skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In general, most people (in the United States, the country I live in) need more sleep than they are getting. One way this is put to the test is by letting people relax in a comfortable reclining chair in a quiet, dark room during daylight working hours. Many people fall asleep in this condition, signaling that they are sleep-deprived, even if they have no regular habit of taking a nap in the daytime.

I have lived in a country (Taiwan) where a siesta, a mid-day nap, is quite a regular practice. The first time I lived there (1982-1985), I was only unlearning my American habit of sleeping only at night near the end of my stay. The second time I lived there (1998-2001), I was better able to adapt to napping in the middle of the day like my co-workers, perhaps because I had become a care-giving parent of young children in the meanwhile.

As the submitted blog post mentions, there is a research basis for thinking that symptoms of what is characterized as "lack of executive function" or "ADD" can be relieved just by getting sufficient sleep. It appears that one of the roles of sleep is letting the brain have opportunity to restructure based on new experiences while awake, so sleep seems to aid learning, planning, and attention control.

I had a friend back in my college days who was a very hard-working research scientist trying to find a cure for diabetes. Her claim, which she read somewhere back in the 1970s, was that an hour of sleep before midnight is just about as beneficial as two hours of sleep after midnight. It does seem to me that I wake up especially rested on the rare occasions when I am fully asleep for the night before 11:00pm. As my own lifestyle changes over the next decade (= as my children grow up and live on their own), I will be eager to try the experiment of better matching my hours of sleep with the actual hours of darkness in my time zone.

AFTER EDIT: The top level comment by rayiner mentions allergies and writes

I jack up a humidifier

and I agree with his statement that it is worthwhile to figure out what helps sleep be deeper and less disturbed, including breathing without obstruction during sleep. Depending on what a person is allergic to, DE-humidifying may be the way to go. Dust mite allergies, for example, will be worse for a person who lives in a humid room. Good luck to all in your experiments.
Anatomy of a bug - misplaced parenthesis threatens NetBSD's random numbers
There was an article in NYTimes a little while ago that suggested that getting six hours of sleep a night for two weeks was equivalent to being awake for 24 hours:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.htm...

All told, by the end of two weeks, the six-hour sleepers were as impaired as those who, in another Dinges study, had been sleep-deprived for 24 hours straight — the cognitive equivalent of being legally drunk.

My personal experience certainly tells me that a solid eight hours a night makes me far more productive than consistently getting six.
Same. Title made me wonder if Github and FogCreek had entered into some kind cross-compatibility deal or something.
This is of a piece with all the articles on here talking about how spamming people is the best way to do business.
I'm pretty much convinced its a scam after reading this:

http://nerdr.com/bitcoin-exchange-scam-bitcoins-are-worthles...
Awesome! (purchased) I've been reading about game design and playing with ideas myself. The prototyping was _this_ past Christmas? So you went from concept to sales in three months!? That seems fabulous. Congrats.
I've been automatically doing the same thing with reddit comments for the last year: http://www.reddit.com/user/haiku_robot

If you sort by upvotes, there's a number of gems in there.
Bitcoin Exchange Scam – Bitcoins Are Now Worthless
Do you have a citation for that drug price (for Indians)? Another post cited a price more than an order of magnitude lower.
You are re-stating the exact argument that spammers use for all spam.
How are you getting users' game lists? Are you using id/user/games?tab=all&xml=1 or something like that?

A while ago STEAM was rate limiting me to somewhere between 8-15 seconds (503's returned in between). Have you run into this at all on your end?
This is why his grievance wasn't with the text but the title.
Blogger Legally Changes Name to Name of His Blog
Cleveland, OH / Remote -- Contractors

Babl Media http://www.bablmedia.com/

I am the Technical Director for Babl Media, we have been around for 2 years now. We started as a design company doing custom B2C eCommerce and Content Management System implementations. Lately we've been successful at providing consulting, design, and development services to select early seed stage startups. When working with startups, our goal is to get something investor/startup ready with tight budgets, while still providing a solid foundation that can be built on. We primarily work with companies in the Cleveland and Chicago areas.

