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.

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