Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

by christophe971 • 16 years ago

320 205 16 years ago

donothingfor2minutes.com

Khao• 16 years ago

I'm sad that it said I failed when I pressed the "Volume Up" key on my keyboard.. I couldn't hear the waves!

blinks2• 16 years ago

Seems like it should just reset in that case.

Honestly, didn't find it too difficult; just dropped into chair-zazen for a couple minutes.

mcantor2• 16 years ago

*chairzen

Fixed that for you.

coderholic6• 16 years ago

When you fail it only resets the counter, and then continues to count down. Just wait another 2 minutes! :)

mcantor2• 16 years ago

Strangely "Fails" for me every 3 seconds (Chrome stable, Windows Vista, Vimium installed).

coderholic6• 16 years ago

I've hooked up the resetCounter function to quite a few events, including "blur". Have you got another window that's stealing the focus regularly, such as an IM client or something?

wmblaettler2• 16 years ago

Mine does the same (Chrome+WinXP). Makes it incredibly hard to sit through when it's yelling Fail at me every time the counter gets to 1:57 regardless of me not actually doing anything. I only think I could sit through about 30 seconds of it flashing Fail until I left (tempted to debug, but too busy with work). I also briefly wondered if that was the test -- to sit through the buggy countdown clock without trying to troubleshoot why it's broken, if that's the test, I failed.

wmblaettler2• 16 years ago

FYI, if I open the page in Chrome with cursor outside of the screen it counts down to 0, if my mouse is within the screen, it says Fail at about 1:57 continuously.

coderholic6• 16 years ago

I had a lot of fun writing this, and it's great to see it taking off. Waiting 2 minutes was impossible for me, I had to set the counter to 2 seconds while testing it! :)

biot• 16 years ago

It would be fun to see a graph of how long people last. :)

deno• 16 years ago

Yup, and especially how it correlates against Referrer.

Though the author would probably need to add <START> button, to minimize the unintentional fails. Also failing could be adjusted for accidental mouse movements, perhaps by ignoring distances of just couple of pixels.

othello• 16 years ago

Well done, the waves are actually quite relaxing.

edw519• 16 years ago

1:58 FAIL

Kinda like my sex life.

aDemoUzer• 16 years ago

Congrats on having one.

Vivtek• 16 years ago

Failed for unknown reasons three times in a row. Thinking it was noise on my mouse scrollwheel, I took the batteries out of it. I'm gratified to learn this was unintentional.

This said, the site is really, really making me think about moving back to Puerto Rico.

necolas• 16 years ago

Nice idea; made me realise how few "do nothing" breaks I take in a day...0. I'd probably like to use it throughout the day if the problems in Chrome were ironed out.

Failed for me every time before I even did anything (Chrome, Vista). When I changed tab, and then came back without mousing into the viewport, the FAIL message didn't appear...but neither did the clock count down.

Works in Firefox 3.6 though.

dgl• 16 years ago

I was doing really well until my curiosity got the better of me and I viewed the source to see why there was no sound (no flash installed).

Although it seems in Safari I can succeed by loading it in a background tab :).

megamark16• 16 years ago

Passed it on my first try. In fact, I didn't realize it was a pass/fail kind of thing until I came here, I just assumed it was a self test.

I found that the time seemed to pass more slowly when I closed me eyes. I had my eyes closed for the first minute, and I opened them when I thought it should have been about two minutes, only to discover that I still had a minute left.

Nice job, bookmarked for future relaxation.

martinkallstrom• 16 years ago

Succeeds easily on ipad. No sound though..

coderholic6• 16 years ago

That's cheating! :)

binarymax• 16 years ago

Thanks for this. Will use it every day.

ethanhuynh• 16 years ago

having gone through this, it actually makes me feel like the longest 2 minutes of my life

curiousepic• 16 years ago

This would be a lot more difficult if it weren't for the sound and image - it occupied parts of my mind that would go crazy without any stimulation for that long.

hugh33• 16 years ago

I turned the sound off, and noticed that I have several species of birds singing in the background here.

