There have been many, many variables in my life. And throughout all of that chaos, the one constant that remains is HN. I appreciate each and everyone single one of you who make this site what it is. Merry Christmas and cheers!
Things can turn around. In 2016 I felt the same way as you. It was the nadir of my life, and was interspersed with suicidal thoughts. We barely kept our Chicago apartment.
Don’t give up hope, and keep trying. Also, one key for me was to get properly medicated. Prozac was a turning point, but everyone is different. There was a clear step function from "before Prozac" to "after Prozac". The suicidal ideation stopped, among other things, which let me get my life in order.
Mostly just remember to enjoy each day in small ways. The only thing I regret from 2016 is not taking the time to appreciate the small things. There’s an interesting mental exercise to snap you out of this: pretend you’re on your death bed at 80, and then you were magically transported back in time to the present day. What would you do? Even being able to run is a blessing I don’t remember to appreciate until I can’t.
You’ll figure it out. Or at least, the chances of you figuring things out is much higher than things going downhill forever. It’s the default path, even if it doesn’t feel like it when things are going wrong.
> There’s an interesting mental exercise to snap you out of this: pretend you’re on your death bed at 80, and then you were magically transported back in time to the present day.
I do this, occasionally. Didn't realize this was a thing other people do, too. For some reason it really works in terms of making me feel more appreciative for my health and the many years I (hopefully) have left to live my life.
Glad you are better. I've suffered from depression since I was in elementary school and medicated since 1995-ish. Meds have changed over time but overall life after is ever so much better than life before.
Major life change happened recently (mom aging mom moved in with me, husband, and dogs) and my saving grace is creating, quilts mostly. I'm reallllly leaning into sewing at 4am!
I appreciate your perspective. Thanks for sharing.
My wife almost died early this year from a hospital deciding to rush her Sodium level restoration because beds were scarce and profitable. She now suffers from extreme anxiety, her previous life as a happy, well-balanced mom is over, and as I write, she’s in the next room chattering in nonsense to herself because it’s how her brain copes. It’s worse in the mornings, gets better, briefly, in the afternoons as she gains more higher-level function, until her loss and grief for that overwhelm her, and she reverts again.
I won’t go into the litany of pain and suffering she continues to go through, suffice it to say she has had a variety of terrible-to-observe, worse to endure, symptoms throughout the year. Screaming in agony for hours, in first or third person, in hospital or at home, when painkillers just don’t work is not an experience anyone should go through.
The highlight of today is that a friend has invited us around for an Xmas meal. It’ll be our first social engagement since it happened, so there’s some risk. It’s at 4pm, which is usually her best time of the day, so we’re hopeful things can play out “normally”. I guess we’ll see, sometimes you have to risk things, just to make progress. I don’t think my friend actually realises just how much it means to us what his family have done, but I am so grateful that I cried on getting the invite. It can be hard to struggle alone.
So again, take heart. There is always something worse that could have happened, even for us. Don’t let the past dictate the future - you can’t change the past, but you can influence the future.
And I will join you in hoping that next year will be better.
[edit: thank you all for the kind wishes. Xmas has been hard so far because the sense of loss she feels is so much stronger than normal, but we live in hope]
That sounds awful, I’m so sorry to hear that and do hope that she can make progress.
If I may, this is a point I’ve been thinking a lot of lately though - as in, is the “oh there’s many people out there who have it way worse, so be thankful for what you have” mindset actually healthy?
Of course there will always be others worse off… and the inverse advice is also widely accepted: “never be the smartest person in the room”, “always look up, not down, to grow”, etc
I’ve been processing this in the context that I’m on the cusp of needing to give up on some life dreams, at least for a long while.
I’m glad to be shut down if this isn’t the right place for this discussion
I’m not going to shut you down. I’m just going to say that when things are truly bad, you need something to cling onto. When hope is crushed, over and over; when the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact an oncoming train that will also kill you if you fail to dodge; when your view on life turns to thoughts like “is it even worth it ?”, in these sorts of situation, realizing that life could in fact be worse, that you have something to be grateful for can be a crucial life-line to someone who thought they had none left.
Is it healthy for a person living under normal circumstance ? Probably not. Is it useful for someone in extremis? From personal anecdote only, I would say so. YMMV.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor. This is my understanding.
You need a certain level of sodium in you - typically around 135-145 mEq/L. The body expects this level in a similar fashion to the way it expects a certain temperature, it’s where it works best and as you go farther away from this optimal value, the body starts to suffer. My wife’s level was 121.
In fact the body can manage reasonably well over a wider range, as long as the value changes slowly, slowly because the level of sodium controls, via osmotic potential, transport across the blood/brain barrier.
