Steal This: Fat Monitor

When the subject of weight and dieting come up, most people look at me and comment on how "in shape" I am. This is not a brag. And like many others who receive such compliments, I believe they really think that, but I personally know "the truth." Which is, I am in ok shape. But I still could shed 5-10 lbs from my gut and I'd be a lot happier with how I look.

So I moderate what I eat, and I exercise a bit, and try to walk places rather than drive or take public transport. But that gut just doesn't go away. You all know what I'm talking about - anyone who has ever tried to drop a couple pounds knows how difficult it is. And I can't say I understand what some people must have to cope with, trying to drop 30 or 40 or 100 or more. Can't imagine what that must be like.

I do know for my own self that one of the challenges to losing weight is knowing how much food is the right amount of food to eat at any given time. My present strategy involves guesstimating how much food it would take to sate me at a meal, and then trying to cut that in half, and eat a more limited amount. I do this because I've learned that about a half hour later I'm going to feel "full." And if I don't go for the half, and instead munch down the whole burrito (or whatever), it'll slip right down while I'm enjoying it, but in about a half hour I'll feel like I just swallowed a bowling ball. Not good.

But even with my halving strategy, I still find I am creeping up on the waist line, and I really don't like it. So what to do?

Well, what if I could monitor some bodily statistic throughout the day that would tell me whether the current food intake level was in the "gain", "hold" or "lose" range, weight-wise? You know, the way a diabetic monitors their glucose level using one of those electronic monitors with a drop of blood. What if I could see the numbers behind what my body is doing with the food I have eaten thus far in the day, and then gauge what I eat next based on those numbers?

I do this when I work out - with a heart-rate monitor. Gets to the point where I can tell what my heart rate is without looking at the readout, based on how hard I'm breathing, and what I'm feeling.

I really believe that if I could monitor whether my body was getting fatter or thinner in realtime throughout the day I would learn how to eat the right amount all the time, rather than guessing and halving, which is not working that well - but it's better than nothing.

Anyone know of a technology that can do this? Does it exist? Is it physiologically possible??

Postscript: on further research, I found a science journal article related to this published on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition website. It is entitled, Biomarkers of satiation and satiety. It appears researchers are asking this question and finding some ways of providing answers. It also appears that a definitive answer does not yet exist. Stay tuned!

Steal This: Hearing aid + Bluetooth cell headset = ?

Have you noticed how the makers of hearing aids are responding to boomer vanity by advertising ever-more invisible versions of their product? And guess what? Phil Specter-loving, wall-of-sound-listening, turn-it-up-to-11-concert-going Boomers are going to need hearing aids, make no mistake about it. But they sure don't want anyone to know it.

On the other hand, I see people of all ages walking around with flashing blue contraptions stuck to the side of their heads making them look like some kind of freakazoid escapee from one of those nutty space serials on tv. Far from trying to hide the fact that they have this thing stuck to their head, these people seem to be trying to show off the fact that they have their head wirelessly connected to their cell phone (or is it an iPod?). "Look ma, no hands."

So...why not build one that does both? As long as there are a fair number of folks who think it's cool to walk around with this humongous electronic growth stuck to side their head, why not incorporate a hearing aid into it? Or, just build a hearing aid, flashing blue lights and all, that looks like one of these bluetooth rigs, but really is just a hearing aid?

Then you could be hip and deaf, and no one would be the wiser. Just a thought. Hello? Oticon? You there?

Big Green - A story from the future

IBM recently hosted Innovation Jam, a 72-hour web-based multilogue aimed at generating ideas for innovations in government, finance, sustainability, etc. One of the ideas was for IBM to move into services and consulting around something dubbed Big Green Services (a play on their informal moniker, Big Blue).

A technique called scenario planning is a useful way to encapsulate the richness of an idea without fully describing it in detail. I like playing with scenarios and decided to take a shot at writing one that would provide a sort of future vision of what Big Green Services might look like. This can be useful as a way of then determining what things need to be happening now, if the future vision is going to be realized. So here's my story from the future:
=============================================

Big Green Services: A story from the future
By: Tom Short © 2006

In 2007 IBM signed partnership agreements with the five largest energy utilities in the US to develop, sell and deliver energy conservation solutions across six targeted industries, plus residential. With energy prices skyrocketing and consumers becoming increasingly agitated with the attendant rise in prices and little corresponding rise in wages, the Fed and most State governments lined up with the new partnership, so that by 2008 there were matching incentives across the board to support the integrated energy conservation solution offerings that IBM and its various utility partners had jointly developed.

