YOUR HEALTH 

 OMA and junk food insanity

The Ontario Medical Association in news releases October 24, 2012, is recommending that certain foods should be treated like tobacco, and through a combination of higher taxes and health danger warning labels and gross images, should to systematically targeted so people – especially young people – can be forced to ‘kick the habit’ and avoid the growing obesity epidemic, type 2 diabetes and other ill health consequences.

The foods – labeled by the OMA as JUNK FOODS – are high in calories, high in sugar and low in nutrition – according to the OMA.

The list especially targets pop containing sugar, Chocolate milk, fruit juices and pizza among others.

 

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However, there are a number of problems with this list of ‘harmful foods’, and the overall OMA mindset.

Pizza – some dozen years ago the U.S. Health Dept. declared pizza a ‘healthy food choice’ and removed it from its junk food list.  Pizza has a balance of grains, dairy, fruit and optional meat that the U.S., department realized was actually good for you.

Drinks:

While diet pop is sugar free and now the only pop available in school cafeterias and machines across Ontario, aspartame, the replacement sweetener, is itself now under attack for causing individuals severe health repercussions.  The Internet is full of such warnings.   So the choice seems to be added sugar or a potentially more harmful substitute.  I’ll take the natural sugar, thank you,  unless I am dieting!

Chocolate milk was also on the death list in Ontario schools until someone pointed out that chocolate milk accounts for most milk/dairy sales in schools as most children avoid plain milk or yogurt.  As milk, even when brown, is a great source of protein, vitamins and essential nutrients, the Ministry backed down and allowed chocolate milk – which today is 1% skim milk (read low fat) – to survive.   So get real, OMA.

Juice is also an OMA target.  Not coloured ‘drink’ packages which are now banned in Ontario schools (as they are really coloured sugar water that misleads buyers into thinking they are real fruit juice—a cheap con if there were was one.) but real juice – apple juice, grape juice, orange juice, etc.  Too much sugar, I suspect, but, again, juice is the next best thing to eating raw fruit.  Filled with vitamins and essential nutrients, juice, till now,  has been considered  healthy and part of Canada’s Food Guide recommendations!

 

So, what is one left to drink besides white milk in the OMA’s world ?   Only water.

   

The Obesity Epidemic --- Lie

Yes, I believe it is a lie that 1 on 3 people under 18 are significantly overweight or obese and we have an obesity epidemic among our young.

The youth obesity epidemic does not seem to exist in my part of the GTA.  Go to any high school in York Region, go to the Vaughan Mills Mall or Yorkdale or the Eaton Centre and sit and look. Obese people are extremely rare and for every one I see, there are at least 4 to 5 others - females usually - who look anorexic.

The BMI weight scale is the real problem and why, suddenly, there are more overweight and obese children than ever before – despite the fact sugary pop, milk chocolate (with much higher fat content) and pizza have been staples of children and teen diets for over ½ a century.  (And don’t forget chocolate bars and potato chips filled with salt).

Put simply, people and children haven’t changed, only our medical guidepost – the BMI –  has changed how doctors and the public perceive normal weight.

The creator of the BMI, on a CBC radio interview soon after its release, gave some caveats:
1. it is a statistical formula based on data from mostly white adult males. It therefore poorly fits adult females and peoples of other genetic and ethnic backgrounds -- i.e., Hispanics, Hawaiians, Chinese, South East Asian and those of African descent.

2. As he also warned, it does not apply to anyone under age 18 as they were not part of the data base and children have different and changing body norms.

As well, as the Globe and Mail editorial a while back pointed out, Sidney Crosby is 'obese' by BMI criteria -- and I would add so too are all WWE wrestlers, and Olympic weight lifters - both male and female.

 

So, OMA, get a reality check and stop your distorted and unreal obesity mania mindset.

Next, you’ll be telling us to eat just bread and water – super low in calories, sugar and fat.  … Oh, sorry, that was how prisoners and concentration camp inmates were abused in the past.

TECHNOLOGY and MEDIA

Welcome to the party – Apple

This week Apple released its newest product, the iPad mini.  As the name indicates it is a clone of the iPad 2 but smaller.  If you go to the Apple website,  http://www.apple.com/ca/?cid=wwa-ca-kwg-ipad-00020, and watch the promotional videos, you would think Apple has created a whole new and revolutionary product line, but that is the company’s spin on things. 

