Exercise is brain food - slowly, a theory of why

Years ago I was skeptical of research claiming that exercise was not only associated with better memory and perhaps better cognition, but that it also improved memory and cognition.

The results keep coming though, including some interesting animal models. So, I'm starting to believe. The case for building one's life around exercise is stronger than ever.

It would be helpful, though, to have some plausible mechanism for why exercise should help memory. Hand waving about sloshing blood is not persuasive. This is more interesting ...

Exercise and your brain: Why working out may help memory: Scientific American Blog

A new study shows that sugar may not be so sweet for the brain – and may lead to memory problems.

Researchers from four universities report in the Annals of Neurology that people who absorb glucose more slowly than those who metabolize it quickly are more forgetful and are more likely to have a faulty dentate gyrus, a pocket in the hippocampus section of the brain. The hippocampus is involved with learning and memory formation....

... Glucose metabolism naturally slows with age, and memory begins to decline in our 30s, says co-author Scott Small, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. The new study suggests a possible association between the two, because elevated blood sugar appears to damage the dentate gyrus, Small says.

The dentate gyrus's exact function is unknown. But it's one of several circuits in the hippocampus that, if disrupted, impairs memory, such as a person's ability to learn the names of new people or to remember where they parked their car.

The possible connection between its dysfunction and poor glucose regulation may explain earlier observations that exercise benefits the dentate gyrus, Small says. Until now, scientists believed that physical activity reduced the risk of age-related memory loss by allowing glucose to be absorbed more quickly into muscle cells, but were not sure why. This indicates, Small says, that the dentate gyrus could be the missing link...

Obviously these are incremental results that, in isolation, don't merit a news article. The key is that they're part of a trend focusing on the effects of exercise on glucose update, and how that may alter performance of flaky brain components that are long past their warranty period.

So how do we build our lives around exercise? It's not like there are open slots to fill in -- our family gave up on watching TV in the last century and we really can't do less household work. So other good things have to go - sleep (bad idea), social time, family time, home maintenance, reading, study, work ...

Sir Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett, the brilliant satirist and writer, is now Sir Terry ...

Terry Pratchett knighted in Queen's new year honours list | The Australian

... Pratchett, 60, best known for his satirical Discworld fantasy series, becomes a knight, one of the queen's most important honours, and will now be addressed as a 'Sir'.

'There are times when phrases such as 'totally astonished' just don't do the job,' he said. 'I am of course delighted and honoured and needless to say, flabbergasted.'

In December 2007 Pratchett announced he had a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's disease, and earlier this year he donated $725,000 to research into the disorder...

Discworld news has the best coverage.

Tonight, if we ever get the children to bed, Emily and I will watch the second half of Hogfather (buy DVD signed by Pratchett) in honor of the season. Re-reading the book and watching the movie is our new holiday tradition. Death makes a very satisfying Santa. (The movie, incidentally, tracks the book too closely to work as cinema, but it's a joy for fans.)

I've read about between 35 to 37 of Terry Pratchett's books (including all 33 of the Discworld Series) - including those allegedly written for children. There's not a one that I didn't enjoy, or that I wouldn't read again and again. He is a genius and a gentleman.

Welcome to the Year of the Pensive Hare Sir Terry!

A thorough review of DRM 2008 - Gizmodo Australia

I came across this Gizmodo Australia review of DRM because it happened to link to a Gordon's Tech post I'd done on DRM issues with downloaded apps for the Wii, and a query turned up the connection.

It's an good reference review; we've come a long way since the days of products that allowed one to duplicated "copy-protected" floppy (yes, in those days they were floppy - 5.25") disks. I think oen product was called something like "Copy II PC"?

DRM is the reason that video games went form desktop machines to consoles. So DRM isn't fundamentally bad, but it becomes malign when too much power accrues to copyright owners. The key to a reasonably use of DRM technology is a healthy political process of negotiation and compromise ...

Price fixing investigations of SMS texting: also ask about instant messaging

In reign of the Dark Lord antitrust enforcement languished. The Marketarian religion did not admit to imperfections requiring government attention.

In the recovery new light is being cast where dark things have grown ...

Digital Domain - What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting

... Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carriers from 2005 to 2008, during a time when the industry consolidated from six major companies to four...

A lot of things changed when the Democrats took the senate. (Thank you, thank you, Senator Tim Johnson). This was one of them.

I hope Senator Kohl will look beyond the price fixing of SMS messages into the more interesting questions of conspiracy to block instant messaging alternatives.

