61–70 of 140 posts
the problem is occasionally you find one that's genuinely fascinating and you're suddenly wide awake at 3am having learned something.
Too many American websites these days put random geoblocking in place. What’s even more frustrating is when it happens without any explanation in mobile apps via breaking a few specific APIs. Just yesterday I was struggling with a bank/fintech that would send me through KYC every time I’d open the app from abroad as an existing user, which would then hang forever. Using a US VPN, everything would work normally. Good…
One trick that makes me sleepy really fast: After I close my eyes, I imagine someone throwing black paint on them. The first coat is kinda gray and has lots of blob and not fully black. Then another coat. And another. Each one gets darker until it's just pure black and I'm usually asleep by then. For some reason, my brain follows it, and I fall asleep much faster. It works way better for me than box breathing or most…
Too many American websites these days put random geoblocking in place. What’s even more frustrating is when it happens without any explanation in mobile apps via breaking a few specific APIs. Just yesterday I was struggling with a bank/fintech that would send me through KYC every time I’d open the app from abroad as an existing user, which would then hang forever. Using a US VPN, everything would work normally. Good…
The geoblocking is mostly a desperate attempt at self defense against a flood of scrapers crushing the site for everyone. Don't take it personally unless you are one.
One trick that makes me sleepy really fast: After I close my eyes, I imagine someone throwing black paint on them. The first coat is kinda gray and has lots of blob and not fully black. Then another coat. And another. Each one gets darker until it's just pure black and I'm usually asleep by then. For some reason, my brain follows it, and I fall asleep much faster. It works way better for me than box breathing or most…
Similarly, I never try to imagine a bright sunshine. It can wake me up
https://www.marfapublicradio.org/podcast/marfa-public-radio-...
Not sure how accessible all this is outside of the UK (you'd need to check the BBC Sounds website & app), but the BBC has perfected a couple of great "gets you to sleep" radio outlets. The oldest is Radio 4, the BBC's national spoken word radio station (there's also Radio 5 which focuses on sport and news, Radio 4 is more a mixture of comedy, arts, culture and news). Late at night (UK time), there are programmes that…
There is a similar podcast, "Boring Books for Bedtime": https://www.boringbookspod.com/episodes . The problem with that podcast is that most of their selections are genuinely interesting - I even listened to them on long drives (e.g. "Origin of Species"). Even something I thought would boring like or "Farm Engines and how to Run" them turned out to be fascinating. This one, on the other hand, seems to be genuinely bo…
The Sleep With Me Podcast is very good. It helped my wife when she had a period of insomnia. He has a number of tricks he uses from a monoto delivery, to meandering stories where the narrative constantly interrupts itself with. So you can’t really “follow along”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_with_Me_(podcast)
been using long youtube lectures for this for years. the sweet spot is something just interesting enough that your brain can't fully let go, but not interesting enough to actually keep you awake. theoretical physics talks hit it perfectly for me. the problem is occasionally you find one that's genuinely fascinating and you're suddenly wide awake at 3am having learned something.
For me, Edward Witten (1), Sheldon Axler (2), Patrick Winston (3) and many others do a far better job. 1. https://youtu.be/UW_M7hotSlk 2. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGAnmvB9m7zOBVCZBUUmSinFV... 3. https://youtu.be/TjZBTDzGeGg