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Comment by __MatrixMan__ | Hacker News Reader

I was once asked: "Are you a rock climbing mathematician or a cat mathematician?". It was a joke designed to break the ice, but it turns out that 3/5 of that class were climbers, the others were enthusiastic cat owners. No outliers.

I'll add software engineering and woodworking to the list.

I wonder what other surprising relationships there are out there.

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Are you a woodworking software engineer or a musician software engineer?

Actually, that is probably the same group.

Yes and yes.

Hmm, true. Both.

Software Engineer by trade. My hobbies are playing music (clarinet and trumpet), woodworking (as a medieval reenactor on ren faires) and climbing (indoor bouldering). I also own two cats.

I didn't think I'd be that predictable...

Rock climbing is the new golf, and tech workers are the new big shots that have replaced stodgy investment bankers. I never mention that I'm a rock climber anymore. It brands you as a techfuck these days.

No evidence has been presented that woodworking is disproportionately popular among programmers. I bet if you go to some carpentry meetups you will not find a high number of programmers. Programmers are not special for having hobbies. If you talk to a non-programmer some day, you may find that they have hobbies as well, such as cooking, writing, music, and gardening. Most people have hobbies.

"Rock climbing is the new golf": I never thought about it in this way, but it makes a lot of sense. In both sports, most of the time is spent waiting/resting. This makes golf clubs and climbing gyms as much places for social contact as places where you go to train.

> Rock climbing is the new golf

Meh, you can play golf while being completely out of shape, climbing is much more demanding at least, it's much more diverse than golf and a lot of other sports too

Rock climbing isn't the new golf. There's no country club, it involves problem solving, there's nobody coming up to you to offer you drinks and snacks during the activity, you don't weight train for golf, CEOs don't take each other to a rad whipper to discuss a merger, there's no insane conspicuous wealth on display.

Tech douchebags will be tech douchebags no matter what sport they play. If you don't want to be branded a "techfuck", maybe move out of the bay area to where people don't care what you do for fun? Or stop caring if someone thinks you're a techfuck? Be yourself and let the people who don't understand you go away.

If there's something to be embarrassed about that's coincidentally associated with code and climbing (like, idk, so few scruples that were willing to work against the interests of our users) maybe we should address that head on rather than being ashamed of enjoying both code and climbing.

"Why programmers like X" = the same reason everyone else likes X.

The reverse holds too: I know more people with PhD's through climbing than any other area of my life that's intuitively nerdier.

Because it's the complete opposite of being a PhD student I'd imagine.

A good route is a puzzle you solve with your mind and body; I'm not sure it's all that different, except for not having an advisor.

N.B. Never aspired to an advanced degree, but I know a lot of people with them.

> Because it's the complete opposite of being a PhD student I'd imagine.

I'd rather guess the following relationship: IQ is positively correlated with "openness to experience" in the five-factor model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Concerning this particular trait: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Op...

"Open [to expererience] people can be perceived as unpredictable or lacking focus, and more likely to engage in risky behaviour or drug-taking. Moreover, individuals with high openness are said to pursue self-actualisation specifically by seeking out intense, euphoric experiences."

Or: it’s a good excuse to procrastinate another day and grade those exams next week.

A similar question in math circles is which direction you eat your corn, across like a typewriter is thought to indicate algebraists, while vertically by rotating and eating in a spiral indicating analysts (analysisists?)

https://blogs.ams.org/mathgradblog/2012/12/23/howdoyoueatyou...

Typewriter algebraist. Spooky.

I'm curious where that question was asked? Because the odds of getting 3/5 is probably higher if asking a group of people in, Boulder, CO than it would be if you asked a group in Lincoln, NE.

You're right, it was CO

> "Are you a rock climbing mathematician or a cat mathematician?"

Well, back in the day at our mathematics institute that had been "either smoking cigars (you could do that in the offices at that time) or doing sports" I don't know if the smokers all had cats. Of course, being in Austria "doing sports" almost universally included climbing.

Oh, and I don't have a cat but live in the mountains ;)

HA.

That's actually a remarkable statistic.

It would've been more statistically remarkable had there been more than 5 people in that class.

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