Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19 - mighty-fine https://joshuaweissburg.com/2020/04/12/fear-and-beauty-two-weeks-living-with-covid-19/?utm_source=yc <comment><USER3> I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about the psychological nature of this pandemic. The author of the article is 39 years old, I'm quite surprised by the severity of the experience that he reports.

There was a similar article in the NYT recently by a woman whose husband contracted COVID, had a relatively 'normal' pneumonia, but the article read like a war report out of an Ebola zone, allusions to Chernobyl the TV series, and COVID as a silent killer, and so on.

Now I don't want to diminish the personal experience of anyone, but I'm still surprised how many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s who ought to have had personal experience with tragedy and illness seem to have serious psychological trouble coping with the simple fact that we're for a while living in a pandemic and that life has become somewhat more dangerous.

It's not that I'm personally not worried at all, but there has to be some perspective. Life is more dangerous, but it's always somewhat dangerous. I wonder if it's, in particular, a phenomenon of affluent societies that haven't had to deal with serious stressors in a long time.

If you've ever been to Israel and lived there for a while and you go to a wedding and five minutes later there's a bomb alarm and there's pretty much rockets flying your way all the time, and you observe how resilient people are in coping with danger in their life, observing a lot of cultural response here worries me a lot.

<comment><USER4> I'm in my 40s and haven't had to deal with any really crazy situations like this. It isn't just that there's a possibility that 1 person I love could die from this, there's a possibly that _any_ of them could. And the older they are, the more likely that they could die from it.

On top of that, I can't spend time with them in the way that I would if I knew they were at risk. I have to stay away from them instead. It's the opposite of what I'd do if I knew a loved one was dying.

I think I'm dealing with it better than most because I'm an introvert. But I watch other people around me being affected by this, and I can understand it. It's a lot of new, different stress all at once.

<comment><USER5> Anyone could die in a car crash, but that doesn't really get people worried. There's a million ways to die at any moment, but people just don't worry about it.

<comment><USER6> We have accepted the other tigers. We are still painting this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great write up on the nature of fear! It's amazing how much the mind can fight to deny the reality of the situation you're in during such episodes.

The dull chest pain sticks around for a surprisingly long amount of time. I'm at day 25 now since my ER visit and just noticed that I haven't felt any of that dull pressure in at least 2 or 3 days at this point.

<comment><USER8> What exactly is this dull chest pain? I've had symptoms of lower chest and back-pain more than a month ago, with a strange feeling of not being able to get sufficient air through my nose as well as seemingly high blood-pressure and heart racing in late afternoons. This all lasted just short of a week, but took a couple of weeks in total until I could say it was gone, with a persistent minor dry cough. No idea if it was Covid but the symptoms sound strangely familiar with what other people experience elsewhere in my community. Could be panic attacks as well, obviously, but it felt strange.

<comment><USER9> I experienced the same. I even did gym at home with good performance but i felt weird sensation on my chest. I don't want to think i had covid, but so many people had it that I am surprised i don't.

<comment><USER10> This is availability bias. Because you hear it in the news so much, whenever you have some weird pain in the body, the bias make you think "covid-19".

I'm not saying you don't have it, but I'm saying your mind is making it seem much more likely than it actually is.

<comment><USER8> Fact is, that when I know when something feels unusual. And when this happened, I had no idea what the Covid symptoms are like. And at the time, I also didn't think that it was this. Only after several people in my community reported the same "symptoms" did I become suspicious.

<comment><USER10> And hence, the availability bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I was in high school I was deeply afraid of death and thought about it daily. Then a few times over that period I got sick. Not unusually, or deathly sick, but feeling like utter garbage and perhaps enough to wonder if there was a very remote chance that the illness could threaten my life. And everytime I wondered that I realized that I had no fear of death which struck me as really odd given that I would otherwise feel true terror at the thought of impending doom. This led me to the belief that fear of death is really just a biological impulse, and that pressing that mental button that says death is scary is just... not actually a reflection of your mentality but a biological response which can be dulled by physical circumstances like illness. By recognizing it wasn't really a rationally based thing, it became much easier to just not touch that biological scare button when contemplating death, and now it rarely bothers me (though it's still easy to trigger terror if I want to).

I feel I arrived at a similar place to the author but on a much less romantic path. Not sure if I would have the same experience if the illness actually felt life threatening in an active way (e.g. breathing problems like the author experiences).

<comment><USER12> When I was younger, I was like you describe. I'd lay awake nights kinda freaked out that I would die some day.

I remember looking up life expectancy and comforting myself that I had more than 75% or whatever left. When that wasn't enough, I'd think about how far away I was from graduation, and how, even after that, I'd have whatever- percent left.

I knew it didn't work that way, and it was irrational, but it helped me sleep, so I did it.

I'd absolutely panic if I had a fight with a family member at night and didn't have a chance to make up before bed -- what if I died before morning!

But, illnesses never scared me much.

Then one day.

One day, I was at the doctor's office, having a minor outpatient surgery performed. Very minor, local anesthetic only, procedure takes 10 minutes.

And the doc stuck me with the needle for the anesthetic, and it hurt just a little more than expected, and vasovagal reaction, and I fainted. Tunnel vision, echoing sound, sense of impending doom, blackness.

I was awake again before I finished falling back on the exam table, but I had a major panic attack. Never happened before in my life, but suddenly I was in an unimaginable blind panic, hyperventilating like mad, hands and feet starting to tingle and feel like they were vibrating.

Took two hours to calm down enough that they let me leave.

From that day on, anxiety attacks were a part of my life. For awhile, they were uncontrollable, and I started down the path that leads to agoraphobia. Before I locked myself in my dorm room forever, I got the anxiety just barely enough under control to keep living. I learned to talk about my anxiety very frankly with anyone who would stand still long enough to listen. This might be awkward oversharing, but it prevented me from getting stuck in the feedback loop that keeps people locked at home -- fear of the embarrassment of a panic attack being enough to start one.

I eventually learned to repeat my anxiety mantra aloud: "if every time I felt short of breath was really a heart attacks, I'd already have died long ago -- so these are not heart attacks"

Anyway, long story, but the result is that 20 years later, I rarely have attacks anymore, though I'm still a bit of an anxious soul. I don't often have that existential angst that used to lead me to count lifespans as a teen.

But I do get massively panicky when I'm sick, now.

I'm not sure what you said that compelled me to write this, but... it needed to get out.

<comment><USER13> I started getting what I now think are probably anxiety attacks a few years ago. I have asthma and now some GERD symptoms, so every once in awhile, I get symptoms that mirror the online warning symptoms for heart attack: numb left arm, tingles throughout my body, lightheadedness, skipped heart beats, chest tightness, chest is painful to the touch, etc.

I'd go to urgent care and they'd always be like "well you have a normal EKG but you should go to the hospital to be sure" and then the emergency room will talk to me, take my blood, monitor me for a few hours and take my blood again (sometimes it takes awhile for the markers of a heart attack to show up), and then tell me it was probably just heartburn.

I've gone five times in the last 2 years for this same song and dance (I skip urgent care now). I have had these feelings happen about 20 times besides that, so I'm not even going every single time, there's just some especially scary ones that make me go "It's probably nothing, but just in case!" Last time I was driving and could barely focus on the road, which was new. I was pretty close to an ER and even then I pulled off the side of the road and tried to calm down for 20 minutes before finally deciding to go in.

I'm only in my 30s, but I have seeing more and more stories of people dying from heart attacks that young (I know it's still rare, but it can happen), so that doesn't help. And if for some reason it ever does become a heart attack, I probably won't tell the difference and might not go in for it, and end up dead.

So yeah, anxiety over heart attacks can be no joke. I have real symptoms that manifest over it. Sorry you're going through this. I don't know if it'll ever go away for me, myself. Worried it might just be something I have to live with from now on.

But I'm fine normally except for the rare attacks. Even this pandemic isn't really bothering me too much, although I'm doing my best to avoid getting it, especially since I have other issues that could lead to a bad outcome (like the already mentioned asthma).

<comment><USER14> Havw you ever had a scope or scan/x-ray at the time of the attack? If it's that serious then it sounds like you may have a very significant hernia at those times.

There are surgeries that can help with hernias (which can come and go like that).

Another thing, have you tried Nexium? For me that has been really useful to reduce symptoms (although I do still have some serious symptoms). But it sounds like you have a more significant hernia.

<comment><USER13> There might be something to the hernia idea. I noticed my solar plexus area can stick out slightly at times (especially when I was leaning back last night). I always thought it was just the bone in my ribcage (mostly feels hard like the ribs surrounding it), but maybe it's more than that. I might have to get it checked out after this is over.

If I do have it, I think it's still pretty minor, at least compared to some pictures of hiatal and epigastric hernias I see online. It hasn't ever stuck out that far, and no doctor has ever noticed a problem.

Yet another reason to lose a bunch of weight. Throw it on the pile. Need to get my act together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _But for those of us with Covid-19, the full force of modern social technologies that enable cooperation, communication and specialization among billions of humans around the world has been applied and come up snake eyes._

For the record, I don't think this is an accurate representation of the situation.

The world has done a remarkable job of coming up with ventilators, masks and new practices on the fly in the face of overwhelming demand and labor shortages.

