[HN Gopher] I Program on the Subway
___________________________________________________________________
I Program on the Subway
Author : evankhoury
Score : 135 points
Date : 2025-12-16 21:23 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scd31.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scd31.com)
| abstractspoon wrote:
| Back in the 80s I would work on stacks of fanfold code printouts
| on my trips on the London underground to and from work
| cadr wrote:
| I used to get so much done on my BART commute. Also learned piano
| on a little 25 key midi keyboard until the program I was learning
| from started needing a 26th key.
| gozzoo wrote:
| That's so cool. Can you share more about this. What program and
| keyboard did you use? Did you proceed with more serious
| learning?
| cadr wrote:
| I used an Akai LPK25 with my iPhone (using the Camera
| Connection Kit and a combined usb hub/dac) and an app called
| Simply Piano. They make a wireless version of that now that
| would simplify the setup a great deal. It is a mini keyboard
| and the keys are quite small, but in my experience it was
| fine for the beginner stuff (and the keyboard is useful in
| general later). As I said before, I stuck with this until the
| app started using keys outside the range I had.
|
| Now, as for "did I proceed with more serious learning" - I
| alternate though a ton of hobbies. So I moved on after that,
| though still go back to it from time to time. But I also have
| other musical interests and it was helpful to those as well.
|
| Also did a lot of music on the commute on my iPhone with Korg
| Gadget (and Caustic before that). Sometimes with a keyboard,
| sometimes without.
| firefax wrote:
| I used to get frustated that the train shook so loud that in
| combination with the sound of the train I struggled to listen
| to podcasts, kudos to you.
| cadr wrote:
| I sometimes would bring ear-protection headphones that I'd
| wear over my earbuds to muffle the train noise.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > I don't even have an internet connection.
|
| Vibe coders feeling a great disturbance in the force.
| mohamez wrote:
| Nomophobia is the word for that lol
| anthk wrote:
| Or plain incompetence...
| DoctorOW wrote:
| Not immediately of course, you have to wait until the robots
| are trained on this blogpost.
| venturecruelty wrote:
| Using your brain and skills to program is so 2021.
| chrischen wrote:
| With coding agents AI almost never manually type code anymore. It
| would be great to have a code editor that runs on my phone so I
| can do voice prompts and let the coding agents type stuff for me.
| llbbdd wrote:
| I have been doing this with GitHub's copilot agent web
| interface on my phone; word-vomit voice prompt + instructions
| to always run the tests or take screenshots so I can evaluate
| the change works really well.
| lbrito wrote:
| That sounds awful
| xnx wrote:
| Similar to a product or engineering manager giving directions
| on a call from the golf course.
| lbrito wrote:
| Golf course isn't bad; I witnessed a CEO join meetings from
| the subway and packed airport concourses lol
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Early in my career I drew the short straw to fetch a C
| level exec who was running a critical incident from a
| strip club and too drunk to drive.
|
| I had to pay the $90 three drink minimum to get in.
| Getting that reimbursed was fun.
| trinix912 wrote:
| But hey, look how productive they are with their time! :)
| breckenedge wrote:
| Claude does this, at least on an iPhone. They added Code to the
| app about a month ago. I used it to get a Pebble Watch project
| started.
| venturecruelty wrote:
| I thought this was a joke until I read your profile. I hope you
| get better. <3
| ziofill wrote:
| When I was living in Paris I had a 20 min ride from home to work
| each day. I picked up the habit to read during those 40 total
| minutes and I was going through books like I had never been able
| to, because while 40 min is not a lot, it's about 150h per year.
| One easily underestimates the power of consistency.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| I read many books a year by reading for 20-30 minutes per night
| before sleeping. A habit with multiple benefits (winding down
| and reading or commuting and reading) is very powerful for
| getting the most value out of your time.
| bbkane wrote:
| Until the book gets really good and you have to keep reading
| past your bedtime to learn what happens (or maybe that's just
| me)
| druskacik wrote:
| It's not just you, I hear this often, but I am always
| suprised people can read for so long in bed. No matter how
| interesting a book is, I can rarely read more than 20-30
| minutes before the urge to fall asleep becomes too strong.
|
| But I can sometimes code until like 4AM. Weird.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I commute to the office 1-3 times a week, it's about 30 minutes
| on the train + some walking.
|
| I've gone through so many books it's crazy :)
|
| With audiobooks I can start listening the second I step out of
| the door and stop while I take my jacket off in the office.
