By Tommy Leung on 05/04/2012 in Life
Twenty-six.
There was a time not long ago that this seemed fairly far away. I never really even thought past 25. Then 25 came. Now 25 is about to go. That was fast. It seems to get faster and faster as the numbers get bigger and bigger.
Isn’t that a strange coincidence?
This whole getting older thing is a little crazy. You always think that adults must know so much when you’re a kid. Those twenty-somethings must know something you don’t and certainly those ancient thirty-somethings must be wise. Then you become one of the twenty-somethings and you realize that there isn’t some magical secret that gets bestowed upon you.
You’ve just lived a little more.
And of course the craziest thing is that we’ll all get words of wisdom from those older and wiser and proceed to ignore it. We don’t ignore it on purpose. We actually just don’t understand it. As the saying goes, “when the student is ready, a master appears.” Apparently there’s not much fast-tracking that can be had. All the wisdom in the world will fall to deaf ears until experience allows it to make sense.
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By Tommy Leung on 02/12/2012 in Life, Tech
In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, there is a chapter that talks about the KIPP Academy in the South Bronx. The South Bronx is not a well off neighborhood. It might be one of the nation’s worst. This is not where you expect public school students to excel. But, that is exactly what is happening at the KIPP Academy in the South Bronx. In fact, this happens at all the KIPP schools across the country. What’s their secret?
Outliers references a study that the Baltimore Public School System had conducted using the California Achievement Test on 1st through 5th graders. Baltimore gives it’s public school students the test once in September and again in June. Comparing the scores from September to those in June of the next year can give us some measurable way to determine how much students have learned in a given school year. By the same token, comparing scores from June to those in September of the same year can also tell us how much students learned or retained during their Summer vacation.
The results of scores from over four years found that there is an achievement gap that forms from 1st grade to 5th grade as the score differences double in that time period. However, when we look at the differences in scores from each September to June, no achievement gap exists. Low income, middle income, and high income students all make about the same progress from September to June while they are in school. So where does this disparity come from if the school itself isn’t failing the students?
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By Tommy Leung on 11/28/2011 in Life
I’m going to propose an idea that isn’t actually possible but, just imagine it was. Suspend reality temporarily.
Let’s say we could apply wealth redistribution to health. Hear me out.
There’s more fat people in America than there are poor people. In fact, even poor Americans are fat. This is a problem. A massive problem. Possibly, a bigger problem than poverty. The cost to care for all the ailments that inflict fat people are enormous. The money we could save by avoiding the diseases tied to obesity would instantly make poor Americans richer!
Everybody wins.
So let’s imagine we solve the obesity problem the same way many folks recommend to solve the problem of poverty or to shrink the gap between the rich and the poor. We’ll take good health from the minority of Americans who have lean physiques, exercise regularly, and watch what they eat and give that good health to the majority of Americans who are carrying a few small children in extra weight, barely exercise, and eat Chinese takeout while watching TV.
Absurd?
Why would you think this is absurd? I told you to imagine. Forget that we can’t actually take health from one person and give it to another. Just imagine we could.
Isn’t it unfair that some people are just born with good genes?! They eat whatever they like and don’t exercise yet, they look like Greek gods and goddesses! The nerve! It is only fair that we should take their health and give it to those who are less fortunate. Those who have bad genes.
The other hoarders of good health who meticulously watch what they eat and exercise religiously? Well, it isn’t fair that they are able to have such self control and determination. Other people just don’t have that kind of mental fortitude. We should take their health as well and give it to others who just aren’t able to work that hard!
Health redistribution. Just imagine the kind of America we could have if we were actually able to redistribute health!
By Tommy Leung on 11/04/2011 in Fitness, Life
Before I discovered the paleo diet, I wouldn’t have thought for a second to consult with evolution or ancient cultures to deal with or help shed light on modern health issues. It seems like common sense now that we should look at how humans have lived, thrived, and evolved in order to understand what good human health ought to be. That’s how we study every other creature on the planet: we observe what they do in their natural environment.
The natural next step after modeling diet around evolution is to see what other things can also benefit by applying the same ideas. A paleo-style diet works wonders so it is logical to suspect similar benefits can be achieved in other parts of life like physical fitness, sleep, activity levels, and even sex. It is important that we remember this isn’t paleolithic times. The objective isn’t to imitate cavemen and ignore modern science but, to use what we know about human evolution to guide us.
I came across this post at Hunt Gather Love about the sexual practices of two indigenous tribes in sub-Saharan Africa through one of Mark’s Daily Apple’s Weekend Link Loves and it intrigued me! Yes. Sex interested me. Shocker! I even read the entire text of the study. I read the full text of a lot of studies and papers so this isn’t something strange but, this was more entertaining to read about than a study on how vitamin D3 supplementation affects bone density and prevents fractures in seniors. As much as I love vitamin D, sex is just more interesting!
There’s a few charts in this study and one that stood out is this one about frequency of sex in a week:
This is a comparison between married couples and not the overall population of the United States and the people from the Aka and Ngandu tribes. There’s plenty of jokes in the modern world about couples having virtually no sex once they’re married and this data for Americans seems to support it! It looks spectacularly worse compared to these African tribes. So, what the hell? Are we not doing it enough? There’s plenty of studies that point to more sex correlating to better health. Whether these studies have any merit is another story but, why would anyone ignore any piece of science that tells them to have more sex?!
This chart makes married Americans look like sexless prudes but, are these indigenous peoples really having that much sex? And if they are, why? And how are they doing this? Sex eight times a week is no physical feat to scoff at. I’m sure larger waist sizes in America isn’t helping our cause but, if we’re not having enough sex, are they having too much sex? The Ngandu tribe seems to have a much more reasonable and desirable amount of sex. Why the disparity between the two tribes?
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By Tommy Leung on 10/17/2011 in Life
There are so many things that I want to write about that I can’t sit still and write about any single one of them. It’s a problem. Instead, I’m watching Weeds on Netflix! Great show. You need to watch it if you haven’t seen it before. And speaking of Netflix, I don’t have any problems with a single thing they’ve done in the last few months. Everyone else appears to be fuming and Netflix’s stock price has sunk like a faceless corpse tied to a stone. I don’t get it. Why are people still renting DVDs?!
Anyway, I poured myself a hefty glass of merlot–a little more than a quarter of a whole bottle. I figured it was going to help me with these allergies I’m having. Changing of seasons always tends to be slightly problematic. I’m not sure if it helped since I’ve also turned on my air purifiers. That probably actually did something. Oh well, the wine has other effects and since I didn’t eat much of anything today, there’s a magnified effect! I’m writing this a little buzzed. That’s where the best writing comes from!
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