Jim Vajda
Here I am.
Jim Vajda | Blog- Jim Vajda Design
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Posts
- Jan 30, 13
Alright, I've switched again. I've come full circle back to Blogger, which is the first blogging platform I ever used. There new Dynamic Views templates were just too tempting, and the overall redesign is very nice, making it simple but still powerful. I also appreciate the ability to hide that awful navigation bar that Google adds to the top of every Blogger blog. Does anyone actually use that?
OK, so the blog has been pretty boring this year. I promise no more blogs about blogging and blogging platforms. I'm sure you're all fascinated by these posts, but somehow we'll survive without them.
Which leads me to rethink the utility and purpose of this blog. For one, it's my personal blog. You can read my professional blog here. It's also public, so whatever I am comfortable with sharing publicly from my personal life goes here. See the obvious conflict there?
Currently, the things I want to share with a limited set of people get posted on Facebook. It works for that, but I don't have a lot of confidence that my data is remaining as private Facebook would lead me to believe, and I don't like my data getting locked-in and commoditized there. So, I'm recommitting to using this blog as a sharing tool whenever possible.
It's good practice not to post things online that you aren't comfortable with sharing publicly anyway, despite what the social networks tell us. "Private" sharing on social networks still put your data in someone else's hands, and those people can then rebroadcast it far and wide. This is even more likely to happen to the things you most want to remain private, as this type of information piques the most interest.
It time for me to take my own advice and only post things I'm willing to share publicly online. In summary, I'll be sharing my public parts here. - Jan 29, 13
Well, this is awkward.
I thought Google+ was going to take the world by storm, replacing Facebook, WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter, and maybe even email itself. No such luck.
I thought Google+ could be used a blogging platform. While it does have permalinks to each post, there’s no easy way to browse older posts, there is no HTML support, and no dependable RSS solution. I suppose if they wanted it to replace Blogger, they’d have said as much. I also don’t like mixing my public and private content on the same service. That’s asking for trouble.
Google+ hasn’t even taken off as a social network really. Why use it when Facebook still has better features and a huge user-base? Outside of photo sharing, I’m losing faith that it will ever amount to much. Google understands engineering really well. People? Not so much.
So where does that leave me and my once in-a-couple-months blogging needs? WordPress is the ultimate blogging platform, but it’s a little intimidating. I feel like there is an unspoken understanding that if you are using WordPress, you are taking writing seriously. You are a serious, capital “B” Blogger, with a lot of interesting ideas and exceptional writing skills.
I am not taking writing seriously. At least not on my personal blog.
So, I’m right back at Tumblr where I started, and you know what? Tumblr is great! My posts can be as short and banal as I’d like, because that’s what Tumblr is for. Call it medium blogging (<- unashamed banality!). But I still get all the stuff I need: permalinks, RSS, HTML, and data portability.
Anyway, if Tumblr will have me back, barring the downtime issues of the past, I’m here to stay. No more chasing the latest fad when I’ve got everything I need right in front of me.
Tangent: Check out my new personal splash page at flavors.me/jimvajda with awesome Tumblr integration. I think I’ll be redirecting jimvajda.com to it soon.
- Jan 29, 13
I’ve decided to try out consolidating all my blogging, sharing, and communicating with Google+ a la Kevin Rose. That means no more separate blog, facebook account, Twitter account (keeping this for now), and hopefully a lot less email. You can follow me on Google+ or subscribe to an RSS feed of my public posts if you’d rather not signup.
Maybe I’ll come back. Google+ doesn’t offer the formatting options that Tumblr does, and posts are still not searchable (come on Google, really?). But so far I’ve embraced it which has caused me to neglect the other services I use, especially Tumblr.
Anyway, follow me there or update your RSS reader. I’m going to try to redirect jimvajda.com/rss to the new feed, but I would guess that some apps won’t like that. Use this Feedburner feed instead:
- Jan 29, 13
The fact that we’re here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means ‘The buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.
Senator Barack Obama, Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt, March 16, 2006 - Jan 29, 13
One of Instapaper’s five leased servers was hosted at DigitalOne, a Swiss hosting company leasing blade servers from a Virginia datacenter. Early Tuesday morning, the FBI raided the datacenter to seize servers used by another DigitalOne customer for fraudulent “scareware” distribution, according…
Instapaper Blog: The FBI stole an Instapaper server in an unrelated raid - Jan 29, 13
The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or, even better, a rationalist-proof one.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes - Jan 29, 13
Because the Internet is so new we still don’t really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of publishing or broadcasting, because that’s what we’re used to. So people complain that there’s a lot of rubbish online, or that it’s dominated by Americans, or that you can’t necessarily trust what you read on the web. Imagine trying to apply any of those criticisms to what you hear on the telephone. Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‘trust’ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do. For some batty reason we turn off this natural scepticism when we see things in any medium which require a lot of work or resources to work in, or in which we can’t easily answer back – like newspapers, television or granite. Hence ‘carved in stone.’ What should concern us is not that we can’t take what we read on the internet on trust – of course you can’t, it’s just people talking – but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing what we read in the newspapers or saw on the TV – a mistake that no one who has met an actual journalist would ever make. One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It’s just an awful lot of ‘us’.
A very prescient Douglas Adams piece from 1999. He is dearly missed.
How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet - Jan 29, 13
If you haven’t heard of the Paleo Diet or Evolutionary Fitness lifestyle, let me briefly summarize the philosophy. According to several researchers, the human gut did the large majority of its evolutionary adaptation during the Paleolithic Era, when humans were hunter-gatherers for nearly three million years. Their diet consisted of fresh vegetables, fruit, meat (which may account for our large brains), and nuts. They may have eaten the occasional tuber, but certainly didn’t rely on potatoes for a large portion of their caloric intake. They ate no grains, dairy, or any of the sugared-up and processed unfood we eat today.
Modern humans did not begin eating grains or dairy until the advent of agriculture ~ 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Neolithic Period. Research has shown that there have been very few gastro-intestinal adaptations to this novel grain and dairy-based diet, probably because 10,000 years is a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. For instance, today only 25% of modern humans can digest the lactose in milk after childhood. Emerging science is showing that grains might have negative health effects as well.
Human bodies are designed for a hunter-gatherer diet, but we eat a largely agricultural diet instead. There is growing evidence that this dietary mismatch may underly the diseases of civilization: diabetes, heart disease, and perhaps most cancers. Healthy modern-day hunter-gatherers begin to show the early signs of these diseases when they are integrated into civilization and eat a modern diet. Studies have shown that when these people return to their traditional lifestyle, their health is improved.
This diet is easy. The food I eat is very filling and nutrient-rich, yet largely not calorically dense. Paleo eaters don’t have to count calories, because our bodies understand this food better. It doesn’t create the metabolic distortions of a modern diet rich in grains and dairy. Paleo eating and exercise keeps the metabolism primed for fat-burning, not fat-storing, and doesn’t require restraining constant hunger, an impossible task (which may be the result of an Agrarian diet). One Paleo axiom goes, “You are not what you eat; you are what you do with what you eat.” Eat the foods that keep insulin low and the body burning fat, and avoid foods that do the opposite. Counting calories is useless since your metabolism will slow to a crawl and eventually begin to break down lean-body mass (which includes organs like the heart and brain, not just muscle).
