Ask HN: How do Hackers kill time when bored on weekend? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do Hackers kill time when bored on weekend?

49 pointsashitvora95 comments

I usually watch some tech-talk which is not too techie.

I am never bored.

In fact, I have the opposite problem: I often have trouble enjoying things that are not on my To Do List because there are too many things on my To Do List that aren't getting done.

From my observations I think it's a much better problem to have than the opposite I've seen in some people where they are constantly bored when not involved in some kind of structured activity or social event.

That would actually be an improvement.. I'm just as often bored even when involved in activities or (the pretty rare now) social events.

I don't think I can even remember being bored. Even stuck in an airline terminal with a long wait and no internet, I'd still find something to amuse myself with, even if it was just a local paper or a conversation with a fellow traveler.

Spending time with my girlfriend. Usually trips around the Bay Area (it's amazing what's there within an hour's driving distance), dining, cooking (it's actually more expensive then dining out, but well worth it in terms of using exactly the ingredients that you want), movies.

Coding. Right now I am an airport (waiting for a flight) implementing something (a CS concept) I've implemented at work in Java, in OCaml just to refresh my knowledge of OCaml (and my understanding of what I actually did). I'll write toys just for fun of it, for myself. It's okay to re-invent the wheel if you have to, do it for enjoyment.

Reading. Can be technical, can be non-fiction, can be fiction. Presently I am reading Richard Rhodes' Dark Sun and Benjamin Pierce's Types and Programming Languages.

Keep in mind that your brain is a lot like a heap of a run-time with generational garbage collection or a log-structured file system / database. Occasionally, the throughput at which you can write and read information from it goes down as it moves the bytes around and deletes the un-needed stuff. If you never let it do that, you'll run out of space / your knowledge will become incredibly fragmented.

It's important that if if you don't feel like being productive (read: your NewGen is full) you shouldn't force yourself to be. Go for a walk, watch a movie, work out, go out and eat (even if by yourself). I wonder how much money companies lose due to the rule or convention that one should work in a single contiguous chunk during the day (sitting comatose at their screen, when they should be taking a nap or going on a walk).

By posting, upvoting and commenting on self-referential rhetorical questions on HN, apparently :-).

I thought most hackers spend their free time hacking ;-)

I'm watching baseball today however Go Giants!

Yep - usually I read, but today I was cheering my home team as they became division champions. I'm not really into sports but every year I dare to hope this might be year the pennant finally comes to San Francisco.

Yea, I do watch games but only when Trojans are playing ;)

Github. Momentum is key here. If you don't pick a project you are interested in and keep at it, coding for fun won't actually be fun; it will feel overwhelming and boring. But on a Sunday evening it's a great feeling to just hammer out an incremental change to a library you own and push it to the world. :)

Wow....bored. I remember that phenomena. Used to happen to me ever so occasionally before I had kids. Now, the little time I get to myself when I am not hacking is called 'peace and quiet'.

I honestly can't remember the last time I was bored.

I hang out with my fiancee, we love cooking a lot and watching movies, especially old ones. I practice Starcraft II with a coworker, which works out the strategy-planning part of my brain. Every other Sunday or so I go R/C racing with my future-father-in-law. Otherwise I'm hacking on a project for pay or for fun, sometimes both. ;)

I am also never bored. There is just so much to do! I'm a stickler for writing down random thoughts and ideas, like "I want to try hang gliding", or, "I've never been whale watching", or, "I wonder how much plane tickets are to Paris right now". My someday/maybe list is sitting at 249 items.

Just ask yourself, why are you bored? Be honest with yourself. Your answer may surprise you, but that's fine. Try new things, different things. Break away from habit and routine. Do a hand-stand, then go run in the park. Smell the flowers. Think about their life-cycle, and why humans think they're pretty, or why they smell so good. Is it genetic or learned? Like coffee, you probably hated it at first, but it's grown on you. Or maybe we were meant to drink coffee!

Then go work on something you're passionate about -- create. Just like _why said: "when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create."

Bring things into the world. Beautiful things. Things that should've been here in the first place, you were just the one to think of it and do it. Share whatever defines you with people. Get surprised or angered or duped into believing something fashionable. Live.

Hacking.

My wife likes to tell people that I program to decompress, which is true. It's probably a bit like a mechanic coming home from working on other people's cars to put loving hours into rebuilding a 1965 mustang.

