It has occurred to me that one of the crucial elements of the early internet was the feeling that there was somebody out there, _somewhere_ on the globe, that was actually responding to that particular thing you were putting out there. It was a special feeling, because it was a sense of connection. Just being online and being part of the few select communities that existed back then was a commitment, and I believe that's in part what made it feel special.
With all the world gaining access to the internet, I think we've gained a lot, but lost this sense of wonder: Since online interactions have now become commonplace to the point of para-social meaninglessness, any single post or message doesn't really feel all that _real_.
HN is still the closest thing I know to that primordial kind of internet, and so I'm putting this post out there. It might get buried instantly, or it might survive, and on the off chance that it does:
I encourage you to comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment, however niche it might be. It might let you find some likeminded people and maybe recapture a bit of the best aspects of the internet in those early days.
In any case, I sincerely wish you a great day, from one surprisingly-real-but-currently-text-based being to another :)
I successfully made it through tonight and will hopefully have many more successful nights. Love and strength to anyone else out there in a similar boat.
To OP, wishing you the best on a successful recovery and happy times ahead.
"Alcohol is the only drug on earth you have to justify not taking."
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32714527
I find this quote really interesting. Growing up in a western country where people drink a lot of alcohol, not necessarily for the enjoyment of it but to get "hammered". I've countless times defended myself for both friends, family and new and existing co-workers for why I don't drink, and these people look at me like I'm some sort of alien. According to "these people" I am in fact a weirdo, because I've spoken about the affects of caffeine, taking cold showers/baths, fasting etc etc.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, however, I hope there'll be a time where it's "acceptable" to go out with your friends, family or co-workers, and not be expected to drink alcohol or excluded just because you won't inject your body with legal "poison".
Note: I have nothing against people who drinks alcohol, but let's just enjoy each other's company and don't force it on me. Thanks.
> it was the thing that took my crushing anxiety away.
Paradoxically it's also the thing that creates the crushing anxiety when abused. One day at a time, be kind to yourself, life is a journey.
Passion is an awesome word in this context. Meaning: irresistible motive, intensely emotional heat, rage, or love. That is love for you (yourself) - the good non-narcissistic kind of self care. And you're getting a reward. Abstinence does not have to be suffering. Thanks for sharing this. Carry on.
Thank you, stranger, and I wish you well on your journey.
My local friends are all moderate to heavy drinkers, but they also respect my choice and it’s not awkward to be the only one not drinking. If you don’t have a friend group which respects your choice, try to find social groups based around an activity. Otherwise it could be very difficult.
Best of luck on your journey.
You may greatly enjoy this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ3v2oGm6Sk.
But I think I would be remiss if I didn’t leave this here. Victories are nice but it a long journey…
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self- seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that A higher power is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Written by an anonymous recovering drunk…
My extra two cents: generally refuse to answer "why" and the "how long" questions. My personal responses are "because I won the drinking game" and "not long enough". I find these to be more far more truthful and useful of answers anyway.
I've recently decided that I can't deal with hangovers when I over-indulge or even the negative impacts on my sleep of a single beer.
It's a real societal struggle to be completely dry, but when I break it down logically the pros to having a drink or two don't outweigh the cons.
The anxiety cycle led to some existential problems.
I'm trying to reconfigure my relationship with booze. If I can't, I'll drop it altogether.
Good luck to you.
Starting drinking every night is so easy, but stopping altogether is so hard. very commendable to those who decide to stop.
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Have a good day or night or whatever time you're happening to have around.
An ecg device saved my dad's life, it caught a weird heart murmur he was having and alerted the doctors to an issue with his heart. He's now better becuase we detected it early, its so wonderful there are people like you working on these devices that makes modern medicine do its thing. Thank you!
Also, how do you prepare your coffee?
In the past I extensively used Bialetti moka pot. Recently I discovered Aeropress and using it almost exclusively now. I’m not very much coffee gourmand, I just need caffeine to convert it to code, lol.
