Seth's Blog

From the Shangri-La Diet forums:

I have just been doing the flaxseed oil for a few days and I am experiencing a dramatic decrease of my arthritis pain! It is a wonderful benefit. . . . My doctor friend who told me about the SLD told me that the flaxseed oil would help my arthritis as well, but I never expected anything this dramatic or quick!

A friend of mine noticed something similar: his sore back stopped hurting shortly after he started taking flaxseed oil. If he skipped a day or so, the pain returned. Update: Reminded of this, he said, “I had forgotten all about that. When people ask me how my back is I tell them it never bothers me anymore since I stopped going to the gym.”

Update 2: At first the arthritis sufferer took 4 1200-mg capsules 3 times/day — that is, 12 capsules per day. Then she increased her dosage to 6 capsules 3 times/day (= 18 capsules/day).

Update 3. ” Yesterday, I was off to work and could not find my oil capsules.  I didn’t have time to look for them, so I resigned myself to doing sugar water during the day.  . . .  I did notice a small but significant worsening of the pain in my knees.  When I got home, I found the capsules, and began taking them again.  By the time I woke up this morning, I noted that my knees are again feeling better.”

Yesterday was the first day of one of my Tsinghua classes. It has about 25 students. I asked each of them to say their favorite book in English. Several were mentioned twice: Pride and Prejudice (mentioned three times), Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye, The Little Prince, and — this surprised me — The Secret. The last student to answer this question said her favorite book was Lolita. The class oohed. Last year a student said his favorite book was Ulysses. I said my favorite book was Cities and the Wealth of Nations. (A close second is Totto-Chan.)

I said the class would have three underlying principles: (more…)

• The shame of college sports. Great article by Taylor Branch.
• Retraction watch
• protein folding problem solved by on-line gamers
• Edward Jay Epstein review of two books about the 2001 anthrax attacks

Thanks to Dave Lull and Justin Owings.

In Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jane Jacobs tells how, in the 1920s, one of her aunts moved to an isolated North Carolina village to, among other things, have a church built. The aunt suggested to the villagers that the church be built out of the large stones in a nearby river. The villagers scoffed: Impossible. They had not just forgotten how to build with stone, they had forgotten it was possible.

A similar forgetting has taken place among influential Western intellectuals — the people whose words you read every day. (more…)

A recent talk at the London School of Economics by Carne Ross, author of a book called The Leaderless Revolution: How ordinary people will take power and change politics in the 21st century, began with this:

I was preparing the talk this afternoon at my beloved cousin’s, where I’m staying. ’cause I don’t live in London anymore. She said, “How are you, Carne, how are you doing?” I said, “I’m a bit nervous, to be honest.” She said, “Don’t worry, Carne, I’ve heard lots of bad talks at the LSE.”