20 ms·
Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)
- hirundo 4y agoI share the dream of being able to walk through the woods while working online, but there's no way that Dr. Wolfram's approach would work for me. I just can't walk smoothly enough to read comfortably from a screen, particularly not while avoiding roots and rocks. A gimble stabilizer could help with the text but not the refocusing. So I'm hoping that AR glasses will do the trick before long. If they can project non-jiggly text into the world so that I can rapidly context shift between them with little refocusing, and let me input by wiggling my fingers, I'd pay a lot for it. But I guess lines of code per hour will decline with speed.
- reidjs 4y agoPart of my solution to this is to identify what parts of a project can be done from my phone and then intentionally avoid doing those on the computer. - Writing correspondence, essays, docs, todolists? The voice-to-text feature works great on iPhones. - Reading blog posts or articles? Extract text then run it through the iPhone's screen reader. - Moving trello tasks around? Do it through the phone app. etc.
- sokoloff 4y agoWriting an essay via voice-to-text on my phone sounds like one of the most painful things I could voluntarily subject myself to. Siri can't even get simple text messages write (pun intended)
- madars 4y agoThe great thing about text editors, and to a large extent also paper, is that they give you random access - you can easily see the whole document and make edits at arbitrary points. It's incredibly ergonomic (there is a reason why books overtook scrolls!) and I doubt voice-driven editing can come close. At the same time, audio is easy for creating conversational-style pieces (e.g. podcasts) but a good final product must always come with timestamped transcripts (how else would one grep and/or skip?)
- Calamitous 4y agoI’d be curious to hear what you’re using on iPhone for voice-to-text. I’ve tried a few things and the results have been pretty awful for me.
- reidjs 4y agoOh just tap the little mic button next to the space bar with any app. It works great (admittedly a white, American male here).
- wintermutestwin 4y agoPart of my solution to this is to identify what parts of a project can be done on my computer and then intentionally avoid doing those on the phone. If I have access to a nice screen, full keyboard and a mouse, the only reason I need to use my damn phone is developers who prioritize their phone apps over computer based applications (see Apple Music, etc).
- m463 4y agotitle should probably say [2019]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- caust1c 4y ago> I have systems that keep all sorts of data, including every keystroke I type, every step I take and what my computer screen looks like every minute Yikes? He's smart, so I'm sure he's protected it adequately, but auditing the surface area of this much software seems insane.
- justinlloyd 4y agoNot really. I keep even more than that. And at a finer grained resolution. And have done so for almost two decades. It's all put on to a write-only-by-the-capturing-device/read-only-by-other-device secured storage system.
- timdavila 4y agoCurious why you do this and what you feel like it adds to your life?
- justinlloyd 4y agoWhy does it have to add anything to my life? Why be the third person to climb a mountain? I hear tell of a 19th century English gentleman who manually recorded the level of rain water and the barometric pressure in his garden, a dozen times a day, including the wee hours of the morning, waking up several times a night as though afflicted with the worst UTI possible, through all weathers, all seasons, all ills, all trials and travails, any and all privations that life could send his way, and did so for 40+ years. Obssessively and compulsively some would say. Or we may say diligently if being generous. I am sure that at some point someone asked "why do you do this? what do you feel it adds to your life?" Because I can. And because I want to.
- harperlee 4y agoFeels weird that you have to defend this take on hobbies on a forum called “Hacker News”. My father is building a small sailboat model (the Santísima Trinidad), and if someone asked “What does that add to his life?” I personally would pity that person, for its lack of empathy and views on a successful life.
- gordon_freeman 4y agoEverything he does I see his keyboard or monitor in the background. I don’t know why he is so much into ‘productivity’ that even for walks he has to be in front of his machine and working? Why can’t he just enjoy walking to relax a bit outdoors. I think walking is as much for mental well being as for improving physical health and decoupling from work and digital life is how I’d like to relax.
- elzbardico 4y agoFor people like him, working is the supreme form of relaxation. I can't relate, it is not my cup of tea, but I can understand it and refrain for judging.
- joseda-hg 4y agoReminds me of my old man, he couldn't stay still more than 10 minutes, but he loved every minute of working
- deniszgonjanin 4y agoWhen you've been gifted with a brain like his, I imagine the most interesting and intoxicating thing in life is to engage with your mind as much as you can.
- testfoobar 4y ago
- zabzonk 4y agono idea why this was downvoted, except possibly by people who don't know about wolfram
- SkyMarshal 4y agoIt's honestly just a boring comment. Yes we all know Wolfram is self-indulgent and overly long-winded, nothing new there, no need to belabor the obvious. The question is whether there's anything of value to be gleaned from his novella-length blog posts. If you think not, then just downvote or flag article submission. But if you actually read the whole thing and found specific things of value, and want to summarize them here, then by all means I hope you're upvoted a million times.
