Google Chrome OS is for Netbooks, Android for Smartphones & Tablets - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/120153/google-chrome-os-netbooks-android-smartphones-tablets <comment><USER2> When I first watched the Google Chrome OS announcment, I was very excited. It could bring about a paradigm shift in computing that was started by the iPad. The web browser centric device (web touch or keyboard/mouse).

If this article is right, what is taking Google so long to bring it to market? They have the software, the hardware is a know quantity. There is some question about the wireless connectivity. (will the device follow the Kindle Model or the iPad model or just be wifi)</comment>


Your Body Text Is Too Small - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@xtianmiller/your-body-text-is-too-small-5e02d36dc902#.btruxvu8z <comment><USER2> This.

Too many designers/sites equate tiny, close spaced text with modernity/sleekness.

Don't make me squint.</comment>


MacOS APFS filesystem performing much better than the dated HFS+ - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=macOS-APFS-HFS-Benchmarks <comment><USER2> Note that those benchmarks are very likely based on unencrypted APFS.

APFS volumes do not use CoreStorage and use filesystem-level encryption instead: you'll notice that because it does not require reboot to turn on encryption anymore.

Since many of us use Full Disk Encryption I'd prefer seeing encrypted FS benchmarks. As per [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15333036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15333036) it doesn't look so promising:

      Speed in MB/s
                 HFS+     HFS+ Encrypted  APFS     APFS Encrypted
      1M WRITE   1375     1373            1372     933
      1M READ    2446     2340            2162     1304
      4K WRITE   852      797             502      378
      4K READ    2106     1486            2156     1001

<comment><USER3> The benchmarks in the article are from the final release. The benchmarks you're quoting are from July.</comment></comment>


For Google, a Risky Ploy by Turning Its Back on China - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/technology/24google.html?hp <comment><USER2> > China's biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was expected > to cancel a deal that had placed Google's search engine on its mobile > Internet home page

> China's second-largest mobile company, China Unicom, was said by analysts > and others to have delayed or killed the imminent introduction of a > cellphone based on Google's Android platform.

> One major Internet portal, Tom.com, already had ceased using Google to power > its search engine.

Now, I'm not sure of the business arrangements made, but it sounds to me that Chinese companies are repudiating contracts because of pressure by the Chinese government.

If true, this looks really bad on China for foreign investment. The government can, on a whim, cancel your contracts with Chinese companies, and steer public opinion using news agencies. Not to mention risk of your IP getting appropriated. That's not the kind of environment foreign companies like to work in.

The Chinese government is, I think, looking very childish right now.

<comment><USER3> That China can take your business assets, cancel any agreement, or even put your employees in jail, is part of the risk assumed by any company that chooses to do business there. This incident is not going to change the way business is done in China. Foreign companies just see the billions of potential customers, and will bend over backwards (and risk losing investment) to do whatever they need to get access to that potential (and human rights be damned). Even Google is not wanting to pull all of it's business out of China, so they can't really be given too much credit for what they did with just the search engine.

<comment><USER4> Isn't this how business is done in most countries? The countries have laws and if the businesses want to enter the market, they have to follow the laws of the country?

It seems like this debate is mostly irrational and hypocritical support of Google and a nationalistic anti-China sentiment.

The U.S. does exactly the same things China is doing now. They prop up GM and not honda or toyota. They bail out U.S. banks, but not HSBC. They retroactively change the laws to enable AT&T et al to violate the constitution.

Why the hypocrisy?

<comment><USER5> Why the false equivalence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No matter how risky it is, I don't know if I would call it a "ploy" to stick to one's principles. I understand the Maoris have a proverb, "Don't hang out with people who don't respect you," which seems to apply here, given the apparent PRC support for the hacking of Google's network.

</comment><comment><USER7> The biggest winner in this whole thing is Apple.

How is Google going to compete in mobile hardware if it is unable to make deals with Chinese companies?

I don't think they fully thought through the extent to which their supply chain (and that of their partners) depends on China.

What if China takes a page from the US government's playbook and starts arbitrarily classifying software as "munitions", with Android first in the crosshairs? A simple thing that would suddenly make this "free" operating system totally uncompetitive.

Mobile partners of Google are already leery about being undercut by Google's own phones on the one hand and sued by Apple on the other. Getting the Chinese government on their bad side would absolutely be a dealbreaker.

</comment><comment><USER8> Google used to censor Scientology and Nazi pages for U.S and German searches. Are they still doing this?

<comment><USER9> a quick search:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology> takes you directly to the homepage of the church of scientology.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi> 4th link is for the american nazi party.

those two subjects don't look to be censored.

<comment><USER10> <http://xenu.net> used to be the top hit for Scientology in google.com. It was removed after a DMCA complaint. Apparently, it is back up. Search for "google scientology" for background.

The google.de was accused of censoring holocaust-denial sites (they would appear on google.com). I don't know a high profile holocaust denial site to check it out.</comment></comment></comment>


The little book about OS development - <AUTHOR> http://littleosbook.github.io <comment><USER2> As someone that has just spent the last 27 months building an OS from scratch in a University research environment (an OS that can survive catastrophic hardware and software failure [0]), I am very impressed with the quality of this document. I only wish I had found it previously!

OS dev can be great fun and gives you a level of understanding about how computers actually work that is hard to gain from other sources. I have frequently found myself using the knowledge I gained from building the OS when working on other projects. It has been particularly useful when it comes to understanding performance issues. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is even remotely interested.

Other superb resources to help you get started include the OSdev wiki[1], along with this document[2] from the University of Birmingham, UK.

[0] [http://www.hydros-project.org](http://www.hydros-project.org)

[1] [http://wiki.osdev.org/](http://wiki.osdev.org/)

[2] [https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~exr/lectures/opsys/10_11/lectures...](https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~exr/lectures/opsys/10_11/lectures/os- dev.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Your research project sounds interesting. Is there any info you can share (white paper, etc)?

<comment><USER2> Thanks! At the moment, the best source of information is the talk I gave at the Erlang User Conference 2016 [0]. Four papers and a thesis are in the pipeline for next year, though! I will update the site once PDFs of those are available.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XqHiumZ02E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XqHiumZ02E)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed the video. Isn't it amazing that Ericsson were achieving _nine 9 's_ (31.5 milliseconds downtime per year) [1], using Erlang in the AXD switch back in 1998 [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability#Percentage_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability#Percentage_calculation)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_\(programming_language\)#History)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want a real bang up tutorial that covers absolutely everything theory and implementation check out Broken Thorns. You'll need to Google for it because I'm on my phone.

Two small notes: the website is down (it's quite old and I'd be sad if the owner has a bit of bus-syndrome), you can find it on the waybackmachine

It's the best tutorial out there for an x86 based OS

<comment><USER6> Here it is: [http://www.brokenthorn.com/Resources/OSDevIndex.html](http://www.brokenthorn.com/Resources/OSDevIndex.html)

The website's working just fine for me, but in case it doesn't work for someone else or if it goes down again: [https://web.archive.org/web/20161223021815/http://www.broken...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161223021815/http://www.brokenthorn.com/Resources/OSDevIndex.html)

<comment><USER5> I feared the worst! I'll scrape the entire page and keep a local backup. It went down for some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Original link [pdf]: [http://littleosbook.github.io/book.pdf](http://littleosbook.github.io/book.pdf)

HTML version: [http://littleosbook.github.io/](http://littleosbook.github.io/)

Source: [https://github.com/littleosbook/littleosbook](https://github.com/littleosbook/littleosbook)

2015 Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866912)

reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/duplicates/2rx3wq/the_l...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/duplicates/2rx3wq/the_little_book_about_os_development/)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, we've updated the link from [http://feederio.com/book/37/the-little- book-about-os-develop...](http://feederio.com/book/37/the-little-book-about- os-development).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Other than the educational value of doing so, what would be a reason to write a brand new operating system? Obviously there is a lot to learn about existing operating systems by coding you own, much in the way that writing a new languages teaches you about existing languages, but what are some creative applications of a hand made operating system?

<comment><USER10> I know Ive wanted to make changes to my own for a while. At very least default ui, menus and shortcuts after installation. These are modtly ux changes though

Additionally theres a few features I would prefer from a security user experience standpoint

\- symlinks are indexed anD the move or deletion of the target would trigger a "would you like to change/delete the symlink as well?"

\- all applications run in a container

\- the application can never touch os filesystem or know about other apps but themself and what the user allows

\- requests for hardware trigger permission dialog

\- requests for files are handled outside the container

\- shared folders are mounted to the container that the user knows are vulnerable

\- some folders are an aggregate of the applications folders but the application only views its own

\- deletion of an applications folder will permanently delete all if its data. No messy installations or artifacts

\- system monitor shows cpu, memory and network usage per application

\- applications require permission to use network and outward calls can be captured before being made

Additionally there are features from a dev standpoint

\- there is a discoverability system for modified and alternative applications

\- there is a focus on ensuring all parts of the os are easily found and modified

\- changes to the os filesystem creates forces the user to create a virtual machine, make changes to that then "commit" those changes in bulk

\- the user can make these patches available online along with keywords, problem and a tutorial inorder to recreate for discoverability

\- heavy focus on user interfaces that can be reused in terminal and gui. Applications that only are available in one or have different experiences will be flagged as such.

