tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36202764716215542322024-03-08T06:51:51.092-06:00Fat man's skinny Blog. Insanity applied.The ideas and topics discussed in this blog are the ideas and thoughts of me and myself alone. Warning. I experiment upon myself.Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-40119228926086021152020-09-11T12:38:00.002-05:002020-09-11T12:38:41.320-05:00Dr. Fung's basic priciples as I see themBefore I get into my explanation of the self focused experiment and what I am doing in it, I thought it would be good to summarize the basic principles the Dr. Fung details in his book, The Obesity Code. This is not an outline of his book, but more how I understood it. I do recommend getting and reading The Obesity Code, even if you are not obese. It isn't a diet. It is a better understanding of Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-82031809539185811022020-09-07T12:53:00.000-05:002020-09-07T12:53:32.054-05:00Fat man's JourneyFive years ago. I was having a lot of problems. I was 44 yrs old. I had just had my gall bladder out. My weight was 335 lbs and I was so allergic to potatoes that if I ate something that had a tiny amount of modified food (potato) starch, I would have massive spasms in my back and intestines that would leave me crippled for days, while also suffering from massive constipation. Everything I Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-1134919752537842892017-06-03T19:07:00.000-05:002017-06-03T19:07:50.409-05:00I'm BackI didn't leave on purpose. I swear it. I just had things to do. It has been a while. I am sorry. Anyway, I still have crazy thoughts. I still express myself in a stodgy, stiff old manner that people don't really relate to.
Anyway, It has been a while. I think I need to post more often, or delete the whole mess. For now, I will not delete it. I just posted a hair-brained idea I had in response toThinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-73750182020461058792017-06-03T18:50:00.003-05:002017-06-03T18:53:29.293-05:00Automation and People and LandI have been seeing a lot of prognostication lately about how automation is coming and robotics and AI is going to replace a lot of jobs. I even read one article saying that the haves will become a different species. I think a lot of these such articles are missing something important. Economics.
If we automate everyone out of a job, who will buy the products? How do we take advantage of Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-40368510613908019442015-01-21T19:00:00.000-06:002015-01-21T19:00:01.586-06:00Discernment and DiscriminationDiscrimination is a much maligned word. People use it most often to describe unfair or hostile treatment of broad groups of innocent people. Whole sections of our federal code address the evils of discrimination. Millions of people have been victims of discrimination when seeking employment, attending school, searching for a home, or even where they shop.
However, discrimination may not be Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-65728994618309498312015-01-15T18:53:00.001-06:002015-01-15T18:54:56.968-06:00New Checks and Balances needed.The US Constitution was one of the most revolutionary documents in history. Many of the ideas it enshrined may not have originated with the founders, but it was the first time they were put in place as a foundation for government. One of the most important and revolutionary ideas it put in place was the concept of checks and balances between the different branches of government. It has protected Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-88377656568722377322013-07-26T15:31:00.000-05:002013-07-26T15:31:35.413-05:00The Startup: Best option for retirement.So, I am 42. I have no retirement. I had some at one point, but had some brilliant idea that if I fixed my house up (cause otherwise it would have either fallen down or been condemned) then, it would be a pretty good place for my family to live and we would have a decent amount of equity built up. So I cashed out my retirement and by the time I got the place fixed up, most of our equity Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-78653578367281968502013-07-12T23:56:00.002-05:002013-07-13T00:00:17.079-05:00Self sufficiency, the global economy, and 3D printing.For a long time, I have had a dream of being self sufficient. I would like to have my own land that is paid for, generate my own electricity, raise my own food, provide my own materials, and pretty much live without having outside expenses. Yeah, I know, that certainly does not seem practical in the current day. Especially when taking into account high technology and our interconnected economies Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-40796810656075556502013-06-28T15:04:00.001-05:002013-07-12T23:59:17.365-05:00Caring for the poor. Teaching them to fish might not be enough.We have a lot of poor people in this world. But what is meant by poor can mean a lot of different things in different places. I really don't thing anyone would disagree that a single mother in Central America that has only a piece of dirt with no electricity, running water, toilets, or even a roof overhead is poor. One of my neighbors recently went there trying to help the extremely poor, and metThinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-59810731668848672782013-03-11T15:32:00.000-05:002013-07-12T23:58:22.638-05:00Is growing income inequality inevitable?I recently had a short twitter conversation with @RepBrianKing regarding wealth and income inequality. He had posted a link to this YouTube video that discusses the subject. I had responded that "our policies that have become more slanted towards so called socialism, have made things worse not better" and later that "Income inequality is a big threat, but neither socialist nor conservative Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-80303768502824165332012-11-23T17:47:00.000-06:002012-11-23T17:47:41.255-06:00Let it simmer.I am a politics junky. No this isn't about politics (mostly), it is about me and thinking and keeping myself from doing stupid things I end up regretting later. I have seen a variety of comments that are quite similar in many ways, but the basic gist is, when something happens, and you have a reaction that is closely coupled with emotion, it is often good personal policy to sleep on it. Give it aThinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-75725635226012535002012-06-10T11:01:00.001-05:002012-11-23T17:19:52.330-06:00Taking the long view
As I think about the various factors the influence the way individuals live their lives, one of the most influential seems to be the longevity of their perspectives. What I mean is the time frame of their outlook on life, their goals and ability to be both patient and persistent. When people look at the long term, they act different then when they only look at the short term. I have tried to Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-10401177677994033632012-05-23T23:32:00.001-05:002012-05-23T23:55:18.784-05:00Our future as a country may not be in our handsOur political future, and, by extension, our economic future may be out of our hands. If the economy improves before election day, I fully expect Obama to win reelection. If he does win, between his socialist/fascist agenda and his corrupt moral policies, this country will no longer be the land of the free or the greatest country on earth, and would soon begin to tear itself apart. If the economyThinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-20015233940223438552012-05-19T12:25:00.001-05:002012-11-23T17:18:23.922-06:00Planning app
I would like to see an effective app for helping me plan. And not just one kind of planning, but all kinds of planning. It should be effective at helping me prioritize, even helping me figure out the pros and cons to various options. It should also be able to interact with my various calendars to help me schedule the parts of my plan that I am making. It should work on my phone or on the Web. Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-26281239042618226562012-05-19T04:44:00.001-05:002012-11-23T17:17:26.608-06:00Interpersonal paradox
Lesson learned from conversation in the middle of the night: If you want to change others, you have to change yourself. If you want to change yourself, you have to focus on how you treat others. It is when you focus on yourself that you are more likely to have problems with how other people's actions affect you.
