Who knew cereal was so bad for you? - <AUTHOR> http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/a-cheeseburger-for-breakfast/

<comment><USER4> In the 1930s to 1950s, anything starchy was bad for you (Ask your grandmother) - In the 1950s - 1980s fat became the new evil. Then it was cholesterol, and saturated Fats. Then Transfatty Acids. For a small period of time there was a niche rebellion against all things carbs, and now it looks like we're coming back against refined sugars (or all things refined white)

After reading a bit of anti-carb propaganda (Taubes) and being drawn into the "Wow, there are really bad things that you can eat" worldview - I decided to educate myself, and wget downloaded about 16,000 journal articles from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (They let you do this for $25, with the only request being that you put a 3 second delay between requests. Some awk/sed skills required to parse out the URLs, but not much. Totally download time was 39 hours)

After reading through 40 or 50 of those articles on topics like "metabolism", "glycolysis", "diabetes", (btw - can anyone recommend a good PDF index tool - Lucene is really not easy to plug/play install - I ended up using recursive grep -il on the pdftotext versions to track down docs (very 1993) - but surely someone has solved the problem of indexing 16,000 PDFs in a directory - <USER2> fu did not yield much, surprisingly) - I realized that I needed to pick up more education.

Two books I'm making my way through:

      o Essential Cell Biology, Second Edition - $7+shipping.[1]
      o Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, Fourth Edition - $14+Shipping. [2]

Plus, the one I really, really want - but used 2004 editions are insanely expensive, and there has been a lot of useful developments in nutrition and metabolism since 1999

      o Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism [3]

Thank goodness for a generous "Amazon.com Look Inside" allowance - I've probably spent about 10+ Hours perusing this book.

My takeaway, after admittedly putting only three or four months into this topic, is the following:

      o Very little has been donein the way of double-blinded,
        placebo controlled, rigorous nutrition studies.

      o The few that _have_ done these studies, have usually
        come in with an agenda (Low Fat, Low Cholesterol, Low
        Carb).

      o For how important this whole field is, it's amazing
        that we've invested so little.

So yes - most cereal (the exception potentially being anything your Paleo ancestors would have recognized as cereal) is probably bad for you. I'll go farther than the OP and say you're probably kidding yourself if you think that "Corn Flakes" or "Crispy Crunch" is significantly better than "Fruit Loops" - it might be marginally better, but none of the refined stuff is doing great things for the western metabolism.

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081533480X>

[2] <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716743396>

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Nutrition-Metabolism- Sareen-G...](http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Nutrition-Metabolism-Sareen- Gropper/dp/0495116572)

<comment><USER5> Regarding your indexing issue, have you tried SOLR (Lucene powered)? I ran the Blaze VMWare appliance [1], and it worked great for small collection of text- based pdfs.

[1] <http://susegallery.com/a/Kr7Ayv/blaze-appliance-for-solr>

<comment><USER4> I installed, SOLR, of course, but then ran into the challenge of figuring out how to automatically feed in the PDFs. I'll take a look at the Blaze implementation - perhaps they've packaged all the components and cookbooked the installation process. Thanks very much for the pointer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What doesn't seem to be very well appreciated is that starch is chained- together sugar, and has the same effects on the body, yet doesn't have anything like the same stigma attached. The body breaks it down into glucose extremely quickly, starting in the mouth. White bread is very high on the glycemic index scale.

</comment><comment><USER7> It shouldn't be a surprise that `Cascadian Farms Organic Oats and Honey Granola` has a lot of sugar. Honey is a sugar.

</comment><comment><USER8> It may surprise people, but the calories in most sugary cereals aimed at children are almost identical to most adult-oriented cereals.

For example, "Captain Crunch's Peanut Butter Crunch" has 112 kcal for a 27g serving, [1] while Corn Flakes have 101 kcal for a 28g serving. [2]

What differentiates them is the source of those calories: sugary cereals get far more of their calories from simple sugars and fat, while adult cereals are almost all starch.

[1] <http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1521/2>

[2] <http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1527/2>

</comment><comment><USER9> Cereal really does have a lot more sugar than it needs to have. I have made a personal rule that I only buy cereals with <10g of sugar per serving (according to the nutrition facts label). Even that 10g is kind of a lot - it's about equal to 3 sugar packets that you would get in a restaurant.

Anyway, next time you're at the store, try to buy cereals with <10g of sugar and see how limiting that is.

<comment><USER4> I'm beginning to wonder if there is a nutritional or metabolic difference between eating a refined cereal ("Corn Flakes", "Special K") vs eating a cereal with "sugar" added ("Fruit Loops", "Captain Crunch")

Once it hits your digestive system and the respective enzymes (starting in your mouth), they all start to break down to monosaccharides pretty quickly. The problem with these refined carbs is they (A) Don't come along with a lot of the nutrients you would find in leafy greens, natural cereals, and (B) They are frequently missing a lot of fiber which means they all basically get digested and hit your bloodstream.

I'd love to see a comparative study on the relative difference (or lack thereof) between (A) Refined Cereal with Sugar. (B) Refined Cereal zero Sugar (C) White toast.

My sense is your body basically treats them all the same at the end of the day, but I'd still love to see the study.

<comment><USER9> I have only mild hypoglycemia, but I can tell you that my body processes all of those foods a bit differently.

The studies you're looking for are related to glycemic index, I think..

<comment><USER4> Presuming the Glycemic Index of White Flour Bread is the same as White toast:

Glycemic Index Value: (from <http://www.gilisting.com/glycemic-index>)

      Corn Flakes:  82
      Froot Loops™:   69
      White Flour Bread: 71

<comment><USER9> Yes, those sound about right. I try not to eat any of those things.

Glycemic Index is really complicated because it can be affected by what else you eat with the food (like putting milk on cereal), or how you prepare the food (some people think toasting bread can lower the GI).

You're right that "how much sugar per serving" is an oversimplification - <USER3> just use that as a starting point because most nutrition labels don't list GI. And even if they did, the number isn't really meaningful except in the context of everything else in your meal, and whatever else is going on in your body that day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's why I eat steel cut oatmeal, no sugar.

</comment><comment><USER11> Kashi GoLean: 1 cup/52g, 140kcal, 1g fat, 30g carb, 10g fiber, 6g sugars, 13g protein.

<comment><USER12> I like Kashi, but the problem is that the healthy cereals come in much smaller boxes and are much more expensive.

<comment><USER13> It's funny to me that we think nothing of stopping at the gas station and buying a diet coke for two bucks... But when we need to decide between healthy food and crap food all of the sudden that two dollars means so much. Oh How well we have been conditioned by advertising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Filled with sugar, sure, but gives you a morning sugar high to get ready to be productive, which to me is a good thing.

Sugar plus a cup of coffee (caffeine high is good too :-) and I'm ready for a good day of work.

<comment><USER15> That works well if your day ends at 11AM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER17> i always thought scruples sounded like a breakfast cereal loaded with sugar and wasted sentiment.</comment>


New Android App. Looking for Feedback - <AUTHOR> https://www.live-closer.com <comment><AUTHOR> Good day,

I have been working on a project the past few months, and recently released my new Android app to help people live closer to their interests. It's called Live Closer - Cut the Commute.

This will help reduce traffic, saving people time and in the end lowering our carbon footprint to save the environment.

Please check it out and let me know what you think? I am looking to build my user base.

Please find the links to website and Google play below.

Thanks.

Google Play Store - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niel.flutt...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niel.flutt..).

Website - [https://www.live-closer.com/](https://www.live-closer.com/)</comment>


Tuckman's stages of group development - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development <comment><USER2> > Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing

Where does positioning for political power, consolidating that power, then eliminating enemies, then managing upwards and finally leaving behind a husk of a group as you move up fall in this analysis?

Is my cynicism showing? I feel like my cynicism is showing.</comment>


Justin.tv on real TV: CBS 5 interview - <AUTHOR> http://cbs5.com/seenon/local_story_086012853.html <comment><USER2> It's cool that Justin.tv got some news coverage. It's also funny how lame traditional news coverage is. Do they always have to talk in that "newscaster voice?" How do people stand to watch traditional news coverage?

Their chuckles at the end about how Justin.tv is Justin's "job" made _me_ laugh. They seemed kind of small-minded about the potential of what Justin.tv is doing. People might be missing the point of Justin.tv: it's an inexpensive platform for live video broadcast... which is pretty cool!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty impressed with the amount of coverage Justin.tv is gaining. If anything else if worse comes to worse and they don't make it big. This will be a precursor for start ups to build a platform from. But yeah I know I said it might be a waste of time but I think I'll be eating those words soon enough!</comment>


Why Microsoft bought Skype - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2011/05/why-microsoft-bought-skype/ <comment><USER5> I don't believe that at all. Google doesn't need Skype. Microsoft bought Skype because they have large amounts of cash in Europe that they cannot repatriate without taking a huge tax hit. For some strange reason, Ballmer has that obsession with hyperactively pursuing the same consumers that Google and Apple have. That's why he didn't see anything else to buy in Europe (Actually there isn't a whole lot).

