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a8da6b0c91d

971 karma · joined July 20, 2013

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a8da6b0c91d··on The Fats You Don’t Need to Fear, and the Carbs That You Do
> Did cavemen make bread?

Yes.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/humans-feas...

a8da6b0c91d··on The Fats You Don’t Need to Fear, and the Carbs That You Do
> leaving excess sugar that will be converted into fat

De-novo lipogenisis from sugar in practice does not happen humans. If you do something goofy like keep dietary fat under 5 grams and eat hundreds of grams of carbohydrate some monounsaturated fats can be synthesized, but it's fair to say that it basically doesn't happen.

Any fat on your body came directly from fats you ate. Sugar and carbohydrate only matter with regard to weight loss to the extent they displace fat metabolism.

a8da6b0c91d··on The Caffeinated Lives of Bees
The report had a weird take that the caffeine must be tricking the bees, to their detriment. More likely is that the bees recognize that caffeine is good and healthy. The body of research on caffeine's vitamin like health benefits is enormous. It's simply not to be consider a vice or something to avoid.
a8da6b0c91d··on Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation
The college admissions system has encouraged the arms race mentality. The SAT has been repeatedly reworked such that test prep works better. I really doubt involvement in the summer activities they apparently value indicates anything about qualification other than parental resources and involvement.
a8da6b0c91d··on Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings
What Ebert did for the most part was accurately say whether or not the masses would find a film enjoyable. He was very good at his job.

A film critic should aspire to do more. He should be critical and hopeful educate the audience on some level. Ebert's reviews were more like restaurant reviews.

a8da6b0c91d··on Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings
Ebert was an idiot and an idiot's reviewer.
a8da6b0c91d··on Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings
The only way Rotten Tomatoes is useful is if you look only at the negative ratings. All kinds of horrible schlock that has mass appeal gets "certified fresh." But isolating negative reviews: If idiots dislike it then it's probably good; If the negative reviews sound cogent then it's probably bad.
a8da6b0c91d··on Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings
The think to do is find a few reviewers who resonate with you and keep tabs on them. I mostly just see what Armond White tells me to see.
a8da6b0c91d··on After 8 years and $128M raised, the clock is ticking for men's retailer Bonobos
The pants are cut for squishy office drones. It's for guys carrying an extra 12 pounds who still want a modern tapered cut. The quality is pretty much standard disposable American clothing, that is to say a pair of pants will be visibly disintegrating after about ten washes.
a8da6b0c91d··on Cannabis Access and Academic Performance
You got a small fine. At no point were you at any risk of facing incarceration. You were also probably doing something stupid and very annoying like stinking up the floor in a dormitory. This illustrates how the drug laws in practice work.
a8da6b0c91d··on Cannabis Access and Academic Performance
You don't get it. Those people get hit with narcotics charges because the cops and D.A. know exactly who they are and the long list of other crimes they've committed.

People who simply use or sell some marijuana and that's the extent of their "illegal" activity, they don't wind up in prison. Doesn't happen.

a8da6b0c91d··on Cannabis Access and Academic Performance
Every time I ever got high on weed I felt lingering effects for about three days. I've never experienced this with anything else. It always seemed to me that people who smoke weed a couple times a week or more often might be slightly under the influence almost continuously and not even realize it.
a8da6b0c91d··on Cannabis Access and Academic Performance
That simply doesn't happen in America. Cannabis is de facto legal throughout the USA. I repeat: marijuana is in practice legal in America, and all these people talking about drug charges ruining lives don't know what they're talking about.

