Vitamin D, part 2: Shannon's story - <AUTHOR> https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-story?postId=5f39453f8d01fe00170023fe <comment><USER2> While hypervitaminosis D is a real syndrome, as evidenced by this story, low Vitamin D levels are endemic in temperate and northern latitudes. We did a study several years ago ( Vitamin D Status in an Elective Orthopedic Surgical Population. Foot Ankle Int. 2016 Feb;37(2):186-91. doi: 10.1177/1071100715609054) in Vermont among healthy folks who were going to get surgery and roughly 2/3 had low vitamin D levels (<30ng). Low vitamin D is a significant risk factor for fractures, such as hip fractures in the elderly which is a major cause of mortality. So please don't interpret this story as a reason to avoid any vitamin D supplementation. 1-2000 IU/day has been shown to be safe with long term use, but if you have any questions, you should absolutely talk with your primary care provider. PS - Yes, I am a practicing physician.

<comment><USER3> I'm the physician who wrote the article. And I agree with you. Vitamin D deficiency is a problem because it leads to bone loss (see part 1: [https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to- basi...](https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basics)). And Vitamin D supplements can be very helpful for those with a deficiency. The point that I am trying to make is that Vitamin D should not be thought of as a dietary supplement. I am seeing more and more people with high calcium levels from being on high-dose Vitamin D. If you treat Vitamin D like the steroid hormone that it is, you will treat it like a medicine, and not take outrageous doses because someone online suggested it. At least, that's what I'm trying to get across.

<comment><USER4> I walk for 30 minutes a day in direct sunlight. If I do this for a year (been 5 months so far) do I not need to worry about vitamin d intake? I am also a healthy young male in my 20's

<comment><USER5> As others have pointed out, it depends on time of year and where you live. Far north, e.g. Canada, the U.K, Scandinavia the sun won't give you any Vitamin D at all for roughly six months of the year.

<comment><USER6> I've been using the DMinder app (not affiliated in any way and it's totally free) to estimate how much vitamin D I've been getting. You input how overcast it is and what percent of your skin is exposed and then it uses your skin tone (input at setup), latitude, altitude, and time of day and it'll track a rough estimate of how much vitamin D you've produced while you're outside.

There's also "Quick and Easy Screening for Vitamin D Deficiency in Adults"[1] which has a quick and dirty formula in Table 2 to help assess your risk of deficiency without a blood test.

[1][https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4998626/pdf/med...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4998626/pdf/medi-95-e2783.pdf)

<comment><USER7> is exposed amount of skin an input?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _After a full workup, the doctors had no explanation, so they resorted to what doctors often reach for when confronted with mystery ailments: psychiatric illness._

Yeah. This is a big problem for people with serious and complicated health issues. They are all too often told "It must be in your head" the subtext being "If it were real, I, a super smart doctor type, would be able to figure it out already." It's ugly stuff and it ruins lives.

Also, the lady was prescribed vitamin D and then took it without adjusting the dosage or having a follow-up about it for _5 years_. This is a big problem as well. Doctors all too often don't follow up with patients and this is probably in part because of our issues in the US with how we pay for stuff and so on. But it was also a problem for some things when I was a military wife and could see a doctor for free.

I am a writer by trade and I have a serious medical condition. I'm glad to see this piece and I'm glad to see Deva Boone posting on HN, but I will suggest that statements like "Vitamin D is a medication" don't constitute good communication.

The latter part of the piece makes it clear what is intended by that, but it's not currently classified as a medication and I think it is generally more helpful to try to educate people that "life is chemistry" and there is no clear cut demarcation between "drugs" and "not drugs." Sometimes the difference boils down to dosage.

There are lots of things available in small quantities in food items that are "drugs" if you take a large enough amount in one shot and are "drugs" if prescribed in pill form that are "food" when part of your diet. And we need to get a lot savvier about things like that.

Hopefully, this is taken as helpful feedback and not an ugly attack. It is intended as the former and not the latter.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! It is very helpful. These are great points. I actually tell my patients that _every_ supplement or vitamin should be thought of as a medication. I had written "should be thought of" in the article and then just switched to "is a medication" to make the sentence simpler. It probably changed the meaning too much. It's been very interesting to read the responses on here, and I appreciate the feedback.

<comment><USER9> What do you think of the idea that doctors don't follow up on their patients? I have a friend who is a physician that can not practice because of medical reasons, he is now experimenting with a business where he reviews peoples medical dossiers to check whether their doctors have missed anything that could be important.

He's got crazy stories of doctors skimming dossiers because of time constraints. A poignant case he described was where a doctor did not notice his patient was 100kg lighter than the last time she visited. How do you miss you've got only a third of the patient you had before he exclaimed when he told me this story.

<comment><USER8> When I worked at Aflac, there was a quadruplegic former surgeon who came in like once a week and reviewed records for the really hard things that we, in claims, were having trouble figuring out. Because he was quadruplegic, someone brought him upstairs on the elevator and you had to print your entire claim out and someone turned pages for him. He only read it and made a determination. I got to see it firsthand once when one of my claims went to him.

I run a google group called Health Techies and your physician friend is welcome to join, if he is interested. It doesn't see much activity, but, you know, sometimes you get enough people and conversation breaks out, at long last. Or new people show up, have questions, and then conversation happens. Voila!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi Deva, what do you think about the _Vitamin D Hammer_?

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/)

> A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have > achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number > of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or > influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have > treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a > 1-time 50 000 IU dose of vitamin D3 or 10 000 IU 3 times daily for 2 to 3 > days. The results are dramatic, with complete resolution of symptoms in 48 > to 72 hours. One-time doses of vitamin D at this level have been used safely > and have never been shown to be toxic.8 We urgently need a study of this > intervention.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't the flu usually resolve within a few days without a vitamin D hammer? Did they do a controlled blinded study to determine whether it made a difference?

<comment><USER12> It depends. It can take from few days to few weeks. Also, there can be serious side effects for life.

<comment><USER11> I agree, there's a diversity of possible outcomes. I think case reports of flu recovery after a treatment are of limited value absent a quantitative analysis showing the treatment had some effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We really need to change the whole medicine paradigm from checking when something is wrong and trying to fix that to doing comprehensive checks regularly and adjusting the necessary supplementation and preventive treatments upfront. I think more and more people are doing this on their own, but in my experience it's still a small minority and far from being seen as essential.

<comment><USER14> I think we need to enable technology so people can do these checks themselves/at home. It seems we are holding back the tech because we are afraid of what people will do with the information.

<comment><USER8> Tech is cool and all, but this can be done much more simply with just reading a lot and keeping a journal and that sort of the thing.

The real sticking point is the minute you know "too much" about the impact things have on the body and try to engage in discussion, someone will have a cow about how you are "practicing medicine without a license" or something.

The problem is that any exercise of real power will get someone's hackles up, even if that power is just a case of "knowledge is power" and medical/health stuff is a super touchy topic for a long list of reasons.

<comment><USER13> Respectfully, there is a reason why one must have a license to practice medicine. It's simply too easy to kill people inadvertently. I guess that's fine if the unlicensed doctor is the only patient.

But then, I do agree that a license doesn't necessarily guarantee competence. A GP being interested in and keeping track of the latest research on nutrition, longevity, etc, would be worth their weight in platinum.

<comment><USER8> You have completely and totally missed my point while simultaneously sort of making it for me, which I imagine you will fail to see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Part 1: [https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to- basi...](https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basics)

HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590)

It's nice to see a real blog post about this from a real doctor. There's so much misinformation and terrible writing about supplements online, thanks for writing this.

<comment><USER16> I agree about posts from a real doctor, but this is using an anecdotal case as a basis to shift a definition of a vitamin? That seems pretty poor form for someone in the scientific community. We should be shown stats of of likelihood of this happening compared with the opposite, studies, ways it can be safe and not safe (such as with K2, with calcium supplements, etc.)

This was not a refreshing read from my standpoint, just feeding the internet echo-chamber.

<comment><USER8> Vitamin D is not actually a vitamin and that is easily googled. You don't have to be a physician to know that.

She is absolutely correct that it is a steroid, not a vitamin. Vitamins are things your body cannot manufacture. Vitamin D is something we can manufacture.

She's apparently new to blogging and medical blogging is hard and I'm sure she will get better at effectively communicating what she wants to say with a little practice.

I agree with you that she shouldn't have stated "It is a medication" and I have stated that elsewhere and she clarified why she chose such phrasing and it's a somewhat minor nitpick because the latter part of the article does make it clear what she is trying to get at.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Yes, I am very new to this. Hoping that by continuing to write, I'll get better. The comments on here are great for helping me understand how things are interpreted.

<comment><USER8> You will and you've actually been really well received. I wouldn't worry about the occasional negative remark. Those are going to happen and other people can often figure out that it's someone being weirdly pendantic or whatever.

