"A calorie is a calorie" violates the second law of thermodynamics - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr version:

Calories derived from fat vs protein vs carbohydrates have different inefficiencies in converting them from their theoretical caloric value to their useful work in the body.

Fat is the most efficient with a loss of just @ 2-3%, carbs are at 6-8%, protein 25-30%. [edit Most of] this loss is in the form of heat.

It was not mentioned why this excess heat would not simply be offset by the body avoiding the normal processes it takes to maintain body temperature. Presumably the body generates enough heat as a by-product at room temperature and thus there is nothing the body can back off of to make use of the waste heat described above.

<comment><USER3> Funny, I learned this in nutrition class about 20 years ago. It's something that clearly has been known for a long time, yet its never been popuar in the common discourse.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. I also believe it doesn't really matter, because the inefficiencies of converting sugars to body fat are pretty much irrelevant. Proteins may have a more significant inefficiency, but it's hard find food where they are the majority component.

When people overeat grossly, those 5% won't make much of a difference. On my binge days, I consume upwards of 5000 kcal and it doesn't really matter if it's actually just 4750 kcal - it's still too much.

So yeah, in practice, a calorie is pretty much a calorie.

<comment><USER5> Huh? Just because one can binge so much that the difference is irrelevant hardly means that the difference isn't important in general.

The study this cites early on suggests that a low-carbohydrate diet with N calories a day is roughly equivalent to a low-fat diet with only 70% of N calories a day. So a 2000 calorie-a-day low-carbohydrate diet is equivalent to a 1400 calorie-a-day low-fat diet. That result is _huge_. (And makes me regret having had pasta three times this week!)

<comment><USER4> I allege that it indeed makes very little difference, except in cases where people indeed manage to eat only one category (most food is a mix, even when people claim to be on a <insert here> diet).

As other people said, the results of this study are not new. We learned that in basic biochemistry when the metabolic pathways were discussed.

> So a 2000 calorie-a-day low-carbohydrate diet is equivalent to a 1400 > calorie-a-day low-fat diet.

It is _so_ not.

<comment><USER5> "A low carbohydrate group (LoCHO = 1800 kcal for men; 1500 kcal for women), a low fat group (LoFat, 1800 and 1500); a third group also consumed a low carbohydrate diet but an additional 300 kcalories were provided (LoCHO+300, 2100 and 1800). The order of average amount of weight lost was LoCHO = 23 lbs, LoCHO+300 = 20 lbs LoFat = 17 lbs." That's not quite the same math I used, but it seems to pretty strongly suggest that a LoCHO+600 group would have have lost 17 lbs, exactly the same as the LoFat group.

Perhaps there is some reason to doubt this study, but saying "It is so not" is hardly a rational rebuttal.

<comment><USER6> Provided you assume those effects are linear, then yes. There is however no evidence for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "A calorie is a calorie" is good enough, however.

People aren't fat because they are consuming 2500 calories from a Big Mac and Fries rather than 2500 calories from carrots. People are fat because they are consuming 6000 calories and burning off 1300.

The message is simplistic, sure. For a large majority of overweight people though that's all that is required. Somewhere between reducing caloric intake and becoming fit, the message that not all calories are created equal sinks in, if for no other reason that it quickly becomes apparent that you'll starve only eating one meal of McDonald's a day.

<comment><USER8> Simply counting calories will reduce your weight. I can pretty much confirm that now. Over the last eight months I tried to stay below 1900 calories per day and I have lost 17 kilo. As much as I wanted to, I did not manage to change my diet in any meaningful way, I'm just eating less. I didn't even manage to keep up a regular sports routine. But my fallback – mercilessly tracking my weight and counting calories – saved me. (I would very much want to eat better. Many of the things I'm eating now have so high calorie densities that I can only eat very little of them.)

I do know that I will have to track my weight and count calories for the rest of my life. That's ok. (As a teenager I already lost a substantial amount of weight with the same method but I gained it all and more back because I stupidly stopped tracking my weight and counting calories. I'm confident that I won't make the same mistake again.)

<comment><USER9> If you simply cut out carbs you will lose a ton of fat.

But yeah if you want to eat carbs and be healthy you have to basically count calories for the rest of your life.

<comment><USER8> Changing my diet never worked for me. Counting calories does. Also: I do love pasta.

Counting calories is not that hard. I can do it in my head by now. Tracking my weight (which, I think, is equally important, especially for motivation) is more or less a reward and not a chore by now.

<comment><USER10> There is also some research that suggests fasting being beneficial in modulating insulin resistance. I try not to consume food after a certain time at night. It is not too difficult to do, and definitely stops short any thoughts of a late night snack.

<comment><USER8> I'm very skeptical that fasting is healthy, it probably is not. The only thing I do care about is losing weight and that works.

<comment><USER11> Read up. Fasting can be quite healthy. (The only actual debate is on how good it is for you, not on how bad.) Especially intermittent fasting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The car/fuel analogy is a bad one. High-test fuel only makes sense if the engine in which you intend to burn it is designed to actually make use of its qualities to reach higher efficiencies (e.g. a higher compression ratio). If not, you're just burning more expensive fuel at the same efficiency.

That said, what really interests me is the mechanisms behind addictions. Why do smokers smoke, knowing full well by now that it will kill them earlier than non-smokers? Why stuff obese people themselves, knowing full well that it will cause serious health issues down the line.

Bottom-line I tend to agree with those who hold that 'a calorie is a calorie' and simply cutting down on food intake is a good enough principle, though perhaps not entirely scientifically correct, for the majority of obese people.

But why don't they do it? What makes it so attractive that they simply ignore the serious long-term disadvantages - and even in some cases deny the existence of said disadvantages even though in reality they must know they are real.

<comment><USER13> > That said, what really interests me is the mechanisms behind addictions. Why > do smokers smoke, knowing full well by now that it will kill them earlier > than non-smokers? Why stuff obese people themselves, knowing full well that > it will cause serious health issues down the line.

Let's take this one step further: Is the reason/mechanism a smoker smokes the same why I browse reddit and HN all day instead of working on my PhD?

<comment><USER11> Probably not completely the same. There's a variable reward schedule behind browsing HN (and that can be addictive). Smoking seems to give a different `reward'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is not be the Richard Feynman you are looking for:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_D._Feinman>

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is an example that one of the best "rocks to look under" (as in pg's "What You Can't Say" essay) is _the misapplication of fundamental laws_ :

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2254906>

The researchers who wrote this paper looked under that rock. (In this case, pop-science application of fundamental physical law. It's hard to get more fundamental than thermodynamics.)

(An example for you entrepreneurs out there, I'd suggest looking under Kerchoff's Law. Yes, it's a great principle to keep in mind when designing security tools like ciphers and cryptographic protocols. However, I contend it's applied in a counter-productive way when people think about real-world systems -- those have boundaries that are way too complicated for the application of Kerchoff's Law. Often, this is just an opportunity for someone to show they understand crypto theory, then throw up their arms and declare nothing can be done. However, the truth is that security often works or doesn't work because of the _economics_!)

</comment><comment><USER16> I thought that "Richard Feinman" was just a misspelling of Richard Feynman, then I noticed the dates. That would be just like him to author something like this though.

<comment><USER17> Its a good first approximation so to a physicist it might as well be true.

<comment><USER18> Ouch. Yes, I clearly remembering being taught that Physics _is_ approximation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have found the perfect diet (or, rather "weight control algorithm"), have lost about 60 pounds and haven't gained them back for a couple of years now. The algorithm is extremely simple: "If you ate yesterday, don't eat today." It means I fast AT LEAST half days in a year (see: alternate day fasting). On fasting days, I drink water and green tea (with no sugar, of course). It has numerous purported health benefits. I can vouch for weight loss, lower blood pressure, more energy (perhaps paradoxically) and better digestion. It also frees a lot of time, since you don't have to plan, eat, or acquire food half the time and it turns out digestion also "needs" sleep, so I can get by with sleeping less on days I'm empty. The only side effect is that of lower blood pressure - I sometimes get dizzy if rising up fast from crouching. I started doing this after fasting for 60 hours every fortnight for a year, I loved the feeling and wanted more of it. It also makes me appreciate food much more on the days I do eat. As disclaimer (YMMV), I tend to avoid food additives which are known to be bad (coal tar-based paintstuffs, artificial sweeteners, certain emulgators and such) - the lists of those are widely available. And I try to eat whole-grain cereal products. I also keep kombucha as pets (very clean and quite pets, fermented tea is best poo ever) and I bake my own bread with wild yeast that has apparently managed to have aerial sex with my kombucha scoby.