So the hospital should have added a maximum of 6-8 mEq/L per day into my wife’s bloodstream via intravenous saline. That would have given her body time to adjust, slowly, to the new sodium concentrations. Instead they initially gave her 13 mEq/L in 12 hours, and then another 6 mEq/L in the next 12 hours, by their own test results. She went clinically non-responsive (ie: near-comatose) for 2 days after they did that.
Sudden sodium changes can result in edema (which can be fatal) or osmotic demyelination - the myelin sheath being a wrapper around nerve cells that allows rapid electrical transmission from nerve to synapse. Losing the myelin is “a bad thing”, see Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis etc.
She woke up after they tried to “reboot her brain” and gave her Prozac, then discharged her because she could “walk” with a walker for help. They subsequently put her on benzodiazaprenes in the (9? I lose track) times we came back to ER over the next month or so. She’s still struggling to get off those, though she has halved the dose they prescribed (1mg Ativan every 4 hours).
We can’t even sue the hospital, because we spent the last 9 months trying desperately to figure out what went wrong and if it can be fixed, and we only got 6 months to file any dispute because it’s a county hospital. I spell it out as simply as I can above, but finding out what went wrong was a gradual thing. We have appealed this, but I don’t hold out much hope.
All told, I am singularly unimpressed with the American “healthcare” system to date.
I'm sorry that your wife, and you, have had this in your lives. I hope that today was good for you both and that the coming year brings better health for her.
Merry Christmas and thanks for an inspiring story. I have been through so much chaos, struggles in 2023, but comparing to you, it is just nothing.
I will forever take heart gratefully in whicheve life will hit me at.
Hope things will get better with your wife and you, I guess it could only be better from here.
Thanks, you made my day and best wishes to you from Vietnam
This, too, shall pass. Finding a calming peace and disconnect from material things in a low period of my life has stuck with me even as things have gotten much better. Not to say I know what you need, but I bet the positives will shine through all of this in the long term. Find a way to smile today - Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!
I can't hire you, but I'm in a similar boat. I'm lucky to have a client I'm billing, but other than that the job search has sucked. I can code, and also have product/g2m experience. Happy to collaborate remotely. Want to try to build something together? If interested you can reach me through metaluna.io.
SwiftKey is still the only keyboard with an autocorrect that's actually really helpful, instead of actively messing up what I'm writing. But only if you (counterintuitively) turn off the "autocorrect" checkbox in the settings. Because then you will always have 3 distinct options to choose from (instead of middle and left sometimes being the same). Apparently you can install SwiftKey on iOS too (although I've never tried it).
I've been there. The biggest struggle I had was with the constant self-doubts and cynicism. Just when you need the most motivation it seems that everything is against you. All I can say is it's normal to feel like trash during the job search and sometimes things aren't as bad as they seem. It can obviously be hard to believe that after spending like 6 - 12 months unemployed but its true. You're not any more or less as a person. The economy is just brutal at the moment.
I've been a daily lurker since I was 18. And I do 100% mean daily since the time I started. I've never frequented any other URL so consistently.
I have thousands and thousands of screenshots of highlight posts and comments (highlight to me of course), that I dream about organizing with tags for future access, whether I use any of the information or tools, refresh myself on something, or just want to walk down memory lane... A lane that just keeps getting longer and longer. A lane I'm happy to have at least left a bread crumb trail on to retrace in the dark if I feel like it.
In hindsight, screenshotting them has been more of a personal act I do for myself, knowing very well I may never meaningfully do anything with the majority of them. Every screenshot taken was something important or impactful to me in the moment though. The process of screenshotting is just a part of the ritual it seems .
I thank the individuals, and community as a whole, who have been responsible for making my life better, enabling growth I'd have never anticipated or foreseen , enabling countless echoing feelings of comradery and connection that have been hard to find in meat space consistently.
This place was like discovering a magic land when I was 18 given my rather humble background. I still had a lot of learning and growing to do. Hacker News has been invaluable.
Not to get too gushy... But I do love this site, and I love the fact there are people willing to take time out of your days to participate in it. People of all creeds and credentials being civil, yet unafraid to agree to disagree. Willing to have some fun. Willing to be candid. Willing to dive into the deep end depending on the post...
Merry Christmas everyone:)
Always wish I could wave a magic wand, and somehow reciprocate back all the good I feel like I've just freely consumed and co opted from others over the years ... The giants whose shoulders I stand on.
I'll never forget or downplay the people and exposures that are integral to who I am.
Were I born and raised on some far removed island... Id have been grown off of whatever arbitrary cultural and informational scraps that I could gets my mits on from my local hierarchy, and that's about it. I don't like the sounds of that.
