Panic Attacks - <AUTHOR> https://avc.com/2018/08/panic-attacks/ <comment><USER2> I've had panic attacks my entire life.Fortunately they're few and fair between these days and I can for the most part calm myself down when I feel one oncoming (they're almost always triggered by some event fortunately, very rarely just random ones).

I wouldn't wish them on anyone. That feeling of "I'm trapped, this is forever, I'm going to die, this is overwhelming, I need to escape" is genuinely the worst thing I've ever experienced. The brain misfiring the trigger that gets pulled when you're in a life or death situation is terrifying.

Fortunately recognizing that it's just a chemical response and I don't have an infinite supply of those chemicals and it will all be ok in a moment is one of the most calming thoughts and one that I always turn to when I'm panicking. Also remembering that I've felt amazing between panic attacks reminds me that soon I will feel that way again.

Just a few thoughts I turn to when I need to white knuckle that wave of panic that might be able to help someone else out.

<comment><USER3> The start of recovery for me was reading a book by Pema Chodron about not trying to get rid of the intense feelings and experiences like this. With enough experience and meditation and a practice called morning pages, I've learned to harness the extreme energies involved and make them a massive positive instead of something to be scared of, holding me back. It took a long time but fully worth the effort. :)

Edit:

A favorite passage from Pema's book: [https://books.google.com/books?id=a6sRdYLlmqIC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA...](https://books.google.com/books?id=a6sRdYLlmqIC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6)

An article about morning pages: [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/03/morning...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/03/morning- pages-change-your-life-oliver-burkeman)

<comment><USER4> Morning pages has been an incredibly helpful tool for me to process the difficult emotional states associated with acute and chronic PTSD. I kind of do the slacker version by typing them out as opposed to writing freehand, but hey, it still works.

<comment><USER3> Yep. When I started I thought I didn't have much to say. Turns out I have ALOT. Helps me work through things and start the day out right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From personal experience, years ago : learning to control your breathing is the key. Your fear of the symptoms can turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you've deeply internalised the assurance that you can defeat the symptoms any time you like by regulated breathing, you might well find like I did that they just stop happening quite naturally. It takes time and practice. Sometimes now when I find myself in stressful situations, I notice my breathing has switched over to this pattern without any deliberate intervention from me. Must be the practice.

There are many techniques out there (such as the 7-11 pattern, etc). I'd recommend practicing with any wristwatch or clock that has a ticking second hand. Breathe through the nose and not the mouth. In for five, out slowly for ten, repeat until comfortable. If you're not immediately able to do that, try holding your breath until you can begin. It's a great trick and general mental clarity hack to have in reserve.

<comment><USER6> This works unless your anxiety is being triggered by the vagus nerve in which case deep breathing only makes it worse. Had one related to an illness recently, the vagus nerve makes you feel like you are having terrible anxiety that is made worse at the apex of every in/out breath. Then when you can't breathe deeply you start having even worse anxiety. This is the problem I am dealing with atm.

<comment><USER7> I also had a mind/body anxiety snafu. I was experiencing that crushed chest anxiety sensation without any emotional triggers.

Turns out I had a pinched nerve in my spine. The pain and nerve stuff caused my body anxiety sensation, which then caused the emotional anxiety.

Resolved with a lumbar fusion.

Which explains why most of my prior efforts to mitigate weren't effective (drugs, meditation, exercise, sleep hygiene).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Panic attacks are so mind bogglingly weird. For a few seconds (maybe a minute or so) your brain enters a completely different mode. Then it takes a few minutes to calm back down to regular human thought, again. It's so weird it is difficult to come to terms with what happened.

I spent a few months largely crippled by panic disorder (intermittent panic attacks spaced by anxiety – often about the panic attacks themselves). The whole experience was like a crash course in understanding out-of-body- experiences and accidental mental overreactions.

<comment><USER8> Since everyone else is saying what worked for them... I didn't fix them with medication, breathing or lifestyle. I saw a therapist (CBT) for a few months and she suggested leaning into the panic attack: when you feel one coming on, deliberately try to trigger it. They whither away when you embrace them.

The underlying anxiety is a separate issue and required a few years of practiced mental discipline. Sorry, no silver bullets there.

<comment><USER9> Yeah that's a good way to recognize what is happening objectively at a higher level rather than just responding to the amygdala. Your effectively observing the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a founder and suffer from intermittent panic attacks. This first one I had was terrifying. I ended up going to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack. Once I figured out what was happening and the pattern for the symptoms, they got a lot more manageable. Just knowing I'm not dying and telling myself that helps to calm me down.

The linked ESPN article in Fred's post is really good and worth reading. Reminds me of some of the mental health stigma that founders in the tech industry face. This quote in particular resonates with me: "Depression, anxiety and panic attacks are not a sign of weakness. They are signs of having tried to remain strong for so long."

Humans are only so strong. Intense pressure can forge diamonds, or it can crush you underneath it. My hope is that the stigma of mental health goes away, and training our brains becomes as normal as training any other parts of our bodies.

<comment><USER11> While I agree that they aren't signs of weakness, I don't think they are "signs of having tried to remain strong for so long". That sounds like an inspirational quote image you would see on instagram. They are real and are caused by a multitude of things, applying a cute slogan about having to be "strong" to get them doesn't help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I suppose my own experience differs from the symptoms of a chronic sufferer, but I used to completely dismiss notions of "panic attacks". My thought was "why can't they just take a breather and calm down?"

Then one day I smoked too much marijuana and then had to go to a kids birthday party whose family I didn't know. About 10 minutes in I had what I can only describe as a panic attack. My face turned _gray_. My heart was probably beating somewhere around 190bpm. I was sweating profusely. I had to leave the party and on my drive home I was worried I might suddenly die and then veer into traffic. I nearly drove myself to the emergency room because I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

If that was a panic attack, I can't imagine what it must be like to suffer something like that chronically. It was utter hell.

<comment><USER13> Using a throwaway due to subject matter, but I also learned the hard way that cannabis just doesn't agree with me the way it did in my younger years. I had what I now know to be panic attacks a few times after smoking a bit of weed and it's not worth the risk for me anymore. It's a bummer because I used to occasionally smoke when I was in my 20s with no issue other than maybe feeling a bit groggy in the morning but now it's a tossup whether it will mellow me out or leave me a wreck off a few puffs.

Had a couple of panic attacks unrelated to any sort of mind-altering drug as well and I actually did drive myself to the ER because I didn't know what was going on. I thought I was having a heart attack or a stroke or something (which of course doesn't help the panic attack). Heart wouldn't stop racing, blood pressure through the roof, dizzy, trouble speaking, etc.

I kept the rest of the handful of Xanax I was prescribed in case I have another one someday. No desire to pick up a benzo habit but the few times I thought I felt something similar coming on in subsequent years, half a tablet (whether through placebo or drug effectiveness) made it fizzle out before ramping up into a full panic attack.

It's weird because I had thought knowing it's a panic attack and not a heart attack/stroke/whatever would "disarm" the process but it doesn't seem to matter. Still interested in figuring out what can cause that to happen seemingly out of nowhere.

Feels like a feedback loop where normally mild anxiety comes and goes in the course of daily life but in rare cases, instead of "turning the mic off" it stays on and the feedback builds to a point that is overwhelming.

<comment><USER14> > Using a throwaway due to subject matter

Exactly due to the subject matter, I choose to use my regular account. Mental health issues are not pretty, just like physical illness can be ugly. But we do not shy away from the people who have terminal cancer, we help them out the best they can.

For mental illness helping can mean admitting that you have issues too. Displaying that they are not alone, that these issues are not as uncommon as everyone makes out to be.

<comment><USER15> I think they meant the weed and xanax.

<comment><USER13> Ding ding ding!!

Not so much the drugs I was prescribed, but cannabis is still not legal for recreational use where I live and either way, there's a stigma. My usual username is easily traceable to me (at least by people who know me) and I don't necessarily want family or employers searching out a known username and running across tales of weed and panic attacks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember the first time I had a panic attack it was in the middle of the night, I woke up believing there was a thought, an idea, that if I accidentally thought about it would kill me instantly. It was the weirdest thing, and scary too. Eventually, and through some great discussions with a counselor, I narrowed it down to the stress and anxiety of being a single earner, in a field (engineering) that had been known to change directions and leave everyone behind. I had lived through the semiconductor recession in the Bay Area and black Monday (1987) where the DOW jones had crashed. When the dot.com bubble burst, the fear, unspoken, was that the world would crash, I'd be out on the streets, and there would be no way for me to provide for my wife and family.

Oddly enough, a friend of mine suggested doing arithmetic in my head in a panic state, and it worked quite well for me. The theory was that you can't panic (fight or flight) reflex while your brain is in calculation mode. I don't know whether or not that is a valid theory but I do know that for me by focusing on a concrete problem (like trying to divide two 5 digit numbers) my sense of panic fades right away. In later years I found I could just read a text book, didn't really matter which one.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have always suffered from some level of social anxiety, but never really considered it crippling. Years ago, I brought this up to a doctor who promptly prescribed me a drug of the benzodiazepine class. At first I felt like an idiot. Slightly less anxious I guess, but I became kind of loose of the mouth (like you get when you're drunk), forgot a lot of things, and generally didn't like it. However, I stuck with it and a strange thing happened - as I adjusted to the medicine, my anxiety started getting worse. At this point, not taking the medicine had a rebound effect as well that was pretty terrifying, so I avoided that. All the while I was trapped - I couldn't stop using it or I would have panic attacks, but using it was also seemingly causing an increasing paradoxical reaction. I got to a pretty bad place with this over a few months, and ended up having physical manifestations of my inner anxiety (cramps, pins and needles, sweating, inability to sleep, etc). Eventually the only way out was a lengthy taper off the drug. It was literally 3 months of hell. After finally getting back to baseline, my normal anxiety level returned and it seemed like a walk in the park next to what I was experiencing on the medicine.