I’m still exercising, of course, and this is consistent with the evolutionary reasoning that underpins the Paleo diet. Humans evolved in a food-scarce environment that put large physical demands on the body. This created evolutionary pressure to evolve in ways that minimize energy expenditure and maximize caloric intake. In short, humans are evolved to be lazy overeaters. In the Pleistocene, that was a successful survival strategy. In the developed world, it leads to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Including regular exercise in my life helps ensure that I am presenting my body with the environmental stresses it was evolved to handle. The nature of this exercise is different, however. It includes brief high-intensity spikes mixed with periods of low-intensity work, not long, constant-intensity endurance exercise (lifelong endurance training causes heart damage, and even running a single marathon causes temporary heart damage). Humans did not evolve to perform extreme endurance activities. High-intensity interval training, which is recommended as evolutionarily appropriate, has been shown to be the most effective way to burn fat and improve metabolic function, in far less time than traditional “cardio.”
This is a low-carb diet, which is something I am a bit wary of. However, this is not an out-of-control Atkins-style butter, lard, bacon, and no fruit struggle. I can eat all the fruit and vegetables I want to get carbs, but I do eat far fewer carbohydrates than a typical American diet. High carbohydrate intake has been shown to be dangerous, and grains contain inflammatory compounds that may cause disease, even among people who tolerate gluten well. I do make exceptions on days when I do long or intense bike rides. I can burn between 1500 and 2000 calories during a typical cycling session, so I need to take in some simple carbohydrates to keep the muscles fueled and to help replenish glycogen stores. But I can get a lot of the carbohydrates required for recovery from fruit.
Is eating like our ancient ancestors the way to go or is it the latest fad? A lot of science seems to support it, and evolution has been proposed as a serious paradigm for nutrition. Even if the logic underlying the diet is flawed, many nutritionists recognize it as a healthy diet. Several studies have shown its benefits. I’m in pretty good health already, so I don’t expect to notice big changes, but I do like having a cohesive theory underlying my diet and exercise choices. Eating a diet that has been proven to improve the biomarkers related to type 2 diabetes and possibly cancer is also attractive, given my family history of these diseases.
If you’re still interested, here’s a collection of bookmarks of research related to the Paleo Diet that I’ve been collecting.
- Jan 29, 13
If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates? It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.
Peter Thiel, Co-founder of Paypal - Jan 29, 13
At the height of the 2008 banking crisis, Antonio Maria Costa, then head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime, said he had evidence to suggest the proceeds from drugs and crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to banks on the brink of collapse. “Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade,” he said. “There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.”
The Guardian: How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs - Jan 29, 13
Born to an age where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence off a few parks where humans try to be fair, where skill has some hope of reward, where absurdity has a harder time than usual getting a ticket.
Thomas Boswell, Why Time Begins on Opening Day - Jan 29, 13
Why are decentralized processes ubiquitous throughout nature and society – evolution itself is such a process – and why do people remain so distrustful of them that they will sacrifice their autonomy and freedom for centralized solutions?
Arthur De Vany - Jan 29, 13
Inactivity not only changes the human body, it alters the very structure of our perception and understanding. Sedentism flattens the energy landscape and weakens body image that is the reference of an organized and autonomous self. The result of inactivity is a lack of purpose and will. It takes good dynamics to produce a coherent, self-organized individual and actions that are metabolically challenging produce a good body image that anchors a strong and convergent dynamics. The brain is adapted to action and its structure and health depend on movement. Long ago, Darwin noted that the brains of wild animals were larger and heavier than the brains of domesticated animals.
Essay on Evolutionary Fitness, Arthur De Vany - Jan 29, 13
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.
Presidential Candidate Barack Obama in 2008 - Jan 29, 13
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators | Rolling Stone Politics - Jan 29, 13
Wisconsin, meet your Governor, and who he answers to. Unbelievable.
A New York-based alt-news editor says he got through to the embattled Wisconsin governor on the phone Tuesday by posing as right-wing financier David Koch…then had a far-ranging 20-minute conversation about the collective bargaining protests. According to the audio, Walker told him:
- That statehouse GOPers were plotting to hold Democratic senators’ pay until they returned to vote on the controversial union-busting bill.
- That Walker was looking to nail Dems on ethics violations if they took meals or lodging from union supporters.
- That he’d take “Koch” up on this offer: “[O]nce you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.”
Scott Walker Gets Crank-Called (AUDIO) | Mother Jones - Jan 29, 13
It crops up in our speech dozens of times every day, although it apparently means little. So how did the word “OK” conquer the world, asks Allan Metcalf.
This is really interesting. Why do something go “viral” while most things don’t?
BBC News - How 'OK' took over the world - Jan 29, 13
While watching the speech, I tweeted that “Obama sounds remarkably similar to the CEOs I used to listen to on earnings calls: the ones with mediocre EPS and a failing business model.” This wasn’t a crack at Obama, or Democrats; it was a reaction to the content. And after watching the responses, the impression lingers—indeed, maybe it’s strengthened.
I hope she’s wrong, but the analogy does fit really well.
The President as Micromanager - The Atlantic - Jan 29, 13
Around 8 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2010, Italian police and customs officials acting at the behest of agents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled over Yaroslav Popovych as he drove on a roundabout in Quarrata, a quaint Tuscan village of stucco facades and colorful shutters between Pistoia and Florence. The officials had been looking for Popovych, one of Lance Armstrong’s Radio Shack teammates, to execute a search warrant. Italian authorities say the Ukrainian cyclist was startled but cooperative. He led them through olive groves to his house beside a cemetery.
Looks like Lance can’t escape his past. Time to come clean, and salvage what is left of his legacy.
The Case Against Lance Armstrong - Jan 29, 13
There is perhaps no issue in modern medicine that is as contentious as childhood vaccination. On one side are the doctors, scientists, and public health officials who argue that an overwhelming amount of evidence indicates vaccines are safe — and that vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, Hib, and whooping cough are just as dangerous and deadly today as they were decades ago. On the other side are the parents who point to their personal observations to support their belief that vaccines cause or contribute to developmental disorders like autism.
The Atlantic: What Drives Irrational Rhetoric? The Case of Childhood Vaccinations
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Posts
- Apr 16, 13
The next big turf battle in educational technology is the battle between competing paradigms: The new, closed and top-down controlled touch interface tablets lead by Apple's iPad, and the the old, open, keyboard and mouse style devices lead by Google's Chrome OS. Largely driven by future online testing mandates such as the PARCC tests here in Ohio, these two devices are flooding the education market due to their low prices, yet they represent two very different technology paradigms.
