A friend of mine who repairs PCs occasionally finds nothing wrong with them and does the usual "I'll run some maintenance on it" and the client is always happier afterwards. He doesn't charge for stuff unless anything needs to be done.
I think it has just changed so that the media won't report something and then will try and discredit any amateur reports later. The BBC has many large gaps in its reporting at least and seem to favour an almost tabloid approach to some issues.
> Blue ones are used, at least around my area, to decorate things.
Don't let the "blue LED" headline fool you. This discovery did not just enable blue LEDs but a whole range of nitride-based devices. This includes, but is not limited to:
* LEDs for a wide range of colours, including white LEDs for general lighting
* blue (and other colour) laser diodes (e.g. Blu-ray)
* solar cells (nitrides show good radiation resistance, making them of specific interest for space applications)
* high electron mobility transistors (power converters are a big application, but these are useful for a huge range of other applications too e.g. radar)
* potential for biosensors (it's non-toxic/biocompatible and can be functionalised)
* better UV emitters (and all that entails, e.g. water purification, or potentially lithography)
and more besides. It really is an enabling technology, though obviously there are alternatives for a lot of these applications too. Blue LEDs just started this all off.
Edit: LED lasers that enabled things like the Internet (Optical fibers often use DBF Lasers) were invented by Alferov and Kroemer that also shared the physics Nobel price in 2000.
I see a lot of that across Europe. I've been dying to do a road trip out that way (from the UK) but it's difficult with three children.
Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides. They really are forward thinking because looking back hurts badly.
It might sound cheesy but I have a lot of hope for Europe and most of it comes from the East.
At the same time I'm disgusted at how the media and general population treats our fellow Europeans.
> It might sound cheesy but I have a lot of hope for Europe and most of it comes from the East.
I very much agree with you. The East of Europe has very recent memory of how not to run countries, the West is already forgetting those lessons and repeating past mistakes. For now the West is still ahead economically, but I suspect that this will not last indefinitely. You can pretty much draw a line through 'Helmstedt' (the site of the old autobahn border crossing between 'East' and 'West' Germany) and use that as the pivot point. On the left of that pivot the swing is steadily downwards whereas on the east of that up to the Russian border there is slow but fairly steady progress.
Of course the map is not the territory and you'd have to account for the situations further North and South with different pivot points but on the whole this seems to be how it is today.
I agree with this in general, especially about forgetting lessons and repeating past mistakes. Privacy-awareness in East-European countries is impressive, it's on the top of their minds because they know what can happen if you let it run loose.
On the other hand, I read a few years ago (and I don't have much reason to suspect much has changed though I'd love to hear I'm wrong) about a village in East-Germany that was entirely in control by neo-nazis. That was scary to find out such things are actually going on today (this was before I heard about Greece's Golden Dawn and how they run refugee camps). When travelling, I was warned about the are that people that looked too "foreign" might have a bad time (I suppose when coloured or Arab, me and my travel companion were both very white, Dutch and half-German).
Maybe it's just an anecdote or some small isolated issues blown out of proportion, but this is what also plays in the back of my mind whenever I consider they're learning from past mistakes.
Either way, no throwing babies out with the bathwater, we can both support and learn from their historical awareness, as well as be vigilant about rising intolerances.
I'm curious if you deliberately included Austria east of your pivot point or if this is by accident. I hear all sorts of conflicting stuff about the place - high standard\quality of living but not-so exciting career\growth prospects, high prices but generous social\welfare programs - so I've no idea what to think of Austria long-term. I've been to Vienna a few times as I live a couple of hours away, and it's lovely but a few daytrips is obviously not going to reveal a great deal.
Austria is very much a mixed bag. Quality of life in the cities and economy are fine, the country has a terrible image when it comes to dealing with other social issues (immigrants, right wing political parties and so on).
I live in Ireland and I'm very pro-EU. Not in the sense that I like or dislike policies or structures, but in the sense of the EU's real and original goals: Solidarity. Open Borders. Peace.
