A number of great composers were fond of the bottle, but can you hear it? - <AUTHOR> http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/a-surprising-number-of-great-composers-were-fond-of-the-bottle-but-can-you-hear-it/ <comment><USER2> The price you pay for original thought is isolation.

When they can't surround themselves with other original thinkers, or develop a saintly patience for the plugged-in, the only option left is substance abuse.

Judging from "Behind the Music," substance abuse is the path of least resistance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Alcohol has always been popular. Go figure.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not only great composers that are fond of the bottle et al. Many great modern musicians have struggled with alcohol and drug abuse.

<comment><USER5> It's a detour but isn't "many people have struggled with alcohol and drug abuse" the generalization? Not much greatness to be found there. The ones like Erdos are the outliers by much greater margin than among the non-abusers imho

<comment><USER6> There are a lot of factors (including luck, temperament, motivation, perseverance, creativity, education, etc) that go in to making someone being perceived as "great" by others.

Whether one uses a particular drug is clearly not the only thing that determines "greatness". But some drugs could help increase one's creativity, or to "loosen up", shed inhibitions, see the world in a different light, or appreciate things you otherwise wouldn't. There's often a cost to this, sometimes it is a great cost, but it's a mistake to believe drugs are an unmitigated evil without any benefits.

The real problem is that most people aren't taking drugs for constructive reasons, like to enhance their creativity, but either for frivolous or self- destructive reasons. Of course, even constructive uses can get out of hand. That's where education, discipline, and support come in. Unfortunately, modern societies do a pretty poor job of helping with any of these things, and focus primarily on stigmatizing and criminalizing drugs and drug users.

<comment><USER7> > _But some drugs could help increase one 's creativity, or to "loosen up", > shed inhibitions, see the world in a different light, or appreciate things > you otherwise wouldn't._

They can also act as temporary solutions to permanent problems - many people self-medicate with alcohol or other drugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Banach (mathematician) also drank heavily.

<comment><USER9> I hear he once drank himself to pieces, and when he woke up in the morning and pulled himself together, he had inadvertently made a copy of himself.

<comment><USER10> The Banach-Tarski paradox:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I see some of us are in good company!</comment>


Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://haseebq.com/farewell-app-academy-hello-airbnb-part-ii/ <comment><USER2> I hope revealing salaries doesn't get him in trouble at AirBnb. I know I would be a bit annoyed if he revealed all of this before joining if I were an employer.

Conflating base salary and RSU packages, especially pre-IPO RSUs, is a mistake. In my 20 years in Silicon Valley I've learned you simply can't put too much faith in stock. Stock is great, but it goes up and down. The only thing that is real is base salary, even bonus isn't guaranteed. Stock or options are nice, but they are icing on the cake, if you get a chance to cash out, so combining them with base salary is generally a mistake.

<comment><USER3> Are salaries trade secrets on US?

Here usually we talk openly about them.

<comment><USER4> America is full of fools on this point. We don't talk about salary because, in the back of our minds, it's a determiniate of our value. This is not true in most philosophical systems, but it's true in our post-modern materialism.

The end result of our self-censor is a weak labor market. We don't know what we're worth. Americans, aside from our verbrato, tend to underestimate our worth. There are people working for 80k with 8 years of experience in advanced fields like Big Data that don't realize that they bring their companies 200k+ worth of value. They don't realize that their peers with less skills and marketability are making the same 80k. This makes management's life better: thicker margins.

When an individual attempts to move past this barrier, especially consciously, anti-union sentiment pops up. People start to get defensive. Others get lustful. A reasonable dialogue turns into a battle of the Joneses. Labor fights Labor.

<comment><USER5> > Americans, aside from our verbrato

"Bravado". I wouldn't correct you except that it took me a good five minutes to think of the correct word :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having failed multiple interviews with Google and other companies mentioned in this post, it really drives home the huge difference between Haseeb's work ethic and mine. If I had put forth 10% of the effort he has expended this year to preparing then I'd have aced the interviews. But I didn't. Instead I spend most of my free time doing frivolous things that aren't satisfying.

What percentage of HN posters have applied to Google? And how many received offers? I think it's amazing that he outclasses so many of us after being in our industry for a year. Good for him.

<comment><USER7> Context and disclaimer: I run an intense and successful bootcamp focused on preparing for Tech interviews. A 100+ people from all over the world have prepped with us since we started a year and a half ago. [http://interviewkickstart.com](http://interviewkickstart.com).

We've since learnt a lot about what makes successful engineers. While nearly everyone who goes thru us (and is actively looking) gets placed somewhere nice, the people who crack some of the hardest interviews generally fall into ONE or MORE of the following categories:

1\. They are just bright from the get go. A high IQ.

Haseeb, from the little I've read about him, seems to fall into this category. They can get by with normal amount of practice viz. brush-up.

2\. They are extremely prepped.

A crude measure of prep, is how many algorithmic problems you've practiced. Some of these people have crossed 300+ problems. Written code for each. And repeated it. It takes several months to a year to do this with diligence and focus.

3\. They have been coding for a long time. Almost precocious-ly.

They have written so much code, that a lot of constructs are now muscle memory. All they need to do in an interview, is to intuit the solution. After that, they impress the heck with their coding fluency.

4\. They are competitive programmers for some time

They don't have to be toppers or winning competitions. e.g. Yellow on Topcoder is sufficient.

5\. They went to a particularly strong and competitive CS program

Some programs in the country prepare you for such interviews. Rare, and difficult to get into, but they do.

6\. They got a soft interview-panel.

Interviews are heavily dependent on who interviews you. Especially at large companies, there is a wide variance in grading standard, experience in interviewing and beliefs, and hence there is a wide variation in talent, despite centralized hiring committees.

You need a bit of luck anyway, but sometimes you get an entire panel that you happen to gel with. A little bit of preparation and getting such a panel puts you over the magic line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing that struck me as odd while reading this, and the preceding article, was that he seemed offended at being offered junior roles despite only having a year of experience. A talented junior developer is still a junior developer.

<comment><USER9> > A talented junior developer is still a junior developer.

Read his biography - the entire reason he has been able to achieve everything he has in life is because he doesn't have such a close-minded and pessimistic attitude. Rather than just letting the conventions of society dictate what he gets and does, he instinctively finds ways to work around them. While everyone else is busy checking the boxes expected of them, he's already moved on to the next level.

<comment><USER8> On your advice I read the about page on his website (I assume this is the biography you mentioned). I also checked out App Academy on LinkedIn and Angel List. Angel List even had the job posting for his old position. I still believe he's a junior developer. He didn't magically cram more than a year of development into that year. If anything he did less development. Out of his one year of experience some was spent as an instructor, not a developer, and many of his duties as Director of Product were management and not software development. In fact, he mentioned that as one of the reasons he wanted to leave that role.

Some lessons are learned by doing things and dealing with the results. He hasn't been doing this long enough to see the long term consequences of any decisions he made while developing software at App Academy because those consequences haven't happened yet. Also, App Academy is a small company with about 10-20 people. Lots of things that aren't important with 10 people become very important on software projects with 100 people.

None of what I said means he isn't intelligent or talented. It doesn't mean he didn't do good work while at App Academy or that he won't do good work at AirBnB. It just means he's inexperienced. That's not a bad thing but it isn't something you can change overnight.

<comment><USER10> I think you're underrating the significance of the rate at which one is able to learn and acquire knowledge. I'd argue that this is actually more important than experience within a large organization with plenty of mentorship.

