skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I see several people in this thread welcoming the fact that there is "finally an alternative to SSRIs". I don't want to discuss whether Ketamine is or is not a good alternative to SSRIs -- instead, I'd like to point out that there are already a great number of alternatives to SSRIs.

For one, there are tricyclics (TCAs), which were the first antidepressants on the market, and generally are not prescribed nowadays. Another category of older antidepressants includes MAOIs, which were the first mass-market antidepressants. These are also not generally prescribed nowadays due to interactions with common types of food, although modern MAOIs such as moclobemide [1] require far less diatary restrictions than the older MAOIs did. The final major category I'll mention are SNRIs, which along with SSRIs are the most commonly prescribed first-line antidepressants.

Apart from these major categories, there are a bunch of atypical antidepressants on the market. There's bupropion, which I personally take, and which has far less side effects than SSRIs and SNRIs but may not be as effective for all patients. There's St. John's wort, which is available off prescription in many countries. There's lithium, which has recently gained popularity. In total, I would guess there are about a hundred different types of antidepressants in production around the world (including old Soviet concoctions that are not available in the West due to the huge price of getting just one of them to market).

If you're unhappy with the side effects of SSRIs, I would encourage you to look up other types of antidepressants, as they have very widely varying side effects, and most atypicals have far fewer common side effects than SSRIs and SNRIs do. In particular, I would like to point out that bupropion usually increases sex drive instead of lowering it like SNRIs and SSRIs tend to do.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide
> Less excusable in this case because why would you need to type in a MAC address?

That is how they do authorization and billing. If there was no way to authorize modems, you could just plug in any cable modem to their system and get free internet. Its also why you have to call them if you switch equipment.
Consider the following:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

http://www.cato.org/raidmap

http://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-teams

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_stop-and-frisk_p...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rao33ZYlrq4 (just watch it and get infuriated)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
>What I'm disputing is the notion that there is a clear-cut distinction between "exogenous" and "endogenous" depression, and that one is "totally unrelated" to the other.

While I agree that neither exist in complete isolation, it still doesn't preclude one from being the dominant cause.

Moreover, not many people would advance the same argument in regards to conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder—how clinical depression is somehow special and not deserving of the same [endogenous] understanding is beyond me.
> Tooltips aren't going to be much help on mobile though.

Not today, but if pressure sensitive touch becomes a widespread thing, distinguishing the "hover"/"click" distinction could be a thing on touch interfaces as well -- bringing back some of the depth of interaction that touch has lost with comparison to desktop.
Brilliant post. This sums up exactly how I feel about TDD.

TDD done right teaches you how to write decoupled and reusable code. The problem is that the majority of people who attempt TDD have been told it's a good thing but can't explain why.

What's even worse is when a team pushes TDD because "we've always done TDD".
thank you! i thought it was twitter then your comment made me realize oauth.io was blocking us.

i'm dumb for using them but it did save time (i think). we'll remove it soon and go back to a more direct oauth strategy
The best icon is one you can opt-into. Don't eliminate them.

For instance I liked OS X's original toolbars, in that you could easily shift between modes that displayed text or did not display text. (Then they entered their phase where toolbars couldn't be customized and all icons were the same shape, which is far less sensible.)
Don't bother, go directly to cap'n proto:
https://capnproto.org
Hamburger button? Is that what people are calling the three lines button? I think that's one that will catch on. I didn't get it at first, but I think now it's here to stay. It also isn't necessarily a sign of bad design. I think it's mostly used as the "main menu" on a small mobile screen interface where you typically use the majority of the screen for information display. Not a bad design at all.
Why?

Why put forth the expense of obtaining (purchase or rent) hardware and staff to maintain that hardware? Additionally, why put forth the time and expense to write or compose a CRM-like software solution that integrates with voter data, what sounds like a dialer/call center, and "big data" tools (Spark, Hadoop, Tableau, SSIS/SSRS) that probably needs a good 6 months lead time before the candidate even announces a run for office? Also, why would every potential candidate do this every 4 years?

Sounds like a perfect choice for a hosted solution that can be iterated on outside of the election cycle.
I was in NC and made about $100K after 7 years. I kept hearing people made $150K elsewhere so I took a gamble and moved. After my first position making $130K I doubled my salary at another well known company to about $260K.

I know from recruiter spam that $260K seems to be on the high end, with only the top firms mentioned paying close to that. I have friends that dwarf what I make, but they had good stock options at companies that made it to IPO. Definitely don't regret leaving NC.

I'd love to know what someone mildly famous like Mbstock, Rich Hickey, etc would make. I am a nobody and have done what I consider well.
> You have to teach the user what the icon means.

Recognition speed presumably goes up with familiarity. I have Age - 6 years of experience reading, I have far less than that with whatever icon you come up with.

