Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction? - <AUTHOR> In Hacker News we have the "no procrast" mode. Nonetheless, that's not a common function in social media or email apps.
I have been using Rescue Time (to track my activities) and StayFocusd Extension (yes, "focusd" without the "e" and it basically blocks the access to a determined site after some time).
Rescue Time and Stay Focusd have been useful on my desktop. But in mobile (I have an Iphone) I am lost.
Especially, concerning to Whats app, I definitely use it more than I should.
Does anybody have this problem? How do you manage it? <comment><USER2> I'm embarking on a Slow Information Diet modeled after Tim Ferris' Slow Carb Diet. Six days a week, no Twitter, no Facebook, etc. On cheat day (for me, my slow carb diet cheat day and slow information diet cheat days are the same, Friday) I get to read and consume and binge all I want. Because Slow Carb really resonates we me, this concept does to and has worked out well. YMMV of course.

<comment><USER3> Did you make up the Slow Information Diet yourself, or did you read about it somewhere? I want to emulate it so was curious if there was more written up about it somewhere. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Tim Ferriss discussed the idea in the Four-Hour Workweek and on his blog here [1]

[1]. [http://fourhourworkweek.com/category/low-information-diet- an...](http://fourhourworkweek.com/category/low-information-diet-and- selective-ignorance/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, the easiest way for me is to just use a "dumb" phone. I switched to an old Nokia and love it. I also use the SMS search engine Text Engine ([http://www.textengine.info/](http://www.textengine.info/)) if I ever need to look up an address or directions. I definitely feel more productive, and most importantly present in my daily life.

Curious to hear if others have had success with other methods or if anyone else has tried going back to a non-smartphone.

Great question.

<comment><USER3> Do you miss being able to use the phone for distraction, say for example when stuck in line at the bank? That is why I'm always sneaking a peak at twitter or facebook.

Also as lame as it is, I worry about not keeping up with the Joneses on social media and being seen as irrelevant because I don't have an online "presence." I applied for a job via HN a few weeks ago that wanted links to my facebook and twitter accounts. I ended up withdrawing my application because that seemed frivolous and nosy. But it did give me pause to consider my "online brand" and whether or not it was professional, and if I should work on keeping that up.

<comment><USER6> Can you name and shame the company that wanted your Facebook and Twitter account? That's absurd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I turn off all phone notifications. My information consumption is pull only, no push. Once you no longer the little 'reminders' the urge starts to subside and becomes more manageable and less distracting.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to have a problem logging onto Facebook, Twitter, and other social medias every few minutes. Even while I was at work. It was really bad. Every time I had a spare second that's immediately where I went.

What I learned in one of my courses where we talked about addictions, is that people with addictive personalities tend to replace one addiction with another. Now, saying this doesn't present it as a positive thing, but it can be.

I started by completely taking these socials medias out of my life for a whole entire month, strictly. I didn't get on a single time to any of them once. And I replaced the addictions with something else. At first I thought maybe games would be good, but it was hard to get on my phone without going to these sites. So what I did is I replaced them with reading. I would take 2 minutes to read a couple pages, read on my ten minute breaks, read on my lunches, etc.

You don't have to do that, although I recommend it, but I would try to replace it with something that didn't have access to it, and then you'll have more control over it.

<comment><USER9> This is a really good point. I've deactivated my Facebook account (going on 4 months, feeling much happier without it) and one of the "addictions" I've replaced it with is Duolingo. If I know I'm going to be addicted to some kind of distraction, learning a language (of a country I hope to move to one day) makes it a much more positive thing in my life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of the items listed, I only use email. Call me a Luddite but all of those other things are just unnecessary distractions. I find that my life is much more focused when I control the funnel of noise. I have an RSS reader for news and email or a phone for communication. All these other potential streams of data are like road signs or commercials: I know they're there but I've made such an effort to ignore them that they just don't register.

Try this:

$ cat /etc/hosts|grep face 127.0.0.1 facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com

<comment><USER11> you can just:

$ grep face /etc/hosts

<comment><USER12> I don't see the point either way. Maybe they mean `echo '127.0.0.1 facebook.com www.facebook.com' >> /etc/hosts`?

<comment><USER13> it's declarative programming! you say what result you want and let the machine figure out how to get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just don't use them. Really. The addiction will go away or at least decrease after a couple days or so.

I'm really only addicted to HN these days, but I solve it by not going to HN at all when I need to be in Get Shit Done mode. After a day or two I don't find myself thinking about it that much.

<comment><USER15> If you find that this is actually not your experience and you find that you are addicted/distracted for an extended period of time, know that you are not alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Simple. I don't have an account on Facebook/Twitter/whatever. While others might find it necessary I find them utterly boring and irrelevant. I think that not owning a smartphone helps a lot in that aspect. I have a dumbphone with a battery that lasts for weeks and I'm happy with my choice. As for e-mail, I have two accounts, one for work, one for everyone else. I don't check the latter while at work, ever.

