What happens when you sit at a desk for 13 years and also exercise - <AUTHOR> http://deanproxy.com/blog/posts/2013/08/13-what-happens-when-you-sit-at-a-desk-for-13-years---and-actually-exercise-.html <comment><USER2> I would strongly suggest anyone looking at this and saying they don't have the time to invest in this to also consider the mental benefits that exercise brings.

I don't feel I have time (which I know is wrong) and I particularly do not like gyms, but I cycle to work (2 miles) and on the way home I'll take a detour and add an extra 5-10 miles to my trip home. It clears the cobwebs. Cycling can be very meditative as well.

I am extremely lucky to be living in a place that allows me to do this on car free routes (Bath->Bristol cycle path and the Two Tunnels Circuit).

If you live within 12 miles (and potentially up to 20 miles) of where you work (about an hour of easy riding), you should consider 'building' exercise into your commute. Even if it's twice a week to begin with. Be crazy and park your car 5 miles from work and cycle in from there and build it up.

FYI before starting this I weighed about 310lb and have got myself down to 275lb within a year without focusing too much on what I eat.

<comment><USER3> If anybody needs to optimize exercise time, also consider high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and bodyweight or dumbbell exercises. These can both be done at home, and they consistently have more effect on my overall fitness than long, medium-intensity cardio.

HIIT is an old, popular technique; it's basically intervals of intense cardio separated by rest. For an introduction, see Couch-to-5K or the Zombies Run training app. Bodyweight exercises can be done anywhere. One reasonable introduction is _You are Your Own Gym_ , but there are others.

If you raise your exercise intensity high enough to force your body to adapt, you can do a lot in 20 to 30 minutes several times a week without a health club membership. I'm not saying this is optimal-I'm not at all an expert—but it's certainly better than nothing, and I generally see far better gains doing this than when I do long, lower-intensity exercise.

<comment><USER4> c25k isn't HIIT(high intensity interval training). It is just IT.

HIIT would be more like (sprint for 30 seconds, jog for 30 seconds) * 8

<comment><USER5> Also, take a look at Tabata exercises. It's basically 20 seconds of HIIT and 10 seconds of rest. 10 minutes of it and you are sweating a lot!

<comment><USER6> 10 minutes of Tabata is pretty extreme... Starting at 4 minutes will leave beginners collapsing on the floor if they push themselves to the max...

<comment><AUTHOR> I love Tabata! I usually use the "Tabata This" workout from Crossfit (one of the few workouts I use from that methodology). I break it up like this: Squats, Pushups, Pullups, Jump rope, situps. So the total routine is about 20 minutes including the 1 minute rests in between each round.

I have started people off on a single round of Tabata which is only 4 minutes (minus the warmup/cool down periods) and it leaves them laying flat on the floor if they push themselves to their limits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My humble advice: Don't be an armchair health & fitness expert. Read up on it for intellectual stimulation, but don't expect to learn any magical secrets to being in shape or healthy. All the magical secrets have been known for a long time, and they're really, really boring.

You should do whatever makes you happy [within reason]. You should probably not drink 10 sodas and 5 bags of chips a day. But if you feel like having one, fuck it, life is short. If you feel like standing at your desk, go to town! Don't expect it to fix your problems. Just enjoy yourself.

If you feel like lifting weights, do that too, but if you don't feel like it, ..... you get the picture. Be active, be healthy-ish, but in terms that you can enjoy in life. Some people like dancing. Some people like running. Some people like kicking the shit out of a heavy bag. That's the only real secret to health & fitness: learning to enjoy it and be happy.

(Personally, the only thing that made me adopt an active lifestyle was group exercise. Now that i'm more used to the routines I work out by myself or do sports. But if you find yourself having trouble getting started, try signing up for a group class with people who seem nice and a good instructor)

<comment><USER8> >>But if you feel like having one, fuck it, life is short.

Yes, life is short. Therefore you should avoid things that will make it even shorter.

I always hear stuff like "whatever man, you only live once." It seems so irrational to use that to justify bad habits. If you only live once, should you not try to increase the length and quality of that life by trying to be in the best health possible?

<comment><USER9> > _Yes, life is short. Therefore you should avoid things that will make it > even shorter._

The second doesn't derive from the first.

If anything, "life is short, so don't obsess about its duration" is a better guideline.

> _I always hear stuff like "whatever man, you only live once." It seems so > irrational to use that to justify bad habits. If you only live once, should > you not try to increase the length and quality of that life by trying to be > in the best health possible?_

"Bad habits" are some of the most quality time people get to have.

<comment><USER8> If you equate quality with pleasure, sure. If you equate quality with lack of subsequent pain and discomfort, no.

<comment><USER9> If you value "lack of pain and discomfort", death would be a very good deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I once knew a guy who thought he could eat as much junk food as he wanted as long as he made up for it with "super-foods" (moringa MLM scam actually).

Regular workouts don't decrease death risk if you're also a couch potato -- [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38385104/ns/health- fitness/](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38385104/ns/health-fitness/)

People who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks -- [http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/most-dangerous- th...](http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/most-dangerous-thing-youll- do-all-day)

Sitting shuts down the circulation of a fat-absorbing enzyme called lipase -- [http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0610-stand_up_for_yo...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0610-stand_up_for_your_health.htm)

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that there is no evidence that suggest standing in front of a computer screen helps at all in those situations as well. You're still stationary. You aren't moving. Moving your feet around below you to adjust the weight on your legs does nothing for your cardiovascular system.

Unfortunately, as people who are tied to their computer screens for most of the day, we have very few options. One is to exercise. My story is one of being in better health than I was when I was in a job moving around all day just to give some perspective to this topic.

<comment><USER10> _there is no evidence that suggests standing in front of a computer screen helps_

From the last of the three links I posted:

"They found that standing up engages muscles and promotes the distribution of lipase, which prompts the body to process fat and cholesterol, independent of the amount of time spent exercising. They also found that standing up uses blood glucose and may discourage the development of diabetes."

<comment><AUTHOR> I apologize, I skimmed through that article too quickly.

Nevertheless, I will still hold my position that I was once "Fat", with high cholesterol and could barely hold my own body up. With what I have stated in my post, I am now healthy and can do things that most 20 year olds can not do. So, I guess it works for me pretty well.

<comment><USER11> You could say that standing while working could have positive effects, but it's not the complete solution for good health.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For anyone interested... if you want good posture, if you want to really be in shape, there are a million fads out there, but the best book by far is "Starting Strength" [1]. (It's also one of the best-selling on Amazon.)

It essentially focuses on just the squat, deadlift, press, bench press, and (later) power clean, devoting around _forty pages to each_ , and explains why you really don't need much else. They're quite difficult to get right, but the incredibly in-depth explanations will especially appeal to programmers who like understanding how things work.

I say this just because the book completely changed the way I approach the gym, and it mirrors what the article author says about the exercises he used.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-3rd-Mark- Rippetoe/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-3rd-Mark- Rippetoe/dp/0982522738/)

<comment><USER13> I can vouch for Starting Strength. If your body sucks, read this book. A lot of it will go over your head, and you don't need to read every single page, but once you start, really focus on nailing the three lifts.

I went from 45lb on the bar for all lifts to:

350 squat

475 deadlift

260 bench

290 powerclean

180 snatch

225 c&j

315 front squat

(the last 4 lifts are because I starting getting seriously into pure olympic lifting).

In under a year. I didn't use any drugs, but what I did do was post a massive wall-wide calendar on my wall, and in each day were checkboxes for: daily 5g creatine, daily sleep , daily macros (protein/fat/carb), daily fish oil.

I used a calorie counting application to make sure that without fail, every single day I got 300g protein, 400g carbs, around 150g fat (300x4 + 400x4 + 150x9 = 4100~ calories). I gained about 90lb, gained a ton of strength, then did a 2000 calorie cut still while powerlifting and then sprinting twice a day every day to cut weight fast.

Absolutely changed my life. I unlocked the greatest super power of all: controlling how I feel day in and day out. No more irritation, no more snappy emotions, no more all nighters and wasting 2 days recouping. I am able to put on weight whenever I want, and cut it whenever I want.

It's really incredible the shift you notice when you nail your diet and exercise down to a solid routine. You are much more stable throughout your daily tasks.

In the end, paying extreme attention to the trifecta and literally never once straying from it for a year (sleep/nutrition/exercise), it locked me into a proper mindset that I am able to sustain and not wane off of. Meaning I wouldn't have a new goal every single day, I wouldn't waste one day feeling extremely down in the dumps like I used to (used to be suicidal/suffer from extreme depression). No episodes, just focus.

Start getting strong, it will absolutely change your life and empower you.

