Cities and Ambition (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/cities.html <comment><USER2> Living for a few years in the Bay Area, I didn't really end up with the same impression, though that could be my fault. My biggest impression was that the Bay Area _wants_ to be extremely wealthy, but feels slightly inadequate about it. There was a constant palpable rivalry with both NYC and Southern California, a rivalry that was mostly one-directional. And on the Peninsula, in particular, there was a strangely obvious class structure. In particular the startup scene around Stanford was super-weird. I didn't know the Googlers (wrong years), but the kids I knew ranged from "comfortably upper-middle- class" to "extremely wealthy". Mostly my peers were their employees, not in the founder social group; the founder social group had a remarkable ability to raise "friends & family" money despite having no product (the most recent raised $750,000 from a company in China owned by an uncle, to develop mobile games). The demographics are so unbalanced that Stanford actually will give an automatic full-ride scholarship to any accepted student whose family makes under $100,000/yr, since not many admitted students qualify for it anyway.

Overall I don't really miss it, though I did like eating VC food and drinking VC beer at the ubiquitous lavish parties. But the culture might be even weirder than NYC, in terms of what it promotes.

<comment><USER3> _There was a constant palpable rivalry with both NYC and Southern California_

Living in the Bay area, I can't say I relate all that much. You hear about New York in the context of food and finance, and about LA in the context of fashion and Hollywood. But not really in terms of a competition of some kind. Maybe it's a peninsula thing.

<comment><USER4> The true rich (> $10M net worth) of the Bay Area are the self-loathing ones who wish they were in New York. I wrote about this: [http://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-is-it-like-to- be-a-...](http://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-member- of-the-Silicon-Valley-elite/answer/Michael-O-Church)

The upper-middle class isn't nearly as preoccupied with location. You don't really identify with a place if you can't afford to buy a house there. (Or, if you do, you're a sucker.) The NYC envy of the Silicon Valley elite is mostly a phenomenon of the VC/MBA circle. (I've never heard of L.A. envy. Maybe in the '80s or '90s it was strong, but I can't imagine anyone having that now.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have to call out Paul Graham's idea that social class is dropping of the list of important things.

What it means changed a little, and I think it's now more important than ever. The thing is, someone like PG never sees or interacts with anyone lower than upper middle class. Other 'incompatible' classes are invisible to us.

There is a whole world of people in this country that he wouldn't even be able to talk to. Depending on your state, between 59 and 80% of people graduate high school. That 20-40% isn't dropping out because they're running a startup.

There is a class of people that takes advertisements at face value, as sources of information. There is a class of people that doesn't value education... There are millions of people that don't even have the same goals or life values as a middle class people do.

PG you used the cliche "second class citizen" a bunch of times in this article without thinking about what it actually means!

<comment> barry-cotter _There is a class of people that takes advertisements at face value, as sources of information._

Not in America there isn't. Well, not a social class. The amount of tv the average American watches is insane, something like 4 hours a day. It is impossible to watch that much tv without developing some rudimentary media literacy. Maybe less, and less sophisticated than smarter, more educated people but the number of people who think drinking Bud Light will actually make them more popular and win them a hotter mate is pretty damned small.

I agree with almost everything else you said. I do suspect that every YC cohort has at least one American who grew up poor by American standards though. I'm sure they're underrepresented though.

<comment><USER5> You have not worked with seriously underprivileged people. Poorness is related to the lowest social classes in the USA, but they're actually defined by a lack of the basic tools it takes a person to survive in modern society, like literacy and numeracy. Anyone from any walk of life can become poor.

I'd be surprised if a single y-com company had a single employee that was raised by functionally illiterate American parents. I'm not talking about a child of immigrants either, but the intergenerational trainwreck of the American underclass. Keep in mind that 14-20% of Americans are functionally illiterate.

Take a minute to imagine what your life would be like if you couldn't really read. I'm not making this up-- there are _lots_ of people who think McDonalds is healthy because Olympic athletes are on the bag.

<comment> barry-cotter You know what, you're right. I should have sanity checked against IQ. For the 18% or so of the population with 70 or below IQs literacy is pretty good and functional literacy is miraculous.

Yeah, I've worked with dumb people but not unemployable stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > New York is pretty impressed by a billion dollars even if you merely > inherited it. In Silicon Valley no one would care except a few real estate > agents.

The only defining common factor of all the VC shops in the bay area is money. Sure a lot of them made that money in tech but it is money that lets them have power.

Also some anecdotal impressions:

I lived in SF for two years. I think the constant humdrum of tech (specifically a strange breed of big data + machine learning + web tech) is making the place intolerably insular. When I first moved there, I thought the opinionated twenty something year olds who think that their youth and opinions mean that they matter were cute. Now, it is just fucking insufferable. Building a company shouldn't be purely about getting sold, acqui-hired or building products that no one outside your iphone addled tech circle will use.

I think there is utility in moving out of the bay area to build real products. I recently moved to NYC. The tech scene feels refreshingly small, surprisingly under-dog like, I am reminded of Austin. Most tech folks I meet here are mellow, there is also a large overlap with incredibly smart ex-finance people who are humble and sociable.

Everything also doesn't seem to be focused on shipping your shitty product and tweeting about it, there is focus on building something that is not primarily focused on acqui-hired or VC-driven.

Also, more importantly, NYC is superior to San Francisco as a place for your social life. The men:women ratio is way more balanced, you are constantly reminded that your "coding skills" are not all that define you. When I first came to interview here, I had serious misgivings about the place (the climate is miserable), yet I think the thing that made me decide to move here was a conversation I over-heard in a coffee shop between two girls. It was about Python. The snake, not the language.

<comment><USER7> I think you must have missed the good parts of SF, if you felt that your coding skills defined you. Try Cole Valley, or the Lower Haight and skip SOMA. I would take issue also with your men:women ration nonsense, SF is full of women. I suggest you stop eavesdropping conversations girls are having near you and get out more! NYC isn't the answer. NYC is an amazing place, it's full of life and vitality, but so is San Francico. NYC has better galleries, but SF has better weather. Might I remind you right now it's 70's in SF while you have snow...

<comment><USER8> As a native to NorCal, might I remind you this weather is incredibly unusual, and we're in a drought. I dislike the cold, but we need rain. If I wanted it sunny all year long I'd move to San Diego. This lack of rain is irritating many northerners right now because it's not habitual. The only people okay with it are non locals.

The other problem with this pressure ridge, is zero precipitation is horrible for your skin. You need lotion and humidifiers to avoid cracked skin, especially through sleeping.

I like warm weather in the Spring and Summer, but most Northern California residents enjoy living here for the seasons. It's almost depressing without them.

<comment> wes-exp _zero precipitation is horrible for your skin_

Despite the lack of rain, humidity right now in the Bay Area is still not horribly low by national standards. Looking at the local forecast I am seeing humidity in the range of roughly 40% - 60%.

Taking into account the effects of indoor heating and an outside temperature well above freezing, this is still pretty pleasant compared to what happens in cold climates _indoors_ when you heat frigid outdoor air up to room temp. Cold air does not hold as much moisture, and when your furnace heats it up, the amount of moisture content stays the same but the carrying capacity for moisture increases, effectively making it very dry.

The upshot here is that even if it is a bit dry in the Bay Area right now, it's still nothing compared to the bone dry indoor air you would get somewhere where the winters are actually cold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This may be my favorite line from a PG essay of all time:

 _So the kind of people you find in Cambridge are the kind of people who want to live where the smartest people are, even if that means living in an expensive, grubby place with bad weather._

I say this as I build out an addition on my already expensive house, while holed up in a AirBnB victorian with drafty windows watching wet, sloppy snow make the streets into mess.

On the other hand, I've chatted about web stacks with my landlord, auto- correlation functions with a dinner guest, toy accordion repair with my neighbor, and depth-perception optical nerve cross talk with my other neighbor. That's in the last two days.

I love it here.

<comment><USER10> You'll find some of the most intelligent public conversations that can be had on the Red Line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This was a slightly silly essay that seems to essentially be more "places PG likes" than any sort of objective analysis...

Great cities certainly do have a vibe, but Cambridge (MA), although it's a very nice place to live and obviously has tons of smart people, is actually a pretty sleepy place in general; for all it's charms, it isn't a "great city." The "density of the unfamiliar" which I think tends to characterize great cities isn't really so evident in Cambridge (the presence of MIT / Harvard / etc does generate some of this, but universities tend to be somewhat closed societies).

<comment><USER12> Toss in a healthy dose of MIT becoming a shell of its former hacker-self, and Harvard being, well, Harvard, and I'd say Cambridge is the least exciting aspect of the greater Boston area.

Besides the fact that Bostonians are most definitely infatuated with pop culture and hipness. Maybe across the bridge things get more intellectual, but not so you'd notice.

I will say in PG's defense that I've never seen a city more excited about selling you a master's degree as the key to your new future life ; - ) So I suppose they do value education (an brick-for-brick there's probably more post-secondary schools in the area around Boston than almost anywhere else in the U.S. or even the world.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> thats why i prefer nature over cities. The messages it sends is:

You can be whatever you want.. The observations and love for nature is one of the big secrets of geniuses like Da Vinci and Newton.. florence or england, just give them the means to achieve their goals..

