There has been talk of Spotify releasing an app for the iPhone for a while and controversy around it since some thought it would be a competitor of iTunes and therefore Apple wouldn’t allow it. Spotify actually came to my office to show us all the new developments – mostly to do with the advertising they do but of course we only wanted to hear about the iPhone app. They told us it was in the process of being approved by Apple and would be available soon.

Well reports told of the app being approved and we expected it to be in the app store – of course we had to wait for that too but it is finally here! Hurrah! And free to download.

Spotify iPhone app

So getting back to the point of why I am annoyed. I had a look at the app and see it has an average review of two and a half stars. This is why I am annoyed. Where have these people been for the past two months?! Have they seen all the hype about this app? How have they not seen that you need a premium membership to be able to use it?

The Spotify app is brilliant. End of. You can listen to unlimited music for £10 per month on demand. This function alone should be good enough for anyone who spends more than £10 per month on music. But then they put the cherry on top – you can sync your playlists to your device and listen to them offline. Amazing. So you can spend ten minutes syncing 200 songs and then listen to them all day without worrying about having a signal. ITunes would have charged you £158 for the same pleasure. And that’s just day one.

So to all the reviewers out there who seem to expect to get something for nothing, why don’t you get your facts right before you slate the app. And there has been plenty of press about needing a premium subscription for the app – where have you been?!

The Spotify App comes highly recommended.

]]> http://swotsknew.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/spotify-iphone-app-now-in-app-store-5000-worth-of-music-for-10/feed/ 0 chestylaroux Spotify iPhone app http://swotsknew.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/having-a-baby-better-lose-some-weight-then/ http://swotsknew.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/having-a-baby-better-lose-some-weight-then/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:14:16 +0000 6point35 http://swotsknew.wordpress.com/?p=99 ]]>

The product of an overweight mother?

Obesity stomach surgery can result in healthier babies according to a study published in the November Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

There have been plenty of scientific studies explaining the link between obesity and complications during pregnancy, for both the mother (such as gestational diabetes, chest infections, etc) as well as the foetus (such as increased risk of stillbirths), but this study – conducted by a surgeon from State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn along with a team of researchers at University of Laval in Quebec City – is a little bit different.

The findings of this study essentially show that obesity creates an unhealthy environment for a foetus and the foetus can subsequently undergo changes in the womb that can cause problems later in life.

The research studied the offspring of 49 obese women who had both given birth and also undergone ‘biliopancreatic diversion bariatric surgery’ (where a portion of the stomach is removed and food and enzymes re-routed past part of the small intestine, limiting the amount of nutrients absorbed).

The average weight lost was more than one-third of their body weight rendering them from ‘obese’ to ‘slightly overweight’. All women studied had managed to keep the lost weight off.

111 children were born to these women, 54 before the surgery and 57 afterwards, and when studied (in 2005) their ages ranged from 2 to 25.

Nineteen children who were born to women before they underwent surgery ended up being severely obese, whilst only six children born to women after the surgery were obese. Statistically, this suggests the stomach surgery significantly reduces the incidence of obesity in the child.

Possibly more telling, however, was the fact that all the children born to post-operative mothers, as a group, scored better on a wide range of medical tests. They had better levels of hormones that regulate appetite, they used insulin more effectively, had better cholesterol levels, had lower levels of proteins indicative of chronic inflammation, and greatly reduced chances of cardiovascular disease, stroke and other long-term health problems.

How these changes are made ‘in utero’ is still unclear, any genes could potentially be modifiable, though the process of how this happens is not yet determined.

What does this mean for pregnant women and women wishing to get pregnant though? Well, obese pregnant women are likely to be told to lose weight, pregnant women in general will probably be told not to gain dramatic levels of weight, and obese women not yet pregnant but planning a child will most likely be told to lose a few stone before actually having one.

Whether we ever see a day where obese people are refused fertility treatment nationwide as standard, not unlike what is happening in Southport, Merseyside, will be anyone’s guess. But if you ask me, it won’t be that long coming. Transcending issues of weight, public health, the future burden on the NHS, and the wider health of the future generation makes for a powerful mix.

Is this a good thing? For both the mother and the unborn child I think it is. The health benefits of losing weight provide an overwhelming case. Being told to lose weight ‘for the sake of their child’ may act as a better incentive to some women; if lacking the willpower to do it for themselves, they might do it for their child.

So, the unborn child is dependent upon the mother for its future health, but ultimately the mother might be dependent on the unborn child for her future health. I think there’s something rather fitting about that…

John Updike's 'Terrorist'

I was round by the British Museum the other day when I stumbled across this great little bookshop, the London Review Bookshop. I could write a whole post about the place itself, from its selection of books to its wonderful (if rather tiny) coffee shop attached but I’ll save that for another day (as an aside though, really do go and visit if you’re in the vicinity).

Anyway, I was in this lovely bookshop and perusing the shelves when I stumbled across the John Updike selection. A few years ago I read the Rabbit books (‘Rabbit, Run’, ‘Rabbit Redux’, ‘Rabbit is Rich’ and ‘Rabbit At Rest’) as they were recommended to me by a very well-read friend of mine and I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed them. For no particular reason, however, I had read nothing of his since, so I decided to get myself a ‘new Updike’ for Summer 2009. After cruising through various titles I picked out ‘Terrorist’.