Bill Gates has said something about "your unhappiest customers are your best source of learning." I like to view big negative reactions to my writing in that light and help me up my game for future pieces.

There are no soft launches and this is all grist for the mill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Few months ago I head how vitamin D is associated with COVID-19 outcomes and went into a rabbit hole to find more information about wtf is Vitamin D, and how our bodies use it/need it.

There are two videos I found particularly informative.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91eDzM0qiJM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91eDzM0qiJM)

Cost/Benefit of Optimal Health with Sunshine Vitamin D

William B. Grant, PhD

2015

2\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pK0dccQ38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pK0dccQ38)

D is for Debacle - The Crucial Story of Vitamin D and Human Health

Ivor Cummins BE(Chem), CEng MIEI

2014

</comment><comment><USER18> The basic rule of thumb I will now use for vitamin D, as a result of this article, will be the same as any other hormone: to commit to having blood hormone levels tested at least twice, once prior to medication (to confirm necessity and safety) and once after every 6-12 weeks of medication (ramping up through annually, once the dose is calibrated, until treatment ends).

If you don't test it before, you have no idea whether you're treating anything or not. If you don't test it after, you have no idea whether you're taking too little or too much. If you don't test it every couple months at first, you won't be able to calibrate your dosage levels properly.

That's a lot of blood tests, but the alternative is risking wasting your time and money, or wasting your health, time, and money, on potentially useless or harmful dosages. And if you don't think it's worth a blood test, you probably ought not take it.

(I do not currently need to take vitamin D, thanks blood tests!)

</comment><comment><USER19> It is my understanding that vitamin K2 should be taken with vitamin D in order to mitigate calcium overload. I do not know what the appropriate dosages between the two are, however, and I just pop one with the other every other day.

<comment><USER3> Vitamin K2 is definitely an essential vitamin for bone health and calcium regulation, but it won't counteract high dose Vitamin D. If you are on so much Vitamin D that your calcium is elevated (meaning, you are at a toxic dose of Vitamin D), Vitamin K2 is not going to help. The best thing to do is actually check your Vitamin D levels if you are planning on staying on high dose Vitamin D.

<comment><USER20> Any ballmark suggested amount of K2 per 1000 IU of D? The supplement I'm currently taking is 100mcg of D3 with 75mcg of MK7 K2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's interesting to note that Vitamin D is in the center of attention due its link with COVID-19:

[https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-21211/v1](https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-21211/v1)

<comment><USER22> I think the jury's still out on whether the link is causal or correlated, and that study in particular is under controversy.

Personally, I think its just because higher Vitamin D levels mean you generally go out more, which is associated with general fitness levels.

<comment><USER23> I am leaning towards the opposite conclusion based on three things I have heard.

I have heard vitamin D described as a "modulator for the immune system" (isn't the problem with Covid that your immune system is overreacting?). Also I know that its a factor in Multiple Sclerosis, which is an autoimmune disease. Also things like flu infect / kill more people in winter- when people will be getting less sun, and so have less vitamin D.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Terrible piece. First off, the majority of people with D levels of ~80ng/ml are fine, even quite healthy. Her problem was too much calcium, which is related but they (at least not in the article) don't address what her calcium intake was. Probably she was supplementing that too if the original reason for her supplementation was osteopenia. It's not clear if she would have had any problems if she had just dropped her calcium to low-normal intake. Quite a large fraction of Americans consume too much dairy.

Article that cherry pick a single example are terrible when they pick the example that is 100x less common than the other side of the story. 35-40% of the US has D < 20ng/ml. That's probably 100x greater than the number that have D >= this woman's levels (~80) and probably only 1% of folks who have that level have any kind of medical issue with it the way she did.

I completely disagree with the idea that D should be thought of as a medication in the sense of being careful with it. The problem currently is not enough care to make sure to get enough. 19 organizations (all the big important ones) consider 4000 IU/day of vitamin D to be a safe intake without the need to consult a doctor. The Endocrine Society and a few other orgs consider 10,000 IU/day safe. At the level of 5000 IU/day that she was taking, a very large % of people will remain clinically deficient. Many, many more than will have any kind of adverse issues.

The right dose for society to advocate as a default is not the dose that causes huge amount of harm on the low end only to avoid any kind of harm on the high end at all. That kind of asymmetric health optimization is poor public policy. But it's the way doctors think. Cover my ass and make sure to do no harm. The Hippocratic oath is a terrible way to optimize net health of society and it's unfortunate it has become entrenched in public health, not just the actions of individual doctors.

<comment><USER25> I thought it was a very helpful article — and it made clear that what happened to this patient will not necessarily happen to everyone. It informed me that vitamin D is a hormone (I did not know that!), and that there are things to monitor if you are taking a bunch of it. I have family members who take calcium and vitamin D, and I will ask them if they monitor these things.

It would be bad if this article pretended this patient's experience was the norm, but it didn't. It provided information about what can happen and advocated for people being more circumspect about a particular vitamin/hormone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> OK so the thesis of this piece is that you shouldn't give blanket advice about what dosage of vitamins to take. But if you Google it, you would immediately see that taking over 4,000 IU of vitamin D per day for extended periods can be toxic. So in this case the woman would have actually benefited from taking the blanket advice rather than taking the 'personalized' advice from her doctor; had she been taking only 1,000 IU per day, I doubt she would have had this issue.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately there are a lot of places online that will recommend 5000 units a day or more. And at the store, one of the standard doses for Vit D is 5000 units. I have this dose in my medicine cabinet. And it's not a completely unreasonable dose. Shannon actually did need 5000 units daily - just not for five years. The problem is that no one knew to reconsider it, or look for elevated calcium.

<comment><USER15> Yeah and one of those places is definitely HN - I've seen crazy recommendations here when it comes to supplements/nutrition.

I'd guess there will even be some in this thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A bit over decade ago when I started running (& cycling) hardcore I had some knee pain and started taking Glucosamine & Chondroitin supplements for it. It seemed to work, maybe it was placebo effect, but regardless I was "sold" on it. A year or so later I started getting hives all over my body. I was (and am) quite healthy, and coupled with the fact that I'm not really allergic to anything this took me by surprise. It got bad enough that I had allergy panels done, which unfortunately came back with allergies to all sorts of things and the docs put me on anti-allergy medication (Zyrtec, along with stronger Rx only stuff). I was quite discouraged, esp when the docs told me that one can become allergic to anything at any point in one's life, and I was slowly starting to accept it. The Zyrtec seemed to help, not 100%, and I didn't seem to have to take it regularly, so it wasn't the end of the world. Then, at one point I took a 10 day trip and didn't take my supplements with me. The hives went away. Thru the process of elimination I traced it down to the Glucosamine & Chondroitin supplement. It's probably been a decade since I've been back to my normal, non-allergic self. I still take Glucosamine & Chondroitin supplements for a period of time at a time, but am keenly aware of not letting things build up to toxic levels after this lesson learned.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements- glucosamine/art...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements- glucosamine/art-20362874)

> In supplement form, glucosamine is harvested from shells of shellfish or > made in a lab.

The hives might be a shellfish allergy.

<comment><USER27> > The hives might be a shellfish allergy.

I considered this too, but never had problems eating shellfish. Tho it's possible that in higher quantities the allergens from shellfish were indeed the cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a relatively easy way to check vitamin d levels, or does it require a lab test and doctor's visit?

I live in a cloudy northern climate and tend to assume I have low vitamin d in the winter (and a supplement has a noticeable improvement on my mood), but I would love to actually track my levels and understand how much supplementation I need to say in "normal" levels at different times of year.

<comment><USER10> Recently there are a lot of "request lab test online" websites; ex. [https://www.ultalabtests.com/Shop/Items/Item/Vitamin-D-25-Hy...](https://www.ultalabtests.com/Shop/Items/Item/Vitamin-D-25-Hydroxy- Total-Immunoassay)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> At first my reaction was this must have been a one-off case, usually I see D3 in bottles with 500IU, who is taking 10 vitamins thinking this is right?

But I looked it up and there are 5,000IU capsules being marketed now. That seems like a problem. People are going to naturally expect 1-3 pills of anything are safe. Dangerous design.

FDA does take complaints/reports, I wonder if enough people complained they would pull the high dose pills.

<comment><USER16> I've talked to multiple nutritionists and they often recommend 5,000IU a day -- we shouldn't be going off gut reaction. There are widespread surveys that show high vitamin D3 deficiency and there are many more stories of people who have taken this vitamin at that dose for years without problems.

The point is, we need more than stories. We need study and analysis, not a random call to change the definition because of a story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Better just to get some sun. Your body will self regulate how much is produced in your skin from the ultraviolet that reaches it. Just don't stay out so long you get burnt.