Apple's iPad and iPhone run iOS, an operating system that has an interface that children love. Apple's touch-based interface is intuitive and fun, and is rightfully considered a major user interface achievement. There is perhaps no other interface as easy to use as iOS, and it's top competitor, Android, has borrowed heavily from Apple's design ideas. There is no doubt about it, iOS' intuitive use and large selection of educational apps makes it a fantastic learning tool.
On the other hand, iOS has taken away more control of the device from end users than any other operating system that preceded it. "Owners" of iOS devices may only install apps that are Apple-approved and Apple may remotely uninstall and app from an "owner's" device without their consent. While this policy can protect users from harmful and malicious apps, in practice, this has lead to several benign apps being barred from the App Store because they directly compete with Apple's own apps, and even a blanket prohibition of open-source apps (which is odd because Mac OS and iOS run on open-source software). It's also lead to widespread developer resentment because they must invest time and money developing an app without knowing if their app will be allowed in the App Store.
Google has two products that compete with Apple's iOS. Android is their touch-based operating system that runs on tablets and phones and directly competes with iOS. It has yet to capture a foothold in the education market because Android lacks the enterprise-level management controls that iOS has. Further, Apple's historical stake in education, and the fact that the iPad came first, have given Apple a lead over Android at school that will probably never be overcome.Chrome OS is the product from Google that will really challenge Apple in schools. It's an open-source operating system that still relies on a mouse and keyboard interface, because the operating system's sole purpose is to get users into a web browser as cheaply and quickly as possible. Imagine a computer that booted into the Chrome web browser, and you couldn't use any other application. That gives you a rough idea of what Chrome OS is, although it's not nearly as limiting as that suggests. What can you do on a desktop computer that you can't also accomplish on the web? It turns out, very little.
Fundamentally, iOS is a closed and top-down controlled system, sometimes referred to as a "walled garden." Apple's apps and services are not designed to function on any other manufacturer's devices or software. Using iOS to it's full potential leads to vendor lock-in, where moving data to other systems becomes difficult or impossible, and leaves users at the mercy of Apple's every whim. This is largely driven by Apple's business model. Apple profits by selling hardware (iPhones, iPads, and Macs) and therefore is incentivized to lock users into their systems, and prevent other hardware from accessing them. This is why you will never see Apple developing apps for the Google Play App Store.
Chrome OS is an open system, because the web is an open system (a decentralized, emergent system). Users can directly access whatever they like with a Chromebook, without the heavy hand of a multinational corporation deciding what users may access (although schools can manage content access if they use Google Apps, which allows web browsing on managed devices to be forced through a filtering proxy). While there are no desktop apps for Chrome OS, I've been surprised at how well the capabilities of the open web make up for that. Very little, outside of video editing, can be accomplished using web apps.
Google is committed to the open web, and their advertising-based business model incentivizes them to keep their services open and available to users of any operating system. The more traffic to their services, the more money they make. Hardware and operating systems are incidental in facilitating the use of their web services. This is why Google develops apps for any device with decent market share. In fact, Google sometimes develops apps for iOS before it's own Android platform, because at times there has been a larger market for iOS apps. I believe this business model is more appropriate for an open and democratic society, but that's another blog post entirely.
There is room for both paradigms at schools, each has it's strengths and weaknesses. It's completely possible to use iPads with open systems like Google Apps, avoid the things that lead to iOS lock-in, and benefit from it's fantastic user interface. Primary school-aged kids love touch devices. It's really no contest for this age group, but as children get older and they need to write longer assignments and spend more time researching on the web, a device like a Chromebook becomes more attractive. Chromebooks are also extremely easy to manage: there is no extra software to install, they update themselves, and management is centralized in Google Apps' web administration tools.
Schools need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of these competing products before their widespread deployment. There is much more to consider than price tags and familiarity, as each product represents a unique philosophy that affects the future development of these products differently. Yet, while the features and technology of these devices develops and change, the underlying business models will remain the same. Deciding between these paradigms is much more than an IT purchasing decision. It has implications that can affect many facets of a school's educational program. - Jan 29, 13
NGINX is an advanced web server that blows Apache away in a lot of performance metrics. However, Apache remains the standard in web hosting, so documentation for using applications like Moodle with NGINX are hard to find. Here’s how to setup NGINX to serve up Moodle using SSL encryption. This tutorial assumes you have installed Moodle. You might want to read this before starting if you aren’t familiar with using SSL certificates with NGINX.
First, get an SSL certificate. You can get a free one from StartSSL. Save the certificate and key to /etc/nginx/certs for this config to work.
You must have a properly functioning SSL certificate and key in /etc/nginx/certs.
Here’s the NGINX config for Moodle:
server {
# Redirects all http traffic to https
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent;
}
server {
server_name example.com;
root /path/to/moodle;
listen 443;
ssl on;
ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/certs/example.com.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/certs/example.com.key;
keepalive_timeout 70;
access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com/access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com/error.log;
index index.html index.htm index.php;
location = /favicon.ico {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location = /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location / {
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
# as directory, then fall back to index.html
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
}
location ~ .php$ {
# Drop your PHP-CGI config here
}
}You’ll need to add your own domain name, root directory, and PHP-CGI config. Linode has a tutorial on setting up PHP-FastCGI with NGINX if you need help with that.
Don’t enable “Use HTTPS for logins” in Settings -> Security -> HTTP security. This setting is for encrypting the login page only and it creates an infinite redirect loop for some reason with NGINX. You don’t need it anyway when the whole session is handled by HTTPS.
Edit these settings in /path/to/moodle/config.php like this:
Change ‘http’ to ‘https’ here:
$CFG->wwwroot = 'https://example.com';
Then add this setting to the file:
$CFG->sslproxy=true;
That’s it. You should have Moodle up and running on NGINX with every session handled by HTTPS. Don’t forget to Install an opcode cache for lightning fast PHP performance.
- Jan 29, 13
In my previous post I described a way to get Galleria’s Picasa plugin working within a Drupal node. Now I’ll show you how to get the History plugin working.
The Galleria History plugin adds permalinks to Galleria slideshow slides, which facilitates linking and sharing single images. Like the Picasa plugin, Drupal’s Galleria module doesn’t support it yet, but getting it working in Drupal is fairly simple actually. To add History to the previously described Picasa node, simply add this line somewhere among the scripts being called at the top:
<script src="/sites/all/libraries/galleria/plugins/history/galleria.history.min.js"></script>
Galleria will do the rest.
If you have created a standard Galleria gallery with Views, you can enable the History plugin by editing the View and adding the same code as a text area within the header. Be sure to use the “Full HTML” filter.
That’s it. You’ve now implemented the Galleria History plugin on Drupal.
Keep an eye on updates to the Drupal Galleria module. A new version may implement some of these features, in which case you’ll want to remove this code so the plugin isn’t called twice.
Notes
This all assumes that you have installed Drupal’s Galleria module and have the Galleria framework installed in sites/all/libraries/galleria.
