When will USA's burgeoning public deficit bite it back? - <AUTHOR> It seems there are no bad consequences of running a massive public deficit, and therefore, no perceived cost of printing money. Is there a point at which there will be a reckoning of sorts here? What will it look like and when do we expect it to hit? <comment><USER2> A reckoning won't happen until another currency usurps the USD as global reserve currency. The timeline of that is up to speculation but taking historical perspective in mind it's a matter of when not if.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are numerous aspects at play. The first and most important for the next 10-20 years, is the debt interest cost.

That is, the federal net interest payments. You want to look at that as a share of the economy and budget (and actual tax revenue as well).

As a share of GDP that was around 1.8% for 2019. In 1996 it was 3% by contrast, on a much smaller pile of debt. As a percentage of government outlays it was 9% in 2019, versus 15% in 1996.

Most likely the US can safely go up to $40 to $50 trillion in public debt, holding the average interest rate on the debt where it is now, without suffering a severe event.

That's not what will happen however. The Fed will press the cost of the debt persistently lower over time and hold rates low permanently. But but but, I can hear other people say: what about inflation?!? The increasing debt maintenance costs rob the economy of dynamism and growth, and largely prevent traditional consumer inflation from running out of control (this is why Japan couldn't spark traditional inflation, despite low rates forever; they had to forcibly take a hatchet to the Yen to get the result they wanted). You will see considerable asset inflation however, and it'll also show up in many (but not all) commodities. It helps that the other global currencies are simultaneously debasing as well, the US just has to compete with peer fiscal disaster mostly (China, Eurozone, Japan; all three are debt and growth nightmares). The winners will be nations in great fiscal shape that have independent currencies, their purchasing power will soar - they'll become wealthier in real-terms - versus the major currencies over time.

At 1% rates on the US debt, you can run up $60 trillion in magic Fed backed debt and only be paying about the same debt interest we are today. Can they squeeze the debt load down to that average rate? Yep, and they will. Eventually the US will issue debt at zero rates as in Europe, and economic dynamism will approach heat death as in most of Europe and Japan.

That's impossible, to push rates so low on the debt? Of course it's not. The ECB is doing it right now and Japan has already done it. Both of those central banks have monetized far larger shares of their respective economies than the US Fed has so far.

So to answer your question: this can continue for a very long time. 20 to 30 years at a minimum before the US reaches where Japan is at today, and 10 to 15 years before the US reaches where Europe is at. The doom forecasters are going to be persistently very distraught as their scenarios fail to play out (they'll endlessly be baffled by it; the professional economists will be baffled at the lack of traditional inflation, but that's trivially easy to explain).

In several decades, after the US maxes out on how low it can push rates on the debt, then it'll move to the last resort: hatchet debasement of the USD, as in Japan with the Yen. That's when you just start cutting down the population's standard of living in aggressive drops (done to debase the debt; that has to continue until you crawl out from under the debt enough to be able to pay your government bills again (ie until you can afford your welfare state & entitlement obligations again); this is a point where there is no choice, the outcome happens regardless of whether anyone decides to aggressively debase the currency or not). That stage, is in summary simply shifting from eating fat, to eating muscle and bone; you're eating your nation's assets and the value of its output very aggressively, in an almost direct swap to debase the debt.

<comment><USER4> This doesn't really make sense to me.

One sentence you're saying the Fed will "press the cost of the debt...lower...and hold rates low permanently." If I'm reading this right, you're talking about the government rolling over its maturing debt into new debt with lower IR.

Then you're talking about the effect of "increasing debt maintenance costs" \-- but if the Treasury gets to sell low-interest debt to pay off high- interest debt, isn't that going to _decrease_ its debt maintenance costs?

> The increasing debt maintenance costs rob the economy of dynamism and growth

Hold on a second, I thought we were talking about Treasuries? How does that affect the the private sector?

I get that private IR usually moves in lockstep with government IR (at a mostly fixed offset representing relative risk levels).

But I don't get why a low IR is bad for business. Don't the low rates stimulate companies to build themselves up faster with cheap borrowed money?

> the lack of traditional inflation...[i]s trivially easy to explain

Could you explain it, then, please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you should read up on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). There are quite a few people that would argue that printing money is not an issue as long as the debt is held in the same currency you're printing the money with. In theory, you could continue to print enough money to pay off the deficit.

The argument against that is that printing money will cause inflation. While this is true to an extent, it is not always the case. Only about 3% of money in circulation is actually "cash", while the other 97% is credit or a balance in a bank's computer system. Cash + Credit = people's ability to spend. When credit dries up, people aren't able to spend as much. In order to keep the system running the fed can print money to counterbalance the reduction in credit. The amount of money in the system stays the same, it's just that there's more cash and less credit. This is done to ensure that people continue to spend and keep the wheels of the economy turning. Printing money is not always bad.

Also, it's important to understand that while printing adds money to the system, taxes take money out of the system. The taxes the government collects don't actually get recirculated back into the economy. Remember, lots of taxes are paid electronically, which is just a debit on your bank account and a credit on the government's balance sheet. It's not like they're taking your physical dollar bills and spending it again by handing them back out. That money leaves the system and is effectively "destroyed". The government just goes ahead and prints the same amount of money again to balance everything out.

A "balanced budget" means that the government spent or printed the same amount of money that they took out of the system with taxes. While most people would argue this is a good thing, you have to realize that if there's no change in the amount of money in the system, people's wages and wealth effectively remain the same. Inequality can quickly creep in as certain populations of the economy amass more and more wealth. With a balanced budget, it is always a zero-sum game, with a winner and a loser.

By running a deficit (spending more than collecting in taxes), you're raising the amount of money in the system. A rising tide lifts all boats, and so more money in the system means more spending, more jobs, and people earn more. More people can build wealth and live a decent life. Of course, it's a balancing act though. But when done right, it can raise the living standards for all people in a nation.

I'm no MMT expert, but here are some resources I've found to be helpful:

How the economic machine works by Ray Dalio: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0)

Soft Currency Economics II (This introduced the idea behind MMT): [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009XDGZLI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009XDGZLI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Diagrams & Dollars: Modern Money Illustrated: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HUF6POI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HUF6POI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

<comment><USER6> > The taxes the government collects don't actually get recirculated back into > the economy.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Sure a small percentage of taxes go towards expenses in foreign countries or to foreign companies. But social security? Medicare/Medicaid? All those defense contractors? The roughly 2 million federal government employees? All those expenses are going straight back into the US economy are they not?</comment></comment>


Is Sugar Killing Us? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-sugar-killing-us-1481303447?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> Third year nutrition undergrad. Simple sugar consumption as a high percentage of carbohydrates/calories has the effect of chronic inflammation via oxidative stress, which is a factor of diabetes and other chronic disease.

This article briefly discusses inflammation and has mostly sound nutritional advice: [http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/what-you- eat-c...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/what-you-eat-can-fuel- or-cool-inflammation-a-key-driver-of-heart-disease-diabetes-and-other-chronic- conditions)

This lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig has been very popular on this topic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM) . Unsure of its veracity since I watched this quite a few years ago.

Many other factors should be considered as many have mentioned like micronutrient intake/absorption, physical activity, gut biome, and genetic predisposition.

<comment><USER3> As a layman who got into nutrition for weight training purposes I want to ask you: why have I seen an uptick in the use of "inflammation" more broadly in nutrition from an year or so ago?

You may be well aware of the whole broscience that runs in fitness forums and it's very hard sometimes to find good and scientifically accurate sources and until now I've been lumping most of those "inflammation" articles together with the "toxins" ones, mostly a very broad umbrella term that had no real meaning.

But reading your comment and seeing this article from Harvard made me reconsider it so, again, what is this thing about "inflammation" regarding diet? It really just feels like an umbrella term...

<comment><USER4> You can almost think of, "inflammation" as a synonym for, "detrimental reaction". The inflammation is going to be a wholly different thing, depending on what you're talking about. But it usually causes response in the body that then becomes a different, chronic problem.

Example: too much sugar -> inflammation of arteries (because reasons) -> buildup of cholesterol -> heart attack.

It's not the sugar that cause the heart attack, it's the inflammation from the sugar and the body's response to it. This may seem like a small detail, but remember the theory was that it was the buildup of dietary cholesterol that caused clogged arteries. That was an easy narrative to follow, since, "(because reasons)" wasn't something you can market easily. Fat-free food usually doesn't have cholesterol either so it's good for you, if you're worried about having a heart attack!

This is the same falisty of thinking that merely eating fat makes you fat.

