yeutterg

A great book that will help with posture, including fixing pelvic tilt, is 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back by Esther Gokhale [1].

The author traveled around the world and looked through history to find out if we always had such terrible posture. It turns out that industrialized societies put a large emphasis on good posture up until the early 20th century. Even today, great posture can be found in less-industrialized cultures.

The Gokhale method has been a game-changer for many, even though it flies in the face of a lot of modern theories about designing furniture and "good" posture. I've personally met people with arthritis and lower back problems who were able to reduce pain and prevent further damage with this book.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Steps-Pain-Free-Back-Solutions-Should...

Here's a little weekend project I put together after finding it frustrating to plan IKEA trips. It basically generates a shopping list with item locations and notifies you if there are quantity issues.

The code is pretty hacky and there are most definitely bugs. But maybe you'll find it useful.

It's a custom-made filament

It's a proprietary design :)

If you're in the U.S., try this link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H49N46N

If you're in Canada, try this link: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07H49N46N

Let me know if you're still having trouble. Thanks!

Being aware of LED flicker and having been to places with both 50 Hz and 60 Hz AC, the places with 50 Hz are definitely worse. Extremely easy to perceive. Plus, it can be difficult to take photos under this light.

Also, most of the "Edison-style" LED bulbs on the market use really cheap drivers. This is especially true outside the U.S. where you can get an LED "filament" with integrated half-wave rectifier. Thankfully UL is not allowing this crap in the U.S., but Edison-style LEDs here still (mostly) use very cheap driver topology.

I'm on a mission to make lighting healthy. That's why I launched Bedtime Bulb: https://bedtimebulb.com/ We have the lowest flicker of any bulb I have ever seen, even less than those claiming to be "flicker-free."

This. I work in lighting and most of the people doing specification have never even heard of flicker. I usually get brushed off as some kind of impractical visionary.

I am on a mission to make lighting healthy. That's why I made Bedtime Bulb: https://bedtimebulb.com/ It has the lowest flicker I've ever seen in a bulb form factor—even less than those claiming to be "flicker-free."

I use Hue at home as well. They are great for controlling blue light exposure, but the flicker (North America) and color quality leave a ton to be desired. I can occasionally see the flicker, especially in my peripheral vision.

Also, they've proven to be unreliable—I've had 4 (out of 13) suffer capacitor failure just outside of the warranty period. Their color binning is not good—new lights look totally different in color from the older ones.

I wrote about this and was interviewed on a podcast recently:

* Is Smart Lighting Healthy?: https://medium.com/simplebulb/is-smart-lighting-healthy-903c...

* Podcast: https://bedtimebulb.com/ror

Disclosure: I sell a light bulb meant to be used in the evening before bed. It removes most of the unhealthy blue/green light, has a super high CRI, and has less flicker than "flicker-free" lighting (which could have up to 30% flicker!). Bedtime Bulb: https://bedtimebulb.com/

"Standing makes me feel better, improves my posture, and takes away all the literal physical pains associated with sitting."

This. After using a standing desk for a few years, I only occasionally want to sit (like 5% of the time). And I generally regret it after about 20-30 minutes.

I see a lot of standing desk users with improper monitor or keyboard height, and I think this hurts standing desks' reputation. If these are not correct, you will get neck and/or lower back pain if you use the desk long enough.

Unfortunately, it can be pricey to have a workstation that is ergonomically correct for you, because the keyboard to monitor height distance is much greater in a standing configuration vs. sitting. Convertible options tend to be expensive.

Having a cushy floor mat also makes a huge difference.

Tangentially related: Evernote Premium does this when you highlight-as-you-read on PDFs. They assume you want to annotate all the time. I would rather press a toolbar button or keyboard shortcut to bring up an annotation, like the way it works on Preview.app.

I think this is because people do what's comfortable for them. A lot of technical founders don't want to go outside of their comfort zone when that's exactly what they need to do to help their product succeed AND grow as a person.

Edit: This regards all forms of product promotion, not just paid ads.

Whether or not companies are paying Quora, it's common for startup founders to answer questions there.

Sometimes the posts are blatant ads that don't really answer the question, or they add nothing that was not already answered. But sometimes they do answer the question and provide value, while also subtly pointing to a product. I think the latter is acceptable, and I do it occasionally myself. (Example: https://www.quora.com/What-kinds-of-lights-are-best-to-comba...)

Consider this: founders have the strongest conviction for solving a given problem. They often created a product because they saw a gap in the market, and they tend to be domain experts. So, they are highly qualified to answer questions within their area of expertise.

