12 ms·

How are you doing?

360 points by feross 4y ago

readonthegoapp 4y ago
this thing is incredible.
- bartvk 4y ago
  They put a lot of effort into it, that's for sure.
  - input_sh 4y ago
    I scroll through nearly all of their stories. I may not always be interested in the subject, but the way they do the frontend is always fascinating.
thinkmcfly 4y ago
I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?
- bartvk 4y ago
  I'm not sure if you're joking, or if you haven't viewed/read the link :-) It actually encourages you to unpack "good" into a number of more specific descriptions.
  - thinkmcfly 4y ago
    I clicked it. It's just a spinning image that I'm unable to interact with :0
lynx23 4y ago
- imdsm 4y ago
  Why is it that some people react so strongly to the concept of therapy? Must be in need of therapy
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    Posting because this response chain is at risk of devolving into hostility. Take a deep breath both of you and move on. (Please be sensitive with responses. It would be a shame if HN’s automated NLP moved this cute app off the front page because the comments became inflammatory.)
  - lynx23 4y ago
    Ignoring your personal attack, I think there is a difference in how people see therapy based on where they are from. The US seems to do a lot of therapy-is-good propaganda in the last 20 years. In Europe, this propaganda hasn't arrived fully yet, although we feel it already.
    - comfypotato 4y ago
      @imdsm, please read my other comment on your parent before responding to this. I personally had a nice morning because of this pleasant app. I wish for others to have a similarly nice day, and an antagonistic response from you would risk HN's NLP automatically removing it from the front page.
      - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
        I don't think it's within the spirit of HN to repeatedly tell people to censor themselves to appease some ranking algorithm. What's the source on that NLP stuff on HN, never heard of it, I'm curious to read more.
        comfypotato 4y ago
        The spirit of kindness is in the guidelines: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." [1] I didn't ask people to censor themselves, just to be nice. I've also acknowledged that I'm no mediator, moderator, or arbiter. I just had a great time with the app and feel compelled to help others like me get access to it. Am I doing something that is prohibited in the guidelines? "Flame-War Detector" discusses the NLP a bit. [2] Also, it's implied by the second answer in the FAQ. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [2] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flame-war-detector https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flame-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
comfypotato 4y ago
Immediately shared this with my (free university-sponsored, thank goodness) therapist upon working through it. So intriguing how it helped me to visualize and understand my current state of mind. I’ve got a lot going on right now as a grad student in the midst of finals. This was a nice reality check of how good some aspects of my life are in light of the stress I’m currently under. This app is a big dollop of synesthesia. Good luck trying to select colors for your feelings! I thought it was a lot of fun, and I found that it left me feeling similar to having written a gratitude list. (Maybe make sure to focus on at least one feeling that has some positivity to it.) The predominant feeling for me was “tense” (currently stuck on a couch unable to put my feet on the ground and make progress on a take-home exam), but I had a positive emotion too.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  >This app is a big dollop of synesthesia. Good luck trying to select colors for your feelings! Yeah, exactly. It's way more complicated than that for me. But it did get me intrigued to work on identifying a personalized system like this for myself. The self-interrogation alone is a big step. And the site is reminiscent of some of the work I've done with my therapist.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
> You're feeling imposter syndrome - what color is it? I dunno. Any random color, I guess.
- petargyurov 4y ago
  > You're feeling imposter syndrome - what color is it? I don't know, I'm not a real colour theorist! Aaaah what even are colours! Do I know all the colours? What if my selection is wrong!
  - layer8 4y ago
    Yeah, I stopped at that point because I don't believe in emotions being colored and body-located, and the experiential disconnected with "Isn't that FASCINATING?" made me anxious, frustrated, and cynic.
- badcppdev 4y ago
  Well maybe picking a random colour means it's not imposter syndrome because you really don't know how to do this .... Just joking! Sorry couldn't resist the silly response. I actually found the whole exercise quite nice and picking colours felt basically random to me because I don't associate my emotions with colour. But I'm a guy so I was raised to only feel angry and nothing
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    I would guess a lot of people don't associate feelings with colors, or at least associate them on a one-to-one basis. For me there is lots of texture and shape involved. But I found the basic self-interrogation great for self-awareness and it inspired me to realize I can be a little more systematic about it, just in a different way than the site creator.
- dgellow 4y ago
  My pick would be orange. YMMV
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pcurve 4y ago
How do I accurately select from dozens of adjectives on the wheel? Some words are easier to hone in on, like ashamed, humiliated, but others like Ease, Noticed, Silly, Brave, Agency, are hard for me. I'm guessing the 6 colors in the wheel map to the 6 colors in the "I Need" sticky note sections? Trying to figure out how to use this properly :)
- codingdave 4y ago
  You start in the middle of the wheel, where the terms are more broad, and work out to the middle level, then the outer level. The intent is to help you narrow down the feeling from general -> specific by moving outwards through the rings. To be fair, this wheel is a little different than others I've seen. If you search for "emotion wheel", you'll find a variety of others that may be easier to parse.
kellyharsh 4y ago
[flagged]
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  What on earth is this? I saw another spam post like this just yesterday. > Disclaimer: This website is not associated with the TigerIsHome "TigerIsHome" looks like a gambling site, but these guys are not trying to capture login details even though it looks a lot like a phishing site, with auto-generated text. What's the deal?
zxcvbnm 4y ago
wow you have money for a therapist... I have zero sympathies for people with such problems and such means to address them.
- markeibes 4y ago
  Oh, cool, fuck off then?
