There is a board in the back that supports the mattress when the bed is raised up, and it is held down to frame / slats with some nylon cord which is under the sheet so it is not really visible.
This is definitely a possible solution, but I found this put the monitor too far away for my liking. I am working on a folding mount for the monitor which I hope to finish in the next week or two.
Yes $650 is a large amount to be donating to a project like mine, and I agree that it is not the way to go for everyone or every project. I thought that I would try it out for this project to see what the response would be like, and it seemed like the best way to build both financial support and interest for the project so I went for it.
I know producing these will be a big job and I liked that Kickstarter allows me to set my funding goal at a level where I will be most likely to succeed. I could have certainly set up a pre-order page with a Stripe button and started building as the orders came in, but being woefully underfunded is not a great way to start an enterprise like this in my opinion. And I thought that Kickstarter would be the lowest risk option for everyone involved.
It is pretty easy to lift, I am not a strong guy (bench press < 100lb) and I don't have any trouble putting it up or down. The lifting action is assisted by gas springs which you can kind of see in the video but I didn't really mention them.
There is plenty of room for running cables off the back of the desk, I currently have a half dozen cords for charging phone, laptop, etc... and I haven't had any problems.
You're right taking the monitor off the desk every day is not fun, my desktop case does fit in the storage area underneath the desk so I do not have to move that everyday.
I have been working on a monitor mount that will work in conjunction with the UrbanDesk but it is not yet finished and I have been anxious to launch. Check back soon, as I hope to post a video of the finished mount within the next week or two.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about waitstaff/ customer interaction at restaurants as I neither like cooking or being disappointed by my food. I just don't see this as something that will appeal to a lot of people.
There are too many cases where it falls down. For example, my girlfriend will ask almost every server their opinion of two items on the menu. She doesn't always choose the one that they recommend, but feels it to be useful input in her decisions. Another time when the waitstaff are extemely useful are for people with alergies, or lactose intolarance.
Yes the second case can be solved by lists of ingredients, or icons indicating what each meal is free of (lactose free, soy free, gluten free, peanut free, etc...) all of which would be provided by the computer interface. But is that really what I'm looking for when I go out to eat? No. I like being able to ask, "Does this have cheese in it?" or "Do you like A better than X" and getting a yes or no answer.
I believe we will see a restuarant that is McDonalds meets RedBox in the near future. However, until there are serious advancements in language processing so that I can ask questions about the food I am about order (and pay atleast 200% mark up on) I don't expect many resturants to be shedding their waitstaff in favor of customer opperated touch screen devices.
Firstly, if you have any suspicion of having sleep apnea, I highly recommend getting a sleep study[0] done. I was diagnosed with a moderate case of obstructive sleep apnea after suffering from it for several years. I feel fortunate to have discovered and treated it at a fairly young age since it results general misery and is believed to cause heart attacks and strokes if left untreated.
I found no noticeable difference in my ability to recall dreams from the night before, or the length of dreams I experienced between using CPAP or not.
With regard to sleep patterns, the results from CPAP were immediately noticeable. I found that CPAP allowed me to go from a zombie that needed 12 or more hours of sleep per night to one that only needed about 4. This was not better. Despite really enjoying the extra 8 hours of "waking" time I had each day I was still tired all the time and thus made little use of the extra hours. I now sleep between 7 and 8 hours per night, I feel great and I am way more productive.
I like the idea a lot. I'm always suspicious of shortened urls, but I feel that those who share my caution may also share my appreciation of the NoScript plug-in. New users may be more inclined to use your service with a regular form submit opposed to one that only works with javascript. Coming from HN I was willing to whitelist your site but others may not be.