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Monday 31 October 2016

How to Choose What to Eat? Three Easy Guidelines




How do you pick what you eat?

"I listen to my body, I eat what I feel like eating" this is tricky since our natural drives (hunger, cravings, feeling full, feeling sick) are evolutionary traits that make sense in the context in which we evolved: food scarcity. When food is available all the time some of those natural drives are harder to read.
"I count calories" is a model that doesn't quite fit the purpose as discussed in a previous video...

Sources:
  • For details behind glucose metabolism, fat storage, muscle gain through short high intensity weight training: Body by Science by Doug McDuff who also gave a number of talks and interviews available on Youtube
  • Video from What I've learned describing visually the chemical reactions that take place in the body when you eat either alcohol or sugar.
  • Self-tested techniques for fat loss, slow-carb diets, blood sugar stabilisation using low GI food and muscle gain using short high intensity weight training: The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferris.
  • Healthy eating in general with justification for each food type, detailed explanations on the role of hormones in fat storage: The Calorie Myth by Jonathan Bailor.
  • Detailed explanations for the reasons behind cardiovascular disease, the role of sugar in inflammation as well as oxidation of certain categories of lipoproteins (cholesterol) and why it's not about saturated fat: The Great Cholesterol Myth by Jonny Bowden. 
  • Nutrition and metabolism from a scientific point of view, detailed explanation of why thermodynamic calorie counting is wrongly applied to food, the risk in misinterpreting statistical results from scientific papers. The World Turned Upside Down by Richard Feinman.
  • Food choices and supplementation specifically aimed at improving general mood and mental performance through fine-tuning of neurotransmitters, look up all Youtube videos by Steve Fowkes, in particular this Google talk. Steven's detailed breakdown of how body energy metabolism works is here (in the context of Alzheimer's). 
  • For cutting-edge info about nutrition, health, self-experimentation (bio-hacking): the Dave Asprey's podcast Bulletproof Radio.

Sunday 8 May 2016

Autonomous, Trustless and Unstoppable (Part 4)

How does a blockchain system establish distributed consensus?



Shooting location: Senjogahara marsh and Yuno Lake, Nikko, Japan

Sources:
Mastering Bitcoin Andreas Antonopoulos (free on-line reading, ebook on Safari Online Books).

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Sunday 20 March 2016

Autonomous, Trustless and Unstoppable (Part 3)

What functions of a bitcoin node help with building a consensus about the state of the distributed ledger?



Shooting location: Robertson Quay, Singapore

Sources:
Mastering Bitcoin Andreas Antonopoulos (free on-line reading, ebook on Safari Online Books).

Part 1
Part 2

Saturday 5 March 2016

Investing in Singapore

Indexes

The main index ETF (What is an ETF?) in Singapore is the one that tracks the Straits Time Index SDPR STI, which lists 30 Singapore blue chips.
The STI went down recently (over the past 2 months) therefore it would look like a good time to buy. 

Other indexes available in SG:
  • US: tracks the US S&P index: SPDR S&P500 ETF
  • China: United SSE 50 China ETF
  • ASEAN: CIMB FTSE ASEAN 40

Brokerage Firms

You have to open 2 accounts: 1 with a brokerage firm and one CDP account as explained here.

Outlooks

ETF recommendations 2016:
  • buy Korea/China
  • buy Indonesia
DBS ETF recommendations 2016:
  • Thailand: expect a rebound because of low oil prices.
  • Philippines: strong Peso because of steady stream of remittances coming from foreign workers.

Books

Global Expatriate's Guide to Investing (Safari Online Books)

Crowdfunding

  • CrowdCube is a UK-based company.
  • Kickstarter.