Ask HN: game devs, how do you mock-up your graphics? - <AUTHOR>

I am currently working on a multi-player cross-platform game which can best be described as a mix of Rome: Total War and Jagged Alliance 2 with a lot of crafting and scripting going on.
Anyway, my conundrum is that I need some placeholder graphics for my game until I can find a graphic artist to work with. It's not really enough to just draw rectangles and circles, I need sprites to represent soldiers, workers, houses, stuff like that.
Is there a place where I can find free sprites (it's in 2D) for my game? How do other programmers typically do this? <comment><USER2> First, I would like to play that game - JA2 is my favorite game ever.

For spritesheets, this guy <http://www.reinerstilesets.de/> has _heaps_ of stuff freely available. Google Images is also pretty useful for temporary art.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you know that the game is still under active development? Have you tried the 1.13 mod? For added goodness, try the HAM mod on top as well. It's like a whole new game :)

[http://www.ja-galaxy- forum.com/board/ubbthreads.php/forum_su...](http://www.ja-galaxy- forum.com/board/ubbthreads.php/forum_summary.html)

Also, I could use some collaboration partners on this. Send me an email if it tickles your fancy.</comment></comment>


Mindfulness therapy as good as medication for chronic depression – study - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/20/us-health-depression-idUSKBN0NB2KO20150420 <comment><USER2> Important note - the participants had already displayed relapses from medication based treatments, so they were already in a position where medication was not filling their needs.

[https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/mindfulness-based-therapy- co...](https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/mindfulness-based-therapy-could-offer- an-alternative-to-antidepressants-to-prevent-depression-relapse)

I was unable to find the paper in Lancet's online system.

<comment><USER3> Erm, so the summary is that if medicine doesn't work for you then mindfulness therapy may work just as well as medicine?

<comment><USER4> TL;DR is that if medicine fails you, mindfulness is better than random chance of getting better

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As far as I can tell that's pretty much what the book Feeling Good concluded many years ago: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeling_Good:_The_New_Mood_Ther...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeling_Good:_The_New_Mood_Therapy) , except at the time it was called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It's fascinating how the book dodges mentioning meditation as much as possible, but as you read it, you realize it's essentially proposing the same exact techniques of insight, just in a more clinical terminology.

<comment><USER6> CBT differs in two ways: First, it tends to be more reactive in that you typically analyse troublesome thoughts after-the-fact rather than in the present, as they happen. Second, it tends to be more ego-centric in that it tends to focus exclusively on your thoughts and needs, whereas mindfulness is more compassionate, both to yourself and to those you interact with. So, while there are similarities there are also important differences.

And while meditation is good for practicing mindfulness "in slow motion", you don't _need_ to meditate to be mindful.

<comment><USER7> >And while meditation is good for practicing mindfulness "in slow motion", you don't _need_ to meditate to be mindful.

Yes!! If you wake up and just don't feel like meditating that day, then don't! I view meditation as a tool that helps you reach deep into mindfulness, but meditating to meditate is missing the point. The goal you should have is to be mindful/present in the moment throughout the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's funny how this article is being spun by different sources.

Just the title being slightly different is enough to put a different interpretation on it. For example Reuters writes that "mindfulness is as good as medication".

But a Swedish doctors journal[2] writes "MBCT not better than pharmaceuticals".

And they both cite the same source[1].

[1]: [http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2962222-4/abstract) [2]: [http://www.lakartidningen.se/Klinik-och-vetenskap/Nya- ron/20...](http://www.lakartidningen.se/Klinik-och-vetenskap/Nya- ron/2015/04/KBT-inte-battre-an-farmaka-vid-recidiverande-depressioner/)

</comment><comment><USER9> The article just publishing a press release.

 _" Treatment usually involves either medication, some form of psychotherapy or a combination of both. Yet many patients fail to get better and suffer recurring bouts of illness.

"MBCT was developed to help such people by teaching them skills to recognize and respond constructively to thoughts and feelings associated with relapse, aiming to prevent a downward spiral into depression."_

This implird that MBCT is better than medication and/or psychotherapy, but later it says that it's just as (in)effective as medication, and also doesn't seem to realize that MBCT IS a form a psychotherapy.

 _" teaching them skills to recognize and respond constructively to thoughts and feelings associated with relapse, aiming to prevent a downward spiral into depression."_

A lot of forms of psychotherapy do this. Some, do it explicitly, like CBT. Some do it implicitly, like psychoanalysis.

The important thing that the article leaves out (or that the study was unable to demonstrate) is how well it compares to other forms of psychotherapy in treating depression.

So in conclusion, what we know from this paper, is only, psychology should continue the course it's on: treat depression with a combination of medication and psychotherapy, and MBCT is a valid option.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can see how this is effective. I remember reading that people with chronic depression have better memories and dwell on the past. Getting the person focused on the present could, theoretically, help alleviate painful memories. More studies need to be done. I'm all for natural, non-medicated, means of cures.

<comment><USER11> I have chronic major depressive disorder. I don't think I have a better memory, maybe I have a predisposition to remember things that feel bad to me. Repeating the same loop in one's mind is not necessarily intelligent, nor does it indicate anything about memory, aside from the mind that clings continuously to a given idea.

<comment><USER12> but maybe you do have a better memory! which is why it is so difficult to forget things that feel bad. Leaving aside the question of intelligence, which is so many things that it isn't worth judging any individual by it, I would say your statement supports both the idea that memory is related to depression, and that focusing on the art of creation of new, positive memories, is a path to happiness, for people like you and me. As a person with a damn good memory, who once felt like you do, cheers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Millions of dollars are made and will be made with the help of the statements starting from, or ending with the word: "study" (possibly preceded with the word "independent").

Study -> implies authority -> implies ability to manipulate.

</comment><comment><USER14> research paper:

 _" Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared with maintenance antidepressant treatment in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence (PREVENT): a randomised controlled trial"_

[http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(14\)62222-4/fulltext)

</comment><comment><USER15> After reading the article and the comments here, I have mixed reactions to this.

As I have learned more about anti-depressants, I've come around to the opinion that they are no more effective than placebo at treating mental illness. The fact that mindfulness therapy is "as good as medication" tells me that mindfulness therapy isn't very useful either. What it does make me think is just the act of being treated helps. Awareness of mental illness and pushing people to seek any treatment then seems to be preferable to doing nothing at all.

I'd still hedge my bets and choose some form of therapy over messing with the chemical system in my brain. I personally have experience with CBT and have great results, but in addition to that there is Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and other forms of clinical therapy designed to treat mental illness that someone can try if CBT doesn't work for them.

</comment><comment><USER16> So, there was no third group, a group taken off meds and then put on no therapy whatsoever, to represent a baseline? Perhaps that would be unethical. I'm just curious how high the relapse rate would be in that group.

</comment><comment><USER17> 350 Million people with depression is a bigger number than I previously thought... I wonder if this technique (MCBT) could somewhat be implemented in a mobile app that assists/guides you during the day...

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd personally take this with a grain of salt - if I recall correctly, the effectiveness of antidepressant medication is roughly equal to that of random chance.

Yeah.. high 40's percent relapse rate in the article.

<comment><USER19> Take what with a pinch of salt? That MCBT is about the same as meds for chronic recurrent depression? Because the paper appears to show that it is as effective. Or that it works at all? Well, they didn't have a group that they took off medication and who didn't do therapy so we don't know what the relapse rate would have been for that group. I suspect that t would be higher than 45%

<comment><USER20> You also should remember that the placebo effect does actually contribute a large part of the effect of antidepressants. The research just shows that antidepressants don't have much of an effect _above and beyond_ placebo.

I see therapy as being more useful and reliable in the long term than a placebo.

<comment><USER19> > The research just shows that antidepressants don't have much of an effect > above and beyond placebo

For mild depression. For moderate depression they're better. For severe depression they're better when you get the right one.

An evidence based therapy is always a good idea.

<comment><USER20> I just did a search and came across this meta-analysis, which confirms your statement:

[http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=185157](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=185157)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Breathing as good as medication for life.

</comment><comment><USER22> This isn't really news, though it speaks more to the limited use of the current psychiatric doping paradigm than the efficacy of mindfulness.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy - study"

Well, if drugs are only slightly better than placebo, and that's for the sickest patients maybe you shouldn't use it as a marker anymore? And that efficacy number is so low; it's wispered, and some clinicians after looking at the studies/metadata cannot even say drugs work over placebo in clinical depression.

(sorry for being so dismissive--just tired of these "studies" that leave out the fact that so many drug/depression studies were poorly done, manipulated, cherry picked, didn't exclude early placebo responders, done in 3rd world countries for the cheapest price(no real oversight, lying, etc.), and we were essentially lied to---)

<comment><USER24> The ineffectiveness of drugs against depression is highly overstated--the average effectiveness is low, but the variance is high, and they tend to be more effective the more severe the depression. The meme of "drugs aren't actually effective against depression" isn't doing the people for whom do work any favors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Mindfulness is BETTER than drugging yourself because it enables you to not only hold the unskillful emotional state in mindful awareness and disperse it at will, but it also enables you to discover the unskillful patterns of thinking that give rise to this state to begin with.