But I canonly make this if I know how

<comment><USER11> > symlinks are indexed anD the move or deletion of the target would trigger a > "would you like to change/delete the symlink as well?"

Patch your coreutils. Difficulty: easy.

Most of your other needs can be addressed by making a specialized Linux distro (difficulty: hard), rather than writing a kernel that does all of this (difficulty: max). Build your packages to be containerized by default. I suggest using chroot containers and writing some kind of FUSE filesystem to mount in the container and provide controlled access to user files. You'll also want to write or modify a Wayland compositor to suit your needs. You can have this provide the permission prompts and similar things. Difficulty: hard, but very much doable.

Skills to learn: Linux, thoroughly. You should be comfortable making packages, running things in containers, and writing C before you embark on this.

You should _definitely_ build this. I'm working on something similar but my design appeals to fewer people. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions with anything, email is in my profile.

<comment><USER10> I appreciate the inspirstion, I'll see to get started on it tonight. I was looking into fuse before which inspired much pf the filesystem shinanigans

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> About 7 years ago, I followed James Molloy's helpful tutorial for OS development: [http://web.archive.org/web/20160414051121/http://www.jamesmo...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160414051121/http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is probably a good thread to ask: one of my hobby projects is writing an OS, but for x86-64. My next task is user mode, and while I feel pretty solid conceptually, the details around the TSS and such I'm much shakier on. Does anyone have a good, detailed, with-code resource on such things?

<comment><USER14> I'm part-way through my implementation of an x86_64 experimental OS and had to address all the issues you're facing right now. I didn't really document my process, but the code to get everything booted into x64 mode is there, including setting up the TSS.

[https://github.com/beevik/MonkOS](https://github.com/beevik/MonkOS)

In particular, the bootloader:

[https://github.com/beevik/MonkOS/blob/master/boot/loader.asm](https://github.com/beevik/MonkOS/blob/master/boot/loader.asm)

<comment><USER13> Neat thanks! I will check it out. It's really the context switching itself that's the trickiest part, I think. Or all of it. To me, it feels exactly like when I was learning about interrupts: while I was doing it, it was so tough... but as soon as I got something working, it made perfect sense and I wondered why I found it so hard in the first place.

<comment><USER14> One resource I found myself consulting over and over again was the Intel Architecture Software Development manuals ([https://software.intel.com/en- us/articles/intel-sdm](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm)). They're huge and obviously a bit dry, but they had about 90% of what I needed to know about x86 memory architecture and interrupts.

I included some other resources I consulted in the README. The OSDev wiki ([http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page](http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page)) is also good, although I found some of it to be dated or incorrect.

Good luck on developing your OS. Even though I'm not finished, it's been an extraordinarily valuable and educational process.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I probably need to just take a weekend day and actually read rather than skim and look for secondary sources. The OSDev wiki's pages on this particular topic are all kind of okay, but often aren't talking about long mode, only protected mode, or only have bits and pieces.

Thank you! Good luck with finishing yours, as though these things are ever finished :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong Does anyone have a similar guide for ARM, and specifically an Android device? I wrote a small x86 kernel for my class project in school. Being able to run an OS on a phone seems like a lot more fun.

<comment><USER15> I used to document the creation of a baremetal OS on an ARM device which uses the S3C2440 chip here : [http://thesoulofamachine.blogspot.in/](http://thesoulofamachine.blogspot.in/)

You can find the partially developed but documented code here: [https://github.com/mindentropy/s3c2440-mdk](https://github.com/mindentropy/s3c2440-mdk)

The board I use is the mini2440 single board computer. You can bring up the same on a beagle bone with some minor modifications when you are dealing with the peripherals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I also would add DMA (direct memory access) transfers to round the IO model. It's important for performance and affects a quantity of devices (disk, net, sound...).

</comment><comment><USER17> What's the best book/resource on modern OS design and concepts? Is there one backed by examples from Linux?

<comment><USER18> I would start at the OS-Dev wiki: [http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page](http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866912)

</comment><comment><USER20> How does this differ from doing hack the kernel course stuff? Want to dip my feet into this for better knowledge.</comment>


HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis (2016) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS_c2qqA-6Y <comment><USER2> While trying to parse the 2016 election I watched Steve Bannon's magnum opus _Generation Zero_ [1] and was struck by how much certain parts of it felt like an Adam Curtis film, with its heavy use of stock footage for tone rather than exposition. My main problem with Adam Curtis is that he's more of a political artist than a historian, but his fans treat him like the latter. I guess that's the problem with Bannon too.

[1] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bsqu9gh6xhk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bsqu9gh6xhk)

<comment><USER3> I think of Adam Curtis as a journalist. You may disagree with his facts or interpretation of them, but he tells an interesting story with his investigations.

<comment><USER2> It's a stretch to call what he does journalism, but I suppose it depends on where you draw the circle around "journalist". He uses real world events and people as his raw materials, but the subjects of his films are his own perspectives even if he isn't up front about that. I wouldn't classify Erol Morris as a journalist either, but he is much more in that category than Curtis because he is more interested in making the unknown known than presenting his own philosophy.

While I don't think that Adam Curtis can hold a candle to Chris Marker as an artist, or in terms of telling an interesting story or conducting an investigation, I would put his work in the same category of "film essay".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> High resolution here:

[http://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/](http://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/)

More of Adam Curtis's filmography:

[http://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam-curtis/](http://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam- curtis/)

<comment><USER5> wow thank you for the link, definitely downloading every last one of those films!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like Curtis, but his style of narration always makes me think of Professor Brian O'Blivion[1] in Cronenberg's Videodrome (which for all I know is intentional...).

1: [https://youtu.be/xfUX9W5TJIQ](https://youtu.be/xfUX9W5TJIQ)

<comment><USER2> Brian O'Blivion was heavily based on Marshall McLuhan if you want to go further down the rabbit hole.

<comment><USER7> _The Medium is the Message_

<comment><USER8> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm- Jjvqu3U4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4)

Vi Hart's incredible explanation of the modern _medium_ (youtube) and how it affects the _message_ , and the wise words (probably written by McLuhan) in Edmund Snow Carpenter's "They Became What They Beheld".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a summary of the _economic_ mechanisms creating our current hypernormal situation, I _strongly_ recommend watching Mark Blyth's recent lecture[1]. (note that he is giving a summary to a general audience; see his actual publications and/or other lectures for details/references)

Adam Curtis talks about the need for the "big vision" for actual change to happen. Mark Blyth, at the end of the lecture, has a few very simple ideas for "big vision" goals that are actually realistic and achievable.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsqGITb0W4A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsqGITb0W4A)

</comment><comment><USER9> In my opinion this is a bad documentary.

I see a lot of praise for it, but I see nothing but a disjointed, hard-to- follow argument, that feels like its backed by no (or irrelevant) facts. I leave the documentary feeling less enlightened, and more confused.

It almost feels like the narrative is written by a high-school student with no ability to focus, or refine an idea -- and linking random pieces of information together to push a narrative.

I think the Youtube video posted by user zajd in this thread perfectly lampoons Adam Curtis's style.

<comment><USER10> > disjointed, hard-to-follow argument, that feels like its backed by no (or > irrelevant) facts

Respectfully, I have to disagree. I watched this documentary for the first time last night and came away feeling that the jarring tone was deliberate (the whole point was that our unease about the chaos of the world is being exploited for political means).

I'm curious if you were familiar with many of the events depicted in the documentary? I suspect it would have been harder to follow without some knowledge of these events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Previous discussions:

\- 10 months ago (112 points, 19 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13603570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13603570)

\- And a year ago (301 points, 136 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13603570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13603570)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you like this there are many other great documentaries by him - Century of the Self, Every day is Sunday, Bitter Lake, The Power of Nightmares (?) - watch them with a grain of salt, all of them, but definitely rewatch them, too..

(I know this is going to be a bit of a controversial statement for HN bc of politics and junk, but, to butcher and reconstitute a particuarly memorable Slavoj Zizek quote about Peter Sloterdijk, "Adam Curtis may be a conservative, but he's not an idiot!")

edit: if you dont have the 3 hrs to watch this documentary, you can get a great taste by watching this podcast clip set to some particularly moving imagery and music.. (hat tip to adam curtis editing style, perhaps? ;) )

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW_R98EBO7s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW_R98EBO7s)

edit2: transcript, because its worth it:

> WILL MENAKER: _What would it look like to imagine a different world? Do you > have a vision of it How would we know if we were beginning to imagine a > different world? Even within this hyper-real one?_

> ADAM CURTIS: _You ask what real change might look like, and I think that's a > really interesting question for liberals and radicals, because there is a > hunger for change, out there - millions of people who feel sort of insecure, > uncertain about the future who DO want something to change. I think that > change only comes though a big imaginative idea. A sort of picture of > another kind of future which gives people - which connects with that > fearfulness in the back of people's minds. And offers them a release from > it. That 's the key thing. But I think the question for liberals and > radicals is - they are always suspicious of big ideas. That's what lurks > underneath the liberal mindset. And the reason is - and they are quite right > in a way - is look what happened last time when millions of people got swept > up in a big idea! Look up the last hundred years - what happened in Russia, > and then in Germany. The point is , Is that Political change is frightening. > It's scary — it's thrilling because it is dynamic and is doing something to > change the world but it is scary because it can change things in ways where > nothing to secure. Its like being in an earthquake. Even the solid ground > beneath you begins to move. And things dissolve that you think are solid and > real. And I think the question liberals are left have to face at the moment > is a really sort of difficult question which is: "do you really want change? > do you really want it?" Because if you do many of them might find themselves > in a very uncertain world where they might lose all sorts of things. What we > were talking about, in many cases, is people who are at the center of > society at the moment, they are not out in the margins. They would have a > lot to lose from real political change because it really would change things > in the structure of power._

