One last chance to save mankind  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?full=true&print=true

<comment><USER3> I agree with his premise, though I don't entirely agree with his conclusions.

I've come to think that the problem with our approach to global warming right now is that it's been yoked to environmentalism as a broader, and in many ways, spiritual cause. Many of us are guilty of using the threat of global warming to shepherd other goals in there...e.g. renewable or alternative energy, resource conservation etc.

I happen to be inclined toward spiritual environmentalism myself, but if the earth is REALLY warming up due to human caused carbon inputs, we are fucked if we think a few extra wind farms and energy-conscious homes are going to solve anything.

The only solution I think mankind is even capable of undertaking is a technology solution...i.e. we need to find a way of getting carbon out of the air and into the ground. It may not be pretty, cheap, or some nirvana of holistic living, but it's actually how the problem will get solved.

Don't know if I'm making sense, but this is just what I was thinking about recently.

<comment><USER4> One of the proofs that the advocacy has become spiritual is precisely that engineering solutions are verboten. You can't engineer your way to spirituality, you can only suffer you way to it. (And if the poor must suffer twice as much, well, that's the price of my spirituality.)

If CO2 were a real problem and we were actually interested in solving it, engineering solutions are not _a_ option, they are the _only_ option if the alarmists are correct. We must not only stop putting so much out there, we must actively take out what we have put in.

Yes, I use the word "alarmist" and I'm basically a "doubter"; I'll self-label so there's no need to accuse. A small-but-significant portion of the reason why is the fundamental unseriousness of the alarmists on this point; if it's a problem, then let's _fix it_ , not use global warming as an excuse to implement a whole raft of policies that oh-so-coincidentally you wanted even before it's was a problem and not-so-coincidentally aren't all that effective against global warming.

(The whole "we can't afford to take engineering risks we don't understand" is complete nonsense. Apparently we know with 100% certainty what is coming down the pike with our current emissions, and that is Complete Doom. It's hard to beat a negative like that and... frankly, engineering isn't exactly unfamiliar with that condition anyhow. Apparently we can predict the climate with 100% certainty _unless_ we actually try to use this knowledge to fix the problem, and we must instead only engage in actions that by the IPCC's own admission and models will cost trillions and do next-to-nothing. See, I just have trouble wrapping my head around this whole meme-complex as an engineer; either we have a real problem and engineering solutions should be on the table, or engineering solutions shouldn't be on the table because we don't have a real problem, but trying to split the difference is just inconsistent. BTW, if you believe in AGW but you also believe that engineering solutions should be on the table then I would _not_ label you an alarmist; I reserve the term for those who are using nakedly using AGW as a means of advancing all-but- unrelated political agendas, not those who honestly believe there's a problem that should be solved in the most effective manner possible, whatever that may turn out to be. I don't really agree that this is a problem (there are great problems but they lie elsewhere and don't have one nice catch-phrase), but if I'm wrong, hey, let's _fix_ it! It's worth saying again.)

<comment><USER5> On spirituality: Yes, a lot of thinking about global warming resembles apocalypticism and moral panic. Some of it is downright horrifying. But that people argue for something incorrectly doesn't make it incorrect. (And apocalypticism and moral panic are presumably adaptive behaviors.)

On acceptance of engineering solutions: Are they really verboten among more than a few factions? Do you have numbers on how many people are an in the alarmist category v. AGW believers like me who accept or encourage engineering solutions? I don't, but I bet it's not as bad as you suggest. Alarmists, like all borderline kooks, are overrepresented in the press because they're fun to read about. I think almost all of us are sane enough that we want the best solution to what we think is a serious problem.

On environmentalism pork in AGW policy: This is a problem. Some of that ethanol stuff, for example, is reminiscent of the rumors that drafts of the Patriot Act had been sitting on a shelf for hears. But for some other measures, there's a more charitable interpretation of the fact that environmentaists were asking for them before we were at the point of crisis.

<comment><USER6> An engineering solution we could build today: nuclear power. Ask any mainstream environmentalist what they think about it. See also opposition to GM food.

This doesn't even get into the horrified reactions you hear when you bring up geoengineering. Climate models (which we trust, right?) tell us that careful geoengineering can prevent reverse AGW.

Side note: the idea that the Patriot act was sitting on the shelf for years is more than just a rumor. Joe Biden confirmed that he wrote the original version of it in 1995.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html?tag=newsL...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0)

<comment><USER7> Nuclear power is not an option. There are about three companies in the world that have the know-how to build a nuclear power plant. And they are already at the limit of their building-capacity.

Also, some people argue that the nuclear fuel resources are rather limited and will support even the existing plants for less than 100 years. For a significant reduction (10%-20%. No idea if that is enough to fight global warming) of CO2 emissions, it would be necessary to build at least three times as many nuclear plants as there are today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Carbon trading makes me realize that my idealism is waning as I rapidly approach old age. I agree with Lovelock in that it seems like a gigantic scam. However, rather than outrage, I'm thinking "How can I get in on the ground floor of this gigantic scam?"

<comment><USER9> I couldn't really find much in what he had to say about WHY it is a "scam." The linked article requires registration and is cut off before it starts explaining why "this approach is misguided."

While carbon trading may not be a solution for global warming, it is one of the few models we have for using market incentives to curb carbon emissions in the short term.

<comment><USER10> I think there's some info in here:

<http://www.carbontradewatch.org/pubs/carbon_neutral_myth.pdf>

It's been a while since I read it through but their basic point is that carbon credits are to the environment what indulgences were to the mediaeval church.

<comment><USER11> Mediaeval Catholic church please. No other church sold indulgences (the other major church, Eastern Orthodox, definitely did not). Yeah, I'm a semantic nazi.

PS: great comparison, I'll steal it for my own arguments. With your permission of course.

<comment><USER10> "With your permission of course."

Not my comparison, so go ahead. The PDF I linked to was interesting because I'd always wondered if carbon trading (in all its forms) helped much, and the answer seems to be "no".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> He's just repeating crap that's been said for centuries "the earths too populated to sustain!". They've been saying it forever, yet populations are still growing and so is food production.

 _"the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left"_

The first part is laughable, his citation was a decrease in rice production 'predicted' because of global warming. At worst (if rice went extinct) only about 2 billion people would be at risk of potential starvation, however as the temperatures increase so do the ranges in which plants grow so when rice isn't producible other food will be and these foods already have a high productivity for plants. For the majority of the century rice production would likely be switched between the different types of rice; areas that start getting more droughts would end up growing drought resistant strains and in areas that get flooded, well then you'd grow the deep water rice.

The last part of that quote is just full out laughable. There's no evidence of significant decreases in human population in the early 500,000 years of human existence. The biggest population declines in humanity have happened relatively recently, namely the black plague and the spanish flu and all the major disease outbreaks. I'd love to hear where he got th figure '2000' from, because that would have shown in our genes.

If the human population really had dropped to 2000 people, the human race would have gone extinct. If he's talking about modern humans (us) then this is 100% bullshit, because we haven't seen anything like an ice age because we've been around for 10,000 years. If he's talking about the Cro-Magnon then it's BS again because they largely supplanted the Neanderthals by adapting to the warmer weather better. If he's talking about... oh wait the humans that lived through an ice age were the Neanderthals, which pretty much thrived during it, they lived in Southern Britain and Northern Britain at the time was a glacier! I mean his claim is laughably moronic, because the one time when homo sapiens were truly at risk in the Ice Ages we would see it, but the Neanderthals lived throughout most of Europe and the Middle East.

Here's a link to prove my point, [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Carte_Nea...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Carte_Neandertaliens.jpg) the red dots are where Neanderthal fossils have been found, and it even shows where the glaciers extended to during the Ice Age.

I mean, if you look at modern human population estimates, yes it's been below 5,000... _because we'd just evolved!_ The lowest estimated population is before fossil evidence of modern humans, IE pre-8000BC. A similar thing will have happened with the Cro-Magnons, as they simply expanded and supplanted the Neanderthals, likely the same as Homo Sapiens Sapiens did to the Cro-Magnon. Human population likely never dipped below hundreds of thousands because a new species simply overtook the last. In fact Homo Sapiens Sapiens came right at the advent of agriculture when humans stopped being migratory and were truly affected by environmental change (IE you couldn't just follow your food).

/Rant over.

Summary: This guy's more quack than a duck.

<comment><USER13> The thing that made me doubt.

"What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?

That is a waste of time. It's a crazy idea..."

"So are we doomed?

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal[aka sequestered CO2]..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Actually the most interesting point brought up in the article wasn't about carbon trading, but about the future of our species:

"I don't think we can react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up" - James Lovelock

vs.

"Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended." - <USER2> Vinge

<comment><USER15> Quoting economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006):

 _"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."_

Remove the word "economic" from the quote, and it still applies perfectly. No expert has ever been able to predict where the human species will be in a few decades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Creating scarcity of a good available in the commons is pretty straight forward. The devil is in the details though, especially for something like carbon which affects pretty much everything.

I would generally prefer a tax on coal and oil, which is easier to account for, and doesn't pick a winner. The main problem is that taxes like this typically go into general funds, rather than helping the problem with, say, investment in research into alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER17> What an embarrassingly vain and foolish title.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wouldn't write off carbon trading yet. Trading of emissions now may not be enough to do any offsetting (only shift monies around), but as the trading system grows to be accountable and based on harder science, then why not, as the article points out, include Lovelock's idea of burying charcoal as part of the "carbon trading" market?