With mindfulness you can completely eradicate these unskillful patterns of thinking from your life forever and replace them with more empowering patterns.

There is no better investment that you can make than to invest a little bit of your time learning how to be mindful. The rewards are extraordinary.

Here in the bay area a great class is offered at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood city: [http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/programs/for- beginner...](http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/programs/for-beginners/)

<comment><USER26> As I read this comment I thought it was a shill piece and you proved me right with the link at the end. I was about to say that if you want to exploit the gullible here, do it less transparently but you more or less got it right.

<comment><USER25> As I read this comment I thought of a mind which habitually creates a reality of powerless victimhood so pervasive that it perceives bad intentions on the part of everyone and feels compelled to lash out at perceived threats that don't even exist. This is the product of an unskillful pattern of thinking. You can either go deeper into hell until you pop yourself or correct it.</comment></comment></comment>


Call Me 'They' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/pronoun-they-gender.html <comment><USER2> Please don't. It sounds awful, like you are more than one person.

<comment><USER3> "They" has long been established as a singular pronoun.

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular- nonbi...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary- they)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best to prepare for competitive programming contests? - <AUTHOR> Hello! I'm interested in learning how to solve problems such as those from Google Code Jam. What is the best way to do that? What books should I read? What websites/resources should I use?<p>Thank you! <comment><USER2> This looks like a duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892189). I answered there.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are plenty of YouTube videos of people solving Code Jam problems while talking about what they're doing -- I'd probably start with those.</comment>


Engine Shortfall Pushed Volkswagen to Evade Emissions Testing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/business/engine-shortfall-pushed-volkswagen-to-evade-emissions-testing.html <comment><USER2> And here starts the push for surely "rogue engineers" are responsible, please don't extradite the executive team:

       Mr. Winterkorn, who has denied knowledge of the illegal software, also had a
       reputation for dealing harshly with subordinates who failed to meet their
       targets.

So if we believe their spin, it was a see no evil deal: the ceo had his hands clamped firmly over his ears telling engineers to make an engine work or be fired, and make sure not to tell him the details of what they had to do.

<comment><USER3> That push started quite a while ago. And there is a good chance that it started even before the news broke in the media.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will you please screw me? VC style. - <AUTHOR>

You know that nightmare VC scenario people talk about where their executive team takes over, and kicks the founder out with nothing but a minor stake in the company or demotes them into a minor role like "lead scientist"? Is there a way to skip straight to that? Is there some flavor of consultant you can hire to do that?<p>I don't need capital, but I want to run another business like I want to chew off my big toes. <comment><USER2> You have at least two options: Sell the business to someone who wants it, or hire someone to replace you as president/manager/CEO/whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> You wanna buy a sweet business?

<comment><USER3> I'll start the bidding at 5k as long as your balance sheet is positive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well shoot, how many businesses do you want?

<comment><USER3> From your comments it sounds like the business involves manufacturing of some kind and I did go to school for that. Your email isn't in your profile and I would be interested in talking at least. Send me an email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i'm interested in your business. how can i contact you?</comment>


Look Into My Eyes... - <AUTHOR> http://www.learngrowdo.com/2010/01/look-into-my-eyes/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something I wrote that I just wanted to share with the folks here. It's my first attempt at longer, more descriptive/engaging writing. I hope you enjoy it (even if it might not be strictly "hacker news").

<comment><USER2> I enjoyed reading it. Without getting too picky, the biggest thing I'd work on is making the article more cohesive. I get how superpowers and hypnosis are related, and I get how hypnosis is related to influencing people with words, but there's a lot of disconnect between A and C.

The fourth and fifth paragraphs bored me a bit, so I skipped down to the next section. I don't find the history of magic and hypnosis nearly as interesting as your experiences with it, though perhaps that's a personal preference.

I like the way you present words as tools to build or break bridges between people. That seems closest to what the piece is about.

Finally, take my words with a grain of salt. It's your writing, after all. (P.S. Stephen King's _On Writing_ is a great source of writing advice if you're interested.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. You know, I actually find the fourth and fifth paragraphs kinda boring myself. It seems like they either shouldn't be there or should be elaborated somehow. Someone else mentioned making it a short story, and I think if I were to do that I would add more to those paragraphs.

One of the ideas that informed the writing (which I believe I first read on HN, incidentally), is something along the lines of "People rarely understand each other, and when they do it's usually by accident." That sentiment keeps coming up for me because I love, live with, and take care of someone with an illness which affects her cognitive function. She often can't find the right words, and it's been a struggle for me to let go of my perfectly reasonable interpretation of what she's said and believe her when she tells me she meant something different.

For example, one night she said to me "You're such a wuss" when she meant "You're such a softie". This was so bizarre that it didn't bother me, but there have been other times when I've gotten pretty hurt.

I can see how that experience might not be at all related to what I wrote, but the basic idea I'm trying to convey is my coming to understand how one of the only meaningful "powers" I can develop is the ability to connect with others, and the difficulty of that task.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should we abandon copyright? - <AUTHOR> This might not be a very popular opinion but the more I think of it the more I believe we should abandon copyright.
You can argue for example that someone took a lot of time to create something and that a copycat can profit from this in an unfair manner. But most of the time a copy is not as good as the original and most people don't want a copy but even pay extra for the original.
Since there are a lot of smart people on HN I would like to ask this question here: should we abandon copyright?
Note: I don't believe this will ever happen, but I wonder what the upsides will be. <comment><USER2> Nah. We shouldn't completely abandon it, but it should go back to being far more of a temporary thing, where your copyright laws maybe a few decades rather than life + however many years. That way, there's not only an incentive to create new works (since you won't be able to ride off the same ones reputation for years), but the actual 'stopping copycats in the short term' goal gets achieved without stifling the commons.

</comment><comment><USER3> You are confusing a "copy" (illegal for copyrighted works) with a "clone" (which often skirts the bounds of legality).

Copyright doesn't save us from knock-offs. The hundreds of "Revengers: Age of Boltron" DVDs in the bargain bin at Walmart is testament to that. Those are _legal_.

What copyright prevents is Cinemark buying a copy of Age of Ultron for $20 and then making hundreds of copies and charging ten bucks a seat to watch them in hundreds of theaters nationwide, never sending Marvel Studios another penny beyond that initial $20.

Helping consumers avoid knock-offs is what _trademarks_ are for.

</comment><comment><USER4> Which problem exactly are you hoping will go away by eliminating copyright? There was innovation and progress before copyright and there has been innovation and progress with copyright.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, copyright wasn't introduced for no reason...

As you say, I think it's the fair and just thing to do and people justly get upset when others steal the results of their hard work. (Even if you're not removing a physical object, violating copyright is still stealing and should be treated as such.)

To answer your quality objection: unfortunately, I can't agree with your observation. While some well-to-do people from some cultures may indeed be willing to spend more money for an "original", that is not the case for many, many other people I know. Either because they don't [think they] have the money for the original, or because the original is hard[er] to get, or because they simply don't care about quality as long as it's "good enough". In many countries and cultures, the whole concept of copyright and even property is not as clearly defined in the minds of the people as it is in most parts of the West.

Why else do you think fake Adidas/Nike/Puma shoes flood the market the way they do? And in fact, I once saw a Chinese-made lock that was the copy of a copy of a copy of an originally British brand. If everybody would prefer the original, how did that ever reach the market?

<comment><USER5> Having said all that - although I believe abandoning copyright would be an unjust thing to do, it may in fact have positive effects on society as a whole. This article was posted here some time back: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no- copyright-l...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright- law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html)

The question for me would be whether there are ways of achieving the same effect without having to completely abandon copyright?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Copyright serves an important purpose but has been manipulated into being excessively broad, powerful and long-lived.

It's an invention from the era where access to a printing press was limited and doesn't really match today's world where it is difficult or impossible to participate and avoid making copies, which is the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER7> NO, copyright is simply the right to make copies. It has nothing to do with the right to create derived material of the original copyrighted item.

<comment><USER8> the word "copyright" is about allowing/forbidding all kinds of use of a work, not just copying. Derivative works are very much part of it.</comment></comment>


Why are businesses so aggressive about wanting you to download their app? - <AUTHOR> I've been using reddit and quora web interface for years with no issues.  Nowdays they both seem super aggressive about wanting me to download their apps.
Dark patterns.. like Im given a choice in a pop up menu but both answers lead to downloading the app, or waiting until you click on a link and then interrupting your flow to ask about the app...before you are forwarded.
I've downloaded the apps and I they offered nothing new above what a modern website couldn't offer.
Burger King and Supercuts even have 'apps' for some reason.
Just curious what value an app has that makes businesses so  desparate and hungry for you to download their apps when modern web technology has just as much power these days? <comment><USER2> Engagement numbers of app are usually 4x its website counterpart. By default, app has features that increase engagement such as:

\- push notification to bring back idle users

\- icon in user's home screen for brand recall

\- faster response time due to native UI

\- full screen mode that avoid browser tab switching

But, engaged users are the one who download the app. So, it is not clear if app is the cause for engagement or effect of users being more engaged. In any case, the numbers make businesses to push their app more aggressively.

