Everything We Know About Data.gov - <AUTHOR> http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/05/22/everything-we-know-about-datagov/ <comment><USER2> Pardon the long winded comment. But this line bugged me...

 _Right now the site is short on data. Federal CIOs: There are hundreds of us waiting to do interesting things with your data. Invest in putting it up on Data.gov now. You will be rewarded._ s

Here's the thing: They won't be rewarded.

In fact, it will make their life harder. Now a whole nation will be able to scrutinize every little expenditure. It's the ultimate "boss looking over your shoulder" situation. It's almost certainly going to be a real pain for them.

Don't misunderstand my point here. I love the idea of Government CIOs putting their data online. I think we should all encourage them to do it. I'm just saying people should be realistic and put themselves in the place of those they are trying to convince. Because when you do that you realize the sacrifice these CIOs are making to let their data out.

Given that I think the better argument is to tell CIOs how much better the world will be once they do this and how much we as citizen's will appreciate their sacrifice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure that's a sell you can make to a federal CIO to be honest. Often times "Openness" and "Transparency" somehow get synonymous to "Budget and Expenditure Oversight by citizens." But that's simply not true. Open data from government, and government transparency has created massive markets. Check the weather this morning? How about using a google map? That's, in part, Government data.

Telling a federal CIO: "Make this data available because people will be able to do amazing things with it, and you have the capacity to create whole industries out of your data, elevating the importance of you and your agency" seems a lot more viable of a sell than: "sacrifice yourself for the common good"

<comment><USER3> Today, I am a federal CIO.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

"Make this data available because people will be able to do amazing things with it," - Not only do I not really care, I see a sudden new constituency that will be making new demands on me in the future to improve my new service.

"and you have the capacity to create whole industries out of your data," - so, I'm begging for new interest groups to be looking over my shoulder? Oh boy.

"elevating the importance of you and your agency" - Bullshit! Elevating the importance of the monied interests based on the "industry" you just promised me! 'course, I might be able to extract rent, but it would take some time to entice regulatory capture...

Oh, and despite you not mentioning it, I still hear "Budget and Expenditure Oversight by citizens" loud and clear.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

I still don't think you're quite putting yourself in the shoes of a generic government executive here. The thing is, if there really was something in it for them, they'd have _already_ voluntarily opened up their data, instead of being forced.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention non-budgetary criticisms mined from the data. If a department or agency isn't already leaping forward to offer data (like the USGS, which is all _about_ offering data), it's reasonable to assume that the relevant people in that agency have no interest whatsoever in providing data.

There's only so much low-hanging fruit before things start to better resemble pulling teeth.</comment></comment>


How Microsoft sees the future... - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2F5853894%2Fwhat-microsoft-thinks-the-future-will-look-like&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but I wonder how they intend to modify the laws of physics required to make some of these devices possible.

</comment><comment><USER3> How do they expect to have images appear outside the 2d dimensions of the device?</comment>


Ask HN: Can Git be used for something other than files? - <AUTHOR> I want to create (commit) an offline social network of my 5 close friends, but I also want the ability to push my network (repo) to a centralized spot that my 5 friends also have access to and can see our updated interactions. <comment><USER2> Sure. Now you just need to develop a structure/software on top of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know of any examples of other people that have done this?

<comment><USER2> Not a social Network, but there are Git based Wikis which should have a similar architecture.</comment></comment></comment>


Massively online beat'em up Skara coming to Windows Phone before PS4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/games/stories/1331627704435/skara-8-bit-studios-gaming

<comment><USER2> The original title of the submission is:

"Skara: Creating the massively online beat'em up"

Why change it just for the sake of evangelizing a particular platform?

From HN's guidelines:

"please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait"

See [http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


Why Use Postgres - <AUTHOR> http://craigkerstiens.com/2012/04/30/why-postgres/ <comment><USER2> Left out the fact that Schema-changing operations are transactional (big win over MySQL).

[Edit: In migrations, specifically. Also! No mention of the MySQL dual-license JDBC driver malarky... Not that it's a success of Postgres' as much as it's a failure of MySQL's... ]

I'd never heard of Window Functions (not an Oracle user, and been on MySQL for a few years... left Postgres for replication and haven't made it back quite yet).. but I desperately want them. The idea of effectively aggregating over groups in a group by (which is how I understand these Window doohickeys) is something I come up on a few times a year and get really frustrated by.

I think the only killer feature I'm left wanting from some RDBMS at this point is managed-sequences... The idea that I have a related list of things that I want to keep a sequence column for, and would like the database to understand the concept and help me maintain it.

<comment><USER3> > I think the only killer feature I'm left wanting from some RDBMS at this > point is managed-sequences...

I would like some RDBMS to give sharable transactions. What I mean by that is something like this.

1\. When I begin a transaction, I can assign it a name.

2\. If multiple connections to the database are in transactions with the same name, they can see the changes made by the others, as if none of them were in a transaction. Connections not party to the shared transaction do not see the changes until all of the connections in the shared transaction commit.

3\. The connections in the shared transaction can do unnamed transactions, which isolate them from the others within the shared transaction.

The idea here is that sometimes I have some operation that I would like to do atomically, but that involves multiple processes acting on the database. Process A wants to make some changes, then pass responsibility on to process B (which may be on a separate machine) to make more changes, and then process C finishes up, and if any of them encounter an error I want to rollback to the state before A started.

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Without knowing what kind of system you're talking about I'm suspicious that I'd use this. I certainly have distributed problems like this where a logical concept is broken into a number of steps, and while I want to distribute the steps.. the effects of them to the entire system might not be realized until all of them are complete.

I generally wouldn't defer that responsibility to the database though. I'd more often handle this as multiple database transactions that advance a state machine, at the end of which consequence-inducing-events are fired off.

The idea that process A tickles the database into some state expected to be understood (and only seen by) process B seems like too flimsy a contract to me.

<comment><USER4> I get your point, but there is value in delegating to the database--how do I roll back an external state machine?

<comment><USER5> See the command pattern: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_pattern>

Basically you encapsulate whatever you need to do with the database in objects (logic + parameters). And you describe for these objects not only the logic for updating the database (forward), but also for reverting the database to its previous state (rollback).

<comment><USER4> Yep, I know the command pattern--it requires knowledge of all state up front and breaks down in the presence of distributed state. It makes statements like 'update all records where value _x_ is _y_ ' difficult. You need to gather all such records first, possibly guarding their current state with a timestamp/vector clock (we are talking distributed systems after all), make the change encapsulating the current state in the command pattern and commit. If you have to extend this model to multiple queries, you'll be rolling your own transaction protocol lest you expose partial state to other queries in transit.

Or you could delegate all this to the database, which already has its own transaction protocol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really disagree with this. The more features you use from your DBMS vendor, the more you shoot yourself in the following departments:

\- scalability. Logic and processing in the server is bad as it means you can only scale up and not scale out. Scale up is damn expensive. When you need that 64 core 96Gb machine to run it all on with 6 replicas will see what I mean.

\- complexity. The DBMS is a black box which sucks up tight coupling almost instantly. Coupling is bad for maintenance and scalability. SQL always ends up with heavy coupling.

\- lock in. Those features only work with postgres so you're stuck with it forever or induce a lot of cost to move away when a better solution comes along.

\- schema. Maintaining schema and dependencies is hell on all but a small system.

These facts come from 20 years of using databases.

Stuff that will save you: Use your DBMS as a simple flat store akin to a document store. Use a CQRS based architecture and encapsulate ALL of your logic in code. If you have to go at least partially relational for god's sake use an ORM that supports several databases well. Make a provider independent app level backup/restore facility such as the one with JIRA or TeamCity. NEVER hire a DBA - they exist only to create walled gardens to protect their existence.

My current gig has cocked up on all areas and it's costing them over 40% of their turnover keeping it alive.

Happy databasing :)

<comment><USER7> I agree with you but I often question when people list "lock in" as an issue. How often do you see projects where they decide to move from one db to another? Even in cases where an ORM is used, making the migration process painless in theory, I doubt many projects take the risk and exercise their freedom of not being locked in.

<comment><USER6> If you look at most "corporate" IT platforms, they tend to have favourite database engines that they need to use. If you have DBMS portability, then it gets one foot in the door straight away.

Also contrary to the norm here, some applications last a long time. The one I work with daily is actually 20 years old this year. In that time a lot has changed and in the next 20 years a lot will as well. It makes sense for long- lived applications to plan well ahead and consider paradigm and architecture changes.

This platform started in C++ on OS/2 with Oracle running on VAX/VMS at the back end. It went to Java/J2EE with an Oracle back end in the early 00's. It's now SQL Server and .Net.