<comment><USER5> What kid of phone do you own?

<comment><USER16> I have a Samsung E-2600. Brilliant phone. The battery lasts for at least two weeks with moderate use and also it's light and compact. I have to admit, every time I see someone pulling out a behemoth with an 5.5" screen to talk puts a smirk on my face. The model is currently obsolete so I guess anyone interested will go for the next in line.

<comment><USER5> That's awesome. I had a similar one back in the day. Yeah, the phablet trend is a bit silly, but I guess to each his own, right? What would your ideal feature phone be if you could redesign it?

<comment><USER16> I consider the one I own as ideal, so I guess I'd go for that or the next in line, which is probably a Samsung C3750. My needs are quite basic. It has to be light and compact with long battery life and that's all :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I found when I was very addicted to facebook that if you turn off all mobile notifications and don't have it pull for updates, since I wasn't getting any notifications I wasn't checking as often. This eventually led me to be okay with not opening the app to check something and then lingering on for a while looking at the same thing over and over again. That's how I was able to become facebook-free. It's very similar to other addictions, if you see less things that remind you of it, it'll help you in the long run

<comment><USER18> I heartily recommend the same, I have notifications turned of for all social apps, and for email/messages I only have the badge icon. Almost everything on social platforms don't require your attention right away. It's okay, people can wait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> IFFT has a recipe to silence your phone when you're in focus time with rescue time.

I also put my laptop in a bag once in a while, padlock the bag, then put my phone and padlock key in my ksafe ([http://www.thekitchensafe.com/](http://www.thekitchensafe.com/)). Offline heaven.

</comment><comment><USER20> Switch off all notifications to start with. That's an easy first step.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good tip, I have done that 2 years ago!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having a Pomodoro [1] app on your desktop/laptop helps. It sounded lame to me initially (do work in 25 min chunks), but it seems to work for me.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique)

<comment><USER22> By way of disclaimer, I don't really have the problem OP describes; don't really even understand it.

But I'll second pomodoros for pushing productivity and focus without killing yourself.

I'll add that daily exercise improves clarity of mind (read: more focus and other benefits). And having a busy schedule limits my ability to spend time on social media or sites like Hacker News; so when I do spend time on them, I tend to be more efficient with it ( _i.e.,_ focus on those things most important to me) and feel like I get more out of it.

I think that last bit may be part of the problem for OP: the reward becoming harder and hard to get, requiring more and more time. Going cold turkey and then slowly introducing Facebook et al., back in might help a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Every now and then I just delete the phone apps I think I'm using too much. If it's a stock app you could just put it on the kiddie block list instead, that's probably enough hassle to undo to make you think twice before impulsively falling into the email hole or whatever.

Come to think of it maybe I should delete Tweetbot from my phone for a while. It feels about time.

Coming at it from the other end, I find that the "Pomodoro Technique" [1] of timeboxing works pretty well to keep me on task, when I go through the whole ceremony of picking up the cute ladybug-shaped kitchen timer I've modified by painting out anything beyond 25min, giving it a twist, and having that kinesthetic memory plus the soft ticking reminding me that I have A Thing I Have Promised Myself I Will Work On For This Block Of Time.

I haven't been doing that much lately either. I should start doing it again.

1: [http://pomodorotechnique.com](http://pomodorotechnique.com)

</comment><comment><USER24> I had the same issue on my phone. Unable to switch to a dumb phone because of job requirements. Along with using some sort of ritual, I use an app on my phone called "forest" (iphone). Does a pretty good job of locking me out of distracting apps for chunks of time.

I like this question. I'll see what other better answers come out out of it.

<comment><USER5> Which features would a dumb phone need for you to consider to switch?

<comment><USER24> Semi-computer functionality. I'm often working remote without access to a good wifi connection. Website goes down, I have to be able to respond no matter the time. Smartphone allows basic troubleshooting and provides notifications easier than standard SMS (notifications through slack and other apps).

Any recommendations?

<comment><USER5> Yeah that's a tough one being on-call. Think you need a smartphone. Or setup some IFTTT triggers to notify you via SMS for emergencies. Sorry I don't have a better suggestion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a daily schedule/ritual to keep productive, after a week it just became the norm [https://books.google.ca/books/about/Daily_Rituals.html?id=-t...](https://books.google.ca/books/about/Daily_Rituals.html?id=-tTCEHNt_R8C&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y)

</comment><comment><USER26> Basic rules that have helped me over the years:

1 - No social media apps on my phone[1] that might be tempting to check during the work day

2 - No social media logins on my work laptop of a distinctly personal nature[2]

3 - Only checking social media when getting home and after a few minutes it's just tiring to wade through stuff and it makes it a lot easier to close it up and not be conditioned to think those outlets are worth the consistent attention

[1] This doesn't count Periscope which I use for promotional purposes or might come in handy in a pinch for sharing (but I don't open during work or watch many other streams)

[2] Social media doesn't include some forums, I'm strictly speaking FB/Twitter/etc. Forums are a different beast. Thankfully I tend to get tired of some which enable me to avoid them, or if I return, I've deleted my account and just read.