</comment><comment><USER19> as far as i can tell, carbon trading is not directly subsidized by the government as lovelock seems to imply.

the closest thing i can find is subsidies for emissions reductions equipment (which could allow the company purchasing the equipment to then receive some compensation by selling capacity). am i missing something?

<comment><USER20> > as far as i can tell, carbon trading is not directly subsidized by the > government as lovelock seems to imply.

It's subsidized in the sense that few people will buy carbon credits unless they're being forced to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> interesting... I'm taking a class on the economics of Global warming, but as we just started I don't know if I can comment just yet.

However, allowance trading worked very well in controlling acid rain - one of the incentives to use it on carbon emissions as well.

<comment><USER22> _However, allowance trading worked very well in controlling acid rain - one of the incentives to use it on carbon emissions as well._

There's a key difference: the time lag between emissions and acid rain is short. Stopping the formation of nitric and sulfuric acids in the atmosphere happened shortly after the emissions ended. Not so with carbon dioxide; the time lag is decades. Even if all CO2 emissions stopped tomorrow, the Earth would still continue to warm.

This might seem like cause for pessimism, and perhaps it is. But it also undermines the sense of urgency, almost desperation, among many environmentalists that we should "do something", no matter how ill-thought-out that something may be. It seems better just to wait, and try not to do too much harm in the short run.

Maybe we're doomed, maybe technology will save us. Either way, it's going to be a heck of a ride. :-)</comment></comment>


Golang concepts from an OOP point of view - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/luciotato/golang-notes/blob/master/OOP.md <comment><USER2> While I appreciate that this is a work in progress and meant for learning, i just want to caution readers and those new to Go that this is a somewhat dangerous way to approach Go.

Simply mapping familiar vocabulary from an traditional OO language into Go implies that the differences are superficial and the underlying concepts are largely the same. The truth is that a lot of the traditional vocabulary was very intentionally left out of Go.

For example, mapping embedded stucts to "multiple inheritance" masks the fact that Go is trying to guide you into understanding the power of composition over inheritance. It's not that it's impossible to understand that, but by carrying over the terminology, you burden yourself with some preconceptions.

Like I said, I know this is a work in progress, but I encourage you to perhaps map the terms but then write a paragraph or two about how they're _different_, not the same.

This was a really nice resource for me when I first came to Go: [http://spf13.com/post/is-go-object-oriented/](http://spf13.com/post/is-go- object-oriented/)

<comment><USER3> > _Simply mapping familiar vocabulary from an traditional OO language into Go > implies that the differences are superficial and the underlying concepts are > largely the same. The truth is that a lot of the traditional vocabulary was > very intentionally left out of Go._

I find that what has been "intentionally left out of Go" is not necessarily a good choice.

I also don't get the obsession with "idiomatic" programming.

Idiomatic Java/J2EE circa 1998-2008 was total crap (the programming style, not the language). Even its then adherents admit it. Same holds for many other languages/times.

Programmers should be consistent with a style, and teams should work with an agreed upon style. But some languages designers to impose their ideas upon all users of a language is wrong.

<comment><USER4> >Idiomatic Java/J2EE circa 1998-2008 was total crap (the programming style, not the language)

I think part of the aim of Go was to make this style impossible, by e.g. removing inheritance, which plays a key role in most crappy Java code.

<comment><USER5> Go's lack of generics however (except for special blessed built ins that are OK) forces some of those bad patterns however.

Want to write a linked list that works on all types? Hope you like reflection or annoying code generation or copy and paste.

<comment><USER6> or casting, which is a selective bit of loss of type safety (& a speed hit), but is what the std library linked list impl actually uses, and is what pre- generics java & objc used forever.

it ain't great, but it ain't a disaster, either.

<comment><USER5> It's 1990s coding in 2016. We have a better way, and even go implements it for certain special types.

<comment><USER6> i'm not saying it's great, but it's the most practical thing in most cases in go, & it was missing from your list.

whether or not go would be better with generics is still an open question imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > This is a discovery process, I'm writing this document to help myself > understanding golang and maybe help others.

First: I took a brief look through this, and I didn't see anything that jumped out as wrong. It's a pretty comprehensive document, especially for someone who says they're just starting out, so kudos to James for writing it!

That said, from my experience in teaching Go classes and workshops for beginners, comparing embedding to inheritance is usually a bad idea. It's not that there aren't similarities, but in my experience it prompts new Go programmers to write unidiomatic Go code when they think of embedding in that way. They end up embedded structs the way they'd use inheritance in object- oriented languages, and since Go isn't really intended as an object-oriented language, it makes for unidiomatic code.

The main use cases of inheritance in OOP are accomplished by interfaces in Go, not struct embedding. But at the same time, the main benefits of embedding come from embedding _interfaces_ \- embedding structs is almost an afterthought in the language. In fact, I tend to advise people against embedding structs altogether. There are a few cases where it's worthwhile to embed structs, but the use case for embedding interfaces is much more powerful.

My advice for Go beginners: use interfaces more than you think you need to, and forget that struct embedding is even possible. This rule of thumb helps to write more idiomatic Go code when you're just getting started, before you have a feel for what that really means.

<comment><USER8> Interesting. I'm moving away from interfaces and toward plain structs (not consciously, but naturally). I tend to only use interfaces when I want polymorphism, not modularity. This is probably a consequence of me moving away from a mock-all-the-things approach to testing.

<comment><USER9> I recently heard a rule of thumb: "accept interfaces, return structs".

I haven't put it into practice, but it seems like this should give callers enough flexibility to pass in whatever they like.

<comment><USER10> That really depends on what you're tying to do. Say you have a Datastore interface, which has some methods like "Create", "Update", "Delete", and a MySQL + an inmem implementation.

You can have `datastore.New() Datastore`, which returns one of the implementations, or you can have `datastore.NewMySQLStore, datastore.NewInMemStore()`. Now you need a different method for each implementation.

Also be careful with returning concrete type, you can run into this issue: [https://play.golang.org/p/WHAW1X6elS](https://play.golang.org/p/WHAW1X6elS)

<comment><USER11> Wow, that seems like a big issue. Is this accepted as a bug and being worked on or yet another feature?

<comment><USER8> It's not a bug. Interfaces are reference types. In this case, the interface is implemented by a pointer type. The interface can be thought of as a pointer to a nil pointer, but the "interface pointer" itself is not nil.

This is a tricky concept until you learn that interfaces are reference types.

Here's a simplified version of the previous example that illustrates this concept: [https://play.golang.org/p/pODBgaHXq5](https://play.golang.org/p/pODBgaHXq5)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you like these notes you might also like my article on the subject: [http://hackthology.com/object-oriented-inheritance-in- go.htm...](http://hackthology.com/object-oriented-inheritance-in-go.html)

In general, using struct embedding to simulate sharing code and data is pretty limited. I rarely use this feature in my own code. However, having structs which automatically implement interfaces is awesome because you can "say what you need." You can also compose the interfaces together by embedding them. For example of that, checkout the Map type in my data-structures repository: [https://godoc.org/github.com/timtadh/data- structures/types#M...](https://godoc.org/github.com/timtadh/data- structures/types#Map)

</comment><comment><USER13> Struct embedding has been mostly unpleasant in my experience. When a type is embedded, only the methods that are explicitly on the interface/struct actually get propagated, rather than all of public methods. This means that wrapper types break optimizations around type punning. For example: [https://play.golang.org/p/vIo1HtAeb4](https://play.golang.org/p/vIo1HtAeb4)

This happens within the standard library in ways that hurt performance. The 'image' package allows people to register their own decoders but limits the API to an io.Reader. It can be an optimization if you could cast the inputted reader to another more efficient type (like a ReaderAt), but you can't because the image package wraps the Reader in its own "peeking" type. There's no way to tell the type was embedded, or what other actual methods might have worked.

</comment><comment><USER14> > "receiver implict this parameter"

The parameter is actually quite explicit (unlike some other languages).

It would probably help your write up to talk about the difference between (using your example):

      func (r Rectangle) Area() float64 {

and

      func Area(r Rectangle) float64 {

As well as (this is a common rookie mistake):

      func (r Rectangle) SetWidth(w float64) {
        r.Width = w // does nothing

and

      func (r *Rectangle) SetWidth(w float64) {
        r.Width = w

<comment><USER15> You might want to point to point that (if?) the second example does work? (And that the difference is the *)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Go is a great OO language" is quite a simple and interesting take on it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqZQBmNVhBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqZQBmNVhBw)

</comment><comment><USER17> Author here, any pull request fixing typos, spelling and grammar, is welcomed.

<comment><USER18> I would use the real name of the language, Go.

Other than that, nice article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it also highlights how a lot of programmers have learned everything only from one point of view. Concepts like interfaces, structures and types are general and abstract, they should not be explained in terms of OOP, instead they should be used as tools to explain OOP.

</comment><comment><USER20> thanks, this is helpful for quick understanding of go

</comment><comment><USER21> Go has most of the machinery of objects, but not the encapsulation. There are no private fields in structs.

<comment><USER22> Well, yes kind of.

        type foo struct {
            a int // "private"
            B int // "public"
        }

You cannot specify default values and Go refers to them as "exported" not private, but technically they are "private" in the sense that they can only be accessed via methods.

<comment><USER23> is a field named "ß" private or public? Or ĸ?

<comment><USER24> Definitely one or the other, but the confusion means it's best practice to avoid fancy letters for identifiers.

<comment><USER23> Well, there's people writing code in other languages.

I know in Japan and Germany it's still kinda common for larger companies to build codebases in local languages.