<comment><USER8> Interesting to know what abstractions were found useful when migrating from VAX/VMS to Java/J2EE to .Net.

<comment><USER6> Hibernate and nhibernate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The one of the biggest advantages of PostgreSQL is GiST (Generalized Search Tree) which is based on the theory of indexability.

> One advantage of GiST is that it allows the development of custom data types > with the appropriate access methods, by an expert in the domain of the data > type, rather than a database expert.

<http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/gist-intro.html>

> Traditionally, implementing a new index access method meant a lot of > difficult work. It was necessary to understand the inner workings of the > database, such as the lock manager and Write-Ahead Log. The GiST interface > has a high level of abstraction, requiring the access method implementer > only to implement the semantics of the data type being accessed. The GiST > layer itself takes care of concurrency, logging and searching the tree > structure.

> [...]

> So if you index, say, an image collection with a PostgreSQL B-tree, you can > only issue queries such as "is imagex equal to imagey", "is imagex less than > imagey" and "is imagex greater than imagey". Depending on how you define > "equals", "less than" and "greater than" in this context, this could be > useful. However, by using a GiST based index, you could create ways to ask > domain-specific questions, perhaps "find all images of horses" or "find all > over-exposed images".

[http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/gist- extensibility...](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/gist- extensibility.html)

If you are already using PostgreSQL though have not known about this fact, I highly recommend you to learn about GiST. It is the most powerful feature of PostgreSQL as I know.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you are doing anything serious with GeoSpatial, you should be using PostgreSQL with PostGIS.

<comment><USER11> Beat me to it, so upvotes :)

Let me pile on a big one: Stored procedures in multiple languages:

* python * perl * PHP (though I could not get it to work on 9.1)

<comment><USER12> And JavaScript! We're putting this to great use with the latest SproutCore/Blossom project I'm working on.

<comment><USER13> Hitoshi Harada and Andrew Dunstan are currently working on making it ready to put into production. Also, he's working on backporting the new JSON datatype to 9.1 as an extension!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Both Postgres and MySQL are great. In history, Postgres emphasized more on feature development instead of performance, while MySQL took the opposite approach. It depends on your engineering and operation requirements to choose which one to deploy. Most of OP's points, however, need to have further consideration, IMHO.

\- "While replication is indeed very important, are users actually setting up replication each time with MySQL or is it to only have the option later?"

Replication is not an option. It is a must-have for any serious products, both in scaling and in operation.

\- Windows functions: They are wonderful and I love them. But it is not an important factor at all.

\- Flexible datatypes: True in certain scenarios. It allows to create certain types to map a business object with unusual requirements. Otherwise, the requirements have to be implemented in application logic. But data type of Array? IMHO, use of Array data type in relational database usually means there are some issues in data modeling and design. The performance is another issue. If you have to use array, consider NoSQL options.

\- Functions. Although I am a database architect, I use database functions only for simple poking around. For any serious work, I prefer to write application code. It is easier to maintain, to test, and to extend. I don't want to have a big muddy ball. I prefer to have structured, well-decoupled application code.

\- Custom Language. Same as above. Why not just write application code?

\- Extensions: Geospatial is awesome. It is better than that in MySQL. But for many extensions, I prefer not to do the computation in database. Databases are usually the most expensive resources (in operation costs) and are usually the performance bottle neck. It would be better to have the computation in app servers. It is easier to scale and it is cheaper.

\- Custom Functions: see above.

\- Common Table Expressions: Recursive queries are awesome. I t is nice to have for ad-hoc data inspection, but I wouldn't encourage its usage in application code. The risk to use it wrong vs the benefits are high if used in application code.

<comment><USER15> > \- Windows functions: They are wonderful and I love them. But it is not an > important factor at all.

I disagree or would choose to qualify a number of the things you wrote, but I'll choose this one because I think it's the most interesting:

While window functions are seldom (but not never) used by common application workloads, but I find them pretty important for lowering the barrier of what one-off queries I can write (hence, more questions are economic to answer) to figure out some statistics that assist doing business or solving strange problems. The alternative is to be forced to make a greater number of decisions with less supporting data.

This can be applied to any labor-saving device when it comes to reporting, but I think window functions make the cut for me overall, and it's great they are there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> PostgreSQL is awesome (I really love it), now let's do some complaining:

* I'm not fan of doing backups with pg_dump. I think it would be a lot more awesome if I could tell the database to back itself up in-band. Even better, I would like to be able to ask the database to schedule its own backups, instead of having to set up my own cron jobs (or equivalents). Commercial databases can do that.

* The sad state of libpq (the C API). Libpq is where PostgreSQL really shows its age. It's very cumbersome to use and can't do (or can't do well) a bunch of things the raw protocol is capable of. Since almost all PostgreSQL bindings are built on libpq, none of the bindings support these features either.

* It would be cool if it was possible to kill sessions in-band (other database servers can do that). With PostgreSQL, the only way to shut down misbehaving sessions is sshing in to the database server and doing a `kill` on the process of the session.

* The infamous COUNT(*) fiasco.

<comment><USER17> Depending on how badly the session is misbehaving: <http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/libpq-cancel.html> or pg_cancel_backend(pid int) or pg_terminate_backend(pid int)

<comment><USER16> Oh that's very cool, I din't know about that one. I guess this item can be removed from my list.

<comment><USER15> Internally there is also an interesting mechanism: when one connects, the backend hands you a "backend key", which is a 64 bit number. The client is intended to remember that number. Cancellations are processed by sending a cancel request to the server -- which involves a special new connection and a different first packet -- including that secret number. As an interesting security precaution, absolutely no acknowledgement or response is made to the cancellation request.

libpq knows how to do all this.

The reason for this is that to avoid inspecting the connection for new instructions during query processing, acting under the assumption that cancellations will be rare.

[http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/interactive/protocol- flow...](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/interactive/protocol- flow.html#AEN91658)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> List of reasons is so short...

For example since 9.1 Postgres support foreign data tables - other data sources is available for user as regular table; there are many drivers: MySQL, Oracle, external pg server, and even plain files.

Since 9.0 there is support for per-column triggers.

</comment><comment><USER19> I know this isn't a MySQL versus PostgreSQL thread, but I was bitten by MySQL today...

The issue: I ran a SELECT with a WHERE against a column that is an "int(11)", but I meant to run it against another column that is "varchar(255)". Something like: SELECT * FROM table WHERE wrong_column = "1abcdefghijk";

Somehow MySQL cast a "varchar(255)" to an "int(11)" with a value "1" _without_ telling me. WTF? My result set was approximately 1M rows. I expected 1 row, so knew the result was wrong... But what if I had expected more than 1 row? Then the bizarre results from MySQL would have _appeared_ to make sense.

<comment><USER20> Maybe there's a deeper reason PHP and MySQL are so closely linked.

<comment><USER19> Funny: I thought the exact same thing as I was writing my comment...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great points. I'd love to see someone tackle how to get a corporate environment to consider Postgres over MS-SQL. We weren't able to, due to MS- SQL's great amount of "out of the box" functionality regarding automatic failover, mirroring, clustering, etc. PG of course can do all of this but to convince the DBAs to throw away their point-and-click interfaces so that we could start writing custom scripts and listeners from scratch wasn't really feasible.

<comment><USER10> I don't have an answer to the issue of getting PostgreSQL in corporate environments - but I did run into a couple other hurdles in trying.

1\. It's surprisingly difficult to find an experienced PostgreSQL DBA who wants to work in a corporate environment.

2\. It's even more difficult to get a large corporation to pay a reasonable salary (why would we pay more for a PostgreSQL DBA, when we can just throw that money at Oracle/Microsoft and get a cheaper DBA with all the certs...) which might entice an experienced PostgreSQL DBA to join the organization.

<comment><USER22> I would guess that #1 is caused by #2... does #2 mean that Oracle+DBA (or MSSQL+DBA) is cheaper than a Postgres DBA, or just that the database and the DBA are generally paid for out of different department's budgets?

<comment><USER10> I think it's correct that (2) directly influences (1). And I think that most corporate groups are willing to hire an Oracle/MS SQL DBA with small amounts of experience but the carrying the right certifications.

To expand a bit, IMO - that scenario doesn't really exist for PostgreSQL DBAs, you are either experienced or inexperienced (with no weight-carrying certificate to complement credentials). Hence the corporate environment won't hire an entry-level DBA who has no certs to validate the hire, and they won't justify the seemingly added cost of an experienced PostgreSQL DBA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You left out one of my faves. Parent / child tables (ie tabular inheritance). Makes time series stuff so much nicer as pruning over time can be performed with truncate as opposed to "delete from".