 _Or - and this is the brutal question: Do you just want things to change a little bit? Do you just want the banks to be a little bit nicer, or for people to be a little more respectful of each other 's identities - All of which is good - but basically you carry on living in a nice world where you tinker with it._

 _That's the key question. But you can 't just sit there forever worrying about big ideas because there are millions of people out there who do you want Change. And the key thing is: they feel they've got nothing to lose. You might have lots to lose, but they feel they've got absolute nothing to lose. But at the moment they're being led by the Right. So things won't remain the same. But society may go off in ways you really don't want._

 _SO in answer to your question, what you need is a powerful vision of the future. With all its dangers. But it is also quite thrilling. It will be an escape from the staticness of the world we have today. And to do that, you've got to engage with the giant forces of power that now run the world, at the moment. And the key thing is that in confronting those powers, and trying to transform the world you might lose a lot. This is a sort of forgotten idea. Is that actually you surrender yourself up to a big idea and in the the process you might lose something but you'd actually gain a bigger sense, because you change the world for the better. I know it sounds soppy, But this is the forgotten thing about politics. Is that you give up some of your individualism to something bigger than yourself. You surrender yourself - and it's a lost idea. And I think really in answer to your question: You can spot real change happening when you see people from the liberal middle classes, beginning to give themselves up to something. Surrender themselves for something bigger. And at the moment, there is nothing like that in the liberal imagination._

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I've enjoyed it a lot, strange how I haven't heard about Adam Curtis earlier. When I watched it, I've had a similar feeling as that during the first semester of philosophy class - things I've noticed and ideas I've had before were not novel, and here is a whole movie made to organize these things in my head. Thought the narrative of isolated bubbles in social networks would resonate with HN crowd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of my favoirte movies.

</comment><comment><USER13> Love Adam Curtis but this video more or less ruined his films for me: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg)

<comment><USER14> I don't know how many people recommended HyperNormalisation to me already, yet I've never been able to sit through the whole thing. I absolutely dislike his style, the image so dispatched from the narrative... So thank you for that video, it really fits my feelings about his work.

<comment><USER15> I on the other hand like the style for its own sake but enjoyed HyperNormalisation a lot less than Bitter Lake or The Power of Nightmares. But the style really does not help the credibility of the story or allows following the argument and spotting potential holes in it. In the end I am left with the feeling to either forget about it or having to fact check the whole thing. There are certainly interesting points in his films but they are almost impossible to evaluate without consulting other sources.

<comment><USER16> I also like the style. I get why people wouldn't, the argument is in the narrative and the video part is just flavour (and often a little bit of subtextual commentary/comedy).

I don't see how it effects credibility either way though. Do you just mean it would _seem_ more credible with a full audio/video argument? I can buy that, it might feel more convincing while still having the same content.

<comment><USER15> I think he mixes hard facts, like descriptions of events that undeniably happened, a lot with interpretations or connections he draws and that he often presents as causations but then fails to substantiate them. It may be plausible that X did Y because of Z but that is not really supported by any facts and could as well just be a correlation. If you watch carefully enough you can spot those things but if you are watching more casually and enjoy the pictures and the music it becomes easy to miss such things. I think if the story was narrated in a dryer, more classical documentary style it would be more evident whether and where there are holes in the argument, after all the visuals and music certainly consume part of your attention.

<comment><USER17> I think you've nailed the problem for me as well: possibilities and opinions are presented in the same style as facts. This is more like what is done by news reporters than history documentarians.

I am not happy when opinions and possibilities are promoted as though they are facts, but I only tend to pay attention when I do not agree with the position. Adam Curtis does this a lot to link things together that seem otherwise unconnected and the position he takes tends to be rather inoffensive to me.

This is made worse by being combined with archive footage: we tend to believe our eyes in a way we don't our ears. I don't feel qualified enough to confirm that the archive footage is even about the events which are being discussed.

Thinking about it some more, I would be outright hostile towards his methods if the narrative were to move into a position that I did find offensive.

<comment><USER18> This was interesting to read. Especially the fantasy/thought-experiment about how I might feel if the narrative were to move to a position that I found offensive.

But then I switch on 60 Minutes. Or read the NYT. And I realize that they do not even have the courtesy to make it possible to distinguish fact from opinion and possibly (and in the case of the NYT outright fabrications planted by the military).

I do not take Adam Curtis as Truth. But his work has suggested that there are ways to stitch together narratives that suit different mindsets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yeah I like his style but they really all seem like opinion pieces with no sources whatsoever.

I still enjoy them but they are barely technically documentaries.</comment>


Proofs without Words and Beyond - <AUTHOR> https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/proofs-without-words-and-beyond-introduction <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in proofs without words, my undergrad advisor has published a bunch of them

[https://community.plu.edu/~edgartj/#pwws](https://community.plu.edu/~edgartj/#pwws)

</comment><comment><USER3> What exactly is the first diagram supposed to be proving about angle trisection?

If it's trying to show a way to solve the problem, it's kind of missing the point of doing it with just a compass and straightedge. There are much simpler tools you can add that let you trisect an angle. And _the device depicted doesn 't actually work_, because when you try to align the ends the middle points will poke through the paper.

If it's trying to argue that you need more tools than compass and straightedge it's just nonsense because you could make an analogous picture with a bisector yet angle bisection is trivial.

<comment><USER4> All "proofs without words" require some imagination (and they can be extra frustrating if one doesn't see the point quickly). In that sense, each one is like a puzzle. I quite enjoyed this one.

All it's trying to prove is that the shown device works, and correctly trisects any given angle. (The proof, if I had to put it into words, is something like: let the outer bars be A and B, and let the middle bars be X and Y. Because of the hinges, X is exactly halfway between A and Y, and Y is exactly halfway between X and B, so X and Y trisect the angle.)

Here is a 33-second video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwMGcshJI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwMGcshJI8) — though it's an animation and the device is different, you can see there won't be any problem with poking through the paper or having to bend it out of shape. I find the depicted device elegantly simple and find it hard to imagine something significantly simpler; what are some of the much simpler tools you mention?

<comment><USER3> The device in your video is designed differently and would work without any fudging. It's key that the writing point is at a 90 degree angle to the device spines, and each writing point has a different length.

> I find the depicted device elegantly simple and find it hard to imagine > something significantly simpler; what are some of the much simpler tools you > mention?

If you're starting off from the basis of "compass and straightedge" (and pen), then all you need is to upgrade your straightedge with a fixed pair of marks. If you're starting from nothing, all you need is a square of paper; origami can trisect an angle.

<comment><USER4> > It's key that the writing point is at a 90 degree angle to the device spines

But the device in the picture is exactly like that one! The three main spines will always occupy exactly the same positions in either the device in the picture or in the device in the video; only the interior hinges used to enforce it are different. The device lies flat on the paper in both cases, and the writing point (your pencil or whatever you stick in the holes) will of course be at 90° angle to the device spines.

Actually a better search found names for these devices: see terms like "Sylvester's Link Fan" and Laisant's Link #2 here: [http://www.takayaiwamoto.com/Greek_Math/Trisect/Linkage/Link...](http://www.takayaiwamoto.com/Greek_Math/Trisect/Linkage/Link_Laisant.html) — and a much better video showing almost exactly the device in the picture: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTQVi7zskGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTQVi7zskGU) (except for quadrisection instead of trisection). (And the article does mention the Laisant reference; hadn't noticed it earlier: see p.38 here: [https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED058058.pdf#page=49](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED058058.pdf#page=49) )

> [...] straightedge with a fixed pair of marks [...] origami

Fair enough; these devices are indeed simpler to construct, but the actual process of trisection of a given angle is not as simple as "plonk the device on the paper, open it up to the angle, and there, it's already trisected". Nor is the proof that you've successfully trisected as straightforward.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How diesel became the new environmental "evil" in Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/how-diesel-became-the-new-environmental-evil-in-europe/ <comment><USER2> At least in France, it's often said that diesel is cheaper because when the country bet on nuclear power, it had nothing to do with heavier fuels produced in refineries (no oil power plant)... so they lowered the taxes on diesel.

They also claimed (a lot) that diesel pollutes less (I remember being in Switzerland at that time and feeling how clean the air can be without diesel!).</comment>


US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/10/feds-poised-to-withdraw-longstanding-warnings-about-dietary-cholesterol/ <comment><USER2> This doesn't go far enough. That there is a link between high cholesterol and heart disease is only a hypotheses, not a scientifically proven fact. Lowering cholesterol does not necessarily lower heart disease. Read more here: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27taubes.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27taubes.html)

Because the link between excessive LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease has been so widely accepted, the Food and Drug Administration generally has not required drug companies to prove that cholesterol medicines actually reduce heart attacks before approval. See: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/business/17drug.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/business/17drug.html)

Meanwhile drug companies are making billions selling cholesterol lowering medicines called statins. But lowering cholesterol using drugs is not useful. Read more about that here: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-04-15/heart- dis...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-04-15/heart-disease-not- about-cholesterol-businessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial- advice)

Not only that, these statins are dangerous drugs. Its side effects include loss of short term memory, for example. Read more about that here: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-not- dementia-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-not-dementia-its- your-heart-medication/)

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. This article also mentions they're focusing on fats/saturated fats; which is also a terrible focus.

