Ask YC: Do you watch TV? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Do you watch TV?

25 pointsdaniel-cussen105 comments

No. I realized TV was what I would now call a "time sink" (didn't have a word for it then) when I was about 15, and stopped watching it. I've never owned a TV. I do sometimes watch old TV episodes on DVD though. I especially recommend Fawlty Towers, Jeeves and Wooster, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Saint.

Don't forget "The Prisoner" ... and of course GetSmart.

On another front, don't mean to come off as rude here, but surely somebody among you folks has some experience with Wufoo and can spare a moment to jot a quick reply on the post a few topics below this one? Please? Or is everybody busy watching t.v. ....

Please don't do this. For one thing, posts are dynamically reordered. But it would not be a cool thing to do anyway.

Yeh but you know right after you down-modded me you went straight to Amazon and were like, "Oh yeah, The Prisoner, almost forgot about that - wonder if that's available as a box set."

Whatever you do, please do NOT think of me as you're watching it if you wind up getting it on DVD.

And besides ... I just know I'm going to lose most of my points for this one ... I'm making a perfectly valid point.

Everybody talks about Wufoo here ... yet when I ask for honest, useful feedback, nobody responded for most of the day.

Yet if I were to put up a post like, "Do you think it's better to code in rooms painted blue, or rooms painted green" I'm pretty certain I'd quickly get over 50 responses ASAP.

Here we go ... here come the down mods ... sigh ... 52 points my all time high ... oh well it was nice while it lasted ...

I wish I had that type of willpower.

My Dad always had a TV on. Looking back on it, that really wasn't good for any of us.

How are you able to break such bad habits?

T.V. has a huge narcotic effect and gives you a "hit" of dopamine rush, very hard to get over. Try googling things that help you regulate your dopamine levels so they're more in balance and you'll find anything from t.v. to smoking easier to quit; for starters: exercise, especially stuff that stimulates glands and lymbic systems, like Yoga and Qi Gong - not so much Tai chi. Running helps a lot but eventually you mess up your joints so biking is good too. Just take it easy and don't look for any quick, extreme radical changes - just setting self up to fail. Instead try this: "I want to reduce my t.v. viewing to 150 minutes of quality t.v. programming of my choice per day and not give in to random crap programming designed to just grab my attention." Step by step.

Reduce it to 150 minutes? Yikes! How much TV do you guys watch? That's an epic film a night and thats considered a target?

Well I'm just using that as an example.

If you like sports, that is one sports game a night. When I was in university we had 4 tv's and the ultimate cable package (a benefit of cramming 6 people into a tiny house, things like that become cheap) and a few roommates would commonly watch about 8 hours of tv per day.

However 'watching tv' was more doing school work on the couch with the odd bit of discussion about a good play.

90% of my 'tv watching' then was doing schoolwork.

Willpower's got nothing to do with it.

That's like saying, "What? You never strike your children? You must have a lot of willpower."

Here's what to do. Put you TV in front of your house with a sign on it, "Do Not Take".

7 minutes later, problem solved.

At about 16, when I first got a gig writing reviews I decided TV took up too much time. At that point I simply pulled the cable out the back of the thing and just continued to use it to review games.

Now I simply don't have a TV, I still own one but it's in storage. I have a small problem with DVD's, but mostly because it's rather boring eating alone, and I barely play games on my PC anymore since reviewing them made pretty much 90% of games detestable. I literally had to force myself to play through Metalheart: Replicants Rampage, description claimed it was like a new Fallout; I believe they mixed up the game with the feeling of "Oh dear god, that pain is my life draining away" of radiation poisoning.

Now I have so much time without TV that I'm going to blitz out a novel I've been working on over the next couple of weeks. It's been a while since I tried to get anything published, so its about time I _did_ get something published.