Also the clock on my wall is really loud.

nicksergeant• 16 years ago

Not billable. Can't be on the page.

msluyter• 16 years ago

I was just thinking about the fact that much of my work requires me to pause for a short time -- while building my project, or running a query, or launching the huge honkin' java webapp and waiting for 10 billion classes to initialize -- but the pause is too short to make a useful context switch, and too long to simply wait through without getting bored. So typically, I often check e-mail, HN, or whatever, but then end up getting sidetracked. Being able to simply wait through these would be great. Unfortunately, developing this sort of mental discipline, along with exercising, making my bed, and eating out less often, falls on my "Things That Are Good For Me That I'll Probably Never Do" list.

iamwil• 16 years ago

Actually, that's one of my biggest problems when it comes to productivity. The REPL (read-eval-print loop) takes too long because the unit tests take too long to run, or the environment takes too long to load.

Recently, I took a day to tackle this problem for myself, and I've found that I'm just much more productive when I'm stuck in a quicker REPL loop, rather than when I need to wait and stare out the window--and then I get distracted.

idoh• 16 years ago

Can you run the tests in a thread instead though?

ericd• 16 years ago

I think this means you have a business case for a faster computer with an SSD...

mebassett• 16 years ago

yeah, I have that problem too. Those short pauses kill productivity. I think mediation may help. I've taken to sitting for 20min a day doing nothing. 2 minutes isn't that bad at all. I don't think it [mediation] requires much mental discipline to start; I still can't be bothered to exercise, make my bed, et cetera.

jcromartie2• 16 years ago

I'm pretty sure I saw this on HN before, but...

http://breckyunits.com/when_forced_to_wait_wait

hugh33• 16 years ago

My day job involves running simulations that take days to run. This has, unfortunately, made me into an epic multitasker, and keeping track of all the things I'm doing at any given time taxes my brain.

I don't think the "when forced to wait, wait" strategy would work well for me.

Timothee• 16 years ago

I could see that as a good page to redirect to in your hosts file for distracting sites like HN, reddit et al.

kennet• 16 years ago

Well played good sir.

tlrobinson• 16 years ago

Or add:

    open "http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/"

(or your OS's equivalent) to the beginning of any compilation that takes a significant amount of time.

staktrace• 16 years ago

Why is making your bed on that list? Is there an advantage to doing that that I'm unaware of?

uxp• 16 years ago

I had a basket ball coach as a kid who would always ask us if we left our beds unmade after a day of doing horribly, or not better than we should be. Nearly every time, without fail, when I was asked that question, the truth was that I had left it unmade. I also never liked the game, and still don't view the sport favorably, but every day since then I make sure to take the time to make my bed in the morning.

The fact of the matter is making the bed is entirely unimportant. It's symbolic of the state of always playing catch-up because you are behind from the moment you wake up. Nothing is more important than taking a few minutes to organize yourself and your living quarters, as well as everything else in your life, both physically and mentally. Hell, you could stand there and admire the wrinkles and folds of your unmade bed, if that is how you prefer it to be kept, just as long as you stand there and give yourself a minute (or two).

silentbicycle6• 16 years ago

Rather than hating GCC, I do wrist stretches. (search Aikido + wrist stretch; dojos call them different things) I'm an Emacs lover, though. Vimmers have a leg up, there.

Working with languages that destroy flow probably grounds more programming juju than most other major factors put together. Context switches kill. (PS, is your timesheet ready?)

nickluft• 16 years ago

Take baby steps to change behaviour. Don't believe in "will power".

http://www.slideshare.net/captology/stanford-6401325

Splines• 16 years ago

Timer also doesn't restart counting down if my mouse isn't on the page. (In other words, it will only start counting down if my mouse cursor is on top of the page - focus doesn't seem to matter). It's also failing immediately, probably because I have a ton of windows already open and two IM clients.

FWIW, I'm running Chrome on Win7.

stevenj• 16 years ago

Or just take a walk outside.

NathanKP2• 16 years ago

Out of determination I succeeded, even though by my calculations doing nothing for two minutes cost me $1.60 that I could have made writing code. Of course, I stopped the clock anyway when I clicked on the HN popup notification.

Edit: Just looked at the code. The programmer missed a great chance to gather some data. I would have tracked the fail events using Google Analytics so I could see how many fails on average per user from different traffic sources:

    _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Fail', 'Mouse Move', 'dummy', 'dummy']);

jdavid• 16 years ago

You could actually make the 'Fail' event hierarchical 'Fail.1', 'Fail.2', 'Success.3'

to track how many fails were required before success

coderholic6• 16 years ago

Great idea, thanks. I'll add it. At the moment we're looking at the average time on site stats.

