How I have lost over 100 pounds and don't know how - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/d5da698ee2ba <comment><USER2> There's a massive signal-to-noise issue in the fitness world, particularly because there's so much value to be made just by making some noise.

For anyone reading this post and inspired to lose weight, I recommend you keep the following basic tenets in mind when researching a plan/regimen:

1\. You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than you think you do. Get a calorie-counting app.)

2\. Being active isn't necessarily crucial to losing weight, but it is crucial to being more healthy. In particular, lifting weights will help your overall physique even if you're eating at a caloric deficit -- but the most important activity is the one that you like enough to make a habit. (Mine is biking, and occasionally soccer.)

There are a lot of huge fads right now -- in particular, intermittent fasting (eat once per day), ketogenic diet (eat lots of fat, eat no carbs), and liquid diets (drink lots of things) seem to be the rage. The reason fads can be successful usually have less to do with the specific mechanics and minutiae of their gospel and more to do with the fact that you're conscientious about what you're putting into your body and diligent about treating it well.

<comment><USER3> > 1\. You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a > corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than you think you > do. Get a calorie-counting app.)

If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time? It would require incredible precision to maintain weight. But a lot of people seem to be able to do it with no effort...

The reason why this is not true is simple: our organism is not a closed system, so this thermodynamics truism does not apply. We are able, for example, to excrete nutrients without digesting them. Our organism is way too complex for this bromide to have any merit.

<comment><USER4> Also a 1000 calories of sugar are going to do far different things to your body than a 1000 calories of protein. That's why focusing on calories always seemed to be the wrong metric to me.

<comment><USER5> If you mean "far different things" relating to weight gain or loss, I completely, completely disagree.

In terms of weight gain or loss, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. That's why there are fad diets that have and do work for people that each cut different things. Low carbs in one. Low protein in another. The Cookie Diet for chrissakes. They work because the common thread between them is caloric restriction.

Now, if you consume nothing but 2000 calories of Ice Cream every day, you will surely develop some nutritional issues. And yes that totally will affect your overall health. But that's something different than what the GP was discussing (though that may well have been your entire point which is fair.)

One interesting thing I picked up from a Pollan talk on NPR (but have not yet read the underlying research myself) is that there is some evidence that in one way all calories are not the same: The mechanics of digestion is affected by the texture and composition of the food. So 100 calories of crunch granola seems to be metabolized differently than 100 calories of soft chewy brownie. But the affect here is how many calories are extracted from the input.

My source for this is a lot of reading and my own personal experiences going from 6'2, 210 and flabby to 170 and toned, cutting down from 36" waist to 32", from XL shirts to Medium in the process. I did this primarily over 14 months and did quite a bit of experimentation in there (Fruit cleanses, Juice cleanses, egg white protein supplements -- as i'm not a fan of protein powders), and for the 6 months since, as I've maintained weight and increased muscle tone.

The composition of my diet has changed but the pattern has held the same and I believe the pattern is what has had the most effect for me. Without realizing it, I devised a diet that other people call "intermittent fasting." I consume, literally, 95% of my calories in 6 hours between 2PM and 8PM (when I have my lunch, dinner and dessert). I had no idea that this was a "thing" and not just something peculiar to myself. It works beautifully for me. I gym in the morning 3 days a week. I feel healthy and skinny and look good in tight clothing and finally, finally at age 30 feel good about myself physically.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

Also, random internet sites suggest _a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie_. For example:

[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a- calorie...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a-calorie-is- not-just-a-calorie/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only person who enjoyed reading this guy's story? I'm happy that he's found a lifestyle that works for him. The amount of skepticism and criticism in this thread is off the charts...

<comment><USER8> I appreciate that. It is very interesting to see people jump on what I did or even more _did not_ say in one post about a personal experience.

I think people need to realize that:

People are just trying their best!

Holy negativity. And in that I appreciate your comment Justin :)

<comment><USER9> I just noticed you are the author, but I am a lurker and very much enjoyed some of your book recommendations and personal anecdotes. It has inspired me because I can tell your thought processes are similar to my own, so it resonates.

In the sea of HN pessimism, I thought you'd appreciate hearing from a stranger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When it comes to exercise I'm always concerned by how many people, when making changes like this, omit strength training. Don't do that-

1\. Without strength training (and adequate protein consumption) during negative calorie periods, you will loose muscle. Without strength training your body will happily shed muscle and fat, most of use really just want to loose the fat.

2\. Muscle increases your base resting calorie use, and is a multiplier of any other exercise you do.

3\. Muscle is important for maintaining bone health and general health as we age.

I have even had health professionals tell me that when it comes to daily routines, diet + 30-60 min walking + 30 min weight training is better for your body then regular intense cardio. Thats not to say you should shy away from a tennis match or soccer game, or fencing a couple times a week, but if we are talking about what we do every day-

</comment><comment><USER11> \- Don't eat 600 calorie bombs from carls jr that fit inside the palm of your hand and don't fill you up still. Eat more satiating food for the calories, which is fibrous vegetables and proteins. Avoid liquid calories and other such things that are easy to overeat.

\- Eat like my skinny indian friend. He takes a bite, chews it for quite a while, and then take another bite about a few minutes later. He doesn't do this on purpose, it's completely habitual. Such a slow eating speed really helps him stay skinny.

\- Stop snacking on high calorie nuts, chips and bars. If you just habitually nibble on food that is in front of you until it's gone, recognize that and don't put food infront of you.

<comment><USER12> Alternatively, and easier for some: put low calory food in front of you. It may be possible to grow fat from eating raw celery and tomatoes, but it certainly is harder than growing fat from eating burgers and chocolate.

<comment><USER10> >It may be possible to grow fat from eating raw celery and tomatoes

Doing this with celery will be more difficult as it takes more energy to digest than is gained from it.

I had a humorous image in my mind of someone trying to get fat via only veggies, imagine the volume of food they would have to eat every day!

Examples: The Kimchi I had with lunch was 15 calories, the half bag of russels sprout I had last night (excluding the oil oil cooked in) 130 calories.

Edit: Why the downvote?

<comment><USER13> > Examples: The Kimchi I had with lunch was 15 calories, the half bag of > russels sprout I had last night (excluding the oil oil cooked in) 130 > calories.

I'm not one of the downvoters, but "satiety of eating unrestricted quantities of vegetables outweighs any caloric intake" approach only works if you don't add fats or sugar sauces.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure I didn't recommend eating unrestricted amounts of veggies, I did laugh about the idea. After all, I would have to eat a walmart/target size bag FULL of brussel sprouts to get my daily allowance of calories from brussel sprouts. That is a huge volume of food! I'm not sure if would be possible.

I was responding to someone talking about eating "raw celery". Vegetables in general are low in calories (before as you and I mentioned, oil sugar etc are added), BUT raw celery is well known to have a net negative impact.

<comment><USER14> Celery does not have a negative net impact.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celery#Nutrition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celery#Nutrition) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_calorie_food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_calorie_food)

It's a common misconception.

<comment><USER10> I stand corrected- thats what I get for believing what I was talk in highschool health class. Celery is simply very low in calories.

Btw, why would you create a user name just to post the above?

<comment><USER14> Because I didn't have an account (having previously nothing to contribute).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought the article was going somewhere different, but it appears the answer is "diet and exercise"...

<comment><USER16> It's tough to for any author to reduce the concepts of weight management beyond 'calories in' and 'calories out.'

I've been on a weight rollercoaster for the past 10 years, varying between 180 and 230 lbs and I've read many of the same books the author names, and while they all may lead to self-discovery on what makes YOUR body tick, none of them contain the mystical ONE THING that will cause you to lose 20 lbs in one week. In this I agree whole-heartedly with the author.

For those that are very overweight, I do highly recommend the advice to change your diet first, without starting an extensive exercise regimen. Many folks' regular diet is so bad that just eating healthy food and drinking water will cause them to lose 5+ lbs in the first week. You need to buy-in early on to the idea that exercise isn't about burning off the food you ate (as that's impossible) but about raising your metabolism and conditioning your body.

<comment><USER17> It's also not very hard to lose 5lb if you are morbidly obese.

Harris-Benedict predicts that an individual should have an equilibrium bodyweight depending on their activity level and mean caloric intake. When your actual weight deviates from equilibrium, you will approach it along an exponential curve.

This means that if you alter your diet, your initial loss (or gain) will be rapid, while later losses/gains will be very slow. Graphs here:

[http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/weight_stability.html](http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/weight_stability.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> ctrl+f "gluten" and "paleo" yup, circle jerk is on.

