Fever: Is it a natural way of getting used to things?

I like to understand our bodies in the context in which they're designed to work. That's in an ecosystem where they're constantly figuring out how to thrive in an environment that's forever changing.

We can all see the big changes but I'm really talking about the tiny ones like new viruses and bacteria spreading around. The 20th century brought cleanliness on a mass scale so our bodies didn't have to get used to protecting themselves so much against microbial and viral invaders. That's the theory and we all got used to being healthy pretty much all the time. Yet it's also possible to argue that our bodies have got lazy because they are trained to fight off these invaders. I'm wondering whether it's this very cleanliness that means our bodies fail to build up the natural resources that others in less developed parts may have. 

On the other hand I'm also wondering that the ease of travel throughout the globe that we now enjoy means that any one of us is exposed on a very regular basis to any number of foreign invaders. Take the current swine flu epidemic. Working at the OU I sit across from someone who just came back from Mexico during the outbreak. True they were 500 or so miles from where it occurred but I could easily see that someone fromt he infected area could have travelled through the area my colleague was in or even been in the same airport. 

Taking this further most if not all of us are only a few degrees of separation away from someone who has been in a foreign land and could pick up foreign bugs. These foreign bugs could therefore easily trainsfer to our native lands and spread very quickly. 

I've been noticing for a while now how much I feel feverish but don't actually get sick. I take the fever as a sign that my body is adjusting to something or repelling a foreign invader (virus or bacteria or something). So I ease up on my body to spare its resources and help it in its fight. That seems to work well and it's been making me wonder if this fever response is something that's important for us to work with on a regular basis. Maybe it's our bodies way of adapting to changes at a microbial level that we can't even perceive. 

So what am I getting at? I'm not setting out to prove anything. I just like to talk things out and see where they lead. But what I do take from all this is that the western illnesses we all hear about could in part be affected by the western ability for travel which encourages quickly spread of disease. Diseases which we haven't had time to adapt to and we don't have siblings and friends that may have developed a resistance which we may be able to adopt ourselves. 

Ok that last bit sounds far fetched but I've implied before that if bacteria or viruses can make us ill then they can also make us better and resist illness. It's easy to argue that the inhabitants of a village where a disease is common may develop immunity to the disease even if that's simply by harbouring viruses or bacteria that provide protection. It's basic symbiosis. 

I won't go into detail about what this could mean. Again I'm just brainstorming. But to western civilisations there is increasing evidence that many of the most serious diseases have a bacterial or viral link. So our propensity to travel that increases our exposure to every disease there is now seems like a serious liablity for which we have developed few defences. 

Coupled with our busy lives, high levels of stress, propensity to work indoors in warm inviting areas mayeb these are just a few of the reasons that could effectivly nurture diseases in western regions.

limitation leads to limitation

I'm in the business of creating options for myself or those I deliver solutions to. The more options I can figure out or provide the easier I find it to adjust to the constantly changing envrionments I'm in.

The reason I mention limitation is that I'm quite focused on removing my limitations. That's not to say I'm expert at everything but I can do something basic in most areas. The idea being if I can achieve some thing then I'n less nervous doing it than I originally was. That means I won't shy away from it and over time as the relevant skill is practiced I become good at it and may even excel.

The philosophy is essentially a limited developer creates limited applications. I mean a limited developer in terms of limited skills, depth of experience, vision, creativity, ability to communicate and collaborate. Limited applications only work on the device and for the people they were intended for and are difficult to adapt to other situations and people.

I feel the same can be said of teachers or any other profession (or craft as I see them). A limited teacher can only teach limited things. That's some thing I  feel makes sense. I mean that what they teach will always be limited by their experience, point of view, subject knowledge and knowledge of their audience. They may also be limited in their ability to express themselves.

Ok, I'm assuming things here but I don't have the time to prove anything. And in truth it's just an opinion. I'm not saying I'm right I just feel it's a useful point to make as it explains why I'm always looking to learn. By constantly improving myself as a teacher, developer and other things I'm reducing my limitations. By progressively reducing my limitations the things I do and say become less limited and so I go from limits leading to limitations to strengths creating more strengths.

New xbox 360 controller: A complete revolution

I was just emailed about a great new controller for the XBOX 360 game system. At first I thought, yeah right what has Microsoft done recently that's truly innovative? Then my question was answered. Check out this video!!!

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Video Games | Lionhead Milo Project | E3 09: Milo Tech Demo

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Or visit the original page. 