This guy was able to accomplish a ton in a year, acquiring the technical chops to get offers at top companies like Google. If he can do that in one year, imagine where he'll be in another year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was surprised by the notion that airbnb is considered a top tier engineering company. Excuse my ignorance as an outsider, but what interesting engineering problems are they solving?

From the outside, I see a listing service that processes transactions and plots things on a third part mapping service. There isn't a complex dynamic market based auction system or anything like that. Can someone with more knowledge shed some light on what airbnb does that puts it on par with the work from Google (e.g. spanner, F5, borg, their SDN stuff, etc)?

<comment><USER12> Their comp is obviously top. I was impressed at how large AirBnB's offer is in every aspect--its base was already higher than the total comp of many of his other (initial) offers.

<comment><USER13> Avg one bedroom apartment in SF is 50% of the take home pay on 120k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For people who are currently looking, they should be thankful for this post. This guy really was a master negotiator and provides lots of hard numbers. The key is to get some initial leverage (at least one offer from anywhere) and then keep cranking. If you can get a Google offer, then you can really squeeze out every last drop.

I think him publicly posting this will cause a lot of resentment at his company. I wouldn't be surprised if there are PhD's with multiple years of experience at AirBnB making less in total comp than this guy.

<comment><USER14> I wonder if you could possibly lie about offers being received.. I mean I kinda doubt these recruiters all talk to each other or do they?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The author repeatedly mentions $XXX RSUs.

It's been a while since I've worked for a pre-IPO company. Is it common for companies to give RSUs a dollar value instead of a number of shares and "heck if I know the valuation"? And how are RSUs different from straight ISOs?

<comment><USER16> Typically they also tell you the Fair Market Value of the shares and you just multiply by the number of shares offered. They aren't options and you just get them whenever the company goes public. But they are completely illiquid before then.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_market_value](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_market_value)

Quoting them in dollars is probably not too wrong if you believe the company's valuation won't change much (which is probably true for these unicorns). Even groupon's valuation didn't drop more than one order of magnitude.

<comment><USER17> _> They aren't options and you just get them whenever the company goes public. But they are completely illiquid before then._

Many companies now have a buyback mechanism where the employer will buy back your RSUs at a pre-determined price (often the price per share in the last priced round).

Although the vesting schedule is the same as if it were options, the contracts often have a clause where technically the RSUs have not vested, in order to avoid capital gains taxes on a (fairly) illiquid asset.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, he will pay taxes on the vested illiquid RSUs on top of his 130k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The two blog posts were interesting reads, especially with the raw numbers given.

In addition, it also shows how blind most companies are to talent - they're not interested in discovering the diamonds in the rough unless a company like Google does it for them.

<comment><USER10> Right. Companies are extremely risk-averse because they can afford to be. The talent shortage in tech is totally overblown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I may be misreading. With only a year of instruction and no coding background previously, he was able to get a position at Google? Is this the norm?

As a hiring manager, I would be concerned that a candidate with such short exposure to the field and no real projects under their belt would just be too green to carry their weight.

<comment><USER9> > With only a year of instruction and no coding background previously, he was > able to get a position at Google? Is this the norm?

That depends on your definition of "norm". The average person could probably spend their entire life preparing for a Google interview and never get an offer. Others could enter any field of their choosing and reach a very high level of competency in just a matter of months. Seems like the OP falls in the latter category.

<comment><USER20> No matter how academically bright someone is, practical coding experience is still highly desirable.

<comment><USER9> It has nothing to do with academics - some people can pick up practical skills much more quickly than others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _In life, you don 't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate for._

Nice job. Thanks for the transparency.

</comment><comment><USER22> ... well, maybe I should ask for a raise.

<comment><USER23> Usually helps if you have another offer in hand.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely this. I worked hard for 5 years. I was a trusted member of my company. I spoke with IBM sales as a tech peer. I was dramatically underpaid. I asked for a raise, to which I was told the market couldn't bear me.

I was pushed into a project that had me crying to and from work. The stress was immense, but I thought I had little choice since my health insurance and house hold income provided everything for my family. I shopped around for a new job.

I found one that would work, but didn't have health coverage for 90 days. At this point I had an offer in hand. I told my management, at the time, unless I got another 20k a year, I'm walking to the other job. I got the raise.

Leverage is not bad. The company that you work for is probably only marginally committed to your well-being. They are totally committed to their margins. If you like your organization, but need more, leverage is your friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow, that dude has a pretty crazy life story - his about page was a fun read! Became a millionaire playing poker, got caught up in a huge scandal, sounds like a movie.

<comment><USER25> Thankfully do to Trump I'm far more skeptical of stories like these. So I would not so readily believe what he is saying.

<comment><USER26> He's the real deal. I remember watching the scandal on 2+2 unfold a few years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone know what computer science problems hes referring to for interviews? Does anyone have a resource i can look at?

<comment><USER28> I would also be interested in some more detail, especially: "On the phone interview, I received a pretty challenging problem—I remember thinking when I got it that I was going to mess it up. But somehow I solved it with ease, and all of my outputs were correct."

It's kind of hard to get a handle on what this means; on one hand the poster is quite obviously remarkably intelligent (ref: bio etc), on the other hand he has very little CS experience. The reader is left to imagine a problem that is just within their _own_ reach to solve, while it might have been a very basic algorithm question...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Excellent post! Really enjoyed reading about your experience on the job market. My brother is going to be interviewing with Google soon, so I will make sure to share this with him.

</comment><comment><USER30> This was an excellent read. I would be interested in hearing more about his specific skill set and also more info about the technical interviews he went through.

</comment><comment><USER31> Seeing those salaries as a dev in Tokyo is mind boggling. Time to start looking at remote work options even I think..

<comment><USER32> Never look at salaries in a vacuum; remember what he says about what a 105k salary would "translate to" 57k in Texas. I don't know if remote working will change the game, eventually, but since companies today outsource jobs to "cheaper" cities to pay lower salaries, I find it hard to imagine that they'd be willing offer the same strong salaries to remote workers, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to cut costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for posting this it is very helpful. It's clear you need to prep and leverage.

</comment><comment><USER33> Fucking hell. I wish video games paid that well. God damn.

</comment><comment><USER33> What are taxes on non-liquid RSUs like?

<comment><USER34> Taxed as income based off of the fair market value of the RSUs as determined by a independent auditor's assessment (It's called a 409A Valuation).

In practice most companies will allow you to surrender non-liquid RSUs to pay the tax withholding so you don't have a massive tax bill from a non-liquid asset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Congrats on peacocking. It's absolutely horrifying.

</comment><comment><USER36> Were I in the same situation as OP with multiple offers, I definitely would've botched the negotiation part. I wish there was a version of hackerrank for negotiations.

<comment><USER18> Stall, redirect, wait. At some point the recruiter becomes your advocate.

Or if just one offer ask for more than you want and would settle for. They won't rescind the offer and be willing to walk away.

It's also easier to get more options and RSUs because it's funny money not yet vested and not yet liquid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> If you've gone to a development school you should rate your experience here: [https://schools.techendo.com/](https://schools.techendo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER38> App Academy is the most selective dev training program in the world. We've developed this course to give you inside knowledge about the boot camp .A Farewell speech or farewell address is a speech given by an individual leaving a position or place. They are often used by public figures such as politicians.Custom essay writing service([http://www.essayguardian.com/](http://www.essayguardian.com/)) is the better service that helps students in their academic fields.</comment>


Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6B - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/marvell-technology-strikes-deal-to-buy-chipmaker-cavium-for-6-billion/ <comment><USER2> The deployment of ARM in the data center has been more words/vapor than reality for years. And if you try one of Scaleway's baremetal ARM offerings, you realize that using Intel CPUs is similar to using an SSD. Once you use it, it's difficult to use something far slower. I'm not holding my breath on ARM in the Server, and I think we will see ARM desktops become widespread _much_ sooner than ARM servers.