<comment><USER20> Careful with that kind of advice and things like "I have found the perfect diet".

It's much safer and simpler to lose weight and improve overall health by simply not eating crap (which is quite hard to do in a typical western country, I agree) and having regular exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't think the difference in conversion efficiency between carbs and fat is relevant in a "normal" diet. The main difference is in how they are metabolized, and the effect they produce in the body.

I can only recommend everybody to stop loading huge amounts of carbs, specially sugar. Go for simple unprocessed foods, like fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and so on.

The paleo lifestyle works just fine for me. I know it is hard to convince other people to do it. Even when they see me eat like I do, and they have seen the change in other people that adopted that practice, most people simply resist the idea. Check out [http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=mummy- say...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=mummy-says-john- horgan-is-wrong-abo-2011-05-19)

</comment><comment><USER22> Also refuted here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980>

</comment><comment><USER23> Related: I've been adding a bit of white vinegar to meals as a way to lower the effective GI of carby foods. Seems to work pretty well.

<comment><USER24> Results will, apparently, vary. Your metabolism may be blessed as vinegar reactive. Timothy Ferris used a glucose meter to try and track impact of Vinegar on the GI, and didn't get positive results:

[http://bodezfitness.com/blog/tasso/post.cfm/post/4841/2-pre-...](http://bodezfitness.com/blog/tasso/post.cfm/post/4841/2-pre- meal-tricks-to-control-your-blood-sugar-response-and-stay-in-fat-burning-mode)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I cannot comment much on thermodynamics/biochemistry as I don't know a bit about those, but unfortunetaly it seems like this study has ommited the fact that a high protein diet will always be more efficient in the beginning. They should NOT have taken weightloss that occured in the first week or two (to be on the safe side) into account.

Why? Protein-rich food tends to weight less, doesn't cause as much bloat. Actually a very high fat diet might cause most loss in the beginning. For example I eat a very high-carb diet,a lot of raw food that is not too calorie dense, it bloats you a lot providing few calories at the same time. If one day I decide to eat only ice cream (keeping ammount of calories the same) then on the next day there will be a sudden big loss. Of course it will be gone once back to eating what I eat before.

So when measuring efficienct of a diet you should exclude anything that happens in the beginning because it's always very very volatile in that stage. Especially when subjects tested ate a very different diet beforehand. You could also go on to talk about sodium intake which affects water retention which translates to changes in weight. That will cause a lot of fluctuation in weight in the beginning too.

I keep a very detailed log of what I eat and my weight with CRON-o-Meter. When I eat and drink same food for an extended period of time (and stay home all the time) my weight loss is almost calorie-perfect, meaning that you could convert the daily calorie deficit to grams and this is how much I would loose on each day. Only once every 4-5 days there would be a slight "bump", but if you look at the 7-day moving average it's virtually a straight line.

I went on vacations once and decided to binge, big time, 6000 calories a day (really!), at the end of the day it was very unplesant, but well the food was worth it, haha. Keep in mind that I weight 110lbs and eat around 1700 on a normal day. The weight of my body has increased probably by around 5-6 kg, 4kg was expected, rest was water retention etc. So the first few days back on a diet were crazy. One the first day a loss of 1.3kg (and that is after a 2 day fast already!). Next day 0.3kg, then 0.2 kg, 0.15kg, one day of no change and then a sudden increase of 0.6 kg, after that it gruadually stareted to approach the expected rate of loss (0.1kg/day).

Many people, when they begin a diet are very much like me going off a binge. Not as dramatic of course, but similiar. In a choice of different food can yield a big loss that won't be there long term. A lot of fad diets exploit that fact and so do high protein diets. People often go on those diets, loose even up to 5-10lbs purely because of eating a food that digests and affects water retention in a different way and maybe some other factors that I don't know of (10 would be a lot, but I guess plausible for a very fat individual). Some get satisfied with that small loss, go back to the old diet and then we hear about the mysterious "yo-yo effect", but in fact nothing strange has happened. Those that last and continiue the diet will often say that the "starvation mode" has kicked in. No, "starvation mode", the "water retention effect" is gone (simplification). Some, after hitting the "starvation mode" will even swtich to more calorie dense food increasing their total intake of calories but reducing the sheer volume of food and claim to have beaten the "starvation mode" with more calories. I even consciously use those tricks to manipulate my weight sometimes (as there it can affect my mood :-) ).

I guess you understand by now. Unfortunately most studies fail to account for that, so whenever I see a study that tries to prove something with a small sample size, conducted over a short time frame I'm very very skeptical. But then again, once your sample size and time frame get bigger controlling those people gets hard, too hard. You have to make sure they eat the exact ammounts of food they are supposed to eat. They sometimes give people directions like eat one cup of this, 2 cups of that, CRAZY! You have to portion the food for them, unless you explain what a "cup" of any given food is and make sure they PERFECTLY understand you will have huge errors even with 100% honest people. Accounting for bias is very tricky with those studies too, not going to work too good. Psychological effects actually get stronger and harder to control the longer the time frame is, so large N and a long time frame doesn't solve the problem either. Physical activity is another thing. Some people burn 200 without noticing. There's very few people that truly have naturally "fast metabolism", yet a big proportion of people that are thin claim to have that. "I eat whatever I want and stay lean", yea you do eat whatever you want but you don't want to eat much. Or they do sports. Or fidget all the time (which some claim could even burn off 500 in extreme cases).

Do a study with each group having at least 30 people, same gender, similiar weight, similiar height, healthy, close to no physical activity, not a fidgeter. Portion food for them, don't let them do it themselves. Measure everything they put in their mouth, water and multivitamin included. Weight each day at the same time, same clothes, make sure they pee beforehand. Do that for 3 months. Discard first 2 weeks of results. Perhaps the last 2 weeks too (people are more likely to cheat at the end). That's a study that I might care about, of course probably forgot about 20 other things I'd do.

I think conducting such a study would only be possible if you gathered a large group of dieting/nutrition enthusiasts like me. Too hard otherwise. I really sometimes wonder how they find people for those larger studies.

Getting my mom to diet was/is a BIG pain even given the fact that she was willing to drop some weight. She was also extremely biased in a lot of things she said even given that she probably knows more about nutrition then the average person as I give her a lot of lectures :-). Now try that with 100 "normal" people that you probably DO NOT control on a daily basis. I know for a fact that unless you drug those people, they are BIG enthusiasts or lock in a cage and monitor the bias will be enormous.

I could go on talking for a very long time. The conclusion is pretty simple. Most studies about weight loss are simply useless. There are many smart people in the field of nutrition I'm sure, unfortunatelly it's very very hard to find these amongst legions of incompetent people. I mostly see 2 kinds of the incompetent. One group is those that are simply stupid/lazy/don't care. They do a study to seem smart, probably because they need it to get some kind of a credential. They study something that 100 people already did, change two things, come up with a conclusion that is not too controversial so there's not too many people questioning (when you're findings are interesting everybody is going to point out even a slight flaw in the study, if you say what people want to hear you might get away with a large, fundamental flaw, because you state "the obivious" anyways). Another group of incompetent people are something I'd call the "ideology-driven", those are scientists that will do anything to prove their thesis. Actually I think those are a little better than the first group of the incompetent. You see, the stupid/lazy ones, they have almost a zero chance of comming up with anything interesting. The ideology driven ones can actually find something interesting.

Ok, well I'm tired writing that long rant on the field of nutrition (but I guess it applies to so many more fields of science). If you was bored enough to read the whole thing please also keep in mind that I admittedly have no education in that field, or any whatsoever, so everything I wrote is basically based on my personal experience and what I read on the Internet. But I do not think I have said anything that is far from the truth.