Let's take starting an app as an example.

On my Smartphone I use the email client "Nine". I probably open up the app manually (versus tapping on a notification) about 5 or 6 times a day.

It took me ~3-5 months of use to be able to look for the icon first versus looking for the text. Note that this is WITH keeping the icon in the exact same place on my home screen the entire time.

So that is what, 450 impressions for, well, no real speed improvement.

In a sea of words, a good icon can help an app stand out. But I'd argue that a good textual name helps more.

If you have multiple products, having your company name start off the title of all your products just means I cannot find your product in my alphabetized app list.

Changing app names is another huge problem. Google's constant re-branding of how I send SMSs on my phone has been very unconductive to me remembering anything. Half the messaging apps out there have the same type of icon (a speech bubble), the textual names make them unique.

That said Facebook cheats by calling theirs Messenger. :)

Also, enough blue icons. Stop it. Everything is one of 3 shades of blue, gross color differentiation kicks in WAY before shape matching does. The three easiest apps to find on phone are the three apps that still have "out of fashion" black icons.

> Icons are like visual acronyms.

I disagree that the analogy is 100%. Our brains have this giant section dedicated to nothing but recognizing characters in our native written language. Sure we have a lot of brain power going to shape recognition in general, but character recognition is so incredibly trained in our heads that it should be our go to.
Catenate means to connect things together[1], which implies it was named with multiple files in mind.

[1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/catenate
fixed! my own boneheaded error. twitter was fine, but the hosted oauth provider we used wanted money before it would work
> I'll just see websites become more and more useless with three-stripe icons for menus

Hilariously enough, this is now known to be a UX nightmare. HN has had multiple articles on why it is a UX nightmare, even when users know to click the hamburger menu (and everyone does by now), they don't engage or explore as much as they would with a layout that doesn't hide half (or more) of the user's choices.
Also throwaway for obvious reasons. What you say sounds totally in line with my experience:

I am Senior SWE at an Alphabet company. Came to MTV in middle of 2015 from a company in the midwest where I made over $200K last year (much of this was profit-sharing bonus), and I was definitely at top of the market for my city.

My total compensation for this coming year (based on current value of GOOG, obviously this can vary) is projected in the mid-$300Ks. (Some of this is initial GSUs vesting, so it's slightly inflated). With the difference in cost-of-living it should be about equivalent to where I was last year. Too soon for first refresh grant, so I can't speculate about where it may go from there.

I've already gotten a larger raise and bonus than I expected, seeing as I negotiated a better offer than they originally gave me. My manager has been talking with me about what I need to do to get to promoted Staff level.

So yes, there is money to be made in SV, at big companies.
Anything involving human history 6000 years old is awesome. Otherwise I have a million year old rock in the river to sell you.
Is ketamine some sort of wonder-drug for depression?

Probably not, at least not according to most of the research conducted on it so far. Like many treatments for depression — including psychotherapy — it appears to change the way the brain processes certain information and effects the connections between neurons. But it’s not clear how long these changes last, or whether chronic ketamine treatment would be needed, similar to a diabetic taking insulin.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/12/01/should-you-...

Ketamine has been tested in treatment-resistant bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and people in a suicidal crisis in emergency rooms.[26] Benefit is often of a short duration.[27] The quality of the evidence supporting benefit is generally low.[27]

The drug is given by a single intravenous infusion at doses less than those used in anesthesia, and preliminary data indicate it produces a rapid (within 2 hours) and relatively sustained (about 1–2 weeks long) reduction in symptoms in some people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine#Depression

Ketamine may have its use for treatment resistant depression and dealing with emergencies caused by suicidal bouts because it can make depression symptoms disappear for few days, but this is only temporary as better ketamine based drugs are developed.
Hi hackers,
I love the new Action Cable and

completely integrated solution

that rails is/becoming
Thanks for your opinion! I sympathize with much of it.

I hope everyone here understands that I was not intending to be condescending, nor do I look down upon others for their opinions on this eternally divisive issue.

The main purpose for my comment "Free speech, European style" was simply to try to encapsulate what I was seeing in a short, "cute" phrase, with a subtle hint that free speech with restrictions is not really free speech. I do not wish to make value judgments about the various policies in this area, I just wanted to highlight the oxymoronic nature of the notion of "free speech with restrictions". Incidentally, even the United States contains restrictions on free speech, albeit to a lesser degree than perhaps any other nation.

With respect,

trav4225
Great comment. This reasoning is probably intuitive to anyone who's familiar with a logographic writing system.

I feel like you can also draw a parallel with programming languages. Consider:

def sum1(array)
sum = 0
array.each { |e| sum += e }
sum
end

def sum2(array)
array.reduce(:+)
end

sum2 isn't just a different way to write the same thing. It's a construct that expresses a specific pattern of evaluation and aggregation. It doesn't describe what it's doing like sum1 does. It's more expressive than that. It's "clearer" once you learn it.

