Kickstart the first tailor-fit, American-made henleys and hoodies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pistollake.com/post/60775085351/kickstart-the-first-tailor-fit-american-made-henleys

<comment><USER3> Shane, one of the other co-founders from Pistol Lake, here. We started Pistol Lake to make basic, well-crafted shirts that just fit. Happy to answer any questions!

<comment><USER4> Very interesting, as this is the first time seeing your company. Perhaps I missed this (I went over about three pages on the website), but:

1) How much are you trying to raise? What if it fails to meet the goal?

2) How exactly can I get a perfectly fitting shirt? What do I need/get to measure (i.e. is it two things and you get close or is it more)?

Love this idea for a company, by the way. I often have to find clothing in odd corners to fit my physique (tall, thin, long arms and torso). I've ordered tech shirts just because of how they fit (e.g. [http://www.googlestore.com/Google+Redesign/Wearables/Men+s+T...](http://www.googlestore.com/Google+Redesign/Wearables/Men+s+T-Shirts/Long+Sleeve+Organic+Crew.axd)) and buy lots of cycling oriented clothing as it seems to fit me better than "mainstream" clothing without being tailored.

<comment><USER5> 1\. We just hit $10K, our goal was at least $5K, which is the minimum to place an order for 16 rolls from the mill.

2\. Most people are adequately covered by the standard 6 sizes. Ours fit particularly well - how a shirt should. It is a lot about how it fits in certain areas of the body and then drapes. We spent a ton of time perfecting our block, specific for our cotton, and then expanded it with other shirt designs. We take it a few steps further and have made a number of other sizes to fit between a Small and a Medium, and one between a Medium and a Large, and then tall sizes, tapered cuts for extremely athletic people, and a relaxed cut for heavier.

We're working on the interface now, and will have it done when the campaign ends to collect measurements. We can match you pretty well with height and weight, but chest helps a lot as well. Whatever you're comfortable giving!

<comment><USER6> Just ordered, and your reply is confusing me a bit regarding the measurements. I entered some measurements under "My Profile", are those all I need to enter, or will there be a different interface once the campaign ends?

First time I'm doing something like this, so I'd like to make sure I'm doing it right :).

<comment><USER5> The section of My Profile was our first stab at taking in measurements, but we're refining it and making the UX much better. We'll definitely let you know when it launches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would love to see them tackle t-shirts and dress shirts. I'm a tall (6'4") slim man and a lot of the times when I get a t-shirt there's so much extra material sticking out on my arms. I want it to wrap snuggly around my arm like it does for people who have bigger arms. Once in a while I buy a t-shirt that does this but it's very sporadic.

For dress shirts I usually do 2 things. I get mediums, never tuck them in and roll-up my sleeves (this is my preferred method). If I want my sleeves to actually look like they fit me I get a large and once in a while I get it tailored, if I don't tailor them it's because I usually wear that shirt with something over it like a sweater/vest/blazer/jacket/etc so it hides the bagginess around my back/waist area.

I would really like to pre-order this but I actually don't see any examples on their site of what their different sizes are and how they'll fit. All I see is the same model type. You can tout that you are going to have all these amazing different sizes for all types and not showcase that. I'm particularly looking for someone of my body-type.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a big fan of custom-made clothing (I'm an engineer at ThirdLove [1] - <USER2> take a picture of yourself, we figure out your measurements based on the picture, and you can buy clothes from our vertically-integrated brand based on your fit).

Maybe I'm a pretty standard size, but is there really a huge demand for custom-fitted t-shirts/henleys? Custom fit is valuable for clothing that is three-dimensional (suits/sports coats) and/or has many different fit parameters (dress shirts). For the segment of people that are interested in custom-fitted clothing, is a custom tee significantly better than an off the rack one? I guess I'll answer the question for myself - buying the $99 package.

On a side note, some feedback on your checkout process:

As a guest, when I go to check out, after I register/log in, it takes me to a referral page instead of the payments page. That was really confusing. You should be taking people straight to the payments page if you want to maximize your conversions.

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

<comment><USER4> In the states, if you fall into a certain number of body types and desire properly fitting clothing your options are very limited without tailoring. For me, even clothing that is aimed at my body type doesn't fit well. I appear to be on the extreme end or simply have too high of standards.

I know I'd pay a pretty penny for just a few shirts that fit exceedingly well.

<comment><USER5> This is -exactly- why we're doing what we're doing. What is your body type, if you don't mind me asking? Would love to see where you fit in our size scale and shoot you a shirt.

<comment><USER4> Really a great idea for a business. It won't likely go upsetting the powerhouses of the clothing industry but that doesn't mean there isn't a large revenue stream to be had on those of us who fall into these areas. Millions might be small sums for said powerhouses, but it could be life-altering revenue for a nimble and focused company and it's employees.

No need to send, I plan on ordering here shortly. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A smart move by these guys was targeting a high-profile member of a fashion community (in this case /r/malefashionadvice, though I wouldn't be surprised if they hit up Styleforum and other places as well) and sending him a bunch of stuff to review -- the guy reviewed it and it hit the frontpage of a ~250K community for a day[1]. This isn't a particularly novel or high-cost approach, but its a classic marketing move that seems to be glossed over by nouveau entrepreneurs. Writing a book on Rails? Send a copy of the book to a prominent Rails blogger to see what they think. Launching an AirBNB for corgis? You'd be well-advised to spend an afternoon finding and reaching out to the dozens of corgi forums.

[1] Incidentally, this is why I think Reddit advertising will never take off: the value proposition of stuff like this is just so much more appealing.

<comment><USER5> Thank you. We're huge fans of MFA (subreddit every dude should check out: [http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/](http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/)) and jdbee was awesome. Since we were avid readers, we knew the rules and how to approach him - we told him straight up that we expected complete honesty and were open to the public. Things like this are a win, win I think. I love reading about new brands, and enjoy the unbiased reviews, and the companies (like mine) really benefit by gaining a few customers and a lot of eyeballs.

<comment><USER8> Another good person to approach would be Dan Trepanier of The Style Blogger ([http://tsbmen.com](http://tsbmen.com)). They have a [self-proclaimed] readership of 100K+ monthly, and they offer style advice to specific groups like bigger guys, really tall guys, short guys, etc. I think your product would be a perfect fit for their audience.

<comment><USER5> I'll definitely reach out. Any recommendations for getting the word out are much appreciated!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I may make a suggestion: there's a hugely underserved population of short (< 5'6") men who cannot buy good quality, well-fitting clothing in the US. I would love to see a small shirt manufacturer tackle this demographic.

<comment><USER5> Great idea! Shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll get some measurements from you and work on the pattern.

Our XS fits 5'6" well, but we haven't tested to see where it starts to become too long. Here are a few people that are 5'6" wearing it:

[https://pistollake.com/images/examplefits/Erik_XS.jpg](https://pistollake.com/images/examplefits/Erik_XS.jpg) [https://pistollake.com/images/examplefits/Zach_XS.jpg](https://pistollake.com/images/examplefits/Zach_XS.jpg)

NAME SIZE HEIGHT WEIGHT PANT SIZE CHEST STOMACH BICEP ARM LENGTH Zach XS 5'6" 140 28/28 35" 31" 11" 28" Erik XS 5'6" 130 28/28 35" 31" 10.25" 28"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Question: Sorry if this is listed, I couldn't find it. How do I figure out what size is the best fit for me?

They look awesome and this is such a great idea. I've been thinking about something similar since I can't find graphic t-shirts that fit well AND look good (ie have a graphic I want to wear). Generally everyone prints on american apparel and to be honest AA sucks. I have a lot of artwork I plan to do a test run with, will you guys be doing graphic t's? Any chance I can buy a stack of shirts to print on for my test run?

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems you have every country on the planet in your drop down list for the shipping address, but I keep getting "no shipping option" no matter which country I choose.

<comment><USER5> Sorry about that! What're you trying to order and to what country? We'll get to the bottom of it.

<comment><USER12> I was trying to order one polo to Canada. Then I tried a bunch of different countries at random.

<comment><USER5> We are just implementing international shipping. It has been really cost- prohibitive previously. UPS is $76, Priority is $32, we've figured out some cheaper options, but we want to make sure everything we offer is at prices we'd pay... and we haven't been able to nail it down yet. That said, we're looking at ~$14 shipping to most parts of Canada now. Not sure if that makes sense on one polo, but at least we have an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I ordered a polo as well - easily my favorite shirt in my wardrobe. It's extremely comfortable, and I'm definitely going to make another purchase.

<comment><USER5> Check out the new henley - it is a one-of-a-kind. I may be biased (I'm a co- founder of Pistol Lake :) ) - but I've never had so many compliments on a shirt before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Definitely interested in this range but I'm still waiting on my order from the first campaign. How far are you guys from getting the UK orders sent?

<comment><USER5> We're starting international shipping next week! Can't wait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congrats! I was in on the kickstarter. Great company with a vision for men's clothing I can get behind.

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats! Stoked for the new line, loved the first [Kickstarter] package.

<comment><USER5> Can't wait to get you your hoodies. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I ordered a polo as part of their Kickstarter launch and really like it!

<comment><USER5> Killer - we aim to please.

The question is.. was it lagoon blue? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it possible to see the colors that will be available?

<comment><USER5> Hey! The colors are in the slider images in the middle of the page. They are charcoal, black, white, navy, red, and steel.

