Show HN: Chrome extension to control video speed on Netflix, Prime, Twitch, etc. - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/speedify-video-speed-cont/pldkddbkbcedophgedaeofceedjcaehl?authuser=1 <comment><USER2> Perhaps the fact that your 10 preceding Show HN submissions of the same thing didn't get much traction should be indicative that it's not a very good Show HN material?

</comment><comment><USER3> How to time travel:

1) Go on Twitch.tv with this plugin and set the speed to 1.25x 2) ??? 3) Profit

</comment><comment><USER4> repo is gone: [https://github.com/jaibalani13/speedify](https://github.com/jaibalani13/speedify)</comment>


What the F*ck Python? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/satwikkansal/wtfpython <comment><USER2> There are some good ones in there! I especially like that explanations are given and the optimizations that CPython makes are revealed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely! As a Python coder I learned quite a lot just by reading through the text. Actually it removes a lot of the "wtf" from the language.</comment></comment>


Working away: consider it for your startup - <AUTHOR> http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development-blog/2012/06/06/working-away-consider-it-for-your-startup/

<comment><USER2> We've done this twice so far at Sincerely. Once to Puerto Vallarta Mexico when our team was ~7 people. And once to Tahoe for a ski-cation when we were at ~9 people. Both were week-long trips and cost under $1k per person. We are doing Mexico again soon with our team of 14.

Quick thoughts: \- We like to ship stuff while on these trips. I find it unproductive to do brainstorming or planning on these trips. We plan before we go. We execute while we are away. And on drunken walks home from the club or sunburned strolls back from the beach, we come up with great ideas that we quickly turn into new realities for our users. \- The trips end up defining elements of company culture. It has been on these trips where we've started our board game culture, our exercise culture, etc \- For several of our employees, this was the first time they had left the country. Most of us do startups because they are challenging and an amazing learning environment. It is nice to extend that learning experience into other aspects of our human experience - like traveling abroad. \- I always dreamed about working at a company that did cool things like workcations to Mexico. And the best thing about running your own startup is that you can actually redefine the traditional work place. Be the change you want to see in the world. It feels really really good.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anybody else _not_ want to see their co-workers outside of work?

I mean, I love my coworkers, but I love the rest of my life too, and I don't really _want_ to go on a 10-day trip where I'm away from family/friends every evening. I don't want to go hiking or clubbing with my coworkers.

I want to _work_ with my coworkers, and hike with my friends, and maybe there will be a little bit of intersection there, but it will be my choice and happen naturally.

I need to be away from work to recharge, and spending time with coworkers outside of work doesn't really let me do that.

<comment><USER4> Pretty narrow view. First, it's not "outside of work". What was described _is_ work. Second, it's 10 days out of the year, not 365. It's not meant to replace or displace any other recharging you might engage in. And, wow, maybe work with people you could consider friends?

<comment><USER5> It's not narrow, just different. We're not all 20 something's with free schedules.

Once you have kids and become involved in their lives, something like this goes from being an enjoyable vacation-like work-bonding experience to ridiculous pain-in-the-ass to schedule time away from family requirement.

That isn't to say that it can't or shouldn't be done outright, but that like anything, it should be done with regard to the people and personalities on your team's best interests at heart.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate this kind of trip and culture is not for everyone.

But I worry about the stereotype you project - we're not all 20-somethings, and I think even our 20-somethings would object to you thinking they had anything like "free schedules"!

I totally agree with your comment that anything like this needs to be done with regard to the people and personalities on your team.

<comment><USER5> Trust me, once (if) you have kids, you'll realize how free your schedule is!

<comment><AUTHOR> If / when I'm sure I'll be surprised by myriad things. I'll post again then :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We did the same thing for two weeks in Mexico. It cost about $8k for a team of 5, including one guy flying from Argentina.

In productivity terms, we juiced payroll by ~50% for a two week period and got much more than 50% extra work done. We worked 12 hours a day, in sync from sunup to sundown, and it felt great because lunch or coffee breaks were a dip in the pool or a beer on the beach.

In team-building terms, it was fantastic. We have one guy working remotely and getting in the same room with him for two weeks was a great way to help him understand how we're making product decisions. Also, we brought a bluetooth boombox and learned far too much about everyone's musical tastes.

@brezina is right - build and ship stuff. We did bug/issue triage together every morning, and played show-and-tell constantly. Having everyone working at extremely high velocity is self-reinforcing.

If it fits your budget, I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this is a phenomenal team building exercise, even if your entire team normally works from the same office.

Being in a place other than home removes all sorts of distractions from your regular life and you can focus on (a) work and (b) spending time getting to know your teammates, if that sort of thing is important to you.

Question: do you have rough guesstimate on what this sort of thing will cost per person, after all is said and done?

I'm guessing: 1000 airfare + 200/night/4 people for lodging + 50/person/day for food + 50/person/day for entertainment/booze ==

$12k for a 4 person team to go to spain from Chicago for 10 days? Is that about fair?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've found it to be a lot less than that generally - almost half your estimates.

[Edit] re-reading, I think your flight costs are accurate from Chicago to Spain. They are less for us because half the team travelled from London. If you are all in Chicago, you should go to Canada or Mexico or Central America - lower cost to achieve the same goal.

<comment><USER8> You arguably don't have to go that far from home I guess - depending on where you live - just needs to be "away" and a great place (and have great Internet!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just be careful how you explain yourselves to the border staff at the country you're visiting.

If you tried this as a non American going to the US to work on your startup and you told the truth, expect to be on the next flight back.

</comment><comment><USER10> How does this work for employees with families?

<comment><AUTHOR> Two of us on this trip are married, one with young kids. In this case the kids are with grannie and have a list of chores / Skype on their computers.

Sometimes team members take vacation at or close to the location with significant others after the work trip.

We talk about these trips when describing the company as part of our interview process. It wouldn't be a problem if people were unable to participate because of their personal situation - we're well used to working remotely. Almost everyone sees it as a big benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is something that has crossed my mind as well, so I'm happy to see it work out for you guys.

Do you find the cost (presumably around $130/person/day) is well justified? Do you find the long plane trips and getting around your destination too much of a hassle/distraction?

<comment><AUTHOR> The cost varies and we often pick cheap destinations, so it ends up being less than you might think.

Jet lag can be a drag for the people going transatlantic and you do have overhead at the location - getting setup, shopping / cooking, figuring out where you are and what to do in the evening.

But all travelling together, and solving those problems is part of the fun and team-building. We all look forward to the trips and enjoy the planning process, so it's not even just about the focus benefits on the trip itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Actually this technique is what rock stars use to do to record an album -- they'd go to a remote location to pick up on the vibes of the local music scene instead of the usual hubs of the industry like LA or London.

<comment><USER13> So now I can finally truthfully call myself a Rockstar Developer...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Travis Kalanik (founder of Uber) did this back in 2006 to great effect, decamped the team to Thailand: <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119179859820351674.html>

<comment><USER15> One interesting aspect of this is that they were able to reduce costs by scheduling the trip between moving out of their old office and moving into their new one.

<comment><USER8> Genius move!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I will definitely be doing this for my startup. Another great post is Balsamiq's post on their "Work Retreats": <http://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2011/07/03/retreat/>

</comment><comment><USER17> Hey , I am from Barcelona , would like to invite you for some beers if you are interested :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Welcome (again) to Barcelona ;)

<comment><USER8> We're based in Barcelona - We'll do an office exchange if the counter location is right!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A work-cation. Interesting.</comment>


How to get a shitload more chances of succeeding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tugulab.org/2013/03/13/how-to-get-a-shitload-more-chances-of-succeeding/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's why having a complete founding team for your startups will make you create a better product and run more experiments than using an outsourcing company. This way you'll do more and you'll increase the chances to succeed</comment>


Damage and damage causes in large government IT projects [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.itu.dk/~slauesen/Papers/DamageCaseStories_Latest.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> A very interesting breakdown and analysis of some of the largest public IT project scandals in Denmark in recent years.

