forestG

@forestG@beehaw.org
1 Post – 85 Comments
Joined 12 months ago

I am getting old.

When I was a kid, my parents, my siblings and I would go to very crowded beaches during the summer. Sunny weather, vibrant colors, cool water. It was nearly impossible for me to bother with whatever everyone else was doing. My attention was focused to everything that was fun and new to me. I would swim for hours, climb rocks and attempt the most challenging dives I could, run on the wet sand. Even build castles!

And then, gradually, every next year each summer visit to the beach would become less magical. Every next year, my attention would start to focus less on the beach and more on the people. And not just people who were calm, friendly and enjoying themselves there. No. I would focus on people who were rude, stressed out and annoying. Loud people who would disregard everyone else around them.

Until, at some point, it started actually feeling bad visiting crowded places. Felt like there was no way I could enjoy being at the beach if I were to share it with other people. Now, I can point you to places that very few people know how to reach. And they are great. As long as you have your own company.

I envy my kid self. If you were to ask that kid what it felt like to be at the beach, you would get a lot of excitement and zero negativity.

Now, even though I will mostly avoid crowded places it's not always possible to do so. So, when I end up in a crowded place I actively focus on what is important for me to enjoy my time. Laughter is music for my ears. Kidding around my friends, swimming and all the good stuff my kid self knew how to do better. I try. Sometimes I succeed, others I feel old and tired ;-)

I don't think there is a way to have both the option to host images and have zero risk of getting such image uploads. You either completely disable image hosting, or you mitigate the risk by the way image uploads are handled. Even if you completely disable the image uploads, someone might still link to such content. The way I see this there are two different aspects. One is the legal danger you place yourself when you open your instance to host images uploaded by users. The other is the obvious (and not so obvious) and undeniable harmful effects contact with such material has for most of us. The second, is pretty impossible to guarantee 100% on the internet. The first you can achieve by simply not allowing image uploads (and I guess de-federating with other instances to avoid content replication).

The thing is, when you host an instance of a technology that allows for better moderation (i.e. allowing certain kinds of content, such as images, only after a user reaches a certain threshold of activity), actually helps in a less obvious manner. CSAM is not only illegal to exist on the server-side. It's also illegal and has serious consequences for the people who actually upload it. The more activity history you have on a potential uploader, the easier it becomes to actually track him. Requiring more time for an account before allowing it to post images, makes concealing the identity harder and raises the potential risk for the uploader to the extend that it will be very difficult to go through the process only to cause problems to the community.

Let me also state this clearly: I don't have an issue with disabling image uploads here, or changing the default setting of instance federation to a more limiting one. Or both. I don't mind linked images to external sites.

I am sorry you had to see such content. No, it doesn't seem to go away. At least it hasn't for me, after almost 2 decades :-/

Well, I am sure many are tempted.. I am waiting to see if a berson decides to carry the ring so I can offer my axe :p

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So, the rock is the guy that carries muscle mass 7 - 10 times what normally fits his frame because of steroids supporting it instead of his gonads, right? Obvious answer then is -no. Not unless you are blasting all kinds of PED.

I am no expert by any means, but my experience (in decades of sports and experimentation) is really close to a study I 've seen in the past, that proposed 0,8 to 1,6-2 grams per kg of bodyweight. I go for the upper limit when I increase activity (especially strength related, instead of endurance), I go for the lower limit when I decrease activity. Been healthy and strong during all this time.

As for food I try to find the least amount possible my body needs to process (why overload my vital organs? is there a good reason?) in order to support my lifestyle (active, and heavy on sports). Going for the most amount possible without a good reason, I consider greedy and harmful for both the environment and the rest of the people. Resources are not limitless.

As for the expensive part, protein exists in cheaper foods too, not everyone relies heavily (or at all) on animal products. Simple (cheap, especially if you prepare them yourself) examples: legumes & beans, seitan, tofu (and all kinds of tofu related products), tempeh. Especially legumes & beans are incredibly rich in most of the other important nutrients too. One might consider vital wheat gluten a protein powder (almost 80grams of protein in 100grams total), even though its lacking a bit in the amino-acids that legumes/beans are full of, comparing the price it has with an actual protein supplement makes it pretty clear what overpriced means.

