I'm helping my girlfriend produce videos, usually for social media and such. In the process I'm learning a ton about my camera, lighting and also software. Currently using DaVinci resolve which is amazing and free.
I think as in other things, just trying a project and learning as you go is the quickest way to get started.
Ah yes, played around with DaVinci resolve a while ago as well. Guess I have to work through a few more tutorials. I sill don't get the lut concept and find it much fast to just upload them on my phone and run the video through Vsco.
I like Docker, I like microservices, but I feel like I'm just not excited about Kubernetes itself. There seems to be a "bullshit complexity" that people add to it that I really don't think is going to stick. But, I really do like the "GitOps" experience. A merge to a master branch is a deploy. Should I just get over this perception and learn Kubernetes, or could I find joy and professional usefulness out of another tool?
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.
Kubernetes has some complexity but with some time investment it becomes clear.
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!
Do NOT use Kubernetes unless you really, really need a lot of flexibility in rapidly scaling up, and occasionally scaling down your services.
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.
Do you really mean plain old Docker or do you mean Docker Swarm as well?
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.
"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.
Even after kubernetes is gone, the mindset and principles will still be valuable to you. Understanding its not-off-the-shelf architecture can also help you in your career.
None of this will be as valuable as porting an actual production application over and running into all the quirks though.
If everybody knows kubernetes what is the point to learn it? You can't stand out with this skill if you wouldn't do it professionally. Just to get familiar is enough.
"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.
Most likely in such companies you would have a separate devops team, separate sre team and so on. How can you use the skill if it's completely separate set of responsibilities managed by other teams?
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.
For developers I would phrase this as - learn about deploying workloads on k8s, using tools such as Kustomize, Tilt/Skaffold, Knative, service mesh, Ingresses and cert-manager. It is not simple for developers to use Kubernetes effectively in production without learning a few tools and concepts. There is a lot of demand for training of developers to use k8s and plenty of opportunities out there for those with the know how.
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
I think improving communication skills, particularly technical topics to non-technical people will always be advantageous regardless of where your career takes you in tech.
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie is very good. The title is absolutely terrible, but the content is as good as the title is terrible (in my opinion at least)
There is no universal theory behind marketing, it's going to be different depending on the customer demogrpahics, the product type, the part of the world you're in, etc.
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 train deadlifts by using the lightest possible weights and doing 2 sets of practice reps. Focus on keeping the spine stable, use legs to push the weight up. Don't add weight until you video record yourself and ensure your back and hips are on point. Back needs to not bend, and hips need to thrust forward, bar path vertical, close to the body as that's our center of mass. Ensure your sternum stays on the same plane as your stomach and neck, keep the upper back from rounding.
If you're starting out doing deadlifts then I'm almost certain you're at a gym where there's someone experienced enough to show you how to do a deadlift.
Even then not necessarily sufficient. Source: worked with a trainer on this for months after pulling my back at a crossfit years earlier and still having lingering effects. Sitting a ton creates, or can create, large hip inflexibility, tight hamstrings, etc. If budget and space isn't a material constraint, get a hexbar... it will lessen some of the impact on your back.
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.
Sitting tightens the calves too, especially if put your heels on the chair legs to prop them higher. Zero drop shoes, lowering every chair as much as possible, sitting on even lower things, and the "third world squat" all help. I saw my daughter squatting that way and it made me look it up. Adults should be able to do it too. Squatting desks are great. Also, dont do your introduction to CrossFit at a competitive box. Or don't do it at all and do something like starting strength or stronglifts.
There's a lot of back and forth in this thread about deadlifts "being the devil", so I'm glad you brought up flexibility. ROM gets more important the older you get. If you're a washed-up meathead (like myself) working on flexibility makes it easier to get out of the bed in the morning and some mornings it makes it _possible_ to get out of bed.
Doing yoga (yeah, I know) has fixed my hip flexor issues and got my lower body lifts to near PR levels again.
Yeah, it seems weird to always couch squats/deadlifts in the disclaimer of "if trained / done correctly" and then get defensive when people point out that they are dangerous.
> deadlift's are quite dangerous for the untrained.
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.
I've seen people confuse clean and jerks with deadlifts. Maybe that's what's happening here? The biggest deadlift injury I've seen is scraped shins. It's hard to injure yourself without straps.
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.
