Realistic Captain America Shield Using CSS - <AUTHOR> http://www.codelator.com/2014/10/realistic-captain-america-shield-css/

<comment><AUTHOR> Captain America Shield is a fictional weapon which is used by the Marvel Comics Superhero Captain America. Captain America Shield is made with a non destructive element known as Vibranium.

In this tutorial, I am going to create Captain America(Steve Rogers) Shield in CSS3 using circles, star and gradient. It is a very simple tutorial and is very easy to understand. I used five <div> elements – 4 Circles and 1 Star. After creating basic design, gradient can be added to give it more realistic look. I made Captain America Shield in 5 parts namely 'outerred(Outer most circle)', 'white(White circle)', 'innerred(Inner red circle)', 'blue(Middle circle)' and star.</comment>


Why do people become attached to their products  - <AUTHOR> http://www.uigarden.net/english/why-do-people-become-attached-to-their-products I think this is just one issue that attaches people to their products.Nevertheless this is a nice starting point to think about this. What are the products that you are attached to, and why do you think you are attached to them?
<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is just one issue that attaches people to their products.Nevertheless this is a nice starting point to think about this. What are the products that you are attached to, and why do you think you are attached to them?</comment>


A Simple Survival Guide for your Inner Child - <AUTHOR> http://t3.dotgnu.info/blog/philosophy/a-simple-survival-guide.html?full#contd

<comment><USER2> It's a well-written piece, but seriously: "If you're reading this, you've probably already dismissed the plan. You, the individualist, is determined to make your own way in this world."

No need to pander to tha audience so blatantly to make your point.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just don't get the article. Would somebody care to explain it?

Rarely do I get exactly what I want by "just being myself." Being socially adept is a learned behavior, often requiring one to modify one's own behavior to fit in. I speak of this anecdotally. Maybe I'm missing the point?

<comment><USER2> I think you're taking that part about being yourself a bit too literally. It is completely possible to be socially adept (refraining from making dead baby jokes around new mothers, not picking your nose in public, saying "please" and "thank you") and still manage to do things you enjoy at home or as a career. Perhaps catfish farming is your true passion, and people all your life have been giving you weird looks if they were strangers, or trying to push you into a safer occupation like lawyering if they were friends, but your will to raise catfish commercially won. (Po Bronson actually writes about a catfish farmer in his book "What Should I Do With My Life?", I believe.) That's an example of being yourself and still leaving plenty of room to be socially adept.

Though, with that slightly contrived example concluded, there are times when really being yourself and being socially acceptable aren't compatible. (Being a woman a few hundred years ago who liked math, being black in the South a few decades ago, etc). But being socially adept would not have saved you there. I think we're fortunate in that the trajectory seems to be going in the direction that we need make such compromises less and less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had never heard that Camus quote. Thanks.

<comment><USER5> Quote from the article:

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. \-- Albert Camus

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Forget Twitterizing it. Randallize it:

<http://xkcd.com/610/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Another blog post that would have been better off as a tweet:

"Follow the path of least resistance and be part of the system or ride your own wave instead."

<comment><USER8> That loses a lot of the piece's poetry (or masturbatory prose, depending on how view you it). I resent this trend of twitterizing stuff. What's wrong with a bit of drama and posturing and exciting hats, anyway?

<comment><USER9> Because drama ought to be a part of the structure of a piece. When there's a logic to the drama's being there, then it's fine. When it's just drama added to a very simple idea, then it's excessive and a waste of reading.

Perhaps I'm biased, because I came across this just as I was finishing a large and dramatic post based on a similar idea. I worried a bit in mine trying to figure out just how to place my story in a way that it enforced what I was trying to say. That, to me, is the challenge of writing about something like this. This piece strikes me as much more divided between the _point_ and the _drama._

Then again, I'm a pretentious asshat of a writer who uses phases like "structural integrity" when describing writing, so perhaps I'm in the minority here. I'd suggest that perhaps writing good blog is like writing good code, however, in that there ought to be a reason for everything beyond just holding attention. There's a noticeable logic in well-written pieces that I don't feel this holds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "But in the end, they won't call me a rebel. Because I wasn't ... I was just being myself. "

ego much?

<comment><USER11> I think you're demonstrating part of one of the exact systems of repression that he's talking about, perhaps without knowing it.

From another one of his posts:

"There's some sort of misplaced humility that is injected into us by our educational system. Or maybe it is some sort social stigma attached to the braggart or overacheiver. "

Having experienced a lot of the misplaced humility injected by the educational system, I've been all too happy (and dramatically better off) the more of it I am able to get rid of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The picture of society he paints appears to be a standard scifi plot. From Wikipedia Tron article: "Sark then informs everyone that they can either renounce their belief in the Users and join the MCP, or they will be forced to play games that result in their eventual elimination." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(film)#Plot>

</comment><comment><USER13> Awesome.</comment>


Show HN: Memnio – remember anything faster - <AUTHOR> http://memn.io/

<comment><USER2> [http://ankisrs.net/](http://ankisrs.net/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was interested by the title. So I followed the link, but no screenshot/no presentation/anything (I see you're working on it, but wanted to point it out).

So, since this is HN and usually good stuff get posted here, I decided to sign up anyway. I put my name/mail here, and got the confirmation email.

But, as I forgot that my cookies where blocked (I pretty much always do), the site decided to throw a "non-compatible error" to me, and now I can't get it to work with my code, or to send me a new code. (For some reasons, it seems that I don't get a new mail even if i put some dots or add a + tag to my mail).

Also, the page just break if I use tab to switch to the next input box. See [http://spittiepie.com/img/up/1373685796db5.png](http://spittiepie.com/img/up/1373685796db5.png)

In the end, I didn't manage to actually try it. Guess I could try with a different email, but I don't really feel like opening a new account just for this.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't change codes in between signup attempts with the same email address, so the original email/code combination should work. If you keep having issues and want to help out, it'd be great if you could an email over to email@example.com with your email and browser/OS.

We'll fix the tab bug, thanks for letting us know.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the quick reply, I tried again and the code is not working.

I'll later send a mail to support, as now it's quite late for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just a heads up, the Chrome plugin Ghostery blocks "Get the free beta >" element. I'm not sure why it does this, but I feel it's worth mentioning because the number of people installing Ghostery has increased lately.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll try to figure out what's going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought I am reading a joke, a landing page with just a text under Show HN category. But then I read a comment below about Ghostery block. I think I'm okay with using Memrise.

<comment><AUTHOR> While we work on trying to get Ghostery to play nice, you can try out the main app at [http://memn.io/app.html](http://memn.io/app.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been working on something like this: try [http://vocowl.com](http://vocowl.com) ([http://github.com/pathikrit/vocowl](http://github.com/pathikrit/vocowl))

<comment><USER7> me too! [http://cardflashapp.com/](http://cardflashapp.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> On chrome/linux the tops of the almost all text has shaved off, no matter the zoom level. [http://imgur.com/cOWUTkM](http://imgur.com/cOWUTkM)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is the problem resolved for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really liked your sign-up process. Like it's probably my favorite sign-up process of what I've experienced.

</comment><comment><USER10> How is this different from Memrise or Anki?

<comment><USER11> Yes, could the OP please elaborate on this? The above mentioned SRS systems are pretty good at what they do and since the learning algorithm really cannot be that sophisticated, I have a hard time seeing how you can improve on them. Also, you don't seem to have native apps. Compare that to, say Anki, which has everything covered from desktop, to web to mobile (although Android only I believe). While yours is a web app, but I don't think it's very nice to use on the desktop (like, cursor is an arrow even on links). It's too mobile oriented, but then you might as well go with a native app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do you have screenshots?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're working on making the landing page have more images, but in the meantime it's really easy to sign up for a free account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Less text, more showing. I read your landing page twice and can't recall anything except "something, something flashcards". Sign up is "hidden" somewhere up right.

Assume i'm an idiot, the sign up form needs work, clicking the placeholder and _then_ typing is one action too much.

Style your form in a universally accepted fashion, not what out think looks good (i'm talking out of my ass here, but that's what i noticed at first glance)

Edit: Why is there a sign-in link on the sign in page, whut

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what you mean by sign in link on the sing in page or sign up being "hidden". Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER14> where the hell is it? I re-opened the page 3 times to try and locate it and even came back here to try and find it.

