Gotty – Share your terminal as a web application - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/yudai/gotty <comment><USER2> By the way, if you want to share your terminal ephemerally with someone over SSH, I swear by [http://tmate.io/](http://tmate.io/). It was something I desperately needed a solution for, and tmate delivers very very well.

<comment><USER3> One of these days I need to write a blog post on how to do it, but I pair program with my colleagues over ssh and tmux.

Briefly:

\- Set up a guest account on your computer. Write a small script containing "tmux attach-session -S /tmp/guest-session -t guest". Make this shell script the login shell for the guest account (make sure you are patched against heartbleed ;-) )

\- Create a guest group and add your user and the guest user to it

\- Write a script for you that contains "tmux -S /tmp/guest-session -t guest new"

\- Configure ssh for RSA login

\- Whenever you want to work with someone, add their ssh key to the guest account's .ssh/authorized_keys. Then run your script to start the tmux session.

\- They still won't be able to log in until you give read and write permissions to the tmux socket (which allows you to have some control over when people can log in). To allow them to log in: "sudo chgrp guest /tmp/guest-session"

Note that you still have to trust the person because they will be sharing your session. However, you will be able to see everything they are doing. When they ssh in, they will immediately join your tmux session (unfortunately without any notification -- need to see if there are some hooks you can use to notify when people attach to the session).

Having a shell script as a login shell is obviously a potential security hole, so you should make sure that authorized_keys only contains keys when you want people to log in.

There is a project somewhere that contains a lot of scripts for doing this kind of thing (I forget what it is called), but I think it is better to learn how to do it yourself ;-)

<comment><USER4> I tried this for a while but then I tried ScreenHero and I've never gone back.

<comment><USER5> Was excited to try ScreenHero but it seems they are closed now as they were acquired by Slack.

<comment><USER6> You can use your existing Slack account to login to ScreenHero as well.

If you don't have one, just try registering a free account with Slack, that might work as well.

<comment><USER7> You have to be a paying member of Slack to use ScreenHero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Add this to ngrok [0] and you've got some pretty serious remote collaboration tooling, with security.

[0] [https://ngrok.com/](https://ngrok.com/)

<comment><USER9> yep, i'd love to see this integrated with ngrok. would a gotty+ngrok combination be something folks would pay for?

<comment><USER10> I'd like to use this to provide a development environment for a friend in Africa trying to learn to program. He has random access to random computers so any client side install is a problem.

I would be happy to pay for the product or just pay someone to build it if it isn't hard.

Here are my assumptions: 1\. I could enable this on a cheap cloud server to expose a terminal that will work with tmux and vim. 2\. I could create an account for my friend(s) so that they could access the server securely from within thier browser. 3\. There is no clientside install or config needed.

Let me know if you are willing to wire it together.

<comment><USER11> I recommend taking a look at CodePicnic, which gives him a fully-functional Linux image front-ended by a JavaScript UI which you can embed anywhere. I have successfully used it from e.g. iPhone Safari.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I believe that the last time I tried running emacs in my browser, keyboard shortcuts didn't work well. With this they work flawlessly!

It's also perfectly performant on desktop (chrome with os x, air 2013), though still unusably slow on my phone (chrome on original motox).

This may be more of a testament to [https://github.com/macton/hterm](https://github.com/macton/hterm) though! (apparently what gotty is using)

<comment><USER12> I wonder if it would be useful to run emacs within a browser based editor like Atom. It even seems plausible to be able to seamlessly switch editors "containers" for particular operations without even leaving a file (using the editors API to replace the pointer in the same place).

<comment><USER13> > I wonder if it would be useful to run emacs within a browser based editor > like Atom

Considering Emacs is already thought of as a decent OS ("lacking a good editor"), I can only think:

"We have to go deeper."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very cool! I was always struggling during live presentations switching from browser to console window. Now I can use a browser window on the projector screen for both presentation and console.

Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER15> Not to be snarky, but what's wrong with Alt+Tab (Or platform-specific equivalent)? You still have to use multiple windows -- that both happen to be in the browser doesn't seem particularly important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of [https://showterm.io/](https://showterm.io/)

</comment><comment><USER17> See also [https://github.com/progrium/termshare](https://github.com/progrium/termshare)

</comment><comment><USER18> Check out [https://nutty.io](https://nutty.io) if you find gotty interesting you'll find nutty interesting too.

</comment><comment><USER19> Everytime I use a terminal in the browser for a live demo I end up running into horrible keybinding conflicts between the two (hitting C-w to delete backwards word and instead closing the tab).

</comment><comment><USER20> hmm.. uses hterm.js under the hood for the JS terminal, wonder how that compares to term.js.. very cool project indeed.

<comment><USER21> Is hterm.js in any way related to [http://41j.com/hterm/](http://41j.com/hterm/) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Damn it, I literally could have used this last night. Ended up using a disposable VM on DIgitalOcean for shared tmux.

We were going to use tmate, but having to compile manually on OS X caused issues. Pro tip, if you only include instructions on how to install you tool with homebrew, at least make sure your makefile works on OS X. Not everyone has drunk or wants to drink the homebrew cool-aid. I currently use macports and grow ever tempted with the passage of time to switch over to PkgSrc or even a Gentoo Prefix install. Gentoo probably would have won by now if it was better able to integrate with the native shell, path vs entering prefix wise.

<comment><USER23> Can I ask for more detail explaining your aversion to homebrew? Just curious…

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've always thought it'd be interesting to write a display driver for VirtualBox that uses WebGL so you can essentially get a desktop through a web browser...

<comment><USER25> Something that works like Guacamole[1]?

[1][http://guac-dev.org/](http://guac-dev.org/)

<comment><USER24> ... well there you go!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can't read much of Go so can anyone explain how does this work at a high- level? The Vim editing example looks really cool! Does it keep taking a snapshot of the running command and send the data via a websocket?

<comment><USER27> [https://github.com/yudai/gotty/blob/master/app/app.go#L73-L1...](https://github.com/yudai/gotty/blob/master/app/app.go#L73-L103)

^ Those are the key lines really.

It's running the command in a pseudo-terminal, capturing the output (as text) and sending it over a web socket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'll have to try this. This would probably make screen pairing easier.

</comment><comment><USER29> Gotta give this a shot. Very similar to shellinabox -- which also allows https, login shell, etc. On the other hand shellinabox has not been maintained since 2012/13.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is such a useful project. Seems to be working well in my tests on OS X and i was unsuccessful setting up tmate on my machine.

(silent tears of joy)

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it just me, or does this seem horrendously insecure? How does this prevent arbitrary third parties from accessing your terminal?

<comment> anti-shill what could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER32> Anyone sending to localhost (the IP of the machine running this) would have access to said command line, and can do as they please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What are the use cases for this?

</comment><comment><USER34> Cool use case would be to follow a live stream of your favorite hacker in action!

</comment><comment><USER35> Mind blowing, obvious once you see/use it.

Gotty + Pagekite (or ngrok) = remote happiness.

</comment><comment><USER36> Cool and great idea!

</comment><comment><USER37> twitch for MUDs!

nice.

</comment><comment><USER38> Pretty cool! Security might be to reconsider.

</comment><comment><USER39> Cool Stuff !!</comment>


Ex-Uber self-driving head declares bankruptcy after $179M loss to Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-waymo-uber/ex-uber-self-driving-head-declares-bankruptcy-after-179-million-loss-to-google-idUSKBN20R37A <comment><USER2> Lewandowski's business "partner in crime" Lior Ron settled with Google for less than 10 million USD. It is unclear from the article if Lewandowsky had an opportunity to settle as well.</comment>


Calling for a new approach to depression - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connections <comment><USER4> There seems to be an increasing number of non-academic articles, essays and books that are expressing the idea that the Serotonin hypothesis of depression is flawed. It seems like the drug industry just picked up this idea in the 70s and has been running with it (to the bank) ever since

Anecdotally, I have come to believe that SSRIs have a temporary mood-altering effect, possibly combined with a placebo effect that wears off over time - <USER2> your body adapts to the induced serotonin imbalance. The only answer from the medical profession? Increase the dose.

I saw this with my own mother. She went from being a mildly depressed retired housewife to suicidal within the space of 12 months. She started on low-dose SSRIs which seemed to work for a while before she regressed. Each time she started to feel depressed again she would be prescribed with an increased dosage. This pattern repeated until she was taking the maximum 'allowed' dosage, by this point she was delusional, paranoid and suffered terrifying, persecution-style hallucinations - perhaps not surprising seeing how much her brain chemistry must have been out of whack.

