I'm not sure why you think C code is somehow less secure than Java bytecode, but a common claim is C having pointers. Ooo, scary.
C pointers, and C's ability to corrupt memory in general, is a known, major source of security bugs.
The problem is, these vulnerabilities are not due to buffer over runs or problems with pointers. They are caused by run-of-the-mill bugs in the java design or implementation.
That's true, and there's no sense blaming C for this particular bug.
It may be that Swartz was tipped over the edge into suicide by a feeling that the only other course for him would be a lifetime turning on the spit as a legal victim. If so, he may have been right, there may not have been any third option.
He'll never know because he committed suicide. A permanent solution for what was quite likely a temporary problem, if indeed his legal troubles were the sole reason for this suicide (which I doubt).
If it's real Linux, it's inherently more secure than iOS and Android.
Why do you say that? First of all, Android is already based on Linux. Second, Android is already more secure than the typical Linux desktop in that the apps are permission-based, compared with the typical desktop apps that run installers as root and have all the permissions of the user when running afterwards.
Sure they are. You write your driver according to a protocol. In general the drivers are independent of each other, and the vast majority of Linux consists of driver code.
system-wide Debian issues are insanely rare
I was just looking the other day at an old issue the other day regarding IPv6 to see if it still applied. It broke many applications, including Java. I wouldn't call this kind of issue "insanely rare", as Debian in general has to deal with all the issues that a kernel does, because at the core of Debian is an operating system that many applications depend on.
Furthermore, the kernel is years older than Debian, and, in fact, Debian deliberately looked at (and still looks at) kernel development for ideas on how to manage their system.
Debian was only 2 years later and almost 20 years ago. They've both changed a lot in that time. It's not like Linus had no other examples as Linux grew.
Anyway, how the fuck is that an example of him being an asshole? Do you think that anyone who drops an F-bomb is an asshole?
If the only problem that you can see with his message is "WTF", then the problem is with you. He went on to throw out such statements like, "absolutely inane crap", "why the _hell_ does it then add some idiotic extra prefix", and "But then even an idiot would see [..]".
Did you even see the part where he says, "I have a stupid trivial complaint"?
For a stupidly trivial complaint, he sure made a big deal about it. A simple, "Don't do this, do this instead per our policy" would have sufficed.
Linux is much more of a single thing, while GNU and Debian are huge collections of loosely-related components that mostly operate independently.
Most of the Linux code is in separate drivers that are reasonably independent, which is exactly the reason Linus has separate maintainers, just like Debian does. Debian is a huge integration project, and anybody that follows devel or the occasional wide-ranging bug that impacts them knows that a lot of effort goes into that integration.
When I said Linux was unprecedented, I meant it.
And when I said it wasn't, I meant it too.
In any case, Linux is not run as an "asshole-in-chief" style project. Linux is rarely an asshole.
I've seen too many examples to dismiss it. Maybe it isn't a daily thing, but it's always there, lurking in the background. As an example, I just looked through a couple of random months in the archive from 2009. The messages from February were reasonable. Then I look at the first message from Linus in April 2009 and see this:
I _really_ want fscache to come with way more Acked-by's etc.
So no, I'm not going to pull this. I want a lot more than just
Signed-off-by: David Howells
on the 100+ lines of changes to the VM. I want the VM people pinged and asked whether it's ok.
And I also have a stupid trivial complaint:
WTF is up with absolutely inane crap like this:
[..]
What the hell is that "cf-" and "fsc-" prefix? We don't do single-level naming crud. It's already in a directory hierarchy, why the _hell_ does it then add some idiotic extra prefix that is just a (very inferior) copy of that hierarchy?
If you want to write "fscache", write it out. Don't do "fsc". And do it as a directory. But then even an idiot would see that calling it fs/fscache/fscache/proc.c is a bit redundant. So why do you call it fs/fscache/fsc-proc.c?
Gaah. Naming is a bid deal for me, and the above is just crap.
Bottom line, Linus has been in charge of the kernel for a couple of decades now, and his process is working.
Yes, in general it is working. That doesn't mean it is optimal.
Nobody in the world knows for sure how to manage a project like Linux. It is truly unprecedented.
