10 ms·

Open Questions

114 points by ianyanusko 3y ago

telotortium 3y ago
Submitted before, but the URL changed (it was split out from a "Notes" page): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18394756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18394756
michaelt 3y ago
> Why did it take until the late 20th century for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to develop [...] every major country has long lineages of specialized competitive martial arts and tremendous incentive to find martial arts which worked and quick feedback loops? Well, do societies have a tremendous incentive to find unarmed martial arts which work? If my tribe faces an existential threat from the next tribe over, wouldn't I pick up a stick?
- nerpderp82 3y ago
  Martial arts in Brazil have had to have a notion of "cover", the other big one pretends to be a dance, because it was outlawed to practice martial arts. https://www.abada.org/capoeira-history/ https://www.abada.org/capoeira-history/ I think rather than look at the results, it is interesting to look at the forcing functions the results operated under.
- 83457 3y ago
  It is really a combination of factors. No holds barred fighting in Brazil was very important. Not emphasizing standup wrestling / grappling and focusing on finishing a fight as part of a sport was not common. Judo/jujitsu had all the components of BJJ and even practitioners focusing on ground (ie Judoka that taught the Gracies). However, the agreed on rules of Judo focused more and more on standing techniques with rules ending a fight on throw to back, resulting in leaving behind many aspects of the ground game in Japan from years past.
  - gamegoblin 3y ago
    Having trained BJJ and some Judo, I have come to appreciate the idea that if you land a proper judo throw on someone in a street fight, i.e. on concrete, and you put someone down hard on concrete, the fight is almost certainly over. The same applies for wrestling high-crotch or blast double. If you put someone down hard on the nearest solid object or concrete, there's a good chance the fight is immediately over. That said, in a real scrappy fight, landing a proper judo through is a tall order. I've seen high level black belts fail to land clean throws on spazzy white belts. They get them down and technically win, but not cleanly, and not with the force needed to end the fight. Newaza (ground techniques, i.e. BJJ) comes in there to help finish. Pure BJJ is great if you are fighting on dirt, and great to know defensively if you do find yourself ambushed or otherwise on the ground in an altercation. But in a real fight you should do your best to put the other guy down hard, get on top, and stay on top. Modern BJJ in particular is far too willing to concede top position, though modern MMA is thankfully pushing back on this some.
- adastra22 3y ago
  For the record, BJJ doesn’t “work” in a context of general fighting. BJJ has a strong focus on going to the ground and fighting within the rules of BJJ/MMA competitions. You do that in real life or death environment and you’re dead. BJJ didn’t develop until the 20th century because the competitive rules in which that style of mock fighting is most effective didn’t solidify until the 20th century.
  - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
    Is this true generally? I could see that being the case in a 1 vs many situation, but one on one my gut says probably not.
    - adastra22 3y ago
      1:1 fighting is extremely exceptional from a real world perspective. All real world fighting will be either many:many, or 1:many, or you should assume so as you never know that your assailant doesn’t have a friend somewhere nearby. If you engages in BJJ like ground fighting techniques, it’d be like that scene in Indiana Jones where the crazy swordsman final boss shows up, and Indy just shoots the guy. Some other guy would come over and step on your neck, stab you, or just shoot you while you’re down, or your opponent will gouge your eyes out, because that’s the real world response. Historical fighting manuals are pretty explicit: never, ever get caught on the ground or you’re dead. It’s just that most of the ways in which a standing person would attack a nearby person on the ground are so dangerous that they are outlawed from sport competition, and so ironically even the notoriously “everything goes” MMA ends up favoring ground game and devolve into wrestling matches.
    - Spinnaker_ 3y ago
      MMA fighters are often asked in interviews about techniques for real street fights. The answer is always to sucker puck then gouge the eyes and throat. BJJ is well suited for the octagon. Allow small joint manipulation and most of the technique goes out the window.
    - stonemetal12 3y ago