<comment><USER18> Oh cool, thanks. I actually hadn't scrolled down far enough to see them. I was that sold!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Loved the first kickstarter package - perfect fit.

<comment><USER5> What'd you get? We had some quirks with the polos, but overall, I'm really proud of how well the first run came out. We're going to continue to make improvements every batch, so let me know if you have any things you'd like to see changed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Where does the blog post talk about angel round?

<comment><USER5> Good observation, a section got removed, adding it back now. Happy to write separate blog about it as well, if you're interested. We raised a unique round from mostly younger company founders - an advisory round.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wearing the v-neck right now! Congrats.</comment>


Show HN: New Domain Ninja: Discover websites being built on New TLDs - <AUTHOR> http://newdomain.ninja/

<comment><USER2> Cool idea, lots of new TLD's out there. I am always wondering "do people actually use these new TLDs" so I suppose this site will answer that question.</comment>


AERO Token: Enabling the Drone Superhighway Using the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aerotoken/aero-token-enabling-the-drone-superhighway-using-the-blockchain-ce2cf5004a10 <comment><USER2> Why does a blockchain need to be used here? A database would be sufficient. Why restrict the service to a single currency? Just seems like a cover to hold an ICO and make some money.

The concept seems odd too. Contiguous property owners will probably not all participate so the drones will be forced to fly nonlinear routes.

<comment><USER3> regarding the concept... the part I like about it is that it provides a mechanism for property owners to at least have a "say" in what flies over their property (and when). It's perhaps not a big deal now, but if drone delivery, et. al. become commonplace, I see this as the drone equivalent of a do-not-call list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, the voluntary participation component is a material differentiator, as opposed to thrusting air traffic over people's homes or property, as is the case with most infrastructure development (railway, pipelines, transmission lines, etc) usually in the form of an eminent domain action.</comment></comment></comment>


The Super Secret Cloudflare Master Plan, or Why We Acquired Neumob - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/neumob-optimizing-mobile/ <comment><USER2> > super secret

TIL super secret means "Lets let the whole world know"

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds scary, a device to device worldwide network controlled by one organization?</comment>


Ask HN: Best Companies to Work for in Charleston? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to move to Charleston from Seattle. I currently work as a consultant but I have 10 yoe from the FANG. I'm tired of consulting and I'm tired of Seattle and I'd like to go to Charleston if possible. Any places of note worth working for? <comment><USER2> Which Charleston?</comment>


Firefox 3.5 - dreaming about the future of the web. - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/35-days/ <comment><USER2> I have just two requests for Mozilla: please make Firefox faster on Linux, and troubleshoot its memory leak problem.

Even Firefox on my Virtualbox windows machine runs a lot more responsiver than on Linux host machine ...

<comment><USER3> Firefox on Linux has never really compared to the Windows version. I hear that Chrome on Linux is working pretty well though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been running 3.5b4 for a while. I've seen the future, and it looks a lot like the current version of the web, just a bit faster.

<comment><USER5> It is pointed that the features of Firefox 3.5 are mainly for developers not users. So we will have to wait a bit longer before websites will make use of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone know what their Javascript threading model will look like? I am both excited and scared.

<comment><USER7> I think they are referring to html5 web workers <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A bit sad how Firefox is now chasing IE and Chrome for features and speed. Oh well, were it not for Firefox we'd all still be running IE6.

The King is dead. Love live the King.

<comment><USER9> Glad to see I'm not the only that finds it ironic how Firefox only took 2 versions to abandon the original reasoning (lightweight, fast, better UI) that made them so much better than anything else. It's not like in the last few years people have suddenly wanted heavier, slower, harder.

<comment><USER10> I never thought they did such a great job of that anyway. For example, the early versions of Firefox were about twice as big as Opera (in download size) and had a fraction of the features.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, they basically switched off a bunch of stuff in the full Mozilla suite (now Seamonkey) but it was only later (for certain things much later) that they actually removed unused code and focused on speed and memory.

So anyone who thinks that Firefox had "Features", "Speed" or "Lightweight" as original killer features is deluded.

They did on the other hand have a fairly stripped down and therefore non- threatening usable UI (now leapfrogged in that regard by Chrome and Safari), extensions, being both open source and free of cost (without being ad supported), faking native Windows UI reasonably well, and not being IE6 in their favor.

<comment><USER9> Right, and maybe you're right that I was deluded, but my recollection is that the original motivation for Firefox was "Mozilla (and IE) are bloated and slow, let's fix that"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope they implement WebSockets, that sole feature will change the way we know the web.

The real-time web, the next "wave".

<comment><USER13> Hear, hear!

The sooner we can ditch elaborate long-polling hacks, the happier I'll be. We've got a lot of features on the drawing board that would be _enormously_ simplified by WebSockets.

<comment><USER14> Or uh, you could use Java or an easily installed desktop client.

<comment><USER15> Users are much less likely to use a service that requires a desktop client. There are a few exceptions to that rule of course; IM, twitter, and Skype come to mind. But I think it holds as a general rule. For example, if YouTube required a desktop client instead of working entirely through the browser, would you still use YouTube? I doubt that I would.

<comment><USER14> I have 4-5 different video players installed. I _wish_ I could use just _one_ of them to view videos instead of using Flash (which hiccups and crashes Firefox sometimes and doesn't even work properly on Linux for me).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Direct marketing through Facebook notifications - <AUTHOR> http://companynote.net/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, has potential. I have seen companies doing this before, but only a few large scale ones.

I could see this working for Amazon or other large scale eCommerce stores for shipping and special notifications.

My only warning to potential users of this app is to be very conservative with the amount of times you use it. Users get really testy, esp. mobile users when FB notifications are enabled, this could get annoying.</comment>


Has anyone used mathematica as a programming language/environment? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> After reading this article [1], I did a bit of looking around on the internet, and found out that Mathematica can be and is used as a programming language/environment [2]. Have any of the news.YC readers used Mathematica as a development environment? What are your impressions?

1\. <http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/05/computable_data_functions.html0>

2\. <http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/analysis/content/ProgrammingLanguages.html>

<comment><USER2> I have not used Mathematica as a programming environment. But I've written three long numerical codes for mathematica. One was a ray-tracer for optical design, the second was a stellar model, the most recent code is a monte-carlo type simulator

So, mathematica is a beautiful language. It has symbols and pattern matching, so you can think more "mathematically." Loops exist too, and now aren't that slow, so you can think more like a computer. If you write mathematical code, the code you write is rendered in mathematical type, this is an _amazing_ feature, and I'm glad Fortress is going to include it.

Pros aside, I've found mathematica hard to debug. The fact that the interpreter costs money is also a big minus. What are you thinking about writing in Mathematica?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing (yet :-) ). I took a solid-state physics course in undergrad; the course was unoficially labeled "the mathematica course". We derived a 3D model of an H atom using Heisenberg's equations. So when I recently saw mathematica in the news, I checked out their website and saw that they seem to be heading in the "general programming" direction. That made me curious about what people are using it for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Shall we start a matlab vs mathematica comment (troll) thread :) here please.</comment>


Obama Supporters Prefer Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://www.eyesonobama.com/blog/content/id_26342/title_Obama-Supporters-Prefer-Firefox-/ <comment><USER2> I found this interesting not because of 'obama' but just the inversed statistic... which may give us a cue that IE is going to continue losing market share. What I'd really like to know is what percentage of those were on ff3.

<comment><USER3> If Firefox vs. IE is really generational, this is big news!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> McCain supporters prefer telegraph.

</comment><comment><USER5> News? _Hacker_ News?

</comment><comment><USER6> No, visitors to eyesonobama.com prefer FF.

</comment><comment><USER7> well duh most of his supporters are much younger.</comment>


Nine years of censorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/nine-years-of-censorship-1.19842 <comment><USER3> Personally when I read about this kind of censorship it reminds me that these types of people - those craving power, and willing to go to great lengths to achieve it as an ends unto itself, with apparently little regard for the notion of serving the general public - also want access to every citizen's communications, whereabouts, and under the auspices of security, safety...peace...

Well, in a world where information wants to be free - good information and exposes, and even bad information like debunked anti-vaccine hoopla - <USER2> who seek to control it should be viewed suspiciously. In the case of the Harper government actions, suspicion can easily be revised to "clear agenda and manipulation to those ends" which, you know, sounds a lot worse on paper. What a horrible way to treat scientists, really, just a terribly pig-headed and shamlessly pandering approach by the Harper government to please who they felt needed pleasing.

</comment><comment><USER4> At one point, a brawny 'minder' had actually accompanied her to a public hearing to make sure that she didn't break the rules This kind of thing should NEVER be allowed to happen. The scientists are paid from public funds. That information is our right. This should upset anyone reading it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I find it sad that from the title alone "Nine years of censorship", I was able to say to myself "oh, that's my country they are talking about! Canada!"

</comment><comment><USER6> how does something like this happen in a "free" western country like Canada? And why isn't there more outrage about it? This is appalling to say the least. I knew I didn't like Harper but I didn't realize he was so totalitarian.

<comment><USER7> There was plenty of outrage - alas, the Conservatives could secure a majority government with only 38% of the vote.

That 38% of the population doesn't care, or endorse this kind of behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe one day Springer, the publisher who owns Nature, will also stop suppressing scientific research.

</comment><comment><USER9> I had friends who supported the muzzling. "They are just trying to spark propaganda and brainwash our society" was what one in particular said.