It's published by the Danish IT University and written in English, so everyone can benefit from it.</comment>


EU's GPS satellites have been down for four days in mysterious outage - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/european-gps-satellites-have-been-down-for-four-days-in-mysterious-outage/ <comment><USER2> I'm more familiar with the older US GPS system than I am with Galileo, but I can make an informed guess.

GPS satellites broadcast "ephemerides" letting receivers work out where the satellite is - and some other details like clock error and predicted effects of the ionosphere.

You can make a rough prediction of these weeks in advance, but not precisely enough to meet GPS's precision requirements. Up-to-date short term predictions are needed to make things precise enough, so a ground-based 'ground segment' or 'control segment' broadcasts updates to these every 30 minutes or so.

The 'ground segment' is comprised of ~20 monitoring stations (at known locations, measuring the errors on signals from satellites), one 'master control station' that aggregates this data and decides what update to send next, 4 ground antennas that can send that update to the satellite no matter what side of the globe it happens to be on, and a backup MCS.

This is what is meant by "ground infrastructure".

The design of GPS is informed by its cold-war-era-military origins, so there's a backup master control station, and the satellites have an 'Autonav mode' letting them operate for 60 days in even if the entire ground segment has been destroyed.

Assuming the Galileo system has a broadly similar design, you can imagine the criteria for a four-day outage:

* Failure of both the master control station and the backup, in a way that takes more than 4 days to recover from. Maybe their backup control station wasn't fully commissioned yet, wasn't fully redundant, or some IT problem hit both sites at once?

* Discovery of some fault severe enough they felt they had to shut down until it was fixed, and the fix couldn't be rushed out.

* Either satellites have no autonav mode, or it somehow failed (such as due to bad data from the ground segment), or it's imprecise enough they decided pushing people onto GPS was a more responsible option.

<comment><USER3> The rumour I saw was that the entire ground segment is dependent on a single Precise Timing Facility in Italy, which went down and took everything with it. Not sure what the holdover capability is like without the ground stations, but I'd venture a guess it's not great,

<comment><USER2> According to a report from 2009 [1] _" The Galileo ground segment has two GCCs, each with a Precise Timing Facility (PTF) providing a very stable reference GST to all elements in the GCC. The two PTFs are developed by separate companies; this diversification is applied to reduce the possibility of common failures in this important element."_

I suppose it's possible the second GCC hadn't been fully commissioned? Or the switchover failed in some very hard to recover way?

[1] [https://reports.nlr.nl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10921/210/TP-2...](https://reports.nlr.nl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10921/210/TP-2009-082.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)

<comment><USER4> If the two GCCs don't agree on the Time, which one is correct ?

<comment><USER2> According to the document linked, each GCC has its own PTF comprised of _four_ Caesium atomic clocks. So between the two sites, they have eight atomic clocks.

Presumably if one atomic clock seems suspect, they simply look to their other seven?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given that the project is funded by €10 billion of EU taxes, I hope we'll get transparency sooner rather than later on exactly what's gone wrong, regardless of who it might embarrass.

<comment><USER6> If it costs that much you'd think they'd also offer encrypted GPS, too. They'll regret it eventually anyway.

<comment><USER7> Encrypted GPS do yu even make sense, what benefit an encrypted GPS will provide. Eu will know where were you when you requested something and even if your data was encrypted and i don't think you can intercept gps coordinates and you have to intercept at least three for it to be useful.

<comment><USER8> Yes, encrypted GPS makes sense. You can broadcast additional information that can be used for more precision only on encrypted channels, and have people pay for the decryption keys. (That's part of how the better-quality GPS for US military works)

Another way is selling online access to better-quality correction data.

Neither necessarily involves telling anyone where you are.

<comment><USER9> Even the US military doesn't use the encryption channels much anymore. Turns out that differential GPS is more accurate and you don't even need the encryption channel to do it. We already know the next message the GPS will send with high accuracy, the important part is detecting exactly when the first bit arrives at the antenna you everything you need from that.

If you want to get more accurate you don't use the encrypted channel you put a GPS in a fixed location on earth and have it send corrections to you. (called RTK)

Edit: Note that I have no information on what the US military uses their classified channel for. It is unlikely they get any accuracy information from it anymore given what civilian GPS systems have figured out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not trying to be funny here, but I would not be surprised if an automated Windows update borked something. Recently heard about an Antarctic base that lost heating for 36 hears after a Windows Update triggered a several GB download over the base's modem downlink.

<comment><USER11> The heater required an active internet connection and available bandwidth?

<comment><USER12> It was actually just a gaming PC with a Nvidia GTX480 belonging to a scientist perpetually left turned on

<comment><USER13> Those NVIDIA fanboys. I have a AMD RX 480 which heats my room just as good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's a system/service that's still in beta, I'd expect some occasional issues until it's deemed "production-ready".

<comment><USER15> Everything on orbit and on the ground is production product.

When you are several billion euros in, have 24 satellites on orbit, and have been broadcasting with the ' __Valid __' bit set for 2 years you aren't really in 'beta' as we use it.

They have been in production mode in all but name. Given the life/safety implications, there are some rather rigid qualification checks that have to be done to be 'fully certified'. That's what's been going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > In a statement published after this article's publication, the GSA blamed > the Galileo outage on "a technical incident related to its ground > infrastructure."

I wonder what this could mean?

<comment><USER17> copying from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20427544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20427544)

Guenter Hein, Professor Emeritus of Excellence at the University FAF Munich told us, "As far as I know, it is a problem of the PTF [Precise Timing Facility] in Italy – time has an impact on the whole constellation!"

<comment><USER16> But the satellites should be carrying their own clocks?

<comment><USER18> They do (that's literally how GPS/GNSS works), but they drift, for various reasons. One of the parameters that GNSS networks broadcast is a clock correction (how far off each individual satellite's clock is, how fast it's changing, and how fast how fast it's changing is changing), and those parameters come from the ground stations.

It seems like a little drift shouldn't make that much difference, but keep in mind that the speed of light in a vacuum (or air) is about 1 foot per nanosecond, so for every nanosecond one of those clocks has drifted, that's a foot of positional accuracy you no longer have...

<comment><USER19> But GPS can run up to 60 days with no ground station contact at all.

<comment><USER18> Nominally, yes, but the positioning error (according to the spec) is expected to be up to 425m after 14 days, growing worse over time until it hits a positioning error of ~10km at 180 days.

(later generation satellites have an 'autonav' mode that presumably makes this less severe (by using SV-to-SV ranging and such so they're not completely blind to changes), but Galileo may not have that capability or there might not be enough SVs to use that capability yet)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So what would break if GPS went down for 4 days?

Sat nav obviously, Amazon package tracking, Grindr? (I assume that falls back to cell tower triangulation???).

I guess theres some more serious things, any examples?

<comment><USER21> this will be a fun thread! high frequency trading relies on gps disciplined osscilators for the precise timing needed (ntp isn't good enough, ptp isn't even good enough, though White rabbit should be). so hft would cease or go wonky

trucking companies rely on it to enforce rest periods. so more truck accidents?

turn by turn direction on phones would go out. wi fi is enough for nav, unless your phone and the wifi are on different ntp networks maybe I had a phone with broken gps and I didn't really notice.

<comment><USER22> American trucker here. Occasionally I will lose the GPS signal in my truck, but my hours of service still counts down. The electronic logs are kept onboard, and transmitted at some point to headquarters.

I suppose the Qualcomm unit might eventually be off by a second or three. But I don't know if its clock is updated by GPS, phone or wifi. I'm guessing phone.

We're also required to carry paper log sheets in case of Qualcomm outage. So then it would be paper, watch and honesty. The honesty can be sanity checked by speed an distance.

<comment><USER23> I don't know much about Qualcomm's gear for truckers, but FWIW even if the machine does pull its time data over the cellular network (possible on CDMA, less likely - impossible? - on GSM), the cell tower itself likely relies on GPS for its own time sync. Its very common for GPS to be used as a globally- accurate source of time data even in applications that have nothing to do with location.

