4 ms·

I was disappointed that "commuting" was not on the list, because it's up there for me.

trendia 9y ago
I listen to podcasts or audiobooks while commuting, and I figure it's roughly equivalent to sitting on my couch reading. I commute 40-60 minutes daily, so it's pretty easy to get through long works that way.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  One of the reasons I love public transportation is that I get a good amount of reading time while commuting. While yes, I'd prefer a shorter commute time, getting a long period where all I can do is read has been great.
  - hycaria 9y ago
    I'm now able to walk to work (<20 minutes) and I miss reading during my commute :(
    - fsiefken 9y ago
      text to speech or use a hmd with low transparancy
      - lsc 9y ago
        >use a hmd with low transparancy Any recommendations? I owned a Xybernaut and a bunch of other HMDs throughout the years. Few were practical for reading and walking at the same time. (Interestingly, I've had several solutions that allowed me to do cardio on a machine while watching a movie.... and watching a movie, even a regular 2d movie in an occlusive HMD is, at least for me, super immersive and fun. None of the solutions I've tried were very robust, and they all end up breaking. If someone has a recommendation for something robust-ish that is easy to hook up to the major streaming services, I'm all ears. ) That said, I haven't looked at the current Microsoft solution; I thought it was tethered to a serious PC like the oculus. I own an Oculus and haven't yet setup a rig that lets me use it on a cardio rig. As an aside, there is a lot of focus on the various two degrees of freedom treadmills look cool, with the 'teflon dish, felt shoes" design looking the most practical, of course, but I haven't even setup one of those yet; I don't know if there is a useful game ecosystem for them yet. But, yeah, if there was something in the neighborhood of a kilobuck that would let me walk and read with reasonable safety, I would be super interested. I already live in an area/live a lifestyle where the 'dork factor' isn't an issue, which I think is the hardest part of solving this problem. I'll probably be buying an oculus go (or one of the competing 'all in one' HMD products) for treadmill use, and using them for watching movies on the treadmill (watching movies on a HMD is way better supported than reading on a HMD, but that means being on a machine)
        fsiefken 9y ago
        Hi slc! I walked around with a monocular hmd for a while in the first decade (until the cable broke), reading was a problem as the text was going up and down in a sinus wave - not really suitable for following the lines. I thought about two solutions; using a hmd and overlay the text on a camera feed background with low transparency OR use RSVP for the words to stay in one place, or use both but the latter is simpler to implement. Cycling with a monocular was not a problem, worked great, and the are now several AR ventures for cycling. These can be used for using android RSVP apps... and you look a bit more normal :-) https://www.wareable.com/headgear/the-best-smartglasses-google-glass-and-the-rest https://www.wareable.com/headgear/the-best-smartglasses-goog... I remember that I was out drinking late with my friend (and now working at google) Orri Erling, he was blind and had a white stick, I held his arm on one side while on the other side I had a monocular on my head and a twiddler in my hand. We got some stares. What I ended up doing was switching to an audio desktop (Emacspeak) and text-to-speech the articles or books I wanted to read. I have tried the rowing machine with my GearVR, but putting a monitor in front of it is more comfortable. Even so I could try it with my Oculus or MR for a Bigscreen :-) or 360 view with some rowing video's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCrq6ytQeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCrq6ytQeE
        lsc 9y ago
        RSVP, you say? I have never heard of this technology. I just did a demo app and it looks really interesting. I'll check it out. (I'm super annoyed when people name things using overlapping namespaces... I have a long rant about ip for iproute, too.) And you say that it's compatible with the jock monocular displays? This is actually... pretty exciting.
