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August 12, 2010
When many of us were kids, we used to eat cereal and milk every day without any trouble, and “lactose intolerance” was unknown. But as we grew up, I think a lot of us probably stopped eating cereal. I know I did.
So now, whenever I try to have some milk and cereal I get bloated, get gas, runny nose, etc. No fun. Fortunately I can still handle cheese just fine.
I found a trick to be able to eat cereal and milk without having problems though. The secret is all-bran cereal. The fiber does something but basically I found that if I had all-bran, no problems at all.
I imagine that if you want to build tolerance quickly with minimal trouble, just have a bowl of all-bran cereal once a day for awhile. The body will probably start producing more enzymes to help break down dairy products.
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July 16, 2010
What is the correct response in a zombie attack, when most people around you have become the walking undead, after you survive the first 24 hours?
Should you keep running? Move from place to place? Maybe you want to find your family, or maybe you just want to hole up somewhere remote that happens to have food and water?
Chances are other people will be attempting the same thing. Which is bad news, it means more exposure to zombies by uninfected people. The aggressive nature of zombification also means that there’s a rather high chance that if one person gets infected, he will end up taking out another teammate. That’s no good. Zombie Survival 101 rule #1: Do not increase the number of zombies!
Ultimately, keeping on the move in a zombie-challenged world leads to high rates of attrition. Yet, the alternative of hiding in one place might not do much to reduce the risks. Zombies may be attracted to where you are, or you might run out of supplies. One moment of complacency and *BAM* a rogue zombie out of nowhere has just tagged you.
The best course of action is to reduce your risks, by controlling the number of zombies near you. That is, start reducing the numbers of zombies as quick as you can. What you need are zombie traps.
Zombies are dumb and attracted to sound and lights. They also have one kill point, their head. Simple traps that aren’t dependant on electricity or gas would be ideal. Traps could be entirely temporary, with people making lots of noise, standing on concrete fences to funnel zombies down a path and swing make-shift maces at the zombie heads. It could possibly be a spring noose trap, that grabs the zombies by the feet and dangles them upside down, perfect height for lopping off their heads.
Another big thing to worry about is body disposal. You don’t want your trap getting clogged up too quickly. Perhaps build your trap at the top of a steep hill (so the bodies roll back down). Or on a cliff. Or near a river.
It would be very important to quickly setup multiple zombie traps in a given neighbourhood. The traps would help drastically reduce the number of zombies in the immediate area. This brings a tremendous boost to general safety, because it gives everyone the chance to re-group properly, gather resources, etc.
Join your local neighbourhood association and make a safety plan for zombies. Be ready for any zombie attacks!
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July 9, 2010
PART 1:
This program is the simplest and greatest weight lifting program for everyone.
But first.. Why weight lift? Should everyone weight lift?
Absolutely! Weight lifting is more than just bodybuilding or gaining super strength. It is also the healthiest and safest form of exercise that exists.
Weight lifting invigorates the body. Healing hormones start getting released and bring improvements to all the organs and immune system. The hormones help repair insulin insensitivity, a key factor to excess fat storage and carbohydrate addiction (resulting in bingeing). It also starts reversing the effects of aging as well as improving the density of bone, reducing osteoporosis risk.
Think about how great you will feel when you are strong. You’ll be safer while playing or working. Everything will feel lighter so you’ll be less tired from lifting or carrying anything. If you run, you’ll be able to go faster.
Also, weight lifting is one of the safest form of exercise. It has the lowest injury rates of all sports and exercise programs. Done properly with good form and low amounts of repetitions between sets, it is incredibly safe.
In fact, most injuries mainly come from high amounts of repetition. For example, bodybuilders frequently do more than 10 repetitions per set. The more repetitions done, the more tired out the body gets, and the easier it is to get distracted and lazy and exercise with poor form, which can cause pulled muscles. Also doing lots of repetitions can result in repetitive strain that cause injury.
What sort of weight lifting program is good for everyone?
It should be extremely simple and take very little time to do. It should be something that everyone can do. It should also offer continuous improvement.
This exericse program I am going to tell you about offers that:
- It only needs one exercise: The Lift
- It only needs to be done once every 2 days (or 3 times a week)
- It only needs 7 minutes per workout
The lift is the absolute best exercise for several reasons.