It makes me sick to see that countries have sent the EU Parliament their nationalists, populists and outright fascists.
Solidarity. Open Borders. Peace. It's worth making it a generational goal. A thousand years of solidarity, open borders & peace.
I have hope for, with and from our brother east of here (which for me is pretty much all Europe :) .
> At the same time I'm disgusted at how the media and general population treats our fellow Europeans.
I'm having trouble interpreting this sentence since I have no context. Does "the media and general population" refer to Western Europeans or does it refer to Estonians?
In Western Europe, Eastern Europeans (Estonia included) are usually low-paid immigrants and portrayed as a cheap workforce, criminals, social burden etc. generally, a lower human beings.
> Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides.
"Out there"?
I'm going to presume that the wars and genocide you're talking about was the former Yugoslavia, as not many places fit the bill unless you go looking much further away, in which case Estonia is almost as far from there as it is from the UK (driving distance can go either way depending on route).
And still 1700km from Estonia to Donetsk, Ukraine if you want to include that conflict...
Estonia suffered mass deportations under the Soviet regime, this has never been appropriately dealt with in terms of compensation or criminal trials and the Estonian people are still extremely conscious of this even though the actual crimes committed against Estonians are now long ago.
So I highly doubt Yugoslavia was the intended subject there.
This has been the case in the UK for many years as well.
One of my earliest memories at the tender age of 3 (very early 1980s) was wearing one of those blue anoraks with a fuzzy collar and being wheeled to the greasy caf'[1] in a buggy and fed bacon, beans, chips (French fries) and tea. This was in Islington in London. I can't think of a single week I haven't eaten bacon since.
That's just normal here. No crazy or macho rubbish. Food staple.
And as I've had this argument before (on reddit...), to the Americans, we don't eat that shitty Canadian bacon or the streaky stuff you get in the US here. We use the latter to add flavour to other foods and eat the nice lean back bacon: http://www.clancysofchester.co.uk/back%20bacon.jpg . The streaky stuff is kind of horrible and clogs up your arteries.
Just to update your nutrition information, the streaky stuff is great for you. Fats, especially animal fats, are pretty wonderful for human health. You lose both flavor and nutrition when you remove it from your diet.
I feel like I'm letting a secret out, but if there's any crowd that we want to be healthy and productive, it's HN. Eat fat. It's great for you. What's important is to remove sugar from your diet in all its forms.
The belief that the human nutritional optimum is narrow and deep, so that "complete elimination of food X" and "total focus on food Y" will enormously enhance your health is a crypto-creationist argument, as it requires a complete rejection of everything we know about evolution in general and human evolution in particular.
Omnivores like humans evolve with broad, shallow nutritional optima. Humans are happy with a diet of simple starches (metabolically almost indistinguishable from refined sugars) or a diet of fatty meat, and do pretty much the same on almost everything in between. There are statistically measurable variations, but the optimum is so broad and shallow--as our evolutionary history would predict--that it is full of really shallow local optima that are due purely to noise. Crypto-creationists glom onto these shallow local optima and make out like they have incredibly deep minima hidden in their midst, which is utterly implausible unless you reject evolution as the force that shaped us as species.
I'm not sure that equating creationism with nutrition makes sense. Nor does the rise of grain necessarily signal evolutionary adaptation. It seems quite possible that humans can survive and thrive on sub-optimal nutrition.
In fact, Jared Diamond quite convincingly demonstrates that hunter-gatherers, with their meat-and-vegetable diets, were far healthier than their agricultural cousins. But the abundance that resulted from agriculture (along with the perils of nomadic hunting) allowed farmers to have far larger families and eventually drown out hunter-gatherers through sheer demographic superiority. It doesn't mean that grains are ideal for human consumption, only that agriculture allowed population growth and urban density that eventually crushed the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
We could live on Twinkies if required. We are, as you pointed out, omnivores. The relevant question is what diet is most optimal for human health.