      Yes, sport fighting is not like survival fighting because anything that would cause permanent damage is against the rules. Against the rules doesn't get trained or practiced.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Gwern is wrong about this. Around 1900 catch wrestling was well established in Europe, and had many similar techniques to BJJ. I consider this an existence proof for him being wrong; it seems unlikely that these were the only two points where it developed. Catch wrestling split in two ways. On one side, it had submissions banned and became Olympic freestyle wrestling. On the other, they played up the drama and it became modern professional wrestling.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  Two things: 1. Many martial arts consider armed/unarmed just variations of a theme, and practicing unarmed is often safer, and used as "phase 1". 2. A lot of the modern day stuff can be traced back to Japan at a time when the government funded "civilized sports that help you grow", and then the Olympics got involved... we're pretty far distanced from "defend the village" at that point.
jmcomets 3y ago
> Why does writing in the morning (anecdotally so far) seem to be so effective for writers, even ones who are not morning persons? While programmers, which seems like a similar occupation, are invariably owls? Also anecdotal, but I've met my share of early bird programmers. I often wonder how much of these habits are driven by ~~stereotypes~~ culture, since theoretically your energy level depends mostly on your lifestyle.
- tlb 3y ago
  Interruptions are costly to both programmers and writers. But I don't think writers get interrupted as much, so they can work during normal waking hours. Programmers get interrupted a lot if they work during business hours because their projects usually interconnect with other people's projects.
- cptcobalt 3y ago
  Yeah, I think it's stereotypes + reinforcement of peer groups that follow similar schedules as you. I am a pretty ok writer & programmer in the morning; my productivity & quality of work falls off after 2pm. Under pressure, I'd much rather go to bed early and wake up very early to work on a next-day project.
- ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
  A hunch: paper vs. screens or, going fully digital, paper-like software vs. terminal-like software. Microsoft Word, MacOS Pages, WordPress WYSIWYG, etc. come with the default background bright and was/is a pain to change; terminals, IDEs, code editors, etc. come with the default background dark and is a pain to read lots of code on a bright background and interface with other tools, mostly dark backgrounds.
- slindsey 3y ago
  Maybe others can sympathize with my personal experience. I'm a morning person. But mentally, I can't completely focus when there's things that I have to do later. I'm always worried about those upcoming things (responsibilities, meetings, kids, etc). By programming at night, after everything else is done, I can truly focus. Getting in the flow, I'm not tired and I'm completely absorbed by the current task. No future distractions.
iamnotsure 3y ago
Schizophrenia occurrence may be somewhat related to the inverse of Dunbar's number, this is only partially about biology / genetics, just as computers are also about software and not only about hardware.
- qez2 3y ago
  [dead]
csours 3y ago
> Obesity Epidemic: Why do humans, pets, and even lab animals of many species kept in controlled lab conditions on standardized diets appear to be increasingly obese over the 20th century? What could explain all of them simultaneously becoming obese? (Is it literally something in the water?) I think it would help us if we understood why this problem is so hard to understand and what our blind spots are. --- It is easy to see the problems that an obese person has. It is easy to feel like they should know better and make changes for their health. It looks like a big problem that should be taken seriously. But that's not how that person got there. 1-5 pounds of excess fat does not feel like a big problem. Fat gain is usually quite slow and steady, and the body has time to get used to it. In other words, it's not a problem that suddenly shows up in a person's life, and it doesn't physically feel like a problem (until it's too late). --- Hunger doesn't have a number. Scientists have an aversion to studying things that don't have numbers. It doesn't feel like serious science. Hunger isn't weakness or failure, it's a whole body response to lack of nutrients. Hunger isn't one thing, it's a bunch of body sensations and psychological triggers and conditioning. Hunger acts like a one-way valve - there is a strong negative feeling for a moderate lack of nutrients, there is no equivalent feeling for a moderate excess of nutrients. People can often lose fat while dieting, but then gain it back. That has been described as the hunger set-point. Winter is coming and losing your energy supply may kill you (says evolution). Hunger is not comparable between people. I don't know how bad you feel when you miss a meal, and you don't know how bad I feel. --- I can eat like a king at every meal, every day. I can eat like a king of a different country every single day. I'm never limited to boring food. Corporations make money from "adding value" to food, advertising it and selling it. The value add is to make food very tasty - sugar, salt, fat, flavor. There's no pressure at the corporate level to market food in accordance with health goals. The "sugar tax" has been thoroughly demonized. The problem with gravy and sauces is not just the caloric content. It is the inducement to eat more. An experiment: buy unsalted and salted nuts of your choice (or unflavored and flavored rice cakes, etc). Eat as many of the unflavored item as you care to. Now think about eating the flavored