Sadly, I'm making these observations with hindsight, she took her own life in 2015. I wish I could share this article with my dad, if I knew it wouldn't break his heart. Both she and my father couldn't share with their children how gravely ill she was until it was too late. They both trusted their doctors implicitly. What they weren't prepared for was the fact that the theory that formed the basis of her treatment was, it seems, no more than guesswork supported only by publication bias, wishful thinking and greed.

Ironically, one of my first web development jobs, way back in 2000, was at a 'medical communications company' where I created an intranet site for GSK (IIRC) for use by their salespeople to shore up the claims of the effectiveness of Seroxat/Paxil and counter negative studies. So, I guess that makes me complicit in all this too.

<comment><USER5> Almost all antidepressants list the increase of suicide risk as a side effect, which is frightening.

Zoloft for example [1]:

> An increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, > adolescents, and young adults (aged 18 to 24 years) with major depressive > disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders has been reported with short- > term use of antidepressant drugs.

[1][https://www.drugs.com/sfx/zoloft-side- effects.html](https://www.drugs.com/sfx/zoloft-side-effects.html)

On a personal note, I am very sorry for your loss.

<comment><USER4> Like all side-effect warnings I'm pretty sure the warnings about increased suicide risk are only added after the drugs have been on the market for a while (and having accumulated a few lawsuits). As with the generic 'this product may contain nuts' warnings on food these smack of post-hoc ass- covering to me.

While my scepticism of 'alternative' medicine, magical thinking and general woo-woo is as strong as ever, my experiences of the last couple of years have really shaken the former certainty I used to express in the rigour of science- based medicine. I still believe in the method, but the execution seems to leave a lot to be desired. Not entirely unrelated, I'm reminded why I became disillusioned with my biochem undergrad studies - specifically the labwork. We were repeatedly told to ignore results that didn't produce the 'correct' result and were even docked marks for effectively honest reporting. Although I'm sure it was mostly crappy technique that was to blame.

Thanks for your kind words

<comment><USER6> I think those side effects are boilerplate across all drugs of the same action/class. Support for this is in the allergic reaction language. This is from someone who recently went through many Rxs in search of something that would work. (The ultimate lesson I learned was to seek professionals that specialize in whatever the chronic illness may be.)

Maybe science and medicine have much yet to learn or are being led astray by current theories.

I am sorry for your loss. My own mother has a severe hack and cough from a life of smoking. I know I'll miss her deeply when she leaves me someday. I can't fathom how painful that must be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The part about funding studies and throwing away the ones that don't say what they want about a drug is worse than described because a lot of the funding goes to graduate programs where the students have no choice but to find results favorable to the drug.

I have an ex-girlfriend that went into the PhD program for Neuroscience at a reputable university. Her entire degree and living stipend was paid for by a pharmaceutical company. The company "suggested" that her PhD research revolve around a drug that lowered aggressive tendencies.

The sloppiness of the study appalled me. I couldn't say that much because she and I were dating at the time, but it was absurd. There was no funding for getting a reasonable sample of people. So they went to a halfway house and brought in 30 males and 30 females. All criminals, all on probation or parole, all with serious histories of substance abuse, and most of the women were pregnant.

Almost all of the males dropped out for one reason or another. Many of the women did as well. I believe the final tally was 3 males and 13 women. All of whom tested positive for some assortment of drugs.

The sample size is obviously problematic here. What was possibly even worse was when I would go to the lab and watch this person sift through ECGs. The test itself that defined aggressiveness was totally ill-defined, and the neural response to the test was basically, "Well, let's just take a look at it. Okay, this one looks aggressive. That one doesn't."

It was a total shitshow. The end result? A published paper in a prestigious journal about how this drug reduces aggressiveness, a PhD, and FDA approval for the drug.

I hate to identify with conspiracy theorists, and all that. But I literally watched this process happen with a person I was dating for almost all of it.

When it comes to drugs, you really have to do your own research. Your doctor isn't going to do it for you. That's the double burn of healthcare in the U.S. Even when you have it, you can't really trust it. You have to pay for it, you have to know what's wrong with you, and you have to know what you need. And if it isn't a drug, then fuck off. You have to pay for it anyway.

People say, "Fuck you, that's one story that probably went badly. Science is self-sufficient and self-correcting. The plural of anecdote is not data." Fair enough on all points.

But there is a systematic and broken way of doing science in the medical industry. And doctors are not scientists and don't really get trained to know the difference between good and bad science.

<comment><USER8> I don't know if you're aware of this, but drugs don't get FDA approval based on any single study, let alone the one you described.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I totally agree with this, and I will repeat a somewhat controversial view I hold:

Governments & business owners directly gain power & influence in the world via their citizens/workers productivity. The western attitude to "mental illness" is shaped VERY strongly by this - when you get "depressed" working an overly stressful job with no hope of anything better, it is better to convince the poor sap that its a problem with THEM rather than a problem with the world. Then give you some pills to make it better.

This dysfunctional culture will swallow up all your time, force you to work on things you fundamentally don't believe in, leave you isolated from people and then tell you its your fault for being depressed. We need to make the world stop dehumanizing us. Monkeys in cages get depressed.

When 5% of people are depressed, maybe its fair to say they should seek treatment on their own. When 30%, 40%, 50% of people are depressed.... its time to adapt the world to fit peoples well-being instead of the other way around..

</comment><comment><USER10> Years of strict exercise, diet, meditation, breathing techniques, various forms of therapy, and numerous self-help books did not cure my anxiety and depression. 2 weeks after starting a low-dose (10mg / day) of Lexapro made me feel better than I had in 10 years.

Don't be afraid of medication if other techniques fail. My life was ostensibly fine, with a good job, friends, and family. I had a chemical issue, which is solved to this day with Lexapro. I consider it a drug that saved my life.

<comment><USER5> Glad it works for you. I took a small does for one week. First two days was great, everything had an aura about it. Also, I felt very warm all the time. After 3-4 days I lost erections and then just threw them into the trash bin. Didn't want to risk it. I have a family member who needs viagra because antidepressants messed up his nerves. Psyhcs will tell you it's temporary, well, not always, but they won't admit it.

<comment><USER11> While I am fairly vehemently against them and pro LSD as an option, I tried a short course of Lexapro and it was mildly helpful for about 3 months. A decade later I had the audacity to try again under different circumstances. Day 3 I had the worst and only panic attack of my life and decided to call it a day and use mindfulness techniques to deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the biggest reasons that antidepressant meds are the go-to treatment for depression in the US is reimbursement. This reason is a cause of another important problem with mental healthcare in the US: shortage of mental health providers

Reimbursement for psychotherapy has been getting squeezed in the last several years. Reimbursement for psychotherapy is generally based on time: i.e. $x for a 30 minute session, $y for a 90, etc. Reimbursement for "medication management", i.e. prescribing drugs, is not based on time, but generally is a fixed amount. So the more prescriptions you write, the more money you make. Psychiatrists therefore focus on meds rather than therapy, as the reimbursement rates for therapy can't support a practice. Many psychiatrists don't take insurance at all bc they don't want to be "medication mills", so they charge $200-600+ per hour for therapy and only rich clients can pay. Psychologists and other licensed therapists can't prescribe meds, so they do therapy, but often make less than $60-70k a year. People don't want to go into psychology / psychiatry because of the stress of dealing with suffering people without having the tools to help them, and then getting paid relatively little (compared to other health care professionals)

This results in much of depression and other mental health being treated in primary care. PCPs aren't trained that well in treating mental health beyond what pharma sales reps tell them, so they wrote an rx and call it a day. 70% of patients don't respond to the first trial of antidepressants, but PCPs don't really know how to handle this

<comment><USER13> Doctors don't make any money from writing a script (beyond the payment for the consultation). In fact, the would make more money if they used counseling rather an a drug.

<comment><USER14> IIRC there is an issue here. Former doctors who now work for pharma companies and take their peers to dinners and push the new (patented) drugs.

Doctors then prescribe these new drugs perhaps needlessly (Vioxx?) or over generic ones.