The ventilators aren't working as well as expected, so doctors are collaborating via internet in real time to come up with other options. New hypotheses concerning the pathology of the condition are already emerging.

Also, with internet access, you can google up medically recommended airway clearance techniques, recommended OTC drugs, etc. You can double check that it's a reputable source and an established practice for management of lung issues.

Covid19 is not the first time people have been faced with managing deadly lung issues. You can find good info on that very thing by searching for resources for _cystic fibrosis._ It's very deadly and people routinely manage it from home with medically approved and doctor recommended treatment modalities.

<comment><USER16> As a matter of caution, I always keep psychostimulants handy. Particularly: ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, and amphetamine salts. Also keep some other beta receptor agonists, like Ventolin. You never know when it can save your life.

<comment><USER17> Are those medicines actually advisable for covid?

<comment><USER15> I'm failing to find a list of recommended OTC drugs for covid19. All I'm finding is a generic statement that OTC drugs may help with symptom management.

[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are- sick/ca...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/care- for-someone.html)

Ventolin is an inhaler. It opens up the airways during asthma attacks or similar. Pseudoephedrine is a decongestant.

The article under discussion indicates the author was given an inhaler and cough medicine at the ER and states they _helped marginally._

Amphetamine salts are apparently used to treat ADHD. Some people use them illegally to concentrate for mid terms and finals at college or similar. I'm not personally aware of any valid reason to think they are appropriate for covid19.

Epinephrine is used to treat potentially deadly allergic reactions. You might know it better as "an epi pen."

It is contraindicated for a long list of things, including several heart issues that are potentially similar to the heart distress covid19 is causing in some patients. I'm guessing epinephrine would be a really bad idea to use with Covid19 without a really compelling reason, especially without medical supervision.

[https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-146863/epinephrine-hcl- pf...](https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-146863/epinephrine-hcl-pf- injection/details/list-contraindications)

<comment><USER18> > Amphetamine salts are apparently used to treat ADHD. Some people use them > illegally to concentrate for mid terms and finals at college or similar. I'm > not personally aware of any valid reason to think they are appropriate for > covid19.

There is a study that shows in vitro, it helps fight the flu: [https://covid19data.com/2020/03/06/meth-may-fight-flu- virus-...](https://covid19data.com/2020/03/06/meth-may-fight-flu-virus-study- suggests/)

There are also many reports from meth users that they almost never get sick.

<comment><USER19> Huh, interesting. I wonder if ADHD amphetamine users get sick less often than others.

It's just a personal anecodte, but whenever I get sick, I take amphetamine salts. It absolutely lets me power through the day and relieves symptoms (mostly stuffy nose), but I don't know if it's sustainable for something as long lasting as c19.

<comment><USER20> Ephedrine is a key ingredient of many cold and flu drugs, or was until the War on Drugs caused it to be banned for being an amphetamine precursor. I wonder if any amphetamine metabolites have similar effects to ephedrine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> no good content to contribute here other than to say: thanks much for penning this piece. hope you recover soon.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for this. I'm from MA - woke up a couple days ago with heavy breathing and am now progressing into GI issues. Been racing through the probabilities and dependencies of my potential contact so this encapsulated how I'm feeling well - awful how we are so helpless but not much you can do..

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm also in CO and had COVID-19 like symptoms about a month ago (fever and GI issues without any other major symptoms for a week progressing into a dry cough/heavy breathing -- completely unlike any other flu I've had). I never got tested due to lack of test kits here in CO at the time and because my symptoms stayed manageable I never saw a health care provider beyond a virtual meeting to get a rescue inhaler.

At the point when my fever started getting more severe is about the same time people were going absolutely crazy buying everything up - my girlfriend couldn't even find a thermometer or medicine to keep my fever down. Luckily I had a friend who overnighted a bunch of supplies to me.

It's really scary to realize there is a possibility that you could die, alone, in a hospital, unable to have family visit. The lowest my blood oxygen got was 89% -- I'm fortunate that if I had CVD19 I seem to have got the "light" version of it and never reached the respiratory distress that would put me in the hospital.

I strongly suspect that the reported infections in CO are off by a lot - <AUTHOR> wouldn't surprise me to find out it is/was off by an order of magnitude.

<comment><USER24> The U.S. has about 600k cases. One order of magnitude more is 6M cases. That's still very far from broadly spreading. It's worrying about the viability of the herd immunity theory (too few people had it), and opening the country soon (a few weeks of exponential case increases would overload hospital capacity, even after stemming the case growth through sheltering-- putting us back to square one). It feels, 1-2 months into this, we have no good options.

<comment><USER25> At least in Europe the results of quarantine are starting to show results, Italy, Spain and Germany and all seeing a drop in new daily cases and deaths. Spain will allow factories and businesses that can't work remotely to reopen today, although there are concerns it may be too early. Other European countries that imposed quarantine 'ahead of the curve' are not facing any issues in terms of hospital capacity.

<comment><USER26> That still doesn't explain how opening businesses can avoid infecting many more people. Now certainly but even when infection rates get considerably lower.

A scan of recent news seems to indicate Spain doesn't have anything like a testing program in place.

A look at Italy, Spain, France and Germany seems to indicate the epidemic has plateaued, not stopped and it's plateaued at a fairly high level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am going through pretty much an identical situation, except that a doctor prescribed antibiotics over the phone (assuming that the chest pressure and shortness of breath are due to the bacterial secondary infection) and I seem to be getting better.

The uncertainty has been eased by a little gizmo to measure the oxygen saturation in blood, which I got on amazon for £75 as soon as it was obvious that I could not breath well. I am probably fine as long as the saturation is > 92% or so.

Of course I have doubts about the reliability of a medical device off amazon, but it seems well done and, interestingly, it gives my mind a piece of seemingly objective truth to latch on.

[Edit - saturation level that will make me go to the hospital]

<comment><USER28> Blood oxygen saturation measurement techniques are pretty simple and well understood. Even the cheaper devices are usually accurate within a few percent. But if my level was getting to 85% I would head straight to the ER.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I heard a lot higher number myself. Here's a study I found online about it:

"Conclusion: Among outpatients with pneumonia, oxygen saturations <90% were associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Our results indicate a hospital admission threshold of <92% would be safer and clinically better justified."

[https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/52/3/325/305087](https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/52/3/325/305087)

<comment><USER27> Thank you both. Note taken and comment edited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So he claims that he got it despite practicing all the social distancing protocols, hand-washing, etc.

Has anyone calculated what are the probabilities of infection in an area with an active infection cluster while practicing social-distancing and other hygiene measures?

<comment><USER30> I don't know but I've become aware of just how difficult it is to remain pristine. Touch a door handle? After that did you touch your phone, keys or wallet at the store? Did you touch your car door handle? When you washed your hands, did you disinfect the faucet handle and soap dispenser after? It's always a game of percentages even when you're careful.

<comment><USER29> Yes. It's extremely hard. Clothes are especially hard. I have to take my dog out two times a day and I always try to use the same shoes and same hoodie for this activity. I wash them every other day, but that's a half-baked hygiene measure.

In reality, the only way to be safe is to always wash all your clothing every time you go out, but with a dog, I find that pretty hard.

<comment><USER31> I mean, you'd also have to wash your _dog_ , right?

<comment><USER29> I clean his paws after we go out but yeah, the vectors of contamination are infinite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Scary. Need to brush up on my stoicism in case the gods don't favour me. I can def see myself feeling the same fears

</comment><comment><USER33> I had wondered whether the flu our family got hit with over Christmas could have been coronavirus (had mentioned previously that my wife actually broke a rib from coughing).

But then a few weeks ago we all started to sneeze, cough, and run low grade fevers. Wife lost her sense of smell. And then a bunch of symptoms between us that I later learned are all coronavirus symptoms.

The dominant things for me was the shortness of breath, and the extreme fatigue. Like, feeling like you'll just go "goodnight!" and collapse on the kitchen floor fatigue.

The breathing was the most disconcerting. I'd wake up in the morning thinking I was getting better, but by the afternoon I'd feel like someone was sitting on my chest. The cough never really got crazy bad for me. Where a panic attack might feel like you can't catch your breath, this felt more like trying to breath under a swimming pool.

Caring for 3 young kids with a sick spouse has been... a test, lol. But fortunately we're all young and healthy and things are returning to normal. As slowly as it came on. Luckily I stocked up on things just in case, but at the height of being sick it was impossible to get any grocery delivery windows. They did finally come through about a month into this process, so, feeling grateful all around.

I had what would be called a "mild" case, but it definitely sucked. Looking forward to antibody testing so we can know fo sure it's what we had, but based on all of the symptoms, the long incubation time, etc, it seems very likely.

<comment><USER34> Was anyone in your family asymptomatic?

<comment><USER33> Not really. Only in that the kids symptoms were fairly mild — cranky, cold- like symptoms, etc. Which is apparently fairly common with coronavirus and younger kids (thankfully).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > So I had a higher chance of dying from this disease than winning a raffle at > a small concert.

I know this is not the main topic of this article, but I'll steal this sentence to convey the importance of taking precautions against COVID-19 to people who feel that it's statistically irrelevant.

