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The Hacker News Habit
- orf 8y agoInteresting idea, and I think I suffer from the same thing. I just save stories to Pocket and read them later, I'm not sure if this email based delivery has many advantages over that?
- microcolonel 8y agoIt is a tremendous time sink, but I generally enjoy it. I don't spend a lot of time shooting up on Facebook, Instagram, etc. so I think on balance I'm largely okay.
- codewritinfool 8y agoI definitely have this.
- kodablah 8y ago> To note, I did use coroutines, which as of Kotlin 1.1 is still an experimental feature. Mostly unrelated to the post at large, but coming up in 1.3 they are no longer experimental: https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2018/07/see-whats-coming-in-kotlin-1-3-m1/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2018/07/see-whats-coming-i...
- bdcravens 8y agoShouldn't this be prefaced with "Show HN"?
- LyndsySimon 8y agoThere'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 often, I'll come across a problem and remember something that I've read that's applicable well enough to at least find it later when I need it. I consider my time on HN and similar outlets at least partially "professional development."
- Raphmedia 8y agoSame. I would be ashamed to browse FB of Twitter at work. But HN? I browse it full-screen without any guilt. Edit: That being said, I use this bookmarklet to shift through content faster and waste less time. https://smmry.com/bookmark https://smmry.com/bookmark I also "Pocket" everything that is too long to read right now.
- breck 8y agoAgreed. I haven't quantified it but I would ballpark I come across 25+ things per year that directly save me significant hours of work, lead me to much better solutions to a problem, provide a lead that would help me with investing/employment/helping a friend/etc. That in addition to the intellectual stimulation and enjoyment from the other articles is why I don't feel bad about spending ~30 minutes a day here everyday. Warren Buffett supposedly has read the WSJ for decades every morning. I think to many of us here this is our WSJ. Finally, for years I've used HN as the fastest way to check my internet connection. :)
- throwaway413 8y agoI’m glad I’m not the only one who tests internet connectivity via HN!
- dberg 8y agoUsed to be ping yahoo.com in the 90s :-)
- your-nanny 8y agome too, and just today! like right now. ha!
- kurthr 8y agoIt even works through the GreatFirewall! A great tool :)
- etrautmann 8y agoI use this as my default connectivity check as well!
- antoineMoPa 8y agoI scrolled some paragraphs without reading and read "Unfocused Reading is a Terrible Thing to Do". Oops.
- janee 8y agoHahaha, how meta. Scrolled through the comments and read this. Ok I'll read more than the article title now
- keithnz 8y agoquite often I read the comments before reading the article. Often in the comments there are insightful things on parts of the article and then when you read the article you can pay attention to the right spots.
- eddyg 8y agoImpressive that you went "Android first" even though you were already familiar with iOS development! Kudos for that. I often click to read the HN comments first, because they are often full of insight and interesting links. (This is also why I read HN from a custom #newsyc channel in our work Slack that posts links once they hit 20 points: it allows time for initial comments to accumulate, and Slack helpfully keeps track of "new" posts.) Simply bookmarking the article itself to read later would not be as useful to me personally, but I bet there are lots of people who would find your approach helpful.
- screaminghawk 8y agoI read the comments first as well. It's often a good indicator of whether or not the article is worth reading. And more often than not there are better references in the comments than the original source. Would be really interested in that Slack bot if you have the source handy.
- Swenrekcah 8y agoI read the comments because HN is a lightweight and quick site and I don’t know how slow the target page might be.
- Topgamer7 8y agoI up voted all of the ancestors of this comment because I agree with all of them. Pretty much hit the nail on the head there. To add to the slow page load bit, I often read the comments to get an intelligent discourse as well as find out of the article is pay walled.
- almata 8y ago> Simply bookmarking the article itself to read later [...] I actually send the HN discussion itself to my Reading List. So when I find some time I start with the comments here and then decide whether or not I should read the article. And tbf most of the times I get enough information here and never follow the link to the main reading.
- bmc7505 8y agoIf you're already familiar with iOS, you might enjoy using Kotlin Native. KotlinConf has a demo app for iOS written in Kotlin Native: https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlinconf-app https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlinconf-app
- burritofanatic 8y agoMan, how did I miss this? I'll check this out! Thanks!