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    Yo be cool. Don’t let HN’s automated NLP move this app off the front page. It’s too cute to kill. (I see your point; I’m just trying to let others have the same nice day that I had because of this app.)
    - nigerianbrince 4y ago
      N
- comfypotato 4y ago
  My university has a free program for therapy (due to multiple unfortunate self-life-ending actions by students this semester). Please be sensitive!
  - dandellion 4y ago
    That's great... if tuition is also free, otherwise it's kind of the same with extra steps.
    - comfypotato 4y ago
      Currently working on getting more funding to continue my education; wish me luck! Obviously it would be ideal if this wasn't an issue. As I've said in other parts on this HN post, please be sensitive with verbiage to avoid removing the app from the front page. Inflammatory comments risk triggering automated downgrading of the post based on NLP. The general sentiment here is positive, and it would be nice if others can have the opportunity to try the app.
markeibes 4y ago
This is exceptionally well-made, smooth, and beautiful.
passion__desire 4y ago
Some people want to express themselves differently, but physical limitations like stuttering impede their original intended responses. 3:30 @ https://vimeo.com/661128684 https://vimeo.com/661128684
- swah 4y ago
  This felt so, so fresh. Like the internet in the 90s... Thanks for the link!
dataengineer56 4y ago
I don't like the overly-personal, almost condescending and childish tone. Why not just write normally? I can discuss and explore my feelings without being spoken to as though I'm on the edge of a mental breakdown and one strong word would push me over. I don't need to be told "good job!" for scrolling to the right or selecting a colour. Everyone on HN will appreciate clear, concise documentation and instructions in their day jobs. I don't see why mental health discussions should be any different. Imagine if Python docs were presented in this style.
- lljk_kennedy 4y ago
  You don't, but others might. I appreciate the care shown.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Speaking as an extremely lazy individual, I enjoyed the encouragement. To each their own.
- bad_good_guy 4y ago
  imagine comparing someones mental wellbeing to a programming language
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    Yo be cool. HN has automated NLP that looks for inflammatory comments to downgrade a post. Sorry if my condescending tone upsets you. Just trying to keep the vibes positive so that others can enjoy the app while it's on the front page.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  There are people who think differently and do appreciate this style. I’m grateful.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
leinadho 4y ago
This was touching and inspiring, thanks for sharing
guytv 4y ago
wow. this is so creative, empathic and resonates with love and compassion. thank you!
pastacacioepepe 4y ago
Can't find any privacy policy or information about where is the data going to be stored, if it's stored at all.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Hmmmm, it makes sense to me that someone (the designer) more familiar with such a soft science would be less inclined to be sensitive to privacy functionality.
senectus1 4y ago
I'm not doing so good, and I couldn't finish that site. as pretty as it was. meh i just need to get more sleep.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I found this hit and miss, the concept is nice and original and the execution is well done. And I suppose it made me define my emotional state in a more granular manner than I naturally do, but at the end of the day I found no actionable insights.
- ravedave5 4y ago
  Defining your emotional state more granularity is an actionable insight. Just like the 3rd time a pod goes down with the same error message you're like oh yeah it's this and this and boom we're back up and running. Recognizing your emotions means you can figure out solutions and apply them again.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
    I was speaking on a personal level, defining your emotions is not an actionable insight if there is no solution for the underlying cause.
j-bos 4y ago
I realize it's not designed for mobile, but I couldn't figure out how to close the pictures after opening. Ended up leaving after the clouds.
- l-lousy 4y ago
  There’s a “done” and an “X” button, but there were only about 3 pixels of each visible to click in landscape mode. The aspect ratio seems to have a big effect here
fabiandesimone 4y ago
Pretty nice, but I'm colorblind :(
- comfypotato 4y ago
  I'd love to start a conversation regarding a lightweight JavaScript artifact that takes ranges of hex colors and moves them to ranges you (and other folks with a similar disability) can interpret. I work with Tampermonkey for all of my web-changing JavaScript, and setting something up would just be hacking together some basic color manipulation without having to leave a JavaScript editor and the command line. (Working with the spectrum stuff would be tough, so I won't be able to produce anything quickly.) Disclaimer: I'm currently caffeinated and procrastinating studying so will likely be less enthusiastic (but still enthusiastic!) going forward.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  My emotions correspond just as much or more to very abstract shapes and textures as much as color, and often the color is in combinations/gradients. Everyone will have a personal spin on how they "see" their feelings. But the basic concept is great and the site is really well done.
fallat 4y ago
Quite beautiful.
bheadmaster 4y ago
I don't see the point in the whole charade of "use words, colors and body parts to describe what you feel" - okay, I'm aware of what I feel, and I've assigned some arbitrary positions on my body to my feelings. Now what? Do that every day? It feels patronizing and seems like just a way to distract myself. Might as well spend my time playing Factorio, it'll distract me as much. I hope there is some crucial factor that I don't understand yet, and that someone will explain it to me in a reply. Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake. --- Due to the negative tone of the above comment, I feel I should point out that it is a criticism of (or attempt to understand better) the concept, not the website itself. The website was very smooth and easy to work through, the author must have put a lot of effort into making it. Kudos, and if it helps people, that's a good thing regardless of my opinion and understanding (or lack thereof).
- comfypotato 4y ago
  It's a very soft science (and is very helpful to admittedly soft folks like me). I found value in forcing myself to realize positive emotions in light of the overwhelming stress that I'm currently under.
- SuoDuanDao 4y ago
