
A cry for help - alpb
http://alpblog.heroku.com/a-cry-for-help/
======
brudgers
Technical details aside, marriage counseling is among the best decisions I've
ever made. Or rather "are among" since we did it twice.

I haven't thought about it much recently until now. The first time was in our
second year. The second was when our son was a little over a year. Now he's
nearly as tall as me, and we've been married almost 17 years.

Both times the stress of work and professional goals played a role. Getting
our relationship working again helped with both over the long term.

~~~
temphn
Starting from a completely different set of philosophical assumptions, some
readers may be interested in this completely free alternative to marriage
counseling:

[http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/relationship-
game-...](http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/relationship-game-week-a-
readers-journey)

Anecdotally this has been _radically_ more effective for myself and my friends
than paying a third party to intervene. One response to marriage woes is to
blame the other person or society or fate; another is to blame oneself and
improve your appearance and behavior so that you are the man she fell in love
with rather than an uninteresting housepet (I speak of a common scenario).
That link is about the latter path.

~~~
alanctgardner2
This seems to promote a really toxic idea that women are only happy
with/attracted to 'alpha' men, and that as the husband you're solely
responsible for keeping her happy. If you're 'gaming' your wife, I definitely
don't think you're doing it right. It's fine to be assertive and not fall into
the 'try to make the other person happy all the time' trap, but you can let
them know that's what's wrong, rather than hiding it and trying to engineer
your reactions.

It's kind of ironic, you went from trying to fulfill all her demands, to
trying to guess her subconscious desires, and working to fulfill those
instead. Either way, you're changing yourself to suit her, you're doing all
the work. It sounds like you might have low self-esteem if you describe
yourself as an 'uninteresting housepet'.

~~~
temphn
Shrug. Being assertive is what it's about. Any long term relationship is going
to require maintenance/effort.

    
    
      you're changing yourself to suit her
    

Working out or wearing a suit or getting a good job or listening to a marriage
counselor or acting more assertive are all examples of "changing yourself to
suit her/women". Working out, for example, is the opposite of "just being
yourself". Given that you will be doing this, the key is to spend time on
actions that get results.

The key premise is that men are attracted to beautiful women just as women are
attracted to high-status/confident/alpha men. The first half of that sentence
is not controversial to articulate; the last half is where there's a conflict.
According to society women should instead want men who are caring, sensitive
listeners. Try that yourself and compare that to their response to an
assertive leader who gives clear directions. That's all that "alpha" is; it
really is an empirically large difference.

~~~
alanctgardner2
> Working out or wearing a suit or getting a good job or listening to a
> marriage counselor or acting more assertive are all examples of "changing
> yourself to suit her/women"

Wrong. Dead wrong. If you do everything to please your wife, you have a
serious personality disorder. I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean it as a
statement of something you might not realize.

I like dressing up because I like dressing up. I've worn a suit around the
house on a lark, I wear ties to a n office where T-shirts are the norm. I
absolutely do not do it because I'm trying to please or attract women. On the
contrary, it probably seems stuffy and uninviting.

I work out because I want to be in good shape, so I can go on cycling trips,
and live a longer and healthier life. I don't do it because I want women to
stare at my abs (they're coming along, promise).

I saw a counselor while I was in a relationship to work through my issues
independently. I ended up leaving my girlfriend, who I still love dearly,
because I needed space to work through my own pathologies.

If I act assertive (and I usually don't), it's because I'm confident that I'm
right, and I feel something is urgent. I don't push incorrect opinions on
people just for the sake of being manlier than the other person. I try to be
considerate of everyone's opinion, and make reasoned decisions. I frequently
say 'I don't know', and then go and find out.

> According to society women should instead want men who are caring, sensitive
> listeners

The Ryan Gosling school of thought. Unfortunately, as much as you think you're
working against society, you've just described a different caricature: James
Bond. There are as many bad boys in movies as good ones, and the bad ones
usually get the girl.

The whole premise of your post is that you live your life and define yourself
to optimally please/attract women. If you define yourself only in terms of
other people's opinions, you likely suffer for poor self-esteem. As much as
the blog you linked is funny, it's not helping you work through your issues.

edit:

I forgot about

> Shrug.