- onemoresoop 8y agoI'm in the same boat and I don't think it's a waste, I learned quite a bit in the last couple of months from HN. And it's the comments that make it hard to close a tab for a few days, there is a lot of wisdom here. I want to thank all for your contribution.
- eibrahim 8y agoI fixed my addiction by simply signing up at https://www.hndigest.com/ https://www.hndigest.com/ and setting to only send 5 links daily. I usually end up just reading 1 or 2 of those if they interest me. PS: no affiliation with that website. Just a happy user.
- davidverhasselt 8y agoHey, developer of hndigest here, thanks for being a happy user, and great to hear that it's helping you :) Anything I can do to make it even better?
- eibrahim 8y agoNot sure. I Haven’t given it much thought. I guess it’s work well enough :)
- davidverhasselt 8y agoHehe, good news I guess! Just hit reply on the digest if/when anything comes to mind :)
- berbec 8y agoInteresting monitization strategy. The app asks for $5 to read an article now.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ransom1538 8y agoTo cure your HN problem on a macbook, open a terminal: $ sudo su; $ echo "127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com" >> /etc/hosts
- unit91 8y agoI've tried this. The problem is I also know $ sudo vim /etc/hosts Gdd:wq
- chongli 8y agoGddZZ Saves a few keystrokes!
- drhodes 8y agoyep, I took this a step further and made a little bash script to automate it https://gist.github.com/drhodes/c1ce517c1704d4daedef73259b0c60c2 https://gist.github.com/drhodes/c1ce517c1704d4daedef73259b0c... supports multiple domains stored in ~/.selfcontrol
- draw_down 8y agoI don't think you can really code or tool your way out of a discipline problem, you just need to work on the discipline directly. That being said, I am terrible with will power/discipline/etc
- sarreph 8y ago> While on the site, within a span of five minutes, I typically attempt to skim everything I’ve marked with interest. Afterward, I return to my work not feeling like I’ve read anything substantive, and by the end of the day, I forget about the links I’ve opened up, including the ones I meant to revisit. This is so on-the-mark for me it’s unreal! :) I feel I’m in a sizeable segment of the HN population in that I spend more time in the comments than on articles, so something that helps provide wholesome access to more article content is a great initiative. Thanks for creating something that attempts to solve this ‘problem’. Kudos to you for shipping an Android build!
- lazysheepherd 8y agoI personally use two Chrome extensions for this; 1- Reading List[1]: Allows you to save current tab to your reading list, later from which you can search and mark as read. A nice bonus is you keep your article history at the same time. 2- Tab Snooze[2]: This extension closes current tab and prompts you with options on when to pop it back in the future. [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reading-list/lloccabjgblebdmncjndmiibianflabo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reading-list/llocc... [2]:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-snooze/pdiebiamhaleloakpcgmpnenggpjbcbm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-snooze/pdiebia...
- yawz 8y agoLike most of you, I come here regularly and I go to the comments first (most of the time), but I add most of the articles that I'd like to read to Pocket (a read-it-later tool) so that I prioritize what I want to read at a later time when I have more time.
- goshx 8y agoI 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.
- distortedsignal 8y agoIt would require discipline, but you could only read HN in incognito/private mode. Delete your history for a fresh start. I do this on my phone - it's not as helpful as I thought it would be.
- wolco 8y agoDon't delete your entire history. When the site appears during autocomplete simply press the [delete /[del] key.
- r00fus 8y agoDoes Chrome auto-complete rely on history? If so, periodically scripting a purge on the history file [1] may selectively gimp your autocomplete as required. Downside, you lose your history - won't find that great tip/info you found but didn't bother to bookmark. Personally, I like tools that prevent me from resolving HN/reddit/etc during "vulnerable" (afternoon) hours. [1] https://superuser.com/questions/480646/how-can-i-delete-all-web-history-that-matches-a-specific-query-in-google-chrome https://superuser.com/questions/480646/how-can-i-delete-all-...
- m_ke 8y agoI just disabled it for everything, also there's a way to delete specific autocomplete suggestions from the results.
