NabaTech

"YOU: The Owner's Manual" Lives up to the Hype

By now you have probably heard about YOU: The Owner's Manual—a best-selling guide to your body, written in an entertaining style by two physicians, Michael F. Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. I noticed that this morning the book is #4 in Amazon.com sales rank. From my previous post on sales rate versus Amazon sales rank, you know that means huge online sales. I finally had a chance to make one complete pass through my copy of the book (also purchased online from Amazon), stopping at interesting points and checking all the myths and facts. Here's my quick take on the book.

The 430-page hardcover book has 12 chapters, with the last chapter focusing on diet (which, I was pleased to see, jibes well with my dietary beliefs of lower-carb, more fish, nuts for snack, and so on). The ten chapters from 2 through 11 cover the major bodily functions—heart, brain, bones/joints/muscles, lung, intestines, sexual organs, sensory organs, immune system, glands—and one chapter on cancer. Each chapter has lots of relevant factoids, myths and myth busters, and a Live Longer Action Plan with specific actions for the bodily functions covered in that chapter. The action plans seem practical with lots of details. For example, the Live Longer Action Plan for the bones/joints/muscles chapter (Chapter 4) recommends the following four actions:

1. Do the right amount of physical activity (weight or resistance training, cardio/stamina training, and stretching or yoga). By the way, they don't endorse training for or completing marathons because of the pounding the joints take—a good excuse for me to skip the marathon :-)
2. Eat for strength (calcium, vitamin D and magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids from fish and walnuts, vitamin C).
3. Think of alternatives (where they mention glucosamine and chondroitin supplements to regenerate cartilage in knee and hip joints as well as use of acupuncture for pain relief).
4. Make minor changes such as stand up straight wear well-cushioned shoes, and stop smoking.

The book includes tons of other useful facts as well such as the ideal blood pressure is 115/76 (no matter where you live in the world), the ideal weight for a 5-foor tall person is 100 pounds (plus 5 pounds per inch for taller persons), and the ideal daily calorie count for losing a pound a month is about 9 times the ideal weight in pounds plus the calories expended through physical activity and exercise.These examples should give you an idea about the kind of information the book provides.

I have lots more to read in this book, but the nice part is that you don't have to read it sequentially—you can use it as a reference guide and just turn to the chapter that relates to your current question about your body. All in all, I think the book lives up to the hype and provides health and diet information you can really use.

Tags: diet exercise glucosamine vitamins omega3 acupuncture chondroitin healthyliving

Diet—Leha's Chicken Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Walnuts

Over the past year or so we have often had a salad at dinner. The salad recipe is something my wife, Leha, whipped up. With the ingredients ready in the fridge, the salad takes only a few minutes to prepare, so it's ideal for the busy individual or family. I want to share the recipe so you can try it and also write it down for myself and our daughters so they easily can get it off this blog :-) Here's the recipe:

Ingredients (serves 2):

• A third of a head of lettuce
• Some roast chicken or turkey
• 5 or 6 slices of red beet (from a can)
• About a quarter cup of sun-dried tomatoes preserved in olive oil and herbs—along with some of the oil (we buy it in a jar from a warehouse store)
• One teaspoon of ground parmesan cheese
• One teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
• Some raisins
• Handful of walnuts

Steps:

1. Wash a third of the lettuce head, shake off the water, and then tear up the leaves in a plate.
2. Sprinkle the raisins on the lettuce. For variety, you can replace the raisins with other fruit such as grapes or chopped apples.
3. Cut the beet slices and spread them on the salad.
4. Tear some roast chicken and spread them on the salad (add as much as you like). By the way, we roast the chicken during the weekend and use it from the fridge as and when we need. You can also use leftover roast turkey.
5. Assuming that the sun-dried tomatoes were in a jar in the refrigerator, warm them up for 20 seconds in a microwave oven. Then chop the sun-dried tomatoes and spread them on the salad (keep the oil).
6. Put a teaspoon of parmesan cheese on the olive oil left over from the sun-dried tomatoes and then add the teapoon of balsamic vinegar into the olive oil and mix them up with a spoon. This is going to be your salad dressing—drizzle it on the salad.
7. Crumble the walnuts and sprinkle them on the salad.