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Great topic! Looks like a very fun book to read too. So do the Sapiens books mentioned in the article. Nice.

In this scenario, “Bob” is a hypothetical guy who believes that a woman has cut in front of him in line at the supermarket checkout. He and the woman get into a brief shouting match before she informs Bob that she’d just ducked out of her spot in the line to replace a carton of eggs that turned out to be cracked. He apologizes, and that’s the end of it—except someone recorded the incident on their smartphone, then uploaded only the shouting match, reading all kinds of deplorable motives into it. “The video need only include a hint of cultural asymmetry,” Rose-Stockwell writes:

It may be seen as an angry outburst by a man (Bob) toward a woman (the other shopper). Or a Democrat (Bob) toward a Republican (the lady). Or any heightened reflection of their implied group identity. It can be repackaged as an example of a troubling trend in society. People who feel this way who see the clip now have an opportunity to explain exactly why it’s offensive. They can link it to a larger narrative that may have nothing to do with the actual event itself.

That outrage is often stoked by journalists, who, Rose-Stockwell notes, “are shockingly susceptible to reporting on this kind of thing,” furthering what he calls “trigger chains: cascades of outrage that are divorced from the original event.”

This is so common.. And not only with incidents where a part of them can be taken out of context and used to evoke emotional response related to rage.

As a cyclist I have to say, this is so bad and on so many levels that I couldn't stop laughing. Many bike lanes are made poorly, but this is clearly one of the worst I 've seen.

A database that’s crummy (but functional) is an important issue, but one that seems like it can wait.

That's often the problem with how software is perceived by a user. Simple functionality might introduce complexity in already existing functionality effectively breaking it at the scale it is supposed to support. The technical aspect of a piece of software will always seem secondary for the end user, regardless of the functionality it appears to be second to. That's only logical. You don't care about a certain metal's properties when you buy a knife, you care about the kind of cuts it can perform.

My issue with the project is that it's mostly written in a language that I am not familiar with, and much of the scale it's built to support is over a protocol that is also new to me. I can't really judge whether the issues (especially content removal and how actions are synchronized between separate federated instances) are a database issue, a protocol issue, a sub optimal approach to the complexity or even just doable in the current context.

Designing and implementing properly and fully working transparent software is always hard. And in new protocols and contexts is even more so.

You are correct though, these things are not important for the people who use it. What is important for the users is how the piece of software can, and if it can, allow for the use they want to make of it.

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I’ve seen multiple times about “having to write an essay to be allowed in”

I am not really active on any other nodes. I am new in the concept of federated lemmy instances and completely out of touch with mastodon or any other social media based on similar principles (I only check beehaw announcements in situations like yesterday), so I have not witnessed this (or maybe most of what @Gaywallet@beehaw.org refers to in the OP). But I felt conflicted in the opposite direction when I decided to sign up after having read the documents. After a couple of weeks of lurking and watching the application of what is described in the documents I actually wanted to write an essay in the sign up form and I tried quite hard to keep it short ("It will be read by a real person"). After more than 2 decades in various online communities and platforms, there simply are way too many reasons that justify what I was feeling. Which can simply be summarized as "I am really very happy I found this community".

There was a time before google's search engine, when all the previous attempts had not managed to become the dominant entry point for the web. During that time, we would find interesting web pages through people and/or specific interests. Then, google came, and for a time it was good (read like The Second Renaissance Part I story from animatrix). Ads and SEO were not everywhere yet, content mattered more than those two. So, while I came here to suggest what @bbbhltz@beehaw.org commented, when I read your post text I thought that maybe, at least for what we tend to constantly look for news, articles and discussions, we shouldn't constantly rely on search engines. For example, most technologies have news letters, weekly/monthly magazines, mailing lists, community boards or other forms of group communication through which you can gradually discover better content sources (individuals or groups) on what interests you. Without the search engine service and its cost (direct or indirect) between you and the content.

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For most people, eating bugs is only natural.

