Neglectful blogger... Again

Wow, over a year since my last post.  I really am a neglectful blogger!  Although, calling myself a blogger at all is really a bit of a stretch.  But that's another story.

There are a couple of main reasons that I haven't been updating my blog recently.  For one, I don't feel like I have much to say these days.  But a lot of people write stuff on the internet all of the time who really don't have anything to say, and that doesn't stop them!  Some of them are even paid for it, theoretically.  I guess I'd just like to think that I hold myself to a slightly higher standard when I actually "publish" something online.  (Haha)

Another reason is that I just don't spend much time at an actual computer anymore.  My job is such that I'm always up, moving around, dealing with all the minor disasters of a busy coffee shop; not sitting at a desk.  If I have idle time between tasks / disasters, I may pull out my phone and check the news / weather / Instagram, but I can't just pop open a new browser tab and work on a blog post.

Well, I guess I could work on a blog post from my phone... but... really?  There are so many more friction-free publishing and sharing platforms that were created for and optimized to phones, that it's just not worth the effort to try to write more than a few lines from my phone in between everything else.  I post to Instagram only a few times a week, occasionally Tweet, and only rarely do anything on Facebook, so actually writing a blog post is a bar too high.

Plus, I loose my train of thought too quickly!

This is actually a perfect example of reason number one for not blogging!  I've written half a page, and I haven't actually said anything that is of any use to anyone.  Oh well, at least I can be pretty sure that no one will actually take the time to read my maunderings!

Maunderings for October 20, 2013

The World is Out to Get You!

Well, apparently breathing China's air isn't as bad as we thought... At least compared to many places in the Middle East. The World Health Organization released their latest research on outdoor air pollution recently and Quartz was nice enough to break it down into a nice chart. The worst Chinese offender doesn't even come close to breaking into the top ten worldwide. Not that it can't get bad in China, but at least they aren't blaming it on the U.S., like a certain four letter country seems to be. I guess that what happens when your entire economy is based on pumping oil out of the ground.

And if you're lucky enough to survive the air pollution, it's your vitamins that are going to kill you. The BBC reports on overuse of dietary supplements this week, and I tend to agree that taking a ton of something that you are not sure what it does can't be good in the long term. Especially given all the new research into the microbiom, aka: our elusive gut bacteria.

Also on the Beeb, and reiterating something I blogged previously, you really don't need to drink more water than you feel like you need. Australian researchers recently proved it. If you live in a temperate climate, you probably need six to eight cups of liquid a day, but that can come in the form of food, coffee, beer, or (gasp!) tap water. If you're thirsty, have a drink, but don't force it on yourself.

Today's moral is pretty basic: Don't believe the marketing hype; your body is amazing and can usually take care of itself as long as you listen to it. As long as you don't live in Iran.

Maunderings for June 19, 2013

I've unintentionally taken a little while off of updating (again) while I spend some time at home in Colorado.  It's really nice to be back breathing the thin, dry, clean air and drinking good, fresh beer.  Drinking seems to be a theme today...

Even though China is a huge country and the wealthy seem to be obsessed with high end whiskey, 99.5% of all hard liquor consumed in China is baijiu.  So when the Economist graphed the top ten consumers of real spirits (vodka, rum, Scotch whiskey, gin, tequila), China doesn't even rank.  Unsurprisingly, Russians drink the most of anyone by a large margin.  What did surprise me was that the French drink ten times more Scotch per person than Americans (but non-Scotch whiskey wasn't mentioned, so that could have something to do with it) and that Filipinos drink nearly five times more gin than us.  Since gin and Scotch are my liquors of choice, I'm trying to bring our average more in line with global standards, and I encourage you to do your part.  ;)

This article about the worst charities in the U.S. will make you both want to drink and not feel bad about spending money on booze instead of donating it to these scams than donate less than 1% of their proceeds to their supposed beneficiaries.

This could either make you want to drink more or make you feel a little better about your situation. In China, graduates from Chinese universities are four times more likely to be unemployed than those with only an elementary school education. At least it's not just American college graduates who think that they're entitled to a better job than they are qualified for:

Jason Zhang, the recruiter who has years of experience hiring people, rolls his eyes at this type of candidate. "Chinese college graduates these days think they’re really special," he says with a smile. "The problem is -- they’re the only ones who think that." 

