Reaching for Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/technology/reaching-for-silicon-valley.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> The analysis is a bit off in a way that's relevant to the narrative. At least when I was there, nobody at GT had Stanford on their radar. Georgia Tech is a Big Industry kind of place. The perceived competitor is MIT, not Stanford. The traditional engineering fields (chemical, mechanical, aerospace) dominate and the links to industry are places like Lockheed or Boeing, not Google or Yahoo. The net result is that GT is a conservative and somewhat bureaucratic sort of place. Unsurprisingly, the administration had a hard time with someone who played fast and loose.

<comment><USER3> I took the article to mean they were "reaching for Silicon Valley" in the sense that folks at the top (e.g., the Board of Regents or whomever is responsible for managing GT's endowment) were interested in establishing the kind of reputation for public/private collaboration that Stanford is known for, not necessarily that Stanford was constantly on the minds of Georgia Tech's students and faculty or that there was kind of "Stanford envy" at Georgia Tech.

<comment><USER2> My point is that even if the administration, understandably wants to model Stanford in ways, the students and faculty don't see Stanford or Silicon Valley as the model. The model is quite consciously MIT. It's a place where chairs are endowed by Boeing and Lockheed and getting a DARPA grant is more on people's minds than getting VC funding. Those affinities with traditional Big Industry drive the culture at GT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I won't say the article is wrong exactly, but I barely heard Stanford uttered in my time at Georgia Tech. MIT was the competition and the role model. I graduated a few years before this incident happened, but I would be surprised if the entrepreneurial climate improved much.

Like Chris Klaus, I dropped out to start my first company, as did several others in my year. Unlike Chris Klaus, I returned to finish my degree, but entrepreneurial spirit was not high on the priority list at the school and I was now an outsider.

Doing research on a massive scale was always the goal at Tech, so I did what everyone else who wanted to start companies did: I moved elsewhere (Cambridge) after graduating.

<comment><USER5> I never went to GT. I have hanged out with the Tech Square folks of different stripes. Stanford and Silicon Valley might not be mentioned among the student populous in general, but among the crowd that are actually in the Tech Square building (the Centergy building), there were a lot more entrepreneurial folks, many of them not students or faculty. There were comparisons to Silicon Valley. There were complaints about conservative Georgia investors.

Tech Square isn't physically located near the rest of the main campus. You had to cross a bridge over the I-85/I-75 canyon. I knew folks who had their startups hosted in that building, as well as others who show up for the Ruby meetup there. These folks were not thinking about big industry, they were thinking about VCs, valuations, MVPs, etc. I remember hearing many of them talk, way back in 2007, about the lack of interest in high tech startups in general.

The sentiment this professor reported in the articles were things I have heard echoed among the folks hanging out there.

It does not surprise me at all that the main student population are not aware of this. For example, as popular as the Atlanta Ruby User's Group is, we hardly get any GT students who show up there.

<comment><USER4> I suppose you wouldn't realize it if you didn't go to Tech, but it would be strange if any Tech students weren't well acquainted with Tech Square. The school bookstore is there and we all had lots of classes in buildings there.

The fact that none of us talked about or knew about companies in that particular building, but were well acquainted with GTRI's building on 14th, speaks volumes.

In fact, in my time being part of the Georgia Entrepreneur Society crowd (which associated with people like Klaus), we never became acquainted with companies in that building either (circa 2005-2007).

I've seen a similar phenomenon in other universities trying to encourage entrepreneurship, including Yale with its Science Park initiative and Harvard with its Innovation Lab. My personal feeling is that university-sponsored entrepreneurship is doomed from the start. University-sponsored incubators in particular seem bad at producing good companies.

<comment><USER2> Seriously. I was there 2002-2007 and I perceived no inkling of any tech startup type stuff. It's where the College of Management building is and that's the only association I perceived.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My experience as an entrepreneur at Georgia Tech has been that it is a great place to start a B2B startup, especially if it falls within one of the verticals the Atlanta investment and startup community has "adopted" such as security.

It can also be a good place to start other kinds of B2B startups, but it takes more work in some areas than it would in the valley.

On the plus side, Georgia Tech and ATDC give you access to great advisors who, with no expectation of compensation, have provided me and others I know with excellent advice on everything from hiring to sales. Multiple startups started at Tech as Pindrop Security and RideCell / InstantCab (disclaimer: founder) have bootstrapped at Tech, sold their first few customers and then raised money from some of the best investors on both coasts. And yes, the cost of living, and therefore the cost of running your company is much lower than it would be in the valley.

On the minus side, Georgia Tech and Atlanta are both tough places to start consumer startups and that will take time to change. It is tougher to raise money for all kinds of startups, save perhaps security, than in Silicon Valley. There is definitely a higher risk averseness amongst local investors and they expect a higher level of control on the companies they invest in. Unfortunately for them, as PG says, some of the best ideas are frighteningly ambitious. It's hard for an ecosystem to have multiple large exits without funding a few of these. Without large exits being reinvested locally, the virtuous circle takes longer to take off. Also, given that more and more west coast investors believe that startups are better off with founders at the steering wheel, entrepreneurs are unlikely to compromise on that just to raise money locally.

I hope Atlanta and Georgia Tech will continue to improve as a birthing place for all kinds of startups. I am definitely curious about what happened here. If, as the article suggests, the crux of the matter lies in $50K worth of chips being sent to Korea - the reaction from the University and the GBI seems quite extreme.</comment>


How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html <comment><USER3> RIP: British Scientist John Yudkin - The man who tried to warn us about the perils of sugar..

Source(s) : [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081/John- Yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar.html)

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

Edit: Lest we not forget his arch-enemy Ancel Keys

<comment><USER4> My mother (1973, Edinburgh) bought "Pure, White, and Deadly," and we all read it. I was ten or so. Yudkin attacked white flour, white (processed) fat, and above all white sugar. It made perfect sense to us all, and cutting back on sugar became a slow, yet consistent part of our lifestyle. We never ate that much anyhow. I stopped eating sugar entirely at 15. I still recall the book's cover.

Edit: it took me a _lot_ longer to cut fruit juice from our diet. I was so convinced by that "natural" label. Until I realized my daughter, who'd drank a lot of juice growing up, was addicted to sugar. Then we cut it out. My other kids, not addicted. I was fooled for so long...

The sugar industry has a lot to answer for. It is IMO comparable to the tobacco industry's suppression of cancer studies. Yet worse, because the effects of high-sugar diets are doing more damage, to more people, and last generations.

Think of the hundreds of millions of children who have eaten high sugar diets since they were babies... lifelong damage to their health. A hundred years of damage, these executives and corrupt scientists caused.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if the tolerance, and then the love, of highly sweet things is acquired. And mostly probably, it is acquired when one is a child.

I have met and worked with many East Asians and Europeans who came to American in their 20's or older. Almost everyone of them thought American pastry and deserts are unbearably sweet. Most of them shun from soda drinks and other "food" containing high amounts of sugar. If they drink soda, they choose low- or zero-sugar kinds.

Related or not, a big percentage of American look overweight when compared to Europeans and East Asians.

<comment><USER6> Americans saying that foods are too sweet is quickly becoming the new "I don't have a TV." It's a humblebrag to show off status.

<comment><USER5> I am East Asian and came to America in my 20's. I love pastries and deserts, always looking for local pastries to try whenever I travel, to the point to book hotels that are close to famous pastry shops.

Sorry for any misunderstanding my early comment causes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I rarely say anything is black and white in this world but sugar is in my opinion. Without any doubt in my mind.

Recently in the last 3 months I gave up sugar, hard core, it's hard but the benefits are out of this world.

I was healthy and active. I ate healthy, or so I thought. Boy was I wrong and mis informed.

I had heard theories so I decided to check them out. I went all out to avoid sugar for a couple of weeks just to see. It was amazing.

I have lost 20 pounds that I didn't think was possible, I think better, I sleep better and I eat way less. I have way more energy, like I drank 5 cups of coffee all the time. I don't fade in the afternoon.

Those of you looking for a way to get more energy and focus at work, especially those working long hours in startups. I encourage you to go all out to reduce sugar intake to as little as possible. Of course eat whole fruits those are ok.

Best thing I have ever done in my life.

