It can be a small skill.
The last thing I learned to do was whistle. Never could whistle my whole life, and tutorials and friends never could help me.
So, for the last month or two, I just sort of made the blow shape then spam-tried different “tongue configurations” so to speak – whenever I had free time. Monkey-at-a-typewriter type shit. It was more an absentminded thing than a practice investment.
Probably looked dumb as hell making blow noises. Felt dumb too (“what? you can’t whistle? just watch”), but I kept at it like a really really low-investment… dare I attract self-help gurus… habit.
Eventually I made a pitch, then I could shift the pitch up a little, then five pitches, then Liebestraum, then the range of a tenth or so. Skadoosh. Still doing it now lol.
(Make of this what you will: If I went the musician route my brain told me to, then I would’ve gotten bored after 1 minute of major scales. When I was stuck at only having five pitches, I had way more longevity whistle-blowing cartoonish Tom-and-Jerry-running-around chromaticisms than failing the “fa” in “do re mi fa”.)
So, Lemmings: What was the last skill you learned? And further, what was the context/way in which you learned it?
I got into photography during the pandemic as a way to go outside and stay active. I find it makes you pay attention to the environment around you a lot more closely. Things you normally wouldn’t notice become interesting.
In a similar way, I’d learnt an eeny bit about visual composition at one point, and it’s helped me understand how something pretty can be uninteresting and something ugly can be interesting. (Maybe it was more obvious to everyone else, especially with the whole image gen sitch (ー﹏一))
Oddly it’s made me respect internet-ugly MS Paint stuff more. Like this ancient shitpost.
And nature too of course. The way a red sky refracts in cirrus clouds. Ladybugs on leaves. Elk.
All stuff I normally wouldn’t have noticed :p
Yup, we tend to take our world for granted, but there’s so much to see even in things that normally seem mundane. Learning to stop and appreciate things has been a really eye opening experience for me as well.
Learning the proper way to squat for my long femurs/short torso body. It makes such a difference in how and where I feel the muscle work. Knees over toes be damned!
It’s places like that where “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
- How did you realize you were squatting wrong?
- How did you figure out the right way?
e.g. dumbbell row-like exercises all feel odd and disbalanced to me but idk what idk (is it form? body type? ask a doctor/trainer? check an authoritative blog that isnt SEO-spicy enough for search engines?)
Well, I kept trying to squat like most people do trying so hard not to lean forward and kept falling over on my ass lol. That and also I couldn’t feel the work in my glutes, only quads. Are you familiar with the way little children squat? I still can’t do it but getting better every day by practicing.
Turns out I have super tight hips and that prevented me of hinging correctly, plus the aformentioned femur/torso ratio.
I hired a personal trainer in january of this year to help me out with stuff and she helped me correct my form. Now I use a pair of those foam wedge things under my heels to prop me up in a better position and I can squat way better. It was a game changer.
Crocheting granny squares. My daughter got into crochet and I wanted to knit for a while so I asked her to teach me. After learning the basics I picked up what I need so I can make myself a blanket while commuting to work.
Reading the Cyrillic alphabet.
It’s not anywhere near as hard as it seems and there are so many times you encounter it.
What’d you learn it for (I personally don’t see it often so you likely live near a Cyrillic-heavier region) and how? Also
I kept seeing more and more things in Cyrillic especially because of the war in Ukraine, so gradually learned more and more of it online, now I know at least all the letters used in Russian. Now I can read Cyrillic, although only very slowly, basically I do it like an elementary school child.
I live in Austria for context, no neighboring countries with the Cyrillic alphabet.
Last I learned about some local plants (like the stinging nettle) and which part is edible and most energy dense.
Probably proper knife skills. I’ve always been pretty good with a knife, but I’ve been taking my time to really refine the skill as I do a lot of cooking for large groups so speed is extremely useful. I honestly learnt a lot of it indirectly by just watching how chefs use them, but for the theory and all that I started with Lan Lam’s video on knife skills over at the America’s Test Kitchen yt channel.
I’m about to be going to an event where I’ll be cooking nearly a thousand meals a day for three days, so I’m going to be putting it to the test. The one nice thing is we’ll have a team of volunteers to help with ingredient prep, so it should be okay but daunting none the less.
I learned how to make a really simple PCB in KiCad a few minutes ago, by watching this video. The thing I wanted actually existed already and I could’ve bought it from Aliexpress, but I realized I could save about $40 re-drawing my own version and ordering from JLCPCB instead, so that’s what I did.
I’ve recently learnt how to pronounce Irish slender consonants after basically years of wondering how to do it.
I joined a climbing gym after learning how to climb, belay and rappel for a week. I love learning knots, so that’s fun, but also all the terminology and techniques. Plus there’s a whole social aspect to it (climbers tend to be pretty friendly). Turning out to be a healthy and exciting new hobby!
Also @fool I remember learning to whistle as a kid–my dad was slightly annoyed he had shown me how to do it because I wouldn’t stop whistling the main themes from Indiana Jones and Star Wars
Climbing is great, because people tend to be friendly, and also competitive. But not competitive against each other, but rather against their own projects/goals. Makes for a super inclusive and comfortable social scene.
Butterfly stroke. Technique’s still terrible but I cam clear, may be, 30 meters in one go. Because if the nerve problems in my leg, I decided to drop jogging and start swimming again.
I learned how to make my own GIFs.
I also learned how to upscale video, but I’m not very good at it yet.
Nice. kdenlive or something else?
Also – upscale video? Don’t you run it through some real esrgan thing and wait for forever? I’m working on trying to upscale a video right now but my GPU is ancient
Gifski for the gifs and Topaz AI for the upscaling. I am on a Mac.
Recently learned how to bend some notes of an harmonica. It’s very complex to have the good mouth position, but it comes with practice i guess.
Do you actually bend the harmonica? Or is it just messing with the hole using your tongue?
I don’t think bending the instrument is a good idea, i just move my cheeks, tongue and throat in a way that the air flux bend the pins to change the tone. More info here
That makes sense. That’s why physically bending my harmonica never worked! I still don’t understand mechanistically how moving your tongue in your mouth changes the vibration of a reed, but I’ll work on that part.
Edit: found it!
To break a tire nut that’s really stuck on, hold the tire iron sideways to the left, support the iron with the right hand so it doesn’t pull on the nut wrong and damage it, step on the iron’s handle and lean on it until it loosens (usually with a loud snap)
If you get a + shaped tire iron, you can simultaneously pull up on one end and step down on the other, increasing your torque and keeping the nut properly engaged.
I recently learned to whistle as well! (in my late 30s). I’m bad at it, but finally can make a recognizable tune.
More recently though I’ve learned to cut my own hair :)
I’m in the middle of it right now but I’ve got an old plug in oil heater that I decided to pop open the cover and have a look-see before condemning myself to buying another for probably $100ish.
I am so far from comfortable working on electronics or woodworking or traditional guy stuff, but this radiator is old in the sense of it’s built like a brick shit house and hooked up to a simple mechanical switch with 3 wires, one of which is the power cord that finally disintegrated from the heat.
It’s so simply built even I can feel confident swapping out for a new mechanical switch and some new wiring.