- deathanatos 4y ago> The question is whether there's anything of value to be gleaned from his novella-length blog posts. If you think not, then just downvote or flag article submission. Flagging, I've always felt, is sort of heavy-handed for "I disagree with". I use it for spam and the like. There is no "downvote" feature, for article submissions. Which is why it is disappointing when low quality reads like this makes it to the front page.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dang 4y agoFor starters, it was snarky, a shallow dismissal, a personal attack, unsubstantive, and an internet trope. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- drakonka 4y agoHere's why I would've downvoted it: This seems to be an article on his personal blog. Seems kind of weird and not useful to make a snarky comment about someone for talking about themselves on their own personal site, when that's often exactly what personal blogs are intended to be for.
- jeliotj 4y agoI'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!
- xmprt 4y agoBeing productive is good but only as a means to an end. If you're using your productivity to get more done then that can be dangerous. But if you're using it to get your work done faster then it's actually quite useful.
- bpodgursky 4y agoDo you think the world is worse for Stephen Wolfram having been productive?
- idoh 4y agoI took it more along the lines of "this advice is not generally applicable" as opposed to dunking on Wolfram.
- prottog 4y ago> 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".
- jeliotj 4y agoNo, 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. :)
- 4y ago
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoIf you showed this to an advanced alien civilization I think they might consider his life one of enforced torture, if they themselves aren’t already living it. The Clockwork Orange eyes held open forced to watch screens device comes to mind.
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoBut his clockwork orange pays so much better!
- kkfx 4y agoI give up filesystem taxonomies to end up in org-mode/org-roam managed time-organized notes, with files attached and retrievable in a classic search&narrow UI (org-roam-node-find) with eventual quick search (via counsel-rg on org-roam-directory, where in that case notes are like files metadata) or queries (org-ql on drawes properties and tags who are ensured a bit consistent via templates (org-capture, yasnippet etc). This extra layer was a game-changer for me, I hesitate for long, but finally switched few years ago and so far prove to be flawlessly. I still miss fancy UI/ML tools, but anything is at my fingertips locally, I can make quick slides if needed directly in org-mode, I can click code-executing links (elisp:), running code blocks (org-babel) and anything is integrated to a level NO ONE modern software can reach due to modern systems archaic, limited and limiting designs.
- adamredwoods 4y agoPreviously (still a good re-read!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26045380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26045380 I have the problem of flat surfaces, I've been trying hard to figure out a better way for incoming papers (bills, to read, to investigate, to shred).
- dang 4y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26045380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26045380 - Feb 2021 (63 comments)
- gigel82 4y agoThose monitors trigger me. Uneven heights, one is tilted, there's a gap big enough to fit a hand through, and they're miscalibrated (different color temperature).
- ge96 4y agocommit, go ultrawide curved
- zorrolovsky 4y agoThat 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 with a decent pair of speakers and my working room works like a charm. Everything is set up so if I start a call any device I can walk though the office and have a conversation with someone like they're in the room. 10/10 would recommend.
- froh 4y agowhich mic do you use with the lovely scarlet interface?
- germinalphrase 4y agoAre 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.
- zorrolovsky 4y agoI use a condenser mic so the audio going out is top notch. The mic is the one offered with the Scarlett 212 bundle but you could use any decent mic. HQ mics are great because you can fine tune the volume. It's high enough for my voice to come across strongly, but low enough to avoid background noises, people hearing themselves through my speakers, etc. The idea behind my set up is to have a hands-free and always-on working room. I just walk in and know that everything is ready to start a call. Just click a button to make a call or accept it. No need to fiddle with headphones, adjust volumes, check if sound is working well, etc. The only exception to this set up is when I have a confidential call, in which case I use my phone or headphones. Everything is wired, as wireless sound devices are just not there in terms of quality and avoiding annoyances (see the HN thread called 'The first minute of every phone call is a torture now)
- 4y ago
- quijoteuniv 4y agoWhat a guy! Yes, I believe the point is to find what keeps you motivated and works for you. One of my favourite hacks/ritual is making a lot of Mate tea in the morning, drinking a cup, and taking a 1 liter thermo to work. Mate is the best kind of energy drink available and you can pretty much drink as much as you want with no sideeffects (except an extra trip to the toilet). This way I avoid bad coffe at the office. On weekends i drop the Mate tea and prepare myself some descent coffee as a treat
- mxwsn 4y agoI love mate, but just one extra toilet trip is a substantial underestimate for many..
- rcarmo 4y agoRegardless 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 awesome. I once had a bit of fun with it on a 20-core Raspberry Pi cluster, and sometimes I think it would have been amazing to run some ML workloads on this kind of environment: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/08/10/0830 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/08/10/0830
- taeric 4y agoI'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.
