Is the PC dead yet? My take on it

My dad sent me an article titled "Dell outlines the death of the PC". In it, they paint a picture of the shift in the market that mobile devices have caused, and the overall effect it has had on PC manufacturers such as Dell.

Then he asked me a loaded question: what does this mean for me? Should I begin diversifying into mobile tech?

So for those that are interested, here is the response that I penned:

Dad,
Here is a carpentry analogy: do you think that the invention of the nail gun hurt the sales of hammers? Yes it did. But it it remove the need for hammers? No it didn't. When there was no other option but to use a hammer, that is what people used. And when the new product entered the market that made many tasks easier, sales of the old declined, and sales of the new went up. The old product was already a commodity market, and the new product became one very fast as companies saw that the new product sold well, and more and more manufactures began making them.

It's a pattern that's been repeated a million times, and will be repeated a million more. When a new product enters the picture that everyone wants/needs, it will eventually become a commodity. That basically means:

• the prices become as low as possible
• the companies that manufacture it make very little profit on it (ie., low margins)
• manufactures really only make a profit on bulk sales and commercial contracts
• products become generic "cookie-cutter" designs
• it's very difficult for someone new to enter the market
• the makers of the product are constantly trying to come up with some gimmick to sell a few more than the other guys
• consumers are constantly wanting to drive the prices even lower

Desktops and laptops have been a commodity market for years already. Mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones are fast approaching that too. There is still some room to grow in the mobile industry, but in my estimation, the ceiling is fast approaching as the market is becoming saturated with faster, better, cheaper devices. The newest, hottest devices coming out in 2013 look almost exactly like the ones that came out last year, only with a couple more features. To me, that is a sign that the balance is nearly here. 

But that's just the technology side. On the consumer side, people are still learning how to integrate the mobile devices into everyday life and business. Part of it is that these devices are just fun. It's fun to have all that power and information literally at your finger-tips. It's fun to carry a little mobile game station in your pocket. It's super cool that it's:

• a phone, 
• and it texts, 
• and it's a camera, 
• and a video recorder, 
• and a game station, 
• and a web browser, 
• and a newspaper,
• and an MP3 player, 
• and a TV, 
• and an encyclopedia, 
• and just a general time-filler during all those times you have to wait on something. 

Because of all this, people want to justify having one, or having several, especially if they can somehow rationalize that the device can be productive too. 

The article referenced "bring your own device" policies. With so many people carrying smartphones and tablets that are literally handheld computers, this has big ramifications. For some businesses this is a huge security threat, and for others it's an opportunity to save money by allowing employees to use their own devices instead of buying the devices for them. But in either case, businesses are creating policies on how to handle the shift in the market.

Needless to say, the market is still in flux, and, like you, there are a lot of people that want to know how this all affects them. It comes down to your needs and a few facts. Some advantages of mobile devices are:

• Mobile devices will continue to get cheaper and easier to get.
• Mobile software will continue to get more prolific and better designed.
• Mobile devices have several key advantages to desktops and laptops:
  - super-mobile
  - longer battery life
  - lighter weight
  - very fast boot times
  - cheap applications (prices $1 to $10 are the norm, versus $20-$500 and up for desktop applications)
• Mobile devices are useful when resources need to be accessed while on the go
• They are also useful when the device itself needs to be moved around or change hands
• Some can be used as a desk top workstation when high productivity is needed.
• Some support external monitors, keyboards, and mice. 
• They can function as USB drives, so resources can easily be copied from desktops and laptops to the mobile device to be used or copied elsewhere.
• Built-in cameras and video recorders make it very easy to record events and activities.
• They are incredibly fun to play with!

