Ask HN: Anyone else in constant anxiety and how do you cope? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering if anyone else is in the state of constant anxiety, not only at work, but at home too. How do you cope?
Here are the several contributing factors in my case:
- feeling of incompetence at work - sole provider for the family.
- lost the will to code (I try learning new things but give up after a few days).
- I'm 43 and have not accomplished anything, not even financial security for my family.
- too scared to change the job I hate (gambling industry, corporate JIRA sweatshop, for 13 years) because I'm incompetent.
- social anxiety.
- racing mind, incoherent thoughts.
Edit: so incompetent I don't know how to create a bullet list here <comment><USER3> I've got terminal cancer in the US. I'm looking at the prospect of losing my job, which means my health insurance, which means I'll have to stop getting treatment and die. I feel you about constant anxiety. Might I first suggest you realize you're human and that where you're at isn't some crazy abnormal place right now.

I've had times where I've gotten frustrated because with a literal deadline I'm still just too tired to get things done and I beat myself up over things I can't control so it's easy for me to negate the small progress I make because I'm comparing myself to a healthy version of myself.

I'm glad to see that you are in therapy. It's going to feel like some days you get nowhere. Remember that any goal you're trying to attain that's difficult is like climbing a mountain. The higher up you go the harder it is to see all the individual steps it took to get there. With life once you get to the top of one mountain, there's always another mountain to climb. It's a journey not an objective.

There's a Buddhist saying that's helped me when I get frustrated at myself for getting set back."Begin Again". Get stuck on something, begin again. Life intrude on your learning for a bit? Begin again. Lose everything in a terrible storm ? Begin again.

For reviving the love of coding, I suggest doing something you either enjoy with coding or something you see as having purpose. Make it small as a project, then break it up into smaller parts. Start with the hard part. When you get frustrated work on something easy or give yourself some time to just think on the problem. Is there a different way to view it, are you trying to be too complicated, what would it look like if you could be absolutely sure it would work, are there smaller tasks this could be broken into that would be easier to solve apart?

You're worth putting in this effort. You can do it. Love and light.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry about your condition. Compared to that, my problems are insignificant.

I try from time to time to code something... I've been learning F# lately. I force myself to sit in front of computer and do something, anything.

But, somehow everything is tainted by the thought of going to "the pit" in the morning. I don't know how to overcome that - to disconnect when I leave office.

<comment><USER3> I've been really lucky in my treatment and I'm well past my expected survivability so I'm good with the condition.

Regarding the taint you feel, that's similar to writers block. Try a different setting if you can, make sure you're enjoying yourself before you start. Then just go with it. No expectations, no harsh deadlines. You get done what you get done and you're going to have fun doing it. This is going to sound like a really odd thing to do but it really does change some things, take a few deep breaths holding them for a bit before letting them go and after that just shake the anxiety out. Shake your whole body until you feel silly. When you sit down, smile, even if it's forced and make sure your posture is not slouched. Your mind will follow your body. Then start whatever it is you want to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've struggled with a similar situation - anxiety stemming from childhood trauma - for a long time. The things that help me the most are:

1\. Basic self care: get enough sleep (~8 hours a night), eat plenty of healthy food and cut out as much junk food as possible, and make time for doing something you enjoy each day, even if it's only for 20-30 minutes.

2\. Therapy: Either straightforward counseling or something more involved like EMDR or neurofeedback brain training. I can recommend the latter. It has truly changed my life.

3\. Spend time with people you love and who love you. Self care and healing would have never been remotely possible or effective for me if I didn't have solid friendships with a few people who truly cared for my best interest and a good relationship with my kids and spouse.

*EDIT: I forgot to add, look into taking medication. I take a small dose of Lexapro daily and it has made a huge difference.

In order to heal and improve your situation, you MUST make time for these things. Don't try to add them on to whatever your day to day already looks like. Cut out other stuff as much as possible and increase the amount of time you spend on 1-3. Be forgiving and kind to yourself with this part, but do be as ruthless as possible with making time for 1-3.

In my experience, taking care of self and being involved in healthy friendships and family relationships creates a situation where the confidence and will to make changes to things like your job becomes possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I have been drinking more lately. I guess I should stop. I find it hard to enjoy anything. I was thinking about why is that. I found I don't like myself at all and I guess deep inside I think I don't deserve to feel joy. My therapist says I'm emotionally immature. She's probably right.

<comment><USER5> You must stop drinking alcohol. It is a depressant. You are literally making yourself feel worse. No amounts consumed in moderation are helpful. Stop, cold turkey. Don't wait to make this change, either, and try not to replace it with an alternative. If you absolutely must find a replacement, try vaping high-CBD hemp flower. I don't know what your country's legal status is for this, though, and that may not be possible. It can be mail ordered from the U.S. (see Tweedle Farms or Fields of Hemp).

<comment><USER6> Actually, kava kava is the best I've found outside of benzodiazepines.

<comment><USER7> Benzos don't work at all for me. I have an Ativan script and it's useless. Should I be asking for something else?

<comment><USER6> Dunno, but kava is over the counter in many places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First off, its probably a toxic work environment, and second, you're at a stage where the walls are closing in so it feels worse than it is. Programming is inherently a creative art with a core of logic and reason. For example, you can solve your business case by writing shell scripts instead of Java. By toxic environment, I mean that there are things at work that contribute, such as the way your coworkers talk to you. One such example is that there is one guy who is the go-to guy for all problems relating to X, and he solves this while telling everyone all about it, all the time. This makes it seem like he is the only one who can do it properly, which is of course never true.

Your financial security is just a product of the times. It used to be you could have a house, a lawn, a car and leftover savings just from working in a factory. Now, you are saddled with an unpayable house-loan even with higher education unless you somehow manage to find a remote job, or you win the startup lottery.

Last, anxiety can form bad feedback loops, where the lack of sleep means you are simply not able to do anything during the day. It can also cause other surprising problems, even wrist pains and RSI, simply because the anxiety causes your body to tense up.

I think you, first of all, need to find a way to let go of the feeling that your job performance has any bearing on your worth as a human being. It really doesn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I think you, first of all, need to find a way to let go of the feeling that > your job performance has any bearing on your worth as a human being. It > really doesn't.

Yeah my therapist is trying to convince me of this too. I find it hard to make myself internalize it.

<comment><USER9> I think the issue may be that this can come from both within the individual and from society externally. Internally you feel low worth and then you see it confirmed externally moving around in society. Speaking as someone who got laid off and had to take one step back career-wise, I feel this but also, on better days, realize I create my reality at the same time. It's a difficult balancing act of who and what to give the most credence to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like you're in a bad place.

I have a checklist I use to try and keep my mental health strong. The idea isn't that you get a perfect score on this checklist, but that you ask yourself "what's the easiest way to improve my score in this checklist at the moment?"

\- Did you get a good night's sleep last night?

\- Do you see your friends often enough?

\- Do you have any enjoyable hobbies?

\- Do you exercise or get moving every day?

\- Do you have close, enjoyable relationships?

\- Do you avoid abusing substances like alcohol or other drugs?

\- Do you relax and take slow out breaths? (Or meditate)

\- Do you do things for other people?

\- Do you have any awesome pets?

Write up about it is here: [http://wiki.secretgeek.net/protective-factors-for- mental-hea...](http://wiki.secretgeek.net/protective-factors-for-mental- health)

Good luck. Sorry I'm not a professional.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's "no" on all of them except hobbies - I do have one (but it's fairly recent).

Thanks for this. I guess the common thread in all of that is connecting with others. I've always been a loner. I don't know anyone I like spending time with. I don't know why is that.

<comment><USER10> Ok I'd say look to do the simplest thing you can that increases your score at all, asap. You don't need to immediately make a friend somewhere. Work on maybe the meditation question, or exercising (by walking) each day. That's MUCH easier to start on.

Good luck. Report back if you can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please take what @farleykr and @robsinatra said very seriously and act on them.

A few years ago I suffered from anxiety/depression for about a year during what I thought was the most important time of my career. I was overseas at the time, obsessively working at least 10 hours a day without breaks and usually every day of the week, drinking a bottle of wine or a couple of litres of beer a night sleeping on average 5 hours a night. I absolutely hated myself, I stopped playing and listening to any music, and actively avoiding staying in touch with family and friends.

Then one night, when I was very drunk and literally crying on the streets, I somehow decided to call my sister (whom I have already avoided talking to for months at that point) and she made me stop drinking, sleep, and seek professional help. I've always had a lot of respect for her, and I think hearing it from someone I deeply care about made and the fact that she picked up the phone when I needed someone the most made all the difference.

Anyhow! The point of the anecdote is I can't stress enough how important the things @farleykr and @robsinatra said are. Once you start feeling better you will be in a much better position to act on the advice that everyone else has kindly given about career.

As for feeling incompetent, I think a bit of that is a good quality to have because knowing and admitting what you don't know something is a very powerful skill; just don't sit on it forever (as others have said) because nothing will become better if you wallow in it.

And one last thing about dealing with incoherent thoughts: write them down. I think it's too easy to sit there to theory-craft/fantasise/make excuses in your head all-day long; so try writing them down while taking care to _organise_ them, and _be honest to yourself_ , as best as you can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing this

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some advice coming from someone who dealt – and is still often dealing – with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.

The very first thing you have to understand is that your perception is biased by your mental issues, is your feeling of incompetence backed by any facts? Is your boss continually complaining about your performance? And even if your performances are as bad as you think they are, I wouldn't be surprised since you seem to hate every moment of your life.