<comment><USER31> I went on vacation in Costa Rica, leaving my Vitamin D pills at home, thinking the same thing.

Not true! I had to shell out like $30 to buy imported Vitamin D tablets because I could feel the positive effects of my Vitamin D supplementation wearing off within 4 days.

And I had gotten enough sun to get a serious tan already.

People process sunlight and synthesize Vitamin D at different levels.

<comment><USER32> Could that be in your head? Vitamin D lasts a long time in the body, seems unlikely you'd be able to notice any difference after four days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> First, this is not an argument against posting this post...

This is an excellent post (I've shared it on). It'd be a great service to the HN community to do these as an AMA-type-thing. Deva is on here and is very generous with her time but it'd certainly embiggen the impactyness to have a "Deva will be on from 10AM-12PM PT on 2020-08-24 to answer questions. Not medical advice, etc." and "Deva's out." sticky notes at the top.

[In which I suggest _someone else_ undertake an obligation for the community... Aware of that. It's just lovely to have such a person/resource in the community and it'd be good to set expectations ( __none __/ some) around her involvement since people are dropping in questions and (I assume) hoping for (free) advice/counsel.]

<comment><USER34> I'm sure Deva would be up for it, she does it for some patient groups she works with on Facebook, but I'm not sure if Hacker News is a good place for it? Also speaking as Deva's husband I think the kids and I would like to see her at dinner more, joking (she is a regular attendee at dinner), but you would not believe how much effort and time she puts into researching, thinking about and working on these things (along with everything else she is doing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel like I can't win either way. I had a vitamin D deficiency a few years ago and it led to neurological problems and I thought (based on internet advice, especially HN posts) that I should be taking 5000~ IU a day. I still feel no closer to an answer as to the appropriate amount.

<comment><USER3> This is a great point. Vitamin D deficiency causes problems, and should be treated. 5000 units a day can be great for treating a deficiency - until you are no longer deficient. The answer for you is checking your Vitamin D 25-OH level. If it is still low (under around 30), then you may need the high dose. If it is getting too high (above 60) then you need to back off. There isn't a one-size-fits-all dose for everyone.

<comment><USER35> Is there a better/quicker way of checking these levels rather than going in for a bloodwork panel? I feel like my natural Vitamin D intake can change really dramatically based on the season. I worry that maybe I'm overdoing it in the warmer months. I typically go in once a year for a physical and that's the only time I ever see these levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One issue I found 3-4 years ago was that some common tests undercount D2 by quite a bit (I forget if it was 20% just for D2 or I think it might have been 20% overall D2+D3 in some test samples). I found this because the test my doctor ordered had a statement about using a different test if supplementing with D2. A number of products (like soy milk) contain some amount of D2 so in some cases low vitamin D might be due to inaccurate testing. I haven't checked if the tests have improved in the last few years.

<comment><USER37> D2 is the active form in plants. In humans it must be converted to D3.

[https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d2-vs-d3#sectio...](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d2-vs-d3#section1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Seems factual, but raised my eyebrows a couple times. Comparing Vitamin D to steroids is completely gratuitous. Sure, they're structurally similar, but so are oxygen (O2) and Ozone (O3). Have you ever tried to breathe Ozone instead of Oxygen?

From the previous article:

> Unfortunately, we do not have a full unified explanation for how Vitamin D > deficiency could lead to the list of diseases that are associated with it. > We know the correlations are there, and we can show that the Vitamin D > molecule has an effect on multiple cells and organs.

So if you are deficient (as most adults are), you should take Vitamin D to avoid those. It's irrelevant that we do not know pathways. This probably suffers less confounders than other health issues, because Vitamin D comes from the sun.

But in this article:

> A few readers have made comments like this: "I understand that the evidence > for Vitamin D in healthy adults doesn't really show a benefit, but I take > Vitamin D because it probably won't hurt me, and it might help." This is a > common sentiment regarding supplements, but not a statement that most people > would make about metoprolol, or any prescribed medication.

It's hard to see how this sentiment isn't exactly correct, at least if you're deficient. Remember, most people are, so if you don't go outdoors a whole lot, you probably are.

I'm also surprised Vitamin K isn't mentioned. I take Vitamin D, but I've heard the standard advice is to always take Vitamin K in addition, which helps to regulate Calcium and avoid the issues described in this article.

</comment><comment><USER39> A bit disappointed. Anything has a one in a million chance of killing us. What we know is that vitamin D yes, has a chance of hurting, and also has an orders of magnitude higher chance of helping. I was hoping for more information about how to make the risk trade-off, and what we got is an anecdote.

The general rule is to also take into consideration both magnitude of the potential harm and its probability, in order to avoid a wipe-out (you can't recover your losses if you're broke or dead). But even if we take this into consideration, and take the anecdote in the article as a reference point for a "bad case", it's still in the "no lasting harm" category. And very obviously an outlier, since she showed symptoms while test results were in the green.

If anything, this confirms that as a population we should supplement more on Vit D, and when unable to test Vit D levels, we should still chose in favor of supplementation. If it were otherwise I'd have expected better arguments against it.

I didn't update much after reading this. The upper limit is still pretty common sense: don't use high dose supplementation daily for years without testing. Very likely ok to use in any other scenarios: high doses like 50.000 per flu episode, or 1000 or so daily. Never mix sun and supplementation.

</comment><comment><USER40> How do vitamin D levels decrease over time if you stop supplementing or stop going outside?

For example, say I'm super active and outdoors every day, my D levels are great. Then I get, say, Covid-19, and I stay inside for a week feeling icky. If I'm not recovered yet, are my D levels still good? Or am I now at higher risk for Covid complications because my D has decreased?

There are all sorts of questions that could be answered by understanding this better. If I am outdoorsy and take a day to work inside on a project, should I supplement that day? What if I am a tech worker who is inside most days but I do 2-3 outdoor activities per week? Am I good? Or should I be supplementing?

If I take a D supplement and 2 hours later take a D test, does it matter? What about when I first wake up and haven't been in the sun for 10 hours?

I have no idea the answer to any of these questions (as a tech worker who supplements, goes outside for hikes/rides 2-3/week, and has a Vitamin D test sitting on my self, wondering when I should take it...)

<comment><USER41> According to my former GP, vitamin D can fall below recommended levels over the winter months if you haven't stored up enough of it during the summer. So it's a matter of months not days.

As I understand it, vitamin D first goes into the blood. Any excess is then stored in your body fat and in your liver where it can last for months.

So I'm thinking that taking supplements right before a blood test could be a bad idea. But that doesn't mean depletion of stored up vitamin D happens within hours. It definitely does not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Chris Masterjohn has an interesting talk called "Resolving the Vitamin D Paradox" where his hypothesis is that vitamin D, A, and K all need to be balanced for proper regulation of vitamin K dependent proteins.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7tbWVNrXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7tbWVNrXQ)

</comment><comment><USER43> I've seen comments to the effect of "standing outside on a sunny day in a bathing suit for five minutes is the equivalent of 10,000 IU vitamin D." No idea if that's true, and obviously UV exposure has other risks, but strictly speaking, could vitamin D ever be boosted to harmful levels by UV alone?

<comment><USER44> Here is the study:

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20363523/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20363523/)

It would take roughly an hour per day of exposure to 25% of the skin in summer midday sun to get 5000IU (depending on skin type and UV index).

The article seems to be conflating correlation with causation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> For reference, 5000 IU is 625% USDA DV. (Curiously, 5000 / 600 = 8.33, but 5000 IU bottles are labeled 625%.)

<comment><USER46> [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150317122458.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150317122458.htm#:~:text=2-,Recommendation%20for%20vitamin%20D%20intake%20was%20miscalculated,far%20too%20low%2C%20experts%20say&text=Summary%3A,by%20a%20factor%20of%20ten).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I use an app called D-Minder to check / control my sun exposure. In the summer months I easily get 5000 IU after a 30 min session in the noon sun, approx 12pm. Anecdotally vitamin-D does help with my auto-immune, because I need to take much less thyroid dosage (25mcg as opposed to 75mcg) to arrive at the same TSH levels.

Higher D levels did make my teeth sensitive so I upped my Calcium and Magnesium levels. I take CCM, calcium citrate malate which is absorbed more easily than calcium carbonate. I also take Vitamin K2 as MK7 and drink Kefir regularly.

</comment><comment> y-c-o-m-b I've been taking 5000IU per day for YEARS. I just recently started taking K2 100mcg every other day. I've seen countless family doctors and neurologists over the years with this information, and none of them ever said it was high. I live near Portland, OR where you don't see blue skies from November - March. However I get abundant amounts of sun each day when the sun is out during spring/summer/autumn. Getting tested is not an option right now (covid mitigation), so should I taper back to maybe 5000IU every 3 days?

