How to lose weight: What worked for me, with graphs - <AUTHOR> http://danieltenner.com/posts/0018-how-to-lose-weight.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm planning on following this pretty closely soon. I've lost a lot of weight over the last couple of years (somewhere around 130lbs, starting at nearly 400lbs), but it's been largely due to cutting out soda and simply getting off my arse. Now I'm walking 3mi every other day or so, and the next step is to figure out what to eat to maximize my energy while keeping my weight on a downward trend, and I think that having more data will help that.

<comment><USER2> Congrats! Keep it up. I've lost about 60lbs, and it started the same way for me: cutting out bad foods and doing a bit of exercise. It was nice motivation to say "no, I'm taking the stairs" or "I'll walk" and know that I could do it and it was making a big improvement in my life.

Pick up cycling! So much more efficient use of your energy, meaning you can utilize it more often to hop around town!

<comment><USER3> The last thing one wants when trying to lose weight is efficiency of motion. Cycling is a great alternative to driving (or taking public transit), but it's a horrible alternative to walking until you are at or near your target. Replacing a half-hour walk with a five-minute bike trip rather defeats the purpose.

Walking is great -- you'll need to pick up the distance soon, though, and perhaps make it a daily thing. As you walk more (and as you lose weight) your body will get better at walking. And don't worry too much about the food intake -- learn to listen to your body's needs rather than its wants. It can happen. If you are walking about an hour a day for exercise (along with the normal shuffling about), you should probably be able to get by on something in the neighborhood of 1500 calories -- and that can represent a lot of food if you're eating the right stuff, so feeling hungry doesn't have to be part of the deal. (Keep the time and effort constant -- if you're walking about 3 mph now, you'll find it steps up to 4 mph pretty much by itself. I regularly catch and pass "joggers" these days.)

I've lost just a little bit more than 160 pounds, but I started at a slightly more modest 300-ish (just shy). Just walking, dumping the egregiously horrid foodstuffs and being engaged with the meal I'm eating (rather than absently putting stuff in my mouth while doing other things) did almost all of the work. (Unfortunately, at fifty the skin doesn't quite snap back the way it might have if I'd done it at thirty -- I look way too much like a shar-pei these days.)

It really is about calories in versus calories out. Managing calories in doesn't have to be hard -- it's more about mindfulness than about absolute quantity. It's keeping that arse in gear, even if that means low gear until your capabilities catch up with your ambition, that makes the big difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _I didn't try the crazy diets like Atkins or the Maple Syrup diet. Anything that requires eating crazy stuff is probably bad for your health._

Now I'm starting to feel like an Atkins Zeolot, I've been defending low-carb on HN so much lately, but I can't let a statement like that sit on itself! There's tons of scientific evidence for Atkins and everybody I talked to that investigated it, agrees.

Furthermore "eating less" will not work, if you're eating mostly carbs. There's a high probability your body will just go into starvation mode. Meaning you'll store about the same amount of fat, while there's less energy to be spend for your body, making you sleepy and lightheaded. Graphing your weight won't change anything about that.

<comment><USER5> If you read the appendix, you'll see that I do recommend staying away from processed sugars and other assorted white-bread-and-white-rice.

In my third iteration, I'm also tending to avoid the starchy stuff most of the time (not always though). In the first two, though, I happily ate a sandwich for lunch and potatoes for breakfast, and still lost plenty of both weight and fat.

I won't get into a debate about Atkins. I am naturally dubious of extreme diets (and Atkins is extreme, no matter which way you slice it), but it's worth pointing out that "what you eat" is only one third of this method. The first 2/3rds are all about motivation, and they're the important part. The third part merely suggests one way to "eat less".

<comment><USER6> OK, so don't get into a debate about it, but I would like to point out that extreme is relative. From an evolutionary perspective (i.e. What we naked apes evolved to eat...) I would argue that a standard american diet is FAR more extereme than an atkins diet (at least one that avoids fake low-carb foods) based around meat, green plants, many kinds of fruit, and nuts.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. For those wanting to learn (a lot) more about this, with references to all the studies, check out Gary Taubes's book _Good Calories, Bad Calories_.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly:

 _5\. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.

6\. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger._

So if I didn't have this _disorder_ I can over-eat and become sedentary and not become obese?

<comment><USER9> I think he's just reframing the levels of causation a bit. You don't say pregnant women gain weight because they eat more than they consume, although from a thermodynamic point of view this is strictly true.

Have you ever met skinny unhealthy programmers who are very sedentary and eat a lot of junk food? I have met many. The point is that different people have very different reactions to food, in terms of hunger, mental reward pathways, tendency to burn off calories through adjusting subjective energy levels (e.g. lethargy) and things like jittering, and hormonal responses. Some of this is affected by the kinds of foods we eat, and much of it is affected by genetics.

The real point is that we can do better than saying "just eat less and exercise more" by looking at things from a different perspective. (I'm speaking as someone who lost 45 pounds in the last year and am currently at about 10-11% bodyfat by the way.)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, that's clearer to me. =)

Can you share how you got to where you are now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've lost 8 inches off my waist since august through not dieting and ramping up exercise (it's really important to not diet). and last year and I would say the advice is not good practice in places. I've not weighed myself once, I have no interest in my weight, or my BMI. My waist (and the requirement to have bought and thrown away quite a few trousers and shirts in the 10 months) are as much of an indicator as is needed. I want to become fit for life and not set goals to attain and get quick wins but make no long-term impact.

1) Never skip any meal. You are using a short-term, unsustainable, trick to drop some lbs you are guaranteed to put back on because you are not teaching yourself anything sustainable (same reason that low carb diets don't work long term for 90% of people).

2) Weighing yourself all the time when losing weight by diet alone is a psychological game that suggests you have a "goal" weight in mind which you will get to and have not gained any idea of food discipline or life-long control which should be your primary goal.

3) People who over eat can suffer from guilt cycles and your weight at any one point can induce more guilt (gaining pounds when you feel you have made even more effort to eat) even though it is not relevant as long as the over-all trend for life-long health is getting to and maintaining an approximate body shape which can fluctuate and still be healthy.

4) Being on a diet means coming off a diet. You will learn no long-term lessons about how your body and eating habits work for you.

<comment><USER11> I think that you will be healthier and look better and also weight more if you exercise a lot, just because muscle is more dense than fat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My biggest concern with this guys method is he simply glosses over exercise.

I agree with him that exercising for weight loss is a _lot_ harder than simply not eating shit/unhealthy food (or excess amounts of healthy food)

However going into caloric deficit without a solid resistance training plan is a sure way to shed more muscle than you likely want.

You shouldn't think in terms of weight loss, you should think in terms of fat loss. You don't want to be shedding muscle. A simple resistance/calisthenic training program such as body weight exercises like pushups/planks/squats/burpees/pullups(if you can) will ensure that you have a better chance at retaining muscle, while shedding fat.

Also, using scales is simply not an accurate way to measure fat loss. The simplest way to measure your fat-loss progress at home is the good old tape measure.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER13> _I've gone through this "diet" three times (see graphs). The first time I went from 83kg to 75.5kg over about 3 months. The second time, from 80kg to 71kg over 4 months. My latest iteration of this diet has me down from 75kg to 68.5kg in about 2 months._

Note how each time the starting weight is over the last ending weight? And this is the problem, right there. It is not hard to find an eating regime that will help you lose weight. That's the easy part. The hard part for many is not gaining weight when you are not "manning the store", so to speak.

<comment><USER5> Yep. The simple method I've found to deal with this is to keep on weighing myself every day. I can eat all sorts of crap, as long as I keep weighing myself.

There's a lengthy period of time which I haven't typed in the data for where I just weighed myself every day. I still managed to keep the weight off when I did that. The minute I stopped weighing myself, though, the weight piled back on.

A daily ritual of stepping on a scale seems a small price to pay for not needing to worry about weight gain, though.

<comment><USER14> I've just been through exactly what you've described. I'd weighed about 88 kg for 15 yrs. Before that I'd dieted sometimes with low fat diets but they never worked: I always ended up binging on cheese sandwiches! So for 15 yrs, I ate whatever I wanted (except for sweets) and sat on 88 kgs (BMI 32= obese).

