Slashback: Bugfixed, Attribution, Atkins

Slashback brings you another flurry of updates (below) on the recently reported Mozilla security leak, the Greek gaming ban (you'll never guess), the mega-hour TiVO mod mentioned earlier today, the long-term healthiness of the Atkins Diet, and more. Read on for the details.

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.

Comments

Same story you read?

[Otter]

I'm not an Atkins partisan (snacking on carrots right now, in fact), but the NYT article is far less negative than the write-up suggests. It acknowledges it's a very effective way to lose weight, warns that it hasn't been studied comprehensively by independent researchers and that it has been linked to kidney stones, warns that it's low in some vitamins (you can buy them in pill form, you know) and then goes on an accurate but point-missing bit about how Americans aren't gaining weight because of too high a percentage of carbs in their diet.

And closes with Brody saying she thought of it first.

Re:Same story you read?

[TomRC]

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.

I've lost fifteen pounds with Protein Power

[goingware]

A similar diet to Atkins, but probably not so radical, is Protein Power. I've been on this for a few months, but haven't been completely faithful to it.

I've lost fifteen pounds, and am still losing weight. I also have stopped having attacks of hypoglycemia, which used to happen almost every day.

The diet emphasizes low carbohydrate (max 30 grams a day - I can eat half an english muffin a day, and that's about it), and moderately high protein, but really emphasizes eating lots more vegetables.

They don't pretend that it's balanced nutrition, and explicitly say that one must take vitamin and mineral supplements, which I do.

Once I lose all the weight I want, I can increase the amount of carbo I eat, but I don't think I ever want to go back to the level of carbohydrate intake I used to have - a couple of cans of Coca Cola Classic a day along with a heaping plate of spaghetti.

I've tried low-fat diets before and never had any luck with them. Neither have I been able to lose weight purely from exercising since I've been in my 30's (worked in my early 20's though). But I feel better enough with the Protein Power diet that I have started bicycling again for the first time in several years (but I haven't bicycled so much that my weight loss can be attributed to exercise yet).

I weigh 235 pounds, down from 250. My aim is to weigh 180. I'm 5'11".

Diets suck

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

I like to call the Atkins diet the "make yourself sick diet" (someone elses quote, can't remember who - some registered dietitian) - If I remember correct, you survive off of ketones instead of glucose, which makes you somewhat ill and accordingly, you lose your appetite, eat less, and lose weight.

The best diet is one that you can stick to. I have lost ten pounds over 8 weeks without ever feeling hungry or giving up junk food. I did it by following the food guide, walking/cycling, and lifting weights.
Keep in mind, this is a net of ten pounds lost - I have gained muscle mass.

To anyone that wishes to lose weight or just eat healthy, check out the book "The American Dietetic Association's Complete Food and Nutrition Guide" - it dispels a lot of common myths (ie/ you must increase protein consumption to build muscle but not carbohydrate consumption) and is very informative.

If you just want the basics, check out Food Guide Canada or The USDA Food Pyramid for more info.

There are alternatives to these as well. I don't have any links handy, but there are pyramids for a Meditaranian (sp?) and vegetarian diets as well. A lot of vegetarians are actually in terrible health because they don't eat enough protein or are missing vitamins - if you wish to give up animal products, do make sure you read up on a healthy vegetarian diet!

A really good website is also at Ask a Dietitian - lots of good questions answered there. (Check out the icon if you bookmark it - a little penguin :)

Lastly, if you are interested in weightlifting, do it right! Use an abbreviated routine (no more than three lifting days per week) and stay away from the muscle comics and expensive supplements. I personally will eat an energy bar if I'm on the go, but wasting money on Myoplex is pointless when a chicken sandwich will work just as well.
Check out the misc.fitness.weights faq or the iron page at stumptuous.com for some good tips.

Re:Diets suck

[BlackHawk]

I like to call the Atkins diet the "make yourself sick diet" (someone elses quote, can't remember who - some registered dietitian) - If I remember correct, you survive off of ketones instead of glucose, which makes you somewhat ill and accordingly, you lose your appetite, eat less, and lose weight.

Sorry. It's not true. I've been on the Atkins for almost 2 months, my wife's been on it for three. We have not had the 40+ pound weight loss, but we didn't want that to happen so quickly anyway. I've lost slightly over 20 pounds. I have kept my carb consumption to under 20 grams per day, as the diet specifies, and here's a big one: there actually are no forbidden foods! If I want to chow on a candy bar, I can... but that will use up all of my carb allotment for the day. I just decide where I want to spend my carbs, and eat that.

