How to Sleep Better

Here are the best ways you can learn to love sleeping and fall asleep without pumping your bloodstream full of sleeping pills and becoming a slave to drugs.

Lay still
So simple, yet so hard. When I say 'still' I don't mean 'lay down and shift your positions occasionally and fiddle with your pillow/blankets', I mean don't move at all. Take a minute to get all snuggly and find your perfect position, then freeze (in a relaxed way, of course). In addition to this, take deep, long, methodical breaths and listen to the sound of your own breathing. You'll find that you have to actively think about not fidgeting because it's an automated behavior like breathing or swallowing. You'll also find that you have to devote quite a bit of mental process to not moving, which takes a lot of brain power away from the crazy ass thoughts that run through your head right when you lay down. If you only have mild problems with falling asleep, try this first.

Turn off everything
I don't care if you just got a message from someone or if you have to fall asleep to the TV, turn it off. Primates are diurnal, and we've evolved to sleep at night. Study after study after study confirmed  how staring at bright screens right before bed completely messes up your biological rhythm, and it interferes with critical body repair and brain functions while you sleep.

If you have to look at screens at night, look into programs and apps like f.lux that make them less hard on the eyes. Turn your screen brightness down all the way at 6:00pm, and allow 30 minutes of time away from screens before you sleep. Going straight from screen to bed messes with things, and it's why you feel hyper right after you lay down.

This goes for ALL lights too. Invest in a blackout curtain. No night lights, no lights creeping under the door or peeping through the window. Sweet, nurturing, black velvety darkness. That feeling when you open your eyes and realize it's no different from when they were closed is incredible. The difference this makes in going to sleep and getting quality REM sleep is like night and day (no pun intended).

If you're one of those people that wakes up to pee all the time, first of all you need to evaluate your diet and drinking habits, but secondly to combat tripping over shit in the pitch blackness just get a remote controlled light that you can keep by your nightstand. Easy fix.

No food before bed
Don't eat or drink anything before bed other than water. If you get the munchies before bed than you aren't eating enough during the day or during dinnertime, or you're ingesting too much caffeine. Food is fuel.

When you eat sugary or carb-filled food before bed, your body is ready to go for round 2. You're essentially telling your body "hey buddy, we're gonna be in this one for the long haul, get ready."

If you have a really high metabolism and are generally hungry all the time, eating some fruit or grains a few hours before bed can help you get to sleep. Don't stuff your face with cake and pizza then go try to sleep. It's better to eat a big dinner and sleep soundly than keep eating right up until you sleep because it causes all sorts of digestive problems and can give you restless sleep.

Wake up to light, not sound
This has been recommended by neurologists, sleep pathologists, psychologists, you name it. Again, think about our ancestors. When you wake up to screeching, loud noises evolutionary psychology comes into play and your brain goes into stress mode. Now Western humans have adapted to this for the most part, but the stress is still there. You're wreaking havoc on your body and mind waking to jarring sounds rather than to the sunrise like all other diurnal animals on Earth do.

Two methods:

1. Make sure your room is pitch black at night, but by the time sunrise comes there are little peeps of light breaking through cracks in the door or window. You may think this isn't enough to do the job, but if you start sleeping in total blackness any slight change in light will be enough to wake you. Most of you. If you're not that light-sensitive (and you've tried this) I would recommend:

2. A light alarm. You can get little gadgets for under $100 on Amazon or someplace online that gradually radiate a natural looking light when you program it to wake you up. They start dim and get brighter to mimic sunrise. There are some that start chirping or making jungle noises if you don't turn it off past the time it's set to also.

Base your sleep off REM cycles
Forget "8 hours a day" because and it's out of date with current neuroscience. The fact is that people are all a little different and require different amounts of sleep. Some people really do need 10-12 hours. Why? They just do, and right now we really don't know exactly why.

However, there is one thing about sleeping that is pretty consistent for all humans: REM cycles are about 90 minutes. Have you ever had those mornings where you got a lot of sleep but still felt tired waking up? It's because you woke up in the middle of REM sleep.

Use this tool to help you understand when you should be going to bed (or waking up if you're a NEET) to get full REM cycles: www.sleepyti.me.  If you want to wake up feeling like a Disney Princess, base your sleep off of 90-minute intervals and get however much sleep you need. It's different for everyone. If you're extra pro you can experiment and fine-tune how long your REM cycles are by recording times. When you get on a schedule your body gets surprisingly efficient at doing the same thing every night.

Be consistent
Last but not least, the key to success is consistency. If your day schedule is consistent, your sleep should be consistent. You can follow all the preceding advice and still get poor sleep because you're not sleeping at the same times every night.

We've gotten so busy in our society that we've started thinking any sleep is good sleep, no matter when you get it. While there is considerable evidence to suggest that humans really all need a 90 minute nap around 1 or 2pm, based off of primate studies and observation, you can still train yourself to get great sleep over one period of time by consistently sleeping at the same, exact time every  night.

When you rob yourself of consistency, you start to accumulate a sleep debt that must be made up for. You need to get consistent sleep for 1-2 weeks to start reaping the benefits, but trust me when I say that this step is vital. 