From how you described yourself, I don't see a loser, I see a 43 years old man who's going through a lot of sacrifices to provide for his family, I'd call that courage. I don't see a loser, I see someone with a serious case of depression, everything you described ticks all the boxes.

There is no magic pill to get you out of that, and coping mechanisms only goes so far. You need therapy, plain and simple, and, if possible, time off your job.

Start doing things you enjoy, don't code because you have too, maybe you're at a time in your life where code isn't what you want to do anymore, and that's fine, no shame in that, or maybe you just need a little time off. Many men completely turn their lives around in their 40s, it's not too late, but you have to take risks, you have to try new things, physical activity such as weightlifting is usually great because it'll raise your testosterone levels, but you can also start things you never thought you'd want to try: music, dance, writing, astrophotography, bird watching, anything.

Just remember this: your thoughts are not logical, it's not your analytic brain that's telling you you're worthless, it's depression, and pardon my French by depression is a bitch, it's that asshole of a friend, always in your head telling you just how much of a failure you are even when it's untrue.

Don't isolate yourself from people who care, there are more than you think and they need to know what you're going through. Seek medical help, and take it easy, friend.

"It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day —that's the hard part. But it does get easier."

<comment><USER13> Another thing is that EVEN IF your boss is giving you negative feedback about your job performance that does NOT mean you're incompetent. It almost certainly means you're just not in the right job at the moment.

A competent boss in that situation would try and find a better fit for you in the organization and if there isn't one help you find one outside of your current place of employment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1) Religiously exercise every single day ideally in the morning as it will set the tone for the rest of the day.

2) Make your diet clean and light. No soft drinks. No heavy carbs. Plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables etc.

3) Stop worrying about accomplishing anything. The point of life is to be happy and enjoy the journey not be in some race with others.

4) If you give up after a few days then just pick smaller things you can compete faster. And iterate between lots of different things to help reduce the chance of boredom.

5) If after all of that you still feel anxious then see a professional. Not just about medication but also how to program yourself to fall into less anxious patterns.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always feel like I'm wasting time and should be learning or trying to find another job. Then I start thinking about what to learn, what could I possibly do, since the domain knowledge I have is about gambling. Then I open the browser and.... down the rabbit hole I go

<comment><USER15> You _must_ have transferable tech skills that aren't just specific to gambling?

Anyway (while I admit I know little of your actual situation) I think you're probably overestimating how hard to would be to find another job - <USER2> you're lacking in confidence, and the unknown component of what a new employer might want is daunting. I've been there - my assessment of my employability varies tremendously, due to nothing but my changing mood.

Why don't you just try applying for a few jobs? Don't look on it as an 'all or nothing' situation, and try not to attach any major hope there. View it as an information-gathering exercise - an experiment. Even if you don't succeed at first, you'll gather valuable information about the jobs market, and it might give you a direction to take in the generation of new skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in a small town, in a small country. If I tried locally the word would get out. I could apply in a different country. I guess I'm afraid of proving myself right that I am incompetent. But, you are right - can't hurt to try.

<comment><USER15> Are you willing to relocate, for a better (ie great) role?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am willing to relocate. I will try updating my cv and apply for some positions abroad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sleep, friends, meditation (this requires serious practice, not dabling) , nutriment supplementation (a LOT of it), cut down on sugar, weight lifting, intermitent fasting, psychotropic microdosing.

That's a ton, so I wouldn't start with more than one, preferably the easiest, then increment. They support each otber because constant anxiety for me is just the symptom that everything is going to crap.

Meditation has the strongest reward, but also the highest cost. Psycheselic have the best cost/reward ratio but may hide other problems: once you feel great, you may stop working on it.

Food, friends and sleep are hard, because they affect your life so much and requires motivation.

Supplements require no motivation, little effort to take and have a huge impact... But require a lot of reading, trials and errors et money.

Neverthless, I wish I knew all that 15 years ago. It would have saved me so much trouble, and actually work on the root problem, as anxiety is just one of the many small tip of a huge and deep iceberg.

</comment><comment> alexanderthe- I would start meditating, it will help you on being able to identify and intervene on repetitive, negative thought patterns (rumination).

Give yourself 10 minutes everyday to train your mind. I use the app Waking up.

Release anxiety through some physical exercise several days per week, ideally something you enjoy.

Every day, build some grit by doing something difficult - the fact that you've done it, and continue to do it, will become a foundation for overcoming resistance. I like to take a cold shower every morning, which seems silly until you step up to the faucet and have to pony up and actually do it.

Read books, so few people read anymore, those who do are able to absorb the distilled wisdom of many lifetimes.

Lastly, you are not alone, I don't know how to create a bullet list here either. You are also not alone in your struggles, we are all human and suffer in our ways. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Several people recommended cold showers or swimming in cold water. Guess it doesn't hurt to try.

<comment><USER17> You might find Wim Hof method useful then. [https://www.wimhofmethod.com/](https://www.wimhofmethod.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Several people in the thread have already recommended meditation. I'm going to join them.

If you're already doing therapy, consider complementing it with meditation. Meditation, if done right, can be equivalent to years of therapy.

The benefits are great, and for your situation the most relevant are reduced/eliminated anxiety, more willpower, energy, clarity (to see through depression for example); but there many others.

However, there's a catch: meditation is hard. It requires consistent effort and dedication, just like any practice involving a complex skill (e.g., going to the gym or swimming pool).

For a completely secular practice, I'd recommend "The Mind Illuminated" by John Yates [1], a neuroscientist and a master meditator, whose aim with the book was to create a modern manual for meditation by making old Buddhist teachings accessible to an average westerner. The book is a synthesis of those teachings complemented with both his experience as a master meditator /and/ as a neuroscience Ph.D. This means that along with detailed instructions on how to actually meditate the book contains theoretic chapters explaining in popular scientific terms how your brain works and what meditation has to do with it, by first introducing a simple model, and then gradually building upon it as you progress through the book and develop your skill.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation- Integrati...](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating- Mindfulness/dp/1501156985)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I will look in to it - sounds interesting

<comment><USER17> Oh, and you if you need a little more persuading or motivation you might want to check up on books by Sam Harris [1] and Michael A. Singer [2]. The first one is also a neuroscientist and a famous sceptic, and the second is a former programmer and a successful businessman. Personally, when I was in a similar place as you are now, I found that simply reading Singer's book was a form of therapy.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without- Religi...](https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without- Religion/dp/1451636024) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey- Beyond-Yourse...](https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond- Yourself/dp/1572245379)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm probably the 50th person to say this, but I hope my saying it again would add to its importance: there's nothing that I've found more powerful and long- lasting to my psychological health than regular exercise coupled with a healthy diet. At the end of the day we're animals, our thinking and behaviour highly dependent on our surrounding environment and our metabolic functions, and if those are disturbed, then we are disturbed. Consider taking a vacation to get away from it all for a while.

</comment><comment><USER19> 1\. A small amount of anxiety is normal and even very useful - but not when it's a constant thing. It sounds to me like you may need to be on medication for this. Your family doctor might be able to help you with this (or if they can't they will refer you to a specialist who can - like a psychiatrist.)

2\. You've mentioned feelings of low self-worth. That's a classic sign of depression. The racing mind and jumbled thoughts overlaps with many different illnesses though. You definitely want to bring this up with your doctor (especially the last part) as it might be a sign of something more serious (not to scare you or anything.)

On a personal level: try to celebrate your own successes more rather than being overly interested in what other people are doing. There's always going to be someone doing better and if you're always looking at them you forget the progress you have made. For the 'lost the will to code' issue -- its hard to say what the cause is. Depression causes a loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, but honestly you might just be burned out and fried from the repetition.

Practically, I can understand why you would feel stressed out over financials. If I were you I'd look into moving somewhere with a very low cost of living and find yourself a high paying remote gig (not sure how practical this is for you -- probably asking a lot if you have a family and/or mortgage, idk.) I wouldn't bother learning any new skills tho. It sounds like you already have years of experience. You just have to sell your existing engineering skills and how they translate to designing and implementing different systems with any tech.

Good luck, hope your situation improves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Yeah I've got mortgages and kids. And you are right I do sell myself short sometimes. But on the other hand, there is a lot of young (cheaper) talent on the market that I'd have to be exceptional to get hired (or at least this is how I see it in my mind).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please consider making time for therapy. See a psychologist who specializes in cognitive behavior therapy. Finding a doctor takes work and then dedicating time to see one takes even more so. However, this is the kind of effort that really pays off! Don't do nothing about how you feel. No one on HN can replace the sessions you'll have with a licensed therapist.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I swim in cold water, every day if possible and ideally before work in the morning. This has been a game changer in terms of reducing anxiety, being much better able to cope with difficulties and frankly, making me into a much happier and healthier version of myself. So much so that if I don't get in the cold water for a day or two then I just feel like .. bleurgh. If you've read "Flowers for Algernon" and recall towards the end where (spoiler alert) the main character has come off the drug that makes him much more intelligent and crucially - he can't remember what it was that had happened to him, just that he had a sense of loss from no longer having some <very very good> \- that's what this is like. Can't recommend enough. I also use running for the same purpose, but cold water swimming in just a couple of minutes provides a tremendous dose of <good things.> Also it seems to stop me catching colds.

<comment> East-Link There's nowhere I could easily swim, would showering in cold water help?