Then I moved to China a few years ago, and late last year heard about the Chinese proverb: "Eat heaps for breakfast, eat enough for lunch, and eat little for dinner". This was news to me because all my life I thought I had to eat dinner every day. So I started following that rule, still eating the same food I always did, including heaps of eggs for breakfast. I also started keeping absolutely no food in my apartment, apart for milk for coffee, and instead ate out for every meal. In China there's always many restaurants a short walk from one's home.

Winter arrived, with the cold, some snow, and occasional rain, and I started skipping dinners because I was too lazy to go out, and dinners were now just snacks. After a few weeks, I noticed I weren't ever hungry in the evening. Even when I ate lunch when the restaurants opened at 11:00am, then nothing else for the rest of the day, I still weren't hungry, as long as I had a big breakfast. After a few months, I noticed I didn't have much fat where there'd been some for at least a decade, so I weighed myself: only 80kg. I've since come down to 75kg (BMI 27), but have sat at that weight for 2 months. I now weigh myself every day because (for some reason :-) I always remember to.

One other thing: I stopped eating white rice with my meals. The restaurants I frequent around here probably think I'm a foreign oddity who pays for two dishes instead of just one with free bowls of rice. I still eat noodles or potatoes every day though.

All this weight loss happened without trying very hard: eating the same fatty food I always did, virtually never eating after lunch, not exercising except for a few long walks every week, and not eating rice with my meals. Just a few simple rules. One thing I've accepted is: If I want to stay at this weight, I'll never be eating after lunch time again, and I can live with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's worked for me is to stop thinking about how hard it is to lose weight and to just approach it as a big math/science project that I can geek out on and run the numbers.

I exercise daily, 20-40mins on a bike and usually a 30-60min swim, and I'll do some light weights a couple of times a week. This may sound like a lot of exercise, but it's really not. It's an hour or two a day of being active. That's in no way overdoing it, even though when I tell people this, a lot of times their reaction is that to tell me I am. I built up to this from an almost completely sedentary lifestyle in which I did almost nothing but sit at the computer and work.

This helped, and definitely made me feel better, physically. I'm healthier than I have been in a long time, and doing this, I started slowly losing weight, but the big difference came when I cut out processed sugars and lowered my carbohydrate intake. It's not a super-low low-carb extreme diet, but it's definitely a lot lower than it was.

I felt even better, more energy, more weight loss (about 3x faster than I was before), headaches went away, and I started sleeping better.

Once I got used to not having all the sugar and carbs, my body stopped craving it. It took some willpower at first, but now it's basically easy to stick to, because I'm used to eating healthier and just don't have any desire not to anymore.

</comment><comment><USER16> As I suppose many of the people here do, I have a long list of pet projects that I plan to one day finish.

One of them is lineardiet.com.

The idea is simple. You just enter your current weight (C) and your desired weight (D). The service then plots you a graph with a line from weight C to weight D. The Y axis is the weight and the X axis is time.

Now you have to weigh yourself every day.

If you are above the line it's BROCCOLI DAY (as in: watch what you eat).

If you are below the line it's PIZZA DAY (as in: eat whatever you like).

That's it. It's guaranteed to work! :)

Could be a fun little service. Business model? I plan to collect all the fat people are losing and sell it as eco-fuel. ;) No, not really. It's just for fun.

Now if I only didn't have a ton of other projects like this plus a life to lead... one day...

Actually, I leave this as a question to the HN community: what would be fastest way for me to finish this service? I'm talking hours of development time, not days.

How would you build it?

<comment><USER8> Is the site in german?

<comment><USER17> It is a parked domain. Interesting choice to shill from a parked domain in a language with only 100 million native speakers.

<comment><USER18> Actually, only 10 million speakers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hacker's Diet Online has a nice graphing utility. It's much easier to see progress on the average than with daily fluctuations.

<https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/HackDiet>

<comment><USER20> My "weekend hobby" is a site that aims for a better user experience that John Walker's site, while remaining true to the hacker's diet tenants. <http://myhackerdiet.com>

I've also integrated the Withing's wifi scale, so daily readings are fully automated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> >My breakfast would involve stuffing myself with as much food as I could fit in my morning stomach. I followed that with a light lunch around 2-3pm, and then almost no dinner (or a low-calorie snack if I was hungry – examples in the appendix

In college I lost a fair amount of weight by eschewing snacks altogether and eating three large meals every day, meals filled with whole grains that take a while to eat and a while to digest too.

I found that this made the willpower thing a lot easier to deal with. Once you're in the habit of eating well three times a day, and not at all at other times, it becomes easier to cut down on overall food intake. You just don't even consider snacking if you're used to not snacking.

</comment><comment><USER22> There are two points I wish to add to this discussion:

1\. This is what works for _one_ person. Every body is different and everyone's daily routines are different, so what works for one may not work for another.

2\. This diet distinctly lacks any form of exercise and implies that by simply eating less and weighing yourself every day is the key to losing weight.

While this may be true and may make you lose weight, it will not make you healthy. It's a fine balance between diet and exercise and it takes some time to find a solution that is right for you.

If you really want to be healthy and not just lose weight I would suggest seeing both a personal fitness instructor and a dietician, both of whom can tailor a program depending on your own body and level of fitness. It is really the _safest_ (and I stress safest as following any sort of dietary or exercise advice from the internet can be extremely dangerous) and easiest way to lose weight and become healthy.

<comment><USER5> As the author, I couldn't agree more. This diet is about losing weight, not being healthy. My overall plan is to get rid of the weight first, then, once I reach my target body fat percentage, focus on being healthy without regaining the fat.

I've found that losing the fat was impossibly hard no matter how healthy I tried to make my lifestyle. I suspect that once I have gotten rid of most of that fat, exercising will result in more visible improvements (muscles are much more visible when not covered in thick layers of fat), which will generate motivation for me to keep exercising. We'll see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> He says, as I've heard, that those body fat scales are wildly inaccurate. But it looks like the variance is less than a percentage point, which seems really good to me. I guess it's more of an issue of a constant error?

EDIT: Yea, I guess it is probably a constant (person-specific) error. The first google result said

>Use [the scales] to measure your progress only. Don't compare your body fat percentage to tables or to your friends score. It is probably inaccurate no matter what the manufacturers say.

I guess if you calibrated this with a one-time, accurate body-fat measurement, it would be pretty good set-up.

EDIT2: Well, maybe not. Some people apparently report that the (cheap?) scales vary several percentage points during a single day. My calibration method also seems vulnerable to the fact that people store their fat in different places on their body depending on their genetics. Maybe this can be fixed with _two_ calibration measurements...

<comment><USER24> Yes, they vary widely. If you control for certain variables, they can give you decent directional information.

One of the biggest factors in the accuracy of the older Tanita brand scales (this is the brand I have had for many years) is your hydration. For example, if you weigh right when you get out of the shower (even toweled dry), your reported body fat will be much lower than your reported body fat before the shower.

They are also sensitive to callouses on your feet.

My brother reports much more consistent results with a handheld body fat analyzer, but I've never tried one on a consistent basis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > You'll notice this plan says nothing of exercise. That's because you don't > need to exercise to lose weight. In my case, I've found that exercise, by > stimulating hunger, actually makes it harder to eat less. Whereas the > weighing and charting generates motivation, exercise sucks it away. In the > context of a healthy lifestyle, of course, exercise is very important. I > just don't think it's that helpful for weight loss. Some notable > publications agree with me.

Here's another data point: I lost 3kg when I started running. It was not my intention to lose weight at all, it just happened. In my experience running makes you eat less, I had to make a conscious effort to eat more.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great article for folks that aren't physical in which case the only way to loose weight really IS to just manage what you eat -- this has never worked well for me.

This can also be a dangerous path for people that are not great self-starters. Using the scale every day teaches you to become obsessed with your weight. A lot (not all) make the association of:

My weight == My self worth

So if they slip up and put on 3 pounds, they feel horrible about themselves. I also think this doesn't promote a healthy long-term method of thinking because at _some point_ you will stop loosing weight. At some point you will have that beach body you wanted -- and then what? If you were obsessed all along with the weight of BF measurements, then you can potentially loose your cause to continue.