  To my way of thinking - and in no way does this mean it works for you - different parts of the mind are like different programs running on one computer. They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. Book #3 in my linktree talks a lot in this vein if you find it an interesting metaphor.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    > They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. So the purpose of the exercise is to communicate information between different parts of the brain? Does it really help? If so, do you have any explanation for the underlying mechanisms? Metaphors are convenient, but unless they're a proxy-explanation for some harder-to-understand mechanisms, I don't really see their value...
emptyfile 4y ago
gyulai 4y ago
So I'm on desktop and don't have a scroll wheel or anything that does touch or gestures. Is this literally unusable for me, or am I missing something? ...I feel like a member of an increasingly marginalized group these days, but I love my Logitech Trackman Marble.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- clmckinley 4y ago
  you should be able to use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard
  - gyulai 4y ago
    Oh, thanks for the hint. ...yes that does work. It said "scroll", so I tried cursor up/down as well as page up/down. Didn't even know horizontal scrolling with cursor left/right was a thing.
- OJFord 4y ago
  So usually, e.g. in order to scroll down and read more comments here, you mouse over to the scroll bar on the side, click it, and drag it to where you want? Is that because the movement's (longer but) slighter/less awkward than the bend as you scroll a scroll wheel? Just curious.
  - gyulai 4y ago
    Well, the first option is always to use cursor up/down and/or page up/down for scrolling. When that doesn't do the job then, yes, I use the scroll bar. It's because I've been using Logitech Trackballs for maybe 20 years now, starting with a Marble FX and then later switching over to the Trackman Marble when they no longer made the Marble FX. At some point, I just bought five of it, in case one breaks and they stop making that one too, but none ever did break. I just like the precision-feeling that a trackball gives me that a mouse doesn't. Scroll bars have been getting smaller and smaller over the years and over these last couple of years I've started to really get into trouble with more and more UIs deciding to turn them off completely. Of course the people who decide to turn off scroll bars also don't give a hoot about the keyboard, which really infuriates me, when it leaves me with no option at all to scroll. At some point I added a ShuttleXPress Jog wheel to my "rig" on the left-hand side of my keyboard and I'm having its driver simulate a scroll wheel. But I use it extremely infrequently. (...so I was totally lying when I said I had no way at all to scroll).
lr4444lr 4y ago
Semi gratuitous comment, but it has had such an important impact on my life that I share it at every tangent: don't even bother trying to fix your emotional problems until you fix your sleep problems. It is an almost utterly hopeless endeavor to have psychological health of any kind with chronic poor sleep. (And even though they're intertwined, it makes a world of difference to prioritizing what you do when you treat it as causal)
- hgsgm 4y ago
  "When everyone hates you, sleep. When you hate everyone, eat. When you hate yourself, shower."
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    You seem to be banned from HN (most of your comments are [dead]). Looking through your comment history, you don't seem to be a bot or a troll. The reason for your ban seems to be some politics stuff I don't quite understand: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981809 If you're legit, maybe try contacting dang and ask him to unban you.
    - Zenbit_UX 4y ago
      If that user is banned why can everyone else read their comments? Is a ban on HN different than on reddit or other forums?
      - bheadmaster 4y ago
        I've vouched for that particular comment, so it's visible to others.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  Which makes it SUPER fun when your mental health meds are what fuck up your sleep.
marredpally 4y ago
The website is exceptionally done, but it might be worth considering that the idea of there being a basic set of five emotions...is a very Western view of things. There's at least some evidence[1] that our brains and bodies do not come pre-wired for certain emotions, and that instead they are dynamically wired through specific social and cultural contexts. "Talking about out emotions as internal experiences is quite exceptional in the world. People in many cultures talk about emotions as public, social, and relational than people do in contemporary Western cultural contexts. In cultures remote from our own in time and place, emotions are often seen as acts in the social and moral world" (from [1]) [1] Between us; how cultures create emotions, by Batja Mesquita
- FredPret 4y ago
  There are worse things to be than Western. Why is it automatically assumed to be less enlightened if it's from the West?
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    Could you be automatically (or not automatically) assuming the comment you were replying to was suggesting things from the West were "less enlightened"? I didn't read that in any of the words, I feel like that was an assumption of yours! Do you assume that anyone pointing out that something is "Western" is saying there's something wrong with things that are Western? Why automatically assume that?
    - FredPret 4y ago
      It’s not much of an assumption. Read OP again. They draw a clear line between it (five basic emotions) being a Western idea and it being a wrong idea.
      - jrochkind1 4y ago
        i've read it again several times. It's only ~750 words after all. Only five sentances, two original, and three more that are a quote from another work. Can you be specific about which words in the comment, whether from the first two sentances or the quote from the book, lead you to believe the comment author thinks anything is a "wrong idea"? for the reason it is "Western"? Which sentence or sentences are drawing that clear line you say? I am personally not seeing them. I wonder if you could be assuming that certain words imply something that I am not assuming, or if I could be assuming that certain words mean something you are not assuming. Although I'm not even sure which words that might be.
mnw21cam 4y ago
Yeah, I don't have synaesthesia, and I don't attribute different emotions to different parts of my body. If you do, good on you and I hope you find this web page very useful, but you're weird.
- lou1306 4y ago
  Feeling an emotion across the body (chest, temples, mouth of the stomach, etc) is a very common thing for an awful lot of people. So common that you can find it in literature since antiquity, across cultures, as something that does barely require explanation. And even if it weren't, I would suggest against labelling people as weird based on the way they feel.
hackerman123469 4y ago