If a post provides value and just so happens to offer a relevant solution with financial strings attached, I have absolutely no problem with it. I might even end up purchasing it, because by searching or asking questions on Quora, I am looking for a solution myself.

Backing this up, here's my personal journey: I had back pain for a few years that has been basically gone for six months. A combination of these helped:

* daily inversion (Teeter Gravity Boots on a pull-up bar—I actually pull down on the door frame while inverted for extra decompression)

* daily yoga (at home, from YouTube videos)

* using a standing desk most of the time

* Rolfing about once every eight weeks (type of massage focused on aligning fascia. It's pricey and a little pseudoscience-y but actually works really well)

* occasional targeted sports massage (if I'm crying, I know it's good)

If there's one thing of all those that's made the most difference, it's inversion. I feel so tall now. Seriously, invest in an inversion table or inversion boots if it's safe for you to do this exercise.

My posture is still not where I want it to be, but it's much better than it used to be. I still get tight in the neck (likely due to poor sleep posture). I had chronic pain in my left foot (likely plantar fasciitis) that disappears but comes back about once every two weeks. Both have gotten much better with some targeted yoga exercises, but it's a journey.

I'm slowly going through the book 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back by Esther Gokhale (https://www.amazon.com/Steps-Pain-Free-Back-Solutions-Should...). The author studied posture in industrial vs. non-industrial societies, and she concluded that most pain is not inevitable. We have just forgotten about the importance of posture in industrialized societies. The book gives you eight sessions to practice primal posture for sleeping, standing, and sitting. I'm thinking about investing $400 in the Gokhale Method in-person course.

I now prioritize flexibility over strength. 20-40 minutes of yoga per day is a large commitment, but it's worth it. I'm still basically as strong as I was when I did CrossFit, even though my "exercise" is limited to yoga, basic bodyweight exercises like pull-ups and inverted sit-ups, and long, meditative walks.

Finally, I make some lifestyle choices around posture. For example, always getting an aisle seat for flights longer than 3 hours, so I can easily get up to stretch and walk around. Choosing a more-supportive chair at a restaurant over a slouchy booth. Not reading in bed often.

If you have back pain, maybe something here will be worth trying to you. Keep at it!

Hey HN!

I recently launched a lighting product, Bedtime Bulb, that reduces sleep-interrupting blue light. Few parents are aware of the impacts of blue light on sleep and health, even though they care deeply about their babies' development. I wanted to provide a basic understanding and some simple strategies for circadian light exposure—this article is the result.

I'd love to hear what you think!

Greg

Bedtime Bulb

https://bedtimebulb.com/

I've been playing with the new text-to-speech features, and they are SO much better than before (at least on Android). The new podcast-like audio interface is smooth enough that you could use this safely while driving, walking, or otherwise commuting. I am a heavy audiobook listener, and this is finally a viable option for catching up on articles that I want to read passively.

I thought the old voices were fine, both on Android and iOS. The new ones are from the Amazon Polly API (according to https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/11/17961564/pocket-redesign...). Between the two schemes, I think you trade off performance/battery (old TTS system) life with data usage (new version).

The new voices are maybe a little more natural sounding, but the pauses between sentences were better with the old Android voices, IMO. It looks like it will still use the system TTS engine when there's no data connection. This is cool, and I hope they make further improvements in the TTS area!

Seeking forward and backward left a lot to be desired on the old version. It skipped by paragraph, which worked but was not great since different articles have different paragraph lengths. In the app, you can now skip back and forward 15 seconds, which is more natural.

Unfortunately, on my Bluetooth headphones, skipping backward goes to the previous article, not back 15 seconds. They really need to have this as an option, because even with ANC headphones (Sony WH-1000XM2) sometimes you miss things due to loud noises or inattention, and you just want to listen to the last sentence or so. Audible and Google Play Books have this little feature that makes a huge difference.

Funny enough, I had a side project that was supposed to be a TTS-focused reading app, because I wasn't satisfied with the options from Pocket and Instapaper at the time. I built out the backend using a couple AWS Lambda Functions written in Node.js:

- One to strip an article to unformatted text only using the Mercury Web Parser API (https://mercury.postlight.com/web-parser/) and to do some additional cleanup. Text was saved in DynamoDB

- One to synthesize the text with Amazon Polly and save to S3. This was to be done when the user wanted to listen, not when the user saved the text article, to reduce costs

- One for streaming the article. This was where I left off. The idea would have been to get it to stream and sync up across your life, such as being able to pause on your phone then pick up on your Google Home or Amazon Echo. I never got around to writing any of the apps for the individual platforms, as I was focused on another project.

