you're an arts student/interior designer"
Jesus christ, who talks like that.
> Most people respond friendly. If they are part of the contrary, move on.
I too respond friendly to potential axe murderers. Angry axe murderers are more likely to axe murder you.
Seriously, though, there are _multiple_ red lights for abusive and exploitative behaviour in that advice. Yes, it _will_ work, abusive behaviour often works. But also, if you ever meet someone like that - or if you try it on someone with life experience that taught them _both_ what abuse and respect look like, they'll most likely smile, say something safe, and then leave to warn others about you.
I sure would.
You make conversations with strangers all the time. The taxi driver, while waiting at a long queue, a friend brings over a new face, someone on the street shows you interest (they smile first, greet, etc), you see a familiar face out there and you check out if they're showing interest such as a longer eye contact and then you go "Hey we go to the same gym, how's X? blah blah. Oh really? By the way I'm Brad"
> It implies tying people in an unwanted conversation and then trying to leverage inevitable anxiety to get them to say something personal.
Jeez, as long as you're not being a creep it's just friendly banter. There'll of course be people like you who think the world is after them so just have the decency to get out and leave them be.
> Jesus christ, who talks like that.
I'm sure you do it one way or another. Light-hearted teasing and joking: "is that code I see? i'm betting you're a CS student." Heck that's actually how I got my last job referral, sat next to a dude and noticed that he's reading notes that has a diagram of a (segment) tree. Turns out that he's got a position at a company's R&D lab and at that time was prepping for a competition at codeforces. He invited me to his company and we're friends to this day.
> I sure would.
You can't satisfy everyone. Just don't be a creep and pick up on social cues.
- some version of asking for a recommendation (ie, "what's good here?")
- in a social event, try "Hi, we haven't met yet, I'm ______"
I see how this can be valuable, but can we not use this acronym?
Secondly, be more interested in listening to the other person than in talking about yourself. Most people want to talk about themselves.
The difference between confidence and arrogance is that confidence is rational belief in oneself, while arrogance is irrational belief in oneself. People think alcohol gives them confidence, but it might just be giving them arrogance.
Let go of pride and ego.
Find something the person may be very interested in, and get them talking about it.
"I can't help but notice that watch, can I ask you about it?" (Anybody asking about my watch is an instant friend. WHY WONT ANYBODY NOTICE MY WATCHES??)
"This might be weird but I need a new barber, where do you get your haircut?"
"Yooo where did you get that sweater?"
"You carrying golf clubs around the city? There a course I don't know about?"
"Is that a defcon sticker?"
Something unique about them. Find it, ask about it. Easy to practice. Just do the find it step to random people during your commute.
Especially the “yoooo dawg lemme see that watch!” kind of vernacular.
As such I refuse to believe any of your recommendations come from personally successful experiences.
You wouldn't use it out and about on the street or the bus, unless you were really personable.
> As such I refuse to believe any of your recommendations come from personally successful experiences.
K, well, I'm not gonna work hard to prove anything lmao. Sounds like you just don't hang with a massively diverse group of people.
A tip from an adult who didn’t stumble into this industry from the recruitment sidelines: Keep your “yoooo dawg swaggy swag brooo!” stuff to your non-work friends. Women cite this immature brogrammer nonsense and the “culture” it creates as one of the reasons they’re put off from joining, or as a reason for leaving, the tech industry.
I’d encourage you to try to do better.
> A tip from an adult who didn’t stumble into this industry from the recruitment sidelines:
What's the purpose of delving into my post history to find more material for personal insults?
Why have you rhetorically positioned yourself as an adult, and me as a child, in your message?
What emotion were you hoping I felt when you insinuated that my professional background makes me Less Than?
Why is it so important to you to impress upon me that You Are Smarter Than Me?
As for tactics: just ask questions. Everybody likes to talk about themselves. Eventually, you'll get good at finding out what interesting things people have going on in their lives (most people have something).
But how can you convey truth if you don't really understand it? And how can you convey truth even if you understand it, if you don't understand what the listener understands when you speak of it?
It's not enough to use "correct" words, if they won't be understood. That's not honesty. That's how clever people take advantage; which is not honesty.
In these terms, I've never met anyone who seems like they could be entirely honest, even if they wanted to be.
But they can learn how to convey something closer to truth with practice and introspection and learning from others; so I'd say it's a skill.
I've met people who say they are honest, but a few minutes listening and from the inconsistent thinking it is apparent they are not even able to be honest within their own thoughts to themselves.
This is not a criticism because I think it applies to everyone, including myself. I think it's just part of the human condition.
To say a person is honest, then, is to say they desire to be honest; that their heart is in it, that they wish to convey truth and not to decieve, or even to risk misunderstandings, no matter who is listening. As noble as it is to desire this, it is quite something to master the art of doing so regularly and reliably.
I'm recently on a kick to take my fitness more seriously; for me that means a three month stint with a personal trainer, bringing in a dietician soon, and planning on rounding out with a running coach.
As a note, all of this isn't that expensive - its just coming out of most peoples holiday and expensive treat budgets.
Doing it like this means you consult with real experts, who will tell you what you're doing wrong that you didn't think to ask about.
>it sounds like he was doing it wrong.
Sorry about your friend :(
Disclaimer: hire a trainer to learn the correct form
It's important that people understand proper deadlift form though. It's a bit more complicated than just picking the barbell up off the ground.
I'd say the same for barbell squats. You don't want to be 45 and not be able to get off the toilet without holding onto something...
Sorry to hear that. I'm curious what the context was though.
At what weight did this occur? Was he a seasoned lifter? Novice?
Yes, there are some ways deadlifts can go horribly wrong, but these are pretty avoidable.
