A Testament to X11 Backwards Compatibility - <AUTHOR> http://www.theresistornetwork.com/2013/12/a-testament-to-x11-backwards.html <comment><USER2> This is a great positive example of the (often negatively presented) double- edged sword that is extreme backwards compatibility.

X11 is an incredibly backwards compatible system, but this comes at the cost of positively _absurd_ code complexity. I remember reading some release notes from a new version a few years ago that said 100,000+ lines of deprecated code were removed, and that was barely a drop in the bucket.

And, of course, this is why projects like Wayland and Mir (Canonical's new display server) have been born — it's simply too cumbersome (and in some cases, impossible) to innovate on a behemoth like X11.

But people forget why X11 has such a giant codebase. It's not just bloat — a lot of it exists for a very good reason, and this article is an excellent illustration of what that is.

<comment><USER3> I will never understand why people insist on making new clients and servers that are backward-compatible with terribly old, deprecated protocols, instead of just preserving the old clients and servers that spoke those protocols natively within some sort of sandboxed emulation system.

Take Trident (IE's rendering engine), for example. Why can only one version of IE be installed at a time? Why does IE11 come with IE7/8/9/10 "compatibility modes" (which, much as they might claim, _aren 't_ faithful recreations of IE7/8/9/10 behavior)? Wouldn't it make more sense to just ship an IE "browser chrome" that could load up the actual rendering engine DLLs from IE6-through-11 (similar to how Google made IE connect to Chrome Frame), with increasing levels of virtualization and sandboxing as you go further back to cope with the difference in environments?

Apple and Microsoft have both got this right a few times: Apple had Rosetta for PowerPC emulation; Windows had WOW16 and WOW64. But besides these isolated instances, it really isn't a common idea.

<comment><USER2> EDIT: I didn't see your edit which gave Apple's Rosetta and X11 as examples. Those are good counter-examples to my point. But then again, those strategies were not done by X11 itself, rather by compatibility layers as you suggested. And in fact this is precisely what a lot of companies are doing, for example the XMir project ([http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26254.html](http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26254.html)).

____

I agree that that's a great strategy in general, but I don't think it translates well to display servers.

You can't just "put it in a sandbox". You need driver support, and you'd need a sandboxed environment sophisticated enough to deal with all the idiosyncrasies of the X protocol.

Even putting running an old version of X11/UNIX in a virtual machine is of limited benefit, because X11's core functionality is often tightly coupled with drivers and other things which would need a lot of special wrappers and hacks to work properly.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work (and I am not an X11 developer), but I do think there are extremely compelling and legitimate reasons for people to not follow your suggestion (at least in this case).

<comment><USER4> Why not make a clean break? None of this sandbox stuff.

X11 2: Electric Bugaloo - The list of major graphical linux programs in active use is very finite and most of it doesn't talk to X directly but relies on stuff like Gnome or QT which are libraries that have frequent churn anyway. No?

I bet if you could get the Top 30 projects to target your clean shiny X replacement in one fell swoop you'll end up most of the way there in terms of adoption within a few years. Linux is command line centric and frequently updated after all with users who expect things to break anyway. "Old" X odds and ends that won't be updated can be thought of much like Java Applets are thought of now a days.

Oh you need that abandoned Chemistry application from 2006 that depends on X11? Spin up a VM. We can afford to be more pragmatic nowadays. Nobody expects to run 5 year old apps on their smartphones, but desktop linux can't afford a clean break once every 2 decades?

<comment><USER3> > Oh you need that abandoned Chemistry application from 2006 that depends on > X11? Spin up a VM. We can afford to be more pragmatic nowadays.

That was exactly what I was suggesting with "sandbox stuff"\--except that the OS _can_ provide a stub library that recognizes what that "abandoned Chemistry application from 2006" is asking for, and spin up the VM itself, in the background, making it look as if it _was_ just a compatibility layer. See, for example, Windows 7/8's "Windows XP Mode" \-- or, as I mentioned before, Rosetta.

<comment><USER5> That's not as easy as it sounds. In a desktop GUI, customers expect seamless integration between such sandboxes. Making the clipboard and drag and drop work two-way between such VMs can be a lot of work. Even for simple text, that may involve encoding conversions. That, in turn, means that the host must be able to infer what encoding the guest expects. Styled text and graphics are way harder.

The VMs also must react to changes in the parent OS such as a change in the keyboard layout, two apps running in different VMs may both want to have some control over hardware, etc.

The approach works well in Windows because Microsoft spends lots of time on it and because the compatibility changes aren't that great.

Of course, it also works well in systems where there is no need for the VMs to interact (other than via the network). VM ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_\(operating_system\))) is a nice example there.

<comment><USER6> Making the clipboard and drag-and-drop work between any two X11 programs running on the same server is a hell of a lot of work, and many times simply impossible. So why are your goals for sandboxing so impossibly high?

<comment><USER5> Because I want my system to work, unlike that example you give. And impossibly? It worked fine in Apple's 68k-PPC and PPC-x86 transitions, across the various shims that Microsoft has for all kinds of old software, and may even work fine across various VM hosts running on Mac OS X (disclaimer: I have little experience with those)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is also a testament to the old HP. Around the time this logic analyser was built I used a fair amount of HP kit - oscilloscopes, EPROM programming kit, the plotter printer where you could have multiple ink colours and the original Deskjet printer. All of it was fantastic stuff and very expensive - we joked that 'HP' was an acronym for 'Highly Priced'!

What do I mean by fantastic stuff? Specialist items such as this logic analyser were built to an exceptionally high standard. To all intents and purposes HP equipment back then was bullet-proof. It cost a lot but it was an investment rather than an expense. The documentation was also superb. You felt quite privileged to use it.

Moving on to the products HP make now, I have a few of their laptops and a printer. The laptops are collecting dust and the printer does not have any ink in it. I have no intention of ever buying any of their kit ever again. It is all consumer stuff that does a lot compared to what was possible in 1992 but none of it has 'wow' factor.

I cannot think of anything they make nowadays that is sophisticated in a 'rocket science' kind of way. Sure I might not be exposed to their finer and more sophisticated products, but I should be through marketing, reading 'tech' news websites and so on.

'HP' really should have kept onto the pioneering/cutting-edge-technology image and made their PC's the kit of choice for anyone that does difficult maths, scientific stuff, interfacing or UNIX.

<comment><USER8> Companies change focus but hang on to their brands for consumer recognition, despite radically different strategies. The "HP" of back then is the "Agilent" of today. Similarly, yesterday's "Motorola" is today's "Freescale".

<comment><USER7> ...and sometimes they do something completely different. One company that changed focus and held onto their brand name is the UK's Whitbread. They had a virtual monopoly on beer and public houses in southern England up until some time in the 1980's, then, for no obvious reason, they sold all of the brewing interests, bought a coffee chain, a few hotels and some gyms. They kept onto the Whitbread name which was once synonymous with beer even though they moved so far away from the stuff that they most definitely were not the same company. There is no 'consumer recognition' as they trade on the High Street with different names - 'Costa Coffee' etc. - but they do trade on the stock market as Whitbread.

Back to the point in hand, Apple have somehow managed to make themselves de- facto for musicians, video editors and people that draw pretty pictures in Photoshop. These are the 'halo' users and mere mortals that think of themselves as possibly being creative one day buy Apple in part because that is what the creative professionals use. The fact they get no further than 'Crazy Birds' on their iPad Air is neither here or there.

HP should have worked on a similar strategy but in the 'technicial/scientific' sphere rather than the 'creative' sphere. They should have listened to and looked after the customer base they had built up from selling things like 'scopes so that the de-facto kit to buy for anyone doing anything vaguely technical was HP. This too could have had a halo effect, so anyone studying something like engineering would instinctively want to buy HP rather than some other cheap Chinese junk.

