7 ms·

Ask HN: What do you do when you're not working/programming?

• ajkumar25 13y ago
  I watch programming videos or read some thriller book. That's how my life is going on till now.
• toddan 12y ago
  I Don't really have a schedule and i find it really hard to stick to a routine due to problems with getting to bed and waking up the same time every day. But normally this is what i do. * wake up between 10:00 and 12:00 take a shower and make coffee. * Code on a start-up me and my brother are in the making of. * 3 times a week i hold boxing classes at my dads gym. * After work i watch a movie or read on hacker news. Sometime i wish i could get on with a routine and stick with it, it would benefit me in many ways. But my discipline on going to bed and waking up on proper times is none and i have never been able to do that in my whole life, so i don't see it happening in some time. I have also tried to get back into boxing and marital arts, i used to be really into that and train 5 times a week. But my interest in training and martial arts have almost disappeared as i have been doing it since i was 9 and i have no idea how to reignite the flame i used to have.
• robotys 13y ago
  Teaching high school physics and calculus to neighbourhood kids, play guitar and ukulele, hiking small hill near house and contemplating life once in a while.
• Piskvorrr 13y ago
  Mapping in OpenStreetMap - goes well with a side order of cycling for fun and transport (and a dose of downloading the planet data and hacking at them, bringing me back to programming in a roundabout way :))
  • dalek2point3 13y ago
    me too! where do you edit?
• tjr 13y ago
  Playing music (both with a band, and composing/recording by myself at home), photography, play and exercise with a border collie.
• akilism 13y ago
  Camping/Backpacking. Chilling with my dog. Gardening. Photography. Painting.
• tiensi 13y ago
  Taekwondo, Gaming. Hit me up in the bay if you're down for some martial arts, I can give you the whole tour to see if you like it.
• itbeho 13y ago
  Sailing, hiking.
• lmm 13y ago
  Writing. Board games. Animé. Occasional club nights (there are a few that I know that seem to attract the right kind of people).
• yread 13y ago
  Bouldering (really good for programmers as a prevention of back issues or RSI, imho), sailing, hiking, cycling, figuring out how much beer can I drink in a single night every now and then
• ritchiea 13y ago
  Writing. Seeing art. Running. Biking. Photography. Chess.
• cpncrunch 13y ago
  Flying, biking, walking my dog, swimming, reading. If I had to make a suggestion, I'd say get a bike and find some interesting trail close to where you live. Cycling is great exercise, very invigorating (mentally and physically). It's a very good way to both reduce stress, give yourself more energy and come up with new ideas and solutions to problems.
• rguzman 13y ago
  Exercise, maintain an active dating & social life, other intellectual pursuits (e.g. learning math), waste time on reddit and social media.
• yeukhon 13y ago
  Sleeping. Netflix, movie. Day dreaming. Learn to be a chef and just staying home browsing interesting things on the Internet (meme, cats, idk). I am not outgoing. I like my home...
• bsilvereagle 13y ago
  Building physical objects. Primarily furniture. It's ridiculous how many problems you can solve while using a woodplane.
• yaccz 13y ago
  Sports to keep yourself at shape. Doesn't really matter which sport as long as it's fun for you. I particulary like swimming, running and badminton. Cooking. You can easily make great meals from raw ingredients so you are not dependent on local restaurants or anything, just have a stock of long lasting base ingrediences and if you eg. run out of bread on holidays, just make your own. Besides that, it's another topic you can use at chit chat; it's attractive to the females and you can save some money. Learning physics. Well, that's just cool and maybe you can find some practical use too, once you learn enough. The freely available Feynman lectures are great. Playing an instrument. I try to learn ukulele and even though I totaly suck, even trying broadened my horizons and perception of music. Reading beletry. Whatever floats your boat. I like scifi and some classics Sherlock Holmes or Three Men in a Boat. Reading scientific studies. Whatever catches your fancy. Eg. I recently read about reviewing effectivity of methods law enforcement uses to spot drug users or how different music affects customer at shopping mall.
• jasonkester 13y ago
  You have some really amazing surfing and bouldering right in your back yard. Both easily accessible for after work sessions. It's one of the few places in the country that has both, so you're making me sad by not doing either of them. Castle Rock is like a mini Fontainebleau, with really nice sandstone in a pleasant setting. Train up at any of the half dozen local climbing gyms, then start heading up the hill every evening once the days get longer. Santa Cruz has tons of amazing breaks, but Pleasure Point is my particular favorite, with its easy access, fun waves, and good aprez surf tacos a short walk away. Both those things will fix any back/wrist issues you might try to inflict upon yourself sitting in that felt cube all day. Both will encourage you to get out travelling, which is an added bonus. You'll one day find there are beaches with tropical warm water where you won't need that 4 mm of rubber anymore, and hillsides with more than seven distinct boulders in a half mile radius. Good luck!
  • Nicholas_C 13y ago
    How are the crowds in the SF area lineups? It always looks packed in surf videos. I've been to SF but never had the chance to surf or go to a beach other than Muir Beach.