Good thing there are many things you can do which are not deadlifts and which prevent being weak and overweight.
But how?
I have anxiety and it's really difficult to talk to strangers.
Edit:I would also like to mention. I talk very less reason being whenever I tell people honestly about my feelings. Later or sooner they use it against me.
Or if you stop for coffee some place regularly, eat some place regularly, etc ask someone that serves you regularly how their day is. For years I used White Castle for my socialization. I'd go in every Saturday and Sunday morning and order the same thing and would chat to the employees once I'd established myself as a regular. Similarly some friends and I had a Denny's waitress that we eventually followed to another location and then even to another restaurant chain as we were there so much at night that we became friends with her.
It was super easy to for me to become friendly with a specific individual when I would see them over and over with small exposure doses.
I think most people are eager to be heard, eager to talk about their experiences and feelings (even trivial ones like being impatient for the bus to arrive), and lonely. But most people are preoccupied and in a hurry much of the time. You have to be paying attention at a moment when they are willing, and then be able to give them what they want.
Me neither. People generally don’t remember these things.
Strike up a conversation and it doesn’t go well? It may feel like the world is falling apart at that moment, but you can rest assured it will be forgotten, and sooner rather than later. And you may get a sense of accomplishment just from going through the motions and doing it.
Strike up a conversation and maybe make a new friend? Awesome :)
Not pursuing any athletics is going to kill you and make the late years of your life frustrating a you lose capabilities. And you'll probably get injured as your body deteriorates.
You choose.
However, when it comes to results, squat and deadlift are way ahead in producing muscular and skeletal adaptation.
Anything physical pushed to the limits will result in injury. Most people never get an injury casually playing pickup basketball. Then watch one season in the NBA, you'd probably see half a dozen ligaments snap on live TV.
I don't think any NBA player has injured themselves from deadlift, because they know how to lift properly and are supervised by physical therapists during practice of course, but in the intensity of an NBA game this is no longer a controlled reaction taking place. Lifting heavy puts strain on a lot of variables at once, not unlike an all out NBA game.
And the other was squatting in the 400's which was around his 5 rep max.
This. A follow-up suggestion: try to truly understand the motivation and concerns behind the other person's arguments.
Useful tools are asking "Why?" multiple times to dig deeper. If the conversation seems to dead-end in a broad claim, ask "Can you give me a specific example of …? to continue your quest.
This is especially useful (and interesting!) when talking about politics.
IMO anyone interested in developing their strength (that is physically able to deadlift) should learn how to do them safely and then work on them.
Rippetoe laying out how to do a deadlift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwQQZCi6OHA
I'll leave these here as I think they're both relevant to your point, in different ways:
I do think too many people go overboard with the olympic lifts. You don't have to be red faced and shaking to get a good pump from a deadlift. Just because you can lift the weight in some way 5 times, doesn't mean you should. I bet most people who are boasting about their >400lb dead lift can't do that movement for 3x10 reps with good form. Lower the weight and it's as safe as the dumbbell squat.
[edit]: took a quick look at that video you posted though and that's an amazing resource! I look forward to checking out more of there videos.
Plus databases like Postgres have key/value and JSON data types. Once you are sure that is what you need it’s still there.
Rob Pikes 5th rule of programming: Data dominates.
Learn how the JOIN syntax works[0], and how to use OUTER JOINs.
Learn about WINDOW[1] functions and what kind of problems they can solve. In particular, many reporting needs can probably be solved with WINDOW functions instead of tracking state as you loop through a result set in application code.
Learn about Common Table Expressions[2]. While these usually aren't necessary, they can make your queries a LOT more readable.
The thing about learning this type of stuff is that it doesn't matter what database you learn on, you can use it on virtually any SQL database (possibly requiring minor syntax changes).
[0] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/tutorial-join.html and https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/queries-table-expressions...
A couple years ago I got dinged on a take-home project that involved building a db schema, but didn't get any specific feedback on my work, and it's sort of haunted me to this day (especially since SQL is one of my primary languages)
https://www.amazon.com/Joe-Celkos-SQL-Smarties-Programming/d...
Although it is 10 years old, not much has changed in the universe of SQL basics. If I were to capture the essence of good schema design it is mostly about keeping data normalized until you have a really good reason not to. Denormalization is almost always an optimization choice.
And before you optimize you should have basic things covered, like indexes, etc. I have fixed more than one "slow" query by simply adding indicies to everything people are joining on. So, check out a tool like pgAdmin that has a cool query planner optimization feature. What is happening under the hood doesn't matter a /lot/ when learning SQL, but it is really insightful to see how indicies of various types impact performance. I believe this book basically covers it all from a theoretical perspective. Optimization and indices aren't super well covered in SQL for smarties, which make sense, it isn't about optimization but is a little higher level.
There are /tons/ of data sets out there now a days. CSV files, etc. Find some interesting data and start challenging yourself with interesting ways to design that data into a database. I actually design most of my SQL databases using an ORM these days, but, my bedrock knowledge of SQL makes it very efficient and I can avoid committing "SQL sins" (denormalization) prematurely. You will be surprised at how much you can learn on simple data sets :)
The way the course is broken up now, you may need some of the other sections [2] like Intro to Relational Databases or Relational Algebra as prerequisites, since I do not remember if it used SQL syntax.
[1] https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/DB/RD/SelfPaced/about
[2] https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/DB/2014/SelfPaced/abou...
Books: 1) SQL Antipatterns https://pragprog.com/book/bksqla/sql-antipatterns
2) Effective SQL https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/effective-sql-61/9...
learning SQL seems much more straightforward than learning NoSQL. personally I'd like to find a good resource that will help me use a non-relational database without creating a mess
My plan for the day when someone requires me to use NoSQL is to say that postgres supports JSON/JSONB perfectly so I can use that as a NoSQL database and then use the relational part to keep me out of the mess...