<comment><USER9> >mere mortals that think of themselves as possibly being creative one day buy Apple in part because that is what the creative professionals use. The fact they get no further than 'Crazy Birds' on their iPad Air is neither here or there.

I keep hearing this sentiment bandied around but I have seen no evidence of it in real life. Most of the "mere mortals" I know that use macs don't make any pretensions beyond "its much nicer and I can afford it." Nobody is saying to me "I bought it because I fantasise that one day I'll run a recording studio from it." And who on earth buys iPhones and iPads to be "creative?" What a load of nonsense.

<comment><USER10> If you ask the average 1st world human being "What are Macs good at?" They usually say something about ease of use and multimedia stuff. It's just what people think.

Now, on my Mac, I do exactly zero multimedia related things. So I agree that the multimedia thing isn't necessarily true, but that's what I hear about Macs from not-technicals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of my pet peeves is in there:

       DisallowTCP = false

Negating negatives is always more difficult to understand and more likely to be error prone. Why not just this, with the default being false.

       AllowTCP = true

<comment><USER12> I have the feeling that the default used to be true, and when the default was later switched to false, it was done by this option to not change the behavior of legacy configurations.

<comment><USER11> My problem is what is on the left side of the equals sign. It is already a negative ("Disallow") so the value on the right side is negated.

<comment><USER13> While I can't speak to this example specifically, in general:

The issue is what happens if the line is missing entirely?

If the default is to allow, then adding a line "allowTcp= true" hasn't actually changed your config. And deleting a line "allowTCP = true" doesn't stop allowing TCP, which could be confusing.

What the addition of the line does is actually disallow TCP.

The above is the kind of reasoning that causes configs to end up with double negatives.

<comment><USER11> The solution is very simple in my eyes - do not include a negative on the left side, and pick the default on the right side to match intentions.

These cases seem to have happened the other way around - values/meaning are picked for the right side first, which then requires contorting the left in order to match intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember I started to use Linux in the early to mid- nineties. Back then home networking equipment was a bit too expensive for me (basically I was student-broke), so I did set up a local network between my "big" Linux desktop computer and my small laptop using PLIP (that is: IP over the parallel line interface IIRC). Then I'd launch an X11 server on the laptop but display on it a session from a user on the desktop. So both my brother and I could surf simultaneously from the "fast" machine. As I remember it things the network was slow, but I clearly remember that it worked. We had our first Internet connection (dial-up) and we were "sharing it" and surfing simultaneously (using Mosaic?) for hours and hours.

Later on I've configured similar setups so that several devs could use older PCs to run fat IDEs from the one fast machine to older PCs (it was funny the day I yanked the power cord of the fast machine, interrupting everybody ; )

Up to this day I still love the fact that it's trivial for one local user (if you allow it) to run programs in the visual X11 session of another user. I'm using several browsers from unrelated user accounts: one only for my personal GMail / Google Docs, one only for browsing, one only for my professional GMail account, etc. That's a feature I use daily and, for my use, I think it's easier (and faster) than running several VMs.

You can also run simultaneously several X11 session, for example at different sizes (say one at 1920x1200, another one at 1280x800, etc.).

I'd really miss these features if they were to go away: I hope the newer Wayland and Mir etc. will still allow one "user" to display graphical apps on the display of another user.

<comment><USER15> for bandwith reasons, i had a headless VNC X server on the box, and executed X apps locally. Then i'd also start the usual Xserver and client and run a vnc client full screen. So i had the first vnc X server showing on the screen.

then on another box, i had the usual X server+client combo, and i could open a vnc client and have fast remote access and shared screen :)... vnc was much faster than remote X as it only sent input and graphics. X sends all sort of metadata that is not really that useful for most cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you're willing to dick around with the kernel config options, you can still get x86 Linux to run binaries from the early 90s. I vaguely recall reading a mailing list thread where Alan Cox, I think it was, commented that he had a bunch a.out binaries from that era still kicking around for testing.

<comment><USER17> Alan Cox said something to that effect on Google+ during that "stable ABI" slapfight a while ago:

 _" However it's not an Open Source disease its certain projects like Gnome disease - my 3.6rc kernel will still run a Rogue binary built in 1992. X is back compatible to apps far older than Linux."_

[https://plus.google.com/115250422803614415116/posts/hMT5kW8L...](https://plus.google.com/115250422803614415116/posts/hMT5kW8LKJk)

(IIRC Alan Cox maintained a version of Rogue for linux for a while.)

<comment><USER16> It's worth reading that G+ post just to see Alan Cox and Linus jumping all over GNOME

<comment><USER12> Well he has a point, while the kernel interfaces remain consistent, most userspace libraries have the habit of breaking compatibility every few years/get replaced altogether.

It's easier to run the Windows version of early Linux games like Unreal through wine than getting the native version to work.

<comment><USER16> Glib and GTK+ remained ABI stable for the whole of 2.x afaik.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The buried story here is that somebody is running e17 and there's no screenshot of the memory analyzer UI doing a backflip.

</comment><comment><USER19> I especially hate the smugness some of the developers of the X replacements; of course you can design a leaner architecture when dropping 80% of the features that make X so great. Congratulations, you are true geniuses!

<comment><USER20> I certainly hope you realize that quite a few members of the Wayland core development team are former/current X.org maintainers/core developers.

<comment><USER21> The reason they're starting from scratch is they ran out of features to cut from X without breaking it.

On one hand, they're justified because most people don't use X as intended.

On the other hand, maybe people should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what's the network adapter on a 1992 machine. Coaxial cable?

<comment><USER23> My old Sun workstation of that vintage had an AUI[1] port that could be connected to either a 10Base-T, 10Base-5, or 10Base-2 transceiver.

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

<comment><USER24> That was also my initial guess! But sadly incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow, I had no idea tech like that went into test gear at that time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Okay that's seriously metal.

</comment><comment><USER26> [http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2011/04/linux- securit...](http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2011/04/linux-security- circus-on-gui-isolation.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> It probably performs pretty well, too. The farther you get away from Xlib, the more likely you are to interact with X correctly.

</comment><comment><USER15> That is the least impressive thing on X11 backwads compatibility.

And this is the sole reason why everyone hates X11. sadly.

X11 is always a server (which show things on the screen) and a client (which handles windows and send what to show on screen to the server... or something like that).

So _any_ X11 instance in a desktop is a server+client. Hence, anywhere you have any X graphical interface, you can either receive windows from some other client, or send your windows to another server (since you have both server and client running, remember). So the only thing that device did was send the X client windows to some TCP socket instead of the local one. Not taking credit for it having X at all... that is awesome. but what this post describe couldn't be more banal.

<comment><USER28> Sure, remote display is no big deal if you're already using X11. But most embedded devices were not farsighted enough to use X11 in the first place; it's much more common to see the wheel being reinvented poorly.

<comment><USER29> The Tektronix logic analyzer from the time used an embedded copies of Windows and had no 'remote' capability. No doubt if you hook it up to a modern network with Internet access it would become compromised immediately.

<comment><USER30> I am sure the X client running on the oscilloscope has plenty of security bugs too.

<comment><USER29> I agree and don't doubt that it did, but few things were both as vulnerable and as targeted as an unpatched Win95/98 system attached to the Internet (capital I). The reason was simply that embedded versions rarely got patched, and when a vulnerability was found that was in the embedded version as well, malware could find it and use it long after everything else was safe. There were a couple of EMC storage management consoles that got hit by this problem and ATM terminals as well. The scary part would be having your 15 year old piece of test equipment be rendered unusable by such an event. The odds were small but decidedly non-zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Legacy cruft that no one cares about anymore. That's why Wayland exists.

<comment><USER6> >Wayland exists to be legacy cruft that no one cares about anymore.

