Debugging with Elm 0.18 - <AUTHOR> http://elm-lang.org/blog/the-perfect-bug-report <comment><USER2> I've updated a few of my projects to 0.18 over the last couple weeks. The new HTTP library is much better than the one before. Working with Authentication Tokens, decoding errors etc is much easier now.

I also welcome the continuous work to remove things which are difficult for beginners and make code less readable, like the backtick syntax and the prime notation. I mostly work with backend code, and I wanted to learn some JS but found the ecosystem hard to swallow. Elm offers a very practical, and quick to get started experience for writing reliable frontend. For a quick win with UI work, also check out the Elm-MDL library. [https://debois.github.io/elm- mdl/](https://debois.github.io/elm-mdl/)

\---

Coincidentally, I was watching MPJ's FunFunFunction today, where he talks about JS libraries that coerce HTTP statuses into JS errors, and he managed to articulate some of my frustrations with elm-lang/http. The library tries to be helpful by returning a `BadStatus (Response String)` error if the status is not a 20x code. An error is what I want sometimes, but far from always. The result is also a string, while most of the API's I interact with return JSON for errors.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRsyY0kzXfw&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRsyY0kzXfw&feature=youtu.be&t=404)

<comment><USER3> Http does allow you to get the raw data and treat it as you will. It also isn't that much code. Check out the custom requests section of the documentation.

<comment><USER2> Right, I know how to get around this issue when I need to. My point was that the library makes a default assumption which is often enough false. And then I have to change things.

Compare this to Go, or even Fetch. You send a request, and you get back a response, with a Body, Headers and Status. A language error type is only expected in case of the request not succeeding, like a timeout. Here, the library makes 2 assumptions. That a non-200 status is an Error, and that the response is a String. These assumptions would be ok in a higher level library someone wanted to build, but as part of a core, they're too high level to work for everyone with the defaults.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> At work we developed internal tool in Elm + elm-mdl for listening to specific events and notifying developer on their status change. It takes about 5 minutes to understand what is going on in application by just reading Model/Update. One person can refactor almost whole app and be sure he did not break a thing. Most issues we got were in ports (JavaScript). Also the same page is running as Chrome Extension and Firefox Extension.

I can say that development performance was 3x than the same developers in JS. Plus you don't have to write unit tests and deal with grunt/gulp/npm packages nonsense.

We got only one runtime exception - our state was saved in localStorage and pushed into Elm.embed when page was opened. If this format changes in Elm/localStorage - Elm fails to start. It would be nice to get some promise rejected when you do Elm.embed() and it fails to initialize. But we can write our own Json.decoders and parse state inside application - in such case we can even write data migrators for user data.

Next stop for us will be to rewrite some views into Elm and integrate them into huge our JS project.

<comment><USER5> How many lines of code are you at? Have you written tests?

<comment><USER4> it is about 2000 lines

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad Evan took out some of the Haskellish syntax that non-Haskellers find confusing, like the x' variable names and backtick syntax.

The decision to write something with backticks or the pipe operator seemed to be a matter of personal taste, and I like a system where these less-important decisions are already made.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, backticks are absent from some (many?) common non-qwerty keyboards (French azerty, for example), making them even more arcane / un-discoverable.

<comment><USER7> I for one would make no design decisions at all taking French AZERTY as a consideration. As a Frenchman I feel I can say it's the world's most badly designed keyboard that's used in a major language. I would truly like to know its origins and how it got so bad, cause I have no idea.

Only two of my main gripes: How come there's a whole key dedicated to superscript 2 and superscript 3? How many times a year does one use the key that's dedicated to the Greek letter Mu and the £ sign?

If we're lacking a key for `, howbout we change the ù key into it, given ù is used only in a _single word_ in the whole language?

<comment><AUTHOR> > _" As a Frenchman I feel I can say it's the world's most badly designed > keyboard that's used in a major language. I would truly like to know its > origins and how it got so bad, cause I have no idea."_

I agree the AZERTY layout sucks. But it's not alone in its messiness, even QWERTY's (un-) design continues to raise questions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History)

> _" I for one would make no design decisions at all taking French AZERTY as a > consideration."_

Let me expand that statement: you are a craftsman who refuses to adjust his product to a piece of infrastructure that will at worst never budge, at best evolve conservatively and regardless of what you think, hurting your users/customers and bringing you nothing but some pride of not stepping over a self-imposed line in the sand.

Don't you think that's unrealistic and a bit sad? Have you seen many US roadsign makers refuse to build mph signs and print km/h signs instead because metric is better than imperial?

<comment><USER7> I think that's a false equivalency.

The cost for people on AZERTY to just get a nice QWERTY layout, individually, is very small, and can be implemented on a personal level.

Units of measure have to be, more often than not, coördinated among multiple people, which increases the costs of migrating between them, making it less favorable.

I'd be a craftsman refusing to adjust my product in a way that benefits an extremely small subset of my users (people on a French keyboard) and worsens the experience of a major subset of my target audience (people on a keyboard with ` that have prior experience with this syntax).

Let's put it this way: If a programming language required the letter ù in its syntax, which being present on a French keyboard but not on most others, represents the inverse of the current situation, my advice would be different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been waiting for 0.18 in anticipation because I had heard we might get server rendering.

Instead a bunch of language and syntax that I enjoyed was removed from the language, but I get better bug reports? The export button is broken unless I click "resume" which I find pretty odd.

I have to say I'm really disappointed, every release they just remove language features.

<comment><USER9> What has been removed is just syntactic sugar that can easily be acheived in other ways. I think it's a good thing that Elm's core is kept as clean and simple as possible. There are enough other languages with a kitchen sink philosophy.

<comment><USER8> Explain the 'other ways' I can name a function with a prime or use backticks now that the compiler won't allow it.

<comment><USER10> The migration guide [1] suggests that instead of primes you can use underscores. And instead of backticks you can use pipelining.

[1]: [https://github.com/elm-lang/elm- platform/blob/11c8ecb81a58b8...](https://github.com/elm-lang/elm- platform/blob/11c8ecb81a58b82a25c90145418cd70fa61d1679/upgrade-docs/0.18.md)

<comment><USER11> Personally I do not like underscores. It can get real ugly.

So instead of:

        map3 f ( x, cmd ) ( y, cmd' ) ( z, cmd'' ) =

I will have to write:

        map3 f ( x, cmd ) ( y, cmd_ ) ( z, cmd__ ) =

[https://github.com/Fresheyeball/elm- return/pull/4/files#diff...](https://github.com/Fresheyeball/elm- return/pull/4/files#diff-935803069cff9aca5238163ec439f6d4L130)

And it affects package API too: [https://github.com/elm- lang/svg/commit/40b761d66b48fcc28f5b5...](https://github.com/elm- lang/svg/commit/40b761d66b48fcc28f5b5fbc56e376593d17dd62)

However that's just a matter of taste and does not deter me from continuing to use Elm.

<comment><USER12> Use numbers instead of backticks or underscores. There's a reason we got rid of roman numerals.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seven ways the driverless car will change your life - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160321-seven-ways-the-driverless-car-will-change-your-life <comment><USER2> I think the fact this article talks about "your car" demonstrates the failure of the journalist to understand the fundamental change that autonomous cars bring to society. Cars will become a "transport as a service" solution. Just as Uber is already allowing people in Urban environments not to own a car, so driverless cars will accelerate the process.

Expect a revolution in bus services. A type of transport that has fundamentally not changed since it's inception in the 1800s. Now you will be able to have on-demand bus services that take you from your nearest bus stop to the bus stop you need to go to. Expect a bus to be of any size, delivering the solution for the capacity needed on the planned route. That 3am journey might be a seconded 2 person pod from the local community service fleet provided by a local authority, compared to the 24 seater used at 8am by a dedicated bus service provider.

People need to stop thinking about "cars" and start thinking in terms of the intelligent mobile "seat".

Oh and his "errands" to the dry cleaners story. Why would an owner put that into his boot??? Why would they not use a personal delivery service, a mini- van with multiple security coded "boot spaces", that comes directly to your door, allows you to put things into the boot space, then delivers it to the business. The delivery service could even drop off a container for you to fill and then come by later to collect it.

Either I'm thinking about this WAY too much in my spare time (I campaign on transport) or that journalist is not doing their job properly.

<comment><USER3> I think people are going to take it in baby steps. There are a lot of advantages to simply owning a car. If you aren't in a dense city, they vastly outweigh the hassles inherent in any type of non-owned transportation.

People really are short on time. Waiting for the vehicle and even having to stand outside aren't great - you may even have to worry a bit more about the clothes you're wearing in the heat or cold. It's the little taxes on everything.

Plus whenever you share a ride, someone's going to have to take a detour of some distance.

<comment><USER2> Many of those things are overcome-able. For example you could ask for a car to get you to X by Y time. You will then be informed when that car will pick you up. You can then accept that ride or choose a more direct and expensive option.

Considering you will be able to see on your smartphone exactly where your ride is and when it will be at your destination, you should be able to walk straight out of your home and step into the vehicle.