Agreed. I would also add that mobility issues are a short-cut to injury. You have to have great mobility in your hip flexors, IT bands, and ankles in order to perform deadlifts well (as well as any other lower body movement).
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.
Interesting, I looked it up, and apparently there is more disagreement on this than I was aware of.
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.
> deadlift's are quite dangerous for the untrained.
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.
I will add Kettlebell swings to Squat and deadlift. They are one of the best all round exercise for muscle development particularly around the lower back and for cardio as well. In fact, I haven't come across a full body muscle building and cardio exercise that can match Kettlebell swings.
Burpees are one of the best movements for all-around muscle development and the best thing is you don't need any weights.
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).
Not fully true, body weight can make you gain lots of muscle, but you do need to add resistance. However, resistance doesn’t need to be weight or bands, but do a more difficult version of the exercise. Push ups are easy for you? Do planche pushups or diamond pushups.
I drank a lot of the Reddit/HN koolaid that you can't get big/ripped on bodyweight fitness until I moved into a new place with an amazing back patio will full sunlight all day where I felt bad exercising anywhere else. Much less under the fluorescent lighting of my local gym.
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.
Well, I'm curious to hear out your experience, do you think the amount of time you spent bodyweight training was equal to the amount of time someone would need to do resistance training for similar results?
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.
In my experience, bodyweight training is actually quite efficient in terms of time spent because you do a lot of compound movements that work multiple muscle groups at the same time. You can definitely get a good full-body workout done in an hour and a half.
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.
What’s funny is I’ve drank the Reddit koolaid in favor of body weight fitness, as the routine I do is the r/bodyweightfitness routine, with bordering mixed in for fun
I understand the need to keep adding resistance, though as my sibling commenter says, I think you're understating the potential of pure bodyweight progressions to increase strength. Exercises like one arm push ups, one arm chin ups, hand stand push ups, planches, pistol squats, nordic curls, etc. can be equivalent to seriously heavy weights and there are plenty of options for gradually progressing toward them. Lots of muscle bound guys who can lift a lot of weight still aren't strong enough do any of these advanced bodyweight moves.
But anyway, what does that have to do with comparing burpees to squats/push ups? :)
What's the progression for push-ups? I was doing 1½ sets of ten wide push-ups on Friday (to failure, thus the ½) and today thought maybe I'd try a one-arm set. Couldn't do a single one, even on knees. Then I tried a set of narrow push-ups with the hands moved a bit footward, and could manage, like, four. On my knees. Is there a good guide to push-up progressions and resistance ratios?
Yeah check out https://reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/ as mentioned. There are lots of good resources there and you can find advice on just about anything by searching within the sub.
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.
Outside of the pool burpees are terrible on your joints - mainly your shoulders (subscapularis specifically). Even more so if you're carrying around extra weight.
Can you expand on that? I've never gotten anything out of them. I could do them an 88# kettlebell. Never felt as effective as most everything else I was/am doing.
Yes, heavy two-handed swings were a game-changer for me. I am a climber and I don't think it's any coincidence that 5.13- and V8 became "easy" after incorporating these into my routine. I had a very weak posterior chain. It's funny, when you do an actual sport-specific strength assessment, it often seems your weaknesses are not what you thought they were.
I think honesty is a skill by the dictionary definition as you can certainly do honesty badly, and learning to do it well is difficult and requires study and practice.
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.
It's a habit. Personally, I think lying takes up way too much mental space. It's sort of like driving with the seat belt unbuckled; just makes me anxious.
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.
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? :)
Alternatively, learn not to accept death and start that life goal of making it something that is a sad, rare event instead of part of the human nature.
I like this answer because it starts with finding a setting that the other strangers chose likely to meet some strangers, instead of finding ways to lock some random person in a conversation. It's the first sign of basic respect that can, in my eye, excuse _a lot_ of awkwardness.
Here’s a neat trick. When you’re at a party, meetup or other social event, don’t approach people standing alone. Instead, approach people in groups of two, say hello (or give a quick little glass tink ‘cheers’) and introduce yourself. A large large amount of the time, one of those two people want OUT of the conversation and you’ll be that out.
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.
I find the whole social scene like a weird challenge. Maybe I'm just out of muscle but it seems too many people are struggling and everybody is resorting to tips and tricks to live by. How come it's an easy process on average.
This is a good tip. And something easy and safe to start a conversation with a group of 2+ is a question like "How do you guys know each other?" They'll likely mention a mutual friend, their workplace, or a hobby they share, which can all be good topics to help develop a conversation.