Zhang says Wang and many others in China’s class of 2013 will go all summer thinking they’ve got lots of options, and will probably end up unemployed.

Aaand, I forgot to hit "post" a few days ago, so here's bonus drinking related update, just for good measure. According to Telegraph in the UK, via Gothamist, the world's gin supply is in dire straights because of a fungus that is attacking juniper berries, the pungent herb that gives gin its gin-ness.  I regard this as a real emergency, but I am also surprised that there's no synthetic alternative available for desperate times like these.  But, necessity is the mother of invention, so maybe Britain will start to be innovative again and there will be.  In the meantime, enjoy your gin while you can, people!

Maunderings for June 1, 2013

According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese hot pot chain Hai Di Lao (pay wall) is planning to expand into the U.S.  Owner Zhang Yong started Hai Di Lao in Sichuan in 1994 and opened his first international branch in Singapore last year.  As someone who has recently spent over a month in Chengdu, Sichuan and ate the hot, mouth-numbing local specialty there more times than I can remember, I hope his particular brand of hot pot will find a niche in the U.S.  I think they'll have to work on their menus and educate Westerners on how hot pot works if they're going to be successful.  It is scheduled to open this September in the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Arcadia.

I just ran a 5k charity race this morning wearing semi-generic cotton blend socks, and they didn't give me any trouble, but in case they did, the WSJ was kind enough to enlighten us on the booming high-end sock industry in the U.S.  Apparently the "Thread Architects" and R&D shops at these companies are turning out socks that fit like a glove, resist "trail grime", and can withstand three weeks of wear without washing, and only run $25 a pair(!).  The socks on my feet cost about $2.50, but I do need to wash them every time, so maybe it's worth it.

Luckily I didn't eat hot pot right before the run, or else my socks may have been the least of my worries.

Speaking of food... regarding Paleo Dieters, you know, the folks who have apparently confused personal health with evolutionary success as an excuse to eat nothing but steak, a semi-recent conference of archaeologists and other assorted smart people made some good clarifications on what humans can eat: "You want to know what the ideal human diet consists of? Everything. Humans can and will eat everything, and we are remarkably successful not in spite of this fact, but because of it. Our adaptability is the hallmark of the human species. We’re not called omnivores for nothing."  Read this guy's post, it's good.  Good like a bagel.

Maunderings for May 22, 2013

As Moore, Oklahoma continues to clean up after last weekend's disastrous tornado, the Atlantic has put together way more than you really need to know about tornadoes in America.  The short version: the May 20th Moore tornado was bad, but not the worst; and no, tornadoes are not increasing in frequency or severity.  The long version is still worth a look and is notable for its level-headed thoroughness.

Scientific American takes the recent Dove soap adverts to task and concludes that you really aren't as beautiful as you think.  They call it the "above average effects", but I prefer the "Lake Wobegon effect".  (You know, "where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.")  But either way, a little bit of thinking you're awesome can probably help in real life situations that benefit from self-confidence.  Just don't let it go to your head.  ;)

And if you're like most residents of mainland China and are tired of Hong Kong's "two-tin" limit on imports of powdered baby formula, maybe you should go to New Zealand and start buying up all of theirs instead.  Or maybe Chinese companies could stop poisoning their own citizens (and everyone else's pets) and put some of their vast resources into producing safe products for domestic consumption.  Right after they start enforcing their own constitution.  :/

Maunderings for May 21, 2013

This is a little behind the times, but apparently Jon Stewart is has recently become big in China. ...And not just because he's tall. (Couldn't resist, sorry.) The New Yorker wrote up an interesting little piece, and you should probably watch the video clip they link to in the second (and 6th) line. Also, Jon Stewart is called Jiong Situ, a.k.a. 囧司徒 in Chinese. I like the Jiong character - 囧.

Even though you've probably been working out like a MoFo for a while now, it only takes about a week to loose your new-found cardiovascular adaptations.  Luckily, a couple of intense max-interval workouts a week will at least help the maintenance.  

In more recent, but basically worthless news, foreign fashion models who want to work in the U.S. are in the same skilled worker category as actual skilled workers.  Since the overall cap is so low, that's causing some grief for the less beautiful I.T. workers, even though only 250 of the 65,000 H-1B visas went to models.  There was legislation introduced in 2008 to reclassify the models out of the H-1B pool, sponsored by Anthony Weiner (insert lewd joke here), but it never made it to the floor.