How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us? - <AUTHOR> http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/how-did-we-come-to-believe-saturated-fat-and-cholesterol-are-bad-for-us Direct link to video here: https://vimeo.com/45485034 <comment><USER3> While it's really interesting to debate whether you should eat potatoes or beef, the real battle for the western world is that we stop eating processed foods. Wheat vs eggs seems like a silly debate when people are living off of Coke, Oreos and Capt'N Crunch.

Whenever I hear these arguments, I feel like these scientists aren't living in the same world as me. "Eggs are ok, declare scientists" reads the headline while the man sips from 32 oz soda.

In addition to that, having no education in biology, chemistry or any field remotely associated with health and fitness, I do have two eyes. In light of all the contradicting information and conspiracy theories, I'll trust what I've observed. And, what I've observed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that people who favor fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes over beef, pork and fatty foods are healthier.

<comment><USER4> I've observed rather different things. The people I know who eat the most meat are the Crossfitters around me. They are, in almost all cases, healthy.

I have a roommate who drinks fat-free milk and eats lots of salad and pasta, who avoids meat like the plague. He's been struggling with his weight for as long as I've known him. I drink coconut milk -- which contains nothing but fat -- and a meal usually consists of some randomly selected fatty cut of meat and vegetables fried in the drippings. That, or cheap canned fish. I lost weight eating like this. I fit in skinny jeans. I may with luck convince my almost- girlfriend to peg me. :3

But the important thing -- I don't advertise. I am not a walking bulletin of the health benefits of coconut and sardines. How do you really know about the diets of the people around you? I would say there are maybe four or five people around me whose diets I actually know well enough to analyze in any reasonable way.

Case A is a twenty-two year old recent Caltech graduate who is obsessed with freerunning and eats nearly-strict paleo. He can do a backflip. No further comments. We grew up together.

Case B is my roommate. He follows all the conventional advice to a T -- chicken, fish, whole grain, salad. Lots of "health food" products. Y'know, healthiest potato chips on the shelf. There is bread, there is soybean oil mayonnaise. It... doesn't seem to be working.

Case C is another good friend of mine. Eats a lot of processed cheap stuff; he's the sort that'll buy three pounds of animal crackers. When I first met him he was rather obese and said he was try'na learn to eat vegetables. He lost a lot of weight after we introduced him to ecstasy... and he's been eating healthier too. He's sloowly coming around; one of his recent facebook statuses involved making hard-boiled eggs. He looks better and seems happy. Score 281,443 for MDMA.

Case D is me. I'm kind of a dick, judging people like this. People who I like. I don't really know any other way to be honest about how I make decisions, though.

When I was eleven my parents tried to force me to switch from whole milk to 2%. I responded by walking two miles to the gas station to buy milk. I'm the only kid in my family who never had weight problems growing up.

Eyes optional.

<comment><USER5> So, because your body doesn't have the tendency to put on weight, you eat what you like. Your friends who tend to get fat easily watch what the y eat, but it's not helping them that much.

This really sounds to me like there are great differences in metabolism person to person.

I have always been skinny, and I eat a lot of whatever. I don't exercise much. I know people who are "big", but eat less than I do.

<comment><USER6> People don't have that much difference in metabolisms (unless we are talking about actual health problems or differences between severe overweight and athletes). What happens is most people don't know what they are eating.

BBC did a documentary where two friends, one skinny and one fat, swore the difference was due to metabolism, that the skinny one ate a lot and the fat one didn't. They tested it and found out that the fat one used more calories than the thin one, but also took a lot more calories per day.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTr1JUvEiUU>

<comment><USER7> The basal metabolic rate varies between individuals. One study of 150 adults representative of the population in Scotland reported basal metabolic rates from as low as 1027 kcal per day (4301 kJ) to as high as 2499 kcal (10455 kJ) [1]

Your metabolism also slows noticeably as you get older. In my 20s I could eat anything (and lots of it) without being able to gain any weight. Now in my 40s I have to lift weights (to increase metabolism) _and_ watch what I eat to stop putting on fat.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate>

<comment><USER6> According to the study, only 26.7% difference wasn't explained by age/sex/weight. Which means for almost 75% the values were somehow dependent on sex/age/weight.

And the difference between the top 5% and bottom 5% of the outliers was around 30% (which means for a 2000kcal average BMR, the bottom needed only 1700 and top 2300). This, in my opinion, is not enough for people to tout slow/fast metabolism for weight gain/loss as most people won't fall into the top/bottom 5%.

<comment><USER7> Even if you're eating just 300kcal over what you need every day you will become overweight eventually.

Edit: for reference 300kcal is about what you'd burn off with a 4 kilometer run.

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying that eating 300kcal over daily maintenance everyday would not make you fat.

What I'm saying is that I really doubt the most of the people that are overweight/obese are eating according to what a BMR calculator says and because of slow metabolism they are getting fat. Also, body uses more kcals per day than BMR, you also have to take in account the activities per day.

Using Harris Benedict formula:

If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2

If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie- Calculation = BMR x 1.375

If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55

If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie- Calculation = BMR x 1.725

If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

The thing is, most (and I know this is pure observational) people I know that are overweight/obese either underreport calories (they say they eat just a salad, but forget the 5 table spoons of dressing/olive oil they season it with) and over report activity levels (jogging is not moderate exercise!).

I know it isn't data, but my mother and my mother in law are some of the people that most annoys me related to this. They swear they don't eat treats (I see them eating on average 2-3 cake slices or ice creams per week) and they say they only dine salad (but include 2 loafs of bread and a lot of oil based seasonings) and complain they don't lose weight. And this is what I see in about 90% of the people I know that are overweight. Maybe it is cognitive dissonance/bias but some people just believe they can't lose weight, so they bend the truth to support that idea.

ps: sorry to be such a 'asshole' related to this. Fitness and nutrition is a passion of mine, and I hate when people use excuses for their lack of progress, or attribute 'genetics' or 'luck' to my progress (sure, they don't see me at the gym 1.5 hours every day working my ass off, or not eating bread for months at a time.)

<comment><USER7> I think we basically agree, it's very easy to miss high calorie foods that can totally throw your calculations out.

And you shouldn't use a slow metabolism as an excuse for accepting a certain state, maybe that's easy for you and me to say as we both seem to be lucky enough to be healthy.

But since you can alter your metabolism it can be a useful tool as part of weight loss. Do weights, increase muscle mass, increase metabolism, lose weight. In terms of time spent weights are very effective as well - 3-5 workouts of 45mins per week is plenty.

<comment><USER6> Actually, and that is my point entirely, luck isn't the word. I have shitty genetics (I think on both sides, for the last 2-3 generations my family has been overweight/obese). Heck, during my wife's pregnancy there were complications, and due to stress + bad food + no exercise I ballooned up 9 kilos (20 pounds) in about 2.5 months. If I don't take care of myself, I gain weight quite easily.

And not to try to be the naysayer, but the effect of muscle on calories burned at rest has been quite the myth floating around. Check the references at the bottom of [http://www.lanimuelrath.com/blog/calories-burned-by- muscle-v...](http://www.lanimuelrath.com/blog/calories-burned-by-muscle-vs- fat-another-myth-exploded/) and you will see that 10 pounds of extra muscle will burn at most 60-70 more calories than fat at rest.

Apart from that, I agree, do weight training 3-5 days a week. move around, eat healthy. That should be enough to at least get you to the normal weight range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Twelve years ago I had read too many peer-reviewed papers to know that low- cholesterol diets were a bad idea, and useless from the point of view of having a good blood-cholesterol profile.

Useless because, for example, population study after population study showed that low-cholesterol diets did not improve blood-cholesterol. Furthermore, it was common to find populations with high-cholesterol diets that had an excellent blood-cholesterol profile, and, conversely, populations with low- cholesterol diets and a bad blood-cholesterol profile.

A bad idea because, among other things, low-cholesterol diets will immediately lower your blood Testosterone. Recall that cholesterol is the most basic steroid; from it, all other steroids, including anabolic androgenic steroids such as Testosterone, are metabolized. A diet with a good amount of cholesterol is a necessary condition to achieve good levels of Testosterone.

Why would a hacker care about his Testosterone levels?? Some examples:

Males with high Testosterone perform better in arithmetic and mathematics than males with low testosterone. Males with high Testosterone levels have better short-term-memory. Males with high Testosterone have good mood; whereas low Testosterone causes depression, mood-swings, and angry reactions to minor things.

So, for at least 12 years, I have made it a point to have two jumbo eggs for breakfast. And that's not the only source of cholesterol and saturated fat in my diet. I do, however, make sure that I do not ingest too much saturated fat ... and there are too many more details to my diet to discuss here.

<comment><USER9> Non-correlation between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol would most likely be due to the fact that blood cholesterol, and blood lipids generally, are more strongly related to total caloric intake.

