Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Bugfixed, Attribution, Atkins
Go ahead and get this one out of the way. Seth Scali writes: "The decision last week that ruled the Greek ban on video games as unconstitutional has been overturned, and a new trial has been ordered. Story from TheRegister is here. Don't take your GBA on that trip to Athens just yet ..."
It takes a strong man. Reader edrock200 submitted the story about a TiVO mod which could expand system capacity to more than 1000 hours of recording. The story as shown says that 9thTee is the card's developer; edrock200 corrects this "'The QuadCard, like the AirNet and TurboNet adapters also sold through 9thTee, were developed by a TiVo user named Nick Kelsey (known as 'jafa' on the TiVo Community Forum.) 9thTee is the distributor - though I don't want to take anything away from them, they have been remarkably supportive of the TiVo community and they deserve kudos for taking the financial risks of selling these add-ons.'
'It is truly amazing what Nick has been able to do with his electronics expertise.'"
Thanks for the clarification!
The Lizard sleeps with one eye open. An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine have updated their article on the recently reported minor security bug in Mozilla [Note Slashdot posting]with the news that a fix has been completed. The bug allowed the webmaster of a site to find out where a user went after their site. The fix means that there are again no known security bugs in Mozilla. Presumably, updates to Mozilla-based browsers (Netscape, Galeon, Chimera etc.) will follow."
What about the all-shrimp-and-chili-paste diet? Schlemphfer writes "A few months back, Slashdot featured a NY Times story that talked about the Atkins diet in glowing terms. This week, the Times has published a Jane Brody article raising serious questions about whether Atkins-style diets are dangerous and unsustainable. Brody is one of the most prominent and respected nutrition journalists, so it's worthwhile to read her take on the matter. Brody's article, which cites some important new research, may be an eye-opening read for Slashdot readers who took the plunge with Atkins back in July." (The NYT requires free registration.)
Suddenly everyone is in deadly earnest. Ian Cumming was one of several people to write with evidence of smileys predating the smileys unearthed by Mike Jones of Microsoft Research. He forwarded an informative message from Brian Dear of Birdrock Ventures, which reads in part:
"On the PLATO system, emoticons were much richer -- made using multiple characters displayed on top of each other. It was possible to type, say, a single character, then press SHIFT-space (which moved the cursor exactly one space backwards), then type another character. The second would display on top of the first. You could keep doing this for multiple characters and create many different faces, beer glasses, martini glasses, all kinds of things. And people peppered their emails and notesfile (PLATO's newsgroups) postings with them all the time."
And what is the PLATO system? The short version is this: PLATO was (is) an education-centered computer system developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Luckily for you, Dear is writing a book about PLATO. His site is fascinating, and the book promises to be as well. Here is a page showing the richness of PLATO emoticons.
Reader Grant Barrett also writes: "The earliest (not first: you can never precisely say which was first) recorded smiley in print discovered so far was found by etymologist and word researcher Barry Popik who posted this message to the email list of the American Dialect Society. He discusses the yellow smiley face which everyone knows, but this particular smiley is the familiar punctuation-based emoticon. (On a side note, he has uncovered some evidence that Harvey Ball *did not* invent the familiar yellow-faced smiley.)"
That reference puts the typographic smiley all the way back to 1953, and as Barrett mentions, was in print rather than online. He also points out that "ESR's Jargon File cites a 'rival claim by Kevin McKenzie, who seems to have proposed the smiley on the MsgGroup mailing list, April 12 1979.'"
But there's only one groove per side ... To all those who thought that the optical-scanning method for playing vinyl was an elaborate joke, note that you can download the creator's code if you'd like. This is not the easy way to do things, but is one way.
Title: "High-Fat Diet: Count Calories and Think Twice"
Count calories? Everyone realizes that if you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. However, on an Atkins diets, one of the common effects is a loss of appetite, which results in fewer calories in. Ever eat a high fat meal and feel really full? Yup, that's the fat at work. Ever suck a whole bag of chips or a box of cookies down? That's those speedy carbs at work.
