throwaway_tech

The unit economics of most of these companies just don't add up.

VCs have been playing the loss leader game...thats why the metrics always go to growth. Hey we grew x% this week/month/year, they never mention how the "growth" simultaneously leads to bigger losses. Instead its always, we can turn off the growth whenever we want and then is pure profit.

It seems like it makes no sense and this could never work, but they don't need to make a profit, they just need big growth numbers, a cult like buy in of the brand, and then unload it on the public while cashing out.

They're holing people up in hospital beds and providing supportive care if needed.

That is pretty important for people at risk. Consider lack of supportive care is what leads to most preventable deaths from regular flu progressing to other issues that will result in death, not the flu itself. For example dehydration and lung infections can be monitored and treated.

Part of the reason their numbers are so low is because they're testing, which is revealing the stacks upon stacks of asymptomatic cases or cases which lead to the sniffles.

I don't disagree, but my point is S.Korea is not just testing they are treating...if they were not treating presumably the mortality rates would increase. In other words whereas you suggest testing is proving the mortality rate is low, who many of those who tested positive received treatment? and further, got better because of treatment?

Testing is the key to treatment and minimizing mortality rates, other countries are failing on the testing, so it can be presumed they are also failing to treat (how can you treat when people aren't being tested).

Why use S.Korea's numbers? Haven't they lead the best response in terms of testing and don't they have universal healthcare? It seems to me fatality rates would likely be higher in countries that: 1) aren't testing so aggressively and 2) don't have universal access to care.

Maybe I am wrong though and there is good reason to believe S.Korea is the best example right now to use as a statistics model to apply across the entire world.

Note that this contradicts your statements that GNG will kick you out of ketosis. It absolutely will not.

Its really simple, eat nothing but chicken and/or turkey (high protein, low fat, no carb). You will not become keto adapted or fat adapted.

Alternatively enter into nutritional (dietary) ketosis with a high fat diet, then switch to chicken and/or turkey only (high protein, low fat, no carb) you will not remain in ketosis.

Do you disagree with that? Have you seen any study that shows fat/protein ratios are immaterial to nutritional ketosis?

Yes, athletes do suffer an adaptation

You admit and acknowledge an "adaptation" in this comment, but in another reply to me where I talk out the keto adaptation, you replied:

everything you're saying is a complete myth. Define what it means for the cells to adapt for "running on ketones". There's no such thing.

As previously provided:

A ketogenic diet (KD) involves using fat, a high-density substrate, as the main source in daily calorie intake while restricting carbohydrate intake [21,22]. In this way, the liver is forced to produce and release ketone bodies into the circulation [23,24,25,26]. This phenomenon is called nutritional ketosis [27,28,29]. Over time, the body will acclimate to using ketone bodies as a primary fuel, which is called keto-adaptation, an element of fat-adaptation [30,31,32]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6410243/

Several days of dietary carbohydrate restriction to levels < 40–50 g/day, with moderate protein, results in increased circulating beta-hydroxybutyrate (BOHB) by an order of magnitude. When maintained for several consecutive weeks, the metabolic state of ‘nutritional ketosis’ awakens a dormant set of genes and metabolic programs that counteract insulin resistance and manifest in several positive health outcomes. This process, referred to as ‘keto-adaptation’, is characterized by accelerated rates of whole body fatty acid oxidation, while glycolysis, insulin concentrations, insulin receptor activation and signaling, constitutive inflammation and oxidative stress are all decreased. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S24682....

Here's a list of studies on this subject — all of them showing a dicrease in performance:

I think most agree for high level athletes in anaerobic sports ketosis isn't going to be the best diet for athletic performance, but these studies don't really support what you claim

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2279002/

In conclusion, in this study we have demonstrated that VLDL-TG made a significant contribution to fuel utilization during exercise after adaptation to a fat-rich diet. The increased total fat oxidation observed after fat diet adaptation originated from both a higher plasma FA oxidation and utilization of VLDL-TG, and thus circulating VLDL-TG should be included among the lipid fuels that may be utilized during exercise.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14967870

Adaptation to a 6-week HFMP diet in non-highly trained men resulted in increased fat oxidation during exercise and small decrements in peak power output and endurance performance.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4113752/

This is the most supportive of your position, but it still acknowledges the benefits of ketosis

It can be concluded that long-term, high fat diets may be favorable for aerobic endurance athletes, during the preparatory season, when a high volume and low to moderate intensity of training loads predominate in the training process. High volume training on a ketogenic diet increases fat metabolism during exercise, reduces body mass and fat content and decreases post exercise muscle damage.

excess protein is not converted to fat via GNG, but is used for protein synthesis, and increases lean body mass.

In conclusion, after a high-protein diet, GNG was increased... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n...

