People think its the homeless pooping on the streets of San Francisco but I was an employed software engineer making 6+ figures and pooped on the street one time since I could find a restroom.
Was there a possibility of finding a cafe or Macdonalds and just buying a coffee or something so you could use their restrooms? (as you said you were making 6+ figures) I mean I imagine that would be preferable to pooping on the street. But I don't know San Francisco, was there a reason why that wasn't possible e.g. no cafes open or something?
Starbucks the world over. If they might give you any trouble, stare vaguely at the menu on the way in. One can always change their mind to not order something on the way out.
Starbucks has restroom codes in large cities with homeless populations. They won't give out unless you buy something.
One of the Boulder Colorado Starbucks has a biohazard needle disposal box. Either that's for people with diabetes or there a high population of IV drug users.
Los Angeles was rough for public restrooms I remember when I was there!
I do remember if you were on the west side the Santa Monica boardwalk and the beaches all having public restrooms which was a lifesaver numerous times for me!
But that was around 2015ish not sure how it is now.
Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy. @dang
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
You just say whatever you think with no supporting evidence.
Viewing ones unsupported opinions as more accurate than science (especially in a medical context) is considered delusional thinking by the psychiatric community and it's definitely indicative for a referral to a psychiatrist.
.Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy. @dang
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
You and OP appear to agree there is a significant problem, you just disagree where the "blame" lies.
OP suggests the built environment is insufficient. You baselessly assume OP must have a serious medical issue as, apparently, you can't imagine that the built environment is really the appropriate villain to finger in this case.
Before anyone jumps up to accuse me of nefarious intent and of being secretly on the side of "America's built environment could stand to be improved" I'll just openly admit that's exactly where I stand and save you a bit of furious typing.
Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy. @dang
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
Whether the GP has a medical issue or not, people with bowel-control problems still deserve to be able to travel the city. There just need to be restrooms available for them. There's no simple cure, so their doctor won't be able to solve that problem for them.
Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy. @dang
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
Exactly. You can get a venti coffee at Starbucks and get a refill for 52 cents and if you're not from San Francisco, you don't realize how brutal the public toilet situation is until its too late.
Not sure about the corollary as long flights always have restrooms and the time to use them. But maybe you are just uncomfortable on airplane toilets which is fine.
If you have irritable bowel syndrome, it's basically hard to treat, very common, and solved by a simple thing: availability of public restrooms.
It's not a shame to feel the sudden urge to take a shit. What's a shame is blaming people for feeling the urge.
> There is no world in which a healthy person must shit on the street.
Healthy people are not the only ones a city must be designed for. From Wikipedia: "About 10–15% of people in the developed world are believed to be affected by IBS."
And note IBS is not the only reason to feel the sudden urge to take a dump.
If actual an scientific white paper from PubMed with research and data does not convince you that coffee has a strong laxative effect on around 30% of people, then there's not much else to say.
There's still people who believe the world is flat despite all evidence to the contrary.
It's very difficult to have a discussion with someone who prefers their own opinions over science.
Coffee affects me strongly. What can I say. I get a cleanse every morning for 3 bucks. Cleansing your digestive tract is actually really good for you. People pay big bucks for cleanses.
> 100% of the time a doctor can help you in some way
Nothing that starts with the claim "100%" is ever true, you can be 100% certain of that.
Seriously though, you speak as if your digestive system has never betrayed you, and therefore you're unfamiliar with these matters.
Trust me: there are some things your doctor cannot help you with, at least, not to the point you can walk in a city without public restrooms. Some things are not even medical conditions -- and IBS is "idiopathic" in many cases, meaning doctors don't have a clue -- and some conditions that you would consider anomalous actually fall within the normal human spectrum.
You'll feel the urge to contradict me: don't. You probably don't know about this, but both me and the other commenter you're arguing with do. Realize that your experience is not everybody else's.