<comment><USER21> Cold showers can be a way to regain control through positive morning priming. I wrote this how-to a few years ago: [https://medium.com/the-mission/a-year- of-cold-showers-662ec6...](https://medium.com/the-mission/a-year-of-cold- showers-662ec6d73454)

<comment><USER20> What a great article !

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used to worry a lot about everything and had severe anxiety most of the time. Not anymore.

Add meditation to your daily life, excercise at least 3 times x week. For both activities you want to start SMALL, as small as you can so you don't end up discarding them inmediately. With meditation I recommend starting with an app like headspace or calm, also going to a meditation center after you have the basics (or inmediately if you can). In my case I meditate for about 7-10 mins each day. With excercise it doesn't really matter what you do, just pick up any physical activity and get your work done each week. It is important that you pick something you enjoy, so you see it as a hobby and relaxing activity instead of a chore: in my case I practice martial arts.

Also read the book "Feeling good" by David Burns, this book touches mostly on depression but some stuff can also work for anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER6> I worked in gambling for the start of my career too. It's a toxic atmosphere at absolutely every level. They generally run on a principle of assuming IT is worthless to the company and just a money dumpster fire. The way they treat you has no reflection on your ability. At times, just the weather alone dictates the mood of management. Others, management is actively alcoholic, on the job!

I'd do everything and anything that could make your life more stable. The biggest, positive place to start is, and this can take a lot of work, sleep. Make proper sleep your first priority every day. There's a whole lot that can make sleep better or worse, so there's no way for me to be complete. But maybe consider going for a walk, writing in a journal, and consistent, exactly on the same time every day melatonin slow release - and low dose.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not a medical professional. You might consider if you are getting sufficient magnesium in your diet. [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-foods-high-in- magnes...](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-foods-high-in-magnesium) [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/magnesium-the-most- powerf_b_4...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/magnesium-the-most- powerf_b_425499)

Others here have stressed the importance of sleep... [https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/11/21/a-lack-of-sleep- causes-...](https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/11/21/a-lack-of-sleep-causes- anxiety-but-dont-worry-about-it/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm sorry to read this.

I hope you have at this point enough insight to recognize that logically you are more capable that how you feel about yourself. Therefore, it is a matter of making sense of that feeling of anxiety that you should be addressing.

If you speak to the right physician you'll probably be diagnosed with ADHD, and it is driving a large part of your anxiety.

You should be careful about strengthening your ability to become more anxious. After all, any neural pathways exercised become stronger with time. Give yourself some quiet time each day where you get to ignore any anxious thoughts that arise. They are junk thoughts at this stage, you can safely ignore them.

If you need any more motivation, please recognize your family suffers when you cultivate thoughts like this. Find counter examples and keep reminding yourself of them.

</comment><comment><USER25> Lots of good suggestions here, but they miss the elephant in the room: you are trapped and you feel that. It seems like a lot of your anxiety stems from that.

My only suggestion would be to "climb out" of this trap. Since you can't find another job in your town ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620176](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620176)), try looking fo remote job openings. Freelancing and starting your own business are options as well, but I won't recommend them for you, at least for now.

Start looking here

[https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

[https://remoteok.io](https://remoteok.io)

All the best

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links. I will look into them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or other treatment modalities) and, maybe, medication! This sounds like the desperation of anxiety and depression. But there is hope! Untreated, it can be a killer, so remember 1-800-273-TALK for moments of crisis.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your concern. I am seeing a therapist. I don't think I'm in any kind of crisis though.

<comment><USER27> Seeing a therapist is the first important step, congratulations!

Please remember that it may take some time for you to find the answers out of your situation, including to grasp everything your therapist had explained. Please give yourself permission to let those discussion / feedback sink in, no need to rush. Trying to speed things up will only make it worse, as my experience during my post-grad time shows.

Besides, I can't stress enough the importance of physical exercise. I wish I had practised yoga back then. Or swimming as others had suggested.

I only relied on meditation and jogging, which was not effective given the gloomy sky of Edinburgh that let the bad feeling coming back even during post- running cooling down. Running made me feel a little better, but only for a short while. You need to try any exercise that work for you. Running with your friends, I think will, also help.

Now that I practised yoga for almost 2 years, and am learning piano from scratch, I feel much better though that unwanted feeling sometimes keeps coming back, but at least I can slowly win the battle.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER20> I'm in Edinburgh too :) The sky is certainly gloomy today! In case of any interest there's a swimming group through which people organise - "the wild ones" on FB. I'm going along to a swim later today and there was another this morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I suffer from OCD (which manifests itself as constant anxiety).

My OCD is mainly health related - every pain or swollen part of my body automatically leads me to fear I may have cancer (or other terminal illness).

The constant fear that I may die soon is highly debilitating - I have times where its hard for me to function at work and be a good parent and spouse.

I'm currently taking SSRI medications, which really improved my well-being, and recently started CBT treatment, but it is still a struggle.

I know it is not a popular advice, but if you find it difficult to be productive, try medications at least for a short while. It can help you "break the cycle" and jump start your life.

</comment><comment><USER29> I still get anxious sometimes, and the thing that helped most, back when I had to stop going to university because of anxiety, was therapy.

And what I got out of therapy was techniques to kind of step back when I feel anxious, and to realize that the problems I have cannot be solved now, when I am lying in bed at 3am. That every step towards a goal is progress, and that I wont die and lose everything because of one day where things don't go how I hoped. Anxiety makes all problems immediate and life destroying. Most problems aren't.

But, that recognition isn't always there for me. What made it mostly there for me was therapy.

</comment><comment><USER30> I feel your pain. My advice would be to consult a professional. There is nothing wrong in medication and therapy. It helps many people. And then, like others mentioned, go for exercise and meditation. CBT/REBT also help. Idea is the to address immediate panic and anxiety by Medication and treating long term with meditation and therapy. More than curing the condition, you would need to manage it.

It's hard but possible. You can be in a very different state of the mind within 6 months. So do not lose hope. DM me if you need further info. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I've started seeing a therapist. We'll see how it goes.

<comment><USER30> Good luck. Also consult a psychiatrist. You will get better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Try decreasing your spending? The less you spend, the less you depend on the miserable job. Being less dependent (ex. accumulating even a couple years of living expenses's worth of savings) should give a lot of breathing room re: changing jobs or even careers.

How to spend less? I personally have found this blog to be both very inspiring and practical: [http://earlyretirementextreme.com/](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Good tips here already. I personally found value in reading stoic philosophy, but that's not for everyone.

>feeling of incompetence at work

Read up on impostor syndrome. Being aware of this helps counter it.

I also think it (mental issues) is more common than people realise. A shocking number of my friends are on psych meds of some sort. Almost like it's a wider society issue. So I think a strong case can be made for "don't beat yourself up about it" \- plus that wouldn't help anyway.

</comment><comment><USER33> not constant, but I do suffer from some anxiety. First, it might be useful for you to look for professional help.

Then, some things that were helpful for me, and may be helpful for you, ymmv:

\- check your health: maybe you suffer from physical issues, such as high blood pressure, and you can help it with pills, which will help with anxiety.

\- drop coffee and sigarettes, reduce alcool, eat more vegetables and fruit; it's weird, but it helps.

\- physical activity; I spend 1-2 hours every morning a day walking (or running), it's good for both body and mind.

\- daily meditation; get a test account on headspace, try it for a week.

\- face anxiety-inducing things ASAP; E.g. if you are stressed cause you wrote shitty code, just tell your boss/colleagues immediately; if you fucked up something with your partner, tell them etc. Once bad things happened, you will stop worrying about what might happen.

\- "hedge" your anxiety-inducing problems; if you are worried about your family surviving without you, set up life insurance. If you feel incompetente and unable to find another job, spend some time studying something new, and try applying for another position, even if you don't want to take it, you may be able to find something else, or learn what's missing.

Good luck, anxiety sucks.

<comment><USER34> >\- drop coffee and sigarettes, reduce alcool, eat more vegetables and fruit; it's weird

Why is it weird? You know in medieval Europe taking a bath was weird, two centuries ago having tuberculosis was fashionable. What is more important - fashion of times or your unique life? You must make up your mind.

<comment><USER33> sorry, I was referring to the last part, as coffee, cigarettes and alcohol have clear effects on the mind, while zucchini do not.

I only mentioned it may seems weird because generally one expects eating fruits and vegetables to help with some generic "physical well being" but doesn't think of them being useful for psychological health too.

<comment><USER34> I would like to say something about this "because generally one expects". See this is your life right here and now and soon it will be over. If your concern about fundamental aspects like food is only "general" \- this means you still not realized how important they are.

In other words instead of marking things "weird", "general" etc one should try for themselves and see what works for real. It does require some courage and intelligence but hey, it's your life what is this about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Author: I'm glad you wrote, I hope you are finding helpful ideas here. I'll be brief:

\- Besides all the great ideas already here, consider religion. It can bring great calm. \- If you have _some_ talent in your job, just know that 'imposter syndrome' is real. Study it, you might get by. \- If you have _no_ talent in your job, start looking for something different. It's not worth staying in this case.

Wishing you good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Religion isn't my cup of tea.