<comment><AUTHOR> On [http://memn.io/app.html](http://memn.io/app.html) (you won't see the link for some reason if you have Ghostery installed), you should be greeted with a sign up page [1]. If you have already made an account, you can click the "Sign In" link in the top right corner to switch to the Sign In form.

If that's not working, I'd appreciate it if you could email firstname.lastname@example.com with your browser/version/OS.

[1] ([http://imgur.com/jQeY60N](http://imgur.com/jQeY60N))</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I created a bot that blurts out marketing bullshit - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/douchebagstrat <comment><AUTHOR> Any ideas of how to improve it are welcome. Thanks.</comment>


An Engineer Designs a Website - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Userium/how-an-engineer-designs-a-website-fc904a2e6651 <comment><USER2> Doesn't explain anything about design really. Several screenshot of the finished design and how to use a version control to roll back.</comment>


Withdrawal from Antidepressants - <AUTHOR> https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/12/withdrawal-from-antidepressants/ <comment><USER2> As someone who had to abruptly come off venlafaxine due to side effects, I can tell you that it was complete hell. I experienced vomiting, the weirdest, most horrible nightmares every night, sleep paralysis with hallucinations and a recurring feeling of "electic shocks" inside my head. This lasted about a month. I think it borders on inhumane not to mention possible withdrawal symptoms before prescribing this awful "anti-"depressant.

My doctor eventually prescribed me trazodone, so I could just sleep the withdrawals off.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious... you, and all other commenters who mentioned electric shocks... which I'd previously heard of as "brain zaps"...

What difference would it make if the doctor had told you of that side effect before you started the drug? Imagine you have no idea of what brain zaps felt like. Would you have avoided the drug based on such a vague description?

Can you describe the sensation? It's not painful, right? The sensation of an electric shock is sensory nerve input driven by external electricity, but there are no sensory nerves in the brain are there? So it's confusing to me (never been on psych drugs, so never gone through psych drug withdrawal) what these brain electric shocks could possibly feel like.

I assume you can't localize the sensations to somewhere that has nerves, like maybe the eyes, or somewhere—anywhere—else that really does have nerves? So it's like re-balancing the synapses after quitting these drugs causes a phenomenon in the somatosensory cortex that simulates non-localized zap sensations in a place there are no sensory nerves? Is it limited to a sensation, or are other senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste) ever involved? Is it perhaps more like a non-physical zap that's more like an interruption or glitch in consciousness than a ghost physical sensation?

[edit] So one person's experience with one day off meds was a feeling of floating or vague floating-like feeling of imbalance. That's probably related, perhaps an earlier stage of the phenomenon, but doesn't sound quite the same as the electric shocks people mention they get after quitting. Are the electric shock feelings anything like a rapid (instantaneous?) change in balance, like a shift to zero-g and back?

<comment><USER4> To me, it felt like the moment after some limb went numb and you start to feel it again, just for the whole body. And I had some visual effects like everything being brighter for a moment. It's not painful per se but very disorienting and irritating and it happens several times per hour.

I probably would not have avoided the drugs based on the description, because it doesn't sound as bad as it feels, but I would never quit a SSRI without tapering off again.

<comment><USER5> This is probably the best way I can put it too - like a waking limb, but brief and intense - and it's the brain instead of a limb. It's really difficult to describe accurately, but this is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have experienced discontinuation effects from Paroxetine, Venlafaxine and Fluxoetine in the past, Paroxetine was by far the worst, but absolutely within the boundaries of what the doctor and the tab mentioned. With Paroxetine itself the worst effects would be "blackouts" when I would loose all my senses for a split second, just short enough that I would not fall if walking, but long enough that people would notice during a conversation.

During one specific Venlafaxine withdrawal, however, I have experienced severe depression, and got close to suicide. What saved me, ironically as it sounds, was a huge dose of Clonazepan I rationally decided to take just so I could sleep the withdrawal over. I'm still on Venlafaxine for a couple years now, I take it for Anxiety/Panic and that was the only time I've experienced severe depression in years.

What I've learned from all that is simple: that stuff is messing directly and profoundly with your brain, so take it very seriously: anti-depressants are not your over-the-counter shit. Apart from that, find a doctor you trust and talk to them,every little detail. Never trust a psychiatrist who does not suggest some kind of therapy: the meds won't cure you.

Also, I don't know of a single drug that won't give me some kind of discontinuation syndrome if interrupted after continuous use. From nose sprays and anti-acids to hypnotics, all have some rebound effects to them. I believe the bottom line is to be rational about taking any drugs, yet specially the ones messing with your head.

<comment><USER7> I've taken sertraline, venlafaxine, bupropion and fluoxetine.

Fluoxetine is the only SSRI I experienced no withdrawal from. I was on a low dose (10-20mg) though, and it mostly worked (went from severe depression to mild/none). I have a standing prescription for this as a fallback, but haven't taken it in 3 years. I avoid taking it because of the sexual side effects. I like having orgasms.

Bupropion triggered a seizure after the first dose. Immediately discontinued.

Venlafaxine was mostly effective, but I went from depressed to robotic/apathetic. When I stopped taking it, I tapered off, but I had brain zaps and developed acute tinnitus for over a month, alternating in each ear. To this day, 15 years after treatment, I still experience moderate hearing loss in my ears several times a month for about 60-90 seconds at a time.

Sertraline was the worst. I got up to 150mg before the problems. It triggered a hypomanic episode that lasted for about a month. I didn't sleep at all for the first three days it manifested. The doctor stopped treatment immediately and put me on risperidone, which is a new level of awfulness. I just quit taking it after a month, and told my doctor I would never take any antipsychotic again.

I have a _great_ doctor now. He's not even a psychiatrist, just a generalist, but he's treated many cases of depression over the past 20 years. He figured I didn't have unipolar depression, but bipolar, due to the hypomania. SSRIs are bad, and not recommended, as monotherapy for bipolar. So he put me on lamotrigine and I haven't had a depressive (or manic) episode for over two years. I've also experienced no noticeable side effects.

I've found the only thing that matters in the treatment of mental/behavioral disorders is your doctor's skill and knowledge. Don't be afraid to dump a mediocre doctor; it's your wellbeing on the line.

<comment><USER8> >Sertraline was the worst

I had a very similar experience. Tried a couple of SSRIs prior to sertraline and had a manic episode shortly after starting it. I was up for about 3 days and drinking furiously. Felt like I was on coke. Immediately stopped once I realised what was happening but it was so gradual and I was manic so it had to be pointed out to me that I was flying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had this terrible experience before I was publicly out about my gender that sent me into a very suicidal train of thought. I had a moment clarity to get myself to a doctor (my partner was pregnant at the time, or I probably won't be here writing this now).

The doctor gave me citalopram (brand name is Celexa, I think?) I had to stop taking it. I'll list the side effects I had, but not before I point out: _It saved my life._ Yes, I had bad side effects. But it also helped me overcome the anxiety and rage I was suffering from and resolve to come out about my status.

Ultimately I had to taper off of it, which was hard. My doctor advised reducing my dose by 1/4 the original value every 9 days until I was done. The end of it was quite rough, I confess.

But while on it, I gained nearly all the weight I lost in a year of physical training back (just 4 months of treatment), my heart palpitations were nauseatingly bad, and I suddenly had to sleep a lot longer to get even a modicum of rest.

When people say, "You should consider medication" it is to help normalize the idea that in trauma situations medication can help people with some types of MI. It is not because they're fun, side-effect free, or not a "real" course of treatment. It's important to remember that when considering these stories and your own mental health.

<comment><USER3> I don't think even people like the anti-med Robert Whitaker would be against using these medications short-term, for major clinical depression or for other conditions where patients are low- or non-functioning; the primary goal there is to get people stable so they can participate in productive behavioral therapy or modification so that they don't need the meds long-term (particularly since afaik the balance of evidence is that the effectiveness of these meds declines to the placebo level over the long term). It's the use of psychiatric medication for relatively minor psychiatric disturbances in high- functioning individuals, and for long periods of time (years), that draws most of the criticism.

<comment><USER9> I have talked with many people who think meds will ruin their careers, destroy their cognition, render them feeble, or are a profound mark of shame.

At a personal level, many people refuse chemical intervention for these issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The effects of abruptly stopping SSRI (and later on SNRI) medications have been well-known since the 1980's. It's considered related to the widespread if individually variable distribution of serotonin receptors in the body.