</comment><comment><USER3> They offer far more than a modern website: insight into what you do with your phone, where and when.

I suppose there's also a slight barrier to going offsite if you're in an app, but really, it's the data, and monetization of that data.

Clue: did you pay for the app? No? You're the app's product.

<comment><USER4> It seems like websites do this much better. We're no longer in the era that you can just harvest data from a phone, both Android and iOS clamp down on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can't easily block tracking and ads in apps. Plus, they get 'real estate' on your device, so you will stumble on it / see the brand more often.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aha that makes alot of sense! They have complete control of your experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From my limited experience at a few companies that did something similar to what you mentioned:

1: The CEO gets a report that shows people using the app are more engaged and spend more time. They are "good" customers. The ones that don't aren't as engaged or spend less time. They got this report as part of a ROI in building the app. 2: The CEO thinks everyone should be pushed to the app so they're more engaged and spend more time with the product.

Replace CEO with your favorite decision maker if necessary.

Never mind that the people using the app were probably the most engaged users before the app existed or by pushing the app onto users, you make it harder to allow users to get more engaged.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apps are good for repeat actions. Repeat actions are good for retention. Having a Burger King app is likely better for customer retention than a loyalty card.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's because everyone is doing it, and they don't want to be left behind. "If the user doesn't download our app, he or she will probably get our competitor's app, and then we're foobared! Holy crap, we better push that app!"

</comment><comment><USER8> Apps have more access to more of your device than browsers, thus, apps are able to harvest more data.

</comment><comment><USER9> They're likely being judged on an app adoption / time spent metric.

</comment><comment><USER10> Probably there is an OKR metric tracking "engagement".

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's the relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1174/](https://xkcd.com/1174/)</comment>


Apache Maven Support Coming to Gradle Enterprise - <AUTHOR> https://gradle.com/blog/maven/ <comment><USER2> is this some kind of a joke?

\- keep your builds simple and modular

\- only use build-hacks as last option and if, isolate it

\- no need for gradle at all (well if you use ant ... migrate!)

Should safe you time, hair and money too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. It's not a joke.

Unfortunately, not everyone works in such a simple environment as the one you describe.</comment></comment>


Building a Program Synthesizer - <AUTHOR> https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~bornholt/post/building-synthesizer.html <comment><USER2> His previous post was probably the best overview on program synthesis paradigms (circa 2015):

[https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~bornholt/post/synthesis- exp...](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~bornholt/post/synthesis- explained.html)

It's a much broader overview of the field so read that first if you need an intro!

<comment><USER3> And if you want a deeper dive after that, here's a 100-page survey of all the techniques, principles, and applications of program synthesis circa 2017:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/program...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/program-synthesis/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With these techniques - how complex a program can practically be created in 2018?

A lot of the example programs mentioned feel more like functions (stateless + deterministic mapping of a tuple of inputs to a single output).

In contrast, I think of a 'program' as having a longish lifecycle comprising a stream of inputs and outputs.

Relatedly, I'm not clear how well the approaches detailed here actually would scale with complexity - is this a meaningful building block in building more complex applications? Or is some higher-order framework needed that 'knows' how to apply this in a rich context?

<comment><USER5> 10-50 lines of code. You have to pick the right domain. Sumit is doing a lot of work [1] on integrating these ideas into Microsoft's products, e.g., Excel's flash fill. Ras [2] is synthesizing biology models and architecture design. Sanjit, Armando, Emina, Rishabh, are all doing excellent work getting them to scale.

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/flash-fill- fl...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/flash-fill- flashextract/)

[2] [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2014.0007...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2014.00075/full)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Once upon a time I thought of this and came to a conclusion that in the future software is not written, it is grown.

A big hall with computers, churning on calculations to end up with reusable modules/components for some predescribed purpose. These are combined and eventually larger systems emerge.

The inputs to the calculations were to be descriptions of what the program should do, no details on the "how". For instance, "make an input box for name and snailmail address, with cancel and ok buttons".

It was obviously warp engine level stuff when it comes to feasibility and I thought it would be very far away, like 100 years away... But maybe it is closer than that.

<comment><USER7> This is happening now for mechanical design. They call it generative design. You give inputs (volume/shape, loading cases, other parameters) and then the software iteratively solves for the optimum geometry to meet the goals.

<comment><USER8> And there is also ``form parameter design'' for ship hull geometry. It is also generative, but perhaps it more typically makes use of deterministic (nonlinear optimization) solvers to generate the geometry itself. (Implementations vary - I show my bias (or just inability to shut up) here as I am trying to finish a PhD in this as we speak) The main similarity I'm going for in this comment is that the user specifies design constraints and the program generates ship hull shapes that meet those requirements.

Tie generative methods in with solvers for hydrodynamics, motions, structures, stability, etc, and one can conceive of automating the ship hull design spiral, or sections of it anyway. That's not to say that some of this is not already out there in commercial software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In case anybody is reading this post and wants an idea of how to get started with the basics of logic programming (upon which one might build toy constraint solvers) I recommend this:

[https://codon.com/hello-declarative-world#programming- paradi...](https://codon.com/hello-declarative-world#programming-paradigms)

</comment><comment><USER9> Of course, being a new old thing, it's not complete without referencing it by it's actual name ... Genetic Programming.

[http://www.genetic-programming.com/johnkoza.html](http://www.genetic- programming.com/johnkoza.html)

<comment><USER10> Well, genetic programming is a subset of program synthesis, not a same set.

I'm not sure how the use of an SMT solver could be considered a genetic programming method.

<comment><USER9> Ah, I read the first link in the comments first, which really does imply they're using GP methods.

[https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~bornholt/post/synthesis- exp...](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~bornholt/post/synthesis- explained.html)

However they're using a SMT solver as part of the fitness function of the program.

You know - it needs the correct output, but you need to prevent overfitting, and if you have a formal proof of the program generated you can expend greater effort into reducing its complexity and optimising.

Again, it's an old new thing and possibly going to start getting hyped like neural networks have been of late.

<comment><USER11>
        Ah, I read the first link in the comments first, which really does imply they're using GP methods.

No, it doesn't.

<comment><USER9> And the evidence to back up your assertion, is where?

Here's mine... (excuse my lack of formatting.)

The synthesis step of stochastic superoptimisation finds the next candidate program P' by drawing an MCMC sample based on the previous candidate program P. It proposes P' by randomly applying one of a few mutations to P:

* changing the opcode of a randomly selected instruction

* changing a random operand of a randomly selected instruction

* inserting a new random instruction

* swapping two randomly selected instructions

* deleting an existing randomly selected instruction

The MCMC sampler uses the cost function, which measures how "close" to the target program P' is and how fast P' is, to decide whether to accept the candidate P'. A candidate is more likely to be accepted if it is close to the target or very fast. But even programs that are slow or distant from the target have some probability of being accepted, ensuring we explore novel programs

<comment><USER11> There's nothing "genetic" about how MCMC works. AFAIK, usually with GP, you keep multiple candidates that you evolve together, which is not the case here (it's much closer to metaheuristics such as Simulated Annealing), e.g.:

      let candidate be some random program
      while candidate not correct (per your SMT solver):
          new_candidate = mutate candidate
          let cost be cost of new_candidate
             (varies by different techniques;
              some just measure the number of bits differ
              from expected output of testcases)
          if cost is improved:
             candidate = new_candidate
          else, with some probability (the lower the cost, the higher the prob.):
             candidate = new_candidate

Of course, there's nothing preventing you from using GP instead of MCMC to find programs. The focus of research is on how to mutate (e.g. how do you avoid generating bad candidates based on past experience) and evlaute the cost of a candidate, rather than the methaheuristics itself.

<comment><USER12> That looks to me almost exactly like a (1,1) evolution strategy [1]. Our field frequently has invented almost the same ideas multiple times in different subfields, with different mathematical analogies and different terminology. It's useful to identify these connections, and it helps not to be automatically dismissive of people who seem to be using the "wrong" terminology.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_strategy)

<comment><USER9> Perhaps I should not have been so hasty.

It's just annoying that the implication is that the 'reinventors' haven't done their research. It's almost as bad as my original feeling of "that's an new old thing", and assuming malicious intent/plagiarism.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hi, I'm a Dev, What's My Chance? - <AUTHOR> http://andrewodendaal.com/im-a-dev-whats-my-chance/ <comment><USER2> It doesn't matter what we say...go find some customers and ask them.

