Show HN: A simple IP address API - <AUTHOR> http://ipinfo.io/ <comment><USER2> I use [https://freegeoip.net/](https://freegeoip.net/) which gives you output in JSON, CSV or XML and has a limit of 10,000 requests per hour. The limit of 1,000 per day on this service is too low.

<comment><USER3> It's also more accurate, ipinfo.io thinks I'm in Enfield whereas freegeoip.net accurately identifies that I'm in London.

<comment><USER4> Interesting - freegeoip.net thinks I'm about 30km from Brisbane in the opposite direction to the side I'm on.

ipinfo.io thinks I'm in Brisbane, which is slightly more accurate (although also less specific), although still about 25km out.

<comment><USER5> /waves at another Brisbanite on HN

It gets my Location wrongish here on the Gold Coast, but not too far out. We have huge suburbs though, all of the GeoIP DB's seem to think im in the wrong suburb, despite having a static IP on Telstra cable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are looking to build something like this, check out MaxMind @ [http://www.maxmind.com/en/city](http://www.maxmind.com/en/city)

</comment><comment><USER7> I just finished integrating geo IP lookups into an app I'm working on, using a library that queries a number of the free IP lookup services out there. Something that I've learned from this is just how hard it is to stay on top of IP geolocations. Most of the free services use incomplete or outdated databases, and if you want decent accuracy you probably need to opt for a paid package from a company who has the resources to track IP address location changes, and keep their database up to date.

So, I'm wondering, does ipinfo.io maintain their own database, or do they sub- license someone else's database? If they're maintaining their own, how good are they at keeping it valid and updated and what is the coverage like?

<comment><USER8> It uses one of the free databases that are available.

Ip address 184.108.40.206 is a good way to check these services. This should position to the island of Sint Maarten. A serious offering would know that. The free ones always set the position to Curacao. Just about 900 NM away...

<comment><USER9> This does it correctly:

[http://myip.ms/info/whois/18.104.22.168](http://myip.ms/info/whois/18.104.22.168)

<comment><USER10> This is the first service I tried in 8 years which returned correctly the location of an IP that i know physically where it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys/gals,

I posted this for a friend: [https://twitter.com/coderholic](https://twitter.com/coderholic)

He's the guy behind Lighbox.com which Facebook acquired, really awesome guy!

I guess he'll be wondering where all the sudden traffic is coming in from!

<comment><USER11> Thanks Zach! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome Ben! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks very well done and useful.

Usually though I just use [http://www.moanmyip.com](http://www.moanmyip.com) for the weirdness of it. Or pretty much any search engine includes that up top when you search for "ip address".

</comment><comment><USER13> I use [http://ip-api.com/](http://ip-api.com/) and I find it works great (docs: [http://ip-api.com/docs/](http://ip-api.com/docs/)).

It provides response formats: xml, json, csv, newline separated, serialized php. And enforce a limit of 240 requests per minute (that's 14,400 per hour for the lazy).

Fun fact, if you're running tor (tor-0.2.4.17 as proxy not the browser) you'll see the tor exit node in "IP:" and your actual ip i "Real IP:", thanks to gdns' EDNS ([https://gdns.re/edns-demo/](https://gdns.re/edns-demo/))

<comment><USER14> Fun fact: if you are running tor and you see the tor exit node and your IP _you are doing it wrong_! You are leaking DNS requests. Tor goes to great lengths informing you that something is wrong in the logs. This is not thanks to edns, it is thanks to your inability to use the software correctly. Please see:

[https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/Preventing...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/Preventing_Tor_DNS_Leaks)

<comment><USER13> _> it is thanks to your inability to use the software correctly_

I disagree, but have you said it is down to my inability to explain what the problem is, then I agree.

I'm aware of the DNS leaks, and obviously wasn't clear enough and failed to explain what the problem was.

The leak only happens when you run the tor proxy daemon, and your own browser with the appropriate proxy settings.

It's down to the way Firefox, uses the defined proxy for the initial DNS and HTTP requests, but then bypasses it when doing DNS lookups for JS within the initial page loaded.

It doesn't leak DNS lookups made by JS scripts if you use the tor version that includes a mod-Firefox browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't mean to be a huge jerk - I think the service is cool - but IPv4 exhaustion is months away! All of the major GeoIP vendors have IPv6 support. It's simultaneously saddening and frustrating that it might as well not exist.

<comment><USER16> For ARIN (where most of us will be getting our IPs) projected runout (assuming no "bank run") is closer to a year out[1]

Now, people /have/ been predicting some crazy run on IPv4 for some time now, I was pretty certain it was going to happen in 2011 and while a run is still quite possible, it hasn't happened yet, and there are a bunch of outstanding /8s that could very well be returned; the DoD has been returning blocks, and they still have a bunch more they could return. Based on my own previous expectation that runout was going to occur in 2011, I'd be surprised if we run out before 2015.

Now, if you are dealing with network admins and infrastructure types? IPv6 is very important. I give my customers an IPv6 address by default, and will give a /64 upon request. It's pretty important for the sort of people I have as customers.

You see, we're the ones who have to deal with this 'nat hell' \- and make no mistake about it, it will be hellish.

However, from a business perspective? If you are going after business types? The internet is still entirely IPv4.

[1][http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html](http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is interesting. IP address databases are typically bought and sold for figures in the thousands. This service presumably purchases one or some of these and attempts to make up the cost by providing it on an as-needed basis.

I wonder if there are any additional data sources that can just be bought wholesale and sold in pieces? Think of all the applications that needed very precise IP address data but couldn't afford the whole dataset. They can now exist!

I could also be wrong and this isn't at all the approach this service takes...

<comment><USER18> Maxmind's is free to City/Country level, $90/month for a site license. [http://www.maxmind.com/en/geolocation_landing](http://www.maxmind.com/en/geolocation_landing)

<comment><USER19> That's for your own use however, the license says:

Access to the data is restricted to employees and contractors of the license holder. With contractors, the license holder is liable should the contractors violate the terms of the agreement.

Data may not be stored in a way that is publicly accessible.

If you wanted to build a public server with that, you would have to use their per-usage API according to their FAQ: [http://www.maxmind.com/en/faq#lookuptool](http://www.maxmind.com/en/faq#lookuptool)

<comment><USER20> You can also use their free databases [http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/](http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

<comment><USER21> Correct, but the site isn't following the terms of that license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> About 8 miles less accurate than MaxMind -- 11 miles wrong vs. Maxmind's 3. I'm always curious: what is the provenance of services like this one / MaxMind — my ISP? Some past inadvertant GPS-enabled requests that leak out?

</comment><comment><USER23> Why would anyone pay for this? Maxmind is the industry standard and way cheaper.

<comment><USER21> And presumably this service is just repackaging such an existing system. My old company had a tool to figure our what widely used geo db was used for these services (to properly judge it's value), but I no longer have access to this tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Any plans for IPv6 support?

<comment><USER11> Absolutely!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm on a campus network that reverse proxies all HTTP traffic. The service shows my internal 10.x.x.x IP. Just a heads-up that you might want to fix your handling of X-Forwarded-For headers.

<comment> mike-cardwell Yeah. Should exclude any of these: 127.0.0.0/8, 10.0.0.0/8, 192.168.0.0/16 and the lesser known 172.16.0.0/12

Also, I wonder if it handles X-Forwarded-For headers that contain multiple IP addresses, because there are multiple levels of proxying taking place.

Also. No IPv6? How boring.

<comment><USER26> Full list of "special" addresses: [http://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc3330](http://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc3330)

<comment><USER26> Or I guess this is the most recent version: [http://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc6890](http://tools.ietf.org/search/rfc6890)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was going to say that there was a small typo when trying out 127.0.0.1:

"127.0.0.1 is a bogon or private IP address that should not appear on the Internet."

But then I learned that "bogon' is actually a word:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogon_filtering](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogon_filtering)

And re-reading the sentence, I'm not sure what "bogon" would be a typo for anyway..."Vogon"? Anyway, good handling of an edge/nonsense case!

</comment><comment><USER28> Hmm. For me it was off by 20 miles. Not bad considering that most other GeoIP services get my location off by several hundred miles.

I'll probably be using this. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER29> "city": null, "region": null, "country": "US"

At least it got the US part right.

<comment><USER11> What's your IP?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Recommendation: I have the feeling your sales would be significantly boosted if you added some sort of tiered service plans on top of your free tier, instead of requiring the frictionful process of reaching out to a sales address.

<comment><USER11> Did you see [http://ipinfo.io/pricing](http://ipinfo.io/pricing)? What changes would you suggest?

<comment><USER17> Sorry, I somehow missed that site from reading your docs. I'm willing to chalk this up to my own mistake rather than bad design on your part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Noticed this:

JSONP support: [http://ipinfo.io/?callback=test](http://ipinfo.io/?callback=test)

Paid JSONP support: [https://ipinfo.io/?callback=test](https://ipinfo.io/?callback=test)

<comment><USER30> Bonus points for checking that the callback function is callable before calling it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In a shell script you can do:

        MYIP="`curl -s http://ipinfo.io/ip`"

[http://myip.enix.org/REMOTE_ADDR](http://myip.enix.org/REMOTE_ADDR) is similar.

<comment><USER32> My "goto" for shell scripts is [http://echoip.org/](http://echoip.org/), though I recently setup my own such script as well. It's a one-liner in PHP, though having some json output alternatives would be useful as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> [http://ip-api.com/](http://ip-api.com/) provides correct details. [http://ipinfo.io/](http://ipinfo.io/) showing that I am in US.