Learn about yourself as much as you can, either via introspection or from other people. Learn what your values are, and what makes them satisfied. "You are your own ally, when you make yourself an enemy even though you should trust yourself, you become the victim hit the hardest".
Learn agency. Remember that you are a person, and you can take initiative.
Learn that another person's behavior toward you is just a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person.
Learn to genuinely tell people that you love them. People are precious.
Last of all, actually learn how to use knowledge of all of the above in your situation.
Here is an exercise for the reader. Every year on your birthday, write down what you "know" to be true about life, work, love, politics, money, meaning, happiness, environment, etc. and then seal it. Now read what you wrote last year and see how dumb you used to be.
It’s pretty powerful. I can track my progress, see the speedbumps, but I think the biggest thing is that despite having all this data, it is not predictive.
I have zero idea what my thirties will look like. Will my goals and priorities change? If so, in what direction and how much?
The biggest takeaway for me in this process is really wrapping my head around how I have no control over tomorrow, only the actions I take today, and that whatever happens, that too shall pass.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=13IHeFemwCxMYvpbadUM5d_8fLV...
How can I be confident or feel good about my decision if I am currently "dumb"?
You're not dumb if you make the best choices you can with the information you have at the time.
I've heard a lot lately about how having fewer, closer friends is better. Just an alternate viewpoint to consider.
- Understanding taxes, the importance of savings and baseline personal finance literacy.
- Reading the political programs of a few parties running for elections in you country
- Reading a few yearly report / financial statements for a public company, an NGO/non-profit/state agency/local government and trying to understand them
- Reading a few top research papers in a field you're interested in and work through them
Why reading a research paper rather than the more standard approach of reading a textbook?
I too recommend reading more fiction in 2020! (Sorry, I was just a little bit struck with how little this would matter in some countries, mine included).
huge plus one to this one.
Putting an effort into setting actual budgets at the start of the month means I'm shifted from impulse buying silly things on the basis that I have the money at the moment to holding off on those and saving some money. (And admittedly still making silly impulse purchases, but with solid data that I can afford to do so and still have enough money left over for food).
I can highly recommend the ridiculously named You Need A Budget (https://www.youneedabudget.com/) if you're not sure what you're doing, since they have a ton of content around how to go about budgeting. Even if you don't buy the software, give their educational material a read.
I'll pile on a recommendation for YNAB. This sounds exactly like me. Having a better handle on my money and where it's going has definitely improved my mental health this year.
Ok, what could be a good resource for this? The problem with finances is alike eating: You get so much talk from shaddy "experts" that is hard to see where the good info is.
The Reddit r/personalfinance sub is a well moderated place (no shady experts shilling nonsense). Take a look at their wiki[1] for a good jumping off point.
There are also country specific pf reddits listed in their wiki if you're not in the US.
The basic jist of things is:
1. Create a budget, go through the last few months of bank statements and categorise your spending
2. Pay down your debt (starting with the highest rate first)
3. Save 3-6 months expenses (which you know from your budget) as an emergency fund. (This does not need to all be accessable immediately just available, say 80% in a savings account with 30 days notice)
4. 2 & 3 should be done at the same time, it might not be mathematically the best but paying all your debt off and then being fired/made redundant without a cushion is not good.
Then once you've got a handle on the pf stuff, think about r/financialindependence or r/fire
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics
There's also a flowchart which works well for 90+% of people: https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png
You have the free "Learning how to learn" course on coursera : https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
And I'm currently reading a book called "Ultralearning" by a guy called Scott H Young who I imagine is the type of person to be on hacker news and be like "Hey, thanks for recommending my book!"
https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/
The book so far is great, there are certainly some principles which may seem obvious but in reality they need to be acknowledged and used effectively. Overall it's a clear read and gives a pretty clear way to get started on learning a ton of things in a short amount of time.
No shortcuts though, still a ton of effort involved.
- If you're a developer, become friends with the sales team at your work. Seeing things through a less technical lens will make you much more effective.
- Learn the mental skill of endurance. If you can walk 2 miles, try 20. Once you can cycle 20, you can do 100. The difference is mental more than physical.
I don't have any objective measures for this, but I think it's helped me a lot - it gets my head straight about the "why" of actions I've taken. That's valuable, if not terribly measureable!
Writing is Thinking: Learning to Write with Confidence
https://blog.stephsmith.io/learning-to-write-with-confidence...
In short, if you need to talk about any subject learn the local language (whatever that is) so you can talk to the locals about the topic.
> The strongest form of the theory is linguistic determinism, which holds that language entirely determines the range of cognitive processes. The hypothesis of linguistic determinism is now generally agreed to be false.
For example: jentacular.
Then once I knew the basics I went to conversation hours
About 3-4 months to low conversational if you practice 30min-hr every day
The boxed set has 3 booklets (Essential/Intermediate/Advanced) that cover all the grammar. Libraries usually have it.
I recommend them for the main romance languages and possibly German but for Slavic or Asian languages I would recommend other sources (I am barely intermediate in Russian and Czech and was trying Mandarin for a while).
Some other alternatives I tried first include: Chatterbug: Nice combination of tools/methods, but expensive and I'd need to pay a much higher price to get the kind of listening I need. A side note on these guys that's relevant for this site: they do a lot of ruby/rails stuff and have a nice graphql gem called cacheql.
French Uncovered: Interesting idea and fun method of learning, but the "book" material wasn't as long as I'd have liked and I would have liked to do a lot more listening. The self-study written materials are decent, but felt slow and like a forced way of trying to cram information into my head, where I personally do better getting that stuff naturally.