So as to that particular study, their reasoning might be right, but I wouldn't use that data to substantiate it. They are honest people though as they do explicitly say "one can't predict that the ratios will stay the same over a long term dietbut the calculations show that the possibility of metabolic advantage should not come as a surprise." And I'm afraid that the advantage would wear off. Also note that I'm not saying that I know from my experience that it does, because I have never really went long term on diet that's not high carb, I hate low-carb stuff. I only have tons of experience with short term effects and what I see in most studies are those short term effects that I know a lot about.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is entirely besides the point of the study and the article, but why are the Americans the only ones who, in terms of human energy intake/consumption, say calorie when it should be kilocalorie? Why do they insist on being one thousand times off? "It's easier"? From where does this come from, and why does the rest of the world insist on being accurate?

<comment><USER27> Americans use term 'Calorie', not 'calorie'. 1 Cal = 1000 cal

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie>

<comment><USER26> ...and the case-sensitive nature of this confusion is exactly the point I'm trying to get across - people just don't know the difference. A Calorie is a calorie! Just read the nutritional declaration on a few American food products and you'll find an equal amount of both. MB, Mb or mb, anyone?

<comment><USER27> I've reread you original post and don't see any mention of case sensitivity. In fact you insisted that americans use inproper unit (1000 times off), which is not true at all.

Also, I always pay attention to food labels and never noticed any confusion. As far as I can tell the units on Nutrition Facts label are always correct.[1]

[1] [http://www.google.com/search?q=nutrition+label&tbm=isch](http://www.google.com/search?q=nutrition+label&tbm=isch)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The other big thing that people end up missing is that most of your weight isn't from the food you eat. That's just where the energy came from. Your weight is oxygen / carbon / water / etc.

Also note: a giant tree doesn't dig out a giant hole where it grows in the ground. The dirt isn't the bulk of the tree's wood.

<comment><USER29> The fact that a tree builds itself out of thin air is one of my favorite tidbits of knowledge. However, this kind of metabolism is only used by plants. Humans, as all animals, gets their building blocks from what they eat and drink. All the oxygen we use from the air we breathe is exhaled as carbon dioxide.

<comment><USER30> This is actually pretty interesting point of view. In essence, you should try to breath out all the carbon you ingest. Measuring the carbon dioxide output would be a pretty accurate measure of the actual energy consumption in the body.

<comment><USER31> I wonder if you could proxy your carbon dioxide output off of your breathing, with some calibration? When I run, I breathe harder; am I expelling more or less carbon dioxide per breath than when I am sitting in a chair? Counting breaths seems pretty technically feasible.

Maybe your heartbeat could also work; that's also pretty easy to collect.

It'd be awesome to have a running total of how many calories I'm burning at all time.

<comment><USER30> Polar heart rate monitors give you an estimate of the burned calories based on your pulse. That can't be too accurate though, because some people have bigger hearts which pump more blood per beat.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Ars Technica ultimate buying guide for your home office setup - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1703531 <comment><USER2> Most of them are nice to have components, not really necessary for your home office on budget (with exception: the Acer laptop).</comment>


Show HN: A Free API to kick-out disposable, invalid emails - <AUTHOR> https://verifier.meetchopra.com <comment><USER2> Still unsure about the actual benefit of this service. Registering a domain is trivial (and gets you infinite email addresses) so anyone determined to abuse a service for monetary gain will continue to do so.

On the other hand your service will hinder legitimate use of disposable emails where people simply don't want to be spammed or don't trust you with their personal details (which is an absolutely fair thing to do considering the recent data breaches).

Overall I think everyone becomes worse off with this service.

<comment><USER3> Agreed - this really only benefits product creators who want actual emails so they can send (spam) them with newsletters, product updates, etc. Requiring a valid email is rarely something a product needs to do. I get so frustrated when a mailinator email address is rejected during sign up.</comment></comment>


Self-hosted GitHub-like solution - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lucat1/o2 <comment><AUTHOR> The aim of the project is to create a similar platform to github/gitea/gogs while having a cohesive frontend which is fast and modern. The backend is written entirely in go for speed, while on the frontend we have a react-based web app. Everything is stuck together with a custom framework to have a similar dev experience to nextjs.</comment>


Meet Duolingo, Google's Next Acquisition Target; Learn A Language, Help The Web - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/duolingo/ <comment><USER2> I'm actually disappointed for seeing this on techcrunch. I have a lot of friends that worked on Duolingo and some of my research with Luis went into that project.

To write about a project that isn't finished and just has a landing page, however, is pretty disappointing. I don't know if I really would call it "news."

<comment><USER3> They actually did get some inside scoop and prior to this link on HN I hadn't heard about it - so just because you contributed to it and it's not news to you, doesn't mean it's not news to us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Since we're in the spirit of talking about pre-launch startups, I might as well tell you about <http://www.TripLingo.com> (re-plug as Pahalial mentioned <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2434057> ).

This sounds interesting for a certain segment. As a former-and-future traveler and language-learner, I enjoyed learning the local slang and culture (e.g. "I'm about to explode" vs. "Excuse me sir, could you please direct me to the nearest restroom."). Fun for interacting with locals while also learning to talk like them.

That said, I think this is a great concept for re-vamping CAPTCHAs to make them interesting. I'm tired of typing " g4g3e2 re46ts2ae o4ll5eh" every time I want to sign up for an email list.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's an existing day-old post about this still on the front page, albeit with a less descriptive title: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2434057></comment>


How the Terrible, Insufferable Six-Day Water Fast Made Me a New Man - <AUTHOR> http://www.gq.com/life/fitness/201311/six-day-water-fast-diet?printable=true <comment><USER4> It's irresponsible to glamorize restrictive dieting without talking in detail about why medical supervision is necessary - not just breezily saying "you get dizzy".

[http://www.canyons.edu/offices/health/nutritioncoach/concern...](http://www.canyons.edu/offices/health/nutritioncoach/concerns/reseat.asp) \- list of physical/cognitive/emotional effects of restrictive dieting: "decreased resting metabolic rate, loss of lean body mass, changes in brain chemistry that increase appetite, constipation and gastrointestinal upset, sleep disturbance and weakness, feeling cold all the time, decreased sexual interest, depression and anxiety, irritability and anger", etc.

Along with causing physical problems, restrictive dieting can be a factor in developing an eating disorder.

[http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/anorexia- ner...](http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/anorexia- nervosa/print.html) \- "Bulimia is often triggered when young women attempt restrictive diets, fail, and react by binge eating" (and eating disorders are perfectly happy to grip men as well).

[http://calorielab.com/news/2013/03/26/orthorexia- restrictive...](http://calorielab.com/news/2013/03/26/orthorexia-restrictive- eating-disorder/) \- "there are many individuals who display symptoms consistent with an obsessive-compulsive restrictive eating disorder and have an unhealthy concern with healthy eating patterns."

</comment><comment><USER5> I have been doing a lot of fasts during the years:

It rarely works for permanent weight reduction - mostly because when you are off the fast you don't have proper new eating habits ingrained.

It takes 3 days to forget about the hunger. After that you have a lot of energy for the next 2-3 days.

Your senses become extremely sharp - you see better, hear better, smell better.

The moment you have acetone in your breath is a good time to stop.

When you start eating - your digestive tract is really fast to evacuate for the first few times. Be at home. Avoid hard foods.

After the first week you may have problems with the blood pressure - <USER2> slowly, take your time waking up - if the world becomes more colorful - <USER3> down on the ground ASAP - you are on the way of passing out.

Sex during the fast is awesome - see the senses thing above - the orgasm is multiple times more intensive than usual.

<comment><USER6> What is the longest you've fasted for? How long would you be comfortable fasting for without medical supervision?

<comment><USER7> > How long would you be comfortable fasting for without medical supervision?

One week if you don't have any major health issues.

Not even a day if you're suffering from some serious condition.

Plan for less physical activity than usual, but do not become a vegetable. Take some short walks, do some small work with your hands. Meditation is great during this time, but you have to be somewhat accustomed to it.