version. Did you suddenly feel like you could eat more? Your gut and your mind talk to each other. If you taste something good or even imagine tasting something good, and it is different enough from something you just ate, your body will tell you that you are still hungry. --- On the calories out side, studies show that exercise has little effect on fat by itself. Exercise is good for health, but remember that your body will tell you to eat more to make up for it. --- Advice time: Learn to control hunger. This may take quite a lot of effort and learning. I recommend the books "The Hungry Brain" and "Burn". Eat boring food high in protein and fiber. Find exercise that you enjoy. Control your food environment. If you have snacks around, your brain will remember them. If you have snacks within reach, your body may start eating them without conscious command.
ezekiel68 3y ago
I love the design aesthetics of this wiki. It also makes me happy that someone bothered with a custom tool stack and hosting solution to get something near to exactly what they wanted. Here's a page describing this: https://gwern.net/design https://gwern.net/design
- gamegoblin 3y ago
  With tools like GPT4 around, this kind of labor of love becomes much less laborious. What gwern has done is absolutely insane for the era it was made, but I find myself becoming so much more ambitious with taking on stuff like this with GPT4 assistance. In the last couple months I've coded my first browser plugins, custom HTML5 renderers, physics simulators, etc. Never would have done it without the AI boost. There will be a whole lot more "custom stack to get exactly what you want" going around in the near future, pretty exciting.
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    I appreciate your comment, its not a bad comment, but I must say that I am SO exhausted with GPT getting brought up on EVERY post on HN regardless of what the post is about. It feels like I am being advertised to and it makes me doubt the authenticity of the comments.
    - gamegoblin 3y ago
      I hear you. I actually thought about this when making the comment, but decided to make it because the website at hand, gwern, is also deeply interested in AI and GPT and has a lot of posts about it. It does feel a bit like the mid 2010s when everyone was talking about applying blockchain to everything. The difference, I think, is that the proof is in the pudding. I have browser plugins and HTML5 physics simulators now that I didn't have just months ago. Re: your particular issue, I am not joking, you should use ChatGPT to help you write a browser plugin that simply blocks those comments. The browser plugin I mentioned that I used GPT to create is actually for blocking low-effort HN comments. My HN browsing experience is much better because of it.
pwillia7 3y ago
The something in the water link goes to a paper that is a copy of Dracula from what I can tell -- https://osf.io/x4fk3/ https://osf.io/x4fk3/
- vient 3y ago
  It seems that paper authors themselves replaced whole paper with a Dracula story in the latest revision. You can download previous versions [0], they contain fewer Draculas. [0] https://osf.io/download/5fa6d1f29c7a4e006ca006be/?version=4 https://osf.io/download/5fa6d1f29c7a4e006ca006be/?version=4
ebuck 3y ago
One of the laziest submissions of open questions. Most have completely uninteresting well known answers: * Obesity: We are eating more. We are eating higher calorie foods. We are also eating more sugar. The days of cooking raw foods in the home are few, and when we do, we do so by cooking with pre-prepared items that tend to have high caloric intake without many of the previous dietary benefits. Most families are down to one non-starchy vegetable a day, arguing that the tiny amount of pasta sauce counts as a vegetable as it contains tomatoes, ignoring the added sugar. To fix this, people are willing to sell us a never ending stream of services and advice, where the most effective advice is deemed uninteresting compared to the attention grabbing advice. Our health industry has spawned a wellness industry, where we are being told that blending our fruits and vegetables (releasing more sugar) need to be sweetened with honey (more sugar) as it is more healthy than table sugar. Here is a clue, just don't blend the stuff and eat it; but, that would hardly spawn an industry. - Alcohol: Yes, there have been numerous studies that moderate wine drinking can have health benefits. The main issue is that drinking in the USA probably involves at a minimum more alcohol than would qualify as healthy, and it is a relative health benefit that can easily be cancelled by too much ethanol. Here's a hint, food is a mixture. Drinking gin-and-tonics might also prevent malaria, a health benefit, but give you cirrhosis of the liver, a health hazard. Mixtures do that. - Boogers: Any biology student knows that they are primarily comprised of sugars, and are a mixture of sugar, whatever else is in the nose, and water. Why do they come in so many varieties? Sugar is flexible, making up trees, sugar glass, sugar for your coffee, and much, much more. No news here. - Jeanne Calment: Most people believe she took over the identity of a relative to avoid inheritance tax. The French government refuses to entertain this idea, as they prefer to have a national icon. This is well covered in the article, but in a fit of "let's disregard the contradicting ideas" is summarily dismissed with "the fraud theory seems highly unlikely to explain the Calment anomaly" because, they're already believing Clament is an anomaly and thus cannot believe she isn't. Oddly enough the Clament story is just like the other items in the list. If you start from a position of believing something is unusual, you have to assume that any bland explanation must fail because it wouldn't make it an unusual item.