</comment></comment><comment> t-h-e-chief Ah, while there is a lot of good advice here, but just reading your symptoms, it sounds like you may have adult ADHD. Forget what most people think ADHD is, it should technically be called Executive Function Disorder and can be associated with social anxiety, racing thoughts, motivation, etc. Go and see a psychiatrist who specialising in ADHD and anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER36> I suggest you try taking a class at a local college. Having to actually show up will keep you interested and help you finish. I would also look at career advice to help you plan your future. Your anxiety is partially cause by not knowing your future. Sit down with a career professional and life coach to plan your future and how to get there.

</comment><comment><USER37> Man, don't feel this way. You are great, young and capable. Fuck the job! There will be many opportunities for you and with hard work and a little belief in yourself you'll capture them.

Do you know how many great entrepreneurs, professionals and artists got started at your age? A LOT!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There is a menu of coping mechanisms. The ones that build the soul are optimal.

Connectedness with a spiritual community is a source of energy.

Striving not to get too "believe after me" here, but how you answer the "Why am I here?" question is crucial.

</comment><comment><USER34> If you want a real change - search for something called Inner Engineering. For 2 years since I've done it, I never had a single bad day. Apart from it bliss and extasy became real experiences I now get once in a while.

<comment><USER39> Looking into it, it may seem wonky (it does to me). A friend of mine, very pragmatic and Cartesian enough gave it a shot and told me the same thing about how his life was transformed. Maybe I should look into it more closely.

<comment><USER34> It's ok, you can look at it this way: the worst case is you will waste some money and a couple days. On the other hand the best case is your life can be transformed in ways you can not imagine. You can listen to as many opinions as you want, you will really know only if you try it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I have read through several comments in the thread. #1 and easiest thing you can do which will show you quick results is to join the gym and make sure you hit it at least 5 times a week for minimum 45 minutes each time.

</comment><comment><USER41> For me, daily meditation has helped reduce my anxiety and has made me generally a more happier person. A book i recommend is The Mind Illuminated. It's a step by step guide into meditation.

</comment><comment><USER42> The advice here is terrible. How are you supposed to get 8 hrs of sleep if you are anxious all the time, lol. Its like saying 'just eat healthy food ' to the person struggling with weight issues. You cannot solve the anxiety financial insecuitry for your family with "self care".

I think your only option here is to

1\. move into non-coding management role, you have to do everything at your work to make this possible.

2\. Apply for management jobs everywhere after you have accomplished 1.

3\. Get upto speed on system design, study a little bit everyday. Its not hard stuff.

4\. Get your spouse to start working even if its a job at walmart.

5\. Not sure what is going on with finances but why don't u have a 401k?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I dread that but it may be one option

3\. What do you mean by system design?

5\. Not in the US. Here everyone pays taxes and when you retire you get some small pension (a lot of senior people digging through dumpsters for bottles to earn extra money).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I feel exactly the same. Exercise helps. Psychologist helps a bit. Medication helps too. Talk to people. You might find that more people than you think feel similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. The thought of medication makes me sad, I don't know why. I am seeing a therapist. Not sure if helps, I've only been in three or four sessions.

For some reason I don't like talking to people. Usually I don't know what to say and I don't find interesting the things others talk about. I know it sounds selfish but I don't know how to pretend to be interested.

<comment><USER43> Yeah I know where you are coming from. I was reluctant to take medication and I'd prefer not to have to take it. But when things get bad it's good to know it is there as an option and it does help. It is hard to talk to other people - can you find people with similar interests or hobbies ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to thank everyone for the support and advice! Your kindness alone made me feel better. You've also given me motivation to continue the fight.

</comment><comment><USER20> This might be the most valuable discussion I've ever seen on the internet. So much great information, people reaching out and connecting.

</comment><comment><USER44> i used to live with a sever anxiety, so bad that i could not get out of my mind, i was surrounded by ugly and negative thought.

reading the book bellow helped me a lot, however you need to be patient and accept the situation.

[https://anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book/](https://anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book/)

</comment><comment><USER45> > _Edit: so incompetent I don't know how to create a bullet list here_

HN has nothing for that. Use multiple newlines like so:

\- bla

\- foo

<comment><USER46> Oh ok thanks. I tried two spaces indentation but it shows in monospace font without wrapping (probably meant to be used for code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Most of us have anxiety and/or depressed mood nowadays. Have you read Capitalist Realism? It provides a coherent explanation of what is going on.

There are no good recipes for getting out of this state of mind (because you can't escape from reality). You may heal the symptoms by exercising, meditating and taking medications.

To cure the cause though would require significantly changing your attitude and reconciling your goals in life.

E.g.:

\- work is just work; it's neither a way of expressing yourself, nor should it be used to measure your success in life

\- maintain and nurture close relationships with your family and friends; establish relationships based on shared interests and fun, rather than on economical utility

\- be political, engage in local and global communities; politics underlies everything and gives people a higher purpose in life, but somehow we all have been deprived of it in XX century; seek leaders and inspirations and try to become one yourself (e.g. in a local community)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I get anxious around people. For example, every time I get out of the house I have to prepare mentally. Going to the market store I have to go through possible scenarios in my head. It's been like that as long as I can remember. I've learned to deal with it over the years, but it's there.

That's why becoming political or engaged in the community is difficult but I like the idea and will try to find some way.

<comment><USER47> I used to be a bit like that too, but then I just accepted myself and stopped caring (and other people never cared anyway, as I found out eventually). Good luck, I hope you find a way out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Therapy, regular workouts (5/week), regular meditation

</comment><comment><USER20> To echo what was said above, you are not alone.

</comment><comment><USER49> Read Mark Fisher

<comment><USER47> +1 (and he makes a lot of references to XX century philosophers, which are worth exploring).

Also watch Adam Curtis. Read Noam Chomsky. Michael O'Church has been writing very interesting stuff for many years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> You're not alone

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> i personally give up hope, the sense that someday i will overcome my schizophrenia. instead i incorporate it as a new paradigm, a new side of me so that by knowing it's there i know the cause and be able to handle it more easily, and also by avoiding portraying it as a insurmountable monster so as to convince it is just a trick of the mind on me and move on. no regrets, no cries, no self-pity. that's more easily said than done sometimes but that's the drive

i've never taken a pill so far chosen to take a more holistic approach and i consider that i'm not in a worse condition than i would if medicated and this gives me the extra benefit of considering drugs as a last resort of sorts if nothing else works, if i was heavy on drugs that probably would give me some sense of despair since it seemed there was no exit left, so if you need help seek a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist. also seek support groups with similar conditions in your area or online (that step we seem already making) since we humans are social beasts rather than solitary wanderers and we need the comfort of knowing we are not alone and somewhere there are people going trough the same pains as we; that might be a group instinct bias pushing us over to integrate but i feel that much more appeal with someone on the same track knowing what i am talking about rather than talking generic abstraction like "it will all turn all right" good intended as they may be, i prefer being down with someone that understand my pain than being pushed up to party by someone trying to compulsively cheer me up. i think we live in a society that overall is trying real hard for everyone to feel good because that way we are most likely to buy the junk that everyone is trying to sell each other on this post-capitalist distopia, but i am digressing, the point is i think i have the right to misery and to suffer, not passively but on my own terms, to reach nirvana, whatever that means, on my own pace. so here's my advice: don't put a bright face just for the sake of others, don't represent for them or you will turn into a caricature of yourself, if that way you are turning away some around you, maybe you are pushing the right ones and who's left are the ones you can count on

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Here what helps If you scared about ppl dying or smth, 1) repeat in your head "Humanity is the disease, Inferno is the cure" 2) repeat i can control only my actions, actions of other is their own responsibility 3) control is illusion 4) humanity (retards) deserves all this shit that happens

You should abstract yourself from the environment. Somehow force yourself to don't give a fuck because it's not your choice everything is shit. And let it go to ashes.

<comment><USER52> Before that^ you must del all social apps on your phone, and try not to open social websites. You can leave messenger but not soc app. Also don't open world news websites for a month or two so you can freely focus on stuff^.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I cope by realizing this is just a place to learn and i keep calm. The answers you seek are beyond the mental temporary paradigm. When you see your Self with your purified mind and are satisfied within your self as eternal consciousness then all your anxiety falls like dead leaves. I recommend reading the Bhagavad-gita by Prabhupada 1972 edition.</comment>


Be careful with magical code - <AUTHOR> http://codemonkeyism.com/beware-magical-code/ <comment><USER2> There are a couple assertions in here that I fundamentally disagree with:

1\. Magic is something you don't understand.

I disagree. I get recursion. It is pretty simple. Yet it is elegent and subtle. I think of it as having a deep underlying magic due to the power it provides via simplicity. It gives the impression that there is more going on than there is, that using a recursive algo is touching on a fundamental rule of existence.

2\. Magic is just a leaky abstraction that breaks down at some point. (it doesn't scale linearly)

Everything is leaky abstractions. Seriously, everything. I'm learning about electronics right now. Capacitors in real life are _very_ different than the ones I learned about in physics E&M. Of course if I assume that I will be operating w/in sane limits of the components I choose, the leaky physics abstraction is just fine. This example was specifically chosen because on top of it is built a pile of leaky abstractions as well, one path of which can end in data structure (oh no! leaky abstractions).

Just because an abstraction is leaky (magic) doesn't mean it is not useful in certain places.

<comment><USER3> I'd contend magic for most of programming/electronics has 3 features:

1\. It breaks more than extremely rarely.

2\. It is esoteric and often cross-domain knowledge

3\. It has limited usefulness to understand if the magic is not broken.

