33 ms·

Ask HN: What are topics that you want to learn but haven't gotten around to?

• askthrowaway 8y ago
  Game theory topics
• te_chris 8y ago
  Maths, properly.
  • tobbe2064 8y ago
    There is no such thing
    • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      Care to explain?
      • tobbe2064 8y ago
        I take properly to mean a structured approach to full understanding. However, the totality of math is beyond any single person. There are multiple approaches that all drift of in to different directions. In short. There is no final Aha moment for maths at large. There are however a shit load of specific aha moments down the path
• samthecoy 8y ago
  Category Theory (and more advanced Set Theory). After taking an undergraduate Set Theory course I want to explore these areas of mathematics further. I'm currently going though Thomas Jech's "Set Theory" on the Set Theory side, but haven't yet found a good, undergraduate accessible, Category Theory text.
  • tobbe2064 8y ago
    You should check out "Conceptual mathematics" and then "sets for mathematics", both written by lawvere. They are the amazing
• gpetukhov 8y ago
  Embedded systems, compiler design, Rust, GraphQL. There are too many things I want to learn...
  • senatorobama 8y ago
    Why not Deeo Learning?
    • gpetukhov 8y ago
      not very interested
• adius 8y ago
  For anyone looking for something to learn, I'd heavily recommend Haskell. It's been an eye opener for me.
  • brlewis 8y ago
    That's the first topic that came to mind for me. Second was authentication using PostgREST.
  • InterestBazinga 8y ago
    In what ways did it open your eyes?
• scarecrowbob 8y ago
  A second and third language.
• wilkystyle 8y ago
  In no particular order: - A deep and real understanding of the blockchain. - Clojure. I've heard that it is not only fun, but changes the way you approach programming in general. I don't have any professional need for it, though. - Truly understanding how neural networks work. - Rust, although this is similar to Clojure above; I don't know what I'd actually use it for.
  • slezyr 8y ago
    > - Rust, although this is similar to Clojure above; I don't know what I'd actually use it for. Not for network applications. It's nearly impossible to make async tcp server right now. But it's promising language. So let it mature.
• werber 8y ago
  The complete lifecycle of the code I write. I don't delve deeper than breakpoints 99% of the time
• joenot443 8y ago
  I'd really like to get into hobby electronics, specifically DIY guitar pedal design. There's a great subreddit, /r/diypedals, which I've been lurking for a while, I just haven't made the dive into buying my first kit and soldering equipment. Does anyone here on HN have any tips or words of wisdom?
  • jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    No tips, but I think this is one of the best ways to learn electronics. I took electronics classes in university but it wasn't until I actually had real circuits that I wanted to build (in my case amplifiers) that the material really started clicking for me.
  • flyingcircus3 8y ago
    I think its helpful to understand the basic principles of soldering. There are obviously tons of youtube videos out there. The underlying mechanics of soldering are that you are effectively making a metal to metal connection, which serves as both electrical conduction, and mechanical strength. The key to making good solder joints in the mechanical sense, is to ensure that the solder reaches the full melting point, so that it flows as a liquid. Once it flows as a liquid, it will wick onto/into the metal you are trying to fasten, the components and circuit board. There is a second component to solder, flux, which essentially optimizes this flow. As you heat the solder, the flux activates, as well as boils off. So this is why its somewhat time sensitive. It is during this activation period that the solder is optimally positioned to make good joints. If you just leave the iron right on the solder for too long, the flux burns off, and the metal starts clumping again, becoming less like a liquid and more like a solid. In this state, its kind of a losing battle to continue to attempt to form a good solder joint. The caveat to flux is that you must clean it off when you are done, as it is corrosive. There are no-clean fluxes out there too, meaning that they don't need cleaning. Thus, I've found the key to being able to solder well is to pay attention to the flux, and the viscosity of the solder. You can get flux by itself, to add as needed. You can buy it in a marker, or a bottle. This is very helpful with small pitched parts, because it allows the solder to wick very efficiently, as opposed to forming unwanted solder bridges. When your solder joint cools, you want it to be a nice hyperbolic transition from the horizontal plane of the circuitboard, to the vertical surface of your part lead. In other words, you want it to be concave, as opposed to convex. Another key metric to look for is the shininess of the cooled joint. If its dull, its because some part of the process didn't happen correctly. Add some flux, and hit it again. In terms of actual technique with the soldering iron, the key science to remember is heat transfer. You are taking one hot piece of metal (the iron), and mating some surface area with another piece of metal, the place where your component meets the circuit board, with the goal of heating that second piece of metal to the point where it will melt the solder. Thus, positioning the tip to have maximum surface contact with your joint is beneficial. Dont be afraid to put a decent amount of pressure as you are applying the tip as well. This will increase that surface area, and the heat transfer. Finally, this is going to make smoke, and get chemicals on your hands. If you just have a fan blowing at your work area, you are defeating all of your heat transfer work. I've found using a small desk fan, and just having it far enough away to draw the smoke away is a good compromise. Point the fan away from the work, not towards. Also, wash your hands after you solder. You don't want to put that stuff in your body. Buying some through-hole protoboard with individual solder pads, and some resistors is a good way to practice. Dont worry about the circuit your building, just try to get the hang of making good solder joints.