The point of my anecdote? Medicine can often compound the problem or even create new problems that weren't there before. Once you're in the midst of this, it can be hard to even recognize the medication as the cause, specially if you're taking multiple medications. I'm not suggesting that anyone stop their medicine without talking to their doctor, but at least consider that the anti-anxiety cocktail you're on may be making things far worse. It happened to me, and some research has revealed that these paradoxical reactions are not at all uncommon.

<comment><USER18> As far as I understand (not an MD), benzos are not generally considered a long-term anti-anxiety drug. They treat the immediate symptom for people who need immediate relief from debilitating anxiety attacks and occasional 'flare- ups'.

Generally, you could go on an SNRI or SSRI coupled with some form of cognitive-behavioral therapy to try to treat the root cause of the anxiety.

But I'm not a big fan of GP MDs giving out benzos like that given their long- term effects (anxiety, dependence, tolerance, withdrawal syndromes). GP's don't have the time to spend with you that a psychiatrist or therapist might in order to figure out what's going on.

<comment><USER19> My anecodotal experience is that SNRIs and SSRIs can massively increase the propensity, and even induce panic attacks where they were never present. My recommendation is to first try dancing - I know it sounds dumb, but the risk reward profile of this I think puts it at the first line of defense. I get that it is very hard for somebody in that mental state to get up and go dancing.

<comment><USER18> Yes, SNRI/SSRI's can precipitate panic attacks. And I agree aerobic activity of any sort can be very effective for controlling stress/anxiety and even depression. The important thing is to find some things that work for you and do them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I will chime in here just to add my voice to everyone else. There is hope if you have chronic anxiety. I've had it as far as I can remember, even memories being in my crib and crying because I didn't know where my parents were.

Meditation, medication, eating healthy, exercise, be aware of yourself and when you are pushing yourself beyond the breaking point. Everything will be ok. I avoid all illicit drugs, but alcohol is an anxiolytic and it's partly why I like it.

One time I was on the subway, surrounded by people of all ages just relaxing and being bored, and I was trapped in a life or death struggle for survival as one of the worst panic attacks of my life attacked me. Then, when I thought I couldn't make it, I realized how silly I was being and how absurd the whole situation was, and it gradually went away.

I still get panic attacks sometimes, but they get easier to manage.

</comment><comment><USER21> Body based coping strategies are helpful those moments. Try sticking your hand in a bowl full of ice water and leaving it in there for a few seconds, or taking a very cold shower. Some folks even do something called Ice Diving, where they place their entire face into a bowl of ice cubes and water. This actually triggers the diving reflex and it automatically calms your body. But you have to be in a place (like home) to do that. Other body based techniques can be used too that utilize other senses such as smell and taste. Fire ball candies are a portable option, and I've seen some people carry around tiny packets of pepper. You have to experiment a bunch to see what works for you. All of these ideas are derived from DBT. Behavioral Tech is the official company of all things DBT if you want to know more about all of it.

<comment><USER22> I doubt it triggers the "drowning reflex", which according to Wikipedia looks like this:

"Involuntary actions operated by the autonomic nervous system involve lateral flapping or paddling with the arms to press them down into the water in the effort to raise the mouth long enough to breathe, and tilting the head back. As an instinctive reaction, this is not consciously mediated nor under conscious control."

You may be referring to the diving reflex instead?

<comment><USER21> Yes, many apologies, I mistyped. I will correct now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have periodic trouble with panic attacks at night, when I'm trying to sleep, usually linked to times of external stress. I thought it was insomnia. In the moment, they're miserable - rapid pulse, cold sweat, numb hands, impending doom, the whole shebang. The next day, after just a few hours of sleep, there's hell to pay. The next night, I lay in bed afraid it's going to happen again and that I'll get no sleep again - so of course it happens again. Finally, after a few days I'm so tired I fall asleep the moment I hit the bed, with no time to fret about anything, and the cycle ends.

I was trying to write about it as insomnia one day , looking over my list of symptoms, when it clicked that it didn't sound like other descriptions of insomnia. Once I figured out they were panic attacks I was able to take a step back and look at the cycle, so I don't have week-long waves of this anymore. The next night I decide I don't want to sleep - maybe I want to do an extra load of laundry, inexplicably at midnight when I've hardly slept, absurd as it is. It works, at least.

My cat loves the panic attacks though. I stay up later, and I'm petting her the whole time trying to calm down. Great for her.

<comment><USER24> > My cat loves the panic attacks though. I stay up later, and I'm petting her > the whole time trying to calm down. Great for her.

When I'm away from home I can reduce an anxious feeling by imaging I'm petting one of the cats and feeling its rumbling purr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> >> _"I'm a type of guy who has a very long fuse," Love says. "I try to be as non-confrontational as I can, but when that fuse breaks, I explode._

This is me. I had what I feel was a panic attack / semi nervous breakdown on the last day of my internship this summer. It was basically a 12 week interview for a job. On second to last day I received a full-time job offer, and there where a few times where I had embarrassed myself in front of the VP and I was afraid If I got sick and vomited on the last day I embarrass myself again, so my brain just locked into panic mode. I asked my team leader to give me a ride home, and as soon as I walked in the door the panic subsided. I've still had a few flare ups over the last week; we're looking for houses now (our first home purchase) and I'll have to commute for a while, so I'm nervous about that too. I may have to stop drinking coffee and practice more meditation.

I think I just get over-exhausted and loose the ability to absorb and cope with stress, so when it happens its like any incoming stress hits my reptile brain directly like touching a raw nerve. I'm very happy that I've had the last week off to relax and rebuild my stress-buffer!

<comment><USER26> Do you have chronic pain or another chronic condition? I'm trying to find out if they're common among people who are non-confrontational, perfectionists, and generally suppress their emotions.

<comment><USER18> I'd venture to guess so. Stress has a way of coming out one way or another especially for those people who are very 'distant' from their emotions and feelings. Whatever the biological mechanism (chronic cortisol, inflammatory response, muscle tension, high bp/heartrate), it eventually shows up so you can't ignore it any longer.

Part of the cure I think is figuring out what your body is telling you through emotions and then figuring out what to do with that information (dealing with the stressor or finding an outlet).

<comment><USER26> Yeah, I ask because that's my personality type as well, and stress has manifested in a number of chronic physical symptoms for me (primarily wrist pain and gastro problems). Treating the symptoms as a signal, like "oh, I must be stressed" or "hmm, maybe that's bothering me more than I realize" has improved my symptoms significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Panic attacks are awful and terrifying, mine eventually turned into panic disorder, but after over a year of working on it and taking it step by step I was able to beat it and without any medication!

In my experience, the following helped me.

* Meditation

* Deep breathing exercises

* Exercising especially cardio.

* Cold water showers

* Learning about panic attacks

* CBT

<comment><USER28> If you have health issues, please don't follow any advice on the internet (Ok, not even mine) and go ask your doctor.

<comment><USER29> People here know that.

But they also know many doctors aren't able to help much with panic/anxiety, not because they're ignorant or incompetent but because the causes and effective treatment options vary so much from person to person, and the whole topic is not very well understood by anyone, really.

One of the treatment options suggested above (CBT) is a conventional medical approach.

The others are often reported to be beneficial for some people and are not commonly reported to do any harm, so it is fine for someone to suggest them.

<comment><USER30> Meditation has showed some promising results:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3772979/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3772979/)

Anecdotally it's very helpful to myself.

Deep breathing can be part of CBT too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've had to deal with panic attacks my whole life and most of the time I can link it up to an invisible stress meter building up until it triggers an attack. Sometimes I sort of mentally ignore how much stress I'm putting on myself due to work, life circumstances etc which doesn't make me realize how much stress I'm actually under until a panic attack finally hits.

Breathing exercises and realizing that that I'm going through a panic attack usually helps defuse it a little though most of the time you can only just wait it out.

</comment><comment><USER32> My first panic attack was triggered by smoking weed when I was 17 years old. Since then, it's been a lingering thing that has never left my mind and has kept me on a constant edge, especially in social situations.

I've found avoiding caffeine has helped a lot.

<comment><USER33> That sounds very difficult to carry around. I think for people who haven't had panic attacks even impossible to really comprehend.

Have you tried any other treatments like CBT or EMDR? Sometimes after a traumatic event the brain can be guided into reprocessing / repacking the memory of the event in a way that somehow relieves these kinds of after- effects.

<comment><USER34> It truly is awful. Try to imagine what you think dying is like and then that is what your brain puts every single system into overdrive trying to achieve. It triggers a fight or flight response and also is a feedback loop of awful that will only subside once your adrenal glands are tapped out and tired. You really can't stop it once it has begun and no telling yourself "it will be ok" will help it even though you intellectually know it will be fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I had crippling panic attacks for almost 10 years, doctors, drugs, nothing helped, I quit one job before I got fired due to poor performance because of my panic attacks.