There's a saying "those on high sugar diets don't know what it feels like to be sugar free." It feels amazing. Try it. At least once in your life. You won't go back .

sorry that was long :-)

<comment><USER7> A really smart guy said to me once something like, "if you are smart and have money and you don't eat well then you are not smart". I can't remember the exact quote but the sentiment really stuck with me.

Look I'm no expert but I'm telling you the results are outrageous. Please do your own research as I only really have a school boy understanding of how this affects the body.

My skin cleared up, my ailments all disappeared, I no longer snore, my wife says I radiate energy and my skin glows. People notice that my eyes are white and bright. My thinking is clear and alert.

I run up a big hill occasionally, a massive one, I did it yesterday, I broke a sweat but my body was working and I got to the top in record time with minimal effort. I had been training for years and never could match that performance. It's all SUGAR. I hit the wall because of sugar. I finally cracked the magic code, NO SUGAR.

What do I eat? I will lose some people here, but honestly, whole fruit, salad, no dressing, chicken,steak,salmon and WATER. That's it. I said it was hard but I went 100% zero sugar. Real Food. Nothing in a box nothing processed. I now love this food more than anything.

Why is whole fruit ok? My understanding is the fibre tells your body when to stop eating. It's a natural way to tell you that you've had enough. If the grapefruit it too sweet, don't eat it. Your body is telling you something. Listen to it

Sugar inflames your body, it gives you a rush, then a crash, then it makes you hungry. Sugar makes you eat more. It makes you swing up and down.

Getting off sugar is hard, you will have withdrawals. They are not pleasant.

My appetite and palette has changed for the better, I love food now, I can't even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing imaginable, that's a massive change for me. I eat way less I'm spending less money.

Medically all the little things I was thinking of going to the doctor about have completely gone.

3 months in, a lifetime ahead of positive changes.

sorry if this was long and ranty and a bit smug :-)

<comment><USER8> I really like this response and I do truly believe that cutting out or minimizing sugar is a truly beneficial thing.

But when I got to this:

> I can't even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing > imaginable

I had a hard time taking the rest of your comment seriously. I can understand it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but calling it the most disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong.

<comment><USER9> > _I can understand it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but > calling it the most disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong._

Try the 'ol "Grandma Test" on it:

If you had served your Grandma (or maybe great-Gramdma) with a glass of fizzy black liquid, that you poured out of a shiny metal container, do you think she would have drunk it?

I mean, honestly, that would be like putting a glass of used engine oil in front of me today and trying to convince me to drink it.

It's clearly not food, and you clearly shouldn't be eating (drinking) it. Your great-Grandma knew it, and your body does too.

<comment><USER10> People eat fermented shark meat and blue cheese neither of which 'seem like food to me'. I'm not sure the great grandma test is particularly useful other than to reinforce one's preexisting notions.

<comment><USER11> I resisted eating blue cheese for the longest time, based on the reasoning that why would anyone want to eat mold?

Then one time I actually tried some - and it was delicious! Now I love it, which was just another lesson in how stepping outside your pre-existing notions can be beneficial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> and this folks is why I have trust issues...

Scientists paid off by industry to make people look the other way, who then become head of some Governmental departments and agencies advising the world on whatever it was they were paid off for or have a conflict of interest in and the door keeps revolving...

It's a wonder we believe anything at all after the amount of lies and propaganda we're fed only to find out it's false... or are they lying now? Now we're being fed information that it's the sugar industry at fault and not the fat industry, while we have fad diets that are high fat, low carb, low sugar, because carbs and sugar are bad and fat isn't bad at all allegedly. Who is making the money from the increased fat sales and decreased sugar sales? Is it because sugar is cutting into their bottom line too much and fat is in cheap supply?

Why do we continue to believe the shit that pours out of the mouths of big agriculture and the nutrition agencies as if they haven't been feeding us bullshit for the past 50 years in aid of increasing profit. They don't give a shit about the consumer, they give a shit about whatever fuels the greatest growth in profits.

So this is why I have issue believing anything that any of them have to say about anything because it's all underhanded subterfuge and manipulation, with no end in sight.

<comment><USER13> As far as the actual food sales, most of the money winds up in the same small set of hands regardless of which fad is currently popular. They'll resist trends that switch from high-margin to low-margin foods, but only until they've figured out how to alter the low-margin food to make it high-margin.

The secondary money-grab is from the food-fad industry. All of the books, all of the websites, all of the memberships, all churning out recipes and advice and misinformation, depends on constant change in what's considered "good". Without constant change, their markets would dry up to a trickle. It's just like the fashion industry; if we all decided to wear the same SciFi-like jumpsuits all of the time because it's really the best thing to wear, the fashion industry would be destroyed. So instead we have a constant rotation of the fashion trends. (At least the fashion industry isn't killing us, though.)

<comment><USER12> The longer I live, the more I value the lessons I learned from my Grandparents:

\- Don't listen to the shit you hear in the media, it's all self serving. Do your own research, that way it serves your need, not anyone elses.

\- Stay out of the centre aisles at the grocery store. Buy simple ingredients. Make it yourself. If you can't grow it yourself or kill it, you probably shouldn't be eating it.

\- Do the research, buy it once, buy it right. Quality will always beat quantity in the long run. Buy something you can repair yourself over something replaceable.

> if we all decided to wear the same SciFi-like jumpsuits all of the time > because it's really the best thing to wear, the fashion industry would be > destroyed

A few of us got stuck at a moment in time and never really updated... a decent pair of hard wearing jeans and an endless supply of decent t-shirts that last more than a few months of continuous wear and a decent pair of solid, dependable boots. You may be able to tell that the fashion industry doesn't make a whole ton of money out of me. Don't care, lol.

<comment><USER14> You had a good set of grandparents. Bottle that and sell it.

<comment><USER12> Not that they weren't awesome, but we pick and choose the advice we follow and I'm sure I've forgotten as much advice that they gave me as I remember - <USER2> that I _do_ remember is really only as it slaps me upside the head with a "holy fuck were they ever right about that!" It probably would have helped more if I'd listened 30 years ago when they first told me and stuck to it, but then I didn't have the hindsight to be able to tell which were the good lessons and which were rubbish; so like all 10 year olds, I ran it through my "you have no idea what you're talking about you crazy old wo/man" filter and what came out of the other side was a kid whose lifetime epiphanies are like a list of what I would already have known had I listened to my grandparents.

Hindsight... crazy accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It took almost 50 years to starting to debunk health issues created by Sugar. It took decades to accept the health issues created by Lead and Asbestos.

Sometime I wonder if chemicals from bottled water, radiation from Cellular/Wifi/Bluetooth pose health risks and we will find it out decades later.

<comment><USER16> Cellular, wifi, and bluetooth radiation poses zero risk. You can stand inside the path of a microwave communication dish and receive many orders of magnitude more radiation, and what it'll do is make you warm. That's it. Soviet soldiers used to do that in Siberia to keep themselves warm, and the only risk is the dish outputting too much power and cooking you instead.

<comment><USER17> The first day in radar class the instructor put a piece of steel wool in front of a small dish and it instantly melted white and dropped molten metal onto the floor.

It always made me nervous when the class goofballs turned the horns on other people so you could feel the microwaves.

Goofball 1: 'accidentally' radiates goofball 2 Goofball 2: What? What are you doing? Oh, I'll show you - just watch me increase the power on this baby...

It turns out your testicles and eyes are a bad place to receive microwaves.

I submit to anyone thinking of attempting this: you are probably going to get the power calculations wrong and cooking human cells is not fun at all.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, there's definitely dangerous ways to use microwave emitters. But my point is that your instructor thought that it was relatively safe to give them out in radar class. If they were x-ray emitters, on the other hand...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The documentary "Fed Up" is about sugar and was the first time I was made aware there is no daily RDA % for sugar on nutrition labels. They just have the grams. They lobbied very hard to make it that way, because having "4700%" for a daily RDA wouldn't look very good!

<comment><USER19> True, but there is carb count and percentages on labels and it is not hard to figure out that something that is 4700% your daily limit for carbs is not something you should be eating.

<comment><USER20> > it is not hard to figure out that something that is 4700% your daily limit > for carbs is not something you should be eating.

You are probably getting more sugar from things you don't think should be full of sugar than you think. US tastes have skewed to sweet so far that sugar is stuffed in everything.