<comment><USER24> GSM also provides a time reference. I seem to recall connecting to some networks that didn't provide it though.

Base stations should be using GPS (and others) to discipline a local oscilator that should be ok enough for a while in absence of signal. They can probably also get a timing signal from their backhaul.

It works better with precise timing, but I think it's workable with best efforts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I had someone come and measure boundaries for some land on Friday, supposedly with centimetre precision. Does this mean that the markers they installed are likely in the wrong place?

<comment><USER26> It depends... were there any markers already present? In a past life I worked as a surveyor, and if a marker was present(it looks like a silver-dollar on the ground, with a spike holding it in place, these can last 100+ years), we would use that to measure from. If, however, they set up what looked like a tripod with a oval-shaped dish on top, that's a GPS receiver, and could be affected by this outage.

Link: here are some survey markers for sale, linking it so you can see a picture of what they commonly look like: [https://www.berntsen.com/Surveying/Survey- Markers/Aluminum-S...](https://www.berntsen.com/Surveying/Survey- Markers/Aluminum-Survey-Markers)

<comment><USER25> No - they placed new markers (orange disks on long spikes) driven flush into the ground, but they were walking around using GPS to do this (with supposedly centimetre precision, which I understand is what GNSS is for). This is in Eastern EU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dfeojm-zlib This is a good reminder to buy and use satnav modules supporting multiple positioning systems and technologies: most of GLONASS, GPS, BDS, Galileo, IRNSS, SkyHook, etc.

Disclaimer: Trimble Ltd. alum

</comment><comment><USER27> They put the _Precise Timing Facility_ in _Italy_?

<comment><USER28> Casual racism, because fuck yeah.

Italy has a pretty big space-related industrial sector, and excellent academic standards in some fields. It might not produce geniuses with the same frequency of the past (Galvani, Volta, Marconi, Fermi and so on) but it's not some random backwater.

<comment><USER29> > but it's not some random backwater.

And nobody really thinks that.

My god, what a time to be alive, when you can't make simple jokes anymore, because somebody somewhere always is offended and thinks there must be some racist agenda in place.

Even as a German with a total lack of humour (and an Italian motorcycle with strange quirks in the garage) I found this funny. Funnier than the Holocaust at least.

<comment><USER28> _> > [Italy is] not some random backwater. > And nobody really thinks that._

As an Italian expat, I can assure you this is unfortunately incorrect.

 _> you can't make simple jokes anymore_

No, you can't make jokes based on lazy stereotypes that end up affecting the lives of millions. It's a different thing. It might have been fundamentally innocuous, back when populations didn't mix as much as we do today, but now it's a real problem. If I go to a job interview and the potential employer assumes Italian == lazy, I'm done for. That's the casual bigotry that these jokes end up entrenching.

<comment><USER29> And I've worked with and for Italian people and they were just as lazy or hard-working as any other nationality. No reason to value them more or less.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Virgin's Hyperloop to connect Heathrow and Gatwick instead of 3rd runway - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42730916 <comment><USER2>
        Virgin's Hyperloop to connect Heathrow and Gatwick instead of 3rd runway (bbc.co.uk)
        1 point by dmmalam 21 minutes ago | cached | flag | hide | past | web | favorite | discuss

Actual title: Virgin's Hyperloop: Future or fantasy?

Excerpt from article: It is the job of the chief executive Rob Lloyd to sell the Hyperloop to the commercial and government partners who will make it a reality ... "[y]ou could build a Hyperloop between Gatwick and Heathrow..."

HN Guidelines [1]: "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


Tyranny of the Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/12/tyranny-of-the-1.php <comment><USER3> Agile started to die in my division the moment we had to go to some buggy web page and fill out our progress.

Agile became just another vehicle for micromanagement. Our scrums became apologies against what we said we'd accomplish. Meetings were held by managers, outside the group, to discuss concerns about meeting our goals.

There were levels of permissions on the task list; the team couldn't edit tasks, and had to get permission to make changes. Pretty soon we weren't deciding what to do and how long it would take, all that was being done for us, by managers.

Scrum became another set of manacles, and something to be avoided at all cost.

</comment><comment><USER4> The more and more I work in Agile the more I realize that the way many companies use it it is just an excuse to do micromanagement and attempt to treat everyone as an interchangeable resource/cog. Now this doesn't mean agile is bad, it just means for whatever reason management in many of my experiences has twisted it into a tool that seemingly leads to the following:

\- Change direction every sprint to the point where an application has been morphed so many times into something new that it makes it a heroic task to actually engineer something that ends up performant without needing a complete rewrite \- Takes the pressure of the business/management folks to project, plan or foresee anything because they believe they can change direction at any point in time \- Cut down projects into such fine grained tasks that it takes the fun out of the work

Im sure in those cases agile was done wrong for whatever reason or another but consequently as a result of my experiences I've stopped putting up with it when I can. I'm definitely ignorant about project management but Ive found within a small team just talking and coordinating like normal human beings about how your going to work together and what your going to do works pretty well. I guess I'd call my approach the "no project manager" technique.

<comment><USER5> I used to work at a company that absolutely loved to do a variation on your first point. When faced with a multiple choice question, the answer would end up being "all of the above," but framed in such a way that "oh, we're merely keeping our options open." When that story comes up for implementation, what do you know but apparently MajorCustomer has heard all about how we're offering support for every computer ever made by human hands and is _thrilled!_ They want to know when they can expect a demo!

Agile can also be a great way to uncover people who think they are "separate but more equal" too, when they decide that the concept of a sprint whose content is mutually agreed upon and doesn't change mid-stream is just a quaint little detail that doesn't apply to Important People.

Maybe I'm just a little bit bitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A process that doesn't self-correct is not a good process. A process that doesn't contain mechanisms which naturally guide teams back on track is not a good process. A process that tends to be followed incorrectly and misused to a degree such that it becomes a hindrance (even relative to no process at all), even in the hands of teams operating earnestly and with good intentions, is not a good process. A process that succeeds only when used by the best teams filled with the best developers is not a good process (such teams will succeed regardless).

Agile is not a good process. It may contain elements which are useful, but on balance the history of agile has been a history of abuse and of use as an excuse for old fashioned micro-management. The infatuation with agile has set back the practice of software engineering in industry by a disheartening degree.

The future is not "do whatever you want" nor is it "revert to the bad, old waterfall days" as agile zealots try to scare everyone into believing, but the sooner we get past the religion of "agile" the better.

<comment><USER4> It has actually been pretty demoralizing to me participating in agile techniques as a professional. Ive been in SCRUM meetings where everyone would stand in a circle and the project manager would bring in a timer and time everyone when they started speaking. If you went over 2 minutes the PM would immediately cut you off and move to the next person. On other occasions Ive had PMs ask me (in an accusatory manner) why it has taken me 4 hours to do a task I estimated at 3 hours. Keep in mind that these experiences were at a relatively small startup not a mega-corp. I don't know of any other creative, well-paid, educated profession where this would be even close to tolerated and I think its a trajedy that this sort of stuff has become common place. Unfortunately for the company the way I and other coworkers "self-corrected" the process is by moving on to another place where that doesn't occur - <USER2> up being a great solution for me.

<comment><USER6> A few of the agile "standups" I've been involved in have been run well, at a recent job I had the opposite problem to what you describe. For several months we had a team that was about a dozen folks, and a daily standup that typically clocked in at 45 minutes to an hour and a half, every day.

It boggles my mind how any manager can see 60 dev-hours a week get pissed away and fail to see the importance of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This pretty much exactly describes the experiences that our various teams have had. We've tried all manner of software tools over the years (Jira, since we use that for bug tracking already, Jira + Greenhopper, Agile Zen, Pivotal Tracker) and we pretty much always end up coming back to having cards on a board. Every tool ends up feeling too restrictive, too big brother, and too TPS-report-coversheet. The point starts to become "get the right data into the tool" instead of "use the tool to help us do our work."

We generally end up putting everything in Jira anyway for historical and statistical purposes, as well as for visibility when people are working remotely, and it simply ends up as someone's job to make sure Jira is in sync with the physical board every so often.

