| ▲ | Overgrown, when plants invade your abandoned tabs(charliegerard.dev) |
| 201 points by speckx 4 days ago | 59 comments |
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| ▲ | drfloyd51 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| This isn’t as useless as it seems. It is a visual representation of how old the tab is. And I control what “old” is. To put it another way, it helps me recognize which tabs I am using. And which I am saving for later without having to evaluate the content of the tab. One tweak… the coverage percentage can it be adjustable? Max = 100% looses all information about the pages contents, except the title. Also also… if the images can be made translucent… you can make old timey effects like yellowing and decay. |
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| ▲ | paid_dot_expert 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It also creates a human feedback loop. It will train you to instinctively not keep old tabs open as you need to deal with the plants. | | |
| ▲ | j16sdiz 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It would cause more tabs to be open. You can't use the old tab because all the plants.
You open a new tab for the same page.
Don't need to close any old tab for that. | |
| ▲ | johnea 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why would you not want to keep them open? | | |
| ▲ | zetanor 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you have tabs sitting there unused for days, isn't that just a bookmark? | | |
| ▲ | ninkendo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Or a history item! People forget about browser history. It’s super useful. My technique: I open tabs just like anyone else, and when I feel like “that’s too many tabs”, I just close them all. Every one of them. If I need them again? Open up the browser history. It’s searchable. It has everything. Use it! | | |
| ▲ | nor-and-or-not 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You might like Tab Session Manager, which also lets you tag and search your saved window/tab sessions and annotates them with a date. https://tab-session-manager.sienori.com/ | |
| ▲ | kccqzy 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | At work I’m basically required to use Chrome and Chrome does not keep browser history beyond 90 days. That is useless. An open tab can easily last more than 90 days and survive restarts. | |
| ▲ | tcfhgj 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It’s searchable. not very well, except you add a lot keywords to website title manually via bookmaeks | |
| ▲ | dylan604 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Browser history is nothing but self incriminating evidence. Why would you keep it around? | | |
| ▲ | Melonai 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why? I don't really have anything that dangerous, illegal, or weird open... And the browser history on my local machine is at most exposed to me and my fiancé, who I don't really care to hide it away from. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You do you, I'll do me. I know I'm not the only one, otherwise, the option wouldn't even be available as a preference. Just because you can't think of a reason someone might want to use that option does not mean everyone else is the same level of unimaginative. As for specifics of why, that's something I've chosen to do and that's all that matters. | | |
| ▲ | lazyasciiart an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Damn, that’s a very defensive take for someone who started by asking why anyone would behave differently to them. | |
| ▲ | Barbing 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > As for specifics of why, that's something I've chosen to do and that's all that matters. No obligation to share, certainly. Curiosity is there in part because we may learn a valuable lesson - something those “with nothing to hide” [I know] might not’ve considered. (not a request, we can learn from others) |
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| ▲ | done_lurking 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If authorities already have the means to access your browser history then deleting it won't accomplish anything. They can just install malware and see what you're browsing anyway. | |
| ▲ | skinfaxi 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Are you against journaling for self-reflection? | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't keep a diary if that's what you're asking, but it doesn't mean that I can't look back on things to help make decisions for future growth. Not really sure how any of that has anything to do with leaving a browser history | | |
| ▲ | Barbing an hour ago | parent [-] | | Perhaps curious if the thinking extends to: “[Any/most documentation of activity and behavior] is nothing but self incriminating evidence.” | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 an hour ago | parent [-] | | We've all see the stories about people being forced to grant access at border crossings. This is a specific type of information they would love to see. Being in the habit of not storing it means you don't have to forget to do it at the random time you need to have it deleted. So when you do a full shut down before going through the airport, which you obviously do, your browser has already cleaned up for you. I don't care if I think I've done nothing wrong. The jackbooted thugs at the border might have a different say so, and now you're screwed because you felt like your history was necessary. I trust no one, and I'm not even a freedom fighter. |
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| ▲ | fwip 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sometimes you want to go to a website a second time. | | |
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| ▲ | terribleperson 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Bookmarks are so badly neglected tabs might be preferable. Firefox mobile doesn't even allow you to tag new bookmarks. | | |
| ▲ | opan an hour ago | parent [-] | | Been years since I used tags in bookmarks, but on FF mobile I do often miss qutebrowser's quickmarks. I have a lot of stuff like "malw" to get to my MAL Watching list on my PC. My compromise on mobile is to use the bookmark titles kinda like a search or a description with keyboard stuffing, so maybe the default name of the bookmark is something generic like "MyAnimeList.net", I'll put "malw - " at the start of it, then next time I hit new tab and type malw out of habit it should come up. Not as good or reliable as a quickmark, but you could probably do something similar for a tag replacement. Bookmark some blog post about the Amiga, edit the title, throw in "retrocomputing diy technology blogpost hacking" or similar on either end, then when you type in "retrocomputing" later it should show up along your other stuff with that in the title. Might be more primitive but should do the trick. |
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| ▲ | girvo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I use tabs as ephemeral bookmarks, yeah Maybe there’s a better way |
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| ▲ | iugtmkbdfil834 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Resource conservation ( memory ), attention conservation ( focus, change for additional distractions ) come to mind. |
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| ▲ | echelon 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm working on tab garbage collection too! https://github.com/echelon/browser-focus I need to add screenshots. Basically puts an overlay on all timed out tabs, shows all timed out tabs so you can kill them all together, etc. I want a better algorithm / heuristic that can semantically track what I'm doing. I might eventually be brave enough to break out of tabs and let my windowing system handle everything. | |
| ▲ | cactusplant7374 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It discourages and frustrates. So yes, it is useless in terms of modern browsing. |
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| ▲ | jdprgm 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't think any browsers are really designed for the range of how many tabs people keep open. I also wonder what the distribution does really look like. Just on my primary profile here I felt like I was making progress trying to get it to under 2000 tabs recently. It feels like a hopeless battle though. Across multiple machines and browsers and browser profiles i'd reckon i'm stuck at like 12,000 open tabs. |