FTFY</comment></comment>


Introducing Twine: String Management for iOS, Mac OS X, and Android Development - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobiata.com/blog/2012/02/08/twine-string-management-ios-mac-os-x

<comment><USER2> Looks great. I hadn't considered localizing my future iPad game using Cocos2D and now I'm thinking about doing it for at least 4 languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese, Chinese)! I'll get more if I can get hold of some friends who could do me the favor.

</comment><comment><USER3> How is this better than porting something like gettext to iOS (if it hasn't been ported already)?

The one "downside" to gettext (at least from the OP's perspective) is that it uses the English text as the key. Personally I don't find this to be a downside at all. I hate having to make up artificial keys and then associate them with English strings. It makes programming much less natural and breaks my flow. I've never found the typo/misspelling issue to be much of an issue.

I suppose gettext also doesn't support XIB files, though it wouldn't be hard to translate back and forth between .strings and .po files...

</comment><comment><USER4> > ibtool does not do merging

Upon receipt of an updated .strings file for a localization, run

      ibtool --strings-file updated.strings xx.lproj/existing.xib --write xx.lproj/existing.xib

which will preserve any layout changes made to

      xx.lproj/existing.xib

It is working out fine for a client app called Chumkee which has about a dozen localizations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting... Thanks for the tip. I will have to update my post accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great-looking tool and an even better post. It does a very thorough job of explaining Twine's value to someone who might not already understand localization pain points on iOS. If Apple's own localization doc were this straightforward, we might see a lot more localized apps out there.</comment>


Rate My App: blueTunes.net -- a cloud music service - <AUTHOR> http://www.bluetunes.net/ <comment><USER2> A few things off the top of my head after seeing this.

About the business model:

1) The interface seems almost like anywhere.fm (albeit less polished), which was bought by Imeem, which itself is rumored in a lot of debt right now.

2) The "sharing" aspect of the service kinda reminds me of playlist.com, which means if you gain any traction, you'll have lawsuits from the record companies

Regarding the technical aspects:

3) Back to the interface, the "play" and "rewind" buttons..etc looks badly aliased and ugly, I think it would have been better if you copied itunes more completely like anywhere.fm did.

4) As a fellow flex developer, I'm sick of seeing flex being used for simple applications like music players, you really don't need the 200+k framework code for something simple like this. It just adds to the loading time.

5) As I mentioned before, the interface doesn't seem polished, you have kind of "aqua" styled button but other parts of the interface uses the default flex Halo theme, it doesn't seem very coherent together.

6) I'm sick of seeing the default flex loading screen, do something more interesting like fotoflexor or picnic.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the advice... especially about the buttons and loading screen. those will change soon.

<comment><USER2> NP. upon reading my comments again, I sound quite mean and nasty in my citique, sorry about that, its because I spent the past 10 hours in flex builder =P

A few more things that I would like to point out after playing with it a little more.

Usability issues

1, In the "Add playlist" screen, the "enter" key on the keyboard should press the "ok" button. In flex, you can easily do this by setting the defaultButton property in your TitleWindow. Likewise, the escape button should press the cancel button for you.

likewise for your "edit playlist" screen

2, I dont like the java uploader, Why not use a flex based one like the rest of your app?

Minor UI stuff

3, Your aqua scrollbar seems to be taken from <http://www.scalenine.com> , but it doesn't have the nice "rounded" arrows that the real aqua scrollbar has.

Ideally, it should be something like this, with both the rounded corners and the "swimming animation" underneath:

like this: <http://kpicturebooth.com/temp/aquascroll.swf> * disclaimer, I made that and I might write a tutorial on how to skin this.

Other things

4, Are you using Flex RSL? at the moment, it doesn't appear so. That will speed up the load time by a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks again for the feedback. you definitely know your flex (this was the project on which i learned flex from scratch).

1\. good advice on the enter key stuff.

2\. the uploader actually does more than just upload... it fingerprints songs. i'm sure it could be done with flex. however when i first tried to do so i started running into a lot of security issues. and so i ditched it and went with something more familiar, with the justification that a user only uploads a handful of times. but, yes, this needs to be redone in flex.

3\. good advice. one thing that i haven't been able to figure out (and it looks like your example doesn't have it either) is how to let the mouse's scroll wheel activate the scroll bar. any ideas?

4\. no i'm not. thanks for the tip

<comment><USER2> 2\. A good way to do fingerprinting would be to use the flash player 10 API which allows you to process local files before uploading them.

3, for mouse scroll, look here: <http://hasseg.org/blog/?p=138>

Contact me directly if there's anything else, I think I'm clogging up this thread too much =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Straight out of the engineering department at blueTunes, try our next > generation uploader (patent pending)

seriously??

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems cool, but Id watch out for the man! If your not funded to pay royalties and you gain a smidge of traction they'll shut you down.

Allowing the share option is a big no no in this regards.

The tech and idea are cool, but it's risky. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> right-- the share option actually allows you to share short clips (less than 30 seconds) of all your songs which is considered fair use.

<comment><USER5> That "30 seconds or less is fair use" does absolutely nothing to stop the idiot RIAA from sending you all kinds of fan mail. That is not a law on the books anywhere. Its one of the problems of fair use, because there aren't many explicit laws defining exactly what fair use it. Its all more or less come about through court decisions and judges opinions over the years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if its just me. I saw that headline and thought cool, blue tunes. Finally something for those of us who love the blues. But sadly it was yet another music service, sigh.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how you will handle the cost of storage and streaming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now it's built on s3... so storage and bandwidth is pretty easy to do, and cheap. Also, notice that there are premium feature (more songs, and playlist streaming) which users can, and are, paying for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The "sign up and get started" button is below the fold on my 15inch 1440X900 maximized Firefox. I would suggest to take that button above the fold.

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems like you're taking lala.com head on. I happened to think they are really innovative in the cloud music service space.

What is different about your site?

</comment><comment><USER10> what does this have to do with "cloud"? because it's simply hosted on amazon? does that really mean anything different? does it affect your users at all? do they even know what it means?

just sick of the overuse of the term.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> how's it look? what's it missing/need? anything else?

<comment><USER11> a few things are broken around the website:

-in chrome the pricing for adding song storage isnt working

-the job form doesnt work

thought: maybe have a default 1 song for everyone(that is no longer copyrighted), so that people can see how easy it is to use

also you have the iTunes logo on the front page, but I cant seem to find where to stream to itunes; my guess is that you are working on this currently and its not ready yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks... both bugs have been fixed. and i really like the idea of the free songs.

the iTunes streaming is working, but it's a premium feature (currently $12 a month). email me if you want a free trial.

<comment><USER11> thanks. I thought it might be like that, it only just mentions second life. I will email you to try it out.

Also found that on the account page the title is screwed up until a Name for the account is entered, but you enter a name to register: might want that as default</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fitness Crazed - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/opinion/sunday/fitness-crazed.html?hpw&rref=opinion <comment><USER3> Here's a link to Starting Strength[1]. I highly recommend it for people looking to bulk, tone, and put on some real muscle. It did wonders for me and I'm sure it will for you too. I also recommend doing these powerlifting exercises (such as squats, bench, and deadlift) with a focus on FORM first instead of weight. It'll prevent you from getting injured and payoff when you start lifting real heavy weight. I highly recommend these videos to teach you powerlifting form[2][3][4]. Also, the nice people on r/fitness over at reddit won't mind giving you a form check if you post a video of you lifting. Seriously, start now. It'll change your life.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0982522738?pc_redir=1400896569...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0982522738?pc_redir=1400896569&robot_redir=1)

[2] [http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ME8gEN54Ao&feature=kp](http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ME8gEN54Ao&feature=kp)

[3] [http://youtube.com/watch?v=EHx1gYTA- Rw](http://youtube.com/watch?v=EHx1gYTA-Rw)

[4] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS2wLZSdeDg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS2wLZSdeDg)

<comment><USER4> Unless your rail thin and a teenager, I'd avoid Rip's diet advice. It will undoubtedly get you fat.