<comment><USER14> Before anyone runs to the gym to buy a membership to copy the above, what rfnslyr did takes intense dedication and focus and he likely has very good genetics. Compound exercises that SS teaches are the best method for gaining overall body strength and mass. Just remember that working out is 75% nutrition and 25% lifting. If you don't eat right you wont make gains.

<comment><USER13> > If you don't eat right you wont make gains.

The golden rule (unless you're in highschool and rancid with hormones).

It really does take dedication. I had every day, every meal planned, at what time, at what time i wake and sleep, etc.

Allocate X amount of meals you are comfortable with eating per day (I like to eat four). Buy 7 x 4 containers. I like to eat two snacks a day too at work. 2 small containers x 7. So I got containers, 28 large, 14 small (for yogurt + fruit).

Protein - lean meat (beef, chicken, turkey, salmon, various fishes)

Fat - honestly just straight olive oil poured into my meal, makes it all nice and wet and makes it go down easy.

Carbs - anything carby, though I abided strictly by sweet potato for carbs. I want more carbs? Weigh out more sweet potato mashed, so easy for carbs. That and bananas are my two go to source.

4 meals a day, 4000 calories. 1000 calories/meal. 1 meal consists of 3 macros. Fat has 9cal/g, carb has 4cal/g, protein has 4cal/g. 75g pro, 100g carb, 30g fat. That's per container. Now I have 4 of those for every day + 2 snacks of whatever I want (this was my "cheat" meal, so fruits or some sort of yogurt, or some celery to be dipped in nutella, etc, something to keep me sane).

That's all there is to it. Then gym 3x a day, and monitoring my sleep with Sleepcycle every night and sleepyti.me.

Exercise hacking! I might do another full year of strict dieting and lifting while documenting it all.

<comment><USER15> That is some incredible dedication!

> Then gym 3x a day,

Did you mean 3x a week? Also, did you do much experimentation with your macro levels? And how would you adjust things given feedback from your sleep tracking?

Thanks again for this anecdote, it's really inspiring.

<comment><USER13> I meant gym 3x a week. I did do experimentation. For a few months.

I started at 2000 calories for two weeks. Noticed weight loss, kept adjusting 300 per two weeks to see fluctuations. 2300 still losing, 2700 still losing, 3000 I gained a bit, 4000 I gain a lot of fat. When working out intensely, biking, and sprinting, I only gain a bit on 4000.

During this time I ate zero sodium outright, only whatever the food contained. No condiments, just fresh cooked without spices or anything to get true calories and weight down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What is missing in the discussion of this and the previous article is some reflection on physiology and why could prolonged sitting possibly be bad for you in the first place. One must know that that there are many processes in the human body that can only be executed efficiently when we move, like for example transfer of lymph or movement of digested food through the intestines (involuntary smooth muscle contractions are also involved in both processes but skeletal muscle contractions make it much more effective). Problems with the gastrointestinal tract, like not visiting the toilet often enough, have been linked to a great amount of diseases, so this is something to be concerned about.

Hence doing sports after 8 hours of sitting will not necessarily counterbalance all the negative effects involved. I am not so sure working standing would be better, either. I think a good practical recommendation that is great in many aspects is to take a short break every 2 hours or so and get just 5 minutes of exercise done, just enough to get the heart beating a bit faster and the blood circulating, it can be just basic stretching or isometric contractions, whatever you are able to easily execute in your office environment. It makes the work day much more productive, too.

<comment><USER17> > I am not so sure working standing would be better, either.

I'm curious if standing desks make taking breaks much more accessible. Like many others, I use a program that basically notifies me every 30 minutes to take a 2 minute break. Even then, I find myself "skipping" them often as I'm typically in the middle of intense focus and I honestly feel like it's too much effort to get up and walk around at times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'll recommend Dan John's book "Intervention" because I think his approach to fitness for individuals covers a good chunk of the HN crowd.

Personally, I have always been active and fit, but the reality of getting older and being part of a startup have made me fine-tune my regiment. I'd never been a gym rat, but having the time in school to spend 1.5-2 hours preparing for my sports seems ever the luxury today. Since the New Year (and the purchase of a road bike), I've been following a pretty consistent routine of biking to work (ranges between 4 and 6 km depending on the route I take), lifting at the gym for 30-45 minutes, and attending yoga classes at least twice weekly (one weekday evening class and one weekend morning class typically). I also play in a men's basketball league one night a week for most of the year. This provides the core of my activity; I can usually be found hiking, surfing, playing pickup soccer or basketball, and pretty much anything else active at various points too (which the core work supports and enhances).

My gym sessions consist of 20 minutes of mobility exercises, moving all the joints in all the ranges of motion they should enjoy, followed by a focused "workout", usually 10-15 minutes long. They are almost exclusively full body movements, sometimes done with low reps and heavy weight (such as double kettlebell clean and jerks, 4 sets of 5), sometimes complexes (such as 4 sets of (3-5 pull ups then 10-15 pushups)), and sometimes Crossfit-style workouts (5 burpees, 10 kettlebell snatch (5 per arm), 15 mountain climbers, and 20 kettlebell swings (10 per arm); repeat until you can't).

For my training, I have three simple steps (stolen from Dan John): 1\. Do Something 2\. Adjust 3\. Perfect

Anyway, that's my me-too to add to the OP.

</comment><comment><USER19> Recently, there was an article in New Scientist about this[1]. Basically, if you sit for more than 6 hours a day, one hour of exercise a day doesn't undo the damage.

The solution is to get up and move around often, i.e. every ~20 minutes or so.

Exercise is still good even if you stand/move around often. And standing all day also has its problems, like others have mentioned.

[1] [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829233.200-dont- take...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829233.200-dont-take-life- sitting-down.html)

(edit: wording)

<comment><USER20> The problem with sitting for long periods of time, or remaining in any static position really, is that as muscles fatigue more stress is put on joints and bones. Having more muscle and strength helps significantly, but not all forms of exercise develops muscle and strength adaptations equally.

It would depend on the exercise. If you by "exercise" mean superflous human movement for the purpose of wasting excess energy, I would agree it doesn't do much to counter sitting the rest of the day, it's basically just a break from sitting.

If you instead mean methodical heavy barbell training for the purpose of invoking physiological adaptations in the form of increased muscle and strength, it would probably do a great deal to offset sitting for the rest of the day, especially coupled with the increased awareness and understanding of spinal positioning that comes with lifting weights.

Most of the time when people talk of "exercise", they mean the kind that don't do much for muscle and strength development (mainly the aerobic kind or light anaerobic work), but a lot of people actually do the kind that does.

<comment><USER21> I love my barbell, but I'd still like to get my standing desk back.

Use both, if you can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure about that. This guy has gone through some extremes. First he was standing 8 hours a day, no workout. Then he was sitting 12 hours a day, no workout. Then he got into bodybuilding using lots of machines which made him gain lots of muscles and finally he scales back to something I would call "normal": a healthy workout of 30min per day but... with some no-training gaps in between which can be several months long? I'm glad that he found his own routine but why did it take him so many years of going through extremes and now he's advertising his method like the only truth but still not sticking to the basics like eating healthy?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't call what I did or even what I do as "extreme". Far from it. Taking steroids and growth hormone is extreme. Lifting weights and enjoying it to the point where you want to better yourself at it? I don't see it as extreme.

I also do not go several months without working out often. I did it during a shoulder surgery recovery and again earlier this year. I agree that is not a good idea, but life does get in the way sometimes and I was just pointing out that I'm no different than other people in that aspect.

I also wouldn't advocate that my way is the one true way. I will say that my results are probably pretty typical of what most people may experience when they actually decide to exercise.

<comment><USER23> > Lifting weights and enjoying it to the point where you want to better > yourself at it? I don't see it as extreme.

I do. It is moving for the sake of moving rather than to achieve some productive effect. To me exercise is riding my to a place where I need to go rather than going by car if the distance is about right and the weather on the way out not too brutal. Walking, playing with the kids and so on. Lifting weights would indicate that I have calories to burn that go towards nothing else that helps. Usually at the end of the day I'm tired enough that I long for a bed rather than for more movement, especially not movement involving weights bought for the specific purpose of making that movement harder.

If I really did have energy to burn after a full day I'd probably take up some sport or spend that time and energy improving the place that I live in.

<comment><USER24> Lifting weights doesn't burn that many calories, compared to walking, running, etc. You can also have substantial strength gains by doing it just 2-3 times a week.

"Resistance training" gives you muscle mass so you can live longer. It gives you strength so you can do more in your daily life--lift a heavy object and without injuring yourself, for example. Having good leg strength can help prevent knee injury when you're out hiking with your kids.

Are you chopping and stacking wood at home? Lifting anything heavy (as trite as that sounds) at work? Or anything physically challenging that requires strength throughout the week? Chances are, like many of us geeks, the answer is no or very little. Lifting weights is a way to fix that. If you were working a physically demanding job, you wouldn't need to lift weights.