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.
"Hi , my name is .. <reach out hand for handshake>. What you've been up today?"
- 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"
- 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.
> "Hi , my name is .. <reach out hand for handshake>. What you've been up today?"
...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?")
...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.
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."
Okay, this is a narrative that is occurring in your head, but it's not occurring in everyone's head, and if you happen to talk to someone who has this narrative occurring in their head, who cares? You're not going to please everyone.
You're not going to befriend everyone you talk to, but you're not going to befriend anyone you don't talk to.
> Okay, this is a narrative that is occurring in your head, but it's not occurring in everyone's head,
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.
It sounds like you have a history of abuse. I am so sorry and hope you're able to get the help you need. As I'm sure you know, not everyone trying to socialize is out to get you. Not everyone has the same social needs as you. But I can see how difficult that could be if you've been a victim of abuse. I think it's good to note that not everyone has the same hang ups as you do, and many people do actually enjoy meeting people and making acquaintances outside of specifically designated social events.
> As I'm sure you know, not everyone trying to socialize is out to get you
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.
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.
> ...why is this guy randomly talking to me? Are they selling something?
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.
> 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.
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.
> They literally wrote "cold approach," so no, this does imply approaching strangers in random situations.
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.
I'd actually encourage people to not use this crutch. It certainly helps with your own anxiety, but it also prevents you from reading social cues and learning from your mistakes.
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.
Practice makes perfect. Have you tried going to things on meetup? It's sort of expected to meet strangers on there so it's a great environment to meet new people.
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.
If some randomer approached me in public, especially on my commute, and dropped any of the above lines or any others about some material item I had on me, I’d write them off as a grifter looking for an angle to play.
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.
This only really should be used in parties or social events where there is a host, like a dinner party at someone's house. Or a work office lunch, or meet-and-greet.
You wouldn't use it out and about on the street or the bus, unless you were really personable.
That’s quite an insecurity-laced kneejerk reaction you’ve posted there.
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.
Where's these personal attacks coming from? Insecurity? You called me a liar. I feel my response was a perfectly acceptable way to defend myself against such an accusation.
> 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?
Well, one thing is just a mindset thing: as long as you go in with kind intentions, there's almost no way anything can go wrong. Maybe the person you talk to will be bored or uninterested, but that is a good thing because a) you've chipped away at your social anxiety a little, and b) you can check them off your mental list of potential friends/contacts/whatever.
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).
Kinda. It's easy to just say whatever comes to your mind. Actual honesty requires introspection and self-criticism, learning honesty _to yourself_, if you will.
Honesty is multi-layered and difficult. It is the art of conveying truth, or at least your truth.
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 would never recommend deadlifts. Those are really dangerous and easy to do wrong. My friend shattered his spine doing deadlifts and needed surgery and months of recovery and he still can't bend down or sit in certain positions.
I don’t think this goes directly against the parent comment. They aren’t inherently dangerous, but they’re really easy to do wrong and cause a lot of damage.
To be somewhat insensitive; it sounds like he was doing it wrong.
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.
Exactly. If you're not focusing on form and don't have experience or guidance, almost any free weight lift can be dangerous. There are ways to mitigate the risk of deadlifts just like any other lift. Use a hexbar so the weight isn't entirely in front of you. Start learning incredibly light and focus on form. Wear a belt to help keep your core engaged. These plus so many other tips will mitigate the risks of one of the most effective full body lifts.
I would totally recommend deadlifts because like anything if you don't learn how to do something properly you're going to do it wrong which could easily lead to disastrous results. Your friend is the exception, most people do deadlifts regularly no problem. If you've never done them before ask a trainer or someone who knows what they're doing for help, watch videos for form, take form videos of yourself, learn the movement, know when it's time to lower the weight or stop altogether and start slow with low weight. There are so many variations beyond the basic deadlift movement that if one doesn't feel right you have other options.
The health risks of not doing deadlifts far outweigh the risk of doing them. It's the only thing that has resolved my back pain and improved my posture.
Disclaimer: hire a trainer to learn the correct form
It's not an absurd statement. Deadlifts improve so much musculature in your body which resolves/prevents injury. I had a 3+ year long knee injury from running and the only remedy was heavy squats. I was considering surgery and experimental stem cell injections since nothing was working. Thankfully I tried strength training before the alternatives.