<comment><USER34> This one correctly detected my city, something the others couldn't do.

Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Doesn't support IPv6 :)

</comment><comment><USER36> A strange site, it doesn't support IP at all: [http://ip6.nl/#!ipinfo.io](http://ip6.nl/#!ipinfo.io)

It merely does _legacy IP_ , so what's the point?

</comment><comment><USER37> Has anyone done research on quality of geo DB? I've personally prefer Maxmind because of the format of the DB, but Netacuity seemed to be giving more up to date results.

</comment><comment><USER38> I created a Bash script using this service: [https://github.com/niklasberglund/ipinfo](https://github.com/niklasberglund/ipinfo)

</comment><comment><USER39> Many free IP info APIs: [https://www.mashape.com/search?query=ip+info](https://www.mashape.com/search?query=ip+info)

</comment><comment><USER40> In my case it was off by 55 miles so the address, lat/lng and postcode were wrong but other than that ok (my ISP is Andrews and Arnold).

Why not just use Maxmind though?

</comment><comment><USER41> [http://ip-api.com/](http://ip-api.com/) is also a nice alternative, with JSON, CSV, XML, and others.

</comment><comment><USER42> If the hostname is unknown, the json hostname property should probably be null instead of the string "No hostname"

</comment><comment><USER43> It incorrectly states my IP is a Tor exit node when in fact it's just a relay.

I'll go ahead and file an issue with the github lib.

</comment><comment><USER18> zvanness, would you be interested in also implementing this;

        http://whatsmyresolver.stdlib.net/
        curl -L  http://whatsmyresolver.stdlib.net/resolver/

? It should be relatively easy to add (happy to explain how it works), and I'm personally longing to turn off my service!

<comment><USER44> Sorry to intercept, but how does it work?

<comment><USER45> My first guess would be that the domain uses a custom nameserver that logs all dns queries and serves back a different IP to each user. Then when the http request comes in to that specific IP, it can check the dns logs to identify the resolver.

But surely.. that would either require (a) a massive IP space (i guess that works if the site is IPv6 only), or (b) assuming a pretty short time between dns lookup and http request, and hence possibly false results if the dns lookup is cached somewhere and the IP has since been reused

I'd love to know if there's a better way of implementing this.

<comment><USER46> A better way would be to hand each client a unique hostname (sessionidhere.whatsmyresolver.stdlib.net) and match that dns query to the http client? For example as an ajax call from the main website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vertex-four This believes that I am in London. I am most decidedly not in London.

FreeGeoIP thinks I'm in Edinburgh, which is only slightly better.

<comment><USER47> This believes that I am in Colchester, FreeGeoIP can say that I am just in the UK, Google in incognito mode thinks that I am in Sheffield. Correct answer: Manchester :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> "postal" and "loc" are a bit off in my case. My true location is about 6km away from "loc".

</comment><comment><USER49> You should probably add -> "add_header Strict-Transport-Security max- age=31536000;" to your nginx config.

<comment><USER50> Bad idea. Then anyone who accesses it over HTTPS won't be able to use HTTP anymore and HTTPS requires a paid plan of some sort.

Ideally they should be on separate domains, at which point HSTS would be more suited.

<comment><USER49> Paid plan for API access I guess - hoping one wont use the same environment for both. I meant this for the stripe frame which kicks in, cant really trust an https frame that has a start from http.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> What's the underlying GeoIP database?

</comment><comment><USER52> You have a typo on the /developers page. It says client-sde I'm assuming it should say client-side.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm getting latitude = 60.0000, longitude = 100.0000 for my IP. Which is about 1000 km away from me.

</comment><comment><USER54> Are you placing all virgin media uk customers in London? I'm in belfast.

<comment><USER55> As a customer of AT&T in the United States, I often get put in Chiacago or Kansas. Go figure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I just like the fact that this could have been called "iPapi".

</comment><comment><USER57> here is a free, simple, and accurate geolocation service: [http://free- geolocation.appspot.com/](http://free-geolocation.appspot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER58> Nice... can we have a trailing newline on the JSON?

</comment><comment><USER59> Complete with completely wrong geolocation...

<comment><USER11> What's your IP, and (roughly) correct location?

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> You just got yourself a customer!

</comment><comment><USER61> my-ip.heroku.com is a very simple alternative.

</comment><comment><USER62> awesome! what technology do you use?

<comment><USER63> Ingredients: Node, Connect, Express on Nginx. *

* Courtesy of Wappalyzer

<comment><USER11> Yeah, exactly that! I'll have to check out Wappalyzer.

The code is written in coffeescript, and some key npm modules are:

\- [https://github.com/caolan/async](https://github.com/caolan/async)

\- [https://github.com/brycebaril/node-tokenthrottle- redis](https://github.com/brycebaril/node-tokenthrottle-redis)

\- [https://github.com/rs/node-netmask](https://github.com/rs/node-netmask)

I was at one point using [https://github.com/tjfontaine/node- dns](https://github.com/tjfontaine/node-dns) for the hostname lookups, but it was significantly slower that the built in dns module, so I ended up wrapping that with my own timeout logic.</comment></comment></comment>


Comcast domain Hijackers Say They Warned the Company First - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/comcast-hijacke.html

<comment><USER2> "But once we were in," adds EBK, "it was, like, fuck it."

That combined with the bong-hit photo pretty much makes this one of the best Wired articles I've read this year.</comment>


Show HN: Label Studio – modular data labeling tool - <AUTHOR> https://go.heartex.net/demo/label-studio/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, we're about to release an initial version of our modular data labeling tool to the open source and want to give you a quick peek.

Any feedback is much appreciated!

<comment><USER2> Demo is pretty much useless, all that happens when someone clicks on your example links is it shows a password prompt. You're going to have to give a much better teaser of your site if you want anyone to actually register for your site. I'm certainly not going to waste my time registering for a site where I have no idea what it does or how well it does it. There is a reason why sites spend time explaining their products to people. That time is important.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, sorry about that. It was not intentional to put an authorization there. We have removed that. You can now click on example links and get the resulting UI.

<comment><USER2> I'm clicking on the annotate with a bounding box example. I'm running chrome. There is no way I can find to add a bounding box. There is a button labeled show instructions. It reports "Something wrong, we're on it! Try it later"

These aren't subtle bugs I'm reporting. Please try your own site yourself first before posting it to HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point taken. To put a bounding box, you need to preselect a label first and then click on the image - that should work fine. If you still have patience with us, please check and let me know how it goes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Firefox push[ing] irrelevant notifications - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1655178 <comment><USER2> I love Firefox, and believe it's vitally important for an open web, but Mozilla has been shooting themselves in the foot. People don't pay attention to all the positive new features and news, they pay attention to negative coverage like this.

And of course spam from any app is unacceptable without signing up prior, especially including a browser of all things, but that's pretty much a given.

<comment><USER3> Mozilla has a surprising pattern of not missing an opportunity to look stupid, for minimal gains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is troubling that there was nobody in the meeting room to raise concerns about pushing notifications to ~250 millions[1] of users.

[1] Monthly Active users at [https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user- activity](https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity)

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if we needed a "chromium" version of firefox that's been stripped of all of the bloatware

<comment><USER6> What do you consider bloatware in that regard?

<comment><USER7> i volunteer the stupid "pocket" thing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just wish there was a global switch for disabling new features (where possible) by default.

These would then be re-enabled by individual switches, so accepting new updates would just apply security fixes to existing features, and not create usability and security issues from unwanted new features.

Not everyone wants to be the beta tester for endless new features, especially if they prefer stability and are happy with the existing functionality.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use Firefox for reasons, but sometime Mozilla makes it hard.

They just pushed a new mobile version that wiped out all my tabs, and crashes on one of the stories in the front page here:

[https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust- mynewt/articles/wayl...](https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust- mynewt/articles/wayland)

Curious if others are seeing it.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is the last straw for me personally. At this point what Mozilla claims to do and what they actually do does not seem to match. They rally against Google etc, but then install and reinstall Pocket etc on updates, claim to support free speech, yet it's clear that they only want free speech for a particular group of political throught.. I'm switching.

<comment><AUTHOR> I gave some thought to switching back when Eich "resigned".

In the end I decided that continuing to support Mozilla by using and advocating for Firefox was the lesser of two evils - the alternative being to surrender to a Web mono-culture.

The deciding factor for me was: what would harm free speech _more_?

1) a browser duopoly involving an org willing to chuck their CEO under a bus for legitimate but oppressive political donations, or

2) a browser monopoly owned by an advertising company?

In the end I decided (1) was the best bet. But I swear, Mozilla keeps me on my toes reconsidering it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found it relevant. Using Firefox is an act of activism for a better internet.

<comment><USER11> Please, help me to understand, why this message got so badly downvoted?

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitter here (and author of one of the bug reports that got merged into this one).

My guess is the downvotes are an expression of the idea that, just because you personally find something relevant, doesn't make it okay for Mozilla to spam ~250 million people with what is essentially political advertising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, most people knew it's garbage, just like Chrome.

If you don't mind a monetized browser you might as well use one from a smaller shop, such as Vivaldi or other.