Excessive sugar causing Type 2 Diabetes is much less a theory than the above (insulin resistance)

Anyways, different inflammation is the pain I feel in my wrists typing this, or the pain my ankle from an accident last year. That inflammation is Not Good, and could lead to other Bad Things, like perhaps cancer (so I'm told by an MD)

So it is a very broad term, but it does def. have meaning.

<comment><USER2> Inflammation = immune response, and isn't always detrimental (immune response to a foreign body, or healing from trauma are good responses) but can be a bad thing (arthritis from antibody complexes, or artery inflammation as we are focusing on for this discussion).

Otherwise the parent's comment is pretty on point.

<comment><USER4> _Inflammation = immune response, and isn 't always detrimental_

Yeah, you're right. I would say that one theory is that _chronic_ inflammation can lead to Bad Things, but this is just areas of research at the moment and it's as diverse as types of inflammation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm celiac, so my body has some crazy responses to food. I get withdrawal symptoms from a couple of foods and have cut them out because of it. Sugar was the most recent. When I stop eating it I get a sinus headache, I get the shakes (like drinking too much caffeine), and if it's bad, I throw up. What blew my mind in giving up sugar was that I lost 5 lbs. I'm was lean at 155 lbs and 6'1, I dropped below 150 now. It really opened my eyes to how much sugar is converted to fat.

I gave up gluten (withdrawal symptoms), high fructose foods (digestive issues, celiacs wrecks your small intestine lining), caffeine (withdrawal symptoms), sodium nitrites (withdrawal symptoms, but I don't know much about this one, it's in bacon and deli meats as a preservative / cure), and now sugar (withdrawal symptoms). I feel so good. My nose used to be stuffy all the time, I used to have awful digestion, cutting out these foods totally changed my life.

I'm honestly really grateful that I'm celiac, I think it magnifies all the shittiness that these foods bring. It got me to realize all the garbage I was sustaining myself on. I'm now incredibly healthy despite being 'sick'. One of the stranger realizations was that I now only drink water, and that I used to live mostly off of soda.

All these industries have huge interests in selling people addicting food (caffeine, sugar) and maintaining their market positions. They put out so much misinformation on what is healthy.

<comment><USER6> "caffeine (withdrawal symptoms),"

Do you mean that the caffeine itself doesn't bother you (above its expected effect), but that the withdrawal is pretty rough?

I'm curious, because I also have celiac, and I've also ended up dropping caffeine because it was getting to be too much of a pain to manage it whenever I had to do without for some reason (travel mostly). I've noticed I have _no_ grace with it; if I drink a 20oz Coke Zero right now, which is actually pretty low in caffeine (or, at most depending on your standards, "medium"), in 36 hours I will have a withdrawal headache.

But I can't tell if this is "celiac", or just generally how people respond to caffeine. Most people don't pay attention that much.

(As long as we're comparing notes: I've also noticed that alcohol has little appeal to me, because it mostly just makes me tired and gives me vague muscle pain before I'm "buzzed". In fact I can't say I've ever been "pleasantly buzzed" the way some people seem to describe.)

(Also, before someone comes along and complains about "anecdotes" being used, I do try to keep up with the celiac science, but generally speaking what we're talking about here is _way_ beyond the current science frontier. Science may be the slow-and-steady that wins the race, but in the meantime, we can't wait for science to figure out the perfect way to live with it and/or cure it in 30-50 years... we have it _now_.)

<comment><USER7> Caffeine is known to have withdrawal symptoms. Those headaches, for me in the face and forehead, seem to be a common symptom.

As I went through my 20s I experimented with abandoning coffee a few times. I had developed the habit in college and I wanted to ensure that I was continuing to drink coffee for the benefits and not simply because I was addicted to it. This meant that I did handful of experiments with not drinking coffee for 2-3 months. The first week or two would be rough. Headaches starting 24-30 hours after I stopped and persisting for about a week. After that I would just settle into what felt like a normal life, but a lot more groggy.

The main difference between my life with coffee and my life without seemed to just be how grumpy I was before noon. I still had insomnia, I still got tired after lunch. Those things seemed unconnected to the coffee.

Maybe I need to go off coffee for a long time to really see the benefits, e.g. give it 3-6 months for my body to recover and stabilize. I'm not sure, but at this point I have what I consider to be a healthy consumption level and I get the benefits of increased alertness and focus in the mornings. I'm focusing on other elements of my life to address any health concerns.

<comment><USER8> I had horrible heacahes from ~16-19 years old... I never made the connection until a professor in college mentioned 'caffeine withdrawal headache', and it totally clicked. And I switched to decaf for the next 15 years. Totally paranoid about waitresses filling my coffee cup up with the wrong pot.

However, a couple of years ago, I noticed that I can actually drink caffeine without getting any withdrawal problems at all, making me think it was all in my head...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's interesting is that most of the population of this planet does not even realize that glucose is not the only source of energy and that we can be powered entirely by beta-hydroxybutyrate (which comes from fats); our carbohydrate requirement is zero because our body can synthesize all the glucose it needs.

Here is a pretty good and scientific talk about what is happening (warning > 1 hour long): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

Edit: just noticed this y/t has already been cited in another comment - evermore reason to pay attention to it :)

<comment><USER10> I didnt' watch the video yet. But do you need to be "in ketosis" to benefit from this energy source?

How difficult is it to incorporate this in your diet? And is it expensive?

<comment><USER11> I did Keto for a month in September. It requires a good deal of self-control to stick to it (you'll quickly realize that only about 1% of the grocery store is food you can eat on Keto - resisting that temptation constantly is a trial) but it's not particularly expensive. You do have to be "in ketosis" to get the full benefits of Keto, but I've also found that just sticking to a low carb diet (under 100 carbs p/d) is a good start to ease into it. For Keto you will need to stay under 50...some people stay under 20.

I lost about 15 lbs during the process and my diet mostly consisted of salads with lots of chicken + cheese + high fat dressing. I was a vegan before I switched to Keto so eating my veggies was not difficult, but some of my friends struggled to keep a "healthy" diet during the process.

The most difficulty you will have doing Keto is your own self-control. Finding recipes & food to buy is easy.

<comment><USER12> Keto was the only diet I could lose weight with. One thing a lot of other diet plans ignore is satiety. If you are hungry or crave food, it is basically an addiction. You will not stop till satieted. Sugars and starches spike glucose levels and thus trigger insulin responses which puts one back in a hungry state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Recently diagnosed diabetic here. Yes, I'm fat, but no excessively so. When I tell people I'm diabetic they're confused as I don't look the type.

What I can say is that I can see the effects of cortisol (stress) on my fasting glucose levels. When my ex does something that causes strife, my glucose levels will be 20-30 pts higher for the next few days.

In general, I ate fairly decently, and didn't consume mass amounts of sugar.

It's my belief, that our diabeetus epidemic is related to more than just our diets. Perhaps our modern living environment is too stressful and makes certain segments of the population susceptible to metabolic disease?

<comment><USER14> Maybe there is a relationship between sugar consumption and our ability to cope with stress? I found, that when I stopped eating sugar, it wasn't exactly a big revelation, but merely a subtle change (mentally), that made me somehow less anxious and when I had irrational anxiety "attacks", I was able to suppress them better.

I don't have any better way to explain this psychological stuff, but for me there was a change for sure. A subtle one, but it made a big impact on my life long term.

The reason I stopped eating sugar was that I saw a pattern in my moods depending on what I ate. I initially thought that it my eating habits were dictated by life circumstances and that life circumstance were dictating my mood, but two things stood out, which left me to try going without sugar.

First I wanted to loose weight, so I went on a protein only diet during a very stressful time and it made me feel pretty good. Second, I was feeling even better, when I was fasting. Third, I had my worst "breakdown", when I was training for a marathon (I ran many, so it wasn't marathon stress) and ingested a lot of sugar.

<comment><USER15> In the interests of anecdata, I went ketogenic for about 18 months. One of my reasons for doing this that my sister described in glowing terms how eating this way had all sort of positive mental health efforts (more muted emotional responses, mental clarity, lack of anxiety).

I had no effect of that sort. I can only assume that this is one of those 'some people respond well to this, others not so much'.

<comment><USER14> "Muted emotional responses" .. this describes very well how I experience it actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I firmly believe that sugar not only makes us fat, but also has an effect on the psychological state of certain people (e.g. people with anxiety problems).

In my own experience, cutting out sugar (from anything else but fruit) and wheat from my diet has made a big difference.

<comment><USER16> I've been told my whole life that wheat (or whole-grained and fibrous foods in general) is healthy -- can you elaborate some more?