<comment><USER8> Sorry that that was your experience with AgileZen. Organizing work is a surprisingly difficult problem, and one for which we're very interested in providing a decent solution. I'd love to hear about your experiences and how we can do better. My email is (same username) at gmail.com, if you're interested. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whenever I think about process and tool changes, in addition to thinking about what I want to work better, I think about what I don't want to change. If something is working well and you don't strive to keep it working while monkeying with how the "process" works, you will surely break it.

I saw an entire team self-destruct while building a product because management (including the inexperienced dev lead) kept wanting just a little more clarity into what was going on. Tweak after tweak increasing process, planning, and reporting at the expense of getting stuff done until the debs (myself included) couldn't take it any more.

If you don't try very hard to keep what is working, you will lose it. Often, what is working is more important than what is not.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's just as easy to ignore a physical board. I've done it. There's no substitute for discipline.

<comment><USER6> Whether it's a board or a spreadsheet the point is that it's just a crutch, what works is facilitating communication, breaking work down into manageable chunks, and facilitating a conversation with the whole team on every aspect of work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> $144.00 $144.00 $14.14 $10.82 $60.00

Wow. This is such a great post, and sums up exactly why every implementation of "Agile" I've seen at previous employers have been completely dysfunctional.

So there's an engineering team and they have a project manager. The post-its and standups and storyboards seem a little weird at first to the engineering team, but they go along with it. It's rarely perfect in the first iteration but they can see how doing this makes them more productive, and it beats getting a bunch of confused requirements from confused business owners, or working off cumbersome and inflexible product requirement documents. And it doesn't ask them to change much in the ways they're already communicating.

The problem is the project manager needs a way to provide "remote views" that the OP mentioned. The CEO needs to know where the implementation hours are being spent. The finance team wants to know which projects they can capitalize. And so forth. It is part of the project manager's responsibility to provide this.

This is where tools can be great. Enter in some data, enter in the stories and tasks and points and hours and projects and generate a dozen charts and graphs with the push of a button. Cool.

The problem is if the project manager doesn't manage this themselves, if they don't do the tedious task of entering in this information themselves, then it's going to be a mess. Because like the OP said, engineers aren't going to update the tool. They want to do work and if the work status needs to be updated to reflect their progress, that should just automatically happen. If they have to manage the updating, then you immediately have a point of failure because the engineer is _never going to do this._ Why? Because it's pointless. He's working on projects. He's cranking out code. He already has a dozen windows open on his desktop at all times to text editors, terminal shells, documentation on the web, documentation in PDFs. He already communicates to his peers via IM, email, in person, using version control, or even moving post-its on a storyboard. He is already passively indicating his status a dozen times a day. Why does he need to actively manage his status in some tool that has zero value to him or anyone he works with?

But the project manager implores, "just update your hours, guys, it only takes a little bit of time each day. We really want to maintain an accurate burndown chart."

If only it were so simple. Because beyond being completely inconvenient, the tool doesn't even use the same units of measure that he does! "Hours per story?" Does that count the hours brainstorming the solution? The hours actually typing in code? The hours working with the sysadmins to deploy the code? The hours (well, hopefully minutes) spent thinking about the project while taking a dump? If the story is closely related to another one that he basically worked on both at the same time, should he combine his hours and divide by two? And burndown chart? Does the burndown chart mean anything to him? Does it help or improve his life in anyway? We thought this project was going to take a week, but when we started getting into the implementation we realized there's huge hurdle X and now it's going to take two weeks. There's your damn burndown chart.

So the engineer hears, "just wax and shave your balls with vaseline, guys, it only takes a little bit of time each day." Because waxing and shaving his balls seems just as pointless as updating the tool. And even if it only takes a few minutes to wax and shave your balls, it's awkward enough that you will get really frustrated really quickly if this needs to become part of your workflow.

If the project manager wants to the use the tool because of the convenience and power of generating reporting charts and graphs to external teams, then good for them. But if they're going to ask the engineers to update it themselves, then they should be prepared for that to be as successful as if they asked them to shave their balls, because that is literally what they are doing.

<comment><USER12> I think you just created a metaphor even more memorable than shaving a yak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think younger generations are getting more and more used to a digital-only workflow. I see also a shift in working habits from nine-to-five-office-work to asynchronical world-distributed work, which demands a such a workflow.

<comment><USER9> One of the things I really like about scrum is that it forces people to interact together. That builds team trust and solidarity. Those can be built in other ways, but it is much harder. If you want a great team, you need to build it somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Definitely agree. What do people think about remote teams?

<comment><USER15> I managed a team in the Philippines remotely from the U.S. At the same time the rest of the firm was in NYC while I lived in Chicago. The remote experience was not exactly a positive one. Although remote teams and workers are a bigger part of business life today, I would avoid it when possible. It's very hard to get everyone on the same tempo of work and it is really easy to have a miscommunication.

<comment><USER16> I also had a nightmare managing programmers in the Philippines, 75% from my incompetency, 25% from other factors. Having my guys w/in a few feet is invaluable to me now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every place I've worked where we tracked our hours, only proved that realistically estimating hours on a software project was completely impossible.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am a big fan of plain text documents. Where I work we have a tool that collects requirements and then they can all be exported into Word. The problem is that the tool takes these one and two line sentences and produces a document out of them. In between each blurb there is about 3-5 lines of redundant boiler plate about who wrote the two lines of text and when. It is almost unreadable in that form. Things like keeping a consistent verb tense/voice go out the window. When I come on to a new project I like to see a well written document that has an introduction and several well written pages. I can read that and get the rest from the code. The issue is that we don't need expensive tools to write text files.

</comment><comment><USER19> While I agree with the author generally, I should say the one online tool I've found that has really helped me, particularly when I'm doing remote development with other people, is workflowy.

It's just a hierarchical list of stuff and you can mark items as being done. The radical simplicity (and slick UI) stays out of my way, and yet provides a centralized list of stuff to do for the group I'm working with. It's kind of like a shared emacs org-mode on the web.

My main concern is that they will add more features to it.</comment>


Google App Engine – SMS and Voice Integration With Twilio - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/appengine/articles/twilio

<comment><USER2> That's great, but telecom is still agaist GAE ToS:

"4.3 Restrictions. Customer will not, and will not allow third parties under its control to: (f) use the Service to operate or enable any telecommunications service or in connection with any Application that allows End Users to place calls to or to receive calls from any public switched telephone network;"

Source: <https://developers.google.com/appengine/terms>

A question was asked about this a few months back and a GAE PM basically said use it at your own risk. Here's the thread: [https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google- appengine/c8u71g5Cc...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/google- appengine/c8u71g5CcIg/discussion)

Hopefully, this is a signal that they want to sort this out...

<comment><USER3> Google Groups website is broken, so that thread is not readable.

<comment><USER2> Seems to work fine for me... but here's the response:

"Re: [google-appengine] Re: TOS question - may I add a dial button

Hello All,

Please take my comment as a comment and not legal guidance as any legal guidance needs to come from your own legal counsel based on our terms of service. But, that clause is in our ToS as App Engine is not built to be or regulated as a telecommunication service and as such anyone who would fall under telecommunication regulations would likely not pass an audit. I know that sounded cryptic but I'm trying to be as precise as possible without telling you what to do :)

I hope that helps and I hope you'll understand if you want more clarification it might be hard to give,

Greg D'Alesandre Senior Product Manager, Google App Engine"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Twilio api is so simple that this "integration" does not bring much except exposure for Twilio and $20 of Twilio credit for appengine users. We have been using Twilio to send SMS from our appengine app for months now without any issue. In any case a good news.

<comment><USER5> Killer Zabar - what have you been using it for?

<comment><USER4> The app is both on the web and on mobile (iOS and Android app). When you use it on the web, we advertise the mobile version, with the option for the user to give his phone number to receive an SMS on his phone with the install link. It serves as a reminder and ease the experience of finding us on the app store with a way better conversion rate than an email.

