Hacker News Reader

vanilla-almondon Microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance

I also find using less stevia than the equivalent sugar amount. I still have a sweet tooth but I don't buy sweet foods (make my own sweet foods with stevia).

vanilla-almondon Microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance

Thank you for the links. I agree, it would be really useful to see more research. Newer products likes monkfruit sweetener and allulose have even less research.

vanilla-almondon Microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance

Thank you for the answers. I didn't find it difficult to transition to stevia. At first, it had a different taste from sugar (not unpleasant, much sweeter) but I got used to the taste. Some people find stevia has a bitter aftertaste. Lots of stevia products are a mixture of stevia and erythritol (like 'Truvia') to mask any bitter aftertaste. I use less stevia than sugar (about half of the sugar amount).

vanilla-almondon Microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance

I use stevia as a replacement for sugar. This research is difficult to understand for a layperson like me (I'm too thick). Is anyone able to answer the questions below?

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Extract: "non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS), such as saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame-K, and stevia, that do not contain calories and are thereby presumed to be inert and not elicit a postprandial glycemic response."

Question: Does this research confirm that stevia elicits a postprandial glycemic response? (Does stevia stimulate insulin?).

---

Extract: "Notably, all four tested NNS (saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, and stevia) significantly and distinctly altered the human intestinal and oral microbiome, as would be expected for these chemically diverse compounds."

Extract: "Degradation of steviol glycosides by gut bacteria is an established component of their metabolism although some species may be more proficient than others in performing this task and thus, pre-exposure microbiome heterogeneity may conduce to differential responses to stevia."

Question: So stevia alters the human intestinal and oral microbiome. Are these changes a negative outcome and thus a concern for anyone using stevia?

vanilla-almondon Why heavy rain might be dangerous after drought [video]

Heavy rain after a drought can cause flash floods because the hardened soil won't absorb the rain quickly (as illustrated in the video).

The video is from Dr Rob Thompson - a Meteorologist from the University of Reading in the UK. A tweet about the video here:

Rob Thompson: https://twitter.com/R0b1et/status/1557034641445486592

vanilla-almondon Bike seller Peloton and meditation app Calm cut jobs

Summary:

- US-based meditation app Calm has axed 20% of its workforce which affect about 90 people from its 400-person staff. The firm did not elaborate on the reason for the cuts.

- Peloton also announced another round of job cuts, affecting 800 people. Peloton axed roughly 3,000 jobs in February. The company has been wrestling with falling sales, as demand for its tech-connected exercise equipment drops.

vanilla-almondon Small boutique owner wins trademark row with Zara

I'm glad the small business owner won the case.

> Mrs Kotrri said she had also been in contact with more than 10 other small business owners who had been contacted by the fashion company asking them to rebrand because of similarities with their names.

An earlier BBC report on the dispute (from 30 April 2022) states:

> Another company locked in the same dispute with Zara is Tara Sartoria, which sells a small range of hand-made silk products made by disadvantaged women in Indonesia and Vietnam.

> The business, which has one full-time office employee, donates 10% of its profits to help women start their own micro-businesses and attend university.

> Its Vietnamese owner Tara Nguyen contacted the BBC to say she had also been sent a legal letter from the fashion giant which she found "grossly unjust".

> Ms Nguyen said: "Going against a massive corporation like Zara/Inditex is a terrifying position to be in.

> Changing all of my branding, logo, packaging, etcetera would be a fatal blow to my business, and unfortunately would derail my mission to help otherwise impoverished women stand on their own and benefit their families and villages."

> She said replying to the notice of opposition sent in November 2021 had cost her business "almost all of our available resources".

vanilla-almondon Does YouTube gives beginners false hope when learning programming? [video]

Summary of the video:

Do YouTube videos give beginners false hope they can learn programming quickly?

Below is what the presenter says (feel free to agree or disagree):

1. Avoid 'Learn [programming language] in 15 minutes' video (appeals to our limited attention spans).

2. Avoid programming videos tutorials when the presenter has only learn programming a few months ago.

3. Do coding exercises rather than watch YouTube tutorials.

4. Focus on mastering one language (if you are a beginner).

5. Avoid the "I learned [language] in 5 days" videos. Everyone is different and don't try and measure yourself against these programmers.