But there is something: SAP. What Microsoft should do is take on Oracle and IBM instead of Apple and Google. They should make an offer to that large number of companies who want one thing more than everything else: Peace of mind based on an integrated stack. They are ready to pay up. Microsoft is the master of integration (some call it lock-in). Together with SAP, Microsoft has the most complete enterprise stack imaginable. All of a sudden even Windows Phone would have a place in this world as a BlackBerry successor.

<comment><USER6> I agree with this wholeheartedly -- Microsoft's fatal error was assuming they would continue to be the dominant force in both consumer and enterprise computing. They still own the enterprise. Why they aren't happy with this and focus on taking steps to ensure their dominance there for the next decade is beyond me.

<comment><USER7> They think that what's popular with consumers will eventually make its way into enterprise. Or in other words, their consumer efforts _are_ the steps they're taking to (try to) protect enterprise dominance in the long term.

<comment><USER8> You might have something there! A few years back I wondered if enterprise software was experiencing a disruption because of the way user expectations were being set outside of the company:

[http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control- of-...](http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control-of- apparatus.html)

Maybe Microsoft sees this they way you suggest and believes that by controlling the consumer experience, they will also control the enterprise experience. For example, if they control the dominant VOIP consumer application, their tools can dominate enterprise-VOIP integration.

I don't know if they have the management moxie to pull it off, but I think you may be right about what they're trying to do.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, this isn't my speculation, it's how Ballmer and others have been publicly justifying their decision to continue targeting both consumer and enterprise instead of splitting up into two companies or dumping the consumer side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Skype is the google of VoIP. I recently travelled to Brazil, and needed to make free calls to our US 1-800 number (vs R$18/Minute for the phone in the Blue Tree Marumbi in São Paulo). I had used google voice as a test a few months ago, and spent the better part of 5 minutes trying to figure out how to do it again - but failed - and I'm obviously highly technical. That suggests to me that 95% of your average community of people would not be able to use Google Voice, as it stands today, to make a phone call from Brazil to the United States.

Skype, on the other hand, made it numbingly obvious and about 2 minutes after typing "skype.com" I was making free international calls to US 1-800 numbers.

Purchasing Skype for Telecom is like purchasing Google for Search. You basically will be purchasing the market segment at this point. Lots of good reasons.

And $3.00/Month for unlimited calling to the United States - Wowza! Lots of room to grow fees there. :-)

<comment><USER10> Why did you fail with Google Voice? You pay and then you call a number, what is the difference?

<comment><USER9> Have you called The US from Brazil? They had some geolocation filtering that either made it complex or impossible to make a voice call. Not at all like using it from the united states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _Microsoft bought Skype to keep Google from buying Skype._

Except Google wouldn't buy Skype, according to a recent story: [http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/05/11/google.skype.wire...](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/05/11/google.skype.wired/)

...?

<comment><USER12> ye, this guy is wrong there and in about a dozen other places in this article. notice that you can read all of this and not acutally _learn_ anything.

welcome to 90s era tech punditry

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Am I the only one who has had terrible experience with Skype?

I live in New York but my family is from Australia so I use video-calling them to them all the time. I've tried using Skype but basically it's terrible. Poor audio, choppy frame rates and at some point it will start giving messages about "degraded performance" and we'll lose video.

My setup is a 50Mbps cable line using wireless (N) from a Macbook Pro. The other end is ADSL of varying degrees (1.5 to 10Mbps) on wireless (N) from a Windows PC or laptop.

We've basically given up on using Skype.

What works flawlessly and with much higher quality? Facetime.

Am I really the only one who has had terrible experience with Skype?

My point with this is that Skype is not the dominant video medium it once was, especially not from a technical standpoint.

What's more, video calling is becoming a commodity. I think we're near or above 100M Facetime-capable devices (iPhones, iPod Touches and Macs). Google Talk is available to however many millions of GMail users are out there.

Skype isn't even a strong business (IMHO). Most consumers don't pay, which leaves the business type users who use multiway calling I guess. But where p2p video calling is becoming commoditized, who's to say multiway calling won't quickly follow suit?

Basically, $8.5B for Skype is nuts.

It seems the one who really needed to buy Skype was Facebook who have no video calling to speak of. One wonder if Skype was "the last piece of chocolate cake" syndrome, meaning you want something you otherwise wouldn't just because it's the last piece.

<comment><USER14> Australia has small and expensive pipes to the rest of the world, and it shows up as caps and high prices. I'd be surprised if Australian telcos weren't working hard to degrade VoIP generally.

For my own part, I use Skype for almost every outgoing phone call. I spend perhaps 5 GBP/month on threshold auto-credit. The biggest problems with it happen with concurrent upload activity, especially torrents.

<comment><USER13> This was true 10 years ago but a lot has changed and it's fairly damning evidence of just how much the US has stood still on Internet access in the last decade.

Consider iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP:

<http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html>

200GB/month ADSL2+ for $50/month (+$30/month "phone tax"). In NY I have Time Warner Cable 50Mbps but it's basically capped at 250GB and I think I pay $80/month for it.

But there are three important advantages Australia has in this regard:

1\. The caps are known and advertised. In the US they are far more surreptitious;

2\. You get what you pay for. If you pay for 200GB, you get 200GB. There is no hiding behind "fair use" or nebulous definitions of "unlimited". This also means that a low traffic user can pay as little as $30/month for their ADSL2+ connection. Nor do you get labelled a bandwidth hogged and get transferred to some incredibly oversubscribed network if you dare to download (common practice in the UK); and

3\. If you wish, you can pay for and get 1TB+/month. Where I am, my only choices are TWC and crappy ADSL1 providers. If I wanted >250GB/month I couldn't get it.

And all this is the current system. Australia is in the early stages of rolling out FTTH (fibre to the home) for ~95% of the population with structural separation between providing wholesale and retail services.

So I wouldn't be too quick to crow about Internet advantages in the US over Australia (or anywhere really).

<comment><USER15> But if the overseas pipes are the bottleneck, improved local infrastructure would mean more are fighting to use them.

<comment><USER16> This is not the case. barrkel's statement is outdated and inaccurate.

 _"Each of the four networks that will be providing the bulk of international connections for Australia is capable of carrying at least a terabit per second of data. The total international capacity in use for the Australian market in 2009 is estimated to be around 300 gigabits per second. Accordingly, total capacity usage could double, then double again, then double again, and then double yet again before the capabilities of those networks was exhausted. It would therefore be difficult to say that international networks are a capacity bottleneck in the Australian market."_ [1]

Another cable link currently under construction will double Australia's current capacity. [2]

[1] [http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/358578/nbn_101_float...](http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/358578/nbn_101_floating_submarine_cable_question/)

[2] [http://www.techworld.com.au/article/354838/aus_network_bandw...](http://www.techworld.com.au/article/354838/aus_network_bandwidth_doubled_400m_deal/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tldr: Cringely believes Google is the next Microsoft. Microsoft is worried about its future and bought Skype so Google wouldn't buy Skype. Cringely believes Apple, however, is a magical unicorn that Ballmer cannot even comprehend.

<comment><USER18> Cringely is wrong again.. read Steve Levy's GooglePlex take on it..Google Passed on buying Skype not once but twice..

<comment><USER19> That doesn't rule out the existence of third offer. Just saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Today Ballmer made a full day visit to the Skype development HQ in Tallinn, Estonia.

He also met with the President of Estonia: [http://www.president.ee/en/media/press- releases/6096-preside...](http://www.president.ee/en/media/press- releases/6096-president-ilves-met-with-ceo-of-microsoft/index.html)

It's interesting that while Microsoft-related Nokia in Finland is decreasing headcount, the southern neighbor Estonia's Skype is looking to potentially grow.

<comment><USER21> Skype is now worth almost 50% of Estonia's GDP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here is what Microsoft should do with Skype and it's 140Million-member _social network_ :

Beat Facebook. Turn Skype into Diaspora. (Specifically, take Skype's persistent chatrooms into the next dimension)

Integrate Skype with Windows Photo Album, Movie Maker, Spaces, blah blah. Mayke Skype a _local_ application for managing your personal content -- photos, videos, thoughts, whatever.

Leverage Skype's encrypted P2P infrastructure to make truly privacy-protected social networking. Automatically send status updates and comments and stuff to a user's friends over the Skype network.

Make social network truly social, and not dependent on a central server.

