What I Wish I Knew When Learning Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#intro

<comment><USER2> Personally, I like to follow the mantra _cabal is not a package manager_. Because whenever I treat it like one, I get messed up in a bad way. I buy in to this argument[1] as to why it isn't.

[1]: [http://ivanmiljenovic.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/repeat- after-...](http://ivanmiljenovic.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/repeat-after-me- cabal-is-not-a-package-manager/)

<comment><USER3> That argument seems more like (ignoring the naming issues of cabal vs cabal- install), that cabal is a terrible package manager, but still (to me) seems to bare all the major features of a package manager.

<comment><USER2> The fact that it forwards package registration to the underlying ghc-pkg system, has very poor/nearly nonexistent record keeping, and can't perform uninstall operations are kinda crucial. I've never heard of a packager manager that can't uninstall.

If you present it as a package manager, even if it's a bad one, then you also telegraph a certain amount of implied functionality, and in turn the user has a certain level of confidence that the system is smart enough to do its best to prevent you from damaging your package ecosystem (not a guarantee, but at least an effort); cabal and by extension cabal-install doesn't provide this at all. It simply provides a way to install packages and makes a best effort at meeting the build goals required for individual commands to succeed in a vacuum.

I hesitate to call that a package "manager". It's just a very mediocre package installer.

<comment><USER4> > I've never heard of a packager manager that can't uninstall.

easy_install

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish I knew what changed from the last time this was posted 2 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7637278)

Also I believe last time Stephen was surprised folks had gotten a hold of content on his "pre-prod" domain (e.g. [http://dev.stephendiehl.com/](http://dev.stephendiehl.com/)), because he was still working on that post, before it was ready.

I like points as much as the next person, but maybe "pre-release" content should not be posted to aggregreators like HN before they are "realeased"

That said I'm excited he's continuing to update this series, it's helped a lot of people and there is a ton for me to learn still!

<comment><AUTHOR> It appears to be twice as long as the old 2.0 version, and a lot of the latest GHC 7.8 topics which wasn't released before the last version.

<comment><USER5> That's helpful, thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have to say that this line irks me: "Any preconceptions one might have for the word 'return' should be discarded, it has an entirely different meaning."

This sentence literally does nothing to help me even prepare to understand what is about to be explained. At the least, give a small example of what preconceptions should go. "All of them" implies that someone did a crap job of naming this thing.

Edit: Apologies to all responses. I responded to two, but I'm not sure I have different responses for each. If it seems I've ignored some aspect, apologies.

<comment><USER7> That sentence could have more information, but I think it still serves a worthwhile purpose. It's basically saying that, for now, think of "return" as a new thing you've never seen before and don't worry about correlating it with what you already have seen in other languages.

In Haskell, 'return' creates a monadic value. Here are some excerpts from Learn You A Haskell for Great Good:

> If you've done imperative languages like C, Java or Python, you're probably > thinking that you know what this return does and chances are you've already > skipped this really long paragraph. Well, here's the thing: the return in > Haskell is really nothing like the return in most other languages! It has > the same name, which confuses a lot of people, but in reality it's quite > different. In imperative languages, return usually ends the execution of a > method or subroutine and makes it report some sort of value to whoever > called it. In Haskell (in I/O actions specifically), it makes an I/O action > out of a pure value. If you think about the box analogy from before, it > takes a value and wraps it up in a box. The resulting I/O action doesn't > actually do anything, it just has that value encapsulated as its result.

...

> return is sort of the opposite to <-. While return takes a value and wraps > it up in a box, <\- takes a box (and performs it) and takes the value out of > it, binding it to a name.

[http://learnyouahaskell.com/input-and- output](http://learnyouahaskell.com/input-and-output)

<comment><USER6> I should have been clearer, myself. My problem is not that I may have to drop preconceptions from other programming languages. My beef is that the word has meaning outside of programming. And is part of the reason it was chosen in said programming languages.

Imagine if it was called "name". And we had to "throw out all preconceptions you have with the word 'name.'"

<comment><USER8> It works in that sense, though.

"return x" is a monad (mobit?) which, when evaluated, returns x. The trick is that it's a distinct function, not a command.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. My (terribly made) point is I am _not_ throwing out all of my preconceptions. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chinese Room Takeaway: Wiping the Anti-AI Slate Clean with Toilet Paper - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/52281ebb8621

<comment><AUTHOR> Would be interested to hear what people think; what is the current attitude with regards to chatterbots, speech-recognition, Siri and Kurzweil's singularity? Are we jaded, or is it the beginning of a new era in AI?</comment>


What Will Future Space Battles Be Like? - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5426453/the-physics-of-space-battles

<comment><USER2> I stopped reading this article about two paragraphs in because it makes the mistake of thinking that a space battle would necessarily happen in human timescales.

A real space battle barring some silly fictional constraint (You can't hyperspace jump too close! The shields are just holding out! Can't fire from cloak! Etc etc) is going to be the perfect embodiment of warfare as we know it now: months of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Except replace months with years and moments with milliseconds.

<comment><USER3> I think a real space battle is likely to be too expensive to make a good narrative: in the status quo, major military powers in the United States avoid _naval_ battles because the ships that matter cost billions, they can only afford to field a dozen of them, and they have a huge likelihood of dying to the first hit by a much cheaper missile. In space, the ships will cost tens or hundreds of billions, no nation state will be able to afford a fleet of them, and they will INVARIABLY be lost with all crew the first time they are acted on with hostile intent. The environment itself is plenty capable of killing the best the United States can produce without needing anybody chucking high velocity directed fire their way.

<comment><USER4> The cost/benefit equation of war has changed drastically since the Romans kept themselves in a perpetual state of conflict in order to fund the republic with its spoils. Especially in this century, the cost of war implements has increased rapidly relative to the possible benefits from engagement.

<comment><USER5> That's largely because the weapons industry has been corrupted by government funding, though. I find it hard to believe that the research, development and manufacturing of the F-22 Raptor would really need US $65B, and $125M per plane, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another consideration this article doesn't seem to touch on: Heat.

Particle-beam weapons especially, but also anything carried by a ship that generates significant energy that isn't thrust, is going to generate a lot of waste heat, due to those blasted laws of thermodynamics. Where does all that heat _go_?

Yes, space is very, very, cold. But vacuum is about as close as you can get to an ideal _thermal insulator_ , so if you want your imaginary warship to be spamming giant lasers like a Gradius boss, you're going to need some way to rapidly dispose of heat before your entire ship cooks like a P4 with no heat sink.

<comment><USER7> You could put some water or other substance and have it swimming around the ship and when you use weapons or engines send it through them and fire it out the back of the ship. It's a limited supply, but so is whatever is powering the engines and lasers in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd say a bigger problem would be time to target, in one of two ways:

\- light speed; being 0.5 seconds away from the enemy moving at orbital speeds means that even the slightest change in direction would put you quite far from where he thinks you are. I'd guess in-combat ships would continuously change direction by minute amounts.

\- old fashioned "see the bullet 1000 km away and dodge it".

This leaves one obvious option: autonomous scatter pack missiles. They would get as close to the target as possible, then split into several parts so as to be harder to pick up by laser or kinetic defenses. Payload could be anything, but i'd guess delayed explosives might do a fair amount of damage.

<comment><USER7> Don't think of changing direction, think of changing velocity. Space is a Newtonian movement system, so accelerating 20 meters per second in some direction is just as easy at 0 km/sec as it is at 10000 km/sec.

As for missiles, I really don't like the idea. If I were tasked with building a 22-nd century warship, I would put a few hundred automated anti-missile lasers everywhere, which would fry the missiles before any of them get close enough to darken the hull.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> lets hope non-existent.

<comment><USER10> we already have militarization of space, plenty of satellites up there, are armed to the teeth. The second they find anything important up there, you'll have space shuttles armed to the teeth.

<comment><USER11> I guess it's not finding something important, but lowering the costs of launches, so that space becomes important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3t.html>

This is an ugly site, but it goes through a rational, technology based approach to space, and space warfare. I've linked to the space war part specifically, but it's all interesting.