- Jan 29, 13
Drupal 7 has an excellent module (Galleria) for integrating the beautiful Galleria JavaScript framework into Drupal without requiring any coding. The module works great and has Views integration–a major plus. However, the module doesn’t support Galleria plugins yet. I wanted to use the Galleria Picasa plugin for a photography website I’m developing to allow the site owner to manage his the galleries on his website with Picasa instead of wrestling with Drupal nodes.
Here’s what worked. This will do a search for the first 10 public images on Picasa with the text “galleria” in them, and display them using the ‘medium’ size filter in date posted ascending order. You can learn how to query a specific public album and do other things with Picasa on the plugin options page.
This is the body of a node that displays the gallery (Use the Full HTML filter):
<script src="/misc/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="/sites/all/libraries/galleria/galleria-1.2.6.min.js"></script>
<script src="/sites/all/libraries/galleria/plugins/picasa/galleria.picasa.min.js"></script>
<div id="galleria"></div>
<script>
Galleria.loadTheme('/sites/all/libraries/galleria/themes/classic/galleria.classic.min.js');
$('#galleria').galleria({
picasa: 'search:galleria',
picasaOptions: {
max: 10,
sort: 'date-posted-asc',
thumbSize: 'medium'
},
width: 960,
height: 500 }
);
</script>Notes
Many Galleria examples include a jQuery script on Google’s servers, but Drupal comes with jQuery, so we don’t have to source Google for that. You do need the Galleria library in your /sites/all/libraries/ directory.
This probably works with the Galleria Drupal module disabled if you don’t need it for anything else.
I actually used the Folio theme instead of Classic, but it’s not included with a standard installation.
Next up I will try to get the Galleria History plugin working.
- Jan 29, 13
Because the Internet is so new we still don’t really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of publishing or broadcasting, because that’s what we’re used to. So people complain that there’s a lot of rubbish online, or that it’s dominated by Americans, or that you can’t necessarily trust what you read on the web. Imagine trying to apply any of those criticisms to what you hear on the telephone. Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‘trust’ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do. For some batty reason we turn off this natural scepticism when we see things in any medium which require a lot of work or resources to work in, or in which we can’t easily answer back – like newspapers, television or granite. Hence ‘carved in stone.’ What should concern us is not that we can’t take what we read on the internet on trust – of course you can’t, it’s just people talking – but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing what we read in the newspapers or saw on the TV – a mistake that no one who has met an actual journalist would ever make. One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It’s just an awful lot of ‘us’.
A very prescient Douglas Adams piece from 1999. He is dearly missed.
How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet - Jan 29, 13
If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates? It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.
Peter Thiel, Co-founder of Paypal - Jan 29, 13
Why are decentralized processes ubiquitous throughout nature and society – evolution itself is such a process – and why do people remain so distrustful of them that they will sacrifice their autonomy and freedom for centralized solutions?
Arthur De Vany - Jan 29, 13
My internet problem is the one so many of us struggle with: how do you choose when the constraints of geography, income and circumstance disappear? What goes in a playlist when all the music ever recorded is one click away? Which experts’ thought processes should you tap into when tens of millions of them are on Twitter? How do you choose a book from the millions that you can discover with a Google Books search?
The Internet Problem: when an abundance of choice becomes an issue | Technology | guardian.co.uk (via switchedblog)
See, this is why we never get any work done.
(via politico) - Jan 29, 13
In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Jan 29, 13
Nearly 20 years ago a small study advanced the notion that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long before trademarked “Mozart effect” products appealed to neurotic parents aiming to put toddlers on the fast track to the Ivy League. Georgia’s governor even proposed giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette.
Hearing the Music, Honing the Mind: Scientific American
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Posts
- May 09, 12
A couple new papers and stories in the media have me thinking more about running lately. I don’t make a big habit out of it, but I do occasionally do some hill sprints and 5k races just for fun, and to mix up my exercise routine. Sometimes I think there is a bit too much naysaying of running and moderate-intensity endurance exercise in general within the Paleo community, and in light of this new research, I wanted to reexamine running within a Paleo framework.
Jogging has gotten a rather cold reception within the Paleo community, but I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. First of all, it’s a really easy activity to do. You don’t need a home gym or thousand dollar bike to do it. A decent pair of shoes (I prefer minimilist shoes) and a bit of sidewalk or trail will do. Second, by stepping up the intensity occasionally, it’s an easy way to reach those peaks of exertion required for the cascade of positive metabolic effects to occur if one is pursuing a weight-loss/metabolic conditioning program. Brief bursts of high-intensity training can increase insulin sensitivity, leptin sensitivity, reduce blood pressure, and increase one’s resting metabolism, among other benefits.[1,2]
There is also no doubt that some amount of running was routinely practiced by the Paleolithic people whose’s genetic heritage we carry. It’s very difficult to imagine living in the wild without occasionally running after prey, running from predators, running from/after competing groups, etc. And let’s not forget about persistence hunting.[3,4]
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s very easy to overdo it. Running marathons, for example, has been shown to cause subclinical heart damage.[5-7] Running for long periods can also expose the runner to an excess of the stress hormone cortisol and oxidative damage.[8] We just need to know what’s healthy and what probably isn’t.
Jogging, or running at a moderate pace for an extended period, is really what get’s the ire of a lot of people, and mostly for good reasons. This is probably exactly what most people picture when reading Mark Sission’s famous “Chronic Cardio” post. But what about joggers that don’t aspire to run marathons and just go out for a few miles every couple of days?
A new, unpublished study found a U-shaped correlation between jogging time and life expectancy.[9]
Undertaking regular jogging increases the life expectancy of men by 6.2 years and women by 5.6 years, reveals the latest data from the Copenhagen City Heart study presented at the EuroPRevent2012 meeting. Reviewing the evidence of whether jogging is healthy or hazardous, Peter Schnohr told delegates that the study’s most recent analysis (unpublished) shows that between one and two-and-a-half hours of jogging per week at a “slow or average” pace delivers optimum benefits for longevity.
…
Further analysis exploring the amounts of exercise undertaken by joggers in the study has revealed a U-shaped curve for the relationship between the time spent exercising and mortality. The investigators found that between one hour and two and a half hours a week, undertaken over two to three sessions, delivered the optimum benefits, especially when performed at a slow or average pace. “The relationship appears much like alcohol intakes. Mortality is lower in people reporting moderate jogging, than in non-joggers or those undertaking extreme levels of exercise,” said Schnohr.
Two and half hours of jogging per week is a lot more jogging than a lot of Paleo enthusiast are comfortable with (15 miles at a nice-and-easy 10 minutes/mile), but it appears to be safe.
Now, of course, this type of study cannot show causal relationships–there could be other factors at work. For instance, joggers are less likely to smoke, drink excessively, and probably try to eat a healthier diet than most non-joggers. All of these things affect the difference in life expectancy between joggers and non-joggers, but that doesn’t explain why jogging more than 2.5 hours a week ends up having a negative effect, as one would assume joggers that go out even longer are even more committed to leading a healthy lifestyle.