<comment><USER17> Well, in the US, the USDA promoted grains as the base of the food pyramid[1]. But this turned out to be at the behest of grain industries.

Whole grains are much better for you than white or processed breads, but they should still only be a small part of your diet, not the base.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guides#Controversy)

<comment><USER2> I agree, and the focus should be a on a varied diet. So multiple complex carb sources (potatoes, whole grains, beans, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Article is paywalled, but anecdotally, last year I inched past that magic A1C reading where the doctor tells you you are Type 2 Diabetic. I switched to a low-carb/high-fat diet ( [https://reddit.com/r/keto](https://reddit.com/r/keto) ) and fairly rapidly lost 30 pounds while eating things like avocados, eggs, cheese, butter, coconut oil and bacon.

Several months of this diet and my A1C has dipped back to almost-normal, not even "pre-diabetic" levels. For me at least, carbs are definitely a killer.

<comment><USER2> While keto seems promising in the short term, there isn't much data to validate whether it would be best for "most people". There is a definite concern long term with organ failure associated with ketoacidosis.

<comment><USER19> Whereas, the "standard" USDA diet has created an obesity epidemic. That is also a definite concern. I would take the diet with insufficient evidence over the diet that has years of evidence in provably not working.

<comment><USER20> There are plenty of healthy diets recommended by leading nutritionists and doctors that aren't the food pyramid. And bringing this up as a straw-man doesn't seem to further the discussion.

There are lots of very healthy diets with much more long term data behind them like the Mediterranean diet.

<comment><USER19> The food pyramid is literally taught to every child in the united states, and, uh, we're kind of a fat nation. I think it's totally fair to call it out, it's not a straw-man, the government is literally forcing bad advice on people that's making them fat.

<comment><USER2> The food pyramid has been out of date since 2011

<comment><USER19> The people that followed its advice are still around, and you'll have to forgive me if I'm not going to trust newer USDA guidelines after what a spectacular (and politically motivated) fuck up that was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Increase fats?

No biggie, you'll get satiated too fast to overconsume.

Increase proteins?

You satiate even faster.

Increase sugar?

You will eat a lot more and your leptin signal gets all sorts of messed up.

<comment><USER22> That's not true, some people can eat a lot of cheese.

[http://www.irkitated.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/eat- bloc...](http://www.irkitated.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/eat-block-of- cheese.jpg)

Things are not as simple as "don't eat sugar"

<comment><USER23> To be fair, cheese usually contains sugar.

<comment><USER22> Very little. Even most lactose-intolerant people can eat a little bit of cheese. Aged cheese contains only trace amounts because all of the lactose has been processed by bacteria at that point.

<comment><USER24> Processed cheese like that block of cheese in the meme contains quite a bit of sugar it's added to make it "taste better".

<comment><USER22> They also don't age it properly, they usually only age it for 18 months or less to realize the return on investment sooner.

<comment><USER24> thats a give for mass produced cheese and other things like wine, they add "flavoring" instead of aging it properly...

Low fat cheese is also quite bad if you want to avoid sugar / carbs since adding / leaving in the carbs is pretty much the only way to produce a low fat cheese while keeping the same texture (you can increase the proteins but it will make it very stringy and or hard).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've really cut down on sugar from august to november. I didn't really notice anything except loosing a lot of weight (mind that I already was under weight, but I should probably build some muscle anyway)

So in comes December. And there is candy and chocolate everywhere. In just a single week our house filled up with it and here I am, stuffing my face full of sugar.

I think the struggle just goes on, right?

<comment><USER26> I cut sugar for 40 days in April and lost weight, too (having normal weight). After a while, I was back to old habits. Thought about trying the same thing in mid-November. Worked alright. Then came December and while I'm eating a cookie here and there, it's way less than previous years.

 _I think the struggle just goes on, right?_

To some extend: Yes. But something flipped in my head this time. The struggle is less serious. Heck, I even prefer an orange over the cookie now.

<comment><USER27> How did you make that switch flip? I'm struggling to find it for years.

<comment><USER26> I don't know exactly. I guess it's a series of realizations.

a) Sometimes, we see candy as some kind of reward or treat. Most children are given chocolate etc. as a reward. So, to a certain extend, it is seen as something special. Most chocolates are marketed as special, as a reward, as well. But to be honest, chocolate is cheap and there is an endless supply.

The realization for me is: There is no shortage. There is no scarcity. There is no _need_ to eat it. I can buy candy whenever I want. There's really nothing special about it. In fact, most chocolate is quite nasty anyways, cheaply produced garbage, especially in the US ;)

b) It's an addiction and the desire fades, if you don't eat sugar for a while. I'm an all-or-nothing guy. If I eat a bit of chocolate once, I might as well eat it every day.

I must cut it entirely and fight cravings by other means. Someone suggested drinking a glass of water. This works. I ate some sugar-free gum once in a while to fight cravings.

For some people, this won't work and they need to allow themselves a cheat day once per week or something like that.

c) Eating sugar is a habit and breaking it gives you more awareness of your behavior, which I find desirable in general.

d) I like to see myself as a person who eats healthy.

e) I like to see myself as a person who is able to resist sugar, especially because everybody finds it totally normal to eat tons of sugar and doesn't see the problem. This plays to my ego ;)

f) After a few days, it's less about avoiding sugar, but to _not break the chain of abstinence_. Think Seinfeld-calendar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cutting out sugar causes anxiety, headache, and depression for me. Sugar is by far my most reliable therapist. Yes, I'm very very fat and have diabeetus. In a life characterized by struggle, this has been the one that challenges me most. Privately I feel very strongly that I am an addict, though I don't know if my condition matches the clinical definition.

<comment><USER29> Have you ever checked out Reddit's [https://Reddit.com/r/keto](https://Reddit.com/r/keto) keto subreddit? The keto-flu is a known & expected phase that matches the "anxiety and headache" thing. If you quit sugar "cold turkey" about 4 days in your body essentially switches from a carbs-for-fuel system to a fats-for-fuel one. It feel pretty wretched for a day. Afterwards you feel great, virtually never hungry, & weight melts off.

<comment><USER30> Can confirm that. The very first time I attempted a keto like diet (was actually a PSMF if I recall correctly), I felt so shitty and lightheaded in the first couple days that I bailed and tore into a small pack of cookies.

It gets a lot easier though. After going in and out of keto a couple more times, it completely stops being an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I found this talk by Dr. Robert H. Lustig very interesting: "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM) It has been previously discussed on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980)

</comment><comment><USER32> I quit sugar for two weeks and the runny nose and sinus headache I'd had my whole life went away. It wasn't hard. Everybody should try it.

<comment><USER33> Oh man, can you please shed more lights on this as I've exactly same problem, sinusitis and running nose (mostly because I'm allergic to cold and histamine is wreaking havoc). I'm trying all the possible way to control it, exercising regularly, taking lemon+honey everyday morning etc. But only an anti-histamine (xyzal or zyrtec) is working for me.

It's interesting that to know if it has anything to do with Sugar, as I take moderate amount of sugar.

Did you completely cut off sugar/variance of sugars? what about fruits?

<comment><USER32> No added sugar (or stevia or aspartame either). In the months after I quit I had a cookie or a chocolate croissant here and there and always woke up with a sinus headache the next day. I can eat berries and most fruit with no problems, but not bananas. I still have sinus trouble, a kind of a raw feeling in my nose most of the time, but without sugar in my diet I don't have constant mucus, congestion, and chronic sinus infections. I also take Allegra (fexofenadine) daily and use the Neilmed sinus irrigation when the raw sinus feeling is bad.

The other thing is my appetite decreased enormously and I lost about 25 pounds without trying. I actually decided to gain a little weight because I got too thin.

<comment><USER33> Thanks a lot, will try that, its going to be hard, as sugar is prevalent in almost everything we eat.

<comment><USER32> Naw, it's easy. Just eat real food or read the label.

The only bummer is Thai and Indian is so sweet it might as well be dessert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" ([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00985E3UG/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00985E3UG/)) by Michael Moss is highly recommended if you want to learn about the prevalence of sugar in processed food.

<comment><USER35> I would recommend this website as cheatsheets: [http://ss.fitness/#nutrition](http://ss.fitness/#nutrition)

<comment><USER36> >>Why Does This Food Pyramid Work?

[https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy- eating-...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating- plate/)

"in June 2011 the USDA replaced MyPyramid with a new and simpler icon, MyPlate"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Pro tip - don't take your health advice from news articles. Also, if the title is hyperbolic, pay extra non-attention to it.