Two weeks ago, Jen had her bloodwork done, just like she'd planned to do when she started. The results? ALL indicators improved. Her BP was normal, iron up in the healthy range (it was low before the diet), triglycerides, LDL, HDL... everything was improved. We both have more energy, we're lighter, and we've both gained muscle mass. Your body has to do something with all that protein, after all.

Oh, and the nausea? It doesn't happen. Ever. Not even a smidgen. I have no idea where the common belief that it causes nausea came from, but it wasn't from anyone I know on the diet.

I strongly recommend that you read Atkin's book, or visit his web site (http://www.atkinscenter.com/) and read the data. There's a perfectly good explanation of why the program works, but it's too lengthy for me to spew on about here.

As for the long term effects fears, and the article's pointed reference to the fact that there's been no long-term study of the safety and efficacy, try this: find the long-term safety and efficacy studies for rBGH, Viagra, and most importantly, the DPT vaccine. Good luck, and think on the implications of those.

Let's look at the look at Atkins

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

How about the "Eat less, exercise more" diet?

[Hobart]

Golly, instead of using some crazy protein diet, I just quit eating so much (Most restaurant meals are 2x the food , so I would take some home, and cook for myself) and exercising. Now I have half the body fat percentage and 30 pounds less fat. :-)

http://www.jb.org/fat/

This article on Atkins is just wrong.

[drinkypoo]

Does it help people lose weight? Of course it does. If you cannot eat bread, bagels, cake, cookies, ice cream, candy, crackers, muffins, sugary soft drinks, pasta, rice, most fruits and many vegetables, you will almost certainly consume fewer calories. Any diet will result in weight loss if it eliminates calories that previously were overconsumed.

I eat just as much on the atkins diet as I did before it, if not more. Now instead of consuming calories from carbohydrates, I get them from fat and protein. Fat is much denser in calories than carbohydrates are, unless you're talking about pure sugar.

And hey, what the hell does this paragraph say?

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 fats, 20 percent to 35 percent. The panel of 21 scientists also urged Americans to keep as low as possible their consumption of saturated fats, the foods Dr. Atkins recommends as his diet's main components.

"...with carbohydrates -- starches and sugars -- making up 45 percent to and 65 percent of daily calories and fats, 20 percent to 35 percent." Nice ringrish there, sister. I've tried and tried to decipher what this is supposed to say. Does this mean that carbs make up 45 to 65 percent of your ideal diet, and fats should be 20 to 35 percent? Why the spurious "and"? For that matter, the first occurence of "percent" is unnecessary.

That's not an inaccuracy of fact, it's just an occurrect of stupidity.

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.

The answer: Forever. Some people have been on this diet all their lives, healthily. It's used to control seizures. Do some research before you write an article for the New York Times.

Second, what makes you say those foods are so wholesome? Sweet corn is laden with sugar, hence the sweetness. Watermelons are little more than water and sugar. Potatoes are a ton of ready carbs, they're white starch; All of those carbs hit your bloodstream at the same time and get turned into glucose very rapidly.

What is surprising is that after three decades of simmering and soaring popularity, the Atkins diet has yet to be tested for long-term safety and effectiveness.

What's surprising is that people in countries who ate this way in the first place didn't convince you. A dramatically better article (and not coincidentally one I agree with), What if it's all been a big fat lie? (Also in the NYT, free reg. req. etc) points out that people in Italy and the Carribean who ate a lot of starch (classically) tended towards obesity, and other people (who generally ate meat and veggies) did not. Seems simple to me. Being fat is unhealthy.

Dr. Abby Block, nutritionist at the foundation, said studies of the Atkins diet lasting six months to a year and extensive clinical experience, have shown consistent improvements in blood lipids and glucose levels, suggesting that the diet can improve health despite its high levels of saturated fats and cholesterol, long associated with heart disease risks.

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.