The real danger is not fat, even saturated/trans-fats, but starches and sugar. The increase in these types of carbohydrates in products like baby formula is actually leading to obesity in infants!

Excess sugar can stress arteries and damage them. Cholesterol is carried to these artier by lipids (LDLs and HDLs, which are not actually cholesterol, but proteins that carry it through your bloodstream). If you eat a lot of sugar, cholesterol can build up between the walls of arteries as they fix the damage. They can eventually break down the wall, releasing plaque into the bloodstream and potentially causing heart complications.

I highly recommend Dr. Lustig's video (UCTV) to learn more:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

A few years back I switched to a keto normal fat/very low carb (excluding fiber) diet. I've lost weight, gained energy and have felt a lot better. Of course this isn't for everyone. Some people have a body type that lends itself to higher carb intake (I knew a runner who'd eat 30 bananas a week) and as always do your research, consult with your doctor, dietitian, etc. before drastic changes in your diet.

It's a common myth that Adkins died of his own diet. He didn't, and Reuters rededicated their column implying that he did. I honestly wonder if the obesity epidemic would have gone down today if the world didn't dismiss his ideas, or the ideas of many nutritionist for decades before him that made similar claims about the dangers of sugar.

<comment><USER4> It's also a myth that runners need a high carb diet. I was a competitive distance runner for many years with a high carb diet and I'm confident that my performance suffered because of it. You're cells become much more efficient at using energy as you train, so you really don't need to eat that many calories at all. I was running 80+ miles per week, with a not above average calorie intake (for Americans), and my weight was stable.

<comment><USER5> There's a certain irony in calling something a myth based on your personal anecdote.

<comment><USER6> Personal anecdotes are considerably more valuable to the individual that generalized truths. Every human body is unique and while trends and generalizations matter, they do not matter as much as empirical observed facts. Much more so in the context of personal health.

<comment><USER7> You're forgetting all the biases (& fallacies) which may or may not have affected the experience or the memory leading to the anecdote. These biases (& fallacies) are detectable or the lack of them is verifiable, with the scientific method.

I'm not denying an anecdote is not valuable to the individual. It is, for the individual who _made_ the anecdote; not the rest of us, not the readers.

I'm also will admit I, too, use anecdotal evidence. But that does not mean one has strong evidence when they do; they don't, and neither do I.

<comment><USER8> I feel like waving my hands around in the air while running around screaming.

The bullshit that's been pushed on us for decades about cholesterol isn't science.

And to add to that, I've never heard any anecdotal evidence that goes "I went on a low cholesterol diet and my symptoms improved".

The scientific method is valuable. _Science_ as it is practiced...? Let's just say it's reputation has been tarnished.

<comment><USER9> What is this 'bullshit'? There are studies that show correlations between LDL cholesterol and risk of heart attacks (happy to show you some if you're curious).

It's true that we're still making sense of how to operationalize those observations (restrictive diet, exercise, statin therapy, etc). This doesn't make the science worthless; it's just an intermediate step in this particular area of research.

<comment><USER10> > There are studies that show correlations between LDL cholesterol and risk of > heart attacks (happy to show you some if you're curious).

Why wouldn't you? It seems like it would be unambiguously helpful both in general for the thread, and specifically for your argument.

For evidence that the lowering of LDL cholesterol lowers the risk of heart attacks, though, the evidence can't just be an association between heart attacks and naturally high cholesterol, which could obviously both spring from the same cause. An association between low cholesterol diets and heart attack rates, or good evidence that statins lowered mortality would both be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wouldn't it be nice if there were more government warnings and less restrictions / regulations?

Imagine if the FDA, instead of blocking new drugs for 10 years and $1B, it simply withheld its endorsement until satisfied by the clinical trials. Consumers could then take the government's recommendations into consideration when making a decision and drugs could get to market much faster.

The history of medical reversals -- and in this case, nutrition reversal -- shows that the government isn't magic.

A whole raft of restrictions could be converted to warnings and recommendations, freeing up industry to innovate and consumers to take a little more responsibility for themselves.

Imagine the history of the past few decades if the state had outlawed any foods with more than X% cholesterol. Or trans-fats. Or any of the other food fads over that time. It would have been terrible, especially now that the recommendation is reversed. The whole time, consumers were allowed to factor government warnings into their decisions, but food producers weren't breaking the law by selling foods with (X+1)% cholesterol.

<comment><USER12> Just as an example: 9% of the cases of Idiosyncratic Drug-induced Liver Injury is self-harm caused by people taking non-regulated dietary supplements:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18955056](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18955056)

You have a theory that the average person will wisely assume the responsibility to vet the health effects of what they consume, but empirical reality disagrees with your theory. Right now people are injuring themselves with products at the margin of regulation.

There's a societal cost for lots of people injuring themselves, and offloading the responsibility of researching safety to the average consumer will cause fear and superstition, limiting people's willingness to try new products, and I would argue that that reduces innovation. Regulation in this area has been a net societal benefit.

<comment><USER13> Don't forget that marketing budgets for pharmaceuticals are also huge. The average person has no chance. The constant bombardment already means people go to their doctor asking for Rx by name even without understanding the medical need or if they're right for it. Now remove regulation... the warnings basically just blur into the background. Already we get so many warnings on prescriptions that they just turn into nothing because people become so habituated to them. It's identical to the paradox that is windows/browser security -- the more you warn, the more people just click through and ignore.

<comment><USER14> Hmm. Could you then disallow any advertising of drug while you're still without FDA endorsement? Like how you're not allowed to advertise cigarettes.

I suspect this line of thinking just leads to too many problems, however.

<comment><USER15> Yes, it's possible to do this. You may be surprised to hear that the USA is one of only two countries _on the entire planet_ which it's even _legal_ to advertise drugs. All others outlaw it completely.

<comment><USER16> Indeed, that was surprising to hear, and a quick google search found me many countries in Europe where advertising drugs is legal, within some restrictive framework.

Examples:

Spain [http://uk.practicallaw.com/0-618-5403#a202338](http://uk.practicallaw.com/0-618-5403#a202338)

France [http://uk.practicallaw.com/2-618-6699](http://uk.practicallaw.com/2-618-6699) )

<comment><USER17> Both of those links say that there's a total ban on advertising _prescription_ drugs to consumers, which is more specific than what the parent said but still very broad.

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry, yes, I should have specified prescription drugs, as that is what I meant. In context, though, this was what was discussed by the grandparent post: "[…] _people go to their doctor asking for Rx by name_ […]".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The sugar industry has a history of lobbying public attention away from sugar and towards cholesterol. It has even enlisted places like Harvard School of Public Health on this task:

[http://time.com/4485710/sugar-industry-heart-disease- researc...](http://time.com/4485710/sugar-industry-heart-disease-research/)

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar- co...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy- robert-lustig-john-yudkin)

</comment><comment><USER19> Let me know when the government wakes up and inverts the food pyramid, so that breads and grains and carbs are scarce, rather than fats.

<comment><USER20> Carbohydrates are not a bad thing and are indeed an important part of health. The current suggested diet doesn't say, 'bread'. It specifically calls out Whole Grains, which a great deal of evidence suggests are a Good Thing. Suggesting that grains, or even carbs, are somehow worse than literal fat is misleading at best, and delusional at it's worst.

<comment><USER19> I'm referring to the original 1992 food pyramid: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)#/medi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_\(nutrition\)#/media/File:USDA_Food_Pyramid.gif)

> Fats, oils, sweets: sparingly

> Bread, cereal, rice & pasta: 6-11 servings

Yes I am in the camp that believe fats and proteins are both much healthier than carbs, and especially refined sugars. The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets.

<comment><USER21> > The latest nutrition supports low carb diets

The "latest nutrition" supports nothing of the sort. Dietitians still recommend you get roughly 50% of your calories from healthy carbs.

Source: my wife is a registered dietitian and has a PhD in nutrition.

<comment><USER22> The latest research shows exactly that.

In 15 years or so, what gets taught will reflect that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For those who are curious, the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines is available here [https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/resources/2015-202...](https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/resources/2015-2020_Dietary_Guidelines.pdf) (PDF)

Unfortunately it does not highlight the danger of sugar & processed food. Someone can follows these dietary guidelines and still be able to have a high intake of sugar, HCFS, processed food and all sorts of food chemicals (emulsifiers etc.), all prevalent in the american food industry, and get cardiovascular disease.

We are not going to reverse the obesity epidemic anytime soon!

<comment><USER24> Are there any studies showing that "processed food" is, on its own, dangerous? Or is the inherent danger largely due to the HFCS, sugar, and other items that are usually added in the process?

<comment><USER23> A few studies [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26514947](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26514947) [http://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2016/11/25/thoraxjnl-201...](http://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2016/11/25/thoraxjnl-2016-208375.short?g=w_thorax_ahead_tab) [http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2016/11/05/0...](http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2016/11/05/0008-5472.CAN-16-1359) [http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/4/8/895.short](http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/4/8/895.short) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20479151](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20479151)

I am sure there is a meta-analysis somewhere but this would take a bit of time to find

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is so much that 'everybody knows' about nutrition that is pure bullshit peddled by farmers, agribusiness and processed food companies.