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If interested, contact us at: jobs@bablmedia.com
On April 1st, absolutely.
There are plenty of observational anecdotes of what works and what does not work.

In order to make the best of your sleep cycle, it requires excellent sleep hygiene.

1. regularity is important. Going to bed and waking up at the same times weekday and weekend is very helpful.

2. sleep environment is important. simulating night time including shades, turning off message beeps, comfort, slightly cool temperatures make a big difference

3. eating - avoiding eating at least 3-4 hours prior to bedtime. Your blood sugar levels are easily disturbed and play a large part in your sleep cycle as glucocorticoids are active in sleep cycle.

The amount you sleep has a lot to do with your daily stress level, physical activity and damage your body takes.

hydrate like crazy, let your body perform its reparative miracles at night including memory consolidation.

I have noticed that people who have constant low-level death-by-a-thousand-cuts stress have many problems sleeping and getting quality sleep than those who have short bursts of high level stress. We are victims of our always-on world.

As another poster pointed out - Sleep is worth experimenting. Physical activity/exercise during the day helps.
The ideal is waking up at 3am to do work? I can't think of many things that seem less like common sense than that. In the absence of an alarm or anything to wake me up sooner, I sleep straight through to the morning. I much prefer it that way, to be honest.
Very similar here, although it's decreasing as I age. In my twenties I needed 9.5-10 hours per night to feel optimally sharp and focused; 10 years later my requirement seems to be down around 9 hours.

Although, like most hot-air-pushers in these sleep threads, I never tried objective measurements of performance under different circumstances. Maybe I just _feel_ like shit, but actually perform well, with less than 9 hours of sleep.
Github Announcing SVN Support
I never really understood mind maps after trying them a couple times. Can anyone explain why they are better than an outline format, or plain text?

I get that some people think visually (I'm more of an auditory learner/thinker), but it seems like mind maps make organization and prioritization harder, rather than easier.
San Francisco, CA - Full-time - Early-stage (0.5-2+% equity)

Vurb, a Max Levchin funded startup - featured on TechCrunch this year - http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/20/contextual-content-engine-v...

Openings in the following areas:

* Mobile (iOS, Objective-C) - lead development on iPhone and Android
* JavaScript (node.js, backbone.js) - full-stack or frontend
* Search / Data Scientist - classification algorithms,
search, machine learning, NLP

Our mission is to change the way people search and interact with online services, by connecting them together in a way that's more more usable, efficient, and social (e.g., no more having ten browser tabs open to assemble the information you need). We do this through unique UX/UI combined with search, machine learning, big data, and other fun technologies.

We're still in stealth but raised funding from Max Levchin, Drew Houston (Dropbox), Naval Ravikant (AngelList), Michael Arrington (CrunchFund), and many others.

We're all engineers (MIT, Cornell, Microsoft, Zynga...) If you're looking to get into an earlier stage startup that solves complex problems, then come find out what we're up to. Our office is near AT&T Park.

Email us: jobs@vurb.com | http://vurb.com/jobs
No they're not, this is unlike anything anyone's ever done before, unless you decide to generalize to the point where you lose almost all relevant data.
SEEKING WORK: Remote

I love creating an applications that know how the user thinks so well that they become invisible and a joy to use. Fluent in C++, Java, C#, Python. Experience with desktop and mobile apps. I have a scientific background and experience with OpenGL and VTK, and have an interest in scientific apps as well.

joffrey.byte @ gmail.com
And now we get meta-spam, spam about the spam i.e. this rant. I haven't seen any April Fools jokes on the front page of HN, the mods must be prepared for it. I suspect this page will go away soon as well.

It's one thing to put a joke up on a blog page, another thing entirely for it to come via email. I think most companies have more sense than that.
I had PRK which is similar to Lasik and I documented the whole thing on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4518F9CBDA82E865&...
Very Funny, Google Analytics :)
I don't think humans evolved with alarm clocks. In an ideal world, would you not let yourself sleep as long as your brain deems appropriate? I think sunset and sunrise times would end up meaning a lot more.