The correlation with testosterone is equally invalid. Low-hanging fruit: it is not the simplest steroid (1). But lets go a bit further: by this logic, men with hypercholesterolemia should be bulls among men. Clinically, this is not the case (FWIW, I'm a physician and have diagnosed a few of these). Yes, cholesterol is a precursor to testosterone. But it is also a precursor to estrogens. Most cholesterol is synthesized by the cells themselves. There is no essential dietary minimum of cholesterol. You can't really avoid it in your diet either, because all cells have cholesterol (broccoli, beef, rice, you choose). Never mind the thermodynamic equilibria of the various enzymes involved, the hormonal regulation of the adrenals and gonads, etc, etc. And if you want to walk the biochemistry back further, the cholesterol is derived from lipids, which can easily be assembled from carbohydrates, especially in an anabolic state (i.e.: growing).

Counterpoints on your "males with..." theories. Spatial reasoning differences disappeared in the only known study of two genetically identical societies where one was matriarchal and one was patriarchal (2). From a more consequentialist perspective, vegetarianism increases with income in developed countries. (3)

The cholesterol in arterial plaques is a red herring. That cholesterol represents something less than a rounding error compared to total body cholesterol, and even less when compared to the total flow of cholesterol that must pass over the plaques in named vessels. A plaque is like a scab of the arterial wall. The plaques are more likely due to repetitive macroscopic injury potentiated by weak connective tissue, due to the connective tissue molecular injuries (collagen cross-linking, glycosylation, etc) caused by excess free radicals and other high-energy intermediaries (introduced from, e.g., smoking, excess dietary calories).

The answer remains the same: eat less. If your weight is outside the normal range according to wolfram alpha, you probably need to visit bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov.

I assure you, many of your forefathers on the Serengeti lived long lives without jumbo eggs, and still had some wicked hacks (like wheels, music, property rights, etc).

People want to hack their bodies. Hack your relationship to the society you're in, that's the problem: figure out how to eat in moderation despite all the messaging. Get rid of Earl K. Butts' stain on the farm bill. Get rid of the farm bill entirely. Quibbling about tenth-degree issues like the relationship between eggs and testosterone is just a win for Monsanto. They got you to talk about something other than the problem. The problem is there's too much food.

(1) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steroidogenesis.svg>

(2) <http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/19/1015182108>

(3) [https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/50169/1/63222...](https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/50169/1/632222271.pdf)

<comment><USER10> You rant about non-correlations and such, and then end your post by jumping to a conclusion of your choice ("The problem is..."). Either you allow arguments by others (you are no biochemist either I guess?), or you stick to it, and leave it where it is - there is no scientific consensus about what "is the problem in our society". We can only argue about that, without facts.

I can't find the paper, but I read that high insulin levels are the new devil. If that's true, then bread (remember, mass production started only during the industrial revolution), corn, and especially sugar, are to be restricted as much as possible. Alas, you in the US have a massive corn lobby (real sugar became scarce during the Cuba crisis), so it would be difficult to do away only with corn.

IMHO the root of the problem is not that there's too much food, but the industrialization of the food processing industry. Everything has both advantages and disadvantages - we can choose from 1000 bread sorts, but many of them are heavily processed and freed from all micronutrients. And like every system, the food industry can go haywire, and I think it already has. E.g., look at what kind of chickens KFC breeds for use in their products. Food has therefore become a comodity, and people treat it like that. We are just not used to paying large parts of our income for food anymore, but we really should be - it's an essential part of life, just like housing. They key is quality, and being nice to both animals and environment is important.

<comment><USER11> Regarding Insulin, you'll probably love reading this: <http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319>

Agree, but eating healthy isn't that much more expensive than eating processed foods. Or at least doesn't have to if you buy the right things (bulk frozen veggies, meat etc.).

<comment><USER10> Oh, by healthy I also mean that the animals I eat have eaten healthy :) E.g., beef quality is really bad if cattle are not fed grass, but corn and soy instead (or animal meal, shudder). Same with chicken/turkey which are fed mostly corn instead of grains, seeds, worms, etc.

If organic is too expensive for you (here in Austria organic farms have a huge financial overhead because of cert. programmes -> products are almost twice as expensive), you can still by meat of good quality, e.g. grass-fed beef. Because you will find residuals or even large quantities of their fodder virtually everywhere - mostly stored in the fat.

Another thing is the way animals are kept - if they are kept in crowded rooms, then you need antibiotics for them to survive until they are slaughtered. Those antibiotics residuals reportedly act like estrogens in our bodies, reducing sperm count and testosterone level. That's the actual reason why I consider organic meat the only meat worth buying - at least in Austria, organic means there is a minimum of available space for animals, they have to be fed a certain percentage of natural fodder, they must not be fed antibiotics, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How about we all just eat real food? Stay in the perimeter of the super market -- with the exception of some canned fish -- and you should be okay. You can't go wrong with fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, tubers, nuts, and seeds. As for wheat...come on, don't kid yourself. A refined white powder that is highly processed is not real food. Drink water, exercise a few times a week, and get some sun. If nothing else, living this way will make you healthier than most Americans.

<comment><USER13> I do believe you can get fat even if you eat only "real food", the trick is to eat in moderation. If you eat more calories than you use up you will gain weight. It really is that easy. You could loose weight eating pastries only, just as long as you don't eat too much. It wouldn't be healthy though...

<comment><USER14> It's really hard to eat too many calories if they come in the form of vegetables. Caloric density is important. So are additives like MSG that mess up your sense of satiation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Our body doesn't posess the enzymes to dehydrate saturated fats, therefore we can't process them as efficiently, Additionally saturated fats lead to cell membrane instability and 'crystallisation' due to the straight-line chemical arrangement of the carbon atoms. Cis - (A type of) unsaturated fats by contrast, have kinks in the chains which induces fluidity into cell membranes. Interestingly Cholesterol is used to maintain membrane stability/'fine-tune' membrane fluidity when there are lots of Cis fats.

I haven't listened to the whole talk yet and take it the poster's angle is that there is a lot more to diet, nutrition and preventable diseases like Ischaemic heart disease than just 'saturated fats and cholesterol'. Yes. No doubt. But they are still terrible for you in high doeses, Epidemiological studies have shown this beyond a doubt and the basic science is sound.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Google's cache for this article:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&#...</a>

</comment><comment><USER16> I believe it coincided with converting to a nearly sedentary culture. Nothing is as bad for you as being sedentary and since many/most people refuse to exercise, and you can't buy exercise pills (let alone get people to take them), you have to get people to want to cut down on the stuff their body isn't using.

Cholesterol isn't bad, saturated fat isn't bad, but if you're sitting around all day festering so are they.

Nutrition is far from an exact science and humans from around the world react to foods differently in subtle ways giving any Nutritional conclusions limited relevance.

IMHO, The 2 most important things you can do are exercise and pay attention to your body. Also, a lot of these "mis-conceptions" come from media and laymen thinking that phrases like "a link between saturated fat and heart disease" imply causation.

Remembered one more thing: A lot of shit food is loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol (and salt and sugar). Frozen dinners, snack cakes and fast food are some great examples. These products, which significantly contribute to the fattening of the world, help give their main flavor sources a bad name.

<comment><USER17> Wow that's a great way of explaining the underlying issue. The way that everyone reacts differently to the same foods is also the reason that thousands of different diet books continue to make money. Its a mess and the internet has only added to the confusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Summary: bad science led to low fat diet craze. Reduce carbohydrates instead.

<comment><USER19> Taubes was right

<comment><USER20> Low-carb diets work for plenty of people (including me), but this is a must- read refutation of Taubes' carbohydrate hypothesis:

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate- hypothesis-of-obesity.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Guyenet is a joke.

Peter over at HyperLipid recently ripped him to utter shreds:

<http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/confused.html>

[http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/insulin-un-de...](http://high- fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/insulin-un-dead-and-coffin-nails.html)

Not to mention, Taubes countered Guyenet with a 6-part series refuting Guyenet's widely mocked food-reward/palatability hypothesis:

[http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time- ances...](http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time-ancestral- health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-carbohydrates- kettles-pots-other-odds-ends-part-i/)

[http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost- time-–-the...](http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost-time-–-the- ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-and- carbohydrates…-part-iia/)

[http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost- time-–-the...](http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost-time-–-the- ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-and- carbohydrates…-part-iib/)

[http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost- time-–-the...](http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost-time-–-the- ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-and- carbohydrates…-part-iic/)

[http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost- time-–-the...](http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost-time-–-the- ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-and- carbohydrates…-part-iid/)

[http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost- time-–-the...](http://garytaubes.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-lost-time-–-the- ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-and- carbohydrates…-part-iie-as-in-"end-and-egh-already/)

<comment><USER21> I read through the first 3 of your links by taubes, which all seemed to be extremely verbose sophistry that don't address Guyanet's points at all.

At what point does Taubes actually address Guyanet's (clearly stated) claim, that if food is tastier, people eat more of it, consume more calories, and become fatter?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say that you might consider reading the complete 6-part series. :-)

<comment><USER21> I would say that if you want people to read a relevant link, you should at least say "here are 6 links, all but $N are all red herrings." Have a little respect for the time of the reader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> At my former company we had free access to beverages (sodas, water, energy drinks, ... even beer). I gained a lot of weight while working there. After I quit I stopped drinking sodas altogether, while mainly keeping my diet (vegetarian, one "big" meal per day + snacking) and level of physical activity. I lost about 18kg (40 pounds) in about 2 months. Went from 103kg to 85kg. I'm 1.84m so that's an ok weight I guess.