Now, in 2012, the wisdom of these pacts is easy to understand: energy savings equivalent to 10 new nuclear units are directly attributable to the partnership. Significant reductions in consumption and deep-computing-based approaches to grid operations management have put off major investments in transmission grid expansion, resulting in further cost savings for rate payers.

The future looks even brighter, since the joint IBM-utility partnership joined forces with Europe, Japan and Russia in a concerted effort to solve economically feasible fusion leveraging IBM's considerable research capabilities. Proof of concept is expected by 2014, and if all goes well, a prototype 100 MW unit could be operating by 2016.

The combination of the utilities' experience with transmission and distribution operations, and familiarity with customer needs, combined with IBM's world-class service-based business model were what made it all possible.
___________________________________________________
Originally posted on the IBM Global Innovation Jam Wiki
site, September, 2006.

=====================================

Interestingly enough, I just read a news feed this morning about a multi-nation consortium that has pulled together funding to push fusion research ahead. Will be interesting to see what their timing is. Here's the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6165932.stm

Update: 12/07/2006: http://www.poweronline.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=b133d3d5-8219-4a1c-8be2-a8bf2408f126

Note to Gen Y: Please Don't Pull a "Lindsey"

In the closing hundred or so yards of her snowcross run for gold, snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis got so "caught up in the moment" that she apparently forgot she was in an Olympic race for gold, and crashed while attempting an airborne showboating move. The resulting silver medal would normally be cause for great celebration and feelings of accomplishment. And at some level I’m sure she must be feeling some of this.

On the other hand, this 20-year-old is also going to live the rest of her life with the knowledge that the gold was hers without a doubt except for what can only be described as a momentary lapse of judgement. Bummer, dude.

For the rest of us, the collective groan will probably be emitted for as long as the scene is replayed: it could well become this century’s "Agony of Defeat" clip. But more than that, I think it is emblematic of a generation: a disturbing omen, maybe a wakeup call, and almost certainly a preview of things to come.

Linsey Jacobellis and her peers are the neo-adult children of the Boomers, a great many of whom have grown up not with the proverbial spoons of silver, but rather gold or even platinum. Good looks, good grades, cool toys, hip gadgets, bohunk clothes, lap of luxury lifestyles – what’s the big deal? Everybody’s got it all, right? And how hard could it be to get anyway? Cool.

Well, Miss Jacobellis just received a dose of real life, and life can be cruel to those who take their eye off the ball at the wrong time. And it very often punishes hubris (look it up-it's a good word), something that has not changed since the Greeks.

A generation of future leaders, jaded with an unearned sense of success and over-inflated self-esteems, are going to learn Lindsey’s lesson the same way she did. They are going to be ahead of the pack on their way to the finish line of whatever race they are in, get caught up in the moment, pull a showboat move and blow the finish.. Then they are going to sit back and ponder what just happened, and how it could possibly have happened to their own good selves.

Unfortunately, it will not be a snowcross run in the Olympics. It will be competing in business with overseas countries full of people who are really hungry for success, who grew up without any spoons at all. In the 21st Century’s global, energy-constrained economy the US still has a lot of work to do to stay ahead. Fuel cells, fusion, sustainability, healthcare, social integration – each pose technical, political and cultural challenges equal to or greater than the challenges we faced – and overcame – in the last century.

The US would have to be the odds-on favorite to crack each of these sooner than later, and in so doing increase the chances that we can preserve the prosperity and security we have enjoyed as a country for so long. We just have to hope that the young talent just now coming into its own will overcome the urge to "get caught up in the moment" and avoid "pulling a Lindsey" long enough to make the big breakthroughs.

The alternative? Well, whatever.

Working

On Working

As I continue my search for a "real job" I find myself musing on my decision to exit the world of "real work" in the first place, as well as how I reached my conclusion that it is perhaps the sanest place for me after all.