</comment><comment><USER48> I think it's a crazy story. Which doctor on earth would prescribe a 5000 IU vitamin D dosage daily without a specific treatment length? Because the recommended dosage is just 400 IU daily and almost all medical sites warn about high dosage above 4000 IU Vitamin D daily, I think the doctor who prescribed a 5000 IU daily dosage without a specific treatment length was plainly irresponsible or the patient was not followed the doctor's instruction correctly, which is equally bad and irresponsible for one's health.

</comment><comment><USER49> Anecdotal datapoint: vitamin D provokes depression for me. Take 5000IU in the morning and an episode is guaranteed in the next evening. Episode consists of pretty bad mood and "inability to think" for the lack of better words. And it builds up of course. After about a month of 10000IU daily I was on a brink of suicide. Unfortunately I did no tests whatsoever. I've had zero psychiatric issues before but I do have a fistful of medical conditions.

</comment><comment><USER50> Vitamin D has less to do with sun than you think. Low Vitamin D levels are also common in Africa. So don't take Vitamin D just because you think you're not outside long enough:

[https://theconversation.com/think-vitamin-d-deficiency-is- no...](https://theconversation.com/think-vitamin-d-deficiency-is-not-common- in-africa-think-again-140080)

<comment><USER51> The "What's behind the deficiency" section seems to point to sunlight exposure as a very important part of the equation. In particular: > As we found in the study, urbanisation seems to be a major cause. People are spending more time indoors. In contrast, Africans in rural settings have been reported to have one of the highest levels of vitamin D in the world.

<comment><USER50> That would be in contrast to the common knowledge that 15 min in the sun are enough for a good Vitamin D level, especially 15 min in the African sun. I simply can't imagine that you can live in Africa without getting enough sun. That would mean that you basically have to stay underground all the time. I believe there is a second factor (often overlooked) that causes low Vitamin D level in the blood: Magnesium deficiency: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/)

<comment><USER51> As your previous link mentioned, not all of Africa is equally sunny. But really the difference is that people with darker skin need to spend more time in the sun to get enough Vitamin D. At least one source says folks with very dark skin need six times as much sunlight as those with very light skin. I've seen 3 hours daily recommended before as well. It's going to be challenging for an urban person at any latitude to get that much sunlight in a typical day.

[https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2018-07-18/how-m...](https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2018-07-18/how- much-time-in-the-sun-do-you-need-for-vitamin-d)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Dai (2018): Magnesium status and supplementation influence vitamin D status and metabolism: results from a randomized trial

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/)

"Our findings suggest that optimal magnesium status may be important for optimizing 25(OH)D status. "

</comment><comment><USER52> Keeping your Vitamin D levels in check becomes even more of a challenge if you're not normocalcemic. In my case, Vitamin D levels always turn out to be almost unmeasurably low when I get bloodwork done. If I then supplement high doses of Vitamin D in response to that, the level rises only slightly, and my Calcium level goes up even more than it already is.

</comment><comment><USER53> Five _years_ taking 5000 UI daily. This goes on to show that short-term usage is likely a benefit.

</comment><comment><USER54> For people living in the southern hemisphere, don't feel too smug about all the comments that this only affects people 'in northern latitudes'.

What they mean is 'the northern parts of North America'.

If you're south of the equator by, say, 35-40 degrees or more - similar risks & problems apply.

</comment><comment><USER55> What's your opinion on K2 + D3? Bone density against osteoporosis, particularly on the elderly?

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5471136/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5471136/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Yeah I noticed you can buy large doses of vitamin D in the USA. It is quite cost-effective to get the 5000 or 10000 IU capsules and take one a week. In Australia you can't usually get more than 1000 IU in a capsule at the normal pharmacy.

</comment><comment><USER57> Seems to me that 5000 is just too much, and 400 daily recommended might be low. Seems like between 1000-2000 is a sweat spot.

</comment><comment><USER58> These articles are fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to educate us with your knowledge and experience!

</comment><comment><USER59> Raise your hand if you thought this was another one of Claude Shannon's many tangents.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'd suggest you first test vitamin levels and then take appropriate supplements;

</comment><comment><USER61> Hopped on the last thread a little late and couldn't get a meaningful discussion about this (Perhaps i'm just completely on the wrong foot):

Are these studies just showing that vitamin D is a good predictor of income (because race is a good predictor of income)? Now that the US is starting to have conversations about racial inequality, every time I see a hackernews or reddit post on vitamin D I am asking myself that question. I have read several studies that link low income to higher mortality rates across several different diseases. [0]

And several other studies that link education levels (which are inherently linked to childhood wealth levels) to worse mortality rates as well.[1]

There is a link between lower vitamin d levels and skin color, with an obvious plausible explanation ( Melanin lowers skins ability to produce vitamin D).[2]

In the U.S. at least there is a strong link between income, education levels, and skin color. [3]

While I am hopeful that ongoing research will help us understand the mechanisms by which vitamin-D operates, I really worry that it is somehow a very well dressed red-herring. One one hand a promised panacea: vitamin d supplements, the other a complex economic and political problem that barely anyone can comprehend or are even willing to engage with.

One of the more damning studies shows that vitamin d supplementation is good enough to remove your deficiency, it has reproduced really poorly on any of the other correlated health effects.[4]

Are there any studies that someone can link that would alleviate my concerns? When these kind of population health studies are conducted (I am in no way familiar with how they are actually done), how are factors like income inequality and education level generally controlled for?

And an interesting article related to Vitamin-D health benefits that had a slightly different take on causes for supposed benefits: [https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun- exposure...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure- skin-cancer-science)

[0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866586/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866586/)

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435622/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435622/)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946242/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946242/)

[3] [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0190640#sec014)

[4] [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1809944](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1809944)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for commenting. These are all great points. For a while I have thought that Vitamin D just became the latest Vitamin C - are people on here old enough to remember when Vitamin C was a miracle drug that treated and prevented cancer? Fortunately you can expel excess Vitamin C much easier than Vitamin D. In my next post on this I really want to go into the human trials. The evidence for Vitamin D supplementation in the general population is just not there. And yes, darker skin color is a risk for Vitamin D deficiency. And the correlations that you mention are all real, which can partly explain the correlations between low Vitamin D and health problems - and then explain why supplementing doesn't seem to help. It's not the Vitamin D causing an increased mortality - it's everything else that might be associated with low Vitamin D and at the same time associated with mortality.

<comment><USER62> Deva,

Thanks for your articles (P1 and P2) as well as your posts on HN. I'm happy to hear there will be a Part 3. The topics you describe above will be of interest. I'm a layperson who has read many of the recent papers on D3 and have been supplementing 6k IU D3 with 100mg K2-mk7 (recently increased to 10k D3). My 25-H is 71 ng/mL as of last week (lab 'normal' = 20 - 79 ng/mL). Here are some questions I'd appreciate you considering addressing in Part 3.

* Do you think that some patients (like Shannon) have adverse reactions (and others don't) mostly due to random individual sensitivity or does it seem like there are may be some factors that could serve as indicators? For example, I don't even know if a person's size (kg) 'matters' either in the test result or in absorption.

* I've seen claims that some reasonable UV exposure can A) increase uptake of supplemented D3, or B) Is recommended (if possible) because 'UV-sourced D3' is somehow 'different/better'. Yet I haven't found any published discussion of A or B. I realize the answer is likely both complicated and uncertain, but would love to know if either A or B has been evidenced, is unevidenced but 'seems plausible' or unevidenced and doesn't seem plausible.

To be clear, I'm not asking for personalized advice. Just giving you N=1 context on one reader's questions: I currently have no apparent ill-effects from supplementation. Based in part on your post, I'm now considering dropping back to 5k IU D3 as my goal is really to ensure I'm not D3 deficient (not mega-dose). I started supplementing initially due to diagnosed SAD and more recently went up from 6k to 10k in light of possible CV19 bonus benefit (I'm not at elevated CV risk anyway).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Isn't medical error the number 3 cause of death in the US?

<comment><USER45> No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I liked the comment on the page - I will never give up my D

</comment><comment><USER65> I take 10000 IU but not daily. More like once every other day or basically when I remember (more like the latter, 3 times a week). I don't like being religious about it, so it makes sense to me to get a high dosis when I remember.

Of course I don't recommend doing this way to anyone. Do a serum level test and work from there.

<comment> core-questions From the other comments here it sounds like that's pretty high. If you're worried enough about it to take that much, maybe you should get yourself a blood test done to find out what your levels are like?

<comment><USER65> I already took a test and my levels were very low. That's when I started supplementing. Taking another test soon to check levels again.