Yes, everything you're saying is a complete myth. Define what it means for the cells to adapt for "running on ketones".

A ketogenic diet (KD) involves using fat, a high-density substrate, as the main source in daily calorie intake while restricting carbohydrate intake [21,22]. In this way, the liver is forced to produce and release ketone bodies into the circulation [23,24,25,26]. This phenomenon is called nutritional ketosis [27,28,29]. Over time, the body will acclimate to using ketone bodies as a primary fuel, which is called keto-adaptation, an element of fat-adaptation [30,31,32]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6410243/

emphasis added citing the following study:

Several days of dietary carbohydrate restriction to levels < 40–50 g/day, with moderate protein, results in increased circulating beta-hydroxybutyrate (BOHB) by an order of magnitude. When maintained for several consecutive weeks, the metabolic state of ‘nutritional ketosis’ awakens a dormant set of genes and metabolic programs that counteract insulin resistance and manifest in several positive health outcomes. This process, referred to as ‘keto-adaptation’, is characterized by accelerated rates of whole body fatty acid oxidation, while glycolysis, insulin concentrations, insulin receptor activation and signaling, constitutive inflammation and oxidative stress are all decreased. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S24682...

GNG is an on-demand production of glucose, and absolutely does NOT kick the body out of ketosis, or cause the brain to run on glucose.

I never said GNG kicks people out of ketosis, I said protein to fat ratios will prohibit ketosis. Yes, in ketosis your body continues to produce minimal amounts of glucose, I never said anything to the contrary.

However, GNG has a lot to do with ketosis vis-a-vis protein to fat ratios, protein to fat intake can not be to high or it will kick you out of ketosis because of GNG

Furthermore, GNG runs at mostly a constant level, does not increase with protein intake, and is at that constant level even when the body is not in ketosis.

If you over consume fat or carbs, they get stored as fat in fat cells. What happens when you over consume protein? Protein can not be stored as fat, it must first be converted to glucose, which the body will try to burn before it is stored in fat cells. This is why a high protein to fat ratio carnivore diet will prohibit ketosis or kick one out of ketosis, unlike a high fat to protein carnivore diet (again I never said the body stops producing glucose from protein in that situation, but the glucose production is minimal in ketosis because of the ratios and ketones remain the primary fuel source).

To overcome insulin resistance it takes a strict low-carb regime paired with moderate fat intake, and lowering of stress.

While generally true and correct, I can even come up with examples where this breaks down...whey oxalate being a perfect example. Whey oxalate will typically have 25g of protein and may have as low as 1 gram of carbs, but Whey oxalate will spike insulin in most people and throw most people out of ketosis.

Also most people are in ketosis before eating breakfast in the morning, because the liver's glycogen is partially depleted overnight

This is true...but it gets to my point, just because your body begins breaking down fat and producing ketones (as shown in your tests) does not mean your cells have adapted to using ketones as fuel, that requires the body to adapt.

Based on your numbers you were clearly breaking down fat and making ketones, but based on your not feeling any different I'd say your cells never adapted to ketones as the primary fuel source. This is the same for people depleting their glucose stores over night, yes they are in "ketosis", meaning they are breaking down fat and producing ketones, but that does not mean their cells are efficiently running on ketones.

My guess with you, not knowing more, is you are pretty inactive. At least I would be surprised to learn you engage in lets say an hour of cardio 4-5 times a week. I am not saying keto is the end all be all, or that everyone prefers it, but I have not met anyone who does aerobic cardio and experimented with Ketosis and not experienced a different (again good or bad). On the other hand I have met many people who tried Keto and never noticed any difference, like you describe, and the commonality seems to be they were inactive.

I run marathons and prefer running in ketosis. In ketosis I will follow a long run with some protein for muscle recovery with fats just to maintain ratios rather than carbs to refill depleted glucose stores.

For lifting/HIIT training ketosis may not be ideal. I have done it and its fine, basically I swap whey for hemp protein powder and continue using creatine post workout.

I think for most people unless they are competing or trying to gain mass they would really like the results of ketosis and lifting. You will lean out (both fat loss and less water retention) and maintain muscle mass, don't be afraid of losing your gains. On the down side the adjustment period will probably be a little longer/harder than a relatively inactive person and initially you will likely notice a decline in energy in the gym, but it will be temporary (again your body is learning to use ketones as primary fuel source and that takes time). That said once you adjust you won't find any trouble lifting heavy or running sprints, in fact you will probably be able to go longer. One benefit you really notice is lack of inflammation and soreness following workouts, in my experience the body recovers faster, though this is still about the actual food you consume (healthy omega 3s and green leafy vegetables) and not some automatic benefit of ketosis.

