What’s your SN routine like? \ stacker news ~meta

13.2k sats \ 43 comments \ @cryotosensei 18 Jan meta

I have had the cowboy hat in my possession for 24 days, so suffice it to say that posting and commenting here on Stacker News have become a comfortable routine.

While other regulars fiddle around with the optimal amount of zaps they should give, I have been more preoccupied with incorporating the use of SN into my life. So after 24 days, this is basically my routine these days:

Start of the day - pay myself first: To help me manage the dread of having to slog for a living, I wake up and see if my balance has exceeded 500 sats. When it does, I withdraw whatever sats I have and just leave 500 sats. Having more sats in my LN wallet, albeit paltry, makes me feel that I have accomplished something before my work day starts. I then use 500 sats as play money. I zap more generously than in the past and don’t bat an eyelid when some territories require 100 sats to post. Because I have enough!
Throughout the day - respond to messages: When I zap and utilise my sats with reckless abandon, I find that sometimes I’m hovering dangerously close to a couple of hundred sats. Nonetheless, I try to respond to messages Stackers have left me and zap them part of my stash. I have to readily admit that the amount I zap is partly dependent on my mood and mostly dependent on the pool of sats I have. Maybe I should come up with a more objective guideline and zap more towards the direction of value-addedness.
End of the day - zapping popular posts and hanging out at the Saloon: One way to get rewarded with sats is to zap the trending posts. So I look at the top posts and see if I have anything else to add on. I never zap a post that I don’t leave a comment for; it just doesn’t feel right to me. I typically end my last engagement of the day with a reflection on what happened that day. I kinda like the sense of closure it brings me. And there’s a chance that I will wake up with more sats than the previous day. Surprise!

What’s your SN routine like?

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2015 sats \ 9 replies \ @elvismercury 19 Jan

My answer has little to do with sat allocation, although I've written about the current experiment with that if you want to read it.

My thing w/ SN is basically how to not spend too much time on SN. I wake up, do a bit of writing or art, then open SN and read all the notifications (some are replies to me, some are people I follow). Then I read recents, looking for things that are to my taste or that I'm trying to encourage; then to the main page.

After that, I try to not look at SN anymore because the major challenge at this era of my life is having my attention fragmented into a million pieces. This is the usual problem of modern life that people talk about (always checking their phone, etc) but with a bonus that with my job, and my hobbies, I am extremely subject to this fractionation, and it's become a serious issue.

This is relevant to SN bc there's so much compelling stuff here, and I see so many ways to be involved and help, and I actually feel like I'm kind of actual friends with a few people, and so it's tempting for so many reasons, but my life can't support it. I need those mental resources elsewhere, at least for now.

I then use 500 sats as play money. I zap more generously than in the past and don’t bat an eyelid when some territories require 100 sats to post. Because I have enough!

This is something I just can't wrap my head around. I believe you either live in Japan or Singapore now, right? Super expensive places. And yet you're talking about, at current valuations, having a feeling of 'security' from 21 cents a day? I just don't get where people's minds are calibrated on zap amounts. I know not everyone is rolling in the dough, esp compared to a North American white-collar worker, but is 21 cents really an amount of daily capital that elicits feelings? Esp when, as @siggy47 points out, and as @Undisciplined has described many times, and as @ekzyis's daily works of art have demonstrated, it's way easier to be in the green when you're zapping more?

I'd love to know more about your thinking / feeling on this issue, since I think a lot of stackers are in your same mental space. In the meantime, here's some extra play money -- my request is that you use it for your activities on the site vs withdrawing it, and see what you notice.

And fwiw, I second Siggy in noticing and appreciating what you bring to SN.

575 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 20 Jan

Hi, elvis!

Shucks, you got me. I freely admit that my first impulse when I saw your zap was to withdraw it to my LN wallet. Then I read that you wanted me to play with it and take note of any insights that crop up. Sure I will do that n play in the big leagues haha.

