Cycling is more fun than running for me but exactly because of all the reasons you mentioned I prefer running over cycling. What I also realized is that nothing works as good as running (at least for me) for weight loss if you also change your eating habits (you need to have a calorie deficit in order to lose fat).
For around 9 weeks I managed to go running for 10km every second day and then my two weeks vacation happened. I'm trying to get back in again because I'm extremely frustrated on days I don't go running. I cannot emphasize enough on the stress relieving part. For me it's around 50 minutes of complete peace of mind where the only things I focus are breathing and moving my body.
One thing I recommend is to track your runs because it's fun and interesting to see your improvement over time. Bonus points if you track your heart rate as well. :)
I use some android app (fitness run or something like this) to have logs. Google fit is nice even though it's not precise GPS wise (relies on Google Maps trip logs).
A smartphone is a bit annoying to carry and use, I might invest in a gps wrist so I can pause / resume with a button.
Right now I'm at 2x2.5km jogging + 5km of walk. And even though I don't have a calorie deficit, I already lost significant amount of fat and got back muscle mass (the bliss of sore muscles right? ;) I'm sure even with a normal diet it's a lot better to have a more active metabolysm as it is now.
I got my iPhone 5S (The 5S replaced my 3GS) when it was released and I'm still using it. The only problems I have are a little bit of yellow tint on the screen and the battery not having full capacity.
Maybe I got really lucky with both of my iPhones but even though I hate to pay this ridiculous premium price for iPhones it kinda evens out in the end considering I use the phone for 4-5 years.
This is one of the main reasons I avoid buying anything from Marketplace sellers on Amazon. One can argue if it is right or wrong but you can't expect the same level of service which you are used from Amazon for Marketplace sellers.
Couple times I ordered something without double checking that it is sold and delivered by Amazon and had nothing but trouble. I’m sure there are honest Marketplace sellers as well but I just can’t be bothered.
I replaced Siri with the Sleep button since the keyboard shortcut to lock/sleep your MBP doesn't work anymore. :) (If anyone is interested: Finder > View (press Option key) > Customize Control Strip)
To me, this is a GUI anti-pattern. Why do we have to go to Finder to customise the Touchbar? I looked for this option in System Preferences for days before I stumbled across this .. and then to have to hold down the magic Option key.
Honestly, these sorts of anti-patterns are what makes me think Apple has seriously lost the plot.
I have worn monthly contact lenses for almost 9 years without problems and switched back to glasses couple months ago because my eyes got tired and itchy too fast in front of the computer at work (I'm a front end dev so I spent most of the day in front the computer screen).
I have to admit that I didn't know that contact lenses shouldn't come in contact with water and that it could lead to such disastrous effects which can even end in loss of eye sight. However the first time I was at an optician to figure out what kind of lenses I need, they explained me very carefully that I should -always- wash my hands and dry (and not touch anything else other than the lenses in between) them with a clean paper towel before putting in our taking out my lenses.
Furthermore never to reuse the cleansing liquid you put into the little boxes where you store your contact lenses. I strictly followed this procedure over the years without any problems but when I was at the eye specialist to get my glasses subscribed I told her that I never had any infections using contact lenses and she smiled and said that it's only a matter of time. This really got me thinking because I was planning on using daily contact lenses for when I do sports or go out. :(
I wore contact lenses for 10 years, stopping a year or so ago. I had monthly disposables and would wear them daily from around 8am - 10pm without any major issues (although my eyes did noticeably become dry/tired in the evening it wasn't that serious).
The reason why I stopped was because the lenses started becoming dry quickly and I just couldn't see the screen clearly after wearing them for a couple of hours. Nothing in my computer setup or usage habits changed. I've seen various optometrists, but they couldn't give me a reason why this was happening. They just said if I can see better with glasses, I should do that for computer use :D
I now only wear dailies, but very rarely - usually only if I'm doing sports or swimming (although maybe I won't after reading this article...). Before switching I tried different brands of contact lenses (both monthly and daily), as well as turning down brightness and flux, but they weren't helpful in my case.
I couldn't agree more. Especially this part really makes me smash my head against the wall:
"Instead of 16GB of RAM as found on the Apple, I configured with 32GB (you can go up to 64GB if needed). By default, it comes with a 6GB Nvidia GTX 1060. The price? Less than $2,000! In other words, the System76 machine with much better specs is less expensive than Apple's."
I'm not an Apple fanboy but since the company I work for provides us with any hardware we want, most of us use Macbook Pros. The thing is, sure, it might have 16GB more RAM but it looks like a huge black brick. I'm not even going to start talking more about design but how can you even compare 2.49kg weight to 1.83kg of the Macbook Pro?
My ZBook is over 5kg, my car doesn't seem to mind.
My point, weight unknown, is that Apple are so focussed on thinness they have forgotten that I have "legacy" hardware lying around, still in use. I refuse to spend $ on replacing working external drives, usb sticks and more (home studio sound card for example) simply because some company has decided I need "to get with the times".
Apple want a consumer market in which users consume, consume, consume like tech is a loaf of bread. I'm not buying into that.
