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Busy Status Bar

(busy.bar)
1366 points aleksi | 5 comments | 14 Oct 24 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source
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schnable ◴[14 Oct 24 16:42 UTC] No.41839241[source]▶
People be so busy they need to buy a hacker-friendly device and build bespoke integrations with it.
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nixosbestos ◴[14 Oct 24 17:37 UTC] No.41839801[source]▶
Truly, it's so hard for me to not see this as just dressed-up techie-flavored consumerism. If you can't look at your phone to run a timer without getting distracted, I think there's a different problem to solve.

(reminder that Android makes it trivial to not show notifications on the lock screen, or even in the top bar. I see notifications only when I want to.)

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1. drdaeman ◴[14 Oct 24 18:36 UTC] No.41840473[source]▶
Feels like a problem in search for a solution to me. Although I haven’t worked in an office for a while now, so it could be that I’m not understanding the importance in such setting (or whatever is this device’s target use environment) that can’t be replaced with a sticky note.
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2. kajecounterhack ◴[14 Oct 24 19:14 UTC] No.41840860[source]▶
Geez the creator obviously doesn't think this is a necessity. It's just introducing a little whimsy and fun. Nobody cares if you don't want to buy or use it.
replies(1): >>41854418 #
3. cle ◴[14 Oct 24 19:15 UTC] No.41840864[source]▶
I don't work in an office anymore either, but when I did (years ago), I would get constantly interrupted by people walking up to my desk and talking to me. I like talking to people but I also need uninterrupted focus time.

I made something similar with a blink USB light: https://blink1.thingm.com/ . I had a little sign that said "when it's red, I'm busy". And a keyboard shortcut to toggle it from red to green (it just ran a little bash script that invoked the blink CLI). It was duct-taped to my monitor so you could see it from far away.

It worked very well to prevent interruptions from other people walking up to my desk and chatting with me.

replies(1): >>41841083 #
4. allenu ◴[14 Oct 24 19:40 UTC] No.41841083[source]▶
I had the same issue when I was in an office and we were getting close to a deadline, so everyone was constantly chatting about this and that to unblock themselves. It's understandable when the rhythm of the office gets to that point that people want answers now, but it would get to ridiculous levels where you couldn't focus for 10 minutes before somebody else came by with a question.

I never got to the point of having a USB light as a semaphore or anything like that, but I really wanted to find and hack a toy traffic light that would indicate if it was a good time to interrupt me or not. So yeah, it was a very real problem.

replies(1): >>41845452 #
5. nixosbestos ◴[16 Oct 24 00:16 UTC] No.41854418[source]▶
Oh ho, you got me. Bruh, if I was here rallying against consumerism with any thought that it would matter, well, I'd be an idiot.