Just one example-- that fat causes heart disease. Pure nonsense pushed by the soda and sugar industry.

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar- co...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy- robert-lustig-john-yudkin)

Just eat a balanced diet, don't overeat, and don't eat too much processed food and red meat, and you'll probably be fine.

<comment><USER26> "Balanced diet" is the terminology that's honestly hard to define. Until we have that definition, "a variety of types of food" seems better to me. Here, let me offer a correction:

"Eat a variety of foods, avoiding large amounts of any one thing, and don't overeat; you'll probably be fine."

<comment><USER27> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

\- Michael Pollan

<comment><USER28> Right. And what do you do if you are hungry after you eat "not too much" ?

<comment><USER29> Use different food.

If your diet is complex carbs with lots of fiber, you probably won't be hungry after ingesting a decent amount of calories. Most people don't do that (myself included), so instead I add in a lot of protein, which also fills me up reasonably quickly on a per-calorie basis.

It's not simply calories that fill you up, so choose the right calories. I can eat a thousand Calories of chocolate chip cookies and still be hungry, but a thousand calories of protein bars or broccoli will usually fill me up reasonably well.

(Actually, I've never managed a couple thousand Calories of just broccoli. I usually do 200-300 Calories of broccoli, but that alone does as much as all those cookies for satiety, so I can then eat a filling-but-sane second dinner and be full+healthy.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> <<< The new view on cholesterol in food does not reverse warnings about high levels of "bad" cholesterol in the blood, which have been linked to heart disease. Moreover, some experts warned that people with particular health problems, such as diabetes, should continue to avoid cholesterol-rich diets.

<<<The greater danger in this regard, these experts believe, lies not in products such as eggs, shrimp or lobster, which are high in cholesterol, but in too many servings of foods heavy with saturated fats, such as fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.

Here is my paraphrased takeaway:

Cholesterol you see in your blood results is still bad. Whole milk, butter, and fatty meats is still bad. Foods like eggs, shrimp, and lobster might be good.

I don't think this changes any of my mental models. The foods that I always thought of as "probably not great" are still classified as such, according to this article.

<comment><USER31> > Whole milk, butter, and fatty meats is still bad

You're sure of that?

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/12/275376259/the...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/12/275376259/the- full-fat-paradox-whole-milk-may-keep-us-lean)

My main takeaway:

> "Almost every single nutrient imaginable has peer reviewed publications > associating it with almost any outcome," John P.A. Ioannidis, a professor of > medicine and statistics at Stanford and one of the harshest critics of > nutritional science, has written.

<comment><USER32> Even in that article, they say it's just associated with reduced obesity, and saturated fats in dairy are still associated with heart disease.

<comment><USER33> This is inaccurate.

Pubmed studies show that butter is not related to heart disease [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines/news/2016-06-30-stop- demonising-butter-say-researchers/)

<comment><USER32> I'm just relating what's in the article. Thanks for sharing that, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The full dietary guidelines being discussed appear to be here: [https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/](https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Youtube is where most people get their dietary advice now. The most influential diet advice is coming from young attractive healthy looking people. Whatever they're eating seems to be working. Obviously most of these people won the genetic lottery, but they've also nurtured their body correctly with food and exercise.

This seems like a much better approach in convincing people what to eat anyway. Look at the results and imitate healthy people if you want to look and stay healthy.

</comment><comment><USER36> > _The greater danger in this regard, these experts believe, lies not in > products such as eggs, shrimp or lobster, which are high in cholesterol, but > in too many servings of foods heavy with saturated fats, such as fatty > meats, whole milk, and butter._

Translation: the lobbyists for various polyunsaturated "edible plastics" are currently in the lead.

</comment><comment><USER37> Interesting, for those who enjoy reading (which I guess are probably quite a lot) I'd recommend the big fat surprise[1], a very interesting book about this, which goes way beyond this article.

[1]: [http://thebigfatsurprise.com/](http://thebigfatsurprise.com/)

</comment><comment><USER38> This needs a (2015) added to it.

<comment><USER39> February 2015, nonetheless. It's almost two years later. I'd like to hear what developments there have been on the topic since this was published.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I use to look around in a _naive_ way and take my conclusions:

\- Grandfather, 89, ate everything _moderately_ during his life, mostly organic. He evites fat and bread and walks every day. Low energy person.

\- Grandmother, passed at 82, cancer. Same diet as my grandfather. Much less exercise though.

\- Grandmother, 92, ate _a lot_ until 50's, mostly organic, obese. Since then barely eats, mostly vegetables and yogurt. Right weight and good health. No exercise.

\- Grandfather, passed at 71. Ate more fat than anyone I know. Death by heart attack or stroke. Very energetic person with a lot of exercise.

Can you see a pattern? I can't.

<comment><USER41> The minimum sample size for any meaningful statistic is 7

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I recommend Peter Attia's (currently unfinished) series, "The straight dope on cholesterol". He's a surgeon interested in health and fitness. [http://eatingacademy.com/?s=cholesterol](http://eatingacademy.com/?s=cholesterol)

</comment><comment><USER43> Current reference intake is 300 mg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Reference_Intake#Macro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Reference_Intake#Macronutrients)

</comment><comment><USER44> My surgeon friend told me medical studies are like the bible. You can find a paper that says something is bad for you and another that says it is good for you. So just believe the one that makes you happier.

<comment><USER29> You can definitely find contradictory studies. The solution is not to abandon research, but to recognize that _A_ study means very little, unless it's a systematic review or meta-analysis (in which case it's a study of many studies).

Don't pick the one study that shows what you want. Pick _all_ the studies and go with whatever the preponderance of evidence suggests. _That 's_ science, and it's by far our most effective and reliable way of learning useful and non-obvious truths about the world.

<comment><USER41> that good insight needs to be put in a quotable format

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sounds like US is endorsing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox)

</comment><comment><USER45> The USG is frankly incompetent when it comes to this matter. I guess it's happy news that they're not creating more chaos but yay? Hollow victory

</comment><comment><USER46> This is a link to a non-authoritative source. Could someone please provide a link to the authoritative source so that I may investigate by myself?

</comment><comment><USER47> oh so now butter is bad again? WTF. Can't believe anything the nutritionists put out.

</comment><comment><USER48> Interesting, why now I wonder?

</comment><comment><USER49> For those of you who still believe it's OK or even good to eat a lot of saturated fats, if you look at the studies it's not much of a controversy:" Whether saturated fat is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a question with numerous controversial views.[1] Although most in the mainstream heart-health, government, and medical communities hold that saturated fat is a risk factor for CVD, some hold contrary beliefs." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascular_disease_controversy)

Anecdotally, I've read 50% of people who go on Keto see a huge 2-3x increase in triglycerides and LDL-P (Particle count as measured by NMR) - the #1 risk factor for cardiovascular disease. More LDL particles bouncing around in your arteries = bad. People with a condition that makes them break down more LDL have much less artheroscleriosis: [http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa054013](http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa054013) People with a condition that makes them have more LDL particles get more artheroscleriosis: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_hypercholesterolemia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_hypercholesterolemia) Read Peter Attila's exposition that goes in detail (eating cholesterol is fine though): [http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-straight-dope-on- chol...](http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-straight-dope-on-cholesterol- part-i) Keto could work, but it's a hyper-pro level high-risk diet requiring frequent blood work and still avoiding saturated fats keeping them primarily monounsaturated which makes it very hard to follow. Plus it sucks for weightlifting..

Surprisingly, very low fat diets might be great for you, it might not be the absolute macronutrient composition that matters, but rather the specifics of the nutrients (GI, fiber, other nutrients etc) and your genetic makeup: [https://deniseminger.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low- fat-a-...](https://deniseminger.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low-fat-a-call- for-some-evolution-of-thought-part-1/) Scary correlations about saturated fats and neurodegenerative disease therein too.

Personally I'm sticking with a "balanced" ~10/45/45 carbs from protein, low GI carb/monounsaturated fat vegan diet - not wanting to risk side effects of any extreme (although I'm having to ensure adequate calcium, K2, D, B12 and DHA and EPA intake - If I didn't find it unethical to eat fish a pescetarian variety would likely be easier/healthier/less gassy). Tip for you vegetarians/vegans: look up low FODMAP foods; foodstuffs low in carbs indigestible in the small intestine which tend to produce more gas.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hmmm this was just on the homepage then quickly removed.. top of the page then boom gone? Any reason why this is?

Also I've been on statins since 37 after feeling my heart race and not being able to catch my breathe after being with girlfriend at the time. That was some scary stuff and after the statin and change of diet I no longer have those type of bouts anymore. So maybe it's my change in diet (cut out 75% fried food and sugar intake is 50% less) and the statin combined and or maybe the statin is just a placebo and my change is diet helped eliminate those heart racing attacks?

I had a lot of those attacks from 37 to about 39...im now 41 and haven't dealt with any such attacks unless I eat a say Five Guys or In and Out.

</comment><comment><USER51> "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

\- Michael Pollan

<comment><USER52> The oft-cited and never-defined Tautology Diet.

<comment><USER53> There is a whole book defining the quote above. It's a very enjoyable read, and reasonably well-cited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Just eat in moderation and try to maintain healthy weight.