I understand your point of view but I think it depends highly on your individual use case. I also drive to work by car but I carry around my MBP a lot at work. We have lots of workshops, hackathons or code reviews where it makes a huge difference that you don't have to carry around much.
I realize that thin is good for some, but not all and Apple are only focusing on that one thing, at the expense of everything, and everyone, else. But I would also question whether you really need to shave off another 3 grams of weight, which it looks like you'll be adding back in cables so you can use those non-USB-C peripherals.
I'm in the same boat like you. For example I would love to see where my ancestors come from but I also have privacy concerns. (I would be willing to pay more for an anonymous service.)
I have concluded that I want to be a friend to my ancestors, not a voyeur. After long self debate I won't continue my love of genealogy with any of the 3 types of DNA tests- submissions.
But at some point I think it will be irrelevant because 1,2,3 Generations will triangulate me anyway
I left a company with great work/life balance but rather average or even low salary after 2 1/2 years for a startup but after a month into the job they introduced those stupid stopwatch JIRA plugins to measure time spent on tickets plus time sheets.
I know not everyone can maybe afford to do this but this is something I'm never going to put up with and I left after only 3 months purely out of frustration without even having a new gig. (Was quite suprised to be approached immediately by a subsidiary of a well known online auction house, where I'm still working for 2 years now.)
If you don't have a family (wife + kids) be bold and don't put up with such inhuman conditions. Developers are high in demand and this is the time to use the opportunity.
Kudos to you. If all developers acted this way, we'd have a lot less abuse.
I doubt any sane developer would come up with the idea of a stopwatch plugin on programming tasks. But I know some PMs who would. It is scary how being well-spoken and technically oblivious leads people to success in our industry.
No, asking people to log time is not abuse. Perhaps it's counter-productive (but even that's debatable as it depends on a lot of things). But it most definitely is not abuse.
Abuse is having the shit kicked out of you for answering back. Or being locked in a room for 48 hours without food or drink because you made a mistake. Or having your passport taken away and being forced to work for 18 hour days, 7 days per week, with no holiday and no pay.
All these things are happening in our world today, and equating them with programmers having to keep timesheets is ridiculous. It makes us sound like a bunch of spoiled babies who cry when we aren't allowed to play all day. So please use a different word than 'abuse' to describe something you prefer not to do at work.
Meh, if you want to go to the extremes there is no limit. I agree with what you said but it's completely out of context and I don't see how it is related to the topic.
In my eyes, it's relative to you or the situation in which you are in. For me personally it felt a lot like abuse and utter lack of trust to resolve using time sheets for a permanent position (not talking about freelancers and contractors).
Also why do you think that we are spoiled? I'm so fed up of people making software development look like a piece of cake and so easy. I tried to help some of my friends start with coding but after couple days they were quite overwhelmed and thought it was not so straightforward as imagined or as it looks to be. I'm also not talking about creating a hello world HTML document.
I'm definitely not a rock star programmer but I try to be solid one with hands-on mindset. I have 5 1/2 years experience working as a front end developer and there is still so much to learn and to improve on. Software development (especially web) is a field where you need to stay up to date and keen. We might not be exhausted physically but it's much harder to recharge and relax your mind.
This is why we shouldn't just put up with everything (timesheets is only one example of many) for the sake of having a job at all (because there are so many unemployed people right?). There are people who want to play safe and I'm fine with that but I learned that "no risk no fun" is true.
Update:
I want to add that I'm always grateful for what I have and don't take anything for granted. However I also know that I don't get anything for free unless you work hard for it.
I think his point is that just because an employer wants to log your time, and see how you're spending your time while at work, doesn't mean it's abuse. If they're paying you for your time, it's perfectly reasonable for them to see how you're spending your time.
Now, whether you choose to put up with it or leave, that's a different question. Given a choice, most people would choose an employer who gives them more latitude, as opposed to one who is monitoring them that closely. But that's an argument based on practicality, not morality.
The overall point is that there isn't a 1:1 correlation between time and productivity in this industry as there is in, say, working a cash register.
I might spend a couple of hours trying to debug something screwy with my dev environment, or googling around and thinking about what the solution to a problem, that doesn't create more tech debt, should look like. I might spend time dealing with feedback in code review, some of which may be beyond the scope of the story or not immediately perceptible by a stakeholder, but it's work that needs to be done nonetheless. Project managers are not developers for the most part, so they have to trust me on that.
When you hire someone to do tasks that you could do yourself, then asking them to log time is reasonable since you know what needs to be done and what the timeframe should look like. Asking a highly skilled employee such as a software developer to log time is an insult to their judgment and a waste of their (and your) time. You can't gauge my productivity from a time log.
This quibbling over the term 'abuse', like we should all just be thankful we're not sex slaves or PHP devs and leave it at that, is completely irrelevant. Fine, it's not abuse. It's just antagonistically treating your employees like untrustworthy delinquents. Is that better?
