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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

This is very important for programmers. You need to take a walk to recharge your batteries. To clear you mind. Well, it works for me anyway.

Do it during lunch, after work, after dinner. On the weekend , for a longer walk. Parks and trails work best. Less crowded streets in the city work as well.

Don't rush, just walk slowly.

Observe things.

If you end up thinking about the problem your are working on, that's fine, if you notice a bird's nest, that's fine too.

Walk like you have no place to be, look around. You will feel weird at first, but that's fine. Try not to care about that.

Think of it as something between meditation, relaxation and exercise. Sort of a all-in-one.

It's easy. There is nothing you have to do to plan for it, no special gear to buy, all you need to do is to say "I want to take a walk" and then ... take a walk.

View on HN

Observe things. ... , look around.

Also look up. In city streets there are things to see above the horizontal plane we strongly tend to confine our view to.

No one ever looks up. No really. No one ever looks up.

I used to have a balcony over a very crowded alley with constant foot traffic. I would stand there quietly and watch people think they were alone in this alley all the time.

Drunk people were the best. One corner of the alley was constantly getting pee'd in so they installed a metal skirt that bounced the pee back on the pee'r. You could watch drunk people pee in that corner then walk away with a wet pant leg without ever noticing. Hilarious. And not once in the 3 years I lived there did someone look up.

I think I can remember three different times I've decided to look up and I saw someone watching me. I waved "hello" to them and continued on.

Oddly enough if you play through Portal with commentary on they talk about this constantly. Test players never looked up and they had to do elaborate things with the level design to simply get people to look up.

hahaha, that's hilarious.

1) It doesn't solve the problem at all as the drunks don't even notice the deterrent 2) If the drunks were aware enough to notice, they could simply pee at an angle to avoid backsplash - but I imagine they'd be too drunk to think of that simple solution

In older cities it's amazing how much great architecture goes unnoticed. New York city has buildings from turn of the century with most intricate decorations and reliefs and only recently I started noticing it (in a "they don't make 'em like they used to" way).

In cities like Prague, it's really hard NOT to look up. Every street has a tower or something really fascinating that just stands out

I also have great memories of Prague and it's cathedral. Good old time...

1.) 99% of the time, the people looking up are tourists.

2.) It is really funny to look straight up at the sky in a busy street and then watch twenty other people start looking up, wondering what could possibly be going on up there.

Good idea. It will force you to slow down a bit too, which is a good thing. It is hard to look up while walking fast.

These are already too many instructions.

When someone provides a plan, for some reason I am compelled to follow it meticulously or reject it entirely. I could use an Ask HN on how to loosen up.

Just for you: follow the last instruction only.

When somebody provides that many instructions, they've forgotten how they did it in the first place.

How's this: "Be."

Kitschy.

Does this thing have a downvote arrow?

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