Now for why I only zap 50-60 sats (though that has increased thanks to @Undisciplined’s cajoling - I used to zap at most 20 sats haha)

The 21 cents per day is more symbolic than significant. I think that’s my coping mechanism to deal with the stresses of working life. I do love being a teacher and am pretty sure I’m not in the midst of any middle age crisis - but darn, teaching is hard. In the sense that every day I have to face so many (sometimes competing) demands from my colleagues and students - chasing for forms, attending meetings that have nothing to do with teaching, helping students get their uniforms, disciplining errant students. By the time I get down to it, I hardly have the time and energy to create great lessons - the thing that fills up my tank and makes me feel productive. Unfortunately, teaching is a microcosm of life; shit just happens. I cannot control all these variables that are part and parcel of my job. So every morning I zap myself in an attempt to exercise some control over my day.
On the practical side, I aim to buy a Bitrefill gift card at least once a month. I usually buy a supermarket voucher. So in Singapore, my trusty supermarket is part of a digital bank. So if I use the gift card and pay for the excess using my debit card, I will qualify for the higher interest rate. Provided that I make five transactions with my debit card, that is. The interest rate is nothing to rave about tbh, but I like the idea of working steadily towards a goal and seeing my sat stash increase haha. Exercising control over my life (back to point 1)
The selfish side of me doesn’t want to zap too much because I notice that some Stackers hardly zap others. But it isn’t my prerogative to tell people what to do with their zaps. Neither do I want to turn out to be a calculative Stacker who maintains a mental score sheet about how much I’m giving and receiving. If I relate to a post/comment, I will just zap it 50 sats - plain and simple.

So, I increased my default zap to 168 because in Chinese, it means “prosper all the way” (一路发”). It hasn’t even been one day but I have noticed certain changes:

Zapping is more meaningful to me because 168 is a symbolic number to me. It makes me feel that I’m spreading good luck around, especially since Chinese New Year is around the corner. Haha. Also I’m loving the darkish green zap - it makes me wonder just how many colours there are available!
Since my default is 168, I have to think more carefully about zapping a comment. Maybe my commenting behaviour has got to change. Maybe some Stackers have high default zaps, so they zap others but not me. I should just focus on developing my thoughts substantially so that people can’t help but zap my wonderful comments haha

Will get in touch again!

And thanks for the play money

163 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 20 Jan

I like that there's a new distinctive zap number out there and it's higher brow than the 420's or 69's that are often chosen.

Just wait until you see what your zap rewards start looking like. @ekzyis's daily posts give you a sense, but if you're like me, the first time you get rewarded several thousand sats for zapping content will be pretty impactful.

410 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 22 Jan

Only two days and i have cut back to 108 zaps on the third day to make my newfound habit more sustainable haha

108 is a significant number in Chinese culture too. It refers to 108 Heroes, the main characters of the Ming dynasty classic Chinese novel “the Water Margin”.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 22 Jan

Neat

133 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 Jan

I'd love to know more about your thinking / feeling on this issue, since I think a lot of stackers are in your same mental space.

Feel free to add those thoughts to my second most popular post which was about that very thing.

280 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 20 Jan

I can see why you zap small comments 27 sats, because I just zapped you 28 sats (8 is the Chinese’s lucky number). Gotta spread the sats around!

Anyway I answered your 2nd most popular post and gave what I thought was a considered response to your interesting n existential question haha

108 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 20 Jan

I was doing 28 today as well. We'll see where I get to for tomorrow.

28 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 22 Jan

Nothing. I just wanna zap you more than you zap me for once hahaha

472 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 19 Jan

Dang, that would have been the perfect post to link but I hadn't seen it till now.

It also contains this gem of a comment which I loved. I'd zap that guy but he hasn't been back for 5 months. Come back, @nightsofbitcoin!

