Tony K's Blog

OK. I'm not as young as I used to be. And I'm a little bit overweight... Actually, overfat. You see, the normal standards of weight vs height as expressed by the Body Mass Index are a bit flawed. I'm not tring to make excuses or anything, but focusing on weight alone can be counterproductive. The medical community has used the weight of average people in computing the range of acceptable BMIs, but it doesn't account for people outside of the norm. For example, Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs ever to play football was 5'10" and weighed about 210 lbs. That gave him a BMI of 30.2--obese. He was not obese. He probably had about 10% body fat. That is why BMI has problems. It is used as a proxy for body fat percentage. The fact is though that today you can get a scale for under $100 that measures your body fat directly. So if you are an athlete or are somehow outside the norm, you can see your real progress. Which brings me to the topic of this note,...

The title says it all. What the heck is that about? You see it a lot in third world countries and bars in the first world. Do people really think that mothballs can take the place of the urinal "breath mints"?

I'm sitting in the first class lounge in Lagos, Nigeria, chilling out before flying home after a three week trip. I'm sitting with a German and a Canadian, and we were talking about kids' college education. It occurred to me that in the US we do not have any kind of coherent philosophy about education. Let me explain. The system in the UK is based on merit. If you are smart and get good grades, you will have the opportunity to go to a first class university. The phosophy is that the people with the best chance of achievement, the best chance to really add value to society, will get the best training. That training is almost free to the student and is returned many times by their achievements. In the US there is a loose meritocracy, but it is also blended with a plutocracy. So many of the smartest people go to the best schools, but at the same time a significant number of people cannot afford the best schools--or even the average ones. There is a philosophy, but...

I am a divorced father and a stepfather. Recently I have done some soul searching around the issue of parenthood vs. step-parenthood and how and when it is appropriate for which parent to provide discipline. I caught my son downloading some pornography on the internet. He's 16 years old. In my book this is not a horrible crime, nor can it be ignored. It was near the end of his week visiting, so I did not make a big stink about it. I did take away his computer privileges for the remainder of his stay (about a day). I called his mom, who lives across the country, and told her what had happened. She is going to do something to punish him. I don't know what exactly. Now, what would I have done if it had been my stepson who lives with us? I think something similar. He has gotten in trouble for computer use and we have taken away his privileges. I had to really think through the issues on this and make sure I was being fair, consistent, and acting in the kids' best inter...

I am a big fan of what is sometimes called grid computing. In essence, a master computer doles out work to other computers on the network, which would do some portion of the processing, return results, and fetch a new work unit. Probably the best known effort on these lines is the SETI at Home project. The effort that I am really into though is Stanford's Folding at Home . It is a grid or distributed computing project that is investigating proteins and how they assemble themselves or fold. Through this effort, they are hoping to understand and maybe eventually cure dieases like cancer, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. The client software can be installed either as a screensaver or as a service (I recommend service). It runs in the background on a low priority and the system software takes care of making sure that the user has good performance with his real work. The program works with Windows PCs, Macintosh, or Linux. I am a member of Team 18 MacAddict4Life . This is...

I'm shocked, shocked that professional athletes are using steroids. The powers in sports and government seem quite comfortable overlooking all the mutants in professional and amateur sports until someone actually tells the truth, then they crucify the whistle blowers. Now you have senators saying they're going to crack down on pro baseball. Hellooooo. Have they watched a pro or college football game lately? If 50% of baseball players use steroids, the number must be 95% in pro football. They did not get that way with protein powder and vitamins. Personally I don't care what these athletes do. They are making a conscious choice to pollute their bodies in exchange for money, girls, fame, etc. We as a society really need to figure out where to be on this. Let's either get serious and stop the abuse or acknowledge that it happens and accept it. Anything less is a disservice to the people they claim to be trying to protect--the kids.

I am a really big fan of well thought out, logical arguments. Two writers whose work I really admire are Andrew Tobias and Bob Lewis. They write on different subjects in general, but I am a big fan of them both. I first learned about Andrew Tobias through his book "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need." That was back in the mid-80s. After a decade of stagflation, shady commodities deals, and my first experience in the job market, Tobias shed a lot of light on my view of the economic and financial world. Much or most of what he wrote in the book was simple common sense, but there's a lot of it, and if nothing else, it will validate your financial astuteness. His insights to markets are still valid 25 years later. The other writer, Bob Lewis , writes for InfoWorld magazine and has his own IT consulting service. His main topics are directly related to IT workers and executives, but the lessons apply equal well to almost any other field. is columns have given me pow...