I think most of us can identify examples of this at work in our own lives. If we Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-55722540029115039262012-05-18T08:11:00.001-05:002012-05-18T08:14:08.677-05:00Trying a mobile appSo, after resisting for a long time, I finally got a smart phone. I have used it for a couple of months, and am now experimenting with what else I can do with it. Some things are really great, like email, and others not so great, like looking for a rental home in Utah. I have thought about what else might work well and decided to try blogging from my phone. I figure it should help keep my posts Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-3874515887869735742011-09-20T22:45:00.000-05:002011-09-20T22:45:14.183-05:00Agile EducationSo, I work mostly with computers and application development. One of the big movements or trends these days is called Agile Development. It is a methodology for creating regular incremental iterations (of 1-4 weeks, usually) of software that is highly responsive to customer needs and developed by self forming teams. To really learn more about it, a good place to start is Wikipedia.
Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-64854825217168684872011-09-19T15:08:00.000-05:002011-09-19T15:08:13.668-05:00The Logic of ReligionI have been thinking about what people believe religiously and how logic fits or doesn't fit. Now, I know, there are some of you folks out there who swear there is no connection between logic and religion, but atheists and fanatics aside, how does logic fit with our religious beliefs?
First, I guess you have to decide if you believe there is a God. There isn't a lot of hard evidence one way or Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-54373385393247604952011-07-07T12:46:00.000-05:002011-07-07T12:46:56.812-05:00What to do when a whole state goes traitor.I recently read news reports about the Eugene Oregon city council voting against the Pledge of Allegiance. My first reaction was, if they do not support the country they live in, perhaps they should not be allowed to stay. Then, there has been a lot of news about gay marriage and ongoing efforts to remove God from our society in various regions of the country. These things led me to think about Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-24792027500422848442011-05-10T17:22:00.000-05:002011-05-10T17:22:11.508-05:00The Rebirth of FeudalismYesterday, I was talking with my dad, and he was complaining about the economy and how the rich and the mega corps keep getting bigger while hurting everybody else. He talked about some statistic (that I have no idea where it comes from) that 60% of the used real estate purchases are now done with cash. It is the rich buying up the world, and making the little guys pay for it. He made the commentThinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-43686915604382898452011-04-29T10:40:00.000-05:002011-04-29T10:40:56.329-05:00Freedom, Democracy, Capitalism, Religion, and where the world is goingI read 3 articles in the a while back, that really got me to thinking about where we are, and where we are going as a country, as a world, and as humanity. I started a blog post about them, but then life happened. Now I am finishing the post. These articles, while all different, all talk about related subjects, and taken together, perhaps say more than they do individually.
These articles are Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-51548164683482374842011-04-26T15:32:00.001-05:002011-04-26T15:35:14.831-05:00Conservative politics - big business capitalism = ?With all this federal shutdown garbage and now the debt limit crisis and the completely unreasonable and unmoving positions of our elected representatives in our federal government, and in state governments across the country, I have been doing a lot of thinking. I totally agree with the whole fiscal conservatism thing, living beneath our means, paying off the debt, and limiting government... to Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-70716108148073201152010-12-08T11:08:00.003-06:002010-12-08T11:16:06.853-06:00Social insecurityAn overwhelming majority of our federal budget is spent on what we call social programs. The most famous and far reaching of these programs is Social Security. There are also numerous welfare programs, unemployment insurance, and medicare, medicaid, chip, and even many of our education programs such as the school lunch program that are part of these social programs.
But, what is the purpose of Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-83438359761612098842010-12-02T09:48:00.000-06:002010-12-02T09:48:23.537-06:00Utilities and serviceYou may have heard about the latest bruhaha with Comcast and L3 communications. There are a lot of other issues related to Comcast's behavior lately, and they are not doing anyone any favors. Comcast is easily identifiable as a Utility. The problems it seems intent on creating have always been issues with utilities.
The solution is simple. Utilities have 2 parts. There is a simple delivery Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620276471621554232.post-32132459832725701992010-11-23T12:25:00.002-06:002010-11-23T12:31:22.804-06:00Liberals, Conservatives, and AssumptionsI often find myself completely amazed at how very intelligent individuals make the most bone headed comments relating to their political perspectives. The more they espouse themselves to an extreme agenda, either liberal or conservative, the more bone headed they get. I am not talking about just an everyman on the street, but some extremely intelligent and highly successful people, who, for the Thinkinatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08293952434859113570noreply@blogger.com0