High doses of L-Ascorbic acid eliminated my panic attacks. I slowly worked up to 60mg per KG of bodyweight. I weighed 250 (113kg) works out to ~7 grams per day. I slowly worked up to 2g before breakfast, 3g before lunch, and 2g before dinner. Once I started taking 4g per day the attacks lessened, and when I hit 6 they went away for good.

L-Ascorbic acid is an anti-stressor hormone in animals, humans have a mutation that prevents us from making it in our livers.

<comment><USER36> Wait we're talking about Vitamin C here? Really?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've had them all my life, the first at 21, in my mid 40s now, spent a good 10 years of my life with crippling episodes, were I couldn't go out, drive, and have panic attacks lasting for hours. At the worst, it was so bad, I lost 30 pounds in 1 week, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep with a mind racing 24 hours/day. It's so exhausting for the mind that you start having visual hallucinations, you start thinking about ending your life etc, and then finally, you collapse, what you could call a complete breakdown.

And here's the interesting part, things that you don't necessarily experience till it goes full blown, it's when you reach that point, the end of fear basically, your mind becomes calm. You don't necessarily realize it in the instant but that's it, you've stared into the abyss and it's not as awful as you imagined. At that point, you still have anxiety but that's it, it doesn't control you anymore, you're out of the 2 states loop, panic or fear it may happens. It's still painful, but it's not hell anymore, you know how it's gonna end, there's no more question.

Now, it's an incredible experience, can even become an spiritual one, it did for me, experiencing first hand how reality is subjective and how the mind works.

All in all, I wouldn't trade all those experiences for anything, it gives you an understanding of the human condition that not a lot of things can give you.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've only had one panic attack in my life and it was out of nowhere as well. I was riding the subway and suddenly I had this urge to run away, as if I was late for something but didn't know what. I got out of the subway and just collapsed in the platform, unable to breathe, shaking uncontrollably. It was terrifying. Reading about the "long fuse" makes a lot of sense to me. I avoid confronting other people and always try to be the "team player" and I guess I just snapped that one time.

<comment><USER39> Collapsing and not being able to breathe sounds like something more serious than a panic attack.

<comment><USER40> Both can happen during a panic attack. Or both can feel like are happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I suffered from panic attacks throughout my 20's. Recently I went to a cognitive behavioral therapist who guided me through a hyperventilation technique to simulate the physical symptoms of a panic attack. The results are amazing: practicing this technique three or so times a week for a month completely rid me of panic attacks. I recently was feeling stressed about a work trip and "tuned up" the night before by going through a session and had no issues.

The therapist said this cures 99% of patients. The "golden feather" in a CBT therapist's hat.

The technique:

Sitting down, as rapidly as you can, take a deep breath in and blow it out. Do this 40 times. Blow out all your air and hold your breath for as long as you can (1 - 2 minutes for me, stop when you start to get convulsions or you may pass out). During this time observe your tingling hands, light headed feeling, sweaty palms etc. This is a normal result of an excess of oxygen in your body. It cannot hurt you. Now take a deep breath and hold it for 15-20 seconds. Start immediately and repeat two more times for a total of three. Repeat three times a week for a month. If you start to feel panic more often, start your treatment again (this is rarely necessary).

The first time will be the scariest. After that it gets MUCH easier I promise. It may be helpful to see a CBT therapist to talk you through it the first time. It will change your life.

That technique coupled with a mild anti anxiety medication has completely feed me of anxiety and panic.

I hope this helps others :)

</comment><comment><USER42> I never had panic attacks until the age of about 23. I adopted a dog (a Blackmout Cur) and brought it home for the first time, and it went off like a tornado as soon as it stepped foot in the door. I got it calmed down, and everything was fine. When I went to bed that night, though, the reality of the situation struck me, and I thought I was having a heart attack. The entire night, I hummed 'Rio Grande' by the Great Speckled Bird in my head, because I always found it to be a soothing song, and it just made it worse and worse.

The next few months, I would get panic attacks as soon as my head hit the pillow - nothing to do with the dog at this point. Though, the dog was quite a handful. I'd take it for two hour walks, and after a 5-minute rest, it'd be back to rampaging.

Now, I'll get a panic attack once every few years - still, always in bed. I usually have no idea what sets them off.

Edit: I got my first dog so late, because I'm allergic to dogs, and I was a sick kid. My parents didn't want to exacerbate my allergies. I have dogs do this day, and I just deal with the allergies.

</comment><comment><USER43> Nobody has mentioned how effective it is to rebreathe when you feel a panic attack coming on.

I've had them for 50 years, and the single most effective thing I can do remains finding a paper bag to breathe into when I feel the hyperventilation begin.

I suspect most other sufferers know this, but just in case this is a new problem for anyone.

</comment><comment><USER44> Has happened to me once. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe and I had an ache in my chest. No doubt I was hyper ventilating, but I was also sweating and getting vision effects. Which had me convinced I was about to die of a heart attack.

I don't want to derail, but this strikes me as very odd:

 _" Right after it happened I went to see my regular doctor and got a prescription for medication that can calm me down in that situation"_

I mentioned it to doc at next visit, quite some time later. He also decided it was probably just a panic attack and unless they start to repeat to forget about it. It wouldn't occur to me to seek and carry medication for something that happened once in a lifetime. Unless it had turned out to be the symptoms of something serious and life threatening.

<comment><USER45> If the panic attack is triggered by you being affraid of getting a panic attack, it might be possible to avoid it if you are carrying something you think helps. On the other hand just forgetting that at home might trigger the attack again. It's important to know why you are getting panic attacks in the first place. They can be caused by serious stress and burnout.

<comment><USER46> In my late 20s that did help me quite a bit, to carry a medication that could help me if I did have an attack. However, making the decision to not carry it after a while was supremely empowering, and helped cement the notion that I could manage my anxiety and calm myself down. And I do, on a regular basis.

To each their own I suppose. Also, if you're reading this and struggling with anxiety or panic attacks, you're not alone, but the thing that helps you cope may be unique to your situation, so please work directly with a therapist or a doctor!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> My son was getting them for a couple years and the frequency was increasing. He was missing school. We tried all sorts of techniques that you can google.

Finally took him to a clinical psychologist that focuses on them and I was embarrassed on how few sessions it took this guy to solve them.

<comment><USER48> Was it just talk therapy that solved it?

Or does your son have to do ongoing treatment like meditation / prescription medication?

<comment><USER47> Just talk. Maybe 5 sessions?

It basically boiled down to (in his case) "so your heart is beating fast? that's ok. not a big deal."

It is always amazing to watch an expert in any field distill a seemingly complex problem into a simple one with a simple solution (at least in my son's case).

Obviously, his decades of expertise was able to eliminate a world of root- cause possibilities and guide the conversation to help my son believe this simple conclusion.

He'd also induce panic attacks by having him breathe through a narrow straw. Probably helped to demystify them and practice dealing with them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Personally I'm happy that I don't have to rely on medication (although I understand that it gives peace of mind to have access to it, just in case. This in itself might prevent future attacks)

In my own experience, the key to coping with panic attacks is the right breathing technique to prevent hyperventilation from happening.

Ever since I had a few panic attacks many years ago, I am using a technique which works great for me: Short deep inhaling and very slow, long exhaling. Every exhale has to be significantly longer in duration than every inhale.

I've been in many situations in which I felt the first signs of a possible attack, but with this breathing technique, I always was able to stop it from actually happening.

</comment><comment><USER50> I was diagnosed with sever panic disorder in my early twenties. I tried everything (therapy, medication) but nothing really helped.

I eventually became agoraphobic and wouldn't leave my house.

I did a 10-day vipassana meditation course ([http://dhamma.org](http://dhamma.org)), where you can't read or write or listen to music or talk. You basically just meditate the whole time.

I had very bad panic attacks during the 10 days, but eventually meditation actually helped me to deal with it.

I'm now in my forties and meditation is the only thing that truly helps me with panic attacks.

</comment><comment><USER51> I've got near crippling social anxiety. It's hard because intellectually I know my brain is creating and responding to fear that is all artificial. However in the moment that's nearly impossible for me to realize or take in.

I've been having more and more conversations with friends and co workers about anxiety recently and that's helped a bit but realistically this is something that I'm going to have to do real work on.

<comment><USER52> Have you tried propranolol? The research shows it's quite effective for this kind of thing

<comment><USER51> I'm pretty resistant to trying any drugs when there are drug free options with high success rates (CBT). But thanks for the recommendation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> My mental health has been suffering for the past couple of years for a variety of fairly definable reasons, but I actually had my first one last night. It was triggered so I kind of knew what was going on, but I really wasn't prepared for the smack of adrenaline and the half hour cooling down period of just trying to stop shaking and lose the desire to cry.

Luckily it was not debilitating, and happened in the car five minutes from home, so I could get to a sofa and work through it; it also helped that I had somewhere to be with friends that was in no way connected to my triggers and so I could use that as a useful distraction.

I think the scariest thing for me, now, is that now I have to add panic/anxiety attacks to my understanding of my own condition, which up until now has been either some very black (but ultimately rational) periods of suffering, or just general low mood to the point where I have dismissed the idea of medication.

But this is now probably a game-changer for me.

</comment><comment><USER54> > Right after it happened I went to see my regular doctor and got a > prescription for medication that can calm me down in that situation.

This seems so stereotypically American to me.

> But the real solution has come from many years of trying to understand the > root causes of the panic and anxiety and working to deal with them.

What the doctor should have helped doing in the first place.

