pdiddy

You should go to a doctor. Sleep is complicated and extremely important for your health. They will help you. There is a book called something like The Harvard Medical School's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep. You could check it out for an overview, but not in place of seeing a doctor.

Also, don't use a computer or any other illuminated screen in bed (or ideally an hour before you sleep).

I am very excited that Red Mars is apparently being made. I thought by HBO but just Googled it and it says Spike TV. Not sure...

Thanks for the kind words. Going to school is a question I'm debating a lot and I have been trying to mine HN for wisdom. I'm planning on applying in the fall and also applying for some jobs at around the same time.

I make $65K salary (in Boston). Double major in Classical Studies and English in '06. Late bloomer in finding coding. Working professionally as web dev for just about 2 years. I'm considering going to school to get a masters in Computer Engineering.

Beware the unnecessary quotation mark. http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Why do you say the keyboard looks terrible? They have been touting the new keyboard a lot. See here: https://www.apple.com/macbook/design/

When you say picky what do you use? Shouldn't you just use water?

The so-called "silent divorce."

Good shout bringing up Georgia Tech. Their new online master's in Comp Sci seems to be really shaking things up. It seems like a major omission from this article, especially because it is a collaboration between Udacity and GT.

280 is a massive squat. Based on what you're saying, I feel like your form must have been off and that you're have a misrepresentation of what the standards are.

Avoid putting the barbell high on your shoulders or you risk back pain/injury. Put the bar on your traps and hold it place with your hands. This is what makes it a full-body exercise.

>Would you say strength in general would be a better (more healthy in the long term) goal than just endurance/condition?

I would definitely say this when speaking in general terms. Strength training normally focuses on full-body exercises, but endurance training (think cross-country running or cycling--not sprinting) does not. I was just reading an article talking about the importance of strength training for runners which emphasized that most injuries come from muscle imbalances.

Personally, I do both. My goal is to lift three times a week and then do endurance the other days. If I had to choose I would stick with lifting for health reasons.

It also depends what your goals are. Once you get to a certain point, you can't do endurance exercise and expect to hypertrophy.

Guy Davenport is the writer who resonates with me the most. If I had to choose one work it would be "Wo es war, soll ich werden."

Kenneth Goldsmith's work, probably epitomized in the book Day, is what challenged me the most. It shook my ideas about what it means to be original and create art in the world today.

Perhaps this is obvious but if you aren't running your own server, your web app (and Hangfire along with it) can stop running during a period of inactivity. Obviously this is not a problem with Azure scheduler.

I use Hangfire and then simply have Azure Scheduler ping my site regularly.

You would probably help your cause by supplying some scientific evidence re claim #1.

Strength training (e.g. lifting weights). I will be anecdotal and tell my own story. I started at about 30, having virtually no experience in the weight room. I was very intimidated, but took it as a challenge. That was generally unfounded and I have found people in the gym to be (while reserved) generous and non-judgmental. I still go in the morning, though, because having a crowded room throws me off.

After beginning to lift, minor pain that I was experiencing in my wrist and back disappeared. I'm now focusing on my posture a lot because I realize I'm basically too weak to sit or stand up straight all day. It has also taught me basic things like how to pick something up. I cringe every time I see some one bend over at the waist and arch their back. People can throw out their backs picking up very light objects.

I highly recommend the book The New Rules of Lifting. Supplement by watching you tube videos about particular motions. Start off slowly. If you can afford it, consider a trainer. But I am a DIY type, as I imagine many here are.

Eat right (I generally ignore weight lifting diet advice and try to follow the advice in Eat Drink and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide, which generally advises a Mediterranean-style diet and is based on aggregating data from several of the most long-term studies of diet).

Make sure you are sleeping well.

Currently reading: The House of Life, Mario Praz; Spring and All (try to read it every spring)

Recently finished: 1089 and All That (finished today), The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Gibson's The Peripheral

Barthelme is the best. My wife and I love the story Conversations with Goethe. We frequently get it off the shelf and read it to one another. "Youth," Goethe said, "is the silky apple butter on the good brown bread of possibility."

Birdman also heavily revolves around What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Focus on traffic--not rankings.

You or an employee should become super familiar with Google Analytics (or another package) and Google Webmaster Tools. You need to measure traffic and make sure your site is being crawled. This is also the best info you will get on rankings.

I hesitate to tell you where to spend $5k. Investing in people would be best. The best solution I could give is to buy the traffic through AdWords.

Do not buy links.

Content is important. Make sure your Title tags are good. But content is close to your core business so I wouldn't necessarily throw $5K at it.

Not sure how you would buy press.

Xenu link sleuth is a great tool.

I worked at a small e-commerce site doing in-house SEO. Eventually I transitioned to doing web development. I could make lots of recommendations for SEO to my employers but it basically boiled down to making the best possible website for users. They needed much more help implementing those changes than "doing SEO." For example, our site was slow. Improving the site load time would improve user experience and improve SEO. So my point is, don't let SEO distract you. There are arguments about whether SEO is even separable from good web design/development.

But to literally answer your question, the tools I would use are all free and from Google: Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Trends

You can spend the $5,000 on Google AdWords to drive traffic to your site.

Producing a happiness revolution would be the most productive thing I can imagine and being happy is a good first step.

I imagine The Second Machine Age is old news on HN, but I highly recommend it for a discussion of these topics. It's a very readable book and discusses these social shifts in an intelligent manner without descending into pessimism or making exaggerated claims.

Yes, Bret has a nice home, expensive stove, and kids. It sounds to me like he's doing the right thing by not pressuring his employees to appear like they are "putting in the hours."

Companies are not obligated to provide paid maternity leave--only unpaid. There are expenses incurred (namely, health insurance), but you won't be receiving a paycheck to raise your children or focus on your art, as in your example.

You could have a button next to the button to order more batteries.

I have started removing the labels from branded products as much as possible: shampoo, face wash, soap, bleach. I like the simplicity. I avoid wearing branded clothes as much as possible. The last thing I would do is put an advertisement for P&G in my home, but I am clearly in the minority.

That may be the case now, but I graduated from Penn in 2006, and it was different story then (until about 2008 I think, with Princeton being the first to break the trend). Before that, a portion of your financial aid would be a loan directly from the school. My loan was subsequently sold to Citibank.