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Comment by konha | Hacker News Reader

The „Emergency Override“ (press two buttons for 10 sec) reminds me of the iOS „Screen Time exceeded“ message. Took me like two days to develop the habit of instantly hitting the „no limit for today“ button every single time.

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Sleep for Android (a popular sleep tracker/analyzer) allows you to "pay in" a small amount of money, like $5-15 per user choice via in-app purchases, that is lost as a donation to the developers if the set goal wasn't reached and refunded otherwise.

I thought that was a pretty clever way to go about it, I know people do a lot for $5!

Isn't someone who feels the product didn't help their self control just going to hit the refund button?

I think the point is that there is no refund button.

If the app doesn't have a refund button, your card provider does. Actually, especially if the app doesn't.

I'm a simpler man, I keep hitting "15 more minutes" in an infinite loop. I'm also able to snooze my alarm for hours when I know I have to attend to something important, but not THAT important.

Set yourself as a child and let someone else be your "parent". Then the blocking will be enforced!

Some years ago, I was at a coffee shop with free wifi, which had become fairly common, but it had a captive portal that required a login, which was an innovation at the time. I apparently looked pretty nerdy, and the fellow at the next table asked if I could help him figure out his login problem, since the folks at the counter were at a loss.

Turns out, he was running a piece of web-monitoring software, which wouldn't let him access the login page because it couldn't get permission from its server, because it couldn't reach the server, because he hadn't gotten past the login page. Pretty straightforward little Catch-22.

We turned off his wifi for a moment and I ended up MAC-spoofing his device to complete the login on his behalf, and all was well.

Once he confirmed he was online successfully, I asked more about this monitoring software. Was it installed by his employer? No, turns out this was a religious thing, to avoid "temptation". Monitoring and approval was apparently done by another user of the software -- pairs of peers would agree to keep an eye on each other's browsing habits, the logic being that even just a little more visibility and accountability is all it takes to keep oneself on the straight-and-narrow.

What a fascinating little market I never knew existed!

Only my dog knows my parental lock password.

Son of a bitch doesn't let go no matter how many treats I feed him.

https://www.thekitchensafe.com/

has no emergency override!

I’ve had this for several years. It works. The lack of override is a HUGE plus.

From my understanding, if I really want to override I can email the company and ask for help, but that hasn’t happened in the 4-5 years I’ve had it.

The main uses I found for it are sticking my phone in there during pomodoros, and sticking cash in there on weekends that I can’t afford to spend.

One idea I’ve had that I haven’t implemented is putting a password on my computer or phone that someone else generates for me. For example, I might have my wife scribble a bunch of nonsense letters on a piece of paper, have her input that password on the device, then I would throw the piece of paper into the lockbox.

There actually is no override whatsoever. If you email them, they tell you how to break the plastic base without accidentally destroying the lid (since the bases are cheap to order replacements). Props to them for sticking to that mission statement.

That’s even better!

I've used this since 1.5 years for sweets (basically daily...). So I take out a few sweets and lock it for a few hours, so that I don't have to fear that I overeat. It works really well and I'm really happy about it. Also, I didn't have to change the batteries once (well, you put in 4 AA batteries but still nice that it's no energy sink).

Has anyone tried an EMP generator like the Lockpicking Lawyer did for the fingerprint lock?

Seems like a text-based password (and not a button) would solve this problem. Just make it a string of random characters, write it on a piece of paper, then keep the paper inside the box.

I had the same experience. When given the option to override, the whole experience is ruined for me.

I’ve often thought of a lock out for investing. “I’ll buy this stock, and I’m not allowed to sell it for 5 years”. A hack is to invest in early stage startups, where you’ll often not have an option of selling early. Anything listed on a stock market is the opposite.

From what I can tell, it’s possible with scripting Bitcoin, to not allow a transaction for X years, but no one seems to offer this in an easy to use way

The lockout for investing is short term capital gains.

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