<comment><USER10> It's not "statistically irrelevent", but the risk is being overblown. There's a lot of availability bias being introduced by the media right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think the risks shouldn't be downplayed, but the news media, aka advertising industry, frenzy over this pandemic is disgusting. Nobody that contracts this virus should fear death, yet that is what the mainstream media is selling and people are consuming: fear, death, uncertainty.

<comment><USER37> If you are elderly than you should definitely fear death. But yes if you are under 50 it's more likely you will be killed driving to the hospital than by the virus.

<comment><USER38> > if you are under 50 it's more likely you will be killed driving to the > hospital than by the virus.

Apologies if this was intended to be hyperbole, but it is not true according to our current knowledge. Estimated fatality rate for adults 20-30 is 0.03%, 30-40 is 0.08%, and 40-50 and 0.16% [1]

The probability of dying from one single vehicle ride to the hospital is several orders of magnitude less than 0.1% or even 0.01%. There are 1.25 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven in the USA [2]. Even if the hospital is 100 miles away, your odds of dying on the way there are 0.000125%.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019#Progn...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019#Prognosis)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER15> I'm guessing the intent was more along the lines of "Car trips generally are more deadly on an annual basis and we don't stress about that. In fact, if you try to encourage people to walk, bike and take public transit based on the idea that car trips kill and maim, you will be generally blown off."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> At this rate I'm fast approaching the point where I would rather have an infection positively confirmed and roll the dice that is heavily loaded in my favor.

Not knowing if you properly decontaminated that last batch of groceries is nerve wracking.

<comment><USER40> that's an interesting take. The words be careful what you wish for come to mind when your reading your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just have to wonder, the number of people in this thread who claim to have had the virus but never got tested.

People are just way too sure it was that one virus. There are other viruses that can cause similar symptoms.

</comment><comment><USER41> > I asked him about his experience, which was very much like mine. This was a > different kind of encouragement than my friends and family could provide who > did not share my experience.

A little more useful than "it'll be fine"? eh?

I honestly hate the empty empathy from people with no say in the matter. Its cultural and I think it develops into a mental issue of denial. Saying "you'll die if you don't breathe, I don't want that" is good enough, for me. People of some cultures would say that. Are we really worried about the patient losing the will to live without other people's hopium? Is that really a co-morbidity?

Sorry if I sound salty, I just finished doing a bunch of interviews where other people told me it'll be fine and it wasn't and I already knew how random it is. These are binary events.

<comment><USER12> Empathy often feels more genuine and less awkward than sympathy.

It's actually really hard to express sympathy usefully. I always feel like a robot when trying.

Yet once you've lived it, empathy is somehow natural

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you don't get tested - the odds are you won't - the relief of recovery is quickly replaced with doubt, "was it really Covid-19?" And you must fearfully go on acting like it wasn't.

<comment><USER43> Not if you're people I've talked to recently -- any cold or flu and people are like "yeah I had it any it wasn't too bad, I don't get all the fuss. I'm immune to it now!" Even though they never got tested

<comment><USER10> For the vast majority of corona viruses cases, it is, in fact "not too bad".

There is survivorship bias in the media reports. Mild cases don't get reported because it's bland, common, and everyday. The ones that cause death DO get reported because it's clickbait basically. This biases the population to overestimate the risk from this.

<comment><USER43> The point I was trying to make though is that people that almost certainly didn't have it are assuming that they did, which is dangerous because now they'll be much less cautious

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> does anybody else feel like they skip straight to acceptance in circumstances over people have to ride the 5 stages of grief rollercoaster?

I can accept the randomness of not being rewarded for doing the "right thing"

</comment><comment><USER44> I've been struggling with health issues for the past 3 years. My heart races. My blood pressure spikes to dangerous levels. I get heart palpitations. I get pains in my chest. When it happens it's alarming and it's easy to fall into fear. I've gone to the hospital a few times absolutely sure I'm having a heart attack. But it seems that my heart is fine (as far as anyone can tell). I have a host of other problematic symptoms too, but for years nobody could find any real problem.

It's easy to say, "It's a panic attack". It does not appear to be life threatening. But boy does it _feel_ life threatening. The doctors all say, "We can't find anything wrong with you" (apart from you heart racing randomly, your blood pressure spiking to dangerous levels, heart paplitations and various other problems). But what if they missed something? It's pretty hard to gamble your life on this stuff. I was absolutely fine until one day I wasn't. _Something_ must have changed.

One of the problems with getting symptoms and not being able to diagnose the illness exactly is that you will never know. Pain in your chest. Difficulty breathing. Complete lethargy. It could be corona virus. It could be a panic attack brought on by worrying about the corona virus. You will never know unless you are tested (and even then it might not be right).

My experience has been that sometimes I take comfort in imagining that I have some strange disease that nobody knows about. It certainly feels better to me than, "My nervous system is making me ill through stress that I don't know how to relieve". But, I've also found that if I believe I'm ill, then the symptoms feel worse as well, even though I get some psychological relief from the stress of experiencing the symptoms.

The best way that I've come to deal with the problem is simply to believe that I will feel well again soon. I may feel bad _now_ , but _soon_ I will feel better. I may have an illness. I may not have an illness. It may be life threatening. It may not. Even if it is life threatening, there is nothing more I can do. So it is best to believe that I will feel better soon. This has helped me immeasurably, even though it is quite difficult to do.

I recently (and as a last resort) had a sleep test. I averaged 52 apnic arousals per hour. In other words, at most I was sleeping for a minute or so at a time. They gave me a cpap machine and while I would be lying if I said all my symptoms are magically going away immediately, I _do_ feel a lot better now that I've started to get used to the machine.

But the reality is that your belief is powerful medicine in an of itself. Whether your are ill or not. Whether you have corona virus, or the flu, or whether you are just very tired and stressed: believing that you will feel better soon will help enourmously in my experience.

<comment><USER45> I hate to be that guy on the internet, especially since this is so unlikely, and since your description is also very consistent with anxiety/psych which is much more common...

...but particularly because you mention that this is a recent issue and not a lifelong deal, have you had a doctor rule out a pheochromocytoma? It's really unlikely since they're rare, (~1000 cases per year in the US) but they can cause the symptoms you are describing and it would tend to manifest in the age range of young adult to middle aged adult. And the labs needed to diagnose it aren't super routine.

But they way you described being totally fine until one day you weren't makes me have a stronger index of suspicion for a non-psychological cause.

This is super speculative, but there's a tiny chance it could help you since the treatment (surgery) is usually pretty definitive.

[Link]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheochromocytoma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheochromocytoma))

<comment><USER14> I hate to be that guy but did you read his full comment? Towards the end he reported a test that confirmed he had a very serious medical condition.

<comment><USER45> Yes, I did actually. And it's not only not necessarily causative, but they indicated that their symptoms weren't fully resolved. More importantly, it could very well be that the elevated catecholamines from just such a tumor are interfering with their sleep and causing excessive arousals. In fact, that may even be totally consistent with a pheochromocytoma.

Patients with a pheochromocytoma are notorious for presenting with secondary conditions that get misdiagnosed as the primary issue and the tumor isn't discovered until death. They're often called referred to as one of the "great mimics" of medicine. Note it on the list here: ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_imitator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_imitator))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I am in my early 30s and I also had COVID-19.

My wife is a doctor and she caught it at work. She and 7 other doctors (8 in total) all fell ill in the same week. This was about 3 weeks ago.

My wife had a bit of fever for the first 2-3 days (~38C), and she mostly suffered from a bad headache for about a week, and a cough (mild) for about two weeks and a sore throat (mild) for the first few days. After a few days she also lost her taste and smell of food which all came back on day 12 roughly. She is also in her super early 30s and never had shortness of breath or other issues with the lungs. After 7 days she even returned to work as her body has fought off the virus by then (even though some symptoms might remain like a cough).

I contracted the virus from her obvioulsy whilst she was quarantined at home for 7 days. After 5 days I also started to get my first symptoms. It started with a lot of fatigue, a sore throat and really high fever. During the first two days I had >39C fever, lots of shivers, cold sweats, and just feeling terribly tired.

Whilst that sounds terrible it was not anything different from what I experienced from previous flus. When my fever soared I felt totally shit, but as soon as the paracetamol kicked in and my fever declined I was feeling better and was even able to do minor tasks at home.

My sore throat lasted for about a week, it first got worse and then disappeared. I also developed an annoying dry cough after 5 days which stuck with me for about a week. Today I have a mini cough left a bit, but that is normal again, just like with a normal cold a cough can stick with someone for weeks after being completely fine again.

My fever disappread after the first 2 days. I also had terrible headaches, which were the worst and lost my smell and taste, but no shortness of breath. I was actually documenting all my symptoms every day and I'm thinking of uploading it to YouTube.

Overall I have to say if there was no stigma with COVID-19 I would have not even lost a second of a thought thinking that I was _seriously_ ill. It was honestly a really mild flu after all. The actual flu which I had earlier this year was much worse if I'm honest. Not even two weeks after I got my first symptom I was working out in my garden and doing some mild cardio exercises again. Normally when I get a cold it affects my sinuses which means that I can't do cardio for at least two full weeks as I always struggle to breath through my nose for quite some time, but COVID-19 doesn't normally give you a runny nose and it didn't give me one indeed which means that in my case COVID-19 was even much nicer to get than a regular cold.

