I read the whole thing, waiting for the casual but gruesome murder scene and it never happened. So is this not the teaser for a new Brett Easton Ellis novel? Is such flagrant vacuity Where It's Really At?

Well I let my pointless comment sit and read some of Doctorow's piece and that made it all worthwhile. So now I'm saying that.

Dammit, I knew I should've added in some murders.

Are you taking suggestions?

Yikes!! Wait, are we plotting murder?

What this article calls "body hacking", the rest of the world calls "good diet and exercise".

Ha! Yeah, in some cases. Ferriss is a big advocate of these supplements he calls the PAGG stack, which, if taken at the right doses, in theory let you do things you wouldn't be able to otherwise (like eat a ton and not gain weight). And, kettlebell workouts are a shortcut to traditional weight-lifting. But yes "body hacking tech bro" is better marketing than: sensible ideas to stay in shape.

I'd like to eat a ton and put on weight. Muscles preferably.

Time to re-read Cory Doctorow's 0wnz0r3d, an amazing SF novella about body hacking. Full text online: http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/

Possibly the most confusing headline I've ever read on Hacker News.

I was a bit annoyed to find it was an article about a book that came out 9 months ago ... and was discussed to death at the time.

New York may have been uncharacteristically late to the party on this one.

Reviewed by the NYT in Jan and discussed here about 6 months ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2077312

But it had been popping up ad-nauseum for a couple of months before its December 2010 release.

It's an old story.

Duly noted. The article was meant to be about how adoption by NY techies dovetails into the self-quantified movement that's going around. That NYT review was pretty stupendous. I think we all read it at the time.

Just checking (and trying to make sense of the title) but does "Founder 15" mean 15 pounds (or kilos) of excess weight?

Yes, a play on "the freshman 15", the weight you gain first year of college. Measured in old fashioned America LBS.

I've been doing the "no-carb diet" (or whatever it's called) for 3 weeks now, combined with some exercise. I've lost 8 pounds so far.

There's no "hacking" here; it's just sensible advice. Cut out the beer, the rice, the snacks, etc. Eat more protein. Drink lots of water. Exercise. There you go.

Body hacking refers to the use of programs and gadgets to aid in your diet and exercise. Some people call it the quantified self - http://quantifiedself.com/

I've been doing slow-carb diet (not 100% strict) for a month, lost 11lbs. So its not all bunk.

Nice! In the beginning there's a loss of water weight, but at least half of that is probably straight-up loss. If the one day cheat day helps to sustain the diet, no matter how much marketing hype surrounding the book the diet would still be worth it.

thanks! I think first few days of losses (3-5lbs for me) were water weight. but i think i would have lost more if i wasn't exercising a lot.