Another study looked at the neurological effects of running (aka the “runner’s high”). They found that a runner’s body produces cannabinoids, the same type of chemicals found in marijuana.* The researchers wondered if this was an evolutionary adaption for species that enage in distance running, and loe and behold, found the same effect in dogs (distance runners) but not in ferrets (not distance runners). While too much running is clearly damaging, there is still evidence that we were “Born to Run” as it’s been put.[10]
So there you have it. Jogging is a perfectly healthy part of a Paleo lifestyle. Just skip the sugared-up exercise drinks, run as close to barefoot as possible, run on uneven terrain to reduce repetitive stresses on the joints, and keep your overall time low. If you want to be out all day, go for a long hike or low-intensity bike ride instead.
* Tangent: The press has presented this as if running is as addictive as hard drugs, which makes about as much sense as claiming marijuana is as addictive as hard drugs. Why everything that activates the reward centers of the brain is considered addictive, I will never understand. Pleasurable experiences, including the use of hard drugs, do active the brain’s reward centers (big surprise), but clearly there is more to the story than blobs on an fMRI. Some rewards we can manage, some we can’t. Just looking at fMRI’s and ignoring the behavioral aspects of addiction because we now have “hard evidence” is foolish.
References
1. Babraj JA, Vollaard NB, Keast C, Guppy FM, Cottrell G, Timmons JA. Extremely short duration high intensity interval training substantially improves insulin action in young healthy males. BMC Endocr Disord. 2009 Jan 28;9:3. PubMed PMID: 19175906; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2640399.
2. Irving BA, Davis CK, Brock DW, Weltman JY, Swift D, Barrett EJ, Gaesser GA, Weltman A. Effect of exercise training intensity on abdominal visceral fat and body composition. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2008 Nov;40(11):1863-72. PubMed PMID: 18845966; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2730190.
3. Bramble DM, Lieberman DE. Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Nature. 2004 Nov 18;432(7015):345-52. PubMed PMID: 15549097.
4. Liebenberg L. The relevance of persistence hunting to human evolution. J Hum Evol. 2008 Dec;55(6):1156-9. Epub 2008 Aug 29. PubMed PMID: 18760825.
5. Möhlenkamp S, Lehmann N, Breuckmann F, Bröcker-Preuss M, Nassenstein K, Halle M, Budde T, Mann K, Barkhausen J, Heusch G, Jöckel KH, Erbel R; Marathon Study Investigators; Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study Investigators. Running: the risk of coronary events : Prevalence and prognostic relevance of coronary atherosclerosis in marathon runners. Eur Heart J. 2008 Aug;29(15):1903-10. Epub 2008 Apr 21. PubMed PMID: 18426850.
6. Wilson M, O’Hanlon R, Prasad S, Deighan A, Macmillan P, Oxborough D, Godfrey R, Smith G, Maceira A, Sharma S, George K, Whyte G. Diverse patterns of myocardial fibrosis in lifelong, veteran endurance athletes. J Appl Physiol. 2011 Jun;110(6):1622-6. Epub 2011 Feb 17. PubMed PMID: 21330616; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3119133.
7. Neilan TG, Januzzi JL, Lee-Lewandrowski E, Ton-Nu TT, Yoerger DM, Jassal DS, Lewandrowski KB, Siegel AJ, Marshall JE, Douglas PS, Lawlor D, Picard MH, Wood MJ. Myocardial injury and ventricular dysfunction related to training levels among nonelite participants in the Boston marathon. Circulation. 2006 Nov 28;114(22):2325-33. Epub 2006 Nov 13. PubMed PMID: 17101848.
8. Witt EH, Reznick AZ, Viguie CA, Starke-Reed P, Packer L. Exercise, oxidative damage and effects of antioxidant manipulation. J Nutr. 1992 Mar;122(3 Suppl):766-73. Review. PubMed PMID: 1514950.
9. “Assessing prognosis: a glimpse of the future.” Symposium: Saturday May 5, 9.15 am to 10.15 am. Liffey B Lecture Room. P. Schnohr, Jogging-healthy or hazard?
10. Raichlen DA, Foster AD, Gerdeman GL, Seillier A, Giuffrida A. Wired to run: exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling in humans and cursorial mammals with implications for the ‘runner’s high’. J Exp Biol. 2012 Apr 15;215(Pt 8):1331-6. PubMed PMID: 22442371.
- Mar 09, 12
Dairy has a peculiar status among Paleo eaters. Although it’s a Neolithic food, it’s usually considered healthful if one is not lactose intolerant. Recently, I have been struggling with it’s acceptance, for a couple of reasons, and it’s helped elucidate an interesting difference among members of Paleo community.
The most important concern of mine is the difference between acute effects and chronic effects. That is, something that may show no distinguishable harm in the short-term may end up causing harm after decades of consumption. Discovering an effect like this is very difficult, because it’s impossible to do a well-controlled study of long-term nutritional effects in humans, and if your working theory is that something may be harmful, it may also be unethical to attempt such research. Epidemiological studies are the best science can offer, and we’re all familiar with their weaknesses.
Specifically about dairy, it’s been shown to have unique biochemical effects in humans. Several vegetarian diet advocates claim that dairy is addictive, based on the research that it contains peptides that bind to opioid receptors.[1] Effects like this may be suitable for a calf to help it quickly gain body mass, but we certainly don’t need any extra encouragement to eat. I should note that I can’t find any scientific literature that makes the specific claim that dairy is addictive.
More fundamentally, cow’s milk has evolved to feed rapidly growing cows, not humans. As a result, it carries several hormonal effects that may be unsuitable for humans.
On a different note, it seems that dairy has gotten in through the back door, because it’s a low-carb/high-fat food, and for many Paleo eaters, Paleo is just a cleaned-up low-carb diet. But not all fats are OK, as we’re all aware of the trouble with Linoleic Acid.[2] Dairy doesn’t deserve acceptance for being a low-carb food.
I’m lactose intolerant, so of course that colors my view of dairy. Perhaps there is more to this story that I am missing, but it seems best to avoid dairy altogether and eat mostly ancient foods like meat, organs, vegetables, and fruit, regardless of one’s short-term lactose tolerance.
This choice illustrates where one is on the Paleo diet’s epistemic continuum–a concept that explains the differing food choices we make, all under the umbrella term “Paleo.” On one end of the continuum is nutritional science that lacks theoretical underpinnings, and on the other end is relatively unsupported evolutionary theory (the middle is where science and evolutionary theory agree). How do we decide which direction to head when nutritional science and evolutionary logic/anthropology seemingly conflict?
Most of the time, we have science on our side; well-controlled, randomized studies can be cited to defend a fair amount of the Paleo platform. But sometimes things get messy. The Dairy Question is a prime example. In a way, the continuum has helped explain the various flavors of Paleo. On one end of the continuum, Dr. Cordain and Robb Wolf tend to favor evolution and anthropology when it conflicts with nutritional science. They want you to exclude dairy and legumes from your diet, although the supporting science is far from conclusive. Closer to the other end is Mark Sisson and Dr. Kurt Harris, who say dairy is fine if you can tolerate it, legumes should be limited only because they crowd out more nutritionally dense foods, and Paleo itself is more of a template. It informs their views, but the supporting science, or lack thereof, is more critical. Dr. Kurt Harris has formalized his approach to the problem as PaNu and his writing about it is fascinating and brilliant.
