This is delusional and would never work
Readit Newssternocleidom commented on Ask HN: Who would pay $20/mo for Netflix for research · Posted by u/davidjnelson
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
> ...I am uniquely positioned to assess the quality and scope of the scientific research we are discussing...
> Most on HN lack the background knowledge and training to usefully interpret a review article like this, let alone a journalistic simplification.
It seems like you can't help but belittle the audience you're replying to. It comes across as if you're saying "I'm the elite academic talking down to all of you plebs." You may have some good ideas but your tone and arrogance suck. And I think you'd be surprised by the "academic qualifications" of many of the people on HN. Many in this audience are perfectly capable of understanding the article. You're not "unique."
You're right, I was honestly just testing out an elitist writing style to see what the responses would be like. It's a challenge to argue on semi-anonymous forums, and it's interesting seeing how tone plays out. It's been a good discussion for sure.
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
> I have a PhD from a top institution
I'm sorry but any comment that starts out "I have a PhD from a top institution" reeks of Appeal to Authority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
Then you appeal to science without actually citing any science, but yet more anecdotal data and thoughts from your own mind.
Your arguments are just not very strong because they're all coming from your own experience and thoughts. Your qualifications in exercise and academia (especially on a partially anonymous internet forum) do not make your thoughts any more valuable than anyone else's here without resources to back them up.
I cited my scientific qualifications to demonstrate that I am uniquely positioned to assess the quality and scope of the scientific research we are discussing and - crucially - the interpretations thereof.
Most on HN lack the background knowledge and training to usefully interpret a review article like this, let alone a journalistic simplification. Yes, I cite "thoughts from my own mind", a mind which has spent years researching this theme.
You're wondering why I don't cite any articles contradicting the claims of the review article? That's because this paper already cites many published peer-reviewed works, only to dismiss their findings. You'd know this if you actually read the paper and had the background and training to properly interpret it!
It's an interesting review. The main idea of the paper is that we shouldn't jump to conclusions so quickly when thinking that strenuous exercise can increase risk of short-term illness. The authors point out some logical and mechanistic fallacies of past studies.
I take issue with the interpretation that most people will have after reading - that strenuous exercise will not increase risk of getting sick. I know firsthand that this is not the case in truly elite athletes. But, for many people this may be true. It's important to be specific however, when discussing scientific matters, which is why I contributed my thoughts
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
> Running is probably the worst sport as far as caloric expenditure is concerned.
This is not correct. They are relatively close, though in fact swimming on average will burn slightly less calories than running per hour of activity for most paces of comparative effort [0].
> I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks
This is around 3.5 to 10 hours of cycling a day depending on your weight and speed... There is individual variation of course, but there is no way you are burning this many calories without A LOT of hours on the bike.
Check this out http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-calories-cyclists-bu...
"Each day participants ride, on average, about 100 miles and burn some 6,071 calories"
As a competitive, but still amateur cyclist I would do something in this ballpark almost every day. Hence 3000 - 5000 calories. And I'd often run for an hour or play soccer on top of this since I wasn't a pro.
I did spend a lot of hours on the bike, as serious athletes tend to do. Years of experience with myself and many other national caliber athletes tells me that we do in fact get sick from strenuous exercise, all the time.
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
You only present anecdata here, and you numerous times refer to "any serious athlete" or "any serious cyclist". But where is your scientific evidence supporting your claims? The article claims these claims are myths and you haven't contradicted that here.
I have a PhD from a top institution, so I'm all for science. But the science on this matter is misleading to people who aren't experts in the field, so I don't blame you for calling me out.
Let me try to explain why there is no contradiction, and why the science here can't be relied upon across the board.
First, my anecdata pertain to athletes who are competitive on a national or regional level - Olympic Trials qualifiers, Cat 1 and pro cyclists, and similar. Science will confirm that these individuals have profoundly altered physiologies as compared to average "fit" people.
A problem with extending exercise physiology research to elite athletes is that most of the time, the scientists do not have elite test subjects available. There is a world of difference between the 4 hr marathoners they probably surveyed, or even 3hr Boston qualifiers, compared to the 2:20 and under marathoner I have in mind. There simply isn't much science published on these guys, because there aren't that many of them.
Many exercise physiology papers will say "well-trained subjects between the ages of 21 and 30", and the layman will think this means they studied top athletes. But then you look at the data and see that the average 5K run time for these people is something like 18 minutes, which is much slower than even the easy 20 mile pace for the subjects of my anecdata.
