Sleeping tactics and f.lux | Hacker News Reader

Sleeping tactics and f.lux

youexec.com

153 pointssomid348 comments

Hi all, I started You Exec with a few friends -- and its true, most of the people I have interviewed request to remain anonymous -- we had one person ask for money and we refused, hence we can't use his name. The other ones would rather remain annon because his customers would feel used (that was the viral gifts one). And you're right, we are a small team and do this on the side... so sometimes typos do happen.

Overall, we carry out interviews, write articles, and create resources to help professionals. I thought this sleep article would help some developers. Why don't you ask me anything and I'll be happy to answer. And I am sorry for the negative energy in the comments -- overall, if I can be of service or help let me know.

I personally learned about F.lux and love it. The developer did a great job of making the app available on Windows, Mac, etc. Also, yes we do use minimal referral links to create side income to pay for servers, email software, etc.

Since you're writing here, some quick feedback:

> By the way, if you don't believe me about the blue-light concept there are plenty of scientific papers about the topic, consider this article from the Washington Post.

The link to the referenced article is missing.

Ah, just added it

I don't disagree with the premise (that blue light affects your brain chemistry and can keep you awake) of the article but it's all hand-wavy. My biggest question is how this exec knows he's performing at his best - Has (sh)he tried poly-phasic sleep? Compared his/her output against working 10 hour days, etc. Sleeping 11 hours a night is too much for many people but even then, there are 13 waking hours. How much of that becomes your optimal work day?

Unlikely. This was not a clinical or outcome study

How was the 1% to 2% decrease in performance measured? Or was it a case of let's make up a number so our article appears to have an experimental basis.

If I sleep poorly, I'm adding a zero at least to those numbers. Only a 1-2% reduction from bad sleep ... in my dreams!

It is a number that conveys that it is hardly noticeable, but compounds into big losses.

It's a personal assessment.

minutes spent working via a time tracker.

Everyone is talking about the company or typos for some reason. The article here actually has some interesting ideas though. I think I'll send it to Kindle to read instead of a phone in the spirit of that.

Thank you.

I'm curious what the easiest way to read emails on a kindle or other e-reader is.

"Sleep is the new status symbol."

Seriously, I actually sleep quite a bit, but this guy comparing himself to an athlete at work, and also telling me that he has to sleep 11h in the days we goes working out is just plain bragging... which is typical from the Fortune 100 execs the article then claims that they might or may not (this part is weird) be interviewing.

It doesn't seem to mention anything about who the interviewee is. Clicking through a few other articles on the site shows the same pattern. A very odd angle for a web site. We "interview" anonymous people who may or may not be Fortune 100 execs, and further may or may not be real people.

most of the people I have interviewed request to remain anonymous -- we had one person ask for money and we refused, hence we can't use his name. The other ones would rather remain annon because his customers would feel used (that was the viral gifts one). And you're right, we are a small team and do this on the side... so sometimes typos do happen.

Can I suggest that you specifically state that in your articles then? It would at least clarify the cause for a lack of source/interviewee name.

Tangential but does he really need 10 hours of sleep a day? The article says from 10 till 8.

I know that some people need that amount to be well rested but that's unusual and often it turns out that they also need exercise and a change to a healthier diet and once those happen, they need less sleep.

For any interested, Red Moon is a GPL android app for filtering blue light and dimming your screen. https://github.com/raatmarien/red-moon

Disclaimer: I am one of the developers.

Slightly off-topic, but I previously used f.lux and switched to redshift-gtk. It has a system-try indicator and auto-start built-in.

http://jonls.dk/redshift/

And if you are using archlinux, you can also grab a redshift plasma applet from the AUR that works great. Just put it on my laptop last night.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/plasma5-applets-redshift-...

The downside of Redshift is that it doesn't work with Wayland.

GNOME 3.24 has a built-in feature called "night light"[0] that supposedly does work with Wayland (I haven't tried it). MacOS also now has a similar feature called "night shift"[1] and I expect other desktop environments will follow suit, eventually spelling the end of third-party solutions like f.lux and Redshift.

[0]: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/02/gnome-night-light-blue-li...

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207513

Can someone explain more of the backstory behind Youexec? I can't tell if their sparse, name-dropping landing page is brilliant or a marketing hack. And I've got a marketing background so that's saying a lot!

To me, that landing page reads as:

1. This product doesn't precisely need a web presence—it's an email newsletter, not a web-app.

2. We rely so little on inbound marketing that our site can have obvious grammatical errors. Nobody reads our copy; everyone just comes in from Google already pre-qualified, scrolls until they see the CTA, and hits the button.