For instance, Ruby on Rails is great except when it isn't, and it's broken. Then it's hell to figure out the source of the issue (this was from a couple years ago, haven't touched it in years). But does fixing RoR really yield you anything of value? Eh, not for most Rails users, beyond not breaking that specific way again.

I'd ALSO contend deep filesystem work is also esoteric and outside many peoples' knowledge, but it's _NOT_ magic, because it very very very rarely breaks (for the use cases normal people have with it). So programmer X can go do his PHP, and will likely go his entire life without being bit by "filesystem esoteric failure" if he doesn't get tricky with his mounting of filesystems.

For a EE who sometimes programs (sounds like you, sorry if I misconstrue you), I would agree recursion is somewhat magical.

For someone like me (I learned to repeat with recursion before I learned loops), it isn't esoteric at all, and is just a better way of expressing repetition in some cases. I have little more trouble debugging a recursive algorithm than a iterative one.

Due to the limited stack sizes on most embedded systems, I'd actually contend this falls into the "cross-domain" knowledge for you, as the skillset and familiarity with recursive algorithms is simply using them lots of times in places where it's acceptable and proper.

I don't see your vocation giving you that practice, as embedded developers are often highly suspicious of recursion (even tail recursion). [Disclosure: I am an embedded developer by later training, but have a computer science degree with a specialization in embedded and large scale systems].

So what's magic to you isn't magic to everyone. Magic is just a way of saying "Complex, can break but usually doesn't, not worth learning about that next layer down, but useful anyhow". I mean, to most programmers, the entire "hardware" thing is magic. To others though, it's another layer they understand fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Edit: After a little more reading, everything he's posting about seems to be Java specific. It would have been nice for him to point that out somewhere.

After reading the ORM article, I've come to realize this guy is using ORMs to completely ignore the SQL Layer. Also, I don't see any references to any ORM except Hibernate. A single datapoint isn't enough information to draw these conclusions about all orms, just Hibernate.

Coming from Ruby on Rails (and having used NHibernate for a project), I see this guy as an idiot. I use ActiveRecord to skip writing full sql for every statement, not to ignore sql completely. I check the generated queries, I only load the fields I need on high traffic pages, and I dip into raw SQL when I need it. I'll admit to being lazy with my edit screens but they aren't loaded nearly as much as other pages. And when I hit a bottle neck, I will do whatever incantation (SQL) to the database is required to fix the problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm much more interested in the ORM discussion... anyone has some good resources on that? (mabye referenced over here in HN?)

I'm pretty excited about Microsoft's Entity Framework v4 right now (because I haven't actually tried it :P - the first version didn't fulfill my needs)</comment>


Why Socrates Hated Democracy - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJBzhcSWTk <comment><USER2> To be absolutely clear, we don't know shit what Socrates thought of Democracy. Socrates wrote absolutely nothing down. We _do_ know what Plato thought of it though, since he is the author of all the dialogues.

Moreover, Plato came from a wealthier, more prominent family than Socrates and he had family members on the side of the Tyranny of Thirty or whatever they called themselves, anti-democratic revolutionaries that claimed governance of Athens for a few years and weren't terribly liked.

</comment><comment><USER3> He hated democracy for the same reason everybody hates democracy: people cast votes contrary to his. Anything else is (how you say?) sophistry.</comment>


Guy Who Copied Digg Slams Digg For Copying Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/29/guy-who-copied-digg-slams-digg-for-copying-twitter/ <comment><USER2> Actually Reddit didn't copy Digg. It copied del.icio.us/popular. This will be clear if you look at screenshots of the two sites in summer 2005. Reddit was del.icio.us/popular with votes instead of bookmarks, in the same way that Digg was Slashdot with votes instead of human editors.

The differences between Reddit's and Digg's origins are visible even today. When a story gets enough votes on Digg it becomes the new top story, as on Slashdot. Whereas on Reddit stories bubble up from the bottom then sink back down again. This is a significant difference because it makes Reddit harder to game.

Originally the Reddits thought they'd have to motivate people to upvote stories by using the votes to train a filter. But it turned out users were willing to vote out of a form of altruism, so the idea of training a filter died out after a couple months.

As for the names, what they originally wanted to call Reddit was Snoo, as in "what's new?" But the name was owned by a squatter who wouldn't sell, so as a temporary expedient Alexis chose Reddit, which Steve and I both hated initially. (They had to settle for calling the Reddit alien Snoo.)

The Reddits learned of the existence of Digg a week or two after launching. They were pretty bummed. We still use their story as one of the canonical examples to encourage new YC funded startups to launch quickly.

If Michael wasn't sure whether Reddit copied Digg, he could have just asked me. But saturdays are slow days for traffic, especially on Memorial Day weekend. Arguably he genuinely thinks he's giving Alexis a gift of pageviews, which to an online publication must seem valuable almost regardless of context.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, PG. In fact, I was talking about delicious -> reddit as recently as my public interview with Jessica on Thursday.

I, unfortunately, care more about reputation than pageviews. My reply has been well-received, but I'd love for Michael to revise his headline to just insult me (which he's entitled to do) instead of make stuff up. I even have the email I sent Steve alerting him to digg (dated 7/11/05 - we launched 6/23/05).

[http://alexisohanian.com/are-we-still-talking-about-this- res...](http://alexisohanian.com/are-we-still-talking-about-this-response- to-m)

The rest of the evidence to support what PG has said in the above comment can be found here, in screenshots from reddit since day 0.

<http://reddit.blogspot.com/2006/12/time-machine.html>

I hope everyone has a splendid memorial day weekend. Surely the Internet has more important & interesting things to be discussing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can we keep this sensationalist tripe out? (That's rhetorical.)

Having read Alexis' letter I'd hardly call it "slamming," and undeserving of this melodramatic bullshit.

<comment><USER5> They won't stop because it gets them clicks. People won't stop submitting because it gets them karma. It will never end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "One of the founders of Reddit, a Digg-clone"

Harsh. Digg might have done it first by a short margin but while digg fights just to remain relevant reddit and its community are doing massive actual good for the world - Haiti, Kiva, etc.

<comment><USER5> I liked your comment better when it called TechCrunch a tabloid clone.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I was going to roll with that then a readwriteweb clone since they beat techcrunch by years, thought it was a bit petty though.

<comment><USER5> Well at least you decided to take the high road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The reddit founder letter was basically OK and interesting, but the Techcrunch critique sort-of irritated me.

Too bad: I really enjoyed the Techcrunch web site last week because my customer CompassLabs was presenting at Techcrunch and it was a lot of fun following along remotely. I don't understand the negativity of the linked article though.

The more positive energy and kindness you give, generally the more good stuff comes back your way. Such a simple principle and it is strange that some people just don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I mean, what Alexis said was pretty silly for sure. And this does make some reasonable points r.e. that.

But why the vitriol? Smacks of trolling to me...</comment>


PeerTube - Decentralized, Free, Ad-Free Video Hosting - <AUTHOR> https://joinpeertube.org <comment><USER2> I do not understand this idea of replacing social media sites with open software but then exposing/forcing users to choose an instance. Unless you're strictly trying to make your social media site for devs this makes no sense. Any common user will see this 'instance' choosing option and exit really fast.

I guess instances are required for federation? What is federation? Why do I care? Why do I need to "Get Started" rather than just a search function like youtube? Why can't these instances exist on the backend and you just provide a front-end ui that combines them for users?

I do not understand federation and neither do your non-dev users (98% of the market).

</comment><comment><USER3> It's really cool to see things like this from the libre point of view.

However, the decentralized bit was confusing to me when I tried out Mastodon. It was like I was trying to figure out whether I should join the North American Combine or the Paneuropean Federation _with the catch_ that geography was not really a factor. So did the decentralization make things easier for everybody or harder? I know I never really got into Mastodon after trying it twice, though I'm open to trying it again.

I'd honestly rather just swim with the whatever the tide is in such cases unless I'm applying for a literal passport. Point me to a popular way of accessing the thing and using it, and I'll give it a shot. Any given community with a good amount of traffic ought to self-sort to allow me to find what I like.

</comment><comment><USER4> Several discussions about PeerTube in the last year:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17386609](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17386609)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18013705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18013705)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18220475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18220475)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17347560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17347560)

</comment><comment><USER5> As an advertiser, can I work with creators to play my ads before or during their videos?

Could creators have a 'subscription' that allows consumers to bypass my advertisements?

Or maybe the 'subscription' allows early access, or extra content hidden to regular viewers?

Without some localized incentive (money) for creators, this won't work. I know there is the "Support" button, but that doesn't really do what a creator needs. Hoping for money isn't a business model (and major content creators run businesses, regardless of the image they project).

<comment><USER6> I don't think it is intended to be a business or business model. I think its just about the technology. It aims to provide scalable distribution of video without a huge youtube-size infrastructure. Maybe you can build a business model on top... or maybe you just host your own videos and use the federation tools to share the files with others.

<comment><USER5> I think what I've described is possible given the API documentation.

An application on top of this would be interesting, I think.

[https://docs.joinpeertube.org/api.html](https://docs.joinpeertube.org/api.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Created open source projects on Github? Great! Time to service them - <AUTHOR> https://zarvis.ai <comment><USER2> This is code as a service! CAAS!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right!

Open source communities are extremely good at developing code together.