I'm not precluding the fact that rural/suburbs will still have people owning and using cars, however looking just at the UK, as public transport (buses) have scaled back in the rural space to save money, car ownership has gone up. In cities, car ownership is dropping, but public transport is better supported.

A rural public transport system that allows an "on-demand" service where you can be taken directly to the bus stop you want to go to, rather than into a central point, where you have to change onto another bus to get to the place you want to will no longer happen. Yes you will still have such systems in cities as they obviously work but I see public transport in less dense areas becoming more of a "grid" solution. There will no longer be a bus schedule. You will just use your smart device to request a service from A to B with an arrival time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> hah fun read. #3 is a stretch - the car will obviously drop me in the most convenient location possible and then circle the block or go park itself. I'd love to see driverless cars just for #6. Not because I want to work more but simply to know what the "future iteration of email" will be!</comment>


Mailhero – a more permanent temporary email - <AUTHOR> https://mailhero.io/ <comment><USER2> Sounds awesome, would love to try it. Spent 5 minutes trying to sign up, but every variation of usernames that I tried were taken. This normally wouldn't be an issue to complain about, except that in order to test whether a username is available or not, I have to enter the username, password, and captcha every time.

Please please please tell me whether or not a username is taken as a type it before I go further.

<comment><USER3> Yes, my bad! I did not expect my site to get hacker news'ed while I was sleeping and I hadn't scaled up the web server for that... You can try again now. :)

The really good news is that all mails are always buffered on another server, so even if the whole thing was to go down, all mails will reach its destination in a timely manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have been running a similar service for myself on my own exim mailserver for a couple of years now and very happy with it. Provided explanation on how to achieve this on my blog [https://www.guidodiepen.nl/2013/02/catch-almost-all- in-exim-...](https://www.guidodiepen.nl/2013/02/catch-almost-all-in-exim-only- address-with-specific-pattern/) Whenever an address is receiving too much spam, I just blacklist it at the server level, ensuring I don't have to filter it anymore in my mail client since the server won't even accept it.

Have to say that it is always funny when a person asks for my email address and it confuses them when the address part before the @ sign contains their company name :) Often get the question whether I also work at the company or so.

<comment><USER5> I have run a server with a similar setup for many years. And some people get really confused. It can be quite funny sometimes.

The best moment was my SO explaining to someone on the phone, why the email address included their company name.

Paraphrasing: If you get hacked or sell my email I will know it was you. So don't sell it, and make sure you stay on top of your security.

I used to contact companies by email after they leaked my throwaway email address, but I don't any more, because some got angry and others were just confused.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I lost my preorder for PS4 over that issue, K-mart just cancelled my preorder because they thought my email address was suspicious. mind you this was at the time when you'd have to wait months for the machine to be in stock again. I spoke on the phone with their manager and there was nothing they said they could do about it. So I've never shopped there since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another thing I am working on for Mailhero is to start publicly listing sites/organizations that have leaked mail addresses. This list currently includes Coca Cola, Adobe, Neteller and others.

<comment><USER7> You can add box.net to the list. I used a one-off email address on their service and it got leaked. They were at least honest enough to confirm it did indeed happen to them:

       We were recently informed by a handful of users that they had received spam email at the address associated exclusively with their Box account. We scoured our own systems and checked every possible scenario, and didn't find any evidence of our systems being compromised. Thanks to information sent to us by our customers, we were able to pin down that a third-party email service we used to send our newsletter to select users in February, March and April had been compromised.

       No other information beyond email addresses were ever exposed to this vendor.

       We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our users. We continue to be committed to your privacy and keeping their confidential information safe. As a result of this issue, we're leaving this particular service provider immediately and consolidating all of our customer communication efforts within a single vendor with more robust security practices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks really good. I've just seen this message though when I verified my email address: "Do not give out your bare-naked mailhero address (firstname.lastname@example.com). Always make sure you add something before the dot, otherwise you can't stop the mails from arriving!"

If anyone from Mailhero is here - why don't you block the bare-naked emails? If this becomes popular then marketeers can just search for @mailhero.io addresses and strip off any string followed by a dot so that they can spam you.

<comment><USER9> On the same note, they can just construct <random chars>.email@example.com and email sent there will be forwarded to you as if that's the custom email address you sent out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> With gmail, you can create a custom email for each service, like so: email@example.com

Later on, if the service doesn't let you unsubscribe, or sells your email to other spammers, you can just set a filter to trash emails sent to email@example.com

<comment><USER11> Anyone with half a clue that is doing heavy marketing via email, knows to strip the stuff after the +. BTW, the + is part of the email specification, and technically any email server _not_ supporting it is broken.

<comment><USER12> Although '+' is an acceptable symbol, there's actually nothing in the RFCs that mandates sub-addressing behaviour. The closest you'll get is RFC5233 that defines it for the Sieve filtering language. So although very common, sub- address behaviour is not a standards requirement and should not be presumed.

By "heavy marketing" I presume you mean spammers. If not, be warned, sub- address stripping will mean nondelivery in some cases and could trigger blacklisting via honeypots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If this becomes popular, what stops spammers from figuring out that the part before the last dot in the username can be anything?

A lot of shady folks already know about Gmail's plus-addressing trick. If I were a spammer and I found that email@example.com didn't work, I would just try firstname.lastname@example.com.

Perhaps you could set up the system to only accept aliases that have been explicitly configured. But that would make Mailhero a bit inconvenient for regular users, since they would have to add an alias before using it elsewhere.

Another possibility would be to add a big button in the dashboard that automatically generates a plausible address (e.g. email@example.com) with no connection whatsoever to your regular username or other aliases. No need for the user to decide what alias to use, and no way for a spammer to figure out a working alias.

<comment><USER14> i think an easy way is to send a notification email for every new sub-email "registered". No email gets forwarded until the new sub-email is verified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Love the anecdotes at the bottom. I'll add two of my own:

\- Sent myself a photo from a Southern Californian theme park that starts with "D" and ends with a fireworks show, using a custom email address: No third- party spam, but my god their "unsubscribe" links (NOT that I ever subscribed) just don't work, I got a promotion for everything vaguely Disney-related for a year until I blocked the address completely. Whoops, gave this one away!

\- Signed up for a famous freemium file-syncing service whose name also starts with "D" using a custom email address, never used for anything else; that ended up in the hands of spammers.

<comment><USER16> > Signed up for a famous freemium file-syncing service whose name also starts > with "D" using a custom email address, never used for anything else; that > ended up in the hands of spammers.

Wasn't just me then. I /know/ I never used that particular address for anything else as it was specific to the D___Box service. Yet within 2 months, started getting lots of spam on it. I don't recall that company getting data breached, so totally unclear how that happened.

<comment><USER15> I've been working on the assumption that a massive breach did happen, but was never announced (perhaps not even discovered internally).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I used to use a service like this called endjunk.com. A few years ago it shut down without warning and I found I couldn't receive emails or update my username for several services.

I tried rolling my own for a while, but it was painful to make sure my mail server was always up to date and patched. I also had issues with forwarded mail being marked as spam by my email provider.

If this service becomes popular and starts forwarding lots of spam, it can result in the entire domain being blacklisted, especially since users never send replies to these addresses.

Don't rely on free mail services to get mail you might care about some day.

<comment><USER15> Yep. Well, that's why I feel pretty good about using my own domains + Fastmail!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like many of you, I've rolled my own interpretation of this solution. I've got a self-written MTA that supports any recipient prefixes on emails that are sent to @domain.com. It then firstly checks the RCPT TO: address (the _real_ TO address) against the email aliases assigned to all my users in the Active Directory/Exchange Server. Once that check is passed, it then runs the email through some custom blacklisting rules, and then finally runs the email through SpamAssassin. If the email gets past that, then it gets delivered into the users inbox.

In Active Directory, the proxyAddresses attribute is used to stack up custom <something>@domain.com addresses for each user, which allows for many aliases per inbox. It does require management on the users part - they have to add an alias if want to use it, but that's done via a webform, so easy to do. Likewise they can yank an alias if it's been leaked and gets abused.

This solution has been running for over 5 years now, and it works very very well. The only downside is having to manually add new custom blacklist rules due to the adaptive nature of the spammers.

<comment><USER18> I'm thinking of doing something similar and hope to learn from your experience. I have two questions. (1) Was it easier to write your own MTA than to use the milter interface to Postfix or other mature MTAs that support it? (2) How would you set up the MUA to use the right alias in the return address when users reply to a message instead of leaking their real email address? (e.g., Would you need another lookup table somewhere that maps (user,recipient) pairs to user aliases?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You need to trust your mail relay to not go offline or you lose the ability to reset your password etc.

Worse would be if someone used the relay to intercept a password reset and pwn you.

Better to implement filters on Gmail or whatever, server side with the + suffix.

</comment><comment><USER20> I made something almost exactly like this 6 years ago. Called whyspam.me

Good luck.

<comment><USER20> Almost forgot I open sourced it when I took it down. [https://github.com/schneems/WhySpam](https://github.com/schneems/WhySpam)

<comment><USER21> The domain has now been taken over by scammers, so it might be worth removing the links from the github project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Signup seems to be broken? I've tried a few 'random' (keyboard-mashing) usernames to no avail. As guptaneil pointed out, some immediate form feedback on username availability would be very helpful as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Love this idea, and the copywriting on the page is absolutely brilliant!