There's a lot of bad stigma and panic around COVID-19, but after all it's just a new repiratory coronavirus, just like colds and the flu your body should be able to fight if off normally without any real issues, unless you already have some serious problems.

It's important to remember that COVID-19 is not a lottery or survival by _luck_. It is a mild illness if you are a healthy and relatively young human being. It does discriminate against fragile, old and people with a pre- existing conditions. If this wasn't true then we would see a much more evenly spread death rate, but we don't because to most people who are fine this is barely an illness.

There's only two types of people who die from it:

\- People with a pre-existing health condition

\- People with a pre-existing health condition who don't know about it yet because no doctor has diagnosed it yet

<comment><USER47> Thanks for sharing, and glad you are well. However, you can't possibly know this to be definitively true: "People with a pre-existing health condition who don't know about it yet because no doctor has diagnosed it yet". It could be that some people just aren't as good as fighting it off, perhaps because they hadn't had the "right" set of previous illnesses, or who knows what else, that can lead to fatality. I don't think we know enough to make such bold claims.

<comment><USER46> This is true, there is always some outliers, but I was just trying to speak generally that for the most part COVID-19 is not this scary crazy lottery. I see currently so many young people getting mentally more ill than COVID-19 would ever make them ill, because they are constantly being drip fed scary news stories which makes everyone believe that as soon as you step outside your house you can breath in a killer virus which will make you suffocate the next day.

Like with everything in life there are some outliers who just happen to have really really bad luck, but you can't look at those and be afraid. It's like with cancer, most people who get cancer are old because for obvious genetic reasons, but there are some poor children who also develop cancer, but no child should live in fear thinking that one day they could wake up with a bad bowl cancer. It's irrational.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> To those scientific minds who enter the symptoms of Covid-19: if you find a desire and ability to experiment, you may find the courage to try a light ozone generator in a mostly closed room.

Healthcare systems of many countries are cornered by these assumptions: 1) light ozone generators cannot do a thing because they produce tiny concentrations of gas 2) the ozone is toxic.

While both of those statements are somewhat true, here is the thing.

The dangerous side of Covid-19 is its ability to target lungs in a fraction of patients. While this is a dangerous situation, it also makes it potentially susceptible to inhale treatments.

Now back to ozone. It is basically a recombined atoms of oxygen, but instead of ubiquitous O2, ozone is O3. As you might expect, it has higher oxidizing ability. Human can safely breathe ozone as long as its concentration goes below 0.2 mg/m3.

Ozone is not only a breathable gas. It also has an ability to disinfect. For example, it deactivates the viruses by over-oxidizing its surfaces.

Regarding the concentrations. It was shown that to kill 90% of SARS-CoV you would need an exposure of 20-112 mg / m3 during one minute. Which sounds like a lot but bare with me.

A disinfection with ozone has an accumulative effect, pretty much like with UV or radiation. For instance, a home ozonator (ozone generator) typically produces a concentration of 0.02 mg/m3. It would not kill the virus in a minute. But it will start to do so in 17 hours of exposure (20 mg/m3 / 0.02 mg/m3 / 60 min/hour = 16.6 hours).

Ozone can be generated in several ways. One of those is by exposing the air to UV-C. This is a preferable method for virus situation, because not only the desired gas is generated, but also because UV-C light has an ability to disinfect the air and surfaces by itself. A win-win.

Please note that UV-C may be critically dangerous to skin and eyes. To overcome that problem, UV-C lamp should be placed in a black or UV insulating box, where only a small laminar flow of air produced by the fan is exposed to UV-C. The suggested power of such a lamp would be something < 10W where 3W looks like a sweet spot for a 18 m2 room.

Now to effects: tiny fractions of ozone would cause a small sedative effect. If the breath is difficult then you may find a tiny amount of O3 more supportive comparing to conventional air mixture which is already a big bonus.

In 17 hours or so of exposure, you are going to feel better, as the consumed concentration is already promises to deactivate a substantial amount of exposed virus material (like 90%).

The good things do not end here, as deactivation rate is exponential and in 34 hours you are going to get 99% of exposed virus material deactivated.

Now to the not so good things: ozone is slightly toxic and you would not be able to use it for too long. 3 days of presumably safe concentration is already close to a stretch. It not only damages viruses and bacteria, it also over-oxidizes human cells which leads to their eventual damage. It is usually felt like a soar throat.

The important points to consider when trying to implement the experiment like this: 1) safe O3 concentration 2) no direct human exposure to UV-C 3) room should be on a smaller side, as it is easier to control (8-20 m2 is a sweet spot) 4) the room should be mostly closed, do not ventilate the room more often than once or twice per 24 hours for short periods of time like 5-10 minutes; note, that you still need an air to breathe, so a "mostly closed room" would not mean a "scientifically firmly closed room".

Did I try this extreme idea myself before publicly suggesting it? Yes, I did. Though for more conventional viruses like seasonal flu. I was never officially diagnosed with Covid-19, but I'm pretty confident I went through it in the middle of February when nobody had a test yet.

The idea may sound controversial to the most of population nowadays. But it surely is effective on viruses as I've experimented with it for 7 years.

I am putting this publicly to spark the minds of researches, including professionals. This is a low hanging fruit so I'm surprised to admit that nobody had tried it before in scientifically controlled environment, with control groups and stuff.

DISCLAIMER: If you do this you do it on your own risk. The large dozes of ozone and UV can be extremely dangerous and may lead to fatal consequences or even death. This is not a scientifically proven treatment of Covid-19.

</comment><comment><USER49> the word mask only comes up once in the entire writeup, when he went to the hospital. Did he wear a mask at all times when outside his house?

<comment><USER50> Should he have? The only person he mentions coming to his house is his friend who also had Covid-19.

<comment><USER49> i mean when he's going grocery shopping, etc around here everyone seems to have a mask everywhere even when walking their dog with no one else round for hundreds of feet.

<comment><USER50> Oh, I thought you were referring to after he caught it. Around me (Silicon Valley) only about 10% of people I see are wearing masks.

<comment><USER49> mask usage >75% in milpitas

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I hate to say it, but I'm actually jealous of people who have gone through and recovered from COVID-19. You can enter normal life again, you don't need to have the fear, the rest of us are simply waiting because the chances of us getting it at some point is very high.

I actually wonder if some controlled exposure might be a good thing, I can get it and (statistically) recover from it at a place away from my family, and then come back and be the one that does everything for everybody.

<comment><USER52> > I hate to say it, but I'm actually jealous of people who have gone through > and recovered from COVID-19. You can enter normal life again, you don't need > to have the fear, the rest of us are simply waiting because the chances of > us getting it at some point is very high.

Even if you have antibodies it's not going to be normal a life. There will still be social distancing expected and enforced, capacity limits at stores, many businesses closed, and you still need to exercise caution to not spread it unnecessarily just like everyone else.

<comment><USER53> Being able to visit friends and family is a hell of a step up over having zero face-to-face interactions with any other humans though.

<comment><USER54> You can still be contagious for a while after being free of symptoms - <USER2> long to isolate after that is still difficult to gauge. The NHS suggests 14 days after being free of symptoms. But when is that? That dry cough can last for quite a while...

<comment><USER55> The NHS advice is very weak, and much weaker than international advice. I hesitate to link it because I think they've got it wrong.

[https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self- isol...](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation- advice/)

NHS says If you have symptoms the NHS tells you to self isolate for 7 days. If you still have symptoms you need to self isolate until those symptoms go.

NHS says If you live with someone who has symptoms you need to self isolate for 14 days from the day their symptoms started.

I think this is one of the reasons we have such high rates of infection in the UK.

<comment><USER53> Which international advice is much stronger than the NHS guidance?

e.g. CDC is the greater of 7 days since symptoms start or 72 hours after symptoms end: [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/disposition- in...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/disposition-in-home- patients.html)

My local (Canada) guidance is greater of 10 days or end of symptoms: [https://www.alberta.ca/isolation.aspx](https://www.alberta.ca/isolation.aspx)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Artificial sweetener usage thought to facilitate C difficile virulence - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25178 <comment><USER2> Actual page title: "Dietary trehalose enhances virulence of epidemic Clostridium difficile"

Submitting with a genericized title causes confusion with common consumer ASes like aspartame, sucralose, Ace-K, etc.

Submitted earlier with original title:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16778032](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16778032)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think I read about this on HN before. This is a common sugar like additive put in icecream because of it's texture properties. Its like the favorite food of the bug mentioned here. How did an artifical ingredient become a prefered food for it?</comment>


Whitepaper on TV Show "Silicon Valley" Nucleus Project - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pwc44S8uTiXPapyDExTUNwbuqGsz6RIBFs3k41LN8fY/edit

<comment><USER2> I tapped out when thy implied that the "cloud" was a programming languange, but this works too.</comment>


John Carmack's VR Script Live Coding Session at Oculus Connect [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMItsZq_n20 <comment><USER2> What a great ending to that video [1].

