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.

  • Bigoldmustard@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    It’s really easy to understand diabetes but it’s not something a lot of people grasp quickly if it doesn’t affect them.

    First, when you eat carbohydrates they are converted into sugar by the body. Your cells want that sugar, but they don’t want too much. Too much sugar in the blood can damage blood vessels, leading to all sorts of issues ranging from annoying to fatal.

    Insulin is like UPS, it delivers the sugar to the cells, also facilitating its entry into the cells. Normal people’s pancreas release an appropriate amount of insulin to match the amount of sugar in your blood and keep your blood sugar in a safe range (70-120, guidance on this varies this is not medical advice).

    Type 1: Pancreas is damaged, often by the body’s immune system, and can no longer produce insulin. It’s genetic, and it doesn’t usually present after adolescence. The only treatment for type 1 is insulin. If you don’t have a pump you take a 24-hour insulin for a baseline and then a short-acting insulin for your meals. You usually have a carbohydrate to insulin ratio. 1 unit of insulin to 15g carbs is pretty common for a starting point. If you have a pump it just releases a slow drip of insulin as a base and then you program your ratio for meals.

    Type 2: Your cells become insulin resistant and your pancreas responds by upping the amount of insulin it produces. Eventually it can’t keep up and your blood sugar rises. There is a period of time where you can avoid developing type 2 with diet changes. There is a period of time where you can just take pills. The final stage is using insulin injections like a type 1.

    Finally, insulin is really expensive (or was, I think there’s legislation lowering prices in my state). The retail price without insurance of 2 insulins, needle tips, and blood testing supplies can easily be $1200/month. That’s the price you pay to eat without dying as a type 1.

    I’m just a simple guy but if making that much money off people who literally have no other choice isn’t evil I’m not sure what is. Do we deserve to be able to eat? Tough call I guess.

  • Hatch@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    As someone who works with tech, here is my 2 cents on basic knowledge.

    If your computer is “not working” restarting the computer can generally fix 80 percent of the issues. We are not trying to make you mad, this is literraly first thing I am doing if you present me a problem.

    Stop downloading things from unknown sources.

    Use generic effects/fonts on your powerpoint. Just because you bought something cool doesnt mean it will magically transfer when you pass your presnetation to another computer for your presentation. (Microsoft does not migrate your paid effects)

    For gamers Stop playing pvp on your pc/console on wifi, are you a mad?

    Everyone in general We are at an age of computers. Learn how to type, it will save you tremendous amount of time, literally.

      • Hatch@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yes, i have seen it happen several times and i get blamed why its not showing on the show laptop. The moment i ask, “did you purchase any add on effects?” i feel like a customer service telling a customer your credit card was denied.

        • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s just wild. I’m in meetings with slides constantly and never heard of this. We’ll, now I have a new rabbit hole to go down (as in “finding the most ridiculous of these”).

  • viralJ@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I honestly have no idea what your first paragraph is about. It might as well be in Chinese.

    I’m a molecular biologist. I was recently surprised when I told someone that RNA is a thing that all living thing are brimming with. He thought that RNA was something scientists invented in 2020s to use as COVID vaccines.

    I also once worked with someone who had a degree in biological sciences and was shocked to learn that female cows have vaginas. She didn’t explain where she thought baby cows come from, but we decided not to push the matter and changed the subject.

    • overcast5348@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      ELI5 of certificates:

      The “s” in “https” in urls like “https://wikipedia.com” stands for “Secure”.

      When you connect to Wikipedia’s computer to read something, how do you know if the content you get back is what they actually sent and wasn’t altered by your friendly neighborhood hacker?

      Wikipedia can “sign” the content before sending it you. They also give you a certificate telling you how they have a particular signature which has been verified by someone else whom you already trust, and how long this particular signature is valid for.

      If a hacker tries to alter the document returned by Wikipedia, they wouldn’t be able to sign the document correctly. If they tried to give a certificate with a different signature too, you would catch it because they wouldn’t be able to fake the verification of the “someone you trust” so you’d catch the fake certificate.

      Browsers handle all this stuff for us. If it detects something fishy, it’ll just show an error along the lines of “could not verify certificate”. In some cases, it’s genuinely an issue where you/the website is under attack and you may get a virus.