Please, give me a break. There were collaborative, net-based projects long before Linux, including the GNU foundation Linux is based on. Also, Linux distros like Debian have been around for almost as long as Linux, and it isn't run in the asshole-in-chief style.
No, the thing is, they really weren't. There are lots of examples of Linus being an asshole, but the Linux community still thought of him as a nice guy. What's interesting to me is that he hasn't mellowed over time (you know, grown as a person).
It's open source and people go through him because he's presently the best and most trustworthy developer out there for linux.
It's really about name recognition and inertia. Linus and Linux are intertwined, and it would take epic failure on Linus's part to lose his position, for better or for worse. He's technically competent and talented, no doubt about that, but I don't believe for a second that he couldn't be replaced by somebody better.
It also wasn't really aimed at Mauro Chehab. Even the worst manager knows better than to discipline an individual employee in front of his/her peers, right?
*snort* Living in a reality-distortion field, are you?
"Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP! [..] How long have you been a maintainer? And you *still* haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance? [..] you've shown yourself to not be competent in this issue, so I'll apply it directly and immediately myself."
Otherwise why would he WANT to return to the U.S. if he knew he would be charged with murder?
Because he is a natural-born citizen there and that's the most logical place he could be deported to without being sent back to Belize. He didn't originally say he wanted to return to the US, despite lots of people suggesting that to him on his blog -- that was after he was arrested in Guatemala. It was the least bad option in a hot situation.
Whether he is guilty or not he could still be charged with murder based on evidence real or fabricated, assuming Belize is corrupt and willing to frame him.
You cited boiled potato without skin--and the link you gave didn't list potassium or B6.
Under "Good Points", it says: "High in potassium
High in vitamin B6
High in vitamin C"
It also lists the breakdown if you click "See more extended nutritional details". Alternatively, you can check out these links, which also list the breakdown as a percent daily value:
On the contrary, you are the one doing that. I mentioned the skin for completeness, as potatoes came up under the discussion of what foods we evolved on. But even ignoring the skin, your argument has been shown to be ridiculous with regards to cupcakes, or even dumber, soda. Can you admit you were wrong?
Just one more quick note: another category of healthy foods people eat are nuts, which are high in good fat, have fiber, vitamins and minerals, and protein. The idea that the modern diet chock full of added sugars was anything remotely what we evolved to eat is absurd.
Your reference for potatoes shows a pretty high number for "dietary fiber"--resistant starch is effectively dietary fiber, but it's present between 4% and 23% in potatoes, and the 23% number is reachable by boiling and then freezing and then re-heating--and then vitamin C (in damn near everything), a little protein, and a small amount of iron and calcium.
All that and you skipped the potassium, something potatoes are well-known for, plus the B6, as well as a host of other vitamins and minerals that aren't listed in the other two foods mentioned. And that's only without the skin; keep in mind we started talking about the potato as an offshoot of foods we evolved on. My guess is that they ate their potatoes baked, with the skin. And as hunter-gatherers and not farmers, they ate a variety of foods, not just potatoes, and almost certainly not boiled, mashed potatoes without skin.
And here I assumed Hostess cupcakes were made out of wheat...
The first ingredient is sugar, not surprisingly. The wheat flour used is, of course, the refined flour that's been robbed of most of the fiber and vitamins and minerals.
they're about on par, with more fat, less carbs, and half the calories, about equal nutritionally and less bad for you than a potato.
Ridiculous. The fat is 2.5/6.0 grams of saturated fat, and one of the ingredients is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, considered harmful to your health. About the only positive thing to be said about them is the calcium it provides. You also aren't taking into account meal portions. The serving size for the potatoes is for a large potato at 300g, while the cupcake is a single cake at 50g.
The Dr. P. still has less sugar.
For the soda, the serving size was 8oz. A common bottle size is 20oz, and you started out talking about drinking 40oz a day, which would be two bottles at 20oz. It's just about pure sugar in calories, with no other nutrients or fiber.
So please cut the shit talking about soda is better for you than a potato. If you want to spout and defend bullshit, I'm not going to respond any more.
According to USDA, fruits and vegetables tend to contain as much or more fructose than glucose; thus an argument that humans are not supposed to consume fructose (or sucrose) is essentially an argument for a primarily carnivore diet.