You know there were grown up programmers in the computer industry before we got the MBA-types involved as PMs. Frankly, I'll be very happy to keep track of minutes I spend coding if all PMs in the org had to take a basic programming competency test. Lets say something easy like inverting a linked-list (with pointers yo) or b-tree deletion. I think some PMs are "tech clueless" but have worked their way up because they are effective at bullying. This is not true of very PM but certainly some PMs.
There are legal definitions in the EU and US (and probably most countries) for what counts as 'workplace abuse'. Being asked to fill out timesheets as a general company policy doesn't satisfy any of them, so in that case the word 'abuse' is inappropriate.
It's worth pointing out that a lot real and extremely serious abuse is not limited to third-world countries. For example, the USA has an estimated 60,000 slaves.
Implicit to "legal definitions" is that those definition are used when legal action is taken, ie. when the abuse has reached a certain, actionable level at which the authorities need to step in.
This HN discussion is not framed in a legal context, so not satisfying a legal definition of "workplace abuse" doesn't mean the word is being used inappropriately.
OPINION: If your definition of a "grown up" is to let people ruin your work process then meh, that's your choice. Don't try to impose it on others. Keep your disliking of what terms people use for your local beer pub and not on HN. Deal?
ON TOPIC: I'd definitely call a timesheet "a workspace abuse", yes. Most of the programming is a very creative work. Do you pester a designer for a complex image for a PR campaign? Do you go to him/her on the top of every hour and ask "what's up, you done yet"? Do you check a building's architect monitor every hour?
I am currently having a subtle and a very hard-to-detect bug in an e-commerce shop I am maintaining. It leads to losing a few orders each day (out of 100+). The people I work for are wise enough to understand that pinpointing the cause of the bug is 90% of the work and yes, it may take days -- days during which I add more defensive coding on several places, increase logging statements, introduce several new integration tests, and what not.
If I was forced to use a timesheet in this situation I'd honestly wouldn't even know what to say in it on the top of every hour. I would strongly resemble the private detectives in those noir animations I guess. "Currently chasing clue X" -- "No wait, that's not it. Damn it, I am out of cigarettes. I must persevere!" -- "The owner of the bar knew nothing. Damn. Moving on."
Would you want that in timesheets if you were the manager? How would it help you?
The fact that there are others who have it much worse than you does not invalidate your grievances or limit the language you can use to speak to those grievances. If we start that kind of comparison, then I'd argue the people you describe have it pretty good, compared to people to Nazi concentration camps, who got shot dead (!) for giving their supervisor sound technical advice (assuming Schindler's List is an acceptable source of Nazi anecdotes).
The OP is talking about 'workplace abuse' which has a specific definition which, even in its less extreme forms, is much worse than being asked to keep timesheets.
Imo you are missing the bigger picture here by clinging on the meaning of the word "abuse" and the timesheet example. However, if you are happy keeping timesheets knock yourself out. For me this is a big issue and if you think it's okay then what's next? Video surveillance at your desk or maybe counting number of commits in git per day?
It is precisely the word that I object to. You can express like and dislike, and choose and reject employment based on those likes and dislikes, all you want.
But bandying around words like 'abuse' based on those likes and dislikes is akin to crying wolf when you see a pussy cat. It devalues its meaning for those cases where people are genuinely suffering and need help.
One of the biggest problems with estimation (a frequent HN topic) is not knowing how long it took to do something. If you don't know how long it typically takes you to do a task, how the hell can you estimate how long it will take to do a variation of that task?
Are you really saying that having to record timesheets counts as 'inhuman conditions'? That's the way I read your comment, sorry if it's not what you meant. But if it is what you meant, then I urge you to read about modern human slavery, domestic servitude, sex trafficking, etc, and reconsider.
Something is not 'abuse' just because you don't want to do it. Workplace abuse has a specific definition and being asked to keep time sheets does not meet it by a long way.
A combination of "this too shall pass," careful consideration of just how shitty the less-privileged really have it, and the realization that the only thing wallowing in misery was really getting me was more misery.
Yeah I was also thinking about how the word "diet" is used. If it's one of those weird things like "you can eat as many eggs as you want as long as you don't eat anything else" then I think it's utter bullshit. I see the effects of such diets on my sister. Yo-yo effect all the way.
However like you said if you think about your diet like e.g. banning soda, processed food and other unhealthy food, it works wonders. I know the book title sounds cliche but I'm reading "The 6-Pack Checklist: A Step-by-Step Guide to Shredded Abs" by Nate Miyaki and he writes that even if you exercise a lot you cannot or shouldn't eat anything you like.
This wasn't clear to me up until recently because I thought only about calories but not the quality of food like if you are taking enough omega 3 fatty acids etc. I thought as long as I exercise and burn enough calories it doesn't matter what kind of food I eat which is not true.
For around 9 weeks I managed to go running for 10km every second day and then my two weeks vacation happened. I'm trying to get back in again because I'm extremely frustrated on days I don't go running. I cannot emphasize enough on the stress relieving part. For me it's around 50 minutes of complete peace of mind where the only things I focus are breathing and moving my body.
One thing I recommend is to track your runs because it's fun and interesting to see your improvement over time. Bonus points if you track your heart rate as well. :)