

Say Hello to My Little Friend (the Tony Montana of the internet) - greatjackie
http://tweetagewasteland.com/2010/06/say-hello-to-my-little-friend/

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ThomPete
That is so right on the money it's not even funny.

I have recently tried to only check mail twice a day, check twitter twice a
day. I can't however get myself to not check HN many times a day.

We are slaves of the feed as I wrote in a post a while back. There are too
much information and too little bandwidth to consume it all. We have become
bottle necks, yet we suck it up and dream of a better future where information
is consumed and screened just as effortlessly and critically as when we look
around the room.

This is not the real time we've been looking for.

~~~
oldgregg
Slaves we are, information is the soma of the gilded age.

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iron_ball
Accurate in some ways, an overreaction in others. What did we do while waiting
in bank lines before we had cellphones? At best, we brought a dead-trees book.
Nothing wrong with that, but it's not inherently better.

Checking your email while playing with your kids or cuddling with your wife is
one thing. Skimming the news on the bus or in a grocery checkout line is
something else entirely.

~~~
mortenjorck
Spot-on.

I have come to appreciate the easily-accessible airplane mode on most modern
smartphones as much more than a setting to accommodate FAA requirements—it's
an extremely valuable social tool.

With a few swipes, you can concentrate on what's around you, who you're
talking with, and nothing else. When you're done, you can go back to the
cloud.

~~~
ericd
I'm always surprised at how productive I am in the plane when I'm not
distracted by the net. I read better, absorb info better, program faster, etc.
And my thought process goes much deeper into problems when I've just got a pen
and paper.

Hm, I should try airplane mode for my computer when I'm not on the airplane.

~~~
Timothee
Actually, I've been kind of doing that in the past couple of weeks: I'm
working on a project for which I don't really need the net (except for
reference/doc sometimes) but I get distracted with Facebook, Twitter, HN, back
to Facebook…

So, instead of Starbucks, I started to go to our building's TV room where I
can't get Internet access. It helps a lot. In case I really need to look up
something, I still have my iPhone, but EDGE speed is a good deterrent.

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siculars
The lotus eaters are among us and surely we shall be them in short order.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters>

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acangiano
I will forever remember the prophetic warning in the preface of Zen and the
Art of the Internet:

"One warning is perhaps in order -- this territory we are entering can become
a fantastic time-sink. Hours can slip by, people can come and go, and you'll
be locked into Cyberspace. Remember to do your work!"

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epelbaum
My kids went from asking what my iphone was to asking if they could play with
it to asking me to put it away.

~~~
scurryjimjoe
Man that sounds familiar

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resdirector
I had this idea for a "swear jar" for the internet. Every time you go to a
site like news.ycombinator.com or click your gmail tab, it puts 50c in the
"swear jar". And you get the money back at the end of the month.

Users would be able to choose the list of sites, and the disincentive (50c,
$1, $2 etc) for each one. The aim would be to subtly change your thinking
patterns from: "I'm bored, check _x_ " to "Maybe I should use this time for
constructive thinking".

I'd like to build a company based on this idea...the company makes a profit
from investing the money in users' swear jars.

~~~
prawn
Not much of a penalty if you get the money back. Have it donate to an
organisation or political party you cannot stand instead - you'll have a
stronger incentive to minimise the damage if every dollar goes to the enemy.

~~~
resdirector
Good point.

However, if done right, it's feasible that users could end up having $50 or
thereabouts perpetually in the swear jar...which (at least for me) would be a
big disincentive.

If the penalty is immediate, obvious and doesn't explicitly remind you that
you will get your money back, then I contend the brain's instinct is to
cringe.

Maybe you get the money back in 3 months rather than 1 month: you see a
browser plugin displaying how much you've already spent on HN and you think
"ouch...I'm not getting that back for a while".

~~~
prawn
For people who weren't necessarily good at saving money, it might prove to be
an effective savings technique ("Oh $50, just in time to pay the water bill!')
rather than a disincentive. You need to lose the money, even if it's just to
your wife to spend on shoes.

~~~
resdirector
Yup, good point...you could be right. Only one way to find out...I'm going to
give it a try, (and will probably be my entry to the next round of YC).

~~~
prawn
Have heard of it before so I suspect it's already been done at some level
though I think it related to longer-term goals (e.g., quit smoking by date x
or lose your 'bond' to some nutbag political org).

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phreanix
Say what you will, the majority of us can totally relate to at least one of
his paragraphs.

The more access I have to information, the more I find myself thirsting and
craving for it. As with anything, it requires serious discipline to control
it. But these little data and information pushing devices are exactly what
makes it so difficult!

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scurryjimjoe
"I went from being the Tony Montana who came to Miami with nothing and worked
his way to the top through a combination of sheer will, toughness and a knack
for avoiding chainsaws, to being the Tony Montana who was unconsciously
fantasizing about his sister and yelling obscenities to an empty room while
soaking neck-deep in a cocaine-fueled bubble bath."

Yup. There's an App for That.

~~~
rationalbeaver
All of the apps are for that.

------
Dove
I grew up hearing my mother say, "My cell phone is for my convenience, not
yours," and "If it's important, they can leave a message." Do not let constant
connection tyrannize your attention. Do not let trivia distract you from
important things. Let it ring. If you're doing something cool, they'll
understand.

Also, your mental appetites are like your physical appetites: you crave what
you eat. If you eat a lot of chocolate, you'll crave chocolate; soda and soda;
tomatoes and tomatoes. The more you check your Facebook, the more you'll want
to. Do it hourly and you'll follow every link, tag every photo, reply to every
comment. Go without it for a couple days, and when you return your visit will
be quick and non-compulsive, skimming the good stuff and going back to other
things.

------
iamwil

      #/etc/hosts
      #127.0.0.1     www.facebook.com
      #127.0.0.1     news.ycombinator.com
      #127.0.0.1     www.reddit.com
    
      #!/bin/sh
      #/usr/local/bin/startwork
      bash -c "awk '{sub(/#127/, "127")};{print}' /etc/hosts > /etc/hosts.new; mv /etc/hosts.new /etc/hosts;"

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ewams
I wish you well and hope you become whatever you think is 'better'. People
make fun of me because I talk to random strangers when in lines or waiting for
someone at dinner. Yet the people with me are doing the same thing, just on
their phones through text messages and super pokes. One of them made a comment
today while waiting in line to order for lunch, "it is ok, most of my friends
I really only talk to through IM anyways." We were discussing how difficult it
was (not very apparently) to live out of your country. How awesome is that?

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moultano
Related:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?pagewanted=all)

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jafl5272
This is why I read only HN, avoid Facebook, etc., and own a mobile phone which
isn't useful for anything except phone calls.

~~~
mr_justin
This site is a time sink as much as any other.

~~~
jafl5272
The more time sinks you follow, the larger the net drain.

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revorad
I think the last few lines in the correct order should read:

You gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the
iPhone. Then you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the
women.

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krav
Reading this blog now - great observations!

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rokhayakebe
I got rid of my cellphone for one month. I felt bad at times, but not as much
as I thought.