So, while we globally enjoy this heat wave, most of us hoping for lower temperatures. While some discuss the political aspect of this, which really is large, already established, economic interests resisting alternatives. I am just going to quote something near the end of the article.

Insect farming is arguably much more efficient than cattle production. One hundred pounds (45 kilograms) of feed produces 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of beef, while the same amount of feed yields 45 pounds (20 kilograms) of cricket.

To clarify, I have no problems with people who eat meat in general, especially if it’s for survival. I just don’t get the people who also claim to actually like animals, claim to care about animal rights, claim to care about whether the chicken they’d eat were raised in cruelty-free free-range farms, but also don’t see an issue with killing them.

Two of my four grandparents were raised and lived most of their lives in a small village, that didn't even have electricity until they had kids going to school. Extremely poor with almost nothing of most of what is now common in western societies. So, try to imagine living in a place where absolutely nothing is considered waste. Whatever little objects, their houses, everything they used was made by people who knew how to work with some crude material, whether it was wood or some kind of metal. They relied on animals and small pieces of land to get through each year. Literally zero waste. Composting was not a trend, but a necessity.

Now try to imagine a woman, who had little (no plants, chickens don't lay eggs in the heavy winter, goats don't have young ones to feed, so no milk either, no fridges, let alone freezers) food to go through the winter and would rather eat a little less and feed wild birds than watch them freezing to death (most living animals need food to regulate body temperature, among other things). Same thing I would watch her do during all seasons. She would always leave fruit on the trees during spring and summer just so that birds would have something to eat near her house. Fruit that was essential to her nutrition, because it was extremely limited, but she did it anyway.

Now try to imagine this woman, butchering a rabbit or a chicken or a goat. Because she did. Feeling no remorse or any negative emotion. And was pretty good at it. The same person who would get furious if someone mistreated a living animal in her presence.

There is some order in life, which is lost on people who never had a chance to see anything except an urban environment. If you were to meet a person like that, who pretty much embodies the supposed conflict you think exists in this behavior, and you talked in the manner you wrote this comment, you probably wouldn't even get a response. Maybe a smile, maybe a shake of a head.

If you actually want to get how both those actions (butchering and eating a living animal, and caring for all living animals -even the ones you know you are going to kill and eat at some point in their life) can be done by people in peace with their actions, if you really want to do that, to understand, probably the best way is to find people living like this and spend a month near them. Live and observe.

This comment is not meant to justify all the wrongs of how livestock is treated on large scales in pursuit of profit. Neither people eating more meat in a week than their ancestors probably ate in many months. I am not interested in debating this either. Just pointing out that this was the way of life of most people in the past. How long ago, depends on where you were born on this planet.

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Eating less is not that hard

There are always hundreds of excuses, but hardly any of them are reasonable.

but blaming everything on external factors is addict behavior.

Okay, I 'll give it a go too. Even though @storksforlegs@beehaw.org already mentioned what I am about to say, obviously to no effect.

You say you are speaking from experience. That you 've lost some weight. And then you make claims that go way beyond your experience, that are far tοo general. I won't go so far as to say that the position you support is ignorant. This won't be nice. I will assume you are more educated than I am. But I will point out, that your experience alone hardly constitutes solid ground to speak for everyone. There is room there for you to be mistaken.

Addictive behavior is not rational. People get addicted to stuff, whether there are inherent addictive qualities to whatever they get addicted to or not, not because they choose so, but because they are vulnerable to addictive behavior. This, more often than not, is something indicating other psychological issues that need to be addressed. It can be insane amounts of stress, it can be depression, it can be many other issues that need to be addressed in order for someone with addictive behavior to get to a place where that person no longer needs crutches to function. Attacking how an addict rationalizes the addiction, not only doesn't address the issues that lead to this behavior but it probably adds to to them.

So, since you can't know why someone is displaying addictive behavior, implying, for example, that a person with severe anxiety that turns to food for comfort is lazy, is actually neither nice nor helpful. It's not even speaking the truth as you said. It's just negative, probably adding to the problem causing the unhealthy relationship with food.

I won't bother with the rest of the generalizations you 've already made, but I will suggest this. If you want others to respect your experience when you speak about it, try to consider its limitations before you draw assumptions that include other people's lives.

