wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Top 10% of American adults consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week
wes-exp's comments
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Top 10% of American adults consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week
promoted by people wanting to feel better about their alcohol consumption
Maybe, but this works in reverse too. There is a bias towards assuming that behavior perceived as sinful must also be harmful. This manifests in bad science in any number of examples: meat consumption, fat consumption, and yes, alcohol consumption. The USDA food pyramid (1992 one) came out against sinful fats and guess what happened? A low-fat/high-carb craze that was completely ruinous to public health.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Top 10% of American adults consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week
I agree that it is silly to think that not drinking is actually a risk factor for heart disease. I was never trying to support that claim. I was just trying to point out the institutional biases that may be at play when AHA makes recommendations about alcohol consumption.
I would also like to point out that the very AHA page you linked to states "The incidence of heart disease in those who drink moderate amounts of alcohol (no more than two drinks per day for men or one drink per day for women) is lower than in nondrinkers." So there may be a potential benefit there that AHA acknowledges.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Top 10% of American adults consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week
Don't single out cancer without considering all-cause mortality. A number of studies show that moderate alcohol consumption results in overall less death even if cancer risk is increased.
"The beneficial effects of alcohol are not only evident in cardiovascular disease, but also in reducing mortality from all causes."
http://www.medhelp.org/heart-disease/articles/Alcohol-Consum...
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Top 10% of American adults consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week
Keep in mind that almost no organization (outside alcohol sellers) can "recommend" alcohol consumption for the simple reason that alcohol is extremely negative for certain cohorts (i.e., alcoholics). Therefore, even if there are demonstrated benefits for the majority of the healthy population, no one wants to be seen as supporting the harms, which, in fairness, are often extremely bad. That said, even your quoted text admits that there may be potential health benefits to alcohol consumption in moderation.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Defining Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables: A Nutrient Density Approach
Yeah the title should be something like "Study identifies the most nutrient-dense foods". Of course, I doubt that would get upvoted as much.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests
And software built by volunteers, like OpenSSL, has proven to be so much more secure. It's not like heartbleed left practically the entire internet vulnerable to abuse. Oh wait, yes it did.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Ask HN: Palantir or Facebook?
Palantir is an SV company too. It was founded by Peter Thiel (et al) and its HQ is in Palo Alto.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: The Loss of Skill in the Industrial Revolution
Java vs. Lisp/OCaml/etc.
It is thought that these niche languages are more productive in the hands of an expert, but then, you need an expert, which is scary for the corporate bottom line. Hence the mass adoption of Java to keep workers interchangeable.
Thankfully a few companies have realized what Jane Street did: niche languages actually make hiring easier if you are looking for top talent, and of course, the productivity is better too.
Related: http://flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html
"The management world has tried to develop software engineering processes that allow people to be plugged into them like interchangeable components."
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
Excellent point. I found myself struggling to describe Lisp in terms that non-Lispers would understand (blub paradox I guess), and I figured almost everyone knows what a REPL is. You're absolutely right that a REPL itself is just scratching the surface, and there is all kinds of interactivity beyond that.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
Still ahead of mainstream programming languages, which are typically imperative by design, and usually overly "noun" focused compared to the "verb"-friendly nature of Lisp. Adding map/reduce/etc. to the noun languages is a bolt-on that is not exactly ideal.
Take Java 8 which now has map: sure, you can pass a lambda expression with a custom function body, but is using functions (particularly side-effect-free ones) as arguments idiomatic otherwise? I can only imagine the amount of ceremony code that ensues when trying to merge those worlds. Don't get me wrong, having map/reduce/etc. is an improvement to Java for sure, but Lisp is still well ahead on the overall cohesion and utility of such things within the context of the rest of the language.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
Yes, it was a poor choice of terms. To be clear, eval isn't equivalent except within the narrow theoretical notion of turing completeness: it can do I/O, for instance file I/O. And it accepts high-level language code directly which is very important in a practical sense compared to, say, accepting nand instructions only.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
I'm thinking you're right in the theoretical sense, but I'm right in the practical sense. Every time I've looked at hygienic macro systems, it just seems like now I'm jumping through extra hoops to overcome a more restrictive way of doing things. Is that extra information you cite typically useful for anything besides safety? Can you give an example?
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
Fine, but can you name some language features that came out after the '90s that weren't in Lisp already? Excluding type systems?
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
I understand what you're saying. What I mean is not the trivial "nand is turing complete" sense, which I agree is harmful and silly, but full eval capabilities. Lisp macros can fully evaluate Lisp code, and I consider this a great feature, but I don't know how else to describe them. "Full evaluation macros"?
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
Type systems are the one exception, but it still remains broadly true that Lisp was way ahead of everybody. There are many things we could talk about besides type systems:
Lambda expressions - just now reaching Java and C++, been in Lisp forever
Garbage collection – (obviously)
Turing-complete (edit: fully evaluating) macro systems – I've heard C++ is moving in this direction (not sure to be honest) but Lisp is still ahead on this
Gradual/optional typing – Others have been moving towards this, CL has had it forever
Interactivity/REPL – e.g. Swift may finally give a REPL to systems programmers, Lisp has had it forever
Dynamism/late-binding – Lisp is still way ahead on this, goes hand-in-hand with interactivity
Everything serializable – Lisp is still ahead
Structured code editing (paredit) – Lisp is still ahead, not sure anyone else even knows what this is
Multiple inheritance – I think this is coming to Java finally
Image systems (hibernating a running process) – Still ahead
Condition system / advanced exception handling – Still ahead
Functional programming techniques (map, reduce, etc.) – Still ahead
Keyword arguments – Recently added to Ruby, Lisp has had them forever
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Why Racket? Why Lisp?
Author is wrong about hygienic macros – they are not more powerful. They are less powerful, and more complicated, in order to enforce safety. Whether this is preferable or not is a matter of debate.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android
Indeed. Developers look to Google to set an example, but it seems that Google itself is looking to developers to set an example. Hence we have a circular pattern of language adoption :) But it doesn't have to be that way.
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android
When I say proven out, I don't mean in the sense of being widely used; I mean academically. In other words, I am trying to say that it's not a research problem, it's a problem of, say, engineering and marketing to bring it to reality. Cool language features are well established in academia (but tend not to go anywhere due to entrenchment and industry complacency – in that sense I would agree that they aren't 'proven').
wes-exp | 11 years ago | on: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android
I think WebOS was going to use JavaScript.
The thing about Java and C++ is that they themselves are around for historical reasons. Far better languages have already been proven out. But, it will take a major industry player to move the masses forward on this. Apple's Swift effort gives hope on this.
No one is saying that alcohol doesn't have negative effects on health. It's just that the positive effects of moderate consumption are stronger, enough so that overall mortality is reduced (at least according to the available scientific evidence, which I admit may not tell the whole story).