"But in a major report last week, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies emphasized the importance of balance of nutrients, with carbohydrates -- starches and sugars -- making up 45 percent to and 65 percent of daily calories"
And this is different from the current party line how exactly? It's not. It's the same thing they've been preaching for 30 years as American obesity has gone through the roof.
One question I'd like to see answered is how long anyone can stay on such a scheme and what happens when you start adding back some of the wholesome foods limited or forbidden on this diet, like sweet corn, grapes, watermelons, potatoes, carrots, beets or oatmeal.
You don't go adding those things back. It's not just a "weight loss" diet, it's a "way of life" diet. It's like saying "How long until a vegetarian starts adding on the bacon, hot dogs, hamburgers", etc. When they do that, they're no longer in that group, and the benefits they see start dropping off.
Why hasn't the government tested it? One possible reason is that it is unlikely to be approved by any review committee, given what is known about the effects of animal fats and cholesterol on the risk of heart disease, strokes and some cancers, as well as accumulating evidence that diets rich in fruits and vegetables and moderate in protein and fat can prevent diseases like high blood pressure, prostate cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
Excuse me? It's think a chicken and egg problem? We can't test the effects of that because we think the effects are bad? If they won't test it, how do we really know what the affects are? The Atkins side says its the high carbs, not the fats, in the diet that are causing the health problems. The western diet has been shown to have a severe negative affect on many non-westerns. Look at Native Americans. Their rates of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes are huge thanks to this "healthy" high-carb diet.
The Atkins diet is shy on several vital nutrients, including the B vitamins and vitamins A, C and D, antioxidants that slow the effects of aging, and calcium. And, a diet rich in animal protein can draw calcium from the bones, increasing the risk of osteoporosis and hip fractures.
Sigh. Atkins himself tells people to take multivitamins and calcium supplements. There are certain types of foods we simply don't eat often in modern society (organ meats anyone?) so that we miss out on some crucial vitamins.
First, Americans are simply eating more -- an average of 400 calories a day more than they did decades ago.
And why is that? Could it be the fact that with less fat to make them feel full, and they eat more carbs, which leads to them eating even more carbs?
What it all comes down to is the fact we need to test these things rather than repeating the same thing for the past 30 years that IS NOT working. Yes, change hurts, but sometimes it is necessary.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Strangely enough, the diet proposed above espouses the very thing that various studies have shown to be healthy: whole grains, lots of fruits and vegetable, lean protein (from lean meats and legums), and some amount of "healthy" fats such as monounsaturated oils.
The biggest problem (in my opinion) is that people have a phobia about moderation. They want foods to be either "good" or "bad." For years people thought that fat was bad and instead pigged out on no fat desserts. I remember an episode when I was on an airplane, and the woman next to me told me that the no-fat cookie that we had been given was good. It looked disgusting to me, so I offered it to her. Instead of accepting it, she went off on a tirade about how it was perfectly okay for me to eat it because it fat-free and cholesterol-free and therefore was sin-free and guilt-free, while inwardly I was thinking that it was still full of sugar, and still looked disgusting. Those same kind of people also looked at me funny any time I ate nuts or avocados because they were bad "high-fat" foods.
Now, instead, people have taken the opposite approach and are banning anything with carbs. My dad has seen fried pork rinds being advertised as a carb-free diet food!
There are clearly health issues that go along with either extreme approach (e.g. diabetes and tryglicerides with simple carb diets and kidney and GI problems with high protein diets), but it seems people would rather cycle between the extremes than try to find a more sensible middle ground.
Sorry if this is a bit lengthy, but this is an issue that has bugged me for a long time.
--Exito
I would recommend that anyone going on any diet start off with at least 2 weeks on Atkins. It really brings home how pervasive "junk carbs" have become in your personal diet. So much food is made of or coated or stuffed with starch and sugar.
Until I went on Atkins, I didn't think I was eating all that bad, blamed my "metabolism" for my weight problem, and so on - but now I know better. I could probably even stick to a "rabbit food diet" now - though it would not be as easy as low-carb.
It is bogus that "they" won't study Atkins properly. It isn't like they would have trouble finding volunteers. I only know it has to be better for me than being massively overweight - even with the risk of kidney stones.