Attendee: "The last 20 years of my life, you've been such an inspiration to me. I've had some times of darkness, and... it's been amazing. Today's my birthday. I would love to like, go up there, and if someone could take a picture of me with you, that's all I ask, thank you."

[Audience applause...]

John: "Come on up."

I hope that, one day, I can have an impact like that on someone's life.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMItsZq_n20&t=3930](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMItsZq_n20&t=3930)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's some early code that John posted to the Racket group in June: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/racket- users/RFlh0o6l3...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/racket- users/RFlh0o6l3Ls/8InN7uz-Mv4J)

<comment><USER3> Wow, some of those responses are just painful. I guess even a programmer's programmer cannot please everyone.

<comment><USER4> I'm always utterly blown away by the humility that John shows in his questions and his answers. The development world would be a better place with a much larger proportion of developers like him.

I've worked with some real ego-centric assholes that think of themselves as rock-star developers yet probably haven't done a tenth of what this guy has done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're switching spaces a lot on OS X, check out TotalSpaces2: [http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/](http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/)

It allows you to configure space switching so it's instant with no animation. I find the sliding animation distracting and superfluous.

<comment><USER6> It's infuriating that OS X doesn't have an option to turn off animations by default.

I'm sure Total Spaces is nice, but I refuse to pay money for what should be a basic OS feature.

<comment><USER7> I've given up and just gotten used to it. I loathe Apple's desktop management system, but here we are :(

I stopped using TotalSpaces a while back to some bugs (cannot remember which, but did contact them).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A bit of the VrScript "hello world" code: [https://twitter.com/CorvusVR/status/647458964339232768](https://twitter.com/CorvusVR/status/647458964339232768)

<comment><USER9> Would love to read the finished code.

EDIT: He posts the source to the web at 40 mins. Anyone got the link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice! Love that entire protocol is S-expression based. Even js library just generates S-expressions.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyway to watch from the beginning?

<comment><USER10> I think keynote will be later avaialble somewhere on oculus related channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for posting! Great to hear him talking about this.

</comment><comment><USER13> > For video, please install Flash or try Safari.

Thanks, but no thanks.

<comment><USER14> +1, is live streaming really that difficult to do with HTML5?

<comment><USER15> Yes.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21921790/best- approach-t...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21921790/best-approach-to- real-time-http-streaming-to-html5-video-client)

<comment><USER16> Twitch and Youtube do it well so...

<comment><USER15> Twitch is still Flash, though the interface has been converted to HTML+JS.

[http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/07/video-player-controls-now- in-h...](http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/07/video-player-controls-now-in-html/)

<comment><USER17> Yeah, it's still flash video today, but Twitch announced today they plan to implement HTML5 streaming in Q1 2016

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/twitch-html5-whisper- twit...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/twitch-html5-whisper-twitchcon/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And no one remembers VRML. Probably for good reason.

<comment><USER19> VRML is basically an HTML-like format for storing 3D assets. There have been a bunch of XML-based formats created in the following 2 decades, the most used being COLLADA. There are two types of COLLADA compatibility: the ones that uses the official SDK and the ones that don't for licensing reasons such as Blender (all attempts at implementing COLLADA have been painful). Neither can implement the full standard.

Overly engineered standards aside, reading and writing XML for meshes and the like is a waste of computational resources and space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "If Mojang lets me back into the codebase I'm going to be working on Minecraft as my top priority"

</comment><comment><USER21> Awesome! Can't wait to play with it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does this not work for anyone else?

It say connected and then nothing changes. I don't see anywhere to click to get the stream or whatever this is supposed to be.

<comment><USER23> Works in Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Vid of talk on yt: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMItsZq_n20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMItsZq_n20)

<comment><USER25> Thank you. Am i the only one still on a desktop? I can't stand shit video players with no progress bar and no volume control.

<comment><USER26> Ok, we changed to that URL from [https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MYxNbWRavLxw](https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MYxNbWRavLxw).</comment></comment></comment>


Linus Torvalds' Greatest Invention - <AUTHOR> http://blog.plover.com/misc/git-talk.html <comment><USER2> I personally know a dozen people who could have written the Linux kernel, at around the time Linus wrote it. What none of them could have done, through, is _manage_ the project when it took off the way Linus did.

I suspect 100 years from now, the place you will hear the name "Linus Torvalds" the most will be in management classes in business and engineering school. His actual software will be a footnote, merely the platform upon which he demonstrated how to manage a large open source project. Kind of like Henry Ford and the automobile--Ford made important contributions to the development of the automobile itself, but it is his figuring out how to make the automobile factory that is the main thing we remember him for.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using an acyclic graph of chained hashes to represent change history has a long history in revision control - it was used in Monotone (which Linus considered as an option instead of writing git, but rejected as it was written in C++), in OpenCM, in Xanadu, and probably in at least half a dozen other systems I've never heard of.

<comment><USER4> Small correction, Linus rejected Monotone because it had been horribly slow on the huge Linux source tree. Git was focused on performance from the outset, where Monotone cares more about integrity and correctness than speed.

That said, it's definitely true that Linux has strong and negative opinions on C++.

<comment><USER5> I think you have to take what he has said about C++, or OO in general in context. What he said (at least what I've read) was that C++ would never make sense for the kernel, and his reasoning seems sound to me

I've always taken the opinion that OO makes sense where one needs the ability to model abstract systems in a way that can express and even explain them through the code. Modeling an computer doesn't require or benefit as much from such abstractions.

<comment><USER4> It's not only about kernel, see this thread from the Git mailing list:

"C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do _nothing_ but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C."

[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version- control.git/57643...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version- control.git/57643/focus=57918)

<comment><USER5> And that may be a fair criticism of C++ specifically, I don't know I don't really use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm wondering what other folks think. I mean, as nicely as git's put together.. there was precedence for it as well. It just seems conveniently controversial to put git above Linux.

<comment><USER7> "conveniently controversial" aka link/flame bait

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Git may be more innovative, but Linux is hands-down Linus Torvalds' greatest creation.

<comment><USER9> It did inspires ESR to write the Cathederal and the Bazaar.

<comment><USER10> Linux inspired ESR's literary output the same way the invention of plastic inspired the proliferation of lawn-ornaments.

The influence is there and non-negligible, but I can think of a billion other things, far more useful and creative, that benefited the same.

<comment><USER11> I found CatB extremely useful. I've heard a lot of hate for esr's work, and I'm curious about it. Perhaps it's just backlash, from his previous very high popularity.

So, could you elaborate with specific criticisms of CatB?

<comment><USER10> I think I can write more inspired criticism of cardboard, or styrofoam. Please, let me do those instead.

Or just go to his blog and read the second article:

" _Regular readers of this blog are probably pretty clued in about my better- known software projects – gpsd, fetchmail, giflib, libpng, INTERCAL, ncurses, Battle for Wesnoth, Emacs VC and GUD modes, and the like._ "

The entire place is an altar to the man.

Even Stuxnet, the super interesting piece of industrial hacking. Even it didn't escape ESR's blessing wand:

" _[My friend] incited me to blog by asking me the following question: "Would you call the perpetrators of the Stuxnet worm `hackers', rather than crackers"?_ "

The entire security scene stood up in awe, given the combination of effort and ingenuity. But not ESR, he found this an opportunity to play pope and bestow titles.

<comment><USER9> If you have nothing to say but _ad hominem_ and calling his literacy output cardboard without backing it up, maybe you should say nothing at all.

We now know that you hate ESR's self promoting behaviors, but where is the substance?

<comment><USER10> _ESR's self promoting behaviors_

The substance is lacking because I am not motivated enough to think harder about the man's writing. Something switched in my head and one day I realized he was the antithesis of the hacker-ethic he preaches. "Real Hackers", much like the real Scotsmen, work silently, are under-appreciated, and often unknown.

Having said that, it takes one to know one; given an audience the size of his, I am 100% certain I would go on a similar journey of self-worship and rampant "blow-hardery".

Ahhh! what wouldn't I do for unearned public recognition and a permanent podium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Didn't Linus himself mention that bitkeeper was where Git's inspiration came from? Just like UNIX, bitkeeper was proprietary but it did work out many things for Git to use.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've wondered about that too (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=455864>).</comment>


New Features in Xcode 4.3 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/WhatsNewXcode/Articles/xcode_4_3.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/1006-SW1 <comment><USER2> Be aware that XCode doesn't install any CLI tools by default now; you'll have to install them manually (so moving to 4.3 will likely break Homebrew et. al.).

On the other hand; seems that the tools are now available as a standalone .dmg[1] (requires apple-ID login), so you can (finally!) install them without needing Xcode first if you'd rather not install it.

[1] <https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action#>

(EDIT: yep, they install sans Xcode)

<comment><USER3> Don't be surprised if they start moving GPLed packages like bash, ruby, and emacs into this free CLI tools download, making OS X "GPL clean".

<comment><USER4> You're kidding, right? It sounds like you don't know how the GPL applies to them or you think Apple is really dumb.

There is absolutely no reason to move those apps. They're binaries. The GPL only threatens them if the use free code in a nonfree program and don't distribute the source.

The only other option is Apple doing it out of spite, which would be stupid on all accounts.

