This question pops up on HN occasionally, but I am posting it here again. These days, besides working as a data scientist, I am learning game theory and curious to know what you are learning besides your job.
I’m on maternity leave now, so I’m doing a lot of one-handed learning while nursing my newborn. Specifically:<p>- Pytest (With Brian Okkens book)<p>- CPython (with Anthony Shaws book)<p>- Frontend tools: Rollup, Lit Web Elements<p>- latest Ecmascript features<p>- Azure services- App Service, CDN, Translator, Storage<p>- Flask Blueprints, SQLAlchemy with Alembic<p>- PostGreSQL
How to play guitar. I'm in my 60s, but it's never too late to learn how to shred or shoe-gaze.<p>Similarly, 30+ years ago I learned how to ride a motorcycle, and rode for 30 years without crashing. It was great having a hobby that had absolutely <i>nothing</i> to do with computers. I recently sold the bikes and gear, it's just too risky at my age.
Critical thinking, as it applies to the practice of software development.<p>Reading/watch list:<p>- Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, by Diane F. Halpern<p>- Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Robert J. Fogelin<p>- Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely<p>- Evidence-based Software Engineering - <a href="http://knosof.co.uk/ESEUR/ESEUR.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://knosof.co.uk/ESEUR/ESEUR.pdf</a><p>- A Philosophy of Software Design, by John Ousterhout<p>- <a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindware" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/learn/mindware</a><p>This is research for a book I'm writing on that topic.
I just bought some acreage with the immediate intention of learning how to regenerate the soil to lay the groundwork for an orchard and vegetable garden next year, integrating animals and bees. I am in awe of how much there is to learn and how interlinked every decision is. It is easily the most challenging and exciting thing I’ve ever embarked upon.
Parenting. We have a very energetic 15 month old who has decided that 8 hours of sleep at night + a 1.5 hour nap is all she needs. Also, she has been teething pretty much non stop for 9 months.<p>Aside from that, I'm learning a lot about virtual machines by porting FreeBSD to run in the Firecracker VM.
I just took delivery of some practice nunchaku off eBay :-) God what you can do in one day's watching tutorials! I just taught two of my kids the basics and we haven't broken anything yet.<p>Other than that. Midnight Commander (always had it, never learned it), picking up some Perl, Janet, Groovy. Some GDevelop with my kids.<p>Theory wise I'm working within my field to study some esoteric personality theory. A bit of math here and there. Some astrology stuff also for esoteric interest. Researching microscopes to look at buying one in the future.
I've started my own company and am about to launch our product, so I'm learning marketing.<p>I think that I've been lucky so far because most of the traction is based on the strength of the product, and that has meant that I can sit back and gather feedback and opinions without doing anything outside of asking. However it's left me in a position where I'm unsure which steps I should be taking as I get closer and closer to launching.<p>If anyone has any resources that they've found particularly helpful, I'd love to read them.
I'm learning docker to run a bunch of services on an old computer. I want to try out Navidrome for serving music and a photo gallery to use instead of Google photos.
CS 436: Distributed Computer Systems
I started with MIT's course but realized a few pieces of the puzzle are missing in my model of the web, this course is better for noobs.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8KFPWkK0bI&list=PLawkBQ15NDEkDJ5IyLIJUTZ1rRM9YQq6N" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8KFPWkK0bI&list=PLawkBQ15ND...</a>
Arduino programming + motor control (Stepper robots, for robotics - toy, not industrial) cobbled with 3D printing.<p>I've always been fascinated with robotics, and the barrier to entry is getting lower by the second.<p>But I want to know all the details, so I'm going slow and steady at it (Like, instead of using libraries - at least when learning - I'm coding 100% of the stepper motor control routines).<p>I plan on making my own designs, and make my own versions of known ones: The first thing I want to try my hand at is either (my own version of) a PolarGraph or an AxiDraw.<p>Then I'll move to other things, also in the early stages of designing a chess playing (arm) robot.
Dating. Or, trying. Harder than I thought, and every attempt I make it always seems to go the direction of signing up for one of these online dating services, which I originally wanted to avoid, because privacy is important to me.
