Category: Rant

Calories in, calories out

I just wanted to put on paper (so to speak 🙂 some thoughts on CI/CO.  If you’ve read GCBC none of this will be new.

Some people in the dietary sphere like to insist that “it’s all about the calories”, or words to that effect.  Gary Taubes argues that it has to do with how you metabolize different kinds of foods, and that it’s not only about the calories.  His critics tend to argue back about the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how if you expend more than you consume, you’ll lose weight, QED.

So I’d like to present some edge cases that prove that whether and how your body metabolizes what you consume is important.
Can you eat U238?  No.  Lots of energy there, though.
Can you eat crude oil?  No.  Lots of energy there, though.
Can you drink gasoline?  No.  Lots of energy there.
So it’s apparent that your body can digest certain things and can’t digest other things. So why is it so hard for some people to grasp that your body digests different things differently?  While it may not be all about the insulin, it’s a lot about the insulin.

SiriusXM continues to amaze …

… with their stupidity, I mean.

I have a SiriusXM account.  I want to “listen online”.  I reset my password, ’cause I couldn’t be bothered to look it up in the other room.  I try to log in with the password that I just reset.  It doesn’t work.  I reset it again.  I try to log in again.  It still doesn’t work.  I look it up in the other room and try that.  The old one still works.

I don’t know if they have some latency between resetting the password and when it becomes valid (which is dumb), or if they have different credentials for you “SiriusXM account” vs. your “listen online” account (which is dumb).  But if the latter, what is ESPECIALLY dumb, is that the “reset your password” link on the “listen online” login page RESETS THE WRONG PASSWORD.

Did I mention that this was especially dumb?