124 karma · joined April 4, 2009
I think the fact that 30% of all houses here are "underwater" is a better sign of a housing bubble than the amount of foreclosures because at least where I live in many cases banks prefer not to foreclose but put the house on the regular market and hope to sell it for a reasonable prices.
It seems that Mel Siff didn't follow a low fat vegetarian diet himself, based on his response to a critical article about him: (full response here: http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6558 )
Interestingly, I cannot recall anyone by the name of Glassman ever staying in the Siff household or studying me in the laboratory to examine my eating habits, so I am intrigued to know where he found this inside information. The abbreviated tale of my cardiac rehab programme (http://www.worldfitness.org/drmelsiff.html) certainly said nothing about my specific breakdown of macronutrients in my diet.
Had he read a little more carefully what I wrote, he would have noticed that my diet comprises something like 50-60% lipids (no fried foods, no transfats, no animal fat, plenty of fish) and under 30% carbohydrates (no refined carbs) and hasn't deviated much from that sort of balance for many years - I have never been a lover of high carb diets and have eaten little or no sugar (other than about 1-2 tablespoons of honey or a few servings of fruit a day). Where on earth does he obtain that nonsense from about my diet?
So, he says there he ate about 50-60% fat. It's strange though that he says "no animal fat" but plenty of fish, which is of course animal fat.
According to Harvard School of Public Health, salt sensitivity is a myth: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt-questions/#...
A similar thing goes for the laptop/desktop example given above. I recently bought a laptop for my parents and the salesperson tried to talk them out of it as well, because they weren't going to travel with it. I think a laptop (with an external screen if it is used a lot) is so much more useful for most people than a desktop, simply because of it's portability inside their home, even without any travel. Now they can sit next to their partner instead of in the separate computer room upstairs. Or (if there was no computer room upstairs) they can put it in the closet when they're done and don't have a big computer taking up space in the living room all the time. And it's way easier to take it with me on public transport if there's something wrong with it. I really felt that the "are you planning on taking it with you while traveling" is the wrong question when it comes to deciding between desktop and laptop, especially for most people when the extra power that a desktop gives is totally insignificant for word processing and web browsing. A laptop (not a top of the line one) was definitely the best option for my parents, and I'm glad I was there so that the salesperson did not succeed in talking them out of that with the best of intentions.
[1] Lubbers was prime minister from 1982-1994, confirmed that there are in fact nuclear bombs in Volkel, and said that he never thought that "those silly things" were still there.
Some comments:
- In the Dutch Appstore description you mention that this is good for children in "groep 3, 4, 5, 6". In the US appstore you say "grades 3, 4, 5, 6". They are not equivalent. In the Netherlands six year olds are in "groep 3", so it's equivalent to US grade 1.
- The handwriting recognition worked well, but it's not perfect (of course) and I do have to write a bit differently than usual. I suspect it will be easy for me to get used to. I am glad there is no penalty for errors, that makes it less frustrating. Will test it out on my child later.
- There need to be user profiles. That's essential for a game that you market to both school children and parents. There also should be highscore lists in the game itself, not just in Game Center. Also: in Game Center I only see highscores for the Advanced modes, which is a pity.
- I would absolutely love it if there were an option to choose which time tables to test. That would be perfect for school children who have to train them. I have a few apps for that, but none that measure your progress so nicely and that purely focus on speed. I understand that that's not your focus with this app, but still, I thought I'd put the idea out there
All in all, I am very impressed (though the lack of user profiles would normally be a deal breaker for me in an app like this).
There is a lot of science about this. Look up David Butler and Lorimer Moseley if you're interested.
This is a TED video by Moseley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs
And this is a good summarizing post about pain science: http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/seven-things-you-should-k...