Language Transfer: Great free option, but doesn't have native French speakers and the French course doesn't good too far.
I've also done the apps like Duolingo, but the listening and speaking isn't what they do best. I basically get great at Duolingo, but not at being able to use the language.
I did 5 years of French throughout junior and high school. I didn't quite reach fluency, but over a decade later without any further instruction I can still read a good amount, absorb new vocabulary quickly (and retain it pretty well -- I just wish I knew about Anki back then), and understand well-enunciated/slower speaking people. (Favorite recent example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLsxYlTA9Ds He's basically talking about why people find it easy to understand him vs. some random Parisian.) I've forgotten some of the grammar but if I ever get motivated to refresh that I'd go through the book we used in the final year again and make an Anki deck. (https://www.amazon.com/Fois-Pour-Toutes-Hale-Sturges/dp/0801... -- Une Fois Pour Totes. If you can reach the level by whatever means where you can start a feedback loop of teaching yourself more within the target language, I think it helps a lot. Even using a French-to-French dictionary, rather than English-to-French.)
In contrast to French I've been lazily teaching myself Japanese over the past few years, but I haven't been diligent about it and thus my conversational ability is still basically 0, my vocab is limited (though recently expanding quicker as I'm able to pick out more and more words/phrases from media), and my kanji count is only ~500 out of 2000. With more diligence I think I have enough books and methods to synthesize them that I could achieve similar proficiency as my current level of French even without a classroom environment to test it in, but I'm also fighting prioritization. If it were higher priority I think I'd try and enroll in a community college class or something just to get a boost on speaking with immediate teacher feedback.
TLDR: As far as free tools go, Anki is great for any language, especially when you build the decks yourself. (I like the existing "french core 3k" deck as it includes audio for its sentences, but unless you already have a basic understanding of French grammar, I think it might be too much to start with.)
Hundred Words: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hundred-words/id1469449237
Language Pairs: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/language-pairs/id1438817614?...
DuoLingo is probably the most widely used app.
Get somewhat proficient in basic vocabulary then travel. Immersion is the best way to learn but it helps to know some basic vocabulary.
I also recommend Pimsleur as a supplement to work on your accent and listening skills. Don't let the limited vocabulary misguide you...Pimsleur teaches and emphasizes a lot of very useful language patterns/structures. Great tool in the language learning toolbox
You need to find your own topic of interest, but it is a great way to learn from native speakers as they would speak.
Even knowing alphabet (cyrillic is "fun" one) does stimulate.
In terms of ones I personally don't know but would enjoy - Georgian script is beautiful, and Armenian looks cool too. I know enough to suggest steering clear of Arabic and Hebrew unless you're willing to commit to learning the languages themselves though. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this though!
Knowing the alphabets themselves aren't really practical unless you're going to the country (and even then only if you can then match the sounds to some words) so it's only really a little party trick or for personal satisfaction.
I am still very much in the beginning stages but the satisfaction of being able to read or understand something that was previously so foreign, is incredible.
To learn a language effectively it's important to be able to immerse yourself in it. Youtube with auto transcripts, Netflix w/ subtitles, news in written form, chatting with native speakers in a language exchange by texting or skype, tutoring, etc. Once your reach A1-A2 level by any traditional mean, you will have a lot of options to get to fluency.
This sounds like the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis [1], and it's been refuted, by and large. There's a good pop-sci book examining it [2], and it concludes that there is really only instance where language clearly influences world view, and that is that in the Guugu Yimithirr languages: people don't use left, right, front, back, but the cardinal directions north, south, east, west (as in, "there's an ant on your western leg"), and that does appear to give them a superior sense of direction.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8444621-through-the-lang...
Recently I've looked around me and realized, everything around me is new. There are no memories around me, I have chased marketed products until my whole apartment is lined up with useful products.
Some of the people I admire the most carried around the same water bottle for more than 10 years, wore the same watch for more than 20 years, used a phone for more than 3 years. They can point to anything they owned and talk about the rich emotional history behind each item.
I think more people should acquire the skill to use a product and maximize its life rather than to throw and buy the next cool thing.
- History and theory of modern and contemporary art - then it's easier to understand everything in the museum and you won't ever say "I don't get modern art" and "Modern art is a shit".
- New language - I believe trying and learning only few words is worth it!
- How to dress (including how to buy clothes).
I still have a lot of misfitting shirts in my wardrobe and this old masculine perfume my grandma gave me when I was 16.
I see why I wasn't comfortable with these. It takes some time, especially if you don't want to spend a lot of cash at once. But when you know how to dress, you feel more confident look good and feel better with yourself.
By "how to dress" I mean finding your style, not having suit 7 days a week.
Here is a nice article about fabrics: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/sustainable...
So one skill to acquire in 2020 can be let go of FOMO.
As with the music, there’s a lot to choose from (I put “classical” in quotes because in both cases the term spans centuries of work and innumerable styles and themes). And don’t worry about what other people like: enjoy what you do. Personally I don’t really listen to Mozart as he mostly wrote pop music and spectacle (were he alive today he’d be onstage with lady Gaga). Some fun to listen to but for me doesn’t “stick to the ribs”. Other’s think he’s fantastic — and we’re both right! (Do love his Requiem, though as my then 17yo said, “should come with a warning label”). In the case of the greats I love Plutarch, don’t care for Thucydides, think Plato is a jerk but do read him, Aristotle was kinda a jerk too, but so was Cicero. Sophocles: fantastic!
Speaking of survivorship bias I read little fiction by living authors. If it’s still in print, or discussed, after a gap it’s more likely to be interesting. As with music, open a book and if you don’t like it read something else! It’s not a duty. But there’s also a lot of meta commentary on the older work and that can change your view and taste for what you read.
Have fun!