Having prescribed a ton of SSRI/SNRI meds since their introduction, and taken my share as well, it's a phenomenon I'm _very_ familiar with.

Called a "discontinuation syndrome", technically not the same as "withdrawal", which is associated with _tolerance_ , the need to continually increase dose to get the same effect. SSRIs can produce a D/C effect at low or high dose if more likely with greater dose.

Individual response to SSRI D/C varies greatly. I've been very surprised at times when people tell me they've gone off 200mg of Zoloft and never noticed a thing. Others report D/C effects for weeks even after tapering down very gradually.

Most of the time problems with D/C reflect short half-life of compounds. Effexor is notorious in this regard. OTOH more persistent agents like Prozac are typically less troublesome. In fact it's a common strategy to use Prozac as an means to ease D/C when stopping short duration meds.

Going by reports of (probably) a thousand patients, as well as my own experience of D/C effects, generally they're mild to moderate and dissipate within a few days. However there are exceptions and I never hesitated to go as slowly as necessary to minimize excessive discomfort while tapering off the medication.

As I've commented before on HN, this subject again emphasizes some crucially important principles. One is that any medication can cause any side effect at any time. No free lunch, all medicines have numerous effects, some favorable and some not, so it's important to make sure there's a damn good reason for using any medication and understand the risks and benefits.

Finally, every individual has a unique condition and responds uniquely to the treatments we have to offer. It's a partnership between the prescriber and the patient, communication about what's happening during the course of treatment is vital. Believe me I know, whether in the role of doctor or patient, it's a highly evolved art form.

<comment><USER11> That was a carefully worded and thoughtful reply... thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

The problems pointed out in this article -- which are in some degree real even if heavily editorialized -- must be understood in light of a wider context which includes:

0) The very poor standards of validity and replicability in most fields of experimental psych-whatever. The Popperian method ain't what it used to be.

1) The Viennese Waltz of bad incentives throughout the psychiatry research pipeline. Most notably, drug companies are incentivized for fraud and deceit by being rewarded for closely-guarded research, hiding negative studies and obtaining patent extensions for new applications of existing drugs.

2) Somewhat related to (1): the unfortunate drug safety model prevalent in all relevant nations in which drugs must be _proven to work_ for some pathology. Besides incentivizing recklessness in industry-led research, this means viable off-label usages go "underground" (topiramate for dissociative disorders is a typical case where FDA-worthy testing might be impossible). It might be better if the FDA and its counterparts instead regulated for drug _safety_ in humans and let the academic and clinical communities evolve their professional consensuses.

3) Much related to (0): the effective failure of "talking cures" in outcompeting drugs (specially "dirty drugs" like anticonvulsants, neuroleptics and non-SSRI antidepressants) for "simple" depression, bereavement and related mental health issues of which one could whip up a "social critique" of drug use and so forth. "Mad in America" is obviously not willing to make a fuss of things like bipolar where people will take their lithium for decades and bear the side-effects because the alternative is to go actually mad-crazy.

Did I miss something?

<comment><USER13> > "Mad in America" is obviously not willing to make a fuss of things like > bipolar where people will take their lithium for decades and bear the side- > effects [...]

The creation and promotion of "Bipolar" as a DSM disorder is covered in _Anatomy of an Epidemic_ , Robert Whitaker's followup to _Mad in America_.

> [...] because the alternative is to go actually mad-crazy.

The whole point of Whitaker's _Mad in America_ foundation is to change the paradigm of our approach to mental health. nstead of trying to find the right drug to make a symptom go away, it would be much more effective to figure out non-psychotropic-drug ways to help people function better.

<comment><USER12> Erm, manic depression as distinct from schizophrenia was basically established by Emil Kraepelin in the 1880s.

Dr. Whitaker _could_ be going full Foucault, but as well established by Hollywood, you _never go full Foucault_.

<comment><USER13> > Erm, manic depression as distinct from schizophrenia was basically > established by Emil Kraepelin in the 1880s.

The physiological basis for scihzophrenia wasn't figured out and ignored until the 1970's.

> Dr. Whitaker could be going full Foucault, but as well established by > Hollywood, you never go full Foucault.

Robert Whitaker is a journalist, not a doctor. He's sort of like the kid who points out that the emperor got swindled by his tailors.

I like the reference to the quote from Tropic Thunder, but I'm not up to date on Foucault's contributions to philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On a related note, there's no good half-life calculator on the web for people tapering off SSRIs. The issue is that in order to actually have as gentle a taper as possible, you need to halve your dose only every few weeks because of how long the half life of these drugs is. So ideally you'd want something where you would enter your starting dose and how much of the drug you plan on taking each day, and it would show you your projected concentration of the drug each day as well as the percent change.

I made this in Excel for someone a few years ago, but it would make a good weekend project if someone wants to learn react or whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> I second this. I was on zoloft for IBS. Getting off of it was terrible. I had to taper down 25% each step and each step lasted weeks. Overall, it took the same time to taper off of it as when I needed it.

I quit taking it because my IBS was not really IBS, it was a defective gallbladder. It was removed and my symptoms went away.

<comment><USER15> IBS - irritable bowel syndrome?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The home page of the site hosting the webpage submitted here, "Mad in America: Science, Psychiatry, and Social Justice" looks to put a lot more emphasis on the social justice, as the authors published on the site define that, than on science in general or psychiatry in particular. This is more a site that advocates for a particular policy point of view than a site that neutrally reviews the latest methodologically careful research.

[https://www.madinamerica.com/](https://www.madinamerica.com/)

"

<comment><USER17> But of course _which_ methodologically careful research has been done of late is extremely agenda-driven and politicized, too!

You can't launder your biases away by putting them behind the abstraction barrier of what the government or what drug companies are willing to fund. That's how you end up with _p_ -hacking. Better to acknowledge that the reason people do science is to _do things with_ science, not because they find sound research intrinsically fulfilling, and that everyone and every funding agency brings their biases, their hopes and dreams for society, with them.

<comment><USER18> > agenda-driven

More like, profit-driven. If we want to get better, we have to stop allowing a class of society to profit from the sickness. Pharmaceutical companies exist not to make anyones lives better - they exist to generate profit.

I'm highly suspicious of the drug-taking culture, as it attempts to justify the enslavement of the individual by way of supplanting their supposed mental- health problems with a very profitable subscription to a proprietary/patented/owned drug formula. I think it is very sad to read this HN article and listen to all the stories of folks who think they are improving their lives with this chemical dependency, and it is really tragic that drug- taking is such a cultural phenomenon that anyone who dares to rise above the field and say "hey, maybe we don't need to do this - maybe there is another way" gets cut down to serve as fodder for the rest of the poppies.

Its quite possible that we've all been swindled by our own hubris. Its happened before. The Romans had their lead pipes, the Victorians their laudanum, and we - "modern" society - have our Prozac and Zoloft. Dare to mention alternative means of lifting oneself out of the mire, and you will incur a great deal of wrath - such is the investment in the propaganda from the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry in capturing the subject and making sure nobody dares think otherwise to their drug-delivery supply chains...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo Not sure if this supports the article or is just a warning, but going off of anti-depressants can be fatal. If depression relapses anti-depressants that once worked can prove ineffective. (edit: wrongly said SSRIs and not anti- depressants)

David Foster Wallace:

 _Wallace died by suicide on September 12, 2008, at age 46. Wallace 's father reported in an interview that his son had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive.[42] When Wallace experienced severe side effects from the medication, he attempted to wean himself from his primary antidepressant, phenelzine.[43] On his doctor's advice, Wallace stopped taking the medication in June 2007,[42] then the depression returned. Wallace received other treatments, including electroconvulsive therapy. When he returned to phenelzine, he found that it had lost its effectiveness.[43] His wife kept a watchful eye on him in the following days, but on September 12, Wallace went into the garage, wrote a two-page note, and arranged part of the manuscript for The Pale King before hanging himself from a patio rafter.[49]_

It's something to be very careful about...

<comment><USER19> Phenelzine is actually a MAOI, which is a different class of drug. My understanding is that Wallace had hard to treat depression and was on this more dangerous class of drug as SSRI's didn't work well on him. He also died with Clonazepam and Temazepam in his system. Wallace also received electric shock therapy, which suggests his depression was much more serious than most cases.

