41–50 of 230 posts
Giving up video games in my 20s. If I hadn't done that, I'd still be stuck in front of a game somewhere. Those things will eat your life.
Programming: Deciding that I only wanted to work on open source software, Its not global to open source, but the culture of sharing, building on top of giants, and encouraging + learning from each other has been incredible.
Programming: When I decided to stop focus on being a "Programmer" and focus on being a business owner. My code isn't what gets me paid. I still do all the programming at my company, but now I do the minimum that needs to be done that will still allow me to make changes. I'm in the business of making money, not pull requests.
Giving up video games in my 20s. If I hadn't done that, I'd still be stuck in front of a game somewhere. Those things will eat your life.
http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video...
Programming: Discovering Lisp 3 years ago. It turned my programming upside-down, gave me a job in Erlang (that I had since quitted) and seriously expanded my thinking. Also led me to pg's essays, HackerNews and LessWrong, all of which transformed my way of thinking and - I feel - made me much more rational person than I was.
Life: Start questioning everything. That is, questioning accepted wisdom with respect to nutrition, medicine, sport and everything, accepting things I can verify myself, but most importantly, disregarding things I can disprove myself. I'm healthier, wealthier and happier as a result. Programming: Same; in this respect, that's ignoring common wisdom about OO and TDD. These things have value, but not of the type (and n…
Programming: I'm still 20 and in the uni, haven't had much experience to have had a best decision about this.
Giving up video games in my 20s. If I hadn't done that, I'd still be stuck in front of a game somewhere. Those things will eat your life.
Agree with this. Recently stopped (around 6 month ago), games just look boring now and they waste so much of you're time.
Starting to learn about art (aka going to Museums, art galleries, reading art books). It soothes my soul. By far the most intellectual challenging activity I've ever done.
Giving up video games in my 20s. If I hadn't done that, I'd still be stuck in front of a game somewhere. Those things will eat your life.
Interesting TED talk on this recently, albiet at a self organized conference. Presenter makes the case for video games making you smarter. http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video...