But there are areas where mobile devices fall short. Some things to note about desktops and laptops are:

• Desktops are large and not very mobile. This can be a good thing.
• Keyboards, mice, monitors, speakers, web-cams, etc can all be easily replaced
• Physical, wired connections to networks are more reliable and secure
• They are easy to upgrade, especially desktops

Desktops and laptops are not going away anytime soon. And this is because of the disadvantages of mobile devices:

• Mobile devices tend to have a heavy dependency on the web, i.e., being "always connected".
• Even if the devices are not literally "always connected", they still depend entirely on Wi-Fi or a digital data plan with a cellphone carrier for Internet. 
• Data requirements of mobile devices will require additional cost for carrier contracts or equipment such as a wireless router.
• Can't be upgraded (aside from adding an SD card for secondary storage in some devices)
• Upgrading requires replacing the device
• Mobile devices are more easily carried off, dropped, damaged, etc. 
• Regarding productivity, a person on a mobile device is not going to be as productive as someone sitting still at a desktop or laptop. Several factors cause this:
  - more distractions/interruptions when on-the-go
  - lack of a physical keyboard and mouse impair productivity (eg., one-handed typing while the other hand holds the devices)
  - smaller screen
  - mobile devices largely do not support applications running along-side each other (multiple apps can run at a time but each app requires the full screen)
• Overall shorter shelf-life (2-3 years vs. 3-4 for laptops and 4-6 for desktops)
• Any new device based on a new operating system (such as Android or Apple's iOS) will require a learning curve.
• Costs can be difficult to justify for these devices unless there are specific needs for mobile resources.

With these pros and cons in mind, it is easy imagine some scenarios where mobile devices would be fun to have. You might even be able come up with some scenarios where they would actually be useful. But I suspect it would be difficult to come up with a scenario where you could fully justify the cost of a mobile device over a desktop/laptop based on an increase in productivity.

Bottom-line: If you want a mobile device, you're most likely not going to be able to justify it based on a productivity standpoint, i.e., get it because you want it, not because you think you need it. And if you get a mobile device, you are not going to find that your desktop/laptop is suddenly obsolete, though you may visit it slightly less often. 

My "Nutrition Testimony"

This was a letter I wrote to a family member of mine. I wanted to post it here in hopes that someone will read it and be inspired, and that I would have a record of it that I could read later myself.

---,
I wanted to write you this letter because I've been thinking about you fairly often lately. I heard that you'd gone into the hospital recently and I know that your weight is something you've struggled with for a long time.

There's a good chance you may have seen a bunch of the stuff Angela and I have been posting lately about our lifestyle changes related to diet and exercise, but I wanted to write to you personally and tell you that there is hope for something better. I know now, because I’ve been living it for nearly 5 months now.

There is actually a "right" way to eat. A healthy, and satisfying way. It will make you lose weight and get healthier. You don't have to buy into a program, or count calories, or keep a log, or take pills. You've heard the phrase K.I.S.S.- keep it simple stupid. That's what this dietary change is all about. Simple, unprocessed food: vegetables, grains, and fruit.

Now you've known me for 20 years. I have been overweight since I was 8 years old, and I’m 31 now. I grew up with excellent southern style cooks. “Yummy! Put some more butter on it for me! Bacon grease makes anything taste good. Chicken fry it and smother it in gravy! Oohhhh weeeee!” You know exactly what I mean ;-)

So I had this idea of what it meant to eat. And I loved it and ate all I wanted for 30 years. My folks didn't put any restrictions on me in that regard. That's how I learned to live and eat. It's no surprise that I got fat off of that diet pretty early on.

My weight problem, I understood, was somehow related to what I ate, and the fact that I'm "big boned". That's all I knew. The only thing I ever learned was from a brief period at church when we did Weighdown Workshop, and I learned that I was supposed to control my portions. Other than that, I was fortunate that my weight was well distributed on my body, so most people thought I was lighter than I actually was. But I had grief over my weight the whole time. It's affected my self confidence, my self-worth, my energy levels, my sleep, etc. for most of my life.

About 5 years ago I started working for a couple that is vegan. When I first heard the term vegan and learned what it meant I thought they were nuts. But there I was, working out of the small office in their house. And they cooked this food that smelled awesome, and when I could get samples, it tasted excellent. This was the first thing that really got me interested.

What's more, -----'s elderly father had come to live with them months before because he was afflicted with a degenerative nervous system disorder brought on from chemicals he'd worked with as a younger man. He of course was eating the way they were, and he'd lost all the extra 30-40lbs he had on, and the home health nurses were always amazed that "he has the blood pressure of an 18 year old" even though he was about 86. His other numbers were similarly impressive.