NathanKP2• 16 years ago

Great! One more thought I had: also track whether the failure was due to the mouse or keyboard. When you have gathered a decent number of results I will be very interested to see a blog post with some nice graphs.

paraschopra2• 16 years ago

Average time on site won't be accurate in your case because GA calculates it by subtracting time duration between two successive visits. In your case, it will usually be just single pageview so average time will be misleading.

May I suggest using getclicky.com which calculates time based on actual time spent.

BrainScraps• 16 years ago

This achievement doesn't up my gamerscore!??!

thingie• 16 years ago

What makes it hard is just that annoying countdown. Nothing else.

(And I had no waves, because I don't have Flash plugin enabled, meh.)

abstractbill• 16 years ago

I passed, but it was very hard because I got no waves and so was immediately tempted to view source and find out why not, and also because I kept looking at the horizon of the photo and wondering if it was just me or if it was very slightly tilted down to the right.

For extra difficulty, you should throw in more and more things like the above to make ocd people squirm ;)

cromulent• 16 years ago

THat's all I could think about - the horizon not being level. I found myself visualising the iPhoto correction tool overlaid on the photo.

ronnoch• 16 years ago

Aha! I knew there was something wrong with that horizon. I spent 2 minutes trying to figure out what it was.

Aemon• 16 years ago

pretty cool idea, though I don't think I could have passed just listening to the waves, without my music collection I don't think I'd be able to muster the patience for this, well. maybe.

zdw• 16 years ago

I like the seagull at 0:38

karanbhangui• 16 years ago

Perhaps a minor UI tweak, instead of counting down (which creates a slight sense of panic), you should count up? It'll help with the calm.

tewy2• 16 years ago

interesting idea

GrooveStomp• 16 years ago

Nice. I have my little fan blowing, so this greatly reminded me of sitting down at Kits beach, playing guitar in the evening.

highzeth• 16 years ago

Not counting down using Opera (Linux, 11.00 build 1156), that said, very nice timeout this(Using Chromium).

aw3c2• 16 years ago

works fine in 11.01 1164.

drhodes• 16 years ago

.. yeah right and let you use my optimized javascript engine as a node in your distributed machine. Nice try!

ajaimk• 16 years ago

I decided to let the ocean sounds run in the back ground cause I really couldn't get myself to spend 2 minutes idle. 2 minutes later, I found it to be annoying the heck out of me.

didip• 16 years ago

0:11 FAIL

I was so close. Trying it for the second time:

* Open in new tab.

* Change to that tab using keyboard, let it activate, be careful not moving your mouse inside the window.

* Change to another tab/window/app, continue work as usual.

* Success!

michaelty• 16 years ago

I could only do this after writing some enterprise Java code.

pavel_lishin• 16 years ago

1. The birds aren't moving. This is driving me insane.

2. I stopped because I became paranoid that with 0:15 seconds, the website was going to rick-roll me.

peterwwillis2• 16 years ago

We're no strangers to love...

jackolas• 16 years ago

You know the rules and so do I...

praptak• 16 years ago

Even worse than rickrolling: it's facebook whoring (Like it! 2755 likes! Register to see what your friends like! Spread the calm! [twitter logo] [facebook logo]) which I find quite jarring.

carols10cents• 16 years ago

I was getting paranoid that it was going to be one of those sites that flashes a scary face and screams at you.

rikthevik• 16 years ago

Once bitten, twice shy.

tobych• 16 years ago

Me too. After about 5 seconds all I could think about was whether it was gonna be a shark jumping out of the water at me, a big fat seagull coming for me, or just some random screaming crazy jumping in from the side of the screen.

code_duck2• 16 years ago

I assumed it was checking my browser for exploits and downloading sensitive files from my machine.

code_duck2• 16 years ago

I hope everyone knew I was kidding. I'm a bit paranoid sometimes!

shock-value• 16 years ago

For added difficulty, try thinking nothing for two minutes. For experienced meditators, this shouldn't be hard, but for the rest of us it's a real challenge.

tewy2• 16 years ago

thx for the feedback guys, i'm particularly liking the tracking of fails in GA (cc coderholic!)

mcs• 16 years ago

I'll sit on this page.. while I write code in 3 different SSH terms, run wireshark, listen to DI.fm, use firebug, while talking to a person in a neighboring cube.

regnum• 16 years ago

At the end there's a link to an Amazon page with related book titles, but unfortunately the page is down. Lots of missed affiliate revenue.

dpcan• 16 years ago

I'm going to need a reason "why" I should do this.

paraschopra2• 16 years ago

My Tweetdeck notifications kept popping up. I looked at them, wanted to Retweet but god knows how badly I wanted to win this game.