Monetizations: * ads in the the client software * for-pay special privacy settings for business/paranoid: __An Enterprise version that runs inside a private (corporate) network, with centralized IT authority. * For-pay broadcast-type features for self-promoters. * For-pay "professional" and other custom front-end for more specifically-structure communities than Facebook's free for all pseudo-"Friend" relationship.

Let users import/export their data between Skype and other network and blog systems.

Skype could displace Facebook, making social networking better for everyone, and rain money on MS.

<comment><USER23> Wow, that's a great idea for a company that users trust.

If only a company like that had bought Skype...

<comment><USER24> _Wow, that's a great idea for a company that users trust.

If only a company like that had bought Skype..._

The thing is, Microsoft only has to get people to trust them as much or more than Google, Facebook, Sony,...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> According to Cringely "Apple has no peer". I guess that depends on how you look at it. Apple's execution is unparalleled, but the broadness and disruptive nature of Google's strategy is hard to deny. The new Android Open Accessory Development Kit strategy, for example, is something I'd never expect to come from Cupertino or Redmond.

<comment><USER25> Apple did announce the APIs for iPhone accessories a year or so back with iOS 3.0. Scope and traction of Google's and Apple's specifications/APIs might vary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> MS v. Google? v. Apple? After reading this, and the comments, and a little thinking about it, the more this makes sense.

MS has a clear weakness in its lineup. Skype brings a bunch of existing technology and know-how, not to mention all those sweet, sweet users.

Multiply by some factor of Ballmer being an idiot, and 8.5 is almost reasonable.

Part of what convinced me - and I realize HN comments are anectdotal - <USER2> people's impressions of Skype and Google Voice (I've done no more than played with each).

From the sounds of it, Skype's biggest issue is its UI. MS has plenty of experience (and some success ;) with good UIs and backend work.

Other than that, it satisfies its basic function well: it makes the calls. It sounds like Google Voice, at least internationally, isn't as straightforward.

So, they get the users, and a jump on the tech. Okay, decent, but not great, business decision.

Will they turn it into something successful? Ehhhh, I have my doubts. Who knows? Ballmer isn't actually an idiot; maybe he's learned something by now.

*Edit - <USER3>

</comment><comment><USER24> _And the $8.5 billion price? That was effectively set by Google, not Microsoft. Ballmer would have paid anything for Skype. $8.5 billion is just the price at which Google feels it is better for them to build rather than buy._

That's not really 8.5 bil for Skype. The cost to develop that would be a lot less. That's actually 8.5 bil for 140 million active users. That's about $60 a head. Not a bad deal for a big company in the telecom/mobile hardware space.

</comment><comment><USER27> > _Apple is not the next anything because the role it aspires to transcends > anything imaginable by Microsoft, ever._

Really?

Both are publicly traded companies whose role is to make money for shareholders. I don't see how it's possible to transcend this.

<comment><USER28> In related news Einstein failed to transcend homo sapien

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > In the end Apple will probably beat both Google and Microsoft, but that's > not a story for today.

Alright, I stopped reading there. Unfortunately, it was too late.

</comment><comment><USER30> I can't agree with this. The basis of it all doesn't make sense:

> Were Google to buy Skype ... they'd build a brilliant Skype client right > into the DNA of Android

Google has had loads of opportunity to build VOIP functions into Android and has dragged their feet all the way. They already have a a voice chat service and it has no presence in Android (edit: yes, just now they released video chat, but only for a tiny percentage of phones). The latest versions have some SIP functions but it's clearly been kept obtuse enough to prevent any mass consumer take up. Google is heavily constrained by needing not to offend the carriers. The idea that they would en masse integrate something that would destroy their business models is delusional.

</comment><comment><USER10> "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

We didn't hear much ridicule from Ballmer in the last months.....

</comment><comment><USER31> Microsoft is weak on social network, and Skype could be a first step to fixing that.

Skype offers a great foundation for social because the contacts it contains are often better ones than Facebook offers.

By adding to components to what already has an entrenched base, Microsoft can leap forward without trying to "break into" the established market.

<comment><USER32> >the contacts it contains are often better ones than Facebook offers.

Really? That's not my experience. The contacts I have on Skype are the people I call from my computer, not all my friends.

For instance, I don't call my coworkers from Skype, because all their numbers are on my cell phone. I don't call my close friends, because al their numbers are on my cell phone.

In fact, the only contacts I have on Skype are the out-of-town people I video call (my parents, my sister, my niece) and the places I order food for delivery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> strangely, to me Skype deal looks like Storagetek:

1.obsoleting technology (Skype's power is Internet (typically PC, not mobile device) to "real phones" only enabled endpoints - this power is diminishing with communication networks growing today in any other segment except the segment of "real phones"-only enabled endpoints)

2.and commoditization of the rest of their technology - i.e. speech and video over Internet, and their technology not even being better

3.and no noticeable presence in disproportionally growing and more numerous segment of devices - <USER4>

The Skype was just becoming a niche player (in its old niche) and one among many in the rest of the telecom world.

</comment><comment><USER34> He sure has a lot of confidence on how successful Google would be with Skype but that doesn't really jive with reality.

Google's only successful home grown products are Search and Gmail. Android and Youtube are the most successful acquisitions. Voice, Double-Click, and Analytics are doing ok, and then there are about three dozen failures. It is ok to fail but people shouldn't pretend everything Google touches turns to gold. Skype probably has just as much chance as succeeding with Microsoft as it does with Google.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think Microsoft will leverage its relationship with facebook and use skype as their alternative to apple's facetime. Though I am worried about the future of Skype's linux client.

</comment><comment><USER36> Skype+Kinect+xbox can bring video calling to living room. Also, Skype could be a great addition to Windows mobile phones. I think these two might be the main reasons for Microsoft to buy Skype.

Now depends on how well Microsoft does Skype integration with their products.

</comment><comment><USER37> The reason behind this acquisition is signaling to the market, and to Microsof's competitors, that MS is still strong and wants to play as a leader in the market. This acquisition is not justified by business reasons, it's a matter of game theory ;)

</comment><comment><USER38> there are talks about skype integrating with television sets. Think its LG and more to come. Xbox sits next to that tv and is one of the successful products in it's stack. maybe msft wants to be part of your living room?

</comment><comment><USER39> He's expressing an opinion except his style is to state his opinion as fact without providing any evidence at all.

It's not worth reading.

Now if he had predicted this purchase, that would be different.

<comment><USER40> It should be the default understanding that what someone says and writes is their opinion.

Not having that as the default is how we ended up with the terrible popular style "in my opinion it could be argued that for some people it is mostly better if they XYZ, where possible (consult your doctor)".

NB, when I say it's a terrible style, that's my opinion, not a universal truth or peer reviewed fact cited in a published journal.

See?

<comment><USER41> I'm not so sure. I agree that weasel words can destroy a piece of writing, but a complete lack of them can come off badly too. The main effect of killing the qualifiers in your writing is increasing the confidence in the tone of the piece. Obviously, we all have different levels of confidence in our many different opinions, and if you stop using qualifiers all together, you lose the ability to distinguish between different points on the confidence continuum.

If I write with the same confidence about two opinions I have, one I am vey sure of and one I am doubtful about, then I have failed to communicate well. Furthermore, writing in a way that expresses complete confidence in your opinions can change the tone of the conversation that it sparks. When you qualify your opinions, you signal that you are more willing to discuss that point. Speaking with complete surety can shut down a comment thread or turn it more antagonistic.

<comment><USER40> I like your point that the author can assign different levels of confidence to different parts of their writing, but the reader shouldn't automatically mistake the confident sections for facts and the unconfident sections for falsehoods, that seems to be conflating two signals into one.

 _When you qualify your opinions, you signal that you are more willing to discuss that point. Speaking with complete surety can shut down a comment thread or turn it more antagonistic._

OK, I can see that happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is another attempt of Microsof to compete Apple and Google after tieing up with nokia for Windows Mobile phone.</comment>


EPA photos show what US looked like before pollution regulation - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-america-before-epa-documerica-2017-10/#pollution-in-industrial-cities-like-cleveland-ohio-was-particularly-severe-9 <comment><USER2> The part that I don't understand is that just about everyone involved with the current administration, as well as many of those who voted for it, are old enough to remember. I'm certainly old enough to remember a smoggy L. A., a dead Lake Erie with rotting, dead fish on the shore, and companies that just dumped their toxic shit wherever they liked. The pictures just don't it justice, especially that it was just _everywhere_ you went in comparison today.

And yet despite being old enough to remember, those responsible for current policy, and those that vote for them, want to return to those times. I just...don't...get it.</comment>


Raj Chetty's American Dream - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/raj-chettys-american-dream/592804/ <comment><USER2> This is just yet another demographic map of the United States that happens to be using an extremely high quality data set.

