The short, tormented life of computer genius Phil Katz (2000)(web.archive.org)
web.archive.org
The short, tormented life of computer genius Phil Katz (2000)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000829071343/http://www2.jsonline.com/news/state/may00/katz21052000a.asp
103 comments
Kudos on the quit. After my child passed away, i went through a similar spiral. It took my spouse, our community, and a new life to save me. I'm not great, but doing better
I similarly needed others, nothing I did alone, or any level of negative consequences (some big ones) made a difference.
thank you for sharing, and also kudos to you.
> Suffice it to say that quitting isn't really about willpower.
I found this to be my experience as well, which is why I was so interested when I heard about naltrexone therapy. More specifically, a course known as The Sinclair Method. [1]
The idea is to use the drug an hour prior to drinking (and only then, so if you abstained from drinking that day, you would abstain from naltrexone -- this is where it differs from standard naltrexone therapy that would have you take it every morning regardless of your plans to drink). Naltrexone blocks endorphins associated with drinking and helps to reprogram your brain to no longer seek that neurochemical response.
I found it to be highly successful the first week -- I didn't even want to finish 2 drinks. After the first week, it still worked but not as well. And I also realized that the anticipation of drinking was almost as powerful as drinking itself, in that I would feel a "rush" even on my way to buy alcohol.
It took about 6 months of naltrexone therapy to finally quit. The funny part is, during that time and when under emotional distress, sometimes I would drink without the medication but it still seemed effective in that I never quite got the pleasure I used to have.
I'm coming up on 3 months sober, but unlike past attempts to quit, I have no urge to fight and no desire to drink again (and I am going to keep it that way).
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice, just my story. The other interesting part to me is how rarely naltrexone is used for problem drinking (vs something like AA, which is faith based in more ways than one), and even more rarely is it deployed the way The Sinclair Method instructs (deliberately, right before drinking).
> Over time, your brain learns not to associate alcohol with pleasure, resulting in reduced cravings and improved control over alcohol use.
[1] https://www.sinclairmethod.org/what-is-the-sinclair-method-2...
I found this to be my experience as well, which is why I was so interested when I heard about naltrexone therapy. More specifically, a course known as The Sinclair Method. [1]
The idea is to use the drug an hour prior to drinking (and only then, so if you abstained from drinking that day, you would abstain from naltrexone -- this is where it differs from standard naltrexone therapy that would have you take it every morning regardless of your plans to drink). Naltrexone blocks endorphins associated with drinking and helps to reprogram your brain to no longer seek that neurochemical response.
I found it to be highly successful the first week -- I didn't even want to finish 2 drinks. After the first week, it still worked but not as well. And I also realized that the anticipation of drinking was almost as powerful as drinking itself, in that I would feel a "rush" even on my way to buy alcohol.
It took about 6 months of naltrexone therapy to finally quit. The funny part is, during that time and when under emotional distress, sometimes I would drink without the medication but it still seemed effective in that I never quite got the pleasure I used to have.
I'm coming up on 3 months sober, but unlike past attempts to quit, I have no urge to fight and no desire to drink again (and I am going to keep it that way).
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice, just my story. The other interesting part to me is how rarely naltrexone is used for problem drinking (vs something like AA, which is faith based in more ways than one), and even more rarely is it deployed the way The Sinclair Method instructs (deliberately, right before drinking).
> Over time, your brain learns not to associate alcohol with pleasure, resulting in reduced cravings and improved control over alcohol use.
[1] https://www.sinclairmethod.org/what-is-the-sinclair-method-2...
It's interesting that (I believe),
- bupropion is an antidepressant and an antismoking drug.
- naltrexone is an anti-opiate and anti-alcohol drug.
- bupropion/naltrexone together is a weight loss drug.
After trying bupropion as an antidepressant, I would really like to try adding naltrexone, but my prescriber didn't take me seriously, as I have neither an alcohol nor opiate nor weight problem.
I'm fascinated with the idea that when you try to increase a substance in your brain, it "fights back", you get tolerance, the receptors get dulled, and so on, but if you suppress a receptor, then more is produced, which works better in the long run.
- bupropion is an antidepressant and an antismoking drug.
- naltrexone is an anti-opiate and anti-alcohol drug.
- bupropion/naltrexone together is a weight loss drug.
After trying bupropion as an antidepressant, I would really like to try adding naltrexone, but my prescriber didn't take me seriously, as I have neither an alcohol nor opiate nor weight problem.
I'm fascinated with the idea that when you try to increase a substance in your brain, it "fights back", you get tolerance, the receptors get dulled, and so on, but if you suppress a receptor, then more is produced, which works better in the long run.
> I'm fascinated with the idea that when you try to increase a substance in your brain, it "fights back",
Well, it's a truism that mostly-stable systems have at least locally corrective responses to perturbations. Back in High School, I was a bit mystified as to why Le Chatelier's principle should be so nearly universally applicable, until I realized that the sample set is extremely biased... if a chemical system isn't even metastable, it doesn't get much broad attention. Stable or metastable chemical systems must have locally stabilizing responses to change. Even for things like combustion reactions, we mostly study stable flames, except for niche studies.
I realized there's a generalization of Le Chatelier's principle that's almost a truism for any system that exhibits something approaching short-term stability or short-term bounded oscillation.
If some brain state weren't locally corrective, then it would be a transient brain state, and excluded from the most intuitive notion of normal brain behavior. So, we'd expect that for normal brain behaviors, we'd see corrective responses to change.
Well, it's a truism that mostly-stable systems have at least locally corrective responses to perturbations. Back in High School, I was a bit mystified as to why Le Chatelier's principle should be so nearly universally applicable, until I realized that the sample set is extremely biased... if a chemical system isn't even metastable, it doesn't get much broad attention. Stable or metastable chemical systems must have locally stabilizing responses to change. Even for things like combustion reactions, we mostly study stable flames, except for niche studies.
I realized there's a generalization of Le Chatelier's principle that's almost a truism for any system that exhibits something approaching short-term stability or short-term bounded oscillation.
If some brain state weren't locally corrective, then it would be a transient brain state, and excluded from the most intuitive notion of normal brain behavior. So, we'd expect that for normal brain behaviors, we'd see corrective responses to change.
