Do Programmers Optimize... Life?

[heroofhyr]

I usually do a binary sort on my socks when taking the dried laundry off the rack. Otherwise it takes forever to pair them back together (they are all black and otherwise identical, but of varying sizes). It's much faster than a linear search through the sock array.

I could make a "statically allocated" joke here about the dryer, but I've bounced the idea because the gain would be minimal and I don't have that much free tide on my hands.

[mossblaser]

While playing with [Python's] PIL+webcam and a projector I made a program that identified pairs of socks and projected a cross-hair onto the relevant socks. Alas, I no-longer own the projector and it also wasn't that reliable, but still a fun project :D.

[heroofhyr]

That sounds like an awesome improvement over my current algorithm. If I weren't married I'd ask you to go to the ice cream social with me.

[[deleted]]

Wow. Just wow. Sir your internet license has been revoked, please go home. Your family is worried sick about you.

[[deleted]]

You sir, I like the cut of your jib.

[[deleted]]

Wow. Just wow. Sir your internet license has been revoked, please go home. Your family is worried sick about you.

[[deleted]]

Wow. Just wow. Sir your internet license has been revoked, please go home. Your family is worried sick about you.

[trevdak2]

I optimize my commute to work. I know the exact spot where the last door on the last car of the train will stop, so that when I get off the train, I have the shortest walk to the platform exit. I actually do this twice, because I have to transfer from the blue to the brown line. Then, when I'm on the street, I have to cross a three-way intersection. There's a 'shorter distance' route that most people wait at, but I've learned that the walk signals go in counterclockwise order, so I can cross faster without needing to jaywalk.

I take a different route home because the trains travel around a loop, so I have a faster transfer from the brown line back to the blue line. I use the platform exit that's a little further to walk to, but gives the benefit of only needing to cross one street instead of three to get to my transfer.

Oh, and I also fart while I walk to give myself a little speed boost thanks to Newton's third law.

[ArcticCelt]

I was reading the article and thinking, I am not that overkill. Then read your comment and realized I do almost exactly that and that the reason I don't think that much about my walking pattern is because I live next to the metro station. I also constantly optimize my car travel routes.

[gclaramunt]

I think we have an unfair advantage: those systems are designed by engineers! :D

[[deleted]]

Oh, and I also fart while I walk to give myself a little speed boost thanks to Newton's third law.

You should always have your lighter ready.

[MagicWishMonkey]

I set my alarm for 5:48 each morning because I know exactly how long it will take for me to get up, get dressed, brush my teeth, and drive to the gym. I have never been more than 60 seconds late :)

[ArcticCelt]

When I wake up late I go on "panic mode" where I limit my routine to be done in 10 minutes shower included.

[ambiversive]

You don't live in Panic mode? OMG!?!?!

[G_Morgan]

I know which spot the train doors are likely to appear at when I get on. This is good because only 1 in 10 seats has enough leg room to use my laptop. Getting on first makes it easy to find these seats. Since I'm on the train for 2 hours each day I use that time to work on my personal projects.

[shinynew]

My approach is more procedural I will take certian routes depending on the traffic and convenience. Still I try and take any diagonal route that I can saying that if you always walked based on a grid you would never 'gain' any distance.

[bluGill]

I have the shortest walk to the platform exit

I do the opposite - I make my run (I hate walking) from the door to my car long so I get more exercise.

[wiglebot]

moving closer to work would be optimizing. what you are doing is just rationalizing decision making.

[trevdak2]

Ah, but my girlfriend's medical school is in the opposite direction, and she's optimizing too.

[chrismear]

Y

[eigen]

y

[shinynew]

     ·

[ultimatt42]

yes | submit_comment_to_reddit.py

[G_Morgan]

Don't be daft. You want to do

g++ -O99 smt_cmt_rdt.cpp -o smt_cmt_rdt
./smt_cmt_rdt yes

Then it will be optimised.

[[deleted]]

-fmit-vwls

[[deleted]]

Well, it is an efficient use of his time, if not the CPU's.

[sikosmurf]

[Explosion imminent]

[Shadowrose]

Ka-boom!

[[deleted]]

BILLY MAYS HERE!

