Author Archives: scottsoapbox

My Kindle Fire!

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Got my K-Fire today! Yes that’s what all the cool kids will be calling the Kindle Fire after today. ;)

So far I have to agree with the need for a bit more polish on the software side. A few quick things I’ve noticed so far:

  • WiFi connection seems to come a go a bit (tho part of that is my flaky Samsung 4G hotspot).
  • Speaking of 4G the Silk browser does seem to speed things up noticeably over this non-cable speed connection.
  • The auto-brightness is maddening.  Sitting at my desk and holding it steady it kept changing up and down.  Thankfully you can turn the auto off.
  • The web browser setup wastes valuable screen space.  I’d rather the menu bar at the bottom was somehow integrated into the top.  Or give me the option to turn off the top bar… 7″ is nice compared to my iPhone but it doesn’t include extra space.
  • The same goes for the home button in general… I think it would have made more sense to stick it next to the YourName’s Kindle.  First it’s always there so less tapping the screen to bring up the hidden home button.  Second it seems like most of the navigation on the fire is a top menu bar – so why keep the default android home position on the bottom?

Of course these can all be fixed with a software update that I’m sure is in the works.  So Fire is good now and here’s hoping it hits great by Christmas.

Note: Sorry about the crappy images – I haven’t figured out how to screen capture on this thing yet…

4 Hour Body: 3 Months Later

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Not Really Me

Not Me

About three months ago, I tried out a few of the suggestions in the book: The 4-Hour Body. I adopted the Slow Carb Diet, started photographing my food, took a couple of the suggested herbal supplements* and even a experimented with few of Tim’s exercise tips. While my experiment is still ongoing, I think enough time has passed to give some preliminary results.  ( *things like green tea extract not those other kind of supplements ;)

First I need to address some slippages on my part. Even though I started this project at the end of June, I had some personal events that derailed my motivation to adhere to the diet for about a month and kept me from the exercise program for a few weeks (which should hint at the ease of this new workout approach). I also did a poor job keeping up the food photo journal. I just couldn’t seem to remember to whip out the iphone and snag the pic when need. Not a big loss as “diet aid” in my opinion but it needed mentioning. Anyway, the results:

Even though I essentially did the slow carb diet for a month, then off a month, then on a month – I am down 8 lbs. Which isn’t bad as my goal is ten total. In real terms, I have gone from tight 34 inch pants to normal fit 32s. And this was with most weeks involving several cheat meals in addition to my cheat day. Yes this diet works.

However, more impressive for me are the strength gains that I’ve made while losing weight. As most athletes know, it is difficult to do both at the same time. So here are few of my gains in workout weigh and the associated 1 rep max estimate:

July 6th October 6th
Close-Grip Suppinated Pull-Down
(Machine Chin Up)

160 lb x 12

est max: 230 lb

260 x 11

est max: 360 lb
Machine Shoulder Press

90 lb x 12

est max: 130 lb

200 x 13

est max: 300 lb
Machine Slight Decline Bench

140 lb x 9

est max: 180 lb

210 x 16

est max: 360 lb

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I need to point out that my machine is a Bowflex and “Bowflex lbs” are not quite as difficult as free-weight lbs because of the bow-like resistance (which is much safer for maxing out without a spotter).  However, the relative increases are real: a 56% increase in my pull-downs and doubling my shoulder and bench strength.  That my new workout works is obvious, but I’m interested to see just how far the rabbit hole goes.  That is, can I continue these gains over the next 3 months?  We’ll soon see.  :)

Amazon Takes Over Low End Tablet Market

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Amazon announced a new family of Kindles this morning, not the least of which was a new entry point of just $79.  But e-readers aside, the real news was the high end Kindle Fire that will all but kill the low end tablet makers.  Premium products at non-premium prices as Jeff Bezos put it.

A month ago when Amazon tablet was firmly ensconced in the mists of the future, several vendors were working hard to carve out a niche with low end Android tablets that were far enough below the iPad’s $500 floor to not illicit too many comparisons.

While many tablets competed in this space two leaders had emerged: Archos and B&N.  Archos made “personal video players” before tablets were cool, thus they were well positioned to simply add apps and ship a decent product (Apple complicated things by creating scarcity for tablet components but that had passed).  The other winner was the dark horse Nook Color.  While comparable in pricing and specs to many competitors, the backing of Barnes & Noble meant it would last – which made it a favorite for hackers.  Grab a Nook Color and use it as is or “jailbreak it” and enjoy a slightly subsidized android tablet.