Also in my experience counseling is only affordable to the wealthy or people in the criminal justice system (where it is already too late IMHO).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dismissing the scientific trials as flawed by cherry picking and then choosing an anecdotal cow to make a point seems ironic to me. The only thing I can get from this is that we may not have the whole picture regarding depression and focusing only on medication is the wrong thing. But as far as I know from people battling with this is that even in my country the doctors strongly recommend lifestyle changes and hours of therapy with a psychologist for long term success

<comment><USER16> Yeah the author said something along the lines of

> beyond only the packs of pills we have been offered as often the sole item > on the menu for the depressed and anxious

several times in that article, and it just doesn't ring true for me. Maybe the author is specifically talking about American psychiatry or maybe the people I know were just lucky, but all the people I know that have been to their GP about depression or anxiety (granted not a huge sample size) were offered CBT first and foremost and only one of them was prescribed medication at all in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Quite apart from the generally pseudo-scientific content, there is a big part of missing context in this: the author's background. Johann Hari was first found to have plagiarised large amounts of his published work over many years, and then to have used sockpuppet accounts to make negative (and libellous) edits to the Wikipedia pages of his critics. This is his first major publication since his disgrace. Is it really that surprising that somebody whose career was left in ruins is likely to identify hating ones job as a cause of depression?

</comment><comment><USER18> > 13% of people say they are "engaged" in their work – they find it meaningful > and look forward to it. Some 63% say they are "not engaged", which is > defined as "sleepwalking through their workday". And 24% are "actively > disengaged": they hate it.

In my opinion this should be a national emergency on par with something like the opioid crisis (a symptom of this). We're a nation of depressed, drugged up zombies sleepwalking to our unfulfilling office jobs everyday to pay off our student loan / mortgage debt (yes I know not everyone is in that situation, but even if only 10% are that's 30 million people).

</comment><comment><USER19> I've been depressed, and I'll tell you this straight up. If a doctor gave me a cow instead of the pills, I would have been way better off... ignoring all the actual problems the cow solved for the rice farmer in the article, just the honesty of the doctors recognizing the real issue in the right spirit would have made me laugh, and prolly "cure" me, at least for a little while.

<comment><USER20> Getting two (sibling, Border Collie x Foxhound) puppies, and taking a boatload of magnesium and Vitamin D, a fair bit of rock climbing, skiing, jogging, and weight training, seems to have alleviated me of all my anxiety and depression.

I obtained a prescription for an SSRI from a doctor, sat in the car outside the pharmacy for an hour staring at the prescription, then drove home. No way, fuck that those drugs. I've already wasted the better part of 10 years of my life to meth-amphetamine. I'm gonna work this out without drugs.

<comment><USER21> YES to magnesium & vitamin D... they must be taken together and work wonders.

<comment><USER14> I HATE people who put IANAL and other acronym disclaimers everywhere, but I just feel these type of posts can negatively influence people.

I am glad magnesium and vitamin D worked for you, but some people may need prescription medications from a psychiatrist.

<comment><USER21> There are likely some great psychiatrists out there. If you can find one, and the medication is working for you, go for it.

If you like academic legitimacy, check out this article:

 _Rapid recovery from major depression using magnesium treatment._

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16542786](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16542786)

I'll admit, I'm very biased. My sister's pediatrician prescribed wellbutrin to her for weight loss ( _in middle school_ , when she wasn't even unhealthily overweight). Soon after, she became suicidal during a long road trip and attempted to kill herself by taking the whole bottle. This just led to more psychiatric intervention and more SSRIs. A few years later, my mom asked me to sit in on her therapy session, to see what I thought of "Dr. Dan", her psychiatrist at the time. This man sat there asking prying, dark, loaded questions for half an hour, pushing her further and further into silence and irritation.

I've also had some very positive experiences with therapists. I know now how to recognize a therapist/psychiatrist who is out of their element, but a lot of people just put blind trust "the psychiatrists". To me, that's very dangerous!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _" And that's when, after two more years studying civil servants, he discovered the biggest factor. It turns out if you have no control over your work, you are far more likely to become stressed – and, crucially, depressed."_

I wonder how this research squares up with the so-called Executive Monkey experiment, which found that it was actually the monkey with more control that had more stress.[1]

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

<comment><USER14> I love reading about experiments performed in the 50s and 60s before all those pesky Ethical Review Boards(?)

>In an early version of the study, Brady placed monkeys in 'restraining chairs' and conditioned them to press a lever.[2] They were given electric shocks every 20 seconds unless they pressed the lever during the same time period. This study came to an abrupt halt when many of the monkeys died from perforated ulcers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > We need to feel we belong. We need to feel valued. We need to feel we're > good at something. _We need to feel we have a secure future._ And there is > growing evidence that our culture isn't meeting those psychological needs > for many – perhaps most...

This (emphasized) is what I think is causing my increasing anxiety and depression. I look around at people, talking loudly, showing off, taking selfies, buying expensive crap they don't need from expensive shops, etc. I try to puzzle out why they're so happy, they all seem so superficial, and I can't understand why they don't feel miserable about the people less fortunate than them who live right next door, the people serving them, who are all struggling to just get by and by all measures increasingly failing. I really want to live in a more equal society that takes care of all citizens.

<comment><USER24> Same here. One of the most disturbing scenes I'm witnessing like every night is couple of homeless people sleeping in front of the church while each morning there are these noble ignorants walking around them who even call them selves Christians..

Anxiety is just another term for caring too much in some cases (This was mentioned here on HN last time I was reading similar discussion).

<comment><USER14> Disagree.

I think you are descibing empathy and selfishness, not anxiety.

Anxiety and empathy are probably somehow connected, but they are different things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Suggest alternate title: Many people are depressed because they lack control over their work.

<comment><USER26> Yes the most important part in this article to me was how a group was able to alleviate the stress of their working lives by forming a co-operative together with no hierarchical power relationships, thus controlling their own workplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm surprised to see this as "new" because there has been work published since the late 60's [1] and widely known since the early 90's [2] showing that depression is often no more and no less than "having depressing thoughts". That is, if you can persuade the person to believe that they don't have a good reason to be depressed, they stop showing signs of depression.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman) [2] [https://books.google.com/books?id=qreACUdDAc0C](https://books.google.com/books?id=qreACUdDAc0C)

<comment><USER28> I thought that, if you're actually depressed, it kind of implies you don't have "good reason" to be? I mean, if you're feeling terrible because bad things are happening to you, you're not depressed, you're just legitimately miserable.

<comment><USER8> I believe it's called endogenous v exogenous depression. Someone who is considering suicide because they failed an exam is not very well described as "just miserable", even though there's an exterior trigger for their feelings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> wu-ikkyu It still seems many people believe there is strong scientific evidence to the "chemical imbalance" theory as an independent cause of depression, which is a myth.

It is a paradoxical issue though, because chemicals can indeed play a crucial role to overcoming depression.

<comment><USER19> What even is a chemical anyway... honestly people throw this word around in these kinds of contexts with all kinds of meanings.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Great question! Though it would seem we are delving into the realm of metaphysics, which is unfortunately taboo for modern psychiatry.

<comment><USER19> I mean, are the electronic signals that constitute my nervous system a "chemical balance" (I could make that argument), well then SURE all depression is completely 100% chemical...

But I digress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nevertheless, all the major emotions/moods one can feel: sadness, joy, laziness, vigour, fear, enthusiasm, anger, limerence etc are almost nothing but chemical conditions. If you feel panic or are angry at somebody - <USER3> doesn't necessarily mean you are in danger or that somebody is an asshole - that means you have elevated level of norepinephrine and/or low serotonin and/or something like that. Feeling lazy doesn't mean you have fallen to the sin of sloth but that you have low levels of thyroxine and/or dopamine and/or norepinephrine and/or serotonin and/or something else. That's a huge problem the majority of people don't understand this, just keeping this in mind makes the life a lot easier for you, your family and everybody around. Also it usually is enough to take something as natural, cheap and harmless as L-tryptophan (an essential amino-acid, the precursor to 5-HTP and serotonin, easily available as an over-the-counter supplement and found in many foods naturally) to fix the problem, SSRIs and benzodiazepines are not necessary in every case.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am disenhearted by the apparent pseudo-scientific thinking in the comments on this article, and how it'll "be better if you just go workout and eat better", which might work for some people, but not for everyone. If there was a scientific study about changing life habits to stop depression, I'd bet that it would have the same amount of effectiveness or even less than SSRIs. I myself have been "miraculously" cured from depression by the most ridiculed profession in modern medicine, psychiatry, and with "poison" that was supposed to ruin my life and make me kill myself. Basically, aripiprazole and fluoxetine helped me, and help me live life, work and be happy. There was nothing wrong with my life until one day I tried to kill myself, and I was very resistant to treatment because of years of people's anecdotes how psychiatrists were crazy, were "out to get them" and "chemically lobotomize" them. This is bullshit, and we all know it, during my stay in a hospital I have seen many cases of teenagers who were "beyond repair" get "fixed" with medications, and would you look at that, 3-4 years on, they haven't regressed (I kept in contact). Neither have I. It's dangerous to spread conspiracy theories to impressionable and vulnerable minds, and you should think twice before dismissing the whole modern science of psychiatry, just because you fell that hippie life and smoking pot is the way to fix anyone's life. I don't care about the downvotes, but had to get this off my chest.