I just dropped the subject from there on out :|

<comment><USER10> Its crazy that people think that throwing out documented statistics and facts is brainwashing.

I hate tinfoil hat conspiracies. Its starting to plague society and get people disconnected from problems that need immediate attention.

Its good you dropped the subject, there's just no reasoning with them.

<comment><USER11> It would be good to remember that a vast majority of people don't respond to reason. They respond to emotion. If you make someone feel good about your argument, they will agree with your argument.

It seem the more likely one is to want to help society, the less likely that person understands this fundamental aspect of human nature.

And so somehow the ones who really GET IT are the ones in power, and the ones who don't want to make anything better.

It's so refreshing when you find a persuader in charge of everything who also wants to make everything better, like say Duterte in the Philippines, for example.

<comment><USER12> The ones who get it are also the ones who stick with the concept of doing good long enough, to learn the facts you mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was a government worker's union issue that got absurdly bent out of proportion.

The government demanded that government _employees_ get approval for any direct communications with media, etc. This all began when a researcher seriously impacted the salmon industry by releasing extremely preliminary results (that turned out to be wrong), making a name for herself and setting up a PR circuit. The media loves apocalyptic outcomes ("So would you say this means that we're all going to die?"), so of course it made headlines with the most dire of predictions.

This was not an independent researcher. This was not the private sector. This was someone directly employed by the government. It's like a Microsoft employee wrote about vulnerabilities in Windows on their private blog, offering to sell solutions.

So the government put a process in place not unlike much of the Western world, doing nothing to control the science (papers were published, research was released, etc. The scientific world understands that preliminary results are preliminary), but having everything to do with the message relayed to the media. Of course this was met with a conspiratorial narrative that continues to this day: That they were hiding dire greenhouse gas/global warming information, for instance.

But the shackles have come off. Where are all of these dramatic scientific findings that were suppressed?

...crickets...

The single example constantly floated is about a guy who got called by a reporter about a paper he released about ~~slime mold~~ rock snot (the exampled floated in literally hundreds of articles about the muzzling of scientists). This government scientist was outraged that he couldn't get approval within 24 hours, and the reporter lost interest. Apparently rock snot is a real timely issue in media circles.

There was a _lot_ wrong with the prior government. An enormous amount. By this particular story is about some freelancing employees who don't want anyone telling them what to do.

<comment><USER14> > But the shackles have come off. Where are all of these dramatic scientific > findings that were suppressed?

The very article you're responding to mentions 3 specific examples of politically sensitive research that were affected by the policy, including the article's featured example about salmon.

> The single example constantly floated is about a guy who got called by a > reporter about a paper he released about slime mold.

Of the 4 examples mentioned in the original article (3 specific examples, 1 shark scientist mentioned in passing), none of them are this "constantly floated" example, it isn't even mentioned in passing. Nor is it mentioned in either of the articles that my sibling comment linked to.

This is a bizarre response.

<comment><USER13> _The very article you 're responding to mentions 3 specific examples of politically sensitive research _

But all three demonstrate nothing being suppressed. It points to two people who claim to have left their jobs (moved elsewhere/retired) because of these restrictions (although unburdened they apparently had no big reveal, or even an anecdote about anything being suppressed. But polar bears or something -- the casual allusion being entirely manipulative and intentional), and a salmon researcher who released all of their science, including publication in Science, but couldn't give soundbites as an official representative of the government of Canada. Exactly as I stated, this is a union/workplace issue, and people having grievances about workplace policies, with shockingly little to say about how it actually impacted science.

 _including its featured example about salmon._

That was the beginning (it was literally the first example of communications policies interfering in someone's feeling of being a freelancer). The salmon industry was already sensitive, and with great fanfare the PR circus began for a paper in Science. The government was sensitive about the _misrepresentation_ of science, not about the science. Again, the paper was published. The science was documented. The same person was presenting at a Salmon inquiry. But they couldn't provide soundbites without it being considered and controlled.

EDIT: Two hours in, and for the many, many down arrows I've gotten by people showing how strongly they feel about this, it's notable that the combined examples of suppressed science catalogued thus far: __ZERO __.

<comment><USER15> > _The government was sensitive about the misrepresentation of science, not > about the science._

What, it was worried that the scientist would misrepresent their own research? That's ridiculous!

In a scientific paper, a theory is hypothesised, an experiment designed, data and observations conducted and a conclusion is formed. That conclusion, based on the observations and data collected by the scientist, is analysis.

What you are saying is that the scientist will misrepresent their own conclusions.

Let's put that another way: you are saying that the scientist will misrepresent science by contradicting their own conclusions.

Another way of putting it, just to be clear: the scientist will publish their conclusions in a paper, then tell the media the exact opposite of their conclusions. Either by mistake or because they are lying.

You seem to be surprised by the incredulity your post is generating. There's why!

<comment><USER16> To suggest that scientists would _never_ misrepresent their work because "science!" is naive at best.

Scientists are human. They are not above human motivations - both good and bad - related to their work, their stature, and their jobs. Funding can be based on certain results. Getting published can be based on certain results.

This is why making experiments and studies that are reproducible is so important.

<comment><USER15> Reproducibility is important, but not to check that what a scientist says about their own work is accurate. To verify the accuracy of what a scientist says about their own work you merely have to read their work.

That said, however, I _am_ actually saying that it's unlikely that a scientist would misrepresent their own published findings. Perhaps it may occur - but if that happened then the government of the day could discipline the scientist who misrepresented their work. They would have to prove it.

What I find _more_ naive is that a media relations person, employed by the government to portray them in the best light, would not misrepresent the work of the scientist.

Who would you want the reporter to speak to: the person employed to protect the reputation of the government of the day, or the scientist who did the actual work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> well, the same thing happens when people would like to discuss alternative theories to the causes of climate change. The BBC, for instance, outright bans anyone that talks about it (and so do many other forums), which is outright censorship.

We should be fighting for the freedom to discuss any topic, not just a select few that matches up with the current narrative.

<comment><USER18> That's funny, because in 2014 the BBC was admonished by independent reviewers for giving too much airtime to climate change deniers under their 'too rigid' impartiality guidelines [1].

From the Telegraph [2]

> The BBC's determination to give a balanced view has seen it pit scientists > arguing for climate change against far less qualified opponents such as Lord > Lawson who heads a campaign group lobbying against the government's climate > change policies. Andrew Montford, who runs the Bishop Hill climate sceptic > blog, former children's television presenter Johnny Ball and Bob Carter, a > retired Australian geologist, are among the other climate sceptics that have > appeared on the BBC.

I think I agree with the BBC's own comedian's take on this, which is to give each side time proportional to the amount of support they have from experts in the field. In other words, for every ten minutes of airtime for climate experts on climate change caused by humans, we can have 18 seconds, or 3% of climate skeptics speaking.

[1]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/07/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/07/07/bbc-admonished-for-giving-climate-change-deniers-equal-air- time/)

[2]: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/B...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/BBC- staff-told-to-stop-inviting-cranks-on-to-science-programmes.html)

<comment><USER19> Asimov summed it up nicely:

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

<comment><USER20> Except anti-intellectualism is hard to define. Not too long ago saying anything critical of communism got you put in re-education work camps for life, jailed, tortured, or killed in many countries. Now it just gets you downvotes from true believers. Afterall, communism was run by the intellectual class quoting Marx, and if you disagreed with Marx then you were an uneducated person.

Everyone thinks they're the intellectuals. Even the people prescribing thalidomide to pregnant women. A strong sense of skepticism should be encouraged, not mocked, and appeals to authority should be seen as invalid on their face.

<comment><USER21> It actually is not that complicated, at least on the "everyone thinks they are intellectuals". The moment you think you are so right you should be suppressing other peoples right to speak on the matter, you are immediately _not_ the intellectual, you are just a tyrant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. In this case, the sword is State power.

Researchers are perfectly happy for the might of the State to underpin coercive taxation, because it directly funds their jobs. But they complain loudly enough when a fraction of that might is used to constrain their freedom of expression.

I think the move to un-muzzle State scientists is a good thing. But I have little sympathy for their complaints, either, given the way they're funded.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hopefully some day US scientists will be granted the same freedom to discuss their research.

<comment><USER20> Uh what is Obama suppressing exactly here? If anything, the US has one of the most, if not the most open and prolific science publishing in history.

Does every HN political post need a highly upvoted 'But the US is worse' cite- less snarking?

<comment><USER24> Much of this stuff is not visible. Back in the No Child left behind days some people relatively high up in the administration where harassing a researcher based on her research. I found this out from one of her graduate students not the news.

I don't recall all the details, but a large part of the push was centered around a politically connected company selling some education materials. And the research suggested that approach was not useful.