Similarly (at least in the US) green means proceed/go/forward/continue and red means cancel/go back/stop/error. This is something that was learned, not something that was known by instinct.
Thrift is a very similar system for message serialization to Protobuf.

The thriftpy project implements a pure Python parser for thrift files that dynamically generates Python modules without a build/codegen step. Also has Py2, Py3, and PyPy support.

Awesome library for this sort of thing. Includes a Cython impl of Thrift parsing/serialization, too:

https://github.com/eleme/thriftpy
It's not that bad since Japans infrastructure requirements are falling as well. And old people often don't require as many resource inputs as children and working age people. Unless you are talking the US with it's relatively unhealthy older population and bloated healthcare system[1]

[1] You know where someone is checking out, the system gleefully spends a hundred grand to make sure their last few months of life totally sucks
This is related to my wheelchair, I suppose. Just
because I can't walk, people would ignore me when
making plans to go dancing or maybe even just go for
coffee. The place probably isn't accessible or they
think, what would a girl who can't walk do when we go
clubbing or dancing? Honestly, I dance better than
you, and I'm only moving my upper body.

By Virali Modi, Paralyzed since 2006.

http://qr.ae/RblzzS

EDIT: It took a couple tries to get the formatting write. Anyway, I'm just saying that 1) You shouldn't just call people in 'poor bastards', and 2) There are people in wheelchairs who can dance well and enjoy it a lot.
China's web censoring
Man to Jump from Stratosphere WithNo Spacesuit in Bid to Stop DeathByDirtyWater
"The central suggestion regarding the 'vaccine' effect seemed to be buried a bit in the article (unless I missed something in skimming), but it is the actual new information, which is interesting and heartening."

You are correct, this is a new finding. It does not, however, come from the study looking at soldiers. In that study, ketamine was actually given after stress (not as a 'vaccine'). Those researchers also failed to replicate that effect when they looked a larger group of soldiers. The first study was done in 2008 and the second one was done in 2014. Believe me, if they had found a protective effect in humans 7 years ago, you would have heard about it by now.

The research that actually shows the ketamine might be a 'vaccine' has all come out this year (2015). And, so far, it's all only in mice. The scientific publication referred to in the Nautilus article is "Ketamine as a Prophylactic Against Stress-Induced Depressive-Like Behavior": http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-322.... At least two other research teams at other universities (FSU & UC-Boulder) have independently also found similar effects, but none of that is published yet (though it was presented this year at the national Society for Neuroscience conference). In other words: yes, it's new.

Additionally, neuroscientists at Mt. Sinai, the NIMH, and UC-Boulder (among others) have found that bacteria and immune cells might also be used to 'vaccinate' against stress. Again, most of that research--though not all of it--is still not published yet, and has only been presented at conferences so far.
I recently read that the theory behind serotonin reuptake inhibitors might actually be wrong and possibly cause more harm than good. The actual neurotransmitter mechanism behind depression would be dopamine.

I'm sorry that I can't recall the source, but you should look into this.
...and if they don't have any affiliations?
I'm talking about encryption specialists looking to sucker a poorly-equipped business into giving them easy money, not hobby gamers doing it for thrills. If you're offering thrills and game trinkets, you're looking to attract WoW and LoL players, not professional cryptologists. If they can't break your encryption, they won't stick around.
Actually, I did. And they didn't respond nor grant access:

https://twitter.com/statusgator/status/582633562559512576
I agree on the more and more useless progress of web interface design. The hamburger icon (three-strip icon as you call it) being particularly egregious, akin to the travesty that is the 'start' button on windows.

However, to be fair, Apple designers are very much against this trend as well (not to defend the recent downturn in Apple UX design).

I recommend this 2014 WWDC talk on UX[1]. The entire talk is worth watching even for non iOS UX design. but it goes into the problems with hamburger menus specifically at 32 minutes.

1: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2014-211/
The standardized laundry icons are way better than the alternative (no standard icons, or verbose text in a potentially foreign language).
I fully agree.

I dated for 5 years a woman in the same situation as what you describe. She has money, friends, family, a roof over her head. She hasn't suffered childhood trauma or anything abnormal, but she's consistently depressed and lethargic.

I'm bipolar myself. I've been through some difficult things, but my condition makes me acutely aware of how subjective human emotions are. How much of our thinking is influenced my neurochemistry rather than rational thoughts or memories. I'm pretty stable these days, but I've had times where I would just wake up in the morning and feel happy to be alive. Energized, stress-free, and confident in my abilities. The next day, I wake up depressed and I feel like my life is shit, not worth living. A few days later I feel fine again. No major life events, no major causes of stress, just my neurochemistry being unpredictable.