<comment><USER55> "Stereotypical Americans" don't have a "regular doctor" let alone just go to one without a second thought about the costs of doing so.

<comment><USER54> I would only imagine so. Which of course makes this whole situation of a seemingly low barrier to getting drugs prescribed even worse.

<comment><USER34> Read the reply you commented on again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm a founder that has struggled with this (but it's basically been solved for a while). When Panic Attacks ([https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Panic-Attacks- drug-free-therap...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Panic-Attacks-drug-free- therapy/dp/0091929601)) is a great book. Just being able to identify it and know it's not dangerous helped me the most.

I loved his anecdote of doing jumping jacks while having a panic attack. The lightheartedness of the way he approaches the disorder is kind of nice.

One weird thing that helped me was reading everything I could possibly find on panic attacks over some short period of time. Every paper, book, medication, etc. Unlike some disorders, the truth seems to mostly be positive (non- dangerous, relatively straight-forward ways to beat it), and so the more you know the better you'll be at approaching it.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've always had sort of low key intermittent anxiety, but when my dad almost died from acute pancreatitis, I became hyperaware of anything unusual going on with my body -- and turning 40, there's a lot that's new going on. I made repeated visits to the doctor over the course of a few years, convinced I was dying of one thing or another. Realizing one day that almost all of the various symptoms I had were symptoms of anxiety, it was like a weight lifted off of me.

I've got it more or less under control now. I've figured out when to notice when an anxiety attack is coming on, and just lay down and relax. And cutting down on caffeine helped _a lot_. Anything that's a stimulant triggers them for me. I now have like half a cup of coffee in the morning and nothing for the rest of the day.

</comment><comment><USER57> I've had a few, and the only way I can describe is it being the same sensation as if you're in a bad neighborhood, and suddenly you get surrounded, or a drug dealer seems to be very shady in the exchange, or some tweaker looks at you like you killed his dog.

In those situations I keep my shit together and think rationally, but when it comes out of nowhere, you add to that threatening sensation the confusion of not knowing where it comes from. So you think you're having a heart attack, or a stroke, or who the fuck knows. It's a feeling of impending doom.

I see it the same our tendency to see faces on surfaces, our brain is wired that way. It's also wired to sense danger, adrenergic pareidolia, so to speak. And sometimes there are neither faces nor threats.

</comment><comment><USER58> I really appreciate when industry leaders talk frankly about things like this. In current culture, this can be easily treated as an admission of weakness and penalized accordingly. The more high-status people that speak up, the more the stigma will dissolve.

</comment><comment><USER59> I've only had a 'true' panic attack once. I was running for a train and I slipped on the stairs and landed hard on my back. My throat closed up, my back ached and I couldn't shout, or call for help. Suddenly I couldn't breathe at all. I didn't know it was panic; I thought maybe I'd broken my back or something. Which of course made the panic worse.

I remember thinking "This is it. This is how I die, here on the station platform, alone, with nobody noticing." It was a terrifying, helpless feeling. It passed after maybe 30 seconds, as soon as I managed to take a gasp of air.

It was only once and more than a decade ago but even typing this is kind of freaking me out.

<comment><USER60> Sounds like you were winded [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_the_wind_knocked_out_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_the_wind_knocked_out_of_you)

Of course being winded could induce panic too, but not being able to breathe in that circumstance has a physical cause.

<comment><USER59> Thanks! That makes a lot of sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It's really strange because I still maintain a good amount of self-awareness during my panic attacks so I'm like 'yeah gimmie a sec my brain's just being silly' while also in the midst of crying and hyperventilating.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm going to politely disagree here and say solving panic attacks doesn't take years but instead minutes. I suffered many panic attacks in my mate twenties and early thirties and then learned some simple techniques that solved the panic attacks in one fell swoop. The whole process took less than two minutes. I've since helped a few friends with the same and they have positive experiences in the same way.

If anyone's interested you can look into the work of Dr Bradley Nelson and more specifically his book The Emotion Code. I use a combination of Timeline therapy and emotion release and it does wonders for panic attacks.

<comment><USER52> Most people I know that have read or written on this subject agree it can often be cured in minutes (even after a decade of pain). David Burns has a weekend program that often solves these situations quite quickly.

However, I'm not so sure about The Emotion Code's pushing of "organ energy fields" or Dr Bradley Nelson's "message from above" to go write a book pushing this

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've had just one of these and it was horrible. Lying in bed, I started to get subtle pins & needles in my feet which moved up to my knees and the numbness just kept moving up.

I thought I was having some kind of stroke so I jumped out of bed and by the time I was in the kitchen 10 seconds later I was fighting not to faint, which I thought would lead to me dying. I kept pacing around the kitchen table quickly, basically walking laps for about an hour until it subsided.

Told my girlfriend to call an ambulance as soon as I hit the floor, which luckily didn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER64> I found that potassium gives me anxiety and panic attacks. I noticed this after drinking an electrolyte drink, and also eventually traced it back to fish and to chicken broth, both of which are high in potassium.

I now eat a low-potassium diet, which fixed the problem.

My potassium levels are normal. My doctors have never heard of this effect. I can't explain this, I just know it works for me, and I have some confidence from looking back at my food logs that it's not a placebo effect.

</comment><comment><USER65> I have never had this problem. I have felt panic but it never became a full blown attack. I'm not sure what the difference between an attack and anxiety is.

<comment><USER14> the difference is gigantic.

The usual kind of panic for me is "oh shit, I forgot to do this, if I cant fix it Im getting fired" kinda.

For me a panic attack is "oh shit, I forgot to do this, if I cant fix it Im getting fired. ooooooh no I cant fix it because im a idiot and <some stupid reason>. Im gonna get fired, not get another job ever again because I was only at this job for 6 months. Fuck, is this it? convenient life, gone, just like this? Why can I not just be neurotypical, with a working brain? What happened in the last few years, I used to be such an upbeat happy guy. my whole life will be like this. Full of bullshit, can't dos and more. How can my partner still be happy with me? All I do is be a cynical asshole"

Sorry, this turned out a bit longer than expected. It just leads down a rabbithole really quickly, and getting out of it is like climbing mount everest

<comment><USER66> I wouldn't necessarily call that a panic attack. Panic attacks are a physical manifestation of some underlying anxiety. I've, personally, never been able to focus on any other thought than the fact that I feel like I'm going to die when I have one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I had them years ago and I found Mingyur Rinpoche's lesson on YT, and listening to his lesson helped me a lot. He made me realize something key. To add to that, just the fact that he also had them made me realize I was not alone. The technique he uses to deal with this issue applied to me wonderfully. It didn't take me years, it took me days, of course everyone's case is different.

</comment><comment><USER68> This seems like a good resource:

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

<comment><USER69> Hmm. To me, it seems not. Or at least, it seems an everyday expertise knowledge, derived from direct experience. He does not seem to be a qualified expert. The goal here is to sell the books.

<comment><USER68> From the website:

> the purchase of the book is totally optional, so please do take the time to > look around my site

Also, the book is only 13 pounds, so I don't they they are making a lot of money out of it. Perhaps they use the money to keep the website running?

<comment><USER69> Yes, I read that sentence before writing and your argument about the website expenses can be valid. It does not change my main point: when it is about health one should search for information from qualified professionals. For example:

1\. [https://www.anxiety.org/panic-disorder-panic- attacks](https://www.anxiety.org/panic-disorder-panic-attacks)

2\. [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/panic- attacks...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/panic- attacks/symptoms-causes/syc-20376021)

A personal experience can be illuminating sometimes but it cannot be considered an alternative approach. For this reason, I do not consider it a good source. Just my opinion.

<comment><USER68> You could be right, but on the other hand many qualified professionals prescribe Zoloft or Xanax and be done with it. A personal account (which in fact many of the comments here on HN are) can be very helpful, if only as a reference when talking to real professionals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Avoid coffee, for me this have been key. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine- induced_anxiety_disor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine- induced_anxiety_disorder)

</comment><comment><USER71> Not to belittle panic attacks, for which I've suffered a couple during my lifetime and yes, they are quite scary, but am I the only one clicking on this thinking I'd be reading about kernel panic attacks?

</comment><comment><USER72> I use to get one every morning into work crossing over one bridge. After years it never went away (never chanhed jobs either) but I started working from home

</comment><comment><USER72> Does anyone get them after programming all day? Feels like my brain is in a different mode and the transition back can bring them on.

</comment><comment><USER37> Our western/christian way of seeing the world has a lot to do with this condition. The illusion of control, this permanent struggle for betterment and perfection is a very good recipe for anxiety, depression and mental illnesses. Add to that the loss of faith, and that's it, you get millions of people on antidepressant...

</comment><comment><USER73> so are there really just magic pills you can take that stop panic attacks? this guys carries them around but doesn't say if he's had to use them.

<comment><USER74> No, there aren't. But physicians aren't psychiatrists and often the first treatment people get to treat panic attacks comes from their physician, and is something like a beta-blocker. By and large these are ineffective.

That said, the placebo effect can be strong.

<comment><USER75> can confirm firsthand that beta blockers are not useful for panic disorders despite being widely indicated for them. the beta blockers are intended to treat the physical symptoms of anxiety like shaking, sweating, and fast heartbeat. IMO they're a therapy which is really targeted at the doctors, who will feel better if they are able to prescribe something which theoretically helps the patient but doesn't carry any major risks like other therapies might.

it turns out you can still have extreme anxiety and a panic attack if the overt physical symptoms aren't there, however. anxiety is a state of mind as much as it is a set of physical symptoms.

