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I program on the subway

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Re: I program on the subway

#141

Post by burningChrome »

bbkane wrote: post #78
bitmasher9 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read many books a year by reading for 20-30 minutes per night before sleeping. A habit with multiple benefits (winding down and reading or commuting and reading) is very powerful for getting the most value out of your time.

Until the book gets really good and you have to keep reading past your bedtime to learn what happens (or maybe that's just me)

Anything true crime keeps me up. Same with many genre's like you said, but for some reason true crime always hooks me.

I read the Zodiac book by Robert Graysmith in less than two days over break in college. Could not put it down.

Re: I program on the subway

#142

Post by stasge »

burningChrome wrote: post #140
nine_k wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is dedication. Unfortunately I can't program on a bus, I get motion sickness. Subway works very well though! It insulates me from most distractions. The only problem is that the longest subway commute I ever had was about 45 minutes; solid 2 hours would allow for so much more! :)

A buddy of mine had the same thing. He started taking the light rail into downtown and purposefully parked at one of the early stops instead of taking the bus in. He said he would sit and code on his side projects for around the same amount of time. In the span of a year, he knocked out several small mobile apps and several social media plugins. He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at…

My commute to work is quite long but there is no "sitting" in Tokyo's trains in mornings/evenings so I program on a smartphone. Yes, it's not impossible but it takes time to get used to it.

Re: I program on the subway

#144

Post by confusus »

btreesOfSpring wrote: post #57

When I was part of a team developing a highly durable texting protocol, those of us in NYC would regularly test messaging while riding the subway. Between stations, you didn't have network access but different devices upon entering the next station would handle and recover from the interruptions in various ways. The subway produced so many repeatable network connection edge case problems. It was fantastic.

Sounds very cool! Is that protocol still around?

Re: I program on the subway

#145

Post by madaxe_again »

komali2 wrote: post #22

> they would have to do it at a station, where they could immediately get off the train. I think, though, that this would be risky, given that subway stops generally have a lot of people getting on/off the train in the first place. I've seen a phone jacking in this exact scenario and nobody moved to stop the guy running. Nobody on the train can help cause the doors have closed, and nobody on the platform has any idea…

This is why I always used a clunker on the tube - early 2000s, you’d find me with a mid 90s monochrome Toshiba 386 laptop, cranking out code in vim - one handed, because the other hand supported the laptop - there are rarely seats on the tube.

Anyway. A) it was ancient and worthless and B) if anyone tried anything it was heavy enough it could do serious damage.

Re: I program on the subway

#146

Post by sokoloff »

neilv wrote: post #122
incanus77 wrote: post #84

About 20 years ago, I landed my first real, high-impact job at an upstart consulting agency in Washington DC that came from the ashes of the Howard Dean campaign. Unfortunately, I had also just signed a lease on an apartment in the town I lived in, a two hour drive from downtown DC. I spent the first year at that job commuting into DC 2-3 days/week, which involved about an hour drive, then an hour regional commuter t…

Something a bit like that is part of how I got the Lisp Hacker merit badge. I wanted a Lisp to be my new platform language for rapid systems research. And I had to spend most of each day on my laptop, from cafes and parks around town, with very little Internet access. So I got all the docs locally, and I kludged up Emacs as a power-efficient "IDE" (including avoiding having to run a bloated Web browser), to help keep…

Having started using emacs in the 80s, it’s strange to read about it being the power-efficient choice now.

I agree it was for you, but it had well-earned the “eight megabytes and constantly swapping” reputation 35 years ago.

Re: I program on the subway

#147

Post by Jean-Papoulos »

I switched from a 1h30 of commute by bus to 15 minutes by car a while back ; then I switched jobs and now have 1h total commute. It's kind of annoying that I can't do anything of substance during this time because I'm driving. I used to read on the bus and while I don't miss the bus, I certainly miss the reading.

Re: I program on the subway

#148

Post by [deleted] »

burningChrome wrote: post #140
nine_k wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is dedication. Unfortunately I can't program on a bus, I get motion sickness. Subway works very well though! It insulates me from most distractions. The only problem is that the longest subway commute I ever had was about 45 minutes; solid 2 hours would allow for so much more! :)

A buddy of mine had the same thing. He started taking the light rail into downtown and purposefully parked at one of the early stops instead of taking the bus in. He said he would sit and code on his side projects for around the same amount of time. In the span of a year, he knocked out several small mobile apps and several social media plugins. He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at…

[deleted]

Re: I program on the subway

#149

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #148
burningChrome wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A buddy of mine had the same thing. He started taking the light rail into downtown and purposefully parked at one of the early stops instead of taking the bus in. He said he would sit and code on his side projects for around the same amount of time. In the span of a year, he knocked out several small mobile apps and several social media plugins. He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at…

[deleted]

[deleted]
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