Protel 99 SE on Windows 7 / Vista
Posted by Dan | Filed under education, skills, news, information
As i am a programmer in most of my working time i come across problems and i try to find solutions for this problems.
Recently someone sent me some Protel 99 SE DDB files and ask me to review the schematics. I installed Protel 99 SE and i could not open the SCH documents.
I have searched with Google about some solutions and came to discover that there is something about compatilibility with Windows 7 / Vista etc.
I have disable UAC “User Access control”, checked directory and files rights, started the app as administrator, disable the “hide file extensions for known file types” in windows files settings. Nothing seemed to work.
Then i realized something:
1. My windows 7 boot partition was on drive D:
2. I have installed Protel 99 SE as defaulted to C:
I quickly uninstalled everything and installed it again on Windows partition… ( D: in my case ) … and voila !
I was able to edit SCH documents once again ! It took me few long hours to discover the problem and i hope i might help someone else by posting it!
Down to Earth – iPhone4
Posted by Dan | Filed under Down to Earth News
Update: as the first person that commented on this post pointed out the reality and effects of iPhone 4 “death grip” is more complex and requires more in depth attention than i’ve portrayed in the following. The assumption that i have made that GSM and 3G increase their transmit power based on received signal strength seems to be wrong so keep in mind that while reading. I would still like to have some concrete measurements of SAR while someone performing the so called “death grip”. If someone does that please do inform me !
Hi! I have just remembered that i do still have a blog to write to … The subject is by far the worst subject i could choose for now but … I have read a lot of news about iPhone 4 lately and i feel compelled to follow up.
The story is like this:
- iPhone 4 has been released by Apple while knowingly skipping the testing part
- Consumer Reports & others reports … SKIP IT, it does loose signal while holding it the wrong way
- Apple deletes posts on forum about this issue
- Others provide solutions … iHand ( a must click )
- Everyone expects a recall… Apple gives for a BUMPer for FREE ( until 30 sept., after 30 sept the phone will be obsolete ) and a FREE press conference
Along this stories i have not seen the most important aspect regarding the iPhone 4 loss of signal. One that is a basic facts about any mobile phone in the world.
If the signal ( reception of the phone is low ) the phone will automatically try to compensate for the loss increasing the power it uses to transmit. If the signal drops to zero as the tests have shown in iPhone 4 case, the phone will use it’s maximum power to transmit ( while in a call ) and thus microwaving your brain multiple times faster than a normal phone in normal conditions. So in fact the problem is not that the phone looses signal, or isn’t working properly… the problem is that this flaw affects the users more than they know and they should be warned about that.
In such case iPhone 4 should not be able to pass any SAR value tests in any country … but hey ! … SAR value tests does not take into consideration the way the way a real person holds the iPhone 4 ( touching the antenna ) and yes … they do use a iHand to test the phone not a flesh and blood human hand !
If by chance you survive, the signal loss will force you to talk less … and use the phone less as the battery will deplete faster and age faster over time.
Keep in ming that I am now saying that i have done any tests whatsoever or i am right. It’s just my opinion that others should confirm or infirm. In fact i am a happy owner of an iPhone 3G and i intend to keep it that way until number 5.
Tags: Apple, Consumer Reports, death grip, FREE bumper, FREE press conference, iHand, iPhone 4, microwaving your brain
“El laberinto del fauno” and what history tells us
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, earth, water, air, weather, education, skills, news, information, feelings, senses, perceptions, life, energy, resources, memories, keeping memories, what is important
I usually don’t watch movies and I almost never watch Spanish, French or any other non-English movies.
Yet i think El laberinto del fauno is one of the best movies ever made.
I won’t review it as words are to poor to better express the feelings i have felt.
Sometimes, somebody needs to remind us to think, to be awear of our short life among humans. We need to be awear about the responsibility we bear to preserve the planet for our future generations, and what is better to awake us than the knowledge about our history told in superb, heart-changing way.
History teaches us many things. We just have to listen:
Stefan cel Mare a great Romanian leader from the past once said: “Moldova n-a fost a strămoşilor mei, n-a fost a mea şi nu e a voastră, ci a urmaşilor voştri şa urmaşilor urmaşilor voştri în veacul vecilor” ( translated roughly to: Moldavia was not my ancestors’, was not mine and is not yours, but belongs to our descendants and our descendants’ descendant to the end o time ).
We can now say, during our times ”Earth was not my ancestors’, was not mine and is not yours, but belongs to our descendants and our descendants’ descendant to the end o time“. Are we living our lives believing this or we are selfish enough to say the contrary?
