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Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

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Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#681

Post by pelagic_sky »

xyzelement wrote: post #103
yamtaddle wrote: post #79

Not using an electric toothbrush. First time I used one it felt like I'd had a proper dental cleaning. An extremely half-assed effort with that kind of brush beats a thorough one with a manual brush. I thought they were a gimmick, but no, they're amazing.

Yup! Also the Phillips ones are just based on vibration (as opposed to some rotation in oral-b) which is also much better for your teeth and gums.

Huh, my dentist told me not to get the oral-b because the rotation is bad for your teeth. They mentioned sonic as the preferred because the motion matches the grain of your teeth.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#682

Post by pards »

mabbo wrote: post #35

My father said to me: "I like a shower better than a bath, but ugh, that first blast of cold water when you turn it on is always a bit shocking." Me: "Why don't you turn on the shower, wait for it to get warm, then get in?" Him, realizing he'd been using a shower wrong for over 6 decades: "... huh."

Wim Hof would disagree. I always start and end my showers with 1 minute of full cold (in Canada, so cold = 8°C)

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#683

Post by dyingkneepad »

scotty79 wrote: post #344
rjmill wrote: post #152

When my then-gf/now-wife and I first moved in together, I got really mad at her because she kept "hiding" my stuff when I left it out for more than a day. I couldn't find anything! At some point, I yelled, "It's like you don't even want to see any of my things when I'm not using them!" Then I stopped for a second. For the first time in my life, it made sense. The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No…

I have no idea why some people have this urge to hide all things. When I hide things I just forget that I have half of them almost immediately. Let alone remembering where I have them.

Maybe that's just a sign you have a lot of stuff you don't even need in the first place?

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#684

Post by solarmist »

jethkl wrote: post #8

I thought colorblindness tests were designed to be tricky and subtle, so I always passed them through very close inspection. I'm just colorblind.

Lol, yeah, sometimes an analytical mind works against you by taking things too seriously.

This is when it would've been good to ask someone about it.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#685

Post by sparks1970 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #527
rjmill wrote: post #152

When my then-gf/now-wife and I first moved in together, I got really mad at her because she kept "hiding" my stuff when I left it out for more than a day. I couldn't find anything! At some point, I yelled, "It's like you don't even want to see any of my things when I'm not using them!" Then I stopped for a second. For the first time in my life, it made sense. The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No…

There is a book I read recently called Goodbye, Things . It's like a more interesting version of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up , as it talks more about the feeling of being a minimalist than TLCMTU does, which is more practical. It talks about needing less space in general and being more free, simply by having fewer things, since things beget things; the more things you have, the more organizational container…

A good book which addresses the perception that "possessions are a projection of my true self" but it lost me when the author describes limiting himself to a single towel to both dry himself out of the shower and to dry dishes...

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#687

Post by jkubicek »

rpdillon wrote: post #482
KVFinn wrote: post #2

You aren't supposed to rinse your mouth with water after brushing your teeth. You're supposed to spit excess, but leave the toothpaste on to absorb.

Ahh, mine is an interesting counterpoint to this! I had canker sores for my entire life, well into my late 20s. I tried everything: changing toothpastes (more on this in a second), changing brushes, using mouthwash, being told my mouth was "dirty" and I need to brush more, etc. Turns out (at least for me) the sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) used as a foaming agent in (almost) every single toothpaste causes canker sores.…

I've also suffered from canker sores. Vitamin B (B-12 is the important one, I think) is a wonder cure. At the first sign of mouth soreness I start taking daily doses of Vitamin B and it cures the sores right up.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#688

Post by timeon »

locallost wrote: post #457
rjmill wrote: post #152

When my then-gf/now-wife and I first moved in together, I got really mad at her because she kept "hiding" my stuff when I left it out for more than a day. I couldn't find anything! At some point, I yelled, "It's like you don't even want to see any of my things when I'm not using them!" Then I stopped for a second. For the first time in my life, it made sense. The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No…

I don't think it's about not wanting to look at things - my wife once moved something from me from the bathroom above the sink to a shelf, and I got pissed I couldn't find it. She said it was too much stuff there. I then went there and counted 17 things that belonged to her, and 2 that belonged to me, 1 of which was apparently too much. In my experience women do this a lot. I don't know if it's some kind of an evolut…

I have this experience too. But I think it is more general: people are more critical of others then themselves.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#689

Post by solarmist »

thyrox wrote: post #83

Worrying and arguing about things in the future. I wasted so much time and energy on this but as I get older I've realised there is so little of what we can actually control vs what we think we can do. Most of the time just saying Yes and waiting for things to actually happen is so much easier. A lot of time what you worry about never happens and if it does it isn't always as bad as you make things out to be in your…

You're comment threw me. I thought I was following, but discussions on the future of technology/whatever don't come with yes/no questions.

Can you give an example? Like “do you want to go ice skating Saturday?” also doesn't seem to fit your comment.

Re: Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?

#690

Post by gongdzhauh »

I used to be a NIMBY. I thought small neighborhoods that have nice characteristics should never evolve or change, I thought places with tons of people were unpleasant to live in, I looked down on people who could afford market-rate new housing ("evil techies"), I thought new development increased rents (it doesn't).

20ish years later, seeing the homelessness, property crime, and housing crisis in the Bay Area, I am convinced I was wrong and wish that the area had built a ton more housing in the past. There used to be so many artists that were able to survive on a part-time cafe job back then. That's no longer possible and it's a bummer and makes the area so much more mundane.

I do still consider open space and parks important and valuable and don't support building new housing on a lot of those types of places.

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