</comment><comment><USER27> Deleted my Facebook about a year ago or so now. I've never been happier. It's funny how unsocial social networks really are.

</comment><comment><USER28> I uninstalled a bunch of apps and put a domain blocker on chrome. I can get past all of that if I need to, but the extra 5 seconds of work needed to get to 'social' gives me some time to catch myself.

<comment><USER15> What domain blocker is there available on chrome for mobile?

<comment><USER28> not sure, i'm an ios guy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like to keep my computer 'clean' so that when a colleague comes over and asks me to look at some problem the browser auto-complete/suggest does not suggest any non-work things, whether they be news sites, social network sites or anything else that I read in my own time. The most embarrassing things my auto-complete suggests are things like the man page for 'strpos' (I should know whether the needle comes before the haystack by now).

If I really feel the urge to read non-work stuff then I have my phone, which costs money, has a useless keyboard and a diminutive screen. If I am making a cup of tea then there is plenty of time there to see if anyone has sent me email etc.

Regarding work email, I do not read a lot of it and I expect my colleagues to know that I don't read emails. I do read important ones but social events and other work emails that are non-critical I just move to the 'almost read' folder. Generally my email is just used for test purposes, lots of systems cc me in on things so real emails are hard to find amongst the reports etc.

I do have problems with 'slack' at the moment, some people are a little evangelical about it and I just find it to be lots of noise. I wish 'slack' would go and that I could return to the lame 'Skype' as that did work well for my needs.

</comment><comment><USER30> Maybe it won't work for you but this is how I see my way to deal with social addiction. YMMV.

I don't really manage it. I just let it flow, I don't feel guilty. That's the first step.

I also disable browser & desktop notifications. It's fine to see a highlighted tab or a number in the systray.

My mobile is always on vibration. Social apps are muted. All of them. I wear a Fitbit wristband synced by Bluetooth for phone calls notifications.

I use Serializer[0] as main input of news. I check it between tasks, scanning the titles and sending the articles to Pocket (important!).

I let myself check anything at any moment. When I feel "the urge" I just ask myself "should I check something?". Take a few seconds to answer that and I usually keep going on my task and check later. If not, it just happened. No big worry.

I also keep myself away from Twitter & Facebook using Buffer to plan my publications. I use Goofy or Pidgin to connect to Facebook chat.

Finally, I use Evernote with a keyboard shortcut to open my "brain dump" note. Here I jot down quick ideas that come across my mind while I'm doing a task. You can use anything else but Evernote is useful even walking. You can write down in your mobile and sync it later at home/office.

[0] [http://serializer.io/](http://serializer.io/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I use this "Block site" plugin [0] to redirect facebook.com -> openlistings.com because I still want FB pixels, etc to work for web development.

Keeps me addicted to the right things :).

[0]: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block- site/eiimnmi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block- site/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER32> Just turn notifications off from non-important apps. Or, put a "non disturb" mode for a few hours when you want to be focussed.

</comment><comment><USER33> This article has an interesting approach -- the author cut FB cold turkey for 2 weeks, but was able to return and be a more responsible, casual user:

[http://time.com/3093332/5-things-i-learned-when-i-quit- faceb...](http://time.com/3093332/5-things-i-learned-when-i-quit-facebook)

<comment><USER34> I quit facebook cold turkey every 2-3 months. Slowly it seems to creap back into my life. I noticed I was replacing addictions...apparently this is common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Most of the notifications are not necessary. It just gives you bad habits and distract you. The addiction you describe is partly created by getting used of all these small notifications sounds that excite you and give you the habit of checking all your accounts in a terrific infinite loop.

When you think about it, it is not human, you have far more things to do than being distract by these little sounds. Most of the applications makes possible to set precisely when you want to be notified or not. Don't worry, even with notifications, you will still be distracted by your kids, cat, neighbors, flying birds and dust.

I don't think the browser extensions are a solution to this. You have to learn to control it by yourself.

</comment><comment><USER36> For Android, I started using QualityTime. It tracks your usage. Annoyingly, it also counts background apps as "running". But it really helps to give me a snapshot of my day. I can see what time I woke up and started redditing on the can :P

</comment><comment><USER37> Last week I got Modafinil. I've been using it every day this week. I've felt slightly happier throughout the day, and more focused than I've ever been in my life.

It used to take _so much_ energy for me to start working. But on Modafinil I switch to emacs and start hacking.

I bet I'm going through a honeymoon period, but I'd say I've learned more about programming this week than in any (any!) month of my life. I feel really focused.

Many use it to avoid sleep. I don't; I get eight hours of sleep a night. I'm trying to avoid crashing, burning out, dependency et cetera by using Modafinil like an antidepressant, not a five hour energy.

</comment><comment><USER38> \- Took FB/Twitter off my phone. Laptop's never far away. This was the biggest 80% improvement for me.

