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Really because I'm a GCP customer also and earlier this week they arbitrarily shut off Looker on us with no explanation leading to tons of pissed off customers. Our account executive responded with no help and a link to file a ticket. I expect a lot more from a service we're paying $10k+ a month for and my experience with Google has been so bad we're considering migrating everything to Microsoft.

In this case they do not. These are research chemicals already in various stages of trials and are intended to help serious scientists conduct experiments. The promotion of potentially very damaging pharmaceutical level drugs is concerning.

I take plenty of supplements, including not particularly well known ones like Agmatine, NAC, etc. but research chemicals is a whole other level and has serious potential for lifelong issues. It shouldn't be promoted imho.

The "research chemical" community on Reddit is fascinating and horrifying. People setting up scientific sounding LLCs to virtual offices and ordering all sorts of not for human consumption chemicals that are variations of Ritalin, alzheimer drugs, and more in the name of cognitive enhancement. It's basically legal pharma abuse without even needing a shady doctor but actually even more risky since these chemicals haven't undergone human trials and these people could well be doing permanent damage.

You negotiate by not using square and using an alternative system in that scenario. There are price competitive options even for small businesses. The UI might be clunkier and the equipment more dated but that is the tradeoff.

This isn't true in payments. There are many reseller orgs, indie processors, etc. that are happy to negotiate heavily based on volume etc.

Source: I was director of digital marketing for a payments company a few years ago.

I hate to break it to you but the SEO industry is as big as advertising generally and organic results are heavily gamed. As it relies a ton on link building and many of those links are paid for it's hardly the meritocratic process many think it is.

HN falls under work for me (in the sense that I learn things, I have a company that employs engineers so there's a networking element etc) but point taken. I guess I don't think about it as much because it's significantly less problematic than say Instagram and at least I learn things here.

Notably I did cut out reddit which imho is the most toxic social network I was a part of.

Anecdotally I removed all social media from my phone recently and I only am using Twitter for work on desktop. My mood has improved dramatically and my focus is improving. Towards the end I found myself getting angry at posts that showed curated idyllic lives and realized that it's all really a facade.

To that end the last post I saw on Tiktok before deleting it basically said that social media is so insidious because it is both the sickness and the cure. You feel bad and then you feel better ad nauseum and that rang very true for me.

I lived in Aribnb's for roughly a year and a half. They actually did a profile on our family on the Today Show on NBC about it.

I think the thing I hated about it the most was the system of hosts rating the guests. It was always stressful especially when our ability to simply secure our next place to live was dependent on, to some degree, a hosts subjective evaluation of how they felt the stay went. For instance I have a toddler, at one location my toddler played with some toys that were in the house. We put them back where they were but they were incorrectly arranged (not damaged just put back not the way they wanted) and the host left us a negative review. We disputed it and airbnb sided us, but the whole feeling of constant judgement makes it difficult to relax in a space. I wish they had some better / more objective system as you never know when you'll encounter an unreasonable person. To me this is the single biggest negative. A sort of cloud of social credit hanging over your head.

At this point I would never use Airbnb except for long term (30 days+) type of travel. Between the extremely intense chores you're basically given plus huge cleaning fees hotels are superior in nearly every way for short term trips. The significant % reduction for staying a month too makes it a lot more palatable. I think Airbnb sees this too which is why they're leaning so heavily into the digital nomad / long term travel user segment. It's a place they can genuinely win vs a hotel. For short term stays not dealing with unreasonable hosts, not getting surprise fees, and there not being a bunch of chores makes things significantly more enjoyable. As noted on social platforms by others getting hit with a massive cleaning fee and also then being expected to do chores also feels like a slap in the face.

I am not in journalism per say however as I've spent a decade in advertising I work with media companies a lot.

Conspiracy theorists that push the idea there is some global cabal of people trying to control the narrative for their own enrichment / others detriment is simply false, and that narrative is damaging in a number of ways. Cynically most of these organizations are too dysfunctional to pull something like that off even if they wanted to.

There are however many internal and external pressures on organizations that shape narratives in a specific ways and journalists are human beings (they're biased based on their own experiences) so reporting always has a slant. That is worthy of critique and is healthy.