| With e-books I usually just read on the train.
|
| Most books aren't that long, around 5 hours a week of reading
| just during your commutes is quite a bit.
| ipaddr wrote:
| For one year I read every free moment averaged a book every 3
| days mostly biographies many on wrestling. The year I got an
| e-reader (alura tech). Stopped after the screen broke.
|
| The book that stood out the most. Sugar Barons.
| systems wrote:
| how can you read in 20 minutes, for me 20 minutes is only good
| enough to stare out the windows and ... zip zip 20 minutes are
| gone
|
| i need a couple of hours to do any technical reading
|
| 20 minutes, maybe, maybe .. good enough if i am reading fiction
| or something
| scubbo wrote:
| > how can you read in 20 minutes
|
| > good enough if i am reading fiction or something
|
| Looks like you got there in the end.
| prinny_ wrote:
| I also used to read my commute but stopped it after I finished
| "for whom the bell tolls". I was so moved that I ended up
| crying in the bus and I would have liked to experience that
| feeling in the privacy of my home rather in the morning bus
| with 9 hours still on the clock.
| almost_usual wrote:
| I work/program on CalTrain but that's pretty common. NYC subway
| or BART seems a bit more challenging.
|
| It's overall time much better spent than being stuck in a car.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I used to do work on Caltrain, which used to be like 3 hours of
| my commute and didn't have any internet, so I would carefully
| plan what I could do beforehand. My code deploys to a machine
| that's very different from my laptop, but I had a Docker
| container set up to cross compile things and loaded up the docs
| beforehand, so as long as I planned out what I wanted to do.
|
| These days Caltrain is faster and has occasionally frustrating,
| but fairly good Wi-Fi, so now my constraints are that I don't
| have a large monitor but not really much else.
| dackle wrote:
| Here is a description of the daily commute by Michael Milken,
| 1980s junk bond king, as told in "Predator's Ball" by Connie
| Bruck:
|
| At 5:30am each weekday in the early 1970s, a bus pulled up to a
| stop in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and a young man lugging a bag
| that bulged with papers mounted its steps. He was making the two-
| hour commute to New York City, where he worked at the investment
| banking firm of Drexel Firestone. The train would have provided a
| more comfortable and faster ride; but, for those very reasons, it
| also offered more opportunity to meet other Wall Street
| acquaintances. They would want to engage in the kind of idle
| small talk that commuters share to pass the time. The thought
| must have been intolerable. He did not wish to be rude, but he
| wanted no interruption.
|
| As soon as he had settled into his seat, being sure to take one
| with an empty one adjacent, he unloaded a mountain of
| prospectuses and 10ks (annual Securities and Exchange Commission
| filings) onto the seat next to him. On winter mornings the sky
| was still pitch black and the light on the bus was too dim for
| him to be able to read. He wore a leather aviation cap with the
| earflaps down; he had been bald for years, and although he wore a
| toupee his head always felt cold on these frosty mornings. Now
| over his aviation cap he fitted a miner's headlamp -- strapped
| around the back of his head, with a huge light projecting from
| his forehead.
| trinix912 wrote:
| I've done it a few times on city busses which I'd say are worse
| than subway. Less legroom, bumpier ride, more people passing by.
| My 13" laptop barely fit.
|
| It's not something I'd want to do on the daily but if you really
| need to get something done and are running out of time (those
| busses get stuck in traffic for half an hour or more), it's
| doable.
| komali2 wrote:
| > they would have to do it at a station, where they could
| immediately get off the train. I think, though, that this would
| be risky, given that subway stops generally have a lot of people
| getting on/off the train in the first place.
|
| I've seen a phone jacking in this exact scenario and nobody moved
| to stop the guy running. Nobody on the train can help cause the
| doors have closed, and nobody on the platform has any idea
| anything just happened, or if they do the guy is well gone before
| they can put two and two together.
|
| For me I always pocket my phone or e-reader at each stop, unless
| I'm in Japan or Taiwan.
| trinix912 wrote:
| True, but a laptop is much more of a hassle to quickly grab and
| run with than a phone.
|
| What also helps is having one that's full of stickers or
| overall looks fairly (ab)used. A pristine MacBook is going to
| be much more of a target than a random ThinkPad with a sticker,
| greasy keyboard and 20 scratches.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Depends on where and when you are. Some hyped up dude is
| fixated on the next fix and lacks the executive function to
| discriminate. The more professional thieves are more
| discriminating.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| I agree that it's just a matter of when it's stolen, not if
| it's going to be stolen.