Tags: awearness, earth, education, end of time, feelings, future, history, Moldavia, movie, planet, Stefan Cel Mare
COP15 Copenhagen, it’s legacy and a possible solution
Posted by Dan | Filed under Natural, Unnatural, body, health, sports, earth, water, air, weather, food, animals, plants, house, constructions, accomodation, life, energy, resources, money, wealth, products, services, maintenance, transportation, storage, what is important, work, activities
I have watched the developments of COP15 theese days and it seems to me even more talks are requred to get the world in tune with the “climate change song”. Yet i have seen unprecedented will and unparalled actions from people getting together and organizing for common goal. There are 2 more days until the end of COP15 but a final treaty is just some steps more to go, sadly more than 2. I hope the needed steps will be swiftly taken after the ending of Copenhagen summit.
Sadly i watched as the lack of consensus needed to take a firm decision is bringing negotiations to a halt. The reasons to this possible “failure” i think are lying in the complicated perspectives we are seeing this matter. We need to simplify things, brake them down to the basics and then start building. An old Romanian myth is about an architect called Manole that tried to build a beautiful cathedral. He tried many times but what he was building daytime at night time was crumbling. God told him he had to sacrifice his wife to get the cathedral finished. He did this as God told him sacrificing his love to build a greater thing. This is what we have to to. We have to sacrifice a part of our life, sacrifice some of our pleasures so we can have a brighter future!
And now please let me explain why Copenhagen was not as successfull as it was really needed and to talk futher about a possible solution.
I. COP15 between success and failure
The developments from COP15 summit in Copenhagen gave me the following impressions:
- officials have tried to cap emisions based on different strategies
- CO2 / capita and any other per capita calculation method
- the current development status of countries
- we have seen that other past treaties are too complicated to follow;
- countries have different or even colliding interests even when life as we know it is at stake;
- some officials propose a carbon tax as a solution at least to climate change but plain taxes are not so easy to agree upon and as long as this tax is not addopted by everyone it’s almost useless;
- i guess they are concentrating too much on CO2 and they forget about other hazards;
- developed countries preffer to give money in forms of ( OTM – One Time Money ) policies and fail to see that their money are nothing more than a mere patch to a global disease. Our planet is not about how many billions of dolars we spend up to 2012 for it’s reabilitation. It’s about how we plan for a future, continuous rehabilitation for generations to come.
Where are the week points of all the strategies? In my opinion all the strategies used in developing this treaties/theories are easily, too easlity to counterattack with fairly good arguments. There are too many arguments on each side that make the negotiations a hard process and almost guarantee that countries, in the eventuality of signing a treaty will, maybe, fail to implement it. Other aspect of the Copenhagen negotiations is the fact that now people fear about the CO2 … but aren’t some other pollution problems even more stringent ? We forget about the islands of trash in our oceans ? We forget about the never ending garbage accumulating near our cities ?
About the proposed “caps” I even go as far as thinking about the fairness of such capping / capita when we talk about a countries latitute and longitude and it’s climate. A very good example is the latiude factor. As countries are located further away from ecuator the need for heating energy during the winter is greater.
If we are to judge people having equal rights regarding polution we would find ourselves into a dillema. Aren’t people living in countries with overall cold temperatures more entitled to use more energy for heating than the ecuatorial people that need virtually no heating at all ? Some friend told me tere are people using around 20 tons of pertrol to heat their house each winter. While i find this amount outrageous is someone entitled to pollute because his envoroiment requires it ? We can even start to ask some really existential questons by going this path. We can easily extrapolate this theory to any country’s resources and location. Some countries don’t have enough drinking water yet there are located near oceans or seas … should they be allowed to use more energy and in turn produce more CO2 to to get their necessary water from the ocean ?
As existential questions are not answered for milleniums … i think COP15 will have the same fate unless we change our perspective.
II. A possible solution
II.A. A background on pollution and the way we can translate it to usable and useful numbers
The overall pollution and of course CO2 is generated by the products we use and by the services we need.
- Products
- we can easily check the composition of a product ( the raw materials ) – companies are already doing this due to customer concerns, production charts, methods etc.
- we can easily know or approximate the energy required to assemble the product and in turn it’s enviroimental impact
- “product” is a broad spectrum including the utilities like power supply etc, even water if required special polluting treatments to be usable ( even the checks made by laboratories are polluting proceses )
- Services & Processes
- we can easily check the energy and waste required to perform a service and translate it into a “pollutant indicator“.
What will be the values used for ? At the begining we can calculate this numbers based on CO2 production then we can extrapolate this to other types of watste making the method more and more efficient.
I will use the term ”pollutant indicator” ( abbreviation PI ) a number that indicates the level of pollution / CO2 included, generated to produce a product and by it’s beeing.
