To be honest, the really useful tidbits like this wouldn’t fill more than a one-hour lecture, and most of it would sound like common sense. Unsurprisingly, that’s because it is. Most of us know that too much sugar and salt in your diet will lead to diabetes and heart disease. We know that too many calories and saturated/trans fat will make us obese. Unfortunately, knowing is only the first step in doing, and most people don’t go any further than that.

I’d like to propose a different way of thinking about proper nutrition and fitness, one that many people would benefit from adopting. These two things aren’t just the oft-inconvenient requirements of good health that we consider them to be. Rather, they are survival skills, as indispensable to know and practice as hunting and gathering were to our ancestors.

Why do I take this stance? Isn’t calling diet and exercise “survival skills” a bit extreme?

Not… even… a little.

Consider, for a moment, the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States:

• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Stroke (Cerebrovascular Diseases)
• Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases
• Accidents (Unintentional Injuries)
• Diabetes
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Influenza/Pneumonia
• Nephritis, Nephrotic Syndrome, and Nephrosis
• Septicemia

Notice the bold items on the list. Nutrition and fitness have very strong effects on these conditions. In the case of heart disease and diabetes, your long-term health is the most important factor in determining whether you contract them. In the case of infections, your general health and immune function determine your outcome. Sure, even if you’re the healthiest person on earth, it’s still possible to contract these conditions, but your chances are much lower, and you’re much more likely to survive them even if you do.

The point here is that poor diet and fitness can, and likely will, kill you. If you eat right and exercise, you are likely to live a longer, healthier life. Do it and you live; don’t do it and you die. I’d say that pretty much fits the definition of a survival skill, wouldn’t you?

So, next time you’re reevaluating your lifestyle choices, don’t throw diet and fitness by the wayside as annoyances. Embrace them as vital tools for your survival in a toxic food environment.

It’s because of the rampant ignorance of blogging that the practice occasionally comes under fire from elitists of traditional media like David Bullard. I found his rant against blogging (link condom applied) via a post on Bruce Clay and couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. To think that a self-proclaimed journalist who values quality and integrity could write something like this is simply tragic. David displays a profound ignorance of blogging to pass such harsh judgment. I’d like to piece apart his comments now and see how many of them actually apply.
 

“Most blog sites are the air guitars of journalism. They’re cobbled together by people who wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job in journalism, mainly because they have very little to say. It’s rather sad how many people think the tedious minutiae of their lives will be of any interest to anyone else.”

Here, David appears to be making the assumption that all blogs are intended to broadcast the news in the limited scope in which he defines it. No, most bloggers aren’t outstanding writers. Nor are many bloggers necessarily writing about anything of wide public interest.

But here’s a news flash: Most bloggers don’t blog because they want to be journalists. Most of us just want a soap box to stand on and talk to our friends. In fact, very few blogs are intended to have any sort of global appeal. We talk about what we care about. If you don’t want to hear it, then stop reading.
 

“Many bloggers prefer to remain anonymous…”

Hello, my name is Stephen. That’s my real name. No anonymity here. Sure, I’m only one example, but I know dozens of other bloggers who don’t hide their identities.
 

“The content of their sites is so moronic that even their best friends would disown them if they knew they were the authors.”

Quite the contrary in my case. Most of my friends read my blog because I’m the author. In fact, friends and family are the main constituents of many bloggers’ target audiences. Whether or not the content of such sites is “moronic” is really a matter of opinion. Certainly they may seem trivial or uninteresting to casual readers. For the target audience, though, their content is quite valuable.
 

“Unlike the world of newsprint, there are no rules out there in the blogosphere and that makes it a very confusing place for the consumer.”

This one I’ll agree on. The blogosphere is downright chaotic and finding valuable information can often be difficult, even for the natives.
 

“I… object to some anonymous, scrofulous nerd…”

Again, not all of us are anonymous, although I’d say a lot of us are nerds (I know I am). Props to David on the use of “scrofulous,” though; that’s definitely my word of the day. For those of you who don’t care to look it up, it basically means amoral. Morality being a subjective thing, it’s impossible to say any blog is scrofulous except in one’s own opinion. Personally, I consider David’s column to be scrofulous, but that’s just me.
 

“…pumping meaningless drivel into cyberspace at all hours of the day and night…”

Like morality, meaning is also subjective. What may seem uninteresting to you could have profound interest to someone else. It’s all about intended audience. David should consider whether or not he qualifies as such before labeling a blog’s content to be “meaningless drivel.”
 

“…simply because he can’t find a girl to sleep with him.”