Again, you are missing the fiber and all the nutrients that go with fruits and vegetables. Humans evolved to eat a variety of wholesome foods, including meat and fish, and not concentrated sugar like cupcakes and sugar water.
I'll respond to the glucose+fructose metabolism later, since you actually cited a reference and I will have to research.
Potatoes provide no nutrients except in the skin. [..] Essentially, potatoes are worse than soda. Hostess Cupcakes provide more nutrition than mashed potato.
You keep on spouting uninformed bullshit. It's tiresome, and I'm going to have to stop responding to you if you keep it up. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you get basic shit wrong that can easily be looked up while trying to act like an expert.
Pay attention to the grams of sugar, fiber, and what nutrients each food is high in.
Fructose is harmless in the presence of glucose--sucrose is metabolized essentially identical to glucose
OK, cite a reference. You won't be able to, because you're making shit up again. Sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose, so now we're back to talking about the difference between fructose and glucose.
Uptake of fructose is reduced outside the presence of glucose, and then the liver process it differently without glucose (and inefficiently).
Again, cite a reference. You have zero credibility.
All other mass in the potato that's not in the skin is white, refined sugar; don't tell me it's different "because it's starch," because YOUR FUCKING SALIVA turns it into individual glucose molecules.
You seem to have missed the glucose vs. fructose issue. Glucose isn't the culprit. Fructose is. Also, potatoes provide fiber, nutrients, and help fill you up unlike carbonated sugar water.
Everything was low-fat, low-sugar, with no massive starch sources like pertaters?
I haven't said a word about fat, or even starch for that matter. I'm talking about all the added sugars, refined foods, and lack of fiber and nutrients that you find in a modern, Western diet. Humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, and soda didn't grow on trees. Trying to favorably compare the modern crap diet to the diets that humans were evolved to eat is absurd.
And you know this how? How old are you, and how long have you been eating a bunch of extra sugar, and how much? I got away with eating terribly and little exercise all through my 20s. It eventually caught up with me. You can't see inside your arteries, or check your liver for fatty deposits, or know how well your pancreas is doing, or any number of things that might be going wrong. You just assume that because you feel fine now you aren't doing long-term damage.
Do you think those kids they opened up in World War II that showed the seeds of cardiovascular disease weren't getting exercise?
2) You can't lead a highly sedentary lifestyle without consequence. No diet will make you healthy.
There are plenty of healthy people that don't exercise. Exercise has its benefits, but you're not going to automatically be some sick zombie because you don't exercise. Also, exercise won't replace the lack of fiber or nutrients in a poor diet. There are many digestive disorders associated with Western diets.
Evolutionarily, we didn't have perfect diets harmonized in a medical clean room to evolve from; we ate whatever crap we could get, high amounts of fruit sugar, tons of meat, whatever, and we were healthy.
Funny, I don't think there were any soda trees around in prehistoric times. The modern diet of low-fiber, refined food with added sugar is nothing like the diets that we evolved on. Having fruit as part of a varied diet is not the same thing as chugging down multiple sodas a day.
The impact of a moderate but reasonable amount of physical activity is bigger than the impact of cutting 40 ounces per day of Dr. Pepper out of your diet. The impact of high-intensity exercise--jogging, bicycling, whatnot--for half an hour a day will completely eliminate the impacts of 40 ounces per day of Dr. Pepper.
That's a quantitative statement without any references as to how you come to your conclusion. Yes, I get it, exercise is beneficial. Now how much?
Food in general contains generally recognized as safe levels of anything it does contain, including preservatives that by nature are toxic to cellular activity--those toxins are diluted when consumed, after all.
GRAS is a weak standard. Even salt is GRAS, and it is linked to high blood pressure. The FDA is not going to regulate a common food like sugar even if over-consumption leads to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The bottom line is that you are ignoring demonstrated dangers with diet and latching on to exercise as the main thing to worry about. Exercise is important, but so is diet. You can't eat a bunch of extra sugar, especially at the amounts Americans do, without consequences.
there's always a small amount that is easily tolerated and is removed eventually, and speeding up that process simply means you can handle that much more.