In particular, I think it will be interesting to ask Apple's management to discuss what happened to the Push notification that was supposed to come to the iPhone in August of 2008. That service would have enabled effective iPhone instant messaging, which would have devastated the iPhone SMS revenue that goes to both AT&T and Apple. Once slated for the OS 2.2 Push notification vanished without explanation.

Anyone have an in to Senator Kohl? I would really love to hear the answers to those questions ...

Amazon MP3 - how did they make such a mess of it?

I earned a $5 Amazon MP3 credit, so I figured I'd give their DRM free music a try.

The first artist I tried, a Jazz vocalist, had only a few albums available on Amazon.

So I figured I'd try the Dixie chicks.

Sure enough, Amazon had some tunes, but the layout is a mess and browsing is a slow and awkward experience. A piece of the left side of the screen is given over to advertising.

Huh? An ad next to the music listings? I thought they were trying to sell music.

It smells like they've given up. Well, at least prior purchases are DRM-free. Nothing will disappear when Amazon exits this business.

Update 1/6/09: iTunes music is almost all DRM free now. Amazon's experiment is done.

WaMu and the problem with index funds

Like everyone else, we've been wondering what we did wrong. What can we learn from the WaMu story?

We were, after all, WaMu investors, albeit indirectly. We own index funds that, at one time or another, probably owned shares of WaMu. The track record of the low expense index funds has been very good since John Bogle, an honorable man, pioneered them at Vanguard. The thesis has been that money managers, when their salaries and other overheads are included, can't beat index funds. Of course, there have been exceptions.

Hmm. Maybe any money manager who beats index funds should be immediately investigated by the SEC.

But I digress.

The problem with index funds is that they're only as smart as the market, and only as good as publicly traded companies. If the market's regulatory frameworks are broken, if corruption is on a historically seasonal upswing, if the world is too complex to detect theft, then index funds are just a way to get taken.

The problem is, obviously, that index funds are only as good as the publicly traded company.

So are there any alternatives to index funds for the retail investor?

See also:

1. Complexity collapse
2. Disintermediating Wall Street
3. The future of the publicly traded company
4. The role of the deadbeats
5. Firewalls and separation of powers
   
6. Marked!
   

Life imitates art - the WaMu story

Well, not exactly. Cliches are much more common in life than in art ...

The Reckoning - WaMu Built an Empire on Bad Loans - Series - NYTimes.com

...While Mr. Parsons, whose incarceration is not related to his work for WaMu, oversaw a team screening mortgage applications, he was snorting methamphetamine daily, he said.

“In our world, it was tolerated,” said Sherri Zaback, who worked for Mr. Parsons and recalls seeing drug paraphernalia on his desk. “Everybody said, ‘He gets the job done.’ ”

At WaMu, getting the job done meant lending money to nearly anyone who asked for it — the force behind the bank’s meteoric rise and its precipitous collapse this year in the biggest bank failure in American history...

We really need to try a different sentient species. Personally I like dogs.

This was novel though ...

...WaMu turned real estate agents into a pipeline for loan applications by enabling them to collect “referral fees” for clients who became WaMu borrowers...

Dark humor aside, there's one interesting question about all this.

Why are we reading about this now?

It's not as though WaMu was subtle.

I would really like to know the story about why there was no story.

Update: Thinking more about why there was no story. A hypothesis -- that business journalists interact with the wrong level of a corporation. They interact with senior management, who are more fun and who can provide favors, tips, and ad revenue. The real story is further down the value chain, hence invisible.

Provigil enthusiam: I bet on accelerated aging

Judith Warner makes the case for putting Provigil in the water.

Synchronously, the NYT writes about the odd relationship between sleeplessness and heart disease, one of series of studies over the past few years showing relationships between limited sleep and disorders associated with aging.

Free lunches are exquisitely rare.

There's no way any studies done to date would be sensitive enough to detect a 10-20% acceleration of aging associated with long-term Provigil (modafinil) use. Animal models might show the relationship, but they'd have to use animals with a relatively long lifespan.

I bet we'll learn that regular Provigil use that reducing an individual's sleep needs from 8 to 6 hours a night also significantly accelerates aging.

Just a hunch.

Living well with less energy - lessons from tobacco

If we had the right price signals, we could live well with far less energy that we use now.

Consider the passively heated home. It's a marvel of efficient engineering and, in some climates, can operate without a dedicated furnace.