The post also doesn't seem to account for sleep debt. If you undersleep one night, you may have to sleep longer than normal the next night to make up for it.
XP is perfectly fine for most games. The advantages of Windows 7 are pretty minor and you can still get current drivers for XP.

I'm sure there's a lot of people that run Boot Camp and boot into XP just for games and see no reason to pay for an upgrade to Windows 7.
Just because you barely see any feedback on these kind of posts, here are my 5 cents:

I work there. It's a fun job with a great team.

Lots of interesting problems, lots of learning, lots of really smart people.
Play-Doh 3D Printer
solid job team, love what happens when you try to actually purchase it. hahaha ... almost fell off my chair. solid!
$69 is the standard cost to backorder an expiring domain at namejet etc.
I googled it and read the official Harvard application instructions, which specify the application fee is $75 although you can ask them to waive the fee. It didn't specify the odds of them granting the fee waiver (0%? 100%?) nor did it specify waiving would have no effect on your application (The same document specifically claimed in writing that the inability to schedule an interview has no negative effect on your application, but no such language WRT a fee waiver request). Also the risk was not specified, like if they deny and bill you will collections go after you or "merely" toss out your app for non-payment or ... The problem is not so much $75, as the general cultural advice to apply to 10 other schools just in case which turns it into a $750 problem for a kid.

They also want a rather remarkable amount of (expensive) paperwork sent to them. Everything about the SAT costs money, $50 for the basic test, $11 to send the scores to a school (seriously, $11? In 2013 it costs $11 to shove some digits somewhere?) although all is peppered with "fee waiver available".

Aside from the cost investment, there is also the time investment problem. As per above if you decide you can't afford it, and they want a fairly large amount of work done to apply, even if even more paperwork could result in it being free, well, why bother?
It would only be 99.9% lower.
Did anyone come across some good articles on dealing with suppliers on alibaba (test-runs, QA, IP, shipping, customs, etc.)?
at a cost of only 30$!
LSD or psilocybin cubensis works pretty well...
Try Anvil. Similar blacksmith-y name, nothing majorly confusing or conflicting on the first page of a google or ddg search.
Having been a developer through the last couple of decades, I've appreciated some of the books that ORA has published. But I'm wary of Tim pimping the the latest wave that sells books and conferences. The current wave is "Big Data" and my spam folder has countless missives promoting this conference or that gathering. Sigh...
US Gradually Removing Chinese IT Equipment from Federal Systems
San Francisco - Periscope - Outrageous Hacker!

Periscope makes data analysis tools that use probabilistic algorithms to achieve 100-1,000x real-world-measured speedups over existing tools.

We're well-funded by awesome investors, and the team is currently 2x ex-Google and 2x ex-Microsoft engineers. Come be our fifth full-stack hacker!

Email harry@periscope.io.
Menlo Park, CA or Chicago, IL

Braintree Payments - FULL TIME Developers, DevOps Engineers, Data Engineers

Braintree powers payments for innovative and high-growth mobile and online businesses. We provide an easy-to-integrate API for developers while ensuring the merchants’ end users have a frictionless and secure experience at checkout. Our full-stack payments solution includes a payment gateway, merchant account, recurring billing, and credit card storage.

Our team is talented, our practices are collaborative (pairing, agile), we work on challenging problems (high availability, quality of service, scaling, security), and our devs have 10% time to work on whatever they want. Developers use and love our product. Although we mostly work with Ruby, we also work with Python, Node.js, PHP, Java, .NET, Perl, and Objective-C

More about our people, practices, and software: http://www.braintreepayments.com/devblog

Apply at http://www.braintreepayments.com/braintree-careers
The article says it costs about $2,600/month. Cheaper than $36,000/yr but not by an order of magnitude.
The bit about the 3PM dip is not just about meridian cycles.

Since I gave up carbohydrates, I haven't had that hypoglycaemic productivity dip at a predictable time after lunch. As a contractor, I've sat in different offices and witnessed those around me experience 'the dip', whereas I can now soldier on through the day from morning to evening with consistent alertness and focus levels. Oh, and creatine supplementation helped a lot, too.