What does any of this have to do with what I said? Regardless of how much a doctor can help you or not, if you’re shitting uncontrollably in the streets, you need to seek medical attention to determine if they can do anything about it.
If actual an scientific white paper from PubMed with research and data does not convince you that coffee has a strong laxative effect on around 30% of people, then there's not much else to say.
There's still people who believe the world is flat despite all evidence to the contrary.
It's very difficult to have a discussion with someone who prefers their own opinions over science.
Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy. @dang
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
Are you a doctor or something? You’re not this posters friend nor in a social position where it’s appropriate to insist on their health status. (Pointing this out because you might simply not know you’re crossing a line.)
Yes, you asked a question, and then insisted further because the answer isn’t good enough for you. You’re not this persons friend, you’re not this persons doctor and you haven’t claimed any medical experience. You’re being a weirdo. Let it go, dude.
Nothing the OP said made it seem like they were fine pooping in the street. If anything it’s pretty clear they don’t think it’s acceptable. They just don’t think it’s a medical issue. You’re insisting that it is, but you’re not their friend and you’re not a doctor and you don’t have medical training in identifying what is normal and abnormal bowel behavior. That’s being a weirdo because you’re crossing a social line here. Even if you personally think it is, you’re not in a social position where your insistence isn’t incredibly rude.
Several people are telling you to chill out/back off not because it’s acceptable to shit on the street, but because it’s not acceptable to insist on the health status of someone without first establishing either rapport or appropriate relevant knowledge that justifies breaking a social boundary. You have no justification, so your suggest was a little nosey, and your insistence is flagrantly rude.
>Coffee affects me strongly. What can I say. I get a cleanse every morning for 3 bucks. Cleansing your digestive tract is actually really good for you. People pay big bucks for cleanses.
sounds like OP
1. knows that he gets uncontrollable diarrhea from coffee.
Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy. @dang
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
Your opinions have been voted down so many times this thread is filled with your dead comments and not a single person has vouched for you other than me. I can no longer vouch for you.
Also youre flame baiting which is a clear violation of HN policy @dang.
You probably need to take a class on improving your poor reasoning skills and as another poster said: seek mental health care.
What's supposed to happen is you learn on the job but that rarely happens because unless you graduated from a top 10 school you're typically hired to do drudgery that exists due to poor tech management.
So if you are actually a normal person in tech with things going on in your life you will inevitably fall behind.
In my experience lying still doesn't really work, because it's a deliberate practice with a goal and your brain starts analyzing that as well. You know the inner voice that says: I am still not calming down, I am still awake.
I once read that sleep therapists sometimes give people with bad sleeping problems the opposite advice: keep your eyes slightly open and try to stay awake. Not in the sense that you should put on loud music, put lucifers between your eyelids, etc. But just lie down and don't try to fall asleep. It often works, because people let go of the goal to calm down and get asleep (which makes it hard to do exactly that), once you let go, your body does what it wants to do, calm down and sleep.
A similar approach works very well for me: just stop caring. Ensure that you are on a regular schedule for going to bed and waking up (so that you biological clock doesn't get confused), don't drink alcohol (bad sleep quality), don't do anything exciting the hours before going to bed (heated discussions on HN), and write down stuff that bothers you before going to bed. Let your body do the rest. If you are awake for some more time, then just interpret it as: my body isn't tired yet, I am just going to enjoy the cosiness of my bed.
This agrees with all those times I wake up a bit before my alarm rings and then I can't go back to sleep UNTIL my alarm rings and then suddenly all I want to do is drift off...
Instead of trying to focus on nothing at all, the standard trick to get around this problem is to focus on something extremely boring, such as your own breathing. The traditional "counting sheep" method of sleep induction could be considered a variant of this.
I use MandaloreGaming's videos. They're longform content that I like, since I'm not learning new/essential information I can tune in and out, and his voice isn't too harsh.