<comment><USER38> Is news killing us?

Also, betteridge's law of headlines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Experts warn that sugar may have an outsize role in causing obesity and > diabetes

I thought that was pretty well-known? Is there something new later in the article? (I don't have access)

</comment><comment><USER39> See [http://thatsugarfilm.com](http://thatsugarfilm.com)

Was pretty good

<comment><USER40> Also Fed Up.

To paraphrase, if an external force was making our kids sick, addicted and more likely to die, we'd be bombing them into oblivion.

But as this force is the food industry's vision of profit at all costs, we just watch them get progressively sicker with each generation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Recommend 'Pure, White and Deadly' by John Yudkin [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009CTYTCA](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009CTYTCA)

The sugar industry conspired to discredit and bury him and his research, they succeeded and passed the blame to saturated fats instead! Fortunately he was rediscovered ( [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081/John- Yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar.html) )

</comment><comment><USER42> This is not directly related to this article but I wonder if anybody has the same problem: Any kind of sugar gives me joint ache, headache and sometimes even fever. Even sugar from fruit not just added sugar. No blood tests have shown anything unusual and doctors don't seem to know this problem either.

Is anybody else experiencing this? It makes life quite difficult because it's really hard to avoid sugar totally.

</comment><comment><USER43> The opposite view: [http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar- issues.shtml](http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml) . Ray Peat's argument is that polyunsaturated fats are the real culprit, and if you look at most sugar laden foods these days, it's difficult to find any that don't also contain a decent amount of PUFA.

<comment><USER4> > I eat plenty of sugar, and I'm in decent shape:

You can't tell the damage of a poor diet (or other maladies), simply by looking at videos.

You're also fairly young. A poor diet wrecks your health in a cumulative way.

I'm not saying your diet is poor (I have little data about your diet), I'm just saying it's up in the air with knowing that you eat, "plenty of sugar", and you IG yourself doing calisthenics. Would you agree?

<comment><USER43> I'm not actually that young, I'm 33. (I also haven't been training very long, about 2 years now) I agree though, I am a sample size of one. There are forums of people who follow Ray Peat's ideas, and some do consume large amounts of sugar, and do really well.

<comment><USER4> But think about when people succumb to problems because of poor diet choices: it's not 33. It's more like 65, for heart disease or 45 for Type 2 Diabetes.

Not that you CAN'T see differences, in some instances. I look at former classmates from college and they look horrible when I compare myself (and they know it) - but it's mostly from abuse of alchohol, which I think we can all agree will age you.

> There are forums of people who follow Ray Peat's ideas, and some do consume > large amounts of sugar, and do really well.

How are their teeth?

<comment><USER43> I haven't heard any reports of people getting teeth issues, assuming they actually look after them. The community there is quite skeptical, and very much for experimenting on themselves, having blood tests taken, etc.

Here's another article that explains the alternative view point on this: [http://digestiblekitchen.com/2013/10/confused-about-sugar- on...](http://digestiblekitchen.com/2013/10/confused-about-sugar-one-year- since-i-brought-sugar-back/)

Note that I'm not recommending processed foods either. I actually think it's much harder to eat lots of sugar, if you are only consuming it in non- processed foods.

But then is it sugar itself that is the problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> funny how this was published and then a NYTimes article on a 'Study Tied to Food Industry Tries to Discredit Sugar Guidelines' shortly thereafter!

</comment><comment><USER45> Here's a video Dr. Robert Lustig explaining how the body metabolizes different sugars:

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

He gets into the chemistry around the 40 minute mark.

</comment><comment><USER46> First they thought it was fat killing us, now that they know that's not really true they think it's sugar killing us. I wonder if I'll live to see the day the headlines read "protein is killing us!"

<comment><USER47> To be fair, the only reason it was ever "fat killing us" was because of intense lobbying by the sugar industry:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar- ind...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry- shifted-blame-to-fat.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> No it's not, it's merely the quantity of it that is.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is there a way to skip the paywall somehow?

<comment><USER49> Click the 'web' link above on the line that looks like the following:

... points by prostoalex ... ago | flag | hide | past | -----> web <\----- | ... comments | favorite

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> No access.

</comment><comment><USER51> Paywall

Is it a matter of dosage?

Because if it is, how do you make people consume less? Of course you can set a limit for grams of sugar per gram of food sold, I guess it could make people eat less sugar.

<comment><USER52> With WSJ if you google the title of the article you can get in from the search result link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> tl;dr Yes

<comment><USER54> Seems to be a rare instance that violates Betteridge's Law.

<comment><USER22> It's not true, sugar is not worse for you than white bread. White bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar.

Sugar does have a lot of fructose in it, but fruits have higher fructose content because they have less glucose.

Reality, turns out, is more complicated than black and white.

<comment><USER55> White bread is just syntactic sugar for simpler sugars, and destructures into them in your gut.

<comment><USER56> So far as i know, the same is true of sucrose. Only simple sugars pass into the bloodstream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Pro tip: you need a balanced diet. Despite all the recent conspiracy theories, getting rid of sugar while e.g. eating loads of fat is not going to do you good.

Downvoters: show me academic papers. Not some tabloid mis-quoting some paper, but the actual paper or at least an abstract.

Otherwise you're just being dietary fanboys

"SV kids getting healthy thanks to one weird trick"

<comment><USER58> The verbiage "balanced diet" is begging the question. What is a balanced diet? If it is just "one that works" than this is akin to knowing how to efficiently sort a large array from the definition of "elements are in in increasing order." Well, yes, but how do we get there?

That is, at best, claims of a balanced diet resort to existence statements, but never evidence ones. I am not going to claim I eat healthy, or that everyone should follow my diet (not many like whiskey nearly as much as I do), however, it is baffling to me the amount of stock people have placed on such things as "square meals", "food pyramids", and finally "balanced diets."

So, by all means, build strawmen to knock down against people asking questions. But realize you are likely not helping advance any actual knowledge unless you are presenting evidence.

<comment><USER59> The human body have an amazing ability to adapt to the environment and we will survive as long as energy intake match energy expenditure. The only category that need some attention is protein where having too little or too much can lead to issues. An Inuit from Greenland is no more or less healthy than an American or farmer from Brazil because of what they eat.

<comment><USER60> Thanks for the heads up, since you've told me that all food is equal I'm going to switch my diet to only include Soda, Doritos and Hotpockets. I'm sure my body will adapt amazingly.

<comment><USER61> What do you honestly think would happen if you did, assuming that your calories were limited to an amount that kept you at a consistent healthy weight for your size?

<comment><USER62> Headaches from too much sodium, acne breakouts, blood sugar crashes, poor mood, high acidity in stomach, digestive problems, bloating, etc. Eating nutritionally-poor food has immediate consequences.

<comment><USER59> >Headaches from too much sodium

Not to say this is a myth like Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, but there is honestly a lot of evidence either way so we can't make establish a causative relationship for everyone. It is quite possible for people to have a short term reaction to salt because the hormones in charge of water and sodium balance can take several days to stablise, but again, we are unsure of long term consequences especially on an individual level.

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101015-does-eating- mor...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101015-does-eating-more-salt- prevent-migraines-and-severe-headaches/)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to- end-t...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war- on-salt/)

The rest of your symptoms suggest that you are either eating too much like the guy from Supersize Me, or have more underlying health issues that require a better designed diet to heal. It's not food but how you eat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Fuck Sugar!

<comment><USER64> I would if I could

<comment><USER65> ... Bitch?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Unless a 500kg pallet of sugar falls on a person, I don't believe sugar has ever killed a single human. I know that people die from complications arising from diabetes. A quick google search shows that Saudi Arabia has the highest incidents of Diabetes of any country, more than double USA but they are not even in the top 10 sugar consumers. So, why is that? When did their diabetes problems 'start'?