</comment><comment><USER24> ActiveRecord 4.0 will support postgresql custom types, by the way. <https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/4775> Thanks @tenderlove!

</comment><comment><USER25> Call me lazy, but this is why I don't use Postgres: Amazon RDS is MySQL

Its that simple. I can spend a lot of time setting up and monitoring a Postgres cluster, or I can spend about 5 minutes configuring a MultiA-Z RDS instance. However, the moment Amazon offers Postgres on RDS instances, I'll make plans to switch.

<comment><USER26> So use enterpriseDB's postgresql service. It is the same deal as RDS, hosted on amazone, only using postgresql and operated by postgresql experts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Also: fast (having a properly smart query planner) and, in my experience, fantastically reliable.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is there a software that balances databases on different servers just like mongodb sharding works, by range? So for example i have a SaaS and each customer has 1 database. And the databases are migrated from one server to another automatically? If not is there something similar? Thanks

<comment><USER24> Not yet. <http://postgres-xc.sourceforge.net/> should be released soon.

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't expect too much from XC in 1.0 state. When I last looked in on it there was still a ton of work to do before it was really operationally ready to put in production.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has managed to deploy the beta.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Two I particularly like:

\- CREATE DOMAIN

\- ON UPDATE CASCADE

Oh, and yeah, a BOOLEAN datatype. That's one in the eye to Larry Ellison.

What would make it absolutely the bee's knees would be a decent data language on top of that lovely data engine. Something closed over composition, with a simple, orthogonal syntax. NoSQL in the truest form — not a blind rejection of Codd's algebra, but something LESS DUMB STUPID THAN THE WRETCHEDNESS THAT IS SQL.

<comment><USER13> I've been agitating for an API that would allow developers to build their own query languages on top of Postgres alongside of SQL. Some day.

<comment><USER30> Yes! Please! The time for saner alternatives to SQL for querying relational databases is long overdue.

Is sad that Postgres completely replaced QUEL with SQL, it was not the best language ever, but some competition and alternatives in this area would be good.

Probably the sanest alternative around today to SQL would be Date's D (not to be confused with the "C++ on steroids" D language), see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(data_language_specification)> and <http://www.thethirdmanifesto.com/> (evidence that database types should never be allowed to design websites :))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there a good inexpensive hosting option for postgres aside from just running it yourself? Sort of like RDS on Amazon? Alternatively a DBaaS host for postgres?

<comment><USER32> Something like this, maybe? <https://postgres.heroku.com/>

<comment><USER31> With a reserved instance, RDS starts with $20/month for the small, $92/month for the large, and it's easy to change the size as the need arises. Heroku Postgres starts at $200/month, which is more than I'd want to pay for an early-stage project that I'm still experimenting with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Two points:

\- using pg'a arrays is using SQL against its grain. If you need multiple phone records per user just create a user_data table with three columns (user, key, value)

\- the number one reason to prefer PostgreSQL over MySQL is just correctness. Every second query I write in MySQL get a wrong answer.

<comment><USER34> It's not true that using arrays is using SQL against its grain. If this is an arbitrary list of phone numbers then an array is fine -- the domain being modeled is "list of phone numbers" not "phone number."

If you need to query specific phone numbers, then you should have separate columns whose names describe their roles (e.g. cell_phone_number) rather than the EAV monstrosity you proposed. :)

<comment><USER33> > rather than the EAV monstrosity you proposed. :)

I would really like to know what is monstrous in the "Entity–attribute–value" model, I scanned the Wikipedia article without finding any obvious problems.

I had, however, many many problems with separate columns for each values: I have to handle tables with over 600 columns, for example "fixed_phone", "fixed_phone_modified", "fixed_phone_modified_by", "cell_phone", "cell_phone_modified", "cell_phone_modified_by", etc. With an EAV variant, I'll have "entity", "attribute", "value", "modified", "modified_by", "deleted", and it will be much cleaner, or prove me wrong.

<comment><USER34> All of those modification times/users should be in a separate audit trail table, which likely will look like an EAV table. That's OK because it's tracking the history of updates, e.g. (time, table_name, column_name, old_value, new_value, changed_by).

The current (rather than historical) values should not be in generic EAV tables because putting data of different domains in the same column subverts both the relational model and the DBMS's indexing capabilities.

If the point is to label telephone numbers with a role, then a person_id, phone_number, phone_number_label table should be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm pretty impressed that something of this complexity can be implemented entirely in C. People complain about the lack of tools for building higher level abstractions in C but this shows that with the right code discipline it can scale quite high.

</comment><comment><USER36> Great article.

As someone coming from a Maths background - instead of pure CS - I'd never heard of some of the features you highlighted. If you consider expanding the article, please could you put in a line or 2 explaining what a feature is?

</comment><comment><USER37> I love that there are so many options for writing stored procedures. There is the traditional pl/pgsql (matches quite closely to Oracle's plsql) but also Tcl, Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua, and others.</comment>


John Romero talks about creating TEd, the tile editor - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidLightbown/20170223/289955/Classic_Tools_Retrospective_John_Romero_talks_about_creating_TEd_the_tile_editor_that_shipped_over_30_games.php <comment><USER2> > _A lot of times, ... programmers don 't go far enough asking the questions > about 'Why do you want that? What is it that you're actually trying to do?'_

As somebody who is currently trying to push more UI/UX-centric ideas in their company, this quote really hits home.

Edit: maybe someday I'll get formatting right the first time.

<comment><USER3> > programmers don't go far enough asking the questions

Please state the fact: programmers are not trained, nor have the time to go far enough asking the questions.

Don't pretend that non-tech people are capable of doing anything tech- intensive.

I am tired of the unilateral narrative of "tech people really blabla...".

People are trained differently, and their time is focused on different areas.

If you want to talk, stop implicitly insult the other group of co-workers.

<comment><USER4> > _Please state the fact: programmers are not trained, nor have the time to go > far enough asking the questions._

Why be so hostile towards Romero's comment, which seemed to be made in a light-hearted context? He's describing the situation as he has seen it; perhaps he is mistakenly inclined to put the onus on programmers rather than cultural and historical factors because of how programmer culture is so steeped in self-driven destiny-controlling meritocracy. I agree that culture (which includes training) is a factor -- OTOH, that doesn't mean Romero's quip isn't useful to programmers who can use it to better themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case you missed it yesterday, the the second article is an interview with Tim Sweeney.

Article here: [https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidLightbown/20180109/3094...](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidLightbown/20180109/309414/Classic_Tools_Retrospective_Tim_Sweeney_on_the_first_version_of_the_Unreal_Editor.php)

And relevant HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16110133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16110133)

</comment><comment><USER6> I found it interesting on all the non-game things that Romero's name was on. The DE-ICE installer, the text file viewer that came with the games...

I guess their background in writing tiny random apps for Softdisk explains it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Romero comes across as a really nice guy!

<comment><USER8> He's a character. You should check out "Masters of Doom"

<comment><USER9> This is by far one of my most favourite books.</comment></comment></comment>


New American Fiction: Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21564531

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the first novel I've read that mentions Hacker News by name. It was a bit like a Microserfs (Douglas Copeland) for a new generation, with a little William Gibson vibe. A light, fun read. The Economist review will go into more details. I think it would appeal to many HN readers.</comment>


A 3-D Look Inside the Tasmanian Tiger's Pouch, Long After Extinction - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/science/tasmanian-tiger-pouch.html <comment><USER2> I really hope scientists figure out how to resurrect this species! [https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/thylacine- genome...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/thylacine-genome- extinct-tasmanian-tiger-cloning-science/)</comment>


PHP 5.3 reaches end-of-life in March with PHP 5.5 release - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php53eol

<comment><AUTHOR> I linked to the wiki page but if you want something more formal:

<http://php.net/releases/5_3_20.php>

Also, 5.3.21 will be released Thursday this week.</comment>


You Don't Need a Full-Size Pickup Truck, You Need a Cowboy Costume - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume <comment><AUTHOR> Most people do not use the capabilities that pickup trucks offer, and thus are sub-optimal for many people's needs:

> _Truck owners might protest that they are slightly less likely than owners > of other categories to use their vehicle as primary transport (83% vs. 95%), > limiting the miles and gallons. And they might also protest that trucks > provide capabilities that other vehicles lack. But, as it turns out, a > significant portion of truck owners never use their trucks for these > capabilities. According to Edwards' data, 75 percent of truck owners use > their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 > percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 > percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the > bed, its ostensible_ raison d'être _—once a year or less._

</comment><comment> core-questions I agree with the critique of trucks. Most of the time there's no need for it, but they are indeed fun to drive as he points out. It's totally fair to take them to task.