Now extend that to issues people actually care about and I suspect a lot of this stays under the radar.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Resources for static websites in 2017? - <AUTHOR> I'm using Python to render a static personal website. It's been a while since I've done this kind of work, so are there any tools, resources or useful links you can give to someone building a completely static site in 2017?<p>Thank you. <comment><USER2> so, uh, it's 2018. Just sayin'

[https://www.staticgen.com/](https://www.staticgen.com/) "Top Open-Source Static Site Generators" [https://github.com/agarrharr/awesome-static-website- services](https://github.com/agarrharr/awesome-static-website-services)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah damnit. I'm still writing 2017 on everything. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Periodic fasting starves cisplatin‐resistant cancers to death - <AUTHOR> http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2018/06/06/embj.201899815 <comment><USER3> Very interesting! I (female; 57 y.o.) have been doing an intermittent fast (2 days/week: typically Tue/Thu) for >2.5 years now. I picked those days as they don't interfere with social events, weekends, long weekends. I initially did 500 calories on those days, but for more than a year now I simply don't eat at all on those days (but I drink coffee, tea). I find that much easier, as the hunger pangs are largely absent. Benefits from this fasting include an epigenetic reprogramming (perhaps?) of some stem cells, as from the outset I've seen a few of the very few gray hairs that I have revert back to brown (white further out; brown more recently to root). That could be triggered (or entirely due to) e.g. by autophagy of the old, weakened cells and their replacement by rejuvenated cells. Interesting, nonetheless. Body weight is stabilized around the new metabolic set point (I record this daily in a tab- delimited file, that I can easily plot with a simple linux command (alias gp='echo "gnuplot -p /mnt/Vancouver/Programming/scripts/gnuplot/plot.gp')! On non-diet days I eat whatever I want (I ashould add, pretty sensible: mostly home-made food, meals), ad libitum. ;-)

Plot: [https://imgur.com/a/e3ahbtQ](https://imgur.com/a/e3ahbtQ)

<comment><USER4> Wow - I (male; 45 y.o.) have done virtually the same (2 days/week fast, Tue and Fri, no food intake, only drinks - mostly water, sometimes coffee, rarely some orange juice; on non-fast days ate without restriction) for one year now.

The curve looks quite similar: [https://imgur.com/a/H4pKkNv](https://imgur.com/a/H4pKkNv)

What I find interesting is your mention of a metabolic set point. Wanted to lose a bit more weight (since I still have visceral fat), but couldn't manage to do so. It seems I hit a hard barrier - any caloric deficit during fasting days was magically compensated exactly on non-fasting days; I tried to reduce caloric intake on non-fasting days, but while fasting a whole day isn't that difficult for me, restricting calories while eating seems to only work when my body has met a magical internal quota.

It seems indeed to be a set point. The small uptick beginning of June was when I skipped a fast day once. I'm a bit scared what would happen if I stopped fasting altogether now.

Would be interesting to understand more about the set point - however, some research on the net didn't yield much substantial info. It seems it exists, but how it works exactly and how it can be moved is unclear. And even if trying to move it makes sense. Maybe the set point is ideal health-wise, and is overridden on unhealthy caloric surplus diets...?

<comment><USER5> > while fasting a whole day isn't that difficult for me, restricting calories > while eating seems to only work when my body has met a magical internal > quota.

One dirty trick to try is, just after eating, to drink about two tablespoons of staight "extra-light" olive oil. It's a bit foul, but makes for a effective way of ruining your appetite. Other "bland food diet" tricks might also work.

(I'd like to mention that I do not support healthy diets, but my design to work against anything nature intends takes priority.)

Edit: two tablespoons, not eight, and apparently they make low-fat olive oil now.

<comment><USER6> > drink about half a cup of staight olive oil. It's a bit foul, but makes for > a effective way of ruining your appetite

It's also a very effective way of getting 1000 kcal.

<comment><USER5> I tracked down the original suggestion to here[0], and I was off by a factor of four. Mea culpa, especially since I've actually used the 2 tbsp version a couple of times.

0: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the- hungry-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-hungry- brain/) # middle of section IV

<comment><USER6> That's much more reasonable, but it's still around a candy bar's worth of calories. You may want to find a different method, depending on how much you want to cut.

<comment><USER7> I find brushing my teeth helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For many months last year I would do a 5 day water fast the third week of every month. I enjoyed it but my mental performance at work suffered during the end of the fast.

I've been intermittent fasting for the last 2 months. I eat breakfast around 7:30 (protein shake I make at home with some healthy things tossed in), eat an orange or apple around 10AM, a large salad I make at work without any dressing at noonish, and a handful of cashews and almonds at 2:00PM. That's it. Nothing after that. I'll drink some unsweetened herbal tea or a carbonated water around 7pm sometimes when I'm winding down.

It's by far the best diet I've ever been on. It's hard sometimes when work events offer food/drinks after my eating window closes but not that hard. If I have to do work drinks I'll do a vodka soda to minimize my caloric intake.

Now I walk around at the weight that I wrestled at in college, I don't feel hungry often, and I feel great during the day.

I'm trying to get my family to try it for a few weeks to spur a lifestyle / eating change but it's been difficult. Most people are locked into the three meals a day (and likely a few snacks) mindset.

<comment><USER9> Vodka is not a good choice, ethanol (7kcal/g) is second only to fat (9kcal/g) for caloric density.

<comment><USER10> The calories per gram you reference is how much energy you get out of substance from literally setting it on fire.

But how much actual energy is available to the human body is very different. And alcohol specifically is very hard for the human body to efficiently turn into eneegy.

In addition alcohol make the mitochondria more inefficient leading to greater energy usage.

Most studies that add alcohol to animals diet find no change in weight.

<comment><USER9> Nutritional charts show the data I mentioned.

Are you referring to the word calorie used? For food calorie is shortened from kilocalorie.

<comment><USER10> I'm saying the nutritional charts are misleading.

A calorie is a unit of measure of energy right? But you can release different amounts of energy depending on the chemical reaction you use.

Well the chemical reaction they use to measure energy in macronutrients is not the same chemical reaction that is used by the human body, they burn it instead. Now for most macronutrients this doesn't matter because the amount of calories released by the human body is pretty close to the amount released by burning.

But this isn't true of ethanol which is very efficiently burned, but very inefficiently consumed by the human body. So the 7 Cal/gram is very misleading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fasting is great for weight loss and for lowering your insulin resistance, which is now considered by many the main cause of obesity and of course type 2 diabetes. This has been shown by studies.

Some say that fasting activates "autophagy" which has great health benefits, supposedly being great for preventing the remission of cancer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy) — but note that I could not find any concrete study or proof of it, this being anecdotal evidence from some clinics that advise their patients to do fasting instead of chemotherapy.

I practice fasting for 36 hours, 3 times per week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I don't eat or drink anything other than water and coffee. You can go shorter, like one meal per day in some days or longer, e.g. 5 days is easy once you get used to it.

As a tip: eating high fat, low carbs meals before fasting helps. Also if you get dizzy or if you get cramps, you probably have an electrolytes imbalance and you need to stop your fast. If that happens to you, make sure to take salt (sodium) and possibly magnesium supplements. Once I started doing that, the dizziness and the cramps stopped. But document yourself first and consulting a doctor and doing some blood work might be good ideas.

This is a pretty good book on the subject: [https://www.amazon.com/Complete- Guide-Fasting-Intermittent-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide- Fasting-Intermittent-Alternate-Day/dp/1628600012)

<comment><USER12> It seems like every day somebody has figured out how to beat type 2 diabetes. I just read Proteinaholic by Dr. Garth Davis who advocates a vegan lifestyle (while telling you that carbs are not the enemy) to cure diabetes.

<comment><USER11> Our metabolism is very complex. But if it's not backed up by studies and science, it doesn't count.

Type 2 diabetes is defined by insulin resistance. The only way to "beat" type 2 diabetes is to lower your insulin resistance and thus to lower your insulin response. At the moment you can only lower your insulin with lifestyle changes that implies fasting + eating a diet that triggers a low insulin response.

The vegan lifestyle is high in carbs. What many people don't understand is that there are only 3 macro-nutrients: proteins, fats and carbs. You cannot do a low carbs diet without at least eggs and diary. And carbs stimulate insulin.

Note that there are clinics that have successfully treated people of diabetes via fasting. Here's one: [https://idmprogram.com/](https://idmprogram.com/)

N.B. carbohydrates are not the enemy, but _refined carbohydrates_ are and unfortunately for a type 2 diabetic it's too late to switch to healthy carbs.

Yes, a potato is healthy, however for a diabetic it is basically poison.

<comment><USER13> Complex carbs (fibers or at least carbohydrates that are slowly digested) do not stimulate insulin production as far as I know. I think it is very important to realize that there are different types of carbohydrates. You need fuel (carbs/sugars), you just don't need them to get rushed into your blood at breakneck speeds requiring massive insulin dosages to bring it back down. You want them supplied slowly and steadily to your blood during the day and night. Which is what happens when your body and your gut microbes slowly degrade complex carbs into smaller constituents, such as sugars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Obviously, it would be speculative given many factors that contribute to cancer like healthy eating, drinking, smoking... but it is interesting that in the top 50 countries with the highest rate of cancer, there are no Muslim countries. Fasting could be a factor that contributes to this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_rate)

<comment><USER15> I highly doubt this hypothesis.

Muslim people do not fast at night time. On average, they tend to eat _much more_ during Ramadan what with the vast array of seasonal sweets.

The true difficulty of fasting during Ramadan is not being allowed to drink water during the day.

<comment><USER16> Regarding the "true difficulty" I don't think you can generalize like that. For example I suspect it depends on where you live, what hours fasting is, temperature and so on.

My friends here have told me that the main problem is to eat enough during the night because after fasting for 18 hours your body get used to it. I assume similar to my issues eating a bkg breakfast in the morning directly after waking up.

<comment><USER15> Fair enough. It was an orthogonal comment anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The main thing I got out of this thread is that everyone thinks they know the right way to health, that everyone else disagrees with them, and I have no idea how to tell who's actually right.

