My run training has been going well recently, and my runners are due to be replaced, so I decided to start looking around for prices. I’m currently using Mizumo Wave Creations and they’ve been working well for me, so I figured I’d just get the same ones again. Recommended Retail Price in Australia is $250, but I’d seen them in Rebel Sport for $199.

In a bid to save some cash I decided to do a bit opf WBR (web-based research) and ended up buying from Runner’s Warehouse in the US: a pair of Wave Creations plus a pair of the lighter Wave Precisions, plus shipping to Oz for $230. Bloody bargain!

On a related note, Sydney’s Apple Store opened last week and their global Senior VP of Retail was asked why Australian consumers get ripped of by Apple’s pricing. He claimed that Apple’s prices are fair, which is horse shit. I’m looking to replace my 15” Macbook Pro, and there’s a 29% discrepancy between the US and Australian price - fair enough, 10% of that is GST, but that still leaves an almost 20% markup at a time when the exchange rate is 0.95. Mr. Johnson claimed that he had “never once - and I receive hundreds of emails a day from customers - had one email [complaining] about our pricing.”

So, I decided to send him one: >Hi Ron,

I read with interest your claim from June 19th’s Sydney Morning Herald, that in 8 years you “have never once - and I receive hundreds of emails a day from customers - had one email about our pricing.” If that is indeed true, then I’m happy to be your first.

Simply put, you’re ripping us off. I’m a software developer who has owned Macs since the early 90s a work exclusively on my MacBook Pro and I tend to upgrade to the latest version approximately every two years. I love all things Mac and as such, keep an eye on the goings on in the industry. More importantly, in the last couple of years I have been directly responsible for converting 20+ friends from PCs to Macs and all of them wonder why they didn’t switch sooner. My point is that I keep a regular eye on prices, as, if I’m not buying for myself, there’s a good chance I’m trying to convince a friend to switch.

I’m due to upgrade now and am looking at the better of the two 15” MacBook Pros: AUD$3400 vs US$2500, or at today’s exchange rate AUD$2619, so the Aus version is 29% more expensive than the US version, so if we allow 10% for GST, there’s still a 19% discrepancy to explain. Let’s remember that the laptops are manufactured in Asia, so there shouldn’t be a significant difference in delivery to Aus vs US. Also, I’m sure Apple has negotiated a uniform per unit price regardless of the end destination of the laptop. Every other manufacturer passes on currency savings to the consumer, except Apple. Yes, you make a token gesture with a $100 here and there, but, based on exchange rates, your laptops in Australia should have improved in price against the US by over 20% in the last few years and this clearly hasn’t happened.

I’d be interested in hearing your explanation for this.

regards, Donncha Redmond

I doubt I’ll get a response, or that the PR minions will even forward the letter to him!

Looks like the US is holding Iraq to ransom to try to ensure it gets to keep a strong military presence in the country to look after its oil supplies.

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.

Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.

So much for “liberating Iraq”.

At last week’s Congress, FIFA agreed to sign up to WADA’s drug testing protocols and English players are not happy about it.

Availability requires that sportsmen and women must “provide accurate, current location information”, requiring that for an hour of every day they are accountable for their movements. This has become a huge issue for 30 top English players, who are mobilising against what they consider would amount to house arrest for the prescribed hour.

Michael Beloff QC has provided counsel to the PPF over what grounds it might have to mount a legal challenge to Fifa’s new rules. Initially the players hope to negotiate with the international game’s ruling body over scrapping the pool, insisting that football is not a sport at risk of doping.

They are claiming there’s no risk of cheating in a sport where you can earn $250,000 per week! Are they serious?

The Independent has an interesting piece on how various parts of the world are coping with the rapid increase in oil prices over the last two years.

British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week.

All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64)?

The good news is that demand from consumers is decreasing, but that’s more than offset by increases in industrial demand.

Finally, we’re out. Five years after being signed up to the Iraq War against the wishes of its populace, Australia today withdrew its troops from Iraq.

