Do You Believe?

 Photo Credit: Trey Ratcliff via Compfight

It's been over a year since I posted my experiences with the "Alpha Course". Both Harry and I attended primarily to see what the motivators of Christianity were - such a large part of our society is driven by this religion, so it made sense to try and make sense of it all.


So it was serendipitous to find a recent Science article, co-published by one of our own UBC grad students, Will Gervais (with his advisor, social psychologist Ara Norenzayan). The published paper is called  Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief.


Their experiment was to find out that if religiosity and analytical thinking were related. It turns out, they are. From the study: 

 "All they have shown, and all that can be shown, is that when you're thinking more critically you reject statements that otherwise you would endorse," Kahneman says. "It tells you that there are some religious beliefs people hold that if they were thinking more critically, they themselves would not endorse."

I still am held wondering why, in the world of technology and engineering that I come from, so many of my colleagues were deeply religious. It's as though they would "turn off" the analytical part of their brain (the part that earned them an income, and could explain how a cellular phones and rocket ships worked) when it came to religion. The study couldn't answer this one.


My theory (wait for it - it'll piss you off) - You're paid to be analytical - your working life depends on it. When you're not being paid, you let down your guard, and you set lower analytical expectations (probably unconsciously).


I expect I'll get some comments on this one....

Piracy?

Photo Credit: John Blyberg via Compfight

I'm about 1/3 of the way into my first rough draft of an ebook I'm writing. I'm getting about 200 hits/day on the BuildBetterSleep site, so in combination with general "sleep" or "insomnia" searches on Amazon.com, it gives me a reasonable shot that a few people might actually read it. I plan to price it cheap enough ($1.99) that you wouldn't have to think too hard about downloading it.

I had a conversation about ebook piracy with Laura yesterday, and I told her about the recent Apple/publisher federal antitrust case over ebooks, and how fixing prices got them all into trouble. I think that micro-publishing is a much more evolved way to look at book selling:

1. make it cheap enough so that piracy isn't much of an issue - and don't care even if it is
2. create a model where distribution is cheap (Amazon makes it easy - and they're the 800lb gorilla of distribution)
3. the author get's most of the proceeds, not the publisher (in the Amazon case, it's 70% of the proceeds for any ebook sold for <$9.99). 

This, in combination with the fact that I'm lazy, is why I'm choosing this route.

I thought it ironic that in my inbox this morning was this essay from Seth Godin, titled Piracy, you Wish:

"Publishers are spending a lot of time debating DRM on ebooks. Many of the powers that be are worried about piracy, they say, and they are resolute in making sure that there are locks on the books they publish. 

There are countless interesting conversations on whether this helps Amazon with lock in (you can’t move your books around, so you’re stuck) and whether it hurts sales, etc. Not to mention whether the locks themselves even work the way they are intended to (they don’t.) 

For me, though, the interesting notion is of book piracy itself. 

How many more people would prefer a hard drive full of 10,000 songs to one with 10,000 books on it? We’re hungry for one and sort of unaware altogether of the possibility of the other. What would you even do with 10,000 books? 

Software is pirated because in just a few minutes, the user saves a hundred or a thousand dollars, and feels okay about it because software seems unreasonably expensive to some (Photoshop costs about 10 times as much as Acorn). It’s theft of intellectual property, but a tempting one. 

Music is pirated because many people have an insatiable urge to listen to music, all the time, preferably with unlimited variety. And radio taught us that music to be listened to doesn’t cost money. 

But books? 

Books are free at the library but there’s no line out the door. Books are free to read in comfortable couches at Barnes & Noble but there aren’t teeming crowds sitting around reading all day. 

Books take a long time to read, require a significant commitment, and they’re relatively cheap. And most people don’t read for fun. Most of the inputs necessary for a vibrant piracy community are missing. 

As Tim O’Reilly famously said, books don’t have a piracy problem. They have an obscurity problem. I have never met an author who didn’t wish that more people would read her book. Never one. On the other hand, Peter Gabriel and the rest of rock royalty rarely feel the same pangs. “What do you mean you’ve never heard Moondance?” I just can’t visualize Van Morrison saying that… 

I’ve written several free ebooks (here’s one) and even when I want unlimited piracy, it doesn’t happen. 

Book publishers are crippling their marketing efforts because they’re worried that 1% of their titles will be overshared. They have nightmares about classrooms of kids reading one copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, or entire divisions of companies reading a single copy of a $29 hardcover. 

But the short head of the book market isn’t the future–it’s the long tail. And in the long tail world, overcoming obscurity is the single biggest hurdle. If only piracy was a problem..."

Minimalism - The Book

I just finished reading Minimalism - Essential Essays written by a couple of guys in Dayton, Ohio (Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus). While the book itself is somewhat repetative - since it's a collection of essays many of the themes are repeated throughout - it's worth the quick read.