For my eyes it's actually such an exciting prospect I'm waiting to hear the 'but'. I'm wondering how long it will actually take to bring this into our homes. Having sold my xbox last year because I was sick of using the standard controllers I've been used to all my 30 years I've found the wii controllers and games a joy simply because they're more interactive. 

I love the sports games most and you just don't get the sense of motion from a standard controller. But if this new controller is really as good and the games come along for it then I will genuinely be impressed. What does bug me now that I think about it is that everything is so proprietary. 

I don't think Google are perfect but I could imagine that if Google made a games console then they'd provide a controller like this and allow it to work with other games consoles, gphone and android anyone. Instead what we have is consumers stuck with the choices of the all powerful manufacturers. 

is anyone going to open up this market and really let innovation take hold. Ooh I can see I've been rattled. But then why shouldn't I be when I can see a genuinelky impressive company and product being limited to just one device rather than being made open. 

Anyway I did a quick Google on Natal the controller underlying this advance and found some interesting info. 

I also just found this review on it. Still reading through but thought I'd post it before I've finished cos already it's explained a little about how it actually works.

Training: How do I track my progress?

Chatting further with my friend we talked about the idea that you can burn as many calories experiementing with different exercises and routines as you can with existing ones.

My take is that you often burn just as much by experimenting. And since it's about mixing things up, keeping it interesting and finding what suits you it's often more motivating. so you tend to work harder. Also the body is generally most efficient at what it does regularly and efficiency is the enemy of weight loss. You actually want to be inefficient funnily enough. That's why changing things up is so important. 

The most important thing is that while there's plenty of info out there you've got to be making maximum use of every session and that means personalising everything. You aren't a carboard cut out so don't use cut out routines. Adapt it to you, your way of life, routines, strengths and weaknesses. That's the only way to maximise the impact it has on your body and your mind. 

In terms of measuring things it's only clear how best to do it once you've started doing it. That means just figure out your own way. It's also not always that easy cos it's hard to know when you've run a mile or even 100 metres. If you can measure it that can be a big help. I got a gps add on for my phone and my wife got a pedometer which measures how many steps she's done and works out the mileage. 

Otherwise  I just take a route that I know and use a map or something to figure out its distance. Failing that sometimes all I ever did was count lampposts. I would sprint for as long as I could and just see how many lampposts I had run past since they had just about the same spacing between them. I just aimed to pass more of those each session. I also begin to remember certain waypoints like road intersections where I got tired. I'd keep focusing on getting past them. The further I got past them the more improvement I'd made. 

So first off this won't make much sense to any one but you unless you've got something to measure distance. That's not a problem unless you want to compare. It's just important that you know what targets you have and have your own little markers in your mind for what you need to beat. 

To some this will be a little un scientific but for me it's just practical. Now that pedometers and other kit to measure distance is becoming cheap and usable it's less important but if you don't have any of this I just wanted to give some basic ideas about how to track what you've been doing and measure your progress as you go. 

Losing weight: Don't limit yourself by having a limited goal

I've been talking to a friend about how to lose weight, get fit etc. Each time I do this find myself explaining some concepts that I really think belong here because I feel the industry and media tell us all one thing but the evidence and in particular my personal experience tells me other things. 

On the question of whether explosive and strength work should be excluded in favour of conditioning work. I feel you can research all you like at the mo but the knowledge just isn't out there. My view is that if you increased explosive work you'd be improving your sprint ability. Doing this helps you get a faster rate of movement and thus burn more calories per step. It also puts a massive load on your system and thus a massive training stimulus. Strength work can work in a simlar way because you can carry greater loads. Anything you do when carrying a greater load increases the calories needed to get the job done. It's not all an exact science because it depends how you carry it and a multitude of factors but I'm really saying lots of different kinds of activity, training and exercise can all benefit you in the search for weight loss will also making you more capable in your day to day life. 

These things may not be considered conditioning work but I often think conditioning work is too limited. Work within your limits but make sure you keep checking what your real limits are. I remember showing people at the gym that what they thought they could squat was about half to two thirds what they could actually squat. So that's why they weren't improving much. Cos they weren't really pushing themselves. 

So use your training this time to learn about yourself and how your body works. Try different things out and keep spicing things up. I've spent years trying different things and I still find new takes on things. All this experience stays with you and helps you long term. So just don't think for the short term too much otherwise it will all end up being wasted. 

