

I'm quitting Hacker News - phiggy
http://blog.steveklabnik.com/im-quitting-hacker-news

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pg
This sounds like a good idea. HN can be addictive. I often wish I could take a
break myself.

~~~
c2
It seems HN has lost a lot of very valuable contributors lately due to the
impact HN has on general productivity.

Have you given any thought to measures to stem this tide of dissent?

The most productive people would probably tend to have the best insights, and
if the trend keeps up it almost feels like I'm getting advice/comments from
those with generally lower productivity.

~~~
pg
I'd rather lose people because the site is too good than because it's too bad.
And I don't think we've lost a _lot_ recently. I can only remember 2. If we
got two smart new users in the same time, which is quite possible, we're ok.

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cpr
One thing I've found works well (though you won't see this ;-) is to alias
things like HN & Drudgereport & NYT to localhost, and only view them on an
iPad. The fact that I have to physically shift my attention to another screen,
one that isn't as large & easy to manipulate (for this old emacs hacker),
makes it more of a chore and a choice one makes, rather than falling into bad
habits.

Also, on the Mac, SelfControl works pretty well. I can turn off all the
interesting sites for 8 hours at a time and not worry about them.

~~~
carols10cents
Steve actually wrote a pomodoro gem that aliases sites like that for 25
minutes at a time: <https://github.com/steveklabnik/pomodoro>

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ww520
The game mechanic of social sites like HN is not helping general productivity.
The usage of HN should be an award of real work being done.

Here's an idea. (someone implements it quick :)

\- Block all distracting sites. Can be done as simply as remapping the
hostnames to localhost.

\- Monitor user activities. Hook into the OS to monitor keystrokes and mouse
movement (I know how to do it on Windows, not sure about other OS).

\- Accumulate reward points for work activities. Factor both intensity of
typing and duration into the reward. Display reward points to visually
encourage work.

\- Once reward points reach a certain level, a half-hour or hourly pass is
granted to access the blocked sites.

\- Once the time on the pass is used up, the sites are blocked again.

Bonus: block all games or other distracting programs.

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tremt
Quitting to spend more time doing constructive things is good.

Quitting, but spending the whole day on #startups IRC channel wasting time, is
just, well, a waste of time (like others who "quit" just to hang on IRC).

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allwein
Good riddance! (This place really is a time suck if you let it).

Congrats on grad school. I still owe you a coffee/beer if I run into you
around town.

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mncolinlee
And don't let the placeholder kittens rub you on the way out. ;)

