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Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#51

Post by yamtaddle »

renewiltord wrote: post #27
jeliotj wrote: post #14

I've always found Stephen Wolfram's thoughts to be overly self indulgent, and this is no exception. But it is illuminating since it reveals what I most loathe: the productive life. Being productive is not a good. It leads to wanting to attach a computer to oneself while going on a walk outdoors!

This is a common sentiment on the Internet. But when I look around at the people I know, none of the people who are anti-productivity are people I admire. In fact, the pro-productivity people do much more of everything with better outcomes. - The pro-productivity people are more involved parents and family members - The pro-productivity people are more involved in hobbies - The pro-productivity people create many mor…

> The separation of work and play that so many online commenters form is perhaps key to this whole thing. Work is not a thing I do for money alone. I feel happy and fulfilled when I do it. It is fun!

That's not "online commenters". It's like 95+% of people who work for a paycheck.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#52

Post by latenightcoding »

jeliotj wrote: post #14

I've always found Stephen Wolfram's thoughts to be overly self indulgent, and this is no exception. But it is illuminating since it reveals what I most loathe: the productive life. Being productive is not a good. It leads to wanting to attach a computer to oneself while going on a walk outdoors!

Most people don't have his potential. Yeah, I'm aware he pushes a lot of crackpot science, but he is still exceedingly brilliant. For the average folk, this is a horrible way to live.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#53

Post by germinalphrase »

zorrolovsky wrote: post #25

That was a great read. It got me smiling!. It's not often that you find fellow control freaks in the wild. Stephen Wolfram's personal infrastructure sounds overall great, but it crumbles in the sound department. If you're going to be on calls for hours every day, for everything that is holy please get a hands-free set up. The most ergonomic object is no object at all. I use a Scarlett 212 mic and sound card paired wi…

Are you using a single mic placed on your desk? A wireless lav mic?

I imagine you can hear your partners quite well, but I want to be heard well also.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#54

Post by diordiderot »

0000011111 wrote: post #40

What a fascinating person! Personally, I prefer to run 10 miles on a trail in the morning then go to work and grind. Vs trying to combine exersize and work.

Rucking (walking with weight on your back) is actually really really good for both cardio and strength.

Once you get older and the knees start wearing out it's a great alternative

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#55

Post by _boffin_ »

yamtaddle wrote: post #47
_boffin_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that you’re projecting your thoughts and lifestyle onto his lifestyle choice. Just stop as it does nobody any good. What’s wrong with attaching a computer to oneself while walking outdoors? Does he have the same intrinsic motivators as you? Probably not. Does it matter? Probably not. What about people that go outside and just read? Is that not a good life?

He's the one who posted it online. Fine if others post that they think it's bad, and why. Laudable, even, if you suppose he posted it to communicate some message and others find that message to be harmful or misleading or otherwise bad. They ought to post what they think is wrong with it.

Much more eloquent than what I said

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#56

Post by oangemangut »

surfsvammel wrote: post #39
dmje wrote: post #35

My intuition is that all of the benefit you get being outside and walking is probably lost by strapping a laptop to yourself and being on calls the whole time. Call me old fashioned but I'm outside to look at the sea, hear the birds and be very definitely away from my tech.

For the last year or so I have scheduled my two status meetings back to back in the mornings. That means I have 90 minutes of walking in the forrest in the morning (30min before the meetings and then 30min each for the two meetings). I have two teams reporting to me, and each have a 30minute morning meeting where we decide what needs the team attention during the day. There is also room for small talk to keep it a bi…

What about for other users of the forest? Hopefully you're able to stay well away from them so as not to disturb the peace and quiet of the forest for work.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#58

Post by taeric »

rcarmo wrote: post #30

Regardless of opinions, the sheer volume of his output is a tad overwhelming. I do wish he had taken Mathematica down a different path (just imagine if it was truly broadly available at non-insane pricing as a local native app, almost as a stupefyingly flexible Jupyter), and I find the Wolfram Language too unwieldy for some things, but if you can see past the self-branding and unusual viewpoints, Mathematica is prety…

I'd say it is more flexible than jupyter. I really think many folks are hidden from a lot of magical computation you can do with computers, by not having exposure to some of tools like mathematica.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#59

Post by jeliotj »

prottog wrote: post #22
jeliotj wrote: post #14

I've always found Stephen Wolfram's thoughts to be overly self indulgent, and this is no exception. But it is illuminating since it reveals what I most loathe: the productive life. Being productive is not a good. It leads to wanting to attach a computer to oneself while going on a walk outdoors!

> Being productive is not a good Perhaps you mean that being maximally productive -- that is, seeking productivity over all other goals in life -- is not a good? Because productivity is definitely a good. Without it, all crumbles away to the natural state, which is chaotic and for human purposes "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".

No, I meant what I said exactly. The product might be a good; that can be debated. But the action itself is not intrinsically good.

What makes an action good? It always or necessarily produces good things. Very few actions are good in themselves.

As to the Hobbes quote: too much for now! I'm at work. :)

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#60

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

I've read this before, but took the opportunity to read it again.

One of the things that impresses me the most is exemplified by these two examples:

> [...] including for example the issue of my elementary school magazine from Easter 1971.

> [...] school geography notes from when I was 11 years old, together with the text of a speech I gave

When he was 11 he had the foresight to realize that he might want to refer back to this stuff and decided to keep it and store it somewhere that it could be found again. When I was 11 I'd have likely thrown it out during the end-of-year desk/locker clean out and not given it a second thought.

While I don't necessarily aspire to his level of productivity, I'm very envious of how meticulous his record keeping is. Whenever I try to get organized like this I quickly get overwhelmed and give up.

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