 _They 're_ the ones that matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's correct. But I just thought it would be interesting to get a HN overall opinion as many here have been in this similar type of situation.</comment></comment>


The Mobile Web vs. the Objective-C Web - <AUTHOR> http://cameronmoll.tumblr.com/post/498950232/the-mobile-web-vs-the-objective-c-web

<comment><USER2> Yes, you're fooling yourself, trying to compare a set of protocols universally accessible by billions of machines to a binary, locked-in application format that serves a minority of a minority of the mobile market, as if still not understanding that adding an app for every mobile platforms incurs a duplication of effort and limitation of feature sets that almost all but the largest of players in the Web can afford to take on, and that it only serves a market share that is significant only in the context of the smartphone market (not to mention ignoring that even then more users access regular and WAP versions of web sites).</comment>


Disneyland's Disastrous Opening Day (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.history.com/news/disneylands-disastrous-opening-day-60-years-ago <comment><USER2> People forget that Disney made up the whole idea of a theme park (as opposed to something more like a carnival) and built it in basically a year. Anytime you are the first to do something, it's really hard to know how to do it right the first time. Having been a programmer in the 1980's, a lot of what we did was making it up as we went along since there were no precedents (and no easy communications like the internet today to know if someone else did it before). In 1955 Disney had no computers or cell phones or CAD or anything we take for granted. Despite the opening day disasters, today it's a huge business. DisneyWorld in Orlando by itself as a separate company would be in the middle of the Fortune 500.

<comment><USER3> It wasn't the first theme park. What it was was the first theme part based on a particular set of core values. Disney did not like what he saw in other parks and so decided to build a more perfect world. His park would not serve alcohol. His park would be immaculate. The people at his park would be young and attractive, the embodiment of what was portrayed in the Disney cannon. He succeeded.

Disney then stood at the gates of Disneyland and looked at the string of shoddy hotels that sprung up beside his creation. Disney should be an all-day experience. A Disney _World_ was necessary.

<comment><USER4> > What it was was the first theme part based on a particular set of core > values.

That's what makes it a 'theme park'. Previous large-scale amusement parks didn't have central defining themes, though there were older examples of small-scale theme parks.

By modern standards, 'old timey carnival' might be a theme, but obviously it wasn't at the time.

<comment><USER3> Ya, 'core values' isn't a theme. I'm talking about family/american/christian values. Disney had Regan and a Protestant minister open the park. This was a park backed by the american political and religious establishment. It wasn't a religious theme park, nor a political one, but an idealized image of how the two could/should/would get along.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article mentions the lack of drinking fountains due to the plumbers' strike, but not the fact that they only had the capacity to hook up either the bathrooms or the water fountains and Disney picked the bathrooms [1].

It's also pretty remarkable that they finished the entire thing in a single year. For a modern comparison the new Star Wars expansion took 3 years to complete with just one working ride (the second ride will be open in December, so 3.5 years from construction start). I wonder if that's due to more relaxed laws surrounding construction back then or another factor.

[1] [https://mentalfloss.com/article/541360/disneyland- disastrous...](https://mentalfloss.com/article/541360/disneyland-disastrous- opening-day)

<comment><USER6> _> I wonder if that's due to more relaxed laws surrounding construction back then or another factor._

Relaxed regulations back then will be a factor, both externally enforced and internal rules designed to stop past mistakes repeating.

Another significant consideration is the growing complexity of each individual installation. Also the higher expectations and attention to detail of the modern customer: you don't have the luxury of hiding a few flaws behind the spectacle of novelty, now such theme parks are no longer that novel.

<comment><USER7> Something I think about a lot is how the base quality and complexity of things is improving but we still still consider it the same thing in many respects.

I think what you're describing is a great example, checkout one of the classic rides, It's a Small World:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbm4Au3dZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbm4Au3dZ0)

vs the new Smuggler's Run

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IZDfFDbGnU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IZDfFDbGnU)

An astounding leap forward in environmental storytelling, attention to detail, technology, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is all too short, but it left me wanting to know more about this opening day where so many things went wrong.

My favorite bit: "Nearly all of the 36 cars on the Autopia, which Disney envisioned as a utopian miniature freeway on which children would learn respectful rules of the road, were wrecked by aggressive drivers who crashed into other vehicles."

We've never seen this happen anywhere else, have we?

<comment><USER9> > "The stagecoach ride in Frontierland was discontinued after it proved too > top-heavy and prone to flipping over."

This one caught my fancy. Did they discover the behavior by trial and error?

<comment><USER10> Scaling. Classic stagecoach designs are extremely stable; I've seen someone drift them at a rodeo. Disney's original stagecoaches were undersized and with full sized people the center of gravity was too high. There's a mention of this in "The Hollywood Posse", by Diana Serra Cary, which is about cowboy stunt riders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Visiting there recently I was in awe of what it must take to run and maintain that place. Every single day... it's more or less spotless at any given moment you have attractions shows security vegetatation water systems etc. it's incredible any amount of staff can keep that place running.

<comment><USER12> I've heard this sentiment a lot, but honestly didn't notice it when I was there. Generally I found the US to be much dirtier than a lot of other countries I've visited. I wonder if there is a bit of "broken windows theory" helping out - people won't litter or break things because it's _Disneyland_.

<comment><USER13> I noticed that Disneyland was a lot cleaner than the rest of the normal USA. But the USA in general is a very dirty place. Trash piles up everywhere in larger cities and towns, roads are poorly kept, and in many places there's just this overall feeling of "dirty" and constant "mess" that I've only seen in third world countries and in Paris.

<comment><USER14> The most striking place you can notice this is at Niagara Falls in NY. The US side is dirty and tired. Walk across the footbridge to the Canadian side and its like walking into a sci-fi utopia of cleanliness.

Although, being a US citizen, I'll say that what I notice most when visiting Europe is that the graffiti seems 100x worse to my eyes in most European cities than in US cities. Italy seemed especially bad to me. It's like some child has drawn on the walls of Europe with crayons.

Another interesting point to me is Sydney, Australia. I had visited it as a child in the 80's and remembered a very grubby, dirty city. I visited again a couple years ago and found a beautiful, clean, enjoyable city.

<comment><USER15> Niagara Falls, NY is dumpy because is a typical Rust Belt city that experienced significant industrial and manufacturing decline in the late 70s-80s coupled with failed "urban renewal" projects. The population went from 102,394 in 1960 to ~48,144 in 2018. It's not exactly easy to maintain a tax base in that situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "if Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists" \- Ian Malcolm

</comment><comment><USER17> Very entertaining presentation, not about opening day, but about operations at Disney parks in general: [https://resources.qt.io/videos/qtws18-keynote- beyond-the-ux-...](https://resources.qt.io/videos/qtws18-keynote-beyond-the- ux-tipping-point-jared-spool-center-centre-uie)

Spoiler: ... ah, watch it yourself

<comment><USER8> I will only spoil a little bit, because I only got 10 minutes into the presentation and will have to watch the rest later.

But apparently in the late 1990s, Disney's website was so bad that they routinely had customers show up at one of their hotels at Disneyland (California) or Disney World (Florida) with paid reservations for the wrong hotel. And not just a different hotel at the same resort, but a hotel 3000 miles away!

Fixing the website would be much too expensive. Instead they kept a set of rooms free at each hotel for guests who were on the wrong side of the country, so they wouldn't ruin their vacation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's the ABC broadcast of opening day. Pretty interesting and definitely different than it is today:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JuzrZET-3Ew](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JuzrZET-3Ew)

</comment><comment><USER19> I guess we should have given fyre festival a chance?

</comment><comment><USER20> We can expect having posts with funny trivia about Amazon and Disneland around 1 jul, 15 jul, 1 aug, 15 aug, 1 sept...

The always predictable marketing stunts to introduce the brand name in our brains in strategic days with any minor excuse (outrage in twitter, historical trivia...)

<comment><USER21> Everyone's downvoting you but your hypothesis, but I think it seems easily falsifiable and would be fun to investigate. It might be worthwhile to do a simple data analysis of submissions mentioning such companies around those dates to see if the correlation exists, then do a bit more to see if how attributable it is to marketing ploys from the companies themselves.</comment></comment>


Linux Foundation publicly announces ban of conference registrant on social media - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/linuxfoundation/status/1192220181373652992 <comment><USER2> "Dear linuxfoundation. Can you please clarify the precise violation of the code of conduct in this case. Many of us watching these events are interested in your process and reasoning. We may not wish to support events that use unfair and arbitrary processes." [0]

That tweet from Uncle Bob reassures me that I'm not the only one confused. In reading through the tweets I'm still not sure what the offense in question was (and I don't have all afternoon to sift through tweets to figure it out).

[0] [https://twitter.com/unclebobmartin/status/119241336385646182...](https://twitter.com/unclebobmartin/status/1192413363856461824)

<comment><USER3> I just spent 5 minutes looking for something offensive that could be the reason for the Linux Foundation throwing out someone, but the only thing I could find was someone posting a selfie in front of the Trump Tower. The person demanding his removal apparently made racist posts, so this kind of decision seems...strange with what's shown in the link.

All questions for the actual reason in that Twitter thread get answered with things like "you haven't read the tweets" or "this is a bad faith argument", so it's all a bit confusing.

<comment><USER4> So, I've drilled up the threads a bit, and haven't found what he said, but have seen more than enough hysterics and bad faith communication on his accuser's part to lead me to suspect this is the same genera of cancelculture folks that got engaged over the Stallman's speaking out for calm and civility in regards to Minsky. In fact, Sarah Mei is a name I keep coming back too during deep dives into tech community character assassination.