Modern life has its downsides and contraindications for sure, but Hacker News is not one of them. Hacker News is one of modern day phenomon that I am thrilled to have been alive for.
The mystery of Santa's sleigh has been solved. Santa is a quantum phenomenon, meaning that he is in everyone's house at once. BUT if anyone observes him, then the probability function collapses and only one house gets toys.
When you observe Santa, you get entangled with that Santa, and others get gifts in the rest of the multiverse. So don't worry, and have a Merry Everettian Christmas!
In ex USSR we celebrate New Year. So the first several years of remote work with Western folks, I was always surprised to see no colleagues some day in December. Only later in the evening, I would remember they had Christmas that day. :)
Yes. But Lithuanian and Latvian are Catholics are Roman and protestants in all three are on new calendar (not sure if any protestants use old calendar at all?). And not all catholics outside of baltic states were unites. E.g. western Belarus and western Ukraine has some Roman Catholics. IIRC there’re some Roman Catholic islands inside RF too, but they are tiny. Probably mostly artifacts of forced resettling in Soviet or tsarist eras.
They did celebrate it before, but on January 7th (which on Julian calendar is December 25th, because it lags 14 days). This year their Orthodox church switched to Gregorian calendar.
Not the original poster, but I visited Almaty and Shymkent in Kazakhstan this summer. I met a lot of nice and warm Kazakh people. Would love to visit Almaty again and explore other parts of the country this time.
I work for a globally remote organisation, so I voluntarily took the on-call rota for the last week of the year. This way, my colleagues can enjoy Xmas with their families without any pager anxiety, and they made sure I could have the same experience this past month over Diwali ;)
I will admit that I paused after typing that, but then I figured, as another commenter mentioned, that with PagerDuty being popular, it wasn't too much of a stretch.
Admittedly, I'm someone who has carried an honest-to-god pager, the "start the number with 911 if it's an emergency" sort of 10 digit segmented LCD ones. Even remember enjoying the freedom of getting upgraded to one of the national ones when traveling!
Though I'm currently thinking about switching from PagerDuty to ntfy.sh/pushover, as it's really hard to justify almost $50/mo per person with Pager Duty for the use my small team makes of it.
I'm not sure how many companies still use "pagers" aka "beepers", but this person is talking about the device you carry that would alert you when there is a problem with one of your systems. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=593535494&q=pager&tbm=...
Before mobile phones and beepers, institutions would use a public address system to announce “paging dr. whoever.” Makes me wonder whether the word comes from sending a “page” (an errand boy) to go look for dr. whoever and bring him back.
I guess now “carrying the pager” is a metaphor like “copy and paste” (from the glue used in newspaper layout).
Merry Christmas Everyone! Reflecting on the past few years, I've faced some of life's toughest challenges. In 2020, we lost my father-in-law to Multiple Myeloma, a difficult time for our family. The following year, my dad's battle with Pancreatic Cancer came to an end, leaving us with the task of closing his business and resolving financial matters. Then, in November 2022, my mom was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. After enduring multiple rounds of chemotherapy, I'm grateful to say she's doing much better.
Through these hardships, I've learned about strength, resilience, and the importance of true friends who have your back. I also learned that I am strong and can deal with difficult hardships. As I look forward to 2024, I'm hopeful for a return to normalcy and better health. Here's to a year of healing, growth, and brighter days ahead.
Marry Christmas. At this point I’ve lived longer with HN than without HN.
Let’s see… HN launched in 2006, I was 18, I’ll be 36 next year, so this is actually an off by one error. Oh well, if you squint a little or drink too much eggnog then it’s true.
Remember to focus on yourself this year, and especially to give yourself permission to be selfish. It’s ok not to live your life for others.
I hadn't put that idea together until your comment. I'm about the same age and only have a few more years before this "milestone" myself. Thanks for making me feel older hah.
Here’s something depressing, or uplifting. When you ask older people which age they’d most prefer to re-live, the most common answer is 36. So remember to live this year to the fullest, even though it doesn’t feel like you’re in your prime. You actually are.
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you get some time to reflect on the year that’s been, the crazy change we’re going through and the great community we all work to better.
I remember being a CS student years back and my lab partner told me be about HN. I didn’t know what it was, but since then I basically skimmed every day since. Thanks for all the great memories!
Merry Christmas! I dropped Reddit and all other social media except for YT a couple years back after I found HN. It's not perfect, but probably the best you can find out there in terms of etiquette, curiosity and interesting and generally respectful and benevolent conversation. So thanks to y'all for making this a corner of the internet that I'm truly grateful for.