\- Newsfeed Eradicator. Keeps me from consuming FB. I can still post, lookup the groups I'm in, lookup specific people, use FB Messenger etc. But it's no longer a black hole.

\- StayFocusd in Chrome to block Reddit/Twitter/FB/HN from 8am to 2pm. By afternoon, either I'm engrossed in my work and don't need to worry about distractions or my brain is mush and no more work is getting done today. Most crucial time is when I first get to the office. Can still use Firefox if necessary, but this eliminates the mindless CMD+T.

</comment><comment><USER39> I uninstalled Facebook app from my phone. Don't miss it at all. I have muted all the Whats App group conversations, as it is mostly recycled jokes. I still get notifications from individual friends trying to contact me.

</comment><comment><USER40> In case of Facebook the solution is very easy. In desktop version, when you put mouse over friend image there is a popup menu with item "Following" which contains one more popup menu with "Unfollow" item. When you unfollow friend his activity gets removed from the feed. The friend will never see that he is "unfollowed": no any notification fired. In several days i just unfollow everybody and now my feed is empty.

<comment><USER3> I'm actually really surprised facebook green lighted this feature to roll out. They had to know it would decimate their user engagement levels??

It's made their site much less sticky and I spend WAY less time on facebook now that I've unfollowed almost everyone on there. It's awesome. The only people I still follow anymore are my immediate family who I care about not missing any updates from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I edit /etc/hosts, and block these sites, Ive been doing this for months with facebook and don't have urges to begin typing "face..." in my url bar anymore.

I really recommend it.

I think a bit part of it for me, was finding another site that interested me enough to not have me thinking "man, I wonder what <enter in lame fb user> is saying.

Hope this helps :)

</comment><comment><USER42> One device.

I don't have a problem with most of these. Facebook can demand a lot of attention though. I learned others expect what you give. So I don't give much, others are fine with that and Facebook isn't a problem.

My Mac at home is the entertainment computer. It has all the problem stuff on it, potential problem stuff too. When I have time, I can hop onto that computer and enjoy. No worries.

</comment><comment><USER43> My trick - cut down the people you follow.

Take 20 minutes one day and block all those on facebook that you really don't care to follow or post too much stuff. You don't need to 'Unfriend' them, just 'unfollow' them. This way you only see the stuff you care about and will inevitably spend less time on Facebook. This can be applied to twitter/snapchat etc.

</comment><comment><USER44> At 8pm I go read-only. I tell my colleagues this as well. Unless anything is burning to the ground I don't care.

Sometimes I'll do an /etc/hosts block and shift that site I'm over visiting to another device. Makes me realize I'm using it too much. Once that moment hits I unblock when I feel I'm ready for it on my laptop again.

</comment><comment><USER45> I've just crossed the three week mark of no Facebook. Scrolling through my newsfeed had become a bad mindless habit, one that sucked my time and emotional energy without giving anything back. But dang, it was hard to break. This hasn't been my first time getting away from FB, but it's been the most successful so far.

There is value for me in having a FB account. There are some people that I only communicate with through the service, and I'm part of some groups that do all their event organization through FB. Deleting my account, for me, was both undesirable and impractical. But I sure as hell wanted to break my addiction.

I started using a simple habit tracker on Android call Rewire to track my progress in breaking this habit. After a few false starts, "don't break the chain of success" became more motivating than I originally thought it would be.

I also ramped up the severity of my FB diet instead of going cold turkey right off the bat. This was roughly my progression:

1\. Delete the phone app. There's not a great way around this. I still use Messenger, and for the first time I find myself really glad that the services are separated.

2\. I started logging in and out of the service in a browser. When I finally tore myself away from the newsfeed, I'd sign out. When I was tempted to go back, having to sign in again was a usability barrier, but also a reminder to myself of what I was trying to accomplish. Sometimes it was enough to help me resist actually logging in.

3\. No mobile FB. I did my best not to log in through a mobile browser. I still allowed myself to browse on a laptop or desktop.

4\. No more FB. I configured my email settings to get notifications about very specific things and then looked at my news feed on a desktop browser for what would hopefully be the last time. My personal rule: if I get an email about something that was directed particularly to me, whether it's somebody posting on my page or somebody tagging me in a comment, I will log in through a desktop browser, address that event, and immediately log out. No looking at the newsfeed, no browsing to friends' pages. I also unsubscribed from all the promo emails FB started sending me when it detected that I was inactive.

I hope this helps! Breaking my FB addiction was tough, but very rewarding. I don't miss my newsfeed full of political vitriol and worthless clickbait. I've had more rewarding conversations with friends I care about through other means. I don't miss being part of "the conversation." So, A++, would recommend, but be realistic and gentle with yourself as you progress.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER46> I use Focus[1] in hardcore mode, scheduled from 22:00-12:55 and 13:00-19:00.

I really suggest reading Deep Work by Cal Newport.