Through this experience, I became more interested in their diet and began to learn about it. They ate as much as they wanted and didn't gain weight. They didn't count calories or pop pills. The base of their diet was starchy foods - potatoes, rice, beans, corn, etc - and a good variety of other vegetables and fruits. They didn't add oil or butter to anything, just some spices. They ate no meat, no eggs, and no dairy. They also stayed away from refined foods as much as possible. They used lots of spices though: basil, oregano, cumin, chili powder, etc, etc, etc.

The second thing that pushed me was that I read the China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell. The China Study is most likely the largest and most comprehensive study ever done on cancer. They studied tens of thousands of people over the course of years. In the study they found over 90,000 correlations between diet and health. Through those they were able to determine that the consumption of animal protein directly affects the occurrence of cancer. Anything over 2-4 ounces of animal protein per day and the occurrence of cancer begins to rise sharply. It’s so directly related, it’s like a switch that can be turned on and off simply by adding or removing animal protein from the diet.

The third thing was a combination of their personal histories and an apparent lack of exercise. ----- had been diabetic for years, was overweight, and was suffering from several other maladies. In 1989, she came across a book called The McDougall Program: 12 Days to Dynamic Health. She read it, went on the plan, and has been on it ever since. She lost all of her extra weight, her diabetes disappeared, and all of her other health problems went away. They by no means lived a sedentary lifestyle. They travelled often were always active, but there was no actual consistent exercise in their schedule. So their health and weight loss was not directly tied to exercise, leaving their diet.

After about 3 years of seeing the diet, and reading up, and watching videos, I finally decided that they had it right, and their diet was the best one. But I made no change. I didn’t want to. I like meat, cheese, eggs, more cheese, fried chicken, bacon… It’s all very tasty food. And I didn’t want to give it up. Angela already had some hopes of heading that way too, but she was unable to do anything consistently because she didn’t have my support. Verbally sure, but you know what they say about actions and words.

Now we move up to 5 months ago. I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with my diet – our diet. My family’s diet was poor. I was watching what they were putting in their mouths wondering what affect it was having on them, and on me. But I was so hard-headed.

Maybe it was disbelief. I just didn’t believe that this would work. Not that I wouldn’t lose weight, but that it would be more disappointment when I couldn’t stick to it. And the change was not a diet in the traditional sense… It was a lifestyle change. And not a popular one at that. If we went down that road, then we’d have to start explaining ourselves to people, and justifying our choices, and talking about it, and I wasn’t ready for that.

But on October 7, 2011, God spoke to my Spirit in a way that I’ve never heard Him before. It was almost audible. He led me to Romans 14. Paul says in there that the kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking, and that our place in Heaven was not going to be jeopardized by what we eat. But in 14:23 he says, “But whatever you do, do it through faith, because anything not done through faith is sin.” At that moment, I realized that I had lost faith in my diet. I knew that I was harming my body, and my children’s bodies through eating rich, fatty, and processed foods. And the Lord told me that if I continued, I would be sinning against my body, my family, and Him.

I cried. I pleaded. I blubbered like a baby. Seriously. I sounded like one of my own kids being told to do something they don’t want to do. But at the end of it, I told God that if I was to really do this, then He’d have to help me, because I couldn’t do it on my own. I fasted until late in the evening that day. I had a deep conversation with Angela. And the next day, cold turkey, we cut meat, dairy, and eggs out of our diet and began eating a starch-based diet with the addition of vegetables, whole grains, and fruits.

That night, we went through both of our refrigerators, our pantry, our cupboard, and removed all offending foods. If it was meat or had dairy or eggs in it- it was gone. We put it all in bags and called the church to see if there was someone in need, and they came by and picked it up. We got it all out of the house. First rule of diet: if it’s in the house, it will get eaten. If you don’t want to eat it, get rid of it or don’t buy it. Saturday we went shopping and restocked. We spent a lot of time in Wal-Mart that day reading labels and finding what kind of stuff we could get. Things like spaghetti sauces and noodles. We bought a lot of canned veggies, and frozen veggies, and fresh veggies, and lots of rice and potatoes. We bought a rice cooker.