6. The 10-15 hour programming course promises much, but is it effective in re-enforcing the content?

vanilla-almondon Bank of England warns the UK will fall into recession this year

why does UK gvt blame energy prices on Russia, when the Uk is close to energy independence

The UK is not energy independent. Although it imports less than 5% of its gas from Russia, it is affected by global gas prices and demand. Most UK homes are heated by gas. The average energy bill was £1,400 a year in October 2021. In April 2022, energy bills rose to around £2,000. It is estimated bills will rise to £3,400 a year from October, then to £3,600 a year from January 2023 [1]. Unless I am mistaken, these are some of the highest energy bills in Europe.

Meanwhile, the currently government has no plan or urgency to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, we have a navel-gazing Conservative party pre-occupied with who should be Prime Minister. (A choice between two terrible candidates).

[1] Warning winter energy bills to rise by more than expected https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62380728

vanilla-almondon GDPR for Developers by Example

Lots of comments here about consulting an legal expert. If GDPR is so complex it requires legal advice, is it then fair to say the law is ambiguous and unreadable for the layperson?

I really like the list of scenarios in the post. It is exactly what EU lawmakers should have published when GDPR launched. As often, EU tech-related laws are well-intentioned, but clumsily implemented.

vanilla-almondon Becoming a Full-Time Creator as a Software Engineer

Has anyone who posted a 'Show HN' had success with a paid product and no prior audience or following when their product launched?

Building an audience remains a difficult business task. It would be inspiring to hear success stories of products which launched with no following or prior audience.

vanilla-almondon Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

Status of glyphosate in the EU:

> "Glyphosate is currently approved in the EU until 15 December 2022."

https://food.ec.europa.eu/plants/pesticides/approval-active-...

The ECHA's (European Chemical Agency) assessment:

> "...the existing classifications for glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage and is toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects should be retained.

> The committee found that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate for specific target organ toxicity, or as a carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic substance. "

https://www.echa.europa.eu/-/glyphosate-no-change-proposed-t...

vanilla-almondon Thousands of birds dying from lethal strain of avian flu in UK [video]

Summary:

This report looks at the impact of avian flu on wild birds around the coast of Scotland.

- It is believed avian flu emerged from industrial poultry farming from East Asia about 25 years ago.

- In farmed poultry there are some measures like vaccination and security to control avian flu. It has now spilled into wild birds where it cannot be controlled.

- Over 70 million infected poultry has been culled globally recently.

The bleak summary at the end of the video report:

"Our unquenchable thirst desire for cheap chicken now threaten whole species of seabirds globally. And may yet threaten us."

vanilla-almondon Generating Children’s Stories Using GPT-3 and DALL·E

This is going to be flooding youtube any minute, isn't it?

Amazon too via Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with AI-generated illustrated children books. I can imagine a future of personalised AI children books featuring your son or daughter in the story.

vanilla-almondon How many Britons people smoke these days? How compared to other countries?

Selected list of countries from the article:

- France 35%

- Germany 28%

- Spain 28%

- USA 25%

- China 25%

- Ireland 24%

- Italy 23%

- UK 19%

- Denmark 19%

- NZ 15%

- Sweden 8%

vanilla-almondon UK watchdog bans vegan TV ad for showing violence towards animals

Here's the advert - it seems very mild. The idea is about connection to the meat and fish you eat. I suspect some viewers will find the message as a little bit patronising or preaching. I'm sympathetic to the message 'Make The Connection' but the TV ad execution isn't great or effective.

Make The Connection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUEM1gqrSy0

vanilla-almondon Ask HN: Have You Burned Out?

You mentioned in another post how rewarding it was for you to support a friend and how much more meaningful it felt (contrasted to your joyless office job).

