For a while now I've often felt tired and sleepy even after getting seemingly enough sleep. I also had a frustrating tendency to wake up at night for no apparent reason, then have trouble falling asleep. My partner noted my loud snoring and suggested nasal airway strips (the kind that go on the outside of your nose).
I was skeptical, thinking "How could a little plastic strip have an impact?" and "I'm not overweight, so sleep apnea shouldn't be a concern anyway." I've tried them for ~1 week now.
Positive Results: I seem to fall asleep much more quickly, I don't wake up at night for no reason, my partner reports that my snoring is way quieter, and I feel more consistently well-rested than I have in a while.
Downsides: They cost $0.25 per day. Also, after ~9 hours, the strips start to get itchy and peel off, making it harder to sleep. The solution might be to put one on immediately before going to bed.
I'm going to be more arrogant and say p << 1%:
Prior probability that a super-intelligent, reclusive, crypto-guy that values anonymity would use his given name as his pseudonym: very very low.
Subsequent evidence to believe Dorian is Satoshi: He's an apparently intelligent guy that knows how to program + a quote wherein he appears to admit that he was once involved with Bitcoin, but he later claimed was misinterpreted and out of context.
I had a similar experience with elance. I applied to a bunch of jobs and only got a reply back from one. That job ended up being not worth the time I ended up spending.
However, Uvocorp (uvocorp.com) is another freelancing site I use, and my experience there has been much better. You have to pass a pretty easy writing test to be able to work at all. Once you pass, though, you can browse all the job offers, and you are assigned the job as soon as you hit 'apply'.
I'm very selective about what jobs I choose, in order to make them worth my time and to make sure I that can do a good job. Just read the job description carefully, so you know what you're signing up for. By being very selective, I've managed to keep the pay above $20 to $30 per hour.
I'm competing somewhat with writers from India or elsewhere that are willing to work for less than me, but I get a premium by being a native speaker of American English and having good ratings. I've been able to negotiate the price at times because I've been specifically requested by repeat customers.
There have been a couple of disputes, and the administrators have been reasonable.
Disclaimers:
Sorry, I forgot feet != meters. Ha.
I don't agree with this.
Your thought experiment with the dumbbell is an incorrect way of thinking about ambient pressure. Ambient pressure pushes against an object from every direction. It does not work to deform or break, only compress from all sides.
Picture this: You have a hand-sized water balloon on a table. You place the two dumbbells on it; it breaks. You have another water balloon. You take this one, tie it to a dumbbell, and drop it into deep water. Do you expect it to break when descends to 3 feet (i.e. 10% increase in pressure)?
I would not expect it to break at all. When water and other non-gases are put under pressure, the bonds and repulsive forces within push back.
Don't quote me on this part, but I would guess that to break a bone with just ambient pressure, you'd have to raise the pressure to about the compressive strength of the bone, around 100 megapascals. For reference, standard atmospheric pressure is around 100 kilopascals.
edit: changed 3 meters to 3 feet, per prase's comment.
This is very misleading. Most of the discomfort would be from the hard table against the back of your hand, and this would be because of local pressure on specific points.
Pressure causes problems when there's a big change in a relatively short time. Ears, for example, have a hard time with this, but you can equalize them by closing your nose and mouth and trying to blow out. Before I knew about this trick, I could never dive to the bottom of the pool. Now, no problem.
A more realistic example would be to bury your hand in a foot or two of fine sand. Does that sound uncomfortable?
In the sand example, it's also important that the pressure is acting from all sides (top, bottom, left, right) so there's no force acting to deform your hand.
We can handle a relatively large range of pressures, and there are other problems before you start causing mechanical damage from the actual pressure (lack of oxygen at low pressure, dissolved gas at high pressure).
edit: grammar
I think it's possible you're conflating potassium (element symbol K) with vitamin K. Vitamin K and warfarin (rat poison) are antagonists. Potassium (as chloride) is quite soluble in water, is prevalent in blood, and is primarily regulated by the kidneys.
I've been to doctors for the major joint problems, but they've said various contradictory things that have never helped. They've told me that it's aging. When I had my knee scoped the orthopedic surgeon told me that I "have naturally soft cartilage" . I don't think highly of that diagnosis.
In my experience, modern medicine is not that good with things unfamiliar to it.
I have been to doctors many times, but I don't believe that they've given me information that's useful.
Apples do require categorization by an observer to some extent.
Is a nearly decayed apple still an apple? At what point does it stop being an apple? At what point does a fertilized apple blossom get to be called an apple?
Regarding sleeping a lot and waking up tired: Is it possibly some degree of sleep apnea? As of a few months ago I had this problem.
Then I tried those breathing strips (despite my skepticism) that help prevent snoring. If I snore now it's at a much lower volume. The quality of sleep is vastly improved for me too. I generally wake refreshed after ~7 hours. The difference is like, ahem, night and day.