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.
He was a regular in the gym for at least a few years, trying to loose weight. I don't know the weight he was lifting, but I suspect he moved to heavier weights before developing the proper technique.
Being weak and overweight is way more dangerous than deadlifts. Muscle mass helps build and maintain bone mass (depending on your age) which avoids broken bones, and osteoporosis later in life. Strong people get injured less and recover faster from injuries.
Yes, there are some ways deadlifts can go horribly wrong, but these are pretty avoidable.
The solution is to use a hex bar, which centres the weight under the hips and removes the health concerns related to poor technique. There is simply no exercise substitute for picking up really heavy things and everyone, particularly women, should do it regularly.
1. Trap bar deadlifts are not actually deadlifts. The defining characteristic of a deadlift is that the load is in front of your center of balance. Trap bar deadlifts are actually squats, because the load is centered on your center of balance. It's a fine exercise, I'm just trying to point out that it's far different from a standard deadlift than the naive impression many people form based on their appearance. I think many people try to swap in a trap bar because the starting position doesn't require as much hamstring mobility, but they are not interchangeable.
2. You can absolutely injure yourself doing trap bar deadlifts or any other type of squat with poor technique.
Not a squat and not interchangeable, that is true. They are their own thing and provide comparable benefits for non-powerlifters. Re safety, you are being pedantic. They are much safer than deadlifts.
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.
Start at work if you aren't remote "Hey I'm mesaframe over in department, what department are you in?" in the break room or hall (NEVER the bathroom if you are male, NEVER, please watch Male Restroom Etiquette to learn the ramifications of talking in the bathroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw )
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.
It’s a skill and like any other skill it becomes less anxiety inducing the better you get at it. You could start with complete strangers at (say) a coffee shop, so that if you get embarrassed well it doesn’t matter, you’ll never see them again (this is how I improved). Also, learning how to be rejected and bail out is part of the skill. I still get into awkward situations sometimes, but it’s happened enough that I can cut the conversation off and the embarrassment doesn’t bother me all that much
Start simple - ask people on the street what time it is. It’s a simple opener that should help you with your anxiety, and you’ll see nothing bad happens.
I also have anxiety. The way you deal with it is to talk with strangers. Start by expressing yourself more with the people you are already comfortable with. Something you might normally not share. Then start with chit chat with people who are less familiar. You will be chatting comfortably with people you don't know in no time. Isolating yourself is the wrong way and will lead you to dark places. I know. I'm better. It's scary, uncomfortable and totally worth it.
I've talked to strangers about Boolean algebra, the weather, how long the bus is taking, the slogan on the bag they're carrying and how it relates to their calling in life, and so on. I dated a girl for about a year that I met on the train and started a conversation by joking with her about filler phrases she had used in a cellphone conversation. And of course evangelists are always willing to talk about theology.
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.
Start living life head first. I hate speaking too, but I put myself out there and make myself do it, because you really have nothing to loose. Life is sporadic and impermenant. You try and strike up a conversation with a stranger, fail, move on, the next day you've both forgotten eachother's face, the next week you've both forgotten about the event entirely. Most conversations don't matter at all.
Remember that one time that one random person struck up a conversation with you and it was awkward and you never saw each other again?
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 :)
I don't know about squat and deadlift. I'm in my mid 30s and 20-40% of my friends who squat and deadlift had to stop because they injured their back in the last couple of years. All of them looked like they had great form and half had gone to a trainer as some point to make sure their form was good.
Any athletic pursuit is going to injure you eventually.
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.
Do you have stats to back that up? I'm having trouble finding it, but the only study I've ever seen on the subject showed lifting as being fairly on par with other athletic activities.
However, when it comes to results, squat and deadlift are way ahead in producing muscular and skeletal adaptation.
I think a lot of people do these lifts with way too much weight, opting to play the stats game with the poundage while sometimes doing just two reps per set. More reps with less weight and it's a safer workout.
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.
The good thing is that once you recognize it, it's fairly easily remediated. Get that ROM back and you're back in business. Rarely is surgery necessary.
Sounds link these folks were really pushing their bodies. I don't think these fall in the "get in shape" weight ranges, but I'd be willing to listen to why that's not the case. Id imagine there are a lot more factors than just form that go into your bodies safety when you're lifting that big regularly.
