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tdrdton What it's like to ride 900 km in a day

I drove my bike through the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany. The only country with good cycle paths is the Netherlands. In France I even ended up on the highway because the road just changed. And I had the same experience as you in Germany. It's dangerous to cycle next to cars who are driving 90km/h.

tdrdton What it's like to ride 900 km in a day

After some distance/time how fit you are doesn't matter anymore. Then it all becomes about food to prevent all kind of physical issues.

tdrdton A Xiaomi phone might’ve shipped with a censorship list in Europe

So you have a choice, while the alternative is very inconvenient.

tdrdton A Xiaomi phone might’ve shipped with a censorship list in Europe

I don't get what your point is in relationships with what I wrote.

tdrdton A Xiaomi phone might’ve shipped with a censorship list in Europe

Exactly this.

You always have a choice. You can even buy a dumbphone.

If you still buy Xiaomi knowing they spy on you, you just don't care. And that is also a choice.

People should vote with their wallet. This also means you can't always get what you want.

tdrdton Most who want simple ‘bonsai’ trees are ill-served by traditional bonsai methods

Why should a hobby be a competition?

tdrdton Most who want simple ‘bonsai’ trees are ill-served by traditional bonsai methods

Tutorial for Blender: https://youtu.be/NNJiVmC1-kA

tdrdton The Burnout Society

"But there is a pretty easy explanation for why people are burned out."

You name one reason. And it's a true reason but there are many others. Your explanation doesn't cover them all.

There are only two reason people get burned out: long periods of mental or physical stress. A dancer can burnout when asking too much of the body. A fit person can burnout when the lie of an affair is going on for too long. And of course your explanation is also a very valid one.

A burnout is 100% physical (the body is exhausted), but the cause can be mental or physical (or both).

Unfortunately I have experience with being burned-out. So I can give my best advice to others who are struggling with a burnout: the key to recovery is acceptance. A burnout is potentially life threatening so you really need to step on the brakes and accept that you can't go on like you do. Also accept that it might take at least a year to fully recover. And accept that you will experience very strange thoughts and feelings because everything in your body is messed up. If you don't accept that you are burned-out you will really struggle to get better. Get help!

tdrdton Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

"...everyone still PCR positive by day 7 so it was impossible to compare groups"

Eh, isn't this what a PCR-test does: detect RNA? A medicine doesn't magically remove virus RNA. It might break down the virus or block it's ability to reproduce but the RNA will still be detected.

tdrdton I hate password rules

Since I believe a password is the user's responsibility I use the UI to inform the user what a safe password is because most people have no clue.

For example:

Choose your password: A safe password contains many different characters, for example a sentence.

tdrdton Blender 3.0 takes support for AMD GPUs to the next level

Reaults of the Blender benchmark can be found here: https://opendata.blender.org/

Let's see if AMD takes over the GPU top list.

tdrdton Is there such a thing as good taste?

I think Christopher Alexander has a better answer to this question. He states that anything that is designed is good when love was put into it. People can taste this love.

So it's more like: when love was put into it, it tastes good.

tdrdton Nasally-Injected Brain Drug Can Help Treat Depression in 20 Minutes

I wonder if they mean 'suppress' instead of 'treat'.

tdrdton 3D printed mirror array

I have been thinking about this for some time: cylinders each attached to a motor. The glossy end of the cylinders is cut at an angle. The rotation of each cylinder dictates from which direction light is reflected.

tdrdton Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

I think the most famous no-code app is WordPress.

Some estimate that 70% of all websites run WordPress. But I can tell you my salary was paid by customers who wanted this 'one custom application' that was not available as WordPress plugin.

tdrdton Rivian valued at over $100B after biggest IPO of 2021

Today companies are valued by how much money investers think they can make from buying stock.

tdrdton The Invisible JavaScript Backdoor

Some time ago I managed to add a non width character in my PHP code. Because it had no width PhpStorm did not highlight it and I had absolutely no clue why there was an error in my code. So it only highlights when it has width.

Edit: just added some non-space characters and at least in Rider they are now displayed as a warning. So I think this is fixed now.

tdrdton The brain can recall and reawaken past immune responses

That is one aspect of a lockdown. But there are others and they are different for each person.

In the Netherlands it was estimated that a lockdown would save 150000 life years but would cost 650000. This takes into account a huge number of factors. For example health, but also job safety, happiness, and so on.