For my phone - I deleted all of my social apps (apart from Instagram, Swarm etc) and keep it in another room or in my bag as much as possible.

[1] [http://heyfocus.com](http://heyfocus.com)

</comment><comment><USER47> If we can find "why" we go to all these apps/websites, then we can find a solution by ourselves by satisfying the "why" with some other one which can improve our skills (or any other desired quality)

For example, if we always check emails just to see how many new-emails we have got, so that we can act on them asap, Its a good case as its going to improve our productivity and time-to-respond lower.

Another example, if we always check fb to see what other people's activities are. Well, we can turn this around and make us the person who is doing lots of personal activities (outside of internet domain) and posting it to facebook (may be weekly), or restrict it to closer pals/family.

Personally, if we interact more with Nature around us, it feels great.

Restrict the use of these "virtual" worlds and try to participate more with the world around us. Instead of posting a message on facebook, may be call your best friends and say hi. Its million times better than seeing 1 like for the post in the virtual world.

</comment><comment><USER48> If I start labelling a site as an addiction - like I habitually type in the URL of one of these sites when I open a new tab - I block the sige by adding it to my hosts file. After a month or two The hunger pangs on wanting to go to those sites go away.

</comment><comment><USER49> I just dont do it, and dont do anything on my phone when i am not on the toilet or waiting somewhere where i could not work. Just a little discepline imho.

</comment><comment><USER50> Take all the social networking Apps off your phone and just use the web versions when you really need to check them. You'll save tons of battery life and stop getting notifications every 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER51> Quit using [insert service] for a period of time.

When you no longer feel a need to use it, then it is safe to use it. This has been the best cure for addictions for me in the past, but YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER52> Deactivated my FB since 2012. Happier more productive ever since. These days I only do Instagram.

</comment><comment><USER53> I assume the discussion around how to manage HN addiction will be conducted elsewhere?

</comment><comment><USER54> Have kids. Addition will automatically go away.

</comment><comment><USER55> Power on/off

</comment><comment><USER56> I predicted there'd be a lot of sanctimonious "I just don't have an account, they're a waste of time" responses, and it seems like I was right. That's great for you, but that's really not helpful to someone who already has an account and is struggling to quit. And it can be a real struggle. The dopamine hits on likes and favs and the fear of missing out on a conversation can be really hard to break.

Like the OP, I'm using StayFocusd and I've used RescueTime in the past, and it's actually been very helpful for me. Right now I've given up Facebook and I'm tackling Reddit next. I don't have a solution for my phone, but it hasn't been a problem for me because I leave it charging across the room when I'm working. It's still difficult for me during evenings, but I'll probably try something similar for that soon.

<comment><USER57> I used StayFocusd for a while, and while it helped, I also had the same problem with my phone, resulting in periodic uninstalls of the social apps. I found this to be attacking the symptoms and not the root cause though.

I then started using the pomodoro technique, with strict no IM/FB/etc during pomodoros. A nice side benefit of disciplining myself to work in this way was to reduce the impulsive desire to check FB, and over time I noticed that my desire to go onto FB, even when it was "permitted", had been reduced. I don't have StayFocusd or any such plugins installed any longer.</comment></comment>


What CTOs Fear Most - <AUTHOR> https://keen.io/blog/63582764323/what-ctos-fear-most <comment><USER2> Can someone help me understand what is going on with the mods or the ranking algorithm here? This post was on the front page this morning, dropped from #19 to #50 within in one minute.

Then it reappeared on the front page for a good two hours, now mysteriously dropped from #9 to #50 within one minute.

It's like there is a bot or mod that is flagging it down to #50. I'm beginning to suspect I'm cursed or someone has it out for posts from this domain! Kind of disappointing since I worked really hard on this piece. I've read how the ranking algorithm works but I don't have a voting ring and there is no flame war happening here. Sad face.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great series. One thing I'm missing though, but it could just be me, is that being the CTO in my experience is often a _lonely_ job.

Everyone else is focused on either business or tech. You're usually the only one that sees both. There's nobody to spar with on the whole picture, you have to make decisions with far reaching consequences on your own.

<comment><USER4> That's definitely not true where I am. Probably half our devs care about the business side. My co-founder and I are both techies who care about business, so we spar often.

On the far reaching consequences side, I didn't realize how important the choices we made in the first month were. Some of those are still with us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm confused that none of them expressed fear of being the target of a serious DDoS attack. Is it regarded as such a black swan event that it's not even in the radar?

<comment><USER4> That's one of those 'good problems'.

step 1) worry about how to get big enough that people even know who you are, and think that DDoSing is worth their time

step 2) worry about how to deal with the DDoS

completing step 1 is much, much harder :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great insights here. I think there is a common pattern - one that I've experienced as well. Growing a new piece of technology with no customers to an evolved product that scales and has a growing engineering team behind it introduces lots of new issues that have to be dealt with. I'm not necessarily a process freak, but from my experience, having a few solid processes really goes a long way and should be put in place early. Especially revolving around communication of issues and development priorities. When there's a major fire or conflict on teams, there's a big microscope that should be looked through in order to add improvements that will help a company get past future stages of growth more smoothly.