Another way to put it is that you need to regularly re establish new limits. Conditioning standards for this month  should be out of date next month. Each week you should be trying to figure out how many calories in total you're burning. Just a rough guess. It's worth knowing that for about every 1 mile you cover you burn around 100 cals. That's why you need to focus on running further for every 10 minutes running, jogging or walking you do. So increasing your top speed can help with this.

You'll quickly notice that the numbers don't seem to add up to a lot of fat burning but I don't think these are completely accurate. What I mean is that I feel there are other energy costs that we can't yet measure from running. It's a common misconception that we lose most weight from dieting. To sidetrack I think nobody considers the nutrients etc you lose through restricting what you eat and no one has fully checked the energy that's given off as heat through running and also through rebuilding your body. It's always bugged me that the only energy check done to confirm this idea is to measure the oxygen we breath in and out and assume from that what energy is used during exercise. 

I won't go into how many levels of wrong there are in that assumption but it was what was peddled in my degree. As I see it our bodies just plain adapt and can use the energy from all sorts of sources really efficiently. We mop up and reuse some of the carbon dioxide so it doesn't show in our breath. 

Also no one has ever told me how much it costs the body to rebuild and fix cells. I expect it's a lot though considering babies and kids need so much compared to their body weight. 

Anyway I hope you get the picture. I'm just waiting til some one actually adds this up properly

Hope this makes sense. I'm just saying keep pushing your limits in all sorts of ways. Learn how to measure these limits and your training in ways that can be done anywhere. That's why I talk about calories per mile or km. You can do this anywhere and compare the quality of your training. You can then start plotting how many miles per hour you're covering and see the improvement from week to week. 

Delivering a project is like organising a special birthday

In my experience organising and delivering a project to everyones satisfaction is much like organising a dinner. Big projects are like organising a birthday or a wedding. the main point being you have to agree on a date and venue (release date), agree caterers (suppliers), figure out the guest list (target market, stakeholders etc), invite everyone and keep them updated with changes of plan up to the date, on the day and send out thank-yous ect afterwards (regular clear communication).

You've also often got to get a bunch of different people to work together and all deliver according to an agreed and often shifting timetable. You've got to accomdate all the individual differences you get within a group of people. You've got to get them to get along and work together. And if the deadlines or number of quests or something changes then everyone needs to know so they can adjust accordingly. 

Everyone has to plan how they're going to do their bit and also be able to make last minute changes as appropriate. It's just the way things work. 

I thought I'd write this simply because I think so many people think that delivering projects is a skill separate from anything that they do in their normal lives. Granted, not everyone plans borthdays and weddings and dinners but most people plan something ,a stag or hen do, a day ou  or something. We may only do it once and find it's all too much. I just want to show that projects have all the same factors. 

So if you want to figure out how to deliver a project well regardless of it's primary focus: software, educational or something else. You will find that you can learn as much from someone who organises the village fete as you can from a high powered executive. 

I thought  this analogy might make the idea of project management more approachable to many and give it a more human and less business focused image. 

Browser Javascript benchmarks

Just found out that google have provided some javascript benchmarking tests to promote their V8 javascript engine. 

Thought I'd try it on my work machine where I have chrome, Firefox 3.0.10 and IE 7.0.5730. Since all tests will be on the same machine with all things being equal it seems like a fair test. 

The higher the score the better. I thought it was really funny. Chrome got 1345 while firefox got 94.7 and internet explorer got a piddly 18.5. I've pasted the full results below. 

It makes me laugh though. I could totally believe that the tests provided promote chrome over other browsers but then I also feel thata ll other browsers make no effort to support javascript enough. I thought the gulf was a lot. I just didn't realise it was so big. In terms of providing rich internet apps this really does show why chrome is the way to go. 

I wonder when they will be providing the plugin apps ala firefox. But given how much these slow the browser down I wonder if they'll use quite the same approach. I wouldn't be surprised if the utilise the extensive javascript and gears support so apps are just coded using html and js. 

Chrome Score: 1345

Richards: 1561
DeltaBlue: 1607
Crypto: 1404
RayTrace: 1865
EarleyBoyer: 2631
RegExp: 154
Splay: 3002

Firefox Score: 94.7

Richards: 86.0
DeltaBlue: 83.7
Crypto: 70.6
RayTrace: 86.8
EarleyBoyer: 129
RegExp: 64.9
Splay: 185

IE Score: 18.5

Richards: 17.4
DeltaBlue: 14.8
Crypto: 18.7
RayTrace: 26.4
EarleyBoyer: 50.9
RegExp: 43.3
Splay: 2.59