All of it seems to stem from something John Sonmez did.

Here's his side of the story.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HvjQ3Mx- jWg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HvjQ3Mx-jWg)

To be frank, this is becoming a bit of a predictable pattern.

=====BEGIN CONTEXT===== Main thread from cmaxw weighing in. No issues with him): [https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824](https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824)

Kim Crayton's oh so enlightened response (scroll to the top): [https://mobile.twitter.com/e_p82/status/1187175306010005504](https://mobile.twitter.com/e_p82/status/1187175306010005504)

So... Take from it what you will. Twitter interface is terrible.

=====End Context</comment></comment></comment><comment>

Just looks like another social media based mobbing to me.

John isn't a saint by his own admission, but who amongst us is? No reason to be trying to cancel a person's work just because you disagree with them.

This dive into social media drama brought to you by me. Trying to build context so you don't have to.

<comment><AUTHOR> He says an email he got said it was "tone policing".

The tone of these people is rather outrageous, and it seems all he was doing was calling for calm.

[https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192258710804058112](https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192258710804058112)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is enough arguments to censor a person apparently: [https://i.imgur.com/iO3rW8l.png](https://i.imgur.com/iO3rW8l.png)

"Believe me that person is bad, I know. And I can assure you that other person totally agreed with him, he's bad too obvs."

This is what they believe: [https://i.imgur.com/zJLGkUL.png](https://i.imgur.com/zJLGkUL.png)

Basically "Thanks for the hard work you created, but now we're taking over, sorry. We'll probably make it way worse but I hate you."

</comment><comment><USER6> How outliers among outliers embed themselves into institutions to wield power far beyond their numbers...

If you're someone who prefers creation and synthesis over judgement and punishment, this is what the future is looking like.

</comment><comment><USER7> The best part, the stated reason for his banning "tone policing"

[https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192261086810116096?s=20](https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192261086810116096?s=20)

Don't tell people to be civil or respectful or you'll get banned.

<comment><USER8> This is what happens when a company or a foundation has more than 50 % of women. Men are harassed to be silent.

[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/diversity- inclusivenes...](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/diversity- inclusiveness/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Frankly, the people that "don't see the issue" are the exact problem with this industry. This guy made _three_ podcasts defending a previous podcast guest that was openly racist, misogynist, and publicly bullied folks that all of us know in the industry, with an emphasis on women from URGs. It is _still_ there for all to see.

I condemn that behavior and the enablement of it. I won't be associated with it.

Y'all, this place is for everybody and, frankly, the days where your harmful ass views are tolerated are numbered.

Good for Linux Foundation. They'll gain business from this.

<comment><USER5> Okay. Can you please share the link and hopefully some example timestamps of this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> congratulations on your successful cordyception</comment>


Readable Hacker News Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jnnojalnifmaekkfknejbppafnaiepjl?hl=en <comment><USER2> Aesthetic changes like this seem better suited to being Stylish[1] layouts or Greasemonkey[2] scripts, rather than full-blown extensions.

A quick userscripts.org search for Hacker News reinforces this: [http://userscripts.org/search?cref=http%3A%2F%2Fuserscripts....](http://userscripts.org/search?cref=http%3A%2F%2Fuserscripts.org%2Fcse.xml&cof=FORID%3A9&q=hacker+news&x=0&y=0)

[1] <http://userstyles.org/stylish/>

[2] <http://www.greasespot.net/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I ran into a few limitations when using Stylish (didn't try Greasemonkey).

This extension uses a JavaScript to re-align some elements, change classes etc. It's not only aesthetic changes, at least won't be in the next few updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sorry, but i'm not sure i find your "readable" hacker news more readable than the default layout. Might be because I don't mind reading small text, and can't bear scrolling. Also find the font and color choices iffy.

That being said, I think it has some of potential. Maybe do a little user testing and get a little more feedback and iterate on the design?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's definitely an on-going thing. Over the past week I've gotten feedback and kept working on it, changing things here and there. I finally decided that it's at a good enough spot to post on Hacker News and get even more feedback.

It's been a 50/50 hit on whether or not to use a sans-serif or serif typeface. At least that's the biggest type of feedback I've gotten thus far.

But yes, I'd love feedback on this.

<comment><USER4> I agree, it's not really usable. That being said, if you would give settings, everyone could make their own style. That would be ace!

<comment><AUTHOR> A settings menu is on my todo list. An easy way for you to customize the look and feel, fonts, colors etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My biggest beef with HN (apart from the amount of cool articles on it) isn't the look and feel of the site, it's the inability to distinguish old from new content.

I know, I could probably just subscribe to the RSS feed and do this in a feed aggregator, but sometimes I want to just quickly look at the front page and see the new stories since my last visit, without also having to deal with the stuff from 2 day ago that is still unread in Google Reader e.g..

Are the any community HN tools out there to help me out here?

<comment><USER6> For me, visited links are greyed out whilst anything I haven't seen since last visit is black.

Are you emptying your cache and history on exit perchance?

Here's what I see for reference: <http://cl.ly/57jx>

<comment><USER5> No, but that assumes I visit every link. I only end up clicking on 10-20% of them.

I suppose I could simply find a browser extension t visit all the links on the site, automatically, but that doesn't seem right if I'm not going to look at the articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like to original comments page more. The font after applying the extension is not contrasty enough, and the gap between the lines is too big. It's definitely not more readable.

Generally, too much free space - I personally prefer tighter desing with less scrolling. But still good try, it would be great if you offered some customizations.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I'm using it right now. A thicker font would be wonderful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> hm, I was expecting Readability-like styling, but it's a good start. A couple of feedback:

        * make the upvote arrow HUGE.

        * make the comments link HUGE.

        * more contrast between color and background-color.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been thinking about changing the up arrow. Will play around with it.

Also, I just noticed that text within code is terrible.

<comment><USER11> I like it! If you could also make comment threads foldable, it would be fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I actually use hnsort.com for a related reason. Do you think you'll be adding any sorting options? Maybe even a feature like reddit to hide posts?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER13> Is stylish available for Chrome?

Because then you could do it cross-browser with Firefox.

In fact it looks like some folk have been busy:

[http://userstyles.org/styles/browse/all/http:%2F%2Fnews.ycom...](http://userstyles.org/styles/browse/all/http:%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER14> Ow. My squint muscles are just now recovering from having that thing up for a minute.

I think this has conclusively proven that light grey on light grey is not a good color scheme for "readability".

</comment><comment><USER15> Cool.

Yes, customizability would be key for me. There's not enough contrast now, I'd change the typefaces and font settings, and the line-height (and a bunch of the rest of the spacing as well).

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm happy with your design choices, actually. However, I do wish that clicking through to the comments was easier - giving the link a larger hit area, for example.

</comment><comment><USER17> You could also use: <http://peri.me/Hack3rNews/>

</comment><comment><USER18> It's nice. Text is easer to read.

But, could you add some color schemes, from witch I can choose? It would be great.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you can keep the one page no-scroll policy of the default layout that would be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER20> You're certainly addressing a problem. HN is the only site I leave zoomed-in in Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks really good!

</comment><comment><USER22> Any equivalent extension for Safari out there?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have an initial port for Safari ready if you're interested. Comments is a bit messed up: <http://cl.ly/3X323L1Q3I0Z1u2D1v2C>

<comment><USER22> I love it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> this looks like a job for dotjs

<https://github.com/defunkt/dotjs>

</comment><comment><USER24> I think this looks pretty good! Thanks!</comment>


Coronavirus: Robots use light beams to zap hospital viruses - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51914722 <comment><USER2> UV is excellent at disinfecting stuff. It may take a while and you need to shield humans from exposure, but you don't have the negative consequences of resistant pathogens. At least I think so. Or it would be an alternative at least.</comment>


Enyo 2.0 exits beta - <AUTHOR> http://blog.enyojs.com/post/27492225747/enyo-2-exits-beta

<comment><USER2> We've also launched a redesign of the website (now live at <http://enyojs.com/>. Like Enyo 2.0, it's cross-platform, responsive, and definitely open for criticism.

If you have any suggestions on how we can make the website or the framework better, please let us know!

Nota Bene: Both the carousel on the homepage and the interactive tutorial on the about page are using Enyo 2.0. The total time spent on both elements was around 2 days. Once you get into the mindset, Enyo really is a pleasure to work with.

<comment><USER3> The site looks great Josh. The only comment I have is the graphic styles of the 3 images of the carousel are quite different from one another. The first image, with different types of devices and a transparent background works best methinks (also, on the free samples image, some of the text is distorted, which makes me a sad panda!)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! I'll definitely forward your advice to the designer who made those graphics. Hopefully if she has some time she can bring them into line!

Your eye for typography has also bested mine, the distortion didn't occur to me until you pointed it out. I think the idea was to draw attention to browser while maintaining the flow of the text, but I'll speak with her to see if she can magic up some alternatives. We sure wouldn't want to kill anybody's inner typographer!

