HordOfTheFlies

I eat absolutely illegal amounts of saturated fat in my diet. For over a year now I have eaten ultra high fat foods like cheese-filled sausages, rib-eye steaks cooked in butter and BBQ by the pound. Just the other day I ate melted cheese and 32oz of half and half for breakfast and I will drink pints of heavy whipping cream as a snack. A fairly regular meal for me is 6 eggs cooked in a half stick of grass fed butter with 4 oz of cheese melted in it. It's a quick and delicious meal with tons of nutrition and it'll keep you feeling full for forever. As for health effects all I can say is that what I have seen in my own body has been a miracle to me. In the time I have started this diet I have lost a total of 95 pounds of weight. I started at 343 and spent several years torturing myself with calorie restriction and other diet methods. When I started eating higher fat I weighed about 295 and lost 30 pounds pretty quickly but then got stuck at 265 for quite a while. I gave up on exercise and then started losing weight non-stop. This year I have lost 65 pounds since January. Technically I'm 205 right now because I ate some ice cream recently but I've been down all the way to 196 and should be 200 or under by the end of the year. I can shed 5 pounds of weight pretty easily eating this way as long as I stay disciplined although I have been slacking a lot lately. Everything else in my body has seen improvement as well. I'm sure some of it is due to the weight loss, but I've noticed I can move better with less joint pain or stiffness. My hair, nails and skin all seem to be healthier in general as well. I also have absolutely zero issues with digestion which was not the case with a higher carb diet. I've been to the doctor twice for blood tests and while I did see an increase in my serum cholesterol this year the values are still well within the low category. I'm going to continue to monitor these values over time but so far I haven't seen anything that would cause me concern. My blood pressure at the dentist the other day was 103/67 so no worries there either. So if you can't tell, I'm pretty pro fat. I don't spend a lot of time differentiating between saturated and unsaturated fats because I feel like if you are eating unprocessed foods then you are probably getting what you need. There are a few edge cases that I need to research more like the omega fatty acids. The concern there is keeping the ratio of those in proper balance because they manage your body's inflammation response which is apparently a new and important area of disease research. There's always so much to learn and I feel like we have only just opened up the table of contents.

I've read a lot of information about this issue over the past couple of years and I'm of the opinion that fast food isn't necessarily inherently bad for you but a little knowledge is helpful. I would certainly avoid foods that have added sugars and/or fats. I think this is where the reports of dopamine regulation stem from. The combination of sugar and fat together is a strong signal to the brain that the food is a rich source of easy nutrition and should be sought. Companies can alter the natural balance of these to maximize the effect on your reward centers but theoretically farmers have been doing this to fruit as well. Since the body is basically a giant averaging machine, singular instances shouldn't have a lasting impact if kept to a minimum. Constant exposure to this type of food has given rise to some of the large health issues we face worldwide now however. Another issue is the use of trans-fatty acids (trans-fats) and polyunsaturated vegetable oils in the cooking process. A big attraction of fast food is the fried-ness of it. The oils used to fry the foods are cheap but delicate in high temperature environments. When heated they may break down and form chemicals that are harmful inside the body. They also provide a poor source of fats that your body needs for essential functions like cholesterol and hormone regulation. My rule here is to never get fried things like fries with a few exceptions for lightly battered meats. I'm a big fan of double bacon cheeseburgers. If you can get them wrapped in a leafy green instead of the bread bun then all the better. I avoid unnecessary carbs when possible. My personal philosophy on nutrition is to listen to your body by being extremely aware of what you put into it and how it affects you. The phrase "you are what you eat" is literal all the way down to the atomic level. If you look at it that way, then one extremely important facet of health is ensuring that the proper chemicals in the proper balance are present in your body when needed. Your body has mechanisms to tell you how to achieve this but I don't think many people think in those terms. Many just want quick solutions and a bottle of pills to make the "symptoms" go away. These symptoms are their body crying out to heal. That's how it was for me anyway. Since I have connected my food choices to my physical well-being it has been incredibly easy to not only maintain my health but substantially increase it over the past couple of years.

