Inspecting old wooden sailboat

 

Bronze

 Bronze casting crucible preparation

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

I bought the whole series for Zoe as we were traveling to New England in our RV. 

However, I found myself as interested in listening as she was. I highly recommend it to anyone.

• Audible.com

The Bronze Age in Europe by Dan Gallagher

The Bronze Age in Europe by Dan Gallagher

References

Audible.com

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

Sarmatians and Scythians: A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians by Captivating History

A Captivating Guide to the Barbarians of Iranian Origins and How These Ancient Tribes Fought Against the Roman Empire, Goths, Huns, and Persians

References

Audible.com

Scythians

 

Fiberglass over wooden sailboat hull

 https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/fiberglassing-over-a-wooden-relic-boat.60545/

Ai advisor for personal anti-aging, nutrition and epigenetic health.

My brother, a holistic doctor, and I have been discussing the need for an AI advisor who considers the newest evolutionary, epigenetic, and dietary science, which often differs from mainstream medicine.

Too many people live with allergies, low-level aches, auto-immune diseases, arthritis, pre-diabetic sugar levels, obesity, cancer, mental fog, and dementia.

Why?

Out of the top causes of death, most are related to diet and lifestyle choices.

Top causes of death, data source: cdc.gov

Please note that accidents account for only 9% of deaths.

My current career is dedicated to preventing injuries from automotive accidents, but as a fellow human, I cannot ignore the remaining 91%. I have a long-standing relationship with a healthy lifestyle, including helping develop the Vitality apps and my fitness application (now defunct).

This article analyzes who we are, where we come from, and what our ancestors adapted to. Understanding our roots is essential for living in optimal mental and physical health for the rest of our lives.

The right lifestyle and matching diet can prolong life and make life youthful till the end. Only by living right do we have a high probability of living well past 100. With advances in medical acute care, lifespan could extend to 120. Imagine giving yourself 30 more years of an active and happy life. Whether this life is illness-and-pain-free play with grandchildren, a sharp and productive scientific mind, challenging hikes in the mountains, or long strolls on the beach in retirement, it is all possible. But to achieve that, you must become an anthropologist, study the happiest and longest-living communities, and know yourself.

I am on purpose NOT starting with recommendations, I want us to build opinions and derive conclusions together.

Here are a few benefits, proven by generations of active centenarians, from the apparently trivial to profound:

• Not having a heartburn.

• Looking younger with better and brighter skin.

• Getting a 6-pack

• Not being hungry between meals.

• Mental clarity.

• Beautiful teeth.

• General rejuvenation of all body cells.

• Boosted immune system.

• Being as fit at 50 as a 21-year-old U.S. Marine.

• Being 100 and doing daily mountain hikes.

• Cancer defense.

• Reduced heart and autoimmune disease.

• Mental resilience against dementia.

Preamble (food-for-thoughts)

We are all born out of a unique genetic lottery, some are luckier than others, but once we survive early childhood, there is an incredible power given to us via epigenetics.

Epigenetics is the ability to turn on and off the inherited genes. Studies show that genetically identical twins manifest different development when raised in different conditions.

Parents have an obligation to their children: fruit-loops, macaroni-and-cheese, or pasta-and-ketchup are easy to serve and often preferred by our kids, but we are their "parents", not their college "buddies". Obesity, insulin resistance, early maturation of young girls, and generally high levels of estrogen in children do lead to future problems.

We are constantly exposed to various external pathogens: bio-chemical, bacterial, and viral, our body continually develops many micro tumors and cancers. Yet, our body is almost always able to heal itself, given a chance.

If I have an illness and something is hurting, I ought to find the cause first. There is no reason to live with an illness, or pain at any, even very advanced, age.

Before I make any lifestyle and dietary choices, I need to understand who we are. Choosing what to eat is hard as there is a spectrum of recommendations ranging from vegans, vegetarians, high-carb, low-carb, high-fat, low-fat, CRON, paleo, keto, all the way to carnivores.

In this discourse, I am trying to explain WHY I choose to eat certain things.

The Hippocratic oath

I am not a medical doctor, government-accredited dietician, nor a medical practitioner, if I were, I would probably not give you any good advice.

Today’s medical establishment addresses symptoms, not the causes.

In my experience, it is very rare to find a local doctor who deeply cares about our diet, lifestyle, and immune system. I have been to numerous practitioners for sinuses, tightening esophagus, and joint pain, all caused by the auto-immune dietary response, and all doctors offered very invasive procedures, basically, scalpels, probes, and needles, and none offered any guidance. It was a crime what the doctor was doing to my sinuses when I was a child, in retrospect, I am a perfectly healthy person who was just fed the wrong things.

A nightmare memory of giant needles and sinus fluid pumping as a child.

It is literally a conflict of interest for doctors to provide preventive care.

Yet, they all made the oath of Hippocrates which can be translated to:

"I will apply dietetic lifestyle (Greek: διαιτήμασί) to help the sick to my best ability and judgment; I will protect them from harm and injustice."