I'm sorry to be negative but it seems such a fad people convince themselves and others gluten is equivalent to cyanide. We've been through the Atkins junk he even died from it. I know people with Celiac and it's a daily struggle it's not a trendy disease if you actually have it, you can't even have pepper since most commercial pepper is dusted with wheat flour.

Can't we all agree to valid nutritional information from independent double- blind studies nothing with "supports" or a pil helping your immune system (an extremely complex...you guess it a 'system' not one thing that can be affected by one molecule.)

I weight more now than I ever have and I know why it's because I started working shift work, stopped going to the gym, drank energy drinks and went to Starbucks daily. To get back to being healthy I reverse what I did wrong so back to eating buckets of gluten and carbs but be active.

I'm all for health and good nutrition but these days it seems like nothing is good unless it's some extreme diet. US and Canada beverages are extreme, food portions are extreme, exercise is extreme (bootcamps jogging? bah!), vehicles are extreme now diets are extreme.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting post, the author can be proud. Not being from the united states, and now living there since one year , here is my 2 cent , I think these are the most important points of the post and my own advices:

\- Drink water only, no soda, even diet coke and whatnot.

\- Avoid sugars (I'd say especially high corn fructose syrup).

\- Eat vegetables, cooked in good olive oil in a pan, it's really good. I don't know about other oils, the Mediterranean lifestyle with olive oil works great, and olive oil tastes better.

\- Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.)

\- Sleep well, stop watching at screens (TV/computer/ipad) an hour before sleeping. reading a book before going to sleep is great.

Attempting to reduce the problem to : >" it's basically a physics problem (calories_in < calories_out to lose weight)" is completely wrong I think, the "Try eating 2,000 calories of pasta versus 2,000 calories of chicken" comment speaks by itself.

I disagree with the " "listen to your body, and eat when it is hungry, not because it is a certain time" routine. " Stick to regular hours for eating, breakfast, meal and dinner. But the most important is not to eat in between the meals. If you eat good food you won't even feel hungry

Finally, stop trying to measure everything, relax.

<comment><USER20> > _no soda, even diet coke and whatnot._

Why?, there are a lot of diet sodas that do not contain any calories.

> _Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.)_

Why, salt doesn't contain any calories.

Going on a diet is very hard in the first place, giving up these two things doesn't seem to make much sense. It will only make a difficult lifestyle change even more difficult.

<comment><USER21> Aspartame, the artificial sweetener in many diet soda products, is a controversial topic. For many years it was thought that it may cause insulin spikes or even increase the risk of cancer. But studies have shown that the folk-lore links between aspartame and cancer have been unmerited.

The most convincing argument to avoid aspartame has been a behavioral reason. Sweets beget sweets. By enjoying an artificially-sweet diet soda it will be easier to choose a conventional sweet treat if you wander back into the kitchen.

Also, as anyone who has abstained from sweets can attest, after a few days the idea of sweet candies just don't sound appealing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is a real problem for a subset of people regarding food addiction - particularly to sugar and certain carbohydrates. I am personally aware of people who have lost 50 to as much as 300+ lbs through a 12 step program called FA. It is not for everyone, but for some it has been a life-saver. [http://www.foodaddicts.org/](http://www.foodaddicts.org/)

</comment><comment><USER23> That's an awful lot of words for saying that eating right leads to a healthier life.

Way too many people tend to write a poem to express even the simplest idea. Concision is paramount in communicating.

<comment><USER24> As I read the article, I became pleasantly surprised at how it evolved into a story about a guy learning to live a more holistic life vs just one of losing weight.

I think that evolution was the author's journey, and it was what he was trying to communicate by recounting it for us.

<comment><USER8> Thank you. This is not a post from a diet guru trying to sell anything. This is a personal story about how one change is leading to a mindset change. The details of labeling a diet are not the point. Thanks for seeing a bigger picture.

<comment><USER24> Absolutely. I encourage and am encouraged by anyone who is on a quest for personal development. That you additionally chose to share your story (including your struggles) in such detail was an act of generosity. I appreciate the many references, novel insights, and opportunities for my own self-reflection.

Continued success to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> He doesn't know how but he knows he loses weight by dieting and exercise, link bait title.

Furthermore, what he describes is a typical low-carb diet which works by suppressing your immune system (my experience with a low-carb diet, and the experiences of most people I know who have done a low-carb diet for long enough). After burning all your fat, you will get sick as hell (I had a 1 month fever at my lowest weight before deciding to stop it).

People with great metabolism can be fine on low-carb. But if you're seriously overweight, your metabolism is probably not great.

Slow carb diet by Tim Ferriss is a bit better because you ingest more carbs (and the cheating day maintain your immune system).

If you have cold feets/hands, inflammation (swollen gums for example), bloating, slow pulse, low libido or anything not normal, then your diet is not the right one.

<comment><USER26> How low did your body fat percentage get down to? I've been 'mostly paleo-ish' for two years. I know people who have been strict on the lifestyle. There are only health-gains talked about. By low carb, do you mean you avoided vegetable carbs too? Did you try "no wheat/gluten/processed foods" but still a metric tonne of veggies and non-lean meats?

<comment><USER25> I did paleo for 9 months. No wheat, gluten. Veggies, some sweet potatoes and nuts, lots of meat (lean and non-lean). I lost 30 pounds (I wasn't really overweight). I don't know my body fat % at that time but I pretty sure it was lower than 15%. Exercising 3 times a week (Weight training).

I had carb craving all-day long even after eating 2000+ calories. I was between 50g and 100g of carb per day (as recommended by Mark's Daily Apple and some others). At the end I feel bad, always tired (exact opposite than at the beginning) and I got very sick for a month (first time in my life).

I'm now eating fruits and protein (no wheat, gluten, processed food) and sometimes dairy. I feel far better for more than a year now (without fluctuations like with paleo). I've gained some weight (because my metabolism was really low) but I'm now dropping weight without any change. It is a long- term diet I'm not expecting to drop 10 pounds in a month (I've tried paleo again for a week recently and didn't even lost a pound BTW).

<comment><USER27> A lot of people lose the carb craving after a few days, but it doesn't work for everybody. While I didn't "crave" carbs per se, I really did not enjoy not eating bread. What really worked for me is skipping breakfast and skipping carbs for dinner (just meat and veg). Even though I don't do that every day due to social events, I can lose 1lb/week or so without much trouble.

30lb/9 month is pretty impressive, good luck with your endeavours!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am more interested in his next post: "Five years later and I am going to tell you how I managed to keep the lost weight off"

> I took some pills, specifically raspberry ketones, a multi-vitamin, and cod > liver / fish oil. I went back and forth on these, and then decided to drop > them. I may go back to the oils, but I think vitamins may be snake oil. It > is hard to really tell though.

Vitamins are snake oil. Ok.

(And what the hell is a "dev aggregator" ?)

Calories in, calories out. Abs are 90% made in the kitchen. Go to the doctor when it hurts or feel unusual.

<comment><USER29> Agreed up until calories in, calories out. I know what you mean, but that way of thinking is quite dated. It's clear these days that the macronutrient composition of the diet also needs to be taken seriously.

<comment><USER30> Doesn't matter from a chemical perspective, because the law of conservation of energy/mass is not violated. But it is true that hormonal response makes it easier or harder to stay with a diet.

<comment><USER28> It is also about feeling good, being healthy and not obese versus feeling bad, being sick and not obese.

<comment><USER30> Yes, I agree with you re: the emotional effect of different dietary choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Seems to be a lengthy yet incomplete summary of the first 1/5th of The Four Hour Body (cited, at least).

Likewise I don't know where the 'I don't know how' bit fits in, given there's a massive explanation of how provided.

I am guessing written by a North American, given the 'we' in "I am frustrated with the lack of understanding that we have around nutrition, exercise and health". I shall assume the 'we' refers to 'people near me'.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wow, this is almost exactly what I did last year, and I had the same results -- went from ~260 lbs to 180 lbs.

Cut out wheat, cut out sugar except whole fruits (no fruit juice because as Lustig pointed out, "you get all the fructose and none of the fiber" to counter balance), cut out diet soda and caffine and now only drink water (spring, filtered, or distilled), cut out peanuts (they were causing inflammation -- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344167)), eat protein in the morning and make sure I consume enough nutrients throughout the day to keep my system in balance.

For me, cutting out wheat was one of the key factors ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693679)) because I suspect the wheat/yeast was throwing my intestinal microbes out of balance ([http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/health/studies-focus-on- gu...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/health/studies-focus-on-gut-bacteria- in-weight-loss.html)) and causing inflamation so when I cut it out, things returned to homeostasis.