It is possible, I have done it myself eating a lot of eggs and fatty red meat. Also, in my case I was also already in ketosis for an extended period of time, meaning my microbiome and cells were primed for ketosis.

That said I have also done carnivore and also not been in ketosis, which I think is probably the norm for most people on carnivore because the protein/fat ratios aren't right.

The commonality in ketosis carnivore and non-ketosis carnivore is removal of refined sugar/carbs which means no insulin spikes, which means steady levels of energy without crashing.

Eating normal ammounts of carbs isn't going to kill you, it's literally our main energy source.

Its only the main energy source because its the main dietary intake. If you change your dietary intake consistent with dietary ketosis then carbs/glucose will not be the main energy source, ketones will become the main energy source.

Consider two things: 1) when in a fasted state, the body will begin to produce ketones and begins to run off of ketones instead of glucose (which our body can continue to make without eating carbs) suggesting ketones are the default energy source until we introduce dietary carbs that spike insulin; and 2) as the study notes ketones are the more efficient fuel source for the brain only because our modern diets carb laden and insulin spiking our brains are contantly using glucose instead of ketones.

The title is terrible, it should read ketosis/ketones may prevent, reverse age-related effects within the brain.

"Low carb" as the title currently reads does not necessarily result in ketosis and your body/brain running on ketones, which appears to be the scope of this study. There is more to dietary ketosis than low carb, just as an example carnivore or paleo diets are low carb, but those will generally not result in ketosis, in protein rich diets your body will convert the protein to glucose which will continue to be the primary fuel for the cells in the brain/body.

If you have never entered ketosis and experienced your brain running on ketones, I would suggest you experiment for yourself. I would say a minimum 2-3 months which should be enough time for your microbiome to change and your body/brain to adapt primarily running on ketones.

There's no need to invent violations.

I think the deceased and their family would disagree.

Sure there are existing regulations, but the idea is that as this new technology evolves and is being tested in the field we will find failures and create new regulations to govern.

Consider when the horseless carriage began replacing horse and buggy, traffic laws evolved over time as we realized we needed lanes, traffic signals, speed limits, etc...

Those laws continue to evolve to this day (ex.: red light cameras, ride-for-hire, etc...), to suggest new laws are not required for driver less vehicles and the current laws are sufficient, especially where we have driver-less vehicle death, suggests a serious disconnect with how law works.

As I replied to the first comment asking the same thing, the sentence preceding the statement you quoted explains what needs to be done:

so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment

Police can't just make up traffic violations that don't currently exist and Courts can't begin dishing out punishments that don't exist for violations that don't exist.

As I said right before the statement you quoted:

so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment

nobody was held liable and in fact no charges were pressed and no civil lawsuits were filed

As noted below Uber settled (that typically means their insurer settled) so there is no need for a civil lawsuit. That is efficiency of the system and how the system is supposed to work. In other words you only bring a suit against the insured if the insurer wrongfully denies your claim, here the insurer paid up, so there is no need for a civil suit by the estate of the deceased against Uber.

The criminal side of things is interesting...but for sake of argument lets say you were in an accident, further assume it was your fault, resulting in a fatality. Typically, unless there was a separate crime (e.g. DUI, drag racing, etc...) there will be no criminal charge, just a civil traffic ticket for the accident (in many jurisdictions there will be a specific charge/penalties for an accident resulting in a fatality, but that will still be a traffic ticket, meaning non-criminal).

I am curious if the "driver" received a traffic ticket for the accident, my guess is he did, I can't imagine the responding officer(s) not issuing a traffic ticket for an accident much less one resulting in a fatality. Interestingly these traffic tickets for accidents with fatalities do usually carry a potential penalties that include suspension of the drivers license, so I do think the law will need to catch up with reality in that regard because suspending the driver's DL doesn't seem to punish the right party in the case of a self-driving car, so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment (obviously you can't suspend the DL of a self-driving car or a car company).

Getting into an incubator or getting money from investors is zero measure of business success.

That is sort of like saying money doesn't buy happiness...true, but financial stress or poverty typically can be outright bars to happiness. As you say YC admission or raising funds from investors isn't a measure of business success...but then again I haven't seen a tech unicorn that hasn't been funded by investors.

Head down, work, balanced lifestyle, try to make something small succeed on your own.

That is a great message to tell to the 99% that get rejected from YC and will never touch VC funding...but even that sounds more like a pipe dream than the American dream now a days.

Maybe Twitter did this for the free publicity.

I think even more interesting is when I wake up before my alarm and actually get up/out of bed I feel like I had proper sleep. However, if I decide to go back to sleep for the short period of time before my alarm, I usually wake up by the alarm and feel like I got terrible sleep.

there exist frames in which an event and the detection of light from it are simultaneous.

At the distance from Earth to Betelgeuse?

