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.
Vibe coders feeling a great disturbance in the force.
I had to pay the $90 three drink minimum to get in. Getting that reimbursed was fun.
It’s overall time much better spent than being stuck in a car.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It would be interesting to see if that would deter a thief.
Lucky you. :) Good problem to have.
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.
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.
abstractspoon•4d ago