So maybe, the average marathon jogger is not more likely to fall ill after an effort. But talk to anyone who has run under 2:30 for men or under 3:00 for women and they will agree with what I have found
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
This is all anecdotal evidence that's pretty well countered by this statement:
> Their first conclusion was that athletes are lousy at identifying whether and why they are sniffling. The original 1980s studies had relied on runners’ self-reports of illness. But newer experiments that actually tested saliva showed that less than a third of marathon runners who thought they had caught a cold actually had. Statistically, their odds of becoming sick were about the same as for anyone else in the race’s host city.
The anecdotes of hundreds of national and world class athletes I have trained, raced, and interacted with over the years is worth more than any study you can paste here, my friend.
I suppose you are unlikely to see anyone here back me up since HackerNews isn't exactly an athletic demographic.
Fever, red eyes, overflowing mucus, extreme soreness and raw throat for days or over a week - are you trying to tell me that this isn't sick? Maybe that's your normal state, but I've seen hundreds of cases of amateur and professional athletes reduced to this shortly after performing national caliber efforts.
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
Found the fatty ;)
Ok, seriously.... math: if you eat 3000 kcal per day and lose 1 lb per week, you're burning 3500 kcal per day. This is quite a lot. It's near impossible unless you work out a lot and are veeeery muscular... or are impossibly tall... or, well, fat. (Or a combination of those.)
Take me for comparison: I am 187cm (6'1ish) tall and weigh 75kg (165 lbs), pretty much smack in the middle of the "normal weight" range. I like running, do about 50km (30 miles) per week. I count calories and let my wrist watch measure my energy expenditure 24/7. On rest days (mostly sedentary), I burn about 2100 kcal. To get up to 3400, I have to do some sort of hard run and some lighter activity in addition, or do a long run (18km+).
Now I'm not everybody of course, but you can't be that abnormal, right? So I'm not buying your numbers.
Running is probably the worst sport as far as caloric expenditure is concerned.
A serious endurance cyclist or swimmer will certainly go through 3000 kcal on a normal training day if not more.
I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks. What's more is I know these numbers are very accurate as we train with power meters that record our energy expenditure with minimal error.
It's important to distinguish between serious athletes and average people who exercise. It's possible that truly competitive athletes - for instance, who run 120 miles a week to your 30 - will be much more likely to get ill from their efforts. It can take serious fitness - and a mentality acquired only by years of serious training - to push yourself to the extent that you fall ill, and maybe the recreational "athlete" described in this text can't reach that point.
sternocleidom commented on How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System nytimes.com/2018/04/25/we... · Posted by u/hvo
This article could not be more wrong, and anyone who has been a truly serious athlete will agree with me.
There are perhaps a dozen times in my life when I was training with abnormally high intensity even for a very competitive endurance athlete and fell ill immediately afterward.
These range from 2 hr brutal races to 3-4 days of 5-7 hrs daily intense training or race efforts. I very rarely catch a cold, but it's more often than not after an effort that stands out to me as memorably difficult.
Any serious cyclist will agree with me. Even competitive high school athletes know that you are most likely to get sick right before taper.
This is an example of misinterpretation of scientific experiment, most likely by the journalists but possibly by the scientists themselves.
EDIT: I don't take issue with "immune response is heightened after exercise". I'm sure it is. I take issue with this quote: "But it is unlikely to have made you vulnerable to colds or other illnesses afterward, according to a myth-busting new review of the latest science about immunity and endurance exercise".
sternocleidom commented on Ask HN: Is anyone using BTC or cryptocurrencies for transactions · Posted by u/nikajon_es
I don't, and I think part of why it's not used so much for transactions is privacy. Most cryptocurrencies provide a public log of all transactions.
Bitcoin Private https://btcprivate.org/whitepaper.pdf will add privacy, we'll see how it goes. Also LiteCoin is introducing LitePay in a few days, which might change things.
NewYorkCoin https://www.wsj.com/articles/newyorkcoin-gains-traction-in-c... is actually used as currency in NYC, and is fast enough and has no transaction fees.
So we're at the early stages of things, but between Bitcoin Private, Litecoin, and NYCoin, I expect lots more people will be buying with cryptocurrencies over the course of 2018
On the flip side, going out to dinner with friends, and discovering that you may be on the hook for $100, and not stressing about how you are going to pay for it, is withing reach of a lot more people. I have several friends who have reached that level.
I think the levels are pretty good. Though I would also add two levels of wealth that materially change people's happiness - L0 (Can I pay my bus fare, rent, groceries without stressing. L0 is very, very real). And also, L4 - which is no longer flying commercial. Being able to go where you want on your schedule, without ever having to walk through an Airport/TSA is, I have heard, a material change to personal happiness.
You can just as easily spend $1500 a person for a two week vacation in Europe and enjoy essentially all the same things as if you're paying 10x as much.
$5K daily incidental, are you kidding me?
Don't fly business class unless your business is paying or you're on a honeymoon or something.