The last time I checked, average woman in the U.S. is 5'4" but weighs 165lbs; average man clocks in at nearly 200lbs. We can do better.

<comment><USER55> Sweet I'm above average!! ;)</comment></comment>


The Xerox PARC Visit - <AUTHOR> https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/parc.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what the point of this story is. Is it to discredit the work done by Engelbart and his team, some of whom later moved to Xerox? Is it to suggest that Apple themselves invented those UI concepts?

Alto failed commercially not because Xerox didn't understand what they had built or kept it secret. It failed because Xerox was run by "tonerheads," as Jobs called them in a video interview -- people who made their money on copiers and couldn't envision a future beyond that. It also failed because Xerox built something for secretaries rather than programmers, as Ted Nelson has pointed out.

The history of graphical user interfaces and UIs in general is well known and this revisionist version of it isn't contributing anything to the discussion.</comment>


Got acne? There's Not an iPhone, Android app for that, FTC says - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/got-acne-there%E2%80%99s-not-iphone-android-app-ftc-s

<comment><USER2> 15,000 people paid for these apps? Must be desperate, gullible, rich, or a combination of the above.</comment>


Executions in the US by Governor (working draft) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Executions_in_the_United_States_by_Governor <comment><USER2> How many states do you still need to add?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hundreds of years x dozens of states.</comment></comment>


Dabble DB's clever approach to "white" labelling - <AUTHOR> http://dabbledb.com/blog/?p=87 <comment><USER2> I have the agree with the developers that this is a Great feature because the user hardly ever notices it, but it greatly improves his experience.

Having the color scheme work with your logo is what they called a hygiene factor in business school- You seldom get any praise or notice for it being there, but you'll LOSE points if the scheme doesn't match..

I think this has to do with the fact that most users tend to worry more about content than design-

Users think "I need a logo", or "I want a photo of my cat".. They aren't thinking about Whitespace, or color choices. They're thinking about content. They're thinking about how to add Foo, not how it will look.

As a application provider (Like so many of us are or want to be) it's our job to abstract design, and let people focus on content, which what they care about in the first place.

If users aren't going to think about design, but they are going to feel bad if you don't have it, they you have three choices-

1) Ignore the problem. This is what MySpace and GeoCities do- They let the user upload whatever they want, no matter how it might look. The users focus on content rather on the looks. They'll complain about it, and you'll "lose points" with them, but they get to have all the widgets they want.

2) Force most users to display it your way, or have experts modify it. This is what WordPress, Drupal, and other CMS do. The default templates look decent, and editing them is hard for mere mortals, requiring HTML or Scripting. Creating new templates may be technically possible, but beyond the scope of most users

3) Make the user's content look GOOD. This is what Wufoo does with forms, and Apple's iWeb does for webpages. It lets you add the content, but it adds its own design special-sauce. This is the model that we should be shooting for for our Web Apps. How can we make the User's content look good?

</comment><comment><USER3> Clever.

A logo could also be made the basis for a fun color-picker: display the logo as a palette on which to click an eye-dropper to select each of the theme colors. Hell, animate the page look in real time as the user hovers (psychedelic!), lock-in their choice on click.

It might also be helpful to provide a version of the logo with pixels regrouped to make all like-pixels contiguous -- easier targetting of disperse colors. Order groups by brightness, saturation, frequency (a congruent histogram?), whatever's most pretty in practice.

(If you use this idea in your startup, invite me over for lunch someday.)

</comment><comment><USER4> If this took them a short amount of time then it's clearly worth the effort. If they spent a lot of time then it seems frivolous and makes me think they may be avoiding working on the mundane issues that clients would find truly useful.

Making boring work more interesting can produce amazing results but it can also be a huge distraction. Either way this is definitely clever and the concept is probably applicable to all sorts of other features.

P.S.

I still think DabbleDB needs to seriously consider Joe Kraus's reasoning for why he "positioned JotSpot as a Wiki company". Because I think this "web database" concept is suicidal.

<comment><USER5> >>I think this "web database" concept is suicidal.

Not if they get some clients using it (and paying each month) instead of developing their own reports.

<comment><USER4> I say it's suicidal because they're trying to create a completely new market for something called "web databases". Kraus talks about the virtues of riding waves rather than trying to create them, and I think DabbleDB could really utilize that advice right now.

The way they position themselves will influence the way the press covers them and customers view them. It might be the difference between mediocre and meteoric sales.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You know what's cool about this is that they didn't just hand it off to the designer and say, "go manually pick some colors". They actually thought about a programmatic approach they could take. It seems like they had some good knowledge of colors and the way computer draw colors, but they still weren't graphic designers themselves.

</comment><comment><USER7> Kudos for adding (useful) complexity to the application without requiring any extra user interaction. This is the way to implement features.</comment>


Dell's 2019 XPS 13 DE: As close as we currently get to Linux-computing nirvana - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/dells-2019-xps-13-developer-edition-the-best-linux-laptop-til-the-2020-version/ <comment><USER2> I'm blown away that the majority of comments here about people's experience with their XPS 13 is so negative.

I've written about this before on HN, to the point where it's starting to feel a little rediculous, but my experience has been so positive I view this machine as the modern replacement of the glory days MBP. I have the 2018 edition of this laptop and to this day it performs amazingly well.

Battery life is on par with the new MBP I used for work in 2016. With Terminal, Chrome, Signal, PyCharm, and Hangouts open I consistently get up to 5 days of battery life. Suspend and sleep mode works perfectly when opening and closing the top. I do think TLP[1] is required for this though. If you upgrade Ubuntu from your stock installation from Dell, the config might be lost though.

It has literally never crashed on me. I've had absolutely no stability issues.

OS upgrades are seamless and have only resulted in performance improvements. I haven't noticed any issues from Intel microcode updates, but this is anecdotal and I haven't tested this thoroughly.

It's the closest I've gotten to a MBP in terms of mouse pad quality. Gnome on Wayland provides great mouse pad gesture support, but X Org definitely still works, though I permanently moved to Wayland over a year ago.

I can't comment on Dell support, because I've never actually had to contact them.

Happy to answer any questions anyone has.

[1] [https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- ma...](https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- management.html)

<comment><USER3> How is the smoothness/precision of the trackpad compared to MBP?

<comment><USER4> The unit I used briefly (~10 mins) is comparable to my 2015 MBP

<comment><USER5> it's good. the problem is battery life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mine is unstable and the screen just goes black multiple times a day, have to restart it. I can only login with Wayland selected at the login screen. The battery life is a joke. Dell support is not available over email or chat for their Linux offerings, you have to call them.

It's a good machine but it's a pain in the ass to use regularly.

<comment><USER7> Id be interested to see how these compare to the System76 line of laptops? At least in terms of support and battery.

<comment><USER6> If they have a laptop that can go to sleep when it closes they have an edge over the XPS 13

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly OT, but if you can't afford the XPS line or want something which you can easily upgrade, I'd recommend looking for refurbed Dell Latitude series laptops. I've been using an E7270 for the past few months with Ubuntu Mate and it's been flawless (uptime goes usually goes in 30-40 days).

No port scarcity, adding extra RAM is just popping open the back panel and sticking it in there. It even has physical trackpad buttons which I like very much. Got it for less than $300, upgraded the RAM to 32GB DDR4 for another $100 and now I have a beast of machine for $400 that can easily handle anything.

The only gripe I would have against this machine is there is only one slot for a NVMe drive. And the screen has some really chunky bezels but personally I don't mind that at all ;)

<comment><USER9> I've been using a 2016 XPS 15 for about 3.5 years, cannot recommend the bezels enough... they are heaven. I could never go back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dell's XPS and Lenovo are often mentioned as go to Linux laptop, but I went through a couple of them last few years (employer provided work laptops) and I always had some problems: wifi, audio, graphics, sleep, etc.

For personal use I buy cheaper, less powerful Asus netbooks (Zenbook 13 something something is my last one) and they have always worked perfectly for me.

<comment><USER11> For me too. Asus are really go to laptops for linux. Works perfectly with dual boot windows and linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just got an XPS 13 for work this month (Jan 2020). I did not opt for the Linux/DE edition, just an off-the-shelf one, because I wanted to dual-boot Ubuntu alongside the Windows it came with.

It was a bit of a hassle to install Linux (Ubuntu MATE 18.04), requiring me to disable FastBoot and BitLocker to even get Ubuntu Installer to recognize the SSD (it initially said the USB drive was the only volume found.) That said, I merely assume this is how it is with any modern Windows laptop. As a long-time Linux user I expect to have to hold my tongue just right and hop on one foot a few times.

After installation, I found that the WiFi chip needed a backported driver. I managed to tether to my phone for 4G, and apt-updated my way to a working network driver.

I have experienced some system errors (reported every time) and have had a few black screens/crashes. I don't blame this on Dell, as I've often had system issues, especially on newer hardware.

Overall, I am in love with the XPS 13 hardware. Any gripes I have with it are either my own fault, related to software, or inherent to 13" laptops. It's an awesome machine and I am happy to be using something this slick without a fruit logo on it.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is true!

I have completed replaced my 2015 MBP with this Dell XPS13 DE and been exclusively it using since Dec. I had also ordered a MBP 16 inch and System 76 to do a comparative evaluation for our entire company.

I haven't tweaked anything from the default setup with came with.