Which in turn can lead to these issues.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Washington State could see explosion in coronavirus cases, study says - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/03/washington-state-risks-seeing-explosion-in-coronavirus-without-dramatic-action-new-analysis-says/ <comment><USER2> We'll see how many will volunteer to visit a hospital for testing and risk facing a bancrupcy.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's unlikely to be limited to Washington State.</comment>


A military technique for falling asleep in two minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fall-asleep-two-minutes-how-to-military-secret-trick-a8520991.html <comment><USER2> Usually when I suffer from an inability to sleep it's because my mind ends up focusing too hard on things that ground me to reality. Existential dread, worrying about work, thinking about technical problems etc.

So often my technique to fall asleep has been to focus my mind on the fantastical. Stimulate my imagination a bit, like what if I was a dwarf in a fantasy universe. This tends to focus my thoughts inwards and naturally segues into sound sleeping. Letting my mind wander only becomes an issue when it's anchored to real life.

<comment><USER3> I also do this. Time-travel to Ancient Rome, winning the lottery, pandemic survival, going to Mars. I find I just start the scenario, and the imagination takes its own turns. It's like daydreaming and it's an enjoyable way of falling asleep quickly.

<comment><USER4> I just do abstract absurdism, like: what if a space ship was propelled by teddy bears? Bright lances of ionized teddy bears cleaving the sky in twain from distant torchships pulling out of parking orbit. Power armor visor stress test. Hammer. .50 cal. RPG. Someone just spilled neutronium. It eats through to the Earth's core. An algorithm iterates over all the atoms in the Universe, replacing every other with its antiparticle.

And then noises wake me up all night, and I get bad sleep. :3

<comment><USER5> As my mind falls between asleep and awake my brain would start coming up with absurd thoughts as well. This would also happens when I'm too tired (think you haven't sleep for 24+ hours).

I sometimes speculate that your brain comes up with absure ideas all the time, and a "reality checker" would dismiss those ideas without you realising it when you're awake? Perhaps the absurd thoughts come out only when you're tired (checker running low energy) or falling asleep? May be some types of psychological dieases are due to this checker not working properly?

<comment><USER4> No doubt certain other, _cough_ [0], influences inhibit that checker too. I wouldn't know though. : p In my case, I feel like I deliberately keep such checking off to diminish the profoundly powerful boredom of trying to drift off to sleep. You might as well try to keep yourself entertained before you dissolve into the void!

0: [https://youtu.be/c2LXul1XAvk](https://youtu.be/c2LXul1XAvk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I nap for 20 minutes every day at work (at my previous company, for 4 years or so and now since I'm working remotely). Here are my steps for taking a nap:

1\. Find a good place to nap. Use the same place every day. I used to nap under my desk on a lazy bag at my last job.

2\. Quickly find a comfortable position. Quickly fix everything that bothers you (like watch on your wrist or anything else that's making you uncomfortable).

3\. Start breathing from your stomach - not your upper torso. Your stomach should raise up and down, not your upper torso.

4\. Relax your whole body. In the beginning, start by relaxing one by one region. First your toes. Then your lower leg, then your upper leg. Then the other leg... Until you relax your whole body. It should feel as your mind is separate from your body. Like it could go out of it. Your body should be completely numb. Later, as you progress, you will be able to relax your whole body with a few breaths. As if some force flows from your stomach and removes spasm from your body as you breath out.

5\. Start removing thoughts from your brain. As you start thinking about something, just stop. Another thought comes in. Kill it. Just kill thoughts. You can think only about your breathing. Nothing else.

That's it. With these steps, I'm able to feel a sleep in just a few moments. I use that all the time.

Bonus: I have a special position that I "developed" that mitigates office sounds. I nap on my back, slightly turned on left side. I put my left ear on the pillow or a lazy bag. I put my right hand over my right ear and over my head. That way, a pillow isolates my left ear, while my right biceps isolates my right ear from sounds. I found this to be very effective.

Good luck napping.

<comment><USER7> > 5\. Start removing thoughts from your brain. As you start thinking about > something, just stop. Another thought comes in. Kill it. Just kill thoughts. > You can think only about your breathing. Nothing else.

If only it was this easy!! It almost feels like a variation of "start outlining the owl... now when you have the outline, just draw the rest of the owl". :-)

<comment><USER8> Here's a technique that works for me:

So, when I close my eyes I can "see" things. I don't know if it's light coming trough my lids or blood vessels or just my mind's eye. I don't know. But what I'll do as a last resource when I have trouble sleeping is to pay full attention to those things and find patterns in them. I even say _out loud_ in my mind like: "oh there's a dog", "a canoe", "a cigarrette".

Then I'm dreaming in no time.

I told my wife and she says that she sees nothing when she close her eyes so, maybe this won't work for everybody.

<comment><USER9> For years growing up, I'd notice that sometimes when I had my eyes closed, there were sometimes glowing circles in the darkness. Sometimes they'd be colorful and others they were like the typical photo of an eclipse. It was usually just as I was drifting off, I'd notice them.

Years later I realized that I could make them appear at-will by wiggling my eyes around ( _a la_ REM), and that lead me to conclude that it's likely my overly-long (i'm severely myopic) eyeballs physically stimulating my optic nerves.

I don't notice it as much lately, and I avoid doing it on purpose, in case it's not healthy.

<comment><USER10> I'm not myopic and I see those too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can actually vouch for this, but I discovered it independently for myself. I realized that the nights I couldn't fall asleep were nights my brain kept racing and thinking about different things. Kind of like a wikipedia rabbit hole where my mind keeps racing onto the next tangential thought.

So I found a foolproof solution: Relax all my facial muscles and imagine an empty, black (literally #000) void in my mind's eye.

The physical cue is to be cognizant of your eyes; every time my eyes began to squint, I know it was because my mind was wandering off. I'd reset my closed eyes to be as loose (imagine a very bored expression) as possible and revert back to my black space. As long as I kept fighting the temptation for my mind to wander, and maintain loose eyes, I fell asleep. All anecdotal of course, but I did use this just recently at burning man while soundcamps blasted my tent, and it's nice to see this method validated in this article.

<comment><USER12> I used to do something similar. These days I start planning my retirement. I imagine some deserted moon base orbiting a Saturn like planet orbiting a small red dwarf star ejected out of its galaxy into the void. No people, no chance of anybody or anything ever finding it. Trillions of years of quiet solitude before the star burns out. I've never gotten much farther than a few ideas into how it will all come together before zzzzzzzz....

<comment><USER13> Are you that guy on that inner moon with the shiny rooftop who keeps reflecting the sunlight at me twice per orbit?

Seriously, you'll retain heat better with a dark, matte finish on your dome, and you'll blind me less often. In any case, you might also want to reconsider your choice of moons, as yours seems a bit deep into the radiation belts. Out here we orbit much more slowly, peacefully, and we're far from the radiation.

<comment><USER14> >you'll retain heat better with a dark, matte finish on your dome

No, they won't. There's a reason a perfect radiator is known as a "black body". Emissivity (a coefficient that describes the degree to which an object radiates, compared to a black body) is the exact inverse of reflectivity. That's why space blankets are shiny.

Of course, dark objects also _absorb_ more heat, so depending on how much radiation you're getting from the sun, a black roof might result in a warmer home. But it won't be because it's _retaining_ heat.

<comment><USER13> At the temperature that we generally keep our vacuum-facing surfaces they absorb far more energy in the form of light than the energy that they radiate. Energy management is tight when you're orbiting a small red dwarf star ejected out of its galaxy into the void!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Military for 24 years, never heard of this, but I learned to take naps in crazy situations: next to a hot landing zone, under an aircraft catapult, in cargo planes, etc. Only common denominators I can think of: exhaustion, a clear conscience, and trust in those around me.

<comment><USER16> > exhaustion

This is key. Aboard a ship I was able to nap "on command" no matter the time of day or my surroundings. No mental tricks necessary.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I was expecting Step 1 to be: Start your day with a 20 mile run in full gear.

Step 2 is to get permission to fall asleep.

<comment><USER18> There is no step 3 — because you're already asleep!

;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article is very poorly written regardless of how accurate its contents are. It seems to be based on suggestions, rumors (or rumour since it's UK based), and a 1981 book that very few have read. No actual sources and repeated use of the word secret. Trash.

<comment><USER20> I thought this article was pretty poorly written too, and the website is a clear example of the "Bullshit Web." [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17655089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17655089)

However, the number of people who have read a book published in 1981 has no bearing on the validity of the book as a source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I read about a method years ago. I usually don't have problems falling asleep. But when I do, I do the following:

Try to breath in through one nose hole and breath out through the other. This may sound stupid, but there are two reasons why this works:

1\. You focus on doing something else than thinking about stuff that worries you. 2\. While doing this your eyes move from left to right. You might remember what hypnotists do: They swing a pendulum from left to right which you have to follow. This eye movement from left to right activates your subconscious part of the brain. I don't know or remember what exactly that does but everytime I use this technique and wake up the next morning I don't remember doing anything after this. Which means I fell asleep.

<comment><USER22> What if only one nostril is "open" at any given time? That is usually the case for me.

<comment><USER21> As i said. It's not the breathing that's affecting you. It's the eye movement. You don't even have to try breathing like this. I usually just move my eyes left right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember once, somebody told me that "often times when you think you're not asleep you actually are". Though it sounds absurd, this single line has helped my sleep immeasurably because often my sleeplessness is compounded by the frustration of not being able to sleep! So I just lie there, and let me thoughts go where they will and treat it as a kind of wakeful "dreaming".