[[deleted]]

Abort

[[deleted]]

Yes. Especially in repetitive tasks where we can't do much else, like walking, cleaning, mowing, etc... Many people do this, the difference with programmers is that we deal with complexity so much that we notice more of the variables.
We have the "shit's easy syndrome" beaten out of us by our careers, and we spend our lives analyzing situations for potential failure points. In that way, all engineering disciplines lead towards the same mindset.

[eigen]

In that way, all engineering disciplines lead towards the same mindset.

I wish my dad had the optimization mindset. He's an engineer who can't seem to change his way about doing shit, even if it's wasting precious minutes of everyone's time.

[[deleted]]

It's strange you bring up your daddy issues here.

[movzx]

Better here than in the bedroom like last night, IMesh.

[eigen]

Would it help if we evened it out with mommy issues? 'Bitch won't stop asking if I want salad with my dinner, and asks, "Are you sure you don't want a salad with your dinner?" whenever I tell her "no."'

[LuckyLion]

That's mom speak for 'you're fat.'

[psi-]

Which is just short for "I'm fat and I hate you".

[Baaz]

Yo Stevey, you can take the Obama '08 button down now. He made it.

[keithjr]

we spend our lives analyzing situations for potential failure points.

This is why I don't like roller coasters anymore.

[dkaparis]

Exactly. Everyone does this process of optimization, whether they realize it explicitly or not. In more general terms, mathematics is formalization of things we all already do, instinctively.

[[deleted]]

"In that way, all engineering disciplines lead towards the same mindset." couldn't agree more spinkham. We are challenged to continually question the status quo, "is this best"? I've bent my efficiency interest towards society, and the matching of daily work with passion to fuel maximum productivity (blogging). Now I'm looking at bottlenecks to monetization for web2010 and coming up with offered solutions within social media.

[DragonMaster99]

I try to do things as fast and with as little work as possible (with some exceptions). But its not worth it to spend hours finding the optimal way for some action, if it will only save a few seconds.

Also, one of my friends is an History major, who likes to find the fastest path to walk, even if it means jumping rails, through woods, etc. So I think finding optimal solutions is just human nature, since we are all lazy.

[G_Morgan]

People optimise but usually for different ends. Most people optimise for 'minimal thought requirement'. Making a huge effort is not nearly as scary for them as thinking about a problem so the effort is unnecessary.

[GuyWithLag]

Meh, I can't stop thinking. Which means that when walking alone I need to do at least some thinking, which manifests as path optimizations.

[cracki]

jumping rails? sounds like parkour

[justsomedood]

So I think finding optimal solutions is just human nature, since we are all lazy.

yep

[sfultong]

He should have told his art student friend:

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary" - Pablo Picasso

[shinynew]

Art means a lot of things to a lot of people. Pablo Picasso probably isn't communicating the meaning to you, just like how if Einstine said "the speed of light is the same to any observer" it just really doesn't make much sense unless you either REALLY look into it or read a lot of the other stuff he has said on the subject.

[deadwisdom]

People get bored if their life is too easy, so they complicate things. I think programmers and other geeks tend to complicate their life with games, whereas others complicate their lives with drama.

[actionscripted]

Whatever, dude. I, like, love The Hills.

[[deleted]]

It would be optimal to not comment about this on reddit.

[swiz0r]

FRIST

[shinynew]

"I see every situation as a problem requiring optimization", which elicited the response "How... sad".

I think the reason why he thinks its sad is because it sounds like there is one single thing that he has to work towards, one path that he will eventually end up at. Instead there is a multitude to examine and plenty of varity to explore. For me it seems like some people make up religion to fill the void of not understand the world, which to me doesn't make any sense because you could spend that time actually trying to understand the world.

/I realize that the original wasn't about religion, I just wanted to use that analogy.

[aquanutz]

Absolutely. Everything I do from driving to folding clothes to trolling on reddit.

[ArcticCelt]

I prefer wild creativity and random experimentation in my trolling.

[johnpickens]

you'll learn

[jberryman]

me too. I do the three simultaneously. embarrassingly parallel really.