If you want to know why there's a health problem in some developed countries, the confidence of all the factions in the back and forth in this thread is a shining example. Unless you can afford professional guidance (and know how to tell if they know what they're talking about), you don't have much hope unless you stumble on to something that works for you.

<comment><USER18> I don't get that impression. Maybe I have selective reading but the following things get little controversy here:

1\. Sugar bad

2\. Eat less

3\. Find good eating-habits that you can maintain indefinitely

Point three is where people will naturally have different outlooks. I don't read that as disagreement as much as diversity.

<comment><USER19> Points 1 and 2 are certainly controversial for endurance athletes doing intense workouts or races. Those are a small fraction of the population, but the point is there are hardly any universal guidelines.

<comment><USER20> or those are the exceptions that prove the guideline

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The fasts are only a few days long, which is fairly easy to do. It's not clear to me if these results have been shown in humans or just mice. Anyway, interesting result suggesting that occasional fasts might be a good preventative measure. It would be interesting to know if 16 hour fasts, which are common in intermittent fasting, would have the same effect.

</comment><comment><USER22> Non pay walled: [http://sci- hub.tw/http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2...](http://sci- hub.tw/http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2018/06/06/embj.201899815#)

highlight:

 _A549 CDDP-resistant cancer cells showed reduced tumor growth and longer survival in response to periodic fasting cycles (24 hours of water only twice a week). In contrast, CDDP-sensitive tumors were not affected by these 24-hour fasting cycles. Because previous results indicated that 2–3 consecutive days of fasting were effective against a wide range of cancers, particularly in combination with chemotherapy (Lee et al, 2012; Bianchi et al, 2015), it would be important to test these longer fasting periods on A549 and other CDDP- resistant cancer_

<comment><USER23> That paper is a mini review of this paper which actually has the data in it: [http://emboj.embopress.org/content/37/14/e98597](http://emboj.embopress.org/content/37/14/e98597)

In there, they did work on A549 cell lines and showed that removing nutrients from the media decreased their growth rate. They also showed that putting these human cell lines into immune deficient mice and doing a couple 24hr fasts per week had a small (p=0.03) effect on the tumor growth rate (Fig 2). But in the in vivo study, it appears they didn't directly compare A549 vs cisplatin resistant A549 - they seemed to have run 2 studies both vs control.

There are literally thousands of papers showing drugs or treatments which can cure lab mice of "cancer" and many more which can kill cell lines in vivo, but only a tiny percentage of those work in patients. There is a reason this is not in a higher profile journal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is fasting supposed to work just due to going into a caloric hole, or is there also a time component to it? In other words: does a 6 hour run/hike on an empty stomach where I burn 4000 Calories have the same effect as fasting for 36 hours?

<comment><USER19> Is that a realistic example? Very few people including trained athletes would actually be able to expend 4000kcal in 6 hours without some nutrition. After the immediate glycogen stores are depleted in a couple hours your power output drops dramatically if you don't consume anything.

<comment><USER24> Today I just did a strenuous 4-hour hike on an empty stomach which based on my weight was about 2500-3000 calories. I drank about 100 calories worth of Gatorade, and I don't do any special diets. Just years of long runs/hikes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Somewhat perpendicular, but intermittent fasting has been a great recent lifehack for me. I skip breakfast every day, and sometimes skip lunch. Gives me back at least an hour every day. And gorging for dinner is a lot of fun.

<comment><USER26> That is not a healthy diet. You should be eating smaller meal more often. If you are going to fast, do it for at least a 24 hour period.

<comment><USER27> I think it's worth considering what a healthy diet really is. Is it really healthy or are we just used to thinking it's healthy?

As an example, a diet high in fat is generally considered by most people to be unhealthy.

You see people doing Keto and you start wondering if it's really unhealthy.

Eating red meat is considered to be the unhealthy. You see people doing ZeroCarb diets and they (at least) look extremely good/healthy.

Fasting is generally considered unhealthy. You have people doing intermittent fasting, ADF or extended fasting at it works exceptionally well for them.

Vegan? It works really well for some people.

IMHO there isn't one thing that works for everyone as far as diet goes. There are also the theoretical and the practical aspects of what we eat and when we it it.

I think everyone should try different things and figure out something that works for them, long term. It should not be a "diet". It should be just something that blends into your lifestyle and gives you results for the investment you're making.

<comment><USER28> Though, nearly all of those diets seem integrate more veggies and massively reduce sugar.

<comment><USER27> Reducing sugar is probably a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For those interested in intermittent fasting, Valter Longo, the co-author of this paper, has done a few good interviews with Rhonda Patrick on her podcast and youtube:

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter- longo](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter-longo)

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter- longo-2](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter-longo-2)

I've quite enjoyed Rhonda's work.

Another good medical/biology/health podcast that recently appeared and that I'd enjoying a lot is Peter Attia's podcast. His interview with Dom D'Agostino is particularly good and includes discussion of the metabolic theory of cancer, but they're all good (he has one with Rhonda Patrick). He covers intermittent fasting among other things (also the health impacts/use of ketones, etc):

[https://peterattiamd.com/domdagostino/](https://peterattiamd.com/domdagostino/)

[https://peterattiamd.com/rhondapatrick/](https://peterattiamd.com/rhondapatrick/)

<comment><AUTHOR> You might also want to look at Mark Mattson's work.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mattson#Intermittent_Fast...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mattson#Intermittent_Fasting)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Look, stop applying pseudo-science "feels-right" intuition to things that involve complicated cellular mechanisms. It doesn't work that way and you should just listen to what your doctor(s) tell you and trust them + your own due diligence.

Fasting doesn't "starve" cancer cells. Drinking only juice for a week doesn't "cleanse" your body.

Stop making up your own medical diagnoses fueled by internet bullshit. Listen to experts and trust them for a change.

<comment><USER31> most doctors get little to no nutritional education. It is easy to learn about any one topic and know more than your physician. Especially since most physicians dont regularly read journal articles and probably dont even really understand statistics.

Appeals to authority are a logical fallacy. I do agree that reading something on the internet and following it is a bad practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> In Gaelic the words for Wednesday mean "First Fast day", those for Thursday "day between fasts" and for Friday "Fast day". So the 5:2 diet is nothing new.

</comment><comment><USER33> Not much of a suprise really. It fits the model that cancer cells are weaker, that any stress to the entire body might see them die off first. That is the basis of non-targeted chemo and radiation treatment. You apply the stress and hope it kills the cancer before the patient. So here we starve the patient and see the hungry cancer cells suffer the most. But just dont go so far that the immune system suffers too. That wont end well.

<comment><USER34> In this case it also relies on the resistant cancer cells having altered metabolic pathways compared to your average cancer. It's not an universally applicable strategy.

Remember, fasting didn't work out so well for Jobs.

<comment><USER35> He also made himself a fruitarian, so the stress on his body was from a lot more than just fasting.

This same diet landed Ashton Kutcher in the hospital when he tried to go method for Jobs.

<comment><USER36> Jobs was a fruitarian in the 80s or earlier, back when he named his company "Apple". AFAIK he was neither fasting or being a fruitarian to fight his cancer, but overall he was a finicky eater all his life, a (sometimes lax) vegetarian with bouts that resembled a true eating disorder.

<comment><USER37> I don't have a source, but I recall reading that friends of his desperately tried to convince him to undergo "real" treatment for his cancer instead of relying on alternative medicine, so apparently he did try other options early on.

<comment><USER36> Here's a good compilation of his unorthodox eating habits:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/naughty- nutrition/20...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/naughty- nutrition/201201/ivegetarian-the-high-fructose-diet-steve-jobs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> so I just completed 4 months of fasting (I had a friendly wager going, where I had to lose 15kg in 16 weeks, or pay $2000)

I did it via intermittent fasting (no breakfast, or lunch, black coffee/water only, and a normal dinner)

Chart: [https://imgur.com/a/rzckgMi](https://imgur.com/a/rzckgMi)

Basic routine was this

Monday, fast, overhead press at gym Tuesday, normal eating, deadlifts Wednesday, fast, rowing/kettlebells Thursday, normal eating, bench press Friday, normal eating, squats Saturday, fast, cardio/hiit Sunday, normal eating

came in under the target (needed 15kg, ended up losing 18kg) and won myself $2000 because the guy I had the wager with didn't hit his target.

Fasting really works, it doesn't cost you anything, and you save money.

<comment><USER39> Do you have any data on your muscle mass or lean body mass? Did you have a gain or loss in muscle mass? Or was it the same? thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Not happy with the certainty of the headline. A very close friend of mine who died of cancer chose dietary treatment over western medicine, and had a very grueling, unpleasant death in a remote place.

</comment><comment><USER41> There is a lot of evidence that high fat low carbohydrate diets, also know as fasting diets have enormous health benefits, completely at odds with the dietary recommendation here [https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dietary- guidelines](https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dietary-guidelines) is one of the drivers of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome which in includes heart disease and high blood pressure

<comment><USER42> Calorie restrictions in general are healthy. You can accomplish the same things with high carb diets provided you eat unprocessed complex carbs and reduce total calories.

<comment><USER43> Studies show that calorie restriction and fasting are actually different - during calorie restriction your body reduces energy consumption and metabolism, and while you can lose weight, it's proven hard to stick to and most people put that weight back on.