The Defence Force in southern Iraq formally handed its commitment to the United States and lowered the Australian flag above Camp Terendak, at the US-run air base Tallil, at a ceremony yesterday morning.

The handover, which fulfils the Rudd Government’s election commitment to withdraw Australia’s combat troops from a deeply divisive war, was based on an agreement between Australian and US commanders.

Over the last two months, I’ve been making a bit of an effort to finally shed the bonus kilos I’ve acquired over the last 7 years. I’ve attempted this in the past, only to fail, but this time I’ve met with more success. How? By following the Atkins diet. Here’s the deal…

Summary
Mar-19: 90.5kg @ 22.5% fat
May-18: 82.8kg @ 17.3% fat
I also had two periods where I went off the diet during those two months - one was Jacqui’s birthday, can’t remember the other one.

What did I do?
One word: Atkins.

Why Atkins?
I’ve always been sceptical of “diets”, regarding them as something that chicks do for a couple of weeks before stacking the weight back on, so I’ve always favoured the ‘increased exercise and healthy eating’ approach myself. However, it never works. Sure, I’ll lose a bit of weight, but it’s usually only 2-3 kilos and I’ll stay at that weight no matter how much training I do (up to 10hrs a week at times) and, as soon as I stop training, I gradually revert to my old weight. It has been like that for the last few years, always returning to about 90kg, so something new had to be done.

I’d read really good reviews of a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes which examines the question of why the population of the western world are turning into fat bastards when we’re constantly reminded to eat healthy etc. It’s a thorough examination of the history of research into obesity, how a low-fat diet came to be the recommended one, and how our bodies process food and register hunger. It’s 460 pages of science discussion, followed by 45 pages of notes and 65 pages of references & bibliography: in short, it’s not a diet book, however I found it extremely interesting.

Its conclusion is that fat doesn’t make people fat, carbs do, due to their effects on insulin. Body can only store fat when insulin is present in bloodstream. Conversely, there are about 30 hormones which cause your fat cells to release fat, and all are less effective in presence of insulin. The standard western diet is high in carbs, particularly highly refined carbs, which have the greatest effect on insulin. The result is that you eat, your blood sugar spikes, insulin spikes, you store the meal as fat, but then insulin stays higher than normal (since your diet is so high in carbs), so your fat cells don’t release as much fat as they should, your cells don’t get the fuel they need and then your body thinks it’s hungry. Also, excessive carbs can also cause most of the western civilisation diseases - heart disease, kidney/liver failure, diabetes etc. You’ll have to read the book for the rationale as it’s too detailed to go into here.

Low-carb diets have been recognised since 1700s as the most effective way to lose weight fast and keep it off. The most well known is the Atkins Diet now, but Atkins didn’t invent it, he just refined and marketed it. Back in 1740s it was known as a Banting diet, after a dude called Banting who popularised it.

Anyway, that’s what got me thinking about giving it a go. The book also goes into detail on the science of why the diet works, so I now understand what’s happening too.

Here’s a v. quick summary (and it’s mainly US-centric with its data):

• older civilisations, prior to meeting western culture: incidence of diabetes, heart disease, etc. extremely rare, regardless of diet composition. some islanders in pacific had diet composed of up to 90% saturated fat (all fish & coconuts), and Inuit traditionally ate only meat & fat: no veggies etc. cause that’s all they had. Again, extremely low incidence of traditional western disease
• about 35 years since the US was told that fat was bad, and low-fat diet recommended
• since then the US has got fatter
• nutritional data shows that people eating on average 150cals more per day than in 70s
• however, they are eating less fat and more carbs
• they are also exercising more, since aerobics/jogging boom took off in 70s. before that, people didn’t really exercise for leisure
• your body can actually get all its nutritional requirements from only red meat!
• it’s almost impossible to overeat on just protein and fats. One study had volunteers aim to eat 3000cals/day for a couple of months. Those eating protein & fat struggled big time to manage it. Those eating carbs as well had no problems reaching the target, and when told to eat as much as they could were able to pack away up to 10,000cals/day consistently!