I never tried to limit the fat too much, for various reasons. Always considered it important for hormones. Also, it is nearly impossible to cook real food without using some kind of fat. Then, I always enjoyed nuts. Whenever I wanted to lower my bodyfat, I always tried to limit carbohydrates, which, again, I don't really want to lower too much because getting them from unprocessed plant foods is actually a side effect in the attempt to get sufficient quantities of micronutrients.

Never thought about gallstones before this article. It also contains a very nice explanation of how fats are usually categorized. Also, the point about fat soluble vitamins (some of which we store in our own bodyfat) is very interesting to remember when considering deficiencies. Really worth the read, even though it doesn't provide definitive answers on anything (which would actually be suspicious if it did), it contains some very important points one has to consider when thinking about food and quantities.

Btw, since I enjoy a lot of cycling the past few years, I think it doesn't really make sense to consider competitive (especially elite) athletes as an example of healthy individuals. I mean, some of the top cyclists drop to insanely low single digit bodyfat percentages for the competitions they participate in. Which is neither sustainable nor healthy.

Anyway, that was a very interesting article, thanks!

Placing orthotics bellow your arches is very harmful in the long term. In general you shouldn't prevent your foot doing what it is designed to do (big heel drops, fat soft shoe soles, orthotics) unless there is a problem (read injury) and only temporarily (until you recover). So are narrow toe-boxes in shoes, your toes should be able to move freely and naturally. If they can't, the restriction will create irreversible (read: even surgery won't completely fix what they cause) problems, that mess up all the bio-mechanics of the leg. I wish I knew this when I was younger, working 8-10-12 hour shifts (yeah, I know), as a waiter/barman.

Btw, it might sound counter-intuitive, but proper running, relaxed and a little each day (even as little as 10 minutes) can help getting your legs stronger, relieve stress, restore fascia (without stretching, static stretching never ever worked well for me) and keep it flexible and strong, reset nervous system firing patterns on your shoulders (moving your hands like you do in running with the proper form is way more effective than PT exercises like trap-3-raises for the traps) to counter balance the amount of time you spend looking down, help re-align your spine, and pretty much invigorate your whole body.

But most importantly, rest and eat well. This will be the defining factor on whether your body will adapt and get stronger or not, and how long it will need to do it. We are supposed to be standing all day (not facing downwards though), your feet shouldn't be the issue here, your neck & shoulders are the part that is assuming the unnatural positions for extended periods of time, so as often as you can break them and do some gentle full range of motion movements (a.k.a dynamic stretching) the better.

Regardless, good luck with your new job! :-)

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If persistence hunting was really happening, female bodies might actually be better suited for the task.

Our ancestors probably weren't eating horses in cool climates though. At least not very often! :-)

Well, that's just my experience with building software. Not sure if it has any educational value as such..

It's pretty common for people who are not part of the design/implementation to underestimate the difficulty and the complexity, to mistake reluctance or delays as incompetence or indifference. It's also quite common even for people who are part of the design/implementation to underestimate the complexity or already implemented assumptions that have to be adjusted, which almost always leads to defective software. Add to that the fact that it is an open source project currently at 0.18.4 version and you can explain all of the issues without attributing ill intend to anyone.

Getting nasty comments when you repeatedly point out that you are not familiar with the process would just be unfair. Besides, it's the user experience (moderators/admins/hosts are users too) you are commenting on, making a completely valid point about the importance of moderation in building a community.

I really wish it wasn't built on rust so I could actually be helpful :-/

Foot immersion, especially if you are going to sit somewhere for hours (i.e. office chair), can be really helpful. Has been for me during a heat wave (temperatures inside the house well over 90 degrees) without a/c. It's quite easy too, as long as you have a large enough medium that can hold enough cold water to cover your ankles.

Salivating uncontrollably while reading the comments..

So, since it's not mentioned yet, I 'll go with mushroom powders. Flavor and properties depend on which kinds of dried mushrooms are used, but they are just an incredible ingredient to add!

