Is the self portrait in a bedroom mirror really more sad than these photos that look like they were semi-professionally staged? In my experience with OKCupid "good" photos are often the least "accurate."
The self-portrait in mirror says to me: I have no friends who have ever taken a picture of me, and I'm so embarrassed about this online dating thing / have so little self-esteem that I can't ask someone to take a couple pictures of me, or even go outside and use the delay feature of my camera to get a decent self-portrait. Is that a somewhat harsh assessment? Yeah, probably, but it's the 0.5s reaction, which is, for-better-or-worse, how a lot of the decision is made.
And, yes, the semi-professional glamour shots can be an issue too, but in my experience they are much rarer. And at least in that case the person has enough self-esteem to try to look good.
> A 20mm lens is not an excellent portrait lens. It will make your face look fatter.
It depends on the sensor size. A 20mm lens in (35mm) full-frame is a very wide lens. A 20mm lens on a Canon/Nikon DSLR is the same as a 35mm lens on a (35mm) full-frame. A 20mm lens on a point-and-shoot is even "longer".
In a (micro)4/3ds camera, 20mm is equivalent to 40mm in 35mm, which is close to a normal lens. It's on the short end for portraiture, but you can get nice results if the lens is fast enough.
Going by the analysis in the post, and in the parent comment, the 20mm would probably be positively correlated with attractiveness because it's easier to get a shallower depth of field with it.
However, you're certainly correct that conventional photographic wisdom is that people look better on longer lenses, for just the reason you cite -- wider angles can distort faces unpleasantly. It would have been interesting to see an analysis of lens length & perceived attractiveness from this dataset.
You have to be too close to the face in order to throw out the background with a 20mm 1.9. It's going to make the nose look weird and accentuate a double chin, if you have one. (I have the same camera and lens)
but my blood panels were dramatically better on a low-carb diet
My blood panels were exactly the opposite - bad when I ate cheese, meat, fried, oily stuff... good when I switched to a diet consisting mostly of rice, noodles, fruits and vegetables.
I don't think academia is really like that. One of my former roommates was a Physics PhD student at MIT, so I know him and his colleagues. They all drank beer and played chess and cards in this one basement bar in Cambridge, did stuff like hang gliding, rock climbing, ultimate frisbee and played in various awful experimental-folk bands. They were nerds but they were all bros and even attracted the weird kind of cyber-hippy chicks who are into dudes like that. They all eventually got married. They seemed pretty happy to me. In contrast I once got stuck in a corporate programming job, which was the most uninteresting and socially isolating experience of my entire life.
Whenever I read these HN screeds against academia, I wonder what they are comparing it against. In my experience academia was way more interesting and fun than working as a professional programmer. The only thing good about the later is that it pays a lot.
Well maybe those physics PhDs are a lot better at socializing than me. I remember spending years of my PhD trying to make friends, going to bars/rock climbing/dances/running clubs etc to try and meet friends, but never got any where, and just feel this crushing depression every day I have to go to work and sit down at a computer for 8 hours. I feel roughly the same in a corporate or academic environment, it's the result of so much being by oneself. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone into computers?
However, Academia for the most part I think is just that sort of environment, I have commiserated with numerous PhD students who say the same thing. If one is into computers, both academia and computer engineering as career tracks are rather isolating, but some seem to like it, vs some get lonely, perhaps it's something psychological, and I'm not really intended to be such an introvert. Who knows.
I don't think academia is a bad career as long as one can get tenure at a good school, or in a good industry lab, so as to work with good people. I guess whether one can take it psychologically just depends on the individual.
Although I do agree that maybe if one had kids+wife or worked hard to be social, the 8 hours of isolation a day wouldn't be that bad. It might even be relaxing! So maybe professor is a good job for one in old age. But still I would worry about causing my students to suffer through isolation.
Actually sorry for my complaints. I thought about this more and realized being a professor is actually pretty good socially. I think being a grad student is just hard, unless you are very outgoing, and can get out of the lab.