This happened to me when I lost 30 lbs. I was so obsessed with the weight, I took it off in 2 months, and kept it off for about 6... then gained it all back + 10lbs over the next 2 years due mostly to being "bored" once I was "done" with the diet and had been at my goal weight for so long.

Again, this just happened to work for me.

I actually like excercise, but I liked food more. So without giving up the good quality foods I liked (eating fast food for every meal doesn't count) I upped my activity level to compensate and have enjoyed a much healthier method of taking off weight for _my_ personality type.

I still have a bit of a gut, but I'm stronger, faster and cardio is much better with better blood work -- and that is what matters to me long-term. These are the type of habits I want to carry forward... needing to work out every day, enjoying what I do.

I want to pass good habits to my kids some day, and that all starts with learning to love physical movement I think (unless you are a phenomenal eater, then that's good too... but most of us aren't)

If you don't mind playing sports or exercise and LOVE food, then try and play with upping your activity level instead of dialing back your diet.

Fight 1 battle at a time.

The pride and confidence you will gain from feeling better will naturally translate to not eating so much of the really terrible food (drive thru) and instead replacing it with something slightly worse... maybe a veggie pizza or something.

That being said, I'm by no means a guru, I just know for 10 years I've tried everything and this is the only thing that worked for me.

Also, if you are the type that likes to push yourself and kick your own ass to see if you can take it -- you need to look into CrossFit, it's awesome.

</comment><comment><USER27> Most people want to lose too much weight too quickly. Patience is a virtue. I lost 55 pounds with what I considered minimal effort, but it took one year.

</comment><comment><USER28> Changing to a car-free lifestyle is also a great way to lose weight. If you are considering relocating to a new city soon, that's a good time to investigate whether your new city would be conducive to car-free living. When I moved to Boston and ditched my car, I lost 50 lbs without even trying.

</comment><comment><USER29> I really like the main idea: it's a willpower management issue, not a diet issue. A lot of stuff is approached differently if you think about it this way, especially in the light of studies who found out willpower is a finite resource, which is replenished easiest by... eating.

<comment><USER30> I actually completely disagree with this main idea. Everybody eventually gives up, no one has 100% steel willpower, we're all human. I would be very interested to see and update in a year or so, to see if the author has managed to keep the weight off.

A much better idea is to change your diet completely, so your taste buds change and you stop craving unhealthy things.

A wrote a similar article 3 years ago, and took a completely different method. I lost 40 lbs in 4 months, and has kept it off since (ok, I may have gained 5-10 lbs since the peak). Not adding a "shameless plug" since I've stopped updating this site a long time ago, but I think it's still useful: [http://www.alexanderkharlamov.com/2007/07/22/how-to-lose- wei...](http://www.alexanderkharlamov.com/2007/07/22/how-to-lose-weight-on- losing-40-lbs-in-4-months/)

<comment><USER5> The first graph is from 2.5 years ago.

I have regained weight only when I stopped weighing/charting. Weighing yourself once a day is not an onerous expenditure of time and energy, and I believe it achieves the goal of faking "100% steel willpower" by generating a little willpower for you every day.

<comment><USER31> Right. What looks like iron clad will over the course of a year is nothing more than the will to go one more day, every day.

I've lost close to 90 pounds over the last year. Honestly, I didn't expect to be this successful. I thought that after a few months, I'd lose the motivation. But every day I tell myself, "Forget yesterday. Forget tomorrow. Get through today, that's your goal."

Now some days, I didn't get through. But the next day, I'd begin all over as if it never happened. If you don't worry about willpower lapses, you will find it easier to get back to it. 100% willpower is an illusion created by having over 50% willpower along a great enough timeline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Withings makes a scale (about 150 on amazon) which automatically uploads your weight daily to their servers where you can view it on their website or your iPhone.

It has helped a lot with the recordkeeping part of dieting I always do so poorly at.

<comment><USER33> Link to the wifi scale: [[http://www.amazon.com/Withings-WBS01-Wifi-Body- Scale/dp/B002...](http://www.amazon.com/Withings-WBS01-Wifi-Body- Scale/dp/B002JE2PSA)]

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Even though its called weight loss, most people I know want to lose fat, not lose weight. If you skip exercise altogether you'll go from being large fat, to average fat, and finally to skinny fat.

<comment><USER31> I had a friend who was "skinny fat" as you call it. He had gone to the doctor and the doctor basically told him that he was essentially bones wrapped in fat, very little muscle.

Those people have always irked me because they would have the same amount of fat as me, but wouldn't get crap for it because it wasn't as visibly obvious. Whereas, for most of my life, I've been what you could call "fit fat(?)". Reasonably strong with above average endurance but obviously carrying a lot of baggage. Unfortunately, I eventually got an office job and went to being just plain fat. But I've decreased my caloric intake to lose weight and started training to increase my strength and endurance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Interesting ideas and great detail to back it up. I'd like to insert my 2 cents, which is that people have widely varying experiences using exercise for weight loss. In my case, exercise suppresses my appetite. My overeating is mood-driven, and exercise is known to improve mood, so this isn't surprising. Anyone whose overeating is driven by depression (mild or serious) or another mood disorder should consider regulating their mood through exercise.

</comment><comment><USER36> I tried the fruitarian diet recently and lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks. Of course, how much you lose is highly dependent upon your current weight and body fat %.

The fruitarian diet is where you only eat fruits and vegetables and drink water and 100% pure juices. Avocados have the protein you need, and you can do without starch for 2 weeks.

It really cleanses your body and leaves you feeling great! I'd suggest doing a fruitarian diet once every few months for cleansing purposes.

<comment><USER37> Your body doesn't need cleansing. What it needs is a healthy diet to start with. Eat healthily, get exercise and fresh air, and you won't need to go on extreme diets that will only cause you to put all the weight back on later.

<comment><USER36> A normal to health body doesn't, you're right. But at some point, and depending on your age, it might need cleansing. Either way though, cleansing isn't bad. Especially if you stick to a good diet afterward. It'll give you a head start. Even if you put it back on later, but through a good diet, as opposed to junk that may have caused it in the first place, you're better off than before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > My breakfast would involve stuffing myself with as much food as I could fit > in my morning stomach. I followed that with a light lunch around 2-3pm, and > then almost no dinner (or a low-calorie snack if I was hungry – examples in > the appendix).

I wonder how this plays into a more muscle-building oriented plan. Doesn't seem like being calorie deficient all evening into next morning would be good for building muscle.

<comment><USER5> Probably not. This is a weight loss method, not a muscle gain method. In fact, you will probably lose some muscle along with the fat. Whether that's something you're willing to accept is up to you. Personally, I don't think putting the muscle back on is all that hard - but losing the fat was almost impossible previously.

You can do exercise on the "big breakfast" approach - but you'll find it much easier to do so in the morning. I doubt you'd gain much muscle while in a 500-1000 daily calorie deficit, but you could certainly help maintain it, and after a nice big breakfast you wouldn't be short of energy to lift weights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Most of my diet consists of carbs, and I am in pretty good shape, which is why I would tend to agree with the author in dismissing the low-carb diets. The key for me, I think, is an active lifestyle. People who think that they don't have time for exercise, should try to think of creative ways to bring activity into their lives. Bicycling to work is one that works for me, and many others that I know.

</comment><comment><USER25> How does one determine body fat percentage? This seems like a really hard problem to me. How do body fat percentage scales work?

<comment><USER40> The scales use electrical current to measure your body's resistance and compute it based on your weight. Using a fat caliper where you take multiple points of measure tend to give more comparable measurements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> OK, let me just talk about the low-calories idea and some other stuff for a second. It's gonna be a little long. This is pretty much all copy-pasted from Gary Taubes' ideas, so please don't accuse me of plagiarism!. [Notes, from [http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories- ba...](http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-bad- calories/) Really really great resource, everyone should read it if they haven't read Good Calories, Bad Calories]

1.) This guy is saying that the

        Delta Fat Stores = Energy In-Energy Out

Well, which is the cause and which is the effect? Isn't it possible that when Energy Out changes, so does Energy In? And, if that's not the case, why don't kids grow obese when they start eating as if they're bodybuilders? The kids eat a lot because they're growing; they're not growing because they're eating a lot. A hormonal drive increases appetite. Pregnant women also grow fatter because of hormones.

