38 Studios is Working on a Game, Apparently, Afterall (Kingdoms of Amular)

[Fabricated]

My boss is trying a standing desk right now and it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

I worked for a video store for 2 years which required me to stand for the entire shift since sitting "looked unproductive" to customers and all it did was make my feet, knees, and back hurt.

Then I got a deskjob that had me alternating between sitting and walking, wow what do you know my back, feet, and knees stopped hurting.

[Trippy]

I fully expect in 20 years that studies will say that standing for long periods of time is the greatest scourge to mankind since the bubonic plague and the "experts" will say "half-standing" (or "half-sitting") is the way to go. And then in another 20 years they'll say that's the worse thing since... and we'll be back to sitting as the least bad of all the options.

[Paelos]

Ask any waitress how she feels about being on her feet all day.

[Fabricated]

I like how we'll all be dead and gone for a long time before anyone really looks at our work shedules, diet, exercise, and sleeping habits instead of whatever bandaid thing they can focus on to keep the mandatory overtime going in the white collar world.

[Lantyssa]

You people are way behind the times, not to mention apparently working in barbaric working environments. High-end "task chairs" are ubiquitous now in tech companies here in the Bay Area, both large and small.

Maybe there's a reason housing is a wee bit expensive over there....

[Trippy]

Housing was expensive over here before the Aeron was invented.

[Ingmar]

My big complaint about the Aeron chair I sit in as I type this is the lumbar support thing is pretty cheesy and breaks all the time on mine, and it isn't like I'm some giant fat guy.

[Trippy]

Yes, both the plastic pad and the fancy brace don't do a good job of providing lumbar support if you need it. There are other flaws with the Aeron as well. I wish they would release an Aeron 2 model that addresses them as I still haven't found something that's better than it for my needs.

[Merusk]

Anything done all day is terrible for you.  If you have a standing desk I'm assuming you're going to have a stool to sit at as well when fatigued.   You don't get that option with a 30" high desk.  It's sit or... sit.  Standing all day? Yeah, dumb and we make tall chairs for that.

[Ingmar]

You'd also best have one of those anti-fatigue mats to stand on.

[HaemishM]

Not having to stand on my feet 8 hours a day was just one of the perks of getting the fuck out of retail. The ache in my knees after a day of doing fuckall but standing to wait on customers was excruciating. Fuck a standing desk right in its knothole.

[Pezzle]

I stand most of the time at work.  Most of the time there is at least modest mobility, and I have a chair to use whenever I want.  The mobility is key.  I have my doubts about the benefit of standing vs sitting if you are relatively immobile.

[IainC]

I stand most of the time at work.  Most of the time there is at least modest mobility, and I have a chair to use whenever I want.  The mobility is key.  I have my doubts about the benefit of standing vs sitting if you are relatively immobile.

I worked as a croupier for a couple of years. Standing all night sucks.

[Trippy]

Anything done all day is terrible for you.  If you have a standing desk I'm assuming you're going to have a stool to sit at as well when fatigued.   You don't get that option with a 30" high desk.  It's sit or... sit.  Standing all day? Yeah, dumb and we make tall chairs for that.

Yes though the standing desks that are popular these days are meant to move up and down easily (including motorized and pneumatic versions) so you can bring it down when you get tired and sit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVZefxmx9bg

[HaemishM]

That looks like a tremendous waste of money.

[Merusk]

Anything done all day is terrible for you.  If you have a standing desk I'm assuming you're going to have a stool to sit at as well when fatigued.   You don't get that option with a 30" high desk.  It's sit or... sit.  Standing all day? Yeah, dumb and we make tall chairs for that.

Yes though the standing desks that are popular these days are meant to move up and down easily (including motorized and pneumatic versions) so you can bring it down when you get tired and sit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVZefxmx9bg

Awesome.. it's exactly what I've dreamed of.

That looks like a tremendous waste of money.

You never had the pleasure of working on an old school pneumatic "Drafting Machine"  They were gloriously comfortable as you could adjust them to your height instead of a "one size fits all" standard.  I hate my desk and wish I could stand more often.

[Goumindong]

The real problem with office chairs is that you've got your mouse and keyboard on a desk. If the mouse and keyboard are on a desk, standing is better for you, since it gives you a more natural resting place for your arms.