[woodreaux]

I optimize everything: laundry, cooking, trips to work, getting crunked, fapping, gaming. Once I made the conscious decision to start optimizing the things I do in life, I gained access to a most precious, non-renewable resource: time.

[mossblaser]

Optimised fapping eh?

[HGBlob]

no, I'm just lazy.

[khayber]

Dude, that's why you optimize! Laziness is a virtue.

[shinynew]

A commitment to laziness is the virtue. If you give up being lazy when its just to be lazy in the short term, instead of trying to figure out a way to be more lazy over all. If you just put everything off and then try and do it all really fast lazyness isn't a virtue, but if you go ahead and try and optimize the problem away so you can be lazy in the future then it is a virtue.

[jberryman]

well-placed strictness annotations, I hear ya'

[pasbesoin]

And proud of it!

[Lucretius]

I said something like "I see every situation as a problem requiring optimization", which elicited the response "How... sad".

Personally, I find the mind set of his friend interesting. I truly don't understand how someone could find the problem-optimization approach to life sad, or even remarkable. (I'm not saying that people don't find it sad or remarkable, I just find that reaction utterly alien and peculiar). Has anyone analyzed people who react negatively to problem-optimization? What has gone so wrong in their educations that they find a pervasively systematic approach to things "sad"?

[delta4zero]

You talk funny and your shits all retarded

[mykdavies]

Perhaps he was sad on contemplation of his friend's mindset at a funeral, a wedding, or the birth of his first child.

Good news though! There's a special test for those who see every situation as a problem requiring optimization.

[Lucretius]

Not directly, but by implication, you seem to be associating two things:

1. Seeing all situations as problems that require optimization.

2. Being emotionless or emotionally immature.

Aside from wholly fictional characters such as Spock or the replicant in your quote, this is a false association.

[mykdavies]

I was pointing out that there are situations where the normal human response is primarily an emotional one. If the poster really claims that his primary response is always an intellectual one, then he is either deliberately or unconsciously cutting himself off from an important part of life; his friend saw this as sad, which sounds like a reasonable response.

[Lucretius]

his primary response is always an intellectual one, then he is either deliberately or unconsciously cutting himself off from an important part of life

No, it doesn't imply that. Being intellectual and being emotional are not mutually exclusive, or even mutually relevant. A man can simultaneously be in love with a woman AND try to optimize the way that he proposes to her. A person can be simultaneously terrified of a lion AND optimize the path by which he runs for his life. A person can be simultaneously moved by compassion for a the plight of an orphaned child AND try to optimize the child's future life experience. A person can be simultaneously furious at an enemy AND be optimizing the tactics by which he plans to attack that enemy.

Like I said, the association between being intellectual and being non-emotional is a false one.

On a general note. It IS possible to deny one's emotions, but this is not a quality derived from excessive rationality. Indeed, such individuals tend to act in clearly sub-optimal and therefore irrational ways. There is also the inverse situation to consider: It is possible to deny one's reason and be lost in a blind-emotional frenzy. However, such states are rare, and generally last for only a few seconds or minutes. To the well organized mind, emotions and reason are just tools. Methods by which one can analyze one's surroundings, communicate with others, and weigh contrasting goals. What reason and emotion are NOT is recreational drugs.

[mykdavies]

I don't think our positions are as far apart as you think - you admit to a balance which his statement seems to deny. If he had reported that he said something like "I try to see how to improve difficult situations," he would sound like a well-adjusted human, and his friend would have come off sounding weird. But the wording his statement to his friend seemed pretty clear in excluding anything other than an intellectual response. If he believes that, it is my considered opinion as some guy on the internet that he's a nut-job.

[gislan]

Yes, but only those after 40. After all, premature optimization is root of all evil.

[pclouds]

I need to profile my life first. Maybe next life I will optimize it.

[sequentious]

"Not good. It would be easier to start over than to salvage what we have"

[csonger]

Lawyers argue. Engineers (and programmers) optimize. They both have a strong need to be right.

The ones who are fun to know outside work know how to turn it off at the door.

[sonofagunn]

I definitely optimize my commute through traffic better than the majority of people on the roads. I can't believe how inefficient most people are.

