<story><title>Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?</title><text>You get nerd-sniped. Assigned a bug to squash. Some new tech or gadget arrived, to familiarize yourself with.&lt;p&gt;While researching &amp;#x2F; reading up &amp;#x2F; debugging, you stumble upon something interesting. Upon looking into that, yet another subject catches your attention.&lt;p&gt;You know how this goes. So... (see title). Bonus questions: what intermediate steps did you pass along the way? What stuck in your mind the most?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>mmh0000</author><text>Hard disagree.&lt;p&gt;The real world only has pain and suffering. Endless trials and never a payout.&lt;p&gt;Games on the other hand and very detailed and have a well defined path to success.</text></item><item><author>pictureofabear</author><text>It was a big moment for me too when I realized that the real world has infinitely many interesting things to do and explore. The real world is incredibly detailed.</text></item><item><author>jl6</author><text>So, I decided to install Linux on my formerly-Windows-only laptop, and thought it was cool enough to go full time and ditch Windows completely. The downside was the lack of access to top tier games. No problem though, my plan was to take a break from gaming, figuring that by the time Linux had caught up with compatibility, computers would also be much more powerful and I&amp;#x27;d be able to resume gaming at some point in the future on better kit, and not have to worry about janky framerates on struggling hardware.&lt;p&gt;Linux proved interesting enough that I kept finding all sorts of cool new rabbit holes to go down - shell scripting, filesystems, Python, databases. It was side-quests within side-quests! Plus, having kicked my gaming habit, I had plenty of time to explore these.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, to cut a long story short, that was 23 years ago. I ended up getting a career in tech, relocated, got married, had kids, lived the American Dream... The &amp;quot;life&amp;quot; rabbit hole kind of got in the way of my plans, so I can&amp;#x27;t wait to finally get back on track and play GTA III on a decent box.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hirvi74</author><text>This oddly enough has been quite a big issue in my life as of lately.&lt;p&gt;I need to get off my ass and start working towards better things in real life in order to (potentially) better my situation e.g. new job, better hobbies, etc..&lt;p&gt;However, I have always had issues with gaming on and off throughout my life (perhaps a lot more on than off). I seriously think that a lot of my issues with gaming is that games are preferential to life in many regards. In a game, I know if I work hard and follow the steps&amp;#x2F;guides&amp;#x2F;quests, then I will be rewarded. Goals are obtainable in that if I fail to achieve them it is my fault -- because I did something incorrectly.&lt;p&gt;Sadly, when I take breaks from gaming, I am not a productivity machine. I just find something else to waste the time with.&lt;p&gt;In the back of my mind, I want to believe that if I work hard and better my situation, then will &lt;i&gt;finally&lt;/i&gt; be rewarded. But I have worked hard to get where I am, and I am still awaiting the reward, so to speak.&lt;p&gt;So, I think a part of my brain has taken the shortcut to destroy my motivation because I know that Sisyphus isn&amp;#x27;t the only one rolling the boulder up the hill thinking, &amp;quot;maybe this time will be different?&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?</title><text>You get nerd-sniped. Assigned a bug to squash. Some new tech or gadget arrived, to familiarize yourself with.&lt;p&gt;While researching &amp;#x2F; reading up &amp;#x2F; debugging, you stumble upon something interesting. Upon looking into that, yet another subject catches your attention.&lt;p&gt;You know how this goes. So... (see title). Bonus questions: what intermediate steps did you pass along the way? What stuck in your mind the most?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>mmh0000</author><text>Hard disagree.&lt;p&gt;The real world only has pain and suffering. Endless trials and never a payout.&lt;p&gt;Games on the other hand and very detailed and have a well defined path to success.</text></item><item><author>pictureofabear</author><text>It was a big moment for me too when I realized that the real world has infinitely many interesting things to do and explore. The real world is incredibly detailed.</text></item><item><author>jl6</author><text>So, I decided to install Linux on my formerly-Windows-only laptop, and thought it was cool enough to go full time and ditch Windows completely. The downside was the lack of access to top tier games. No problem though, my plan was to take a break from gaming, figuring that by the time Linux had caught up with compatibility, computers would also be much more powerful and I&amp;#x27;d be able to resume gaming at some point in the future on better kit, and not have to worry about janky framerates on struggling hardware.&lt;p&gt;Linux proved interesting enough that I kept finding all sorts of cool new rabbit holes to go down - shell scripting, filesystems, Python, databases. It was side-quests within side-quests! Plus, having kicked my gaming habit, I had plenty of time to explore these.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, to cut a long story short, that was 23 years ago. I ended up getting a career in tech, relocated, got married, had kids, lived the American Dream... The &amp;quot;life&amp;quot; rabbit hole kind of got in the way of my plans, so I can&amp;#x27;t wait to finally get back on track and play GTA III on a decent box.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wdh505</author><text>The hardest part of life is to reward the process over the outcomes. Videogames don&amp;#x27;t have that constraint.</text></comment>