All that being said, I really want ARM servers to happen. One because a lifetime of x86 monoculture makes me curious about other platforms, and two because like AMD when they're pushing hard, it'll drive Intel out of their slumber. Intel's major advancements come when they're at least challenged if not threatened. Otherwise they do the equivalent of the old +25Mhz SKUs.

Still if I could have one wish, and it had to be CPU related, I would prefer to see an open ISA like RISC-V delivered by multiple vendors competing become widespread.

<comment><USER3> Scaleway uses the ARM cores of 2011. The cutting edge ARM server cores from Qualcomm and Cavium are a little faster than that.

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm-takes-wing/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm- takes-wing/)

<comment><USER4> These were impressive results from Qualcomm and Cloudflare. It seems like a serious threat to Intel.

Cavium not so much for some reason, not sure why their numbers are so much worse that Qualcomm.

<comment><USER5> That was the (somewhat old now) Cavium ThunderX. Cavium are prototyping ThunderX2 which has better performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how this will affect Cavium's ThunderX line. When Applied Micro was bought by Macom, their X-Gene line was more or less trashed. If this keeps happening to companies trying to develop ARM servers, you'll never see an ARM server in a datacenter.

<comment><USER7> Remember though that X-Gene wasn't very good when examined. And the current ThunderX is actually the continuation of the very interesting (and canceled by) Broadcom Vulcan, not the mediocre original.

<comment><USER6> Oh I'm well aware -- the lab I work in bought a couple of X-Gene 1s for testing, and even an X-Gene 2. They were complete and utter crap performance- and power-wise -- but they were (at the time) the only thing available.

Didn't know that about the ThunderX -- fascinating! Thanks!

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't expect much from ThunderX(1). Qualcomm Amberwing or Cavium ThunderX2 are where it's at for Xeon-like performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Remarkable the consolidation going on in general, but silicon is really seeing a wave of (possible) mergers and acquisitions.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why is the image a picture of a D-Wave chip?</comment>


Ask HN: Controlling LEDs through Arduino? - <AUTHOR> I am building a hardware prototype of a product where I need to control the timing of LED lights. Is the Arduino the easiest way or should I use a regular circuit board? I would eventually like to have it wirelessly pass data to my phone as well.<p>Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> If you have no experience with hardware, Arduino's are fine. I assume you have some programming experience?

I believe there is an arduino with wi-fi built in. You can also go for a cheap raspberry pi, they come with linux built-in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I do have some programming experience but haven't soldered anything in years!

Just wonder what the path to production might look like and if an Arduino would be too expensive just to do basic circuitry work.

<comment><USER3> I have heard tales of woe from people attempting to commercialize products built from Arduino stacks, (Arduino+third party shields) but you shouldn't run into too much trouble if you're just using a single board.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I use just a single board to control each of the LED lights to light up independantly?

It also looks like I'll need a breadboard but in production, I'd like the long wires to be connected to the LEDs so wondering if I can simulate it without a breadboard?

<comment><USER2> > Can I use just a single board to control each of the LED lights to light up > independantly?

Arduinos typically have a few GPIO ports (ON OFF) that you can control using a c-like language.

If you need more LEDs than the board supplies, you can extend your board with for example a shift register or something.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Journal of Irreproducible Results - <AUTHOR> http://www.jir.com/ <comment><USER2> How about the "show not tell"-principle on the landing page? Got tired of reading "science humor" without anything to trick me into considering an absurd result?

</comment><comment><USER3> This was always a fun read; I think that it was about 20 years ago that a falling out among the editors led to a split between IJR and the Annals of Improbable Research, now best known for their annual Ig Nobel prizes.

I got the "best of IJR" book many years ago, and continue to tell people about one article in particular: "National Geographic: The Doomsday Machine." You can read it here: [http://www.jir.com/geographic.html](http://www.jir.com/geographic.html)

In short, so many people in the Northeastern US subscribe to National Geographic, and never throw it out, that the continent is in danger of tipping over.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Funniest Graph Contest winner: All Theories Proven With One Graph

[http://www.jir.com/graph_contest/index.html](http://www.jir.com/graph_contest/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> "The rule for length is simple: write it for what it's worth. Include everything that ought to be there, and then stop. Don't leave out anything that helps the article, but don't pad, either."

</comment><comment><USER5> Fun concept but "Subscribe" link littered throughout text was pretty brutal.</comment>


Google Family Link - <AUTHOR> https://families.google.com/familylink/ <comment><USER2> It's useful to think about every product in the context of "what business model does this solve for the company who makes it." In this case, you're at least giving more data to Google about who is a child, where they are, etc.</comment>


Announcing Zap iOS on the App Store - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@JimmyMow/announcing-zap-ios-on-the-app-store-2558ea3d8345 <comment><AUTHOR> The privacy policy they used for App Store app can be found here: [http://zap.jackmallers.com/privacy](http://zap.jackmallers.com/privacy)</comment>


The End of China's Economic Miracle? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-end-of-chinas-economic-miracle-1416592910

<comment><USER2> Interesting article, thanks for posting! While I agree that there has been over-extension with regards to infrastructure development especially in residential housing, one thing I think we should remember is the power the central government in China holds to change course when necessary, even when a crisis has not yet occurred (imagine living in a country that can ground all flights for a day with no explanation and people take that as par the course: [http://on.wsj.com/1wVToAd](http://on.wsj.com/1wVToAd)). A similar point on over-extension could have been made about US expansion in the 2000s being completely attributed to the debt-induced US housing bubble, but our government had no focus or institutional power to stop that until the crisis had already occurred. In this case at the governmental level, China, with its ability to set long term policy and pre-empt crises, might have a leg up.

<comment><USER3> Corruption is endemic in the ruling class who own much of China already. It will be really hard for the government to turn themselves and their families from winners into losers...so the effects of whatever reforms they take will probably fall on the have-nots, who might not take that very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's good to hear from an observer who has been in China in recent years on topics like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an excellent example of what is wrong with China journalism today, drawing sweeping conclusions based on a handful of cherry-picked anecdotes. For an article with actual analysis, try [http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/11/chinas-i...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/11/chinas- interest-rates).

<comment><USER5> Yes, this article is terrible.

"Shift the economy toward innovation? That is the mantra of every advanced economy, but China's rivals have a big advantage: Their societies encourage free thought and idiosyncratic beliefs"

Which can be translated to "this people are different from us, how could they ever be successful?"</comment></comment>


Business friendly take on the end of Verizon unlimited data - <AUTHOR> http://maps.yankeegroup.com/ygapp/content/cceb7c2f9a9646c099246c7a48e5b13d/50/DAILYINSIGHT/

<comment><USER2> heh, "Struts Problem Report"</comment>


Ask HN: How and why is it so hard to keep illegal websites down? - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering, how do authorities take down websites ? Can't they ban a domain name from a registry, Why and how is thepiratebay.se still active ? Why is it so hard to take it down ? Why do authorities go after the servers and not the domain names ?<p>PS: I certainly don't want to get into an argument on whether TPB and others should or not be taken down <comment><USER2> A reason why websites are so hard to take down is that they're so easy to set up. For example, the video streaming link hosting website primewire.org/ag/com was letmewatchthis.se/com/org/de and they all just reroute traffic. The point is that they are exactly the same website. As long as the Internet is around they can keep taking them down, but they'll just start again under a different name, and word eventually gets around via reddit/4CHAN, word of mouth and the cycle starts all over again. But recently I think link sharing websites are not illegal but Google can't put them on the top of their search results or something.

