Categories
MS

How feeling good can make me depressed

My doctor and I have been trying to figure out why I’m so tired. With the tiredness comes brain fogs, memory laser, etc. He suggested that perhaps I’m not sleeping well and that’s leading to the fatigue. I’ve done some things to try to sleep better, different position, different medicines, etc. I think I am sleeping better, but I still get really tired.

Another easy reason why I could be tired and not sleeping as well as I could be is that I’m out of shape. There’s no question that I am. It’s a terrible cycle. I have no energy, so I don’t exercise. Since I don’t exercise, I have no energy. Lather, rinse, repeat… I have been getting myself geared up to start going to the gym, knowing that getting in shape will fight back the fatigue. If I added some more muscle mass, got some cardio in, I’d sleep better, I’d have more energy, etc. Yup, that’s the ticket, if I’d just get off my butt and exercise, I’d be better in no time.

THose are good, hopeful thoughts. The promise of better times is a good motivator even if I really hate going to the gym. Well, I woke up on thursday and felt good. Dare I say it, I even felt… normal. I woke up refreshed, with energy, my legs didn’t give me any trouble, my balance was fine, clear head, the whole 9 yards. I didn’t even take breaks at work, I just didn’t think of it. That lasted for two days and it was great. But then I woke up on the third day and I was back to my regular exhaustion.

The thought occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten into any better shape over the last three days. My improvement was simply a whim of the disease. It decided that I was going to feel good on those days, and then it decided that I wasn’t. It’s sobering to think that you have no control over how you feel day to day. It eventually sunk in that even if I were to get into better shape, there’s no guaranty  that I’d actually feel better. If I did feel better, my overall feeling will still be at the whim of the disease. SIGH.

I’m going to start going to the gym soon. I need to try to stave off other health issues, but man, it’s going to be tough to get too excited to go.

Categories
technology

Happy 20th birthday World Wide Web!

Can you believe it? It’s been twenty years since the web rolled out. I was surfing the internet before there was a graphical interface, and I went to BBSs before that. Everything was done by command line and it was exhilarating to be able to find info from all around the world. Gopher servers and WAIS were fascinating to me. Spent a lot of time on USENET, remember that? Didn’t think so…

 

A couple of years after I was out of college, I was over at a friend’s house and saw my first actual web site. It was a search portal called Web Crawler. I later found Lycos. I was hooked all over again. All own this was done over dial up of course, so sites were pretty rudimentary. There are still a few relics live on the web from that time period. Check out the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics page from 1997.

 

Web

It should load pretty fast since there really isn’t much to it. Can you believe how that looks? That was pretty common. Text, some colors, hey it was all new and we lapped it up! We’ve come a long way in 20 years, let’s see what the next 20 bring us!

Categories
economics freedom

Reading again (political/economic stuff first)

After a protracted bout of not reading, I’m back to it. A friend gave me an iTunes card and instead of blowing it on music and TV shows (or show as it usually turns out) I bought some books. I feel very grown up… I got one new to me and an old favorite. I’m enjoying using iBooks on the iPad. I have been using an app called Stanza for most of my reading but I think I like the way iBooks looks better. There will be more purchases in the future. I am also finally getting around to a book I got for Christmas, one of the old fashioned kind.

So what am I reading? The recent ridiculousness in DC has me fuming and I have turned to a couple of books talking about politics, government and the decisions that come out of the process. First up is the old fashioned one, Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit. It is one of those books that I have always felt that I should read, but it is intimidating. Hayek wasn’t exactly the most scintillating of writers, but he was a very serious thinker. I’m only a few chapters into it, but he hasn’t disappointed so far. There are some really big ideas in there. A very short summary is that the book attempts to answer the question I’ve always had. Namely, why is socialism so attractive to so many people despite the obvious awful results that it brings about? So far, he has said that it comes down to the tension between small group dynamics, like the family, and large scale interactions that build societies. There is an inbuilt distrust of strangers and of more powerful tribes. That puts the worry about the tribe or the family in direct opposition to the things that lead to rising living standards. Hence, socialist ideas tend to sound attractive whereas allowing things to evolve without anyone’s control scares people. That’s his premise and it’s as good an explanation as I’ve ever heard. I’ll update as I go along.