</comment><comment><USER33> Despite the sensationalist headline, the author knew exactly what he was doing. He basically did a paleo diet, and references a bunch of books that are popular in the community. Mark's Daily Apple features a success story like this every Friday: [http://www.marksdailyapple.com](http://www.marksdailyapple.com).

<comment><USER34> Agreed. I found the author's account inspiring, and I immediately recognized his overall outline as a basic paleo diet. I started down a paleo path fairly recently, hoping to lose a few pounds. I surprised myself by realizing after about a week that I was feeling so much better physically, I wasn't very concerned anymore about a relatively few extra pounds.

FWIW, it was the "Latest in Paleo" podcast that inspired me to try a paleo approach to life. It's one of the overall best podcasts I've had the pleasure of subscribing to: [http://www.latestinpaleo.com/podcast/](http://www.latestinpaleo.com/podcast/)

I wish Dion all the best with making his success long term!

<comment><USER33> Latest in Paleo is a great resource to keep up with health news, and Anthony Coppola is a very inspiring guy. I really like Robb Wolf's podcast as well as it occasionally has some science (scary!) for us who like to geek out on this stuff: [http://robbwolf.com/podcast/](http://robbwolf.com/podcast/). I lost 45 lbs within the first three months. There's no way I'd eat any differently anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've suffered with excess weight most of my life. It doesn't help that sit at a desk for up to twelve hours a day. There's more to losing weight than just calories out are more than calories in. You have to be active. I've been on a reduced calorie diet. Sure, you'll lose weight at first; however, if you don't develop a healthy lifestyle (getting out and doing things on a regular basis) the weight will just come back.

When I left for undergrad over ten years ago, I was heavy. During my undergrad years, I walked everywhere or rode a bike everywhere. I lost about fifty pounds in two years. I put all of it back on and more once I graduated and started working at a desk all day. I feel miserable everyday now because of all this excess weight I carry, which is why I've decided to start riding a bike again everywhere when I get back to California on Monday. I'm finally going to put the car to rest.

</comment><comment><USER36> > Within two weeks I lost ~20 pounds.

More than a pound a day, I can almost not believe this. In pure fat that would be about 5000kcal a day.

<comment><USER37> Well, about twenty implies not much better than one sig fig, so I'm not willing to go more precise than around a pound/day.

A pound of fat is a mere 3500 calories. Why can he only be losing pure 100% fat? As a farmer rule of thumb a pound of raw cow is only about 1000 calories. I looked it up on google and its actually closer to 1300. Anyway the point is that your average people-of-walmart dieter probably biologically internally resembles a cow more than, say, a tank of olive oil, so I'd expect a delta- one-pound for a human to be much closer than 1300 or so input calories. If on the other hand you are a tank of biodiesel wondering how many calories of olive oil to add to weight one more pound, then sure it'll take 3500, but us mammals are more "a bit over a thousand cal per pound" in overall bulk average. Not this 3500 foolishness.

Finally maybe TMI but at the fattest weight I was ever at, given my height, a basal metabolic rate calculator estimated me at around 2500 calories just laying around doing nothing, like in a coma. But I like long distance hikes and stuff like that and even just housework burns more than the catatonic basal estimate. So I can easily see 3500 cal going out per day, cutting intake back to a "mere" 2200 calories per day coming in, net big mammal carcass equivalent of 1300 cal per pound, ta da, loss of a pound a day still eating a chezeburger for dinner.

Its quite achievable.

<comment><USER38> Obese humans are nothing like a cow internally. Cows going to slaughter have between 19 and 26% body fat. Obesity in humans starts around 26% for men and the people-of-walmart you're imaging are 40-50% body fat. Cows are also herbivores and process food in a different way than humans.

This kind of bad logic is why people have such a hard time tracking calories to lose weight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> You can gain back a lot more than you lose, even if you get into a habit of "better" eating and more exercise for months.

You probably think that exercising and eating "better" should be fine, because anything you do for three weeks becomes a habit, right? Well, not exactly. Bad habits can be much harder to break, and you may not have really broken them the way you think you have: [http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/form-a- habit.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/form-a-habit.htm)

Be really careful before a drastic change to your diet and exercise habits just to lose 10-15 lbs, especially if your doctor and the majority of those close to you don't think you need to lose weight. It can backfire.

However, a gradual change, especially when you can do it in a reasonable, sustainable way, can be a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think he contradicts himself by saying,

"I am the same person now as I was then. I am not a better person,"

and then, a few paragraphs down...

"Mentally I was so much happier, my mood changed and I was able to deal with other things so much better."

I think when you shed weight, you change -- both physically and mentally.

I wrote an article about phantom buzzing/ringing (when you feel/hear your phone ringing when it's not) and its occurrence follows the same principle of your brain making adjustments to your body. I think the key takeaway in this article is you have to "re-program" your mind, over time, to get certain outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't get the title at all. It seems like a very concerted effort using a bit of trial and error, changing things, seeing what works, what doesn't and having success. Or did I miss the joke?

<comment><USER27> Agreed. At first I thought he'd just woke up on morning and been like "Wow, I've lost a lot of weight".

<comment><USER42> I was thinking more along the lines of the title being what most people in London are thinking on a Saturday morning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've read an awful lot on the topic of weight reduction. I wont say that the article states something unique but I do appreciate the detailing. Good read.

</comment><comment><USER44> "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food" ― Hippocrates

As for myself, I don't know whom to trust anymore, but there are a few common themes: \- varied diet is better \- raw food (not processed) is better. You haven't evolved eating processed food. \- use very little or no sugar. It's related to be above, really - humans used to be unable to get so much sugar.

</comment><comment><USER45> front page? seriously? you guys don't cease to surprise.

<comment><USER46> HN has lots of people who read a diet book that taught them a Deep Secret about weight; they're bursting to share it with the unenlightened masses. So up they go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Figured I might as well take advantage of this thread to ask the opposite question: what is the best way to _gain_ weight?

I stopped gaining weight at around 17 and have weighed 120 since. I wish I could eat more but I am just not that hungry every day, it's hard getting in my 3 meals.

<comment><USER48> [http://www.scrawnytobrawny.com/](http://www.scrawnytobrawny.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Weight loss always seems to be the most compelling of all personal transformations. Maybe its the before and after pics.

</comment><comment><USER50> Misleading title. Was expecting article on some mystery disease.

</comment><comment><USER51> > 20 pounds in first 2 weeks... > vegetables... high protein... no sugar... > > purposefully didn't start exercising yet... > Gary Taubes ...

I've seen exactly this a few times. None of those people were _very_ fat to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER52> 3/4 of the way through I thought I might be reading a big ad. But I'm glad this guy is doing well anyway.

</comment><comment><USER53> I've lost over 120 pounds. It's not very hard. I started powerlifting and eating extremely clean, counting all my calories, getting in 8-9 hours of sleep a night.

Now I can squat 315lbs+, Deadlift 450+, and bench 250+. Feels good.

</comment><comment><USER54> If losing fat were as easy as "calories in = calories out", then more people would do it. While it is strictly true, the problem is that you we don't understand the exact equations for both calories in and calories out, and we often don't have control over the parameters. What will you do about you gut flora, which can alter just how efficiently calories in concerts to calories out?

There are many and powerful issues at hand. You cannot just dismiss the issue as thermogenic.

<comment><USER55> >>If losing fat were as easy as "calories in = calories out", then more people would do it.

It is _simple_ , not easy. Do not confuse the two.

<comment><USER54> Bite me, Poindexter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> >I am annoyed at myself for letting me get to be ~300 pounds in the first place (the main point about that is that I let myself get that unhealthy, to a point where I increased my risk of death, which was irresponsible given the fact that I have family and friends)

Though I would feel worse about it if you did not have friends, either way becoming unhealthy is irresponsible because it causes a public burden. If you die, someone is going to have to come clean your body up. Whether any of your money makes it to the pocket of those people is irrelevant.

No one likes cleaning up dead bodies. Just because you are paying a doctor, does not mean you are 100% entitled and you _aren 't_ creating a burden. Doctors take an oath to help the sick. They _have_ to help you in an emergency. Whether you are paying or not.

This for me is one of the major holes in libertarianism.

<comment><USER57> I consider becoming unhealthy as irrational, because it leads to a diminished quality of life for me and the people I care about.

<comment><USER56> I agree. Also, I did not mean "you" specifically in my comment. I meant it generally.

The OP (your) story in general is great. I was just trying to pontificate on something unpopular.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Sysadmin Casts – simple bite-sized sysadmin screencasts - <AUTHOR> http://sysadmincasts.com <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a site I've been working on for over a year now. Actually posted to HN asking for feedback on the idea [1]. So far, it's been a slow road, no over night success or anything, slowly building the site and releasing new episodes as I have time.