- Quantum computing via <a href="https://quantum.country/" rel="nofollow">https://quantum.country/</a><p>- Cooking via YouTube (Food Wishes w/ Chef John, and Kenji Lopez Alt's channel)<p>- ML model architectures (AI Coffee Break, and Yannic Kilcher's channels)<p>- Exploring different ways of thinking about and responses to the question: What is the meaning of life? (I don't think there is one, so it's more about how we derive one for ourselves.)
- I'm learning about the format (sections) of executable machine code files.
- I'm learning about love, e.g. how different ppl express their affections and what they expect from others they love.
- I'm learning about Stoicism and Cynicism (Hellenistic philosophy).
- I'm restudying nursing, so I can go back to work.
- I'm trying to understand myself.
Python - I'm in the Sysadmin/DevOps/CloundEng space and bash/ansible/terraform isn't enough any more. Need to learn to do "real" programming. I also have a side project that requires a proper interactive website.
Re-learning C by reading K&R and operating systems by reading Tanenbaum et al in the evenings. Hoping to then read a bit deeper about operating systems and long-term dreaming of getting so deep (if I ever get there) that I can write/improve device support for an operating system. This is all with the end goal to feel less helpless when things work on one and not another, while not being best buddies with a BSD kernel hacker and almost certainly knowing that I lack the funds to hire one for the amount of hours necessary. '^^
I'm learning Computer Science by auditing University of California, Berkeley CS61A, CS61B, CS61C. Later I will be learning web developement through Full Stack Open.
Currently refreshing some of my programming knowledge. Also reviewing my math skills. I tend to do each of these things periodically to refresh some of the knowledge I might not use so much anymore. Currently thinking of some side projects to work on as well.<p>On my radar for the Fall is learning a second language and beginning to learn woodworking. Speaking of that, any advice on the first tools a beginning woodworker should add to their shop?
Hockey. I always wanted to try it, but never lived near an ice rink till one opened up down the street. I’m having a lot of fun, although still can barely control myself, let alone the puck.<p>I’m also spending some quality time with software and enterprise architecture books, working on some container oriented side projects, and somewhat surprisingly learning the Microsoft Power Platform, as my team keeps catching requests that are a good fit for a low code solution.
Currently going through a MBA program, slowly unlearning many of the habits I've picked up as an Individual contributor and began to look at the big picture.
I recently learned how to solder. It takes like 20 minutes (and a small investment of money) and is definitely worth it. No more "oh I don't know how to solder, I can't do that". I've since built a bunch of electronic kits, including stuff that is only available in kit form. It's been pretty fun.<p>Recommend the Pinecil!
I am trying to make a Bipedal Wheeled Robot, so learning mechanical design and solidworks modeling. Refreshing my robot Kinematics and Dynamics. Will eventually have to learn some optimal control to make it do fun stuff like jumping or leaning to the side but that is still quite far ahead in the future.
I will probably be leaving my current position in a few weeks. I have some money saved up. I think I will go through "How To Design Programs" and then SICP.<p>I know it doesn't work for everyone, but all of the (admittedly few) people that I have met who have been through SICP said it helped them get to the next level.
Arm architectures, especially the one on an old raspberry pi b+ (running armhf or armel due to some technical magic).<p>I want to use the old pi as a node in a k3s (lightweight kubernetes distro) cluster but the current releases won’t run. I’m currently reading up on qemu and the k3s build process (which to me seems kinda convoluted).
For the past year, I have been learning Options Trading. I have taken on studying though books and implementing the strategies and ideas mentioned in books using Python/Pandas/Numpy/Matplotlib and variety of Options and Financial libraries.
After over 20 years of Vim, I thought I would finally start learning Emacs given I want to start playing with Lisp. Having done the in-built tutorial and read "Mastering Emacs", I'm now going through the manual.
Not enough.<p>This is timed so perfectly for me to say this. Building things still is great but the amount of stack-specific knowledge I need day-to-day is skyrocketing.
Self hosting on my own hardware. I’m not quite sure if this is “homelab”, but I mean things like Plex server, Kiwix with Wikipedia. NextCloud is… next.
I'm working on learning these slowly: C++/GTK/Haskell/Godot/Nix<p>C++ I get to use more but the others not so much yet<p>Haskell is brutal