Cities are stuck in the era they shine most.. and if you listen to them now, you will be listening to the 20, 19 or even 18 century echoes.. not the XXI we are supposed to

I think real genius has a transcendental and private path to somewhere, where they can listen whatever, and bring it back to our reality.. if they happen to listen to cities its just to give them new interpretations of it.. so we (the voyeurs of their work) can see it with new eyes..

If you listen up to most cities, you will see more what them want you to see than its own reality.. unless you belong there for more than 10 years.. and you already know it... its pretty much fake, delusional..

I dont know you, but i happen to like the real thing, i care more about the truth.. thats why nature is more seductive to me than city people or concrete walls

<comment><USER12> I couldn't agree with you more. I'm here reading hacker news in a rural town in Maine (a summer town on the coast, granted, but hey, it's winter ... ).

I love your note about cities being stuck in the era they shine. That's brilliant and so unbelievably true. I love cities and urban environments. I grew up in Chicago and spent time living in our fair city (Boston) before moving north.

But I settled up here to be close to family and to not let my ambition get to heady. You can wind up feeling really important and powerful in a city, and the discovery that barring 0.01% of the population you aren't actually very important or powerful will destroy you if that's what you built your life on. Instead I've built a life around family, farming and hacking (which incidentally, farming basically invented ... every farmer has their own solution to a problem).

<comment><USER14> Cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I grew up outside of DC and can probably say this about the city:

Washington D.C. thinks of itself as the center of power of the entire universe. And in a lot of ways it is. But it's a weird city. Power in D.C. is indirect and complex. You can't really start at the bottom and work your way up to positions of extreme power (though it's a popular story)...hard ceilings are everywhere. To be clear, I'm not talking about the more or less irrelevant city government.

The best way I can explain it is this, power in D.C. is build on a tripod. You must have all three of these things to be powerful: money, widespread popularity, and cunning (not intelligence).

This is different than other cities, where elements of this tripod exist, but aren't necessary to be powerful in that city. For example, in NYC, money is sufficient to be powerful. But even billionaires have failed to attain power in D.C. In NYC political connections are useful for making more money, but aren't strictly necessary. In D.C. political connections are critical. In NYC, you have to have alpha-like mammal aggressiveness (not necessarily intelligence), but in D.C. it's reptile like cunning that's needed. You can draw different but similar differences with other cities and power.

Power in D.C. is also incredibly transient and fickle. In theory, power in D.C. can accumulate to the point that a single individual can more or less wipe out all life on the planet, then just a couple years later has trouble keeping reporters off of his vacation property. It's a tower of power that's built on sands that shift so fast it makes the stock market look like a simple linear function. _Everybody_ falls from power in D.C. It's the tallest tower there is, but the downward drop is inevitable. The key is making a soft landing when you do. That way you can take a "fall back" position to power in NYC on the board of an investment company or the Bay Area where you can become an Angel investor.

But you'll notice that people who are really powerful in one place rarely move from where they know how to operate, and when they do, rarely gain positions of equivalent power in their new homes. They just operate differently. Throwing money around in D.C. might make you popular for a bit, but without cunning you'll just be that guy who throws lots of parties.

It reminds me of the old saying

"Rich is being a millionaire basketball player, Wealthy is being the guy who signs the checks"

add to that "Powerful is the guy who proposed the bill that got turned into a law with teeth that regulated the NBA and bankrupted the wealthy owners."

<comment><USER16> Could you give an example of how this power dynamic might work in a non-House- Of-Cards setting, you know, in a non-political setting?

Certainly everything in D.C. need not revolve around Capitol Hill/K-Street, right?

<comment><USER15> I'm not familiar with House-of-Cards sadly.

But yes, _everything_ in D.C., even for 30 or 40 miles outside of the city, is absolutely consumed by the Federal government.

The downtown of D.C. proper, outside of the tourist areas, is almost entirely composed of foundations and think tanks and non-government organizations who's mission in life is to try and influence executive or legislative policy decisions. There's almost no other real industry by comparison. The tech scene in D.C. is dominated by fed contracting megacorps and small tech businesses that exist only to partner with those companies in order to get the small business set asides. The non-Fed tech sector in D.C. is abysmally small. It exists, and there are hacker meetups and proper commercial companies here, but the ecosystem for those companies is pretty sparse. _Most_ of the non-fed commercial tech companies you find are IT services companies that help build internal infrastructure for non-tech companies.

D.C., the city, also dies after working hours and on weekends. There's minimal night life. It's slowly changing, but nearly everybody who works in the city in the Fed space, lives outside of the city. It means commuting here and traffic is easily as bad as L.A. It's so bad that many of the Agencies are moving or opening very large satellite offices 20 miles or more from D.C. just so they can find qualified workers.

The really powerful people, people sitting on all three legs of the tripod, don't live in D.C. at all. They'll live in Northern Virginia or Southern Maryland. If you want to bang into a Senator or a cabinet secretary while grocery shopping, go shopping in McLean or Great Falls.

It doesn't help that the residential parts of D.C. are rather grim and not very pretty. Even the old historic row houses are rather gritty looking piles of old bricks with broken sidewalks outside and overgrown weeds and grass everywhere.

But I think it's also that the atmosphere in the city is so stifling, the constant ladder climbing and political backstabbery so intense, that people just want to get away from it.

Take a look at the large West Coast tech companies with offices in and near D.C. and you'll see that, down to the position, they all open up their offices to cater to the Fed space. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Google, etc. all have offices near D.C. and if you check out the job listings all require clearances and/or experience doing business with the Federal government.

Practically, nobody cares about how much money you make, or your investment abilities in D.C. It's your positional authority, and what that means, earned through the tripod of power, that people care about.

<comment><USER17> I agree with most of everything you described about power in DC. I do think you're showing a bit of staleness in experience when it comes to life in downtown DC.

 _D.C., the city, also dies after working hours and on weekends. There 's minimal night life._

In the past 10 years, there has been an absolute transformation in housing and retail from Gallery Place/Chinatown, to 14th St and all the way up to Columbia Heights. I challenge one to stand on the corner of 7th & H St and say that the city dies after working hours and on weekends.

 _It 's so bad that many of the Agencies are moving or opening very large satellite offices 20 miles or more from D.C. just so they can find qualified workers._

Unless you work for GSA, I wouldn't make assumptions like this. It is impossible for the federal government to open up a new 500,000 sq ft facility in downtown DC because there simply isn't any available space at a reasonable cost. Sprawling complexes are cheap and easy to build in the exurbs and the employees don't have any choice but to follow their agency to its new location. It has nothing to do with finding talent, especially in the hills of Virginia where fewer people choose to live.

 _The really powerful people, people sitting on all three legs of the tripod, don 't live in D.C. at all. They'll live in Northern Virginia or Southern Maryland._

Suburban Maryland (esp. North of DC). Southern Maryland is Waldorf, St Charles and La Plata, which I would argue are not places where Senators reside. Though, I think you will find that more of the recent politicians _are_ residing in DC. For example, Obama, while a Senator, resided in an apartment building in downtown DC.

 _It doesn 't help that the residential parts of D.C. are rather grim and not very pretty. Even the old historic row houses are rather gritty looking piles of old bricks with broken sidewalks outside and overgrown weeds and grass everywhere._

Again, you might benefit from taking a walk anywhere in DC. H St NE, areas around Union Station and even New York Ave & Florida are nice.

<comment><USER15> I largely agree with you except on a couple points.

DC _is_ changing, but very slowly. The last couple mayoral administrations have done a pretty good job of gentrifying (I don't think that's necessarily a bad term) parts of the city and encouraging new residential construction.

There still isn't much of a nightlife in the city though. Sure there's been little pockets of it at least as far back as the early 90s when I was old enough to look for that kind of thing. But I think the loss of Chinatown in favor of the Verizon Center and a few trendy bars is one of the great tragedies of the city.

But still, most new transplants I run into looking for a hip place to move to end up in Arlingon or Silver Spring and to some extent parts of Alexandria. Many of my gay friends _do_ find homes and community in D.C. around DuPont and a couple other spots, but even with a scene in the city, about half of the folks I know live in Arlington/Alexandria.

In general, a constant theme I could apply to people I know (anecdotal I know), they try to make it work in the city, then quickly move out as soon as their lease is up. There just isn't the kind of benefit of city life that you get in more regular cities.

It doesn't help that, while having lots of little parks, they're virtually unusable due to deep rooted homeless problems in the city that haven't materially improved since as long back as I can remember (the 80s). Getting panhandled virtually every block in some areas gets old very fast.

As for the historic housing, lots of people have visions of this [https://farm1.static.flickr.com/118/263237392_a4aacdd50f_m.j...](https://farm1.static.flickr.com/118/263237392_a4aacdd50f_m.jpg)

only to find endless listings for places like this [http://sweetpaperdoll.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/100_0259.j...](http://sweetpaperdoll.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/100_0259.jpg)

which means on top of the already inflated price, they'll have to put in endless expensive refurbishments to have a livable home.

It's kind of a shame since the public transport network in D.C. is one of the few functionally useful ones in the U.S. I think the metro is the 2nd most used subway in the U.S.?