Personally, it has been a major growing experience, and showed me the power of the internet. People from all over the world are emailing me out of the blue (and it's not spam!). Almost jaw dropping to think about it. If you have an idea, work on it, release it, refine it, and see where it goes. I had always just sat on my ideas.

Happy to answer any questions, comments, or concerns.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5828603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5828603)

<comment><USER2> Comment: There are thousands of guides, HOWTOs, forums, mailing lists, etc out there to teach you how to set up basic tools in Linux. To me this doesn't constitute being a sysadmin and is only a small part of the job.

It would be really neat if you interviewed a bunch of sysadmins with long resumes, maybe people who give talks at LISA, NANOG, etc. People from different industries probably have vastly different work environments. Ask them if they have any noteworthy experiences, lessons learned, or tips that work towards developing the career versus just Linux-literacy. There's a lot of knowledge out there that isn't written down anywhere.

<comment><USER3> I'll counter with the fact that I think consistent, accurate, and up-to-date "basic usage" information is still really hard to come by for a linux newbie. The thousands of guides, HOWTOs, forums, mailing lists, etc just means that in addition to trying to learn the system, they also have to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff, information-wise.

I've known plenty of people who are very good programmers or Windows admin- types who would make very good linux sysadmins, but for the huge hurdle of not _learning linux_ , but _learning how to learn linux_.

That's not to discount your suggestion around expert tips/war stories/etc., though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's something about this site that's very www-of-1996 for me, in the best way possible.

That is, here's a site full of useful information, obviously created by someone who is interested in the subject and cares about it. And not a single "Subscribe for $X a month now!" button to be found. No "call to action" to bleet/myface/instasnap all my friends a link. No "enter your contact info to be funneled into my sales lead generator service that's the actual reason for this site to exist" text box.

It's freaking refreshing. This reminds me of back in the day when _most_ webpages were basically "Here's something I care about and think is cool. Here's what I have to share regarding it. No, I don't expect anything in return, other than maybe a friendly email or two." These types of sites still exist, but they seem to be a distinct minority.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words. Originally, I didn't even want to host a mailing list (via "get notified" link in the header), but tptacek convinced me it was a good idea [1], and he was right, it opened an invaluable communication channel with my viewers. In the future, I might follow the 90s shareware model, use till you find it useful, then donate. But we'll see how it plays out. Just felt strange asking for money when I didn't think I had enough content/wasn't good enough yet.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5828686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5828686)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, that's really neat! Just a small idea, if you don't mind: perhaps you could have a list (either curated or crowd sourced) of eventual topics to be covered in future screencasts so people can upvote or downvote them according to their preference? This way you'd know your audience and they'd tell you in advance how to drive the production of the screencasts. Anyway, I've shared it with friends already and have also subscribed for the next screencasts. Good job, Justin!

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, this is a great idea. Thanks, I'll put something together so everyone is on the _same page_!

<comment><USER5> A suggestion to help you avoid building something out right now. Use a public Trello board. Add each idea as a card and have one card specific for people to comment on. The cards you add can go into a list called "potential stuff" and people can vote on them.

(This is kind of how to the Trello team works as well. They have a public dev board for people to see what's coming up and what's just been released.)

Good luck with the project. Thank you so much for this. It's extremely useful

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny you mention Trello, because that is what I'm using right now for all my ideas ;) I have lots of lists with cards for the different idea types. It's actually really nice because behind each card you can have notes, checklists, etc. So, as I'm researching the ideas I'm updating the cards.

<comment><USER5> I've had a Trello card system up as well. I kept my ideas dumped into it publicly in hopes that that would raise my accountability and get me off my procrastinating ass to get work done. My procrastinating ass turned out to be much stronger than I expected sadly. Even so, the system is gold and I use it in organizing pretty much everything I need to do.

(I also pledge, that the day I start earning money from my side projects, if I ever release that is, I'll buy into their paid plan).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really happy to see this project get more attention (I just heard about it today). The screencasts alone are well-produced enough to make it worth bookmarking, but the impressive part is the well-formatted transcripts...it's already a pain to edit video well, nevermind try to match it up with text and code. I'd demand that this be considered best and required practice, but that's a lot of work to ask from independent screencasters, but when it's done, it makes the content so much more accessible and consumable.

Also what's neat, at least to a novice like me, is the kind of basics that get covered...sysadmin involves so many different systems and technologies it's difficult to know where the hell to start from, short of shadowing someone at their day job. There's a great foundation here...and thanks to the near- timelessness of *.nix, it's one that will be valuable and relevant, hopefully, for the next few decades. Kudos to the OP.

<comment><AUTHOR> The transcripts are probably the since most commented on feature. It is a lot of work, but having something that you can copy/paste if you are trying to do this yourself, is something worth putting the effort into. I sometimes even find myself coming back to an episode and looking at the commands ;)

Just wanted to say, thanks for the kind words!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ok, I just had to come here after watching Episode 24 end to end. I had always wanted to learn about the concept of containers and your episode has illuminated me. Next will be Episode 14.

One comment: I only came here to see how to compensate you for my learning. Look, you spent a lot of time on this. You are trying to be nice and everything, but I think if I gave you a $20 then you would save on a meal, which anybody can appreciate. I know you are going to say "No, no need" whatever. Which is ok. But remember that you need to see some good impact on your bottom line so that you can keep this going.

That's all. Send us a paypal link or whatever.

Thank you for teaching me something today that I really wanted to learn. And in 20 minutes!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great resource. Free. What can I say more.

I think one of issue of SysAdmin is that when you read a tutorial and type the command the result, the output is just different and you have no way to validate that the method/command/param is right.

Now with the video, all are there. I know it worked for s.o. If if isn't on my machine, it's my own problem.

I think you should contact [http://serversforhackers.com/](http://serversforhackers.com/) to get some advertisement for increasing traffic. It has no way this kind of resource get into the dust.

Hope many people upvote to let this great resource spread out itself.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Shut up and take my money!"

PLEASE CHARGE MONEY for this, as great as the stuff you have up looks already I can't help think how much more time and energy you could devote to this if your were charging a small subscription service. I'm thinking similar to RailsCasts at $9/month

As a web developer who is trying to do more and more sysadmin stuff I can say that this kind of resource is just what I need. Syadmin seems to be trailing way behind development in terms of resources for people looking to get started.

</comment><comment><USER10> Subscribed. Could you do one on using MAC such as SELinux or ideally GRSecurity?

Too many people end up disabling them and putting their box at a much higher risk of compromise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, absolutely on both SELinux/GRSecurity fronts. I 100% agree that they get disabled because no one knows what they hell they are doing and just need them to get out of the way. If there was some simple tutorials then this would probably go a looong way. I've added them to the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks really good. GJ :)

One feature suggestion: User comments on casts. Could be done with up/down voting. This gives the users a possibility to help each other clear up things they were unclear on after watching a video. Look at Kahn Academy for an example of what I'm thinking.

</comment><comment><USER12> Excellent. Just excellent. Now that many web developers use heroku right out of the gate, they've never had to really dive too deeply into unix (newbies, that is).

Throw a stripe checkout for $10 / month on there and you've got an excellent business.

<comment><USER13> And keep in mind that many of us will very happily pay for this. I think it's admirable to want to do this for free, but it's unsustainable. You deserve to be paid for your time. And it will only create a feedback loop of higher quality content that more people want, which you can gauge by whether people are paying.

<comment><USER14> I know someone who does very well off a how-to website, no payments but advertising and evergreen content. Especially since customers are Linuxy, he might not want to put a paywall up unless he's very sure. Alternatively, create videos for tools that only real companies would use and charge for those. E.g. Puppet, Chef etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe put some of the commands / tools used near the top (e.g. RHS) and/or tag the videos with them somewhere. You could then have one or many aggregation pages highlighting ways to use certain commands or tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! This might help find related episodes more easily. For example, that puppet and vagrant might go together, etc. Maybe even a master list of commands and then links out to the episodes or something. I'll ponder this and put something together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be great if you had a Twitter account to notify of new screencasts too!

<comment><AUTHOR> In the works (also, thanks for the feedback)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> While I like the idea, the content seems to be aimed at a very junior audience, almost really for desktop support techs that are thinking of career progression. It would be great to see some more advanced material on topics such as kernel / network tuning, PostgreSQL clustering, btrfs workflows and automation, service discovery (serf, consul, etcd), ruby for Sysadmins, backup automation etc etc etc

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I hear you. HN users caio1982, actually had an awesome idea, it was to create a page on the site where users could up/down vote and submit episode idea [1]. This might be a good way to get the pulse of what people want.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8011626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8011626)

<comment><USER17> The sysadmin stackoverflow might be a good source of ideas for episodes too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> read sysadmin cats, got very excited until I clicked on link...