<comment> vertex-four Even in the UK, when I stopped eating candy for a while, it turned out that I found a lot of "ready-to-eat" food overly sugary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My wife and I rewatch the obligatory Lustig lecture about once a month to re- anger ourselves at sugar. Nothing motivates like a bit of biochemistry mixed in with political intrigue.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

<comment><USER22> The problem is Lustig is on the far end of the spectrum on anti-sugar. No added sugars? Sure, I buy that. Labelling fructose as a poison simply because it is directly metabolized in the liver is stretch. I'm not going to worry that my kids are eating berries because of their fructose content.

<comment><USER23> In nature, fructose is almost always found in conjuction with fiber. For example, fruits and vegetables. This combination of sugar and fiber tempers the impact on the body. In contrast, many processed foods have added sugar and reduced fiber content.

<comment><USER24> It also appears phenolic compounds in plants play a role in helping too.[1][2]

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23365108](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23365108) [2] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935321](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935321)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think after the last few years of these kinds of things coming out, the takeaway is pretty simple: be fairly sceptical of 'advice' coming out of large governing bodies and instead just be sensible.

Don't eat too much food. Limit processed foods. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Eat a large variety of foods. Be active.

These rudimentary guidelines are clearly difficult for a lot of people to follow, but I think it's pretty easy to avoid negative diet effects by just doing what most people intuitively know as the _right thing_ , even if we consume some of all types of food. It seems to me this is more about self- control and effort level than any scientific knowledge, at this point.

<comment><USER26> Yeah. But humans haven't had fresh fruit available all year round until recently. Similarly, there was never a wide range of foods available. I'm not sure we've got enough evidence to say that changing our diet to include lots of fruit and a wide variety of foods is safe. The encouragement to do this is coming from large governing bodies.

I'm off to eat nothing but turnips for a year and get scurvy :-)

<comment><USER27> not to mention most fruits have been selectively bred/genetically engineered to have much higher sugar content than they did when we evolved to eat them seasonally

<comment><USER26> Indeed. And Food Unwrapped (UK TV programme) explained how the supermarkets don't need to say how much sugar is in those ultra-sweet Piccolo tomatoes because they vary and it's impractical to measure. In fact, it's worse than that because mostly they do display the sugar content in the Nutrition Information but it was found to always be a huge underestimate (like 3x lower than the real value).

Still, they're much nicer than the old tomatoes. At least I'll die happy. There are too many humans in the world anyhow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if this has anything to do with my observation that it's ridiculously hard to find whole fat yogurt, especially whole fat Greek yogurt (!), in most grocery stores in the Boston area. Only specialist and high-end stores such as Whole Foods keep them in stock, whereas the proles get stuck with the sweetened, low-fat versions that contain up to 30 grams of sugar per serving.

<comment><USER29> Counter-anecdata: I am able to find plain, whole milk yogurt pretty much at any grocery store I visit out in the Natick area (Natick + adjacent towns). Occasionally they are sold out but it's rare. I certainly don't think it is ridiculously hard.

<comment><USER28> Maybe my observation has another plausible explanation: everyone is buying the whole fat yogurt, so they're constantly sold out! If true, brings up another question though...why do Shaw's and Stop & Shop keep stocking items that don't sell?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> _The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today's dollars to publish a 1967 review of sugar, fat and heart research. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat.

The Harvard scientists and the sugar executives with whom they collaborated are no longer alive._

Good thing there is no collusion between big industry and paid off scientists like Willie Soon to direct the narrative around things these days.</sarcasm>

<comment><USER12> You forgot your sarcasm tag, most people will miss it ;)

<comment><USER30> Done, thanks.

<comment><USER31> Your post now fails wc3 validation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This quote from the article is a great one:

"It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion"

Has the acceptance policy for prominent journals improved that we're sure this is not happening now? I have suspicions that this is likely still happening more frequently then we might expect (i.e. pharmaceutical trials, etc.).

<comment><USER33> The basic issue is that reviews are just looking for glaring problems in the presentation. To really test an article one has to replicate the experiment from the ground up. And these days thats damn hard and expensive to do.

<comment><USER34> For the typical reviewer, replication is probably downright impossible.

[http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid- on-...](http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on- reproducibility-1.19970)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > One of the scientists who was paid by the sugar industry was D. Mark > Hegsted, who went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States > Department of Agriculture, where in 1977 he helped draft the forerunner to > the federal government's dietary guidelines.

This is why I'm cynical.

</comment><comment><USER36> What if this backlash against Sugar is as extreme as the initial marketing? What if 50 years on, people come back to say, "the generation that endlessly promoted tasteless food and took away the sweetness". Is there a proper study on the effect of eating a sweet chocolate everytime you feel like it, to some kind of happiness? Everyone just sees to be treating this as a magical wand... while still irrationally giving in to a lot of other hyped up food.

<comment><USER37> Possible but unlikely. For one, you can get lots of tasty food by reintroducing more dietary fat. One of the main culprits for the over reliance on sugar for tastiness in the first place was the focus on reducing fat intake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Follow the money and you will find the motive for what you're being told. There is a reason you're being told what you are and don't believe that it's for your own good. These industries and agencies don't care about what's good for you, they are self serving and only care about what's good for them. You're just the vessel supplying the cash they're after.

<comment><USER38> I wonder that sometimes about seat belt laws and stop smoking campaigns. Is it the insurance companies that lobbied for and promote these ideas, or is it some altruistic group that actually cares about my well being instead of profits?

<comment><USER39> Seat belts and many other automotive safety improvements were driven by insurance companies. That's a fortunate case of incentives being aligned.

It's surprising that health insurers aren't more vocal about sugar. Diabetes and obesity are expensive for them.

<comment><USER12> Follow the money, I'll bet you dollars to donuts there's a reason for it... like executives having conflicting interests that result in either direct or indirect financial stakes in or hidden kickbacks from the sugar industry.

Companies of these sizes have departments that are aware of the entire picture and everything is scripted, choreographed and quite deliberate - except when it serves their purpose to play dumb: "Hey DOJ, <sheepishly> we're real sorry, but we weren't aware of this massive conflict of interest that we made billions off! Please, take this $50m (from our $958m profit) as our mea culpa and divide it up between to 284 million people it affected as our way of saying sorry, we fucked up."

<comment><USER40> I'm sad now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> From the article I can't tell if the sugar industry hid or falsified data.

There are at least two ways you can look at this. Imagine if the sugar industry thinks they are getting a bad rap about heart disease, and want to get researchers to study the link and show that they aren't to blame. Conversely, maybe they knew there was a link and were paying researchers to downplay it (or worse).

I feel like this article just points out that the sugar industry funded research, but it never points to actual misinformation that resulted from it -- or did I miss it?

</comment><comment><USER42> Of course this happened. Duh. It's still happening today. I'm not saying where because I don't know where. But if you do the simple math about how many people are working as scientists, it's not hard to figure out that there are companies who could benefit from positive scientific findings--no matter how wrong--and realize that some of what we're reading in original research was paid for and not really true.

I wish people would keep that in mind when they get all worshippy about science being self-correcting and a great system.

It's not a particularly great system if you are looking, for example, for certainty. If you want absolute certainty, a good dose of syllogist reasoning will serve you better than any inductive method.

The problem is that syllogistic methods break down very quickly in real world applications because you have to find ways of classifying all the objects that may or may not fall into your category of "all", "some", or "none".

The scientific method is not a bad method, but it's not great. And it's weak in ways like this. It is not even close to the best method. But it's the only one we've found that's generally applicable to the human endeavor.

That's all it is. Better at being more general. I wish we'd get over ourselves and be honest about that.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't help when most of the information you hear regarding nutrition has been to underwrite the profits of multi-billion dollar corporations that are only out for one thing: Your money... and they don't care what means they have to use to get it. For instance buying exclusive access to resources that you had free access to for pennies on the dollar so that you don't have access to it any more and then selling it to you for gross profits... and I don't mean that in a taxation sense of the word gross. I mean that it's quite literally disgusting.

I'm looking at you Nestle, but realistically, you're just one example of the systemic corruption and propaganda that is pervasive across the entire nutrition market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is the definition of chutzpah: "The [sugar] association also questioned the motives behind the new paper.