Restart eating step by step. Begin with some fruit juice or clear soup. Then graduate to very soft, almost overcooked rice or something like that. A vegetarian diet for the first few days is beneficial. The longer you're fasting, the more cautious you have to be with restarting your diet.

<comment><USER8> > The longer you're fasting, the more cautious you have to be with restarting > your diet.

Do you have any experience on what happens if you don't? It certainly makes intuitive sense that you need to ease yourself back into "normalcy", but what are the potential risks that everyone is very explicit about trying to avoid?

<comment><USER9> > what are the potential risks that everyone is very explicit about trying to > avoid?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome) (fluid disorders, neurologic, muscular and hematologic complications, gastrointestinal disturbances, can culminate in coma and cardiac arrhythmias or failure)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "A 27-year-old male patient fasted under supervision for 382 days and has subsequently maintained his normal weight."

[http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.abstract](http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.abstract)

[http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.ht...](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.htm)

Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130963)

<comment><USER10> I can't find the discussion but he answered some questions on reddit once.

He said it was reckless and wouldn't recommend it to anyone, the only reason he did it was because he was desperate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I despair at all the broscience and dangerous advice in this thread.

<comment><USER8> Instead of a contentless dismissal, can you provide us some information that supports your claim?

<comment><USER12> In science - especially health science - it is not the responsibility of the skeptic to prove that a particular theory is wrong, rather it is the responsibility of the person making such claims to substantiate them.

<comment><USER8> Sure. Where do we derive most of our knowledge as individuals? From anecdotes from others. Is that science? No, not at all, but it's where science often starts. It's a preliminary experiment to at least find out some idea of what may be possible. While not repeated, peer reviewed, or verified in any meaningful way that doesn't make this useless.

The OP walked into a room full of very curious people and called them idiots without any attempt at enlightening them on what statements or assumptions might be wrong. In what way is that helpful? HN is not a peer-reviewed journal, it's a place for discussion and he detracted from that discussion.

Instead, I was hoping he might provide something meaningful that we could consider in trying to process this anecdote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The greatest weird diet story ever written:

[http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/mar/09/restandrelaxat...](http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/mar/09/restandrelaxation.shopping)

</comment><comment><USER14> 98% of gall bladder removals go fine, in-and-out procedures. I got to join the 2%.

Long story to the point: I wasn't allowed to eat for two weeks. Saline drip kept me hydrated, and that's about it. Connected to the drip, I wasn't really allowed to move either. For what it was, fact is I just didn't eat for about 14 days. Didn't feel hungry, but did watch a ridiculous number of cooking shows.

Yes, that had its special case factors. But now I know I can do without food for a prolonged period. Lost 10 pounds too.

</comment><comment><USER15> When I hear about weight loss programs or tips, I am reminded of my uncle. For the duration of my youth, he weighed around 300 pounds. Then one day in college my siblings and I visited him and noticed that he was substantially thinner, maybe weighing around 190 pounds. We asked how he lost all of the weight, and he said,

"I went to the doctor and he told me that if I didn't lose weight I would die before my 60th birthday. That scared the shit out of me so I started eating less and waking up early and walking a few miles every day. "

If adding 10-15 years to your life isn't motivation enough to lose weight, then I can't imagine anything that could be.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have done many water only fast in my teens and 20s. I also did a weekly Thursday daily water only fast.

Here are my experienced benefits:

1) Self Discipline! Talk about learning how to control yourself. Best reason to do it.

2) strangely after 3 days the stomach stops shrinking and I swear I have the most energy and focus for 3 or 4 days. I use to stop once I started getting tired again.

Had several people I know do 40 day fast and well they got more energy again around the 2nd week.

3) Sadly You can't LOSE weight long term on fasting.

P.S. I need to try it out again it has been almost 15 years since my last big fast.

<comment><USER17> >2) strangely after 3 days the stomach stops shrinking and I swear I have the most energy and focus for 3 or 4 days. I use to stop once I started getting tired again. >Had several people I know do 40 day fast and well they got more energy again around the 2nd week.

That's not strange so much as an indicator that the body has probably shifted into a ketogenic metabolic state at those points. It's being discussed a little bit more upthread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I fasted for about 28 days once, when I was 18yo. Just water. Coming off it took days, with just diluted orange and apple juice. Eventually after about a week I started on solids. Quite an experience. I was perfectly healthy before it, and completely refreshed afterwards.

<comment><USER7> I've done something like this myself. A few observations from the article:

> _our bodies are designed for scarcity_

This is something that's been forgotten in many countries where life is now comfortable all the time. Skipping one meal is not the terrible thing that most people imagine it is.

> _the Terrible, Insufferable Six-Day Water Fast_

The first few days are difficult. After day 3 or so, hunger disappears.

> _vicious headaches, dizziness, and a sad, hollow feeling_

These are surprisingly similar to an addiction withdrawal process.

> _On my final day without food, I wake up at 5 A.M. I slept in! And all of a > sudden, I feel tremendous. Light, energetic, unreasonably cheerful._

Exactly.

So, the first 3 days or so are tough. After that, hunger disappears. You get a sense of amazing energy, powerful but calm. Your body is relaxed all the time. There's an amazing mental clarity. You do everything consciously and purposefully. Negative thoughts are gone or greatly diminished.

I can definitely see why fasting was used in most if not all traditions where meditation and prayer were practiced.

BTW, the longer the fast, the trickier the coming out of it. Restarting suddenly on a high-calorie solid food diet may cause problems.

<comment><USER19> What are the problems that can be caused?

<comment><USER7> Anything in the range between mild stomach trouble and full-on Refeeding Syndrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This says he drank distilled water, which seems to imply no electrolyte. Any idea how soon you could expect [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia) ?

(I only skimmed bits of the article.)

<comment><USER21> Normal tap water has a pretty low sodium content anyways (4.8 ppm in SF), so why would distilled water be that much worse? Blood is typically 3.3g/L or 3.3 ppt.

Your kidneys are pretty dam good at reabsorbing essential ions.

I'm sure an electrolyte imbalance would be an issue eventually, I'm just not sure distilled water would make that much of a difference.

<comment><USER20> _why would distilled water be that much worse?_

Not what I meant: I'd wonder the same thing about tap water. The question is isotonic vs. low-salt; distilled just takes it to its extreme.

(When I found out about hyponatremia the hard way, it was with tap water.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I dated a girl who did modeling and whenever a shoot would come up she would do a water/coffee fast. It only worked temporarily and she would be forced to do it before every shoot to get where she wanted to be.

There is no substitute for exercise and proper diet.

</comment><comment><USER23> Fasting is quite common in Jainism.. There are various fasts people take on, among which is atthai - no food or water for eight days or just no food for eight days.. I've done it once.. its quite similar to how its described in this article.

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

There are several benefits of fasting but primary reason to fast in Jainism is non-violence

</comment><comment><USER24> I do a 10 day juice fast about every 6 months or so. Here's my experience:

\- drop about 1-1.5lbs/day when I'm a couple days in, mostly water weight. \- feel great and alert despite the hunger \- skin clears up \- experience memory issues, perhaps a supplement could help with this \- usually loose about 5-10 lbs, but gain all but a few pounds back (I'm not over weight to begin with) \- every time I do it, despite the hunger it's a hugely positive experience

I never do a fast with the expectation of loosing weight. You loose weight by having a healthy lifestyle. Fasting helps detox your body.

The one thing I did that made me easily drop 25lbs in 3 months was eliminating all wheat/gluten from my diet. I basically live like I have celiac's disease. By adding higher fat foods in my diet and cutting the sugar/wheat products, I can still gorge myself with meats, nuts and veggies, but not have the negative effects similar to eating a bowl of pasta.

If you love pasta, buy corn pasta. It tastes like regular pasta and is a fraction of the cost of rice pasta, plus it's much lower on the glycemic index.

Coffee also acts as a great appetite suppressant, but I make sure to only have 2/cups day that I dilute in large iced coffees.

</comment><comment><USER25> Interesting article, but the title is totally misleading. The fast, according to the author, seems only "difficult". And the "new man" part just seems to be that he felt better after. We are, however, not given any details on how his life was bad before the start of this.

