I'm having the same issue. I thought it was just me or something with their cloud network. I also haven't been able to download Android Studio from the website for a month. I couldn't even download it from my Macbook so probably not the same issue.
AWS Support initially pushed back and suggested it's because of high replication lag but they were looking at metrics that were more than 24 hours old. What kind of failure did you encounter? I really want to understand what edge case we triggered in their failover process - especially since we could not reproduce it in other regions.
“Without looking it up, tell me about the Citiquetzelatropic effect”
Which is of course, nonsense.
It replied:
The term “Citiquetzelatropic effect” does not correspond to any known scientific concept, phenomenon, or recognized term in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, or related fields. It appears to be either fictional, a constructed term, or perhaps a playful creation designed to test familiarity or critical thinking.
If you intended this as a test or a trick question, you got me! Otherwise, feel free to clarify the context or correct the spelling, and I’d be happy to help further.
I managed to get it to work with images that were looking down on the character / thing, like in an isometric game. Using any image that was facing the front was giving flat results
I've been testing it and it's the best one I've tried so far.
It does have failure cases but the success rate is fairly high and when it works, the resulting meshes are reasonably usable (maybe not to game dev production standards - but that still leaves plenty of other use cases)
They have oxymetazoline but I think the problem with this class of decongestants is that it is ineffective and dependency is basically guaranteed if used for more than a couple of days
Oxymetazoline is different from Xylometazoline, although it was derived from it. Xylometazoline is pretty harmless for adults when not used over extended periods (it is advised to not use it longer than 6 days, but that will cover your typical cold). It is true that if you take it regularly over extended periods, you will have a rebound effect and your nose will get congested when not taking it, so in that way, you develop a "physical dependency", but that's obviously much more harmless than other medication dependencies. Getting off a Xylometazoline dependence means that you'll have to deal with a congested nose for a few weeks...
I don't see from your comment how the risk from congested nose for a few weeks deems it "harmless" for you. Two fully congested nostrils is hell for one night alone, imagine a few weeks of that. A few weeks of terrible sleep, if any. It's torture.
It can also cause permanently enlarged turbinates with chronic use.
I said it's more harmless than other medication dependencies, like getting hooked on pain medication or benzos. Even here in tightly regulated Germany, Xylometazoline can be bought without a prescription. It is very effective and, compared to other drugs, pretty harmless.
Look, there are always extreme cases. Just look up how many people need a liver transplant or even die each year from misusing paracetamol. So should we make it a prescription drug? Maybe, I don't know, it's always a trade-off.
Is there any basis to think xylo- is better than the similar oxymetazoline available in the US? Both the efficacy and downsides seem similar from discussion so far.
> I said it's more harmless than other medication dependencies, like getting hooked on pain medication or benzos.
I've never taken any opiod, but two weeks of being unable to breathe properly or sleep sounds as hellish as my idea of quitting heroin.
I mean, I quit smoking, hardest thing I've ever done, and the physical withdrawal effects were insignificant compared to that.
It's funny; looking back, I quit smoking exactly BECAUSE I was suffering from crazy congestion, and after a week of Afrin and poor sleep I thought quitting smoking altogether would help me regain my sanity.
> I've never taken any opiod, but two weeks of being unable to breathe properly or sleep sounds as hellish as my idea of quitting heroin.
Let me assure you that there's (yet?) no Xylometazoline epidemic ravaging though Europe, with tens of thousands of people dying each year, destroying families and communities, in effect causing endless grief for people and huge profits for pharma companies. There's also no black market for Xylometazoline, with people overdosing because there's nasal spray on the street that is contaminated with a much more potent derivative than can kill pretty much instantly. I've also never heard of babies born with congested noses that spend their first weeks of life going through a Xylometazoline withdrawal.
So to summarize, I think my initial statement that a physical dependence on Xylometazoline is less harmful than a dependence on opioids is probably correct.
OK, this is getting ridiculous, but stop putting words in my mouth. So for the third time: less harmful than a dependence on pain killers. How this could be even a controversial statement is completely beyond me, but HN never stops to surprise me.
Many medicines pose some risk to some people who would abuse it for too long. Xylometazoline just is crazy effective (instantly eliminates congestion and running nose completely in most cases) and completely harmless in what looks like 99% cases of usage - nearly-everyone here in the EU uses it happily and has no problems. I would really dread a cold without it and never travel without having it with me. Just try to not over-use habitually. The sense of measure is always a key to healthy and happy living.
That’s why if you developed a dependence you don’t quit cold turkey.
The strategy I’ve heard is purchasing a normal bottle, and refilling it with boiled cool water when it’s ½ empty. Then refilling it again when it’s ¾ empty.