Even if true, your advice was patently dangerous: "Those toxic chemicals will go away if you bike to work every day."
Don't eat like crap and expect a daily bike ride to take care of all associated problems. Exercise, skip all the added sugar, and eat wholesome food. That's the best bet if you are concerned about living long and healthy.
If you consume HFCS and you're highly active, you'll burn it off as energy.
It has to be metabolized first, and it's the by-products of metabolism that are the problem.
Fat-soluble toxins get moved into the blood stream when consolidated fats are mobilized for energy, a cycle that occurs under extended periods of elevated metabolism (i.e. you start burning fat--you might burn and store at relative equillibrium, but you WILL burn some of your stored fat if you're on a bicycle for an hour).
Even if this is true, which I'd need to see the specific metabolic mechanism to verify, the idea that you can just eat a bunch of crap and burn it off with biking an hour to work a day is a dangerous and simplistic idea. You can't see inside your arteries to know that you are doing enough: "During the Korean War, pathologists doing autopsies on American soldiers killed in battle noticed that many had significant plaques in their arteries, even those who were still teenagers, while the Koreans killed in battle did not."
It's much better not to eat the crap in the first place. Compare eating an orange, to drinking a cup of orange juice, to drinking a sugared drink. Go with the orange, and you'd have more nutrients and fiber, with fewer calories and sugar. Same thing with whole grains, vegetables, and other wholesome food. Less crap = less calories and dangerous sugars.
Sure, get some exercise too, but don't depend on it for overcoming a poor diet.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what the odds of this are in Canada, but in the U.S. the odds of corporate execs being held accountable are almost nil.
Hello from the future. They were acquitted of all charges.
That's some pretty shitty "credit". It looks like just another piece of the date. Compare that to how Yahoo News credits it, as linked by your parent:
"By Maria Sudekum, Associated Press | Associated Press -- Sun, Jan 13, 2013"
I'm not sure why you think C code is somehow less secure than Java bytecode, but a common claim is C having pointers. Ooo, scary.
C pointers, and C's ability to corrupt memory in general, is a known, major source of security bugs.
The problem is, these vulnerabilities are not due to buffer over runs or problems with pointers. They are caused by run-of-the-mill bugs in the java design or implementation.
That's true, and there's no sense blaming C for this particular bug.
It may be that Swartz was tipped over the edge into suicide by a feeling that the only other course for him would be a lifetime turning on the spit as a legal victim. If so, he may have been right, there may not have been any third option.
He'll never know because he committed suicide. A permanent solution for what was quite likely a temporary problem, if indeed his legal troubles were the sole reason for this suicide (which I doubt).
Unless you can use it to make us hate on apple some more.
Got blinders on? He said, "It would be very surprising if this invention doesn't duplicate patents that issued thirty years ago."
If it's real Linux, it's inherently more secure than iOS and Android.
Why do you say that? First of all, Android is already based on Linux. Second, Android is already more secure than the typical Linux desktop in that the apps are permission-based, compared with the typical desktop apps that run installers as root and have all the permissions of the user when running afterwards.
The drivers are not as independent as you think
Sure they are. You write your driver according to a protocol. In general the drivers are independent of each other, and the vast majority of Linux consists of driver code.
system-wide Debian issues are insanely rare
I was just looking the other day at an old issue the other day regarding IPv6 to see if it still applied. It broke many applications, including Java. I wouldn't call this kind of issue "insanely rare", as Debian in general has to deal with all the issues that a kernel does, because at the core of Debian is an operating system that many applications depend on.
Furthermore, the kernel is years older than Debian, and, in fact, Debian deliberately looked at (and still looks at) kernel development for ideas on how to manage their system.
Debian was only 2 years later and almost 20 years ago. They've both changed a lot in that time. It's not like Linus had no other examples as Linux grew.
Anyway, how the fuck is that an example of him being an asshole? Do you think that anyone who drops an F-bomb is an asshole?
If the only problem that you can see with his message is "WTF", then the problem is with you. He went on to throw out such statements like, "absolutely inane crap", "why the _hell_ does it then add some idiotic extra prefix", and "But then even an idiot would see [..]".
Did you even see the part where he says, "I have a stupid trivial complaint"?