"Most concerning is the growing use of headline-baiting articles to trump quality scientific research," the organization said. "We're disappointed to see a journal of JAMA's stature being drawn into this trend."

Yes, the dubious ethics and research quality at issue here are clearly JAMA's, and not the lobbyists' who, by their own admission, paid scientists to publish a journal article to exonerate their own industry.

</comment><comment><USER44> I thought the book "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes was a pretty interesting read in the sugar vs fat debate.

[https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat- About/dp/0307474259](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat- About/dp/0307474259)

</comment><comment><USER45> The bitter truth about sugar: [https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM](https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM)

<comment><USER46> CTRL+F to see if anyone posted it, and sad to see it so far down. This is the #1 video to show anyone that thinks sugar is fine. It's literally, at a biological level in high doses, poison to our bodies. Watch the vid. It will open your eyes. Too bad the food industry fabricated their lies decades before we had the internet to share information like this. The damage is done and will take decades to undo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The biggest problem with our health, however, is still Obesity. Just as the fat were mislead by being made to believe that "low fat == healthy" these people will be similarly think "low carb == healthy" and proceed to get obese on low-carb foods.

Face it, if you're a healthy weight, by body-fat percentage, you don't have to worry about fructose vs glucose or fat vs carbs.

Americans need to put their forks down. We need to start holding the overweight and the fat accountable for their expensive lifestyle choices.

<comment><USER48> > We need to start holding the overweight and the fat accountable for their > expensive lifestyle choices.

Ha, that's a good one. The answer you'll get is that nobody is responsible for their expensive lifestyle choices, and everyone is a victim of the system. People are fat? Not their fault; they live in food and exercise deserts and/or are trapped in the poverty cycle where they can only afford garbage calories. What, they are middle class? Genetic, then. Their parents are fat and it takes an overwhelming amount of effort to break the cycle.

The only solution is to change the system, not people. Which, unfortunately, can have adverse effects on healthy weighted people that like the current system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> On the other hand, I think the low carb/keto people have taken the pendulum too far in the other direction. A lot of research seems to suggest that a plant based diet heavy on whole fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts is healthier than one consisting of animal fats and protein. It makes sense when you look at the diets of the healthiest people on Earth. Just because excess processed sugar is bad for you doe not mean all carbs are unhealthy.

<comment><USER50> Low carb and keto is consistent with a vergatable, plant and especially nut diet.

> Whole fruits

What are whole fruits and why do you feel fruits of any kind are healthy? The levels of sugars in them are unnatural - neither oranges nor apples have historically been as sweet as they are now.

<comment><USER51> Whole fruits are pieces of fruit from a tree, that you bit into, as opposed to fruits that have been chemically mechanically/processed to extract some molecules (sugar) and discard others (especially the pulp/fiber)

Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.

<comment><USER52> > Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.

Aren't you conflating "natural" with safe/nutritious/good for you? Or am I misreading your comment. (It seems to strongly indicate you believe that "unnatural" things are bad for you.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This makes me remember the late Dr. Atkins of the "Atkins Diet" who was pretty much the laughing stock of dietitians then and now.

Yet people that tried the diet have found life-long positive health impacts. I'm one of these people.

I would also like to put some blame on so-called dietitians, who up until very, _very_ recently would have warned you against a low carb diet.

Every dietician I talk to is so absolutely sure about what they recommend and believe.

<comment><USER54> False dichotomy. Both sugar and saturated fats are bad. Processed foods in particular.

Atkins died fat and with a heart problem. An extremist but not a scientist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> There seems to be increasing evidence that high blood sugar over a long period of time is very bad for you. That insulin response keeps this under control mostly... but that it was probably never meant to be active all day, every day. So eating lots of sugar (and carbs in general) at every meal is probably long term, not the best thing you can do.

</comment><comment><USER39> The sugar industry was also the main driver of the African slave trade. When you have strong selection bias against morally principled people joining an industry (as there must have been in, say, 1850) it's hard for an industry to ever recover a moral compass.

<comment><USER56> Maybe you have a lot of information that I don't (I'm hardly an expert here), but describing it as the main driver seems like a stretch. In the Caribbean, I can see your statement being true. But in the US, as I understand it, it was more general agriculture / cotton. And so far as I know, a huge proportion of slaves were sold into the Middle East, and I assume they didn't have a huge sugar trade there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This teaches among many lessons, one in particular: We can't take anything for granted. A lot of people use research studies in arguments as it was the absolute truth. The papers can be wrong, or even true but for a narrower sample, or even worst, faked.

</comment><comment><USER58> The lecture "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" by Robert H. Lustig explains some details about the harmful effects of sugar:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

</comment><comment><USER59> I am honestly mostly scared by how cheaply those scientists were brought. I mean 50 grand?

<comment><USER60> Not even, the number is ~7,000, but the article is using inflation adjusted dollars to make the number sound bigger.

It is also unclear whether they got that amount each, or in total.

<comment><USER61> You realize the absolute number is virtually meaningless? Inflation adjusted is the best number, with the caveat that your inflation index needs to be good.

<comment><USER60> Not sure how it is better for the article to never include the actual, factual, payment amount. If you have an agenda to minimize the number you only print the original, if you have an agenda to maximize, you only print the inflation adjusted.

It would be better for the article to include both. Because what happens is people start throwing around the 50k number without the "inflation adjusted" like in the parent comment.

<comment><USER56> No, the inflation adjusted value allows a person reading it to compare it to the buying power of the time they live in to understand how much money it actually was. Having a monetary figure expressed in a time other than as an analog to the present reduces the usefulness of the figure.

<comment><USER60> I'll take facts over context, but would be happy with both. I'm fully capable of figuring out the inflation adjusted number, but now we don't actually know what they were paid.

I also guarantee you they we will see secondary reporting of this article, and the 50k number will be in it, and the inflation adjusted/today's dollars piece will get lost.

<comment><USER56> If you can convert inflation adjusted to today's money, why can't you do it backwards?

To your second point, you're probably right. Journalism is in a sad state these days.

<comment><USER60> It's not that you can't work in reverse and get an estimate, its just that you can't know if it is accurate. What if the journalist made a mistake in their inflation calculation?

They are clearly rounding to the inflation adjusted number, and we don't know what year they received payment.

<comment><USER56> That's a good point. Trusting your math of a selection of people that are typically bad at math, and that have a bad track record of accuracy in general, is probably not a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This is the kind of thing I think of when people here on HN try to convince me that glyphosate is safe. When so much money is at stake, corporations naturally try to influence the science, and unfortunately, there are plenty of poorly-paid and/or dubiously-ethical scientists in the world who will take their money.

Under such circumstances I think we have to be massively skeptical of any result that aligns with the business interests in question. When public health is at stake, the burden of proof should fall very heavily on those claiming their product is safe.

</comment><comment><USER63> Obesity as the end all be all measure of health is flawed and out-dated.

The real damage is being done silently, ie. cell damage, DNA damage, telomere shortening, endocrine disruption.

Visual cues may or may not be there.

</comment><comment><USER64> Honey is a strange alternative to sugar. For the past 2 decades, I have used honey as the sole sweetener, though the rest of the family continues to patronize sugar :( The trouble with honey is that it's seriously pricey, and the community is a something of a cult - you have to know a lot of the terminology, otherwise you'll walk out with sugar-water. I take an empty 1 gallon jar to the honey store in Sac, and pay $100 to fill her up. I have experimented a lot with the cocktail over the years. Generally, avoid anything"American" ie. sweet light colored honey. Go for the raw unfiltered darkest thickest broth you can find. They have gigantic jars of various colors, so I sample from the darkest ones. Then add a few grams of propolis and a few scoops of nectar and a few combs. Top it off with manuka and part with $100. Lasts 3 months. It tastes weird and too thick and gooey, but it's an amazing product. All the debris floating around on it is supposedly packed with enzymes etc.

<comment><USER65> There isn't a significant health benefit to using honey over refined sugars. Sugar is sugar.

<comment><USER66> Sugar is sugar, but honey is interesting in the flavors and aromas it can provide outside of your standard white sugar.

Just to add if anyone is interested in honey as a sweetener - What dxbydt was saying with honey being ~$8/lb is a good price for identifiable flower honey. Wholesale is roughly $4-5/lb, depending on varietal.