<comment> core-questions Sounds like you have a good sane approach. Hope you do well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Timpler – simple way to organize and plan your to-dos and routines - <AUTHOR> My last year's goal was to finally release it and I did it on December 31st!
Timpler helps you organize your tasks and routines.
Besides being a regular to-dos app, it has a lot of smart scheduling features.
- It automatically schedules your routines eg. "Read a book 3 times a week" - Timpler will pick the best dates for repetitions - It creates daily tasks suggestions basing on your current context - It allows you to plan your entire week in a few simple steps <comment><AUTHOR> App Store link - [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timpler-to-do-list- planner/id1...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timpler-to-do-list- planner/id1432739728)</comment>


Create advanced filters for your Gmail account - <AUTHOR> https://www.syphir.com

<comment><USER2> Yay! It's exciting to see all these cool new Gmail plugins; first Rapportive, now Syphir.

Quick review: Rules are like Filters, but better. I do wish I could apply them to messages already in my inbox. (I added one to have anything that is to: cc: or bcc: to an alternative e-mail to be archived; in Gmail, you can only set filters based on the to: field.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Being able to postpone job-related e-mail coming in after 5pm until 8am the next workday sounds intriguing... I like the idea, not sure about the implementation. (oauth IMAP login and parsing of your gmail inbox)

<comment><USER4> > not sure about the implementation

If they do it well enough, Google might acquire their technology (integrating it directly into GMail)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This does look really cool, and they appear to be doing it right (IMAP + OAuth), but I'd feel really weird about giving a third party access to my Gmail account and letting them futz around with messages. I'm sure they're very careful and all, but if there were ever a data loss bug -- especially one that wasn't immediately obvious -- I would be very, very unhappy.

</comment><comment><USER6> Really love the iPhone app! Would be cool to see them connect your email to others apps as well.</comment>


Nvidia's GeForce Now app can transform your cheap laptop into a gaming PC - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/8/16865480/nvidia-geforce-now-windows-beta-app-gaming-pc-ces-2018 <comment><AUTHOR> I'll believe it when I see it as far as playability, but if it works as well as they claim then this is really cool. I use a 12" macbook retina because it's super lightweight and tiny but obviously I can't do any real gaming on it. I'm not a big gamer so I can't justify buying even moderately expensive gaming hardware, but if this allows me to play on my existing hardware then it's worth paying for. Sounds like a Netflix for gaming model could be a huge business opportunity for casual gamers like me. I hope this lives up to the claims!</comment>


Study: 1 Hour of TV shortens your life by 22 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44156412/ns/health/

<comment><USER2> > An extrapolation of these figures found that a single > hour of TV was > responsible for the loss of just under 22 > minutes of life, the news agency > reported.

Sounds great - that's a net win of 38 minutes! I'm going to get in front of the TV and stay there!

</comment><comment><USER3> Classic _cum hoc ergo propter hoc_ fallacy.</comment>


Google Security Engineer Claims Android Is Now as Secure as the iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/google-security-engineer-claims-android-is-now-as-secure-as-the-iphone <comment><USER2> > It's a common assumption among tech geeks, and even cybersecurity experts, > that if you are really paranoid, you should probably use an iPhone, and not > Android

Erm... is it?! I usually hear the opposite, if anything</comment>


Google Cloud Platform's Pi API – With access to 750B digits of Pi - <AUTHOR> https://pi.delivery/ <comment><USER2> I'm calling this: after attending Google Cloud Next last week, and seeing the huge improvements to GCP in the last 18 months, I am supremely confident that AWS should be worried about Google as a legitimate competitor.

$GOOG is betting big on GCP, and they are executing at a very high level releasing iterative products and new features.

I'm recommending GCP for all my clients (shameless plug [https://elasticbyte.net](https://elasticbyte.net)) if they don't have any infrastructure setup or provisioned already. While AWS offers a wider array of integrated services (they do have a large lead time), GCP has learned from all the mistakes of other providers. They started off with a superior project based structure, then per-minute billing, then sustained-use discounts, then Container Engine (GKE), then the Firebase acquisition (genius), now Functions and SQL Postgres support.

<comment><USER3> Most folks on HN are part of the startup crowd, and what that crowd misses is that while GCP is technically superior in every way, they have no idea how to sell to an enterprise.

Google's sales method is, "There's the docs, good luck". Enterprises don't like that. They like to be hand held, they like lots of humans taking them out for lunches and dinners.

So far Google has not shown any inclination that they know how to enterprise, and in fact it's fairly counter-cultural for them.

If they learn to sell to the enterprise, I agree with you.

But right now, almost all the money in cloud is with the enterprise, and right now Google has no idea how to address that market.

<comment><USER4> Did you even watch GCPNext? The entire event was enterprise-focused. They brought a half-dozen companies on stage to basically say the same thing over and over again: "We moved to Google cloud, its so much better, Google helped us every step of the way."

Its possible these companies were lying, but I think that conference should be evidence enough for any prospective customers that Google is ready.

<comment><USER5> > The entire event was enterprise-focused

Some _very_ old-school enterprises are working with Google to onboard GCP in their organisations. A few of them even spoke at the event. I'm assuming they've done due diligence to ensure that Google will devote time and attention span to GCP and not treat it like a "side project".

Also, looking at this logically, whether Google offers GCP or not, you can't deny that that they'll continue to refine their internal infrastructure. Their internal platform is one of their crown jewels. It just makes sense to offer that to businesses willing to pay for it.

<comment><USER6> Yes. Sales is easy to staff up but technology is very hard to build. Google is going in the right order and can easily hire the enterprise handlers it needs to close large contracts.

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying Google can't do it, and I agree that they did it right (build the technology first). What I'm saying is that there isn't strong evidence that they are getting good at enterprise sales yet. If they can do it, then they will be very successful. I'm starting to see signs that they might be doing it right, but the jury is still out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So my take home here is that webscale makes [https://github.com/philipl/pifs](https://github.com/philipl/pifs) possible.

</comment><comment><USER8> Now, if only there was a service to leftpad my strings...

<comment><USER9> Not sure if you'r being scarcastic, but... [https://api.left- pad.io/?str=be%20careful%20what%20you%20wis...](https://api.left- pad.io/?str=be%20careful%20what%20you%20wish%20for...&len=45)

<comment><USER10> That's great! I'd like to use this but sending my enterprise data to a third party is not very secure. Do they provide a docker image or ami?

<comment><USER9> Now, I just assume you're being sarcastic :). But, if you would like, I can build docker image that does the same thing for a price ;).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > This is just for fun. There is NO SLA. It might be turned off at any time!

Google service confirmed!

<comment><USER12> loooollll

<comment><USER13> I'm a Google employee and you made me LOL hahaha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there anything we can learn from the transition between numbers? Any pattern?

</comment><comment><USER3> Things I would do if I were a better JS programmer:

1\. Figure out how many BPM I need to to have the music simulation generate digits at the same rate as the visual simulation.

2\. Figure out how to press both start buttons at the same time.

<comment><USER15> it's actually here: [https://pi.delivery/demo/](https://pi.delivery/demo/)

but we didn't have time to make it look nice :(

<comment><USER16> Is that a standard template you're using for the website?

<comment><USER15> not standard, but browsed through jekyll templates - this one fit our needs the most: [https://github.com/CloudCannon/aviator-jekyll- template](https://github.com/CloudCannon/aviator-jekyll-template)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've always wondered if you take the digits from Pi, do they represent a pseudo random sequence or not?

<comment><USER18> It's speculated that Pi is a normal number[1]. If it is in fact normal, then I believe the answer is yes. However determining whether a number is normal or not is an unresolved problem according to Wolfram, so the answer is a solid maybe.

[1] [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NormalNumber.html](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NormalNumber.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just curious, what algorithms do you use for computing Pi? I have read about the Fabrice Bellard's job and algorithms about computing Pi, he uses relatively small CPU but his algorithms seem efficient.

<comment><USER20> The software they used is linked and has a some info about the internals here: [http://www.numberworld.org/y-cruncher/algorithms.html](http://www.numberworld.org/y-cruncher/algorithms.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pretty cool. I did look at my calendar quickly to see that it's not April 1. The "How we made this" part makes for a great parody of cloud computing.

<comment><USER22> > great parody of cloud computing

I don't get it.

<comment><USER21> All that stack and overhead to serve what is basically static data? Come on, if this was released ~2 weeks from now it would be funny...

It kind of reminds me when all bitcoin private keys were leaked: [http://directory.io/](http://directory.io/)

Edit: It's impressive, but still funny.

<comment><USER23> One of the great things about having all of this great tooling is it makes the easiest way to do something also the best way. They were able to quickly spin something up which, incidentally, could also massively scale should it need to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Love that the piano works as a normal piano!

</comment><comment><USER25> Listening to the essentially random sequence of notes, fancy recognizing Feynman's point

<comment><USER26> What was Feynman's point? I've got Pi/Listen going in the background, and it's quite pleasant, so I'm doubly interested.