I hand-rolled my own solution a while back on my own server, simply creating a random forwarder and "tagging" it with a description, so I can always go back and lookup what fw839kopa4 was for... It's a ugly hack, but works.

My ugly hack has the added benefit of not accepting just any email address, but only those I explicitly defined. On the flip side, I have to run this small script and can't just give out email@example.com to anyone on the fly.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the compliment about the copywriting! I did try to put effort into explaining what Mailhero actually does and to make sure that I explained why I made it instead of pretending to be somebody else. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there a service that lets me _send_ mail from such an email address as well?

Let's say I use this for my Amazon account email@example.com and I need to get in touch with Amazon customer support. For verification they require me to actually send an email _from_ email@example.com.

Or another case: as soon as I have to actually send an email to a service I signed up for and use my real email address, that is then known to the service and could potentially be leaked.

<comment><USER3> I am going to add that functionality soon. You will, of course, have to click the recaptcha for each message send... I hope everybody understands why. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What it is...

Create a new uniqe mailhero email when you sign up to a new service etc. Mailhero will keep forward those emails to your real one until you choose not to.

So if that email ends up in a spamming list and you get starting to get alot of unwanted email from different spammers that could be hard to block you could just stop the forwarding.

So it works like a temporary email but is more permanent at the same time. And dont stop working after like 24h like many other temporary email services.

(Sorry for a shitty title)

<comment><USER24> Looks similar to [https://www.spamgourmet.com/](https://www.spamgourmet.com/) which I used to use back in the day... and I guess is still a thing!

<comment><USER25> You mentioned it before I could! I'm somewhat amazed that site is still ticking, but I'm happy it is. I should make use of it more often... It even has some really nice features like being able to send email from your temporary address and more manual management of each temporary address you create. I highly recommend checking it out, even if the website looks old and strange, it's solid.

EDIT: Oh, and you can download the code for it and run it yourself if you want. Fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A feature like this is automatically baked in to my Fastmail account. "firstname.lastname@example.com" can become "firstname.lastname@example.com", and all that email automatically goes to a folder called "banks". [https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/addressing.html](https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/addressing.html)

<comment><USER27> You can do it with google apps too, but it's a little more difficult. Login into an account and setup an alias.

There is a limit to the number of aliases, but you can just create more accounts with aliases that forward to your email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Spammers are going to figure out how to manipulate these if it gains any traction; if I were a spammer, I would just send each email from a different MH email address with the same username.

See also Throttle[0], which does a similar thing using a browser extension to generate random emails addresses.

[0]: [https://throttlehq.com](https://throttlehq.com)

<comment><USER29> You can maintain a whitelist on your real email client with only allowed forwarding addresses from mailhero. mark everything else as spam

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Spammers often strip dot aliases in my experience. This doesn't seem like doing anything to solve that problem. I mean, if citigroup.joe gets dot- stripped, then email@example.com gets that spam instead of joe, but odds are joe will just end up getting somebody else's spam anyway, so it's not really much of a win unless you're careful to pick a username that won't be used as an alias, and then you have the problem of having to give out addresses like email@example.com.

Not seeing the value prop over Mailinator.

<comment><USER31> Would they be stripped? The traditional alias separator is a '+' (email@example.com) and periods are part of email names, thus the address itself: (email@example.com)

<comment><USER30> Well, I've gotten spam that had it stripped; the name was a bogus one that I gave out in combination with a specific dot-aliased address, but the address in the To: header was without the alias. I can't say how often it happens, but with major mail providers (including Google, IIRC) widely known to support arbitrary dot aliases for throwaway addressing, it seems like a reasonable ploy from the spammer's point of view.

<comment><USER31> Google definitely do not support dot aliasing, I've had email addresses for gmail with dots in them and so has my mother. Thats dangerous if you allow people to sign up for email addresses with dots and then use that as an alias seperator. So dangerous I would argue they wouldn't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think the best part about this is that it makes it easy to see who is selling your email. That can bring some accountability to these services that collect your email, and supposedly never use it.

<comment><USER33> > That can bring some accountability to these services that collect your > email, and supposedly never use it.

In my experience, though, they deny everything when you follow-up.

At one point I started receiving third-party spam to santander_currentacct@[domain]. I contacted Santander, my bank, to ask how that e-mail address had leaked. They insisted that I must have used it elsewhere since their systems were watertight.

I changed it to something like santander_dontspamme@ and sure enough after a few months the spam started. This time Santander didn't even reply to my complaints.

I subsequently moved my current accounts to another bank, leaving £0.01 in several Santander accounts just to keep them open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Two concerns:

What about 33Mail? Is this not the same thing with the tag shifted?

What if this becomes popular? Spammers can write a special case for @mailhero.io addresses that strips or changes the prefix. If you block those avenues, it just turns into a much easier password guessing game: the user has dozens of passwords, and they're all one common word, lowercase.

</comment><comment><USER35> Since I have Google Apps (eg bla.com), I just turn on "catch-all email" settings, and whenever I join a service, I'll use "firstname.lastname@example.com" (eg email@example.com).

Interestingly, sometimes I receive spam from AnotherService sent to email@example.com. From there you can see which services sell their data to 3rd party.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have been using gishpuppy for several years. It actually works. It's a free service, you create an email for any website that asks for one. There are addons/extension for firefox and perhaps other browsers, too.

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

</comment><comment><USER37> How is this different/better than Gmail's email@example.com?

<comment><USER38> Spammers know to take off the +spammer part.

<comment><USER39> Also some websites won't let you put + in the address despite it being a valid character per protocol. Crippling email sign ups for one company, astonishing.

Fastmail has subdomain addressing. eg. email@example.com which is a lot harder to detect.

<comment><USER40> I like Yahoo's approach-- they do their disposable email aliases like this:

firstname.lastname@example.com

Where basename is user-chosen (and not necessarily related to the real email address), and the suffix has to be registered ahead of time (so a spammer can't just start randomly generating suffixes to avoid filters).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Great idea but what happens when the site runs out of funds and shuts down? Now you have all of your email bouncing and no way to know and/or fix it easily?

<comment><USER3> I can recommend reading the About-page...!

[https://mailhero.io/about](https://mailhero.io/about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What would it do if people would just strip the prefixes before the dot just for mailhero? Would the email still gets forwarded? Should I shut down the account?

<comment><USER8> It suggests that that is exactly what could happen: "Do not give out your bare-naked mailhero address (email@example.com). Always make sure you add something before the dot, otherwise you can't stop the mails from arriving!"

Seems like that should be a simple fix for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Very similar to [http://33mail.com/](http://33mail.com/), which has been around for over 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why can't it just be some random hash? For me, a key benefit of a disposable mail account is not to have any identifiers including username.

<comment><USER44> You could make your username be some random hash?

<comment><USER45> > You could make your username be some random hash?

Why not? email@example.com is, I believe, a valid email address. If that's too long, you can always truncate it.

<comment><USER46> You could simply use something like base64 on a username you regularly use as the hash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Interesting concept. There have been a number of times when 10 minutes that others typically give hasn't been enough for me.

</comment><comment><USER48> Cool idea. I run mailsac.com and it kind of does this. Do you have a business model? Times be tough in the temporary email niche

</comment><comment><USER49> I do this using two Gmail adresses one set up to forward to another with filters.

</comment><comment><USER50> Very cool. Right now I'm using 33mail with a custom domain</comment>


U.S..C. § 230, a Provision of the Communication Decency Act - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 <comment><USER2> It's fascinating how many people seem to think that the CDA says more or less the _exact opposite_ of what it actually says.

<comment><AUTHOR> From a certain perspective it always seemed inevitable that we would go from wild west to walled garden. Where developers once roamed free we will have platforms capable of retaining legal staff and complying with the laws they lobbied for.

All of the political noise is just a distraction. Heaps of misinformation and outrage is par for the course.

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above

Don't fence me in

Let me ride through the wide open country that I love

Don't fence me in</comment></comment>


The 'new CCP' in Iceland is making a browser strategy game with 1.5M hexagons - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/13/the-new-ccp-in-iceland-is-making-a-broswer-strategy-game-with-1-5m-hexagons/ <comment><USER2> >Prosper is free-to-play, and Solid Clouds is going to let you spend real- world cash on speeding up production on a unit or to finish a mission faster.

That's pay-to-win, not free-to-play.

<comment><USER3> I've started to just ignore games that seem even slightly pay-to-win.

But what _really_ pisses me off are games I _bought_ and the then have an ingame store, I demanded a refund on steam for a game where that actually happened with no indication on the page for the game.

The only way we can deal with this is to completely ignore these games and not give them a penny.

There are not many games that get F2P right, off the top of my head I can only think of TF2, Dota 2 and Path of Exile (shoutout to [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Negitivefrags](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Negitivefrags) for an awesome game).

(no affiliation with any of those companies)

<comment><USER4> Why don't F2P games use in-game advertising? That seems like a simple way to chip away at the expense of running the service while not being as frustrating as pay-to-win.