2.) Folks say that even an extra 100 calories per day will make you get fat over a year. Bogus; the variables Energy In and Energy Out are dependent. As Energy In changes, so does Energy Out. Also, have you ever had a really, really indulgent meal? I mean, over a fat-pound's worth of calories. You didn't wake up with an extra pound of fat, though.

Based on these, it shows that trying to lose weight by adjusting the quantity of calories is pretty counter-productive.

Let's look at some people who intentionally try to fatten themselves. Massa tribe males eat an extra 1000 calories worth of milk and sugarcane. Japanese Sumo wrestlers eat a high carb, very low fat diet. Maybe it's the type of calorie that matters more than the quantity. The diets used to fatten farm animals are also high in carbs. Hmm, coincidence? Obese people tend to eat the same amount of calories, but a greater proportion of carbs. Another thing about high carb diets is that they're the only way humans get deficiency diseases; they happen usually when glucose gets crowded in a cell so it takes more of it to even be used in a cell. Deficiency diseases are usually carbohydrate wastage diseases.

(Hint: if you want to skip some boring sciency stuff, just read the last paragraph)

Hunger, satiety, and physical activity are physiologically regulated (not psychological). Imagine if people started attributing the hunger in diabetics as a psychological problem!

Most people think of fat as an inert storage medium; "like a garbage can." Nope; fat tissue is dynamic and really kind of like a coin purse rather than a long-term savings account. Fattening is when the rate at which fat is deposited exceeds the rate it is mobilized (getting richer). Fat is controlled by hormones in the body, not by quantity of fatty acids in the blood. When fasting, fat provides 85% of energy and protein is converted to glucose (via gluconeogenesis) for the rest. Likewise, the presence of glucose or insulin (the only hormone behind storing fat) removes fatty acids from circulation; cells burn glucose first, fat second (e.g. having a credit card is more convenient than using cash).

The fat stored in adipose tissue is called a triglyceride (3 fatty acids on a glycerol backbone). Some trigs come from fat, the rest from carbs. Fat can only go past the cell membrane in the form of free fatty acids - trigs are too large and must be broken down first. In fat cells, trigs are continuously broken down into FFAs and recomposed into trigs. Fatty acids not immediately recomposed are sent into the bloodstream as fuel. The rest of FFAs are converted into trigs and loaded on VLDL (read: the super bad cholesterol) and shipped back to fat cells. Simple control mechanism: blood sugar. Glycerol phosphate is the result of burning glucose, and also happens to be the backbone of triglycerides. The rate of trig formation (fat deposition) depends on the availability of glyerol phosphate. So carbs = glucose = glycerol phosphate = trigs = fattening.

So hormones control the control mechanisms. Insulin stimulates transport of glucose to fat cells, thus controlling trig formation and fatness. Every single other hormone mobilize fat, but they can only do so if insulin is low. Virtually anything that increases insulin will decrease other hormones.

You heard of fructose? It gets turned into glycerol phosphate much more efficiently than glucose. It's the most fattening carbohydrate. Couple this with the fact that table sugar (sucrose) is one molecule of glucose with one of fructose, it's more than their sum since now glucose is increasing insulin with the higher triglycerides from fructose. Even worse? High Fructose Corn Syrup.

What I'm trying to say is that the only thing you should be monitoring when you're trying to lose weight is carbohydrates. Eat as much protein and fat (eat a whole stick of butter if you'd like) as you want. Avoid sugar and other carbohydrates. It's safe. Read the book Good Calories Bad Calories (or just the notes, which I pretty much copy-pasted: [http://higher- thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba...](http://higher- thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-bad-calories/)) for more info. That is all.

<comment><USER39> Carbs are quite fine if you're an endurance athlete, much less so if you are sedentary. Take a look at what a pro cyclist consumes during a tour: thousands of calories a day beyond what most people would consume, the majority of which are carbs. It works for them, because not only do they need the energy from it, but they are burning it. And these are not fat people (some of them are close to being underweight, by some people's standards). But if you're not active, eating a lot of carbs is like shoving extra gasoline into a car that never goes anywhere; useless, and counter-productive.

<comment><USER41> I think the reason why carbs work well for endurance athletes is because it gets stored in the muscle glycogen _and they actually use it_. Yeah, otherwise it's useless.

<comment><USER39> So is excess protein, which can stress the kidneys. The right balance, for the right lifestyle.

<comment><USER41> The studies that have been done on protein stressing kidney's were on bunnies, animals not meant to eat much protein in the first place. Send me any other studies, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'd suggest not weighing yourself everyday, but every week at the same time of day. This is because each day your body weight varies from water weight lost and gained. So one day you may be a few lbs. more than usual, which can be discouraging.

<comment><USER5> It's not discouraging if you graph it too, so that you can see it in perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> see also:

"The Diet Spreadsheet" by Jeremy Zawodny

<http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006851.html>

<http://www.myweightracker.com/about>

</comment><comment><USER44> This is just like that way in which I lost 9.9kg: [http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/johns-amazing-diet-secrets- revea...](http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/johns-amazing-diet-secrets- revealed.html)

</comment><comment><USER45> i think he discounted a step: exercise. if you don't, you'll lose some weight, sure, but if you remain sedentary, you won't see that big of a difference. it doesn't even have to be much to start, just walk more.

i also would discourage the "skip dinner" plan. i think you'll find you'll have better results if you do eat SOMEthing for dinner. it could just be some of the low calorie foods he mentions, but just to have eaten something will be a bit better than not having eaten anything. don't want to kick your body into starvation response mode.

<comment><USER29> There is a _long_ discussion about how much exercise helps weight loss, what kind of exercise is better (aerobic vs anaerobic, burning calories vs building muscle, priming the metabolism vs getting hungry), how much is enough etc. It's much safer to skip it altogether.

<comment><USER2> Well, overall the goal is to burn more calories than you take in. I wouldn't recommended "skip exercise" to anybody, but tell them that it's not necessary if they can control their intake enough. But, if you don't change your intake and also add exercise, it'll certainly speed things up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The iOS app WeighBot would work great for this, as it allows you to easily record your weight and also graphs it.

<comment><USER47> Yes, that is a nice little app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> It has worked if you are at the improved weight ten years later.

If you find a way to do this, notify science.

</comment><comment><USER49> This guy could have instead bought a Wii Fit</comment>


Unilever Buys Dollar Shave Club for $1B - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/business/dealbook/unilever-dollar-shave-club.html <comment><USER3> Interesting post by David Pakman on the deal - really love his investment thesis.

[https://medium.com/@pakman/dollar-shave-club-how-michael- dub...](https://medium.com/@pakman/dollar-shave-club-how-michael-dubin- created-a-massively-successful-company-and-re-defined- cpg-f2fa700af62b#.6bvb5bneb)

Curious what it sold for - I guess they were doing close to $200m in revenue. My guess would be in the $400-500m range.

<comment><USER4> The linked article said that they had 3 million subscribers. Pretty impressive for a 4 year old company. 3 million credit cards on file, 3 million payments.

It sold for $1 billion dollars. Youtube says their channel has 35,002,980 views, so that would make about $28.57 per view the selling price.

<comment><USER5> $330 per user? Is that a good price for customers buying cheap razors?

I'm a guy. I shave a bit. I've been, and continue to be, totally astounded how DSC is a business, let alone a successful one. No matter your preference for DE vs these fancy multi-blade rigs, just uh, go to Amazon and buy? "Subscribe and Save" if you have an issue buying more when you run low?

What's the attraction?

<comment><USER6> I never saw the appeal either! I've always battled against any sort of subscription service or regularly-purchased items that I deem too high price. Gillette razors, though very well built, were always too expensive ($2+ per razor) for what they are. I then moved to safety razors which I found did a great job. I could get these for as cheap as $0.05 each (though you probably want to pay a little more for quality). Shortly after DSC came out, someone found that they were sourcing their razors from a Korean manufacturer - <USER2> that you could just buy those products without the subscription for way less! Is the DSC premium really worth the convenience?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Old fashioned safety razors are still very much a thing [0], 30$ for a handle and another 30$ for 100 blades, I switch blades every 2 weeks.