I think you didn't exactly read the answer? Humans can survive on much any diet, and the differences between them are mostly insignificant, certainly as it pertains to criteria that apply to people sitting most of the day doing mental work.
Not too much. Coronary heart disease wiped out a big chunk of my family and it wasn't because they ate sugar - it was the lard on toast and chips cooked in lard...
Everything in moderation is probably better advice than a single fact.
If you say "eating fatty things will give you heart disease", most people will blindly agree with you. In actuality there is very little valid basis for making that claim.
(Edit, and this is a parenthetical because I do not believe anecdotal evidence is useful for arguing for general cases: My personal n=1 experiment: I have comprehensive blood panels done every three months. Over the past four years I adopted a diet that is high in healthy animals fats and proteins, high in vegetables, low in fruit, and devoid of grains. As in: 3 eggs plus sausage or bacon and a salad for breakfast. Every day.
Prior to starting, I had mediocre to bad cholesterol. My numbers are now: 105 LDL, 70 HDL, 52 triglycerides. Superb by all measures.)
> The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it
So has the belief that all fat is all good for you, to put it lightly. Human nutrition is a lot more complex than that. Unless you like experimenting with yourself for the sake of it, go with a balanced diet.
"go with a balanced diet."
As much as I'd like to, it's next to impossible to even figure out what a "balanced diet" is these days. The information conflicts even on something that basic.
Balanced diet: some fat, some sugar, some protein. You've got a lot of flexibility, just make sure every major food group has something of a presence. No need to micromanage.
The position that saturated fat is causative in heart disease is not the default position. If an idea is going to generate prescriptive advice it should come with ample supporting evidence.
Despite this we've been strongly indoctrinated with the idea that fat == unhealthy. It has caused us to change our behavior by avoiding foods that our parents and grandparents have been eating down through the generations. We've moved away from the default "balanced diet" on bunk data.
I define healthy fat as meat which came from a healthy animal. I define a healthy animal as an animal that was raised in accordance with its species' natural diet and lifestyle.
Personally, I'm persuaded by my personal experience as well as testimony from /r/keto. I've lost nearly 100 lbs over the past year by switching to a high-fat, moderate-protein, and ultra low-carbohydrate diet. I really can't endorse it enough.
If I had to guess, your family's health problems weren't with lard -- they probably resulted from the companion toast and french fries. Any calories you eat will be directed to storage if your insulin is spiked... which happens when you eat carbs like those found in wheat and potatoes.
That's not to say that glucose, which you find in potatoes, is necessarily awful. I don't eat it, but Dr. Robert Lustig (an incredible font of knowledge) thinks glucose can be a valuable part of a diet. What's particularly important is to eliminate fructose and sucrose. They're toxins with no redeeming qualities except making fat-free foods palatable.
You think you're being sarcastic. The only reason why fruits are okay in moderation is that their fiber mitigates some of the damage of their sugar content. The vitamins you can get from fruit are valuable, but the sugar rush isn't.
I'm not opposed to the occasional fruit. But given your tone, I rather suspect you think Jamba Juice is healthier than a steak. Go ahead, I'm not here to save your life... but you may want to read a bit on the subject. I'd start with Gary Taubes, Peter Attia, and Robert Lustig.
> I'm persuaded by my personal experience as well as testimony from /r/keto
Being healthy and athletic in the short-term is one thing, living a long and happy life is another. I always feel that the Paleo/low-carb communities focus on the former, but if you can believe the gist of The Blue Zones, then happy centenarians have very "boring" eating habits (statistically speaking): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone
An anectode is not data, as you well know. Neither is it surprising that you can find likeminded communities on the Internet.
Great to hear that you feel well though. But please avoid the opportunities to convert heathens on the Internet, if you can. Some of us are skeptics by nature and will never be persuaded by anything less than full scientific studies (especially with areas as complex as the human physiology).