Lyle McDonald's bodyrecomposition.com is, as far as I'm concerned, the best nutrition resource on the internet. Lyle does a great job of taking clinical research and boiling it down to practical applications for people who train.

<comment><USER5> Diet != losing weight. The GOMAD (gallon of milk a day) diet is not designed for you to lose weight. It's designed to maximize daily caloric intake, which in turn maximizes speed of recovery.

Once you're done with starting strength, you switch to something like IF (intermittent fasting) to cut the excess fat. Then you end up with lots of muscle and no fat.

You can either lose fat or gain muscle. It's incredibly difficult to do both at the same time.

<comment><USER4> GOMAD is also specifically designed for teenagers with no fat or muscle that don't know how to consume 3000 + calories/day (and I believe Rip usually wants them in the 4-5000 range). What I'm saying is that this is an inefficient approach for almost everyone outside that demographic that has any sort of interest in improved appearance (i.e. almost everyone).

Your body can only build muscle at a certain rate, and the rest of the caloric surplus is going to be converted to body fat. So what I'm saying is if you are willing to pay a little bit of attention to macro nutrient intake, you can gain muscle with much less of the associated body fat that comes with bulking.

This way, you have to much less to cut. More importantly, you learn how to eat properly which is essential for long term success.

<comment><USER5> The point is to have a caloric surplus. Because then you can guarantee maximum recovery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first few chapters Rippetoe's "Practical Programming for Strength Training" explain a lot of the theory behind strength training.

One of the first things it does it clarify the difference between exercise vs training. Exercise is just "working out", whereas "training" is a long term plan to improve certain aspects of the body's ability.

Unless you are specific about what your goals of changing your body and your body's abilities are, then it will be hard to get "results" since "results" is not well defined.

Some example results:

       * Get bigger chest and arm muscles
       * Be able to run long distances
       * Be able to perform certain feats of strength: Lift heavy things, do certain gymnastics poses
       * Have certain muscles or muscle groups be defined
       * Any sport specific activity: climbing, rowing, golf, basketball, etc

Muscle composition and neurological response develop differently to different training. Endurance, balance, speed, range of motion, and lifting heaving things are all different. And you can develop those abilities in different muscles and movements.

Applying this context to any fitness article I read has clarified a lot for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> Starting Strength works because it's easy to understand, follow, and see results from. By far the primary challenge newer folks face is establishing the discipline and consistency, and that's a lot easier to do when you're motivated by increasing the weight on the bar regularly.

My favorite quote from the book is from the very first page (which is probably very relevant to the HN crowd):

 _A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or the spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these people as their squat strength goes up._

<comment><USER8> I'm much happier since I've stopped lifting. I did Starting Strength until I could squat 1.5x my body weight, but I never enjoyed going to the gym, and realized I didn't really care much for the muscle I put on. If anything, it was annoying having such big thighs. I haven't been to the gym for a couple of years now and couldn't be happier. I do quite a bit of cardio (competitive table tennis), and that's it.

<comment><USER9> Definitely. In my opinion, you shouldn't do something you don't like, and I don't like going to gyms, so after multiple years I've now quit and it feels pretty good. I think it's important to find another sport you like though. Now I do climbing and experiment with other things. Much more enjoyable than grinding three days a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Finally a fitness article that says "Just do it". There really isn't a silver bullet to this stuff. If you keep working out, you will become stronger and eventually if you also eat reasonably well you will start looking better as well.

It's as simple as that. No miracles required, just a bit of patience.

Personally the solution I've found works best for me follows two simple rules:

1\. Never be hungry and never be stuffed.

2\. Do a simple 15 minute bodyweight routine 3 to 4 times a day. Do nothing every 4th day.

When conditions are right (I'm living in Ljubljana) I will also add boxing training 3 to 5 times a week and I've been running every day lately because I can't do boxing. It works really well. I look bloody amazing naked.

edit: The only problem I have with this much working out is that when I can't do boxing for an extended period of time I have too much energy and become edgy. Like, things just make me angrier than they should and I have trouble sitting still. The running helps, but isn't quite strenuous enough.

edit2: The BEST part of working out this much is all the food you get to eat. And with much greater delight than if you're not working out.

<comment><USER11> Could you elaborate on your 15 minute bodyweight routines? Would it be mostly interval type stuff like (1 minute burpees, 10 second break, 1 minute pushups) etc.. ? or what do you do?

I'm only asking out of scientific curiosity to "looking bloody amazing naked" of course ;)

<comment><USER10> I'm too lazy for interval and interval only works if you have someone else doing the timing. I've tried doing it on my own but it doesn't work well because of fiddling with the timer.

I started with this: [http://imgur.com/gallery/v49W4](http://imgur.com/gallery/v49W4)

Now I just continue with the same -> 100 pushups (4 different types), 130 situps, 200 crunches (4 different types), then either 100 side-to-side, 70 leg-lifts, or an alphabet (spelling out the alphabet with extended legs), 2 minute plank (2 different types), and 60 squats.

If I am pressed for time I can squeeze that into some 13 minutes. If I don't stop chatting on whatsapp/skype/fb it takes about 20 to 25.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Google referral link (to avoid subscription block):

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F05%2F25%2Fopinion%2Fsunday%2Ffitness- crazed.html%3Fhp%26rref%3Dopinion&ei=hkCCU4zGKMuPyASgr4KIBA&usg=AFQjCNEsc5r8nidRqZkjJroh9Tf0XS2Arw&bvm=bv.67720277,d.aWw)

</comment><comment><USER5> Since this article didn't elaborate on Rip's suggested diet, and I haven't seen another post here that did... here it is: ff GOMAD, or Gallon Of Milk A Day, is the diet that commonly is combined with Starting Strength (SS). The general idea is that, in addition to eating a lot of food, you drink a gallon of milk a day.

It is not for the protein in the milk. It is not for the added calcium. It is a straight up calorie per dollar play.

A gallon of whole milk is 2400 calories, and costs about $3. It's basically the best dollar to calorie ratio that exists at the grocery store.

Why do you need the extra 2400 calories? For recovery. SS operates on a linear progression. Every other day, you lift a few more pounds than you did the day before. In order to achieve that (safely, and sustainably), you need to be fully recovered by your next workout.

There are many aspects to recovery, but the primary bottleneck is fuel. Which is calories. So the rationale behind GOMAD is to remove the bottleneck. Give the body more fuel than it could possibly use in a day to spend on recovery.

If your typical diet is 3000 calories from food (not unusual when on an aggressive exercise plan), GOMAD will up that to 5400. The exact upper bound on calories your body can actually burn in a day on recovery is variable - depends on the person, the day, the workout, etc etc etc.

But the usage ceiling is definitely lower than 5400 calories. So we give the body more fuel than it could POSSIBLY burn, to give it the ability to recover as much as it is humanly possible between workouts.

You do have to do something with those extra calories. It DOES turn into fat. You do gain a little fat when doing SS+GOMAD. But you have to chose one - <USER2> weight or build muscle. It's incredibly difficult to do both, while also demanding gains in a reasonable amount of time. So typically once someone finishes a SS cycle, they switch to IF (Intermittent Fasting) or something to cut the extra weight.

Then you end up much stronger, and leaner.

Hope that was helpful in clearing up the GOMAD diet, and the rationale behind it.

</comment><comment><USER13> My story with fitness echoes this post closely. Gyms have long had the motivation to push the latest machines or fitness fads, because that's how they retain customers with the promise of a new program that'll change everything.

After a ton of research, the only thing that worked for me was bodyweight workouts and barbell training.

To drop my weight I followed bodyweight programs at home. 20 minute short sessions with squats, push ups, etc. Far more challenging than it sounds! You can see pics of how I dropped 20 lbs in this post:

[http://micho.biz/post/74209049445/leaving-teambox-back-to- sq...](http://micho.biz/post/74209049445/leaving-teambox-back-to-square-one)

Then I jumped onto barbell training, complemented with bodyweight sessions.

