Ask HN: What skill do you want to develop or improve in 2024?
Inspired by a similar thread asked a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33873800
I'm thinking to split my online learning in two parts: marketable skills (1) and just-for-fun skills (2).
For (1), I am thinking to go through as many of Andrew Ng's deep learning courses as I can. With AI developing at such a fast rate, it would be beneficial to know how it works underneath.
For (2), I'm thinking to go through a raytracing course and some basic VFX courses on Blender. Possibly something about storytelling as well.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadhttps://hamsci.org/
Other than the eclipse, what other kind of things are you planning on doing with your license?
2) How to build an OS (in Rust). I’ve seen a few different articles in HN over the years and kept them bookmarked because I think it’ll be a lot of fun to actually make something from scratch and get to have fun with figuring out how it all comes together. How does one even draw stuff on screen from scratch? I’ll get to find out.
It's incredibly satisfying to boot into your own multitasking kernel. Back when I did it back in the late 1900s there were a lot fewer resources like this, and a lot more just working it out from Intel manuals.
It's a lot of fun, and teaches you a lot.
... but did you have to call it the 1900s LOL :)
I started piano over Covid and have gotten pretty decent. Would like to continue improving on that.
Some kind of visual art. I have enjoyed making some pixel art and got a drawing kit for christmas.
I have written fragments of a dozen stories and used to write poetry regularly. Would like to finish something.
It gives a comprehensive overview of the Cloud Architecture, the various pieces involved and how they all work together. The whole "Cloud Technologies" field is quite vast and overwhelming and this book provides a nice comprehensible roadmap.
I've never had a problem with programming languages – I'd pick up a book, do the exercises, play around with the language and get a feel – but I find "cloud" hard to get into for some reason.
This is because there are too many moving pieces in the System. Add the domain jargon and intentional marketing/sales obfuscation and everything becomes overwhelming. I have a background in Applications/Networking/Protocols and i still find the whole "Cloud" domain confusing/difficult. After doing some research i came across this book which was very helpful for my own study. It gives you the overall "big picture view" along with some short code/usage snippets for each component. You can then followup with specific AWS/GCP/Azure books as needed.
You should also study Martin Kleppmann's Designing Data-Intensive Applications along with this - https://dataintensive.net/
I loved especially this gem:
> Never, ever reuse a paper abstract for a presentation, except if the abstract is “We show P = NP” or “We show P ≠ NP”.
> In beamer, the default sizes of the fonts are chosen in a way that makes it difficult to fit “too much” onto a slide.
Many of the ideas apply outside of latex/beamer. It's one of the better free documents about the technical aspects of slides. At least if the presentation is still driven by content on the slides, but that decision is a whole different story.
Visual Understanding Environment - https://vue.tufts.edu/
Came across this in another thread recently - https://quarto.org/
https://public.wsu.edu/~bryanfry/Really%20Bad%20PPTs.pdf
At 40, I didn't think this kind of injury from a fall was a thing quite yet.
There's a lot of balance exercises out there which will seem like they're too "easy", and that may be because it's focused on like 80 year olds. If you find it too easy you can do stuff that they do for e.g. 3p rifle (a sport which is a majority about just standing there perfectly balanced):
https://www.issf-sports.org/news.ashx?newsid=3215
(Don't dig too deep into that route though because it will quickly get hyper focused on the meta of 3p. E.g. if you find yourself looking at MEC or Heinz Reinkemeier through looking for balance exercises, you've probably gone past the point where it's useful for general balance exercises lol)
So… I’ll be working on making a solid homelab again.
Which one to get since there is a whole bunch of options/models ?
2) Woodworking
After finally diving in earlier this year, really took to it as a nice break from screens. Taking this winter break to organize my garage and set up proper dust collection so I can stop creating layers of sawdust in my garage (and probably my lungs).
So, short of finding a time machine to go back to 1992, I suppose I'll figure out how to start on this goal.
2. Piano. While I can play some simple degree, I have a large bucket list of more complex pieces. I want to play three of them this coming year.
2) 2.1. Python stuff, for example, thinks to help with my stocks. 2.2. Sports: gym, running, walking, swimming... 2.3. Reading classic novels. 2.4. Travel with my family.
2) SQL: As another user mentioned, while I am primarily a FE, there are times when I need to work on the backend and having a shaky understanding of SQL can be a major stumbling block. I might start a bookclub in my city or at work just to ensure I'm consistent with learning.
3) C++/Rust: Will probably do a basic project and may hire a code mentor to do some code reviews/guidance.
I've always been a half-baked instrumentalist because I rely too much on my singing to do the heavy lifting. This year is gonna be about building up my instrumental repertoire to a point where I can do sets/shows with just my concertina.
By the end of the year, I want to be able to do a full street performance with my concertina (and actually be entertaining.)
2) Computers. This year I’m making an effort to work through the NAND to Tetris course. I’ve always wanted to learn how computers work from the ground up.
3) Spanish. I had a strong start learning Spanish this year but haven’t been as consistent. I’m aiming to become conversationally fluent next year.
For your second goal, if you're referring to implementing your own ray tracer I highly recommend the Ray Tracing in One Weekend series: https://raytracing.github.io/