<comment><USER7> That pattern is called the Red Queen Syndrome and can be paraphrased thus: solving problems uncovers other problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great series! This is my first year as a CTO and I can relate to most of their stories already. It is hard to move away from your comfortable technical zone and have to start to worry more about the non-tech side of the business. A big challenge are the soft skills... once you become CTO you have to deal with a lot more people than with computers. The technical side is a huge challenge as well, but these are fun issues to deal with, although some do keep me awake at night :)

I'm learning a lot reading these interviews, so a big THANKS to the author!

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice interviews. I really enjoyed reading the answer of Alex Haro to the last 2 days worries. It definitely conveys the fact that technical issues are one component of the job, the others being often more human-related. Software engineers often their have strong opinions (and usually for the best) and making all work together, without going in a techie fight, can sometimes be a real juggling act.

</comment><comment><USER10> Alex Haro (CTO / Life360) here. Very excited to be a part of this series. Happy to help any way I can. email@example.com

<comment><USER11> Do you have a list of technologies/projects that are your "Yes, we want that, but not right now." list? How do you decide when to flip their do-it-now bit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In people's experience, how big does a non-tech company have to be before you can expect the CTO to be really wrong or behind with current practises, hardware and so on?

</comment><comment><USER13> Great interview. Now can we get an interview series with founders/business owners and ask them what business problems/pains they wish someone could solve for them? :)

</comment><comment><USER14> Ton's of great content in this series. Really interesting to hear how much CTO's think about company culture.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really liking this series, a great read. Would love it if you guys made more of them.

<comment><USER2> Thank you!! It's a slow process, but I'd love to make more. Some ideas I have are: Stories of massive growth/scale, Stories of horrific bugs/failures, Stories of mistakes/regrets, Stories of introspection (realizing something about yourself that changes the way you approach work). I'm particularly interested in stories of conflicts and mistakes -- I feel like people don't share them enough and they can be really fascinating, valuable, and relatable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> fantastic, really like this series that shows people going beyond the early "i have a technology insight that'll work well" to leading the business.

thank you.</comment>


Finding the real first post on Instagram - <AUTHOR> https://birdeatsbug.com/real-first-post-on-instagram <comment><USER3> Instagram uses basic base62 with a very standard alphabet

      ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-_

They started using hashing functions from Facebook after they got acquired [0]. This function is used across the whole FB and the main benefit is that it's time sensitive. That means they will sort based on time.

First few millions of IDs are just autoincrements and then they swapped to the custom sort. If you are bored, you can dig through who used instagram in the early days.

BTW base(62/63/64) is very popular way to encode IDs. Some sites will use much more custom alphabet. My favorite was Vine which used

      BuzaW7ZmKAqbhMOei5J1nvr6gXHwdpDjITtFUPxQ20E9VY3Ll

[0] [https://instagram-engineering.com/sharding-ids-at- instagram-...](https://instagram-engineering.com/sharding-ids-at- instagram-1cf5a71e5a5c)

<comment><USER4> What do you like about the Vine ID alphabet? I don't see the appeal, it cuts out some characters yet still includes potentially confusing ones (I/l/1 and O/0, which can look identical or nearly identical in some fonts). If not human readability, why did they cut out standard characters thus making IDs longer than necessary? I suspect there is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I'm missing it.

<comment><USER5> To me the randomized characters are a clever way of hiding "autoincrement" to users, so it would be non-trivial to calculate the number being produced daily.

Picking base 49 (a seemingly random number) seems to be perhaps a similar security-through-obscurity thing?

I've written code to produce random (non-sequential) ID's for storage in a database, but it's surprisingly non-trivial to produce a performant INSERT that will work without ever producing collisions.

Relying on the database's AUTOINCREMENT but obfuscating the value through a baseXX encoding seems actually much easier, when the only "security" you're trying to provide is against reporters and business analysts trying to estimate the site's usage/popularity, and they're quite unlikely to bother to reverse-engineer your encoding scheme.

<comment><USER3> Can vouch for the non-triviality of collisions. We have around 500k inserts a second and wanted to have time sensitivity between them (so essentially basic in on a timestamp) and fit it into 64bit unsigned integer.

We managed to get a safe space of around 50M per second, so we could safely use shard_id to prevent collisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those timestamps are likely from the image metadata, there's no reason to believe that the images are out of order from their numeric/shortcode ids.

What the author refers to as the "real post #1" has a taken_at_timestamp less than the first picture. It's still id #6 in the database versus #2 (the dog picture). Numeric ids are easily visible in the source of the page or by using this not-so-secret query string: [https://www.instagram.com/p/C/?__a=1](https://www.instagram.com/p/C/?__a=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems far more likely the timestamp is incorrect.