- bombcar 3y ago
  There are massive industries that depend on never shaving with Occam’s Razor.
gavinhoward 3y ago
> Does listening to music while working serve as a distraction, or motivation? Both. It depends on what I am doing. If programming with completely new stuff, I need silence (but can't stand it). If programming stuff that is familiar, but still new, music is perfect, as long as it's not slow. If writing, I do best when listening to music that corresponds with the mood of the current scene. > Why does writing in the morning (anecdotally so far) seem to be so effective for writers, even ones who are not morning persons? While programmers, which seems like a similar occupation, are invariably owls? Funnily enough, I write best at night when I'm slightly sleep deprived. I've had more people praise my writing for a technical document [1] written during late nights than for anything else. They specifically praised the snark, which was just the result of a sleep-deprived brain. I'm not sure why, but I have a hunch: I'm a little autistic and can be quite stilted; however, a sleep-deprived brain can go a little haywire. Going a little haywire seems to make me more human. This is like the Ballmer Peak [2], except that this doesn't work for me when programming. I'm currently working on code and a novel. I'm trying to get into the habit of programming when I'm fresh and writing the novel or technical documentation when I'm tired. [1]: https://git.gavinhoward.com/gavin/bc/src/branch/master/manuals/development.md https://git.gavinhoward.com/gavin/bc/src/branch/master/manua... [2]: https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/
zamalek 3y ago
> Alcohol Hormesis: Does moderate alcohol or wine consumption have any health benefits, or not? Am I mis-remembering recent studies showing that alcohol does no good whatsoever for health (in contrast to earlier studies to the contrary)? Or is this just one of those that stays an open question in the hope that someone proves it true?
- darawk 3y ago
  There have been recent studies that said that, just like at one time there were recent studies that said the opposite. Neither is sufficiently strong evidence to be dispositive, though I'd probably lean towards the more recent ones.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  No, it's one of those that comes up with unconvincing results in alternating directions every six months, and whose press releases everyone in "light" news reports on. IIRC, that last negative one (of course I might be a year out of phase with you) proved that alcohol consumption doesn't do anyone any good at any amount by redefining "anyone" and "good" and telling us what we already knew about esophageal cancers and alcoholism.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  This podcast episode by Andrew Huberman does a good job explaining why it's not really an open question at all. I think it remains open because people really want to drink, and people really want to sell alcohol. There are many things like this in our diets, and the evidence is fairly conclusive. We just struggle to accept it. https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain-health/ https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain...
- Swizec 3y ago
  The sort of people who [can afford to] drink a glass of wine at dinner also have access to health care. This correlates with better health outcomes.
throwaway383946 3y ago
> What and why and when are “furries”? Throwaway. Old-school furry, from the early 90s. I won't try to speak to the history - it predates me by a few years - but the comment "furries run the Internet" was true for decades. In the 90s and 00's the level of overrepresentation was off the charts, to such a degree that for awhile one large and successful contracting company (Taos Mountain) would actively recruit from the fandom. Many, many successful early startups had multiple furries working there in key technical positions, including some who's earliest and most influential employees were furries (not naming names because those folks may not want to be 'outed' as furry). I worked for one pretty successful startup that, with I think maybe <100 employees, at least 10 of us were furries. For awhile if a company was an ISP or other service provider, data center operator, had an IT staff of at least 3, or just were a tech company chances are there were multiple furries working there. Some companies still have pretty large fractions of certain departments absent on weekends when large furry cons are being held. I'd say we're still overrepresented in tech but the industry has gotten so much larger that the raw absolute numbers aren't as surprising as they once were.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]