It has lots of fluff from various sci-fi stories as well showing all the schools of thought through sci-fi history. I recommend you waste all day today, and read through it.

</comment><comment><USER13> One would hope that once we reach that level of technology, we will have gotten past wars....

</comment><comment><USER10> depends on how far in the future you'll go.

frankly I think all the "space battles" will basically just boil down to two space shuttle cargo haulers duking it out to hijack the other guy's shipment

</comment><comment><USER14> This analysis is grossly naive. It notes the importance of kinetic kill in space battles but ignores utterly that the nature of the battlefield depends greatly on the nature of technology. As increasingly advanced propulsion technology makes feasible the next higher level of closing velocities (from 10-30km/s with chemical propulsion, to 50km/s with Nuclear Thermal Rockets and such-like, to 100km/s, 1000km/s and beyond with Orion, NSWR, fusion, pumped light/mag sails, etc.) the nature of battle changes. This is a far more complex topic than this overly simplistic article could ever hope to cover.

<comment><USER11> I'd read your article.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay to get daily, weather-focused clothing recommendations? - <AUTHOR>

Would you use it if it were free? <comment><USER2> As I'm a man I only own one coat. Your entire app would just be;

 _return (temp < 19 || rain==true) ? "Take the coat" : "Don't take the coat.";_

I don't think I'd pay very much for that.

<comment><USER3> God I hope you're talking about celsius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not me personally. I can easily check the temperature on my phone and figure out the clothes i need. However, an interesting service would be to warn the user once outside but with improper clothing. So if i did not check the weather and got out wearing T-shirts in 30 degrees F, then warn me. may be a pop-up on my phone ? I might buy that app for $0.99 on the appstore.

</comment><comment><USER5> I doubt people will pay for that, I actually launched something similar over the weekend [http://hkelkar.com/2013/10/27/how-i-built-a-weather- decision...](http://hkelkar.com/2013/10/27/how-i-built-a-weather-decision- engine-or-the-story-of-wearthejacket-com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Upon further thoughts, I would want something which gives me a prediction for travel planning like..

'What is the weather in Barcelona in December?'

I realize that sometimes the answer might be simple if it is a more consistent climate, but some average would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER6> Living in southern california not really. However if I went on a hike, I would want weather analysis in a given hour range (I got stuck in a hailstorm in Yosemite recently). But that would be a less frequent use case.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think there's much commercial potential in that one I'm afraid. Personally I just look out the window before deciding what to wear.

</comment><comment><USER8> Certainly not, but I'm probably not your target audience :) .

</comment><comment><USER9> I would not pay for that. A weather application is enough for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not as described, but it might work if it was travel focused.

</comment><comment><USER11> No, it's pretty simple to figure out what to wear just looking out the window and seeing what the weather is...

</comment><comment><USER12> Absolutely, no.

</comment><comment><USER13> no to both questions. As others have mentioned though, not really your target audience</comment>


Computer mouse celebrates 40th birthday - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/3538800/Computer-mouse-celebrates-40th-birthday.html

<comment><USER2> Off by five years: invented in 1963.</comment>


Voyager's Golden Records - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/gallery/hq87T <comment><AUTHOR> Funny enough, seems like the NASA page on this matter does not show all the pictures. This imgur album seem to have them though.

Very fun and interesting thought experiment, trying to envision what you'd get out of each picture if coming from a blank-ish slate.

Other nice links:

[https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager- took/](https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager-took/)

the greetings: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVe2aZyygM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVe2aZyygM)</comment>


Microsoft to buy nVidia - <AUTHOR> http://www.rumorpedia.net/microsoft-sets-up-acquisition-deal-with-nvidia/

<comment><USER2> Misleading headline. The article merely states what has already been widely reported, which is that Microsoft has an exclusive deal with nVidia allowing Microsoft to match any third-party offer to buy out nVidia.

The article says not a word to indicate that Microsoft is actually going to buy nVidia.

Please don't rename articles (in most circumstances), especially if your new title is not only unhelpful, but actively misleading.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just one sentence: In their dreams _|_

</comment><comment><USER4> This better not be true. I'd hate for Nvidia to go to Microsoft. Nvidia is too important for the future of ARM chips to be owned by Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER5> If this does happen, I wonder what the future of nVid drivers for Linux will be. Grim, I suspect.

</comment><comment><USER6> This deal is over 10 years old.</comment>


The Itch Nobody Can Scratch - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/matter-archive/the-itch-nobody-can-scratch-4d980e3ac519?src=longreads <comment><USER2> Several years ago my wife and I discovered we had bed bugs. We were early twenties and had gotten married only nine months before. I started getting bitten about a month before we discovered the infestation. My wife was never bitten during the course of the infestation. We later learned that this is not uncommon with bed bugs.

Now the relation to the story about Morgellons. Bed bug bites can be extremely itchy and cause large welts on some people (not everyone as it is an allergic reaction). This was true in my case. The welts tended to be about the side of a silver dollar and last for about a week before subsiding.

We had contracted the bed bugs at a house party we had attended where I had gotten a few bites. We assume they were mosquito bites and didn't think another thing about them. About 2 weeks after that I started getting bites while I was sleeping. Never having been exposed to bed bugs I first assumed mosquito bites or perhaps spider bites. Neither of these cases turned out to be true.

After two more weeks I began to feel very crazy for lack of a better word. The itching from the bites was driving me wild and we could not figure out what was biting me. (The infestation was never a large one, most likely it started from a single insect). I went to the student health clinic (we were graduate students at the time). They concluded bug bites but we were not sure because we could not find any bugs!

I made an appointment with a private dermatologist. Now, before I got in to see him we did more research. We did turn up bed bugs as a possibility and we looked but not throughly enough and found nothing. (It turns out they are very very good at hiding). The research turned up all kinds of crazy things like the Morgellons disease and various mite related infestations, such as Bird Mites. Having a bird we became alarmed at that particular possibility as bird mites are tiny and very difficult to get rid of.

The internet research made my psychological condition rapidly deteriorate. I worried constantly about the different possibilities. It effect my ability to do research. It affected my ability to properly TA. I was becoming psychotic in my search for the causing the itching that would not cease.

Finally, I got the private dermatologist. He suggested bed bugs and told us to search again. This time, the infestation had grown and we found them. It was such a relief to know the cause.

However, the cure is neither fast nor simple nor cheap for bed bugs. Insecticides are ineffective as they only eat mammalian blood and the most effect insecticides these days need to be ingested by the organism. The most effect thing is physical removal of the insects, their eggs, and their larva. The eggs and larva are tiny and it takes very careful searching to find and clean them all.

We spent every night for months search with magnifying glasses and powerful flash lights while washing and drying our bedding (heat treatment (or cold) is the only sure fire solution to bed bugs). It took many months but eventually we found them all and with the help the pest man's insecticides prevented the infestation from growing out of control. Needless to say we moved and bought a new bed when our lease was up!

Even today years later, I still fear unexplained itching. It think that for me, I could have developed a psychosis where I believe I am being bitting by invisible bugs if we had not found the infestation. It took a long time for my mental state to recover and if it had gone on for 6, 12 months of unexplained bites and itching I may have become very unstable. Itching is very difficult to deal with.

I hope that someone can help these people find an effective way for them individually to deal with the itching even if for some it is only in their minds.

<comment><USER3> > We spent every night for months search with magnifying glasses and powerful > flash lights while washing and drying our bedding

Why didn't you dispose of it and buy a new mattress and bedding?

<comment><USER4> Indeed. There are only 2 ways to get rid of them.

1) Throw away the bed. 2) Incinerate them; which is really hard, as you have to make sure you got all their hidding places and left no prisoners. On top of it, that method can't take place inside the house.