I see a lot of people shitting on deadlifts in this thread, but OHPs are way more risky. Great if you have great form and know your body, but still pretty damn risky.
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.
Truthfully I dont think there is any reason for a regular person to deadlift. It's a pretty high risk exercise and you can hit those muscles groups with different exercises. If you are hard set on deadlifts though I recommend the hexbar deadlifts to reduce the chances for injury.
The deadlift is one of the most well-rounded, important lifts out there. I don't understand what you mean by "regular people"; are you saying that only eg powerlifters should do deadlifts and that casual lifters should avoid it?
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.
I hear the argument that deadlifts are great if you have perfect form a lot. However, if you don't have perfect form they can be extremely dangerous. Very few other excercises have such high risks, and there are plenty that are just as good. A lot of people think they have great form but don't record themselves from the side so they don't notice how much their back is bending. On the other hand excercises like the pull up, push up, dumbbell press, row, dumbbell squat, etc are also very good with little potential for life threatening injuries even if you have bad form.
Of course form is very important. If your deadlifts are "extremely dangerous" and can potentially cause "life threatening injuries", then yes, take a good hard look at your form and work on improving it, staying away from heavy weights until you get there. But the idea that most people have form bad enough to seriously injure them isn't my experience at all. Deadlifts can be done safely, and having good form isn't some unattainable, Mt Olympus feat.
I'll leave these here as I think they're both relevant to your point, in different ways:
Form isn't just about the movement but strengthening your stabilizing muscle groups that keep your body aligned during that movement. By the time you start dead lifting serious weight, your core should be like a tree trunk and your muscles should be strong enough to support your body's alignment while flexed during the lift.
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.
I'm not saying that it's not a great lift, I'm just saying that most people can reach their fitness goals without it, and it's pretty easy to injure yourself doing a deadlift relative to other exercises.
[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.
When I read the latest "who is hiring" post I was overwhelmed by the amount of Python listed; I've always used PERL but I seem to be the only one at the office left who can.
So you're becoming a niche developer. Congrats, now is time to shine and rack in the big dough. While everybody flocks to Python, go search jobs for Perl and ask for big buck. I bet there are plenty of legacy projects for Perl.
There are at least 3 somewhat big companies that have huge Perl codebases and a lot of Perl developers (>2k each) - Booking.com, Ebay, PayPal.
Source: worked in one of the companies above myself till this year.
I am pretty sure Perl developers cannot ask for big bucks just yet, perhaps in 10 years?
I moved from python to Perl in 2011. I miss writing Perl but career options are a lot better using Python - there are more of them and the money is better.
Interestingly enough, one of the reasons I'm learning Python is because I don't know Perl, which is used at my workplace. My experience is that Python works well as a 'glue' language for doing systems things.
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.
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.
Sorry man, but if you have to consciously try to behave differently, it's over. Forcing yourself to be authentic is by definition inauthentic. There is no escape, my friend.
I want to second this. Decluttering is definitely a huge way to improve your life, and physically removing things from your home also helps to removes mental distractions.
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.
Learn a another human language. You don’t have to be good at it or even able to converse. Languages are systems of thinking as much as they are systems of communication. Some thoughts only make sense in a given language! The process of learning a language builds cognitive skills and perhaps fights cognitive decline. If you have absolutely no “ear” for human language start with Esperanto and work your way to additional languages from there.
As a fellow language lover I second the suggestion, but not the reasoning. What's your evidence for "some thoughts only make sense in a given language"? From what I've read, this isn't agreed upon in the linguistic community. As for Esperanto, it's heavily biased towards Western speakers, so it wouldn't necessarily be easy to start with for someone whose native language is non-Western.
On the most superficial level:
It's easier to talk about snow or numbers in languages that have more words for these concepts than in languages that have less.
Languages with lots of words for snow tend to be used places where there is lots of snow to talk about. Languages with few words for snow tend to be used in places that don't get much snow and thus don't need to talk about it.
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.
Having recently listened to John McWhorter's lectures on the history of human language, I was surprised to find out that there is no reliable evidence for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that language affects thought). The Wikipedia article on linguistic relativism states:
> 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.
English includes a lot more words than most people use regularly. I imagine that's the same in any language. Just expanding one's working vocabulary in one's native language would probably be quite helpful for thinking and expressing oneself more fluently—not that learning another language isn't valuable.
I'm told that English will create words for where other language create grammar. (which can be anything, from a new tense to prefixes to other things I cannot imagine because I don't know the language)
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).
