Thinking of yourself as an insomniac may be a part of the problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/20/cant-sleep-insomnia-identity <comment><USER3> This is exactly the Zen moment that fixed my lifelong insomnia: lying in bed relaxed with my eyes closed, even if I'm not asleep, leaves me feeling worlds better in the morning than fretting about not being able to sleep. It's something that happened when I forgot about it completely. Once I realized I could literally just lie in bed for 8 hours and be OK, I was able to let go.

It's like a trap that closes tighter about you the more you struggle, and releases if you allow yourself to relax

Once I really got that, sleep became regular and uninterrupted

<comment><USER4> Yup. I did a Sleepio course that had a good trick for this: Remember that you've got through every single day after a bad night's sleep before just fine. Even if you don't sleep a single moment, you'll get through the day. You've done it loads of times before and you'll do it again.

For me a big source of panic was worrying about the impact on the next day a bad night's sleep would have.

I still have nights where I don't sleep from time to time, but I've stopped caring about it.

<comment><USER5> Man, generally I don't have sleep troubles[1], but I hate not getting sleep. It destroys my next day. Like, objectively. I don't operate well without sleep, so the thought of "you'll get through the day" doesn't ring nice for me. The same is true if I stab my foot with a knife, but it doesn't mean I won't dread experiencing the recovery from the knife wound lol.

[1]: I sleep well, I get plenty of it. The only downside I have is restless leg syndrome which, according to my wife, has me kicking and moving my legs a lot at night. I imagine that impacts my quality of sleep, so I try to get a bit more sleep due to that.

<comment><USER6> Getting a lot of sleep != getting quality sleep.

If you have restless leg syndrome, you don't sleep well.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, but sleeping more still helps me. Maybe I could be happy with 7h/night without restless leg, but that doesn't change the fact that 8h for me is currently better than 7h. 7h just isn't enough. Which was my point - I get enough _(more than average)_ to ensure I feel refreshed the next day.

It's definitely a problem though. I'm not a fan of medications, but I've not researched a natural remedy - perhaps I should.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _and that even severe sleep deprivation poses no real risk of poor > performance, health troubles or early death._

I struggle to see how anyone that has or even seen someone with severe sleep deprivation can say this with a straight face.

You stop functioning as a human. You can not think straight, and it's not "oh, silly me I forgot I needed to serialize access to this function" kind of thinking, but more like - "oh, have I always had foot on my left leg?".

Yes, often stress of not sleeping is the reason for not being able to sleep. I just have a hard time imagining that I could convince someone with sleep problems to actually believe that it isn't bad. Yet people in this thread seem to agree... So I might be wrong on that.

My mother used to work odd hours and always maintained that it isn't that bad to just rest rather than sleep if you're unable to. I truly wished I believed that but my experience has been quite the opposite. I could just as well run a marathon as lying awake in bed and I'd be equally exhausted the next day.

This is also in collision with something that has worked well for me, just get up if you can't sleep. Do not condition your brain that it is OK to lie down in bed awake. That's a habit you don't want to get into, better get up and do something for about an hour and try again. It sucks and it's hard to motivate yourself to get up 03:30 in the morning because you want to be able to sleep in the future, but in the long run it is worth it.

And that advice (echoed by many) is quite in collision course with the advice here.

Not saying that either is "right", but for me lying in bed awake just does not work. And I've really tried to commit to it.

<comment><USER8> > but for me lying in bed awake just does not work.

Maybe because you're subconsciously thinking "I wont function as a human tomorrow" the whole time ;)

<comment><USER9> I already accept that I have bad sleep patterns and not worry about it, but still I get "brain-fog" most of the days and perform poorly. Wish to know how solve that!

<comment><USER10> Have you tried getting more sleep? ;]

<comment><USER9> I sleep erratically but is common to sleep 12 hours!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's 3am in the states, and I'm at the computer. I slept for five hours, from 9 until 2. I was woken up by timer that was accidentally set to turn a TV on.

After lying in bed relaxing for an hour or so, I got up. Started working.

This happens quite a bit, and it used to bug me a lot. I finally made my peace with it, not because of any Zen moment (Sorry DrPhish), but because there was nothing else to do. It is what it is.

So I stopped complaining, I stopped worrying about it, I stopped trying to figure out if I was getting the right sleep or not. Instead I sleep when I'm tired. If I wake up and can't go back to sleep? I work. Eventually my body will catch up with whatever it wants to do. I work for myself. If I want to sleep, I sleep. This is one of the benefits of being self-employed.

On the plus side, you can get a lot of stuff done in the middle of the night. I do my best creative work when I'm up in these dark-of-the-night hours. It's quiet, it's peaceful, and I have time to think about and consider things instead of feeling like I'm on a treadmill.

I really enjoyed this article. It's interesting that I arrived at the same place without realizing what I was doing. I'm going to save it to share with my friends next time I hear them complaining. :)

<comment><USER12> This reminds me of "second sleep" from medieval times.

<comment><USER13> Was there ever other sources for the second sleep, other than "At Day's Close"?

<comment><USER14> "He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream." Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1840)

"Don Quixote followed nature, and being satisfied with his first sleep, did not solicit more. As for Sancho, he never wanted a second, for the first lasted him from night to morning." Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote (1615)

"And at the wakening of your first sleepe You shall have a hott drinke made, And at the wakening of your next sleepe Your sorrowes will have a slake." Early English ballad, Old Robin of Portingale

The Tiv tribe in Nigeria employ the terms "first sleep" and "second sleep" to refer to specific periods of the night

Taken from ([http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783)). The article references "At Day's Close", sure, but it also references many other sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" non-complaining poor sleepers" – who sleep badly but don't define themselves as insomniacs – don't suffer the high blood pressure commonly associated with severe sleeplessness. Meanwhile, "complaining good sleepers" – who get enough shut-eye, but are heavily invested in their alleged insomnia – were essentially as tired, anxious and depressed as those who genuinely didn't sleep._

Causation vs correlation? This could easily be the other way around, maybe it's _because_ they don't feel good they complain about it...

<comment><USER16> The key is that the non-complaining people also "sleep badly" (and fewer hours).

So whether they complaining insomniacs don't feel good and thus complain, or complain and thus don't feel good, we at least know that it's not the sleeplessness (as it is common to both groups).

<comment><USER17> Isn't that assuming that lack of sleep affects everyone in the same way? Different people need different amounts of sleep.

I am a night owl and so find a shitty nights sleep will result in a shitty morning; but I'll feel much better by the end of the day. Whereas a morning person might wake up without issues and only pay the price later on (and counter with an early night).

<comment><USER16> > _Isn't that assuming that lack of sleep affects everyone in the same way? > Different people need different amounts of sleep._

Not according to all medical advise I've read (no lifestyle advice / lifehacks).

The body really needs its sleep, and the amount is more or less fixed to 7-8 hours.

There's only a small (1-2 hours variation with age, not with individual people).

<comment><USER18> There is at least some variation. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic- mutation-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation- sleep-less/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is probably good advice for people who have occasional insomnia.

But if you have insomnia more regularly, especially for days at a time, or you consistently don't feel rested despite believing that you've slept, you really should try to talk to a doctor - not to ask for sleeping pills (although that may be a result), but to start the process of finding out if there's a larger problem that can be treated.

I deal with delayed sleep onset, which is livable - it just means that it takes me longer to fall asleep, and occasional insomnia on top of it wouldn't be a big deal.

But I also suffer from a REM-related parasomnia which apparently has never been officially described or named, so instead gets stuck in the "Other parasomnias - unspecified" bucket. Basically once I fall asleep, the NREM phases look perfectly normal, but once I enter REM, I suffer multiple arousals (basically I wake up, but for too short a period to be aware that I'm awake). So rather than going through REM phases, I spend that time waking up multiple times per minute.

Unfortunately so far nobody has been able to suggest a treatment. Gabapentin helps a little, but it's far from a solution.

<comment><USER20> I'm sure you've already investigated this route, but I thought it worth pointing out that this sounds like sleep apnea.

<comment><USER19> That's certainly one of the first things they checked for, which is understandable.

They started with a home sleep study (you pick up the equipment and are shown how to put it on before bed), but it showed that my breathing was fine, blood oxygen levels were normal, and I snore less than the average person.

So that's when they had me do the full study where you sleep in a lab hooked up to monitors to track breathing, brainwaves, muscle movements, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

781 points by rhapsodic 35 days ago | 190 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944)

<comment><USER22> I started doing this after I read that article last month, and it has worked wonders for me. I was surprised it worked so well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yes. Telling myself it was not a big deal led me to crave the 3am wake-ups as an opportunity for writing some of my most fluid code. Now I know the door to productivity is clearing my sleep debt and developing the kind of surplus to where there is no such thing as early. Speaking of, it's past my bedtime...

</comment><comment><USER24> After two burnouts nowadays if insomnia sets in I just turn the alarm off, accept that it is one of those nights and relax. If that won't work due to racy thoughts I just get up and do something. The next day is immediately cleared from appointments, duties, plans and exercise. Good sleep is priority 1 over work, exercise and even food. I'd rather be unemployed than being a walking zombie ever again.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've found that if I get up and write down my thoughts, afterwards I'll be able to sleep. I just write whatever I'm thinking at the moment. Sometimes I end up with some very interesting insights by doing this. After an hour or so, I feel a change in my mental state where I become more significantly more relaxed and less stressed. When I go back to bed I sleep like a baby.