<comment><USER5> A friend of mine had a case of bed bugs and throwing away the bed didn't work, only hot steaming the whole house. The exterminators (is that the word? the guys who get rid of infestations) found bugs hiding in the baseboards around the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me quite strongly of the odd skin conditions people who are addicted to stimulants (crack cocaine, meth) or needle drugs (heroin et al) can get. Those are apparently mostly considered to be DOP as well—dopamine spikes cause compulsive foraging; dopamine withdrawals cause itching.

But, having met my fair share of homeless addicts, some of them will indeed have these very odd tiny, hard pustules on their skin, and claim there's something sharp and grating within it which needs to be removed.

My naive hypothesis for this has always had to do with getting something like kidney stones or gout—real little pointy crystals—due to deposits of these foreign chemicals in the excretory system, which it can't manage to actually excrete. If they were organic, this would result in a zit—but if they're weird things like cutting agents, they might result in something much more painful.

My naive hypothesis here, then, is similar: these people have non-ejectable foreign matter building up within their pores (either sweat out, or drifted in), together with some biological process (maybe a fungus, maybe one of their own proteins) that's sticking that foreign matter together into polymer chains. There's no "bug" living in there; instead, the fibre itself is the problem, and the irritation from it is what causes both the itching and the initial skin sore.

<comment><USER7> Are you sure the tiny hard pustules aren't just keratosis pilaris[0]? I've always had tiny, hard red bumps on my arms and thighs. It's genetic and harmless. The body just overproduces keratin in the skin and it gets trapped in the hair follicles, plugging them up. Keratin is hard - it's the same protein that makes hair and fingernails.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratosis_pilaris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratosis_pilaris)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Skeptics alike claim is actually at the root of Morgellons. They say that > what people like him are really suffering from is a form of psychosis called > delusions of parasitosis, or DOP. He is, in other words, crazy.

Fucking unhelpful to frame mental illness like this.

It is intensely frustrating to see people suffering - to the point where they consider suicide - because of the stigma around mental illness.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I completely agree. It would be better to talk about anxiety, chronic itching, etc. and offer the patient some potential treatments. CFS, fibromyalgia and IBS patients are in a similar situation.

<comment><USER10> _It would be better to talk about anxiety, chronic itching, etc. and offer the patient some potential treatments. CFS, fibromyalgia and IBS patients are in a similar situation._

There's a disease called Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) that some people get after heavy use of psychedelics. The theory I subscribe to is that they're actually overreacting (almost obsessively) to the defects in perception that we all have. For example, if you stare at a bright white screen, especially when tired, you'll eventually see "static" due to retinal fatigue happening at uneven rates. The brain filters out a lot, but when that filter is weakened or challenged, it can let "hallucinations" in. Most of us aren't bothered by "white screen static" and hardly notice it. For some people (such as those with HPPD, who may have strong emotional associations with "tripping") that can be very distressing. In extreme cases, they can't go out at night because they're bothered by (again) scotopic vision defects that all of us have, but that (due to their anxiety) they can't tune out.

What I've noticed with anxiety is that there are things that are hard to un- notice. For example, after reading that article, I itched like hell. I knew why, so I didn't need other explanations (I basically know that reading any article about health problems is going to be a bit masochistic) but there are some distressing thoughts that are just very hard to banish, especially in a state of fatigue (which is not uncommon in our overworked, bizarre society). None of us is fully in control of our focus, and sometimes it's possible to get into a feedback loop of anxiety producing weird symptoms (panic attacks, for example, can throw all kinds of shit... even phantom smells) that produce more intense focus and anxiety.

<comment><USER9> I suspect that it might be low GABA that is causing the itching, as that is the neurotransmitter that is reduced in alcohol withdrawal (actually, it's a downregulation of GABA receptors), and it's GABA that reduces anxiety. As you say, it's probably just a removal of the normal "anti itch" filter that causes you to notice the itching.

I usually start itching when I read about fleas. There is an actual thing called "contagious itching":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itch#Contagious_itch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itch#Contagious_itch)

So there can definitely be a psychological trigger for itching. Add in some anxiety and/or withdrawal and it's easy to see how something like Morgellons could happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The sufferers extremely clean behaviour; having 3 showers a day, bathing in bleach, having constantly clean clothes, using various lotions etc etc. is probably going to wreck their skin and cause itching. Personally my skin is very sensitive and tbh I'm much more comfortable when me, my clothes, bedclothes etc are not cleaned so often. Also I have read that the cleanliness of your average industrialised 1st world country house is far too clean and this may have a role in causing people to develop allergies or have other immune system related issues. We're not designed to live in medieval european city style filth, but we are certainly not designed for hyper-cleanliness either.

</comment><comment><USER12> I suffered from an undiagnosed extreme itch condition which lasted over a year. Thankfully, it was not Morgellons (though that was a hypothesis at one point). I can't say whether the Morgellons folks are delusional or not, but I can conclude that I was not (as I have been cured).

Aside from the itching/lack of sleep/depression, the most striking thing I remember from that period is just how awful the medical system is. I started visiting local dermatologists, then more renowned dermatologists, then finally the guy who founded The International Forum For the Study of Itch. Once at the top of the medical mountain, I was seen briefly, given a prescription which may or may not work....and told to come back in 8 months!!!

I expected that our medical system, at the top, would be set up in such a way that "special cases" would be passed off to people (labs, research groups) who handle special cases and learn from it. This is not so.

What was also striking is how bound by rules doctors are - for the most part I think a computer could do their decision making. If you don't fit into their rules, then too bad. And yeah, they label you crazy which is such an awful feeling (especially when, months later, I proved I was not).

In the end, I discovered I have some kind of uncommon mite which does not affect most other people but which can be easily treated by ivermectin. I have written more about my experience here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/publichealth/comments/2ph9iy/xpost_m...](http://www.reddit.com/r/publichealth/comments/2ph9iy/xpost_my_interesting_story_how_i_solved_my_case/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Great article. The strangest part for me was the sudden onset that people experienced. When I think of psychological disorders, I think of how symptoms usually start small and gradually get more severe.

Everybody gets small phantom itches from time to time. I think the idea of an "itch nerve malfunction" makes the most sense. One could imagine some sort of infinite loop of itch nerves triggering each other, exacerbated by constant scratching.

Any strange psychological behavior, such as extreme cleanliness, or being convinced that ordinary clothing fibers are the cause, would be an obvious natural response if you couldn't figure out why you were suddenly so itchy.

Also, anyone who has to deal with contact lenses knows that our hands and fingers always have tiny little fibers stuck to them.

<comment><USER14> FWIW, I can share my anecdotal periodic itching story:

Somewhat infrequently (a few times every year, for the past 11 years) I will go into a "mode" where showering/bathing of any kind will invariably be followed by itching afterwards. This lasts anywhere from a few days (no scratching) to a couple of weeks (some scratching). The itch is concentrated on my front body and legs (never face/arms, rarely back). Nothing helps much except not scratching while it runs its course.

What I've found interesting is that this doesn't manifest during particular stress / downs / whatever. It can be during an awesome holiday in the summer, or over Christmas, or an ordinary work week. But the itching comes after every shower, as if my body picks up some irritant from the water that doesn't affect my hands/face at all. It also isn't "something in the water where I live", as this has manifested in various parts of the UK and Greece.

On a scale of 0 to 10, I'm at 2 as to how manic I've gone about this: when it manifests, I'll start using hypo-allergenic shower stuff, paste myself with moisturising cream and just wait it out. Dermatologists have been the expected/reputed amount of helpful: "sounds like you're sensitive to something in the water", so they gave me a stronger cream, which also didn't reduce the itching. What worked most was not picking/scratching, or at least not enough to break skin/cause small wounds, etc. Depending on your "itch tolerance"[1] takes a little bit of mental focus, so I wouldn't, say, shower before going to bed, but showering and going out was easy.[2] Then, a few days later, I shower -> all good.