      In some other cases though, it’s an issue of the certificate expiring and the guys at Wikipedia not being proactive about getting a new signature and certificate. If you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you’re just dealing with a lazy developer and not a malicious hacker, you can tell your browser to ignore whatever issue it detected and show you the content that was returned by Wikipedia.

      Thanks for attending my TEDx talk.

  • boatswain@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    If you’re pulling on a rope really hard, don’t wrap it around your hand to get a better grip. If it starts to pull away from you, you won’t be able to let go, and if someone runs up to help and starts hauling on the end, your hand is going to be in a world of pain.

  • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If people say ‘i have excel competence’, the difference could be between ‘i can resize fonts and do tables for my company forms because I don’t know how to do them in word’ to ‘fully modelling a business plan for a Telco, including it’s subsidiary units’. Make sure you test for the level of competence you’re after.

    Learn a new formula every now and then, or at very least learn to read other people’s formulas, then google what you don’t know. Literacy in any field is the result of a long process of learning.

    (Reread your question) Outside of IT: if an appliance stops working, it’s sometimes just a fuse that needs replacing. It’s cheap and easy to do.

  • Bob@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    Basic knife skills is something I’m often almost shocked by. I had a housemate last year who’d bought herself a decent Sabatier chef’s knife (like this) but the way she cut veg, she may as well have been using a sharpened bit of moss. All the gear and no idea. Thankfully she forgot to take it with her or something when she moved out so it’s my knife now.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m a person you will be horrified by because I gave up on sharp knives, switched to serrated for everything, and NO REGRETS.

    • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nzOP
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      1 year ago

      I would also add knowing how to sharpen a knife on a stone and never using the knife-blunteners that come prebuilt into knife blocks these days.

    • poo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What can I do or watch to improve my knife skills? I’m aware of how woefully incompetent I am when it takes me like 2 minutes to dice an onion the way Ramsay does in 10 seconds lol

      • Bob@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        Keep your knife sharp, remember that you cut by running the blade along something rather than pressing into it, and keep your fingers out the way by doing the claw with the other hand and keeping your grip firm. Then just practise!

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        For onions specifically:

        Sharpen your knife and make French onion soup.

        You’ll cut so many that you’ll figure it out.

        For everything else: pinch grip and crab your other hand. The pinch grip is where you rely on a pinch between thumb and forefinger on the blade just in front of the handle to grab the knife. It’s the choke up of holding a knife and will make you much safer and give more control. Crabbing your other hand is where you curl your fingers up like ginger roots instead of letting them extend out like little baby carrots. It will keep you from being hurt when something goes wrong and allow you to go much faster because you’re not having to slow down to avoid cutting yourself.

  • Pulptastic@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    We are all terrible at applying statistics, it is incongruent with the way our intuition works. It takes intentional consideration plus math and understanding to consider things statistically, much harder than the immediate intuitive answers our brains give us. The worst part is sometimes those intuitive answers are dead on, sometimes they totally miss the mark, and we have no way of knowing which is which without doing the hard work to evaluate the situation statistically.

    The boom Thinking Fast and Slow covers this in great detail and provides some guidance on how to manage it.

  • blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk
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    1 year ago

    How to do basic DIY. Do you know all the functions of your drill? Can you screw something in to wood, brick, plaster - for dab and cavity? What fixings and screw types should you use? Can you re-wire a plug? Change a tap? Wire an Ethernet connector and punchdown? Balance your books, calculate your tax, basic car maintenance…?

    As a software engineer or IT person it’s easy to think we’re all so very smart, but anyone skilled in ANYTHING will know so much you don’t in their own subject.

    Basically everyone is an idiot about most things.

  • Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Not really completely on topic, but there’s an app called Kinnu. It’s free, and gamifies learning- like Duolingo but for a really wide variety of topics. So far I’ve done the pathways on learning, ikigai (Japanese concept of reason for living/being), logic and cognitive biases. They have pathways on other things too, like history, various sciences, philosophies, even personal finance (probably the next one I do).

    It’s a great way to kill 2-5 minutes a day and Ive learned a ton.

  • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    You’re ignorant of most things, and recognizing this is one of the most important things to growth as a person.

  • Pulptastic@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Don’t use high heat on nonstick pans.

    Assuming we want the same internal temperature, high heat will cook the outside more than low heat. For bread you probably want a bit more heat to get a nice crusty outside. For steaks you want less heat to avoid overcooking most of the meat, then just a quick sear on the outside.

