Say Hello to My Little Friend (the Tony Montana of the internet)

http://tweetagewasteland.com/2010/06/say-hello-to-my-little-friend/

by greatjackie • 16 years ago

117 34 16 years ago

acangiano• 16 years ago

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!"

siculars• 16 years ago

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

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

scurryjimjoe2• 16 years ago

"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• 16 years ago

All of the apps are for that.

jafl52722• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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

jafl52722• 16 years ago

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

epelbaum• 16 years ago

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

scurryjimjoe2• 16 years ago

Man that sounds familiar

ThomPete• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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

iron_ball2• 16 years ago

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.

run4yourlives• 16 years ago

What did we do while waiting in bank lines before we had cellphones?

Nothing. That's the point.

iron_ball2• 16 years ago

What makes that better? "Scheduled downtime" such as meditation or a walk in the park is wonderful, but waiting in line at the grocery store is hardly conducive to inner tranquility.

mortenjorck• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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.

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

"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."

Really? How often do you check a feed or a news site or your E-mail, and find that either there is nothing new, or mere triviality, effectively nothing? Adding up all that time, you come out with nothing. At least with a book all that time adds up to having read a book.

ewams• 16 years ago

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?

Dove• 16 years ago

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.

moultano• 16 years ago

phreanix• 16 years ago

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!

resdirector3• 16 years ago

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.

prawn3• 16 years ago

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.

resdirector3• 16 years ago

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".

iamwil• 16 years ago

  #/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;"

krav• 16 years ago

Reading this blog now - great observations!

rokhayakebe• 16 years ago

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

revorad• 16 years ago

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.

Say Hello to My Little Friend (the Tony Montana of the internet)

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