There's a significant range in flavors and aromas depending on what type of flower produced the bulk of the honey. Don't need to avoid anything on colors, it's primarily based on what type of flower is used to produce the honey. Try a sampler, most apiaries/honey specialty shops will sell you a small container of each varietal they have. Avoid heat treated honeys, heating the honey to have it pass through a filter will get rid of a lot of the aroma. You'll see a lot of "raw, unfiltered" at specialty shops.

If you're interested, you can ferment meads with a minimum of ~1.5 pounds per gallon, depending on how strong you want the resulting beverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I watched this documentary titled "That sugar film" [1] a year or so ago. It was quite an eye opener. Although I knew processed foods had a lot of sugar (like we expect sodas and colas to have), what was shocking was the amount of sugar added even in foods where you would never think of sugar as an ingredient. Of course, this varies across different geographies and cultures, but if people consuming processed foods spend some time reading the ingredients in whatever they buy and learn more about them and the proportions, it could help in bringing some changes (I realize this is a rather simplified view). We also need more education and awareness to be spread around to effect a change in people's habits.

[1]: [http://thatsugarfilm.com/](http://thatsugarfilm.com/)

</comment><comment><USER68> Let's not forget how WW2 propaganda shifted blame to sugar. Where the fictional notion of a "sugar high" was invented to connote an illicit character that will get your children that much closer to the reefer madness. All to manipulate the public into conserving sugar needed for the war effort.

<comment><USER69> A sugar high is not fictional. I do in fact get a sugar high. Just ask my co- workers. I sometimes use a threat of eating a candy bar, which will make me hyper before I crash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> This was a great documentary on the subject, I saw it on Netflix I don't know if it's there anymore though:

[https://vimeo.com/122387548](https://vimeo.com/122387548)

[http://sugarcoateddoc.com/](http://sugarcoateddoc.com/)

</comment><comment><USER71> What about the fat industry? Didn't they have enough money to pay for scientists to shift the blame to sugar?

<comment><USER72> I believe there isn't a fat industry, can you imagine manufacturing fat? Paid for by the Fat for America Industry.

<comment><USER73> What? Where do you think soybean, corn, Canola/rapeseed, peanut, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, olive, coconut, and palm oils come from?

Animal fats are rather expensive in comparison, but I can also buy pork lard, beef suet, and butter rather easily.

The problem there might just be fragmentation. Growers of cane and beets (and sorghum, too, I guess) have basically just one major homogenized end product: refined sucrose. There are a few related products, like molasses, brown sugar, and confectioners' sugar, and the stuff like bagasse, that tends not to be seen by consumers, but refined sucrose is the moneymaker. Corn growers can also side with the sugar lobby thanks to corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup.

There's definitely an _industry_ ($800M/year?), but it isn't one that has a great common _marketing association_ around, to collect dues and pitch catchy slogans that play well on television and radio.

The soy and Canola/rapeseed growers might come together to promote B20 biodiesel, though, while simultaneously bashing palm oil plantations. I can't currently imagine anyone trying to convince me to eat more fats and oils in my diet, at the expense of sugars. Low-carb is still largely seen as an irresponsible, unhealthy, fad diet in the mainstream.

<comment><USER28> They're not as powerful as the sugar lobby, but they did manage to get out recommendations that unfairly demonized saturated fats and promoted unsaturated fats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> see also the really well done movie "That Sugar Film" ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/)) where exactly this connection is laid out in the first part.

<comment><USER75> It is available on Amazon Prime last I checked. I've recommended it many times over to friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> First of all, there is no daily recommended value on sugar because that value is 0.

Then, a can of regular Coca-Cola (and most sodas) has about 38g of sugar. 38g doesn't sound like a lot, but would you take a cup of coffee with 8 teaspoons of sugar? That's what 38g is, 8 teaspoons, for a single can. Many kids drink multiple cans a day, with sugary cereals, pancakes with syrup, snacks, and adding all that up they end up consuming over 100g and end up severe obesity and diabetes.

</comment><comment><USER77> So food with sugar but also a decent amount of fiber is fine? Like vegetables, certain fruit and whole grain bread?

What should the fiber:sugar ratio be? Broccoli has 1.7g sugar and 2.6 fiber per 100g. Bananas have 12g sugar and 2.6g of fiber. I guess you should avoid food that goes below 1:1?

<comment><USER78> Glycemic index/load help a lot to answer these questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Can anyone recommend a 'healthy' alternative to sugar? Primarily for sweetening Coffee.

<comment><USER80> Agave or Honey although they do impart some taste to the coffee

<comment><USER81> I wouldn't recommend any of these either. They are rich in fructose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> pure gold comment by Eduard Fischer (in Reader's pick section):

"Last week while traveling in the US, I witnessed a mother place a cola soft drink in front of a young child. The girl began to sip on the drink, the volume of which I estimated to be about twice the size of the girl's head. I was tempted to make a remark, but remembered that I was in a foreign country where the citizens are famously well armed and roughly half the folks eligible to vote have lost their minds..."

</comment><comment><USER83> We're going to need another Surgeon General's warning, it seems.

</comment><comment><USER84> Sugar industry is guilty in that case, but let's not put all blame on them. It is the whole society that wanted to believe that mass consumption of sugar is OK.

</comment><comment><USER85> Well that escalated quickly

Only saw the documentaries a few months ago. I'm glad this awareness has pushed for deeper more reputable investigation.

</comment><comment><USER86> I'm American and sugar doesn't taste good; I must be very lucky.

</comment><comment><USER87> how to fat industry shifted blame to sugar in return

</comment><comment><USER88> This bad advice may have directly contributed to the deaths of millions of people.

</comment><comment><USER89> you sir are my hero.

<comment><USER90> please avoid making comments like this. you do not contribute to the discussion and you embarrass yourself.

<comment><USER91> please avoid making comments like this. you do not contribute to the discussion and you embarrass yourself

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> The scientific consensus is that weight gain is caused by saturated fat. Anybody who disagrees with the consensus is anti-science and a fat-denier. Any scientists who disagree with the consensus must have being paid off by Big Fat.

Even Crisco agrees that their products are the cause of Global Fattening and is working on alternatives to oil. Companies that produce saturated fat products should have to buy Fat Credits and fat skeptics should be thrown in prison!

But what about all the actual scientific evidence that a low-carbohydrate high-saturated fat diet results in weight loss? Well, I never said that weight gain causes weight gain or a Global Fattening. What I said was it causes "Body Change".

Body Change means eating saturated fat will make you become deathly skinny or morbidly obese or grow a tail or get cancer or contract herpes or go blind or a million other medical problems.

Basically, if something is wrong with your body, it's because of Body Change. Child falls off jungle gym and breaks its leg: Body Change. Man dies of heart attack in China: Body Change. Conjoined twins: Body Change. Down's Syndrome: Body Change. Hot flashes: Body Change. Wet dream: Body Change. Body change hides under your bed at night waiting to murder you with saturated fats.

Some people say that Body Change is idiotic and unscientific! I guess they believe bodies never change. What morons!

/s

</comment><comment><USER93> When in fact nothing can be blamed but our overconsumption of almost everything but vegetables and fruits.

I eat about 70% from my calories in carbs (some are refined), but it's just 2500kcal calories per day. I'm pretty sure the fact that average US citizen eats 3500kcal daily has more to do with anything than what particular ingredient one eats.

edit: some irrational unscientific and anegdotal statements require me to remove myself from discussion. thanks.. for the downvotes, I'm outta here boys! :wink:

<comment><USER94> this is almost certainly wrong. (That nothing can be blamed.) I can't eat much sugar for medical reasons, so that means that entire aisles are basically unavailable to me. things like cereals, cookies, cakes, lots of delicious stuff. But there _is_ something or someone (or some process or some state of affairs) to blame here.

Because check it out: stevia is delicious, and with splenda and all sorts of other zero-calorie artificial sweetener choices (going back to saccharine) it would be trivial to make almost all of those food choices in varieties that are artificially sweetened. what do you want to bet that the high fructose corn syrup or sugar industry has a say in directing the conversation that leads to these foods simply not existing? They literally don't exist in supermarkets: you make them at home.

why the fuck would an expensive premium food like this - [https://www.specialk.com/en_US/products/protein- cereal.html](https://www.specialk.com/en_US/products/protein-cereal.html) have 20% by weight in sugar! Generally speaking what I've just linked is a great food, and it's premium and expensive and for those who are very health- conscious. It hardly has any calories, converting by multiplying the suggested serving by 3, it has only 360 calories in 100 grams, which contains 30g of protein (so that if you further multiply by three to get to your daily intake, you get to 90g of protein, enough for just about anyone, reaching only 1080 calories - so it seems great to me. you could literally consider this diet food.)