I think his case is very much an edge case here. He had very serious problems with a hard to treat depression and was on a MAO inhibitor, which is seen as the last resort for pharmacological treatments of depression because its so unstable, short-lived, and has nasty side effects and is difficult to ween off. SSRI's are much more safe.

<comment><USER20> He actually wrote about his experiences with MAOIs in an early short story in a college journal. This was in the early 80s, well before Prozac and SSRIs made it to market.

[https://quomodocumque.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/wallace- am...](https://quomodocumque.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/wallace- amherst_review-the_planet.pdf)

<comment><USER21> I just read it and I'm at a loss for words. All I can say is that it's a incredibly sad tale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was on Nardil (phenelzine) for about 6 months. That's some weird stuff right there. I gained a whole bunch of weight, lost the ability to dream while sleeping, and couldn't eat any foods with tyramine in them (like Iberian ham or fava beans), but man, chocolate cake never tasted so heavenly as when on Nardil.

Prior to Nardil, I had been taking Prozac (fluoxetine) but a combination of sexual side effects, an impatient disposition, and scientific curiosity prompted me to ask my psychiatrist about Nardil. He said, "Why not?" This psychiatrist would prescribe just about anything (not that I see anything wrong with that) so over the course of grad school I tried Prozac, Nardil, Modafinil, and Adderall. Oddly enough, it turned out that an extremely low dosage of Adderall fixed most of my issues. My psychiatrist started with me 30 mg twice a day but I found that 10 mg worked better (less euphoria, more focus), so nowadays I only take 10 mg Adderall about twice a week and don't seem to have any depression or focus issues anymore.

<comment><USER23> What did you think about Modafinil? I went on it for a few months (without advice of a doctor) and thought it put a great pep in my step. Now that I have insurance, I will try to get it prescribed but it seemed gentle in a way, like a different flavor of caffeine but also gave me confidence. Unless I took too much, then I felt on edge, like I was clenching my jaw (probably was).

I guess I am asking you about Modafinil because somehow I was under the impression it's a somewhat casual drug and the rest in your list seem like heavy weights to me. I have never taken any kind of antidepressant but sometimes think I need to.

<comment><USER22> I had no response to Modafinil at all. I started at 100 mg and worked up to 400 mg (under my psychiatrist's supervision), but at 400 mg, both he and I decided it wasn't doing anything — positive or negative — so I quit taking it.

After researching the subject a bit, my guess as to why Modafinil had no effect on me is that I probably have the wrong variant of the rs4680 gene. rs4680 is known as the worrier/warrior gene; those with the AA variant tend to be neurotic, have high anxiety, and handle stress poorly (my personality in a nutshell). Studies have shown that people with this variant of rs4680 do not significantly respond to Modafinil, so I suspect that I am one of them. I plan on sending a DNA sample to 23andme soon to confirm whether or not my hunch is correct.

With regard to getting a prescription, I'll note that my psychiatrist couldn't prescribe Modafinil directly to treat anxiety, so he indirectly prescribed it to address the "sleep issues" that were caused by my anxiety/depression.

For me, 5 mg of Adderall does what I was _hoping_ Modafinil would do. Personally speaking, productivity is far more important to me than "feeling good", which is what I think a lot of people abuse Adderall for (and it certainly does produce that "feel good" sensation at high enough dosages). But at 10 mg and less, it's like a much "smoother" version of caffeine. In fact, lately I've found that I don't really like caffeine anymore because it makes me crankier, sweatier, and more jittery than Adderall does, and it doesn't help my ability to focus as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We think of doctors and medications as being scientific and precise. But it's more like just throwing some food coloring into a black garbage bag full of all sorts of stuff and shaking it up in hopes of getting it to get to a specific color... but not really being able to see the color through the bag.

The drugs all have side-effects, different for each person who takes them. And often those side-effects are as bad as the original ailment. But you trust your doctor, and you're in a bad spot... and you figure, "Fuck it, maybe it'll work and I'm willing to try anything at this point..." And ugh, it just all sucks.

It's so hard to fix once you start down the medication path. Testing drugs, trying to find the right dose... deciding if the side-effects are worth the gains... withdrawal from drugs... drugs to help with the side-effects... drugs to help with the withdrawal... (often a few loops)... all of this can fundamentally change your personality and motivations, or have just no impact on you what-so-ever and leave you beyond frustrated.

If you had cancer, everyone would be there to support you. If you have a mental illness, there's not much chance of getting support from peers... or friends -- it's tough, it's not their job to support you -- sure... but a lot of times mental health issues are exacerbated by feeling of isolation... which leads to medical treatment because you don't have other options... and the doctors all seem confident that drugs will help...

Anyway, anything you can do to avoid mental health issues in the first place... do that. And if you don't have mental health issues, be thankful and humbly accept you're one concussion, bad breakup, car accident, death in the family, death of a pet, loss of job, or bad decision away from it if you aren't careful.

<comment><USER25> In Australia (or at least NSW), the health system doesn't know what to do with you. About 7 months ago I had a mental breakdown and experienced thoughts of suicide. When the health system found out, I had finished having the thoughts, and was at home trying to sleep, being supported by my loving family having been awake at the time for over 14 hours.

I was ripped out of my bed by ambulance officers with police present, despite my protests and my wife's - eventually agreeing to go voluntarily with them in their ambulance. Then after I got into the ED itself I discovered I'd been sectioned and not allowed to leave. After I realised this was what had happened I got placed in an isolation room, with no explanation as to why, and there I sat quietly rotting for the next 5.5 hours. In other words, I got no care, had my rights stripped and was treated like a criminal because after a sustained period of incredible stress I had a breakdown. I was then sent back home as they decided I shouldn't have been there in the first place.

I was then sent a bill for $600.

The system sucks.

<comment><USER26> > After I realised this was what had happened I got placed in an isolation > room, with no explanation as to why, and there I sat quietly rotting for the > next 5.5 hours. In other words, I got no care, had my rights stripped and > was treated like a criminal because after a sustained period of incredible > stress I had a breakdown

That sounds like enough to _cause_ a breakdown!

<comment><USER25> I have been living with sustained emotional stress for the last six months. There are days I go to work and as I'm driving in my car at a certain point I scream from the trauma. It's the only place I can do it, I don't dare do it around my family, friends or work colleagues.

And I absolutely cannot talk to anyone involved in medicine, because their treatment for suicidal ideation from a mental breakdown has the unique side effect of making me feel like I want to die to escape the disrespect and indignity of being treated like a criminal who must be locked away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Even tapering off Cymbalta and tapering on to a different med at the same time..

Worst sickness of my life. Felt like death flu. Uncontrollable vomiting, diarrhea, chills, shivering, fever. I spent 4 days between bed and bathroom. Then suddenly on day 5 I was fine.

While I was on it, it completely turned off everything below the belt. No response to stimulation at all. And mentally I was a zombie. Evil stuff.

No such problems on Zoloft, celexa, or Prozac.

<comment> ryan-allen I've come off Lexapro with some odd 'brain' sensations but nothing super serious, 2 week taper from 15mg.

I ended up coming back on it though. It helps a lot!

<comment><USER27> I had occasional brain zaps when first on Lexapro (the first SSRI I ever took) but it wasn't bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you want to stop being dependent on anti-depressants (and their side- effects) while stopping depression at the same time, you may try a normal dose of LSD (after becoming a domain expert and testing the substance you have acquired). Complement this with daily practice of mindful meditation and you have a good chance to succeed. Also, you need to make sure to permanently change whatever lifestyle caused your depression.

<comment><USER29> Don't combine LSD with prescription medication. Don't take LSD if you are experiencing depression or mental illness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> As an editor on Mad in America, I appreciate the thoughtful and thorough discussion here. We would welcome any stories or analysis that the commenters here might venture to contribute to MIA. Thanks, Kermit Cole

<comment><USER31> Are there any comprehensive portals that provide information about the prevalence of each drug's side effect? The only one I know of is HealthBee? - [https://healthbee.co/](https://healthbee.co/)

<comment><USER32> I find drugs.com useful, which seems to be derived from product monographs. Knowing that "very common", "common", "uncommon", "rare" and "very rare" have specific meanings (e.g. common -> 1%-10%) helps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article seems sound, but the source does look a bit biased.