Also your English is excellent!
The hard part is going to be a certification, I guess.
All hail Pylus the creator of GHI, and his custom scripting environment :)
Sometime during the pandemic, I stopped caring, perhaps fell into a bit of anhedonia. Thankfully, reading HN kept me informed about boreout (the relatively unknown cousin of burnout). Past few months, I made a big decision to move back to my home country and generally be more social, get more involved in the arts, watch movies, listen to music, read books, just take things easy. I think I am doing fine in my new job. The roaring interest in tech is still not back, but I'm confident it will be back eventually.
Until then, I'm happy reading about the good work done by other people. Perhaps one such idea might spark an insight in me and make me go to work. Cheers.
Thank you for giving a word to this vague thing that I thought was unique to my situation. I worked as the solo IT guy for a small firm of about 50 people, half in house, and when I started in 1998 I was busy 40 hours per week... at the end in 2012 I'd show up and wait for things to break.
That job broke me
Ever since I'm afraid to start projects, or try things with only a few exceptions when I've been sufficiently nerd-sniped.
Over time it's been teaching me to say no to projects when they're out of scope or beyond my ability. I used to say "I'll try" to everything which led to some great learning experiences but also a lot of stress and disappointment. Still trying to find some kind of balance there.
For the context, I just started a coding journey - so everything seems new and fascinating, so many areas to delve into: - Compilers - Generative art - Stable diffusion models - APIs
To the point that its really confusing and chaotic but super interesting.
I kind of think that every decade we'll have to re-invent ourselves and find something new that excites us and move there (either professionally or personally). Doesn't have to be tech, but you surely spend time on some interesting things that can give you meaning and excitement!
So I am picking up another hobby. History, cooking, and ????
When I say I was close with my dad, that doesnt even scratch the surface. Im 24, and I can think of maybe three weeks worth of days across my entire life where I didnt talk to him (and most of those were solo camping without cell service). Me and that man would do everything together, talk every day, share ideas, the works.
I dont want his death to be the end of my relationship with my dad, so I am currently making changes in myself that he would want to see: less soda, more exercise, more social interactions, keeping up on my health conditions more, etc. As well as doing things that I think honor his idea: trying to catalogue all of the family assets like pictures, audio recordings, letters, stories; making sure that I am not holding on to crap, and then actively protecting the good stuff I am holding on to; living every day in a way that I think is on par with his high but reasonable expectations of me as if he were still here.
I hope that as long as I live I never stop missing him or living as if he is always watching. At the end of the day, I think possibly his greatest wish for me would be to live in a way that would always make him proud, because the things he would be proud of me for are both things that I can be proud of myself for, and things that EVERYONE should be proud of.
I lost my dad 7 years ago last month, and it's been the hardest thing in my life. If it's any consolation for you, you will never stop missing him. This Reddit post really helped me during the really hard times https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/comments/d9685e/grief_...
Thanks, and I'm terribly sorry for your loss.
Finally, what works for everyone is very different. My dad was always concerned with my weight, so he would flat out say “oh hey you’re looking kinda chunky today” and while many would think that is kinda mean, the kinda relationship we had showed me that that meant he cared about me and was worried I was eating too much or not exercising enough. But if you as a dad said that same thing to your kids, they may resent you for it. Go with your instincts and be the kind of dad you would want, and if you had the desire to succeed for their benefit, I’m sure you’ll do great.
Remember that kids aren’t little gremlins… they are people like you and me that just haven’t developed as much yet. So treat them like humans, instill all of the values you hope for early, and just hope they stick! It might sound vain to say, but I like to think that a lot of what makes a kid like their dad as much as I liked mine was just the fact that I’m a pretty good kid :)
God bless and do your best! You’re already more than half way there with that attitude!
Dont give up! There is always time to be a better person that you yourself can be proud of. You never stop improving till the day you die, so just stick with it and you will be making moves that you will be so so proud of.
