Had someone contact me because a browser interface was ‘down’ and it was actually a cert issue. It surprised me that in an IT context, this person didn’t have a basic understanding of SSL certs. They didn’t even know how to add a cert exception.
It got me thinking, what basic ubiquitous things am I a dumbass about outside of IT?
Ive seen lots of ‘fun facts’ compilations, but it would be better to get a wide range of subject suggestions that I can spend 30 minutes each or less on, and become a more capable human.
Like what subjects would plumbers consider basic knowledge? Chemical interactions between cleaning products and PVC pipes?
What would an accountant or a landscaper consider to be so basic its shocking people can live their lives without knowing any of it?
For most areas of expertise, its difficult to know even what the basics are to start with.
I’m constantly amazed at how many people don’t understand the concepts of basic finance and how compound interest works.
Years ago, I brought my laptop with me to buy a car so I could plug all the numbers into a quick amortization schedule. The sales person offered me a choice of $1,500 cash back or 1.9% financing instead of the typical rate a few percentage points higher.
I plugged the numbers into my spreadsheet and saw taking the cash back would cost me a couple grand more than the lower finance rate. When I told him I wanted the finance rate instead of the cash back, he mentioned that I was the only person he’d seen not take the cash back.
Maybe he was pulling my chain, but in my experience, the average person doesn’t know what compound interest is, let alone what an amortization schedule is.
Have you told this story before, possibly on reddit? I swear I’ve read this verbatim including the part about the laptop and “I was the only person who took the lower APR.”
Maybe, but it would’ve been years ago.
With each year that passes since the re-telling it gets exponentially more interesting.
The interest in this story is definitely compounding.
Could just be we’re old as fuck to the point that we find amortization schedules and saving money interesting.
EDIT: Sorry didn’t mean to reply to your comment, I’m on mobile, can’t tell posts from comments.
I believe knowing a little bit on how a car works helps you understand why maintenance is important or from getting scammed at mechanics, I loved old commercials like these that explain in such an easy way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI
Some skills I wanna pick up is how to micro solder, I deal with a lot of tech and sometimes you just need a type c port replaced and soldering iron is not the easiest tool for tiny pins.
Good news, the broken component is a common 2 dollar chip!
Bad news, it’s an SMD, and in the middle of a giant block of plastic and 2 more circuitboards.
Learning about cars, engines and motorbike maintenance at this stage in life really opened my eyes. I could have easily been a mechanic or an engineer if I had the access to this knowledge when I was younger.
Now I do as much of my own maintenance as I can, and I’m pretty sure my engine will hit 400K before I start getting serious issues. None of it is overly complicated or difficult, and saves me money in the short and long term.
I was fortunate to have a dad who had the tools, space, and time to teach me how to do repairs, with the things he taught me I can save a lot of money buying a beat up car and fixing it up for usually 1/3 to half the price of a used one.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=yYAw79386WI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
For microsoldering: you want the quick 861dw or one of the knockoffs and a bunch of tips. Sometimes you can get away without a microscope but usually you need one of those too. You need a swing arm mount for it because you often won’t be able to position your board under the objective of a tabletop mount.
You 100% cannot get away without a fume extractor. You’re gonna need low melt solder and flux, so you also need to be wearing disposable gloves.
You need a board holder because once all the solder in the area is liquified you don’t want the heavier parts sliding off the board because it’s propped up on a piece of wood at a ten degree angle.
If you wanna extend the amount of work you can do with just a decent iron: use flux and low melt to get everything on your usbc liquid at the same time so you can lift it off the board.
I found that using a soldering iron to be unweildy, which could either be a bad iron or my poor skills. I was thinking of maybe investing in future for one of those hakko hot air rework stations and see if it is any easier. Right now that’s on hold, but totally something I want to try in the future, maybe as a hobby.
Start with the hakko 888 or the weller equivalent. Learn how to solder big stuff first like tinning wires without burning up the insulation, big through hole joints according to the nasa guidelines, bell splices etc. it’s easier to see and judge how things are going with big stuff because you can see it better.
Use different tips to see what they do.
Remember that soldering is just brazing. You’re joining two metals by introducing a third.
Don’t start with a project you want to finish, just join a bunch of junk together, pull parts you don’t care about from old circuit boards and put different parts in their place.
Make little sculptures out of your trash.
Cheat with different kinds of flux till you don’t need to anymore.
Do the same things with smd parts.
It takes a long time to get good at soldering and no matter what anyone says you can’t just jump past the iron to hot air.
I mean, it’s possible. You’ll just never be able to fix mistakes or bridges you make with the hot air.
Thanks! excellent suggestion.
You can also use an interest calculator or multiply the payment by the term length to see how much over the purchase price you’ll pay in interest.
This is why it’s important to haggle over the purchase price and not the monthly payment. Never ever negotiate over the monthly payment, or you’re likely to get stuck with a 96-month loan at 23% interest.
My mother in law bought a truck the same week I bought my car. I mentioned that I got a 1.9% interest rate. She got a 22% rate!!! I was absolutely floored when I found out what she did.
22% is insane, that should be illegal honestly. Pretty much bought it on a credit card.
Yeah I was absolutely disgusted when I found out. It made me realize that there’s definitely a “poor tax”. If you don’t have good credit and/or aren’t informed enough to pay attention to interest rates, you’re basically going through life on hard mode.
That’s also why you never buy a car near a military base.
Lol that just reminded me of the /r/justbootthings subreddit. So many stories of 24% APR loans on Dodge Chargers.
That’s wild. When I was getting a mortgage for my house, the lender was like “your interest rate is X, but if you pay $Y you can add a ‘point’”. I’m like “wtf is a point?” Turns out, it’s a roundabout way of saying, higher down payment = lower interest rate.
It already wasn’t obvious what their jargon meant, so for you to have a sales person offering the exact opposite of what my lender did, actively bribing customers to take a worse deal for themselves, it’s just…scummy.
Yeah, buying points is a bit different though and again is a great example of why everyone should at least have a basic understanding of how to make an amortization schedule.
Buying points isn’t exactly the same as a higher down payment, because that money doesn’t take any principal off your loan. It’s basically paying interest up front, giving the lender a lesser amount now rather than a greater amount later.
Shit gets complicated real quick, so plugging it into an Excel spreadsheet makes it much more clear.
Cool, see I didn’t even know about that difference lol. To me it amounted to “do you want to pay us more up front for a lower monthly rate”, which just sounded like the same thing as a larger down payment.