MBlume may be referring to the “noprocrast” feature:
the latest version of Hacker News has a feature to let you limit your use of the site. There are three new fields in your profile, noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway. (You can edit your profile by clicking on your username.) Noprocrast is turned off by default. If you turn it on by setting it to “yes,” you’ll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours. You can override noprocrast if you want, in which case your visit clock starts over at zero.
Other possible features would include disabling links and replying in some way—for certain times of the day, or requiring the user to type a long string to access them each time.
I find HN to be a stream of excessively tasty brain candy. What particular hacks are you thinking of? Is there a list?
MBlume may be referring to the “noprocrast” feature:
Best wishes, the Less Wrong Reference Desk.
Other possible features would include disabling links and replying in some way—for certain times of the day, or requiring the user to type a long string to access them each time.