Additional tips

• Exercise: Mow the lawn, ride a bike, run around, do something every day. Exhaust yourself physically and sleep will come much easier. We have a lot of energy from sitting around all the time, and it carries over into when we try to sleep.
• Couples: Consider sleeping in separate beds. I know this is blasphemous, but there's no rule that couples have to sleep in the same bed. In fact, one of the world's leading sleep researchers sleeps in a separate bed than his wife. Sleeping in separate beds doesn't mean you don't love each other, it means you're concerned about getting a good night's rest.
• Invest in a nice mattress. Mattresses are not luxury items, they are right up there with food and water. Act accordingly.
• Meditation/Silent Time. There are brain scans to prove that daily meditation (just a fancy term for be still and collect your thoughts in silence) lowers stress and has positive physiological effects on the body. Before sleeping is the perfect time to do it. If you've never meditated before, start by thinking about what's bothering you and visualize letting it go. Make sure there are no noises or distractions. Breathe in and out heavily and relax. Works wonders.
• Keep a journal. Just like meditating, self-reflection helps organize your life and de-stress. Writing a little bit can help calm you down before sleeping.
• Temperature and noise: Don't suffer in your own house sweating or freezing during the night. Purchase low-noise fans or bundle up to achieve your perfect temperature. Also, minimize noise. I figured this is a given but some like to have noises when they fall asleep.

Summary
Don't move a muscle, turn everything that has electricity in it off, sleep in total darkness, only water before bed, wake up to light not sound, base your sleep off of REM cycles and be consistent in your sleep.

Tips to Reduce Acne

Clean linens. Absolutely essential. If you have common cystic acne severe enough to warrant going to the Dermatologist, you should be changing your pillowcase every day, and the pillow should have a zip-on cover under that that you wash once a week. If you have acne on your back, shoulders, chest, or buttocks, it's the same story. Linens accrue body oil quickly, especially if you use any kind of softener solution. If you can go without it, don't use the softener products, and stay away from detergents with fragrances. Wash linens in the hottest water possible.

Do NOT over-cleanse the skin, especially with those exfoliating washes. They break down the horny layer of the skin, and the constant assault will only make your oil glands overactive. Cleanse once a day, with a gentle cleanser, and exfoliate no more than once a week.

Long, hot showers (more than 10 minutes). Avoid them. The hot water will provoke the oil glands in your skin and, ironically, dehydrate it too.

If you use facial products, don't use your fingertips to apply them. Use cotton balls or pads. Your fingertips will leave an oily residue and cross-contaminate the products with bacteria from your skin.

Generally avoid touching your face if you can help it, if you have oily skin or are prone to redness.

Salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide. Choose one. For nearly everyone, the two of them together will dry/irritate your skin and cause it to peel.

Comb your hair back and wash it regularly. The oil from your hair can make forehead acne worse.

Sunglasses, collars, and hat brims can similarly contain oil that will provoke acne, and the constant rubbing will irritate the skin further.

Having a diet with a high glycemic load (lots of carbs) can aggravate acne. Also, it's generally unhealthy anyway, so try to cut back.

Picking at a pimple, pinhead, or blackhead (no matter the technique, this is part of the reason doctors are so reluctant to lance boils if it can be avoided) will almost always result in a scar. Allowing it to heal naturally, no matter how maddening it is, will almost never result in one.

Beer Ingredients Explained

Beer starts with water, obviously, which should be clean and more or less balanced in terms of pH; water can be the simplest thing or very involved when we get into mash temperatures, residual pH, relative mineral concentrations and other chemical considerations and so on. For now let's leave it as being simple and not pay it any more attention.

The next ingredient, really at the other end of the dial, is the yeast. This is a galaxy on its own and really, like the intricacies of water chemistry, best left alone for now. Just keep in mind that much of the flavor of beer comes from the yeast, which ferment the sugars into alcohol and CO2, There are two major classes of beer depending on the yeast, lagers and ales.

The other two ingredients, barley and hops, are where we should really concentrate. What are they and what do they do?

Barley is a grain, like wheat or rice or corn or oats, and it's the traditional grain for making beer, although others can be used like those just mentioned. Barley grains are subjected to a few processes to get them to a stage where they can turn all the starch or endosperm into sugar for the yeast to eventually eat and ferment into alcohol. There are two major types of barley, 2-row and 6-row, quite similar to one another, each of which can be subjected to additional processes to develop flavor characteristics.

First, after barley is malted (germinated and then kilned just enough to halt further germination and sprouting) it can be roasted to varying degrees. Think of a piece of bread; if you eat it straight out of the oven a bit undercooked it will be a bit bland and will taste more like the wheat itself than if you take a slice and then toast it a while. Once it's toasted it will have that wheat taste but it will also have other tastes, those we associate with toasting, nuttiness, caramel, a little burned and so on. What if we really toasted the bread to where it was nearly blackened? That would be quite a different taste, bitter and less like wheat.

We can do the same with barley for beer; roast it, like coffee beans, to varying degrees to bring out those different flavors. The more we do this the darker the grain and the darker the resulting beer. We can also mix grains of varying degrees of roast together for one beer, a bit of light and bit or dark and so on, to further complicate things.