But it has 21 grams of sugar in those 100 grams. (I happened to find someone weighing 100 grams of cereal, though a denser one - here is what that looks like: [http://blog.belm.com/wp- content/uploads/cerealpannacotta1.jp...](http://blog.belm.com/wp- content/uploads/cerealpannacotta1.jpg) \-- * EDIT: also found someone who happened to weigh 20 grams of sugar, this is what that looks like: [http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401a3fb659...](http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401a3fb6599c2970b-pi) (that's about 5 cubes of sugar.)).

Why does it have 21% by weight sugar! Why not use an artificial sweetener? Like, it's not even an option.

You can't really find stevia alternatives. The third ingredient in what I just linked was Sugar. Here is someone asking them to include stevia: [https://community.kelloggs.com/kelloggs/topics/special-k- pro...](https://community.kelloggs.com/kelloggs/topics/special-k-protein- stevia-not-sugar)

Like, what gives?

I realize that stevia might be expensive compared with sugar, but some people would likely pay for that. You can't get foods made that way though, unless you make it yourself.

why is that? There is someone to blame here. It's a dichotomy: you eat the 21 grams of sugar, or you don't eat the 100 grams of Special K Protein. It's not about overconsumption: it's about a lack of choice. Why doesn't the artificial-sweetener version exist, at all? There is something, or someone (or an abstract economic process, or something) to blame here. While "blaming" an economic process (or a lack of FDA mandate, or ... whatever) might sound bitter due to the phrasing, we can still ask what leads to this state of affairs. I don't usually like to play the "blame game" or put things in those terms, but in this case, I'm missing out on a lot of foods, so yes, I'll do it. If Coca Cola can do it, and get it everywhere, why can't dessert "foods" like oreos or breakfast cereal, do it? They simply don't exist in artificially sweetened versions. Why not?

<comment><USER95> Coca Cola has a stevia version that seems to be very niche. I rarely see it, nor have I tried it. But I wonder why it hasn't been pushed more, especially in a market where your product is increasingly demonized because of the 30 - 40g of sugar each serving contains.

<comment><USER31> Don't move from sugar to fake sugar. Move from sugar to other flavors.

Using fake sugar is like a diet, and diets don't last. Lifestyle changes do. Like making every thing you eat not need to be sweet.

<comment><USER94> not true. you can drink diet coke or coke zero for decades and nothing bad will happen.

why do you want to tell me not to eat dessert foods like american cereals for breakfast, or oreos, in some artificially-flavored version. you're simply wrong that this would make my change in lifestyle "not last." I'm not even overweight.

<comment><USER31> Ultimately I only care insofar as I will be in the hook for your medical bills in 20 years. It's your body.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cars could drive themselves sooner than expected after European push - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/cars-could-drive-themselves-sooner-expected-european-push-113959388--finance.html <comment><USER2> Self driving cars seems like such a no brainer, it's weird that the idea gets treated as some form of moon shot by google. Fairly well defined problem, astronomical economical and utilitarian benefit, implementation complexity equally astronomical but the potential payoff seems well worth it.</comment>


97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals - <AUTHOR> https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california-cities-failed-to-meet-state-housing-goals-and/article_a609ae5e-09d7-11e8-a94e-3b67baeaae8b.html <comment><USER2> I've been attempting to get building permits for a small personal residence in a So Cal coastal town for nearly 3 years. The experience dealing with the city has felt very adversarial. The sense I have is that the city and most neighbors don't want new construction, and in that spirit put up as many roadblocks, opposition and red tape as possible to slow you down, and in many cases stop you through attrition. I've seen many try for years and give up including one project that has been ongoing for over 10 years.

The first major hurdle is obtaining approval from a Design Review Board consisting of 5 elected board members who subjectively determine if the project is "neighborhood compatible". Even while complying with all zoning requirement for setbacks, building height and envelope, lot coverage, environmental impact, etc, and not requesting any variances, most projects stall here, some for years. The board convenes monthly and invites public participation and comments, and if there is opposition either from board members, or neighbors, you're in a very long and arduous process in getting approval. Common complaints are mass and scale, incompatible architecture, view blockage, noise pollution, excessive glazing, color choices, and the list goes on.

When/if you get through design review, you're then off to coastal commission and building and safety for more review and approvals, and eventually building permits if you make it through it all. The entire process will take many years, and potentially 10s or 100s of thousands in expenses before you even break ground. This is for a single residence - I can only imagine the hurdles and expense for a multi-unit project. So I understand and agree with the state attempting to legislate a reduction on the restrictions and roadblocks that local municipalities impose on residential construction.

<comment><USER3> You could carefully review your local ordinances, if your allowed to make "improvements" to your house. You could theoretically tear down an entire house with the exception of a single internal wall. Then build you to your desire what you wish around this existing wall. Once enclosed, repair or accidentally knock over said wall and continue building. It's not as nice a starting fresh but it gets around a lot of the stifling that happens in regards to building new buildings.

If your just making improvements there is a lot more freedom in refurbishing and most code enforcement municipalities just drive by to check on your work. Your most likely not going to run into trouble.

Let me end with, this was done in another state, not by a lawyer, just some random guy on the internet.

<comment><USER4> This is very common in California because under this scenario your house is not reassessed for prop 13 property tax purposes. Your cost basis only goes up by the dollar value of the improvements (which you can easily understate). If you do a complete teardown, the county reassesses at current market value. A lot of people leave the chimney up because you get the added benefit of getting grandfathered on the air quality ordinances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> California always amazes with its goals, decade after decade of leadership among the states. Building is promoted to improve affordability. Building is discouraged to preserve the environment and maintain a local culture. Building is promoted to provide new transportation options. Building is discouraged to reduce congestion, contain sprawl. Building and not building at the same time helps California maintain its unique logical and psychological balance.

<comment><USER6> It's as though California is a giant state with a diverse population, both politically and geographically, with lots of competing interests that, over time, has gone through various political and leadership changes that reflect that diversity.

<comment><USER7> Apparently not, because 97% of the NIMBYs are winning.

<comment><USER8> The instant you sign a mortgage it becomes in your economic best interest to limit the supply of housing.

Housing cannot simultaneously be affordable and a good investment.

Homeowners on average tend to be more politically engaged, so homeowners dominate state and local politics. As for why every prosperous state doesn't have this problem as badly as California you can add prop 13 which hugely limited property tax increases for existing homeowners. This eliminated one of the major checks on real estate hyperinflation. You can further add the fact that the San Francisco Bay Area (the region with the highest prices by far) is geographically constrained and the fact that earthquake risk imposes additional site preparation and construction costs.

It's really a perfect storm for real estate price insanity, specially in the Bay Area. It's less insane in SoCal but still pretty high, especially when compared to median income in LA County and San Diego. SoCal is less geographically constrained.

<comment><USER9> I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.

<comment><USER10> In the Bay Area, they sell and move to Oregon, driving up _our_ prices. And because they're retired, don't have kids in schools or anything, they mostly vote against taxes.

There are also plenty of entrepreneurs and hackers and so on who move up here, so that balances things out to some degree. Still, though, California's NIMBYism has repercussions throughout the entire west coast.

<comment><USER11> I call that social pollution. It's no different than a resource boom decimating a landscape then moving on and leaving the place in a really bad situation.

It's almost as though people don't realize that lots of small things (like local zoning for example) add up to all the big differences that made the place so attractive that they moved there.

Specifically with regards to a bunch of retirees moving in, I'd take that over young couples any day of the week. People raising family will have much more impact than people who just want to enjoy retirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think everyone's realizing that the solution to various housing crisis is to build more homes for all income levels. Artificially manipulating prices via rent control mechanisms; or only building homes for a specific income level doesn't work.

<comment><USER13> "I think everyone's realizing that the solution to various housing crisis is to build more homes for all income levels."

Of course this is correct. However, it is also correct that many, many of these are badly mischaracterized as "crises".