It might be a little more expensive in total than what you are looking for but I purchased an AKG Perception 220 with a Rode PSA1 swivel mount mic stand with a cheap pop filter. I've been extremely happy with this setup. I can't remember exactly how they describe it, but it is a directional mic which is supposed to cut down on ambient noise. I don't know what all options exist for you but you'll need a way to convert XLR (3-prong microphone) to something your PC can input. I already had a USB pre-amp I've been using for bass guitar so this wasn't an issue for me. For me this setup is absolutely worth it because I can't stand having cans over my ears and most smaller headsets I've used are just garbage. Whatever you find, good luck.

Einstein wrote a letter to FDR in 1939 warning about using Uranium to make a bomb which helped to start and accelerate the US's mission to build atomic machinery. The result of that is two bombs that killed over 130,000 people. Who should be punished for this? Would it have been better or worse if the letter was addressed to the public? Our current political class is calling for the razing of entire cultures. No one ever advocates harming 'everyone' because that always includes themselves. Anyone that supports the use of war as a way to negotiate is advocating murder though and it seems to be working for them. Just my thoughts.

I wouldn't phrase it that way. For one thing I don't think the withholding of information is manipulative. If your parents say "I will give my child a university education" then not telling them about your sexual orientation isn't manipulating them because you already meet the requirements for their communicated action. No other qualification is necessary. If you are confronted about your sexual orientation then I still wouldn't call it manipulation. Since no prior conditions were set you still meet the objective standard set forth in the implied contract between you and your parents when they said they would gift you something without conditions. If they now apply conditions then that constitutes fraud on their part. At that point you are unable to trust their words or actions so you cannot know if you are manipulating them or not. They are free to change their behavior at any time without regard to prior interaction. It would be like negotiating with the Mad Hatter.

We have one discipline of science that has mathematical equations that scale across 40 orders of magnitude to explain the motions of damn near everything in the universe. We have another discipline of science that has failed to produce a single accurate model of anything. One of these is not science.

I'll agree in general on double negatives but thought I'd add that in the context of an economics book this might have been done for emphasis or effect. The phrase "everything that is not useless" seems to imply that he is talking about an infinite set minus the useful things. Put into context of the rest of the sentence I think it adds a certain weight if you realize that he is talking about individuals and businesses having to pay for an unbounded number of goods. He is saying they can't bear that burden. That was my thought anyway. Or he might just hate the English language and wants everyone to suffer.

I'm not sure the words themselves would be a violation. In universal terms I'd have to ask which words specifically violate and why. I would only judge based on actions. According to Wikipedia the NAP includes threats as aggression. So in that sense I guess speech that is designed to coerce behavior would be considered violent. There's probably an argument for some standard of reasonableness but I almost wonder if it's possible to argue on action alone. Let's say you are walking down a street and someone in front of you says "If you take another step I'll shoot you". That's obviously a threat. I guess the question I would ask is if it is credible. If you combine the words (the act of communicating intent) with the actions of a person holding a gun and looking menacingly at you then I think it is reasonable to assume the threat is real. Now change this to a deranged person holding an orange cap gun and I'm not sure it's reasonable to assume the same. In both cases the words used are the same but the actions of the individuals beyond the words change the context. Of course that's a very silly and contrived example. I'm just wondering if that line of thinking is valid. It seems to me that as a general principle it would have to be more than the words that communicate the intent of violence. I don't know how much more, however.

The quoted wattage values are for peak load scenarios. Most likely both cards use very low power at idle (10W max) so for normal desktop operation you should never hear the fans. The question is how sensitive is each card to heat build-up under load. The 970 over doubles the capacity of the 750Ti in terms of max power usage so that means it's also capable of generating over twice as much heat at the same rate. This will be balanced by the cooling system on the card, however. I know that doesn't give you an answer, but that's because those numbers are meaningless by themselves. I couldn't find any benchmarks or I would refer you to them. If you want good numbers I'd be looking at idle wattage and wattage under various loads (watching a video, gaming, etc). You would probably also want to look at heat dissipation numbers between the specific cards if those are provided. That might give you an overall sense of how efficiently the cards work. All that being said, my gut says that you probably won't go wrong with either. I just can't see a 970 having the fans switch on any more than a 750Ti under any condition. The biggest drawback is that the 970 will cost you more money initially as well as in electricity over time. But the eye candy...

