December 2022

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. I hope you are all enjoying a bit of rest before hitting it hard again in 2023. As in many years past, I'll be starting off the year at CES so reach out if you are headed to Vegas in January. There were several topics I wanted to add to this month's newsletter on AI and ChatGPT but it's getting late in the month, and I have a lot to do this week. In January I'll focus on what has turned out to be some of the biggest news in tech in the last decade, plus anything exciting I see at CES. For now, on with what I have ready. Please share this newsletter with anyone you know who might be interested, and thanks for reading!

I came across this article on foot strength and there's a lot here to unpack. If you (like me) have struggled with foot injuries, it is worth a read.

Exogenous ketones & EPO: Pretty interesting as a potential mechanism for performance improvement from ketone ingestion. Seems like it would be especially useful in events (like cycling's Grand Tours) where hematocrit degrades over time. I'm also curious about how this might help on mountaineering expeditions.

If you are looking for a good documentary over the holidays, I enjoyed Fire Chasers on Netflix. Besides my general interest in fire management as a Californian, the storyline of the Conservation Camps, which house and train prisoners who volunteer as firefighters, really caught my attention. I hunted for data on recidivism rates for these prisoners compared to the general prison population, but unfortunately found none. It seems plausible that these programs would reduce it. Recent reforms have tried to make it easier for released prisoners to get employment, but you can imagine it's a contentious debate. Balancing public safety with employment opportunities for ex-convicts is not easy.

More on the links between diet, metabolic health, and mental health: This is one of the best podcasts I've listened to in a while. Dr. Huberman talks to Dr. Chris Palmer about the use of ketogenic diets in his psychiatry practice. Palmer has literally seen schizophrenia cured through diet. Wow.

Improving VO2max: choosing between HIIT and SIT. Note that the baseline fitness level averaged low 60's ml/kg/min for all three arms of the study. IOW the study subjects are quite fit to begin with. The optimal path to improvement depends on where you start. At a low enough fitness level (where most Americans are), no intervals of any kind are needed. Just get moving, at any pace.

I ran out of time for a new photo this month so I'll share what's on my mind image-wise. It's raining today in the Bay area and that means one thing: ski season at Tahoe. Can't wait.