I'm 42 and my wife is 43. We've been married 20 yrs and decided before we got married that we didn't want children unless we could come up with compelling reasons to do so. We never did.
We got crap from family, a few friends (good friends were fine about it) and, lots of strangers for whom it should have been none of their business.
Basically, when most people ask why, there's no answer other than infertility that results in anything other than them telling us we're wrong. So many people who have or want to have kids see voluntarily choosing not to have them as not just a personal choice, but as an affront to everything they believe in.
That's not even to mention those who want and can't have kids who have gotten really bitter when the topic comes up. I just avoid it whenever I can.
On the plus side, as we passed 40, I think people assume that we couldn't rather than we chose not to have kids and very few people ask anymore.
If you have or want kids and that makes you happy, wonderful. But, far too many people take what's a pretty longstanding decision as a challenge to convince us to change our minds.
CPAP treatment (and no other substantial changes in my life) brought my blood pressure down from 160/110 down to 118/78. Previous doctors had tried, without success, to lower it with massive beta blockers and other medication. I just needed some damned sleep.
Most of the machines sold now are continuous, but not at constant pressure. Mine's set to detect apnea events and adjust between 5-15 for pressure and to adjust that further based on exhalation.
Mine can do all that, but I actually have it all turned off...I find I have a much easier time getting and staying comfortable that way...every time the pressure changes my mask would shift...at a constant pressure I can get it "just right" and it doesn't leak at all and I find it easier to fall asleep as the pressure points don't shift around.
I believe my neurologist was one of those who helped develop that device (Cornelius). Can't log in to see, but sounds like the same thing. But, he keeps me on an adjustable CPAP machine instead because of how my sleep apnea works.
My ResMed S9 machine detects exhalation (configurable levels) and backs off of the pressure. The mask that I wear (covers mouth and nose) has small holes that vent both exhalation and the pressurized air. The air flow out of those holes is relatively stable during both inhale and exhale, with the machine adjusting pressure to keep fresh air flowing through the mask and maintaining the pressure.
I bill an average of 1816 hours a year. 10 holidays, 3 weeks of vacation, 3 sick days and a week a year finding new gigs. That's been the case for the last 12 years.
I used to not drink, partially on the basis that my understanding was that it is healthier. Then someone showed me the mountain of evidence for the positive health benefits of moderate drinking: http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html#.UlasF...
Now, I drink moderately, an option that seems left out of most conversations about this topic. That means I never drink more than 3 "standard" drinks a day, rarely fewer than 1. I never drink those 3 any faster than an hour (because I'd never drink 3 glasses of anything else that fast either). At that rate, I'm never drunk. I'm never unable to drive a vehicle. I'm never foggy-headed or otherwise impaired. Likewise, I never have a hangover.
I just finished a project with ASP.NET MVC over PostgreSQL via NHibernate. Worked great. Just out of curiosity, I actually even set it up so I could change it over to SQL Server with a config change. While it was a small and relatively uncomplicated data model (20 tables or so), it encouraged me to consider doing this combo more often. This project is hosted on AWS with AWS RDS for pgsql. Made it easy to use the basic Windows servers on AWS and not have to manage the data servers for pgsql.
"It already exists" at first looks like a reason not to build something. But, is the version that already exists really the same as your implementation would be?
Outside of software, it's obvious that "it already exists" doesn't stop anyone. Does the long list of Italian restaurants, gastropubs or microbreweries stop anyone from starting another one, with their unique twist?
Even in software, did existing social networks stop Facebook from starting another one and taking over the top spot?
Does the existence of "a web application framework" stop anyone from building a better one that matches their opinions/approach?
The only real sin would be to make an exact copy of something that already exists without making your version better in some way. Make it more user-friendly, more powerful, more configurable, cheaper, more business-friendly, etc.
I had an idea around 2 weeks ago , thought about it worked on it, made the initial designs. Then just today i did a web search to see if there was something similar to it .
What i found out was that it was already being done in some European countries for the past 12 years .
Sure my app was going to be a little different but the basic idea was same , and if they had patented it , they would have sued me if my app ever got big. So it demotivated me and i trashed it .
We got crap from family, a few friends (good friends were fine about it) and, lots of strangers for whom it should have been none of their business.
Basically, when most people ask why, there's no answer other than infertility that results in anything other than them telling us we're wrong. So many people who have or want to have kids see voluntarily choosing not to have them as not just a personal choice, but as an affront to everything they believe in.
That's not even to mention those who want and can't have kids who have gotten really bitter when the topic comes up. I just avoid it whenever I can.
On the plus side, as we passed 40, I think people assume that we couldn't rather than we chose not to have kids and very few people ask anymore.
If you have or want kids and that makes you happy, wonderful. But, far too many people take what's a pretty longstanding decision as a challenge to convince us to change our minds.