You find something else to do. I've never been able to quit an addiction without replacing it with another addiction. It went TV -> MUDS -> Magic: the Gathering -> Star Wars CCG -> writing my own MUD -> electric guitar -> MUDS again -> Harry Potter fanfiction -> C2 & programming language design -> sailing -> Reddit -> News.YC -> Scrabulous -> my startup -> Arc -> hopefully back to my startup again, though I can't be sure of that...

Luckily, if you get to a certain point in a "constructive" project (like a piece of software), it'll start to pull you along and becomes less of a chore and more of an obsession. Unfortunately, it's pretty easy to interrupt that obsession, which is why I should stop overriding my 10-hour noprocrast timeout on news.YC.

I realized that 99% of what's on TV is pure crap and wasn't worth paying $70 / month for, so I cancelled my cable service. I use Netflix now so I can watch movies and some TV series, but I no longer just sit in front of the TV and do nothing for a couple of hours a night.

Easy. Cancel your cable/satellite subscription, then wait a month. Suddenly TV doesn't seem very important.

If you want to use the pseudo-nicotine-patch method of weaning yourself from TV, do the above and download your current shows off the internet and watch them at your convenience. Eventually those shows will die off, and since you don't have cable/satellite, you won't have any new ones to replace them.

It doesn't have much to do with willpower, it's more about realizing if you don't waste your time on inconsequential stuff, then you'll almost necessarily spend it on something worthwhile.

I don't think it's hard to convince yourself TV is a waste of time...

I grew up with TVs on a lot as well. Not the constant background noise that some people grow up with, but a fair amount of TV. Cartoons Saturday morning and after school when I was little, and then sitcoms or whatever my parents were watching in middle school.

However, I also grew up with a truckload of books. And one day I finally realized that I wasn't really watching TV; I just happened to be keeping my folks company and reading in the same room the TV was on. I had accidentally (but fortunately!) learned to completely tune TV out. This led to my current state of constant reading. To me, books are TV. Some people have to concentrate to read a book. I have to concentrate quite hard to pay attention to a TV. Weird quirk, but I like it!

This of course means times other than when I put on a DVD or tape or something specifically to watch and turn all the lights out and get lost. But I rarely have that much free time.

I do not have enough willpower not to watch TV if there is a TV in my apartment. But there is no TV in my apartment, and I have enough willpower not to buy one and bring it home.

Amen. Our startup has 5 people and (by coincidence?) none of them own TV's.

J&W ftw

Don't you think TV is a good source for information, a useful way to keep up with culture.

If you want a startup to appeal to 'the masses', it helps to know what 'the masses' are into.

I work best with distractions. My favorite three distractions are music, people (i.e. going to the coffee shop), and tv, in that order. If I'm coding at home, either the music is cranked or the tv is on. Though, I try to watch uninteresting shows, so that I don't get distracted. If either Discovery or the History channel are on, I'm not getting much done.

I'm a fan of the working with music

of course you are :P

I used to be like you, but now I am appreciating quiet solitude.

I am most effective between 10pm and 2am. It is weird, but knowing everybody else is going to bed, and you are coding, makes you more efficient,

I am also very efficient between 6a.m and 8-9am.

It also might be related that the background sound level drops by few decibels during the night.

I just can't do much work during the day, unless there some other kind of pressure (i.e. I have to finish something by that day).

I'm the exact same way. I am most productive from about 11pm to 4am. Luckily my 9-5 only requires me to work "just hard enough to not get fired." I'm also still in college, so my college roomies don't mind the music at 3am, as long as it's not blasting.

It seems like questions like this are trying create some kind of Hacker monoculture. That's lame. Watching TV doesn't make you a bad hacker.

I agree. This happens outside of the hacker world too. In general I find people are very boastful about the fact they don't watch TV.

Watching TV makes you more of an armchair hacker.

Actually, I'm getting a lot more done since my wife banned me from watching TV with her, because I get irritated by commercials.

I agree. Personally I think TV is a useful way of keeping informed about what 'the masses' if you want to call them that, are into.