<comment><USER5> Slick - love that use case. Totally one we didn't expect, by the way, but has ended up being super effective.

Super easy to implement and test on GAE too with the Tasks API. The testbed makes an async implementation with full coverage half an hour of work. Big fan of the supplementary services Google provides here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm disappointed by this poor integration. I had hoped Google would at least make importing libraries somewhat easier by including them as official third party libraries.

[http://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/lib...](http://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/libraries27)

This is just marketing. For some actual added value, Google could've made the whole process of acquiring tokens and billing transparent. Click a button in the App Engine dashboard, and it gets new tokens from Twilio which are billed through Google.

<comment><USER7> _Disclaimer: I work for Twilio_

This is more than just marketing, but less than what you're describing. A great deal of work went into updating and testing our helper libraries in the GAE environment, as well as building documentation and proof on concepts[1] for developers to learn from.

Deeper forms of integration require heavier lifting and require buy-in across the organization. If partnerships like this are successful and improve the adoption and use of new tooling, I think it will be much easier to make a case for more integration down the line.

[1]: <http://twiliosandbox.appspot.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For (I think) a year now I've had a toy application I wrote one Saturday that uses GAE with Twilio. It is just a joke line where Twilio reads off a joke to the caller and let's them vote up/down on it. Twilio is so easy that it was only about 2 hours work one rainy Saturday to get it up and running. It has worked without errors ever since and is still using the initial deposit I gave Twilio.

<comment><USER5> Nice! What's the number? Love comedy lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't know about other countries, but it's quite costlier compared to GupShup, which operates a similar service in India.

<comment><USER5> Important feedback - thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good for the Twil' homies. Congrats guys. More distro is good distro.

<comment><USER5> Thanks Josh!

<comment><USER11> Congrats!! Would be great to know how this was made possible. Did Google approach Twilio, or did Twilio approach Google, or is there a third party services partner program that any developer can follow</comment></comment></comment>


Google employee lives in 16' box truck to avoid Bay Area rents - <AUTHOR> http://www.frominsidethebox.com/view?key=5741031244955648 <comment><USER2> Honestly, it sounds kinda great. He's going to have some completely unique experiences and stories that he'll carry with him for the rest of his life, and he's learning a lot about how to live thriftily and how to separate needs from wants.

It's not _all_ that different from living in an RV, and he's taking control of his finances to a degree that most people would never really consider. That's admirable, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's certainly better than Ben Discoe's setup:

[https://www.quora.com/Which-Googler-holds-the-record-for- liv...](https://www.quora.com/Which-Googler-holds-the-record-for-living-at- Google-HQ?share=true)

while Brandon has made a whole project out of it with regular blog posts highlighting his eco-friendliness, Ben was forced to live at Google's parking lot in a van, in order to pay for alimony.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow... at the last place I worked someone (other than me) was immediately fired for taking a nap in the lounge.

Maybe this guy should consider just finding better paying work in a less expensive market before he winds up getting arrested?

</comment><comment><USER5> See also this one about container living in Oakland: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/live-in-boxes-in- oaklan...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/live-in-boxes-in-oakland- redefine-housing-squeeze.html?ref=business)

</comment><comment><USER6> I see this as a smart move on his part. He's probably more fiscally responsible than 99.9% of people, including myself. It looks like a smart option for someone who only spends time at home when sleeping.

All things considered, I certainly hope that once he has paid off his student loans, he'll rent or buy a place.

</comment><comment><USER7> pictures of the inside of the truck here:

[http://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-employee-lives- in-t...](http://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in- parking-lot-2015-10#/#-5)

Rather spartan.

<comment><USER8> > _A school-year later, he was purchasing a 16-foot 2006 Ford with $US157,000 > miles on it._

Hm... "domain-specific" CMS that assumes all large numbers are money, or strange writer error?

And yeah, that is really spartan. I personally feel spending more money to make more homely would have been a good investment, but to each their own. Maybe get an RV or RV-converted truck (less obvious) to start with.

<comment><USER9> I wondered the same thing, why not an RV.

Also, I wonder if this guy is tired of Matt Foley references.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Our startup is having to cut back so this looks like a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Hey guys, wanna come over for a drink? Just move my bed to the left."

</comment><comment><USER12> Paying $1000 / month for rent is expensive? For a GOOGLE employee?

<comment><USER13> Umm, if you can find a decent place in the bay area for $1000/mo, do let me know.

<comment><USER14> He said by splitting with roommates in the blog post. That's possible if you get a 3+ bedroom unit and split amongst that many people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Let me be the first to say it.

YUCK!

What's the point to living if you have the means, but don't live a decent life? Just to spoil it for others, who are living decently? Is this how this guy's gonna define himself?

You know, programmers already have a low social reputation for being geeky. Down mod me all you want but that only proves this is a circle jerk.

Please don't do this. If you do have to do this, don't advertise this. Please don't. Some of us worked very hard to be here, we would want programmers to be looked up, not down.

<comment><USER16> Yeah this makes it seem pretty crap [http://frominsidethebox.com/view?key=5713144022302720](http://frominsidethebox.com/view?key=5713144022302720)

<comment><USER15> What are you, 14?

<comment><USER16> I was agreeing with you?

<comment><USER15> Um, sorry, I don't get it. I thought you were implying living in a decent house generates a lot of trash.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Surviving Anxiety - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/surviving_anxiety/355741/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I can relate to this. I took klonopin for 10+ years, just recently weaned myself off of it (six months and counting).

My first panic attack happened about two weeks after 9/11 on the F train. Top 3 most terrifying moments of my life.

I did CBT, talk therapy, all kinds of anti-depressant medications (the worst being Effexor XR, that shit should be illegal) until finding klonopin to be the most effective. Marijuana was helpful too, though it had its moments of making things worse, but for the most part A+++ rating, would smoke again.

My anxiety manifested itself in some pretty severe panic attacks, extreme hypochondria and some pretty intense derealization. I miss the derealization though, but it took awhile for me to appreciate it instead of fearing it. The hypochondria I don't miss at all. The panic attacks still happen from time to time (mostly when the lights in the room suddenly change) but I'm so used to them now they don't really phase me. And I'm so practiced at having them, nobody standing around me is ever aware that I'm having a sudden bout of tachycardia and growing concerns that my heart is about to explode in my chest.

I noticed the klonopin was making me kind of a zombie, putting a mega-kabosh on the creative output, so I decided to taper my way to freedom. The first two weeks without it were pretty painful, but now it's relatively smooth sailing.

I'm not sure what happened that I got to this point now. I did move to a foreign country (Vietnam) so I'm sure the slower pace has had something to do with it, despite how much I've grown to dislike living here.

As for what caused it, all of my therapists think I have PTSD from my high school days (I was in a pretty violent anti-racist skinhead group back in the day), but I personally think it has to do with all the MDMA I chewed in the post-skinhead rave days. I guess I'll never know.

<comment><USER3> It would be great if there were better ways to get the active ingredients in marijuana into people without hoping the plant has them in the right ratios, doesn't have the chemicals that cause bad side-effects, and doesn't need to be smoked (which hurts the lungs) or eaten in a fatty solution (which causes weight gain, which hurts everything else).

<comment><USER4> From what I've heard "vaporizing" allows you better control consumption without any (minimal) smoke. Probably the safest and healthiest method to consume a desired amount.

<comment><USER3> That doesn't solve the problem of getting a known dose with minimal bad chemicals.

<comment><USER5> Known dose, sure. A lot of medical shops are posting independent lab measurements of all of the independent cannabinoids (most importantly: thc, cbd, cbn, cbg). So if you had a mg-accurate scale, and a bit of math, and assuming 100% uptake in a vaporizer, that's nearly a solved problem. With vaporizing the dried flowers, there is literally nothing else in there -- it's not an extract or anything where there could be latent glycols or butane or whatever.