I'm taking a break today and playing call of duty all day long. Tomorrow I will go for a hike or a walk, and then 26th is back to the business/grind.
I hope y'all take a good time to rest.
I'm thankful for the folks who are working over the break. Thankful for the gas station attendants, the police officers, healthcare professionals, on-call engineers and customer support, and so many others to whom I am eternally thankful for making our society.
Merry Christmas everyone! And here's to an incredibly happy and prosperous 2024 to come! May you all find the things you're looking for, and the peace and happiness you deserve.
I don't remember when I first learned about HN, I think maybe when I was in high school(I'm 36 now). I have found an uncountable number of interesting and imo mentally valuable things through here. When I share them (which I often do) my friends always ask "where did you find that?". This is such an awesome group. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to everyone on HN! May 2024 be a happy and successful year for all of us and may it also bring us more to read and learn. Reading is fundamental and on HN there is always something to read about. I have been on HN for 2 years, 7 months and 23 days and I look forward to remain a part of this wonderful community :).
Happy Holidays. I’m still finding 3-5 new and really interesting things to read via HN daily, and want to thank everyone for submitting and commenting in 2023.
Here's hoping everyone associated with Hacker News a joyous holiday season. I discovered HN this past year and wonder how I ever lived without it. Merry Christmas
mostlysimple
I appreciate this place as a refugee for intelligent people, first and foremost. Most of the world is less intelligent and unable or unwilling to think for themselves. It gets infuriating.
I love the interesting links, articles, discussions; and I very much appreciate the moderation philosophy. Though I work in tech and hold a certain technical literacy, I’m in a management role and don’t have a background in software development. Nonetheless, there’s plenty here for me, and I wind up learning a lot from reading the technical discussions.
Merry Christmas all. Like many of the posters have said, I really treasure this site as this is what I still believe the Internet should be (yep, I’m old). Love all the nuggets I find here and the number of threads and articles I share out. Also, seriously appreciate dang!
I largely left Reddit with the fall of Apollo, and now here I am instead. Is this better? It’s different, there’s less variety in some ways, but it’s nice not having to constantly downvote + report for off topic posts (thank you dang)
Merry Christmas y'all. Dodged two rounds of layoffs in 2023, things seem to have stabilized a bit in tech in 2024, so let's hope everyone gets a new job who's looking for one, or holds onto one they like!
I may be a scrooge, but I hope everyone enjoys whatever they celebrate. There is a lot of suffering in this world, so if any event helps people in any way, even if it’s just emotionally, I’m all for it.
Merry Christmas to everybody in this wonderful community. I sincerily hope all your dreams come true and that you have a bright and successful year ahead!
Merry Christmas to all! 2023 was a fantastic year, so happy to be over the Covid mountain and over the inflation hills that followed. Wishing everybody here a creative, prosperous, and exciting new year!
Merry Christmas! I have been lurking for years and never contributed myself. Nonetheless, I appreciate all the users and their productive discussions that make this site a joy to browse.
My recommendation to everyone is the Stax Records Christmas compilation album and The Killer’s Christmas song “Don’t Shot Me Santa” is entertaining while being totally unhinged.
Merry Christmas! Happy to have HN as one of my trusted resource on technology, new technology trend, and insightful information on varied topics other than technology!
Merry Christmas everyone. However you choose to spend this day, and whethet or not you hold it to be special in any way, I hope it is peaceful and good for you.
Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks everyone for you great contributions to the community and thanks to the dear moderators for the great job they are doing!
My head cannon is that “merry” is a euphemism for alcohol, which is often more necess… err… prevalent when it’s cold and you’re around extended family.
As in... I migrated here from Slashdot level old :-)
I made a new account, because I'd like to start anew.
Let me take off my mask for a moment, and be authentic:
I encourage folks to remember that life is not a zero sum game -- even if you feel your chips are down this holiday season, try to remember that there are some things money can never buy.
If you're kind, small things -- a barista who remembers your order, a smile at the library, a knowing smirk from the corner of the college cafe yet to be gentrified away will remind you that you are not a ghost in this world, and people remember the positive effect you have on their lives.
And make no mistake -- these are dark times. Part of my own loneliness is that I deleted every shred of social media in 2016 -- I had a beautiful series of photographs on Instagram, and years of cherished memories on Facebook.
I deleted it all, because I was scared what would be done with that data to my friends -- Persian friends, Palestinian friends, Ukranian Friends, Russian friends, Israeli friends, who came to this country because they truly value free expression.
It can be hard, to be a hacker, to feel apart from the physical realm in a lonely way that goes beyond IQ or interests, but don't let that take your soul.
When we must "punch" in our humor, always be sure to punch up.