People are different, so it is hard to make some advice that works for everybody. That being said, I totally agree with your conclusion. You do not have to lie still in order to go to sleep, or any other reason. In some sense, if you are in such a situation (being tired, needing to wake up early etc), lying still in the bed is already better than any alternative you can do, eg staying in front of a screen. Sometimes you may sleep. Sometimes you may not sleep. Ime, under this intention, it becomes easier and easier to sleep. Just do not put sleep in your mind as a goal, accept that you may not sleep or you may sleep (even better cultivate being indifferent towards either outcome) and lie still. Personally I have learnt that lying still is more important than eventually sleeping or not. It can even be enjoyable in itself.
Disclaimer: I have only had insomnia episodes that have lasted up to a month or so, so more chronic episodes can be different.
I’m pretty high on the neurotic scale. Two things that have helped me immensely:
1) I turn on an audio book that I love and know well with a 30 minute sleep timer. Recently this is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It doesn’t keep me awake because I already know the story well. But it keeps my mind occupied enough to avoid the rumination. Podcasts don’t work for me because it’s new material.
2) Guided Yoga Nidra in bed. This involves a long sequence of instructions to notice and relax individual areas of the body. Thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie finger, front of the hand, back of the hand, wrist, and so on. This keeps the mind occupied and also helps release tension.
I use soccer podcasts. Not American pundits who like to argue with each other loudly, but brits who don't raise their voices, yapping about teams I don't have any particular emotional connection to, with nothing particularly insightful to say about them...
Podcasts have been a godsend for me. I can’t lay in silence, either, because then my mind just races. But with a podcast you can just close your eyes and listen. It almost takes me back to my parents reading to me.
Science / nature podcasts work really well. I avoid true crime, social issues, politics, tech, or work topics. The Ologies podcast is amazing.
There’s even a podcast called Nothing Really Happens designed to help insomniacs sleep.
I used to be the same. But I find it just keeps me up more because there is so much potential for it to become interesting...even the most boring pods. Now I remove my bed from the bedroom and if anything I use a Calm sleep story.
ASMR? There's a woman called yang haiyang who doesn't mean to do ASMR, which is probably why this works for me. I put on a video of her making yogurt or drawing or talking about some trip to a local museum and pass put. Whenever I can't get to sleep I toss one of the dozens of videos she's uploaded that day on.
Lex Fridman (love him) has the most monotone voice and at 1.25 he still sounds like .75...
Ill put on long form pods so I dont have to mess with anything until I fall asleep.
Here is one thing that happens very often to me. I have always been a rather lucid dreamer, vivid dreamer, and I have had dream story lines last literally decades in my dreams. I have had dreams where I have a story take place - then that story will continue like a year or two later, and I recall how they connect.
Anyway - Ill be listening to a podcast, and then every DreamNPC will be talking to me but whats coming out of their mouths, are the voices from the podcast. i.e. One dream, I was rescuing my daughter from a car crash and taking her to the hospital, and everyone at the hospital was insisting on taking my daughter to mars. And I was running to get her out of the hospital and away from all the people in there trying to take her to Mars... (I was listening to a long form pod of colonizing mars/getting to mars etc... and thats what all the NPCs were spewing to me.
Also - there are several triggers that alert me to the fact that I am dreaming:
I attempt to use my phone in any capacity - its impossible to press digits - and eventually my phone will crumble/disintegrate in my hand - and this alerts me that I am in a dream and I am aware of it.
If I attempt to read numbers - such as those on a price tag for an item in a store. Once I realize how hard it is to read any numbers - I am aware I a dreaming.
If I am trying to clean up a mess - I cannot pick things up, and I wobble-around as if I am black-out drunk and keep falling over and dropping the things I am trying to clean up - then I realize its a dream.