<comment><USER52> Do you have research to support this? Propranolol for instance is psychoactive in addition to hitting plasma norepinephrine / blood pressure etc

<comment><USER74> I was on propranolol for 4 years or so because I was having panic attacks but had an irrational fear of antidepressants, which is what most doctors suggested I try. My logic was A) I'm not depressed, and B) I don't want to mess with my brain chemistry and become normal and boring. I was young.

In a case of cruel irony, I actually became quite depressed during the time I was taking propranolol. (Recent studies suggest this is not coincidence.) It also had no effect whatsoever on my baseline anxiety, which remained uncomfortably high, though it did prevent me from having the actual attacks that I considered my worst symptom.

At one point I stopped taking propranolol for a year. The highlight of this year was losing a prestigious international post-grad fellowship when I had a complete anxious meltdown during my final telephone interview. When it was over, I vomited. After that, I finally gave in and told a doctor to give me the antidepressants (in my case, 75mg venlafaxine).

For me, the effect was immediate, and I can only compare it to a case of cured tinnitus. All of a sudden, this uncomfortable thing that I could feel at all times and that I was always conscious of possibly overwhelming me was gone. Presto. I must say I immediately felt remorseful and a bit stupid for prolonging my suffering for as long as I did by refusing to try antidepressants.

I stayed on venlafaxine until a couple years after my wife and I started dating, at which point I felt like I could taper off, and I did. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to look up how much of a pain that can be.

So, my recommendation to fellow anxiety sufferers is to not be afraid to try antidepressants even though you may feel anxiety is the opposite of depression. At least don't settle for a half-cure until you've explored all your options.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What College Majors Are Most Likely to Marry Each Other? - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/what-college-majors-are-most-likely-to-marry-each/ <comment><USER2> I don't see Law on the list but anecdotally, I feel it would be up there

<comment><USER3> There are some schools (mostly, that I've seen, small private for-profit law schools, not general colleges) that offer undergraduate degrees in law (e.g., B.S.L.), but they're pretty rare. More commonly, there are specialties/concentrations in other programs (often Political Science) which are promoted as preparatory for law school, though students that go on to legal study may have pretty much any undergraduate major.

Since this is looking at undergraduate degrees, its not surprising that Law doesn't show up.</comment></comment>


182,901 Ads, 26 Clicks: My Short Life as a Facebook Advertiser - <AUTHOR> http://go.bloomberg.com/facebook-unleashed/2012-02-02/182901-ads-26-clicks-my-short-life-as-a-facebook-advertiser/

<comment><USER2> You made rookie mistakes, please don't write your experience up as panacea. Most people who are interested in art will not "like" the facebook art page. They might not even like any pages at all. Connection targeting is spotty unless you know your demographic actively "likes" relevant pages, like Twilight or Justin Bieber. Finally, perhaps your ad just is not that interesting. That is more likely than not, given that people come up with really good ads. Far be it for me to defend a rival's product, but you don't build the revenue facebook has if your product is useless.

It's great that you're sharing your experience, but your lack of experience and sensationalisitic headline strike me as cynically timed linkbait.

</comment><comment><USER3> Facebook lets you bid based on CPC or CPM. Sounds like he was using CPM when he should have used CPC. Either that or his CPC bid was really high.</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with an anti-vacation culture? - <AUTHOR> I'm a remote Django/Python developer.  I've been with my current employer for about a year now.  I work very hard at my job.  I support multiple front end developers, work on two separate large-scale websites (including server setup and systems administration).
I recently asked for a few days off around Thanksgiving.  This is the first time I've asked for a real vacation.  My employers were somewhat negative about the idea and suggested they might need to bring on a freelancer to cover my position for a few of the days I'd be out (a total of 3 days before Thanksgiving).
Has anyone else experienced a culture negative towards vacation before?  Is there any way to reason with them? <comment><USER2> If company can survive without one of the developers being out for a couple of days, there must be something very wrong with the company. What happens when you get sick, and you don't work for a week/month?

One idea I like on this topic (can't remember where I seen it) is that each week randomly one of the employee is given a week off, and company has to work around it. Similar to how Netflix (I think if my memory is not mistaken) test their infrastructure by randomly killing servers to see if the system can fix itself up.

Stand your ground, or they will trample through you until you burn out and quit (or get fired).

</comment><comment><USER3> > My employers were somewhat negative about the idea and suggested they might > need to bring on a freelancer to cover my position for a few of the days I'd > be out

Really..? They can just pull in a freelancer like that? I have a hard time believing it... Sounds like an empty (and bizarre) threat to me. Either way, just say "great pull in the freelance for 3 days so I can take my vacation".

> Is there any way to reason with them?

I think the only thing you can do here is take your vacation. Stand your ground and do it. It might feel awkward but if you don't they will continue to push back on your vacation time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree I need to stand my ground. This feels like a test to see if I'll give up my vacation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > suggested they might need to bring on a freelancer to cover my position ...

Finding a contingency back-up is a hassle for them. Volunteer to find someone, plus offer that you can be available for emergency calls. The Show Must Go On!

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's a good idea, offering to hook them up with a freelancer. Or maybe I could even help train a coworker on the basics?</comment></comment>


Do I need to know math to be a good developer? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@marceloboeira/do-i-need-to-know-math-to-be-a-developer-1f0ac0a0afe <comment><USER2> It depends what you are developing. If you are doing programming for web applications, then possibly not (although, there probably are exceptions). If you are writing something like circuit simulation program, or a DSP-based control system then you will need math skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you read the article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Possibly not, but an attitude of "I'm going to skip everything difficult that I don't NEED to know" isn't going to do you any favors...</comment>


Cable TV as you know it is finally coming to the end of its road - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@IanCody/cable-tv-as-you-know-it-is-finally-coming-to-the-end-of-its-road-8290d526bc7

<comment><USER2> Ok, yes, it's going to be cool to have a Youtube-like platform for video on Apple devices. I agree with other commenters who suggest it's not that revolutionary. This is the sound of another brick being knocked out of the wall, but it is not the sound of the wall falling.

>> Simply put, the cable industry in its current state is comparable to us still buying CDs, paying for e-mail, or renting a video from BlockBuster.

It's comparable to those things if the CD store, pay email provider, and Blockbuster all had municipal monopolies on their equivalent of last-mile coax.

The wall is going to fall, but the cable companies have a lot of life left in them, and they still have many opportunities to use their wealth and monopoly power to try and lobby their way out of danger.

</comment><comment><USER3> It was the ads coupled with the 5% yearly price increases which caused me to disconnect cable back in 2008.

When 20 minutes of the time is spent in a 1 hour program is spent showing advertisements, it becomes irritating to watch, and the time to summarize all of the events prior to the ads, takes away from the depth of the programming.

We have Netflix, but the quality of the programming has gone downhill in the last couple of years (at least as far as non-fiction programming is concerned). I'm considering cancelling and just using Youtube for most of my viewing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think this is any different from the Roku I've been using for a few years now. Anyone can develop for it. The problem is getting content providers to want to.

On another note I'm about to sign back up for cable again. AT&T is getting super cheap in my area now and I miss a lot of things on cable having internet TV. Plus Sling, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu movies. Internet TV is costing me slightly more than cable will at this point.

</comment><comment><USER5> except that it is not.

Apple and freedom to operate is rarely used in the same sentence. I really doubt claims in this marketing document are accurate.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best small off-grid solar kit today? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for small off-grid kits that include a battery for consistent output of about 1000 Watt Hrs per day, and are simple to install by myself <comment><USER2> You can make your own extremely easy.

1kWh is about 85 Amp Hours. You'll need at least a 160Ah battery if you don't want any extra storage. Usually you will need to at least double that for days when you don't have much sun. I would suggest you need at least 400Ah worth of batteries.

Then you have to figure out how much sun your panels are getting to determine if you can fully charge your batteries in that time for the rest of the day.

You'll most likely only need a few 100W panels. This means you'll be looking at <$1k for the batteries and <$1k for everything else, including a cheap controller.

Size? Well expect this entire thing to weigh around 500lbs!

<comment><USER3> What about those batteries, is lithium an option?

<comment><USER4> Get your wallet out. Your tissues, too, because what you're about to see is going to be eye-watering:

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

I looked at them for RV use, though, and folks seem to be happy with them. Too rich for my blood, I ended up going with AGM for now.

Oh, and they have kits, too. Just add solar panels:

[https://battlebornbatteries.com/product-category/battle- born...](https://battlebornbatteries.com/product-category/battle-born-kits/)

<comment><USER5> Wow. ~$1k/100ah for those babies. Dang.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great question, I hope we get some good answers in here. Cheap reliable off grid power set ups could provide a huge boost to everyone. Imagine moving to your new place, and just running a few panels up a pole right above the tree line.

</comment><comment><USER7> I personally have a Goal Zero setup with the Lithium-based Yeti 3000 (3000W), and a pair of the Boulder 200 solar panel briefcases, totaling 400W. Albeit expensive, went with this option for the ease of installation - 1 wire per solar panel plugged into the Yeti, and It Just Works. No complaints besides from my wallet.