Edit: great source nonetheless

<comment><USER19> I did the same thing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why did you decide to use a custom video player and not an established service like YouTube or Vimeo? I think a lot of people forget how much time these services spend optimising their video players and delivery. Plus, these services are another avenue of content discovery.

Can't see any reasons against using one of these services.

<comment><USER21> The only reason to use Youtube at this point is to get eyeballs. I can see 2 problems with YT.

1\. Their contentID system makes you have to prove you are not a thief.

2\. Shifting revenue stream distribution are only ever good for Youtube first and publishers second. They are a big organization now. Some would say a monopoly. If they can't get 10% revenue growth from their users they'll carve it from under their publishers.

I think YT and Vimeo are really good but even I enjoy having a healthy market where all types of players exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You should probably call it devops, since everyone who has ever written part of a shell script is a devop.

<comment><USER23> ..maybe since we started using that buzzword 5 or so years ago, but sysadmins have written shell scripts since the birth of *NIX operating systems...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I initially read the title as 'Sysadmin Cats'... which could be funny if it got the Oatmeal treatment. That said, I'm interested in watching some screencasts when I get a chance. It looks like you already have a decent and growing library. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER24> Continuous play would be nice! Watching all 27 episodes in one sitting to get up to speed.

</comment><comment><USER25> This looks great, and super useful! My only suggestion would be to enhance the player to allow me to playback at 1.5x and 2x speed. The HTML5 player on youtube has this and once you start using it, you want it everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nicely done, good work. I just tweeted about this, you deserve traffic and kudos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks! I'll check out that issue with adblockplus too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great content.

How are you handling hosting for your videos and are the costs manageable?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am using AWS S3/CloudFront (should probably do an episode on it ;). Just to give you an idea of how awesome it is. There were 200+ people on the site when this hit the front page [1]. The site is still really fast and the bill will likely be less than $5.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/MR4hctd.png](http://i.imgur.com/MR4hctd.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Neat videos! Have you considered adding media enclosures to your RSS feed so it is a podcast? I usually watch videos like these on the go.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, someone actually emailed me with a script to make this happen (even included a diff of my current rss feed to the new one -- blown away). I will be adding this shortly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Your video player does not show controls ([http://cdn.sublimevideo.net/js/03un6j5a.js](http://cdn.sublimevideo.net/js/03un6j5a.js) as linked in the HTML redirects to [http://sublimevideo.net](http://sublimevideo.net), not JS)

<comment><AUTHOR> What OS/browser are you using? Here's a screenshot of the controls on my box ubuntu/firefox @ [http://i.imgur.com/cI19BOl.png](http://i.imgur.com/cI19BOl.png)

Do you have adblock/noscript/flashblock running?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> looks great</comment>


Microsoft, FUD and the netbook market - <AUTHOR> http://blog.canonical.com/?p=151

<comment><USER2> FUD? Ahem: "a safe, virus free environment without having to run expensive anti-virus software that slows PCs down"

This is misleading. While Ubuntu-targeted _viruses_ are exceedingly rare, there's far more to safety than this. There are plenty of vulnerabilities due to the software running on the OS.

A cursory search turns up a list (<http://preview.tinyurl.com/dzaq6x> ), including Firefox vulnerabilities like this: <http://www.doecirc.energy.gov/ciac/bulletins/t-092.shtml>

It _may_ be that Ubuntu offers superior safety, but hyperbole like this article presents is only going to turn off any skeptic that's not already in the Linux camp.

<comment><AUTHOR> In practice, this sentence is very correct. Windows installations become infected with malware as soon as you connect them to the net. An Ubuntu installation is usually safe, as long as you update it regularly. FUD is when you announce false things or exaggerate negligible details in order to make your competition look worse. I don't think that there's any user of windows who wouldn't agree that combating malware is a core experience of running windows.</comment></comment>


ChatGT: Anonymous live chat on every website - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chatgt/odoailephbfiobdjfmdndooklmnenjop

<comment><USER2> Oh, wow. Think about this. The internet experience may have just changed, and changed forever.</comment>


Microsoft: This Is How We Design Today - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/microsoft-this-is-how-we-design-today-511913156

<comment><USER2> It's great to see that Microsoft has begun to put a greater emphasis on design. It will be interesting to see if they are able to win some of the 'cool factor' from Apple.</comment>


What's Really Standing in the Way of Amazon Drones - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/all-things-scm/ff3f16dd9457

<comment><AUTHOR> In a word: insurance.</comment>


Cloudup acquired by Automattic - <AUTHOR> https://cloudup.com/blog/cloudup-automattic

<comment><USER2> Next up: WordPress in Node.

(j/k, but looking forward to getting more node.js services running as part of WordPress.com.)

<comment><USER3> _Next up: WordPress in Node._

Can you expand more on this?

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/visionmedia](https://github.com/visionmedia), one of the most prolific node developers, works for cloudup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As siong1987 mentioned, Cloudup was previously LearnBoost, creators of socket.io which came from heaven and replaced the horror that was Orbited for real time abstractions around websocket.

I'm happy for them that they ended up at an awesome company.

<comment><USER6> Was Cloudup a spin-off servic? LearnBoost still seems to be available ([https://www.learnboost.com/](https://www.learnboost.com/))

<comment><USER7> IIRC, they were going to keep LearnBoost running but without continued development on it. I wonder what the acquisition means for LearnBoost though - did Automattic acquire that as well, and if so, what will they do with it?

<comment><USER6> Just noticed a blog post regarding the announcement on learnboost.com ([https://www.learnboost.com/blog/learnboost- automattic/](https://www.learnboost.com/blog/learnboost-automattic/)). They mention "LearnBoost's amazing classroom software will not be changing, and the entire suite of apps will remain free. Aside from ramping up performance enhancements, you'll enjoy all the wonderful, free services that you've come to love. For the most part, it's business as usual, but we're excited to have more manpower behind scaling our infrastructure to make sure LearnBoost remains lightning fast and reliable."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm getting tired of repeating this every time. WordPress.com does NOT power the 20% of the internet. The open source WordPress project does. WordPress.com represent a small % of all the WordPress installations.

<comment><USER2> I'd estimate WP.com is about half of all WP installations, maybe more.

<comment><USER8> > WordPress powers 20% of the Internet (yes, you read that correctly!), > meaning they've got a ton of experience scaling services

My point is that these two sentences are totally true, but put together like that are misleading. And that's a bit discouraging for the non-automatticians contributing to core.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's pretty obvious why Automattic acquired Cloudup and it's a one worded competitor: Ghost. With this acquisition Automattic have just obtained some highly talented Node.JS developers who no doubt will be vital to the survival of Wordpress in the coming months and years. This is actually what Wordpress needed, they've become somewhat comfortable in their own skin in many ways.

I think the reality of Ghost being a serious contender in the blogging space forced Automattic's hand here. When a product gets the backing of not one, but two of the most popular companies currently churning out commercial Wordpress themes (Envato's Themeforest and Woothemes) you know you've got a potential fight on your hands. Not to mention the backing of Microsoft, with Internet Explorer being a support partner of Ghost as well.

Could we potentially be seeing a Node.JS powered version of Wordpress in the coming months as well? A more stripped back and super fast interpretation of the blogging software running a NoSQL database and at the same time, give Ghost a run for their money? I certainly hope so, because it would mean I wouldn't have to spend so much time and money scaling Apache/NGINX/MySQL servers all the time because Wordpress likes to chew RAM and smash MySQL databases.

<comment><USER10> > _I think the reality of Ghost being a serious contender in the blogging > space forced Automattic 's hand here._

I don't think you understand how well entrenched Wordpress is.

> _Could we potentially be seeing a Node.JS powered version of Wordpress in > the coming months as well?_

In case you were wondering, ShitHNSays was shut down by Twitter. So there's no point trying to get syndicated, sorry.

<comment><USER9> * > I don't think you understand how well entrenched Wordpress is. *

As someone who makes a living from Wordpress, yes I do realise. However, I also realise there is a market for a better alternative to Wordpress for blogging. Medium I think has shown there is a demand for a nicely designed blog application with focus on content.