We believe open source communities can develop service together, although it is not very common today.</comment></comment>


Read Ruby 1.9: Free Ebook About the Ruby Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://ruby.runpaint.org/ <comment><USER2> I take it this is meant to be a language specification reference?</comment>


Japan in Need of 'White-Hat' Hackers, Pays Handsome Bug Bounty - <AUTHOR> http://securityjar.com/japan-need-white-hat-hackers-pays-handsome-bug-bounty/ <comment><USER2> I lived in Japan for a number of years, speak Japanese, am married to a Japanese citizen, and am a software engineer. I loved living in Japan, but there is a reason I don't live or work there anymore.

My biggest problem with Japan is the corporate culture, which values butt-in- chair MUCH more than actual work.

Second to that was the pay. I doubled my salary by coming back to America, and my cost of living went down as well. I still like visiting Japan, and I may go there when I retire, but I would never work there again. The corporate culture is just too nanny-like and the pay is utter crap.

<comment><USER3> honestly I've never heard of expats staying in Japan for long. The unanimous complaints are that it's so damn depressing because everything is so formalized and people keep to themselves and socialization is frowned upon.

I hear people having a great time in Korea (drinking culture) and even Beijing, that is if don't mind wearing a 3M industrial face mask to filter out the smog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Once Japan stops treating its IT workers (programmers, sysadmins, devops, etc.) as 2nd class citizens, maybe they will be able to attract talent.

Japan is very notorious for having a toxic work/life culture and treating their IT fields as a surplus.

<comment><USER5> My favourite "Start of year speech" was when an entire department of developers were told by our boss (Who was one level below the board because IT doesnt get a place on the board) that "We are a cost center so we need to tighten our budgets".

The way the company was setup was that any money we made by delivering custom projects was booked to the marketing department who had got the customers to buy from us so it was impossible for anyone IT / development related to be anything but.

This is the same company who gave the "Employee of the year" award to the guy who had to work almost 24/7 firefighting on the dumpster-fire of a web-app he had written a few years ago because, well, he is working hard isn't he!

<comment><USER6> Engineering is thought of as a cost center in virtually every company.

<comment><USER3> Yes but it's unwise to treat it like it has economies of scale-software has diseconomies of scale.

Treating engineers like cogs in a machine with high turn over is exactly why Japan can only churn out video games.

You can't build market fit product by moving slow and treating people like shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > 'white-hat' hackers whose job is detecting any security breaches from > 'black-hat' hackers.

White hat hacker attempt to find and report vulnerabilities before black hat hackers are able to exploit them. Incident Response Teams handle detection and such, right?

</comment><comment><USER8> 15.6 million yen ~ 138 K USD

<comment><USER9> My my, they paid out a year's salary!

When someone says "we have too few workers", I hear: "we don't want to pay market rate"...

<comment><USER3> I've heard from a Vancouver recruiter that "engineers who ask for money are bad engineers".

You should never punch someone in the face publicly without a balaclava mask. I suddenly wanted a balaclava.

edit: fixed Baclava to Balaclava. Baclava is actually food lol.

<comment><USER10> No, that's "baklava", the tasty honey-and-phillo-dough desert from Greece/middle east (its exact origins are disputed).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ibn Battuta and his adventure - <AUTHOR> https://www.jurnalanas.com/2018/03/25/ibn-battuta-and-his-journey/ <comment><USER2> I researched this story previously, and it really is fascinating--especially as counterpoint to the stories of Marco Polo, a lot of which are, if not actually fabricated by the man himself and his colleagues[1], definitely "stretched" for truth to the extreme.

On the other hand, the documentation on Ibn Battuta's travels, even accounting for a large amount of historical skew, is informed by a lot more primary source material and other parties' accounts than Marco Polo's.

Because his writings are (in translation at least) incredibly accessible as stories, I've always hoped to see them getting assigned as reading to young primary school kids. A long time ago, I lobbied for that at some private/public schools in Colorado (and offered to help formulate curricula or engage with the material in after school history clubs), but because of some pretty blatant Islamophobia, nothing came of it. Ah well, boring, unengaging textbooks it is, then.

[1] [http://www.davidmeyercreations.com/mysteries-of- history/was-...](http://www.davidmeyercreations.com/mysteries-of-history/was- marco-polo-a-fraud/)

<comment><USER3> Is there a book you'd recommend for casual adult reading?

<comment><USER2> As ibn_ibid suggested, getting a translation of The Travels is really the best thing to do. It's a lovely read, with none of the archaic oddities of, say, more-or-less literal translations of Homer or older texts. I think that high quality is due to three things: an excellent translation by Mackintosh-Smith; the fact that the original material was written as reportage/prose, not poetry or correspondence; and that Ibn Battuta was just a damn good writer-- Rusticello wrote like a paperback novelist forced to write nonfiction, and it showed.

Dunn's "The Adventures of Ibn Battuta" is also trenchant. But really start with The Travels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm reading an abridged version of the _Rihla_ right now and just finished the section on Syria. One interesting point is the system of "waqf" or charitable foundations, that apparently encompassed every aspect of society. He relates a story where he saw a servant boy in Damascus carrying a delicate Chinese plate down the street. He accidentally dropped the plate on the ground and it broke. A passerby told him to take the pieces to the "Charitable Foundation for Utensils" and they would give him the money to buy an equivalent plate. Ibn Battuta goes on to praise the person who set up this foundation, without knowing their identity, since if the boy had gone back home with the broken plate, he would have been scolded or whipped. It seems the sole purpose of the charity was to prevent these sorts of small mistakes from spoiling relations between people. I don't know why, but I just find this remarkable.

The way that Ibn Battuta adeptly navigates tricky social situations in faraway lands is notable as well. At one point he is pressured into being part of a mourning ritual which clearly offends him, but afterwards, still manages to secure a private meeting with the local governor, in which he advises him not to drink alcohol. He is thanked by the governor for this advice and the townspeople as well.

<comment><USER5> I recently read about usury. I never knew the proper history of the term. I was surprised by the human side of it in the middle ages.

I feel that a lot of ways of the past had high values for the human existence and is never passed down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recently read the IB text and loved it. Someone already mentioned the fact that IB has more historical material than Marco Polo, but there are a bunch of other contrasts as well.

Most importantly to me, Marco Polo follows a sort of ethnographic style which arranges the narrative around the description of all the peoples and regions he encountered. IB describes his journey linearly in chronological order, which makes more sense to the modern reader. Secondly, we get a much greater sense of the personality of IB in his travelogue. He talks about bursting into tears from loneliness, he talks about longing to be able to stay forever on an idyllic tropical islet, etc.

For those who are interested, my favorite medieval travelogues are:

\- William of Rubruck [1] Friar who traveled to the court of the Mongols. Very sharp and strong personality. Featuring a three-way debate between Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists.

\- Ibn Fadlan [2] Abbasid envoy to the Volga Bulgars. Featuring pre-Islamic Turks, Jewish Khazars, and of course the absolutely insane viking ship burial.

[1] [https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html](https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html)

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

</comment><comment><USER7> _> They had been observing us (in the palace) and drawing our portraits without our noticing it. This is a custom of theirs, I mean making portraits of all who pass through their country. In fact they have brought this to such perfection that if a stranger commits any offence that obliges him to flee from China, they send his portrait far and wide. A search is then made for him and where so ever the person bearing a resemblance to that portrait is found is arrested._

Facial recognition! How did this craft/profession arise historically?

<comment><USER8> _> How did this craft/profession arise historically?_

I suspect Battuta himself is suggesting why it started, right there - he's just swapping cause and effect, likely out of courtesy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In college I researched Abd Allah Ibn Buluggin, the last of the Zirid rulers of Granada (ruled 1073-1090). He wrote a snarky memoir in exile (1091-1095) that describes his travels, a bit, but mostly lists all the people who did him wrong during his rule. It feels like you're reading the diary of a teenage girl who has been kicked out of the cool club. This led me down a rabbit hole of reading all sorts of Islamic scholars/travelers' works, and the overriding feeling in all of it is that we're all, deep down, pretty much the same. (you can read the diary here: [https://books.google.com/books?id=ltcUAAAAIAAJ](https://books.google.com/books?id=ltcUAAAAIAAJ) )

</comment><comment><USER10> I was enchanted by Ibn Battuta's travels, but I came away from them feeling that he was a bit of a jerk. Multiple times on his journey he'd marry a local woman, get her pregnant, and then move on, leaving her only a paltry sum to support herself and their kid.

<comment><USER6> Totally agree. And the amount of sexual access these upper class medieval Muslims had is pretty insane. Not only does IB marry women and leave them, he buys "slave girls" all the time on the cheap.

<comment><USER11> Why do you think non-muslim communities of that time were any different. Do you when USA end slavery or when they recognize women as full human beings?

<comment><USER12> حبيبي I read his comment many times but I do not read that what you read. He doesn't say other communities were strictly superior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another travelogue ~ 100 years earlier. Ibn Jubayr goes from Cordoba to the Haj and on to a crumbling Baghdad (pre-mongol - interesting).

Stops in norman sicily on the way back: [https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Ibn- Jubayr-J-C-Broadhurst/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Ibn-Jubayr-J-C- Broadhurst/dp/8187570555)

</comment><comment><USER14> Ibn Fadlan is a similar Arab "travelogue": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan)

He gets to meet a bunch of Volga Vikings and sees a ship burial.

</comment><comment><USER15> I had read Marco Polo's story as a kid. It was somewhat entertaining, IIRC, whether made up or not.

What are some other good travel tales from classical or medieval times?

</comment><comment><USER16> Polo family was uneducated?!