What's even better are the websites that they host their streams on are constantly changing names since they keep getting taken down, or throttled but the templates the websites use are exactly the same: the type of embedded video players, the font, format, etc. The only thing they change is the color and the name.

But yes banning a domain name is possible, or ICE can take it down but that only applies to American websites.

It's impossible for websites to be taken down but it is possible to limit their exposure and that is to have an American version of the great firewall, but that'll never happen, hopefully...

</comment><comment><USER3> A possible reason is that it's convenient for a lot of people, not only users. For instance, tbt make it easy to learn english, spreading english culture and keeping it dominant.

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you suggesting that any nation-state should have the ability to remove any domain name in the world from the ICANN registry?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep your many projects and subtasks organized? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> For each project I have a trello board.

So 3 main lists. Backlog, Doing, Done.

The done part is by month so each month I create an new done list i.e. January 2018 - <USER2>

I can then easily switch between boards.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use another web app I created called MyPost ( [https://mypost.io](https://mypost.io) ) which allows you to create posts using HTML, CSS, and a ton of font icons. So I'm able to keep track or write notes to myself about projects I am brainstorming, create, etc. I can also share the post with others and have them edit for those projects where I might be working with someone else.

</comment><comment><USER5> I liked that post by Adrien (a frenchman who is focused on productivity and organisation), lots of great insights in it! [https://byrslf.co/work- on-12-projects-without-burning-out-f5...](https://byrslf.co/work- on-12-projects-without-burning-out-f5bec50dafdb)

</comment><comment><USER6> I use [http://zenkit.com](http://zenkit.com). With Zenkit it´s easy to create Kanban Boards and Mind-Maps for different projects. Also, it comes in really handy that the views can be switched between and worked on. Also has delegation features.</comment>


Why and how does Future Planet count carbon? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-and-how-does-future-planet-count-carbon <comment><USER2> See also this great talk from 36C3, "Reducing Carbon in the Digital Realm": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFCQTkWPjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFCQTkWPjs)</comment>


Yuki Kawauchi Is Distance Running's Elite Oddball - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/sports/yuki-kawauchi-marathon.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone know how come he failed to qualify for (London) Olympics?

<comment><USER3> According to the excellent article, he's not a warm-weather runner, and he's indifferent to the Olympic Games.

For those HNers who think practice is more important than natural talent, basically everybody in this article agrees that his particular genes greatly benefit him.

If you look at his split times, they're really, really fast. He could win at several distances, from the 1500m up to ultra-marathons.

He also seems to have Phelps' ability to block out pain.

Fascinating article!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This man is my hero. The everyman athlete.</comment>


The root of all eval - <AUTHOR> http://strangelyconsistent.org/blog/the-root-of-all-eval <comment><USER2> "It's just a normal function." No, it has magical access to the lexical scope.

<comment><USER3> Isn't eval required to run in the null lexical environment? Or is that only true in Lisp?

<comment><USER4> In JavaScript it depends on how it is invoked: eval(a) has access to scope variables but x=eval;x(a) does not.

<comment><USER5> I am surprised that JavaScript can still surprise me.

<comment><USER4> I suggest reading the spec. 5.1 [0] although dated is written in very easy to understand language (well, most parts).

After that, fragments like this suddenly make sense:

        n = 1
        /1*"\/\//.test(n + '"//')

[0]: [https://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1/](https://www.ecma- international.org/ecma-262/5.1/)

<comment><USER5> My favorite bit of wat.js is this:

        [1,2,3] + [4,5,6] // => "1,2,34,5,6"

I mean, it makes some degree of logical sense (toString -> concat) but there is no reason that would ever be the intended behavior.

As for that expression, meh. You can write intentionally obtuse code in any language. The problem with JS is the behavior that is different from what you'd expect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My biggest question about this is did the guy not understand why the flag was called `MONKEY-SEE-NO-EVAL`? Because that name was my favourite part of the article...

<comment><USER7> The article is called "The root of all eval." I think the author gets it.

<comment><USER8> To me it looks like the author is oblivious of the pun in MOKNEY-SEE-NO-EVAL, even though he made the same pun in the title.

<comment><USER9> His point is merely that either this is a seriously bad idea that you should never do, in which case you should not attempt to communicate it through a silly pun, or it is acceptable, in which case it shouldn't be hidden behind a compiler pragma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's worth noting that eval in perl5 can be used with a codeblock to give basic exception handling, in perl6 this functionality has been moved to try. So while it's quite common to use eval in perl5, I'd expect much less usage in perl6. The name change is probably a good reminder of this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Perl6 has blocks, so eval already implicitly receives an environment from within which to evaluate.

Why jump up and down screaming eval is super bad, when instead you could have allowed users to specify the context of eval, _and made it safe to use_?

<comment><USER12> Is it really going to be safe to use? I don't know Perl that well, but it feels like there's enough language features to make a safe eval harder than writing your own parser for a DSL. That's certainly the case for Python: [https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201206/eval_really_is_dangero...](https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201206/eval_really_is_dangerous.html)

<comment><USER11> Python's eval is crippled, it can't take a full environment.

Suppose for a moment that the scope of eval was truly an environment:

And you don't supply the resulting environment with anything but the functions you want.

Not even the dot operator, let alone magic builtins.

Python's eval suddenly becomes much safer. Unfortunately such an eval is harder to implement in Python, because every object carries it's magic methods with it, rather than looking them up elsewhere.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. Is there any language you or the sibling have used that does this with eval, and does it find much use?

<comment><USER13> E and Monte have safe eval() as a consequence of being object-based capability-safe languages; there's no way to cause any effect outside eval() worse than an infinite loop.

To the second part of your question: as you have undoubtedly noticed, you've never heard of E nor Monte.

<comment><USER12> Funny that you say that. When I sat down at my machine at work, one of the 100 or so chrome tabs I had open was a page about The Vat: [http://www.erights.org/elib/concurrency/vat.html](http://www.erights.org/elib/concurrency/vat.html).

<comment><USER13> We have vat documentation too: [http://monte.readthedocs.io/en/latest/vats.html](http://monte.readthedocs.io/en/latest/vats.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So in order to use a function that exposes the software to serious undue security risk unless used correctly, the engineer is pushed to do research? That really doesn't seem like a bad thing...

</comment><comment><USER15> expecting perl not to use silly names for things is like expecting clowns not to wear big shoes

<comment><USER16> I lol'd.</comment></comment>


Andreessen on Finance: 'We Can Reinvent the Entire Thing' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-10-07/andreessen-on-finance-we-can-reinvent-the-entire-thing

<comment><AUTHOR> "Bitcoin is a classic venture capital endeavor: It will either work or it won't. And if it doesn't work, we will lose all our money. But if it does work, it will work in a spectacular way. Our investments will pay off 1,000 to 1 or 10,000 to 1 or some other crazy extreme, because these markets are so big."</comment>


Banning 'Q' and 'Z' from passwords - <AUTHOR> http://security.stackexchange.com/q/57909/46535

<comment><USER2> Prior discussion (42 comments as of now) - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741443)

</comment><comment><USER3> Link bait to boost StackExchange account. There is a prior discussion already at: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7741443)

Pay this post no attention.