It’s a fact that, on the average, married individuals are more sexually satisfied than single individuals. That being said, I have been happily married for several years now. In fact, I’ve been married for the entirety of my blog’s existence. I won’t go into it any further for fear of my wife’s reprisal.
 

“These are the sort of w ackos who gun down their fellow students at university.”

I’ll echo Bruce Clay on this one. What could drive any reasonable person to make such a rude and politically incorrect statement? Statistically, I’ll concede there are enough bloggers out there that a few are bound to be psychotically antisocial. However, the vast majority of us are just average people who’d never dream of such a thing. David should be ashamed for such a grossly rude statement. Nice typo on “w ackos,” by the way. Very professional. What was that David was saying about journalistic standards?
 

“So what’s the difference? How come newspapers and magazines have to carry the names of their editors and publishers and watch their content and websites don’t?”

Because websites aren’t newspapers. Most blogs are a one-man show. There’s no editor standing between me and the “Post” button on my blog. Sure, that means objectionable content gets distributed along with the good stuff. Again, if you don’t want to hear it, then stop reading. Nobody’s forcing it on you.
 

“…maybe it’s time the print journalists named and shamed some of the more offensive anonymous bloggers and published their physical addresses.”

More power to you on that one. I’d like nothing better than to see people who spread hate get unmasked for all to see. Whether or not I agree with what they’re saying, though, I do believe in their right to say it (at least in the United States). Freedom of speech is both a blessing and a curse, after all.

The point I’m trying to make is simple. Bloggers are not journalists; some bloggers are certainly trying to compete with mainstream media, but that doesn’t mean all bloggers should be held to the same standards as professionals. It is not useful or accurate to put us all in the same category, because most of us are doing little more than practicing a hobby.

Furthermore, not all bloggers are bad bloggers. I’ve never posted anything that could be considered hate material. I’m not anonymous and I don’t post entirely useless content. I like to think I’m just an average blogger; I talk about the things I care about and I post to my own standards. I don’t think my blog is “meaningless drivel” and I don’t appreciate being lumped together with the lowest common denominator of the blogosphere.

I can only imagine that David is venting some personal vendetta against a blogger or some blog-inspired media legislation. I can’t imagine he really believes all blogs to be worthless. After all, anyone who spends time surfing the blogosphere without bias will find both the good and the bad.

Then again, maybe David just wanted to get a rise out of the blogging community. If that’s the case, it definitely worked on me. People like this need to take a good look in the mirror before going on self-righteous rants about the evils of blogging or the superiority of traditional media.

If you said “agree,” you probably haven’t read The High Frontier, Redux by Charles Stross. If you did and you still think you’ll be sipping margaritas on an alien beach in your lifetime, there’s some wonderful literature on denial around the internet. I suggest you read it and seek professional help if you’re still having trouble facing reality.

The point of the article is simple. Charlie takes into account known facts about the distance to the nearest objects outside our solar system and then calculates the time and energy of getting a human being there. It’s math, pure and simple, and it makes the whole prospect of space colonization seem pretty silly. Here are a few of my favorite tidbits:

Here’s a handy metaphor: let’s approximate one astronomical unit — the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon — to one centimetre…

Our planetary solar system is 30 centimetres, roughly a foot, in radius. But to get to the edge of the Oort cloud, you have to go half a kilometre, roughly a third of a mile.

Next on our tour is Proxima Centauri, our nearest star… just under two and a third kilometres, or two miles (in old money) away from us.

But Proxima Centauri is a poor choice, if we’re looking for habitable real estate. While exoplanets are apparently common as muck, terrestrial planets are harder to find; Gliese 581c, the first such to be detected (and it looks like a pretty weird one, at that), is roughly 20.4 light years away, or using our metaphor, about ten miles.

Try to get a handle on this: it takes us 2-5 years to travel two inches. But the proponents of interstellar travel are talking about journeys of ten miles.

Is outer space sounding big enough to you yet? It boggles my mind how my fellow nerds, who no doubt already know and understand these numbers, can believe that space colonization is even remotely achievable. I guess there must be some truth to the statement that book smarts and practicality are often mutually exclusive.

It gets even better when Charlie starts talking about the energy required to cover the distance:

So we require the equivalent energy output to 400 megatons of nuclear armageddon in order to move a capsule of about the gross weight of a fully loaded Volvo V70 automobile to Proxima Centauri in less than a human lifetime. That’s the same as the yield of the entire US Minuteman III ICBM force.