<comment><USER26> I'd advise to always have a notebook next to your bed in any situation - <USER2> getting thoughts out of your head in a general sense like this, writing down work ideas [I always get sparks of inspiration just before falling asleep], writing down dreams if that sort of thing interests you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What about sensitivity to noise? The guy upstairs walking around in an old uninsulated house causes thumping which instantly wakes me up. A rug didn't help. Next door, my bedroom is next to stairs where stompers stomp up and down the stairs morning and night. Earplugs and noise machines don't help.

While thinking causes me to remain awake, sensitivity to disturbances causes me to wake up. It's been a sort of punishment my entire life, made worse because no one takes me seriously or cares, since they cannot relate.

<comment><USER28> I moved to a highrise cos I had the same problem. Plus something about having a doorman made it easier to fall asleep.

I can totally relate to ppl not taking it seriously.

<comment><USER29> I was afraid it would be worse.

In part, no matter what something "should" be, I seem to end up with the worst version of it.

I moved to my own house -- all to myself. To end up with the loudest neighbors yet. Car stereo subwoofers "thudding" through my sealed up house, along with indifferent law enforcement.

I didn't want a huge drive, nor to be socially isolated (hah!).

I bought into what was supposed to be a modest but nice community. I didn't have the money for a snobby one where law enforcement has a big stick up their butt.

In retrospect, on that point, be very careful about the community. If I hadn't become so afraid of apartment/condo neighbor noise (after repeated experiences), I could have afforded a more upscale one. Or buy out in the sticks with enough land to physically keep neighbors at bay. But then, of course, you have the challenge of Internet connectivity -- among other things.

<comment><USER27> I'm going to have to be honest here and say that moving to an upscale neighborhood lowers the chances of thumping noise / party noise type environments. In NYC at least, the higher end areas have snootier people and police who are more active. As a super light sleeper and tech geek who needs to concentrate, I have to ally myself with the snooty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> With my old job I would often get really frustrated as I saw the potential hours of sleep disappear to insomnia. And I bet it was a feedback loop.

With my new job I work from home. So I no longer fear having to drive or be socially present on terribly little sleep. As a result I'm so much more relaxed when I go to bed and the times I lose sleep are becoming quite rare.

When I was young I thought that a job fitting my lifestyle was maybe 5% of the perk. But today I believe it's probably 50% of my compensation.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think most of the syndromes that people suffer from are needlessly reinforced by treating them as an aspect of one's fixed identity

</comment><comment><USER32> I hear from many people that they have problems sleeping, I have never ever had that problem. Imho the big difference was almost always them telling me: they fret about not being able to sleep vs. me telling them: I can truly enjoy just getting into bed and I sometimes wrestle to _not_ fall asleep because that feeling of being tired and hitting the bed is just so nice I want to extend the time I experience it... The wrestle is always useless because sleep comes very fast.

Even when I don't fall asleep immediately I can enjoy taking the time to think about work or plan the next day or think about future vacations or what I'm going to do to my home server when 18.04 comes out or the latest episode of Isaac Arthur [0], there are many nice things to think about with little else on the mind. It's almost a shame sleep disrupts my train of thought sometimes :)

I'm a bit of a fretter myself but never about sleep.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g)

<comment><USER17> My wife is the same. I am more of a night owl and my ideal lie-in-bed time happens in the morning. Unfortunately society seems to frown on doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think accepting the situation for what it is also helps in other circumstances. E.g. you're in the gym and about to work very hard on a few sets. Just accept there's no getting out of it, and you have to do it. Then it's not so bad. Climbing a mountain? abandon all hope and just get on with it. Same with work. You just accept it, rather than resist it.

</comment><comment><USER34> A couple years ago I was diagnosed with DSPD (delayed sleep phase disorder) after several months of non-24 hour sleep cycles.

The advice the specialist gave me was similar: don't worry if you can't sleep. If that means you have to get up and do something, do that and try again later. If you're relaxed enough just laying there, do that.

I've not been able to rid myself of the timing issues that plague my sleep, but my secondary insomnia is completely gone, and most of it was because of my attitude toward sleep (and a little because of better sleep hygiene lengthening the cycle time of my delayed phase).

</comment><comment><USER35> 100%.

The book that helped with my insomnia (cured it, actually) more than anything else I tried (incl over the counter sleeping pills, CBT, etc) was "acceptance and commitment therapy."

Specifically the book "The Sleep Book."

</comment><comment><USER36> I believe that the article is right about how the labels we create for ourselves start to define us, to many of us the real question is how to stop caring, or being afraid, or being anxious though.

You can tell someone to stop fretting about something - but probably a good psychologist is a better way to hear these pieces of advice, not to mention how we are bombarded by advertisments and beliefs in our everyday life that go against the message of "don't fret".

</comment><comment><USER37> I just had this insight yesterday! And now there is a thread on this.

I have been trying meditation/mindulness for a while. So, I have been trying to meditate before sleeping, relaxing my muscles. And sometimes it worked, sometimes it dint.

Yesterday I had an epiphany that I might be grasping for relaxation while trying to follow my mindful and muscle relaxation exercises. So, all I did was forget about muscle relaxation and just laid there, falling asleep in 5 minutes.

<comment><USER38> Check this other thread that someone posted above: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944)

It talks exactly about what you are saying in your 2nd paragraph. Similarly, sometimes it works for me, sometimes I focus too much on checking if I'm relaxed and I cannot sleep..

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've had this exact problem especially on nights before important or stessful events the next morning such as job interviews.

At first, the anxiety of the interview is what keeps me up. Then, as it gets later and I check the clock, I get stressed about the lack of sleep I'll have the next day.

Sometimes getting up, going to another room and getting a glass of water before returning to bed and resetting the process has helped.

</comment><comment><USER40> Lay down on something not too hard or soft, close your eyes and relax. RELAX: scan your body with your interior perception and notice where tension is and then relax it. There are books and courses and online videos for relaxation techniques. Even if you don't actually fall asleep, you will get _rest_. Most of us burn calories maintaining muscular tension that has no real purpose. It is hard to sleep unless you are physically relaxed.

But again, even if you don't actually fall asleep you will still be rested when you get up, if you relax.

If you cannot make this work _for any reason_ go see a doctor.

Hope I don't sound like a jerk, but this is from my personal experience. I think most (but not all) people who have trouble sleeping are just _doing it wrong_ as ridiculous as that sounds.

Ooo! One other tip: Darkness. The darker it is the better you will sleep. Put black electrician's tape over all those LEDs and get thick curtains, whatever it takes.

(In re: noise, no advice. I'm a city kid and I find it easier to fall asleep with some traffic and sirens. YMMV.)

</comment><comment><USER41> Right... but for actual insomniacs this advice blows. Get diagnosed one way or the other and avoid self diagnosis.

<comment><USER42> As someone who recently got over insomnia, this is actually really great advice for insomnia (assuming your sleep issues are not due to sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Definitely agree that our way of thinking of sleep plays a critical role in how we sleep, i.e. "To fall asleep naturally, as opposed to just crashing into sleep when our wings melt, or knocking ourselves out with alcohol or drugs, we must be willing to do two things. We need to lose our mind – to surrender our waking sense of self. And we need to invoke sleep" from this article entitled "Falling for sleep: When wakefulness is seen as the main event, no wonder so many have trouble sleeping. Can we rekindle the joy of slumber?" on Aeon ([https://aeon.co/essays/the-cure-for-insomnia-is-to-fall- in-l...](https://aeon.co/essays/the-cure-for-insomnia-is-to-fall-in-love-with- sleep-again)).

</comment><comment><USER44> This has worked a treat for me so passing it on.

1\. Make a list of the 3 things to do tomorrow.

2\. Pick a scene from your life of some length that you remember with great detail and with some fondness. Start playing it back in you head, let you mind tell it as linearly or non linearly as it wants.

I have a poker hand where I made an apparently crazy call [Not really, there was massive pupil dilation by an amateur]. It's a good candidate because of length and some vivid moments in the hand with big characters involved.

3\. got to 2. If you're conscious of repeating, appreciate your relaxed state.

</comment><comment><USER45> I love this article. It makes so much sense, applies to other areas and bucks the current trend or micro managing yourself.

Imagine what telling someone who suffers from anxiety that they suffer from anxienty does!

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't know if I am alone in this but I find that listening to audio books puts me right to sleep within a few minutes. There is something soothing about listening to a steady spoken voice on a moderately interesting subject, typically some scientific field other than my own.

<comment><USER47> Same, but podcasts. There have been days where it wouldn't work and I go thru 1-2hrs of them, but generally they work very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I always worried about not getting enough sleep until I started tracking it: I realized that I never sleep the "good 8 hours". I am completely fine with a bit less than 6 hours.

This knowledge helped me stay calm while trying to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER49> I found big difference in the way my sleep goes, if I leave the phone outside my bedroom, ie. in the kitchen.

If my phone is even on silence mode but on the night stand, I wake up and want to check on it immediately.

<comment><USER50> Personally solved this years ago - turn off Wi-Fi was data when I head to bed, that way only calls (usually urgent) wake me up, sms's aren't usually a bother. Only turn it on once I'm up in the morning.

<comment><USER20> This is brilliant, I'm surprised phones don't have this built in.