And anyway, don't interpret lifting weights too literally! Don't buy weights, use your body: pushups, pullups, etc. You can do pullups off the edge of a desk. Dips off the edge of a chair. Lunges and squats and "jumpy" versions thereof will give you plenty of leg and hip strength without any weights.

<comment><USER25> > Lifting weights doesn't burn that many calories, compared to walking, > running, etc.

Doesn't increasing your muscle mass increase your metabolism? That is, your body's base calorie burn rate increases when you have more muscle to maintain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One case = anecdote. There is actually some evidence that you can't counteract the effects of sitting with exercise, unless you exercise more than you sit. And what exactly does "I'm healthy" mean? Is that what the doctor says after doing some test or is it just how you feel? What would be the status of your health (as measured by tests from a doctor) if you had an active job and some moderate exercise for the same period of 13 years?

source: [http://m.runnersworld.com/health/sitting-is-the-new- smoking-...](http://m.runnersworld.com/health/sitting-is-the-new-smoking-even- for-runners)

<comment><AUTHOR> I had a physical by my doctor about 3 months ago, as stated in my writing. So, yes... "I'm healthy" was declared by tests from a doctor.

<comment><USER26> Then it's seems that it's working out for you and maybe that would be a "middle road" for us, desk-bound people. However we still cannot fully counteract the negative effects of sitting, to quote the article which I linked in my previous post:

"Adding to the mounting evidence, Hamilton recently discovered that a key gene (called lipid phosphate phosphatase-1 or LPP1) that helps prevent blood clotting and inflammation to keep your cardiovascular system healthy is significantly suppressed when you sit for a few hours. "The shocker was that LPP1 was not impacted by exercise if the muscles were inactive most of the day," Hamilton says. "Pretty scary to say that LPP1 is sensitive to sitting but resistant to exercise."

<comment><AUTHOR> That's certainly possible. There is no way to tell other than to give it a shot for yourself.

However, I will mention, I'm not blessed with great genetics by any means. I would say I am an average/below average individual when it comes to "good genetics". My entire family is riddled with health issues. My father died at the early age of 56 due to heart disease, his brother at 60. His father at 52. When I found I had cholesterol issues, this is what made me start my exercise routine, so I didn't end up like them. So far, it has helped me tremendously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you use a standing desk 20+ hours a week, you aren't sedentary. People who are stuck being sedentary won't be able to move to using a standing desk unless they stop being sedentary. There's a big gap between being sedentary and getting proper exercise.

Sitting allows people to spend a lot of time moving very little, in addition to time spent sleeping. Standing involves a fair amount of effort.

Just because using a standing desk often is a sure way for a person to not be sedentary doesn't mean it's the best idea. In fact the most sedentary people are probably going to have a hard time adapting to using a standing desk full- time.

</comment><comment><USER28> When I worked in a "war room" one of the guys got us on a pushup routine. 2-3 times a day everyone stops what they're doing and does pushups. Start with as many as you can do (even if it's 5) and just do it a few times a day and you'll build up strength really quick. The guy who started it was about 40 and pretty heavy. We had two mid-30s moms in our room who got in on it and worked up to 20 pushups (from their feet, not knees) in a few weeks. Sadly, the band broke up after a while and moved to different areas, but it was pretty awesome while it lasted.

</comment><comment><USER29> OK people it's pretty simple.

The scientific evidence is you can not undo the damage from sitting extended periods by exercise or anything else known.

Current scientific evidence is you can only not sit.

Like all things there is some science that says hey maybe it's not true but the trend is going towards not sitting.

</comment><comment><USER30> Site seems flakey, here's a mirror — [http://archive.is/IbSt2](http://archive.is/IbSt2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this. I'm not sure what has happened to my server all of the sudden, it has handled loads bigger than what I was getting from posting this article. However, it has literally taken a jump off of a cliff.

<comment><USER31> Controversial use of 'literally' :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The author seems to miss the facts that spurred the trend for standing desks in the first place. Whether you exercise or not, sitting down all day dramatically increases your chances of dying from heart disease.

[http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sitting/AN02082](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sitting/AN02082)

</comment><comment><USER33> 100% agree.

Also a perk of living in a city (such as San Francisco) is I can walk EVERYWHERE, including work and I do. Like the OP, walking to and from work and hitting the gym most days has vastly improved my quality of life and it doesn't even take away from much of my evening.

If you need something to get you motivated, grab a Fitbit tracker and/or scale and track yourself. It'll only work in the beginning, but if you use that to your advantage to get out of your lazy slump, it should carry you forward.

<comment><USER34> > Also a perk of living in a city (such as San Francisco)

How is it related to living in a city? At least in the Bay Area you can walk/cycle pretty much everywhere if your work is close enough to your job. And cycling in suburbs is usually safer/healthier than e.g. in San Francisco.

You're out of luck if your job is far from your home though. But one will have the same problem in city as well in that case.

<comment><USER35> _How is it related to living in a city? At least in the Bay Area you can walk /cycle pretty much everywhere if your work is close enough to your job. And cycling in suburbs is usually safer/healthier than e.g. in San Francisco._

This depends on location. In my area, the suburbs (designed as they were in the 1950s-1970s) tend to be very pedestrian and cyclist unfriendly places, particularly in those areas with business parks. If you want to get around without a car, then you really need to be in the city.

Your second point, however, is right on. I've always made it a point to find jobs within 10 miles of my home, so the bike commute is reasonable (having briefly done a 40 mile round trip commute, I can say that it took up too much of my time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor.

Obviously if you exercise it doesn't really matter if you sit or stand at work. The question is how to handle the case when you can't/won't exercise and still need to work.

<comment><USER37> [https://www.google.com/search?q=sitting+harmful+even+if+you+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=sitting+harmful+even+if+you+exercise)

Sitting for long periods tightens the hamstrings and cuts off circulation to your legs. Even if you exercise. Standing for long periods may give you varicose veins. Not sure there's a real solution here, other than to periodically disrupt any form of immobility.

<comment><USER38> The best posture is a varied one.

<comment><USER39> This may be my own pessimistic take, but something about the simplicity and obvious-correctness of that advice makes me think it'll never be as blogworthy as a less realistic goal that you'd have to buy something new to try.

Or, it's like the idea doesn't have the magic of an idea that you can't do right now but won't require any effort when the time is right- like "I could get up every few minutes and stretch and walk around already! That can't be it... I need to buy a standing desk and that'll make me stand all day so I'm healthy."

<comment><USER40> You could easily combine the boring idea with something new and shiny (that makes the idea work in real life^^).

Like a device giving you electric shocks every 10 minutes to make you remember to change your posture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> My work focus and overall health have really improved since I started running.

I started running casually a few years ago but began to notice a real difference when I began training for a half-marathon with a local team. The training only required a couple half-hour runs during the week and a longer run with the group on Saturday mornings. Having a goal to run a real race and support of team runs motivated me to follow through and I lost about 40lbs over the course of training. Since then I have run the full LA Marathon and in a couple of months I will be running the Chicago Marathon, and I can honestly say I'm in the best shape of my life. I never was a runner before but I can say I am one now.

It's not the running itself though, I think it's having a training goal and a team that supports you that can make it work. (btw my training group is Team World Vision, which has groups around the USA that run for causes). I would suggest the same result can come from biking, Crossfit, or other workout program where you have a clear goal and a group that supports your effort.

</comment><comment><USER42> I agree that software development as a job works only, if you exercise regularly. During the last 15 years, I swim regularly, twice a week, usually 2km freestyle. And I run once a week, 12 km. I do this with my wife and we do it before work. We always insisted to get the time in the morning. In summer, when the outdoor pools are open, we swim outside, although the pools open only at 9 am. We aren't at our desk before 10:30 in that case (once or twice a week). I won't accept a work that doesn't give me this freedom.

In the evening, the kids are at home and we cannot leave. And all the lazy office guys drift in the pool and this is annoying, if you want to swim.

I am 48 now and have zero health issues. No back problems, no blood pressure problems, not an ounce overweight. Same with my wife.

I can only whole-heartedly encourage everyone to do the same. It sets a standard for software developers and life is so much more enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER43> Gotta agree with this article. A standing desk has such a minor effect compared to actually doing vigorous exercise.

</comment><comment><USER44> What happens when you sit at a desk and your server melts in 57 minutes?

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm glad that the author is having a good experience with his sit all day and frequently exercise plan. But his conclusion that standing desks provide very little benefit to your overall health is based on his sample size of one, never actually using a standing desk, and then extrapolating that "result" to the rest of the human race.