<comment><USER8> I'm interested in getting this type of razor. Is there a standard? Interchangeable blades?

<comment><USER7> Most razors are for double edged blades. All double edge blades are interchangeable.

My understanding is that there are also single edged razors that don't work with double edged blades, but they are way less popular. /r/wicked_edge has a guide here [0] basically, buy a Vintage Gillette Super Speed Razor on ebay (or really anything you want, handles can't be that different, they're just 3 pieces of metal) and a pack of sample blades on tryablade.com

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/wiki/de_kit](https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/wiki/de_kit)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/comments/4exeep/beginne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/comments/4exeep/beginners_tips_gear_and_product_suggestions/)

<comment><USER9> The only single edge razors I know of are the old straight edge razors (think the old west razors, [http://www.westcoastshaving.com/Straight- Razors_c_9.html](http://www.westcoastshaving.com/Straight-Razors_c_9.html)) and the newer shavette ([https://www.amazon.com/Dovo-Shavette-Straight-Razor- Handle/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Dovo-Shavette-Straight-Razor- Handle/dp/B001GMVNXO)) which is basically the straight edge razor but with a removable blade. I haven't heard either being refered to as a single-blade razor, though.

<comment><USER10> You can buy single edge razors for craft.

Here's some for window scraping: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/BOHLE-Spare-Blades- Laminated-Scrape...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/BOHLE-Spare-Blades-Laminated- Scraper/dp/B0042EVE0A)

Here's some that claim to be single edge and for shaving: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gem-Personna-single-stainless- blade...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gem-Personna-single-stainless- blades/dp/B000R9EX5M/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To add, DSC has raised 5 rounds for a total of $147.8 million. Seed was in 2012 by KPCB and A16Z. [0]

0 - [https://angel.co/dollar-shave-club](https://angel.co/dollar-shave-club)

<comment><USER12> Sorry to be ignorant, but how did he start his seed round?

How does one start a seed round or become involved in the process?

Thanks!

<comment><USER11> Having never raised a seed round, I'm not the right person to ask. However I'm sure there are plenty of blog posts/articles about this out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Even prior to this, it was cheaper to just buy from Dorco (DSC's supplier).

<comment><USER14> I have DSC to thank for looking into Dorco. I never bought DSC but heard they used Dorco. I've hated shaving my entire life because I always used an electric or shitty Target brand razors. I also tried safety razors and they were worse for me than Target despite trying everything to make it better. A nice Dorco makes so much of a difference. Shaving is now just sort of neutral to me rather than negative.

Stocked up on a year supply of Dorco in December I think when they have 25% off. I use a new razor every few shaves guilt free because they're cheap enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is funny how every time someone talks about Dollar Shave Club as a brand/business model, most of the comments are about Dorco. Lifestyle brand focuses on a man, that is something really hard to archive.

Gillette spends 600 million years on marketing to try to archive this. BTW, PG has bought Gillette for 57 billion 10 years ago.

<comment><USER16> Well, Gillette has their own product that they have spent billions on R&D and manufacturing. DSC is not even white label, there's not the slightest alteration to the Dorco product. They're just repackaging and selling individual units, identical to drugstore Dorcos.

Sure, DSC is a phenomenon, but their product is Dorco blades, U.S. mail, and some brown packaging.

<comment><USER15> They have their own product because they are an industry. DSC isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Another win for the Los Angeles startup scene!

</comment><comment><USER18> So I guess the subscription fad isn't disappearing anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER19> How does Dorco (or DSC) compare with Harry's shavers? I use the latter and just curious.

<comment><USER20> Dorco's top of the line blade (Pace 6) is almost identical to Harry's blades, but are around 50 US cents cheaper per blade.

<comment><USER21> Dorco 6s at Amazon are $1.67 when you buy 24. Harry's (which I prefer) are $1.75 when you buy 16 (shipped free).

<comment><USER20> Don't buy Dorco from Amazon. Buy directly. The shipping is still free.

<comment><USER21> Good point, you can save about 35c per blade. But also the 6 Plus is probably the better comparison which is $1.75 per at the Dorco website in qty of 24.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A few years ago Unilever partnered with Shick to launch Axe razors to compete with P&G. That may not have worked as well as they'd hoped, thus the purchase of DSC.

[http://adage.com/article/news/unilever-sharpens-axe-razor- la...](http://adage.com/article/news/unilever-sharpens-axe-razor- launch/239595/)

</comment><comment><USER23> i wonder what his ownership is... $1b cash acquisition is serious.

</comment><comment><USER24> I heard they aren't profitable? Is that true?

</comment><comment><USER25> For those visiting, let's give our traffic to someone who values their raeders, doesn't serve them malware, and doesn't auto-play videos...someone other than Fortune: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/unilever-b...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/unilever- buys-dollar-shave-club-with-152m-in-sales)

</comment><comment><USER26> What a disgusting website (fortune.com).

Autoplays a video in the article below the one I'm reading, makes me think I'm crazy to hear Paul Ryan discussing politics from my speakers.

Try to hit my mouse button to go back to HN and it won't release me from my captivitiy.

All while running uBlock Origin. Just disgusting. Congrats to Dollar Shave Club.

<comment><USER27> I am running both uBlock Origin and NoScript and the website still found a way to annoy me: it gets Firefox Reader stuck, so that I am supposed to read the article in their terrible layout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Mods, can we please change the URL to [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/business/dealbook/unilever...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/business/dealbook/unilever- dollar-shave-club.html) since it is much more informative?

<comment><USER29> Sure. Thanks!

Url changed from [http://fortune.com/2016/07/19/unilever-buys-dollar-shave- clu...](http://fortune.com/2016/07/19/unilever-buys-dollar-shave-club- for-1-billion/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Holy shit, what am I doing in software?

<comment><USER31> Uhhh?

Let me point you to [http://fortune.com/unicorns/](http://fortune.com/unicorns/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Will they simply close it down to protect their Gillette brand?

<comment><USER33> If they do I'll (and probably most other customers) be fine, we have a massive stockpile of unopened razor blades.

<comment><USER13> If you do run out, just buy them from Dorco (DSC's supplier) and avoid DSC's markup...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> A billion dollars for a razor company. What a marketing job they've done over the decades. I've never understood the shaving fetish. It irritates your skin, causes infections, and hides your beard.

Yes, I'm both a graybeard and a "neckbeard." (Never understood why the latter is pejorative, either. If you let your beard grow like it should, it will cover your neck.)

A question for all you young men who have grown your beards as part of the recent fashion trend and have gone back to shaving as the trend has faded, which was better? Lower maintenance? Less expensive? Yes, bearded, I'm sure. Stop following trends and do what you like.

<comment><USER35> The neckbeard pejorative comes from the trend where young men who are not just nerdy, but obnoxiously so, and who happen to also be overweight, are frequently seen growing a thin, scruffy beards only on their necks for the purpose of making their neck fat less obvious. It's a common enough correlation that a scruffy neck-only beard has become synonymous with being obnoxious. [http://m.imgur.com/9xHMHMX?r](http://m.imgur.com/9xHMHMX?r)

<comment><USER36> Also because they tend to have low testosterone, so the beard itself won't grow any higher than the jawline.

With time it improves - I had a similar beard in my 20s but now in my 40s it's all the way up.</comment></comment></comment>


Windows 7 enters its final year of free support - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/windows-7-enters-its-final-year-of-free-support/ <comment><USER2> Hey wait my company uses Window 7!

My company moves at a snails pace, maybe this year we will even go to the cloud! (been talk of this for years...but no action!)</comment>


Vitamin C and Coronavirus: not a vaccine, just a humble cure - <AUTHOR> http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n28.shtml <comment><USER2> It has a lot of citations, but most (all?) of the citations are not in peer review articles and don't have a randomized control group. Without a minimal level of quality control they have the same than a blog post. It is not a humble cure, it is just a speculation.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is common knowledge that later studies on vitamin C found no results like Pauling's. I had never before seen mentioned that his work used IV, and those later studies used oral doses.</comment>


IBM Watson has designed a BBC sauce - <AUTHOR> http://m.fastcodesign.com/3027687/i-tasted-bbq-sauce-made-by-ibms-watson-and-loved-it?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcodesign%2Ffeed+%28Co.Design%29

<comment><USER2> Er, that's "BBQ", yes?</comment>


Git-wtf - <AUTHOR> http://git-wt-commit.rubyforge.org/#git-wtf <comment><USER2> This sounds great, but isn't working for me.