A FF fork w/o Moz junk: [https://librewolf- community.gitlab.io/](https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/)</comment>


Codeship launches GitLab Integration - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codeship.com/codeship-launches-gitlab-support/ <comment><USER2> Codeship founder saying they are looking into it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11760447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11760447)

Neat!</comment>


Ask HN: How are people doing networking in containers? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious as to how people are dealing with traditional network functions in the container world, and the orchestration world (CoreOS, Mesos, etc..). How are people ensuring security, and dealing with microservices load balancing? <comment><USER2> We have experimented Deis (deis.io) and Marathon (of Mesos). Both provide all requirements for service composition and load balancing. I personally find Deis more simple to use where Mesos is like Rambo for managing infrastructure.

<comment><USER3> Are you on physical hardware? Or a cloud provider? If you're on a cloud provider, how are you handling their security group abstractions with Mesos?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Interesting use cases of Blockchain? - <AUTHOR> Following the discussion here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089069
of the benefits of blockchain technology,
what are some concrete/interesting use cases other than the currency speculation madness? <comment><USER2> My understanding is that a key feature of the blockchain is supposed to be tamper-proof?

If so, you can share data effectively without the need for reconciliation.</comment>


Feeling Like a Fraud on the Job - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/minds-business/feeling-like-a-fraud-on-the-job.html <comment><USER2> To paraphrase Groucho Marx: "He may look like a fraud and talk like a fraud but don't let that fool you. He really is a fraud."

What I took away from that article was that the root of the feelings of insufficiency, or fraudulence, stem from the individual's impossibly high standards or negative perfectionism. But to say that someone has 'impossibly high standards' is another way of saying that they have an inflated self image. The conflict, or sense of fraudulence, emerges when the gap between their self image and their actual achievements becomes too glaring to ignore.

So, simply feeling like a fraud doesn't necessarily absolve the person from actually BEING a fraud. And although it may feel better to justify to yourself, in an ironic inversion, that only the person who acknowledges their fraudulence ISN'T a fraud, it doesn't actually solve the problem of impossibly high standards or negative perfectionism -- let alone the very real possibility that they ARE fraudulent and allowing their self-doubt to keep them fraudulent.

<comment><USER3> > But to say that someone has 'impossibly high standards' is another way of > saying that they have an inflated self image.

I would disagree. They're similar but different; one is internal and external, the other is internal.

As someone with impossibly high standards, I sometimes find myself holding other people to those standards and feeling like they're frauds as well. I know many other people with similar exhibited behaviors.

However, I feel like having an inflated self image would be different; it would only directly affect the person in question.

<comment><USER4> I disagree with your disagreement; who says your or others 'high standard' is correct ie the one true way? I mean where does this standard come from? Suppose you were an advocate of TDD, and perfection to you is 100% code coverage? Guess what, TDD is not a universally accepted standard, there's a lot of great software written without tests (I use TDD as an example only, please bear with me). Another example; suppose one holds object oriented design and analysis and SOLID principals to be the ideal of software architecture, well there are many advocates of functional programming who would love to argue the merits of OOP with this person.

So this appeal to 'high standard' is in effect egotistical masturbation in most all cases, in my opinion.

But perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by high standard? Work hours, properly formatted commit messages? Code documentation?

<comment><USER3> That's a good point; some "high standards" could simply be mismatches between personal priorities.

> But perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by high standard? Work hours, > properly formatted commit messages? Code documentation?

For me, personally, it's thoroughness and attention to detail -- for example, seeing that someone's cleaned a bathroom but didn't bother picking up the seat and cleaning the bowl/underside of the seat.

<comment><USER2> Those are all good points, but when programmers talk about feeling fraudulent aren't they talking about their level of knowledge and/or competence? I'm not saying that work ethic, tidiness, etc., aren't standards but I suspect that when a programmer fears that they're are a fraud they're not so much worried about the quality of their commit comments as they are, say, the breadth of their knowledge across the web stack, or their expertise in tuning databases, or their mastery of design patterns, etc. In other words, intellectual skills rather than good habits.

I admire the integrity of those workers who own to feeling like a fraud, especially those who talk openly about it, and I'm not seeing that they are 'objectively' frauds, simply suggesting that something is out of synch for them to feel fraudulent in the first place. Denying feelings of self- fraudulence COULD discourage someone from taking actions to become an expert ... or it could have the opposite effect.

<comment><USER3> For me, the (self-diagnosed) root cause of that feeling is an awareness that there's so much that I don't know.

When I read about insightful things or neat tricks/pitfalls is a different person from a different background, but it turns into a mess of "wow, all these people know stuff I didn't know -- and there's _so much more_ I don't know!"

So even though I do the best I can, there's still a feeling of "Oh, geez, I bet someone else could do this way better. I'm probably missing so much or doing this in a fundamentally bad way."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think only the slightly sociopathic/psychopathic feel completely confident in making certain kinds of "organizational" decisions.

So, if you feel like an imposter, it's ok, all it implies is that you're not (at least) slightly sociopathic/psychopathic.</comment>


CBP Agent Rams Vehicle into Videographer - <AUTHOR> https://www.roadblockrevelations.org/wp/2019/10/13/cbp-agent-rams-vehicle-into-videographer/ <comment><USER2> There simply isn't any excuse for this behavior. Even if you stretch what is on the video and say the cameraman ran in front of the vehicle (and I'm not), the CBP officer should have stopped and helped the man. To just drive off is criminal and should be punished.

<comment><USER3> And even if you stretch it half-way and it was sort of deliberate but not intended to be as bad, you still should think "oh _fuck_ " and stop, help, report (yourself) in that order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is ubiqutious camera technology an equaliser or not? I used to believe it was the fact that it used to be _" your word against mine"_ which largely prevented prosecution of state actors.

And that camera evidence in the future would change that. Now, I'm not so sure. I feel there is a lot of non-refutable behaviour caught on camera which is never prosecuted and just brushed over.

<comment><USER4> Ultimately the problem is that many people are happy to believe what they want to believe, and no amount of video or audio evidence will change their mind about it. There _are_ sometimes people who just need to be convinced, but the way things run these days, those people usually aren't the ones in power.

Pervasive video recording means we get to see more of the day-to-day atrocities being committed but that doesn't matter much in most cases because the people in power already knew and don't care.

<comment><USER2> Being negative is easier than being positive. It is far easier for most people to simply believe that the "other" party is evil. Until we can find a way to teach people how to reason about hard topics, we'll have a divided nation, which makes it easy for awful people to come into power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In every land there's the law and there's the law's law.

<comment><USER6> No, it's not like this in other developed countries.

We don't let officers do this where I live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> With the worst leadership ever in our history scapegoating the media it green lights government murder of journalists just like we are a petty 3rd world dictatorship. How long before the US loses its developed nation status?</comment>


How much do you trust news websites? Rate them by trust on Penocchio - <AUTHOR> http://www.penocchio.net/

<comment><USER2> It will be interesting to note if political biases heavily skew how "trusted" certain websites are. With left-wing sources being "trusted" and right-wing sources being "not at all", or vice-versa.

How easy is it to register multiple accounts to 'game' the site? If this ever becomes a popular tool for gauging how trustworthy a news source is, I smell foul play in ratings could become a thing - which makes the ratings themselves untrustworthy.</comment>


Are All Arguments About The Same Thing Fundamentally? - <AUTHOR>

I was reading through the discussions here on HN about Buffer's open salaries.
The two sides are. a)open is good and creates a fair environment. or b) open is bad because human nature will get involved and things will get ugly...
This is fundamentally the difference between democrats and republicans. Democrats have a positive perspective of an idealistic world, and republicans say, we have to face facts and acknowledge human natures role.
Same goes for pretty much every disagreement I can find. One side has an optimistic perspective, with short term results in mind and the other has the long game in mind, and wants to account for all the horrible things that might happen...
I am not saying one is right or wrong, although I certainly have my own personal opinion...
I just wonder if most theoretical, and political disagreements are all fundamentally about the same thing...
Whether we are short term optimistic thinkers, or long term pessimistic thinkers. <comment><USER3> First, I wouldn't equate those positions with US political parties: consider their views on climate change, for example.

Second, some arguments are about the nature of human nature. If you think it is human nature to give everyone a fair chance, you will conclude that most programmers being male must be because men are generally better at or more interested in programming than are women. If you think it is human nature that there are no great cognitive differences between men and women, at least when it comes to programming, you will conclude that women are being discouraged or otherwise being unfairly held back from becoming programmers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Human nature isn't the same for everyone, think about fight or flight reaction. So some people demonstrate violently, and others peacefully.

I think the people who have a long-term pessimistic opinion are only that way because they perceive what humanity is based on their own predispositions. Same is true for long-term optimistic perspective (even though that was omitted as a choice in original post).

Being short-sighted or having a long term perspective aren't coupled with optimism/pessimism. And politically both parties participate in both - <USER2> people only care about unemployment within next couple of years, not unemployment for next 70 years, so politicians have to cater to us, and they are conflicting solutions.</comment>


How to Pick a Co-Founder  - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailymuse.com/entrepreneurship/the-perfect-match-finding-the-right-co-founder/

<comment><USER2> Excellent post.

It seems like many people look for co-founders backwards; they start looking for people with skills they lack and go from there. I think it makes sense to start with people you have good relationships with first and then later turn it into a business partnership.

I started my own project as a solo-founder. I met my current co-founder at a conference. She had and still has her own project. We thought we could collaborate through our projects separately, but as time went on it just made more sense to bring her on as a full partner/co-founder for my project.

From a complementary skills standpoints, it works OK.