The only useful conclusion in this post has nothing to do with standing desks. It is simply that exercise will help you feel good and improve your health.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Sitting at desk considered harmful considered harmful"? To be fair, I haven't seen any standing desk articles claiming that standing is some sort of magical panacea that can fully substitute for conventional exercise and a healthy diet, although I'm sure there's at least one out there.

<comment><USER47> "Sitting is bad for you" is one of the hottest topics in popular health right now.

Standing isn't so much a panacea as an alternative to the aforementioned sitting.

Our forefathers didn't formally "exercise" in a gym - they moved around. As a practical matter, standing allows desk workers more movement than sitting does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Moving to a standing desk is not "futile". For myself, a standing desk prevents me from reinjuring my lower back and potentially missing out on a couple days of work due to back spasms. Others use it to help them with repetitive stress injury.

And how did I injure my back? Exercising with too much weights at the gym!

<comment><USER49> Usually it's not too much weight, but the wrong posture/trajectory of the exercise that causes injuries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I think a previous HN article of a 10 minute routine of body weight exercises is a better program for many than a weight lifting routine for cardio and maintaining body weight. I think body weight exercises are often overlooked. Pullups, situps, pushups, pistol squats. Also add a jump rope for little weight, portability, and requires little space. I don't see too many fat runners, gymnasts, or cyclists. Power lifters, Olympic weight lifters often have a lot of fat with muscle. I like a pyramid type routine of starting with 1 pullup, 2 pushups, 3 situps, and repeat doing multiples ( ie then 2 pullups, 4 pushups, 6 situps, ...). For jumping rope remember to alternate the weight bearing foot like a boxer, jumping with both feet together takes more energy and I find lactic acid builds up faster.

</comment><comment><USER51> What happens if I already have a scoliosis and I spend 15 years or so siting at desk for 12 or more hours a day and I don't exercise?

Absolutely nothing. Provided that I eat appropriately to my activity and my chairs are always somewhat uncomfortable.

But if I spend a year working from chair as deeply reclined and comfortable (and position fixing) as this one: [http://www.healthyback.com/products/Humantouch/Pc095-perfect...](http://www.healthyback.com/products/Humantouch/Pc095-perfect- chair-electric-recliner/174) I get back pains because small muscles around my spine get weak and can be overstretched and damaged when I lift a fridge or something or just twist rapidly in some unusual direction.

</comment><comment><USER52> My winter workout: pomodoro technique + no heating + pull-up bar. Work 25 minutes. Now you're so cold your fingers are about to drop off. Do push-ups until warm again. Work another 25 minutes. Now do pull-ups. Repeat..

<comment><USER53> Not sure if you're serious, but having spent the last winter without central heating due to rather unfortunate renovation works timing, I'm really not sure this is a good thing. There were several consecutive weeks where the temperature inside would never rise above 10degrees celcius as we only head a small petrol burner. At night the condensation froze on the walls (outside temperatures of -10 degrees celcius). Sure enough movement keeps you warm, but basically you're always cold unless you're moving. I don't think I ever felt worse physically. Did gain quite some respect for homeless people in cold places though.

<comment><USER52> Semi-serious :-) I've worked in a number of cold, sometimes freezing locations in the depths of winter, although not quite as bad as your situation by the sounds of it. Push-ups and exercise does keep you warm and sharp though, should you need it. Sadly there's no quick fix for the opposite situation, when your mind turns to glue in the summer heat.

<comment><USER53> totally agree on the summer heat - you can always get warm with enough effort, getting cold without external help is simply impossible (I think?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I like to train in mixed martial arts. Judo/Boxing/BJJ/etc. It's a good way to get in shape that also offers a steep intellectual and physical challenge. At least, they're both similar in that people usually compliment each other on how much technique they have.

I've noticed a correlation with programmers that train. The crazier the languages they like the better grapplers they are, yet DevOps types lean toward striking. Don't think it makes any sense though.

</comment><comment><USER55> Enjoyed reading this - I didn't expect that anyone could be serious about the art and craft of window tinting!

However, deanproxy seems like the kind of guy who can tackle anything and throw in a few ounces of obsession to make it work. For the regular Joe standing desks might just be the one tiny thing they can do. They've become super popular at cubicleland here at HP and our facilities people will come and set them up for free.

</comment><comment><USER56> Between the two 'extremes' of standing and sitting, there's also the saddle chair [1]. I've used one at home for over a year now, but only up to a few hours a day, so can't really tell how much it has affected my posture in addition to regular exercise.

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

<comment><USER57> I wanted to try something like this but didn't have one so I used a stool (4 legged IKEA with thin cushion). Not good, exhaustion feeling comes quickly, bad blood flow I suppose. I never bother searching for a real saddle chair but your post makes me wanna buy one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> If you sit all day the couch stretch [1] helps a lot to undo the shortening in your hip flexors. 2 min a day each side. Really painful if you sit a lot.

Kelly Starrett has a lot of great information about mobility.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-ZX...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-ZX1QMTdAC4#t=126)

</comment><comment><USER59> Couldn't agree more with the standing desks - no doubt they bring some improvement, but they do seem more like the 'in-thing' and 'hip' rather than genuinely life changing. As it always has been, regular (even if short) exercise sessions are a key part in healthy living.

<comment><USER60> The thing I like about standing desks is that they encourage better behavior than a sitting desk -- they're not by themselves anything like a panacea, but it's a lot harder to be completely sessile when you're standing up. The style of working at a standing desk, I find, is conducive to taking short breaks, walking around, even moving to a chair to sit and read or think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> For those of you that are interested, you might want to look up "Convict Conditioning".

[http://www.amazon.com/Convict-Conditioning-Weakness-Using- Su...](http://www.amazon.com/Convict-Conditioning-Weakness-Using-Survival- Strength/dp/0938045768)

</comment><comment><USER62> Swimming is awesome. The overhead can be significant (finding a pool with lap swim hours amenable to your schedule) but the equipment cost is minimal ($20 speedo) and it's amazing exercise. I also find the time in the water to be a soothing break from the outside world.

</comment><comment><USER63> The only reason people don't exercise is because they don't. I don't know of a genuine reason to not be able to spare 20 minutes a day. If you can do nothing else, run for 10 minutes and do 50 push ups, that's all it takes.

</comment><comment><USER64> Too much of anything is usually bad for health. You can even exercise too much. So I don't think standing all day is the best solution. With adjustable desks it is pretty easy to alternate your working position during the day.

</comment><comment><USER65> COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS DISCUSSION BELOW. Spare yourself 76 more or less useless comments and STOP HERE.

You sit. That's it. There is almost nothing you can do about it. It's called work. Anyway, it's NOT dangerous.

Get a coffee, go to the men's room, get lunch, stand for a while, go to the silent reading room... That's automatic and stops you from being seated more than an hour at a stretch.

Add 30 minutes of walking every day (7 minutes to the office, 7 minutes home, 7 minutes to get lunch, 7 minutes to get back and then maybe to and from a meeting) and you should be OK as long as you don't stuff yourself with cheeseburgers and fries everyday.

If you on top of that add 4 hours of weight lifting (actually 1 hour lifting and 3 hours resting) you can get extremely fit; Gladiator contender or Fear factor kind of fit. Like I am.

Also, don't forget intermittent fasting everyday 16:8-style.

<comment><USER26> With that kind of logic, most discussions would be meaningless. Basically we are all dying from a disease called "life". The point is how you want to die: either miserably from chronic illnesses brought by long years of bad habits or gracefully from old age. However, there are no guarantees, but if you don't buy a ticket, you have zero chances of winning. Anyway, eating "healthy" does not beat exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> 3 x 1h exercises a week during 50 years is approx. a year lifetime. It is likely that if you do this you add more than one healthy year to your lifetime. Therefore exercises are saving life time.

</comment><comment><USER67> ... Your site goes down?

</comment><comment><USER51> Standing, sitting. It's all so tiring. Why we don't have chairs in which you could float submerged in pen of small balls that have similar density as your body?

</comment><comment><USER68> What happens if you stand at a standing desk _and_ exercise? It's going well for me. $10 in lumber to convert my normal sitting desk.

</comment><comment><USER69> I would guess the author already knows this, but kayaking is strongly associated with shoulder injuries/dislocations. Be careful, dude!

</comment><comment><USER70> Why not do both?

<comment><AUTHOR> If using a standing desk sounds like a good idea to you and you have the means to afford one or build one, it couldn't hurt to do both. My argument was that I did not feel like it was necessary considering my progress with sitting and doing regular exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is why I installed a gym at work.

<comment><USER72> our HR is concerned that squat rack can hurt someone

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> increase the dynos!

</comment><comment><USER74> I agree with the points he makes and have had a similar experience. I have worked desk jobs with minimal movement for the last 10 years and getting into resistance training plus cardio has made a huge difference in the amount of energy I have, mood, posture, etc.