Within 3 days, we had more energy. Within 5 days, we were sleeping better. Within a week, I’d lost 5lbs, and Angela had lost 3. I stopped getting tired in the afternoon after lunch. Within the first month, we’d had 2 family gatherings where we brought our own food to the event because we knew everything else was going to be covered in butter and cheese.

Dr. McDougall describes it this way: “Can a starch based diet include some meat? Sure. It’s not ideal, but it’s also not a religion. It’s a choice. When you are hungry, and need energy, what are you going to reach for? Meats and cheeses and high fatty foods, or starch based foods and vegetables? Dirty fuel or clean fuel?”

I compared myself to a recovering alcoholic. I didn’t touch anything “bad”. I didn’t want to lose what progress I’d made. 7 weeks after we started was Thanksgiving, and I finally let myself go a tiny bit. I had 1, 2oz piece of turkey. It tasted good, but it didn’t somehow want to start eating it again. I was satisfied with my diet. The food is good. There is a good variety in our diet and meals. I can eat all I want, 4 or 5 or 6 times a day, and I still lose weight. When the overall richness of your diet comes down, the tastes and flavors of fruits, veggies, and grains really start to pop. We noticed that early on. Steamed corn on the cob… oh man, it’s like a dessert for me now. It is so good.

I don’t know if any of this hits home for you. I don’t know what your journey has been like, but I suspect there’s been some disappointment and pain. God created this world and put us on it. And He made the ground grow plants and He put it all here for us. He made our bodies to handle plant foods with ease. We can eat all we want. We can get full every time. And we can still be healthy. It's not supposed to be complicated.

We have a website that has some more information: http://www.LifestylesForLife.com. It’s a small site now, but there are a bunch of good recipes, and some videos. There is also a resources section with some links to other doctor’s websites. They are inspirational people with a drive to see people get healthy through good diet.

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on this. I know this was long, but this is kind of like my “nutrition testimony” of sorts. The obesity and health problems we’re having in the U.S. are becoming more and more important to me. The rates of heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer are increasing every year. Crazy thing is, they are increasing at roughly the same rate as obesity is increasing. And even more crazy, at roughly the same rate as the intake of processed, refined, fatty, rich foods is increasing. The correlations are amazingly similar. The amount of grain consumed each year by the world's cattle could feed 8 billion people. World hunger could literally be eliminated by channeling that grain to people instead of animals. Diabetes rates in the South Pacific and southern Asian countries are skyrocketing as their diets are becoming more Americanized. No one can tell me that this is not an epidemic. They do tell me that what I’m doing is extreme. But the rates of disease linked to diet, and invasive surgeries, and medication costs and side effects all sound pretty extreme too.

I love you, ---! And I want to see you get healthy. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have written you all of this. :)
God bless,
-Jason

Top 10 Rationalizations for However We Want

Dr. Neal Barnard debunks the top 10 rationalizations for eating bad foods.

You can't make this stuff up... Priceless!

Cheese is addictive

Cheese (and dairy) is addictive. Dr. Neal Barnard explains why...

Struggle is not required of us to fullfill our Spiritual walk

I don't believe that a struggle is required of us to fullfill our Spiritual walk. I believe that God can work His full plan and purpose in us without us having to struggle through circumstances. (Note: I did NOT say that if we are walking a certain way that we will somehow avoid struggle. Only that struggle is not a prerequisite for us to grow. Read on.)

I believe that crap happens because we are in a fallen world. Adam and Eve sinned, sin entered our lives, and people do crappy things. As a result, we have struggles, life can be hard, people get sick, maimed, paralyzed, die, they lose loved ones, get poor, go hungry, etc. None of this is within the will of God. God does not ordain that crap happens.

If someone says "I was paralyzed so that God could work through me", or "My loved one died so that God's greater purpose could be accomplished", or "God allows me to struggle so that my destiny can be fullfilled"... that's BS, and worse yet, it does not reflect the true nature and will of God. All of this implies that God's will is for us to struggle, and that is a deception. God will is for us to prosper, and be well, and be at peace, and love Him with all our heart, and love our neighbor as ourself. One thing that God is AMAZINGLY good at, is working things out for our good which our enemy meant for evil. I think that because of that, people mistakenly believe that the bad thing HAD to happen so that the good thing could.