Removing yourself from what most people do doesn't seem a great thing to do IMHO if you're trying to appeal/sell to those people.

No time. I would include DVDs of TV shows as TV. I used to watch them more. Watching an entire season of a good show over the course of a few days is MUCH better than serial TV.

Even shows like Seinfeld are better. I didn't realize till I watched them in order that they reference previous episodes all the time.

This is how I watch TV. I now find waiting a week to see a new episode of some show annoying, more so than being a season or two behind a series.

http://www.thedailyshow.com

http://www.videosift.com

http://www.theonion.com/video

I use hulu a lot too. A pretty good resource, all in all.

Got beta invites?

You don't need an invite. Sign up and you should receive an email from hulu within 2 weeks or so.

Yes, too much though in my opinion. I really only watch 2 types of shows: sports and cartoons/anime.

I should be able to cut down on sports. It's easier if you're engaged in coding to forget to turn a game on.

The cartoons I watch all are shown on Cartoon Network. Since I've seen most of the Family Guy episodes, that's easy to skip. The anime is harder. I find the stories much better than other programs on television.

I recently found a place in NYC that sells some popular anime on DVD imported from Japan. That allows me to get huge chunks of the series in one shot, as opposed to 1 or 2 episodes/week on TV. For example, I bought the entire Death Note series 2 weeks ago. It came in 3 containers with 3 DVDs each.

Since I don't live in NYC, I don't have to worry about frequenting there too often.

Well, I live in NYC area and I think I know what store you speak of - in the Village, correct?

Perhaps I shouldn't tell you about "certain" well-developed import sites where you can get a copy of just about anything that comes out of Japan in any version you can dream of ...

And I'm sure you know of Anime Network, all anime, all the time.

Now, be strong! Don't google these things! You have work to do and can't be distracted!

The store I'm talking about is actually in Chinatown. I've been to Mondo Kim's in the Village, and their anime section (all half of one side of an island) left something to be desired.

Is there another store in the Village that I don't know of?

Don't worry, I know about Anime Network, and I purposely don't get it.

I won't google anything either.

Well I actually forgot the name, but I'm pretty sure it's not Mondo Kim.

It's like straight out of a movie where you find this old, eclectic store and it has all these buildable, multi-scale Gundam models, etc.

I try not to go becuase the first time I went it was like, "Dragon Ball Z - the Uncut, Unedited version" and it was like, "WTF? There's an edited and an unedited version"?

Basically everything they have makes me realize just how much I haven't seen ... by the time I got done with my wish list I had like $15,000 worth of anime I really, really wanted to see.

That's when i realized I lost control, walked out and never came back.

But if you want to chase the anime dragon, let me know - I"ll ask around for you.

But I don't take responsibility if you walk into the anime den never to see the light of day again ...

Thanks, that would be great. I know it's not the Tokyo Toy Store on St. Marks Place. They have a lot of action figures (mostly Asian) but no anime.

I don't travel to NYC often, so I'm not worried about being there constantly, and I definitely don't have the kind of money to splurge on a lot of anime. I know I'll be OK.

No.

The only thing I ever watched was football at the local Pittsburgh Steelers bar. Until I did the math for the Monday Night game against the Dolphins on November 26. 206 minutes elapsed time. 60 minutes football clock time. 8 minutes actual football being played. 3 points scored (with 17 seconds left). 7000 commercials.

Funny how much more valuable your time is when you're doing a start-up. Spending 4 hours to see 8 minutes of content is no longer an option.

On the bright side, I have 7 months before next season to find a 12 step program.

Living in Pittsburgh, I don't see myself being able to give this up. Sunday lunch at my parents or in-laws, with the game on, is an entrenched family tradition. Formula 1 or Calcio when the Steelers aren't playing (my father in law is an Italian immigrant, if you hadn't guessed).
I have surprised myself, though, by totally forgetting about some weeknight Steelers games this year. I guess that's progress. Your analysis of elapsed time is sobering.

