On High Tech Distractions

[wersdaluv]

LINKY! (http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/quiet-mind-high-tech-distractions/)

It is very relevant to many of us here.

:KS

[conehead77]

theres a http too much in your link

[wersdaluv]

theres a http too much in your link

Ooops! Thanks! :)

[Sunforge]

Chimes with me - it's something I tell my users every day; especially the blackberry bit.

They don't make you more productive they just blow your weekend away.

[chewearn]

Buy the safe old gadgets all you want.
I want my latest and greatest, all the time.

If you don't take the risk, you don't get the rush.
:lolflag:

[Crick]

Nice article. I've been looking for a place to post some thoughts, and while about to post a new thread it came up with this one. So I'll put it here.

Ubuntu has been my new OS for nearly half a year now. I'm feeling very at home in it. Probably the biggest blessing is the repository system. Easy to search, easy to find, easy to install, confidence that an install won't install a trojan at the same time. I don't miss winxp one bit.

The problem is, I'm easily distracted. So, the repository system is at the same time a curse. It's far too easy to install tremulous, or wesnoth, or nexuiz, or even an IRC client. It's also too easy to go browsing for forums etc. I suppose it's similar to being an alcoholic - a recovering alcoholic simply can't have alcohol in the house because they'll drink it. So the solution that works best is often abstinence. (If you don't understand how someone can be like this, good for you, just ignore this post.)

But... at the same time I need a computer for work, online banking, etc. etc.

So I wonder if it would be possible to build some sort of "locked down" ubuntu based distribution, suitable for an internet/game addict, or a workplace. It would have to:
1. Bar the install of games, IRC, and other things that are net wasters of time, through the default repositories.
2. Bar additional repositories from being added manually.
3. Bar the install of anything via non-repository methods.

I don't want someone else to administer the machine. I want to be able to install things as and when I feel like it, just not to have the option to install time wasters. Maybe at the initial setup of the machine, you could choose which classes of apps you consider time wasters, so that at a later moment of weakness you can't enable them, but at the same time, if you aren't addicted to something, you can have that functionality.

So:
1) Could this be done? and
2) Would other people find this useful?

[inversekinetix]

cool another article pointing out the blatently obvious, if i could somehow bottle common sense I would be rich.

I can't wait to see what the world becomes when all the kids brought up in this substanceless media jungle we live in now become adults, its gonna be great.