In reality, the iPad mini is a late comer to the small-size tablet market which was long ago developed by such well known names as  Kindle, Nook, Blackberry Playbook, Sony Reader, HP, Dell, and practically every computer manufacturer in the world!!!  

And just do a Google search for “iPad mini vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 2” and you will find reviewers are consistently rating the new Samsung product far superior to the iPad mini.

The long anticipated Galaxy Note 2, the second generation of the Samsung Galaxy Note (combo smart phone-tablet)  goes on sale in the U.S. October 24 and 25.  Is Apple’s ‘announcement’ of the iPad mini on October 23 a fluke or is Apple running scared?

The iPad mini will not go on sale in the U.S. until November 2, or 10 days after the Samsung Note 2.  It will be much pricier (as is Apple’s long standing markup policy), has no slot to add/change the memory card and no access to change the battery -- unlike all other manufacturers!!!

Steve Jobs, when the Blackberry mini-tablet Playbook was released in April, 2011, publically and on camera berated the mini-size Playbook and all similar sized devices.  Only the large tablet size, he asserted, would meet consumer needs.  So no mini-tablet from Apple or, at least, only over his dead body.

Well, now that Steve Jobs is no longer, Apple has blinked and joined the crowded market.  Its video promotional says it all:  the iPad is too big to hold in one hand while walking or moving and needs a table underneath; and it is too big to fit into a woman’s purse!  So the iPad mini was designed to solve both problems. 

Wow, what an insight!!!!   Surprising how the same ideas occurred to and were marketed by Sony in 2006 (and whose Reader mini-tablet computer is now on its 10^th version), Amazon in 2007, Barnes and Noble in 2009 to name the best known.  The Samsung Galaxy Note 2  is the second generation of this remarkable mini-table series, so who is kidding who when Apple claims it is being ‘innovative”?

Apple may be the most valuable stock in the world and the darling of North America’s media hype but its sales worldwide are nothing to brag about and its latest invention, the iPad mini, is proof that Apple is no longer – if it ever was – a world leader in computer innovation.

Welcome to the real world, Apple, and, sorry, Steve Jobs, you were wronnngggg!!!

YOUR HEALTH

Local or loco?

Maclean’s magazine (Oct. 22, 2012, pages  84-85) had an article extolling the trend to using urban building roofs as farms.  The article extolled a Brooklyn New York project where a warehouse’s massive roof has been turned into a farm “in the city’s navy yards”.

The concept, the ultimate in feel good ‘local’ food (outside of your own backyard) uses large roofs on top of 3 storey or higher buildings. There is even a YouTube video extolling the Brooklyn, New York project and one for Chicago. (See YouTube, roof farms).

But to me this idea has dangers that are being ignored.

I have no objections to using such space if enclosed in greenhouse fashion, but growing food in open air atop buildings strikes me as potentially more harmful than pesticides.

Rooftops are closer too and therefore more exposed to all sorts of air pollution and dangerous chemicals – from chimney exhaust to manufacturing  air waste.  Smog and air currents from power plants and industrial smokestacks expose rooftops to all kinds of pollutants we do not get at ground level or in sheltered back yards..

So while rooftop crops may be ‘local’ and look and taste good, beware!!!

MEDIA

Will the U.S. election end with a tie?

This 2012 U.S. election will end with a tie.  No, not a tie in the popular vote on November 6 nor a tie in the Electoral College. What will decide who in the next president of the United States will be the ties the two men wore in their final debate.  Do you prefer Obama’s solid blue tie with tiny squares or Romney’s bright red and with broad stripes that looked purplish on my monitor?

While this may sound ludicrous, so too have been the post-debate ‘popularity polls’ and American reaction.  Issues are of little import in the world of TV broadcasting. ‘Looks’, not words are key as McLuhan long ago recognized.  Style, not substance, rules in this visual medium as Neil Postman lamented in Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Put simply, on TV, whoever ‘looks’ more dynamic and assertive – in dress and body language - wins the audience over at the emotional/subconscious level.

Winners are the male lions and male peacocks who expand their manes or feathers to look more powerful and impressive. Losers are sloths and worms – slow moving or simply yucky.

What Americans should be paying attention to is their different world views on the role of government: minimalist vs. active on the economy, social change and foreign policy.  Those are the three real issues of this election.

 

But these get lost in combative exchanges filled with – at best -- half-truths from both sides. In such a confusing environment, and given TVs visual bias, ‘looking good’ is the deciding factor. 