<comment><USER3> At the very least Apple Legal is not comfortable shipping GPLv3 packages in OS X, even as binaries. This might be stupid - IANAL.

The GPL isn't the only other reason they might move more command-line functionality into a separate download - OS installation and download size is another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This means that we can safely install /usr/bin/gcc without affecting Xcode's bundled gcc, and vice versa updating Xcode is guaranteed to not affect our custom /usr/bin/gcc. Sounds like a big improvement to me!

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks like Apple pulled all the compilers and supporting apps into the app bundle itself, it no longer needs a /Developer folder on your machine. I believe this will make things a lot easier for those of us who develop web applications with things like ruby, python or help with compiling/installing open source apps using tools like homebrew. We should now be able to install our own GCC and Xcode on the same machine without having to deal with conflicting environments and defaults.

The initial trouble is going to be installing a normal gcc on your machine, a normal user can't compile a compiler without a compiler. I expect a nice installable binary package that is intended to be used with rvm, ruby and homebrew before too long...

<comment><USER7> Or you can have the user download the command line tools seperately and install those without first downloading Xcode. A 160MB download instead of a 1.72GB download.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I'm actually checking to see if it contains a plain gcc compiler (like Xcode 4.1 did), currently the llvm-gcc that is symlinked with /usr/bin/gcc with Xcode 4.2 doesn't work too well with software from rvm and homebrew.

edit: I just pulled down the Unix developer tools, it comes with llvm-gcc and clang. /usr/bin/gcc is symlinked with llvm-gcc. Any packages that need plain gcc will not work with the "command-line-tools-for-xcode.dmg" install. We'll have to keep using something like OSX-GCC-Installer (<https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer>) for now.

Anyway, this is a positive move for those of us who want to be able to use Xcode and also need/want a normal gcc installation on the same machine.

<comment><USER7> I've had a LOT of good experience using clang instead of GCC for compiling a lot of different packages that say they require GCC. Honestly it is no surprise that Apple has stopped shipping an extremely outdated GCC and that they are not including a newer version of GCC due to the GPL v3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Auto matching brackets in gdb!!!! Fucking finally! I nearly fell out of chair as shear joy overcame me.

</comment><comment><USER9> I found xcodebuild broken after installing Xcode 4.3 and the CLT. If you find yourself in a similar situation, run `sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer` to fix the newfound lack of a /Developer directory.

</comment><comment><USER10> You can now have just the CLT tools with a small download... Cool. But what is the reason the huge Xcode download does not come with CLI tools?

<comment><USER11> Probably to make Xcode as MAS-compliant as possible? Dogfood and all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One interesting thing in Mountain Lion: garbage collection is deprecated in favor of ARC.

</comment><comment><USER13> A feature missing from this description:

\- launch Xcode

\- close all windows

\- make an other application active

Effect: Xcode quits (Activity Monitor does not show it)

A bug or a feature that we will see this system-wide?

<comment><USER14> This is called Automatic Termination and it's standard behaviour on Lion. Beginning OS X 10.7, the OS automatically suspends processes that are "safe to close" and opt in to Automatic Termination when certain conditions are met. It could happen even to TextEdit or any other app, not just Xcode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Codename: "Matryoshka".

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know where distcc+bonjour support went? This existed in 4.2.

</comment><comment><USER17> So now I need to fire all of Xcode up just to do some icon editing or profiling some OpenGL code? :/ I hope these are at least still in the form of normal apps located within the Xcode bundle.

<comment><USER18> I'm guessing you won't need to start xcode. The apps can be kept in the dock for direct access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting that it has hooks for all the other development tools... as long as they are made by Apple.

</comment><comment><USER20> No CLT installed by default? That's just... _weird_.

No more /Developer folder or uninstall-devtools script? I sure hope that means it won't periodically decide to fuck itself like every previous version of Xcode, prompting one or more full-reinstall attempts.

I wish I were kidding. This is like taking the ejection seat boosters out of the fighter jet to save weight.

<comment><USER7> Everything is now contained within the .app, so a re-install is rm -rf /Applications/Xcode.app and then re-install.

The command line tools are easily installed from within Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads or by downloading the .dmg from Apple's developer website and installing it by hand. Neither are the end of the world.

<comment><USER20> Can you explain plausible reasoning for not installing CLT by default? I'm willing to listen, I just don't get it.

<comment><USER21> Smaller download for people who don't need them?

Rather than distributing two copies of the tools (one with Xcode, and the (awesome) new CLI only tool distribution), they DRY it up and have one canonical package for everyone, reducing testing, packaging overhead, possibility for divergence between the two packages, etc, etc?

<comment><USER20> Good answer. I was lazy and didn't notice the CLI-only distro. Thanks-</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'It's Hard to See Your Memories Burn': Loss from Wildfires Grows in California - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/us/big-basin-redwoods-ca-fires.html <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/7RvTS](http://archive.is/7RvTS)</comment>


Cyprus parliament delays vote on deposit levy to Monday - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/17/us-cyprus-parliament-idUSBRE92G03I20130317

<comment><USER2> Maybe this is a terrifically ignorant comment, but it seems like the government mismanages their finances, as a result, they want the everyman to throw away 10% of their bank deposits?

WTF?

<comment><USER3> The banks, not the govt. But the bailout as structured tends to conflate the two, which is part of the problem. Also it directly hurts retirees in country while protecting rich foreigners (eg, holders of Cypriot bank bonds). It's WTF from start to finish, a pretty shocking abuse of power by the rich northern EU countries. Fairness and good governance have nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER4> The UK will compensate some of its expats:

 _"But I can tell you that for people serving in our military, people serving our government out in Cyprus – because we have military bases there – we are going to compensate anyone who is affected by this bank tax. People who are doing their duty for our country in Cyprus will be protected from this Cypriot bank tax."_

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/17/cyprus- savings-l...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/17/cyprus-savings-levy- uk-compensate)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So the Greek bonds get a haircut and in the process the Cyprus banks are thrown under the bus. At the same time Germany, the Netherlands and Finland enjoy the capital influx of insurances and some fonds, who are regulated such that they can only invest in the Eurozone. These capital influx creates a nice boom, low unemployment and ensures the reelection of the idiots who did throw Greece under the bus in the first place.

This crisis would be so funny, if it would occur on any continent I don't live on.

<comment><USER6> Who do you think threw Greece under the bus?

<comment><USER5> For example Germany. ( I am not sufficiently knowledgeable on the interior politics of the other eurozone members to assert with any confidence that they were purely motivated by their chance of reelection. )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's bald-faced confiscation of individuals' savings in order to bail out mismanaged banks.

<comment><USER8> If the Cyprus government, EU, FMI and ECB were to do nothing it is almost certain that the depositors would see much less than 90 cents on the euro.

The depositors are being rescued here. They trusted their money to banks that went on to make loans to the Greek government. The Greek government defaulted. A significant portion of the depositors money is gone. Nobody is confiscating anything. International institutions are helping Cyprus, by covering part of the losses. Unfortunately there is nobody willing to pay the amount necessary to make the depositors full again.

One might argue that this is bad, and that the EU/IMF/ECB should make the depositors full, without an haircut, but that is another story.

<comment><USER9> What about the bond holders though? If the banks go under they lose their money as well, it seems to reason they should be taking a hit as well, not just the depositors.

<comment><USER10> There are no more than a few hundred million in bonds. The banks were funded by deposits not bonds. The junior bonds probably will be wiped out but the amounts are tiny and there are no details released yet.

<comment><USER3> That does change things. Debt restructuring is a bit like musical chairs. If there was truly no group left to haircut, to avoid default this had to be done.

On the other hand, that €10B euro could have come from somewhere outside the country, especially since it was the forced Greek bond haircut that caused the crisis. I find it hard to believe that northern Europe isn't taking advantage of this crisis to increase their influence.

<comment><USER10> It could have been a gift not a loan. But Europe is not willing to do this, partly as it would set a precedent, partly as half the depositors in Cyprus were not Europeans, partly for other reasons...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> as a Cypriot who will lose part of his money I believe voting for this measure is the best of the two options even though both are bad for us.

<comment><USER12> What's the other option?

In the USA, taking 7+% of everyone's savings on short notice would initiate a civil war. Can't imagine how another alternative would be worse.

<comment><USER13> What would the two sides be? One side is presumably every citizen, but that leaves no citizens on the other side. Sounds more like a revolution.

<comment><USER14> There are plenty of Americans who have essentially zero savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Rather than recapitulating the same discussion of the general issue, might be better to consolidate it in this other story that's been on the front page longer: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5387228>

</comment><comment><USER16> bjornsing's blog post is a good read, and gets it right imho. [http://conscienceofanentrepreneur.blogspot.se/2013/03/whats-...](http://conscienceofanentrepreneur.blogspot.se/2013/03/whats- wrong-with-cyprus-bailout.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> lets not forget that Cyprus has recently discovered natural gas and possibly oil in its exclusive economic zone expected to be exploited in the next few years. call it conspiracy theories but a weakened Cyprus is easier to manage..

