5,309 karma · joined June 7, 2012
I've been talking with people in the tech sector and getting hired is hard for far too many people. Remote or in-person.
I wonder how much influence the VCs had in these decisions or if any of these decisions will cause them to step in and make changes.
I state this to point out that there are other variables at plan than just changes in record keeping.
Except, the author doesn't discredit specific claims of the Blue Zones. For example, the Blue Zones might take an area and state there is a higher rate of centurions who are healthy and capable. The counter to that might be the average life span in the region isn't an outlier. In one case you're looking at a targeted subgroup and the other your looking at the population as a whole. One observations doesn't disprove another.
This is just one example. It's why I call the work misleading.
According to the Blue Zone researchers, some of the Blue Zones are disappearing because the generations that came after the oldest live differently and much shorter. By differently, their eating, body movement, and other characteristics are different. Looking at the whole population doesn't segment for differences between generation. So, nuance is lost.
In some areas, like the Blue Zone in the US other research is finding the people who live there are healthier than the surrounding populations. Then you have to ask, what area do you average over for your measurement and statistics?
* The Blue Zones claim that most places that list many centurions are false due to bad record keeping. Only a few places have good enough records that are trustworthy. In this authors research he called out places that were not blue zones as examples of bad data against Blue Zones.
* In Okinawa the Blue Zones claim that only the oldest generation fits the Blue Zone model. That more recent generations eat poorly and have bad health. That this Blue Zone is going away. This researcher has focused on the more recent food and health of younger generations to discount it being a Blue Zone for that oldest generation.
* In the US he fails to find fault in record keeping (last I dug into it) with the only location that is considered a Blue Zone. Instead he focuses on generalities.
There are more examples like this.
This all seems disingenuous. It's not to agree with Blue Zones but rather to look at his arguments against those put forward for Blue Zones.
I keep thinking of the phrase "Lies, Damn Lines, and Statistics"
In the North American and Europe it looks to have stabilized and maybe declined a little [2]. That's not a steep decline.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/chart-of-the-day-this...
I've read, in numerous places, that Amazon is attempting to use this as a way to alter their finances. To draw people into locations with tax advantages, reduce staff count without paying severance, etc.
The article doesn’t cover why Amazon is doing it. I suspect their motive isn’t the things the UK gov is suggesting.
For example, with startups the time to market, pivots, and not owning your decisions long term (which often happens) leads people to move fast and not consider consequences.
It's about goals and following the money. If a bridge fails there's significant legal liability, guilt over lost lives, and more. If software doesn't scale is can be rewritten or a company is hacked and customer info gets out there is a marketing black eye. It's different.
I say this as a classically trained engineer who thinks more engineering needs to be layered into software development. We need to justify it to the business.
It's not the most deep scientific. It's more practical while bringing in the science and an easy enough read I can recommend it to my family (and have).
If you want a link to an overview of a study... https://studyfinds.org/mind-diet-cognitive-decline/
I read one or two books on health from PhDs every year along with some papers. The material here fits right in with the other health material I've read over the last several years.
Yes, we can mostly prevent Alz/dimentia based on lifestyle. There are whole groups in the world who mostly didn't get it until they adopted certain lifestyle elements.
For example, when cardiovascular disease you often have clogged arteries that reduce the flow of blood. This also reduces the flow of blood to the brain which impedes its performance and ability to clean things up naturally.
Ref: https://www.amazon.com/Alzheimers-Solution-Breakthrough-Symp... [Note, the book language is played up for a general population audience]
Who or what is good and evil is assumed and it’s not things that are universally agreed to. Even in the “west” which is less than 1/4 the global population.
This is where I find the article lacking. How do we know what is good to spot what to invest in?
Hospitals loose money on many procedures while making some money back on others.
There is also costs around staffing. For example, nursing schools aren't producing the growing number of nurses needed. Supply and demand kicks in.
If I read the projects statement right, they think you should only load what you already trust.
The problem is that many people load things they just found on the Internet. Like `curl | bash` to random things people find.
Note, if it's not obvious, `curl | bash` to scripts on the Internet is just as insecure as the current R implementation.
As a local person following the situation, it was hard to tell what was really going on and where opinion pieces (like this and many of the linked articles) were pointing. I suspect people screwed up at all levels and want to just defer blame to the other political party.
This about supply chain security and national defense. So many of our components are made overseas and under governments who are not close allies. This is in order to operate things in our country.
When you have the FABs in the US and under US control you can handle international foreign policy and the security of the nation differently.
"Ultra processed" is headline friendly and can steer people away from things.
This is health marketing for the masses.
I try to stay at or below the numbers on average and I do treat myself sometimes. But, I can't very much because it would lead to overeating things that would drive up my cholesterol and cause other bad things. Have to eat lots of fruit and vegetables.
A problem is that most people eating ultra processed foods blow those category numbers away. I was looking at the label on some food this week. One serving size, which is about half of what an American would usually eat, was over half the saturated fat and sugar someone should have per day. For people who eat processed food for most meals, it's easy to go many times these numbers which has a lot of long term consequences.
A big difference is that with the "black box" you opt-in. It's a choice. What's being reported on happens without people even having knowledge of the situation.
Supported likely means that they test with and design for. It also means that if a customer is using that browser and there's a problem (e.g., seeing their bill online) they will fix the problem if it's just in that browser.
Firefox is 3.3% of users [1]. When it comes to testing features with (including QA validation) and working around browser specific bugs, what % of usage should drive that?
1. Searching for things around chemotherapy, cancer, and death on some site
2. Having an app on your phone that tracks your location and sells it. Many apps do this. It's not too difficult to reverse engineer where people went and who they are with the various datasets that can be bought.
3. Data brokers getting access to medical information. Too many companies play fast and loose with their data. It would not be a surprise.
We leak data everywhere. Companies are often poor at following regulations. There are too few regulations in most of US around data about us.