For those of you who haven't lived here, the Steelers are basically the city's religion. pg would understand what I mean:

http://www.paulgraham.com/gateway.html (grep football)

Asking me if I watch TV is like asking me if I go to the theater to watch new movies. The answer is NO to both (90% of the time), but that doesn't mean I don't consume some of the content through other methods (I download it).

Meaning I won't just drop everything I'm doing on Thursday night to watch Lost, but I'll perhaps catch it on a Saturday afternoon when I have the time or feel like taking a break from my work.

Unfortunately yes. I find myself watching HGTV and other home type shows to get ideas for the time when I actually own a home. I don't have Tivo, so it's normally back to a book or papers during commercials. I'm also a big fan of comedies like Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock, Family Guy and The Simpsons. I seem to find long marathons of Law & Order as well...

Not really. I cancelled cable about 6 months ago, and I haven't looked back. The writer's strike helped a bunch, though.

I'll tune in to broadcast TV to occasionally watch Jeopardy while eating dinner, or to catch a new episode of House (pretty much the only show I watch regularly).

I'm a Lost addict. And now Heroes.

I find one of the most edifying things to watch (as TV programs go) is the Charlie Rose show. He basically invites interesting people and lets them talk. Much better than the chopped up sound bites that pass for interviews on American "news."

I actually watch some, and it increases during winter. I think it has to do with SAD (considering I am not used to the weather, especially the bleak 4 months that we see here in Columbus, OH). The only show I follow is House (and now Sarah Connor Chronicles) but I am at a point where its sucking up a lot of time. I am going to cut the cable, and go DVD shopping. And of course, commerical free shows are so much better.

Most of my TV watching happens in the background, while I am surfing the web or catching up on my RSS reader, but its still a lousy habit

A few years ago, the girlfriend and I spent some time carefully building and configuring a MythTV box, which was fun. Then we proceeded to not actually watch any TV. 6 months later, when we realized we were only keeping the cable subscription so that our Myth project wasn't purposeless, we cancelled it.

We still watch a decent bit of downloaded TV content -- we'll sit down and watch entire seasons in a few evenings. We watch nothing in 'realtime' and we see zero commercials.

(I actually miss commercials and wish people wouldn't cut them out of what I download.)

No - I have never owned a tv, and probably never will.

Seems like a waste of time to me.

No, and it's given me lots of extra time to concentrate on my drinking habit.

Actually, there was a period in my life when I had neither TV nor a computer. I'm not sure what I spent my time doing...

TV came with AT&T Uverse (FiOS) so that I'd have a decent internet connection. Fortunately it also includes a DVR so I can watch my shows when I'm too beat to get any real work done.

Honestly though, for the first 14 years of my life, we didn't have TV. My younger siblings have had TV for all the life they can remember, and I can tell there's a difference. When I was younger I spent my time doing much more productive things... like building a battlebot. I never got to play it though.

I stopped watching TV when I moved to the city. Season 2 of Lost was the hardest show to give up. Now I spend more than the time I spent watching TV commuting to the suburbs.

Yes, sort of. I don't have cable or anything, and I only follow House (downloaded). My girlfriend and I have also been watching Star Trek (first TNG, now Voyager).

WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU ME?

I gave up TV and computer games about two years ago. The first was easy, the second was harder. The way to do it is just to have a lot of creative projects on the go. In my case it was a start-up and a band, but it could be anything. As soon as you start creating, you get way more sucked in than you ever do with TV.

The only tricky part is finding something to keep your mind occupied when you're eating. Reading leaps to mind.

I stopped watching a lot of TV when I went away to college (didn't have one in the dorm room the first couple years). After I graduated and moved into my own place I never bothered getting cable hooked up, but I still use my TV for DVDs and games. The kind of addiction some people have to TV, I have to the Web. I think that and not getting enough sleep reinforce each other.