It's nicely done, but I don't really see the use in it, but I'm also someone who's not in touch with my emotions that well anyway, but I am also one who hasn't benefited much from therapy and all of my mental problems have only been solved to an extend by medication, never by talking about my problems.
deluarseo 4y ago
michaelbuckbee 4y ago
This was interesting and really well done. But now I'm wishing for something that would help me track each day's set of emotions (BeReal but for emotional introspection?)
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  I think there are a bunch of apps like that, maybe sometimes called "mood trackers"? I chose and used "Daylio" a bit, but realized it wasn't really helpful for me right now.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  I'm inspired to try a book of (very abstract, and almost certainly quite poor) drawings using colored pencils and figure out how to use textures.
wst_ 4y ago
Seeing the wheel of feelings / emotions reminded me, again, that there are people who don't experience most of those. Even if they do, they have a difficulties in describing what do they feel or if they feel anything at all. It's impossible for them to name the feelings but few most general cases - happy, sad, crying, angry. There is a disorder called alexithymia that may be the reason for that. I suppose, for those people (which is around 10% of population, quoting Wikipedia[1]) the concept of mindfulness is alien and above page is beyond comprehension. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  If you were to ask me when I was a teenager, I'd probably agree with that description. But at least in my case, I just had god-awful awareness of my own emotions. So I thought I was like spock and that they didn't exist, while in reality I was happy and mad and frustrated and envious and all sorts of things most days. For some reason it didn't really click for me that what I felt was feelings.
mixedCase 4y ago
Now that I've overanalyzed my feelings? Tense, anxious. And started to feel psychogenic pain while I was managing okay before. Not sure who it is for, but this kind of "reification of feelings" (as colors, shapes, monsters or anthropomorphizations) has never helped me and only made it worse. It either increases my anxiety, or turns it to hopelesness (in the way of "I'm so far gone I'm wasting time doing this because there's nothing to actually help me") or at best I can ignore it and move on. The website looks great, and looks like a lot of work was put into it so I'm sorry I'm putting it down, but the concept itself is... in my case, a literal pain.
- multiplegeorges 4y ago
  I would argue that this reaction shows that the exercise was extremely useful for you and should probably be done with the participation of a professional. > "I'm so far gone I'm wasting time doing this because there's nothing to actually help me" No one is too far gone and this exercise literally helped you feel your feelings. That's a good thing, even if it doesn't feel comfortable in the immediate.
  - mixedCase 4y ago
    > and this exercise literally helped you feel your feelings. That's a good thing How? I gain no insight from it. When I'm feeling like shit, I don't need additional help in feeling like shit, it's never helped me "process it". When I'm feeling okay, I don't need to go through the pain as a routine needlessly as some people suggest. What kind of life is that? I'm doing okay nowadays in part because I've managed to shove my emotions out of the way once I acknowledge they're only a signal to a real problem that I can either do something about or I can do absolutely nothing about, and once that's determined the emotion as a signal is useless and knowing that helps me set it aside and focus on what I want in life and determining a purpose. But that practice of dwelling on my emotions and reflecting on "how I felt" held me back for a long time, and that's why I had the need to comment at all. While this kind of thing may help a lot of people it's important for some to hear "yeah this might not work for you at all, might even be worse, don't waste time if it doesn't work for you, there are other ways".
- 4y ago
abhijeets06 4y ago
Thinking with all new AI tools where world is going? Is it scariest or happiest time to be in this AI era?
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  Therapy games sound like a great idea to me.
thieving_magpie 4y ago
Really well done. There are some interesting ideas presented here.
zaka_kk 4y ago
I'm not good
fatih-erikli 4y ago
This kind of interactive clips always remind me xmas coming soon and feels great
obituary_latte 4y ago
What an amazing collection on that site. Some of the most interesting and engaging web content I've ever seen. Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
xikrib 4y ago
Appreciated this. Hey everyone, it's just some art, relax :]
SeanAnderson 4y ago
I enjoyed the experience! I find it a bit interesting how quick I am to be dismissive of this sort of tool, and yet readily acknowledge that humans drastically benefit from cueing. Assigning names to emotions makes sense and trying to have a richer vocabulary makes sense. Having suggestions proffered up is useful to promote constructive thoughts, but is also a bit anchoring. Are those the emotions I felt, or did I only think that because those were the ones shown to me? In the end, I am left slightly more self-reflective, which I am grateful for, but don't feel like I came away with clear, strong action items.
originalvichy 4y ago
Nice page. Cultural quirk: in Finland if you ask someone how they are doing they might quite literally start speaking to you about their life. In some cultures how are doing is part of a standard quick introductory small talk. My brain always freezes because I am about to actually share what’s up but then I realize this person might not really want to know.
PixelForg 4y ago
How is no one talking about the background music yet? Don't see the name mentioned anywhere, it sounds pretty good for concentrating.
deleted 4y ago
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astrostl 4y ago
The positive replies in this thread have the biggest "bot army" vibe I think I've ever seen on HN. I could only give the cutesy, scroll-to-activate, Flash-like UX about 10 seconds until I gave up on the endeavor. Maybe it really is just me.
coryfklein 4y ago
Amazing how something so simple could result in such polarizing responses here in the comments! The site has the apparent function of a sort of Rorschach test for individuals. Do you feel upset and bothered when asked gently to describe your emotions in an in-depth manner? Did you spend 7 minutes reflecting on your emotion and then feel like it was a waste of time? Or did the process reveal something positive about yourself you didn't realize? At all times, HN comments serve as a mirror reflecting individuals views on a topic; but when the topic is your own emotional self the result is quite stunning.
kellyharsh 4y ago
[flagged]