114 points by ianyanusko 3y ago

Submitted before, but the URL changed (it was split out from a "Notes" page): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18394756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18394756

michaelt 3y ago

> Why did it take until the late 20th century for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to develop [...] every major country has long lineages of specialized competitive martial arts and tremendous incentive to find martial arts which worked and quick feedback loops? Well, do societies have a tremendous incentive to find unarmed martial arts which work? If my tribe faces an existential threat from the next tribe over, wouldn't I pick up a stick?

nerpderp82 3y ago
Martial arts in Brazil have had to have a notion of "cover", the other big one pretends to be a dance, because it was outlawed to practice martial arts. https://www.abada.org/capoeira-history/ https://www.abada.org/capoeira-history/ I think rather than look at the results, it is interesting to look at the forcing functions the results operated under.
83457 3y ago
It is really a combination of factors. No holds barred fighting in Brazil was very important. Not emphasizing standup wrestling / grappling and focusing on finishing a fight as part of a sport was not common. Judo/jujitsu had all the components of BJJ and even practitioners focusing on ground (ie Judoka that taught the Gracies). However, the agreed on rules of Judo focused more and more on standing techniques with rules ending a fight on throw to back, resulting in leaving behind many aspects of the ground game in Japan from years past.
- gamegoblin 3y ago
  Having trained BJJ and some Judo, I have come to appreciate the idea that if you land a proper judo throw on someone in a street fight, i.e. on concrete, and you put someone down hard on concrete, the fight is almost certainly over. The same applies for wrestling high-crotch or blast double. If you put someone down hard on the nearest solid object or concrete, there's a good chance the fight is immediately over. That said, in a real scrappy fight, landing a proper judo through is a tall order. I've seen high level black belts fail to land clean throws on spazzy white belts. They get them down and technically win, but not cleanly, and not with the force needed to end the fight. Newaza (ground techniques, i.e. BJJ) comes in there to help finish. Pure BJJ is great if you are fighting on dirt, and great to know defensively if you do find yourself ambushed or otherwise on the ground in an altercation. But in a real fight you should do your best to put the other guy down hard, get on top, and stay on top. Modern BJJ in particular is far too willing to concede top position, though modern MMA is thankfully pushing back on this some.
adastra22 3y ago
For the record, BJJ doesn’t “work” in a context of general fighting. BJJ has a strong focus on going to the ground and fighting within the rules of BJJ/MMA competitions. You do that in real life or death environment and you’re dead. BJJ didn’t develop until the 20th century because the competitive rules in which that style of mock fighting is most effective didn’t solidify until the 20th century.
- ifyoubuildit 3y ago
  Is this true generally? I could see that being the case in a 1 vs many situation, but one on one my gut says probably not.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    1:1 fighting is extremely exceptional from a real world perspective. All real world fighting will be either many:many, or 1:many, or you should assume so as you never know that your assailant doesn’t have a friend somewhere nearby. If you engages in BJJ like ground fighting techniques, it’d be like that scene in Indiana Jones where the crazy swordsman final boss shows up, and Indy just shoots the guy. Some other guy would come over and step on your neck, stab you, or just shoot you while you’re down, or your opponent will gouge your eyes out, because that’s the real world response. Historical fighting manuals are pretty explicit: never, ever get caught on the ground or you’re dead. It’s just that most of the ways in which a standing person would attack a nearby person on the ground are so dangerous that they are outlawed from sport competition, and so ironically even the notoriously “everything goes” MMA ends up favoring ground game and devolve into wrestling matches.
  - Spinnaker_ 3y ago
    MMA fighters are often asked in interviews about techniques for real street fights. The answer is always to sucker puck then gouge the eyes and throat. BJJ is well suited for the octagon. Allow small joint manipulation and most of the technique goes out the window.
  - stonemetal12 3y ago
    Yes, sport fighting is not like survival fighting because anything that would cause permanent damage is against the rules. Against the rules doesn't get trained or practiced.
aidenn0 3y ago
Gwern is wrong about this. Around 1900 catch wrestling was well established in Europe, and had many similar techniques to BJJ. I consider this an existence proof for him being wrong; it seems unlikely that these were the only two points where it developed. Catch wrestling split in two ways. On one side, it had submissions banned and became Olympic freestyle wrestling. On the other, they played up the drama and it became modern professional wrestling.
yencabulator 3y ago
Two things: 1. Many martial arts consider armed/unarmed just variations of a theme, and practicing unarmed is often safer, and used as "phase 1". 2. A lot of the modern day stuff can be traced back to Japan at a time when the government funded "civilized sports that help you grow", and then the Olympics got involved... we're pretty far distanced from "defend the village" at that point.

