beningrad

I also do a lot of athletics in the sun--cycling, but also climbing and ski touring--where sweat wicking fabric and breathable clothing is crucial. Over the years I've acquired several sun protective hooded long sleeve shirts which don't cause me to overheat. I've got a helmet, sunglasses, and short or pants on, as well, so I end up putting sunscreen on the few parts of my body which are exposed. Bottom half of my face, back of my neck, and bottom half of my legs.

translating algorithms to a programming language is not the hard part of programming

I agree with this bit, but often struggle to verbalize what is hard. I'm curious to hear your take.

I usually say, in a hand wavy way, that structuring large logical processes takes a lot of deep concentration, but that doesn't quite capture it.

Addendum to this question, if you don't mind: How do you choose what your next microstartup will be?

Yes, alpine climbing. Which begat trail running, ski mountaineering, mountain biking, and wrestling.

A friend had moved to Denver and was starting to climb more impressive and intense routes just as my whole division at a big company was let go. It looked fun and I thought it would be a good way to spend my time. After a primer from my friend, I joined clubs and sought out partners who I gelled with. I ultimately found that the passionate rationality of alpine climbing's risk assessment and fitness requirements were a great healthy replacement for what I did at work.

I started trail running as part of my training and decided I liked it for its own sake. I took up ski mountaineering a couple years later because it meant I could have more fun moving faster on larger terrain. I took up mountain biking two years ago because a buddy badgered me about how fun it was and described it as "skiing in the summer." And, recently, with a large base of fitness, I joined a group of friends who are all martial arts nerds who get together for sparring and style comparison chats. I wrestled in high school, so I jumped in and decided it was as fun now as it was then.

This whole journey kicked off in 2016. I spend between 5 and 15 hours per week in one of the above disciplines, plus a few hours a week in the gym lifting. It takes a lot of effort, but it rarely feels like it because I'm enjoying myself. I prefer all of these hobbies because, like many of us, my job keeps me glued to a screen/hunched over a work table and I wanted something that put me back in my body in an enjoyable way.

The things that jump out at me:

-Seeing another societal system in practice and realizing that there are things from back home (CA, USA) which I took for granted which actually worked better than anywhere I went. The corollary is things I took for granted that were actually horribly broken and easily done better everywhere else.

-If you're gone long enough, coming back to your own culture can actually give you culture shock, which is about as unique an experience as I've had. It is somewhat related to the above. Hard to put this one in to words... kind of a "dancing about architecture" thing. It's a new set of eyes.

-Perspective broadening interactions around relative wealth, prosperity, historical inertia, and personal responsibility. It became much more clear to me and much less hypothetical how some poverty is legitimately just lazy people and some poverty is circumstantial.

-I'm not ashamed to admit this one even a little: If you managed to extend your comfort zone while traveling, you win dinner party conversations when you return. I climbed big dangerous mountains and traveled to unique place. Nobody cares about the algorithm I worked out on a Thai beach, but everybody wants to know about North Korea.

-You develop the skill of being comfortable inside your own skull. Assuming you are traveling alone, there will be lots of time without a stranger to talk to. That's a lot of down time to spend with yourself and really examine your own thoughts.

-You develop a self reliance related to not needing a lot. Once you realize you are fine just fine with a book and an afternoon and maybe spending the night sleeping in a park (that the locals say is safe!), the world is less menacing.

Don't make the mistake of dismissing game design. Spend way more time than you think is proper on non-digital paper prototypes and greybox digital prototypes. Get your half-baked games in front of people and watch where and how they struggle, get bored, have fun, lose interest, etc.

All the best engineering, art, audio, marketing, and polish in the world won't make a game more fun. Stickiness comes from game design and game design comes from iteration.

Successful implementations of game physics often has far less to do with realistic simulation and far more to do with sensation. For anybody interested in diving deep, pick up Game Feel by Steve Swink[0]

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Game-Feel-Designers-Sensation-Kaufman...

When it comes to planning an alpine climb, I use http://www.mountain-forecast.com to judge what sorts of gear I might need. Super niche use-case, but it's better than anything else I've found.

I've lately been thinking about the relative healthiness of my hobby, in which failure could definitely bleed into the rest of my life. I go climbing and mountaineering, where the negative consequences for a mistake can be disastrous. Part of the fun of this hobby is the risk assessment with consequences, so I wonder how it skews with your definition. There are similar edge cases with other potentially dangerous hobbies (racing cars, mountain biking, wingsuiting, boxing, etc) and this also brings up the nature of consequences as a delineator. Where you draw the line is very personal--I also tinker with electronics and, as part of that, have messed around with mains electricity.

Not saying you're wrong, just throwing a wrench into the works because it has been on my mind and I'm curious what the hive mind has to say.

Try paying attention to your respiration while running. Attempt to maintain a pace that is possible while only breathing through your nose. (This pace may be walking, which is fine.) This is less about proprioception and more about paying attention to what your exertion demands from your body and finding a pace/respiration equilibrium.

Genuinely curious, what is it about these things that she is disdainful. I ask because I there I imagine two scenarios. The first scenario has an expert not recognizing the potential for powerful abstraction to augment an individual's effort. I have run across this attitude in programmers sometimes--they say things like "C++ is the new assembly." The second scenario is has a layman not realizing the ignorance of their effort. I have run across this problem in new agers who get a little knowledge about string theory and believe the universe's sympathetic vibrations can be felt by the soul. A string theorist would rightly scoff at their conclusion.

Right now I work in R&D for toys, VR, and IoT. I started as a straight up game designer, but I got very into programming and embedded electronics. If I went searching for a new job tomorrow, I would bill myself as a T-shaped HCI R&D guy with a deep knowledge of game design.

I think blogs like his seek to do for your lifestyle what meditation does for your thoughts--make you aware of your choices and their effects. At their best, they enlighten you toward a more conscious design of your own lifestyle. I'm not "anti-mustachian," but I can speak to the choices I've made.

I could be saving waaaay more, but I have no burning desire to optimize my lifestyle toward freedom. I'm super lucky that I enjoy my work. It's not fun 100% of the time and I'm not free to come and go as I please without consequences, which is something MMM especially optimizes for.

I'm optimizing to always be doing interesting work with people more intelligent or creative than me. Right now this is best accomplished by doing good work for companies with deep pockets so that I can do the fun stuff. I also optimize for exciting experiences and good connections with people. Sometimes those two optimization goals are at odds, but I've managed the cognitive dissonance by being more loosey goosey with my priorities than MMM advocates.

This has led to immense fun, personal satisfaction, and growth. I've lived and worked abroad. I make big, silly art. I'm floored by some of the people I work with. I'm lucky to have several big friend group--often the result of working on fun stuff together and then continuing those relationships outside of their original contexts.

All that said, I might totally change my tune if I had a kid and wanted to build a family or I suddenly wasn't making good money.