I gave up TV a few years ago, and now I physically can't stand to watch it. It's the ad segments that interrupt the programming – I cringe at the thought of how many hours and hours of worthless ads I've had pumped into my brain.

That said I do like some shows now (The Office, Stella, and Peep Show), but I absolutely will not watch them in that life-wasting show/ads/show/ads/show format.

Didn't have one for several years and got out of the habit for awhile. There is some great drama and comedy and if you keep it to 2-4 hours a week I think it's as valid as any other entertainment. The only reality show that's not crap is Project Runway, all the contestants are real entrepreneurs, and just enough non-stupid-ass-silly stuff slips past the producers.

Bike races (classics, Giro, and Tour). After years of being deprived of cycling coverage in the US, I am a slave to the black box during racing season. Well, not really, but I do enjoy it, and I'll haul the computer in front of the tv to keep track of the action while I work.

I've also been watching Doctor Who on BBC world, even though it's from several seasons ago:-/

I occasionally watch The Daily Show because I like being able to visually see the stuff I read about online. I also watch DVDs on my laptop, and occasionally box sets of TV shows.

If I don't get enough work done though for more than a day or two I start to feel physically unwell, and watching TV and playing videogames beyond a minimal amount triggers the same feeling.

I've been following the new Terminator TV series, and still tune in to the local public broadcasting channel for a while when there's a good documentary or news show scheduled, but network TV in general makes me twitchy and angry more than it relaxes me.

If I had cable, I'd probably watch it, but that seems like as good a reason as any not to get it.

No. But sometimes I watch some new TV series on DVD. In 20 years will be something called 'TV' or just 'The Internet'?

No. Also, I try to never read newspapers or anything written by journalists. It's basically all lies made to evoke "feelings" in you. There's no shortcut to the truth, no alternative to actually learning the facts and the most extreme and sincere arguments for every side, and choosing for yourself.

I often watch television whilst eating dinner, at least a few times a week, and generally watch a couple movies each week (either broadcast on television or on DVD).

Otherwise, my viewing is sporadic, and when it occurs, usually consists of some older programs on DVD, or C-SPAN, or (this year) campaign news updates.

Our MythTV ( http://www.mythtv.org/ ) setup didn't quite survive our recent international move, so we're not watching much. Not that we watched much before - there's not much good stuff on. We'll see what happens when I get around to fixing myth.

Mostly, I don't. I was watching almost 0 tv when somebody gave me some Lost Dvds and then I started seeing that. But apart from Lost, I don't see tv. I don't like it... it's very, very boring.

But I like going to the cinema (and I like seeing good movies on tv when I'm on the mood, but that's not usual).

Sometimes for background noise/information. I watch very few TV "shows", and what I do watch is usually coming off of Tivo.

Other than 1 or 2 shows I watch with my wife, most of my personal preference is for something that is at least mildly interesting/informative (Myth Busters, etc.)

Yes, why do you ask?

Not a great deal, mostly sports, and it is more of background entertainment than my focus.

Our family collectively watches about 20 hours of television a year. We only use it when we're all together and some relatively rare event is going on. My wife is a big Tom Petty fan so we had the Superbowl on this year for about 3 hours.

Whats funny is...I have a TV which I use to output my computer too and watch tv shows on.

Rarely, but I've been watching the Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles. I love robots.

great show, especially since the storyline is mainly about AI development.

Definitely. I think the twist will be that the Turk becomes an AI on the side of good. The turk inventor's last name IS Goode, after all. Just speculating. Also, I like that the terminator's name is Cameron, after "James Cameron" I imagine.

Lately I've been busy and have accidentally not watched TV in a while. Lots of DVDs, though, and a couple trips to the movie theater.

Right now, I'm watching the BBC's "Little Britain" on DVD, though I don't count anything on DVD as television.

I watch video podcasts. If you haven't started watching GigaOm, I highly recommend it. It was really bad at first, but some of the VC/CEO/founder interviews they've done are absolutely stellar stuff that have taught me a lot.