While I do appreciate the benefits of a ketogenic diet, I don't think it's for everybody. This could work great for people who are "out of balance", i.e. if you have excess body fat, it might be beneficial to switch to a metabolism that uses your fat stores (rather than continuing to add to it). I don't think it's a good idea to put your kids on a ketogenic diet (unless they're epileptic and don't respond to treatment) because it is known to stunt growth in children.
No their problems weren't just the lard. It was derision pointed at the unfounded basis of your analysis and the complexity of the human diet, metabolism and relatively limited knowledge of nutrition we have.
/r/keto isn't a valid citation, well no more than /r/spacedicks (NSFW) or the pope. Neither is you losing weight.
My health has never been better. I'm not sure why you think I've earned your derison... but okay.
Eat sugar, dude. I'm not here to save your life. But if some of the awesome nerds who read HN decide to get healthy, I'd really recommend eliminating sugar from your diet. Life is so much better without it.
Recommended introductory reading would be Gary Taubes, Robert Lustig, and Peter Attia. The history of nutrition over the past fifty years is absolutely shocking.
I eat a shit ton of straight sugars, fat and carbs and am technically obese if you consider the rather non-scientific BMI system.
However, I rode 59 miles from London to Brighton on my nice Dawes Ultra Galaxy a couple of months back without any trouble. Last month I had a medical and am, according to doctor "in wonderful shape". Go figure.
Oh right, everything in moderation. That's the win. I eat that stuff when I need it.
I wouldn't cite a bunch of random popular reading health authors and an endocrinologist incapable of using the scientific method in his work. Go read some Feynman and apply some critical thinking and get back to me.
this sounds like a very typical (and incredibly flawed) HAES (health at every size) argument - "so what if i eat all that bad crap and am obese? i can run more miles than you so that means i must be fitter and healthier than you!"
i'm not sure if i'm interpreting this correctly, but it sounds like you essentially admitted that you're really fat, despite being active. while i agree that the BMI system is very flawed especially when it comes to measuring the health and fitness level of active people, but for the typical non-active keyboard warrior (which statistically HN would probably have a very high percentage of relative to the whole userbase), the BMI is a decent gauge of health.
simply put, what i'm saying is, unless you're telling me you're in fact a massive 250-lb muscle-bound beast, the BMI reading is probably quite accurate that you're overweight and not healthy at all.
you can convolute the argument as much as you want, dropping names and terms like "critical thinking" and "Feynman" etc, but ultimately there is no denying the reality that is your body.
You're not interpreting it correctly. Go read it again and my other comments. In summary, perhaps a little more concisely:
I'm an outlier. I'm well built but thanks to BMI, I'm classified as obese. I eat a lot of crap as well, probably more than most. That doesn't affect my general health at all.
I'm referring to scientific integrity and application of the scientific method which this entire thread is devoid of. One poster posted with citations from known crackpots and a reddit group of obsessive religious dieters.
Nutrition is complicated. Everyone has an answer. I'm saying there isn't one. Life is a race to the finish line. Whoever gets there last with the most bits still attached wins.
Are you sure, or is the medical community changing its mind in 10-20yrs now with a "oops, we just realized its only good when you eat a tenth of what you are eating", or something like that. Also, is both the fat of the pork, and all the oil it is cooked in healthy, or just the first?
I think we don't really know enough about health to have a comprehensive answer, sp. regarding long term effects, so the best thing may be just to be conservative.. i.e. don't each much of anything that our body may not be wired to (like you said, processed sugars, but also deep fried precooked bacon)
It's great once a week. Stay on nuts, beans and other sources of fat and protein for the rest of the time.
Obviously don't do sugars, but a piece of bread or pasta is just going to give you energy. Which you will use in your exercise. Do eat fruit and plenty of vegetables. They have different types of fiber which does different things to your intestines.