When writing a feed-based app, timestamps are one of the first things you inevitably screw up (read it from local vs. the server, pull it from exif and then decide to pull it from upload date, forget a timezone, fix a local time on the server that was out of sync, update the timezone on edit vs on creation, etc etc etc).

<comment><USER8> I'm not so sure about that; it's also fairly common for a database migration in the early days of a product to shuffle row IDs.

This is the reason my reddit user number is lower than spez and kn0thing's.

<comment><USER7> True, but considering the Instagram team has claimed that the dog photo was the first photo uploaded [1], I'm just not convinced the timestamp proves otherwise on its own because of how easy it is to make timestamp errors in the early days.

We may never know for sure...

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20180202095552/http://blog.insta...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180202095552/http://blog.instagram.com/post/27359237977/2-years- later-the-first-instagram-photo).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have my doubts about the timestamps on these first posts. How did Kevin get from Pier 38, where Mike supposedly photographed him at exactly noon, to Todos Santos at ~2:30pm, when it's 28 hours away?

<comment> yoz-y If it uses the timestamp of the upload, rather than timestamp of the picture then it is possible. However I don't remember if Instagram could use pictures from the camera roll in first version.

<comment><USER10> I don't think this was possible at the time. I thought instagram was restricted to only posting right then and there, and camera roll access came at a wayyy later date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Facebook kept it a lot simpler: you can just iterate through integers. 1 - <USER2> have been deleted but if you navigate to [https://www.facebook.com/4](https://www.facebook.com/4) it redirects to [https://www.facebook.com/zuck](https://www.facebook.com/zuck) and so on. All the original founders are sub 10.

</comment><comment><USER12> 'reverse-engineered' is a bit grandiose isn't it?

<comment><USER13> the definiton on wikipedia fits here. reverse engineering isn't always some clandestine thing

> Reverse engineering, also called back engineering, is the process by which a > man-made object is deconstructed to reveal its designs, architecture, or to > extract knowledge from the object; similar to scientific research, the only > difference being that scientific research is about a natural phenomenon

<comment><USER12> Sure, it fits, but I just think it's over-selling it some.

As an aside, I just reverse-engineered HN and found the first ever submission:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1)

<comment><USER14> Yeah, you basically reverse-engineered something there. Good job!

For the average programmer, it might not seem too much. But for a normal user, seeing something and figure out how it's working, without knowing internals beforehand, can be said to be reverse-engineering.

I guess we should start rating reverse-engineering so people can know what to expect.

<comment><USER15> I think he just showed us what is insecure direct object reference and not reverse engineered anything. Both op of your comment, and one from the post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm working on a bug right now where we have some timestamps that are wrong. Just saying.

<comment><USER17> Can you tell us more about the bug?

<comment><USER16> Turned out our backend team just had a graphql type def that was wrong. That resulted in a nullified value, and the server logic following that treats a null value for the timestamp to mean the task should be completed now. None of this was reflected in the UI however.

So all in all, my bug wasn't that exciting, but if you think about the early chaotic days of a startup, there are often nuances in dealing with date and time that don't get thought through, particularly with newer developers being pushed or pushing themselves to get things launched. For example, if you are doing all of your testing locally, you might not find out until you get a user or customer in another time zone that, hey, we should have thought about that.

Bottom line is, and I think this is really what I was thinking this morning -- I would never sink so much time into drawing conclusions with the early data of a startup like this. Life is too short. If I am going to spend that much time on something it's going to need to be a less risky investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The users of the first app didn't really get what it was for.

Whenever I'm venturing on an idea, I have a pretty clear goal and a pretty clear intent of use from a users perspective. However despite that, I'm always asked by people (who, by the way, I often figure would be the target audience for this new thing I'm building), "why?" or "what's the point?" or just blatantly "no one's going to use this over [facebook/twitter/etc/etc/etc]"

I remember when first diving into twitter 11 years ago. I remember diving into Facebook when it cracked open to the general public. I remember telling people about these platforms, and the response always is "why?" or "I don't understand what this is for or why I would use it"

I keep that in mind everytime I'm asked the same question about my own projects. Not everything is going to be a massive hit, of course. But you never know when one of these wild ideas becomes successful, and it will usually be something that the people didn't know they wanted until you show it to them.

</comment><comment><USER19> > you will be shocked how poorly they look and how far we have come in terms > of the quality of Instagram content.

pics of photoshopped faces and body is quality content of instagram

<comment><USER20> and not just instagram

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> More interesting: Why did Instagram instantly get a million users upon public release in the AppStore? How did people discover it?

<comment><USER22> We didn't? The initial Android release did well. It wasn't released until April 2012, iOS launched October 2010.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Post #2. Mike captures how Kevin's working on Instagram. The place is the > same - Dogpatch labs, which later relocated from San Francisco to Dublin.

Dogpatch Labs was not later relocated to Dublin. Both Dublin and San Francisco were open during the same time (as well as NYC). San Francisco and NYC were closed.