One statement I take issue with is this line "I put on 40 pounds of muscle one year alone...". This is essentially impossible barring a malfunctioning thyroid. I don't doubt that he put on 40 pounds of weight in a year but I can guarantee it wasn't all muscle. If you are 17-20 and finishing up puberty, using anabolic steroids, working out incredibly hard 5-6 days per week, and eating 4000+ calories per day every day _maybe_ you could put on 30 pounds of muscle in a year. If you are in your late 20s early 30s as he was, not using steroids (I assume), and working out hard your max muscle gain in a year might be around 20lbs. For a normal 30 year old working out 3x a week it's closer to 12-15lbs/year after newbie-gains have ended. I say this not to discourage but rather to give people realistic expectations, I believe the most common reason people fail at exercise is they are overly ambitious and burn out quickly when they don't look like Hulk overnight.

If someone was looking for a good starting point for fitness I recommend scooby1961 on youtube, he has been around a long time and has a ton of videos on fitness and nutrition aimed at newbies, and takes the perspective of an engineer looking at the body as a machine.

As someone who has been into this for a while my advice would be:

1\. Start small and ramp up, if you do nothing currently start with walking 20 minutes per day.

2\. Do not spend a bunch of money on fancy equipment, like all hobbies until you get deeper into the game you won't even know what you should get.

3\. Avoid injury, esp your lower back and shoulders. The best way to do this is perfect form. Always have perfect form, cheating with bad form to get one extra rep is only cheating yourself, the goal is to work the muscle to failure, not hit some number.

4\. If you want to do a home gym you can work 95% of your muscle groups with dumbbells, a barbell, and a pullup bar. The only thing you cannot work out well with these is your quads. For that you need a leg press machine or a squat cage (ie: a gym).

5\. Most suppliments are unproven snake oil that waste your money at best, and at worst destroy your kidneys/liver or give you heavy metal poisoning. The only supplements I consider proven effective with minimal side-effects are caffeine (pre-workout) and creatine. I will not recommend any brands but look for ones that are quality tested by independent labs (like USP).

6\. Cardio with resistance (weights) is best, but if you only have time for one make it cardio. This is more important for your long term health.

7\. Sticking to a routine is not about will-power, it's about habits. The first time you work out with weights it's intimidating as hell and you feel like a bumbling idiot, you do that 2 or 3 times a week for a few weeks and it feels like a chore, you do it for a year and it happens on auto pilot, you don't even think about it.

</comment><comment><USER75> n of 1 != proof.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's proof that it worked for me. Somebody of average genetics and physique that had a lot of the same problems that others complain about and in turn try standing desks. Sometimes it's best to just give it a shot and see how it works for you instead of trying to find reasons not to try it. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> > To me, this has always seemed a bit futile as well as overkill. You're still > sedentary. You're providing very little benefit to your overall well being > and it's simply yet another way that people are trying to get something for > nothing when it comes to health . I've read a lot of the examples of it's > positive effects. I've read a lot of the raving reviews of people that do > this, but I ultimately come to the same conclusion every time I read this > stuff... exercise a little bit every day. It's healthier than standing all > day, it's free, doesn't require expensive furniture, doesn't require you to > beg your boss for something expensive and it's something you should be doing > anyway.

I'm tired of this type of condescension. I guess because the author writes to a community of programmers, or nerds, or whatever, he feels that he can address them as if they are all sloths. I have not had the impression in the overall debate about this standing/sitting business that people are saying that they are going over to a standing desk in order to _not_ exercise. One can perfectly well imagine that the people that are going over to a standing desk because they think that it brings benefits that are a good complement to an overall healthy lifestyle, like eating and exercising properly (I notice that you say that you don't eat healthily, deanproxy... does this mean that you willingly do this because you think that an exercise routine can fully compensate for a bad diet...?). If someone vows to try to have better posture in their everyday life, does that mean that they think that it is a replacement for something like a good exercise routing for the back muscles? No. So this is standing/sitting contra exercising is a false dichotomy.

In fact, this whole standing/sitting discussion was partly propelled by studies that showed that sitting a lot was bad for ones health, _also for active people_ [0] :

> __Even when adults meet physical activity guidelines, sitting for prolonged > periods can compromise metabolic health. __

To turn deanproxy 's baseless condescenscion towards "standers" and their supposed lazyness on its head: deanproxy is simply trying to rationalize his sedentary habits by asserting that having discrete blocks of activity time during the day counteracts his sedentary existence for the rest of the day.

To get the whole picture and in order to be in a position to assert that standing is inconsequential, deanproxy should also have experience with a lifestyle in which he exercises and stands/walks/is somewhat active in his day job. But it does not seem that he does. Perhaps not too surprising when his whole argument rests on standing CONTRA exercising in your free time. And what all of this shows is that the zealots (imaginary or not) who vow to NOT exercise BECAUSE they stand during their day jobs are leading an inferior lifestyle because deanproxy exercises and is able to do WITHOUT standing (and eating healthily... ). So deanproxy can claim victory here, the victory of being an exercise-zealot over the standing-zealots.

[0] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404815/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404815/)</comment>


Deconstructing Secure HTTP Without HTTPS - <AUTHOR> https://poshsecurity.com/blog/deconstructing-secure-http-without-https <comment><USER2> Quite a thorough review, and crowdsourced nonetheless. I wonder if this is the type of thing that can gain actual traction to fund reviews of libraries, or if this was more of a once-off thing caused by the library being relatively cheap (compared to the actual time investment by Kieran) and getting a bit of social media traction.</comment>


Spritz: Speed Reading - <AUTHOR> http://www.spritzinc.com/the-science

<comment><AUTHOR> neat demo on the home page, and at the top right of every page.</comment>


Clearing the Air on Wi-Fi Software Updates - <AUTHOR> https://www.fcc.gov/blog/clearing-air-wi-fi-software-updates <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10555544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10555544)</comment>


Have Scientists Discovered Evidence for Psychic Phenomena? - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-thinker/201010/have-scientists-finally-discovered-evidence-psychic-phenomena

<comment><USER2> nope, they've discovered that physics is wierd.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nope. Flawed tests gets you weird results.

How is showing words before a image not affecting the out come?</comment>


UH Researchers Report New, More Efficient Catalyst for Water Splitting - <AUTHOR> http://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2017/April/05152017Ren-Water-Catalyst.php <comment><USER2> Some background and context from someone tangentially related to the field:

1\. The overall idea here is to take an intermittent energy source (e.g. solar power) and "store" it as chemical fuel, in this case hydrogen and oxygen. This is what plants do, and we can also view fossil fuels as resulting from the "storage" of millions of years of solar energy. Note also that you get the water back when you burn the hydrogen, so there is no net consumption of water, it's just a carrier.

2\. While you can split water without a catalyst, most of the energy gets wasted as heat, so this is not a great way to go if you're trying to do energy storage.

3\. Efficient catalysts exist for this reaction, but they are based on rare and expensive metals, typically Pd, Pt, and Ir. As a result, there has been a search for catalysts involving "first-row" metals such as Fe, Co, Ni, etc.

4\. There are variety of metrics for an electrocatalyst (efficiency, stability, cost, etc), but it's a fair bet that if this were significantly better than state-of-the-art, it would be in Science or Nature rather than PNAS.

<comment><USER3> Beyond the expensive of the metals another problem is duty cycles. Most transition metal catalysis is oxygen sensitive, and it seems like for some reason the first step of splitting water is creating oxygen. Plants go through great lengths to separate oxygen synthesis (photosystem II) from electron consumption. Most hydrogen production in lower organisms (like e coli) occurs entirely in anoxic conditions. Engineered systems for generating hydrogen via algae typically are temporally segregated (harvest light during day, produce hydrogen at night) which defeats the purpose and is also chemically steppy (carbohydrate intermediates).

<comment><USER4> > and it seems like for some reason the first step of splitting water is > creating oxygen

good laugh on that :)

<comment><USER5> Consider a split to H + OH as a first step, as opposed to H + H + O.

<comment><USER3> What exactly are you proposing? What do you do with the OH?

<comment><USER5> This is a possible first step of a water-splitting reaction that does not produce oxygen.

<comment><USER3> I suggest going back to your chemistry text and reviewing mass balance, conservation of matter, and balancing equations.

What is that OH? Is it hydroxide radical? Hydroxide? Hydroxyl radical? Where does it go? Does it recombine to make hydrogen peroxide?