Nick Fletcher, a Conservative member who represents part of Yorkshire, in northern England, called for a debate about “the international socialist concept” of 15-minute cities, which, he said, “would take away your personal freedoms.”

Yeah right, like the freedom to have people, places and stuff u need out of reach.

Nice read OP, thanks.

What if you are toxic to an user, on the other side of your screen, who happens to have depression or other mental disorders, and you don’t know that fact? Would you feel OK knowing that you’re driving someone to hurt themselves, or worse?

This is probably one of the most important things to consider before posting something in a public space.

And this is not something that occurs recently or during the last 5 years. I’ve been browsing internet since 2006, and it was as bad as it is now, just with other intermediaries, like online chats, forums, etc.

What you describe here and above this sentence is true. It happened, it happens still. But, in my experience, not to the same extend. I 've been spending time in online communities since the early 90's and I believe there is a reason the toxicity is getting worse. Part of it is what @daredevil@kbin.social said. I mean most of the platforms offered by huge corporations try to drive engagement for profit. To achieve this, to get more people involved and engaging as much as possible, the interactions have to get limited to the least common denominator. It's not just reaction buttons, it's much more than this. Another part of it is the technological shift. The web was populated by significantly less netizens before certain technological advancements, with probably the most important of these being the smart phones. I believe this combination is the reason. The huge increase of people surfing the web and the appearance of huge corporations actively controlling how new people get used to surfing the web.

Btw at 2006 google was already there and quite big and facebook was already starting to get big.

Anyway, thanks for the link, as a fediverse newbie, I really appreciate it!

The Reddit-style presentation of topics and ranking comments isn’t really conducive to lengthy, quality discussions that persist over a period of time.

I don't know whether @Penguincoder@beehaw.org had all these in mind, but as far as lengthy & quality discussions go, everything you wrote to support this sentece, in my experience, seems 100% correct. There was a time, when forums when used more, during which a discussion on a subject would carry on for weeks, even months, between different individuals. Taking the time, thinking over the subject and coming back with a response after days was not at all uncommon.

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So what is it with Anakin's picture? Javascript is the dark side of the, web development, force? XD

Seriously tho, valid points.

Imo, there’s no shame in getting orthodontia just because you prefer that aesthetic or really don’t like the way your teeth currently are, either. None whatsoever.

Even though I agree with what you say, I think the article was not an attempt to shame people who get their teeth fixed for whatever reason, cosmetic or functional. I perceived it more like an attempt to explore the extend of the unrealistic standards propagated through media, cinematic or web based.

I mean, what about body dysmorphia? It's not the people who fall into this trap that are the issue. They are not vain, and they probably actually suffer in more ways than one. They are actually the victims of unrealistic standards propagated by media. I believe that attacking those standards is not the same as attacking the people that identify themselves in them.

And it doesn't really stop at the teeth. It's everywhere. Bodybuilders struggling for years to achieve physiques that are not only impossible to achieve without PED's but actually also harmful to their health (especially if they start using drugs). Men injuring their bodies in countless ways to match false standards of what strength is supposed to look like. Women performing dangerous and sometimes clearly unhealthy plastic surgeries to match false standards of what attractive female figures are supposed to look like. Young people getting their faces changed permanently before they actually get a chance to experience the world fully.

This is not a new thing either. If you start looking into our past, there have been countless types of clothes that fit like a fingerless glove which people used to wear in order to conform to whatever social standards were at the time.

What is new though, is the extend to which these standards spread through modern media.. Comparing the current situation to the one before the web, like for example the extend to which magazines or tv shows could influence people's standards, looks scary to me. Oppressive to say the least.

Yet when you go to the doctor how much time do they spend talking about your cardio routine vs popping you on the scales or talking about weight?

Well, last doctors I 've seen actually got angry when I mentioned that I 'll get back on my bike. They said 2 weeks after the surgery to insert plate and screws after my crash were not enough. They didn't bother to ask my weight at any instance. Orthopedic surgeons.. XD

Seriously though, effects of exercise on human health are not exactly lacking in research. Its pretty old, but I found it really very interesting.