Hey, sorry for getting back to you late.
I have recently been put on bupropion for depression and potentially ADHD. I have never used medication before (started 6 weeks ago), originally was put on Vyvanse (at the suggestion of another HNer ! haha) but I found the stimulant aspect too strong. In a way, the bupropion feels too weak but I am giving it time (supposedly they effect the same neurotransmitters except Vyvanse is a direct stimulant/acts of synthetic dopamine and buproprion merely inhibits the natural process that removes these).
What do you think naltrexone would do to help? I'm not sure I am following your reasoning. I actually do have some leftover naltrexone, never thought about combining it.
So naltrexone + buproprion = more naturally occuring dopamine/norepinephrine?
My concern with bupropion is that it stops the process of removing dopamine from the brain, but what if I am not producing enough to begin with?
Here are two links I found helpful:
https://www.goodtherapy.org/drugs/antidepressants.html -explains the mechanism of action for lots of antidepressants including bupropion. I believe the different uses for the drug basically comes down to dosage + marketing.
https://www.leonardsax.com/stimulants.htm - a psychologist is against the use of stimulants in kids due to potential for long term damage.
Side note, just by presenting myself well and speaking clearly (and looking like a professional), I felt my psychologist was willing to let me try most things. I was very much in the driver's seat as far as what drug to take and at what dose. Next time we meet I may see if they are open to prescribing modafinil, which I have used in the past and thought it worked great (as a stimulant, even complimentary to caffeine) with no side effects.
For a time I took both Vyvanse and Buproprion. I was able to study for 10 hours a day and passed a professional certification that week.
I have recently been put on bupropion for depression and potentially ADHD. I have never used medication before (started 6 weeks ago), originally was put on Vyvanse (at the suggestion of another HNer ! haha) but I found the stimulant aspect too strong. In a way, the bupropion feels too weak but I am giving it time (supposedly they effect the same neurotransmitters except Vyvanse is a direct stimulant/acts of synthetic dopamine and buproprion merely inhibits the natural process that removes these).
What do you think naltrexone would do to help? I'm not sure I am following your reasoning. I actually do have some leftover naltrexone, never thought about combining it.
So naltrexone + buproprion = more naturally occuring dopamine/norepinephrine?
My concern with bupropion is that it stops the process of removing dopamine from the brain, but what if I am not producing enough to begin with?
Here are two links I found helpful:
https://www.goodtherapy.org/drugs/antidepressants.html -explains the mechanism of action for lots of antidepressants including bupropion. I believe the different uses for the drug basically comes down to dosage + marketing.
https://www.leonardsax.com/stimulants.htm - a psychologist is against the use of stimulants in kids due to potential for long term damage.
Side note, just by presenting myself well and speaking clearly (and looking like a professional), I felt my psychologist was willing to let me try most things. I was very much in the driver's seat as far as what drug to take and at what dose. Next time we meet I may see if they are open to prescribing modafinil, which I have used in the past and thought it worked great (as a stimulant, even complimentary to caffeine) with no side effects.
For a time I took both Vyvanse and Buproprion. I was able to study for 10 hours a day and passed a professional certification that week.
I’ve been losing weight on the SNL diet (about 50kg, so far) — eat less/move more. Kicking the “sugar” habit is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. A few months back (just before the holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, all of the birthdays in my family), I got appendicitis. During recovery I was encouraged to eat & couldn’t exercise. I put on 7-8kg in a few weeks. Getting back off sugar onto a healthy diet has been awful. If that drug combo actually works ... I dunno; I’d pay a lot.
I have found the only way I can consistently lose weight is with keto. Otherwise, even when I thought I was restricting, I would end up binging at night on high calorie foods like nuts or cheese, sometimes even in my sleep!
Vyvanse also helped suppress my appetite but I lost about 10kg just on keto over a 2 month period.
Since you mentioned sugar, I had to mention keto. I do believe refined sugar is quite bad for the human body.
re: weight loss drugs, Vyvanse destroyed my appetite (among other side effects like severe sweating, easily winded, crashing on the come down), but that should be unsurprising since it is basically a proprietary (slow release) blend of amphetamine.
Vyvanse also helped suppress my appetite but I lost about 10kg just on keto over a 2 month period.
Since you mentioned sugar, I had to mention keto. I do believe refined sugar is quite bad for the human body.
re: weight loss drugs, Vyvanse destroyed my appetite (among other side effects like severe sweating, easily winded, crashing on the come down), but that should be unsurprising since it is basically a proprietary (slow release) blend of amphetamine.
Perhaps the effect of the drug might have carried over to the next day - I’m sure this could be verified, but it’s something I’ve experienced with other drugs. You skip a day, intentionally or accidentally, but your system hasn’t flushed everything out so the drug is still taking some effect.
It was actually over a longer period than a day. I would like to think that some part of my brain is no longer associating alcohol with the buzz I used to get. It seems far fetched, but plausible? The other side of it is I definitely would feel the "buzz" of alcohol before I actually drank it, such as when I was walking home from the store carrying booze -- I would feel elated.
To be clear, the "buzz" I refer to is straight up pleasure, not intoxication. On naltrexone I felt the intoxication without the pleasure. It made me think, is this what it's like to drink alcohol when you are not an alcoholic?
Very easy to moderate in that circumstance.
To be clear, the "buzz" I refer to is straight up pleasure, not intoxication. On naltrexone I felt the intoxication without the pleasure. It made me think, is this what it's like to drink alcohol when you are not an alcoholic?
Very easy to moderate in that circumstance.
I have heavy boozers on both sides of my bloodline, never expected it would hit me because I was so aware of it, but at some point in my early 30s I realized I was always the one dragging friends to bars, and of course despite a self-imposed rule of no hard booze at home, that only justified continuous drinking of wine and beer.
I definitely wouldn't have considered myself an alcoholic, but it had become a significant enough part of my routine that I had increasing difficulty being honest to others about when/how often I'd been drinking.
The thing that ultimately snapped me out of it was learning of the association with cancer. I'd still love a drink, much like I'd absolutely murder a cigarette, but in both cases, neither could approach my lips without the word "CANCER" being explicit in mind. Not sure how that happened. Luck? Definitely not complaining, in any case it works.