<comment><USER67> [http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2014/12/28/...](http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2014/12/28/Saudi- Arabia-is-largest-soft-drinks-consumer-in-the-Middle-East.html)</comment></comment>


Curious Twitter Bug - <AUTHOR>

So I was messing around on Twitter this afternoon and found an interesting hole.  Here are the details:
Tweet exactly the following (without quotes):  "DM > SMS"
You'll notice twitter doesn't push the tweet through and it will not show up, whether you tweet this message from an app or their website.
Now tweet anything you like (e.g., "test").  This tweet will go through normally and show up in your timeline.
Now delete that tweet (i.e., "test").
Finally, tweet this again (without quotes):  "DM > SMS"
If executed properly, it should resend the "test" tweet you just deleted.
Very curious, indeed. :)
Has anyone else found other interesting things like this with Twitter? <comment><USER2> AFAIK Twitter has set up "dm" as a prefix doing the same thing as "d" - send a direct message. Since ">" is not a valid username, that command shouldn't do anything. For the rest, that might just be JavaScript weirdness in "#newtwitter" – if you can give us more information about your environment, maybe we could check the bug.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was using the official Mac app. Tested on two separate machines and same thing. Actually didn't try the delete and DM tweet on the web app (in new or old twitter).</comment></comment>


How I took control of my personal finances. Simplicity in money saving - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tomkoszyk/how-i-took-control-of-my-personal-finances-simplicity-in-money-saving-d7315830a758#.hfghbuyqj <comment><USER2> This is a huge, typo-filled Ad...

If you want a good budgeting tool look no further than YNAB [0] it's done wonders for me in tracking where my money is going how much I am spending in various categories as well as a good birds eye view of my finances (which even mint couldn't do well)

[0] [http://www.youneedabudget.com/](http://www.youneedabudget.com/) (Though I suggest you use [http://classic.youneedabudget.com/](http://classic.youneedabudget.com/) as the web version just isn't there yet IMHO)

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried to proof read everything, but if you found any typos, I'd be delighted if you could point them out!

<comment><USER3> You could copy and paste it into a word editor. I just did that with MS Word and it highlighted several misspellings for me.

Also in FF, a textarea box will show misspellings.

Or do you not have English dictionaries installed on your PC? (It's hard for me to get in the habit of remembering the internet is world-wide :S )

<comment><AUTHOR> Done this. You'd be surprised how many misspellings it didn't catch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was a young single man, I had an effective way to track my personal finances. At the start of the month, I'd calculate how much money I had left over after fixed expenses (rent, internet, etc) and whatever savings I wanted for that week.

I'd then divide that by 4, and 4 times a month, I'd withdraw that amount in cash from my account, and use that for discretionary spending like going out, groceries, etc. That way, I could tell myself by just looking in my wallet: "OK, I went out for drinks twice already this week, I have 40$ left, I'll keep it easy until Monday."

<comment><AUTHOR> sounds both oldschool and fun, but i suppose it doesn't work for a grown up man with some obligations ;)

<comment><USER5> It still works. Things like childcare just come out of the fixed expenses that are preallocated (or from cafeteria plan). I more or less take this same approach - except I use a mileage credit card. I have a self imposed budget limit and use my smartphone to ensure I'm staying below that amount for the month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand how people manage to log every purchase they make and keep on a budget (this app is no different). I find it so inefficient and time consuming. I can't even plan a budget.

I prefer to focus on how much money I can actually save every month. Much simpler and easier to manage. Best is to put that money aside on the 1st of each month and see if you can stick to it.

Then choosing what to spend less on to improve that saving every month is by questioning the usefulness of the purchase (Will I use it? Will it make me happier? Will it improve my productivity? Will it allow me to create wealth? etc.).

Try to keep your living standard below what your income could afford. On the long run you'll save money and live happier.

<comment><USER7> My method is similar: Monthly I fill a spreadsheet with my "book value". If my "book value" keeps growing, everything is ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I didn't have time to actually make or keep a budget, or learn anything about the topic, so I spent six months writing an app that is basically Mint, but slightly prettier, and worse." Don't ever change, tech dudes!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I guess you can't tell for sure if it's worse than Mint before using it. If it's prettier (as you said) and its UI is more intuitive there's a chance it can be better, at least in some aspects.

I guess you're right, I didn't have time to make a budget but have some to design an app because by doing this I learned a lot when it comes to design, and after all I earn money by designing things. So it's a win-win

<comment><USER8> Right back atcha, bro; your willful ignorance of the topic or any other solution is, I would say, a focus of your piece.

Done:

[x] Identify a problem ("overpaid millennial techies don't keep track of their spending because they just can't be arsed")

[x] Waste a bunch of time shipping a mobile app six people will ever use

[x] Write self-important, poorly-copyedited Medium post

These are the most visible parts of the design process, but they won't get you success unless you're reeeeeally good in a room with some pretty rich, dumb motherfuckers. (I am made to understand this is getting harder and harder lately.)

Not done:

[ ] Hard stuff?

[ ] Research design process: what else happens??? (<\- this sounds hard)

The difficult, meaningful stuff no one really seems to give much of a shit about anymore. Except, of course, the people making good and interesting work that will actually matter a few years from now, and not just destroy a bunch of wealth and effort. But they don't write Medium posts.

Be more like them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The steps are easy:

1\. Make a budget.

2\. Stick to it.

If you need a little more pressure, stop using credit cards in favor of cash. There's something powerful about realizing you have less of something every time you get a cup of coffee. It will slow you down and make you think "do I really want this?"

</comment><comment><USER10> This is basically an ad.

<comment><USER11> If people are looking for an app, I'd recommend YNAB

[https://www.youneedabudget.com/](https://www.youneedabudget.com/)

It has worked for me. Dead simple philosophy: the money you earn this month you get to spend next month. Helps break the cycle of debt, and also has given me visibility into my daily spending.

<comment><USER2> Seconded, I'm a big fan of YNAB (classic, web isn't ready yet)

<comment><USER12> I love YNAB and would love to use it in the cloud. It's a shame that it is isn't up to snuff yet and is $45/year. It would be great if someone came out with a cloned competitor.

<comment><USER13> I started working on one a week ago.

What are the main features you'd like to see that were left out from YNAB 4?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> First of all, congrats on taking control of your finances!

Also, good luck with the forthcoming app launch.

Sad to see the top responses didn't celebrate what you've done but instead complained that you are putting out an app.

I'd suggest going deeper into your philosophy of why you only need 7 main categories. How did you decide on those exact 7? Where would you classify: giving, investing, and short-term savings (tech replacement, saving for an anniversary, etc).

Edit: as mentioned elsewhere, there are a bunch of typos too. "taht" instead of "that", etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> The app looks interesting! I'm nt sure if I'd stick to entering in every purchase, but I'd be willing to try. Worst case you could add Plaid integration as an option too. I do think there is value in simplifying way more than Mint.

One idea I had recently was for a similar interaction, but instead of for expenses it would be for every time you "saved" money. So for example, if you were in the super market and saw some $5 cookies and debated buying them. If you decided not to, since you wanted to save that money instead, you'd open then app and quickly enter $5. It would keep a tally of all of the savings you had instead of the expenses, to incentivize that mentality.

You might be able to easily incorporate that already (or I could after signing up) by adding a "Savings" category. But if there are any places where expenses are graphed or totaled it would need to be discounted.

Anyways, congrats and good luck with the launch! I like how clean it feels.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice! Right now, we;re working on MVP version of the app, but there are some things on the roadmap already. I'd definitely think about this feature!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I try to spend around $600/mth on food, gas, drinks and other entertainment. This works out to roughly $20/day. I keep a running tally in my head day to day on what I've spent and try to stay around $20/day.

This is not a great tracking method, but just having the idea of $20/day in the back of my head curbs my spending a great deal.

<comment><USER17> I wrote up my system in another thread - I do almost exactly the same thing, except it's $40 a day for me, my wife and 2 kids. The only difference is we actually "pay out" the money each day, and only spend from what we've accumulated from that day and previous days.

<comment><USER16> I really like that way of keeping a running tally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Regardless of whether it is an ad or not: You missed a huge chance by submitting to HN before having the app ready. I find the idea of only a few categories appealing, but if I wanted to do this _right now_ I would probably go look for an app that is available _right now_. I want to test your app for a week or so, give feedback and move on if it doesn't work. Not too keen on signing up on a mailinglist for an app that will "someday" be ready, unless I'm very excited about it or the app is the first one to solve a specific problem. Attention spans are short!

</comment><comment><USER19> This also works best for me. Write it down straight away. Not some evening, or in the weekend, but right away. I got into the habit because I wanted to save 5 months of expenses before starting as a freelancer.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have two accounts and a spreadsheet.

Money goes into one account, then I work out all my expenses for the month, rent, petrol, food, isp bills etc. This amount is then transferred to my bill paying account. As the month wears on this account is depleted automatically as bills are taken then next month I refill it.

The other account is a play money account. Anything I need/want during the month comes out of this. At the end of the month any left over is transferred into a saving account.

Been doing this for 15 years and it works pretty well for me.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd recommend a combination of billguard and mint. Mainly billguard, both free. billguard allows you to add your debit/credit card accounts. when you make a purchase, bill guard notifies you. it will group your spending habits into different categories. at the end of every week, bill guard notifies you by email with a message similar to this "you have spent $400 this week etc. etc. going into the app itll show you where the money you spent went to. this is a great way to determine how much money you go through a weekly basis.