</comment><comment><USER4> Relevant explanatory sub-link: [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/148973327_325aa5357d_m.jpg](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/148973327_325aa5357d_m.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER5> Wait. What?</comment>


Startup Act announced by Senators Jerry Moran and Mark Warner - <AUTHOR> http://moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=startup-act

<comment><USER2> All of these points look good, except for the following:

"Require a cost-benefit analysis of proposed regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more to determine the efficacy of the rule and its potential effects on the formation and growth of new businesses;"

This seems like a bureaucratic nightmare waiting to happen. Typically, these clauses are often used in partisan ways to throw the brakes on seemingly unrelated initiatives.

<comment><USER3> In theory, I think the idea of analyzing the cost of a new rule is a good idea, but in practice, I doubt it's possible. Since economist can't agree on this sort of thing any more than politicians can, both sides will simply point to the analysis which agree with their position. Which is basically exactly how things work today.</comment></comment>


IR8: The miracle rice which saved millions of lives - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38156350 <comment><USER2> If we would put as much attention to innovations saving millions as we do to war killing millions, the world would certainly look brighter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was a little surprised there wasn't a lot of interest in this post</comment></comment>


A Story About The Trouble with Job Titles and Descriptions - <AUTHOR> https://css-tricks.com/tales-of-a-non-unicorn-a-story-about-the-trouble-with-job-titles-and-descriptions/

<comment><USER2> There seems to have been miscommunication with the job description. That having been said, the idea that web dev positions that are a hybrid role of design and implementing webpages is not novel, it does not take a "unicorn".

The description undersold JavaScript as a requirement, the candidate continues to oversell "jQuery proficiency" and "I'm a designer/developer if there ever was one."

The employer wanted someone a step further towards the programming side of the spectrum. This person turned out to not be the right candidate, happens all the time. Why the rant?

<comment><USER3> It happens to designers a lot: company wants to hire a "designer", they really mean CSS/Javascript coder who can match colors and pixels in a way that isn't disastrous.

The difference between a real designer and a web dev that dabbles in a bit of design is huge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I didn't see the original job post, but based on the one she presented, it wasn't an Engineering role.

<comment><USER5> After reading the job description presented by the author I have to disagree to a degree. It states:

> Deliver engaging, innovative prototypes, and contribute to front-end > development of our products.

That looks like development to me. Not as a primary role but development nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shouldn't this have the title of the linked blog post?

<comment><USER5> Initially probably but I don't think it's very representative of the content (not that OP's title is better; it's arguably worse).

<comment><USER7> OP's title primes the reader to engage with the article in a negative, hostile way. Titles should carry and convey as little of an OP's baggage as possible.</comment></comment></comment>


Smart Learning Internet Security Device Guards the Connected Home - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/don-t-get-hacked-get-cujo/x/11542694#/story <comment><AUTHOR> We at CUJO announced a smart device that guards all of your connected home devices from hacks. It's simple to start with no installation necessary. CUJO blocks malware, viruses, phishing attempts, and hacks. You get an app that alerts you anytime your devices are in danger. Best of all, you can get it for only $49 when you back the CUJO Indiegogo campaign.

The days of protecting your home with just an alarm system or Antivirus are over. If you have a TV, a smartphone, or even a baby monitor at home, then you are an easy target for cyber criminals. It takes 20 minutes before criminals attempt to hack your newly connected devices. More often than not, they succeed.

Why is it important to get extra Internet security for your home? Criminal hackers break into your home devices to steal your identity, watch your cameras, access your financial info, and worse. Kids and older adults are especially susceptible to falling victim for stalkers and impersonators. Your home is full of smart devices but Antivirus software is built to only protect your PC so it is ineffective in most cases. And firewalls are outdated the moment they ship. Your Internet of Things need security. CUJO continuously adapts to guard your entire home Internet.

So checkout CUJO today and help us build momentum with our crowdfunding campaign!</comment>


The real difference between liberals and conservatives - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/the_real_differ.php <comment><USER2> What a crock of shit. Plus, who cares? Personally I'm getting a little tired of the excess of political stories here that seek to explain why something is in an unscientific, biased, and heavily left-leaning way. Plus its off-topic and irrelevant, in my opinion, to the topic of startups, technology, and new business. Has all the BS from the valley hippies finally started to ruin this place too?

<comment><USER3> It's bad scholarship. A political ideal is an extremely complex object. All he's done is cherry-picked five filters through which to view it. He's taken a very big n-dimensional object and inspected a handful of the shadows it casts.

Does he think he's pinned it down with these five criteria? This is why people make fun of the humanities. Sloppy, runny thinking. You could select just about any value and the two political ideologies would fall somewhere on either side of it. Those on which they aren't opposed aren't worthy of mention, and so aren't. You could play the same game all day. In fact, you might even argue that it is a defining property of a two-party system.

<comment><USER4> Sloppy science makes people feel good when it plays into their preconceived ideas. I fully await the day that the left starts defining other ptolitical views as forms of mental illness. Who knows, maybe Pfizer could find some meds for it.

Kuhn and Popper should really be taught in schools more. There's this incredible propaganda people are taught in regards to science which has very little to do with how actual science is done. People get this warm and fuzzy around the general idea of "science" without the hard knuckle reality that skepticism, falsifiability, the inductive problem, and the difference between correlation and causation, just to name a few problems.

So it's easy for a soft scientist to do all sorts of amazing and miraculous things in the name of science. And heck, it sounds dead right too! Let's just not poke around behind the curtain too much, okay?

It's the ultimate in laziness. Instead of learning political theory, philosophy, economics, and history, we've got internet video! From TED! Can't get cooler than that.

<comment><USER5> Ya know, I get really frustrated whenever I see a bunch of armchair scientists work themselves into a lather criticizing the "sloppiness" of published research, based on nothing but a short blurb on a website.

Contrary to the belief of most indignant internet geeks, there's a lot more to scientific analysis than parroting "correlation vs. cause!" whenever data are presented. The fact of the matter is that, while correlation doesn't _imply_ cause (that's the actual expression; it is rampantly mis-stated), a strong correlation is usually evidence that an underlying cause exists, whether direct or indirect in nature. Furthermore, there's not an accepted result in the history of science that doesn't depend on the analysis of correlations in observed data. Even falsifiability (that sexy buzzword of Popper-idolaters) depends on the collection of observations, and correlation of those observations with previous data. Thus, in a very real way, science is the _study_ of correlations, and you can take the amateur correlation/cause pot- shot at _any_ scientific result.

So, when a _scientist_ points out that correlation does not imply cause, what she means is _not_ that the observed relationship doesn't exist, but that the correlation could be caused by latent, indirect factors. This is a _very different_ thing than suggesting that the result is invalid -- which is what most armchair, Popper-loving internet-scientist types are trying to do (including the parent posts).

<comment><USER4> Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. My lather was starting to dry and I needed a good rinse.

One thing and I'll let you go. "a strong correlation is usually evidence that an underlying cause exists, whether direct or indirect in nature"

Oh really now? Well that explains my theory as to how carrots are deadly poisonous. You see, I've found a 100% correlation between the consumption of carrots and death, usually within 80 years. I'm also working on a theory that sunlight is a cause of all cancer, seeing as how there is another 100% relationship between all people with cancer and exposure to sunlight.

Science is the creation and study of models, abduction, based on the use of deduction and induction. Correlation is simply a tool used to create the model. When we forget we're comparing models, then it's easy to simply fall back on simple correlation-based arguments. That's like forgetting geometry and simply observing the circumference of a circle is usually about 3 times the diameter. It's true, but it's not creating an abstract calculus that can then be extended.