First I will say that I don't think parents have the obligation to specifically send their children to university or provide non-essential assistance. However once a parent has offered it I don't think they can ever conditionalize it. By applying conditions to this type of assistance they are effectively saying that they would provide those resources to their child if only they had a slightly different child. So to them it's not a matter of whether or not the resources are used for the stated purpose. The resources are already allocated. By lying to them you are simply being pragmatic about the way in which you receive the resources that were promised to you. You have no obligation to be honest to your parents if they are not honest with you. If they offered assistance without conditions then they were lying because they are now applying conditions. That doesn't say whether or not you should or shouldn't accept this assistance but I don't find it immoral if you do. This is the crux of the matter. Without familial ties individuals owe each other nothing and must create value relationships with each other. The parent-child relationship is wholly different from inception. Choices with known consequences are made in this arena and as a member of this relationship you must always remember that children are completely dependent on their parents for survival. These are not random people that just appeared in your life. These are people that made very specific decisions that you are now a part of with little to no control (at least early on). Ignoring this detail allows the argument to be reduced to something petty like money which is just a symptom of the much larger issue.

Thank-you all very much for the great input. It's interesting to note the common theme of journaling and wanting to dream. Part of the reason I started this thread was because I have wanted to dream for a long time. I've heard several dream interpretation podcasts and it just made me think that I should put more effort into finding out what's going on when I sleep. It sounds like I'm headed in the right direction if I'm asking questions so that's good. I'm very resistant to journaling because I've never done it, but this might be a good place to start.

Every morning I wake up in an abyss of thought. There's just nothing there until I realize that I'm awake and then I quickly jump into my daily checklist of responsibilities. I've been told that everyone dreams but that I just don't remember them. I'm sure that's true but I find it odd that I don't even remember them when my sleep is interrupted. Perhaps my brain just transitions from the dream state quickly as some protective measure. This has been the case most of my life. My feeling is that I can remember having about a few dozen dreams although I never have kept count. Most of what I remember are reoccurring dreams. I can distinctly remember four different ones. I spoke with my therapist about this during my last session but didn't get very far. Her only comment was that dreams originate from the limbic system so my brain must be suppressing the signals. I'm curious if that's permanent. I've never met anyone else that has experienced this same sort of thing. If anyone has any insight I'd be glad to hear it because I haven't found a lot of information about this in particular.

Ideal standards are the standards that promote the highest level of cooperative behavior amongst rational entities. The discovery of these standards is performed by thinking rationally about the true nature of events. By using past information and integrating that into a consistent picture of the universe, objective judgements can be made that don't rely on an individual perspective. This information produces actions based a value system that is intrinsic within us. If those values come from adhering to a set of principles that are aligned with truth then our actions will be consistent as well.

I've been using Linux and Unix in general since around 1995. For the type of work I do and the way in which I work I find that is the most suitable environment for me. I've used many distributions including Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, Red Hat and Ubuntu but I'm currently using Arch Linux. I've also played with a lot of other open source operating systems like the BSDs and even currently still prefer OpenBSD for some tasks. With VM technology today it's so easy to experiment so I really encourage anyone that's on the fence to just dive in.

I liked the fact that the threat didn't deter her from action, but her action was appalling. Blindly telling everyone that you care about them seems to be the exact opposite. You are using words to try to uplift someone rather than making a real connection. If it was the words we could all wear devices that whispered affirmations in our ear when we needed them.

I would actually say it the other way around. Why is it important that morals be universalized? I think everyone has different moral machinery that processes the world's inputs in vastly different ways. The point of universality is such that the outputs of this machinery produce results that anyone, anywhere at any time would understand and desire within the greater context that we live in a connected society. This is the cognizance that we are rational beings and have the full understanding that our actions have consequences. We know that different actions cause different results and can then measure and change our behavior to optimize for win-win scenarios. This, of course, requires that an entity be able to recognize that this is desirable as well as be able to act in a way that promotes the same win-win mechanics in others. If you need a boundary, I think that's it. Morality only exists within the set of beings that can act morally. If this common basis is not present, the question is not one of morals. The universality is then applied within this set since as a function its value would be undefined outside the domain of rational entities. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

I watched this just yesterday and was pretty amazed. He brings a lot of information to the table that I think is interesting. Even if he's not a guest a segment on this history would be great, I think.

I would agree with this since this is what I think I have been experiencing personally. I have been having similar familial issues for many years and after finding FDR I now feel like I have some tools that are going to start making a difference. The biggest one has been the ability to think about my past in a way that reflects its true nature. Now that I have a better baseline, my reaction has been very negative towards my parents simply because I can now see their abuse in the light of day. As the quote says, there's no better disinfectant that sunlight. The big question I have been asking myself lately is why these people want me in their life. What are their true motives?