The back of the book (the Penguin Books version of 2007) gave a very conceptual outline: “John Updike, America’s foremost writer on the times we live in, turns his brilliant novelist’s gaze on the United States post-9/11 and creates a gripping, searing and meticulously exact portrait of what it means to be alienated and powerless in the early years of the twenty-first century.”

The actual synopsis I would give off the cuff goes something like this: A story about a short but critical period (maybe about a year or so) in the life of a young egyptian-american boy who is just about to graduate from high-school and head into a job his imam at his mosque recommended to him, driving a lorry for a furniture company.

To be honest, I know shamefully little about any of the major religions and it is one area in which I have never been that worried about extending my knowledge. And admittedly, on the surface reading a story about a period in the life of a young man’s life which centres around his faith, wasn’t that gripping to someone who really isn’t big on religion. However, I decided to give it a go despite the misgivings I had – no time like the present to broaden one’s horizons.

The first few pages were surprisingly easy to fall into. Updike has a fantastic writing style that eases you into the story and its characters quickly and unobtrusively, and I surprised myself how quickly I became engrossed in the story of Ahmad, this clean, smart and upright student who is the focus of our novel. With each new character introduced, especially Jack the life-weary school Guidance Counsellor, I found myself eagerly turning pages, keen to progress their seemingly uneventful lives.

Updike has been masterful with his characters in this book. There are just the right number for you to care about, with enough on the fringe of the story to provide a backdrop of everyday reality to the unfolding events but without distracting from our main focus.

There are also no ridiculous twists and turns of fate that beggar belief that you often associate with a ‘thriller’, but instead the quiet and constant passing of time unraveling the plot with no need for gimmickry. I think the beauty of this book is not in the ‘not knowing what is coming’, but instead ‘knowing’ (or having a strong hunch) what is coming and seeing how it all happens.

That is not to say there aren’t a few twists and turns that you don’t see coming in the last third of the book (none of which I shall mention for fear of spoiling it) but it isn’t the objective of the book to point and laugh shouting ‘gotcha’. It’s the point to chronicle how it ended up happening.

For me Updike’s brilliance with this novel lies in capturing the absolute essence of his subject matter and characters, marking the passage of time with all content mattering and all content that matters captured, but without getting bogged down in irrelevant minutia that would otherwise result in a turgid novel.

Having read some other reviews about this novel, there is a school of thought that suggests the description is in fact too heavy, but I disagree. Granted, I may have skim-read the direct quotes from the Qur’an that I had no chance of understanding, but there always followed in the following paragraphs an explanation to the relevance and I felt that this was engaging to read, not a chore at all.

I also actually learnt rather a lot. Granted it comes through fiction, but I somehow trust John Updike to get it right when he is talking about the Qur’an and Islam. It is a subject I had little interest in, and yet now I find myself curious to read about it a bit more. Surely that is not bad for a work of fiction?!

I don’t want to fill this with spoilers for the book (if you want spoilers check out the Wikipedia entry for ‘Terrorist’), so I guess it will remain necessarily cryptic, but what I will say is go buy this book. Borrow it. Do whatever. Even if you don’t think it will interest you. I bought it on a partial whim and to be honest, even then plot didn’t appeal, and here I am spending the best part of a Thursday tea-time writing about how fantastic this novel is and recommending to anyone . I guess that makes me a little sad, but I think I can live with that for a while …

Feedback.

What if your fuel bill was more like your phone bill: itemised and including rates. A breakdown of all your electrical and gas powered appliances in the home, the amount of time they were running for, their fuel consumption rate and what they cost you. That would certainly help me. Next month I could try to reduce the use of the inefficient appliances, compare them to last month etc etc… you get the gist.

So how could we measure how much energy each appliance in our home is using? Google may have proposed the answer, in the form of a “power meter” fitted to every appliance. You can then track your energy consumption in real-time using an iGoogle widget and then act on the information. Google claim this could reduce your bill by five to 15%, but of course your saving will depend on how you act upon your data.

How will you know what is a lot when it comes to each appliance’s usage? Given that Google will ultimately have your data, your street’s data, your town’s data and everyone else’s, you’ll be able to compare your consumption with the average of all similar households.

A study by researches at Oberlin College in Ohio sets the students in each dorm a challenge to reduce their energy consumption and the dorm who cuts their consumption the most wins a prize. The students are able to track their consumption via a detailed output on their computers similar to the Google power meter. And guess what, it worked.

Another study at California State University showed that if households on a street were given information about their’s and their neighbours’ energy consumption, the households with higher than average consumption would cut their usage. However, the households with lower than average usage would tend to increase their consumption in response to the news. This problem disappeared if the low users were given praise for their low consumption. So it seems we like to fit in with the crowd.