|
| The article suggests the laptop is about $300, and he uses
| it about 1hr/day.
|
| If the laptop is stolen less than once a year he spends
| less than $1/hr for coding on the go, which I would
| consider a fair deal.
| hopelite wrote:
| There's probably no market for it, but it might be
| interesting to make a MacBook case/cover and/or stickers that
| make it look old, cracked, scratched, and dirty.
|
| It would be interesting to see if that would deter a thief.
| roughly wrote:
| Reminds me of the old SNL sketch:
| https://streamable.com/m7omz
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://nuroco.com/products/mosiso-laptop-pu-case-for-new-
| ma...
| schoen wrote:
| I wonder what you could usefully do with a Kensington lock on
| the train. I bought one for use in cafes although I haven't
| used it most of the time.
|
| You could attach it to something bulkier or something that you
| could put under the seat, maybe. I don't remember if New York
| subway seats have an exposed bar underneath that you could lock
| it to. I'm sure locking it to the vertical poles in the center
| of the car would be extremely antisocial.
| avidiax wrote:
| Just my opinion, but I feel Kensington locks have little
| value.
|
| Sure, maybe it will deface the stolen item when it gets
| ripped off, but for a thief, the device is still usable, and
| it can be sold for parts or at a discount. We are talking
| about the sorts of people that steal bicycle wheels and
| seats.
|
| Their utility is in keeping honest people honest. For
| example, keeping office workers or customers from just
| walking off with or moving assets.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6wRhrWl_2M
| schoen wrote:
| Here we're literally talking about protecting the device
| while the user is actively using it! Just preventing
| someone from grabbing it by hand for 5 seconds is a huge
| win.
| ms-fellag wrote:
| Wear it like a belt while attaching it to the laptop (If you
| don't mind looking a bit ridiculous).
|
| Although I'd highly recommend putting some cloth around it,
| or fitting it through the belt loops of jeans/trousers to
| soften the inevitable 'yank' when it comes.
| btrettel wrote:
| Here's my experience with (attempted) theft on a train:
|
| I once was on a MARC train at DC Union Station. Some train cars
| have electrical sockets, so I plugged in a bike light I had
| since I'd be taking a bike for the last part of the trip. The
| train hadn't left the station yet. I was standing near the seat
| with the socket. Some unassuming looking guy was walking
| through the train car, like probably 100 did before him, when
| he grabbed the light, unplugged it, and kept walking. I
| immediately confronted him (I was in his path) saying something
| like "What are you doing?" Without a word, he handed me the
| light and walked off the train. I found a conductor like 15
| seconds later and they called security, who apparently detained
| the guy.
|
| This guy was way more brazen about stealing something of little
| value than I had expected. I was standing near the seat and
| watching it! I guess he didn't expect me to be the owner.
| DANmode wrote:
| He didn't expect you to confront him before he was gone.
| afavour wrote:
| I also code on the subway from time to time and this does occur
| to me. But there are locations in an NYC subway car you can sit
| that would make it very difficult for someone to grab your
| laptop and exit the train before the doors close. It's still a
| risk but it's not uncommon to see people with all kinds of
| valuable items (e.g. shopping bags from premium fashion stores)
| out in the open on the subway.
|
| Crazy to think back to 2007 when iPhone users were advised to
| buy black earphones so the white ones wouldn't give them away
| as targets for theft. How far we've come/how commoditized our
| electronics have become.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| I'm not worried about the laptop. Pretty much everyone knows
| that any valuable laptop is a tracking device anyway.
|
| You should be worried about getting actually robbed, or even
| being attacked for no reason, while you're not paying
| attention.
|
| Also, yes, nobody's going to help you. Some of it is because of
| general unawareness, as you point out. Then, it's difficult to
| know who's the aggressor. Even if that's all crystal clear,
| you're almost certainly going to deal with months or years of
| legal hell if you intervene. Successful interventions often
| lead to prosecutions.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > Between work, meetups, and social events, I have noticeably
| less time for side projects than I had before moving here.
|
| Lucky you. :) Good problem to have.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Did this for a couple years on a 45 minute CTA commute in Chicago
| while I was learning to code outside my day job, it honestly made
| that commute not even feel burdensome. Key was that I was 1.) on
| the brown line, which was still running the 3200-series cars with
| plentiful seats, and 2.) at an early enough stop to reliably get
| one. And can confirm an old Thinkpad (x220 at the time) is the
| king of commute coding.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I've done this before, but you need a relatively long subway ride
| without any transfers. IMO, 30 minutes is just barely at the edge
| of being worthwhile, and only if you can get a seat right when
| you get on, and only if the seat isn't so cramped that it's
| actually possible to get your laptop out of your bag. This
| happens rarely.