If you ever see it go supernova, just remember it went supernova 642.5 years ago...or if it actually does go supernova in your lifetime, you unfortunately not see it.

the idea of potentially walking among clones made me sick

Well for sure you are walking among "test tube babies" (IVF) where an egg is fertilized by donor sperm and transferred into a uterus, (sometimes the biological mother and sometimes a non-biological "host").

I don't really see the difference from starting with donor sperm and donor egg and starting with donor cell and donor egg.

Admittedly I have read all kinds of case law in this area (not clones but parental rights with respect to biological mothers/children and host mothers), so perhaps I am a little desensitized to the uniqueness and reality of birthing options made available today.

We know that exercise levels and diet can lower or increase inflammation.

I think it is extremely important to distinguish the types of inflammation. Exercise creates acute inflammation (for example the breakdown of certain muscle tissue in response to being worked) and the inflammation causes the body to repair the muscle, typically the resulting muscle tissue is improved. Whereas dietary inflammation, or inflammation caused by certain foods, is generally chronic and has damaging effects on everything down to DNA in the cells and this damaged DNA can get copied into new cells.

So we have this sort of rare magic bullet when it comes to health, cognition and aging. Lowering inflammation won't fix everything of course, but it will lower your risk of pretty much everything.

You said it perfectly following this statement, it is simple but unfortunately that does not make it easy.

I’m convinced that a human has definitely been cloned.

Me too. The article is full of stories of physicists; scientists and well funded companies who set off to clone a human...one company even left the grasp of US regulatory bodies and went to the Bahamas and claims they have successfully cloned more than a dozen humans but won't reveal the clones or parent(s) due to privacy.

And the scientists' stories are all to similar, with initial claims of successes then subsequent admissions of fraud for there not to be more there there. These are legit physicists and scientists from around the World, presumably they know their claims of successful human cloning could readily be confirmed through testing, yet they try to defraud the World? There just doesn't seem to be anything to be gained by defrauding the World knowing your claim will readily be proven/disproved...I think there were likely many successes then the money from private interests and heavy hands of the regulators saw to it the truth was quashed.

they are also corrupt: the one in Mississippi was issuing subpoenas to Google on behalf of the entertainment industry

Assuming your allegation is true, an AG was serving subpoenas on behalf of Google and that makes all AGs corrupt...then it goes without saying that if just one Googler has ever engaged in one bad act or act of corruption, then all Googlers are bad or corrupt.

I am not sure that is the standard you want to apply.

AGs are elected so they seek publicity

Well nothing would gain an AG more publicity than deviating from the other AGs and exposing this case as having no merit and simply a collusion of 49 State AGs in an attempt to collectively seek publicity for their reelections. Of course Google's army of lawyers could expose the same and win Google's attorney's fees from the State, which would be negative publicity...so its pretty far fetched what you allege without any evidence.

Of course if you really cared or wanted to know if Google engages in anti-competitive practices try to Google a flight from your location to another city anywhere on the Earth and tell me what pops up first? Is it an organic result? Is it an paid ad? Or is it another Alphabet product embedded into the top of the results driving all internet traffic looking for flights to their self owned product? This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the reality of Alphabet unfairly using Google's market dominance in an anti-competitive way.

The solution is clear, at minimum Alphabet should not be able to buy/bid up Google AdWords, but the better solution would be Alphabet products/services should not be able to appear in Google results at all (or at least on page 1). The beauty of this solution, if/when Google complains that the internet won't be able to search/find their products, Alphabet can be reminded that of course the internet can find their products, through competitor search engines which are only 1 click away.

The sleaze of the mattress industry is a major reason the mattress in a box business has done so well.

Don't be fooled if you thought the traditional mattress buying experience was sleazy (similar to a car buying experience), the mattress in a box online dark patterns take sleaze to a whole other level.

That is a clever legal argument. Of course to distinguish a traditional newspaper or publication from social media posts are the editorializing exercised by the tech companies occurs after publication/posting; whereas, traditional media exercises their editorial powers prior to publication.

In practice, say I set up an anonymous social media account and publish false/defamatory statements about myself, then I sue the tech company and john doe (as the poster), what exactly can/could the tech company do to have prevented liability? Seemly they would have to somehow change their systems so posts are reviewed by editors prior to publication to minimize legal risk and potential liability.

There are a lot of interesting case studies I remember reading about logos about 15-20 years ago, where the big thing was dropping the company name from the logo and using the logo image only. A couple of the examples I recall are target, Starbucks and maybe McDonald's. A lot of this was justified on "globalism", to your point, where the logo conveyed the brand universally unlike a company name or tag line.

One thing to be aware of with both names and logos, is potentially what the name/logo may mean in other places throughout the world.