So.. you're working on a lisp?

Bored? Never! I spend all my time either talking with fellow hackers or non-hacker friends, or working on at least _something_. There's always stuff on the To Do List. Create a "Someday" category and just look into what's there when you don't feel like real work.

For example, today messed around with a new startup's home page design and advertised on Reddit. Also, booked flights.

Exactly. I only get bored when I -choose- to get bored. Which is a huge change from when I was young, I can tell you.

Now, I have so many hobbies that I have to put some aside for others. And even without them, I have so many personal projects I like to work on, and so much to learn, that I would never have free time just from that alone.

I often find myself stressed out about my hobbies, and have to take a break from them!

And someone mentioned Minecraft... -sigh- Why is that game so addictive? I just keep going back.

Generally when I get bored, it is a sign that I am burned out.

Consider this, you are a hacker, and you have a computer, and (since are reading this), the internet.

If you cannot think of a way to entertain yourself, then your creativity is toast. You need a vacation.

I usually try to work on something interesting. I have several unfinished projects on the go that I try to find time to work on.

But, today I wrote a tool for my fiancee to help her make knitting charts. Very minimal, but it's a start.

http://knitting.heroku.com/

As a knitter, this sounds truly awesome. Seems to not work though. But I'd love to collaborate with you on this, since it's something I need as well at times and never thought to make (I tend to draw charts directly for my own designs, but far too many published patterns have instructions only). Interested in the reverse transform? Webcam integration for pattern reading?

Thanks for the interest! Just sent you an email.

I build Magic: The Gathering decks. It's basically like writing a program where the order of execution of the instructions is randomized.

The only time I'm really bored is when I can't decide what to do, because of the "paradox of choice." My personal library has more than enough books to keep me busy for the next couple of decades, and the Internet provides a seemingly unlimited amount of reading material. That alone creates a strong "paradox of choice" situation, but I also like listening to music (classical and metal, recorded or live), going to the theater, running, mountain biking, hiking, going out to eat, hanging out with friends at bars/clubs, etc. And between physical media and bittorrent downloads, I have enough unwatched movies and TV programmes to consume hundreds of hours of my time.

So what do I actually do? Usually some combination of the above... an average weekend includes some time reading fiction (reading the "Harry Potter" series ATM), some time studying $SOMETHING, where $SOMETHING could be greek history, philosophy, physics, math, statistics or FSM knows what, and some time boning up on whatever the technical "topic of the day" is... some time surfing the Internet, a trip out to eat somewhere, and some time exercising (walking or running).

I don't know if that helps much or not, but there ya go. If I had to single out one activity that I spend the most time on during "idle time" it's reading, both fiction and non-fiction.

Oh, and never mind the time on weekends that I spend writing code.

Now that I think about it, no wonder I show up for work on Monday feeling more tired than I was when the weekend started. :-(

Playing with my son, DIY on the house and of course hacking: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/projects/

Minecraft

I have setup a server for HN users, #startups regulars and friends. Leave a comment here with your Minecraft username and make sure that your profile has contact information and I will give you access.

Sounds fun. My username is vyrotek.

My username is sephr.

my username is "PStamatiou"

username: bontibon

Mine is anakanemison.

I need contact information of some kind.

I'd be willing to join in and check it out. Username is "Simucal".

I'm in. Username is "unorchestrated" :)

UhUhOhOh

Is that your Minecraft username or some kind of strange commentary?

That is my Minecraft username.

arubin is that you ?

Username: "kimidorisakana"

I haven't posted much, but I read HN regularly.

I play pick-up soccer with a regular group, read, cook, occasionally ride my bike around. Used to go on a ton of hikes until I exhausted those in the LA area.

I used to play ultimate (frisbee) but didn't like the rules. Good group though and plenty of geeks. When I played in Seattle, it seemed that all of us either worked for Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft or Google. You can find out about plenty of pick-up groups online.

beer on the deck, play with cats, go for a walk outside if it's nice (it's just getting to be fall weather around here which is great), really, anything but the computer

played some diablo 2 the other night with some friends though, fun times

TV: College football on Saturday; Rubicon, Boardwalk Empire and Madmen* on Sunday. (*Although Madmen is seemingly plotless and is becoming a source of boredom instead of a cure.)