</comment><comment><USER8> What about [https://ironedison.com](https://ironedison.com)? I'm interested in nickel iron batteries, sounds like they last longer and can handle more abuse then lead acid and lithium ion... would love to hear if anyone has experience with them

</comment><comment><USER9> Researched this recently and came across this which appears to be the best solution in the field currently, though price prohibitive. [http://solarips.com/power-tower/](http://solarips.com/power-tower/)

<comment><USER10> Wonder how pricing compares with [http://www.jouleboxpower.com/](http://www.jouleboxpower.com/). The batteries seem to be the large cost in these energy storage solutions. Removing them and using hydrogen in propane tanks may reduce costs significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have heard Renogy, or the Goal Zero Yeti</comment>


Running Lisp in Production (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.grammarly.com/blog/engineering/running-lisp-in-production/ <comment><USER2> Back in Amazon I found some ancient code written in Common Lisp. Doubt any production services left, but I updated the build system to support Clozure CL. My contribution in $BIGCORP :)

<comment><USER3> Was it the "You may also be interested in:" box on product pages? I remember going to a tech talk, many years ago, by the person who wrote that.

<comment><USER2> Nah, I implemented a simple wrapper around an internal tool for auto- translating Oracle PLSQL to SparkQL. Data Engineers liked that a lot

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also:

2019 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20814511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20814511)

2018 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16860646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16860646) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16679963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16679963)

Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9785944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9785944)

Edit: also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231701) from a few days ago.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for the links, what a nice discussion back in 2015.

Everything has gotten more corporate. I hardly dare to make a Lisp comment now, because people from $BIGCORP would jump on it.

<comment><USER4> Really? Please dare. I don't think $BIGCORP is so dominant here, or that things have changed so much since 2015.

Most changes that people notice on HN are random fluctuation. Note that I don't say all changes—just most. The trouble is that it's hard to figure out which ones are vs. aren't, and none of us really tries. We just notice the data points we notice (which, btw, are the ones we're primed to notice—usually whatever we dislike the most) and connect the dots with material from our imagination. It's an amazing thing! Randomness plus cognitive bias equals narrative.

There's a thread about this on the front page right now: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23293462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23293462). I've been saying the same thing about people's interpretations of HN for years:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20narrative%20random&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For normal small team it might be hard to get advise. More diverse users in other eco-system. Even clojure is hard. At least the code is easier to read.

</comment><comment><USER7> On reddit I found that following questions. I would be glad for some possible answers.

\</comment><comment>---

That was a good post.

I wonder if the tech stack still uses Common Lisp after these 5 years, considering all other languages described in the post?

Are there any new lessons learned after running Common Lisp for another 5 years, if it is still actively used?

Would you pick up Common Lisp again or something else, if you can go back in time and get a chance to start fresh?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER8> My previous job was all common lisp. I really enjoyed writing it. The REPL was definitely a job, and having a dynamic runtime environment.

</comment><comment><USER9> Finally read the reference on lisp reader macros : [http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/X_Mas...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/X_Mast_9.htm)

Now I sort of get what #+unix means...

<comment><USER10> For the benefit of everybody else, #+ does feature checking.

The Common Lisp standard defines a standard "special variable" (kind of like a global) named * features * (shouldn't be spaces, but HN italicizes it otherwise), and #+ (and #-) take a "feature expression" and conditionally execute the expression that immediately follows it when the feature expression is true. If the feature check is false, the next expression is ignored.

For example:

        #+freebsd(print "This is FreeBSD")
        #+(not (and 64-bit linux))(print "This is not 64-bit Linux.")
        #+quicklisp (ql:quickload :some-library)

The CL standard lists a few standard features (:common-lisp, :ieee-floating- point, etc.) but for the most part implementations and libraries define their own.

It's not perfect, but works well enough in practice.

<comment><USER11> The common thing done with it is:

      #+nil(this expression (won't be read))

(Also done with #+and, and #+or.)

This is an unofficial Common Lisp s-expression level comment. One of these incredibly nice things that's missing in most programming languages. It comments out a single s-expression, no matter how complex. It's like a #|block comment|# in that it can span multiple lines, and like ; line comment in that you only put something at the beginning. Have a complex expression within a function, that you need to temporarily shut down? Just shove #+nil in front of it.

(The #+nil version is discouragd because there's a remote chance somebody will define a * feature * called :nil for some reason.)

A less-common thing done with it is library interop. Many libraries tend to add a tag to * features * to indicate they've been loaded, so in your library, you can use #+library_tag to detect that another library is a part of the same project, and conditionally compile-in some extensions or interoperability code.

(@dang, I think HN could use a way to escape the * * formatting marks. For a site and community that has a soft spot for Lisp, not being able to type in the "earmuffs" is something that always bewildered me.)

<comment><USER12> I would guess that there was a feature :nil defined in the NIL [1] system.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIL_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIL_\(programming_language\))

<comment><USER11> That must be it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> phoe-krk Previous discussions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Running%20Lisp%20in%20Production%20grammarly&sort=byDate&type=story)

<comment><USER4> You can add "comments>0" to get the ones with comments:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Running%20Lisp%20in%20Production%20grammarly%20comments%3E0&sort=byDate&type=story)

<comment><USER13> Interesting, seems the "comments>0" op is undocumented, couldn't find it anywhere on the algolia page. Is there a page with all the different operators you can use?

<comment><USER4> It's documented here: [https://hn.algolia.com/help](https://hn.algolia.com/help). You have to click 'help' at the bottom of the search page, I guess.

Another option I use, which doesn't appear on that page, is storyText=none, if you want to exclude matches from text posts. That one has to go in the URL, though. Note the difference between the link in my GP comment vs. this one:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Running%20Lisp%20in%20Production%20grammarly%20comments%3E0&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none)

The latter creates much cleaner search results if you want to match just on title and URL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is so cool

</comment><comment><USER15> This is officially the hardest I've laughed at a grammar mistake. At the end of the third line, there's a missing space between "years." and "We". Petty, I know, but I expect a grammar company who took over my Youtube ads earlier about writing perfect emails and blog posts to have perfect blog posts.

<comment><USER16> Earlier? I still get them

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> From 2016

<comment><USER18> 2015, no?

<comment><USER17> Yep, I guess I saw June 26, 2015, and flipped the 5 and the 6. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I seriously don't get why lisp is so popular on HN, it's basically unreadable to very most of developers. It's an ivory tower.

<comment><USER20> I will explain it for you.

Lisp is hard to master, like playing the violin, but if you master it you can get enormous rewards.

Other languages are more like "playing guitar hero", most of the work is done for you and it it way easier to learn.

HN is like a musician network but for programmers. It attracts lots of people around the world that master lisp like musicians master an instrument.

I will tell you about myself, I had a lisp master that did teach me that what had taken me weeks in c, c++ and python code he could do it in lisp in minutes.

As I saw this man "play his instrument" it was obvious that if I wanted to be a good programmer I should master it myself.

Because I had this master teaching me, I could learn it fast.

The "secret" of Lisp is that you can automate your code writing, making you tens or hundred of times more capable with your code.

"Ivory tower" means it is not related to reality. Lisp is very real, like violins are real.

<comment><USER21> Could you give me an example of a real-world software engineering task which takes "weeks" in Python and minutes in Lisp?

<comment><USER22> Not weeks to minutes, but still, try writing an Airlines booking, scheduling application which gets the traveler the best route given his/her requirements.

<comment><USER23> That is just an algorithm, isn't it? I cant see how it would be simpler to implement in Lisp that Python.

I suspect the issue is that a flight booking system is basically the only significant commercial system written in Lisp, which is why it is always dragged out in these discussions.

<comment><USER24> The flight search was designed 20 years ago with the goal to disrupt mainframe-based flight search systems domain:

Here is some background on that particular application:

[https://www.msri.org/people/members/sara/articles/airfares.p...](https://www.msri.org/people/members/sara/articles/airfares.pdf)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html)

> I suspect the issue is that a flight booking system is basically the only > significant commercial system written in Lisp

How would you know that?

<comment><USER23> The claim was that something which would take weeks in say Python would take minutes in Lisp. Then this flight search system is presented as evidence.

I just don't see how it is any form of evidence for that rather extraordinary claim? It just shows it is possible to write complex software in Lisp, but I wasn't disputing that. I'm disputing the claim of 100 x productivity.

<comment><USER24> I was addressing your 'That is just an algorithm, isn't it?', in case you would be interested what that application is actually about.

There was no general claim of 100x productivity. The commenter wrote: "I had a lisp master that did teach me that what had taken me weeks in c, c++ and python code he could do it in lisp in minutes"

That was his personal impression, not a general claim. I can't also imagine how this could be a general claim.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does .9999999... = 1? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beueDtFFOw0

<comment><USER2> If .333333... = 1/3, then .333333... x 3 = .999999... = 1/3 x 3 = 1, right

</comment><comment><USER3> You know, there's a certain charm seeing someone give a lecture on math in MS paint. Of course, it helps that he has an english accent.

In regards to the topic, mathematically 0.9999... is less than 1. Practically 0.9999... = 1. Simple as that.

<comment><USER4> > mathematically 0.9999... is less than 1

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999..>.

"In mathematics, the repeating decimal 0.999… ... denotes a real number equal to one. In other words, the notations 0.999… and 1 represent the same real number. This equality has long been accepted by professional mathematicians and taught in textbooks."

Note the "real number" part, of course. If you use a non-real number system, more power to you.