<comment><USER17> No, dude. Let's call it pure coincidence. Once in a billions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> These banks were paying 9+ percent interest on some accounts. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

<comment><USER15> Same happened with the Icelandic banks: in mid-2000, I knew several Americans who rather ill-advisedly created accounts with forex brokers just to get ~8% interest on ISK, a currency and economy they otherwise knew nothing about. Seems to have been common, because the Icelandic banks had large deposit inflows up until the crisis hit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It sounds like they can't get the votes to approve it, which makes sense. It's gotta be political suicide. Either way the banks are going to be destroyed.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why good financial management is not a competitive factor amongst banks?

As in: bank with us because we are financially sound (instead of: because we pay higher interest, or whatever). It's not happening yet.

<comment><USER21> There's no reason it couldn't be. Within the US there are public figures available stating which banks have been the best and which have been the worst in the last few years.

There is nothing to stop customers banking on this basis. They still don't, perhaps largely because the government insures up to $1xx,xxx in deposits (I forget the number) so a lot of people are covered no matter what happens to their bank.

<comment><USER11> Deposits in Cyprus and the whole eurozone are covered by 100000 euro insurance per account. The problem in the particular case though is that Cyprus Central Bank in case the banks close down will be required to pay depositors a total of 30 billion euro which it doesn't have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm asking out of complete naïveté in matters of global finance, but what's to stop Cyprus from pulling an Iceland?

<comment><USER11> eurozone - cyprus cannot devalue its currency.</comment></comment>


The New York couple donating millions to the anti-vax movement - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/meet-the-new-york-couple-donating-millions-to-the-anti-vax-movement/2019/06/18/9d791bcc-8e28-11e9-b08e-cfd89bd36d4e_story.html#click=https://t.co/CBL8O2q3lz <comment><USER2> In all seriousness, these people seem to think their mission is noble... Imagine, for a second, that you are convinced of some "irrefutable truth," and it seems all political, government and scientific bodies are against you. Everyone has colluded together to put profit and money first, and the safety of humans last (not an unreasonable conclusion to make given the state of our medical industry). You, alone, are the thing that stands between children and suffering... (putting aside the obvious fact that having measles causes much more suffering, but bear with me here).

How does anyone convince this couple that they're wrong?

<comment><USER3> Take a step back. If any company you know could produce a product for which they could never be held liable for misproducing, you would call foul and that people must by all means be protected from that lack of accountability.

Enter big pharma as a vaccination company. Suddenly, the good they are doing overwhelms any and all sense of holding them accountable for bad actions.

Surely, this kind of thinking must strike you as duplicitous, no? Vaccinations are good, by and large when there is good feedback and accountability as to their safety and effectiveness. However, when a company no longer has a need to be accountable to its customers, what happens?

Remember the US auto industry in the 70's? They made the worst cars pretty much in history. Why? Because they could get away with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This should be shut down. This isn't philantrophy, it's a public health hazard. And of course Andrew Wakefield is involved.

<comment><USER5> And they're getting a tax break for their "philanthropy". Quite a system we have in the US.

<comment><USER6> Look into the history of the "philanthropic" income tax deduction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I went looking for some support for ant-vaxers. This was a top DDG hit <[http://traceamounts.com/ten-lies-told-about-mercury-in- vacci...](http://traceamounts.com/ten-lies-told-about-mercury-in-vaccines/>), which was remarkable in its lack of references. The very first claim is

The Facts: The Eli Lilly Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for Thimerosal acknowledges that exposure to Thimerosal in utero and in children can cause "mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe gross motor impairment."

Ok, so where is the actual data sheet? You've got a link to it to bavck up this claim, right? Err, No? The rest of it isn't much better.

I actually met my first and only anti-vaxer a few months ago. She quite clearly didn't have a clue about chemistry and wanted to make out this big pharma conspiracy (I used to work in medical trialling so I knew more about the crap that goes on than she ever would). I basically called her a crank.

Seems there is no reasoning with these people because it's not about reason or truth.

<comment><USER8> > I basically called her a crank

That doesn't help.

The people that get swept up in these movements have been called similar in the past and if anything it strengthens their resolve when they finally do find that group of likeminded people.

<comment><USER7> Then what will help, because if reason doesn't then I don't know of an alternative.

I listened carefully to her - I didn't prejudge her. I wanted to hear her side. She was clueless.

Tell me what I should have done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be cheaper in terms of lives and suffering to raise a GoFundMe or Kickstarter to have these affluenza poxes on society snuffed out, Dostoevsky- style but with much less regret.

<comment><USER10> Careful now. Advocating violence in a public forum is illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Funny that antivax is always portryed as a far right christian movement, but clearly there is another group promoting it more.

<comment><USER12> > Funny that antivax is always portryed as a far right christian movement, but > clearly there is another group promoting it more.

Always? I don't believe that to be the case. I haven't read _every_ piece written on anti-vaccination, but have read a lot about it and can't recall even one making this assertion. Of course that doesn't mean that it's _never_ been asserted, but I have a hard to believing that it's _always_ being asserted.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you look for in an online bookmarking service? - <AUTHOR>

I was just wondering, we've got plenty of online bookmarking services online but non of seem to be sufficient for the majority of users.<p>So I was wondering: are you satisfied with one of them? Which one and why? If not what do you look for in an online bookmarking service? <comment><USER2> For me Kippt <https://kippt.com> is perfect</comment>


'OK Boomer' Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/style/ok-boomer.html <comment><USER2> Let's keep these generation bait articles off HN. They're just vehicles for projection, leading to angry arguments about—literally—generic identity. We don't need that here; we need not-that.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is silly. The only party here marking the end of "friendly generational relations" is the NY Times itself.

Drawing lines through society is the cheapest and easiest way to look wise without making any meaningful comment.

<comment><USER4> Actually this phrase started around October 15th on TikTok. The phrase's use in related videos grew rapidly and had not existed before. It's real sentiment.

The fault with this article is that it focuses on merchandise.

Edit: here's the first video I saw it trend in comments: [http://vm.tiktok.com/553g7w/](http://vm.tiktok.com/553g7w/)

<comment><USER5> I think the point is that this phrase doesn't mark any sort of new sentiment. Millennials and later have been hating on boomers for many years at this point on reddit etc.

<comment><USER4> Ah. My point is that it's manifestation on TikTok specifically is significant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The idea that climate change and financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous. To me this framing reeks as just another divisional front the promoters of identity politics, who btw are also not generational divided, would like to inflict on us all.

P.S. I'm not Gen Z by a long shot and _deeply_ concerned about climate change and financial inequality.

<comment><USER7> Generations are ideologically divided. [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older- generations/)

[https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation- gap-i...](https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in- american-politics/)

[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the- politic...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of- american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/)

<comment><USER6> No they are not. They have statistically differently skewed preferences, but that is a completely different thing.

Divided would mean that e.g. Millennials with few exceptions vote Democrat while Boomers with few exceptions vote Republican. You know their age, you know their vote with few exceptions.

The reality is that if you would 'accuse' a Boomer of having voted Republican you would be wrong 56% of the time, and if you would 'accuse' a Millennial of having voted Democrat you would be wrong 46% of the time.

This means that if you would start guessing DEM/REP voting purely based on cohort, you would on average be wrong 51% of the time! Yet somehow, this is spun as a generational divide? Do you think this warrants supporting a generational 'war' narrative?

<comment><USER7> You're just redefining "divide" to mean something more substantial than I am. Do you think this is so insignificant that it doesn't even warrant a conversation?

<comment><USER6> Then how should I interpret your 'Generations are ideologically divided'?

If it is merely the expression of slight shifts in political leanings correlated with age, we'd have to look whether this is a new thing or something that has always been the case [1].

The reason I point out in my response to you that the presumptions which you will find even in this tread, that there is a conflict between the generations that expresses itself as a principle component in voting behavior and justifies division and vilification of the 'opposite' age cohort, is blatantly false and a manufactured framework intent on dividing people and gaining economically and politically from that conflict rather than uniting and looking for solutions.

[1] [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart- head/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I often wonder if newspapers have a template for these sorts of articles that they can pull out every time one of the completely artificial and meaningless "generations" hits a certain milestone. For the last 5-10 years we've been in the cycle of articles where the current "generation" in their 20s and 30s are settling into career paths and shaking things up with their crazy new demands at work, or how they just aren't looking after their own futures like their elders did. And now that "Gen Z" has hit adulthood, it's time to write the articles where these crazy kids are pushing back on the complacency of their elders in a shockingly disrespectful way. In a few years we'll learn all about how new trends in advertising, fast food, and consumer marketing are all being shaken up by the 20-somethings who just aren't satisfied with the same-old patterns of doing business.

If you go back 20 years you'll find the same articles about millenials. Go back 20 more years and you'll find them about Gen X. Go back 20 more years and you'll find them about Baby Boomers. Go back to the 1920s and there are articles complaining about the Kids These Days, so lazy and disrespectful, taking all this newfangled technology for granted...

</comment><comment><USER9> "Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." ― Anonymous Greek Proverb

<comment><USER10> And it feels that instead, old men have been demanding that young people cut down the trees for the old men to burn.

<comment><USER11> There are old people who've been arrested for pro climate actions, there are young people who are in charge of cutting down the rainforest. It's complicated, and reducing it to old men vs. young people only removes focus from the actual problems at hand.

