But on a positive note, and to get me out of this blue funk I seem to have dug into, a couple of hard-working, honest-days-pay friends of mine have started up a small iphone / mac development studio here in the good old city of London.

Just thought I’d wish them well, and if you’re into that kinda thing, you can always head over to their DigitalOrigins website and check out their chutzpa. They’re a good bunch, and would probably appreciate the odd email. And if you actually want any development doing, well, I couldn’t recommend anyone better.

Good luck guys! May the wind be forever in your sails!

Oh, and on a similar note, a great piece on Sky News this morning: apparently, instead of wanting to be firemen or astronauts, the new pre-teens, set to be heading up the work force in the next decade, all have their hearts set on being famous.

Good on ya X-Factor. Bravo Big Brother. You’ve introduced high aspirations into our society. I can’t wait for the whole world to become like the Truman show, all vacuous and lacking any kind of meaning or soul.

I had wondered about this kinda thing before now.

Sometimes I really do hate this messed up, fame-obsessed, money driven, something for nothing world we live in.

Ah, so very true…

What do you do when you need to get someplace that’s within walking distance, say, the coffee machine, but you just haven’t got the energy or the effort to walk? You hitch up your skirts and jump lightly onto Honda’s U3-X motorized unicycle.

Sure ya do.

Look, let’s not beat around the bush here. Any new mode of transport has got to do a heck of a lot more than what these two dangly things have done for the past few million years. I want something to replace my car. Something to zip me into town and back without breaking a sweat or getting caught in the standing traffic that plagues everywhere in Britain within spitting distance of the M25. Something that won’t get criminalized off the streets and require licensing, a number plate, and cheap car insuuuurance.

So yet more fodder for the youtube archives then. Ah well, at least we can look forward to the first U3-X faceplant.

National strikes? All I can say is good, by all means hasten your miserable end. In a year’s time you’ll all be gone, replaced with something more efficient, effective, and most assuredly not in the grip of unions who would all be extremely happy if we had never left 1970.

I’m sick and tired of this being an issue. Everyone, use DHL, use Fedex, use anything else where you can be reasonably sure your post is actually going to arrive this year. Leave the Post Office to die in a smoldering heap along with the unions; they both deserve nothing more, and it is long overdue.

Now this is more like it.

Apple are looking at releasing a touch-based tablet early next year, Verizon are upping the tempo of their next generation 4G mobile network rollout (your money-grabbing monopolistic hardline days are soooo numbered BT!), and someone has finally produced something other than photo manipulation to make touch screens worth having.

As days go, today would certainly appear to be hauling itself up there.

Actually, in the spirit of twittering, tweeting, or whatever the cool cats are calling it now, I’m going to just throw an off-the-cuff post out there, because I can, because I want to, and because I’ve nothing else at this exact moment I need to be doing.

Blogging itself hasn’t become a drag, but I’ve noticed one thing this last couple of weeks: when you’re out of the house ten hours in a day, and spending most of those hours writing, the urge to spend the spare hours, minutes and seconds writing your own material kinda slides. Just how much of the world’s creativity and passion is kept under the blanket of working all hours to pay the bills we shall perhaps never know.

But it’s been interesting times. Within the last couple of months I’ve had the opportunity to write for a couple of excellent news groups, one producing local news, another producing national technology trade news both online and off. I’ve been writing for a while now, so it kinda made sense to see how some of the big boys were doing. And it was certainly an eye-opener.

Because actually, behind the scenes, the big boys were nowhere near as big as I’d imagined. Naivete of youth some (very kind people) would say.Not necessarily a bad thing of course, but it was interesting to me, never having been exposed to such industries before. What was even more interesting though, particularly with the trade press, was how little the guys admitted to actually knowing about what they were writing about, in this case technology.

Now don’t get me wrong, these guys are good at writing. I mean really good. I mean, I can knock out a few words here or there, but when it comes to producing news, I was very much back in junior school. The quality and speed that these guys can knock out stories really is something else. I tried, and failed; it would appear to take a certain skill that I simply don’t have. Oh I’m sure I could learn it, and I’m sure it’s a skill that could be honed over time, but whether I want it is another thing.

But finding out that an interest in writing about technology is not a prerequisite for the job, kinda knocked me for six. Having been in and around the industry for fifteen years, and picking up a thing or two on my travels, I like to think the knowledge is worth something, that it’s worth writing about, and perhaps more importantly worth sharing. The truth is, that it is, but only if you are either a name or a face that people already recognise. It seems opinions carry no weight otherwise.

Perhaps this is as it should be. After all would you rather read an opinion piece by Jimmy Smith, or by Alan Sugar, regardless of quality or content? Well, perhaps a better question for some would be, which is likely to bring more viewers to the page also laden with advertising?

