• WOWOW: Starred Sodium Lightbulbs

    edited by Alexander Becker

    What have salt and lightbulbs in common and why should you care?

    Both have issues. While I think that Eat To Live is potentially superior to many, if not most, dietary recommendations, the salt question is an interesting and apparently emotional one, culminating spectacularly in the Salt Wars: The Phantom Menace --

    Salt also pulls out calcium and other trace minerals in the urine when the excess is excreted, which is a contributory cause of osteoporosis. If that is not enough, high sodium intake is predictive of increased death from heart attacks. In a large prospective trial, recently published in the respected medical journal The Lancet, there was a frighteningly high correlation between sodium intake and all cause mortality in overweight men. The researchers concluded, High sodium intake predicted mortality and risk of coronary heart disease, independent of other cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure. These results provide direct evidence of the harmful effects of high salt intake in the adult population.

    Without implying an actual call for prohibition, ... there is a great line in the movie Demolition Man which is the vehicle to deliver today's point --

    Stallone:
    Do you have the salt?
    Bullock:
    Salt is not good for you, hence, it is illegal.

    ... hence, it is illegal. Does anyone see a problem with this kind of reasoning?

    Let's take a look at the call to ban inefficient lightbulbs in EU --

    Germany's environment minister Sigmar Gabriel has written to the European Commission proposing that inefficient light bulbs be banned in the EU.

    It gets even better with House Inspectors checking your light bulbs --

    They will go into every room to calculate the number of low-energy light bulbs and while in the kitchen they will even examine the cooker to see if has automatic ignition or a permanent pilot light.

    It is the verboten approach which rings bells -- at least it should do so -- all over the world.

    While we're there, this is what you'll do --

    Stallone:
    You'll get a little dirty...
    ... you, a lot clean.
    And somewhere in the middle...
    You'll figure it out.

    Just take action and change things for --

    ... each event triggers -- almost domino-like -- the next and the following ones with the result becoming inevitable because of cause and effect.

    Moderation is important to break up black-and-white thinking since nothing is perfectly black nor white. Moderation is the complete scale from black to white and so is life which is -- to stay with colors -- taking continuously and simultaneously from the whole spectrum, including the extremes, incorporating every color that is imaginable, all side by side.

    Or is the old concept of moderation all of a sudden broken? I don't think so.

    Note: The weekly Linking Park editions will become less weekly and more themed, for there is no day and night on the internet, nor are there timezones and certainly no weeks to adhere to. In the meantime, please check out the starred items provided in the sidebar.

    To your excellence.

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  • Linking Park: 2007-W07, The More Suggestions Edition

    edited by Alexander Becker

    More networking, productivity, health and exercise suggestions, the whole enchilada.

    We've had this before, but here is a great follow up on LinkedIn in particular and on making your business network pay dividends --

    LinkedIn is just a tool, albeit a powerful one if you have a use for it and know how to make it work. If you are good at what you do, it amplifies it. If you suck, it amplifies that too. We'll assume the former and give some pointers on how you can make it work more effectively for you. If you find yourself wondering how to better use, derive benefit or get value from this tool, the following suggestions might prove useful. Don't forget the basic rule of being of service to others.

    Basic rules? Priorities? See the pattern here? What we talk about when we talk about "priority" --

    Since the Bronze Age of personal productivity, conventional wisdom has taught us the importance of priority in deciding how to plan and use our time. And, in the abstract, anyhow, that notion of putting your time and attention into those things that are the most valuable to you seems so "obvious" as to be a tautology, where "productivity = acting on priorities." (Of course, whether people's execution of the things they claim are important always maps to their stated intentions is another matter for another post a really big book.)

    [...]

    But, in practice, what the hell does "priority" really mean?

    Almost everybody wants effortless success, the question remains whether it is possible to emulate effortlessness in the first place --

    I believe our lives, world, and reality is actually created by the desires, thoughts, intentions, and images we give our attention to. Action is simply a way for us to enjoy what we've created.

    ... except for the fact that the effortless stuff is the stuff you really really want, everything else is not effortlessly achievable because you can trick yourself into true desire only so far.

    Let's keep this issue open for later discussion and in the meantime, admire your results since you've decided to get in shape..... again, suggesting to --

    Get in shape for life, not an event.

    On a different level but nevertheless related, check out Yoga and rock climbing and the art of falling down --

    I've been telling my students lately that when you fall out of a pose in yoga, that's a sign that you're getting stronger and that you're testing -- and pushing -- your edge. Conversely, if you find that you're never falling down in yoga class, or that you're never falling out of any poses, chances are that you're probably staying in your comfort zone a little too much. A similar set of principles can be applied to rock climbing, providing yet another example of how yoga and climbing fit together so nicely.

    Body tightness is the secret of many amazing gymnastic feats. Study these gymnastics tension exercises --

    One of the most important elements in gymnastics conditioning is body tension or "body tightness". Gymnasts can control the action of their body more easily (in static strength positions as well as in movement) when their body is held tight than when it is a loose collection of individual parts. A person's weight is much more difficult to handle when their body is relaxed than it is if it were held tight.

    Here is another suggestion, namely to eat fewer calories and live longer --

    Eating more calories than the body needs to maintain a thin, muscular weight ages us.

    Sounds sensible, on the other hand, what about some food for thought -- Want to lose fat? Eat more and get lean --

    Taking in too few of the required nutrients is equal to constant starvation. Consequently, your body expects nothing less than famine and starts to store the fat. Yes, every bit of anything you eat is treated as a scarce resource and is therefore stored away for times even worse.

    Since we already talk about clogging, ... Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. When I stopped by first, I got this though --

    Our Pipes are clogged! We've called the plumbers!

    Nevermind.

    One of the worst productivity killers is the bad habit of going back and forth between one and the same task, hence the suggestion to get things done on the spot in order to minimize missed opportunities --

    Single-handling is the high-speed, high-performance productivity concept of dealing with tasks, material or immaterial, on first sight, encounter, or touch.

    Therefore, ... the book of the week is -- once again -- David Allen's Getting Things Done.

    To your excellent life.

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