The good news, like I said, is that it _is_ slowly changing. The population is increasing for the first time since the 1950s (the city back then was over 3/4 of a million people, it hit 600k in 2010 an apocalyptic population drop. Estimates say almost 50k people have moved in in the last 4 years).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Having lived both in LA and Bay Area the biggest difference is that Life in LA doesn't come with any baggage. You don't have to change the world. You don't have to launch the next big idea. You don't chase money as hard as Bay Area (yes). You don't have to keep telling yourself and the world that "my city is awesome". You just live a good life with good food, good people, good work.

<comment><USER19> My sense is that people in LA really want to get to be on stage. No, you don't have to be a superstar, but people in the business want to keep working in show business, more than anything. And for exactly the same reason game developers keep doing it: because they love it. They love doing things just because people enjoy it, and not because it has to be done.

There is joy in frivolity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you can read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thoughts. What ever that majority thought might be- that word is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there."

\- _Eat Pray Love_, Elizabeth Gilbert.

</comment><comment><USER21> Here are some cities I've lived in:

        Tokyo, Xi'an, Harbin, Rome, Assisi, Florence, Jerusalem, Berlin, Munich, Lyon, Palo Alto, DC, Boston, Providence, Philadelphia

My general assessment is that American cities feel more vibrant while European cities feel more sleepy. Cambridge is one locus of intellect for its own, perhaps the best left although I think American pragmatism chokes great thinking. For true intellectual engagement I think you have to poke around Europe and find the older generation of scholars and artists. As for Florence, pg should know folks like Pietro Annigoni that at least were keeping old traditions alive. Europe is in many ways like a very wonderful museum with a few old curators, but that old museum beats most new museums by a large margin.

</comment><comment><USER22> Paul is describing an 80's New York. Paul doesn't use the word culture once in the essay. The word art only appears in reference to Europe and Paris. The strongest signal from New York is now much more about art, culture, and taste than about money.

<comment><USER4> New York is all about money if you don't have it.

Actually, it's about real estate and legacy. Until you own a genuinely nice place (those start around $4 million) it's about real estate. After that, it's about preschool and grade school and making sure your kids have the connections to make something of themselves. Once those are shored up, it's about taste and the arts. Not before then, though, and most people don't get that far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This post is brilliant. It puts into words an unspoken but pervasive sensation I had in the small town I grew up in, before leaving for greener pastures: it didn't ask me (or anyone else) to be anyone or anything better than I already was. I hated it for its leniency, for its forgiveness that ended up being suffocating. It makes sense to choose to live in a demanding place.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm a 25 year old living in a smallish midwestern city. PG's "you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do" is something that really resonates with my experience here. Anyone want to play fortune teller and suggest places I should visit/consider moving? Some important personality points:

\- builder/hacker

\- eager learner

\- I'll step up for tasks right away

\- I deeply care about making people feel loved/included and finding people who care about me

\- likes public transportation

<comment><USER25> First? I've got a Midwesterner working for me. At least for him? it doesn't seem to be hurting his work.

My opinion is that while it's super nice, socially, to be around people who are into what you are into in person, it doesn't make that much difference when it comes to getting actual work done. Now, sales? raising money? all that bullshit where you have to interact with business people? face-time matters a lot. But for purely technical work, hell, I'll be working in the same house as someone and I'll communicate via IM, because it's less disruptive.

On the other hand, he's working for _me_ \- If you want to make money? you have to find a competent business person, or at least a business person with money, and most of those guys want to look you in the eye. Not all, but most.

That's the thing; I get a _lot_ of offers to merge, to invest, and to do other business-type things because I'm here and active in the community. I'm not even that active. But you know what? I haven't made a dime off of any of those. (and some of those have cost me enough to buy a central-valley condo) - As for the parts of my business that actually make me money? I could do those from just about anywhere. Of course, that probably says more about my skillset than anything else; I've had serious offers from people with serious money (well, serious money by my standards)

My own experience? moving to silicon valley was more than worth it. But, I've lived in silicon valley, I've lived very near berkeley and I've lived in the central valley. I haven't spent serious time other places. Avoid the central valley. It's not cheap enough to put up with the culture and weather, in my opinion.

Yeah, housing is expensive. but the thing about housing? well, the increase is a percentage of the cost of housing, so if you are okay with modest digs? 2x what you would pay for modest digs in the central valley (probably 4x what you'd pay in the midwest) still not very much money compared to what you are getting paid, and I'm okay with modest digs. (Of course, if you like really nice digs... that percentage increase really hits you.)

One big downside to the south bay is that our public transit is absolute shit. You might consider the Berkeley area for that. VTA doesn't look that bad on paper? But it is nearly completely useless. BART, on the other hand, is pretty good by west-coast standards.

<comment><USER26> > My opinion is that while it's super nice, socially, to be around people who > are into what you are into in person, it doesn't make that much difference > when it comes to getting actual work done. Now, sales? raising money? all > that bullshit where you have to interact with business people? face-time > matters a lot. But for purely technical work, hell, I'll be working in the > same house as someone and I'll communicate via IM, because it's less > disruptive.

As far as I know, the case for being on the ground with your fellow enthusiasts and competitors in California was best made in 1985, by Arnold Schwarzenegger:

"The kind of people who train alongside you in a gym makes a difference. If you are surrounded by people who are serious and train with a lot of intensity, it's easier for you to do the same thing. But it can be pretty hard to really blast your muscles while the people around you are just going through the motions. That is why good bodybuilders tend to congregate in certain gyms. By having the example of other serious bodybuilders constantly in front of you, you will train that much harder.

That is what made Joe Gold's original gym in Venice, California such a great place—a small gym with just enough equipment, but where you would constantly be rubbing shoulders with the great bodybuilders against whom I had the privilege of competing-like Franco Columbu, Ed Corney, Dave Draper, Robby Robinson, Frank Zane, Sergio Oliva, and Ken Waller. Nowadays, it's rare to find that many champions in the same place, but if you aren't sharing the gym floor with great bodybuilders like Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray, Nasser El Sonbaty, or Dorian Yates, it can be very motivating if there are pictures or posters of these individuals on the walls or championship trophies displayed.

In 1980, training at World Gym for my final Mr. Olympia competition, I showed up at the gym at seven o'clock one morning to work out and stepped out on the sundeck for a moment. Suddenly the sun came through the clouds. It was so beautiful I lost all my motivation to train. I thought maybe I would go to the beach instead. I came up with every excuse in the book-the most persuasive being that I had trained hard the day before with the powerful German bodybuilder Jusup Wilkosz, so I could lay back today—but then I heard weights being clanged together inside the gym and I saw Wilkosz working his abs, Ken Waller doing shoulders, veins standing out all over his upper body, Franco Columbu blasting away, benching more than 400 pounts, Samir Bannout punishing his biceps with heavy Curls.

Everywhere I looked there was some kind of hard, sweaty training going on, and I knew that I couldn't afford not to train if I was going to compete against these champions. Their example sucked me in, and now I was looking forward to working, anticipating the pleasure of pitting my muscles against heavy iron. By the end of that session I had the best pump I could imagine, and an almost wasted morning had turned into one of the best workouts of my life. If I hadn't been there at World Gym, with those other bodybuilders to inspire and motivate me, I doubt that day would have ended up being so productive.

Even today, when I'm training for other reason, such as getting into top shape for a movie role, or just trying to stay in shape, I absorb energy from people working out around me. That's why I still like to go to gyms where bodybuilders are training for competition. Even today, after all this time, it still inspires me."

/The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding/, by Arnold and Bill Dobbins, p. 87 in the 1999 edition. [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0684857219/](http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0684857219/)

<comment><USER25> I... hate how people re-package the anti-intellectual culture around sports. "Give 110%" \- It's all about effort.

I mean, for some things? that's great. It's annoying even in sports, if you ask me, but it's effective there, and hey, that's what matters, right?

But for technical work? the "give 110%" attitude is extremely destructive. Extremely destructive. you will get far more done working a 30 hour week than you will a 70 hour week. Far more.

It's not about how many hours you put in. It's not about Tony Robbins style emotional bullshit. We aren't bodybuilders, and while many people here /are/ sales (and like I said, for them, face time matters) technical people aren't sales.

<comment><USER26> ... Well. To begin with, the reason Schwarzenegger was up and in the gym at seven in the morning was so that he could train—with massive intensity, yes—for maybe two hours ... and then spend eight to ten hours relaxing and doing nothing strenuous in order to recover in time for his second and final session in the evening. That's what he did six days a week with Sundays off, a routine that makes G.H. Hardy's schedule with its afternoon cricket [http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Hardy.html](http://www- history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Hardy.html) look packed, and comes to probably significantly less than 30 hours of iron-pumping a week. Keeping your schedule clear for months on end to focus on your work while not actually working all that many hours a week? Sounds more similar to technical work than sales to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The Valley urges its inhabitants to become more powerful... by creating cat photographer social networking iOS fart apps?