If anyone wonders why Raj Chetty can't seem to reach the obvious conclusions the data points to, it's because his job and reputation depends on him not doing so. So instead the work has absolutely no explanatory power and just suggests relocating poor performing people to good performing zip codes. Why that won't reduce inequality is left as an exercise for the reader.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I'm criticizing because this supposed solution will be harmful to everyone. I want to improve outcomes for those who are doing poorly, this just won't do that.

<comment><USER3> And the premise may be wrong altogether

[https://www.aei.org/publication/a-new-fed-report-suggests- am...](https://www.aei.org/publication/a-new-fed-report-suggests-american- upward-mobility-is-better-than-you-think/)

 _Measuring real growth properly is useful for addressing a host of questions. For example, existing studies use measured inflation to calculate the real income of children relative to their parents. Chetty et al. (2017) find that 50% of children born in 1984 achieved higher incomes than their parents at age 30. Adjusting for missing growth would raise the real income of children about 17% relative to their parents, increasing the fraction of those who do better than their parents by a meaningful amount. Thus, to the extent that inflation is overstated due to imputed values, a larger fraction of children appear to be better off economically than their parents. This improvement in economic welfare can shine a bit more positive light on current conditions, despite the gloom of slower productivity growth._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First, this was too long. Well-done journalism does not have to be a tome unto itself; vignettes of his daughter the ballerina add little to the story besides acting as padding.

Secondly, I don't get this part. From the article:

> In the 1940s, the city built Independence Boulevard, a four-lane highway > that cut through the heart of its Brooklyn neighborhood, dividing and > displacing a thriving working-class black community. The damage continued in > the '60s and '70s with new interstates.

I don't get this part. I thought red-lining and confining blacks to ghettos was the problem? Wouldn't building an interstate mean more commerce and more prosperity?

<comment><USER5> The interstate highway system cut neighborhoods in half and let people drive right through them. it didn't bring people to them -- better local infrastructure would do that and that's been systematically underfunded for decades.

<comment><USER4> I get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure this was malicious. First, you could have driven around, which is probably what people did. More importantly, this happened all over with the interstate system; old railroad towns had their last gasp and newer highway towns replaced them. Finally, interstate is federal, so blame them if any one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The gist of this seems to be "take poor families and give them assistance to move to neighborhoods with statistically higher opportunities". Which to me seems a little bit weird if taken to a broader extent - would that not lower the opportunity rates of the moved-to neighborhoods and potentially make the moved-from areas even worse off?

<comment><USER7> Chetty is regressing against the wrong thing, which is pretty typical for economists, who mostly seem to be political ideologues armed with least squares fitting and dumb models.

He's basically suggesting school busing on a societal level, and we all know how well that turned out.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by, "we all know how that turned out"?

<comment><USER9> Wikipedia has an article on busing in Boston: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_desegregation_busing_cr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_desegregation_busing_crisis)

It was a boon for politicians on either side. The right could say "look, it isn't working", and the left could say "we tried".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Going to get downvoted for this, but:

As time (t) => infinity, social mobility => 0 in any society that has a highly mobile social system.

Those who are inherently predisposed to wealth and power and up in positions of wealth and power, and so do their children. As time goes on, the randomness of poor life environments gets washed out, and peoples children end up where they should (in the destiny sense). If we acknowledge that evolution is a real thing, then we should acknowledge that abilities and skill sets for moving up in society are genetic. Believeing in evolution without believing that peoples personalities and abilities are predetermined is illogical and nonsensical. We can keep playing the shell game of why things might be the opposite, but to me it seems really silly. Let's all run around concocting all sorts of theories about society and societal structure to hide the inconvenient and humiliating truth.

In saying this, I am saying nothing about welfare, who should get it and why, because I do believe in strong welfare systems. I believe in equal opportunity, I just dont believe in mass constructed and distributed veils.

<comment><USER9> In less words: this is the just-world theory.

If this is true, why have chemists' earnings dropped so precipitiously following the 2008 recession? Their genetic makeup hasn't changed. What gives?!

<comment><USER10> Who said the chemist was ever that valuable except for a small period in time? Maybe his children will make better choices</comment></comment></comment>


Web2.0forsale.com Launches - Sell Web 2.0 Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.techquilashots.com/2007/04/09/web20forsalecom-launches-sell-web-20-websites/ <comment><USER2> For some reason I burst out laughing when I read the headline...

I predict that this site will do decently one way or another, though.</comment>


XOR Gates in Human Neurons - <AUTHOR> https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/83.long <comment><AUTHOR> The authors show how dendrites in human neurons may be equipped to function as an electrically independent XOR gate.</comment>


Larry Lessig v. Jonathan Zittrain - <AUTHOR> http://www.law.stanford.edu/calendar/details/922/ <comment><USER2> The topic is almost irrelevant. Anyone in the area who has even a passing interest in the intersection of the internet and society should go see this, if only to hear Zittrain. The guy is a really gifted orator with wit and delivery that could rival Alan Shore's. The debate won't be boring.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the topic of this talk? I don't see anything on any of the sites involved, or Zittrain or Lessig's blog.

</comment><comment><USER4> Lessig is a bit of a mystery to me. The obvious solution to corruption is lessening the power of the government. There is no way to remove incentive to steal when the money is so abundant.

It's like it's not even on his radar.

<comment><USER3> I am sympathetic to your point -- power corrupts, therefore let us limit the amount of power -- but it's stil not the whole story. Because corruption itself produces power imbalances.

By corruption, Lessig does not mean simple bribery. He means the corruption of institutional purpose.

An example would be how current American governments engage in gerrymandering with impunity, and are placing reliable partisans in positions where they would be judging the validity of elections. There isn't really any imaginable government that doesn't control the electoral process in this way, so limiting the power of government isn't the answer.

<comment><USER4> Limiting the power of government would reduce the power of the office, and reduce the incentive to cheat to get into office.

And I didn't just mean bribery when talking about poor incentives of moneyed interests.

My complaint is that he is trying to solve some fundamental issues with obvious solutions to a subset of the problems.

His work is like searching for the roots of aging to extend life span when the patient has a gaping knife wound in the back.</comment></comment></comment>


Nyms Identity Directory - <AUTHOR> http://nyms.io/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the author of this document and principal developer of the project. This is a somewhat detailed design overview for a proposed alternative to the PGP keyserver system that I'm building and I didn't really write it for a general audience to avoid cluttering it up with too much background information.

Sometime soon we're going to improve the website with a friendlier high-level description of the goals of the project and the problems that it solves. For now, I apologize that this rather dense document is the only information available.

It might be easier to understand what I'm trying to achieve by reading a post I made yesterday to the modern crypto mailing list which summarized the important features of Nyms:

[https://moderncrypto.org/mail- archive/messaging/2014/000602....](https://moderncrypto.org/mail- archive/messaging/2014/000602.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I do not see how Nyms protects against identity/email theft (which they list as a concern with current OpenPGP keyservers).

According to the description of the "Remote Verification Protocol", I would be able to associate my GPG key with any identity / email address, provided I can reply to emails sent to that address (at least during the verification pass).

It's certainly an improvement (OpenPGP keyservers provide no verification whatsoever), but it's not secure in any way and does not address the strong anonymity concerns that are exposed in the intro...

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel like these type of PKI proposals don't really address the various aspects of user adoption. How do you convince a user to use something like this?

Most users have no concept of keys, much less private and public keys. So how do you expect them to understand that they (1) need to generate a key pair, (2) keep one of those keys private, (3) register the other key with your service, (4) publish one of the keys on Twitter, (5) use a local email client instead of Gmail or Yahoo, and (6) keep re-certifying with your service every 30 days?

It's much easier to just tell someone to install TextSecure and use that for your one-off conversation, then go back to them using Gmail for everything else. Like it or not, OpenPGP competes in the same space as everything else, so if you want it to be adopted, you need to make it easier than the competition.

A good example of this type of failure is OpenID. OpenID is a great standard and allows for the user to have much greater control of their online profiles. However, the extra steps involved with setting up an OpenID in the first place means that it wasn't used by the vast majority of users.

<comment><USER2> The user only needs to install a Nyms supporting email client or webmail browser extension and they're good to go for transparent communication with any other Nyms user.

Registration and maintenance of keys is entirely automated. Making everything as easy as possible for users without compromising on strong guarantees about key authenticity is the whole point of this project.

<comment><USER4> Maintenance of private keys is automated?

<comment><USER2> Maintenance of public keys is automated, by which I mean the user does not need to do anything manually for them to be published and recertified before they expire.

Private keys don't need maintenance after generation since they are simply stored on the user's computer.

<comment><USER4> So you can't read your email on another computer or phone?