Once we have our grain, whether not roasted at all and just plain, or roasted to the point of being black, we then have to basically soak the grain in water for some period of time. This is before we actually brew the beer, at some temperature to get the enzymes within each kernel to convert the starches into small sugars the yeast can metabolize. The different temperatures at which we do this give us different sugar and carbohydrate profiles. The overall temperature window is about 145F to 165F in terms of extremes, the best ranges are about 148F-152F for one type of conversion and about 156F-160F for another type of conversion.

The first type breaks down the starch molecules in such a way so as to give us a very dry beer. In other words, it gives us a lot of simple sugars which the yeast can totally convert into ethanol leaving little else behind, while the other type breaks down enough to still give us alcohol but leaves a lot of longer chain sugars which the yeast can't eat but our tongue can still detect slightly as a sugar. This means that if we do this, mash the barley, at a lower temperature we get a dryer beer and the higher we do it, the more sweet and malty a beer we get.

Now, it's important to note that we don't usually do one or the other, we can try to reach a compromise so we get something in between, we might for instance mash somewhere in the middle, say 154F, or we might start low for a while then raise the temperature half way through. Basically, the point I'm trying to make, is that there are two major barley characteristics, dry and alcoholic and often a bit thin, or sweet, thicker and full of body. Light beers are often dry and dark beers a bit sweet.

A quick note here returning to yeast; there are two major types of beer which I mentioned before and with which I am sure you're already familiar, lagers and ales. These are basically the same type of yeast but different strains, although there are some different species altogether in some cases, and these different strains ferment best at different temperatures.

The Bud and Coors and Miller and Michelob you reference are examples of lagers; there's a whole story behind why American macrobeers were and are lagers and where that came from and why ales were the default face of microbrews thereafter, but that's a different story which could take up a lot more room than I'm already doing here.

Basically, lagers are beers that ferment at low temperatures and give light, clean flavors. Ales are more versatile and ferment higher and can be light but can also be dark, like Guinness. The point here is that there are two major branches of beer depending on the yeast, lager and ale. A good ale is easier to make, and a good lager is a bit more difficult. An example of a quality lager is Sam Adams.

Now, on to the last ingredient, hops. Hops are the oil and resin laden glandular buds of Humulus lupulus, a plant not too distantly related to the Cannabis genus and similarly containing many pungent alkaloids. These compounds give beer its bitter taste and if treated properly its spicy and often citrus nose and bouquet. These compounds are called collectively alpha acids and part of the reason beer needs to be brewed, boiled, is to cause a reaction with these acids wherein they change shape slightly and they thereafter gain shelf life and bitter the beer.

Depending on when hops are added to the boil, this well after the barley has been mashed and sugars converted, they give varying degrees of bitterness. Just as when cooking where you can add your herbs at the beginning and by the end they're all cooked down and not vibrant or add them at the end right before you're done so they stay green and pungent so too do hops retain their flavor the less they're cooked.

So there are two factors where, boiling longer and getting them to bitter the beer or adding them later so they keep the higher notes and aromas, and so we add hops in stages, a bit early on and then a bit later to get the full range of their flavors and aromas.

How to Choose the Best VPN

Guide to Choosing the Best VPN

Disclaimer: The below guide is my opinion, which I will try to provide as many examples for and as much evidence as possible to support. I reference my VPN Comparison Chart throughout much of this post, not so much for shameless self promotion, but because I believe it to be a solid resource to determine if a VPN meets your criteria and to assist you in deciding which is best for you. If you just want an ELI5, read the bolded segments throughout the guide for the highlights. If you want to go down the rabbit hole on this topic, read on, and buckle up - this is going to be long.

The following is intended to be a detailed guide to answer the question, "How do I choose the best VPN (for me)?" The reason this is a hard thing to help people with, is that their needs and level of technical knowledge vary greatly - there is no one perfect VPN, they all have at least some flaws and some will just flat out be better for different people.

I very well might have forgotten to add a section I intended to, said something that needs clarification, or was just sleepy when I wrote parts of this guide, so I intend to update and expand it as needed.

I'm assuming that if you're reading this far, you have at least SOME knowledge as to the basics of what a VPN is, so I won't cover that here. This will be heavily emphasizing the need of a VPN for privacy, but I will echo and expand on other use cases as well towards the end.

A WORD ABOUT TRUST

No matter what reason you want a VPN, you want to know that the service you choose is trustworthy and is not compromising your data. Even if you're only concerned with geo-unblocking or other non-privacy uses, keep reading. I'll get more into this in the "Privacy" section, but it's important for everyone to be exposed to it at least a little.

A preface regarding privacy and trust, from another thread I made a while back. This applies to every company, but I would suggest especially so for VPNs.

We live in a society where privacy is undervalued and under assault daily. Some people eventually notice this and discover that they do value their own. They set out on a pilgrimage of sorts to educate themselves and learn about tools to help them protect it (as I did when I started my project). Because we depend on each other for direction and others to write software and run services to help keep us secure - TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY - are paramount.

However, transparency comes before trust.

A WORD ABOUT VPN AFFILIATES

You may have started your search for a VPN by looking for "VPN Reviews" in your search engine of choice. if you had, you would have gotten page upon page of what seem to be harmless review sites, top 10 or blog style reviews of different VPN services. You may even be coming here for confirmation of what you were told on those sites. The sites making these recommendations are, in almost every case, paid by the services they review and recommend. They are beginning their business relationship with you, with what essentially amounts to a lie. The technical term for this kind of marketing is "native advertising" and it's abuse is a huge problem in the VPN industry.