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_nines_in_pi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_nines_in_pi)

<comment><USER28> It's amusing to read the talk page on this article - there was lengthy investigation about whether this really had any Feynman connection (i.e. was the story about him apocryphal) and what the article should be called. I think the current title is fantastic - I would have struggled to name such a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice job! You have a lot of AltCN in your SSL cert!

</comment><comment><USER30> Here's the requisite cynical comment lamenting the death of "standards".

They could easily have implemented RFC 3091 [0], but instead they chose to create yet another proprietary API with vendor lock in, just as cloud service providers love to do.

[0]: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3091](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3091)

/s

<comment><USER31> Mentioned above RFC specifies port number 314159 which is greater than possible max 65535. So once again unrealistic standards that does not work force people to invent something sane. /s

<comment><USER32> That is only a problem if you insist that Windows 3.1 is the best operating system in existence and if you are therefore unwilling to upgrade to Windows 95. The future is 32 bit, move on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> That first visualization using d3 is a classic example of a bad visualization isn't it? It's extremely difficult to get a sense of the difference in off- diagonal transition rates, and impossible to get an accurate sense of them or any sense at all of the on-diagonals. And yet, the transition rates could have been conveyed perfectly well by writing them in a 10 by 10 table! Maybe shading the cells of the table somehow to show the rate -- I'm no expert in data visualization -- just not the one chosen!

I think d3 is wonderful, but I worry that this sort of thing will make some people shake their heads and say "fancy JavaScript nonsense just causes people to make bad visualizations nowadays".

<comment><USER34> It's just supposed to look pretty, not really serve a function. We opened the API to the world so people who are way better at visualizations can build what they want!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I know it's Pi day, and the title uses the word for the greek letter, but my mind read the domain and immediately thought Google was offering an API for automated pie delivery.

Now I really want this.

<comment><USER36> I thought it was someone with a large array of raspberry pi computers for rent. It would be like an itty bitty AWS with adorable APIs at cute as a button prices.

<comment><USER37> There's a great April Fool's joke in there somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I was expecting Raspberry Pi

<comment><USER39> Google Cloud Pi Compute is coming out on April 1

<comment><USER40> Someone told me it was coming out last year April 1. I'm still waiting. Hope they do it this year.</comment></comment></comment>


Django async and web sockets with Hendrix - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92VeMkjM1TQ <comment><USER2> We usually spell the project 'hendrix', not 'Hendrix' \- that way, the uppercase version always refers to the musician known for concurrent singing and guitar playing, while the lowercase always refers to the package known for concurrent network traffic. :-)</comment>


Canada targeting San Francisco Bay's Intelligent Immigrants? - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/alchemicalnature/8748591003/in/photostream

<comment><USER2> Speaking as a Canadian who has worked on a H1B visa in California, the "Low Taxes" claim on this billboard is laughably deceptive.

See e.g. <http://lsminsurance.ca/calculators/canada/income-tax> for an income tax calculator for Canada. Note too that unlike in the US, married couples in Canada cannot file joint income tax returns which is a big benefit for H1B workers given that your spouse cannot work (unless they have their own work visa). Sure, _corporate_ income taxes might be lower in Canada, but that's no incentive to move to Canada as an _individual_.

The fact is that there are many more high tech jobs in the US than Canada, salaries are much higher and taxes are lower which translates to a substantially higher take-home income. The catch of course is that you have to be willing to work as an indentured employee on the H1B.

FWIW I'm now living in Melbourne, Australia. Comparable tax rates to Canada but with better weather and better health care.

<comment><USER3> To do a fair calculation you need to measure what your take home pay is after accounting for taxes, health provision, license fees (eg vehicles), equal living circumstances (cost of housing), utilities, cell phone plan, reasonable retirement provision, if applicable child care and education provisions etc.

If you intend to stay a while then purchasing power parity should also be taken into account including sales taxes/VAT.

<comment><USER2> > taxes

Higher in Canada, both income and sales

> health provision

N/a for me since health insurance was a given for every job I had in California

> license fees (eg vehicles)

Cars are much cheaper to buy and operate in California than Canada

> cost of housing

FWIW the Canadian housing market is currently in a massive bubble, comparable IMO to where the US was in 2007 (i.e., peaked and on the verge of bursting)

> utilities

Negligible on a software engineer's salary

> cell phone plan

More expensive in Canada

> reasonable retirement provision

Social Security or Canada Pension Plan: Good luck!

> child care and education provisions

Given that my wife couldn't work in the US it was n/a for me, but we could comfortably afford for her to stay at home when our first son was born.

<comment><USER3> The health provision is a big expense, especially as it comes in the taxes column in Canada (and most civilized countries). In California your taxes include health provision for others (disability, medicare/aid) but not you. Even if health provision is given in California by your employer, that is many hundreds of dollars a month that could otherwise go to your salary.

The Californian housing market has been in a bubble for decades! I just compared the Bay Area with Vancouver, and the latter is considerably cheaper, at least half price.

<comment><USER2> > I just compared the Bay Area with Vancouver, and the latter is considerably > cheaper, at least half price.

How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion considering that according to The Economist, Vancouver is the most expensive city in North America: [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/06/vancouver-most- expen...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/06/vancouver-most-expensive- city-to-live-economist_n_2631806.html)

For anyone interested in doing an objective comparison between the cost of renting a 2-bedroom apartment in Vancouver vs. California, here are some links:

Vancouver: [http://vancouver.kijiji.ca/f-real-estate-apartments- condos-2...](http://vancouver.kijiji.ca/f-real-estate-apartments- condos-2-bedroom-Vancouver-W0QQCatIdZ214QQLocationZ1700287)

San Jose (Silicon Valley): [http://www.rentals.com/California/San- Jose/apartments-proper...](http://www.rentals.com/California/San- Jose/apartments-property-type-2-beds-1z141yl+1z141y8/)

Irvine (Southern California): [http://www.rentals.com/California/Irvine/apartments- property...](http://www.rentals.com/California/Irvine/apartments-property- type-2-beds-1z141yl+1z141y8/)

<comment><USER3> > How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion ...

Did a Google search for Vancouver rentals, clicked on the first 3 results, verified that it was Vancouver Canada and not Washington state, and then clicked around the maps/listings.

The first two links do seem to indicate Vancouver being cheaper than San Jose when eyeballing it, but you'd need a data export or graphs of dollars per square foot averages to be fully comparable.

BTW I picked Vancouver because it is on the west coast as is the bay area. Some indications are that Toronto would be a better choice, and perhaps compared to Chicago or NYC instead.

> ... according to The Economist, Vancouver is the most expensive city in > North America ...

Note that they are measuring the cost of living, not the price of accommodation although the latter should account for a large amount of the former. You also have to be careful what is being compared - for example they list Colombo (which I'm personally familiar with) amongst the 20 cheapest, but that certainly isn't the case for a lifestyle equivalent to the bay area, and cars are eyewateringly expensive there due to import duties (around 5 times the price in the US!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty interesting[1]:

 _What happens if my business fails?_

 _Failure of your business will not affect your permanent resident status. We recognize that not every business will succeed and this program is designed so that the risk is shared between the public and private sector._

[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?q=657&...](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?q=657&t=6)

</comment><comment><USER5> They are also very active here in London - and are doing a pretty good job.

If Canada will finally stop sheeply following the US and Europe with introducing more and more Internet surveillance legislation and blockers, but is taking a stand to foster the industry by creating an infrastructural and legal framework (e.g. as Iceland tried a few years ago but they are in the middle of an Ocean) there will be caravans moving North to Vancouver / Montreal / Quebec City / Toronto and West from Europe.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like they're already overloaded with applications:

"Note: To focus on processing the applications we already have, CIC has temporarily stopped accepting applications under:

        the immigrant investor program
        the federal entrepreneur program

This temporary pause will continue until further notice."

<http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/index.asp>

</comment><comment><USER3> I was under the impression that Internet access in Canada (both home and mobile) was terrible - expensive, restricted, no competition, long contracts etc.

To win me over, the billboard just needs to add "... and we use the metric system".

<comment><USER7> Depends where you are. I get 100meg for $70/month from Shaw.

<comment><USER8> But what about Shaw's usage caps?

I've gotten the strong impression from DSLReports.com that pretty much all Internet access in Canada has nasty ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's an amazing ad...connects emotionally with immigrant entrepreneurs. I moved from the Bay Area back to India due to startup visa issues. Now, my startup is seriously looking at Canada as a viable option, after India.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Low taxes

They're in for a bad surprise if they move to Quebec.

<comment><USER11> British Columbia and Alberta have lower taxes.

