Hacker News Reader

brooksideon “I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon”

Cold.

brooksideon Dinner and Deception – Serving meals to the super-rich left me feeling empty

I enjoyed "Ice Balls". Thank you.

brooksideon Study of Holocaust survivors finds trauma passed on to children's genes

Given the number of people currently living whose recent ancestors experienced the trauma of war and oppression, I wonder if it could explain part of the growing incidence of these illnesses that we keep hearing is burdening the health systems of Western countries these days.

Trauma and war have been part of the human condition since inception. What do you think was different for our "recent ancestors"?

brooksideon Ask HN: How to apply agile to a team of 5-7 without annoying the talented?

TDD is not an option.

Curious. Why?

brooksideon Study: Attractive men fare best in gaining venture capital

Balding is the most depressing thing. Wish I had started taking Finasteride years ago when I decided the risks weren't worth it.

brooksideon The Software Engineer’s Guide to Negotiating a Raise

This, exactly. We aren't talking about a typical annual wage increase percentage, but collusion that effectively set a cap on salaries for certain types of employees couldn't test the market. I'm wildly guessing, but i would think the difference in salary for many was 40k+ a year.

brooksideon Why i’m done wearing a helmet

'Expose different viewpoints' seems along the lines of the 'I'm hoping to encourage a debate' line that people taking on 'hot-take' positions like to hide behind.

'I have a masters degree' is, of course, ad-hominem fallacy.

It's great that you yourself 'feel' safe but the position you are advocating is not well reasoned and reckless to promote to others.

brooksideon The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills

Indeed, it seems as though Drummond's suffered from real setbacks and a lack of true social connectedness. I'm not sure why he would be chosen to be the centerpiece of this article about social perfectionists.

brooksideon Take the Money and Run

b/c waste is bad. もったいない as the Japanese say.

brooksideon About Coding House (2014)

The first rule of apologies is it's only ok to apologize for your own actions, not the behavior or feelings of others.

brooksideon About Coding House (2014)

(Comment does not apply if English is your second language.)

Your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are terrible considering this thread will probably end your viability as a business.

brooksideon The programming talent myth

Not sure I agree it's easier as you get older. Our brains seem to be wired to pick up new languages & skills most rapidly when in youth.

brooksideon Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

Hacker news is a community of (from what I've seen) strong critical thinkers, with a poster in a thread often having a specific background in the field being discussed. Doctors aren't mythical beings, and discourse here about what medical tests are 'worth it' seems both appropriate and really interesting.

brooksideon The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

Ah, unfortunately Elena was discredited as a fraud more than a decade ago.

In reality she was on an escorted tour through Chernobyl and brought along her motorcycle helmet to use in photos.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/05/fraud-exposed-and-true...

brooksideon Tea with strangers

And if that happened, so what?

brooksideon Tea with strangers

More than a third of people in my country (US) do attend those events, and they are teh de-facto social outlets in many communities. Great to have alternatives.

brooksideon Tea with strangers

A simple, and great idea. The post-social media world can be a lonely place and it's nice to see this effort to connect divergent people in a genuine way AFK, and outside of a capitalist or mystical/religious/occult context.

brooksideon The decline of Vancouver

The motivation is often wanting to move assets to a location out-of-reach for the Chinese government to potentially seize.

brooksideon Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?

You are making some broad statements that could benefit from link to a study. And what would you consider safer alternatives?

brooksideon Can Mushrooms Treat Depression?

I tried Psilocybin recently, with intent to see what changes the experience might make to my mood and mental outlook. My trip was quite uncomfortable, as others have related. I'm glad I tried mushrooms, however. Upon return to this astral plan I was immensely grateful for sanity and the little pocket of warmth in time and space that is our existence. In the days since I have found my mood to be better.

My Psilocybin trip was an almost terrifying experience that served as a good reset. I will definitely consider repeating this on a periodic basis if needed, being most respectful of the dark power these little fungi possess.

brooksideon The Endlessly Examined Life: A most chronic depression

I'm sure CBT has been used with cancer patients, but pain management is not the heart of what CBT is about: http://www.beckinstitute.org/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/#q...

CBT is however about fixing negative thought patterns. Start of chapter 3 of Feeling Good (I just pulled open the pdf) Burns says 'Illogical pessimistic attitudes play the central role in the development and continuation of all your symptoms'

I don't think I myself have posted about this before, and just did a search. Hacker news does seem to be often dismissive of the psych field though, as there is not a lot of good science that would appease a critical thinker.

brooksideon The Endlessly Examined Life: A most chronic depression

I've read Feeling Good, and found many of its basic premises to be flawed. Conscious thoughts aren't, as Burns claims, always a leading cause of bad feelings. Biological, hereditary, and environmental factors can have a large effect on mood. Burns believes negative thinking patterns are 'distorted', and we can ameliorate depression by 'correcting' them. Several studies have shown that the depressed people are actually more, not less, likely to appraise situations accurately. http://nuweb9.neu.edu/personalitylab/wp-content/uploads/Tayl...

Out of curiosity, who did you find that was able to help you?

brooksideon The Endlessly Examined Life: A most chronic depression

The unfortunate reality is that in 2014 we don’t have a good treatment for depression, let alone a solid science-based definition of what we are trying to fix. There are many ways of contextualizing human unease and cognitive discomfort. “Depression” is the current label in a medical context for pervasive unhappiness, yet it’s not one with a clear biological underpinning. To this, I think it can be advantageous to avoid self-identifying as “depressed”, as I suspect it’s not uncommon for many venturing down the psycho-therapudic/pharmalogical wormhole in search of Help to end up endlessly suspended in a search for a ‘cure’ like this author. Another similar account which comes to mind is Daphne Merkins’ “My life in Therapy” which was published in the NYT a few years back: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/magazine/08Psychoanalysis-...