- exikyut 8y agoWhat? Three keystrokes?! You say you open a new tab and then three keystrokes you're there. Well, My _four_ keystrokes include opening the new tab. Depress CTRL; T; release CTRL; N; Return. Or I could say it's three "keyboard phrases" by saying it's ^T N Return, but that feels like cheating. TL;DR, "n" fully autocompletes to HN. At one point adding a "/" at the end of the URL (autocomplete just filled in the domain with no trailing "/") would complete to "/best", but I seem to have to do "/b" now.
- duck 8y agoGreat idea! I guess I'll throw out a shameless plug for my side-project, https://hackernewsletter.com https://hackernewsletter.com, which is a weekly newsletter filled with the posts I thought were worth a read.
- galfarragem 8y agoAfter trying several approaches what I found more useful is to have thumbnails[0] to skim HN faster.. [0] https://hnews.xyz/ https://hnews.xyz/
- bunchhieng 8y agohehe. I always read every single link on the front page every morning. check this out: https://github.com/Bunchhieng/hnreader https://github.com/Bunchhieng/hnreader
- clircle 8y agoCool, I use hnrss to generate an rss feed of stories with more than 30 comments. Works well on every device.
- zeristor 8y agoYou can like a story, and then look at your upvoted submissions from your admin page. You can write an app if you want though, but I like simple.
- soneil 8y agoSimilarly, I star things in my rss reader when I’m skimming, and then consume them when I have time to properly digest. Then unstar so they drop out the queue. Works well, works simple, and works for many more sources besides hn.
- Jaruzel 8y agoThere's also the 'favourite' link under the post title. That's good for keeping a list of stuff you want to revisit later.
- comboy 8y agoI'd love an alternative frontpage view with different time weight. Something that you could visit weekly without losing any big news.
- kukabynd 8y agoHave you tried https://hckrnews.com https://hckrnews.com?
- caspar 8y agoConsider http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ - I've been keeping up using this for years.
- lopespm 8y agoSame here, for years. It was the best way I could find to consume HN. It does not require a newsletter subscription and one can consult it whenever he/she wishes. I normally consult it once or twice per day, and make a conscious effort to focus my attention on that task for a continuous time amount.
- superasn 8y agoI 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). HN too is 10% compared to what it was before. As other users have commented the reason I still check it 3 4 times a day is because there is often news that relates directly to my business (launch of Google wavenet for example) and benefits me.
- m_ke 8y agoI 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 headlines over and over.
- drb91 8y agoWho is engaged with their phone for colors rather than content? If anything, text seems MORE engaging in greyscale. 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.
- barbs 8y ago> slow 4G That wouldn't work in Australia, 4G is considered fast for most of us :)
- cptn_brittish 8y ago4G is quicker then fttp for me it's getting ridiculous.
- t1o5 8y agoI made 'lesshn' to filter out the feeds containing certain words that I am not interested in. You can create your own filters(via REST API) and bookmark it. https://lesshn.microapps.xyz https://lesshn.microapps.xyz
- mobilehnuser 8y agoI'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 https://github.com/a13o/disengaged
- nloomans 8y agoSounds 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.
- mobilehnuser 8y agoI'll do that next. Some screenshots of before and after
- freeflight 8y agoIt's kind of super interesting how people are trying to "self-condition trough code", the socio-psychological aspects of this, especially in the context of the "attention economy" are also kinda scary. A bit like biological weapon researchers trying to immunize themselves against their own weapons. Sorry for the crass example, it's not meant as negative as it sounds, but overall it's a pretty good comparison.
- leetbulb 8y agoReally cool that Kenney designed the logo. I've been learning game development lately and have found his asset packs very useful. Small world!
- mobilehnuser 8y agoIt wasn't designed for the plugin I just used to do a lot of game jams and used his art packs so they're my goto for placeholder art. Before I officially launch the plugin I'll get something more customized
- habosa 8y agoAnyone else here use the noprocrast setting built in to HN? Surprise not to see it mentioned I have my HN set up so that I need 3 hours between each 20m visit.
- orn688 8y agoBut it's still so easy to just clear cookies or open it in an incognito tab...