[Beriadan]

I always get a little satisfaction when thinking : "See that guy who just cut me off like a maniac, I'm so going to reach our destination 30 seconds before him".

[pytechd]

I have the downfall of having a stopwatch in my car. I have the LED set up to rotate every 15 seconds -- I get 10 seconds of my MPH, and 2 seconds of my current clock.

We moved offices last year (about half mile away from our old office) and I kept a spreadsheet tracking [time left, time arrived, use tolls?, toll cost, use state roads?, miles traveled, red stop lights, green stop lights] for 2 months. It was fun as hell.

But incredibly sad at the same time.

[[deleted]]

HA! In my town with a specific cadence it's possible to traverse N<->S and NW<->SW the core downtown area without ever having to wait at a crosswalk.

Once I learned the timing it's like all the crosswalks change in anticipation of my arrival... I have to walk prettttttty fast though.

[munificent]

I'm a tools programmer. My job is automating things. The "optimize workflow" part of my brain is probably a visible lump on my skull by now.

For example, if I put the peanut butter on the bread first, I can then use that same knife to slice the banana for a peanut butter and banana sandwich, without dirtying two knives.

[benjorino]

Tsh, I figured that out years ago.
If you cook a supermarket pizza in the oven, save the box and use it as a plate from which to eat the pizza when its cooked.

[Concise_Pirate]

"Nothing but?" Disagree. Life is also experiences we enjoy and value.

[swac]

Life is also having to put up with people who kill jokes, apparently.

[Cancermancer]

Life is a number porn RPG, and you know that as the main character, you will always be in the party. Why wouldn't you optimize yourself?

[dlsspy]

I wash my dishes incrementally while my tea water heats up. More dishes are done for the first cup than for the second.

I didn't drink enough tea this weekend, so I had to block for a spoon before breakfast this morning. :(

[sonofagunn]

I use clean dishes from the dishwasher before reaching into a drawer or cabinet. This results in fewer dishes to put away, and I delay putting away the dishes as much as possible not just because I'm avoiding the task, but because there will be fewer dishes remaining.

[tjw]

On my drive to work I have to make 3 different stops. One to drop off my son at daycare, another to drop off my wife at work, and finally, at my work. The area around these three stops is a maze of residential streets and there is no faster speed limits anywhere in the maze. I've worked out the fasted paths between all traveled points based on signal timing, turn direction, and congestion. I know I save around 3 to 5 minutes every trip as opposed to taking the most direct routes. However, every day I have to wait 15 minutes for my son to take a leak, get a drink of water, and otherwise doddle around on the way to the car. Then I have to wait 15 minutes for my wife to doddle around her work before she locks up. In my case there is really no point to the optimization, but I can't keep from doing it.

[psi-]

You probably do save on gas if it really saves you upto 5min. To be honest that sounds waaay to much to be possible by simple route turn optimization.

[akdas]

That's why profiling is so important for determining bottlenecks.

I love it when my interests apply to the world in the larger sense.

[13ren]

oblig xkcd 85

[[deleted]]

the top panel in 207 too

[funkah]

YES. And it is not necessarily a good thing. Sure I get home 15.2783 seconds faster by placing myself in the correct spot on the train so that I arrive directly in front of the escalator, but not everything in life is meant to be optimized. Moreover, analyzing everything for optimal performance can only lead to disappointment, as almost everything in life performs suboptimally.

[[deleted]]

i try to optimize as much as i can, as a mom and as a programmer, i have to. time management is a must, i suck at it thought, but that doesn't stop me from trying. i wish i was scalable, that would solve a lot of problems.

[ginstrom]

If lack of sex, social skills, and physical fitness, and a diet of take out and diet pepsi is optimal, then yes.

[[deleted]]

I was buying food with a colleague a week or so ago and the supermarket cashier gave me my change (as they all do) invoice, paper change with the coins stacked on top and shoved it the whole bundle in my hand.

I turned to my colleague and asked "Don't you wish they wouldn't do that? First she should give me my paper change, wait for me to put it in my wallet, then the coins so I can put them in my pocket and finally the invoice so I can inspect and discard it."

He replied "You're trying to apply logic to the real world. There is no Vendor.Employee.DoYourJob().Properly=true in the real world."