Each raw material, process, sevice incuded in the production of one product, we will call it a “base component” ( abbreviation BC ).
BC will have indexes of pollution attached to them named BI indexes. The energy and the pollution required to produce X grams of BC ( plastic, paint etc ) in one country is a calculable, measurable thing, nationwide. The same with paint, water etc . Each country has different energy requirements to produce the same amount of plastics, paint, etc depending of it’s main industry players and other factors.
By adding such BI indexes we can calculate the exact PI for each product. An example would be the common shampoo bootle. The bottle can contain ( X grams plastic, Y grams paint , Z Grams shampoo made from Z Grams water, Z Grams olive oil extract, etc ) . We can add the BI indexes of Z grams of oil etc … and have a resulting PI.
So now we have a number that we assign for each product to correctly quantify it’s production energy needs and it’s impact on the enviroiment.
This number will not include the product disposal energy and pollutioin requirement. We will get back to this later on.
This might not be a perfect representation of the pollution implied by one product but i think is the only one we can easily calculate and won’t make our head spin.
II.B. The “Enviroiment Impact Tax”
So … we basically need to “tax” all products to create a fair economical and enviroimental climate. How would be fair to tax all products in all the world and whom will benefit from this tax ?
This tax would be a country wide tax … or, if one country wishes the tax levels could be breaked down for different regions but the countrywise tax levels would still be the same.
How this tax will be imposed? The tax will be imposed based on PI of each product.
How can you break the tax to different levels in different regions don’t similar product have similar PI ? Right but … if needed, each regions ( let’s say California in US ) would calculate the BC levels based on their local companies and data. Thus regions will have varying BC yet at a country level the amounts will be the same. ( amounts of PI used to produce the products ). There might be a problem here thow. Let’s say we are in a region/country with a very low tax on some product. One could make a company there that pollutes a lot and would benefit from the low tax rate. But the problem is only technical and short tearm. Usually the products have many BC indexes so the PI won’t suffer to much because of this. The tax will be then modified yearly and if such a bad company would strive the effect will be bad for all the companies in the same sector and the goverment will be able to then check why the levels of BC indexes increased and then take the appropriate measures against the said company. So on a long term this will have barely no effect. But the best economcal effect is yet to be seen. Companies will distribute their production plants better in the teritory/world to benefit the low taxes. Once they will make plants in a said place the tax will increase giving other countries less developed the next step.
What will be the BC indexes update schedule ? Because we live in fast developing times, it’s only normal that the BC indexes to be calculated on an early basis to reflect the exact developments in the teritory.
Where the money from the tax will go ? This tax … as it is only practical will replace existent enviroimental tax levels imposed by countries on product by product basis. The surpplus of money collected will go into enviroimental programs, either educational or even other type of big projects and … into the product disposal product disposal programs that i was talking you about earlier. Product disposal requirements are vast and cannot be really calculated based on the production costs. Product disposal is only efficient when it’s done in large quantityes so should be the goverment task to arrange efficient product disposal ways and fund this projects from the Enviroiment Impact Tax.
Who will have to pay the tax ? The end user of the product based on his the consumption amount. ( let’s say will be similar to VAT in certan accounting ways )
How the levels of this tax would be calculated ? This is a far wider topic to discuss it here and i am sure people interested in this topic can further talk about this subject. I only want to point out 2 things:
- Adjustments - ajustments can be made depending on industries, deveoping indexes, and any other factors countries can agree upon.
- Reference – because this will be a global tax ( all countries in the world must impose it ), it is only fair to have a reference that all should aknowledge. Because we are talking about “saving the planet” the reference on the calculation of the PI for each product based on the BC components will be the country(s) with the best levels of BC pollution indexes. So … thoose countries would have to pay no tax for the specific BC indicator ( BC index will be 0 ( zero ) where 0 means the best country having the best indicator ) in turn there will be no tax for the products that incorporate mostly BC indexes with 0 levels. Is such a reference fair ? We want to be better and we must have a better country as reference. If for example one country would become better than the aknowledged reference then we can safely say we have a new reference and so on.
How is it possible to have a zero product tax ? Yes will be possible in a country where the BC required to produce a product will be 0 and the services required to product those product will have the same 0 index.
How about the developing countries ? First of all this tax will be collected by goverment for goverment usage. The money will not go to another country. Ok, but this implies that products made in India will be more expensive and harder to export because the country dosen’t have the same technlogy as other developed countries. Yes and this is why we need to make an ajustment to the tax so it can be fair to both developed and developing nations in the same time.