    Don’t overload your pan. If your food is cooking in a bunch of water that came out of the food you are boiling it, not frying it, and it’s going to suck. Put in less food so that water can boil off before it starts boiling your food.

    Don’t overload your cookie sheets either. The center of the pan will not get as hot due to all that cold wet food sucking up all the heat, so the fries on the edge will cook faster than the fries in the middle.

    Sear or roast your brassicas. They taste way better with some browning and lots of oil and salt.

    Measuring food by weight is much easier and much more accurate than measuring by volume with measuring cups and spoons. This is next level awesome if you’re trying to measure something sticky like honey or peanut butter, you can weigh it in the mixing bowl rather than dirtying a measurement device.

    Don’t overvook your meat. Use a fast read meat thermometer. Beef, pork, chicken, seafood, are all much better when cooked.to the proper internal temperature.

    I am not a cooking expert, I am a heat transfer expert with a strong background in chemistry and those skills transfer over to cooking.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I find high heat in stainless steel pans is very good though? Like it works better to heat the pan and then add your oils. They’re so much better.

      • Pulptastic@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        Definitely. I agree that in stainless, it is best to get hot first, then add oil, then add food. It is also best to let the food sit still for a bit on the heat, as it browns it will naturally start to detach to flip or remove. Same works for cast iron but easier

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Just adding to yours as I’m a nerd for gardening and it isn’t common knowledge: brassicas are vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, mustard, etc

      Also on the topic of brassicas, if you see the little white “butterflies” with a black dot on each wing, those are cabbage moths and the bane of a gardeners existence! Unless an entomologist can chime in and say why they’re actually great lol

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    The sales are continuous at Lowe’s. Probably other stores too, but I can say that I worked for Lowe’s for about 15 months and during that time we always had a sale going.

    It’s a ruse to provide an artificial sense of urgency. One sale would end say 1/13 and on 1/14 we’d take down all the signage from that sale and put up the signage got the next sale.

  • twice_twotimes@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I’m a developmental psychologist, and the biggest thing is people just not knowing what “psychologist” means.

    The tl;dr here is:

    Most psychologists aren’t therapists. Most therapists aren’t psychologists. If you’re looking for quality mental health care, don’t revere the “doctor.”

    A “psychologist” refers to someone with a PhD in psychology (or someone who does psychological research within an interdisciplinary field, like education or human development). Critically, a psychologist is a researcher (and often an educator at the college+ level). Psychology is a massive field, and the most common subfields are cognitive, developmental, social, clinical, and neurobio.

    A “clinical psychologist” is a research psychologist is the particular subfield of clinical psychology. Along with research, clinical psychologists usually learn clinical psychotherapy practices and then may (or may not) choose to incorporate offering therapy into their career. A similar path is the “PsyD” (doctor of psychology) which also falls under the “psychologist” heading. Like a clinical psych PhD, a PsyD has had advanced training in research and practice, but the balance of the degree leans much more toward practice. People who opt for a PsyD rather than PhD usually plan to pursue a fully clinical career, but are qualified to do research as well.

    A “therapist” is someone who is trained and licensed to provide clinical psychotherapy. Most therapists in the US have a master’s degree in social work (or a few others, like counseling psychology), specialized clinical training in one or more areas or treatments, and additional state licensure requirements. Clinical and counseling psychologists (with PhDs) can act as therapists if they get and maintain licenses, but this is a small fraction of therapists. PsyDs make up another chunk, but the majority do not have a terminal PhD/PsyD.

    As a psychologist, I don’t say this because I think my PhD makes me better than someone with an MSW — the reverse! I hear people get advice to not see a therapist if they are “just” a social worker without a PhD. Meanwhile people come up to my dumbass self and think I am qualified to act as a therapist or like I know anything about clinical or abnormal psychology. Like, wanna know how 2-year-olds and 12-year-olds use nonverbal signals like shrugs to facilitate conversational interaction differently from each other and from adults? No? Then I am not the person you’re looking for. Go talk to that extremely knowledgeable and well-trained person with an MA.

    …Meanwhile a “psychiatrist” is a whole other thing. They have an MD and can prescribe medication. Very rarely they may also offer psychotherapy, but that’s hard to make happen in the US a healthcare system.