How are you doing?

360 points by feross 4y ago

readonthegoapp 4y ago

this thing is incredible.

bartvk 4y ago
They put a lot of effort into it, that's for sure.
- input_sh 4y ago
  I scroll through nearly all of their stories. I may not always be interested in the subject, but the way they do the frontend is always fascinating.

thinkmcfly 4y ago

I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?

bartvk 4y ago
I'm not sure if you're joking, or if you haven't viewed/read the link :-) It actually encourages you to unpack "good" into a number of more specific descriptions.
- thinkmcfly 4y ago
  I clicked it. It's just a spinning image that I'm unable to interact with :0

lynx23 4y ago

imdsm 4y ago
Why is it that some people react so strongly to the concept of therapy? Must be in need of therapy
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Posting because this response chain is at risk of devolving into hostility. Take a deep breath both of you and move on. (Please be sensitive with responses. It would be a shame if HN’s automated NLP moved this cute app off the front page because the comments became inflammatory.)
- lynx23 4y ago
  Ignoring your personal attack, I think there is a difference in how people see therapy based on where they are from. The US seems to do a lot of therapy-is-good propaganda in the last 20 years. In Europe, this propaganda hasn't arrived fully yet, although we feel it already.
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    @imdsm, please read my other comment on your parent before responding to this. I personally had a nice morning because of this pleasant app. I wish for others to have a similarly nice day, and an antagonistic response from you would risk HN's NLP automatically removing it from the front page.
    - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
      I don't think it's within the spirit of HN to repeatedly tell people to censor themselves to appease some ranking algorithm. What's the source on that NLP stuff on HN, never heard of it, I'm curious to read more.
      - comfypotato 4y ago
        The spirit of kindness is in the guidelines: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." [1] I didn't ask people to censor themselves, just to be nice. I've also acknowledged that I'm no mediator, moderator, or arbiter. I just had a great time with the app and feel compelled to help others like me get access to it. Am I doing something that is prohibited in the guidelines? "Flame-War Detector" discusses the NLP a bit. [2] Also, it's implied by the second answer in the FAQ. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [2] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flame-war-detector https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flame-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

comfypotato 4y ago

Immediately shared this with my (free university-sponsored, thank goodness) therapist upon working through it. So intriguing how it helped me to visualize and understand my current state of mind. I’ve got a lot going on right now as a grad student in the midst of finals. This was a nice reality check of how good some aspects of my life are in light of the stress I’m currently under. This app is a big dollop of synesthesia. Good luck trying to select colors for your feelings! I thought it was a lot of fun, and I found that it left me feeling similar to having written a gratitude list. (Maybe make sure to focus on at least one feeling that has some positivity to it.) The predominant feeling for me was “tense” (currently stuck on a couch unable to put my feet on the ground and make progress on a take-home exam), but I had a positive emotion too.

SyzygistSix 4y ago
>This app is a big dollop of synesthesia. Good luck trying to select colors for your feelings! Yeah, exactly. It's way more complicated than that for me. But it did get me intrigued to work on identifying a personalized system like this for myself. The self-interrogation alone is a big step. And the site is reminiscent of some of the work I've done with my therapist.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

> You're feeling imposter syndrome - what color is it? I dunno. Any random color, I guess.

petargyurov 4y ago
> You're feeling imposter syndrome - what color is it? I don't know, I'm not a real colour theorist! Aaaah what even are colours! Do I know all the colours? What if my selection is wrong!
- layer8 4y ago
  Yeah, I stopped at that point because I don't believe in emotions being colored and body-located, and the experiential disconnected with "Isn't that FASCINATING?" made me anxious, frustrated, and cynic.
badcppdev 4y ago
Well maybe picking a random colour means it's not imposter syndrome because you really don't know how to do this .... Just joking! Sorry couldn't resist the silly response. I actually found the whole exercise quite nice and picking colours felt basically random to me because I don't associate my emotions with colour. But I'm a guy so I was raised to only feel angry and nothing
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  I would guess a lot of people don't associate feelings with colors, or at least associate them on a one-to-one basis. For me there is lots of texture and shape involved. But I found the basic self-interrogation great for self-awareness and it inspired me to realize I can be a little more systematic about it, just in a different way than the site creator.
dgellow 4y ago
My pick would be orange. YMMV

deleted 4y ago

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pcurve 4y ago

How do I accurately select from dozens of adjectives on the wheel? Some words are easier to hone in on, like ashamed, humiliated, but others like Ease, Noticed, Silly, Brave, Agency, are hard for me. I'm guessing the 6 colors in the wheel map to the 6 colors in the "I Need" sticky note sections? Trying to figure out how to use this properly :)

codingdave 4y ago
You start in the middle of the wheel, where the terms are more broad, and work out to the middle level, then the outer level. The intent is to help you narrow down the feeling from general -> specific by moving outwards through the rings. To be fair, this wheel is a little different than others I've seen. If you search for "emotion wheel", you'll find a variety of others that may be easier to parse.

kellyharsh 4y ago

[flagged]

ricardobeat 4y ago
What on earth is this? I saw another spam post like this just yesterday. > Disclaimer: This website is not associated with the TigerIsHome "TigerIsHome" looks like a gambling site, but these guys are not trying to capture login details even though it looks a lot like a phishing site, with auto-generated text. What's the deal?

zxcvbnm 4y ago

wow you have money for a therapist... I have zero sympathies for people with such problems and such means to address them.