How to make such an ajustment that would be fair to developed and developing countries in the same time. Is is possible ? Will the calculation of the tax be a subject to disputes because of this ? Where the adjustment muse be made ? It is possible to make such adjustments for the benefit of all including our planet’s benefit. We need to adjust the BC indexes not the tax itself. How? Easy. We need to calculate the amount of investment rich countries have already made in their sectors over a perious of let’s say 20 years. This amount of investments in fact amounted for a proportionate sum of pollution already produced before this tax will go into being. The amount of this will be of course in direct link with the industry’s output. Righ countries will have a bigger investment number than developing countries. In turn we can use this number to inversly adjust the BC indexes. Thus rich countries will have a bigger tax increase than developing countries. As developing countries develop the this number’s will level off.
What will be the interests of developing countries to respect such tax? Developing countries would want to develop cleaner ways to produce their products to minimize the PI of their products. Even if this means the increase of PI due to the compensation factor getting higher for them the most important is not this
compensation factor” ( abbreviation CF ) because it’s controlls only a part of PI. Their main goal will be to reduce the bulk of PI by investing into technology.
What will be the interest of developed countries ? The interest of developed countries well be obvious … they would have likely lower prices on some technlogical products what will alow them to fairly trade with poorer countryes.
What will be the interest of the world ? Everybody will benefit from this tax as people will try to buy less taxed products meaning less impact of our enviroiment.
While this Enviroiment Impact Tax proposal of mine still has many flaws it does solve some big ones.
II.C. Comparison between the Enviroiment Impact Tax and other methods
I will only point our some of my main conclusions and let you discover the rest:
- Enviroiment Impact Tax is less prone to flaws than any of the proposed methods to fight climate change in Copenhagen summit. There are some points that can be argued but much less “existential” and easier to understand then carbon tax or capping.
- Enviroiment Impact Tax will reflect more clearly the current situation because it can include as many pollution factors as needed.
- Enviroiment Impact Tax has answers for both developed and developing countries giving both incentives to be better and to invest in more efficient technologies.
- Enviroiment Impact Tax will elimnate the war of ”dumping and trading taxes” imposed by some governments. Countries will not need to put additional taxes on the products that enter their teritory because those taxes will be already in place upon the exit of the goods from the original country in a fair and quantifiable manner.
What we have learned from this summit ? What will be the message for the generations to follow ? I don’t think is too early to say even if maybe the negociations are not completed we need, we really need to know some things. Even if some countries ( leaders ) will want the summit to fail for some reason on another, everybody must continue to protect the environment without looking at their neighbours for support if this support is not available nor welcomed. The world won’t end with the end of Copenhagen summit but we will suffer for sure because of our leaders’s decisions today. No matter the outcome of COP15 and any other summits to follow, we must continue our role in the great order of things. We must heal the planet on a personal level, starging from our home and we must spread the message to our leaders that climate change is not a political issue, is beyond politics and stretches beyond money they are willing to invest up to 2012 or any other year.
I hope the article was not as boring as i imagine it could be for some of you and i hope you’ve found it’s usefulness at least from some points of view. In the same time I strongly hope some of you are in the position to use this information and make our world a better place. In order to guarantee that i urge anyone whom agrees with what i’ve wrote here to send links of this article to freinds, familty and everyone whom he thinks will be interested in this subject.
Tags: anti-dumping taxes, better place, calimate change, COP15, Copenhagen, Enviroiment Impact Tax, negotiations, trade wars, world
Drinking habits, when, where, what to drink
Posted by Dan | Filed under Immaterial Things, Material Things, Natural, Unnatural, awearnes, body, health, sports, earth, water, air, weather, feelings, senses, perceptions, food, animals, plants, life, energy, resources, products, services, maintenance, relationships, communication, interaction, what is important, work, activities
In my previous article i was discussing about our everyday eating habits and how to eat.
I started that article thinking about the fact that eating is something we do every day and has a big impact on our life and health. But seems i overlooked something that we do more often than eating and that is having an even bigger impact on us … that is drinking. We are made out of water in a big proportion, in fact any life form relies on water to live. So we do know that water is the primordial drink and that all drinks contain water in a smaller or bigger proportion.
But before we begin i will tell you that i will be using from now on in my articles references to Wikipedia or other information sources in places where i don’t want or is not needed for me to explain terms further. So you can click on the available terms and one new page will open displaying the external source. Me and my website has no responsability whatsoever on external sources and the informations other display.
We drink because we have to … or because we want to. As any other thing, we should drink as much as we need to and only because we need it. Drinking because we want to become “drunk” is not an natural thing thus is not very good from the start.
The only time when is not a good time to drink is before and during a meal as i wrote in the previous article.
Serving drinks … hot or cold?