I guess my point is, while mine could also be somewhat psychologically induced, I don't think this is the case. Something seems to trigger an "itch flare" which (a) isn't linked to my mood or stress levels, (b) always goes away if I can "forcefully" ignore the urge to scratch and (c) is somehow water related, but not to a particular water source. I feel like If I gave in to the scratching urges, it would be a whole different kind of rabbit hole. So my issue doesn't really compare in the least with what these folks are going through - just a periodic experience of a similar thing at a lower intensity level. You can't always "push aside" pain, so it stands to reason that you can't always "push aside" the scratching urge, and that's when it takes up a life of its own. I am very grateful for not having to deal with this full- time. Not scratching while itching can be proper work, depending on the intensity/duration of the itching spell(s).

As for what mine is, I have no clue, and as long as we stay on our current terms, I'm somewhat content with that. Allergies and sensitivities can be pretty hard to pin down.

PS: Another reason I don't think my itching is psychological - I just read the article, then wrote this, and I'm not itching - yet ;)

[1] if "pain tolerance" is a thing, and itching has its own receptors and all, ...

[2] Except once in a while, in public/with friends/with people anyhow, the itch will "win" and I'll forget that I shouldn't do my instead-of-itching- last-measure, which is to hit/punch the itching spot rather than scratch (my hand is already moving of its own accord, so something needs to happen). Not a masochist in the least, but rather I've noticed that the little physical pain takes away the edge of the itching. YMMV, not offering this as advice. However, you do, you may want to avoid doing that in public, or at least don't follow up any questions with a grunt like "it was that or flaying myself with this steak knife", or you may stop being invited to dinner parties.

<comment><USER15> FWIW, I also have experienced a similar itch. Most of the symptoms also sound very similar (never on the face etc). Haven't had one of those for a few months, so I am not able to recollect more details about this though.

I too finally settled on trying to ignore the itch as much as possible. It lasted for only like half an hour after the showers, so I was not motivated enough to dive deep to figure out the root cause. Possible causes may include - Chemical composition of the water you use, Soap/Shampoo etc.

It was suggested to me that the borewell water that we use may be the culprit, but since we have multiple sources of water at home (well / borewell / public supply) and since I did not bother going more in depth to figure this out, no clues on this front yet. Also, I have had the same problem at least a few times in another city as well.

<comment><USER15> Found something - May be related: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquagenic_pruritus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquagenic_pruritus)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article is written so floridly and weirdly, it's like trying to be the new yorker without meeting the new yorker's quality standards.

But it still kept me reading, so I guess it worked. But I feel dirty like after reading a buzzfeed article.

"in classic hominin style" \-- I don't think that's a word. Does he mean "ad hominem"? That still doesn't actually make sense in context. Classic what now?

"she said something that has been loitering in my mind ever since, wanting my attention but not quite sure why or what it is doing there." Really? What?

"Poor Nick Mann, I think... To get some general sense of how unstable this man could turn out to be, I try to discover a bit more about him." \-- how terribly disrespectful to these people you are interviewing and who's lives you are broadcasting to us.

<comment><USER17> Hominin is a valid word, it refers to the larger group of humans and proto- human ancestors which are part of the homo genus.

<comment><USER16> So the author meant... in the classic style of humans and their proto-human ancestors? Uh...

<comment><USER18> Yes, the author meant that searching for explanations is a basic human instinct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _"They can if they look. But they will not look!"_

'They will not look.'

This is the antithesis of empiricism and, IMO, typical of the anti-scientific attitudes prevalent in the medical community. Even though medicine is often thought of as a science, too often its practitioners simply operate on learned dogma that seems to be based on outdated information, or emphasizes covering for ignorance.

See: ADHD diagnoses in the 90's, 'autism spectrum' diagnoses today, or colic diagnoses in infants — hand-wavy explanations which all amount to the same thing: 'we have no idea, but we're way too proud to admit it'.

<comment><USER20> I have Hashimoto's Disease

I needed ten years, and countless doctors to get treatment, and still is a crap treatment, given to me by a doctor that behaved more or less in the way of "Lets try to humor the crazy person"

Before 1970s hypothyroidism was diagnosed mostly by symptomatic evidence, and it was treated with natural hormones extracted from pigs.

Then there was the discovery of the TSH blood test, and the invention of synthetic T4.

This resulted into the medics going into a strict dogma frenzy, they started to diagnose hypothyroidism ONLY by the TSH test, and treat it only with synthetic T4.

The first medic I went to, I was 15 years old, my mom took me to a endocrinologist against my will, because she was bothered by the fact that even with good diet and me being a active competition athlete I was still overweight, I took offense then, I promptly told my mom that I hated the fact that she was taking me to a "fat people doctor".

Upon arriving on the medic office, she weighted me, concluded I was fat (not shit sherlock, I already knew that!), and that all my other problems was because I was fat.

Many years went on, with the condition worsening, until a friend of my mom, just by LOOKING at me, told my mom I had it.

My mother then took me to another endocrinologist, that made me take a TSH test, that the result was 4.4, while the lab threshold was 4.5

But then I was used to google for things, and found out how to diagnose hypothyroidism, also I asked around the family, and learned that my aunt had thyroid cancer, my grandma took T4, the mother of my grandma took T4 too, and some months later my mom found out she had hypothiroidism too and also started to take T4, the only genetic condition with that behaviour, is Hashimoto's Disease, that then I figured out how to diagnose.

I went to a string of doctors, that REFUSED to take the tests, many of them told me I was crazy and that I had to seek help for my symptoms elsewhere (symptoms that I had then: chronically fat, chronically high cholesterol, brain fog, constant itching, enlarged neck, brittle hair, random muscle pains... to the medics I went I needed to visit a dermatologist, a psychiatrist, a gastroenterologist, and so on).

So, what I needed to diagnose my condition?

In that order:

Thyroid ultrasound, thyroid tissue analysis, blood test looking for the antibodies that are created by Hashimoto's Disease.

This serves to diagnose the Hashimoto's Disease itself, not the hypothyroidism.

Then to diagnose hypothyroidism, you either rely on the symptoms, or use TSH test, but instead of the usual 4.5 threshold, the endocrynology association recommends that in cases of high cholesterol and known thyroiditis to use 2.5 as threshold.

The first list of examinations I had to physically threathen a medic to order the exams, and at every step she tried to misdiagnose me (example, after the ultrasound showed my thyroid was damaged, she claimed I had a bacterial disease, and made me take exams for that, THEN she claimed it was a calcium disease, and made me take exams for that, THEN she agreed that it might be cancer, and asked for the tissue sample, that showed that the damage was being caused by the immune system... THEN she said it was a false positive, and only asked for the anti-body blood test after I was VERY 'assertive' that I wanted one).

After that, she STILL refused to treat me.

I went to several medics after her, looking for one willing to treat me, all of them said the same thing: "your TSH is below 4.5, thus you are not even subclinical, and so you are fine, your symptoms come from elsewhere, I suggest you look for a psychiatrist).

The one day, my TSH went to almost zero in a hashitoxicosis episode. (and by the way, the person that taught me that this existed, was a ophtalmologist).

I found one medic then willing to talk to me, seeing my almost zero TSH made that medic conclude that 'something' was wrong, but NOT what I claimed it was, after some stern arguing, she behaved like if I was crazy, but that she would go along and give me T4.

And behold! My symptoms got better! (not much though :/ hair still brittle).

After she gave me T4, I finally got curious about the TSH lab ranges, I took my blood test results, and read a note there saying the 4.5 threshold came from a certain document from the endocrynologist association.

I went to read that document... and that very same document, that all doctors without exception claimed to follow, cited the very same research articles I cited to those doctors and was ignored, they kept telling me that "research" for medics was irrelevant, until the association decided to make it into standard practice, and there it was, the association document cite that research, and suggest that although it is not strong enough yet to make it a mandatory standard, it was sound enough to be a recommendation, and thus I concluded that medics don't even read the rule books they claim to follow.

tl;dr; medics refused to examine me no matter how hard I pushed them to, claimed to follow a rule book that they actually don't read.

<comment><USER21> Having dated someone for 3 years with Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, I commiserate.

Most of her struggles were with, first, trying to convince her to get checked out, and then getting a doctor to get her off of Synthroid and onto the natural one from pigs. In her case, the former had devastating effects on her, the latter was very effective.