 

After watching segments of the first debate I knew within minutes Obama was in trouble.  His cropped haircut with visibly grey curls sprouting everywhere was no match  for Romney’s distinguished grey sideburns and jet black mane of hair.  Obama rarely moved his arms and looked wooden, tired and ill while Romney used every chance to stand broad shouldered, with a glowing smile, leaning forward aggressively.  In brief, Romney looked the star quarterback and Obama the 90 lb weakling who couldn’t ever make the team.   

These visuals revived Romney’s presidential numbers among viewers polled the next day and has since given his campaign huge momentum.

 

Question:  How did those listening on RADIO react?  Did Obama do so poorly when only his voice and tone were available for judgement – alongside his positions on the issues?   No one seems to have bothered polling such people or even asking the question.

 

In 1960, the first televised presidential debate between Vice President Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, radio listeners gave Nixon a 60% to 40%

victory, but the larger TV audience reversed the ratings.

On TV, Nixon, recently hospitalized, showing             5 o’clock shadow and sweating under the studio lights was no match visually for the tanned, non-sweating and constantly smiling Kennedy.

And the rest is history.

 

So, why are the two fabric ties worn in the last debate so important?  Because by now most pundits and the public believe the two men are each at 47% of the popular vote.  The earlier debates have ‘balanced out’ as one win for each – based on demeanor and flash.  Obama, the reigning champion, rose from the ring floor and did well in debate # 2 -- like a Rocky.

 

In the final debate, forced to sit at a round table inches apart, physical dynamism was minimized. Both men sat and spoke with little body language or energy.  Poor lighting and camera choices did not help either, as Obama’s dark skin looked two dimensional on my screen and Romney’s often wrinkled forehead and pale face were not inspiring.

Both men wore what seemed to be identical black suits – same colour and cut -- and only their ties were distinctively different. 

As they constantly threw conflicting information and numbers at each other, their ties, for once,  galvanized my attention and probably that of most viewers.

My wife did not see the debates but when I asked her which tie she would prefer – as described above – she chose the blue one. 

So, based on this scientific poll of one, and a female perspective at that, Obama will win.

MEDIA and TECHNOLOGY

The Apple has fallen

I have never been a fan of Apple/McIntosh but encouraged my daughter to learn to use both PCs and Steve Job’s products  -- as they both exist in the real world.

So, why am I not an Apple fan after all these decades?

1.     Apple is a very greedy and controlling firm – reflective of Steve Jobs’ personality rather than its original computer whiz, Steve Wozniak.

Unlike the PC world were competition drives down consumer prices, Apple maintains a standalone approach with the principal that every product must return a 50% profit or it won’t be made. Maximum profit in the PC world is 33% and often closer to 10%.

 

2.     Over Wozniak’s objections, Apple computers from the start have controlled and limited consumer options by restricting or refusing to allow non-Apple devices or companies to ‘dock’ with their units.  CD and DVD drives are no longer built into units and industry leading Adobe Flash has been blocked from installation on Apple device. Sending a PC document or graphic to an Apple computer – and vice versa – is often a nightmare – unless you have an Apple which has Microsoft pre-installed on it (a concession the company made when near bankruptcy and was bailed out by Bill Gates. Microsoft owns some 5% of Apple still.) or Open Office on your PC -- a Linux style ‘international language’.

 

3.     Steve Jobs was a master of cool and minimalism in design, but almost never had an original idea (except for his introduction of diverse fonts into the DOS world and colour screens.)  He created nifty icons and desktops, loved white bodies and ethereally thin casings with rounded shapes.  He created with an artist’s spirit and eye, but copied others ideas too often, claiming the innovations as his own.

 

Contrary to U.S. media hype and legend, Steve Job’s company:

 

·        Did NOT create the first home computer.  The Apple 1 (1976) was based on existing home computer kits such as the seminal and inexpensive Altair 8800 and the very pricey IBM 1500. When the Apple 2 came out in 1977 with a keyboard and monitor, it had two rivals: Commodore PET and Radio Shack’s TRS-80. (Apple’s only iunique aspect was a colour monitor.)  [See about.com “Inventors of Modern Computers.”]

 

·        Apple did NOT invent selling internet-streamed music. The concept  first appeared in 1998   from Miami entrepreneur Ivan J. Parron’s Ritmoteca.com -- which sold songs for 99 cents. Major labels such as Sony also created their own stores, but Napster and the illegal, free market gained the upper hand before iTunes’s arrival in 2001.