I purposefully made a point to capture this kind of data on my VPN Comparison Chart. There you can find information on services that have affiliate programs, the specific policies they have for them and whether or not the affiliates act ethically, essentially what the services tolerate from those representing them, when it comes to persuading YOU to buy into the information they put out.

Note that not all affiliates have to be bad actors and simply having an affiliate program is not necessarily grounds for mistrust of a VPN, but rather when those services allow their resellers to generate referrals by hook or by crook. If you see a service appear over and over again on the kinds of sites mentioned above, there is a good chance they are making money from, and are perfectly okay with these kinds of deceptive practices as a part of their business model. They often will claim that it's just the affiliate doing this, and that they can't control what others do. This is false. Affiliates, like anyone entering into a business relationship with someone, agree to certain terms put forth by the service hiring them. If a company doesn't expect and enforce certain standards from their affiliates (not spamming, not breaking copyright, disclosing who they are, etc), they are approving these methods, and are not worthy of your trust. If they are willing to lie to you before you even buy into their service, the stage is set for them to be dishonest with you when you interact with them on a normal basis as a customer.

IF YOU'RE CONCERNED WITH PRIVACY

As a lawyer represents your legal interests, a VPN service (among others) represents your privacy interests. If a lawyer does something to violate your trust or is not honest about some aspect of their representation that could affect you, you would discard them and you'd be right to do so. Likewise with a VPN service. There are many out there that are not worth your time or money. Unlike a lawyer, a VPN can be put together and promoted by anyone with access to a computer, the key difference being that you would never even see their face.

If you are looking for a VPN for privacy purposes, you already believe you cannot trust certain parties. Those parties might be companies whose websites you visit or maybe even an oppressive government whose mass surveillance is encroaching on your rights. You are being put in a position where you must rely on someone other than yourself for protection and the last thing you need is one more party that you can't trust.

This decision is an important one, and not just any VPN service is worthy of that trust. You're trusting them to know what they're doing - to be able to operate a competent service that will protect your privacy. You are trusting them to be responsive to new technical and geopolitical threats to their operation. You're trusting them to be honest with you in the way they do business so that when you are shopping and comparing, you are getting accurate information.

In the main section at the beginning of this guide, I talked about affiliate practices, so I will only briefly mention it here. If you choose a company with an affiliate program, choose one that expects and enforces good behavior from their reselling partners. You can usually read their affiliate terms on their site. If they are not publicly visible, they should respond with this information when asked. If not, or if they play games with you, look elsewhere. More information on affiliate policies and behavior can be found on my VPN Comparison Chart.

In the last few years, certain revelations have been made manifest regarding the mass surveillance programs of various countries around the globe. These countries are known as the five, nine, and fourteen eyes. These countries not only spy on their own citizens where they can get away with it, but they spy on each others, and swap notes to bypass governmental restrictions on power. If a service is based in one of these countries, it's not unreasonable to expect that they may be susceptible to unlawful searches and compromises made in the name of national security. If your threat model includes protection from such actions, you may want to consider a VPN that isn't based in one of these countries. Note that even if a VPN isn't based in one of these countries, the servers physically located in them are still susceptible to such interference. If you require privacy from government mass-surveillance programs, be sure that you are connecting to servers located in secure locations owned by countries not susceptible to such governmental overreach.

Other countries are not part of the spy collaboration mentioned above, but still have issues with government limitations on internet freedom and free speech. Avoid countries with limited internet freedom. The degree of internet freedom a country has can also be found under "jurisdiction" on my sheet.

When you connect to a VPN service, you are essentially just adding one more stop along your route to the open internet. The VPN is a "man in the middle" who you are trusting with the traffic and connection data that is being generated in the background as you use the internet. Some VPN companies choose to log this data. There are many reasons for doing so, some more legitimate than others. Some services record this to protect themselves legally in the case they are approached by authorities. Some companies keep minimal connection logs to aid them in maintaining servers. Some will even sell your data to third parties as part of their business model. If your concern is privacy, you most likely do not want your browsing habits and connection data being recorded. Choose a service that specifically states that they do not keep logs, AND which types they do not keep. Make sure they do not keep ANY kind of activity or connection log Many services claim to not keep logs, but are vague, and upon closer inspection actually do keep certain types, so be wary of such promises until you've confirmed it for yourself in their respective terms and privacy policies.

Assuming privacy is your priority, when you go to pay for your VPN service, there are many methods available, but only a few worth consideration. Services that offer the ability to pay by Bitcoin, cash, or misc gift cards are the best way to ensure that you are kept as anonymous as possible. if these services require more personal information than an email address, look the other direction - this is information they're recording about you that may be used at best to sell to third parties, at worst to later identify you.

Some services offer a PGP key for additional privacy. This is a nice thing to have if you want to be able to communicate with them using encryption.

There are many different kinds of VPN protocols that allow you to establish a tunnel with your service provider - some more secure than others. Certain protocols are documented to have been compromised. Others are free and open source, and as such are freely available for security experts to audit and improve. The free availability of the source code helps to ensure that vulnerabilities are patched quickly and that individuals so inclined can see exactly how their software is working. Choose a VPN that supports OpenVPN and use it to connect to your VPN server. Avoid using other protocols, specifically PPTP as its not suited for privacy.