What is great about the machine:

* The display resolution on a 4K monitor screen just beats MBP (with a scaling factor) - my MBP colleagues are jealous of the resolution I get. The ubuntu font looks nice and crisp!

* The hardware/build quality is just strong - it is compact

* Very light 2.6lb (MBP 16 is almost 4.3lb/2kg!)

* Keyboard feels great and sturdy (even compared to the new MBP 16)

All the below work out of box:

* Airpod/bluetooth devices just works

* Zoom meetings

* Wifi switching / Personal hotspot while traveling

* Sleep/awake

What is not so good:

* Trackpad really sucks compared to MBPs - it took me few weeks to get used to it.

* For work requiring windows VPN client etc I have to use a VirtualBox

* At one point my zoom meeting and entire computer froze. Never had this with MBP for past 5 years.

* Battery is not as good as MBP.

* The screen size is small even compared to MBP 13inch to work for long hours.

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, are you using Gnome on Wayland or X? When I switched to Wayland it was a revelation. My mousepad performance improved _dramatically_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am probably lucky, but I've had nothing but nirvana-like experience with Linux on a half a dozen different laptops and a netbook I have installed it on over many years. (The netbook became unusable after just a few years of Windows 7 updates, Linux allowed me to keep using it.)

</comment><comment><USER15> Biggest change is 16:10 screen, which is great for programming. I wonder if cooling is noisy. I find many Thinkpads and Dells way too noisy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here's my Linux laptop nirvana - a $700 laptop that I got a couple years ago running Manjaro Linux perfectly including all advanced touchpad gestures (required some setup) -

[https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/acer- aspire-e5-575...](https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/acer- aspire-e5-575g)

Dedicated GPU with dual video out (HDMI, VGA) up to 32 GB of RAM and easily upgradeable SSD.

</comment><comment><USER17> > These days Dell's XPS line is not the cheapest Linux option, nor is it the > most configurable or user-upgradable.

might as well get a purism then. the openness of the hardware/software means that there aren't any issues getting set up with e.g. wifi, the trackpad is decently ok, and you're financially supporting values that are extremely important.

<comment><USER18> The Purism laptops look nice but I hope they get updated soon because I would find it very hard to justify spending a minimum of $1400 on a laptop with an old dual core CPU when the cheaper competition is shipping very dramatically faster hex core Comet Lake CPUs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have hardware problems with jumping mouse and trackpad issues and no chance of getting it resolved as i do not live in a country with support and had to buy the machine in another country.

I now have serious reservations about Dell build quality and QA process. Sadly, for linux users there are not that many choices.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was looking to buy the xps 15 or the 13. Dell's return policy, however states:

> Restocking Fees: Unless the product is defective or the return is a direct > result of a Dell error, Dell may charge a restocking fee of up to 15% of the > purchase price paid, plus any applicable sales tax.

That'd be close to $700 on a $3000 laptop if one ends up not liking it. The sales rep in the chat said it wouldn't apply unless the unit was damaged but that's not what their official policy states. With such an unfriendly return policy, I will not even consider them. Lenovo has no restocking fees although they seem unable to ship out anything in less than many months. I guess it's back to Apple until some other company that cares about consumers decides to make a mostly Linux compatible laptop. My experiences with most laptops running Linux is that they don't work for long. I had no idea the customer service and policies were so bad at Dell (or Lenovo).

<comment><USER9> You believe you should be allowed to privately test out a $3k laptop, and be able to return it for any reason, free of charge? You are being unreasonable here; I encounted this situation a lot of in the phone industry and could never understand the entitlement. FWIW, I've been using a 2016 XPS 15 and have never had a problem with Linux I did not do to myself.

<comment><USER20> Both Lenovo and Apple offer this, so yeah I believe that because the competition offers it and frankly is the standard for a product that can only be ordered online. That doesn't make me entitled, it just makes me a picky shopper. And frankly, at $3000 to $5000 a machine, why shouldn't I be able to test it? Do you buy a car sight unseen too? The ridiculous position is the one you advocate, to expect people to drop a small fortune on a laptop sight unseen, without the ability to test it. That's ludicrous and absurd and the reason Dell won't be getting my money.

<comment><USER9> If you're interested in a hands-on, you can go to a BestBuy or another store and do so there. Nobody owes you anything to get your money, other than a product. The only reason you're allowed to test drive anything is because they really want you to buy the car. Many companies simply will not care as much about guaranteeing the penny pinchers buy their products. In all reality, you are the exact type of customer I seek to avoid - the largest amount of work for the least amount of benefit.

And just so know you - going from picky shopper to entitled does not require fitting through the eye of a needle. While what you're arguing isn't entitlement, your posts reek of it.

<comment><USER20> It's not on display at BestBuy or anywhere else that I know of. But you're saying I should just buy any old piece of garbage or else I'm entitled? I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "entitled" then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a 2016 XPS 13 9360 DE. It's been nothing but excellent. But the warrantee will be ending soon, and I've started thinking about a replacement.

I'm really hoping for the next DE offering to have first class Zen 4xxx support. If they do, it's a done deal. Otherwise, maybe I'll go with a Thinkpad if they have a good offering, and if none of the above, I think I'd honestly go with an off brand. It's time to move on from Intel and their never ending stream of speculative execution bugs and plateaued performance curve. I'm over it.

I'm willing to tinker around with wonky hardware on a cheaper laptop if the performance is right and it kicks the Enterprise-y vendors (Dell XPS, Thinkpad, HP Spectre) into getting their act together. It's time already.

</comment><comment> ur-whale Disagree. LG gram 15" \+ Ubuntu 19 FTW.

<comment><USER22> Is there any issues with LG Gram 15 with Ubuntu?

<comment> ur-whale None in a year of use, everything works out of the box.

Performance is great, battery is amazing, weight is unbelievably light.

The only thing that doesn't have a driver yet is the fingerprint reader (which I wouldn't use even if it did work).

<comment><USER22> Wow, I'm definitely eyeing one of those. Thank you for the review! I don't care about fingerprint reader

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My GNU-computing nirvana is a Fedora VM running on top of El Capitan on a MacBook Air...

</comment><comment><USER24> I thought Linux computing nirvana was a high-end Chromebook wiped and reinstalled with a full distro, since the hardware has full support in Linux. Didn't Linus use a Chromebook Pixel as his daily driver for a while?</comment>


How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogcreek.com/how-to-find-hire-and-retain-developers-interview-with-cal-evans/ <comment><USER2> I worked remotely for a long time and am very much in favor of remote work. But I am uncomfortable with this idea that hiring remotely means you're going to get the best of the best, and not really pay for it, or rather pay for it by "letting" the developer work remotely. You're not getting someone on, I dunno, Yehuda Katz's level for $80k because they work at home.

<comment><USER3> I think his point is not that remote is cheaper, but that if you want the best talent, you cannot limit yourself to the people who live within commuting distance.

The Venn diagram of "best developer talent" and "developers within commuting distance" have a very small overlap for most locations.

Edit: Typos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "anytime they're looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers... "

Ouch. I guess I never should have dropped PHP for client side MVC apps.

<comment><USER5> The full quote is "The second thing, if I see Photoshop on a developer ad, that's a red flag immediately. What it tells me is you don't understand what you want, so you're just throwing everything out there. I advise developers, anytime they're looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers, but mid range and back end developers, if they see Photoshop on it, walk away." He's not saying "front-end developers are not serious developer positions"; he's saying "if you see Photoshop on a job ad — and it's not for a front-end position — that's a red flag".

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I bristled at his phrasing, until I read the rest of the sentence--then I was in full agreement. As a front end developer, I'm tired of seeing kitchen sink job postings "requiring" Sass, AngularJS, and...Hibernate. Or WebSphere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> IMO, the corporate world more and more develops a culture of dis-respect. People are not unfriendly or rude. They are increasingly self centered and just don't care about the other person.

</comment><comment><USER8> _> , I am to the point in my career where I have a LinkedIn profile that if you printed out in a PDF, it would be 5 or 7 pages. I have 10 or 12 GitHub repos out there that show what my code is. If you as a developer manager are not qualified to read through my GitHub Repo [...], and if you're not qualified to look at my LinkedIn profile and see that I show a progression of responsibilities,_

That's great for him but it's not workable for a pool of 22-year old college graduates with no work experience, or 40-something developers who never had a chance to write open source for github. That's one of the reasons why companies actively recruiting from colleges use fizzbuzz and whiteboard coding tests.

What's the % of compsci college grads that have github activity of any significance? Less than 10%?

 _> Free lunches, that's crap. [...] I understand the mentality of free lunches and dry cleaning and all of this. Those exist so the company can keep the developer's butt in their seat longer, and they exist for no other reason._

I disagree about employer provided lunches. The other stuff like foosball tables and onsite volleyball court I don't have a strong opinion on but employer provided lunch is a very nice thing to have.

So many days I'm hungry and I really don't want to get into a hot 120 degree car or fight the rain and snow just to get something to quick to eat.

The employer catered lunch is very convenient especially if the vendor brings in healthy food (veggie sandwiches, etc). It is very hard in some locations to get a healthy lunch when the closest restaurants are junk food places like McDonalds and Taco Bell.

Every place I worked at that had employer provided lunch never had any social pressure that forced you to eat your lunch while being chained to your desk. Maybe he only sees companies forcing programmers to multitask the lunch hour by eating a sandwich with one hand and banging out code with the other. He doesn't realize there are companies out there that provide lunch simply as a progressive benefit instead of some kind of abusive weapon.

