My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet • Hacker News Board

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#61

Post by dspeyer » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 2:20 PM UTC

Let us know how it goes in the end. Do your ideas actually improve?

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#62

Post by jamesrcole » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 2:21 PM UTC

By all means, cut back on internet use, but if your goal is to come up with important ideas that's not much of a strategy. [EDIT: grammar]

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#63

Post by imgabe » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 2:30 PM UTC

I'm curious to see if there will be a follow up where he shares all of the non-shitty ideas he has while disconnected from the Internet.

Personally, I'm a little skeptical of the statement "The main difference between my ten year old self and me is the internet." I can think of many, many things that have changed since I was 10 years old that have far more impact than the Internet.

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#64

Post by jpdoctor » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

I've been thinking about this lately, too. A long time ago, I spent almost no time on the internet, because there wasn't really much of an internet to speak of. Instead, I wrote code. Lots, and lots, and lots of code. Some of it in assembly; some of it, even, in hex, with tons of printed pages of processor instructions in front of me. Feats like that required a level of concentration that I find almost impossible to…

First of all: Well put.

> but the simple fact is, a significant part of my personality would rather mindlessly browse the internet instead of focusing intently for a long enough period of time to do something productive.

Perhaps OT, but I've come to the conclusion that this is a modern form of gluttony: We are feeding ourselves far beyond the point of nourishment.

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#65

Post by BigZaphod » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 3:10 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

I've been thinking about this lately, too. A long time ago, I spent almost no time on the internet, because there wasn't really much of an internet to speak of. Instead, I wrote code. Lots, and lots, and lots of code. Some of it in assembly; some of it, even, in hex, with tons of printed pages of processor instructions in front of me. Feats like that required a level of concentration that I find almost impossible to…

I can relate to the and immediately switch to Twitter, email, etc. In fact, this is me right now!

However when I'm working on something truly interesting and challenging, all the distractions vanish. Tweets go unread, emails unanswered, RSS ignored. Unfortunately that state has become a lot more rare lately as I slug away on uninteresting parts of the project and my mind wanders to new ideas I don't have time or opportunity to play with.

I do think that when I was younger it was easier to be utterly immersed in a project because the whole thing was still new and challenging. Now some of the stuff I used to spend hours or days or weeks toiling away with intense concentration feel like.. busy work. It feels like I shouldn't have to program in assembly anymore and that it's tedious. It feels like I shouldn't have to implement yet another . The act of implementing a lot of the small pieces are no longer interesting and instead I just want to get on to the large scale interesting bits, but it can seem that there's so much boilerplate and cruft in the way...

And so I check Hacker News...

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#66

Post by nrser » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 3:12 PM UTC

seems like the next next best widgets for hooking up with people at college and telling your friends what you're doing at SxSW have turned out to be things rather important in some of the most pivotal events we've recently seen in developing countries.

the place the first and third world are perhaps the closest in on the internet.

Re: My ideas are shitty so I'm going on an Internet diet

#67

Post by KirinDave » Wed, Aug 17, 2011, 3:31 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

I've been thinking about this lately, too. A long time ago, I spent almost no time on the internet, because there wasn't really much of an internet to speak of. Instead, I wrote code. Lots, and lots, and lots of code. Some of it in assembly; some of it, even, in hex, with tons of printed pages of processor instructions in front of me. Feats like that required a level of concentration that I find almost impossible to…

The most successful technique I've found to fight my own periodic recalcitrance is to get enough sleep. Seriously, being even a little tired weakens my focus so much.

The second is, when I'm having very bad days, I will try and recognize that and bust out the Pomodoro method. In general I don't need it, but I've worked with it a bunch and it's "just 10 more minutes" philosophy and ever-ticking-timer help me play a carrot-stick game when I'm otherwise unable to get a good cognitive state going.