|
| But on longer trips from e.g. upper Manhattan to deep Brooklyn,
| particularly at off-peak hours when I have room to spread out--
| yeah, I've had some very productive sessions.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Not often, and not recommended, but I have coded on the cockpit
| table while single-handing a sailboat. Interrupting a conference
| call with "sorry, one moment, I have to tack out of the fleet" is
| its own special joy.
| horizion2025 wrote:
| I have always enjoyed it. I have even gotten comments "can you
| really do anything in such a short period of time" but i have
| found that even 20 min sessions on a commute can be effective.
| For a major project I did the final push on such a commute just
| hoping the push could complete before the train reached the
| tunnel without coverage, and it did
| 65 wrote:
| Eh. My preferred subway activity is to listen to music and stare
| at the ground. I don't know... do I really need to stare at my
| computer screen every waking moment?
| jonlam92 wrote:
| With some noise cancelling headphones, it may actually help with
| focus. I'm a fan of doing things on the subway.
| neomantra wrote:
| I love to program on my commute. When I took NJ Transit bus, when
| I took NY Ferry, when I took MetroNorth.
|
| But I've _never_ felt comfortable opening a laptop on the NYC
| subway. It wasn't about the safety that OP describes. It was
| about the culture and the physical configuration (facing middle
| with strap hangers vs facing front /back). It just didn't feel
| right in the subway.
|
| I do miss the MetroNorth Bar Car! I could drink and code and it
| was jovial.
| nicbou wrote:
| My entire stack is meant to let me work offline in random
| locations. Until recently it was meant to run smoothly on a 12"
| Macbook. The output is also made for users on spotty internet
| connections. This comes from years of working while travelling. I
| can work offline for weeks if needed.
|
| I sometimes do "iPad work", which is essentially researching,
| reviewing and annotating content on my iPad Mini. I will hop on
| my bike and work an hour or two in different locations, over
| coffee or in the sun. It's a relaxing break from working on a
| computer at a desk.
|
| I do think that people should work in different places. Perhaps
| we'd have apps that work better on slow internet.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| IIRC there are some actual studies that say changing your
| physical location will actually affect your performance.
|
| In my previous $dayjob I was That Guy who was getting pinged on
| chats and emails and people dropped in for "just a quick
| question". When I _had_ to get work done on a deadline, I went
| to a cafe down the street, turned off the chats, got a massive
| bucket of coffee, put on my noise cancelling headphones and
| just ... worked. Later when the office got bigger (multiple
| stories in the same building), I "hid" on a couch at a
| complete different department for the same purpose.
|
| That was almost 10 years ago and still my brain connects
| couches and cafes as deep work places :D
| nicbou wrote:
| It was mostly to fit my travel habits, but you might be
| right. Nowadays I work at a cafe with friends every Monday.
| It's a nice break from WFH.
| Chinjut wrote:
| I love making money for my employer with every spare moment of my
| life.
| htk wrote:
| If you took the time to read the first paragraph instead of
| typing this snarky comment, you'd know he's working on his
| personal projects.
| venturecruelty wrote:
| Not paying attention on the train, even in 2025 girliepop-
| influencer-Instragram-latte-art New York, is not the
| smartest. You're probably better off during rush hour, but
| being aware of your surroundings is never a bad idea, even in
| "safe" New York.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Do your work today and tomorrow you can fool around and have
| some fun. Do the minimum today so you can do the maximum
| tomorrow rarely makes sense.
| Myzel394 wrote:
| I was in Philadelphia for a week and also used my commute time (2
| hours in total each day) to program. As a web developer who uses
| Github Copilot and often checks documentation online, I did not
| have such a good experience as OP had. Mobile data is pretty much
| nonexistent in Philadelphia in the subway and there are also no
| wifi Hotspots. Sure, it was better than nothing, but I would
| quite often find myself waiting for the subway to arrive at
| stations and hoping that there is at least some internet
| connectivity there.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Reminds me of this metafilter thread [0] where people
| asked/shared less usual work locations. Hotel lobbies are a great
| one, as have laundromats sometimes been in the past.
|
| An intercity train with wifi/cell service (and tea!) is an
| incredible focussing function as well. You got 3 hours and a
| beautiful not too distracting view. Go!