<comment><USER5> Plenty do. Pay to win pays a LOT better, so you see more of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's nothing new in this, and the "1.5 mio hexagons" are only in a square of roughly 1225x1225. I've played browser games with exactly the same premise (but without the whole pay-to-win aspect) back in 2001 and 2002. They might have a meta game that's interesting in the long run, but they universally lack a challenging short-term game to keep you playing and interested while you're waiting for larger plans to come to fruition. Eve gives the player that by having them do short NPC hunting missions, explore the galaxy or engage in PvP, all of which is adrenaline-packed and visually engaging.

A browser game will have a hard time duplicating that. Might be possible with WebGL, but that excludes a lot of players.

</comment><comment><USER7> "But I think the map is emblematic of what is really interesting about Prosper: that it is perhaps history's biggest board game."

Not really, with 1.5 million hexagons, [http://www.illyriad.co.uk/](http://www.illyriad.co.uk/) is over 5 times larger at 8.6 million squares.

</comment><comment><USER8> This sounds an awful lot like a War of Nations clone.</comment>


Top of the class: Labour seeks to emulate Finland's school system - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/27/top-class-finland-schools-envy-world-ofsted-education <comment><USER2> Labour is attacking private education for purely ideological reasons and this article tries to paint them as caring for education? That's preposterous but not surprising for The Guardian.

Currently 615,000 pupils attend private schools in the UK. This means families who finance state schools through their taxes but do not use them. Scraping private schools would therefore mean having to create 615,000 extra state schools places without any additional tax revenue to finance them. This would mean an additional £3billion+ a year for the education budget _just_ to absorb the extra pupils at current levels.

If they are prepared to increase the education budget by that much then it could go to _improving_ existing state schools instead if they just would let private schools alone.

Labour is interested in ideological purity, not education.</comment>


Apple Agrees to Deal with Ireland Over $15B Unpaid Tax Issue - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-agrees-deal-with-ireland-over-15-billion-unpaid-tax-issue-1512392552 <comment><USER2> I always find it interesting the big companies get the opportunity to make a deal. As a small business you would just go to jail probably. Certainly nobody would negotiate with you.

<comment><USER3> The IRS negotiates all the time, as noted below. Moreover, in this case, Apple paid what Ireland asked. The EU came along and said Apple's tax deal violated EU law. People don't go to jail for doing what the IRS told them (or indeed, for having a reasonable but ultimately mistaken view of the law). The law has estoppel provisions that protect parties who rely on the IRS's representations with respect to their taxes. (E.g. where they say a certain thing is okay then hangs their mind.) Plus, the IRS is a litigant like anyone else. If they think they might not win on their legal interpretation in tax court, they'll settle to mitigate the risk.

<comment><USER4> Earlier this year I was trying to reach the IRS, and couldn't get through via phone after N attempts with no email options. I called my congressperson, complained, and got it resolved through an aide in my congressperson's office with a couple easy phone calls and email. It was super nice. I highly recommend.

When asking for help:

\- be specific about the problem

\- say you've made a good faith effort to resolve the matter on your own (keeping a log of calls made recommended)

\- complain about being a person trying to give money to the IRS, and you shouldn't be having this problem

\- be nice when talking to the congressperson's aide who tries to help you

\- don't feel like your burdening the congressperson's aide by working with them directly, as resolving your complaint/issue is exactly the reason they exist, and you're helping them feel good about serving, because that's exactly what their doing

\- when the matter is resolved, thank them directly

\- for future matters regarding "call your congressperson to say X" campaigns, you now have a direct line to the congressperson's office (don't abuse it)

<comment><USER5> "don't feel like your burdening the congressperson's aide by working with them directly, as resolving your complaint/issue is exactly the reason they exist"

surely it's why their job exists, not them selves? :D that would be a weird answer to have to your existential questions, like the butter passing robot in Rick and Morty

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> All this says is the money will be placed in an escrow account while Apple and Ireland both appeal the decision, which they both seem confident to prevail eventually.

They haven't conceded anything yet. The ball is still in play.

[edit] I'm not advocating for either Apple or Ireland, just making a factual comment. I think corporations should pay a fair tax.

</comment><comment><USER7> I suspect the deal is "we'll help you evade the taxes you should be paying other countries if you give us a slice"

<comment><USER8> That's more or less what was already happening; which is why the EU told the Irish government they had to stop giving Apple a preferential tax rate unavailable to other companies. Ireland didn't want to collect this money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> >BRUSSELS—Ireland will begin collecting €13 billion ($15.46 billion) in back taxes from Apple Inc. as soon as early next year after both sides agreed to the terms of an escrow fund for the money, Ireland's finance chief said Monday.

That's a lot of money.

<comment><USER10> Not for Apple.

<comment><USER11> 13bill is always a lot of money

<comment><USER10> It was really never their money to begin with?

<comment><USER12> What kind of nonsense is this? Of course the money was apple's to begin with, otherwise what was being taxed?

<comment><USER10> That was my point that it should have been paid as taxes in the past. Instead of robbing the host country and keeping it hostage.

<comment><USER13> Apple didn't rob anyone. They had $200B in cash they couldn't deposit in US banks, or they'd be subject to $80B+ in taxes. So Ireland offered to let them deposit those funds in Irish banks for a near zero tax rate, because it was a huge windfall for Ireland and cost them nothing.

If ireland hadn't offered, dozens of other countries would have. The EU is being scummy trying to undo a legit deal after the fact instead of ruling it can't continue in the future.

<comment><USER14> Except it is not a legit deal, because Ireland isn't offering it to all companies.

<comment><USER15> It's surprising that Ireland couldn't simply say everyone (including Apple) pays the headline rate for the first billion in deposits, and 0% for every billion thereafter. That's a level playing field. And the outcome is much the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Finally! I love Apple but taxes should be paid. There is a difference between legal and ethical and US companies should begin to understand that. So hopefully others will follow suit.

<comment><USER17> I used to think this -- but then I heard the argument that if Apple was to behave "ethically" and pay the taxes that technically the law requires that they dont, then the shareholders can sue the company for not acting in their best interest.

Even if the above isn't true (not a lawyer) we cannot rely on ethics alone, it will have to be enforced by law, otherwise nobody will do it

<comment><USER18> > if Apple was to behave "ethically" and pay the taxes that technically the > law requires that they dont, then the shareholders can sue the company

Well yes, but you know there's a shade of gray between engaging in complex, aggressive tax planning schemes and handing out unsolicited donations to the IRS.

A company's board is perfectly within its mandate to say it pays tax for its profits where it is incorporated, when the profits are made (and not delaying foreign profits in a tax havens). Because this is the very normal thing that almost all normal corporations do. The board is just as well within its mandate to say they do it for PR reasons to demonstrate corporate social responsibility.

For example, Nokia during its heyday happily paid a fair share of its taxes in Finland, eventhough they definitely had access and capability for all the tax dodging schemes in the world.

<comment><USER19> You must admit the irony in that Nokia example...

If Nokia had instead gone to the lengths Apple does to cut taxes and invested that money back in the company they might still be thriving as an independent entity today...ultimately generating far more benefit for the Finnish economy over the long run than being a shrinking Microsoft division.

<comment><USER18> I admit to the irony, but sadly they could have never saved enough profits to turn around the company. They could have at best delayed the inevitable further down the road..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If Apple is forced to pay a big chunk of tax in the EU, why wouldn't they spin off their EU sales operations as a completely separate independent company? Apple US (or Apple Cayman Islands) could then sell iPhones to Apple EU and demand a wholesale price very close to the retail price. Apple EU would therefore make very little profit and pay very little EU tax.

<comment><USER21> That's called transfer pricing and is essentially illegal in almost every jurisdiction. There are of course plenty of loopholes and ways around it and large companies such as Apple spend a fortune with the big 4 accounting firms to take advantage of every such loophole.

<comment><USER20> Would transfer pricing still be an issue if Apple EU was a completely separate company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wait, wasn't it the EU who took Apple to court over a special tax deal for Apple in Ireland?

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple- pay-b...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple-pay-back- taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid)

<comment><USER23> No. The European Commission ruled that Ireland gave preferential rates to Apple (and I believe this will go to the European Court of Justice, where the case will, I believe, be the EC v. Ireland; Apple aren't directly a party of the case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Paywall bypass:

[https://m.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com...](https://m.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapple- agrees-deal-with-ireland-over-15-billion-unpaid-tax-issue-1512392552)

</comment><comment><USER25> Just to clear things up here: Ireland does not want the money, they much rather have this special deal with Apple, it's EU who is forcing Apple to pay and forcing Ireland to stop having special deals with companies.

</comment><comment><USER26> so is this an opportunity for collective action. let's say some one owes 100 million in taxes, and can negotiate that down to 50 mil. does that mean i can get 1-2000 of "normal" folks and if we hang together we can get a 50 % rebate ?

(the hang together reference being most apt)

</comment><comment><USER27> Paywalled, can someone share another link?

