Spend two consecutive days without the internet per week (in 2024 it was one day -- every Sunday was "internet-free"). I work remotely but with a flexible schedule so it's not too difficult.
>All environmental interactions modify thought processes and behaviour and the internet has many unseen negative ones.
Hey, that makes it: "5) All of the above".
That would be a bingo.
Now I would say it can sometimes be impossible to completely get away from on-line or machine responsibilities so you should carefully review what your options are all the time.
This is the easiest thing to get in the habit of not doing. :\
What if you think you would enjoy "all of the above" or just give it a little try? Is it even within reach?
You would have to figure out how to overcome any obstacles. If it doesn't look easy that's why I say carefully review.
For me I'm badly compromised and settle for "less than all" quite a bit, but pretty much when I really want to.
It's just the damn machines need so much work that nobody else is going to do :(
But there's only so much you can do, and you have to push away from the table.
So I've got a bench with gig ethernet and 4 to 6 PC's which I may run at the same time. That's a lot. Can simulate a small company on only one bench.
And the ethernet cords are right there whenever I need them. I just hardly ever plug them into the internet. Mainly to test and update OS & software. There's plenty that needs to be done and should be worthwhile on the machines alone without the internet. My default is to keep PC's unplugged from the internet except when I have a good reason, since it's so easy to do.
But this way, time away from the internet does not exactly give me time away from the machine.
Though it does feel good to kind of separate the two, and that bleeds over into browsing which I do in a completely different room at a regular desk on a small PC which I do not need to work on.
The machine wastes all my time at the workbench and the internet wastes all my time at the mainstream desk :\
So for better or worse, phone never had a chance to gain a foothold, some say I'm lucky to average 0 hours per day, mainly talk & text not much different than a flip phone which I remember well.
I guess that is so far out of the mainstream now it could be hard to relate to, but even without a "mobile habit" I still have to push away from two different banks of dazzling monitors if I want to get up and do anything else worthwhile.
Then I don't even bring a phone most of the time, I got up from the machines for a reason. I don't want to waste even more time on a machine, or settle for a small screen when I don't have to, plus I really want to pay maximum attention to what's going on around me.
Then there's the thing where you can end up in a posture hunched over the phone in one had, touching it with the other and you look like a Cro-Magnon domino player :)
1) Make at least 2k dollars this year from Tech jobs.
2) Learn React Native and ASP.Net Core and be job ready in them. I'm already really good with Django, Express JS and Svelte, I want to expand.
3) Read more books and more news articles. I only read two books in 2024. I used to aim for 24, but I'm aiming for 12 this year. Watch more movies and TV shows. Just be me again.
I wanted to add working out and gaining muscle mass, but honestly I'm not that motivated in that area.
Not sure.
I ought to go back to the gym. Once you're there, you're glad you're went, and in daily life it's also quite pleasant to be physically and mentally healthier.
I'm starting uni in September. I'd like to really get a lot done in the remaining portion of my gap year. Not just the hard stuff (my project[0], revising maths and physics after a long break, etc), but also literature and reading.
I'm worried about AI. Really quite worried, actually. I get the sense that this forum is almost engaged in a collective exercise of cognitive dissonance to avoid the implications of the rapid progress that we're all so aware of.
It's funny, I chose a physics degree in part because I felt it would provide some security from AI, but that seems to be disappearing before I've even started it.
Really, though, I have done what I can. What else is there to do but wait and see? A New Year's resolution won't do anything about it.
So perhaps, instead, I should merely resolve to sleep. It's 1AM here and I'm on Hacker News!
> I'm worried about AI. Really quite worried, actually. I get the sense that this forum is almost engaged in a collective exercise of cognitive dissonance to avoid the implications of the rapid progress that we're all so aware of.
Of course it is. People here are active drivers of the latest technology. It's a given that they'll take the instrumentalist "AI is a tool, it just has to be carefully used" cop-out because they could never handle the cognitive dissonance that they are making the world significantly worse.
Those of us that have been around quite a while have seen consistent ‘rapid progress’ in technology and automation over the last 30+ years. This isn’t the first time there’s a new world changing technology.
Not exactly a New Year's Resolution, but something I'm working on at the moment is learning the guitar, a third language, critical thinking, gaining a better understanding of various philosophical concepts, attending club dance parties even more, and deliberately practising software architecture.