jmcomets 3y ago

> Why does writing in the morning (anecdotally so far) seem to be so effective for writers, even ones who are not morning persons? While programmers, which seems like a similar occupation, are invariably owls? Also anecdotal, but I've met my share of early bird programmers. I often wonder how much of these habits are driven by ~~stereotypes~~ culture, since theoretically your energy level depends mostly on your lifestyle.

tlb 3y ago
Interruptions are costly to both programmers and writers. But I don't think writers get interrupted as much, so they can work during normal waking hours. Programmers get interrupted a lot if they work during business hours because their projects usually interconnect with other people's projects.
cptcobalt 3y ago
Yeah, I think it's stereotypes + reinforcement of peer groups that follow similar schedules as you. I am a pretty ok writer & programmer in the morning; my productivity & quality of work falls off after 2pm. Under pressure, I'd much rather go to bed early and wake up very early to work on a next-day project.
ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
A hunch: paper vs. screens or, going fully digital, paper-like software vs. terminal-like software. Microsoft Word, MacOS Pages, WordPress WYSIWYG, etc. come with the default background bright and was/is a pain to change; terminals, IDEs, code editors, etc. come with the default background dark and is a pain to read lots of code on a bright background and interface with other tools, mostly dark backgrounds.
slindsey 3y ago
Maybe others can sympathize with my personal experience. I'm a morning person. But mentally, I can't completely focus when there's things that I have to do later. I'm always worried about those upcoming things (responsibilities, meetings, kids, etc). By programming at night, after everything else is done, I can truly focus. Getting in the flow, I'm not tired and I'm completely absorbed by the current task. No future distractions.

iamnotsure 3y ago

Schizophrenia occurrence may be somewhat related to the inverse of Dunbar's number, this is only partially about biology / genetics, just as computers are also about software and not only about hardware.

qez2 3y ago
[dead]

csours 3y ago

> Obesity Epidemic: Why do humans, pets, and even lab animals of many species kept in controlled lab conditions on standardized diets appear to be increasingly obese over the 20th century? What could explain all of them simultaneously becoming obese? (Is it literally something in the water?) I think it would help us if we understood why this problem is so hard to understand and what our blind spots are. --- It is easy to see the problems that an obese person has. It is easy to feel like they should know better and make changes for their health. It looks like a big problem that should be taken seriously. But that's not how that person got there. 1-5 pounds of excess fat does not feel like a big problem. Fat gain is usually quite slow and steady, and the body has time to get used to it. In other words, it's not a problem that suddenly shows up in a person's life, and it doesn't physically feel like a problem (until it's too late). --- Hunger doesn't have a number. Scientists have an aversion to studying things that don't have numbers. It doesn't feel like serious science. Hunger isn't weakness or failure, it's a whole body response to lack of nutrients. Hunger isn't one thing, it's a bunch of body sensations and psychological triggers and conditioning. Hunger acts like a one-way valve - there is a strong negative feeling for a moderate lack of nutrients, there is no equivalent feeling for a moderate excess of nutrients. People can often lose fat while dieting, but then gain it back. That has been described as the hunger set-point. Winter is coming and losing your energy supply may kill you (says evolution). Hunger is not comparable between people. I don't know how bad you feel when you miss a meal, and you don't know how bad I feel. --- I can eat like a king at every meal, every day. I can eat like a king of a different country every single day. I'm never limited to boring food. Corporations make money from "adding value" to food, advertising it and selling it. The value add is to make food very tasty - sugar, salt, fat, flavor. There's no pressure at the corporate level to market food in accordance with health goals. The "sugar tax" has been thoroughly demonized. The problem with gravy and sauces is not just the caloric content. It is the inducement to eat more. An experiment: buy unsalted and salted nuts of your choice (or unflavored and flavored rice cakes, etc). Eat as many of the unflavored item as you care to. Now think about eating the flavored version. Did you suddenly feel like you could eat more? Your gut and your mind talk to each other. If you taste something good or even imagine tasting something good, and it is different enough from something you just ate, your body will tell you that you are still hungry. --- On the calories out side, studies show that exercise has little effect on fat by itself. Exercise is good for health, but remember that your body will tell you to eat more to make up for it. --- Advice time: Learn to control hunger. This may take quite a lot of effort and learning. I recommend the books "The Hungry Brain" and "Burn". Eat boring food high in protein and fiber. Find exercise that you enjoy. Control your food environment. If you have snacks around, your brain will remember them. If you have snacks within reach, your body may start eating them without conscious command.