Fasting OTOH actually increases your metabolic rate [1], stimulates HGH production [4, 5], your brain switches to primarily consuming ketones instead of glucose and your body begins consuming damaged proteins via autophagy. Interestingly enough, studies show weight lost during fasting is better kept off than the equivalent loss with calorie restriction. Your body also resets what it considers 'low' levels of insulin, leptin, etc which can reverse Type II [2, 3]. That can't happen as effectively if you eat.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462)

[3] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710)

[4] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337)

[5] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426)

<comment><USER42> Yeah I understand that they are different but it's also true that restricting calories overall and losing weight is beneficial no matter what diet you use to do it. So the question is which of the many diets that can do this is the best for your long term health.

<comment><USER43> The thing is calorie restriction usually leads to full weight re-gain, usually quickly [1, 2], potentially leading to a worse body composition after the diet. The same is not true of fasting [2] - speculatively due to the effect of HGH during fasting which is known to change body composition, reducing fat percentage and increasing lean muscle mass. HGH production is not meaningfully increased by calorie restriction - it's pulsatile and regulated by the presence of any food intake at all almost no matter how small.

Further, there's a string of evidence that alternate day fasting yields substantially improved biomarkers of health (triglycerides, insulin, etc) even if total caloric intake averaged over the two days remains the same (i.e. every second day you eat 2x what you need) and weight does not change.

Weight watchers is an abject failure by their own metrics in a study they published. Their calorie restricted diets are less effective than doing nothing, but being generous, they work for 0.2% of participants who have clearly demonstrated an intent to change their bodies [3]. On the other hand, eat nothing for 36 hours and you're down 1 pound of fat, and it's not likely to come back.

That's what all that talk of yoyo dieting is, and a case can be made that its why the Minnesota Starvation Experiment led to such bad outcomes. They weren't fasting, they were eating a reduced calorie diet - they may have been much better off eating nothing. Contrast that outcome to this, albeit single data point, of a man who ate nothing for 382 days, felt great, wasn't hungry (?!) and lost 275lbs AND kept it all off 5 years later [4].

What I'm getting at here is the science is leaning towards what you're saying not being correct - that how often you eat may be more important than how much, that your body reacts very differently to 6 snacks a day than it does to 1 giant meal every 2 days even if the caloric content is the same. And further that people just aren't built for long-term calorie restriction and to recommend something like that isn't productive.

[1] [https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction- fails-...](https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction- fails-9dc18fe9cf23)

[2] [https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not- promote-...](https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-promote- weight-regain/)

[3] [https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight- watchers/](https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-watchers/)

[4] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/pos...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf)

(Each of these should link through to NCBI papers)

<comment><USER44> Your [2] source isn't saying fasting, it's saying quick weight loss. Outside of that one gentlemen who's an outlier in nearly ever aspect you didn't post anything that talked about fasting.

<comment><USER43> Sorry I was hopping between wifi connections at airports and didn't have the studies I wanted on hand (I don't really keep a stack for any time I want to make a case haha); curious what you make of these papers. In general it's hard to find proper fasting studies on humans due to perception issues though I think that's changing now.

ADF succeeds in the reduction of insulin resistance/type II: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462)

Fasting increases metabolic rate: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14066725](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14066725) and [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292)

Fasting dramatically increase HGH production: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426) and [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337)

IF (1 meal per day) improves body composition even when the caloric intake remains unchanged: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413096](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413096)

Body composition is better after fasting than caloric restriction even in the event of equal amount of mass re-gain (i.e. regain after CR is fat, after ADF is muscle/lean): [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5042570/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5042570/)

And here's the mouse study I mentioned (I think I cited rats) showing ADF improves metabolic markers without change in caloric intake, but of course, it's mice, so YMMV: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872764/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872764/)

In case you hadn't figured it out, I fasted for a while out of personal curiosity and in the spirit of self-experimentation (a few 5-day fasts) and wanted to learn all about what I was getting myself into. Honestly, for the record, it was quite easy; after day 2 I just wasn't hungry anymore. In fact I felt quite energized and focused, which from the studies above, is likely due to increased noradrenaline levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Off-topic:

Articles like this, and most others that deal with health and medicine, present a problem for me that is somewhat hard to describe. The research for this one appears to be built upon prior research (which is hopefully validated with these findings) and the two headliners appear to have some credentials, so let us skip the question of whether or not the reporting itself can be trusted, as that is not what this is about. The first thing that I notice is that the trials mentioned in the article do not seem capable of proving the claim made in the title, but let us assume that they instead ran a trial involving humans fasting (which could be incited by a study like this) and had the same results. I would like to believe that this is a breakthrough, but how is it to be reconciled with the other 400 breakthroughs we find for various cancers each month? If even a small percentage of them were as valuable as they are expressed to be (and we ignore the contradicting evidence), I would expect cancer, diabetes, and obesity (at least!) to be solved problems by now. I suppose that what I am saying is that with there being so much FUD and so many actual unknowns about what determines the well-being of humans that I find most studies to be hard to believe, especially without being able to test most of it myself. It might be a given that nothing you read can be fully trusted, but it is becoming difficult for me to trust at all, and that is without even considering the fact that some people are reporting findings for studies that never happened. It seems to me that the two most common strategies are to either believe one thing and reject all new information that contradicts it, or to believe most of the new information. Overall, I am left feeling hopeful that the people to who articles like this would make the greatest difference to have found a logical and efficient way to handle this sort of situation.

Any thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER46> Fasting also seems to be protective to your health cells from being damaged.

[https://news.usc.edu/118758/fasting-during-chemotherapy- may-...](https://news.usc.edu/118758/fasting-during-chemotherapy-may-offset- spikes-in-blood-sugar-caused-by-cancer-fighting-drugs/)

</comment><comment><USER47> To feed everyone's inquiry/discussion of diet, nutrition, and western disease (though not fasting per se): two particular researchers/authors had much mindshare and influence in Bay Area circles a decade ago. They've not been mentioned on HN in several years, so this will bring forward and tie in the references and discussions for newcomers.

The China Study - by T. Colin Campbell : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study) : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell)

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto - by Michael Pollan : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Defense_of_Food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Defense_of_Food) : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan)

The China Study is notably a retrospective of primary research on diet, nutrition, and disease spanning nearly a century. There are many breadcrumbs for further reading. Campbell was a top-tier government/academic researcher for several decades. The summary conclusion is that western diseases (e.g. diabetes, cancer, heart ...) are strongly correlated with increased ratio of animal product consumption, especially in presence of environmental toxins - <USER2> binary poison cocktail one might say. Genetics are a factor, he says, but not so pervasively as the other two.

Michael Pollan is iconically known for the phrase, "Eat Food, Mostly Plants, Not Too Much". A prolific author and journalist, he is on about many of the same things Campbell is: cautioning about a) over-reliance on reductive analysis of food nutrient components, and about b) over-indulgence in foodstuffs that passed through some industrial process on way from earth to earthling.

Edit: formatting

</comment><comment><USER48> There's a documentary: The Science of Fasting ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b08X-GvRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b08X-GvRs)) which talks about fascinating effects of fasting therapy, and interesting effects of fasting on cancer treatment. Looks like it's inline with what's discussed here and in the comment section. On the flip side, I feel like fasting has the potential of becoming the new "meditation", but with more potential danger than just an over-hyped hip practice.

</comment><comment><USER49> So, how long should we fast? I was thinking about doing 24h fasts every Friday instead of 3-day fasts every two months. Which one would be better from the article's point of view (as a preventive measure)?

<comment><USER50> There's many articles on the University of Southern California site [https://news.usc.edu/?s=fasting](https://news.usc.edu/?s=fasting) most have been posted here over time.

Like the fasting mimicking diets they came up with [https://news.usc.edu/82959/diet-that-mimics-fasting- appears-...](https://news.usc.edu/82959/diet-that-mimics-fasting-appears-to- slow-aging/)

That later turned into a startup [https://prolonfmd.com/](https://prolonfmd.com/) of 5 day fasting at different monthly intervals depending on your weight, but you can read the orig paper to see what the calorie restrictions were and just make/measure your own food.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This reminds me of a paper maybe ten years back where they found that normal cells go into a holding pattern (I hesitate to use the word hibernation) when resources are scarce, but cancer cells do not.

Because healthy cells are less active, they take less damage from chemo. So they were looking at intermittent fasting before chemo to reduce the collateral damage.

</comment><comment><USER52> Most intermittent fasting works on a 1-3 day fasting schedule. It doesn't really work for me, maybe because of decision fatigue, maybe I just lack the discipline.

Currently I try to loose weight by shooting for two weeks fasting, one week not. About 10kg gone, 40 left to go.

</comment><comment><USER53> Anyone doing weight lifting has any experience with fasting? I'm not so interested in doing weight lifting while fasting (doesn't sound too good) as in the muscle gain/loss after a fast.

<comment><USER54> Me.

I currently maintain a 2.3x bodyweight deadlift and 1.5x bench press while working a relatively tame & laid-back salaried dev job.

Can't do IF (multi-day, anyways) without losing lean mass anymore. Used to be able to until I started plateauing on my lifts.

My guess is as you gain more and more lean muscle mass, there's some arbitrary threshold (which differs person to person) at which your TDEE begins to exceed viable intake within a limited timeframe.

I specify "viable intake" because your body's nutrient uptake rate per hour has some given limit - anything over that limit usually just gets pooped out later.

Restricting timeframe for eating during the day (break my fast after work) seems to work out okay though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> People without cancer already don't eat, or hardly as they often lose their appetite due to cancer treatments. Why is that different than this?

