
How a good night's sleep became a status symbol - venomsnake
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/01/sleep-habits-eight-hours-health-wellness-arianna-huffington
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kazinator
"And when, some days afterwards, it was announced that from now on the pigs
would get up an hour later in the mornings than the other animals, no
complaint was made about that either." \-- _Animal Farm_ , George Orwell

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charlesdm
Being able to get a proper night's sleep one of the things I love most about
being a "solopreneur". I had a job for a while and days were just too short.
I'd come home and before I knew it, it was 1-2am.

I currently work 4-5 hours a day, yet get close to a full days work done
because of increased productivity due to sleeping well.

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RUG3Y
May I ask what business you're in? I want to do something like what you're
doing. I only need to make 35 - 40k to sustain my current lifestyle.

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charlesdm
I've made a decent amount of money selling apps through the iOS and Mac app
store over the last few years. Making $35-40k online shouldn't be too hard, if
you put your mind to it. However, most of the projects you can make money with
won't be exciting from an engineering PoV. I found it's often either 1) a cool
project; or 2) a money maker.

Another thing is that you need a decent amount of savings. Even if you have a
product that brings in 3-5k per month, having another $50/100/200k in the bank
gives you tremendous piece of mind. It also helps with potential cashflow
problems. I personally don't take on debt, unless it helps me make more money
(i.e. on an investment).

Where are you based? Living somewhere with a low cost of living + low taxes is
probably the best way to do it, so you can build up capital to kickstart an
investment portfolio. For example: having $200-500k invested in the stock
market will yield you, on average, 7% per year. That's $14-$35k per year. You
want to be working towards a number, so you can achieve financial
independence.

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RUG3Y
Is it ok if I email you and ask a couple of questions?

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charlesdm
Sure

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chiph
I've been wondering what the margins are on mattresses. You see stores selling
them all over the place. There's usually only one or two employees in there,
and they're devoid of shoppers most of the week (weekends are big days for
them). So they have to pay rent + utilities and presumably commission, but are
selling these items one-at-a-time to only occasional customers. The mark-ups
have to be _insane_ to support that.

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drzaiusapelord
This has been explored in the press recently and apparently the margins are
very high. The sales experience is also poor as you'll see an ad for a $599
bed and when you visit the store you'll get an aggressive upsell. Worse, if
you fight the upsell, the $599 bed is magically out of stock or will require
4-6 weeks delivery while the other more expensive items can be delivered
tomorrow.

My last two beds have been from either Costco or Sam's Club. No high pressure
sales, less bullshit, and better pricing. The one time my wife and I went to a
mattress store, we paid probably 30% more than the warehouse club prices and
the bed's springs went bad years earlier than expected.