The debate on media generally has jumped the shark. IMHO it's not the answer that many folks (that tend to be conservative) want to hear, but meaningful diversity of opinion and experience would help balance this out. You want news with a working class, middle America viewpoint? Then you need to help some % of those people get into media. (This is just one such example of course).

I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag.

In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted. I feel so helpless like I wish there was a way to prevent this or create enough real accountability that people actually work to minimize these sorts of things but it never seems to pan out that way. My hunch is that the behind the scenes culprit of "why" this happens is rather banal, insurance covers it so people don't have to change, and it seems like those policies create a ton of moral hazard but I don't know the alternatives. I have no answers here it just feels like yet another weight on the side of the scale that the average person has very little control over their lives even for simple things like not being hurt by toxic chemicals in soil / drinking water. Feels easy to lose even more faith in the institutions that are supposed to protect us all.

It's a guided process for Google apps for business and very simple.

I similarly have that fear hence why I take 3 days a week in a row off and twice now I've taken 3 week+ breaks when I know that I can. Also there's a whole rabbit hole of supplements that can help supposedly and I've found some to be useful but the biggest thing is just intense cardiovascular exercise (and specifically cardio versus resistance training). That said yes a year on I take a longer term break and I feel exactly like I used to pre medication by day 5 so not worried at this point. Most of the long term dependence issue I've seen from folks is many multi year users 5+ so doing what I can to avoid that situation. Keep dose as low as possible, take holidays, and long term I'm working to use it less and less so its infrequent or only during stressful work / life times in the future.

I'm aware this is a joke and also am aware that NYC is largely safe. It clearly struck a nerve however and I think thats for a reason which is things are heading that way generally.

If you're feeling like your emotions and physical state aren't well regulated you can't do meaningful deep dive work. Large swaths of your energy is spent simply trying to feel balanced enough to then get the things you want to get done accomplished. Many of these tactics are short term fixes that end up making things worse off later on. Think like drinking too much coffee to try and focus but you end up getting anxiety from said caffeine. You can barely keep up with the things you need to do today and you don't have the energy to do the things that will long term help. It creates a negative feedback loop where you're stuck in a purely short term mindset.

I think it was Antonio Garcia Martinez where I read some content he made that drew a bunch of parallels to the US as very similar to LATAM in a lot of ways. I was fortunate enough to spend some time doing the digital nomad thing in Panama and personal security is way more explicit in places like that. Barbed wire around houses, big security systems, armored vehicles, etc. etc. because people didn't particularly trust the government to take great care of them. I some of these things happening in the US and its a bit concerning. I often and harshly criticize the police but they have a lot more accountability than a private security detail does. Feels like as a society we are making decisions taking us down a path of low trust and more violence. I don't pretend to know the answer though.

Well so for what its worth and I guess I wasn't explicit about is that at this point (just shy of 1 year medicated) my days I am not medicated (I take medication 4 days a week) are much easier to get things done now because of the other work I've been doing. As they continue to compound I'm hoping that in another year I can largely discontinue meds or switch to a less often as needed basis. So there is long term hope but for me and folks like me medication can break the short term cycle to get there. That said plenty of folks can't function with medication and there is no shame in that either.

Speaking from personal experience I tried every trick, strategy, and everything else under the sun and it never worked which led to a lot of personal shame and anxiety that over time became so tiring and demoralizing it led to short term the occasional bought of depression. Talk therapy helped but wasn't enough. Saw a doctor in my early 30s, got diagnosed with adhd, and started adderall which gave me the ability to focus and get my life in order enough I had the space and energy to do the long term compounding things like exercise, getting my diet in order (I'm on a paleo-ish diet now), have time to meditate/journal etc. etc. The hyper focus on short term mood before I recognize now was really an attempt to get in the right head space to get work done but that process is exhausting and leaves little energy to do the long term right things. Maybe if I had the wealth to step away from work for months and purely focus on that I could have gotten to the place without medication to let the long term things compound but I don't think thats a realistic option for 99% of people at least in the US and especially with families to support. We can argue about the structure of society and if thats right or not but for my own life frustration at the general state of the world does little to improve my life.