• danmaz74 8y ago
  Quantum mechanics. I should have studied it better when I was at university and my math was fresher :)
• tobbe2064 8y ago
  Natural language processing
• ydnaclementine 8y ago
  - elixir pheonix (waiting for the 1.3+ book) - C (I have the modern C book, just need to do it. My end goal is to get a PR into the linux kernel) - SICP + lisp - basic design, so I can have some idea of where to put things/page structure I keep track this kind of stuff in a trello list. I have a lot in the ToDo column
• lainga 8y ago
  Undergrad-level topology, at least enough to understand what a sheaf is.
• eltomate 8y ago
  Reinforcement learning
  • frenchie4111 8y ago
    OpenAI is throwing a RL (and Transfer Learning) contest right now, I am using it as an opportunity to learn and re-implement the current best RL stuff. https://contest.openai.com/ https://contest.openai.com/ If you end up joining the contest, shoot me a message on the discord, I would love to chat about RL (I am `lyons` on the discord).
• maguirre 8y ago
  Control Systems, DSP, RF design
  • kawfey 8y ago
    Getting into amateur radio is a good way to pursue these activities. GNURadio is popular and well-supported for software-defined-radio systems, and hardware can be a cheap as $10. If you're talking about kinematic control systems, building a quadcopter or RC plane may be worthwhile. There are tons of self-balancing arduino-powered things out there too.
• iDemonix 8y ago
  A front-end JS framework. Every time I look in to it there's 328 new ones and 5,149 reasons not to use the old one.
  • sixdimensional 8y ago
    I'm with you. I used to love web development. These days I find it exhausting unless you limit yourself to a clear set of tools and ignore the rest, at least for a while.
  • ahussain 8y ago
    React? There seems to be a consensus forming that it's the best. You can get started really quickly with create-react-app
    • Deadron 8y ago
      Even if you don't end up using React itself, alot of libraries are similar in concept. By learning one you can gain the concepts to use many. For example vue.js is really easy to pick up if you already know react.
• slezyr 8y ago
  3D modeling in Blender3D
  • gnode 8y ago
    Blender Guru on Youtube has a good set of video tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOKHwx1VCdgnxwbjyb9Iu1g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOKHwx1VCdgnxwbjyb9Iu1g I came across his channel when an interesting interview he did with Blender's founding creator was linked on here a while back.
    • slezyr 8y ago
      Thank you. But I prefer learn from books. Read "Blender 3D Basics"[1], this book is pure garbage. It's 70% of offtopic and author clearly doesn't have experience with blender and can only make some basic things. Author clearly have been paid for number of words and didn't even attempted to fill with useful information. Pure waste of time. Then tried more advanced book "Blender Master Class"[2], it was actually easy to follow and understand until some point when it went from one pic of blocks to fully modeled temple. (Just make the rest of owl) Next book I want to try is "Blender 3D Incredible Machines"[3] this time I made quick read of it. It looks like perfect place to learn blender. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Blender-3D-Basics-Fisher-Gordon/dp/1849516901/ref=sr_1_40?ie=UTF8&qid=1525277295&sr=8-40&keywords=blender+3d https://www.amazon.com/Blender-3D-Basics-Fisher-Gordon/dp/18... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Blender-Master-Class-Hands-Sculpting/dp/1593274777/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1525277277&sr=8-31&keywords=blender+3d https://www.amazon.com/Blender-Master-Class-Hands-Sculpting/... [3]: https://www.amazon.com/Blender-Incredible-Machines-Christopher-Kuhn-ebook/dp/B01956B5P8/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1525277255&sr=8-9&keywords=blender+3d https://www.amazon.com/Blender-Incredible-Machines-Christoph...