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To drive down costs, the meat industry relies on practices that can increase the spread of disease, like overcrowding and intensive breeding, which can trigger the need for gruesome practices like feedback to work around the problems it’s created.

Americans eat more animals than practically any other country — around 264 pounds of red and white meat, 280 eggs, 667 pounds of dairy, and around 20.5 pounds of seafood per person each year.

Insane amounts, horrible -mostly unseen- reality to support them.

As someone who grew up with a (quite) younger sibling in the most disabling end of the spectrum, witnessing all the development from infancy to adulthood, I am very reluctant to recommend for/against any specific approach, because I think that what matters most is the people who actually practice it. So, I absolutely agree with the last sentence of your comment.

The negative aspects of ABA are not entirely in the past. I am not in a position to verify the information I will quote, but this is mentioned in the third of the linked articles:

Mandell says ABA needs to renounce that history — especially the early reliance on punishments like yelling, hitting, and most controversially electroshocks, which are still used in a notorious residential school in Massachusetts called the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center.

To be clear: I am not arguing with your experience here. Rather, I am pointing out how important is the kind of practice of whatever theory and what the focus of the practice actually is. It's really very difficult to find professionals who are actually both able and willing to care properly for autistic people. At least in the place I live.

Beyond that, I have to say that there are many things that now have positive effects on people's lives that weren't exactly positive in their original forms.

Responses from those users are more likely to pendantic, overly argumentative, and unhelpful.

I can't always be sure for the first two for myself. I do try to be helpful though, which seems a little easier to judge. Now, when I find it difficult to judge how my own comments can be perceived, how is it possible to be sure about other people's posts and comments..

The rest of my thoughts are pretty much what @HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org said.

Ah, fellow runner..

Less dirty search (doesn't even classify as quick), more recent, better documented, with some testing, without the console logs (lol what). Take a look.. There are actually quite few attempts, depending on what stack you are searching for and how you search.

Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phytochemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control.

Compared to what though? If you only eat properly selected (fat to protein ratio) meat products (fatty meat, eggs, hard naturally maturing cheese) with a proper selection of vegetables, so that they contain all the micronutrients you need in good quantities, fiber and are low on carbs, the amounts of carbohydrates you 'll be getting will definitely be low enough to have perfect serum glucose -most of your energy will be coming from ketone bodies. You can't have elevated serum glucose if you don't rely on carbs for energy. It's pretty tough to mess up the metabolic pathways related to carbohydrates too with that approach. Which is pretty easy to do if your focus is to just eliminate animal products, since most plant foods are loaded with carbohydrates. When the objective is health, the focus should be proper selection of foods for the body first and then everything else.

Of course vegetables (fiber), fruits (water & fiber), whole grains (fiber), legumes (fiber), soy products (debatable, tofu, tofu skins, tempeh all have low to zero amount of carbs), nuts/seeds (fiber) are handled better as far as their carbohydrate content goes since they are metabolized at a slower pace than white rice or flour products. But it's not the meat in the burger that messes up your glucose levels, its the potatoes and the bread. And if you don't match your activity levels with the quantities of -easier-for-your-body- carbohydrate sources from plant foods, you will start having issues too, quantity matters as much as quality in this aspect of nutrition.

This is not a comment to support animal products, just to point out that what messes up serum glucose is improper selection of plant based foods, not saturated fat or meat products in general (probably with the exception of many dairy products).

You can also just as easily find widespread deficiencies in important things mainly or only found in plant-based foods like fiber

There are other deficiencies too if you don't eat proper plant based foods (again like the ones mentioned in the first quote of my comment), which can be equally important. Easiest example is magnesium. All the greatest sources of it are plant based foods. This metal is also a good reason why legumes/beans are important (apart from the obvious abundance of potassium). Seeds and nuts are a great source too, but cost more (not just to buy them, they take up much more resources from the environment to produce them).

People who rely heavily on meat, thinking this is easy access to full of essential amino-acids protein (which it is, muscle tissue is something of a protein storage for most of animal bodies), won't be getting magnesium in good quantities unless they start eating proper plants or buying supplements (created from plant matter), since most of magnesium (and many other micronutrients like it) is stored in the bones of the animals (which we don't eat, and bone broths don't do much either). It's pretty funny that many people think they can't get proper protein from plants, which is untrue, but in fact it's the other way around, as far as deficiencies go, once you start looking at micronutrients.