I will take issue with one thing, though. Can someone tell me why it's okay for Berk to post incendiary comments about things like "cowpoke union suits", "Butch Drag", and otherwise basically insulting the masculinity and culture of anyone who dares to drive one?

It would be one thing if this was Berk's own culture, but he's a gay Jewish uncle from New York (by his own admission!), and this basically reads like typical cityslicker holier-than-thou smuggery. As if we didn't have enough of that kind of divisive content already.

</comment><comment><USER2> > And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting > something in the bed, its ostensible raison d'être—once a year or less.

I wish I could see how the study was performed. I find this very hard to believe.</comment>


Sad, Tired, and Alone: My Ongoing Battle With Startup Depression - <AUTHOR> http://zakhomuth.com/sad-tired-and-alone-my-ongoing-battle-with-st-39237 <comment><USER2> I mean this in the nicest way possible, but this is one of the most frustrating things I've ever read, as well as many of the comments echoing the author. I do commend you for posting this publicly, that takes guts, but you have to do something about it. If I were your CEO, I'd insist you take a very long break, right now.

You realize you're going to die, in the best case, 70 to 80 years from now, yeah? Likely much sooner with the mental state you just described. This is all very blunt, and probably harsh, but my point is life is short and you only get one shot. I can't believe you'd subject yourself to this, all for a startup, or for the startup lifestyle. I do not mean to belittle what you are passionate about, or the time and effort you've clearly put into your company, but there is more to life than this.

Take a break. Take a very long break (I'm talking a year at least). Go travel, go home, go somewhere, but stop slaving away and sitting in your room for days at a time. Go be around other people, be it family or friends. Find love, and love yourself. You can always pursue your entrepreneurial dreams after you're happy (and your company will benefit from your happiness).

The startup lifestyle is an incredible journey, I'm on a third myself, but if I felt even remotely close to what you just described, I'd quit in an instant. It's not worth that to me, not even close. I'd prefer to be happy, love, be loved, and work in a coffee shop for the rest of my days before I'd trade it for being depressed in the way you describe.

You owe it to yourself to be happy, so quit wasting time.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. I wish parents taught their kids to 'know when to quit' more often. I've read stories from founders who missed the birth of their children, left their dying parents, sacrificed everything important for some dumb startup that sells shoelaces or soap or diapers. It's one thing to be persistent and another to be delusional. And the best way to find out which one you are, is when you take a step back, clear your mind for a week or two and have a good look at yourself when you're not stimulated on coffee and twitter.

<comment><USER4> I agree. While I can have empathy for OP's feelings, when he says he's changing the world with upverter, you can't help but think he's being delusional. It's just a site that shares your mechanical drawings.. let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Your own happiness comes first, not some imaginary customers who want to use your product to make themselves more money, or inject themselves with more dopamine... they don't care about your well-being at all.

<comment><USER5> That's like saying Facebook is just a site that shares your photos and comments.

Upverter has the potential to make hardware more like software by making it easier to iterate on. That's really cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He wants it. He wants it so bad. But even when he puts in the work, has the drive, and tries so much success isn't there.

This is the flip side to every multi million dollar exits of some social widget or TechCrunch rah rah bullshit or the stock buyouts of a collapsed firm.

This the reality in the tech game. Not everyone wins. I know this, I felt this, I felt the highs and lows.

But something isn't working. Many point out to trying too much, too hard, psychological, depression, so on so forth. These comments here ring a bit hollow because they dismiss what Zak already wrote. He is a smart cookie, he knows the sickness, he knows the cure. The only remedy is change. Not only change but be brave enough to also accept change. The metaphorical come-to- Jesus moment is nigh.

Then take five minutes and really think about this and see this for what it is. This post has been read over 9000 times--almost a third of all tech workers in the city of San Francisco--and rallied over 80 comments with people even arguing whether suggestions are mean sprited. Meaning: you are not alone.

Others get this, others empathize. Because we are the community that wakes up every morning and want it bad too. That in itself is pretty amazing.

What's the real solution? No one can give you that. It's going to be personal. You're a startup vet. Deep down you know what to do. Success is not a straight line, it's meandering, it's failures, it just is.

Cheers.

<comment><USER7> Well said. Everyone's formula is different based on their internal and external support structures. I do feel the qualities in a potential solution are more common, than not.

1) It starts and ends with building and maintaining a positive, healthy inner- dialogue. That is the single biggest thing that drags everyone down.

2) Be a friend to yourself. Be a friend to your future self. It's as much about valuing your own journey and time as it is trying to figure it all out. It's not all supposed to be figured out. We have to figure out enough to keep moving, inward, onward, upward.

3) Change is entirely the issue. Instead of changing for the sake of change, we don't pay enough attention to the subtle, but huge fact of whether we're changing for the better.

4) Experiences are worthless if positive lessons aren't learnt. It doesn't matter what anyone does or doesn't do, this axiom I've found to be true anywhere I look. When one gets caught up so haphazardly collecting experiences and not paying attention to "Have I stopped learning or growing positively", we start feeding the weeds as much as the garden.

I don't want to detract from what you wrote by saying much else. I agree with the rest of what you wrote :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't want to be pedantic, but this is _not_ depression. Depression is 6 months without a single high point. Depression is not a roller coaster- there are no ups. Just down. For a long fucking time. I've been depressed off and on for the past 10 years- about 5 depressive periods, each 6-18 months.

I don't want to minimize the OP's struggles- he most certainly has some kind of mood disorder (possibly rapid-cycling bipolar disorder or RBD). There may be _depressive_ episodes involved, but I don't think the word "depression" should be used unless it's referring to Major Depressive Disorder or one of its close siblings.

Again, I'm trying hard to not be pedantic. It just frustrates me when people think that depression is something you can get over, or that will get better in a day or a week. That's just not the case.

<comment><USER9> > _depression is something you can get over,_

Just want to point out that mild to moderate[1] depression respond well to cognitive behaviour therapy. A typical course lasts 8 weeks, but can be up to 14 weeks.

Severe depression can respond well to CBT, especially if there's other stuff (other forms of long term therapy, sometimes medication) in place.

I only say this because it's important for people who feel they are depressed to know that they're not necessarily going to be out of work for months or on weird medications for years. (Indeed, there's plenty of research showing that work is useful and not working is harmful.)

I agree there's a big difference between a carefully crafted course of therapy and an attitude of "just get over it" / "pull your socks up" / "stiff upper lip".

[1] Mild and moderate are not trivial; they can have big impacts on the life of the person with them and the people around them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some thoughts:

Mood stabilizers are not an appropriate first(SSRI), second(tricyclic), or even third line(MAOI) treatment for depression.

Your idea that you need to be sad to be happy is common among people who suffer from depression. But being depressed isn't 'part of the roller coaster'. You most certainly can have the highs without the lows...except if you're on mood stabilizers which work wonders at taking away both.

What's most concerning to me is that you credit your depression with so much of your accomplishments and motivation. There is absolutely no honor in suffering. That's just you buying in to a narrative. I feel happy when I've accomplished something. Other days I feel moderately happy and driven to accomplish something. No depression necessary.

And yes, I suffered from severe depression for years but would prefer not to discuss it publicly ;).

<comment><USER11> As someone who has been in the same place, I agree completely. My reaction to SSRIs was first a minor euphoria (just bubbly but a bit numb) and ever since then I have been, well, normal.

Zak, what you're saying is true, up to a certain point. Life has lows, because sometimes, it just fucking sucks. However, you don't and can't see the difference between a low and depression. They are worlds apart. Please, please, give medicine another chance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I have found is that you need to separate your personal worth from your startup/professional worth. Do not derive your personal identity from your startup. Although it is easier said than done, but you don't have a choice.

Are you doing anything outside of your startup? Like learning a new language, getting into Art/Movie clubs or travelling?

<comment><USER13> Good advice. It's amazing how we manage to convince ourselves that we arent human, and forget that we need to move around, smell, feel and see new things, talk to other people, eat relaxed meals, walk around, etc. We are animals, and I mean that in a good way. Only a small part of our brain is "rational"... Make sure you keep the rest of it happy too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm in the same boat, and honestly it is comforting to see things like this. I feel like seeing that others are in the same place and struggle with the same things makes me feel like I can get over it too.

I do almost the exact same things as well - massive weight gain, HUGE sleep problems (to the point where I end up going to sleep as the sunrise, sleeping all day), lack of exercise, avoiding friends/gatherings, etc. I haven't left my apartment in 4 days now.