Spanish language learner here (five years invested). Some generally applicable tools/programs I'd recommend are: Anki (or any other SRS flashcard app), Glossika (expensive but worth it), and Clozemaster (free). Glossika and Clozemaster work better after you have a basic foundation with the language. To establish a basic foundation, I recommend this strategy (https://bit.ly/397DPzM).
Agreed. My language learning skyrocketed once I forced myself to only converse in the language. Regrettably for that you need to have native language speakers available which was something I was able to avail myself of.
Online tutoring platforms like iTalki have tutors from all over the place. Including in countries with vastly different cost of life. For spanish for example you can get an hour of one-to-one tutoring with a pro teacher for less than $10. Lots of teachers from Venezuela for example where this is more than the average monthly salary.
After trying a few different options I have ended up on the (seemingly very uncool) Pimsleur program (available for cash lump sum or monthly. I am paying monthly). For me, one of the biggest challenges in French is how a lot of words get blended together and are spoken very fast. It's easy to hear what seem like new words, but they're actually things I know, but spoken as native speakers do. This listening concept is extremely important for me with French in particular. To contrast, I speak Swahili too and learned it differently, where I wouldn't say there's as much of a demand for emphasis on listening to native speakers.
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 tried a single lesson of the trial version of Frantastique, and enjoyed it, however their monthly subscription is too expensive ($20-50 range). Can't say much else since I didn't finish the trial.
I can give you a couple suggestions from my own experience, of course take them with a lot of salt... Unless you're very studious, start with an environment where French is spoken at you and you occasionally have to speak back, with comprehension routinely above 80%. Typically this means a classroom unless you have or are confident with other social engagements...
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.)
Assimil is the best program I've found so far for learning a foreign language. The way you learn the language feels very natural to me. I used their book but they've recently released an app which may be good.
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
In my view, apps are ok to train vocabulary, but not really to learn the grammar and usage patterns. As such, some languages might lend themselves somewhat better to learn via apps (Malay), while others are less suitable (Russian, Japanese).
Find native speakers and talk to them. Write down words you don't rememberand put them in Anki (or Pleco flash cards if you're learning Mandarin) and drill yourself on them daily.
youtube. Find out how to translate a term you are interested in to the target language and search that term. You will find a ton of videos of someone in your target language doing something of interest to you. For example "Weld" in Spanish is "Soldar" - throw that into the search box and I get plenty of interesting videos of people teaching how to weld, which is a topic I'm interested in so I enjoy watching them and I have some idea of what they must be talking about. (Of course some of them are giving bad advice, but I'm there to learn the language...) Don't forget to look at the related videos from the videos you watch to branch out topics.
You need to find your own topic of interest, but it is a great way to learn from native speakers as they would speak.
I only ever try reading latin. It does massage my brain.. the order of words, the way ideas combine slightly differently at many layers.. it does tickle the brain deeply.
Even knowing alphabet (cyrillic is "fun" one) does stimulate.
I'd second the idea of learning a non-Latin alphabet. Cyrillic is fun and many English speakers would only be a few hours' study away from recognising and sounding out every character. Korean is surprisingly easy to grasp and has the bonus of appearing to be quite complex. Even just plain old Greek is familiar-yet-not enough to be a challenge.
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 was going to leave this comment. I am about ~2 months into study Japanese and I love it. I get up early before work, and make some coffee and study for about an hour and it is one of my favorite parts of the day.
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.
I don't know the numbers but I would assume there is more literature in French and Spanish by now, and more diverse.
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.
> Languages are systems of thinking as much as they are systems of communication. Some thoughts only make sense in a given language!
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.
IMO, the key to understanding statistics is learning how to quantify uncertainty over datasets. The key to cheating is to either downplay, (or overplay), the interpretation of this uncertainty as it pertains to the conclusions you can draw.
I see a lot phrases like "studies show that" these days. Somehow in our science-based, sophisticated society everybody likes to throw studies at each other to prove their own narrative. But I don't understand them. I am not that statistical illiterate, I know the difference of mean, mode and median and stdev (and when to use what). When I dig deeper into one study I'll find hypothesis testing methods like p-values, r^2 and whatever ("our hypothesis was proven because p > 0.9"). But here my knowledge ends. If p>0.9 is that good? or did they just tune the data to get that high p-values? or is the whole method garbage and the study could not get replicated with the same p value?