Have you ever tried scaling Wordpress to thousands of visitors per day before? It takes a whole lot more than installing a caching plugin... Using Wordpress as a blog from a cost perspective is expensive, especially once you install a few plugins to make the overall experience better. A Node.JS powered version of Wordpress would be something I would jump on if it were to ever come to fruition.

Wordpress for use just as a blog nowadays is crazy. You don't install Wordpress if you want a simple blog, you install it if you want a website. It's a CMS, not a blogging platform any more. People are yearning for alternatives, Ghost might not reach the scale of Wordpress and usage stats over night, but I think it will make a splash. It's launch partners (Microsoft, Woothemes, Envato) have a lot of pulling power to get people on board.

* > In case you were wondering, ShitHNSays was shut down by Twitter. So there's no point trying to get syndicated, sorry. *

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I just Googled ShitHNSays and didn't even realise it existed until now. No need for the sarcasm and condescending attitude. Just because you are obviously against people voicing their opinions on subjects you deem yourself to be all knowing about, doesn't give you the right to be a jerk about it.

<comment><USER10> > _Have you ever tried scaling Wordpress to thousands of visitors per day > before?_

Yes. I've been doing it for almost a decade.

I _hate_ Wordpress. But basically, we're going to be stuck with it for a while. Network effects and path dependency cannot be shifted by a technology that is merely a bit better from the POV of commissioning end-users.

Consider: under what circumstances will the thousands of PHP developers who write the tangled cthulucode which underpins Wordpress and its ecosystem drop everything and simultaneously rewrite the core + thousands of plugins + tens of thousands of themes?

Your remarks are wildly wishful thinking. They remind me of "imagine a beowulf cluster".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> See also Matt's recent post on the relaunch of Simplenote:

[http://ma.tt/2013/09/on-the-new-simplenote/](http://ma.tt/2013/09/on-the-new- simplenote/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Interested to see what TJ and Guillermo would do for Wordpress... considering now there is already a Node.js based competitor (Ghost)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm having trouble understanding why a bandwidth bill for 1.5tb is an achievement.

<comment><USER14> I am thinking it was more for the team, knowing what they are capable of. TJ and Guillermo are very well known developers in the node.js scene. If you ever used node.js for web development, you have used some of their work.

[https://github.com/visionmedia](https://github.com/visionmedia) [https://github.com/guille](https://github.com/guille)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well that was fast.

<comment><USER16> It took a while. CloudUp was a pivot from LearnBoost which was a product that they had been running for years.

<comment><USER17> Yep. LearnBoost was incorporated from my dorm room on Jan 4, 2010 - but I had been working on it on my own for months before the incorporation. Then I raised most of our seed round, merged with Guillermo and Thianh... from which we built LB, a huge open source presence in Node.js, tried everything possible to grow on the edtech side, and _then_ launched Cloudup in June 2013

<comment><USER6> Amazing work on LearnBoost and congratulations on the acquisition! I'm on the PTO board at my son's elementary school and would love to get his school on the LearnBoost platform. Before pitching to the administration, is the platform completely Node.js? Is there a paid support option? Is it self-hosted or hosted on LearnBoost? Do you plan to continue development going forward?

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER19> Smart move. I think it's time for Marissa/Tumblr to buy doctape now ;-)</comment>


Countries are still paying off debt from World War 1 - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/290183/in-2014-countries-are-still-paying-off-debt-from-world-war-one/ <comment><USER2> On a related note, shells fired during WWI are still killing people today. Hell of a thing, to fire a weapon and kill someone a hundred years later.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-26654314](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26654314)

<comment><USER3> The most recent casualty of the U.S. Civil War lived to see Obama voted into office. He is unlikely to be the last.

UXO is a hell of a thing.

<comment><USER4> The last Civil War veteran died in 1956; the last to have seen combat died in 1953.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Woolson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Woolson)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hard)

And the last Revolutionary War veteran died in 1866. (The year after our Civil War ended, in case you don't know much American history.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuel_Cook](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuel_Cook)

<comment><USER5> They're talking about unexploded ordnance: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordinance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordinance)

I don't know if there's a more recent example of Civil War UXO causing injuries, but here's a news article about a man killed in February 2008: [http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/05/02/virginia-man- killed-...](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/05/02/virginia-man-killed-in- civil-war-cannonball-blast/)

<comment><USER3> That is the incident I was thinking of, although I seem to have misremembered the date of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Misleading. The debts in question could have been paid off years ago if anyone had wanted to, but they were at such low rates of interest that it was better to pay off more recent debts instead.

<comment><USER7> True. In 1990 Germany had €125 million debt outstanding. Easy to pay off if they wanted. Instead a new contract was signed with 20 annual installments.

<comment><USER8> And note that those 125 million were only outstanding because their payment had been frozen while the country was divided. Someone made a HUGE profit on what were fore decades essentially super-junk bonds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The country next to Germany, Austria, has to pay to both the allied forces and soviets (russia) for WW 1 & WW 2: much of the former land mass that formed Austria (it's now tiny), a lot of money, gold, natural ressources (like rare earth and food to the soviets) and as usual after wars they captured and removed all valuable technology. The allied bombed many cities and railway stations and 10% didn't exploded and many are still in the ground (the chemical ignotion mechanism is still active and several bombs detonate each year).

<comment><USER10> Is your comment supposed to make someone feel sorry about a country that helped start wars that led to _tens of millions of lost lives_ and devastated much of the continent for decades?

<comment><USER11> I'm British and live in Germany. My grandparents and my wife's grandparents fought on different sides of WWII. In WWI my grandfather won the Military Medal (the highest possible recognition for a non-commisioned soldier) aged 19.

My children have dual nationality. Let's apportion your Nazi blame on them shall we?

Attitudes like yours solve nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Governments have rarelybpaid down debt in absolute terms (there are exceptions eg Australia at one point). Generally it shrinks as a percentage if GDP at best. If nominal GDP ever stops growing it will never be paid off. Hence 2% inflation targets...

<comment><USER13> Taking on debt is also necessary for a functioning financial system with the US gov playing an important role as global debtor of last resort. Money has no intrinsic value, and the only way to save it is for someone else to borrow and spend it!

Inflation is basically a tax on savings, which is not that bad when you consider again that money has no value. A low inflation rate then creates subtle pressure for people to invest money productively (or just spend it) as they lose out if they just hide it under their mattress. A high inflationary rate is not good, of course, as you basically can't save at all, while deflation is also bad because it rewards saving and causes value to evaporate (since money has no intrinsic value, things produced have to be bought and used...).

<comment><USER14> This is a very Keynesian way to look at things that isn't necessarily absolutely true. There are a lot of times when this ideal of "slight inflation" is detrimental given the actual output of said policies.

<comment><USER13> For example, when? There are very fundamental truths here; e.g. consumption has to match production with very few exceptions, no matter how much someone has to save (or can't spend according to what they are earning). You might be able to save for a rainy day (or retirement), but it is impossible for the world to do that (instead, they must invest for the future to prepare for that rainy day).

I'm not sure you could find a single serious economist who would claim "slight inflation is bad;" i.e. would argue that 2-3% is worse than 0%. Maybe a libertarian, but there is a good reason we never vote them into power.

<comment><USER15> You have no idea what you're talking about.

Inflation is a tax on savings, but that's alright because money has no value?! But if money actually had no value, there would be no use for it.

Consumption "has to" match production?! What's that supppsed to mean? If I produce something no one wants, people "have to" consume it anyway?

You say inflation is good because it motivates people to invest (because their money loses value just sitting in a bank), but why wouldn't people want to invest even if their money was gaining in value? The purchasing power of whatever money you earn through investments is increased by deflation too, so the sooner you make a good investment, the better off you'll be.

<comment><USER13> Money has no intrinsic value, it only has value based on trust that the money We receive can be used to purchase other goods. The value of money is set by the markets (and indirectly by prices, wages, and printing new bills).

If you produce and no one buys, then you stop producing because you are providing no value; simple. If your production is non perishable, you could pay rent and upkeep to stockpile it, but value is lost regardless.

People have an incentive not to invest because investing is risky. Many would just sit on a gold hoard than to risk losing it, but that behavior doesn't solve any consumption problems (worse, it leads to temporary deflation, since that gold is taken out of circulation).

This isn't rocket sicence, most of us have college degrees, this is just Econ 101.

<comment><USER16> You've just said that everything produced must be consumed. Now you have a more realistic model, with stocks. You are still missing waste. Keep improving it, and you may come into something useful.

You seem to have misunderstood you Econ 101 classes because "supply" isn't the same thing as "production", "demand" isn't equivalent to "consumption", and "intrinsic value" is a completely artificial construct.