It is not a crisis that you cannot afford to live in Aspen.

It is not a crisis that you cannot afford an apartment in the very specific neighborhood in the very specific borough of New York City that you prefer.

It is not a crisis that you cannot afford to buy a house, with a yard, in Marin County.

<comment><USER14> Is it a crisis if I can't afford anything within an hour and a half commute of my job?

<comment><USER15> If that's a sacrifice you are unwilling to make and you can't find work elsewhere, maybe

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My experience in driving through California's interior doesn't jibe with that headline. When I stop for lunch or a break I like to check out the local real estate scene and its often the case in these cities that there are many houses and other living accommodations available at modest prices. Hard to imagine a city like Mojave not meeting it "goal". Of course if you limit yourself to cities of 1 millions residents or more, well I could see that they were having challenges.

As other people have pointed out, if California wants to lead then the state should be something to admire. And being 42nd out of 50 on K-12 education and highest poverty rate, aren't good things to lead with. Lots of opportunities to improve.

<comment><USER17> So, a couple of questions:

1\. What do you consider _modest prices_?

2\. What exactly do you do to _check out the local real estate scene_?

Because I recently left California to get off the street after moving around California a bit in search of affordable living and doing like 3 years of research, and my point of view and yours are so not on the same page, they aren't even in the same book.

<comment><USER18> He referred specifically to the California _interior_. Most counties not on the coast or bay have very affordable areas; I've driven the northern 2/3rds of I-5, most of US50, and all of I-80 in CA and seen hundreds of properties for a fraction of Bay Area prices. Things look different once outside of a Bay Area (or San Diego) bubble.

<comment><USER19> >> ...seen hundreds of properties for a fraction of Bay Area prices.

Anything under 300K? How about 200K? A fraction of the Bay area doesn't necessarily mean affordable.

<comment><USER20> You look at, say, Fresno and there are properties for sale under $200K (although that's below the median of $300K+). I assume those are not the most attractive places but they certainly exist. That's the 5th most populous city in California so it's not exactly the middle of nowhere.

<comment><USER17> I lived in Fresno. A lot of the stuff under $200k is a trailer, possibly a trailer in a seniors only retirement community. I don't consider trailers fit for habitation and my two adult sons still live with me.

This is part of why I want details. I need a house under $100k. After looking at what that kind of money buys in Cali -- anywhere in Cali -- and looking at what it buys outside of Cali, I eventually concluded it made more sense to go elsewhere. If you can't afford at least $200k in Cali, you can expect it to be a shithole. It would undermine my fragile health and also need ten's of thousands of dollars worth of work. I am happy to buy a fixer, but not one that will ruin my health and my finances.

<comment><USER16> I can see that you're facing challenges that put you in an untenable situation. And no, I haven't seen any place in California that has any sort of public services and employment prospects and housing where you own the house and land for under $100K.

<comment><USER17> Thank you.

I don't even need employment prospects. I have alimony and I make my money online. So that wasn't even a factor, and, no, it didn't fly in Cali.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Aesthetic objections to new construction are 99.9% bullshit. Otherwise things like vomit- and baby-poop-green vinyl siding, uniformly white windows with fake grills and little to no trim, McMansion-style hip-roof horrorshows and gables on top of gables wouldn't exist.

</comment><comment><USER22> relevant: [http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson- californi...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-california- poverty-20180114-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> Sounds very dystopian. Did not meet state's goals.

<comment><USER13> "Sounds very dystopian. Did not meet state's goals."

This is worth considering.

I find it despicable that otherwise liberal, progressive people are willing to _immediately discard_ democratic results simply because they dislike them.

There is nothing unconstitutional (CA) or unlawful about "NIMBY policies". However you may feel about them, they are valid, lawful policy goals in a democracy.

If you don't like them, you should organize to defeat them _democratically_.

<comment><USER24> > If you don't like them, you should organize to defeat them democratically.

I spend my free time doing some advocacy in this space. Heres a few things you might not know.

1) Nimby's dont derive power from the ballot box, they derive power from distinctly undemocratic processes like courts and arbitrary middle of the day planning meetings. The biggest NIMBY tool is CEQA, the "california environmental quality act" which allows anyone to sue a project for "environmental" reasons. The reasons are spurious at best (project would increase traffic at an intersection). Nearly all CEQA law suits are filed by neighbors who want to kill the project, or by unions on projects that aren't using union labor. The law suits are rarely won by the plaintiff, but they are nearly always successful because they delay projects long enough to get them canceled. The second tool is the design review meeting, which often occurs around 2pm on some random mid week day, when most people are at work and unable to leave their job. A single project may go through 5 design review meetings where retired nimbys with nothing better to do with their time berate new developments for arbitrary reasons (make it smaller, its out of character etc). In this system, its not "one person one vote" but rather "your power in this process is proportional to how much time you can spend at city hall during normal working hours on a recurring basis and grind it out over months and months of meetings"

2) Nimby policies are being defeated democratically. Our elected officials are realizing the harm that these policies are causing and seeing that an anti- nimby constituency is forming. SB 827 is a democratic solution to this problem.

3) Hyperlocal control (aka, cities deciding their own land use policies) is undemocratic, and essentially feudal. It limits the voices heard in democracy to the people who are able to afford living in the city in question, but excludes the voices of those who stakeholders in the city in some other way, say by working in the city, or commuting through the city. Local control allows cities to capture outsized benefits of development while forcing other cities to absorb the negative externalities. For instance, cupertino built the new apple campus for 12k workers, but didn't build any new housing for them. Now the rest of the bay area needs to deal with the reality of these 12k new highly paid residents looking for housing. Another example is Atherton suing to block caltrain electrifiction within its city limits. A single city is blocking an expansion of public transit that serves 60k riders per day. Why is this city allowed to delay the project and create a negative impact on all of these commuters? Why are they not beholden to a larger set of stakeholders than just the people that live within their boarders?

<comment><USER13> "Nimby's dont derive power from the ballot box, they derive power from distinctly undemocratic processes like courts and arbitrary middle of the day planning meetings. The biggest NIMBY tool is CEQA, the "california environmental quality act" which allows anyone to sue a project for "environmental" reasons."

I agree that these things are annoying and selfish (and possibly mean- spirited) but they are not undemocratic. They adhere to the laws and regulations of our state. They are the (unfortunate) results of a democratic process.

I reiterate my objection to non-democratic solutions to these problems.

Further, as someone who lives in a design-reviewed community in a NIMBY county (Marin), my firsthand experience has shown me that these roadblocks and inefficiencies are applied equally to everyone ... it's not like there is some class of people who get streamlined approvals and fast-tracked homebuilding. Everyone has to deal with the same bullshit, as far as I can tell ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We need off-grid housing with SpaceX satellite internet, Tesla car pods, Tesla Solar, and Amazon Prime deliveries.

</comment><comment><USER26> California doesn't have a housing problem. It has "companies insist on paying higher taxes and refusing to deploy in the wide open spaces between the coasts" problem. Deploying between the coasts helped Amazon greatly leverage its early entry position.

<comment><USER27> Those same companies are responsive to where their workforce wants to live.

<comment><USER26> And they know that exactly how? I see no evidence of A/B or multivariate testing vs employment for corporate locations.

<comment><USER27> I mean, Uber bought a giant office in Oakland and decided about a year later not to move there...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The part about increasing density near public transit was interesting. It's true that high density is a must to make public transit viable. However, I presume there is little vacant land near public transit. In that case, a mandate to increase density would be telling people to demolish and rebuild with higher density than what's there. If that's the case then the comparison to Putin might be justified - and perhaps the crony capitalism part depending who profits from this "upgrade".

<comment><USER28> It isn't a mandate to increase density. The proposed law removes limits. It doesn't mandate anything. Existing limits are preventing market forces from working.

In Berkeley there is a subway station surrounded by a five-acre parking lot. The owner of the parking list wishes to build there, but the city refuses to rezone the land, which is presently "U - Unclassified". This law would remove Berkeley's authority in the matter.

In San Francisco 71% of the land is zoned for detached single family homes, despite virtually all of that city being within half a mile of a rail or light rail station. This bill would raise all of those limits.

<comment><USER29> A very common limit around the entire US is the municipality-wide building height restriction.