I definitely wouldn't have considered myself an alcoholic, but it had become a significant enough part of my routine that I had increasing difficulty being honest to others about when/how often I'd been drinking.
The thing that ultimately snapped me out of it was learning of the association with cancer. I'd still love a drink, much like I'd absolutely murder a cigarette, but in both cases, neither could approach my lips without the word "CANCER" being explicit in mind. Not sure how that happened. Luck? Definitely not complaining, in any case it works.
I completely agree with your assessment. Alcohol is sneaky and before you know it, an alcohol habit that starts out as a "occasional drink to unwind" after a long, stressful day of work becomes a daily routine or focus of your existence.
I never fell into the spiral of alcoholism, but there was a point after college where I realized that I was drinking more than I wanted to for my own personal standards. And I found it was surprisingly more difficult than I initially anticipated to "moderate" the habit. Moderation didn't work for me. I had to make the conscious decision to forcefully flip the switch back off and I made a commitment to never play with that fire again.
I never fell into the spiral of alcoholism, but there was a point after college where I realized that I was drinking more than I wanted to for my own personal standards. And I found it was surprisingly more difficult than I initially anticipated to "moderate" the habit. Moderation didn't work for me. I had to make the conscious decision to forcefully flip the switch back off and I made a commitment to never play with that fire again.
I found that alcohol thins out blood, and that's generally a good thing (unless you're bleeding). So along with quitting alcohol you need to quit the good effects of it as well.
It's hard to manage your blood thickness when you're in over your head, but not managing it leaves you confused as brain circulation is slightly impaired
It's hard to manage your blood thickness when you're in over your head, but not managing it leaves you confused as brain circulation is slightly impaired
This is actually a thing for some people, and if that's you, then you absolutely need to see a doctor and describe what's happening. It may be that you over-absorb iron. Someone close to me had this condition and described it as "thick blood". Undiagnosed hemochromatosis
He regularly gave blood, which helped shed the iron from his body, but at some point he stopped, and it contributed to a severe cognitive decline. He drank too much, too, which didn't help.
If you or someone you know has "thick blood", go to a doctor. Suggest they check for hemochromatosis
He regularly gave blood, which helped shed the iron from his body, but at some point he stopped, and it contributed to a severe cognitive decline. He drank too much, too, which didn't help.
If you or someone you know has "thick blood", go to a doctor. Suggest they check for hemochromatosis
THIS. Hemochromatosis is rare but imminently treatable. And among the few, if not the only disease for which the oldest treatment (bloodletting) remains among the most viable treatments today.
Generally unless your at risk of either bleeding or thrombosis/embolism then don’t worry too much about your blood thickness (correct word is coagulability rather than viscosity). It tends to balance and stay In a narrow range in fit and well individuals. I’ve never heard of it impacting on cognition.
Wouldn't children's dosage of aspirin be more manageable? IIRC some older people are recommended to eat that daily (something like 1/4 adult dosage of aspirine).
Talk to a doctor first. I asked my Pharmacist wife if I should do that (as I don't drink) and she said it's a grey area, talk to the doctor first.
Intentionally or not, Phil Katz achieved "embrace, extend, extinguish" with the .ARC format. When his program was compressing it would use a very effective format that was not understood by SEA's program. It still would have the .ARC extension, though. So SEA's program got the reputation of being broken because they wouldn't work on all .ARC files but PKArc would.
Also SEA was basically two guys. Their lawyer may have expected PKWare to be a big business but this was a founder versus 2 co-founder dispute. It wasn't Microsoft or Oracle on the other side. It's hard to say what else they should or could have done under the circumstances.
Also SEA was basically two guys. Their lawyer may have expected PKWare to be a big business but this was a founder versus 2 co-founder dispute. It wasn't Microsoft or Oracle on the other side. It's hard to say what else they should or could have done under the circumstances.
> Intentionally or not, Phil Katz achieved "embrace, extend, extinguish" with the .ARC format.
I recall a text file circulating BBSes when I was a kid, around the time of the move from PKArc and PKXArc, to PKZip, supposedly detailing the visit of the lawyer to Phil Katz's house.
IIRC, the file said that some evil corporate lawyer came to PK's house, PK was out, his mom didn't know why the lawyer was there, served him tea or lunch or something while they chatted, and then at the end, evil lawyer surprises the mom or PK with evil legal papers.
At some point, PKZip appeared, and then downloads on BBSes started switching from `.ARC` to `.ZIP`. (There were a bunch of other packaging&compression formats, and you'd have a collection of the tools to extract whatever the download you found and got was in. But, IIRC, for awhile, `.ARC` was the most popular on free BBSes that I used, and then `.ZIP` became the most popular.)
I don't know whether the stories of the legal action had anything to do with the move from .ARC to .ZIP, but I could believe it, on the free BBSes. They were generally run by hobbyists who could afford the computer and a phone line, and the time to give the BBS a character, and I got the impression that just wanted to make something and share. As far as I know, there wasn't any implicit subtle self-promotion, career development, etc., like there is in many things today, and a lot of corporate behavior that we consider normal within tech today, I think wouldn't have been considered acceptable. So, especially given the stories circulating about ARC vs. ZIP, it's really easy to imagine a "f-word those SEA guys" reaction from the altruists running BBSes in their dens.
I recall a text file circulating BBSes when I was a kid, around the time of the move from PKArc and PKXArc, to PKZip, supposedly detailing the visit of the lawyer to Phil Katz's house.
IIRC, the file said that some evil corporate lawyer came to PK's house, PK was out, his mom didn't know why the lawyer was there, served him tea or lunch or something while they chatted, and then at the end, evil lawyer surprises the mom or PK with evil legal papers.
At some point, PKZip appeared, and then downloads on BBSes started switching from `.ARC` to `.ZIP`. (There were a bunch of other packaging&compression formats, and you'd have a collection of the tools to extract whatever the download you found and got was in. But, IIRC, for awhile, `.ARC` was the most popular on free BBSes that I used, and then `.ZIP` became the most popular.)