The only advice that I can personally give you is that you need to start off with only making moves that you are confident you can stick to. Dont upend your whole life at once! If you want to keep a garden, for example, try one plant first! Its a lot easier to keep a cactus alive than a flowerbed
Best of luck to you
Remember your dad fondly, live a life he would be proud of and proud to call you his son/daughter, and do your best in everything and you will always have him with you. He’s in every cell of your body, and he is in every crevice of your brain.
Glad my story and I were able to comfort you some!
Aside from the benefits of being able to produce aesthetically pleasant sounds and the fundamental pleasures of mastery of a skill, I recommend it to anybody who wants to become more aware of and comfortable with their body and/or with expressing their emotions.
I'm sure that there are good free online lessons for singing, and I've used a lot of videos for practice, but I really encourage seeking out a teacher if you can. Covid has been bad for their business, and there's no replacement for face-to-face instruction. (The good news is that, unlike something like the piano, it's absolutely feasible to get useful instruction over a video call!)
I took lessons for a bit and I found there was more to the techniques than I had anticipated.
Singing through the nose, well resonating in the nasal cavity, as a technique to enrich the voice was the one thing that stuck with me.
Now I hear it all the time. So many singers are nasally because it helps them sing clearly, in tune and with richer overtones.
It’s subtle sometimes, but once you listen for it, you hear the nasal resonance in almost all singers, unless they’re chest singers or screamers.
It makes me happy to see someone getting some joy out of singing, I hope you really emjoy it!
EDIT: I want to emphasize one point which might interest people. As I said the speed helps me feel safe as I move with the flow of traffic. I run my bike at 1500 watts. This is twice the legal limit of 750 watts, but this isn’t well enforced. In the UK, the legal limit is just 250 watts. I think policy makers assume that a smaller number is safer, but I’m not convinced this is true. While higher speed means more risk of high speed collisions, lower speed means more risk of being hit from behind. It’s worth looking at raising the legal power limits, and whether this would increase safety for bike riders. I think it might.
Then lately I've started to think: Why don't more people use bikes? Cars in my city are noisy, the big and fast roads makes it more miserable to walk around etc. At the same time StrongTowns, NotJustBikes, r/fuckcars etc have grown big, and it has become more of a movement. Make the cities for the people, not cars.
I'm now spending lots of time as a bicycle advocate. Going to public meetings, making sure bicyclists' points of view are included in new infrastructure plans, reporting cars parked in the bicycle lane, videotaping and putting things on Twitter to now quite a big following, talking to media etc.
So my goal would rather be that you don't need what's basically an electric motorbike to cycle safely as you do, instead more dedicated infrastructure and lower speeds on the roads in the city. But end goal is the same, make it safer to bike.
Powered assistance has a lot of value, and using electric power on a bicycle is orders of magnitude more energy efficient than anything in a car. I think there’s a lot more people interested in cycling now that e-bikes are more popular, and this means more support for that improved bike infrastructure and more people willing to travel by ultra low emissions means.
So yes, better safety is absolutely important. But I still think e-bikes and in particular 1500 watt e-bikes have a lot of value.
The guys at that bike shop said that for example if I want to ride to Lake Merritt and walk around for a while, I could lock it near the boat house and leave it for a couple hours as long as it’s daytime. They said don’t leave it overnight which I would never do. If I’m going to the grocery store, there’s so many people coming in and out, it’s just not the kind of environment where a bike thief is super likely to come in with an angle grinder and start attacking my chain lock. It’s interesting because we imagine this place to be high theft and I guess on some level it is, but having a lot of people around does feel like a decent deterrent, along with a good lock. I’m more worried about my panniers, which aren’t locked to my bike and lift right off with no tools. I wouldn’t use those if I was leaving my bike for a while, but again at the grocery store people are coming and going so often it would be pretty risky for a thief to come and mess with bikes.