</comment><comment><USER27> Perhaps the title should be "Cities & Ambition & My Snarky, Arrogant Generalizations".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seeing as this came out in 2008 - I'm really curious to see if PG has any updated thoughts on the cities he mentioned as well as some of the new rising tech centers (Chicago, Austin, etc)

<comment><USER28> not to mention NYC, and especially so since he specifically mentioned whether New York could grow into a startup hub to rival Silicon Valley

<comment><USER4> I like New York a hell of a lot more than the strip mall called Silicon Valley, but New York is nowhere near SV as a startup hub.

First, the VC climate is different and employee option pools are just shitty (5 to 20%). You won't find good engineers willing to work for non-founder equity. The people who work for 0.1% of a mediocre startup are not good and you'll have to hire $200-400/hour freelancers to fix their work after you fire them. (One startup offered me $275/h to fix its Rails app and I've never even used Rails.)

Second, the quality of startups is just not there. Granted, 97% of the startups in the Valley are total garbage as well, because the VCs have no taste or insight, but at least SV has that other 3%. New York doesn't. Most of the founders are people who failed out of finance but managed to snag enough connections (as a consolation prize) to raise VC.

Third, there are startups that luck their way into a few good engineers for a little while, but in NYC, they never keep them. There's a lot of title inflation in NYC (Senior Engineer by 24, Managing Data Scientist by 26) but the people with any ambition leverage their inflated titles into better positions in finance (starting around $300k) or at companies like Google and Facebook.

New York is the place where you use startups to get better Wall Street or Google jobs.

<comment><USER29> A title describes your responsibilities, not your seniority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> He had me until he said this in the fifth section:

"DC and LA seem to send messages too, but I haven't spent long enough in either to say for sure what they are."

...and then went on to opine on both those places, with relatively shallow stereotypes.

<comment><USER31> What is LA about if not fame, vanity and an acceptance that it takes hours to drive a few miles?

<comment><USER20> It's true that there are some people who are there in LA because they've gotten the message that entertainment fame (vs a startup) is the only way they'll matter in the world, that there's vanity, and that traffic can suck away your will to live or do anything if you don't figure out a way to avoid it.

It's also true there's lots of people who participate in entertainment because they _love_ it. They love making stories, they love acting, they love singing, dancing, they love making sets, effects, animation, soundtracks, songs, whatever. They know their products can change minds and change the world, too. A lot of these people aren't so different from your typical hacker.

There's also a lot of shenanigans and bullshit from people looking to hustle a buck or make their next fortune. I'm sure you can find the analog.

I'll also note that I live in West LA in a few miles from my job, which takes me 10 minutes to commute to, and which pays wages which are probably average for an SF webdev job (though possibly somewhat above average for an LA webdev job).

And you can find 2 bedroom apartments are available for under $2000, 1 bedrooms between $1000-$1500 (though you _can_ get a luxury place or something by the beach if you really want to pay a lot more).

It's certainly not a perfect place (I'd be happier with it if there were more varied weather, and more access to nature and quiet space), and of course, not everybody's experience with LA is like mine. In fact, LA is _so big_ and so varied that what I've come to suspect over my experience there is that there simply isn't any single summary that can capture it.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I think you could make a convincing argument that the difference between (parts of) LA and SF is that the non-tech creative people in LA are more likely to be doing it because they love it because the big money boom has peaked. There's still a dream of making it big, and there's still a lot of very visible success, but you're not going to raise nearly as much money for your indie film project as you would if you were pitching a new app in the Bay Area.

(That's a rather cynical view of the Bay Area, but hey, it balances out the rather common cynical view of LA that was expressed above. :) )

Disagree on the weather, though. I'd appreciate a bit less fog (not that it's anywhere near as bad as SF) and like my constant highs between 60 and 80 just fine. Maybe some better close skiing would be nice, but I've found lots to keep me busy between the Malibu Mountains and then further up the coast like Santa Barbara, Ojai, etc, outdoors-wise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can relate to the intellectual energy that PG describes. Going to a high school in Cambridge, equidistant from Harvard and MIT, I used to feel intimidated by the city's collective brain power.

It was the kind of place where confidence intervals are a subject for smalltalk and ads for genetic research are geared toward everyday commuters.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think something interesting happens when you live in a place like Cambridge for several years. You start to feel less intimidated by the competition for knowledge.

Don't get me wrong — you still try to keep up — but Cambridge begins to calibrate your ego. You realize that you're never going to be the smartest person in your domain, let alone every domain. For this reason I appreciate the city more as I get older, and I'm glad I moved back to work as a software dev.

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting observations.

I have noticed the inverse is also true (as a few posters have already pointed out).

Some places just scream ignorance and sloth.

But hey... do you want good conversation or good weather?

If you do want good conversation how much is it worth to you?

Enough to spend 50% of your income on housing?

Sometimes being alone is where you get real thinking done.

Not always, but often.

</comment><comment><USER35> Loved the article and its key idea that big cities send some kind of message about what people living there care the most about. Barcelona's message is clearly "enjoy life".

</comment><comment><USER36> I'll just leave this here:

[http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm](http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm)

<comment> grey-area What a hateful, small-minded little diatribe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is one of my favorite ever PG posts. It's what is driving me to get out to the East Coast as soon as possible and eventually the Bay Area.

<comment><USER38> I've often thought about the allure of moving to the Bay Area and being part of "startup central", but I can't help but suspect that I have an overly romanticized view of what it would be like. And there are existence proofs that a startup can be founded - and succeed - in North Carolina. So while I get what you're saying, I have some major doubts about moving out there. Higher cost of living, more traffic, more smog, more competition for talent, etc., etc. - these all strike me as factors that argue against moving.

OTOH, the energy, the vibe, the ambition that pg talks about here... I so want to be around that and more like minded people. And while the Raleigh / Durham area has a burgeoning startup scene, I don't get the impression that it can come close to touching the energy in, say, Palo Alto or Mountain View, or San Francisco.

Guess I need to just drag my ass out West and take it all in sometime. I keep hoping a consulting gig will take me out there and give me an excuse to go for a few weeks, so I can check it out. :-)

<comment><USER39> I've lived in all of Durham, San Francisco, and Menlo Park (next town over to Palo Alto).

Durham, in my mind, had a weird vibe. Despite growing up there, I think what I remember best is taking a swing dance workshop (in my mid-twenties) from Sharon Ashe. Sharon had been at the heart and center of the San Francisco lindy hop community, possibly the best swing dance scene in the world. She had co-founded the 9:20 Special, which still attracts a crowd of hundreds every week.

But apparently she had burned out, and had too much of the cost of living and the competition (there isn't really any smog) and decided to move to Durham. She wanted a lower-key, quieter life, while still enjoying most of what she'd enjoyed in San Francisco. At the time, this struck me as a profoundly sad thing to do, and soon after I left town.

I would say that _compromise_ is at the heart of what Durham has to offer. This is ultimately why I left, but it has got great restaurants, good weather, a lot of culture going on, and above all a wide range of diverse, interesting, active, intelligent people. Just not quite as much of any of the above (except for the weather) than SF or Cambridge. Take that for what you will.

e-mail in profile if you have questions.

<comment><USER40> Don't forget the beer. Durham (and all of the triangle) has amazing beer.

I never really found the vibe to be weird. It seemed like a less pretentious Brooklyn (I live in BK now). And I can understand why you would think an area you grew up in is about compromise, but I respectfully disagree. Durham is a great mix of southern charm, unique quirky culture, down home feel, and high- tech progressiveness - I haven't been able to find that mix anywhere else. It's also large and varied - the area near Southgate mall is completely different than downtown Durham.

<comment><USER39> > a less pretentious Brooklyn (I live in BK now).

Interesting. My main complaint about Durham was that it was very suburban; the idea of traveling between any pair of locations other than by car was wholly ridiculous. (But last time I was there, there were a bunch of new bars and restaurants downtown! This is a quite recent development.)

There is no "Southgate mall" in Durham. That said, I'm not disputing that it has a lot of good points. Including the beer :)

<comment><USER41> A little late to the convo, but guessing he meant Southpointe and the rest of the suburban buildup at Fayetteville Rd./I-40, which is definitely a different feel than downtown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42>
        "Maybe the Internet will change things further. Maybe one
        day the most important community you belong to will be a
        virtual one, and it won't matter where you live
        physically. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I would say that this is somewhat the case already, it's just that recognition online doesn't translate to the real world. Many people in open-source community wield as much power as the CEOs in Silicon Valley. Depending on what you've open-sourced, you have power over the powerful. Linus Torvalds and the community he fostered for example is responsible for empowering many of the powerful in technology.

</comment><comment><USER7> " in London you can still (barely) hear the message that one should be more aristocratic."

spoken like a true tourist. that is just nonsense.

<comment><USER43> You know PG was born in England, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> My city does a pretty good job saying "we like you just the way you are."

</comment><comment><USER45> London would probably be "get on that fucking tredmill so you can buy a house you can't afford in an area you don't want to live, with a job you hate, to pay for a lifestyle you don't agree with".

<comment><USER46> Precisely why I'm reading this post - in the hope of finding somewhere else. I was hoping there would be more mention of European cities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is an inspired, and inspiring, piece of writing.

On a slightly snarky note, I always do appreciate a jab at DC, where I was both born and raised. It really is LA with bad weather and less attractive celebrities.