- It is a compound exercise
Lifting involves the legs, back, abs, arms, and shoulders. It hits all the muscles in the body.
- It handles the heaviest weights
Of all the compound exercises, this exercise lets you handle the heaviest weight. The effect of lifting the heaviest weights creates the biggest benefits for the body. The sheer recruitment of all the muscles to handle the heaviest weight safely, causes the body to respond with the most growth hormones.
- There are different ways to lift safely
There are several variations for lifting, which is useful because some lifts will be more suitable for our body. The primary lift is known as the Deadlift, which is done with a big bar and some weights on each end. This is one of the exercises that the olympic powerlifters do. There are several different ways of doing the Deadlift, using different stances, depending on body type. For example, a sumo-stance is often used by people with shorter legs and longer torsos.
Another lift is known as the ‘Health Lift’ which was popular in the 1800s. It involves lifting weights starting at knee height, which is easier and safer than the Deadlift.
- It can be done with simple equipment anywhere
No need for a squat cage or a bench or any fancy equipment at all. All you need are weights of differing poundages. In practice, this might just be as simple as having a bar and some weights that you can add to the bar.
To Be Continued in Part 2
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July 9, 2010
True mind fucks, singularity/quantum mechanics:
Permutation City, Planck Drive, etc by Greg Egan
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Favorite example of capitalism/economics in Sci-Fi:
First Contract by Greg Costikyan
Exo-Skeleton/human enhancement:
Armor by John Steakley *** Amazing psychologically ***
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Some cool nomadic/social technology ideas I liked:
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling
Scariest First Contact:
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Superhuman, central figure that changed history:
Childe Cycle series by Gordon Dickson
Dune series by Frank Herbert
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Distancing effect of time-dilation effects from space travel:
The Forever War series by Joe Haldeman
This is just a bare fraction of the scifi I have read and enjoyed.
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July 4, 2010
Many people interested in Barefoot Running or Hiking find it hard to transition into going 100% barefoot. It takes a long time for the feet to toughen up and the nerves to stop being so sensitive to sharp rocks.
Some people end up trying to transition with light-weight shoes with minimal support, like Vibram Five Fingers, old classic Vans, or Water/Surf shoes with minimal padding.
But what if you can skip the shoe completely and still protect the bottom of the feet?
I’ve noticed that when hiking around barefoot in the forest, tree sap will collect on the bottom of my feet and small leafs will stick to the bottom. This acts as extra protection. Works great!
Except it’s a bit of a pain to clean the sap off the bottom after you’re at home.
Perhaps we can find a coating that acts as protection. Also, perhaps we could use a pre-coating that makes it easy to clean the foot afterwards.
Any ideas?
I’m thinking of natural coatings. Something that sticks. Like maybe honey covered with oatmeal flakes.
The barefoot community will need to test out different things on the bottom of their feet to see what works ;)
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July 4, 2010
I am blogging this for posteriority. My prediction is that within the next century from now, the Big Bang theory will be discarded.
Right now, the theory seems to adequately explain the current expanding behaviour of the universe, and various properties of space-time.
Some months ago I was studying the nature of time and the dimensions of space, and I intuitively grasped that the Big Bang Theory is actually nonsense, even though it fits most of our current understanding of things.
I fully expect that the current Big Bang model will be replaced by a different model.
My intuitive grasp is that there is actually no beginning to the universe, that you cannot go to before time existed, that time never not existed (even though it is an artefact of our dimensions).
I think I probably have close to 34 bits of data that leads me to realize there’s a high probability that there is no beginning to the universe, or no Big Bang. Something else is going on that makes it look like the universe started from a small point and is rapidly expanding, but I have no hypothesis to put forward to explain that.
Perhaps the so-called dark matter have something to do with the fundamental “origin” or properties of the universe.
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June 18, 2010
This is a warning and a note for any lawyers looking to sue Proctor & Gamble.
My contention is that Head & Shoulder shampoo is designed to cause dandruff in the long term and temporarily alleviate it in the short term.
I used to be dandruff free until I started using Head & Shoulder shampoo. Then one day I foolishly bought their “extra strength” shampoo for no reason.
After using that shampoo, after awhile, I started noticing massive dandruff anytime I didn’t use Head & Shoulder.
No dandruff + Head & Shoulder = Dandruff.