<comment><USER26> >We are, however, not given any details on how his life was bad before the start of this.

The article is _littered_ with details on that topic. Here's the largest and most verbose 'detail':

>One morning back in 2011, I woke to searing pain in my arms. A flamethrower directed at my arms is what it felt like. The hospital offered morphine, but one shot did nothing. A second and then a third shot only made me sob more quietly. Finally Dilaudid, at ten times morphine's strength, cooled off the pain. Several doctors and hospitals later, I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease in which the nerves that branch from the neck and power the arms are bulldozed by the immune system. There's no cure, just a blitz of medicines to blanket the suffering. So I embarked on a grisly medical protocol: monster doses of steroids, antiseizure agents for nerve pain, and a lot of craft beer, ice cream, and chocolate for the larger problem of what it now felt like to be me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if this type of fasting is only advised under doctor supervision. I'd be interested in trying it, but is there enough published of the 'unsuccessful' stories? What are the risks?

</comment><comment><USER28> Fasting occasionally under supervision may have benefits, but it is nothing compared to maintaining a healthy balanced diet combined with exercise. If you really want to take care of yourself, do it every day - don't just save it for a fitness binge like this. Check out something like the anticancer book by the late Dr. David Servan-Schreiber or try out any diet high in veggies and low in processed foods, focussing on occasional high quality meats, eggs and fish. You will be a better hacker for it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Slightly off-topic perhaps?

I will say that for me, breaking the carb addiction was key to weight loss and feeling better.

You can go keto-only or some other diet or a fast, but being able to go through a period of time with a low amount of carbs, and then realizing how crappy I felt after a typical high-carb meal, really helped me stick to a lower-carb diet.

But can I also add, "only in America" would you have a place where you pay exorbitant amounts to drink only water and you stay there.

However did monks and gurus manage without it?

</comment><comment><USER30> Oh look, he took a six day holiday where it was all about him and now he feels great! Of course it was because od the ridiculous diet.

This stuff reminds me of shamanism: "Oh yes, it's a devil. You need to take all your family (to pray for and with you) on a 10 day journey to 3 different temples 100 miles away while eating only these prescribed foods." Ta-da, cures almost anything.

</comment><comment><USER31> Maybe I'm lucky but dieting doesn't seem that difficult. I've started charting my weight based on info in The Hackers Diet. I have found that as long as I think about what I eat I don't need to count calories to maintain a weight loss rate of between 1.5 and 2 pounds a week.

<comment><USER32> Well this guy is described as particularly tall and lean. I don't know about your build, but by that logic you'd have a negative mass after a few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm in the mid of two-days Isagenix cleansing fast (only cleansing liquid). Gym included.

Always works like magic. The goodness comes from body's ability to eliminate toxins and that unblocks lots of energy.

Within mind, body and spirit too :)

<comment><USER5> Please when you say toxin try and give some examples about them - what kinds, what molecules - something that could be tested in a lab.

<comment><USER33> Went to gym on my second day of cleansing (eating nothing at all) and feel more energy than before starting.

Don't care what molecules it involves if it works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How does water compare to Soylent?

<comment><USER5> Tastier and with higher nutritional value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> (y). I will give this a try

</comment><comment><USER36> Wonderful. "Hacker" News at its finest. A post that is nothing more than an anecdote full of questionable horseshit on an important matter like health in turn generates HN comments that are merely anecdotes full of questionable horseshit. On health. Health.

<comment><USER11> But dude think of the _metabolic hacks_ and read about my one weird trick for rapid weight loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > When you eat too much salt, your blood gets saltier, so your brain tells > your body it's thirsty. So you drink more water, diluting your salty blood, > and with more blood pumping through your system, you get high blood > pressure.

To my understanding this is false. The vast majority of people's kidneys rapidly and efficiently remove any excess salt to maintain homeostasis.

<comment><USER9> > The vast majority of people's kidneys rapidly and efficiently remove any > excess salt to maintain homeostasis.

Yep, and when your kidneys can't do that and you get into homeostatic imbalance you don't "get high blood pressure", you get organ damage.

And part of homeostasis is maintaining the body's fluid balance, separately from osmoregulation (under which salt regulation would fall)</comment></comment>


A founder's personal view of the impact of the financial crisis on SV's startup scene - <AUTHOR> http://eladgil.blogspot.com/2008/12/startup-founders-personal-view-of.html <comment><USER2> There's something that's really worrying me about the current economic conditions: the combination of a drop in the CPI, the Fed funds rate going to zero, and the yield on Treasuries going to zero. Together, they indicate that deflation is not just a worry, _it's already here_. And once you enter a deflationary spiral, it becomes very difficult to get out of it.

Deflationary depressions don't just last a year or two and then you snap out of it, they can go on for _10 years_ or more. Actually, in most cases they seem permanent: they continue until there is a war that forces the country to spend or die. And during them, far more that the normal 80-90% of startups die. (In a presentation at UIUC, Max Levchin flippantly remarked "85% of startups die...that figure's been true throughout most of history, except during the Great Depression, when 100% of them died." That's not quite true - Disney and Hewlett-Packard were founded during the depression - but it's pretty close.)

Some interesting reading: [http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h...](http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18)

<comment><USER3> 1) Preventing a deflationary spiral is not that difficult. Declare a tax holiday, and print money to fund government operations. Keep printing until the price of land/gold/oil stabilize and start to rise again. At that point, ease off and return to a stable money supply.

2) Money supply deflation usually only lasts a couple years, four years at most. When the banks stop failing, the money supply stabilizes. Bernanke is hard wired to err on the side of inflation, rather than deflation. so I would not expect a deflation lasting more than a year or two.

3) Price deflation can last for decades, but that's a sign of a stable money supply and a rising productivity ( for instance from 1980 to 2000 in the computer industry). From 1870 to 1910 was a period of general deflation, but it was perhaps the best time for startups in the history of the world.

4) The New Deal had a devastating effect on small businesses. The NRA, AAA, OPA, and other alphabet agencies were insane. Here is a small taste: "The NRA was discovering it could not enforce its rules. Black markets grew up. Only the most violent police methods could procure enforcement. In Sidney's Hillman's garment industry the code authority employed enforcement police. They could enter a man's factory, send him out, line up his employees, subject to minute interrogation, take over his books on the instant. Night work was forbidden. Flying squadrons of these private coat-and-suit police went through district at night looking for men who were committing the crime of sewing together a pair of pants at night. But without those harsh methods many code authorities said there could be no compliance because the public was not back of it." source: <http://mises.org/books/rooseveltmyth.pdf> (p 45)

Want to try a startup with the code authorities breaking down your door to stop you from coding at night? And then there were was the crush of paper work, price regulations, etc: "A Michigan grocer who had run a successful business for 40 years testified that 'For the last six months I have been behind the counter ten hours a day, then up half the night filling out government forms. Sunday is needed for inventory reports, ration accounts or applications for coffee, sugar and canned goods. I couldn't keep up with it, so I closed my doors.' Small food distributors were going out of business by the tens of thousands a month." (p. 316)

<comment><USER4> Regarding 1), it's trickier than that. The issue is that there are two types of inflation, monetary inflation (more dollars floating around) and price inflation (stuff costs more money). Due to hoarding, these two types of inflation may not agree with each other. If you inflate the currency by printing money, much of it may be hoarded, since owning money is (in a deflationary environment) an investment. So the money supply increases, but consumer/investor prices continue to deflate!

Now you have large chunks of money hidden away, but prices continue to fall. This continues, until you reach a tipping point and price inflation returns. Then the hoarders spend their money, and prices inflate rapidly (price inflation catches up with money inflation). This isn't a good thing, since it's a major monetary shock, and can lead to a crisis of confidence, etc...

Probably the only way to avoid this scenario is to make sure that the newly printed money has a high velocity, but it isn't clear how to do this. The classical answer is to give it to lower income people, but it's not obvious that this will work in a deflationary environment (poor person buys TV, TV manufacturer hoards money).

