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Seth Roberts has died

blog.sethroberts.net

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Re: Seth Roberts has died

#21

Post by EpicEng »

001sky wrote: post #16
zorbo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me, but I'm having trouble understanding why his death is significant for a crowd such as Hacker news? I didn't know about him, and I don't mean to talk ill of the dead, but from a quick google it would seem he's mostly just a dietary quack? Even if he wasn't a quack, I still don't really get his relevance.

There are some odd comments on his blog. See, eg: I know this is a rough time, but I’d like to ask: if you don’t already know for certain, please preserve any evidence, digital and physical, that might indicate why he died. If it was the result of one of his self-experiments, then I think he would want us to know.

Not really that odd considering his line of work. I'm sure a number of people have replicated his experiments on themselves and are now understandably concerned.

Re: Seth Roberts has died

#22

Post by facepalm »

zorbo wrote: post #11
influx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Roberts He was well known for self experimentation and writing the book, "The Shangri-La Diet".

Forgive me, but I'm having trouble understanding why his death is significant for a crowd such as Hacker news? I didn't know about him, and I don't mean to talk ill of the dead, but from a quick google it would seem he's mostly just a dietary quack? Even if he wasn't a quack, I still don't really get his relevance.

Self experimentation is very much in spirit with Hacker News. I think he was a great inspiration.

Re: Seth Roberts has died

#25

Post by prawn »

zorbo wrote: post #17
pbreit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like he was a bit of a food hacker. Probably a slight stretch but I can see the relevance.

That could be it. His blog is also full of all kinds of harmful medical advice not backed by any kind of knowledge of the subjects much less any kind of science. Generally not the kind of of crowd hacker news "associates" with.

I don't know - there seem to be a fair number of people on HN very interested in these sorts of things going by the support for Soylent and so on.

Re: Seth Roberts has died

#26

Post by dm2 »

qwerty_asdf wrote: post #12

According to a Scientific American article [1], he was aged 54 in early 2008, so that puts him at roughly 60 years old, depending on his precise date of birth... [1] http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=self-experimenter-free-f...

According to the link below he was 52 in 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/11FREAK.html?page...

Re: Seth Roberts has died

#27

Post by blueskin_ »

prawn wrote: post #25
zorbo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be it. His blog is also full of all kinds of harmful medical advice not backed by any kind of knowledge of the subjects much less any kind of science. Generally not the kind of of crowd hacker news "associates" with.

I don't know - there seem to be a fair number of people on HN very interested in these sorts of things going by the support for Soylent and so on.

As I understand it, it's as that is based on real research and not what someone feels it should be.

Haven't tried it myself, but open to it at some point.

Seth Roberts' 'diet' seems to be based on eating things with and without a flavour at different times; a bit of a WTF to say the least.

Re: Seth Roberts has died

#28

Post by greenmountin »

kayoone wrote: post #18

Tragic and shows that no matter how healthy your lifestyle, life can still end in unexpected ways much too early.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not, so I will note for other readers that there is a lot of irony in saying this about Seth. His most public experiments were the ingestion of large quantities of olive oil for appetite control and daily butter consumption to aid sleep. A more appropriate sentiment might be to salute Seth for his radical health experiments, and the great risks he assumed in performing them on himself.

Re: Seth Roberts has died

#29

Post by marincounty »

zorbo wrote: post #11
influx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Roberts He was well known for self experimentation and writing the book, "The Shangri-La Diet".

Forgive me, but I'm having trouble understanding why his death is significant for a crowd such as Hacker news? I didn't know about him, and I don't mean to talk ill of the dead, but from a quick google it would seem he's mostly just a dietary quack? Even if he wasn't a quack, I still don't really get his relevance.

If you spend a fair amount of time sitting in front of these computers; you should take a slight interest in nutrition. Or, I guess you strap your ipad to your mountian bike when coding? I myself don't feel sitting in front of a computer is healthy. I do try to limit my caloric intake.
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