- keithnz 8y agojust for peoples FYI, there are multiple ways to consume HN, quite a few people have built various tools for getting the best out of HN, I've been tryin to keep track of various ones here https://github.com/keithn/HackerNewsCommunity https://github.com/keithn/HackerNewsCommunity ( also updated with ones linked to in the comments here )
- scns 8y agoyou could add the Android app Materialistic
- vinc 8y agoIt's a good idea, being more mindful of the content we consume is the key. Last year I made a little website to control how much time I want to spend on HN. For instance I have one page where the 10 most upvoted items for the week are listed, and I hide them as I read them. When the list is empty it means I'm done for now. https://news.vinc.cc/search?q=hn+sort:top+time:week+limit:10 https://news.vinc.cc/search?q=hn+sort:top+time:week+limit:10 (open sourced here: https://github.com/vinc/news.vinc.cc https://github.com/vinc/news.vinc.cc) Also work for Reddit.
- nkg 8y agoI learn a lot from HN, and I believe every profession should have its own HN.
- ryeguy_24 8y agoI totally agree. All I know is datatau.com for data science but nowhere near as active as HN. I guess other professions may not be sitting in front of their computers all day (e.g. doctors).
- lunulata 8y agoI think this is more the author's remaining twitter habit dying hard than a hacker news related habit. I like hacker news because it gives decent posts for focused reading rather than the twitter no-focus skimming or the reddit meme fest.
- arikrak 8y ago> At the moment, a user can’t read the items on the app unless they penalize themselves by buying credits. Although the app is about breaking the bad habit of reading the items immediately.. I think there can also be an issue with always saving things to read later. I often end up saving more articles to pocket than I actually end up reading. It may be a good idea to reduce overall "unfocused" browse-and-click time too...
- hackpert 8y agoI 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.
- caseymarquis 8y agoDo you have source for that available? I'm assuming it's pretty specific to your list, but it sounds like it'd be easy to adapt.
- hackpert 8y agoI open sourced an old version of this for reddit a few years ago here, if it helps: https://github.com/hackpert/dooly https://github.com/hackpert/dooly. The one I use currently picks things from my org-mode agenda and inserts them across various places, but that should be fairly easy to change and integrate with any other todo list app with an API. I'll try and clean up personal information from the code sometime this week and update the project.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y agoI find a lot of 'productivity' hacks kinda clumsy, but that's actually really clever. I love the idea of nagging/guilting you into making better choices, rather than having hard limits on your time, etc. And if you already keep a to-do list, it's entirely automatic.
- mesozoic 8y agoI handle it by saving all the articles into pocket then never actually reading them. One Day.
- max23_ 8y agoI too have the same habit of browsing HN on a daily basis. Normally I browse through the list of articles that I might be interested in and add them as favorite so I can revisit them later. Anyway, good job on coming up with a solution to fix the addiction.
- mpolsz 8y agoI follow @HNTweets on Twitter (pretty much only thing I follow) and I scroll through it every time I have a free moment that would be wasted otherwise (bus rides or long queues come to mind). I find it easier to follow because every post that hit front page goes there but posts are added only once and are ordered by time.
- scns 8y agoI use Materialistic, an Android app on my phone. When i skim the headlines 1-30 i just swipe to save em. Has several themes, a black one which saves energy on amoleds and solarized too. Found it via F-Droid but i am pretty sure it is in the play store. Working and reading hn are separated that way.
- leetbulb 8y agoThere are certainly worse things you could be doing with your time.
- nobrains 8y agoI love your mechanism to fund your app (or at least how I understood it), by letting people by credits to let them break rules. You could tweak it so that every user can set their own amount per credit (so that the app plays fair to all income groups) and this way the user is satisfied and understands that the payment is both a donation to your app and a penalty for their instant gratification. More apps should try this model. The key is to also let the user set their own penalty otherwise it will not work.
- jani-boy 8y agoThe way I've done it is schedule an IFTTT that will search for a post with X points. This then will be served to my Pocket account so that I can read it later. By the end of the day, or while commuting, the Pocket app has links with X points that I can then consume.
- Kagerjay 8y agoI spend a lot of time here as well, but I find the things I gain from hackernews to be worth it
- advanced__pizza 8y agoHere I am on hacker news, reading about my hacker news habit...
- resalisbury 8y agoI use an RSS aggregator, Feedly, for hackernews and many other sites. Works like a charm.