        fsiefken 9y ago
        if the display can handle 10 fps (the VR headsets are), there is no issue. That said, I found it easier to navigate, cycle and walk with no visual distraction and switch to high speed audio and leave the occasional map, graph, wikipedia entry or image for the monocular. For example, it was very nice dancing on the beach being my own VJ.
    - archagon 9y ago
      Audible? These days, pretty much all the reading I do is in audiobook form.
      - hycaria 9y ago
        Strongly prefer reading over listening. I can barely sit through a podcast.
- btrettel 9y ago
  Definitely not roughly equivalent to sitting on your couch reading if you are driving. On the couch, distraction rarely ever endangers someone's life. When driving, if your attention moves from the road for even just a few seconds, that could kill. As a bicyclist I've felt hyperaware compared against a large fraction of drivers who are clearly distracted. I imagine this is even more apparent to motorcyclists due to the higher speeds. Phones are bad, and audiobooks can clearly be distracting as well. My suggestion if you have a long driving commute is to reduce the length of the commute, not do anything which endangers other road users. Alternatively you can switch to public transit or carpool and rotate drivers.
  - slavik81 9y ago
    It seems that audiobooks are somewhere between a minor hindrance and a minor help in their effect on drivers. It seems that someone who is extremely bored is actually more likely to get into an accident. > During simple drives, people listening to audiobooks braked faster in response to hazards. Audiobooks also helped reduce speeding, a common driver response to mental underload, the study said. > The findings, said Trick, are particularly useful for people with long daily commutes on familiar routes or on long stretches such as rural roads. > During complex drives with various hazards, listening to audiobooks can be an added distraction for people who are poor at multi-tasking, the study found. People able to switch easily between tasks are not negatively affected, it said. https://news.uoguelph.ca/2018/02/audiobooks-improve-focus-long-boring-drives-new-u-g-study-reveals/ https://news.uoguelph.ca/2018/02/audiobooks-improve-focus-lo...
sAbakumoff 9y ago
Something relevant : I like walking. Really like. Google Maps report suggests that I walked 100 mi (160 km) in December of 2017. It takes time and I basically commute from the start point to back the same point. While one can consider this as the time wasting, I am trying to get the most out of it by : not assisting google maps for directions, finding path on my own; listening to NPR podcasts; contemplating poker hands I recently played;
- mistersquid 9y ago
  > Google Maps report suggests that I walked 100 mi (160 km) in December of 2017. Just to put some numbers on this, walking 4mph (a mile every 15 mins) is unusually quick. Most people will work up a real sweat. A normal pace for many people is 17 minutes per mile. If you walked 100 miles at 4mph, that comes to 1500 minutes or 25 hours. 25 hours/month walking is a sizable chunk of time. This is fantastic if you consider it time well spent.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  I normally end up walking about 200km per month; mostly to and from work. It’s fairly habit-forming; I really feel the need to walk at least a few km every day, these days. I don’t see it as time wasting at all.
- kawera 9y ago
  I've been walking ~60km per week for a few years now to/from work and I enjoy it immensely - listening to music, talking on the phone, taking pictures, people watching... oh, and programming in my head ! Can't imagine going back to driving.
- emptysands 9y ago
  Also better than driving to a gym and then walking on a treadmill for exercise.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Productive use of a gym is often the strength training equipment and specific cardio or other conditioning opportunities, as well as the environment itself. That is: a gym is a laboratory (workspace) for improving the physical condition and performance of your body. That's not to say you can't make poor use of a gym (or a laboratory, for that matter). Or that all conditioning must occur at a gym (labs are complemented by fieldwork). But well-used, they're a vital adjunct to a fitness regimen. That said: if it's possible to get there under your own power (walking, cycling), so much the better.
