I have never had any problems with my back in my entire life so this came as a shocker. My job is as a web developer so I spend 90% of my time awake seated and working.

Here's what happened:

Once I woke up, I tried standing up and I could barely walk because of the pain. Talk about being god damn mortified. I immediately called my girlfriend to let her know she should probably check on me in the morning.

In a state of panic, I also called a doctor friend of mine at around 4:30am. I explained my situation to him and he told me to conduct a simple test and answer some questions so he could assess what it could be: he asked me to put my chin on my chest which I could and that was good. He also asked whether there was numbness or tingliness which I didn't have so he was more at ease. However, because he couldn't explain what it was he suggested I should go to the hospital. It wasn't safe to get out at that time so I decided to take some ibuprofen which luckily I had, and wait it out till the sun was up. I managed to get some sleep by 5:50am and by the time I woke up at 9am. The pain had somehow reduced and I could walk again.

My friend later on prescribed some myospaz and suggested it might have been a muscular issue. I'm feeling much better now. I still can't bend or lift heavy things but I can at least I can do some basic stuff like go to the bathroom without feeling excruciating pain when I change body posture e.g. moving from standing to sitting position and vice-versa.

I'm working from home now. Seated on my couch in the living room because, you know, code must be shipped and I absolutely love what I do. My back is rested on the couch so I'm pretty comfortable and the pain has been gradually decreasing.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. What didn't help:

Reading about back pains on the internet. If you want to absolutely heighten your anxiety when panicking about your health, read about it on the internet. I had begun to imagine the worst.

2. My girlfriend has been so great helping me out with cooking and cleaning since I've been pretty much useless at any laborious tasks. I should probably marry her NOW. She's been amazing.

3. Ergonomics

I've been trying to figure out what I might have done to trigger this and the only thing that comes to mind is that lately I had been changing my posture to a more upright position i.e. straight back instead of leaning back on the chair and letting my back ease up by resting it on the back of the chair. I'm insatiably trying to learn all I can about this topic. (any resources are welcome)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15036233

Points: 3

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15035602

Points: 4

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15035520

Points: 2

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15035460

Points: 2

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At the emotional frequency everyone is operating on, do you really think you'll win? No one will win because everyone will lose. Let me explain why.

I think it's time everyone admitted their biases and that their biases if not TAMED will only serve to antagonize their political opponents.

Before I go on, here are my biases...

I'm a black libertarian(with a strong affinity for classical liberalism) and a supporter of Trump's presidency so words like 'uncle tom' have been thrown at me. I wasn't always a libertarian. Initially a liberal, I didn't pay much attention to politics but when I begun to think about the role that politics has in my life (at zero option), I realized that I was naturally inclined towards conservatism i.e. fiscal responsibility & frugality, tighter immigration control, less government intervention, anti-eminent-domain, pro-personal freedom and liberty, anti-common-core, and then some. I'm huge fan of Peter Thiel and Hans-Hermann Hoppe - I read them a lot. I no longer feel the need to watch CNN because their ability to hide their skew towards liberalism is all but gone

You should note that there's no where that I mentioned violence as a chosen means to get my voice heard. I don't support it but I fear that's where the world is headed in order to resolve this political conflict that's in the ether right now.

What we have today is a left that is too far gone - who mostly don't realize it - and a right that's intentionally too far gone also.

Just as much as there is a far-right, you best believe that Trump is right and there is a far-left (it is telling that today on the web, you'll find two clones of Wikipedia all skewed towards either leftism or rightism because neither trust Wikipedia - see Conservapedia & RationalWiki).

As much as Trump has been touted by some as a symptom (I agree), I think that Obama's presidency was also a symptom. Putting his(Obama) race aside, we had an American president who once said that [sic] between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate...You should just decide what works.

This shows that the world had once again reached a point where systems like communism which were disproven - when America won the cold war, the soviet collapsed, the Berlin wall came down and Fukuyama wrote the words 'End of History' - could now be viewed in a relativistic manner. As though it didn't matter what the world had gone through historically. This was one of those fatal flaws because, if you forget history, you're undoubtedly bound to repeat it.

I also subscribe to some Burkean views which espouse that, change in a society should be introduced gradually. Gradual change while all the while testing to see if there's truth in your claims. This is not what we're used to in the tech scene; we prefer disruption but disruption comes at a cost. You cannot have a Bernie without a Trump. You cannot have an Alt-Right without an Antifa.

We must all tone down our views. We must all tame our desires for instant political gratification. Revolutionary change comes at a painful cost. Let's all embrace gradual change. If we don't, right or left, the Daily Stormer will win whether you like it or not because there will be a race war as per their slogan. When this happens, it will all turn into rubble and only a few will be left to pick up the pieces.

The questions we should be asking is what can I cede (politically) in exchange for you ceding something of equal magnitude until some balance is restored. We aren't headed in the right direction otherwise.

Well-intentioned question: where do you draw the line? Where does it start or end? Businesses that have used this same logic to discriminate against LGBT patrons based on the owners' religious beliefs have had a very difficult time selling this same spiel.

Edit: Scrolling down, I can see this same question asked multiple times. My assessment is that, it's a very difficult thing to do and we must admit our biases even as we make our voices heard.

As for the hostile mixers, I'm afraid I can't offer any solution other than to rely on reputation. That said, it is rather telling that bitmixer.io is closing [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14843373]. It may not be safe to run a mixer; the feds may come after you.

I think that for all 'non-essential' sites it might be prudent to use a throwaway password each time. I think it might be an all too common practice on many a site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15016338

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15029493

Points: 46

# Comments: 26

Unfortunately, I suspect the poster is dead serious. This is why I don't recommend trying to appease socialists. It is never enough and they'll never be happy until we're all 'equal'.

The first time I came across this phenomenon was while listening to Thomas Piketty on YouTube and he went on and on about how the philanthropic approach Gates and people like him (the wealthy) were taking to solve the world's problems was flawed. I couldn't believe it! Piketty disapproved of Gates' donations and his philanthropy on the basis that one cannot donate to a charity that one still controls. To him that was ridiculous despite the fact that Gates' foundation has done a remarkable job thus far; more than Piketty - with all his socialist nonsense - will ever do in a million lifetimes.

The irony is that, the first time I heard of Piketty was via Gates' reading list on his website.

The mistake that some wealthy people are making is that they assume that they can appease socialists. You can't. They'll always want more or everything if you let them!

Oh-so cool.

This makes me mull about the role that moderation plays in a person's overall happiness and success in life.

> According to Wikipedia: User can send his bitcoins on this service, pay small commission, and then receive the same sum of utterly different bitcoins.

If they're paid out to one address it still wouldn't provide the desired level of anonymity, if however they are paid out to multiple addresses belonging to the same user, I would imagine the anonymity level would increase but not totally since one could still add up payments made to different addresses whose total should amount to a given range.

That said, there are still relatively young coins I'm really looking at investing in this week including NEO and Golem. I'm still trying to get more information on Golem because I think the idea of shared computing power globally is one of the most understated computing revolutions in our age. If anyone has any digestible information on the brass project (Golem), please point it out to me; I still find it a tad arcane.

Other coins to watch/buy are welcome.