What I'm Going to Change in Light of 'Dead Men Write No Code'

http://blog.grobinson.net/2016/02/07/what-im-going-to-change-in-light-of-dead-men-write-no-code/

by georgerobinson • 10 years ago

26 12 10 years ago

blog.grobinson.net

ktRolster• 10 years ago

Eat more vegetables. Visit the doctor to get a blood test.

tremguy• 10 years ago

There are studies showing that a lot of the negative health effects can be attributed to just the sitting, regardless of the amount of exercise[1]. Personally I can really recommend looking into the standing desk. Also great if you tend to get kinda restless after sitting up for long periods, like me.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404815/

gregdoesit• 10 years ago

Getting an easy to convert standing / sitting desk was easily the best decision I have made. I now stand most of the day, sitting down when it gets a bit tiring and after lunch.

I cannot recommend this enough for anyone sitting in front of computers > 4 hours / day.

tachyonbeam• 10 years ago

For those looking into a standing desk, someone on HN recommended simply buying a tall desk with a tall chair, architect style, as opposed to an expensive/complicated setup to move the desk up and down. I want to look down into this option, as it's apparently cheaper and simpler.

jsprogrammer• 10 years ago

I recently moved to a standing desk with a mini elliptical machine to exercise on.

Now looking to get a setup with an overhead bar so that I can do some some additional arm exercises (pull ups, etc.). I already keep two free weights within easy reach.

tzs• 10 years ago

There are studies showing that a lot of the negative health effects can be attributed to just the sitting

They show negative health effects from prolonged sitting. The "prolonged" part is important.

Standing desks are fine if you are using one because you like it better than sitting, and are aware that there are health problems associated with too much standing.

For those considering standing just because of the health problems of prolonged sitting a much simpler way to avoid those problems without exchanging them for the different set of health problems from prolonged standing is to set a timer to remind you to take a short break every 20-30 minutes. During that break get up and move around for 2 or 3 minutes--you don't have to do anything vigorous for this, just taking a walk around the office will do [1].

It's interesting to note that the common time interval used by people using the Pomodoro time management system [2], 25 minutes, fits in very well with the above recommendation.

[1] http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

tluyben22• 10 years ago

In offices / places where I don't have a standing desk I put a non office chair on the desk and work on that. For me it still works a lot better than sitting.

It is one of the reasons I'm looking to work while walking in nature. It works for 50% of my work load currently (meetings and project discussions / management tasks) but for coding I still need a computer. I am getting there though; my ideas for mobile coding, mobile internet and voice recog are getting better and faster. The biggest challenge is how to make overviews; there is no way to browse through code easily on a small screen so I make overviews in different ways and that part I have not managed to tackle comfortably at all.

greenyoda• 10 years ago

Here's the HN discussion of the "Dead Men Write No Code" article, which this article references:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11040932

tluyben22• 10 years ago

Tea is good, but Brits overdo black tea; just do black/green/red or skip the black altogether and go easy on the red. And no milk ofcourse although that's probably the hardest part to leave out.

mathgeek• 10 years ago

And no milk ofcourse although that's probably the hardest part to leave out.

There's nothing wrong with milk, unless you're not including it in your diet tracking, react poorly to it, or have a personal opposition to drinking it.

What I'm Going to Change in Light of 'Dead Men Write No Code'

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