Esp effective if you are doing web development on local machine. Oops, I just started to work.

Or on a remote machine, just set it to that IP (assuming your project is the default/only vhost). Now that I mention it, I think I'll try that.

That is so funny, but it is true...specially for web devs. (Myself included)

This works better for me:

  # Productivity
  127.0.0.1       mail.google.com
  127.0.0.1       gmail.com
  127.0.0.1       news.ycombinator.com
  127.0.0.1       www.bbc.co.uk
  127.0.0.1       netflix.com
  127.0.0.1       www.youtube.com
  127.0.0.1       arstechnica.com
  127.0.0.1       theverge.com
  127.0.0.1       www.google.com
  127.0.0.1       xkcd.com
  127.0.0.1       duckduckgo.com
  127.0.0.1       www.theguardian.com
  127.0.0.1       www.apple.com
  127.0.0.1       store.apple.com
  127.0.0.1       www.microsoft.com

Thanks for the list, didn't know about all these interesting sites ;)

how come duckduckgo.com is there? Do you never need to do searches for various (valid) reasons?

store.apple.com ? You shop apple products every day ? Wow.

he probably just spends time gazing at them and wishing to own them.... people do stuff like that. Me too, but now with apple products. With me it's more likely to be a travel site

An unfortunate truth.

    # Productivity

    127.0.0.1 *

Alternatively, cut your ethernet cable or smash your wireless router!

Nah. Destroying electronic equipment is fun, but editing hosts makes you feel like you're actually accomplishing something. :P

If you are interested in a slightly less heavy-handed approach. I wrote this to steer me away from the distractions. Just click the browser button to "block" new domains. You can unlock a page, but you only get a 5 minute window. This works well for me and most of my colleagues are using it as well.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/focused/kjlinclboa...

no reddit? You're lucky. Don't go there.

They probably left reddit out of the list since it's kind of a dirty word on HN. :)

Wait, why? Isn't Reddit funded by HN?

But I think you have to separate full and pure entertainment value from partial entertainment and learning for sure.

Of the above list, while there is certainly entertainment on HN, some of the others you listed are definitely less important learning wise other than perhaps lifting your mood.

There's an add-on for that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/

This would be a great time to plug Gas Mask for OSX

https://code.google.com/p/gmask/

is there any reason people don't do this:

127.0.0.1 mail.google.com gmail.com news.ycombinator.com [etc]

Does Mac not handle it or something?

For me it makes things more pleasant to read, and also makes it easier to re-enable a single site.

I should try that...