Guide to Veganism

As friends of mine know, I have changed my diet to “near” vegan for about 6 months now, based on reading and review of data that I had not seen before (but actually has been around for a while).  Since so many people have asked me, and then want some place to go, I’m creating this post so I can refer people later.

Documentary:

“Forks over Knives”

This is available as a Netflix stream and plenty of places.  Kinda low budget but interviews and involves the real stalwarts/academics in this field Carl Esselstyn and Colin Campbell.

– there is also a book, which has recipes and a very rough summary of the documentary.  Personally I didn’t find it too worthwhile.  Does have a good set of recipes, though.

Books:

Engine 2 Diet –

http://engine2diet.com/

– A good place to get started, with recipes, shopping lists, and strategies in restaurants.  Particularly good place to start for people who are younger, reasonably healthy and do not have any major medical problems (yet).

Esselstyn’s book:

http://www.heartattackproof.com/

Has clinical experience of decades of controlling many of the heart attack and stroke risks in patient after their first heart attack.

Colin Campbell’s Book:

http://www.thechinastudy.com/

– A real review of the science of nutrition, and talks extensively about the association of Meat based proteins (particularly milk) and cancer.  This is probably the “bible” of nutrition, with some 400+ reference from peer reviewed journal articles.  I have heard that it is still very readable, but I can’t vouch for it since I have a background in epidemiology.  That said, I will say that the material is very well grounded.

What I do:

Based on data outlined in a number of the above books, I am, “mostly vegan,” which means I eat meat/dairy/fish in my meals once a week.  I also make a reasonable effort to avoid, but don’t sweat the small amount of non-vegan products found in most breads and baked goods.  (cakes and such are not healthy, whether vegan or not!).  This meets my goal of staying “less than 5%” animal protein.  I also take B12 vitamins on occasion (generally about once or twice a week when I remember), which I think should be more than enough since I am not strictly vegan anyway.

Hope this helps someone out in the interwebs!

How To Recover Data from a damaged SD card

This is from the XDA forums, and I’m really mad because I had pictures on an SD card that I just could not recover for over a year before I found this post… and now I can’t find it.

Anyway, I hope this helps somebody out there.  From sonarchist on the XDA forums: Damaged microSD Card…(this is how I recovered my Data)

…….right in the middle of a super demanding day, the message “damaged SD Card / Reformat” appeared on my Epic, when I least expected it (inopportune is the word)………… changing firmware is never without its more interesting moments, + this may or may not be a symptom (went froyo to gingerbread), however,……….. am sharing this post to the Epic community, as i sense this to be an important enough issue………..no one really knows the specific cause of sd card corruption + failure: it’s variable + always somewhat circumstantial (ie, saw it mentioned elsewhere that overheating from an overclocked cpu could cause damage as well)……………….so, moving forward I simply want to contribute as a brief description, here, how i was able to recover (most) of the files from my ‘damaged micro sd card:’

First, when i saw ‘damaged sd card / format card’ on the phone, when it became possible 4 me to do so many hours later, instead of ‘formatting’ I replaced the damaged card for a new one (pny 16gb sdhc class 10)…booted the phone everything was fine (15.91gb space available)……..as expected, no files in the SD Card………………….next:

(1) placed ‘damaged’ sd card into the reader that came w/ the device, and mounted to pc, selected the drive (followed by confirmation beep ‘device detected’ sound, then the language: ‘d:\ not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable’ came on the screen……….went to RUN and typed CMD……..from new window, I typed Chkdsk d: /r and the PC began reading the contents of the damaged SD card (most of the android zip files etcetera were there, as were a number of files w/ no content) + next i typed ‘exit’ (no quotations, just the letters) to return to the windows desktop…….OK, so now the only files missing are the pix + video mov’s (far as I can remember).

……….(2) next, to recover pix + video, from the pc desktop i opened ZARecovery (if you do not already have it go to Data Recovery Software, Solutions, Tutorials, Forum – ZAR Data Recovery and download the free recovery program from that site).

………….(3) from the ZARrecovery main page, selected sd card as device, selected ‘next’, selected ‘root’ folder for all files that ZAR was able to detect as recoverable, entered destination folder name (for transfer of recovered pix + video to PC….note: NEVER to sd card itself!), + lastly, selected ‘start copying selected files’………and that was it, closed ZAR + began viewing the content of the recovery folder to get an assessment of what had actually been recovered, and what had been lost……………..fortunately 4 me, the loss was minimal, as I tend to create backups (Nandroids, every half year; pic, videos, email attachments = pretty regularly).

Hope this helps those of you that have been experiencing microSD Card damage (from whatever source).

Remember, + not to speak to the Choir, but can not to overstate this: BACKUP…………. BACKUP…………. BACKUP………….BACKUP

Verizon wants to monitor your web habits, if this bothers you — opt out | Android Central

Believe it or not, this is an improvement.  There was a time where it was just part of your End User Agreement and you can “opt out” by cancelling your service.

Anyway, click through, and opt out if you are on Verizon.