Fortunately, she was eventually able to see a well-regarded endocrinologist in town who actually worked with her on the treatment as opposed to brushing off her insistence that the treatment that every other doctor she had seen had prescribed wasn't working.

After a couple of years of battling, she finally had gotten back to equilibrium in regards to her thyroid, and back in control of the symptoms caused by hypothyroidism.

I only went through it secondhand, and her winding maze of medical malady sounds like a microcosm of the torture you've had to endure just to get, as you said, "a crap treatment".

I'm so sorry to hear about that, and hope for the best in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Itching is also a symptom of anxiety, so it could be that Morgellons patients get into a vicious circle of anxiety causing itching, which then causes more anxiety.

You can see an extreme example of this itching in alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal - apparently it causes feelings of your skin crawling.

</comment><comment><USER22> Anyone else feeling particularly itchy after reading this?

<comment><USER23> Yeah, but I don't scratch itches consciously at least. I do it without thinking about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wouldn't it help the patients if the doctor cleaned an area of their effected skin, applied a large gauze pad, and taped it down. Let the patient go home for a few days. If there's new strange threads under it, it's obviously coming from the skin. If it's just threads from the environment, they should be absent.

<comment><USER25> They've done this with tons of patients. Not one reproducible case exists.

<comment><USER26> So what do the patients say when the illness is mysteriously absent from that area?

Though I guess if it was environment, like from some kind of insect, it could genuinely continue in other areas while stopping there.

Seems like it should be easy to get this stuff on video:

> "You feel the sensation of something that's trying to come out of your > skin." He is pacing back and forth now. He is becoming breathless. "You feel > that. And when you try to start picking, sometimes it's a little fiber, > sometimes it's a little hard lump, sometimes little black specks or pearl- > like objects that are round and maybe half a millimeter across. When it > comes out, you feel instant relief.

If I was a patient suffering from that, I'd absolutely capture it on video; or I'd ask my doctor to admit me to a hospital briefly, or plan to show up when it's happening. If it's real, it should be trivial to get hard evidence and documentation showing that it's happening.

<comment><USER27> Come on, be creative. One of these things crawls out, finds the patch (or smells it from below the skin), crawls back, puts on a notice/chemical marker "this is not the way out", and none follow. Of course you won't find any when you take a look after a day or two. It isn't that hard to procure a new epicycles for every argument against your theory.

And yes, if _this_ is real, it should be easy to get hard evidence, but also:

\- sufferers will see evidence where others don't see it. That (IMO) is the whole thing with this disorder.

\- if you look hard enough, you will find something with every sufferer. That MD may actually have suffered a mite infection, somebody else will have lived near a chemical plant, have been to some corner of the earth, will have some very uncommon mix of genes, etc. that's what I read here, too. Every person mentioned has his own variation of symptoms and his own snake oil way to decrease the symptoms. I hope the organizer of these conventions isn't in it for the money, but I fear otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The Stuff You Should Know podcast did an episode about this with some pretty great info. Delusional parasitosis is some crazy stuff. [http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-morgellons- di...](http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-morgellons-disease- works/)

</comment><comment><USER29> _" Finally, Wymore found a laboratory that was prepared to take the work. Their initial analyses are now in, but the conclusions unannounced. More than anything else, it is this that I am hoping to hear about over the coming days."_

Surely nine months after this article was published, these results have come in?

<comment><USER30> The results are listed later in the article.

All recognizable fibers, except for one that they were pretty sure was a fungal spore, but weren't 100% convinced

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This one hits pretty close to home for me, because my dad had the "syndrome". He also got it as he was going through withdrawal from a cocaine addiction, so when the CDC report came out (it being a psychiatric condition) it made a lot of sense to me.

I don't really have anything interesting to add to the discussion, just that it's difficult to see a relative suffer like that.

<comment><USER32> I hope you're implying that he's cured.

<comment><USER31> He hasn't scratched his arms until they developed sores in several years, so cured enough to function I suppose. He's still damaged mentally, but it's taken a different form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I felt like the rat mite possibility was left open.

<comment><USER34> I interpreted it as rat mites being more of a catalyst for the condition, rather than them being the full explanation for the condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There are countless ways how brain function can go wrong. Feeling things that don't exist are one of them. But even for the smartest people it can be extremely hard to convince himself that what he is feeling is not real.

Another problem with phantom feelings are that they can overlap with actual feelings. That means the brain feels itch on hand, for example, and scratching of that part triggers a relief response. This not only temporarily "fixes" the itch, but also strengthens the belief that the itch is real. After countless of these confirmations it can become near impossible to convince yourself that it is not real.

<comment><USER36> I kind of skimmed the end of the article, but what happened with the fibers that were analyzed in the lab and wouldn't melt? The one that went _through_ glass also sounded interesting.

<comment><USER37> No answer. The payload of the article turned out to be the journalist's rumination on his existential anxieties, followed by a few loose ends tied into a makeshift bow and a shoutout for his forthcoming book. Most disappointing.

I don't believe in Morgellon's syndrome (or rather, I don't believe most of the explanations that are offered for it), but I feel a lot of sympathy towards people who are struggling with it, as I have an occasional recurring OCD itch that is annoying both as a physical itch and a psychosomatic one. I manage to stop scratching, the skin gradually heals, everything is fine, and then some months or years later some casual micro-abrasion sets it off again, the same way an exposed piece of velcro seems to actively pick up lint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra There is a problem of Psych Ward Paradox.

How would a normal, mentally healthy, person react to suddently being placed into psych ward? Like a nut case they will. That's the healthy reaction.

Therefore, on putting a person into psych ward (or otherwise assuming they are mentally ill), we can't deduct anything useful from their reaction, which is expected.

</comment><comment><USER38> This bothered me: "Morgellons seems to represent a mystery even deeper than that of homeopathy."

There is no mystery to homeopathy; it's the placebo effect.

</comment><comment><USER39> I just skimmed through an article (from HN, I think, but i can't seem to find it) about using DNA and PCR to find animals in streams that are otherwise very hard to find.

This seems like a perfect tool for diagnosing some of these sufferers. If there is some sort of tick DNA that shows up, say, in the water after a thorough scrubbing in a bath, then there's a good chance that a tick infestation is the actual cause.

<comment><USER40> The article you're referencing is detection of the notoriously secretive Idaho giant salamander [1]. Your idea is particularly interesting because it has already been used to detect and study the diversity of Demodex face mites in humans [2].

[1] [http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022746)

[2] [http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0106265)

A somewhat disturbing, but perhaps not surprising, fact is that 100% of people studied in the Demodex article had detectable mite populations on their face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> _Smith tells me that a Morgellons patient who finds unusual fibers in their skin will typically bring a sample to show their doctor. But when they do this, they're unknowingly falling into a terrible trap. It is a behavior that is known among medical professionals as 'the matchbox sign' and it is used as evidence against them, to prove that they are mentally ill._

The article suggests significant interplay between physiological and psychological factors. Wouldn't a dermatologist understand such interplay and, instead of leaping straight to a mental illness diagnosis, work with the patient along those lines? "This matchbox contains cotton from your environment. Something is making you itch and you're finding this on your skin. Let's find the cause of the itch before it drives you crazy. Here's how to look for bed bugs and dust mites. We'll test your blood for XYZ, maybe biopsy this lesion."

</comment><comment><USER42> I wonder how many of these people are just sensing the stuff that lives on us anyway.

Everyone is a world for millions of mites. Everyone would be scratching all the time if they always felt the creatures that live on them normally.

</comment><comment><USER43> I still dont understand why he couldn't find a lab to test his skin. Surely there are some labs that care about money more than if it's real or not and happily scan his skin to find these things?

<comment><USER44> Think about how a medical lab works. A doctor orders a test, they run that test as designed by the manufacturer, print out the results, fax them back to the doctor, and the doctor interprets them.