<comment><USER34> The source isn't just a bit biased, it's hugely biased. Mad in America has an open editorial viewpoint, which is opposition to "the current drug-based paradigm of care" in psychiatry [1]. It's headed by Robert Whitaker, probably best known for his book _Anatomy of an Epidemic_ that questions the routine use of psychiatric drugs [2].

Of course, that doesn't mean the article is useless or not addressing real phenomena. Antidepressant withdrawal is real, and IME it's something you're more likely to hear about as a horror story from a patient (especially if they tried to stop Effexor cold-turkey) rather than as part of standard descriptions of depression treatment and its risks/shortcomings.

[1] [https://www.madinamerica.com/about- us/](https://www.madinamerica.com/about-us/)

[2] [https://www.madinamerica.com/robert-whitaker- new/](https://www.madinamerica.com/robert-whitaker-new/)

<comment><USER33> Oh yeah, I've used SSRIs and suffered the withdrawal. I know they're not making things up or whatever.

But I also think that taking such a universal anti-psychiatric drug stance is probably too hardline of a position. I think they are the lesser of two (or more) evils for a lot of patients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It seems to me that many of the drugs in this category are effective sometimes for some people. People I have known who were suffering acutely often cycled through several drugs, sometimes in combination, dosages etc. It appears to me to be mostly trial and error.

But for some people the results are miraculous. They solve real problems with few if any side effects. For others, they either don't work at all or have intolerable side effects.

The situation would be a whole lot better if we could predict likely efficacy and side effects in advance, especially cases where treatment is more likely to do harm that to help.

Interestingly, I've read a lot (not so much recently) on the subject and taken several SSRIs myself (with good short term experience, minor sides), but I learned a lot from the discussion here. So many people take these drugs — the data necessary to understand and perhaps to predict ... is out there. Not easy to get at, but really plentiful. Reading this made me think about the feasibility of mining message boards for first person accounts of SSRI experience.

<comment><USER32> While there is some work done on matching people up with specific drugs, this is still very much in the research phase.

Still, for many people, it's more trial and error than it needs to be. Many family doctors still don't match up symptoms with neurotransmitters, and then put people on the wrong class of drugs altogether (e.g. something like Wellbutrin which works on norepinephrine and dopamine instead of an SSRI for anxiety which is more associated with serotonin).

Part of the reason is that new drugs keep coming out so it's difficult to keep up, and eventually they all start to blur together.

The best practical predictor of success on a given medication today is if you have a close relative who's had success on that medication.

<comment><USER35> That certainly makes sense since the problem has a higher likelihood of stemming from the same root cause, but also speaks to how little is known.

So include the social graphs of people who are on antidepressant discussion boards and pick up on friends, family, socioeconomic features ...

I so want to use ML tools on medical treatment data, but it's so hard to come by. Have toyed with a couple of startup ideas based on the tendency of people who share a condition to establish ties. Crohn's disease, cutaneous lymphoma. But the groups are too small. Mood disorders on the other hand...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> 10mg Lexapro every day... it _saved my life_. I am not joking

<comment> ryan-allen Me too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think people should see an endocrinologist and cardiologist before seeing a psychiatrist. A lot of real correctable health issues are hard to differentiate from depression, burnout, and can cause fatigue, anxiety etc.

</comment><comment><USER38> "the distinctions between discontinuation symptoms and drug withdrawal are clear"

Are they? Calling it "Discontinuation syndrome" rather than withdrawal seems like clever marketing.

</comment><comment><USER39> My brother was going through a divorce and committed suicide after his doctor refused to refill his prescription for antidepressants.

I've always wondered if it was a windrawl side effect

</comment><comment><USER40> I started Lexapro 10mg 5 days ago. 5mg taper up week. Reading stuff like this scares me. However based on my depression scales for months my LCPC and MD recommended it. Major life upsets back to back to back to back. I have light momentary nausea starting out. I hope it doesn't get worse. :( I'm only using it as a footing to work some recovery programs. Then I'm done.

</comment><comment><USER41> Biggest effect from reducing my dose of fluoxetine was dreaming again. It's great.

<comment><USER42> Huh. I've had rather vivid dreams on fluoxetine (although at a very low dose), but I remember the dreams being very un-spectacular in content. (Trimipramine on the other hand gives me highly vivid and very strange dreams, which I kind of like, but they are incredibly hard to remember.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have been on paxil(paroxetine) three separate times. Each was between six months and one year in duration. The first time, I was on a 10mg daily dose. I had quite a few issues when starting the medication the first time; however after a few weeks, I felt great. When I initially discontinued, I had the worst side effects I have ever experienced. Electric shocks in my neck and back of head, depression, mood swings, and terrible panic attacks lasting almost two weeks. The doctor told me it wasn't 'addictive' and there is no issue stopping the medication, afterwards I changed my physician. The new doctor also insisted there were no known withdrawal symptoms. If you google the issue there are thousands of reports and dozens of websites about this exactly. I have no idea why doctors tell people there is nothing to worry about but there are certainly many negative side effects experienced while starting and discontinuing SSRI's. For subsequent treatments of paxil and other SSRI's, I have made sure to slowly titrate my dose when starting and discontinuing treatment. 1/4 doses for a week, half for a week, 3/4 for a week, and then full dosage. I have done the same for discontinuing, sometimes even more gradual then that, and have avoided the terrible experience since.

<comment><USER33> Doctors can be notoriously ignorant and contradictory when it comes to mental illness-treating drugs. There's a lot of literature out there and a lot of them don't keep up. I don't know why it is.

Not that you shouldn't trust doctors, but I always do some Googling to get a second opinion about all psychoactive drugs I'm prescribed.

<comment><USER44> It's very very uneasy when doctors are too handwavey on your issues. You don't know if they're skipping beats because they don't want to explain 10 years of med school so you obey, or if they just don't want to investigate more than what the usual answer is.

I tried to nitpick on things that mattered for me, but you cannot easily claim "I'm more up to date than you on <xyz> illness" to a legal doctor without feeling a little ridiculous.

That's why I root for more non invasive monitoring and intervention. Many doctors told me the "based on these tests, you have nothing", bailing out when I asked for more because deeper tests would require potential ICU. So you end up floating in the unknown hoping for the best.

<comment><USER45> You may or may not be more up to date on a particular illness, but you are the best authority on your specific case.

<comment><USER44> But you have your own bias. The amount of fuzz from your personal data can be huge. That's why I wish I could have objective monitors and not rely on sparse visits to the doctor when symptoms aren't here.

One dared me to reproduce heart failure on the spot because there was some tension between me and him.

It odd.

<comment><USER45> Objective measures are always nice, but when there are none it all comes down to self report. Your own bias will still be present in that, and then you get to add on the doctors own bias. We hope that their experience can cut through both sources of distortion, but the less common the problem the harder that is.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple pushes HTTPS for 3rd-party apps, will they take their own advice? - <AUTHOR> https://bgentry.io/blog/2015/06/11/apple-app-transport-security-https

<comment><USER2> The shocking thing for me is that Apple is using Amazon S3 to store iCloud photos. Apparently this is not news[1], but it's news to me. What are all those huge green data centers for if not for mountains of iCloud content?

1\. [http://readwrite.com/2014/08/26/apple-icloud-amazon-web- serv...](http://readwrite.com/2014/08/26/apple-icloud-amazon-web-services- hosting)

<comment><USER3> What's the deal with iCloud Photos and privacy anyway? I've heard talk of "encrypted at rest" but what does this mean in practice? If someone gets root on Apple's servers, can they see my photos, or only if I'm logged in, or what?

<comment><USER4> It means that unencrypted data is never written to disk. In the case of S3 it means that if someone gains access to your S3 buckets the data is encrypted.

Of course if you have root-level access to Apple's servers that read S3 you could find the decryption key, though that might not be an easy task.

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily. The encryption key could be stored in your iCloud keychain, or derived from your login credentials and/or an account-specific identifier stored on your devices. That would prevent anyone from decrypting your data even with root on their servers unless they managed to capture the decryption key out of memory.

<comment><USER3> Right. In principle, it's possible. Apple maintains it can't read your iMessages, for example. And are there any operations that happen on your photos that have to happen in the cloud? Thumbnail generation/optimisation can happen during upload.

However, since iCloud Photos has a web interface, I imagine they're not doing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the status with the US crypto export paperwork that Apple apparently requires for all crypto-enabled apps, even if they just use iOS builtin URL classes with https urls?