In recent years the way we serve drinks changed a lot due to the new technologies of refrigeration that made ice readily available in all the public places. Now we can choose … either we drink our drink hot or cold… In my opinion the choice should be made based upon our body condition … not our wishes 
. If you come from outside in winter and your body is cold i would probably choose a hot drink. On the other hand if you have good winter clothes and you are not feeling cold than you can opt for a cold drink also even if outside is cold. If outside is hot … and your body is hot is probably a good ideea to take a normal to low temperature drink. If you sweat a lot that means the body looses temperature easily and you don’t have to drink a cold drink to balance it … you can even drink some hot stuff in this situation. On a normal day with normal temperatures … let’s say 26 degrees Celsius you can choose both hot and cold drinks depending on your choice.
How to clasify drinks?
Although all that we drink has an impact on all your body i consider the classification from the point of view of their impact on your mental/brain functions more usefull than any other forms of drinks classification. After all if your perceptions are flawed why make any other classifications . Not to forget… the brain is in fact controlling all your body functions. If the brain is not working properly all your body will be afected after some time.
Psychoactive drinks ( drinks that contain substances that in turn affect/alter your brain functions/perceptions )
I will not name any drinks or try to list them in any exact form. We all know what are the alcoholic drinks types, what coffee flavors there are etc. I will concentrate more on what they contain and how this affects our health.
- caffeine ( coffee’s main chemical compound ) – stimulant
* coffee – higher quantities of caffeine
* tea made from Camellia sinensis plant ( not to be mistaken with “herbal tea” – low quantities of caffeine
* soft drinks with added caffeine
* energy drinks
* cola type drinks
In my opinion short term usage ( caffeine ) is fairly ok … and can help you get through some important tasks.
Long term can create anxiety and sleep disorders. There are no recognizable long terms effects that i know or i have felt so i think you should drink coffeine drinks only when you need them it … if not at all. Is it worth it?
While i don’t accept coffe as a drink ( thow i am still drinking it from time to time ) what would I choose? Cappuccino, Plain black bad taste coffee, Espresso, Café au lait, Frappé, Flavored coffees (mocha etc.) or Latte ? I’m thinking the best answer is plain black bad taste coffee ( usually this is the “Americano” type ). Everytning other than plain coffe i think contains to many substances that can power a rocket or kill a dog … see the next substance. Also i’m guiding myself using the “try to drink normal concentration drinks” because any concentrations other than normal/natural has at least unknown effects on my body if not bad. Taking into condideration this “conclusion” i think tea is in fact the only coffeine product that people should drink, either for the psychotropic ( brain changing ) effects and for the everyday effects ( more energy in daily life ). Just don’t drink tea before going to sleep
- theobromine ( chocholate/cacao ) – stimulant
* chocholate drinks
* kola nut
* cola type drinks
While chocholate is not so addictive as coffe it has almost the same reactions as coffe. Good to know it that theobromine can cause death of your favourite pets ( dogs and cats ) . If this happens to this animals why we are so different?
- ethanol ( alcohol ) – partly stimulant
* this include any form of alcohol drinks as the basic underlying substance is the same.
Some forms of alcohol have smaller concentration ( beer ) while others like spirts have a bigger concentration. The fact that some drink containing alcohol is “good” or “bad” depends mostly on the other ingredients of the drink but remember that alcohol is BAD in ANY conbinations even if our perception is somewhat distorted by other good things that the alcohol mix can have. Read a little about other usages of alcohol and then think about what you are drinking. You will see alcohol is used for powering rockets, cars, as solvent ( cleaner ) etc.
Other substances that have an similar effects on the brain ( functional effects ) are: ketamine, PCP , DXM, Nitrous Oxide. I have read the materials from wikipedia about PCP and almost all other substances i could find similar to alcohol as function and it was quite a disturbing disovery. Not only that alcohol creates dependence and bad behavoir but high consumption can lead to even worse outcomes.
Some say … and i quote: “drinking beer and alcoholic beverages in the local pub is a very cultural tradition”. Tradition and culture are 2 different things… Do we have to accept and to become a part of that tradition? If my grandmother traditionally didn’t have a normal toilet in her countryside house that means is better to follow tradition? Culture… i think is about subculture and not knowing the effects of alcohol.
So why do we drink all this stimulants ? We know that stimulants stimulate our brain functions … we feel better, we are stronger … etc. Why we need them? Aren’t we good enough without them? You know what happens with a battery if you use it at a “faster rate” ? It will deplete faster… In my opinion stimulants don’t do anything special other than deplete our resources, life faster …
Non-Psychoactive drinks ( drinks that don’t affect much your brain functions )
* tea made from plants have usually only benefits to ones health as it contains the substances that the plants have in an easily to ingest ( drink ) form
* some herbal tea types can have psychoactive effects … most of them moderate
* take care of the plants you are using to make the tea, some plants that are bad for health in normal form are bad also in infusion form. Ask more experienced people, doctors if you are not sure.