<comment><USER3> Cheers Josh, hopefully she won't hate me for that feedback... Heh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looking forward to see what it can do! I worked for hp for over 10 years and the internal joke was that hp was the best software killer company ever! The initial release was flawed from the get go, but it will be interesting to see how well this version works. Optimistic!

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome to know it's out of beta. Hope there is more Onyx documentation available since the last time I tried to learn about it using the Sampler I was a bit confused with some controls and how to implement them.

<comment><USER2> I'm not directly part of the Enyo team, but I know that members have been working on an improved and unified Sampler app, to give a feel for using all of the components within an actual deployed app. Filling out the documentation is also definitely underway.

You should also check out the developer forums (<http://forums.enyojs.com/>). Experienced developers and the Enyo team both love to help out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Sampler doesn't work on Chrome for Android. All clicks are detected roughly half the physical height of the screen above where the touch landed. Tested on a Galaxy Nexus.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the report. Chrome for Android isn't a 1st tier target platform and we do have a number of known issues with it. If you want, you can head over to our Jira and file a bug with the version numbers of the relevant pieces. Of course, you're welcome to submit some pull requests, too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow that Bing Maps example is scrolling smooth! Great work. My company currently evaluates mobile frameworks and I hope we can include Enyo in the list of candidates.

</comment><comment><USER9> Tried several samples on browsers and seems none of them support back button. Am I missing anything? This is a must to have for desktop apps.

<comment><USER10> The page doesnt change while your viewing the samples, I believe this is a feature of enyo, more pages with less HTML, it is all based on JavaScript with HTML and CSS working in the background to render the buttons and other widgets.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're looking at updating the Sampler with pushstate, or at least setting the hash to a sample ID to allow bookmarking of samples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For reference, what are some of the best apps built in enyo? Is there a showcase somewhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been highlighting apps on our blog, see <http://blog.enyojs.com/tagged/app-showcase>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> a great javascript framework. Well worth checking out if you haven't already done so.

</comment><comment><USER13> Enyo is such an easy and amazing framework!

</comment><comment><USER14> The Enyo team was hired by Google, right?

<comment><USER15> A number of the core developers of Enyo were hired by Google - the ones that had done a bulk of the public commits. But some remain and they're now hiring to fill those positions.

See <http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/24/3042441/hp-enyo-google>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is great news. Enyo is a great framework for building apps on mobile and desktop. I created a Google Reader app using Enyo 2.0 and it is currently available on the Chrome Web Store. You can check it out here:

<http://sanchezapps.com/touchfeeds></comment>


Oracle, The scariest company in tech. - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceivablytech.com/3637/business/the-scariest-company-in-tech

<comment><USER2> This is a good read, but, and it's a big one, it's written by Rob Enderle. Given his performance for SCOg in the Linux suits of the last few years, one has to question his integrity and veracity. Oracle could easily have bought him off with the same "collateral" strategy Enderle himself describes. Which would be a fascinating infinite regression.</comment>


Google History - <AUTHOR> https://history.google.com/history/ <comment><USER2> 40,000 searches all time. Damn those searches add up!</comment>


Ask HN: How do you feel about the future prospects of Rust? - <AUTHOR> I am currently a freelancer working across many domains, from web to Big Data analysis, using a wide range of languages and frameworks.
The problem is that am not really feeling passionate about any of them; they do the job, but they do not really excite me to the point of wanting to learn in depth about any of them.
As a result I am the 'jack of all trades and master of none' type right now, but for some time now, (~2yrs), I have been programming in Rust in my spare time and I really enjoy it. Solving problems is faster for me, because I actually enjoy the language I am writing in, which wasn't the case much before.
Now, I've been expecting this to pass after a few weeks when the novelty wears off, but the reality is I actually enjoy it even more now that I have some level of mastery of Rust.
The problem is, my work is keeping me busy, which prevented me to take a more active role in recent months and as a result I feel that I am slowly loosing the pulse of the community and my Rust skill set is eroding as new libraries and RFCs are adopted that I haven't had a chance to work with.
As a result, I've been thinking recently of specialising more and tailoring my freelance business more towards Rust consulting specifically, so that I can spend more time writing it.
Trouble is, I don't really have much of a pulse on the Valley scene and given that they're usually the ones dictating tech trends, I am interested in HN's take on whether Rust would be a 'safe bet' for a freelance consultant in the near future.
I want to be early to the market, as I want to build a reputation as one of the original consultants to go to for Rust work, but am not sure about the timing; i.e. do it now or wait a couple of years, see how it develops, but be later to the game as a result?
I don't plan an immediate switch, but rather a gradual pivot over the next year or so, but would like to start doing preparations now, so I would like HN's opinion on this.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I won't comment on Rust's future, as I am quite biased ;)

There is already one Rust-oriented consultancy: [http://integer32.com/](http://integer32.com/) and a few people that have done contracting/freelancing a bit. Overall, we're still generally seeing people add Rust to their existing teams' repertoire rather than hiring Rust engineers specifically.

But it's all moving quite fast; [https://www.rust-lang.org/en- US/friends.html](https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/friends.html) started less than a year ago with five or six names, look at it now!</comment>


Minds Turned to Ash: Burnout is more than working too hard - <AUTHOR> https://www.1843magazine.com/features/minds-turned-to-ash <comment><USER2> This reminded me of a couple of very bad times in my life where I was caught in that awful loop of being unable to meet all the demands on my life and feeling that it would be impossible to not continue to try to go on anyway.

It's strange in retrospect how liberating divorce, unemployment, bankruptcy, and foreclosure can be. Don't get me wrong: going through all that absolutely sucked, and I wouldn't want to do it again. There were a few times when I genuinely went hungry and had no place to stay.

But having survived it, I no longer feel any need to keep up appearances or have the latest gadget or have a lot of stuff at all. A lot of the pressure I used to feel is simply gone because I don't give a shit what other people think about my life any more. (Well, I care about what my wife (same one, we are back together) and daughter think, but that's it.)

I especially liked the references to ancient descriptions of the condition. It's nothing new.

<comment><USER3> Been through similiar experiences, with same outcome. You just learn not to give a fuck about bullshit. You don't have enough energy for it.

<comment><USER4> If you make it. If it effs you up, then things go a much scarier way.

<comment><USER5> Yup if I had lived in the US, I'd probably be dead.

"Crazy" > homeless > addiction > burning bridges > dead.

I probably wouldn't have been part of the survivor bias on the streets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having skirted around the edge, and been through burnout several times, I urge especially solo entrepreneurs to set up a support group with other colleagues, friends or family to keep watch on their mood and performance.

It is all too easy too rationalise some of the symptoms of burnout as @eliboy stated in this thread as being 'other things' and ignoring the bigger picture. For example, if you are feeling tired and sad, is it depression or early onset burnout, or are you just suffering lack of sleep? Or just dehydration? Or is it because you had a late night out a couple of days ago?

Left to your own devices (especially when you are already burning out), it is all too easy to diagnose it as the latter causes, especially as your reasoning ability will be diminished.

Many times I have felt overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, thinking that it was because I couldn't say "No" to new projects, but it ended up being pure burnout.

Oh, and the frequent 'cure' for burnout from many of my colleagues is to force me to take a break and do nothing for a while. That actually makes it worse for me. I find that my best solution for burnout is to actually WORK HARD at another passion of mine - for example, If programming gets me down, I will go off and learn a fiendishly difficult piece on classical guitar instead. Others are horrified that I am putting my brain through more gruelling stress, but I find that thinking about music rather than programming for a while tends to help me feel creative and refreshed again.

<comment><USER7> > ... Left to your own devices ...

I'm going to take one small phrase you wrote entirely out of context because I think there's a point to make.

I'm suffering from burnout at the moment and trying to figure out a way past it. I recently attended a 10-day silent meditation training and one of the requirements was to surrender all my devices (phone, computer, etc) and any other forms of distraction (books, pen and paper, playing cards). Basically, I was alone with only my mind for 10 days, unable to speak or communicate with others for the entire period. It was hell for the first couple days, but by the third day I was really starting to enjoy it.

As I've re-integrated my devices again, the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it and be much more conscious about reintegrating my devices afterwards. I'm starting to believe that, at least for me, burnout is an overstimulation, and things that I didn't even realize were forms of stimulation were contributing. But the biggest forms of stimulation, Internet, computers, phones and television are all things that I now realize I have to use incredibly judiciously.

I think we'll look back at this time, when we introduced all these devices into our society without any concept of the damage they cause, very similarly to the times when we used lead paint on our walls or asbestos in our ceilings. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but once we study the effect it has on our health, we'll be horrified.

P.S. On the doing nothing front, having spent 10 days being forced to do nothing but think in between the meditation sessions, it's really underrated and I wonder whether you've given it a fair shot. You really have to go days of doing literally nothing but thinking before it starts to give you any benefit. But once you do, you can just feel the stress melting away. The hard part is making it through the initial stage and then maintaining that benefit once you start to reintegrate with the rest of society.