I think that the overinsistence in some circles on past trauma causing mental illness is harmful. There is definitely such a thing as genetic predispositions. Some depression and mental illness just does not have a cause you can point to. It's not all about overcoming negative experiences and willing yourself out of it. Genetic defects can cause all sorts of physical problems, just think of psoriasis, asthma, acne and peanut allergies. I'm not sure why people think that the brain can't have such issues. Believe me, people with peanut allergies won't overcome that through psychotherapy and confronting their mommy issues.
Would that really be a significant source of data usage?
Right, but the parent was conflating that with HN moderation.
Yeah, Vita Nuova's stuff is interesting - running each node on a supercomputer as an Inferno instance sounded cool - but I guess the fringe cases are what I'm curious about.
This article seems to imply it was assessed at $355 mil http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_16037583 With new building Facebook erected it will likely get re-assessed at higher value, but still, there are probably residential blocks in Menlo Park valued higher.
Vote for BuzzingBOTS webtoon – Thanks
I empathise with your friend's plight, and her exasperating struggle to get well. I've been similar in terms of having a life that others would consider pretty darn good but where you find yourself depressed to the point of being largely unable to function, no matter what treatment you try. I get it, it's profoundly awful, and the world needs to to better at dealing with it, and that has become somewhat of a calling for me now that my own mental health is improving.

But all my research and experiences support the notion that both one's experiences and one's emotional reactions to those experiences are crucial. This is why you can have some people living seemingly perfect lives and winding up depressed, and others living through war and oppression and coming out fine.

In your friend's case, the environmental factors could be: (1) pressure from outsiders to "keep up appearances", (2) the negative messages and images that proliferate through the media of war, poverty, murder, terrorism, climate change etc, (3) a world that offers so many options of how to live but little consistent guidance about what is best, (4) living in a society that can still be very difficult for women, due to career challenges, threat of abuse, paternalistic attitudes etc.

These are just hypothetical of course, given that I don't know her.

And for her to be crippled by depression in response to these or other stimuli would be as much to do with a difference in the way she responds to such things vs the "average" person.

But it may not even be unhealthy. Maybe her true calling is to work as a humanitarian helping the needy rather than doing what she's been trying to do, and her depression is her mind's way of making her realise she needs to make that kind of change.

Having gone through this process in myself and with others, when you dig deep enough, something like this always turns out to be there.

But my main point is that the mind does not and cannot function independently of a person's environment, and paths to mental wellness that really work (and they do exist), involve addressing both one's inner reactions to things and one'e outer environment.
Most (illegal) drugs are a wonder-drug for depression.

At least until they wear off.
Business property taxes and many other services tend to be considerably cheaper than residential rates.
This made me chuckle. Sarcasm, guys! No need to downvote him! :-)
fixed now. my fault
Debian LTS drops security support for VirtualBox
> Avoiding success at all costs takes time...

Uh?
I hadn't thought of it this way before.

Sure, it's slightly depressing that the top comment on a HN thread always seems to always be a takedown (especially when the post cites data and the comment is 'From my experience..') but the alternative is pretty terrible.
15g per day is a ridiculous amount. Though not the most common ketamine induced bladder damage has been observed to occur in a few months of weekly recreative use of insuflated doses of 1-2g over the weekend. On the other hand some heavy chronic users in the several grams daily range had little to no damage after years of abuse so YMMV.
The busybody jobs are actually a social policy. At some point the government decided it was better to have full employment than idle hands, which is why Japan has such a low crime rate.
Err, this is not accurate from my experience. I work at a large company (not one of the 'big 4 tech though) ,remote, in a medium cost of living locale and my salary is what your total comp is. I would get a huge jump if I went to one of the big 4 in the bay area.
-- As an aside, it's a textbook example of multiple discovery/simultaneous invention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery --

I also completely agree that the sedative-level dose given to soldiers after stress might have worked by blocking traumatic memory formation. It has already been established that blocking or "erasing" stress memories may prevent PTSD (here's just one example: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819452).

In the studies in mice, ketamine was no longer in the animals' systems by the time they were stressed. So they were not sedated. And the researchers tested memory formation to confirm it was not affected. Thus, it seems that ketamine's protective effect in mice isn't just because memory is disrupted. That said, it is always possible they missed something.

From what I can find, it doesn't seem like anyone has even looked yet to see how this ketamine-vaccine strategy effects neuroplasticity. At this stage, it's probably best to consider the post-stress effect of ketamine in soldiers (1), the pre-stress protection in mice (2), and the neuroplastic effects of ketamine (3) as three separate things.
I know it custom to bash java on HN, but personally I like java. I don't mind the verbosity - a decent IDE will handle that.