January 2023

Welcome to 2023. Let's get after it. You lucky people might get two newsletters this month as I have way too much rattling around my brain and if I don't get it out I will go nuts.

ChatGPT - if you want to try it, here's the link. One super interesting angle to the story is that Microsoft is heavily invested and may integrate ChatGPT into Bing. This would really shake up the search market, which has been Google's cash cow for years. I've been trying ChatGPT for things I might normally "google" and it often gives a better, more concise response.

Are you smarter than AI? Computer language model the clear winner over people in IQ tests - Study Finds They gave GPT-3 (developed by OpenAI, just like ChatGPT) an IQ test - it has an IQ of 120. Let that sink it. Probably 90% of the humans you know are below that level. Maybe less of your professional connections, depending on what field you work in. This article has an overview of IQ tests. No wonder college professors are getting worried about their ability to distinguish essays written by students from essays written by AI.

It's not all bad news - I think of ChatGPT and AI more generally as a prosthetic for your brain. Here's the story of a dyslexic man who uses it to help write emails to customers and grow his business. For every human displaced by computers another will be aided to a better life. And like all tech before it, a whole new set of jobs will be created.

I just returned from CES and won't even attempt a thorough review of everything I saw, but one consistent trend is the continued march of remote / self-serve / at home body fluid measurement. I've been testing the Nix sensor lately (some good, some bad, I'm bullish but the product has quite a few rough edges), Withings announced a toilet bowl urine sensor (very slick but not on market in US 'til 2024), and Vivoo (pee on a stick, multi-metabolite testing w/ your smartphone camera) also has an at home solution. There was a lot of other interesting stuff but this general trend is the one that made the most impression on me. I plan to test Vivoo and Siphox alongside my regular InsideTracker testing in a week or so. Movano announced their ring although my meeting with them got cancelled at the last minute so I didn't learn anything new.

For 2023 I thought I'd share a more thorough review of how I plan, execute, and monitor my training. I'll cover this over the course of several months, starting from the top level and gradually drilling deeper into details as we go. This month I'll cover the top level question - WHY? My why for sport is tightly aligned with the top level why of almost everything I do, which can be summarized in one word: grandkids. With that in mind, sport is first and foremost an enabler of healthspan, which supports two things:

• being alive and able to enjoy grandkids, and

• being able to continue working well into my 80's so I can make the money which itself is a key enabler of us enjoying those years (plus I love work so I'd hate to be forced into retirement by poor health)

This impacts my training in a few broad ways:

• Variety - I don't just ride, or run, or lift. I balance all 3 pretty equally. The data are clear that you need to maintain muscle mass and maintain cardiovascular function. So I need to cover all bases, within limits.

• Limits - I limit intensity and duration based on what I can reliably recover from, week after week. My goal is to have 45 weeks of training per year that are mostly similar in total volume and training stress (although there is variety in the type of stress), 3 big binge weeks per year (binging is still regulated), and 3-4 weeks off.

• I'm constantly asking myself "Can I sustain this effort for 20-30 more years?" If I really think I'm doing something that 70 yr old me couldn't possibly do, I need to proceed carefully.

One key point in all of this: maximizing performance today does not equal maximizing healthspan! This is a hard truth to accept for those of us who love to bury ourselves in competition and the fitness lifestyle. Next installment I'll outline how duration limits get set, and what this implies about the very few races or events I compete in.

We do wearable testing at work so this class action suit against Apple caught my eye. The effects of skin tone on measurement are not always as obvious or as simple as you might think. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Here's another article on SpO2 sensing and skin tone if you want a bit more technical info and context.

This article offers a refreshing perspective in a world that increasingly, IMO, has gone mad when it comes to the role of managers and the workplace in one's personal life. Newsflash: If I'm your boss, I'm not your friend. I'm just the guy trying to keep the business successful so you keep your job and grow your career. I trust my employees to find friends elsewhere. If you're my boss, I hope you do the same.

Boring, rando picture of getting setup for lactate profile testing in the garage over Christmas. Yes, this my idea of fun.