So really, the problem _is_ solved :) It's just that the threshold and effective doses for cannabis mean that mg-specific dosing really isn't that useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Weed (because it has no real downsides to me personally) and once-a-year DXM (for depersonalisation) were mildly effective, but the clincher has been learning about buddhism / the tao. I'm not talking about any kind of spiritual practice, but moreso a change in perspective that simply isn't expressed by anyone around me. Doing the unambiguously right thing in the best way in any circumstance with no effort or conscious thought is powerful. I started with the question "How do I talk to people correctly?" and found "right speech" and went from there. Nearly two years later I can say it's been transformational at lowering the anxiety that I once had. Automatic negative thoughts happen infrequently instead of constantly. Though, this is not setting me up to be rich and with lots of worldly possessions or friends, but I'm alright with that.

edit: disappointing that all of the replies are about the first word in this post, but I kind of asked for it. Talk about whatever you want to talk about.

<comment><USER7> > (because it has no real downsides)

Ohhh boy. On this throwaway to say otherwise. I'm sorry if this post is a bit incoherent because I'm horribly tired, still getting past the nuts insomnia phase of quitting.

I've smoked a lot of weed. Started smoking in high school, heavily when I was 19 until a couple weeks ago (I'm 26 now). About an ounce a month over that time, sometimes two ounces. First it was for insomnia, then it was supposedly for my digestive health (actually, quitting gives you gas and loose stool), then for anxiety, sometimes for aches and pains (which were made worse because of poor posture -- it is a muscle relaxant, after all). At the end it was for my paranoia, so to speak -- I was convinced I had cancer setting into my guts and that it was the weed that was keeping it in remission. They did some experiment where this worked with rats, right?

Right now it seems like there are no side effects. Trust me, there will be. Your memory will turn to shit and you won't be able to follow a conversation. You will try to remember a number and forget it moments later. You'll be slow to recall your own zip code. This doesn't just happen when you're high, it'll happen the day after smoking also. Basically, if you're feeling "all right," you'll have these effects too.

You'll become dull. You'll sit around with peers and have nothing to talk about, just a stupid smile. Now, you'll feel totally at peace, but you're a basically a human blob, incapable of really interesting thought.

Your thoughts themselves will become lazy, less rigorous. You'll think you're being "chill" when you quit a debate, but really, your mind is just working _much_ slower.

You'll edit code pointlessly, shuffling stuff around.

It's not all bad -- the ability to come up with really funny insights doesn't go away, so you can make people laugh. But there's no depth to anything you do.

Heavy smoking makes you shiftless too, and easy to abuse. It let me stay in an abusive marriage for a few years, fun (I sort of knew this but was too embarrassed to leave this woman I'd just married, so I smoked more to keep my sanity). Only when I tried to slow down smoking for a little while did I realize how bad things had gotten. Whether or not you believe it's happening, people _will_ try to take advantage of you, if you're worth taking advantage of.

Keep in mind I'm not talking about "smoking every now and then when I feel bad," I'm talking about daily use: A smoke in the bathroom before you shower for work and constant smoking every night. Lunch break smoke if you're a real go-getter. Maybe smoking on your commute. Always making sure you have a good bit of bud or hash oil before you go on a trip anywhere (I remember smoking in a company's garage in SF after a tech meetup, and also regularly taking smoke breaks in my employer's garage in a less tolerant state).

In this industry, people will let you get away with it if you're any good, because the fact is that a half-baked person who can still write decent, reliable code is 10x as valuable as an regular guy with no skill/aptitude/motivation. And as you might have noticed, most people don't take to this stuff all that well, which is why (compared to other working schlubs) we get paid pretty well.

Also, YMMV, but it completely robbed me of my sex life when sober because I'd orgasm so fast.

It took several years of heavy, daily smoking for these serious symptoms to fully manifest into what seemed an indomitable form, probably when I was 24-25. I know for sure that heavy daily smoking of high-grade buds in California took it to the next level.

I had to stop smoking. I realized how stupid I'd become, even if I was raking in the dollars (not doing consultant BS either, senior developer stuff at a good tech company and respected by my peers).

Holy crap, I'd forgotten how smart I was. Suddenly I could remember everything. Issue numbers. My train number. Dates, times, places. I could remember things (addresses and stuff) I learned when stoned, knowledge I didn't know was in my head. Weird!

Now I can't imagine smoking again, except rarely with friends. Having my brain back is so wonderful. Feel free to ask my questions, though I probably covered the uninteresting life of a stoner programmer pretty well here.

<comment><USER8> I have a question for you actually. I have noticed things very similar to what you talk about after a few years of regular smoking. I started at 19 and I'm 21 now (edit, 22, forgot my own age). I used to evangelize marijuana since it has no overt medical side effects, but I think I'm coming to realize what you are talking about -- it kinda does make you stupid, like my Mom warned me about years ago. And not just when you're high, either.

I try to mitigate the negative effects by alternating -- a month of daily smoking, then a month off. If I have any in the house, I can't help myself, so I moderate the quantities I buy.

But, I have started to have episodes around things like locked doors. Did I lock the door -- or even close it? It's like I can't trust my previous decision and I have to go check again. Sometimes I will check a door five times in an hour. It's basically neurotic. If I don't check, I feel very nervous. I think this might be related to marijuana since it seems to fall into the category of absentminded behavior. It's like I am not present in reality enough to have faith in my past decisions.

I definitely don't feel stupid, but I do feel unfocused -- you could say my thoughts are accurate but not very precise. Or put in other terms, I feel like my of my intellectual powers are locked up because it feels to difficult to think about hard things.

Anyway, I was wondering how long you feel like it took you to "get smart again", as it were. Should a month be long enough to return to a baseline state of mind? Or should I try a multiple month T break to see if it has a big impact? (If it did, I would quit).

<comment><USER9> Here's another anecdote, for what it's worth:

I started smoking at age 21, when I graduated college a year early, and smoked nonstop after graduation until age 23.

At that point, my life basically fell apart, and it was definitely related to being high 24/7.

So I quit cold turkey. By age 25, I had started my own web business that was very successful. SaaS business, recurring revenue, amazing growth, etc. I was driving a fancy car, living in Palo Alto, and was on track to being a millionaire by my late 20's, almost guaranteed, just based on the growth of the business. I was so financially secure that I even got married and had a kid very young.

Of course, running the business (plus starting a business at the same time) was stressful. There were customers, partners, employees, etc., to deal with. And a toddler, and new wife.

I had very little support or mentors. None of my family or friends were entrepreneurs and I had no connections.

Eventually, I started getting migraine headaches on a regular basis. Around age 27. I convinced myself that smoking marijuana again was a logical thing to do, despite the fact that it had literally destroyed my life after college, and I had to rebuild my life back up again already.

I was smoking large quantities of high grade stuff. I had a lot of money from my business, so I went all out. Oils, kiefs, fancy bongs, the whole deal.

Being high all day, I started making terrible decisions and being really reckless with my business.

Long story short: within 12 months I went from a highly profitable, debt-free, lifestyle business that allowed me to effortlessly live in the heart of Silicon Valley (out of choice -- I could have lived anywhere I wanted to), to having a nervous breakdown, bankrupting my business, and ending up $250,000 in debt.

Today, I am 34. I am still paying off the debt from that mistake. I have no business, and work a "shitty" (meaning, comfortable six figures, but no real ownership) job as a software engineer. I am regularly depressed when I think about what I lost, and how foolish I was to lose it.

This is an extreme case, and of course only an anecdote. But it's pretty black and white: smoking a lot of marijuana all the time made me dumb and caused me to make really bad decisions.

As for weaning off of marijuana and its resultant impact on the sharpness of mind:

I found that after 3 days, there is a very noticeable difference. You are probably about 70-90% recovered at that point. But it takes a good 6-12 months to get that back that really sharp "edge" that you once had, the remaining 10-30%.

But, as I hope I have related in this story, it's not just about getting back the intelligence and sharpness of mind. It's that even when you get that stuff back, you will still be left with the consequences of whatever dumb shit you did while living your life high all the time.

<comment><USER10> Did your wife stay with you through all that craziness?

<comment><USER9> Yes, she is a saint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For me, the most difficult part of conquering anxiety is the physical symptoms. Stomach duress, stress, sweating, and bracing for the next wave of anxiety. These symptoms feed into each other and can set off a new attack or make an existing one worse.