Having the option to opt out is great! Having been opted in by default — not so great. If youre not down with Verizon doing this, then make sure you opt out as soon as possible.

via Verizon wants to monitor your web habits, if this bothers you — opt out | Android Central.

Why I’m leaving Facebook for Google+

To be honest, Facebook isn’t shedding any tears.  I was barely active in Facebook anyway.  Facebook has been a convenient Rolodex to use from time to time.  My wall is closed except for posts from this blog, and I don’t post pictures.

It is not that I don’t like people.  More specifically, it isn’t that I don’t like YOU people.  It’s just that, well, my social circles  don’t all overlap.

What do you do when your boss, or an associate requests you as a friend on Facebook?  In fact, it is a bit messy whenever anybody requests to be your friend on Facebook.  Refusing is dicey, and ignoring it requires a little white lie of “oh I don’t check often.”  Let’s face it, it was ok when only the current “in” techie crowd was on Facebook when it first started, but now EVERYONE is on Facebook.  My boss… my mom.  Heck I’m sure my niece will get an account soon.  I don’t always want to share the same thing with my buddy from college as I would my parents or my niece.

Google+ has an answer, which is to immediately put people into “Circles” of friends, and then allow you to share anything with certain circles only.  This fits perfectly with how I share things in my life.  Some random picture will go to my friends, my pictures of my family will go (only) to my family, and my boss and work associates can get something reasonably clean and civilized, like a picture from a new restaurant.

The reality is that my all my social contacts are not the same.  It’s not that anyone is more or less important to me, but simply the fact that the stuff I share with a four year old family member is different from those that I share with thirty somethings at a tailgate, which are different from things I share with people with which I do business.

Google+ simply fits my reality better.

For now.

edit:

A nice review by David Pogue at the the New York Times here:

Deuteronomy on False Prophets…

Deuteronomy 18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized ²⁷  him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, ²⁸  ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ ²⁹  – 18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my ³⁰  name and the prediction ³¹  is notfulfilled, ³²  then I have ³³  not spoken it; ³⁴  the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

(from net.bible.org)

Of course, this passage can also be misinterpreted and lead to religious wars.  However, I do wonder if we would get a few less doomsday predictions…

Catholic Professors Criticize Boehner in Letter – NYTimes.com

Finally, someone from the Christian community has spoken up and pointed out that Charity and Social Justice are central and important basics of Christianity… that there is more to morality than abortion and gays…

More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleges have written a pointed letter to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House of Representatives will hurt the poor, elderly and vulnerable, and therefore he has failed to uphold basic Catholic moral teaching.

“Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings,” the letter says. “From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”

via Catholic Professors Criticize Boehner in Letter – NYTimes.com.

Why The New Guy Can’t Code

The premise is a decent one.  Make developers show they can code, kind of like a portfolio that an architect or an artist puts together even before they finish college.  Is this a reasonable standard? I do feel like hiring developers feels like hiring blind.

We’ve all lived the nightmare. A new developer shows up at work, and you try to be welcoming, but he1 can’t seem to get up to speed; the questions he asks reveal basic ignorance; and his work, when it finally emerges, is so kludgey that it ultimately must be rewritten from scratch by more competent people.

via Why The New Guy Can’t Code.

When Benefits Bite Back – WSJ.com

This is totally messed up.  The company is totally not liable to whatever the HR person says verbally.  Get it in writing and make sure it matches up with plan rules.  Protect yourself.

Ms. Todisco sued, and in 2007 the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower courts conclusion that regardless of what the benefits person said, employees had to follow the plan rules.

via When Benefits Bite Back – WSJ.com.

ScienceDirect – Sleep Medicine : Sexual intercourse and masturbation: Potential relief factors for restless legs syndrome?

So… restless leg syndrome does affect the quality of life of many people, and it is really troubling… now a solution.

My only question is… nobody figured this out before?

… and where did these guys get the idea in the first place?  Right.

Sexual intercourse and masturbation: Potential relief factors for restless legs syndrome?

Luis F. Marin, a, , André C. Felicioa and Gilmar F. Pradoa

a Neuro-Sono Sleep Center, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Received 2 January 2011;  accepted 18 January 2011.  Available online 4 March 2011.

via ScienceDirect – Sleep Medicine : Sexual intercourse and masturbation: Potential relief factors for restless legs syndrome?.

The gadgets police use to snarf cell phone data

This issue has gotten a bit of press lately, and Ars goes through the details of the actual technology the police might be using on your cell phone.

If a police officer stops you in the course of investigating some matter, can she peruse the contents of your mobile device as she might demand your identification or the contents of the glove compartment of your vehicle? Does a routine traffic stop allow access to your phone’s photos, videos, text messages, and contacts?

The gear to grab this data is widely available. Cell phone extraction hardware made by CelleBrite, for instance, can grab a phone’s contacts database, its text message log, call history, pictures, videos, ringtones, or even a “complete file system memory dump.” The Michigan State Police is a CelleBrite customer, and its routine use is raising questions about the propriety of law enforcement accessing data stored on cell phones.

via The gadgets police use to snarf cell phone data.