<comment><USER50> a lot do as "do not disturb" but i've found them to be annoying in one way or another (e.g: blinking LED in a dark room, or applications not abiding or whatever)

so, I take the shotgun approach and kill all data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As someone who recently completed CBTI for my insomnia, I can't recommend this approach more. I sleep quite well now. Definitely combatting poor attitudes regarding sleep is very important.

</comment><comment><USER51> Somehow having boring HN stories/comments to read, or mind-numbing twitch streams to stare at on my phone in bed exhausts my mind way faster than staring at the ceiling and churning.

</comment><comment><USER52> I recently fixed my sleep problems by getting some earplugs and learning how to use them properly (there's a technique). I couldn't believe the difference it made.

<comment><USER53> I wanted to try them, but don't you feel pressure inside the ears... which would make it uncomfortable to sleep?

<comment><USER54> Buy several of different sizes to find one model that works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Buying a foam mattress topper and high quality pillows was the best thing I ever did for my sleep.

I went years without before housesitting for a friend and realizing how much better I slept.

<comment><USER56> I'm interested in getting a new pillow. What makes a high quality pillow a high quality pillow? Any recommendations?

<comment><USER20> I was always against the idea of memory foam pillows. I thought they'd be too hot, they would feel "odd", they'd swallow my face and suffocate me... To cut a long story short we stayed in an AirBnB a few months back that had them and they were an absolute revelation. My wife and I ordered some there and then and they were waiting for us when we got home.

You can pay a fortune for a name brand one but ours are just no-name pillows from Amazon. I think the pillows in the AirBnB were from IKEA, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Ended in psychiatric ward because it was "not a big deal".

</comment><comment><USER58> Wake up 4 hours after sleeping. If I tell myself to just stay in bed, I fall asleep again and get a full rest. So, there's some truth to it.

</comment><comment><USER59> Sometimes I can be asleep even though I feel as though I'm awake. I know because my wife will wake me up because I've been snoring.

</comment><comment><USER60> something that's always worked for me: slow your breathing and take medium- deep breaths while continually telling yourself nothing but "I am breathing deeply". I'm usually out in 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER61> So, imposter syndrome can help break you out of bad groups too? :)

</comment><comment><USER62> Also cut down on the caffeine, screen time, etc.

<comment><USER63> No-one likes to hear this but it's true. Cut out caffeine in the afternoons (it has a ~6hr half-life in your system) and install F.lux or something to lower the colour temperature of your monitors.

(Anecdatum: When I _want_ to stay up late, I turn off F.lux and it adds probably 2 hrs before I start feeling tired.)

<comment><USER64> Plenty of people know this, and do it, and still struggle. I limit myself to maximum of 2 coffees a day, no later than 3pm, and no phone/games after 10:00 and I still find myself lying in bed awake at 3am regularly

<comment><USER65> Because it's not enough to do one thing, you have to do all the things: exercise, go outdoors, socialize, live. It's like a chain: it only works when all the links are intact. A 99.99% chain is as good as a 1% chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Don't force yourself to sleep. Worst that can happen is that you are tired the next day.

</comment><comment><USER67> If you wake up at night do not look at the time. It does not matter. It will only serve to hurt you. Just close your eyes and relax and never ever look at the time. The sky is dark and your alarm didn't go off and that's all you need to know.

<comment><USER68> Speaking personally as someone who usually gets enough sleep, I'd much rather wake up of my own accord than by alarm. If I wake up within an hour of my alarm, I just get up.

<comment><USER69> Try a sunrise simulator alarm. It will gradually turn on the light 20-40 minutes before the wakeup time, relying on your body to pick it up and wake up more naturally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Sure, no big deal.

Adjacent HN article [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079) . `Health dangers of sleep deprivation: "If you're not sleeping enough, "you will be both dead sooner, and the quality of your (now shorter) life will be significantly worse"`.

<comment><USER71> What I understood the authors point to be was not that missing sleep is no big deal, but that focussing on it being a big deal amplifies the insomnia itself, while being relaxed about the need for sleep allows you to sleep more easily.

<comment><USER70> Yep fully got that. Big catch 22 though, as you're only likely to read said article if suffering from bad sleep.

(And: My thoughts were more like, if you don't read HN, then that's whole lot easier.)

<comment><USER36> The mind is a bitch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> funny how in the top stories in HN at the moment there is another article about the dangers of not getting enough sleep.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)

though maybe don't read it if you want to try this one.

<comment><USER73> The article here is not about that less sleep is okay, but that worrying about it is counterproductive because it keeps you awake even longer.

I thought the headline alone already pretty much shows the core of the argument. It does not say "It's not a big deal", but " _Tell yourself_ it's not a big deal". It's about your mental state, not about the sleep duration.

<comment><USER72> my point is, it's hard to relax and not worry about it when you read another article that says, you are gonna die early :)

<comment><USER73> How I solved it:

Work from home and get up whenever you want. Whenever I had an episode of wakefulness, usually between around 2 and 4 am, I would get up, watch a video, and get back to sleep, (perfect external aluminum) blinds fully closed, and sleep until 10 or 11 am. So I would _always_ get a a full amount of sleep.

I recovered from (long-term very low-dose) chronic heavy metal poisoning (treated with chelators) for years, turned out that was the source of my occasional sleep issues. During the long excretion phase (years) the problems got pretty bad, so I got to test what the best methods are pretty thoroughly.

That means you have to find a way to have no time pressure before noon and be able to use that time for sleep. Then worrying stops. I found that interruptions, while inconvenient, don't matter, your brain gets used to it and adjusts. What matters is that you get the full amount of 7-8 hours. How do I know? The last hour of sleep is _different_ \- if you get that last hour or not makes a big difference. It was all a lot more intense for me for a few years so I could get a good look at sleep phases. The worst one is the initial 1-3 hours, and the worst time is ~3 am. When you have issues such as my heavy metal problem that's the nightmare "I have cancer I'm going to die" hour (anxiety/panic attack, no factual basis). Somebody else asked about just this here, I don't want to tell them I suspect they may have a problem similar to what I had... base on my experience that is a sign that something is not right, chemically, in the brain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> One of the top stories on HN right now.

"Health dangers of sleep deprivation"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)

And then we have this. Do journalists get together to troll their readers with clickbait?

<comment><USER75> I don't see any trolling. This article makes clear that there are health dangers, but why it's important not to worry about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Its a big deal. Sleep deprived people make mistakes and cause more accidents than normal. There is a minimum need to sleep and the body will try to take a nap, microsleep or just give up(blackout)...and some people consider it okay.

<comment><USER77> Read the fine article please.

<comment><USER76> Read this fine article and stop blindly downvoting facts. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)

<comment><USER78> > stop blindly downvoting facts.

The point is that those facts are irrelevant, in much the same way that it's irrelevant to bring up that tomatoes are botanically a fruit when discussing fruit salad.

Nowhere does the article say sleep deprivation isn't bad for you in myriad ways. Rather, it's making the point that, for people who are sleep deprived due to insomnia, stressing out about your lack of sleep compounds the problem, by making it even harder to fall asleep. So one way to solve insomnia-related sleep deprivation is precisely to not make a big deal of it, and remove the anxiety component.

<comment><USER76> ``So one way to solve X is precisely to not make a big deal of it, and remove the anxiety component.`` Weight gain? Cancer? School shootings? Climate Change? Air Pollution? Worrying all about that bad stuff is counter-productive and causes stress which makes it worse... With this genius method they all can be solved by removing the 'anxiety component'(also known as reality), therefore making the problem go away..eventually, you just need to stop caring about the problem!

<comment><USER78> Anxiety is an actual mental health issue that heavily influences sleep patterns. It also influences eating habits (emotional eating is a well- understood maladaptive coping mechanism) so the same argument can actually (in some, but not all, cases) apply to weight gain, yes.

Climate change? Air pollution? If you don't see how these are completely different problems that are completely unrelated to your mental well-being, I don't know what to say...

<comment><USER76> Weigh gain? Worrying about Weigh gain creates stress Climate change? Worrying about climate creates stress Air pollution? Worrying about air pollution creates stress

<comment><USER78> What?

Of course, worrying about _anything_ creates stress. But that's as far as it goes: Worrying about air pollution creates stress, but stress doesn't create more air pollution. Worrying about climate change doesn't make climate change worse.

The problem is closing the loop — worrying about sleeplessness produces stress, which then goes on to make the sleep disorder even worse. Same with weight loss and emotional eating.

<comment><USER76> The "anxiety removal" leads to not caring about the problem. Its not closing the loop. Its allowing the existing problem to escalate. >Worrying about climate change doesn't make climate change worse. If your quality of life is affected by climate change, worrying about it will reduce it further.

<comment><USER42> Or you can just schedule time to worry about things and have other time where you don't worry about things... it takes a bit of discipline, but if you worry about everything 24/7 you're going to be very unhealthy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


2019 Year in Review: What Dappened Around the Decentralized World - <AUTHOR> https://www.dapp.com/article/2019-year-in-review-what-dappened-around-the-decentralized-world <comment><AUTHOR> DeFi dapps are thriving in 2019. Some quick stats summarize the overall DeFi ecosystem so far:

\- More than $525 million flowed through DeFi in Q3 \- DeFi dapps have contributed over 58% of the volume of Ethereum dapps in Q3 \- $650 million has locked in DeFi

Our future wealth manager will be on the blockchain and the DeFi ecosystem momentum excites us most!</comment>


X86 Assembly Crash Course [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75gBFiFtAb8 <comment><USER2> Well done video. My only complaint is the stack being inverted a few times throughout. Saying it grows down and then showing it growing up might confuse newbies, who I'm guessing are the target audience for this video.