</comment><comment><USER25> PG makes me want to move to Boston/Cambridge. And his summation of silicon valley sounds... almost sick. But then I review my own behavior, and perhaps I am motivated more by power than I like to think?

I've always thought of the will to power, beyond power over yourself, as an ugly thing. But looking back at choices I've made? Yeah. I've wanted to change things. Even change things for others. And I've chosen power over money at several junctions. So, maybe I'm in the right place after all.

<comment><USER48> Will-to-power isn't ugly in of itself. It's what you do with it that counts. You can use it to support the weak and oppressed, you can use it to insure yourself and your loved ones (and more!) from damaging external stressors.

Everybody wants more power, nobody wants less. Also, power-over-yourself is the most fundamental thing about will-to-power (in an enlightened sense).

There's no point getting power over others if you have no power over yourself- then it's merely your appetites that have power over others, not you. As Da Vinci put, no man can have any dominion greater or lesser than over himself.

<comment><USER25> >power-over-yourself is the most fundamental thing about will-to-power (in an enlightened sense). >There's no point getting power over others if you have no power over yourself- then it's merely your appetites that have power over others, not you. As Da Vinci put, no man can have any dominion greater or lesser than over himself.

Yeah, now you are talking about a different kind of power, which is really a different and nearly unrelated thing. "Self control" or what have you. The ability to control and direct your mind and body. Sure, it's a great thing, and can be a great tool... but it's not what I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about the power to live where I want to live, and to be secure in my person and my property. To work when and as much as I want to. To obtain the goods and services I want.

All of these things require convincing others to do things for me, which is to say, power over other people; so to have a reasonable degree of power over your own life, you need a reasonable degree of power over others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> One thing I don't see in the article or discussed here is that (at least I believe) a sign of reaching maturity is that you don't need to define yourself by where you live. While these places can be helpful in achieving your goals, ultimately wherever you go, there you are.

</comment><comment><USER42> pg, out of curiosity, what's your view on Berlin and other international cities of note?

<comment><USER50> I guess he would have a much harder time getting a feeling for a city where he could not casually pick up what people are talking about due to language barriers.

<comment><USER51> Though, at entrepreneur meetups/event, it's funny EVERYBODY speaks English. Just yesterday at hy berlin, all the pitches were in English and 1/3rd of the people getting food/drinks are non-Germans. So almost every conversation between 3 people had one english speak and was thus held in English.^^

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Come to Seattle and learn about another dimension.

<comment><USER53> What kind of things do you think Seattle is know for, or breeds?

<comment><USER54> Marijuana and IPAs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Where would London fit on your continuum?

</comment><comment><USER56> I need to get out of new york :(</comment>


Mass infection of Wordpress blogs at Network Solutions - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/04/mass-infection-of-wordpress-blogs-at.html

<comment><USER2> OK, this is an interesting one.

One of my clients with an up-to-date, fully patched version of Wordpress, with correct permissions on all necessary files, and nothing too funky in wp-admin or wp-content/plugins, has had their site infected twice.

It's a different infection from the one in the article, but it was the same <script>...</script> code each time.

The interesting thing is that the infection didn't do anything to the site logs, and while I can see plenty of _failed_ attempts to break Wordpress in the logs, after hours of examination I can't find any _successful_ attempts to break Wordpress in the logs.

The client has multiple WP sites, but this is the only one they've had trouble with. It's also the only one hosted with GoDaddy.

So, either: there's a 0-day Wordpress exploit in the wild that can somehow compromise a site without showing up as a suspicious GET or POST in the site logs, or, somehow, hosts are being compromised and sites are being infected through their host. At the moment, I'm kinda leaning towards the latter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey,

Thanks for the update. I had access to the logs and we didn't see any suspicious GET or POST at all. In fact, on the first one I looked I saw a post to simple forums, so I thought that would be the problem.

But after that, we saw a bunch of blogs without simple forums and even without any GET request at the time of the hack.

So my assumption is that it can only be though a problem with those shared hosts...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From Network Solutions via the Wordpress forums ([http://wordpress.org/support/topic/385477/page/2?replies=53#...](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/385477/page/2?replies=53#post-1471448)):

> "From what we can determine at this time, the changes look like they were > made by a user with admin credentials to your WordPress blog. This could be > an issue with the WordPress installation or a WordPress plugins on the site. > This is not an issue on our web hosting servers"

So, there's a possibility that it's a yet-unknown zero-day in the wild, and the attacker is just targeting blogs at NetworkSolutions at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really, really want to use Wordpress as a bloging platform, but the constant hacks / security issues have given me a lot of pause. Can anyone recommend an alternative, hopefully one with a bit better track record?

<comment><USER5> A friend of mine maintains Thoth, a lightweight blog engine written with Ruby. It's a quality piece of work.

<http://wiki.github.com/rgrove/thoth/>

If you're interested in photoblogging or a heftier multi-contributor model, I've written Cortex Reaver for that. UMMV, though. :)

<http://github.com/aphyr/cortex-reaver>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Media Temple Grid service also reported a similar attack, where several DB passwords where leaked, and systems were infected. They reported that all the sites were running Wordpress.

[http://weblog.mediatemple.net/weblog/2010/03/02/1167-gs- atta...](http://weblog.mediatemple.net/weblog/2010/03/02/1167-gs-attacked/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I can confirm this, my dad's wordpress blog, hosted on network solutions, as also been compromised.

<comment><AUTHOR> I heard from at least 50 different people hosting there that got hacked. All the same stuff... All running wordpress 2.9 and updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The huge ad on the left side of the blog overlaps the blog post itself, making it illegible to me on Chrome 4.0.

</comment><comment><USER9> Check for xmlrpc.php access in the logs.

<comment><USER2> In my case: I did spot some suspicious activity to that file in the first case of infection, but based on subsequent activity from the same IPs, it didn't appear to be a successful attack. In the second case of infection, there is no suspicious activity on that file. (Just some crawlers.)

But, this isn't quite the same infection as is being reported on Network Solutions, so I dunno what those logs look like. I don't have any clients on NetSol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just came into the office this morning to find that I had to clean up a client's site on Wordpress on Network Solutions. Always a pleasant surprise when they fight to keep their site on the servers they've always used (for their site they hadn't updated in over 6 years) and then they get hacked :-)

Anyone notice low performance on Wordpress on Net Sol?</comment>


Show HN: First security bounty with Google:Knowing who is interviewing with them - <AUTHOR> https://www-tnhh-net.cdn.ampproject.org/c/www.tnhh.net/mobile/posts/gcandidate-who-is-interviewing-with-google.html <comment><USER2> Nice job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :)</comment></comment>


The Nightjet: A Big Bet on Train Travelers Who Take It Slow - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/business/overnight-train-austria.html <comment><USER2> <Random musings of a train traveler follows>

I think this is great.

When I went inter-railing around Europe, we actively looked for overnight trains and long, slow journeys. If we could get a 10pm train to the next place, for 8 hours of journey, that was a night in a hostel saved!

We took the train from Venice to Innsbruck (highly recommend both places). It was a nightmare because we got an 8pm train, arrived a little after 2am and found (predictably) nothing was open and basically laid on the stone floor outside the station for 5 hours trying to sleep. A 9h journey on a nice warm train with a seat, would have suited me fine!

Similarly, here in the UK, I took a sleeper train from London to Exeter regularly. The train would arrive at around 4am but didn't leave Exeter till 550. So you have to decide: you could be woken at 4am with breakfast or at 540 with a coffee and 10 minutes to get off or travel on to Cornwall. I always picked 540 because then I'd get 6 hours sleep and remain awake the rest of the day. The alternative was to get up at 4, walk home (30 minutes in the cold and dark), then get into bed and get another 2 hours. Who wants that?

I know it's hard to suit everyone, maybe some people are desperate to get to Exeter or Innsbruck in the early hours of the morning when nothing is open. But I imagine a longer overnight journey and arriving around the times people get up anyway works better for many more people...</comment>


NYT attempt at presenting mass shooting stats - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html <comment><AUTHOR> Old NYT article on mass shootings in the US versus the rest of the world. There are some good studies quoted in here, but, oh my, the first graph and the lack of explanation at the beginning... A case study on how _not_ to present stats on a controversial topic. Total guns? Not per capita? Is that mass shooters per year? Huh?</comment>


Self-Driving Car and Bicyclist Were Involved in Collision - <AUTHOR> http://sfist.com/2017/06/09/self-driving_car_and_bicyclist_were.php <comment><USER2> TLDR: bicyclist rides into back of car when car stopped to avoid another car cutting it off.</comment>


C language inventor spurns Google's language exam - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/

<comment><USER2> Original article: (<http://gawker.com/5520339/mac-genius-slams-his-google- job>)

Which quotes a little chunk from the book Coders at Work ([http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft- Progra...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft- Programming/dp/1430219483/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320069916&sr=8-1))

 _(Anyway I can trim that amazon URL into something nicer without using url- shorteners?)_</comment>


NASA Rover Confirms First Drilled Mars Rock Sample - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20130220b.html

<comment><USER3> I love how they are taking precautions with the 150-micron screen based on a failure at JPL of one of their test system.