EDIT: searched for title and another link worked for me: [http://www.cetusnews.com/tech/Apple-Agrees-Deal-With- Ireland...](http://www.cetusnews.com/tech/Apple-Agrees-Deal-With-Ireland- Over-%2415-Billion-Unpaid-Tax-Issue.HJbHuppMWG.html)

<comment><USER28> Non-Paywall version: [http://archive.is/N7JvW](http://archive.is/N7JvW)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> how about not linking to a paywalled article?

[https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/apple- agrees-...](https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/apple-agrees-to- start-paying-13bn-tax-bill-early-2018-a-year-after-deadline-36377528.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> So when are they going to pay taxes in the united states ?

Its time the global community makes tax havens illegal.

<comment><USER31> The United States is the largest tax haven in the world, so don't count on it.

<comment><USER32> Can you elaborate on this?

<comment><USER9> He is bs'ing you. Companies don't incorporate in United States they are incorporating tax havens across the world ( everywhere but the United States)

<comment><USER33> It's based on this fraudulent premise that makes its rounds as an empty soundbyte (when back in reality, the US has the second highest effective corporate income tax rate in the OECD). The setup is that Delaware is being used as an information cloak (while there's zero evidence the US is actually being used as a real tax-evasion haven of any sort).

This story explains the foundation of the soundbyte:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/05/how-t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/05/how- the-u-s-became-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-tax-havens/)

<comment><USER34> Oh, it's a fraudulent premise and an empty soundbyte?

It seems like you're quoting an article in the washington post, and similar articles from similarly reputable sources point it out (see [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware- thri...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a- corporate-tax-haven.html) for example).

Just saying, it's a pretty convincing soundbyte that happens to cite its (verifiable) claims.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, it's an empty claim, which is why neither the NY Times nor the Washington Post provides any actual evidence that there's a tax haven occurring onshore in the US. The sole premise they float, is about information cloaking, and then they call it a tax haven arrangement without backing that up.

Where's the hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars in tax haven'd capital to support their claims? They don't provide so much as a shred of evidence such a thing exists. It doesn't exist, because the US isn't a tax haven. The IRS is extraordinarily aggressive about such things and has very far reaching powers to hammer entities that attempt to evade taxes in any manner inside the US.

The articles use hilariously absurd things like that states are competing over lowering the cost of establishing LLCs, as evidence. Oh golly gee, that verifies the US as the world's largest tax haven no doubt.

Like this amusing quote: "In some places [in the U.S.], it's easier to incorporate a company than it is to get a library card"

Oh man, the Washington Post really nailed it there, world's largest tax haven status confirmed.

Just look at the language they use throughout, it's vapid, unsupported, vague, etc. They constantly hint, use suggestive language, proclaim, and never deliver anything real. Such as:

"Too often, however, shell companies are used as a vehicle for criminal activity"

Oh, too often, well that's really spot on. Then they proceed to not actually support the "too often" part in any manner. The NY Times and Washington Post articles are filled with that crap.

<comment><USER34> Well, from my point of view, I can either:

\- Choose to think you are right, dear random HN commenter

\- Choose to think the corpus of papers and articles saying the opposite of what you claim is in fact right ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven#R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven#References) \- I'm not quoting wikipedia, this is a link to sources)

Guess what? :)

EDIT: Please, by all means, do produce articles from reputable sources that support your claim that the US is not an enormous corporate tax heaven! I would be very interested to educate myself on the subject with differing opinions from experts such as investigative journalists or economists, bankers, or tax lawyers.

I just don't believe random HN commenters on face value :)

TL;DR: [citation needed]

<comment><USER33> I appreciate that my pointing out the extremely mediocre reporting by the NY Times and Washington Post on this matter has swayed you to such a degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was unable to read the article because of a paywall. Can we please make it a policy not to allow paywalled content?

</comment><comment><USER36> Tax Apple revenues, not profits.

</comment><comment><USER37> Reminder: both Apple AND Ireland agree that they don't actually owe any tax.

So it's not that Apple didn't pay tax to Ireland - it's that they were _specifically_ contracted to pay a certain rate and the EU disagrees.

So the headline is _incredibly_ misleading.

</comment><comment><USER38> Apple is the largest taxpayer in the world.

I see a lot of misinformation in the comments section here.

This may help them. [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about- apple...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about-apple-tax- payments/)

<comment><USER39> If you pay the most tax you have implicitly paid the required amount of tax is not a good argument.

You can could response to those comments so they can be discussed or just declare them fake news if that's how you feel.

Nothing in that link addresses the EU ruling or this deal.

<comment><USER13> Ok, Apple pays the most taxes of any company in the world, and it also pays all the taxes it's legally obligated to pay.

And in the case of the Irish deal, it hugely benefited Ireland, much more than Apple.</comment></comment></comment>


Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284

<comment><USER2> The submission from 5 months ago with more than 80 comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2895474></comment>


Show HN: My weekend project, TrickedOutTimeline - <AUTHOR> http://www.trickedouttimeline.com/

<comment><USER3> "Click the "Like" button to get your tricked out Facebook photos!"

Nope. Closed the window, never going back. If I like your service, I'll tell my friends about it. I won't promote it just to try it out though.

(Yes, I saw the "Already liked us?" button. It doesn't negate the intent to spam people's timelines.)

<comment><USER4> I concur. Requiring likes (in wording, even though technically there might be no enforcement) as a payment method for a service is a bad idea. The like is not customisable so you're basically putting words into your customer's mouth.

I'm not sure how I feel about "Pay with a Tweet", but at least people can actually customize the message to reflect what they thought of the service.

I would rephrase the "Already liked us?" to "Skip this step" or something like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> i do agree, but also eager to get the likes in. may a/b test like to download/suggeting a like after download.

<comment><USER4> A/B testing is fine and all, but you might want to think of it from an ethical standpoint.

Are you okay with requiring someone to shout "I like this service" to be able to use said service, on first use? Does it feel right to disclose the like requirement after the user has already put time in using the service?

It sounds backwards to me at least and you're definitely alienating some people, but if you think it's no big deal then you're entitled to your own opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You really should give an example of the steps and what things will look like.

I have no clue exactly what you're trying to do. My guess is to make the timeline look a bit fancy, but I can't tell. Your second step is to upload a photo without telling me what else to expect. If you ask for a credit card number in step 3, you already have my personal photo, which I have no clue what you'll do with.

<comment><USER6> I have a vague sense of what the service does after several minutes of staring at it: it appears to either make your cover photo look like the bottom was torn off (why??) or it can make it look like your profile photo is part of your cover photo (which is kind of cool.)

To the OP: I would provide larger example images that show what this is and why I care. Also, it took me several minutes to figure out what to click on, as someone else in this thread pointed out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems odd that you want something to go viral, but you explicitly request people not to share it without checking with you first.

From your Terms & Conditions: "You may not create a link to this website from another website or document without trickedouttimeline.com's prior written consent."

</comment><comment><USER8> took me a while to figure out what 'rip off' was (maybe call it 'torn bottom edge')

<comment><AUTHOR> yes may rename this to "torn edge"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had to come look at the comments here to figure out what this thing did. I'd suggest adding a red circle around the "ripped off" area to highlight what's actually happening.

I had to think way too hard to puzzle out "Two for One" was.

Don't ask me to like something before you've given it to me. Lame.

Swap the order of the steps: first I upload my photo, then let me toggle between effects.

Make the effect copy actionable. "Tear off the bottom edge" rather than "Rip Off". "Match my profile pic to my timeline photo" rather than "Two for one." Communication > cuteness.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your thoughts - will definitely implement some changes. doing the "like to download" as an experiment, may well take it off

<comment><USER9> No problem. It's a cool idea that could gain some traction. Don't be discouraged, HN is a tough crowd :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thats why i love the feedback from here - its top quality ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice. You might want to give some more examples of what each setting does - <USER2> someone else mentioned, I wasn't sure what the "Rip Off" setting did.

</comment><comment><USER11> I realize I'm not your target user-base, (I browse with no-script and don't own any social media accounts) but you should know that without javascript to load your fonts the default "cursive" font for most people is going to be (what appears to be) comic sans....

<https://imgur.com/p1i6P>

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice, but I was just wondering are you keeping or dumping any images we upload? There's nothing in your terms relating to that. Not that I suspect you of anything nefarious, but it would be nice to see any (non)retention policy mentioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes the images get dumped after 30mins - shall add that to the TOS

<comment><USER12> Cool, thanks for clearing that up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In your TOS: You may not create a link to this website from another website or document without trickedouttimeline.com's prior written consent.

Why would you want this?

</comment><comment><USER14> I uploaded a huge hi-res image, did the two-for-one, and the output images it gave me were horrible quality! What happened? Cool idea though.

</comment><comment><USER15> Make it more obvious that the buttons are clickable. I couldn't figure out how to sign up.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback, i suspected that could be the case

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good luck with going viral. Let us know how did it do.