I guess I just wanted to caution people that a career in computers and/or academia can very isolating unless one picks the right path. Moderation in all things.
When I was broke I read lots of books but certainly didn't care about what a patent trolling dong from Microsoft thought about Sous Vide (still don't). Maybe that's what t.ptacek meant?
Patent troll or not, you (probably --- I don't have the books) have to respect the effort. The guy has a zillion dollars and has chosen to spend some of it to make the largest possible impact on cooking. That's pretty cool.
You should read the section of SuperFreakonomics devoted to him before dismissing him as a patent troll. If that book is to believed (and I'll take the word of Levitt and Dubner, distinguished authors who visited his lab, over that of Michael Arrington any day) he's a pretty swell guy.
That's because "patent troll" is a derogatory term made up by people who are opposed to the very idea of patents. It comes from people who are frustrated by the patent system (often rightfully so) but aren't intelligent or knowledgeable enough to propose real solutions that don't undermine the basis of our economy and instead want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It's the tech equivalent of calling someone a communist. It's a valueless ad hominem.
There's a lot of glycemic index nonsense out there today. There is a low carb meme which will have you believe that just a few ounces of "carbs" will throw your metabolism out of whack and you won't lose weight even if you keep calories low. This is bullshit.
However, if you are trying to lose weight, it's often good to leave out carbs simply because it is so easy to overeat carbs. I love pasta and could easily eat 1200 calories worth of spaghetti and still have room for more. On the other hand , I almost have to choke down 1200 calories of eggs, fruit and vegetables.
I disagree - glycemic index is a hugely important factor that a lot of people just don't consider. I certainly didn't until recently and now I'm a convert.
Why GI is a big deal is simple: if you eat a lot of high GI foods your spike your blood sugar levels causing all sorts of issues from mood swings to hunger.
For me simply paying a little more attention and eating more low GI foods has had a profound effect on my well being. I find I'm more focused and centered mentally and emotionally; I never have mood swings from 'bottoming out' - aka running out of fuel and needing to eat. This use to cause me a lot of stress with my gf and my ex (they have told me in the past they worried about when I would be hungry next because I'd become irrational and argumentative).
I think it's easy to think something like the glycemic index is just a new 'fad' diet type of thing. I know I use to think only people with diabetes had to worry about GI. But what I've found is that it is a hugely beneficial thing no matter who you are.
Final thought on this - if you really don't think there is anything to the whole GI thing, next time you are hungry eat 8-10 almonds (maybe mix in some raisons or cranberries - they are high GI but together the overall 'load' is low) and see how quickly your hunger vanishes and your mood levels off. This isn't for 10 minutes either; I then have enough time to really think about lunch/dinner and make a really good choice instead of eating whatever is laying around because I'm 'starving'.
Anyway, I lost around 35 pounds in the past 2 month using this 'trick', but I also workout 5 days and get out and hike, play hockey and generally try to be active when I'm not coding.
> "it's often good to leave out carbs simply because it is so easy to overeat carbs"
Great truth. I find that carbs go through my system like a water slide - I get hungry fast, and that in turn leads to overeating.
A chunk of meat, while not being exactly low on calories (I pick lean cuts) and has a lot more fat than bread, lasts me a lot longer, and reduces cravings by an incredible amount.
For me that's the main benefit - I'm not particularly concerned with whether or not carbs are good for you, all I know is that on carb-heavy diets I eat more.
You just need to eat a lot more calories. You might be doing the wrong weightlifting routine. If you can do egg whites, those work pretty well. I went from 150 to 180 in college on a "hard gainer" program. My diet back then was: egg whites, brown rice, vegetables. Now I'm trying to get back down to about 165, so be careful what you wish for...
- it gets really hot
- the battery only gets about 2.5 hours, max
- in NYC area, it is slow.
- it's not really cheap, it's $60/m for 5GB. Plus you have to pay $150 to buy it in the first place
If that still sounds good to you, I've got one for sale... ;)