For a stupidly trivial complaint, he sure made a big deal about it. A simple, "Don't do this, do this instead per our policy" would have sufficed.
ZFS has me locked in now. I wish the linux guys had gone for it instead of relying on btrfs.
ZFS was patented by Sun and the license they released it under was incompatible with the GPL.
Linux is much more of a single thing, while GNU and Debian are huge collections of loosely-related components that mostly operate independently.
Most of the Linux code is in separate drivers that are reasonably independent, which is exactly the reason Linus has separate maintainers, just like Debian does. Debian is a huge integration project, and anybody that follows devel or the occasional wide-ranging bug that impacts them knows that a lot of effort goes into that integration.
When I said Linux was unprecedented, I meant it.
And when I said it wasn't, I meant it too.
In any case, Linux is not run as an "asshole-in-chief" style project. Linux is rarely an asshole.
I've seen too many examples to dismiss it. Maybe it isn't a daily thing, but it's always there, lurking in the background. As an example, I just looked through a couple of random months in the archive from 2009. The messages from February were reasonable. Then I look at the first message from Linus in April 2009 and see this:
I _really_ want fscache to come with way more Acked-by's etc.
So no, I'm not going to pull this. I want a lot more than just
Signed-off-by: David Howells
on the 100+ lines of changes to the VM. I want the VM people pinged and asked whether it's ok.
And I also have a stupid trivial complaint:
WTF is up with absolutely inane crap like this:
[..]
What the hell is that "cf-" and "fsc-" prefix? We don't do single-level naming crud. It's already in a directory hierarchy, why the _hell_ does it then add some idiotic extra prefix that is just a (very inferior) copy of that hierarchy?
If you want to write "fscache", write it out. Don't do "fsc". And do it as a directory. But then even an idiot would see that calling it fs/fscache/fscache/proc.c is a bit redundant. So why do you call it fs/fscache/fsc-proc.c?
Gaah. Naming is a bid deal for me, and the above is just crap.
Bottom line, Linus has been in charge of the kernel for a couple of decades now, and his process is working.
Yes, in general it is working. That doesn't mean it is optimal.
Nobody in the world knows for sure how to manage a project like Linux. It is truly unprecedented.
Please, give me a break. There were collaborative, net-based projects long before Linux, including the GNU foundation Linux is based on. Also, Linux distros like Debian have been around for almost as long as Linux, and it isn't run in the asshole-in-chief style.
His human interaction skills used to be better
No, the thing is, they really weren't. There are lots of examples of Linus being an asshole, but the Linux community still thought of him as a nice guy. What's interesting to me is that he hasn't mellowed over time (you know, grown as a person).
It's open source and people go through him because he's presently the best and most trustworthy developer out there for linux.
It's really about name recognition and inertia. Linus and Linux are intertwined, and it would take epic failure on Linus's part to lose his position, for better or for worse. He's technically competent and talented, no doubt about that, but I don't believe for a second that he couldn't be replaced by somebody better.
I think he's just the classically angry nerd with a superiority complex that never outgrew it.
It also wasn't really aimed at Mauro Chehab. Even the worst manager knows better than to discipline an individual employee in front of his/her peers, right?
*snort* Living in a reality-distortion field, are you?
"Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP! [..] How long have you been a maintainer? And you *still* haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance? [..] you've shown yourself to not be competent in this issue, so I'll apply it directly and immediately myself."
Otherwise why would he WANT to return to the U.S. if he knew he would be charged with murder?
Because he is a natural-born citizen there and that's the most logical place he could be deported to without being sent back to Belize. He didn't originally say he wanted to return to the US, despite lots of people suggesting that to him on his blog -- that was after he was arrested in Guatemala. It was the least bad option in a hot situation.
Whether he is guilty or not he could still be charged with murder based on evidence real or fabricated, assuming Belize is corrupt and willing to frame him.
Potassium and other vitamins are in potato skin.
It's also in the flesh without the skin.
You cited boiled potato without skin--and the link you gave didn't list potassium or B6.
Under "Good Points", it says:
"High in potassium
High in vitamin B6
High in vitamin C"
It also lists the breakdown if you click "See more extended nutritional details". Alternatively, you can check out these links, which also list the breakdown as a percent daily value:
Boiled, without skin
Baked, with skin
Stop floating your arguments around.