So that worked for me ... drinking water.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is the link submitted here throwing 403 errors for other HN users? I notice that many comments here on HN could just as well be responding to the bare title alone, whether or not the participant has read the fine article. Until I can read the article (I can't so far after repeated attempts), I'll give some history of how the cholesterol hypothesis was developed.

Ancel Keys, a member of the Terman longitudinal study of high-IQ children and inventor of the K ration for United States soldiers during World War II,

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A7213-2004Nov2...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A7213-2004Nov23.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/obituaries/23keys.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/obituaries/23keys.html?_r=1)

was active at the University of Minnesota in some key years of his career.

<http://mbbnet.umn.edu/firsts/blackburn_h.html>

He did studies of human nutrition, including starvation, in an intellectual milieu that included some of the first studies (by other researchers) on surgery to treat heart disease. (It was the surgical research that prompted my mother, a nurse, to move to Minnesota after completing nursing training in another state.) Keys hoped to find a dietary explanation for the prevalence of heart disease in industrialized countries, and he thought his regression methods of statistical analysis pointed to dietary fat and cholesterol as the main risks factors for heart disease. He lived to the age of 100, so it's hard to say that he was completely crazy in his ideas, but the idea that cholesterol intake from the diet alone is the whole story in heart disease rates is now generally discredited, and it is especially controversial to say that a diet of the kind he recommended is as good for all-cause mortality reduction as it appears to be for heart disease reduction.

Like all other members of the Terman longitudinal study, Keys was never awarded the Nobel Prize. Two young people who were rejected for the Terman study (William Shockley and Luis Alvarez) because their IQ scores were too low later went on to win a Nobel Prize in physics (in separate years).

<comment><AUTHOR> As per his Twitter feed[1]:

"We're being kicked off HostGator for crashing their server due to volume. Working to get a dedicated server. Sorry for inconvenience!"

In the meantime, Google's cache of this article is here:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&#...</a><p>And the direct link to his talk [video] is here:<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/45485034" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/45485034</a><p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/EatLikePete/statuses/225822001154117632" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/EatLikePete/statuses/225822001154117632</a>

<comment><USER24> I can think of no less flattering phrase to describe HostGator: Unlimited until you get traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Site appears to be down. The Google cache is here:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tAI5zmC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tAI5zmCTTDUJ:eatingacademy.com/nutrition/how- did-we-come-to-believe-saturated-fat-and-cholesterol-are-bad-for- us+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

But the meat of his presentation appears to be this video, available on Vimeo:

<http://vimeo.com/45485034>

</comment><comment><USER26> Thumbs up for Frederic Bastiat quote. Thumbs down for presumably hosting with WordPress.

<comment><USER27> You presume correctly: <http://eatingacademy.com/wp-login.php>

Though all it'd take to fix is 3 clicks to install a caching plugin, usually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Check out Fat Head. A Documentary response to Super Size Me that discusses how what we "know" about fat and cholesterol was the result of a politician lining his pockets by pushing the agenda of one of his friends in the business world [http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Fat_Head/70115017?trkid=23...](http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Fat_Head/70115017?trkid=2361637)

</comment><comment><USER29> 403 - <USER2>

<comment><USER30> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tAI5zmC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tAI5zmCTTDUJ:eatingacademy.com/nutrition/how- did-we-come-to-believe-saturated-fat-and-cholesterol-are-bad-for- us+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sk&client=firefox-a)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I defer to Walter C. Willet, M.D., who writes in "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy" (co-developed with the Harvard School of Public Health):

"There's no question that two types of fat -- saturated fat, the kind that's abundant in whole milk or red meat, and trans fats, which are found in many margarines and vegetable shortenings -- contribute to the artery-clogging process that leads to heart disease, stroke, and other problems...monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in olive oil and other vegetable oils, nuts, whole grains, other plant products, and fish -- are good for your heart.... Our bottom line is this: It is perfectly fine to get more than 30 percent of your daily calories from fats as long as most of those fats are unsaturated."

"The term saturated means that the carbon atoms in a chain hold as many hydrogen atoms as they can...saturated fats come in gradations of bad...butter and other dairy products most strongly increase LDL (bad) cholesterol. Those in beef fat aren't quite as powerful at boosting LDL and those in chocolate and cocoa butter have an even smaller impact."

HDL and LDL are lipoproteins: "...fats must somehow get from your digestive system to your cells...like oil and water, fats and blood don't mix. If your intestines or liver simply dumped digested fats into your blood, they would congeal into unusable globs. Instead fat is packaged into protein-covered particles that mix easily with blood and flow with it. These tiny particles, called lipoproteins (lipid plus protein), contain some cholesterol to help stabilize the particles.

"Lipoproteins are generally classified by the balance of fat and protein they contain. Those with a little fat and a lot of protein are heavier and more dense than the lighter, fluffier, and less dense particles that are more fat than protein. The proteins also act like address labels that help the body route fat-filled particles to specific destinations.

"LDL is often referred to as the bad cholesterol...they can end up inside cells that line blood vessels. Once there, LDL is attacked by highly reactive free radicals and transformed into oxidized LDL. Oxidized LDL can damage the artery lining and kick off a cascade of reactions that clog the artery and set the scene for artery-blocking blood clots.

"In contrast, HDL particles sponge up excess cholesterol from the lining of blood vessels and elsewhere and carry it to the liver for disposal."

He goes on to list several studies: Ancil Keys' 1956 international survey called the Seven Countries Study which found a strong link between saturated fat and heart disease; the Framingham Heart Study, which identified high levels of cholesterol as linked to impending heart disease; the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (both very large cohort studies); the Lyon Diet Heart Study; and others. "In the 1950s and 1960s, dozens of carefully controlled feeding studies among small groups of volunteers showed conclusively that when saturated fat replaced carbohydrate in the diet, total cholesterol levels in the blood rose...."

The book also talks about the challenges of practical, large-scale studies of nutrition "in the wild": it's not easy to track and correlate people's eating habits over decades, for any number of reasons.

<comment><USER32> The more interesting debate is about overall health outcomes. Even the most ardent low-cholestrol folks are forced to admit that this link between higher LDL (particularly the big "fluffy" stuff) and heart disease exists.

There are two really interesting things, however.

1\. The link between dietary saturated fats and increased LDL isn't nearly as strong as those earlier studies suggest. This is certainly supported by my own anecdotal evidence: My LDL levels went way down when I moved to a higher fat diet.

2\. Some studies have suggested that controlling for all natural deaths that OUTCOMES on higher fat diets are better, meaning people on those diets tend to live longer. It appears that cancer rates are reduced for those eating higher saturated fat diets for one thing.

This is all outlined in "Good Calories, Bad Calories", and there is a wealth of study to support the idea.

I recently was seated with a prominent nutrition researcher at a local university. His take was interesting. Essentially he laid out why these studies are very difficult (as your cited book did). He said there are two clear things that comes up in research time and time again:

\- Many preservatives, particularly the high sodium nightmares found in processed foods, are pretty bad for you. \- Sugar is the devil. Studies have suggested time and time again that it's sugar that is responsible for elevated LDL levels. Worse yet sugar promotes higher levels of very dense LDL which is a huge risk factor for heart disease.

He recommends a whole food diet. Basically don't worry so much about what your eating and more about how fresh it is. The shorter the time between something living and the time you eat it the better. The fewer steps it takes for something to be prepared the better.

Calories still count of course, but I've essentially been following that idea for awhile. I eat more fruits and vegetables and I've drastically cut my sugar intake. I eat more steak and pizza (made from high quality and fresh ingredients) than the ADA would like. My blood chemistry levels have been amazing ever since.

<comment><USER33> _Even the most ardent low-cholestrol folks are forced to admit that this link between higher LDL (particularly the big "fluffy" stuff) and heart disease exists_

I'm not a researcher, but I have been hanging around /r/advancedfitness a lot. What I seemed to understand is that the ratio of triglycerides to LDL to HDL is what is an indicator of heart disease.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Try this for the video: <http://vimeo.com/45485034>

</comment><comment><USER34> I've always wondered if the saturated fat in coconuts is bad for you..

<comment><USER35> Most likely good for you, along the lines of olive oil and avocado. Assuming a good balance of foods.

<comment><USER36> They have very different smoke points.

In short: coconut oil (also palm oil) will be useful after you use it to fry, while olive oil will stop being olive oil after just some heating. In fact, do not fry anything with olive oil. Olive oil should be added to food in your plate only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can someone summarise the vid? It won't play on Android ...

<comment><USER19> Link seems to be dead

<comment><AUTHOR> Link seems fine to me:

<https://vimeo.com/45485034>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why is this on Hacker News?

<comment><USER39> My same question. Reading this thread makes me feel like I am watching a PHP conference host a panel on language design.