        $ git clone git://gitorious.org/willgit/mainline.git/
        Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/mainline/.git/
        fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Kind of a shame, I was interested in trying it out.</comment>


How a cybersecurity expert protects his smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://studentmedia.uab.edu/2013/12/how-a-cybersecurity-expert-protects-his-smartphone/ <comment><USER2> > Use landlines, never cellphones, for conversations about sensitive or > private work-related matters.

Why? Who can listen in besides the NSA and the carrier?</comment>


What is ergodicity? (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2016/11/23/what-is-ergodicity-2/ <comment><USER2> Interestingly, ergodicity has two meanings ([https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/ergodic](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/ergodic)):

1\. of or relating to a process in which every sequence or sizable sample is equally representative of the whole (as in regard to a statistical parameter)

2\. involving or relating to the probability that any state will recur especially : having zero probability that any state will never recur

Nassim Taleb mostly uses ergodicity in the second meaning, while the article concentrates on the first. I find it utterly confusing.

<comment><USER3> Honest question: Aren't both equivalent? If the process will eventually traverse its entire state space, you should be able to infer the behavior of the process across all time from a finite (sufficiently large) sample of the process's behavior.

<comment><USER4> Second version is much more loose, e.g. most semi-stationary processes fit the bill.

In fact article makes a mistake by requiring stationary nature from ergodic process. You can have an ergodic process of the first kind where ML expectation is equal to the value of the process function, which nonetheless is not stationary in absolute sense. (Because definite integral does not match indefinite.) Just perfectly predictable and having the indefinite integral identical to integral over space state. Which implies strictly bounded but not exactly stationary in any defined term.

Likewise you can prove an equivalence class of the process to be identical to another known ergodic process without actually calculating such difficult to obtain complete integrals.

And ergodicity is not required for representative sampling either, just definite error bounds on predictive (statistical) power or likelihood estimates. Which can be estimated or directly calculated for many kinds of processes accurately. It is only required for certainty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a recent paper[1] and an epic twitter thread[2] well worth the reading

[1] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.04652.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.04652.pdf)

[2] [https://twitter.com/hulme_oliver/status/1139148255969906689](https://twitter.com/hulme_oliver/status/1139148255969906689)

<comment><USER6> The twitter thread gives a nice example of a failure of ergodicity that I was not aware of:

"Now consider a gamble with multiplicative dynamics.

Win 50% of your current wealth for heads, lose 40% of your current wealth for tails.

Changes in wealth now are non-ergodic, so calculating the expectation value is not informative of the time average growth rate of wealth.

This exact gamble has a positive expectation value, but it has a negative time average growth rate. We call it the _Peters coin game_."

Clearly the expectation of return at a fixed time is > 0, but they give an example time series with obvious negative drift.

<comment><USER7> How does this work?

By binomial theorem, the expectation at time t is ((1.5 + 0.6)^n)/2^n) = 1.05^n so the "annualized" return per unit time is 1.05, exactly the same as the expectation.

What is "time average growth rate"? Web search turns up lots of references do it by Peters, but no definitions.

<comment><USER8> You have the wrong model. You're betting a different amount each time. Say you start with $1 and get a heads then a tails:

($1 * 1.5) * .6 = $.90

What if you get a tails then a heads?

($1 * .6) * 1.5 = $.90

Doesn't seem like such a great game now, does it?

The Kelly Criterion sets a limit for how much of your total wealth you should bet when the odds favor you. If you bet more than that limit you increase your odds of losing everything without improving your expected return.

So imagine a better game where you could bet any amount, and you still got paid $5 for every $4 you risked and had a 50% chance of winning. The correct amount to bet is 10% of your bankroll. If you bet more than that in the long run you will go broke.

<comment><USER7> You are ignoring half of the possible outcomes. If you get HH or TT, that's $2.25 and 0.36, which averages to $1.25.

50% of ($1.25 + $.90) for a $1 bet seems like a great game to play.

<comment><USER8> This is actually an awesome illustration of why a lot of famous results in academic finance were wrong in the 70s and 80s. Returns don't average, they multiply. If you get HHTT or TTHH you're in terrible shape:

2.25 * .36 = .36 * 2.25 = .81

You started with $1 and now have 81 cents. I recently learned that a lot of early computer-era academic finance actually made the same error of averaging returns, as described in Finding Alpha:

[http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/finding-alpha- pdf.htm...](http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/finding-alpha-pdf.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In addition to the paper and Twitter thread mentioned by fasteo elsewhere on this thread[a], this video of a lecture by the author is well-worth watching too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1vXAHGIpfc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1vXAHGIpfc)

Among other things, in this lecture the author shows, step by step, in non- technical language, an example with coin tosses in which changes in wealth are non-ergodic (in the sense he explains), such that the expected value of winnings over time is not informative of the time average growth rate of wealth.

[a] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20285638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20285638)

</comment><comment><USER10> Getting a good feel for both stationarity and ergodicity in systems is worthwhile; assuming them is a common way to "intuitively" infer incorrect behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER11> The author writes,

>Paul Samuelson once famously claimed that the "ergodic hypothesis" is essential for advancing economics from the realm of history to the realm of science.

It's curious that science and history are pitted against each other; not only is science notoriously difficult to define, but there are several historical approaches to scientific objects (e.g archaeology for the object of human history). This also seems to involve a logical model in which the concepts stay static, but some popular models outside of mainstream economics are used because the authors argue that an approach divorced from real development leads to results that don't apply to real situations (e.g. the dialectical logical method, which is both syntactic _and_ semantic.

Unfortunately the sort of logic Samuelson applies has been misapplied (in neo- Ricardian lenses) to thinkers which seem to hold strictly temporal (rather than equilibrium) interpretations of economy.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ergodic and chaotic are not the same either (the difference being in long time diverging behavior of two trajectories that start very close together); many lazy physics science writers and occasionally physicists conflate them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great read. Eat your heart out, Betteridge's Law!</comment>


Choosing the right keys - <AUTHOR> https://www.sanyamkapoor.com/blog/choosing-the-right-keys/ <comment><USER2> I appreciate the effort - but this document is full of misunderstanding. Page faults are a memory management event triggered by virtual memory misses of the Operating System. That is completely separate from how to find a piece of data with an index. Should probably take down the article and do a complete rewrite.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry. I might just have skipped things to keep it simpler and not digress into details, but how is it different from finding data with an index?

Search the tree (or whatever data structure) and serve the data. Would you mind telling where did I go wrong exactly?

<comment><USER2> I don't even know where to start. At the 10,000 foot level, a description of a page fault might sound like an index miss, but the similarity ends there. Data access typically doesn't work at the page level at all - pages only move if the underlying virtual memory system doesn't have a requested address - so it is almost a coincidence if page faults occur at the operating system level when data isn't being found by higher level applications. They are two different systems. I realize that my description is very poor - but these are two complex systems which are being conflated. I don't know of any easy way to describe them both.</comment></comment></comment>


MacPaw's "Netflix for Apps" 40 Apps for 10$ a Month - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/11/06/setapp-wants-netflix-macos-applications/ <comment><AUTHOR> From what I can tell here and for what it's worth, it hasn't launched yet. However I wonder what the money distribution spread is like for the developers. At Ten USD a month it would need seriously volume I think in order for it pan out which isn't out of the question.

Neato concept to be certain. Seems like a lot of the apps in the screenshots are a lot of what I call "new agey" Apps which is both good and causes mild reservations for me however, I understand younger companies/ developers tend to be able to move in this stuff faster.