A fellow coffee seamer! I would very much say that these behaviors are related to past events. I too had very little control over my environment growing up and spent a lot of time on my own trying to figure things out. I think these small behaviors are a way of finding a domain of control within the mind. It seems all conscious things want the solace of making sense of the chaos around them. I think I use these patterns because they are the only thing I was ever shown I could control and therefore I'm managing what I can. It never feels to me that if I can control the coffee cup I can control other things, though. Do you notice that you have multiples of these? And do they always manifest as touch sensations? I wonder if that's significant as well because that's how I experience it. For example, I have methodical routines that I perform when parking my car. It's a very mechanical act that I can perform as almost a single motion and it's all driven by a physical sense of where my arms, legs and car are. I've told myself for years that it was just a way to be efficient, but it literally saves 5-10 seconds. I find the motion of it comforting, though and that's why I still do it. Maybe I'm also needing to be reassured that reality still exists.

I'm sorry that you feel this way. I've also had to struggle with these issues for a very long time and I know it can be extremely difficult. Connecting with people seems impossible to me at times. I just feel so outside the norm. FDR is giving me some tools to help deal with this so I hope it is helping you as well. What's it like for you when you try to connect with other people? What kind of a connection are you trying to make and how do they perceive it? You said they don't last, but have you thought about why? These are some of the questions I need to be asking myself.

Sam Harris says that some people hold views that are "deeply troubling". Ben's response is to say something about them being an "anathema to ours". I think that's interesting.

My inertness is related to my laziness and not my back My back was only in pain for about a month and half but during that time I dropped the gym routine and went to body-weight exercises and kettle bells. By the end of last year I was just doing body-weight squats and eventually just got bored and gave it up. I think the exercise helped strengthen my back a bit and that worked out the pain issue. Since I wasn't seeing any weight loss with the added exercise I just didn't see any point in continuing it. All of the weight loss I've experienced from moving to a ketogenic diet has happened during this period of lethargy which is why I'm not too anxious to get off the couch just yet. I weigh myself multiple times per day and I would say I have an excellent sense of how my body reacts to what I consume. I frequently guess my weight before jumping on the scale and am generally within half a pound. I inhale beverages like a water pump so my weight can fluctuate +/- 5 lbs or more over the course of day. I find this deferral to metrics to be reassuring since I'm so focused on this although I've had to learn how to not let the metrics drive my immediate decisions and just use them as guidelines within a much larger goal framework. My doctor is awkwardly silent when I see him. I think it kind of freaks him out that he doesn't have a single suggestion for me based on my lab results and in-office tests. I say I don't count calories now but I am always aware of them. Prior to going ketogenic I had spent about 5 years experimenting with a whole host of other diets mainly focused on caloric intake so I have a very good sense for how many calories are in food. Now it's simply not a decision point for me. I have thought about recording what I eat as an example for others because I have been asked many times about it. Kudos to you for actually doing it! My diet right now is fairly simple. I find it amazing that you don't eat breakfast. A blackhole opens up in my stomach every night when I sleep and I generally wake up to intense hunger. This is probably due to me eating an early dinner, though. For breakfast I eat 6-8 eggs mixed with bacon and cheese and 20oz of black coffee. This is pretty regular since it easy, quick and I never seem to really get tired of it. Lunch can be hit or miss although I almost always get another 20oz of black coffee. If I do eat a meal, it's something small like a package of lunch meat or two, a couple of sticks of cheese or a quart of milk. Milk contains carbs, though so I limit that. Dinner expands into a little larger variety with different kinds of sausages ranging from beef, pork and chicken along with blends and frequently stuffed with cheese and jalapenos. I'll also eat fajita-style chicken thigh meat soaked in a quarter-stick of butter. Sometimes I just eat whole pounds of meat at a time such as pulled pork, beef brisket and whole rotisserie chickens from a local market. We have a lot of good BBQ places here so it's easy to get slabs of meat for a decent price. Of course there's nothing like a rib-eye steak slathered in butter alongside a house salad drenched in ranch dressing for a night out every once in a while too. The only other thing that I really eat on a regular basis is things like nuts (cashews, peanuts and almonds) and Cliff's Builders Bars for snacks. The desire for these ebbs and flows and I might have a time where I'll eat two bars per day for a week or two, but then I'll get tired of that and go back to more ketogenic type snacks like beef jerky or pork rinds. My most guilty pleasure of late is double-bacon cheeseburgers. I can't say it's the highest quality meal, but if you don't get the fries the buns only get you to 60g of carbs and I just can't resist a good cheeseburger sometimes. In addition to that, I'll add that late last year I did a little experimentation with high caloric load and got some interesting results. I decided that for two weeks I was going to add a pint of heavy whipping cream to my daily routine. That's like drinking an extra 1800 calories worth of butter every day. At that time I was more physically active and was also much hungrier. During that two week period I consumed multiple rib-eye steaks and pounds of sausage. At the end of it I had gained 3 lbs. If you do the math, that's just ridiculous. Adding that many calories should have netted me more like 6 lbs or more. The even more astonishing part was that I lost that 3 lbs within a week after ramping my diet back down to normal levels. Anyway, as I've said before my own experimentation in this area just leads me to believe that there's more to learn. What I've witnessed over the past year is a complete reversal of all of the dietary logic I was ever given. That just makes me want to ask more questions.