The best thing about the relationship is that she is fun to work with. It makes working on the project fun and sustainable.

Great post and good luck with your company!

</comment><comment><USER3> This bit "Learn what makes her happiest and what stresses her out. See how she responds to difficult situations or murky ethical quandaries. Find out how she treats others (and herself) when things aren't going well." is really important I think. Lots of people can get along when everything is going great. The difference between just being friends and co-founding a company is how you get along when things are going badly.

</comment><comment><USER4> Dating before you get married is the best way to go in all business relationships. Business relationships are far harder than marriage, friendships and more.

Only focussing on healthy, short term relationships is the most important thing. If they are healthy in the short term, they will become long term on their own.

It's difficult to get on the same page, and even harder to stay on the same page as personal life changes happen.

Solving smaller problems together / hacking solutions is not a bad way to see how things are going. I am part of a small startup club locally and the past year of hanging out and talking shop about our own products, and building the odd utility together has revealed a lot about who I would click with.

A business partnership isn't something to lightly run into either. Educate yourself on the value of doing joint ventures first, or one party paying the other to respect their time. Once there is sufficient traction it can be converted into ownership as well.

Working with friends is also tough, but possible if you both are experienced professionals and know when to turn friendship off and work relationship on. You have to know how not to use the friendship or personal things as a weapon professionally, or vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER5> Somebody cared about this question?AMAZING!!!</comment>


The Top 9½ Books In a Hacker's Bookshelf - <AUTHOR> http://grok-code.com/11/the-top-9-in-a-hackers-bookshelf/ <comment><USER2> Here is my list. It is probably not a good hacker list, but a CS/ML/bioinformatics list.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP), Abelson & Sussman

The Little Schemer, Friedman

The C Programming Language (K&R), Kernighan & Ritchie

The Analysis of Algorithms, Purdom & Brown

The Elements of Statistical Learning, Hastie, Tibshirani, Friedman

Biological Sequence Analysis, Durbin et al.

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Russell & Norvig

Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Sipser

Introduction to Linear Algebra, Strang

GEB is my 1/2

<comment><USER3> Your list seems more tuned to hacking than the OP's, which seems oriented towards working on large teams on boring legacy software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another list (mine):

1-4: Books on computer organization, operating systems, networks and distributed systems (I like the ones by Tanenbaum, but there are many).

5: Another about compilers/languages (the dragon book is a classic, but there are many others).

6: Something about Lispy-languages (e.g. SICP, but the Little/Seasoned Schemer is another favorite).

7: A book about algorithms. I have Knuth, but something less thorough covering a wider area may be preferable.

8: A book about the practice of programming. My favorite is The Pragmatic Programmer.

9: A book about software engineering as a profession (I recommend Peopleware.)

</comment><comment><USER3> The thing to note about Code Complete is that you can read it very profitably in small chunks.

Curling up with a big fat book and reading about whitespace for 45 minutes isn't very rewarding in my opinion.

Just glancing at it occasionally will have you dropping your jaw at code you wrote in a hurry 6 months ago.

<comment><USER5> Anyone else think this was codified common sense when you first read it? Seems to be the case with a lot of software engineering stuff I read. I have trouble thinking of anything truly insightful my exposure to software engineering has taught me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two books that every serious networking/unix hacker must have:

1\. Advanced Programming in the UNIX environment

2\. TCP/IP Illustrated

Both written by Richard Stevens.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll have to think about others still (or turn around and look ;), but "Mastering Regular Expressions" (O'Reilly) really helped me many moons ago. I just bought the latest edition recently to see what's new, and to finally have a copy for my shelf.

<comment><USER8> Mastering Regular Expressions is by far the best-written technical book I've read. It's amazingly concise and well-explained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Design Patterns" is poison.

<comment><USER10> I strongly agree. This is one of the better essays on why: <http://blog.plover.com/2006/09/11/>

One point it unfortunately doesn't cover is the large percentage of Go4 patterns that are just plain bad ideas. Singleton, for example, should just never be used: it's like relying too much on global variables, but worse.

<comment><USER11> I agree that the book is way too overused. I was immediately turned off when I would interview people who started talking in design patterns (not to mention people who would say the wrong ones).

However, I think there are completely valid uses of the "Singleton" concept. It can be an elegant solution to a lot of problems.

<comment><USER10> I'd like to hear about valid uses of Singleton. I'm not completely sure there aren't any, but I don't think I've ever seen one.

<comment><USER12> It has the same use as most of the patterns: working around the brokenness of the popular OO languages of the time.

<comment><USER12> To the anonymous downvoter, evidence of your ignorance:

<http://norvig.com/design-patterns/>

<comment><USER11> I fail to see how this is evidence of anyone's ignorance.

<comment><USER12> Read the slides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What about less code-specific books, like "Cathedral & the Bazaar"? I find my shelf ends up with a fair amount of these compared to code/code theory books.

I'm also reading "Programming Collective Intelligence" right now which is pretty awesome so far!

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh where's Pragmatic Programmer ? That's a must read for every hacker.

</comment><comment><USER14> I stopped reading when I saw "Code Complete".

<comment><USER15> I don't get it. I've read Code Complete and it seemed like a fine enough book. What is your point?

<comment><USER14> I actually like Code Complete, too. But my point is, I doubt anyone ever became a better hacker for reading it. Compare to the Dragon book, which, if you haven't read a book on compilers, is virtually guaranteed to make you better.

<comment><USER16> Depends how you define hacker. I prefer to work with programmers who have read it to working with programmers who haven't.

<comment><USER15> I'd go one more step general than that. I prefer to work with programmers who read to those who don't. After that, it's all implementation details.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Beyond Bootstrap and Foundation: Frameworks you've never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/beyond-bootstrap-foundation-frameworks-never-heard/

<comment><USER2> True. Definitely have never heard of them. Probably for good reasons. I gave flat-ui a try a few months ago, integration was a nightmare. These frameworks all look pretty good from the outside, I wonder if they have a good API too. Anyone with experience with them?</comment>


Computational Philosophy - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-philosophy <comment><USER2> Using ... the media of doing philosophy is always not netural. Try English, German or even language itself.

But this is really about the first step ... use and not the philosophy of using computer to study philosophy. One day we may have Wittgenstein level of investigation. But guess you have to start to use it first.</comment>


IndexedDB, neutered SQLite without benefits of transactional KV store - <AUTHOR> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2011JanMar/0837.html

<comment><AUTHOR> IDB is a neutered and slower SQLite (it's actually implemented on top of SQLite) without any of the benefits to be expected of a transactional indexed KV store.

Why not embed SQLite, Berkeley or Tokyo Cabinet?</comment>


Python-Awesome Tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gautam1858/python-awesome <comment><USER2> This was posted a few days ago as well, myself and others were asking...

> where is the machine learning?

<comment><AUTHOR> Also I will post tutorials on ML, thanks</comment></comment>


Classification Algorithms: A Tomato-Inspired Overview - <AUTHOR> https://serokell.io/blog/classification-algorithms <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! We just posted a new article on Classification Algorithms in ML. This time, with a twist. Hope you find it interesting!</comment>


StackOverflow Is Down - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/ <comment><USER2> "Stack Overflow is currently offline for maintenance Routine maintenance usually takes less than an hour. If this turns into an extended outage, we will tweet updates from @StackStatus or post details on the status blog."

</comment><comment><USER3> "We are aware of a SQL load issue affecting Stack Overflow and are accessing it now." \- from @StackStatus on Twitter. It would be funny, if they found the solution of their problem on StackOverflow in google cache

</comment><comment><USER4> ... and it is back up.</comment>


Microsoft offers overseas data storage in response to NSA concerns - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/1/22/5335434/microsoft-offers-overseas-data-storage-in-response-to-nsa-concerns

<comment><USER2> With secret courts, secret warrants and secret gag orders this does nothing to address the issues. Who's to say that MS won't receive a secret order to turn over access even to servers on foreign soil? I think this is the right response by MS but only as a signal to the govt that they are damaging US economic interests with their dragnet surveillance policy. Claiming US citizens don't have to worry because they are only spying on "foreigners" is only making matters worse.

Ultimately, this mess will require a political, not a technical solution. Legally some level of constitutional protects will have to be accorded to the clients or customers of US Citizens regardless of where in the world they reside. It has to be made clear that using a US company does not equal turning your data over to the NSA.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stored overseas... accessed via undersea cables taped y the USS Jimmy Carter??

"Nothing is out of our reach"

<comment><USER4> If Microsoft is collaborating with the NSA, no cable tapping is needed.

Do I trust Microsoft not to be collaborating? No, not really.

<comment><USER5> Microsoft can't trust Microsoft. All it takes is a NSL to compel MS to hand over any data it has control over. Maybe one day they'll win the lawsuit to get permission to contest the letter, but the data's long since surveilled.</comment></comment></comment>


Dish, Echostar agree to pay TiVo $500M to settle patent litigation - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/article/419-dish-echostar-settle-long-running-patent-dispute-with-500-million-to-ti/

<comment><USER2> Only took seven years. Here's to seeing Apple v Samsung having a conclusion in 2018. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Dish's stock is up 19% in today's trading, so this must be an albatross off their back.

I'm guessing TiVo wasn't exactly happy with the agreement after 7 years of long struggle.</comment>


Apple's Retail Philosophy - Employees reveal calculated culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/apples-retail-philosophy-132549

<comment><USER2> You could substitute "carefully designed" for "calculated", which has a negative cast not justified by the WSJ's story. Details about Apple's retail culture include:

* The stores were consciously designed to be uncluttered and less threatening than big-box electronic stores, and benefit from fewer locations and a focus on a single brand.