Also, people save mostly because they want to spend later, invest mostly because they want to have more money, and consume mostly because they want the wealth. Inflation and deflation have very complex and often non-intuitive relations with those three. You can't just extrapolate from Econ 101, not even after you understand it right.

<comment><USER13> I didn't confuse production and consumption with supply and demand, which anyways determines costs and is not the point. We simply have little capacity to save production like we can save water in a reservoir. People save because they want to spend later, sure, but again, that is irrelevant, because production can't be saved in general someone else must borrow.

Investments require taking on risk and...they actually require skills to do right (e.g. Doing your homework). So you might want to invest to get rich, but you might not want to invest because you aren't good at it or do t want to become poor. It still has to be incentivized, especially when most people just want comfortable lives.

You seem to have an agenda in introducing more relationshios above this one simple fact. So make your point rather than just claiming my ignorance, because no points were argued in your post.

<comment><USER15> > production can't be saved in general someone else must borrow

What's that supposed to mean?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> no better read than "Debt, the first 5,000 years" to realize you can't possibly be cynical enough about the nature of debt.

[http://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years- ebook/dp/B00513...](http://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years- ebook/dp/B00513DGIO/)

<comment><USER18> From the Amazon description:

> He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of > law and religion (words like "guilt," "sin," and "redemption") derive in > large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic > ideas of right and wrong.

Did he just rewrite Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It was only 100 years ago. Countries are still issuing 100 year bonds today. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/mexico-said-to- sell...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/mexico-said-to-sell- benchmark-100-year-bond-in-british-pounds.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> A quote from an econ professor:

"Economists hate war because it's the equivalent of taking your economy out the back and shooting it"

</comment><comment><USER21> Ah, that's nothing. The brits still haven't paid off the loan some guy named William III took out in the 1690's.

Shirkers.

<comment><USER22> The people from the bank do visit, but Liz set the corgis on them last time while Philip waved a shotgun around and shouted something rather rude, so they are leaving it another decade or two before they try again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> >So the solution to this was brokered by the future US vice-president Charles Dawe, who in 1924 proposed that the US lend money to Germany to fund its reparation payments to France and the UK, who in turn would use the money to repay their war debts. The solution was so good that Dawes won the Nobel Peace Prize the next year in recognition. And the plan worked.

Wow.

</comment><comment><USER24> One could argue that the true cost of war can never be repaid.

</comment><comment><USER25> I recall a bond from the 1700's in London that isn't being paid off. It had a structure that made it better to simply pay the interest rather than pay out the full bond.

Looking it up, I think it was probably a british Consul. A type of perpetual bond. Which in the case, you have very little reason to redeem it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consol_(bond)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consol_\(bond\))

<comment><USER26> Until fairly recently before QE the 4% consol was well under par around 70 and so would have been costly to redeem.

I looked at buying some of the consols for my ISA last month - its one of the few ways of getting a safe investment that pays more than inflation.

<comment><USER12> The 4% Consol is the one being redeemed. Not entirely clear why - they could buy it back cheaper in the market than paying par.

<comment><USER26> I know I was vaguely looked at the 4% consuls as investment before the crash they where selling for around 60/70 in 2008

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Even worse than that,

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti)

France demanded that Haiti pay the modern equivalent of $21 billion in debt for the "loss of men and slave colony".

</comment><comment><USER28> Here's an example of 19th century debt in NYC

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/nyregion/13jerome.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/nyregion/13jerome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER29> Wars would be over sooner if it wasn't for debt.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Germany makes it's last World War 1 payment 2010

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/legacy-of- versai...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/legacy-of-versailles- germany-closes-book-on-world-war-i-with-final-reparations- payment-a-720156.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> Had it not been for WWI, most of the globe might still be under colonial rules.

<comment><USER31> Didn't the main release of colonial nations happen after WW2?

Most of Africa, Palestine/Israel, India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> wow</comment>


Silicene discovered: Single-layer silicon that could beat graphene to market - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/127887-silicene-discovered-single-layer-silicon-that-could-beat-graphene-to-market <comment><USER2> "Silicene (pictured right) is more exciting than graphene because, technically, it should be compatible with silicon-based electronics "

I think they mean "anecdotally" not "technically". Why would it be compatible? Because they both start with "sili"?

<comment><USER3> From the paper: "The synthesis of silicene opens up interesting perspectives since silicene, with nontrivial electronic structure and a spin-orbit coupling of 1.55 meV that is much larger than that of graphene, is predicted to exhibit a quantum spin Hall effect in an accessible temperature regime. Moreover, silicene can more easily be integrated into current Si-based electronics compared to graphene."

In a nutshell, we know a heck of a lot more about using silicon for devices than carbon. So interfacing this with current silicon devices and making advances in understanding will likely occur more quickly.

<comment><USER2> But we know almost nothing about the properties of this rarely-seen variant, silicene. Like graphene, it may exhibit wildly different responses than normal silicon.

That paper simply repeats the same unsupported optimism as the puff piece - "can more easily be integrate" - really? How? Again, because of the name?

Consider: if silicene ends up useful, it will be precisely because of how very different it is than current silicon forms. Integration challenges will revolve around manufacturing e.g. deposition and adhesion and a hundred other factors, none of which resemble normal silicon properties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having worked at Cree with silicon carbide, I wonder if a single layer of SiC (silico-carbene?) is possible to synthesize... I'm sure it would have all kinds of exciting implications for LEDs.

<comment><USER4> Here's a possible way for a DIY materials science enthusiast to try synthesizing it cheaply: synthesize graphene using a blu-ray player[0], spray with liquid glass[1], then reduce to get rid of the O2 in SiO2. I'd try it, but I have too many other projects going on... if anyone tries it, let us know if it works out.

 _Edit:_ thinking about it more, it would be kind of hard for a DIY enthusiast to reduce with e.g. the household kitchen oven. Still, a university lab could try it rather easily.

[0] [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122763-graphene- supercapa...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122763-graphene- supercapacitors-are-20-times-as-powerful-can-be-made-with-a-dvd-burner)

[1] <http://phys.org/news184310039.html>

<comment><USER5> Reducing SiO2 to Si requires extremely high temperatures (2000°) and sucks up all nearby carbon (bye bye graphene).

Even most university labs will have trouble coming up with the temperatures required, particularly considering you want to keep the oxygen from air out (and the carbon monoxide product away from air-breathers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Points in this non-article:

Graphene is awesome conductor. Graphene doesn't have a traditional transister bandgap. Silicine has been found with microscopes. Silicine could be next big thing.

Nothing is known about the materials science about this formation of silicon.

<comment><USER7> > _this non-article_

My favorite: "Graphene is the most conductive material in the known universe,"

Apparently, they're ignoring superconductors. So when you ignore the materials more conductive than graphene, it becomes the most conductive material.

<comment><USER8> At room temperature graphene beats all known super conductors.

<comment><USER7> > At room temperature

Important words missing from the article. BTW, bulk or sheet? It's been a while, I only looked at sheet in the past.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Instruction explosion in Guile - <AUTHOR> https://wingolog.org/archives/2018/01/17/instruction-explosion-in-guile <comment><USER2> Seems the ideal would be to have a HIR/MIR divide, specifying the HIR instructions in their MIR, then having the interpreter compile it's instruction from the MIR to get the specialized opcodes to dispatch the HIR directly, but then have a JIT expand hot code to the MIR for compilation where it can use the MIR to do optimization within HIR instructions

<comment><AUTHOR> If I'm understanding your terminology, Guile already has a kind of CPS as its mid-level intermediate form: [https://wingolog.org/archives/2015/07/27/cps- soup](https://wingolog.org/archives/2015/07/27/cps-soup). There's a long history of Lisp languages using a "MIR" of sorts, typically CPS, SSA, or ANF.

<comment><USER2> I'm using HIR to refer to instructions like bv-f32-ref while MIR to refer to instructions which are introduced to "explode" that instruction

By having both, rather than choosing between the two as is discussed in the blog, one can have the decision be more akin to a compiler's inlining heuristics</comment></comment></comment>


The Strange Case of John Dillinger and the Fraudulent Apple ID - <AUTHOR> http://programmingzen.com/2012/01/12/john-dillinger-apple-id/ <comment><USER2> Welcome to the modern "usable" internet, where mail validation "spoils the user experience" and "is bad for conversion rate". I guess Apple has a valid way to subscribe without e-mail verification somewhere.

Let me tell you a story, sorry if it is somewhat OTish, but I really feel related to the programmingzen guy. Back when I got my Gmail address I got a 6 char username account of the form name+surname initial. My name is Pedro, its not that common but neither is it a bizarre name. At the moment, I can count 5 different people who sometimes think they own my e-mail address, or have e-mail addresses that are similar enough to mine so that people usually mails me instead of them.