Stimulant meds are not a silver bullet but for some % of folks no amount of strategizing is going to help without medication and/or therapy. I use both and it's been enough of a push to see dramatic improvement. My biggest piece of advice if you're struggling with this generally is drop the shame. The shame that you struggle with it, the shame that you might need medication, etc. Then when the shame is gone you can be objective to do get what you need and stack the long term habits that make things easier.

I'm the founder of an audio ads startup. To put things in perspective the global radio market for ad dollars is ~$35 billion to $40 billion depending on who you ask. All of podcasting is $2 billion.

To be clear the shift to all digital is happening but am/fm radio has a long ways to go before being irrelevant and this shift will likely take a few more decades. Don't sleep on traditional media.

This is generally very good advice. Eat well, get outside into nature, sleep well, try not to worry. Focus on what you can control not what you can't.

Yeah I am not in this tier of wealth but being in tech / working with VCs I rub elbows with it. They consistently suggest to get a concierge doctor and its so great because they have a small number of patients and they actually listen to them and help them get whatever medicine needs, read studies on their conditions and recommend like niche and newer treatments / drugs. It sounds great but you know I can't afford a 3k a month retainer. The medical system once again seems to work incredibly well if you have means but that sort of expense is even outside the realm of most 1%ers.

I don't think so, I think there's a combination of things that are happening that makes their jobs more difficult and a lot of macro changes happening in the world as well as just bad expectations that we have as patients. I am not in the medical field, this is simply my layman's interpretation of what is going on.

1. Doctors are not the same are researchers in many or most cases. They are more akin to technicians than scientists. In the same way I wouldn't expect my electrician to meaningfully innovate the way that he hooks up my house to the power grid or I wouldn't expect my plumber to fundamentally shift my city's sewer system to better serve my individual house that simply isn't their job as front line folks administering care.

2. I think we are massively overlooking simply the breadth and depth of the changes in the world and how that affects their profession. We are exposed to a staggering and exponentially increasing amount of chemicals, environmental toxins, pollutants, foods, and their patients come from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds and live in wildly different environments with wildly different lifestyles. I have to imagine 100 years ago if you were a doctor in say Ireland, you mostly knew what your patients did for work, what they ate, they all lived in roughly the same area, etc. The variables of health were simply much less.

3. The same time the amount of diseases / disorders / etc. that we've identified has grown exponentially. When the field of things that it could be even if that was an incomplete list (obviously) it was much easier to give a broad diagnosis than a specific one. This has improved treatment to be sure but also demanded specialization so any one doctor having all the answers gets less likely over time.

4. Lastly it's just financial pressures. Markets and especially insurance is part of this but I think in general as globalization has continued to accelerate and resources are being distributed more and more in some sense (and concentrated in other senses) you have to take a holistic view. You say doctors used to be "better" but better where? If all the doctors are in a handful of countries with most of the resources that sub group of people will yes get better care but what about everyone else?

This is fascinating and in particular this article called out EBV infection and the link to anxiety. I developed a rough EBV infection in college and a few years later I developed generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks. At this point they're mostly under control with lifestyle changes however that they call out this link is really enlightening. I hope that more research looks into this sort of thing and makes these connections because it seems like it could be a huge benefit to folks. It feels like a lot of the interventions with mental health tend to be a bit of a sledge hammer generalist approach so looking at the root causes of the "why" I think could power a much more holistic view of things.

I do feel this. I consider myself somewhat of a minimalist (not an extreme one but to a decent degree yes) and while we don't buy my kid a ton of toys the people around him do. I think the system we're settling into is a combination of cycling toys (he gets them for 1-3 months then we pack them into the closet) and then donate the ones that aren't his favorite. It's imperfect but it has helped stem the tide.

I have never been to Japan but I did a fair bit of international traveling for a couple of years. Going from living in a US style suburban McMansion to small apartments in Italy, Panama, Iceland, etc. was eye opening in such a positive way. US houses have tons of square footage and just so much wasted space. It adds a ton of cleaning and unnecessary maintenance and since large swaths of the US prefer ranch style houses I would rather reduce the footprint for more space for outdoors and a garden. I am genuinely happier in smaller spaces with better utilized space. In my experience you can easily halve the size of most US houses and still be very comfortable with no drop in quality of life. Am I advocating for families of 4+ to live in a 250 sq ft (25 sq meter) apartment like I did in Florence? No, but you also don't need 4000 square feet (400 sq meter) houses either. I can't imagine a scenario even with 3 kids as we're planning on to need more than 1600 sq fetter (150 sq meters) regardless of my personal financial situation and would certainly give up that space for more walkability.

