Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 516 posts

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#21

Post by ewolf »

mortenjorck wrote: post #5

This is the kind of idea that will probably go nowhere, but could change the world. My first reaction, being an ardent lover of many ethnic cuisines, was "of course I'd never use something like that" but then I got to this line: Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don't want to go to the movies three times a day. Suddenly, I'm imagining "A DVR for eating." You have a steady intake of S…

My thoughts exactly.

I'm hoping for it to spread to impoverished countries or slums. If the price of production is indeed low, this could be a great chance for them.

Then let's hope it doesn't get associated too much with homeless people's food, and the rest of the world might adopt it as well. Once a large-scale production industry exists, there might not be such a high threshold for adoption. People are in a hurry to eat so often, if they could just pass by a place to grab some Soylent, they'd certainly take the opportunity.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#22

Post by dxbydt »

If he's a true programmer, he'd code up an iphone app that controls an arduino that mixes up the precise amounts of amino acids, boron, saccharides, glucose and polyphenols for the perfect Soylent to start his day. Maybe even post his objective C on github so I can issue a pull request with 200% more boron. You know, here in the bay area, we have plants that tweet when they run out of water. I can rig up a tweetbot so his body tweets whenever he is dehydrated, and Amazon can intercept that tweet to dropship amino acids to his kitchen where the arduino mixes up the next batch of Soylent.

I should stop watching scifi.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#24

Post by Erwin »

Looks like Scott Adam's Dilberito returns: «With the mantra “We Make it Easy to Eat,” Scott Adams Food, Inc. condenses the gastronomy, convenience, and economy (the would-be price in 2008, adjusted to inflation, is $3.31) into one object, eliminating the need for contemplation and decision.» http://dankbuilders.blogspot.dk/2008/03/dilberito.html

Like Dilbert, the animated series (second season wasn't actually that bad), Dilberito has not caught on.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#25

Post by zck »

>Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet, but with just a third of the calories...

This worries me. It's not a misquote, either. From his blog^0 :

>...I get all the nutrition and energy I need with about 1/3 the calories the average American consumes...

The average American consumes 2,757 calories^2 . There's a term called the Basal Metabolic Rate. It is the amount of calories your body needs just to keep living, without thinking about movement^2 . A sample man's basal metabolic rate is over 1800 calories^3 . So thinking you can drop that down to 900 is suspect, especially in the long term.

[0]http://robrhinehart.com/?p=298

[1]http://www.livestrong.com/article/347737-the-average-america...

[2]http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006

[3]http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ for a 5'10", 175 lbs, 30 years old, inactive man

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#29

Post by thejsjunky »

> because "soylent" is the name of a wafer made out of human flesh and fed

Bit of nerd pedantry: this is incorrect. "Soylent" is the name of a type of processed food. There are different kinds made from various things. "soylent green" is a new variety introduced in this category that is supposedly made from kelp (or something like that) but is famously made from something else entirely.

It's actually a pretty apt name.

Post reply on HN