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1. Last year
the global games market generated $152.1 billion
from 2.5 billion gamers and is now larger
than both the film and the music industries
combined. And as the size and scope
of its soundtracks, with bigger budgets allowing
composers to look to lavish film scores for
inspiration.
BBC MusicNv20
--The average Chinese
child spends twice as much time with videogames
as an American one.
The Chinese government
has ordered that children spend no more than
3 hours a week on videogames.
[Nice to be in a totalitarian
state]
2. Non audio
item
Plantar Fasciitis
Someone mentioned Plantar
Fasciitis and I didn’t know what it was
so I did some research. It’s not in my
copy of The American Medical Association Home
Medical Encyclopedia (1989) so it must be
a recent problem, perhaps due to increasing
obesity and increasingly sedentary life styles.
I went to the Mayo Clinic
site and found some information.
It is a problem with
the arch of the foot, mainly where the muscle
attaches to the heel. It is a tendon injury
and can be very painful. Tendons have almost
no blood supply so healing takes a long time.
Risk factors include obesity, marathon running,
walking, and standing. The treatments suggested
may promote healing but otherwise are useless
and don’t help you to prevent it in the
future. Stretching is no benefit. They recommend
icing which is entirely discredited. (The
inventor of R.I.C.E has renounced it!) It
slows the healing process.
What is needed is impact-based
exercise to strengthen the muscles and tendons
involved.
Then why do marathon
runners suffer from it? The answer is that
running is in one plane and strengthens your
arch in only one direction. All other directions
become weak, even weaker than if you didn’t
jog at all. The body has finite resources
and will devote them to what it perceives
as most important. Running on a treadmill
is even worse and running on broken terrain
is in between.
What I do is Circular
Jogging which stresses the foot by impacts
in a 360 degree arc so you are protected from
injury at every angle. I jog in place for
18 minutes every day while moving my feet
through an arc of 360 degrees.
Someone asked about
jogging on beach sand (or jogging through
water). This gives good aerobic exercise but
otherwise promotes the myth that low impact
exercise is good for you.
There is evidence that
cartilage likes cyclical loading and, conversely,
steady pressure is bad. Animal studies have
shown that cyclical loading causes cartilage
cells to divide and replenish the tissue.
Conversely, continuous pressure can overload
the tissue and cause more cells to die than
are replenished. (It may be a cartilage problem
with the heel, masquerading as PF).
If you have to stand
or walk for long periods use arch supports
and do 18 minutes of Circular Jogging a day
(without supports).
I have never had Planter
Fasciitis and haven’t had a sports (tennis)
injury in 9 years.
email me here
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