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Poll: Where do you work (physically)?

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111–120 of 126 posts

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

#111
post #83
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a runner. I run 60 minutes to 120 minutes / day. I understand this. But at some point, you do have to click buttons in some divine ordered pattern, right? Or are you saying you don't even do this?

Dictation is a nice alternative.

Speaking and running isnt always easy.

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

#112
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Reminds me of the other day, picking a random transaction and following it's results across about 5 database tables, turned out that one network had a passthrough data size limit of 50 characters. Don't think this would have shown itself for a long time had I not randomly decided to follow the logic path.

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

#113
While sleeping... DONT laugh... i (or my alter ego <-that bastard never sleeps) apparently do lots of problem solving while sleeping, since most of my AHA... EUREKA moments literally wake me up in the middle of the night.

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

#114
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you for giving Aristotle some credit! Even though modern science has been able to correct some of his ideas, he was an amazing intellect and still has much to teach us.

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

#115

The Rose main reading room of the NYPL Schwarzman building (that's the one with the lions) is quiet, has wifi and outlets, and is inspirational. http://www.nypl.org/locations/schwarzman/general-research-di...

As an NYPL staffer and Hacker News junkie, I can't tell you how much I appreciate seeing this listed here.

Before I joined the library, I'd come here all the time just to get work done. Now I come here to work.

Anyway, if you go a few blocks south to the Science, Industry, and Business Library (34th & Madison Ave) there's access to tons of market research databases that have helped fill out many of my friends pitch decks.

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

#116

I have a complete, insulated, properly built outdoor office at the end of my garden. It was built because I had to give up my indoor office due to my daughter being born. End result? I now work in a tiny corner of the living room because I like being in the house and not walking up and down the garden in the cold. Oops.

I've got a converted shed in the back yard with a big old heater, but during the winter months I keep coming back to the idea of putting my heater on a cron job...

Also when it's really cold it makes me want to run when I need to go back to the house; the dash is a nice brisk way to get the blood pumping a bit.

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

#117

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.

Once in a fevered dream (literally) I reimplemented Puyo Puyo in elisp as a derived mode of M-x tetris. It was a blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyo_Puyo_(series)

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

#118
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get a whiteboard, I would suggest putting it far enough away from your desk that you need to stand up (or roll over to it) in order to use it. I've found that kind of physical separation very helpful in creating a mental separation between "designing mode" and "implementing mode."

Good suggestion. I used to do something similar when I had a rolling white board. I be sure to keep it away from my desk as I was planning/designing and would then wheel it back over to my work area when it was implementation time and/or I needed reminders. Though, I typically solve my most complex problems by leaving the computer and talking a walk around the block. That doesn't work out so well in these cold South…

these cold South Carolina winters, though

Cold? South Carolina? Does. Not. Compute :-)

I know it's all relative, but I woke up to -24F last week. Makes it real hard to think of South Carolina (of which my only memory is driving there in mid summer in a non A/C pickup truck) as "cold" ;-)

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

#120
post #20

For people who work in a coffee shop: a) Does the noise bother you? b) Do you ever get sick of being in the same place everyday? c) Does the owner ever get sick of you being there everyday?

Adding on to that, do you stay at the same shop all day or do you spend the first half at one place, eat lunch, then go to another?

I do my 2-5 days a week (depending on if I go to the real office) at about 50% coffee shop, then lunch and home. I try to average a coffee or refill per hour there so that I'm not pissing the owners off, but if I'm there really early, I might cut that back. When the traffic starts filling up the shop, though, I make sure I'm a paying customer.
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