Another useful trick is to buy a blackout blind or window cover. I've managed to make my bedroom pitch black from the beginning to the end of my sleep cycle, and I know that my sleep is much better for it. It goes without saying that if the sun rises early where you live, and you happen to go to sleep late one night, it can be impossible to get the full 8 hours you want if the light starts streaming in before you've finished.
if you 'accidentally' make a purchase, perhaps they try to snare the kids playing with the ipad lying around.. the money certainly disappears faster than it'll ever come back..
GMail Blue
"I spent a few hours hacking together a little rails app which would play out 100,000 rolls in a few seconds and tell me the chances of everything coming up. "

Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities? It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.
SEEKING WORK - Remote, south of France

Full-stack Java/JEE engineer, at ease with open-source ecosystems (Jetty, Tomcat, JBoss, Glassfish, Dropwizard, PostgreSQL, ...). I worked on big soul-crushing projects with heavyweight solutions (Oracle, Weblogic and co) as well as lean solutions in a fast-peaced environment (I've been the lead developer and architect for two startups).
Lucas-Tesla Project to Give Drivers a Charge While They Watch a Movie
> Why not cut out the middle man and have academics and practionsers actually recommend the courses, and guide people through.

And then we can use an artificial intelligence algorithm to combine the recommendations of all the academics and practitioners, to get an index of recommendations across all fields.

Call it PractictionerRank, or PeerRank, or BookRank, or....
> In a casino, if a roulette wheel hit black 10 times in a row, somebody letting it ride on black the whole way would have made a fortune, but that doesnt mean it would have been a good bet, it means the people making those bets got lucky.

Equating a currency to a game of chance based on independent events—now that's irrational thinking.

My conclusions might not be valid, this isn't something I'm an expert at, but I really don't think that's a good example.
Ah, very good! The other interesting point is they use a dictionary that includes number of syllable information that have augmented with words like "Rihanna".

Part of me wishes this page had been submitted instead of the top level.
To follow up on our posting last month this is for a graduate position.
Except for the one day restriction. If all spam was nicely confined to one day, I'd probably be ok with it.
Jira Jr.
Thats a bit of a logical fallacy. Just because modern currencies tend to not exhibit volatility, doesn't mean its a bad trait for a currency. In the past, ideas like "menu costs" might make it less favorable because of sticky prices not aligning with a free floating currency, but that isn't as much of an issue anymore. The real issue would be if the underlying fundamentals, IE the supply and demand of the currency, didn't align, making the volatility due to human expectations and not genuine factors.

While I think that a good deal of the BTC volatility is due to human expectations, it just bothers me when people try and use older macro ideas when explaining Bitcoin.
"Airbnb,Ridejoy, Vayable" all in one?
I guess that's what annoyed me. At least with a blog or some other web-based joke, participation is optional and requires action from the audience. Email based jokes like this from a company I regularly receive "useful" emails from just doesn't seem like a good idea.
Are there legit apps over $100 ?
StackOverflow chat with an expert feature now live
Or is it?
I just choose to interact with the net using my personal address :)

As for attire, everyone wears whatever they want -- probably just like any other company posting here.
That's exactly what I'd call a born leader. These types of people do not show any weakness and refuse to compromise on their vision.
Is the new Kindle Zero the sign of things to come?
How do you dry-run a Rails patch? I mean I know how to do `bundle update rails`. The problems with updates tend to be patch-specific.
A currency can't make value out of nothing for long. Eventually reality will set in. I think that's the moral of this story.
Seattle, WA - full time- web developer (microsoft stack)

------------------

9slides (www.9slides.com) is a funded early stage startup disrupting how we share presentations online. Using our web and tablet tools, presentors can capture and create interactive presentations and make them available on-demand on wide range of devices.

We are seeking a local experienced Full Stack Web Developer able to work with us in our Redmond,WA office. This is a full time position. You must have valid work authorization to work in USA.