<comment><AUTHOR> still have to check Mint. Maybe it'll make me cancel Blinq development, or give some great ideas!

<comment><USER21> I would hope you won't cancel your app development. your app looks very intuitive and simplistic, the UI clean as well. didn't mean to overshadow your accomplishments. only a suggestion for an alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I did this with a single sheet of engineering graph paper in the 1980s. Rows were spending categories and columns were months and annual summaries. I spreadsheeted it in the 1990s and clouded it in the 2010s. Simple and powerful if you can see it all on one page. Takes just minutes a month. Most the mobile apps I'ver seen use too small screenfulls. And I DONT TRUST THEM INTO MY WEB ACCOUNTS like Mint wants to do.

</comment><comment><USER23> The easiest way to budget is just stop spending money on stupid stuff, and don't live somewhere with high rent. Don't make large purchases, except perhaps a condo or house so you don't have to pay rent anymore. You don't need to write anything down or manually keep track of stuff in an app. Your online account balances automatically keep track for you. This isn't rocket science.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have to separate Food into Eating Out and Groceries. I value cooking at home much higher than I do eating out.

</comment><comment><USER25> TL;DR - Categorize your spendings to at max 5-7. See where you spend max money and try to optimize for it.</comment>


Ask HN: What stack do you use to build side projects/hackathons - <AUTHOR>

Hi just curious what stacks do you use to build side projects, weekend projects or hackathon projects. Also why? <comment><USER2> Python/Django with MySql + html5/css

</comment><comment><USER3> Mostly Groovy & Grails, PostgreSQL, HTML/CSS/Javascript, JQuery. Beyond that there are quite a few specific libraries and tools that I commonly use: Lucene for text search, Rome for processing feeds, Jersey for JAX-RS REST interfacing. I tend to use JMS pretty heavily as well. Apache Camel, depending on the situation. Hadoop if there's a need for "big data" stuff.

Why? Because this stuff is mature, battle-tested and proven, and it's what I know. I find that, all around, the "JVM ecosystem" is a nice environment with great libraries and tools, and multiple languages to choose from. I like Groovy because it leverages the years I spent learning and doing Java, but it's a lot nice than Java in many ways.</comment>


My So Called Startup Life... - <AUTHOR> http://learntoduck.com/startups/startup-life <comment><USER2> This article is right on. The thrill of creating something new quickly wears off when business gets in the way, but those who push through get the reward.</comment>


CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/business/103021/ceo-payday-what-techs-top-execs-made-09 <comment><USER2> those pictures are creepy and I really dont like the slideshow format (used often in forbes), it takes so much longer to read.</comment>


Kentucky Mule – limits of Scala typechecking speed - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gkossakowski/kentucky-mule-limits-of-scala-typechecking-speed-6a44bd520a2f#.gf3vpcbh6 <comment><USER2> The approach looks promising, but handling all of Dotty can be challenging.

Latest from Dotty: implicit function types

[https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/1775](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/1775)

[http://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2016/12/07/implicit- function-...](http://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2016/12/07/implicit-function- types.html)</comment>


Ask HN: How to learn Java and Scala as Python Dev quickly (48 to 72 hours)? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I know python good enough to write working programs. I haven't had chance to work on functional programming or collections , but CRUD app, database interactions, ETL is kind of work I have done.
I want to learn Java and Scala. I am little familiar with Java such as basic concept of class, object, main function, compiling programs , I know about inheritance and polymorphism but not good enough to write programs.
I want to learn about Java and start writing workable programs. Where should I start? I want to be able to write workable programs in next 48 hours or I will be disappointed with myself with everything else going on.
Same goes for Scala. I started learning it from twitter tutorial but left in between. At this I only remember I used sbt for development.
I am 29 and I don't know Java or Scala is such a shame.
Let me know if you know or have link to any good resources.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm a little confused. Are you asking how to learn Java in 72 hours or have you been developing the last 3 years "mostly writing code in Java".

Your previous comments say that......(132 days ago).....

>"Beyond CRUD and ETL – How to Grow Professionally?

Since last 3 years I have been working with Big Data applications on Hadoop platform mostly writing code in Java and using abstract language/platform such as Pig, Spark , RedShift , Hive.">

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I was not clear. I want to learn java enough to write working code in next 72 hours. I know python and how to write programs.

About my comment ( 132 days ago ) - I meant Python and not Java. It must have been competing thoughts or something I was discussing with someone and wrote incorrectly without proofreading.

<comment><USER2> That makes more sense (Python not Java) with the other technologies you mentioned.

Writing "working code" in Java in 3 days is extremely ambitious, unless by working code you mean some version of "Hello World."

There are solid developers (who if for some reason had no exposure to Java) who would have trouble writing "working code" in three weeks. Again..if working code was something commercial.

I guess it really matters how you define working code.</comment></comment></comment>


AI is incredibly smart, but it will never match human creativity - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2019/01/02/ai-is-incredibly-smart-but-it-will-never-match-human-creativity/ <comment><USER2> Weak hand wavy arguments. We don't know what consciousness is, so we can't conclusively say machines won't attain it. Recently a fish passed the mirror test. Seeking novelty and even comedy could be automatically learned and formulated I believe some day not far away. We can keep trying to move the goal posts but as it gets more and more difficult to make any pragmatic distinction, we'll just have to chalk this one too for machines. Then we can deal with equal rights if we're still in control.</comment>


Revolutionary User Interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://timeline.verite.co/examples/user-interface/

<comment><USER2> Things got quite Apple-centric near the end there. I don't doubt Apple has been responsible for a huge number of innovations recently in user interfaces, but there's some notable omissions like gesture recognition and motion sensing (via the Wii and XBox 360), and crediting Siri with the invention or even popularization of speech recognition is one of the bigger stretches I've heard recently. Dragon Dictate would probably be a natural fit for an early popularizer of that technology.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1963: Ivan Sutherland developed "Sketchpad, A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System" in his thesis at MIT's Lincoln Labs [1]

1969: The Genesys system, developed by Dr. Ron Baecker in MIT's Lincoln Laboratory was one of the world's first interactive systems for real-time animation [2]

1980: Richard A. Bolt from MIT wrote Put-that-there : voice and gesture at the graphics interface [3]

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyoT_Ha_bA>

[2] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYslfBpC10>

[3] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pr2KIPQOKE>

</comment><comment><USER4> There are a few important missings. Just to point one, the Googles's original UI was as revolutionary as many of the examples here.

<comment><USER5> Given there are missing things, but what do you mean by google ui? A search box?

<comment><USER4> I mean the spartan user interface approach the followed in the early 2000s in their core product.

We give for granted now that applications should be clean, focus, etc, but for many years that was not the trend. To put it into perspective, its major rivals at the time (Yahoo, and MSN) followed the opposite path.

Google had a huge impact on how web interfaces are done today.

They also popularize ajax when they launched gmail but that its another story.

<comment><USER2> Ironcially, I can remember Yahoo being lauded very early on for the same thing (spartan user interface, insanely fast load times, etc.) back when it started.

If anything, Google was a return back to spartan interfaces after the initial batch of search engines got too caught up in portal mania.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are many, easily correctable errors. The Univac isn't called Unicvac. The Osborne 1 wasn't available in 1976 but 1981. Microsoft windows was released in 1985, not 1982. Speech recognition was available with Dragon Dictate in 1994 or so.</comment>


Ask HN: Review our app, Boomtango - <AUTHOR> http://www.boomtango.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

For a long time, I've griped that the browser history system is old and neglected, but given some love, could potentially be a powerful tool. A lot of my web searches are for content that I have seen in the past, and while browser history is great for the back button (and the awesome bar), the ability to re-find old content has been sub par.

My friend, Alan and I, prompted by the Mozilla Firefox Extend Contest, decided to write a firefox extension that took a fresh look at the browser history system, trying to get past some of the current deficiencies like the lack of integration of multiple tabs being open, the inability to monitor ajaxy sites, etc, and being able to do more than search by hostname and date.

Boomtango is our rough attempt to put together a system that allows you to search by the content of your page or see your history automatically categorized by it's content. It's all stored locally in a sqlite db, so your web browsing never hits our server.

Let us know what you think. We're not awesome ui designers or expert marketers, so any feedback you have, regardless how harsh, would be very enlightening and helpful.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> hi Will,

Super idea, this has been a major annoyance to me in the recent past, the inability to find stuff that I _know_ I've read for sure.