The photography detour worked perfectly - a sabbatical away from all things corporate and big business, it gave me a chance to live out of my right brain for several months, and stop thinking entirely about the things that have occupied me workwise for the last ten years or more.

But through my pursuit of photography I have come to realize that the types of problems it asks me to solve seem somehow less expansive and complex than the problems I focused on in business. No surprise there, I guess. Compare these two challenges:

1. the challenge of figuring out how to get a group of fifty plant process engineers located in five different countries to identify and proactively share their ideas with each other, regardless of timezone, language, or plant pecularities

2. the challenge of figuring out how to adequately light a large room with strobe, and ensure the resulting flash is uniform, and does not create any unwanted shadows or flares in the image.

While both pose challenges that require solid problem-solving skills and analysis, it has become clear to me that I’m much better at, and happier, working on the first one. I just don’t feel like I’ll ever get to the point with my photo work that I’ll feel as consumed by any particular photo assignment as I do with virtually every client engagement I’ve ever worked on. And I don’t believe this is a function of the knowledge I have available to bring to bear being substantially less in the photo area, due to my less-intense pursuit of it over the years.

I think it has to do with the inherent complexity of the challenges that large systems pose. There’s so much going on, and an infinite variety of ways to proceed, that just getting to the point of understanding what’s important to focus on is an undertaking. And it is one that I really like.

So an insight I’ve gotten from this is: An interesting life is one that is filled with activities that provide the opportunity to exert the fullness of one’s genious in the service of some pursuit. A successful life, then, is one where those pursuits are in the service of some worthwhile cause.

• Motorcycle roadracing – full on intensity – maybe the greatest of all. Not particularly worthwhile, tho.
• Skiing – ditto.
• Consulting – very intense, and sometimes worthwhile. Depends on the industry the client is in and the type of project.

So perhaps the goal should be to continue on with the Work, and find industries that have a purpose larger than only making money.

So this is a composite shot I made. We have a skating rink in the middle of downtown (Milwaukee), and I just started shooting skaters the other day. I've been playing with deleting backgrounds and putting my cutout subject on plain white - I like the effect. With these skaters it's easy to simply turn the ice into pure white, and then put a bunch of skaters all in one frame. Next: play with scale (viz Bruegel).

Politics - a continuation of business by other means...

Think about it - it really is. And it is one of the great misfortunes of the 20th centure. Capitalism has a lot to answer for, to be sure. At the top of my list would be its surefooted erosion of civic values and social-mindedness into the deplorable state in which we find ourselves today. The United States. What a joke.

Big money directs big politics regarding what to do, which is to maximize the return on big money. Society? Social welfare? Civility? Who cares? These are not the stuff of economic success. Or are they?

When traveling overseas I am sometimes embarrassed to disclose the fact that I'm an American because of how we behave at home. More and more, I fear, we are becoming a greedy, uncouth people - self-absorbed and utterly uncaring about anyone or anything else.

Modern Art and photography - now what do I do?

Well, after yesterday's visit to the Art Institute in Chicago I must say I enjoyed reading this thread. Consider:

In the Modern Art gallery - around 13 framed 8-1/2x11 sheets of white graph paper, island mounted and framed in white, portrait, with a single pencil-drawn diagonal line drawn corner to corner, from NW to SE. That's it. Nothing more. Whither narrative (they can't speak - but do they need to??? - I sure as heck couldn't figure it out)? Whither metaphor?? Hmmm...

Upon reading the artist's explanation, it turns out these were inspired by his now-dead partner's medical readouts of his T-cell count, which was basically in decline as he died of AIDS. So the artist made these graph pages, and framed them. Interesting - as far as it goes. Empathy? Of course - dealing with death and dying must invoke that. But art? I'm still having trouble with that.

On the other hand, if narrative is an important aspect of art, then these works are loaded with it - only when one understands the narrative behind the work does the work suddenly come alive. Very odd. I find myself continuing to reflect on these works today as I write this. And research it (check this out: http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/singular_forms/highlights_13a.html ).

Dunno. Certainly has implications for our work in photography. Certainly makes me question even bothering with "pretty picture" compositions any more.