</comment><comment><USER17> neat and simple - i like it! unfortunately I just changed my cover photo, so I'm gonna stick with it for a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! there are so many crap fb tools out there we need something simple. need ideas for more effects to add though!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> and i hope a blog post coming soon on the awesomeness of google apps' image api!</comment>


Massachusetts state police have been testing out Boston Dynamics' robot dog - <AUTHOR> https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/11/25/boston-dynamics-robot-dog-massachusetts-state-police <comment><USER2> A protest starts, people take to the streets, hong kong style. The police force, greatly outnumbered by the protestors, call in the "dogs". Armored trucks pull up, the sides slide open revealing a large hydraulic rack with dozens of "dogs" racked up and fully charged. Armed with tasers, pepper spray and tear gas, these little robot dogs are a cops best friend. The machine whirs to life, extends and unloads the "dogs" battle droid style, while a controlling human uses a RTS like interface to move the dogs into a formation and gives orders to begin herding the human protestors.

In seconds, dozens, maybe even hundreds of these mechanical beasts gallop towards the protestors and begin a herding process not unlike a sheep dog. The attack is swift and chaotic to the humans but highly organized and planned by an AI system controlling them as a flock. Pepper spray and tear gas fills the air as people are chased and intimidated by the mechanical creatures. Protesters who dare attack the "dogs" are recorded by the dogs as they are all equipped with real time video and charged with destruction of police property after arrest. Facial recognition is used to locate high value targets such as political figures or organizers. The terrorfied humans are quickly disoriented, broken up and herded into groups. Surrounded on all sides by robot dogs, their arms raised with their tear gas/pepper spray nozzles at the ready. Finally the human police force rolls up in full riot gear and enough plasticuffs to wrap around the earth.

The protestors are quietly arrested, no one was badly hurt, and not a single officer was scratched in the roundup. Suddenly, a scared protestor bolts past the line, prompting two dogs to instantly give chase and taser the offender. Easy peasy. It's not even noon yet and the protest is fully quelled. The same scene repeats itself all over the world. A man looks down from his ivory tower on the scene below, smiles, and sips coffee from his alphabet security branded mug. I weep for the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of this happens already minus the robots. Conversely, protest organizers/professional activists are rather more technologically sophisticated and capable than might at first be apparent. As in many historic military conflicts, the shock value of a new technology can be decisive at first but has a short half-life.

<comment><USER2> The big difference here is that the robots have no fear or emotion. They won't care for their safety and wont react to threats with fear. So throw all the rocks, bottles and flaming bags of shit you want because these things are going to come for you no matter what. That's the scary part, emotionless, fearless machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >Other than Spot, state police has a permanent fleet of robots. As of 2017, the bomb squad had 18 robotic platforms worth $1.8 million that are used on a weekly basis, according to police records. Most of those are tracked robots, not a legged robot like Spot.

>But there's something different about Spot. Calo, the professor, acknowledged there's not a big operational difference between the robot dog and something like a more typically robot-looking PackBot. But, he said, Spot feels different. He pointed to a statement animal-rights group PETA put out, saying that it's not cruel to kick Spot, because it's not a real dog.

The main difference seems to be that it looks like a dog instead of a miniature tank. This may give it some advantages in rough terrain, navigating stairs, etc.

Otherwise, it is just another remotely controlled vehicle.

<comment><USER4> Spot is semi-autonomous, you can run a path once (including opening/closing doors) and then have it repeat it alone, handling (simple) obstacles that might appear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there an ongoing development program for the procaine injector ?

</comment><comment><USER6> They found an application! After 25 years!

Probably not cost-effective, but at least it's getting used.

<comment><USER7> If it can stop swatting, why not? A robot is better than scared and well armed officer.

<comment><USER8> You'd think the solution to "scared" and well armed officers wouldn't be more weapons.

Tasers were heralded as a way to reduce casualties because they were a less- than-lethal replacement for guns, but now cops are still shooting unarmed people dead and using tasers as legal torture devices.

US police doesn't exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to the equation "problems + more equipment = less problems".

<comment><USER9> I'm not from US and I've never been there, but I think the problem is not only about police abuse. When you're in a country where almost anyone can have a weapon (and kind of the military range), the police also is having more risk than in any other country...

<comment><USER10> Most working police officers in the US probably haven't fired their weapon in the line of duty:

[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer- lo...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at- police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/)

The idea that they are at particular risk from random people with weapons is not supported by statistics.

The current level of violence pretty clearly (to me) justifies police having access to weapons. It doesn't justify using them quickly.

<comment><USER9> > The idea that they are at particular risk from random people with weapons is > not supported by statistics.

This may be true (I don't know), however one thing is the risk and the perceived risk, and as humans, they're different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This immediately made me think of the robot dog in F451.

<comment><USER12> My thought as well. But then, I finished it last night, so this is weirdly timely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Soon as these things get rat-thing sized, I'm going to be investing heavily in Reason. ;)

<comment><USER14> "As we learned in Vietnam, high-powered weapons are so sensorily overwhelming that they are similar to psychoactive drugs. Like LSD, which can convince people they can fly--causing them to jump out of windows--weapons can make people overconfident. Skewing their tactical judgement."

Just don't go taking over any aircraft carriers.

<comment><USER13> I guess its just a matter of time until someone builds man-portable particle accelerators that can, indeed, take on an aircraft carrier. Its going to be a very, very wild world to live in when that happens ..

Sci-Fi seems to be a key factor in the inspiration of engineers. I'm left astounded at how quickly things proceed from "mm... feasible" to "on the market".

<comment><USER15> I'm more worried by the basement biology labs than the basement physics ones.

<comment><USER16> Indeed, and it doesn't even have to be someone trying to do something malicious like create a virus that targets a certain ethnic group. It's completely possible that someone trying to create something as a novelty causes some mutation that results in massive damage.

Say someone is trying to create a glowing plant (there are numerous companies and individuals attempting to make these that glow bright enough to be commercially viable) and they accidentally encourage some mutation that can spread in the wild that ultimately results in creating a dead end in the species with a bunch of plants that can only be cloned and you end up with a precarious situation _cough_ like we have with Cavendish bananas _cough_.

Or what if someone is trying to cure their own disease and uses some bacteria or virus to deliver the gene edit to themselves and it also happened to pick up a mutation that makes it highly contagious to certain individuals and causes some unintended issue.

Or someone wants to help sequester carbon so they try and engineer some incredibly fast growing tree (I know of people actively looking into this) and go plant some in the wild and create the next terrible invasive species like kudzu.

Or someone actually sits there trying to intentionally create some super- bacteria or super-virus because they are mentally unwell and hate the world and creates something that makes the Spanish Flu's death count look like amateur hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is someone doubting that the boston dynamics also has robots with guns/weapons mounted that are tested in secret by military? The humanoid one what runs and jumps with guns in hands is a nightmarish image.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how much gunfire it can withstand.

<comment><USER19> They'd have to test it out in Chicago, not Massachusetts.

<comment><USER20> Massachusetts criminals have plenty of guns, if that's who these are actually intended for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The real moment that i'm waiting for is when the USA army will start putting weapons over them and let them in the wild.

<comment><USER22> If anyone hasn't seen the Black Mirror episode on this, S04E05, Metalhead, please do. It's apparently based on this robot too, and it's terrifying. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_(Black_Mirror)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_\(Black_Mirror\))

<comment><USER23> That episode doesn't really explore the wider issue of autonomous weapons though. It's just a straight-faced action episode. I wouldn't recommend people watch it to "learn more" about things related to this article.</comment></comment></comment>


Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months - <AUTHOR> http://debarghyadas.com/writes/transformation/ <comment><USER3> Don't let the fact that he was 24 deter you. Over at r/bodyweightfitness, there are hundreds of people who started above 45 and are in better shapes than 20 year olds.

Obesity is now a taboo topic in tech because you might unfortunately step on the toes of a few sensitive people and be labelled a fat shamer. This is not the case.Obesity in tech is a disease on it's own and it needs to be fought with a sharp edged pitchfork. We need to help our colleagues who have lost hope and given up on ever being fit again.

It is never too late to get healthy again. If you're overweight and believe your work schedule cannot allow you to lose weight, give yourself a 6 - <USER2> month break. Step over to the r/bodyweightfitness Recommended beginner routine and make a big change in your life. You don't need an expensive gym membership. You can use the floor, parks, chairs, tables, doors, ledges, trees etc.

Sustainable weight loss is achievable by everyone, whether you're 40 or 50 years or 400 pounds or 600 pounds.

Consistency over time is the key!

<comment><USER4> "Sustainable weight loss is achievable by everyone, whether you're 40 or 50 years or 400 pounds or 600 pounds."

While I applaud those individuals that have kept off weight long term, the science disagrees that is an achievable goal for everyone.(only about 5% of people who successfully lose large amounts of weight will keep it off long term)

For example here is what happened to the contestants on the biggest loser.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser- weig...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight- loss.html)

The body will fight very hard to get back up the heavier level. It play nasty tricks such as increasing hunger, decreasing metabolism, and nastiest of all physiologically sabotage the part of the brain that is responsible for conscience regulation of food intake(it turns off willpower specifically for food).

<comment><USER5> Do you have any sources for the 5%?

More often than not, the cause of the weight gain is because they fall back to bad eating habits. If you can lose it, you can keep it off. Changing to long- term good habits is extremely difficult though.