A lockdown causes stress for a lot of people. It seems you are not one of them.

tdrdton The brain can recall and reawaken past immune responses

This is also the reason why a lock-down against a virus is not always the best option for healthy people. A lock-down causes stress and this weakens the immune system.

Personally I think it is obvious why the connection between stress and 'subsystems' is there. Stress puts the body into survival mode. Heavy breathing is an example. But when the stress holds on for too long it exhausts your body causing all kinds of trouble. The most extreme example is a burnout.

tdrdton The brain can recall and reawaken past immune responses

Pierre Capel explains this in this video: https://youtu.be/hJ7zbsRM0-c

When you breath like Wim Hof CO2 levels in your blood change and this will have an effect on your pain response. CO2 lowers and the pH raises.

tdrdton Designing better file organization around tags, not hierarchies (2017)

The same is happening in webshops. Products can be assigned to hierarchies (categories) but in shops like Amazon it is obvious it is more like tagging.

tdrdton Ask HN: What was it like to use BBS?

It was mom screaming upstairs 'are you online again!?' because she could not use the phone.

tdrdton Spiders are much smarter than you think

I get tired of reading from webpages like this.

  - Spiders are much smarter than you think
  - SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
  - some text
  - YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
  - some text
  - Shutterstock image with a big description
  - ...

Context switching is hard for the brain. Even in readabilty mode I get substracted by the image descriptions.

It's a pitty because it's a nice article.

tdrdton Spending $5k to learn how database indexes work

I was thinking the same. It sound like this could be done on a private virtual server for less than $100/month.

tdrdton How I lost my fear of flying (2011)

As far as I know there are only 3 or 4 types of fear that are natural. I can't remember all of them but only two: fear of fast approaching things (objects, sounds, experiences) and fear of heights.

I think fear of flying has to do with fear of heights. It just feels unnatural.

Then there is the anxiety circle: - There is an event (turbulence). - This triggers a thought of fear (often very fast so it is goes unnoticed). - Your body responds to this thought with stress which is the next event in the circle.

What the author does when he reads books is missing a lot of events that could trigger thoughts of fear. This is one way of overcoming fear.

But maybe a better way is to analyze the thoughts that you had that triggered the stress response. You can analyze those thoughts and ask yourself: is it true what I am thinking? What are the chances?

One thing that also helps with anxiety is to, kind of, embrace it. Something like: 'ah I am having an anxiety attack, lets see what triggered this'.

Well, after being almost smashed to the runway once in heavy turbulence I still don't like flying.

Become braver instead of less afraid.

tdrdton Batavia shipwreck reveals a key to Dutch success in 17th-century world trade

Trivia: In the Netherlands we also have buildings from the 16th century that use wood originally tooled as ship beams. A lot of the time they contain holes that were cut out when they were building a ship. When a ship was demolished or never finished sometimes those beams were used for house construction.

tdrdton Ask HN: How do you security-audit external software using NPM packages?

I believe one thing that can help security a little is to use full version numbers in your dependency list. This applies to all package managers.

Because the moment someone hits update on the package manager nothing will get updated and you won't receive potential dangerous updates you did not review first.

Edit: sorry this is not relevant to the question...

tdrdton Ask HN: Is it unprofessional to leave a new job where everything is a mess?

I once left a job after less than 8 hours.

Everything was a mess. Management, the code base, everything.

Questions you can ask yourself: do you think you can change the mess? Would you like to change it? If you can't change it, would you like to work there?

My guess is that all your answers are 'no'.

tdrdton Why is houseplant advice so bad?

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about plants is: they only need water (and light).

Yes plants need water, but they can't grow on water alone. They need all kinds of minerals that are in the soil. When those are gone the plant will die. When you repot plants you add fresh soil so you also add minerals. But when you don't repot you need to add those minerals once in a while.

Tip for aquarium owners: a lot of plants benefit from the 'dirt' in dirty aquarium water.

An also lesser known fact is that there is a huge symbiosis between bacteria, fungi and the roots. So in fact you also need to keep them alive.

tdrdton Autonomous boats seem more solvable than autonomous cars

Collision avoidance, traffic navigation, and determining the best route autonomously is already available for ships. A lot of the same sensors are used in cars as well.