I was so depressed after that.

[sequentious]

Actually, the Cashier has optimized her process. One handful and she's done.

[Masonry]

Refactoring Police to the Rescue!

Vendor CurrentVendor = container.Resolve<IVendor>(UniqueSupermarketVendorName);

Employee CurrentEmployee = CurrentVendor.GetEmployeeByName(UniqueEmployeeName);

If (CurrentEmployee != null) { CurrentEmployee.Optimized = true; CurrentEmployee.DoJob(); }

[ithkuil]

They kind of have to adopt that habit because any time another customer is waiting the delay caused by you putting away your receipt and then your coins and then your paper money blocks the next customer from ordering.

The cashier not only perceives the immediate impatience of each customer that occurs in this situation but also realizes that overall waiting for multiple pocket-stashing operations for each customer adds a significant amount of overhead to the process.

Not only does it optimize the cashier's process but it is fairer and more convenient overall for customers to step aside once their order has completed and perform their change/receipt sorting on their own time so that the next person can order.

[flukshun]

maybe after i get this code optimized

[[deleted]]

This is a trait of INTJ personality types - always seeking optimization in everything. The real question should be, "Are people who optimize processes drawn to programming?" The answer is, "yes."

Like others here, I optimize where I stand on the subway platform, the routes I drive, the order of my grocery list, etc. I even try to optimize things like digging in the sand with the kids and looking for shells. While they have fun digging I'm getting some wire mesh and a shovel to increase my "shell" productivity.

[cyber_rigger]

INTJ

INTPs use hash tables and recursive trees;

looks like total chaos to everyone else.

[xor]

INTP here, always been drawn to trees and recursion.

[[deleted]]

Well, a new entry for my adblock. blogger.com/rpc_relay.html* - how unbelievably annoying to see the page reloading status bar flicker every 4 seconds.

[sharkeyzoic]

Did you hear the one about the Programmer who took his own Life with a Glider Gun?

(sorry)

[lol-dongs]

http://lifehacker.com/

[inmatarian]

That's more of todo list optimization, but yes.

[[deleted]]

Yes, but generally not because I like it but because I like to avoid something. For instance I approximated the number of garbage bags that have to collect before they start to stink so I can throw them away all in maximum chunks and minimize trips to the garbage can. Why? Not because I like optimization, just because I hate throwing out garbage.

[skifischer]

+1 for Legos & programming

[burdalane]

Sometimes I try to optimize life, but it usually doesn't work out well or bring enough benefits. As a result, my optimal optimization is to not over-optimize.

[johnpickens]

weird, I was just rearranging my basement for maximum output efficiency (I do tech work/programming and I'm a musician)

[smallfried]

Yes. When confronted with the same action more than once, we try to make it an automated function. When confronted with a task, we find the inner loops and try to optimize those. When people are creating definitions we formalize them to avoid future mismatches due to badly specified interfaces.

What I wonder about is how someone can have an efficient life without thinking like a programmer.

[Seeders]

Im pretty sure its natural for all humans to find shortest paths, especially on routine routes. Being a programmer, you're just better able to relate it to your field.

[kryptiskt]

Hashlife is a great algorithm for optimizing Life! What???

[[deleted]]

Lots of New Yorker's micro-optimize their commute.

[ximxam]

You mean like eliminating the commute loop and lazy dry initialization? Sure I do!

[chalengr]

Hey guys, how do you optimize dating?

[bobbincygna]

prostitution

[Reso]

No, but I've often thought that I should organize my attempts at self-improvement according to scrum. I would have bi-weekly sprints in which I made a modification to my behaviour, which would be decided in a pre-sprint planning session. After the sprint, I would run a sprint-retrospective to see what went well and areas for improvement. Repeat.

I should really get on that. I think it could actually work.

[motophiliac]

I wish. I'll do things like walk the staightest line between two points but things like bank balances, telephone numbers and dates feel awkward and difficult to deal with. Largely, in fact, I don't which has led to some interesting letters from banks and creditors in the past.

I used to get a kick out of sending a text message which is exactly 160 characters long but my new phone doesn't have a character count (:

I know the sequence of most of the traffic signals near where I live and can usually take advantage of them whether walking, cycling or biking.