That's it! Pour a glass of wine and dig into the salad :-)

Tags: diet chicken salad sundried tomatoes walnuts beet raisins healthy

NPR Interview with Carl Tanner, the (Bounty Hunter, Truck Driver) Tenor

One of my cousins in England, Biraj Barkakaty, happens to be a counter-tenor; currently an alto lay clerk at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, so my ears perked up at the recent NPR broadcast about tenor Carl Tanner who hails from nearby Arlington, Virginia. The interesting part of the NPR interview was the story of how Carl Tanner got into singing. He used to play football and sing high school choir, but he wasn't thinking about singing even after he graduated from the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Winchester, Virginia. He said that he thought he wasn't good at it and he lacked the confidence and the drive, so he took a job driving truck, but found that it paid very little. Then, because of his physique, a bounty hunter hired him as a backup and he hunted down suspects for a while. He was quite good at too, having successfully captured 169 out of 178 suspects, but after getting shot at, he decided it was enough and, finally got into singing. And now he's a famous tenor, highly in demand at various opera houses around the world. Amazing story, isn't it!

Currently Carl Tanner is singing the role of Samson in the Washington National Opera's production of Samson et Dalila—they have seven performances during May 14 through June 4, 2005. I mentioned the Carl Tanner story and the Samson et Dalila opera to my violinist daughter Emily. She asked me if we could go see the opera and, guess what, I was able to get tickets to this Sunday's performance. The opera is sung in French with English supertitles; that'll be a chance to brush up on my non-existent French :-)

Tags: classical opera tenor countertenor Carl Tanner Samson et Dalila alto NPR

Thomas L. Friedman on "The World Is Flat"

This past weekend my wife and I attended the iit05 conference where Thomas L. Friedman was one of the keynote speakers and he gave a captivating talk summarizing his recent book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. As you might have heard or read by now, in his new book Tom Friedman is talking about how the world has shrunk and technology has leveled the playing field for everyone around the world to compete in the global marketplace. You might say "I knew that already," but Tom Friedman has a casual and engaging way of explaining what he means and how it affects us, which made us sit up and listen to his talk.

Friedman began his talk recounting how, for a long while, he has been going back and forth between the Lexus and the Olive Tree issues (based on his previous book The Lexus and the Olive Tree). Then last year, when outsourcing became a topic in the U.S. presidential election campaign, he decided to go to the land of outsourcing (India, China) and interview people who were doing the outsourced jobs. That's when it hit him that while we were busy with other things, the world had quietly changed—in his words, it had become flat (I assume he meant the playing field is leveled). He decided to take a few months off to put down his thoughts on paper and the result was the new book. For the benefit of the audience, he went through the key historical and technological events—the fall of the Berlin Wall, release of Microsoft Windows 3.0 (a universal GUI for everyone), the 1995 Netscape IPO and the release of the Netscape Web browser, the fiber optic networks installed in the heyday of Internet boom that now provides us low-cost communications, interoperability of software applications, and ubiquitous wireless communication—that, in his opinion, collectively brought about the current state of affairs where any capable individual can participate in the global economy regardless of geographic location. He calls this "Globalization 3.0" and he outlined six new ways that people can now collaborate in the flat world: outsourcing, offshoring, open-sourcing, insourcing, supply-chaining, and informing (by which he means unlimited access to information). He gave interesting examples of each of these new ways of working, including how terrorists are also exploiting the flat world tools (you can find all the examples in his book).

So what does this all mean? Friedman says the horizontal collaboration among individuals and companies in the flat world is shaping global economics and politics now. He acknowledges that not everyone can participate in the flat world, but even if a small percentage of the world's population can collaborate and compete, the impact is still going to be huge. Friedman suggests that we better hone our science and engineering skills so we can be ready to compete in the flat world. He said this is what he tells his daughters nowadays: "Girls, finish your homework—people in China and India are starving for your jobs.'' All in all, it was a great keynote speech that got us thinking about the new world order and also concerned about what the future holds for our daughters.