The only way you get serious charges or any jail time at all for marijuana in America is when you've been arrested for serious crimes, but a District Attorney goes with "possession" for the plea deal. It's just easier that way.

a8da6b0c91d··on There is no such thing as a city that has run out of room

    Instead the DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) are running 
    minorities out of their neighborhoods by bidding up the 
    price of the land.
Uhh, that's pretty much the plan. The landowners in places like SF and DC want to watch their holdings achieve lower Manhattan valuations. The history of NYC through the 90s proved the way you do that is demographic transformation.
a8da6b0c91d··on There is no such thing as a city that has run out of room
I would say Indian humans are different from Occidental humans. Large cities in the West have generally been population sinks over the centuries. People move to NYC or London and don't have two kids. This isn't a new pattern. For whatever reason this doesn't happen as much in some other cultures.
a8da6b0c91d··on Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0
To be fair Japanese writing is insane and they know it. It's far too difficult.
a8da6b0c91d··on How Two Guys Lost God and Found $40M
Prohibition on charging interest makes perfect sense in a zero growth economy. Economic growth was effectively zero per capita for almost all of human history before the industrial revolution. Wealth amassed from charging interest in a zero growth economy represents transfer of wealth, not capital formation.

Likewise, sabbath keeping rules make perfect sense in such an economy. No, you can't work a lot of extra hours more than we're all willing to work and amass extra wealth for yourself. The net result of that is you taking a bigger piece of the economic pie. The longer work really doesn't grow the pie, which was essentially limited by the agricultural productivity of the land.

a8da6b0c91d··on How Two Guys Lost God and Found $40M
The lenders of yore would drag you into a legal status of debt peonage, a form of slavery, if you couldn't make payments. The old loan sharks would break thumbs and legs.

As long as it's very easy to declare bankruptcy and walk away from debt I don't get too worked up about it. Look at the irish pub owner discussed in the story. The business was going to go bankrupt anyway, he took a gamble with a loan that might have floated him through, but it turned out not to. The loan wasn't really the problem.

The student loan originators are way more immoral than these guys, because student loans can not be discharged in bankruptcy.

a8da6b0c91d··on Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
Doesn't gerrymandering mostly carve out a lot of districts for black congressmen who otherwise wouldn't have districts? I think that's kinda what it boils down to in America. There are conservative areas adjacent to and mixed with majority black areas and they want different representation.
a8da6b0c91d··on The real anti-Facebook is good old email
One expert discovered this new neat social hack: hanging out in person.

Kidding aside, I prophesize that the next really big, impactful American political movement will not have a web page or twitter/facebook account or forums. The internet as a useful tool for outsiders is over.

a8da6b0c91d··on NewLisp
> For some reason

Wouldn't 99% of people see GPL and move on?

a8da6b0c91d··on Why Can't Startups Get US Government Contracts?
The single largest weight in SBIR award evaluation is previous success in commercializing SBIR funded technology. It's a blatantly ridiculous catch-22.
a8da6b0c91d··on Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
Nothing compensates for the absurdity of spending over $3K for one.
a8da6b0c91d··on ScyllaDB: Drop-in replacement for Cassandra that claims to be 10x faster
> one process per core, each locked to a single core; use locked local RAM only (effectively limiting NUMA); direct dedicated network queue (bypass kernel); direct storage I/O (bypass kernel)

I have no idea how to do any of these things. What are the system/api calls to lock a process to a kernel? How do you bypass kernel IO?

a8da6b0c91d··on Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
The prices on ebikes are still ridiculous. They cost more than a lightly used 300cc motorcycle that can go 100 mph and sips gasoline.
a8da6b0c91d··on Is alcohol actually bad for you?
You measure with an IQ test. They work very well.

The longevity-IQ correlation is robust.

a8da6b0c91d··on Is alcohol actually bad for you?
A whole lot of these epidemiological results largely boil down to IQ. You see it over and over again as the missing factor. People with higher IQs drink more. High IQ is independently linked to better health and longer lifespan, almost certainly at the physiological level. They don't live longer because of smart things they do, they are smart because they're healthy. So from the epidemiological data you get the false impression that things smart people tend to do reduce disease or increase lifespan.
a8da6b0c91d··on Show HN: Live Simple – Tiny homes
You can't park one of these anywhere near an urban area with jobs. They do nothing to alleviate housing affordability. In semi-rural areas without jobs housing is already dirt cheap, so they're of little practical use there either.
a8da6b0c91d··on Show HN: Live Simple – Tiny homes
This is why I live in a van down by the river.
a8da6b0c91d··on Show HN: Live Simple – Tiny homes
Trailers and prefab houses have existed for many decades. Why is now the time?
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