<comment><USER31> There are many, many studies on changing life habits (working out) as a methodology to treat depression. It is actually _as effctive_ as SSRI's, and MORE effective for a longterm treatment for depression.*

However, _not all treatments work for everyone_. Certain SSRI's work for some and not others. This also holds for exercise.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26978184](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26978184) [2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3674785/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3674785/)

<comment><USER14> Not an expert.

Low energy often comes with depression. So it's not easy as telling a depressed person to "do more exercises".

Depression is "invisible". I like to think that being depressed is like having a broken leg. You can't just get better by yourself, you need proper medical treatment.

<comment><USER32> Also Not An Expert.

Replace the broken leg with a generic bad back (non surgical) and it's not a bad equivalence.

Medical advice in many cases is to do things which hurt (exercise, stretching, lose weight) otherwise the back won't get better, but doing nothing will almost certainly lead to stagnation or a worsening of the condition. You can take pills which may reduce the pain, but those are not really a long term solution on their own.

I don't wish to diminish how hard it is (in either case, intentionally causing yourself discomfort is utterly exhausting in every way). It often is both possible and beneficial so be wary of writing off a school of thought entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There are two things that both get called "depression". Like so many other confusing things, this all is the result of fuzzy language.

There is depression: the feeling of being sad. This can be triggered by all sorts of environmental factors, and is ultimately a psychological disorder that can be solved by changing environment variables.

There is also depression: the neurochemcial/neurophysiological disorder that has depression (sadness) as one of its symptoms.

It can be treated with various (miracle) drugs.

\--

People who want to fight against the idea that these modern miracles (drugs that treat depression) are effective treatments for this debilitating, but curable disease, belong in the same category as flat earth era, anti-vaxxers and now, apparently, "raw water" fans/advocates.

Required viewing: a lecture on this topic by somebody who knows more about it that anybody else who is currently alive: [https://youtu.be/NOAgplgTxfc](https://youtu.be/NOAgplgTxfc)

<comment><USER34> > People who want to fight against the idea that these modern miracles (drugs > that treat depression) are effective treatments for this debilitating, but > curable disease,

The modern miracle drugs that effectively treat and cure debilitating depression are not SSRI's. Whatever benefits SSRIs have are probably a result of their influence on neurosteroids:

>> Certain antidepressant drugs such as fluoxetine and fluvoxamine, which are generally thought to affect depression by acting as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), have also been found to normalize the levels of certain neurosteroids (which are frequently deficient in depressed patients) at doses that are inactive in affecting the reuptake of serotonin. This suggests that other actions involving neurosteroids may also be at play in the effectiveness of these drugs against depression [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepressant_action)

Other miracle drugs are also helpful for addressing the cause. Big Pharma doesn't care about cause/effect, they just want patients on maintenance treatments.

Depressed people usually have some sort of metabolic problem, caused by thyroid problems, inadequate diet, etc. Emotional stress is usually a major factor too.

> belong in the same category as flat earth era, anti-vaxxers and now, > apparently, "raw water" fans/advocates.

Where do you belong? Are you a tireless advocate for the status quo?

<comment><USER8> > Depressed people usually have some sort of metabolic problem, caused by > thyroid problems, inadequate diet, etc.

In my experience, thyroid etc are the fist things tested for before suggesting depression. Do you have any kind of evidence for that argument ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Thanks for changing the senseless title in the submission.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd like to think that medical professionals and academics in the mental health field have probably been thorough enough in their research to have looked at these finding over the years. I somehow doubt a person whose graduated in Social and Political Science and has no medical or scientific background might actually know what they're talking about in relation to this.

Interesting thing about the author. He was a rising journalistic star in the UK. He'd won awards was regularly on TV and radio, until it was discovered he had been plagiarising others for a lot of his articles. It was also found that he had been editing wikipedia articles to attack people who critisised him. An interestingly tragic character.

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

<comment><USER37> Tenured professor of psychiatry here. I'll give you the summary of research on depression:

1\. Emotional state is like blood pressure. It's a continuously varying thing. There is no discrete depressive disease state, just an extreme end of a continuum.

2\. Just like blood pressure, though, very high blood pressure (or low) represents an illness state, a potentially very serious one. The etiology is a different matter. It may be due to sociocultural processes, or existential threat, or genetics, or neurological insults, or all of the above, each in some measure.

3\. When we talk about "depression," it's usually a shorthand for a broader set of problems, related to lack of well-being, malaise, despair, sadness, anxiety, fear, and so forth.

4\. The particular cocktail of emotions for each person is different though.

5\. The best meta-analytic evidence suggests that antidepressants work, but not nearly as well for people as we were led to believe, and there's huge publication biases. Some drugs might not work at all. Some drugs work for some people; those same drugs might not work for other people at all.

6\. Serotonin per se probably has nothing to do with the effect of antidepressants.

7\. Psychotherapy works as well or as poorly as drugs on average, with some of the same publication biases. This is considered against many different types of controls, including placebo controls and various types of behavioral controls. Being wait-listed is the worst intervention of all, though.

8\. Different psychotherapies do not differ in efficacy on average. The superiority of cognitive-behavioral therapy, etc. is a myth. Different therapies might differ for particular individuals, though, and there are some basic ingredients that seem to be necessary for efficacious therapy. The effect of therapist dwarfs the type of therapy (that is, some therapists are really really good, and others are less good, and that is much more important to outcome than type of therapy per se).

9\. The best outcomes are generally therapy and drugs in combination, and if one thing doesn't work, trying different things will often work eventually.

The recent history ("recent" being the last 30-40 years) of psychiatry and clinical psychology is dominated by economically and politically-driven reductionism and oversimplification, within the realms of therapy as well as pharmacology. A lot of these dynamics are driven by a desire to present as rigorously scientific, wrapping ones' selves in banners of other disciplines. The problem with this is behavioral science is its own thing; it resembles other disciplines in some ways, but not in others (much like every other domain of science).

<comment><USER38> > Different psychotherapies do not differ in efficacy on average. The > superiority of cognitive-behavioral therapy, etc. is a myth.

Slight nitpick: CBT has a much larger and more reliable body of evidence than most other therapies. It's probably no more effective than other therapies, but it is very cost-effective, mainly because of the short duration of treatment. There is some evidence to suggest that self-guided or internet- delivered CBT may be as effective as traditional CBT delivered by a trained clinical psychologist, which would be a huge win in terms of cost and availability.

On a personal level, I'd recommend trying a wide range of psychotherapies if you can afford it. On a societal level, I endorse mass adoption of CBT. It's not necessarily the best therapy, but it's the easiest to deliver at scale. Access to treatment is _the_ issue right now, especially in lower-income countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This explanation does not work for all types of depression. There are people who have wonderful lives, fulfilling jobs, happy families, who are still depressed.

We need to be more careful in our language, the word depression has become overused, much like the drugs used to treat it.

<comment><USER40> That's how I've often described it before. Feeling like shit when your life is terrible is normal. Feeling like shit when your life is awesome is not.

The problem is that the pill often works regardless of why you feel like shit.

<comment> wu-ikkyu >Feeling like shit when your life is terrible is normal. Feeling like shit when your life is awesome is not.

Could it possibly be that our idea of an "awesome life" is mistaken?

<comment><USER19> BOOM, exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why did my comment get flagged? I assume this was a mistake, so reposting:

tl;dr: Many people diagnosed with depression are actually just sad because modern society is kinda lame.

(The article argues this point cogently, and I agree with it.)

[I slightly edited this because I think people thought I was saying that I think all depressed people are faking or something]

<comment><USER42> I found, over the years of being on HN, that there's a sort of forceful response that always comes to these types of comments about depression, along with downvoting. The responses say basically,

"Don't talk about what you don't know. Many people have real, chemical depression, and your comment that it's a product of life circumstances is _not helpful_ ".

I was always a but puzzled about the regularity with which that above formula appeared on HN. Sure, many entrepreneurs and especially developers lead lonely, stressful lives. I am a developer and entrepreneur myself!

But I also felt there is a sort of "groupthink" or "bullying" element to this, because there was hardly much substantive discussion about facts or statistics or science, in effect it was shaming the commenter into shutting up.

This bothers me. I like to see real fact based discussion when there is disagreement. Not just downvoting and vague assertions.

