biology's revenge

Isn't it ironic that when you try for generations to survive on meager rations and then suddenly you find food aplenty, that your biology turns against you? Because that is exactly what happens in the real world. Take a look at the Pima Indians and type II diabetes. It is an extreme case, but the same process is going on all around us. Right now it is affecting nearly every one of us. Ever heard of obesity? It is now the norm.

A recent large scale study shows that eating red meat everyday shortens your life-expectancy considerably. Not to mention all the environmental destruction that is caused by all these people insisting on eating red meat every day. If the arteriosclerosis and cancer won't get you, the climate change will quickly put an end to this meat-lovers party.

If you think it is not true, go to the great city of Coalinga, CA. There, close to interstate 5, you can experience first hand the wonders of cattle raising. Stand by the Harris ranch and enjoy the methane and other fumes for a few moments. Then, when this is deeply carved into your brain, go take a look at the Harris meat packages at Safeway.

And just in case you thought of switching to fish for that extra dose of omega-3, be aware that fishing as we know it is coming to an end. Nearly all known fisheries are at, or over capacity. The end of fishing is coming within our life-time. No amount of fish farming will be able to stop that now.

Why worry about declining fish stocks, when you can just buy omega-3 supplements at Costco?

How about one very simple reason? No supplement has ever been shown to be beneficial. Whenever a supplement, vitamin, or mineral, found to be "associated" with improved "this or that," was tested in a real prospective study, the results were crystal clear: no cigar!

The reality is actually a bit worse. In most of those studies the supplement, mineral, vitamin, what have you, was found to be detrimental. I.e. the people taking it did WORSE than the controls. And this happened not just once. Just about every time, something was tested, be it vitamin C, vitamin E, lycopene, blah-blah, the people taking it did WORSE than the control group.

Save yourself some money. Stop buying vitamins and supplements. Let's do away with a superfluous, polluting, and unnecessary industry. And while you're at it, cut out the red meat. Eat more vegetables and fruits. Which ones you may ask? Should you eat apples for quercitin, tomatoes for lycopene, blueberries or pomegranates for anti-oxidants, or any other "magic" food?

NO, no, and no. You should eat local fruit and veggies. The best ones are the ones in your garden. Next comes those grown locally, preferably from a farmer's market. If you really have to, get some at the supermarket. But avoid those out of season, shipped in from other continents fruits, no matter how "healthy" they are supposed to be.

Health is a local thing. You adapt to your environment. It is a long term process and it has been going on for generations. What is good for someone else, living somewhere else, may not be good for you here and now. Remember the Pima Indians, they were fine before there was sugar a'plenty.

adaptation

Just saw this youtube clip by a comedian, entitled "People are never happy." In it the character makes fun of people who complain about airlines. It really made me think, because I used to fly a lot and airlines really do treat their customers badly. You get no room, bad food, poor service, etc. The airline "experience" is not one to remember. Certainly not for frequent flyers.

However, as was pointed out in the clip, we should be overjoyed. We can fly. We can get from one end of the continent to the other in approximately 5-6 hours, and we are extremely likely to arrive in one piece. It is fast, safe, and relatively inexpensive. Compare that to what transcontinental travel used to be like only a century ago. It took months, one had to endure hardship almost continuously, it was dangerous, it was very expensive, etc.

And therein lies a key lesson about happiness. We constantly adapt and adjust our expectations. And that is one reason why so many people are unhappy, despite being very well off. They always want more. They always think things will be better if they only had that bigger house, that faster car, that latest gadget.

However, as soon as they have it, they take it for granted. There are more gadgets to acquire, better things to possess, more experiences to have. It is a never ending quest. And they are never satisfied.

What does this have to do with the environment you ask? Well, everything, really. It is this never ending desire to want more, to consume more, to waste more that will ultimately drive us to extinction. And we won't be any happier for it. We are just deluding ourselves thinking we need this or that item, adventure, vacation, you name it.

Our consumer society constantly reminds us of all the things we don't have, all the experiences we are not part of, etc. etc. And like defenseless addicts, most of us cannot resist. We need our next hit to be happy.

swine flu

I am sure that by now you heard about the Swine Flu that is raging in Mexico. I am not sure if raging is the right word since a mere 150 dead in a country like Mexico is barely above the noise. Not that I want to be callous about the loss of life, but, as some people have pointed out, this may be much ado about nothing.

It is interesting to note that this swine flu has already killed almost as many people as the much talked about bird flu of 2006/7/8. That flu did kill an enormous number of birds, but somehow the human toll never materialized. What also did not materialize was the much feared human to human transmission. This time it is different, since it is clear to all that the swine flu does transmit from human to human.

