Salon's banner article today is called "Hackers on Atkins" and can be
read he

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...ers/index.html

(Might have to watch an ad first in order to get a 'day pass' for access
to premium content.)

Unfortunately, the article is largely another example of a narcissistic
journalist in love with the cute extended metaphor she just created. In
her imagined world, low-carbing is just like "hacking" your own body,
ketosis is a perversely "pathological" hack akin to overclocking a CPU,
and a major attraction of the LC way is the countercultural frisson
generated by "breaking the rules".

It's nice to see the publicity (a.s.d.l-c even gets mentioned by name),
and the article does present LC implicitly as something that works
(however empirically), and LC'ers explicitly as well-informed,
open-minded sorts of people. The general "your body as science
experiment" meme also seems valid enough. But Ms. Mieszkowski distorts
basic LC concepts in order to fit them into her computer theme. We get
the sensationalist "unlimited burgers and eggs" bit again, without so
much as a word about vegetables or variety. And, to be in ketosis is to
"run your body at a 'specification' it wasn't designed for, in order to
burn off more fat." I suspect most here would argue the reverse: that
people who stuff their faces with WonderBread and Coke are the ones
running "out of spec". At the same time, there's no mention at all of
appetite suppression, which is the one LC feature I can think of that
comes closest to being a true hack.

Her last few paragraphs contain a few more intelligent quotes that point
out most of the flaws in her metaphor (they pretty much contradict the
whole thing, actually). Too bad she didn't reflect more on them and
then rewrite the entire article for substance over style.

Adam Cole
(not new, just haven't posted here in a long time)