Basically, the city outlaws any building taller than 40' above grade at its highest point. Between that, and minimum setbacks from the frontage line and other property lines, 90% of the work to prevent densification is already done. Once a building plan has grown to completely fill its legal envelope, there's nowhere else to go but down, and that becomes prohibitively expensive fast.

The remaining 10% can be handled by mandating a minimum square footage per residential unit that is slightly more than half the theoretical maximum from a building at maximum height and minimum height on the mean lot size for that zone. Then no amount of building up or out can allow you to squeeze another unit onto your property. You have to resort to tricks like lowering ceiling heights.

If you enact a law at the state level that triggers automatic lessening of restrictions on building heights or setbacks every time a municipality fails to grow enough housing, zoning boards will be a lot more tractable when a developer wants to build.

<comment><USER28> That's what SB827 does. If a property is within the given radius from a transit station or a high-frequency bus line, minimum height limits are imposed (between 45 and 85 feet, depending on other factors) and all design controls (parking requirements, floor area ratio, setbacks, bulk) are rendered ineffective.

<comment><USER30> Wow -- from afar, that's a great way to inspire local residents in bedroom communities to fight public transit.

<comment><USER31> I volunteer in the SFBA for housing and transit advocacy.

A loud minority of people already fight transit and successfully prevent it or water it down. The type of people who fight transit also fight housing. There isn't really much headway for their coalitions to grow because they're selfish old boomers who want to pull up the ladder, it's not an message that inspires solidarity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This little bit of political sparring was my favorite part of the article:

>SB 827, Wiener's bill to mandate increased density near public transit, was recently the subject of a spat on Twitter between the Senator and former Beverly Hills mayor John Mirisch. Mirisch began his tirade by calling the bill "a bizarre combination of Soviet-style master planning with raging crony capitalism…the urban planning lovechild of Vladimir Putin and the Koch Bros."

>"Not quite sure how he got to this conclusion but definitely scores high in the melodramatic response competition," Wiener responded. "Interesting to say that my authoring a bill to allow more housing near transit makes me Putin, since I sort of got the idea from a guy named [President Barack] Obama," he remarked wryly.

The name dropping and mudslinging here is pretty laughable. The reason reason for conflict seems to me to be misaligned incentives though. The idea that a place like Beverly Hills is going to have to throw up a bunch of new housing to please CA congress is ridiculous, since essentially the city now has to find a way to destroy existing housing or places of business in order to throw up new, cheaper housing, assuming the bill passes.

<comment><USER33> The bill says nothing of the sort.

I've noticed a common talking point among anti-development types is to assert that changing zoning to _allow_ denser housing translates to _mandating_ denser housing, which is obviously ridiculous.

<comment><USER34> Unfortunately at first glance the law is easy to misread. If you're not careful it reads like it's mandating a minimum height for new construction. Instead what it's doing is mandating a floor on the maximum _allowable_ height a city can set. So in other words a city can't force a developer to shorten their building beyond the minimum heights in SB-827. Conversely a developer or home owner can construct a short building if they really want to.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: innovation in the gold mining industry - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, as part of an industry analysis, I was wondering if any of you knew of any innovation in the gold mining industry, things like:<p>more efficient extractive methods new techniques to hedge gold futures community initiatives lessening the impact of environmental damage <comment><USER2> There's a fair few, it's on going;

Laser scanning ore sizing systems to infer size distributions of reclaim "over ore" on high speed conveyors to optimise SAG Mills (these operate 24/7 @ roughly $36,000.00 per hour in super sized mines).

Better targeted exploration techniques; eg: Holden / Kovesi / Dentith - "Using fancy wavelets on aeromag data to find teh colour" (obligatory deadwood reference).

GPS enabled fleet management to optimise usage & maintenance & avoid million dollar tyre fires on the big tonka toys.

Robot fleets with either autonomous or remote drivers.

They'll be plenty of discussion, boozing, whoring & two-upping over these very issues @ Diggers & Dealers 2013 I'd guess.

<http://www.diggersndealers.com.au/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know anything about the gold mining industry. If you have found good/dense information about it, could you point me to where you found it? I'm sort of interested now. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

Well I am collecting links as part of my industry analysis, and this is what I have bookmarked as worthwhile:

[http://www.minalliance.ca/pdfs/Minalliance_100_innovations_e...](http://www.minalliance.ca/pdfs/Minalliance_100_innovations_en.pdf) <http://www.saimm.co.za/Journal/v081n07p212.pdf> [http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/12/gol...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/12/gold- miners-can-do-much-better-than-price-of-gold/)</comment></comment>


Facebook's new Study app pays adults for data after teen scandal - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/11/study-from-facebook/ <comment><USER2> > TechCrunch's investigation from January revealed that Facebook had been > quietly operating a research program codenamed Atlas that paid users ages 13 > to 35 up to $20 per month in gift cards in exchange for root access to their > phone so it could gather all their data for competitive analysis. That > included everything the Study app grabs, but also their web browsing > activity, and even encrypted information, as the app required users to > install a VPN that routed all their data through Facebook. It even had the > means to collect private messages and content shared — potentially including > data owned by their friends.

Congress needs to put Zuck in the hot seat again and directly question him about the inception, creation, and execution of this program. It's pretty disgusting.</comment>


SOPA Solution: Block Congressional IPs - <AUTHOR> http://loufranco.com/blog/files/sopa-block-congress-ip.html

<comment><USER2> The government already tries to hard to keep information from citizens. Why should we help them?</comment>


Hottest IT jobs for 2011: Project management, security, network admin - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/business-intelligence/140836/hottest-it-job-skills-2011

<comment><USER2> Generally speaking, what kind of skills are needed for security jobs?

<comment><USER3> I guess anything from sql-injection to fixing borked firewalls? I'm interested to know too.</comment></comment>


MySpace defeats YouTube in war game - <AUTHOR> http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9698212-2.html?tag=blog <comment><USER2> Anyone want to bet that their predictions will be wrong?</comment>


The Declaration of Neutrality – Internet Freedom as a Constitutional Right - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/the-declaration-of-neutrality-internet-freedom-as-a-constitutional-right-1788da8a7449 <comment><USER2> Write your representatives and ask them to repeal the FCC

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you believe in Free Speech as a principle, or only as the embodied in the First Amendment as restricting what the government can do? Because an argument for Net Neutrality, requires the principle of free speech. Now, if you think private companies should be required to permit all speech if they have a dominant position, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and CloudFlare would like to have a word with you.</comment>


Fed sees climate change shaping economy, policy - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-climate-change/feds-brainard-says-climate-change-poses-profound-risks-idUSKBN1XI218 <comment><USER2> > In a third paper, Nicholas Muller, a professor at Carnegie Mellon > University, outlined how the Fed might factor environmental circumstances > into monetary policy by, for example, keeping rates lower when pollution > levels were increasing, to encourage consumption before they got worse, and > higher when pollution was declining, to depress spending until the > environment improved.

Doesn't this seem backwards...?

<comment><USER3> > higher [rates] when pollution was declining

The above part sounds weird, but I suspect that it's supposed to illustrate the following part "to depress spending until the environment improved". In depressing spending until the environment improved, there would be higher rates while pollution declines and (I suspect) there would continue to be higher rates until an optimal level of pollution is reached.</comment></comment>


FBI shared child porn to nab pedophiles; Washington home raided - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/local/article/FBI-shared-child-porn-to-nab-pedophiles-4552044.php

<comment><USER2> I find the FBIs tactics in this case not only questionable but extremely disgusting and unethical. Baiting criminals with drugs or offers for sex is lazy law enforcement. Sharing images of someone being raped, especially children, for 'bait' is sickening.</comment>


Ask HN: It is difficult to find a company to sponsor a visa for a junior dev? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a rails developer (8 months of experience), and my biggest dream right now is to move to bay area and get a job as a developer. However, I'm not senior yet.
I'm planning to travel in october to have a lot of interviews, but some close friends to me have told me that the companies just serve as sponsors for really experienced developers.
I'm thinking I could work remotely in the months that the visa request is processed.
Do you think that I could have a possibility to get a job in this circunstances?
Thanks a LOT for any help <comment><USER2> Where are you from? That might be a big deciding factor in what you should do.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm from Colombia. Why do you think that it could be a deciding factor?</comment></comment>