The idea being that even though I'm "conscious" of not being asleep my body is still getting the benefit of rest.

It doesn't help completely all the time but it certainly takes the edge off.

</comment><comment><USER24> Are they just describing Progressive Muscle Relaxation?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_muscle_relaxation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_muscle_relaxation)

<comment><USER25> Mostly, yes. Guided meditation has long prescribed almost the exact same process.

<comment><USER26> I immediately thought of Shavasana from yoga.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Eh, to be honest I always found the secret to falling asleep in the military was being bloody tired all the time from carrying heavy stuff, running everywhere, going on adrenaline, getting barely a few hours broken sleep, going on stag at silly o'clock in the morning, being put under pressure for days on end, eating crap, running on tea...

But yeah. Sure. Warm baths, camomile tea and mindfulness...

</comment><comment><USER28> Many moons ago, my dad taught yoga as a hobby. One of my early memories as a 11 or 12 year old kid, was when I attended a class of his. The class would end with a "shavasana" (corpse posture), where you'd lie down and the instructor would slowly get you to relax.

I still remember my dad's voice as he asked you to imagine you're in an empty field, with a clear sky, nothing at all. Then imagine the "cosmic energy" entering your body through your head. Imagine the energy making its way down, slowly through the length of your body as it clears your thoughts and relaxes your muscles - first your face, then your neck, your shoulders, arms, and so on. As an observer, I'd notice that more than 90% of the class would be in a deep sleep before the end. And it was a big class with some 100-150 people in it.

Just interesting that this "military" technique is so similar (and familiar to me)!

</comment><comment><USER29> I personally first learned about the described technique at [https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep- fast/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/), where the material seems to be better presented. Hope more people can benefit.

<comment><USER30> [https://www.netflix.com/watch/80198397?trackId=14277283](https://www.netflix.com/watch/80198397?trackId=14277283)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've tried pretty much everything in the course of my lifelong insomnia, and still my nighttime mind racing is still consistent enough that it's literally my username across all my online apps ("rumination" plus my name). I've had some success with lavender drops right before bed, but I'll give this a shot too, because why not?

<comment><USER25> If you're open to some other experiments, I've had success with ashwagandha and CBD.

<comment><USER32> You need to look at the terpene profile of the CBD, the wrong terpene profile can actually energize you. Also CBD in small doses can be energizing as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Reading calculus proofs always did it for me :-) But more seriously this is very nearly a meditation technique (except when meditating you don't try to actually go to sleep). But start at one end of your body and try to tense the muscles there then relax them (you won't be able to feel they are relaxed if you haven't tensed them first, if they are already tense you will feel them relax, but it is the transition from tense to relaxed that you feel) then move up the body to the other end until you've relaxed every muscle you feel you have voluntary control over, keep you eyes closed and if images come move them away or imagine a black curtain coming down to cover them, "listen" for your voice saying something of two syllables (doesn't really matter what it is) over and over (forces internal dialog to stop).

In my experience if you do this and you can sleep (like your not full of caffeine or something) you will.

<comment><USER34> What you mention is similar to yoga nidra. I found this helpful when I want to meditate and relax. All you need to do is to lie down (or sit in the office), close your eyes and listen to the voice' instructions. I feel very refreshed after but sometimes I fell asleep when tired.

[https://archive.org/details/YogaNidra](https://archive.org/details/YogaNidra)

[https://ia800301.us.archive.org/1/items/YogaNidra/YogaNidra....](https://ia800301.us.archive.org/1/items/YogaNidra/YogaNidra.mp3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I used to struggle with sleep as well. Infact, I thought that it wasn't natural to be awake while lying on bed in the dark. Then I noticed a pattern. It was that I would always fall asleep within 10-15 minutes of lying in bed, only if I didn't worry about when the sleep would come.

From then on, I have just let go. I let my mind wander wherever it wants to go. And without fail, sleep always catches up within 10-15 minutes.

Of course, it helps if you are tired from the days work and haven't had a very heavy dinner.

</comment><comment><USER36> I used to have a terrible time falling asleep. At some point I stumbled on the technique of just "breathing like I'm sleeping" or just acting asleep based on memories of the ultra-relaxed state I was in just after waking. Probably some combination of the relaxed breathing and mental focus on breathing make it work. The real beauty of it is that now years later I can fall asleep anywhere in 3-5 minutes if I'm even slightly tired even without having to consciously think about this technique anymore.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm not convinced its a military trick rather something forced by necessity. I used to be a terrible sleeper, it usually took an hour to fall asleep and would regularly wake for multiple 30-40 min periods during the night and wake up exhausted.

We're now on baby no.2 and I can fall asleep in a few minutes any time from 6pm on. Just close my eyes and expect sleep and it comes. 10 minute power naps are great.

The ability to fall asleep quickly was forced on me by baby no.1, being woken up multiple times per night and having to fall asleep quickly was a matter of what felt like survival. I'm sure military training causes the same exhaustion and the body learns that it needs to be able to sleep when it can. I'm also sure that sleeping to 12 or 1 on the weekends to recover is detrimental, getting to sleep on a Sunday night was the worst as would not be tired but it would start the week on a the wrong foot.

Any other parents in here have the same experience?

<comment><USER38> This rings true for me - I had difficulty getting to sleep until I joined the military. Once I had to be able to get sleep where and when I could I learned how.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > A secret military technique that is said to help anyone fall asleep in just > two minutes has recently been revealed.

and

> The secret is detailed in the book Relax and Win: Championship Performance, > which although first published in 1981

I guess 37 years is "just" for the author.

<comment><USER40> I think you mean "recently". It didn't take 37 years to fall asleep!

<comment><USER39> yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is good stuff.

But for fighter pilots and such, who are sometimes on call 24/7, the use of "go pills" (formerly methamphetamine, and now modafinil) and "no-go pills" (such as zaleplon and zolpidem) is quite common. But then, no-go pills aren't so great, because it takes hours for effects to wear off. So modafinil plus relaxation training seems like a great solution. I can say from personal experience that modafinil doesn't prevent sleep.

<comment><USER42> Yeah modafinil is a weird one, it just feels to me like I've had 4 or 5 coffees, but can sleep alright in the evening. I find it makes me grumpy if I get interrupted though so it can make working on some teams harder.

<comment><USER41> I get irritable if I take more than 100 mg per day. But then, I've always been short-tempered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Trying to think "don't think, don't think, don't think" seems like it would stress me out.

I prefer to count 10 slow breaths as a way to clear my mind. I get my body comfortable similar to how the article describes, then I take 10 long slow breaths while focusing only on what number breath I'm on. That seems to be the right amount to knock my internal monologue off of whatever it's been ruminating on so I can fall asleep. Sometimes I don't even make it to 10 -- which is remarkable after a lifetime of insomnia.

</comment><comment><USER44> Certainly not new. I learned this technique from a self hypnosis book in the early 1980s. It does work. My mental recitation is "One. One. One. One…" I used to use this for naps but found I wasn't as rested than natural sleep for a quick nap. I now use it only when I need a full night's sleep. The quality of sleep doesn't seem to be affected for full nights the way it was for naps.

</comment><comment><USER45> I purchased this book a few months ago after reading about it elsewhere. The book is not worth purchase, the article contains everything you need. The book has a lot of anecdotal tales of athletic relaxation leading to victory (though given the author was one of the greatest coaches of all time, his anecdotes have weight). It has absolutely improved my sleep, and I've been insomniac since a car wreck 11 years ago. You have to do the work though. You can't try it once and claim that "It doesn't work for me." It is a skill for those that don't have it naturally, and thus you have to practice. Thr original cohort of aviators that learned this method in ww2 practiced at least twice a day for 6 weeks straight. If you don't have 42 days straight of doing it, don't complain that it won't work for you.

<comment><USER46> Same exact experience - the book has only one related chapter, and that's paraphrased in the "Art of Manliness" blog. My concern is that I found NO evidence that this program ever took place. I dunno about the technique working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Additionally these kinds of techniques are strong positive feedback loops.

When I started caring about sleep (instead of a neverending jetlag lifestyle) I started to sense sleep cycles more vividly, and didn't delay going to bed, and instead of worrying I was just rushing to relax and enjoy highly probable deep and long sleep.

</comment><comment><USER48> Bah. I have two kids. I am so overloaded most of the time that I can sleep anywhere anytime within seconds!

</comment><comment><USER49> I usually just let my mind adrift, imagining all kinds of crazy bizarre things and worlds, and fall asleep. Trying to focus on "don't think" actually did the opposite for me - instead of falling asleep it made me focus on all the weird things my mind kept creating.

Imagine yourself chanting "don't think" in your head while your mind creates a room, a wooden chair for you to sit on, shadows, light, a window, and the sky and the sea is upside-down outside the window, and walking on the sky is considered normal in this world. Normally I'd be falling asleep in that bizarre world but I kept chanting "don't think" instead. Absolutely useless.

</comment><comment><USER50> The basis of this technique are progressive muscle relaxation plus visual concentration.

I learned this using techniques you can do to have lucid dreams. When your concentration is not the best one in the day, the result is sleep.

</comment><comment><USER51> Here is the summary:

Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes

Drop your shoulders as far down as they'll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time

Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down

You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:

* You're lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you

* You're lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room

* You say "don't think, don't think, don't think" to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER52> independent.co.uk article is a reblog (+ video/ad junk) of [https://www.joe.co.uk/news/sleeping- tricks-197402](https://www.joe.co.uk/news/sleeping-tricks-197402) (who copied it from a book)

Mods might change the link, for better reader experience and respect for the more-original bloggers.