I find your continued use of "armchair scientist" to be an ad hominem, as if by using that name my argument would carry less weight. Last I checked we weren't providing credentials to express opinions.

I'm done playing. timr -- you can follow me around to another comment on the board and continue your picking. I have to go get my armchair adjusted for physics.

<comment><USER5> Your examples bely either a fundamental misunderstanding of the mathematics of correlation, or a willingness to ignore them to fake an argument.

First, you can't "correlate" with incidence of death -- it's not even a binary variable, since everyone dies. Of course, you _can_ correlate with _onset_ of death, but that would make your example silly; if there _were_ an observed acceleration in onset of death due to carrot consumption, it would only serve to illustrate the value of correlative studies in science.

Likewise with sunlight exposure -- you've just flipped the constant to the predictor (everyone has experienced sunlight exposure), and attempted to correlate with a variable output (cancer occurrence). Again, mathematical nonsense.

That said, I don't dispute anything you've said about models, abductive, deductive or inductive reasoning. But you can reason all day long, and without empirical data, you've got nothing but a castle on a cloud. Ultimately, you're always going to come back to correlating at least one observed variable with another -- the predictor, and the response. This is basic science.

Why do I refer to "armchair scientists"? Because I couldn't think of a better term to describe those people who want science to be just like math, but conveniently forget that mathematics rests entirely upon a set of fundamental axioms that are simply _asserted_ to be true. The people who learned about one logical fallacy some time in high school, and latched on for dear life, conveniently forgetting that _every scientist in the world_ knows about the same fallacy.

Moreover, these folks aren't familiar with the details, so they don't see that the places where mathematics most closely touch science -- quantum theory, string theory, etc. -- tend to be extraordinarily messy. The math frequently depends on assumptions and approximations that are accepted based on their similarity to _observed data_. For example, right now, thousands of scientists are banging subatomic particles together in a subterranean tube in France, in order to _observe_ something that the mathematicians think _might_ be there. If it isn't, the mathematicians get to start over.

Again: it all comes back to observing things. And as long as we're observing things that are difficult to observe, I have a feeling that cranky internet scientists will be there to argue from the comfort of an easy chair that empiricism has it all wrong.

<comment><USER6> How can a non-scientist better understand science? Do you know of any good books?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, I liked it, anyhow. Then again, I'm one of those TED-liking liberals...

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this pretty much the same as the Edge article (by the same guy) that got deaded a couple days ago?

Fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, because liberals and conservatives in the sense he is talking about are so amazingly different. How about we get real and start to talk about how we all want to control our neighbors. Both liberals and conservatives, in his definition, _love_ aggression and guns.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill More psychobabble and pseudo-intellectualism. [Sushi-eating Republican here ...]

</comment><comment><USER10> Lipstick

</comment><comment><USER11> I love how these TED people always make a point of congratulating themselves on how important and good they are.

<comment><USER12> At least they got rid of the crescendo at the beginning.</comment></comment>


Infiniswap: Efficient Memory Disaggregation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Infiniswap/infiniswap <comment><USER2> Adrian Colyer covered this on the morning paper.

[https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/05/05/efficient-memory- disaggr...](https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/05/05/efficient-memory- disaggregation-with-infiniswap/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I once tried something like that for a very big montecarlo simulation of matrix convolutions for an online ads company.

Indeed, when you have no alternative to just have stuff in RAM as data access patterns are almost completely random for entire dataset, exporting swap over RDMA NIC will have an advantage even over a very fast local PCIE SSD.

I'm glad that somebody put time to make a proper solution to rationalize deployment of such setups</comment>


Show HN: Chrome UI built with web stack - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pd4d10/chrome-ui/ <comment><USER2> _Many websites like Google, Twitter or GitHub, refuse to show content in cross domain iframe, for secure reason._

It is the browser that refuses to show the content. The behavior is in response to an HTTP header. See: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/19843216](http://stackoverflow.com/a/19843216)

If X-Frame-Options is removed from the HTTP stream, the modified page can be displayed. Browser scripting or a 'Man in the middle' attack (on the content provider not the user) are possible approaches to working around the limitation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your clarification.

I've updated README to clarify this.

[https://github.com/pd4d10/chrome- ui/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/pd4d10/chrome- ui/blob/master/README.md)

<comment><USER2> I pointed it out for the sake of suggesting a work around. I'm a big fan of people taking control of their own browsers and I dislike that X_FRAME-OPTIONS is designed to prevent people from mashing up web content however they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for submitting twice, the former is here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13380228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13380228)

I want to add 'Show HN' to the title. It is too late to edit it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks broken in both Edge (the content area is half size) and Firefox (the tab sides are low).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your report. Fixed just now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> why?

<comment><USER4> I don't know why my comment was downvoted, but it was a genuine question to understand the purpose of the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a down vote button here? I see only the up vote.

It is hard to say what the purpose is. At first I do this just for fun.

Maybe you could consider it as a trial to use CSS to simulate native UI, although not perfectly.

<comment><USER5> There's a minimum number of karma needed (20 I think) to be able to downvote.

<comment><USER6> I have >20 karma and can't downvote.

<comment><USER5> If you can't downvote at all, then I likely have the threshold wrong. This thread makes me think it's 200 or 500.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8381148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8381148)

Two other factors I know of are:

\- You can't downvote a response to a comment you posted

\- You can't downvote comments after a certain interval (24 hours?)

-</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Telegraph - <AUTHOR> http://telegra.ph/ <comment><USER2> What is this? There is zero explanatory information, no privacy policy, but terms of service. Presumably I can publish something? To whom?

<comment><USER3> It's a new service by Telegram: Telegram.org launches Telegraph - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13017604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13017604)

Not much more information in the announcement either though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lovely.

Very simplified interface, easy to share your published story. Does the edit feature work based on IP address or can anybody edit the story I've created?

<comment><USER5> Based on a cookie, but Telegram integrated login coming soon per their twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please use https.</comment>


Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration-of-damaged-old-immune-system/ <comment><USER2> The original paper: [http://www.cell.com/cell-stem- cell/fulltext/S1934-5909%2814%...](http://www.cell.com/cell-stem- cell/fulltext/S1934-5909%2814%2900151-9)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tim Ferriss has poked at the positive effects of intermittent fasting on cancer/health/longevity a bit. I found this interview with Dominic D'Agostino very informative: [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/11/03/dominic- dagostino/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/11/03/dominic-dagostino/)

Also: [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2008/03/02/postponing-death- calo...](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2008/03/02/postponing-death-caloric- restriction-vs-intermittent-fasting-part-1/)

<comment><USER4> What he argues makes some sense, but his total dismissal of IF paired with low-carb seemed counter-productive.

"The one question that remains unanswered is whether or not the intermittent fast followed in a low-carbohydrate way will lead to these same problems. To me, that point is kind of moot. Why? Because I looked at the IF as a strategy that allowed me to eat a lot of high carb foods that I would normally avoid and not pay the health consequences for it. If I'm going to limit myself to low-carb foods, why go on the IF? I can get the same results just following a regular, whole-food, low-carb diet without having to eat only every other day."

Okay, so you only care about IF if it lets you indulge in high-carbohydrate food, so you aren't even going to try to determine if your thermogenesis argument holds for people doing both IF and low carb?

Considering I'm currently doing a low-carb diet and using mild IF (basically skipping breakfasts and not eating after ~8pm, so roughly 14-16 hours fasting most days) to try to break my weight plateaus and meet my weight loss goals, that paragraph, while valid (and I'm glad he shared it), rubbed me the wrong way and doesn't give me any information to help me determine whether I should be skipping that meal or not.