Tiny indeed, especially if it were to draw general conclusions. But it doesn't.

I am glad that you wouldn't get worked up about the fact that one of the most important markers of health of the human body quickly deteriorates when you don't move at all. I wouldn't either. The fact is so obvious that it should be common sense.

What is interesting in this study, is the follow-up, on those few people. Not just the very rapid decline of their cardiovascular systems shown initially, but the comparison of the decline shown 30 and 40 years later. Even if those 5 samples are outliers (maybe they are the worst cases, maybe they are the best cases, we can't know, 5 is too few), the comparison remains impressive.

But maybe its just me.

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Lastly, one unique aspect of the study is the focus on only protective foods, i.e. a dietary pattern score that highlights what is missing from the food supply, especially in poorer world regions, but this does not negate the importance of limiting the consumption of harmful foods such as highly processed foods.

For what it's worth they mention this at the section "strengths and limitations" near the end (bold is mine) and it's quite a long read.

Also, human metabolism changes with age, so the habits that have sustained your health for the past decade may not continue to work in the future.

While this is certainly true, I feel the need to say here that the first time I looked at the contestants of an ultra-marathon event near me I was surprised to find that there were people well over their fifties participating. I mean, at least as far as this habit goes, their metabolism can't be very slow..

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Attack the position, not the person is what we used to say in a forum I frequented many years ago. While it sounds simple, it's quite difficult to do in practice, whether you are the one attacking the position or the one receiving the attack on your positions. Still, there were really very few people who could do this correctly. You would notice new members of the forum, getting personally offended when a position they were expressing was attacked, without actually getting attacked as persons themselves. Very few faced such situations properly. Looks like (and it seems it's only getting worse as web netizens increase, and commercial interests facilitate shallow exchanges) people have a really hard time separating respect for the position they hold and respect for them as persons. Also, it's really impossible, there is practically no space for a disagreement to have a productive outcome (even if the difference in viewpoints remains) once personal attacks begin. For that reason I believe we can and we must always respect the person when in disagreement, regardless of how hard it might be.

In the thread @HumbleFlamingo@beehaw.org mentioned, its obvious, at least the way I see it, that it was not the position that was being attacked.

Believe it or not, what you swallow has almost nothing to do with your weight. The only place the body absorbs energy from food is in the intestines, and the brain controls that process.

I would believe it if I started gaining weight by just breathing. Also, no. Not the only place. Part of the alcohol consumed is absorbed through the stomach.

The digestive tract is a tube, open at both ends, through which food passes. The process of extracting energy from that food is complex and highly tunable: the brain controls the production and secretion of hundreds of enzymes and other chemicals, as well as the physical action of the muscles lining the tube.

The brain controls pretty much everything, and this everything is highly tunable. I mean, how else would well adjusted people adapt to the highly complex lives they live as adults? With commercial pills?

From the article..

The country has recognised same-sex unions since 2015 but stops short of full marriage equality.

&

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister of Greece, has promised to legalize same-sex marriage in a huge step forward for LGBTQ+ rights. “Same-sex marriage will happen at some point and it’s part of our strategy,” he said during an interview with Bloomberg Television in Athens on 4 July.

But in reality, as @strangerloop@beehaw.org pointed out, in recent elections 12.76% of the voters went with far right (3 parties, one of them directly supported by convicted criminal party with many Nazis in their line-up) whose views on the subjects are clearly against.

And, even though same-sex unions were recognized in 2015, when the relevant legislation was put into a vote, the party that is now in government (40.56% of the voters) voted against the same-sex unions (31 voted no / 18 voted yes / 27 were not present).

So, even though this sounds like good news and I hope it is actually true, it looks more like part of their communication strategy on the media rather than part of an actual agenda for the future.

So in my own paraphrased and cobbled together words, structural color is different from pigment. Pigment is based primarily on the absorption of light and reflection back of some of it, while structural color is based purely on the reflection of light by microscopic structures somehow arranged to wavelengths of light.