3. People mostly find out about our product through outbound marketing—i.e., we call, email, or "run into" them.

4. We don't have all that many customers; we're still at the "doing things that don't scale" stage.

It's weird, right? After a little research I would lean towards the latter, because it seems like dropping names without having something to really back it up is what's happening. The oldest post I could find is from January, and the corporation (which does exist) was only incorporated in March. While I don't doubt the veracity of the testimonials, it is a little strange to see such a sparse website, without even an about page, and a testimonial stating something like "in under six months...".

The service does seem like it could be useful, but it may be trying to make itself seem bigger than it actually is.

Plenty of people work on their product or test the market for customers before they form the legal entity. A two month difference is not necessarily concerning.

It started a few months ago, I think I saw it here and signed up out of curiosity.

There's very little available free, with (I'm led to believe) more content available at the cost of giving people your referral link.

I haven't given anyone my referral link though, since the content that is available to me seems so poor. Frequent typos, questionable advice, (most recently 'if your CV will be read digitally, it should have a dark background') and probably-paid advertisements masquerading as recommendations ('buy your boss an {obscure item link} to get noticed').

> advertisements masquerading as recommendations

You're not wrong. He mentions two products in the article: f.lux and the Sleep Smarter book.

The rest is in the disclaimer:

> You Exec has no affiliation with f.lux. We have not been paid to promote the software, neither do we gain any financial value if you use their software. We have tested their software to the best of our abilities and we did not find any spyware, viruses, pop-up ads, etc. Legal notes: follow the suggestions of this article at your own risk.

The book itself also has some alarming ratings.

I thought the disclaimer seemed out of place as it seemed obvious they had no affiliation with f.lux. Now it makes sense that they just have a disclaimer for everything so it's clearer what's sponsored content.

"most recently 'if your CV will be read digitally, it should have a dark background'"

It seems to me that would be more likely to get a resume tossed out. It would be harder to read and would break your concentration when you're looking through a bunch. I guess somebody might think that will make you stand out, but at least for me, it wouldn't make you stand out in a good way.

I'm really confused. Am I seeing the same page everyone else is seeing? What are you referring to by name-dropping? Where are the "obvious grammatical errors"?

Can you maybe post a screenshot of what you're seeing, maybe this is some A/B test?

See the 3x3 layout of "We've helped members from these firms" for the name-dropping.

ETA: Check under "How We Do It" for the grammatical errors.

Eh, customer testimonials and logos are a pretty standard part of the startup website equation.

The site's marketing is deceptive if you're not vigilant.

> We've helped members from these firms

Could mean anyone anywhere up the food chain. From "execs" to unpaid interns.

Looking at the customer testimonials portions, they only include first names and their name-brand firm. No position or anything else to help identify their qualifications.

If we assume youexec is aligning their marketing towards people who are -- or want to be -- in executive roles, and look at some context clues, the testimonials become nearly worthless.

Brian from McK doesn't have front-office dress, so we can rule him out.

Oluyemi from Google refers to himself as only a "software developer" (if we assume he's not being modest).

Olga from CN, I have no idea. But that only makes it 1 for 3.

But, it looks more likely that YE is following the footsteps of "Think and Grow Rich" -- and the infinite spinoffs of which it'll most likely be joining if its current state is to be used as a predictor. The crowd who wants what the other guy's having. Not because of said thing's inherent value, but because someone important is doing it.

Personally I did not find this deceptive or confusing as members of jumped out at me right away. I've also seen several other startups do the same thing before. Beyond the article, I don't know anything else about this company per se.

Hmm. I didn't even get a landing page when following the link, so I'm rather confused as to the above. :-)

(Australia; ublock; Chrome).

Works 5 hours a day, sleeps 10? Nice work if you can get it.

"all the light bulbs in my home are warm, they emit more yellow and orange than any other color. Like chocolate at midnight, "

Now, it is not that easy to find these light bulbs that emit extra more yellow/orange light and chocolate color at midnight

I figured he was referring to Philips Hue bulbs or similar.

I assumed the same thing. I bought a bunch of these things and made sure they were displaying red light late at night and believe this helped me feel more relaxed and tired late at night. Note that I'm in Minnesota where it is much more difficult to rely on natural lighting for wake/sleep periods.

> airplane mode

My old HTC had quiet times - mute the phone unless an the same person phones twice. It was a great feature that doesn't seem to have made it into newer models.

The last 2 major versions of Android have had this build in.

including bypass for double attempts?

yes (if they retry in 15 minutes)

That's how iPhone's Do not Disturb works by default (default interval is 3 mins IIRC).

So many "as sleep" instead of "asleep".

Why not just wear a pair of blue blocker sunglasses?

Sounds like a Kickstarter campaign in the making.

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