</comment><comment><USER11> ابن بطوطة

<comment><USER8> I have no idea what you wrote, but as somebody who grew through decades of bakeji and '?', I love how modern systems are finally mature enough to deal smoothly with non-ASCII languages.

<comment><USER17> It's "Ibn Battuta" in Arabic.</comment></comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1 <comment><USER2> Jeff Bezos understands what I want from the vast majority of my merchant interactions:

> Our version of a perfect customer experience is one in which our customer > doesn't want to talk to us. Every time a customer contacts us, we see it as > a defect. I've been saying for many, many years, people should talk to their > friends, not their merchants. And so we use all of our customer service > information to find the root cause of any customer contact. What went wrong? > Why did that person have to call? Why aren't they spending that time talking > to their family instead of talking to us?

</comment><comment><USER3> "Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times."

That's pretty enlightening. This guy is brilliant because he constantly reminds himself of the fundamentals of business, and is keenly aware that he easily gets off track from those fundamentals.

It seems as humans, we're very prone to forgetting the most basic of lessons, and unless we constantly refresh on them, we can easily get off track. It puts things in perspective like the whole Qwikster/Netflix debacle, or the recent talk of bloat at Google. At a very basic level, these issues are signs that the people in charge may have gotten so caught up in the day to day that the lost their "firm grasp of the obvious". Since in both cases the mistakes are "obvious" to people on the outside.

<comment><USER4> The Qwikster/Netflix thing is not at all simple

As far as I understand streaming and renting are two unrelated businesses. On the surface, there is no good reason they should be tied to each other.

It one of the very basics of organizing corporations: If there is no synergy between different divisions then you should spin the company (at least Russel Ackoff is behind me on this).

On the other hand, having these two divisions together allows them to hedge off each other. If rentals get unpopular and everyone starts streaming then the business as a whole isn't in the red. So there might be good reasons to keep them together.. but I don't think it's a no-brainer.

<comment> shock-value On the back-end they are different -- but from the consumer's perspective renting and streaming are just different means to the same end: watching content.

If you have a movie you'd like to watch in mind -- regardless of whether it's available on instant or not -- it's a lot easier to just search on one website then be forced to go through two (and maintain two accounts). Not to mention that it makes sense to maintain user ratings for both instant and rented content in the same pool (for movie recommendations etc). I see a lot of synergy there.

<comment><USER5> I'm not so sure about them being so different on the backend. Sure, one half mails a lot of stuff, and the other has lots of servers, but wouldn't there be a _lot_ of overlap in the "dealing with publishers and licensing" department?

<comment><USER6> No. And that's one of the problems. For DVD rentals, no licensing is required. All Netflix has to do is purchase the consumer DVDs and ship them to people who want them. Streaming, on the other hand, requires lots of complex negotiations with the rights-holders.

<comment><USER7> \--and one reason the company gave for wanting to split in 2 is that content owners were insisting on counting DVD customers in calculations of royalties due.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was planning to get an iPad. I thought Apple would update the iPad 2 for the holidays but they didn't. Then Amazon came out with announcement of the Kindle Fire. For less than the price of an iPad I can get 2 Kindle Fires and 1 Kindle Touch.

I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire is the Chromebook Google should have built. People aren't prepared to have absolutely everything on the cloud. People read while on the train or in a plane. There needs to be some local storage.

By utilizing Amazon's cloud infrastructure I'm guessing the Fire doesn't need a large amount of local storage or a large amount of RAM. Amazon is providing a top of the line user experience with less than top of the line hardware. This is my hope.

There is also Amazon's customer service. I bought my first Apple product in June (a Macbook Pro) and the two times I've had to talk to Apple's repair people about an issue they acted as if I'm an apostate. I've had nothing but amazing customer service from Amazon.

I think Bezos has a hit with the Fire. The only tablet that will compete with the Fire this holiday season is the iPad.

<comment><USER9> >The Kindle Fire is the Chromebook Google should have built. People aren't prepared to have absolutely everything on the cloud. People read while on the train or in a plane. There needs to be some local storage.

> By utilizing Amazon's cloud infrastructure I'm guessing the Fire doesn't > need a large amount of local storage or a large amount of RAM. Amazon is > providing a top of the line user experience with less than top of the line > hardware. This is my hope.

These two statements are at odds with each other. 8GB is paltry for any amount of video or music (on my iPhone, a full 13GB is music/audio - I listen a LOT of books on tape and podcasts).

The cloud for personal media is unreliable for a big chunk of time as many mobile providers either don't provide coverage, bandwidth or quota to fulfill my needs... it's not clear that 8GB+CloudDrive will do this (it would be great if CloudDrive 2.0 would just treat your local available store as a giant cache).

Proof will be in the pudding. However, given that Amazon has yet to tell us how many Kindles it's sold or how much money they have made on them, it's unclear how we'll be able to gauge it's success.

<comment><USER8> The statements are not contradictory at all. Some local storage is needed for people who will out of range of wi-fi. Like airplane travelers. But they don't need a lot of local storage. People just need enough local storage to bridge the gaps in wi-fi coverage. Internet access is ubiquitous but it isn't universal.

While on the internet Fire users will stream their content. They don't need a high powered device to do this as Amazon's cloud infrastructure will be doing some of the work. While off the internet the device just needs enough power to play videos, read books, and play songs and games. This doesn't require a heavy duty processor.

<comment><USER10> You can get an idea of this with their MP3 Cloud Player for Android. I keep a minimum of music on it for gaps in coverage and things I listen to very frequently, but it easily shifts to "cloud mode" and streams well on 4g/wifi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish the authors of adapted metaphors were forced to map their altered versions to the original.

Example: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. The Four Horsemen of Technology include Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Which goes with which? I vote Amazon for Conquest (of the Internet), Google for Famine (of attention span, and possibly design sense), Facebook for War (over friends, likes and popularity), and Apple for Death (of freedom).

N.B. The preceding intended for humor only. Any attempt to interpret seriously will meet with swift rebuttal.

<comment><USER12> Conquest? Isn't it Pestilence?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The quote that spoke to me in the article

> When you pay $199 for Fire, you're not buying a gadget you're filing citizen > papers for the digital duchy of Amazonia.

I know many people don't mind living in walled garden, especially if it's very pretty, but it seems unhealthy to me. Has this stopped being a scary thing to people?

<comment><USER14> It was never a scary thing for people. The entire walled-garden-curated- experience versus open-standards-loose-confederation-of-providers generates heated discussion only among a small, small sliver of geeks. For most of the population, this is an irrelevant technical detail like what flavor the CMOS on the device is. Users lack the insight and vocabulary to even identify which world a particular device or ecosystem belongs to. (So do geeks, because this is primarily a matter of tribal affiliation rather than technical reality, but that's another matter entirely.)

The underlying philosophy of your device matters not a whit to a 14 year old girl. She wants to listen to the same music, read the same books, and watch the same movies that her friends do. These are her core requirements for your device. The rest is boring geekery.

<comment><USER15> Off-topic: Patrick, you strike me as a geek's geek. And that's a compliment. So why is it that so many of your HN comments have you shrewdly observing the world as seen from the vantage point of non-geeks? About 80% of the time, I can tell I'm reading one of your comments because of this penchant you have for telling geeks that the things they're arguing about don't matter to normal people or to businesses. How did you develop your understanding of non-geeks?

Bonus question: what do you think about QR codes :)

<comment><USER14> _So why is it that so many of your HN comments have you shrewdly observing the world as seen from the vantage point of non-geeks?_

A combination of bloody-minded contrarianism and having my monthly food budget be acutely dependent on my ability to successfully model the thought processes of 48 year old non-technical women.

 _QR codes_

The US will learn what Japan has learned: QR codes are an inferior way to get people to visit a page compared to an interaction like "Google for 'Old Spice guy'", where 'Old Spice guy' is a keyword purposely chosen to uniquely refer to a page under your control.

<comment><USER16> But wouldn't that only work if you were certain you could win the seo battle for that particular keyword?

On the other hand, you own and control that qr code.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but given that the keyword isn't a real word but a purpose-created microphrase, you're going to ROFLstomp over everyone else on SEO for it. e.g. This post will win for [ROFLstomp SEO], probably within a day.

<comment><USER17> Just googled ROFLstomp SEO. This post is number one. Only took 6 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _Bezos: For better or worse, it is really not a part of our culture to look at things defensively. We rarely say, "Oh my God, we've got to do something about that existential threat." Maybe one day we'll become extinct because of that deficiency in our nature. I don't know. We look at things through a different lens. We say, "Oh, here's this incredible phenomenon called social networking. How can we be inspired by that to make our business better?" I hope we find something._

This is precisely the reason that I think Google will not succeed in their Google Plus approach to social networking.

<comment><USER19> I won't elaborate too much on this point because it's been made many times here in the past, but I'm pretty sure you don't understand G+ if you think G+ is a short sighted move to combat just Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Notable observation by Levy: _"Replacing the hardware is no more complicated or emotionally involved than changing a flashlight battery."_

This is followed, in the next paragraph, by the _"you're filing citizen papers for the digital duchy of Amazonia"_ observation already remarked on in another comment.

Not enough attention is being given to this aspect - the device is mostly irrelevant, the 'appstore' account is key. In time, the user accounts will eventually accumulate a significant amount of value. However, these accounts are designed as personal and non-transferable.

A couple of years into the wide use of the appstores, in practice, they work as if the "used" content is of no value. But perhaps soon we will have divorce lawyers settling who keeps the house, the car and the Amazon (or iTunes) account ...