<comment><USER4> [http://m.ajcn.nutrition.org/content/82/1/222S.full](http://m.ajcn.nutrition.org/content/82/1/222S.full)

Here's one that mentions 20%. But that's at a year. The % changes depending on how long you follow up(drops all the way out to 5 years.). This is study uses keeping off 10% of body weight as the definition of success which is far less than the amount that it takes to move an individual from obese into the normal healthy range.

If you can find a study where a majority of the individuals experienced significant and long term(3 yrs+) weight loss I would be happy to see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're data-inclined, it's a powerful tool to drive health and fitness. Extracting actionable meaning from your data isn't that hard, as long as you understand the basic mechanics of what you're doing and can compute things like percentages and moving averages.

I'm 34, spent the last ~15 years at sedentary desk jobs, and became quite out of shape. I've lost 70lb over the last year doing little more than just logging what I eat in MyFitnessPal, sticking to caloric and macro budgets, and recomputing my TDEE based on moving averages of my caloric inputs and weight readings. I lift for 45-60 minutes 4 times a week, no cardio.

In that same time period, I've started lifting and seen excellent progress (bench 1RM ~260, squat 1RM ~320, deadlift 1RM ~465), again by thoroughly logging my workout data and using that to identify where I'm weak and strong (which lets me select exercises to improve my weaknesses), to help set and adjust training maxes, and to help set achievable goals on a daily basis. Symmetric Strength is a great tool here - it's incredibly gratifying to see my progress presented in several ways, and it helps me understand my strengths and weaknesses, as well as my progression relative to others, which can be very motivating.

I attribute just about all of this to the fact that I adopted eating and lifting plans which were based on data collection and specific goals and targets to reach for and hit on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I've tried dieting and fitness regimes in the past that were basically coached as "just do this and try really hard", without laying out why, or what I could expect at a granular level, and those become really discouraging once the initial hit of motivation wears off. By contrast, having a year's worth of data to analyze any time I start to feel discouraged provides immediate reinforcement as to what does and doesn't work, and helps keep me on track.

<comment><USER7> +1 on having a lifting routine. Cardio by itself doesn't seem too sustainable as compared to watching what you eat and building muscle.

<comment><USER6> Cardio works for some people, but I think a lot of people go run for 20 minutes and then decide they've earned a Big Mac with Behemoth Fries. Data has completely freed me of that delusion - I've learned that I'm not willing to do enough cardio to outrun my diet. I'd rather just not have cheese on my salad than have to go hate the world for an hour on the treadmill. There are the people who run 10 miles on a daily basis because they enjoy it - I am not one of them! :)

Lifting for me is less about weight loss than it is just about personal improvement, though. I want to be strong (and hey, if I'm losing this weight, I want to look good!), and lifting moves the ball towards that goal. I've found that I really enjoy it, too - it's not something that I tolerate as some grueling price I have to pay to get the body I want, it's a hobby that I genuinely enjoy and derive a lot of satisfaction from. The fact that it helps me lose weight is a great bonus, but I've found that lifting lets me hack my internal tendency to "try for a high score" by giving me a whole suite of metrics that I can rate, rank, and compare myself on. I love it.

<comment><USER7> I completely agree with the first paragraph. I should have made that clear in my comment :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I lost about that amount of weight in 7 months a couple of years ago (and kept it off), there was very little data driving, I just wrote down what I ate and ate the same thing 6 days a week, porridge made with water, cottage cheese and salad for lunch and chicken and veg/beef and veg for tea.

Came out to about 1450 calories a day which is a deficit of 1050.

1050 * 7 * 4 * 7/3500 comes to 58.8lbs, I lost 62lbs (I slightly increased my exercise rate), it was almost scary how accurate the 3500 calories to a pound thing was in my case.

It wasn't that hard at the time either, just required a clear goal and keeping at it.

I quite smoking on my 30th birthday (7 years and counting) by just stopping.

No messing with patches, therapy, my mum got ill from smoking related illness, I realised how stupid it was (or more correctly woke up and truly realised) my 30th was a few weeks later so I made a note and stopped cold turkey.

You can do pretty cool things when you draw a line and just go for it.

As for keeping the weight off, I just run a mental tally of what I've eaten and approximate calories, if I get close to 2500 I stop eating for the day, if I go slightly over I go under the next day, 1 day a week I eat whatever I want if I want it (rarely do, I've lost a lot of my cravings for junk over the last couple of years, it always leaves me feeling shitty the next day).

</comment><comment><USER9> You call this "data driven"? Look at his explanation of the supplements he takes:

>Grenade Thermo Detonator: A scary name, but essentially a dosage of caffeine from concentrated green tea extract that's meant to be a fat-burner/pre- workout pill. It gives you some energy to focus, and suppresses your appetite. It is not very different from simply taking a packet of coffee. I used these for the first 4 months.

>Multivitamin: Just to ensure you get your vitamin requirements for the day, _but there is evidence to show this might not really be necessary_.

>Fish Oil: I heard from many sources that omega-3s are good for you so I thought I'd get some

>Whey Protein: If you don't consume enough protein a day and are on a weight loss plan, you will lose muscle with your weight. 1 - 1.5g/lb of body weight is the general recommendation. Because it's not always easy to make sure you get that much pure protein, a protein shake is an easy way to quickly gulp down 50g of protein regardless of how hungry/full you are.

So of the four he takes, one he takes may not be backed by any data, and another he takes because he heard that it's good for you.

<comment><USER10> We do not really need as much protein as the supplements industry would have us believe.

[https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/how-much-protein- is-e...](https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/how-much-protein-is- excessive/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> His advice reminds me a lot of things Mr Berkham has to say over at leangains.com. IF, multivitamin, fish oil, cutting/bulking phases - those are not all things exclusive to advice given by Berkham, but it's a quite similar subset.

Here's a post from another software developer having similarly spectacular success: [http://merowing.info/2014/02/fit- geek/](http://merowing.info/2014/02/fit-geek/)

I lost ~20kg myself by following Leangains loosely over a period of 18 months, but in the end I seem to have worn out something in my endocrine/metabolic system, from which I've been slowly recovering for most of last year (having regained a lot of the weight and suffering from fatigue). So.. just be careful, your body might not like rapid weightloss, everybody is different.

Ah and one tip: If you cannot lose weight even if you try really really hard, inflammation might be the culprit. Lots of fish oil, grape seed extract, magnesium etc should improve this a lot, and as a side effect might also save you from having a heart attack or cancer in your 50s. DHA (eg from fish oil) has a lot to do with mitochondrial function in the body, thus affecting all organs and energy production.

<comment><USER12> I don't buy into your endocrine/metabolic system theory whatsoever. Do you have any evidence that this is even possible?

<comment><USER13> Hi. Neuroendocrinologist here. Body fat is regulated by specialized circuits in the hypothalamus. We now know that inflammation of these central nuclei is a key feature of weight gain in both animals and humans.

There are two sets of neurons: those that promote feeding and slow metabolic rate, and those that suppress feeding and increase metabolic rate. The former class of neurons is GABAergic (inhibitory in neuroscience) and the latter is glutaminergic (stimulatory). Generally in animal experiments, the gabaergic neurons that drive feeding and conserve stored energy outnumber the glutaminergic neurons by a great deal, and over the lifespan of an organism, they increase in number.

Its been noted in some animal models that weight loss interventions are not permanent because they lead to alterations in this circuit to further promote weight gain and energy conservation. This may be why most humans also regain weight after losing it. If you think about it, it makes sense for most control loops in the body to "fail safe", IE, its much preferrable to gain weight than starve to death. This circuit thus fights to preserve fat mass.

Some "food for thought"

[https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/07/407571/brains-immune- cells...](https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/07/407571/brains-immune-cells-may- drive-overeating-and-weight-gain)

[https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/02/123466/ucsf-researchers- re...](https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/02/123466/ucsf-researchers-redefine- role-brains-hunger-circuit)

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the clarification! Do you think rapid weight loss could lead to HPA axis dysfunction as a result, i.e. lowered corticosteroid output (what some call adrenal fatigue, but is actually regulated by the hypothalamus)?

<comment><USER13> I don't focus on the whole HPA axis much, and in general the "adrenal fatigue" phrase doesn't have a great reputation among most of my colleagues. I hesitate to write it all off though.

From my diabetes work, its clear that corticosteroids definitely have a strong role in the development of metabolic syndrome, but I'm not sure about its ties to hypothalamic functioning. In the hypothalamus, the effects can be a lot more direct. Eventually its decision-making feed into the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems which directly regulate metabolism and fat release in peripheral tissues. IE, your fat and muscle cells take direct neural firings from the autonomic nervous system as marching orders of whether or not its time to store energy or burn it.

So if the central neurons in the hypothalamus adjust to promote a higher setpoint body weight, that central point in control will direct weight gain via many downstream factors, some of which may be hormonal. Right now a central focus in research is figuring out why the hell the hypothalamus is driving the setpoint higher and higher. It seems like inflammation there might be a strong culprit.

Hopefully someday we will figure out what about our mass produced consumables are gumming up the works there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Coincidentally I am on the same diet: keto, plus IF. No supplements, no workouts. Lost 10 kg (22 lbs) in 2.5 months. Expensive, 'cause new wardrobe.

