71–80 of 111 posts
I too had this issue of spending too much time on HN till I built a Chrome extension that inserts random items from my todo list at the bottom of each page, and by the time I click on "More," the incomplete todo starts bugging me.
I kicked my habit by installing a host block script in my Tomato router. Just added reddit and HN to blacklisted hosts (I know I can undo it but it's too much work and it disables ad blocking too). Now anytime I want to visit HN i have to switch to slow 4G and it makes me concious of my decision and slow internet also makes it less fun. I haven't visited reddit in almost 6 months now (used to refresh it every hour).…
I also keep them blocked on my computer and only check them on my phone. I keep my phone in grayscale mode so it's much less engaging. Another thing that worked for me was writing a custom js script to filter out posts I hid without loading other content to replace it. That way I could filter things down so that there's only 1 or 2 threads left that I'm interested in and there's no need to keep scanning the same head…
This entire concept seems to allow phone providers to not implement real controls over eg actually providing access to a host file or concerted network blocking software.
I learn a lot from HN, and I believe every profession should have its own HN.
I've been working on an Addiction Blocker for this site and many others. It's not ready for primetime yet but I offer it as a preview to the addicted participants of this thread https://github.com/a13o/disengaged
Sounds interesting! I would recommend you to add some examples of what your extention actually does. The code of ethics only gives me a vague idea.
There's no doubt that I spent a lot of time on HN, but there have been at least a few times that I've learned of things that directly impact my work first here. Off the top of my head, I knew that Sentry had rolled out hosted instance that were HIPAA-compliant when my team was about to install it and host it internally. That knowledge let us outsource it to them and ultimately save a good deal of time and money. More…
Agreed, the things I've learned on HN have helped me professionally in numerous ways. One thing I find concerning about HN is I think there is an increasing prevalence of political and social commentary on the front-page. Those kinds of posts are worse than useless, because they displace potentially really good content.
I too had this issue of spending too much time on HN till I built a Chrome extension that inserts random items from my todo list at the bottom of each page, and by the time I click on "More," the incomplete todo starts bugging me.
Anyway, good job on coming up with a solution to fix the addiction.
There's no doubt that I spent a lot of time on HN, but there have been at least a few times that I've learned of things that directly impact my work first here. Off the top of my head, I knew that Sentry had rolled out hosted instance that were HIPAA-compliant when my team was about to install it and host it internally. That knowledge let us outsource it to them and ultimately save a good deal of time and money. More…
A lot of what I know I know through Hacker News. HN has shaped my world view. Over the years I learned about starting a business, databases, programming languages, meditation, web development, interpersonal relationships and many things more. Writing HN comments and getting immediate feedback through comment score has improved my writing skills. Even more significantly, I found my previous job which was amazing through Hacker News. I moved halfway across the globe to California for it.
But over the years, I feel like HN becoming less and less valuable for me. I feel like I am wasting a lot of time here these days. Maybe HN has changed. Maybe I have changed. Maybe I just know a lot more about startups and webdev so there are diminishing returns. It's becoming more and more like addiction.
I'm wondering what the solution is. I tried blocking HN in my host file, but I found worse ways to waste my time on the internet. Maybe a reading later app is it, but I doubt it.
I believe Chrome's auto-complete has a lot to do with how many times I check HN and other websites. It's automatic... I open a new tab and three key strokes and I'm here. Does anyone know of an existing way to disable auto-complete just for some websites? I still need it for work related stuff, but I bet that if I had to type everything all the time it would be easier to prevent constant checks.
On Firefox, I disable autocompletion from browser history, but keep it enabled for bookmarks. So much easier to avoid unwanted side-tracks.
"I went to a web page sometime in... February? Or November? It was something about widgets... types in 'wid' Oh there it is."