When laymen contact a lab with a special request, they generally are asking the lab to take on all the roles from test selection to interpretation. In our medical example that would mean the lab employing a qualified doctor, instead of just lab technicians and assuming the liability of the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> My brother had a condition where he would develop a rash if his skin were touched by anything. After a shower his entire body would be covered in raised welts. Aftsr seeing multiple doctors and dermatologists he found someone that specialized in that condition. Strangely part of the treatment was an antidepressant or anti anxiety medication. So I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of their condition is neurological.

</comment><comment><USER46> Modern medicine and biology still haven't explained all about our world.

My father suffers by an unknown and unnamed skin condition which will surface periodically, causing large red and itchy swollen patches all over his body. Antihistaminic pills are effective at relieving symptoms, but of course you cannot live on the stuff for months or years. He's tried everything and was examined and followed by medical researchers for a while, but they simply couldn't find a root cause and just gave up.

He started experiencing this about 30 years ago, when he was already 35, at least once a year but often three or four times per year. Each resurgence can last weeks or months, and will eventually subside on its own. Nobody else in the family seems to be affected. The only theory we have is that someone must have started releasing some sort of new chemical in the air in the late '80s and my father's skin must be particularly sensitive to it, but it's just a wild guess.

<comment><USER47> > Antihistaminic pills are effective at relieving symptoms, but of course you > cannot live on the stuff for months or years

Why not?

During pollen season, I take cetirizine once a day for hayfever. Outside pollen season, I take it once every two days, since I get mild hayfever-like symptoms (especially itchyness, though not nearly as bad as in pollen season) all year round.

I saw my GP a few years ago. He said, sure, I could get tests to work out what exactly I was allergic to, but given it likely wouldn't be anything I could avoid, and that generic cetirizine is less than 8p a pill over-the-counter and completely solves the problem, why not just go on taking it all year round? I couldn't disagree.

<comment><USER46> He has to take them in combination with cortisone and in quantities that severely affect his mood, blood pressure and energy levels. Living on the stuff would likely deteriorate a number of other elements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Itching issues can be terrible to deal with.

Since I was a teenager (which means, for the last 20 years), I've had issues with itchiness on arms and legs after having showers, especially with hot water, and especially during hot days.

In some periods, the issues becomes quite irritating. Some other times, it rarely bugs me at all.

I've never found a solution. The best thing to do is to put cold water on arms and legs for a few seconds. This makes the pores close, and somehow reduces the problem.

It's never been a serious condition, but sometimes I get itchiness for 10-20 minutes, and sometimes - especially if I start scratching - it can be almost unbearable for several minutes.

</comment><comment><USER49> The article raises an interesting question about delusions and the limits of medical knowledge. But what does it really mean to be crazy? And who is to hold doctors responsible when they dismiss patients who might have a real illness?

First, let's acknowledge that many people complaining of Morgellons might actually be crazy: they might be suffering some kind of OCD.

With that out of the way, we should ask ourselves, what if some of the people suffering are suffering from some real, physical illness? That is, what if the illness is real and simply can't be diagnosed? For the sake of argument, let's say that Morgellons is actually a rare manifestation of the varicella zoster virus (in the USA, this is referred to as "chicken pox" though it has nothing to do with chickens). VZV can cause shingles, which leads to agonizing nerve pain, so, as a thought experiment, lets imagine that Morgellons represents the rare case when VZV manifests as itching instead of pain.

Let us further suppose that in 10 years research proves the that VZV explains Morgellons.

My concern, in this hypothetical scenario, is the lack of accountability that the doctors face (or rather, don't face). They will never have to apologize to the people who they labeled as crazy. We invest doctors with great social powers, and in some situations doctors can act as agents of the state (for instance, in the USA, regarding a patients mental state, if a doctor says you represent an immediate threat to yourself or others, they can have you locked up for up to 72 hours, pending a psychiatric examination).

The laziest diagnosis is "You are crazy." A doctor who can not find an answer for your problem can simply dismiss you as delusional. And yet, a diagnosis of delusions should only be made after a psychiatric examination, and then, if positive, treatment should begin for the delusions. We need to put in place policies that keep doctors from dismissing patients with a diagnosis of "delusions". Right now, it is too easy for doctors to dismiss patients with that diagnosis. If the patient has not been through a psychiatric examination, then a diagnosis of "delusions" or "obsessive compulsive disorder" should be forbidden.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have unfortunately also experienced first-hand the doctor's mechanical way of working.

In my opinion doctors who cannot program shouldn't be allowed to be doctors. If you are presented with a problem, you logically prod at it until you can understand it. But then again, I'm sure it's more cost-effective to treat 80% of the patients successfully by following a check-list, than to get personal with the patient to identify the real problem.

</comment><comment><USER51> When there are strange disease cases like this I wonder whether computers could find commonalities between sufferers that the naked eye just couldn't see.

If you scrutinized, say, all of the social netw ork, public records, and of course.... the most comprehensive repository: surveillance data :), a couple of interesting commonalities or patterns could surface. (BTW, I don't condone surveillance but the data is already there right...)

</comment><comment><USER52> The Internet has enabled us to connect and collaborate more than ever before.

In the case of mental illness, this is very unfortunate. It is very easy to find other suffers and mutually reinforce everyone's condition.

An extensively studied example of this online disease promotion is pro- anorexia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro- ana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-ana)

<comment><USER40> Do doctors have any incentive to connect with these communities? Is it ethical or reasonable to monitor and attempt to intervene in cases of Morgellons or anorexia that present themselves?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Another article related to pathological itching (probably has been discussed here previously): [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/the- itch](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/the-itch)

The patient in this one ended up in an even more alarming situation.

</comment><comment><USER52> You wouldn't believe what itching made this woman do! [0]

Itching is an extremely powerful sensation.

[0] [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/the- itch](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/the-itch)

tl;dr & spoiler:

A woman slowly scratches through her skull and reaches her brain.

</comment><comment><USER54> Keep in mind that it can be flea bites, as they only start to itch after several hours, you'd usually feel it when you wake up in the morning (and suspect it was bed bugs). A great way to test for this is to get a flea bite trap from amazon.

Def something to look into this if you have animals.

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't understand how you can literally have a picture of colored fibers produced in the skin by this phenomenon, and also blame it on a mental issue.

Am I missing something or is the author totally writing off the very empirical evidence he talks about?

<comment><USER56> How are you so sure those brightly-colored fibers were produced _in_ someone's skin, when the prior probability strongly favors the explanation that they were rubbed off _on_ someone's skin?

For a similar example, think about navel lint. Where does it come from, and why is it approximately the color of the shirts you've been wearing recently?

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> _The authors recommend prescribing a benign anti-parasitic ointment to build trust, then topping it up with an anti-psychotic._

This could be read more charitably, but this sure sounds like deceiving the patient. Is that what they mean?

<comment><USER58> If the patient is flat unwilling to believe the truth then maybe it's not such a bad idea?

There isn't much of a line between deception and placebo.

<comment><USER57> The one patient in this story who got a prompt and serious investigation was found to not be delusional. Was this because anything about his story was more credible? No, it was because he was his own doctor, and strangely not satisfied with deceiving himself. If any other person with the magic doctor bit has had to deal with the problem personally, we aren't told.

This story depicts desperate people who have probably-wrong ideas about their condition, and a medical profession with probably-oversimplified overconfident ideas about it which it has no interest in improving -- they're the opposite of desperate, and so much the less excusable. Put yourself in the shoes of this guy, with his doctor bit erased: if he tries to get help, and explains his whole problem, he _knows_ he'll get classed as delusional, his doctors won't even try to figure the thing out, they'll say "You're very anxious" and get insistent about anti-anxiety drugs, NSAIDs, and seeing a psychiatrist. (If he's lucky like someone I know, after a few years of persistence and ignoring the drug prescriptions he'll find someone who can diagnose an underlying cause, which in that case -- not about itching -- was not mites but gut flora, manageable with a diet change.) He should worry about deliberately mislabeled drugs too? I _hope_ my question was over-cynical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> pi-err It's easy to laugh off those freaks, I did it too before I became one.