Tags: friedman flat outsourcing offshoring insourcing supplychaining informing iit IIT iit05

Diet—Breakfast is a Must

We are all so busy nowadays that in our rush to get to school or work, breakfast is often a casualty. You might think: good riddance! After all, if you are trying to keep to a diet and eat less, missing breakfast can seem like an easy way to cut some calories. I used to think that way too and typically skipped breakfast, but that has all changed since I modified my diet. Now I think of the body as an "eating and calorie burning machine" that needs to be jump started with a good breakfast in the morning. Breakfast is the fuel to fire up the body's machinery for the day, so I don't dare skip breakfast. Otherwise, I fear the body would bend my will and get me to take that donut in the morning meeting, or worse, overindulge at some other meal during the day.

What do I eat for breakfast? Earlier I used to settle for milk and cereal plus a cup of coffee. After I switched to a low-carb diet, I now go for a bowl of soup and black tea for breakfast. And I take along a handful of nuts—almonds or walnuts—to munch on the way to work.

For your breakfast, pick whatever suits your diet, but don't skip breakfast—your body will behave itself and, best of all, you won't have to deal with a growling stomach at your 10:00 AM staff meeting!

Tags: diet breakfast lowcarb nuts

In Praise of Glue People

By Glue People, I don't mean the 1996 Mad About You episode with the same title, nor am I referring to anything related to glue sniffing. What I mean by "glue people" is similar to the way Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, used the term. In any organization or any major endeavor, glue people are the ones who hold things together and keep everything going. These are people who welcome and listen to multiple viewpoints, bridge gaps between differing opinions, and, without really forcing themselves onto anyone, keep people working productively together. It's not one person that does this, but many people throughout the organization fulfill the glue person role. Most people are glue people to some degree; some are just better at it and can sustain the glue role continually and more effectively.

If you stop and think about it for a moment, I bet you can sense who the glue people are in your own organization. They generally don't crave the limelight and their work is done behind the scenes, but if you are in a position to bestow recognition and reward performance, you should keep the glue people in mind and try to nurture them. We need more glue people—they're a truly invaluable resource for any organization.

Tags: glue people gluepeople

Running is a Pain in the Joint

Yes, running is indeed a pain in the joint, but I like running as a convenient way to squeeze in a concentrated dose of workout into a busy day. I don't really mind the pain (even though I don't like it). I accept the pain as the body's way of preventing me from overdoing it. If I felt no pain, who knows what damage I could do to my body by overexerting! Assuming that I am taking care to avoid injuries, what worries me more is the effect of running on the joints, especially the knee and the hip. I am worried that I may damage the cartilage over time. A while ago, I read a newspaper article about how Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate might slow cartilage breakdown. Since then I have started taking a daily dose of the two supplements. I can't tell if the supplements are doing any good or not, but I sure hope they do.

The Arthritis Foundation lists Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate under alternative therapies and mentions past studies that indicate that these supplements might slow cartilage damage, which helps protect against knee osteoarthritis. Although conclusive evidence is lacking, researchers think that glucosamine helps create new cartilage, while chondroitin slows cartilage destruction. We would find out soon whether these supplements work or not. In 2000, National Institutes of Health (NIH) began a study to test the short-term (6-month) effectiveness of these supplements on a population of over 1,500 people. According to a May 2004 update—see Questions and Answers: NIH Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT)—NIH says that the investigators are analyzing the data now and when that's done, they will submit the report to a peer-reviewed medical or scientific journal. I am looking forward to the results of that trial. In the meanwhile, I'll continue taking the supplements, hoping for the best.

