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heimatau commented on Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Heavy Metals [pdf]   oversight.house.gov/sites... · Posted by u/malloci
Junk_Collector · 5 years ago
Honestly, the whole thing reads like a hit piece. There are published standards for exposure levels in foods but the committee intentionally used inapplicable standards such as the much more stringent standard for purified water. Their reasoning is, "It is not sound logic to say that water is unsafe to drink if it contains over 5 ppb lead, but candy and fruit juice can be ten and twenty times higher than that limit."

The report is also full of frankly offensive conjecture. You'll find statements like, "Whether due to evasion or negligence, Sprout’s failure to respond raises serious concerns about the presence of toxic heavy metals in its baby foods," about any company that didn't respond to the committee in the way they felt appropriate.

They also repeatedly state that the levels of heavy metals in baby foods are unsafe but they never actually make a case for it. They just take it as truth and titled the report as such.

Finally, I would keep in mind that this is a congressional oversight committee staff report. This wasn't made by scientists. Nobody involved in the creation of the report has working knowledge of food safety or testing procedures. All testing in the report was provided by the companies in question. This report was made by a team of people working for the House as the foundation for proposing new laws and regulations and as such it's an inherently political report.

Frankly, after the publishing of this report it's doubtful that any company will be willing to work with this subcommittee ever again and they would be right to refuse.

heimatau · 5 years ago
> Honestly, the whole thing reads like a hit piece.

To me it reads like cognitive dissonance. They write multiple damning statements (yes based in science) but conclude with 'voluntary changes' and 'more research'.

I'll mention that the piece speaks about FDA not needing baby food manufacturers to test the final product of the food, only the ingredients. Multiple independent studies confirm that the manufacturing of baby food products is outrageous, in terms of what is allowed. Compared to adult food, it's a double standard.

Instead, baby foods should be held to a higher standard. But this Democrat Committee is okay with 3 companies (of 7) not responding to their inquiry, only 'suggesting' private changes, and kicks the can down the road with a cop-out like 'more research needs to be done by the FDA'.

It's a long document but corruption and negligence is bipartisan [1].

[1] - This is b/c the report condemns Trump for hiding hazardous facts about baby food products but then with those facts they/Dem-led only commit to lip service.

heimatau commented on Petabyte tape cartridges are coming   blocksandfiles.com/2021/0... · Posted by u/TangerineDream
dragontamer · 5 years ago
Assuming you can read/write at 512 MB/s, it would take 24-days to read/write a full Petabyte.

Despite the long time to read/write, any situation where capacity is king (aka: any Tape-drive solution today), probably benefits from something like this.

This isn't a solution where you backup / restore from per se, but instead provide dozens of backups to (and probably only restore once from). Every day, you backup up to 42TBs of data (512MBps going full tilt for all 24-hours).

Then, when your backups fail, or someone asks for data from 3 weeks ago, you rewind the tape and grab that data. Crazy that this would all fit on one tape potentially.

heimatau · 5 years ago
We're getting closer to writing out the Akashic records. Interesting recursion of our present moments that it becomes observable.
heimatau commented on Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips   washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/ummonk
heimatau · 5 years ago
61.7M. It's a shame that the opportunity costs aren't included, fairly unjust.
heimatau commented on Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?   mintpressnews.com/media-c... · Posted by u/killittosaveit
pvg · 5 years ago
Since you ask, but let's end here: To me, it's the simplest theory that explains the available facts.

First you wrote a short one-liner comment that said (roughly summarizing from memory) "google's motto used to be don't be evil, lol". Users flagkilled it almost instantly and you, embarrassed, deleted it. Then a moderator scolded you, which is even more unpleasant and embarrassing and you started writing lengthy defenses pretending the embarrassing thing you deleted was some Voltairean epigram, talking about how you 'stand by' a thing you yourself deleted. When this inconsistency was pointed out to you, you pretended not to understand the issue and went on to blame other users because, I assume, the whole thing becomes even more embarrassing if we recall that it's, in fact, about a comment that said (roughly summarizing from memory) "google's motto used to be don't be evil, lol".

heimatau · 5 years ago
That wasn't my comment...Also, it's refreshing that you can project my emotion on me (did I say embarrassed? did I say it was unpleasant? did I say I felt it was a Voltairean epigram?). Even though I stated you were incorrect on my personal emotional reaction, you continue to not realize that you're incorrect about my perception on the matter. Let alone your question ('why...') was a hostile question instead of actually engaging someone. I offered an olive branch by trying to rephrase it. Then you take all pretenses away and judge me without merit or grounded in fact.

I asked you what your question was but instead of realizing that you asked me a judgemental question (which isn't really a fair question...you presume guilt), you continue with your judgement without the facade of asking. You told me what you thought. Now, this latest comment, you're expounding as if you're doing someone a favor but instead it's condensation and gaslighting my perspective.

As for these longer follow-up questions. Honestly, if they got downvoted, I'd just laugh because it would only confirm how immature the readers are (which does happen occasionally but is rare) but instead, I wouldn't edit them b/c objectively, I'm not in the wrong on these longer posts. And someone would be hard pressed to say anything to the contrary.

To be clear, I'm standing my ground on my right to do what I did, for my own reasons and it was pointless/meritless to throw me into the mix of someone trying to provoke a flamewar. Which is a presumption beyond any evidence (even the deleted evidence) can verify. But...maybe I'm 'guilty' because someone might have power over me and they projected their negative mental patterns onto my comments? Cool world. Seems like the irony of my original comment! But I hope that rationality comes.