Or if I'm going to a coffee shop, I'm always within 20 feet of it and I can see it, and it’s locked. That’s fine. If I’m riding to a friends house, I leave the bike inside their house when we go do stuff. At the bike shop, I just bring the bike inside the shop with me.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start with a cheap bike, and use the cheaper BBS02 motor and a cheaper battery. Then if it gets stolen, as much as that sucks, it’s easier to recover. Though cheap batteries present a fire risk. A lot of people on Reddit stand by the the UPP batteries, but Louis Rossmann had his catch fire so opted for the EM3EV battery at twice the price. I also got a big battery which isn’t strictly necessary, though it’s nice.
[1] https://youtu.be/SpVOTEOMRuE
[1] https://www.kryptonitelock.com/en/products/product-informati..., note the big final ring that the whole chain fits through to get more reach.
#12 https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-i...
I have a 4kW standing scooter that I use in another city that goes 50 mph easily. The concept of a power limit is nanny state government control: to hell with that. Scooters have no power restrictions and no limits. I wouldn't take one out on a highway, but anything short of that is fine.
Statistically, helmet wearing in the US encourages drivers to pass wearers at an unsafe distance (too close). They also provide a false sense of security and look stupid. If they were useful, the Dutch would be all over them. Experienced riders with coordination in good urban planning areas don't need them.
I’ve been a cyclist my whole life and I would never ride without a helmet. This isn’t the Netherlands. My bike goes 30 MPH and as experienced as I am, accidents still happen.
Your comment was particularly condescending and I don’t think it fits the tone of this discussion. You didn’t have to comment, and you didn’t have to be rude if you wanted to participate.
The fun part for me is incorporating various mathematical and programming concepts into the storie like functions and boolean logic.
Last night's story involved a subtraction function that would spit out negative M&Ms if too few regular M&Ms were supplied as the input. The characters learned that they had to store their regular M&Ms separately from the negative ones in order to avoid a cancelling-out reaction if they came into contact with each other.
Tonight we will explore what comes out when negative M&Ms go into the subtraction function.
Another popular plot line in these stories involves a baby gate with a filter function that controls who can go through. The functions have gotten more and more complicated as my 5yo gets familiar with the concept, and now I have an idea for a baby gate code injection exploit that I'm excited to tell.
I've posted a few polished versions of these stories to my blog and hope to add more soon.
https://bancosparenting.wordpress.com/tag/pickle/
The only problem was that the game files were proprietary and while the modding community did a very good job reversing them and writing tools, these tools were a bit incomplete and not very suited for such a project. This inspired me to learn how to program (I knew what was possible because when I was 10 a book about QBasic found its way in my hands and I loved it) so I could create tooling for the project, and then also to make a website for the project. Then together with my newly met friends we made a website about Final Fantasy in general. I had to learn PHP to create a simple CMS for the team members to update the site. Then I’ve learned JavaScript to add some interactivity and also to load content without refreshing the page (this was before AJAX was a thing).
Fast forward 18 years and I’m a lead front-end developer, a job that I completely owe to this passion for the game I had as a teen. I never forgot the joy of coding tools for FF7 though and so recently I joined a community that’s still active around this game, and in my spare time I’m working on tools that will be useful for speedrunners. I also recently joined Twitch and I’m streaming the creation process from time to time, which is super fun! To be honest while I do enjoy my day job my secret dream is to work in some kind of gaming related position, because that always was and will hold a very special place in my heart.
I'm working on running in the 100% category which currently has a world record of 17 hours 38 minutes, it's a marathon of concentration. I'm not a young single person so finding the time to do a run has been the hardest part.
For casual players there are a ton of mods that make the game more challenging, updates for the graphics, and tons of other really interesting modifications. I love the New Threat V1.5 mod and the Chibi style character model updates.
I tried the free trial of FF14 and I enjoyed it briefly some time ago, but then they made a change that made it basically impossible to log in on the free account so I stopped.
Me too. I had a little spiral bound book of Qbasic for kids and would make all sorts of things on my Epson Equity LT.