All of this while running a semi-successful (to the point where it pays my bills) consumer facing service company. It is difficult. It's difficult when I can't bring myself to answer the phone, call someone back, or give them an update on an order.

I have history of severe mental illness in my family, and it is actually a bit of a motivator to think of them. The family member in particular literally has spent 10-12 years trying to have a normal life while sleeping 12-18 hours a day, heavily medicated, in and out of hospitals (easily half the year in the hospital, for the past 15+ years), and 100+ ECT treatments. I don't want to be that. I don't want to get that far, and it pushes me to pick up that damn phone or send that email. I know that is a bit twisted, but it works for me. I don't want to hit that low. Oddly enough, any time I've ever seriously contemplated suicide, I've stopped precisely because I know what it would do to this person - I can't imagine bringing that much pain to my family and making them go through that. I don't know if they could handle it. I've had the unfortunate experience of walking in on a suicide attempt and driving their blood covered body to the hospital, and I know the way I felt there is nothing I would ever put someone through, no matter how much I wanted to.

I also have literally zero interest in talking about it - which is tough, but I know the first reaction from my family would be medication, and I absolutely refuse.

I'm rambling now, but that's probably good. Interesting what you'll say on a throwaway that you'd never dare with your name attached.

<comment><USER4> why even use a throwaway? I don't understand why people do this. It seems very ego-centric to think people really really care/judge you if you post something like this. People are mostly preoccupied with themselves - they'll think about your troubles for a day, but not a minute more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've often read that is a correlation between bipolar and starting up a company: "the highs are higher, the lows are lower." (Which tends to cause which is academic.)

Here's what I've discovered: _the highs are far more dangerous than the lows_. The highs are good, whether they're based on real-world success, or your invisible fuel, the die-hard belief in what you're pursuing. You need those highs: milk them for all their worth.

But what goes up, must come down. Whether based on a real setback, or a stray negative thought, it doesn't take much to send you back down to earth, or straight through to hell. When the confidence evaporates, suddenly those unpleasant realities you were dismissing all hit you at once, and it's too much to deal with.

Everything you mentioned is great for riding out depression: sleep, a good meal, exercise, relaxation. You've got the treatment covered quite well. But after you bounce back, pay attention to that "winning" feeling, and work on moderating it to just the level you want, so that it can burn for longer, and you have less far to fall. Keep spending time on basic human needs, even when you're on top and you feel capable of 18-hour days.

Ideally, you want a steady engine, not bursts of up and down. But those will still happen sometimes; roll with it, forgive yourself, ride it out, and keep moving. Good luck!

(This is just a bit of awareness I picked up about myself; your mileage may vary.)

</comment><comment><USER16> 1\. Eat slow burning carbs. This has the double effect of forcing you to eat slower[ie you will eat less] and giving you a longer lasting energy.

2\. Eat foods that will enhance dopamine: banana, avocado, almond nuts, ginseng, tangerine, red clover.

3\. Keep away from food you are allergy too.

4\. 10 minutes of exercise can get endorphins pumping but for a good kick, look for like 20mins. [You might struggle to get your first 10mins in but push through]

5\. Give friends a call[maybe even by cam], better yet visit them.

6\. Go get three massages[consecutive days] or ask a friend to give you a hand massage.

7\. Cinnamon and Honey Tea. Mix a teaspoon of cinnamon and honey in hot water[about a cup]. Cinnamon and Honey both have anti-bacterial properties and strengthen the immune system.

<comment><USER17> I concur that diet and general physical well-being, as well as social interactions, do indeed matter very much, and apparently heavily influence in often not obvious ways our mood and outlook.

<comment><USER18> Whilst I'm sure all these suggestions may help to some extent, none of them address the underlying issues. This isn't something that can be cured by vitamin pills or bike rides. The only solution is a complete lifestyle change which the author admits he can't make at the minute.

My worry is that well meant suggestions like the above may sound flippant to someone in the depths of depression (I'd frankly be upset if I told someone I was depressed and they told me to get a massage). I guess the best short-term suggestion is just to talk to someone about it.

Good luck to both the poster and anyone else going through similar troubles.

<comment><USER17> I agree that such tone and lack of justification might sound a bit off- putting—I left grandparent trying to soften that impression. (Add: Although I like chegra's post for its practicality. If you follow that advice, there's a very high change you will feel better no matter what.)

However, your statement about 'underlying issues' is confusing. You don't name these, yet claim that they can't be cured by certain methods. I wonder what, in your opinion, these issues are.

I think they often are just these—bad diet and physical shape, lack of social interaction. And bike rides _can_ help that (especially considering mostly sedentary lifestyle).

Although there's another important thing that may be an issue, which you actually reminded me about. It's hard to communicate what it is—maybe it could be called 'mental shape'.

My latest depression basically ended when I learned to allow my mind to rest, and gained some control over my thoughts. I often see studies now suggesting that our well-being inversely depends on how much we _think_. I have an impression at the moment that certain brain activity (which is related to abstract thinking and appears to happen somewhere in frontal lobe) does indeed contribute to feeling unhappy, that being in 'flow' reduces that activity, and that trying to do multiple things at once / frequent context switching increases that activity.

Anyway, since that depression I still experience difficult periods sometimes, but I think they are mostly health-induced. We shouldn't underestimate how physical problems can influence our thinking. E.g., you can eat food that you're unknowingly allergic to, it will make you feel constantly tired, therefore forcing you to spend most of your time at home, the consequences of which (lack of sunlight / movement, for two) can cause yet another host of problems, and so on.

To sum up, my supported by anecdotal evidence, layman speculations, and personal experience opinion is that depression is often caused by being, probably unknowingly, out-of-shape mentally (i.e., overthinking) and/or physically (bad diet, other health problems).

I hope OP will feel better soon. Being out to a coffee-shop is already good, keep it up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really respect you for taking the leap and talking about it. This is not an easy decision to make, particularly for folks like me who trend towards stoicism, even at the best of times.

It can be excrutiatingly painful to talk about that which everyone knows, but keeps quiet. In doing so, you not only help yourself resolve your issues, but also allow those who come after you to get a more honest lay of the land, and more ably deal with the challenges that await them.

For that, I salute you.

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER20> The state of HN: a lot of unqualified people giving idiotic advise to someone who needs professional help.

<comment><USER21> this. psychiatric issues, in whatever form they may present, are (a) not really diagnosable from a blog post and (b) often treatable and result in a good quality of life. go and seek professional help. get a referral from a medical professional, not friends or family.

"Eat slow burning carbs"... seriously?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Stop drinking and any recreational drugs immediately.

You need to be having fun doing your startup or you won't be able to succeed and should do something else. So if you're spending most of your time writing code, try to make it fun again. If you can't then I recommend the following:

Go and get a physical job for a few months, preferably somewhere rural. It will remind you what real hard work is like, get you physically fit and give you the satisfaction of having achieved something tangible at the end of your day. Come back when you're ready.

<comment><USER23> I like this advice (physical work) and its been in the back of my mind for a while as a way to take a break from the continuous onslaught of pressure to 'keep up' with developments in my craft and to give me time to consolidate what I have learnt in the last 15 year sprint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> dude I deal with this shit literally every day. I've spent a ton of time studying what can be done, and lately I've decided to use my skills as a web developer/startup guy to build a tool that can (hopefully) really help people like you and I.

Please email me (if OP is reading this, or anyone else who wants to discuss this) at email@example.com and I'll share what I'm planning. If you're a rails guy, we can even collaborate on the project (even if you're not, we can figure something out).

EDIT: To add some more to this, don't give up on drugs just yet. I've been taking Prozac for the last few months and it's made a HUGE difference for me. Not saying it's the right drug for you necessarily, but definitely experiment with different options (legally experiment). For instance, I was on Lexapro a few years ago and it royally screwed up my stomach and didn't fix anything.

</comment><comment><USER25> Glad to see people suggesting exercise (spacefood, chaostheory, juliano_q, others), as well as other tools to change the underlying depression. I think the important takeaway is that this is not "startup depression" -- it's depression. You'll be happier/more successful if you find a way to get rid of it.

Sure, running a startup is going to have ups and downs. Sure, you'll sometimes fail at what you're trying to do, and you'll sometimes feel that failure deeply. Failing comes from trying to do something really difficult; taking that failure personally comes from being human.

But as a general rule, the founders I know from the (pretty hoppin') Boston scene are born optimists. More than any other group of people I know, they believe despite the odds, they bounce back quickly, and they have pretty tough skins.