<comment><USER5> I was reading a blog post by Dr Jason Fung that compared LCHF with IF. Conclusion was that LCHF is around 70% as effective as IF on insulin levels. You are still maintaining a low insulin level even on eating day, with a significant drop on fasting days. This should, by logic, have greater impact on insulin sensitivity due to long periods of low insulin levels.

His whole blog is quite interesting. His book, The Obesity Code, is a great and easy read.

[https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/power-comparison- fast...](https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/power-comparison-fasting-vs- low-carb-fasting-26/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the suggestion. I've heard of it, and plan on reading it eventually, just haven't found the time yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my own experience day 3 of a water fast had profound effect on my health. I have some health issues so I closely monitor my blood pressure and blood sugar. On the morning of the fourth day my blood pressure and blood sugar would drop tremendously and stay normal for several months. ymmv

<comment><USER7> Just a personal anecdote, but I was getting colds and flu-like symptoms several times per year for years. People I knew often commented on how often I was ill. I did a 3-day fast two years ago, and haven't had much more than a scratchy throat for about two days since. It could be coincidence, but other people have noticed and commented on my healthier state. I haven't significantly changed my behavior otherwise.

<comment><USER8> It has to be a coincidence. I can't imagine what the health benefits of a single 3-day fast could be that they would be so massive as to change your entire health for years.

<comment><USER9> A change in gut bacteria could potentially do that. However, normally that is quite difficult to change long term. I seem to have a collection of gut bacteria that give me bad gas quite often without sticking to a very strict diet and I found a few months ago that a five day fast reset that as well as antibiotics. However, either way it gradually returns to the way it was (most of the way back after three months). Good to know that three days of fasting helps some people, since that is much easier than five :/.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tried searching for the original article, but this is the closest I could find that had a better writeup than from the telegraph: [https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell- regene...](https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration- of-damaged-old-immune-system/)

This is the most relevant summary: "In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial involving patients receiving chemotherapy, long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then "flipped a regenerative switch," changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed."

So, mice, and people undergoing chemotherapy. Not exactly (for those who have had friends and relatives ever had to undergo chemotherapy, you will understand what I mean) the common population.

I'll pass on this intermittent fasting "fad" for now!

<comment><USER11> > I'll pass on this intermittent fasting "fad" for now!

It's amazing how people are prone to experiment with this type of things. They're willing to undergo a very unpleasant experience because it might (unlikely) give them a (slight) health improvement.

<comment><USER12> > _It 's amazing how people are prone to experiment with this type of things._

As opposed to over-eating resulting in a global epidemic of obesity? Which eating habits do you think are the biggest "experiment"?

<comment><USER11> There's a middle line between over-eating junk food and fasting!

<comment><USER12> I agree. And I think the vast majority of people overeat and don't realize it. I think the obesity rates reflect that.

Observe the conversations around these articles every time they pop up: people think it's unhealthy to go without calories for any amount of time. Where does that come from?

<comment><USER13> It's one's wishful thinking against other's wishful thinking.

Luckily science has produced good evidence in favor of fasting / calorie restriction that this is slowly changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If I were to fast for that long, should I ingest anything other than water? Some vitamin supplements for example? Or maybe a bit of salt? Or is it really only water?

<comment><USER15> Ingesting anything will ruin the fast. Even brushing your teeth becomes tricky, as toothpaste can ruin everything. I ended up using a salt water solution (and an electric tooth brush) to do the job, but in hindsight, I could've used something like ToothSoap. It's extremely important to rinse the mouth thoroughly, so you don't swallow anything.

It is possible to run low on vitamins (depending on how long you go). If it's just 3-7 days, then it doesn't matter as much, but some people go a full 28 days (you can theoretically go about 40 days without causing problems, but as it will take another 40 days to break the fast, it proves to be too much for someone's first time (with 3-7 days working better)).

The step in a water fast that does most people in is the breaking of the fast. The key to a successful water fast is properly breaking the fast. It can be even more difficult, as while any hunger usually goes away within the first day or two, when the fast is first broken (with your first taste of 50% watermelon + 50% water, for example), it will kick the digestive system back into action, and you may easily become overwhelmed by an intense hunger. If you don't have the willpower to ignore this hunger, then you may end up eating something prematurely or eating too much.

The solution that works for most is to either buffer up on vitamins and minerals in the weeks leading up to the fast (which also ensures they don't have any hidden deficiencies), or to start with a juice fast (vegetables blended in a Vitamix, for example).

<comment><USER16> and whats wrong with eating too much - I understand that you say breaking the fast is important ... but why?

<comment><USER17> I don't know any of the science behind it, but it's my understanding that during long periods of not eating, metabolism gradually slows to a crawl to allow maximum duration from the amount of 'energy' available in the body.

I'd wager it gradually ramps back up again once food is reintroduced, and overeating during this period could probably lead to some pretty hefty weight gain.

<comment><USER18> People died of eating too much when the prisoner camps where liberated at the end of WWII.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Last weekend I did a 60 hour fast, part of my motivation was research like this.

What I discovered after and into this week is that my self-control has increased dramatically.

</comment><comment><USER20> Although I haven't attempted this myself, I have seen many people attempt to endure a 72 hours fast (as part of diagnosing a potential pheochromocytoma) and the majority experience this as extremely difficult.

I wonder if multiple shorter fasts — e.g., a 24 hours fast once a week — could be as beneficial.

<comment><USER21> I regularly fast for 20+ hours (calorie restriction, I do drink water because I am not an idiot) once or twice a week. You get very used to it.

While its not something I look forward to, it's purely psychological. A few hours after I miss 'breakfast' my tummy rumbles two or three times and then my body doesn't care anymore.

The max time I've fasted is forty hours and I have to say if you can get past the first fours hours, it's easy. I didn't really plan to fast that long, circumstances led to it. I actually found it hard to eat after it. I normally eat a very small 500-600 calorie meal after a fast but I couldn't finish it after the long fast.

I think we underestimate how adaptable our body is and how intermittent fasting is actually the norm for most mammals.

<comment><USER22> How is a 500-600 calorie meal 'very small'?

Most normal dinners are 600-800 calories.

<comment><USER23> If you're used to 800, 500 is a pretty huge drop.

My intake to maintain weight is about 2600kcal/day as a lightly-moderately active person. I normally do a breakfast of about 400-500 calories, and then 900-1000 for lunch and dinner. So if I weren't just waking up, 500-600 would be very small for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The "Body Positivity" movement that encourages people, especially young woman, to be obese or overweight, and tries to criminalize images of slender people in advertising may be the most unhealthy political movement there is.

Obesity kills 300,000 people in the U.S. each year, and with the exception of several hundred people suffering with psychological disorders who manage to starve themselves each year, being slender or even a bit "underweight" has no negative health effects and may have some positive ones.

</comment><comment><USER25> Donating blood has a very similar "boost" effect, and also helps save lives.

<comment><USER26> Unless the act of donating blood releases some endorphins because you're helping someone else, then this is just bloodletting or phlebotomy, which is considered pseudoscience by the medical community.

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=vH1EAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT293&dq=b...](https://books.google.com/books?id=vH1EAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT293&dq=bloodletting+pseudoscience&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0VL3VJfPJIagyQTLkIGICg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=bloodletting%20pseudoscience&f=false)

<comment><USER27> Phlebotomy is still the standard treatment for iron overload. Humans usually regulate iron levels effectively by reducing absorption when iron levels are high, but there are genetic diseases where this regulation malfunctions, and very high dietary intake (usually from supplements) can overwhelm it.