In this case I am sure you were downvoted by that exact same sentiment. Even if you had summarized the article, the content of the summary was enough to trigger the downvote.

<comment><USER41> Oddly, it was upvoted twice /and/ flagged. I guess anyone with enough reputation can bury things just by hitting a "flag" button.

<comment><USER43> It could have been flagged multiple times (flags are additive). Even articles that have hundreds of upvotes can be killed by flagging if enough people flag them.

<comment><USER41> Is flagging the same thing as clicking the [-] button? Is this explained somewhere? My flagged comment has +2 points, and my unflagged version of it has -2 points. Very confusing, and if I did something wrong, nobody is telling me what it is. I can't find any documentation for HN, which is a little ironic...

<comment><USER44> The [-] collapses your view of the thread. The flag link appears when you have sufficient karma (I don't recall the threshold). Click on the time stamp for the comment you want to act on. If you have enough karma, the flag link appears between the "parent" and "favorite" links.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The most insightful computer vision project - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alexsandrosouza/the-most-insightful-computer-vision-project-30b45a6dfa6 <comment><AUTHOR> Video overview of the project [https://youtu.be/HgB54rRLwrg](https://youtu.be/HgB54rRLwrg)</comment>


This photograph is free - <AUTHOR> http://standblog.org/blog/post/2012/01/11/This-photograph-is-free <comment><USER3> I hope everyone understands, including the authors themselves, that each author in this back-and-forth is correct. The right to give and the right to charge are inherently personal decisions that only the owner of the photo can make.

This was the main frustration that I had with the "this photograph is not free" comments, as well as the tone the author of this article takes. It doesn't matter what the commentators claim the various photos are 'worth' -- it's not their right to speculate, and just because you released your material CCL, you don't have the right to feel more privileged than someone who chose to exercise their right to be compensated.

<comment><USER4> This is not entirely accurate. The original "this photograph is not free" article wasn't an attempt to prevent his own images from being copied. It was an attempt to influence OTHER photographers not to give away their photos for free.

I've worked for a long time in the photography industry. In my experience there are two things that justifiably piss photographers off in a very major way:

1\. Getting their photo ripped off without permission, because it loses them money.

2\. Seeing a publication use another photographer's photo for free (even with permission), because it loses EVERYBODY money.

If good photographers are constantly giving photos away and not charging, professional photography prices and value naturally goes down. It's kind of a tragedy of the commons - photographers who DO give away work get more recognition, but they lower the overall value of their industry.

<comment><USER5> I can understand why this would piss photographers off, but I can't agree with the "justifiably" part. When I ride my bike home from a bar instead of taking a cab, the cab driver might be pissed. Should he pissed at bike manufacturers? I'm sure horse whip makers were pissed at Ford for selling cars, and lowering the overall value of their industry. Why should photographers get special protection from market forces?

<comment><USER6> Yes, but I think you are missing an essential point in your examples: a) A bike is not really a replacement for a cab (say you want to carry some goods) b) Cars are a different technology from horse-carriages The thing is that the photos produced by all kinds of photographers are _almost_ the same ( of course, the better ones produce photographs of better quality, but they are still photographs). I think that the analogy that you used was perhaps not accurate..

<comment><USER5> It doesn't matter if the service is exactly the same or not, it just matters whether it meets the need of the consumer. In my example, consumers needed a way to get from point A to point B. Both a cab or a bike could do that. If you prefer, I could have asked if Ferrari should get pissed that Kia is offering cars for a super cheap price. Then we are comparing cars to cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a couple of hours time difference and it would be copyrighted[1], and not by him.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims)

<comment><USER8> This is a really interesting case about how we need to confront the issue of rights when something is made public. It seems a little ludicrous to suggest that something like the Eiffel tower lights display is copyright, when it is obviously put on for the public purpose of having millions of people see it.

On the other hand, it seems ludicrous to demand that because someone puts a picture on their web page, it is now public in the same way, and that the creator should not be able to control the market for it.

I do think it is worth thinking about the idea that there is a threshold of publicness after which point a work ought to become subject to mandatory licensing. The intuition is that if a work is kept sufficiently private, it is not involved in a substitutable market for similar items. If it is made sufficiently public, then it is competing in a market for other substitutable creative goods of the same sort. Another intuition is that there's a threshold of publicness after which it becomes fair to assume that the rightsholder is interested in wide distribution more than controlling use, or that after a certain threshold of publicness, a creative product has been introduced into the public sphere as a cultural artifact that others ought to be able to use freely.

Right now all we have is a binary move from rightsholder-retains-complete- rights to public domain, which has led to the craziness of current copyright law. If we had some intermediate stages of publicness and the rights split between creator and public, perhaps we could come up with something more sensible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Most of all, I have realized a long time ago that in a world where everyone has a camera, a lot of free time and fantastic tools to publish stuff, there is not a lot of money to be made anymore by taking pictures."

For me that is the best rejoinder to the somewhat whiny tone of the "this photo is not free" post. The author has missed the point that certain types of photos are accurately valued at "free for credit", because it is easy to obtain them at that cost. His real beef should be with this fact, not the fact that people are asking him for photos at market prices.

We would all like to be able to charge money for things we would do anyway, but reality does not always oblige us. When my neighbor asked me for my grass clippings to add to his compost pile, I told him sure, but only if I could charge him $1000, based on the cost of my lawnmower, gas, and labor. After all, he will be able to use that compost as fertilizer eventually, and why should he profit from my hard work without compensating me? Sadly, my neighbor did not buy my argument, because grass clippings, like certain photos, are neither rare nor hard to come by.

<comment><USER9> I'm surprised that more people here aren't focusing on that line of the post. It was the most interesting line to me, and even more interesting is that your reaction was a mirror opposite of mine.

There is not a lot of money to be made anymore by taking _competently focused, competently-exposed sunset pictures of the Eiffel Tower._

Great tools lower the barrier of entry for achieving technical competence in capturing an ever-widening variety of beautiful subjects. So for someone who expects to turn their ability to do that into a professional photography career, fine, "there is not a lot of money to be made in doing that."

But there is a _shitload_ of money to be made taking pictures, even when a 100 megapixel camera and .96 lux 50mm prime lens can be had for the same price as a pack of cigarettes, because professional photographers tend not to get paid to walk around tourist destinations snapping pretty shit all year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> All of the professional fotogs I know are paid not for photos the _have_ taken, but for photos people would _like them_ to take. The photos that they have taken are just proof that if you hire them to take photos for you, they will be good.

In this way, I think this author's point of view is slightly more economically advantageous than the "this photo cost $6500" guy.

<comment><USER11> > _"All of the professional fotogs I know are paid not for photos the have > taken, but for photos people would like them to take"_

You don't know any stock photogs?

<comment><USER12> Is it possible to make a living as a stock photographer these days? I'm curious how people manage that.

<comment><USER11> The stock photo industry is getting bigger, while profit-per-photo is plummeting. There are still a number of well-known photogs in this space, some of whom are doing remarkably well for themselves.

My impression of that industry is that it's all about process - to make a living doing it you need to have an extremely streamlined process and churn out a _vast_ amount of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Or, "How not to make money selling software: a succinct illustration of cost- based and market-based (specifically, value-based) pricing in just two comment threads."

Why can Github charge FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR for a local install of Github and succeed, impressively so, despite a small army of nerds pointing out how inexpensive it is to run one's own Git server and Gitorious? Why does 37signals have an office with walls made of 37signalsium (really, seen it, it's fuzzy) and trendy furniture despite selling software that the nerdosphere can clearly duplicate? Why does Yammer even consider publishing a $5/user/month price for software that is among every web geek's top-5-most- likely-personal projects?

Answer: they don't sell gypsum.

Cost based pricing, which works for gypsum sales but not so much for software, suggests that the price of a nice photo should be the price of the gas to get to and from the photo shoot, possibly divided by the number of people interested in buying the photo, plus maybe throw a couple bucks in there and buy yourself something nice, photographer.

Value-based pricing says, "how much it cost me to create the photo is _irrelevant_ ". YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES, say the nerds. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING! But value-based pricing continues: "no, what matters is how much it would cost _you_ to make that photo and how much benefit it brings".

How much it would cost _you_ to make that photo: (say) $6000, perhaps divided by the number of different photos you'd take given the same setup (but then also scaled back up to account for the headcount or professional services required to take lots of pictures).

How much benefit? It depends. I could take 10,000 words listing out factors in figuring it out. Most importantly: what are the substitutes to this photo and how much do they cost? For some businesses, clip art of the Eiffel Tower suffices to bring 80-90% of the value. For others (like ad-sales print publications), comparables might also be very expensive.