ezekiel68 3y ago

I love the design aesthetics of this wiki. It also makes me happy that someone bothered with a custom tool stack and hosting solution to get something near to exactly what they wanted. Here's a page describing this: https://gwern.net/design https://gwern.net/design

gamegoblin 3y ago
With tools like GPT4 around, this kind of labor of love becomes much less laborious. What gwern has done is absolutely insane for the era it was made, but I find myself becoming so much more ambitious with taking on stuff like this with GPT4 assistance. In the last couple months I've coded my first browser plugins, custom HTML5 renderers, physics simulators, etc. Never would have done it without the AI boost. There will be a whole lot more "custom stack to get exactly what you want" going around in the near future, pretty exciting.
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  I appreciate your comment, its not a bad comment, but I must say that I am SO exhausted with GPT getting brought up on EVERY post on HN regardless of what the post is about. It feels like I am being advertised to and it makes me doubt the authenticity of the comments.
  - gamegoblin 3y ago
    I hear you. I actually thought about this when making the comment, but decided to make it because the website at hand, gwern, is also deeply interested in AI and GPT and has a lot of posts about it. It does feel a bit like the mid 2010s when everyone was talking about applying blockchain to everything. The difference, I think, is that the proof is in the pudding. I have browser plugins and HTML5 physics simulators now that I didn't have just months ago. Re: your particular issue, I am not joking, you should use ChatGPT to help you write a browser plugin that simply blocks those comments. The browser plugin I mentioned that I used GPT to create is actually for blocking low-effort HN comments. My HN browsing experience is much better because of it.

pwillia7 3y ago

The something in the water link goes to a paper that is a copy of Dracula from what I can tell -- https://osf.io/x4fk3/ https://osf.io/x4fk3/

vient 3y ago
It seems that paper authors themselves replaced whole paper with a Dracula story in the latest revision. You can download previous versions [0], they contain fewer Draculas. [0] https://osf.io/download/5fa6d1f29c7a4e006ca006be/?version=4 https://osf.io/download/5fa6d1f29c7a4e006ca006be/?version=4

ebuck 3y ago

One of the laziest submissions of open questions. Most have completely uninteresting well known answers: * Obesity: We are eating more. We are eating higher calorie foods. We are also eating more sugar. The days of cooking raw foods in the home are few, and when we do, we do so by cooking with pre-prepared items that tend to have high caloric intake without many of the previous dietary benefits. Most families are down to one non-starchy vegetable a day, arguing that the tiny amount of pasta sauce counts as a vegetable as it contains tomatoes, ignoring the added sugar. To fix this, people are willing to sell us a never ending stream of services and advice, where the most effective advice is deemed uninteresting compared to the attention grabbing advice. Our health industry has spawned a wellness industry, where we are being told that blending our fruits and vegetables (releasing more sugar) need to be sweetened with honey (more sugar) as it is more healthy than table sugar. Here is a clue, just don't blend the stuff and eat it; but, that would hardly spawn an industry. - Alcohol: Yes, there have been numerous studies that moderate wine drinking can have health benefits. The main issue is that drinking in the USA probably involves at a minimum more alcohol than would qualify as healthy, and it is a relative health benefit that can easily be cancelled by too much ethanol. Here's a hint, food is a mixture. Drinking gin-and-tonics might also prevent malaria, a health benefit, but give you cirrhosis of the liver, a health hazard. Mixtures do that. - Boogers: Any biology student knows that they are primarily comprised of sugars, and are a mixture of sugar, whatever else is in the nose, and water. Why do they come in so many varieties? Sugar is flexible, making up trees, sugar glass, sugar for your coffee, and much, much more. No news here. - Jeanne Calment: Most people believe she took over the identity of a relative to avoid inheritance tax. The French government refuses to entertain this idea, as they prefer to have a national icon. This is well covered in the article, but in a fit of "let's disregard the contradicting ideas" is summarily dismissed with "the fraud theory seems highly unlikely to explain the Calment anomaly" because, they're already believing Clament is an anomaly and thus cannot believe she isn't. Oddly enough the Clament story is just like the other items in the list. If you start from a position of believing something is unusual, you have to assume that any bland explanation must fail because it wouldn't make it an unusual item.