</comment><comment><USER56> For someone with access to the article: what was the duration and frequency of the fasting that was shown to cure certain cancer types?

</comment><comment><USER57> "I've found that I feel so good when I fast and I don't know why, but please listen to me about myself" \- HN

</comment><comment><USER58> Combine that with 30s+ mayurasana for a total intestinal workout. (Work towards 5 minutes)

</comment><comment><USER59> I thought this applied to all diets that induce ketogenesis.

</comment><comment><USER60> Rewritten for normal people:

Cancer sometimes becomes resistant to chemotherapy, but we did a study that shows a certain type of lung cancer is highly dependent on a certain amino acid and when you fast intermittently it deprives the cancer of that amino acid and causes the cancer cells to die.

<comment><USER61> Fast for how long ? Few days a week ?

<comment><USER62> I've no idea about the fasting stuff. Just thought its important to make clear this particular study is all about doing stuff to cells or lumps of cells in dishes (again sorry if I missed more involved model system in the paper). Whether thats a good model for cancer in people and how fasting interacts with that I honestly have no idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Anyone have a link without a paywall?

<comment><USER64> [https://sci-hub.tw/10.15252/embj.201899815](https://sci- hub.tw/10.15252/embj.201899815)

<comment><USER65> I seriously seriously thank you. I have a family history of this specific cancer and wanted to read about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Do I get back the 3,000 HN Karma points I lost to downvotes after years of suggesting fasting as a viable treatment for a whole host of "diseases"? One day people will see it as obvious as "smoking is bad for you". One day.

<comment><USER27> Why do you care about karma so much? Express your opinion and forget about "internet points".

<comment><USER67> Because you want to join in the conversation, and with lower amounts of magical points you get more often messages telling you to "slow down" _AFTER_ you have carefully written a message in 5 to to 10 minutes. This is infuriating when english is not your native language and writing understandable language is slow, especially to communicate complex thought that may be not evident.

Due to my unpopular opinions about how some countries and companies are often targetted in US media, even on unrelated articles, this happens to me. I like taking breaks on HN, but the more it happens, the more I am going to other places instead.

This is not about being true or being right - just whether your conversation is following the mainstream opinion or not.

If later it proves to be right? Too bad for you. This is the case on most forums with up and downvoting, and it forces dissent out.

I am interested in conversation for learning and sharing. The post I read the more carefully are greyed out or dead. Most are ads or crankpots, but in 1% of the time I get gems.

Sinple example: would you have preferred to learn about intermittent fasting now, or 5 years ago? Me: 5 years ago, but too many downvotes may have pushed out of the community people like the parent poster.

<comment><USER68> I find it useful to take notes on discussions that seem illogical, unscientific, dogmatic, etc. Later on, one can always post their counter arguments on github [1] or their own site [2] where it won't be grey text. You could even start your own forum, where you can set the guidelines.

[1] - [https://github.com/](https://github.com/)

[2] - [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/)

Not my sites, just an example. You can make the text as big, bold and readable as you wish. I prefer really simple stylesheets.

<comment><USER69> That site (starts with N and ends with gate) doesn't like to be mentioned here on Hackernews. If you link to there from here, it will pull a jwz -- albeit thankfully, without the nutsack, just a fake "captcha" that's really a looping "Loading" gif.

<comment><USER68> That's too funny. I suppose I've never clicked on a link from here to there. I also block javascript so maybe that is also why I have not seen it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Here is ancient wisdom on this: [https://youtu.be/tkuF1VmLoRs](https://youtu.be/tkuF1VmLoRs) If you are looking for scientific data, you will not got any but WISDOM, a plenty :-). This is from an Enlightened Living Master.

</comment><comment><USER71> I adhere to a eat nothing diet. Then after I have starved, I am awakened and I gouge myself to death. The cycle then restarts. The powers that be make sure I don't die cause who's gonna do a quickening on the highlander if I do ?</comment>


Technologists Created Trumpism and We Can Fix It - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kixxauth/more-startup-hubs-could-stop-trumpism-f42fe433d7ce#.db2m17nzw <comment><USER2> Great post! I really like the section that Colleges and Universities need to provide a "vessel through which local entrepreneurs and technologists can relate their stories to the student population." I love the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought leader series, but I think we could do more and different universities outside of Stanford (like RPI).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is probably a lot more we can do, and no matter what, the problem is still way more complex than I'm making it. But, I think we can make a big dent in the problem by starting, investing in, and growing tech startups outside Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER3> completely agree. great post!</comment></comment>


Israeli Spyware May Have Helped Khashoggi Killers, Snowden Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-07/israeli-spyware-may-have-helped-khashoggi-killers-snowden-says <comment><USER2> > NSO said the former American intelligence contractor isn't familiar with the > group's operations and has nothing authoritative to back up his claims.

Mmm love me some hearsay as journalism.</comment>


Microsoft Surface sales fall by 26 percent - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/27/microsoft-surface-sales/?sr_source=Twitter <comment><USER2> I'm in the market for a new machine. The surface hardware looks decent. But I'm unwilling to accept Windows 10 in its current form. So I'll not be a customer until I get treated properly on the privacy and updates front.

No idea how many other people share these views and what the total effect is, but if they revised their policies here then they would regain some of the customers they have lost through their actions over the last few years. Though I won't forget GWX in a hurry...

</comment><comment><USER3> PC manufacturers have tiny margins, maybe 2% on average (not including Apple of course). The Surface line has been a gun pointed at their heads. I'm not sure why MSFT is doing it, it can't be profitable and even if it was they can't switch their business model to Apples without huge dislocations.

Since windows pc makers have essentially lost the ability to do much R&D and Design because of their brutal margins, I could see the Surface line as a way for MSFT to take over design for the entire market, and give the manufacturers better hardware designs. But why isn't that happening?

<comment><USER4> The Surface line is intended as a flagship device to show off Windows' strengths as an OS from the makers themselves. It fulfills the same purpose as Pixel for Android, and, y'know, all of Apple's lineup.

It's not intended to sell well solely to generate profit -- it's intended to sell well so that a higher proportion of in-the-wild machines running Windows will be ones with thoughtful design, not bottom-barrel $500 laptops with a crappy 1388x768 panel and a slow spinner drive. While it's not helpful to ban those from the Windows market (and concede to Chrome OS in the process), it's an effort to re-frame Windows' role from a "default" OS to an aspirational OS, shipped on aspirational devices.

The design transition you speak of isn't happening because the OEMs and Microsoft's interests are no longer exactly aligned. The AndroidChromeOS reality has graduated from vague vaporware to an actual force, and many OEMs already reuse the same hardware for two different laptops: one Chrome OS, one Windows. As a more capable Chrome OS that can now run Android Apps -- yes, we can argue ad nauseum about its limitations, but with everything being a website or coming from an App Store, more and more people simply don't care -- creeps further upmarket, Microsoft's investment in the Surface line becomes a competitive advantage that they can try to leverage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems like this steeper-than-expected drop was the only reason why their revenue missed estimates, since the rest of the earnings report looked good. Since they're aware it's because of end-of-product lifecycle, this will hopefully be a gentle push to update it more often.</comment>


On Twitter Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://ello.co/zooko/post/vJA9rIvPVPjYa3xFv575eA <comment><USER2> "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by distributed systems."</comment>


How-to take down any DigitalOcean-hosted website. - <AUTHOR> Simply send an abuse complaint.  Digital Ocean doesn't even read or verify the complaint.  They automatically power down the server (within about 30 mins) whether or not the complaint refers to actual URLs on the server.<p>This just happened to one of my clients today (hour ago) and Digital Ocean is not responding to support tickets and not responding on Twitter either. <comment><USER2> Hi,

Thanks for inquiring, but this hackernews title is very misleading. We take customer satisfaction very seriously at DigitalOcean. It wasn't one complaint, but 76, and it wasn't immediate, but 4 days with no responses that led to action being taken.

Of those, about 50 of them were done on the 25th, for which we received no response.

If we do not receive a response for 50+ abuse complaints we unfortunately have to take action, which was done in this case.

Hopefully that clears this issue up.

Thanks, Moisey Cofounder DigitalOcean

<comment><AUTHOR> So the images were deleted and everything was resolved on my end that same afternoon of the 25th.

Not four days with no response, more like a few hours to resolve the problem with productive back-and-forth communication.

However, DigitalOcean again threatened to shut down the server later that evening of the 25th (automated email) because DigitalOcean support had not closed all the abuse tickets. Somehow it's my job to close the ticking timebomb tickets, apparently these tickets countdown to auto-shutdown of your Droplet if they're not all closed within an unspecified timeframe. Luckily I was online to click delete-refresh delete-refresh delete-refresh on the rest of the tickets or no doubt the server would have been powered off again.

The 26th and 27th, no problems.

Today (28th) DigitalOcean gets a pile more rapid-fire complaints and shuts off the server again, within 30 minutes of receiving the complaints. This time the complaints are bogus because I already deleted everything on the 25th.

What does that tell me? DigitalOcean did not check if the complaints were legit before powering off the server. All the URLs in the complaints are 404. It wasn't until Zach got involved that I was given some assurance the server wouldn't be auto-shutdown again in the event of more bogus complaints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi PJ,

This is Zach from DigitalOcean. I'm very sorry that this was your experience with us. We've replied to your ticket (and Tweet) and fully unlocked your account.