And this is where everything falls into place. The lack of specialist knowledge is actually fantastic, because thinking only slows you down, and faster news equals more views. If you’re lucky, more views then equates to more interest from the advertisers which makes more money for the business. Right now, it’s simply not about the news, not about the quality, the imparting of information or opinion. It’s about money. Everything else is secondary.

The fundamentals of journalism are in the process of being re-written, and everyone I spoke to acknowledged that fact. Most have been touched by redundancies, most equally are doing things that five years ago they would never have thought necessary. Comfort zones are in the process of being stretched, and none of them know where it’s going to end.

From what I’ve read and seen I see news taking a back seat to industry knowledge. I see its raw-materials being moulded and given additional value that will command greater salaries, and consequently new revenue streams. But exactly what all that means, the mediums, the quantity, quality, well, to be honest, I think we’re back at the times of the first printing press. I don’t think it’ll take decades of upheaval as then, certainly not at today’s pace of change, but it’ll take some time for things to readjust and settle into a new direction.

Whether it’s one where both they, and I, can start making a reasonable living again, is anyone’s guess.

Dammit, I’ve started twittering and now blogging seems like a real drag. Is there any hope for me? Would this blog have fitted in a tweet? Gah!!!

/sigh

I suppose it was inevitable that discussions of fitness would turn to discussions of weight loss. Which is a shame considering that, in many cases, the two actually have very little to do with each other.

What people typically mean when they talk of weight loss is fat loss; love handles, bat wings whatever, it’s fat, and it’s unwanted. So their aim is typically to get rid of this stuff. Which sounds easy enough. Unfortunately evolution has dictated otherwise.

Y’see, bodies are designed to be great at holding on to fat. In fact, the body stores fat much more easily than it gets rid of it. Way back when we were busy designing wheels and marvelling at fire, food was pretty scarce. Never knowing when the next meal was going to stroll by gave bodies good cause to get efficient at both storage and use. Which is why not only does it store fat easily, it really hates letting it go again.

So you might think it would make sense to drop your calorie intake, starving your body and dropping weight and dress size in the process. The trouble is our bodies are wise to that little escapade; if they witness a significant drop in calorie intake, they go into what some call a “famine mode”, simply holding on even tighter to the fat reserves they already have. A lot of what actually disappears ends up being muscle, far easier to convert into fuel than fat. Hitting yourself with the latest killer diet more often than not gets you weaker and less healthy whilst maintaining existing fat levels.

If that doesn’t sound bad enough, partaking of such activities actually stores up even more problems for the future. Fat takes fewer calories to maintain than muscle; even in a state of rest muscle is busily chewing through calories. If you reduce your muscle mass, you’re lowering the amount of calories burnt in any given activity, slowing your metabolism, and increasing the likelihood that anything you’re eating will get stored as more fat. What makes this even less fun, is that, when you come off your diet and go back to eating “normally”, guess what? Yup, the problem gets worse, because there’s even less muscle to now burn the original calorie intake, meaning even more fat storage.

Gees, what a gip huh? It almost seems like you’re screwed whatever you do. Well, when it comes to dieting, you probably are.

But there is a solution, and of course we all know what it is. We might like to think otherwise, in fact a whole industry banks on it, but we know the only way of keeping fat down and strength and fitness up is to eat healthy fresh food, whilst exercising regularly. The body, much like the mind, needs a constant workout to keep it in good form.

So that’s it then? As simple as that? If I stay focused and work hard I’m going to be in a size 6 by the Summer holidays?

Erm, not quite. We need another reality check. Firstly, as noted, fat takes a long time to remove from the body, in some cases years, and what makes it worse is the less you have, the longer it takes. Law of diminishing returns dontcha know. Also, and this is what gets most people running, or perhaps gently strolling, for the hills, and why the term “weight loss” needs to be stricken from modern society, putting on muscle will not only make you bigger, it will also make you heavier.

And that’s about the point at which a thousand gym memberships get cancelled.

But before you make that call, listen up. Contrary to modern-day programming, getting bigger and heavier when you start out exercising is actually a good thing. An increase in size is a natural consequence of building up new muscle underneath the layers of fat that haven’t gone yet. But you need this first before that fat will go.

What you also need to see during this difficult period is an increase in weight, and this is where all scales should get thrown out of the window. Put simply, muscle weighs more than fat. Now you may end up weighing less overall once your fat levels have lowered, but until that time comes, there is every chance you will end up weighing more.

The good thing about both of these things is that if you see them happening, you know you’re on the right road. You’re getting healthier and stronger whilst increasing your ability to burn incoming calories, to burn fat reserves, and to get even stronger and fitter in the years to come.

It’s a long hard journey, but you know what? Not only will you be blown away by the real benefits gained, you’ll also be quite happily enjoying that chocolate cake with friends happy in the knowledge that you’ve damn well earned it.