471–480 of 785 posts
Start reading slashdot and later hackernews. I am still a CS student, these news sites allow me insight into the world after college, allowing me to plan and visualize my future better.
For me, it was 100% weight lifting and dieting (aka: exercise). Pretty much everyone here has mentioned this, but I don't think anyone has really explained just how incredibly life-changing it can really be. I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and h…
Whoever is readying this, don't think you can get that amount of muscle in a natural way so fast. Only Testosterone, trenbolone and other stuff will make you that large.
According to a simple calculator, if you cut down below 8% fat (which is pro body builder territory), you'd still be at above 205lbs, which is no way achievable with normal/simple workouts.
I don't want to chastise you, but to whoever is reading this, make sure to have realistic expectations once you get into weightlifting. Getting below 15% while body fat, while having some decent muscle definition is a goal achievable by everyone. It might take a couple of years for some, but it is realistic. Trying to looking like the models in the fitness magazines, unfortunately is not, as 99% of them take hormones and other performance enhancing drugs.
I can see within a few years from now I would have similar moments for stopping to use facebook and twitter
How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…
It's a hobby, and like any other hobby, it's profoundly stupid. How stupid is it to build model railways? How pointless is it to collect stamps. How dumb is it to fix cars? All "stupid" things we do for pleasure and for accomplishment. I suggest not being so focused on what should be stupid or not, and instead remember that time enjoyed is not time wasted.
There are some people that genuinely find joy in their work, I have no problem with those people. They probably have a bit of a problem in their personal life with overdoing it at work, but as long as they genuinely enjoy it I can't fault them.
edit: I should say before somebody jumps down my throat, I'm not saying we shouldn't have to work, or work is so terrible. I'm saying work is usually a means to an end, and you're very lucky if you happen to enjoy what you do to any degree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe not the right game? Try Dwarf Fortress. It's the only game that has addicted me past the age of 18.
For me, it is almost the opposite. I can't get into games that are highly "stateful" anymore. I find that the only games I can consistently play for relaxation are games like match-based FPSs that I'd call "stateless". The anxiety about wasting time hits me when I'm looking down at an empire in Civ or a growing base in DF or my stats pane in an RPG. When I can see evidence of how much time I've spent building an imag…
I still like building things so Age of Empires 2 is perfect for me - there's a lot of base / army building but it's ultimately a short stateless activity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a hippie, but you do meditation and fasts... Okay, that came out a bit incisive. Do you have any scientific backing to support those claims? I'm especially interested in fasting. Not eating for 3 days a month does not seem especially healthy. Then I see the claim that it cures cancer and forgive me if all my alarm bells go off.
I just so happen to be currently reading about this in The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. He says: "From predator-prey models (the so-called Lotka-Volterra type of population dynamics), I knew that populations experience [potentially high] variability, hence predators will necessarily go through periods of feast and famine. That's us, humans--we had to have been designed to experience extreme hunger and extreme abundanc…
Based on my own experiences, I agree with the main point, I find steady exercises like jogging much less exhausting than dynamic exercises like playing football (soccer) where you're frequently switching between exertion and rest. This also seems to tie in with High Intensity Training (though I've never formally tried it):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_intensity_training
However, isn't weightlifting a couple of times a week an example of exercising to extremes? At least if you prioritise weight over repetitions. This is purely anecdotal, but I've heard from various sources that free weight exercises like squats and deadlifts are some of the best exercises you can do, as they work out your whole body and the proper form relies on getting different muscle groups to work well together.
Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they…
I'm curious, what do you think the average age on HN is?
Not that I have the facts, but I don't think HN is such an old audience.
For me, it was 100% weight lifting and dieting (aka: exercise). Pretty much everyone here has mentioned this, but I don't think anyone has really explained just how incredibly life-changing it can really be. I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and h…
Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they…
I think I prefer unclogging people's toilets than providing technical support to your average Windows user. Pay is probably better as well
Linux support though, I'd stay up all night for someone who's curious enough to use (or try using) Linux without being a computer guru already. Windows people bought a product, they can call the support hotline.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a similar epiphany when I started to learn programming (I was about 27 at the time). I realized I was spending all my time just incrementing numbers in a server. Since then I've dropped almost all gaming, reducing it to about 4 hours a week of phone games and shifted to doing outdoor activities like running, biking, ect. PokemonGo has been a way to meld the two.
Well... isn't everyone basically spending all their time (working) to just incrementing numbers in a server (bank account balance)?
Everyone wants to hire me to do a minor variation on the same shit ten other companies are doing, and I'm still having most of the same arguments with people I've been having for 15 years, sometimes using articles and books written 40 years ago.
Go outside, get your hands dirty, and stop chasing your tail.