<comment><USER8> Funny was thinking something similarly. As much as I enjoy working when I want to, deadlines and avoidance of failure is killing me. I would never give up programming but for the past week it's a struggle to bring myself to spend even a half hour of writing code. The need to get things done has blocked me from getting into other things but the frustration I feel from a single problem when I sit down is causing me to get nothing done.

A shepherd's flock is essentially his passive sustenance. A lifestyle where you're physically active every day and don't have to answer to anyone all the time is my idea of freedom. We've all succumbed to tech and toys and while I can simulate reality on my phone I don't think I'm living a better life than people 200 years ago. I think there is a boredom that sometimes arises if we cannot exert our intellect to create something, but life costs too much to work at a leisure pace.

[http://modernfarmer.com/2013/12/10-things-learned- lambs/](http://modernfarmer.com/2013/12/10-things-learned-lambs/) Look liberating that looks.

<comment><USER9> Grew up on a farm. Before all these gadgets existed. Definitely a low-stress time in my life. Nothing to do all day but some physical chores, and wander or read. I got very comfortable being alone in my head with my thoughts. I think many modern gadgets are about avoiding that very thing - how many folks have ever been alone with their thoughts for more than an hour in a dentist waiting room? And how painful folks find that to be. Speaks volumes for the modern psychological condition.

<comment><USER10> People don't know how to handle boredom anymore and it's taken a huge toll on society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Whenever I hear stories about people regularly putting in 80+ hour weeks it just blows my mind. I could never do that, and the mere thought of it is almost enough to send me into a spiral of depression.

For anyone who currently finds themselves in that situation: if you are in love with your work and happy with your lifestyle, then good for you. The world needs smart, dedicated people. But if you're feeling burnt out or otherwise unhappy with the hours: know that there tons of interesting and well paying jobs out there that don't demand such crazy hours.

\- SF Bay Area Software Engineer working 40 hrs a week... often less.

<comment><USER12> Not all people work long hours because that's the role they ended up with or they feel they "have to". I work more than 40 hours a week as an escape from other tasks and problems in life (similar to how people use alcohol, food or gaming for that purpose).

<comment><USER13> My ex-wife worked long hours because she always wanted the acceptance of everyone. It cost her a marriage, a job, and ultimately, I think it will cost her the respect of our child. Anyone who is motivated to work long hours for the wrong reasons is doomed to pay a heavy cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd recommend the book "The Truth About Burnout" [0]. It talks about 6 sources of burnout: work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, breakdown of community, absence of fairness and conflicting values.

For a long time I had burnout (or only a beginning). After a while, I suspected I might be burned out and it might be because of hard work, I work part-time and go to school too. It don't think it helped now that summer has come and I don't go to school, so I read the book. I think it's because lack of control, absence of fairness, conflicting values and insufficient reward. Note that it doesn't have to be true, it's enough for you to feel unpaid, that you don't have control, etc.

[0] - [https://amzn.com/1118692136](https://amzn.com/1118692136)

<comment><USER15> Fitting 100% of those contributing factors; I feel suitably burnt out.

<comment><USER16> I read the list of burnout symptoms and that makes me think: maybe this problem could also be considered from the perspective of Reinforcement Learning, as it is applied in AI. In RL, there has to be a balance between exploration and exploitation. Burnout seems to be a condition where exploitation is prioritized too much over exploration.

It is true that in exploration there is no guarantee that a better reward will be found, but unless we explore, it's much harder to get to learn anything new and cut our future options. Our sorely missing downtime is exploration time, random choice time, free of expectations, liberated from the need to always make the greedy choice. We need more of that in order to explore the space of possibilities that exist beyond our experience. When we cut ourselves from randomness we box ourselves into the small space of known strategies, and burnout is just a negative reward signal to let us know we are being suboptimal even as we strive so much to excel.

<comment><USER17> Can't too much exploration results in exhaustion too ? A drownout...

<comment><USER16> That's why it is called "tradeoff between exploration and exploitation". Exploration costs resources too, and has a lower chance of generating rewards in the short term. But without it agents can be stuck in a local minima without being able to "jump" to a better local minima.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I definitely experienced this at the last stages of my first startup. In my opinion, your own psychology is probably the hardest thing to manage.

Ben Horowitz refers to this stage as The Struggle. He talks about how when you start your company you do it with a clear vision of how success looks like. You are going to create an amazing company with the smartest people, build a great product and make the world a bit better. After working day and night, you realize things are not going as planned. The market isn't quite what you thought it would be. Your employees are losing confidence, some are quitting. You are running low on cash. You lose a loyal customer and walls start closing in and you find yourself in the struggle. The struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place.

When you are in the struggle nothing is easy and nothing feels right.

</comment><comment><USER19> > limitless choice debilitates far more than it liberates

This, is one of the main sources of time waste and stress in everyday life. Take choosing a car insurance policy, each insurer will provide many options with only minor or irrelevant differences, making comparing competing offers hard.

Look at foodstuffs in supermarkets, many times, packaging will come in a many different sizes in many different brands, leaving comparison a challenge.

I admire what some supermarkets in Australia did when they introduced info on price per 100g for all weighable items.

<comment><USER20> Wow, culture shock. Everything has unit prices marked in your typical chain supermarket in Finland (and elsewhere in Western Europe?) I never thought of it as something special, but I guess it's mandated by some regulation or other.

<comment><USER13> It's common in the United States as well, though far from universal.

<comment><USER21> I've found that the units are often different even for very similar products. For instance, one container of black tea might be $X per pint, while the other is $Y per fluid ounce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My experience with burnout is that it's almost identical to worry, with a sense of not feeling "good enough". I've had the feeling of burnout from being the sole sysadmin and devops at an HFT firm. An identical feeling happened during a streak of rational paranoia (I discussed it with my doc who agreed that it was rational, fwiw) during the final and post stages of a lawsuit for Chicago's mayor's phone records. The not-feeling-good enough there came from having to constantly convince others that the work was worth it.

Burnout sucks, but the more near-overwhelming work I get into, the more I realize how complicated it really is. That comes with learning to avoid it, though.

</comment><comment><USER23> Burn out also looks like the effect of a constant bullying.

I mean, I have a wife, I work 9~16h paid 8 for 70$ I can't enjoy her on week end, nor the sun. It was the same when I was a coder except I was earning more money.

In society it has become common to forget about punch clocks. The limit between a safe haven you can protect yourself and mend your mind has been constantly shrinking: commutation, seminar, social events, excessive work hours, extra load (like being a sysadmin when you code or repairing unsafe truck when you are a mover) ...

I dare say: «burn out» is just the medicalisation of a social problem. In the worst of European glory and exploitation scheme USA used to abhor but are now embracing there used to be something called «professional fatigue».

This «fatigue» disappeared after the social struggle and the imposition of effective decent work hours.

Burn-out is just a pitiful way for employers to blame workers for the result of their actions on which they don't want to take responsibilities.

It is a counter productive management harming globally the society as much as jails are breaking humans.

Have you tried to ask at your job a strict workhours compensation? Your job will laugh at you.

Oh, I already can guess there are some exceptions out there that will answer I live in a world they don't see. But, how much of you when counting commuting, extra activities work related (like reading news to stay up to date, going to user groups), reading mails do actually have less than 48hr/week that are work related?

</comment><comment><USER24> There's a weird pride in working long hours. I see it a lot in nyc, and when I hear it I always wonder what combination of stimulus were able to generate that willful want of it. I prefer to calculate and maximize dollars per hour. If you're working a lot, then at least have it be at a high hourly rate.

<comment><USER25> It's past time this was said: we need to start shaming people who voluntarily work long hours. Not those for whom the alternative is unemployment, of course; they are victims to be pitied. But those who work long hours when they could have chosen otherwise, are harming not only themselves and their employers, but everyone who has to interact with the economy, which means pretty much everyone. That behavior needs to stop being considered socially acceptable.

<comment><USER26> I get what you're saying, but it seems pretty dictatorial. Would you apply it to startup founds? Lone inventors tinkering in their basements? Musicians practising to be the best?

It would seem to exclude trades like "work hard for 10 years with a reasonable hope of stashing way enough to retire", which are probably rational for some (60 hours/week of wage labour may be bad, but 40 isn't exactly wonderful either).

<comment><USER25> If you think a yes answer is unreasonable, bear in mind that you actually get less done in a 60-hour week than a 40-hour one (maybe not in the first week, but in the second and subsequent ones), so discouraging it in the three cases you mention would still help the people involved. Of course, if you're working alone in your basement, you're not obliged to tell anyone how many hours you work, let alone take orders from anyone on the matter, but it still shouldn't be considered socially acceptable to boast of long hours.

As for the last, the trade is only that way because employers with high-paying jobs can get away with gratuitous abuse of their employees, and that's precisely the state of affairs we need to put an end to.

<comment><USER26> >>> bear in mind that you actually get less done in a 60-hour week than a 40-hour one

On aggregate, sure (and for a lot of people in a lot of scenarios, the actual threshold is probably lower still). But there are outliers here -- particularly when we're talking about highly-driven people doing things they really want to do -- and I'd be nervous about legislating here.