A couple black/white pix I'm working on.

I took this shot a few days ago, out the window of my car while I was stopped at a traffic light. I find myself doing that, or more often wanting to do that, a lot. Makes me wish, sometimes, that I had a hood mounted camera or something like that, where I could snap a shot where ever I happened to be looking when I wanted to.



This is a straight b/w conversion from a color raw file. I was trolling through a bunch of raws that I hadn't looked at before when I found it. I immediately thought it would look good as b/w, so I converted it in Photoshop. Did some minor adjustments to the tone, but it's otherwise pretty much a straight, full frame shot.

Greetings 

Greed - the real driver of the Battle at Harvard?

Mr. Atlas’s assertion that Harvard’s woes are a function of this decade’s culture war is presented as a self-evident truth that bears no further inquiry (NY Times, Sunday, February 27, 2005, The Week In Review, p 14). That the woes exist is certainly beyond debate. That their source lies in our nation’s left/right, red/blue, secular/religious axes should not be conceded so quickly, however.

To me the turmoil at Harvard could just as easily be attributed to an insidious, and as-yet not much talked about, aspect of our culture. Insidious and not discussed because it is so pervasive it has become the water in which we swim – which is to say, it is transparent to us. Let us consider for a moment the dynamics of 21st century capitalism, and the greed it has inspired.

As the capitalists themselves continue to be swept up in corruption and scandals we can account for it as overzealousness on the part of the perpetrators – they are capitalists, so that is what they do. Sometimes they just get carried away. And then there are the bloated salaries bestowed upon entertainment figures, which we endorse, if not envy, as a way of adding to their fantastical lives which we embrace for their escapism value.

So far, so good. “Greed is good, greed is right, greed clarifies…,” to quote a line from a late ‘80s film that did a nice job of capturing the zeitgeist of its era. This is what we’ve come to expect, so the fact that things get a little out of hand now and then is no surprise. And the NHL is the latest entertainment franchise forced to cancel it’s season due to getting a little out of hand.

Through the nineties, however, we add to corporate titans and entertainment superstars politicians and public servants as the latest casualties of our greedy culture. The county executive who is discovered to have overseen the padding out of pension plans for long-term county employees, resulting in huge obligations that local taxpayers will have to shoulder. The nonprofit leader running an inner city alternative choice school who is found to be diverting school funds to his personal accounts.

So now we have to accept that civil servants, people who we trust to have put the community’s interests ahead of their own, just by virtue of the fact that they took the job in the first place, now these servants can no longer be fully trusted to be acting in the local community's interests. This is a turning point. It’s one thing when people whose primary purpose is to make money overstep ethical or legal lines and find themselves in trouble for it.

But when people who have signed up to serve the community in local politics or nonprofit public service agencies are caught using their position to line their own pockets, then we have entered a new era. I’m not talking about national or even state-level pols, either. (Can you name a president of the United States, or a governor, past or recent, who was accused of using their office to increase their own material good? National and state level players are about power, not personal wealth – at least not while they’re in office. Aren’t they?).

The greed that was previously limited to the capitalist coliseum that is business American-style has suddenly found its way into the institutions we have entrusted with running and improving our communities – institutions run by self-less, dedicated individuals who have decided to follow a higher calling in spite of the relative lack of material gain that calling would confer.

And finally, we come to the Harvard situation, where now it is not just individuals within the institutions taking advantage of their trusted positions for personal gain - that is already becoming a familiar story. Now we find these individuals - these leaders - becoming more sophisticated, using their institutions as vehicles for realizing their own corrupted dreams of money, power and success. In the process they transform these institutions, making them more like a listed corporation – that faceless legal entity that is capable of all manner of wrong-doing, but almost impossible to prosecute criminally when its actions are discovered (you can’t put Enron in jail – there is, and never was, an Enron – only people who hide behind its corporate charter, and run for cover when things go south).

This latest development replaces the Main Street focus we once rightly assumed our public institutions had with something more at home on Wall Street. Nowhere is this juxtaposition of ostensible versus actual mission more apparent than at our elite universities. Why are tuitions climbing at such a fast rate? Look at the salaries of professors and administrators. Were these not once noble professions, populated by individuals who emerged from a process of self-selection, honored to be allowed the chance to do their research and teach at an institution of such heritage? A good wage may have been the norm - but not a great wage. A decent living, yes. The life of a rock star, no. Not any more.