<comment><USER12> The results of elections across USA and Europe are pretty much telling though: There's a big divide between older cohorts and younger cohorts about climate change, housing and other sustainability policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Generational names have always been created by authors to sell books. Adam "Ruins Everything" Conover did a talk at a marking conference where he pulled up old copies of Time magazine talking about the entitled baby boomers from decades ago; almost identical to the same articles about every other generation.

Generational titles were NEVER used to lift anyone up. They were used to sell books, sell newspapers/magazines, blame everything on the youth who knew nothing of hardship or some other fake-rage bullshit. The age ranges are arbitrary and the names that stick are pure chance and/or marketing.

Why is NYT referencing a moronic TikTok video anyway? Is NYT now trying to compete with Buzzfeed?

<comment><USER14> The NYT has sections of serious news, and sections of ridiculous "trend" articles. The trend articles are easy to source, easy to write, and have a shot at making it to page 1 of HN. I tend not to read them, or at least not to believe them when I read them--Mithidratism from reading too many such articles long ago.

But then I'm an old bitter boomer, so what do I know?

<comment><USER15> I wonder if they realize how much they are diluting their brand with this tabloid-esque garbage. The Gray Lady - how ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Much of this is contrived. The previous generation said GenX were slackers too. It's just something to sell ads.

<comment><USER9> I think global warming makes this a little different then calling young people slackers.

<comment><USER15> Do you really believe the article's premise that boomers don't believe in global warming? If so, is it all of them, or just some of them?

Of course another purpose of this "culture war," is to take the blame off the politicians who had a chance actually make the regulations and laws and lay it on a generation of citizens.

What has Generation Y and Z actually done to stop global warming? I don't see anything but talk. Does that mean Generation Y and Z doesn't care about global warming, or maybe it's back to the politicians who are in a position to pass regulations and laws.

<comment><USER9> I think that a much larger percentage of Gen Z believe in global warming than boomers do.

Of course, politicians are elected by people so if everyone believes in global warming and votes that way everything will work out.

GenY and GenZ tend to vote for more pro-climate policies, many more of them protest for the government to do something. Many more of them on environmental conscience.

The big thing you seem to be missing is governments should be doing the will of the people, and the will is there for GenZ, but not for the Boomers.

<comment><USER15> >The big thing you seem to be missing is governments should be doing the will of the people, and the will is there for GenZ, but not for the Boomers.

I think the main thing you seem to be missing is that's not how it actually works. The will is there for the energy companies but not the people because energy companies pay for campaigns. Do you think boomers really want ridiculously high health care costs? At their age? Or perhaps it's the insurance companies and the AMA pushing that? Do you think people like paying tax preparation companies every year, even though the government knows what most people owe, or do you think the tax preparation industry pays for that inaction? Do you think people like getting arrested for smoking pot, or the politicians are maybe being influenced by the police and prison unions to keep that sweet, sweet paycheck coming?

When the politicians ignore the will of the people during the your generation, are you going to lay the blame on your generation as well? Will that mean your generation doesn't believe in global warming, or maybe it's something else?

<comment><USER9> most boomers are on medicare. I think there are some exceptions, but for the most part, the government does the will of the people. I think that most older people think smoking pot should get arrested (another thing that is changing, because of the will of the people...) I don't even know what to say about the tax thing, I guess people vote about more important issues.

You don't what generation I am in, it's not GenZ

Boomers caused the end of Vietnam because of protest, GenZ is trying to do the same with climate change.

If nothing is done about climate change, it is because the voters didn't vote this way, I don't think it will be because they don't know. It is quite publicized these days. But, if GenZ spends there whole life not doing something about climate change it will be there fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Ms. O'Connor is far from the only one cashing in. Hundreds of "ok boomer" > products are for sale through on-demand shopping sites like Redbubble and > Spreadshirt, where many young people are selling "ok boomer" phone cases, > bedsheets, stickers, pins and more.

I like how one of the first reflexes when criticizing a generation of ecological catastrophes is to over-consume. Reminds my of the boomers' "Che Guevara" merchandises.

</comment><comment><USER17> What? The phrase itself is just a current meme, inspired by the recent boomer/zoomer memes.

It is partially an ironic revenge against the "are millenials killing the economy?" type sentiments, and more generally used to say that the target has an old fashioned and self absorbed worldview: resisting social change, blaming younger generations for societal issues or trivializing their problems. This is nothing new, the "crazy uncle/racist grandma at christmas dinner" is a very much a thing people already talked about years ago.

So the behaviour against the younger generation was already unfriendly (and has been so since forever [1]), and the only thing that has changed for the older generation is that someone says "okay" to them and proceeds to ignore them. That is hardly "the End of Friendly Generational Relations".

[1] [https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people- complaining-a...](https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining- about-the-younger-generation/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Wait. Who was being friendly before?

</comment><comment><USER19> The fact that casual generational warfare is becoming more mainstream genuinely bothers me.

Making generalizations about a year one was born is just a few turns less silly than astrology

</comment><comment><USER16> > there's not a lot that I can personally do to reduce the price of college

Thinking you need to get a college education is the real big Scam you can thank previous generations for.

It will be fun to watch more and more of them wake up and refuse two other big scams which are marriage and male gender role (women woke to this one decades ago).

<comment> non-entity Getting off topic here, but having a degree would do wonders for my network and career mobility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> 'Millenials Are Killing Generational Relations'

</comment><comment><USER21> Look, you know what has to be the reply to this, right?

Ok, Boomer

<comment><USER22> I think this just has to be the clearest instance of "old man yells at cloud" in the history of publishing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Too much of the news involves trying to extrapolate broad societal trends from a few (usually anomalous and hence newsworthy) data points.

</comment><comment><USER22> There were friendly generational relations? o.O

</comment><comment><USER24> shout out to the other gen xers out there ignored by every generation before or since.

</comment><comment><USER25> they were friendly?

<comment><USER9> I think they are referring to how previous generations had "respect for elders"

<comment><USER18> Perhaps those elders forgot that respect happens in two directions.

<comment><USER26> Right, hasn't lazy millennial been beaten to death enough?

<comment><USER27> Yes, which is why we've moved on to Gen Z now as the scapegoat du jour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Really? i thought i ended when everyone was talking about how millennials are ruining companies by not buying affordable products.

Or saying millennials are poor because they like avocados. Or saying millennials are entitled for demanding a living wage.

<comment><USER29> This is pretty much it. My generation has been called entitled, lazy, selfish, etc, for wanting the same things our parents were given, like a living wage, affordable college, or career stability. In what world is _that_ friendly?

<comment><USER30> Our parents. Are you talking of Gen X? The boomer generation? In general, your statement seems to apply to Gen X. But not really the boomer generation - e.g. they didn't have affordable college like Gen X did. Gen X seems to have been at the crossroads of things shifting and kind of got the best of all worlds.

And for Millennials, some have it rough but some don't. College was cheap and affordable for some of them - certainly more affordable for them than the boomer generation. Keep in mind the generation spans to 1981. Some Millennials are almost 40 now.

Gen Z is in a whole other category of course. Lots of things going/have gone rapidly downhill. But boomers mostly aren't the parents of these people. It's Gen X/Millennials.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, I feel like a lot of the things Boomers and Millennials are blaming on each other, actually apply to Gen X (and I say this as a Gen-Xer myself). We got the best education deal before (admittedly Boomer-) politicians started to undermine education. We were the slacker generation. We're the generation that refused to grow up. We got jobs in the booming 1990s.

But sure, let Boomers and Millennials fight. We're happy to stay out of this (just know that I'm on your side, Millennials!)

<comment><USER32> The 1990s were only "booming" (in the US) towards the end of the decade. The early/middle part of the decade was a recession.

<comment><USER31> I guess I was still in university back then. I'm late Gen X. I imagine early Gen X has a very different story. (I bet the same is true for every generation.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yeah, it was that. Not the endless slew of articles about how millennials ruined this or that industry, or how they're entitled hothouse flowers with no work ethic and no spine. It wasn't "millennials can't afford houses because they eat too much avocado toast". It was "OK boomer". Ay yi yi.

</comment><comment><USER34> Boomers have complained about how millennials are weak and whiny, but yet they can't handle hearing "OK Boomer". What losers.

<comment><USER2> Please follow the site guidelines when posting here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Yet I see a lot of young Bernie and Trump fans.

</comment><comment><USER36> Dupe and flagged previously as well:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388646)</comment>


Is the join domain prefix legally risky? - <AUTHOR> How legally risky is it to register a joinXYZ.com domain when XYZ.com is an existing business (different industry/product)? I'm concerned that XYZ could argue that I'm trying to capture their customers and prospective hires. <comment><USER2> This is a trademark issue and I believe laws vary by country. No idea how to quantify the risk though.</comment>


Vision Blocks – Fun app to improve your eye sight - <AUTHOR> http://visionblocks.me

<comment><USER2> Where is the research paper which supports this apps' claim that these exercises help in eyesight improvement?</comment>


Egypt activists outraged over Twitter suspensions against anti-Sisi accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/10/2/egypt-activists-complain-of-twitter-bans-after-protests <comment><USER2> Censoring accounts regional through UAE created this problem. They should not censor or do it from hq so at least values translate.</comment>