I've found Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weeks to be the most helpful book on dealing with the physical symptoms. Once you're able to remove or at least tame the physical aspect you can better fight the mental manifestation.

This book literally changed my life and I'd recommend that you don't hesitate to check it out if you suffer from anxiety in any capacity.

[http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Help-Nerves-Claire- Weekes/dp/0451...](http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Help-Nerves-Claire- Weekes/dp/0451167228)

</comment><comment><USER12> I had been feeling a little blue the past few months. I didn't want to take an anti-depressant (too heavy and too many side effects).

I read this book : [http://www.amazon.com/The-Mood-Cure-Program-Emotions- Today/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Mood-Cure-Program-Emotions- Today/dp/0142003646)

She basically advocates for the supplements 5htp and St John's Wort taken three times a day (empty stomach ideally).

Her theory is that a lot of our depressive moods are due to nutritional deficiencies and that the amino acids that help with serotonin production are easily depleted (via drinking coffee, alcohol, aspartame, stresses, and lack of sleep).

Nonetheless, I am feeling better, and feeling like I am making incremental improvements each week. Much less anxiety.

No side effects to report (sexual, clouded brain syndrome).

St John's Wort: [http://examine.com/supplements/Hypericum+perforatum/](http://examine.com/supplements/Hypericum+perforatum/)

5-HTP [http://examine.com/supplements/5-HTP/](http://examine.com/supplements/5-HTP/)

L-Tyrosene is also advocated in the book as a motivational booster (increases dopamine). It's effects feel like a strong cup of coffee.

I'm not in any way connected to this book or these supplements; just happy to share something that worked for me regarding depression and anxiety.

<comment><USER12> Why the downvote?

<comment><USER13> Because you're effectively taking unregulated medicines with similar mechanisms to standard anti-depressants?

<comment><USER12> So because they could be dangerous, I shouldn't post the information?

I included the links to examine.com which gives a descent meta analysis of the research behind each of them. Both of them show promising research results.

Safety is never guaranteed. Certainly I don't have to spell this out for the HN audience?

Do your own research. Weigh the risks. If the safety profile is to your liking, then find a trusted supplier and ramp up slowly. Stop immediately if any undesirable effects are noticed.

<comment><USER14> >Stop immediately if any undesirable effects are noticed.

Probably not the best idea since if you are taking something that actually increases serotonin you will give yourself antidepressant discontinuation syndrome by stopping abruptly.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidepressant_discontinuation_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidepressant_discontinuation_syndrome)

<comment><USER12> You're exhausting to discuss with, even over the Internet. 300mg is a very normal dose. Serotonin syndrome isn't going to be induced with such conservative dosing.

<comment><USER14> ....?

I never said anything about serotonin syndrome...?? ...

Furthermore, I wasn't even the original GP, so how am I "exhausting?" The only thing I said was supplements are basically unregulated (theres a good chance your bottle of St Johns Wort is actually rice powder * ) and talk to your doctor before taking supplement and before stopping supplements abruptly. Trust me, antidepressant discontinuation syndrome is complete HELL.

* [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-suppleme...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements-are-often-not-what-they-seem.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had anxiety years ago, with panic attacks whenever I was on a train for more than a few minutes. I was also constantly afraid of having contracted fatal diseases.

No more. I did a lot of different probiotics (Mutaflor, some generic L-bacillus stuff, homemade kefir, Kombucha,...) in the last years, and anxiety has completely gone away. Here is some possible explanation: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the- head...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the- headlines/201309/gut-bacteria-transplant-new-treatment-anxiety)

I know such comments are often downvoted, so please drop a comment if you do, and contribute.

<comment><USER16> Not sure if related, but my severe social anxiety started after I had a flu (as a kid, 2 weeks in bed) and was probably treated with antibiotics. I've just recently realized that there could be a connection. Haven't got rid of it.

Edit: Just found this: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/28819342/Experimental- Treatment-fo...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/28819342/Experimental-Treatment- for-Social-Phobia#scribd) I'm going to try it and report back.

<comment><USER15> Sure - I had antibiotics treatment early in life and had chronic diarrhea at age 3. Later, I was an outsider as a kid, and had difficulty making eye contact. There might be a connection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Random naturalistic option: After quitting smoking I found drinking cocoa with hot water (not milk) helped me to calm down and concentrate.

Obviously if you're flipping out properly it's not gonna help, but it does appear to have a surprising effect for the tamer challenges in life. I hadn't expected or heard of any such effects, but consistently felt so much more relaxed and focused after drinking it, which piqued my interest enough to look it up. There does appear to be some nebulous positive medical review of its effects in areas like blood pressure.

</comment><comment><USER10> As long as I can remember, I've always had intense social anxiety, but never generalized anxiety. In other words, interacting with people I don't know very well gives me intense anxiety, but that's about the only thing that does. I have no problem with public speaking, and I don't get anxiety when I'm by myself. Well, maybe a little bit, but not like the guy in the article. My main problem is that I obsess and overanalyze _everything_. For instance, I stood in the grocery aisle for half an hour trying to figure out which of two products was the better one. I ended up accessing research articles through my university's proxy service and reading them on my phone while I stood there.

I started Nardil after a very weird/disturbing relationship left me in a depressed state for many months. I had never been depressed before that. But it eliminated the depression almost instantly, and greatly diminished my social anxiety. Although I'm thinking of stopping it soon because the side effects are pretty bad. I didn't notice them at first, but they've crept up and are very noticeable now. Hopefully when I stop it my ability to handle social interactions will remain now that I've had some practice with it.

</comment><comment><USER18> how I manage panic attacks and public speaking: public speaking: i pretend everyone in the audience is just 2 or 3 people, and that they are friends of mine. going into it isnt easy but once I get started that helps quite a bit. I teach a class so there is no avoiding public speaking, but I dont find that its much of a problem despite my dislike for it.

for panic attacks, they are really something separate from the anxiety of speaking to a lot of people. so far the only thing that I have as a weapon is to try and thwart them before they start or ride out the storm by distraction - 2048 helps, it really does! after 4 years of no panic attacks I thought they were conquered, but I did have an episode, so its ongoing but managed I guess.

depression: I was depressed for a long time. I was able to put an end to it by putting dark thoughts out of my mind, concentrating on good things, and not talking myself into thinking how bad things were. I consider it safely conquered. it sounds like a platitude "dont think negative things and you will get better" but its not. at first it is hard but then one day you will wake up and everything has changed.

History: I get panic attacks every (so far) only on even years and so far (only between the months of may-august). i dont know why... I can have close calls outside of those time restraints but the full blown the world is ending panic attacks have only happened during those time frames. I really dont have an ability to stop them once they trigger from happening, they can happen at 4am or 3pm at work. distraction and not thinking about them seems to help the most.

depression: I was depressed from 1998 to 2012. from 2010-2012 it was managed, but now I'm like a different person. I have never taken any medication for anything above.

</comment><comment><USER19> I guess this is a good place to mention this in case anyone experiences the same thing. I naturally have terrible anxiety, but for a while I was having even more horrible anxiety attacks. I eventually figured out that taking probiotics made it happen. If you're using probiotics it might be worth a try stopping for a month and seeing what happens.

<comment><USER20> That's bizarre, but given the amount of research lately tying gut flora and inflammation to mood and depression, unsurprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd be curious if the author had every tried psychodynamic therapy, which has a different approach from CBT.

</comment><comment><USER22> This article is great. I have fought with social anxiety for 5 years as a result of family complications and high school drama. I have been doing talk therapy for 6 months with very positive affects on my previously negative outlook on life.

I've always viewed it as a disease, but this article portrays anxiety in a new light. Maybe my ability to view the world this way enables self creativity that I never knew existed... That thought is exciting.

Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER23> > Stoic philosophy, and audiotapes I ordered off a late-night TV infomercial.

Would a stoic be happy or sad that stoic philosophy didn't work for him?