Ironically, came before 20 seconds elapsed to post this comment :)

mcburton• 16 years ago

That was fun. My screen dimmed after 30sec and shut off right at the 2min mark. I even resisted clicking the FlashBlock icon so I had no sound. Would this work with the <audio> tag?

drivebyacct2• 16 years ago

I closed the tab with 4 seconds. I got stuff to read, homework to do and code to write. Plus I'd like a nap this afternoon. Roll my two minutes into nap time, then we can discuss it.

jschuur2• 16 years ago

Sounds like you're exactly the type of person this was written for then.

marcamillion• 16 years ago

Must say....was harder than I thought it would be. Sounds simple at first...then all of a sudden, 2 mins feel like an eternity.

arnemart• 16 years ago

I opened the page in a tab in the background, and when I got around to viewing it I had already won. That was easy.

Murkin• 16 years ago

Wow.. that was hard.

Well done !

jschuur2• 16 years ago

Wouldn't it be fun if this actually extended the seconds progressively towards the end?

kgermino• 16 years ago

It already feels like it does.

thisisblurry• 16 years ago

Crap, I immediately opened Chromium's Developer Tools to view the source. Stupid web developer habits.

dholowiski• 16 years ago

I made it the full two minutes, it was easy. I just loaded the page, listened to a podcast on my iPhone and read a couple HN articles on my iPad while I was waiting.

komlenic• 16 years ago

I passed, but had to resist the temptation to nab the background image, straighten the horizon, and email it off to the dev.

jcromartie2• 16 years ago

I clicked this link, and then I got a phone call.

EGreg• 16 years ago

I was half expecting this website to rick-roll me. But I can see how it would be viral. Of course, that would mean that a total of 2933894 hours every day will be spent as this website commands. And THEN you can unleash a rickroll!

ryanwaggoner2• 16 years ago

This was easy, because right after it started I remembered that I needed to go check my pot roast in the slow cooker.

I'm all for adding more peace and quiet reflection to my life, but watching a javascript timer count down for two minutes on a website with a picture of the ocean doesn't count.

ollerac• 16 years ago

Why not?

I mean, why does it matter that it's a javascript timer? And that it's a website? Or what the picture is? Why should any of these things affect how seriously you take what it's trying to do?

ryanwaggoner2• 16 years ago

What is it trying to do?

I sit in front of my computer to get shit done. When I want to take a break and do nothing, I hang out with friends, take the dog for a walk, go to the park with my wife. I don't sit motionless at my computer and listen to waves. But that's just me.

Tycho• 16 years ago

I of course left the page before long, but if you put an advert on there to appear after the countdown, I guarantee it will get much higher click through than normal. Why? Because when people have invested time in something, they're strangely more positive about things and more willing to go along with the program (perhaps to get the payoff that's been missing so far, but even if there's none they will rationalise that it was still a good use of time). Might help if you make the advert slightly more interesting/mysterious than usual though.

gojomo• 16 years ago

I simply can't take the risk that the next 2 minutes is when I'll find my cofounders, build my prototype, and raise an oversubscribed angel round.

vidar• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology)

klbarry• 16 years ago

I was fine until a (1) popped up in my email tab...

JeanPierre• 16 years ago

After a long day of studying and answering e-mails, coming home to this was amazing. I knew that I needed to take a break: That's why I logged on my computer and checked Hacker News.

But relaxing like this was much more soothing than reading about programming languages or hacker-essays. I've heard a lot of times that taking a break for 10-15 minutes where you just close your eyes and relax is good for you, but I've never really tried it. Maybe I will do this more often after this.

Also, would it be possible to make one for 10 or 15 minutes as well? Sometimes, 2 minutes isn't enough.

NyxWulf• 16 years ago

This used to be impossible for me too. Even on adderall this would have been fairly challenging at times. Recently however my stress level was getting so bad that I started looking for ways to remain calm, even under extreme pressure. Long story short, I came across a book on Amazon called "Zen Meditation and Wisdom for a Better Life: A Gift to Busy People, Regardless of Religion".