You have a lot of expertise in your field, would becoming a freelancer trainer or coach be an option? For example, running short (1-5 days) on-site courses at different companies. I can imagine it might be rewarding to impart you expertise to the attendees - the feeling of satisfaction of helping others. Best of luck whatever you decide.

vanilla-almondon I got hacked and Facebook banned me

Anyone saying "Good riddance! Go enjoy your life without Facebook! is missing the point

I agree. Another example: Facebook is full of support groups for different causes or issues. There are thousands of groups helping people struggling conditions like cancer or other health issues. However much people might dislike that Facebook hosts these groups, the question remains: where else can people congregate online to discuss their conditions? Self-hosting a discussion forum is not an answer: ironically it excludes thousands (perhaps millions) of non-technical users who won't know how to install a discussion forum. I wish there was an alternative to Facebook, but for now Facebook is the friction-free option.

vanilla-almondon Ghost 5.0

Congrats on the 5.0 launch! A few questions below...(thanks)

Back in 2013, Ghost was promoted as just a blogging tool. In contrast, WordPress had become a general publishing tool i.e. a blog, a CMS, an e-commerce store, any type of website (portfolio, news website, etc.) Fast-forward today and Ghost is also a general publishing tool that can do many of the things WordPress does.

How do you see Ghost vs WordPress today? Is it fair to say that Ghost today has become what WordPress is (i.e. a publishing tool covering the same use cases as WordPress)? Or is Ghost's scope more narrow than WordPress?

vanilla-almondon Ask HN: Important nonobvious startup/business lessons you've learned?

David Heinemeier Hansson (of Ruby on Rails and Basecamp fame) once wrote a blog post with related advice on per-seat pricing (for a SaaS) and how this leads to chasing the biggest companies. One you've gained a very large company as a client, that company's outsize influence will affect features, fixes and direction in your product (in a negative way according to Hansson).

The Basecamp pricing model (flat monthly fee) is not often emulated by other startups, but it's worked well for Basecamp.

Why we never sold Basecamp by the seat ( (2017): https://m.signalvnoise.com/why-we-never-sold-basecamp-by-the...

vanilla-almondon Netflix’s Subscriber Loss Has Destroyed Employee Morale

I like some of Netflix's content but always have the impression that Netflix casts it net very wide - perhaps too wide? Their library stretches from low-quality reality shows to expensive high-end drama. It's a strange mix - trying to be all things to all people?

To be fair to Netflix, they have invested in a lot in non-US content globally - probably more than other production/streaming services. They have also given some highly-regarded directors creative freedom and financed their films e.g Martin Scorcese (The Irishman) and Bong Joon-ho (Okja).

Whether Netflix is 'crisis' mode or I don't know, but it will be interesting how Netflix changes (if at all) in the coming months.

vanilla-almondon Ask HN: Have you used SQLite as a primary database?

Many of the replies here attest to the simplicity and fast performance of SQLite particularly for serving pages or data. But how well does SQLite fare in concurrent write/insert situations?

Although SQLite is not designed for this type of scenario, this discussion higlights there's a strong demand for a concurrent client/server RDMS that is simple, performant and easy to deploy. PostgreSQL is powerful and feature-rich, but not simple or easy to delploy. Hence the appeal of SQLite.

For example, could SQLite power a discussion forum of moderate (or more) activity i.e. users posting comments? The Nim language forum is powered by SQLite, but activity in the forum is fairly low. [1]

Between the simplicity of SQLite and the complex, heavyweight that is PostgreSQL, there is a wide gap between these database opposites. It's a shame there is no concurrent RDMS to fill that gap.

(Note: Another poster mentions the concurrent Firebird RDMS as a possible alternative, but I haven't used it. [2])

[1] https://forum.nim-lang.org/

[2] https://firebirdsql.org/en/features/

vanilla-almondon Why did these people start businesses in a pandemic? (2020)

Summary:

- People had different motivations, it wasn't all about necessity.

- Running a business from home made sense during the pandemic.

- Food and craft products were popular.

- People found their skills were more transferable than they thought.

- Customers wanted to support local enterprises.

- Companies did well that focused on online.

- Social media is your marketplace.

- Not all of these businesses will be permanent.

vanilla-almondon Browser testing of malware links: Edge vs. Chrome vs. Firefox [video]

Summary:

What is being testing? Drive-by downloads and exes malware

What isn't being testing? Browser exploits or phishing links

How is the test run? An automated script runs 200 malware links to download exes. How many malware links do the browsers detect (and block)?

The results: how many 200 links were blocked by each browser?

- Microsoft Edge: 100%

- Chrome: 99%

- Mozilla Firefox: 72.5%

vanilla-almondon Ask HN: Phishing – ever fallen to a scam? Or dodged an attempt?

Excellent advice.

Re: Shortened URLs - these are quite insidious on both desktop and especially mobile. And hover for any links on mobile remains problematic.