<comment><USER38> Based on the down-votes I'm receiving I have to say I agree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Here in Scandinavia is quite popular a diet based on butter and fat. They were abusing it so much that they had a crisis : the butter shortage.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020455390457710...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204553904577102332973418996.html)

funny, isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER41> Science?

<comment><USER42> Watching Hacker News try to interpret scientific data is, well, "like Quora without the Questions."</comment></comment>


Man upgrades Internet Explorer 1.0 to 9.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.winrumors.com/man-upgrades-internet-explorer-1-0-to-9-0-video/

<comment><USER3> The fact that this guy makes something as boring as upgrading software over and over again actually enjoyable to watch is really astonishing.

<comment><USER4> He's got a good, non-emotional speaking voice, and his content:noise ratio is high. Also, the tempo of the overview is near perfect, and his choice of what video to show to go with his voiceover is flawless.

<comment><USER5> > He's got a good, non-emotional speaking voice

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by this?

What makes it good? What makes it non-emotional? What is an example of a bad voice? What is an example of an emotional voice?

<comment><USER4> He reports the facts in a way that doesn't give any clues to any biases; he gets neither excited nor upset at any point that I could detect. His voice is pleasing; not nasal, screechy, grating, nor anything else widely considered objectionable.

I suspect you knew all of this and were simply trying to jump on some point that sounded subjective to you and perhaps it is, but that's what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If you're an Internet Explorer fan..."

Wait what? I was under the impression that most people use IE either because its installed by default or they are forced by their corporate overloads. Do people actually use IE because they really liked it after comparing it with other options?

<comment><USER7> For one thing, IE 8 is arguably a more secure browser than Firefox due to its use of low-integrity process isolation on Windows Vista and 7. It's also more stable than Firefox in my experience, probably because of the way it isolates browser windows into separate processes.

And now IE 9 has a rendering engine that's at least equal to Firefox's. It lags behind Firefox's user interface in some respects (customization, built-in spell check), but it feels much faster, and it doesn't bog down over a long browsing session like Firefox does (again thanks to isolated browser processes – now one for each tab, just like Chrome).

For my part, I still think Chrome is superior to both IE and Firefox for general web browsing, but these days I certainly wouldn't look at someone funny for choosing IE. It may just take a little while for the folk knowledge that "IE suxors!" to catch up to the new reality.

<comment><USER8> Are you comparing IE 9 to Firefox 4.0, or Firefox 3.6?

<comment><USER7> I'm comparing to Firefox 3.6; Firefox 4.0 isn't released yet. But everything I've read indicates that Firefox 4.0 will still have a single-process, non- low-integrity process model, with all the security and reliability implications that go with it.

Hopefully Firefox 4 will catch up to the likes of Chrome and Safari (and IE 9) in terms of JavaScript performance, judging by benchmarks on the release candidate, but I haven't seen any indication that it addresses Firefox 3's fundamental design weaknesses. Of course, feel free to correct me if I've missed something in the release notes somewhere...

<comment><USER8> Understandable, but still, when it comes to comparing how IE 9 stacks up to "Firefox" on rendering engines and memory usage, it doesn't seem particularly meaningful to compare the brand new IE 9 to the old Firefox just because IE 9 released a single week before the next major revision of Firefox is slated to. Not that you were writing a New York Times article here or anything. :)

I certainly understand your other point about the single-process design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would probably watch a video about Tax Code law if this guy did it. Subtle humor is always best. Great video.

</comment><comment><USER10> The best result of all of this is clearly that IE2 gets 93/100 in ACID3. Take that, Google Chrome!

<comment><USER11> I'm running Chrome 10.0.648.134 and it got 100/100 with a fast, smooth animation and pixel-perfect comparison to the reference encoding.

<comment><USER10> But they took about 15 years longer to get there! (Also, I'm running 10.0.648.151: was there a 'regression' or are you running something custom on top of Chrome?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> His choice of breakbeat hardcore classic 'We Are I.E.' by Lenny De Ice deserves great praise.

</comment><comment><USER13> My favourite part was IE2 getting 93/100 on the Acid3 test.

<comment><USER14> Yeah that's weird. I don't understand how that happened. If anyone happens to have IE2 around I'd love to be able to study this.

<comment><USER15> The install's floating around in a lot of places; for example: <http://www.oldversion.com/Internet_Explorer.html>; or as part of this multiple-version package: <http://utilu.com/IECollection/>.

When I tried loading the Acid Tests websites in IE2 (from the utilu collection on XP SP2) it gave me the error "Site Temporarily Unavailable (error id: 'bad_httpd_conf')". Not sure what's up.

<comment><USER10> As he said in the video, IE1/2 don't send a hosts header with their request and thus can't access most sites, ACID included. You'll have to download the test and all necessary files to a local disk in order to run it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He should do this for each of the MS Office Apps too.

</comment><comment><USER17> This video takes me all the way back to 1995, when I actually got Internet Explorer 1.0 with the Windows95 Plus! Pack.

Internet Explorer 1.0 through Internet Explorer 4 were during the Browser Wars. Internet Explorer 4 came with Windows 98, so after that the war was over since most people just started using Internet Explorer because it came with Windows and was the default browser.

</comment><comment><USER18> To be fair, IE3 and, more specifically, Microsoft News and Mail, had _one_ intriguing idea - that mail (and NNTP) messages were things to be managed like files and folders by a shell extension.

I would love to have Nautilus turn into a mail or calendar client when opening specific folders (somewhat extending magic into discovering what a folder is about)

<comment><USER19> Really?

I'm quite happy that the world has been moving into another direction. You no longer have to browse your music or photos in the filesystem, you have a dedicated music or photos program. That seems ideal to me, I wouldn't want my file browser to be a swiss army knife.

<comment><USER20> There's no need for it to be a completely separated interface, though - <USER2> theory, at the top level you could have "Files", "Music", "Photos", "Mail" and so on. When you descend into "Files", you see the root of a traditional filesystem, when you descend into "Music" you see a music-specific interface.

<comment><USER19> Would you really want your file browser to become such a monster?

<comment><USER20> It's really more of a question of "Why does my shell currently privilege file browsing above music or email browsing?" I would contend that it's for historical reasons more than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I would have been interested to see the Unix and Mac versions of IE 5 included. And wasn't IE 5.5 a significant upgrade to 5.0, which was not included?

</comment><comment><USER22> Most people use IE because they dont know other browsers exist. This applies to MS Windows only.

</comment><comment><USER23> It doesn't look like he used 1.0 in the video. Did I miss something?

<comment><USER24> Are you sure? What's that at the 1:30 mark?

Serious question, I thought it was IE 1, but now I feel like I missed something.

Edit: I'm sure he does, he explicitly mentions various performance issues with IE 1.0 several times, starting with a screenshot at about 1:30

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> He could have simply downloaded Chrome instead :-P</comment>


6502 Emulator in GLSL Shader (Apple I) - <AUTHOR> https://www.shadertoy.com/view/tlX3W7 <comment><AUTHOR> Give it a moment to load.</comment>


Musk: SpaceX to Attempt Falcon 9 First Stage Water Landing - <AUTHOR> http://www.parabolicarc.com/2013/03/28/musk-spacex-to-attempt-falcon-9-first-stage-water-landing/ <comment><AUTHOR> I rarely resubmit articles, I've only done it 2 or 3 times for articles usually about SpaceX, articles that I know will catch on if they get the initial upvotes to get them to the front page.

This submission never reached the front page, it only got 2 upvotes before falling of <https://news.ycombinator.com/newest>

I resubmitted it a few hours later (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5459777>) and it got 70+ upvotes, and 20+ comments - the kind of HN response I wanted from it.</comment>


What keeps you going? - <AUTHOR> For all of you out there who are working on start ups, or have, be they successful or not, how do you get over those humps where you just want to throw in the towel or move on to another project? I am not in this particular slump at the moment, in fact quite the opposite, I am more energized and optimistic than ever, but I have been a few times, and worked through it. What are your personal strategies that help you move through a demoralizing/demotivating period in your pursuit?<p>This is an open ended, "what makes you tick" question, just to get some interesting pov, not an invitation for negative jackassery. <comment><USER2> I'm going to come at this from another perspective. Some years ago, a friend lost a significant portion of their health to a couple of unfortunate injuries. Doctors have not been able to fix these problems and have actually on more than one occasion made them worse.

As this person describes, before this occurred, life had it's ups and downs. But even with the serious downs, it was typically about a three day cycle before they started to "bounce back". Even when the underlying issue was not resolved, the current day and current experiences started to once again predominate, and things started to come "into perspective".

Currently, they experience some level of discomfort almost constantly, and the infrequent "good periods" are quite unpredictable. The result is that they often simple can't concentrate on things in a sustained fashion, and so they also can't enter the state of "flow" that used to make them so productive.

My point: GUARD YOUR HEALTH. And pay attention to your health. If you are struggling, stop and ask yourself: How am I doing, physically?

I've become convinced that a significant portion of the U.S.'s "mental health" issues actually have their origin in physical health, or lack thereof.