749 sats \ 6 replies \ @siggy47 18 Jan

Can I just say that I see you all the time making quality contributions here. I think you may be cheating yourself of sats with your method. You will earn far more by tipping more. Build up some more sats, then tip quality posts early. For more details, check @Natalia's recent post. It really pays to pay others before yourself, as crazy as that sounds. As an example, the first thing I do in the morning is donate a load of sats to the site. It's not completely out of the goodness of my heart. First of all, then I don't need to worry about my cowboy hat. Secondly, I know I have a chance to earn it back with good tipping and posting throughout the day.

435 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 Jan

You can trust siggy to know what's up. Just hover over that cowboy hat for a second.

To his point, I often make over 10k in rewards for my extravagant zapping behavior.

290 sats \ 1 reply \ @Natalia 19 Jan

you can trust @Undisciplined to know what's up. Just hover over that cowboy hat for a second.

333 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 Jan

You can also trust @Natalia to know what's up, but you just sort of have to know that.

79 sats \ 0 replies \ @Natalia 19 Jan

It really pays to pay others before yourself, as crazy as that sounds.

indeed! 😂

51 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 20 Jan

Thanks for your concrete suggestion. Before today, I only donated once to the pool. It could be 50 or 500 sats, I can’t remember which. Anyway today I donated 1680 sats to the pool because I really, really care about keeping my cowboy hat. Keeping the streak makes me feel like I’m winning something in life!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 20 Jan

You're way ahead of where I was when I got started here. It took me a long time. Onward and upward!

424 sats \ 1 reply \ @Natalia 19 Jan

Having more sats in my LN wallet, albeit paltry, makes me feel that I have accomplished something before my work day starts. I then use 500 sats as play money. I zap more generously than in the past and don’t bat an eyelid when some territories require 100 sats to post. Because I have enough!

What if I told you that you would have more play money if you zap others more 👀 and data speak for itself:

I'm not a fan of sharing too much data in public, but since I'm selling the art of stacking - this was from yesterday, and I didn't even have too much time to do the zapping because I was busy with my own posts, so mostly all I did was zapping those who leave comments in my posts.

End of the day - zapping popular posts and hanging out at the Saloon: One way to get rewarded with sats is to zap the trending posts. So I look at the top posts and see if I have anything else to add on.

bad practice, you don't wait to zap the popular posts, you should be EARLY to spot those to-be-popular ones! Adding comments is good, but again be EARLY is the way.

But then again, I've also shared in my SSL that I'm not a sat maxi but a grow and fun maxi in SN:) Life is not about stacking sats only, the unseen are more valuable.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 22 Jan

Thanks for showing me your rewards stash! It’s really motivating

And thanks for the pro tip. I would never have figured it out. Haha. I would be sure to support the OPs of recent posts from now on. Who knows? I might hit the jackpot haha

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @amaurel 29 Mar

I'm gonna try at least one post a day

204 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 18 Jan

As one of the zap optimizers, I start my SN day by setting my default zap to 1/10,000th of my wallet balance. (When my cowboy hat was as young as yours, I would set it at 1/1000th which yielded about the same quantity back then.)

Then I check my notifications. I like wrapping up conversations from the previous day before diving into what's new. I also like to keep tabs on how I did in the rewards rankings.

After that, it's a free-for-all of reading, zapping, commenting, and posting that solely conforms to the whims of the day.

Almost forgot, at least once per day I try to one-up @ekzyis in some way (or at least accuse him of malfeasance if I can't come up with something).

519 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 21 Jan

Cool. Because I’m like that too. I like to give a sense of closure to chats so that I don’t leave the other person hanging. The thing is, sometimes I’m preoccupied with stuff at that point in time or am just not in the mood to type. So I don’t always follow up until later. By then, the momentum will be disrupted because the other person has moved on. My bad.

I think with the 10k zap, I wanna give more attention to the comments I zap and leave more elaborated responses. It’s also to see if Stackers respond to me when I reply a couple of days later. I kinda think Stackers have the patience and stamina for on-off conversations.

