Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that most people don't know?

I don't see it this way at all.

- In MS Word, OSX TextEdit, and most other editors/word processors, search and replace is front and center. Heck, search itself (both within local files and search engines) is the ultimate example of automating and scaling the repetitive, and it's everywhere.

- In OS X Finder, you can batch-rename files by highlighting them, right-clicking, and clicking "Rename [N] Files..."

- Mail merging has been a thing in MS Word and other processors for a long time.

- In Excel, all kinds of repetitive, menial tasks are immediately discoverable to even a complete beginner: highlight more than one numeric cell and the status bar instantly displays the average, count, and sum. Conditional formatting, number formatting, sorting, filtering, and all kinds of data-reshaping tasks are baked into the UI.

I also hope more people make an open learning repo [1] where they test out new technology in the open. It's been a nice productivity boost for me.

1: https://github.com/lpil/learning & https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/learning as examples

I have a huge problem with this and I'm not sure how to fix it. When I start researching something, I don't write about it, because I don't feel like I know enough and I don't want to repeat the same "generic advice" that many people already presented. Then, when I reach my desired level of understanding, I start writing a blog post. I start with "fundamentals" I had to grasp before I could understand the topic. Then, after 6000 words, some diagrams, and several tens of hours put in, I start writing about the topic, but at that point it's almost guaranteed I'm already interested in something else. So, obviously, I leave the previous topic to rot in the "unpublished" folder forever.

It would, thinking realistically, take someone paying me for the extra time to finish one of these posts, which would become either a really looong article, or a short book/pdf. That won't happen, because most of my enquires about how to be paid for writing something like this lay in the same "unpublished" folder... That's on top of the topics being rather peculiar (most recent example: "Using Haxe's Lua target to script my (Awesome) Window Manager" - started from quick intro to OCaml, two fixes I made to the Haxe compiler (which is written in OCaml) to get Lua target really going, quick intro to Lua and LuaJIT, plus AwesomeWM architecture and class library... at which point I stopped, and switched to the next topic: "Wiring and writing a Home Security-like system with RaspberryPis and Erlang/Elixir", which will turn into another abandoned try at a write up.)

Basically, I start writing at the point I'm pleased with the solution to a problem (eg. the state of my WM, the monitoring around the house, or most recently a working Tizen Studio for native devel on non-Ubuntu Linux), which rids me of the problem, so then I have no motivation to write about it, or its solution anymore. I could go back, change the title, and generally edit whatever I have already scribbled, but that feels like work, and at that point I'm already learning about something else entirely...

This is why this:

> I think the people who are inclined to be constantly learning are probably less inclined to focus on broadcasting their life to others.

seems plausible to me, at least. Though whether my broadcast would be more valuable to others than the "generic advice" (or more specifically, shallow posts on some tech, in "3 things you didn't know about IEx"-like style) is doubtful.

[1]: https://timothyandrew.net/learning

For me, the two biggest improvements were:

1. App switching (hold F then use all keys under the right hand, each key bound to launch and/or focus a particular app)

2. Window management (hold W then use right hand as arrow keys to snap windows)

Paired with a keyboard that lets you remap held keys to modifier combinations (I use Ergodox) has been great.

Ha, never knew you could do that. Pretty cool.

It uses Lua for its scripting engine.

Not sure there's quite an equivalent for the executable feature, but it does support publishing and installing modules written by users, which are called 'spoons', IIRC.

My config: https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/karab...

Article to explain how to achieve this: https://medium.com/@nikitavoloboev/karabiner-god-mode-7407a5...

Scheduled violations of the rules seem to paradoxically help you follow the rules. Tim Ferris advocates for one dietary cheat day per week, with the idea that it takes incredible will power to give up donuts forever, but almost anyone can put it off until Friday.

Schedule your cheats.

Edit: scheduling is also great for beating procrastination. “I will change my oil at 7:30pm Tuesday” is way more effective than “I need to change my oil soon”

The technique they mention (AVRT addictive voice recognition technique) is actually useful for all sorts of things. “That’s my anxiety speaking. It is separate from me and I don’t have to listen to it”, etc.

You can personify and diminish all sorts of negative personality traits. “That’s my impulse to complain / interrupt / lash out / etc”

One thing which helped a lot was realizing just how slow things really move. People post very interesting technical things every day, but those are usually the products of maybe a year of intensive offline effort. You don't fall behind by skipping reading those. You do fall behind by endlessly reading those and doing nothing with your own time. Four hours sitting with a textbook in your area of interest is worth more than a month's worth of twitter posts. As a corrolary, you needn't worry about falling behind in general - because of how slow things move, you'll always be able to catch up. It takes probably two orders of magnitude less effort to understand a concept than to research & come up with it in the first place.

As you develop an area of interest and talk with other practitioners, you'll naturally hear about interesting things eventually. The rest is just brain candy you wouldn't have cared about anyway.

The only thing I find unique to Hacker News is much higher quality analytical comments about politics, economics and tech industry labor issues. Almost everything else is in one ear out the other.

For me, it's the exact opposite. In the case of Reddit, you can filter it down to only subreddits you are interested in, which increases the signal-to-noise ratio significantly.

Twitter would be the first thing I would get rid of tbh. It encourages shallow retorts and memes more than anything else. The only thing I still get from it is news, but Reddit gives you that with potentially interesting discussions on top.

Are these learnings useful in your daily life and career? I too have learned a bit from these sites but I really do not know if that knowledge is useful in practice. Sure one can argue that our ability to think and connect things improve, any knowledge is useful etc and there is some truth to it. But at what cost though? Looking at the amount of time I spent on Reddit over the years, anything I might have learned seems miniscule. ROI is so low.