\--

One of my issues with health care in the U.S. is that, when the doctor makes a mistake, you "pay twice" to -- hopefully -- have it fixed. If you don't want to do that, and/or they don't fix things, you face a very expensive and uncertain process. In this person's case, all they really wanted was to "feel better". One would think that addressing this, medically, would be the simplest solution, But... the U.S. health care system has a way of entirely reversing priorities.

Insurance helps ameliorate this somewhat (a cap on your own, immediate out-of- pocket expenses). If you don't have insurance (perhaps, ever more so these days, through no fault of your own), or they deny your claim, you're fully screwed.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really great point. I have long believed that physical and mental health are so connected to one another. I actually have had this proven to me very recently in two instances. My mother in law has cancer, and she recently stopped responding to chemo, so she stopped the treatment. Now basically all she can do is fight with sheer will (which she has a LOT of luckily) and she's doing this vegan diet, which has been known to cure some people. The funny thing though, is that she was saying the other day she feels so much more able to fight it now that she's off chemo and not feeling sick all the time. She's feeling like a million bucks, I hope it stays that way... The other instance is myself; I am currently recovering from my second go with postpartum depression. I am ok now, I actually feel like dynamite too :) but I did have to go on meds for it. It's unreal how it affects you physically. I was sleeping like 16 hours a day for a few weeks, and still exhausted (and I was blessed with a baby that slept through the night at 5 weeks, so it wasn't due to actual sleep deprivation). And now I'm really feeling healthy. Anyone will tell you too, exercise and sleep and diet are some of the keys to keeping depression at bay.

I am fortunate that I live in Alberta, and don't have to go through the woes of the US health care system. I never take our free healthcare for granted. I am sorry for what your friend is going through...

Thanks for the post pasbesoin!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've in a startup (<http://flairbuilder.com>), all by myself, for more than 3 years now. And it's been a ride. Lots of ups and downs.

Most of the time, simply taking a break helps a lot. I go to the movies, meet friends. Spend time with my family, although not as much as I should or want to.

Other than that, I also have other passions: I play guitar/keyboards, I read stuff (although not as much as I should or want to). I started a master in Philosophy, which is both challenging and exciting. I wish I'd become a film- maker someday, but the school is pretty expensive. Don't know about it.

However, I got tired of being on my own as it's hard work and energy consuming. I'm working on a new product now (<http://bicodr.com>), which excites me. And I also use the excitement back into the current product, which still brings a good income.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think this does really help. I didn't really notice, but I do take time for these things, I have to, I am married and have 2 daughters, so it is not really an option not to...but I didn't reflect on how that balances the hectic start up part of life, even though being a mom in itself is hectic! Thanks for the input!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paying customers. Alternatively, active users. Any form of positive market reaction to what I'm building keeps me going.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely agree, thanks fezzl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Found your post during a search for another post about favorite programming languages. I read another post suggesting going to the local library to work a couple of hours. I've contemplated this but never got around to it yet. I wish you the best of luck on finding tools and habits to keep things moving.

<comment><AUTHOR> we have thought about doing this before, and not done it yet either, lol. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Though we only live about 30 minutes apart, I've never met PG, and hence, I don't really know him. There are many people on this site that do know him, and have worked with him, so they would definitely be in a better position to elaborate on what PG calls "the trough of sorrow" faced by nearly all startups. The following link mentions it, and a bit of searching will yield a lot more results:

<http://www.inc.com/ss/can-paul-graham-mass-produce-start>

I don't know if PG originated the phrase or not, but somewhere in his copious writing and speaking, he once said something along the lines of, "One of the toughest thing for YC is keeping up the spirits of a batch of founders going through the trough of sorrow." --Though I've quoted it, this is not a direct quote, and worse, off the top of my head I can't remember the exact reference I should cite. In other words, I may be misquoting him, and if so, hopefully he'll correct me.

As for me personally, the thing that keeps me going is remembering how lucky I am.

Today is a great and wonderful day, but in more precise terms, I feel good enough to be out in my little garage/office and I good enough to type out this comment. To put it bluntly, my health sucks, and as such, my usefulness is curtailed about half the time, sometimes more. Every day when I can read and learn something is a good day, even if I hurt too much to type out any notes, ideas or code.

I admire and even envy the people starting new companies. I may not be able to use or afford their services, but I still admire their efforts; they are doing something I am physically unable to do. Each of them is taking on the amazingly fun challenge of starting a business, and I may never again have the luxury, the drive, or the physical ability needed to once again enjoy the challenge of building a startup.

None the less, I count my blessings. I have a roof over my head, food on my table, and relative peace in my area of the world here in the silicon valley, so I have much to be thankful for in life, but more importantly, I _KNOW_ I am very lucky. I appreciate the little things I can still do even if they seem pointlessly trivial by comparison.

If you've never been thankful for the ability to simply cut the food on your plate, let alone having food on your plate, then you are probably caught in the mental spiral of worrying about unimportant things.

Today was "Demo Day" for the Winter 2012 batch of YCcombinator startups, and you can be certain that every founder in the batch had many worries and concerns about presenting their companies to potential investors for the first time. The upcoming deadline for YC applications at the end of the month has all of the potential candidates of the next YC batch worried and concerned. If you are not involved in YC and have your own startup, you also have plenty of worries and concerns.

The thing to remember is, as a founder you are very lucky to have these problems to worry about. If you can learn to take a step back and remember how lucky you are, then you'll learn to enjoy and appreciate each and every little challenge you face.

I hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> JCR, this really puts things into perspective... When I posted this question, I was thinking of business, not life as a whole, and I think you raise an excellent point. I do have a lot to be thankful for, and I am incredibly lucky. This is something I will always keep in my mind when the "trough of sorrow" gets me...thanks for the comment :)</comment></comment>


Ford Promises Fleets of Driverless Cars Within Five Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/business/ford-promises-fleets-of-driverless-cars-within-five-years.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12300210](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12300210)

</comment><comment><USER3> This scares the crap out of me. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I hope the government regulates the hell out of self driving cars. I want really strong robustness of autonomous systems. The difference between working in 99.9% of conditions and 99.99999% is huge. I'd hate to see corners being cut in the race to get there first, and I fully expect that's what will happen.

<comment><USER4> Ready for car hacking deaths? Get ready... Autonomous systems won't be good enough to detect threats and maneuver as well as attentive or lucky drivers for at least 5-10 years. I'm not sacrificing my steering for at least 12...

<comment><USER5> > Autonomous systems won't be good enough to detect threats

That reminds me of the worry about hacking pacemakers. If someone wants to kill you there are much easier ways to do it. A rock to the head works well without much technology involved.

<comment><USER4> A rock to the head is easy to detect and prevent. There are witnesses. Pacemakers require people to get closer. An increase in computers has lead to an increase in hacks, following that logic, an increase in hackable vehicles will lead to an increase in vehicles being hacked. When people race to make something happen and omit security, it puts users at risk. Information: the part of my argument you quoted has to do with user intervention, such as when another vehicle comes out of nowhere and the system doesn't know how to respond.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "That means there's going to be no steering wheel. There's going to be no > gas pedal. There's going to be no brake pedal,''

I'm very skeptical of the claim that self-driving cars that work well enough to be fully autonomous are within reach. How do you get them to respond well to really uncommon but dangerous scenarios? Will they pull over safely when they hear an ambulance? If a police officer is directing traffic at an intersection, will they be able to read the hand signals? Will they know to slow down when a ball rolls across the street?

I think the semi-autonomous approach is more promising. The car could automatically take control and pull over if the driver is fishtailing, or drive to the hospital if the driver is incapacitated.

<comment><USER7> The scenarios you are describing are incredibly common, and trivial to develop for _in comparison to real edge scenarios_ (not to say they are trivial to develop for). More challenging are things like, "How do you respond to a homeless guy standing on the street directing traffic into an alley", "How do you respond to a flooding on the road resulting in 6" of standing water obscuring all traffic lane markings", "How do you respond to a flooding on the road resulting in 18" of standing water? 24" of standing water?" How do you respond to a road covered in snow (12", 18", 24")? How do you respond to a road covered in snow with tire prints that seem to go into the oncoming lane? How do you respond to a road covered in snow with what appears to be a small 24" high snow drift in your lane?

Etc, Etc..

I think the answer to all these questions is, "Initial versions of Automated vehicles will only perform under ideal road scenarios. During Snow, Flooding, or other inclement weather, they will not be dispatched. Wait for future iterations in 2030, 2040, 2050, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I usually try to write a constructive comments... But this...

This made me laugh out loud. I'm sure they can build these cars, but as to being road ready. Good luck. As for being accepted by society, good luck. Finally, after the 20th or 30th death, do you really think they won't be regulated to extinction?

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd figure there's a lot of ways that you can damage or try to disable/steal a driverless car, or simply vandalize out of boredom or inability to sympathize with the owner, so much so that these cars probably wouldn't want to service many not-well-off neighborhoods.

So, serious question: Are driverless cars such as these going to represent a new front in dividing the rich and the poor? If they are touted as benefit to public transportation, the poorest need public transportation the most.