All in all this looks very interesting. Kinda like bodega

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/smilingmac.wordpress.com/2011/0...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/smilingmac.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/alternatives- to-apple-app-store-bodega/amp/?client=safari)

Amp link is the only one I could get me hands on right now

</comment><comment><USER2> DOA</comment>


DraftKings, FanDuel agree to merge - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/18/draftkings-fanduel-agree-to-merge.html <comment><USER2> This would honestly make things much easier.</comment>


How the US has hidden its empire - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/15/the-us-hidden-empire-overseas-territories-united-states-guam-puerto-rico-american-samoa <comment><USER3> > _Besides Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, > the US Virgin Islands and a handful of minor outlying islands, the US > maintains roughly 800 overseas military bases around the world._

Germany has a few US military bases. It's a bit of a micro cosmos. People pay in USD and can buy American products there. I think even the VAT is added on checkout to the price (whereas in Germany, prices in stores always show VAT included).

I was on one a couple times when they played a theatre play (Christmas Charol or so). Quite interesting.

<comment><USER4> >>I think even the VAT is added on checkout to the price (whereas in Germany, prices in stores always show VAT included).

How is that legal? By law the price shown has to include VAT. Unless somehow the American base is not considered German territory?

<comment><USER5> As a general matter of policy, I believe US embassies and military bases are considered US soil.

<comment><USER6> Embassies perhaps but the bases are slightly different: [https://www.stuttgartcitizen.com/news/military-civilians- fam...](https://www.stuttgartcitizen.com/news/military-civilians-families- fall-under-sofa/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Killing Hope ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Hope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Hope)) is a write up of all major US efforts at controlling other countries. I don't know what Americans think of it, but it's fascinating as an outsider.

<comment><USER8> I haven't read that book, but on the topic of US foreign policy in general, most people I know here in America realize it's a lose-lose effort that we must continue to lose. When it comes to helping other countries, we go from "not enough" to "too much" seemingly overnight, but there never seems to be a "just right".

<comment><USER9> So fundamental to American propaganda is the notion that imperialism is born of a desire to "help" other countries. It is true that it is often packaged and sold this way, and in some cases it may even be a contributing factor, but our adventurism is largely driven by the military industrial complex and capital looking for "new markets" or "cheap labor" or even just a desire to strangle competing ideologies in their infancy.

<comment><USER8> That may sound like a good fit for a common narrative, but it's certainly not rooted in fact. Being a superpower, America is often asked to help, and other times forced to help. There's no desire to do any of that stuff you mentioned, for the reasons you seem to think. Unfortunately, it's impossible to please everybody all the time, which creates the propaganda that leads you to think the way you do, so I certainly don't fault you for being wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The US also had a practical reason for disliking traditional imperialism.

By the time the US became substantial enough for real international trade, vast swathes of the planet were under other nation's empires leaving fewer trading partners than could be desired. Commodore Perry's somewhat invasive trip to Japan was to try and add a few trading partners from unclaimed nations.

So I suppose it's not too surprising that the colonies gained in the pointless glory seeking of the Spanish American war led to a bit of schizophrenia.

</comment><comment><USER11> The historiography [1] of this article is interesting. The author talks about how the drafts of FDR's speech changed throughout the day after the bombings. Presumably this means that the author had access to the various drafts of the speech. Pretty clever way to try to glimpse into what he was thinking.

[1] The study of the methods used when writing history.

<comment><USER12> Not just the author has access; the drafts of the Infamy speech are public: [https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/winter/c...](https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/winter/crafting- day-of-infamy-speech.html)

You can view the handwritten edits by Roosevelt in the archival drafts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've lived in Hong Kong for some time and even though I've been to Guam a few times, in my mind the US is a country that is a 12 to 16 hour flight away when in fact its really only a 4 hour flight away.

</comment><comment><USER14> The problem with big hairy political words like "empire" is that meaningless semantics take over.

From our perspective, in the post-colonial era, the term "empire" and "colonisation" are just inherently negative terms. The defining qualities (this article explicitly makes this argument) of empire are considered to be slavery, reservation systems and such. In some sense, empire can just mean "bad" and bad can be proof or empire.

The postcolonial age is also the natiolist age, where nation states are the basis of the political system. That makes imperialism's defining quality "the subjegation of nations" because it denies nations ultimate authority.

Marx associated empire with capitalism (surprise surprise), using the term "international capitalism" interchangeably with empire. Considering history, this has some logic to it. For example, the Royal Britsh East India Trading Company colonized India. The crown later confiscated it. 18th and 19th century empires were about controling trade, whether by a king, legal monopoly or otherwise.

The article plays with a mundane territorial definition. Ff you control "overseas" land...

All interesting discussion topics, but also a problem.

"Is X an Empire" just depends on the definition. It's not a meaningful question in itself. Just because you conclude that "yes, it is" doesn't mean anything.

<comment><USER15> > _" Is X an Empire" just depends on the definition._

If X controls my local politics to its benefit, overthrows legitimate governments, and establishes dictatorships whenever it likes, and does that in tons of countries around the world, I'd call it an empire...

<comment><USER14> Case in point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> US citizenship and American Samoa will become an interesting topic if Tulsi Gabbard becomes a frontrunner as a presidential candidate. To become POTUS you need to be "native born" US Citizen which is a very nebulous idea.

<comment><USER17> It won't be an issue. Her mother was born in Indiana so Tulsi is a natural born US citizen. Just like Ted Cruz who was born in Canada.

<comment><USER18> I am sure this will be an issue with a lot of super partisans. My neighbor still believes that Obama was not eligible for being president. I have no idea what evidence could convince these people otherwise.

<comment><USER19> Let's hope the opinion of your neighbor doesn't cause a constitutional crisis.

<comment><USER18> I think the people who are spreading these rumors are playing a very dangerous game. There seems to be a trend to spread doubts about elections, FBI investigations, CIA findings and others without providing real evidence. This is a short term benefit for the people spreading the rumors but I wonder if they are starting something that may spin out of control at some point.

<comment><USER20> We're a bit past that right now.

<comment><USER18> What makes you think that?

<comment><USER19> You talk like you have been living under a rock for the past three years. Trump got politically famous through the birther movement. Most of the people who support Trump believe in a lot of these rumors, as you call them, or fake news, as the rest of the world now call them.

Fake news has been a big problem around the world for the past few years and the media has acknowledged and widely publicised it as a problem since 2016. Since a lot of people get their news from Facebook now, and Facebook has been algorithmically recommending fake news articles to people, Facebook has gotten a lot of flak for it, including the CEO being called to testify about it in Congress. A lot of people are now trying to figure out how to combat fake news and this has been on the news and this website for the last few years.

<comment><USER18> "A lot of people are now trying to figure out how to combat fake news and this has been on the news and this website for the last few years."

You are pretty naive if you think this nonsense will be fixed in a substantial way. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are dependent on outrage and will not do much to stop it. Yes, there are some people here and in the news discussing these issues but at the same time there are are many more people making a good living off perpetuating propaganda. The most that will happen to Facebook will be a lot of hot air and maybe a slap on the wrist.

<comment><USER19> Yes, it's been 2 years since the problem has been publicised and discussed but fake news is still widespread. So clearly it is a difficult problem that is hard to fix. But stop talking about it like you just discovered that fake news exists. I'm not sure what kind of discussion you were trying to start by doing that.

<comment><USER18> What makes you think that I just discovered fake news? Are you always that aggressive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I guess the interesting thing to note now is that Puerto Rico is likely going to become a state in 2021.

<comment><USER22> Why 2021? Did something happen?

<comment><USER23> Wildly guessing: the federal government's response to Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico was wildly insufficient, so if the opposition party takes control (which seems more likely than not), especially given that the opposition party prefers to err on the side of too much government aid/intervention than too little, statehood for Puerto Rico is a reasonably obvious priority. (And a goos strategy for shifting the balance of power in the Electoral College and the Senate, incidentally.)

<comment><USER24> Except Puerto Rico has to advance a state constitution that Congress has to accept, so the Puerto Rico government itself needs to accept statehood. Except there's not a clear majority in favor of statehood in Puerto Rico; the last two referendums were effectively sabotaged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Was that article written in close proximity to the 'City of London'? Now that is titular irony.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is the reason why China finds it acceptable to act as they do in quite a few things, such as attempts to enlarge their EEZ. In their mind, they are just doing what USA did too, so it's a fair game.