That was some excellent information that you shared. The link between cholesterol and hormones was huge for me when I found it a while back. I felt betrayed by the media and the school system (no surprise) for never having mentioned that cholesterol was such a key component in those systems. From my view it just looks like a lot of missing information never gets shared so it's good to get these facts. We need them to balance out all the negative focus. How can a chemical that comprises the lining of your nerve cells (the myelin sheath) be bad for you? Also, to add to the inflammation issue you talked about. Neither HDL nor LDL are cholesterol in and of themselves. They are both lipoproteins (hence the 'L') and are used to transport cholesterol throughout the body. HDL is used to transport cholesterol to an area and LDL is used to remove cholesterol from an area. One theory that I've read suggests that when the smaller grain-like LDL particles bind to the cholesterol in an arterial tear, there's a chance they won't be able to get out and return to the liver. If that happens, it starts a cycle of continued build-up and inflammation. The larger "fluffy" LDL apparently doesn't have this issue which is why I've been focused more on inflammation markers than LDL. At least until we can get a better quality test for the different types of LDL. One last point that I'll think I'll make because it really just occurred to me what the heart of the matter is. We know that cholesterol is so essential to the body that all animal cells can manufacture it. So it's the regulatory systems and the sources of synthesis materials both that are key in determining an optimal strategy. The HDL/LDL connection gives some insight into the regulatory aspects although I think there's a lot more to it. The one thing I don't see a whole lot of in the conversation is how cholesterol is synthesized, what its precursors are and how those are regulated and distributed throughout the body. Sounds like I have some reading to do.

As a general rule for these types of arguments I've been using the broken window fallacy. The general idea is that you explore the economic consequences of breaking a window by showing the opportunity costs lost by replacement. I find it to be a good, simple example to explain that not all economic activity is truly desired or necessary. I also find the quote from Milton Friedman regarding using spoons instead of shovels for a jobs program to be a good zinger.

To be honest I've read about a wide range of factors including total cholesterol, various ratios between the components and individual components themselves. Everything I was reading at the time kept pointing towards triglycerides so that was what I focused on. I've never been convinced by the LDL data. I'm not an expert but my understanding is that LDL isn't measured directly and that can be seen in this case. My reports don't indicate an LDL value specifically but just what was net of total. So realistically I only have a good value for HDL and triglycerides. Another thing is that there's apparently at least two types of LDL. One is a larger type described as "fluffy" and the other is smaller and granular. I don't see any way to differentiate these from the data I've been shown and I think that's significant. HDL and LDL are both apparently fairly benign as they are cholesterol transporters but the smaller LDL is associated with adding to inflammation issues. I don't doubt that a rise in LDL might indicate a problem but I can't know the magnitude if I can't measure the factors involved. What I've been hearing lately is that inflammation markers are the best test so none of this may matter in a few years anyway. The important thing for me is that I feel healthier than I have in my entire life and I haven't seen anything thing stray significantly from what I would call "normal". I'm still monitoring and researching and I'll adjust accordingly if I see strong evidence to do so. For now, though, I'm sticking with high fat.