• dirktheman 13y ago
  Spending QT with my kids/wife, working out (MMA), tinkering with Arduino and multirotors, movies, hiking.
• chrisBob 13y ago
  Find a side project you really like; ideally it should have some kind of goal attached. My recent project were: 1) Build a pair of kevlar canoes and explore the local waterways. 2) Hiking, often just to stay in shape for vacations. My wife isn't a fan of relaxing vacations. 3) Gardening: has the added benefit of producing amazing vegetables for little money. 4) Writing iOS games, or working on the data acquisition system for my "business". This is looking more like a hobby than a home business every day.
• segmondy 13y ago
  You are not alone. I program some more, read HN or some programming books or watch netflix.
• rdegges 13y ago
  I lift weights. I do weight lifting 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, as soon as I wake up. My priories in life are: - Fitness. - Family. - Work. It sounds a bit rough, but fitness is what keeps me grounded. I'm by no means at my goal, but bodybuilding is something that is incredibly fun and relaxing to do. It requires a ton of energy, but the discipline gives me a great feeling through the rest of the day, and makes me feel -- powerful. It's been a huge confidence booster, and it's been fun to focus on physical development as well as personal development -- it helps balance out my life.
• Jemaclus 13y ago
  I also live in the Bay Area (SF). Here's a small sampling of things I do when I'm not working: * Write. Every weekday morning, I go to a coffee shop downtown and write for 30-60 minutes. I've written two full-length novels and two novellas so far, though they are all as-of-yet unpublished. Someday... * Run. I run 3-4 nights per week, either along Embarcadero or through Golden Gate Park. I started off with the Couch to 5K program in January 2012 and I've worked up to four half-marathons in the last 12 months. * Disc golf. There's a disc golf course in Golden Gate Park. Grab a beginner set (20 bucks from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Innova-Disc-Golf-3-Disc-Colors/dp/B000Q838XW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&tag=wheoftimdat-20 http://www.amazon.com/Innova-Disc-Golf-3-Disc-Colors/dp/B000...), grab a friend, and go play. It's super fun. * Nerd Nite. http://sf.nerdnite.com http://sf.nerdnite.com - 8 bucks. It's like the Discovery Channel -- with beer! (Side note: it's also where I met my girlfriend, and I go every month.) * Rock climbing - check out Planet Granite (http://www.planetgranite.com/ http://www.planetgranite.com/) or Mission Cliffs (http://www.touchstoneclimbing.com/mission-cliffs http://www.touchstoneclimbing.com/mission-cliffs) * Meetups - I've attended a dozen Meetups, including the SF Rust meetup. Very fun way to meet new people. * Biking - Go to Roaring Mouse bikes in Crissy Field (http://www.roaringmousecycles.com/ http://www.roaringmousecycles.com/) and buy a bike. Then bike to work, bike to Golden Gate Park, bike across the GG bridge to Sausalito, to Tiburon, to Marin. There are a million awesome places to bike in the Bay Area, and there are huge communities around it. It's something you can do by yourself or with a group. Super fun. * Anything from sf.funcheap.com. Like the site says, it's a list of fun, cheap things to do in the Bay Area. * Take online classes (http://coursera.org http://coursera.org). I'm currently taking the Machine Learning course and the Compilers course. It's very fun to learn new things! * Become a Stormtroooper (http://www.goldengategarrison.com http://www.goldengategarrison.com) - I'm not a member, but I know a lot of people who build their own Stormtrooper armor and then do volunteer activities with the 501st (the official Stormtrooper organization). Very cool way to give back to the community, especially if you're a Star Wars geek! * Volunteer! There's a great organization in the city called One Brick (http://sfbay.onebrick.org/ http://sfbay.onebrick.org/). You basically pick an event and just show up. It's volunteering a la carte! You're not making long term commitments -- just one event at a time. And you meet TONS of good, kind-hearted people. It's a win/win! * And being Hacker News, I would be remiss if I didn't mention: start your own business. Find a problem domain you know something about, and solve that problem. Get out there, meet some co-founders, crank out some code, save the world, and get the cheerleader. Or maybe it was save the cheerleader? Whatever. * And so much more. I do all of the above things regularly (sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly), but there are a huge list of things I just don't have the time or memory to mention. There's a whole world out there. Get outside and explore! Good luck!
• csixty4 13y ago
  * Running - I try for 3x a week, usually 5k but sometimes I got 6k or 7k on the weekend. * Volunteering - I socialize feral and semi-feral cats for 3-4 hours a week at a local animal shelter. I get a lot of cuts and scars from it, but it's great when the scared animal I met becomes someone's loving pet. * Reading - Right now I'm reading a book on the history of Mexican food in the US ("Taco USA"). It keeps me thinking about things outside the tech scene. * Gardening - Not as easy now that I'm living in an apartment, but I like getting my hands dirty and you can't beat the taste of food you grew yourself.