You should look up a concept called "Gestalt Learning". I liken it to the "Eureka" effect that Thomas Edison talked about.

For any professional educators or other folks more familiar with this I am about to butcher this concept I am sure but my layman's understanding is the following. Basically rather than a bottom up approach to learning it's a top down approach where you see the whole picture first rather than each piece and then dance around it until you just "get it". Think of imagining a house and then learning about it until the entire house system makes sense. You might imagine the house, then learn a large "chunk" which is the foundation, then another chunk which is the plumbing, etc. etc. A more typical learning method might be you learn what a brick is and then you learn how they're put together, then you understand a wall, etc. etc. This style of learning is more common in folks on the ASD spectrum but isn't exclusive to ASD folks. I find for me I'll encounter a concept, then think on it periodically over some period of time until one day I just sort of "get it". It's not better or worse than other ways of learning but it just means you need to approach things differently to learn more efficiently.

I found my therapist exactly like this and I have been with him for a few years. I was judicious with narrowing the search results and then further combed through each one meticulously. My wife tried 3 or 4 until she found one that clicked. I consider this list to be vastly superior to a better help etc. which I have never had luck with.

I've been in some dark places myself with it all culminating about 4 years ago with the birth of my son and I had everything going "right" and all the things you claim to desire. I had a successful small ad agency, was married, lived in a cool city, etc. and yet was still in a dark place. Don't fall into the trap thinking that simply ticking these boxes will improve your life, certainly material changes to things can make a big difference but they won't "solve" it. I emphasize this because most of the advice here is focused on changing your material condition (which makes sense this is a forum dominated by engineers) but that isn't the whole story.

I would also question your analysis of the situation which seems to rest on this mistaken understanding of time. Plenty of people have everything you want and die at 50 or younger. Plenty of people are in your shoes and live to be 100. Don't assume you do or don't have time left to do these things.

Years of therapy started me on the path. Progress was slow at first, gradual for a long time, and then I seemingly hit a number of breakthroughs that really accelerated things in the past year. The biggest things you can do today, yes today, are get your diet in order if it isn't already, start going to the gym regularly if you aren't already, meditate daily (it actual changes the structure of your brain). There's some evidence that ice baths and sauna bathing can help a lot. (It did for me). I listen to the Huberman podcast and if you're scientifically minded he's a Stanford neurologist who talks through things that can help like depression, anxiety, etc on a chemical level and how it can help us improve our lives. Also if you're a big drinker or use some sort of drugs you need to work first off towards moderating those or consider entirely eliminating them from your life for at least the short term. I entirely stopped drinking for 6 months and now it's an extremely rare occurrence. It's not going to fix things but it will keep them from getting worse.

Longer term don't be afraid to explore meds if needed (with the advice of a doctor of course), despite the wide demonization they get from others in tech adderall changed my life significantly for the better (but know it's a push not a silver bullet). In the process with therapy I learned not to hate myself, I found (re-found) my religion, and am starting to make genuine friendship and connections. I also found the writings of Marcus Aurelius in Meditations to be extremely useful. If the literal emperor of Rome felt like how I do every day surely I am not alone.

Is my life perfect? Not at all. Did material things like changing my job, moving half way across the country, cutting old friendships etc help? Absolutely! The above list sounds borderline cliche and it basically is because the advice works. My biggest thing I want to emphasize though is that start slow. Don't shift perfectionism to your self improvement. Again emphasizing diet and exercise even a 15 minute walk a day and cutting our processed foods can do more than you think and you can't talk your way out of biology. Email is in my DMs if you want to talk. We're all in it together. I once heard that the whole universe is love. We're either all screaming out for love (through sadness or anger or both) or we're giving it. It sounds so flippant but it really is true. Hope this helps and hope you find your path. If it's any help I'm a total stranger and odds are we'll never chat but know I am rooting for you.

Losing 200 million a year and mostly being not profitable is viable?

Edited to say "mostly" not profitable.

Yeah actually beyond age I would also break out "Do you have children" explicitly as that changes that calculus a lot.