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posted by mrpg on Wednesday February 28 2018, @06:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the dont-care-I-work-in-a-vacuum dept.

There's a better way to use a standing desk

[...] some research suggests that even regular exercise—as much as 60 minutes per day—is not enough to offset the effects of sedentary workdays.

A standing desk, seems like a great way to combat this problem, since it's unlikely that computer use will decrease anytime soon. But turns out that when you do the opposite of sitting—standing for incredibly long periods of the day—well, that's bad for you, too. A highly-cited study out last year in the Journal of Epidemiology on 7,000 office workers found that, "Occupations involving predominantly standing were associated with an approximately 2-fold risk of heart disease compared with occupations involving predominantly sitting."

Alan Taylor, a physiology expert at Nottingham University, told the Chicago Tribune that the expansion and popularity of standing desks has been largely driven not by scientific evidence, but rather by popularity and profit.

Welcome to medical science.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:12AM (4 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:12AM (#645050) Journal

    Or maybe I'll go be a farmer.

    Sorry, no, going out on a single limb is simply not compatible with farming. Literally.

    (grin)

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday February 28 2018, @11:00AM (3 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Wednesday February 28 2018, @11:00AM (#645084) Journal

    If there is one thing about being a farmer, very few people can do it right.

    Ok for a hobby, but don't quit your day job.

    My grandparents were both farmers, and I have never seen anyone work so hard for so little. From what I can tell these days, if one is not a corporate farmer working with massive economies of scale... that is thousands of acres under the plow, all automated and mechanized, you don't stand a chance unless you are growing something illegal.

    I have a love for farming, but its nothing anymore like it used to be. Admittedly, what I loved was the "Old Mac Donald" farm... with all the animals. Its nothing like that anymore. Its corporate. Its dog-eat-dog. And seems everyone is out to throw stumbling blocks in your path, so you will pay someone to remove them. They have your farm held hostage. The congresscritters aren't helping one iota either.... they actually pen the law the stumbling block throwers use against you. A congresscritter simplt cannot resist the handshake of a man wearing a suit. You have so many rules in the game these days. How the hell anyone can heed them all is beyond me.

    The small "family farmer" is almost relegated to the same status as someone trying to patch clothes with a needle and thread.... competing against machines that will put out an entire brand new garment before you can get three stitches made.

    My hat's off to all those farmers still hanging in there!

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday February 28 2018, @11:48AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @11:48AM (#645096) Journal

      Ok for a hobby, but don't quit your day job.

      If you don't have a mortgage on it and a modicum income (for those property taxes), theoretically, one can "drop off the grid" and live by subsistence farming. Not sustainable for entire populations, but not impossible.
      Worked (and still works) well in Russia [wikipedia.org]. It will work (at a small scale) in US too - there are already a number of farmlets in private (non-corporate) property with farmers old enough not to be able to run them commercially; and yet, the city-dwellers aren't starving (i.e. the rest of the industrial-style agriculture can feed them).

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:39PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:39PM (#645151)

      for so little

      One of my great-uncles did quit his day job and farmed in his retirement, he was semi-mechanized with an antique tractor he rebuilt over the years and he had a lot of fun, but I do see the statistics proven out where each mechanized industrial era farmer feeds 100 non-farming civilians. He would drive thru town on errands and leave giant trash bags full of corn at our door because he simply had too much to get rid of it all in the good years.

      Now you sell dozens of people's annual food budget to multiple layers of very expensive middlemen and they get rich and the farmer gets $100, if they're lucky. Meanwhile on the other end, a couple dozen people's annual food budget means Joe six pack consumer is paying maybe fifty grand to the same multiple layers of expensive middlemen in total for that food. But there are alternatives.

      My wife keeps getting involved in CSA shares mostly because of our paleo-ish diet means lots of vegetable consumption and based on a back of the envelope calculation our farmers seem to be doing pretty well. I would guesstimate we pay $500 for about 1000 pounds of organic produce on our side, and their revenue on their side from a couple hundred customers is pretty impressive sounding. Of course they might have an insane mortage on the farm, hard to say, if they own it out right then they must be getting rich. Logistics can be annoying and there's a lot of questions like what do I do with ten pounds of carrots every week? Winter is also hard to go from getting a big crate for "free" (Well, $500 in the spring) to having to pay a freaking dollar for each bell pepper at the supermarket.

      Can do the same thing buying a cow and butchering service direct while screwing the wholesaler(s) and supermarket out of a lot of profit. Then again you need a big freezer. Then again I already have one anyway for costco and stocking up on sale. Grilling season is coming up and I need to buy another cow.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday February 28 2018, @04:05PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @04:05PM (#645205) Journal

      From what I can tell these days, if one is not a corporate farmer working with massive economies of scale... that is thousands of acres under the plow, all automated and mechanized, you don't stand a chance unless you are growing something illegal.

      In other words, small farmers can't compete with industrial-scale farmers in commodity crops that have vast economies of scale. The answer is to not do that. Marijuana, opium, etc are so valuable for small farmers precisely because they don't have those vast economies of scale (such large farms would be easier to lose than a ton of small, hidden farms). But they're not the only crops like that. There are a bunch of small crops out there that one can do well by. For example, niche crops like cacao, heirloom crops, spices and herbs (saffron and hops), etc.

      Also crops that can be vertically integrated can generate more profit overall. For example, instead of selling grapes, sell wine; instead of selling fruit, sell jams and jellies; instead of selling alfalfa, sell beef; etc. In other words, don't compete head-to-head with farms that are orders of magnitude larger. Grow what they can't be bothered to grow.