Stretch With Me

The Future of Firefighting?

2010-02-24T08:03:00.000-08:00

This is pretty cool: a robot that can fight fires. Fighting fires is very risky and time is of the essence. Robots might be able to get to a fire faster and get into the hot spots more quickly and without risking human life.

Personally, I doubt they'll be autonomous, at least at first. Firefighters will probably control them remotely to start. But autonomous robots will be able to move faster, detect hotspots with infrared, maybe even life signs.

I tell you, I'd feel a lot more relaxed on vacation if I knew I had a robot that could save me from condo neighbors grilling in their garages. And yes, someone did call the fire department on their dumb asses.

Going Beyond Safe Sex

2009-02-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

I've created a new site that promotes safe sex. Its called evensafersex.com and has a lot of ideas on increasing the safety of your sexual activity.

This is not a medical site by any stretch of the imagination but is simply designed to get people thinking about common habits can transmit disease.

As you'll probably be able to tell, I've been thinking about the topic waaay too much :-)

Let me know what you think.

Man Garden

2008-12-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

Wow

One More Reason to Like The Incredibles

2008-11-28T20:31:00.000-08:00

Image by Eric Bégin via FlickrIts not just the tight story and flawless execution of the specific powers each character has. Its also the philosophy.

I don't think I noticed it before, but its pro-achievement. The message that you should do your best even if it makes upsets the existing order of things is quite clear. Standing out is OK.

There are those among us who achieved great things, without which there would be no personal computers, no Internet and certainly no blogs. They had to take risks and often fight great battles to do so. And they changed the world.

Pixar is just such a company, of course. I'm glad to see them standing up for achievement philosophically.

Zemanta is cool

2008-10-18T02:32:00.001-07:00

Image by Peter Čuhalev via FlickrIf you're into blogging, check out Zemanta.com. They have a plugin and extension that can help you blog more easily. It looks at what you've typed and locates free images you can use in your post. It adds the image for you, complete with the appropriate attribution, as you can see for this image.

Zemanta also makes it easy to add keywords and create links from your text to other resources. You just click what you want.

Very cool!

Way to Stretch - By Jet Wing!

2008-09-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

Amazing story of one man and his jet pack.

Stretching Metaphors

2008-08-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

It is one thing to march to the beat of a different drummer, but quite another to question whether a drummer is even necessary.

Why The Olympics Inspire Me

2008-08-19T02:39:00.001-07:00

The Olympic Games inspire me because they bring out the best in so many people. Usain Bolt, Dara Torres, Michael Phelps. Even the insanely gifted work their asses off to get to this level.

When a champion struggle and fail, as Liu Xiang has with his Achille's injury, its heartbreaking for everyone that cares about achievement more than nationalism. I hope he can make it back to the top of the heap.

When I see people reach so far, it encourages me in terms of how far I could take things. Why? Because they're showing that limits of human performance are higher than we imagined. And maybe our own abilities can take us further than we thought too.

Keep on stretching!

Is Your Brain Changing?

2008-06-13T01:43:00.001-07:00

Came across this post about how the web is changing the way we read and think.

Is it good or bad? You decide.

Its probably good to have at least a few hours a day when you're not on the Web or watching TV. Its getting harder to do for knowledge workers.

And, no, I haven't actually read the entire article yet :-)

My New Blog Devoted to Muscular Health

2008-05-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Your Muscular Health is my new blog about the role of muscles in aging and how to undo the stiffness.

I've decided to take what I've learned and had planned to publish in a book and just get it out there!

Wish me luck :-)

Now Using Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1

2008-05-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

At last, a potential release for Firefox 3 has arrived and it seems pretty usable. The memory usage, which had been a nightmare, is now under control.

This makes the limited 2 gigs of memory I have on my mac sufficient to avoid swapping (yes, thats sarcasm you're hearing :-).

For some reason, I no longer had the "Go back one page" and "Go forward one page" buttons. You can add these from the menu. Open the View menu, then Toolbars, then Customize. Then drag the controls you want to the right spot on the toolbar you prefer.

You can also restore the default toolbar set from the same dialog box.

I put the back and forward buttons on the right, as I am right handed.

Thanks to the Firefox team for their hard work.

Privacy Policy for stretchwithme.com

2008-05-10T01:36:00.000-07:00

Privacy Policy for stretchwithme.com

Google is making all users of adsense publish a privacy policy that discloses what personal information is collected and sent to other entities. You can view the policy here.

For more information about why this became necessary, check out this article at jensense.com

Privacy Policy for Stretch With Me

2008-04-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

The privacy of our visitors to stretchwithme.com is important to us.

At stretchwithme.com, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use visit stretchwithme.com, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files

As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons

We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on stretchwithme.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

a word to the wise

2007-10-24T02:31:00.000-07:00

Salt Water Burns!

2007-09-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

Check this out. Burning salt water somehow releases the energy of the hydrogen. Could we some day be driving around with salt water in our tanks instead of gasoline?

If so, that would be awesome, of course. The best part would be an end to our dependence on foreign oil and, more importantly, weaken the tyrants controlling it.

Ebook on Muscular Health

2007-08-07T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm writing an ebook on muscular health. It's all about trigger points and adhesions and how they can impact your health and wellbeing. I cover the physiology involved and how to successfully overcome these problems.

If you want to stay healthy and sexy longer than the rest, you've gotta know about how this stuff works.

I hope to release this for public consumption sometime in the next 45 days. I've never written an ebook before (or a real book, for that matter), so we'll see how it goes.

Spirograph!!

2007-07-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

Created by Anu Garg.

Addicted

2007-05-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

I've been avoiding it.

I knew it was dangerous.

I made the mistake of trying it.

Now it's too late.

I'm addicted to Heroes. It is awesome. The Sci Fi channel has a marathon and I am stuck in front of the TV!