TL,DR: OCD behaviors are boosted by physiological stress, we can redesign our world for less stress, and there is in fact a big risk that medicine doesn't help you in non-emergencies situation.

I relate the Morgellons story to candida as you can see people on curezone talking about it ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candida_albicans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candida_albicans)). People on this board sound as desillusional as in the story, looking at their poops for hours and trying all kind of enemas and diets in giant waves of pseudoscience. It's also the same notion that something wrong is hidden in you, an evil invisible root cause.

\---

Long story short, after years of various strange affections on an otherwise healthy body, I found information online on candida. Symptoms matched to a point and so I spent some time on blogs and boards and eventually landed on curezone. I ended up looking at my poop like so many others there. Doubt really is infectious, everything becomes blurry and so I started watching for the tell-tell sign of candida, just in case. Still surprised that I ended up doing this.

After a few weeks (months?) I realized I was getting OCD with that and needed to move on to a better obsession. Doctors had also told me that it didn't make any sense and everything on the net was just BS. My problems were somatic and so I found a better obsession.

The funny thing is that years later, after symptoms got worse, a stool test did diagnose me with candida along with other parasites that I had gotten as a kid in Africa. I got cured and never felt better since then. It did change my life. I still feel that I was a loony when I try to auto-diagnose - it was just a coincidence that candida was involved, my method was all wrong. Candida is not visible to the naked eye, and there's next to no chance to auto- diagnose and auto-cure from it without coaching.

I take from this that our medicine system is designed around emergencies and clear symptoms and does not deal with many new "blurry" pathologies born out from stressful lifestyles. Challenges:

\- those guys (and I) need care designed around empathy, listening and being coached into healthier lifestyles. There's next to no offer for that. Psychiatrists and mental specialists are siloed into talking and/or meds. There are real physiological and practical aspects that need to be added and followed up for it to be effective.

\- I was lucky to be able to afford a holistic nutritionist working with leading labs to perform expensive stool tests that finally helped me. Including treatment, it cost me above £1500, 0% supported by healthcare (it was in the UK, would have been the same in France or anywhere else, I bet). For most, most doctors are still siloed in their discipline and provide neither empathy nor a convincing bridge between info found online and their own expertise.

\- our lifestyles are inducing high level of physiological stress that our human organisms can't deal with. Work, food, cities, that goes way beyond medicine: redesigning all those things to limit stress levels is _the_ opportunity for our generation.

<comment><USER59> The comments on stress are spot-on.

Persistent, low levels of stress are extremely unhealthy. Looking back at my life, I ended up maladapting to these in _every_ scenario, hurting myself and wasting years of my life in the process. If something isn't right, it needs to change, and you can't delay. The failure to enact change creates a feedback loop that makes you more passive, which sucks you of hope, which makes you less likely to create change.

Again: to anyone reading this, do not just put up with long-term, 'smaller' stresses. At least try to work on them. We do not do well with stress + uncertainty combined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> i cant help but be reminded of the support-group addicts from Fight Club while reading the article.

</comment><comment><USER10> _They say that what people like him are really suffering from is a form of psychosis called delusions of parasitosis, or DOP. He is, in other words, crazy._

This is one of the problems in our society, even in psychiatry. (The OP deals with the binary nature we apply to such things, but could have gone deeper.) This idea that there are "crazy" people who have all kinds of mental illness, in full cinematic severity, all of the time, and "sane" people who have none isn't accurate. About 30 to 50% of the population will have diagnosable mental illness at some point in life. (We use our brains for so many things; that we'd have problems with them, over an 80-year life, shouldn't surprise anyone.) Likewise, most people with MH diagnoses are normal most of the time. It doesn't define one as a person, any more than heart disease or fibromyalgia does. This parasitosis is shocking people because it's occurring in relatively normal individuals, but that's actually the truth for most of these diseases. Most people with panic attacks or depression don't seem "insane", because (although they have mental illnesses) they're not.

We need to stop thinking of these as alien, stigmatized conditions and start viewing them as "boring" chronic health problems that, while they are painful and deserve compassion and treatment, don't merit treating someone as if his life is already forfeit (like a cancer patient in the 1940s, an AIDS patient in the 1990s, or a schizophrenic in the 2010s). Panic disorder, for one example, is more like a milder version of epilepsy than a typical "mental illness". It doesn't impair judgment or cause delusions; it's just very upsetting and difficult.

Most people with mental illness are mostly sane most of the time. In our society, we tend to focus on the highly visible and extreme cases, not on the "boring" and often treatable ones that are more common. Major depression doesn't mean that a person is always miserable; it means that a person is unusually prone to attacks of negative mood, often unprovoked. You can have MDD and still be happy most (say, 80%) of the time. In fact, quite a large number of people with anxiety and mood disorders are more functional than the general population when unaffected by the disease (which can be anywhere from 30 to 90% of the time; trust me that if you have two weeks of mania and two weeks of major depression per year, you're still bipolar and need help).

 _"In my experience, Morgellons patients are doing the best they can to make sense of symptoms that are real. These people have been maltreated by the medical establishment. And you're very welcome to quote me on that. They're suffering from a chronic itch disorder that's undiagnosed."_

This seems likely. Even if the disease is "psychological", it's still real pain that they're suffering. I understand that it may require more attention from psychiatrists than dermatologists, but that doesn't invalidate the disease and the importance of treating it.

It can be called enigmatic because it seems (from what I've read) to be psychiatric and is popping up in "normal" people, but the fact is that _most_ mental illnesses (panic, anxiety, depression, OCD) pop up in otherwise normal people.

 _But, she adds, that is not to say there aren't some patients whose major problem is psychiatric. Others still might suffer delusions in addition to their undiagnosed neuropathic illness._

I'm not altogether convinced that there's a difference between neurological and psychiatric illnesses. I've often thought that panic disorder is a non- lethal (albeit distressing and sometimes just weird) cousin of epilepsy (generally classified as neurological) and that the "Asperger's syndrome" (neurological) often observed in highly intelligent young people is actually a mild, subclinical cyclothymia (bipolar) disorder. (People with true neurological social disabilities, such as with autism or head injuries, don't grow out of them in their mid-20s; but people with mild bipolar disorders have a social experience deficit that would match that pattern. Being 20% behind at age 15 is catastrophic; at 30, it's quirky; at 40, it's a non issue.)

Anyway, fuck the people who say that a disease being "psychiatric" means that it shouldn't be treated. It reminds me of the claims adjuster in _Memento_ (ignoring issues of unreliable narration and the question of what really happened) who wanted to weasel out of covering treatment for amnesia because it was "psychological".

</comment><comment><USER61> I shouldn't have read that... lol.

</comment><comment><USER62> If this really is entirely psychosomatic, then sharing this article is probably one of the worse things you can do with the information.

<comment><USER28> I feel like if people read an article about how it's all in their head, it might get ahead of the fake info about it being real. Once people think it's real, it's hard to convince them it's not.

<comment><USER63> I can't be the only one who started itching while reading it.

And it's an unfortunate fact that scratching causes itching, and knowing that, I didn't not scratch the psychosomatic itches, but if I had not I could have given myself real itches.

<comment><USER64> This article got me scared over the possibility that I might go nut and get those itches. It's disturbing how easily those things can get to you. Even with the blatant conspiracy theories and references to aliens in the middle. I'm grateful that my brain is not an asshole and listens to reason sometimes, wouldn't want to end up with phantom itches.

My sympathy goes to those people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> This disease is "documented and described" in the online (then made into a book then made into a movie) "John dies at the end", as an interdimensional goo: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dies_at_the_End](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dies_at_the_End)</comment>


A Bug in the Bugbounty - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.prezi.com/ <comment><USER2> _The program has a limited scope for now, because these subdomains are the high priority areas to make Prezi more secure for our users._

How is their source code repo not a high priority to make Prezi secure?