Tags: exercise running glucosamine chondroitin arthritis supplement knee joint pain NIH GAIT

Blogosphere—Hierarchies and the Long Tail

I am new to the blogosphere and soon after my first few postings I was noticing the hierarchy among the blogs based on their popularity as measured by number of links, traffic, etc. I thought for a bunch of people dedicated to expressing our thoughts and opinions independently, we bloggers seem strangely attracted to hierarchies. We want to know who links to whom? We have services that count links, rank blogs according to whatever is considered the current best measure of importance of a blog. Shouldn’t we be just happy to have a medium where we can put down our thoughts and other (maybe just a few) like-minded souls can drop by accidentally or purposefully and read what we wrote? That ought to be good enough, but somehow of our obsession with pinging all the aggregators the moment we put down a few new words belies that.

I knew I was not onto anything new and a quick search proved that. I found Clay Sharky's February 8, 2003 post on Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality where he uses the power law distribution to explain that the affinity for developing a hierarchy is perfectly normal behavior for the blogosphere. There is, of course, no enforced hierarchy in blogosphere, but one emerges nonetheless. The nice part is that although the hierarchical structure is there, who occupies what position is shifting constantly, so you have as good a chance as anyone else to get to the top! Besides, if you can't make it to the top few, there's always The Long Tail :-)

Note: To read more about the "long tail" (the term refers to the tail of the power law distribution), see Chris Anderson's The Long Tail blog.

Tags: blog weblog conversation writing blogger writer hierarchy power law long tail longtail powerlaw blogosphere

Blogging is Not a Conversation, But That’s Fine With Me

I have been blogging for about a month now and I thought it’s time to capture the essence of my experience so far. Overall, I like blogging as a forum for expressing my thoughts and opinions. I think of my blog as a public storage for my observations so that anyone can read them whenever they want. Initially I thought the blog was going to be a way to initiate conversations and receive constructive input. That has not turned out to be true—it’s hard to have a conversation through comments and, in retrospect, I think I was mostly interested in putting the seed of my thoughts into the reader’s thought stream, which I can achieve by simply writing the blog.

When I first started, I also got quite caught up in promoting the blog—submitting the blog to various blog aggregators and search engines, commenting on other blogs, sending trackbacks to others, all in an attempt to drive up traffic and get linked :-) Some of my enthusiasm was due to the novelty of it all, but much of it is because of my continuing desire to find readers for my blog. I am sure everyone else has the same itch. I know I’ll continue to promote the blog and probably even set up a Web site as well to promote by books.

Of course, I am not the only one making these observations about blogs not being conversations. A quick Google search brought some similar musings from others. Here are two interesting examples: Blogging: Conversation or Soliloquy? and Why "Blogging" Sucks (it's the nomenclature of "blogging" that the author days sucks because a blogger is just a writer).

The bottom line is that I like blogging and I plan to continue writing. As for the reasons why, I point you to David St Lawrence’s Ripples blog where he explains his reasons for writing in Why I Write. All I can add to his thoughts is, my feelings, exactly!

Tags: blog weblog conversation writing blogger writer

New Market for Classical Music

My daughter Emily is studying violin performance now and plans to pursue a career as a violinist. Naturally my ears perk up whenever there is any mention of a new market for classical music. After all, I want classical music to thrive so that Emily and her compatriots can have an audience for their music (not to mention a means of making a living at it). That's why I listened with interest when American Public Media's Marketplace Morning Report recently aired a story—Montreal cellist—about a Vermont musician who is bringing classical music to punk, folk and rock clubs. Cellist Matt Haimovitz is a successful classical musician and currently teaches at McGill University, but he likes bringing classical music to smaller audiences in clubs. You have probably also heard of superstar violinist Vanessa Mae whose reinterpretation of classical style as well as fusion of classical and pop music has done much to broaden the appeal of classical music to a wider audience. What's interesting is that these artists don't really give up their classical roots; they simply extend their styles, improvise, and make bridges into other styles and, in that process, make their music accessible to the masses. That seems to be the key to a new and expanding market for classical music.

Note: See more Matt Haimovitz at his web site Oxingale.com and read his story in this Andante article: Redefining Success, Off the Beaten Track - Cellist Matt Haimovitz, Bringing Bach to the Bar Band Stage

Tags: music >classical >violin >violinist >cellist >Vanessa Mae >Matt Haimovitz