If you're sitting, you want your keyboard in your lap and your mouse on your arm rest. Which doesn't happen for most office chairs

On the fly adjustable desks are definitely the best since you can adjust them for when you're tired from standing or when you need to be alert.

This is what I sit on at home:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/series/07472/

Mouse goes on the arm rest, keyboard goes in my lap. No stresses from sitting long periods.

[UnSub]

I like how we'll all be dead and gone for a long time before anyone really looks at our work shedules, diet, exercise, and sleeping habits instead of whatever bandaid thing they can focus on to keep the mandatory overtime going in the white collar world.

Actually, it's very simple:

 - you probably can't focus on anything in-depth for more than 30 - 45 minutes and should have a break before going back to it
 - you should move around regularly, with moderate exercise every day a given
 - eat less fats, sugars and salts and more vegetables
 - you should sleep for at least 8 hours or so (depending on age) which will also help you lose weight

But how many people do that in modern white collar professional jobs?

[Paelos]

Actually, it's very simple:

 - you probably can't focus on anything in-depth for more than 30 - 45 minutes and should have a break before going back to it
 - you should move around regularly, with moderate exercise every day a given
 - eat less fats, sugars and salts and more vegetables
 - you should sleep for at least 8 hours or so (depending on age) which will also help you lose weight

But how many people do that in modern white collar professional jobs?

Most people I know fail at least one of those.

[Margalis]

- you probably can't focus on anything in-depth for more than 30 - 45 minutes and should have a break before going back to it

Uh...what?

In engineering anyone who can't focus for more than 45 minutes should be immediately fired.

Sometimes it's great to take a break and give your brain a chance to attack a problem from a new perspective, but programming is often about getting in the flow, getting immersed, ditching all distractions and going to town for hours at a time. Maybe that's because in programming you need to keep a long and stateful mental task list.

Maybe I'm just cynical but when I see people say things like this I just assume they are lazy and/or have ADD and are looking to scientifically justify that. An engineer (or at least a programmer) who loses focus after 45 minutes is in the bottom percentile of programmers.

Also Aeron chairs - when I was interviewing for jobs around the time of the dotcom bust it got to the point where if I walked into the room at it was all Aeron chairs I immediately wrote the company off.

[Paelos]

- you probably can't focus on anything in-depth for more than 30 - 45 minutes and should have a break before going back to it

Uh...what?

In engineering...

I just wanted to point out where you lost 98% of the US population.

[Zetor]

I alternate between a kneeling chair and a normal one - normal one makes my back/neck hurt, the kneeling chair makes my knees hurt instead. Of course fancy stuff like those aeron chairs are out of the question over here in the 3rd world.  

e: at our office, the two most important properties of a computer chair are "can I rock back-and-forth in this" and "how much noise does it make when I do that"

[Margalis]

I just wanted to point out where you lost 98% of the US population.

I guess my question would be when we say that people can't focus for longer than 45 minutes is that because of some actual real limitation of humans in general or is it because we have a culture that accepts or encourages ADD-style behavior?

Maybe in 50 years someone will offer "make sure to check your phone every 10 minutes" as a health tip.

[kildorn]

If I have the task already solved and it just needs effort, I prefer to put on headphones and just code away. If I don't have the task solved, I prefer to take frequent breaks so I don't find myself diving into a month long futile effort that I could have seen coming. It's not an ADD or anything thing, it's a task at hand and how various people function thing.

I used to get really annoyed when my boss would take all the 5 minute bullshit tickets out of my to do list to keep me focused. I used those to give my focus a break when needed.

I think there's a vast difference between "code this exactly to spec" and "figure out a novel way to solve this tricky problem" as far as how you mentally approach the problem. 30-45 minutes is way short imo for that, but it's not that far from the logic of "working 10-12 hour days doesn't accomplish shit compared to 8 hour days with proper project management" concepts. Simply spending more time on something per day doesn't always mean you're getting more done. It's helpful to know when to back off and take a break. This doesn't mean the dude taking a smoke break every 30 minutes is being efficient, but it also means the guy who has been laser focused reading the same RFC for three hours may be learning it just as poorly.

[Margalis]

There are times when stepping away from a problem for a while works wonders, but that's usually because of tunnel vision / over focus - not at all the same as losing focus after 40 minutes.

[Fabricated]

I'm just an IT computer janitor but I feel more efficient the more work I have up to a certain point. We had a point where we were down to what my boss called "critically understaffed" a year back and I felt less stressed then than I do now where I can have days where like 2-3 items come in since it feels like fucking years before I clock out.