I don't know whether the stories of the legal action had anything to do with the move from .ARC to .ZIP, but I could believe it, on the free BBSes. They were generally run by hobbyists who could afford the computer and a phone line, and the time to give the BBS a character, and I got the impression that just wanted to make something and share. As far as I know, there wasn't any implicit subtle self-promotion, career development, etc., like there is in many things today, and a lot of corporate behavior that we consider normal within tech today, I think wouldn't have been considered acceptable. So, especially given the stories circulating about ARC vs. ZIP, it's really easy to imagine a "f-word those SEA guys" reaction from the altruists running BBSes in their dens.
> I don't know whether the stories of the legal action had anything to do with the move from .ARC to .ZIP, but I could believe it, on the free BBSes.
That's my very clear memory of what happened: PC Magazine and other trade rags reported that people were so pissed off at SEA that they switched en masse to .ZIP; it became a network effect, in that very soon everyone was using .ZIP because everyone was using .ZIP.
I was a junior IP lawyer back then; it was a real eye-opener that if a company asserted its IP rights in what was perceived as a bullying way, the resulting PR blowback could destroy the company itself as people voted with their dollars. That was decidedly not what new IP lawyers were taught; much of the IP world regarded (and still regards) IP rights as virtually sacrosanct, to be prioritized over practically all other values.
That's my very clear memory of what happened: PC Magazine and other trade rags reported that people were so pissed off at SEA that they switched en masse to .ZIP; it became a network effect, in that very soon everyone was using .ZIP because everyone was using .ZIP.
I was a junior IP lawyer back then; it was a real eye-opener that if a company asserted its IP rights in what was perceived as a bullying way, the resulting PR blowback could destroy the company itself as people voted with their dollars. That was decidedly not what new IP lawyers were taught; much of the IP world regarded (and still regards) IP rights as virtually sacrosanct, to be prioritized over practically all other values.
SEA told that the PKware source code still had their spelling mistakes in the comments, which was part of why they were a bit indignant by the whole thing.. But this is a story about one mom-pop biz vs another, but that didn't really come to light until years after.
> SEA told that the PKware source code still had their spelling mistakes in the comments
That's like the Apple v. Franklin Computer case from the early 1980s: Franklin made a computer with an OS that it said was "compatible" with the Apple II; Franklin claimed to have independently developed its own OS, but it turned out that the Franklin code included not only what must have been thousands of identical lines as the Apple code, but also the name of one of the Apple programmers, James Huston, as well as the name "Applesoft." [0] (If memory serves, I read somewhere that the names were embedded as values of no-op string variables so that they wouldn't be stripped out during compilation, as comments would be.)
[0] Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F. 2d 1240, 1245 (3d Cir. 1983), https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=100632041256965...
That's like the Apple v. Franklin Computer case from the early 1980s: Franklin made a computer with an OS that it said was "compatible" with the Apple II; Franklin claimed to have independently developed its own OS, but it turned out that the Franklin code included not only what must have been thousands of identical lines as the Apple code, but also the name of one of the Apple programmers, James Huston, as well as the name "Applesoft." [0] (If memory serves, I read somewhere that the names were embedded as values of no-op string variables so that they wouldn't be stripped out during compilation, as comments would be.)
[0] Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F. 2d 1240, 1245 (3d Cir. 1983), https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=100632041256965...
Elsevier will likely find this out the hard way one of these days.
To add to the recollections, this was also the time that "look and feel" lawsuits were going around -- Lotus suing Paperback Software, Apple suing Microsoft, etc. Most of the BBS community was against look-and-feel and patent lawsuits ("The right to code"), and there was a court injunction preventing the parties from discussing the sea/pk lawsuit. But the pk side leaked, so that was the only side that was heard (and I remember believing at the time that sea was the "bad guys", until I learned a bit more of the nuances of the case, and now think that both sides were both right and wrong).
So that was a major driver for the "arc to zip" conversion, just like the "burn all GIFs" day.
So that was a major driver for the "arc to zip" conversion, just like the "burn all GIFs" day.
There were a number of utilities that would convert from arc to zip and that really sped up the conversion - and the zip compression made significant differences in the transfer time so it was worth the effort to convert just for that reason. Some BBS software (or doors) would convert uploads from arc, sea, zoo etc to zip on upload. Between the two the move away from arc happened more or less overnight.
One if the failings of zopfli (IMO) is that there isn’t a utility to walk a directory and find embedded deflate streams and decompress them and there isn’t any indication that zopfli has touched a file so it is a brute force search to try and recon press a file. I’m also surprised that deflate with 64k windows never caught on even though zip has supported it for years and it’s a really easy extension to the existing format that just uses a reserved bit.
One if the failings of zopfli (IMO) is that there isn’t a utility to walk a directory and find embedded deflate streams and decompress them and there isn’t any indication that zopfli has touched a file so it is a brute force search to try and recon press a file. I’m also surprised that deflate with 64k windows never caught on even though zip has supported it for years and it’s a really easy extension to the existing format that just uses a reserved bit.
Dean Cooper's post on the PkARC vs SEA topic is interesting. He was another person working on an archiver in the same time period. http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2398
A while back I emailed Thom Henderson for the ARC source code and he sent it to me. I planned to port it to Python for kicks but never got around to it...
Isn't Python a poor choice of language for computationally intensive code?
I just wanted to do it to learn how the code works.
According to SEA founders, he had ripped the source code too, having intact variable names and such. Apparently, first version of PKArc was pretty much ARC with assembly optimizations added.
> Just imagine having nobody in your life. Not anybody to call. Nobody.
It is hard for me to imagine this. I'm currently following a guy on Twitter who's released from prison recently. While in prison he got an arts scholarship, was a prolific writer and published a _lot_ of magazine and academic articles. He mixes a truly entertaining Twitter feed with naked calls for money, as he has nobody except his small Twitter following to turn to as he tries to rebuild his life. It's heart-breaking. https://twitter.com/PeterJMWayne11
It is hard for me to imagine this. I'm currently following a guy on Twitter who's released from prison recently. While in prison he got an arts scholarship, was a prolific writer and published a _lot_ of magazine and academic articles. He mixes a truly entertaining Twitter feed with naked calls for money, as he has nobody except his small Twitter following to turn to as he tries to rebuild his life. It's heart-breaking. https://twitter.com/PeterJMWayne11
Sorry I truly don’t follow. Naked calls for money?