<comment><USER9> I totally agree with your first point. He seems to be saying that you are no good to him if you have not worked on side projects or open source. He seems blinded by his 35 years in the industry, and seems to not understand two things: 1) That there are a ton of companies that give 0 time for open source 2) That some people just write code as a job, not as a hobby. Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work?

<comment><USER3> >Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work?

If you owned a restaurant, would you object to your cooks going home and making themselves a nice meal?

Note: This is more of an idle curiosity thing that popped into my head reading your comment. This is not a "Boom, roasted!" type of comment.

<comment><USER9> That's fair. I guess it is more of a management issue then. I wouldn't want my chef cutting corners and rushing his/her work in order to prepare a 5 course dinner at home, but maybe I would want them to try out new recipes at home and bring them to the restaurant. Something to think about.

<comment><USER10> That's close to, but not quite the point. Let's say you're happy with your chef's output at work. The chef is making good dishes, and suggests changes and new items. Great.

You ask, when the chef comes in for the day, what he or she did over the weekend. "Well", comes the response. "My in-laws were visiting, so I made them a proper Italian supper, with fresh pasta and homemade meatballs."

Your restaurant isn't Italian. Are you annoyed? The point is that it's wrong to control people when they're not at work. If you're happy with a programmer's output at work, it's ridiculous to tell them that they shouldn't program when they go home. If you're unhappy with their work, then the point is not "you're doing too much at home", but "you're not doing enough at work. Do what you need to do to produce as we agreed your job requires."

<comment><USER9> I feel like I'm being a bit misunderstood. I wasn't trying to talk about current employees, but lets work with this analogy.

I take issue with the author trying to judge this chef based on the meal he made for his in-laws. That seems to be the same as judging a candidate's merit based upon their side projects.

My example and question might have been a bit off, but I still think it is a bit flawed to make this judgement when trying to hire someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have so many comments on this article but this stood out:

> I do not negotiate salaries.

> I ask the person what do you need.

That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Did you honestly tell your employer "oh I only needed $X to pay my bills and eat ramen"?

> I've got a junior developer saying I need $100,000, that's not reasonable

Actually according to glassdoor[1] - salaries for a "junior developer" range from $60k to over $100k.

[1] - [http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/junior-developer-salary- SR...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/junior-developer-salary- SRCH_KO0,16.htm)

<comment><USER12> That link seems to be geolocation-specific. For me it returns salaries from 23 to 31k [1]

[1] [https://imgur.com/cCq85nI](https://imgur.com/cCq85nI)

<comment><USER11> Which I think does add to my point - especially if you are a remote worker. The cost of living in a small suburbia town will be different than living in Silicon Valley.

I don't think he has to deal with remote workers - but automatically disqualifying someone based on how much they ask just rubs me the wrong way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure this is the person we should listen to on engineering management. This quote is a huge red flag to me:

"I advise developers, anytime they're looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers..."

How can he retain great front end engineers if he doesn't even think it's a "serious" position? I've done machine learning, kernel hacking, back end, mobile, and front end, and it takes just as long to learn to be amazing at front end as it does to learn any of the other categories.

<comment><USER14> I feel like he's confusing "front end developer" with "front end DESIGNER". The mention of Photoshop seems key. I don't think it was meant to be a slight to those using Javascript on the front end, so much as those who know only the barest scraps of Javascript, and mostly spend their time in image editing, with a bit of HTML and CSS thrown in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would work for this guy any day, he makes sense. Although I do know how to spell PHP and code in it it's not my cup of tea however.

</comment><comment><USER16> The fact that he touts Dave Ramsey's 6 month hiring process as some sort of positive is misleading.

<comment><USER17> I am curious. Do you object to the process or Dave Ramsey? Your comment was unclear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Thank you everyone for the comments. Whether you agreed with em or not, I do appreciate the feedback. :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the guy is great.

As an accountant trying to turn programmer lots of nuggets there.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you want to find developers, read their resumes in their entirety before you solicit them to apply.

A couple of days ago I was solicited to work as an assembler.

<comment><USER20> Stuff like this concerns me. If a company I'm interested in solicits me for a phone call and the position is a much more senior level than I've had in the past, or is of a more demanding skillset than I have experience with, I feel like I am not only wasting both of our time, but hurting my chances if something more on my grade becomes available in the future. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to outright refuse, would I?

<comment><USER21> To be honest those initial inquiries are done by HR recruiters who have no way to evaluate your skill set. If interested, try to get a call with the hiring manager before you proceed far. Some positions can accommodate engineers of various skill level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Depends - are we hiring brogrammers or precious snowflake developers who must be feted and every desire fulfilled to keep them happy - and let them keep producing the crap bogging down the web as we know it?

<comment><USER23> I agree. Evolution is overrated, let's go back to BBS.

<comment><USER24> Don't underrate bbsing... the best BBS interfaces were clean, artistic and didn't have a sense of information overload. The same holds true today, especially with mobile.

<comment><USER25> Some days I think I would gladly go back to BBSes. The medium was so raw and exciting back then, in a way the modern web has never recreated with all its bells and whistles.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Email Pain - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/email-pain.html

<comment><USER2> I like how he doesn't have time to answer his email, but he has time to write a pointless blog post about not having time to answer his email.

<comment><USER3> It's a matter of taking responsibility for your priorities. It's just so much easier to not do that and cry, "waaah, I can't answer all my email." He needs an assistant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't get this concern:

 _"I've thought about getting an email assistant. But I am worried that putting more capacity into the system will simply create more volume that will eventually overwhelm the increased capacity."_

Ok, building more roads might entice more people to switch to cars. But not every system has this positive feedback loop. Good secretaries have their ways of discouraging unnecessary communication.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds more like a communication problem rather than an email problem.

Startup idea: Email request box. An email account that logs everything that comes in. The sender can check the status of their request and where they are in the queue. You can simply "deny", "block", "answer later", send a pre- formatted answer or "reply".

<comment><USER6> Like help desk tickets :) The issue I see is that such a system makes visible to all "the elephant in the room" that Fred Wilson is more important and more powerful than most of the people sending him email. This is ok -- I accept this and would like some visibility into the queue [Note that I've never contacted him, so this is hypothetical]. However, he risks the public hoopla which would come with his proclamation of the obvious. There seem to be a bunch of unwritten social rules which preclude this sort of thing. Perhaps this system could be portrayed publicly as his "secretary"? There certainly is a long and accepted social tradition of the powerful putting a layer of indirection between themselves and their public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> People who live much more mundane and low-visibility lives than Fred also have too many demands on their time and can't do everything they want to or feel like they should.

Seems like this is nearly everyone, in fact.

A VC's workload falls into several primary categories, which map back to groupings that are probably more familiar to those of us on the entrepreneur or employee side of the table: working with portfolio companies (Operations), prospecting for new firms (Marketing), screening new firms to decide if they want to invest (Purchasing), and raising capital for their next fund (Sales).

If you get good at this or even just high visibility, you can get deluged with new firms wanting your investment. Fred is good at building his brand and marketing himself/his firm, and now has the classic problem that we as entrepreneurs all want: too many customer prospects; even when winnowed down to the good ones, it's too many GOOD customer prospects - because a lot of people with good companies like Fred/USV and because Fred is largely actually doing well by his portfolio companies.

So what do you do when you have a high touch and/or service business and want to grow? If you have more leads than sales people to close them, generally you hire a good sales director, train some qualified folks on the idiosyncrasies of your business, and staff up your sales team to match. Some level of this is probably the right answer here, but unlike a conventional firm, USV can't do this on a large scale.

That sounds odd, doesn't it. But venture funds are limited in size. They have commitments from external investors to provide a certain amount of $. If they start garnering phenomenal interest and everyone wants investment from USV, Fred and others have to go raise a new fund. This is the gating factor on how much VCs can invest, how much they can afford to have a huge staff to assist in sourcing, screening, and closing companies. If you have a ton of capital to put to work, you have huge management fees and can afford more of a staff (as well as more $ in your own pocket).

So interestingly, Fred spends a while trying to jawbone down the price he pays for his share of companies. This is in one metric a good idea for him because he effectively gets a discount as to what the company is actually worth, but is causing a big chunk of the problem he faces. He's only got a certain number of dollars to spread around, and the more places he wants to invest in, the more his time is spent discovering and exploring those firms - let alone actually helping out with them. A busy VC is not an asset to the entrepreneur over and above the $ invested, whereas if he has time to focus on the startup firms that can be much more valuable. Ironically, success in VC generally makes you no longer "smart money" as you are just a distracted guy with a checkbook trying to juggle a dozen different board seats at once.

Fred would probably be better off getting a larger investment pool, putting larger chunks of money to work, adding the right team members to help scale USV, and focusing on making the portfolio companies more successful. His counterpoint is probably that investing smaller amounts and knocking down the valuation of the companies so that those smaller amounts buy bigger pieces of the firm gives the investors in the VC fund better returns. But it would be refreshing to see VCs focus more on adding value to and growing their portfolio companies, and realizing that more capital and more personal involvement are in fact a reasonable way to do that. Might even produce more value for everyone involved - fund investors, entrepreneurs, and VCs - as well as taking some heat off Fred to answer his email firehose personally.</comment>