Starting Strength has been the best resource I've followed so far. For a small time investment a week, I've been progressing in technique and strength steadily over the last months.

The fitness field has been a huge motivation personally for me, which ultimately made me leave my previous startup and found [http://8fit.com](http://8fit.com) to help people like me follow that learning path.

<comment><USER14> I've done a lot of olympic lift training over the years and am competent at it. I am very much pro machine. The modern machines are excellent at preventing injury while providing an ideal strength training movement. The barbell stuff is these days fetishized for no good reason.

People get hurt using barbells all the time. It is easy to mess up and tweak something and then be a bit injured for a few weeks, even if you know what you're doing. It is much harder to mess up with the good machines. The barbell doesn't have any special advantages. In fact, loading up the plates is a nuisance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A related article (2010) "Everything you know about fitness is a lie" \-- [http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/everything- yo...](http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/everything-you-know- about-fitness-is-a-lie-20120504)

</comment><comment><USER16> Lifting is something I'm pretty passionate about. I go 5 days a week and don't follow any specific program, just do my own thing. Honestly, if you're in the gym 5 days a week, you're going to see results. Plain and simple, no matter what you're doing. I've always felt the programs were basically saying "do these things in the gym this much then you'll see these results" and it's like yeah I can do almost anything in the gym for that amount of time and I'll see those results...

I feel like supplements are similar to personal trainers in terms of that "client confusion". I've taken a lot of different supplements and doing research online versus talking to someone at GNC will return offensively differing results in what you should take for which reasons.

<comment><USER17> you might consider dropping a day. 2 on / 1 off / 2 on / 2 off

I found that 5x/week led to an overtrained state.

<comment><USER18> It strongly depends on the person. If you get enough sleep and you have high testosterone, you can pretty much train every day. Your advice does hold true for most of the population though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My fitness regime: Dance class a couple times a week. Yoga a couple times a week as well. Live in a city I can walk around, don't have a car. Right now the dance is pole dance. Which you will probably laugh at - but think how much strength and flexibility you need to climb up a pole, invert yourself, and do splits while slowly twirling back down to the ground.

And yeah, just keep doing the same thing on a regular basis. I have a chin-up bar in my bathroom door. Almost every time I pass that way, I try a few times. I've gone from "can't get off to the ground" to "can easily lift and lower myself". Now I'm trying to work on more reps.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have trouble understanding the basis for articles like these. As far as it goes, asking which exercises might provide the best real-world gains is a sensible question, but the question of why a 40 yr old man wants to be able to push 235 lbs away from his chest when lying reclined is never even asked.

Does he know why he wants this?

From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal to potential mates that he is worthy of reproduction (the reason why we do alot of the things we do that no one ever quite explains). But at age 40, this is a suspect answer... without knowing any details of his personal life it seems unlikely that he's finally looking to settle down and start a family. Besides, if he is a late bloomer, the success of his career and his paycheck matter much more than body fat percentage. A male's ability to provide benefit to a female just doesn't lean much towards the "fighting off sabertooth tigers" anymore, nor even in the western world towards "fighting off other males".

I'm continually surprised how much time, effort, and money people will waste on these activities that seem devised to attract mates when they want few or no children, when they already have mates, and at times even when they have mates superior to any they're likely to acquire in the future. It's almost as if even as the desire to reproduce erodes, their desire to attract reproductive mates increases.

<comment><USER21> >From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal to potential mates that he is worthy of reproduction

You've made a lot of assumptions about his motivations. In _Starting Strength_ , Rippetoe basically makes the claim that these exercises are _the_ most effective way to improve someone's overall health and fitness. His attitude is probably best summarized by the following quote:

>Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort.

Now, I'm not going to argue with you about whether humans need exercise to be healthy or if so, which kinds. But for the people who do come to that conclusion (that apparently includes the author), there's plenty of motivation beyond attracting mates.

<comment><USER20> > that these exercises are the most effective way to improve someone's overall > health and fitness.

This doesn't explain anything, however. It's tautological... he wants to increase his fitness, _to increase his fitness_?

> Now, I'm not going to argue with you about whether humans need exercise to > be healthy or if so,

To what end? To eke out another 3 years at the end of his life, probably in a nursing home?

If he was trying to avoid diabetes, that makes sense to me, that affects anywhere from 10-40 years of your life, and is a very extreme quality-of-life factor.

This doesn't explain the ever-present fitness craze.

<comment><USER21> >If he was trying to avoid diabetes, that makes sense to me, that affects anywhere from 10-40 years of your life, and is a very extreme quality-of-life factor.

Sure and two of the biggest factors in preventing/treating diabetes are exercise and weight maintenance.

>This doesn't explain anything, however. It's tautological... he wants to increase his fitness, to increase his fitness?

Nope. He is performing weight bearing exercise to, not only become better at performing those exercises, but also with the goal of achieving better body composition, bone density, stamina, mental well being, etc. These have huge impacts on quality of life. You've established that you don't value longevity and quality of life, but it shouldn't be hard to understand why others seek that out.

<comment><USER20> > Sure and two of the biggest factors in preventing/treating diabetes are > exercise and weight maintenance.

60 years ago, your grandfather's generation had no problems with this at all. They didn't go to the gym.

While exercise is a factor, these people have taken the required level of exercise and kicked it up 10,000%.

> Nope. He is performing weight bearing exercise to, not only become better at > performing those exercises, but also with the goal of achieving better body > composition,

Better in what sense?

Again, you're being tautological.

> mental well being

Huh? The only way it increases his mental well being is that he believes that if he doesn't meet some abstract ideal he'll have failed... an ideal which he chose in the first place.

The hamster doesn't run on the wheel because it thinks that being a fatty is deplorable, but because it's become mentally ill trapped in its cage.

> You've established that you don't value longevity

My maternal grandfather weighs 300 pounds. He turns 81 this year.

How much longevity would it buy me? Any number of years (realistically more like months) that I'd get will be at the end of my life, when it matters little.

> and quality of life,

My life's quality is already pretty high. What is it that I'm missing? Being able to hike up a mountain?

<comment><USER22> >60 years ago, your grandfather's generation had no problems with this at all. They didn't go to the gym.

My grandfathers generation got a lot of daily exercise. My grandfather was a farmer and was on his feet for 10+ hours every day.

>Huh? The only way it increases his mental well being is that he believes that if he doesn't meet some abstract ideal he'll have failed

?? Regular exercise has dramatic effects on stress levels and general cognitive ability.

> My life's quality is already pretty high. What is it that I'm missing? Being > able to hike up a mountain?

You can have an amazing quality of life without ever reading a book after high school...

You can have an amazing quality of life even if you are born paralyzed from the waist down...

You can have an amazing quality of life if you are deaf or blind...

You can have an amazing quality of life despite being in massive debt...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been following Wendlers 5/3/1 for the last 3 months, and have noticed a ton of improvement. My personal goal is to get strong and not big. The foundation of 5/3/1 is to improve strength, and there are supplemental routines to get big, get lean, etc etc. So far so good! Would love to hear others opinions if they've tried 5/3/1.

<comment><USER3> Right now I'm doing 5/3/1\. It works great once your linear gains start to fade. That being said, I feel beginners should do more of a starting strength or strong lifts program since there is so much room for growth and high reps help develope good form.

<comment><USER23> Great feedback, and that's what I've read other places as well.

I started 5/3/1 with absolutely no background or experience in lifting, but I've spent a lot of time focusing on making sure my form is good. That said, you "do" start pushing a lot of weight pretty quickly once you calculate your 1RM. I do admit it was a bit intense at first, but I've actually really liked the process. I really like Week 4 and how it makes you take it easy (finally get a bit of a rest!), and the slow addition of weight to your monthly iterations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I agree that you don't need any new fancy techniques and equipment to get in shape.