You're honestly so afraid of a little introspection that you've resorted to
writing out gestures of indifference. Rather than consider your own life and
marriage, you're looking for a quick-fix that sounds like a movie ( Grease,
specifically, but you're Oliva Newton John).

~~~
hpvic03
Saying that the poster has a serious personality disorder is just over the
top.

Give it a rest, "game" just means having an interpersonal dynamic that makes
conversations and relationships more fun and engaging. It doesn't mean
changing who you are, and it doesn't mean that everything you do is for women.

If a guy gets in shape and makes himself more fun and interesting to save his
marriage, that's a bad thing?

~~~
tehwebguy
> _If a guy gets in shape and makes himself more fun and interesting to save
> his marriage, that's a bad thing?_

That is not what the linked page describes. Here is one example:

> _Just the other night, I called her to let her know I was coming home so she
> could time dinner to be ready when I got home.

I was dead tired from my martial arts training that day (I was doing full
contact kickboxing training, very rigorous)…and I stopped at my friends house
at around 5:00pm to drop something off that I had borrowed from them and have
a quick drink before heading home.

After one drink, I lay down on my friend’s couch for a moment…and the next
thing I know, it’s 2:30am in the morning.

I drove home, and got into bed. I thought she was asleep…but she promptly said
in a real bitchy tone “Where you having fun tonight?!?!”

I simply said “I fell asleep on _____’s couch. I’m tired, good night, dear.”

And promptly rolled over and went to sleep. I don’t even remember what she
said to me in response._

If you call someone (wife, partner, friend) and tell them you are on your way
home at 5:00 PM knowing that they will begin cooking dinner and don't show up
until 2:30 AM then not apologizing doesn't make you "alpha", it makes you a
shit head.

------
alpb
Sorry for reposting this guys. My blog went down and some stupid cache plugin
revealed my db password, I had to remove the previous HN post and reinstalled
my blog. Now it is back. I posted this again for people had no chance seeing
this before I deleted the old post.

Thanks for everyone proposed helping the guy I mentioned in the post with
their comments in the post I had to delete.

~~~
tlrobinson
FYI: <https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/288684922217041920>

~~~
dcurtis
Yeah, please don't use the Svbtle design.

~~~
georgeorwell
From the Twitter post:

> This is getting ridiculous: the Svbtle design is not open source, and I have
> never given permission for anyone to use it with Wordpress.

Dude. Without trademarks, patents, or copyright, there's not much you can do.
There is no permission for you to give or not give, unless your actual code is
being ripped off. There is no "open source" license that the Svbtle design
could be licensed under even if you wanted to do so. You could probably get a
patent on the design. Apple has patents on rounded corners and page turning,
for example. Once you publish something or offer it for sale in the US, you
have one year to file for a patent. You still have time, but of course, IANAL.

~~~
mmahemoff
Whether he has legal recourse, he can still call people out on it. These
Svbtle clones are way beyond "taking inspiration" the way one phone takes
inspiration from another and incrementally improves or differentiates on it.

They're blatantly, outright, misleading. I had no idea it was a clone until
now.

Also IANAL but I think it's more likely to be protected by copyright than a
patent, which means there's no short-term limit like that.

~~~
mmahemoff
georgeorwell, they didn't copy the manual and logo (or even the
implementations). They just built a compatible interface. To a human, a blog
with a different theme would still be a compatible interface.

It's one thing to clone hardware or software, but another to misrepresent it
as being from the same source as the original.

~~~
georgeorwell
I agree that the "DESIGN BY @DCURTIS" is misrepresentation and I assumed it
was part of the Svbtle network too.

------
Udo
I said it before on the other thread. I'd be willing to consider taking over
as project lead. I emailed the developer about this, haven't heard back yet.

~~~
roel_v
I guess the first thing would be to make some, you know, contributions...

~~~
Udo
Yeah, nothing like putting people who want to help into their rightful place!
Must feel pretty good. I may not be a high-profile "rockstar", but at least I
was making an honest offer. But you're right, of course, I should have known I
was making an ass out of myself.

~~~
roel_v
? I wasn't putting anyone in their place, I was just saying that the natural
progression in such situations is to first make contributions and 'earn' ones
place as a maintainer meritocrally (if that's a word).

------
jaryd
User of PHPVirtualBox here and I just want to say it's a wonderful piece of
software that has drastically simplified my life!

To the author: thank you so much for dedicating your time and effort to this
project, and I wish you all the best.