For a less explosive reference point, our entire planetary economy runs on roughly 4 terawatts of electricity (4 x 1012 watts). So it would take our total planetary electricity production for a period of half a million seconds — roughly 5 days — to supply the necessary va-va-voom.

Of course, as Charlie points out, these are nice numbers that assume a perfectly efficient propulsion system that doesn’t have to carry fuel. Furthermore, you still need five times as much energy to get to Gliese 581c; this’ll only get you as far as Proxima Centauri.

Charlie also goes on to talk about the difficulties inherent in colonizing other planets within our solar system, but I consider this his most conclusive statement:

The long and the short of what I’m trying to get across is quite simply that, in the absence of technology indistinguishable from magic — magic tech that, furthermore, does things that from today’s perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics — interstellar travel for human beings is near-as-dammit a non-starter.

It’s nice to hear the argument put to rest so eloquently, especially by a science fiction writer who should, by all rights, be a proponent of space colonization. Let’s face it, though; boring as Earth may be, we’re pretty much stuck here, all science fiction to the contrary.

Why am I ranting about this? For two weeks, my wife and I have been planning to reorganize our lives so my son doesn’t have to go to daycare. We’d save money, we wouldn’t suffer from near-constant illness, and the house wouldn’t be a mess, among other benefits. We were finally going to return to a state of normalcy.

I called them today to inform them that tomorrow would be his last day. Their response was to cite a 30-day notification period. Now, I had read through the contract when we first signed it, perhaps not as well as I should have, but well enough. I wish I had memorized it now. If I had, we wouldn’t have to wait another month to get our lives back in order.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. As a consumer, having my expectations dashed by a contract is infuriating. Because I didn’t read the fine print, they get to tap my checking account for another month and keep my family’s lives in limbo.

I hope they realize what this sort of thing costs them in the long run. Sure, they get another month of income and can plan around my son’s departure. On the other hand, I doubt I’ll ever do business with any of their schools ever again, and I certainly won’t be recommending them to other parents. On the contrary, I’m seriously considering writing a bad review like I did for Tiny Details. Maybe then they’ll realize that one dissatisfied customer can lead to a lot of lost business.

I wish I could say this was the only contract to which my wife and I are currently bound, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve got an apartment lease, a cell phone plan, an auto loan, and a student loan. On top of that, we’re shopping around for insurance and considering the prospect of a mortgage whenever our lease is up. I look ahead and all I see is more of the same fine print frustration.

Is the only option to become a legal expert and glean over every contract with a fine-toothed comb? Is there no business trustworthy enough to believe when they give you the gist of their offer? The older I get, the more I think that no contract is in the best interests of the consumer. It’s a real shame, but I’ll be thinking, “Caveat emptor,” whenever I’m asked to sign on the dotted line again.

As I mentioned to Simon Owens over on Bloggasm, my feelings on Jerry Falwell’s death can be summed up in two words: Good Riddance. I strongly doubt that I’m alone in this stance, either. Heck, my sister-in-law actually composed a prayer reflecting on how the news had brightened her day:

“I thought to myself about how this world was rid of one more intolerant, racist, homophobic sad little man.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. As much as this man tried to do in his life, his greatest accomplishment was proving that ignorance and charisma are a dangerous combination. I trust the blogosphere will resound with this in the coming days, but I’m sure the world is better without him in it. It’s just a shame that some other wacko is bound to take his place.

It brought into light a lot of questions, but one in particular seemed to spark debate between my brother and I. Could incidents like this be avoided with stricter gun control? Is the Second Amendment antiquated? In today’s society of high-powered handguns and assault weapons, should the right to bear arms be a thing of the past?

For the most part, we fell along the same side of the debate. Guns are dangerous. They make killing people far too easy and most of them on the market are more powerful than is necessary for self/home defense. This much we agreed on. Heck, we even agreed that tighter regulation is called for.

Where we diverged, however, was when it came to touching the Second Amendment. My brother was in favor of repealing the right to bear arms altogether. I was not. Do I think it’s an antiquated law that fails the current public interest? Yes, absolutely. Why, then, do I disagree with repealing it?

For those of you Americans who paid attention in social studies, try and recall what’s right next to the Second Amendment on the Bill of Rights. That’s right. It’s the First Amendment. It guarantees little things like the freedom of speech, free press, and religion. As far as I’m concerned, there is no America without these things, so compromising them even a little is simply unacceptable.

Here’s my point. If you let people muck around with anything in the Bill of Rights, you’re giving them license to muck around with all of it. Try to repeal the right to bear arms and you open the door on freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I’m not a proponent of gun ownership, quite the contrary, in fact. I am, however, willing to live with the idea if it keeps everything else I value as an American safe.