Must have:

- Solid experience working on .Net platform writing in C#, ASP.NET MVC, HTML, CSS, JS/JQuery

- Familiar with SQL, Windows Server and IIS

- Experience building commercial branded sites and large scale projects

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Additional points for:

- Prior experience working with startups.

- SASS/Compiled JS/Entity Framework.

- Experience working on Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and/or applications.

- Exposure to Windows 8 app development model.
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You can find all the job listings at
http://9slides.com/Misc/Jobs
SEEKING REMOTE WORK / local engagements throughout Europe. I'm specializing in

1) scalability consulting, refactoring, and bug hunting

2) web app prototypes and proof-of-concepts

Languages: PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Delphi, Java, C

Environments: LAMP stack, NginX, Node.js, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD

Web Tech: HTML5, CSS, jQuery, MySQL, JSON message passing, WebSockets, WebGL, mobile web development

--- --- ---

My current pet project is a toy programming language called np: http://np-lang.org/

Random facts:

- started my career in an advertising agency
- ran a web startup for a couple of years
- have a background in bio-medical research
- programming is still my favorite thing

--- --- ---

My profile: http://udos.name or contact me at udo.schroeter@gmail.com
Google kills YouTube for April Fools, but is it funny?
Proloquo2Go
SEEKING WORK - Chicago, remote

I've been freelancing/consulting for a while, and this summer I'm joining up with two friends (a designer and programmer) who haven't done any contract work before.

We intend to focus on web development due to common experience, but I have mobile development experience and they are interested in doing mobile as well. We'll be putting up a website soon, but if you want to talk to us ahead of time, shoot me an email: mvz@mvz.so
Really cool. Just purchased!
Reddit buys Team Fortress 2
I'm fairly sure that's not how sleep debt works and part of the reason its a faulty name.

The idea of sleep debt more refers to the long-term effects of a lack of sleep on your overall health. So if you skimp on hours of sleep during the week but then make them up during the weekend you might feel okay on Sunday, but you have actually physically harmed yourself in some minute way - you have created a sleep debt that you essentially cannot repay.
I thought I was the same way for a long time, but for me the kicker was 'left to my own devices' - I NEVER had anywhere near 8 hours consistently, so on the weekends, I would crash for more than 10 hours at least. My conclusion was that I needed more than 9 hours a day.

Then I went on a year long vacation - and after the first couple months of sleeping over 10 hours naturally - my body finally caught up with its sleep debt, and I was sleeping about 8 hours a day. I was amazed. Turns out I was just sleep deprived. Of course, I do know people who consistently get 9.5 hours day, so your mileage may vary. Just something to think about in this sleep deprived world.
I recall one that helped you study for the bar exam and was really expensive. I assumed it was legitimate.
Almost makes me wonder if they're trying to trick people - e.g. this just see a price starting with 99 and assume 99 cents

How does Apple handle things like this? Does it immediately auth the CC for purchases over a certain amount?
Butterfly Labs ships their first ASIC Bitcoin mining unit to a developer
I just wanted to say thanks for this book recommendation - "Mindfulness in Plain English". Learning and starting some basic meditation was one of my New Years Resolutions, but I didn't really know where to get started (even though I've been exposed to meditation before). I bought this book and it is a great practical guide.
Except for the one day a year bit, which is key. In fact, to all spammers: you can send me all the spam you want before noon on April 1, if you in turn agree to not send me any spam any other day of the year.
Annoying when an actually good idea gets buried in a joke.

; python
>>> dir(csv)[0]
NameError: name 'csv' is not defined
>>> import csv
>>> dir(csv)[0]
'Dialect'

Really, you know exactly where 'csv' is, but didn't want to even suggest it in the error message?
The Most Effective Goal-Setting Plan You'll Ever Find. Seriously.
SEEKING WORK: Remote, based in West Dunbartonshire and sometimes Glasgow, Scotland.

Android, iOS, PHP, App Engine.

Company site with own product: http://heyjimmy.net

E-mail me for portfolio - james at heyjimmy dot net