zacherates

While funding and conflicts of interest are an issue, a much bigger problem with nutrition research is that it is extremely difficult/expensive/unethical to study the outcomes people actually care about (living longer, losing weight, preventing disease), because that would require being able to control a large number of people's diet for decades (which in turn would require either paying/motivating them enough to comply, or doing so against their will).

... so instead, you end with a bunch of observational studies (which cannot show causation), or studies of placeholders assuming it maps to something people actually care about (eg. "cholesterol levels in the blood stream after X hours" for "Y years of life lost to heart disease per hundred thousand"), or bench studies (some chemical component in broccoli can kill cancer cells in a petri dish becomes "broccoli fights cancer" ignoring the fact that eg. fire kills cancer cells in a petri dish... that doesn't mean you should eat it).

... which are subject to all the usual difficulties for associated with subjects that are hard to study: small samples, inadequate surveys, bad statistics, HARKing, p-hacking.

... the resulting papers are then reported on uncritically, often generalizing the claims well beyond what the underlying science would support... because people read articles about things they actually do (eat meat) and outcomes they care about (live longer/avoid heart disease)... not about bench results.

"Give employees a statement showing how much the employer paid..."

Box 12, code DD on your W-2 reports "the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan" as required by the ACA [1] (includes the premiums you paid, but you can subtract those out).

[1] https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/form-w-2-reporting-o...

You should bear the cost of whether you keep your A/C at 68° or 72°, whether you heat your house with baseboard heaters or central air, whether you insulate your house so it's easy to keep it at whatever temperature you care to, whether you live in a 4000sq detached house or a 500sq apartment, whether you run a modern refrigerator or something that fell off a truck in the 50s.

Paying for your electricity helps align incentives so that you can make the trade-off of investing to lower usage vs. just buying the power you want at market rate... and bearing that cost means you have the freedom to make that trade-off rather than it being made for you.

Consider that possibly the stated reason is not the true reason.

Maybe the authoritarian regime that run NK wants to control the way people look for various reasons: So the people don't culturally identify with other societies, so they don't spend time messing with more complicated styles (hair and other) because they consider it a waste of resources, so the people don't realize that the mere fact that outsiders can spend resources on more elaborate styles is a product of those societies being better off, that they want the people to internalize a shared society through uniformity, etc, etc, etc.

... and that in order to achieve those means, they will say anything regardless of truth, evidence, etc, and will punish dissent so that the truth doesn't matter (mostly).

That's fair, the gift guides don't seem to be particularly useful; however, I've found the buying guides to be really useful, to the extent that I have developed muscle memory for "best X wirecutter" whenever I need to buy a thing I don't have strong opinions about / don't want to do a bunch of research for.

For instance "The Best Steak Knife Set" [1], lays out a couple of options and why you might pick them as well as their criteria and test methodology so you can figure out why you might want to pick something else.

[1] https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-steak-knife-set/

The Wirecutter (https://thewirecutter.com/) is a site dedicated to this kind of advertising and it is extremely useful.

Here's a statement from someone robbed at gunpoint doing exactly that (arguing to keep the perpetrator out of prison): https://twitter.com/stainerson/status/1125956097997774850

That's true, but it's much easier to pay for the 20% of a car that you actually use when you're renting it as needed.

While it's less obvious with housing the same applies: People buy houses that are bigger than they need at any given moment so that they have the space they need to entertain guests, or house prospective (or past) children, etc. It's much cheaper for me to put my parents up in a hotel when they come to town, than to keep a guest room idle for the next 20 years of my mortgage.

Bezos discusses how long they take to write in the 2018 Amazon Shareholder Letter [1]:

"... they mistakenly believe a high-standards, six-page memo can be written in one or two days or even a few hours, when really it might take a week or more!"

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518...

"... could hire someone like this but to handle job outreach and negotiation ..."

They're called recruiters.

Games are a place this comes of frequently. In poker you will often make the "right" (highest EV) play and still lose a given hand.

Making the highest odds plays (and being able to figure out what they are) over and over again regardless of how the individual hands turn out is how you win.

Obviously, you can also win while making the wrong plays by getting lucky (right for the wrong reasons). Evaluating your play based on the outcome of the hands (did you win or lose) rather than the plays you made with the information you had at the time is called Results Oriented Thinking: https://www.pokerdictionary.net/glossary/results-oriented-th... ... and it is a pernicious mistake (with wider applications than just poker :).

Obligatory SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-offensive-truth

Similarly, I have a section on the bottom of my resume labeled "Skills" that's just a dumping ground of any buzzword I'm comfortable talking about.

I had basically the same experience except it was in Toronto instead of Europe.

Being at work doesn't preclude bullying, harassment, assault, etc.

... except seeing the test fail is how I know my test might be working.

It's trivial to write passing tests.

... or getting a competing offer.

"The bill will likely receive Royal Assent this week..."

"RCA" likely means "Root Cause Analysis". I'm not sure how to interpret RSA other than as a typo for RCA.

"- People have different tastes and given the choice will rarely choose the same food as those eating with them"

There are social dynamics at play here, that you've probably felt yourself: People will feel the need to choose a different thing even it it's not their first choice, because choosing the same thing feels awkward (In the US at least, I've heard other cultures have the opposite dynamic, choosing the same thing to conform, even if it's not their first choice).

Headline should be "The drug cartels are wreaking havoc in Mexico". They would be trying to extract rent from any industry, the industry just happens to be avocados.

Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez) discussing system software development issues using parts of redis as examples.

Completely anecdotal but I was talking to a Googler who had basically the opposite experience and recommended working at Google because of the promotion panel. The fact that their manager had no say in the process and that they could put together their promotion packet on their own was a feature in their mind, because their experience included their manager "forgetting" to put them up for promotion repeatedly at other companies.

That being said, promotion processes do seem to be pretty screwed up in general (personal experience with 3 different companies), and fail in various ways. So it's worth keeping in mind that the "external promotion process" (getting another job) is always available.

edit: grammar.

The Fair Labor Standards Act requires tip pools to only include "employees who customarily and regularly receive tips" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act#Tippi...).

... my understanding is that provision generally excludes back of house staff (except busboys), but as usual the details of any particular situation require an actual legal opinion.