  • errozero 8y ago
    I started doing this recently, but I want to use a laptop. Blender seems better suited to a full size keyboard and proper mouse. Does anyone use it with a laptop keyboard and trackpad?
    • 8y ago
• gnode 8y ago
  Russian, better; I've been through the Duolingo course many times over now. I like it's teaching style, but it ends too soon, and I'm struggling to find good learning resources to advance to a higher level. More mathematics, particularly more degree-level analysis and geometry. It's the area that interests me most, and I feel I missed out on it doing a computer science degree. I'd also like to understand elliptic curve crypto. Not really a "topic", but I've wanted to get around to learning piano for a while now.
• cirgue 8y ago
  - Better theories of social interaction patterns online. I don't even know if that body of knowledge is out there outside of facebook/google, but i wish I had a better concrete understanding of how people interact online. - Off-the-beaten-path interface design. UI design seems to have converged around a set of principles that are generally pretty sound, but seem to have been optimized for looking good in demos but lead to underwhelming user experiences.
• sixdimensional 8y ago
  For me all I can think of when asked this question is all the topics I wish I could learn/study that are not specifically software / programming / information technology related. Wood frame construction, new ways to run organizations (e.g. Holocracy etc.), how to build solar power systems, how water purification systems work (e.g. Hydrolysis or reverse osmosis), cooking and baking... so many more. And, probably Tensorflow/Keras, Kubernetes, Angular, VR and maybe a deeper dive into Apache Spark. I didn't really ever get into blockchain. But lately I don't feel as motivated about the latest technology fad. Which is surprising even to me! Original poster, why do you ask?
• grad_ml 8y ago
  Probability + Undergrad statistics interpretations. Never feel confident.
• flyingcircus3 8y ago
  In the general sense, I've found that the best way to learn a new skill is to find an application that you are really interested in. This switches the goal from learning something to doing something interesting/fun. It is this motivation of wanting to use the end result that will sustain you through the grind of learning the skill.
• openfuture 8y ago
  Haskell. I can only do simple things and need to understand more jargon. Category Theory. I'm actually fixing this right now doing an online course. 3d modelling. Haven't gotten started. Really want to learn it. Rust / Clojurescript. I've started several times but not really been invested enough in the projects I think up to get very far. Swimming. I am also starting to make progress here. Handstand. I have the strength and flexibility but need better technique. Spanish. I understand when I listen but haven't learned how to speak, need to move to a latin country. Eye contact. I can do it with some people but with others (people who feel insecure) I empathize too much and break eye contact and start talking to the sky. Sperm retention. I want to be able to control my ejaculation, I've practiced a little but it's quite hard.
  • zumu 8y ago
    What online course are you doing for category theory?
• tetha 8y ago
  Mh, there's a bunch of things, but not enough time. I might want to look at some modern C++ style, but it's tricky to figure out a year to land on, and it's tricky to find a good book. This could be interesting for some gaming projects or simulation projects of mine. I might want to look at salt/ansible from a professional perspective. I'm a chef guy, but it'd be good to know some of the other tools around. This is mostly a case of lazy and lack of personal project. Containers and orchestration systems as well, but that's planned at work. Beyond that, electronics and model building. I've gotten myself some lego, an arduino, but I'll need to work more on that to do ... things. I dunno. Make my lego crane automatically pick up bright pink blocks or something. From there, I'd probably venture further into model building, like ships or planes. Or Nerf-Tanks. it sounds really useful to me to have a good basic grasp of low-voltage electronics, and how you'd wire up a home or how you'd fix simple electronic devices. It's something I'd be missing if I was supposed to build my own home from scratch. And beyond that - but I really want to get going there this summer - get and learn to paddle a folding canoe. I need to work on my work-life balance, and paddling a canoe is a great thing to just ignore the world. It's hard to think about binary deployments if there is a duck racing you.
• oseifrimpong 8y ago
  In no particular order: 1. Add Python programming to my arsenal of programming languages. 2. Project and People management 3. Data Structures
• timdellinger 8y ago
  I'm totally fine with it, but this post looks a lot like market research to me!
• asdsa5325 8y ago
  Not blockchain
• anotherevan 8y ago
  On the "Things I Want To Learn But Rarely Get Around To™" list there is Rust and to a lesser degree, Elm (although I am starting to worry about rumblings of dissatisfaction in how Elm is being managed). I'm also been reading a bit about Event Sourcing application design. I want to play with it, but it seems like I have to get my head around CQRS and Domain-driven design as part of the process...