I think that too much faith in ungrounded nutritional science results in a lack of respect for the limits of human knowledge. This is part of the philosophical foundation of Paleo. It’s a mistake to believe that the current nutritional science has discovered everything necessary to proscribe the perfect diet for everyone. We are far from the final word on human health, and we would do well to ponder the probability that our scientific models are wrong. Within Paleo, evolutionary logic guides our understanding when that probability is high, but what about when that probability is low and it conflicts with evolutionary theory?
Maybe dairy, legumes, and white rice[3] really are perfectly safe foods despite not being present in Paleolithic diets? Just because a food is Neolithic doesn’t mean it must be harmful, but I think that warrants a more careful scrutiny than ancient foods.
On the other end of the continuum, we’ve been wrong about the role saturated fat played in human evolution,[5] and Richard Nikoley just dropped a bomb on the Paleo Diet’s low-carb dogma. How do we know we’re telling the right story now?
How do we know which way of thinking is correct? Or rather, is there a point on this continuum that will likely produce more truth than other points? This is the fundamental distinction that lies at the heart of the differing approaches to Paleo.
How and why one decides where they end up on the nutritional science <–> evolution/anthropology epistemic continuum is a bit of a mystery to me. Where are you on there, and how did you get there?
tAs for dairy, do you give more weight to the nutritional science that has found no smoking gun, or do you defer to evolutionary theory in the face of uncertainty and avoid dairy? There is no easy way to answer that question, but questions like it, and the way we answer them, help explain the diversity of approaches to Paleo we’ve seen in the past decade or so.
References
1. Schmitz G, Ecker J. The opposing effects of n-3 and n-6 fatty acids. Prog Lipid Res. 2008 Mar;47(2):147-55. Epub 2007 Dec 25. Review. PubMed PMID: 18198131.
2. Meisel H, FitzGerald RJ. Opioid peptides encrypted in intact milk protein sequences. Br J Nutr. 2000 Nov;84 Suppl 1:S27-31. Review. PubMed PMID: 11242443.
3. Zhang L, Hou D, Chen X, Li D, Zhu L, Zhang Y, Li J, Bian Z, Liang X, Cai X, Yin Y, Wang C, Zhang T, Zhu D, Zhang D, Xu J, Chen Q, Ba Y, Liu J, Wang Q, Chen J, Wang J, Wang M, Zhang Q, Zhang J, Zen K, Zhang CY. Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA.Cell Res. 2011 Sep 20. doi: 10.1038/cr.2011.158. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 21931358.
4. Lindeberg S, Ahrén B, Nilsson A, Cordain L, Nilsson-Ehle P, Vessby B. Determinants of serum triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in traditional Trobriand Islanders: the Kitava Study. Scand J Clin Lab Invest. 2003;63(3):175-80. PubMed PMID: 12817903.
5. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O’Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J. Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Feb;81(2):341-54. Review. PubMed PMID: 15699220.
- Feb 18, 12
At the turn of the century one of the most exciting areas of medical research was the Human Genome Project, a massive scientific undertaking that successfully mapped the entire human genome in 2003. The hope was that by conducting large association studies, researchers could identify the genes that cause various diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Once the troublesome gene was identified, pharmacalogical interventions could be developed to reduce or stop the expression of the disease gene, which would end or reverse the progression of the disease.
Unfortunately, very little came from these association studies. Only a few genes were linked to specific diseases, and these proved to only create a predisposition to the disease, not a definite trigger. So far genes can only explain about 5-10% of cancer risk, 10% for type 2 diabetes,[1] and 5% for parkinson’s disease. The “failure” of these studies has lead to the widespread opinion that the study of human genomics has been fruitless.
I see things differently. The fact that these studies found few associations shows that the causes of these diseases are more than likely environmental, not biologically predetermined. That is, certain lifestyles are the most likely underlying causes. We don’t need to worry about “fixing” a “broken” biology. Human beings are not broken by default. I am more and more convinced that the strongest factors in determining disease risk are an industrial, Neolithic diet and a sedentary lifestyle. We only need to leave behind our bad habits.
We don’t need new “miracle” drugs to come along and save us from ourselves. We need to give up the modern, culturally-reinforced behaviors that underly diseases of civilization. That’s something we can do now, on our own, without the need of decades-long research projects and billion dollar, blockbuster drugs.
References
1. Herder C, Roden M. Genetics of type 2 diabetes: pathophysiologic and clinical relevance. Eur J Clin Invest. 2011 Jun;41(6):679-92. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2362.2010.02454.x. Epub 2010 Dec 30. Review. PubMed PMID: 21198561.
- Dec 20, 11
So you’re eating meat for health and want to convince every Vegan around they are wrong? How do you do it?
You don’t. Sorry to burst your self-righteous bubble, but you simply aren’t going to change anyone’s mind by arguing with them. And even if you could, why bother? Live you life the way you want to and allow others to live their lives the way they want to. Leave the evangelizing out of it.
But, say a Vegan honestly wants to hear your perspective on meat. In that case, this story from The Atlantic (one of my favorite media outlets) should probably be your go-to link for interested Vegans. It begins…
Collectively, we have lived 52 years vegetarian or vegan. Yet we no longer think vegetarianism is the answer. Now we firmly believe foods from animals can be both healthful and ethical.
- Oct 25, 11
Want to see everything that is wrong with conventional diet and exercise regimens and the causes of ever-increasing chronic disease in one photo? Here it is. (Hat tip: Reddit)
It goes like this:
Eat a processed, high carbohydrate, grain-based diet that makes you fat and hungry,[1] and results in chronic disease.[2] Try to remedy the situation by doing “cardio” exercise like jogging which over-stresses your heart[3] and saturates your body with the stress hormone cortisol. Finally, double down on this failed strategy by blaming meat for your declining health and adopt an extremely high carbohydrate, unnatural[4] Vegan diet that requires endless pill-popping and results in malnutrition and heart disease.[5,6]
Thumbs up!
Why do we do this to ourselves? There are much better paths to optimal health.
References
1. Ludwig DS, Majzoub JA, Al-Zahrani A, Dallal GE, Blanco I, Roberts SB. High glycemic index foods, overeating, and obesity. Pediatrics. 1999 Mar;103(3):E26. PubMed PMID: 10049982.
2. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O’Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J. Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Feb;81(2):341-54. Review. PubMed PMID: 15699220.
3. Möhlenkamp S, Lehmann N, Breuckmann F, Bröcker-Preuss M, Nassenstein K, Halle M, Budde T, Mann K, Barkhausen J, Heusch G, Jöckel KH, Erbel R; Marathon Study Investigators; Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study Investigators. Running: the risk of coronary events : Prevalence and prognostic relevance of coronary atherosclerosis in marathon runners. Eur Heart J. 2008 Aug;29(15):1903-10. Epub 2008 Apr 21. PubMed PMID: 18426850.