I picked it up a few days ago, so I paid nothing - but it's probably worth a bit more than $0.00. I think that the book itself taught me one thing I never thought of before. My wife has often bared the brunt of my frequent indulgences, and I think any sort of minimalism is a bridge too far for her. But the book said something that resonates with me - become minimalist in small areas of your own life, first. Then maybe people will be more willing to come along.

I already have the traveling minimalism down, so now I'm going to work on a few more areas. My office for one. The garage would be next. All my clothing (and the furniture that holds it) is after that. Then there's the selling or giving away of things we don't use - like a very expensive inflatable kayak, or all my sailing books, or the first couple of years of Wired Magazine.

The point of writing this down is simply to act as some kind of accountability.

Maybe one of you will ask "so how's the whole minimalism thing going?".

Four Things On My Mind Today

First, I'm working on an eBook about sleep. I've learned so much about it the past several months, the least I can do is try and capitalize on it. I figure if I put what I know into a $1.99 book online (Kindle), there's bound to be a few people who give it a try. If this goes well (even if it doesn't) I'll try my hand at writing something a little more free-form.
Second, the "diet" isn't really a diet anymore. I can fight the craving for something sweet, something made from flour, or something from a box pretty easily now. I could never imagine that I would be the one turning down dessert, but it's easier than I would have imagined. I now find myself craving dark chocolate or berries with full-fat yogurt as a treat. Over the weekend, I had a small bowl of sugar-free gelato and a hot-dog in a bun. I've decided that if I do this stuff infrequently then there is both no-harm-done and no-guilt-trip involved.
Third, although I'm a minority in Vancouver for saying this, I'm glad the Canucks lost last night to the LA Kings. I've always said "what's the definition of insanity"? In my opinion, there's just not enough "want" in Vancouver - either by the team or by the fans - to earn a Stanley Cup. It's interesting to see this morning on the news that people have already gotten over the loss. On to other things. We take our sports seriously in Vancouver. Yeah, right.
Fourth, a bit of a milestone this week. As of tomorrow, Laura and I will have been married for 30 years. "For Better Or For Worse" - I bet Laura had no idea what she was in for with me (neither did I). Don't give me a hard time for listing this fourth - these are in no particular order!

How To Feed A Reading Habit - On The Cheap

 Photo Credit: Frédéric della Faille via Compfight

The stuff I most enjoy reading now isn't available in the library. The books never make it that far.

The role of traditional publishing, traditional publishers, traditional marketing and traditional distribution are quickly being turned on their head.

Self publishing is becoming more-and-more of a force. And I'm riding both sides of it:

• I'll be publishing some e-books, and I have no aspirations at all to go the "traditional" route.
• The last ten books I've read have been self-published. And I bought every one of them off Amazon.com.
• And I paid less than $3.00 for each of them - most were either $0.99 or $1.99.

The length of these eBooks vary, but they tend to be in the 200 page range.

And I've found their subject matter to be fascinating.

Here's a short list of what I've enjoyed in the last couple of weeks:

Long Long Honeymoon - Living Large in a Small Tin Can
How to Travel Full Time
How to Be Remarkable
My Exile Lifestyle
Life Nomadic
The Tiniest Mansion - How To Live In Luxury on the Side of the Road in an RV

Radical Frugality: Living in America on $8,000 a Year

There's a bit of a theme here, I'll admit, but what should be really interesting to you are the number of really-low-cost, self-published titles that are out there.

Do a quick search on Amazon for whatever you like, see if there's any books available for a dollar or two, and then see what other "picks" Amazon gives you - they'll mostly be at the same price point.

The other thing I find myself doing a lot now is "Readability", a free app available for your PC and Smartphone. When I find an article I'm interested in, and it's too long to read right then, I'll "capture" it with Readabilty and send it to my Kindle (you have to set that up, but it's free, and Readability coaches you on the simple steps to do it). If you're familiar with InstaPaper, it's very similar - except for the Kindle link (I much prefer reading on a Kindle than on a PC or Smartphone).

I find these articles and eBooks are much more my speed now. Not too long, not too short. Just right....

Restating Results

The Manufacturers/Inventors of Crestor

Evidently, I was too confusing in my last post about blood work. There are too many variables, and you have to be a nerd like me to want to talk about them.

So this time I'll keep it short (yeah right).