<comment><USER2> 25% and 26% total tax rates respectively on $100k salary according to <http://lsminsurance.ca/calculators/canada/income-tax> versus 32% in Quebec. Maybe Quebec's mild climate explains the difference? ;)

<comment><USER10> And there's also the federal tax... which means you are paying about 50+% taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> OT:

enjoy their awesome CIC web1.0 system

had to use it to fill in a tourist visa and it was so painful..

</comment><comment><USER13> What is the startup city of preference in Canada? Waterloo, Ontario?

<comment><USER14> Waterloo is good for access to fresh CS graduates and excellent cost of living, but Toronto is a better bet for access to experienced talent and network connectivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess low taxes only refer to corporate taxes only</comment>


Show HN: A Chrome extension that extracts used CSS and combines it into one file - <AUTHOR> just wanted to share this useful tool with you. I have been looking at something like this for a very long time.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/css-used/cdopjfddj...
what it does: it analyses your html dom and looks for css classes. Then it extracts it all and combines it into 1 single css file.
I used 5 css framworks which was on 340kb kb. This tool made it 36kb! <comment><USER2> I'm not convinced.

Your problem was not that your CSS was 340 KBytes, but the simple fact you were using 5 CSS frameworks. And if you start removing unused styles at random, any time you want to work on the site and add features you may encounter edge cases where the style you want to use has been removed. And, if your CSS is used on multiple pages with different layouts, it looks like you will need to manually browse each one and merge the results.

However, this is not to say that merging and compressing stylesheets is bad. If you do so then you can embed the style in the page to remove a render blocking resource and speed up your site. Then you can repeat the same process with Javascript.

<comment><USER3> It's unfair to claim that styles are removed "at random." And even if you're only using one framework, you'd still almost certainly have unused styles that can be pruned.

Generally, you'd want tools in your build pipeline that do this automatically (see my other post). Doing so solves all your objections. You're free to later use styles that you hadn't been using -- they're still there in the source CSS, so when you rebuild, they just don't get pruned out anymore. And those tools don't just analyze a single html file, they examine your entire source tree, so you don't have problems with styles used on some pages but not others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I use the PurifyCSS[1] and PurgeCSS[2] Grunt/Gulp/Webpack modules for this task.

[https://github.com/purifycss/purifycss](https://github.com/purifycss/purifycss)

[https://github.com/FullHuman/purgecss](https://github.com/FullHuman/purgecss)

The Purge documentation claims that a third tool, UnCSS[3], may be even more accurate.

[https://github.com/uncss](https://github.com/uncss)

<comment><USER4> @tofof: Do you have a workflow which uses both of them the tools in series, or do you pick one or the other depending upon what you're doing? PurifyCSS and PurgeCSS, at least from a cursory review, appear to have similar functionality.

<comment><USER3> You're correct that they're very similar; PurgeCSS even describes itself as an improvement to PurifyCSS. (Purge tries to actually parse for matches, whereas Purify just looks for the presence of words -- so if you have a .arrow CSS rule in your framework, and you happen to use the word 'arrow' in body text somewhere, Purify will needlessly include that style in its output).

But yes, I actually use both tools in series. I get a small reduction from Purifying the output of Purge (I haven't actually bothered to diff it to see where), and Purify stitches the files together and minifies in addition to pruning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given so many webpages have dynamic elements, piece of HTML/DOM that only pop up in edge cases (alerts like cookie notices, loading animations, confirmation dialogs) I would be very wary that a tool would be able to identify all the things that are really in use. To use effectively, I think you would need a test script that stepped through all the edge cases, and then you're depending on your test coverage being 100% (of at least triggering the possible DOM structures and style class configurations).

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's the source code to the extension: [https://github.com/painty/CSS-Used- ChromeExt](https://github.com/painty/CSS-Used-ChromeExt)

I created an experiment to do this 8 years ago (time sure does fly): [https://github.com/driverdan/cssess](https://github.com/driverdan/cssess)

There have been a bunch of other projects that do this as well. purifycss, purgecss, and uncss among others.

</comment><comment><USER7> Assuming this works correctly and it looks like it did, this is very handy when refactoring a project using a CSS framework like bootstrap.

I needed something like this to tell exactly what bootstrap components I am using. So later down the road I can completely remove it and rewrite my own, while still have something to reference to</comment>


Airship Ventures Ceases operations - <AUTHOR> http://www.airshipventures.com/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if they weren't being innovative enough. Why go with the zeppelin design they chose? For most of us, this is an old method of transport, and the 'romance' of travel doesn't quite work.

I love the idea, but you can only make so much harkening back to the old days. I'm actually surprised they managed to get 20,000 people through. The passenger area is small, Moffett Field is a bit of a trip for many tourists visiting the bay area, when you factor in flight time, etc. etc. I suspect this is a whole day activity.

It is my understanding that the exciting and economically viable work in this field is in large load flight. If that could somehow be combined with airship tourism, maybe they'd be on to something.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sorry to see them go, I always had taking a ride on my to-do list. I guess that is part of the problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> I want to buy the airship</comment>


Setting up your own blog - <AUTHOR> http://james-huang.github.io/programming/2015/07/19/setting-up-your-own-blog/ <comment><USER2>
        under a version control system as beautiful as git?

I'll grant that git can be useful and it's certainly unavoidable, but "beautiful" is not a word I would use to describe it. Git is ugly and best hidden underneath GUIs, WUIs, and frontends. Indeed, this is how most people use it. Very few of the thousands or millions of git users know more than basic usage and most do not rely on the CLI.

So, in a similar vein to static blogs under version control, we have blohg for hg:

[http://blohg.org/](http://blohg.org/)

<comment><USER3> > Git is ugly and best hidden underneath GUIs

I guess I'm one of those 'very few', because every GUI and frontend I've used that tries to hide what's going on underneath has been far more cumbersome to use than the command line.

The only thing I'll use a Git GUI for is to check the history/revision graph.

<comment><USER2> The HN "random" sample of git users is also very skewed towards the git power users. Here is some usability research from Google et al about VCS usage:

[https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/42942.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you don't want to go with Jekyll/Ruby, there's Hugo (written in Go): [http://gohugo.io](http://gohugo.io)

<comment> ryan-c I'm using Pelican[0], which is written in Python.

0\. [http://blog.getpelican.com/](http://blog.getpelican.com/)

<comment><USER5> And I used Sculpin[0], written in PHP and uses Twig for templating.

[0] [https://sculpin.io/](https://sculpin.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but can't you already do this with Tumblr, Wordpress or Blogger? They're Free, Open (from his description, I assume it means customizable), and Easy.

<comment><USER7> Wordpress is extraordinarily clunky. There's a lot of configuration you have to concern yourself with (i.e. plugins, SEO, etc). If you want a custom domain with wordpress there's even more of a hassle.

With Jekyll + GH Pages you have full control of your site with as little complexity as necessary.

Here's some more info: [http://joshualande.com/jekyll-github-pages- poole/](http://joshualande.com/jekyll-github-pages-poole/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another Jekyll theme that I've been using is Poole:

[http://getpoole.com/](http://getpoole.com/)

It comes with the barebones theme, and two other sister themes.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a nice client-side markdown editor for gh-pages :

[http://prose.io/](http://prose.io/)

</comment><comment><USER10> While checking the Traffic stats for one of my projects on GitHub today, I discovered inbounds from the following site:

[http://www.staticgen.com/](http://www.staticgen.com/)

It's interesting to see just how many static blog generators there are. :) Also, if you prefer you can probably find one written in $FAVORITE_PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've had a blog[0] on GH pages for a few years now. I wrote a few posts about how to go about setting up feeds/og tags, GA, and I really should write another one about setting up everything else.

Basically, hosting a static blog is a rabbit hole. Keep track of where you came from, and share it out there. It's kinda amazing what you can do with a little bit of effort.

Personal plug: I cofounded Feedio[1], which gives you a widget for doing email subscriptions (among other things).

[0]: [https://stevenkaras.github.io](https://stevenkaras.github.io)

[1]: [http://feedio.co](http://feedio.co)

<comment><USER12> What about the fact that your content is duplicated in multiple places? Does that concern you at all?

<comment><USER11> To be honest, I'm not really sure what's duplicated here. Are you talking about the markdown sources being visible through the project?

<comment><USER12> yeah. google indexes that.

<comment><USER11> Hadn't considered that.

On the one hand, GH pages is a fairly popular resource for quick static site hosting, so Google should have had an engineer sit around and come up with a special filter just for that. On the other, I doubt very much that they've actually done that.

All in all, as long as you set canonical tags for your posts, the duplicate content on another domain shouldn't penalize you too very much. In any case, SEO for a personal technical blog isn't a high priority for me. If I were writing books or doing something to earn money with the blog, I would probably shell out for static site hosting using S3 and Cloudfront or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Eh. I don't get the Jekyll thing. I'd much rather run my own server.