<comment><USER3> Whoops, should've researched that. I guess I was too preconditioned to the idea that mathematics isn't practical (thank you, Engineer vs. Mathematician jokes).</comment></comment></comment>


Tech Companies Say They Care - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/opinion/tech-companies-privacy.html <comment><USER2>
      But its doublespeak as usual, talking points with no demonstration of desire to actually help.

     Its like telling a kid with a skinned knee to stop thinking about it,
     and when you [kid] lose awareness of it then its just as good as gone.</comment>


Jeff Bezos, Ted 2003 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YdhnPH24E

<comment><AUTHOR> For TLDW skip to 15:30 for the message. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YdhnPH24E#t=924s></comment>


The Almost $64 Question: Road-testing Google Consumer Surveys and Toluna - <AUTHOR> http://blog.datacracker.com/the-almost-64-question-road-testing-google-consumer-surveys-and-toluna-quicksurveys/

<comment><USER2> If you had tried AYTM.com then you would have won.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, forgot my disclaimer. I'm a cofounder of AYTM. [http://aytm.com/pages/better-faster-cheaper](http://aytm.com/pages/better- faster-cheaper)</comment></comment>


IBM Chief Slams H-P - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703376504575491641936912672.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

<comment><USER2> Can you find a link to the full article? I don't want to sign up for anything.</comment>


Dear Southwest Airlines, Please Do What You Say - <AUTHOR> http://jacobjthomas.com/southwest-please-do-what-you-say/ <comment><USER2> 1: Volunteering to get bumped without a contingency plan during the holiday rush? Not a great idea.

2: Never volunteer to be bumped. Take the involuntary denied boarding credit and you could probably find and pay for a flight on another airline. Your voucher is worthless in these rush situations.

[http://lifehacker.com/if-your-flight-is-overbooked-dont- volu...](http://lifehacker.com/if-your-flight-is-overbooked-dont-volunteer-to- get-bum-1722036179)</comment>


How To Be A Successful Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/06/15/how-to-be-a-successful-entrepreneur/

<comment><USER2> About the tip #6, _6\. If you are not educated, find someone who is_ : I would rather find a partner that has experience in the field, that is, someone that has tried (successfully or not) to set a startup going off the ground. That type of experience is, IMO, more valuable than having a partner that studied in a really good college.

I want to think that investors have the same opinion.</comment>


Bitlab: Tactile tablet for blind and visually impaired people - <AUTHOR> http://blitab.com/ <comment><USER2> As a member of this product's target market (blind myself) I wish they'd put a bit more effort into making their site accessible. There appear to be various images with no useful alt text, for instance. I also wish the front page actually tried to _market_ to me. Would be nice to know what OS this is running, whether it's a full-featured Android device or just something I can send files to, whether I can run it as a peripheral with my desktop, etc. I'm a bit worn out on all the fluffy "making blind people more independent and employable" messaging I see from these types of projects which seems to ignore the fact that I'm _already_ quite independent and employable, and maybe at the end of the day I think about things _other_ than my "independence and employability metric."

Interesting tech, and if the price isn't prohibitive I'd be down to buy one. But I wish more folks in this space designed traditional landing pages and actually made them accessible. Too many access tech companies don't focus on their message or don't convey it in a way that lets me know what any reasonable buyer would want to know.

Ugh, WTF, so I click on their preorder link, which is apparently a JavaScript anchor, and my screen reader gets no indication that a preorder page/box/whatever has come up. Maybe I could poke the page a bit longer and find one, but I think I'll pass. I hope the final product is built better than this landing page. Don't like being so critical but it doesn't look like any usability testing for the target market was done with this page and it kind of befuddles me.

<comment><USER3> Recently I started to experience some dark spots in my vision. On my way to the ophthalmologist I was reflecting on vision and how my life now seems to depend on it. I actually wondered if I would still read Hacker News if I were blind. I understand that my perspective may be very ignorant, but I would be glad to know more about your daily life such as: what device you use already to read Hacker News? What you do for work? What technology most interests you? Thanks for sharing your first comment, it's really helped me already.

<comment><USER2> It's hard to answer your questions definitively but I'll give them a shot:

What device do I use?: I don't use any one device. My main computer is a laptop running Linux and the Orca screen reader, but I've used Windows and NVDA before. I've had multiple Android phones/tablets and have used IOS. Last decade I used OS X heavily but transitioned away after a few years. Most devices have some level of accessibility built-in these days, so there isn't one single thing I'd use, just as a sighted person might use a laptop/desktop at their desk, a phone on the go, etc.

What do I do for work?: Again, probably the same as many here. I've done contract development on Android and the web, and am currently launching my own company. Nothing surprising or different.

What technology interests me?: I guess it depends on the day. :) I'm a web and mobile developer so tend to be more up on things like React, React Native, etc. I particularly enjoy working with mobile tech because there are lots of ways in which a mobile device with camera/GPS/lots of processing power/numerous connectivity options can tell me things about my world given the right apps and services. 8 years ago, running an errand meant I grabbed my phone, MP3 player, bluetooth GPS receiver and the PDA to which the receiver paired that ran accessible mapping software. Now I just grab my phone and it's much more capable on its own, handling GPS, OCR for reading documents, etc. I think there are a number of ways mobile tech can improve how we interact with our world, and I'm starting companies to explore those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title was mistyped. It's Blitab.</comment>


Ask HN: Why was this submission flagged? - chupa-chups Just came across the link to this site (1st of https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=carwyn):
https://www.codementor.io/blog/worst-languages-2019-6mvbfg3w9x
and saw that, despite being new (1 minute old) it was flagged and there is no link to a discussion forum. It is not spam, the content seems interesting, the submitter seems to be OK, so why was it flagged? <comment> chupa-chups Links as links:

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=carwyn](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=carwyn)

* [https://www.codementor.io/blog/worst-languages-2019-6mvbfg3w...](https://www.codementor.io/blog/worst-languages-2019-6mvbfg3w9x)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's not [flagged], but [dead], and it seems the entire domain is banned from HN.

<comment> chupa-chups Well, ok, but why?

Judging from the linked URL, duckduckgo + the main linked sites content it does not (at all) seem to be appropriate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Look through the history of submissions from there: seems like it was banned after a bunch of spam and really low-quality articles being hosted there.

<comment> chupa-chups Sorry, but to me it looks more like someone doesn't like this site.

Disclaimer: i am in no way associated either with the poster of the original link with codementor.

<comment><AUTHOR> roughly before everything from it became [dead]:

> _[flagged] [dead] Need for Speed Payback Crack CODEX CPY Full Game_

> _[flagged] [dead] [[[WATCH]]] Atlanta Falcons vs. Seattle Seahawks NFL Live > Online TV 19 Nov 2017_

> _[flagged] [dead] [ONLINE.STREAMING.TV]2017 American Music Awards Live FREE > 2017_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> It's always better to email HN mods to ask them about this stuff.

<comment> chupa-chups For my reasons to post see

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19655475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19655475)</comment></comment>


How much is time wrong around the world? - <AUTHOR> http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/index.php/2014/01/how-much-is-time-wrong-around-the-world/ <comment><USER2> It is interesting to see that much more of the world errs to the side of having sun later in the day. As someone who lives just on the other side of a timezone line in a green area, I can definitely see the appeal. It gets dark at 4-4:30 in the winter here, and it sucks. There is actually a bill in our state now to stay on daylight savings all year. I really hope we pass it and don't have to "fall back" next year.

<comment><USER3> Unless you've got an employer that's enforcing very specific hours, what's the difference? It you'd rather get up earlier, work earlier, and leave when it's still light, what's stopping you?

The number that we assign to a time of day doesn't have any intrinsic meaning, it's just a symbol.

<comment><USER4> Among other things, children. Sure, I might be able to get up earlier, work earlier and leave when it's still light, but I still wouldn't have much time to spend with my kid during daytime.

Another example: bus frequency. You know, small stuff that adds up ;)

<comment><USER5> If shifting the timezone by an hour is a solution, then so is just shifting work hours by an hour. How do children change anything?

There may be other, poor, reasons, that it sucks for you (like other people insisting on going by a certain clock time) but I don't understand the children part.

<comment><USER6> School start times, for one.

<comment><USER7> the point is that business and school hours can be (and are) different in different countries. You can either change the timetables or the clock. To change the former requires more coordination throughout the society, hence we move the clock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since the rest of the site seems to be down, here is a direct link to the relevant image:

[http://i0.wp.com/poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/wp- content/u...](http://i0.wp.com/poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/wp- content/uploads/2014/01/SolarTimeVsStandardTime.png)

<comment><USER9> He brags about using SVG in the post, but shares as PNG. =\

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm going to argue that the colors should be flipped. Having sunlight last longer seems like a feature not a bug. Taking Boston in to consideration, it is dark here by 4:15 for weeks at a time in early winter. Every day of the year, SF stays light later.

Boston would be dramatically more livable if it were to just change to the next time zone. The red areas seem far more desirable to me.

<comment> Brian-Puccio By "having the sunlight last longer", you mean to say "having the sunlight later in the day. It's not that there's a longer period of sunlight, it's a matter of personal preference as to when during the day the sunlight is.

(And I prefer it earlier and loathe DST.)

<comment><USER11> Where do you live? In Boston, the sun rises around 5 AM throughout the month of June -- that's _with_ DST. Without, it, the sun would be up at 4 AM. Anything before 7:00 is wasted for most -- anything before 6:00 is wasted for the vast majority.

<comment> Brian-Puccio Slightly west of you in NY where it rises at 5:30a EDT/ 4:30a EST.