It’s a competitive market out there, baby, and you’ve got to pay these prima donna Dons what they are worth on Wall Street, or it’s hasta la vista.

The transformation of our nation, of our culture, is now complete. We have local politicians and nonprofit leaders who prioritize personal gain over public good; we have church leaders rethinking how their institutions will have to morph in order to fend off the lawsuits from not only past offences, but also current liability claims for legitimate accidents that occurred during events for which they were the sponsor. And we have our most cherished, elite institutions transitioning away from their noble heritages of self-less mission toward greedy excess and “me-first” thinking.

Most disturbing of all, however, is that no one in the US seems to think anything is amiss. Could these problems be symptoms of the evil that our detractors in other countries are accusing us of? Are we too immersed in it to see it for what it is? We all secretly want a piece of the pie, don’t we? So what’s wrong with looking out for #1, and doing what little we can to grab it when the opportunity presents itself.

As a nation we are, and for a long time have been in denial, when it comes to all things capitalist. The Harvard battle is not about political leanings - it is about trying to reconcile the dissonance that is now an embedded feature of our country's culture. Maybe the Harvard issues will wake us up to that reality. (But I doubt it).

Chantin' in the Mansion

Originally posted: Friday, March 07, 2003

Posted 7:41 AM by tom
When I mentioned to my brother that there was a meditation/chant tonight and I was thinking about attending, he informed me that he was aware of a recent surge of meditation activity around town - people getting together and group meditating - all in the name of peace. I wasn't aware of any purpose attached to this evening's chant session. I just thought it would be nice to engage in a group meditation, as I hadn't done that for awhile.

As we discussed the notion of "chanting for peace", it occurred to me that this was yet another misguided Boomer-driven attempt to co-opt something spiritual and turn it to their own purposes. In this case, the purpose could be described as avoiding confronting the real issues that are at the root of the conflict we find ourselves in.

Consider the quote, attributed to Karl Marx: "In the birth of every system are sown the seeds of its own destruction." (Details, source, corrections gratefully accepted).

Then consider American society, our Constitution, and capitalism. One of the great things about the American experiment thus far has been the apparent adaptability of our system of rules, as defined in the Constitution. This system continues to operate after 200 years, and three major economic ages: Agrarian, Industrial, and now the Post-Industrial/Information age. What insight, what wisdom the Founders had, in defining such a malleable system. It is truly a marvel. The timing of it was spectacular.

Just before the Industrial Age was about to see it's first dawn, a group of renegades from Europe staked a claim to a vast landmass of then-boundless resources, interior water routes for transportation, and generally agreeable weather. The set of rules they established encouraged free thinking, the right to profit from one's ideas and labors, and the free flow of goods. And the Industrial Age was just getting underway. Capitalism was born, and what a healthy newborn it was. Consumerism had to evolve, too. How else to provide the massive pull on production, to drive an economy fueled by our bounty of natural resources, ingenuity and labor?

And therein lies the rub. Consumerism coupled with the Western tradition of focusing on other rather than self creates the juggernaut that may yet prove to be our undoing. And no amount of meditation is likely to change it - especially if we're "meditating for peace" ("other," not "self"). Which is why the title of this rant is "Chantin' in the Mansion." We want both - but it's the mansion that will be our undoing. Champagne socialism is still the goal, the ideal that many Americans aspire to. How can families earning $100k a year (with both parents working) possibly be considered among the "working poor," when that amount of household income is probably among the top one percent in the world?

The truth is, that meditating for peace won't work. It may help people feel better about living the excessive lifestyles we have come to expect in this country, but it won't assuage our detractors' animosity toward us. And backing off on consumerist behavior, on the desire for more, is not an option the majority of Americans will be willing to embrace.

So in the end I think we are in a precarious position. Twenty years ago it would have been hard to fathom how Marx could have been right about the seeds of destruction - "not this time" would have been the likely retort. I wish I could feel more optimistic about the future, but I don't. I think he was right. And it ain't gonna be pretty.