Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kelamir | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised at the negativity people have towards it. I wonder what they'll have to say when those points of critique are fixed, like the fasting crowd's issue with 4 hours span.

I find the website fairly useful. When I'm feeling like that it's hard to take care of things like window being closed and me not getting enough oxygen. Forgetting to eat is a thing too. Reminding is nice.

View on HN

I find when I have a strong negative or positive reaction and subsequent outburst, that I have some form of conditioned behaviour. This is usually a sign that I should try and catch that reaction, find the cause, and try to analyze link.

At least this is how I view it--the keys are: 1) strong reaction, 2) try to find out why I have a strong reaction.

My main reaction to this was that for it to be really useful it can’t be a generic website.

For instance if you’d sit for 15 min and think about times you needed to check your situation, you’d come up with a checklist of 5 to 10 items, and could pin it in your note taking or document management app of choice.

It would fill the same niche as this site, except it’s completely tailored to your life, your needs, with the proper actions related to each items.

The site's niche looks like people who could use help making a personal list.

> Forgetting to eat is a thing too

If only there was a mechanism the body had to alert you of it, like some kind of feeling perhaps...

I mean, I have to be concentrating quite hard to feel the emotion you're referring to. The default way I experience hunger is just a generalised increasing misery and inability to think. If I'm lucky enough to get a specific cue, it's an intense desire to not be eating (which is an odd one given that of course I'm already not eating at the time).

Not everyone has the same experiences as you do.

Well then I wish we could swap bodies, that sounds superb for weight loss.

It can be quite crippling - I was distressingly oh-god-snatch-your-children-away-from-the-monster thin until about the age of 15, and I have to be constantly paying attention to catch hunger before I lose a misery-wracked evening to lying unable to move. It's not as bad as it is for the people who don't feel pain, but taking manual control of bodily functions is not something to be done lightly. (Huel/Soylent etc are an absolute godsend.)

The other way has problems too. The disconnect can be so severe that a person will work until they collapse from low blood sugar.

Give me enough pressure and I can forget about eating for the entire day. The feeling just doesn't register, I will not be hungry at all.

Maybe it's because it feels kinda entitled to think that depressed people have problems at this level. It's like a children's book. OTOH a generic 5min guide like that can't really help in non-trivial cases.

Tbf the website doesn’t state it’s for those with depression

Depressed people do often have problems at this level. It helps sometimes to deal with the basic trivialities of life when more complex issues are having their way with you.

I think that your calling it a "children's book" is even worse. I have depression and I sometimes feel paralyzed because even small chores like drinking water can be challenges. So having this flowchart actually helped me a little.

It won't cure the chronic depression, but at least today I managed to tidy up the house a little. It's not 0 or 100%.

It's peak "technology folks solve all the problems in the world" thinking...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com