First comment, please make it so that it will import all the history from the browser that it is installed on (if someone should want that).

thanks !

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not mentioned anywhere on the site, but it does do that. Unfortunately, the browser history doesn't contain as much data as boomtango tracks (the full content of the page, any information we grab off the dom, thumbnail previews) etc. It's still handy, but not quite as full featured as the history you generate after it is installed.

<comment><USER2> Hm, weird, all the previous dates other than today are blank (and today only shows what I loaded after installing).

Also, I noticed that when I switch to the boomtango tab it shows 'phantom' entries, as soon as I click on them the day shows as empty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You mentioned "Data is stored on your local computer so your history remains private" what about giving the possibility to upload to the web, then I can get my browser history whenever I am. Maybe a possibility to merge browser histories would be cool also ;)

But even with this, it stills very COOL!.

Congrats

<comment><AUTHOR> That's something we're definitely considering. One idea that we've been noodling on is to add a downloadable app that managed all your storage and had a simple http rest api. Then in the extension, you could optionally point to that instead of the internal storage mechanism.

That would provide some internal benefits of being able to use a beefier storage backend decoupled from the browser. Users then could run the app locally on their computer, or on their own server somewhere, or potentially as part of a cloud storage service.

<comment><USER4> A simple workaround might be using dropbox to sync the sqlite db file. It would be nice to have an integrated solution though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A side note: this product, like many others, hosts its video walkthrough on Vimeo. But, Vimeo clearly says on their upload page: "You may not upload commercials, infomercials, or demos that actively sell or promote a product or service."

So, does Vimeo just not enforce this rule, or what?

<comment><AUTHOR> In haste, I guess we didn't read the fine print. Lesson learned.

I'll remove it from the site tonight and figure out a better way of displaying that content directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I installed this. I have two comments:

The first time I launch Firefox after installing, the interfaces asks if I want to import my history or "cancel." I'd like to recommend changing the wording to "Do not import" or something. Did I just cancel out of a larger startup process? I assume not, but I don't think "cancel" is the logical opposite of "import history."

For the screencast, this is my recommendation: 1) write your script 2) record the video portion 3) narrate the video as a separate stage

I've made a few videos this way, and this is the best way I've found to make it fast and error-free. It's hard to multitask, and performing a task while vocalizing it at the same time is _really_ hard.

Anyway, I'm really interested in this project...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments; both spot on.

I have to say that I've put screencasts in the category of "easier said than done". What I thought would be a simple exercise turned into a grueling marathon one night trying to get 2 minutes worth of video recorded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Opening the boomtango page takes a long time on my machine, mostly because it's trying to download an image from PayPal.

I hope you guys can make all the images local, so it loads instantly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we'll do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sweet work, and congrats! I wrote and maintain archivd.com and before that dowser.sf.net. Anyone who helps users archive and search is good people.

I suggest working on the visualization design, ie find better ways to compactly represent the important information inside arbitrary webpages. Also think about inferring structure, for example, if a user searches Google for "foo bar" and clicks on a result, that result should automatically get a "foo bar" tag.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We definitely need some work on the visual design; also, I love the idea about an inferred structure.

<comment><USER8> Np. The way I think about it, an "icon" for a piece of information has to be three things:

        An accurate portrayal of the contents

        More compact than the original

        Sufficiently different from other icons of the same "type"

With web pages that means more than the title + favicon. If a page has a video embedded in it, that's a BIG clue. Also there is tons of structured information that sites put inside pages to make them more tasty to search engines, like microformats. Facebook recently created a de-facto standard for video_src nd image_src link tags.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent, I think I will use this nearly every day. Found a small bug - Tools->Boomtango->Open Settings->Categories->Click the Visit Boomtango for plugins link

Get a 404 trying to reach page: <http://www.boomtango.com/trackers/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we'll get it in the next update. FWIW, the url it is supposed to go to is:

<http://www.boomtango.com/plugins.shtml>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like what I was looking for. Looks good.

The interface is too bright IMO (just checked the screenshots).

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember there was a similar add-on for firefox. It stored the entire content of pages you visited on your local hard drive and you could search through it. It's called breadcrumbs. How is boomtango different from breadcrumbs???

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't installed it, but from looking at the docs, I think there are couple major differences.

One is that we provide a UI with several views that let's you slice and dice your way into finding the content you are looking for. For instance, you can view your history visually in thumbnail view, by a variety of calendar views, or by the category of your content.

Second, we look at the content (and possibly your actions) to determine what the content of the page is and what you've done, and put it into categories. All the videos you've seen or searches you've done, etc, will be categorized so you can quickly find by the type of content for which you are looking.

Third, we include an open greasemonkey style api so that this can be extended (the only one we have right now is a "Hacker News" plugin that records every article you click on from hacker news). For instance, we plan on adding plugins that don't fit for the general public. Conceivably, you could add a blogging plugin that might record all the comments you add to a blog, or a developer plugin that records all the api calls you look up on various sites whitelisted sites so that you can quickly get back to that content.

<comment><USER11> Woah that third point got me totally swayed.

Edit: Just noticed that dragging the Boomtango icon into the customize box puts an entire iconset in the box rather than the boomtango icon.

Also, does Boomtango change the default throbber???

<comment><AUTHOR> uggh. That's a bug. We'll fix it in the next update. We don't change the default throbber; not sure what might be going on with that but I'll take a look.

<comment><USER11> Er... I meant the throbber which appears in the place of the favicon on the tab header, rather than the throbber which appears on the menubar.

<comment><USER11> Apparently it's a change in the latest nightly and not due to Boomtango.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey Will, this is very well done. It's clear you put a lot of hard work and thought into every aspect of Boomtango and it shows in the quality of your product. Kudos.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks cool - consider me a new user! Two suggestions for the FAQ: 1\. How much space will this use up on my machine? 2\. Will this slow my browsing experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank. We'll add that to FAQ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wasn't there an YC company some time ago doing something similar? What was their name, and what happened to them?

<comment><USER15> I think it was webmynd

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Friggin genius.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great idea for a plugin.

One feature I'd really like to see, is the ability to selectively delete history entries, both in Firefox's regular history database and Boomtango's enhanced database.

<comment><AUTHOR> I put it on our todo list. should be pretty easy to implement at this point.

Thanks!</comment></comment>


Intel Movidius Neural Compute Stick: Deep Learning and AI on a $79 USB Stick - <AUTHOR> http://anandtech.com/show/11649/intel-launches-movidius-neural-compute-stick <comment><USER2> From the article:

"Like other players in the edge inference market, Movidius is looking to promote and capitalize on the need for low-power but capable inference processors for stand-alone devices."

Sounds like this is targeted at inference only, given the specs, that seems like a reasonable conclusion, right?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 100 GFLOPS (FP16) at 1W power.

For comparison:

Tesla P40 = 11,758 GFLOPS at 250 W ($5,600).

GeForce GTX 1080 = 8,873 GFLOPS at 180W ($550).

<comment><USER3> So, a 1080 is 50GFLOPs/watt and 16GFLOPs/$ vs 100/watt and 1.27/$ for the stick.

The stick may be still useful for embedded/in the field/robotics apps?</comment></comment>


Can you think of variations on the likebetter.com idea?  For example, can you use it to detect cheating in online chess? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe we could address cheating in online chess by showing various images throughout a game.

The intuition here is that these images will have some impact on your thinking patterns.

So the idea is to see whether you are reacting as a typical human being would when viewing these images while playing chess.

For example, some images may have a negative effect in tactical positions.

One can have players play a against a computer every once in a while without telling them to see if they are cheating.</comment>


Ask HN: Can I learn to be a programmer/developer without going to university? - <AUTHOR>

I've been wondering lately if there are any comprehensive resources (oustide of a formal college or university) that can take you from being a computer enthusiast to a fully knowledgable developer/programmer? Figured this'd be the place to ask! Thanks in advance, HN! <comment><USER2> I'd go as further as saying, that if you aren't able to self teach yourself programming, then you can't be a programmer, no matter what classes and universities you attend. Programming involves a lot of continuous learning anyway.

<comment><USER3> I would agree with this only to a point. Sometimes there is a wall that you run into that you can't make over by yourself. The little hint, nudge, or push in the right direction can open up understanding that maybe wasn't attainable alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My personal experience is that the only way to learn is by doing it. "Scratch your own itch", build programs to do the things you want.