* The retail operation is run by seasoned retail veterans, not CS majors.

* Growth in Apple's retail locations is strong and beats the general trend of decline in retail in general.

* It's hard to get a job in Apple retail, at least compared to other retail jobs.

* It doesn't pay much better than typical retail jobs.

* Retail is not a good career path into Apple corporate.

* You can't write online about Apple and expect to keep a job at an Apple store.

* Apple retail employees don't get sales commission and are trained not to sell, although you can get reassigned if you upsell fewer AppleCare plans than Apple expects of its retail team.

* If you've found Apple employees to be unthreatening, helpful, laid back, and easygoing, that's because Apple trained its team to do that.

* Don't be repeatedly late or you'll get fired.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, how calculating, it's almost as if someone at Apple read "How to Win Friends & Influence People".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was in the Apple store in Covent Garden recently, I knew what I wanted and had phoned in advance to check they had it, so I was just there to pick it up. As a former consultant, I am trained in exactly these sorts of techniques, and can easily spot them, and Apple's training is _too_ good. I don't know how it is to regular people, but the Apple employees I spoke to were downright creepy. Whatever the actual-human equivalent of the "uncanny valley" is. I'll stick to the online store I think and just deal with the hassle of having to be in when I'm expecting a courier.

<comment><USER2> The "technique" you're talking about is "not trying to sell stuff". That bothers you?

<comment><USER4> The technique is "quickly build a rapport with this person". It feels like being manipulated just as much as outright sales technique, because, well, it is.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Don't know if it's like this everywhere, but the apple retail employees I've dealt with have all been creepy like this. The uncanny valley is a good analogy. It's like being sold stuff using mental judo by NLP robots. I occasionally also get the feeling when talking to them that I might suddenly wake up and realise that I've been having a dream about being trapped in an aspirational TV advert.

But I'm british so maybe the whole thing just clashes with our general mistrust of our brother man. We just can't really believe that anyone is actually being nice to us for no benefit to themselves.

<comment><USER6> _"But I'm British..."_

That's interesting. I wonder if gaius is also. Maybe it's a cultural thing. I find Apple Store employees to be extra "friendly", if that's the word, but not overly so.

<comment><USER5> I am british, but let it also be known that I am often a miserable bastard, and this may also be a factor. This isn't really science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not selling can have a negative impression on the customer, though. I have noticed that they don't sell hard; I interpreted it as hubris. That my sale is unimportant to them because of how crowded the place always is. It's one thing to play it cool but you also shouldn't seem disinterested or make the customer feel unimportant.

</comment><comment><USER8> link to WSJ article sited [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230456310457636...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576364071955678908.html#printMode)

<comment><USER2> As usual, you can read the whole thing by searching for the headline ("Secrets From Apple's Genius Bar: Full Loyalty, No Negativity") on Google News. This AdWeek summary add no value and inserts a weirdly sensationalized headline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having worked at Best Buy during college and for a few years after, this is what Best Buy has been trying to do for a while now.

They try to encourage solving problems, and building rapport instead of selling. However, the problem with Best Buy is follow through.

This kind of training comes down from corporate, but the district managers are allowed to run their districts like their own little fiefdom. Since most of the district managers (and store managers) got to where they are b/c they are great salesmen, they push the salesman attitude onto everyone else.

<comment><USER10> > building rapport instead of selling[...] This kind of training comes down > from corporate, but the district managers are allowed to run their districts > like their own little fiefdom.

So then what's the point? Why pretend to have a retail philosophy if individual salespeople are sent out on the floor to hawk satellite subscriptions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Based on the article, Apple seems pretty effective with this--I'm curious if non-Apple salespeople would be more effective if they followed these principles, or if it only works for Apple.

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is a lot shorter than I expected, but it does teach something critical: if someone (especially an Apple employee) uses the phrase "as it turns out", be ready for bad news!

</comment><comment><USER13> One can only hope that JCP will gain a lot of this customer-oriented focus when Ron Johnson is firmly in place.

</comment><comment><USER14> > using natural materials like wood, glass, stone and stainless steel.

Boggle. Nature so advanced it includes glass and steel. They grow in trees, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER15> What shops don't do this?

<comment><USER16> Best Buy. Auto dealerships. Any place that tries to upsell you something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's a shame they don't pour more time into making employees happy by giving them better benefits and wages.

<comment><USER2> They're among the most successful retail operations in the world, and are a desirable employer for people working retail. Is there a specific reason you think they should "pour more time into making employees happy", or are you just inclined to say this about any company?

<comment><USER18> There was a thing a while back about Apple's retail employees complaining about low wages and few benefits, but I don't think that the allegations were ever confirmed, or that anything came out of it. The GP may have been referencing that.

Actually, a bit of Googling shows that this is still going on, with employees trying to unionize. According to [1], one person wants "to form a union to fight for better wages and benefits and to address what he says are unfair practices".

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/12/us-apple- idUSTRE75...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/12/us-apple- idUSTRE75B1FL20110612)

<comment><USER2> It's one guy, who says he's gotten little public support. But even if he had a deep wellspring of support: this is supply and demand. Apple is a highly specialized retailer that nonetheless can draw on hundreds of thousands of potentially qualified candidates. How could a union change that dynamic?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Britain's water crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/08/are-we-killing-our-rivers <comment><USER2> Strange article, starts with a long story about Jim Smith, then has some actual information, then intersperses more bits of information with the opinions of Jim.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't seem that strange, to be honest. I found it readable and engaging, and it was nice to have some local colour mixed in with the "actual information."

There are no doubt countless academic papers and government reports to read if you prefer something a little drier. As it is an article on the Guardian, I got what I was expecting, more or less.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, not only can it more entertaining but a more people focused approach is known to be more effective as the Guardian themselves recently pointed out [1].

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/04/the- gua...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/04/the-guardian- view-on-the-refugee-crisis-it-is-people-and-stories-that-move-us-not- statistics)</comment></comment></comment>


Zerg rush easter egg on Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/?q=zerg+rush#q=zerg+rush

<comment><USER2> Extensive discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3897992>

Currently number 5 on the HN front page.</comment>


Meet The New Hotmail: Sleeker & Faster with some cool tools - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/17/meet-the-new-hotmail-sleeker-faster-and-a-powerful-weapon-against-inbox-overload/

<comment><USER2> I keep my Hotmail account for three reasons - nostalgia, so someone else doesn't take it, and because Comics.com only sends one free daily comic per email address and I _really_ want to receive Dilbert and Pearls Before Swine.

This update looks like some catchup and some new features. There's nothing there that will prompt me to change. In the context of a market leader playing defence, however, these look smart.

</comment><comment><USER3> I must admit i do check hotmail.com every day, but i mainly use it as a dumping ground for all web app signups, newsletters etc that i don't want crowding my inbox on my iPhone.

It would be handy if Microsoft released an iPhone app for hotmail, or provided full IMAP access like GMAIL.</comment>


Amazon to launch tablet PCs in August-September - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110621PD222.html

<comment><USER2> _Amazon adopts processors developed by Texas Instruments_

Interesting. I thought they'd be going with Nvidia's Kal-El, given the timeframe. I wonder what TI brings to the table.</comment>


Today's Rangers vs. Mariners Is Only Watchable With a Facebook Account - <AUTHOR> https://www.mlb.com/news/may-16-mariners-vs-rangers-game-to-stream-exclusively-on-facebook/c-276710998 <comment><AUTHOR> Figured I'd post this as it annoys me. I wonder when traditional-media money makers will realize the problem is not only the platform, it's also the exclusivity and lack of options. I don't have a FB account so I won't be watching.</comment>


Graphene-based sieve turns seawater into drinking water - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39482342 <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14027546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14027546)</comment>


Hacking the Midwest - <AUTHOR> http://sendgrid.com/blog/hacking-the-midwest/

<comment><USER2> What did you do to your blog to make it so slow to load, scroll, etc on an iPad 3? It is worse than OnSwipe even.

<comment><USER3> @rdl our blog isn't really where we'd like it to be right now, in terms of theme, performance optimization, etc. we're actively working on an improvement there. thanks for sharing this additional data point (ie, poor experience on ipad 3). stay tuned for an improved experience in the future!

<comment><USER2> Awesome -- you have great content and the pro-midwest stuff is a wonderful project.</comment></comment></comment>


Global Poll Shows 71% Support Regulation of Tech Giants to Protect Data Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/04/damning-indictment-global-poll-shows-71-support-regulation-tech-giants-protect-data <comment><USER2> The exploitation of data is the foundation that stale companies and industries are using to increase their power, past their prime. Since there are new unprecedented amounts of data, there is now an unprecedented amount of control that big corporations have access to, and we are facing uncharted waters in terms of how much control those companies have. That is why there is no accountability for a fully corrupt President. As long as corporate America's agenda is being served, it can subvert the will of the people through political influence manipulation that is both surgical and extensive. That is why widely supported gun control legislation is absent, that is why widely supported medical cost control legislation is absent. Without the political will to fight for data privacy, it is only going to get worse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Regulation of tech giants does nothing to mitigate issues relating to data privacy as they fail to take into account major offenders like the chinese government who are far more dangerous in terms of privacy and data breaches.