<comment><USER3> You're absolutely right about the two types of inflation. In fact, any argument about inflation/deflation needs to start with throwing both words out the window. Let's use the world "dilution" to refer to increases in the money supply, and "contraction" to refer to decreases in the money supply. We'll use "price level increases" and "price level decreases" to refer to price changes, as reflected in the CPI.

 _If you inflate the currency by printing money, much of it may be hoarded, since owning money is (in a deflationary environment) an investment._

The government must print enough money to offset the money lost through the collapsing credit. Since the government is committing to keep the monetary base stable or increasing slightly, there is no incentive to hoard. The incentive to hoard only happens when their is a money supply contraction, not a price level fall.

A depression happens when there is a sharp contraction in the money supply due to a credit bubble collapse. Businesses that had grown addicted to credit, fail first. Consumers, expecting their debt to be diluted away, now have to save more and pay off their debts. Asset prices fall, causing a wealth effect drop in spending. The net is that fewer green bills are chasing the same number of goods, thus prices start dropping. Falling prices means less revenue for businesses. The hardest sectors hit are those that are in debt, as they borrowed assuming more money available to pay back the loans. But every sector is hit hard because of sticky wages, menu costs, etc. Businesses start freezing hiring and laying people off. The depression deepens.

The idea is that the Fed must inject money now to prevent the dominoes from falling. If the Fed prints enough money and gives it to consumers, consumers will be able to repair their balance sheets and quickly maintain or return to pre-crash spending levels. Thus all the contracts and wage agreements assuming the pre-crash money supply will be bearable, and no mass layoffs need happen. The crisis is averted

The big key is not too print too much money, or you risk triggering a hyperinflation. But by keeping a watchful eye on the hyperinflation canaries (gold, oil, and real estate) the Fed should be able to get it right.

 _(poor person buys TV, TV manufacturer hoards money)._

That's fine - the point is to stop the TV manufacturer from having to make layoffs do to falling demand. In the real world, the manufacturer probably wouldn't hoard. Depending on their situation they might pay down debt, invest in expansion, or return dividends to shareholder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Endowments have charters which limit the amount of their capital that can go to high risk investments - in other words venture fund and private equity firms. This means that they need to "rebalance" their portfolios and shift money that would normally have gone into venture funds back into public markets._

Am I understanding this correctly. They have a charter that determines the balance. This means that is a certain mandated class losses value, they have to top it up with funds from the other classes?</comment>


Obscure EC2 Network Throttling - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1120171727399448576 <comment><USER2> There are similar undocumented limits for how many open TCP connections you can have to an instance, which vary depending on the instance size and whether or not your security group rules require connection tracking.

And don't get me started on the opaqueness of the capacity of your ELB at any given point in time. I once had a fun week capped by AWS support recommending I create multiple ELBs and round-robin traffic across them.</comment>


Mozilla Game On Winners - <AUTHOR> http://mozillalabs.com/gaming/2011/02/03/game-on-winners/

<comment><USER2> love the far7 MMORPG.</comment>


We've Just Encrypted All of WIRED.com - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/09/now-encrypting-wired-com/ <comment><USER2> Might be better to look at their technical version: [https://www.wired.com/2016/09/wired-completely- encrypted/](https://www.wired.com/2016/09/wired-completely-encrypted/)

</comment><comment><USER3> What are the challenges of migrating to https only protocol? I have done it before, not on wired.com scale though. We use AWS and it's not that difficult to start supporting https and have all http requests redirected to https. Can someone explain why it took them a year to do this?

<comment><USER4> >not on wired.com scale

This is why, when you have a site the size of wired.com it's not a matter of changing the binding on your webserver.

You need to go over the entire site including historic content to make sure that all the links are HTTPS.

You need to go over the entire code of the website and make sure all the JS requests are over HTTPS.

You need to make sure all the adds and 3rd party content you serve are over HTTPS.

You need to make sure all of the SEO and tracking still works.

You need to make changes to the CMS and how you roll out content.

You need to adjust your CDN and scalability to support HTTPS.

You need to update your redirects, sitemaps, search and more importantly make sure that you handle search engine redirects properly because it would be probably months until the search engines update all the links.

You need to make sure all your syndicated and affiliated content over the past few decades that is still linked somewhere will redirect properly.

This isn't a simple task, this is probably on the same level of complexity as updating your CMS and URL structure while preserving all the historic content, links, syndication, and search engine results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The big threats today in the DNS infra today are CAs, as shown recently by WoSign/Start.

All an adversary needs to MITM is a temporary certificate which they feed on a TUNNEL in the ISPs' network. That way only the target is served that certificate, which is disposed off after use.

</comment><comment><USER6> No, you did not encrypt all of Wired. Just some data transfer to your clients. Which may still be vulnerable to guess attacks since the content is public, known and mostly static.

But at least it is now much, much harder to modify the content during transfer, which is good.

</comment><comment><USER7> They missed one:

        baseUrl: 'http://www.wired.com'</comment>


Ask HN: Worlds most efficient JavaScript compiler? - <AUTHOR> With Typescript making serious headway these years, I'm wondering why someone doesn't use its type inferencing/checking as a front-end to a high-performance JS engine like V8?<p>Clearly, it's a lot of work, but the hard part is done, and the strong typing information provided by Typescript could be used to produce (JIT) highly optimized machine code at runtime. <comment><USER2> Have a look at svelte</comment>


JQuery 2.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jquery.com/2013/04/18/jquery-2-0-released/ <comment><USER2> I think what a lot of people are upset about here, is jQuery entered the web development scene as "the library that solved cross-browser compatibility issues". Now while IE 6 is an obvious one to drop, IE 7 is a little tougher, and IE 8 is down right impossible to drop at this time. I understand that jQuery wants to promote a modern framework, but people didn't adopt it for it's fancy features. They adopted it because those fancy features worked the same in every major browser .

The stop gap solution of 1.9 as being parallel to 2.0 but with compatibility, is understandable, but will probably promote distrust in developers who just need a stable cross-platform solution. I think the immediate concern with 1.9, is how long it will continue in parallel with 2.x before being dropped

<comment><USER3> Sorry if I seem cranky, but did you READ the blog post? jQuery 1.9 supports those browsers and the jQuery team still supports it. Do you have a problem with us supporting a second version that can be smaller, faster, and work in places other than obsolete browsers?

<comment><USER4> I do.

 _The final 2.0.0 file is 12 percent smaller than the 1.9.1 file, thanks to the elimination of patches that were only needed for IE 6, 7, and 8._

Dropping IE 6, 7 and 8 support for a 12% smaller file size while effectively forking your code base for the foreseeable future is a lousy decision. Increase complexity tremendously for what, 3-4 KB when gzipped?

<comment><USER5> Actually, it's decreasing complexity and getting a happy side effect of a 12% smaller file. It was probably a mistake to add the file size difference as a benefit, as it has obviously confused a lot of people who appear to have perceived it as a primary design goal.

<comment><USER6> I'll say the size drop is the primary reason I'm going through having the browser tags for ie lt 9, vs other... even though 3-4K isn't much, that's quite a few packets on mobile (though there is Zepto, it's nowhere near complete enough for a lot of needs).

I'm working on some revamped UI at the moment, and so far the script load (uglified, not gzipped) is around 250K, anything that can get that down imho is a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a welcome change. Considering the market share of IE 6, 7 and 8 is pretty minuscule and Google dropping support for IE8 back in November 2012 should be cause enough to drop it from jQuery too. It's great to hear they'll be supporting the older 1.9 branch for users who need to support older versions of IE as not everyone has the luxury of being able to ditch older versions of IE like that. There's no cause for concern here, the jQuery team covered their bases well and lets face it, there aren't many open source projects out there that drop support for older versions of something like a browser and then commit to continue to support an older branch for a lengthy amount of time.

<comment><USER8> Is 31.37% pretty minuscule? I don't think so...

Source: <http://www.netmarketshare.com/>

<comment><USER9> Statcounter[1] puts IE8 at ~10%, 12% for the US[2]. In some markets it's even lower[3]. This matches what I see from non-tech client websites. For anything related to software, IE as a whole is close to zero.