But they do not understand, refuse to understand, or simply hold irrelevant the narrative manipulation that is necessary to pull it off, and this is something US excels at. The 'spreading freedom' meme is just one example; another example is 'we do it, and after that we declare it illegal for others to do it' \- US committed significant war crimes, such as fire bombing of Dresden and Kyoto, and was never held accountable for it.

<comment><USER27> Please attend to your facts:

-The fire bombing of Dresden was executed jointly by the United States and United Kingdom, with the UK flying more sorties. This occurred during a war when Germany was executing strategic bombing campaigns against the UK.

-The United States of America did not fire bomb Kyoto. Nobody did.

<comment><USER28> > This occurred during a war when Germany was executing strategic bombing > campaigns against the UK.

The wider point is interesting though. We started the war with the attitude that killing civilians would be a war crime, and then as the war went on that principle was eroded more and more until fire-bombing several civilian populations across Germany was allowed.

There's a reason "Bombber Harris" was also known as Butcher Harris. Even Churchill disliked the area bombing tactics.

<comment><USER27> Indeed. Attitudes toward civilian casualties in warfare, at least in the West, are less tolerant today--- but the West hasn't been in an existentially- challenging shooting war since 1945.

<comment><USER29> Aren't there great number of civilian deaths in the Middle East like Iraq, Yemen? I wouldn't be surprised that my ignorance is leaving out some wars in Africa this century that the west has some complicity to as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's "hidden" to us by our propagandists. Our empire is visible and obvious to everyone else.

Our news, history books, movies, etc all hide it by simply not labeling the US as an empire. It's just as easy as that. We use terms like "superpower" or "leader of the western" or "leader of democracies" or other euphemisms to hide and forgive conquests, brutality, genocide and empire.

Empire is evil and it's something our enemies do, not what we do. It's the british, germans, japanese and most recently the evil soviets who create empires. We are not evil, we don't create empires.

</comment><comment><USER31> Wait - so the special relationship with the Philippines then ... which was in mostly fairly autonomous?

... that's the big ole' 'Empire'?

... and a few mostly unpopulated dots in the Ocean?

Oh, so scary! The power!

And to consider that Filipinos, who are culturally distinct from Americans in every way, and who have almost nothing in common with Americans but a temporary geopolitical alignment should be considered 'Americans' in the same way as those from New Orleans and NYC?

So that's 2018 intersectionalist history?

Rubbish.

America is quite fundamentally distinct from the Philippines and always has been, there's no fundamental reason that most Americans on the street should care enough to 'go to war' over foreign interdiction.

Going to war for those with whom the US has a special arrangement, and going to war for the 'homeland' are indeed quite different questions.

There's no 'hiding' here.

Thanks for the history tidbits Graun, but as usually the headline is ridiculous.

<comment><USER32> 1941 Philippines was as American as 1941 Hawaii which were both about as American as or 1848-1859 Oregon Territory was or 1941-present Puerto Rico is. So, American, if you consider territory where Americans live on American soil to be American.

Where they fork off is the Philippines are now an independent nation, Hawaii is now a US State, Oregon Territory was eventually split into 3 entire US States and part of a couple of others, and Puerto Rico still has more or less the same status as it did in 1941, but a few more rights and privileges afforded to them along with present day Guam, present day Northern Marianas Islands, and present day US Virgin Islands. American Samoa is US Territory, but a Navy playground so while the people are American Nationals living under the US Constituton, they're not American Citizens and their territory is considered to be on par with all those unpopulated guano Islands we once claimed. That's the _law_ , 2019.

The Filipinos are culturally distinct but we still count large numbers of them as American Citizens, both as immigrants and as a people that have lived in the mainland since before the Philippines were granted independence. The Native Hawaiians were and still are considered culturally distinct but they are still American Citizens by birthright.

Put another way, your defensive posture is simply out of place here. On December 7th 1941, the Japanese attacked the United States. That shouldn't need qualification. If they had only attacked Manila but didn't make it to Oahu, they still would have been attacking the United States and that was certainly the _intent_ of their attack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > On this to-scale map, Alaska isn't shrunken down to fit into a small inset, > as it is on most maps.

I'm pretty sure it's usually "scaled down" because that's how map projection works. Does this writer also think that Greenland and Africa are of comparable size?

<comment><USER34> One example map, and to me a pretty typical example of the genre, shows Alaska on a about half the scale of the contiguous states. Compare the by the scale markings:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_U...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_USA_with_state_names_2.svg)

This is not simply projection effects, this is explicit downscaling.

Another comparison, Wikipedia lists the area of Alaska as 1,717,856 km^2 and that of the contiguous United States 8,080,400 km^2, so on a map with only projection correction Alaska should be around 1/4 of the size of the lower 48, this is clearly not true on the wikipedia example shown above, and for any other map in the same style.

So no, Alaska is not scaled down for the sake of accurately depicting its size.

<comment><USER35> Great response. I was going to take a different tack because the Alaska issue seems so obvious, but then I remembered that some people out there don't _have_ maps [1], at least not state maps of the United States.

[1] Including many U.S. Americans

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Contrary to popular memory, the event familiarly known as "Pearl Harbor" was in fact an all-out lightning strike on US and British holdings throughout the Pacific. On a single day, the Japanese attacked the US territories of Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Midway Island and Wake Island."

This is horrendously sloppy journalism.

The first attack on Wake was three days later and was repelled. The successful attack was _another 12 days_ after that.

And the Midway attack was _six months_ after Pearl.

<comment><USER37> Wikipedia disagrees with you, and confirms that both Midway and Wake were attacked on the day of Pearl.

In the case of Wake, 8 of the 12 Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters were destroyed. In the case of Midway, the attack that day was repulsed.

<comment><USER38> I'd argue that the Pearl Harbor attack specifically was the primary attack (at least on that front, i.e. excluding the Philippines), and that the Wake and Midway attacks that happened were incidental (or at most in support of) that attack. While I hate the idea of quantity of lives lost being any sort of metric for the "importance" of an attack (every American life lost matters), Pearl Harbor took the brunt of it.

If anything, Pearl Harbor (and other surrounding targets) was the target specifically to tie up American efforts in the Northeast Pacific and keep them out of the way of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. That much the article seems to get correctly, and is arguably the article's main point.

<comment><USER39> > (every American life lost matters)

Are non-American lives somehow worth less? (Or just worthless?)

That's the kind of ethno-centric mindset that doesn't even bother to count the civilian "collateral damage" as long as our guys are safe in their body armor or -- better -- thousands of miles away directing drones from behind a desk.

It doesn't help much with building intercultural trust and understanding, though, or "winning hearts and minds".

<comment><USER38> By "American lives", I meant "lives lost as a result of an attack on American soil". That includes civilian lives, including civilians in American territories (i.e. the Philippines, which was part of America at the time, and Hawaii/Wake/Guam/Midway, which still are).

While I understand that this can be an emotional topic, I would appreciate it if you refrained from putting words in my mouth.

<comment><USER39> The point isn't the exact semantics of "American lives", it's that you chose to identify a particular kind of lives that "matter". Whether or not you meant it that way, it's easy for a reader to see this as implying that other lives matter less, especially as this kind of attitude (and phrasing) is pretty widespread.

A more inclusive "every life lost matters" would have served equally well in the context, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER38> The context was an attack on American soil and ascertaining the primary target of that attack. Casualties on the American side are definitely the more relevant metric than, say, casualties on the Japanese side.

Besides, the non-American lives lost - that is, the Japanese lives lost - <USER2> lost specifically because they were attacking American soil unprovoked and by surprise. While their lives certainly did matter, and I do sympathize with the soldiers and their families who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, it should be entirely unsurprising that, you know, maybe I'll have a little more sympathy for the defenders. This is not a US-centric mindset, by the way (despite me happening to be American), unless you think extending the same difference in sympathy to Chinese defenders v. Japanese aggressors in the same exact war is somehow "US-centric", or similarly extending the same difference in sympathy to Middle Eastern defenders v. American aggressors.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Dinner That Destroyed Gawker - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/01/the-dinner-that-destroyed-gawker/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+techcrunch%2Fstartups+%28TechCrunch+%C2%BB+Startups%29 <comment><USER2> Who is Mr A? Does any one know?</comment>