And I don’t mean learning how to used Facebook or Google to run ads, I mean the theory behind marketing.
I would like to read more books similar to the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
You might actually learn more by running a Google ads/FB ad campaign for a side project. Put some money on the line and I can almost guarantee you'll be more committed to learning than if you were just reading a book.
I made a conscious effort to really consider what I need before purchasing things over the last 6 months, as too often over the years it felt like I was drowning in a sea of crap! Sell your old unwanted items on ebay/gumtree/wherever and save that money.
'Tidy desk, tidy mind' isn't just an old wives tale.
Does this spark joy?
Logic programming isn't actually that hard, and more people learning it will help move the state of programming forward.
I remember it distinctly because it was such a good, almost euphoric feeling that seemed to drop randomly on top of me.
When people say that learning a new, different language will give you benefits that carry over to the rest of your abilities, I remember that moment.
There is definitely a lot to be said for stretching your programming brain in new ways.
Also learn who your customer is (It's everyone) and learn how to listen to them. It doesn't matter if you're a dev who spends 2/3 of the day behind 10 screens with earbuds-a-blasting. Whoever is commissioning you or motivating you to sit there and code is your customer. Treat them like it, and do it for them.
On the other hand if you have a job where you deal with the public, it's more direct- but the same principals apply.
With technical skills becoming easier to come by, set yourself apart by being a customer service pro. It makes all the difference in the world.
The world needs clean, reliable, scalable energy more now than ever before, and we have a serious shortage of talented folk who have previous experience in the skills necessary to develop liquid fueled fission reactors.
So, if you're in highschool or entering university soon, consider this. By the latter half of this decade, there's going to be a lot of demand for these skills.
Technical: Blockchain programming (mostly on Ethereum). I believe Ethereum is the future. Programmable money. How cool is that?
However if you think blockchain is fad, you could replace it with cybersecurity.
Business: Corporate finance (stocks, bonds, future contracts, options, etc). This is related with blockchain because I believe a lot of financial applications will move to blockchain platform.
However if you think blockchain is fad, corporate finance itself is a useful skill for investment and analyzing company's finance. Just now, I learned that you could make two bonds with different risks and yields into one security which you can divide into senior tranches and junior tranches. It's very interesting.
Social: Negotiation. I am reading Chris Voss' book (Never Split The Difference). He has a class in MasterClass as well. Coursera has a couple of negotiation courses. In the past, I received the shorter end of the stick because I'm not good at negotiation. So I'll try to change that.
Happy acquiring skills!
> Programmable money. How cool is that?
It's actually really, really scary. Money is already volatile enough, I would rather we not add a bunch of new bugs and security vulnerabilities to it.
He used "Principles of Corporate Finance" by Richard Brealey, Stewart Myers, and Franklin Allen as the text book. I bought it from Google Play.
For accounting, I use Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting
https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-financial-accounting
https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-financial-accounti...
There are other courses about finance in Coursera and Youtube but I haven't checked them out. But the ones I listed here are good based on my experience.
Not cool at all, to be honest
This wide spectrum with many sweet spots. For example, if you can learn what a developer is doing without pissing them off or boring them out of their minds and translate from techno-babble to humanspeak and back you can quickly make yourself appreciated in many tech companies.
Time management skills. Learn to rest, really rest so that you feel good, curious and re-energized after it (probably means turning your phone off as a first step). My 2c.
1. Have days where you sleep early and wake up without an alarm
2. Spend some time doing a whole lot of nothing periodically. Sit and think, read something you've put off, draw, daydream, whatever
3. Remind yourself that most things aren't urgent. Maybe turn off notifications for a stretch or time
These things are pretty difficult to do when you have dependents or a very busy schedule but I've found it so rewarding in the pockets I've been able to get
No scrolling, no consuming media. Do something that involves little mental or physical capacity, but provides some holisitic benefit. Things that make you feel good on the whole.
In summary, do something where the point is to do it in order to relax, and not for any other point at all. Remove all mental load of stress about outcomes and instead immerse yourself in the present moment of relaxation.
Some methods that seem to work for myself and others are a good walk or a journaling session. A physical notebook to write in can be a bit more holistic than typing an entry into a keyboard. It can be hard to start, I just start with "captains log", then a date, and then my stream of thoughts.
Playing with small manipulatives can be good fun as well. Lego, K'nex, etc. I hear some people like painting models. Playing an instrument is also fantastic. Guitar is absurdly simple to learn the basics of (a servicable one can be had at a pawn shop or amazon for reasonably cheap), and then it's just a matter of grabbing some sheet music and practicing. If you let go of how good you actually sound, and instead assign value to the act of practicing, it is a great way to refresh.
Another great way is to read. A good book and a cup of tea is a very relaxing experience. I'll note that this should be pleasure reading, and not technical reading.
Practically there are many business reasons why you would want to develop mathematical knowledge, but I'll list only one: most of the ground-breaking research requires high level math knowledge to understand and so much of the knowledge in academic papers would work as a viable startup business.
There is actually a staggering amount of knowledge locked away in papers that is just waiting for entrepreneurs to take the next steps and bring it to industry. But this tends to happen very slowly! Part of the reason is a lack of qualified and motivated people willing to execute. Since the researchers themselves are more focused on research and tend to move on after experiments and PoCs.
It's up to us to take that work and build products that solve real problems!
Kubernetes is the right tool for some type of issues. If you want to host low complexity infrastructure like a simple website but still want to use containers go with nomad / docker swarm.
You should learn this. Almost every company moving to the cloud with containers is leveraging it. I'd start with something simple like a GKE cluster on Google Cloud. Deploy a website using nginx and go from there!
If you do need that capability, Kubernetes is invaluable.