Btw... To make oxygen from water the first part of the first step is to split it into H and HO. You can't really break two bonds simultaneously, or anyways it's equivalent to doing them stepwise by the principle of microscopic reversibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I emailed Jeannie and she sent me the paper. I'm an idiot about finding a place to post it or host it (or find it), but the title of the paper is: "Highly active catalyst derived from a 3D foam of Fe(PO3)2/Ni2P for extremely efficient water oxidation"

Searched for that and got this: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/10/1701562114.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/10/1701562114.abstract)

<comment><USER7> How much more efficient is this than existing catalysts? Any obvious scaling impediments?

<comment><USER8> As a former chemist in another but related field, this phrase is telling and part of why it is not in a higher impact journal: "We find that this catalyst, which may be associated with the in situ generated nickel–iron oxide/hydroxide and iron oxyhydroxide catalysts at the surface". This is generally code for "we're getting some sort of nano surface effect we're not 100% sure we understand or can replicate." I can't access the full paper, but the downfall of catalysts are usually: cost, durability, or unreproduciblity\creation cost. Getting nano surfaces to grow properly at industrial (10s of grams scale as one researcher said to me) is still more of an art than a science, with maybe one guy in a 10 person group able to get the substrate to perform.

Not super aimed at this particular paper, but those are probably the reasons you don't see fireworks going off over inorganic labs around the country about this paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am really miffed at this quote:

"Hydrogen is the cleanest primary energy source we have on earth," said Paul C. W. Chu, TLL Temple Chair of Science and founding director and chief scientist of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH.

This seems like sensationalism and poor science communication to me. Hydrogen isn't a primary energy source.

<comment><USER10> Primary in the sense that we can utilize hydrogen directly for energy (terrestrial fusion and fuel cell) just like with coal and other fossil fuels

It has nothing to do with market share

<comment><USER9> "Primary energy source" is a term with a specific meaning. I'm not talking about market share.

Primary energy sources do not require any type of conversion. Fossil fuels, nuclear, wind, and solar are all primary energy sources. Free hydrogen isn't found in nature. It can be made by splitting water using energy from a primary source. The catalyst described in this press release makes that process more efficient, but it still takes energy from a primary source to create hydrogen.

Reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy)

<comment><USER11> > Free hydrogen isn't found in nature.

Sure it is; you just have to go kind of far out of the solar system before you'll start running into it. Molecular clouds of hydrogen are what makes those pretty Hubble pictures of nebulae. :)

<comment><USER9> Heh heh... you're bringing back memories of "Fuel Scoops" in Elite on my C64!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am (was) a chemist but I find this research area somewhat puzzling. Electrolytic hydrogen production has been industrialized for more than a century. Put nickel electrodes in an aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide. Separate anode and cathode with a porous diaphragm. Run direct current through it. Get pure hydrogen. "Simple" alkaline electrolysis is only ~50% efficient, but that means there's only a factor of two efficiency gain possible no matter how good your catalyst. Large commercial electrolyzers from a decade ago reached ~70%. Why so much research on further marginal efficiency gains from new catalysts? Are there other costs that fall faster-than-linearly with improved efficiency?

<comment><USER13> _Large commercial electrolyzers from a decade ago reached ~70% (efficiency). "_

That's good to know. No "breakthrough" can improve the process by more than another 30%. NREL says the best commercial systems are at 73% today.[1] There's also an additional energy cost for compressing the hydrogen.

That's pretty good. Getting any chemical or electrochemical process up to 73% efficiency is a good result.

[1] [http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36705.pdf](http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36705.pdf)

<comment><USER12> That was actually the data source I was thinking of. It's reviewing units commercially available by the end of 2003. More time had passed than I thought.

I agree that the efficiency is already pretty good and even a "perfect" system would not drastically lower energy inputs further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> WSU in 2016: [https://news.wsu.edu/2016/10/25/better-water-splitting- catal...](https://news.wsu.edu/2016/10/25/better-water-splitting-catalyst/)

Missouri U: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cssc.201601631/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cssc.201601631/abstract;jsessionid=0CBBE4F0EBB05A15864081DE3851C125.f02t02)

Stanford: [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6303/1011.full](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6303/1011.full)

Lots and lots and lots of research going on in this space. So far nothing that can be used to produce hydrogen at scale.

</comment><comment><USER15> > That would solve one of the primary hurdles remaining in using water to > produce hydrogen, one of the most promising sources of clean energy.

What? No. Hydrogen is not a source of energy, it's a storage format. A more efficient catalyst will certainly help with losses when storing the energy, but there's no net gain.

<comment><USER16> It said sources of clean energy, not a source of clean electricity for the power grid.

<comment><USER17> Still wrong, this process is a _sink_ of energy, not a source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some total n00b questions:

Could this also be used in desalination? Turn into hydrogen, burn to convert back to water, feed it catalyst material like a fuel? (I'm not really sure how these catalysts work, do you like push water through them? and out comes gases?)

<comment><USER19> You can do that already with electrolysis, but why would you? It's way more expensive than approaches like reverse osmosis.

<comment><USER20> If you electrolyze salt water you will generate chlorine and hydrogen gas (instead of oxygen and hydrogen).

The water will also contain lye from the leftover sodium.

<comment><USER18> DOH (to me). This was the answer I needed to see. Thanks for saving me from this tangent!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So, uh, do catalysts like this reduce the waste heat you get when electrolyzing water with a cruder setup? Because there's nothing but a specific minimum energy input that's going to break the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen.

<comment><USER22> a catalyst by definition reduces the minimum energy input required for a chemical reaction to occur

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> >And unlike solar power, wind power and other "clean" energy, hydrogen can be easily stored

Sure it's easier than other forms, but it's my understanding that there are some significant challenges in storing hydrogen?

<comment><USER24> hydrogen makes metals brittle and there can be catastrophic failure of valves, regulators etc.

there are only 3 significant problems with hydrogen as an energy carrier to solve before it becomes ubiquitous: 1\. how to make it 2\. how to store it & transport it 3\. how to use it

IMO there was a time in the late 80s, early 90s when there was a chance it could be useful but the battery tech development over the last 25 years has nailed the coffin shut - hydrogen research persists because people with jobs know how to research hydrogen production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What are the key metrics for catalysts? Obviously cost is one. Round-trip energy efficiency? How does this measure up to existing commercial alternatives? How about against no-catalyst electrolysis?

<comment><USER26> Not round trip efficiency. The reasonable metric is electrolysis-only efficiency. Longevity is another good one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Could most uses of natural gas be replaced with hydrogen gas?

<comment><USER19> There's a reason why different gasses are used in different applications. Combustiblity, pressure required for liquefaction, flashpoint, safety and so on.

There's a lot of overlap between these in some areas like home heating and BBQs, but each application requires some engineering to make it work with any particular fuel.

The energy storage density of hydrocarbons make them more practical as a fuel in situations where portability is a concern. For example: You could have a hydrogen BBQ, but the tank would probably have to be much larger for the same amount of burn time.

<comment><USER17> > You could have a hydrogen BBQ, but the tank would probably have to be much > larger for the same amount of burn time.

Isn't the opposite true? I mean, hydrogen at 700 bar has a specific energy of 142 MJ/kg while hydrocarbons in general have less than 60 MJ/kg.

<comment><USER28> Yup but propane is 20x denser than hydrogen, so even if you have 2x energy per weight, you have 0.1x energy per volume. Or something like that.

<comment><USER17> Gotcha, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Anyone know what some "bigger picture" uses of this would be? It seems significant, but I'm not a chemist. Energy sources, desalination, etc?

<comment><USER17> One direct application would be more efficient ways to generate fuel for Hydrogen vehicles [0].

It would also be essential for mining fuel from asteroids or gas giant's moons as ice is not so rare, improving the sustainability of space operations. Hydrogen itself has a pretty big specific impulse, it's just not used more often than Kerosene for rockets due to safety issues.

If you could achieve Metallic Hydrogen [1][2] then you would have the perfect fuel for navigating the solar system.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen)

[2]: [http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/215/1/01...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/215/1/012194/meta)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any idea what this catalyst actually is, perhaps a link to a paper, or even just an actual abstract?