If some struggle comes your way, and you fall, and get all dirty, and scape your knee, and cry a bunch, and throw a temper tantrum... then God will pick you up, dust you off, dry your tears, and help you to learn how not to stumble on that again. But people take those circumstances, and they say things like "If I hadn't fallen on that, God would've never been able to show me how not to fall on it again." That is not true. And It implies that someone can't have enough faith to ask God BEFORE they do something how to do it right, and how NOT to fall. It's like they think that if they had stopped beforehand, and asked God what they needed to watch out for, that God would have purposefully NOT told them just because He wanted it to happen. Again... that is not the nature of God.

The Bible says offenses will come, and trials will come. It does NOT say God will create circumstances for us to overcome. God is not cruel and spiteful. He does not wish us harm. He does not throw stumbling blocks in our way just to watch us fall. He does not kill people for some higher purpose. He does not like watching us suffer. He does not create stressful circumstances into our life to see how we fair. That is how our enemy operates. That is not how our God operates.

I've heard these simple, offhand comments all my life: "It was God's will." Really? Did you ask God about that before you opened your mouth? Nope.

What Our New Diet Has Been Like

So we're trying to get away from the idea that meat is the center of our meals. Before, the rest of the meal was centered around the meat. And, if for some reason something else couldn't be found, then just the meat would do :) But now, we're "re-centering" our meals, as it were.

The center is now potatoes, rice, beans, and/or pasta. These are the starch based foods that provide a solid center for a vegan diet.

Here's some of the meals we've had in the last week:
- Seasoned and baked diced potatoes, steamed broccoli and squash
- Wheat soft tacos with (vegan) refried beans, Spanish rice, lettuce, and Taco Bell sauce (surprisingly vegan)
- Beans burgers with pickles, lettuce, mustard, and ketchup with baked potato fries (Angela and Tracy Reed made patties from a bean-based recipe)
- Wheat spaghetti noodles with a garlic and herb spaghetti sauce by Ragu
- Rice with carrots and broccoli eaten with soy sauce
- Chili with Williams brand chili seasoning, pinto beans and cannellini beans, eaten with wheat crackers
- Boca brand vegan "chicken" patty on a whole wheat bun with Lays baked plain potato chips

- Tomato basil soup with wheat crackers
- Breaded and baked eggplant

For desserts we've done
- Fruit salad
- Pineapple sherbet
- Frozen fruit (cut up strawberries or blue berries)
- Vegan brownies

For breakfast we do:
- Fruits
- Organic oatmeal
- Organic or whole grain cereal

For in-between snacks and such:
- Baby carrots
- Veggie tray of some kind
- Peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat or multi-grain bread
- Fruits
- Organic or whole grain cereal

Some stuff we've got coming up:
- Steamed corn on the cob
- Nutty french toast with maple syrup
- Potato boiled with fresh green beans

So as you can see, we've been eating pretty great! We've been careful to read the labels of the food we buy so as to avoid stuff with lard or milk or eggs as ingredients. It's amazing how much stuff has these things in them... especially milk and eggs.

When possible we choose things with very little or no oil/fat content and as little sugar as we can. And we've been choosing organic foods whenever possible. When presented with the choice, we choose sugar over oil. Sugar will process out of your body way faster than oil.

With this diet, Angela and I have been losing weight, and have felt healthier than we have in a very long time. We've also be amazed as how much more often we get hungry. Snacks are a must!

Why I'm Going Vegan

Short Version
1 week ago on Friday, the Lord showed me this Scripture while I was praying:  Romans 14:14-23. Romans 14:17 says "the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit". When it comes to food, this verse can be the end all argument. And that's okay. Verse 22 says "so whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God." In other words, don't condemn anyone for what they do. But verse 23 pulls it back to the Spirit: "But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."

The Lord showed me that I had lost faith in my diet... in the way I have been eating my entire life. And that by continuing to do something that I had no faith in, I was sinning against myself, my family, and God.

That is it in a nutshell. The reason I have made a change. My family and I have not consumed anything containing dairy, meat, or eggs for 7 days so far. And I personally can't remember feeling this physically good in a very long time.