There are a couple of messages here: a "diet regimen" that should be prescribed, and doctors should protect people from the harm occurring (in the future), not just treat the existing diseases.

I will list exceptions, specifically Dr. Gundry, M.D., top cardiologist, who turned from surgery to auto-immune practice to actually cure his patients. So far, I cannot find any fault in his teaching, and I am a devoted follower of his advice.

Dr. Gundry, M.D., Longevity Paradox

I would also give a shout-out to my brother, Dr. Konrad, who is quite a specimen of good physical health, and his healthy diet makes me envious.

The Audience

This post is NOT for you, at least statistically speaking, but if this discourse positively affects even a single person, then it will be definitely worth the time I spent writing (and constantly re-writing) it.

As with my other writings, I write to formulate my own thoughts. I use the pronoun "I" on purpose, as this is not meant to tell "you" what to do. My writing shows me where I am today, and reminds me of where I have been when I wrote in the past.

This particular post I write despite the knowledge that nearly nobody cares. To make the point:

I have a decent following on social media and when I post about anything inconsequential, I get plenty of likes. Yet, when I post about important topics such as health, academic topics, or financials, there is near silence, maybe some sarcasm, especially from family and "friends". I tested this repeatedly, it is unfortunately true.

The number of adults that are currently overweight tips at 75 percent. That is 3 out of 4 people! A century ago, this number was 1 out of 10. This is real statistical data and it is not getting any better.

Obesity is correlated with depression, low physical ability, and low activity, diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid degeneration, auto-immune, and degenerative mind diseases such as Alzheimer's and cancer. This does not mean you cannot get the auto-immune disease if you are skinny, it is very common, too. Most of these problems can be prevented and reversed with a diet. And, when I write "most" I really mean almost all of them.

To be continued...

Published initially on Medium.com Feb 12, 2021

My Dream Assistant Should Know Me Better

Today, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are sometimes useful, sometimes fun, but honestly, very limited.
They often return a generic answer or a bland web search result when we ask them questions. Considering the massive resources behind Apple, Amazon, and Google, it's surprising how little progress these tools have made.

COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us spent months isolated from society. The old times when we used to retreat into the mountains for a few days, sit around a fire, talk, eat, drink, play the guitar, and sing under the stars might feel as distant to today's teenager as the nearest galaxy.

The COVID epidemic will leave a deep mark, and that shift will influence how the next generation relates to technology.

Gathered Data

I’ve bought countless items on Amazon, so they know my interests. I’ve read Kindle books and listened to hundreds of Audible titles.
I searched Google thousands of times and browsed academic papers through Google Scholar.

Given all that data, I could have endless and engaging conversations with someone or something that matches my interests. I need that kind of companionship.

Yet Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant ignore this need entirely.

Short and Long Term Memory

They lack basic short-term memory, cannot continue a conversation, and can’t connect today’s question with what I asked this morning or yesterday. They cannot tell a relevant story based on what I’ve read, written, studied in college, or even who my friends and professional contacts are.

They don’t connect people based on deep interests or alignments. They don’t recommend conversations, articles, or human networks. They don’t even distinguish me from one of my kids. The other day, I had to unsubscribe from three different “fart skills” on Alexa.

My Ideal Personal Assistant

I want a digital assistant trained not only on a general corpus of books, music, films, and research, but also specifically on everything I’ve read and written, on the total knowledge I’ve consumed.

It should respond to a unique name in a clear voice, with the accent and intonation of my choice.

It should recognize my face, sense my emotional state, and adjust tone and engagement accordingly.

If someone else is speaking, it should know that and invoke their personal assistant, protecting privacy and individual context.

It should have a unique face generated just for me via the generative adversarial network (GAN) or something similar, so I can quickly recognize it and intuitively read its mood or expression.

It should also be able to reach millions of others on my behalf, making introductions based on what both parties truly need, factoring in timing, language, and culture.

I want to start my day with AIKO (child of AI in Japanese), which gives me a personalized news summary, including stock updates and curated recommendations. I want to pause, resume, ask questions, skip what I don't care about, and dig deeper when interested. I want to receive a daily article or book suggestion tied to my current interest. If someone out there is aligned with me, the assistant should arrange a message or a meeting.

A sense of humor and tact would be essential. All this should happen before I sit down at my desk.

Will Apple, Google, or Amazon build this? Maybe. Eventually.

But the opportunity is open to others. Just as each person is unique, so are their digital needs. What I describe may not appeal to all, but it will resonate with some. Enough to matter.

Things to pay attention to

• - OpenAI's GPT-3 based on the Transformer model
• - retrieval-based memory systems (RAG)
• - Vector embedding of documents
• - iOS with Core ML, Apple Neural Engine
• - DALL·E
• - generative adversarial network (GAN)

I'd love to connect if you're working on something like this.

Jupyter TOC extension

Install extension

pip install jupyter_contrib_nbextensions && jupyter contrib nbextension install

Reference

• https://towardsdatascience.com/jupyter-notebook-extensions-517fa69d2231