I have been lardon myself most of my life and now I am going thru a change. Took me years, took me meeting some very smart people whose only hobby besides technology/work is exercise. I have also met some crazy illuminati believing, LSD loving, psychedelic trance vegans who spend most of their day looking for healthy stuff. Met overweight vegetarians, some of who only ate fruit.
For some reason people think food is the only saint thing they are allowed to imbibe on. The disappointing truth is that you have to be starving a bit. That's it.
What was even more shocking was recent article about how fasting forces revival of your immune system. Or that yoga moves some of the muscles that normal exercise wouldn't move, hence removing more toxins from there. Or that meditation is one form of natural high and there is nothing esoteric about it.
There's plent enough fat in back bacon. Its unclear why the US doesn't sell it readily. Streaky bacon is more of a condiment than useful protein source.
"Canadian bacon", as you call it, is back bacon, same as the UK. In the US, it's often salted and cured kind of like a packaged deli meat or something and it's pretty awful and bears little resemblance to the genuine article.
Circa 2002-2006 I was quite active in the Linux community I.e. I contributed some code to a few GNU projects and a couple of kernel patches to solve problems that were, quite selfish really. But hey it turns out it wasn't just me or my company so I thought I'd contribute them. They solved real problems to be honest (driver bugs and crashes).
Having been on the end of a chunk of hate for about 40% of my work simply on political grounds rather than any technical grounds, I can understand this entirely and I have no problem with Lennart at all on this basis. I'm talking about patches, not reengineering either.
The basic problem was raising a defect "X doesn't work properly, here's a tested fix that we deployed in production". The answer was ticket closed. I reopened, and asked for an explanation. Literally "get fucked, we don't want your 'fix'". I replied "I'll patch my own kernel and SRPMS then" followed by a massive lecture from one of the project leaders on how I should be communicating with the community and that I need to be part of the special circle jerk club on that project to get a patch in. The defects were even removed from the trackers if the community members were rude to the outsiders to hide the fact.
So out of the goodness of my own heart I wasted 5 days with GDB debugging shit, wrote a patch that fixed it and raised a ticket with the patch attached, was closed, BANG. This happened 4 times on different projects.
So yes I do find that a number of the higher profile projects are purely powered by liquid asshole.
Unfortunately that makes me want to rely on the platforms less and has made me shift my focus to the Windows and BSD platforms which are surprisingly less political.
People mustn't expect everything to ever work straight out of the box on anything. Much like you have to install the Lenovo PM driver on windows, you have to config apm on OpenBSD.
Horrible calculators despite a major following. I wouldn't buy too much into the HP calculator love.
I myself was a follower and had an HP 50G (Nice 205MHz ARM RPL machine, successor of the HP48 series). Was totally unusable without the manual which was in PDF format only so I'd have to sit at the computer anyway. I couldn't print it out because the three volumes were ~2000 pages. Plus the thing was so damn obtuse and totally non discoverable.
Then they released the Prime which is a buggy turd of a calculator wrapped in a very polished case.
Ended up with an old TI89 I paid £25 for on ebay that came with the manual which isn't a million pages long.
Agreed regarding the graphing RPL models, but the scientific RPN calculators are pretty solid. The 12C financial calculator is more like those. The scientific equivalent, the 15C, is no longer in production, but the current 35S isn't bad for cranking out calculations. The tactile feedback sure beats hitting a touch screen phone.
The 35S is buggy as hell, poorly designed, the battery lasts too little time and the keys break easily. I owned one and regretted the purchase (I went through an "own every calculator phase")
That could be an interesting HN or blog post if you wanted to do it. I'm a bit of a calculator fan myself, though I haven't used many different models. There's something about physical products, even though virtual ones are more flexible / configurable, being software.
A friend of mine who repairs PCs occasionally finds nothing wrong with them and does the usual "I'll run some maintenance on it" and the client is always happier afterwards. He doesn't charge for stuff unless anything needs to be done.