~~~
mylittlepony
I don't see what phpvirtualbox could be used for. Can you give me an example?
How did it simplify your life?

~~~
jaryd
I'm a remote worker and I use VirtualBox as a hypervisor on a server that runs
on-site on the other side of the country. I could do most management through
VBoxCommand (CLI) but I've become comfortable using the GUI, and because my
interaction with VirtualBox is infrequent (I usually set it and forget it) I'm
more efficient that way.

X-Forwarding over SSH for this use-case has been pretty annoying (mostly due
to latency), and PHPVirtualBox has been a major improvement.

~~~
mylittlepony
I thought VirtualBox wasn't meant to be used for production. Is the
performance good? Or are you saying that you develop on a remote VM?

------
noonespecial
I think its super awesome that this guy is actually looking to hand the
project over to people who care that can continue it despite the raft of
personal problems he's clearly dealing with. Most projects in these
circumstances would simply be abandoned.

I hope the best for him.

------
jtreminio
I'd love to help, but I don't think monolithic covers this:

[https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/...](https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/lib/vboxconnector.php)

------
yarou
I don't get it. Some developer is no longer able to maintain a project, it
happens. So what? As John Nagle says:

" The process by which language libraries are maintained may have a bigger
impact on language success than generally recognized.

A common event for developers is finding a bug in some crucial library
function. The big question is, what happens then? There are several models:

1\. The library is commercially supported. 1\. The vendor is responsive to bug
reports. The user submits a bug report and the problem is fixed. 2\. The
vendor is not responsive to bug reports. 2\. The library is supported by
volunteers. 1\. There is an community supporting the library, with multiple
people permitted to make updates. 2\. The library is supported by a single
person who is active in developing the library. 3\. The library is supported
by a single person who is not active, and no one else can change the code."

This clearly falls into his last category of 2.3...We are supposed to feel
sympathy for some anonymous person on the Internet? I thought Hackernews was a
venue for interesting ideas and innovative startups. (edited to include the
first sentence)

~~~
nmridul
It is interesting for many because they use the product and many feel it is
great (see others comments). If it is not maintained, its going to affect
them. And many of them are using it to support their startup's installations.

And HN is not only about interesting ideas and innovative startups, its about
anything interesting for a hacker. And that could include news about another
hacker (or human) who has built a great product and is now in distress. And
many would love to help him as a human (to reduce the suffering) and as a
hacker (to keep the product alive).

~~~
yarou
I understand your viewpoint. I just don't understand why I should care about
this project, out of the sea of millions of projects that are abandoned due to
the personal/real life issues of the author (i.e. the LuaOS author). Since it
is open source, it can be easily forked and maintained by an author that cares
(based on the many varied responses to this thread, there seem to be several
developers that fit the criteria).

~~~
nmridul
He is not asking for sympathy or money. He is crying for help - For a
maintainer. (The article and the direct link to the project site mentions
this).

So you may not be interested, but others might. And that is what this forum is
about. And as you said, from the responses of many in this thread it is clear
that many are interested in this news.

------
nnq
It's good to have a "human face for a project", but do we really need to know
about your marriage problems - really, can't one just say: "Hi folks, I'm too
busy to keep working/managing this and need someone to take over! Keep this
project alive and make the world a better place!"

------
mikeevans
I posted a link to this same thing about a month ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4954033>

Guess I should have made a blog post about it :P

~~~
alpb
Haha :) I've seen this thing from a tweet from one of my friends. That's more
effective for the sake of that project!

------
kamakazizuru
any idea why the domain shows up as heroku? :S

~~~
tibbon
It always grabs the last part of the domain. Its just a quick app hosted on
heroku, so all foo.heroku.com stuff will show up on here as heroku.com.
Happens with google.com, etc too.

~~~
teamonkey
On the front page right now there's instagram-engineering.tumblr.com,
erratasec.blogspot.com and tech.blog.cueup.com. It seems to be a based on a
domain whitelist. Heroku should definitely be on it.

Personally I'd just show the whole hostname and maybe prune a few common
subdomains like "www.", "www2." or "blog."

~~~
robryan
Definitely, I would be surprised if this post would get to the top otherwise.
A vague title with the heroku domain has probably attracted a lot of clicks.

------
artursapek
That's an oddly personal public cry for help.

~~~
tibbon
But its honest, and straightforward. I like it. If I had the capability of
doing it, I'd consider helping.

------
maxxpower
I noticed that message last month when I was interested in installing it.
Sadly I do not have the skills to takeover such a daunting project, hopefully
others in the community will come through.

------
adnam
Given the circumstances this must surely win the HN award for Best Link-bait
Title.