- aliljet 4y agoWow. Reading through Wolfram's post, I stopped and decided to listen to one of his livestreamed software design sessions. Who knows what the right model is, but it's very very clear from at least this video (https://youtu.be/y_M7qtfjjjs https://youtu.be/y_M7qtfjjjs) that he's deeply technical and incredibly actively involved in development. I really want to know how effective he is as an organization's manager and not their product manager...
- prashp 4y agoIs Gwern [1] actually Stephen Wolfram's alter ego? Two sides of the same coin [1] https://www.gwern.net/ https://www.gwern.net/
- dmje 4y agoMy 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.
- surfsvammel 4y agoFor 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 bit social. Those meetings do not need screensharing very often. When they do, we can manage to look briefly at a phone screen. It has been wonderful and it is something I would miss if I ever had another job. I encourage the others in the team to do the same thing. Walking in the forrest have two benefits; less risk of getting hit by a car, and, it’s more quiet of a background for when I unmute. Highly recommended!
- holler 4y ago> Walking in the forrest have two benefits; it’s less chance to get hit by a car, and it’s more quiet of a background for when I unmute. More than that, it's very cathartic and peaceful. I used to live next to a big park on the Puget Sound and I would do a similar routine, in addition to occasionally taking a stroll through the park (effectively a forest) at lunch. It had a very calming effect, def miss that!
- oangemangut 4y agoWhat 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.
- surfsvammel 4y agoThere are not that many other people. And, it’s not like I am lecturing. I’m having conversations in meetings. I speak about 1/7 of the time. Most of the time I’m on mute. If I run in to someone, I politely say hello, and that’s that.
- 0000011111 4y agoWhat 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.
- diordiderot 4y agoRucking (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
- bostonwalker 4y agoRucking is great, but it can be just as bad if not harder on your knees if you’re not careful.
- 1970-01-01 4y ago>But one inevitably needs some flat surface, if only just to sign things (it’s not all digital yet), or to eat a snack. So my solution is to have pullouts. If one needs them, pull them out. But one can’t leave them pulled out, so nothing can accumulate on them. This is a great tip. Get a desk with pull-outs. I have them on the left and right. They're 1/2 an inch think and strong enough to leave a heavy book, laptop, or whatever until you're done. When both sides get pulled out, some paper-heavy task is occurring, such as taxes.
- yayitswei 4y agoHas anyone found those funny glasses to be effective at preventing carsickness?
- micahacobb 4y agoYes. Completely prevents my kids carsickness— they threw up most car rides over 1 hr unless instructed not to read or look down(had to look straight ahead)
- Mister_Snuggles 4y agoI'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.
- ninotheopsguy 4y agoAn important point not to forget is that he runs an 800 employee profitable company with no outside investments (not to mention his academic work)
- rongopo 4y agoAs a person that is always thinking on the public interest, and what that means for open code, I cannot help it thinking "how long until open source overcomes his work"? A decade? 50y?
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoAnother Wolfram article written about how much Wolfram Wolfram used to Wolfram new Wolfams. Now with more Wolfram
- simonw 4y agoI love this essay so much. It was the inspiration for my Dogsheep project - https://dogsheep.github.io/ https://dogsheep.github.io/ - because I wanted to build a much less impressive version of a subset of what Wolfram had built, and a Dogsheep is clearly a less intimidating version of a Wolfram! (Also it meant I could call my search engine Dogsheep Beta, as opposed to Wolfram Alpha - and I enjoyed that pun so much I spent quite a significant of time writing the software to support it: https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehouses/ https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehous... )
- insane_dreamer 4y agoI want to be as productive as possible while working. What I don't want is to be as productive as possible while living. So tools that integrate work into non-work aspects of my life end up turning my whole life into endless work; for some people that might be fine -- and it used to be fine for me 2 decades ago, but it's not fine anymore.
- iancmceachern 4y agoExactly this. Boundaries are important otherwise it's all just work. You need to allow the space for peace to poke through.
- ge96 4y agoI look forward to watching those software design videos edit: ahh yeah... this is some dense/context specific stuff the language design review ones are fun though... the tangents
- lapestenoire 4y agoGet this guy an editor.
- rongopo 4y agoRight after a pandemic that disrupted to a degree multiple aspects of our life, I say this is not the right time to seek productivity. It is time to reconnect with yourself, your motivations, and your ability to build self enforcing social relations. If you have all these, congratulations, go for optimizing productivity!
- BrentLabasan 4y agoCan you please elaborate more on the "self enforcing social relations" part?
- rongopo 4y agoThe more friends you have the happier they are.