We take abuse (DCMA complaints), account security and platform security seriously. Sometimes it's a tough balance, and when accounts are incorrectly locked we take quick action to resolve.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any further thoughts: zach at digitalocean.com.

Thank you, Zach DigitalOcean Director of Support

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel bad posting this to Hacker News because I like Digital Ocean. But I take downtime seriously. It's not my website that was shut down and I'm saying this on my own, not on behalf of the client/owner. So I can't really comment on the details.

I responded to your support ticket already, thank you.

This is just my opinion. I already posted some of these suggestions on Twitter.

\- 30 mins notice before you power down a server sounds extreme. Why not a 24-hour notice? An emergency SMS, tweet or phone call would have been awesome.

\- Shutting down a server is a big deal. That particular server has several background processes running all day. Maybe I'm dreaming, but if you could have just shut down http (what the complaint was about) and not the entire server, that would have been great. That way I'd still have ssh access to delete files, etc.

\- I don't understand your policy of (paraphrasing) "Your account will continue to lock and re-lock as long as you have open abuse tickets." Even if the problem is resolved and the account is unlocked by support and everyone is happy, your system continues to re-lock the account until all abuse tickets are closed. The company complaining sends rapid-fire complaints (can't be that uncommon) and clicking "delete ticket" 100 times (waiting for refresh) is annoying. Seems like you could easily fix this by merging all the complaints into one ticket or with some kind of "checkbox" option.

\- I don't get the impression you have someone at DigitalOcean familiar with abuse complaints. Maybe you do, I don't know. I get the impression you don't read or filter the complaints. Seems like you just press the "off switch" willy nilly.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The account is unlocked now. Just downloaded a backup in case this happens again. Still no response to why they didn't bother reading the abuse complaint. (Edit) DigitalOcean wrote back a nice response. I'll follow up with them before commenting futher here.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is troubling to hear that digital-ocean takes arbitrary action to shut down servers without giving atleast 24 hours notice.

It is worrisome for me because I am a linode user and only recently created a digital-ocean droplet and after playing with it, I liked their service and was planning to host a new app with them instead of Linode while the existing one's remain with linode.

But now I am not sure?

Can any digital-ocean staff please provide a link that shows your policy for shutting down servers. I need to be sure this high handedness is not actually in your policy.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the email you get 30 mins before they shut you down:

"Oh no! We've found an issue with your account and issued you a new ticket that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Please login to view the ticket: [https://www.digitalocean.com/support](https://www.digitalocean.com/support)

Thanks so much, DigitalOcean"

<comment><AUTHOR> After 30 mins you get this:

"Account Locked by DigitalOcean Staff We are sorry to inform you that your account has been locked by DigitalOcean Staff. None of your virtual servers have been destroyed. We have opened a support ticket with you regarding the cause of this lock. Please navigate to the Support Page to resolve the issue that has caused your account to be locked. Thank you, DigitalOcean Staff"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> And this is why I keep recommending Linode to all my clients !

</comment><comment><USER6> annnnd this made me close the tab about using ansible to create a droplet. Back to the pyrax docs!</comment>


The future of following - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/07/22/sharingListsOfFriends.html <comment><USER2> He makes a good point: "Being into open data doesn't mean just exporting yours, but being willing to import mine."</comment>


Ask HN: Why do you do this during tech interviews? - <AUTHOR> I've got a few popular open source projects (1000+ stars on GH), I've got a side business that does around 10K monthly, and at my last job, I supervised a few programmers. Those might not be the best measures of my technical capabilities, but they prove I'm able to get stuff done and build things people want.
I'm in a position where I don't need to work and have been self-employed for 3 years. However, I interview to work with startups because of the potential equity upside.
The last 2 technical interviews I've been on, the same thing has happened. I get some average dude who thinks he's awesome. I show him the work I've done, how many users my side projects have, and he proceeds to ask me stupid ass technical trivia that it's clear someone at my level would know. I answer it all well.
Then, said dude will schedule a second technical interview where they ask me to solve the most difficult programming problem they've researched in advance. I tell them I'd need to lookup how to solve it (like they did), and they proceed to school me with the solution to recapture this technical dominance they feel I took during the first interview. I get the job offer, but they tell the owner I'm junior to them, which is 100% untrue.
I probably sound arrogant, but I'm not. I'm smart enough to decode this shitty aspect of human nature for what it is.
I don't think interview tactics like this are productive or fair, so I want to know HN's thoughts on how to overcome them. <comment><USER3> There is a very simple answer to this, they don't know how to interview well.

Don't blame them too much though, the entire industry has this problem. It's one of the biggest open problems in our industry.

</comment><comment><USER4> > I probably sound arrogant, but I'm not. I'm smart enough to decode this > shitty aspect of human nature for what it is.

Your post does sound a bit arrogant and that's OK. A bit of arrogance is so common it shouldn't discount validity of your post per se.

I think getting an answer to your original "Why?" question may be difficult because: 1) I don't think many tech interviewers do what you experienced at these two examples 2) To the extent such practices happen and as smart as you may be, I don't think your "decoding" of things is broadly accurate.

I say this because "they tell the owner I'm junior to them, which is 100% untrue" is a ridiculous statement. First, it's odd to see the word "owner" when talking about startups which usually have "founders", so what kind of startups were these 2 places? Also how do you know what they said? And how do you know it's "100% untrue" that you are junior to them, as in how many questions did you get to ask about their tech skills and what does "junior" mean to you?

In terms of an answer: Your post shows a lot of assumptions that miss the point of technical interviews and what they look for. Things like "stupid ass tech trivia" have to be asked. Granted, sometimes too many basics do get asked. There is difference between "junior" from a technical skills perspective and "junior" on an org chart. Unless someone is hiring to fill the position above them on the org chart (it happens) then you are likely "junior" to the person hiring you. However, from a technical skills perspective, or what some interviewer may or may not have told their boss about you being junior...who cares what they said, you got the offer no? and once you start working there the people with superior skills will be able to stand out, 100% regardless of what was said months ago after an interview. So I would suggest: stop assuming incorrectly, think like a manager, read up about emotional quotient (EQ) in hiring, accept that life isn't "fair" and neither is interviewing. Best of luck sir or madame.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. "Potential equity upside" is an illusion. It's better than a lottery ticket, sure, but the vast majority of startups fail, or fail to get big enough for the equity to be worth much. So might want to reconsider that goal. If you want guaranteed money, Google pay + bonus + equity probably has higher expected value. Or a hedge fund.

2\. Personally I want to optimize for working with interesting people I can learn from, working on worthwhile problems. Last round of interviews with startups I met a whole bunch of people who I liked, at multiple companies.

3\. I don't know why your experience is so different. Geography? I'm in Boston. The companies you're choosing to interview at? E.g. I tried hard to filter out companies with bad reviews on Glassdoor.

My process is written up in blog post, though it doesn't work as well for smaller startups. Nothing super novel, just an attempt to be more efficient at filtering: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont- hate/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont-hate/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The answer is simple: the person who is interviewing you hasn't got as much experience as you do. He doesn't know through what hoops and hops you've gone through to get there. Therefore, he is testing you in a framework that he perceives to be right. In all fairness, for 99% of the candidates, that is the right approach.

I fit more or less the description of your profile (except I have GH projects with 5000+ stars and ~3K side passive side business; oh well, I'd prefer your balance, haha). I find it extremely hard to find the right position to work in. I am a consultant and I move from one position to another every 6-8 months. However, I have been most lucky in my last two positions.

There is something bonding about being recognized from the open source work. In that respect, the last interview I had felt more like a coffee break, discussing various project promoting strategies with the CTO. And yet, I had to go through interviews with another 3 developers (all happened in a time span of two hours, on the same day). But, thats their hiring policy. Just get done with it and enjoy the ride.

</comment><comment><USER7> What's worse is Codility/HackerRank tests which expect you to come up with a dynamic programming based O(N) algorithm in order to prove your technical skills. This is just becoming ridiculous - I now ask in advance whether any of these pointless tests will be involved and I refuse to do them. I have a github and happy to do take home exercises.

</comment><comment><USER8> The well known interviewer chest thumping / pissing contest aside, I don't know you but going solely on what you told us you don't sound as smart as you claim to be if you interview at startups for a job although you are actually interested in the potential for equity.

Think about it as a problem solver, if you are as technically confident as you claim, already know how to launch and run a business and don't need the job is interviewing for them the most efficient solution to solve the potential equity problem? Why are you not scouting for potential founders that you can team up with?

OTOH, all the bravado aside if you do really need a job to keep things going comfortably, you have to let such incidents go and move on. Interviewers such as those you describe don't make for good colleagues anyways.

</comment><comment><USER9> > I get the job offer, but they tell the owner I'm junior to them, which is > 100% untrue.

If you're interviewing for a position, surely the people conducting the interview will be the people who will be managing the successful candidate?

<comment><USER3> That is almost universally untrue. It's especially untrue for senior people interviewing at early startups as they are frequently staffed with _only_ junior staff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The cynical answer is they absolutely do not care about famous open source project or that successful side project. They did not pour thousands of hours and sweat building them so how would they even truly recognize how challenging they were to achieve? (if you think thats unfair then just stay self employed and never bother to interview again anywhere)

the less cynical answer is that they are used to people overinflating their achievements only to fail at the job. thus they dont care what you did - <USER2> that you answer their technical questions correctly

</comment><comment><USER11> 2 is not a great sample size.</comment>