Month: February 2012

DIYization: The Word I Was Looking For

Seth Roberts1 Comment

In a recent post I wondered what’s a good word to describe the next step in economic progress after specialization — when making/doing X is done by the general public (not as a job) instead of just by paid specialists (as a job). For example, the introduction of cheap cameras allowed the general public, not just professional photographers, to take pictures. Personal science is an example of such a shift, of course. Thank you for your many suggestions, such as laitization, deguilding, promethization, and several more. The combination of Keimpe Wiersma’s suggestion (DIY) and wobbly’s suggestion (deguilding) led me to DIYing and DIYization.

DIYing, I learned, is an existing word with a different meaning (to do DIY). Although ordinary DIY (Home Depot) is associated with men, women appear to use DIYing far more than men and they use it to describe traditionally feminine activities (see this). For example, there is a blog DIYing To Be Domestic by a woman. This is irrelevant to whether I use it — it’s just interesting.

DIYization is much rarer. It appears in a 2005 essay called “Scandinavian Dreams: DIY, Democratisation and IKEA” where it refers not to a change in an activity but to a change in society — toward more DIY. IKEA, says the essayist, is an example of “the DIYization of society.”

DIYing is shorter. DIYization is more self-explanatory, less likely to be confused with dying, and makes clearer the connection with specialization. Not to mention it is more pompous — more Veblenesque. In the last chapter of The Theory of The Leisure Class, Veblen used long rare words to say that academics show off their uselessness using by using long rare words.

Apple Admits It Has a Workplace Problem

Seth Roberts25 Comments

From The Independent:

Facing a growing scandal over the working conditions of those making its best-selling gadgets, Apple has called in assessors from the same organization that was set up to stamp out sweatshops in the clothing industry more than a decade ago. The move is an admission that Apple’s own system of monitoring suppliers has failed to stamp out abuses, and that the negative publicity surrounding its Chinese operations threatens to cause a consumer backlash against its products.

I blogged about this a month ago. I think this announcement suggests the power of This American Life (which recently aired a show about working conditions at Apple’s factories) or Steve Jobs (his ability to “see no evil”) or both. It reminds me of the American Civil Rights movement. That movement made considerable progress soon after TV became widespread and Northerners could see Southern brutality on the evening news. Mike Daisey, via This American Life, suddenly made this problem a lot clearer to a lot of people outside Apple, thereby putting pressure on Apple management.

Vitamin D3 in Morning Improves Mood But Not Sleep (Story 8 Update)

Seth Roberts3 Comments

In an earlier post, Alexandra Carmichael of CureTogether noted that 4000 IU/day Vitamin D3 gave her better results than 2000 IU/day. Her mood was better and her sleep was better. But she’d only taken the larger dose once.

She recently sent me an update:

Since I last wrote to you [8 days earlier], I’ve been taking 4000-6000 IU Vitamin D3, and I can report that it’s NOT having a positive effect on my sleep, but it is balancing my mood significantly, helping me to handle normally overwhelming situations with much more ease, and avoiding mood extremes. This is a wonderful thing!

Anyway, just wanted to let you know I don’t fit the sleep-improvement set — I still wake up super easily in the night. Falling asleep is easy, but I attribute that to the blue blocker glasses. Also, 4000 IU is much better at balancing my mood than 2000 IU (no noticeable effect) or 6000 IU (feelings of intensity or overwhelm increase).

Vitamin D3 in Morning Helps Him Sleep Through the Night (Story 16)

Seth Roberts5 Comments

Greg Harrington left a comment on an earlier post:

I have had very similar results [fall asleep more easily] from first-thing in morning D3.(NOTE: I have great flexibility in my schedule — I can sleep/awake whenever I want — so I have been most focused on “restful” sleeping.) Differences: (a) My pre-D3 issue was restless sleep (waking up frequently), not failure to fall asleep. (b) The effect of sleeping all the way through the night was definitely immediate–very first night. (c) Also, most days I also wake up feeling more “rejuvenated”. This is not 100% though.

I asked him for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I’ve lived Austin,TX since 07/2011. Kansas City, MO before that. I’m a software programmer. 6′ 3″. 210 lbs. (White male, mostly German, but completely European descent.)

How did you want to improve your sleep?

I want to sleep through the night without waking up 3-6 times in a 6-9 hour sleep. This problem has lasted for 2-3 years. It sort of crept up on me. I go to sleep between midnight and 2 am.

How much D3 do you take? At what time?

I take 50,000 IU between 8 and 9 am. If I forget or wake up later, I don’t take it. This is the product I take: Bio-Tech D3 in 50,000 IU capsules.

Why 50k? It was available on Amazon, and I calculated that to be what you’d get from 75-90 minutes of full-body sunlight. Thinking about Paleo lifestyle…that seemed reasonable. This is a LOT more than most SE people are taking but I wanted to maximize the effect! ;-)

Any effects of D3 on something other than sleep?