I highly recommend avoiding mattress stores.

~~~
seanp2k2
There are tons of mattress companies trying to "disrupt" the market right now.
Leesa, Casper, Tuft and Needle, etc. I personally went with FloBeds (older
company, all-latex mattresses, hippy dippy, in California) and couldn't be
happier.

[http://www.themattressunderground.com](http://www.themattressunderground.com)
has lots of good info if you're in the market. Casper and the rest aren't bad
deals, but there is better / different stuff out there without the terrible
mattress store business model.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I just find it easier to lay down on the bed at the warehouse club to see if I
like it than taking a chance online. I lean towards a firm mattress but not
too firm. Its sometimes tough finding the one I want and doing mattress
returns via the internet sounds like a nightmare.

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toasterlovin
Casper has a 100 day no-questions-asked return policy. We ended up returning
one of their mattresses and it couldn't have been easier. They send somebody
by your house to pick it up.

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Kristine1975
The first picture is a still from the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's", btw. The
sleeping woman with the cat is Audrey Hepburn.

But this is fucked up:

 _> According to the Times, most of the A-Team can only endure about 12 months
of the work because it’s so taxing. The low pay also means many of them take
second jobs. Basically, they don’t sleep so that Huffington can_

So she knows how important sleep is (even wrote a book about it), but she
doesn't pay her employees enough so they can get a good night's sleep, too?

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awinter-py
hmm -- no mention here of the rising cost of silence. It is very expensive to
purchase 8 hours of quiet in a major city.

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patrickk
Depends on the city and the building materials used.

After moving to Germany, I was blown away by the property prices (relative to
comparable buildings internationally) and the building materials.

This is a typical German door, with a bevel:
[http://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AIA/UploadedImag...](http://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AIA/UploadedImages/6e814608-4554-4eb0-b93b-ac088d84a808/9.27.DB%205%20wide%20door.jpg)

Typically these have a matching rubber seal, which dramatically reduces noise
and draughts: [https://www.modern-doors.co.uk/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2014/...](https://www.modern-doors.co.uk/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/weather-seal-1.jpg)

Additionally the apartment walls are like a bunker, which means you don't hear
traffic, trains or your neighbours even if you live in a city centre.

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konradb
I am always impressed the building standards and systems in Germany.

I had a look at these doors as I was intruiged and beguiled by them. They
always felt substantial and well-engineered to me. I found that one typically
buys a 'door set' which includes a frame and door which have been made to
work, lock, seal etc together. You can then fix the door set into your
building. In the UK this is not typically the case, I don't know about the
states or elsewhere.

The systems for tiling are also wonderful and exported throughout the world
(see Schluter). There is a trend of concealing toilet cisterns by companies
such as Gerberit, although I hear these aren't as reliable as the doors. I'm
still on the lookout for more of these systems (I can see there's a standard
for residential electric circuit breakers, I haven't got to the bottom of
those yet). I love how well thought-out they are.

~~~
patrickk
Germans are civil engineering _Gods_. Here's a factory-made, German Huf Haus,
which was built in a factory in Germany, and shipped over from Germany to the
UK on the back of a truck, and then installed on-site in just one week:

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xx0k9r_se04e06-grand-
design...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xx0k9r_se04e06-grand-designs-
german-kit-home-surrey-tvrip-xvid_news)

I'm surprised to hear those heavy duty doors are not available
internationally, they utterly destroy any interior door in terms of quality
that I was familiar with growing up.

I can tell you that you can throw a full blown house party without the
neighbours hearing a peep, and you almost never use the heating if you live a
few floors up (a few days per year at most due to the completely sealed
building and the rising heat from downstairs neighbours).

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konradb
Yes those Huf Häuser are amazing.