I'm a skeptic when it comes to "Religion" type stuff, but meditation is one of those practices that has survived so long that I wondered if there was something practical to it. The main point in that book is that meditation has nothing to do with religion, it's a personal productivity technique. It's fundamentally about training your mind to focus on one thing for a period of time. It seemed interesting and I didn't have to buy anything other than the book I'd already purchased to try it. So I started doing it ten minutes a day, and let me tell you, the results have been impressive for me. It's nothing more mystical than the ability to really intensely focus on something, one thing, without letting your mind wander. If you think that's easy - give it a try, for just ten minutes. It's surprising just how hard it is to contain your mind for that long.

Give it a try, before long, sitting still for two minutes is so easy you won't believe it. As a side benefit you may learn how to relax at an unbelievable rate during those two minutes.

TheAmazingIdiot3• 16 years ago

Along with the viewpoint of being skeptic about religious stuff, I can most certainly understand. But of all these religions that exist, there must be some sort of truth between them all, considering the many congruencies. One document I have been treading through is this one: http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/aba1.html

The premise that is argued is a very strong one, being "Is there any truth at all in the claims of various religions?" It is as academic as one can be, with appropriate cites and books to read and refer to. However, it is a "Howto" manual that does require quite a bit of work.

As an aside, I bet you (and others) have had the problem of itching and scratching and burning and freezing and biting and everything else that could go wrong when you try to meditate. I had it when I first started to practise, and the general feelings of discomfort only seem to multiply. Asana is the Hindu technique used in order to quiet the mind and body. It's in the same document.

TheAmazingIdiot3• 16 years ago

Perhaps somebody can explain why the downvote...

Meditation, for those that could actually pass the 2:00 timer, is directly relevant as it is all the books referred to by the Amazon link. And I posted an interesting critique and comparison of techniques to possibly use in doing meditation.

eru2• 16 years ago

You may also be interested in http://www.timecube.com/ or perhaps some beachfront property?

Retric• 16 years ago

The similarities between religions may relate to the forces that shape them aka people/society/war/physics/or even god(s). However, many of the world’s religions are fairly closely related. If you ignore those that were influenced by Mesopotamia or India you find there is a lot more variety out there than you much suspect.

mattm• 16 years ago

I don't see how meditation is connected to religion.

Religions want you to seek answers from them.

Meditation encourages you to seek answers from within.

hugh33• 16 years ago

Nonetheless, most forms of meditation, and most practitioners of meditation, and most folks that will teach you about meditation, come with religious baggage.

theBobMcCormick• 16 years ago

Most forms of meditation originated from religious practices, which is why many people still see them as connected.

Of course yoga also originated out of religious practices, but very few people have trouble seeing yoga as an activity that can be done completely separate from any kind of religious or spiritual practice. I would assume that over time, as meditation practice becomes more common that people will have an easier time accepting that it can be practiced in a completely as a completely secular activity.

radu_floricica• 16 years ago

Difficulty-wise, doesn't even compare to 30 minutes of sitting zazen.

It worked its magic, I felt better when it was over. Goes in the bookmarks. Wonder how I could make it activate automatically once or twice a day...

julian37• 16 years ago

I find relaxation with a countdown decidedly un-zen.

It's a well-meant attempt of bringing some calamity into our lives, though, thanks for that!

gnubardt• 16 years ago

Workrave[1] and antirsi[2] have helped me take breaks like this regularly. Beyond the wrist relief it's nice to take a short break and refresh my mind before continuing work.

[1]http://www.workrave.org/ [2]http://tech.inhelsinki.nl/antirsi/

pmsaue02• 16 years ago

I use these: http://www.scirocco.ca/takeabreak.html and http://www.dejal.com/timeout/

There is a work method based on this as well: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

pmsaue02• 16 years ago

it's also nice to not work

feral• 16 years ago

I passed.

Because I clicked open a lot of stories from the main HN page in background tabs, and by the time I got to that one, it had told me I had passed.

kaiwetzel• 16 years ago

I didn't get to that tab yet, have been wondering where that nice background sound was coming from for an hour or so :)

Just opened a second tab and passed, though.

kno• 16 years ago

I did it!!!

rokhayakebe• 16 years ago

You should switch it, and see how long it takes to fail?

markbnine• 16 years ago

reminds me of zenmoo.. .

your typing detracts from your enlightenment

nostromo2• 16 years ago

Did anyone else catch Sam Harris' response to Edge's 2011 question, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"? I found it quite interesting. http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_12.html#harriss

"I invite you to pay attention to anything — the sight of this text, the sensation of breathing, the feeling of your body resting against your chair — for a mere sixty seconds without getting distracted by discursive thought. It sounds simple enough: Just pay attention. The truth, however, is that you will find the task impossible. If the lives of your children depended on it, you could not focus on anything — even the feeling of a knife at your throat — for more than a few seconds, before your awareness would be submerged again by the flow of thought. This forced plunge into unreality is a problem. In fact, it is the problem from which every other problem in human life appears to be made."

kirse• 16 years ago

I haven't logged in to comment for 37 days and this little essay is such utter garbage. The fact that it takes him just 7 paragraphs to completely dismiss all potential religious truth as "clearly false" should set off anyone's dogma-alert flag.