And you had me googling the meaning of malfeasance. Never came across this word in squeaky clean, albeit stifling Singapore hahaha

28 sats \ 3 replies \ @Bitman 19 Jan

at least once per day I try to one-up @ekzyis in some way (or at least accuse him of malfeasance if I can't come up with something).

That sounds hilarious, I'm sure I've seen your exchanges - but haven't picked up on it.

What's your all-time favorite accusation?

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 Jan

What's your all-time favorite accusation?

I don't know that any have been that great so far. It's usually related to him doing something shady to make his zapping look more impressive mine.

28 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bitman 19 Jan

We'll have to check out the interactions and enjoy your fun.

49 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 23 Jan

I don't know that any have been that great so far

Don't undersell yourself. I am already doing it.

378 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullcount 19 Jan

Check if there are any new territories
Mute them unless they're cool
Browse in peace. Unbothered. Moisturized.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 21 Jan

Billion sats question - how many territories do you follow? And what are they, if you don’t mind sharing?

336 sats \ 2 replies \ @fredosha 19 Jan

On my part, I am just trying out many things and see what works for me -- that is being part of the family in terms of postings and replies and zapping and all. Still playing with everything anyways. When I get to your stage of having a daily routine, which I see, that it brings some stability dealing with stacker news, I would feel fulfilled.

I like that you found your edge here. Good writeup, man.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 20 Jan

Here are some sats to help you hone your game. I hope you are having as much fun as I am. Keep the hat on!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fredosha 20 Jan

Thanks man. Appreciate.

168 sats \ 2 replies \ @nout 19 Jan

I subscribe to @Rsync25 and then only check https://stacker.news/notifications as my source of news... :)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 21 Jan

What is it about @Rsync25’s writing that appeals to you so much? Cos of his in-depth knowledge of Cashnu?

Thx for sharing!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 21 Jan

I just get notifications for the links @Rsync25 posts...

168 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 19 Jan

create + zap GT = stack ALL DAY LONG 🤠

47 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 21 Jan

Does GT mean great topics? I have been trying to work out what it means lol

Nice equation!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 21 Jan

It can also be interpreted as "great topics," but I meant "good content." @Natalia came up with the formula :) I just added the GT.

168 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bitman 19 Jan

Hi cryotosensei! Sounds like you've got a nice routine going.

However, consider tweaking it by raising your 500 threshold to a far higher amount - in the thousands rather than the hundreds.

Not having that spending limitation could help free up your mind and your zapping.

Your wallet might thank you for it!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 21 Jan

Love the whole idea of freeing my mind. That’s what got us into Bitcoin in the first place, isn’t it?

Will experiment more to be more generous with others (and self). Cos the energy i give out to the world will bounce back to me, right?

Arigato!

168 sats \ 2 replies \ @DudeJLebowski 19 Jan

I found it only a week ago or so, I was aware of it previously but hadn't had a proper look. It's now in my "Morning" bookmarks folder which I open as soon as I switch on the laptop, so it's an embedded part of my morning routine. Still getting used to things, lost my cowboy hat unfortunately, then found another, so that was great.

I load her up, hit the main page and click the posts I like, zap my favourites and the best replies, and then it lurks in the background and I have a quick look over the course of the day.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 20 Jan

The bookmarks folder is such a good idea. Comforting and boosts self-love. Can I ask what else is in that folder? And just how long is your morning routine?!

Because my work day starts as 7.45am, I only have about 30 mins for my morning routine. So I find that I can only really focus on one thing. If I want to rush to finish a great book, it means I don’t get to spend time on Stacker News until later in the day

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DudeJLebowski 20 Jan

The rest of that folder of incredibly boring, fiat finance guff that I need but hate!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jetecs6 4 Mar

Not that much.. but I always post 2 times everyday and comment top and hot post.. then open app in the next day if i gain SATs. Its not much to earn but im happy to see my SATs go atleast a hundred everyday.