* water used to make the infusions is important … althow boiled tap water is basically ok you should use better some fresh spring water if you have one available
– soda water / soda syphon / carbonated water
The adition of carbon dioxide to normal water does not pose significant health problems. “Sparkling mineral water is a negligible cause of dental erosion; also known as acid erosion.” the Wikipedia article states. ( )
In latest years people almost forgot about this type of water … making place to “soft drinks”. I believe sparkling water is the best available alternative to soft drinks and to the more expensive natural efervescent water.
- mineral water / natural mineral water / sparkling mineral water
* natural mineral water as the name states will contain minerals
* in normal quantities minerals are good for the body and even help the body recover from some types of dizeases
* hard to check what is true and what is not and it’s hard to put a correct price on this type of water. Prices are based more on Brand and less on quality… So unless you have a trusted source don’t drink too much. Kidney stones are a problem if you drink too much of this water.
– juice - naturally contained in fruit or vegetable tissue
* varieties – apple, orange, grapefruit, pineapple, tomato, passion fruit, mango, carrot, grape, cherry, cranberry, guava, and pomegranate
* don’t be fooled into buying juice from the stores. If you really want the juice to be good for your health then make it yourself. Buy oranges, apples, etc and make your own juice in many countries. If you need to buy juice from the shop as you don’t have the time to make it yourself at least check the labels for High-fructose corn syrup as is in direct link with obesity levels as the Wikipedia article describes. Many companies ( almost all from US ) add this syrup to drinks, using it as an sweetener. Don’t drink juice that does not taste like the juice you can make yourself at home. Is probably bad for you.
– “soft drinks” - first of all i don’t agree with the term of “soft drinks” being assigned to this category of drinks. We are easily fooled by the connotation of the English word soft. In fact it’s the same as selling “mild” cigarettes. The name somewhat implies that this drinks are better for your health when the reality is the opposite.
* the most common soft drinks are colas, flavored water, sparkling water, iced tea, sweet tea, lemonade, squash and fruit punch
* about health “benefits” read the Wikipedia article
There are no conclusions to this article as it’s far from being complete or correct by my own standards. Feel free to form your own conclusions and comment.
Tags: alcohol, animals, cacao, caffeine, carbonated water, chocholate, coffee, cola, diseases, drinking tea, drinks, energy, food alternatives, food ingredients, food, animals, plants, habits, herbal tea, juice, life, medicinal products, mineral water, our body, plants, plants and benefits, soda syphon, soda water, soft drinks, sparkling mineral water, sports, tea types, water
Eating habits & how to eat
Posted by Dan | Filed under Natural, awearnes, body, health, sports, earth, water, air, weather, food, animals, plants, life, energy, resources, what is important, work, activities
In this article i am presenting my views and opinions regarding the eating process seen as an experience (“how to eat”). Another article will cover the “what to eat” perspective.
Eating is something what we do rather often and is amazingly one of the things that we are bad at. How many of us wondered how and why we can do to improve eating ? I guess very few.
I read everyday reviews of food, good vs. bad food comparison but i read less on how to eat them. The eating experience is what defines us more than the food itself. The eating experience decides if the food we will eat will deposit in our body as fat or will be used for other purposes … creating muscles, aiding memory & brain functions.
We already know some things like … eating at regular times is better, never eat too late in the night etc. What we don’t know or don’t realize?
Here are some of my opinions about the eating as an experience:
General considerations
- everything is about balance, balance anything you eat. If you eat during one meal more sugars, refrain from eating the same during the next meal. If you eat too much meat in afternoon don’t eat meat in the night, etc.
- do eat in the morning and remember … coffee is not food !
- eat 3 times per day. I don’t advise you to at more times or less times unless your body is already out of balance.
- feeling tired all day ? it might be because of eating … consult a doctor. I once felt bad a whole week … until i realized that my body was not receiving the quantity of useful substances it needs even if i was eating a LOT. Some kids have worms when they are young … and worms are doing this. For grownups like me certain stomach problems can prevent food from being completely digested so go and consult a doctor. Your stomach don’t have to hurt to go to a doctor. If the stomach hurts is already something bad or you are already too late!