</comment><comment><USER4> If somebody stalked me 24x7 with a notebook recording everywhere I went and everything I did, said, and looked at, couldn't I build a case for harassment? (I'm not a public figure).

Is the only difference that these big tech companies do it where we can't see them and [sometimes] get our permission [to some extent] via an onerous and non-negotiable ToS?</comment>


Productive on six hours of sleep? You're deluding yourself, expert says - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-bsi-why-we-sleep-matt-walker-20171003-story.html <comment><USER2> This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks), but I think our culture needs to change before we can really put the onus on people to improve their sleeping habits. I'd love to get 7-9 hours of sleep, but I just don't have the time.

<comment><USER3> Actually, studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do. It's just recent history that's an anomaly...

<comment><USER4> Not only that, but the 40h/week ignores commutes. For some people that's an additional 15h/week.

Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize.

<comment><USER5> 15h / 5 days is 3h / day -- 1.5 hours each way, that's a _long_ commute.

The average commute in the US is 20 min each way. Suburbanites mostly jump to nearby suburbs. It's the urbanites & rurals who outlie, with interminable train rides or stops-and-gos via SUV & long highway drives to a bigger town an hour away.

A map of US commute times: [https://lifehacker.com/this-map-shows-the-average- commute-ti...](https://lifehacker.com/this-map-shows-the-average-commute-time- in-every-u-s-c-1796559696)

<comment><USER6> I did this for six months.

I live in NH, I got a well paying contract in MA, and they needed me to work 60 hrs/week to rescue a project.

The 60 hrs/week is key, because it made the ratio of billable hours to wasted hours plausible - 15 hours of commute to 40 of billable is terrible, but 15:60 made some sense.

Those six months (plus the side remote consulting gig I did on the weekend) almost killed me, but they also let me pay off about 1/3 of my mortgage in half a year.

<comment><USER7> Would you do it again if something awful happened and you all of a sudden were in the same spot you were when you did that work (less or none of your mortgage paid off or something). Just wondering. Seems like it sucked but worthwhile if it paid off 1/3 of your mortgage. Good job!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One important thing the article doesn't cover: we now have good reason to suspect that chronic sleep deprivation can cause brain damage. Not just a long term decrease in function, but actual cellular damage.

In a major triumph of medicine, we now know that brain cells shrink during sleep (about 60% in rats), allowing cerebrospinal fluid to flow about 10 times as fast [1] [2], helping to cycle out built up toxins and waste products and eventually drain them into the bloodstream. It was previously a medical mystery how the brain was able to eliminate toxins without being connected to the lymphatic system (although it's since been shown that the brain is directly connected to the lymphatic system to some degree as well [2])

As far as I know, it's not proven that this contributes to the cognitive effects of chronic sleep deprivation. But it would make an awful lot of sense, and also help explain why sleep debt becomes more difficult to pay off the longer you let it sit around, and why the damage possibly even becomes permanent.

[1] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24429-sleep-boosts- br...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24429-sleep-boosts-brains-self- cleaning-system/)

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

</comment><comment><USER9> But do I need to be more productive?

It's a tradeoff - I can go home and spend more social time, leisure time and put more personal time into my projects if I sleep less. The 2-3 hours of extra time I get by sleeping like crap allows me to do things I wouldn't otherwise get to do. Productivity couldn't improve these if there's no time left in the day to do them.

It costs me at work, I'm sure of it, but it hasn't gotten me fired or even significantly prevented me from doing my job, so why would I change it? There's no need to be obsessed with scraping every last ounce of productivity out of myself at work. I like my job, but feel no obligation for that.

<comment><USER10> If you are X% less productive you will be able to charge X% less for your work, on average, so you would need to work longer hours for the same pay. You might also be shortening your life by not sleeping enough, perhaps by a larger amount than you're gaining by sleeping less. That is clearly the case in the limit of not sleeping at all -- you would shorten your life to a month at best, not to mention that the quality of life would go down.

<comment><USER9> > If you are X% less productive you will be able to charge X% less for your > work, on average, so you would need to work longer hours for the same pay.

That's making the huge assumption that you're willing to constantly seek your maximum pay and that you get paid solely for your measurable productivity output, which is in my experience very rarely the case. More often than not you get paid based on capabilities and responsibilities, not significantly more or less on your output. It's certainly not a direct X% less productive = X% less pay relationship. I believe it's been shown that seeking new employers is the best way to maximize pay, but that means interviews are often the difference between you and more pay, yet no one can judge future productivity in an interview.

> you would shorten your life to a month at best

To my knowledge, sleep dep hasn't actually killed people directly like this, they simply start sleeping.

<comment><USER11> >To my knowledge, sleep dep hasn't actually killed people directly like this, they simply start sleeping.

Actually, there is at least one example, surely there are more: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/man-dies-11-days- no...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/man-dies-11-days-no-sleep- deprivation-jiang-xiaoshan_n_1631703.html)

<comment><USER12> There is a somewhat rare genetic disease where at some point in their life people can't sleep any more and eventually die from it. So yes, there are more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you feel groggy in the morning or just not well–rested even after 7-8 hours sleep, get your sinuses & lungs checked.

Could be sleep apnea, but in my case I felt congested all the time. What I thought was allergies was actually the linings of my sinuses inflamed to the point of closing off air passages.

Unclear if the root cause in my case was acid-reflux into the sinus cavities or exposure to dust from ground zero.

The resulting surgery kind of sucked (free tip: don't have your sinuses roto- rootered in the winter) but ever since I've been able to sleep a solid 6-7 hours every night. I now wake up rested, don't feel groggy, typically without an alarm.

<comment><USER14> I was just diagnosed with sleep apnea this week after it wreaked havoc on my personal and professional life for the last 6. I couldn't work, couldn't engage in anything. Now I'm pretty much terrified to go to sleep every night as I know I'm probably not going to get any rest and wake up zombified. I heard the surgery was a hit or miss. Would you recommend?

<comment><USER15> CPAP is usually the first line for sleep apnea. I've been using one for the past couple of months. They've improved the masks so the really only annoyance is being tethered to the machine when you roll over but it isn't too bad.

Another thing I've learned is the CPAP machines now phone home to the insurance company to give them compliance data on how and when you use the machine. Less happy about that.

<comment><USER16> You have a free market in healthcare, vote with your wallet.

<comment><USER15> I'd love to but the thing's base price is $800 without hoses or mask. I can't afford that without going through my insurance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't you can generalize things like this. I am sure there are people who can get by on 6 hours or less naturally. But the problem starts when people who need more try force themselves to sleep less. I have done a lot experimentation with this and had to accept that the only sustainable way for me is to sleep around 8 hours every night. It would be cool if I could make do with 4 but it's just not in me.

<comment><USER18> The point is that people who claim to function on six are unable to correctly judge their capabilities and are most likely wrong about that claim.

<comment><USER19> Anecdote is not data, but I have not set an alarm for many years - I sleep 5-6 hours (only 5 since I went vegan) and I wake up on my own, refreshed. Occasionally I'm tired, I take a nap. I don't do coffee, I have unsweetened tea but don't go nuts on caffeine, social drinking.

I don't feel any need to 'sleep in' on weekends.

Yes, I work from home and own my own company, so I have the luxury of taking a nap in the middle of the day.

If I were to try to force myself to sleep 8 or 9 hours I feel worse; so I don't do that anymore.

<comment><USER20> I'm in the same boat, working from home to no one else's schedule, but probably with a worse habit of body. I have no idea when I might last have slept for more than seven hours, and I very rarely nap. I'm considering acquiring a 'real job' again, but I'm probably not willing to ever compromise my sleep habits for an employer. I don't think anyone else should either, but I suspect that's not likely to be a popular opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't be alone in being exhausted at these studies. Doctors and Lawyers have spent the better part of the last century working on little to no sleep. Academics too. As an engineer, I would regularly work through little sleep because the process of loading a large project into my head to work on it would take more time than the gains from being more well rested. I'm older now, and no longer work as an engineer. I value my sleep and appreciate how much more I can task-switch on a good nights rest, but the idea that I'm not being productive when I'm grinding through work that has to get done and I'm tired seems an overwritten idea.

I'm not arguing against rest and recharging and clearing your mind. I just don't see what these articles are trying to prove. When I was in college I had several stints of no sleep days to finish projects. Even into my early engineering career, I once billed 40 hours straight. Was I as "productive" per minute for that entire time as if I had slept through 5 nights? No. Would the work have gotten done faster than those 40 hours if I had slept for 8 hours in the middle a few times? No. I had a deadline, and there was nothing getting around the work needing to be done.

The argument seems to be against a constant sprinting mode, which I don't think any company employs. Humans burn out after continuous work for weeks, sometimes months. But a week or 3 of little to no sleep to get through everything you need to? It's worked for a long time. Arguably building up muscle memory while forcing rote things to be learned while on little sleep works. What are we trying to prove by this? That "the man" is out to abuse workers? Of course he is. But did anyone make partner at a law firm by claiming he's going to more productive by working less? If you're goal is work life balance, go ahead. But if you're goal is to excel in a field, then it probably involves some sleep deprivation. PG wrote an article about the reason startups were suited for youth is that you could push through unreasonable hours to crank a lot of life into fewer days.

Sorry for the rant...just wondering if I'm alone in thinking this

<comment><USER22> Your definition of "works" is suspicious to me.

If you're saying that in the short term, short-term thinking works, sure. If you're in college and are doing a bunch of work that doesn't matter to deadlines that are entirely made up, sure, you can get away with it.