On the contrary, you are the one doing that. I mentioned the skin for completeness, as potatoes came up under the discussion of what foods we evolved on. But even ignoring the skin, your argument has been shown to be ridiculous with regards to cupcakes, or even dumber, soda. Can you admit you were wrong?
Just one more quick note: another category of healthy foods people eat are nuts, which are high in good fat, have fiber, vitamins and minerals, and protein. The idea that the modern diet chock full of added sugars was anything remotely what we evolved to eat is absurd.
Your reference for potatoes shows a pretty high number for "dietary fiber"--resistant starch is effectively dietary fiber, but it's present between 4% and 23% in potatoes, and the 23% number is reachable by boiling and then freezing and then re-heating--and then vitamin C (in damn near everything), a little protein, and a small amount of iron and calcium.
All that and you skipped the potassium, something potatoes are well-known for, plus the B6, as well as a host of other vitamins and minerals that aren't listed in the other two foods mentioned. And that's only without the skin; keep in mind we started talking about the potato as an offshoot of foods we evolved on. My guess is that they ate their potatoes baked, with the skin. And as hunter-gatherers and not farmers, they ate a variety of foods, not just potatoes, and almost certainly not boiled, mashed potatoes without skin.
And here I assumed Hostess cupcakes were made out of wheat...
The first ingredient is sugar, not surprisingly. The wheat flour used is, of course, the refined flour that's been robbed of most of the fiber and vitamins and minerals.
they're about on par, with more fat, less carbs, and half the calories, about equal nutritionally and less bad for you than a potato.
Ridiculous. The fat is 2.5/6.0 grams of saturated fat, and one of the ingredients is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, considered harmful to your health. About the only positive thing to be said about them is the calcium it provides. You also aren't taking into account meal portions. The serving size for the potatoes is for a large potato at 300g, while the cupcake is a single cake at 50g.
The Dr. P. still has less sugar.
For the soda, the serving size was 8oz. A common bottle size is 20oz, and you started out talking about drinking 40oz a day, which would be two bottles at 20oz. It's just about pure sugar in calories, with no other nutrients or fiber.
So please cut the shit talking about soda is better for you than a potato. If you want to spout and defend bullshit, I'm not going to respond any more.
According to USDA, fruits and vegetables tend to contain as much or more fructose than glucose; thus an argument that humans are not supposed to consume fructose (or sucrose) is essentially an argument for a primarily carnivore diet.
Again, you are missing the fiber and all the nutrients that go with fruits and vegetables. Humans evolved to eat a variety of wholesome foods, including meat and fish, and not concentrated sugar like cupcakes and sugar water.
I'll respond to the glucose+fructose metabolism later, since you actually cited a reference and I will have to research.
Potatoes provide no nutrients except in the skin. [..] Essentially, potatoes are worse than soda. Hostess Cupcakes provide more nutrition than mashed potato.
You keep on spouting uninformed bullshit. It's tiresome, and I'm going to have to stop responding to you if you keep it up. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you get basic shit wrong that can easily be looked up while trying to act like an expert.
Nutritional value for:
- boiled, skinless potatoes
- Hostess Cupcakes
- Dr. Pepper
Pay attention to the grams of sugar, fiber, and what nutrients each food is high in.
Fructose is harmless in the presence of glucose--sucrose is metabolized essentially identical to glucose
OK, cite a reference. You won't be able to, because you're making shit up again. Sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose, so now we're back to talking about the difference between fructose and glucose.
Uptake of fructose is reduced outside the presence of glucose, and then the liver process it differently without glucose (and inefficiently).
Again, cite a reference. You have zero credibility.
All other mass in the potato that's not in the skin is white, refined sugar; don't tell me it's different "because it's starch," because YOUR FUCKING SALIVA turns it into individual glucose molecules.
You seem to have missed the glucose vs. fructose issue. Glucose isn't the culprit. Fructose is. Also, potatoes provide fiber, nutrients, and help fill you up unlike carbonated sugar water.
Everything was low-fat, low-sugar, with no massive starch sources like pertaters?