- read the labels on products and don’t buy to many things that you don’t know how to prepare yourself
- compare products ( you can even buy both and try them in the same time ), don’t believe anybody but you
- packing does not make a good product ( give a chance to small companies that don’t afford or cannot make fancy packing for their products )
- check any expiry date on any product you buy
Before eating
- make a little bit of sports especially the ones that involve stomache muscles. This way we “pave” the path for the new food to enter our body. I noticed that after and during swimming for example i can exhale easily the gases built up in my stomach and feel less stomach swelling. We already “eat” too much gases ( sparkling water, soft drinks – by the way … why do people reffer to carbonated drinks as soft drinks ? … this mislabeling for sure hurts our understanding of drinks and makes us accept easily bad drinks for our health ) while eating … the digestion would be much better and pleasant without them
- don’t drink too many liquids as the liquids will lower your stomach acidity thus lowering your body ability to completely digest food and in turn you will eat more food and have less energy after
- prepare yourself mentally for eating, switching your thoughts from other things, in turn this will signal to your body to start preparing itself for what is to come. Some religions got this right People are thanking for what food they will eat thus concentratng on the food and on the whole process. On the other hand this can happen in the opposite way to some of us. I am sure you have experienced this: if we talk a lot about food and about some food types in particular we become hungry even if we are not very hungry. So our brain has a very big impact on how and why we eat. Let’s control our brain the same way as we do with reasoning ( maths, exact sciences ) and we can accomplish a lot of things. We won’t eat unless we are hungry, we will be able to control our eating and be less prone to gaining weight. We know now this: it’s better to think of food before eating and while eating and not to think to much about food in between meals.
- if you are really, really hungry you can eat some fruits. Start eating other foods types at least 10 minutes after eating fruits. Why we can eat fruits ? Because fruits contain basic sugars and other components that are easily ( thus faster about let’s suppose … 10-20 minutes for an apple ) digested by our body and don’t have a big impact on the food that will come after.
- washing hands. I consider this very very important yet myself i fail to do it every time. Need not for me to explain why… again religion thought some of us to wash before eating based on the need to be ‘ritually’ clean while consuming foods. ( http://asimpledesire.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/dont-wash-before-eating/ )
While eating
- eating location and time is an important thing. Sometimes we need to eat on the road. Sometimes we need to eat at wrong times. This is perfectly ok as long as you don’t make a rule out of it. Don’t do other things meanwhile. Stop any other distractions that will give your body wrong signals about what to do with the food. In a word … awareness!
- think more about the food you are eating
- talk more about the food you are eating than anything else ( and don’t talk about things that make you uncomfortable or angry )
- eat the soup at the beginning of the meal. Why? Because i consider the order of eating food being of utmost importance. In Europe we tend to eat the soup among the first courses, right after the appetizer. In some Asian countries soup is served at the end of the meal. I believe that if we eat the soup at the beginning it will have a “bad” impact of our stomach flora and acidity ( PH ) and we will eat less food during that meal. In fact any liquids are having the same effect on digestion. If we drink soup at the end will have a smaller impact on the quantity of food that we can consume. Don’t think that by eating soup/liquids you will eat less and you will loose weight! Maybe you will in fact eat less / meal … but you will be hungry faster and eat more than the normal 3 times / day.
- mixing ingredients and food types. Sometimes the best foods are prepare by mixing a lot of ingredients so it’s ok to mix. If you do this you should learn how to.
Don’t mix too much fresh food ( salad for example ) with fried food. Digestion for this 2 types of food is different and mixing them will leat to possible bad results. You should eat similar cooked foods instead, preferably cooked using steam cooking that makes the food softer and dosen’t destroy all the good vitamins and nutrients.
- less water/drinks during a meal put’s less pressure on your body to generate enough acidity to digest the food. While you will feel hungry faster after a meal without too much water intake this is the best way for our stomach
After eating
- immediately after eating take a few moment to rest, it will for sure help digestion as the body needs more blood for this purpose
- don’t do sports immediately after eating
- don’t think at things that make you angry just for few minutes. Let the body use blood for different purpose.
- don’t change the temperature too fast, especially don’t heat up your body. Some example is foot bath. If you put your feet into hot water the blood will tend to go to your feet. In the same time your body needs blood to digest the food … so guess what will happen ? You will faint or at least feel very bad because your brain you won’t have enough blood available to function properly!
- don’t forget to wash your teeth, or use some chewing gum, after all teeth are our own lifetime eating tool.
- don’t continue eating snacks or fruits immediately after eating… this will have a bad effect on your digestion … wait some time … around half an hour for light foods and more than 1 1/2 hours for slightly uncooked meat products ( beef ).
In between meals
- don’t use too much chewing gum
- try not to think at eating
- if you feel like eating … eat fruits ( eat acid fruits – apples for example separately from sweet fruits – banannas for example ) – if you want to read more indepth information about fruits visit http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/fruit-article.html
- drink as much water as you can and as you need. Our body is more than 80% water so it only normal to drink a lot of … water.
