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Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#71

Post by LarryMade2 »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #39

12 years ago, I have decided that I would forever change the way people communicate. Today, nothing has been done. I'm struggling to get people to relate to this need for a better communication system and language. I am convinced that this is very important, but I fail to get the positive feedback I've always expected. Should I ignore people and blindly trust my guts? Taking on such a massive task is very difficult f…

You should ignore people enough to try and prove it to yourself, build a proof of concept and the compare it to what you see out there.

If you've been on hacker news one thing is certain most folk will more readily shoot down new or refactored ideas, especially if that's all they are, ideas.

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#72

Post by antoaravinth »

gabalese wrote: post #17

For me, reading HN is like reading the paper or reading books about subjects that matter to me: it's not time strictly spent on the job I have to do, but it's part of a healthy information diet. Crunching code without taking a look at what's currently happening and being discussed in your professional community is hardly a recipe for self improvement. (It's a thin red line between healthy consumption and abuse, I kno…

Rightly said. I use HN to keep me update-to-date. I do spend and read HN articles comments more than article itself, to get a view on how other people thinks. Its proven to be very valuable to me.

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#74

Post by olalonde »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #39

12 years ago, I have decided that I would forever change the way people communicate. Today, nothing has been done. I'm struggling to get people to relate to this need for a better communication system and language. I am convinced that this is very important, but I fail to get the positive feedback I've always expected. Should I ignore people and blindly trust my guts? Taking on such a massive task is very difficult f…

I went through your comments history and I'm not sure I quite grasp what your idea is or what problem it solves. If I understand correctly, you have this idea for a new type of human-computer interaction based on a visual programming/interaction language? I suggest you start by writing down your thoughts in a blog/wiki for others to better understand it. I'd also start working on an MVP now because in another 12 years, advances in NLP/AI might render your language obsolete :)

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#75

Post by batguano »

gabalese wrote: post #17

For me, reading HN is like reading the paper or reading books about subjects that matter to me: it's not time strictly spent on the job I have to do, but it's part of a healthy information diet. Crunching code without taking a look at what's currently happening and being discussed in your professional community is hardly a recipe for self improvement. (It's a thin red line between healthy consumption and abuse, I kno…

Hacker News is, among its other qualities, one of the few places where the comments on an article are reliably interesting and valuable.

Still, I empathize with the OP... It's often too tempting.

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#76

Post by vonnik »

flycaliguy wrote: post #61
vonnik wrote: post #57

Go to your profile. Set your "noprocrast" to yes. Set you maxvisit to 15. Set your minaway to 60. I'll be back in an aware to see if anyone replies. ;)

Get a load of this guy, typo out in the open and helpless to save his proof reading reputation.

ouch! it's true.

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#77

Post by hanniabu »

mattgibson wrote: post #54
kaolinite wrote: post #41

I've drastically cut my HN time in the past few months by following this one weird trick: Add "news.ycombinator.com##td.subtext" following to your Adblock/uBlock custom filters. You still get to read the articles and keep up with tech news, but you don't end up in comment threads (unless it's an Ask HN/etc, hence why I'm commenting now). Occasionally I load up HN in a different browser if I want to take a break and r…

> There's lots of great content in the comments, but it's also a fantastic way to waste time. But I learn more from the comments than from the articles!

I agree with this. I find it not only interesting, but also informative to hear other people's take on articles, both for their opinion and added knowledge of something that may not be in the article. Sometimes the discussions veer a little bit which adds more background/relevant/related information. At least for me, the more I know about a subject, the more angles I'm aware of, and the more context I have, allows me to not only absorb it better, but it also allows me to develop or realize the theory behind the matter. From there, I can better apply what I'm reading/learning to other situations.

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#79

Post by Too »

im2w1l wrote: post #34
guelo wrote: post #6

I'm just here because my compile times are slow. 3 hours later… after 12 tweets, reading 6 articles, filing a GitHub issue, and watching a show on Netflix… what was I building?

Anyone have any tips for a productive way to deal with long compile times?

Go play a game of ping pong. Saving yourself from RSI and carpel tunnel is considered productive in my book.

Re: Stop looking at HN and go work that thing you promised yourself you'd work on

#80

Post by djhn »

im2w1l wrote: post #34
guelo wrote: post #6

I'm just here because my compile times are slow. 3 hours later… after 12 tweets, reading 6 articles, filing a GitHub issue, and watching a show on Netflix… what was I building?

Anyone have any tips for a productive way to deal with long compile times?

Get up, walk around, stretch, think. Talk to other people, unless it's interrupting them.
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