Ask HN: Air gapped computer to avoid distractions when being creative? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Air gapped computer to avoid distractions when being creative?

#21

Post by grnrnm » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 8:59 AM UTC

NackerHughes wrote: post #13

You already know full well this will be a boon to productivity. Your resolve to publicly ruminate about it and ask what people think instead of, you know, just going and doing it, speaks volumes of your actual level of desire for reducing distractions by working on an airgapped computer over receiving attention and praise for your ingenious idea from random strangers on the internet. Saying "I've been thinking of ...…

That feels like an unfair assumption considering building an air gapped computer would cost potentially over a thousand dollars and take time to build. Plus potentially acquiring furniture and/or reorganizing existing furniture to accommodate a new build.

Re: Ask HN: Air gapped computer to avoid distractions when being creative?

#22

Post by vineyardmike » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 11:00 AM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #7

vineyardmike wrote: post #5

So it seems from comments that this is a thing others do, but I have a question for you OP: What’s to stop you from just reconnecting internet? If you went through different tools to accomplish this already, and you bypassed them all, why will this be the successful tool? Not to be too much of a downer, but I think you will fail if you try it. You already said that you see notices that you recognize aren’t helpful an…

The research seems to show that those who seem to have self-control are actually just good at creating an environment with fewer temptations. Air gapping works for me, although it's now 2PM and was 'sposed to have switched to my offline comp hours ago. I've been using a comp with hard drive slots so I just switch hard drives, reboot and go. Making it hard for yourself to be bad, is good, generally. For catastrophic t…

> The research seems to show that those who seem to have self-control are actually just good at creating an environment with fewer temptations.

I think the actual notion of “self control” is kinda fake but I also don’t believe there exists research to defend your point.

There are lots of people who all have brains that work very differently and lots of type of “work” to be done that requires wildly different environments. If it was true that controlling distractions was straightforward through environmental management then everyone’s office would be a strike while room with no seams or windows.

Re: Ask HN: Air gapped computer to avoid distractions when being creative?

#23

Post by Nomentatus » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #22

Nomentatus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research seems to show that those who seem to have self-control are actually just good at creating an environment with fewer temptations. Air gapping works for me, although it's now 2PM and was 'sposed to have switched to my offline comp hours ago. I've been using a comp with hard drive slots so I just switch hard drives, reboot and go. Making it hard for yourself to be bad, is good, generally. For catastrophic t…

> The research seems to show that those who seem to have self-control are actually just good at creating an environment with fewer temptations. I think the actual notion of “self control” is kinda fake but I also don’t believe there exists research to defend your point. There are lots of people who all have brains that work very differently and lots of type of “work” to be done that requires wildly different environm…

Maybe before calling someone a liar next time; do a little googling. There are literally decades of studies here. Start with this one, and it's bibliography:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain...

Dig in further by googling "pubmed" and then entering your terms for a search. Stop fantasizing about what peer-reviewed studies do and don't exist: there's an internet, now; you can find them in seconds.