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Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

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Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#61

Post by mercer »

krylon wrote: post #46
hacker_9 wrote: post #43

This is why I keep a notebook next to my bedside - I have my best ideas just before sleep or upon waking.

In a previous job, I sometimes ran into programming problems that I spent all day trying to figure out - without success. But quite often, when I went home, unwound, went to bed, just the moment before falling asleep, the solution would become obvious. And nearly every programmer I told about this had experienced the same thing. ;-)

Indeed. The feeling of solving a problem in 5 mins the morning after an entire day of banging my head against the wall is both one of my favorite and least favorite sensations.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#62

Post by rocqua »

> Renowned neuroscientist Alice Flaherty theorizes that the key biological ingredient in incubation is dopamine, the neurotransmitter released when we’re relaxed and comfortable.

There are a lot of things attributed to dopamine these days, and it feels like it can't possibly be that simple. If it were, dopamine injections would be a great thing. It's kinda like brainwaves. Maybe it serves as a pretty good indicator (dopamine for 'pleasure', brainwaves for how relaxed you are) but it is simply small-minded to assume that dopamine alone is responsible for everything. Just like brainwaves aren't the end-all of psychology.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#63

Post by foxhop »

Namrog84 wrote: post #2

I have become addicted to having long thinking session in the shower. I probably shower too much. I often go in there. Make sure all lights are off. Usually sit or lay in bathtub with just shower on. Close eyes and relax and think(and daydream). It's sorta like a combination massage / isolation chamber effect for me. Spending time doing this daily keeps me centered, focused, clear minded, and lastly reduces any tempo…

I started doing this and then started feeling bad about all the energy and water being used.

I thought about filling the tub with hot water and purchasing a high powered pump to circulate water to produce a shower effect.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#64

Post by snarf21 »

I also get the same effect when I am driving to work and from work and when I'm laying in bed before I fall asleep. I think there is something to be said for perspective. Some times we focus so hard and constant that we can't see the forest for the trees. There is a lot more to solving software problems than LOC/hour.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#66

Post by loeg »

jstimpfle wrote: post #55
coldtea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it mean that? It would be twice the amount of water. Why wouldn't the energy required be at least linearly correlated with the water amount?

While it's twice the amount of water, the water is not as dirty (when you shower twice as long you may not be twice as dirty and may not be using twice the amount of shampoo). Is that reasoning unrealistic? I don't know a first thing about water treatment.

For drinking water, we typically process relatively clean sources of water to begin with, not wastewater. It will vary by region. (I don't think anywhere actually starts with wastewater rather than some more convenient and clean local source, outside of fiction like "Dune.")

To take a local example I am familiar with — Seattle gets most of its drinking water from the Cedar River watershed (rainwater). It is a relatively pristine source. Wastewater, including shower output, is treated and released into Puget Sound[0] (the ocean). The only way that ocean water makes it back into the drinking supply is via ordinary evaporation and rain.

So the treatment required on the second quantity of water is exactly the same as on the first, and you get linearly increasing cost.

[0]: http://your.kingcounty.gov/ftp/gis/Web/VMC/utilities/system_...

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#67

Post by brianwawok »

bsaul wrote: post #53
brianwawok wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google tells me the average bath uses 35-50 gallons of water, while the average shower uses 2 gallons per minute. Which puts the breakeven point at say 15-25 minutes. Although if you live in the midwest like I do, we have infinite water. Use more water? it goes back to lake Michigan and recycled. The gas to heat the water is the only "waste", but you could offset with a solar panel.

or you do it like in japan : they have a bathtube filled with water that you reheat when you want to have a bath, but you actually clean yourself before going inside.

That's a hot tub in the US... Which generally stay hot all the time and cost about $30 a month in energy costs.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#68

Post by sgt101 »

hal9000xp wrote: post #56
sgt101 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe an np complete problem that you have solved?

I said solving olympiad problems is NP-complete task. Not problems themselves. See the difference? Let's say there is a relatively simple olympiad puzzle. Also, let's say there is a imaginary robot which should solve this olympiad puzzle. What I said there is no fast universal algorithm for the robot which allows to solve any such olympiad puzzle. The only thing robot can do to solve many (but not all) problems is he…

I don't think your argument holds water.

The Robot has to check n p-complex approaches to m problems.

This has complexity n.m.p'max I think that's in p.

All the problems that are known to be p are in n and m.

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