Of course we can't rebuild all our homes this way, but it's easy to imagine that, over the next twenty-five years, per capita US energy consumption could fall by 3-5% a year even as GDP rises.

Of course that won't happen with oil company ads urging energy conservation. Those remind me of tobacco ads urging health lifestyles. You know, the ads the tobacco companies ran when they were trying to fend off cigarette taxes.

The tobacco taxes came, and, shock, twenty years later public smoking is rare in Minnesota.

It's very hard to stop smoking, but people did it. It's easier never to start smoking, and people did that too. The campaign against smoking is a blueprint for transforming America's energy habit.

The campaign needs to start with price signals. Without them we're just pretending. Regulations are a feeble substitute for a serious carbon tax.

Today the NYT Editorial page called for a gasoline tax offset by other tax reductions. This is only the beginning of what will be a long and terrible political process that will need support from every friend of reason.

If we're lucky carbon and gas taxes will be a core campaign issue in 2008. It will be a tough campaign of course, we know the GOP will continue their war against civilization and reason, we know the GOP will do everything possible to leave the human world a smoldering ruin*.

I hope you've enjoyed your pre-inaugural rest, but that's over now.

* Which makes the GOP, ironically, a sort of Green party -- but that's another story.

12/28/08: Uh-Oh. Friedman agrees. Which reminds me that gasoline and carbon taxes are quite different. A gasoline tax that leads to electric cards powered by coal-fueled plants would be an absolute disaster. The primary argument for a gasoline tax is to reduce dependency on Saudi Arabia, but I suspect that's a misguided mission. The carbon tax is what we need; a gasoline tax is secondary.

Get ready to refinance your mortgage?

Krugman points out that there are relatively easy and benign ways for the treastury to lower mortgage interest rates. They are currently anomalously high compared to treasury interest rates (less than 0% currently).

For many people the safest investment these days is accelerating mortgage payments. Alas, that doesn't provide a lot of economic oomph; it's one of the reasons tax cuts don't yield much stimulus. People just use the tax cut to pay down their mortgages. That's what we'd do.

On the other hand, if we are able to refinance at a significantly lower rate, we have less incentive to pay down our mortgage and we have more cash to spend or invest. (It has to be pretty damned low though, our current rates are pretty low already.)

So this sounds like something an Obama administration might push. I'll watch for a refinancing opportunity come February.

Weather wimps of Minnesota

Humans are adaptable …

Welcome to the Coldest Town on Earth: Scientific American

… Oymyakon's natives have learned to adapt to the freezing conditions: the town's only school closes only when temperatures sink below minus 61.6 degrees Fahrenheit…

They’re looking forward to a –90 F day soon. That’s without the “wind chill”.

We Minnesotans get all worked up over –40 F.

We’re wimps.

Quick reminder: GDP and money turnover

Easy for the non-economist to forget. This comes from the Bush I administration ...

Bruce Bartlett - How to Get the Money Moving - NYTimes.com

... When everyone in the economy suddenly stops spending, the number of times that money turns over falls. Since the gross domestic product equals the money supply times its rate of turnover — something economists call velocity — this means that if the money supply is unchanged then G.D.P. must fall.

Theoretically, the Federal Reserve can compensate for a decline in velocity by increasing the money supply. But in times like these it is very hard for it to do so because of something economists call a liquidity trap. When this occurs, the Fed cannot inject liquidity into the economy because its normal means of doing so no longer works. In a liquidity trap, trying to expand the money supply is like trying to push on a string.

Normally the Fed expands the money supply by buying Treasury bills and paying for them by creating money out of thin air. When it wants to contract the money supply it does the reverse, putting Treasury bills from its portfolio on the market and drawing money out of the economy when financial institutions pay for them.

But when interest rates on Treasury bills fall to zero this process doesn’t work because money is essentially nothing but a perpetual government bond that pays no interest. If the Fed creates money to buy a Treasury bill that pays zero interest, it accomplishes nothing, economically. All it does is trade one government security for another that is virtually identical. There is no net increase in liquidity.

Under these circumstances, when the normal rules don’t apply, the government must find more creative ways to ease credit conditions and get the economy moving again.

First, it needs to increase the budget deficit. This expands the amount of Treasury bills in circulation and is the same as expanding the money supply, which is necessary to keep G.D.P. from shrinking due to a fall in velocity.