When everything "sucked" real bad I was busy to the point I was a bit concerned about not being able to get it all done but I'd just walk all over the place with a checklist, knock everything off one by one, get back to my desk then update/resolve all the tickets. Then wow it was time to leave and I didn't feel exhausted for some reason. Dunno if I'd REALLY want to do it again but was weird how it was distinctly not as horrible as I expected when we had like 3 people quit and 2 new departments dumped on us.

[Merusk]

Yeah, 30 minutes doesn't even get me started on any real in-depth problem.  I'll have gathered all the information and relevant codes by that point and not even jumped in to the problem. 

Hell, if there's mark-ups to be done taking a break at 30/45 min means you've lost track of where you were and need to start all over on that page.  Yeah, no.

[Paelos]

I just wanted to point out where you lost 98% of the US population.

I guess my question would be when we say that people can't focus for longer than 45 minutes is that because of some actual real limitation of humans in general or is it because we have a culture that accepts or encourages ADD-style behavior?

Maybe in 50 years someone will offer "make sure to check your phone every 10 minutes" as a health tip.

I don't think it's a limitation of the human species. I think it's conditioned, just like anything else. Ask a person now to sit and listen to a radio program for 30 minutes while doing nothing else. How many could do that without trying to do something else, or getting stir crazy? This was a common occurance not even 70 years ago. Hell, look at every single job requirement listing in the US today. What percentage of them put an emphasis on "multi-tasking"?

[Sky]

I heard once that people are different.

[KallDrexx]

If you want to get technical you should be taking a 5-10 minute break anyways every hour just so you don't kill your eyes, so your eyes can get refocused. 

[Trippy]

I just wanted to point out where you lost 98% of the US population.

I guess my question would be when we say that people can't focus for longer than 45 minutes is that because of some actual real limitation of humans in general or is it because we have a culture that accepts or encourages ADD-style behavior?

Maybe in 50 years someone will offer "make sure to check your phone every 10 minutes" as a health tip.

I don't think it's a limitation of the human species. I think it's conditioned, just like anything else. Ask a person now to sit and listen to a radio program for 30 minutes while doing nothing else. How many could do that without trying to do something else, or getting stir crazy? This was a common occurance not even 70 years ago. Hell, look at every single job requirement listing in the US today. What percentage of them put an emphasis on "multi-tasking"?

Passively listening to a radio program is far different than actively working on some sort of problem. Programming is one of those tasks where it's relatively easy to get in a state of flow. Actively taking breaks, or, as is more typical in an office environment, getting interrupted by somebody/something is a great way to break the flow or prevent you from never getting in it in the first place. This is also why programmers often go out of their way to avoid people when trying to work, e.g. by arriving late and working late. Having to interact with other people fucks up their flow, as mentioned above.

For those of you who aren't programmers if you've ever played a video game and became so engrossed that you lost track of time you were likely in a state of flow.

[Mrbloodworth]

Its the same for artists.

[Fordel]

I just wanted to point out where you lost 98% of the US population.

I guess my question would be when we say that people can't focus for longer than 45 minutes is that because of some actual real limitation of humans in general or is it because we have a culture that accepts or encourages ADD-style behavior?

Maybe in 50 years someone will offer "make sure to check your phone every 10 minutes" as a health tip.

I don't think it's a limitation of the human species. I think it's conditioned, just like anything else. Ask a person now to sit and listen to a radio program for 30 minutes while doing nothing else. How many could do that without trying to do something else, or getting stir crazy? This was a common occurance not even 70 years ago. Hell, look at every single job requirement listing in the US today. What percentage of them put an emphasis on "multi-tasking"?

That's how I listen to podcasts pretty much. Just sit and listen without other distractions.

If I do something else while listening, then I retain NOTHING from the podcast at all. It just becomes unintelligible blahblahblah background noise to me if I can't just sit and listen (or walk and listen I suppose.)

[Trippy]

When Paelos says "radio program" what he really means is "baseball game".

That's the type of radio program you can "listen" to while doing something else.

[Merusk]

Its the same for artists.

I imagine it's the same for everyone except accountants.  They're the only ones I've ever encountered who seem to look for things to break up the hell that is their job. If I had to spend that much time in Excel and whatever other godawful billing and invoice program they're forced to use, I would too.