If you don't, plain old Docker and Ansible is a much better combination. Kubernetes adds a lot of complexity that doesn't pay for itself if you don't really need that much flexibility.
I think Docker Swarm is necessary in the absence of Kubernetes to ensure that the correct number of replicas are running on your cluster. It would help with automatically spinning up new replicas when a few nodes go down, changing the number of replicas on the fly, etc.
I'm saying for small deployments even this isn't really needed. If one container dies, have monitoring to alert you and then spin up a new one manually when you get around to it. Obviously, your system needs to have enough redundancy with each kind of container that you can still handle the load after losing one.
It's only if you are changing the number of containers a lot that something like Kubernetes is needed. And I think at that point go straight to Kubernetes, I don't know if there is a scenario where adopting Swarm but not full blown Kubernetes is the right answer, because then you likely have to migrate twice. Once to Swarm, and then to Kubernetes.
None of this will be as valuable as porting an actual production application over and running into all the quirks though.
I would go with bash, sed, awk.
"You can't stand out with this skill if you wouldn't do it professionally."
But there are an increasing number of opportunities to do it professionally?
And every developer should have bash, sed, awk in their toolbox, anyways, So yes, at least get familiar with those tools and learn to recognize when they are a good fit for a problem you're trying to solve.
But after that it can still be good to learn Kubernetes, too, if you want to work at companies that have large scale back end systems.
The only way to give impact in this area is to pivot from writing code to managing infrastructure (i.e. writing code in yaml, pun intended). So, back to the question, what is the point to learn kubernetes above basic acquaintance?
You can use this time to pursue other endeavours like prepare talk to the conference, learn the tools better which you use every day, automate some of your daily workflow (i.e. explore your code editor, write extension to your code editor to automate some actions and so on). This activities will yield better results in my opinion and you'll use this knowledge everyday instead of deep diving into kubernetes without actual opportunity to keep your skill up to date on long distance without going full into devops and becoming less competitive in your main trade.
It is just a much more powerful tool, despite the complexity arguments you see people throw around online.
The other useful skill is using k8s as a platform to build platforms, even for internal workloads there can be a lot of value developing custom resources, controllers and webhooks
Once you have the right tools and tactics using k8s is a breeze and very productive
Spend more time doing what makes you happy. Learn some things that make you useful to others and learn to identify what both of those things are. It is unlikely that global technical trends, fads and HN users preferences will be the answer to your local problems.
If pushed for something specific that is broad enough to apply to most technical people I would say learn how big picture pieces fit together in your niche. I'm a front-end dev so this means for me to learn networking, dns, packets, tcp, etc. Get a broad understanding of the big picture stuff in your niche. It often pays off.
Learning Options trading is another thing you can do once you become more familiar with the stock markets, and hopefully you can start trading options using your profits from your wise investments.
These 2 skills, stock trading and option trading, in my opinion, are the most critical skills for someone, especially software engineers to generate more incomes and become financially independent as an alternative path to founding/working at a startup.
You can start small to learn but invest 1 good year and you'll be amazed at the knowledge and freedom you have gained.
Note: I’m not saying buy 3M and Purell stock. I’m just saying, if there’s an impending pandemic, there are probably businesses who will see a rise in demand due to the pandemic. What’s going on in the parts of China right now where there are quarantines? How has that shifted demand for goods and services?
In the cloud technologies, I would focus on serverless. I see serverless as basically just another abstraction layer beyond containers. You shift the burden of managing all that to the cloud provider. Even if you are fluent in k8s, using managed services / databases and letting someone else do the heavy lifting while you focus on just code is very rewarding.
If you are in a technical role and you lead or design systems consider learning a model checker like TLA+ or Alloy; or a proof checker like Agda, Coq, or Lean. The extra clarity is worth it on its own and you might end up finding and fixing vulnerabilities or performance problems that save people a bunch of money and headaches.
Learn strategies for improving your emotional intelligence.
I am pretty sure Perl developers cannot ask for big bucks just yet, perhaps in 10 years?
EDIT: I should mention, I'm not just refusing to learn Perl, I'm just choosing to use Python where Perl would have been used before. No other Devs on our team are Perl experts, all our Perl code is Legacy.
Embedded Linux: seems to be a growing field in embedded engineering as single board Linux computers are getting smaller and cheeper
Amazon IoT core: there are a lot of capabilities to understand! Luckily Amazon does seem to have some training available.
Advanced C debugging and building: with embedded c it is pretty easy to let the IDE hold your hand when building and debugging, but I would like to learn more about makefiles, linker scripts, and scripting gdb for advanced debugging.
I miss the days when true hackers were proud to sit in their dark basements and drink Jolt Cola, at most caring about their Unix beards.
In 2020 learn TypeScript really well. Learn all the ways to compose types. It's earned its popularity.
In 2021 learn deno. It's going to be big.
In 2022 learn the best way to structure a CSS project. I think we will have figured out what it is by then.
One other thing I'd add to this is learn webcomponents. Likely we'll see things like React/Vue/etc use them under the hood in the future, but it's worth learning what they're good at and what they aren't.
No one is going to fix this for us, but we can all contribute to fixing it together! To quote a recent New Yorker article on democracy in crisis[0], "Don’t ask whether you need an umbrella [if you need to prepare for failure of democracy]. Go outside and stop the rain [fix it!]."
How? Make an effort to reach out to people with different views. Commit to listen to them and be willing to agree to disagree in a friendly manner. You'd be surprised how quickly the name-calling can stop and the shared humanity can be found when you really listen! For inspiration & guidance, read one or more of the following:
* Don't Label Me by Irshad Manji (lots of practical democratic advice, if you pick only one pick this one)
* The Coddling of the American Mind by Haidt & Lukianoff
* How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Let's (Americans) roll up our sleeves and take on The Big Challenge in 2020: improving our own democratic skills to get our society back on track.