The funny thing is that while few of my formal university classes had anything to do with programming, it was still a great environment in which to learn - mostly because of the people I met there rather than anything else.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. You gotta just start programming things that matter to you. I know many good programmers who have non-CS degrees but have been hackers since they were kids. Through trial and error, and a lot of reading on the side, they've turned out to be phenomenal programmers. And each job they've held along the way, they've learned a ton from other people on their teams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I never took any university courses on programming/computer science, and I'm working full-time as a product developer at a digital agency.

In fact, when I interviewed at FreshForm, I wasn't asked any questions about my college/courses. Everything was based on the work I'd done, which came as a result of learning over about 4 years. I started slow with html, css, etc. Then moved on to PHP/MySQL, eventually started building crappy web apps. And now I'm building better web and mobile apps with Ruby, etc.

Year 5 is really when everything clicked for me, but I was going through school and not focused 110% on it.

I learned mostly from online tutorials, and building side projects that kept me interested. Books were/are helpful at times, but most of the time you will learn the most by jumping in over your head and figuring everything out the hard way. But there are fundamentals that need to be learned up front and books are a great medium for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, and this goes for everybody else, too: thanks for the replies!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually got into Software Engineering this way. I started off working as a Systems Administrator, which required me to script jobs on servers/clients and, eventually, I inherited the entire intranet for the company which forced me to learn PHP and Java. Prior to this, I mostly dabbled in HTML, CSS, etc. since I was a teenager. Since this, however, I have completed my Computer Science degree (while still working) and learn new languages, technologies and methodologies mostly from online documentation and tutorials. I went from being a low-level sysadmin to a senior software engineer to a program manager for software engineering within a span of four years by spending every free moment I had learning, adapting and experimenting with new apps.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you assuming that a university grad is necessarily "a fully knowledgeable developer/programmer"? ;) Independent study of new concepts, programming languages, libraries, etc., is almost a requirement in order to be a successful programmer, but it's ultimately experience that brings one closer to what you describe, and I think that many people on HN would agree with me that independent study is sufficient to bring you to a position from which you can begin to acquire said experience.

Oh, and the customary nod to SICP: <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/>

</comment><comment><USER9> University was a terrible choice for me.

It boils down to this :

Do you prefer a structured learning experience and being in a meatspace community away from where you were living?

Do you prefer having a crappy job and tutoring yourself during that time period in an unstructured fashion?

</comment><comment><USER10> Absolutely!

We just graduated our first cohort, and after 8 weeks, they've learned enough to get entry-level ruby jobs techcrunch.com/2012/05/10/dev-boot-camp-is-a- ruby-success/

There are also less intense courses out there like bloc.io

<comment><USER11> Or, in my case, entry-level Python/Django jobs :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> books

if you are really a beginner, start with "head first programming" (which is python), after this go forward with "head first javascript" (if you like the head first approach). do all tasks. after this choose your language, read the best books on that topic (go to amazon) front to cover - while coding lots of really tiny projects (one after the other). try to create one simple script per day. publish them on github.

two to three years later you will be a "programmer", you will probably be able to get a job in this area much sooner.</comment>


Ex-girlfriend exacts revenge through Google Images - <AUTHOR> http://www.seroundtable.com/boyfriend-spammed-12909.html

<comment><USER2> A more useful lesson to us is: use http status codes appropriately.

The site took down the photos, but they keep returning 200 for the links, and saying "image gone" in content. That's not how it's supposed to be.

Please check to see your web-framework and CRM actually respect HTTP, in spec text and _spirit_.

<comment><USER3> Maybe they use Arc, e.g. <http://news.ycombinator.com/nosuchfile>

<comment><USER4> It's not Arc that does that, it's the http server written in it. As you already knew.

<comment><USER3> Why wasn't it called "The http server written in Arc challenge" at <http://www.paulgraham.com/arcchallenge.html>?

<comment><USER2> It's common, though not acceptable, to conflate language with supporting tools/libraries, sometimes even the OS? It's very hard to draw the distinction when the language is not standardized, and/or heavily used (as language implementors are also its consumers.)

It should be a good exercise to take the public StackOverflow data and see how many "Rails" problems are actually Ruby, httpd, db, OS, or wetware problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It could have been a better read. It doesn't actually tell if the girl in question used SEO/blackhat techniques to rank his name. My feeling is that it was not an act of gaming the image SERPs, it was merely a byproduct of MemeGenerator's SEO optimization.

<comment><USER6> She just used the Meme's sites optimization, but she named her pictures correctly and etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article makes it sound like she is some kind of genius but using <http://www.memegenerator.net/> is not rocked science. Pretty clever though.

</comment><comment><USER8> with all the publicity he will get more girls now :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I am flabbergasted by the tech savvy of the ex-girlfriend (of course) but also of the mom who immediately knew to contact webmasters to have the image removed from their servers and also to hit it from the copyright angle, too (a law professor perhaps?). However, I don't quite get it when she declares "My minor son's ex-girlfriend took a copyrighted picture of him (we own copyright)", the article mentions it was a professionally taken photo, so the photographer (or studio) owns the copyright in this case.

"Hell hat no fury" is very old, but the girl's revenge is so cool!

<comment><USER10> Rights of ownership can be transferred to anyone, even girls.

<comment><USER9> I've never seen professional studios transfer copyright to people. That's why none of the photo services in Walmart, Walgreens, etc. will make a copy of a photo that was taken professionally.

<comment><USER11> She might have a right to noncommercial distribution.

It's not uncommon to give that for childrens' photographs and "glamor shots" that you get at the mall. This way people can make copies for their own private use, without worrying about breaking the law and the photographer will still get paid if say the boys photo ends up on the nightly news.

<comment><USER9> Exactly; in fact that's how all the studio shots I had before worked. That does _not_ mean that you have the copyright, though, the photographer/studio can still use the photo in ways they see fit and sell it.

<comment><USER12> The fact that the photo studio owns the copyright doesn't mean that they can use the photo is ways they see fit and/or sell it. Copyright is a sword, not a shield: With copyright they can prevent the use of the image as they see fit.

The right to use an image or likeness of a person as they see fit is conveyed by the model waiver. When you sit for a private, personal portrait session that you pay for, the waiver you sign shouldn't assign all rights to your likeness to the studio.

On the other hand, if you are paid to model something, the waiver you sign probably does give the photog all rights to those images in perpetuity.

But even then there are limitations. Most jurisdictions won't allow an implied endorsement unless the picture was specifically taken for that purpose. For example, if a young model sits for a stock picture which depicts him sitting in an Aeron chair and he later becomes a famous programmer, Aeron cannot buy that picture from the photographer and run an ad saying "Bill Gates loves Aeron Chairs!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The guy featured in this photo looks suspiciously like the actor used in this Motorola Super Bowl advert preview[1].

Just a coincidence, or part of a viral campaign?

[1] [http://www.edibleapple.com/motorola-teases-super-bowl- xoom-a...](http://www.edibleapple.com/motorola-teases-super-bowl-xoom-ad- paints-apple-users-as-drones/)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is almost entirely off-topic, but wow, I'm stunned by the massive amounts of (what looks to be) misogyny going on there. Now, I may be skewed by the fact that if my girlfriend had done that, I would have married her on the spot (don't worry ladies, I'm joking), but virtually every comment, and the article itself, call her a crazy bitch and the like. What if the guy in question had broken up with her after, say, getting her pregnant? Surely that'd be a deserved punishment.

Furthermore, there are how many porn websites regarding, basically evangelising "revenge" on ex-girlfriends?

Anyway, that's enough of a "Someone is WRONG on the internet" speech on an unrelated article. Kudos to the girl for doing that, I guess. I certainly wouldn't have thought of it.

</comment><comment><USER15> The mom actually responded to this completely wrong as it's now become an internet meme. She should have flooded the web with other pictures of him to drown out the embarrassing ones.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd be pretty touched if my gf does something like this for me - only if they were all good messages.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sane, Pretty, Smart. So hard to find all three in a woman these days. People who do crap like this have to be handled with care, engage them and it can lead to murder.

Gavin De Becker spent his entire career (30 years ) dealing with this kind of thing, protecting clients/celebrities from all kinds of psychos. "The Gift of Fear". [https://www.gavindebecker.com/resources/books_by_gavin_de_be...](https://www.gavindebecker.com/resources/books_by_gavin_de_becker_and_other_books/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sane, Handsome, Smart. So hard to find all three in a man these days.</comment></comment>


The True Value Of Social Networks: The 2009 Updated Model - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/the-true-value-of-social-networks-the-2009-updated-model/ <comment><USER2> It would be interesting to see the same model with revenue and profits instead.</comment>