Driverless cars will mean cars can use both definitions of redlining.

</comment><comment><USER10> What a driverless car means usually varies between promises and production products! ;)

<comment><USER11> There's not a lot of weasel room in this promise, since it includes no accessible controls. And semi-autonomous cars are not really useful for ride hailing in any meaningful way.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Explainer/demo videos - <AUTHOR> Hey folks, I was thinking about creating a 1-minute video that introduces software product. It's a time tracking app so my assumption is that people don't need an explainer video, but instead a demo video that shows what you can do and how it looks like. I'm interested at what you folks think, namely: - Do you watch explainer/demo videos - Why and when do you watch them (or don't) - What are your expectations - Examples of what you like and don't like (eg. animation that starts with "This is Jack...") <comment><USER2> Showing the software to people and talking to them afterward will validate (or invalidate) your assumptions. If there are existing users, talk to them. That way if a video is needed, the content can be based on specific feedback about the products features and limitations.</comment>


Zeltini Z-Triton - <AUTHOR> https://zeltini.com/en/product/z-triton/ <comment><USER2> I don't speak German but I like the Der Spegiel headline for some reason:

> Das Hausbootfahrrad (The Houseboat Bike)

[https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/lettland-erfinder-baut- hausb...](https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/lettland-erfinder-baut-hausboot- fahrrad-a-efda1b22-2646-4486-a8a6-cc4ef2331c0f)

</comment><comment><USER3> I feckin love this kind of absurd invention. The thing itself _may not_ be usable but it _may_ give rise to something that is, and that style of thinking, of looking at far corners of the design space, will work elsewhere. This is good stuff. Indirectly I think thinking like this really is of value, and perhaps should be taught.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know that quick dismissals are not good, but that seems ridiculously heavy thing to ride around. Tellingly there is no weight rating.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is weirdly wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was curious if anyone could speak to the toilet design they have on their product page. Does it work so simply?

<comment><USER7> Last year I installed a composting toilet at our off-grid mountain cabin, and it stinks less then our regular bathroom at the house in town.

The caveat is we have a solar powered extractor fan that pulls air down though the toilet seat and exhausts it out a chimney.

If that fan quits working for whatever reason, it smells pretty bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What size wheel is that up front? I've gone on several long distance bike tours, and I'm not sure I'd be happy with a nonstandard size wheel.

Cool design none the less.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure I'd be happy pedaling all that mass of a boat/camper/bike/stuff up hill even with a bunch of granny gears. It's hard enough getting myself up hill.

<comment><USER10> It's electrically assisted, it says.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The cost is unannounced, but it will surely be astronomical. The penny farthing design feature is going to really appeal to the urban hipsters that will be able to afford it.

I would bet the price approaches the cost of a nice used pull behind camper.

<comment><USER12> This is a design concept project, not a mass market product.

<comment><USER13> It says "price coming soon." It's fair to predict that it's going to be really high.</comment></comment></comment>


Abandoning PHP for Python - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.stickyworld.com/abandoning-php-for-python.html

<comment><USER2> So... OP worked on a team of people who didn't care about good code, and were using PHP. It probably happens with PHP more than other platforms, but I've worked on teams who did crappy Java and crappy Perl and crappy ASP too.

Bigger takeaways - working in a situation where you get to choose your own tools and be self-directed is probably a better fit for this person. When he works on a team of 3-5 other people who want to do different things in his Django code, there will be tension. _Probably_ not as much as his PHP monstrosity, but there will be some.

Working with large established frameworks, it's hard to see one file have JS, HTML, raw SQL, ORM code and core PHP app logic all in the same file. The conventions dictate where/how to separate.

The OP likes that separation, likes conventions, and wants to move to Python. Great. However, I feel the benefits he's going to get are coming more from a greenfield setup and working alone vs the language or framework itself.

Also, typo alert: the word is 'resonate', not 'resinate'. ;)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I'm getting the feeling that the OP has no idea of PHP frameworks (or anything that has happened with PHP in the last 5+ years for that matter), and prefers to throw the baby out with the bathwater because of this.

<comment><USER2> To be fair, it's pretty hard to refactor existing spaghetti PHP in to any comprehensive framework, at least production systems within a company with deadlines and customers.

<comment><USER4> Is that something intrinsic to PHP? It's hard to refactor any code when you have no time allocated to maintenance.

<comment><USER2> I do think it's a bit harder in PHP, given the nature to which it allows for spaghetti code to happen in the first place. Certainly it's never easy in any platform, of course; I do think "bad" PHP is harder to refactor than "bad" other code. Just an opinion, of course.

<comment><USER4> Any particular reason? You can do fewer terrible things than you can do in Perl, C, C++, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I got from this was - he ditched PHP not because it's impossible to write good code with it, but because it's possible to write crappy code with it. And that messed up code is result of bad team, not bad tool. But yeah - you can feel that I'm PHP dev and if that will result in HN down-votes, so be it. But I had to express my opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I was most hoping to get from this blog post is to encourage PHPers to give Python a go. Try it out, build something in it. I think lowering the amount of bespoke PHP code in the wild would help the software industry as a whole.

<comment><USER6> That or the referral codes on your links to Linode and Digital Ocean.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, god forbid he have links that generate revenue for him. For shame!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't help but get the impression that the author has not kept up with recent developments in the PHP world.

Python has PEP-8. PHP has FIG. Not as ubiquitous, but its getting there.

"There is package management in PHP but I never found any code bases in the wild using it to the same extent as PIP". Wait, what? Just about everyone uses Packagist and Composer these days.

Also, isn't is pythonista, not pythonist?

By the way, no disrespect to Python, which I use as well. There are arguments for preferring python over php in some circumstances, but most of the reasons given in this article lack validity.

<comment><USER9> I never actually heard of FIG and have been using PHP for quite a few years. Are they new? I don't follow PHP news as close as I used to with having to use other languages more often so perhaps that is why. Only standards I was aware of for PHP are those that Zend[1] gives.

edit: Looking at the guidelines on FIG, they really should take some cues from PEP 8 and make the writing style look less hostile and less RFCish², if they want a majority of the community to willingly read it.

Discussing it with a fellow PHP developer looking over the FIG guides, he said it best (by quoting PEP 8):

"A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds"

[1] [http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/coding- standard.htm...](http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/coding- standard.html)

²Nothing against RFC and the format works for what they are trying to accomplish. It doesn't work so well for coding guidelines though.

<comment><USER10> The majority of the community[0] _are_ following the FIG standards.

3rd party PHP libraries have become _so_ much easier to read in recent years thanks in large part to the work of the FIG.

[0] - Majority of community being major players like most frameworks and almost all of the most popular libraries.

<comment><USER9> Good to know they're finally going for uniformity. I was mostly referring to the average developer whose code you might read at work or from some code one might find on Github.

Major frameworks and libraries going in that directly though is still a very good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love picking on PHP as much as anyone else, but you can write just as terrible code in Python as any other dynamically typed language. Those Django and Rails projects can grow into monstrosities as well.

<comment><USER12> Instead of choosing one over the other, why not choose both? I specialise in both PHP and Python. For web projects on commodity hardware, nothing beats PHP, especially when used with powerful frameworks such as Zend, Yii or Drupal. For installable programs or scripting, Python works well with wxPython.

>> Quoted from article: "It was around this point that I decided I'd rather be an unemployed Pythonist than an employed LAMP developer."

Sorry man, I'd rather be an employed LAMP developer, but with a few side projects in Python. It's just a programming language, not a religion. :D

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author of the blog post. If the question is related to why I dropped PHP it's because I was getting a lot more done in Django and Tornado so I could finish projects quicker and take on more work.

There were so many clients in need of Pythonists in London in 2011-2013 when I was working there that I didn't have the time of day to take care of PHP ones. Also, PHP rates were dying and there weren't a lot of people competing for the Python work so I could keep my day rates nice and juicy.

I can think of a lot of things that beat Zend, Yii and Drupal in terms of code management, security, DRYness of code that's implemented, flexibility, the list goes on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Abandoning KungFu for Taekwondo". Both are means to an end (or survival).

I agree that there is a large number of bad php code/coders out there, but you can write and build beautiful, fast and well designed codebases with PHP just as well.

Like the martial arts, the barrier of entry is very low. The black belt, however, takes perseverance and years to earn.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am not very familiar with PHP dependency management. If you are using Python, you should use virtualenv. Apart from providing you a repeatable development environment, it also enables you to use 2 versions of the same library in 2 different projects.

I deploy within virtualenv mainly because I use the same machine to host multiple services. I sometimes use requirements.txt.freeze(pip freeze -l requirements.txt > requirements.txt.freeze) for production deployments, but in the end, I find specifying versions in requirements.txt itself more convenient.

If you are building async services in python, have a look at gevent and learn the basics of event loops. gevent abstracts the event loops(there isn't an explicit loop) but there are cases where you are better off rolling your own select/epoll loop. Also, the article paints too rosy a picture - "I've built backends that do authentication, query a few million rows in Solr and return JSON in a couple of milliseconds thanks to Python" If you structure your applications properly, and your application is IO bound, you can get good performance out of Python. But it goes without saying that Python isn't a performance powerhorse. You might need to replace CPU intensive services with some other language or write a c extension or write cython ...