Throughout the course of using the internet, your computer sends and receives a lot of data that isn't visible to you, the user. When you type in a web address, a request is sent to a server that is usually operated by your ISP. When you connect to the internet using a VPN, this responsibility is now on them. If they don't take certain actions, this request containing info for the site your want to visit is being sent to THEIR ISP instead. This may not be as bad as it going through yours, but as I mentioned logging above - if the company in question even keeps certain logs, there is a chance that the sites you try to visit can be correlated with the timestamps of when such a request is sent. As an alternative, some use public DNS servers, such as google's, which is not ideal for privacy. Choose a VPN service that maintains their own first party DNS server that won't leak - then TEST IT TO MAKE SURE.

When using the internet, you connect to IP addresses. Traditionally, IPv4 is used to accomplish this (you may have seen numbers in the past like 8.8.8.8 or 216.58.217.206, etc). There is another standard that will some day be more prevalent, called IPv6, but that is being used now during the time it transitions into normal configurations (vastly more IPv6 numbers exist than IPv4). When you connect and use the internet (unless you have specifically taken steps to disable it), you are sending and receiving IPv6 data. Again, normally, this data is sent and resolved through your ISP and their DNS servers, but unless properly configured, this information might not be securely passing through the VPN tunnel and could be leaking to the open internet. Given such routed global IPv6 addresses, it's easy for remote sites to identify user ISPs. And with requisite authority, account information could be obtained from those ISPs.Choose a VPN service that either blocks or provides new VPN-specific IPv6 address and provides an IPv6 DNS server that's reachable only through the VPN tunnel - then TEST IT TO MAKE SURE.

Around 1440 AD, the Printing Press was invented. It created a method for the common person to quickly disperse information, technologically reinforcing the natural right to freely speak and share information. More recently the internet allows billions to freely and openly share ideas and advance humanity. This reaffirmed the common person's rights in such a way that was difficult for governments or organizations to stifle. Similarly, until the invention of firearms, only those physically capable could defend themselves from those that wished to encroach on their rights, thus this technological advancement reinforced the individual's right to self defense. This brings us to Computerized Encryption. As with the other technological advancements mentioned above, Encryption provides a simple-to-use method that the average user can take advantage of to reinforce their right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Choose a VPN service that has strong data and handshake encryption. Make sure the protocol you choose has the level of advertised encryption available to it, as services typically provide more than one protocol with varying levels of encryption strength. The VPN Comparison Chart can help you determine what is considered strong by the color coding on these fields. Be sure that even if the service has the type of encryption you want available BY DEFAULT - some services will technically offer strong encryption, but it has to be manually configured (not user friendly).

Optionally, depending on your use case and threat model, you may be interested in making sure Authenticated SMTP (to send email) and P2P (to file share, download, use Bitcoin, etc) are not blocked on your VPN's servers

When you start to search for services and are browsing on their websites, there are some additional items you may want to consider. Speaking of trust and privacy - some companies will use tracking cookies to determine how to best serve you ads, which other sites you've been to, and some will even phone home with specific personal information. Best case, this is an abuse of power by companies stretching the limits of their ideas on how to gather this info, worst case, it can be used to intentionally violate your privacy and tie your device back to the site and activity performed on it. Choose a company that respects your privacy enough to use few if any persistent or external tracking cookies. If they are already violating your privacy the moment you visit their site, you have no assurance that they will take your privacy seriously after hiring them to represent your interests. Available for years, https allows websites to entirely encrypt all data sent and received with the user, effectively blocking out those that might try spying on such web traffic. Choose a service that encrypts their website with an SSL Certificate. Additionally, CloudFlare, Incapsula, and similar services have recently become popular with websites for their DDoS protection and dynamic bandwidth scaling. However, these services act as an additional man in the middle between your VPN's website and you. In the wrong hands, the information they collect and have access to about your VPN's website, and your interaction with it, could be compromised. Avoid VPNs that use CloudFlare, Incapsula, and other such services.

IF YOU'RE CONCERNED WITH SECURITY

Many of the points made above are relevant to security as well as privacy, and I will point some out below.

Jurisdiction, specifically Freedom Status is important to ensure an environment where laws are enforced and physical security that we take for granted in some parts of the world are applicable to the servers we communicate with. This also helps indicate that our service and the servers we connect to are located in places that respect internet freedom. This information can be found on the Comparison Chart and confirmed on Freedom House's website.

IPv6 should be specifically tunnelled or blocked outright the same as with the privacy scenario above.

First party DNS servers, as mentioned above, are ideal for preventing leaks of your data.

Both data and handshake encryption should be strong and available for the protocol you choose (which again, should not be PPTP). Other protocols are probably secure enough for daily use. Note that no protocol is bulletproof and exploits probably exist and are discoverable for each and every one of them. Such exploits are even more discoverable by governments with vast amounts of resources.

