HACKER Q&A
📣 mnoorani

Where do HN readers spend their online downtime?


I recently decided to stop using social media. Since then, my online downtime is pretty much spent on reading HN. But it can only go so far. So I'm looking for other fun yet informative places to kill some downtime.

Where do you spend your online downtime?


  👤 ipnon Accepted Answer ✓
Marginal Revolution[0] is like HN for economics. It's another community where the value of the posts is derived from the comments they generate and the community that develops around them.

The Financial Times, too.[1] People will leave borderline inside information in the comments section of articles. The readership is predominantly British and the understated humor and jabs can be hilarious.

Non-profit article aggregators with open comments and persistent users seems to be the sweet spot for an entertaining and mentally stimulating time on the centralized web. I don't use any for profit social media platforms because the psychoengineering is too strong for me. Anytime I reinstall Reddit or Twitter I'll remove it in disgust a week later after realizing the amount of time I've sunk without enough benefit.

[0] marginalrevolution.com [1] ft.com


👤 m3h
Sinking a lot of time into Netflix and YouTube lately.

For a more productive downtime, I like going through...

- https://www.joelonsoftware.com/

- https://www.heavybit.com/library/

- https://softwareengineeringdaily.com

Sometimes I find myself day-dreaming, jotting down ideas in my notebook (read: Sublime text) for future projects and things I wanna do.

PS: Hello ex-APIMatician.


👤 Fiveh2751
Waitbutwhy.com is a resourceful website for almost everything about life...


👤 enjeyw
LessWrong has a very high ratio of thought provoking content and conversation on it.

👤 tmaly
FS blog and podcast have some really interesting material.

I like their weekly newsletter. It gives me a good recap. To be honest, I have grown tired of the news under the stay at home order.

Most of my free time now has been back out in the garden now that Spring is in full boom. I build a replacement raised bed last year.


👤 cpach
Just a thought: Maybe start a chat channel and invite some people?

👤 frompdx
> So I'm looking for other fun yet informative places to kill some downtime.

I usually try to use my downtime for personal development. In particular, I read books about programming/cs topics that interest me. Recently that has been Forth. I also try to exercise at least four times a week for an hour or more each session. Beyond that, I try to indulge my hobbies. This week I have been scanning my old film negatives.


👤 econcon
I watch YouTube videos without engaging in comments.

Mostly related to machining and physics and electronics.


👤 kleer001
> stop using social media

>downtime is pretty much spent on reading HN

I know what you mean, but you can see the irony here, right?

It's a matter of scale, but still. I guess a city of 2 million is a bit different from a town of 200 thousand, or 20 for that matter.


👤 whalesalad
Call of Duty: Warzone

👤 text_exch
I get an interesting article emailed to me every day from Thinking About Things [0], so I use that to go down some rabbit hole.

[0] www.thinking-about-things.com


👤 non-entity
Various discord servers, mostly nowadays, or skipping through YouTube watching various content from horror stuff to technical stuff.

👤 ineedausername
Path of Exile global chatroom

👤 ycombonator
Slashdot zerohedge japantimes

👤 yogodojo
r/mealtimevideos

It's also like HN, aggregating the best videos from YouTube.


👤 nodelessness
Playing games on steam.

👤 scottporad
Imgur. (Though it’s not as good s as it used to be.)

👤 zzo38computer
IRC, mainly.

👤 quickthrower2
Famous ones, maybe “too obvious to mention” would be dailywtf and xkcd. Even an occasional dilbert is fun!

👤 livealife
r/dankmemes

👤 dronemallone
n-gate.com is a nice change from hn.