You claim that doctors do fine without enough sleep, but even doctors don't claim that any more. Doctor friends tell me it's a big focus for reform. [1] And in areas where safety is even more important, like piloting planes, they take mandatory rest even more seriously.

Software is mostly not life-critical, but I think it's uniquely bad in this regard. Doctors can bury their mistakes, but version control systems preserve ours forever. It's too easy to be negatively productive in software, and enormously easier if you're not getting enough sleep.

[1] [http://www.bcmj.org/article/sleep-deprivation-among- physicia...](http://www.bcmj.org/article/sleep-deprivation-among-physicians)

<comment><USER21> I don't mean to claim doctors do fine without enough sleep. Doctor friends I have spoken to talk about this talk about the reforms but it is not uniformly positive. I am trying to posit that the claim that we function better with more sleep is true. But that claim is made in a vacuum. Person A operates at 100% well rested. But operating at 80% or 60% is more valuable than 0% if averaged out over time. So I can write better code when I'm well rested, sure. I agree with that. I think everyone logically will. If I have 1000 lines of code to write. And it will take me 10 hours to write it. And I have 2 days to do it. I'll spread it out over 2 days and write good code, and maybe it only end up taking 800 lines of code. But if I have 1 day to write it. I might end up writing 1200 lines of code, but still get it done in that day, it is more valuable to me, than a day later when the code doesn't matter anymore. I'd argue I'd rather a doctor save my life that day, than do a great job and make sure I never scar over two days when the option isn't there.

Medicine is a regulated industry in that the number of people trained almost precisely matches the number of jobs available. The training process is designed to prune out people who cannot function when they have to choose between life saving procedure, and doing the life saving procedure perfectly but losing the patient. It's a straw-man I know, I'm just tired of everyone being absolutely fascinated by this idea that resting is better than not resting. Isn't that just obvious? Does anyone feel like they work better when they are tired? What knowledge are we gaining by these discussions?

<comment><USER22> If you are throwing away your tired-brain code a week later, godspeed. Do what you like. But if you are checking in that code and making other people deal with it, then quality becomes much more important. If you write 1200 lines of code instead of 800, then you have something that has 50% more maintenance cost and 50% more bugs. (And it's probably worse given that you were tired and thinking with a short-term mindset.) So hell yes, it matters to me whether my coworkers are putting long-term value above short-term incentives.

> I'm just tired of everyone being absolutely fascinated by this idea that > resting is better than not resting. Isn't that just obvious?

It is not in fact obvious. So many places reward time spent more than quality work. Just today at a meetup we were talking about how to shift people away from damaging and expensive heroics to investing in not creating such big problems that you need work-all-night heroes. The industry is notorious for death marches and work-all-the-time startups. And it's also notorious for buggy, low-productivity, high-tech-debt code bases and giant rewrites caused by years of accumulated short-term thinking.

If it's obvious to you, skip over the articles. Not everything has to be for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I feel like my natural body clock is a 28-hour day. If I have no reason to get up I'll sleep for about 10 hours, but then I'm not ready to sleep again for about 18 hours.

I'm guessing the 10 hours is just making up for sleep debt and that might taper off if I could sleep as much as I wanted every night. But the realities of life (kids in school, work, kid's activities, etc.) mean that I have to be awake by about 6:45am and being in bed and asleep before 10:00 just doesn't happen very often either.

<comment><USER24> I used to think that about myself. Now I'm pretty sure it's just the result of having light pollution (lights outside candle temperature and brighter than three or four candles) including glowing screens, electronic device hyperstimulation, and the Internet info treadmill, after 9:00 or so. If I give myself a good long stretch of low light and no electronic toys my "28-hour clock" not-so-mysteriously turns into an ordinary 24-hour one. Being outdoors and active as much as possible during daylight hours also helps (especially in Summer, when dark hours are in short supply).

<comment><USER5> My natural day lasts considerably more than 24 hours, but only when TV/video is active. Without them, I'm ready for bed by 10 PM. If I still had any working grey cells, I'd run some week-long A/B experiments to verify and assess the impact of each. But I don't think I could live with all that silence, so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel like when I get 8-9 I am much more productive and have a much better mood. Seven for me is sort of the point where I can go throughout the day but I will be distracted. Six or less is really bad for me.

I really notice when I get less sleep I make a bunch more comments on HN / reddit or use Twitter much more.

<comment><USER26> Likely because you're less focused/more susceptible to the quick reward and novelty that these sites provide.

I've noticed when I sleep better I can better focus on long-form entertainment (reading a novel vs. browsing HN, for example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm much more interested in why a body needs an amount of sleep, what processes it is conducting, and how you can affect those processes.

What happens in the 7th hour that didn't happen in the 6th? If it's a fourth REM cycle, why do we need 4? What does the fourth do that the third didn't? Why do REM cycles take that long? Can you make them take more or less time? Can you determine lack of sleep from a brain scan? Can you tell the difference between a 6th hour brain and a 7th hour brain? Does anything you eat or do during a day affect how long this process takes? What about hydration / nutrition?

I'm sure these are all answerable, but I'm not sure most people know the answers, and this article certainly doesn't get us any closer to understanding.

<comment><USER28> This article isn't exactly a presentation of research. Several of those answerable questions will probably be worth Nobel Prizes for the people who can answer them. This is fundamentally a puff piece with a sleep expert promoting his new general audience book on sleep health (Not discounting the tips, or his expertise, but this is obviously not a research paper). Several of the sleep hygiene tips he gives are things that aren't really settled AFAIK in the field, possibly why he even specifically mentions "practicing what he preaches" in that last question. He's preaching at least as much as talking about settled science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think the headline is misleading. Let's say I stay up late to do X, Y and/or Z. These things to mean have meaning. In doing them I feel a sense of accomplishment. I've been productive.

Now I show up to work the next day. Certainly less sleep has some effect on me. But that doesn't devalue the increased productivity from the previous evening.

The brain is a limited resource. There might be occasional short term hacks/cheats. But on average you'll have X gallons in the mental tank. This is true. If you spend that at home then yes you will be "less productive" at work.

</comment><comment><USER30> Maybe I'm weird, but I've never deluded myself about the impact of a lack of sleep. My entire life I've strived to get 7.5 to 8 hours a night. I'm not that successful lately, but I make it a priority.

What I don't get are people that brag about not getting much sleep. It's clearly unhealthy. Would you brag about your poor eating habits? Or not following a medication regimen?

I know the science is still early, but I have no doubt that poor sleep has a significant, long-term, permanent impact on health.

</comment><comment><USER31> Most of the problems being discussed here in this thread regarding work hours per week, commute times, finding time for leisure and exercise and family time, the time spent dropping off kids at school, etc -- there are mostly unique to America. Americans could really learn a lot about how successful you can be despite spending less time at work, as well as less time fretting about other things, by looking at any of many countries on the continent of Europe, who offer a much better work/life balance but with no sacrifice on work output.

Some of the most talented and productive developers I know are in the Netherlands, France and Germany, and have a lifestyle that would be considered impossible by many in the States.

The brain needs time to recharge, time away from "work", time to think about work without actually doing work, and the punch that gets packed into a shorter work day can be much greater if the brain is working at optimum capacity, which usually doesn't happen if it is taxed for loads of hours day after day after day.

For me personally, my best ideas come when I am away from a computer, and my brain is free to wander. The more time I sit at a computer, ironically the less likely good ideas will come. Most work environments in the States have not learned this yet.

<comment><USER32> Considered impossible due to the different laws set by companies for their employees. European employees get way more vacation time among other things, and American employees get a whole lot of pressure due to the fact that they can be fired anytime with no warning or explanation while places in Europe, for example Denmark, make it much harder to fire employees on a whim, which inherently puts a whole lot pressure on the American employee

<comment><USER31> Everything you said is exactly the point I am making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> >> If you were not to set an alarm clock, would you sleep past it? If the answer is yes, then there is clearly more sleep that is needed.

Totally wrong. I just finished 4 months of military training. Sleep deprivation was part of the training. We were constantly sleep deprived. It impacted our performance, that was the point. That said, I'm one of those people who always seems to get up 2 minutes before the alarm. Even in my sleep-deprived state, less than four hours a night for weeks, I still woke up before my alarm.

<comment><USER34> Your point, although interesting, does not invalidate the quote. Let A be « you would sleep past the alarm clock without it » and B « you are sleep- deprived » They say A → B. You say false since I got B and not(A). A → B does not imply B → A which would be proved false by your case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why not sleep 8 hours a day if needed (Personally, I'm even more useless on less than 7-8 hrs of sleep)?

I am sure you can reinvent the wheel and then some in what's left. People are productive when they are productive, you can come up with the idea to change the world in 60 mins...or never in your lifetime.

If Einstein had lived to 150 it's not a given that his contribution to the would would have 2X...

</comment><comment><USER36> I recognize the thrust of this argument, and anecdotally agree with it from my experience,but it's not practical advice. Work 12 hours, spend at least 30 minutes each way commuting,work out, prepare and eat meals, and you're at pretty nearly 15 hours, without counting preparing for work. Sure,you have time for sleeping 8 hours,but only if you eschew any personal life and find your work sufficiently exciting to not see any need for recreation/fun all week. Dropping to about 6.5 hours of sleep at least doubles time for those things each work day.