IF YOU'RE CONCERNED WITH UN-GEOBLOCKING

If your only concern is escaping geoblocks, your needs are far less numerous. Being able to connect to an exit node in the country of your choice is really the only requirement. This doesn't mean necessarily however that you want to neglect the proper security measures discussed above, only that for things like Netflix, Hulu, certain TV online channels and sporting events, they are less important if un-geoblocking is ALL you're trying to do, almost anything will work, HOWEVER - if Privacy and Security are of any concern whatsoever, heed the advice above and know that un-geoblocking will virtually always come naturally when shopping for those needs(as long as required server availability is a feature of your chosen VPN)

IF YOU'RE CONCERNED WITH BYPASSING RESTRICTIVE NETWORKS

Some parts of the world are resisting the ever-growing ability for their citizens to freely share information and as such have implemented roadblocks in their networking infrastructure to cripple such communication. For example, the "Great Firewall of China" has several layers of VPN detection and blocking built into it. Other networks belonging to large corporations or maybe even your Internet Service Provider may restrict you from using certain ports, limiting what you can use the internet for. However, there are ways to get around these restrictions by using the right VPN.

Features such as multihop, TCP port 443, Obfsproxy, SOCKS, SSL tunnels, SSH tunnels, and some other proprietary solutions (which may be built specifically by a given VPN company) can be useful in avoiding these restrictions. As for which are most effective, it's a matter of which restriction is being inflicted upon the user. Speak with your VPN service's support team to determine which might be effective in your case. The VPN Comparison Chart shows which services support which of these protocols and features in their configuration. Using TCP port 443 is usually a relatively common and user-friendly measure to bypass a restrictive/oppressive network.

CLEARING UP MISCONCEPTIONS

Kill switches - Many VPN services offer in their client a feature called a "Kill switch". The idea with a Kill Switch is that when the VPN loses its connection, it completely prevents the device from using internet, thus preventing accidental leaks of local connection data. Kill Switches are implemented very differently and will never be secure due to their design. The only 100% effective and secure configuration to accomplish prevention of leaks is a properly configured firewall. There are two main types of kill switches, those that shut down preconfigured apps in response to detecting the VPN connection has dropped and those that disable the network connection (or delete routes etc) if they detect a disconnection. In both of these cases the Kill Switch component is having to react to an event and very often leads to leaks - just a single packet is all it takes to compromise your privacy. The only way to be absolutely certain that packets cannot leak is for there to be an independent component (the Firewall) that blocks all packets unless destined for the VPN interface.

Warrant Canaries - Some VPN services maintain a document called a "Warrant Canary". This is a document put out and updated by them certifying that they have not been contacted by government agencies or coerced to compromise their user's data. In theory, if such an event occurred forcing them to compromise their principles, they would stop updating the canary, which in turn would indicate to users that their data is no longer private. Note that not all companies use effective warrant canaries. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of a warrant canary between experts to begin with - as force can be used by governments to coerce companies into maintaining them, thus nullifying their effectiveness. They are usually nothing more than marketing theater. If a company WAS operating a good canary, it would be almost impossible to tell. A warrant canary is almost a better feature to care about once you've found a trustworthy, capable service, rather than looking for a company that has one when shopping around.

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On Dreaming and Nightmares

Not to be rude, but it pains me to see how uninformed some of these responses are. Hopefully I can remedy this. Although it is not entirely known why we even sleep and/or dream in the first place, there are a few rather well accepted theories. First, theories on why we even sleep:

• The restorative theory: Being awake and active takes a lot of energy. Aside from eating, one of the ways that our bodies conserves and restores energy and rejuvenates our body is simply by sleeping.
• The evolutionary theory: This is slightly linked to the restorative theory in that it revolves around survival and efficiency. When we sleep, we're not expending much energy, and we don't require much energy. Thus, by sleeping, we conserve resources to help reduce the amount of food we need to eat. Additionally, it is thought that early humans and our ancestors benefited by sleeping at night because it allowed them to rest while also remaining motionless so that predators couldn't find them.
• Memory consolidation theory: In short, sleep functions as a way for us to take our memories from throughout the day and sort and consolidate them so that we can remember them better. This has a rather large degree of support because some studies show that napping after studying can help increase information retention.

Onto dreams now; first, the nature of dreams. Dreams tend to be (as many I'm sure can agree with) rather emotional, not very logical, and full of sensory stimuli. These seemingly intrinsic properties can be explained with a variety of other theories:

1. The problem solving theory: Dreams are a way that our minds take unsolved problems from throughout the day and attempt to unconsciously sort through them and look for answers. One reason this has some support is because since dreams aren't very logical, the abstract approach dreaming can lend to problem solving can sometimes provide unexplored answers by letting you think about something in a way you would've never tried otherwise.
2. Wish fulfillment: Our dreams manifest latent desires. (Good) Dreams are a place where you can do anything, be anything, and potentially be better (in your own eyes) than the real you is. A professor once told me that "everyone is great in their dreams". Dreams can be a way for your mind to reassure itself and fulfill unlikely or impossible desires (which explains why many people fly in their dreams.
3. Activation-synthesis theory: This is the most scientific theory that attempts to explain dreams. Essentially, it states that while you sleep and as your brain recuperates, it does whatever work it needs to do along with a little "exercising" so that your mind stays active despite your being unconscious in the form of randomly stimulating neurons. As a side effect of the random neuron firing, your cortex receives random nonsensical "messages" (for lack of a better work), and tries to make sense of the nonsense and in the process produces what we experience as dreams.