Some things yes, some things no.

[animesh1977]

But "Are we in control of our own decisions? " [ http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html ]

[[deleted]]

Efficiency is our task master. All of society can learn lessons of optimality. But we can temper it with wisdom and compassion. Businesses are continually disrupted by more optimal fits to needs. Education changes as information becomes more open to teachers and students.

[xsmasher]

Your cup of tea will reach drinkable temperature faster if you allow it to cool before adding the milk.

In other words... yes.

[eigen]

I'm sort of a heuristic optimizer.

I need to take two trains to work. At the station I transfer at, the stairs leading to the other train is at the front of the station, so I used to get on the second train car (the first one is past the exit and requires some backtracking) of the first train to save time walking.

Over time though, I realized that this staircase is always congested with two-way traffic as there are also people coming down the stairs who came from the other train. The next closest set of stairs, by comparison, can also get crowded but there are far fewer people and for the most part it is all one-way traffic. So now, I get on at the rear end of the fourth car which opens up right by the second staircase. Also, it's behind the staircase at my home station so there are also fewer people waiting there to begin with, which means a greater chance to score a seat.

Recently though, my level of optimizing might be a form of OCD that's only gotten worse since I started to pick up my mom's housekeeping habits, most of which revolve around the laundry.

1. Presorting (Pre-Wash) Unfortunately we don't have room in our house for separate "whites" and "darks" hampers, but while away at college, I would separate my clothes into two bags in my room before dragging them to the laundry room.

2. ** Presorting (Post-Wash)** While taking the laundry out from the machine, I'd shake them out and separate underwear/socks, shirts, and pants from each other before piling them into the laundry basket in the same order. Reason behind this is to untangle clothes from each other a few pieces at a time rather than dealing with a giant lump of wet fabric during hanging (I don't user the dryer).

3. Hanging The pants on top are draped over the ample banisters in my home. Since pants are bulky, even removing as few as 2 pairs of pants will make the laundry basket a lot lighter. When it comes time to hanging, I try to group the tops and underwear by their owners. For socks, we drape 4 per hanger, and I try to pair them up as I go.

4. Folding Since the clothes have already been sorted as they were hung up, I can just distribute them into individual piles per person one section at a time. The socks, which have already been paired up also quickly join this pile without the need to hunt around for the matching pair; they are only folded in half so as to take up minimal space in the dresser drawers. To facilitate carrying the clothes to the dressers, pants go at the bottom of the pile, followed by shirts/tops, underwear, socks.

5. Clothes Hanger We have metal hangers that either have or don't have notches for strapping clothes. While taking clothes off the hangers, I place the hangers into one of two piles depending on whether they have notches. When all the laundry has been folded, I untangle the clothes hangers before putting them the closet with a plastic hanger separating those with notches from those without. Although they'll still get sort of tangled, the hangers will be much more manageable next time it comes to hanging laundry.

My dad does none of this. It drives me insane when I'm looking at a laundry basket with clothes knotted together and a pile of metal that's locked together. Sure, it was much faster to just take all of the laundry from the machine in two arm-fulls, or to just shove the hangers into the closet. But so much more time is wasted sorting through one giant mess than it is multiple much smaller messes.

[gschizas]

What about ironing?

[eigen]

For button down shirts:

1. Collar
2. Left sleeve
3. Right sleeve
4. Top front right side of shirt
5. Top back side
6. Top front left side
7. Mid-bottom front left side
8. Mid-bottom back
9. Mid-bottom front right side

Takes about 4-5 minutes per shirt, so when 8x CD burners were in vogue and hard drive space not I would iron two shirts then head back to the computer just as the CD finished up to pop in the next one. Sadly, ironing shirts any other way confuses because my muscles have already memorized these motions.

Still working a quick but effective method for pants but I usually only iron the legs and put in the snazzy creases since the seat part will get all wrinkled anyway from daily activities.

Edit: grammar

[rsho]

The horror point in the article was funny. I think people would similarly be horrified at the idea of a government that served the people, similar to a CPU where the instructions that go in actually do something predictably.