• bra-ket 13y ago
  browsing hn
• EliRivers 13y ago
  Get started on the classics. As a very strong general rule, they're classics for a reason. Some of them can be read in a single long sitting ("The Great Gatsby" springs to mind for that). Old and modern; the British author David Mitchell has written some fist-bitingly good modern literature. Branch out; some modern Japanese literature is so good it carries through the translation. If you can, get them in second-hand paperback - carry them, bend them, flick back and forth through them, mark them up with a stub of pencil. They're so good. They really are. Thankfully, they're also something that can't be hacked, pivoted, presented as a service, gameified or whatever other buzz phrases we churn out to make ourselves feel smug. There's no other way to read them than to simply open the book and read.
• b14d3 13y ago
  I live in Columbus, OH, and I do far less than what some of these posts do, but haven't seen anyone else from Ohio so I thought I would post. * Read - Much like the others I'm constantly reading something, not usually programming related * Learn - Also like others, I'm always teaching myself something new. Cooking something new, knitting, organic chemistry, I'm kind of all over the map * Archery - http://www.velocityarcheryrange.com/ http://www.velocityarcheryrange.com/ Sorry for their awful website (not my code, just to throw that out there* but I go out every now and again and shoot a bow and arrow for something physical to do that's eccentric and difficult enough to keep me interested May update if I think of more things that I do, or if I remember Columbus-based things if people are interested!
• zenbowman 13y ago
  I live in Los Angeles. My routine is very routine, but I like it that way. Morning weekday routine: Get up, exercise, eat breakfast, shoot some arrows (hence the username), go to work At work hobbies: Table tennis, and we have a crew that does calisthenics at the park below work Night: Come home, chill with wife, sleep Weekends: Archery in the morning, gym with the wife in the afternoon, usually go to dinner in the evening. I used to have more hobbies, but I found that the routine is liberating in a strange way. I don't have to think about what I need to do, I just do the same things week in week out and try to get really good at them.
  • ApolloRising 13y ago
    Where do you practice Archery in LA?
    • zenbowman 13y ago
      Pasadena Roving Archers rovingarchers.com
• mindcrime 13y ago
  These days I both work a day job and am a startup founder, and I don't do a whole lot other than work, between the two. But when I find (or make) a small bit of spare time, I like to do things like: 1. Read - fiction (horror, sci-fi, thriller/suspense, mystery, etc.) and various topics in non-fiction: physics, cosmology, history, economics, biographies, etc. 2. Mountain bike. I haven't been riding much lately, but this is one of my favorite outdoor activities when the weather is nice. 3. BMX - I still pull out my old BMX bike from time to time and do a little dorking around, street riding. 4. Road biking. I mainly only ride my road bike for cross-training purposes, but I like to get in a few miles here and there. 5. Hike and/or trail run. - I sometimes go hike or run, mostly on some of the same trails I MTB on. Plus a few nearby trails that are open to foot traffic, but not bikes. 6. Concerts - I love live music, and I try to make it to a concert every now and then. The last one I hit up was Trans-Siberian Orchestra back in November. But I like pretty much anything heavy-metal or hard-rock. From Steel Panther to Motley Crue to Tyr or Anthrax, whatever. 7. Dining out - I'm not exactly a hardcore "foodie" but I enjoy trying novel cuisine and having a good meal at a nice restaurant. So exploring new places to eat is something I like to do, especially when traveling. This week has been a good example - I've been in San Francisco all week (I live in Chapel Hill, NC) so I've had a chance to sample a Peruvian restaurant, a Czech restaurant, a place that specializes in garlic, etc. 8. I try to hang out at the local hackerspace[1] a little. Often when I'm there I'm actually working on the startup, but sometimes I like to go in and just tinker and play around a bit. I bought a few microcontroller / SBC boards (Arduino, rPi, BeagleBone) and a bunch of discrete components and shit, and built a monster breadboard with an integrated powersupply using an old PC ATX power supply. Sometimes I just go in and work on learning to build weird electronic circuits and stuff. Outside of that, I dunno... does reading HN count as a hobby? Or watching TV shows and movies? I squeeze in a couple of "go to the theater" for a new release deals a year, and watch a movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime from time to time, or rewatch one of my old favorites on DVD. shrug [1]: http://www.splatspace.org/ http://www.splatspace.org/
• 6d0debc071 13y ago
  A few things. It depends when you're asking what my interests are around then. At the moment these spring to mind: Chess - casual player, friends and family type thing. Never been competitive enough to want to learn specific openings and counters and so on. Martial arts - specifically I practice Wadu Ryo karate. Swimming Archery - Longbow Reading - Mostly fantasy and sci-fi, a few technical and history books or books on whatever my interest happens to be then. Volunteering - I try to help young people into work. Music - I play the piano. Well, technically a keyboard at the moment. Wood work - Pretty rare these days since I got my house the way I want it, but I still make little things from time to time. Really more my boyfriend's thing these days than mine though. Computer games - I enjoy strategy games, RPGs, and things where you can build stuff.
• logn 13y ago
  Find a significant other.