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Metrecal

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25 pointsafriesh12318 comments

The original wingsuit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Reichelt

The original computer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine

The original steam engine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

Just because something similar has been tried before doesn't mean the basics are wrong.

Well, to be picky, no one has made a wing suit that does what the Reichelt hoped to do. The current version just lets you have some fun before you open your parachute. Unless you want to count stuff like hang gliders.

If you mean a wingsuit that can let you fly all the way to the ground at a speed low enough to land and survive -- then no one ever will. A wing that's big enough to have those low speeds will tear off your arms.

Popular Science had an article in 2003 examining wingsuits and the futile effort towards using them to land without a parachute, and they had a great diagram illustrating the problem: http://web.archive.org/web/20030623234930/http://www.popsci....

Yes, GP said: "Just because something similar has been tried before doesn't mean the basics are wrong." In this case the basis is very wrong.

and yet they (somehow) managed to do that anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRB-woVjlFY

> using a specially adapted wing suit before landing on a "runway" of 18,000 cardboard boxes.

I think most people would agree with me when I say that doesn't really count. =P

You could almost certainly live indefinitely on Boost or Ensure, because they are essentially flavored versions of the same products used medically in tube feeds. You could also simply drink tube feed, with or without flavoring. Liquid nutrition is not a new idea in the medical field, and there are numerous medical conditions that can make a person dependent on liquid feeding. Clinical nutritionists are professionally trained in the management of these regimens, and this makes up a lot of what they do daily in various health care settings.

The accumulated knowledge about liquid diets in the context of health care is undoubtedly vast.

> You could almost certainly live indefinitely on Boost or Ensure, because they are essentially flavored versions of the same products used medically in tube feeds.

I'm not sure you can claim that. Patients live off enteral diets for long periods but in very controlled environments, and even then it's still hard to get right. For a fully functional person, going to work, going to gym, being exposed to environmental stresses, and so on, to only live off Ensure might not be feasible.

"Metrecal and other similar products were pulled off shelves after the United States government connected 59 deaths to liquid protein products"

I'm sure the problem with liquid protein is that they're concocted for weight lifters, but over-zealous dieters use them as a substitute for food.

Certainly no doctor or nutritionist would advise it for a healthy person. If it's not safe to live off of carefully formulated enteral diets, then you would definitely not want to try it with Soylent.

Still, people have survived poor diets and near-starvation throughout history. If the body was that fussy about nutrition, we'd be extinct.

Soylent isn't a "diet" product. Therefore it contains 2400 calories, and doesn't compromise on any macronutrients (fats, protein, carbs) for the sake of creating a "diet" product. If you're looking for existing commercial analogues, it's much closer to Ensure (for example).

That said, it's attracted quite a crowd of haters--who, it seems, would like nothing more than for Rhinehart et al. to be repeating mistakes that would be obvious to anyone who had done an hour of research on the history of nutritional drinks...

I think skeptical is a more apt description, in part due to the claims made by the company.

You mean mistakes like forgetting iron?

Also see Abbott Ensure ( http://ensure.com/products/ensure-powder ) and Nestle's Boost - ( http://www.boost.com/healthcare-professionals )

A bit sobering, especially "F.D.A. WARNS DIETERS ABOUT LIQUID PROTEIN; Commissioner, Citing 16 Deaths"

Yeah I saw that too, anyone know what directly caused these 16 deaths?

I took metrecal recovering from surgery as a little kid. Yuck.

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