Code: Weekend coding is usually reserved for work on side projects and personal / in-house tools.

Read: Veering toward the non-technical and fiction lately.

People: Gotta stay connected to the important stuff.

Go outside: Try it. It's great!

There is never enough time to do all the things I love to do, so, I don't get bored on the weekends. My first pick when the weather is nice is rock climbing. Just ran up 5 pitches of trad on Beacon rock today.

Gardening takes up some time, and it is now end of year, so I spent 18 hours this weekend cooking tomatoes into sauce and salsa.

Saturday I went clubbing (it looks like I'm the only one here). Sunday I went to the gym.

But I didn't do these things to kill time.

I never really get bored, but: * Go shooting (IDPA practice, high power rifle (which requires driving to Sacramento), teaching other people to shoot)

* Reading books -- I have about a thousand Kindle books (yes, I went overboard) and have only read about 200.

* Personal hacking projects (hardware more often than software; my new area of interest is ROV or autonomous underwater vehicle on the cheap to use when scuba diving)

* Learning something new: SCUBA has been the new thing for September. Trying to become a semi-competent designer (or at least being able to ID someone else's design) is my goal for the rest of the year, plus understanding more about TPM and hardware security modules.

* Maybe one or twice a month, some kind of party. As I've gotten older, I've gotten more into 5-15 person dinner parties or other low key things, vs. big raves, but both can be fun.

Trick question. Hackers are never bored.

Spend time with my kids, reading, cleaning. I try to make time to think through code problems on paper and leave the computer untouched which usually is a big help in solving it.

Try not to kill time. Once you've killed enough of it it'll be the thing you miss most. If you value anything else, realise that you can transform time into that thing.

cooking up ideas, solutions, plans, trying to figure out the answer to some question that pops in my mind or trying to figure out the reason behind some obscure thing or pattern that may have caught my attention, reading articles or watching some good videos online.

(Talking about videos, whoever put up that link to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture Video on HN, just completed watching it- THANK YOU VERY MUCH, tried, but its been tough to trace back to the original posting)

Driving, lots of driving on the country side, love the changing scenery, that's one thing where I can continue the thinking while doing something relaxing.

(edit: about the driving, its big time fun, to go into some obscure parts of a city or new neighborhoods (obviously when the traffic is real low - like late in nights), or some new places in the country side, figure out new routes to the same places, its like a jig-saw puzzle. Another thing I am addicted to - I like seeing the same places in different circumstances, seeing the same neighborhoods in the day, evenings and night, or some remote places in the country side in different seasons - its great fun/relaxing and somehow I feel my mind getting stimulated at the same time)

I'm never bored, I have more things to do that I could do. Life is difficult,unexpected, always have problems to solve but never boring.

I never "kill time", when I'm with my girlfriend-other relationships I enjoy it, riding bike or playing soccer or cooking because i love it.

Maybe it is have something you always need to learn, improve. Boredom has to do with stopping to grow, it seems like your life need some risk taking,maybe you are playing too safe.

Playing QuakeLive, kayaking or going to some other city... But sometimes just being lazy (== reading books sometimes) or writing even more code.

Starcraft 2

Me too, when I get bored of coding.

The weekend is actually one of the most productive times in my week — blogs/Twitter update less, people tend to be offline and therefore not pinging me with questions, and somehow they feel more relaxing so I tend to use that time for working on my project.

That said, if I'm truly bored, I'll spend my time exercising, cooking, or some other non-computer hobby to refresh my brain a bit.

Mostly, I hack away at a personal project (fixing that shelf, or repotting that plant, or finally building that damn calendaring app for me and my girlfriend) or watch a bad TV show (I mean _really_ bad; guilty pleasure kind of stuff).

Fairly often I'll go to a park and just ask someone what they hate about their computer. Then I'll sit there in the park and build it, for fun.

I typically read up on EsotericSubject X. I tend to use the oddball stuff to keep me interested in as many subjects as possible, in part because the basics have been re-hashed so many times they're boring until you see a use. X gets me interested, so I can go through the basics with a goal in mind, and know a couple questions to ask to get help as needed.

There's no boredom.