Now, the extent to which the YOUR business benefit from my photo exceeds MY cost to produce the photo is MY ADVANTAGE IN PRODUCING PHOTOS (the extent to which your _cost_ exceeds _my_ cost is my "comparative advantage"†††, and if it's a positive number possibly suggests that I'm the one who should be doing the photos in any case, since you have better ways to put your money to use). Having an advantage is a _good thing_. Among other things, it's a key reason why software startups are lucrative, and why we don't all work on line-of- business software for non-software companies.

It's probably true that a photo of a sunset isn't worth $6,000. But, exclusivity aside, the value of the photo also has nothing to do with how much it cost the photographer to take each shot at the margin, and it has nothing to do with the cost to make each marginal sale. What matters is how much it costs the _customer_ to replace that value with a substitute, and in that analysis the $6000 set-up cost, while not determinative, is relevant perspective.

The moralism in these threads is an irrelevant sideshow. Situationally, the nerdosphere oscillates between extremes when trying to compute valuations for stuff with intangible-seeming benefits. Today, the nerdosphere apparently thinks either (a) every photo is a precious snowflake or (b) photo costs should be scaled by the current price of hard disk storage. Yesterday, it was whether it's right for Github to charge per repo. Before that, it's whether it's fair to have markets for spec work like 99designs.

None of that matters. What matters is, is there a market for what you're selling, and will it clear based on the model you use to price stuff on the market. Clearly there is a market for high-quality photography. Clearly it is not a cost-based market like gypsum, or there would not exist sites selling photos with royalties attached, or photos costing hundreds of dollars --- which clearly those sites do exist. So instead of arguing about how much photos should cost --- because, again, they cost what the market says they cost, not what you think it costs to make them yourself --- think instead about how this discussion applies to your own work product. More than you think it does, is my guess.

††† _(Actually this isn't all what comparative advantage is; comparative advantage says, if there's a market for widgets and a market for photos and you're better at widgets than photos and I'm better at photos than widgets, then I should do widgets and you should do photos, which is a subtly different idea, but the point stands either way.)_

<comment><USER14> Being more on the business side than the development side, I completely identify with what you're saying. The statement that value is derived from the cost of the alternative is central to market thinkers, of which I identify myself as.

However! This statement struck me as out of place:

> The moralism in these threads is an irrelevant sideshow.

There is not 100% agreement on the moralism of copying digital goods. There is, agree or disagree, a lack of 100% acceptance of copyright as it stands today. This introduces an alternative that costs $0, which messes up the whole market equation. This moral conflict has to be resolved before you can arrive at a market price for digital goods.

<comment><USER13> We software developers are in a whole heap of a lot of trouble if we expect the broad market to dignify the idea that digital goods are legitimately priced at "what they cost to copy".

<comment><USER14> I think the moral position of "copy anything" is definitely questionable, but time and time again we've seen the actual markets compete in this way. The decline of music sales is practically a case study in this fact. Whether or not someone will openly state that they evaluate the "cost to copy" option is one thing, but how they act is another. I can't claim that I've never pirated a movie or music, thus I have no moral basis for dismissing that position out of hand.

I'd take the contrary view. If you _don't_ consider "cost to copy" a market competitor, you're in a whole heap of trouble. Position your business in a way that isn't exposed to this type of alternate-pricing, or be prepared to compete with it.

<comment><USER13> Since appropriating someone else's photo for commercial use without compensation will assuredly get you sued and incur costs far greater than simply licensing the photo, there's an irony to the fact that the discussion on HN about photos is couched in moralism, even though morality is way less relevant to the photo case than it is to the software case (you can easily appropriate software without paying for it, as GPL violators do every day).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Photographers have a right to demand payment for their photos.

Nobody has a license to use a photographer's photos without her permission.

Photos are an incredibly cheap commodity (that span the gamut of relative price and quality, like everything else)

It is not unreasonable that photo consumers expect low to no cost photographs.

I think we're all mostly in agreement here.

</comment><comment><USER16> The comparative advantage the professional assignment or stock photographer brings to the table isn't just creating a "good enough" photograph, it's about creating the RIGHT photograph for the client.

This is why microstock and craigslist haven't completely destroyed the market, since the professional can reliably create the RIGHT photo for the assignment (or in the case of stock, consistently predict and create the exact images the target market needs).

But it does exert downward pressure. The photo editor/art buyer is always cost-conscious, and whereas she used to only have the option of professional- quality-work at professional rates, now there is a huge pool of "good enough" photos at vastly lower cost. Buyers of photography, as it turns out, aren't actually that discriminating, so more and more frequently they're opting for the "good enough" photo instead of the RIGHT photo.

And this is where the professionals start to get irked. It'd be one thing if the new competition were undercutting them with similar-quality work at lower cost. It's be they're being undercut by work that is often objectively lower in value to the client, and they know the client would be better served.

It's actually quite analogous to the issue of outsourcing: a vast new pool of cheaper but lower-quality labor supply becomes available, and many firms move operations overseas. The end-product is crappier but cheaper. Nobody actually cares about quality, and given the choice, they'll go for cheaper and "good enough" over expensive and good.

Interestingly, Apple is somehow managing to upend this paradigm by producing really-good quality product at premium-but-not-ridiculous prices through design and manufacturing innovation and exceptional marketing, and is taking back market share from the mid-tiers. I can't think of how the photo industry as a whole can accomplish this, though, since it's B2B rather than B2C, and it's an army of independent professionals and not a unified association. (There's a legal limit on how much the industry can coordinate: the major photographers' trade organization was fined for price-fixing years ago becaused they had published pricing guidelines.)

(DISCLAIMER: I worked in the photo industry for years, and still shoot the occasional assignment)

<comment><USER17> _Nobody actually cares about quality, and given the choice, they'll go for cheaper and "good enough" over expensive and good._

I agree with your overall point. But this one is more nuanced. In things that are of little significance, "good enough" is, well, good enough, and people won't pay more than they have to.

But you can charge a premium for even a tiny advantage, when that advantage matters to the people buying. The very best baseball players are paid very well, but those right below the very best get a small faction of that, and those right below them get the joy of playing and not much else.

Closer to home, I recently spent over $400 (and know people that have spent much, much more) on a Go set with a solid spruce board, kaya bowls, and onyx stones because I valued the aesthetics when I played, even though I could get a perfectly workable cardboard set for $20. But I am highly cost sensitive in just about every other area of my life.

<comment><USER16> I should rephrase that to "the organization doesn't care about quality". The customer (you) might care, but since you're only consuming the end-product your decision has a lot less influence.

This is definitely an organizational behavior, as the person buying the product isn't the same person that consumes it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Mozilla Europe: Founder and president"

So ultimately, his money comes from Google advertisements, which are _not_ free. He can afford to do photography as a hobby because he has income from another source, that can be traced back to a scarce good.

If all information goods were free, the power would shift to those who actually have something scarce to sell, which would _likely_ mean fewer information goods of some kinds because some people at the margin could no longer afford to produce them if they were no longer able to generate an income by doing so.

</comment><comment><USER19> I still love the fact that on the website of the original blog poster ( <http://www.johnbmueller.com/index2.php?v=v1> ) that until yesterday he was illegally streaming music by a band (Frau Frau) along with his photo slideshow. I wonder how much he was paying the artists/bands? I guess nothing as since I notified him and the bands the music has strangely disappeared... I wonder how much he owes them? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frou_Frou_(band)>

</comment><comment><USER20> As somebody who pretends to make art, I think that both sides of this argument are correct and valid. If you make art, and you want to charge whatever you want for it, more power to you and good luck. If you make art and give it away, awesome!

If you just make it and keep it to yourself, just for your own personal fulfillment, sweet!

Or all put another way, if you like somebody else's art, but object to their charging something for it, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from learning the craft and producing it yourself...and you might get even more out of it then.

</comment><comment> loup-vaillant Yet another example of the tension between scarcity and abundance.

Our economy is based on scarcity. Which means that anything abundant tend to see its price driven down to zero. Making a living by selling such goods _as if they were scarce_ is increasingly difficult. Donations seems to work somewhat, though.

If everything (including food and housing) were abundant, we wouldn't even need money, and making a living out of music, photography, or software wouldn't even be discussed of. But we don't live in that world…

…Yet. The way things are evolving, more and more goods have the potential to be effectively abundant. Especially those who have bounded demand, like food (if I recall correctly, there is already more than enough food to feed the planet, if only it where correctly distributed). Work is being more and more automated, such that even human labour can eventually be made abundant (an especially vivid example is self-driving cars, which can bring down an entire profession). But scarcity isn't going anywhere, so we'd better prepare for a rather long transition.