"high levels of saturated fats and cholesterol, long associated with heart disease risks."? Let's talk about how high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol became associated with heart disease risks. As per the NYT article I cite above, the last time the government spent our money studying fat, they spend several hundred million dollars trying to prove a link between fat/cholesterol intake and heart disease. They managed to prove only that treating cholesterol with drugs lowered the risk of heart failure. THAT'S IT. From that we got the food pyramid, which puts carbohydrates at the base. Eating tons of ready carbs means your insulin level spikes, and that's hard on the pancreas. And any time insulin levels are above a certain point, you store unused carbohydrates as FAT. You don't have to eat any fat whatsoever to get fat, which I think we all agree is unhealthy.

So in other words, the US government is the last group I'd trust to do a study like that. Last time they tried to prove a link between cholesterol and heart disease, they pushed a bunch of carbs on us and may very well be responsible for early onset diabetes and the american obesity epidemic.

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.

Wow, it sure is a good thing that "they" invented vitamin supplements. Otherwise that might be a real problem, eh?

When nutrition experts began urging Americans to cut back on fats, many filled in by eating more carbohydrates -- a lot more than anyone recommended. Food producers jumped on the bandwagon to produce low-fat snacks and desserts, and Americans went hog wild, eating as much of them as they wanted.

You know, that's what we were told to do. The government as much as told us that it was fat that made you fat, and we responded by eating carbs. Anything with "low fat" on it sold like, er, hotcakes. Which are made out of refined flour, which is the same as sugar once you have digested it.

Dr. Denke concurred: "No matter what anyone tells you, it's calories that count. Carefully controlled metabolic studies show that it doesn't matter where extra calories come from. Eat more calories than you expend and you'll gain weight."

This is horseshit too. While you are in ketosis, you do not store fat. When you have unburned fat, you remove it from your body by an ancient process known today (medically) as a bowel movement. You don't gain it as weight.

Hence the Atkins diet makes it completely unimportant to count your calories, except to make sure you have enough. As long as you don't eat carbs, your insulin level stays low, which means you don't leave the state of ketosis. Ketosis also has benefits to health, including slowing the rate of lean muscle loss. Furthermore, as I alluded to above, the reduced glucose levels inhibit stroke activity, and the reduced load on the pancreas dramatically reduces the risk of diabetes.

Mankind did not evolve to eat carbohydrates in any significant quantity. We grew up eating meat, vegetable-type plants which are not generally high in carbs (Except from fiber, which is indigestible), and limited quantities of carbohydrates.

I want to know which cracker and chip company commissioned this FUD.

uhh, check again

[Trepidity]

The current version of Mozilla in Unstable is 1.1-1. See the package page. It's been there for a week now.

If you'd like the packages faster, to get the maintainer's "not quite ready to check into Unstable" mozilla packages (which are still quite stable, just haven't gone through as much testing), add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://pandora.debian.org/~kitame/mozilla/ ./

1.1's been available from there for at least two weeks now.

Re:Perhaps a better option than atkins

[Exito]

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'd agree but personal experience shows otherwise

[itwerx]

I'm a card-carrying geek from way back but I will admit, here in front of Dog and everybody online that I have never been even slightly geek-like in one critical sense.
To wit, I have always been in fantastic shape.
I ski, hike, dance and practice various forms of martial arts and I watch what I eat - voila' - physical perfection!
But a couple of years ago I gained a couple extra pounds over the holiday season and couldn't lose it!!
I mean yeah, I'm a little older now but wtf? I wasn't eating any different that I could see, exercised the same etc.
Now don't get me wrong, ten pounds is no big deal. I'd laugh my ass off if somebody were obsessing over that, but after all these years of martial arts and dance I can feel a difference as little as 5 pounds and damn it, I wanted it gone!
So I ate less and worked out harder.
To no avail.
To tell you the truth it's been driving me nuts until I happened to talk to my mother and the conversation turned to my grandmother who was diagnosed w/diabetes awhile back.
Her doctor put her on an "experimental diet" and she lost about 30# and all indicators of diabetes disappeared!! She's been on it for a couple of years now and is in great shape. I should tell you my grandmother has been fat since she was a teen and has never lost more than about 15 pounds and it's always come back as soon as she blinked. So her losing 30 and keeping it off is a minor miracle!
Turns out that diet was Atkins (and yes, you do eat carbs, read the damn book!).
So I laughed and figured what the heck, I'd try it. I've only been on it for about 3 weeks so far but I've lost 5 of the pounds that wouldn't go away and I have an energy level I haven't had for years (like, um, since not too long before I gained those 10 pounds, actually).
So don't knock it 'till you try it!
Fat boy... :)