"In response to information gained during testing at JPL, the processing and delivery plan has been adjusted to reduce use of mechanical vibration. The 150-micron screen in one of the two test versions of CHIMRA became partially detached after extensive use, although it remained usable. The team has added precautions for use of Curiosity's sampling system while continuing to study the cause and ramifications of the separation."

</comment><comment><USER4> Indeed, the start of extra-terrestrial mining ( the exploration part - <USER2> exploitation ATM ).

Altough this is mining on a planet ( with gravity and atmosphere) , I am keen on asteroid mining, physics could be quite different there. Even the Moon could be quite difficult to mine ( due to the dust ).

<comment><USER5> Indeed, different. No gravity or wind to blow away dust - it will just hang there, for 10,000 years, a growing problem as mining activities continue. Gripping a rock to drill becomes a major problem - no weight to press the drill into the surface. Then, when a chuck of material is gotten loose, it will just drift away - how to tether it, guide it into a smelter? How does the smelter keep the material contained, how does it separate metal from slag in zero gravity?

There are half a dozen major engineering hurdles before asteroid mining can be attempted. Add to that transportation and energy hurdles - also unprecedented in mining history. Finally, control delay of minutes make remote operation impossible - will have to be completely automated.

Right now asteroid mining is a pipe dream. It would be far easier to do deep- core mining right here on Earth for instance - none of those issue apply. I don't say it would be easy - just easier than asteroid mining.

<comment><USER6> Earth density ~ 1g/cm^3 = 1000kg/m^3 ~ Asteriod density Asteroid Radius = 1km. Asteroid mass = 4/3pi _R^3_ density = 4.2x10^12kg

acceleration = G M/R^2 = 280 micrometers/second

if initial velocity is zero, a dust particle will settle in about 300 seconds from a height of 10m at this acceleration.

They can always escape if initial speed is high, but if not, they will settle down pretty fast.

Use science!

<comment><USER7> Earth's density is 5.5g/cm^3. Asteroid densities vary, averaging maybe 2.5g/cm^3. Metallic asteroids are about 5g/cm^3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It really shows we're still in our very early baby steps of space exploration when drilling a hole in a different planet is considered marvelous news.

</comment><comment><USER9> I with they had gone for a more spectacular title, e.g. "Robot drills hole in Mars!".

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually submitted this story as "Curiosity robot drills hole in Mars rock. Unprecedented in history". HN altered it to match the press release.</comment></comment>


Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/intermittent-fasting-works-for-many--not-only-for-weight-loss-but-also-for-heart-health/2020/06/12/11420c1c-a4d5-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html <comment><USER3> My experience with IF has taught me that I'm much better at complete denial, rather than moderation. So if I want to reduce my caloric intake it works better for me to say No to everything for 16 hours and only eat for 8, then to try to just eat less and in moderation all day.

It also applies to carb and other reductions. If I allow myself any bread, sweets, etc, I will eat too much. It's easier for me to eat 0, then it is to only eat a little.

<comment><USER4> Same here, years of people telling me drastic diets are "unhealthy" etc. kept me from playing to my strengths of just doing the extremes for long periods of time instead of fighting constant urges while balancing them with a moderate calorie intake.

I think most (healthy) people should try fasting for 5 days to see how your body responds. It won't kill you, but many people are terrified of the thought of not eating for 12 hours.

<comment><USER5> I once fasted for about a week while suffering an illness that wouldn't let me keep any food down. I only drank water during that time. To my surprise, after several days of not eating, my hunger disappeared completely. It was scary, but also eye-opening. The experience taught me that hunger is not the "you require food right now in order to survive" signal that everyone thinks it is.

<comment><USER6> There's an idea out there, no idea how true, that what most first-worlders call hunger isn't even really hunger. More like withdrawal symptoms from food addiction. The hunger that comes back when you're really malnourished is much more painful/compelling. Or so I've heard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > How do you start? Agatston told me to start by skipping one meal a day, > usually breakfast. (Yes, you can have black coffee in the morning, into > which he adds ghee, a type of clarified butter, and coconut oil to reduce > hunger pangs. It's not your typical cup of coffee.)

This may be ok to start with, though black coffee by itself has the ability to kill hunger without these crutches.

Adding ghee or coconut oil in black coffee means it's no longer effectively zero calories, and this is not technically fasting. Same with adding sugar to it. You can skip breakfast and have black coffee, black or herbal teas and water — all these are effectively zero calories.

One point this article doesn't address in the 16:8 scheme is the frequency of eating within the eight hour eating window. Is it ok to have three meals and snacks within that window? Should it be two meals with a good gap between them? I'm sure these variations also determine if it works for weight loss or other benefits.

Intermittent fasting with 16:8 makes it easier to consume lower calories. Weight loss typically follows if activity levels are maintained the same or increased (to compensate for a lower basal metabolic rate).

<comment><USER8> > This may be ok to start with, though black coffee by itself has the ability > to kill hunger without these crutches.

I always wonderered how much ok it really was. Dreaking coffee will activate some digistive processes, and make the liver work. So you are not exactly fasting.

I never could find a study comparing with, and without coffee.

<comment><USER9> You're still fasting because it doesn't affect your blood sugar. That's why you can drink black coffee, tea, or water when fasting for surgery.

<comment><USER8> I heard this, but I can't find any study measuring the differences seriously.

Fasting has various effect, not all of them are linked to the sugar consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For years I haven't been eating breakfast long before the IF craze. Mostly out of laziness. Buying all the ingredients, making sure they don't expire, preparing the food etc. is quite some time, so I gradually dropped the habit with no adverse effect. I live alone, but oh boy when people learned that I don't eat breakfast they'd get so defensive and try to tell me how unhealthy it was and how I must be underperforming because of that etc... I even got back to eating breakfast and intellectually felt good that now I'm more of a healthy normal person who does the socially acceptable normal things.

After all the IF articles I immediately went back to no breakfast with no guilt.

It's crazy how much of this stuff is in our head. The body is really really adaptive! If you get used to eating breakfast and suddenly skip it, you will feel like shit. But that doesn't mean your friend who never eats breakfast also goes through that every day. Or, if you always wake up at 9 AM, you may be shocked at those morning people who wake up at 4:30 AM. But probably if you followed their exact routine incl the evening routine, you'd find after a few weeks that it's not too bad. Surely there is a genetic component to it as well, but we underestimate the power of adaption and habits.

And most importantly, don't be so defensive when someone tells you about a strange habit of theirs while they are visibly healthy and well adjusted. Eating disorders and sudden drastic changes are of course cause for concern, but many people have a crabs in the bucket mentality and feel personally attacked when someone does something for their own health.

<comment><USER11> > get so defensive and try to tell me how unhealthy it was and how I must be > underperforming because of that etc.

I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that the candy industry, ahem, the breakfast cereals industry's ads and sponsored "research" is behind that.

Opening Wikipedia on Kellog's (first guess of where I might find sources on this):

> The FTC had previously found fault with Kellogg's claims that Frosted Mini- > Wheats cereal improved kids' attentiveness by nearly 20%.

> In 2016 an ad telling UK consumers that Special K is "full of goodness" and > "nutritious" was banned.

And from one of the sources on ftc.gov:

> At about the same time that Kellogg agreed to stop making these kinds of > false claims in its cereal ads, the company began a new advertising campaign > promoting the purported health benefits of Rice Krispies, according to the > FTC. On product packaging, Kellogg claimed that Rice Krispies cereal "now > helps support your child's immunity," with "25 percent Daily Value of > Antioxidants and Nutrients – Vitamins A, B, C, and E." The back of the > cereal box stated that "Kellogg's Rice Krispies has been improved to include > antioxidants and nutrients that your family needs to help them stay > healthy."

> The expanded order against Kellogg prohibits the company from making claims > about any health benefit of any food unless the claims are backed by > scientific evidence and not misleading.

I, too, heard from my parents that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" and that I shouldn't skip it, and you can rationalize it with "sure, it's the first thing, a good start is half the work" or something. But that's not the same as reading the original research or at least doing a cursory search online -- something that my parents aren't used to questioning; and if they look it up, confirmation bias might play a big role.

So I don't think you can fully blame the people that got defensive about this, though I am sorry you had this experience.

To end on a more positive note, the European Union requires food to only make preapproved health claims. It feelt a bit like censorship or at least overreach when I first heard of this and I read that the number of claims made reduced very significantly (also correct claims, since it's now expensive to prove it truthful) if I remember correctly, but I guess this does stop a lot of this misinformation, at least within the EU. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_claim#European_Laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_claim#European_Laws))

<comment><USER12> > from my parents that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Me too, and I've been slightly wondering how they got that idea -- when nowadays I don't eat breakfast and still feel fine

> breakfast cereals industry's ads and sponsored "research"

How interesting, makes sense, maybe the answer

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He lost 45 lbs, that's what probably removed his sleeps apnea. Not because of some other magical ability of intermittent fasting. One of my friends also lost a lot of weight and his apnea went away, he went off of his CPAP machine.

<comment><USER14> You're probably correct, in that losing a lot of weight greatly improved his health. That said, losing weight is freaking difficult, and if intermittent fasting is a path towards that, it'd be very useful.