Being focused in the present is awesome, but the fact that we have the ability to pay attention on things other than reality is not a problem, but in fact essential to the health of the mind (our "spirit" if you will). Imagine if all your circumstances sucked and all your mind could focus on was reality...

Secondly, this essay sounds like he's much more inner-focused, as I know that I rarely have these "flow of thought" and self-conscious moments that he calls being "submerged again by the flow of thought"... If you asked me at any moment what I was thinking, I would tell you "nothing"... Obviously I'm thinking something behind the scenes, but my focus is just not on my thoughts when I'm doing. So my own personal thought-life does not confirm this silliness.

Then again, I'm very extroverted and rarely focused on my own thoughts -- maybe it's my "clearly false" Christian religion, or the fact that I've been a runner for 20+ years which is essentially meditating on present experience (pain), but I just have a strong natural tendency to focus on the present experience rather than my own thoughts.

Even if you're looking at this under the domain of science, I would still argue that the ability of humans to cope with present circumstances is directly correlated to their capability to focus upon that which is not the present. (i.e. thinking joyful thoughts, etc.).

That little essay is pitiful, talk to "robg" here on YC if you want to hear from a Neuroscientist who has a better respect for this domain of mind and spirit. The way this guy just starts with a bunch of assumptions and blasts away at all potential truth in less than 1,000 words gives me no respect for his method of thinking.

nostromo2• 16 years ago

Let's be careful not to start an atheist / non-atheist flame war (boring...) but to say Harris just took 7 paragraphs to dismiss religion isn't fair. He's written several best-selling books on the subject and has partaken in several debates with religious leaders. For him to answer this Edge question with a rehash of his arguments on atheism would have been redundant and boring. I'm sure he expected most of the readers on Edge to understand his point of view on the subject and to kick off from there.

fleitz• 16 years ago

I don't want to get into a flamewar, but potential 'religious truth' generally lacks falsifiability. Certainly there could definitely be true things that the religious say but it doesn't really promote a method of thinking that leads us to knowing things that aren't false about the world.

In the method of 'religious truths' everyone is right and everyone is wrong, there is no way to sort out the true from the false.

ThomPete2• 16 years ago

As far as I remember Sam Harris does know quite a lot about Neuroscience in fact he is a PhD in that very area.

With regards to potential religious truths then the problem of course is that you can't verify religious claims thus the very idea of talking about truth in this context seems rather misguided.

bane• 16 years ago

Imagine if all your circumstances sucked and all your mind could focus on was reality...

You'd probably do something to improve your reality rather than try and replace a miserable life with some form of escapism (not picking only on religion here, even World of Warcraft fits the bill).

tokipin• 16 years ago

i don't know about the religion stuff, but the focus thing does sound very silly. it reminds me of a certain philosopher - Kant maybe - who described "the self" in a way that was obviously characteristic of his specific personality, but couldn't be applied in my case, nevermind all humans'

slowernet• 16 years ago

Try reading it as opinionated writing, rather than a mathematical proof of something that is offensive to you personally.

IMHO one should be able write without the pretense of neutrality and be judged holistically rather than dismissed out of hand.

ohyes• 16 years ago

I believe you misread the essay.

His major point is this: "There is no discrete self".

He isn't making an argument to discredit any potential religious 'truth' (in fact, he is using the existence of certain religious 'truths' as evidence for his argument). His comment about 'clearly false' religion was not his main point (although for some of us, extreme lack of evidence and verifiability is enough).

The annihilation of the self is an idea/concept/experience that occurs in many religious traditions, and also when exposed to certain drugs (hallucinogenics, I think). It is also a common theme in literature dating back to antiquity. The Bacchus is an example. Enlightenment in Buddhism is about annihilation of the self. Not that I am an expert on either.

By annihilation of the self, I mean the elimination of the concept of the self, not suicide. The thought being that the concept of the self is actually an absurdity. "Can a man step in the same river twice." This is what he is referring to when he talks about the flow of thoughts.