Clicked your link and see an older British gentlemen at glance.
Clicked your link and see an older British gentlemen at glance.
"naked" here means plain / unadorned
Basically "asking for a handout" because it's all he's got.
There's a lot of that on twitter. I wish I knew how people turned that into money. It's nothing I've ever figured out, though I'm frequently in a pickle financially.
There's a lot of that on twitter. I wish I knew how people turned that into money. It's nothing I've ever figured out, though I'm frequently in a pickle financially.
Just ask the people who you see doing it.
Oh, everyone knows I have a genetic disorder. Most people don't give a damn and I would really rather make it on merit anyway, so that's generally where I try to put my time and effort.
I just get frustrated seeing that some people can just say "Hey, world, my life sucks. Wanna cut me a little slack here?" and that sometimes actually works. It doesn't for me. I seem to get actively kicked in the teeth no matter what I do.
I've worked my ass off to get healthier to try to make my life work. There's no acknowledgement of that. I get told I'm making that up and insane and a teller of tall tales. Meanwhile, there's also pretty much zero compassion for "Wow, her condition is incurable and doesn't qualify for disability. Sucks to be her!"
And if I say anything about the whole thing (on Hacker News), I get downvotes or actively attacked most of the time. If I talk about sexism here, I get attacked for that as well and told that couldn't possibly be a factor in my persistent poverty, no. Being able to rebut ridiculous assertions makes no difference either. They come up with some new excuse to dismiss me and blame me and so on.
There's always some excuse why loads of "good people" neither have compassion for my dilemma nor think I deserve an income based on merit. Nor does it work to rebut more general BS and point out the fact that most well-heeled, high paid programmers basically think writers should be slave labor and work for free. They don't want ads on the internet. They don't want tip jars. They don't want pay walls. I used to routinely get told "Get a real job" like I'm just lazy or something, as if writing isn't a real skill with value.
Etc. Ad nauseum.
I just would like this ferris wheel to stop so I can get off of it. But that seems impossible as well. I know for an absolute fact that some of the amazingly shitty, abusive people I have tried to walk away from still cyberstalk me.
What the world has historically done to people like me is murder them. Pointing out the undeniably bad behavior of other people doesn't remedy it. They kill people for that rather than take a look in the mirror and go "They're right. I am doing that and it's wrong. I should do something else."
And I don't know how to somehow magically just not be me. I didn't choose this. This isn't remotely the life I want. I pretty much basically want anything else but this. If I could make it as a waitress who never spent another minute online, I would do that in a heartbeat, but I can't because of my genetic disorder. That's just not possible.
I don't want to be telling people "You're full of crap and you make it impossible for people like me to make their lives work." I just don't have some way out of A. being me and B. the sucktastic fact that my life simply doesn't work and a large part of the reason for that is because "hell is other people."
And I don't really want to be leaving this comment either, but I don't know what else to do. It's "wrong" and "bad" to speak my mind on such subjects but silence doesn't change anything. Trying to say nothing about the issues I see and just trying to forge ahead and make it on merit doesn't get me anywhere. All it does is put me in a psychological pressure cooker that threatens my sanity. It's a form of gaslighting for the world to make it abundantly clear that talking about how I experience life is Verboten because it makes other people uncomfortable.
I just get frustrated seeing that some people can just say "Hey, world, my life sucks. Wanna cut me a little slack here?" and that sometimes actually works. It doesn't for me. I seem to get actively kicked in the teeth no matter what I do.
I've worked my ass off to get healthier to try to make my life work. There's no acknowledgement of that. I get told I'm making that up and insane and a teller of tall tales. Meanwhile, there's also pretty much zero compassion for "Wow, her condition is incurable and doesn't qualify for disability. Sucks to be her!"
And if I say anything about the whole thing (on Hacker News), I get downvotes or actively attacked most of the time. If I talk about sexism here, I get attacked for that as well and told that couldn't possibly be a factor in my persistent poverty, no. Being able to rebut ridiculous assertions makes no difference either. They come up with some new excuse to dismiss me and blame me and so on.
There's always some excuse why loads of "good people" neither have compassion for my dilemma nor think I deserve an income based on merit. Nor does it work to rebut more general BS and point out the fact that most well-heeled, high paid programmers basically think writers should be slave labor and work for free. They don't want ads on the internet. They don't want tip jars. They don't want pay walls. I used to routinely get told "Get a real job" like I'm just lazy or something, as if writing isn't a real skill with value.
Etc. Ad nauseum.
I just would like this ferris wheel to stop so I can get off of it. But that seems impossible as well. I know for an absolute fact that some of the amazingly shitty, abusive people I have tried to walk away from still cyberstalk me.
What the world has historically done to people like me is murder them. Pointing out the undeniably bad behavior of other people doesn't remedy it. They kill people for that rather than take a look in the mirror and go "They're right. I am doing that and it's wrong. I should do something else."
And I don't know how to somehow magically just not be me. I didn't choose this. This isn't remotely the life I want. I pretty much basically want anything else but this. If I could make it as a waitress who never spent another minute online, I would do that in a heartbeat, but I can't because of my genetic disorder. That's just not possible.
I don't want to be telling people "You're full of crap and you make it impossible for people like me to make their lives work." I just don't have some way out of A. being me and B. the sucktastic fact that my life simply doesn't work and a large part of the reason for that is because "hell is other people."
And I don't really want to be leaving this comment either, but I don't know what else to do. It's "wrong" and "bad" to speak my mind on such subjects but silence doesn't change anything. Trying to say nothing about the issues I see and just trying to forge ahead and make it on merit doesn't get me anywhere. All it does is put me in a psychological pressure cooker that threatens my sanity. It's a form of gaslighting for the world to make it abundantly clear that talking about how I experience life is Verboten because it makes other people uncomfortable.
I meant you should ask people how to monetize misfortune. I've gotten handouts by just randomly asking people for money before when I was a student (mostly out of curiosity and only a few dollars).
Sad to hear people are not compassionate towards you when you discuss your issues. I often get ignored when I talk about mine publicly but never get shit on for it.
On those cyberstalkers: have you tried reporting them to the cops? I think I scared most of mine away by taking direct action against them.
