Hacker News Reader

Comment by abart13 | Hacker News Reader

This article really resonated with me both in regard to the mundane and profound boredom aspects. For the mundane, obsessively refreshing hacker news is my doom scrolling (with the justification that I occasionally find content like this). While the profound boredom experienced during the start of Covid made me realise I wasn’t living up to what I thought were my values. I then started volunteering with the local emergency service which has been one of the best life decisions I’ve made.

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I’d say that if you’re constantly refreshing Hacker News, you’re a good candidate for ebooks on HN-like subjects. I made a conscious decision to switch to that from HN and Reddit, and I’d say I’ve cut my usage of both by about 75%. Which was a good outcome for me, because it switched me from learning many topics shallowly, to learning a few from ebooks deeply (example, Soni’s The Founders book on PayPal’s history).

How do you find good ebooks? I’ve found some good ones via HN, but it would be nice if there is more dedicated place for ebooks.

I strongly recommend building a little instinct in yourself for "what if HN search could help with this question" - for books especially: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21900498

And someone took it upon themselves to build a book specific version across all discussions: https://hackernewsbooks.com/top-books-on-hacker-news

I check that fairly frequently!

Those are great resources to start with. Thank you!

I have read tens of books that came my way through HN. Please see this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37761636

Personally I read every history of a startup or important tech figure that I can find in my library’s ebook borrowing program, which can easily occupy several years.

> obsessively refreshing hacker news is my doom scrolling

Yeah. I really need to add this site to my hosts file or something. I learn a lot here but I want to do other stuff too...

> I then started volunteering with the local emergency service which has been one of the best life decisions I’ve made.

Thank you for your work. I'm sure it's made a huge difference in a lot of people's lives.

See the noprocrast setting in your HN user account.

Huh. Can't believe I never noticed this. I'm gonna enable it. Thanks.

Thanks!!! I finished a feature in my project yesterday because this setting kicked me out of HN. Really cool.

Or, for diehards that doom scroll other sites too, try the LeechBlock browser extension.

This echoes my own experiences. Where did you look for volunteering opportunities?

My state government maintains a online volunteering opportunities register that was really useful. Local library also had a selection of organisations looking for volunteers. I initially over committed by signing up for too many things before cutting back and focusing on doing the emergency work wholeheartedly.

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