I find it much easier to wake up at 5:00a if sunrise was half an hour ago and the sun is well up in the sky. I can get up, go for a bike ride on the boardwalk, shower, enjoy breakfast by a window.

And with sunset at 8:30p EDT/7:30p EST ... well, if I'm outside in the evening, I'm usually hungry and want dinner by 7:30p, so the sunsetting then wouldn't bother me in the least.

The winter is most miserable when the sun rises after 7:00a, waking up in complete darkness is miserable for me.

If the vast majority doesn't like getting up to do things when the sun is up already because they'd rather sleep in bed so they'd rather have everyone change their clocks at great expense _shrug_ I guess that's their prerogative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm in Guatemala, and frequently see late dinners (later than 8PM+), but Guatemala is about "perfect" in time. (And fortunately, doesn't participate in timezone shifting nonsense, except on years when the local government arbitrarily decides to implement a timeshift for a few months.) So it's probably more a cultural thing, than a slightly shifted timezone.

While this article is interesting, I don't get the obsession people collectively have with specific times and needing timezones. Don't like getting up when it's dark? Get up later. Yes, that requires participation if you depend on others' schedules. Schools are particularly notorious, starting at ridiculously early hours. (My kids would have had to get up at 5.30 or so, but I created a private school for them, and it starts at 9. Works fantastic for them, they can stay up a bit later and play. There's no traffic rush for the teacher, which is good. A much better solution than starting at 7.30.)

I imagine if there were no timezones, people would cope with this better, since they'd be forced to. Instead of saying "kids shouldn't be up past 8!" they'd actually stop and think about it.

<comment><USER12> People's obsession with "specific times" is kind of nice when you want to get on a plane, execute a contract before the offer expires, allocate scarce resources like tables at a restaurant or telescope time, calculate hours of ec2 usage, ensure adequate physician coverage in an ER, etc.

I think "specific times" are one of the hallmarks of modern society.

<comment><USER5> How do relative times help in your scenarios? How on earth would timezones fit into EC2 billing?

<comment><USER12> Relative times? Timezones? Neither of these concepts appear in my comment. My comment is concerned with "people's collective obsession with specific times" and this gem:

"Don't like getting up when it's dark? Get up later. Yes, that requires participation if you depend on others' schedules."

Modern civil society requires depending on other people; this is one of the big problems with division of labor. Imagine bringing your child to the hospital and having the nurse explain:

 _" Sorry Doctor Bob decided he wanted to get up a little later today. So your child will not receive the routine emergency care that he needs. Oh and you should probably rush home. this is can be a rough area. Sometimes the cops that work the night shift decide they want to be in bed before it gets too bright and the day shift cops are not real big on getting up when it is dark."_

Collective obsession with coordination and organization is a hallmark of modern society. How am I going to schedule a trip if I am not sure when the plane will take off? How should I mitigate the risk that the pilot of my connecting flight decides to take off early so he can put his kids in bed when it gets dark?

I have no idea how timezones fit into EC2 billing. But I do know how specific times relate to billing: "Billing commences when Amazon EC2 initiates the boot sequence."[^1] That is a specific time, not a "We think it started sometime after 0200 and before 0330."

[^1]: [http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#Billing](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#Billing)

<comment><USER5> I suppose if you misconstrue my first comment as "people should just do things, like, whenever, man", then you're right.

<comment><USER12> That is only part of my response. We seem to have fundamentally different understandings of living in a modern society:

"Don't like getting up when it's dark? Get up later. Yes, that requires participation if you depend on others' schedules."

I do not understand how you could even type "if you depend on others schedules." Other than Christopher "Alexander Supertramp" McCandless I do not know anyone who does not depend on other people's schedules. The disconnect is not limited to this sub-thread, in another comment on this story you wrote that you did not understand how children could reduce scheduling flexibility...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Original article: [http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/index.php/2014/01/how-...](http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/index.php/2014/01/how- much-is-time-wrong-around-the-world/)

<comment><USER14> Sadly it can't seem to handle the traffic as much as Slate

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting fact just for fun: Afghanistan shares a 76 km long border with China; this is where the biggest time zone jump occurs, an impressive 3.5 hours.

</comment><comment><USER16> brilliant concept ...

... but this could probably be the poster child of where not to use the Mercator projection.

yeah, Greenland overlaps five time zones. but they're tiny at that latitude! this makes it seem like places as far apart as New York & Los Angeles are in the same time zone.

edit: Miller not Mercator - but the point stands that it's distorting the size of countries at high latitude, significantly exaggerating the issue.

<comment><USER13> It's not Mercator and I feel personally offended (it's Miller). I decided to use a equirectangular just because otherwise drawing the gradients would have been a hell.

<comment><USER16> ok, it's not Mercator, but it has the same high-latitude distortions

any projection where Greenland is the same size as South America is IMO the wrong choice :)

<comment><USER17> Relevant [http://i.imgur.com/10sfTYY.png](http://i.imgur.com/10sfTYY.png)

<comment><USER18> [http://mapfight.appspot.com/in-vs-gl/india-greenland-size- co...](http://mapfight.appspot.com/in-vs-gl/india-greenland-size-comparison)

^ companion knowledge

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Down for me:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20140107014545/http://poisson.phc...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140107014545/http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/index.php/2014/01/how- much-is-time-wrong-around-the-world/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Earlier this year I was curious as to what would happen if we used a clock that was actively calibrated to the solar high noon. I made this little web page here: [http://mseiler.com/highnoon/](http://mseiler.com/highnoon/) that uses your geolocation data and a few date-time and astronomy libraries to do just that. It tells me that in NYC the time is shifted by about 11 minutes and that number varies a lot throughout the year.

It would be a very different world if we were to set up meetings using the actual solar time calibrated to the date and location of our meeting points!

<comment><USER21> I suspect that your clock (or one with the same result) is the future...

Right now we have 2 clocks; Universal Time and time zone time. Even today, there is no real practical reason to have such small time zones. It would make sense to expand the size of the time zones to that point that there is only one (Universal) and just use solar time for the cases where daylight is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if Spaniards used to stay up late before Franco changed their time zone in the 1940s. Does anybody know?

<comment><USER23> Yes, but the 1940's, and before, were different:[0]

" _" So you used to work in the morning at one job. Then it was necessary to stop to rest. And then there was another job in the late afternoon and evening — in order to earn enough money to survive," she says. "It's said to be the origin of our way of life now."_"

[0] [http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/spai...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/spains- been-in-the-wrong-time-zone-for-seven-decades)

<comment><USER22> That explanation isn't very convincing. People in other relatively poor countries didn't develop that distinctive pattern.

<comment><USER23> I don't think it matters if it's convincing or not.

I was answering the question, and the linked resource affirms it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you don't like having your time wrong, you could use my decimalised time system that rotates the numbers based on your geolocation so that solar noon where you are is always at the top of the clockface.

[http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/](http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/)

(You will of course have to allow it access to your location)

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's Google's cache.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/index.php/2014/01/how- much-is-time-wrong-around-the-world/)

</comment><comment><USER26> The anniversary of your birth may not always fall on the same day.

A year is actually 365 and 1/4 days long.

If you were born before 6 AM, this doesn't affect you. But for everybody else 25 - 75% of the time, the anniversary of their birth actually falls on the day after, depending on what time of day you were born and whether it was leap year and whether you born before the end of February (where we get that extra day every four years).

And then throw in daylight savings time.

Of course, the reality is that sticking with the same day is good enough, just as having some arbitrary number describe noon. 12 is, after all, an arbitrary number too.

The important thing is that people agree on what these conventions mean and that they help mark time.

<comment><USER26> Sorry, this should read "the anniversary of their birth actually falls on the day after or day before"

If you're born the year before leap year early enough in the day, leap year makes the anniversary of your birth move to the previous day.

Needless to say, time can make your brain hurt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Olson tzdb used to have support for a solar-noon time zone for Saudi Arabia. I forget the specifics but there was a need for solar noon and a religious observance. It was just recently removed due to constraints regarding the size of unsigned chars.[^1] It would be neat to remake the map with the tz shapefiles and animate it a la xearth.[^2]

[^1]: [http://efele.net/maps/tz/world/](http://efele.net/maps/tz/world/)

[^2]: [https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/a9ac0f6938c416f724a52115...](https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/a9ac0f6938c416f724a52115ca7b0b7abb13c347)

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting to see how big US Central Time is. Most states in Central Time (e.g. the Dakotas) should be on Mountain Time if we are strictly adherent to the time zones. (Similarly, much of Eastern Time should be in Central, and Hawaii is off by a timezone, presumably to keep them on the same date as the mainland US.)

<comment><USER27> In the US (and other countries that have _internal_ time zone borders), a lot of the variation is to keep the TZ boundary falling through relatively unpopulated areas OR to keep more of a state/region on the same time as its capital or major city.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I noticed this when travelling from Eastern Slovakia to Western Germany. It was really noticeable.

I personally prefer the red zones where the sun sets really late in the summer, so it's nice to see the map of those. :-)

</comment><comment><USER29> its perfect apparently.</comment>


Ask HN: Enterprise SaaS, focus on sales only at the beginning? - <AUTHOR> Marketing can be a blackhole. You never really know if it works or not particularly when the company is still searching for product/market fit. Is it worthwhile vs spending all the time on sales? <comment><USER2> [https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve- Blank/dp/09...](https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve- Blank/dp/0989200507)</comment>