[https://books.google.com/books/about/Relax_and_Win.html?id=Y...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Relax_and_Win.html?id=YGJengEACAAJ)

<comment><USER53> I am sad this wasn't seen when the story was still fresh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I know I am days late, but the submitted page is horrible and 'stolen'. They even reference (but of course don't link) a leaner page as their source: [https://www.joe.co.uk/news/sleeping- tricks-197402](https://www.joe.co.uk/news/sleeping-tricks-197402)

That site has less sensationalism (not calling it secret for a start, yuck) and less ad crap.

</comment><comment><USER54> I discovered similar techniques because I realized that I was wasting too much time trying to fall asleep. But I think I can summarize it better:

1\. If any of your muscles are tensed, recognize it and untense them!

2\. Purge all distracting thoughts. The easiest way to do this is imagine that you're unburdened by human concerns. Imagine that you're an immortal being floating through space, or sinking into the ocean, or floating on it.

</comment><comment><USER55> Personal hobby projects &/or learning things before I go to sleep. I find it hard to sleep unless I meet this quota everyday.

Second, sometimes I'll read math and/or nonfiction books. Those are never too exciting like fiction, so I end up falling asleep fairly consistently

Third, not doing work or using phone in bed.

Fourth - associating different postures with different conditional training. When I'm sitting or standing I'm almost always doing something productive. I sleep on my left side, so this is the cue to tell my brain to go to bed. I strictly enforce these disciplines, and will have never have my phone out when in this sleeping position

Fifth, using flux to have warmer color temps / less blue light on monitors before going to bed

Sixth, bedjet and bodypillow do wonders on aiding in sleep

Seventh, working out every 3 days or less helps me fall asleep. When I hit an awful sleep cycle, I do a 40 minute run that day to reset my body fatigue.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've found delaying my sleep habit is very easy, just stay up late, yet the reverse is super hard and easily lapses.

<comment><USER21> It's easier to go earlier to sleep if you wake up very early. Don't delay your wake up time and you're more tired in the evening. Also don't spend the night with activities that keep you awake. Just watch a movie/series or something or read a book. Usually makes me tired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Listening to an audio book on some scientific topic will almost always put to sleep within 15 minute. I really like books on cognitive science - I have used books by Daniel Dennet and Dean Buonomano for this purpose. I not only learn interesting things, but I get to relax very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER58> FYI: Skip the video. The video does not address the article subject; it's man- on-the-street nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER59> For everyone suggesting to imagine a black void - try imagining the reverse. Try imagining blinding white space, like looking at the surface of the sun, up close.

This is _much_ harder to do, it requires more concentration and for that reason it works faster and more reliably.

</comment><comment><USER60> I think the 12+ hour days is what helps people in the military fall asleep so quickly.

</comment><comment><USER61> The military technique for falling asleep at any available time is pretty easy. Do you want to hear it? I won't even charge you. Here you go:

Do lots of hard physical labor, and get inadequate sleep at night.

I know this is crazy, but it works! Try it!

</comment><comment><USER62> A version of this I heard in Russia is similar. But they also suggest to open the mouth to ensure relaxation of face muscles and roll up one's eyes. The latter moves eyes to their position during sleep.

</comment><comment><USER63> I almost always fall asleep within two minutes after going to bed. For some period I used a breathing technique, where I would breath deeply for some 20 seconds, and then just hold my breath and fall asleep.

</comment><comment><USER64> I used to have insomnia in college because of stress. To this day, the night before any high pressure event like an on-site interview or exam, I only manage to get a few hours of sleep. I think I was somehow traumatized by college that now this happens all the time without fail. Before college, I could always just sleep, but I was never stressed before college. It's not even the military, it's just a test, but it still happens since the outcome of that one day could very well shape the next few years of my life.

</comment><comment><USER65> If you suffer from alcohol withdrawal (NOT actual delirium, that shit is deadly dangerous) try popping valerian for few nights.

Also podcasts work amazingly well, just make aure they are around 10 minutes long.

<comment><USER66> I have been listening to podcasts while falling asleep for years now, it has worked very well for me. It is just a little annoying to find one with a very consistent volume, so I can set the volume on my laptop to that goldilocks zone where I can understand everything without having to focus too much, while it is still quiet enough to let me sleep.(Astronomycast.com works wonders for me.)

<comment><USER67> I've had good success with the Sleep With Me podcast for this. [https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com](https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com)

<comment><USER66> Thank you, I am going to give that a try! As if I could resist a virtual/fictitious candlelight dinner with Captain Picard! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I thought this was already posted, but I had read this longer article with more context, including the original text from the book that is short and written in a fun, old-timey style:

[https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep- fast/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/)

For me, none of the imagination techniques work, but mindfulness meditation - simply focusing on my breathing - does the trick.

</comment><comment><USER69> Sounds suspiciously like a technique I saw on Sesame Street as a toddler. I'm 42 now and I still use it.

In the episode, Big Bird (I think) would say goodnight to each of his body parts...so "Goodnight toes, goodnight foot, goodnight leg, goodnight knees" and so on.

I think what ends up happening as you say goodnight to each body part, you subconsciously "relax" them, so to speak. And by the time you get to your upper torso...you're pretty much drowsy enough to nod off.

</comment><comment><USER70> When I was in the military sleep deprivation worked wonders on falling asleep. Could sleep anywhere. The hood of a humvee was my preferred spot.

</comment><comment><USER71> While I do find these techniques effective, it's important to keep the military's step zero in mind: be sleep-deprived.

In the military, especially at operational tempos (eg. during conflicts), you're constantly doing stuff (except when you're not and you're cat-napping on a pile of duffel bags or other equipment) and you're normally sleep- deprived.

This of course helps you fall asleep.

</comment><comment><USER72> This kind of practice is at least as early as yoga: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavasana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavasana) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_nidra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_nidra)

</comment><comment><USER73> A lot of the comments here are about imagining blackness. Lately, I've been contemplating the infinite thinness of mathematical planes. I mostly do it when I try to sleep; maybe that's a key; letting the brain associate certain thought patterns with going to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER42> I throw an audiobook on that I've listened to many times before, its enough to distract my brain from solving problems of the day, but not enough that I'm listening intently to see what happens. Tend to fall asleep within 15 mins with it.

</comment><comment><USER74> I can also recommend white noise machines: [https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-white-noise- machine/](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-white-noise-machine/)

<comment><USER75> if you have a google home, just ask for white noise!

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I have to give it a go. I am horrible at being able to fall asleep even after long tiring days. I typically get only about 4 to 5hrs of decent sleep on average. That said, I do wake up refreshed. At least I think I do.

</comment><comment><USER77> Similar: [https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep- fast/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/)

</comment><comment><USER78> I think about the distortion of spacetime caused by gravity and the fact that it distorts the path of EM waves and the reciprocal distortion of gravity caused by EM fields.

</comment><comment><USER79> I wonder what that popular book _Why We Sleep_ would say about this, and the other suggestions here in the comments. I guess I'll have to read it to find out.

</comment><comment><USER80> I read this a few weeks ago and have tried it a few times and think it works but I can never remember if I fell asleep the next morning.

</comment><comment><USER81> tldr

> Here's how to do it:

1\. Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes

2\. Drop your shoulders as far down as they'll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time

3\. Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down

4\. You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:

* You're lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you

* You're lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room

* You say "don't think, don't think, don't think" to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

> The technique is said to work for 96 per cent of people after six weeks of > practice.

</comment><comment><USER82> Noisli has "Fireplace" sound, it makes me fall asleep in under 2 minutes even if I am extremely anxious.

</comment><comment><USER83> my wife complains that I am able to fall asleep immediately whereas it always takes her a long time and if she gets woken up too close to morning that's it. maybe this will help her.

anyway my secret is just to close my eyes and not think about anything but looking deeper into the darkness and breathing slowly.

</comment><comment> yoz-y I guess that a good amount of physical fatigue also helps a lot. There was also a joke about it somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER84> I was in the USMC for 20 years... never once had a problem falling asleep.

In Humvees, in the dirt, on a stack of rifles...

<comment><USER85> The lesson here is, do tons of shit if you want to sleep well, not that parent is a boss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> I rather need technique for wake up in two mintues (two quaters will be fine, too).

</comment><comment><USER87> Wow, that is one blaringly annoying web site. Too much stuff going on!

</comment><comment><USER88> This is nothing new.. called yoga nidra.. excellent for falling asleep.

<comment><USER89> guided yoga nidra audios examples here: [http://www.swamij.com/Meditations.htm](http://www.swamij.com/Meditations.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Worked last night!

</comment><comment><USER91> All these techniques always come down to a form of meditation.

THe common ingredient is:

* an actual EFFORT and DISCIPLINE, ie. a will, a decision, a commitment to stop following the monkey mind going on about tomorrow and all its good/bad things, and "me" and everything about me.

* attention is on the body, the body has always been a key focal point to calm the mind in most meditation techniques (sometime it's external like watching a candle.. but we want to fall asleep here)

* it takes some practice, particularly that in bed and lying down, the mind will more easily lose focus.. this is why most meditation practices take place in the classic sitting posture

I use Vipassana, very similar:

\- I lie down on my BACK.. I think it's helpful to have a "cue" to signal the commitement. Usually I don't fall asleep on my back but when I feel more relaxed and quiet eventually I roll to the side and fall asleep not long after

\- Move attention from head to toes, it can help to keep ahold of the mind, to mentally label "head (or break it down: forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, ...) , neck, shoulder girdle, upper chest, solar plexus, tummy, waist, upper thighs, knees, " (etc)

Typically I'll do 2-3 passes up > down and back up.