And I want to know how to cheat with statistics, because since these studies are made by people, whom might get paid to prove a certain point (e.g. "My institute gets paid by Mars, hence I'll downplay the effects on health of sugar in daily nutrition and amplify the positives effects of <some chemical found in chocolate>"). or they just want to show significance for their research, because they worked the last 10 years on it and it's "their baby".
Here is my personal list as an embedded developer:
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.
You mean Raspberry Pi? While Raspbian is a variant of Debian Linux, you can also install Android on RPi and Windows IoT. Which means you can definitely use your normal mobile and/or desktop environment for targeting RPi devices as well. Good luck.
If you don't already know how to, learn to cook. Start slow with the basics and work your way up. Try new things and combinations. Nothing is quite as satisfying as being able to create something delicious from the remnants in a friend's pantry, or preparing a delicious meal for someone you love, or a date, or just yourself.
walls? moat? traps? guns and a lot of ammo? because you answer "no" to any of that, your well-stocked rural setting going to be visited by the hoards fleeing from city and depleted in a week, leaving you to die of starvation in next 3. So that month I was talking about, still going to happen
There's "modern society collapse" and there's "a 5 day blackout in a city", most people are not even prepared for #2, it doesn't hurt to plan for that.
Most farms depends on big tractors - if society collapse they will have a lot of food rotting in the field unless humans get out there and deal with it by hand. You won't like your lifestyle, but if you can get to a remote farm (remote is key - you need to get away from labor competition) you can do okay.
I will share one that has served me well for over 20 years: learn RDBMS and SQL. Learn normal forms, good schema design, and how to write complex queries. NoSQL adopters often avoided schemas like the plague and ended up with unmaintainable messes after a few years. I have seen more than a few NoSQL -> SQL conversions by now. Data is the most important thing in your app. Give it a great design.
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.
Agreed, though interviews seem to focus on trendy framework of the month plus some random algorithm that I learned 20 years ago then forgot as I never needed it.
To expand on this, learn about some of the neat things you can do within a SELECT statement.
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).
Any references in particular you recommend to learn schema design, particularly with an orientation towards performance (e.g. for high-volume sites)?
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)
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 :)
Take a look at the "Relational Design Theory"[1] mini-course on Stanford/Lagunitas. Though I had used SQL for years, I took it as part of the early MOOC on databases that was offered in 2011. It is likely to match up with the intuition you already have about what works well in practice, but it can still be a challenge and rewarding to formalize your intuition and understanding.
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.
Reminder, Stanford is taking down this course on March 26th, 2020. They let you download courses that are setup for download (this course is not, unfortunately).
Do you have any recommendations on how to learn RDBMS/SQL? I'm currently using NoSQL at my day job (and agree with your points on it), but have struggled to find a good side project to really dig into RDBMS/SQL. I have used SQL briefly in the past (side projects/class projects) but I'm looking to really cement the skill in my mind.
>NoSQL adopters often ... ended up with unmaintainable messes
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
> 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...
Normalization is a thing in NoSQL and SQL. When you end up with data skip and tons of duplication it can get pretty crazy. Being able to normalize data fits with most data models so much better because data is mostly a collection of related bits of information.
This. Specially if you work with Node.js. The JavaScript community is susceptible to ignoring all previous knowledge, experience, wisdom and tries to reinvent everything. I appreciate the energy, but it is often misguided. Understand the difference between merit and marketing bullshit (stack names that include Mongodb?). Understand context. If you are using Node.js in green field project, you are probably better off using Postgres. Understand Lindy effect. Sql isn't going away, but the vendor specific query language that you are spending time with and hoping will replace sql is probably going to.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 302 ms ] threadI think as in other things, just trying a project and learning as you go is the quickest way to get started.
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
http://www.brendangregg.com/bpf-performance-tools-book.html
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.
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.
https://youtu.be/TU2xZ7s4jus
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:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgK6Y1j7ACA
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhOQCwJvwlo
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.
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.
-> 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.
-> https://www.youtube.com/c/socialanimal
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?
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.
https://www.gymglish.com/en/frantastique
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.
https://www.duolingo.com/
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...
IIRC Bill Gates recommended them.
- 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
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.
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...
[1] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/tutorial-window.html
[2] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/queries-with.html
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...
https://use-the-index-luke.com/
https://modern-sql.com/