After using Blogger, WordPress, and Ghost for years in various forms, I decided (for various reasons) to just write a simple blog engine of my own to power my site. The result is here: [https://github.com/BenOvermyer/obelisk- blog-engine](https://github.com/BenOvermyer/obelisk-blog-engine)

It's not elegant, it's not extensible, and it's not really intended for anyone but me. But it works, and it's fully under my control. Any failings with it are mine, not that of anyone else.

<comment><USER14> uh, you can host your jekyll blog wherever. it's just static html.

<comment><USER13> Sorry, I meant the most common flow I see - Jekyll+Github.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I also recommend using [http://prose.io/](http://prose.io/) to edit the markdown files and commit directly to github. It even writes metadata for jekyll.

</comment><comment><USER16> So far, after a disappointing experience with WordPress, I've been pretty happy with Jekyll, and would recommend it.

I've written a tutorial on how to set up your own from scratch, which might be interesting of you're considering that: [http://ricardolopes.net/blog/setting- up-a-hackers-blog-with-...](http://ricardolopes.net/blog/setting-up-a-hackers- blog-with-jekyll/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I used github pages to set up a test blog with hexo [1] (and posted 1 entry about xsel [2], wooh) but wasn't able to find a very clean solution to providing multi-language versions of a post (the fork someone recommended kinda broke the theme [3] which is all on me, since I didn't really know what I was doing)

I'm wondering If people here have done the whole multilanguage blog (translations for each post) and what problems they've faced and solutions they've employed.

[1] - [https://hexo.io/](https://hexo.io/) [2] - [http://isaacremuant.github.io/2014/10/27/xsel-Copy-Paste- fro...](http://isaacremuant.github.io/2014/10/27/xsel-Copy-Paste-from-the- shell-en/) [3] - [https://github.com/hexojs/hexo/issues/474#issuecomment-90086...](https://github.com/hexojs/hexo/issues/474#issuecomment-90086217)

<comment><USER18> If you'd be open to a new framework/language, Pelican's creators seem to have considered translations of articles in designing their framework[1].

[1] [http://docs.getpelican.com/en/3.6.0/content.html#translation...](http://docs.getpelican.com/en/3.6.0/content.html#translations)

<comment><USER17> Python's always good, thanks, I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been fascinated with Jekyll as a blog, but I wonder whether it offers the same SEO resources as Wordpress.

Any experiences?

<comment><USER20> Jekyll can set the basics such as meta descriptions via YAML front matter and the page template system, custom page titles, custom URL structure, etc. You can also use proper formatting quite easily (h1, etc.) with your choice of formatting.

As long as you have that covered that is all you really need for good SEO - the rest is keyword research, quality content, links, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You can also do this pretty easily with Hexo, which makes it easy to push Markdown blog posts to prettily-formatted static webpages. There's easy Github integration so that creating and deploying a new blog post is as a two-command process: [http://razishaban.com/2015/07/from-zero-to-hexo-a-quick- tuto...](http://razishaban.com/2015/07/from-zero-to-hexo-a-quick-tutorial/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Lost me at Jekyll, I never really liked it.

If you want something where you can write where inspiration hits, use something like Ghost and throw it on a cheap DigitalOcean droplet.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you are interested in the Jekyll / Github approach, you ought to check out Octopress ([https://github.com/imathis/octopress](https://github.com/imathis/octopress)) by Brandon Mathis.

It includes all the benefits of this approach, but with a nice out-of-the-box theme as well as useful helpers to make the blogging experience much better.

<comment><USER12> Also [https://github.com/developmentseed/jekyll- hook](https://github.com/developmentseed/jekyll-hook)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> For those who want to use React to generate a static site check out the source to my blog: [https://github.com/kentor/kentor.github.io](https://github.com/kentor/kentor.github.io). I've ditched Jekyll because I don't want to use its template system and have ruby set up.

</comment><comment><USER25> I just did Swacker[1], which does a deployment from a Github to a continous integrations build with Wercker to a hosted container on Giant Swarm. No downloaded software required.

1\. [https://github.com/giantswarm/swarm- wercker](https://github.com/giantswarm/swarm-wercker)

</comment><comment><USER26> We are working on a new blogging platform SunSed.com (still a work in progress) with focus on writing and reading experience.

Just try our editor! With Emacs like keyboard shortcuts (next sentence, etc) and features like moving content up/down in the page (no copy and paste needed). Anyway!

</comment><comment><USER27> Here's Github's official tutorial: [https://help.github.com/articles/using- jekyll-with-pages/](https://help.github.com/articles/using-jekyll-with-pages/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Another setup guide - this one's for WP - [http://impossiblehq.com/how-to- start-a-blog-guide/](http://impossiblehq.com/how-to-start-a-blog-guide/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Is Jekyll superior to Wintersmith in any way? Am currently fiddling around with Wintersmith.

<comment><AUTHOR> I picked Jekyll cause it works out of the box with github pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just spent a good long while converting a Jekyll theme to a WordPress theme.

I value WP's comments too much. Static sites require you to give control of your comments to third parties, and that, for me, is unacceptable.</comment>


Microsoft secretly in talks to buy Nokia - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/19529/bye_nokia_microsofts_gonna_buy_nokia <comment><USER2> It looks like only smartphone division will be sold to MS. Here is why I think so:

1) Nokia supplied material how to transition from Qt to WP7 programming environment. Qt is main dev. environment for Nokia Smartphones (other tools can be used but it is painful to use them). I have not seen anything similar for feature phone developers.

2) Nokia's smartphones OSes do not have future within Nokia. Symbian is handed over to Accenture ([http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/22/nokia-and-accenture- seal-...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/22/nokia-and-accenture-seal-symbian- handover-deal/)) and will be supported till 2016 (if I remember correctly). MeeGo will be supported less than one year - really good OS, working Linux on phone. Basically Nokia have factories and people who will work only for Microsoft anyway.

3) Nokia is heavily investing in feature phones. E.g.: SmarterPhone aquisition, Qt plans for feature phones, Meltemi, javascript based developement tools/environment for feature phones and most probably more I have not seen.

So basically it looks like Nokia will handle over to Microsoft factories, people who has experience with smartphones (hardware part only?), maybe some patents (actually Nokia and Microsoft already have deals in this area and most probably nothing will change here). I'm not sure about sales network Nokia has - that's something Microsoft might use instead of creating its own.

</comment><comment><USER3> In a couple of years, all phones out there will be Apple, Microsoft or Google (not just the hardware). Pretty interesting, fast moving industry, if you remember 2-5 years ago, when the big names were Siemens, Ericsson and Nokia.

Now all we need is Facebook to buy a cellphone company too... RIM, perhaps?

Software (companies) are eating the world indeed...

</comment><comment><USER4> Nope, this rumor was put to bed by Nokia multiple times already, including this response to this same source: [http://www.slashgear.com/microsofts-nokia- smartphone-divisio...](http://www.slashgear.com/microsofts-nokia-smartphone- division-acquisition-tipped-imminent-05206304/)</comment>


Evolving Neural Networks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/research/documents/Miikkulainen%20-%20small.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> The "Machine Learning Summer School" lecture series is happening now at UT Austin - I made the call to catch up with family over my winter break rather than attending, but the lecture slides from the presentations look super interesting. Judging from the slides, this lecture must have been particularly awesome, though the slides from the Sutton lecture are interesting as well.

Here is the link to the schedule of speakers, along with the slides that have been posted so far[1]. If anyone in attendance has comments about how the series has been in person, I'd be quite happy to hear details.

[1] - [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/mlss/schedule](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/mlss/schedule)

</comment><comment><USER2> Dr. Stanley at UCF has taken this stuff to the next level especially with his HyperNEAT implementation [http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/hyperNEATpage/](http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/hyperNEATpage/)</comment>


One in five cannot name a single author of literature, survey shows - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/01/one-five-cannot-name-single-author-literature-survey-shows/ <comment><USER2> "The most commonly named writer was William Shakespeare, while Charles Dickens came a close second."

Pretty clear that "literature" means all those allegedly classic writers like Walpole, or Charlotte Bronte or anyone before 1890 that had the 1880s equivalent of a best seller. All of that material is pretty difficult for a modern reader. The pacing is different, they used a very formal grammar, and the stereotypes don't make any sense. If the point of reading is to enjoy, "literature" is the wrong thing, obviously. If the point is to get exposed to great ideas, "literature" is still the wrong way to do it. Lighten up, let people read modern stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> And why would they? Literature is for free people (or people feeling unfree), people that have a sense of wonder about the world, history and society. You don't need literature to live like a zombie, work your ass off in some salaried position, and tickling your senses with superhero movies and celebrity gossip.</comment>