Depression is hard to sort out, but totally worth it. It's worth it for anybody, but necessary for founders because of the up & down nature of running a startup. I spent much of my adult life beating my head against a wall, occasionally being depressed, and not understanding why I couldn't make sh*t happen. Then a few years ago I figured myself out (combination of exercise, gratitude, & therapy), and since then everything has been different. Externally, my life took a major turn for the better in every arena from relationships to finances. Internally, I just don't have the resistance I used to really suffer from, and my downs are pretty short. It rocks.

So I guess I feel your pain, but don't glorify it. Do the work to get over it. You'll be much happier.

</comment><comment><USER26> You are viewing life through gloom filled lenses. It doesn't have to be this way.

I have been working alone/startups for about 3 years when I quit my last job. I was majorly depressed for over 3 years without realizing it, because on the surface it seemed like I had "the good life" (vacationing every 2-3 months, a bunch of friends, great income, etc) but everything I tried was sluggish, I felt demotivated and alone. Only when I checked myself into cognitive therapy did I realize how bad things were upstairs.

Over the years I built up all these inaccurate beliefs in myself and others without correcting them and letting them run rampant. I dedicated 2 hours a day in reading and practicing exercises + 1 hr / week cognitive behavioral therapy sessions for about 6 months, and it is by far the best investment I have spent. While they can't fix your problems so that you will never be depressed again, but it definitely helps you realize when you are thinking inaccurately, showing warning signs of depression, and things to help you cope.

If you can not afford therapy, then I suggest reading the book recommended by my therapist, "feeling good" by david burns. It helped me a lot more than any advice from parents, friends, strangers on the internet ever did.

You're welcome to reach out to me if you have any questions.

</comment><comment><USER27> Can we give him some feedback and advice on Upverter so he can take it to the next level?

I think it's an interesting site. But I'm not sure a subscription model is the way to go. I do know R&D teams are gonna have a hard time getting permission to use it. They have all the tools they need, their projects are secret, it's not going to fly with upper management.

I do like the fact that you can search for components and buy them. I'm sure there's some affiliate revenue in there. Although I have to say, it's probably not that easy, because companies usually have long-term agreements in place with suppliers, there's a lot of bureaucracy, you have to get a purchase order before you're allowed to buy something. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that's usually the way it is. And it's a problem for Upverter.

Getting PCBs manufactured is a good idea as well, especially for people who use Kickstarter and want to build a prototype. The companies I know might be hesitant to use it. Especially for R&D projects, they will use their own equipment or outsource it to a local supplier they know they can trust. And this guy is going to say it's gonna cost you x, but I can do it cheaper if you let me manufacture the first 10,000 units. And it gets really tricky when you're working on a cutting edge product, because you can't always buy every component off the shelf. The manufacturer is gonna say ok, I'm gonna help you but I can't buy component x cheap enough, or I'm gonna help you but you have to ship me component a,b,c before day x.

The design of your site looks really good but you need photographs of products that have been build. You may not care about that but if you're going after the Kickstarter market, then you're in the business of making dreams come through. You need to appeal to the senses.

</comment><comment><USER28> Zak. Please listen to me. I suffer depression, but you know what has helped me immensely? Lifting HEAVY weights.

Give it a try. Lift HEAVY weights for at least 4-5 days a week, and make it the absolute NUMBER ONE PRIORITY in your life for that month.

Closely monitor how you feel, and how your mind thinks during that month.

Try this ASAP Zak. It will IMPROVE YOUR LIFE.

P.S. Sorry if I come off as a spazz. I just really believe in what I'm saying.

<comment><USER29> Are you following any specific program?

<comment><USER30> If you want an excellent program for beginning weight training, look into Starting Strength developed my Mark Rippetoe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I see startup depression as a sort of cost of the lifestyle. If your existence depends on the success of your own project, this can be an enormous weight to bear. If you have a bad day, it can easily turn into a bad week if you're not careful.

For me, when things aren't going my way, I just say, "Fuck it" and move on to the next problem. You're are going to lose sometimes, but who cares? You're going to win.

If sheer willpower doesn't work, I usually exercise and clean my apartment. The point is to secure little victories here and there to get you motivated. I can definitely say that doing the dishes and pumping out some push-ups have been the catalysts for some great ideas in the past.

At the end of the day everyone is experiencing some sort of depression every once and while. At least you're doing something awesome. Most people aren't. Remember that.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wow, there's so much one could say on this subject. I'd post a lengthier response, but I don't have time right now, so I'll just say this:

Startup depression (hell, depression in general) is a serious problem. And while I'm no doctor or psychiatrist or anything, to the extent that just a "friendly ear to bend" can be useful, I offer myself up as such, to anybody dealing with depression. I've struggled with it myself to some extent, so I know what it's like. By all means, feel free to email me, call me, whatever, if you're ever feeling down and need somebody to talk to. If you happen to be in or near the RTP, NC area, we can meet in person over a coffee/beer/dinner whatever.

Also, if you're looking for other startup minded folks in this area to socialize with, definitely ping the RTP Hackers and Founders mailing list.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you have a depression you need help. Talk to your doctor, and don't dismiss the assistance of drugs. Also exercising is known to help against depression.

<comment><USER34> If you have any kind of trouble with depression the first thing you should always check is that you exercise and eat right. It really makes a huge difference. You may also need to experiment with different drugs to find one that works for you but you're wasting your time if you don't exercise. EXERCISE!

<comment><USER35> I was reading that 30 min of exercise 3 times a week is one of the most successful therapies for depression available. It doesn't mean that some people don't still need medication on top of that, but starting with the exercise (preferably something like getting out and, say, walking out-doors) is good, as is attention to diet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have always found that the fastest way to get out of a funk is to talk. Guess you have already started by sharing on HN. If possible, do the same thing in real life. Just get a friend and tell him/her all these things and maybe you will get a hug. A hug always helps :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Hi,

Thanks for writing this, it's a brave and open and honest thing to do where people are afraid of doing those things. At a certain point, we have to get over what others think and get to figuring out what we think, and how it should be.

I believe a person does whatever they do to find a certain amount of peace in themselves and their lives.

I'd like to share some scraps I've scraped together on finding, and keeping a positive and healthy inner-dialogue and energy. This discipline has helped me more than any education, talent, skill that I have. It fuels them all. The below is not perfect, no one is perfect, there is no perfection to attain, only better discipline.

I put the pursuit of a better-self like taking a shower, I have to remind myself daily, in my words that have meaning to me, or my energy will stink.

Every action, every choice we take is ultimately geared at getting to a peaceful flow, focused and purposeful.

Whether the actions are dietary, physical, sensory, emotional, mental input, all aim at getting a neurological hit of the great peace that comes from great understanding / accomplishment.

Deep, meaningful, fulfilling, satisfying, lasting peace and contentment that fuels us forward. Soak that idea up.

The thing is, the things we pursue to find this peace / flow / focus / presence in the present / attention don't provide it. The things that we need to do (build healthy habits and discipline to over-ride and reset us when we're in a rut), we don't build enough muscles of.

Strengthening weaknesses and weakening what we need our strengths to be doesn't work, and ends up feeding the monster of ineffectualness. Sounds easy enough to understand, but pay attention to what you say, do, and say you do and increase the discipline of consistency between those three.

Whenever I look around me and say this sucks, it's usually because everything around me is moving, and I'm not.

My most favorite reminder; Keep moving. Inward, onward, upward.

A lot of folks take logical thinking to the extreme of building so many doubts that they seem so insurmountable that they lose the spark of possibility in themselves. They then turn to spreading their belief in the insurmountability of their doubts by helping others doubt themselves, partially to validate the fact that their own doubts were insurmountable. I call this spreading confusion and doubt. Everyone does it, some worse than others.

Filters and finding doubts in something are really important. Having it be the only way you see life fuels imbalance.

I like living in possibility and creativity, more than doubt and elimination of possibility. So I try to stay there more, than doubt.

Consider if a lack of peace comes from trying to understand something with our mind when we should be trying to understand it with our heart, or our gut, or vice versa. A lot of pain happens here and wears anyone down.

If something is becoming a zombie like experience, throw a wrench into it. Change your perspective. Get out, Get away, change it up. Instead of fuelling doubts in a negative downward spiral, learn, and then remember to hit the reset button to start fuelling possibility and forever spiral upward.

What if, instead of why not. How can, instead of how can't. The mind is amazing. It will see what you want, connection, or disconnection, relation, or unrelatedness and deliver time and time again.

I'm a big fan of logic. I'm a bigger fan of awareness and understanding, which isn't black and white, but a lot of colours that make up the picture.

If we don't like what we see, change how we see it. It's all there.