 

I bought Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty because I had always heard that it was “the libertarian Bible” or some such like that. It was another book that I thought I should read. I have only read a couple of his essays, this is my first book by him. Everything I’ve read by him so far leaves me scratching my head about his “libertarian” label, he seems like a straight up anarchist. Anyway, he has some interesting things to say, especially when he puts things in a historical perspective. Libertarianism was the original “liberal.” The liberals back then were railing against the divine right of kings and the manipulations of people’s lives by him and his privileged merchants and guilds. Sometime in the 19th century the liberals joined with the powers that they had been fighting and we got the modern definition of liberal. Modern liberals invest rulers with lots of power and depend on politically connected merchants and guilds (corporations and unions) to help shape society the way they want it to be. Some things never change, and libertarianism is still as radical now as ever.

Rothbard uses some hand waving and conspiracy theories to explain why people have been following socialism in all it’s manifestations. I think Hayek has a much more nuanced and believable theory. To be fair, Rothbard glosses over that in a handful of paragraphs whereas Hayek dedicates an entire book to it. Anyway, I’m a little ways into it, I’ll see if there are any great revelations in it, his supporters would have you believe that it is the most amazing thing ever. We’ll see.

Categories
odds and ends

Charitable efforts

I don’t make a tremendous amount of money, but I’m doing OK. There are plenty of people that aren’t of course, and I’m a big believer that aid in the right way can make a big difference. I’m also of the opinion that decent people give what they can. It’s part of my general optimistic view of people in general. I hope I’m a decent person, so….

 

I’ve been giving to Kiva pretty regularly for over a year now. If there’s one thing that has taught me, it’s how giving a little bit consistantly over time can add up. I just started giving to GiveDirectly. I can’t give much each month, but they aggregate the donations that people send in and then give them to people in a larger chunk. These two charities do what I think charities should do. Kiva allows people to invest in themselves and try to make their life better. It’s for people doing OK, but struggling to take that next step. GiveDirectly is much more about people having real difficulties and mired in poverty. As I’ve written before, GiveDirectly follows my own belief that the poor folks know where that money will have the most impact and so I should allow them to spend it as they see fit. I wish I could do more, but times are tight. Hopefully in the future things will get better.

Categories
music

Amy Winehouse (drugs)

I was saddened when I head about her death. I had hoped that she was going to turn it around. I still hold out hope that she didn’t fall off the wagon, maybe her body just gave out after years of abuse. I know, reason tells me that isn’t the case…

 

It may seem strange to post a song from another group in an Amy WInehous post, but I think it fits. Drug use is always sad, this song captures that sadness and the video (scenes from The Panic in Needle Park) really sums up for me how life devolves when you’re locked in that cycle. RIP Amy, hope you can have some peace from all your troubles now.

 

Categories
economics

Raise the Debt Ceiling!

I don’t know what it is about rap and economics, but here’s another one that works really well. No, it doesn’t talk about what might happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, but it does a good job putting what raising it actually means.

 

Nobody wants a default, but we should really take a look at what we’ve been doing for the past… 30 years?

Categories
freedom odds and ends

Give directly, a great new charity

A little while ago, Tyler Cowan put together the principles of the ideal charity. You give money directly to people, that money has no strings attached, and they shouldn’t expect it. Giving directly reduces the non-charitable cost aspect of the donation. All charities have overhead, giving directly minimizes this. If the people arent expecting it, you have a much better chance of avoiding scams and corruption diverting the charitable donation.

It’s the second part that is so important, and it is also the part that so many people have problems with. Economists call things like food stamps, vouchers, etc. as “gifts in kind” and it has been known for a long time that they aren’t a very good way of giving aid if the primary aim is to help people. Poor people are like anyone else, they need money for different things. When you give cash, they can apply it to whatever their most urgent need is. It might in fact be food, but it could just as easily be paying off debts, legal help, maintanince, or even investing or savings.

“But they might spend it on drugs or prostitutes!” Yeah, they might. A former professor summed up that attitude with the sarcastic comment, “Oh, I like the poor, but I don’t trust them!” If we want the poor to get better, and if we want to help them, we have to allow them to make their own decisions and use money the way they need to. A more practical aspect of having no strings on the donation is that it saves the cost of monitoring them and enforcing the rules. The primary aspect of no strings donations should always be respecting who you are giving money to, it is supposed to be a charitable at after all.

GiveDirectly is a new charity based on these principles. They are working in Kenya right now because of the easy and inexpensive system for distributing cash via sim cards in place there. They are claiming a 90% effeciancy for donations. I am going to start using these guys for my monthly charitable donations along with my microfinancing thing thorugh Kiva. They are brand new, so there isn’t much information on the progran just yet, but I am willing to give it a try. I encourage you to do the same if you want to give aid directly to recipients!