0: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-last-time-...
I used to think someone else was thinking in my best interest with local politics, culture, and social issues, but I have recently learned about to be more assertive and engaged. I wish I started a lot sooner, and I wish more Millennials/Gen-Xers (especially those in tech) would push for something they believe in.
- Learn Reactive Programming
- Learn Linux Kernel https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source
- Learn DevOps
- Learn Distributed systems
They do a 30 day trial but I don't think that's enough time to figure out if you wanna drop 800$ on it. They have some 100$ package that in hindsight probably had everything you need if you buy serum as well (another 100$ iirc).
I think as in other things, just trying a project and learning as you go is the quickest way to get started.
Picking up somethings from what's the buzzwords these days: 1. Rust (ownership concept and immutability) 2. Haskell Functor, Monads, Monoids and applicatives 3. AI ML (Not sure about this field)
Another one is learning to set boundaries for your personal growth. Do you have a learning and skills-updating standard which helps prevent FOMO, unfair feedback from your inner critic's voice, and related career anxieties? This is one example of a boundary that can be designed to help you stay on track without becoming bitter about your past experiences and future prospects.
It's impressive that you asked. Best of luck to you.
- Listening and soft skills
- how your business operates so you can have a bigger contribution
- learn to get to know your colleagues as people
- learn how to present technical topics to decision makers
- learn to let go (and empathize with the other POV) if a decision doesn’t go your way
Topics like energy policy and CO2 emissions will become increasingly critical in our lives, and yet you don't find many people reasoning about them in a lucid and informed way.
A great place to start is the SEWTHA book by MacKay: https://www.withouthotair.com/
IIRC Bill Gates recommended them.
Sometimes it is, of course. But not often.
I’m sure there are projects where it’s useful, but not “every company” useful like SQL or even a server supervisor framework. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
I've wanted to learn basic sewing. I even bought a sewing machine from Costco that's gathering dusk. I'm a slender guy and the only thing that fits me well are "slim fit" shirts.
Not everyone sells slim fit shirts or well fitting pants. Knowing basic sewing I can make adjustments and have clothes that fit well.
Technology: build stuff instead of reading about stuff.
Personal: be a better husband and father.
Ah, a curious intellect has approached! Know that every “What kind?” is the desire for a common ground of understanding. So the student must first ask themself which understanding would they like to pursue. What be your choice? A choice that only your heart’s love can ultimately know.
Your post seems to assume people know of the different directions they could study
> Your post seems to assume people know of the different directions they could study
Ah, forgive me as I am blind to my appearance, especially blind to my appearance’s appearance to the sight or eyes of others. I too do not know what directions there may be in the pursuit of truth, as a master or sage must not claim to know. Only thus then does the master know true knowledge. ...For doth not truth be vast in size?—oh! but I do not know of truth’s size!
Ah! Your name is greenly colored like the fresh and newly grass that dews in the start of the morning—as though your name appeared but hours ago! Ye be a strange traveller. I cautiously ask thee, It be true that I keep to the gates? But how can that be! when the gateway to true knowledge is open to all? Does some sort of strife exist? And my way be the way of non-action, a way of harmony. Whatever is, I allow. So you may be whatever you choose, you strange dear traveller! I welcome your force of argumentation.
- Identify your values
- Measure your behaviors and thoughts against your values
- Build a network of people who will give you genuine feedback
Learn finance management, track all your finance and learn where your money goes.
Learn to cook a meal that you would always eat and easy to cook.
Learn about How to be a good listener.
But all the above must be done in practice to be learnt
If you learn this, you can easily acquire other skills such as reading, exercising, less procrastination, etc.
- Marcus Aurelius
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.
- Learn to fast. I'm not talking about intermittent fasting, one meal a day, or fake fasting like juice fasting. I'm talking not eating for 48 hours, 72 hours, or more. With electrolytes, it becomes a lot easier than you think. Once you can comfortably achieve 72 hours of no eating, it will seriously change your perspective on food. You'll realize that you've been throwing your money away every few hours on food you didn't need to eat, and that everyone around you is wasting resources. You'll lose weight better than any diet there is. Trust me. When you do choose to eat, because you've saved your money, you can eat better food. You will become healthier in general because fasting actually gives your organs a rest and heal. Once you've done a few fasts, you may find that you're able to sleep a lot better. Fasting is a skill because it takes discipline.
- Get to know your neighbors. This is really not that difficult at all, but we avoid it because we see new social connections as "work" to maintain, whereas it's just easier to go home and watch Netflix alone. I've realized that having a small social network wherever you live is nice and makes you feel connected with your community. One of my best friends used to be my neighbor, whom I wouldn't have had lots of great experiences with had I not talked to him, like most people.
- Learn to cook sous vide style. You can do this the poor man's way using hot water and a thermometer, even with your dishwasher. But I suggest just getting an automated sous vide circulator and using that. You can make steak, pork chops, eggs, etc., that taste like they're made at a restaurant, or better! It's clean, which is good if you live in an apartment, and very difficult to screw up. Unlike barbecue, you don't have to pay close attention to it. You can pan sear your meat afterwards, or even sear using a George Foreman grill for even easier cleanup. Because sous vide will help you cook tasty food, you will find yourself cooking at home more. People will be blown away by how good your steaks are.
- Learn about emergency planning. Most people(Americans, anyway) are woefully unprepared for emergencies and disasters, and even a lot of those who think they're prepared are mistaken in thinking that a few granola bars and a flashlight will save them. Learn what it takes to get yourself and your family prepared, and you will feel a sense of security when the day comes that a violent storm comes, or an earthquake hits, or your home is in the way of a wildfire, or there's civil unrest, or worse. This is not a fringe idea or "doomsday prepping". President Obama told everyone to prepare for these possibilities, and the Department of Homeland Security encourages us to prepare. The website ready.gov is a good place to get started. Same with the LDS Preparedness Manual.