It's great to see Pocket create an almost-perfect listening app, so now I can focus on other stuff I want to do.

Awesome! What surprised me most was how much SAD increases as you move away from the equator.

Something we're considering! There is already a great solution from Ketra (https://www.ketra.com) but it's very expensive.

Also a great tip! Thanks!

This is very cool, and an excellent addition to Flashcards for Developers. Thank you Niko!

Hey all, we had a very successful launch, having grown 50% in the first week and an additional 29% so far this week.

As thanks to the YC community, I'm extending a 10% discount on Bedtime Bulb until 10/31.

Just add as many Bedtime Bulbs as you want to your Amazon cart and use the code HNFORUMS at checkout.

Product link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H49N46N

Greg

Bedtime Bulb

https://bedtimebulb.com/

Thank you so much for the offer. I will reach out today!

My thoughts exactly! Thank you for your interest!

TL;DR: Bedtime is a low-blue light bulb for healthy sleep. We're launching on Amazon with an introductory price of $12.99, expiring after tomorrow: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H49N46N

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Hey HN,

For almost a decade, I've been trying to solve the problem of blue light disturbing sleep and circadian rhythms. On computers and phones, software like f.lux and Night Shift are great options, but the solutions for the physical world just aren't great.

Bedtime Bulb (https://bedtimebulb.com/) is changing that. I wanted to create a simple, affordable lighting product that lets you see at night while drastically reducing blue light. You can learn more about my story and the creation of Bedtime Bulb here: https://medium.com/@yeutterg/bedtime-bulb-the-origin-story-b...

Bedtime Bulb is really simple to use: just replace the light bulbs you would use in the evening with Bedtime Bulb. It casts a warm, relaxing glow that has less sleep-interrupting blue light than LED, halogen, and incandescent lighting. It even has less circadian input than other products that claim to do the same thing.

To celebrate our Amazon (US only) launch, we are offering a special introductory price of $12.99. After tomorrow (Tuesday), the price will increase to $16.99.

Order your Bedtime Bulb today: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H49N46N

Greg

Goodbye, BetterSnapTool and your finicky edges!

Yeah, I'll do that! Thank you for your interest!

One thing to note is that this is not really a night light replacement. It's a bit too bright for that. More likely, you would use it in the hour or so before bed.

If you are solely focused on a night light replacement, I can definitely point you in the right direction. Let me know!

Bedtime Bulb (https://bedtimebulb.com/), a low-blue light bulb for healthy sleep. For every purchase, we give healthy lighting to one person in need.

For almost a decade, I've been working on the problem of reducing blue light at night, which could interrupt quality sleep. I started (and later sold) a company that automated Philips Hue lights to change color automatically, but realized that solution was too expensive and complicated for most people.

My latest attempt, Bedtime Bulb, is also the simplest. It's literally a light bulb that produces almost no blue. It's also the right light for the evening: much less eyestrain and a more comfortable feel than competitor's products.

I consider this an MVP but also the solution that's most appropriate for a general market.

Learn more: https://bedtimebulb.com/ Our social mission: https://bedtimebulb.com/mission/ Join the beta program (you'll get a prototype by the end of August): https://bedtimebulb.com/beta-program/

I would love to read this when you are ready to share! Do you have a newsletter or some other way to stay informed?

My thoughts exactly. It's great for an awareness of all those people I sort of knew or met once who are from a different city.

Facebook's ambient awareness creates enough of a connection that reaching out does not raise the question "who are you again?"

Plus, considering I have connections in a bunch of cities throughout the world, I can always ping them for coffee, a tour, or potentially a free stay.

Constant current dimming is used widely for mid-power LEDs in architectural applications. Usually there is a significant number of LEDs, in the 10s or 100s, such that individual variations would average out over the series. You have some color shift, usually toward greenish hues, but this is generally not a consideration.

It might be more of a problem in automotive applications, where for a headlight you use only a few high-power LEDs.

You're right that it's probably still detectable. But IEEE considers ~3+ kHz as "no risk." My interpretation is that it could be annoying but unlikely to cause an accident, etc.

Some of the really good LED dimming solutions I've seen that employ PWM are in the 30+ kHz range.

Of course, constant current dimming is the best, but it tends to be expensive.