Instead, it was an innocent comment and the reaction has been anything but mature or consistent. I've seen even more superficial, pointless, and antagonistic comments than mine daily on HN, yet it's rare to see them squashed. I've checked multiple times. It's hit/miss, since HN has scaled over the years.

Take a step back and chill out. /fin

heimatau commented on Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?   mintpressnews.com/media-c... · Posted by u/killittosaveit
pvg · 5 years ago
I think by this point, with your help, I've arrived at the conclusion you were simply embarrassed by what you wrote, thanks.
heimatau · 5 years ago
> I think by this point, with your help, I've arrived at the conclusion you were simply embarrassed by what you wrote, thanks.

How so? I wasn't embarrassed. I was shocked at the immature reactions.

heimatau commented on Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?   mintpressnews.com/media-c... · Posted by u/killittosaveit
pvg · 5 years ago
That's not what I asked, but maybe I can try to rephrase it. It seems odd to be going to such verbose lengths to defend something you wrote but apparently don't want other people to see.
heimatau · 5 years ago
> That's not what I asked, but maybe I can try to rephrase it. It seems odd to be going to such verbose lengths to defend something you wrote but apparently don't want other people to see.

I appreciate the attempt at clarity but I don't see a question here.

heimatau commented on Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?   mintpressnews.com/media-c... · Posted by u/killittosaveit
pvg · 5 years ago
If you feel the comment was substantive, thoughtful and conducive to interesting discussion, why did you delete it?
heimatau · 5 years ago
> why did you delete it?

I'll rephrase your question. What is the reason for the deletion of your comment?

Simple. People were flaming. It was getting downvoted and flagged. If the community sends a clear statement (by acting in concert with one another), then I'd prefer not to get downvoted into oblivion. To me, it's not a hill I want to die on. And it was clear that others were misunderstanding. All I can do is communicate my perspective. If someone comes to the conversation with misguided expectations (even if it's a swarm of people), then I'll bow out. It's simple non-violent communication.

heimatau commented on Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?   mintpressnews.com/media-c... · Posted by u/killittosaveit
dang · 5 years ago
I'm certainly not suggesting that other commenters didn't also break the site guidelines, but what you posted was unsubstantive flamebait. It's easy to underestimate (by 10x or more) how much of this one is doing—commenters are often surprised to hear how their comments have landed with others. The solution to this is not to blame other people but rather to err on the side of posting thoughtfully and substantively.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

heimatau · 5 years ago
> but what you posted was unsubstantive flamebait

Pointing out that the morals of Google diverging from their founding motto is absolutely substantive.

As for flamebait, to someone whom has an axe to grind, everything is flamebait. Which is something I have zero control over.

> rather to err on the side of posting thoughtfully and substantively.

I did. As for beauty, it's in the eyes of the beholder. Which why I'm standing my ground on what I said. I didn't entice someone. I didn't get into ad hominem. I simply only responded once that I'm pointing out something that is clear to me (hypocrisy of Google's morals).

I already stated how Google diverged from it's original motto. One commenter felt it was unoriginal. Well, I don't live on this website. Also, where are these unproductive expectations coming from? Pointing out that someone is 'unoriginal' isn't engaging anyone to discuss something.

Since speaking plainly isn't getting through.

Let me reason by comparison.

If I'm a 5th grader and the commenter is a professional 12th grader. How is the 5th grader wrong for posting it's opinion? That is clearly substantive and thoughtful, I literally quoted Google's code of ethics page to make my case. The 12th grader should've known better.

If something has been said 100s of times on HN, guess what happens? Typically, it educates the new readers whom haven't seen that information before. Or it gets downvoted into oblivion. Nothing wrong with that and it's self policing.

I believe this type of response, to me, was misplaced and unnecessary.

heimatau commented on Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?   mintpressnews.com/media-c... · Posted by u/killittosaveit
dang · 5 years ago
Please don't post predictable flamewar comments to HN. We're trying for curious conversation here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

heimatau · 5 years ago
It wasn't a predictable flamewar. Maybe for you but it wasn't for me nor could you cite any observable evidence for my contribution in this.

The other commenter was trying to flame, now that others seemingly piled on by needlessly flagging. I was generous and didn't engage in anything but a nudge to what I was implying/saying.

Google's behavior might be 'obvious' to some but it's not obvious to everyone, hence why I posted what I did in a public forum where ~2 billion people have access to this website but don't have uniform understanding of all things Google, that Google's behavior was hypocritical. The commenter expected me to say one thing or another and that's where the disconnect is. Not me. If you can cite my error, I'll happily provide 1 BTC for you clearly proving my error. But you can't. I don't come here to blame/flame. I come to contribute what I find valuable to the community. Others didn't find it valuable, that's fine but I tried.

When dealing with trolls. There is nothing wrong with giving them a gentle nudge, which is what I did. I didn't engage past my initial comment and one additional.

Finally, when dealing with people. Don't prejudge, even if you are the judge, when dealing with the community. I've done nothing wrong and the only problem is the narrative in people's head and their expectations to ~'not rehash what others have said' as @blauditore and @saagarjha were implying.

What others may have said in the past doesn't inform my experience, I wasn't there. I'm speaking for myself and there is nothing wrong with what I said. And still isn't.

For @blauditore and @saagarjha, I'd say their comments were trying to flame. Don't project their bad behavior on me.

Dead Comment

u/heimatau

KarmaCake day868April 25, 2015
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I love research. I like all kinds though & I love tech news.

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Current past-time: Certifications (electrical and cad tools) and Masters program (at my leisure).

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