Losing Work

Probably one of the most hateful experiences has to do with losing minutes or hours of writing work. I love my iPad — combined with the Apple external Bluetooth keyboard — as the perfect tool for writing my articles and blogs. You can’t beat the tool for that kind of work. It’s kind with the environment — burns very little electricity — and it’s extremely easy to take wherever you go.

The problem has to do with applications to create content. Of course, your iPad comes with the Notebook, a great application. It’s always in control of the spellchecking system and never loses a single character. It’s an extremely trustworthy application. However, it doesn’t help at all when you like to write using commands to generate rich text.

Pages is out of the question. It has become an extremely slow application — in my iPad1— and it isn’t flexible at all concerning output in different formats. If you write articles for Blogs, forget it! I like to generate html code, and Pages doesn’t understand or care about that possible need.

One excellent application used to be — and still is — Blogsy. It was specifically created to make the life of bloggers a lot easier when they write using their iPads — not iPhones. The only drawback with Blogsy has to do with a rather constant problem with all iPad writing applications: you need to touch the screen with your fingers in order to generate rich text words, titles, lists, etc. If you’re a touch typist, you simply don’t want to separate your fingers from the keyboard.

That’s where Markdown — and all the applications that take advantage of it — comes into play. Using the MarkDown system, the writer can type and generate rich text without ever taking her fingers away from the keyboard. Phraseology is just one more application that takes advantage of the MarkDown system. It’s incredibly simple, but this isn’t the right place to get an explanation about it.

As I’m typing — using my iPad — I suddenly notice that the program isn’t underlying the misspelled words anymore. That is, it had been doing it, but then, suddenly, it simply stopped doing it. When this happens, it’s a real hassle; you can’t know right away if your text is coming out all right. It seems to be all right, but since the spellchecker is resting — or whatever, Apple People could give us a hint, because the fault is in all applications, except the native ones — but it might not be OK. One can’t know, unless one types a crazy combination — a sure misspelled word — like kisharma — whoa! it’s working, so far — and as it appears underlined with the red little dots, you know you’ve made a mistake.

Phraseology is a rather decent application. So far, I haven’t lost an article. However, if I need to paste the html code in Blogsy, I need to make it in 2 steps: 1) I need to copy and paste into yet another application — Textastic — and then, 2) from there I obtain the html code, that I will be able to paste into Blogsy or directly into the Blog Web Editor — they all accept html.

When I leave my city to stay at a far away place to write my book — and screenplay — I will want to take with me nothing but my iPad, and of course, the aluminum Apple bluetooth keyboard. I just hope all of these applications will have already been perfected to the point of Zero Faults. Something tells me that I will leave for my trip before the Zero Faults condition is met.

I spent most of my active life using Windows® PCs, until the iPhone appeared. I was unable to resist the iPad. I haven’t tested any other tablets out there. However, let me tell you that if the Mother Of All Tablets has all of these faults, flaws and drawbacks — applications crash or slow down — then the world is still rather far from overcoming the PC.

Did I mention that the most expensive keyboard in the world — the Apple Aluminum Bluetooth — doesn’t have an On/Off switch? Do they have a special commission from the battery companies? I know, it’s extremely economical as far as using batteries is concerned — a set of two, lasts for about 3 months, using it 3 hours daily — but, why the lack of switch? I take out the batteries when I won’t be using it for a while; and I need to do it during transportation, or else the keyboard is “live”, looking for matching equipment — and wastefully burning batteries!

Your "LifeStyle" Affects Everybody

Politics and science tend to mix in detrimental ways. We always lose when politics tries to influence science. If science is honest, we always win when science influences politics.

It is not political that one very specific amino acid, present in animal protein, has been found to be a positive catalyzer of cancer development. It is a scientific fact. If the person involved in the discovery of such fact has links to any kind of political organizations, the scientific fact remains valid. It doesn’t sound intelligent in any way, to discard a fact encountered through the application of plain, good, valid science, just because the person who did the study votes for political party A or B or C.

PCRM is not the only institution in our modern world that contains names that will deny having ever signed to be part of it. AMA, more in agreement with the establishment stream, will probably include names that never specifically signed to be members. Our societies are incredibly complicated and require lots of efforts with information systems in order to keep lists up-to-date.

If Dr. Campbell were a dishonest person, we would know by now. I have seen how those things work. Sometimes, the agents ordered to make a specific personality look bad in the eyes of the general public, deny participating after meeting the personalities they would have been supposed to discredit. Dr. Esselstyn is another person, another doctor, who has been successful in substituting surgical intervention with 100% plant based diets. More than 200 individuals have been able to skip bypasses by following a strict, 100% plant based diet under the supervision of Dr. Esselstyn and his wife. They have tried myriads of ways to discredit him, until they meet them.

It is incredibly eloquent, coming from AMA, to state officially, in 2004, that milk, after all, will not be actively endorsed or discouraged. The “milk panic” perhaps had a real reason to be. Take a look at what they are now saying from the Harvard School of Medicine about what they endorse as “healthy sources of protein”. Also, try not to miss how they have — I would say, shyly — begun to lower the pitch on “milk mustaches”, once proudly shown by celebrities — at least one of them now dead from a rather typical chronic disease of the kind white robe bearers elegantly show perplexed faces, while presenting to the insurance companies giant receipts for their “professional time”.

Slowly, but solidly, something is happening that hasn’t been made public. In the years to come we will see insurance bills being lowered if you declare to be on a 100% plant food diet, while, of course, they will have found ways to analyze your blood and check if you’re declaring the truth. It is so much lower in cost to die from old age, in your sleep on your home bed, than it is to die after lengthy, futile surgical interventions and “intensive care”.

How does a diet rich in animal stuff make your lifestyle better than a diet rich in plant food? It can only be understood if you haven’t tasted the gourmet dishes that are being prepared progressively in more and more homes and restaurants all over the world.

Some arguments in these debates tend to be so empty in real content, especially those aimed at defending a stubbornly withheld meat diet.

It isn't easy to jump to 100%-plant-food lifestyles: our culture is not organized for such diet. You will need to be very careful about including a real symphony of plant food products, all of them requiring specific treatment — from picking it and eating it, to cooking it after lengthy or complicated processes. We have said it a zillion times: not because we don’t die on the spot after we drink a glass of milk or enjoy a melted cheese, or feel in heaven with juicy beef in our mouths, it means that we can base our diet on such products; they all contain an amino acid that simply, isn’t adequate at all for at least 1 in 3 individuals, in a short time; and, in a longer time, it will also harm the other 2. How? By triggering the progressive formation of degenerative and chronic diseases. These are incredibly expensive to treat — using stupidly futile processes. Moreover, we all carry their high costs on our backs.

The tobacco industry invested enormous amounts of money to try to “prove” that cigarette smoking wasn’t bad at all. What has happened in the end?

“I am not going to give up my lifestyle…” Fine, but bear in mind that your decision is affecting you, your beloved ones, your friends, your neighbors, the whole species!

Undoubtedly, we are a stubborn species of habits! We need to learn to accept change when it is mandatory for the good of all of us!