boubiyeah 9y ago
Hardly a waste of time unless you're driving your own car. Else, you read a book, etc.
- sammoorhouse 9y ago
  “Hardly” is a bit strong; other people might have opinions which are different from yours. For example: I’d hate to be stuck in a train carriage for two hours, packed in with people I don’t know, maybe Underground with no internet, all because my job requires me to be in a certain place at a certain time. That’s two hours I could have spent sleeping; with a loved one; sleeping with a loved one... you get the idea.
- pbourke 9y ago
  When you have a long commute, even by transit, it tends to crowd out other activities that you might want to partake in. I'm not talking about a 30 minute trip, but rather 2+ hours each way. It's life altering.
- sotojuan 9y ago
  > Hardly a waste of time unless you're driving your own car. So, like most Americans and thus most of people reading and commenting on HN? Also, while a train commute is way better than a car commute, being home is better than both. I read during my 40 mins subway commute and I would never want to be driving instead but I'd prefer to be reading at home for that time.
  - btrettel 9y ago
    > while a train commute is way better than a car commute, being home is better than both I personally agree, but having taken commuter rail for several months a few years ago, I noticed that quite a few people with longer commutes (~1 hour each way) seemed to really enjoy their (evening) train commute, treating it basically like a social hour at a bar. They frequently had beer. (Never saw anything like this in the morning.) I didn't know enough people on the train to get into that, but I can see the appeal.
JamesLeonis 9y ago
The commute time has grown over the last few decades[1]. I wonder if commuting not on the list because the polled older Americans didn't have to commute as long. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-american-commute-is-worse-today-than-its-ever-been/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-a...
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  That's a rather modest expansion: five minutes over 35+ years. Not that commute time isn't a drag, but I don't really see this being a significant factor. Particularly if you consider that the mode of commuting, the conditions, and outlier commutes are likely to have far larger impacts. Consider: Mode: If you're commuting by train or bus point-to-point and the ride takes five minutes longer, you're not going to be much bothered. If you have to transfer or connect between multiple modes along the route, the journey is far more stressful. Similarly, highway driving with radio or audio material (or a phone) is relatively productive time, vs. stop-and-go city traffic. Conditions: Having space to work (say on a commuter bus or rail) vs. being sardined into a city bus or urban subway makes a difference not captured in time alone. Outliers: One pattern that likely has emerged are "marathon commuters" -- people with exceptionally long commutes. You'd need to compare the mean and median commute times to see what this trend is. It might well be that most people have the same time, but a small number have much longer commutes. How to lie with statistics and all that.
martin_drapeau 9y ago
I program side projects during my daily commute. Part of my routine in the morning is figuring out that 25 minute task to program during that metro ride. Fixing a bug, tweaking a feature, coding an algorithm - its always possible to find something small. That’show I coded and maintain www.csvjson.com for example.
- vonmoltke 9y ago
  That's fine if: a) you can get a seat; b) your seat affords you enough elbow and leg room to type; c) your ride is smooth enough to type. My current commute includes a 40m - 1h bus ride. I get 'a' every day; I usually get 'b'; 'c' is pretty rare. When I used the train instead 'c' wasn't a problem, 'a' was difficult and 'b' was virtually non-existent.