It would be fantastic if Google could introduce “power meters” to every household, not only would it help reduce energy consumption in the short term, imagine the change in the products we buy after we know how much they will cost us per year. We would be able to act immediately if we are using too much energy and we could even set maximum monthly energy spends that could optimise the use of our heating systems. I can see it now – office workers stewing in their own sweat with the air conditioning off for a month so they can afford a new copier… nice.

I, like the rest of the western world, hypocritically moan how Google is taking over the world, nine times out of ten with the nice twist of irony of using my GMail account to do so, probably after a morning of using their Chrome browser to avoid work by using their search engine to find pictures of Maine Coon kittens and other extraordinarily cute creatures.

Although the point of the article was about the little-known humanitarian projects Google.org get up to, investing $100 million and more into charitable causes, pledging 1% of profits for philanthropic purposes, etc, it was one particular story that really caught my attention.

After the uproar about Asian bird flu, back in 2003, the body of public health opinion was that Southeast Asia would in all likelihood be at the centre of the next epidemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) watched Asia like a hawk (a hawk that survived the first bout of flu of course), but far away somebody else had an eye on another, more unlikely, candidate. Mexico.

Days before any news about the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ virus in Mexico broke, Google.org detected an increase in search terms from Mexico such as ‘headache’ and ‘fever’ and other symptoms typically associated with influenza.

In a twist of good timing a couple of months prior, Google.org had released a ‘flu trends’ software, which it angled towards Mexico. Although the use of this technology had it’s limitations, such as many Mexicans not having access to the internet, people researching symptoms for reasons other than having swine flu, and no past data on which to base trends, Google.org were able to standardise the data they did collect to predict near real-time incidence of swine flu with startling accuracy.

Google's swine flu map

With such real-time, accurate data, the possible applications of this are staggering. If used correctly, the power of the search data that Google can contribute to various forecasting programmes could truly change the way the world monitors health. As the internet continues to bed into so many nations’ every day lives, real-time search terms could detect the very start of outbreaks.

What I find most amazing about this is that a company has come up with a product so good, so simple and yet so powerful that a mere by-product of its core business can be used to help prevent, rather than merely react to, future health pandemics.

Maybe Google taking over the world isn’t such a bad thing… that is until the next time I feel GMail targeted adverts have invaded my privacy…

Brain shrinking and weight gain: Homer S has it all

In last week’s New Scientist, it was reported that a recent study has shown that people with higher BMI (Body Mass Index) have smaller brains (Do expanding waistlines cause shrinking brains? by Nora Schultz, p. 9, 22nd August 2009).

From initial scans, researchers found that from of a sample 94 elderly individuals, 51 overweight individuals had brains 6% smaller than those of normal weight. Another 14 obese participants had brains that were 8% smaller than those of normal weight. The worst hit areas are those involved with planning and memory.

Previous studies have shown the link between dementia and subsequent brain shrinkage. Diabetes is another condition that, with its high insulin levels can cause shrinking. Indeed the incidence of both these conditions increase with increased body weight. So could it be that what this study really saw was a by-product of dementia, diabetes and other brain-shrinking conditions, rather than a direct link with weight?

Apparently not. After researchers accounted for these conditions, the relationship between brain size and body weight remained the same indicating a clear and direct link between the two. What remains not clear is whether weight-gain is driving the shrinking of brains or the other way round.

Something of a chicken and egg scenario methinks. But somehow neither food is particular appealing to me at the moment, I kind of like my brain as it is…

You know how the Xfactor editing goes – the judges start saying the show is a waste of time, they’re never going to find anyone good, blah blah and more BS. Simon Cowell is prancing around in his faux mood that may have washed back in series three but we’ve seen it all before and we know what’s coming – someone good. I don’t even think Danyl was the last audition of the day – they just wanted an excuse to play the sad piano music and for Dermot to sound semi-sincere.

Danyl’s audition was very good, very entertaining and natural. Let’s not forget that back in the day (about three years ago) Danyl was in a boy band called Streetlevel with three guys, though the group has since disbanded, Danyl has kept up the singing doing various performances, winning karaoke competitions and such like. Anyway, I wish Danyl the best of luck with the competition; I know he’s exactly the right sort of person with the talent to become very successful, plus he is lovely. You heard it here first.

I'm feeling hungry already

They were also offered either a chocolate or oatmeal cookie afterwards and the ones who saw the cake plumped for the oatmeal more often. The study did suggest the findings are only applicable to women who are trying to lose weight. Most women then.

These findings do come as a bit of a surprise to me since a lot of food businesses stress the importance of displaying their produce in the window to tempt customers in. I also read an article a while ago about eating things you can see;  if you remove the offending item from your vision you are less likely to tuck in. And what about Marks and Spencer? Their “This is not just food, this is M and S food” epic took credit for saving the store.

I don’t know about you, but I quite fancy a melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding with extra special devonshire clotted cream now.

Providing a sequence of images, each referring to a stage within a project complete with editable captions, you can modify the strip and create your own version; this one sums up my current project pretty aptly.

Because we all have projects like this

It is definitely worth a visit for all those disillusioned projecteers out there; it is a surprisingly cathartic experience to commit frustration to cartoon. Like voodoo. But somewhat less agressive. If only passively so.