[noir_lord]

On my desktop I just have 0.0.0.0 news.ycombinator.com (etc) in /etc/hosts

That forces me to use either the media PC or my laptop if I want to access HN/twitter/reddit.

It works because it puts a breaker in the "I'm a bit bored, I wonder who is wrong on the internet today" loop.

[mhaberl]

How does this help? Won't you just comment out the entry in hosts file if you want to visit HN?

[coldtea]

No, because of the extra guilt.

It's not about what's technically impossible to break out of, it's about the psychology.

[sbmthakur]

The time taken to do that is often enough to remind one of their don't get distracted resolution.

[frank2]

Especially if it says "don't get distracted" or "too much information too fast is toxic" in a comment right above the line blocking HN.

[cyberbanjo]

It's just to slow the automatic response. One extra step can be enough to go from automatic to task-evaluation.