Sad to hear people are not compassionate towards you when you discuss your issues. I often get ignored when I talk about mine publicly but never get shit on for it.
On those cyberstalkers: have you tried reporting them to the cops? I think I scared most of mine away by taking direct action against them.
Interesting (and alarming).
- Founder of zappos ended up badly just recently.
- ReiserFS, Hans Reiser killed his wife.
- Security researcher (drawing a blank right now.. Kaspersky maybe?) went off the deep end as well.
I feel like a lot of really smart people around me are on the autism spectrum or are somewhat odd.
I mean, I've noticed some of the same issues as the subject of the article... social anxiety, tendency to over imbibe.
Having said all that, I wonder if there's a prevalence (or distribution?) of certain traits in a population and there are enough IT folks around now where every characteristics is represented.
Anyway, sad article. I had no idea.
- Founder of zappos ended up badly just recently.
- ReiserFS, Hans Reiser killed his wife.
- Security researcher (drawing a blank right now.. Kaspersky maybe?) went off the deep end as well.
I feel like a lot of really smart people around me are on the autism spectrum or are somewhat odd.
I mean, I've noticed some of the same issues as the subject of the article... social anxiety, tendency to over imbibe.
Having said all that, I wonder if there's a prevalence (or distribution?) of certain traits in a population and there are enough IT folks around now where every characteristics is represented.
Anyway, sad article. I had no idea.
"Security researcher (drawing a blank right now.. Kaspersky maybe?) went off the deep end as well."
Pretty sure you're thinking of John McAfee.
Pretty sure you're thinking of John McAfee.
I loved McAfee's video on How To Uninstall McAfee Antivirus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg
At least he's got a sense of humor.
At least he's got a sense of humor.
He really seems like character pulled straight from Far Cry game.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiN3rq6kqKI http://www.whoismcafee.com/the-travel-guide/
He definitely embraced it https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UWqDC7p102c
He’s a full time troll. I love checking up on his latest and greatest statements.
I think recently he got arrested for wearing his wife’s thong (also with him at the time) on an airplane. He was so loud and proud the entire time.
What a character.
I think recently he got arrested for wearing his wife’s thong (also with him at the time) on an airplane. He was so loud and proud the entire time.
What a character.
It seems like his biggest problem was alcoholism. I don't know that addiction is over-represented among smart people or people on the spectrum. It looks like it can be a vicious cycle though. Abuse alcohol or drugs, make bad decisions, bad decisions have negative consequences, abuse alcohol or drugs again to forget about negative consequences, rinse and repeat. It's a hard cycle to break. Many people can't admit that they have a problem to begin with.
I’m open about my past Heroin addiction on here, and get a tonne of emails from other HNers. Anecdotally I’ve no idea whether it’s more than should be expected, but a lot of people on here suffer the way I suffered, so it’s definitely an undercurrent at least.
For sure it's more common than people think. I think it's good to de-stigmatize both mental health and addiction. IMO shame gets in the way of people asking for help.
Fear, blame and shame do a lot of harm.
Amplify the good. People sometimes need help. Can be any of us.
Best to just get them that help, in my view.
Amplify the good. People sometimes need help. Can be any of us.
Best to just get them that help, in my view.
I’m pretty convinced there is at least a subset of smart people who are very (i.e. above normal rates) prone to addiction problems, it accept this is anecdotal and subject to sample bias.
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Apparently, studies show that IQ and several forms of addiction are positively correlated, [1].
[1] https://vertavahealth.com/blog/correlation-intelligence-addi...
[1] https://vertavahealth.com/blog/correlation-intelligence-addi...
dont forget the guy who created debian. his life also came to a sad and tormented end a few years ago.
a lot of smart people you know are on the spectrum, and they also have asthma. its no coincidence that katz did. it isnt fully appreciated yet but there is a connection between inflammation and the dysfunction of the brains metabolic budgeting.
a lot of smart people you know are on the spectrum, and they also have asthma. its no coincidence that katz did. it isnt fully appreciated yet but there is a connection between inflammation and the dysfunction of the brains metabolic budgeting.
> I feel like a lot of really smart people around me are on the autism spectrum or are somewhat odd.
What about the groups of people known to be in prisons? They are not autists.
I think it's a fine line discussing that while not putting people into a bad light. Also FWIW many people have stopped using ReiserFS - me included - despite its quite novel set of features.
What about the groups of people known to be in prisons? They are not autists.
I think it's a fine line discussing that while not putting people into a bad light. Also FWIW many people have stopped using ReiserFS - me included - despite its quite novel set of features.
> ReiserFS, Hans Reiser killed his wife.
Read the wiki entry on him. This guy seemed a bit insane.
Read the wiki entry on him. This guy seemed a bit insane.
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Another one for the list: The guy who likely wrote TrueCrypt also was a drug lord and ordered multiple killings.
Can't forget Terry D.
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I actually crossed paths early in my career with Steve Burg VP of Engineering at PKSoft and quoted in this story. It was in the early 2000s shortly after Phil’s death. He had taken it very hard and had gotten really into fitness as part of his coping mechanism. Ended up starting a chain of really top of the line gyms in Dayton Ohio. I actually worked out of the back office of one of the gyms for a while working for one of Steve’s buddies.
I wouldn’t characterize Phil as having no friends, at least from the little I knew of Steve.
I wouldn’t characterize Phil as having no friends, at least from the little I knew of Steve.
His issue wasn’t a lack of friends. His problem, which lead to alcoholism, was explained to me by his former colleagues, primarily Doug Hay. Katz turned to his mother for comfort following Walter’s death. Unfortunately for him and his firm, he received none.
His buy-out of her shares was a poorly communicated effort to remove the business from between them and to attempt to salvage their familial bond. Hildegard instead saw it as a financial assault on herself and resorted to communicating with her own son through lawyers, even after the transaction was completed.
This piece paints her with typical maternal instinct and filial interest despite evidence neither existed once she saw her son’s ability to write, and then subsequently delete, her financial future. Given her reputation was well known I struggle to understand why she was repeatedly given this benefit of the doubt.
His buy-out of her shares was a poorly communicated effort to remove the business from between them and to attempt to salvage their familial bond. Hildegard instead saw it as a financial assault on herself and resorted to communicating with her own son through lawyers, even after the transaction was completed.