</comment><comment><USER24> > But what happens if after "/p/" you put A, B, C and so on? It appears that > you can find the first 28 posts of the social network.

Maybe I misunderstood the phrase, but how can you get 28 posts from 26 letters? the article doesn't mention lowercase letters

<comment><USER25> Maybe after Z it goes to 0 or 1?

<comment><USER24> The problem is that he says A to Z, not A to Z, 0, 1

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Looking at the first post Instagram has tremendously benefited/taken advantage of improved mobile photo resolution during their run

</comment><comment><USER27> My takeaway is that IG was always built to be performance based social media app. As in, the user puts up a performance for people to see.

Compare that to HN/Reddit/Blogs before and you can basically pinpoint when and how social media changed the way we connect.

<comment><USER28> I mean, aren't all social interactions performative at some level?

<comment><USER27> are you performing when you socialize with people?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Kudos ;)</comment>


What to do with your ideas for other people - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/what-to-do-with.html

<comment><USER2> "If you're unable to be in that position, my best advice is that you blog the ideas. At least you'll get them out of your system and get bragging rights if anything ever happens."

I agree that blogging the idea would be good, but not for bragging rights. It establishes a date and proof that it was in fact your idea.

Some ideas can only be executed by large corporations, accessing the right people within those corps (and not getting ripped off) is a problem we should all work on.

<comment><USER3> That will also give other people interested in the idea a way to contact you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If someone has great ideas for a big company that are valuable, then that same someone should be able to come up with ideas for a small company or a startup that are an order of magnitude even more valuable. Start helping those small companies and startups and build a portfolio to take to the big companies.

</comment><comment><USER5> "The quality of ideas is not a factor in whether or not you will be in a position to have a chance to sell those ideas."

This is why you need a sales guy, an idea guy and a hacker.

<comment><USER6> Or rather someone who can hack, someone who can sell, and someone with ideas (there can be overlap between them).</comment></comment>


Why Our Company's Trucks Won't Carry Lidar - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/why-our-companys-trucks-wont-carry-lidar <comment><USER2> > A fully loaded truck moving at highway speed needs a lot of space to stop, > at least 150 to 200 meters, and the long-range lidars now available can't > sense things in sufficient detail that far ahead. ...

> Reliability is also limited. I mentioned that we use components that are > automotive grade, that we're certain will work over the lifetime of our > vehicles, in all the various conditions we require. Lidar isn't there yet.

That makes me think how inefficient it is for every vehicle to carry its own lidar, radar, etc. Why not pay once for high-quality sensors built into the highway infrastructure, and have them feed data to passing vehicles. It would solve the lidar range problem, among other things.

One obvious challenge would be that smaller roads would not be outfitted with the sensors. Perhaps automated driving would be disabled in that case.

<comment><USER3> > Why not pay once for high-quality sensors built into the highway > infrastructure, and have them feed data to passing vehicles.

Collective action problem.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you mean. We collectively built the roads, for example, and the guard rails and road signs; it's hardly impossible.

<comment><USER3> There's far less contention regarding the scope and design of those things.

It's not impossible to do what you say. But do you live in the United States? This isn't a country does compromise and cooperation very well, especially not now.

A more recent example is cellphone technology. Europe forced standardization of cell technology early on and so cell service (especially 2G and 3G) spread much more quickly and consistently than in the U.S. But there was much more innovation in the U.S.[1] because companies had more degrees of freedom. CDMA lost the standardization wars but won the technology wars, and arguably that's because companies could build out CDMA in the U.S. and Asia.

I don't think there's an objective answer to which model is preferable, not for cellphones nor for autonomous driving. But relative to Europe the United States clearly prefers market-driven solutions. The mantra is that the government isn't supposed to "pick winners and losers" in a competitive market place. It may seem obvious that it's better to cooperate on building a shared infrastructure, but unless and until there's a consensus that such shared infrastructure offers not only the most social utility but that its the "best" approach (imagine all the details!), it's not likely to happen here.

And that's without considering who will pay for such infrastructure.

[1] At least, that's the common wisdom. Which is all that matters when discussing political viability.

<comment><USER2> I think you make good points, but I wouldn't assume that the current U.S. political situation will persist. The right wing in the U.S. didn't assume that and acted to change the formerly more centrist situation to a more polarized one, and from a more active government to a now radically inactive one.

> There's far less contention regarding the scope and design of those things.

There is less contention now, when they are mature solutions deployed decades ago. I expect that the situation was much different at the time they were proposed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


FontPrep: The Missing CSS3 Font Generator for Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://nathancahill.github.com/fontprep-the-missing-css3-font-generator-for-mac-os-x/

<comment><USER2> "Missing"?</comment>


Scott Adams: I Declare Mobile Phone Carriers to Be Enemies of the State - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158630186091/i-declare-mobile-phone-carriers-to-be-enemies-of <comment><USER2> Ah yes, I remember the days before smartphones, and how it was impossible to get drugs.</comment>