Our dominant world viewpoint is the true religion through which we see and process the world inside, and outside of us.

A threatened person lives in a threatening world. A scared person lives in a scary world. An untrustworthy person lives in an untrusting world. A trusting person lives in a trusting world.

Prolonged visits in one ups or downs aren't productive, or fun. I pick centered, serene, calm, focus over ups or downs any day and try to saturate my life with it. Reminders all around me.

Why peace? It's the closest to the flow. We keep getting what we've been getting, when we keep what we've been doing. If we don't want what we have, we have to change what we're doing. It's important to work on your awareness of your awareness, and your awareness of your thinking to catch it.

The main culprit; thinking. We aren't supposed to figure things out before we do them all the time, or where would the journey and discovery of ourselves be? All we can work on is developing the best mindset for the journey and head in the best direction we know how.

It's too easy to get into a cycle of analysis paralysis. Of trying to understand everything to the end, before doing anything.

For me, I tend to notice thinking rarely solves problems worth solving. Problems worth solving come from going on the path of experiencing them, not staying in them,and going through them.

Let me know what you like, or don't.

0.02

<comment><USER37> This is very wise advice. Have you ever heard of Ken McLeod, the Buddhist teacher? Your essay reminds me of him.

<comment><USER7> Hi, I haven't heard of Ken McLeod, but I'll look him up. I like reading.

I'm not a Buddhist per say, I did go through my Dalai Lama phase and saw him speak in person.. but we should be able to learn from every great teaching.

Universal truths exist in all great writings, spiritual, or not, and it's up to us to subdue our ego to learn to take the good from everything with our so called open-mindedness. Doubt really is the enemy.

I should have added one thing: My problems aren't unique, nor are my thoughts unique. No one's are. Very little thought or problems are unique or though about for the first time.

Man has been trying to figure their shit out for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Their journeys exist in books.

IF with our our ego we feel we have to locate and connect all the dots ourselves, so be it. But, not everyones doing this at the same time, or on the same page, or see the same picture from connecting their dots.

Too often we feel we don't have a single soul to talk to, and my words are more to reach anyone feeling that. It's not right.

All of this begins with an always growing and improving relationship with ourselves, fuelled by curiosity.

Are there Ken McLeod essays I should check out first? Feel free to email :)

<comment><USER37> The emphasis on peace and on understanding and connecting to problems through experience rather than logic and doubt is what reminded me of him. He hasn't written much about these things, they come up more in his talks for long-time students. They're in A Trackless Path somewhere, for instance:

[http://www.unfetteredmind.org/category/retreats/a-trackless-...](http://www.unfetteredmind.org/category/retreats/a-trackless- path)

but that's approximately 25 hours of audio, and I can't pin it down more precisely that. (But the whole thing is good, and a concrete approach to the desiderata you outlined.)

Of his essays, probably the most conceptually interesting is his series on karma as an evolutionary process.

<http://www.unfetteredmind.org/karma-genesis-conditions/0>

<http://www.unfetteredmind.org/karma-growth/0>

<http://www.unfetteredmind.org/karma-two-approaches/0>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Speaking as a straight male:

Surround yourself with beautiful women; it's hard to get sad around beautiful women. I'm no stranger to the darkness, and I know that in some environments, I feel everyday, just as you do.

Force a change, go somewhere else. I found SV to be beautiful, but how long can you really stay in a male-dominated atmosphere, and still stay sane/happy? I know this sounds _really_ shallow, but pause for a moment and think about it. Regardless of what's logical, sometimes you need to surrender to your base instincts - especially when you're dealing with illogical, irrational emotions.

<comment><USER39> _Surround yourself with beautiful women; it's hard to get sad around beautiful women._

If you actually do this, you may find that you'll be sad in a way that you never expected before. Fantasies unexpectedly realized are emptied of their purpose and become just another form of unsatisfactory reality.

<comment><USER40> That depends on personality. Many artists found looking or spending time with beautiful woman their way to achieve something otherwise they couldn't. They were their "inspiring thing". While to others, its a distraction from higher goals. So, his advice may work 50/50.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Yep...know how you feel bud. Thanks for sharing out loud.

I want to add one additional suggestion. I think lack of light and Seasonal Affective Disorder gets mixed into the normal startup depression quite frequently. It's never surprising to me when people feel depressed during winter months. The lack of light, lack of vitamin D—it contributes heavily.

Now, the OP mentioned this is a once-a-quarter pattern, so S.A.D is clearly not the only thing at play. But I would be willing to bet that it contributes.

For those that know me, I'm a huge evangelist of light products to solve insomnia. In the winter, these same light products solve for S.A.D. My old post on insomnia has lots of good links: [http://www.humbledmba.com/become-a- morning-person-how-to-end...](http://www.humbledmba.com/become-a-morning- person-how-to-end-insomnia-f)

My new favorite light product is the NatureBright Per 3 ([http://www.amazon.com/NatureBright-PER3-Deluxe-Light- Therapy...](http://www.amazon.com/NatureBright-PER3-Deluxe-Light- Therapy/dp/B000S5X5U4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330674313&sr=8-1)). It's well worth a try.

Whatever you buy, make sure it provides minimum 5000 lux and that you use it at least 30 minutes a day.

And finally— Regardless of all this, props to you for writing a wonderfully authentic post. And it's already quite obvious with the comments here that you are not alone. Keep at it.

<comment><USER14> Interesting - the person in my comment below does use this with the S.A.D lights. I also remember seeing hats/visors that do this as well, if that may be a bit easier for your work/movement.

They also moved to Florida for months at a time, which seems to help as well. Not exactly practical for many of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you're an introvert and charge your batteries by being alone, then find a way to do that without worrying about your day-to-day stresses. For me if I'm getting too zonked out, I end up in StarCraft II pissing myself off by playing with newbs - but it's different enough that it gets my mind off of work.

If you're an extrovert and charge your battery by interacting with others, make sure you do enough of that by going out to events, networking, listening to other founders' stories. Personally I'm a little of both and I find that when I'm out meeting with other startups and listening to their issues, throwing out ideas to help them makes me happier and charges my battery. In a way, it's my version of charity work but getting inspired by solving different problems for others work for me.

As a founder of a few startups myself, I do go through similar cycles where I'd work myself to death for about 3 months and then have 3 months of absolute laziness/depression where I want to do nothing but space out. I'm okay with it cause I know if something motivates me, I usually snap out of my funk. You mentioned you've been in this cycle for awhile, maybe try thinking of something completely different, something inspiring, or maybe go see someone about it.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER43> I can only sympathize, I'm on the end of a 3-year product development cycle myself and it hasn't always been easy.

Some tips from my own experience:

1\. Focus more on all the positive things that will happen when you succeed than thinking of all the bad things that will happen if you dont. It's easy to imagine all kinds of worst case scenarios, especially when your plagued by a a little doubt. Try to have faith and power through

2\. Exercise! Trite as it might sound exercise is really important for mental well being and can lift your spirits if you're feeling down

3\. Surround yourself with people that give you energy. Now I'm not saying you should only socialize with sycophants and yay-sayers but some people can be a real drain on a persons motivation.

4\. Embrace "the fear". So things are hard, you're not sure you going succeed. On the other hand, you can probably look back at similar times in your life which now seems like exciting learning experiences. Realize that you're in the middle of one of those and chose be excited about it.

4\. Don't let other people bring you down. Those who says it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it. Some good ideas are only evident in hindsight so don't listen too much to the naysayers.

5\. Get some perspective, even if things can seem bad and insurmountable I'm sure we all can imagine people who do everything for the same oppurtunity or people with far worse problems.

6\. Adopt an attitude of every mistake being an learning opportunity. Don't be angry at yourself for making them. Be glad that it didn't take you longer to find out your mistake and glad that youre wiser for it

<comment><USER44> It's taken me a long time to learn this - but the times where you don't feel like exercising are _precisely_ the times I need to exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> OP - I'm sad that you had such a bad experience with meds, and I'm sad that experience makes you not trust doctors. You should be in control of any medication you take, and if it has bad side-effects your doctor should be willing to change meds.

Please may I make some suggestions? I have no medical training, and it's a good idea to talk to doctors.

1) Make a "rainy day action plan" and give it to someone you trust. This would have a list of signs that things are not going well (either too high or too low) and that you might need some help. It would include a list of things to do, and people to contact, when you do need help. It would also include any "Advance Directives" (written instructions for clinicians about your future treatment) I don't know if they exist in your country, but they're a strong and useful tool in the UK.

2) Consider regular vigorous exercise. There's plenty of evidence that good exercise helps lift moods. Be careful when you're feeling up that you do not over-exercise.

