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Fitness, Back in the Fresh Air!

12/12/2021

Exercising Outside Makes Sense

Our bodies like to move, to breathe. Exercising in the great outdoors is so good for the body. Bicycle rides, hiking, running, tennis, even long walks - it is healthy, and is needed badly. But how to keep track of all you are doing?

Gyms Are Reopening

It feels safe now to return to gyms. People won't be so limited, like they are at home - there are so many choices of equipment, variety of workouts, and personal trainers to get help from - as well as friends. Just make sure you have a plan, that helps so much in order to reach your goals.

It All Adds Up!

Everything you are doing - outdoor activities, gym workouts, and doing things at home, all add together to create your fitness level. Apps can help you coordinate all these activities, and make sure that you have a complete, effective, and thorough workout each week.

Don't Forget Hydration, and Eating Right

If you are working out a lot, then hydration and food are even more important. You need to plan your water and meals, just like you plan your exercise - they go hand in hand. In fact, the better apps will help you manage both, as well as monitoring your vitals like heart rate, and blood pressure.

One App to Rule Them All?

But it still seems like no one has created that one app that really ties it all together, along with feedback from technology embedded in your workout devices, and monitors you wear. Part of the problem is that people have devices from different manufacturers. Users need to be put first! When one universal app appears, that ties everything together, only then will people be able to get a complete, effective workout in the most efficient way possible.

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Kiva: Helping Others with Microloans

7/31/2021

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Make a loan, change a life!

Kiva is an organization that brings people together, to fund a loan as a group for a small business person in another country. It is a way for anyone to help others. Click here to join Kiva today !

Often, the borrowers are struggling to start a business, to help their family. You are doing a good thing by helping them.

Join Kiva Today

It Costs as little as $25 to start

Your contribution can be as little as $25. Like all crowd funding, you are joining a group of other people, who all want to help someone. The loan is not funded unless it reaches its goal. Kiva gives a lot of tools to analyze each loan, so you can see some risk ratings, past loans if any, repayment periods, and see who else is joining in on the loan.

Very High Repayment Rates

Kiva loans have high repayment rates. The loans I have done have over 95% repayment rate, which is extraordinary. This gives on confidence that Kiva loans are a stable, professional, well-managed platform.

Reinvest the Loan Payments

As the loan payments are made, the money accumulates in your account. Once it reaches $25, you can join another loan! In that way, you can do loan after loan, adding more funds when it is convenient to do so. I have loaned now to small business people in over 50 different countries, but with a modest initial investment.

Join Kiva Today

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Simple Idea to Reduce Linkedin Comment Spam

2/29/2020

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Misinformation Sneaking into Linkedin

Until recently Linkedin seemed like the social platform that had the least misinformation, the least spam, and the strongest comments. Its refreshing to have that and I think Linkedin members appreciate it and want to keep it that way. But lately there is an increase in comment spam; and they are often subtle. For example an article about electric cars might get a comment from someone who claims to be into sustainability, and then they say how ugly a Tesla car is, or how terrible EV batteries are. Sometimes they are worded in an awkward way and its hard to even understand some of the comments.

There is an Easy Solution

Facebook has a feature that few people use, perhaps they do not know it is there but its very useful: you can Hide a comment.

If you post an article, and someone makes a spammy comment, if its really bad you can Delete it - but Hiding it is better. When you Hide a comment on Faceobook, no one sees it - except the person who made the comment. That means they are unaware it was hidden. This helps everyone, it makes a discussion more civil, and there is no angry backlash from the comment author.

I would love to see Linkedin add a Hiding feature People who post articles need this, and there might even be more senior people posting if they know they can control the comment flow in a more flexible manner.

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Time for Businesses to Quit Facebook?

2/2/2020

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Facebook Supports Aggressive Political Ads

Controversy has gone on now for quite some time about the role of social media in enabling and propogating fake news; and nowhere more so than the political arena.

Twitter and other social media companies no longer allow political ads at all. But Facebook refuses to do this. Obviously they derive some income from it; but Facebook is the largest social network and this seems to have gone to their head. Its hard to understand what principles they think they are upholding.

Many prominent people (and scores of regular people) have left Facebook. Stephen King recently announced he has closed his Facebook account, and you can follow him on Twitter.

Facebook refuses to stop showing political ads. If Zuckerberg were in charge of advertising in New York's Times Square, we would have ads like this one:

There is only a downside to political ads; they provide no useful information. Allowing ads gives an unfair advantage to the right and powerful (who may very well friends of Mark Zuckerberg). In terms of accuracy, politicla ads are inherently misleading, and have always been so; its not aa modern development. Given the long history of aggressiveness in political ads, it will obviously continue to be the style of such advertising.

One solution is that Facebook could create a separate area, and not part of the Timeline of people. But Facebook will never do this, because no one would go to it. No one likes political ads, except for the candidates running them.

Sacha Baron Cohen said it best: if Facebook had been around in the 1930's and 1940's, they would have allowed ads from Nazi's Facebook is not a government, it is more like a restaurant - and thus not bound in any way by the First Amendment; speech can be barred. Read more here about Sacha's comments.

Facebook in general is all about advertising; so now it has become intrusive, and is just not as much fun anymore. Facebook is damaging itself, but they cannot see it. If enogh people leave Facebook thta it finally recognized the damage they are doing, it would be too late to stop the tide of departures.

The US Constitution, and the State constitutions, promote Free Speech right only in regards to government contexts. In the rest of society, it is called 'Private Action' and it is legal to make such choices. You dont have to allow racists in your business or home. Wikipedia explains more

Facebook is showing they do not understand the pervasive and damagingnature of propoganda - especially on young minds. Facebook used to talk of the 'Social Graph" as the metaphor for Facebook; but nothing could be further from the truth.

Note: the first image, of the giant swastika in Times Square, is taken from a TV show called "The Man in the High Castle", which is a series about a fictional world where the Nazi's were victorious in WW II.

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