About a month ago, one Pedro subscribed to Redbox. It seems Redbox has kiosks where you can instantly subscribe and order your first DVDs there, those kiosks do no mail validation. Someone used my e-mail on the kiosk, and ordered his first DVD. I got the receipt in my inbox.

At first I thought he would realize he did something wrong and fix his Redbox account from his computer later. He didn't. In fact, he somehow managed to order more DVDs, so I got more receipts in my inbox. I used the password recovery feature and logged to his (or mine?) Redbox account. There was no way to delete it, neither was it possible to avoid getting receipts by e-mail.

I contacted Redbox support asking them to close the account, or at least stop sending me receipts. This was their proposed solution to my problem:

 _As long as he or she keeps using your email address, you'll continue to get receipts. To avoid receiving them, please block the sender's email address or mark the messages as spam. If those options don't work, you might need to contact your email provider._

So yeah, Apple is not the only one who doesn't care about people who by chance get subscribed to their services.

Fortunately, after about three weeks, Redbox started mailing me and asking me for e-mail validation with big red banners and all caps subjects. I didn't reply to any of those e-mails, and it seems they finally deleted the account.

Free anecdote: Once, one of the other Pedros mom died. That week my inbox was completely surreal, and sad.

PD: I live in Argentina. So no, free DVDs where not an option for me.

<comment><USER3> I have the same problem. Most recently someone signed up for a _DirecTV_ account with my email. I went back and forth with DirecTV customer service about 5 times before they removed my address.

I have to wonder if these companies are violating the CAN-SPAM act by not giving us an easy way to opt out...

<comment><USER4> IANAL but you don't need opt-out for transactional emails.

<comment><USER3> A lot of times they'll sign you up for their marketing emails as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact that not only will Apple not delete the account, but also not do so much as flag it as potentially fraudulent blows me away.

What positive purpose could that possibly serve?

<comment><USER6> I'm just as puzzled by this. If a customer makes it clear that he wants to pack up and go, why wouldn't you just let him?

It reminds me of the way Facebook treats its users. I've tried to get rid of an old account, and I found it's nigh impossible. The most a mere mortal can hope for is for the account to be put in hibernation mode -- but if you ever make the mistake of logging into the account ever again, bam! You're back.

I've had the same Apple ID since the day iTools launched (in 2000), and I've never felt the need to cancel or delete an account, but I assumed they would let me! I see no good reason Apple would keep around every account that was ever created.

<comment><USER7> You really shouldn't be puzzled at this. It is actually pretty easy to explain if you have ever worked on a large scale website before. The problem is you begin to accrue large amounts of data and metadata (data about your data). And just "getting rid" of that data is actually hard at scale for a few reasons:

1) Lets say I post on your wall and then I delete my account. Does that mean the message should be removed from your wall? What if you really liked the conversation in the comments that took place after I posted the comment, you are just out of luck? This gets trickier and tricker to handle these types of problems as things like groups, forums, and tagging get added to the social network feature set. All of a sudden is very confusing and unclear what exactly should happen with this type of data. Let's say you do keep that message, when how much of the deleted account is required to keep alive to maintain your database relations (this assumes you are using a normalized relational database to manage your site).

2) The site I work on gets a lot of data from users. It isn't uncommon to have ~5MB from a single user in our database. The actual delete operation on that tables is really rough. If 4 users all tried to delete their account at the same time doing a straight DELETE on the tables would be horrible. Not to mention it leaves holes in your tables in some cases.

3) Is it actually legal to delete the data? Can Apple just delete an account where charges can be placed? I would think they need to keep a history of who used what credit card and so on. I am guessing that medical records and emails for large companies have some kind of restrictions about data retention.

4) The backup issue. If a user deletes their account, does the user expect that the company also goes through all their backups and delete their information from there as well.

All of these things add up to a pretty big burden pretty quick and I think it is logical to see why companies might choose to not allow people to delete their own data. I can also understand why people disagree with that decision, but it really shouldn't be puzzling.

<comment><USER8> It should be just as puzzling as any other security / privacy issue. No more, no less.

If a website doesn't take security and privacy as high priority concerns, then they don't want me as a user. I hope to educate more people to feel the same as I do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If US has equivalent of Data Protection Act, author could demand the addressees and other history of the account from apple.

<comment><USER10> no, they only have CAN-SPAM. As long as Apple doesn't actually send emails, I believe they can keep the address indefinitely; however, the minute they shoot out a promo email, they have to obey CAN-SPAM, so the user would have a right to be removed from the database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought it was an Apple mistake. At least five of the people I follow on Twitter received this John Dillinger mail, and there's a person in the comments saying he/she received the same mail. (And all these persons have nothing to do with each other)

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe I'm on the wrong trail here, but might this have something to do with the transition of AppleID/MobileMe -> iCloud?

If this email was (a) an Apple ID, or, more likely in this case, (b) an email address associated with an old Apple ID (that wasn't already in the form of firstname.lastname@example.com) then Apple could have just converted it to their new form of "every apple id should be in email address form", which I've noticed has been pushed far more with the transition to iCloud.

Though what throws me off is "Welcome to the Apple Online Store". Very specific. Too specific.

Has this email been used for purchases from Apple, at the very least?

<comment><USER13> > Has this email been used for purchases from Apple, at the very least?

Not that I can remember.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure I would have contacted Apple about this, given their penchant for punishing security researchers who bring problems to their attention.

What I don't fully understand is if the attacker doesn't need access to the email account in question, why would they even use valid email addresses? Wouldn't it be less risky to use bogus addresses?

<comment><USER15> It's because most registration form not only checks that the email address you entered is valid but also whether it exists. This is done by using nslookup to query for a domain's MX record and then checking the specific address.

Here's a post I found detailing how to use it: [http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an- email-...](http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email- address-exists-without-sending-an-email/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They must have some system of auditing the email verification to see where it came from, or if it even took place.

</comment><comment><USER17> No Tron references?</comment>


If You're a Space Lover You'll Like These Games - <AUTHOR> https://palash.tk/Space-Lovers-Will-Like-These-Games <comment><USER2> What about PC games?

<comment><USER3> Some recommendations for PC:

\- Surviving Mars (Build and manage a colony on mars)

\- Kerbal Space Program (Build spacecraft and send them into space)

\- Gratuitous Space Battles (Place units and give them commands in space battles)

<comment><USER2> Thank You , They sounds interesting I'll surely try them.</comment></comment></comment>


Theranos, Facing Criticism, Says It Has Changed Board Structure - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/business/theranos-facing-criticism-says-it-has-changed-board-structure.html <comment><USER2> _Now the board of directors has been shrunk to five people from 12, and will also be called the governing board, according to a statement from Ms. Holmes provided by a company spokeswoman._

A board of 12 is way beyond the level where it can typically provide oversight and is generally captured by management. 5 is a much more reasonable number, although the hole they've dug themselves into sure looks deep.

No mention of Rumsfeld, who was a CEO of two biotech firms between the Ford and Bush II administrations, and it should be noted that former Senator Frist is a heart and lung transplant surgeon (trivia per Wikipedia, he operated on David Petraeus in 1991 after a gun shot in a training accident). The board has deservedly come in for criticism due to celebrity members, but at least these two had a clue.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, there you go; problem solved. Change the board of directors - simple!

</comment><comment><USER4> Theranos is fine as long as what they are doing is kept legalized. This is just an anti-hype after a hype.</comment>


CodeConf 2011 // A conference focused on social coding presented by GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://codeconf.com/ <comment><USER2> Sounds really awesome, wish I didn't live so far away from SF or had a bit more notice :)

Hopefully they stream or have videos up, I really want to see the talks from @ryah, @jashkenas, and @jacobian

</comment><comment><USER3> Too bad my company doesn't pay for conferences, I, too, would love to go, but it's much to expensive for me.

I'm in Florida. Anyone know of a similar conference in perhaps the Orlando area?

<comment><USER4> MagicRuby, Fri-Sat. <http://magic-ruby.com/>

It's not about "social coding" per-se, but it's in Orlando and it's FREE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I signed up! If anyone wants to hook up, let me know. Same user name on twitter and lanyrd.com.

</comment><comment><USER6> First thoughts:

Delightful site. Scrolling is the new black. Strange they aren't using IDs in elements so you could link to sections though (e.g. <http://codeconf.com/#location>).

GitHub will clear between $100k and $125k after expenses.

The personal notes about favorite sights and attractions are a nice touch.</comment>