For one week, I reverted to my old high carb diet because I was on a camp and could not maintain it. My weight loss plateau'ed, but resumed after that. Daily calorie max is set to 1250, (I live a sedentary life).

Keto works. Workouts not needed.

I'm struggling to take enough protein though.

</comment><comment><USER15> The canonical "engineer studies the problem of being fat and works on it like any other problem" story is The Hacker's Diet by John Walker. There's no secret formula necessary, just eat less. I found it very inspirational (and effective). [https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Amazing transformation, both in the article and the comments.

When has rapid weight loss ever been sustainable?

I'd love to see follow up article w/ comments in 2 years.

<comment><USER17> It's easy to maintain your goal weight if you truly enjoy the lifestyle you've created. Obviously, if you get up one day and say, 'Well I don't actually like going to the gym / tracking calories / etc., so I'll skip today', you've started to gain the weight already. The trick is finding a healthy lifestyle activity that can keep you active and that you can stick with. Climbing, running, hiking, kayaking / canoeing, cycling, tennis, etc etc are all great options if going to the gym to lift weights isn't your thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> ah to be 24 again

<comment><USER19> I'm 32 and I found a free-weight system for upper body I've had success with. It auto-adjusts the weight over time whether you want it to or not so you are forced to continually improve. It also forces you to do repetitions every day whether you want to or not. Sometimes I do extra reps and the system responds with positive reinforcement. It gives extra positive reinforcement if I hold it over my head and fly it around like an airplane.

It's not exclusive to older people (teenagers can do it too but it's not recommended)

It's called "having a baby".

My daughter weights 28 Ibs now and I have to lift her a couple dozen times a day. My upper body has definitely improved.

But seriously, I've found staying fit is MUCH harder than it was 5 years ago but still possible. The hardest part is finding the time. I don't know many 30-somethings (especially in tech) that can work out for a half hour uninterrupted, nevermind an hour.

<comment><USER20> > I don't know many 30-somethings (especially in tech) that can work out for a > half hour uninterrupted, nevermind an hour.

I work full-time in tech, have a wife, two kids, two dogs, and work on my book [1] writing every single day. I still definitely have 30 minutes of free _time_ every day to work out.

What I don't have as much of is will-power/discipline/execute function whatever you want to call it. I workout twice a week and run once a week and with that on top of working and writing I really do feel like I'm at the limit of what I'm able to motivate myself to do.

If I wasn't writing a book, exercising even more would be pretty easy.

Try tracking how much time you spend staring at your phone and/or the Internet. Cut that and you'll be very surprised how much long the day gets.

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

<comment><USER19> Kudos on the book. I have two myself (one with Wrox and one with O'Reilly). It's a lot of work and you should be proud.

I didn't say I couldn't find an hour just that most people in their 30s I know in tech can't.

You also lowered the requirement from the hour the author and I said to a half hour. Keep in mind too unless you want to sit in sweat all day that hour does not include changing cloths and showering.

I also didn't say "ever" I said "reliably" and "uninterrupted" which are key qualifiers. One work out day where you have to spend two hours at the doctor's office and there goes you're whole routine.

Edit: autocorrect changed sweat to suite for some weird reason.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I had all of your qualifiers in mind. I can definitely reliably find 30 minutes or even an hour of uninterrupted time. It's not always at the _same_ time, but I can find it if I gotta.

I think most people can. What's harder is summoning the willpower to use that hour effectively.

<comment><USER21> Have you read _The Power of Habit_?

The focus on willpower is almost inherently demoralizing and absolutely not the best strategy. You should focus on building habits, even one at a time, so that you can let the habits take over without expending much in the way of willpower.

The building of habits is what takes energy, but once they've been built, they almost run on autopilot.

And on a different note, there's a difference between exercise and training. Training for a goal can be a much more productive use of your time and will probably get you better results in terms of fitness and body composition depending on the goal chosen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you're lactose intolerant / milk protein intolerant like me, I've found Vega Performance to be the best protein powder, though not cheap. I am not affiliated with them.

<comment><USER23> Vega is a good supplement for those who cannot digest the milky whey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > I used an intermittent fasting and ketogenic diet approach, and several > supplements.

Can't speak for the supplements, but I'm down 45 pounds in 6 months following the same procedure. Going back to a sugar-based diet is frankly kind of horrifying to me at this point.

</comment><comment><USER25> Another self-quantified in a similar spirit - machine learning and ketosis: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12279415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12279415)

</comment><comment><USER26> Losing 30 kg (66 pounds) in 6 months is not normal and this guy definitely did crazy stuff. I would say 3-4 years would be "the norm" to do this transformation, so don't let yourself be discouraged.

<comment><USER27> How is it not normal? His regimen apparently consisted of eating fewer calories than he expended by exercise and exercising for 3-4 hours a week, and as a result cut approximately 1.25kg per week for 6 months. That's definitely a bit high (for reference, "rapid weight loss" is generally considered to be losing more than 1kg per week), but it's not outlandish.

The weight loss by itself, with no additional work for the physique, shouldn't take more than about 8-9 months (at a loss of ~0.8kg / week, well within the bounds of gradual weight loss). It shouldn't take 27-39 months beyond that to build lean muscle and lose fat to reduce that level of body fat percentage.

One wouldn't even need to follow the fad diets or take the supplements this guy did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nice job and all but the sheer amount of shirtless photos at different angles just shows how narcissistic you are.

<comment><USER17> He's proud of what he's accomplished, in a weightloss post-mortem. How does that make him narcissistic?

<comment><USER28> Look at the number of photos and angles this guy has of himself on the page. We've all seen before / after photos of people who've lost weight. I've never seen this many photos of one dude. It's super narcissistic.

<comment><USER10> If he is super narcissistic, what does that make all the actresses and actors strutting the stages of public shows with a buttload of face paint, hair dyes, plastic surgeries and the like?

Or is it that you casually use the word 'narcissistic' only when disapproving of something you don't like?

<comment><USER28> Whether actors and actresses are narcissistic or not has nothing to do with the fact that this guy is super narcissistic. Look up "logical fallacy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet in conjunction with strength and cardiovascular exercise. Even with minimal exercise I lost 7 kg since March. My weight loss hits a plateau when I am not exercising. It is essential to move your ass or lift things if you want more gains. Weight loss is not practical without some exercise.

A lot of Westerners are rediscovering amazing gains from the ketogenic diet, a low-carb diet. Foods with a very high glycemic index are the most commonly available foods in the Western world. These foods are largely responsible for health problems in the Western world. One has to go out of his/her way to avoid foods with a high glycemic index whereas it should be the default.

<comment><USER29> > The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet

That was debunked recently [1].

> Weight loss is not practical without some exercise.

Nonsense. Do you have any evidence for that?

[1] [https://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12105660/do-low-carb-diets- work](https://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12105660/do-low-carb-diets-work)

<comment><USER30> Anyone who clicks through to that link and reads is going to see that it doesn't "debunk" anything, and is in fact careful not to claim that it does.

<comment><USER29> Note the bit of GGP I quoted was around the the insulin hypothesis. That supposed connection between insulin from high GI foods causing weight gain (or reducing weight loss), that is what the studies referenced in the article disprove.

 _" According to the insulin-carbohydrate model, we should have seen an acceleration in the rate of body fat loss when we cut insulin by 50 percent," Hall said. But they didn't, which he thinks suggests that the regulation of fat tissue storage in the body has to do with more than just insulin levels and their relationship with the carbs we eat._

 _The new results also echo a previous study of the insulin-carbohydrate model, where Hall found that people who cut fat in their diets have equal or greater body fat loss than those who cut carbs. (Here's Hall's new review of the literature on the carb-insulin model of obesity.)_

 _" These studies represent the first rigorous scientific tests of the carb- insulin model in humans," Hall added. "The public needs to understand that this [insulin-carbohydrate] model now has pretty strong evidence against it."_

<comment><USER30> You've conveniently stopped quoting right before the "Can pasta and bread lovers now rejoice?" section detailing the limitations of the study.

<comment><USER29> (Sorry, I edited my post to clarify. I'm specifically referring to the 'insulin hypothesis', so the rest of the article's ramblings aren't all that relevant).

(And the so-called 'limitations of the study' according to the article, are that it was a controlled, scientific study apparently, yay journalism).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you're a pro, you take Deer Antler spray

</comment><comment><USER32> I stopped reading when I saw this hilarious bad photoshopped first image.

<comment><USER33> Why would you say so?

<comment><USER32> The upper part of the door in the background doesn't fit to the lower part.

Addendum: I was wrong with my accusation.

<comment><USER34> I don't see it.

<comment><USER35> Look at the first image (beforeafter.jpg), photo on the right (Dec 2016). The corner of the door is over his right shoulder. If you go straight down, it should come out behind him somewhere around the break between his first and second fingers. But it doesn't. The door sticks out below his 3rd finger. If you look below that, the break in the carpet doesn't line up either.

He probably photoshopped his abdomen to make himself appear skinnier, which is a shame. He's made incredible progress, and dishonesty only detracts from the hard work he's obviously put in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>