I listen to podcasts or audiobooks while commuting, and I figure it's roughly equivalent to sitting on my couch reading. I commute 40-60 minutes daily, so it's pretty easy to get through long works that way.

CaptSpify 9y ago
One of the reasons I love public transportation is that I get a good amount of reading time while commuting. While yes, I'd prefer a shorter commute time, getting a long period where all I can do is read has been great.
- hycaria 9y ago
  I'm now able to walk to work (<20 minutes) and I miss reading during my commute :(
  - fsiefken 9y ago
    text to speech or use a hmd with low transparancy
    - lsc 9y ago
      >use a hmd with low transparancy Any recommendations? I owned a Xybernaut and a bunch of other HMDs throughout the years. Few were practical for reading and walking at the same time. (Interestingly, I've had several solutions that allowed me to do cardio on a machine while watching a movie.... and watching a movie, even a regular 2d movie in an occlusive HMD is, at least for me, super immersive and fun. None of the solutions I've tried were very robust, and they all end up breaking. If someone has a recommendation for something robust-ish that is easy to hook up to the major streaming services, I'm all ears. ) That said, I haven't looked at the current Microsoft solution; I thought it was tethered to a serious PC like the oculus. I own an Oculus and haven't yet setup a rig that lets me use it on a cardio rig. As an aside, there is a lot of focus on the various two degrees of freedom treadmills look cool, with the 'teflon dish, felt shoes" design looking the most practical, of course, but I haven't even setup one of those yet; I don't know if there is a useful game ecosystem for them yet. But, yeah, if there was something in the neighborhood of a kilobuck that would let me walk and read with reasonable safety, I would be super interested. I already live in an area/live a lifestyle where the 'dork factor' isn't an issue, which I think is the hardest part of solving this problem. I'll probably be buying an oculus go (or one of the competing 'all in one' HMD products) for treadmill use, and using them for watching movies on the treadmill (watching movies on a HMD is way better supported than reading on a HMD, but that means being on a machine)
      - fsiefken 9y ago
        Hi slc! I walked around with a monocular hmd for a while in the first decade (until the cable broke), reading was a problem as the text was going up and down in a sinus wave - not really suitable for following the lines. I thought about two solutions; using a hmd and overlay the text on a camera feed background with low transparency OR use RSVP for the words to stay in one place, or use both but the latter is simpler to implement. Cycling with a monocular was not a problem, worked great, and the are now several AR ventures for cycling. These can be used for using android RSVP apps... and you look a bit more normal :-) https://www.wareable.com/headgear/the-best-smartglasses-google-glass-and-the-rest https://www.wareable.com/headgear/the-best-smartglasses-goog... I remember that I was out drinking late with my friend (and now working at google) Orri Erling, he was blind and had a white stick, I held his arm on one side while on the other side I had a monocular on my head and a twiddler in my hand. We got some stares. What I ended up doing was switching to an audio desktop (Emacspeak) and text-to-speech the articles or books I wanted to read. I have tried the rowing machine with my GearVR, but putting a monitor in front of it is more comfortable. Even so I could try it with my Oculus or MR for a Bigscreen :-) or 360 view with some rowing video's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCrq6ytQeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCrq6ytQeE
        lsc 9y ago
        RSVP, you say? I have never heard of this technology. I just did a demo app and it looks really interesting. I'll check it out. (I'm super annoyed when people name things using overlapping namespaces... I have a long rant about ip for iproute, too.) And you say that it's compatible with the jock monocular displays? This is actually... pretty exciting.
        fsiefken 9y ago
        if the display can handle 10 fps (the VR headsets are), there is no issue. That said, I found it easier to navigate, cycle and walk with no visual distraction and switch to high speed audio and leave the occasional map, graph, wikipedia entry or image for the monocular. For example, it was very nice dancing on the beach being my own VJ.
  - archagon 9y ago
    Audible? These days, pretty much all the reading I do is in audiobook form.
    - hycaria 9y ago
      Strongly prefer reading over listening. I can barely sit through a podcast.
btrettel 9y ago
Definitely not roughly equivalent to sitting on your couch reading if you are driving. On the couch, distraction rarely ever endangers someone's life. When driving, if your attention moves from the road for even just a few seconds, that could kill. As a bicyclist I've felt hyperaware compared against a large fraction of drivers who are clearly distracted. I imagine this is even more apparent to motorcyclists due to the higher speeds. Phones are bad, and audiobooks can clearly be distracting as well. My suggestion if you have a long driving commute is to reduce the length of the commute, not do anything which endangers other road users. Alternatively you can switch to public transit or carpool and rotate drivers.
- slavik81 9y ago
  It seems that audiobooks are somewhere between a minor hindrance and a minor help in their effect on drivers. It seems that someone who is extremely bored is actually more likely to get into an accident. > During simple drives, people listening to audiobooks braked faster in response to hazards. Audiobooks also helped reduce speeding, a common driver response to mental underload, the study said. > The findings, said Trick, are particularly useful for people with long daily commutes on familiar routes or on long stretches such as rural roads. > During complex drives with various hazards, listening to audiobooks can be an added distraction for people who are poor at multi-tasking, the study found. People able to switch easily between tasks are not negatively affected, it said. https://news.uoguelph.ca/2018/02/audiobooks-improve-focus-long-boring-drives-new-u-g-study-reveals/ https://news.uoguelph.ca/2018/02/audiobooks-improve-focus-lo...

sAbakumoff 9y ago

Something relevant : I like walking. Really like. Google Maps report suggests that I walked 100 mi (160 km) in December of 2017. It takes time and I basically commute from the start point to back the same point. While one can consider this as the time wasting, I am trying to get the most out of it by : not assisting google maps for directions, finding path on my own; listening to NPR podcasts; contemplating poker hands I recently played;