Other than that, your explainations are clear and concise, which is rare for this topic.</comment>


Social media fingerprints of unemployment - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.3140

<comment><USER2> " _earlier diurnal rhythms ... display lower unemployment rates_ " is presumably just a fancy way of saying that unemployed people get out of bed later :)

<comment><USER3> It's almost as if getting up at 6am or 7am was unnatural.

<comment><USER4> Getting as little sleep as we do is 'un natural'. I'd argue that, including a nocturnal wandering break of some kind (as I recall hearing used to be normal prior to the widespread use of electricity) around 10 hours of darkness (on average) and 'rest at night' would be what we evolved as being setup for. To instead push the boundaries to midnight or later (as I tend to want to do my self) and then to be required to get up before even 8AM is really not leaving enough time for good rest.

It doesn't help that the area I'm in is closer to the 49th parallel than the 45th and also has easterly mountains; thus making natural sunrise artificially later. It's no wonder Seattle has such a caffeine addiction.

<comment><USER5> Before the advent of modern light, it was indeed common to have a brief period of being awake in the night.

It's also interesting to note that, during winter, it was not unheard of to basically hibernate, sleeping far more during the winter than the summer to preserve energy and food.

Sauce: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25robb.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25robb.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Huh, this is a cool paper. I like the way they found the 340 "economic communities", and I love the model.

</comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of when LinkedIn started sending me emails to congratulate my friends on their 1/2-year anniversaries at "Unemployed".

<comment><USER8> This is gold

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Brave New World 2.0.</comment>


A colourful book (1692) - <AUTHOR> http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/post/84254152801/a-colourful-book-i-encountered-this-book-from

<comment><USER2> This is delightful. We changed the url from [http://gizmodo.com/who-painted- this-300-year-old-guidebook-t...](http://gizmodo.com/who-painted- this-300-year-old-guidebook-to-every-imagin-1572088939). Submitters: please read what you post and, if there's a more original source, post that instead. HN prefers original sources.

Remarkably, the book itself is viewable at [http://www.e-corpus.org/notices/102464/gallery/](http://www.e-corpus.org/notices/102464/gallery/). Since the blog post is necessary to understand what this is, we won't replace the url any further.

<comment><USER3> "Colorful" pages start at page 85 of the book.

<comment><USER4> As cool as Pantone books are, this is definitely quite amazing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 322 year old style guide. Sweet!

</comment><comment><USER6> The Dulux range, circa 1692.</comment>


OSMC Easter Update Is Here with Kodi 18, Netflix, Amazon Prime and More - <AUTHOR> https://osmc.tv/2019/04/osmcs-easter-update-is-here-with-kodi-v18-leia/ <comment><AUTHOR> If you're wondering what OSMC is:

> OSMC (Open Source Media Center) is a free and open source media player based > on Linux. Founded in 2014, OSMC lets you play back media from your local > network, attached storage and the Internet. OSMC is the leading media center > in terms of feature set and community and is based on the Kodi project.

[https://osmc.tv/about/](https://osmc.tv/about/)</comment>


Posterous to Tumblr - <AUTHOR> http://www.justmigrate.com

<comment><USER2> It's interesting to me that people who were just burned by Posterous would be OK with going to Tumblr. I like Tumblr a lot and have one myself, but it's still working out its monetization strategy:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/02/tumblr-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/02/tumblr- david-karps-800-million-art-project/)

> _Money isn't that pressing an issue–yet. Karp says Tumblr has banked "most > of" the $125 million it has raised. But Tumblr spent an estimated $25 > million on its operation last year and will likely have to shell out up to > $40 million this year. In 2013 David Karp has a race on his hands: Can he > break into the black before needing to hold his hand out again for > investors?_

The mobile tools for Tumblr are definitely a plus. But if you aren't blogging at a rate that requires you to have scheduling tools, then I wonder if it'd just be easier to set up a Jekyll powered blog. You lose the social-network effect of Tumblr (the reblogs and like), but from what I've seen, it's visual blogs that get reblogged/liked the most, because of how users interact (and see things) in their dashboard.

<comment><USER3> If you set up a tumblr with your own domain name, what's the problem?

<comment><USER4> You run into the same problem you had with Posterous. Having your own domain does nothing to prevent Tumblr from running out of cash and shutting down your blog. Luckily Twitter/Posterous are doing the right thing by providing a way to retain control of your data. Imagine if they didn't provide those tools, you're at the mercy of the platform.

I'm not on Posterous, but I am on Tumblr and I do worry the company won't always be around once the cash runs dry or they get acquihired.

I like the WordPress strategy of strong data portability features within a hosted environment and an open source, self-hosted option. This way even if WordPress.com (Automattic) gets acquired, WordPress.org will always be an option without having to get comfortable with an entirely new platform. Of coarse, if you're a developer you could always just use an open source static site generator like Jekyll or Middleman.

<comment><USER3> I use both tumblr and Jekyll, but I think it's pretty low risk that tumblr will vanish without any warning. We've known posterous would disappear for a while now. And if you point an rss reader at any blog you get a pretty decent backup trivially, so it's a hassle if tumblr disappears but not catastrophic.

But I am reluctant to use tumblr for semi-permanent content; I mostly use it for posts with a short shelf life. So maybe I agree with you subconsciously.

Edit: typos

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's happening to the YC blog?

<comment><USER6> pg already answered that recently:

      We're moving to Posthaven.

From this conversation: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5229120>

<comment><USER5> Thanks I didn't see that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Deja vu <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1269924>

</comment><comment><USER8> There's also import2: <http://www.import2.com/tumblr>

</comment><comment><USER9> It would be great if you could select in which Tumblr blog you want your Posterous' imported to.

<comment><USER10> It does have that feature after you authorise your primary blog. You can post to secondary blogs</comment></comment>


Michelangelo's Handwritten 16th-Century Grocery List - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/michelangelos-illustrated-grocery-list.html <comment><USER2> I really wish I could draw. And I don't even mean the incredibly detailed and skillful paintings that get the most attention, I mean simple line drawings like this that completely and undeniably capture the _essence_ of what a simple object looks like in the least amount of detail possible.

<comment><USER3> If I could learn to draw (as an adult, earlier this year), you most certainly can. Check out _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_.

What surprised me is how technical and detail-oriented drawing is - at least how I was taught. Didn't feel at all "artsy."

I'm looking across the room at a self portrait that's very nearly recognizable(!). If you are willing to put in some hard effort, drawing is totally doable, even for the completely "untalented."

<comment><USER2> I'm sure I could learn, given enough time and effort, but I don't consider it worth it, especially since I strongly suspect it will be a very uphill battle for the way my brain "naturally" works.

<comment><USER4> >I strongly suspect it will be a very uphill battle for the way my brain "naturally" works.

What we have been trying to explain is that this belief is incorrect. Everyone likes to pretend that the ability to draw is some sort of mystical power bestowed upon artists while they were still in the womb. HN in particular should understand how silly this is, because non-technical people generally think the same thing about programming and general computer skills.

Learning to draw is largely the same experience for everyone. If you don't think that this process is worth the effort, then you don't really want to be able to draw, as you originally claimed.

There used to be a threat in an art forum where a member joined, barely able to draw a stick-figure. He kept uploading his work and getting feedback, and eventually, he opened his own art school.

<comment><USER2> > Everyone likes to pretend that the ability to draw is some sort of mystical > power bestowed upon artists while they were still in the womb. HN in > particular should understand how silly this is, because non-technical people > generally think the same thing about programming and general computer > skills.

I used quotation marks around "naturally" because I don't believe that my abilities are completely determined by genetics. I think "nurture" may have just as profound an effect on my lack of drawing ability, namely the fact that I was never interested in drawing when I was younger (when I suspect my brain _was_ naturally more inclined to learning such things). And I do believe the same thing about programming: I doubt that a completely computer- and math- illiterate person in their mid twenties would likely find it easy to learn programming.

> Learning to draw is largely the same experience for everyone.

I _highly_ doubt that. It's one thing to say that anyone _could_ eventually learn a skill like drawing, but an entirely different thing to say that everyone has very similar experiences learning to draw.

> If you don't think that this process is worth the effort, then you don't > really want to be able to draw, as you originally claimed.

That's a silly semantic argument about what I meant. Wanting to be able to draw has nothing to do with being willing to do whatever it takes to be able to draw.

<comment><USER4> >That's a silly semantic argument about what I meant. Wanting to be able to draw has nothing to do with being willing to do whatever it takes to be able to draw.

It isn't about semantics. If you wanted to draw well, you would draw. You said that you will not so I think that its a fair statement that you don't really want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> unrelated but Ben Franklin's daily "to do" list: [http://i.imgur.com/a0XsLmL.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/a0XsLmL.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER6> wow</comment>


The Valuations of Popular Flappy Bird Clones (Infographic) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ideatoappster.com/valuation-of-flappy-bird-clones/

<comment><USER2> Wow. Why do I try to make anything original? It looks like there is good money in the clones.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to be an indie dev no more.