4. Milton K. The critical role played by animal source foods in human (Homo) evolution. J Nutr. 2003 Nov;133(11 Suppl 2):3886S-3892S. Review. PubMed PMID: 14672286.
5. Shinwell ED, Gorodischer R. Totally vegetarian diets and infant nutrition. Pediatrics. 1982 Oct;70(4):582-6. PubMed PMID: 6812012.
6. Ingenbleek Y, McCully KS. Vegetarianism produces subclinical malnutrition, hyperhomocysteinemia and atherogenesis. Nutrition. 2011 Aug 26. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 21872435.
- Oct 12, 11
Researchers at Colorado State University recently completed a review of the limited amount of science around yo-yo dieting (scientists call it weight cycling) and cancer risk. What’s interesting is that, although consistent caloric restriction has been shown to reduce cancer risk, it appears that yo-yo dieting might increase risk of certain cancers.[1]
Weight Cycling and Cancer: Weighing the Evidence of Intermittent Caloric Restriction and Cancer Risk.
Overweight and obese individuals frequently restrict caloric intake to lose weight. The resultant weight loss, however, typically is followed by an equal or greater weight gain, a phenomenon called weight cycling. Most attention to weight cycling has focused on identifying its detrimental effects, but preclinical experiments indicating that intermittent caloric restriction or fasting can reduce cancer risk have raised interest in potential benefits of weight cycling. Although hypothesized adverse effects of weight cycling on energy metabolism remain largely unsubstantiated, there also is a lack of epidemiological evidence that intentional weight loss followed by regain of weight affects chronic-disease risk. In the limited studies of weight cycling and cancer, no independent effect on post-menopausal breast cancer but a modest enhancement of risk for renal cell carcinoma, endometrial cancer, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma have been reported. An effect of either intermittent caloric restriction or fasting in protecting against cancer is not supported by the majority of rodent carcinogenesis experiments. Collectively, the data argue against weight cycling and indicate that the objective of energy balance-based approaches to reduce cancer risk should be to strive to prevent adult weight gain and maintain body weight within the normal range defined by body mass index.
Previous research has shown a relationship between yo-yo dieting and morbidity and mortality, although the underlying causes are not known. It’s also shown that the prevalence of yo-yo dieting is high.[2]
Of course, adherents to the calorie counting paradigm will, as they always do, blame dieters for their diet’s failure. They will claim that this is caused by a “lack of willpower,” but now they rely on flawed, Oprah-inspired pop psychology to explain it. “You’re too stressed,” “You had a miserable childhood,” “Your life sucks, boo hoo,” etc. They won’t consider the well-established causes of their unsustainable, grain-based diet’s failure. Instead, they’ll look far and wide for vague, untestable answers in order to abstain from a much needed critical look at their own flawed nutritional theory.
In another recent study of dieters 63% of study participants engaged in yo-yo dieting.[3] If most dieters fall prey to yo-yo dieting, can’t we conclude that a standard calorie restricted diet is more likely to wreck your health, give you cancer, or kill you, then help you? When will the medical establishment stop blaming its patients and wake up to this?
There is a better way.
References
1. Thompson HJ, McTiernan A. Weight Cycling and Cancer: Weighing the Evidence of Intermittent Caloric Restriction and Cancer Risk. Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2011 Oct 7. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 21982873.
2. Brownell KD, Rodin J. Medical, metabolic, and psychological effects of weight cycling. Arch Intern Med. 1994 Jun 27;154(12):1325-30. Review. PubMed PMID: 8002684.
3. Osborn RL, Forys KL, Psota TL, Sbrocco T. Yo-yo dieting in African American women: weight cycling and health. Ethn Dis. 2011 Summer;21(3):274-80. PubMed PMID: 21942158.
- Oct 06, 11
In economics, The Laffer Curve is a visual representation of economist Art Laffer’s theory about the relationship between government tax rates and tax revenues. He thought that there is point at which increasing tax rates begin to negatively affect revenues due to removing the capital from the markets that would have otherwise been generating more taxable profits and incomes, as well as reducing the financial incentives for production. Tax rates that are low and rates that are very high both result in a sub-maximal return for the government. There is a rate somewhere in between that balances these effects, and produces a maximum tax revenue. His idea was famously illustrated this way.
Tangent: I find it curious that market liberals tend to use this idea to bolster their arguments while Keynesians have demonized Laffer. The goal of the Laffer Curve is to maximize government revenue at whatever cost to private markets. Seems to me to be a more of a tool for those seeking to raise taxes than to lower them, but I digress.
As I’ve written before, the same relationship exists between exercise fitness and human health, so I have modified the graph for our purposes. Let’s call it the Fitness Laffer Curve.
We know about the benefits of exercise fitness for human health and we also know that extreme endurance exercise can result in permanent heart damage and other negative outcomes. Somewhere in between is an optimal level of activity that results in the highest increase in health.
- Oct 04, 11
Most of us in the Paleo community have come to view civilization as separating us from the environment we were made for, but, in his opus, Coming home to the Pliestocene, Paul Shepard takes it a step further. He indicts history itself as a denativizing force. I’ve barely started reading the book, but it’s been fascinating so far.
A repeated question of our time is, “How do we become native to this place?” History cannot answer this question, for history itself is the great denativizing process, the great deracinator. Historical time is invested in change, novelty, and escape from the renewing stability and continuity of the great natural cycles that ground us to place and the greater community of life on earth. As Norman O. Brown writes: “Man, the disconnected animal, unconsciously seeking the life proper to his species, is man in history: repression and the repetition-compulsion generate historical time. Repression transforms the timeless instinctual compulsion to repeat into the forward-moving dialectic of neurosis which is history.”
- Sep 29, 11
There’s been a lot of goodwill towards rice lately among the more open-minded bloggers in the Paleo community. Sure, it’s a Neolithic food, but there hasn’t been much of a case against occasionally consuming white rice for people with normal metabolic function. Removing the bran from rice (to create the white variety) removes the antinutrients too. So it may not be especially nutritious, but if you’re an athlete looking to retain or gain muscle mass, it’s a safe source of carbs.
Or so we thought.
A new study shows that very small pieces of rice RNA (microRNA) can enter the blood stream, then bind to recepters in the liver that normally work to reduce LDL cholesterol, resulting in an increase in plasma levels of LDL cholesterol.
Uh oh!
OK calm down. Before demonizing rice we’ll want to understand whether it affects small, dense LDL or large, boyant LDL, and we’ll need someone who understands biochemistry to interpret the study to get a clearer picture of it’s significance. Maybe the effect is small or counteracted by other properties of the food. Who knows? Not me, this is way above my pay grade. But it’s pretty interesting none the less that bits of rice RNA can enter the bloodstream and alter human gene expression.
The authors also suggest that microRNA may be considered as a new class of bioactive chemicals in food like vitamins, minerals, or phytosterols. Fascinating.
Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA.