When putting to much strain, it can keep you awake.

But here is a KEY thing that this article doesn't mention and you may verify by yourself over time.

When I started, I was worried that staying awake I would lose sleep. Of course this gets into a spiral, since we're trying to relax the mind.

However over time you realize, if you have some energy left and you don't fall asleep, maybe you woke up too late today. That's OK. You'll find out that if you COMPLETELY let go of any control of the body, try to be completely STILL.. you'll notice that it does actually rest the body to some extent. So if somehow you don't fall asleep you can just keep doing this technique for 30 min, even an hour. Then maybe the clock says only 6 hours left, and next day you'll find you're doing fine, not yawning, like you had your 7 hours of sleep.

So the key here, once subtler point those techniques don't talk about, is that if you make an effort to completely relax control of the body, you do get rest even as you are still awake and aware.

One issue you can run into when trying to be completely and entirely still and release total control of the body is that you can get "fidgeting legs" syndrome or whatever it's called. People believe this is a problem and go to the doctor for it. While it's symptomatic of something going in the body, maybe it's not a problem. It's actually interesting... if you can stay still even in the face of those unpleasant electric / buzzing sensations in the legs... and you completely let go no matter what.. eventually you may have a very pleasant sensation where it feels like suddenly the tension diffuses through the body. It feels like some current was stuck, and now it's flowing. You may even get very pleasant (fine) tingly sensations. I don't really want to geti nto what this means here and I'm experimenting myself, not on expert on this subject... But it's definitely worth investigating. As with many things involving body/mind you're on your own. The doctors talk a different language, they'll see a "restless legs" syndrome (though they admittedly have no cause for it). With all that said, I'm not saying it's easy and it takes practice too. But if you take time to fall asleep it's something to do, and it's very curious... you get to experiment first hand with mind and body interaction and a subtler aspect of the nervous system.

</comment><comment><USER46> Old stackoverflow thread on this here:

[https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41528/relax- and...](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41528/relax-and-win- classified-military-method-to-fall-asleep-quick)

This caught on after being published on the "Art of Manliness" blog. It seems that there is no factual evidence that this study took place.

</comment><comment><USER92> The true military technique for falling asleep easily is to march 15 miles carrying a 100lb rucksack first

</comment><comment><USER93> > You say "don't think, don't think, don't think" to yourself over and over > for about 10 seconds.

I do this pretty much every night. Instead of 10 seconds I just do it until my thoughts start getting weird and not making sense. Usually when that's happening I'm starting to fall asleep.

</comment><comment><USER94> Okay, so what's the secret military method for curing hiccups?

<comment><USER95> Drink a mouthful of vinegar, in one go. The reflex defibrilates the diaphragm.

I used to a sachet of vinegar in my daypack for that reason and it had 100% success with colleagues.

<comment><USER96> That's quite drastic. If you don't like the taste of pure vinegar here's my method. I inhale all the way, then while holding my breath drink a glass of water. Doesn't that work for everyone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> 5 yeara in military - bullshit</comment>


Andreessen Horowitz Invests $15M In Text Annotation Startup Rap Genius - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/03/andreessen-horowitz-iinvests-15-million-in-rap-genius/ <comment><USER2> Rapgenius is seriously wonderful. I've been listening to more and more rap recently and using rapgenius to find and understand lyrics, the fact that they have the people _writing the tracks_ commenting on the interpretations (via videos) makes it even better.

I finally got to contribute to the site a few weeks ago and I was super happy when they accepted my contribution, I don't know why I was happy, I only got to fix a typo, but it still felt great.

I have no idea how they can make money and the idea seemed silly to me the first time I heard about it ("a site where people explain lyrics is part of yc?") but after using it I'm in love. My enjoyment of rap music has increased thanks to rapgenius.

<comment><USER3> The dying reply to this post mentions quality control for explanations. It's definitely a real concern. Not all of the explanations are spot on. Some are outright wrong, some are definitely thrown up very quickly for fast karma, some are shallow explanations, some are jokes and not really explanations at all. That aside, we're dealing with poetry -- obviously some things are open to interpretation.

For those curious of use outside of rap music, you can see The Bill of Rights (50% explained) by James Madison ft. Thomas Jefferson [1].

1: <http://rapgenius.com/James-madison-the-bill-of-rights-lyrics>

<comment><USER4> I don't mind the jokes - I actually find it fits the culture. They should expands with a another site for "normal" content though. Using Rap Genius has obvious branding issues...

<comment><USER3> I believe their longterm plan will go turn their platform into a framework to build other niche communities. Sort of like the relationship between Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rapgenius is good in the way StackOverflow is good: A novel, well-executed UI to a kind of website that has been done to death (in this case its lyrics sites). Not to mention good SEO.

It also suffers from the same problem, which is that the users that are most engaged are often not the best people to give explanations. I pretty frequently see tracks that have bad annotations, misunderstand lines (not to mention just straight out wrong lyrics), or break the context.

Here's an example: [http://rapgenius.com/Aesop-rock-were-famous- lyrics#note-7597...](http://rapgenius.com/Aesop-rock-were-famous- lyrics#note-759772)

That entire stanza the "favorite" is totally sarcastic, he's specifically calling out another MC (Esoteric) for just doing lame songs about transformers. In fact, the 2 marks after that block (which are part of the same verse) are properly noting who he is targeting. So in this case, the the lyrics are wrong, the selected lines are breaking the context, and the explanation is totally contrary to whats even being discussed.

There is no "crowdsourced" way of fixing this, just a note that the "staff" hasn't verified it. I see this pretty frequently, actually on pretty much every track I've looked up there.

I think its a great idea, but it should take a lesson from SO or even wikipedia on how to actually correct problems like this, rather than just leaving it to the first person to post it.

Edit: This may be a factor of this stuff being a bit more obscure and dense than your average Kanye or Rick Ross track, as well as being unpopular, but I've put in several suggestions over the last year and never heard back anything about things being accepted or being able to actually make corrections.

<comment><USER6> OT: I'm a big fan of Esoteric—interesting observation. He is a bit gimmicky at times (I trust you've seen his "Pterovision" videos on YouTube[1]—they're actually very funny).

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/user/pterolab>

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that example just stuck with me since I've been trying to dig up all the tracks related to the Demigodz/Def Jux beef, which is all pretty hilarious. Especially 10 years later. I came across the rapgenius page trying to find "we're famous" on youtube (like I said, Good SEO!), and was just struck at how completely off the mark the commentary was on it.

<comment><USER7> Great to see some underground hip-hop fans on here - for years I was part of an underground duo called Raw Produce - we weren't big enough to reach RapGenius.

I'll just mention that Eso is a good friend and is just as funny in person as on record. We were fortunate to record a few songs with him - lotta fun. I'm a huge fan of El-P, but he was not, as one would say, a particularly warm individual. And El laid out Eso pretty good in that diss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gods they must be cray

Lyrics over HTTP?

What would Kool Herc say?

Venture valuation

Drifting to the perihelion

Maboo with the Bently scout

Now Marissa's got her checkbook out

Annotations the new cream

Even writin up your daydreams

Like Cobb with one last job

Wakin up before you scream

A Venn diagram intersection

"Seems like a bad idea"

"No really is a good idea"

Priceless like a loan rejection

Copyright in Fringe mint

Walter Bishop eating Thin Mints

Don't require six senses

To see text bubbles everywhere

Maybe time to give up the ghost

Or upgrade to a $7 sponsored post

</comment><comment><USER9> ilan, one of the founders of rap genius here..

we're ready to blow up the bank accounts of brilliant engineers (rails, ios) and designers who want to help us create the internet talmud™

if you're interested, send links to stuff you've built or any work you're proud of! email@example.com

<3

</comment><comment><USER10> I love Rap Genius, but haven't lyrics websites been repeatedly shut down in the past for copyright infringement? For instance, [http://news.cnet.com/lyrics-sites-out-of-tune-with- copyright...](http://news.cnet.com/lyrics-sites-out-of-tune-with- copyrights/2100-1027_3-6203085.html)

I always assumed that this was why all the lyrics websites were shitty and ad- infested - get money while you can, before you get shut down. And I also assumed that was why Google or Yahoo or some other competent people didn't make a nice lyrics website to outcompete them.

So what's different about Rap Genius?

<comment><USER2>
        I always assumed that this was why all the lyrics websites were shitty and ad-infested

About a year ago someone talked about lyric websites (either here or on reddit) and they explained that the reason they have terrible adverts isn't because they get shut down, it's because user retention is terrible. People only look for lyrics now and again[1], it's google -> click link -> read lyrics -> leave, there's no browsing, very few people have any loyalty to any lyric site, so they have to make as much as they can off that 1 visit because they probably won't be back.

[1] I think rapgenius solves this problem by providing value way beyond just lyrics

<comment><USER10> However, they are still questionably legal, and they do get shut down from time to time.

<comment><USER2> I did a bit of research, the largest website for lyrics is metrolyrics.com, they are owned by CBS (as of October 2011) and they license all their lyrics through a company called Gracenote (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracenote>) it's plausible that Rapgenius are also licensing through this company, or similar? Seems there is a way for a lyric website to exist legitimately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been impressed by Andreedsen Horowitz's approach of recognizing winners in large markets and putting large amounts of money to work. It's gutsy and smart.