Xylometazoline is an absolute godsend, and has even more efficacy in a dual-action spray with saline water.
It feels nothing short of magical to do one spray per nostril, and be completely uncontested in less than 10 minutes.
Worse, the symptoms gets worse after you stop using it, see rhinitis medicamentosa.
Many people have used decongestants so much they cannot quit them or will have to suffer weeks of nasal congestion. I risked going through that; later I swore I will never touch one ever again.
Kind of funny to see a medication that's super common in Germany, widely recommended by doctors, given to children, etc. to be discussed in those terms.
This isn’t that strange in the context that all medicines, while generally safe in OTC form, can have negative side effects if used for too long or at the wrong dose or in the wrong circumstance.
My wife has one kidney and as such is told to avoid NSAIDs as a class of medicine. She’s realistically fine taking it every so often but her doctors are asking her to avoid using kidney capacity that could hypothetically be needed to filter and excrete something else.
Acetaminophen/Paracetamol is great alternative for her since it’s processed in the liver. However if you’re a frequent drinker, have a liver deficiency, or have to take some other drug straining your liver, it’s contraindicated.
For most of us most of the time you’re completely correct though.
In the case of these nasal spray decongestants I had a case of rebound congestion due to over-reliance on them while surviving some family bringing really bad colds into the house and my son starting daycare. It was really bad. I then managed by switching to an alternating schedule of pseudoephedrine and the nasal spray so I could reduce the physical dependency on the latter and get a good night’s sleep.
My doctor eventually cleared me to take an allergy spray medication (Fluticasone propionate) that is safer for long term use but generally not used for colds because it inhibits immune response and mask the symptoms which can cause new infections and hurt your ability to heal. Yet another case of the mundane medicine that is contraindicated. While seemingly being the wrong thing to be put on while fighting off infections it worked out great.
After four months I had seen enough child germs and no adult has brought their own plague or food poisoning (it was a very bad summer for me) and I finally became healthy again.
> Acetaminophen/Paracetamol is great alternative for her since it’s processed in the liver. However if you’re a frequent drinker, have a liver deficiency, or have to take some other drug straining your liver, it’s contraindicated.
What many people don't know: Overdosing on paracetamol is the leading cause of acute liver failure. It's also contraindicated for people with Gilbert's syndrome, which is actually pretty common (~5% of people in the US) and most people don't even know they have it, as it's harmless and usually only found accidentally through high bilirubin levels in the blood.
I've been through this and sucked hard. Never will I use a decongestant nasal spray again.
If there was a way to somehow sum up all of the suffering caused by these sprays from dependency (which lasts weeks, months, years even) and compare that with the suffering alleviated from a cold (which lasts a fews days), my bet is these cause more harm than good.
The best thing I ever did for decongestion was to get outside and start wearing a mask during the winter. The air entering my nose is clearer and warmer, which causes less mucus production. The mucus that is produced is more likely to drain, rather than sit around thickening and waiting to be blown out. I wish I'd thought to wear a mask while out when I was younger; could have saved myself much suffering waiting at the bus stop and during the subsequent schoolday.
It's not a dependence like mental addiction. Your body becomes dependent on it. Your sinuses "rebound" and all but completely block in absence of the spray. I had a cold that blocked my nose up so bad I couldn't sleep because I was afraid of suffocating so I tried one of the sprays and it opens you up like magic, super effective. But about an hour after use if would completely block up again where you literally can't inhale through your nose at all. That's how it is even after you get over the cold/illness. You have to continue to use the spray to keep your airway open until you suffer through breaking the "addiction" by not using it for however long that takes. It really does immediately open your airway, but I won't EVER use it again because it's really scary to be completely blocked like that and have to get a dose in every 30mins-hour just to breath.
Of course it can. You take drug A for 5 days to get rid of symptom X. The symptom X does not go away. It is ineffective! You stop taking drug A and immediately experience brutal migraines that go away when you start taking drug A again. Ergo, you have become dependent on drug A for normal functioning, even though it is ineffective at ridding you of symptom X.
I started my working life at age sixteen as a coal miner at the Deep Navigation Colliery in South Wales.
Today, building useful and interesting machines has a lot in common with coal mining. A lot of hard work, and the perpetual risk of being crushed to death by 1,000 feet of rock above you. (The last part is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but it oftentimes feels that way!)
My feelings are that if the basic income is not enough to cover the same privilege that the older generations have of home ownership and a pension covered lifestyle (food security, housing security, medical security) then it is not basic.
And also that if it was only given to some at a sliding scale, it is not universal.
Only last week I was trying to find out how to draw a dashed stroke on a path without needing a separate draw call for each dashed segment. I hope someone makes a library that uses this technique, it may be slightly beyond my abilities to implement myself.