<comment><USER3> We removed the source code repo from out-of-scope domains. On the other hand: opening the source should not make prezi insecure ;)

hp, prezi cto

<comment><USER2> Well write access to the prezi source could make prezi insecure...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad they decided to reward Shubman Shah and I hope for the future this will help set a precedence on better communication and what deserves compensation.

<comment><USER5> > To improve the program from now on we will reward bug hunters who find bugs > outside of the scope provided that they do not violate our users' > information and that their report triggers us to improve our code base. We > will also retroactively check to see if other reports found issues that fall > into this category.

Do they say that they are going to reward him? I haven't seen that stated anywhere yet.

<comment><USER3> yes, we are going to reward the bug and even retroactively we will check to see if other reports found issues that fall into this category</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is flask equivalent in PHP? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a light-weight micro-framework in PHP that is similar to Flask(python framework). What are the options available? <comment><USER2> Silex (<http://silex.sensiolabs.org/>) is very well regarded.

</comment><comment><USER3> Limonade (<https://github.com/sofadesign/limonade>)

The advantage of using Silex is that its from the makers of Symfony(Framework). So it uses alot of the budles/components from there, Eg: Twig Templates...

</comment><comment><USER4> Slim (<http://www.slimframework.com/>) is built around modern features of PHP 5.3/5.4 like closures and is similar to Sinatra/Express.js

<comment><USER5> +1 Slim is awesome.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What book are you reading? - <AUTHOR> Years ago, I discovered many great books to read here in HN. I wonder if asking this question again, some new books or interesting lectures can pop up. TKS! <comment><USER2> "Start Small, Stay Small" by Rob Walling. Discusses how to get a one-person business going for the least possible cost & time. [http://goo.gl/ztkc3t](http://goo.gl/ztkc3t)

"web2py Complete Reference Manual, 6th Edition Prerelease", by far my favorite Python framework and being used for my new startup--see above! [http://goo.gl/2kdl6O](http://goo.gl/2kdl6O)

"Field of Prey", John Sandford, a well-written thriller. [http://goo.gl/F8QCoe](http://goo.gl/F8QCoe)

</comment><comment><USER3> The (mis)Behavior of Markets, A Fractal View on Risk, Ruin, and Reward by Benoit B. Mandelbrot and Richard L. Hudson.

You may enjoy this book if you are interested in Financial Markets, have some knowledge of Efficient Market Theory, and aware of existence of Fractal Geometry.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Misbehavior-Markets-Financial- Turb...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Misbehavior-Markets-Financial- Turbulence/dp/0465043577/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Just started _The Power of Full Engagement_ by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr. I believe it was recommended here a while ago. Starts off a bit weak, spending too much time almost trying to sell you the book it feels like, rather than getting down to what it's actually all about - you know the type, like those "motivational" videos that spend an hour talking about how great it works and how many people have changed their life without ever actually saying what the ___ "it" _is_. But it's not as bad as those, and I'm hopeful that as it gets into the real content it will be useful, since their general framework makes a lot of sense. (The key tenant being to focus on managing energy rather than time.)

I'm also eagerly awaiting the next Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicle book. (Despite the low-fantasy sounding name, the series is _excellent_. I think it's probably the only fantasy series I would strongly recommend people pick up despite the fact that it's not finished yet.)

<comment><USER5> _I 'm also eagerly awaiting the next Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicle book._

You and me both... I'm champing at the bit for this book to come out. I haven't been this annoyed waiting for a book since the wait for book four of Stephen King's Dark Tower series to come out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A Canticle for Leibowitz

> In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured > the earth clean, a monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz has made a > miraculous discovery: holy relics from the life of the great saint himself, > including the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list, and the hallowed > shrine of the Fallout Shelter. In a terrifying age of darkness and decay, > these artifacts could be the keys to mankind's salvation. But as the mystery > at the core of this groundbreaking novel unfolds, it is the search > itself—for meaning, for truth, for love—that offers hope for humanity's > rebirth from the ashes.

[http://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Leibowitz-Walter-Miller- Jr/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Leibowitz-Walter-Miller- Jr/dp/0553273817)

</comment><comment><USER7> Love and Math - Edward Frenkel

A very powerful book, both for its insights into incredible symmetries across all fields of mathematics (touching on QM and fields), and for the appeal to a positive and engaging attitude towards an incredibly rich fabric of math everywhere in the world

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

Godel Escher Bach - Douglas Hoffstadter

Using isomorphisms between genetics, programming, and math to understand why it doesn't make sense to fully formalize a system, and that logic itself always breaks when you attempt to be rigid, by the very nature of its logical contsruction. Also a VERY readable book, complete with anecdotal fantasy stories about animals.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233649.The_Great_Hunt](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233649.The_Great_Hunt)

Book two of the wheel of time.

Have never read them before...it is a lot of books.

<comment><USER4> One thing to be aware of with that series is that the pace and.. quality take a serious dip around books 6 to 9. If you find yourself getting bored or bogged down at that point, it's worth skimming, reading synopses, whatever, to keep with it, then pick it back up around book 10. Or just be aware that it gets better again. (Although the first few books were still the strongest IMO, except for possibly some of the Sanderson stuff. Here's a guide: [http://jasonrpeters.com/2012/12/11/the-complete-guide-to- rer...](http://jasonrpeters.com/2012/12/11/the-complete-guide-to-rereading- wheel-of-time-before-a-memory-of-light/)

<comment><USER8> I am already finding it a bit slow/boring. If 6 to 9 are that bad then I might end up quiting on it.

<comment><USER9> Get through book 3 before you give up. The dip in 6-9 isnt great but its not awful. The series builds slowly, if you really arent into it by book 3, when most of the story lines have really accelerated, then you can decide

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just finished Right ho Jeeves by PG wodehouse[1].

I am reading essays in the art of writing by RL stevenson.[2]

I want to read an adventure story next. Moby dick[3] seems to be one of the most popular ones on gutenberg so it will probably be my next choice.

[1][http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10554](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10554)

[2][http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/492](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/492)

[3][http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701)

</comment><comment><USER11> Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" \- historical fiction. Brilliantly imagined life of Thomas Cromwell - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell,_1st_Earl_of_Es...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell,_1st_Earl_of_Essex)

</comment><comment><USER12> Flash Boys by Michael Lewis So far so good, it gets a little complicated at times when he's trying to describe the different problems in the stock market (I don't have prior stock market knowledge). All in all, I'm enjoying this book very much and have less than 100 pages left to go.

</comment><comment><USER13> _Human Universals_ by Donald Brown. Identifies the traits common to all humans, all societies and cultures.

[http://www.amazon.com/Human-Universals-Donald- Brown/dp/00700...](http://www.amazon.com/Human-Universals-Donald- Brown/dp/007008209X/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Fiction: _Infinite Jest_ by David Foster Wallace

Non-Fiction / Science: _Our Mathematical Universe_ by Max Tegmark

Non-Fiction / Business: _Predictable Revenue_ by Aaron Ross

Non-Fiction / Programming / Tech: _OSGI in Action_ by Richard Hall, Karl Pauls, Stuart McCulloch, and David Savage

</comment><comment><USER14> Zero History by William Gibson. Half way through.

Pattern Recognition, the first of the trilogy, was my favorite.

</comment><comment><USER15> _Welcome to the Monkey House_ by Kurt Vonnegut. It's a collection of his short stories, often funny, sometimes touching, and always insightful.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just started reading Founders at Work -- [http://www.foundersatwork.com/](http://www.foundersatwork.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Just finished "Eloquent Ruby"

I usually re-read chapters of Crockford's "Javascript: The Good Parts" until I find another book to get into.

</comment><comment><USER18> Founders at Work ([http://www.foundersatwork.com/](http://www.foundersatwork.com/))

</comment><comment><USER19> Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

</comment><comment><USER20> Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett

</comment><comment><USER21> Seven Concurrency Models in Seven weeks - Paul Butcher

</comment><comment><USER22> Neal Stephenson - "REAMDE"

and "Clojure Programming"

</comment><comment><USER23> Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

</comment><comment><USER24> iOS Programming: BNR

Foundation series by Asimov</comment>