<comment><USER2> You can copy your private keys to another device obviously, and eventually Nyms can help you do this by brokering an end-to-end encrypted tunnel between devices to transfer keys securely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Feedback: I stopped reading halfway through the second paragraph, mainly because it's hard to read such dense paragraphs, and also lacks a simple summary at the first paragraph. The rest of it is one giant wall of text, which would be difficult to read even if the paragraphs weren't so dense. Author: can you please put a hyperlinked table of contents? And if you're going to use centered specific-width paragraphs, please use 'align="justify"' for easier reading. Thanks

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://nyms.io/](https://nyms.io/) <\-- _pfft_

Nothing user centric that I can see there. Hideously complex. How can a non- geek get started with this?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there code associated with this design?

<comment><USER2> I'll be pushing some initial code to github soon for the first stage of the project which is a locally running agent that provides encryption service to email clients over a json-rpc interface. We're also building our own email client, however the agent is designed to facilitate easy integration into any other client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> tl;dr Since this doesn't hold a huge amount of interest for me, I passed on reading the whole document. It would help to have a couple sentences up front explaining what this is.

<comment><USER8> Not sure why this was downvoted, but something like this[1] posted by the author was helpful.

[1] [https://moderncrypto.org/mail- archive/messaging/2014/000602....](https://moderncrypto.org/mail- archive/messaging/2014/000602.html)</comment></comment>


How Hacker News ranking really works: scoring, controversy, and penalties (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to see that The Guardian has a 'penalty' against it - is this due to the political leaning, or the quality of the articles? Here in the UK it's pretty well respected, though seen as clearly left leaning.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the difference between Burnout/Depression/Laziness/Wrong job? - <AUTHOR> Burnout gets a fair bit of discussion here on HN, but I'm wondering what the community thinks are the differences between a few subtly different challenges:
1) Burnout
2) Depression
3) Laziness
4) Being in the wrong job
Given that they all have very similar symptoms, how would you determine which one an individual is dealing with? <comment><USER2> Burnout is your mind/body's way of telling you and/or signalling to others that you've been stuck on the wrong path for too long.

Depression is a clinical condition that arises when your mind/brain is unable to cope with the experiences/environment it's been in for an extended period of time, and is a signal that a change is needed in the brain/mind (medication and/or therapy) or in the environment (changes to e.g., lifestyle, relationships, job, location) - and likely both.

Laziness is a lack of motivation that could be caused by any number of things, but is generally a sign that your current life situation doesn't inspire you into positive action. But it could also be related to an undiagnosed mental and/or physiological illness that impedes your energy production/utilisation.

Being in the wrong job is a common sentiment, and may or may not be a problem depending on how empowered someone is. An empowered person (someone with enough qualifications/experience/confidence/energy/etc) will negotiate better conditions for their current job or find a new job that they're better suited to. A disempowered person will stay in the job due to lack of other options, and after long enough may end up being affected by one or more of the first three conditions.

Background: experienced it all over 15+ years and researched far and wide.

<comment><USER3> Jobs are like clothes. There is no "wrong job". There are jobs which _fit now_ , and all other jobs.

A job may fit, then as we grow, we get new ones that fit better.

I would say the stages are usually:

#1: Grow out of the current job

#2: Still working same hours, but tasks become boring, therefore instead of the job fueling us, it drains us... causing Burnout.

#3: Then Laziness settles in, because putting energy into boring tasks only leads to Burnout.

#4: Spiraling down the Laziness slide, into Depression. Simply, Depression is a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. The antidote to Depression is doing... Doing new things we enjoy.

Therefore, take up an entirely new, and different practice. Perhaps move up to management. Or go to a new place, around new people.

TLDR: Do new.

<comment><USER4> I don't agree with laziness leading to depression.

Laziness stems from not caring, depression stems from the opposite.

I think what you've labelled as laziness could better be labelled as something else. Apathy perhaps?

<comment><USER5> The constant criticism lazy people often face can easily lead to depression.

<comment><USER4> That isn't what the parent seems to be suggesting.

<comment><USER5> Ah, you are right! Sorry, I am too lazy to thoroughly read long comments...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the OP is looking for a differential diagnosis. Here is my 2 cents:

Burnout: taking time off is a sufficient cure.

Depression: you cannot feel pleasure even at points of success when everyone else is, and it won't be so if you changed anything else about the job.

Laziness: you are not unhappy or unwell but notice other people with roughly your skillset and responsibility are more productive.

Wrong job: you are arguing a lot with people or taking a lot of criticism for having legitimately valid alternative opinions or ways of doing things.

<comment><USER7> I disagree about burnout. Taking time off could possibly be the worst thing.

In my experience personally and observing others, burnout is most often caused when you have a disconnect between expected reward (monetary, status, _or_ emotional) for labor and actual reward for labor, effectively negatively reinforcing labor. It's especially bad when the miss is uncorrelated to performance, e.g. political or business decisions derail your e.g. promotion or payoff.

Taking a break to mitigate burnout can thus make the next cycle worse. A better choice is to take structured vacations at set points in the future, and when you feel like a missed expectation is likely or has happened, reinforce the work-reward relationship by doing little work things that create pops of success. The counterintuitive thing is that a strategy to counter burnout is _more work_ (but carefully curated to nearly guarantee success)

For programming, I find going into an intense refactoring or debugging cycle is helpful (making green dots out of red ones is immensely satisfying)... When I was a biologist, I found doing routine "never fail" procedures like molecular biology to be helpful after an experimental failure or catastrophe, like staying up on an all nighter and coming back the next day to find a procedural error had ruined the whole thing

<comment><USER8> > For programming, I find going into an intense refactoring or debugging cycle > is helpful (making green dots out of red ones is immensely satisfying).

For me personally whenever I have felt burned out by programming I just went over to one of those competitve programming sites and solve one of their problems. It is also cool seeing your rank move in correlation with others. I know if I quit peogramming for a week then I will actually feel less motivated to code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Burnout is the mental equivalent of an athletic injury: you might love what you do, but you've been going at it too hard and need time to recuperate. A burnt out person was previously happy doing what they were doing but just now can't go on.

Depression is a mental health condition that can cause lethargy and can be brought on by stress, but it is chiefly characterized by extended and repeated periods of sadness and self loathing and can be brought on by many causes, including traumatic events, changes in hormone balance, or environmental factors. Simple rest and relaxation will not, at least on its own, make depression go away. While a depressed person is having a depressive episode, they may find it very difficult to work, but in between episodes they will work normally.

Laziness means you don't like to work, or at least can't motivate yourself to do the tasks you need to do. It is a character trait that neither starts nor goes away suddenly. Instead it something that must be routinely overcome. A lazy person may have a lower baseline level of motivation than a non-lazy person, but their motivation level should remain about as consistent as a normal person's; they won't have sudden unexplainable drops in productivity.

Being in the wrong job means something specific to the job itself is problematic but the person is otherwise an enthusiastic worker. Instead of sudden dips in enthusiasm, or consistent low performance, they will likely show a slow but steady decline as the negative aspects of their job takes a toll. Often the person in the wrong job actually likes the work itself, but other aspects of the working environment such as coworkers or organization make them unhappy.

Finally, these cases are not mutually exclusive. A lazy person can find themselves in the wrong job, get burntout trying to do it anyways, triggering the onset of depression. Luckily, the remedies for each challenge are very unlikely to have a negative effect on someone who is actually facing one of the other challenges.

</comment><comment><USER10> This video is a good primer on burnout by an expert.

"Understanding Burnout," Prof. Christina Maslach (U.C. Berkeley) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLPyV8lBbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLPyV8lBbs)

This article is a summary of what's in the above speaker's book

Recovering from Burnout [https://kierantie.com/burnout/](https://kierantie.com/burnout/)

I also want to mention the article above has a link to Mind Tools, which is a web site that has a test you can take but I recommend reading their articles on leadership as it helps one understand their place and the direction they need to take as leaders of their own life as well as leaders in the lives of others, which is an interesting perspective in the context of the listed topics.

<comment><USER11> >a web site that has a test you can take

Yay, 60 points!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> ADHD is missing in the list. Many undiagnosed adults with ADHD consider themselves lazy and / or stupid. However, the disorder has important impact on the executive function of the brain and also on emotional regulation (depression is a common comorbidity and is often falsely diagnosed as bipolar disorder). Oh and ADHD makes people more prone to burnout.

<comment><USER13> I scared to label laziness or stupidity as undiagnosed mental illness/disorder. People with ADHD are valuable to society and have different strengths, weaknesses, and perspectives than those without, although they may not be best suited for jobs that require high levels of executive function.

<comment><USER14> I think you got the exact opposite meaning of what the parent comment wanted to say.

Assuming you're not trolling: if you think you have ADHD and are telling yourself "may not be best suited" etc I strongly recommend looking into this in more detail. At its root, ADHD is a "hardware problem" in one part of the brain and can occur independent of other attributes of a person. So a highly intelligent and not-so-intelligent person can both have ADHD.