However, doing the same week every week just isn't very fun.

Most of the problem with being and staying in shape is the lack of interest in it.

The author enjoyed weightlifting because he had never done it before and he saw himself getting stronger, which is very fun the first time you do it.

The most important part of a fitness program is interest and motivation. A close second should be safety, but generally you can get into decent shape doing almost any sport or activity.

For me, this article's fitness program, Starting Strength, sounds insanely boring, but that is because I have been doing these lifts off and on since I was 15 years old. And I did them a lot in college for football, so, it no longer appeals to me.

I say, find something that is interesting to you and do that thing. It can be yoga, martial arts, soccer, basketball, walking, whatever, as long as you really enjoy it you will do it hard enough to get in shape and improve your health.

<comment><USER5> It is called STARTING strength for a reason. :)

In my experience (which is not universal), the workouts aren't boring though. Running on an eliptical for an hour is boring. Getting into the gym, warming up, doing my workout, cooling down, taking a shower, changing my clothes, and walking out of the gym in 45 minutes isn't boring - it's awesome.

<comment><USER24> I am glad that you found something you enjoy that keeps you in shape.

But, boring is very subjective and I think weightlifting is boring because I did it for so long and I have done all I can do with it.

My point isn't that this particular program is boring or not, I just think interest trumps content in regards to fitness.

So, if you like it, then do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I found that strength training really pushes your nervous system hard. The training worked ok, and I could lift 220kg at the end. But I also developed anxiety issues. Nowadays I do much higher repetitions at lower weight, pushing muscle endurance much more, not one repetition maximum lifts which increase the load on your nervous system.

I also, without fail, include 30 minutes of cardio in every session. This appears to be critical if you are like me and prone to anxiety attacks. I'm still progressively overloading, but if I can't do 3-5 sets of 20 repetitions at a given weight, I don't do it at all. And I've seen others in my gym who have unbelievable physiques doing the same. So it does work, so long as you keep increasing the weight as your body adapts.

</comment><comment><USER26> 14 years ago I snowboarded off a cliff into the top of a pine tree, and pulled my arm from its socket. In 2009 I fell ~20ft into the sea whilst kitesurfing, badly dislocating the same shoulder. It resulted in a pretty crazy shoulder operation that needed a lot of work to get back range of motion and strength.

I started with physiotherapy and once the range of motion was back I slowly moved onto weights (using Starting Strength). It went well, but I can't claim to have loved it like I do snowboarding.

A friend suggested going to a Krav Maga[1] class he attends. I haven't looked back since, and do between 2 and three sessions a week. I dropped the weights and Rip's diet advice, and went back to eating like I always do (pretty healthy, good mix of red meat and pasta and potatoes, vegetables).

I've put on weight (always been slim), strength is back to what it was, and I've not been this fit since I was conscripted in 1988.

Whilst I'm sure weights would do more for how I look (secondary for me, I've always been good with girls anyway), Krav Maga does more for how I feel. I guess there's no silver bullet that works for everybody. You try a few things on, and keep what suits.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga), and [https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=ce9c6cf4-6b3e-419...](https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=ce9c6cf4-6b3e-4194-8739-ad9165e37d26)

</comment><comment><USER27> The fitness regime I got more out of than anything else has been interval training.

I worked out with weights for years and occasionally would do some cardio. I think the logic was... cardio doesn't make you look good in a swimsuit like lifting weights does, and at the time impressing ladies and intimidating other guys was priority (lets don't lie to ourselves about motive here!).

Then, I got a little older and impressing ladies became less important and general health and a sense of well being more important. I read an article that made me realize many of the same principals of weight training can be applied to inner muscles as well. A knowledgeable person wouldn't go to the gym and lift 5 pound 300 times and expect to get stronger. Instead they would lift 80% of what they could 5 times in sets. This is what builds strength.

The same principal applies to interval training for heart and lungs. Rather than getting on a treadmill for 45 minutes at a slow slog you push yourself to a percent of max heart rate for like 3 minutes in sets (the same as weight training). The workouts don't take that long and I found they greatly improved my feeling of health and general vigor. There are a number of studies on the benefits of improved heart stroke volume etc. from interval training which I can't find at the moment.

<comment><USER28> HIIT is a good form of interval training for people who want to do cardio but are also afraid that cardio will detract from their "look good in a swimsuit"-look.

> , and at the time impressing ladies and intimidating other guys was priority > (lets don't lie to ourselves about motive here!).

Let's not project, either.

<comment><USER27> "Let's not project, either."

hehehe

Well, I was just speaking from what I remember as a 20 something... I doubt I'm unique in this regard but probably it doesn't apply to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have many friends that in the past wanted to get more fit and healthy and they've always felt the need to do a lot of research or look for some sort of crazy program that they think is necessary to shed off the weight or gain muscle. I always try to just push them in the direction of starting out with the "big four" that this article mentioned: the bench press, the squat, the dead lift, and the clean and press. All you need to do is look for videos online that demonstrate the motion and proper form and try to mimic this with a light weight [1]. As your form gets better, you can naturally add more weight. From there as you gain more experience, you can start working on exercises that isolate different body parts and of course incorporating cardio.

In my humble opinion, it's best to just jump right in, create a routine, and start learning from experience. Refer back to videos online for proper form in trying new exercises, and from first-hand experience you will see what works and what doesn't.

[1] [http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/](http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/)

<comment><USER30> _" wanted to get more fit and healthy [...] to shed off the weight or gain muscle"_

Those are two, three, maybe four different things. The typical marathon runner, for instance, is fit, not fat, but also not muscular, and may or may not be healthy; a sumo wrestler is surprisingly fit and muscular, but also fat, and a body builder is muscular, but need not even be strong (world champion weight lifters look quite different from body builders)

The optimal training program depends on what you want to achieve. That's also what this NY Times reporter seems to be confused about. Training programs focussing on getting fit (especially those focusing on endurance fitness) may have a side effect of looking better in the mirror, but if that is your goal, there are better/faster ways to get there.

<comment><USER31> I'm aware of the differences between "functional" muscle and otherwise, but you can't be an elite level bodybuilder without being strong. Ronnie Coleman (8x Mr Olympia) is stronger than more than 99% of the human race.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I followed the Starting Strength regime for about 7 months and had great results where I added about 15 lbs of muscle to my frame. Its a fantastic method for building a foundation of strength and muscle. My biggest complaint during the process was that it was difficult to track my progress. To my surprise none of the iPhone applications out there were very good for tracking lifts and I ended up tracking with the Notes application. Recently, I stumbled upon the StrongLifts app, which is tailored for a different lifting regime, but one that is somewhat similar to Starting Strength. StrongLifts is executed perfectly, in my opinion. If I wasn't in school, I'd try and build a StrongLifts clone retooled for Starting Strength. I think there would be a huge market for that app.

I would like to see an iPhone application that tracks your progress in the Starting Strength routine. The app StrongLifts would be a great starting place. StrongLifts has a fitness regime that is similar to Starting Strength, and is executed beautifully. I love the idea of combining a fitness program with a smartphone application.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've done Strong Lifts before in the past before and had good results (mainly with legs, squats went from just the bar to 225 lbs in 3 months), and I've tracked it all in a spreadsheet. I've always thought it would be a good idea if we can all publicly aggregate our tracked progress (for just squats, benchpress, deadlift, etc.) and see a collective chart of it so we can visualize how we compare to the average (and if we're doing something wrong). Of course, different body types and diets are factors, so filters may be applied (i.e. mesomorph body type, >3000 calories, etc.). Would anybody be interested in using something like that, in mobile/browser form?

</comment><comment><USER34> When I started my research, I did eventually land on Starting Strength, however I lacked access to a proper gym. Eventually I started looking into bodyweight fitness.