I found that there were suppliers of the doors in the UK but I haven't looked
further afield. The windows (opening two different directions) are also
similarly impressive though much more widespread. I spend half my time in
Germany trying to look out for these things and marvelling at them.

~~~
patrickk
Now that you mention it, I have one of those "floating" toilets, very similar
to this one, including the recessed flush button, except in grey:
[http://www.decraplastics.co.uk/sanitaryware/images/geberit%2...](http://www.decraplastics.co.uk/sanitaryware/images/geberit%20Dukt.jpg)

The nice thing is, you can easily hoover and mop under the cistern very
quickly, instead of dust gathering behind it like with a typical toilet. It's
a simple, unassuming design too, does just the job and stays out of the way
otherwise.

Other details that I've noticed is every single door, inside and out, has that
bevel/seal combination I mentioned, and not just in higher-end building like
offices either but also regular apartments.

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konradb
Yes those are the toilets! I was amazed by them and found that the flush
control clicks out and the access to the cistern is behind it, and that's why
typically the flush button is so large, because you just tile the whole
cistern into the wall and mount the toilet to it. Interesting design. I've
read that it isn't without its problems and has to be installed quite
carefully. But it seems very widespread in Germany.

The doors - yes. With beautiful solidity. I had a look and possibly Grauthoff
is a name of one manufacturer. When I was last in Berlin I kept looking for
labels or manufacturer marks but I couldn't find any. I daresay someone in
construction in Germany would immediately know.

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kayman
I find the conclusion of the article that focus on sleep is a short lived fad
is wrong.

People have been trying to hack sleep for a long time, unsuccessfully.

I hope one day we can, but I doubt it. At best you can trick your body into
reaching your REM cycle faster via activities like meditation.

Personally, plenty of sleep is my secret weapon along with exercise. As the
world is trying to hack sleep and cut corners, I find resting and taking care
of my body makes me much more effective than the sleepless zombies around me.

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dirtyaura
Although getting enough sleep is important, it's surprisingly hard for people
to get quality sleep. I work at ŌURA
([https://ouraring.com](https://ouraring.com)), the wellness ring that is
focused on analysing your sleep. It's pretty visible in people's sleep data
that if they focused more on properly relaxing before they go to bed, they
would sleep better. The time of the lowest heart-rate of the night is a good
indicator how relaxed your body were when you went to bed. Alcohol, late
workouts, stressful life situation all affect this.

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torrent-of-ions
What about sex? Is the morning the best time?

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saiya-jin
I was waiting for some shocking revelation in the article, but she says what
everybody doing sports knows damn well for centuries - sleep restores body and
mind, and you should be clocking 8 hours consistently to get most of it.

the end of the article is actually the most interesting. it just puzzles me
how somebody like her can be so popular...

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mmanfrin
She sold a blog/news website named after her for nearly a billion dollars.

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tps5
I've never been able to figure out who Ariana Huffington is or why I should
care what she thinks.

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tamana
She was a popular newspaper pundit before she founded huffpo and newspapers
died.

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jgalt212
Yes, Arianna Huffington loves talk about sleeping. And other assorted
nonsense. Anything to keep the rank and file dems from noticing that the
liberal elites make 100X what the rank and file do. To these ends, the dems
have stolen a page out of the GOP playbook. Run interference around defense
and family values so you don't notice the CEO makes 100X what you do.

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gozur88
The article takes the publication of a book and tries to spin it into a trend.
It's not. People who could make the time still brag about getting very little
sleep because it makes them feel important.

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dilemma
If you're not sleep deprived you need to check your privilege.

~~~
venomsnake
One of the great bonuses of working from home. You will be surprised how easy
it is to get your 8 hours if you don't commute.

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elorant
The problem with working from home is that it's very easy to procrastinate or
just jerk off with the gazillion of things that attract your attention.

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DiabloD3
You know, it's weird, but for me, not having the buzz of other people around
me all the time makes it easy for me to concentrate.... as long as I stay off
HN, Reddit, and Imgur.

Seriously, HN is a gigantic delicious timesink that has probably cost all of
us collectively millions.

~~~
paulojreis
> Seriously, HN is a gigantic delicious timesink that has probably cost all of
> us collectively millions.

It's possible, but what you get _back_ from HN is also enormous; from jobs to
interactions with very smart people. I mean, Alan Kay was involved in
discussions here, just yesterday!

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hermannj314
It is sad that your have such low morality that you would steal merely because
you have the opportunity to do so. That says a lot about you.

Fortunately, the world isn't full of people like you.

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bshimmin
It's _just_ possible I was joking. Or, I don't know, maybe I like to advertise
my future criminal exploits on a web site I post to using my real name.

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harryh
Possible, but just to be safe I've looked up your personal information and
called the police in your area. They should be contacting you soon and
hermannj314 can rest easy.

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bshimmin
Many thanks Harry. I hope they can help me on my quest to get a few new
mattresses and a computer.

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dingo_bat
If there is something I deeply wish for, it is for the power to ignore sleep.
Every minute slept is a great loss. A good night's sleep means you're not
working hard enough.

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RankingMember
"Every minute slept is a great loss"

I'm thinking you're being sarcastic, but if not, there's nothing you're doing
that's going to be done more productively by being sleep-deprived.

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mamon
No, I think he wasn't sarcastic at all. The fact is that we waste 1/3 of our
life sleeping. Find a way to stay healthy and well rested without sleep and
you basically added 25 years to human lifespan.

