He came and spoke at my university a couple months back. He was a really nice personable guy, especially considering how many people wanted to chat with him. It was very surreal being so close to someone acting so normal with the realization that he created so much of what you use everyday. The entire CS department felt like they'd just seen God.
Since we only get one life to live, might well be worth getting to try out a few different lifestyles throughout it? After years of night productivity, maybe one wants to try something new? :)
well yeah, that's the minimalist "KISS" spirit... I guess when you're so much dedicated to what you do, you don't really have time or will to care about details.
I don't think he cares about KISS philosophy. I think he has found what he likes to do and that helps him stay focus and cut noise while most meddle with productivity techniques.
It's nice to see someone as important as Linus just act so normal, as if he didn't create some of the most important software in the world. I really like that he doesn't espouse minimalist, nitty-gritty Linux distros, but rather just likes stuff that works.
Every single time one of those has been posted here on HN, there's been ignored backstory to the outburst. Usually there's a fair amount of polite conversation before it, then he gets frustrated and vents. If you actually poke around at what he says day-to-day, it's really not the way he is - it's just clickbait articles that paint him that way, being sure to present him out of context.
Stop reading the clickbait. If everything that has happened in your office was posted online, you could probably be made to look like a much worse monster.
The stack of hard drives definitely got a chuckle out of me. Which of us hasn't, at some point, had an old hard drive or two sitting around for exactly that reason? You don't want to wipe the old drive until you've got the new one up and running, and at that point there are more interesting things to do, and the old drive isn't even connected anymore and... meh, add it to the stack.
I used to put a cp -rp of the old drive onto the new drive. I think I have three or four drives deep by now, back to my ancient 386 running Windows 95.
Aaron Swartz offered an interesting insight into this on The Setup [1]
I don't have any extra displays. When I was little, I'd read Adam Engst talk about how great a second monitor was and lust after one, but never could bring myself to buy one. When I went to work for Condé Nast they gave us all nice big external Dell monitors and I found that I just couldn't get in the habit of using two screens. Everyone talks about how great it is to have more screen real estate, but apparently for what I do it doesn't really matter. I spend nearly all of my time on the computer staring at a block of text of one sort or another (emails, web pages, code) and no matter how big my screen is, I can't read more than a couple words at a time. Everything else on the screen is mostly a distraction. But maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't so nearsighted.
I've found working on just my 15" laptop leads to much less procrastination (sometimes).
I also find having lots of stuff open distracting. One screen and virtual desktops so the browser, irc and other crap can be kept off the code view really helps me focus. Colour noise also distracts me, and browsers really are good at throwing a lot of it at you. When I'm coding, my display is effectively monochrome with dark grey terminals and lighter grey text with a warm reddish orange cast.
As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.
> As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.
That's one of the most amazing things I have heard in a while.
> As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.
I used to find this really helpful, but with LiveReload it doesn't make much difference. I always swipe back to my browser before the change has been injected, so I'm not saving any time with 2 monitors.
I've a similar zen in moving from a 2-monitor desktop setup to working off my 13" MacBook Air. It's been a huge benefit to my productivity. I make heavy use of Spaces, so when I'm engrossed in a task, it's all I'm doing. I'm also pretty ruthless about closing windows/tabs and quitting apps, so I typically don't have that much stuff running at any given time. My overall stress level day-to-day has gone down significantly, and I attribute a large part of that to the amount of clutter I've removed from my average context of operation.
Interesting. I've always worked from a laptop (first a 13" now a 15"). I got to use a 27" Apple display earlier this year for 1 week. I found it hard to get used to. With a bigger display keeping the light from reflecting off it was more difficult, I had to move the mouse so much further to do things, and I physical had to move my head to view the different areas of the screen (whereas with the laptop I can just move my eyes). Happy to be back with the laptop.
I know right? More screen real estate doesn't translate into productivity every time. I was aghast (and subsequently enlightened) when I heard Rob Pike saying he uses a 11" Macbook Air. That was actually the same computer I had at the time and definitely contributed to not worrying about throwing money at a larger screen.
Generally I find that two monitors is useful so I can have a browser or android emulator open in one and the code open in another and easily switch between them... I'm guessing Linus doesn't do a lot of UI development so it doesn't really matter for him.
Same here - I like having my IDE full screen on my main monitor and my browser or emulator on the other.
I recently had the brilliant idea to try three monitors, figuring that if two are good then three would be better. This only lasted about a week, though. I found it just to be way too much mouse movement (yes, I use a mouse, get over it!) going all the way from monitor #1 to monitor #3.
So my observation is that monitors are like martinis, one isn't enough and three is too many.
When working on console games I've always found it useful to have one screen (in this case, a TV) dedicated to your program, and 2 left for use with your PC. When working on PC stuff I've also used a similar setup with a second PC as well (with its own keyboard and mouse, no Synergy/KVM/etc.). So I was expecting having 3 plugged into a single PC to be just as useful! But I had the same experience as you. I used it for about two weeks before I had to admit that the extra monitor was just one too many.
I do wonder if it's just the aspect ratio of the desktop area though. I feel like if I had two landscape monitors on top of one another, and one portrait to the side, that would be more manageable.
(The horizontal arrangement of monitors is more common, but actually I think the vertical one is much better. I currently have my laptop sat under my main monitor, and it works very well. With a horizontal arrangement I've always found myself ending up with a preferred monitor straight ahead and spare less-used one(s) to this side. After all, who wants to keep having to turn their neck? But with them stacked on top of one another, all you need do is glance up and down, and they're all equally useful.)
I used to have two monitors but then I discovered Xmonad and lrealized that virtual desktops for me are much better than a second monitor. The biggest pkus is that i have the monitor right in front of me and don't have to turn my head to the side.
I was offered a 2nd monitor several times and refused because you put less strain on your neck when you look straight ahead. I imagine this could even be more of a problem with a walking desk. Apart from that, more incoming signals don't make you work better.
If I get the choice, I prefer one large monitor over two smaller ones, simply for the reason that you can put windows in the center of your visual space. Besides, for some reason windows often seem to pop up unexpectedly on the wrong screen for me, whenever I use two screens.
On the other hand: given the major drawbacks of a sedentary lifestyle, I wouldn't be surprised if having multiple monitors and switching between them, which makes your neck move, would actually be better then keeping your neck still the whole time. Worth investigating..
I was also surprised. I guess you can only really look at one monitor at a time, and switching workspaces with keyboard shortcuts can be about as fast as turning your head.
[1] http://www.lut.fi/documents/10633/139156/opiskelu-tohtoriohj...
[2] http://www.helsinki.fi/filtdkpromootio2010/_Y5I6060.JPG