If you _DONT_ think you have ADHD, educate yourself and stop saying ignorant stuff. Do you think near/long sighted people should not wear glasses too, and that people with depression should not get treatment?

You can start by watching Dr. Barkley's videos on youtube.

PS: Every time ADHD is mentioned someone pops up with an ignorant comment. You win this thread!

<comment><USER13> I disagree with your notion that ADHD is a problem at all. It's just that societal norms value people who don't have ADHD at this time.

<comment><USER15> Ugh, that's a bit of a catch-all arugment, though. Acohol addiction? Societal norms problem. Education? Societal norms problem. Going or a killing spree? Societal norms problem. Bad teeth? Societal norms problem. Having to listen to everyone's opinion out of being polite? Societal norms problem.

Maybe you should find someone with severe ADHD and try to convince them it's not a problem at all, see how that goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think I would start with the easiest one, which is whether or not you feel like you're in the right job. Just make a list of what you like about your job and what you don't like. If the dislike category is large, you need to ask yourself some more questions. Are you likely to find employment elsewhere in your field without all those cons? This may require some research. If not, are there other fields of work that may be better suited to your preferences? Again, got to do some research here.

I'm just going to ignore the laziness point since I don't really like that word. You can dislike an activity and avoid it, that doesn't make you lazy. If you need to still do something regardless of whether you like it or not, you need to change how you think about that activity or find a way to enjoy it, otherwise you're just needlessly torturing yourself. Or you just avoid thinking about how much you dislike something and just do it instead. Either way, saying someone is lazy carries both a negative judgement and a lack of insight, so this word I think is best avoided. If you feel you're being "lazy", best to try to understand why you're avoiding what you think you should be doing and fix it.

Lastly, if you're depressed or burnt out, there will be some obvious signs. You'll be tired, have a hard time focusing, you may have muscle aches or headaches all the time. You may see nothing positive in your future and may ruminate excessively about your perceived shortcomings or problems. You may also find it difficult or impossible to react emotionally to things (e.g. being excited or sad). Basically, you'll feel terrible all the time.

</comment><comment><USER17> 1) Burnout - When you first start doing something, like a new project or a new technology you end up enjoying it since there is so much to learn and do. Over a period of time you end up doing the same mundane tasks and have to exert a huge amount of effort to do something which you could earlier do in a short period of time. Usually only limited to work. Switching projects/jobs helps.

2) Depression - It is a state of mind where you do not have the energy to do anything, not only in office but also in personal life. Usually characterized by lack of enthusiasm in anything and a lingering feeling of sadness. Switching jobs won't help, consulting a psychiatrist will.

3) Laziness - A state where you have been doing the same thing for so long that you have gotten good at it and do not feel panic anymore. If you do not have any aim in life and just want to cruise along ( and have the ability to cruise along while getting good reviews in office ) laziness is a valid choice. It might not get you promoted or noticed at office and you will stagnate. IMO it is not a negative state to be in, but not positive either.

4) Being in the wrong job - Two types that I can think of

1\. You have tons of energy, you have tons of enthusiasm and want to do tons of work but still you seem to be going nowhere, is a sign of being in the wrong job.

2\. You have low energy, you don't enjoy what you do while at your job. At home you have high energy, contribute to projects and can work on stuff which interests you and can get you paid. In burnout, depression and laziness people's ability to do side projects is markedly diminished. This is not the case with being in the wrong job.

<comment><USER18> 4 sub 1: Exactly what happened to me at the plastics factory. So much better off programming.

4 sub 2: I think I have the right job but the wrong home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > how would you determine which one an individual is dealing with?

The individual needs to talk to an expert (a doctor or a therapist) to find this.

Many medical issues show similar symptoms - we go to a doctor for a physical issue, then why do we think we know enough to diagnose mental issues?

These things are complex, and it is okay to ask for help.

<comment><USER20> I'm not saying that we're, by any means, qualified to self diagnose. The problem with your analogy is there are physical attributes/tests that tell doctors what is wrong when dealing with physiological problems. Even when the methods rely on us telling the doctors, it's usually a binary choice. On the other hand, it gets a lot more subjective when it comes to mental health.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The list is mixing apples and oranges.

In psychology, laziness simply does not exists as a mental health issue or as a personality trait.

It's a vague and judgemental word used to describe a behavior while the real cause might be burnout, depression or many other.

<comment><USER3> OP doesn't mention "psychology", nor "mental health issue", nor "personality trait"

Laziness isn't vague, nor judgemental. Laziness is marked by non-production. Which can be measured by simple time-tracking. How many hours a day is he coding/writing vs. on YouTube "passing the time".

Moreover, the post specifically says "symptoms". And he's attempting to discern between the words, specifically asking "What's the difference between..."

<comment><USER16> I've always viewed laziness as a word that people use to describe behavior when a person didn't do what they were supposed to do, but they dont care or don't know how to investigate why.

What you described is not laziness but either a lack of focus, a lack of awareness of how you are wasting your own time or a conscious decision to not do your work in favor of something else. Both depression and burnout make it hard to focus on tasks that are going to move your life forward, so you could easily be depressed or burnt out AND waste hours on Youtube as a result of it. You could also just be a distracted individual who is not burnt out or depressed and still waste time on Youtube. You could be too tired to devote your mind to coding, so you waste time on Youtube - this is just biological reality, and I dont think we would normally call someone lazy if they can't code anymore after a 12 hour day. Perhaps the act of coding brings about some negative thoughts (e.g. why am I doing this, my colleagues are just going to criticize my commit) so you're actively avoiding it in favor of another activity. This is not necessarily lack of focus but maybe a lack of awareness. Perhaps you are feeling stressed and watching Youtube helps you relax, so it is a strategy to help you avoid burnout in the long run. Basically, I don't think laziness exists, its just a word used to describe something you don't understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > how would you determine which one an individual is dealing with?

It really depends on your relationship with this person. If you are peers, it is really none of your business, they need to chat with their manager or HR (if they want too/have too). You have no idea what they are going through at home, it could be some health issue, and none of these things, or all these things. If you are managing someone who is going through this, you need to support them, what can you do to help/understand? Likely this starts with a coffee and a chat on how's things going? Do they need time off, are they over worked, work on what a path forward looks like. If you are friendly peers, chat with them in a non-weird way. Take them for coffee/beers, ask how are things going, how's work?

Just a heads up, don't ask someone who is burnt out or depressed, why they are lazy or lagging behind, this is extremely out of touch with what they are going through. I'm sure they are already hyper aware.

</comment><comment><USER23> Kinda off-topic, but I've had jobs where I've been considered incompetent, and other jobs where I've been considered gifted and visionary. Other jobs have considered me lazy, a hard worker, smart, and dumb. My point is that often we are given labels in contexts - and those labels are totally unrelated to reality except by the specific people in those contexts. So we need to be careful - none of us are perfect, but that doesn't mean that we should believe what we are told.

</comment><comment><USER24> My 2c from personal experience (n=1):

1) Burnout is acute exhaustion caused by successive days of lack of sleep, successive weekends of working late with long delays in launch, feedback or project completion.

2) Depression (not the clinical kind) is chronic exhaustion and chronic depletion of dopamine. No hope. No care for the project, product or for completion because you know it doesn't matter. This is caused by poor feedback, rejections, project failures (product does not work) but mostly because of running out of money.

3) Laziness is when your subconscious is too smart for yourself about the prospects of success resulting in inaction. For example: you may be outwardly excited about a project/product but your internal subconscious mind has already doomed it as a failure therefore you find all sorts of excuses not to start or finish the project. Your subconscious has already done FWIW a cost- benefit and SWOT analysis and judges the project as a no-go or no-continue.

4) Being in the wrong job is the number 1 reason for the causes of all 1), 2) and 3) above.

</comment><comment><USER25> Burnout is what we call this thing when we try to solve it by taking a break

depression is what we call this thing when we try to solve it via medical intervention of some sort.

Lazyness is what we call this thing when we try to solve it through force of will and/or shame, or when we don't try to solve it at all.

Being in the wrong job is what we call this thing when we try to solve it by getting a different job.

<comment><USER25> for that matter, it might be more useful to s/try to solve it/solve it/ \- I mean, clearly, different solutions work in different situations.

I'm not trying to say they are all the same thing; just that the only way _I_ can tell the difference is what therapies work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Burnout and depression may seem similar on the surface, but burnout frequently starts from resentment and essentially having to "force" yourself through that resentment. Heavy physical and/or cognitive workload usually goes hand-in-hand with the said resentment.