Structural color depends on the arrangement (structure) of the organelles that will produce certain effects on the way light travels when it meets them. Color from just pigments depends on the type of pigment which determines which wavelengths will be absorbed from it and which will be reflected. You can have certain structural color from melanosomes that contain pigments positioned in a manner relevant to the observable light properties (which for example will produce blue from a pigment other than blue, mentioned as rare in the video). So, they are different, but they can co-exist (pigmentation & structure that facilitates certain light phenomena) in organelles like melanosomes.

Beautiful subject :-)

I like my bread, my sides, my potatoes, my noodles, my rice, and etc. These are all things with protein. Just not enough to get to 100+ figure.

These are all great carb sources, most meals contain them for that reason, not for their protein. Their protein is really negligible. Let's take a look,

  • baked potatoes ~ 1.7g protein in 100g (1.7%)
  • Rice ~ 7.5g protein in 100g. (7.5%)
  • Bread, I assume common bread based on wheat flour, so roughly 12g of protein per 100g. (12%) This one is not exactly negligible, but it has almost as high carb content (~75g) as rice (~80g).
  • Noodles, depends on what they are made of. Wheat flour or rice, you can see the previous bullets.

So what you say makes sense. If you try to get all your protein mostly from such sources, you will load a great deal of carbohydrates, almost certainly more than you need, even as a very active athlete. Regardless of what path you choose though, even without chicken breasts, there are foods with great concentrations of protein.

And I think you are overestimating the amount of protein you need. 100+ figure is fine, but really not necessary, anything close to 80 for the weight you mentioned, especially in a fairly inactive person, should be pretty much fine. Especially if you have days every once in a while that you go well above 100g.

Carbs tho, regardless of size or calories, once you load all your glycogen (which is what carbs are converted to if you are not already full) stores in the muscle tissue and liver, if you are inactive, will become triglycerides (fat). And an average person doesn't store too much glycogen either, you can estimate it around 500g to get a sense of how excessive carbs can make us both fat and, eventually, sick. One important reason why complete inactivity (especially in the big muscles groups, take a walk, run, lift, jump, dance -use your legs!), makes us fat fast.

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Not sure why, but the previous one made me smile. When I think about it, I believe there's two reasons why.

First, that the previous looked more like an actual insect. It clicked in my mind instantly as an insect and then I noticed all the cute details.

Second, I think the angle was different. After being stung from bees a lot, some of them on the face, this angle makes me feel that it's about to land on me. The previous angle (if I remember correctly) made me feel like I was an observer of the insect going about it's life, whether wasp or bee, no feeling of threat.

Not sure if I describe it properly, maybe just the usual old vs new and force of habit..

I don't mind reading news from other places of the world (I am not a US local), some of them affect me anyways. I don't mind bad news either, news tend to be bad anyways, regardless of medium, I consider it part of the package and treat it accordingly.

What I really disliked on reddit, and many social media before or in parallel to it's rise, was the lack of depth. And I don't even mean the amount of thought going into a response or a post. I find nothing more disheartening, when I think of commenting or posting something in order to discuss it, than seeing similar subjects, being commented on (and such comments being massively upvoted) by people who didn't even bother to go past the title or the first few sentences of what is linked. I see this happening here also and quite often. And I don't think there is much to be done (not just on the server, on the web in general).

I am eating something like 400grams of watermelon as I read this study. My feet hurt a little, its been a long ride, almost 3,5 hours (no snacks) on the bike. 80+ km distance, 1300+ meters of elevation. I keep wondering, does that count as hibernation? Will I become obese until I get 40 (getting close)? Will my (lower than 15% atm) bodyfat increase? Is it only the few grams of fructose in watermelon, or is it sorbitol (produces small fatty acids when eaten in moderation) too? What about lycopene (makes my sperm diagrams look like I am in my 20ies)? Oooof, all those studies, really, make me worry! At least I 'm safe, in the winter there is really no watermelon for poor me that doesn't shop fruit out of season. Maybe that's the secret and I don't get fat? Who knows !!