I know first-hand of several non-US apps where https was dropped just because of the opaque and vague requirements. In fact it seems strange to require non- US developers, who purchased an iOS developer program account from a non-US Apple company, to register with US government for "export permission" when all they want to do is publish their app on a non-US app store.

<comment><USER7> It is still a question Apple asks when you submit your app. It's up to the developer to figure out if they need an encryption registration number or not. The SNAP-R process takes about 3 days and can be done entirely online.

<comment><USER8> > The SNAP-R process takes about 3 days and can be done entirely online.

True, but last time I looked at it (late 2012) the legalese was intimidating enough that I didn't feel comfortable attempting it without consulting a lawyer. Since the app was just a personal side project, paying for a lawyer wasn't an option and I chose to restrict my app to sale in the US and Canada only. (Which doesn't require any government filing at all.)

All because I wanted to access a backend service over HTTPS. It's mind- boggling that my app can be called "encryption software" because it calls a shared library built into the operating system.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't? That must be the reason why so many trivial apps aren't available world-wide. I've always wondered why a publisher wouldn't just click the "worldwide" checkbox.

French iOS users must be missing out even more. Looks like Apple requires extra paperwork for crypto exported to France specifically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It isn't really mentioned, but another reason why using HTTP is unfortunate is due to capturing paywall endpoints that are found in locations such as planes, hotels, etc. If you have software installed to monitor/whitelist all outbound connections, it is extremely frustrating to see your OS services attempting to talk to GoGo's server or some hotel WiFi man-in-the-middle prior to you authenticating and bringing up net access. Fairmont Hotels was actively inserting DIVs into unencrypted sites. Why would I want actors like this to receive any of my traffic? You have to trust Apple at some point, but it would still reassure the public if they pinned certs and you could visibly see the OS only talking to their servers.

<comment><USER10> I've setup ad-hoc vpn or ssh tunnels when I've had to deal with cases like this... though lately my biggest problem is my carrier (or the mvno). I've been getting <0.3mbps when connected hspa+ with full bars (which used to be close to 10mbps)... I'm not throttled, I only use about 0.3gb/month of the > 5gb before throttling for my account level.

Fortunately, I usually only use trusted wifi at work/home for the most part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If the content is already encrypted & signed (like imessage & app store content) there is little to be gained by using TLS and a performance cost particularly in latency on unreliable connections (mobile, packet loss, etc).

Did you take a look at the data that's being sent? Are photos encrypted and signed in transport like Apple claims?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I did not take a look at the data being sent. I'm sure that in most of the cases I cited, the HTTP payload is encrypted or at least signed. At the very least, using plain HTTP to communicate with S3 will leak some additional metadata contained in HTTP headers. That may or may not be sensitive or privacy-compromising metadata, but it is metadata that does not need to be leaked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Without knowing what data is being requested here, I'm not sure there's any issue here.

Perhaps Photos is retrieving data which has an embedded signature, making SSL irrelevant? Or the data isn't security-critical anyway (e.g, it's checking for a news splashscreen or something). The point is, simply using unencrypted communications doesn't necessarily mean the application is insecure.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, lack of HTTPS does not guarantee a lack of security. That applies to Apple just as it does to the 3rd party devs they're pushing to use HTTPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can actually upload client-side encrypted data to S3 buckets. With one- time upload tokens. So what they are doing may be perfectly fine.

Hard to tell without seeing the complete request.</comment>


Problems that forced me to leave ProtonVPN for Mullvad - <AUTHOR> https://kevinhq.com/problems-that-forced-me-to-leave-protonvpn-for-mullvad/ <comment><USER2> I guess it depends on what you're using your VPN for, but I prefer to run my own VPN on a vps. I use vultr and pay $5/mo. I also get to host a collabra server for my nextcloud setup on the same server so it just makes economic sense to use a vps rather than paying $5/mo (or more) to just get a VPN and also not have control of my data.

<comment><USER3> Are you guys vpn'ing on your phones too? Do you just use the built in vpn connection profiles? I'm having trouble getting mine to stay connected to a plain old IPSec tunnel running on my raspberry pi and thinking I probably need a special client for "always on" to work.

<comment><USER4> On iOS the only way I found for "always on" to work well was with the IKE protocol using the built-in VPN client. I set up a cheap Vultr VM and used this:

[https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup](https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup)

One caveat: Reconnects worked poorly until I disabled the iptables rate limiting the script imposes.

Outside of that, it's worked really well. I pointed the VM's DNS at Adguard so I get some good filtering as part of it.

<comment><USER3> I'm trying wireguard at the moment for the always on feature. Setup was absurdly easy.

<comment><USER4> Cool. When I set my VPN up, Wireguard didn't do iOS yet, but I'm interested in it. Please post back to this thread with a short experience report, if you wouldn't mind. :-)

<comment><USER3> So far it's been really good. It's very good at staying on all the time and it was really easy to setup. Right now it's running on a raspberry pi but since I took down my ipsec vpn container, my ram/temp/cpu usage has gone down quite a bit.

I still need to spend a minute configuring things like dynamic dns in case my IP changes but I'm really impressed right now.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Just ordered an Rpi4 for home routing duties, I'll give it a try there first.

<comment><USER3> Btw, I also highly recommend a case cooling case for the rpi4. I got the aluminum one at [https://flirc.tv](https://flirc.tv) but I think anything like it will do. It dropped the idle temperature by quite a bit. I think it went from ~75ish to about 45

<comment><USER4> Good call. Those are pretty cases.

I saw some tests indicating open+fan really dropped temps vs closed+fan so I ordered one of these: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXSMY1N](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXSMY1N)

<comment><USER3> I'd be curious to see what the idle temperatures land on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's just openvpn. If you dislike their app,use vanilla openvpn!

As far as instability..yeah it's unstable on the free version because you only get to access highly saturated free access servers.

With the paid plan on proton I see disconnects every othet day or so (random servers).

I use the free tier as well but I have it automated to where I force a reconnect if destinations are unreachable.

I believe proton uses Nord's infrastructure to some capacity?

But yeah,not fair at all to compare a free plan with a paid one. Even if they charge 1€/mo,those users are supporting the servers they use. With free,it's unlimited number of users that saturate a free server so you should expect less quality.

<comment><USER6> Care to share your force reconnect script? I'm sure many would appreciate it.

<comment><USER5> I don't wish to associate this HN account with my github profile. But I think it makes a good project to help you learn a new language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Flagging this. The VPN industry is full of companies competing against each other using underhanded social media tactics, astroturfing, bots, sock puppets, etc.

This is clearly one of them, just a shill for Mullvad by a likely astroturfing or affiliate blogger who is "not an expert in VPN".

There is zero reason why this should be on the HN frontpage.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used the visionary plan from ProtonVPN and ProtonMail. I personally have found it exceedingly good. I still augment it with my own VPN (easy enough to setup). I do experience slowdowns at peak times, but I also tend to break 30Mb/s speeds - can't complain

</comment><comment><USER9> > I feel it's getting slower and slower

> I am not sure if the problem is on ProtonVPN side or my ISP side

I may be missing something... but I feel this is a terrible article, not based on any facts/solid research, but based on random experiences caused by "who knows what".

<comment><USER7> You're correct, it's an uninformative article by a non-expert just shilling for Mullvad. Just flag it and ignore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't use ProtonVPN, but damn... The author starts off his article with "I feel (sic!) it's getting slower and slower.". Well, what do you mean? Can't you measure the speeds? Are we supposed to take your word for it? Even if he is right about protonVPN getting slower, that's no way of starting off an article...

On the second paragraph the author writes "Not only slower, but it also keeps disconnecting".. So, the author is sure that protonVPN is actually getting slower... But I thought he said he simply _felt_ like it was getting slower. Feelings are now equivalent to certainty, apparently.

Overall, not a good article, I'm sorry to say.

<comment><USER7> You're correct, and probably getting downvoted by bots or Mullvad voting rings. Just flag the article and move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> NordVPN has seemingly slowed down as of late too. Though there are so many nodes that who knows what's going on and how prevalent.

Previously when connected, my line would go down to 50+ Mbps: perfectly reasonable. Now, I test and it is sub 2 Mbps.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's weird how, as popular as VPNs are, competing on UX - and not just some cute mascotts and assets - is still not a huge priority.

There's always trade-offs to be made for now it seems. And Mullvad doesn't have mobile support yet.