Also, I have several 'dream houses' and 'dream neighborhoods' that I am familiar with in my dreams - and when I see them/am in them again, I know I am dreaming. But sometimes, the dreams are so intense, that when I wake up I can still be confused thinking that some aspects of the dream actually happened, and it takes me a moment to register that these things were from the dream, not wokeness :-)
-
There have been times where I realize I am dreaming, then I force myself to 'wake-up' and I believe that I am woken up, but then one of the above triggers happens, and I realize I am still in the dream.. sometimes multiple times in the same dream - this one is scary though, because this happens when all my surroundings in the dream are the same as my real-life surroundings, and so it takes one of the triggers for me to recognize that I am actually dreaming...
Also, I have had dreams that I can recall from when I was a kid, then I have an experience in real-life - and then I can remember the dream from when I experienced it as a kid... (like a weird deja-vu dream-wormhole.)
I love dreaming -and I have a terrible general memory for daily mundane things - but I can vividly remember my dreams.
From the age of 11 to mid 30s I found it very difficult to sleep without being able to listen to something to distract myself for the same reason. Being in a dark silent room with my eyes shut was the worst thing ever.
A few things really helped me. The first was meditation because it allows you to become mindful of your feelings and recognize what you’re feeling. This mindfulness makes it much easier to practice emotional regulation, which is essential for self soothing. And finally ER allowed me to learn to love myself and separate myself from my bad past experiences and mistakes.
Journaling about your demons and past cringe or dramatic or bad experiences in extreme detail also helps a lot. Bonus for journaling in a way that is compassionate to yourself
Then you should take some time earlier and face the demons while you are not trying to sleep. You have to think about thing - if you don't do it at day-time, the brain will force you at night.
I discovered that having my phone next to my bed makes it too easy to say ‘ah, I can’t sleep, let’s just check HN for a while’, and it also makes it too easy to turn off my alarm in the morning. I’ve started putting it at the other end of my room before sleeping, and so far the results are promising.
The problem with remote work is management not employees.
ICs job is literally to work not to come up with innovative new ideas to advance the company. Thats what MANAGERS AND EXECUTIVES ARE SUPPOSED TO DO and the ICs implement those ideas.
For some reason it's expected now for IC s to be doing managements jobs and for that reason they need to be coming into the office for collaboration?
The managers and executives are the ones who meed to be going into the office to collaborate.
Good management would come up with the ideas and efficiently break it down so that ICs can take the work and run with it no collaboration needed.
No this is all about control and 'cultural fit' shaming to fear people into doing their jobs rather than being a good manager that is capable of distributing work in an efficient way and treating people in a way that people are inspired to do great work for you a thousand miles away even without any supervision.
It's a lot more difficult to be a manager that people follow out of respect and love vs a manager people follow out of fear and constant monitoring.
Confidence in Americans institutions. is at an all-time low.
The America of today is like a literal different country compared to the America of 1960's and before.
Its becoming a very low quality of life place for the average America teetering towards 3rd world levels of inequality with minimal social safety nets.
If you call Britain first world country, they're way worse than America.
> Ive found way more difficult managers than difficult employees in my career.
Yep. They set the tone. And if the manager's tone is not one of honesty, the ICs will intuitively not continue to be honest. Because they intuitively know that honesty will get penalized.
If only people would have responsible amounts of children we could all share in the wealth.
As the billions of third world people continue having irresponsible amounts of children to expand to the new resources given to them.it becomes impossible for most first worlders to compete and everywhere becomes third world.
So it may not be as good of a thing as it seems.
Its funny the recent middle class is actually an abberation throughout most of human history.
Most of human history has been the rich with their foot on the neck of the poor.
This is an awesome manager style imo. Figure out how to promote your employees within the system that exists and make them aware of what they need to do as well politically. Many managers dont even do that. They just kind of let the employees flounder.
I thought that the more high status the company would indicate better technology stacks and better quality of engineering.... but all the high status seems to do is pull in people who are really good at politics and doing promotion based development which is kind of counter to the science aspect of computer science.
I've consistently gotten the impression that the difference between high performing organizations like Google and less high-performing organizations is that Google doesn't just _say_ they do this stuff, they actually do it, too. (Or, at least, they used to).