mistersquid 9y ago
> Google Maps report suggests that I walked 100 mi (160 km) in December of 2017. Just to put some numbers on this, walking 4mph (a mile every 15 mins) is unusually quick. Most people will work up a real sweat. A normal pace for many people is 17 minutes per mile. If you walked 100 miles at 4mph, that comes to 1500 minutes or 25 hours. 25 hours/month walking is a sizable chunk of time. This is fantastic if you consider it time well spent.
rsynnott 9y ago
I normally end up walking about 200km per month; mostly to and from work. It’s fairly habit-forming; I really feel the need to walk at least a few km every day, these days. I don’t see it as time wasting at all.
kawera 9y ago
I've been walking ~60km per week for a few years now to/from work and I enjoy it immensely - listening to music, talking on the phone, taking pictures, people watching... oh, and programming in my head ! Can't imagine going back to driving.
emptysands 9y ago
Also better than driving to a gym and then walking on a treadmill for exercise.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Productive use of a gym is often the strength training equipment and specific cardio or other conditioning opportunities, as well as the environment itself. That is: a gym is a laboratory (workspace) for improving the physical condition and performance of your body. That's not to say you can't make poor use of a gym (or a laboratory, for that matter). Or that all conditioning must occur at a gym (labs are complemented by fieldwork). But well-used, they're a vital adjunct to a fitness regimen. That said: if it's possible to get there under your own power (walking, cycling), so much the better.

boubiyeah 9y ago

Hardly a waste of time unless you're driving your own car. Else, you read a book, etc.

sammoorhouse 9y ago
“Hardly” is a bit strong; other people might have opinions which are different from yours. For example: I’d hate to be stuck in a train carriage for two hours, packed in with people I don’t know, maybe Underground with no internet, all because my job requires me to be in a certain place at a certain time. That’s two hours I could have spent sleeping; with a loved one; sleeping with a loved one... you get the idea.
pbourke 9y ago
When you have a long commute, even by transit, it tends to crowd out other activities that you might want to partake in. I'm not talking about a 30 minute trip, but rather 2+ hours each way. It's life altering.
sotojuan 9y ago
> Hardly a waste of time unless you're driving your own car. So, like most Americans and thus most of people reading and commenting on HN? Also, while a train commute is way better than a car commute, being home is better than both. I read during my 40 mins subway commute and I would never want to be driving instead but I'd prefer to be reading at home for that time.
- btrettel 9y ago
  > while a train commute is way better than a car commute, being home is better than both I personally agree, but having taken commuter rail for several months a few years ago, I noticed that quite a few people with longer commutes (~1 hour each way) seemed to really enjoy their (evening) train commute, treating it basically like a social hour at a bar. They frequently had beer. (Never saw anything like this in the morning.) I didn't know enough people on the train to get into that, but I can see the appeal.

JamesLeonis 9y ago

The commute time has grown over the last few decades[1]. I wonder if commuting not on the list because the polled older Americans didn't have to commute as long. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-american-commute-is-worse-today-than-its-ever-been/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-a...

dredmorbius 9y ago
That's a rather modest expansion: five minutes over 35+ years. Not that commute time isn't a drag, but I don't really see this being a significant factor. Particularly if you consider that the mode of commuting, the conditions, and outlier commutes are likely to have far larger impacts. Consider: Mode: If you're commuting by train or bus point-to-point and the ride takes five minutes longer, you're not going to be much bothered. If you have to transfer or connect between multiple modes along the route, the journey is far more stressful. Similarly, highway driving with radio or audio material (or a phone) is relatively productive time, vs. stop-and-go city traffic. Conditions: Having space to work (say on a commuter bus or rail) vs. being sardined into a city bus or urban subway makes a difference not captured in time alone. Outliers: One pattern that likely has emerged are "marathon commuters" -- people with exceptionally long commutes. You'd need to compare the mean and median commute times to see what this trend is. It might well be that most people have the same time, but a small number have much longer commutes. How to lie with statistics and all that.

martin_drapeau 9y ago

I program side projects during my daily commute. Part of my routine in the morning is figuring out that 25 minute task to program during that metro ride. Fixing a bug, tweaking a feature, coding an algorithm - its always possible to find something small. That’show I coded and maintain www.csvjson.com for example.

vonmoltke 9y ago
That's fine if: a) you can get a seat; b) your seat affords you enough elbow and leg room to type; c) your ride is smooth enough to type. My current commute includes a 40m - 1h bus ride. I get 'a' every day; I usually get 'b'; 'c' is pretty rare. When I used the train instead 'c' wasn't a problem, 'a' was difficult and 'b' was virtually non-existent.