StatCounter tracks 3 million websites vs 40k for NetMarketShare.

[1] <http://gs.statcounter.com/>

[2] [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combine...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined- US-monthly-201203-201303)

[3] [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combine...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined- BR-monthly-201203-201303)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So I find that the majority of people are missing a very LARGE improvement that I value far beyond any of the stated benefits by the jQuery team:

-One of the most popular libraries is dropping support for IE 6,7, and 8. Thus, yet another cornerstone of the web is going to push users forward and increase the chance that those miserable browsers will disappear.

The most disturbing thing I find is that there are developers that are DEFENDING existence for those older browsers. Are you masochists? Do you enjoy the headaches of fucking around with those??

"Oh but so many clients are still using them, and it writes off potential users!"

How can we ever expect for them to upgrade their damn browser unless the builders the web (developers, not just browsers) quit allowing them to rot in complacency????

Of course, there is a thing as going "too leading edge" and expecting "too much" from the user...but when the cornerstones (libs, browsers, etc) start pushing them forward - then we should embrace this change. Coding for the multi-browser/platform/device/version web is hard enough.

<comment><USER11> The main problem I see is that IE9 does not work on windows XP. How long will we continue to see Windows XP machines in the wild?

<comment><USER12> Microsoft will not be doing it past 2014. I wouldn't care more about their OS than they do, particularly given the extreme security risks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've read through the 100+ comments that preceded me, and I must be missing something stupidly obvious. Thanks in advance to anyone who can enlighten me.

Can't you just host your own copy of JQuery? If your web app needs version x.y.whatever, is there some reason why you can't just host your own copy of the library on the same servers the provide the rest of your web content?

I understand the convenience of using some CDN's copy of JQuery, but I'm unsure why it's anything other than a convenience. Maybe it's about money: "It'll cost us an extra $X per month in bandwidth fees to host our own version of JQuery." Maybe it's about user experience: "By hosting JQuery on our own site we add 100ms to page load times."

To the people who seem most unhappy about the version bump, can you describe how hosting your own version of JQuery would complicate your lives? Just so there is no ambiguity, I'm asking from a point of ignorance, not snark. I would genuinely like to read the answers.

<comment><USER14> There is zero problem with hosting your own copy. Lots of people do.

The main advantage to using a CDN is that a single copy can be cached across multiple websites, meaning that the first time someone visits your site, there's a good chance your version of jQuery already sits on their computer. Plus, the Google CDN will often serve content faster than your own site. And, since jQuery is now so "integral" to websites, it almost seems silly to have to maintain a copy of it yourself.

But the main downside to using a CDN is that, CDN's have gone down before, and that means your site will stop working. Obviously, it doesn't happen often, but it happened once to a widely used site of a friend of mine, and he swore, never again will he reference jQuery on a CDN. I personally prefer to host myself too. (But not out of bandwidth savings, that just winds up being trivial.)

<comment><USER15> You can use a CDN and fallback to local if it goes down.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5257923/how-to-load- local...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5257923/how-to-load-local-script- files-as-fallback-in-cases-where-cdn-are-blocked-unavai)

<comment><USER14> I would be wary of that -- I assume it's likely that a CDN would often time out in case of error, which means you might be looking at 30 or 60 seconds until JavaScript works on your page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The addition of the ability to just use querySelectorAll as the selector engine and not ship Sizzle is a pretty big deal, and not something I remember being included in earlier discussions about jQuery 2. qSA still includes a pretty broad set of selectors, and the ability to get the build down to 10k minified and gzipped puts it squarely in Zepto's territory, size-wise, eliminating the need for that particular wheel reinvention.

<comment><USER17> Is there a list of features of what sizzle does over qSA

<comment><USER3> Posted elsewhere, but [https://github.com/jquery/jquery/blob/master/src/selector- na...](https://github.com/jquery/jquery/blob/master/src/selector-native.js#L4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am not too troubled by the drop of support of IE 6/7/8.

As long as they continue to support IE8 in 1.9 until Windows XP EOL next year I don't really see a problem.

Asking jQuery to support those browsers longer than Microsoft itself is willing do seems a bit harsh.

<comment><USER19> > Asking jQuery to support those browsers longer than Microsoft itself is > willing do seems a bit harsh.

While I agree with jQuery's decision here, this isn't really fair right? Windows XP and most old stand-alone software they have installed will continue to work after MS drops support.

When we're talking about the web, a reasonable effort should be made to support those legacy users. Of course, you can only do so much, but according to the general consensus in these comments, that's around 10% of visitors. Whether or not dropping them is worth saving the 12% in code size, is a different question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I cannot believe IE8 is now considered 'old'. It is the second most used browser+version on our site, and has about 80% as much usage as the leader, IE9. Can't see IE8 support being droppable for many years yet.

<comment><USER21> Even IE9 is pretty old. It's over 2 years old by now. IE8 is over 4 years old.

IE11 will be released soon. How many versions of IE do you intend to support?

<comment><USER22> As many versions as used by the audience that they serve I suppose; how is the choice up to him?

<comment><USER23> At the speed web development is moving, I don't see much sense in coddling browsers that are more than 2-3 years old.

<comment><USER24> It all depends on your end goals and your audience. I don't have #'s off the top of my head, but let's say IE8 accounted for 40% of browser usage across your visitors. But IE8 is old. Are you willing to say to 40% of your potentially paying customers "Sorry, but your browser sucks. We're not supporting you."?

If you are, great. No coddling necessary. But for other people, they may not be comfortable with the percentages yet, and I think that's perfectly understandable.

<comment><USER25> You wouldn't say it like that, I hope. You would say, "Here's a link to a browser upgrade that will allow you to enjoy the best product we can offer you. It's completely free, and takes only a few minutes to install!" Also, IE8 accounts for less than 10% of browser usage worldwide now, so the odds of a company having it be 40% are rather slim, unless they specifically target enterprise in which case they dug their own grave and I have no sympathy for them.

<comment><USER24> Oh no, of course not. I'm just trying to make the point that some companies may not be comfortable with whatever IE8 is at right now. I think you can substitute "IE8" for any browser, and "40%" for whatever that browser's current market share is.

Coincidentally, I work in the multi-family housing industry, and one of the industry titans requires IE to use their product--which everyone uses--so we have ~82% IE share on our own product (which is supplementary to the titan). Of that, IE8 stands at ~31% of our total site traffic, which is compelling enough for our company to need to support it. (IE9 is only ~39%, with IE6/7/10 making up the remaining 12%.)

So until that industry titan changes their way, we're stuck in an IE rut.

<comment><USER25> That's a shitty situation to be in. Sounds like a great opportunity for someone to disrupt that industry titan, though.

<comment><USER26> Some businesses have deeper moats than front end dev speed.

<comment><USER24> This is exactly right for multi-family housing. I can't see any sort of startup or disruption coming in anytime soon without taking years of hard work to reach 50% feature parity to meet what the industry expects are standard features. (Or maybe I've been working here too long to get past that notion.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was just debating the merits of going with one of the lightweight jquery substitutions for a phonegap app. This couldn't come at a better time.

Dropping the cruft and supporting 1.9 is such a wonderful way to go. Congratulations on a great release jquery team.

</comment><comment><USER28> > If you want, you can serve 2.0 to newer browsers and 1.9 to older ones using > our conditional comment trick

I'm really surprised they would suggest doing this. The two APIs are quite different since many functions from the 1.x branch have been removed in the 2.x or sometime behave differently (for instance `$("some <strong>bold</strong> text")` will be parsed as HTML in 1.x but considered a CSS selector in 2.x).

Basically, I really wonder what could be the benefit of using this kind of conditional comment trick.

<comment><USER29> It'll be parsed as HTML in 1.8, but it's a CSS selector in 1.9.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The point of separation is simpler jQuery development and reduced file-size for the >= 2.x versions. You will serve two files. You serve 1.9.x to IE 6/7/8 users, and 2.x to everyone else. You save bandwidth. You save money.

Features will be the same. It's OSS folks. It's not like it's ran by a closed- source team at Google who may suddenly pull the plug if it deems the project unpopular. My guess is folks who work in enterprise (where older IE still plagues) will be the big maintainers of 1.9.x.