Onto the real topic of nightmares. It's a fact that people have bad dreams, but there's (are you sensing a theme here) multiple explanations for why. The strongest explanation has to do with the parts of the brain that are most active during dreams, and partially links back to some of the theories mentioned earlier. Note that all of the brain is active while we sleep, some parts are simply more or less active than others. First, recall that it is the cortex that generates the content of our dreams (that is, the cortex is what interprets the signals it's getting and turns it into something it/we can make sense of).

Another part of the brain especially active while we sleep is the amygdala, which is (ding ding ding) the part of our brain most active when we are in a state of fear. This explains why nightmares are possible, because the part of our brain that responds to fear is essentially on overdrive for one reason or another. Lastly (though there is much more that can be said, I'm simply covering the most important parts of the brain in sleep), the least active portion of the brain during sleep is the frontal lobes, whose job it is to enable critical thinking - this explains why dreams are nonsensical and why we don't often realize it was a dream until we wake up because the frontal lobes aren't active and assessing the situation. All of these physiological processes combined are not only what allow dreams in general, but what give us a predisposition for bad dreams purely from the parts of the brain that contribute to dreaming in the first place. Another consideration to take is that, returning to the evolutionary theory and the problem solving theory, dreams can be considered a way for our brain to play out and determine how to react in crazy, dangerous situations without actually being in that crazy, dangerous situation, so that if it ever does occur, your brain knows how to react without thinking much. Additionally nightmares can simply be caused by stress, due to the stress temporarily wearing out the part of your brain that manages and regulates emotions, allowing your dreams (that are already emotional and nonsensical) to be a lot more spooky.

Lastly (for real this time), a brief note about why we are sometimes afraid of our thoughts, not only when looking back at a dream, but when conscious as well. All people have weird, scary thoughts sometimes. Not only about absurd dangerous hypothetical situations, our mortality, etc., but also things just like "If I did this this and this, I could rob this bank and get out totally safe and sound" for one example. It seems silly to say, but our brain essentially thinks things like this so that it has time to consider it and realize that it's what you SHOULDN'T do, and to prevent you from actually doing it.

Another example is that just because sometimes you think about hitting someone that's annoying you or really want to, that doesn't mean you have anger problems, it's just your brain acknowledging something that it knows it shouldn't do but would really like to do, and making you aware of how it would play out so you realize the absurdity of the action(s) so that you DON'T do it.

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The Truth About Jurassic Park

It's not about the dinosaurs, it's about control.

There's the dialog between Satler and Hammond in the first movie where they pretty much spell it out. It's about control. Making a profit off of control, controlling nature for the ability to do so, controlling customers.

"And we can charge anything!! $1000 a day, $10,000 a day, and people will pay it!"

It's all about layers of control, and how control eventually backfires.

In the first movie Hammond is trying to control the employees working for him so that he can be a famous P.T. Barnum-like figure, known for entertaining the children/everyone with something unbeatable. He can't get what he wants from doing things in the small scale, so he hires professionals and experts... then looks for the underbidders believing that the economically strapped will be easier to motivate.

The investors are trying to control Hammond to secure the greatest amount of profit out of the place they can. They are there to provide Hammond the cash he needs to do his project, and they and Hammond, both know it. They don't want to be financiers, they want to control the project. It's their money, they want to be in charge.

Gennaro (the Lawyer) want to be in control of... well anything he can get his hands on, but he has nothing in life that really gives him that power. So when he's chosen by the investors he tries to dick-swing with the big dongs.

Woo is trying to control the nature of biology itself, and thinks he's done exactly that.

Muldoon thinks he can control animals because he's learned many of their behaviors as a hunter.

When the chips are down though, all of the control everyone is trying to achieve is not just an illusion, it's a self deluding lie.

Woo can't control biology, because biology is the result of nature. He can work with it, but nature can't be mastered, only understood. So dinosaurs that aren't supposed to be able to breed (because they're not entirely dinosaurs) can and do. Meaning that there are populations growing on the island that no one knows about, and can't control.

The investors can't control Hammond, he's too canny and business savvy. Not only do they not know what's on the island, they don't have a background to be able to understand that Hammond doesn't really have dinosaurs, he has something new, and very very dangerous on his hands, with no knowledge of what to properly do with it. They don't know that Site B exists. And they don't care what kind of man Gennaro is, they just want him to reestablish their dominance. They expect him to reassert their authority (Respect ma'authoritaa!!!) instead he jumps ship.

Hammond is good at manipulating people with a lot of money... but can't control his employees. When dealing with high-skilled, educated people, ripping them off is that last thing you want to do (this is true for everyone though, but it's what the business world has convinced itself works best, and not just in the movie). But that is exactly what the business community likes... and Hammond likes it too. Nedry isn't loyal to anything, and strapped for cash due to underbidding too low. ANYONE with an offer for enough cash to get his time will get his loyalty, and they do.

The ones that point it all out are the ones that study nature to understand it.

Grant/Satler/Malcolm/the kids, never try to control anything. They observe, determine, and report.