Categories
MS odds and ends

Events are conspiring against me

It’s amazing how the little things in life can be blown up with MS… I needed to get the muffler fixed on the car, but they had to order the part. When could I leave it to be fixed? Well, they were going to get the part in on wednesday and I didn’t have to be at work on thursday until 1:30. Plus, the parking lot in front of my house was going to get repaved starting really early on thursday morning. This gave me a place to put the car. So I’ll just drop the car off after work and then pick it up before I go on thursday. Plus, the shop is just a bit further than my Pakistani resturants, i.e. about 4 blocks away. I figured I’d drop off the car and then walk back home.

That’s when things started to go downhill. Wednesday was also the day the heat wave kicked in. Walking the 4 blocks in the heat after a day’s work was exhausting. I managed to get the garage to pick me up the next day although I still ended up hanging out in the heat for a while before they did. Was really beat at work, but I did get through the day. I got out of work around 10. Forgot that the paving was still going on, so I had to find a parking space when I got back home. Ended up parking 5 blocks away. The walk home in the heat after the day’s work just about killed me this time.

My alarm went off at 7:30 this morning. I must have fallen asleep as soon as I turned it off, I certainly don’t remember doing it. Woke up briefly around 9:30, dragged my carcass out of bed to text work and then promptly fell asleep again. Woke up after 12, still groggy and stiff. I need to go retrieve the car after 6, the paving is supposed to be done by then. I fully anticipate being hobbled by the walk, but without the standing up for 7 hours, it’ll be doable.

Still, another day off of work, this is getting expensive. Here’s to hoping that stupid little things stop ganging up on me!

Categories
politics

Disgraceful

OK, I know I said I’m trying not to spread negativity, but this is just amazing, in a bad way. Once again, Obama is getting away with stuff that Bush and McCain never would have. If McCain had tried to do this, the pushback from the anti-war movement would have been massive. As they say in the piece below, the anti-war movement has been de-fanged by the election of Obama. He has been given carte blanche to do whatever he feels like by both the traditional anti-war folks on the left as well as the press. I find it instructive that a reporter from The Nation broke this story and this segment was on MSNBC, hardly a right wing organization. What is going on? Where is the anger? Where is the outrage? What will it take? Killing of civilians by drones? Secret CIA prisons in Somalia? Assassination orders on US citizens? If these things don’t cause widespread anger what will?

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

This drone bombing campaign of countries off stated battlefields began in 2002. The Bush administration bombed Yemen in November of 2002 targeting an alleged Al Qaeda leader. The Obama administration has dramatically increased the drone attacks around the world. In Yemen, we’ve done cruise missile strikes, drone strikes, now we’re hitting regularly in Somalia. On July 6, there were 3 U.S. strikes; June 23rd, another U.S. strike inside of Somalia. A lot of liberals used to say “the world is a battlefield” was the bush doctrine. President Obama hit harder in more countries with special ops forces from the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA than bush did. He has made possible a continuation of these policies that I think McCain would not have been able to push through because there would have been push-back through some semblance of an anti-war movement. There’s no anti-war movement that has any voice in this country anymore. Obama has legitimized and normalized, and attempted to legalize policies a lot of people were saying were immoral and illegal under president Bush.

 

Why is Obama getting away with this? Why do people not hold him to his campaign promises? His Nobel Peace prize is looking sillier every passing year…

Categories
financial odds and ends

Not a whole lot going on

I’ve been trying to not post negative blog posts, you know, the whole, “If you can’t say anything nice…” approach. The world’s financial outlook is depressing. Europe is looking less and less sound by the day, and our politicians are playing chicken with our debt obligations. Things could go just fine I suppose, but it’s looking more and more likely that there is going to be some pain coming up. Just to be on the safe side, I would hold a minimum of cash and money market funds right now, they could decrease in value quickly if things fall apart.

Enough global doom and gloom, I’ve got money issues myself. The car needs a rather expensive repair (my muffler was damaged and there aren’t any aftermarket ones) and I missed a day of work. SIGH. Wasn’t sure how I was going to take care of that, and then I remembered my savings in the form of Apple stock. Was hoping not to have to touch that, but I guess that’s what savings is for, right? Once I get this out of the way, I will be in a better mood, but man, it’s going to hurt.

Other than that, not a lot going on, working, eating, etc. Woohoo, do I know how to have a good time or what?