But what if I was imprisoned falsely by the Ottomans?

2007-04-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I have waited til the last minute to do my taxes. Fortunately, TurboTax is making it as painless as possible, especially with State Farm making it free for its customers (which is me).

These two sources of income that you have to claim in California are off the wall though. How long has the Ottoman Empire been defunct? 90 years? Who is still alive let alone receiving compensation? And why do kidnap victims have to pay tax on what is probably meager amounts of compensation? Are these major sources of revenue for CA? Or do we just like taxing victims?

Exercise for Chronic Dizziness

2007-02-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

Scientists are trying to determine why some people have persistent unexplained dizziness. They are finding some association between psychiatric or neurologic conditions and dizziness. I think what's in common between the two are things that raise cortisol levels. Here's the story.

The association between cortisol and psychiatric conditions is somewhat established. But how I am getting to an association between cortisol and dizziness?

Cortisol and Trigger Points

Well, cortisol can be created by muscular trigger points. And proponents of trigger point massage therapy claim that some dizziness may be caused by trigger points in the neck muscles. The idea is that the brain uses information from muscles of the neck, along with information from the eyes and ears, to judge position. So a trigger point in one muscle makes it more tense and the signals its sends are off a bit.

You get dizzy when the different signals used by the brain to judge position conflict. So if you have fluid in your ear, the hairs don't react to motion as quickly, and you get dizzy. I've experienced this problem when I had an ear infection.

Some people get dizzy when they're in the car but looking at something that isn't moving. The signals conflict and they get dizzy. Closing the eyes can actually help by removing the conflicting signal.

So what can you do to determine if trigger points in neck muscles are causing your dizziness? Should you learn how to massage your trigger points or try to find a massage therapist? You could, but is there something easier?

Exercising Your Sarcomeres

You can do exercises to resolve a trigger point. Trigger points are caused by the sticking of tiny structures in the muscles called sarcomeres. The collective action of these sarcomeres IS the force your muscle exerts. This action also pumps blood through the sarcomeres themselves, bringing nutrients and carrying away waste products.

In a trigger point, sarcomeres get stuck in their "on" position. Blood can't flow normally.

But I have found that doing gentle, high-repetition exercises can restore that blood flow and resolve a trigger point. And it seems that such exercise works better than massage, which can't work across the entire length of a muscle at once.

For the neck, I did about thirty repetitions twisting the neck from one side to another (gently!). Then do the same for bending the neck forward and backward. Then bending the neck from left to right.

IMPORTANT: Do contract and stretch completely, but don't contract or stretch hard. Hold contractions for a few seconds. But keep it gentle. You aren't trying to build muscle, but get the blood pumping. The range of motion is also unimportant; just do what you can easily do.

Treating Trigger Points with Exercise Instead of Massage

2007-02-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot about how trigger points actually work at a microscopic level. This one article in particular discusses a structure called the sarcomere and how they get stuck in the contracted position.

The normal contraction of a sarcomere actually pumps blood through the muscle fiber's capillaries. Fresh blood is exactly what a sarcomere in contracture is not getting because its stuck.

Massage forces blood into stuck sarcomeres enabling them to come out of contracture. That got me thinking about other ways to do the same thing. Ways that might work better than massage.

Massage doesn't always seem to work very well and some sarcomeres stay in contracture. They are, after all, microscopic. A therapist can only tell if there are large concentrations of sarcomeres in contracture. That makes it easier for a larger trigger point to return.

Since contracting a muscle pumps blood in healthy sarcomeres, it seems that exercise that contracts a muscle might get blood into the unhealthy ones.

The article also explains how stretching and lifting heavy weights don't really help and can aggravate a muscle with trigger points.

So I tried doing a bunch of reps with no weight and just contracting semi-hard (50% of the max probably) at the top of the movement. On the way back, I fully extend the muscle but don't stretch it with any significant effort. I did about thirty reps.

This seems to work more effectively and easily than massage. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

One Laptop Per Child Project Does Security Right

2007-02-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

According to Wired, software on the laptop can't even ask for permission to do things like access the Internet or look on the file system unless they have been certified by an external authority. Users can still set things themselves manually, but the default case (which is important when he user is a child) allows no requests unless the trusted authority thinks its OK.

This is a security model that makes it very hard for viruses and spyware. Bravo!

Learn more about One Laptop Per Child project.

Windows Firewall - Thinking Different

2007-02-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

From what I hear, the firewall in Microsoft's new Vista operating system still lets applications open connections to the outside world. Which means viruses and spyware can send stuff out and even attack other systems. This article describes the problem.

Perhaps what Microsoft should do is create an architecture that allows anyone to create a database of approved applications/plugins/scripts, connections they are allowed to make and methods for validating that an executable is what it appears to be.

Since anyone create such a database and make it available to Windows usersm, each user can select the database they prefer to manage what applications can do on his or her system. With each enforcement action, the user could be notified (or not) and accept or change the rules for application.

This way users that just click through would get protected. The best and most up-to-date databases would evolve for specific kinds of users. And we can stop spending all this money on anti-virus, spyware protection, etc.

Rental cars for a buck!

2007-02-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

Car rental companies are trying to get cars back up to the northeast from Florida, so they are practically paying you to drive it up. Check the storyon the SJ Mercury news.

What's the deal with my laptop battery?

2007-02-04T23:35:00.000-08:00

So my laptop normally lasts for 2 hours. I have had it set to shutdown when it dips to 10% charge. Recently it starting shutting down after only a half hour.

So to see what happening, I've disabled the shutdown so I can drain it completely (sometimes that helps a battery). Its been more than a hour since it went below 5% and the battery still hasn't discharged completely. Got the wi-fi going and browsing around. Maybe I should watch some videos.