Kerim’s Triptych for Sunday January 13th, 2024

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Item 1: The Four Kinds of Exercise

This week I spent some time summarizing Peter Attia's exercise recommendations from his book Outlive. It isn't a particularly well written book, but there is some great advice in there about how best to exercise in order to stay healthy and pain-free into your later years.

The key is to ensure that you are getting all four kinds of exercise. Most active people I have spoken to about this are only getting one or two of these and almost none of the others. I think this explains why so many of them still struggle with various aches and pains, even if they are otherwise physically active. For instance, I have a friend who is an avid bicyclist. She gets plenty of cardio, probably mostly in zone 2, but she does no strength training or stability work. It is important to understand all four kinds of training (and their purposes) in order to plan your own exercise routine . . .

Item 2: The Tokyo Trial

In the NY Times Gary J. Bass, author of “Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia,” writes about the war crimes trials that took place in Tokyo after the war.

Although the Tokyo trial was far more international than Nuremberg, its judges proved incapable of unity. There were dissents from the Dutch, French and Indian judges, while the Australian chief judge and the Philippine judge wrote concurring opinions . . . Furthermore, in the early Cold War, the United States turned from firebombing Japan to fortifying it against the spread of Communism in Asia. That meant halting the prosecutions of lower-ranked war criminals, and even the parole and rehabilitation of Class A war crimes suspects.

Item 3: The Leech Barometer

The leech barometer is a 19th-century invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer.

After having arranged this mouse trap contrivance, into each bottle was poured rain water, to the height of an inch and a half; and a leech placed in every bottle, which was to be its future residence; and when influenced by the electromagnetic state of the atmosphere a number of leeches ascended into the tubes; in doing which they dislodged the whalebone and caused the bell to ring.

Endnote

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