How does it work
Details of Atkins at their website. Read all 4 phases so you understand the whole thing: most people who criticise Atkins are taking aim at phase one - which you only have to stay in for a minimum of two weeks.

Basic Idea
Your body can burn either alcohol, carbs, or fat for fuel, in that order of preference. Therefore, if you go out for a big meal and then go on the piss, your body is going to store the meal as fat and burn off the alcohol instead. So, you want to force your body to burn fat, therefore you can’t eat any carbs or alcohol.

First two weeks (phase-one) are ‘extreme’. Only 20 grams of carbs per day, i.e: 80cals/day, yes eighty: NO rice, bread, pasta, alcohol etc. However, you can eat as much meat, seafood, eggs, cheese and leafy green veggies as you like. The limited carbs force your body to switch to burning fat. This takes a couple of days, so at some stage in the first 5 days you will feel shit, weak and a bit dizzy if you stand up too quick: this is your body making the switch. Once the switch is made, your body will keep burning fat preferentially unless you start feeding it loads of carbs/alcohol again. Basically it will munch its way through your fat stores.

I weighed myself every morning and recorded my fat percentage. I was also writing down everything I ate as part of ensuring I ate less than 20g of carbs, and on average I was only eating 1600cals/day - which for someone of my size and weight is at least 400cals less than the recommended minimum. However, I never felt hungry and wasn’t starving myself. I ate decent meals, and snacked if I was hungry, but protein & fat keep you feeling full for longer, so I was never hungry.

What did I eat?
A typical day was a fry-up for breakfast: a couple of sausages, rashers and some eggs, or else an omelette with chorizo & mushrooms etc. Lunch was a salad: ham & salami, some cheeses (brie, bocconcini, jarlsberg etc.) with some rocket salad or something. Mayonnaise (the real stuff - whole egg mayo) is OK too. Dinner was a big hunk of meat, with some veggies and maybe some goat’s cheese for some flavour.

Notes
For every gram of carbs your body stores, it also stores 4g of water. So in the first two days you’ll lose over a kilo - that’s all water. Also, as soon as you start eating carbs again, you’ll put over a kilo straight back on as your body stores water again, so factor that in if you are aiming for a goal weight.

Once I switched to fat-burning mode, I was losing about 300g/day, all fat.

You won’t be able to do any intense exercise for a while. When I first started on the diet I couldn’t run anywhere without feeling shit and a bit dizzy, but now I can run 14k easily enough, but at a nice relaxed pace. I doubt I could manage sprints or high intensity stuff, because the fat-burning process only works aerobically. It will not work without oxygen, so any exercise that requires your anaerobic system isn’t going to happen.

You’ll fart and shit less ;-) mainly because your body is using everything you give it. Also, your breath may end up smelling. It’s a by-product of fat-burning, so it’s a good sign that the diet is working the way it should. Mine did, so Jacqui says, but I haven’t noticed anyone shying away from me or standing well back, so it’s obviously not reeking. A couple of sugar-free mints can sort it out if it happens to you.

Common Misconceptions
Atkins is really bad for your heart: not true. The low-fat diet is based on the fact that heart plaques (which cause heart attacks) are full of cholesterol, so doctors concluded that high cholesterol causes heart attacks. However, we now know that there are many different types of cholesterol, some good (HDL) and some bad (LDL). Eating saturated fat, which used always be one of the bad fats, results in an increase of LDL, but also increases HDL by the same amount, so the net effect is zero. Pretty much the only bad fats these days are trans-fats, which are the man-made fats. However, if you have a history of heart-disease in your family and are tempted to give Atkins a go, play it safe and get your cholesterol checked before you start, and maybe again after about a month and see how you’re going.