I haven't said a word about fat, or even starch for that matter. I'm talking about all the added sugars, refined foods, and lack of fiber and nutrients that you find in a modern, Western diet. Humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, and soda didn't grow on trees. Trying to favorably compare the modern crap diet to the diets that humans were evolved to eat is absurd.
1) I can and have.
And you know this how? How old are you, and how long have you been eating a bunch of extra sugar, and how much? I got away with eating terribly and little exercise all through my 20s. It eventually caught up with me. You can't see inside your arteries, or check your liver for fatty deposits, or know how well your pancreas is doing, or any number of things that might be going wrong. You just assume that because you feel fine now you aren't doing long-term damage.
Do you think those kids they opened up in World War II that showed the seeds of cardiovascular disease weren't getting exercise?
2) You can't lead a highly sedentary lifestyle without consequence. No diet will make you healthy.
There are plenty of healthy people that don't exercise. Exercise has its benefits, but you're not going to automatically be some sick zombie because you don't exercise. Also, exercise won't replace the lack of fiber or nutrients in a poor diet. There are many digestive disorders associated with Western diets.
Evolutionarily, we didn't have perfect diets harmonized in a medical clean room to evolve from; we ate whatever crap we could get, high amounts of fruit sugar, tons of meat, whatever, and we were healthy.
Funny, I don't think there were any soda trees around in prehistoric times. The modern diet of low-fiber, refined food with added sugar is nothing like the diets that we evolved on. Having fruit as part of a varied diet is not the same thing as chugging down multiple sodas a day.
The impact of a moderate but reasonable amount of physical activity is bigger than the impact of cutting 40 ounces per day of Dr. Pepper out of your diet. The impact of high-intensity exercise--jogging, bicycling, whatnot--for half an hour a day will completely eliminate the impacts of 40 ounces per day of Dr. Pepper.
That's a quantitative statement without any references as to how you come to your conclusion. Yes, I get it, exercise is beneficial. Now how much?
Food in general contains generally recognized as safe levels of anything it does contain, including preservatives that by nature are toxic to cellular activity--those toxins are diluted when consumed, after all.
GRAS is a weak standard. Even salt is GRAS, and it is linked to high blood pressure. The FDA is not going to regulate a common food like sugar even if over-consumption leads to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The bottom line is that you are ignoring demonstrated dangers with diet and latching on to exercise as the main thing to worry about. Exercise is important, but so is diet. You can't eat a bunch of extra sugar, especially at the amounts Americans do, without consequences.
The byproducts of Fructose metabolism are, unsurprisingly, carbon dioxide and water.
You missed the intermediary stages: Fructose consumption as a risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
there's always a small amount that is easily tolerated and is removed eventually, and speeding up that process simply means you can handle that much more.
Even if true, your advice was patently dangerous: "Those toxic chemicals will go away if you bike to work every day."
Don't eat like crap and expect a daily bike ride to take care of all associated problems. Exercise, skip all the added sugar, and eat wholesome food. That's the best bet if you are concerned about living long and healthy.
If you consume HFCS and you're highly active, you'll burn it off as energy.
It has to be metabolized first, and it's the by-products of metabolism that are the problem.
Fat-soluble toxins get moved into the blood stream when consolidated fats are mobilized for energy, a cycle that occurs under extended periods of elevated metabolism (i.e. you start burning fat--you might burn and store at relative equillibrium, but you WILL burn some of your stored fat if you're on a bicycle for an hour).
Even if this is true, which I'd need to see the specific metabolic mechanism to verify, the idea that you can just eat a bunch of crap and burn it off with biking an hour to work a day is a dangerous and simplistic idea. You can't see inside your arteries to know that you are doing enough: "During the Korean War, pathologists doing autopsies on American soldiers killed in battle noticed that many had significant plaques in their arteries, even those who were still teenagers, while the Koreans killed in battle did not."
It's much better not to eat the crap in the first place. Compare eating an orange, to drinking a cup of orange juice, to drinking a sugared drink. Go with the orange, and you'd have more nutrients and fiber, with fewer calories and sugar. Same thing with whole grains, vegetables, and other wholesome food. Less crap = less calories and dangerous sugars.
Sure, get some exercise too, but don't depend on it for overcoming a poor diet.