Ben Kuhn

Strategically increasing the amount of light I'm exposed to was a game changer.

Turns out we're bad at gauging how much light is in our environment. Few would suspect that the amount of lux we're exposed to indoors is often far less than 1% of the lux outside. A typical corporate office has under 500 lux, vs 50k+ midday-if you're at home and haven't put much thought into the lighting situation, the lux could be in the low double digits. You can get a free app "Lux meter" to measure yours now.

We evolved to be outside a lot, and light regulates aspects of our biology. We probably shouldn't stay two orders of magnitude beneath the factory recommended exposure levels for months at a time. Hence clinical or sub-clinical SAD,sleep and mood disturbances etc [see references].

One solution is high wattage LEDs: https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/

I've had several ~250w LEDs over the years (these are huge and actually draw 250w, they aren't 250w equivalent). 250w might be overkill, and 80w is fine for me and a lot more practical. If you get one , be warned that depending on the wattage you'll probably have to build your own stand for it as most fixtures aren't rated for that high wattage.

Related to light amount is of course light timing. This may be more important than getting a steadily high amount of lux during the day. Get lots of light in the morning, and not a lot at night (just low intensity bulbs, maybe just red ones, starting 1-2h after sunset is nice). That helped my sleep a…

> "How do you know what files are directories?"

`ls -F` helps with this on terminals without color.

> "I feel like I am inside a coat closet!"

Some terminals do offer higher character resolutions than 80-by-25.

> Sad because my memories of how great it was to have a terminal that could do line insert so when editing files over a 1200 baud modem it still felt fast, were now pitiable.

I use a terminal on a somewhat regular basis (an IBM 3151 emulating a VT100, connected to a Raspberry Pi running FreeBSD).

It can be a great tool for learning Unix command line fundamentals thoroughly (a prime example of blub studies [1]), and as you get comfortable with it, you might find it useful for deep work (George R.R. Martin's use of WordStar 4.0 on DOS [2] is a famous example of modern-day usage of text-mode computing, which isn't the same as using a hardware terminal on a Unix machine, but close enough in spirit).

The caveat is that it does require patience and commitment to the process, which is tough when more convenient and capable user interfaces exist. Oftentimes I'll look up documentation on my phone while using the terminal, since it's simply more convenient than trying to navigate through modern websites on a text-mode browser.

[1] https://www.benkuhn.net/blub/

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502

It's also really easy to have high quality audio! The author recommends a "podcasting" microphone, but a $35 standalone headset mic[1] is almost as good and much easier to use. If you want to hear a comparison, I got kind of obsessed with this problem at one point and took some comparison recordings here[2].

(You need a standalone mic since most headsets, even really nice ones, have really bad mics because most headset buyers don't care about or even know how good their mic sounds. The one I linked is wired because wireless is evil[3] and in particular, Bluetooth will silently degrade your audio quality. If you want a pair of wired headphones, I like these[4] which are "open back" and therefore sound more natural + cool your ears better, although the open back also means they "leak" sound and are only suitable for working without people next to you. But you shouldn't be having calls with people next to you anyway!)

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/V-MODA-BoomPro-Microphone-Gaming-Communication/dp/B00BJ17WKK

[2]: https://www.benkuhn.net/vc/#get-a-better-microphone

[3]: https://www.benkuhn.net/wireless/

[4]: https://www.amazon.com/Philips-SHP9500S-Precision-Over-ear-Headphones/dp/B00ENMK1DW/

Environmental lighting conditions rule the day! I have astigmatism and I prefer bright backgrounds; #000 text on #fff backgrounds works great for me, but that's because I work in a room lit by a 250W 30,000 lumen corn-cob LED bulb[0] that makes my small office as bright on the inside as the shaded ground from a tree on an overcast day (which is quite bright compared to usual indoor lighting). In a room that bright, high contrast text works great and is highly readable, with "dark mode" often looking washed out and muddy. Even small reductions in contrast (such as what https://devdocs.io does with text of #333 in light mode) can make me notice and wish for greater contrast.

[0] - https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/

I've got two IKEA FLOAT Led panels on my ceiling, each 2400 lumen. The panels can be adjusted in Kelvin (2200 to 4000) and are dimmable, so when it's evening and I need to get some work done I turn them a lot more yellow to not mess with my sleep rhythm. I find making the room very bright helps a lot with waking up and focus, compared to when I had only one or two bulbs as lighting. It does take some getting used to as some have already pointed out here.

I've seen more people interested in this topic so I'm adding some recent links I've came across:

https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/

https://blog.plover.com/tech/corn-bulbs.html

https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens

If the product is being shut down, it is definitely not a big acquisition.

The only way to be sure it's worth something is if a secondary market exists for the shares. This is only going to be true for later stage companies, not early stage ones though.

I think the best advice on the topic of early stage options is this blog post: https://www.benkuhn.net/optopt/

The TL;DR for me is: Be more picky about the company than the specific comp package. When you're there, find as much as you can about the revenue growth and retention metrics (assuming B2B), and quit after your cliff if it doesn't look like it is going well enough to justify the valuation.