 

·        Apple’s iPhone line is NOT the original smart phone with an interactive touch screen.  It followed in the footsteps of Nokia and others who created phones with internet connectivity and (small) screens,  and especially Palm’s PDA keyboard-less large screen hand held devices.

 

     The finger Touch Screen was also NOT an original Apple invention as

      bank machines and even restaurant cash registered were using the

      technology long before.

 

·        The iPod, again, was NOT the first mobile music storage device using electronic memory and compact design.  MP3 players were already in the market from various manufacturers before the original iPod came along.

 

British scientist Kane Kramer is recognized as its inventor in 1979. In 1998 a South Korean company manufactured and released the first electronic music player and four other manufacturers were well into this field before Apple’s iPod arrived in October 2001. [See Wikipedia “Portable media player”]

 

 

·        The iPad (2010) is NOT the first tablet on the market.  Microsoft in fact created the category and name in 2001. The Microsoft device used a pen to touch the screen and allowed for handwriting as well. Others got into the field, including HP.

 

The e-reading feature so popular on tablets is also NOT an Apple creation. Sony already had an internet downloading e-reader tablet in the market by 2006, the popular Amazon Kindle began in 2007 and Barnes and Noble’s Nook arrived in 2009.

 

As well, the world wide set of lawsuits between Apple and Samsung includes Samsung’s claim that the Apple iPad infringes on its own tablet’s patents. (As Samsung is one of Apple’s major suppliers and ‘partners’, idea and design cross-contamination is very possible – both ways.)

 

 

4.     FINALLY, the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and new iPhone 5 have been released with major flaws.  Things Steve Jobs when healthy, would never have tolerated, but such is the frantic world of electronics competition that Apple is often RUSHING TO MARKET before the ‘bugs’ are resolved:

iPhone 4 – antenna redesign needed as original units would often loose   signal or not get reception.

iPhone 4S – new Siri voice system was draining battery life as it was ‘on’ in the background all the time.  You had to go to the company’s store or website to be shown how to disable the feature and keep your phone running.

The Siri ‘link’ was also a costly surprise as the phone generated internet data minutes all the time.

 

iPhone 5 – Bigger screen than before and slimmer.  Sounds good but:

a.     The larger screen - at 4 inches -  is not a first but a ‘catch up’ to Samsung and others who already had larger screens designed to handle movie size 9 x 16 dimension images.

 

b.     The larger and more powerful  battery is so thinly encased that testers at the Globe and Mail found the unit ‘hot’ to hold when doing heavy power applications and imaging – think movies and games.

A recall should be done but this is Apple, so the problem will probably be covered up – both literally and figuratively.

 

c.      Jettisoning Google maps – now a ‘competitor’ – was not well thought out or well executed as the new Apple map applications have become the butt of jokes – requiring an admission and apology this week from the new CEO, Tim Cook.  Newspapers from Toronto’s Globe and Mail and elsewhere mocked the distorted images of world renowned sites such as the Eiffel Tower (squished pancake) and Boston had a field day criticizing local major bridges and tourist sites that were ‘melting’ or bizarre looking.

 

 Some famous landmarks also went ‘missing’ such as the Statue of Liberty!.  [G&M Sept. 21, 2012, B1 and B3]

 

d.     As the Globe and Mail has also noted in two recent articles, the voice activated map directions - turn by turn software -- is handy but not when it misplaces the object of your trip. Erroneously putting your destination 2 blocks away from its true location, or on the wrong side of the street is a common problem that the G&M reviewers felt was unacceptable, as better products – unrelated to Google – already exist.[G&M Sept. 27, 2012, B14 “Apple’s map app misses the mark” and Oct 1, 2012, B8 “Apple’s Map app error is a path to lost customers”]

 

So:

What does this all mean, especially after 3 years of rushed, inferior iPhone releases?

What does it mean for a company who realizes the iPad’s current size is often too unwieldy and is rumoured to be working on a ‘reduced size’ model -- copying the Blackberry Playbook and similar, smaller Samsung or Sony products?

What does it mean when the Samsung Galaxy Note (released last year) is considered a breakthrough, the almost perfect size phone, internet vehicle and tablet all rolled in one?  Its oversized movie screen – at 5.3 inches   outshines the newly released iPhone 5.  And the new Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is even better -- starting with its 5.5 inch screen and quad-core processor.

 

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It means:  if you own Apple stock, rethink your investment and take the money   and RUN!!!

 

Steve Jobs is gone, and the Apple is falling.