All of the rest of the entrants on the low end have been noise or are still “coming soon” (at least in the US) except for two.  The original galaxy tab (7 incher) from Samsung is now old enough to be relatively cheap and who can forget the suddenly “limited edition” $99 HP tablet.  The latter served as a wake up call to the industry when they discovered people would buy a discontinued and unsupported tablet if the price was right – proving there was real potential below iPad levels.

With the state of the market it mind, we can examine the newly announced Kindle Fire and see why it will be killer – not of the iPad, but just about everything else:

  • Amazon is subsidizing the hardware cost so if you just want a cheap but solid android tablet hackers should deliver that option by Christmas.  Without content profits, most companies can sell their tablet for less than it costs to make.
  • Amazon has created a much simpler user interface than the standard android. They didn’t just add some widgets or whatnot they created a new one top to bottom.  This approached helped B&N grab market share and Amazon has done it even better.
  • Amazon’s content base is one of the few to rival Apple: books, music, movies, and more.  Content consumption is what tablets do best and most low end producers don’t have such a pipeline.  (B&N’s Nook Color will be the sole survive of the coming bloodbath for just this reason)
  • Specifically Amazon’s app store offers what Apple like protection and quality far beyond the general Google Marketplace and with thousands more apps than competing private app stores.
  • It remains to be seen just how good the Amazon Silk engine is at improving the mobile browsing experience but this another area where other companies can’t compete as they don’t happen to also own one of the biggest data centers in the country.

So at the end of the day, B&N has to drop the Nook Color by at least $50 to compete (and launch the Nook Color 2), and companies like Archos, well they would need to create a huge content selling service in the next oh – 6 weeks…

Yeah, good luck with that.

 

Slow Carb Diet Experiment

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So I have been looking for something new to get back down to my “fighting weight” and get ripped just in time for winter.  I recently discovered a new diet plan from Tim Ferriss called the Slow Carb Diet that takes the Lo Carb diet and adds back in beans.  Alright there is a touch more to it but that’s the gist.  Tim makes a good case for it in his book The 4-Hour Body.  20 lbs in 30 days didn’t sound too bad, so I thought I’d give it a whirl for 30 days and see how it stacked up.

Here’s the full Slow Carb plan:

  • Unprocessed Proteins:  Fish, Beef, Pork, Chicken… and Eggs (whites are best)
  • Beans: Black, Red, Kidney, Pinto, Soy… and Lentils
  • Veggies: All (go easy on corn)
  • No “white” carbs: bread, sugar, pasta, potatoes, anything fried, etc.
  • No Fruit.  Exception: small amounts of citrus juice in water or tea is encouraged.
  • No Dairy. Exception: low fat cottage cheese.
  • No Booze. Exception: up to two glasses of dry, red wine per night.

The twist: One day a week is your cheat day.  Anything in any amount is far game!

Sounds a little crazy but so far I have lost 3 pounds in the first week.  Which alone isn’t too impressive as it could be largely “water weight”, but that includes taking a 3 day road trip where I was only was “on plan” for breakfast (ie eggs & bacon).  So that is pretty good.  However the real test will be to see where I am at after week two.  The book has some other tricks with cinnamon and food photos but I don’t want to spoil it all.

Flickr FoodStream

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So I am trying out a new idea dieting aid from The 4-Hour Body as part of my Slow Carb diet experiment.   The idea is similar to the written food journals popular with many trainers, however your smartphone’s camera replaces the old pen and paper method.  Add to that a flickr.com photostream and voila the FoodStream™ was born.  I am personally using Instagram to make it happen as it is super simple, efficient at uploading, and offers some fun filters when your eggs look too dull.  Once setup, it was easy to get my latest photo from my iPhone to flickr to this site’s home page with just a few taps.

Research suggests that documenting your food will reduce your bad eating habits.  Swapping out jotting everything in a notebook for quick snaps just makes things easier.  Well almost.  I have found the hardest thing about starting a photo food journal is remembering to photograph your food.  It’s really not a natural thing to do.  But after a week, I am finally getting a hang of it.

Just so long as the occasional (often) mostly eaten plate counts too.  ;)

UPDATE:

  • After two weeks, I still constantly forget to snap my food – at least until I’m done eating it.
  • When I’m up to it, I added the meal info to the empty plate pic title.
  • Instagram’s filters are fun but a few more would be even better.
  • I’m down 4 lbs!