Iron overload affects many different organs so mild cases might not have any obvious symptoms beyond a vague sense of bad health. There has been some research suggesting health benefits to phlebotomy even in patients without obvious iron overload, eg:

[http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7...](http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-10-54)

<comment><USER28> Iron overload, of all things, in a diet? Not likely. You will not be able to scarf down that much of it unless you're a habitual liver eater.

About the only way to experience such an overdose is to overdose on supplements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Do they literally mean zero intake of calories for 72 hours? That sounds like a long time. How do you prepare for that nutrition wise and mentally?

People eat at night during the ramadan.

<comment><USER30> About 3 years ago, I undertook a water fast that lasted about 17 days. It does take a lot of mental preparation. Nutrition wise, I ate only fruits for about a week before the fast. The first few days were very hard, but then I simply did not feel hunger at all. I intended to continue the fast for 30 days. But from about the 4th day onwards my mouth started having an awful odour and my tongue had a thick white coating that was the source. Into the third week, I simply couldn't bear that smell anymore and gave up. for getting back to regular food, I did the same thing and had only juices and fruits for about 3-4 days.

Now, I'm not an expert, but I read while preparing for the water fast that your body has nutrients it needs to survive for a few weeks. I didn't take any supplements during that time. Unfortunately, at that time i didn't have the means to measure and quantify what changed after the fast. I do remember being in a great mood for a few days after the fast. I don't know how much it benefited me, but it was an interesting exercise

<comment><USER10> That odour is probably the ketones coming into play when the body starts using fat for energy, instead of carbs or protein. And yes, it's a well known fact.

<comment><USER31> For 3 weeks straight would be unusual though and not explain the commonly occurring tongue coating.

<comment><USER28> Sounds more like lack of immunity and candidosis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most shocking thing (when I fasted for 5 days) occurred when I broke the fast. I broke it with 4 ounces of liquid (50% watermelon (straight from the fruit) + 50% water), only to have it come right back out 15-30 minutes later-- just as red as it was when it went it. It was mind boggling. I suppose I had gone my entire life thinking what comes out was always supposed to be brown, but when I looked in the toilet, all I saw was red. I couldn't believe it.

Also, I'm not dead. And lucky enough for me, I wasn't very toxic, so I easily went 5 days on nothing but water.

<comment><USER32> You didn't consume anything but water for five consecutive days?

I also don't undertake what you mean by, "I wasn't very toxic."

<comment><USER15> Yea. It was fairly uneventful. The first day or two I was hungry, but it was mild. Perhaps it was easy, as my eating habits left me naturally in intermittent fasting mode (I'd eat lunch at 1pm, dinner at 8pm, then nothing else).

<comment><USER32> Do you find that you drink more water to try and "stifle" the hunger?

<comment><USER15> Huh? I've been hungry before, so it wasn't too overwhelming. I just layed around, surfed the web, etc. It was fairly straightforward, familiar, and easy to ignore. As the days went on, the hunger went away, and my desire to drink water went down as well. I had to remind myself to continue consuming water (but then not too much, as that would be bad as well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I fasted for a day when fighting with my parents. Worst thing to do since I am a Type-1 diabetic and ended up with Diabetic Ketoacidosis the next day and a near-death experience :-(

Fasting is not for everyone!

<comment><USER31> Well it's pretty much for any mammal _except_ type-1 diabetics --- plus folks taking medication for blood sugar / insulin regulation without informing themselves thoroughly beforehand and monitoring carefully.

<comment><USER33> I was an idiot and I am not proud of that! I was thinking like "I need insulin when I eat food. So since I am not eating, I don't need insulin and everything will be fine" :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I know Valter Longo, one of the paper's authors.

Valter created a company, L-Nutra ([http://www.l-nutra.com/](http://www.l-nutra.com/)), and donated his shares to a foundation to avoid any conflict of interest.

I have tried their product, Pro-Lon, twice, and I have been very pleased with the results.

Feel free to ask me anything if you're interested in learning more.

</comment><comment><USER35> It is interesting that fasting and dietary restrictions are part of many popular religions. Perhaps some discovered these benefits and codified them as scriptures.

</comment><comment><USER36> > When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it > can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not > needed, especially those that may be damaged

That's remarkable news. I'm waiting to see the counter-arguments though. Fasting for 3 days seems like stretching the limits a bit. Also it seems to imply that these 3days periods are repeatable over the course of a few months.

<comment><USER37> It is indeed a fascinating discovery. BTW, fasting for more than three days sounds crazy but can be surprisingly easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Well, Islam gave the concept of _3 days fasting_ every month 1500 years ago and called "Ayyam Beez" and many Muslims have been practising it in every generation.

Glad to know that science also discovered it.

<comment><USER39> Interesting, why isn't it as popular as Ramadan? I could barely find anything about it online.

<comment><USER40> It's not popular as Ramadan because it's not a must. Its called "ayaam albeed" which translates to "white days". It's called that because the moon is full on those three Days (13, 14 and 15th of each moon calendar month). The fast is from dawn to sunset and you are not allowed to drink water during that period.

[1] [https://pearlsofamuslim.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/white- da...](https://pearlsofamuslim.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/white- days.jpg?w=771&h=953)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> re: "People are better eating on a regular basis."

Well, that depends on what you're eating. One can't help but wonder if the reaction is not because of fasting per se, but because toxins are not be introduced into the body on a regular basis.

</comment><comment><USER42> let's see how many people will try fasting alone and end up with bad side effects.

</comment><comment><USER43> How do you get electrolytes during a fast?

<comment><USER37> You don't need to consume any. For a normal water fast where you don't exercise, everything you need is taken from the liver and fat.

<comment><USER43> So it's really just sweating that draws down your electroliytes?

<comment><USER37> Sweating will eliminate large quantities of electrolytes quickly, but you will pass out before that happens. Any exercise beyond light stretching while on a water fast is dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Would this help with gum disease?

<comment><USER44> It's interesting you brought this up. I used to skip breakfast all the time being a late riser. My gums were in a terrible shape with constant flare ups. I couldn't figure out why since I don't smoke. A few months ago I started eating breakfast regularly and I've noticed marked improvement. Obviously this is just my personal experience and YMMV.

<comment><USER45> It is hard for me to figure out what an improvement caused by starting to eat breakfast regularly has to do with the immune-stimulating effects of not eating for 3 days!

ADDED. Thanks for the reply to this comment.

<comment><USER44> I was just responding to a comment asking about gum disease. Also I cringed somewhat reading comments thst advocate fasting that involves skipping breakfast. I don't claim to have any expertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I thought I had seen this before and then I checked the date.

This is from 2014.

</comment><comment><USER47> I am curious the effect this would have on people with HIV/AIDS.

<comment><USER28> Likely deadly in case of AIDS. Initial stage of the fast lowers immunity a lot. Body reacts by lowering metabolism via parathyroid suppression among other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> For ages various alt-medical practitioners have been mentioning fasting as a positive. But "the real science" has denied its value. Not, "Oh, we're not sure." But, "Oh. No way. That can't be." Will Med Science now come out and say, "Oh, we're sorry. Looks like y'all were right all along."? (Hit: No never.)

Instead they'll spin it as, "Look what we found..." And people wonder why many of us don't trust Big Science, Big Med, Big Pharma, etc. Ha. They're assholes. That's why.

Makes ya wonder, when occasional we hear about some "miracle" recovery if that person didn't accidentally fast from being too ill to eat, and that actually kicked started curing them. It wasn't the meds. It was the fasting. How many meds and med studies were skewed because this wasn't factored in?</comment>