bombcar 3y ago
There are massive industries that depend on never shaving with Occam’s Razor.

gavinhoward 3y ago

> Does listening to music while working serve as a distraction, or motivation? Both. It depends on what I am doing. If programming with completely new stuff, I need silence (but can't stand it). If programming stuff that is familiar, but still new, music is perfect, as long as it's not slow. If writing, I do best when listening to music that corresponds with the mood of the current scene. > Why does writing in the morning (anecdotally so far) seem to be so effective for writers, even ones who are not morning persons? While programmers, which seems like a similar occupation, are invariably owls? Funnily enough, I write best at night when I'm slightly sleep deprived. I've had more people praise my writing for a technical document [1] written during late nights than for anything else. They specifically praised the snark, which was just the result of a sleep-deprived brain. I'm not sure why, but I have a hunch: I'm a little autistic and can be quite stilted; however, a sleep-deprived brain can go a little haywire. Going a little haywire seems to make me more human. This is like the Ballmer Peak [2], except that this doesn't work for me when programming. I'm currently working on code and a novel. I'm trying to get into the habit of programming when I'm fresh and writing the novel or technical documentation when I'm tired. [1]: https://git.gavinhoward.com/gavin/bc/src/branch/master/manuals/development.md https://git.gavinhoward.com/gavin/bc/src/branch/master/manua... [2]: https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/

zamalek 3y ago

> Alcohol Hormesis: Does moderate alcohol or wine consumption have any health benefits, or not? Am I mis-remembering recent studies showing that alcohol does no good whatsoever for health (in contrast to earlier studies to the contrary)? Or is this just one of those that stays an open question in the hope that someone proves it true?

darawk 3y ago
There have been recent studies that said that, just like at one time there were recent studies that said the opposite. Neither is sufficiently strong evidence to be dispositive, though I'd probably lean towards the more recent ones.
pessimizer 3y ago
No, it's one of those that comes up with unconvincing results in alternating directions every six months, and whose press releases everyone in "light" news reports on. IIRC, that last negative one (of course I might be a year out of phase with you) proved that alcohol consumption doesn't do anyone any good at any amount by redefining "anyone" and "good" and telling us what we already knew about esophageal cancers and alcoholism.
steve_adams_86 3y ago
This podcast episode by Andrew Huberman does a good job explaining why it's not really an open question at all. I think it remains open because people really want to drink, and people really want to sell alcohol. There are many things like this in our diets, and the evidence is fairly conclusive. We just struggle to accept it. https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain-health/ https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain...
Swizec 3y ago
The sort of people who [can afford to] drink a glass of wine at dinner also have access to health care. This correlates with better health outcomes.

throwaway383946 3y ago

> What and why and when are “furries”? Throwaway. Old-school furry, from the early 90s. I won't try to speak to the history - it predates me by a few years - but the comment "furries run the Internet" was true for decades. In the 90s and 00's the level of overrepresentation was off the charts, to such a degree that for awhile one large and successful contracting company (Taos Mountain) would actively recruit from the fandom. Many, many successful early startups had multiple furries working there in key technical positions, including some who's earliest and most influential employees were furries (not naming names because those folks may not want to be 'outed' as furry). I worked for one pretty successful startup that, with I think maybe <100 employees, at least 10 of us were furries. For awhile if a company was an ISP or other service provider, data center operator, had an IT staff of at least 3, or just were a tech company chances are there were multiple furries working there. Some companies still have pretty large fractions of certain departments absent on weekends when large furry cons are being held. I'd say we're still overrepresented in tech but the industry has gotten so much larger that the raw absolute numbers aren't as surprising as they once were.

aaron695 3y ago

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