Thus, even in light of the recent tragedy, I believe that the right to bear arms should remain protected. You can regulate guns all you like by enacting stricter laws, longer waiting periods, or whatever. Heck, make all gun owners wear funny hats if it makes you feel safe. Just don’t mess around with the Second Amendment, because repealing anything on the Bill of Rights is a precedent that we as a country cannot afford to set.

Bush: Give me some more money for the troops in Iraq.

Democrats: Sure thing, but you have to compromise and agree to a timetable for withdrawal.

Bush: No way! Give me the money.

Democrats: If you’re not willing to compromise, we’ll just pass bills with harsher budgets and timetables. This is the best offer you’re going to get.

Bush: No way! I’ll just blame our failure in Iraq on you! How do you like them apples?
 

Doesn’t this sort of thing make you just love politics. Seriously, though, the futility of this war was evident ages ago. The fact of the matter is you can’t change the attitude of an entire culture through military action, if at all. Our continued occupation of Iraq is only bolstering the terrorists’ ranks and deepening their hatred of us. Thanks to this war, we’ll have ten Osama Bin Ladens to deal with over the next decade. It’s nothing I haven’t said before, but it bears repeating.

I think that much is apparent. More importantly, I think it’s pretty clear how President Bush has decided to handle the total failure of his war. Like most good politicians (an oxymoron, I know), he’s going to play hot potato until his term is up. He wants to delay the war’s conclusion until a Democrat is president so everyone can blame its failure on the next guy (or girl, perhaps?).

No wonder the Democrats are so dead-set on ending it before then. It started on Bush’s watch; if they have their way, it’ll end on his watch, too. It’s only fair, I think. At least that way, the American people can see what a complete and total failure Bush really is.

On the bright side, a stalemate means victory for the Democrats. They’ll make sure that no war spending bills get passed without withdrawal timetables attached to them. President Bush will make sure all of those bills get vetoed. When the funding for the war dries up, the military will have no choice but to withdraw early, and Bush will be left looking like the uncompromising fool he is. Ultimately, he’s better off letting the first bill pass. At least then he can walk away from the situation with some dignity.

In the end, democracy will win. Americans see the war in Iraq as a lost cause. That’s why they voted so many anti-war Democrats into office. If the Democrats do their jobs, this war will be over before we have a chance to elect a new president in 2008. Sorry Mr. President, but the blame will rest solely on your poor excuse of an administration.

At first I thought that I had coined the term “office coffee etiquette.” I certainly hadn’t heard it anywhere else. A quick search on Google, however, quickly demonstrated that I wasn’t the first, the second, or even the third. How, I wonder, have so many people defined this concept the same independently of one another?

It’s because coffee is a natural resource of the office environment. All office workers need it from time to time (and if you don’t I want to know what you’re taking). If people aren’t courteous enough to make the coffee when it runs out, others suffer as surely as farmers in a drought. To paraphrase Frank Herbert’s Dune, the spice coffee must flow.

If you spend enough time in an office setting, you learn this implicitly. And while there’s some disagreement on the details, the consensus on the rules of office coffee etiquette seems to include the following (in Commandment form ):

• Shouldst thou pour the last drop, thou shalt breweth a new pot. If you empty the pot, or reduce its contents to less than a full cup, you are obligated to make another. No exceptions. And no, it doesn’t matter if you made the last one.
   
• If thy cup runneth over, thou shalt clean up thy mess. Seriously, nobody likes a messy coffee station. If you spill coffee, creamer, sugar, grounds, whatever, clean up after yourself.
   
• Thou shalt clearly distinguish the caffeination of thy brew. Yes, some people like decaf. Heck, I’ve been known to drink it in the afternoon to avoid messing up my sleep schedule. That being said, it’s not kashrut to give caffeine to those who don’t want it or not give it to those who do. Label your pots and use the correct ground for each when brewing.
   
• Thou shalt not steal from the coffee station. There are offices in which the coffee is not provided for free, but on an honor payment system. And, though I’ve never encountered it myself, there are supposedly some sick individuals who like to swipe the whole pot and not return it. Seriously, the coffee station is a precious communal resource. Stealing from it is paramount to stealing from your fellow office workers.

I’m sure there are probably others, but those are the most important points. As I said, this should be common sense to anyone who’s worked in an office for a reasonable period of time. May those who should know better and still choose to violate the rules of office coffee etiquette feel the unbridled wrath of their coworkers.