• Ever since (and maybe before - who knows) I became vegetarian I had a "syndrome" of very low HDL Cholesterol (that's the good stuff).
• I've been on a statin (Crestor) for several years now, which lowered my overall cholesterol profile, but did nothing to HDL.
• We (my cardiologist and me) eventually found that high doses of Niacin (a vitamin) would raise my HDL from the very low 0.8 to the "acceptable but still low" 1.2.
• I went off the statin a few weeks ago, and changed my diet (very low carb) a couple of months ago. New bloodwork was done about a week ago.
• The new bloodwork, with no statin and a changed diet, showed a remarkable increase in HDL. It also showed a very low level of triglycerides. Both of these are very good. This is the news I'm most excited about.
• HDL and Triglycerides are now the important blood markers. Total cholesterol and LDL (the bad cholesterol) are mostly meaningless. We've been told for years to lower total cholesterol and LDL. That's what all the "low fat" nonsense is about. 
• They should have been telling us instead "keep your triglycerides as low as possible, and aim for the highest HDL you can get". At least I'm not dead before finding this out. Low HDL was likely the reason for all my health problems. And adding a statin didn't help. Funny that no doctor ever asked me about this.
• I now weigh 150lbs and have to buy new clothes. I weighed 145lbs in High School.

All of this is tied straight back to diet - obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease and stroke all have the same source. Do yourself a favour and read Gary Taubes' " Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Vintage)". He explains exactly what happened to me, and why it is that you find it so hard to lose weight (hint: it's got to do with our body's insulin response to food - specifically carbs).

I thought I'd keep this short. So I failed.

I Didn't Have "A Genetic Problem" - I Had A Diet Problem

 Photo Credit: Luca Rossato via Compfight

After 45 days of eating a diet consisting mostly of meats, fruits, vegetables, and some dairy (full fat Greek yoghurt), I got my blood tested.

I had gone off the statin (Crestor 5mg - considered a small dose) a week earlier, so I should have been relatively statin-free when the blood was drawn.

Since I became vegetarian in 1996, I always had an issue with very low HDL Cholesterol. We tried everything to get it up - and finally the best results were had by a very high dose of niacin (2g/day). This got my HDL numbers into the "low acceptable" range of 1.2 mmol/l.

The Crestor did a good job of reducing total cholesterol and LDL - both numbers were very good by the metrics I used to use.

So here are the new numbers:

• Total Cholesterol - was 3.0 to 4.0, now is 4.8
• LDL Cholesterol - was 0.8 to 1.7, now is 2.5
• HDL Cholesterol - was 0.8 to 1.2, now is 1.8
• Triglycerides - was 1.0 to 2.4, now is 1.0

The only number that's a bit confusing for me is Fasting Blood Sugar - I only had it measured one other time at 5.0, and now it's 5.5. I'll have to do some digging to see what that's all about - it could be the result of all that statin use.

So the results are exactly what they said they would be:

• Total Cholesterol and LDL would go up - but these two numbers are meaningless
• HDL would go up - this is a minimum 50% increase in HDL which is fantastic
• Triglycerides would go down - it's now as low as it has ever been

I'm really quite impressed. I thought that I had a genetic problem with low HDL. No, I had a diet problem with low HDL!

Note that low HDL combined with high triglycerides is now the premier predictor of heart disease and arterial damage. This is from the National Institutes of Health in the USA:

"Nearly all routinely assessed lipid variables were associated with the extent of coronary disease, but only the ratio of triglycerides to HDL-cholesterol or to HDL-c were robustly associated with disease extent. Elevation in the ratio of TG to HDL-c was the single most powerful predictor of extensive coronary heart disease among all the lipid variables examined."

The ideal ratio of Triglycerides/HDL is less than 2.0. The lower your number, the lower your risk. With very low HDL, my number was always high. Now it's 0.56.

Seems I've been killing myself over the last sixteen years. And I only took medicine's advice....


Addendum: I checked with a group I know on-line about the Fasting Blood Sugar - it's no issue at all. Low carb diets cause it. So does statin use. I should wait to see what it does in three months.


* Note: I've reposted this over on my Paleo blog, because it's only with this new lifestyle/diet that I've been able to achieve this in such a short time.

The Dilemma of Choice

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I wrote a post on one of my other blogs this morning about the plan.

The dilemma we're facing right now is whether to bite the bullet and trade in the Airstream and Truck for a diesel motorhome or not. As with everything, it's not obvious what to do.

We love the trailer, and it doesn't owe us a thing - we've spent hundreds of nights on-board. But the setup-teardown involved every morning we move is a bit cumbersome. As is managing the 47' overall length (truck and trailer).

But we own them both. With a tiny bit of maintenance, they'd be ready to drive us around North America without a thought.

Maybe it's the "shiny penny" phenomenon about getting something new that we're experiencing?

That's the problem - we do much better mentally when we don't have a choice. That's probably why a starving child holding a freshly-caught fish has a huge grin on his face. He had no choice - catch a fish or don't eat today.

Sometimes I wish it was that simple....