This piece paints her with typical maternal instinct and filial interest despite evidence neither existed once she saw her son’s ability to write, and then subsequently delete, her financial future. Given her reputation was well known I struggle to understand why she was repeatedly given this benefit of the doubt.
> His buy-out of her shares was a poorly communicated effort to remove the business from between them and to attempt to salvage their familial bond. Hildegard instead saw it as a financial assault on herself and resorted to communicating with her own son through lawyers, even after the transaction was completed.
Of course the action did not worked to salvage communication between them? How can one possibly expect better communication after hostile buyout and firing? Whatever her flaws as mother, the subsequent communication only through layers after that seems to me as not just expected, but even reasonable.
I mean, him doing that might have been rational business decision if she was doing job badly, I dont want to judge that. But expecting the relationships to improve after that sounds completely absurd.
Of course the action did not worked to salvage communication between them? How can one possibly expect better communication after hostile buyout and firing? Whatever her flaws as mother, the subsequent communication only through layers after that seems to me as not just expected, but even reasonable.
I mean, him doing that might have been rational business decision if she was doing job badly, I dont want to judge that. But expecting the relationships to improve after that sounds completely absurd.
It makes complete sense from a programmer's point of view. Refactor the relationship by deleting the troublesome elements, leaving behind what you want to keep.
The programmer and his friends then don't have a ground to complain that the other person in the relationship refactored the rest.
When you approach people as if they were things or code, then those people eventually have only one smart option left - cut you out. It is not because they are evil, but because they are hurt and protecting themselves from further hurt from you. And this approach does guarantee you will hurt them again and again.
When you approach people as if they were things or code, then those people eventually have only one smart option left - cut you out. It is not because they are evil, but because they are hurt and protecting themselves from further hurt from you. And this approach does guarantee you will hurt them again and again.
So I've been sober for a couple years now and I've met many others in various stages of their own recovery, and what you're describing sounds extremely familiar. Every person's addiction is unique, but self-isolation is a common trait among alcoholics (and probably people with addictions in general).
One of the best exercises we did in recovery was list out as a group what our priorities in life were. It was things like "my partner", "my career", "my health", "finances & having money to live comfortably", "having friends", etc. And when we were done and were happy with our list, the instructor went up and wrote alcohol at the very top. When you're deep in addiction, even if you know it's not rational, even if it's not what you want, the addiction is your top priority. If you have free time, that's how you spend it first; when you have money, it's the first thing you budget for; when you're doing other things, it's what you think about. And for a lot of people, self-isolation makes it that much easier to feed that addiction.
One of the best exercises we did in recovery was list out as a group what our priorities in life were. It was things like "my partner", "my career", "my health", "finances & having money to live comfortably", "having friends", etc. And when we were done and were happy with our list, the instructor went up and wrote alcohol at the very top. When you're deep in addiction, even if you know it's not rational, even if it's not what you want, the addiction is your top priority. If you have free time, that's how you spend it first; when you have money, it's the first thing you budget for; when you're doing other things, it's what you think about. And for a lot of people, self-isolation makes it that much easier to feed that addiction.
> "He lived in a state of paranoia," says one former employee, who asked not to be identified. "He thought that (WITI-TV Channel 6) across the street from us was watching him."
This very much sounds like someone using alcohol to self-medicate their schizophrenia. In a better world doctors would've caught this and treated it appropriately
This very much sounds like someone using alcohol to self-medicate their schizophrenia. In a better world doctors would've caught this and treated it appropriately
Yeah, you’d have to be crazy to think that media companies are spying on you.
If curious see also
2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13148725
2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6602899
2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13148725
2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6602899
Thanks! I remember watching the BBS documentary part 8, I learned a lot about the history of my childhood's programs
Funny I was just writing a simple .zip file filter (carver) and thinking about those initials in every .zip file, "PK". The filter takes an HTTP stream (headers, chunking, etc.) on stdin and outputs only the .zip file on stdout.
When studying the zip format, you can find yourself thinking, wow, this is really brilliant and then you remember the sad story of the guy who created it (this article in particular).
When studying the zip format, you can find yourself thinking, wow, this is really brilliant and then you remember the sad story of the guy who created it (this article in particular).
zip is a horribly designed format
https://games.greggman.com/game/zip-rant/
There were precedents of well designed file formats long before .zip hit the scene. Of course there wasn't the internet so being aware of better format designs might not have been common
https://games.greggman.com/game/zip-rant/
There were precedents of well designed file formats long before .zip hit the scene. Of course there wasn't the internet so being aware of better format designs might not have been common
It's interesting to compare zip with lzh, which was very popular in Japan; they're both from roughly the same era, yet lzh definitely seems far more logically designed (and often outperformed zip in compression ratio too.)
from my memory, both ARJ and LZH outperformed ZIP for my benchmarks. I used to stripe archives across as many floppy disks as I had until I eventually got a CD writer...
ZIP commonly uses DEFLATE which is LZ with a 32k window + Huffman, whereas LZH went up to LZ with a 64k window + Huffman. I suspect the doubled window alone is responsible for much of the improvement.
According to http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/ARJ , ARJ uses something similar to LZH's lh6 algorithm, which is LZ with a 32k window + Huffman, so the difference could be due to ARJ's reduced file format overhead compared to ZIP, or perhaps slightly better Huffman codes.
According to http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/ARJ , ARJ uses something similar to LZH's lh6 algorithm, which is LZ with a 32k window + Huffman, so the difference could be due to ARJ's reduced file format overhead compared to ZIP, or perhaps slightly better Huffman codes.
Computer communications predates the internet. We definitely knew about them. Nobody wanted to pay for them. Also, it was in everyone's best interest to informally standardize on a tool -- in those days, having to download an extraction tool in addition to the archive you wanted was a nontrivial cost (real monetary cost, not just opportunity cost of wasting more time).
Once SEA decided to start a legal fight, consensus was reached pretty quickly that nobody wanted to be the one jerk left using ARC. There were semi-organized grassroots campaigns to get laggards to switch.
The personal computer software world was less stringent about standards at the time, and the tool that worked well enough was always going to beat the tool that pleased the software engineers.