<comment><USER24> A stoic does not judge reality like that. He acknowledges that it did not work and moves on. He need not ponder about the fact that it did not work because it cannot be changed and no thinking should be done without a purpose.

<comment><USER23> Stoic philosophy sounds something like mindfulness or meditation [0], except for the part about "no thinking should be done without a purpose."

[0] [http://amzn.com/0385303122](http://amzn.com/0385303122)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you feel intense anxiety prior to public speaking, you should directly address your issues with public speaking, rather than resorting to self- medication.

</comment><comment><USER26> Guys please stop looking for the reason why you are using drugs. They are just awesome thats why. Nowadays we could be honest saying that.

When anything awesome comes to our life we forget about stomach aches, spine aches or mental aches and feel the drive. But drugs and medicines have not awesome side-effects. I could be very nervous on weed and stimulators and after psychedelics (we are not talking about opiates usually its one-way road).

The medical fact that you could be born predisposed to be nervous or could became that after the shock. So its your body nature.

And there is only two ways: 1\. Be where is awesome and do something awesome. You need it more then others. 2\. Radically change your metabolism, reject yourself and became a Z-Zombie.

Or the grave, but you can't avoid it, so it can wait, finally there will be no nerves to be nervous anyway.

And you shouldn't dramatize what's going on. Panic attack its just several bad hours and you are not physically damaged after that. I have a couple of them per week, and one a day in bad times, but you're not dying, event not physically disabled, just misbalance moment in your nervous system. Ok just as planned 56 hours per week for a sleep, 3 for a toiled, 25 for internet hangout, 10 for a meal and 5 for the panic attacks, everything just as planned. When you are resting well, eating enough you'll reduce this time. So there is even a good news)

When you have a hard panic attacks with adrenaline outburst (you know, you are "really dying", but before you should run to the toilet like sprinter) that's a bright moments, and you have couple bright days after them, just because its not happening with you now. Everyone wants a bright life, right? You've got a little for free, some kind of death and resurrection cycle)

Brotherhood of anxious guys and girls are just a part of big picture, there is a epilepsy, head traumas and other ns diseases and we are not holding even the bronze medal.

Want another good thing? Hypochondria, i really killing my physician with it. How dare you to say that i have no cancer! Lets check again! Two MRI per week is too much? Not too much for the such ill person, im sure that bastard is hiding somewhere between spine and lungs. My heart is ok?! I'll go to the other physician! You said something about spot on pancreas? Oh, that spot will kill me in a year for sure. (why did they asked me how long i didn't fart?). But my real hope is a inborn cyst "without diagnostic meaning" it's a real black horse, when i feel the headache i know that there is no brain left, only cyst with a liquid and alchohol inside, ready to explode.

Hypochondria helps us to visit physician in a time, discover early problems and prevent them, so, statistically, we are more bulletproof that guys which seen a doctor once a life and suddenly dying from the stroke just before 50 anniversary.

But there was a real killing thing in my life. One day i haven't sleep because i was anxious, guy from my work said something wrong (or i thought that he thought something wrong, i don't remember clearly). Then i feel strange smell, i sniffed and decided that there is a fire in my flat. So i raised a panic of the highest probe and evacuated my family. There was a real fire downstairs and all flat became filled with acrid fumes after 5 minutes.

So my anxiety save me and my family, and we are in very good relations after this accident.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've always had lots of anxiety, and I was once in a psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks several years ago. I stopped taking meds though a while ago. I figure anxiety is just part of my life, and it's not worth fighting.

<comment><USER28> I am curious to hear a little more. In many senses, worry/anxiety is endemic to humans. 'What will I eat/drink to survive?' at the most basic level if you look at how we as creatures have come about. Since these needs are largely fulfilled in modern society these questions get much more idiosyncratic; that is, they are suited uniquely to our individual situations so it's hard to proceed without knowing a little more about what drives some of your feelings of anxiety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Learn to meditate. It can cure anxiety.

Source: personal experience.

<comment><USER6> Anxiety and the meditative state are, to put it simply, impossible to experience at the same time. Who is it that is anxious, when that anxious person no longer exists?

<comment><USER23> In my experience meditation effectively reduces panic, but I'm still aware of panic. It's like holding a hot coal.

<comment><USER6> The hot coal is in your throat, not in your hand. Do you try to swallow it, or try to spit it up?

<comment><USER23> Swallow. "try to spit" sounds like trying escape, and I think it would intensify the anxiety. But spitting does involve letting go. Hmmm maybe I'll try it. Now what would make me anxious.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Subscriptions on lots of apps/services starting to add up - <AUTHOR>

Am I alone in getting a bit concerned about subscribing to so many different paid online services/apps? Each one is valuable and necessary at the time I sign up but I am looking at the amount of cash going out on solutions such as bug-tracking, project collab, CRM and accounting/billing and wonder if anyone else has turned away from them to go back to less polished but fully free OSS alternatives? Has the pendulum swung for others or is it just me being cheap?<p>Would love to hear solutions from anyone that has a fully free stack running their business.<p>(Edit: formatting) <comment><USER2> As a fellow hacker, I would like to welcome you to check out the apps I have been working on iFreeTools :: <http://crm.ifreetools.com> (alpha) and <http://creator.ifreetools.com> (preview release).

The apps are ad-supported and free, but not open-source. You can export you data at any time (and also use that feature as a off-line backup).

While the CRM app includes the core modules, with more in the works, you can extend or build your own apps with Creator, like this simple bug-tracker : [http://ifreetools.blogspot.com/2010/03/building-simple- bug-t...](http://ifreetools.blogspot.com/2010/03/building-simple-bug-tracker- application.html)

Ad-free version will be coming a bit later. Paid & customized deployments over your own Google App Engine instance is also possible.

If the apps are not yet up to your requirements, feel free to tell me what it lacks and what feature(s) you would like to see added soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't gone to using free sources, but I do consistently look at a number of services, and don't sign-up because I recognize that many of these services are going to add up to a lot of money each month.

I also suspect that I would be more likely to sign-up if one service offered everything, as it would end up appearing as only one line-item on a budget.

Do you feel the same way? Is one service with multiple tools better than many different tools? Even if just form a billing perspective?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think a single service may not perfectly satisfy my needs for each category of service - but in terms of billing, to be more aware of just how much it was all costing would help.

I know the psychological advantage of subscriptions for the seller, as the monthly figure is lower and so doesn't trigger a thorough pre-purchase evaluation like a $900 application would. From the point of view of a buyer, I am just realising its not as good a deal as I initially thought.</comment></comment>


Firefox Monitor now available to keep track of security breaches - <AUTHOR> https://monitor.firefox.com/ <comment><USER2> slightly different URL currently on the frontpage [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20103540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20103540)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you use cheatsheets? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, I'd be curious to learn..do you use programming cheat sheets on an ongoing basis? If so, which ones do you use? <comment><USER2> The only cheat sheet I remember using was [http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat- sheet.gif](http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.gif) when I was learning vim.

Otherwise just googling a quick answer seems most efficient (or quickly searching through the code).

</comment><comment><USER3> Does ASCII Table count? I use that nearly daily.

Beyond that, not hugely. I hit the "man pages" a lot for the libraries but they would never fit on a literal cheat sheet.

It might be useful to have an SQL one. I'm always forgetting syntax. RegX is too complex to summaries and all the summaries are inaccurate (e.g. "This means X unless the following conditions are met then it means the opposite of X, and if other conditions are met then it forms part of Y or nothing at all!")

</comment><comment><USER4> Revsys put out a nice Django cheatsheet a while back. I don't think it's been updated since 1.5, but I've used it when I'm starting a new Django project for the first time in a while.

I find it helpful for reminding me of things I've used before, but not often enough to remember the exact syntax off the top of my head.

[http://www.revsys.com/django/cheatsheet/](http://www.revsys.com/django/cheatsheet/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've never had a day where I coded completely from memory. I don't necessarily use cheat-sheets, but I'll often revisit that _same_ stackoverflow answer several times over the course of a week until it gets lodged in my brain.</comment>