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Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

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101–110 of 126 posts

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was working on my thesis I did much of the same thing -- the majority of my "thinking" time was spent walking in a loop around the college gardens, and I would only go inside to type out a few paragraphs once I had composed them mentally. I got quite annoyed when the college closed the gardens between midnight and 4 AM...

Interesting - what college?

As haliax Googled, I was at Wadham.

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was working on my thesis I did much of the same thing -- the majority of my "thinking" time was spent walking in a loop around the college gardens, and I would only go inside to type out a few paragraphs once I had composed them mentally. I got quite annoyed when the college closed the gardens between midnight and 4 AM...

Maybe a CS student walking alone outside at 2am is not the best of ideas.

Aside from the danger of tripping over my feet, it was quite safe. Oxford dates from a period when the "town" would routinely riot against the "gown", and college are, quite literally, fortified.

The Wadham college gardens aren't quite so well guarded as the college proper, but they're still surrounded by a 15' stone wall -- hardly something anyone is going to climb over just on the chance that they can mug someone.

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - what college?

As haliax Googled, I was at Wadham.

I should've looked it up, but I'm on my mobile and 'net access is inconvenient - sorry. Thanks for the amswer. Your comment sounded familiar - I was at Corpus, Cambridge - so the experience is similar.

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#105
post #90

I think some of the most amazing 10-20 liners of code I've written, I wrote in my dreams. Made a major effort to memorize them, and then implemented once I got to a computer.

Related to this, it's amazing when your away from the computer and not really engaged in anything you can think back to a piece of code that was giving you trouble and come up with a fix you couldn't think of while working at a screen.

Or more surprising, twigging a bug in some code you previously considered fine :)

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#106
post #24

Believe it or not I do much of my work walking along the street. When I'm doing office hours at YC (and the weather's good and we don't need to look at screens) I usually suggest going for a walk.

When I was working on my thesis I did much of the same thing -- the majority of my "thinking" time was spent walking in a loop around the college gardens, and I would only go inside to type out a few paragraphs once I had composed them mentally. I got quite annoyed when the college closed the gardens between midnight and 4 AM...

An old professor of mine used to go on huge country walks for a lot of the day. He is one of the top figures in his field of AI and attributes most of his success to being able to just walk out of the campus and into a huge field. He is at a large post-polytechnic and is courted by the likes of Oxbridge and UCL/ICL almost yearly, but stays because he likes the nearby field.

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#108
post #53
post #24

Believe it or not I do much of my work walking along the street. When I'm doing office hours at YC (and the weather's good and we don't need to look at screens) I usually suggest going for a walk.

Very smart strategy, considering this: Just today I've heard a theory, that when you walk around brain is more able to try new ways of thinking and solving problems, because the 'motion center' in the brain is doing what it's supposed to do: handling one's movements. On the contrary when we are not moving, this center can often overwhelm the thought process with already established habits, which makes trying new thin…

Aristotle's Peripatetic school was all about walking while thinking and teaching and learning.

Re: Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

#110
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was working on my thesis I did much of the same thing -- the majority of my "thinking" time was spent walking in a loop around the college gardens, and I would only go inside to type out a few paragraphs once I had composed them mentally. I got quite annoyed when the college closed the gardens between midnight and 4 AM...

I did much the same, also, Google says you were at Wadham College, right next door to me!

Where were you? Trinity? New? Rhodes house?
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