I found some routines online and and created an interactive version with videos [1] so I could make it easier to get started.

If you're looking to get started at home and don't have barbells accessible, I highly recommend bodyweight fitness. It's working well for me, and it's actually quite fun. As an added benefit, you gain new skills with your body (such as handstands).

[1] [https://fitloop.co](https://fitloop.co)

</comment><comment><USER35> This new workout book from Joe Manganiello (actor from True Blood) is pretty incredible.

[http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Cutting-Breaking-Mental- Buil...](http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Cutting-Breaking-Mental- Building/dp/1476716706/)

He details the workout he used to transform his body for his role of Alcide (a werewolf) on True Blood.

There are also a few chapters dedicated to motivation and mental approach. They're well-written and he doesn't pull any punches. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER36> Good article, however the author overlooks the most important factor of any "exercise", "training", "diet", "strength/size building" program.

Diet.

Starting Strength is a great strength program, however if you are eating garbage you are still going to look like garbage. Someone doing a fad exercise routine and eating right is going to have better results than someone doing an optimal training routine with a poor diet.

</comment><comment><USER37> To each his own but I find it easier to get fit as a side effect from practicing a "regular" sport, like swimming, climbing, running, boxing etc... I feel it's less artificial and much more entertaining.

However, not many sports can give you those huge muscles people get from a proper strength training with high protein diet.

<comment><USER38> I agree with that in principle. The problem is that you have to do those sports a lot in order to stay fit, and people start companies, write books and do other things that leave them with too little time for it. Climbing over a lifetime beats weightlifting, but weightlifting beats sitting in a chair for two years.

Also, olympic lifting might look like brute force, but it's actually as tricky and interesting as swimming or gymnastics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I walk/run every night in order to feel better mentally. I wish I didn't need too, but without exercise everyday I don't feel well mentally. It's been the Only medicine that has ever worked on my brain. My body still looks like chit, but I don't care anymore.

<comment><USER40> Your blood cortisol levels might be too high. Contact info in my profile if you want to hear more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Rip is great. I even got him to admit that a valsava isn't recommended for me. (ascending aortic dissection survivor, and yes, I lift.)

</comment><comment><USER41> the nice thing about fitness is you need no tools more than your own body, though shoes do help.

Really. Only your body and the space to use it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Kind of surprising that this article didn't use the word "periodization", because that's really what it's advocating.

<comment><USER42> No he describing a training void of periodization. He does the same routine for a year just increasing weight. In a per iodized regime he would maybe start with low weight high reps then move to 8-12 reps the doing maximum strength training with 5 reps. This is usually only necessary if you start plateauing on your current regime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Everyone is different.

No two people respond the same to the same exercise.

No two people respond the same to the same diet.

Period.

</comment><comment><USER44> > outdated barbell movements

I stopped reading about here.

<comment><USER45> Then your reading comprehension is probably lacking. You do realize that the article is a strong defence of classical barbell excercises?

<comment><USER44> Defence from what? His own faulty preconceptions?

<comment><USER5> Society's faulty preconceptions, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I do not have a NYTimes subscription, please consider not posting from this website.

<comment><USER9> Set your cookies settings to not block but delete on exit all cookies from NYT.</comment></comment>


The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

<comment><USER2> The fact that the examples of disbelief given in such articles are _always_ lefty pop-topics (climate change, Obama's birth certificate, death panels) is the real hint into why people don't examine things with pure rationality. I could lead off a similar article with "Why don't people realize that human races, to some degree, have different average intelligence stemming from genetics?" _That would never be published in MotherJones_ , and honestly, if they had their way, I would go to prison just from saying that.

So why don't people "believe" in climate change? Because they realize it's a political, not a scientific, topic. It has winners and losers to the order of trillions of dollars. Science can't compete. Sorry.

<comment><USER3> >if they had their way, I would go to prison just from saying that.

Your post reminds me that this research seems to miss another way that people delude themselves: persecution-complexes.

Once you believe that others want to do bad things to you for your beliefs, you become far more entrenched. And ridiculous exaggerations such as yours allow you to more fully insulate yourself from facts: because you're under attack and your freedom is at risk, you have to protect yourself from these terrible people, and therefore, their beliefs.

>So why don't people "believe" in climate change? Because they realize it's a political, not a scientific, topic. It has winners and losers to the order of trillions of dollars.

How can you possibly say it's 'not scientific' when it's entirely scientific. The responses to climate change are political, but the topic itself is minimally political.

But you do enforce the point that people will cut themselves off from reasoning logically, if the conclusion is one they don't want to face. If your political buddies may be hurt, one is much more likely to fight the truth.

<comment><USER4> > persecution-complexes

My favorite example of this is how the left attacks and ostracizes those who dare to oppose the gay rights agenda in any way (two examples which immediately spring to mind are [1] [2], but there are many more).

It's not paranoia if they _really are_ out to get you.

I could go on at length about the importance of defending someone's right to state unpopular opinions even (or perhaps especially) if you disagree with them, but I hope HN'ers are smart enough to fill in the details of that argument themselves.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same- sex_marriage_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same- sex_marriage_controversy)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membershi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membership_controversies)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If HN has taught me anything, it's that it's trivially easy to trick people into taking the wrong side of any argument, at which point they'll continue to defend their position indefinitely even if they had no strong prior beliefs on the subject.

It's kind of sad that we live in a society where posting factually accurate comments/information is the most effective form of trolling.

<comment><USER6> If Hacker News has taught me anything, it's that people try to masquerade a lot of conclusions behind a wall of "Science" when in fact the process is neither scientific nor conclusive.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention how easy it is to forget the historical track record of science being overturned by better science: [http://arbesman.net/the-half-life-of- facts/](http://arbesman.net/the-half-life-of-facts/)

<comment><USER8> I was thinking the same thing, though I didn't have a citation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Like probably most HN readers I think of myself as reasonably well educated in science and engineering. However, when it comes to interpreting the vast majority of scientific discoveries I have to rely on my sense of scientific authority, not on firsthand knowledge.

Now put yourself in the average person's shoes: how can you trust anyone when there's so much contradictory information and, frankly, so much bad science around us?

Also, people love to argue so they will often take extreme positions just for the heck of it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why we don't believe in science?

Besides the illegitimate reasons, also because science is not some magic oracle but a process.

A process that can be (and HAS been) falsified for profit, fame, ideology or current fads.

A process which one can selectively take parts from, to push further agendas.

A process which lots of times, even in it's purest and well-intended form, arrives at bullshit conclusions (like lobotomy, the cures for homosexuality, thalidomide, etc).

And it gets worse: a lot of things that are political and ideological in nature are also considered sciences (History, Sociology, Economics, etc). Things which are not even close to "black/white" as hard sciences are.

One should not "believe" in science. One should EXAMINE and VERIFY science, with the scientific method (which in itself is mostly: systematic experimentation).

Merely "believing" or "trusting" science is no better than mediaval people trusting the priests of yore.

<comment><USER11> While I agree with much of what you wrote, I have to point out that it is impossible to "examine and verify" anywhere near enough of the science that is relevant to our daily lives. That's both a physical impossibility due to resource constraints and a mental impossibility due to lack of domain knowledge required to correctly interpret the data.

We have to choose which "shortcuts" to accept. One way or another we end up trusting in something greater than ourselves -- the nebulous scientific community, political analysts, priests, neighbors, etc -- to inform us. Unless you disbelieve basically everything in life you put your faith in somebody or something. Not necessarily 100% belief but some level of certainty is necessary and that doesn't make it less a faith-based decision, for example even priests have a tendency to doubt the existence of God.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think William James summarized TFA's thesis most succinctly when he said, "A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices."

</comment><comment><USER4> > Somewhat oversimplifying, you can think of hierarchical individualists as > akin to conservative Republicans, and egalitarian communitarians as liberal > Democrats.