When shown what the park is, all of them are astounded, but none of them are on board. They are analyzing, not just the dinosaurs, but also the situation. The raptors they've made are bigger, stronger, smarter and faster than velociraptors actually would be. Grant gets to see this first hand, and respects the creatures for what they are. Satler points out that there are dangerous plants all over where people with little kids will be, that no one on staff seems to know are dangerous. Malcolm repeated warns about the fact that nature does what it wants to do, and that the way the entire project is set up is doomed to fail, they would have to do something radically different to get the desired outcomes.

But none of the businessmen want to hear what they have figured out because it doesn't play into the business illusions of control.

Nedry does what he can to try to get the cash he needs, and while he can control the tech, he can't control the park, the weather, and the animals. So he sabotages the park, only to die at the hands of the very dangerous creatures he didn't know anything about.

Gennaro can't control anything... and gets killed like the little bitch everyone who meets him knows he is.

Muldoon gets killed by the very creatures he thinks he knows so well.

Woo looses his job, because the park goes under (only to be rehired later in another movie).

Hammond looses the park and his dreams.

The investors loose piles and piles of money.

The Lost World, and Jurassic Park 3, and Jurassic World are the same. Just different aspects of control, in different situations.

It's all about greed, control and power. It's not actually about the dinosaurs.

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Pesticides and Autism: a Potential Connection

For the MANY people asking what they can do: 

1. Educate yourself and become involved politically. 
2. Support groups like earthjustice.org and beyondpesticides.org

I suspect this type of activity is systemic across every major industry. Let's look at the pesticide industry, shall we? Most people don't understand just how problematic pesticides are not just for the environment and farm workers, but our entire society. Did you know that one of the most popular families of pesticides used in conventional agriculture, organophosphates, has been widely implicated in severe developmental neurotoxicity issues in children? As these studies showcase, these pesticides, found in normal amounts in children, not children with high exposure, are implicated in reduced IQ and cognitive abilities:

• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21507778
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21507776
• http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1003160/
• http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/05/17/peds.2009-3058.full.pdf+html
• http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/8978
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26057254

Take a few minutes to ponder the ramifications; the food we eat may literally be making us dumber. And yes, food is a major pesticide source despite what industry might claim:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18414640 andhttp://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1408197/ 

Continuing on, the most important enzyme responsible for breaking down these pesticides in the human body is called serum paraoxanase. Some people have a lot of paraoxanase activity and are able to break down the pesticides really fast. Guess which subpopulation scientists are beginning to find has significantly reduced paraoxanase activity? People with autism:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16297937 

and this year a large study found associations between organophosphates and autism:

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/8978 

More work needs to be done on this front, but the early findings are concerning to say the least.

The data against organophosphates continues to pile up and has resulted in the thousands of scientists represented by the Union of Concerned Scientists wanting organophosphates banned. Unfortunately, politics wins at the EPA:

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/epa-and-pesticides.html

I only spoke of the neurotoxicity issues above. Make no mistake, these pesticides cause harm across a variety of spectrums. Not just on children's nervous systems but everything from gestation duration and birthweight to reduced lung function and lower sperm count in humans to changing the behavior of bugs. Some example studies:

• http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104615/
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25413219
• http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/03/pesticides-result-in-lower-sperm-counts/
• http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/12/03/breathing-capacity-pesticide-exposure/

Please be sure to also look at the studies showcasing that these products are "safe". I'd suggest starting with Naled, an organophosphate. The 2006 EPA reregistration document is here:

http://archive.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/web/pdf/naled_red.pdf

and you'll find the list of utilized, "Studies" begins on page 105. You will also find that 98% of those studies are conducted by the chemical manufacturers themselves (in rats and rabbits) and, "Unpublished" meaning they never underwent peer review. Yet when independent scientists conduct studies, they are finding what I posted above, in children.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists stated in the link I posted above, "Another scientist said that the agency "often ignored independent scientific studies that contradicted the industry-subsidized study." Especially in cases where chemicals' effects on health are poorly understood and studies disagree, said the scientist, the EPA should not automatically side with the pesticide industry. "If there is disagreement, doesn't that cry out for further research?" A report of the EPA Office of the Inspector General also suggested that the EPA had not done enough to protect children from pesticide exposure."

The Naled reregistration document proves this as, of the 91 cited studies, all but one were conducted by industry and unpublished.

Despite countless scientists calling for change, greed and regulatory capture hold the winning hand. And it is the common man who suffers. Whether it be oil or pesticides, those in power have placed their chess pieces over the years in a masterful game and at this point, one has to wonder if we have to simple concede check mate.

edit As long as this post is getting the attention it is, allow me to elaborate on how bad it gets. Remember the pesticide Naled (an organophosphate) I spoke of above? It is also sprayed over millions of people in the name of mosquito control. When sprayed on agriculture fields, there is a 48 hour reentry interval where workers cannot reenter without protective gear 

http://archive.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/web/pdf/naled_red.pdf

When it is sprayed over residential areas for mosquito control, there are no such protections; kids are out running around the same day. The thing is, when sprayed in agriculture fields, they use large droplets so it contacts the bugs. When sprayed for mosquitoes, they aerosolize it so it hangs in the air. The problem there is, the US military figured out in a study that aerosolized Naled is 21x more toxic and causes lung and liver necrosis 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01685774

In other words, 155lb farm workers can't enter an area it is sprayed for 48 hours but 30lb kids are out the same day despite their form potentially being upwards of 21x more toxic than what the farm workers are suscepted to.

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