3) Consider being very careful with the amount of alcohol you drink. Alcohol depresses mood. Sometimes people feel the effect for a day or so after drinking even a small amount. This is especially important if you're drinking alone. (The UK has the concept of "units" for public health about drinking. If you're drinking more than 21 units a week, without 48 hour breaks after a heavy drink session, you may be risky for physical harm)

4) Consider being careful with caffeine. Some people feel the affect more strongly than others.

5) Consider "sleep hygiene". Sleep is often disturbed with mood disorders. Sleep hygiene is the first line treatment. Then you could try CBT for sleep disorders if you can find it. Otherwise a short course of a z drug may help kick you back into a sleep rhythm.

</comment><comment><USER45> A bit OT but I just have to say that I'm ridiculously impressed with Upverter.

</comment><comment><USER46> I've been in the same situation for years. Skimmed the article, but I get it.

Here's what I do:

1) I have a social life even if I "should" be working. I have people over for dinner several times a week and have regular friend dates, often with other entrepreneurial folk who don't have day jobs.

2) I rock climb several times a week and do yoga and a short workout daily so I keep fit. I also eat well, drink lots of water and avoid sugar. (Drinking water and avoiding sugar is THE KEY to avoiding depression. So easy to spot the cause and effect when I fall off the wagon.)

3) I consult part time, now primarily with another startup, working out of their office. Gives me the cash to pay someone to help me with my startup so I'm not working alone, reminds me of how useful I am instead of feeling like a failure for making the mistakes I made with my own startup, and keeps me socialized and energized.

4) I take mini-vacations. Mostly local music festivals and short camping trips to get me out and connected to nature. Hell, that reminds me, I'm going to go buy some winter gear and go!

</comment><comment><USER47> Your psychological position is negatively affecting your ability to function. This is by definition a psychological disorder.

Let me state it clearly: it is extremely unlikely that your depression has anything to do with "startups" or your work life.

Quitting your job might be a good idea, but only insofar as it will free up time for you to focus on getting treatment. In and of itself, quitting your job won't solve your problem.

Paradoxically, the reason you're so miserable is likely tied to the fact that you love what you're doing so much, or put another way, that you're doing just what you want to be doing.

Get help. If you don't, you're never going to feel better even if everything goes perfectly in your professional life.

</comment><comment><USER48> I wholeheartedly suggest a combination of diet and exercises (many can be made at home). I recently discovered Nerd Fitness, a blog directed to nerds that is getting some attention (Steve Kamb, the man behind it, gave talks to Google and FB) and it is pretty much changing my life.

I am not saying that this is the cure, but from my experience with depression I think that much of it is related to physical activity and general welfare. And a good diet (paleo works very well for me) and fitness can help a lot.

[http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/02/23/a-newbies-guide-to- ne...](http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/02/23/a-newbies-guide-to-nerd- fitness/)

</comment><comment><USER49> There seems to be a lot of people here going through some of the same feelings, I know I have. Sometimes you just lose yourself when you're working on something you want to win. I know I've needed to take a step back and get myself back together at times. A lot of people have suggested eating right, exercising, and taking a break, which I find helps quite a bit to restart the mind and body. We're sort of like engines and if we don't get a proper oil change once in a while, we'll have trouble starting up. So keep an eye on your mileage and if a refill doesn't work, you might need to see a mechanic.

</comment><comment><USER50> You may be sad and tired, but you're not alone.

[http://rondam.blogspot.com/2011/11/it-gets-better-geek- versi...](http://rondam.blogspot.com/2011/11/it-gets-better-geek-version.html)

</comment><comment><USER51> Hey Man, Thanks for writing this. Depression is tough, and putting it out there for the world to see makes it even tougher. Hang in there. You have been through this, so you know things will get better. It just takes time. Keep pushin, keep fighting.

The best advice I had ever heard is to not make happiness a goal. Happiness is a state of mind. If you make happiness a goal you will spend so much effort looking for it that you will never actually find it.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER52> I didn't see this in the post, but I can't help but stress the importance of exercise to help fight depression; I think it's better than any drug.

</comment><comment><USER53> No you are not alone. But that might be part of the problem. Get a dog. I know I know. You don't have the time to care for a dog. But you do. Cause you'll make time. And hire a dog walker. I do. She comes in every day and walks my 95lbs lab/dane mix. Most dog walkers will feed your dog too, if needed.

Coming home to an empty house gets old fast.

<comment><USER7> A fish might be a practical pet too. A betta fish is a gift I often give to friends who live alone.

They're hearty, easy to take care of and really low maintenance, and live in tiny tanks without any issue that will fit on your desk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I find getting something done, _anything_, gets me out of a slump the best. _Try to make it the most important thing possible_ , but don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. Forcing yourself to do something will often help your mind work out any ambiguities along the way.

</comment><comment><USER55> No reason to be depressed, your project looks great. There are people out there with real reasons to be - no family, no loved ones, bad health, no realization. People who have cool projects (should) have a meaningful live.

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't have much to add to the excellent advice and discussion already given, but this is the first I heard of Upverter, and it looks awesome. Wish I had this when I was studying engineering in college.

</comment><comment><USER57> I think Upverter might be one of the most important app that exists today.

Try pitching them internationally in schools, colleges, universities... You will gain overwhelming momentum.

</comment><comment><USER58> Tip #1: Start yoga immediately (hot yoga preferably).

Find a 30 or 40-day challenge, and start going every damn day. Even if it's the only thing you do in the day.

I'd suggest Bikram to kick your ass into forcing you to letting go. The routine + regular space you create for yourself + endorphines and healing it will allow your body do will change your mindset within 1 month's time.

This will create the space for you too, to do all of the little things that you felt like you couldn't get done.

Maybe I should connect with people by bringing other founders to yoga classes. I'd actually love connecting with people that way. I'm living in Kingston (Ontario) right now, though planning to travel the next 3-4 months looking for technical + other people who we have a good rapport with to join me.

Let me know if you're open for a visitor and to be dragged to some yoga. :)

Tip #2: Therapy can help a lot, not medication-based, but talk based. In my opinion medications poison your mind and lessen your overall potential (not forgetting the hit and miss with finding one that 'works' for you, and realizing newer studies show they're not really any better than placebo for most people). And you can reach the same level of flow in life with proper support and doing things every day to take care of yourself.

I've been seeing someone for over a year now, who's an Innerchild/Regression therapist - really just looking at how you react and feel in different situations and helping you release past things that you are suppressing and are holding you in a certain pattern. I'm unimaginably farther ahead in my self-awareness and balance than I was a year ago.

Tip #3: Upverter looks fantastic. I'm jealous at how far along you are with it. I'm at least a year away from reaching the same place you're at with your company, with having a team, and product at the same place (and that's with some luck!).

If you want some unsolicited design tips.. let me know. The tour I think would work better if you just put it all in a scrolly. I think you'd find you'll expose more people to all of the information (continuing to scroll is much easier than having to click around).

Happy to see a fellow Canadian sharing on HN!

I have a few more little design thoughts if you'd interested.

Otherwise, you're on track - just start yoga - and let me know if you want me to visit and drag you the first few times. It's nice to have expectations set by someone who's been doing it 4 1/2+ years, and I also did a 200-hour Hatha yoga teacher training in the summer.. so I'm a little qualified to offer yogic advice. :)

</comment><comment><USER59> Get laid more often. More often.

<comment><USER60> What's brilliant about this is it directly, but unmentioned, provides actual social interaction and communication with another person. Even just having a person you regularly get coffee with before work for long enough to have a real conversation would be a great interjection to the daily routine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Give p90x a try

</comment><comment><USER62> That pretty much nails it: "You quite simply can't change the world in a couple of years without doing more than most people do in a lifetime."

Don't be depressed boss. Cheer up, and fly out to Himalayas for a small break. You'll get all the peace of mind hereand flip be ready to flip back again with full swing!

<comment><USER63> so easy said than done, I was once depressed and tears were the order of the day. I kept on convincing myself that i will be better but all was in vain. Everything you try, nothing comes out well, when you try to sleep all you see is the end of the world. Its rely a trying moment But thanks God I feel better now

<comment><USER62> I totally agree. That this is easier said than done goes without saying it. But trust me, meditation (Yoga) in ambiance of the Himalayas works wonders like a magical potion. Even Steve Jobs turned to the space of this place during his absolute lows.

<comment><USER63> Think about this, not every depression have medication. Walk into any drugstore with complains about depression. what will they recommend,"sedatives" to enable you to have good sleep. To my concern this is not the solution.</comment></comment></comment></comment>