> I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work
I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.
I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.
I literally owe many of my succesful professional decisions to researches that initally started here. I find some interesting article, read the comments first, then the article, then the comments again. In the middle of this flow, I decide whether it is worthy to save to my Pocket account. Those things in my Pocket quite often become kickstarters for things that I eventually adopt using or learning. I see no way of giving up such opportunity. Why would anyone do that? (That is a serious question that I really wish there exists a convincing answer)
[1]: http://hckrnews.com/
Just enough distraction for my work day.
Twitter I don't use at all. I don't even read it.
It's quite simple, when I'm looking for something, I do a google-based site-specific search to HN. I often find very old threads with really good value.
I still follow things every few days to stay on top of trends. I haven't discovered how to catch up with those without frequent visits, though. Perhaps the solution lies in NLP summary technology.
I utilize their 2-feed layout option with HN (set to "Trending" posts) on the left and "visual inspiration" sites on the right (default is Dribbble, but I have Lapa, ffffound, Design Inspiration, etc. in the list, too).
In the case of Facebook I found that just removing it from my bookmarks bar helped loads. Prevents me from just clicking on it half-dazed and starting to scroll.
HN is the one where I find myself checking several times/day and I constantly have 20+ HN tabs. The pattern is something like this:
1) "Oh, interesting topic!"
2) Open in a tab
3) Read existing comments & the link (I don't always do the latter, admittedly)
4) Come back N hours later, read new comments
5) Repeat #4 over a day or two
6) Close tab unless I haven't read the link yet. If I haven't, then they tend to stick around until I do or send it off into OneTab for ultimate procrastination.
This was true with Slashdot as well, now that I think about it. Back in the day it had the same draw for the same reasons. Though I think HN is a better version, since it doesn't have a few editors driving it like /. did, which was often frustrating.
Correct. But like Professor Ted Kaczynski stated in his "Technology Manifesto"
> The bad parts of technology cannot be separated from the good parts.
This here is pretty much applicable to everything online, not just SM. Example: FaceBook and Twitter are used to organize protests, break news, reconnect with lost loved ones. The same technology sites are also used to recruit terr_ists, phish and spam seniors and unsuspecting people, troll and commit felony crimes etc...
1) Reading HN all the time creates a false sense that things are moving much faster than they really are.
2) I'd suggesting reading "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" and it'll remind you your time is finite
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitiv...
"In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people."
That being said this looks interesting and I am going to give this a read. Thanks for the tip!
Mark Manson "THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F_CK" (12 minute read) => https://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck
I have similar problems with the net in general. This happens to me all too often. I decide to do something like take a shower. I walk to the shower and turn it on letting it heat up. I remember something that I want to remind myself to do. I walk over to the computer to type in a reminder. Before I even start typing the reminder something on the screen distracts me. 5-15 minutes go by. I go back to the shower and just before getting in I realize I never typed the reminder. So, I walk over to the computer to type the reminder and the same thing happens again. This type of thing has happened on more than one occasion. For example I'm walking out of the house, at the door I remember something tiny I want to do on the computer (send a mail, write a reminder, ...) same things happen as above.
127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com
Oh funny thing I found I was wrong about showdead setting there... I had assumed if I wanted myself to be declared dead/offline I could set my profile to show dead.. lol
What's its functionality?
I wouldn't mind reporting on these, or vouching for the good ones, but it would be nice to have a channel where I could get feedback -- such as "this use was banned for reason xyz on these 10 comments".
The "vouch" feature was recently added exactly for the purpose of correcting those mistakes as we spot them - so I'd say it is useful. Moderators are just people and have finite time too.
I can only block the whole domain, right?
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg
Considering that he was very very active on HN in the past (karma 155077), I wonder what his reasoning is to cut back?
There are no moderation tools at present which can prevent this sort of in-fighting with blatant censorship.
In the absence of such tools, the only viable solution is a fragmentation of the community. This is most apparent to HN readers with the rise of lobste.rs
I think we have since learned about the influence of survivor bias, that you can really accomplish the same things in any programming language and that since YC itself is now focusing on larger problems, some with sociological and political leanings, that it is best to move on from looking at things at the code level and instead look at the bigger picture.
So, a bit closer to underlying mechanics of social networking in practice than it would seem on surface. Enough to get a similar participation high. That's on top of the knowledge expansion we use to justify the other high coming from the fact that we just enjoy reading this stuff. ;)
> If you turn it on you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours.
You can set it to something more extreme, like maxvisit=60 minaway=720, and then it'll only allow you a one-hour session every twelve hours, which in practice usually means you can only go here once per day. Doing this turns HN from a distraction to something you have to consciously choose to visit.
1. Scan headlines for a topic I'm interested in, say, geometric algebra.
2. Rapidly scan the comments for people linking to other media (books, blog posts, libraries, etc.) that are related to geometric algebra.
I get vastly superior pointers to useful material this way than any other approach I've tried, and I'm extremely good at research anyway.
So even at HN, the most addictive content is considered to have the highest value. Seems…topical.
It's interesting to see HN debate itself. The asymmetrical karma allocation can be a really interesting factor.
One thing that's helping is Lobsters. Lobsters is super slow so if I do make a full switch from HN to that I only need to check it a handful of times a week.
But to me, it's not so much about how much time I spend on the time but rather the why. I simply don't get as much value out of HN as I think I do. Most news are irrelevant and unimportant, and I haven't really learned anything too insightful like others said they have (sadly). Simply put, tech news boards apparently just aren't for me.
Now, Lobste.rs is different. They're a small community with a narrower focus on mostly tech stuff. They have relatively low noise with a preference for deeper insight on tech. You'll see more writeups on algorithms than product releases for instance. They also have an open-source website and open moderation log. A bit radical on occasion like where owner JCS just got rid of downvotes to experiment if upvote-only would keep quality without total censorship.
Definitely check out the articles over there on top of the ones here. The comments especially as people often say something there that someone here overlooked or vice versa.
It would be helpful to see the specific links that you're basing this view on, so we could clear them up.
But when I get frustrated on a problem or am knee deep in technical debt, you can be I'll flip over to Hacker News.
I also don't bother with Twitter anymore. I still have an account but don't ever open it. Instagram and Snapchat are rather boring for me also.
So while I like social I don't really care for the media.
The comments are seriously addictive; I wish there was a way to hide 90% of them to make it easier to stop reading.
Yes, I can very easily `sudo vi /etc/hosts` to undo, but I never did.
Helps that I could really pull it up on my iPhone if I needed, but this way I could focus when I needed to, and if I was on my mobile I was clearly doing other stuff.
HN is problematic because signal/noise ratio is relatively high.
Then I got a better job, and now I feel a lot less compulsion to sit and read the internet.
That way I have enough time to think and question whether I really want to open the page I was about to open, and I don't disable the whole thing if I actually need to visit it.