After family time, I have two areas on which I concentrate. One is algorithms, though I'm stuck on an intractable problem at the moment. (I haven't figured the way to go around it yet. I will; it will just take time.) The other is photography, which is my latest obsession and has been consuming most free time and fun money. :D

Never really bored... But to answer your question - mountain biking whenever I can (yesterday went to a dirt jumping park! in fact, I think I'll go there right now!), and assembling little air plane replicas (currently working on MiG 21). Oh, and hacking (should be writing a shell right now...) :-)

I work through my GitHub pull request backlog. On a good weekend I can get back down to the single digits.

Thanks!

I use many of those projects daily. Your work is appreciated.

http://technomancy.us/projects

I make electronic music: http://soundcloud.com/gau5/spotlight, and the usual stuff like hang out with friends, I love watching movies, doing mathematics and watching videos on creating music and other forms of art.

Curious if you had a music background or if, like the rest of us here, you're an engineer of some type (not sound engineer though) who got into music in spare time?

Just wondering because I'm a programmer who doesn't know anything about musical production or theory but has always entertained the idea of making ambient-style electronic music.

You should go for it. Check out things like csound [1], puredata [2], chuck [3], and supercollider [4]. "Computer Music" by Charles Dodge is a classic book on computer music [5] (oldie but goodie)

[1] http://www.csounds.com

[2] http://puredata.info

[3] http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu

[4] http://supercollider.sourceforge.net

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Music-Synthesis-Composition-P...

My musical background before 5 months ago consisted of one lesson each of piano and guitar over 10 years ago and that's it, so basically nothing.

But I don't think people give enough credit to listening music a lot to develop your ears.

But in terms of your typical musical background, about 5 months ago I threw myself into reading music theory and sound engineering books like crazy whenever I could and have been hooked ever since.

For me:

Movies

Backgammon

Cycling (if the weather's good)

Learning new Cocktail Recipes

Cooking for people

Baking Bread

Amateur Digital Photography

I find Baking Bread to be the best de-stresser of all, and it always makes the house smell great!

HackerNews

This hacker is too busy with too many projects to have time to get bored on weekends.

I am only bored when I am stuck somewhere with nothing to do - a doctor's office, a bus stop, an airport, etc. Upgrading my phone has helped a lot with this.

Listen to Adam Carolla, Daves of Thunder, Spider and the Henchman, FitzDog Radio

With my spare time:

- I work on app that I want to launch as a startup.

- Hack on open source code.

- Read some of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, which I purchased last month.

There is always something one could be doing. If I am bored, it is because I am being lazy.

Knitting. Reading physics books. Building robots. Korean script practice. Dr. Who. Spending time with people. Cooking. Rediscovering ancient science fiction. Getting old semi-industrial machines running.

Going outside. Reading a book. After reading for a while, I either have the desire to do something, like hang out with friends, or I have an idea, and I go research it and iterate on it.

I've started reading more. This is probably a good start: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752139

I got a beautiful puppy :) Actually more than killing time I'm finding out that training a puppy is pretty much a full-time, so now in my free time I work.

Hackers gonna hack.

I only get bored if im to tierd to do something real then I watch old The Big Bang Theory or How I met you mother stuff and go to bed.

I like to:

-read

-code

-sleep

-long-distance run (6-15 miles, for me)

-hang out with friends

-clean the apartment

-watch netflix

I read that distance running lowers Co Enzyme Q10 levels (whilst raising anti-oxidants) with people that don't do it regularly. As a weekend warrior, do you think stress levels go up as a result?

Watch TED videos

Spending tine with my wife and son

Distance running (10-15 miles)

Research and planning

Hacking. Personal, work and home automation

And given my schedule, often doing nothing at all.

http://play.eveonline.com/en/home.aspx

play eveonline in home? ;)

Laundry and http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/

Frisbee Golf followed by chatting with fellow hackers on a patio somewhere enjoying the weather.

Coding, watching movies, going for a hike, exercising, playing music, learning to skateboard.

Went for a sail. Lots of dynamic problem solving in a very different domain. And fresh air.

Poker

Learn more about beer & how to brew it.

Boredom. I vaguely remember that.

Hacking. QED

Read Hacker Monthly, may be?

Going out.

Too busy to get bored!

Bored is a choice.

Crossword puzzles.

Well, I hacked Instant Search this morning! Hehe Google, its what's for breakfast. http://YTLatest.com

pkill time

Reply on news.ycombinator.com