markeibes 4y ago
Oh, cool, fuck off then?
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Yo be cool. Don’t let HN’s automated NLP move this app off the front page. It’s too cute to kill. (I see your point; I’m just trying to let others have the same nice day that I had because of this app.)
  - nigerianbrince 4y ago
    N
comfypotato 4y ago
My university has a free program for therapy (due to multiple unfortunate self-life-ending actions by students this semester). Please be sensitive!
- dandellion 4y ago
  That's great... if tuition is also free, otherwise it's kind of the same with extra steps.
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    Currently working on getting more funding to continue my education; wish me luck! Obviously it would be ideal if this wasn't an issue. As I've said in other parts on this HN post, please be sensitive with verbiage to avoid removing the app from the front page. Inflammatory comments risk triggering automated downgrading of the post based on NLP. The general sentiment here is positive, and it would be nice if others can have the opportunity to try the app.

markeibes 4y ago

This is exceptionally well-made, smooth, and beautiful.

passion__desire 4y ago

Some people want to express themselves differently, but physical limitations like stuttering impede their original intended responses. 3:30 @ https://vimeo.com/661128684 https://vimeo.com/661128684

swah 4y ago
This felt so, so fresh. Like the internet in the 90s... Thanks for the link!

dataengineer56 4y ago

I don't like the overly-personal, almost condescending and childish tone. Why not just write normally? I can discuss and explore my feelings without being spoken to as though I'm on the edge of a mental breakdown and one strong word would push me over. I don't need to be told "good job!" for scrolling to the right or selecting a colour. Everyone on HN will appreciate clear, concise documentation and instructions in their day jobs. I don't see why mental health discussions should be any different. Imagine if Python docs were presented in this style.

lljk_kennedy 4y ago
You don't, but others might. I appreciate the care shown.
comfypotato 4y ago
Speaking as an extremely lazy individual, I enjoyed the encouragement. To each their own.
bad_good_guy 4y ago
imagine comparing someones mental wellbeing to a programming language
- comfypotato 4y ago
  Yo be cool. HN has automated NLP that looks for inflammatory comments to downgrade a post. Sorry if my condescending tone upsets you. Just trying to keep the vibes positive so that others can enjoy the app while it's on the front page.
- deleted 4y ago
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mensetmanusman 4y ago
There are people who think differently and do appreciate this style. I’m grateful.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

leinadho 4y ago

This was touching and inspiring, thanks for sharing

guytv 4y ago

wow. this is so creative, empathic and resonates with love and compassion. thank you!

pastacacioepepe 4y ago

Can't find any privacy policy or information about where is the data going to be stored, if it's stored at all.

comfypotato 4y ago
Hmmmm, it makes sense to me that someone (the designer) more familiar with such a soft science would be less inclined to be sensitive to privacy functionality.

senectus1 4y ago

I'm not doing so good, and I couldn't finish that site. as pretty as it was. meh i just need to get more sleep.

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

I found this hit and miss, the concept is nice and original and the execution is well done. And I suppose it made me define my emotional state in a more granular manner than I naturally do, but at the end of the day I found no actionable insights.

ravedave5 4y ago
Defining your emotional state more granularity is an actionable insight. Just like the 3rd time a pod goes down with the same error message you're like oh yeah it's this and this and boom we're back up and running. Recognizing your emotions means you can figure out solutions and apply them again.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  I was speaking on a personal level, defining your emotions is not an actionable insight if there is no solution for the underlying cause.

j-bos 4y ago

I realize it's not designed for mobile, but I couldn't figure out how to close the pictures after opening. Ended up leaving after the clouds.

l-lousy 4y ago
There’s a “done” and an “X” button, but there were only about 3 pixels of each visible to click in landscape mode. The aspect ratio seems to have a big effect here

fabiandesimone 4y ago

Pretty nice, but I'm colorblind :(

comfypotato 4y ago
I'd love to start a conversation regarding a lightweight JavaScript artifact that takes ranges of hex colors and moves them to ranges you (and other folks with a similar disability) can interpret. I work with Tampermonkey for all of my web-changing JavaScript, and setting something up would just be hacking together some basic color manipulation without having to leave a JavaScript editor and the command line. (Working with the spectrum stuff would be tough, so I won't be able to produce anything quickly.) Disclaimer: I'm currently caffeinated and procrastinating studying so will likely be less enthusiastic (but still enthusiastic!) going forward.
SyzygistSix 4y ago
My emotions correspond just as much or more to very abstract shapes and textures as much as color, and often the color is in combinations/gradients. Everyone will have a personal spin on how they "see" their feelings. But the basic concept is great and the site is really well done.

fallat 4y ago

Quite beautiful.

bheadmaster 4y ago

I don't see the point in the whole charade of "use words, colors and body parts to describe what you feel" - okay, I'm aware of what I feel, and I've assigned some arbitrary positions on my body to my feelings. Now what? Do that every day? It feels patronizing and seems like just a way to distract myself. Might as well spend my time playing Factorio, it'll distract me as much. I hope there is some crucial factor that I don't understand yet, and that someone will explain it to me in a reply. Otherwise, seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such bullsh-t makes me feel like this whole place is fake. --- Due to the negative tone of the above comment, I feel I should point out that it is a criticism of (or attempt to understand better) the concept, not the website itself. The website was very smooth and easy to work through, the author must have put a lot of effort into making it. Kudos, and if it helps people, that's a good thing regardless of my opinion and understanding (or lack thereof).

comfypotato 4y ago
It's a very soft science (and is very helpful to admittedly soft folks like me). I found value in forcing myself to realize positive emotions in light of the overwhelming stress that I'm currently under.
SuoDuanDao 4y ago
To my way of thinking - and in no way does this mean it works for you - different parts of the mind are like different programs running on one computer. They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. Book #3 in my linktree talks a lot in this vein if you find it an interesting metaphor.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > They're not all written in the same language, so passing information between them can be hella difficult. Words, colors, proprioception in different body parts etc. are all different languages, testing them out is a way of passing information between the various regions of the psyche so that they can all 'get on the same page' as it were. So the purpose of the exercise is to communicate information between different parts of the brain? Does it really help? If so, do you have any explanation for the underlying mechanisms? Metaphors are convenient, but unless they're a proxy-explanation for some harder-to-understand mechanisms, I don't really see their value...

emptyfile 4y ago

gyulai 4y ago

So I'm on desktop and don't have a scroll wheel or anything that does touch or gestures. Is this literally unusable for me, or am I missing something? ...I feel like a member of an increasingly marginalized group these days, but I love my Logitech Trackman Marble.