I see several forms that transition could take. (i) More unemployment, more economic problems, more people starve and freeze despite the availability of food and housing. (ii) Reduction of the hours worked per week, while keeping the salaries up. (iii) Growth of actual wealth ( _Not_ of the GDP). (iv) artificial scarcity, driven by old corporation and institutions that just won't die.

I'd like to avoid (i) and (iv), but I'm afraid we already have evidence for them right now (especially (iv), see copyright and patents). I'd like to have (ii), but I'm not aware of any reliable metric about it. The last decades clearly demonstrate (iii), but I'm not sure we have as much as we could have.

Anyway, I'm not satisfied right now: abundance and scarcity clearly don't play well together. If someone has an idea about how we could make them, that could be terrific.

</comment><comment><USER21> From the blogpost:

 _"I took the picture because I like taking pictures. I've invested into a lot of money into camera gear over the past 27 years or so and never made a dime from it. On the other hand, it has given me a lot of joy and pride. The joy to take beautiful pictures."_

The author is an amateur photographer, he shares his work and people enjoy it. That's great.

There are also quite a few developers who contribute to open source projects. That doesn't mean that they or others can't ever charge for programming work or software products.

Some photographers license all of their work to the public domain, most professional photographers don't. I don't feel there's shame in that. People need to respect and adhere to the license a work is published in. The fact that you had to download a picture in your browser to view it doesn't mean you have the right to republish it.

</comment><comment><USER22> The main thing I take away from this is that he is not a professional photographer. Of course an amateur can afford to give away photos for free! However, I'm not sure he even realizes that what he says doesn't make any sense for a professional photographer trying to earn his livelihood.

</comment><comment><USER23> > On the other hand, it has given me a lot of joy and pride. The joy to take > beautiful pictures. The pride of building the reputation of being a decent > photographer. The pleasure to give away my work and see people smile. The > satisfaction coming from the fact that my work is useful, seeing it's reused > by others.

This is a nice sentiment. It reminded me of a quote from Richard Feynman on his thoughts about the Nobel Prize:

"I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out. The kick in the discovery. The observation that other people use it. Those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me." ( <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaBmik4VYg> )

</comment><comment><USER24> If you want to create art and sell it, great for you. Take all the necessary steps to protect your work from theft while at the same time raising awareness for your artistry.

If you want to create art to share with the rest of the world, great for you. Do so without strings attached and without expecting anything in return.

I see the purpose behind both posts, but they seem to be arguing over something that doesn't need to be argued over. Some people like to sell their software, some like to give it away. Neither is right, neither is wrong, the only context in which the actions can be judged are when they are done so through the artist...it is up to the artist to decide whether selling something or giving something away is right or wrong.

</comment><comment><USER25> Unfortunately, pride and people's smiles are not yet valid currency anywhere, which is most likely the big issue of the author of "This photograph is not free". This post ends with the opinion that there isn't a lot of money to be made in photography, since a lot of people have the tools to take/publish photographs. One could apply that to a number of fields, from logo design and music to coding. After all, everyone has a computer, a text editor and access to github.

Yes, these fields might not be as lucrative as they once were, or rather, they're more competitive, but there is a large step between that and giving away things for free.

<comment><USER26> Actually, I think the programming field is actually _more_ lucrative these days. The difference is that where the photographer in question expects to be paid for work he's already done, most people going into programming are either paid a salary up-front or have a fairly involved business plan (startups and the like). _App_ developers do seem to be doing relatively poorly, but they are a minority.

<comment><USER27> There was a time when video game programmers got royalties on the games they wrote. I'm not entirely sure why this notion of compensation disappeared. The common argument is along the lines of, "you'll just have people jumping onto projects with people in them who've got proven success," but I fail to see how that's any different from life right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I strongly recommend you do something, just in case you make it to the front. Your site is crawling (extremely slow) at the moment. It is just bound to get worse.

On the topic at hand, I fully agree with you.

</comment><comment><USER29> In our economy value is not based on cost but on supply and demand...

<comment><USER30> In our economy demand is routinely manufactured (commercials, subsidies, gov contract corruption, etc.) and supply is routinely artificially constrained (regulated industries, copyright, etc.)

<comment><USER29> True, and that is done because demand and supply determine price. So that basically proofs my point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The underlying attitude that bothers me in these discussions on HN is that most of us are in the software business, so what it amounts to is "my intellectual property (software) is super valuable, and your intellectual property (photos, music, writing) is worthless". Do we really want to live in a world where people can't make a living from photography or writing or music?

<comment><USER32> I'd give you a strait answer, but do you realize that the Free Software Movement is much more widespread than royalty free photography or music? Furthermore, among the crafts you mentioned, being a programmer is by far the less profitable one. I'll untwist your twisted question. Honestly, why are you so worried about 'artists' and not worried about programmers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well said. I'm a journalist and photographer by trade. Any work I'm commissioned to do, I charge for. Anything I do for fun I release under Creative Commons for anyone to use.

We need to make a living, of course, but if you hold onto everything, it will die with you. Whereas in the public domain, your work becomes immortal.

</comment><comment><USER34> So what?

You _chose_ to make _your_ photograph free. John Mueller _chose_ to charge for _his_ work. The point is that the creator gets to charge for his work if he wants. If the price is too high, he doesn't make money. If the price is too low, he doesn't maximize revenue. But it is his choice to make.

<comment><USER35> Keep in mind that we, as a society, decided to give them that choice to make. It was believed to be in the best interests of everyone to allow them those freedoms.

However, we as a collective, are welcome to change our minds if that freedom is proving to not be beneficial to society.

This is the problem we are facing today. More and more are changing their minds on the matter. They are not seeing the social value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Thanks for the great photo!

Although I agree with you on most points, I think it is beneficial to have a middle road between the previous post and this one, e.g. if you had put up many more of your gorgeous photos and provided a way to make a small donation for each download (I would gladly would have paid a dollar).

<comment><USER37> i don't see donation as being a middle road, in my interpretation it is the opposite of what both of these authors are saying. the point is that when you create something, it is yours to decide what to do with it, it is up to you to decide how much it is worth. If you want to give your work away for free, that is your prerogative. if you want to charge for it, you have that right. it is not the customer's right to tell you how much your work is worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think what both authors in this back and forth are really saying is "this photograph is mine."

One says "this photograph is mine, no you may not use it too." The other says "this photograph is mine, yes you may also use it."

So good work, guys! Both pictures are very nice. I'm glad you can do with them what you want.

</comment><comment><USER39> To be fair I think the photograph posted on peta pixel is an order of magnitude better than the photo shown here in this post.

</comment><comment><USER40> And here is the reason I left photography and became a programmer. It's a great hobby and a shit profession.

</comment><comment><USER41> The problems specifically concerning works of art were put onto paper 75 years ago (probably not only then).

While this touches the discussion on HN only on certain aspects it makes for an interesting read when you have the time. And are not put off by the host name.

[http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/g...](http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm)

</comment><comment><USER42> site is slammed, cache

[http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://standblog.org/blog/p...](http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://standblog.org/blog/post/2012/01/11/This- photograph-is-free)

</comment><comment><USER43> Charge next time. You'll have money to share if you're so generous.

</comment><comment><USER44> Awesome photo ! The tower shadow angle looks odd, though.

<comment><USER45> If you mean in reference to the Sun, then it sure does... but it isn't actually a shadow, it's a reflection.

<comment><USER44> My bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER47> Okay, here's a better way to say it: A photographer's job is to put this shit into pictures. If it was easy to put it into pictures, it wouldn't be a job. Just like if a designer could just sit down and bitch all day about how hard design is, then he'd be an amateur, not a designer. Just like a philosopher, or an historian can't just complain about how unfair philosophy or history is.

If this is your art, DO IT, don't do a shitty generic & interchangeable version of it, and then complain about how hard it is on HN. Period.

</comment><comment><USER47> [edit; the guy didn't approve this post and it's not on the site after a few hours]

Posted: Look - if you're not in the business of doing art at an hourly rate, then you're either doing art on spec or art for fun. I've got no truck with the guy who wrote the original article, because I don't think his picture's worth much. But if he wants to charge for it, he should be allowed to. No one forced him to go out and spend $6k on expensive tools to take a picture he could publish on the internet where it's obviously going to be stolen if it's any good (but won't, because there are too many other people with the same idea). It's about the same as starting a really original band because you got a fender amp from guitar center for christmas. Good luck, dude. I love your dreams and I hope they come true. I'll even go to your show. I might buy your album. But no, I won't lend you twenty bucks for gas.