I've tried maintaining 8 hours of sleep daily in such conditions. What I've found is that I'm productive for two days. By Tuesday or Wednesday night, I'm frustrated and bored, and spend 3 or 4 hours doing something interesting and, bam, week derailed. For me, 6.5 hours is the compromise that works. Plus, I sleep 9 hours on Friday and Saturday nights.

<comment><USER37> How and why would you work for 12 hours in a day? I don't understand why anyone with choose that life for an extended period of time.

<comment><USER36> Great co-workers, somewhat interesting work, insight into a really interesting organization, and a situation where I went in with too little information and now would face substantial costs if I back out rather than persisting for another 3 or 4 years.

<comment><USER37> That's fair enough, but I think your personal circumstances are unusual (and unhealthy). For the majority of people sleeping 8 hours is practical advice because they work 8 not 12 hours, leaving them with 4 extra hours, which is enough time to go to the gym, spend with family etc..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > the Foundation suggests anywhere from six hours to 11 hours of sleep per > night for individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 may be suitable, or six > hours to 10 hours for those between the ages of 26 and 64.

A four to five hour deviation is quite significant. That's a difference of 80% between the most amount of sleep needed and the least.

> "I suppose the rule of thumb in adults is about seven to eight hours, but is > that based on any really solid science? I would sort of say not," said > Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience and head of the Sleep > and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7eqx/why-do- dif...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7eqx/why-do-different- people-need-different-amounts-of-sleep)

<comment><USER38> Scientific sources?

> Prescribing one amount of sleep for every kind of person seems very > obviously wrong.

That's, AFAIK, not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> There is a very good talk on youtube by William Dement from Stanford that is longer-form than this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8)

</comment><comment><USER40> This is the first time I've ever read about sleep problems caused by a simple glass of wine before bed. About ten years ago some study came out linking red wine to heart health, and I remember one smug kid at school making fun of the Mormons because the article had just "proven their religion wrong". Meanwhile health organizations were recommending you not start drinking because it's also addictive. I've heard that the drinking culture in the US has changed lately, as it is being seen as less and less healthy (I've been abroad for about 5 years).

</comment><comment><USER41> The genetic variability of humans seems large enough that simple rules about sleep, like nutrition, are probably wrong for many people. Get more sleep if you are tired all the time? Maybe that would work.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sleep need is variable, work is variable, motivation is variable. It's more likely that sleep is a spectrum, hence the 8.34% variance in required minimum sleep for adults, or how general quality of health affects ability to maintain sleep. It's even possible that sleep has nothing to do with our health and productivity other than being an indicator of it, and not necessarily a cause for it. Thanks, pseudo-scientific studies.

<comment><USER43> This is all true, but I think it's worthwhile to be _very_ skeptical about your assumption of how much sleep is healthy for you. Everyone in these threads assumes that they are one of the special few who does perfectly fine on 5 hours of sleep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm productive on six hours of sleep in the sense that I get _something_ done. However, I am quite noticeably less productive than if I get more sleep.

Even if I don't feel tired, I notice that my thoughts are more muddled and it's hard to concentrate. If I get 6 hours or less of sleep one night, it's usually not a problem. But if the lack of sleep is over multiple days (like it usually is), then it becomes much worse.

</comment><comment><USER45> the article states 7 hours is the minimum, but I seem to need a lot more. they state, if you can sleep after the alarm clock goes off, then you should sleep more.

So, what if you get 8.5 hours of sleep but you still could sleep, after the alarm clock goes off? there should be some upper limit, maybe 9?

<comment><USER46> I recommend a 'Sleep' app on your phone. I set it to 7am and it'll wake me up anywhere from 6:30-7, depending on my sleep cycle. Never felt drowsy on 6:30 days.

<comment><USER47> This works well for me (I use 'sleep cycle') but doesn't solve my inability to actually get tired and go to bed at night.

<comment><USER48> Have you tried avoiding screens an hour or two before going to bed? Fill that time with reading or listening to podcasts.

<comment><USER49> Does the Kindle still count? I heard that it is different from computer screens because the light is backlit, not directly shown into your eyes.

<comment><USER48> A Kindle should be fine, preferably without backlight however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This makes me feel weird knowing that I practice a polyphasic sleep pattern for such a long time now.

</comment><comment><USER51> What is it about those that need less? I personally have been sleeping 5-6 hours per night for decades. In my mid-30's I stopped my youthful partying and found I did not need to sleep as much. Now, at 52, more than 6 hours feel like too much and I'm groggy.

<comment><USER52> Same. 5 to 6 hours and I feel fine, unless I'm ill or already sleep deprived. I can function on 3-4 hours per night for extended periods of time before I start to notice serious deterioration in mental faculties. I believe it's genetic. Some studies have tentatively tied naturally short sleep cycles to a gene variant ([http://www.sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders-by- category/in...](http://www.sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders-by- category/insomnias/short-sleeper)). Also, my father sleeps for about the same amount of time as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Are there any reliable devices that can measure rem phases during sleep reliably and wake you up after 6-8 hours when the rem phase ends? And I'm not talking about sleep apps for phones which work with mics and accelerometers.

</comment><comment><USER54> "Don't sleep any more than you have to, I usually sleep about four hours per night." \-- Think Like a Billionaire, President Trump.

</comment><comment><USER55> Have gotten 6 for decades, but I used to swim/run/yoga. Now I don't do anything because there's no time and am still productive, but need lots of caffeine and morale boosters, like I traded a couple pairs loafer mesh shoes I didn't like for a high end pair of proper fitting ASIC running shoes at Nordstrom's today. In fact I lost a couple hours sleep just thinking about trading those shoes today...

</comment><comment><USER56> Does someone have some scientific source on that topic? I couldn't find something linked in the article.

</comment><comment><USER57> And yet South Korean students get less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Insane how society just accepts that.

</comment><comment><USER58> I stopped setting an alarm 90% of my nights and ended up with 10h sleep (2-12) till I wake up by myself.

</comment><comment><USER59> so basically having kids makes you stupid, more prone to heart attack, etc etc

</comment><comment><USER60> Sometimes I can sleep over 6 hours, but then I wake up with back pain...

<comment><USER61> Sleep on your back on the floor, beds are an new invention and a bad one can be painful. So before you go out and buy a new mattress experiment with your sleep. Hammocks are also said to be a good alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> multiple shrinks, doctors, psychiatrists, sleep therapists have told me a 7 hour minimum is required... I'm in my 40's.

</comment><comment><USER63> I've slept roughly 9 hours every night my entire life. I can't imagine giving up good sleep for anything. Hell, going to bed is usually my favorite thing to do outside of hobbies.

</comment><comment><USER64> Fuck sleep. I'm waiting for the day when I can click a button on my phone to go to sleep instantly and wake up instantly on a timer. No natural feeling of sleepiness. I hate the time lost to sleep. What does it matter if I lose 5 years in my old age? I gain so much time in my younger years. It's like smoking. It's harmful and will kill you in the long term. But why do you care about living to a 100? You will have n other problems.

</comment><comment><USER65> I'm extremely productive on 4.5 hours, but using a biphasic sleep pattern. 3 hours at night, 1.5 hours in a daytime nap.

<comment><USER66> How long have you been sleeping like that?

<comment><USER65> About 1.5 years, give or take.

I pretty much require 9 hours on a monophasic schedule to feel as sharp.

<comment><USER67> Yeah, I worry, this only gets rid of tiredeness but not fulfill the whole 8-9 hours of sleep.

<comment><USER65> From my experience, I'm better rested now than I was before I went bi-phasic.

I personally believe sleep is simply a cleaning cycle for the brain, waiting 16 hours between cleaning cycles may be deleterious.

<comment><USER67> I wasn't speaking about better rested vs less rested.

You can totally lose symptoms of tiredness, only to wind up with dementia at later point in life.

<comment><USER68> Is this just speculation or is there evidence for this?

<comment><USER67> There is:

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why- lac...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-lack-of- sleep-health-worst-enemy-matthew-walker-why-we-sleep)

[https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how- sle...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sleep-clears- brain)

<comment><USER65> >Does the 90-minute cycle mean that so-called power naps are worthless? "They can take the edge off basic sleepiness. But you need 90 minutes to get to deep sleep, and one cycle isn't enough to do all the work. You need four or five cycles to get all the benefit.

Notice, my sleep pattern contains 3 full cycles a day. And less time between cycles.

I'm not just subsisting on short naps.

The second link simply confirms what I initially said, that sleep is a cleaning cycle for the brain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Not a single study or piece of research referenced by the article. "Some professor with a book says..." is not very convincing.

This is not a news article, and is not journalism. This is an advertisement for a book.

</comment><comment><USER70> By use of meditation and yoga I've found the opposite to be true. The system I've used is described somewhat here [http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/health- fitness/10-he...](http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/health- fitness/10-healthy-tips-to-reduce-your-sleep-quota/)

Edit: downvotes why?

<comment><USER71> I didn't down vote you,but just skimming through your article, #9 seems false.

Blood is not affected by magnetic fields, it seems to me. [https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-blood-attracted-to-a- magnet-s...](https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-blood-attracted-to-a-magnet-since- it-contains-iron)

<comment><USER70> I can't attest for that point scientifically or even personally.

The argument in #9 as I understand it is, over the course of your lifetime, the cumulative minuscule effect of how you sleep relative to the Earths magnetic field can have a negative effect on your health, increasing the risk of stroke or brain related conditions.

To prove or disprove would require long term study (in the order of a human lifetime) with equipment capable of detecting very small changes while eliminating all other effects.</comment></comment></comment>