</comment><comment><USER3> Crying right now.</comment>


Show HN: Voicegain RTC Callback API for IVR and voice bots released - <AUTHOR> https://www.voicegain.ai/post/rtc-callback-api-released <comment><AUTHOR> We released it to prod today. If you are familiar with Twilio's TwiML it is a similar product however at much lower price and supports grammars for speech recognition. This is a first release of this API. Our plan to keep adding features that simplify building voice bots and IVRs</comment>


Writing Performance Sensitive OCaml Code - <AUTHOR> https://janestreet.github.io/ocaml-perf-notes.html <comment><USER2> This is about a decade old, I think. With a substantial optimisation suite added to ocamlopt since, some of it will be out of date. The advice on inlining in particular is obsolete.

<comment><USER3> Hm, could you say why you think that? Looking at the github history it's hard to tell. The earliest history I can find for this page is from 2013[0], but it seems to be pretty clearly a transition and not the original writing of it. However, it's the only thing I can find in terms of aging the document.

[0]: [https://github.com/janestreet/janestreet.github.com/commit/7...](https://github.com/janestreet/janestreet.github.com/commit/77eea6fbcb122f98a5726c6cb88b5c5922529a6a)

<comment><USER4> What gsg has been referring to is the flambda framework [1], which has been available for a while.

If you're using OPAM, install an flambda-enabled compiler with (e.g.)

      opam switch install 4.04.1+flambda

[1] [https://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml/flambda.html](https://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/flambda.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The OCaml garbage collector is a modern hybrid generational/incremental > collector which outperforms hand-allocation in most cases. Unlike the Java > GC, which gives GCs a bad name, the OCaml GC doesn't allocate huge amounts > of memory at start-up, nor does it appear to have arbitrary fixed limits > that need to be overridden by hand.

From the linked article. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I have hard time believing this statement.

<comment><USER6> It is simply not true unless you have a pathological idea of "hand-allocation" (which to be fair, some programmers do program like).

Let me put it this way ... all "garbage collection is fast" claims are saying the following thing:

"It is faster for the programmer to destroy information about his program's memory use (by not putting that information into the program), and to have the runtime system dynamically rediscover that information via a constantly- running global search and then use what it gleans to somehow be fast, than it is for the programmer to just exploit the information that he already knows."

It sure sounds like nonsense to me.

<comment><USER7> Yup, an arena allocator that you drop at the end of an operation will always be faster than a GC.

<comment><USER4> For a modern generational GC, the minor heap works just like an arena allocator (at least for the data that can be thrown away), so this shouldn't result in any performance difference (assuming the minor heap is large enough).

<comment><USER8> Isn't it harder to deallocate the data if you actually check that it's unused, as a GC must, instead of just assuming it?

<comment><USER9> A GC doesn't check if memory is unused; it looks for memory that's used and frees whatever is leftover. Having a small fraction of used memory to total memory is what makes GC cheap (in compute time). It also means that allocating short-lived memory with abandon is cheap, if that's most of your allocation.

<comment><USER8> Got it, an interesting point and it follows that a use case can be engineered where a GC adds essentially zero overhead over an arena allocator.

But in the general case where some objects are short-lived and others aren't, surely manually splitting your allocations to malloc for long-lived ones and some sort of arena_alloc for short-lived ones ought to be faster than allocating them all in one place, then copying the ones which are still reachable out of the area reserved for short-lived objects?

(This is not to say a GC-based system will be slower "on average" because nobody knows what the "average" is. A realistic arena-based system can have objects most of which are short-lived but some do need to live longer and you only find out long after they're allocated; in that case, one has to manually reallocate those objects just like a GC would, and doing it, say, the C++ way is definitely more bug-prone than GC's bug-free handling of this, and one way to make it less bug-prone in C++ is to have deeper copies and avoid trying to minimize copying, and now you might easily be slower than a GC. I'm just saying that it's very easy to find a case when a system not getting any hints from the programmer wrt object lifecycles and instead discovering them fully automatically would be slower than a system which does get these hints. And of course a GC _can_ provide ways to supply these hints, I'm just not aware of one which does - perhaps it's avoided on the theory that the GC algorithm might change and you don't want to make hints which operate in terms not portable between algorithms a part of your interface.)

<comment><USER4> > But in the general case where some objects are short-lived and others > aren't, surely manually splitting your allocations to malloc for long-lived > ones and some sort of arena_alloc for short-lived ones ought to be faster > than allocating them all in one place, then copying the ones which are still > reachable out of the area reserved for short-lived objects?

This is where things get difficult, actually, and you need benchmarks because:

1\. You still have a bump allocator that's much faster than a general purpose first-fit/best-fit allocator and has generally better memory locality than a pool allocator.

2\. Offsetting that may be the additional tracing and/or copying you are doing as a result of garbage collection.

3\. Manual memory management techniques often have their own performance costs: std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr both add overhead and you sometimes see additional copying where lifetimes are difficult to predict.

Which one has the higher cost is often something that can be only tested for with actual code (and can go either way).

I'll also note that this is primarily of interest for functional languages, which often have a high allocation rate. For imperative programs, the memory allocation rate (and ratio of memory that contains pointers to memory that doesn't) is often so low that even a very basic mark/sweep collector would be fine, as long as pause times don't matter in your application domain. This means that it's often not really a practical issue, one way or the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> " _In the file called test_asm.ml the function f_

        let f a = a+1

" _The generated asm looks like the following:_ "

          camlTest_asm__f_33700:
          .L119:
              addq    $2, %rax
              ret

You sure about that? $2?

<comment><USER11> From the article:

Unlike floats, ints are represented as immediates, i.e., they are not allocated on the heap. To tag ints OCaml steals the LSB bit of an int and sets it to 1 always. This means that we get 63 bits of precision in OCaml ints and any int value n will appear in the assembly as 2*n+1 (the LSB is always 1 and the bits of the number shifted one place in).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the first code snippet, they havr add $2, %rax but the function actually adds 1 to its argument.

<comment><USER13> This is correct; OCaml integers are tagged with their LSB being 1 to indicate they're not a pointer. This means that the integer n is stored as 2n+1, and adding 1 requires modifying the stored value by 2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> anyone that can explain or refer to explanations of why ocaml boxes floats?

<comment><USER15> The section "OCaml Blocks and Values" at [https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/memory- representation-...](https://realworldocaml.org/v1/en/html/memory- representation-of-values.html) is a good explanation.

<comment><USER16> Let me summarize: academic language, it's easy for the GC that way, and "if you though that Float boxing would kill performance you wouldn't have started down this path"

<comment><USER17> Afaik flabmbda can do some float unboxing, and float unboxing is not impossible until you use generic value. Nope, OCaml is not "academic" but a very pragmatic language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> re-write it in C++</comment>


Ask HN: Should package managers include a reminder field? - <AUTHOR> I'm upgrading MacPorts after Catalina, and realized between `ports` and `brew` I have nearly thousands of packages installed. And I have no idea why. What would happen if package managers asked you for a "notes" or "comments" reminder line that is affixed to everything installed at that point? Good idea? Bad idea? <comment><USER2> I'd love a way to see what i actually installed as a first party install, no package manager I've seen does this, if you ask it "what packages are installed?" every manager just lists every library and other garbage, rather than the items I asked it to install, specifically. It's fucking stupid, and I can't believe there isn't a way to list those in every package manager.

So yes, a tagging system would be nice so maybe you could have it auto tag everything i install as "user installed" and the rest as "dependency for user install" or "system base image package", for example.</comment>


Electricity generation using quantum dots in glass - <AUTHOR> https://mlsystem.pl/electricity-from-the-glass-energy-revolution-with-the-use-of-quantum-dots/?lang=en <comment><USER2> Fluff? Where are the 'current per square meter' stats? They claim 'half your electricity from windows' but where's the data?

My windows are not in direct sunlight most of the day and all of the night. Most are never - on the north side, east side, west side.

All of them are never optimally directed at the sun even when fully illuminated.

The opportunity to generate power from accidental/incidental sources is very limited. Its always better to plan a real power installation with all the factors considered. 10x to 100x better.

<comment><USER3> The only way this might make sense is if the added cost of quantum dots in a window is tiny.

<comment><USER4> Not sure what this means dollar-wise, but accord o e article,

 __"Both – quantum dots ad perovskites can be easily placed on the surfaces and have comparable costs of production" __

Not sure what perovskites cost, but that should give you your answer (or a way to figure it out).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are windows in some part of the world optimally oriented towards solar radiation? Most residential windows in the US are shaded by awnings or face completely away from the path of the sun. It seems like only multi-story glass-clad buildings would be moderately relevant for this technology, and refacing, say, the Salesforce tower seems like it would be prohibitively expensive to make sense from an roi perspective.

<comment><USER6> Greenhouses maybe. Those are usually constructed in a way to get the most out of the incoming sunlight, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So many near sighted comments.

Many buildings have little space for solar panels. Most building need to reglaze every thirty years. Many building have no optimally oriented glass.

This does not mean that PV Glass is worthless. If efficiency and cost work out then there may we'll be a place for PV glass.

</comment><comment><USER8> What about stability and longevity, since the first breakthrough 10 years ago various teams were struggling to make them work in solar cells as quantum dots are chemically unstable under oxidizing conditions and undergo photo corrosion reactions?