However, I'm concerned about putting large amounts of money into startups that have yet to become businesses. An over-abundance of resources is often detrimental to realizing a vision and finding a market.

Anyway, I remain a fan of A16Z and suspect they've seen something compelling not yet visibile to the outside observer.

<comment><USER12> For sure he's gutsy, but _venture_ capital today means mostly "putting large amounts of money into startups that have yet to become businesses"-YCombinator demo day is the most fitting example that comes to my mind right now.

At least it's a breath of fresh air... no _disruption_ just for the sake of using a buzzword--rather money poured on a project that has a faithful community, and with some niche design choices. Reminds of anything? Reddit!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Read the official announcement on Rap Genius: [http://rapgenius.com/Marc- andreessen-why-andreessen-horowitz...](http://rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen- why-andreessen-horowitz-is-investing-in-rap-genius-lyrics)

</comment><comment><USER14> Intriguing. It's hard to imagine any creative work of art or engineering that couldn't benefit from well-curated annotation. Browsing around Rap Genius, I can't help but wish for a digital copy of _Ulysses_ with this kind of interface to crowd-sourced commentary.

But outside of big traffic draws like song lyrics, I'm not sure what the monetization potential is.

<comment><USER15> There are incredible online annotations for novels by Thomas Pynchon[1] and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest[2], which are what I thought of first when they talked about expanding into annotating literature. The monetization potential in that area in particular is huge, looking at Cliffs Notes and the like. It's interesting that Andreessen Horowitz is investing in a company that seems to be solving the community problem rather than the technical problem of mass annotation. It seems like the technical challenges were the main hold-up back in the early 90s, but Wikipedia has shown the power and importance of community building when you're trying to create a universal reference.

[1] <http://pynchonwiki.com/>

[2] [http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster- wallace/ind...](http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster- wallace/index.php?title=Main_Page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome news! I've been a fan of rapgenius for a while and its nice to see Mahbod getting props. I hadn't considered the possibilities outside of hip hop lyrics, but as the article points out there is a huge potential within legal text, academic papers, etc (hopefully not the bible or other religious text... I can imagine that becoming a huge clusterf*ck).

</comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome. I remember when the name of rapgenius was decided on the two plus two forums between rapopedia, rapexegesis and rapgenius.

The initial traction really came from the high stakes online poker player community and two plus two generally. I wonder why one of the first guys to be involved, Ariel Schneller (Foxwoodsfiend/Daevils/MikeVickisGod on poker sites) dropped out of the adventure.

This is him commenting on the funding on 2p2: [http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=35110971...](http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=35110971&postcount=145)

<comment><USER18> Online Poker Mafia blowin up huge. Strasser got his own hedge fund. Who's next?

"I wonder why one of the first guys to be involved, Ariel Schneller...dropped out"

He's been in Harvard Law School, before that working on DeucesCracked/crushing high stakes etc. Not hard to see why he'd choose that instead of working on a rap lyrics website. I think lots of people underestimated this team.

Congrats guys!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting. I saw the founders at ycombinator's Work for a Startup day, where a bunch of YC companies basically pitched their companies, but to engineers instead of investors. The rap genius guys were there, but with handmade signs, and didn't present. Honestly, at the time I thought they had snuck in or something. They were hustling people all night trying to convince them to come work for them; gotta respect the dedication.

</comment><comment><USER20> I first learned of Rap Genius in the Yale Alumni Magazine earlier this year, and concluded that the idea was clever but the business opportunity small.[1] Now that Rap Genius is expanding its target market to _general_ text annotation, the business opportunity looks substantial to me. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking analysis of textbooks, critiques of literary works, and commentary on the news -- the potential uses are many. Hats off to the team.

\--

[1] [http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2012_05/feature_rap...](http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2012_05/feature_rap.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> RapGenius is a nice site for viewing lyrics and understanding obscure (to you) references. But a tally sheet of line-by-line references is not really an "explanation" of a rap/song/poem. Literary allusion has a long history and it can deepen the intellectual/emotional experience of a work, but people can get too obsessed with understanding "references" while missing the forest from the trees.

It's great the site isn't limited to rap, though. No one has tackled explaining Howl yet :) <http://rapgenius.com/Alan-ginsberg-howl-lyrics>

<comment><USER22> On the right of each song page is a section dedicated to explaining the whole song. I don't see the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not a bad investment for a little white devil sophistry. (Re: <http://rapgenius.com/Das-racist-middle-of-the-cake-lyrics>)

</comment><comment> dumb-dumb I've seen this done with specific bands, but this is a great idea for a website. Regardless of how well they execute, it's just a great idea. Lyric sites are huge, but many of them are rather crappy (I guess because they try too hard to monetize). Annotations of lyrics are scattered across many sites. It would be great to have them all in one place.

But let's hope it doesn't become like a CDDB fiasco.

</comment><comment><USER24> I secretly hope that this startup ends up producing many gems similar to the "Rap Battle Translated" video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6H0i1RAdHk>

This would make it like a "meme in motion" generator. Like moot's Canvas but for video.

<comment><USER25> Both of those were really entertaining, but I far prefer the translation version...

I'd also be interested in seeing white 17th century aristocrates engage in a duel whereby they use modern rap battle language whilst in the setting of a victorian sword/gun draw-style duel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I had no idea Rap Genius was a YC company. I listen to _alot_ of rap while working, and often look up the more intricate lyrics/phrases I haven't heard of.

Rap Genius is far and way the best site, the next step down the ladder is things like Yahoo Answers...

</comment><comment><USER27> The idea that it could turn into a large music-oriented social network (a next-gen MySpace) or some kind of scalable annotation platform could make this not insane. Big opportunity + big risk = perfect YC/AH investment.

I have a feeling that the SEO battle for their keywords is about to get a lot more fierce though. I doubt they've solidified their spot in Google yet, so any tweak on Google's part or a blackhat SEO could seriously set them back.

<comment><AUTHOR> They've got great unique content. This is good for two reasons:

a) Google loves unique content. Unique content on old-world lyrics websites consists of comments buried under the fold. Whereas these guys have pages and subpages full of it.

b) They're going to get a bajillion inbound links because their content is interesting to link to (as opposed to standard lyrics sites). Which will rank them higher than their competitors for the same queries.

I see a lot of comparisons with Yelp. I still type in business names with "Yelp" appended into google because I want a specific result. Wouldn't be surprised if they're getting the same sort of queries already since what they have is so much better than any lyrics site.

Side note: I just opened AZ lyrics and some flash abomination nearly crashed my browser.

<comment><USER28> _b) They're going to get a bajillion inbound links because their content is interesting to link to (as opposed to standard lyrics sites). Which will rank them higher than their competitors for the same queries._

This is true today, and RapGenius has a great linking feature that lets you link to a single line explanation in the lyrics (helpful so the recipient doesn't have to scroll through and find the line of interest).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> We think this is a great day for annotation. But we had a few questions. So we wrote an open letter to Marc Andreessen and Rap Genius.

[https://blog.hypothes.is/a-letter-to-marc-andreessen-and- rap...](https://blog.hypothes.is/a-letter-to-marc-andreessen-and-rap-genius/)

<comment><USER12> "Annotation eventually belongs in the browser." Couldn't agree more.

Endless comment streams proved to be of little if no value. Rap Genius is a glaring example that annotations (when designed and user properly) have way more potential than comments. The big money investment on Rap Genius just seals the deal, and pave the way for a Web where annotations are first class citizens.

Hope all the browsers will jump in the bandwagon very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I always feel I'd get on with Ben Horowitz, given his apparent liking for a) hip-hop, b) boxing and c) technology and business (although mfar ore successful at it than me).

If I found he liked fly-fishing as well we'd be like blood brothers or something.

</comment><comment><USER31> They should apply the Rapgenius magic to Shakespeare. Crowdsourced Cliff Notes++.

</comment><comment><USER32> I guess "Spray and pray" strategy at works. Now if Rap Genius can figure out how to steer clear of potential copyright violations and come up with a revenue model, they could be successful.

</comment><comment><USER33> how do you avoid licensing all the content you're making available for annotation? If you're going to annotate literature that's under copyright (for example) won't you pretty much have to provide the base work to anyone looking for annotations?

Or is the idea to build up content until you get slapped and then license it back to existing licensees like amazon or rhapsody?

Looks a bit like the latter given the pretty broad sublicensing in the TOU, "Hip Hop Wikipedia" except, you know, for the part where everyone can use the information.

</comment><comment><USER34> Another win for NYC tech.

</comment><comment><USER35> What a simple, hindsightedly obvious idea with tons of appeal.

</comment><comment><USER36> How is Rap Genius different from songmeanings.net?

<comment><USER37> From a UI perspective, Rap Genius explains lyrics line-by-line whereas SongMeanings is more of a discussion of the whole song, and Rap Genius tends to canonicalize explanations whereas SongMeanings is more of a free-for-all discussion. The line-by-line system is much better for rap music.

<comment><USER38> For all music. You can select lines or stanzas, so it has all levels of scope in regard to the annotations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Really, does nobody else read the logo as _"rapegenius"_?

Honestly not being crude or puerile here - I choked on tea when I saw it...

A tiny little bit of spacing between the words would go a long way here I feel.