</comment><comment><USER21> The big question for me is if all these startups bootstrapping on EC2 are going to wake up one day and decide they need their own servers. The smart money is on "No" being the answer to this question: the switching costs are so unbelievably high, and each day that goes by AWS manages to release features that reduce the surface area of reasons you'd need to do so.

So, it basically looks like the current generation of startups are going to grow up on AWS. You can imagine the implications of this for Amazon's profits.

<comment><USER22> The flip side is that EC2 is _expensive_ for what it provides in terms of server power per dollar, and switching costs are considerably lower if you're doing the smart thing and already taking advantage of provider redundancy. Amazon may be ahead now, but they can't stop swimming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I always remember Jeff Bezos' 3 lessons: obsess over customers, invent, think long term. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hxX_Q5CnaA> I love the way he unfolds his ideas simply and disrupts markets, one at a time.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure highlighting Amazon's Kindle Fire's reliance on 'streaming' over 'local storage' is a clear "positive vs negative".

You can't stream without a (reasonable) internet connection... Seems more of a trade-off than an improvement.

<comment><USER25> _Seems more of a trade-off than an improvement._

That's exactly the point. Instead of trying to compete directly with the iPad, Amazon is serving a different part of the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just cancelled my Kindle Fire order (which I made the day of the announcement, perhaps too hasty) based on the review by David Pogue:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/technology/personaltech/th...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/technology/personaltech/the- fire-aside-amazons-lower-priced-kindles-also-shine.html)

My take away is that if they can't get the included apps to perform well, it is likely not a device I will enjoy using. I'd rather pay another $300 for something that is a joy to use. Probably be better off using the Kindle app on an iPod Touch.

<comment><USER27> if you can afford to spend an extra $300 like that, and like to read, you owe it to yourself to get an e-ink kindle.

<comment><USER26> When they fix the flicker on page turning, I will.

<comment><USER28> That's how e-Ink currently works. On the other hand you've got good contrast, especially in direct sunlight. Also battery life lasts for a whole week with the Internet connection on and for a month (at least) without that connection active.

Reading entire novels on my Kindle 3 is an enjoyable experience. Reading long essays on an iPad has given me nausea - as I could see the reflection of the light above and my freaking face in the screen glare of that iPad. The contrast is really poor in a strong light environment. Also the battery died during a single flight from Europe to the US, when I needed it the most.

Of course, the E-Ink Kindle is only good for reading books or long essays. It's not an iPad replacement, but the one thing it does well can't be matched by devices with normal LCD or Amoled screens.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure why I would be modded down for pointing out how e-ink currently works and how I don't like it and won't be using it until they fix it. Someone mentioned that with the Kindle Touch they have pushed the flicker to every 6 page views and have reduced its jarring effect. Presumably there are other people that also think that e-ink, as it currently works, isn't that great because of this problem. I've mostly read books on my iPhone 4 using Amazon's Kindle app and I find it to be much more enjoyable, YMMV. So, when they fix that problem, that it currently has, I will probably get one -- which is why I have been buying books on Kindle instead of iBooks in the first place. You are lucky you can enjoy e-ink, I wish I could.

<comment><USER21> It'd be nice if you could elaborate on why the flicker is important enough to you that it outweighs the obvious benefits of e-ink. Up until I read this thread I never even considered it as a 'thing', it surprises me anyone could care about the particular way a reading device transitions between pages, as long as it's fast enough. It seems like the least important aspect of what makes a reading experience on a device good vs bad.

The portability and convenience of the Kindle DX has basically changed my life as I now have been plowing through all those technical books I've been meaning to read over the years.

<comment><USER29> I think it's a bit difficult to explain this to someone that isn't experiencing it as a problem. It's similar to the way some people react to DLP projectors with color wheels ("rainbow effect") while some don't. People are sensitive do different things. I find the flicker jarring even though it's short. I do enjoy the benefits of e-ink, but I'm perfectly fine with staring at a backlight display for hours, so I'm OK with reading on an iPad as well.

<comment><USER30> Strangely, I had the same reaction as yours in the beginning, each time I flipped a page on my Kindle I "saw" the dots flicking. Then, around one week after, I completely forgot, until you reminded me about the issue today.

So, in short, except if we have a very different neural system, which is not likely, the annoyance should disappear soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Thank you for linking to the single page version of that.

</comment><comment><USER32> Post-PC? Post-Web? Wired, what do those terms actually, practically mean? Companies and articles that bring up these artificial distinctions promote a hipster cooler-than-thou that is based only on perception...

<comment><USER33> Wired defines Post-PC at the same time it introduces the term

> the post-PC era—in which the desktop is replaced by lean, portable, gesture- > driven tablets

They also define post-web:

> in which our devices are simply a means for us to directly connect with the > goodies in someone's data center.

though I'll admit the latter definition is lame, the first one is reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So,... I'm in Europe... can I use this thing and have access to the streaming or not? I read somewhere that because the data you stream would reside in Amazon's datacenters and Amazon is a US company all the information would "belong" to them, and thus, making it vulnerable to US law. Is this definitive?

</comment><comment><USER35> Seems like the full page link is broken. You can use Readability by clicking on readability view here, or just go straight to the multipage article <http://rdd.me/rdnylmgg>

</comment><comment><USER36> >It is a third gadget, the long-awaited Amazon tablet called the Kindle Fire, that represents his company's most ambitious leap into the hearts, minds, and wallets of millions of consumers.

Blah Blah Blah....A sufficiently ambitious kid could make something like that in his basement!

<comment><USER37> Didn't "a sufficiently ambitious kid" already try this with the Crunchpad/JooJoo? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JooJoo>

<comment><USER36> Yes and in fact what he did was more ambitious than just forking android.

Since I am getting downvoted let me clarify....There is nothing special in the Kindle....It just uses ordinary hardware with an open source operating system...yes any kid could make something like that....But what amazon is really selling is the services they have built through which people are going to buy content on the kindle!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Not raising expectations of the customer is not a defeatist attitude? - <AUTHOR>

I've been woefully trying to convince my business partner for the last 5 years, that raising expectations of the client is NOT a good idea. I've always believed in the "Under promise and over deliver" idea. Further more, people perceive things as 'they' are not as 'we' are, so we dont know what it is that they are dreaming.
His argument is, that its a defeatist attitude that lacks courage and conviction. Im all for ambition, achievement and results, but i feel there is a distinction to be made.
Can you please help me make this point? <comment><USER2> The old axiom "Failing to plan is planning to fail" comes to mind.

I wouldn't say sell yourself short but always be realistic. For example if its a deadline you want to give for a project will take 2 weeks, build in some space for running over (a % based on complicity and client) and give that.

In your case I think your talking features. You can promise the basics first and discuss a 'stage 2' which adds more functions later.. If you get those done before planned thats a big plus.

Most clients only remember failures, not success. So I would agree with you on this one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Consider the following dialogue "your new website will be ten times better than your existing one".

What would that make you think as a client?

<comment><USER3> That you'll put everything that _I_ think it's better for the website.

But if you say you're going to do feature X and Y and change Z because of reason ABC, and as a consequence you'll say the website will be 10 times better, then hopefully we'll have some metrics to discuss.

10 times better could mean more conversions, a faster/more secure checkout for an e-commerce website, or just a prettier brochure one.

These kind of statements are too vague on their own, you have to put some meat around to show me _why_ it'll be better.

But hey, sometimes you have to make the sale. If the clients are paying and they're happy after the project is complete, then there's nothing to worry. It's marketing and advertisement working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best thing you can do is satisfy all user expectations, including the ones they do not know they have. People love being positively surprised. So the proposition is this: By the model of your partner, you create expectations for users, and then satisfy them. This essentially means people get excited about something, wait for it, and, at best, it eventually happens. So they think "Yeah, it's finally here.". Your proposition is to keep all that but also have them think "Yeah, it's finally here, and it's even BETTER than I thought it would be!". This is distinct from surprise releases and no release schedules, which I suppose is what your partner is thinking about. Raising client expectations is an excellent idea. Exceeding those new expectations is even more excellent. Promise something good. Deliver something better.

</comment><comment><USER5> Expectations should be just right. Low expectations is lost business. If I don't think You can solve my problem or not solve it well, why do business with you? Elevated expectations are lost repeat business. If you promise steak but deliver hamburger, why would I come back?</comment>


Losing the team - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/05/losing-the-team.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The comments on the article page are quite interesting & insightful too.</comment>


Anatomy of a Malware Ad on NYTimes.com - Inputs & Outputs (Troy Davis, Seattle) - <AUTHOR> http://troy.yort.com/anatomy-of-a-malware-ad-on-nytimes-com <comment><USER2> Stuff like this makes adblock an unfortunate necessity these days. You can't trust ad networks, not even on high-profile websites.

I used to make a point of not running adblock or flashblock since I figured that if I was visiting someone's site, they at least deserved to get the ad impressions from it, even if I wasn't clicking on their ads. After repeatedly seeing PDF/SWF exploits pop up on "reputable" sites like Deviantart, though, I pretty much had no choice but to block everything to avoid getting hit by an unpatched exploit.

</comment><comment><USER3> tradenton.com seems to have a US based registrant.

'adx' in the dom descriptor suggests that these are 'exchange' ads (that's a fairly common label), but there is also an advertising network called AdxDirect, maybe that has something to do with it ?</comment>