The concept of self leads to a lot of problems, selfishness, fear of death, things like that.

BrandonM2• 16 years ago

> I invite you to pay attention to anything -- the sight of this text, the sensation of breathing, the feeling of your body resting against your chair -- for a mere sixty seconds without getting distracted by discursive thought.

That's actually quite simple. Mushrooms, LSD, or any number of other psychedelics should do the job. For the more industrious, meditation will do it too.

silentbicycle6• 16 years ago

My feet are crying! Give them back the sacred obelisk! Let the mothership fly!

rsanheim• 16 years ago

Meditation may be 'simple', but its also incredibly hard.

the_gws• 16 years ago

This reminds me of wordings from Osho (I will paraphrase from memory here): when we go to see a movie we immedesimate in the story and we laugh, cry, feel happy or sad based on what we see. Then the screen go dark and we remember who we are and go back to our real life. Our mind is like a movie screen and we laugh, cry, feel happy or sad based on the thoughts we "see" and immedesimate in. If we could turn the mind off we could remember who we are and go back to our real life

jaxn• 16 years ago

I wish it had video interaction. Record a video of me "doing nothing" for 2 minutes, and let people watch them at watchpeopledonothingfor2minutes.com

I wonder how many people cheat.

jhamburger• 16 years ago

That is such a long time.

honeycrisp• 16 years ago

I think it would have been easier if the website had a better quality recording of waves. It was all I could focus on.

bvi• 16 years ago

What I'd suggest would be to remove the timer (or make it very difficult to read). Most people don't realize just how long 2 minutes can be, so it would be a reality check.

d3x• 16 years ago

This would be much harder to do if you did not have the timer on the screen.

tunaslut• 16 years ago

I was just thinking it would be better if the timer wasn't there :)

nicklovescode• 16 years ago

After 6 seconds I couldn't help but check the source to see if it was playing sound using <video> or Flash.....

Confusion• 16 years ago

Humans have evolved to pay close attention to, and be keenly aware of, their environment. Of course you can't just sit still for two minutes: there may be a snake crawling by. Pay attention or suffer the consequences.

As the Zen enthusiasts already implicitly acknowledged, the ability to concentrate on a single thing may well be valuable, but concentrating on a single thing, especially on a single thing of your own choosing at the time of your choosing, is vastly different from doing nothing, on a moment chosen by someone else, while actually concentrating on something you don't consider interesting.

Semiapies• 16 years ago

Odd; keeps failing despite no input.

d_mcgraw• 16 years ago

Anyone else notice that it kinda looks like you are staring over the ocean at a nuclear blast?

Love the site though. It really is relaxing and a neat simple idea. Hard to sit through after a 16oz red bull, but i did it!

tastybites• 16 years ago

The sun is a nuclear blast.

niels• 16 years ago

Great site, you should make it fail on window resize events too... at least that is one more thing you can detect.

melvinram• 16 years ago

It wasn't impossible but it was indeed difficult.

roc• 16 years ago

I'm not sure if I succeeded or not.

I closed my eyes and focused intently on the sound of the waves. I imagined myself on a beach, waves rolling in and out. I wondered what kind of material the beach was constructed from. Sand and a few larger rocks, it sounded like. There's a distinctive wash, but it seems just as clear there's a break in the rhythm of the crashing wave.

I then started to wonder just what shapes of wave was giving rise to the really bad compression artifacting in the wave sound on that page. Some of the sounds are remarkably clear for all the artifacts in other portions.

Unfortunately, I didn't really get anywhere with that lien of thought before my CFO interrupted me. At which point I saw the site had determined that I 'succeeded'.

I'm not entirely convinced I failed though. Sure, I thought about sand, rocks and compression -- but I was concentrating on the sounds of the waves that whole time.

What meaning could there be in "do nothing but listen to this" if truly listening to the sounds and internalizing them and analyzing them was ruled out as being "something"?

If staring like a zombie with your mind empty was the goal, surely there wouldn't be an audio track and full-window image on that page.

rbreve• 16 years ago

I was paranoid that a photo of a zombie with a loud scream would appear suddently

jrockway• 16 years ago

Depends on the context. When I am sitting in front of a computer with lots of stuff to read or do, I'm not going to stare at waves for two minutes. If I'm on the bus, though, then I can easily do it.

baddox• 16 years ago

In my current situation (alone with no one to physically force me), it's impossible for me to "relax" for 2 minutes, because I am actively willing myself to not do so.