</comment><comment><USER9> It all boils down to: what is the energy return on energy invested .

</comment><comment><USER10> Not my field of natural science but I saw a very bright future for this a decade ago.

Quite promising equations.

</comment><comment><USER11> What if it costs more electricity to produce this glass than it will ever produce in its entire lifespan? Does it make sense to produce the glass if that's the case?

<comment><USER12> It depends if the glass was produced with low carbon emissions (Nuclear, renewables) and avoid final users to use less coal power plants.

<comment><USER13> There are probably better ways of exporting energy than making glass.

<comment><USER12> I agree, but like the Tesla roof tiles, you should buy those windows when you need to replace existing ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Technology Will Kill White-Collar Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2015/12/07/billionaire-jeff-greene-says-technology-will-kill-white-collar-jobs-hosts-conference-on-inequality <comment><USER2> Eventually technology should kill pretty much all of the jobs. Human time and energy should be spent on what they find interesting, not on mundane stuff such as farming, housing, construction, database plumbing - all of which could be easily automated. No human should have to work to pay bills because there should be no bills. That should be the promise of technology. Only jobs left for humans should be things that require creativity, higher level reasoning and new ideas. Of course, there may be AI one day that does better than us on these areas as well and that's just part of evolution. It doesn't necessarily have to mean humans will go extinct. Universe has plenty of space for all of us and next generation of intellectual species.

<comment><USER3> If it were still up and running, I'd link you to regretsy.com for a primer on most people's level of creativity. But it's gone so now all I can say is that it showed the worst "user-generated stuff" people posted to Etsy.

Not buying it - we have specialization and professionalization in part to maintain quality of work. Everyone cannot be, and should not be, an artist.

Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs.

<comment><USER4> _Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs._

And when people do have to work, they just alternate between drugs that make them better workers, and drugs that let them forget work.

<comment><USER5> It seems like the basic blueprint of the human being, at every level, requires a certain amount of constant stress to function properly, an external challenge to the capabilities or even integrity of the system. _At every level_. Purely physical (motion), immunity, emotional level, intellectual level, etc.

Unless we change the blueprint in a massive way, we won't do well in a life of complete leisure.

<comment><USER6> What humans consider leisure is simply enjoyable work. If there is no "work" work and just leisure, we're fine.

But not if there's nothing to do at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Technology will kill white-collar jobs.

Yes, we all agree. No one disputes that. This article is more about Jeff Greene's conference and biography than it is about automation. Reads like an advertorial.

<comment><USER8> White-collar job: Writing Advertorials

Wait, I can write a script to do that...

<comment><USER9> Soon: "Google is proud to introduce Markov chain advertorials."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The second-order effect is to kill the businesses and jobs which depend on white collar patronage.

</comment><comment><USER11> I do wonder whether a certain amount of jobs will stay simply because of certain people's preferences for human made products. I mean, look at the markets for different types of food. We can genetically engineer stuff and use factory farming and all that stuff, but a significant audience just doesn't trust the technology or buy into the ethics of it.

Wonder if human made could become the next organic, at least among certain hipster types...

I also wonder whether a certain amount of this 'technology will kill jobs' stuff overlooks a small business issue that a certain few people don't seem to get. Namely, that the businesses that do well aren't always the fastest producing ones or the ones that make the 'best' products in some statistical sense. After all, about 90% of sites online are simply made obsolete by other, usually more popular ones. But many of them still gain an audience, even without being the 'best' at something or posting about it the quickest. All these talks and articles seem to assume the equivalents to Walmart and McDonalds will win in all markets because 'robots do things better/cheaper' and completely overlook such things as customer loyalty, branding, location or anything else.

AI is going to be an issue, but I think it's a tad premature to say all businesses will turn to it, or that businesses that aim for a more niche audience and care about the service more than the price will somehow stop being able to do well.

</comment><comment><USER12> Humans can always do the jobs that robots feel too overqualified to do.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why are we even talking about this guy? While this prediction may be true in the long run, it's not really news, and we're a long, long ways away from autonomous conversation agents that will replace expert professionals. These dramatic long-run predictions that fail to take into account other trends -- free solar energy, climatic collapse, all-you-can-edit genes -- are essentially worthless.

</comment><comment><USER14> If your connection to the world is via a phone and computer, you will be replaced.

<comment><USER15> Not sure that statement is true (I actually think it's almost the opposite). For example if programmers are replaced, who will create the programs for the machines? I imagine even after the first wave of robot overloads, they will want a version 2.0.

If you are a web designer, your connection is through a computer. Not sure robots can be creative (not yet anyways)

If you are a sales person, your connection will be through a phone (I don't think we are anywhere close to where a computer can make a judgement call based on speaking cues)

<comment><USER3> Yes, programmer will be the last job.

<comment><USER16> Programmer will be the last job, but most programming jobs will be a part of the first wave to go. I can't tell you how many days I've felt like my job (wire up this API by googling then massaging a code sample) was such an obviously mechanical process than the AI needed to do it was not significantly more advanced than where we are now. I do not expect most of these jobs to last another two decades (at least by then ageism will have pushed me out anyways).

<comment><USER17> I wonder how many programmers shouted doom and gloom when the first assembly language was created, when the first compilers came to take their jobs, or when the first framework stole their work?

Don't complain about boring, tedious boilerplate being removed, the removal just frees up our time for more interesting work.

<comment><USER16> The difference is that the market for different kinds of software products grew massively in the timeframe you're referencing, as did the complexity of software we were capable of creating. I don't expect these trends to continue. There will always be new technology to program for, but if automation takes over the gruntwork of development, which is the vast majority of it, market or complexity growth will not save it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Digitalization is to White-Collars what automation is to Blue-Collars.

</comment><comment><USER19> There was a sci fi book by (Niven?) mentioned to me by a friend about a future society where the songmakers where the most important. Anyone know the book title?

</comment><comment><USER20> There will have to be a shift to more creative work which can not be done by computers.

<comment><USER21> Is there enough demand for that much creative work? Who will consume it, if this trend widens the income inequality gap?

<comment><USER22> > Is there enough demand for that much creative work?

Are you serious? All we _do_ outside of work is consume others' creativity.

<comment><USER21> Let's consider just music for now. Go to Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc. and see how much music is already freely available. What percentage of those artists are able to make a living as full-time musicians? (especially when the trend is now to pay $X/mo to consume all you want)

And if income inequality increase, there will be less consumers able to consume that increased supply, further lowering the value of the supply of music. The "winners" of the situation who end up with more income do not have additional time to consume ever more greater quantities of music, while the losers have less money and potentially also less time (if they need to work more to make ends meet).

Edit: Also, given your wording of the question it seems like you aren't a producer of creative content yourself, so perhaps you aren't as directly aware of the trend I'm describing above, which has already had a serious effect upon an already difficult-to-pursue profession.

<comment><USER22> I guess I'm not as aware of the trend. My guess is that as the focus of commodities shifts from exporting intellect to exporting creativity, so, too, will the value of those contributions and the way we're exposed to them. At some point there will be a shift from the content distributors to the content creators directly, especially as artificial intelligence around curation of content gets better and better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Of course it will. Those labor costs are much higher than for fast food workers!</comment>


Musk spent $50k digging into critic's personal life - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/musk-paid-investigator-50000-to-substantiate-pedo-guy-claim/ <comment><USER2> Now imagine working for him and you can see one of the reasons why Tesla's executive turnover is so high. Unfortunately, I think Musk needs to get slapped with a few more lawsuits before he'll learn to set aside the social media nonsense and just focus on being an eccentric innovator.

</comment><comment><USER3> 50k as a percentage of Musk's net worth (20b) is the same as 25 cents for the avg. American (net worth 100k).

Few people would have qualms paying 25 cents to potentially get back at someone who annoyed them.

<comment><AUTHOR> If everyone could afford to hire a PI to dig up dirt on some random person they didn't like, it would be a highly regulated industry. Because it's mainly a service only the powerful or wealthy can afford no one bothers.

<comment><USER4> Where do they find these disgusting PIs anyhow? Craigslist?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact that the Vice reporter turned around and published an email that Musk clearly intended to be private is really pretty dirty. If anyone should be held accountable for damages it should be that guy.

<comment><USER6> Can you explain to me how exactly that relates to this story of Musk wasting $50k to dig into the life of a guy that slighted him? And how that absolves Musk of the fact that he spent said money to violate the privacy of someone else?</comment></comment>


Rethinking Work - dnt404-1 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/opinion/sunday/rethinking-work.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article&_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> I am a professional web developer (edit: actually i'm selling myself short with this title as I speak multiple programming languages, do UI and a host of other things) and haven't had a fulltime job in over 4 years. I try to get remote contracts that last from 1 to 6 months (3 months is the norm) and then I spend a month or two off self educating and making video games (trying to transition to indie game dev). I'm exponentially happier than when I had to wake up and head to a 9 to 5 even though I have less money and live much more sparsely.

<comment><USER2> The challenging question is: do you have kids?

<comment><USER3> FWIW, I do, and I do essentially the same thing as OP. Your comment implies that the two are incompatible: why do you think that is the case?