I often waking up feeling more rested/rejuvenated. But not every day. I tend to feel tired between 11 pm and midnight.

What happened when you started taking D3 in the morning?

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts3 Comments

Thanks to Jim McGuire, Dave Lull and Peter Spero.

What Is a Good Word For This?

Seth Roberts45 Comments

Can you help me? I am looking for a word — maybe a new word — to describe the transformation of an activity from (a) something done only by trained specialists, as part/all of their job to (b) something done by the general public, not as a job. For example:

  • word processing software has made producing an attractive manuscript something that you no longer need hire a secretary to do — you can do it yourself.
  • digital cameras and software have made producing high-end photographs something you no longer need a professional photographer to make.
  • When I was a graduate student I hired a professional to make publication-quality figures for my scientific papers. Now I make them myself.

The transition I am talking about is part of a longer historical sequence that goes like this:

  1. Hobby
  2. Part-time job
  3. Full-time job
  4. Specialization (= division of labor)
  5. [new word goes here]

The best word I can think of is deprofessionalization. Unfortunately that has been used with a different meaning. Amateurization doesn’t work because amateur often means hobbyist. Popularization doesn’t work because the status of the activity has changed — from something done as part of a job to something done not as a job. It is one of several ways a job can change:

  • More efficient. New tools, materials, etc., make it possible to do the same job in a shorter period of time or at lower cost.
  • Higher quality. New tools, etc., make it possible to do a better job.
  • More exclusive (= higher barriers to entry). Something (e.g., licensing requirements) makes it harder for others to compete with you.
  • Less exclusive. Something (e.g., the Internet) makes it easier for others to compete with you.
  • ???. People no longer need to hire you or someone like you to do what you do. They do it themselves.

I care because personal science (science done to help oneself) is an example. For a long time, non-trivial science was done only by professional scientists. Now it is being done by non-professionals.

More What about publicization? Or is it too ugly? I looked up democratization as a possibility but found this under “democratization of photography”:”Serious photography has gone from being the preserve of the reasonably well off to something that just about anyone can take up with minimal expense”. That isn’t what I mean here — that the price of something comes down. Hoipolloization is too long. What about massification?

Still More It really is DIY, I hadn’t thought of that. That exactly conveys the transition from job to non-job. DIYing (or should it be DIYization?) has a nice ring to it, is very short, is not pompous, and would not need to be defined. I also like promethization, deguilding, democratization, and deprofessionalization.

What is a Healthy Scientific Ecosystem?

Seth Roberts8 Comments

An area of science is an ecosystem in the sense that research builds on other research. In an ordinary ecosystem the animals and plants need each other. Different organisms add different things. Their contributions fit together. In a healthy scientific ecosystem, different types of research add different things and fit together.

Personal science (science done to help yourself) differs greatly from professional science (science done as a job). The big differences help personal science and professional science benefit from each other. They are likely to benefit each other because they have interlocking strengths and weaknesses. Personal science is fast (experiments can be started quickly), has great endurance (experiments can last years), cheap, and intensely focussed on benefit. Professional science has none of these features, but it has other features that personal science lacks: it is “wealthy” (allowing expensive equipment and tests), peer-reviewed, and not intensely focussed on benefit, which allows studies without obvious value. These differences suggest that a system that contains both kinds of science is going to function better than a system with only one kind. Peer review, for example, is a helpful filter but may also suppress the diversity of ideas that are tested. Which implies that not all science should be peer-reviewed.

The relation between personal and professional science somewhat resembles the relation between animals (= personal science) and plants (= professional science). Animals and plants are very different, as are personal and professional science. Animals move faster than plants; personal science moves faster than professional science. Animals range more widely than plants. Likewise, a personal scientist can test a much wider range of treatments than a professional scientist. If you want to sleep better, for example, you can try almost anything. Professional scientists cannot try almost anything. For example, they cannot test treatments considered “crazy”.

Animals and plants helped each other evolve, in the sense of diversifying to exploit new habitats. Animals helped plants exploit new habitats because they increased seed dispersal. This helped plants “test” more locations, helped them survive difficult circumstances such as drought (because some places are drier than others), and reduced competition between seeds (allowing more resources to be devoted to overcoming bad features of new places). Animals are like catalysts that speed up the combination of old plant and new environment to yield new plant. Likewise, plant evolution helped animals evolve because new plants in new places provided more food, more diverse food, and more places to live.