|
| P.s. I also suggested to Stephen that he gets a Nathan Fielder
| "laptop harness" for his subway work..? Has anyone tried this?
|
| [0] https://ask.metafilter.com/316039/Ideas-for-workspaces-
| pleas...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Louis Rrossmann[0] had a massive tirade against Macbooks over a
| decade ago because they didn't have a battery hump in the back.
|
| Why you ask?
|
| I'll tell you. He edited videos on the NY subway using his
| Lenovo(?) laptop with a massive extra battery hump in the back,
| which he used as a handle to hold on to with one hand while he
| typed with the other.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup
| teddyh wrote:
| Many years ago, before mobile internet was reasonable and before
| wireless internet was available, and before even electrical
| outlets were something which could be counted on to be present on
| trains, I took a 6 hour train ride. I had no laptop. I printed
| out, on paper, the entire source code of the project I was
| working on, and brought a red pen. I read through the whole
| thing, from start to finish. Many subtle bug fixes, refactorings,
| and efficiency improvements were made that day.
| ktzar wrote:
| I developed a big chunk of my Scumm games decompiler in London's
| central line. I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to go far enough
| each day to always hand an empty seat and enjoy 30 minutes of me
| time each way.
|
| All on a Chromebook with crostini. Cheap, long battery life and
| decent keyboard.
| macNchz wrote:
| I recently bought a GPD MicroPC 2, a 7" laptop with a real
| keyboard. It runs Linux just fine, and it has been a fun
| experience of having a "real" computer with me much more often
| than I otherwise would. My version of programming on the subway
| has been programming on a park bench--it fits in a jacket pocket,
| or even the back pocket of some of my pants. The keyboard is tiny
| but easy enough to use with thumbs, or, with some practice, two-
| handed touch typing on a flat surface.
|
| It's nice to be less tethered to a desk, while also not having to
| carry a backpack and heavier full laptop, but still able to
| remote in and do what I need to do. I really enjoy having a fully
| capable Linux PC in my pocket vs a smartphone.
| internet2000 wrote:
| 30 minutes is enough? I hope this person doesn't complain about
| "flow state" when I interrupt him by dropping by at his desk
| then!
| btreesOfSpring wrote:
| When I was part of a team developing a highly durable texting
| protocol, those of us in NYC would regularly test messaging while
| riding the subway. Between stations, you didn't have network
| access but different devices upon entering the next station would
| handle and recover from the interruptions in various ways.
|
| The subway produced so many repeatable network connection edge
| case problems. It was fantastic.
| bitwize wrote:
| I used to program on the Boston T. I had my little MSI Wind
| netbook and I coded a game on my commutes to and from work. I
| eventually ported that game to Android.
| venturecruelty wrote:
| This is how transplants get mugged, but okay. Why not just enjoy
| your hour of zen instead of constantly working?
| helterskelter wrote:
| I do my best thinking on the bus.
| don-code wrote:
| Doing connected work from the subway has gotten much, much easier
| in the last few years. I attribute that to three things:
|
| 1. Cell service has become low-latency. This is very different
| from "fast", which it has also become! When I started working
| from the train (on HSPA+), pings in the hundreds of milliseconds
| were the norm. My first step was usually to SSH to a remote
| machine, and let just the text lag on me. Nowadays, I can run a
| Web browser locally without issue.
|
| 2. Cell service has, at the same time, become ubiquitous in
| subway tunnels. When I started, there were some areas that
| dropped down to EDGE (unusable), and some areas that had no
| service at all. Now, there is exactly one place on the Boston
| transit system - Back Bay Station - where I lose cell service.
|
| 3. Noise cancelling tech has gotten better. It's not just about
| noise cancelling headphones: both of my laptops (a 2024 MBP and a
| ThinkPad P14s) have microphones that can filter out screeching
| wheels and noisy teenagers quite well. That means I can take
| meetings without making them miserable for the people on the
| other end.
|
| These, honestly, are a huge game-changer for me. The ability to
| take a 30 minute meeting while commuting, where otherwise I
| would've had to get in early or stay late at work, actually does
| wonders for my ability to have a life outside of work.
| isaacdl wrote:
| > The ability to take a 30 minute meeting
|
| At the small cost of making everyone around you miserable.
| allkushdiet wrote:
| I used to do this as I commuted on the train between school and
| my hometown in the early 2010s. As a way to learn and pass the
| time.