<comment><USER31> Is it this paper? [https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=uVxFD- sAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=uVxFD-sAAAAJ:KqnX2w3egDsC)

Direct PDF link: [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhenhuan_Zhao/publicati...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhenhuan_Zhao/publication/315612407_A_TiO2FeMnP_CoreShell_Nanorod_Array_Photoanode_for_Efficient_Photoelectrochemical_Oxygen_Evolution/links/58da73c6a6fdccca1c53f8f3/A-TiO2-FeMnP- Core-Shell-Nanorod-Array-Photoanode-for-Efficient-Photoelectrochemical-Oxygen- Evolution.pdf)

Abstract: A variety of catalysts have recently been developed for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution, but very few of them can be readily integrated with semiconducting light absorbers for photoelectrochemical or photocatalytic water splitting. Here, we demonstrate an efficient core/shell photoanode with a highly active oxygen evolution electrocatalyst shell (FeMnP) and semiconductor core (rutile TiO2) for photoelectrochemical oxygen evolution reaction. Metal−organic chemical vapor deposition from a singlesource precursor was used to ensure good contact between the FeMnP and the TiO2. The TiO2/FeMnP core/shell photoanode reaches the theoretical photocurrent density for rutile TiO2 of 1.8 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode under simulated 100 mW cm−2 (1 sun) irradiation. The dramatic enhancement is a result of the synergistic effects of the high oxygen evolution reaction activity of FeMnP (delivering an overpotential of 300 mV with a Tafel slope of 65 mV dec−1 in 1 M KOH) and the conductive interlayer between the surface active sites and semiconductor core which boosts the interfacial charge transfer and photocarrier collection. The facile fabrication of the TiO2/FeMnP core/shell nanorod array photoanode offers a compelling strategy for preparing highly efficient photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion devices.

<comment><USER32> I don't think so, Haiqing Zhou is not on that paper. Zhifeng Ren has a number of papers in this space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> mods, the original title should be preserved, currently it is : "U of Houston discovers catalyst that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen"

But the original title is : "UH Researchers Report New, _More Efficient_ Catalyst for Water Splitting"

catalyst for water splitting aren't new. the article even says it :

>The catalyst, composed of ferrous metaphosphate grown on a conductive nickel foam platform, is far more efficient than previous catalysts, as well as less expensive to produce.

<comment><USER34> Yes. Thanks.

Submitters: please don't rewrite titles unless they are misleading or linkbait. This is in the site rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Dang, I submitted the article. I was trying to use the r/futurology article title which was, "University of Houston physicists have discovered a catalyst that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, composed of easily available, low-cost materials and operating far more efficiently than previous catalysts, reported in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences."

HN has an 80 character limit for titles so I had to cut it down drastically from that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> When I see anything related to splitting water into hydrogen, I'm worried that we're going to use water for energy on top of using to hydrate people.

Still today, over 10% of the world population don't have access to clean water. I'm also curious on how clean the water needs to be to be used with this catalyst. AFAIK, most catalyst conversion need pretty pure water, in which case, we would not only use water, but use _clean_ water, which is even more scare than "dirty" water...

<comment><USER36> You regenerate the water when H2 and O2 are recombined to produce electricity.

Dan Nocera ( [http://nocera.harvard.edu](http://nocera.harvard.edu) ) is very prominent in the water splitting field and has done a calculation in which a volume of an olympic sized pool would need to be split every second to replace all power sources on earth ( [https://poptech.org/blog/daniel_nocera_on_personalized_energ...](https://poptech.org/blog/daniel_nocera_on_personalized_energy) ).

It seems like a lot, but it would presumably be decentralized across many many locations. Additionally, you don't need 24 * 60 * 60 * olympic pool volumes -- you can cycle the same amount of water into/out of a fuel cell in a closed system.

<comment><USER37> You are talking about several hundred billion liters.

The inland reservoir here is 100 billion liters:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-86.4337261,8900m/da...](https://email@example.com,-86.4337261,8900m/data=!3m1!1e3)

It's not very much water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How much water would this process need to make enough energy for this to have an impact? Presuming we wouldn't use up our fresh water resources for this and that it would come from the ocean, but would this process create potential threats to the marine habitat as the mineral/chemical concentrations of the ocean water shifted?

<comment><USER39> We wouldn't "use up" water at all for this. When you burn the hydrogen (to get the energy from it), it combines with oxygen and forms water.

(Unless you're "burning" the hydrogen in a fusion reactor. But that takes much less hydrogen...)</comment></comment>


Google AdSense Leak - <AUTHOR> https://pastebin.com/qh6Tta3h <comment><USER2> Already posted and discussed in 2014 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667976)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Title should probably be updated to add "(2014)".</comment></comment>


PgAdmin 4 v1.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.pgadmin.org/ <comment><USER2> I tried using and liking pgAdmin 4 beta for a few months. Even simple things like copy-paste from clipboard using Cmd-C/V, exporting/importing data to/from my local machine, etc were a hassle. Add to that the slow startup, sluggishness, and poor UX. I'm happily using Valentina Studio now. A small data point for others who may come to this thread looking for PostgreSQL GUI tools.

<comment><USER3> I've been using JetBrains DataGrip for my postgres needs. Been pretty good.

<comment><USER4> DataGrip is pretty good (used it since it was in beta), though I've found it a bit lacking if you're wanting to do some quick imports of data. Navicat works great however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am for one disappointed its no longer a native app and that its been reduced to a "web" app :(

<comment><USER6> At least they didn't try to make it some node/electron application and just let you use your browser. Using Python/HTML/JS greatly lowers the barrier to entry for contributions when compared to C. Hopefully it means better features/development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am for one excited it is available as a "web" app and are going in a new direction.

PGadmin was functional, I'll give it that, but it paled in comparison to MySQL's tools. If this can speed up development and make it better then I'm all for it.

Maybe they could integrate this[1] into it?

1\. [http://tatiyants.com/postgres-query-plan- visualization/](http://tatiyants.com/postgres-query-plan-visualization/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Really wish Sequel Pro[1] supported PostgreSQL... the issue tracking it[2] has a ton of support but has been open for years. The developer posted it may be available this year though!

[1]: [https://www.sequelpro.com/](https://www.sequelpro.com/) [2]: [https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/issues/362](https://github.com/sequelpro/sequelpro/issues/362)

<comment><USER9> I've found PSequel [1] to be a nice alternative though!

[1] [http://www.psequel.com/](http://www.psequel.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I installed this yesterday for about 10 minutes to look around. The UI (which is the main reason for PSQL GUI!) is all over the place. I find Postico and Postgres.app perfectly sufficient for my PSQL needs. Postico feels quite similar to SequelPro which I used previously so perhaps there is some bias there but I'll wait for PgAdmin to mature some more.

<comment><USER11> Postico looks great. Thank you for mentioning it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I run a local instance of Pgweb [1]. While not as feature packed, I find it sufficient. As another comment notes, PgAdmin has a lot of GUI related quirks making it awkward to use.

[1]: [https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb](https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb)

<comment><USER13> +1 for pgweb, it's really nicely made and nice to use.

Postico for Mac is also very nice to use:

[https://eggerapps.at/postico/](https://eggerapps.at/postico/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The day PostgreSQL had a decent development suite, that's the day PGSQL is going to rocket, it's sad that even the freaking MySQL and SQLite have better (free) tools.

<comment><USER15> Can you expand on what you think is missing that's available for MySQL and SQLite?

<comment><USER16> I completely agree with SadWebDeveloper. Postgres is seriously lacking a good UI. Or maybe another way to put it is that as someone coming from MSSQL and MySql, it seems the "postgres people" are used to a completely different way of work that feels odd to me.

Having worked with MSSQL for years, MS hit the right spot with Management Studio. It's an UI focused on writing SQL, and any wizard has a "Generate SQL for this" button. It let me write huge SQL files, save them, reopen then and run them. When I found dbForge Studio for MySql, I felt at home. I wish postgres had something like that.

Last week I went through ALL the GUIs in the postgres wiki page and found nothing good. Valentina Studio and EMS are good, but not great. EMS has a lot of features, but honestly it bothers me it cannot even use the default system font in windows, the environment it's built to run on. It's like it's stuck in 2002.

If I could sum it up, the thing I miss the most is being able to work with SQL. I want the first button in the toolbar to be a "New SQL Query" that opens a huge editor that lets me write and run SQL. Not a "new database", not "new project". Amazingly, most postgresql UIs are simply terrible at writing and running sql.

It's like postgres uis are like the PHP of database UIs: people that like it have no idea how bad they are, and the very few people go elsewhere to see how much better the world is outside.

<comment><USER15> I mostly use psql but I use pgadmin3 when I use a GUI (apparently now pgadmin4, but I haven't tried the new version yet) and there's a new query button that opens a big text window in which one can write SQL. You can press F5 to run the query in that window, and can highlight parts of the query to run them specifically. The output is in an adjustable-size pane with adjustable-size columns at the bottom of the window.

I have used other database management tools. To me, it seems that pgadmin3's New Query window behaves pretty similarly to Microsoft's New Query window. I've used several other database GUIs (SQLyog, others) but there are none that, IMO, are night-and-day better than pgadmin3 for my basic uses.

I definitely believe that pgadmin3's interface for adding columns to tables is onerous, but that doesn't happen very often since MVC frameworks brought schema definition as code into the mainstream.