Fasting vs. Eating Less: What's the Difference? (Science of Fasting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZCfmgzoS0
Dr. Jason Fung - 'Therapeutic Fasting - Solving the Two-Compartment Problem'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk
Beginners Guide to Prolonged Fasting | 24-72 Hour Fasting Instructions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5W1XBf8d-I
^^ Not exactly a fan of Thomas DeLauer but there's some good information there.
If you aren't faint of heart, check out some videos on the "Snake Diet" channel on YouTube. Cole is kind of a lunatic, constantly swears, and holds nothing back. He does this to be motivational. He's wrong about a few things(he thinks fasting cures everything and also thinks vaccines are bad), but when it comes to fasting properly he's pretty spot on. I just took from him what I thought made sense and left the rest behind. The best idea I got from him was the "snake juice", which is really just an electrolyte mixture you can make at home. It really makes all the difference.
Overall, I wish there was someone who could preach this stuff without the Cole's level of insanity, but there you have it.
Exercise has always been important. So has connecting with people or marketing.
How to cultivate empathy
- typing with Colemak (-dh?)
- Statistics 102 (calculating sample sizes, t-tests, etc.)
- Tensorflow
Tracking your online privacy and personal information.
For this I suggest taking a look at Gwerns Internet Search Tips: www.gwern.net/Search
Holotropic Breathwork
Learn how to hold space for someone.
Non violent communication
Tribal Leadership
How to grow magic mushrooms
How to have a challenging conversation
- Spiking neural nets
- Convolutional neural nets
- Paragliding
- Mountain biking
At any rate, you seem to be saying you have not read any of the relevant papers. I encourage you to look at least at one of the papers I mention (not just the criticisms others have written), and make up your own mind as to its validity. Most are free PDFs hosted online, and are not very long reads. The game of life paper is the most accessible, IMO. You can even reproduce the results yourself if you become interested enough. At that point, you'll be in a better position to dismiss the work.
Even though I agree with you on flat earth being a pseudoscience, I have at least read some of their arguments to see what they are claiming. Same with 9/11 truthers and holocaust denialists. I at least read their arguments, so I can debunk their arguments myself. There is always the possibility that some position I vehemently disagree with might be correct.
I'm not sure why you mention this as a contrast. Macro evolution also does not follow the scientific method as there is no repeatable experiment you can design to falsify the hypothesis. This is well-known among evolutionary biologists.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
- https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_48
- https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/macroevolu...
Also, here is a short, readable article by Nagel laying out his view that mental properties are an essential, and unexplored feature of our universe.
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/the-core-of...
However, it is possible to separate the theories from the apologetics, as mainstream science has done.
The Discovery Institute itself is run by a mix of atheists, Jews, Catholics and Protestants. All whom are involved because they think there is a real scientific problem. Many of them do use ID to further argue for religious conclusions, but the theory itself is religion agnostic, and is also compatible with atheism, as demonstrated by the atheists and agnostics involved.
I would suggest you not dismiss the theory itself merely because of your dislike for the religion of many of its proponents. Doing so is the genetic fallacy. Additionally, some of the earliest proponents of ID type arguments, such as Paul Davies and his fine tuning argument, are not themselves Christians.
-> https://www.youtube.com/c/socialanimal
We are surrounded by opportunities for real human connections
Every day, we go through dozens of situations that encourage light, authentic interactions with the people around us.
All these moments when someone is next to you, and YOU feel like you want to interact… but you don’t
…you are working at coffee shop and there someone next to you. You share a smile, you look at each other a few times, you want to say something… but instead you convince yourself that you are too busy and leave wondering what if…
…you are standing in line, someone in front of you looks cool, you like their vibe, you could give them a compliment but you are not sure, what are they gonna think, whats the point anyway… whatever…
…you go out to a bar to meet people. They are people all around you, you feel tonight could be fun but instead you order a drink and talk to you friends all night…
Opportunities are all around us, but instead of diving into the moment, we hesitate…
We second guess ourselves and overthink our intentions until before we know it, the moment passes us by.
Maybe we make up an excuse why it didn’t happen, or maybe we just accept the fact that we are just not “that kind of person”
Either way, we censor ourselves, a moment here, a moment there, constantly moving further away from the connections we so desperately crave and building comfort on the sidelines of the life we could have.
These interactions could lead to our next friendship, job or romantic encounter but the most important realization is that its not about the outcome, it’s about you.
The real question is who would you be today if you had gone for it even half the time in the last few years? What you lose is not only the moment and the potential connection, but the personal evolution that this moment would have brought you.
We are so focused on the outcome that we forget the initial intent of expression, the desire to say something, we forget about the process…
I used to judge my interaction on the outcome, I made a friends, I got her number, I went on a date etc… until I realized all this is irrelevant.
The only question that matter is: “Did I express myself or did I censor myself”
Why?
Because overtime, being committed to expressing yourself will simply give you more experience.
You’ll be more comfortable expressing your truth, you’ll meet more people, you’ll just have so much more experience which will impact how you relate to people, how you express yourself… which in turn impact your new interactions.
I realized that I should be able to talk to anyone with the same ease and presence I have when I am with my best friends.
All the frictions you can experience are just opportunities to better understand yourself and your perception.
Interacting with people is first and foremost about you. It’s about expressing yourself, the rest takes care of itself.
The only thing you need is to let your true self shine through. That’s what people want to see, and it’s the only way find real people to share your life with.