Likewise, I'd probably never stumble across your royalty-free image in a million years, as beautiful as it is, unless it was part of this ceaseless argument about art prices. Frankly, this is an argument about how art is positioned, not what constitutes it or what's involved in creating it. And so everyone in this game's a liar -- buyers and sellers. It's not about layout cost, and it's not about purchasing power, reach or recognition. It's about communication; the client pays for art to communicate something, and the creator makes a piece of art that fits the bill.

And in this case, both you and the guy who wrote that article have resorted to words to communicate what you're trying to say, over images. That's a massive fail. You should have said what you were trying to say with imagery, and so should he. Defending your art with text, explanation, litigious or liberal, is a sacrilege and proves neither one should be considered Art with an A. Art, if it exists anymore, is the process of twisting rigid, formulaic and predefined media to accommodate complex ideas in such a way that they provoke the public, without resort to words or other fame- or sympathy-seeking strategies. Basically you guys both suck as photogaphers, because neither of your photographs made me realize what you, or he, said in the addenda; forget about paying, why would I use either? Here's a picture of rocks and water; here's a picture of the eiffel tower. It's the same picture, compositionally and emotionally. Both of you don't understand photography. Yeah, you get social points for saying what you did, and obviously I'd rather go out and have a beer with you than that asshole, but _Show It; Don't Explain It._

</comment><comment><USER48> I could not be happier about this article, and the fact that the two are presented next to each other. While I totally agree with @aspir in that both points of view are valid and deserve to be respected, I think this is the right attitude, and the one that will really get you ahead.

If photography is your full time job and you are not getting paid for it, sure you have a reason to complain. You are doing good work, and living on the streets. That's an injustice. But if you have a job, you're getting paid, and you are taking photos because you love to do it, I think it's the wrong attitude to try to get more money out of it. Because when you don't, it will spread, people will enjoy it, your reputation will go up, and you will end up making money from it either way.

This is the entire philosophy behind open source, and a big part of what the companies behind sopa are running up against. Don't try to stop people from "stealing" your digital stuff, offer it for free. And if you are struggling financially, or this is your main occupation, just ask them if they would give you money if they appreciate it. This model has been shown over and over to be effective on the internet. Humble indie bundle, Louis CK, Radiohead and other artists releasing albums for free, Lost Type Co-Op... that's just a couple examples.

So props to the author of this article for getting it and for standing behind this principle. Do it for the love, not the money. And if you do it for love, the money will come.

<comment><USER11> > _"Because when you don't, it will spread, people will enjoy it, your > reputation will go up, and you will end up making money from it either > way."_

This is actually precisely the point the original blog post was arguing against. Do you know how many times professional creatives _hear_ that argument?

"You should do this for free, because it'll offer exposure and reputation."

Except, 99% of the time, the people saying this are unable any real exposure, or the level of exposure they control is considerably less than your position in the industry. It's such a landslide that the whole argument - <USER2> theoretically valid - just becomes a farce upon itself. Can you imagine a small-town paper asking to use Anni Leibovitz's work because it'll give her "exposure"?

If Vogue UK called me today and wanted me to work for them for free I'd jump on a plane this afternoon. Hell, if a local, well-known fashion boutique wanted free work, I'd jump too. But, for most professional photogs, the people approaching them for free work are not handing out a fair deal, and the "exposure" argument is bogus.

Not to mention, all of the pro photogs I know _do_ hand out considerable amounts of work for free. They _do_ already build their own exposure and reputation, so unless you are extraordinarily influential, why would they offer free work to you?

<comment><USER48> I'd also like to mention, since I apparently got downvoted because of this response, that it completely misinterpreted my original comment, quite clearly. When people ask me to do work _for them_ for free, there's no way I'd agree. Of course that's stupid, and I've heard that plenty of times, and turned it down every time.

What I was saying, and what I thought I made clear but apparently didn't enough, was that you should be doing work because you love it. And if you do work in your free time because you love it, you shouldn't be throwing a hissy fit when you aren't making immense profits from it.

You should not do custom work for other people for free, I never advocated this. There is no indication in the original article that someone hired him to take that photo, and I would say it's fair to assume that he definitely was not hired to take it. He took it himself, because he wanted to, in his free time. And now he's complaining that he put it online and people want to use it. That's where I call bullshit.

<comment><USER11> I get your distinction, though I don't see how it's relevant.

Work that one does out of pure interest and passion, in their free time, is still valuable. I have a family friend who's retired, and intensely interested in woodwork. He has a workshop you wouldn't believe, and honestly doesn't need the money - and yet we always pay him for his work, custom or otherwise. And by this we don't mean simply covering his costs, either.

I'm going to specifically object to your characterization here: _"you shouldn't be throwing a hissy fit when you aren't making immense profits from it"_

That's just plain disingenuous, misleading, and putting words in the original blog author's mouth. He never said anything about charging immense sums to license his photos. His objection isn't being lowballed, it's that advertisers, magazines, and other _for-profit_ entities value his work at $0 - _zero_.

The second thing he complains about is how advertisers only offer "exposure" in return. This is, of course, a line of bullshit. Either the people trying to license his photos are ignorant, or they're deliberately trying to take advantage of him. Being credited in the fine print of an ad, or worse, at the very bottom of a page in the back of a magazine, far from the actual photo itself, is worth _zero_ publicity, especially when your photo is being used stock (as it is, in this case). The magazine/advertiser knows this, the photographer knows this - simply putting that on the table shows extremely poor faith, which is probably what triggered the rant in the first place.

> _"He took it himself, because he wanted to, in his free time. And now he's > complaining that he put it online and people want to use it. That's where I > call bullshit."_

So, again, if I am reading you correctly, you're saying that anything you produce in your free time out of personal interest is worth no monetary compensation, even when being used by commercial entities?

Disregarding the fact that, as a professional freelance photographer, _everything_ he takes a picture of is a source of income. One does not have to be specifically commissioned to be on the job.

<comment><USER48> No, I think it all has monetary value, and by open sourcing anything you are technically losing potential money. This is especially salient for programmers, as I'm sure you know - nobody is trying to get paid for time working on linux, although they are still doing work and putting in hours that they could be billing for.

I'm not trying to devalue anyone's work or property, and if they insist that it all has value, it all belongs to them, and everyone should have to pay for it, that's fine. It's an opinion that I do respect, like I said originally.

I just think that a more open attitude is better, personally, which goes back to the original reason for my comment. Rather than trying to make money off every tiny piece of work you put out there, why not open source some of your work. For the good of the community. Sure, you will be losing some profit by doing this, but more people will be able to enjoy your work, and I think that's more valuable.

The author of the original article does not think this, and I understand that. He is not worried about having his work out there, or getting exposure, he apparently has enough, and he wants to get paid for it. That's fine.

I'm just trying to say that I don't personally agree with that philosophy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: When did hiring a professional help you? - <AUTHOR> Be it a nutrition expert, training coach, tutor, technical consultant, financial advisor etc. I'm looking for examples where hiring a professional (instead of trying by yourself) helped you solve your problem and get results. <comment><USER2> When I got sick (doctor), when my car broke down (car repairman), when the shower broke (plumber), when I was too lazy to exercise (fitness coach), when I couldn't bother doing my taxes (accountant) and many more.</comment>


Coronavirus Showed That America Wasn't Up to the Task - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-showed-america-wasnt-task/608023/ <comment><USER2> Compared to the authoritarian lockdown happening in China, America certainly isn't ready. But ... I don't think US citizens are willing to give up freedom and be willing to consent to the constant surveillance/monitoring the chinese government employs just to keep one virus at bay. Sure America might not be up to the task but it might be inherent to what the country stands for. Authoritarian and Big Brother oversight do have their benefits after all. We could have prepared better for sure, but unless we want to cross a line, I dont think we will ever be as effective, (nor should we want to be) as countries like China, or the other countries the article mentioned whom employ mass surveillance in its one shining moment to watch over and 'protect' its people.

</comment><comment><USER3> How many cases per 100,000 in the US versus other industrialized countries?

That would be a useful statistic in evaluating if, indeed, America 'wasn't up to the task' compared to others.

<comment><USER4> Let's see in the following weeks. No testing = low number of cases but when the dead pile up in hospitals it's easier to infer the real number of cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Drawing conclusions before evidence can be obtained is very scientific and rational.</comment>