For burnout, rest is important and structuring your work/life systems defensively can help prevent it. Some interesting studies exist on this: [https://hbr.org/2014/03/googles-scientific-approach-to- work-...](https://hbr.org/2014/03/googles-scientific-approach-to-work-life- balance-and-much-more)

Depression may or may not be tied to anything a person can control. This is where medication and therapy are very important. Like with most serious health issues, self-medicating and self-treating serious depression can be extremely hazardous.

</comment><comment><USER27> Depression is a serious mental illness, in which 7-10% of the patients die (because of suicide). Not kidding. It is caused by the imbalance of serotonin and readrenalin neurotransmitters.

Depression is NOT a synonym for "bad mood" or "being tired", it's much more serious than that.

<comment><USER28> > It is caused by the imbalance of serotonin and readrenalin > neurotransmitters.

Totally agree depression is a serious mental illness, but this description is like describing bugs as a "debugging deficiency". We know depression and bugs can be fixed with debugging/ssris but just because we can fix them with it doesn't mean the opposite is the cause.

For instance in addition to serotonin and nor-epinephrine we also know glutamate (nmda and ampa) is involved, as well as opiates, gaba, bdnf, dopamine, and inflammation.

<comment><USER29> I just finished reading Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions - Johann Hari which may be of interest. Our bodies are complex systems who are sending us messages and sometimes patching them with chemicals may or may not be the right thing to do.

The chemical imbalance explanation is a very simple and convenient one. It pairs nicely with the don't like the situation, apply a patch (pharmaceutical or not), repeat. The patch mutes the signal and the theory is that since the system is functional everything is fine except we haven't dealt with the underlying emotional issue. It makes sense to me given this situation why some patients have trouble staying on medications. We can list as many substances as we want, but to me these solutions pair best with lifestyle changes which are more hard to implement/navigate which most likely why we default to patches when maybe what we need is a full version update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As I see it, they are a package. The wrong job takes you to burnout, which causes perceived laziness (I'd say it's inability to work), and, if fired, might end up in depression. It's a deep hole that requires noticing early.

<comment><USER31> Combination of burnout and wrong job can definitely lead to a person feeling like his work is useless and causing depression. Don't think you need to get fired for that.

<comment><USER32> I went through this process exactly a few years ago. After a major breakdown (my third), my therapist kept telling me to change jobs, but I was too scared/depressed to make any sort of large change in my life.

After six months of weekly therapy, I finally felt well enough to hand in my notice. Once I'd done that I felt a huge weight lift off me. It still took several more months to get back on an even keel, and I'm still popping happy pills. The moral I guess here is... if people are telling you over and over again that your job is a major [bad] influence on your state of mind, then you should probably listen to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've always been an optimistic and motivated person, so I can't speak for depression and laziness. But I can speak for burnout.

For me, burnout is the result of a long period of intense work and effort that accomplishes little. I experienced this in my last job, where I was brought in to a specific purpose by a motivated boss who quit the company a few weeks later. The rest of the org was too bogged down with politics, lack of tech leadership, and other organizational issues. I put in a lot of effort as an individual SWE to fix bugs and help other teammates when they got stuck, but nobody else was putting in so much diligent effort for the sake of the team. I burned out and a t the same time realized that I was on the wrong team, when (1) people kept coming to me for help with the same things I'd already taught them in the past (2) I had way too many moments teaching other people how their own code works (code that they own, that I'd barely looked at) (3) too much energy was spent dealing with other teams rather than on our own team getting work done (4) I had three managers in 18 months (5) everything was owned by multiple teams, and I wore myself out working with too many components that should have been strictly divided between teams.

I have since moved to a new team. This is a much better team -- no politics, no BS, just a few diligent individuals getting things done.

But being on the right team doesn't fix burnout. I'm still burned out from my last job. I took the last six months to ramp up on my current job but I need to take time off soon.

</comment><comment><USER34> One question, is whether the designation is objective or projective.

There are a lot of "lazy" people "doing the wrong thing", whom closer analysis -- or just actually listening to them -- indicates are actually acting rationally, within their circumstances, and doing the best they can.

In part, the question for me comes down to: Are you going to label? Or are you going to do something about it?

I see and hear a lot of the former. Much less of the latter.

Yet those same people would hate to be treated as they insist others be treated.

So, I don't listen to them, too much.

For years, I made myself ill dealing with tremendously distracting and counter-productive open-space work environments. From college onward, I was told -- encultured -- that "this is the future" and that I'd better learn to cope with, err "thrive", in it.

Now, finally, the cultural dialog is turning the corner on this. They really are horrible, not just in terms of personal welfare but also productivity.

So, what really changed? I was "contrary"; well, actually, I wish I had been more so and actually acted against my circumstances.

Now, it turns out, I was "insightful".

Who really failed? The bozos who stuffed us into cattle pens and couldn't even perform decent metrics against their claims, let alone look at the welfare of their employees.

So, "burnout", "depression", "laziness"? Just words.

Find something you enjoy doing. Some place you enjoy living. And stuff the "opinions" about it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Burnout is often the result of stress. One of the main causes of stress is lack of control of your situation. When you are in a job where you are not empowered, then it is likely the wrong job. This can lead to burnout. One symptom of burnout is depression.

If you feel like you are in a situation where you have no control and are feeling stressed, find someone to talk to. Take some serious time off. Gain some perspective.

</comment><comment><USER36> All of this is in my experience. I'm not a psychologist.

I think it's easier to point to the cause of burnout. Too much pressures/stress at work/home for a prolonged period of time, a bad work environment, the loss of an expected reward after a long period of extended hours, etc. Identifying the root cause won't cure burnout, but you can at least take steps to change it. When you're burned out you may feel like you'll never climb out of it, but at least you can identify steps (e.g. new job) that may help in the long term. Burnout can last a while (1 year+) after a really bad experience.

Depression is harder (impossible?) to point to a single cause. You can feel a completely loss of feeling, or even just one feeling (sadness) and not really know why you feel that way. Depression can go on for a very long time.

I think a lack of motivation and creativity is there with both burnout and depression.

Being in the wrong job is when somebody is highly motivated and has a lot ideas, but their work environment kills that motivation or inspiration completely.

</comment><comment><USER37> For me, laziness is a symptom of burnout, and burnout indicates that I have been over indulging in my work, which, to me, happens only when I am really into it. So, over the years, whenever I encounter an interesting idea to pursue, instead of going at it with everything I have got all day long, I have learnt to force myself to take breaks. I have found that, just like the Judgement Day, I can't stop the burnout but only delay it. Burnouts typically lasts for many weeks, and if its severe I experience general ennui, which is the worst kind. During normal burnouts I engage in my other interests and allow the mind to recover at its own pace.

I never had depression in the medical sense, only a few days of feeling that I am worthless after failures. Oddly, I like this feeling. It keeps me grounded.

</comment><comment><USER38> IMH

\- Burnout is happing when things you're most fighting your self take to much on your plate get frustrated and not able to get release. Continuous inner battles and frustration not being able to do things. No able to set barriers in a work environment. Normally people can recover from this over time. \- Depression is the state where u end up where nothing brings you joy art all. Depression is the state when you end up if you're not able to bounce back or come out the other end of a misery or something bad that happend in your life. \- Laziness is just not being able to do something. but can be a result of things above. \- being in the wrong job. not a problem if you have a mechanism to change the job, if you don't have a mechanism, above things can happen by a lot of frustration.

</comment><comment><USER39> Seems like a psychological probe. Bait, in a sense. Enough rope to hang. But okay, I'll bite.

Burnout: After all the effort you've expended, you never got anything in return. Like chasing unrequited love.

Depression: In a word, hopelessness. An inabilitity to fantasize about the potential for a better tomorrow. With an emotion so broad, any cause is on the table. Grief for dead loved ones. Crippling physical disabilities. Consistent general rejection by any and all total strangers throughout the world at large.

Laziness: As a qualitative word for external behavior, inner state cannot be discerned by this behavioral attribute. As an internal behavior, sometimes even _we_ don't know why we're unable to summon motivation for something we cognitively know we should not procrastinate. Sometimes, at it's core, once I get past a rough patch of avoiding something, I realize that my intuition was waiting on other cues. A subliminal signal was not yet present. Looking back, it was only until someone threw those final switches that my entire psyche agreed that the time was right to swing into action. I'm still not sure how that works, but I've seen it enough times, that by now, I'm usually able to interrogate my uncooperative subconscious to discover the things I'm sometimes left waiting on.

Being In The Wrong Job?

This presupposes a "right" job. As if we're supposed to be wage slaves, living paycheck to paycheck, under pain of death or firing for the entirety of our youth, and productive adulthood, until we retire at an age too old to have fun.

All jobs are the wrong job. This becomes obvious during periods when you don't have to work.

But, hey, let's be realistic, right? We just _have to_ be good little employees, right? It's the way to world works. Can't have too many chiefs and not enough Indians, can we?