What about hierarchical communitarians or egalitarian individualists? What about people who are near the middle of one or both scales?

Why even bother having two supposedly independent traits if you're really just asking people about their political party?

The author may be distorting the study's methodology or results, in order to support the narrative he wants to tell. (Or the researchers, but from the information presented here, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.)

<comment><USER13> Well, at one time, not so long ago, there were such animals as moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats (although an argument could be made that the current Democrat party is somewhat more conservative than Nixon was).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Funny how articles get traction on HN:

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%22don...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%22don't+believe+science%22&start=0)

</comment><comment><USER15> This could have just as easily been applied to disputes inside science itself.

</comment><comment><USER16> So here's the secret you should learn by your 20s, but some people never do: human beings are wonderful at rationalizing. Most of the time they do not know they are doing this.

There is a bedrock falsehood that somehow wrapping the word "science" around something prevents it from this problem. It does not. Science history has taught us that for the most part, the _social_ part of science works just like the social part of any other industry: there are cool people, there are weirdos, there's folks who have amazing ideas, there are fads, there are things the group feels strongly about, and so on. In other words, scientists, like all of us, operate in clans and herds. (Their herds just have much better names!)

Pay attention: I am not trying to trash the entire field of science. Far from it. Science is the light we have in the darkness. It's mankind's only hope. But what I'm trying to show is that reading articles like "the science of why we don't believe in science" is bullshit. In it, the writer will just put his own misconceptions, or popular opinion, in the place of what is right and show the various ways people do not agree with him and how they are broken. The subtext is clear: we, the cognoscenti, know the truth. It's those poor other rubes that aren't getting it.

I've long said I do not know what the climate is going to do. Looking at some of the models' performance and the lack of any other planet-sized biological systems to study, I have my doubts that others do either, but that's just my own bias. What I _can_ say is that the discussion around climate science is full of horse shit so deep that you'd need an excavator working 24/7 for a year to dig your way out. It has become politicized, and scientists have crossed the line between telling us what _is_ and telling us _what we should do_.

This politicization of science is not good for politics or for science, because Average Joe Sixpack is going to start lumping in all information he receives under the rubric "science" as being suspect. He doesn't have the time nor inclination to sort out the different types of proofs we have for Newtonian physics versus evolutionary psychology. To him, it's all just "science". And when one of these sciences promotes something that later on turns out to be highly-opinionated BS, it hurts the entire field. It's bad enough when journalists do this with poor science stories, but when scientists themselves start playing the game of "who's right and who's wrong" in the world, it destroys the very thing they're supposed to be promoting. Very bad.

So when I read articles about how one political party has differently- organized brains than the other one, or about various forms of cognitive bias influencing politics, or how denialism and being a crank has a scientific basis, I wince. This is not helpful. Please stop. You are not the scientific, reasonable-minded judge of rationality you think you are. None of us are. If you absolutely must say something, make the general point and move on. Otherwise you are creating the very problem that you say you are just trying to point out.

<comment><USER17> I wish that more people understood the difference between science and scientists. It is a shame that so many people give a bad name to science and the scientific method - the best way we know how to discover truth. It's _engineered_ to discover truth. That's all that it's about, the only thing. It's independent of (and unfortunately, quite possibly beyond) any one human scientist's ability to correctly employ it.

<comment><USER16> Sometime back in the 70s, some scientists tried to popularize science by becoming quasi-famous people themselves. Sagan comes to mind, but I'm not trying to single him out.

I'm not so sure this was such a good move. Science is a wondrous thing and amazing. Scientists are just a bunch of normal schmucks like the rest of us. Once you start playing the hero-worship game, it's easy to start drifting from science promotion to self-promotion. The lines get blurry. Likewise, it's easy to start drifting from where the science is currently to what your opinion of the science is currently. Most media consumers are not savvy enough to pick up on that difference. Most science promoters are not so great at pointing out the provisional nature of science and the humbleness required when addressing the history of how science is actually carried out.

I saw one of these science promoter guys on the net the other day answering questions. One question was something like "Is there a God?" Since I spent some hours on epistemology and philosophy, especially around this topic, I was intrigued.

I wasn't too impressed by his answer, but what really astounded me was the fact that he was more than willing to answer a question like "Is there a God?" right alongside one about the speed of light, without making any caveats about the different kinds of information he was relating. This is not a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The main reason is that people don't understand science, but they will still appeal to it as if it were the law of the universe. It's an appeal to authority: Much like people used to say "X is true because God said it", it is now "X is true because Science proved it". Science is a continual work in progress towards an objective understanding of the universe. But it's so easy to see a news story saying: "A new study shows that global warming will melt the ice caps before 2012! More at 11". People have been lied to before and don't trust these studies, because they may have faulty conclusions. We need to look at the data and make our own conclusions, because we may all have different perspectives on what caused a result.

Relevant reading: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics)

<comment><USER17> This is why I feel so uncertain about almost everything. How can one go through life confident about _anything_ if they must not only research everything for themselves, but also overcome their own biases? What makes somebody qualified to evaluate or research anyway?

I feel like after over two decades of living, I don't know a damn thing, and I don't mean that in a "I'm so young and naive" sense either.

<comment><USER19> I have twice as many decades of living as you do, and my certainty has only continued to decline, for all the reasons you mentioned.</comment></comment></comment>


My thoughts on my upcoming YCombinator interview - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/?p=181 <comment><USER2> Good luck for the interview! Have fun in the Napa Valley!, don't forget to bring back a bottle of wine to celebrate(hopefully) on Sunday night.

</comment><comment><USER3> Call me old school, but I think this is a _bad_ idea.

Some things should not be blogged.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've eaten at Bouchon in Vegas and wasn't too impressed, but I hear the one in Napa is leagues better. I had the good fortune of meeting Allison Steltzner a while back and she told me that. There's a good chance I'll try it on this trip.

And no staunch, that was not my intent, and I hope it does not appear as such. That had not occurred to me but probably should have. I really just hoped to share my experience and get any tips/comments from people here, especially on dining.

<comment><USER4> email me - ak (at) semigeek dot com

Fellow Cleveland'er, Poker Player, Vegas Junkie (will be there next weekend), etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend Bouchon in St. Helena. Same owner as the French Laundry, but you don't have to dress up or make a reservation months in advance.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are you trying to influence PG's decision by submitting this and hoping he'll read it? If you are doing that, I think it's really pushing the limits of what's acceptable -- so you must be founder material. Either way: Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> You actually had time to type all that? Go work on your demo :)

</comment><comment><USER8> My thoughts on my non-upcoming Y Combinator interview:

 _It wouldn't be very polite to prove someone wrong._</comment>


Ask HN: I want to follow your G+ Account (If you post) - <AUTHOR>

Yes I know there was a 'Ask HN' about HN user's Google+ accounts, it was super professional - It had a document and everything. Unfortunately a lot of the names in there ended up never posting and in general not really being too interesting to follow or circle or whatever verb it is (No offense!).
So now, unfortunately, my feed is filled with David Morin's wedding plans and Ana Ulin's "OH MY GOD, WE CAN NOW HIDE OUR GENDER, G+++++", So if you're still posting to G+, and you think to yourself "Someone else might like to read this", give us your account name. I'll take a look
Hell, give us OTHER people who we SHOULD follow's account name. I'll follow them too.
But don't forget to hustle yourself. [ https://plus.google.com/105503159085383028265/posts ] <comment><USER2> Feel free to follow me: <https://plus.google.com/u/1/114301088526097505896/posts>

I can't promise how much I'll be posting, or that everything I post will be of interest to the HN community. But if you let me know you're from HN, I'll add you to my HN circle and to it I'll only share stuff I think other HN'ers would care about.

</comment><comment><USER3> me: <https://plus.google.com/115440827534646207947/posts>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2737152></comment>