<comment><USER2> I also have kids and a company but I can recognize the risk I am/was taking. Without kids I can live in 2 square meters, eat cheap, be healthy, etc. With kids I pay the best education, the best health plans, etc. Not the same.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I certainly understand the drive to provide the "best X, Y, and Z" for kids, but I'm pretty satisfied with reducing expenses and providing "good enough X, Y, and Z" for my son in exchange for not being stressed out and being able to spend more high-quality time with him.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel the same way - and that's no judgement on the other end. If a person is capable of dealing with the high stress and feels that quality time is less important, or is able to maintain a good balance and can provide that quality time regardless of FT employment, then I think it's an excellent choice for their life. I don't think there's a one size fits all option for this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As per the famous Ghana postal workers recording ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=por5SopwHDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=por5SopwHDc) and [http://faculty.weber.edu/tpriest/FacetsMdl_files/Postal%20Wo...](http://faculty.weber.edu/tpriest/FacetsMdl_files/Postal%20Workers.html) ), it's perfectly possible to _enjoy_ even tedious work if you have a good attitude. It helps to have a healthy culture.

In the U.S. we are culturally _taught_ that we are supposed to dislike our work, especially if it isn't prestigious. If you dance around and have _fun_ at work in the U.S. people look at you weird and generally discourage any such thing. But there's no reason not to bother enjoying your time.

This is on top of the various other points they make in the article and related stuff…

<comment><USER5> >In the U.S. we are culturally taught that we are supposed to dislike our work, especially if it isn't prestigious. If you dance around and have fun at work in the U.S. people look at you weird and generally discourage any such thing. But there's no reason not to bother enjoying your time.

I can think of one: the same reason Steve Jobs paid himself $1 a year.

Managing incentives is tough. If you try and reward someone for a task, you may find the incentives at some point misaligned.

Let work be fun, and you open yourself to work being sacrificed to protect the fun.

Therefore: abolish fun.

I haven't made an eloquent case for it, but I think that's the reasoning, and I'm not sure it's wrong, frankly.

<comment><USER6> The only reason Steve Jobs and any other executive pays themselves $1 on a W4 is because their income from other means of compensation gets taxed less than regular income. They aren't doing it as some sort of show of "look how much I love my job!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We don't have to look far: almost the entire OSS movement is driven by purpose, not money. Sure, money _can_ be made afterwards if one so desires (cf RedHat), but it's not the primary motivator (in most cases). I wonder if any academics have done studies on the OSS movement and what drives the contributors.

<comment><USER8> Actually, this was the topic of my thesis for my Master's degree.

Link: [http://flowdelic.com/2005/03/03/learning-from-open- source/](http://flowdelic.com/2005/03/03/learning-from-open-source/)

Abstract:

In this paper, I study the workings of several successful Internet-based collaborative communities to identify what it is that enables them to succeed, even thrive, despite the highly-dispersed nature of their collaboration. This research reveals that while the practices and tools used by the referenced communities are important to their success, the most critical difference lies much deeper, in the economic-basis of their organizational structure. This economic mode of production, described by Yochai Benkler as "commons-based peer-production", is studied to answer two key questions: First, does this economic model, in itself, encourage more successful virtual teamwork? Second, is the peer-production model of collaboration fundamentally tied to the open source model or can it also be applied in a commercial context to create proprietary products?

A key source for the paper was "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm" by Yochai Benkler.

Link: [http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html](http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html)

In this paper Benkler describes a mathematical model for human motivation, which accounts for influence of money. Highly recommended read.

Edit: fixed name typo

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is similar to what Lewis Mumford has said in Technics and Civilization. Basically, more abundance means everything gets cheaper. Unfortunately the wealth created is locked up within a few classes and barely trickles down. Like the farmer who only produces cash crops and has no food to feed their family or the shoe maker whose children have no shoes. Mumford suggests that with such abundance we need "basic" communism which goes further than a guaranteed basic income. People will still have an incentive to work but they'll be spared the starvation and homelessness.

It's hard to get used to an abundance mindset but we're definitely at that point where we absolutely must. It's like pre-AWS and post-AWS: in the former we have to worry about provisioning more hardware and virtual machines and worrying about running out of space (I'm in that situation now where we have a private cloud and maybe 2 more VMs can be spun up and that's it). In the latter situation we would be able to provision as many VMs as needed. Sure your costs increase because you went overboard and provisioned one too many VMs but at least you got to worry about over-abundance rather than scarcity!

<comment><USER10> Does the improved quality of life get locked up? Americans have developed pretty staggering wealth inequality in the last 3 or 4 decades, for example, but the material quality of life has greatly improved in the same period of time. More people own homes, more people have more and better cars, everyone has access to more entertainment outlets, etc. Yeah, Steve Jobs gets a diamond studded speedboat, but everyone else gets Iphones. It's not equal, but it does represent a significant improvement in material quality of life.

<comment><USER11> > More people own homes

Source? My guess would be that in fact, more people are homeless, jobless, living on food stamps and/or without health insurance.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/home-ownership-rates-drop- to-...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/home-ownership-rates-drop-to-lowest- since-1967.html)

> The U.S. homeownership rate fell to 63.4 percent in the second quarter of > 2015, according to the U.S. Census. That is down from 63.7 percent in the > first quarter and from 64.7 percent in the same quarter of 2014. It marks > the lowest homeownership rate since 1967.

> Homeownership peaked at 69.2 percent at the end of 2004, when the housing > market was in the midst of an epic boom. The 50-year average is 65.3 > percent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I took a Human Resources course, there were 3 theories:

Theory X (The oldest): People won't work unless you force them to, and without constant supervision, they'll slack off.

Theory Y: People are looking for self-actualization, and you need to find what gets them excited, get them to do that, and get out of their way.

Theory Z (currently the most popular): Both Theory X and Theory Y apply.

<comment><USER14> I wish Swedish schools would stop basing all education on Y and reintroduce X as the main driver.

For the last 15 years (Since Y became popular) the school system has done nothing but deliver absolutely worthless human beings.

<comment><USER15> Can you elaborate on that?

<comment><USER16> Most Swedish educational experts feel the stark decline the OP is speaking of is a direct result of decentralization and the funneling of public funds into private, for profit, institutions. [1]

Generally, conservative elements in Sweden discount educational experts assessment saying that kids are allowed to be 'too free' in the class (e.g. blaming it on the declining moral fiber of children or immigrants or what not).

It served as a lab for what proponents of the voucher system in the U.S. are looking to do.

1\. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/sweden- schools-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/sweden-schools- crisis-political-failure-education)

<comment><USER14> No need to politicize it. I think both decentralization and the banishment of X for the benefit of Y have ruined the schools.

Mostly I'm upset about them making everything social. Not allowing humans to wander amongst ideas on their own uninterruptedly and make their own connections have created shallow and empty workers.

I wish what A.C. Grayling is doing would be taken more seriously before it is too late.

<comment><USER17> > Not allowing humans to wander amongst ideas on their own uninterruptedly and > make their own connections have created shallow and empty workers.

Huh, is that not exactly what Y is about?

As for turning everything social, welcome to the modern work environment. If you can do social you are out of a job, as the non-social jobs have been automated away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Related: [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/21/books- interview...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/21/books-interview- david-graeber-the-utopia-of-rules)

The traditional capitalist view of human productivity is misanthropic and authoritarian. It makes sense if you want to justify hierarchical relationships and reduce the autonomy of the masses.

There ought to be plenty of engineers and programmers on HN. They should know how valuable autonomy and meaning is to our productivity. This is universal: Everyone likes doing good work and doing exactly the right amount of work. No one likes working too little or working needlessly much. Yet, we live in a society where the politicians start honking like geese when there 'aren't enough jobs'. That's like saying there aren't enough bugs for me to fix. When the work's done right, there's no work to be done and we move on to something new. Not so in our system. When the work's done, you better find more work or you will fall into calamity and you will have deserved it. When you tie all human existence to producing value for your boss, work becomes a slavish social contract and not the means by which human beings improve the world for ourselves and each other.

Trust people, and they act trustworthy. Respect people, and they act respectable. Give people the trust and respect required to give them autonomy in their work, and they will do amazing things for themselves and you. The most lovely software I work with is produced for _free_ , and it tends to be amazingly good work, done from a position of respect, trust, and generosity.

I'm sure many people are tired of my lefty whinging about capitalism, but the longer I live, the more it doesn't make sense for my personal productivity or fulfillment. I'm pretty tired of having a sword hanging by a thread over my head in a cynical attempt to make me 'be a productive member of society'. It makes me _less_ productive! It makes me _less_ happy! I'm tired of having to see everyone whose labor goes into the comfort of my life as a greedy adversary who would destroy me if this system weren't around to 'protect me'.

<comment><USER19> "When the work's done right, there's no work to be done and we move on to something new."

The work is never done right. You talk about engineers and programmers right? Well they should know that their work never ends; there's always the need to continually improve the product so that you don't "fall behind", fix the rampant bugs that occur when you add in new features, fix the bugs that were caused by you fixing the previous bugs, realize that the customers actually wanted something different, need to refactor the code properly to match the latest design fad, have to rewrite the program in a brand new language...

And all this work has to be done. Because if you don't continually upgrade your product, then your product will quickly become old-fashioned and obsolete.

So, when we say "there's no work to be done", it's a blatant lie. Either it is an excuse we make up so that we can leave something that we obviously hate doing, or it's because our employers are unwilling or unable to pay for it to be done. Lying may make you happy, but it makes me _less_ happy. I prefer misanthropy over delusion.