Well, sorry, but the sad fact is, this one's not a one-size-fits-all kind of answer. The the others are adjectives of character or psychological state. But "fitting in" has no simple description. You could blame talent, mixture of personalities, or the resources supplied by the employer.

Mostly, this thread seeks to lay blame. It smells like a manager looking to cut heads. And I think that's the real problem.

</comment><comment><USER40> 1) Burnout - When you've done too much work and it affects your productivity.

2) Depression - When you have a chemical imbalance or got hit by a traumatic event that chances the way you perceive things.

3) Laziness - When you do not want to work. It could be due to any reason. You may be mindfully doing it.

4) Being in the wrong job - Actually happens to a lot more people than 1 & 2\. But it could lead to 1 and 2. Maybe 3 but then you're getting paid for it.

For 2) you may need to go to a doctor or therapist. Everything else you can do something about. Hope that helps!

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm an occasional sufferer of depression and I know a few people who suffer it to varying degrees. For me there are a set of symptoms which are always pretty much the same and nowadays I notice pretty quickly when it hits me. It can definitely be a driver of the other things you mention. It might be good to start there

</comment><comment><USER42> Burnout to me is a sign of extended stress... whether you're in the right job or not. This just means you need a break. Even Michael Jordan needed a break from basketball.

</comment><comment><USER43> My cynical experience would suggest that 3 is the most likely by a country mile, but the indvidual will always think it is either 1, 2 or 4.

</comment><comment> more-entropy In many cases the fourth one is the case of the first three

</comment><comment><USER44> Conviction would be my answer

</comment><comment><USER45> depression is a physical condition where you won't be able to sleep. Like five days in a roll and because of it, you can't improve your work performance even if you want to. The only wish you have is a good night sleep.

<comment><USER46> That is not at all the experience that quite a few depressed people have.

<comment><USER45> Seriously? [https://www.sleep.org/articles/depression-affects- sleep/](https://www.sleep.org/articles/depression-affects-sleep/)

I had it, couldn't sleep well for a month. My ex girlfriend had it, she couldn't sleep for 5 days.

<comment><USER47> My experience was erratically alternating between not being able to sleep (sleeping less than four hours per night) and sleeping 12-18 hours per day. Either mode could last half a week, or a whole month.

Many (most?) depressed individuals do experience sleeplessness, but that's not at all universal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> 1.5) Stress

</comment><comment><USER21> Don't ask HN for psychological support. Talk to a professional.

<comment><USER38> Why not? I don't see the guidelines that say that it can't be done. I think people reading this are a super audience prone to the above due the coolness and hypeness of the startup world having to move ever more. If anything, I think it should be talked about on channels like this. And yes, also a professional is necessary.

<comment><USER22> At some level I agree with you. You can learn tons from folks that are in similar situations or have gone through similar things.

But, if you are really burnt out or depressed, this could quickly become a life or death situation, so seeking professional help in a timely manner, is the best option. Your life could literally be at stake. Reason is, HN lacks context and any sustained attention/followup. Take this thread for example. OP has not provided any comments or followup. We have no context on _why_ this person is asking this question. Are they going through this personally, asking about a co-worker, a spouse? We have no idea. Their question and following discussion could come back to haunt them via a search if they give enough details. We are not experts with context, sure we can offer advice on something we might have gone through, but that is not expert advice tailored to their situation.

So, it is really a good idea, to seek professional help if you find yourself in this situation vs asking random strangers on HN. Chatting with a professional is confidential, they will ask and gather the correct context (with local customs, current medical practice, and laws in mind), and hopefully give you a good path forward.

Your advice might be different on where you are located too. Do you have the same options if you live in the US, EU, or Asia? I have no idea on what your situation is, what your support network looks like, what your resources are, how bad it is, etc. You are much better off chatting with a professional.

<comment><USER49> Don't forget that a lot of professionals in the psychology area are not very good. Some years ago I had severe depression and a lot of other problems and finding a professional who would actually listen was a really difficult and frustrating experience. So I think there is a lot of value in discussing things on a forum like this in order to get multiple opinions and especially hear from people who have gone through this.

You shouldn't take information in a forum at face value but also don't trust blindly the advice from "professionals" be it doctors, surgeons, lawyers, consultants or others. A lot of them suck.

<comment><USER50> Right, but no-one is complaining about the "how to find a good professional" advice. People are complaining about the fact that these threads often have a mix of useful, actionable, advice that is somewhat evidence based, and then a bunch of horseshit.

<comment><USER49> You will get the same mix of somewhat useful information mixed with horseshit from professionals especially in not so clear cut areas like mental health or nutrition. I went through five therapists without improvement to end up with picking up a meditation practice together with some behavior and attitude changes. All these suggestions came from online forums and made a huge difference.

As with everything else, gather as much as information as possible and make up your own mind. Don't believe anything blindly but try it out and see what works for you.

It's the same in tech. I get better information in online forums like this one than I get from most highly paid consultants my management likes to hire.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elasticache with Python, or how to stop worrying and love HAProxy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Sendbird/elasticache-for-python-production-payloads-or-how-we-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-haproxy-e55f2f7309a0 <comment><USER2> You can have haproxy also check that the replica instance is in sync with the master via an xinetd service that checks the redis status. This way as you do maintenance and take nodes out of the balancer and add them back in you don't end up having a window of stale out of date data

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a shame that AWS Elasticache still doesn't support reader endpoints.</comment>


Why Norwegian is the easiest language for English speakers to learn - <AUTHOR> http://mithridates.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-norwegian-is-easiest-language-for.html

<comment><USER2> I'm an American who has been living in Norway for 10 years, and I can say that while the author is correct about many points, there are a lot of complicating factors he ignores.

For example, Norwegian is tonal, and has a range of vowels that are quite unlike anything in English. Further, every region has its own dialect-- even native-born Norwegians have trouble understanding some of them. Finally, Norwegian has two written forms, so there are two dictionaries and two sets of grammar rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the clarification.</comment></comment>


You should read Elon Musk's Wikipedia article.  - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Career

<comment><USER2> Bloomberg did a "Risk Takers" feature on him; quite good. <http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184/>

</comment><comment><USER3> That stuff reads like the biography of a real-life Tony Stark.

<comment><AUTHOR> FTA: "The SpaceX factory was used as a shooting location for Iron Man II and Musk has a cameo in the movie.[44] According to Jon Favreau, director of the Iron Man movies, Musk is the inspiration for Favreau's and Robert Downey Jr.'s interpretation of Tony Stark.[29]"

:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why?</comment>


FBI Releases Images of Boston Bomb Suspects - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/boston-blasts/index.html

<comment><USER2> who posts a link to the cnn.com home page on HN...

Here's the actual URL [http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/boston- blasts/index.html?hp...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/boston- blasts/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)

<comment><USER3> Here's the actual actual URL, from the source: [https://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into- multi...](https://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple- explosions-in-boston/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-explosions-in- boston)

<comment><USER2> even better</comment></comment></comment>


The next tech bubble is about to burst - <AUTHOR> http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/12637/tech-bubble-venture-capital/

<comment><USER2> Fred Wilson is dead on; we must produce value. I think Facebook was brilliant for buying Oculus. Not so sure about Whatsapp. In my next life, I might try farming.

<comment><USER3> I think WhatsApp was a solid purchase, they have a massive, paying user-base and offer great communication alternatives to those in developing nations. Read more here: [https://growthhackers.com/companies/whatsapp/](https://growthhackers.com/companies/whatsapp/)

<comment><USER4> > paying user-base

I've yet to meet anyone who has ever paid to Whatsapp.</comment></comment></comment>


Goodbye to gazillion versions of spreadsheet that clutter mailbox - <AUTHOR> http://www.collatebox.com/web/tour.html

<comment><USER2> This looks cool :-) Will try it out.</comment>


[EPS] move timezones - <AUTHOR> Everyone knows you can pickup and move cities. But did you know you can also pickup a move timezones but stay in same city? I'm a programmer in Los Angeles. I used to go by Los Angeles time. But recently I picked up and moved to UTC. I'm 7 hours ahead of where I was and I live my life this way here in Los Angeles. Every programmer should (EPS) try this. Not only is it wonderful to not worry about what time it is, but it makes you think about timezones ALL THE TIME and you never code anything ever again that assumes everyone is in same timezone. <comment><USER2> Why should we try this? I don't understand.

Isn't this basically just like working second shift?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) it relaxes your brain because you are so helplessly lost as to what "real" time it is in your city, you transend time and just get into good states of flow.

2) it forces you to do mental time zone math in your head making you a better programmer

3) helps you realize your city does not dictate what time units you use, you control that. Maybe all us programmers should switch to UTC. End daylight savings time. And finally get like a swatch beat system going.</comment></comment>