I also hate giving out my mobile number, but it is mandatory on many sites for 2FA purposes. Even some sites only offer phone as the only two-factor.

Thanks for suggesting have i been pwned? I wasn't aware it also checks phone numbers too.

vanilla-almondon Inflation: Five things that are going up in price and why

Although this article focuses on the UK, the items from the list reflect rising costs across many countries.

The items facing rising prices:

1. Petrol (gasoline) and diesel

The UK imports just 6% of its crude oil from Russia, but 18% of its diesel. Demand for oil from other producers has increased, leading to higher prices.

2. Energy prices

The surge in global demand for energy following Covid has pushed up the price of gas. With Russia the world's largest natural gas exporter, the invasion of Ukraine has driven prices even higher.

3. Furniture

The rising cost of raw materials, supply chain disruption and shipping costs have all made furniture more expensive.

4. Oils and fats

Ukraine and Russia produce most of the world's sunflower oil and the war has disrupted exports, leading to increased prices. In the UK, some food manufacturers have turned to alternative ingredients, including rapeseed oil.

5. Milk and cheese

Fertiliser is another one of Russia's biggest exports and since the invasion of Ukraine prices have soared. This has contributed to increased costs for farmers - and dairy products are among those affected.

vanilla-almondon Etsy Strike

Another grey area with POD (print-on-demand) is creating designs for POD products e.g. products like t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, wall prints, etc.

There are hundreds of online tutorials promising you how to create designs for sale on Etsy - even if you have not a shred of design talent. How? Go to Canva, find a good-looking template and slap on it on as many POD products as possible. Etsy is simply overstuffed with products like this. Many of these sellers are probably making good sales. Does this count as something being 'designed'? Does it even matter?

The perception that Etsy is a marketplace mostly of artists and "makers" is one that hasn't been true for a while.

vanilla-almondon Proposed EU rules would require clothes to last longer and be easier to repair

In the UK I still think Marks and Spencer (M&S) offer quality clothing at reasonable prices. They don't compete fully with 'fast fashion' prices but they have been affected by competition from other fast fashion retailers by offering their own 'value' lines.

If you avoid the cheapest clothing lines at M&S, their mid-priced clothing is generally of longer-lasting and better quality.

For example, you can buy organic cotton chinos and jeans in the price range £25-35 (approximately $35-45/€30-40). These are reasonable prices given the premium typically charged for organic clothing.

vanilla-almondon How healthy and climate friendly is Norwegian farmed salmon? (2021)

This is a report about farmed salmon in Norway based on research. Norwegian farmed salmon is very commonly sold in Sweden. It is also common to find it in UK supermarkets.

Some points from the article:

- Salmon feed has changed and has become much more plant-based, which has affected the nutritional content of farmed salmon.

- Levels of Omega-3 fatty acids, selenium and vitamin D have decreased in farmed salmon, but the overall levels of these important nutrients are still high.

- Farmed salmon beats animal meat when it comes to Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B12, vitamin D, iodine and selenium. Animal meat is higher in iron and zinc.

- Plant-based feed has led to lower dioxin levels in farmed salmon, but dioxins are still something to monitor.

- In wild-caught salmon from the Baltic Sea, dioxin levels are 10 to 20 times higher than farmed salmon from Norway. The claim was made on Swedish TV.

- Antibiotic levels are so low that they are undetectable in a farmed salmon fillet according to researchers

- Norwegian farmed salmon has a higher climate footprint than Swedish-produced chicken and pork, but have a significantly lower climate footprint than red meat

- Researchers did not investigate issues related to animal health, animal welfare, eutrophication or the effect of farmed salmon on wild salmon.

vanilla-almondon Tell HN: Amazon's book search is gamed, keyword-stuffed, and inaccurate

I typed "Ukraine war" in the 'books' filter of the Amazon UK search bar. Here are the search results for the first page of search: https://i.postimg.cc/YCF2QnWL/amazon-uk-search-for-ukraine-w...

I assumed Amazon US search would be similar, but that does not appear to be the case. I apologise for writing: "Try an Amazon book search for “Ukraine war” on Amazon UK and US and already the search results are populated with “Ukraine war” blank notebooks. This is only true of Amazon UK (see screenshot above). Thank you for posting your results and I apologise for making a wrong assumption, (I still hate Amazon search though!)