For a while, I programmed while walking on a mini-laptop. Nice walking paths where I lived. I was on a hobby project and wanted to spend any minute on it. It wasn't pretty. I kept trying to design a contraption I could wear on my shoulders that worked like a laptop desk.
I also attached a laptop to a treadmill at home, but the static electricity from the rubber mat kept zapping the laptop.
The best result was a laptop on an exercise bike. But the bike couldn't have a high resistance or I would lose concentration.
I have an under-desk bike (just pedals really). Being able to just move my feet while working is nice. But yeah once it turns into an actual workout then I'd be focusing on pedaling and not work.
Marked me down? That was a joke about how quotes are misattributed on the internet. (I am the following person) But if you are good at your job because you see faults before humour and it happens as a personal trait, then good on you. Found another fault.
> Diversion.—When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.
> But on further consideration, when, after finding the cause of all our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely.
> Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure he can feel, if he be without diversion, and be left to consider and reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he will necessarily fall into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which may happen, and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so that if he be without what is called diversion, he is unhappy, and more unhappy than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts himself.
> Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war, and high posts, are so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them, or that men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in the hare which they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not seek that easy and peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which averts these thoughts of ours, and amuses us.
> Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.
> Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is in fact the greatest source of happiness in the condition of kings, that men try incessantly to divert them, and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures.
> The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to divert the king, and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king though he be, if he think of himself.
> This is all that men have been able to discover to make themselves happy. And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.
As a software developer, when I used to smoke, I would go outside for 5-10 minutes and talk shit with other regulars who had nothing to do with my work. It was a break that would fix my fading focus (probably for more than one reason :)
I could only keep peak thinking/designing/developing for about an hour or so. That's peak matrix level with edge cases identified and documented on the way.
I could do OK for a lot longer, but the same quality wasn't there.
The non-smokers would resent us for it, but most of them would go for a half to one hour coffee instead.
As a non-smoker I always took smoke breaks when I worked at an office. It’s the place where you can get the juiciest gossips and insights about the company.
I had to scroll back up to see what this reply was to, to get the full chuckle and yup, I was told frequently by my male parental unit that the top two reasons for having kids was chores and tax deductions. But there's a reason farm families leaned on the large side. The more hands you had helping the less hard things could be while never being easy
I did TDD properly the first time in my Masters Degree (ongoing). It was an eye-opener. Write your program in two different ways to make sure you know the requirements by making their outputs match. That's not me being snarky. It actually works well. Just make sure you can type quickly.
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