<comment><USER18> Open Source software survives without needing masters with whips above or the ruin of poverty below. When there's work to be done _the people who do the work know there 's work to be done_ and they will do the work.

> Either it is an excuse we make up so that we can leave something that we > obviously hate doing

Don't force people to do things they hate doing in order to survive when the amount of work it requires to feed and keep everyone comfortable is a far smaller quantity.

> or it's because our employers are unwilling or unable to pay for it to be > done.

Don't have a system where work is only done at the whim and for the benefit of property owners.

If the work is never done, then people will keep working. They will do that because they want to work. It does not follow that we need bosses, hierarchy, management, government, property, militaries, and police forces to make us do the work just because there is work to be done.

So where did I lie?

P.S. I'm sorry for being aggressive. I am emphatic about this; I am not doing the work I want to do because I need to do the work someone with money wants me to do. Because people will toss me into the garbage disposal if I am not working for money. This article indicates that I am not alone; I am part of a majority.

<comment><USER19> I accept your apology about being aggressive, especially since I may have been a bit too empathic myself (about work). The "lie" is about you saying that when work is done, people move on. I think the truth is that people say work is done so that they can move on, but work can never be done.

We do seem to agree on that point though, so I should probably retract your comment "lies". You're fine with people leaving 'projects' incomplete if they hate it...and I'm fine with that too. But work is indeed left incomplete, and that's why I made my comment.

If it makes you feel better, replace "employers" with "the open source community", and redefine pay to mean code/maintenance instead of money. I think my point still holds.

<comment><USER20> > I accept your apology about being aggressive, especially since I may have > been a bit too empathic myself (about work). The "lie" is about you saying > that when work is done, people move on. I think the truth is that people say > work is done so that they can move on, but work can never be done.

Sure, but the perfect has _always_ been the enemy of the good. If we _actually applied_ this advice, we'd never ship anything. At some point, things are good enough to send them off and go home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article is basically a diluted version of Bob Black's _The Abolition of Work_ [1].

I'm not sure how possible Black's vision is _now_ because I think there's still scarcity, but it needs to be considered because it's a much better future than the one we're heading toward if we keep pretending that the capitalist work/ownership model is meritocratic. In the future, _all_ jobs can be automated, and we're going to run into very deep issues long before even half are automated.

[1] [http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm](http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm)

</comment><comment><USER22> Any labor with love is a privilege. Any labor without love is sacrifice. It's safe to say people are more than capable of being content with sacrifice. Foxconn workers protesting the enforcement of US labor restrictions is a good example. They're there to make a sacrifice, not live their lives.

In the west, resistance towards sacrifice is appears to be mounting. But what is work but an activity that generates value for which you receive a kickback? And there are plenty of activities that are lovable and that generate value. Hence, the movement towards lifestyle jobs and placing passion first is only natural. Entrepreneurs could hold the key here, because they have proven they're capable of generating those jobs, beginning with themselves.

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

― Confucius

<comment><USER23> Confucius didn't say that

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/02/job- love/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/02/job-love/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have found people that are often the most satisfied at work are the ones that have figured out the best way to play a game with their own emotions and instincts. They understand when they are tired and what makes them tired. The know how to dangle the carrot in front of themselves to get to the next level. Sure, they may dislike work at some instinctual level just like everyone else, but they control that along with everything else in their lives.

</comment><comment><USER25> Left out of these discussions is the division between worker and owner. Classism and elitism are main problems for our society.

That is not to suggest everyone start quoting Marx, give up money, and assume some kind of techno-communist utopia will just fall out.

I think technology and decentralization are key, but we have to do quite a lot more thinking and engineering and integration of viewpoints than most people assume.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's clear that people will work hard for many things besides money; to suggest otherwise is absurd. The evidence is right in front of our noses, every day: Consider artists, scientists, scholars, soldiers (some of whom risk their lives in the worst working environment you can imagine, and need food stamps), teachers, FOSS software developers, explorers, parents, political and social movement leaders and members, etc.

(I wonder how much Adam Smith made? I also wonder if he really said the things he represents to us now.)

</comment><comment><USER27> > Its survey last year found that almost 90 percent of workers were either > "not engaged" with or "actively disengaged" from their jobs.

Is this true? That seems like an very high number.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash I presume the the survey saw "very engaged" as always on at all times, which is rather misleading as I love my programming job but when encountering the many frustrating and complicated problems that come across my path I'll often reach for my phone and go on HN. But I wouldn't say I'm "not engaged." I suspect many here would feel the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just a note that the article (perhaps inadvertently) confuses a little: industrial manufacturing _must_ be highly routinized and boring if it's working well. Tolerances are very tight for well made manufactured goods, since they have to be to be assembled into larger, more complex goods. Let an operator get creative with a running process, and all bets are off [0].

Besides! People are also _terrible_ at that sort of work, so it's better to automate the job and have the people supervise machines. The machines do the terrible soul-crushing tedious work and the worker oversees the hiccups and glitches. (Machines are pretty lousy supervisors, and are difficult to program supervisory roles in the messy situations a lot of manufacturing happens in.)

And keep in mind that's for a _running_ line or process. I don't think there's room for creativity on carrying out the line's program, but there's endless opportunities for planning and improving the process off-line. People are great at deliberation, planning, and brainstorming. ( _Too_ good, some may cynically say :) I.e., you'll never get a better ROI than buying a group of operators lunch and let them rail at you about something that irritates them about a line. And include them in planning/upgrade meetings; they own the line, after all!

And there's the exception of those times where it just makes economic sense to plop a person down for something boring and lonely. For example, the cost of vision control tech is getting ever more affordable and powerful, but it still takes a substantial amount of engineering work to actually install and tune the system for the specific situation it's in; by contrast, people are cheaper in the short-run and can be reasonably effective very quickly. (It's mind boggling when you see a failure that you think, "I could have paid a guy a year's salary to sit in a chair and watch for that one obvious, uncommon failure mode event.")

[0] This is an interesting dichotomy: the workers _must_ own the process they're working on, but they also need to not constantly fiddle with settings. If they're not _actively_ tweaking stuff, then they feel disenfranchised, and if they are constantly messing with stuff then the operator is simulating a randomly tuned PID loop on whatever dials happen to be nearby. The root is that people are generally terrible at figuring out the difference between "normal variation" and "exceptional variation", and tune both. So when Deming talks of _knowledge of variation_ , this has to be balanced by _knowledge of psychology_.

And that balancing act brings us to this article's contention.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Key_principl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Key_principles)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm a great fan of Sociotechnical systems [1] for exactly the reasons mentioned in this article. A lot of focus is put on making jobs more meaningful and giving workers more responsibilities. The theory is that this will ultimately lead to higher productivity.

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

</comment><comment><USER30> The article contains a charming contradiction which really shows how in the end "scientific management" gets its dues: it tries to show that scientific management is so much worse than so-called "enligtened management" using... methods of scientific management! (e.g. hard metrics like sales growth).</comment>


On creating a user driven social media 'safe space' - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/TheMightyLlama/bb77a05d3dde4da2511426e34279e7d6 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here, and first timer. This post was off the back of some thinking I've been doing about the arbitrary nature of community guidelines enforcement we've seen on some platforms recently. A comment by mr__y was the catalyst for me posting my thoughts so far. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461013)

The idea was to provide a solution which would separate the administration of the platform and the administration of the content. The former would be done by the company and the latter by the users with minimal oversight by employees of the company.

This certainly needs more work, but at least I've offered up a solution for criticism.</comment>


Britain's Brexit: How Baby Boomers Defeated Millennials in Historic Vote - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/brexit-referendum/britain-s-brexit-how-baby-boomers-defeated-millennials-historic-vote-n598481 <comment><AUTHOR> > "If you're of the view that, 'The old aren't going to be around forever,' > then there's some truth in that," said Page. "But your vote isn't weighted > on how old you are."

Why not have a formula to weight votes based upon the expected lifespan impact they'll have? It gives the young more skin in the game and arguably any long term changes (ex: Brexit) will impact them more.

Could use something like MAX((LIFE_EXPECTANCY - SUFFRAGE_AGE - AGE) / (LIFE_EXPECTANCY - SUFFRAGE_AGE), .25). That would give an 18 year old a full vote and someone who's 75 a quarter of one. To make things even more fun, you should get a full vote for each tax dependent minor (i.e. one for each child under 18).

The primary reason I can see this never happening is that baby boomers suck and would fight tooth and nail against anything that removes their chokehold on political systems.

<comment><USER2> I don't think the world needs any extra ageism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how much the intention behind Brexit matter in negotiations with EU.

Britain probably wants to negotiate similar deal as Norway has. Not in a EU, but member of EEA (European Economic Area ) and EFTA (European Free Trade Association). In the end Brits obey EU rules but they don't have a vote.

If Britain starts to negotiate that kind of deal, does Brexit crowd rebel against it too?

<comment><USER4> One thing is for sure: UK won't be acting like a spoiled brat anymore, as it did while it was in the EU. So they'll probably take whatever deal the EU throws at them. And if the EU people are smart, it won't be a great deal either, otherwise it could encourage other such exits.

EU's #1 priority right now is to stop other countries from exiting, not ensuring a "smooth landing" for the brexit (for either UK or the EU itself). Those two goals are actually in complete conflict. The harder the brexit will be on UK, the easier it will be to convince other countries not to exit. The opposite scenario is also true.</comment></comment>