Second, the Fed needs to revise its operating procedures. Instead of buying only T-bills it needs to buy securities with positive interest rates. These include longer-term Treasury bonds and securities issued by government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae. If necessary, the Fed could also buy corporate bonds, state and local government bonds, or even bonds issued by foreign governments.

Third, the government must try to raise velocity by stimulating aggregate spending in the economy. This is harder than it sounds. Buying bonds and securities may expand liquidity, but it doesn’t increase spending. And we know from experience that tax rebates don’t work because people save them...

Sounds Krugmanesque.

How Microsoft can use Google Blogger's missing backlinks

Microsoft may yet fall to the ghost of Netscape Constellation.

That would be a good thing if Microsoft is merely shattered, and returns as a dozen newly competititive enterprises. We don't want to replace one oppressive monopoly with another.

So, how can we help keep Microsoft in the game? They do have a few options to play -- in addition to a thermonuclear patent attack.

For example, Google won't give me the Blogger backlinks (possibly related posts) I want. This is bad news; those backlinks are a key part of my manical GordonGeek-Metamind interface strategy, aka Project Xanadu. So if Google won't give 'em to me, maybe Microsoft will. [1]

Happily, Microsoft has several ways to play here. I'll outline just one approach, one that leverages Windows Live Writer (my all-OS favorite desktop app) and ties it to Windows Live Search, Microsoft Passport (Live ID), and Microsoft Live Spaces while facilitating an incremental Blogger to Live Spaces migration.

1. Introduce the concept of domain-scoped search to Live Search, just as Google Custom Search can be used to constrain search to multiple domains.
   
2. Write a plugin for Windows Live Writer 2009 that emulates the WordPress Possibly Related service -- call it "WLW Related". When users go to use the new function they'll be asked to enter their Windows Live ID, then to specify groups of domains to search.
3. Windows Live will store this configuration on Live servers.
4. Users will then be invited to optionally replicate their posts to a Microsoft Live Space which they can then create (bound to the Live ID they just created). The advantage of the Live Space will be that the backlinks created there will be dynamic.
5. After initial setup future posts in WLW will always display a dynamically updated set of possibly related posts based on shared labels, and lexical analysis of the post title and body. The possibly related list will be organized by the search domains defined above. All or parts of the list URLs can be appended to the end of a blog post.
6. If users opt for the optional replication of the blog posts to Spaces, they'll benefit there an optional dynamically updating "show related" set of links.
7. Lastly, add an import function to Spaces that works with Google's Blog export data format. This should include dynamic updating of links so that self-referential blogspot URLs are rewritten as needed.
   

In short, Microsoft can leverage their tremendous advantage in desktop applications (Windows Live Writer) to ease the migration path from Blogger to Spaces, and they can provide functionality geeks appreciate -- while thumbing their nose at Google.

Give it a try Microsoft. Maybe I'll switch ...

-- footnotes --

[1] There aren't a lot of alternatives. Apple is busy recreating the mistakes of the 1980s. They're creating a closed software world that's going to compete with Google's (relatively) open alternative. In other words, they're Apple 1984 and Google is Microsoft 1984 (ok, so Google is nowhere near as evil as Microsoft was in those days).

Yahoo can't help either. They're waiting to be acquired. Startups are nice, but they need to figure out a Dapocalypse solution.

Why Google loves Chrome: Netscape Constellation

Google is serious about Chrome. The Google Pack now include Chrome rather than Firefox. Google is paying vendors to put Chrome on new machines rather than IE or Firefox. Soon Google will pay for Chrome/Linux to go on sub-$250 Linux netbooks, and they'll begin moving the Target Trutech netbook purchase price to zero.

Why is Google so serious about yet another browser?

I still see pundits asking that question, even though I answered it four months ago.

Alas, that particular meme injection looks like a total fail. I tested today on Google, Windows Live, and AOL search [4]. I found my personal post and precisely one other hit -- a comment replicated across dozens of identical spam blog (splog) posts [1],[2] (no links since the source is a splog):

... Google is not the only think-tank pursuing the 'browser-as-desktop'-concept... and far from the first. Does anyone remember 'Netscape Constellation'? That is very likely the reason Gates and Balmer finally unleashed the hounds on Marc Andreessen & Company... and probably the primary reason why 'Netscape' (in name) has been relegated to foot-note status, in internet history...

So there are at least two living people who remember Constellation, and think Google is playing the same cards -- from a vastly stronger hand. As Machiavelli taught us, old strategies never die. They just wait to be played at the right time.

