Buying the best from the outset

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When delving into a new endeavor (house owner, car, sport, computer, … ) it is often recommended to buy a “beginner” version or a “starter unit”. The idea, as it goes, is to see if one is “really” into this new activity before committing a lot of money. Now, ab initio this sounds a good idea, except that it is an expensive thing regardless. There should be better ways to figure this out. The best way I have found is to start with units that cost time or commitment rather than money.

For instance, it very common to decide to get in shape and then order/buy some (cheap) exercise gadget. However, poor equipment rarely brings satisfaction. Instead what I do is to set a trigger in the form of commitment. For exercise, I would say, do not buy anything until you can run 5k straight, do 10 pull ups or 20 push ups or whatever you consider reasonable. This should be something that will take a month’s work to accomplish. After that point I would say commitment has been demonstrated and a purchase can be made.

At this point I would buy the best equipment I could ever see myself using. For instance, with the bicycle, there would be little difference for me between buying a $3000 bike and a $1500 bike. Even if I had a million bucks, I would not have the skills and strength to take advantage of the $3000 bike. The difference between a $750 bike and a $1500 bike would be equipment limited though. Therefore I would get the $1500 bike as the first bike although if you are only going to use it sporadically, I would consider needs vs wants and go a cheaper one, like this $1.38 mountain bike.

This avoids the upgrade malaise as there is no need to replace existing equipment with something better. It is simply not possible when you already own the best. This strategy has saved my thousands. Yes, so I’m wearing shoes that cost more than $200. However, these are very old shoes, so annual costs are closer to $20. Also, 10 year old $200 shoes look better than new $20 shoes any day.

It takes quite a while to replace one’s possessions with the best. Money has to be saved and also one has to wait until the old things wear out (or maybe that’s just me). After a decade, though, one will end up with a collection of really nice stuff.

There is less use of resources which is an added benefit.

Even better, should one decide to sell it, it tends to have a fairly high used price. For the very best, the used price is actually higher than the new price for a corresponding new item. This is true for HiFi equipment for instance.

See also “on minimizing depreciation expenses”

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Much thanks goes to CR and GH for the donations!

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Buying the best from the outset

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Gene found to foster synapse formation in the brain

Emotional Health, Quality of Life in Mesothelioma Caregivers Mesothelioma…On MyBiologica.comHealth is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person’s mind and body, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain.Alternative medicine is any of a wide range of health care practices, products and therapies, using methods of medical diagnosis and treatments which, at least up to the end of the twentieth century, were typically not included in the degree courses of established medical schools teaching medicine. Examples include homeopathy, Ayurveda, chiropractic and acupuncture.On MyBiologica.com all you are looking for about alternative medicine and health.Coming soon section with best cheapset health insurance offers for self employed and …

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Gene found to foster synapse formation in the brain

Researchers say they have found that a gene already implicated in human speech disorders and epilepsy is also needed for vocalizations and synapse formation in mice. The finding, they say, adds to scientific understanding of how language develops, as well as the way synapses — the connections among brain cells that enable us to think — are formed.

via ScienceDaily: Top Health News:

Oct. 31, 2013 — Researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have found that a gene already implicated in human speech disorders and epilepsy is also needed for vocalizations and synapse formation in mice. The finding, they say, adds to scientific understanding of how language develops, as well as the way synapses — the connections among brain cells that enable us to think — are formed. A description of their experiments appears in Science Express on Oct. 31.A group led by Richard Huganir, Ph.D., director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, set out to investigate genes involved in synapse formation. Gek-Ming Sia, Ph.D., a research associate in Huganir’s laboratory, first screened hundreds of human genes for their effects on lab-grown mouse brain cells. When one gene, SRPX2, was turned up higher than normal, it caused the brain cells to erupt with new synapses, Sia found.When Huganir’s team injected fetal mice with an SRPX2-blocking compound, the mice showed fewer synapses than normal mice even as adults, the researchers found. In addition, when SRPX2-deficient mouse pups were separated from their mothers, they did not emit high-pitched distress calls as other pups do, indicating they lacked the rodent equivalent of early language ability.Other researchers’ analyses of the human genome have found that mutations in SRPX2 are associated with language disorders and epilepsy, and when Huganir’s team injected the human SRPX2 with the same mutations into the fetal mice, they also had deficits in their vocalization as young pups.Another research group at Institut de Neurobiologie de la Méditerranée in France had previously shown that SRPX2 interacts with FoxP2, a gene that has gained wide attention for its apparently crucial role in language ability. Huganir’s team confirmed this, showing that FoxP2 controls how much protein the SRPX2 gene makes and may affect language in this way. …

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Gene found to foster synapse formation in the brain

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Babies can learn their first lullabies in the womb

Emotional Health, Quality of Life in Mesothelioma Caregivers Mesothelioma…On MyBiologica.comHealth is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person’s mind and body, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain.Alternative medicine is any of a wide range of health care practices, products and therapies, using methods of medical diagnosis and treatments which, at least up to the end of the twentieth century, were typically not included in the degree courses of established medical schools teaching medicine. Examples include homeopathy, Ayurveda, chiropractic and acupuncture.On MyBiologica.com all you are looking for about alternative medicine and health.Coming soon section with best cheapset health insurance offers for self employed and …

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Babies can learn their first lullabies in the womb

An infant can recognize a lullaby heard in the womb for several months after birth, potentially supporting later speech development.

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Oct. 30, 2013 — An infant can recognise a lullaby heard in the womb for several months after birth, potentially supporting later speech development. This is indicated in a new study at the University of Helsinki.The study focused on 24 women during the final trimester of their pregnancies. Half of the women played the melody of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to their fetuses five days a week for the final stages of their pregnancies. The brains of the babies who heard the melody in utero reacted more strongly to the familiar melody both immediately and four months after birth when compared with the control group. These results show that fetuses can recognise and remember sounds from the outside world.This is significant for the early rehabilitation, since rehabilitation aims at long-term changes in the brain.”Even though our earlier research indicated that fetuses could learn minor details of speech, we did not know how long they could retain the information. These results show that babies are capable of learning at a very young age, and that the effects of the learning remain apparent in the brain for a long time,” expounds Eino Partanen, who is currently finishing his dissertation at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit.”This is the first study to track how long fetal memories remain in the brain. The results are significant, as studying the responses in the brain let us focus on the foundations of fetal memory. The early mechanisms of memory are currently unknown,” points out Dr Minna Huotilainen, principal investigator.The researchers believe that song and speech are most beneficial for the fetus in terms of speech development. According to the current understanding, the processing of singing and speech in the babies brains are partly based on shared mechanisms, and so hearing a song can support a baby’s speech development. …

For more info: Babies can learn their first lullabies in the womb

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Babies can learn their first lullabies in the womb

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Babies can learn their first lullabies in the womb

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