It is likely that personal science and professional science will help each other “evolve” (e.g., solve problems). Personal science wouldn’t function well without professional science. For example, statistical packages, which help personal scientists, wouldn’t exist without professional science. In the other direction, personal science can help professional science “evolve” (e.g., solve problems, build better theories) in two ways. One is idea generation, especially discovery of new cause-effect relationships. Personal scientists can easily do large amounts of trial and error. They can easily test many “crazy” (= low-probability-of-success )treatments, one after the other, until they find something that works. Professional scientists cannot do this sort of thing, which in the world of professional science has a derogatory name: fishing expedition. The other way personal science can help professional science involves idea application. Personal science can tailor ideas from professional science to individual circumstance. Professional scientists don’t like to do this. They would rather do a big study in which all subjects are treated alike. Making better practical use of ideas from professional science is what Richard Bernstein did when he invented home blood glucose monitoring. He made better use of already-known cause-effect relationships.

I have not heard scientists talk about science as an ecosystem. If they did, it might cut down on the dismissiveness (correlation does not equal causation, the plural of anecdote is not data, etc.), evidence snobbery, and one-way skepticism.

Vitamin D3 in Morning Has Ambiguous Effects on Sleep and Energy (Story 15)

Seth Roberts9 Comments

A reader named Murray Love made a comment about Vitamin D3 and sleep that at least sounds negative:

As a counterpoint [to this post], I’ve been taking 4-5,000 IU of D3 for a couple of months now, and while it might be making me feel better in other ways (more vital, upbeat, and energetic), it has coincided with a stretch of poor sleep. I have what they (hilariously) call “terminal insomnia” — that is, I usually have no trouble at all falling asleep, but I wake regularly at night and am permanently awake very early, often from 4:30am onwards. This has been a periodic problem for a few years now, though this stretch is notably tolerable, for some reason.

I asked for details:

Tell me about yourself.

I’m an engineer, Victoria, BC, age 44. A big confounding factor with me is that I started a new job in November, for which I get up at 6 am and (on most days) ride my bicycle about 12 km (7.5 mi) to work, instead of walking a few blocks as I did with my previous job. I started taking the D3 and having this round of sleep problems all within a few weeks of starting the new job, so it’s difficult to disentangle all the correlations.

What time of day do you take the D3? What brand?

I take it around 6:30 am with my coffee. London Drugs (generic Canadian drugstore brand) 1000 IU tablets, though I’d prefer higher-IU gelcaps for ease of swallowing. I usually don’t eat anything for breakfast unless I’m cooking for my sons, in which case it’s meat and eggs with some fruit. Other times, when I’m not cooking but feeling hungrier than the norm at that time of day, I’ll have a handful of almonds or mixed nuts around the same time as the D3.

You started taking D3 because of my posts about it?

That sparked my interest, since I thought it might help with early-morning insomnia. But I’ve also been reading about the benefits of D3 for a while, such as at Dennis Mangan’s blog here and here.

You write: “This has been a periodic problem for a few years now,” What do you mean by “periodic”? For the last few years — before the D3 — on what fraction of nights did you have this problem?

“Periodic” means that I experience it almost every day (weekends included) for several weeks or a few months at a time, then it goes away for some reason and I sleep more normally for several months. The usual pattern for my insomnia is: I go to bed at 10:30, give or take 90 minutes, fall asleep almost immediately, wake up 1-2 times during the night (usually briefly), then around 4:30 am wake up and either a) doze lightly and intermittently until my 6 am get-up time, or b) stay awake.

Since you started the D3, on what fraction of nights do you have this problem?

I’d guess 85%. Once in a while, I manage to get some catch-up sleep and surprise myself by sleeping in.

You write: “this stretch is notably tolerable, for some reason.” Could you say more about this? What do you mean by “notably tolerable”?

It means I am surprised that my typical 4.5- to 7-hour sleeps do not seem to be affecting my energy level, mood, or ability to concentrate, even over several days. Since I went low-carb mixed with intermittent fasting back in 2008, I don’t tend to get mid-morning or early-afternoon energy dips, but since I started taking D3 (NB. plus new job, plus riding my bike again) I seem to be much more alert and cheerful, almost regardless of sleep. My experience seems remarkably similar to the other reader’s comment you posted this morning (27-Jan).

How Things Begin (honey wine vinegar)

Seth Roberts4 Comments

At the recent Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, the most impressive product I encountered was a honey wine vinegar made by Slide Ridge Honey, a small family business in northern Utah. I interviewed the developer, Martin James, about how the business and product began.

How did your business begin?

I started keeping bees when I was 9 years old. It was a hobby. When I was in my thirties, I wanted to start a business. I’d been doing flooring. Carpet, linoleum, that sort of thing. Large commercial jobs and residential. I wanted to be my own boss, control my own destination, have my own business. I started a honey business with my two sisters, one older, one younger.That was 10 years ago.

How did this product begin?

We wanted a more unique product. We wanted to expand beyond Utah. When you ship butter somewhere, it’s already there — local honey. So it’s hard to enter the market. We wanted to diversify our business so we weren’t only selling honey. We wanted higher profit margins.