16:9

16:10

16:10.66 (almost 3:2)

16:12 (4:3)

I'm sure you can tell the difference between 16:12 (old TV) and 16:9 (widescreen).

Think about it: when you're writing code or working in a shell or reviewing a configuration file or working on a word document you'll probably use vertical space more than horizontal space.

(I am not a doctor)

It's worth noting that many allergy meds (like diphenhydramine) are anticholinergic, but only ones which pass the blood-brain barrier are linked to cognitive decline. So newer allergy meds like cetirizine and loratadine are better.

What really helps is silicon earplugs (they warm up to body temperature and mold to fit, so comfortable I've forgotten to take them out until I'm half way to work) - a lot of my issues are I require silence to sleep and stay asleep and the modern world just isn't conducive to that at all.

Do you have a thick blanket then? Or are you just covered with a thin bed sheet while the air around you is 65 degrees F (18 degrees C)? That sounds like it would be freezing.

Now if it would be possible to get a 27" 5k screen like the new imacs, that would be absolutely great. Same "actual resolution" as the older 27" but with much sharper text.

When we started we did anything, painting, small handyman jobs, fences, carpets, gardening, etc. But I ended up just concentrating on kitchens and bathrooms, as they are generally the most investment worthy home improvements a homeowner will want, which means larger profit per job and also they're more room to take away a homeowners problems. Typically if they project managed it themselves, they'd need to bring in a large list of separate trades. Labourers for demolition, plumbers, electricians, joiners, tilers, cabinet fitters, flooring fitters, decorators etc.

The people i hire, with backup from myself, can do everything the job needs, which means they only need 1 company to do it. We have a wonderful woman in the office that does all the customer service, we take away all the old crap we've removed, we help them pick the new bathroom suites and kitchens they want, etc. Its a full service. I think in America, the term for this is General Contractor, over here in the UK, its not typically used.

My advice for you, if you're starting from scratch, is to get some DIY skills to begin with, start with your own home. Try things, Youtube is the second best tool for learning anything in my opinion, only surpassed by actually doing it. If at all possible, whatever you are trying for the first time or are unsure of, try it, then pay a professional to inspect your work AS your doing it and sign it off at the end. Get them in before you start too. Any tradesperson that wont do give you advice that you're willing to pay for isnt worth knowing IMO. The ones that are, are the ones you hire when you do bigger projects that you need help on. Plus anyone that can explain their own job to an outsider, generally is pretty good at what they do.

I'd be able to give you more specific advice with more information, happy to answer any questions.

There are people out there that provide a very specific service cutting kitchen worktops, explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux3EZhhYdZo

Its typically done with a jig and a router, its not that hard IMO, but a lot of kitchen fitters either cant do it well or hate doing it and they hire someone to do this (as well as other things like sink cut outs) and they get paid DAMN GOOD money to do that, especially if you can show up at a new housing development where you can bash out 30-100 homes as one job.

Personally, while i have no experience with CNC's, i know what they are and how they work and i reckon theres a way to make this job more efficient by having a CNC machine in the back of a van that can be setup to cut these joints. I've not tried this idea, but i may do it one day.

This is the kind of different persepective you can have from completely different skillsets and experiences that people who do the same thing day in day out for years just dont arrive at.

What does that even mean? If your body contained toxins that you needed to « detox », you’d be having a pretty bad day and kidney failure.

Detox is meaningless. It’s not like your body is « polluted » and and you can only clean it by « detoxing ».

More monitors just mean some workspaces are switched between by moving my head instead of switching what’s on screen. For some tasks it’s easier for others it’s not.

I do find a larger higher resolution monitor more useful than having two or three small ones, especially for my IDE where I have splits and such. I use a 34” 1440p currently but would love to go larger/higher resolution (but 4K at those sizes is out of my budget right now)

I'd rather flick my eyes over to the browser window documenting function signatures, error cases, etc. than alt+tab through potentially several windows to find said docs window, then alt+tab ing back to my coding window to use said information.

But apparently some people prefer to do that, than to spam a few win+arrow key combinations, to spread their windows out for initial setup.

The way I have found mentors is by starting with taking lessons in a skill from people, which establishes the necessary boundaries in the relationship. If they are the best at what they do, mentoring becomes the effect of the relationship itself, since mastery above the skill is what you are learning.

Mentoring someone means sharing the right experience at the right time, which means you have to be around to do it, so it's less of a transaction than a way of relating, but it can start with the lessons/transaction based relationship.

2. Read smarter material.

3. Write more and edit your writing more than you normally would. That will force you to think about where you can improve your verbal expression.

I'm currently between roles (COVID layoffs), and I got feedback on my webcam interview demeanor and speaking style.

My approach for this was to practice my answers to common interview questions out loud while recording myself with Photobooth and then watching the recordings.

There are a couple of dimensions in which I've found this helpful:

   * Sheer number of reps. These help me get more comfortable with telling my career story up until this point, and I've found that my comfort has a direct impact on my interviewer's comfort
   * I spot tics and habits that I wouldn't have otherwise. I noticed that I had a tendency to start my answers with "so, uhhh...". In some cases simply realizing the presence of a tic/habit was enough to get rid of it
   * The recordings reduce the channels from 2 (output + input) to just 1: this helps me analyze what I'm saying and how I'm saying it without having to also think about what I'm going to say
   * Recordings also provide a historic record that I can look back on and see improvement, which helps keep me motivated when the job hunt gets me sad