I've done a lot of fasting. The _results_ seem pretty good. Pulling it off is non-trivial.

At this point, we need "magical", because nothing else has really seemed to work in general for losing weight.

(And no, didn't read the article, because paywall.)

<comment><USER15> > work in general

That's far from sure at this point. Yes, HN is a hotbed of intermittent fasting propaganda [1], which may make it seem like there is general agreement. But you'll find other communities pushing other diets as the one true diet, so... more research is needed.

[1] Note, for example, that the submitter subtly but crucially changed the title, which in the original says "works _for many_ " (emphasis mine).

<comment><USER14> I'm not particularly claiming that IF works. My main point is that _nothing_ we know of really works generally and reliably.

I've personally lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off continually for more than a decade. But I don't really know how I did that, nor do I have much confidence that whatever I did would work for others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For anyone interested in weight loss and heart health, please remember that both are impaired by not getting enough sleep. Studies have shown that you're way more likely to over eat if you get less than 7 hours of sleep a night.

Source: "Why we sleep" by Matthew Walker.

<comment><USER17> This book? [https://guzey.com/books/why-we- sleep/](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/)

<comment><USER18> His critique is flawed.

<comment><USER16> Would you care to elaborate on that?

<comment><USER18> I made one short response to him here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850) but will elaborate in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been thinking a lot about how humans evolved and how differently we do some things. Is there consensus on the eating patterns of prehistoric humans?

My understanding of how humans evolved to eat is pretty limited, but I would guess unintentional intermittent fasting would have been commonplace in humans over the past few hundred thousand years.

There seems to be consensus that eating a large variety of foods is great for you, but is shifting your eating pattern, or even grazing, better than eating at the same time, the same amount, every day?

Does your ancestral background impact how frequently you eat? Similar to how some cultures are lactose intolerant due to historically not having access to cows, could similar issues present based on how frequently we eat?

I'd love to find resources that have dug into those topics if anyone has recommendations.

<comment><USER20> In general animals exposed to nature live shorter, not longer lives. It might be worth investigating, but I've not seen anything to suggest we might become healthier by restricting our diets to food available to effectively poor people. Besides the obvious not eating food that we already know is unhealthy and eating significantly more calories than we need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/esoe- cif0516...](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/esoe- cif051618.php) warns you intermittent fasting diets could increase diabetes risk.

I wish I had data from before but after I attempted intermittent fasting I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It's possible I had it before, I alas haven't had blood work done for a few years prior. I changed my diet, never attempted fasting again and the 6.8 HbA1c dropped to and stayed steady at 5.3 almost immediately.

<comment><USER22> Fasting will make any deficiencies in your blood sugar regulation very, very obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is also antifragile[1] theory of fasting - body metabolism needs randomness to prosper. So the idea is to not only do intermittent fasting, but also do it randomly, randomly change your food habits, etc. Of course, even with randomized food rations you need to keep them healthy.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13530973-antifragile](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13530973-antifragile)

</comment><comment><USER24> I have been following IF on-and-off over the past few years. It has helped me lose weight initially and then maintain it at a good spot. I have not done detailed before and after blood work to know whether it has had other effects. But one problem I have started having recently is acid reflux and acidity. People immediately pounce on this and tell me that skipping breakfast is what is causing increased acidity levels in my stomach. And my doctor is also suggesting that I do not skip breakfast. The problem is I do not have any concrete evidence for either case (skipping breakfast causes/does not cause acidity). I am hoping to get my acidity issues under control first and then maybe give IF another shot to see whether the acidity issues return. Just wanted to throw out there that different people might have different experiences with IF and it is very important to listen to your body.

<comment><USER25> Binge eating can cause acid reflux, so I wonder if it's a similar mechanism. Something about eating so much food in a small window maybe (?) doesn't give your body time and space to digest it properly

<comment><USER24> That's an interesting point, never thought about it that way. Need to read more about it! If that is the case, then going back to IF might be a problem for me :). Currently I am back on 3 meals a day (12:12) and have eliminated certain types of foods that could cause acidity. And it's working for now.

<comment><USER26> Why not have breakfast but skip dinner?

Eating close to bedtime can cause reflux and FWIW I had less reflux when I fasted after 4pm.

<comment><USER16> I suspect the reason why it's common to skip breakfast in 16:8 and not dinner, is because of social pressure. It's much more common to have dinner with friends than breakfast. Skipping breakfast is way easiet for many people.

<comment><USER27> I did try IF before and I'm getting back to it now. Social aspect is the main reason for skipping breakfast, not the dinner for me

<comment><USER28> Yes your friends rarely ask you out for breakfast...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Although it sounds counterintuitive, long periods without eating actually > decrease your levels of the "eat now" hormone ghrelin.

I could not tell you if this is psychology or hormonal, but it seems to me after having done it, that the benefit of intermittent fasting is not just "fewer calories on average due to fast days" but also shifting the point at which the body starts to sound the alarms about hunger. You "get used" to not being sated, and it feels less like a problem that needs fixing, at least for a few hours longer. This happens at some level well below conscious thought.

</comment><comment><USER30> At university I used to intermittent fast as a side-effect of laziness to cook breakfast.

Nowadays I've read the benefits of it and trying to replicate that but I just get severe headaches when trying to do it. Anyone got any tips for avoid thing that?

<comment><USER31> Two of the most common culprits to rule out would be 1) caffeine withdrawal and 2) dehydration. People often don't drink as much, or not at all, when they're not eating, and many don't even realize it.

When I work an all-nighter (36+ hours without sleep) I don't have much of an appetite the next day and so tend not to eat anything. Because I'm not eating I'm also not drinking much, which I like because I'm prone to slide into a salt+soda spiral. But if I don't force myself to drink fluids I often end up with a raging headache.

I'm not much of a breakfast eater and during periods when I drink a lot of caffeinated soda I often get headaches from the caffeine withdrawal, especially on the weekends as I tend to only drink soda when working.

<comment><USER32> And don't forget that maybe more than 20% of the normal water intake are due to food, not just drinking [1], so if you eat less you need to compensate water intake accordingly.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5084017/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5084017/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> An accelerated version of intermittent fasting is longer term fasting - <USER2> minimum being 3 days, although even only being able to handle 24 hours at first is a great start; the next ideal number of days is 5 days, then 10 days, then 20 days based on different changes that occur at those periods.

I always recommend people watch this by Dr. Jason Fung: 'Therapeutic Fasting - Solving the Two-Compartment Problem' \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj- oMN-Fk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk)

<comment><USER34> I'm all for fasting but a 20-day fast without medical supervision sounds crazy.

<comment><USER33> I never argued no medical supervision? Many people find it much easier to take a daily electrolyte supplements while fasting, part of that is to increase blood pressure in the body - so you'll avoid the added effects and added pressure on the system of that.

If you're underweight then you shouldn't be fasting, that's the main concern from my understanding.

Some people may just want to make sure their blood sugar levels are healthy, perhaps along with checking for other abnormal factors. Obviously people who may be fasting to lose weight may have other dis-ease progression due to the weight or that caused their weight gain.

One other problem is many people don't understand how to come off of a fast properly - and eating slowly isn't necessarily how. In reality what will happen is if you don't know what foods you're normally eating that cause irritation/inflammation in your GI tract and you return to those foods, you're in for a very uncomfortable and painful experience because the contrast from being away from those foods - from a low to no inflammation state to then introducing them again, it's not fun and I say that from experience; it's part of the process of how an elimination diet can work to help you understand what foods you can tolerate or not, or you can do Igg food sensitivity testing and save yourself a lot of trial and error time - though those tests don't account for all sensitivities, so people need to not blindly trust that they are encompassing all possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you can break your carb addiction the rest is not that hard. It was very similat to quitting cigarettes for me. Cut off carbs for a few days, it will feel horrible until day 3, then you almost feel euphoric but you still have an urge. Keep it up for a week then you start replacing the old habit with a new one (intermittent fasting with keto diet for example, or cardio). Even when I slack off, so long as I don't touch carbs I can just cut down on food intake or workout a little bit and I will have so much more energy. If I actually workout properly, people will notice changes in my energy level and attitude. It's really insane why it is so hard to make simple changes with immense benefits like this. I feel normal after stopping cigs and other vices but I am telling you, cutting out or extremely reducing carb intake has had the most impact on my life. If I didn't know better I'd be calling carbs an addictive harmful drug (in reality, our modern way of life that requires minimal carbs for fuel and healthy bodies that are energy efficient are causing a conflict with traditional meals and ingredients). Once you get some control/discipline over what you eat, controlling when you eat is a lot easier in my experience. When it gets hard to stick to the diet, intermittent fasting can compensate for lack of good calories.

</comment><comment><USER36> I am strongly prone to skipping breakfast and drinking black coffee all day long, but I honestly do feel like it leaves me with less energy at the end of the day, and makes me less likely to exercise.

If you are overweight, any weight loss may be good. If you aren't really overweight, eating healthy regularly timed meals and working out are probably a better bet for maintaining your physique.