My sisters and I discussed lots of possible products. Eventually vinegar came out the favorite. There are only two other people making honey wine vinegar — one in Washington State (Honey Ridge Farms), the other in Italy. If you put our products side by side, you’ll see they’re totally different.

The development took 7 years. The first step was to use honey to make wine. I got yeasts from wine shops, brewing shops, and mail order. I needed to find a yeast that was compatible with honey. The first ones I tried produced off flavors — for example, the wine smelled like gasoline. I finally found a yeast that was compatible with honey, that made an excellent honey wine. The next step was to produce vinegar. To do that I used an acetobacter — a microbe that eats alcohol and makes acid. It feels like piece of wet leather. What kombucha makers call a scooby. I found the acetobacter I needed from a vinegar maker in Napa Valley — a vinegar maker.

There was also four years of paperwork. Local, state, federal.

What has surprised you?

The reception. When they taste it, people’s eyes light up. I hadn’t prepared myself for the product to take off so well. Repeat customers buy 3 bottles. A lot of specialty chefs have taken an interest. A lot of TV chefs have come by.

 

 

 

 

 

50,000 IU Vitamin D3 in Morning Once/Week Improves Sleep (Story 14)

Seth Roberts3 Comments

A reader named Tim G commented:

Blood tests last year [2011] showed I had low Vitamin D levels so I was put on a 50,000 IU once/week regimen for 3 months using a prescription D2 (ergocalciferol). A recheck after 3 months showed my level had hardly changed. A search of PubMed showed conflicting views on using the D2 form. So for the next 3 months I used ProHealth D3 Extreme 50,000 IU (via Amazon.com) instead of another D2 scrip my doc had given me. I always took the D2 or D3 in the morning (just lucky happenstance.)

The second recheck, after the second 3 mo., showed my Vitamin D level was normal. I hadn’t put it all together until seeing this post, but when using the D3 I had the same effect [as what is described in this post] — when I got tired, I got *really* tired right at bedtime, and slept like a rock.

Even though it has been less than a month since stopping the weekly dose, I have noticed my sleep degrading somewhat, and lately not even being tired when I should.

I asked for details:

Tell me about yourself.

I’m a 50 year old reasonably healthy guy who is a lifetime Massachusetts resident. I’m in the IT profession (managing computer systems, programming and such). So I am someone who 1) lives at a higher latitude, 2) during the day garners minimal Vitamin D from the glow of LCD displays and fluorescent lights, and also 3) generally dislikes the heat of summer and burns easily.

Why did you take D3 once/week rather than once/day?

My intent was to mimic the original doctor’s prescription of a single 50K/wk dose, while substituting D3 for the prescribed D2. At the time, I had no good reason to change to a daily schedule, although it intuitively struck me as odd to take a single large dose rather than smaller, more evenly distributed doses.

What time in the morning did you take it? What time do you get up in the morning?

I get up around 6-6:30 am. I would take the D3 around 6:15-6:45 am.

Why did your doctor prescribe D2 rather than D3?

I think it was simply rote procedure and cost. When I asked him after my first 3 months on D2, he said that the prescription D2 was cheaper than the prescription D3, and that he had seen the D2 usually work quite well to bring up Vitamin D levels, although it did sometimes take multiple 3-month courses to achieve normal levels. He seemed unaware of the literature criticizing the use of D2 as a supplement.

You write: “When using the D3 I had the same effect of when I got tired, I got *really* tired right at bedtime, and slept like a rock” What was it like when you were taking the D2? What was your sleep like before you started the D2?

To the best of my recollection I did not have a similar response when taking D2. However, since this was not something I intentionally tracked, I may be mistaken.

Before taking D2 or D3 I thought I slept reasonably well. However, in retrospect, I would awake a few times during the night, take longer to fall asleep, and awaken less refreshed than with my “Vitamin D sleep”.

You write: “not being tired when I should” — when is that?

What I meant is that when I’d get into bed at night, rather than feel tired (in the sense of “an onset to sleep”, not “worn out”) I would feel either wide awake or worn out, or both. By contrast, when taking the D3, almost as soon as I would lie down in bed I would feel an onset to sleep. Yesterday morning, I took one of my leftover 50K D3 pills and last night’s sleep did seem to confirm the efficacy of the D3.

When you took the D3 once per week, you slept better every night? Or just the night after you took the D3?

To the best of my recollection, I slept well every night. I don’t recall there being any noticeable variance relative to the day I took it.

Addendum by Seth. It is impressive that two things appear true: (a) the time of day D3 is taken mattered (other stories) and (b) a dose once/week at the right time improved sleep for seven nights (this story). The combination of the two supports the idea that our sleep is controlled by an oscillator and D3 at the right time gives that oscillator a push, increasing its amplitude.