It does not transmit through eating pork and all the worries (and falling stock prices) about that sector are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Maybe people are confused because in the earlier (bird) flu, contact with birds was strongly discouraged. But then again, not all diseases are identical. Maybe the public can be forgiven for not understanding these "subtleties."

Another reason why the swine flu has caught headlines (apart from the bird flu hangover, and the human to human transmission) is that we all know a pandemic flu is coming. Although we don't know where and when, we can be pretty sure -given the life cycle of flu pandemics- that we are in for a big one. A big one means one that kills tens of millions worldwide. Much like the big earthquake we are all waiting for in here in California, a major flu pandemic is a certainty.

Unlike what most people seem to believe, flu is a very deadly disease. It is not because we all suffer several bouts of flu during our life times, and recover swiftly and pretty much without sequelae in about 1-2 weeks, that we should think of flu as an innocent disease. It is up there with all the major killers that get a lot more coverage in the press.

Furthermore, a pandemic flu, like the one in 1918, is quite a bit more virulent than a "regular" flu. There are many reports of perfectly healthy young people who died within hours of developing symptoms. Some that survived the initial attack died several days later. Granted a large number of those died of bacterial superinfections -and we now have some remedies for those- but it would be ill-advised to be too cavalier about that. It may very well be that such a virulent flu followed by a bacterial lung infection is refractory to antibiotics (even if the bugs are not resistant). That is true because there is a difference between killing the micro-organism and ending the disease process. That too is something the public does not understand very well.

some basic facts

For those of you who think the crisis is over here are some basic facts. Basic facts that make it highly likely that this crisis will not resolve itself quickly. Facts that are not a matter of opinion or partisan politics.

And just for the record, these facts clearly demonstrate that our current economy is not sustainable in the long run. So, whether you are a fan of American style capitalism or not, it will have to change. Maybe not now, or maybe not yet, but eventually it will.

1. 2/3 of our present economy depends on consumer spending.

2. more than half of the American households have zero net worth.

3. true unemployment (not just the people standing in line for benefits) is close to 15% and rising.

4. half of the aging population do not have enough money to make it through their retirement years.

5. more than three quarters of the country is in a state of denial or ignorance.

Now you tell me how this crisis will end.

Or you can just stick your head in the sand and make optimistic statements based on wishful thinking.

What we need is a complete overhaul of our economic system. Nothing short of that will do.

limbaugh logic

I saw the infamous Rush on CSPAN the other day. His speech to Republican faithful. In it he said, no whining. He is a real man. He doesn't whine and he doesn't think his followers should either. Maybe they use opioids for the pain?

In any case, not too long after his famous no whining statement, which he repeated several times for emphasis, he explained what he really wanted and why he had said he wanted Obama to fail. Why? Simple, because he wanted America back. He wanted to have the America that he grew up in, back. 

Mommy! I want my America back! I want things to go back to the way they were! I want to be a baby again and have you take care of me!

How's that for not whining?

carbon computing

According to a new IBM ad, the world's datacenters produce more carbon in a year than 36 million homes. There are about a 110 million households in the US, for reference. 

IBM's conclusion? The world needs smarter IT, and presumably IBM is ready to deliver those smarts. So much for the hype. Do you wonder how much extra carbon those smarts need?

My solution for the datacenter mess? Take a look at what is stored in those datacenters. Do you think I exaggerate when I estimate that 99% of the information is completely useless? I am willing to bet most of it is duplicated many thousands of times over. Probably 90% of it is never looked at by anyone at any time. A lot of it is printed out over and over again to decorate reports, office memoranda, powerpoint presentations, and the like. Never mind the trees!

Take a look at your own computer. How many email messages are in your inbox? 5,000 plus? How much of your hard disk is filled with junk that you never ever use? Remember the days when 20 megabytes was a lot of storage space? That is not too long ago. Now, anything less than a gigabyte is considered puny.

And who do we have to thank for this? How about Microsoft? Have you noticed that the Office suite has grown several orders of magnitude in the last decade? But why? Does it have more functionality? Is it more useful now? I bet if you are honest with yourself you will admit that it doesn't. You may conclude that it is worse now than 10 years ago, when it did not have all those bells and whistles that you never look at. I certainly think it is worse.

IT is just a micro version of the larger problem. Resources are too cheap so nobody values them. There is too much cheap storage available so what do people do? They get lazy. They keep everything around. They store stuff just in case they might need it one day.

Here is an interesting computing idea. Next time you buy, downsize.