Did I expect to have an offer by now? Not necessarily, although I was definitely hoping for one. I won’t say it doesn’t bother me. After all, there’s nothing I hate more than being unemployed.

What’s really been irking me, though, is the lack of any response at all. In my daily job search this morning, I came across an ad placed by SchoolDude.com, the first company with whom I interviewed last month. Naturally, the ad was for the same position for which I had applied. In a month since the interview, this has been my only indication that they were no longer interested in hiring me, even after several emails and phone calls asking for updates.

I can’t begin to say how unprofessional and downright rude this sort of conduct is. I went out of my way to meet them in person for the interview. The least they could do is let me know things didn’t work out. I would’ve been fine with that. Instead of giving me the courtesy of a callback, however, they left me hanging to eventually figure out their decision on my own.

I wish I could say this is an isolated incident, but SchoolDude.com is just the most recent in a long string of potential employers who didn’t have the decency to pick up the phone. Did I miss something? When did professional courtesy go by the wayside? Are people just afraid to say, “I’m sorry, but we’ve decided to pursue other candidates”?

Here’s my message to all the SchoolDudes of the world. If you decide not to hire someone, tell them so. Pick up the phone, send an email… heck, send it snail mail if it makes you feel better. The important thing is that you do it, because most of your potential employees would rather know than live with false hopes. Leaving them hanging is just plain inconsiderate.

Why on earth anyone smokes is beyond my comprehension. Tobacco is a deadly, addictive substance. It causes some of the world’s worst health problems. It eventually kills about half the people who use it regularly and is responsible for fully one in 10 premature adult deaths. On top of creating problems, however, it exaggerates existing health conditions. Does anyone else get the impression that smoking a cigarette is like putting a loaded gun in your mouth and slowly pulling the trigger?

And for what? A moment’s gratification? There are a hundred other perfectly safe and effective ways to relieve stress. I know how defensive you smokers must be getting reading this. “How can you say that having never smoked?” Because I, like every person in the world, have had stress in my life and have found other ways to deal with it. Vent to a loved one or a friend, go for a brisk workout, immerse yourself in a hobby. Do what you need to do to relax and take your mind off of the problem. If anything, reaching for a cigarette is just being lazy; you can cope with your problems if you just put some thought and effort into it.

That’s just one argument. Let’s examine this from a different angle. Let’s assume that you smoke, say, half a pack a day. By most definitions, this is pretty light. Then, let’s assume that you buy average quality cigarettes at about $40 per carton (which works out to $4 per pack or $2 per day). Smoking half a pack of cheap cigarettes per day costs you $730 per year. Assuming you start at legal age, 18, you will pay approximately $43,000 for cigarettes by the time your habit kills you around age 76, seven years sooner than everyone else according to even the smoker-biased estimates. Congratulations, you’ve just flushed $43,000 down the toilet and knocked seven years off of your life. These numbers, of course, are much worse for most smokers, who generally start smoking younger, smoke more than half a pack a day, buy more expensive cigarettes, or any combination of the three.

Some people wonder at why I’m so thoroughly against smoking. Let me give a sobering perspective on the topic. About 10 million people will die as a result of tobacco use every year by 2020. To put that figure into perspective, about 11 million people died in the Holocaust. And I hate hearing the, “It’s their choice,” line, because it’s gotten very old. These figures include people who die from second-hand smoke as well as infant miscarriages. Neither of these groups have much choice about being exposed to tobacco. We’ll have a Holocaust worth of death every year, including innocent victims, all because people refuse to stop using tobacco.

I don’t consider this stance harsh because there is absolutely no defending tobacco use. We have had the data in front of us for well over half a century, but the worst the government has done is to tax the industry and limit its ability to advertise. Why, when it’s obviously quite harmful, is it allowed to be legal? After all, cocaine and heroine were once legal but made illegal once their harmful effects became known.

The answer is, as you might have guessed, money. Tobacco companies still make a tidy profit, more than enough to lobby their product to lawmakers. The government also makes a profit from its taxes on tobacco. Thus, there is no legislative incentive to make it illegal. Nevermind that millions are dying and will continue to do so because this antiquated and misguided mindset that smoking is harmless is allowed to persist. As long as the right people are lining their pockets, tobacco will never be allowed to take its rightful place among its restricted brethren.

I think this rant has gone on long enough, but there are hundreds of other valid arguments against tobacco. It’s inconsiderate to use it, immoral to sell it, and downright wrong to keep it legal. In the future, contemporary opinion will look back and wonder at how crazy we must have been to keep it around even with all of the facts in front of us. If anyone has a valid argument to the contrary, I have yet to hear it.