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clmckinley 4y ago
you should be able to use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard
- gyulai 4y ago
  Oh, thanks for the hint. ...yes that does work. It said "scroll", so I tried cursor up/down as well as page up/down. Didn't even know horizontal scrolling with cursor left/right was a thing.
OJFord 4y ago
So usually, e.g. in order to scroll down and read more comments here, you mouse over to the scroll bar on the side, click it, and drag it to where you want? Is that because the movement's (longer but) slighter/less awkward than the bend as you scroll a scroll wheel? Just curious.
- gyulai 4y ago
  Well, the first option is always to use cursor up/down and/or page up/down for scrolling. When that doesn't do the job then, yes, I use the scroll bar. It's because I've been using Logitech Trackballs for maybe 20 years now, starting with a Marble FX and then later switching over to the Trackman Marble when they no longer made the Marble FX. At some point, I just bought five of it, in case one breaks and they stop making that one too, but none ever did break. I just like the precision-feeling that a trackball gives me that a mouse doesn't. Scroll bars have been getting smaller and smaller over the years and over these last couple of years I've started to really get into trouble with more and more UIs deciding to turn them off completely. Of course the people who decide to turn off scroll bars also don't give a hoot about the keyboard, which really infuriates me, when it leaves me with no option at all to scroll. At some point I added a ShuttleXPress Jog wheel to my "rig" on the left-hand side of my keyboard and I'm having its driver simulate a scroll wheel. But I use it extremely infrequently. (...so I was totally lying when I said I had no way at all to scroll).

lr4444lr 4y ago

Semi gratuitous comment, but it has had such an important impact on my life that I share it at every tangent: don't even bother trying to fix your emotional problems until you fix your sleep problems. It is an almost utterly hopeless endeavor to have psychological health of any kind with chronic poor sleep. (And even though they're intertwined, it makes a world of difference to prioritizing what you do when you treat it as causal)

hgsgm 4y ago
"When everyone hates you, sleep. When you hate everyone, eat. When you hate yourself, shower."
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  You seem to be banned from HN (most of your comments are [dead]). Looking through your comment history, you don't seem to be a bot or a troll. The reason for your ban seems to be some politics stuff I don't quite understand: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981809 If you're legit, maybe try contacting dang and ask him to unban you.
  - Zenbit_UX 4y ago
    If that user is banned why can everyone else read their comments? Is a ban on HN different than on reddit or other forums?
    - bheadmaster 4y ago
      I've vouched for that particular comment, so it's visible to others.
Mezzie 4y ago
Which makes it SUPER fun when your mental health meds are what fuck up your sleep.

marredpally 4y ago

The website is exceptionally done, but it might be worth considering that the idea of there being a basic set of five emotions...is a very Western view of things. There's at least some evidence[1] that our brains and bodies do not come pre-wired for certain emotions, and that instead they are dynamically wired through specific social and cultural contexts. "Talking about out emotions as internal experiences is quite exceptional in the world. People in many cultures talk about emotions as public, social, and relational than people do in contemporary Western cultural contexts. In cultures remote from our own in time and place, emotions are often seen as acts in the social and moral world" (from [1]) [1] Between us; how cultures create emotions, by Batja Mesquita

FredPret 4y ago
There are worse things to be than Western. Why is it automatically assumed to be less enlightened if it's from the West?
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Could you be automatically (or not automatically) assuming the comment you were replying to was suggesting things from the West were "less enlightened"? I didn't read that in any of the words, I feel like that was an assumption of yours! Do you assume that anyone pointing out that something is "Western" is saying there's something wrong with things that are Western? Why automatically assume that?
  - FredPret 4y ago
    It’s not much of an assumption. Read OP again. They draw a clear line between it (five basic emotions) being a Western idea and it being a wrong idea.
    - jrochkind1 4y ago
      i've read it again several times. It's only ~750 words after all. Only five sentances, two original, and three more that are a quote from another work. Can you be specific about which words in the comment, whether from the first two sentances or the quote from the book, lead you to believe the comment author thinks anything is a "wrong idea"? for the reason it is "Western"? Which sentence or sentences are drawing that clear line you say? I am personally not seeing them. I wonder if you could be assuming that certain words imply something that I am not assuming, or if I could be assuming that certain words mean something you are not assuming. Although I'm not even sure which words that might be.

mnw21cam 4y ago

Yeah, I don't have synaesthesia, and I don't attribute different emotions to different parts of my body. If you do, good on you and I hope you find this web page very useful, but you're weird.

lou1306 4y ago
Feeling an emotion across the body (chest, temples, mouth of the stomach, etc) is a very common thing for an awful lot of people. So common that you can find it in literature since antiquity, across cultures, as something that does barely require explanation. And even if it weren't, I would suggest against labelling people as weird based on the way they feel.

hackerman123469 4y ago

It's nicely done, but I don't really see the use in it, but I'm also someone who's not in touch with my emotions that well anyway, but I am also one who hasn't benefited much from therapy and all of my mental problems have only been solved to an extend by medication, never by talking about my problems.