<comment><USER40> Tahts teh wya we raed we tedn to recnognze wrod shpaes instaed of the wrods thmeslevse</comment></comment>


Crowdfunding for Nitrokey Open Hardware Security USB Key Started - <AUTHOR> http://igg.me/at/nitrokey/ <comment><USER2> Been wondering when this would happen. Great to see, funding!</comment>


Ask HN: Are mac laptops good buy these days? - <AUTHOR> I have never owned a Mac laptop and in market to buy one. I am seeing lots of complaints about the new keyboard however some are saying apple has fixed the issues. Are they good to buy now ? <comment><USER2> So I've got a MacBook 2016 that's slightly affected. It's my impression that the keyboard is simply the weak spot of the current MacBooks. Meaning, if something goes wrong, chances are it's the keyboard.

In my case, the fix is fairly easy. Put canned air in the office and at home. Apple has a support document about it. I need to do that every month or two.

It wouldn't stop me from getting a MacBook, I need it for my work. But I've got two tips; budget for a nice Thunderbolt dock at work and at home, so you can use external input devices. Don't eat at the keyboard.

If you can hold out, perhaps you can wait for the 16" model that's supposedly coming, it's rumored to have a different keyboard. But these are just rumors and you could wait for a looooong time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been considering a new laptop myself. My family has been Apple-based for 7 years, MacBook Air, iPhone, iPad.

I haven't purchased one yet but when I do it'll be another MacBook, even after days of research. nkkollaw recommends a 2015 MBP and I think that's a good suggestion, but I don't have an issue buying a newer model either.

The deal breakers for me are

1\. Apple trackpads are the best in the industry 2\. I don't want Windows and too many things don't work well on Linux and require lots of configuring 3\. Apple products are high quality, despite various issues throughout the years like the recent keyboard 4\. The sooner everyone adopts a new tech (USB-C in this case) the sooner it won't be a big deal

<comment><USER4> Most newer non-apple laptop ships with a precision touchpad that, IMHO, are just as good as the one from Apple, but true, they used to be crap only a few years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They're not.

If you want a Mac, buy a 2015 MacBook Pro. That's what I use: it has a working keyboard, ports you'll need like USB 2, SD card, HDMI etc., and it works great. Last good laptop they made.

If they make a good one again I'll get it but one of my worst decisions ever was to buy a Mid-2016 MacBook Pro: keyboard would break consistently every 1-2 months, battery was faulty, eventually the logic board died with all data on it. I had Apple fix it and sold it in a hurry for half the price I paid for it.</comment>


Viagra could kill you - <AUTHOR> http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/mar/16/viagra-could-kill-you.htm

<comment><USER2> Many/most drugs if overused can kill. The goal in drug development is to have the lethal dose (much) higher than the effective dose to make it safe to use. For things like cancer drugs, the difference is quite a bit smaller than, say, painkillers. And after drugs are on the market for a while, it can turn out that they're too risky to go over the counter (such as Seldane). Ask Len Bias about od'ing if you can find a basketball-savvy medium.

It's all a risk/reward decision, like pretty much everything in life.</comment>


This is Google's Nexus 10 by Samsung With Android 4.2 - <AUTHOR> http://briefmobile.com/google-nexus-10-samsung-android-4-2

<comment><USER2> Sigh, I really wish it had some local storage. I know, I know, the 'cloud' is my storage, and I get the whole Google meme that someday the world will have 4G LTE type speeds everywhere and we'll have fixed legislation such that we don't have to worry about non-local data being seized next to someone's illegal content. But that time is not now. And my pain is not psychosomatic. I really like to have some local stuff.

<comment><USER3> It does have local storage--it just doesn't have an SD card slot for storage _expansion._

It's safe to say this will come in 16GB and 32GB varieties, and hopefully there will be a 64GB option.

My Galaxy Nexus has 32GB, and my Nexus 7 has 16GB, and I've never hurt for storage, even with movies (Nexus 7) and Spotify playlists at "extreme" quality (Galaxy Nexus.)

<comment><USER4> I too run with the Nexus duo and likewise have never felt constrained by the amount of local storage.

Of course, I'm not in the habit of carrying around dozens of movies or a library of 600MB+ games as some might.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the article: 10.1-inch Super AMOLED display 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution

Why can we have a 10" display w/ 1600p at a very reasonable price but I can't a get a 22" + monitor at the same resolution without shelling out over $1000 :C

<comment><USER6> [http://www.ebay.com/itm/CROSSOVER-27Q-LED-27-Monitor-2560X14...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/CROSSOVER-27Q-LED-27-Monitor-2560X1440-High- resolution-Monitor-QHD- DVI-/320977170814?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item4abbbaf17e)

I'm writing this to you on one right now. I got the slightly more expensive version that swivels. 27" for $363 shipped. LG LCD panel (I opened it and confirmed). A number of dead pixels, but none in the center and they are only visible if you're 2" from the screen. At any reasonable distance, I can't make them out.

If you want an immaculate, brand name, warrantied monitor ... yeah, it's 1K. If you're willing to compromise on a few things, there are other options.

I imagine the disparity in availability has to do with the manufacturing technology. It's probably _very_ difficult to make a zero-dead-pixel screen that is high resolution and very large.

<comment><USER7> Dell's Ultrasharp monitors go on sale quite often. Here in Canada they have their top-of-the-line 27" monitor on sale for $899... and actually it was $750 a couple of days ago.

[http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors_Flat_Pa...](http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors_Flat_Panel_Widescreen/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&sku=224-8284&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=7&baynote_irrank=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ugh. The bezel is very, very ugly.

<comment><USER9> A result of the Apple lawsuit, I imagine.

<comment><USER10> When Apple said Samsung could avoid infringing by making their tablet ugly, I didn't imagine Samsung would take them seriously. :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The button bar + notification bar looks strange on a 10" screen. It was OK on the Nexus 7, but does cramp the screen in portrait. I wonder what their rationalization for it on a 10" screen is.

<comment><USER12> This is only one of several things that make me think and hope that this isn't the version to actually ship to consumers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Front facing speakers, finally.

On iPad I presume speakers are not facing front due to form trumping function. On other pads, I presume it is due to copying Apple's focus upon form?

</comment><comment><USER14> Excellent. The first tablet designed entirely by lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER15> I simply don't get why they'd centre the on-screen buttons. Surely the ergonomics don't support such a move?

</comment><comment><USER16> Pentile? Bleegh. Hopefully the many pixels can mask that deficiency.

<comment><USER12> Given the resolution, it's not going to be an issue. It isn't on the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus10 is at a much higher pixel density.

<comment><USER13> The pentile display is a real frustration for some people on the Galaxy Nexus. It isn't for others. Even at a higher resolution for the Nexus 10 (presuming it is pentile), some people would not buy it because they will find it noticeably ugly.

For it to be a problem, you need to physically be able to see the jaggies (have good eyesight, or be short-sighted, but not long-sighted), and you need to find the jaggies disturbing (plenty of people who can see them don't mind them).

Personally I notice it on my Galaxy Nexus, but it doesn't particularly bother me (it did bug me on the Galaxy S).

A bigger problem with the OLED displays is the slow degradation in output of the blue LEDs, leading to burn in or yellowing of the screen. Maybe they have improved the tech, but I would be worried about a device that got more use than my phone. When in landscape, my 1 year old Nexus has a white band where the soft buttons are in portrait (because the rest of the screen has burned the blue LEDs more and has yellowed compared with the unburned white. Unburned band because soft button area is usually black). Even worse is the ugly unevenness in colour for solid grey or red. And sometimes there are ghost after-images that fade within say a second. Occurs in high contrast areas because of localised heating, which when changing to an even white, the LED output is uneven due to the heating. I accept these defects as compromises for other features I want in a phone.

Basically, I think it behooves one to always view a real device before buying a pentile display device, especially if one is sensitive to aberrations and one has good eyesight for tiny detail. YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> the site crashed. it's also on droid life

<comment><USER18> [http://www.droid-life.com/2012/10/26/samsung- nexus-10-poses-...](http://www.droid-life.com/2012/10/26/samsung- nexus-10-poses-for-massive-photoshoot-shows-off-android-4-2-as-well/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A million more pixels than the iPad 3/4, yet it wastes a bunch of them on those stupid on-screen virtual buttons instead of differentiating with real physical buttons. Also no micro SD, and it looks like more cheap plastic, just like the Nexus 7.

I really want to get on board with a modern Android tablet, but they're not making it easy.

<comment><USER20> > _"A million more pixels than the iPad 3/4"_

I know it's something of a running joke that people like to see escalating numbers on spec sheets, regardless of what they mean in objective reality.

But in this particular case it strikes me as particularly silly.

The entire trumped-up definition of the "Retina" classification is based on the idea that the human eye literally can not distinguish individual pixels beyond a given threshold (at a given distance). Striving to go _beyond_ that limit is... quite an interesting endeavor.

Not only does it sound particularly pointless, but actually _self-defeating_ as it would seemingly only add busywork to the GPU.

* For most people, natch. I'm sure the discussions of devices at "higher than retina" resolutions will fill up with people claiming better than 20/20 vision, or uniquely short arms, or whatever.

<comment><USER2> So there is an interesting bit you're overlooking perhaps, which is 'gamut'. The additional pixel density can be exploited to provide "pixels" which have more subtle variations in color. In color printing the printer is capable of some number of dots per inch, but there is another number (sometimes called the 'screen resolution' as a kick back to the silkscreen printing process) where the color gamut peaks (the maximum number of different colors the printer can print). Generally screen gamut in 'sub-retina' displays is fixed by the ability of the electronics to modulate the component colors, but with additional pixels you can 'squeeze out' more colors by using a group of four, or nine, pixels that are colored to simulate a single pixel.

Not a huge deal yet, but no doubt it will become one with '4x' and '8x' oversampled displays.</comment></comment></comment>