We know that nowadays food quality depends mostly on how much money we have or we want to pay for it. This aspect has changed radically as people even 100 years ago wore spending a bigger part of their income on food and less on other things. Now we tend to spend less and less means … of course for less quality, less natural products and much more preservatives to keep the food fresh longer so the supermarkets won’t have to throw it away very fast. So think more about the quality and less about the price when comes to this important thing what we take for granted… food.
But no matter how cheap is it or how expensive we can do something good about it. We can spend some time finding good quality ingredients, we can learn some basic denominations and food types. For example did you know that Valencia oranges have more juice than Navel kind ? The type is printed onto the small sticker.
I myself follow only a part of this advices but this are also my goals, i want as much to improve as any of you. Do you have any other opinions? I would be happy to listen to them.
Dan
Tags: animals, diseases, drinking tea, drugstores, eating, energy, food alternatives, food ingredients, food, animals, plants, good vs. bad habits, habits, life, medicinal products, our body, places to eat, plants, plants and benefits, sports, tea types, water
Using iPhone and similar devices as a learing tools
Posted by Dan | Filed under education, skills, news, information, products, services, maintenance
In the past months i have been using my iPhone for something different than i previously used any mobile devices. I’m learning write & speak Mandarin Chinese in a different way than i would previously have.
Why is iPhone is so useful for learning new languages ?
- it’s touch enabled, giving me the chance to practically test the new Chinese characters i learn – using eStroke application i learn how to write them and i also test my writing skills, this also applies for other languages
- it has a wide variety of dictionaries available, for my specific task i use KTdict-C-E
- it has a wide variety of applications that can be used to learn pronunciation – i personally use the DianHua Audio addon
- you have access to different games to complement learning and make it more fun – like use for example Chinese Word search application whenever i want some fun . You can choose better than me for sure !
- last and not least the ability to access this features fast and when i need them gives me great freedom of movement and faster and more natural learning. I am folowing my “need to know” now. I don’t have to learn things that i don’t want when i don’t need them. I use iPhone to learn … when i get bored, when i travel, when i have nothings else to do … basically any moment that i would have previously loose doing nothing.
I guess everything i am telling you here applies for a greater number of learning subjects, making platforms like this useful for everybody. I would imagine myself learning geography, history, and other social sciences with ease.
As any learning activity you should also take into consideration the preparation needed. You need to find the appropriate tools ( in this case software applications ), give them a try, select the information that you need to learn ( prepare web pages filled with information so you can browse them using the built in browser, lists with information, books in electronic format – PDF’s to be used with PDF readers, etc. ), arrange everything into an appropriate form, and extend your learning methods to include games, quizes and basically anything that makes your subject more fun.
Happy learning !
Tags: chinese, iPhone, languages, learning, mandarin, technology
Topics for “money & wealth” category
Posted by Dan | Filed under money, wealth
Here are the main topics for “money & wealth” category. Feel free to recommend others!
history and future, currencies, cost of living and other useful statistics, sustainable & long term business ideas, trading ( goods, monetary tips, how we are affected, what to do, prices comparisons )
Things that i consider useful to learn and to do:
Use “money” in my conversations as little as possible and when i use i try to be as concise as possible not to be misunderstood! If you thing somethings is not worth it you are probably right.
Do you know other ? Please share with us!
Tags: cost of living, future of money, history of money, money, prices, sustainable money, trading
Topics for “work, play, activities” category
Posted by Dan | Filed under work, activities
“work, play, activities” category is filed under Natural things as it’s parent. Some might disagree with this choice and some might agree. Unless i get a very good reason we will keep it that way for the moment.
Here are the main topics for “work, play, activities” category. Feel free to recommend others!
tools, service industry, product industry, workplace hazards, team work, workplace interaction
What i think?
For some work is the most important thing in life. It’s the only way to live in fact. Some see work as a burden, some enjoy it. The truth is that work is both necessary both useful. We get greater advantages from work than just money. We get to interact with people, to maintain out mental health, to feel useful. Balance you work time with your leisure time and work until you feel you need to stop. Think as the advantages of work not as a burden!
The best way to discover life is through playing. We play from the moment we are born up to our end. Never stop playing as you will stop living!
Tags: games, play, product industry, service industry, team work, tools, workplace hazards, workplace interaction
Topics for “awareness” category
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes
As unimportant as some consider i believe that awareness is the most important tool that we have. We need to know how to use this tool in our advantage.
what is awareness, mental health, knowing our place, balancing, evolving
My opinion is that awareness comes directly after senses as a filter. We loose awareness we loose the contact with external world. We loose ourselves!
What’s your opinion?
Tags: awareness, balancing, evolving, mental health, our place