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| ▲ | spencer-p 13 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Do you actually come back to a tab 2,000 tabs later? Lately I've tried using an extension to close any tabs I haven't opened for a few days. I haven't missed them, and if I actually want to come back to something, I make a todo now. |
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| ▲ | triclops200 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "Originally, I was thinking about blocking users from closing their overgrown tabs until they slash all plants, but I thought it would be too annoying... "
I would ask that you please add this as an option :), might actually use it for that feature alone because I do accidentally close old tabs by accident without noticing that was meaning to keep open. |
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| ▲ | newscracker 44 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is so cool! I wish for this to be available on Firefox, where I usually have multiple windows with each window having several tabs. The repository doesn’t make it clear if this works on non-Chrome/ium browsers. |
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| ▲ | ramboldio 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Related work: Trello allows 'aging' for tasks. One can set them to become more transparent over time or turn into stained 'pirate' paper. https://trello.com/power-ups/55a5d917446f517774210012 |
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| ▲ | Barbing an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Related: Zero regrets: Firefox power user kept 7,500 tabs open for two years
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41156568 |
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| ▲ | alanning 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Fun project, but I also really liked the way she came up with it: I was doing a little creative exercise the other day around the word "Overgrowth”… Is this a common thing in the creative space? Seems like a fun activity |
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| ▲ | dylan604 an hour ago | parent [-] | | People get inspired by seeing a new color, smelling a new scent, or hearing a new song. Inspiration comes in all shapes and forms. Makes me kind of sad that you seemingly haven't been inspired by something random in life yet. |
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| ▲ | profsummergig 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Chrome's "tab group" feature is awesome and it ended my issue with unaddressed and open tabs. It even works on Chrome for Android mobile. |
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| ▲ | ckx 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is so useless yet so cool! |
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| ▲ | SugarReflex 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It doesn't do anything for shareholder value, but I love it. | | | |
| ▲ | jakzurr 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It is absolutely! (But nobody better try putting this on my browser.) |
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| ▲ | Dwedit 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I just use a tab suspender, I prefer having RAM over having something cute. |
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| ▲ | b33l 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I like to throw cress seeds into unattended keyboards |
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| ▲ | asphodele 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Classic joke at university was to sprinkle cress seeds on the carpet of someone's room and water it with a fine mist from a plant sprayer. In the morning the inhabitant would wake up to a neat lawn that had appeared overnight by magic. | | |
| ▲ | jakzurr 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | OK, now I'm having flashbacks of astronomy Macintosh lab, late at night, too much homework (early 90's). Fell asleep in front of keyboard, woke up to "Can of Worms" screensaver (never seen it before), had a heck of a start, wondering what the sound was, and what all those things were crawling all over the screen??? | |
| ▲ | Barbing an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Can they really grow that fast? |
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| ▲ | paid_dot_expert 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Cress is a word I haven't heard in decades. Got to get some cress! |
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| ▲ | 5- 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| almost completely off-topic, but the demo video very heavy reminded me of http://www.traumagame.com/ |
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| ▲ | sublinear 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Just for fun, you can pick your weapon of choice between the rusty machete, the chainsaw and the flamethrower. |
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| ▲ | jasonpeacock 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| People who keep tabs open too long are the same as those who store files in the system trash. At some point it’ll get flushed and you’ll only have yourself to blame… |
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| ▲ | zeroq 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm one of those people. I have serious ADHD and I often dive a rabbit hole for an idea for side project. Or research. Or combination of both. Most of my side projects you could categorize as spikes. There's no serious intent on delivering something of value for the world, just going from A to B and learning a thing or two on the run. I'm like kerosene, I light up instantly, but the fire goes away very quickly. I can be researching a thing for 3 nights straight in my spare time to gather hooks and pieces of information... and then I get distracted and my focus goes somewhere else. And I'm left with 10 tabs that were suppose to kick start my idea. To my own surprise I tend to go back to these ideas, but sometimes it takes me months, and sometimes, I keep these tabs on one of my devices, opened for months at a time. Sometimes I scrape them, adding links with notes to Obsidian. Of course the amount of hoarded information vastly exceeds my throughput. | |
| ▲ | bertjk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And while initially you fear that you may have lost something valuable, you also immediately feel like a great burden has been lifted... |
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| ▲ | BLKNSLVR 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Need more of this kind of fun! |
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| ▲ | johnea 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I like it! I have a ton of these tabs. I don't consider them "neglected" though. Some things take years to come to fruition. You can't just go buy them at home despot. Maybe younger people don't yet have an appreciation for things that assume an air of legacy and heritage after many years of "just sitting there". When finally re-visited, they have a meaning that can only accumulate with the passage of significant time... |
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| ▲ | tamimio 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| These useless programs are like what you used to see back in win98 or winxp with dancing monkey or scoopydoo walking all over your desktop windows, which I think later turned to human dancers before being used to distribute all sort of viruses. |
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| ▲ | itomato 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy "BonziBuddy was described as spyware[1] and adware,[2] and was discontinued in 2004 after Bonzi Software, Inc. faced lawsuits and fines regarding the software.[3]" It's just a matter of time before something like a "Zoltar screensaver for Basecamp" becomes an IP siphon. | |
| ▲ | makmanalp 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | sheep.exe was not useless, I loved it. you take that back. |
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| ▲ | bbor 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Woah, my interests! Anyone have any tips or favorite projects to share from procedural vine/flora generation? It's a fascinating space, and this extension seems to do surprisingly convincing job of it |