Our previous studies have demonstrated that stable microRNAs (miRNAs) in mammalian serum and plasma are actively secreted from tissues and cells and can serve as a novel class of biomarkers for diseases, and act as signaling molecules in intercellular communication. Here, we report the surprising finding that exogenous plant miRNAs are present in the sera and tissues of various animals and that these exogenous plant miRNAs are primarily acquired orally, through food intake. MIR168a is abundant in rice and is one of the most highly enriched exogenous plant miRNAs in the sera of Chinese subjects. Functional studies in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that MIR168a could bind to the human/mouse low-density lipoprotein receptor adapter protein 1 (LDLRAP1) mRNA, inhibit LDLRAP1 expression in liver, and consequently decrease LDL removal from mouse plasma. These findings demonstrate that exogenous plant miRNAs in food can regulate the expression of target genes in mammals.
References
1. Zhang L, Hou D, Chen X, Li D, Zhu L, Zhang Y, Li J, Bian Z, Liang X, Cai X, Yin Y, Wang C, Zhang T, Zhu D, Zhang D, Xu J, Chen Q, Ba Y, Liu J, Wang Q, Chen J, Wang J, Wang M, Zhang Q, Zhang J, Zen K, Zhang CY. Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA. Cell Res. 2011 Sep 20. doi: 10.1038/cr.2011.158. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 21931358.
- Sep 23, 11
A new study from Denmark shows that cycling intensity has a strong relationship with life expectancy and cycling duration appears to have little, if any.[1]
Here’s study’s data on intensity and duration’s association with life expectancy:
And the data for each group showing the stronger association intensity has with reducing risk of death:
The high intensity cycling group had the lowest risk of all-cause mortality and an increase of 4-5 years of life expectancy compared to the low intensity group, and the difference was highest in risk of CHD related death.
The difference in all-cause mortality from increasing cycling duration was small or non-existant among all groups.
The authors were careful to state that, although intensity has a stronger relationship, we don’t really know what is the optimal duration, if it exists at all. But it appears that less than 30 minutes of cycling was enough to drop the high intensity group’s risk of death from coronary heart disease to less than a fifth of the low intensity group (the largest difference in the study). Interestingly, risk of death from CHD among the high intensity group crept upwards among those cycling more than an hour per day, but stil remained lower than the low and average intensity groups. The average intensity group saw a smaller difference of less than half the risk of death from CHD while also cycling less than 30 minutes a day when compared to the low intensity group.
Thoughts
I want to say “I told you so,” but let’s remember this is an observational study that isn’t powerful enough to show cause (however, it appears that they did do their best to adjust for differences between the groups). This does provides evidence that high intensity cycling longer than an hour per day may not be as dangerous as we thought, although not optimal. I doubt they were anywhere near the amount of training that professionals engage in though. Still, it certainly does add to the growing body of evidence that short, intense cycling is best way to train for health and longevity. Remember this study the next time you’re thinking about heading out for a fast 50!
References
1. Schnohr P, Marott JL, Jensen JS, Jensen GB. Intensity versus duration of cycling, impact on all-cause and coronary heart disease mortality: the Copenhagen City Heart Study. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil. 2011 Feb 21. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 21450618.
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Tweets
- Ah.. the 11am phone call/voicemail hangup. Right on time today.
- Was out cycling 24.91 miles with #Endomondo. See it here: http://t.co/M0BALOz8NN
- Just began a cycling workout using #Endomondo. Follow me live: http://t.co/M0BALOz8NN
- @AMC_TV How did Rubicon only last one season? Great show. Please bring it back.
- Was out cycling 20.13 miles with #Endomondo. See it here: http://t.co/c2kv7hNRtn
- Just began a cycling workout using #Endomondo. Follow me live: http://t.co/c2kv7hNRtn
- What is this #chatheads invasion of my home screen?!? #NO
- Awesome! Manage Chrome policies from the Google Admin panel http://t.co/msovnfiVyy
- Everyday while I'm out of my office, someone calls, lets it go to voicemail, then hangs up from an unknown number. EVERYDAY.
- Dear world: As much as I wish I did, I do not run Google. I can't fix their problems. Thank you.
- @evinsmj Ha. #Talawanda is in the same boat. Still nothing on the Apps Status page either...
- Netflix plans to dump Silverlight for HTML5 streaming | Internet & Media|CNET News http://t.co/KzMvlhcMgb ...and the #Linux world rejoiced!
- RT @LauraHuu: somewhat stunning photo: Police react in aftermath of #Boston explosion http://t.co/iDAmQpyoRV via @BGlobeSports
- @700BillRinehart Still terrorizing. Thanks for keeping us informed.
- Small bombs, low casualty totals... was this a bio/chemical weapon attack?
- RT @awmannes: This pic sure doesn't look good - “@thedailybeast: aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing (via @brm90) http://t.co/jKO2o ...
- @bainelaker Yeah. It was so strange to see so many LEO's and so few civilians. And the fighters overhead.
- So horrible to see photos of explosions on a street I once frequented.
- The 9/11 hijackers stayed at a hotel just blocks from the Boston Marathon finish line. #notagain
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Info
- Network Specialist at Talawanda School DistrictInformation Technology and Services | Cincinnati Area, USSummary
I have been involved with technology and curriculum support in and around Talawanda School District, Miami University, and Berklee College of Music. My graduate education in Instructional Design & Technology, professional experience, and immersion in the world of information technology have prepared me for a career in technology leadership, instructional design, distance learning, and technical support.
Specialties: instructional design, distance learning, web design, systems administration, technical supportExperience- 2006 - PresentNetwork Specialist / Talawanda School District
Administer all servers and network infrastructure, train and assist staff in new information technology initiatives, web development, database development, manage district Open Directory information, advise teachers on technology integration into curriculum and classroom activities, as well as tier one and two technical support to the district.
- Apr 2012 - Aug 2012Instructional Design and Technology Consultant / Miami University
Provided course design and development assistance, technical expertise, and classroom instruction for online/classroom hybrid course EDP-667 Behavioral Statistics.
- 2005 - 2006Grant Coordinator/Technical Support Analyst / The Primax Group
Coordinated Renaissance Learning Accelerated Reader web-based e-learning program installation, training, support, and management at four schools in Cincinnati Public Schools as part of the OhioReads Grant, provided general technical support at three other schools.
- 2002 - 2005Technical Support Analyst / Berklee College of Music
Supported students with technical issues involving Macintosh computers and audio software and hardware.
- 1999 - 2002Technical Support Analyst/Lab Manager / Miami University
Supported faculty and staff with Macintosh and Windows computer related issues and managed a computer lab for student use in McGuffey Hall.
Education-
2007 - 2009Miami UniversityM.A. in Instructional Design & Technology
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2001 - 2005Berklee College of MusicB.A. with honors in Music Synthesis
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:Presenter, 2010 Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education Conference
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Interests:E-learning, distance learning, learning management systems, content management systems, instructional design, educational psychology, technology curriculum, open education, open source software, science, economics, cycling, lifting weights, travel, genealogy, music, baseball