<comment><AUTHOR> I came across this gem for listing and installing packages in Ubuntu yesterday in a way similar to pip: [https://github.com/progrium/buildstep/blob/master/stack/prep...](https://github.com/progrium/buildstep/blob/master/stack/prepare#L9-L11)

<comment><USER15> You can use pip for system packages. But either way, this means you don't get any of the advantages of virtualenv which were just described.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "When was the last time you looked at a PHP project and saw a list of all the third-party libraries and respective version numbers being used written in a single file?"

Huh? Any serious, modern PHP project uses Composer ([http://getcomposer.org/](http://getcomposer.org/)).

<comment><USER2> given that it's < 2 years old and _still_ labels itself an 'alpha', many ( _most_?) projects might not be using it yet.

<comment><USER10> Incorrect.

Have a look at [http://packagist.org](http://packagist.org)

<comment><USER2> What's incorrect?

That it's labelled alpha by the developers?

[https://github.com/composer/composer/releases](https://github.com/composer/composer/releases)

That it's barely 2 years old?

I'm not sure what pointing at packagist proves. There's a lot of packages published for it. Great. _THE_ most popular package installed via packagist's counters is Doctrine, at 1.4 million installs. It's a lot, but compared to all the PHP installs out there, and all the PHP _apps_ out there that _aren 't_ using composer (because it's alpha and not very old yet, my conjecture) dwarf the 1.4 million installs of a program via packagist. I'm probably 20 of those Doctrine installs myself.

I was referring to the statement "Any serious, modern PHP project uses Composer". There are loads of 'serious' PHP apps that don't use it, or may only be adopting it now. If the definition of 'modern' means "has to use composer", then, of course, "serious modern PHP projects" use composer.

I personally know people who aren't allowed to rely on it yet in their companies because it's still labelled 'alpha'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think everyone defending PHP, saying that it's as easy to develop well in it as in Python, is missing a valuable point: that owing to PHP's reputation as a "web dev intro language", there are far more inexperienced and incompetent PHP developers than Python developers.

See also: [http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)

<comment><USER3> I think that people defending PHP are getting a point you (and OP) are missing: both PHP (the language) and its ecosystem matured a great deal in the last 2-3 years.

A lot of good ideas were either implemented into the language or ported over from other languages/frameworks. There are tools/frameworks that rival those in Python/Ruby land.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am glad that OP has found the ideal language for him, but not knowing what PHP is well suited for after working on 12 years sounds absurd.

Every PHP dev after working on it for few years will know that its not the best language out there, but they will also realize that using it they can get stuff done.

Regarding books : I have to agree on the fact that there are many crappy books out there related to PHP, and I have still not found the ideal reference book for my needs .

Package Management : while its true that there was no standard package management tool for php few years ago ( except PECL ), the situation is different now, composer has evolved now and has become very common these days. composer does have the system where one can put all the dependencies in a single json file to manage all the dependencies .

Django's first tutorial : just go through Symfon2's first tutorial and in my honest opinion it can give serious competition to that of Django's [http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/http_fundamentals.html](http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/http_fundamentals.html)

RESTful and DRY : OP mentiones some libraries which are good for creating RESTful API's in Python, and Of course PHP has some high quality libraries to create RESTful API's.

[https://packagist.org/search/?q=REST](https://packagist.org/search/?q=REST)

Evented Codebases : PHP does have some tools to do the achieve the same result [http://reactphp.org/](http://reactphp.org/)

Deployments : no one can deny the fact that PHP is knows for its ease of deployment ( shared hosting ) , but any ony one serious about their app cannot go with shared hosting , but deploying PHP on a VPS/dedi is actually easier then deploying a Django App . and even modern deployment tools can Chef, Puppet, Ansible have wide support for PHP and its frameworks.

I am wondering that how just by switching to a language will make my code RESTful, DRY and more maintainable. In the end even Python/Django can be used to write crappy code.

Actually I was expecting more solid reasons to switch from PHP to Python ( There might be some too ) .

</comment><comment><USER19> Personally, I think language wars are silly. Languages are tools. Learning different languages only makes you better prepared for the market and give you greater freedom to choose from a wider range of the available jobs.

</comment><comment><USER10> "When was the last time you looked at a PHP project and saw a list of all the third-party libraries and respective version numbers being used written in a single file..."

Are you serious? This is what your hate boils down to: you don't know the PHP ecosystem well, at all. It seems like you've been living under a rock.

Going to your 8-4 every day and hacking away at your company's codebase and not bothering to read up on the goings-on about your language will result in bad times.

</comment><comment><USER20> Things I like PHP for would be single file simple scripts which are part of otherwise essentially static sites. For instance, a static blog (with Jekyll/Pelican/whatever) but a single .php file which is for searches (in a sqlite FTS cache of the blog, say) or 'related posts' or whatever. Then you can upload it into an apache "standard" web host, and add that tiny bit of server-side stuff that otherwise would be a pain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have a look at Sinatra and Tornado. Single-file projects are possible as well and it'll lead you down a road to quick deliveries and better tooling.

<comment><USER20> Yeah. Pretty much all new projects I do are python (flask, actually), but I still can see a place for very simple PHP scripts - which I think was it's initial intention, and which it can still do.

The same for sh/bash. It's great for very simple automation/scripts, but after certain level, it's much much easier to use a language which helps you write maintainable code and doesn't actively try to stop you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was for the longest time enamored with rails and the income potential of becoming a rails Dev...until I had finished a small ecommence app that I wanted to deploy on a cheap Linux host like hostgator or site5...both of which do support rails but only specific versions and getting everything to work was going to be a nightmare.

that's when I decided I needed to find a globally method to deploy which brought me back to php. Which initially pissed me off cause I was Loving Ruby's syntax.

then I discovered laravel..and holy shit I finally learned how to be a good php developer and use namespaces and really build some awesome stuff. It is rails on php and a hundred times easier to deploy on just about any lamp stack.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm taking a Coursera course at the moment where a lot of people on the forums are new to Python. I've been trying to guide them in the right direction in terms of the Pythonic way of doing things which has been a very interesting experience. Lots of people turning to for loops 5 levels deep (or even worse - wrapping 5 for loops in a list comprehension).

This is a typical quote:

 _" I'm still a little bummed that python doesn't have the for(;;) C syntax"_

I'm pleased to report that quite a few people have been impressed with how clean and simple the code is once they see the Python way.

<comment><AUTHOR> My girlfriend is taking the python course with them as well. She said there were 60,000 in total taking it (sounds like there will be a lot of new Pythonists in 2013).

She and another friend of hers was having some troubles understanding when and when not to use parentheses and I did a quick clinic with them to walk through it.

It might be a good idea if volunteers from the Python community could be found to offer extra lessons, perhaps some sort of live video cast mixed with a live chat. It could help out a lot of people who otherwise don't have many people to call on around them.

<comment><USER22> Cool - which course is she taking? This is the Computational Investing course. Buried very deep in a forum is a post by the tutor saying that you should know programming and how to use the command line - unfortunately it's too well hidden.

The main struggle has actually been with people on OSX Lion getting the libraries installed.

[https://www.coursera.org/course/compinvesting1](https://www.coursera.org/course/compinvesting1)

<comment><USER23> On the introduction page of this course it states, "This course is intended for folks who have a strong programming background, but who are new to finance and investing."

Hardly well-hidden.

<comment><USER22> I stand corrected. Maybe there should be a test to weed people out early then. Dunno - there are a few too many people on the forums who don't know the 'cd' command.

I was referring to this little quiz [1] which I thought should be posted directly in the description to scare people off.

[1] [http://wiki.quantsoftware.org/index.php?title=Compinvesti- pr...](http://wiki.quantsoftware.org/index.php?title=Compinvesti-prog-quiz)

<comment><USER23> Definitely a bit more computationally intensive than I would have imagined it to be. That's a bit of a challenge even for some with a CS degree!

Cheers for pointing this course out, though. It's right up my street.

<comment><USER22> Great! Very interesting stuff (as it's all new to me).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> And again... That article has nothing todo with PHP vs Python, its just about choosing the right framework and methodologies. All of the pro python arguments can be had for PHP as well if you dont work in a spaghetti codebase.

</comment><comment><USER25> Solution seems to be mostly about covering symptoms than addressing underlying issues.

"technical architecture of the code could change with a developer simply deciding to do things in a different way from the rest of the team" tells me there's no strong code review culture, or code discoverability, and you've simply moved the problem from a lower level to a higher one. While people might be adhering to Python idioms, they're probably not going to write the code that's idiomatic to the organization or make the best use of internal libraries.

</comment><comment><USER26> Obligatory link to [http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad- de...](http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Didn't even bother with another dynamic language * , went straight to the JVM and discovered Scala (framework-wise, enjoying Play)

* not totally true, 6 months on Groovy, followed by 6 months of hell (AKA pre-2.0 Grails)

Can't speak for Python other than a couple of months of Django (out of the box CRUD functionality is indeed nice).