Makes you wonder what's gonna happen when Cloudflare's Warp is out of closed beta.

<comment><USER13> Back in the day, every videocard manufacturer released their own drivers. Diamond, Canopus, BFG, etc, they all took the baseline GPU drivers and added their custom branding. This meant that after Nvidia released a new driver, it could take weeks before Diamond put it up on their website. You missed out on bugfixes and optimizations for new games. So everybody just used Nvidia's drivers, and eventually all the various companies stopped doing it entirely.

Mobile VPN apps are in the same spot. They all use the same backends; OpenVPN, IKEv2, and/or Wireguard. Everybody's time would be best spent making _those_ apps better. The OpenVPN iOS app has a particularly poor UX.

<comment><USER14> For example on iOS you use the iOS NEVPNManager API for setting up an IKEv2 VPN connection, if this is updated in an iOS release and you use it in your VPN app, your app will be "updated" too. So in this sense it's not comparable with videocard drivers from back in the day.

<comment><USER13> That's true, IKEv2 is natively supported. OpenVPN and wireguard aren't, and most of the paid services use OpenVPN right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is anyone else bothered by the appropriation of the vpn term for setviced providing access to the public Web without confidentiality? There should be a new name for this.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can I ask VPN users here what you use it for? I've personally never found a good use case...

<comment><USER17> In the past I used it for torrenting. Nowadays because it adds a layer of privacy from companies and governments. I trust my government now but I don't have to trust my future government. I am pretty sure I don't do anything illegally, but a future government might not think so.

Like in the UK when they wanted to ban porn (I think?). Something harmless today (legally speaking) can become an issue in the future.

<comment><USER18> Are we sure VPNs don't log / turn logs over to federal authority figures if pressed?

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Empirically, PIA has no logs to give (per multiple warrants now).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I know people on it on Linux. They said it was pretty fast. They haven't griped about it any. It's possible the user's ISP or the Proton client software is causing it. It also might depend on which servers they use given more outages might happen in specific parts of the world vs others.

</comment><comment><USER20> following statement on ProtonVPN web site may give a clue:

Free Package "Speed: Medium"

</comment><comment><USER21> PIA doesn't work with Google search on some nodes anymore.

<comment><USER17> If you use it for privacy, might as well use DDG instead of Google to add another layer :p

<comment><USER21> I use it for privacy for other stuff, but use it system wide so it screws up my regular searches that I don't need that level of privacy for.</comment></comment></comment>


Renewables overtake coal as Germany's main energy source - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-power-renewables/renewables-overtake-coal-as-germanys-main-energy-source-idUSKCN1OX0U2 <comment><AUTHOR> I agree with the commenters saying that Germany should have prioritized coal for retirement before nuclear. Nonetheless, I'm impressed with what Germany has achieved within its self-imposed constraints.

Germany's trying to decarbonize its electricity sector via renewables while having poorer onshore wind resources than the US. And much poorer solar resources. And much higher population density. _And_ it's retiring nuclear power at the same time. Finally, it started deploying solar PV by the gigawatt in 2007 (!), when the equipment was very expensive compared to now[1]. Germany is attempting decarbonization on Nightmare Mode difficulty, so I find it impressive that they're actually making progress. It's also frustrating because they're giving up several years of forward progress on emissions by shutting down working nuclear reactors.

It's doubly annoying that Germany's determination to pioneer solar has provided a canned "bad example" for solar foes elsewhere. "Look how expensive solar made German electricity. I don't want that disaster in Texas." Of course new Texan solar plants will never cost as much as German plants built last decade, and they'll get far more sunlight. But that's not as pithy as "just look at Germany!"

[1] Germany's pioneering large-scale PV deployment may well have been a driver for the much larger, much more economical PV manufacturing base that exists today. It's still surprising to me that solar didn't first grow big in somewhere much sunnier like Australia.

<comment> GuB-42 > I agree with the commenters saying that Germany should have prioritized coal > for retirement before nuclear.

Coal (actually lignite) is a major part of Germany's plan. I don't expect them to abandon it anytime soon. Solar and wind power are inherently variable, they can't really work by themselves, they need to be backed by hydro (which is limited), storage (still not viable on a large scale) or easily adjustable power plants.

And that's where coal comes in. Germany is actually building new throttlable coal plants in order to complement their renewables. It is a good economic choice: they have a lot of locally available lignite, and it has little export value, so they might as well use it for themselves. It is also good for national sovereignty because they don't depend on imports. Unfortunately, it is also the worst possible fuel when it comes to CO2 emissions, that's why they fare rather poorly despite all their renversables.

Nuclear has no place in their strategy. With their renewables+coal, they don't really need the base load capabilities nuclear powers. Nuclear plants can be throttled to some extent but in order for them to be economically viable, they need to be as close to 100% as possible due to their high capital costs.

<comment><USER2> A commission has been set up to plan for the phase-out of coal in Germany. Seems like all agree coal will be phased out, the debate is more around the timescale, and compensation for those affected.

[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-coal- exi...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-coal-exit- commission)

"Today, the Federal Cabinet decided to establish the Commission on Growth, Structural Change and Employment. By December 2018, the Commission will prepare a roadmap for the phase-out of coal, which will ensure that the short-, medium- and long-term climate targets are achieved. The Commission will also submit proposals for structural development in the affected regions that will serve to strengthen growth and employment."

[https://www.bmu.de/en/report/kommission-wachstum- strukturwan...](https://www.bmu.de/en/report/kommission-wachstum- strukturwandel-und-beschaeftigung-nimmt-arbeit-auf/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> While nuclear power has its problems (particularly for waste disposal), they should slow down the phasing out of nuclear and speed up the phasing out of coal: coal burning is much more of an environmental threat than nuclear power is.

<comment><USER4> This is the common dogma but I'm not so sure. Assume it takes 50 years to figure out how to get infinite solar power in space. In the meantime, would you prefer higher temperatures and more fires, or a lot more nuclear waste? C02 levels and global temperatures will be easily reversible once we have infinite energy. However even in a world with infinite energy, nuclear waste will still be extremely dangerous, for basically an indefinite amount of time.

<comment><USER5> Nuclear waste can be buried away (relatively) harmlessly, while higher global temperatures and the extreme weather + fire they cause represent a large-scale potentially irreversible environmental alteration. I know which I'd pick.

<comment><USER6> Does Bill Gates' TerraPower use nuclear waste?

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

<comment><USER7> Depleted uranium is waste or otherwise a byproduct of production of enriched uranium, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is kind of goofy accounting. They clump all hydroelectric, solar, and wind together into one category, then split up brown coal, black coal, and gas into individual categories.

Still, well done, Germany.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it's really difficult for people to understand how much fossil fuel is still used today with all the headlines of 100% renewable here and there. Even that almost always means 100% of electricity, which is generally 40% of total energy, the rest being heating and transportation (very fossil dominated).

This is great progress but we're not out of the woods. We need all the low- carbon energy we can get, and quite urgently. This leaves no room to rule unpopular but quantifiably safe and clean sources like nuclear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For Germany, renewables is not just an environmental issue, it's a national security issue. Being dependent on, say, Russia and Ukraine agreeing on how to send natural gas to Germany, is not something you want to rely on.

<comment><USER11> Nordstream pipe fixed that issue few years ago.

<comment><USER12> Not if you regard Russia as an unreliable energy supplier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> *main electrical energy source. Like other developed nations, electricity is < 15% of Germany's primary energy consumption.

</comment><comment><USER14> Problem here is, that it is 40% of German customers using renewable energy, but the overflow in energy produced in Germany is simply exported, so you can not calculate that less non-renewable energy is produced. It's the same with diesel cars, you can sell your old car with bonuses etc in Germany, but the car don't get off the road, it gets sold to other countries and drives there with same pollution. So Germany is lowering it's own emissions by just export them. Globally seen, nothing improves.

</comment><comment><USER15> How are they dealing with energy storage and peak demand. I don't see how they are going to get there with solar and wind. Without some kind of big buffer in the system to smooth out the peaks in demand and the lows in production.

<comment><USER16> Hydroelectric power stations are already used as environment-friendly energy storage: if there is a surplus of energy, water is pumped into the reservoir. During peak demand, the power station provides additional electric energy.

