I want the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. I already own the 20-volume OED and I can’t tell you how much pleasure it’s given me. Researcher Extraordinaire Lisa Gold tells us that online access to HTOED begins in December, and that if you have a library card, some library systems will enable access from home. That sounds fab–except that it would mean disabling Freedom. And I need Freedom. A lot.
(Freedom behaves like a nun with a ruler from my childhood. Everytime I reach out to mouse over to iGoogle, *whack*, the ruler comes down on my knuckles: You may not! I’ve started calling the app Sister Mary Joseph.)
Hey, perhaps my now-extreme productivity will lead to a sudden surge in income. And then HTOED will be mine, all mine…
Nicola Griffith 
Well, I think the point of Freedom is that it breaks you of your bad procrastination patterns – in the online world. Having the HTOED in hardcopy, while pleasant, and preferable to online access, would still provide an avenue for time wasting. (For me it can be things like beans to soak, onions to carmelize, weeds to pull, floors to clean – though not so much lately.)
Do you know The Oxford Companion to the English Language and The Penguin Atlases of history? Both possibly useful, both available more reasonably offline.
If you decide you can risk the online version of HTOED, but your library doesn't give access, just let me know.
Once at sit at my screen, I stay there, so the online thing is really my major distraction. I'm not a big procrastinator.
I believe (actually, I know) SLS allow online access to reference works, so come December it shouldn't be a problem. Thank you.
But I still want the paper books…
What I want is a version of Freedom (or the equivalent) that will block all websites except a couple that I designate. I see software that will let me selectively block certain websites, but it would be better/easier for me to just allow certain ones. So I've decided to use a different browser just for the couple of sites I need for my work, and block the browsers as apps for all my rss feed and other distractions.
And I want software that will only allow me to use certain apps too. I have to many to block individually, but I suppose it's only a few that I use. I can get distracted by some other project almost as easily as I can online.
Did you see SelfControl? it blocks access to websites and mail servers for the time you specify, and it won't turn off with restarting or anything else. You have to wait until the time is up. Scary! :) (what if it doesn't work right and doesn't turn back on?)
Thanks for talking about all of this; it's really made me take a look at my own bad habits.
And yes, the paper books on this kind of thing are so much better.