Ask HN: I've got 6-7 hours of uninterruptible time. What should I do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I've got 6-7 hours of uninterruptible time. What should I do?

11 pointssource9917 comments

just curious what other people would do?

I've got a long flight ahead of me.

Take an open source git repo you've made, or open source a project you've got somewhere on your hard-drive and a) polish it (absolutely without adding new features), and b) document it. Both will teach you new skills and stretch you as a developer in ways that might surprise you. They'll also help make the ecosystem better for others, whether you have 2 or 2 thousand watchers.

Wow. Great suggestion. Thanks.

Sleep. Look out of the window. Read. Forget you own a computer.

Also a Great suggestion. Just drank a large coffee though so sleep won't be in my near future. Though my flight was just delayed...

Watch all the free movies (if your flight has them).

I had a fear of flying (still do, but I can manage it better) and sleeping would have been the best thing to get through the flight. However, I could never do it. Therefore, I would do everything possible to distract myself from the fact that I was in a plane for the next 7-12 hours. In fact, I recall reading the entire Akka documentation from start to end on a red-eye flight from Washington to London. It was very dry, but it kept my mind off it.

The crazy thing is I loved flying when I was a kid. How nice it is to be ignorant

Interestingly, I'm the opposite. I was terrified of flying as a kid due to an irrational fear that it might fall out of the sky, and I would refuse to ever get on a plane. As I grew older, I eventually realized the odds of the plane crashing are quite low, and the fear pretty much dissipated.

I'll say stay away from devices as well, but I mainly mean staying away from social networks, news sites, and anything else that's idle browsing/talking. Also, stay away from work. Too much work, work, working all the time. Come up with new ideas, write blog style posts amount different subjects, look out the window and think, think about where your life is and where it could be, read some good books, etc.

Building a startup (actually others are doing the building, I'm doing everything else :) I would bring one or two books (Traction, Lean Startup, Smartcuts, etc.) and my iPad.

I would use some time reading and some time writing either ideas/notes or blog posts.

sleep. try to stay away from devices, see if you can even do this.. :) - meditate take a pen and paper, write down random ideas plan your day/week ignite a conversation with someone sitting next to you.

I tend to take time like this to simply write. Be it reflecting on the last 6 months of my life, or some sort of short fiction. Sometimes its good to forget about coding and look at the bigger picture.

Start a $10 billion business like this guy did on a bus trip:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27579790

Read a book.

I like to a book on a completely new subject and read it on flights.

Just day dream. Imagine your future

obvious question: do you have a laptop?

Yes.

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