For a second try at a meme injection, I'll reference a fragment of the irreplaceable but forgotten BYTE magazine (1975-1998) written in 1997 by Tom (electric brain) Halfhill [3] (emphases and footnotes mine):

March 1997 / Cover Story / Net Applications: Will Netscape Set the Standard? / Constellation: The Network-Centric Desktop (Tom Halfhill, 1997)

Microsoft and Netscape both want to change how users interact with their computers in a wired world. But each company wants to steer those changes in a different direction. Whoever prevails will probably determine the face of computing for the next decade. [5]

Both companies are preparing for an age of ubiquitous networking in which users enjoy fast access to immense resources on LANs, WANs, and the Internet..

Microsoft's Active Platform -- manifested on a PC as Active Desktop -- leverages the market dominance of Windows by blending the user interfaces of Windows and the Web...

... Netscape's Constellation takes a less Windows-centric approach and puts more emphasis on location-independent computing, regardless of the platform. No matter what kind of system you're using or where you are, Constellation presents a universal desktop called the Homeport . Although the Homeport can appear in a browser window, Netscape usually demonstrates it as a full-screen layer that buries the native OS -- certainly one reason Microsoft is not embracing Constellation.

Constellation will work on about 18 different OSes because it's created entirely with HTML, JavaScript, and Java. Netscape envisions the Homeport as the new base for launching local or remote applications and for accessing the network. It's location-independent because Constellation can save the Homeport's state (including all data files cre ated or modified during a session) on a server... Constellation lets you save copies of your files on the local machine, encrypt the copies, or securely erase all local traces of your session.

Constellation can receive infostreams through Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Marimba Castanet, and the PointCast Network. HTTP and SMTP are the more conventional methods...

... Netscape sees more platform fragmentation. Users will access networks from Windows PCs, of course, but also from Macs, Unix systems, network computers, home videogame consoles, Web appliances, and mobile devices of every stripe. They won't all run Windows. Netscape also expects more users to borrow time on computers they don't own; for example, business travelers might answer e-mail on network computers in airports and hotels....

Where you read "Netscape Constellation", just insert "Google Chrome-stellation".

Chrome only makes sense as the foundation for Google's fundamental computing strategy, a strategy that will make full use of ultra-inexpensive (free?) netbooks, subsidized Android phones, massive network resources, and, incidentally, any Windows or OS X machine.

Chrome is where Google will start to deliver functionality that, until now, has required desktop clients.

Will Chrome-stellation succeed where Constellation failed? Microsoft now is vastly wealthier than it was in 1997.

I think there's a good chance it will work -- reason enough to consider purchasing Google stock. Microsoft is hobbled by antitrust restrictions, and the inevitable senescence [6] of the publicly traded company. Google has vastly more cash and talent than Netscape ever had, and they're not going to repeat Netscape's error of trash talking the Beast. Chrome is open source, which radically reduces the risk that Google will run into anti-trust or nationalist objections. Not least of all, those netbooks are going to wreak havoc on Microsoft's business strategy -- while only strengthening Google.

Phew. Now to check back in four more months and see if there are more than 3 relevant hits on "Google Chrome" "Netscape Constellation".

[1] Incidentally, Windows Live does a remarkably lousy job of filtering out splogs.
[2] The role of splogs in propagating memes is irresistibly reminiscent of viral propagation of gene fragments.
[3] Ironically, some suspect BYTE was collateral damage from Microsoft's scorched earth campaign against Netscape/Constellation.
[4] It occurred to me that if Google really was doing a Constellation play, they'd have learned enough from the obliteration of Netscape to keep very quiet. Maybe they'd even keep the meme from their search rankings. Now that would have been an interesting story, but it turns out that Google, as usual, had the best results by an order of magnitude.
[5] Microsoft prevailed of course, but they only got to rule unchallenged for about 6-7 years, then Google took the lead. Still, not far off.
[6] To which Apple has been the great exception, but I think they lost their way about 1-2 years ago. Google has a funny ownership structure that might give them a few more good years before the go under. Long enough, maybe, to implement "Chromestellation".

Excellent Cheney take down

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate has written a methodical and esssential dismantling of Cheney's latest ravings. Our current VP is smart enough to qualify as evil rather than merely bad and delusional; he's Bush without the deniability.

If there's any kind of justice in the world Cheney will eventually find himself unable to travel without fear of arrest and prosecution. If there's true justice in America, he'll do time.