deluarseo 4y ago

michaelbuckbee 4y ago

This was interesting and really well done. But now I'm wishing for something that would help me track each day's set of emotions (BeReal but for emotional introspection?)

jrochkind1 4y ago
I think there are a bunch of apps like that, maybe sometimes called "mood trackers"? I chose and used "Daylio" a bit, but realized it wasn't really helpful for me right now.
SyzygistSix 4y ago
I'm inspired to try a book of (very abstract, and almost certainly quite poor) drawings using colored pencils and figure out how to use textures.

wst_ 4y ago

Seeing the wheel of feelings / emotions reminded me, again, that there are people who don't experience most of those. Even if they do, they have a difficulties in describing what do they feel or if they feel anything at all. It's impossible for them to name the feelings but few most general cases - happy, sad, crying, angry. There is a disorder called alexithymia that may be the reason for that. I suppose, for those people (which is around 10% of population, quoting Wikipedia[1]) the concept of mindfulness is alien and above page is beyond comprehension. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia

marginalia_nu 4y ago
If you were to ask me when I was a teenager, I'd probably agree with that description. But at least in my case, I just had god-awful awareness of my own emotions. So I thought I was like spock and that they didn't exist, while in reality I was happy and mad and frustrated and envious and all sorts of things most days. For some reason it didn't really click for me that what I felt was feelings.

mixedCase 4y ago

Now that I've overanalyzed my feelings? Tense, anxious. And started to feel psychogenic pain while I was managing okay before. Not sure who it is for, but this kind of "reification of feelings" (as colors, shapes, monsters or anthropomorphizations) has never helped me and only made it worse. It either increases my anxiety, or turns it to hopelesness (in the way of "I'm so far gone I'm wasting time doing this because there's nothing to actually help me") or at best I can ignore it and move on. The website looks great, and looks like a lot of work was put into it so I'm sorry I'm putting it down, but the concept itself is... in my case, a literal pain.

multiplegeorges 4y ago
I would argue that this reaction shows that the exercise was extremely useful for you and should probably be done with the participation of a professional. > "I'm so far gone I'm wasting time doing this because there's nothing to actually help me" No one is too far gone and this exercise literally helped you feel your feelings. That's a good thing, even if it doesn't feel comfortable in the immediate.
- mixedCase 4y ago
  > and this exercise literally helped you feel your feelings. That's a good thing How? I gain no insight from it. When I'm feeling like shit, I don't need additional help in feeling like shit, it's never helped me "process it". When I'm feeling okay, I don't need to go through the pain as a routine needlessly as some people suggest. What kind of life is that? I'm doing okay nowadays in part because I've managed to shove my emotions out of the way once I acknowledge they're only a signal to a real problem that I can either do something about or I can do absolutely nothing about, and once that's determined the emotion as a signal is useless and knowing that helps me set it aside and focus on what I want in life and determining a purpose. But that practice of dwelling on my emotions and reflecting on "how I felt" held me back for a long time, and that's why I had the need to comment at all. While this kind of thing may help a lot of people it's important for some to hear "yeah this might not work for you at all, might even be worse, don't waste time if it doesn't work for you, there are other ways".
4y ago

abhijeets06 4y ago

Thinking with all new AI tools where world is going? Is it scariest or happiest time to be in this AI era?

SyzygistSix 4y ago
Therapy games sound like a great idea to me.

thieving_magpie 4y ago

Really well done. There are some interesting ideas presented here.

zaka_kk 4y ago

I'm not good

fatih-erikli 4y ago

This kind of interactive clips always remind me xmas coming soon and feels great

obituary_latte 4y ago

What an amazing collection on that site. Some of the most interesting and engaging web content I've ever seen. Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

xikrib 4y ago

Appreciated this. Hey everyone, it's just some art, relax :]

SeanAnderson 4y ago

I enjoyed the experience! I find it a bit interesting how quick I am to be dismissive of this sort of tool, and yet readily acknowledge that humans drastically benefit from cueing. Assigning names to emotions makes sense and trying to have a richer vocabulary makes sense. Having suggestions proffered up is useful to promote constructive thoughts, but is also a bit anchoring. Are those the emotions I felt, or did I only think that because those were the ones shown to me? In the end, I am left slightly more self-reflective, which I am grateful for, but don't feel like I came away with clear, strong action items.

originalvichy 4y ago

Nice page. Cultural quirk: in Finland if you ask someone how they are doing they might quite literally start speaking to you about their life. In some cultures how are doing is part of a standard quick introductory small talk. My brain always freezes because I am about to actually share what’s up but then I realize this person might not really want to know.

PixelForg 4y ago

How is no one talking about the background music yet? Don't see the name mentioned anywhere, it sounds pretty good for concentrating.

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astrostl 4y ago

The positive replies in this thread have the biggest "bot army" vibe I think I've ever seen on HN. I could only give the cutesy, scroll-to-activate, Flash-like UX about 10 seconds until I gave up on the endeavor. Maybe it really is just me.

coryfklein 4y ago

Amazing how something so simple could result in such polarizing responses here in the comments! The site has the apparent function of a sort of Rorschach test for individuals. Do you feel upset and bothered when asked gently to describe your emotions in an in-depth manner? Did you spend 7 minutes reflecting on your emotion and then feel like it was a waste of time? Or did the process reveal something positive about yourself you didn't realize? At all times, HN comments serve as a mirror reflecting individuals views on a topic; but when the topic is your own emotional self the result is quite stunning.

kellyharsh 4y ago

[flagged]