Ketosis can kill you: not true. Ketosis is a perfectly natural state where your body is burning fat. If you eat your evening meal around 7pm, and don’t eat before going to bed, then when you wake up you are almost certainly in ketosis as your body will have used your stored carbs overnight. If your body wasn’t designed to burn fat, then why would we store it? People commonly confuse ketosis with the far more extreme ketoacidosis, which is a symptom of Type 1 Diabetes or severe alcoholism.

If you like sciencey books and are interested in nutrition, I’d highly recommend Taubes’ book. I’ve another couple of weeks to go. I was about 78kg when I first arrived in Australia in 1999, so I’m aiming to get under 80kg again. 75-80 is what I consider my ‘normal’ weight should be. After my birthday this week, I’ll do another two weeks of the diet and that should be it.

One of the arguments of global warming deniers is that CO₂ levels have been higher in the past than they are now, and that therefore it shouldn’t be a problem. Reuters has a good article which explains why this argument is false: it’s not really the absolute amount of CO₂ that’s the problem, but the rate of change. We’re currently pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere about 14,000 times faster than any stage in the last 600,000 years.

The average change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 600,000 years has been just 22 parts per million by volume, Zeebe said, which means that 22 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to, or removed from, every million molecules of air.

Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, ushering in the widespread human use of fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 100 parts per million.

That means human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere about 14,000 times as fast as natural processes do, Zeebe said.

And it appears to be speeding up: the U.S. government reported last week that in 2007 alone, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 2.4 parts per million.

The natural mechanism will eventually absorb the excess carbon dioxide, Zeebe said, but not for hundreds of thousands of years.

Richard Dawkins, responding to the question “What if you’re wrong?” neatly encapsulates why religion is bullshit: after all, if the foundation of your entire spiritual existence is largely an accident of birth, how can it be the one true anything…

I’ve been playing a regular Sunday golf game with Danny, Simon and the Kiwi boys for the last couple of weeks, and have been playing pretty badly really. I’d managed to shoot a couple of sub-100 rounds before I left Canada, which was a breakthrough for me so I was hoping to continue in that vein. However, playing at Woolooware, I’d shot 103, 109, 111, 111 since coming back and it was pissing me off.

While in Canberra to visit John we had a game at Yowani Country Club and I managed a 99, and since then things have been on the up. Last Thursday I went out to Woolooware with Danny, Simon and Nathan and shot a 93, with 6 pars, eclipsing my previous best ever round by three shots, and on Sunday followed that up with another 99, so hopefully I can now expect to regularly shoot under 100 and can focus on getting under 95 regularly, with a view to cracking 90. If I can just stay out of the trees on the first few holes of the back 9, I should be sweet.

Well it’s been quite a while since I posted anything, but things are starting to settle down now. Myself and Jacqui finally found an apartment to rent, five weeks after arriving back from Canada! We moved in two weeks ago and the place is slowly starting to take shape. It’s quite a bit smaller than our previous place in Vaucluse, so we still have to get rid of some stuff that we don’t really have any room far. Once that’s done all will be well, as the place is still a bit cluttered at the moment.

I had hoped to get iiNet’s Naked DSL installed, but it turns out that our apartment doesn’t have a phone line connected to it! In 2008!! Anyway, we could get the landlord to pay $300 to get a line installed, and then wait another 2-3 weeks to resubmit a new Naked DSL application, but since both myself and Jacqui are working from home at the moment, waiting 4-6 weeks to have internet wasn’t practical, so I signed up with BigPond’s Cable Internet instead. We should have that up and running later this week.

Also, I nearly burnt the place down a few days ago. I’d got the gas connected, so I decided to make a coffee with my stovetop coffee pot, but I forgot all about it and went off to the supermarket to meet Jacqui and do a grocery shop. I wandered around, filling up the trolley until I got to the coffee aisle and remembered “Fuck, I left the coffee pot on the gas”. Ran all the way home (just as well our new place is close to the shops, eh?) to discover coffee pot on fire. Thankfully it’s almost all metal so there wasn’t enough flammable material to cause anything serious, so all I had to do was open the windows to let the smell out and reassure the cat that things were OK.