Detailed Version
This is a path that I've been heading toward, and even tiptoeing on the edge of for quite some time. But I had 30 years of training, habits, and choices holding me back. And for at least 26 of those years I scoffed at the idea of not eating meat and dairy. I don't remember the first time I was introduced to the idea, but I'm quite sure it was not with a positive connotation.

Since I was young, I always wanted to know the answers to questions. When I found out how to find my own answers, I would do that. If somebody told me something, I would try to see if it was true, and to find out more about it. That practice was only strengthened when I went to college.

When Angela and I moved back to Palestine in late 2006, I found out that my boss at my new job (Timothy Triplett) and his wife (Elaine) were not only vegetarians (no meat) but vegans (no dairy or eggs either)! Again, it was a concept that was foreign to me conceptually (why would they do it?) and practically (how would they do it?). Eating "rabbit food" all of the time? No thank you.

But my practice of trying to be educated on a subject worked here just the same. I was curious. And several things really impressed me about the Triplett's lifestyle.
1) The food that Elaine cooked was not just rabbit food. There were a lot of things that not only smelled very good, but tasted even better (when I could get samples).
2) Elaine's 80-something father was living with them, and was suffering from a degenerative nervous system disorder. And his home-health nurses were constantly amazed at how despite his disease he was amazingly healthy. I heard more than one say to him "You've got the blood pressure and cholesterol level of an 18 year old."

Timothy and Elaine had made lifestyle choices many years ago based on their health that lead them to eating the way they do. And they are constantly trying to refine those choices and make them better and better. As a result, over the last few years, I have been exposed to a lot of information that I had never been aware of before.

And before you say "Sure, if you're being constantly bombarded by something, it's going to eventually get through," think about this: they would have to work constantly for many years to come to get near the amount of exposure I've had to the "American diet". Print ads, radio ads, TV ads, Internet ads, road signs, billboards, family, friends... nearly everyone I know eats the way everyone else does and the way I have.

After all of my experience, the new information and different take was welcome. I started to realize that the way I had been doing things, the way I was taught, is not the best way. Our bodies have certain needs. And the food we eat matters. It matters for a whole bunch of reasons.

It is partially for these reasons that I have lost faith in my old diet. I want to live a healthy life. I want to live to be very old. I want to be healthy when I'm old. I don't want to be a burden on my wife, or my kids, or my grandkids. I don't want to be a slave to medications, or doctors.

So I'm changing my diet. We are changing. My family is changing. God brought me to a place where I am ready to do it. Last Friday, He convicted my Spirit. And he has given us the strength to change. Angela has had the desire for some time to change. But now she has my support, and we are doing it together with our kids.

Right now we are vegan. No meat. No eggs. No dairy. Whole foods as much as possible. As low fat and sugar content as we can. I don't know if this will be forever or not. But it will, at the minimum, be a "reboot". I feel, in a way, like a recovering alcoholic - the last thing they need is a drink of alcohol. So we're going cold turkey. Maybe at some point we will begin to reintroduce some things back into our diet. But if we do, it will be in a controlled way, with very small portions. The whole foods, vegan diet will continue to be the lifestyle.

---------
So here are some questions I've asked myself that have helped lead me to where I am now.
What is meat? Animal muscle.
How do they get muscle? By eating plants.
Wouldn't it be better if I just ate the plants? Sure. After all, everyone knows vegetables are good for you. There is nothing in meat that you can't get from plants.

What about dairy? Oh man.. that's it's own can of worms. [1] [2] [3] [4] And I especially love how the Health and Nutrition section of the Wikipedia page on Cheese has absolutely no negative information! HA! Unbiased my foot. (And did you know that the grand majority of humans on the planet are lactose intolerant? It's really not even a question of whether you are or not, but to what degree you are. Amazing. Bet you're not going to learn that little fact from the Dairy Counsel.) But it's basically the same thing as meat. Everything you get from dairy you can get a healthy selection of fruits and vegetables plus so much more.

So why get all that stuff from some other animal after they've already processed it? No good reason.

What Its Like Shopping for My Kids This Year

Idea: Jason "Tex" Watts, Art: Eli Moody