Once SEA decided to start a legal fight, consensus was reached pretty quickly that nobody wanted to be the one jerk left using ARC. There were semi-organized grassroots campaigns to get laggards to switch.
The personal computer software world was less stringent about standards at the time, and the tool that worked well enough was always going to beat the tool that pleased the software engineers.
The reference to "arc wars" in the original article seemed interesting. I did a quick search and was pleased to have found these at textfiles.com
http://textfiles.com/computers/sea.txt http://textfiles.com/computers/arcsuit.txt
http://textfiles.com/computers/sea.txt http://textfiles.com/computers/arcsuit.txt
"SEA claimed trademark infringement on the name "ARC," and violation of their copyright on the "look and feel" of ARC's command-line user- interface, in addition to charging Katz with appropriating ARC program code."
The "look and feel" of the command line interface. By the mid-1990s people seemed to assume this only applied to GUIs.
The "look and feel" of the command line interface. By the mid-1990s people seemed to assume this only applied to GUIs.
My comment wasn't about paying for formats. It was about designing formats. The zip format is extremely poorly designed. See linked article above
I already know the zip format. Formats were not open then. You did not select archive tools based on the on-disk format it used; you selected archive tools based on a combination of software cost, compression performance, and network effects. Having multiple implementations of software that could work on the same archive format was a novelty which often resulted in legal battles, as the formats themselves were often considered proprietary information.
You still seem to be arguing over compression formats. I'm not saying there were better or worse compression formats. I'm only saying
(a) zip is a badly designed format ... see article on why
(b) the concept of a well designed file format (related to compression or not) was already well known in 1989 when zip shipped.
(a) zip is a badly designed format ... see article on why
(b) the concept of a well designed file format (related to compression or not) was already well known in 1989 when zip shipped.
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> But, that contradicts 4.1.9 that says zip files maybe be streamed. If zip files can be streamed then both of the example above would fail because in the first case we'd see file B and in the second we'd see file A (old) before we saw that the central directory doesn't reference them. If you have to wait for the central directory before you can correctly use any of the entries then functionally you can not stream zip files.
You cannot filter a particular file in a stream using UNIX fifos and constant memory, but you could replace the old file A with the second file A in the stream because it is later. In this way, yes you can consume a zip file in a streaming way, even if you have to wait until the end to pass any of the output to another process.
TAR and CPIO have the same "feature".
You cannot filter a particular file in a stream using UNIX fifos and constant memory, but you could replace the old file A with the second file A in the stream because it is later. In this way, yes you can consume a zip file in a streaming way, even if you have to wait until the end to pass any of the output to another process.
TAR and CPIO have the same "feature".
No you can't because the definition of "streaming" is to use the data as it comes down the wire. So
CMD.BAT format disk
CMD.BAT rem format disk
> If the TOC only points to the second CMD.BAT then executing the first one as you stream it is wrong.
The output directory contains the second CMD.BAT when you're done processing, whether you use the streaming algorithm or you consult the TOC, because in the streaming algorithm you simply overwrite the second CMD.BAT (if you created it as a result of the first CMD.BAT) with the new contents.
The output directory contains the second CMD.BAT when you're done processing, whether you use the streaming algorithm or you consult the TOC, because in the streaming algorithm you simply overwrite the second CMD.BAT (if you created it as a result of the first CMD.BAT) with the new contents.
Out of curiosity, is there any reason you don't mention zip.js at all in the documentation of unzipit?
One big part about your post is about streaming. I don't think the ZIP format was ever designed for streaming, and there are no claims about streaming in the original app notes. Actually, the wording about streaming you refer to were only added to the app note last year, and as you rightly point out, it's not guaranteed to work.
Here is Phil Katz on the Computer Chronicles TV series:
https://archive.org/download/filecompress
https://archive.org/download/filecompress
I knew that Phil drank himself to death, but I did not know the other tragic details of his life. It's silly that System Enhancement Associates sued him when they themselves had lifed the "LBR" archive format from CP/M, but greater examples of legal travesty exist in computer history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LBR_(file_format)
I still have a bought-and-paid-for 3.5" floppy disk of PKZip from PKWare. I am the only one I know who ever actually paid for it.
I still have a bought-and-paid-for 3.5" floppy disk of PKZip from PKWare. I am the only one I know who ever actually paid for it.
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>I still have a bought-and-paid-for 3.5" floppy disk of PKZip from PKWare. I am the only one I know who ever actually paid for it.
I had one too, and I held onto the floppy and the plastic folder it came in for years, until I finally trashed it in a decluttering frenzy. I think the version I registered was 1.10.
I had one too, and I held onto the floppy and the plastic folder it came in for years, until I finally trashed it in a decluttering frenzy. I think the version I registered was 1.10.
In the late 80s, I bought a perpetual license for PKZip, which I still have in a notebook somewhere. I used it to bundle my own shareware program. Of all the programs, theirs seemed like the one with the most shareware-friendly licensing scheme and user friendly unpacking process.
Stupidly, I sent my brother an encrypted ZIP file with my source code, and of course it's the only copy remaining, and of course I can't crack the password. I've tried some cracking programs.
Stupidly, I sent my brother an encrypted ZIP file with my source code, and of course it's the only copy remaining, and of course I can't crack the password. I've tried some cracking programs.
Son starts company. Mom somehow gets a job there and 25%. People start saying things like "It was his product, but it was her business." That mother-son relationship feels a bit off...
If anyone is interested, there is more information on the PKware / SEA story here, http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/S...
Also the BBS Documentary itself is worth a view.
Also the BBS Documentary itself is worth a view.
For some reason I always preferred ARJ in those days
It was useful for multi-volume archives that would fit on floppy disks.
And utilize them perfectly. Other compression programs would not split a file between two disks, and therefore always leave some unused space. ARJ multi volume archives utilized the floppy capacity to 100%.
I knew about the story of Phil Katz having read this article before and was also a user back in the day, but just recently watched the movie 'Leaving Las Vegas'. Reading the PK article again in the link reminded me so much about the movie. If you haven't seen the movie it's worth watching and maybe an insight into the problems he was going through.
It's very hard to explain to someone that hasn't gone through it. Suffice it to say that quitting isn't really about willpower.