<comment><USER14> IMHO pgadmin X is a mess... finding were the tables, indexes and views when you first run pgadmin is dauting. Then setting permissions or properties for tables is mostly useless since they don't work at all (most of the time you have to get and fix the SQL generated rather than using the GUI). To this day its still baffles me why Python developers choose PGSQL as his defacto DB standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've always just used psql and found it sufficient for my needs. What am I missing by not using a GUI/dev tool? e.g. What would I find easier, or what is possible in the gui that is impossible or difficult from the CLI? Honest question, no snark or CLI elitism intended

<comment><USER18> I use CLI stuff for most things, but I've found it much easier to have 5-10 sql statements in a GUI editor that I can edit arbitrarily and run at will. And the GUI results grid is nicer to get around for results sets of pretty much any size. I'd kind of like it actually if somebody could make a command line editor or Vim variant that could do that.

<comment><USER19> Have you tried this? [https://github.com/ivalkeen/vim- simpledb](https://github.com/ivalkeen/vim-simpledb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seems like a good place to ask:

I just want some good GUI for data entry. For querying, command line already covers like 90% of my needs. I don't mean something like Access for postgres or a full-fledged CMS which will mess with my beautiful, hand-crafted schema - I need just a table view with BLOB support (like choosing a file and maybe showing a preview if image) and foreign key support (like autocomplete).

Does anyone know a tool like this? I can pay - just need to be able to install it on my machine.

<comment><USER21> Are you looking for PG specific stuff, or pretty much any kind of simple database?

If non-PG is fine, then maybe sqlitebrowser.org?

You'd want to grab the latest nightly though, as our foreign key constraint handling needs improvement, and there is good progress with that in the nightly builds. :)

<comment><USER20> Sqlite is perfectly fine, at the very least, quite easy to to transfer the entered data to postgres. Thank you for the suggestion, I'll look into this.

<comment><USER21> Cool. :)

To view blobs, just keep the "Edit Database Cell" dock open (it's under the View menu).

Any time you select a cell with an image in it, the image will be displayed in that dock. You can just leave that dock open and keep working on stuff in the main table area if you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm glad that things are improving. Still very slow and kind of hard to use, unfortunately. I recommend Postico: [https://eggerapps.at/postico/](https://eggerapps.at/postico/)

<comment><USER23> Seconded. Postico is very nice, atleast for my simple needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> You will pry pgadmin3 from my cold dead hands.

</comment><comment><USER25> An unexpected but very welcome surprise. I thought pgadmin3 was all we would ever get (for an "official" admin tool). Glad Pg have made the effort to look after developers.

</comment><comment><USER26> weird coincidence. just installed pgsql-portable 9.6.0 and tried the included pgadmin4 on Win10 x64. very slow to start :(

will keep using the excellent [http://www.heidisql.com/](http://www.heidisql.com/)

probably not as fully featured for serious admin tasks, but it's fast, lightweight and works well for daily db tasks for SQLserver, mysql variants and postgres. i encourage everyone to donate.

<comment><USER27> Couldn't agree more! I have already donated to Heidisql - I use it for all my Mysql and MS SQL Server needs and I totally love it. Heidiqsl is very fast, very light, makes it easy to export (copy paste) data, write queries and modify your table. What else could anybody want?

However I am not very keen on using it for Postgresql until that "experimental" flag is removed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm a big fan of SQuirrel SQL. Sometimes the Java process consumes all my memory, still had far less crashes than using any client.

</comment><comment><USER29> What an utterly awful move. What were they thinking?

pgadmin3-1.22.1.zip: 12.7MB

pgadmin4-1.0-x86.exe: 82.5MB

First impressions:

Much, much slower to load than pgAdmin3.

>The software has the look and feel of a desktop application

No it doesn't. I don't think the person who wrote this even knows what "the look and feel of a desktop application" means. I can tell within a second of it starting that it's not a native application, which basically by definition means it doesn't have "the look and feel of a desktop application". In fact, I have no idea _what_ they are talking about when they say "the look and feel of a desktop application." I can't detect a single thing which seems to imply any effort in this regard. I would be genuinely interested to know what on earth they think in pgAdmin4 has "the look and feel of a desktop application".

I open the preferences window. The preferences "window" is not a window. It's an overlay in the main window, which cannot be moved. Context "menus" are similar, and thus cannot exceed the bounds of the main window, which is not how they are supposed to work. Not even the windows, beside the main window, are real. "The look and feel of a desktop application"?

What the UI does scream is not "a desktop application", but Bootstrap.

I try to connect to a server. The tree view "+" icon for expanding a level in the hierarchy has a loading spinner superimposed over it, which is not a convention I recall ever seeing before. The loading spinner doesn't end. It never becomes possible to do anything with the server. I have to restart the programme and try again. This time it works.

When I expand the items in the tree view for the first time, the icons for the tree view items are initially absent and flash into place, as the images are loaded.

Compared to pgAdmin3, it's horrible and borderline unusable. It's also slower.

>...and vastly improves on pgAdmin III with updated user interface elements, >multi-user/web deployment options, dashboards and a more modern design.

It's slower to respond. It's slower to start. It uses more resources. It's a godforsaken web application. It is infinitely less like "a desktop application" than pgAdmin3 because pgAdmin3, unlike pgAdmin4, _was_ a desktop application.

There are also stupid animations, such as fade effects, which constitute completely unnecessary delays to what should be a functional interface.

For some reason context menus sometimes open a substantial distance from the mouse cursor.

Even for a web application, there are parts which are quite poorly styled.

If they wanted to develop a web application, fine, but why call it pgAdmin? This is not in any meaningful sense a "pgAdmin 4". It's a completely new, different, IMO inferior product that someone has decided to call "pgAdmin 4" in an attempt to terminate pgAdmin3. So I reject the premise that "pgAdmin 4" can be considered a legitimate successor to "pgAdmin 3", because it isn't. It's something completely different, falsely purporting to be pgAdmin. If they decided they wanted to make a web-based PostgreSQL administration tool, then do that. If they don't want to maintain a native application anymore, they could at least state as much and not release this product-killing copout absurdly spun as some sort of improvement or natural successorship.

Even the authors seem to implicitly admit it's a different product, what with the default install directory: "C:\Program Files (x86)\pgAdmin 4\v1". v1 of v4.

<comment><USER30> They could've added support for HiDPI screens in pgAdmin and call it v4. Standing ovations would be a guarantee.

But no, they opted for a full rewrite with messy bowl of jQuery UI plugins and second-long animations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think they needed something like a re-write; pgAdmin III was not good but did have a few features which just didn't exist the same way elsewhere... but this was not the re-write they were looking for.

I don't really use pgAdmin anymore (psql for the win) but, was hoping that this would be nice: it's not. Apparently my experience is mirrored by many others (I wanted to see if it was just me or not)... oh well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Unsigned macOS binary :(

<comment><USER21> Spoke to the project lead about this earlier today.

They'd hit a problem where signing wasn't working, which turned out to be because the framework bundles inside the .app were in an older format. The bundled OSX "codesign" util was just barfing.

Gave them a working shell script to fix the problem, which they'll probably adjust / clean up + add to their build process.

So, next releases shouldn't have this issue. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Navicat Essentials is still my fav PG GUI [https://www.navicat.com/products/navicat- essentials#mac](https://www.navicat.com/products/navicat-essentials#mac)

</comment><comment><USER33> Cool that have moved over to the web, still miss the graphical relations view that i love from phpmyadmin.

</comment><comment><USER34> All I want to know is does the desktop version finally have tabs for separate queries?

<comment><USER35> It's all one version now. The desktop version is just a wrapper showing the web UI written in Python and Javascript/jQuery.</comment></comment>


ESR: FEMALE ADVOCACY ARE TRYING TO FRAME LINUS TORVALDS FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907#1234 <comment><USER2> So a reputable member of the open source community reports, an actual conspiracy against the founder of Linux. Why is this not a popular topic?

<comment><USER3> Due to political correctness, I suspect.

<comment><USER4> It goes against the current narrative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is this getting flagged? This kind of information is essential to everyone in tech, men and women.

<comment><USER6> The crazy conspiracist in me says it is being flagged because if true there are groups that do not want it to be known (specifically the ones targeting Linus?), and being flagged only makes me belive the story is true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Already posted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505765)</comment>


Duplicating the NSA spyset/playset to an opensource project - <AUTHOR> http://www.nsaplayset.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> This project is inspired on the NSA's ANT Catalog, a guide leaked by Edward Snowden with 49 different types of soft- and hardware for espionage. The NSA Playset will become a guide with sets and tools derived from the ANT Catalog. The goal is to educate people and not letting people forget about daily espionage.

His first prototype is called LoudAuto. It's a hidden chip , that doesn't needs any power and that can be controlled through radio waves, where data can be send from for example a smartphone to the owner of the chip..

He already has a working prototype and will demonstrate it on Def Con 22.</comment>