<comment><USER25> Well, I only advocate _legislating_ a maximum 40-hour (or better yet, 30-hour) week for employees.

If you're self-employed and you think you're an outlier? You're probably mistaken. Chronic fatigue is like being drunk; it impairs your judgment in such a way that you can't judge the degree of impairment.

But if you still think you're an outlier? I won't lift a finger to stop you, but please keep quiet about it and refrain from poisoning the noosphere for everyone else.

<comment><USER27> I think it may depend on a few factors.

I don't think I can even manage a 40 hour week productively now, as my other obligations have grown.

Whereas, in the early years I could work much longer without reurcussion. This is fairly measurable, as I was writing educational materials and people say the quality was good then.

One month I went to Cuba to write, and didn't have to cook, clean or do errands. I also didn't socialize much, but had daily contact with people in my house. I worked much longer weeks, but felt less stress. I also had daily sun, exercise, and healthy food.

The second situation wasn't sustainable for more than 1.5 years, but did work well enough. The 3rd situation also isn't sustainable long run, and can be difficult to setup in most circumstances.

Just pointing that out to say that the 40 hour limit can be affected by other factors. Right now I want to rearrange my non-work commitments to allow more work time, and also reduce the most mundane work tasks.

Critically, when I was working longer, I was just writing. Almost no administrative work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Avoiding burnout is about setting boundaries for both yourself and your coworkers to avoid unhealthy expectations. If your job _expects_ you to work more than 50 hours a week max, you need to have a talk with the relevant manager. It's a two way street though, because you must also be willing to limit your own involvement and not go overboard working if you have a type A personality.

</comment><comment><USER29> Tying together a few comments I'm seeing here (farms, meditation, electronic device & information overload), I'll bring out the importance of nature. Some ideas:

if you like running, try trail running

do find a friend with a farm or garden and spend some time working there

weekend camping is often possible, whether in desert or forest, and sometimes it's easy to make it a 3-4 day trip.

if you really need something hard that's not programming, push your physical boundaries a little on the hike. Nothing to clear and focus the mind like "it's 5 pm, the sun sets in an hour, bad weather is coming in, we have 4 kilometers of canoeing until we get to the campsite and then we need to set up the tent!" Maybe I shouldn't really "recommend" this as any good wilderness type will have tried to avoid this situation.

I just took a long trip to the countryside and the lack of nature even in my tree-filled neighborhood was a shock when returning. And you can learn a lot from observing nature: trees just grow, animals do what they do; in their environment they don't fight their own nature and try to do something else.

</comment><comment><USER30> Can someone please summarize the 3000+ words down to a paragraph? Overly prolix articles make my mind turn to ash too!

<comment><USER31> Haiku:

People work too much.

Why. Underdeveloped self.

Know oneself or burn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I find small breaks throughout the day are best. Can be 5 mins or 30 mins. Grab it when you can and return refreshed. Or just switch tasks. The idea of recovering after all day - let alone months - is a big trap. Easier if you love your work as I am fortunate enough to do.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is it possible that the solution to working hard is acquiring resources so you can stop working hard and this is done by working hard? Hence, creating a loop.

IMO Burnout is a loop spiralling out of control. Solution is a break out of the loop. But how? Mass acquisition of resources?

<comment><USER34> Preservation of agency.

Know why you are there, what you want to accomplish, and what you are willing to do to accomplish it. And remember you have the option to walk away if your goals aren't met.

The latter is key - making a reasonable CHOICE to be in the situation is a big step towards making it bearable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why do I find so few hypothesis driven experiments on this subject?

<comment><USER36> Burnout isn't interesting to organizational psychologists because it was relatively well-understood in 90s. There's only so much you can study in this space and all the low-hanging fruit is gone. It's still a popular topic for some, but the reason you don't see the actual research is probably because you expect it to be covered in blogs. Go to a university library, get on the wifi, and download some proceedings of organizational and cognitive psychology journals.

<comment><USER35> using google scholar, I don't see any hypothesis-driven research, just clinical accounts and non-hypothesis-based psychology.

This is probably the closest.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3796712/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3796712/)

<comment><USER36> Well, it isn't the 70's anymore, even if you had an IRB that would let you induce burnout in a randomly assigned experiment you couldn't publish it.

I don't see how the study you linked is "hypothesis-based," exactly; it's just an imaging study and thus is likely wrong because of the fMRI bug.

<comment><USER35> that's why you would do a longitudinal study. Pick a cohort of individuals that are entering a high-risk-of-burnout field, and the control will be the pre-burnout individual and the experiment would be monitoring them over time. Of course this doesn't really fit funding/research promotion cycles in science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _To anyone suffering from ACTUAL long-term burnout_ , in the sense that a "Mind turned to ash" doesn't sound like hyperbole _at all_ , and trying to recover:

Do NOT bother with this article. Save yourself the emotional drain (maybe go outside for a bit ;) ) It contains NO actionable advice, just a few anonymised stories, some academic and pop-psych ideas. Also conspicuously absent is any mention of these patients' recovery or future.

Maybe this article does serve as a nice warning for those heading towards burnout. I wrote the above, to help others already suffering. As a warning it's way too long for the crowd that is too busy working too many hours. Now trust me you can get it from working as little as 16h/wk! If that sounds like you--best of luck.

Yes the stories are so recognizable. Especially when he contrasted the first story with the second because the first one hit most of the main factors and then got convoluted with a whole bunch of other psychodevelopmental factors that the second story demonstrated have nothing to do with burnout.

The article could have been about 1/3rd it's length and I'm a bit bummed about this. Normally I wouldn't complain about that but this guy is a psychiatrist and I truly wonder what he was trying to achieve with this article, if it is anything besides self-promotion he would have written a disclaimer like above as a summary to help sufferers.

Myself, burnt out in 2007. Never got better. I don't actually want to read anonymized burnout-stories. It's an emotional drain with no reward (I'll page through a few in this thread, because this burnt-out husk of my former self is compassionate). I read it on the off-chance that maybe it'd contain some info or idea that I haven't tried in the past 9 years. So, that was my mental energy for the day.

I don't have answers either, but maybe some ehrm, burnout pro-tips. The web is full of stories to serve as warnings before burnout, but hardly anything for after, especially for sufferers where a few months rest just does not cut it. So here's a few things, maybe it'll help someone:

\- Meditation is _really_ nice. Maybe even more important was finding a group to do it with[0], it adds a dimension, mine are the kindest people I know in the world, and it helps motivate to do it daily . For mindfulness meditation, I found I need at least 2-3 sessions/week, for the exercise to carry on outside the actual moments of practising it. Apart from sitting, occasionally try a walking meditation (look it up) just like with physical exercise, changing up the practice helps if/when you get stuck. And don't forget there's more kinds besides mindfulness. One that is quite orthogonal to mindfulness is compassion meditation or "metta" meditation[1].

\- Physical exercise is also really nice. I like running. I only found out I'm actually good at sports during the first half year of acute symptoms when I literally couldn't use a computer for more than 10 minutes. I used to do strength exercises too (various pullups mainly), liked the results but the exercises carried that scary burning feel in it. Maybe you're different, try it because I hear that stuff is really healthy :) Figure out what's nice for you.

\- Something creative that gets you (even just sometimes) into flow. I like drawing and singing. If you play a live instrument that's probably good too. Unfortunately for me, computer programming doesn't quite fit this category any more. Not even democoding :'-( I still do it anyway because I really really want to and my creativity wants to get out and some things you can only express in code.

\- Keeping a positive attitude is probably the hardest but it's also nice. I'm not sure if the start of this post is a good example but that came from the heart and I hope the tips make up for it :)

These are nice things to do when you can't do anything else.

I also do volunteer work and teaching kids my otherwise-wasted years of studying computer science, but I don't know if that is for everyone. Other people I know really enjoy working with elderly people, providing company and hearing their stories etc. they love it but don't understand why I like working with kids and vice versa. To each their own :)

[0] try [http://wkup.org](http://wkup.org) or [http://reddit.com/r/meditation](http://reddit.com/r/meditation) (the sidebar) to find a meditation group in your area (sometimes called "sangha")

[1] if you always practiced both you might think "what, no, they're two sides of the same coin" and you'd be right--for _you_. because if you've only ever practiced mindfulness, you're in for a treat! you're one of today's lucky 10,000 ;-) ([https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/))

[2] I like to end on a positive note so I'm hiding this bit in the unreferenced footnote. _Ahem_. Seriously, _fuck_ this author. The link below the linked article from the same author, "The way out of burnout" would hopefully get flagged for misleading title on HN. I had to page through it because I can't read more of this drivel in detail, but _again_ no actionable advice; "less severe cases of burnout" are advised to take action to avoid actual burnout (great) and actual cases of burnout are advised that this no longer works for them (whoa, my mind is blown, like the ashes in the Lebowski movie)

</comment><comment><USER37> what font is used for the main text?

<comment><USER38> Milo Serif Pro</comment></comment>