So now if I want to get rid of the dandruff caused by the very same shampoo designed to “fight” dandruff, I’m expected to use more Head & Shoulder shampoo? This is a definite SCAM.
This was back in 2006. I still have intermittent dandruff trouble even now. But I do my best to avoid Head & Shoulder because that exacerbates the problem.
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June 10, 2010
Diabetes type-2 is caused by insensitivity to insulin. Every time you eat food with carbohydrates in it, the body produces insulin to deal with the carbohydrates. Unfortunately, in the diabetes-affected person, insulin doesn’t get taken up by the muscles and organs, which results in too much insulin in the body. This causes a whole host of troubles, including high fat uptake, heart disease, high cortisol/stress levels, low testosterone, and the cherry on top – high serotonin levels. Why do high serotonin levels matter? Because it creates a _real_ physiological addiction to carbohydrates in the first place! It gives you all the cravings.
Fucking insulin insensitivity huh? It makes you fat, makes you crave fat-creating levels of sugary carbohydrate goodness, fucks your health, and to add insult to injury, ends up giving you type-2 diabetes!
Well good news. There’s a cure for insulin insensitivity. A cure for type-2 diabetes.
Take 5 grams of Omega-3 EFA (Essential Fatty Acids) pills a day. Get the good stuff, with the atlantic salmon or flax and borage etc. Mix it up. It’ll be rather expensive, but if you take it daily for at least 3 months, you’ll start to notice an improvement. Take all 5 grams at once because some of it will be used up by the liver, and you want the rest to get into the body.
Why does it work?
Basically, that modern diet of yours that you’ve had over the years was actually low on Omega 3 _Essential_ Fatty Acids. Why is it essential? Because the body builds the cell walls out of this bad boy. So what has the body been building the cell walls with? Crappy fats.
How the fuck does that affect insulin sensitivity? Well, the cell walls built out of crappy fats can’t actually uptake the insulin very well. Which causes the problem.
Fortunately, the cells in our body die and are replaced by new cells all the time. That’s why taking lots of Omega-3 EFA pills every day for 3 months minimum is required. Your body will build new cells with the healthy fatty acids and those cells will become permeable to insulin again.
Viola! A simple and effective cure. If you stick to the plan, you will have cured yourself of type-2 diabetes. But even better than that, your addiction to carbohydrates will reduce, you will binge less and gain less fat. If you make sure to take Omega 3 EFA pills regularly, and strive to eat a diabetes friendly diet, you will lose a lot of weight, and be more resistant to the problems that carbohydrates cause.
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June 5, 2010
So you’re all excited about the coming singularity! You can’t wait for AI to come by and evolve themselves into super intelligences and start kicking our butts all over the floor.
Yeah well, screw AI. Telepathy is where it’s at. Hook everyone up with WIFI implants in their brains and start thinking about what kind of super intelligence would result from 7 billion brains. Just imagine it, 100 billion neurons multiplied by 7 billion and now we’ve got something cooking!
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June 5, 2010
It was inevitable. From our very beginnings to where we are going.
Many people recognize that technology is getting overwhelming, that every new technology comes with a whole host of extra requirements. For instance, the average smartphone user quickly finds that they require multiple phone apps to be satisified. Basically, every level of technology is increasing the choices and engendering various requirements and getting us ever more tangled up in technology.
In a way, technology is beyond our control. We are the foundation, the base upon which we created technology for our use. And then we act to support technology, as it grows more and more complex. From a systems point of view, we basically become cogs in the machine of the Technicum.
Many people, when they become aware of this, they might feel like either helplessly ignoring it or rejecting technology like the Unabomber. They might worry that the eventual rise of AI or some such would result in the obsoletion and removal of humanity.
Worry not. Man is technology. It is pointless to rebel against ourselves. No amount of religion, brainwashing, or totalitarian control will “fix” the inevitable rise of technology and the inevitable “out of control” feeling that we might get. Ultimately, we are capable of communicating complex ideas. Unlike other animals, we are doomed to progressively create technology, given enough time, and end up again with a mass of technologies, ever growing, faster and faster.
But, are we really doomed?
This feeling of being out of control, the feeling of being swallowed up and rendered obsolete is quite understandable. However, don’t forget that we ARE technology. No matter how far the Technicum goes, it cannot exist without humans. Future AIs like the Skynet will be built on top of the layers of technology, and and because of that, will depend on Humanity – for man is technology.
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