</comment><comment><USER37> >Intermittent fasting took off in the United States in part due to a 2014 TEDx Talk ("Why fasting bolsters brain power") by Mark Mattson

The link points to Michael Mosley's 2012 BBC documentary. Mark Mattson's TEDx talk from 2014 is here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UkZAwKoCP8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UkZAwKoCP8)

</comment><comment><USER38> For anyone interested in more info about IF, Dr. Jason Fung has a great book about it.

[https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets- Weight...](https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets- Weight/dp/1771641258/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Jason+Fung&qid=1592111190&s=books&sr=1-5)

</comment><comment><USER18> Early intermittent fasting is the most powerful variation, on two fronts. First, early dinner improve weight loss rate while conversely very late dinner worsen it, along with glucose tolerance. Second, consuming high protein breakfast has strong associations with weight loss and better lipid profile. You can get the best of both worlds.

There's lots of research to this effect - [https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2012229](https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2012229), [https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...](https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000622), [https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/127/1/75/4728738](https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/127/1/75/4728738) , [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.20460](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.20460), [https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/104/4/1160/4557123](https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/104/4/1160/4557123), [https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/104/4/982/4557122](https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/104/4/982/4557122), [https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/11/2624/htm?sfns=mo](https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/11/2624/htm?sfns=mo), [https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2016182](https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2016182), [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027153171...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027153171400195X)

</comment><comment><USER39> I lost a little over 50lbs a number of years ago, following a 5:2 diet. Quite frankly, I found it pretty horrible. Selecting 2 days in which you won't eat (much) is pretty tough, and the obvious candidates would be your working days, but you should expect to be grumpy AF during them in all honesty.

These days, I generally stick to a 16:8 approach of IF (I typically eat between 13:00-21:00). I find that it works pretty well for me. I should note that I'm very active (exercise every day, running, cycling, or lifting weights), and that I _still_ typically eat 3 meals, albeit within a smaller window. I think being sceptical of food science is smart, so all I can say is that it works for me.

</comment><comment><USER40> One day I decided to skip breakfast (I am not really hungry in the morning). I would eat at 20:00 and then at 12:00 the next day. 16 hours of fasting for a year or so (I still continue, recently gave up because of COVID but will be back when normality is back too).

I was not hungry, I did not loose weight, I did not feel better or worse.

I wonder whether some people are just optimized for this eating style, without specific impacts on their health or body.

</comment><comment><USER41> > How do you start? Agatston told me to start by skipping one meal a day, > usually breakfast.

This sounds especially odd to me, as skipping breakfast has long been one of those well-known ways to accidentally gain weight... (explanation typically being that you end up hungrier at lunch/dinner and eat more over the whole day)

<comment><USER42> Are we sure about this? I mean, wasn't "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" an advertising slogan to sell more?

Additionally: I think this probably has more to do with the person. My mother is outright miserable without breakfast, which makes sense. She is hungriest early in the day. She doesn't have much issue completely skipping dinner or eating very little the rest of the day. I'm the opposite. Eating too early means I simply eat more food that day - and I'm not even hungry the first hour or two that I'm awake. I don't see a point in eating when I'm not hungry, so I generally don't. It is much easier to simply skip food early in the day, snack on something small for lunch (cheese and bread, fruit, etc), and have a nice dinner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It works for "systems" thinkers rather than "goals" thinkers. Easier to apply a system than try to reform every habit of eating constantly.

I suspect engineers and the like are disproportionately the former.

(See Scott Adams for a description of the systems/goals dichotomy).

</comment><comment><USER44> I like the explanation that IF gives your body a chance to go into ketosis. And, by extension, a keto diet provides the same benefits as IF. Combining the two is easy since in my experience you rarely get hanger pangs when you don't eat carbs.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well, at least the title is exactly informative, instead of making me guess what the conclusion of the article is about.

I tried IF for a while. Had mixed results (mostly positive, just not as positive as expected). Willing to try again.

</comment><comment><USER46> One thing that IF guys try to not talk about is that the only way to lose weight is by eating less. If you eat same amount of calories with IF then you won't see the same weight loss benifits.

</comment><comment><USER47> It "works" exactly like calorie restriction, there's no magic to IF.

From a literature review[0]:

>Twelve studies used calorie-restricted diets as a comparator to IF and found equivalent weight loss in both groups.11,15-17,19,22,27,28,33,41-43 Study duration was 8 weeks to 1 year, with a combined total of 1206 participants (527 undergoing IF, 572 using calorie restriction, and 107 control participants) and demonstrated weight loss of 4.6% to 13.0%.11,15-17,19,22,27,28,33,41-43

[0] [https://www.cfp.ca/content/cfp/66/2/117.full.pdf](https://www.cfp.ca/content/cfp/66/2/117.full.pdf)

<comment><USER48> IF offered better glycemic control for Type II Diabetes (see the last sentence):

> Synthesis All 27 IF trials found weight loss of 0.8% to 13.0% of baseline > weight with no serious adverse events. Twelve studies comparing IF to > calorie restriction found equivalent results. The 5 studies that included > patients with type 2 diabetes documented improved glycemic control.

<comment><USER49> Is "glycaemic control" a general benefit, or is that only good for people with diabetes (and other conditions?)?

I've wondered if IF makes a difference in that way. If there's a _pain au chocolat_ for me, and I eat it at breakfast is that different to me eating all the same food in the day but eating that _pain au choc_ after lunch?

<comment><USER48> > Is "glycaemic control" a general benefit, or is that only good for people > with diabetes (and other conditions?)?

Great question. My guess would that it would be correlated, at least. If you check this out, please share back what you find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I don't understand the 16:8 idea. I would still eat 3 meals, just with dinner a little earlier. 8 hours window feels too big to be called fasting.

<comment> globular-toast Even a "normal" 3 meal pattern involves fasting overnight. That's why we call the first meal breakfast. This is just extending that overnight fast to 16 hours.

I think if you tried to eat 3 meals in 8 hours you'd eat smaller meals. Otherwise you'd be stuffing yourself full.

<comment><USER42> Not necessarily. IIRC, food leaves your stomach within 2-5 hours, and it varies depending on person and what the food is. I'm gonna guess you could fit in a light breakfast and a fairly decently sized lunch and dinner in that 8-hour window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The actual title includes the phrase "works for many"

</comment><comment> a-saleh Damn you paywall, I did wanted to read this! :D

I am not certain how generalizable this is. Because this sorts of diet research relies most often on self-reporting, I mostly read it by prepending 'People exist for which ...'. And that is good to know, and hopefully they are not outliers by too much, but it probably won't be silver bullet for everybody.

I.e. I remember hearing two twich streamers talk about their diets an one said how she really enjoys intermittent fasting, while other mentionsh how he needs to eat something at least every four hours, or he literally sees his apm in Starcraft drop :D

</comment><comment><USER52> I would prefer we would just call it "eat less"

<comment><USER53> that's entirely wrong though. Because it's not about cutting the calories of your meals in half - it's about having longer gaps between your caloric intake times, so your body goes into ketosis.

<comment><USER49> Is that what all IF it's about?</comment></comment></comment>


We, The Web Kids - a generation's manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://www.pastebin.com/0xXV8k7k

<comment><USER2> You use google and you're special, we get it.

<http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/12/0212/022212.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> "We are used to our bills being paid automatically, as long as our account balance allows for it;"

This is my favourite bit. Point 3 of a manifesto. This will definitely go down in the great manifestos of history. Just laughable, I've met a lot of kids who grew up with the web, but none so overwrought and entitled as this one.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Polish original <http://pokazywarka.pl/pm1pgl/>

Author: <https://plus.google.com/117555350878436162140>

Republished by:

<http://boingboing.net/2012/02/22/web-kids-manifesto.html> (Cory Doctorow)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/we- the...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/we-the-web- kids/253382/)

<http://owni.eu/2012/02/20/we-the-web-kids-piotr-czerski/>

and many more

</comment><comment><USER4> "One more thing: we do not want to pay for our memories. The films that remind us of our childhood, the music that accompanied us ten years ago..."

I'm part of this generation (though I suspect older than the author of this piece) and this is 100% ridiculous. Let's not conflate piracy with sentimentality.

edit: I'm not British; would "twee" be the right word to describe this piece?

<comment><AUTHOR> > I suspect older than the author of this piece

he's 31

<comment><USER4> Suspicions: confirmed :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Oh, so precious, so special. What a bunch of crap.

<comment><USER5> +1.

P.S. To the author: Some of us elders didn't "learn" to the use the internet either. We built it.</comment></comment>


What's the point of using Twitter? (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://sdegutis.com/blog/2010-02-27-whats-the-point-of-using-twitter/ <comment><AUTHOR> I feel like I come across this same sentiment time and time again in other people's articles, especially found on Hacker News or in the comments here: shut your devices off, and enjoy life in a more conventional way, and you'll be much happier. Unfortunately I don't think I've lived up to that myself since I wrote this article 8 years ago, and we've fluctuated here in our household between getting rid of social networks and computers and TV for periods of time, and going back to them strong. I think mostly that just goes to show just how strong the network effect can be, and that it really helps to surround yourself physically with like-minded people who have similar life goals as yourself.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't use twitter and I still haven't done most of those things. In fact, you be _shocked_ at the state of our garden.</comment>