Dramatize• 16 years ago

That was easy, I just used my other computer for 2 minutes.

legalenvelope• 16 years ago

I like this one better:

http://jesusswimming.com

He has been swimming

krobertson• 16 years ago

Whenever I see these kind of things I always expect it to be some prank. Watch this nice sunset, listen to the calming sounds, and then just as it gets to calm down, have something jump out to scare the crap out of you.

enki• 16 years ago

you can save two minutes by typing this: javascript:foo=setTimeout; setTimeout = function(x,y){ foo(x,2); }

fakespastic• 16 years ago

My thoughts, for 2 minutes:

- Alright, calm down

- What if my monitor goes into power saving mode?

- It's only 2 minutes, I'm sure power save is set for longer than 2 minutes.

- I wonder what the default setting for power saving is in Windows 7.

- Concentrate!

- (looking at the horizon on the right below the clouds) I wonder what it would be like to be a world traveler by way of boat.

- Hey, what are those birds doing there?

- Try to remember your thoughts to post on HN after the 2 minutes is up.

- Look at that swell. I wonder how that works, exactly.

- (distracting noise in background) Feeling tense again!

- I think the wife and kid are watching me take this seriously, and have probably lost a sliver of respect for me.

- (mind drifts into nothing for a bit)

- Well, that was calming. I like looking at the horizon.

- I wonder what I get for beating this.

dedward• 16 years ago

Studies show simple meditation (focus on nothing, or one thing - doesn't really matter - just train your mind on a single, simple thing) for something like just a minute or two a day in the morning can have an almost immediate and lasting (if you keep it up) effect on your ability to concentrate.

Concentration is a skill that requires practice, like anything else.

ctdonath• 16 years ago

Well that was easy - since I happened along this thread while sitting in my daughter's darkened room, surfing iPad just to pass time, making sure she doesn't get out of bed for the 6th time.

justinhj• 16 years ago

I probably could pass this easily, because I used to frequent a Buddhist group, and could easily meditate for 50 minutes or more. Unfortunately I'm also a parent, and kiddo came over and read the screen, and moved the mouse to amuse us both. Fail.

prawn• 16 years ago

I lasted two seconds. Opened the page while eating breakfast. It said do nothing for two minutes. I instantly thought "Great, I can eat breakfast while I wait" and picked up the bowl at the 1:58 mark.

tmachinecharmer• 16 years ago

That clock runs slower than the usual one. Damn its hard!

randomizer• 16 years ago

Was just enough for my bathroom break.

silentbicycle6• 16 years ago

Ticking the clock every single f'ing second is a bit much. I sat it out, but "2 minutes...1...0" would be better than an update every second along the way (or fifteen-second intervals). When I sit zazen, I just set a timer for 20 minutes and stick it out of view. The timer itself is a distraction.

silentbicycle6• 16 years ago

I passed, because I stopped doing shit.

workrave/xwrits are better, if it actually matters.

ramki• 16 years ago

I know its tough for me, so i opened it and left for coffee...

sbierwagen• 16 years ago

Doesn't work in Chrome 10.0.642.0: timer never starts counting down.

Also, this is the second site I've seen this week that adds background sound via an invisible youtube embed.

s00pcan• 16 years ago

I tried checking the source but it made me fail. So I picked up my ps3 controller and started playing an emulator.

JamesDB• 16 years ago

If you have two monitors just have Tweetdeck open on the other! Easy.

Shihan• 16 years ago

I starred at the page for like 5 minutes and was wondering why it wouldn't start to count down - not realizing that I was always moving the mouse around a bit. Damn you base-nervousness.

nrbafna• 16 years ago

I got through it easily. I closed my eyes, counted the seconds elapsed in my head and opened my eyes every 10-15 seconds to see how close I ended up.

mfukar3• 16 years ago

Why would I waste two minutes of my short-enough-as-it-is life?

sidble2• 16 years ago

in two secs I sent it off (enhhhh, you have failed this test!) to my committed lover (sometimes can be taken as meaning the manicomio committed, but we'll leave it at that..The King of Hearts was a favourite movie after all...) THEN i took the 2 minutes. May he take his... and left the sounds on my computer all day in the background. The sea is far behind me, the c however is all before me..

sidble2• 16 years ago

This site has me laughing out loud often. O what fools we mortals be! and it also takes one to know one.... eh.

Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

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