After a couple of years of Scala can't imagine going back to a runtime only language (other than Coffeescript/LESS via GruntJS for the front end)

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm currently learning Python from a PHP standpoint which is kinda exciting because Python is beautiful language and joy to work it. Do you know of any good Python books that cover 2.7? I know you mentioned Python Essential Reference I'll check that out as well most Python tutorials are outdated it seems.

</comment><comment><USER29> I know there is Symfony, Laravel, Slim and the rest but what bothers me about PHP is the language itself. It feels clumsy, full of monkeypatches all over it, as the result of many different shools of thought.

On the other side Python feels like one mind's labour, it just fits togheter.

</comment><comment><USER30> I dare say, it doesn't appear as if this person has been keeping abreast of the latest PHP trends. FIG standards go a long way and Composer is a godsend (prior to that I wanted to tear my hair out all the time).

</comment><comment><USER31> I abandoned Java, C#, PHP, Python, and Ruby for F#, Lisp, Scala, & Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hey, did you switch to "Python 3" or "Python 2"?

<comment><AUTHOR> 2.7 originally. Django became a big focus of my early contracting days and support for 3 wasn't in yet.</comment></comment>


Hoefler and Co.'s New Typewriter-Inspired Font Is Crafted for Coders - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/02/hoefler-co-s-new-typewriter-inspired-font-is-crafted-for-coders/ <comment><USER2> Sure, it is nice. But, is it nice enough to convince me to spend hundreds of dollars on it when I am really happy with Fantasque Sans Mono?

See [https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque- sans](https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans)</comment>


Online web crawler with a Raphael.js visual interface - <AUTHOR> http://v-rawler.appspot.com/visual/ycombinator.com Here a brief description: http://mlarocca.github.io/08-19-2013/vrawler.html<p>Hope you like it, any suggestion will be much appreciated :D <comment><AUTHOR> Here a brief description: [http://mlarocca.github.io/08-19-2013/vrawler.html](http://mlarocca.github.io/08-19-2013/vrawler.html)

Hope you like it, any suggestion will be much appreciated :D</comment>


Dealing with the Polyrepo Concept - <AUTHOR> http://isacikgoz.me/2019/01/21/polyrepo/ <comment><USER2> the way you express is very good</comment>


Mass graves could be filled with ancient Greek tyrant's followers - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/15/newly-discovered-mass-graves-could-be-filled-with-an-ancient-greek-tyrants-followers/ <comment><USER2> More photos: [http://www.protothema.gr/culture/article/570220/fotografies-...](http://www.protothema.gr/culture/article/570220/fotografies- omadikos-tafos-sidirodesmion-aristokraton-/)

<comment><USER3> I read a little greek, and the font on the page you link was very particular, ζ was like latin z, χ was like latin x and η was like latin n. Is this like how handwriting is like nowadays in greece, or particular to this font only?

<comment><USER2> It's the weird font. You 've got them right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The tyrant in question was Cylon of Athens who staged a failed coup in 632 BCE leaving him only a would be tyrant.

<comment><USER5> It's always the would-be tyrants whose followers end up in mass graves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whats interesting is it looks like they were bound and killed somewhere else, then dragged into a shallow trench.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's a horrible idea. I stand with those who oppose the mass murder of people, even ancient greek ones.</comment>


Why Amazon's Growth Ambitions Don't Fit in Seattle - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-amazons-growth-ambitions-dont-fit-in-seattle-1504954806 <comment><USER2> original with no pay wall: [http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/09/why- amazons-g...](http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/09/why-amazons- growth-ambitions-dont-fit-in-seattle.html)</comment>


When Zoning Targets Families with Children - barry-cotter https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/01/family-planning-day-care-costs-zoning-cities-children/580279/ <comment> barry-cotter > 'Vasectomy zoning' can block or raise the cost of things young families > need, like three-bedroom apartments and day-care centers.

> At the end of last year, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission weighed a > proposed zoning change that would effectively ban new day-care centers—along > with tire stores and car repair shops—in a large chunk of northwest > Philadelphia. The bill swiftly encountered fierce resistance, and it now > appears dead. But the effort to block additional child-care facilities with > a zoning overlay hints at a broader relationship between city planning and > the cost of raising children. A growing body of research indicates that > restrictive zoning—which often blocks the services and housing that families > need—may help to explain why family sizes are shrinking in the United > States.</comment>


5 JavaScript Books Worth Every Cent - <AUTHOR> http://www.devcurry.com/2010/07/5-javascript-books-worth-every-cent.html

<comment><USER2> good recommendations. Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Nicholas Zakas is also a very good book [http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/Professional- JavaScri...](http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/Professional-JavaScript- for-Web-Developers.productCd-047022780X.html)

<comment><USER3> I've got it sitting on my desk but I after flicking through it I'm not sure whether to make it my first Javascript book.

Would you recommend it to a first year CS student with Java experience or should I try one of those in the list first?</comment></comment>


Starlite, the nuclear blast-defying plastic that could change the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5158972/Starlite-the-nuclear-blast-defying-plastic-that-could-change-the-world.html

<comment><USER2> Really interesting. This article is old and the commercialization of Starlite never took off, and the inventor <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ward> is now dead. The family supposedly has the formula.

Egg test video is here <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxqFyDugqs4>. That is seriously amazing, is there any other materials like this?

I think SpaceX could find use for this material.

</comment><comment><USER3> Evasive eccentric old guy, elaborate secrecy theatre, amateur beats chemists by tinkering: sounds exactly like a hoax.</comment>


How I got rich on the other hand - <AUTHOR> https://sivers.org/richand <comment><USER2> Good observation in the comments:

      You were rich because you discovered that you could eat little but peanut butter sandwiches and eggs and still be content. Others, despite having the discipline to spend less than they have, find they can't be content living under the privations that doing so entails. They do not feel free and cannot be considered rich.

You can be content on surprisingly little. It pays to find out what that "little" is.

</comment><comment><USER3> isnt this survivorship bias?

he started CDBaby in 97. He was 28. He lived this "rich" lifestyle all of 6 years. He also went to Berklee College of Music, which wasn't cheap. He's lived almost 88% of his life with money and 12% without.

</comment><comment><USER4> Life is too short to eat peanut butter sandwiches every day.

</comment><comment><USER5> "You're rich when you earn more than you spend!"

Exactly the sort of thing only truly rich people say.

<comment><USER6> By my definition, you're rich when you can buy what you like without having to worry about money. You're poor when you can't afford to absorb unexpected expenses, so a fine or problem with your car can be enough to escalate into other problems.

I think my definition for being poor works very well, but the one for being rich needs work. I can buy a new expensive laptop without worrying about money, but I can't buy a new Tesla X without worrying about money. Not even Jeff Bezos can go on vacation to Mars without worrying about money.

<comment><USER7> OK, here's an adaptation — what if the definition of rich might be when no part of why you decide to go to work and do the job you do is 'for the money'?

The principle in this article helps bring or keep that line within reach. It would also not be a fixed number. Your intrinsic motivations and cash flows may fluctuate as you navigate your personal continuum of ambition and contentment.

<comment><USER6> That's certainly an interesting definition. By that definition, I'm still far from being rich. On the other hand, I get the impression that there are a lot of people who are indisputably rich, who still work to get even more money. Though at some point it becomes more of a high score than a means of survival.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rich is when your money makes enough for you to live the life you love.

If you have to work to live, then you arent rich.</comment>


Robots learn to walk like a senior citizen   - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19901-robots-learn-to-walk-like-a-senior-citizen.html

<comment><USER2> The early Asimos already had some aspects of seniors citizen movement. It's easy to understand this if you ever had a back injury. The early Asimo "poopy- pants" reduces the force on the lower back by keeping the torso carefully balanced. I know this because I hurt my back and ended up walking like that for a month.

Watch old people riding the bus. Often their use of handholds is for the purpose of reducing the cantilever force their lower back must take.</comment>


Adolescence is ruff for dogs too - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/nu-air051220.php <comment><USER2> As per [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23165320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23165320)

:-)</comment>


Show HN: Our weekly space industry newsletter is out of beta - <AUTHOR> Hello HN!
My partner and I just published issue #5 of The Orbital Index, our brief & technical weekly newsletter about space science and the space industry, and so we've taken the project out of beta.
The process of finding a voice and fine tuning the level of technical detail is ongoing, but we feel like we've arrived at something succinct, interesting, and technical, in a large part because of the great feedback that we have received from HN subscribers from our last Show HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227434) a month ago.
Here's our website, where you can signup for free: https://orbitalindex.com
And here is our latest issue, fresh off the presses a few minutes ago: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-03-26-archive-Issue-5/
If you like what we're doing, please tell us! And if you have suggestions for how any part of The Orbital Index could be better, we'd love to hear them too. <comment><USER2> Love what you guys are doing. Pretty fun to learn about space, something I'm fascinated by but know about so little. I'm sure even space scientists feel that way, so I know I'm in good company.

Thanks!</comment>