There are long-term considerations to increase this capacity significantly by including hydroelectric power stations in Scandinavia, as part of a European grid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> They should have invested in new nuclear research too. Too bad that populism efficiently killed any future of nuclear power in Germany. I hope that France will be wiser.</comment>


Tweet-SNE: T-SNE Visualization of TF-IDF of Hillary/Donald Tweets - <AUTHOR> https://plot.ly/~alexandraj777/2/ <comment><AUTHOR> t-SNE of TF-IDF of Hillary (blue) and Donald (red) tweets, created at a hackathon. Hover to see tweet text! Notice how tweets that are close in space share related ideas (blue cluster in top left quadrant is Spanish, for example). Learn more about t-SNE: [http://scikit- learn.org/stable/modules/generated/sklearn.man...](http://scikit- learn.org/stable/modules/generated/sklearn.manifold.TSNE.html) Election data GitHub repo: [https://github.com/WiMLDS/election-data- hackathon](https://github.com/WiMLDS/election-data-hackathon)</comment>


Fleeting Youth, Fading Creativity in Science - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703444804575071573334216604.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter <comment><USER2> Wow. I agree.

I'm a 21 year old that goes to your regular, univy league college, the University of San Francisco. I would say drive, and the willingness to dream (and take risks) is almost dead among your average Americans who HAVE the skill and talent to develop science and technology.

I've had discussions with my co-Founder about this (we're applying for YC this summer). We believe the American dream has morphed. Everyone is scared in our generation. We're scared of not getting jobs, of not living the cushy lives we thought would be handed to us as kids.

Now, our generation is more than happy to settle for a shitty internship, to settle for ok, to settle for "getting by". It's because we're scared. Scared of what our future holds for us (which no one really knows haha).

Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm speaking about the high school and college segment as a whole. These are my opinions from what I see in talented people I know.

<comment><USER3> No offense, but your observation is probably less true at the better schools. The middle of the bell curve has never been exceptionally motivated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So poetry is mentioned in the article quite prominently, and I think I know a little bit about it, so I'd just like to point out a few confounding factors.

1\. Many great poets (Keats, Shelley, Byron, Sylvia Plath, etc) died at a young age. Not only did that limit their output at a later age, the resulting aura around death at young ages contributed to their reputation.

2\. Other great writers (Shakespeare, Joyce) wrote poetry when they were young, and moved to writing longer works in slightly different forms as they got older. Their later works are even more acclaimed, and are actually "poetic" if not exactly poetry.

There are many, many poets who are critically acclaimed and wrote their best work much later in life. I think point (1) must have dominated this person's research, and makes me suspect his overall point.

I suspect similar factors come into play in science - for example, great scientists most likely end up in administrative positions where they supervisie and mentor younger scientists who write the papers.

</comment><comment><USER5> For every scientist who innovated while young, there is another whose major contribution came later in life.

Looking at it a different way, one could argue that scientists who are known primarily for work done at a young age just rested on their laurels after this early success.

</comment><comment><USER6> sure, if we're talking about "science" exclusively as that which is funded directly by government. this field has slowly morphed into revolving around the grant approval process rather than interesting research. it's the old patron-artist relationship. you're going to get art that the patron likes.

</comment><comment><USER7> In my view, the article is backwards.

Let me ask a very honest question: what does one actually have to gain, personally, from making a fundamental contribution to physics? Consider that it takes at least a decade for prizes to be distributed. So at best, you are looking at a cushy professorship at a nice University for your efforts, and maybe - if you are lucky - in your forties someone will send you a plaque and a modest check for your efforts.

Wouldn't any rational young man prefer something a little more tangible for a decade of his youth? Especially given the accessibility of such rewards in other fields?

Hence the fundamental issue addressed in the article is not actually addressed at all: the young and brilliant are simply not interested - and for good reason (IMHO).

Let me add one more thing. Compared to a century ago, the young physicist has much more to learn before he even has the knowledge to make fundamental contributions, hence the prospects starting out are much more daunting.

</comment><comment><USER8> A lot of science nowadays is data collection and crunching. The reductionist viewpoint of finding "laws" is over, The complexity of biology, which is the majority of science today, is too great for humans to even attempt to fathom.

In this age of computation government funding with grants, with all the inefficiencies and politics, is a waste of money and a drain on the talents of many of the brightest individuals in society.

The current model should be ditched and replaced by the netflix prize or darpa grand challenge model. Only then will real progress be made.</comment>


Beard-second, and other (real) unusual units of measure - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

<comment><AUTHOR> Also note that Google can do beard-second and donkeypower conversion:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=beardsecond>

<http://www.google.com/search?q=donkeypower></comment>


HTML5 Game Development course starts tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs255/CourseRev/1

<comment><USER2> Really excited for this course, but the start date is February 5. Can't wait.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I read that wrong, a month from tomorrow

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Udacity making money?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not WebGL? I can't imagine you can do all that much with Canvas 2D.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've poked around with Three.js, for now I'm more interested in making 2d web based games.</comment></comment>


RIM guarantees developers will make $10,000 in the first year - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/1/2991956/rim-developers-10k-guarantee <comment><USER2> Sounds like a last-ditch gambit by RIM sprinkled with a hint of bait-and- switch depending on what the terms and conditions are.</comment>


Sean Gourley on the mathematics of war - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/sean_gourley_on_the_mathematics_of_war.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure about why Gourley is so startled by the fact that these different conflicts followed a similar pattern. Insurgencies, while caused for varying reasons and fought by different actors still utilize very similar tactics and often contain similar goals.

It's why Mao's teachings were able to carry over into other guerrilla conflicts and why the US Army looked to situations like the British fighting in Malay and the French experiences in Indochina and Algeria to formulate the new counterinsurgency doctrine.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't come away with the impression that he was as "startled" as you've said. I think he was just playing this up to underscore the significance of it to the audience.

It's an important contribution to creating a framework for computationally reasoning about these conflicts.</comment></comment>


A Cyclists Encounter Wit an Indecisive Google Self Driving Car - <AUTHOR> http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/a_cyclists_encounter_with_an_indecisive_google_self_driving_car

<comment><USER2> Really impressive software running these vehicles, and interesting to read how it handles these cases.

An interesting comment was made in another HN thread- when the streets are filled with self-driving cars, pedestrians will be able to step out into the street without looking, knowing cars are programmed to stop.

</comment><comment><USER3> Self driving cars will be a godsend for cyclists. Just last month a friend of mine got run off the road by a car. So many motorists don't know how to pass a bike legally it's crazy.

</comment><comment><USER4> link to the cyclist's OP:

[http://forums.roadbikereview.com/general-cycling- discussion/...](http://forums.roadbikereview.com/general-cycling- discussion/encounter-google-car-today-349240.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> I just have this hilarious mental image of a cyclist and a white car just inching forward back and forth into an intersection. Delightful.

<comment><USER6> This is what I was thinking: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIfarMPmPQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIfarMPmPQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> seems like an reasonable issue, i dont know what bicyclists, and cars for that matter, are doing sometimes either.</comment>


Even tech workers can't afford to buy homes in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2019/3/19/18256378/tech-worker-afford-buy-homes-san-francisco-facebook-google-uber-lyft-housing-crisis-programmers <comment><USER2> I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to live on company property.

<comment><USER3> Bit reminiscent of the mining "company towns" of the 1800s.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. I see a lot of it mirroring that industry.</comment></comment></comment>


Creator of "Flappy Bird" Commits Suicide 7 Others Also Suicide This Morning - <AUTHOR> http://huzlers.com/creator-flappy-bird-commits-suicide-minutes-removing-flappy-bird-app-store/

<comment><USER2> Does anybody find these 'satire news' articles the least bit funny? These guys should just leave it to The Onion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Huzlers is _" a combination of real shocking news and satire news to keep its visitors in a state of disbelief"_.

</comment><comment><USER4> Because the suicide of someone under a public amount of stress is so hilarious. :/ Really?</comment>


He can't smoke weed and drink whiskey at least not on a podcast - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/elon-musk-nasa-spacex-commercial-crew-safety-review/576997/ <comment><USER2> The suggestion that Apollo astronauts were burned up on the launch pad might have something to do with weed (or whiskey) is really just too much.</comment>


Tesla battery proves a leading source of dispatchable power in South Australia - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-02/tesla-battery-proves-a-leading-source-of-dispatchable-power/10326420 <comment><USER2> Leading source of FCAS service.</comment>