</comment><comment><USER22> Serious question. Please hit me with a clue stick.

Regarding 1.9, how can "old-IE compatibility often causes problems of its own" and "simplest way to support older browsers is to use jQuery 1.x on your site, since it works for all browsers." both be true at one and the same time?

<comment><USER31> This is one of the biggest projects on the web leading the way in throwing shitty old IE under the bus to help push the modern web forward.

They're going to keep big-fixing 1.X so people stuck with IE6/7/8 can keep supporting it, but moving forward with 2.x for modern browsers makes their lives easier in the long run, and provides yet another coffin nail in Microsoft's attempt decade-old attempt to break the web.

<comment><USER32> They're not so much throwing IE under the bus as throwing developers under the bus that have fortune-500 clients that can only use IE. Some nerd (me) whining about their browser choice is really not going to make their IT director change policies.

Granted, I can and will keep using 1.9

<comment><USER33> Make that Fortune 500s which when jQuery 2.0 is released next year needs to be running a OS which is EOLed by Microsoft with _no support or security patches_ to be affected.

IOW: Cry me a river.

People made these exact arguments that people "require XP and MSIE8" and that they "can't upgrade" years ago, when Vista was released, then when Windows 7 was released and now with Windows 8's release.

Here's news for you: You've had 2 or 3 advance warnings from Microsoft that your IT platform will be obsoleted and unsupported and 2 non-ordinary support- extensions. You've had more than half a decade to plan and execute the migration.

If you haven't completed that migration yet and are still whining, you are _incompetent_ as an IT manager. There is no other way to describe this. If you are still running XP, that is because of incompetence. No excuses.

XP is older than the very first release of Ubuntu. Microsoft has supported XP for longer than Ubuntu's entire existance. As a basis for comparison any version of Ubuntu is supported for 2 years and that's it. XP has been around for 12 years now, and will be supported for yet another year before support is finally dropped. Sometimes enough is enough.

This is a good move by jQuery to streamline their code-base. Sometimes you need to do the spring-cleaning if you want your code to be manageable and have any chance of effectively improving your product, and this is just that spring-cleaning.

<comment><USER34> You do realize that jQuery is not going to change any of that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Now we can say "but even the latest version jQuery doesn't support IE 8!" (even though the supported 1.9 branch still does).

</comment><comment><USER36> I wish Microsoft would shoehorn at least IE9 into XP, maybe like Chrome Frame.

It's crazy how many people are still stuck with XP/IE8 which is a massive web dev headache.

<comment><USER37> I'm annoyed XP doesn't have IE 9 or DirectX 10+, but I guess that's Microsoft's way of getting people to upgrade to newer versions of Windows.

Based on current stats, I'd say IE 8 hasn't got long till you can ignore it but it really depends on how much market share you care about. Do people STILL target IE 6? IE 8 is on ~10%[1] and at the current rate it's dropping at should be at 5% by October - Just in time for IE 11?

As for blaming XP, I'm not sure you can completely. IE 8 is the default browser of Windows 7 and XP has more than double the market share of IE 6/7/8 combined. Most IE users seem to be schools and companies that haven't upgraded. Although IE 6 will definitely be gone by April 2014, we could very well be stuck with IE 8 for a very long time.

For the record, IE 6 and 7 should be ignored completely. Combined they have a market share of less than 1%.

For a rule of thumb, I commonly drop support once a browser crosses 5%. Might seem high but usually once it's at that level, it's only going to keep falling.

Something to look forward to, my estimates[2] put Firefox 3.6, Safari 5/5.1 and IE 6/7/9 to all be gone by the start of 2014. Of course, linear estimations should always be taken with a grain of salt.

[1] [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combine...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined- ww-monthly-201203-201303)

[2] <http://cl.ly/image/2d1G3Y1Q2m3k>

<comment><USER38> Speaking of old software, Windows XP is nearly a dozen years old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Until Windows XP is banished from corporate machines worldwide, I don't think we can drop IE8 support. (You can't install 9/10 on Windows XP.)

I'm glad they decided to continue support for 1.x for now.

</comment><comment><USER40> Am I the only one who can not use Closure Compiler with jquery 2.0.0? ( <http://closure-compiler.appspot.com/> )

<comment><USER29> Yeah, it gives me 29 errors. You might as well use UglifyJS, the same compressor that jQuery uses. <https://github.com/mishoo/UglifyJS2/>

You can try it out on <http://skalman.github.io/UglifyJS-online/>. It's just a light-weight wrapper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well done jQuery team, nice work. Wether I can use it production before April 8, 2014 is going to be debatable. I dearly would love to delete the XP VM running IE8 however.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't understand why the smaller file size is such a big deal. The file is going to be cached, and with the use of CDNs, is more than likely already cached before the client ever visits my website.

So if the Query team is still going to support these browsers in 1.9, why even make the 2.0 version?

<comment><USER43> File size is not only a concern in terms of download time. There's also parse time, and the amount of extra memory used to consider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The "How 2.0 Changed" section only lists dropping support for IE 6/7/8 and reduced file size (from dropping the IE support?). Are there any other note worthy/major changes or just minor bug fixes and the like?

<comment><USER16> No, the idea has pretty much always been that jQuery 1.9 and 2.0 would be feature-comparable, just with different sizes and supported browsers. See [http://blog.jquery.com/2012/06/28/jquery-core- version-1-9-an...](http://blog.jquery.com/2012/06/28/jquery-core- version-1-9-and-beyond/)

<comment><USER45> They hate IE SO much, they even made the drop a new major release.

This is what I call commitment.

<comment><USER3> Since people see jQuery as a solution for cross-browser issues, dropping some browser support is the biggest change imaginable.

<comment><USER46> Deprecating old-IE _is_ the solution for cross-browser issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> it would be nice to see a 2.0 vs 1.9 bench on FF/Chrome/IE9+, much more interested in that than a non-noticeable 11k size reduction for the end user (maybe only slightly noticeable on very slow mobile).

<comment><USER48> Yeah, I was also scratching my head as to the 'performance' gains. Even if jQuery 2.0 has computational benchmark gains they also are likely insignificant in proper context.

<comment><USER49> I found this one: <http://jsperf.com/jquery-1-7-2-vs-jquery-1-8/29>

2.0 is slightly faster on every measures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> No more support for IE 6/7/8. Yay!

<comment><USER51> Gone, with half of the compressed file size.

Lots of people will serve the two versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Anyone know if the jQuery 2.0 fixes/enhancements will also be applied to the 1.x branch, particular the 1.9 series. Based on what I've read they are running in parallel with the IE stuff removed. I can't seem to find anything that mentions that 1.x stuff has been updated and released.

</comment><comment><USER53> It would be nice if jQuery made builds for every browser, so savvier developers who can write server-side code can actually spit out only the relevant jQuery to the relevant browser. I mean, it's not like caching files at the ISP level is the limiting factor here, so each browser can cache its own file.

</comment><comment><USER54> One thing that confuses me:

If the JQuery team is committed to keep supporting 1.9/1.x, entirely API- compatible with 2.0 -- what is the benefit to JQuery of the 1.x/2.x fork? You get a cleaner easier to maintain codebase in 2.x -- but you've got to keep maintaining 1.x anyway. If there was a feature you didn't want to add to 1.x because it was too hard -- you still can't add it to 2.x and not 1.x, because you committed to supporting 1.x as API-compatible, no?

Is the idea that 2.x will provide better performance on capable browsers than 1.x? So, yeah, the development burden is no less, but the results are better.

I guess I understand why people are doubting whether they will really follow through -- because if they do follow through, it makes it somewhat unclear what the benefit of the 2.x refactor was in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER55> Will jquery still work with jsdom on node.js? the 2.0 or 1.9 jquery?</comment>


A Tech Pioneer's Final, Unexpected Act - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/a-tech-pioneers-final-unexpected-act/amp?__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16005949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16005949)

        Upon a diagnosis of brain cancer, Eric Sun set out to achieve some musical goals
        59 points by stablemap 1 day ago</comment>