|
| No access to internet so mostly hacking from memory. I could use
| man pages for C, but Haskell was a bit more tricky.
|
| Sometimes I'd just end up sketching things out on paper, but
| eventually I could complete entire modules without looking
| anything up. Was always a bummer to be stuck on something that I
| knew could be answered online in mere seconds. Good times.
| mncharity wrote:
| > I've had good conversations with strangers
|
| Laptops sometimes have stickers. For a time, I instead had a
| transparent slip cover, to vary the sticker set, user-test
| alternatives, and throttle conversations. Science education
| topics (Boston/Cambridge subway). Anti-patriarchy stickers drew
| proto-MAGAs. Some backpacks now have low-res screens built into
| the back, suggesting new possibilities.
|
| One Laptop Per Child, at its peak, generated fun continuous crowd
| conversations.
|
| > a pair of glasses with a screen inside of them
|
| I've no idea what current tech is like, but I use to proselytize
| aphysical UIs, where a small head motion results in larger screen
| motion, to reduce neck swiveling.[1]
|
| > weirder
|
| Laptop harness walking desks are a thing. And one can do hand and
| head tracking[2] (I had that setup at a meetup where the swag was
| little stick-on privacy shutters for laptop webcams :).
| Boston/Cambridge is perhaps culturally a best case for such games
| - I've not tried them in NYC... hmm.
|
| > but something very complex, [...] instead sketch out a diagram
| on a piece of paper [...] keep a small notebook in my bag
|
| Same. I've tried swapping in an iPad, but it hasn't stuck.
|
| [1] silly old demo, 5k on a bus:
| https://x.com/mncharity/status/1225091755667853318 [2]
| https://imgur.com/a/keyboard-cam-Z1VipaL
| incanus77 wrote:
| About 20 years ago, I landed my first real, high-impact job at an
| upstart consulting agency in Washington DC that came from the
| ashes of the Howard Dean campaign. Unfortunately, I had also just
| signed a lease on an apartment in the town I lived in, a two hour
| drive from downtown DC.
|
| I spent the first year at that job commuting into DC 2-3
| days/week, which involved about an hour drive, then an hour
| regional commuter train, then some Metro transfer and walking --
| then back again in the evening. I spent that train time offline
| (as it was 2004) learning the Apple Cocoa frameworks, as in
| another twist of fate, the company was entirely Apple laptop-
| based, which was fairly rare for 2004, and I built tools for the
| team and myself. The focus possible because I was offline, with
| comprehensive docs, was pretty intense and was a huge part of
| many aspects of my career to follow.
| j_bum wrote:
| Sounds like an incredible period. Do you miss it at all?
|
| I've had phases of my life where I was lucky to have periods of
| absolute and undisturbed focus (grad school, summers during
| college, etc.). It's easy to forget how valuable that type of
| focus time is until it goes away!
| mrb wrote:
| _" On the subway, I'm missing a lot of my normal setup [...] I
| don't even have an internet connection_"
|
| There is no cellular data in the NYC subway? I had to look it up
| online and apparently there is but coverage is quite patchy.
| That's very surprising to learn, NYC being one of the most
| developped and richest cities in the world. By comparison, and
| from my experience, the Parisian metro has excellent coverage.
| 93n wrote:
| I decided to cut an hour out of my in-the-office time recently,
| figuring that I'm sitting on the bus for any hour anyway, so I
| might as well use that time to knock some work out instead.
| Tethering is pretty good other than a predictable problem spot or
| two.
|
| Much better experience than working on a plane. I've done a
| handful of cross-US flights this year on Alaska Airlines, and
| trying to do anything network-related on those flights was
| torture. Super spotty, high latencies, constant timeouts; very
| frustrating.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I program and did program anywhere; unlike OP, I thrive in
| (human) noise: if it's quiet, I cannot focus, so working at home
| with multi monitor setups etc works against me (music doesn't
| help: not random enough and I cannot talk to people when I feel
| the need). I prefer subways, busses, airplanes, lounges,
| coffeeshops, pubs etc. Offices strangely do not work as I already
| know those people so I get bored and creativity plummets. My
| setup now is the best I had ever: a rugged android tablet with
| week-long battery, running termux with full desktop linux (not
| rooted) which can run all I want. I run several llms offline on
| it as well to fix the workflow when I don't have my nice foldable
| full keyboard out (if no space). I can run everything in our
| framework, online and offline; when I come back online, I just
| sync (code AND data) and voila.
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