Only show that I watch on actual TV is The Daily Show. Sometimes when I'm bored I watch lectures/talks/documentaries on the web.

www.ted.com has good short talks (10-20 mins) that can be good to watch when taking a break, or eating, etc.

Currently, yes, maybe a few hours per week or so. But soon, thanks to our powerful government, they will stop broadcasting analog TV in this country (Finland) and my home will be TV-free. Sweet.

Only when it's not US TV :) Seriously, TV in the US is absolutely nothing like TV in the UK. It's sometimes nice to have on in the background watching some classic comedy or music tv.

Maybe an hour a week tops, have never been into it as I find tv far too boring. My biggest time sink is exercising though, which I probably do just as much as most people watch tv lol

No - haven't owned one for many years. Occasionally I download or get DVDs of very good TV shows - I watched the Sopranos, for example, and made myself a re-run of Twin Peaks.

I was 13-14 when gave it up for good, saved me a lot during the years. Now we are a family, living happily without turning it on, it's reserved for DVD's and SuperMario only.

No. Have a HDTV air antena for my tv, but the reception is not that great. I use the TV only to watch the ocassionall rented movie.

Usually I am in front of my computer most of the time.

No. I do watch dvds and Joost occasionaly though. Joost is especially good for on demand video - just make sure you don't have any memory hogs running when you use it.

I haven't had a TV set now for two plus years. But you need to really have some effective alternatives, otherwise you end up wasting time on something else.

I watch House MD (usually I first download the english version of each episodee, see it, and then watch it again in spanish on TV) and Formula 1 races.

No. Although I do still watch movies at home, and occasionally I'll get into a series and watch it on DVD. Don't have actual TV service though.

I watch with Hulu a fair amount, does that count? Great UI, pretty good selection, good quality, and few ads.

Don't own one, but there are a few shows I'll watch online or at a friend's (30 Rock, the Office, etc).

Only a few shows that I record with my MythTV (commercial auto-skip is a great feature).

Yes. Once a week we sit down and watch the latest two episodes of 24 on Canal+.

No, I haven't watched TV in years.

I do watch South Park, The Wire, and Entourage via torrents.

In the past I watched TV a lot, but now only watch sparingly at night as a way to relax and get myself off the computer. :)

Beyond that, I do watch a lot of TV/videos online.

Corey Kossack President Club E Network http://www.ClubENetwork.com

No. Haven't watched TV in over 4 years. It's a giant waste of time.

simple, no tv in the room, wait for the season final of the series like lost, heroes, battlestar and get the whole season from torrent, watch them all non-stop : )

No. Don't own one, don't ever intend to.

i dont watch tv, i download it :V

No. Now I read Hacker News.

hulu.com and adultswim.com and joox.net

The Wire, Lost

Mixed Martial Arts

The Wire

Other Sports

TV contains lots of information about our culture.

Trying to learn something worthwhile with TV is like trying to get rich with the lottery.

Sometimes you do indeed learn a little something/get a little cash, but at least 99% of the time you're wasting your fucking time/money.

And if you still manage to be lucky enough to learn something/win cash, it's still not very edifying (I'd rather make a million by myself than 30 millions with the lottery).

hexstream and jward,

i was suggesting you can learn about the target audience, by watching TV. this works even if the content is bad. like our culture or not, i'm interested in what it's like (which is important to know, if you hope to improve it).

for me at least, tv is not dangerous. i don't drool, i don't buy stuff b/c it says to, i don't like stuff b/c it says to, etc

I fully agree on this point. Also, I really don't like our culture. I think the two are strongly correlated. I really don't want to be told what to think, what to buy, who to like, where to go, what to do, and why worry when I can just take a pill for that with possible sexual side effects talk to your doctor.

I download specific tv shows to watch but for the most part, I ignore it. I find whenever I'm at someones place and they have a tv on, my brain just fully shuts down and I sort of drool out of the corner of my mouth.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com