Stretchly: the smart way to use your computer

We all sit too long, and if you are like me, stare at the computer screen for far too long. On 10th February I injured my back, and one of the discs in my spine started pinching my left Sciatic nerve. I was on anti-inflammatory medication and pain killers for a few weeks. Sitting, standing, walking and lying down were all uncomfortable if I did any of them for too long.
A friend sent me a video about how bad too much sitting is (see some examples below), and my new experience confirmed this. Then I was told about a program that would interrupt you on the computer and force you to take regular breaks. One of these is Stretchly, and it works wonders!
It's free, open source software that works for Windows, Mac and Linux. Every now and then you are asked to take a "microbreak" of a few seconds, and there are helpful tips to suggest how to take the break. And then about every 30 minutes or so you should take a proper break from the computer. Get up and walk around, and give your back a chance to recover from all the unhealthy sitting (and slouching in my case).
To force you to take the break it puts a big box right in the middle of the screen. The microbreaks only last for a few seconds, but the full break is 5 minutes. Most chiropractors will tell you to take a break from sitting at least every 30 minutes, and Stretchly helps you do this. If you leave your desk for more than 5 minutes before the enforced break, it resets its timers for you. And once the enforced break is up, it sounds a helpful chime to tell you the time is up, so you don't waste time or have to stand around checking the screen.
Since we can only concentrate fully for up to 20 minutes at a time, these breaks actually make you more productive, because they help you regain focus and think about what you are doing. I was apprehensive about this at first, but I find my code is much less buggy and more well thought out because of the enforced breaks. There are plenty of useful features in the program, and if you are going to watch a movie or you need to connect to a client's computer for remote support, you can pause the program for a while. There are plenty of options you can tweak to get it to work just right for you. Check it out!
One final idea from the 4th video below: stand up every time you take a call or use your phone. Great idea. Put the phone somewhere other than your desk to make this happen. It will also reduce your exposure to the radiation from the phone. But that's another story for another day.
Update 19 May: Thanks to feedback from the developer, I discovered that you can change the messages that Stretchly displays, so I was able to add in the exercises that my Bio-Kineticist has recommended. I also found an Android app called "Big Ben Bonger" that plays the Big Ben chimes on my phone. I can set it to go off every half hour when I'm working on other people's computers.

My Before and After Pictures So Far

A quick glance at these "before" and "after" images shows no dramatic change to my body shape after 2 years of training using the Bigger Leaner Stronger program. Or so you would think. Certainly my body measurements haven't changed much, but that's not the only data that matters. At least for me. I am 5kg heavier, yet not fatter. I am stronger in all the main 4 exercises that matter.
I don't have a record of my efforts for 2014, but I was struggling to do a Squat properly, and hadn't even attempted the Seated Military Press until 2015. I started keeping records of my exercises at gym in January 2015. So my stats (for at least one set of 6 reps) are:

Jan 2015
Deadlift 40kg
Squat 40kg
Seated Military Press 25kg
Bench Press 40kg
Dec 2016
Deadlift 100kg (+60kg)
Squat 90kg (+50kg)
Seated Military Press 40kg (+15kg)
Bench Press 60kg (+20kg)

Next week is "Strength Week", so these numbers may improve further. Either way, I am achieving personal best results in many of the exercises every week. Progress has been slow but steady, especially considering I turned 55 this year, and only have the time and energy to go to gym 3 times a week.
I have been going to the gym regularly for over 3 years now, and my progress has been great, at least for me. In August 2013 I couldn't do any of the basic exercises. I could manage around 5 pushups if I was lucky. Now I do 12 pushups as part of a warm-up routine. For me that's great progress, and it has been worth the time and effort. This week I am starting my warmup exercises with the weights I was doing as working sets in January 2015, or heavier. And the warmup sets start with 12 reps, not 6.

Joburg Water gets upset about their Logo, but not the water quality

Petty bureaucrats mystify me. They always focus on the wrong thing in order to try to "control" their "message". The Twitter account of the Joburg Water supplier is no exception. Last week I got a severe case of Gastro by drnking tap water. I tweeted:

@donnedwards Hi we will make a follow up on that,We will take this with our scientists at our labs at Cydna

— Johannesburg Water (@jhbwater) August 4, 2015

As is the nature of bureaucracy, nothing happened. They forgot about it, or the "scientists at Cydna forgot about it, or they realised that no one had tested the water in my area for some time and they weren't going to admit it.
Time passed and I eventually recovered from the Gastro after being on a drip and taking antibiotics for 3 days. I decided it was time to remind Joburg Water that they owed me an answer.

@jhbwater When was the last time you tested bacteria levels in Cresta Darrenwood Linden area? Doctor says lots of gastro at present

— Donn Edwards (@donnedwards) August 7, 2015

No reply. So I tried being a bit more direct:

@jhbwater @CityofJoburgZA Joburg Water why do refuse to say when you last tested the water in my area for bacteria? @lvz60

— Donn Edwards (@donnedwards) August 8, 2015

Still no reply. So I decided to warn my fellow citizens that Joburg water isn't safe.

Don't drink the water in Joburg without boiling it first. @jhbwater @CityofJoburgZA @lvz60 @DA_JHB @DavidCOJ102 pic.twitter.com/c1okJWzhaR

— Donn Edwards (@donnedwards) August 11, 2015

Still no reply. So I decided to post my nifty little graphic in a reply to everything they tweet, until someone notices. Eventually they noticed a pattern.

@jhbwater @CityofJoburgZA So you wait for people to get sick first? #WorldClassAfricanCity pic.twitter.com/UXTK5JH0fm

— Donn Edwards (@donnedwards) August 11, 2015

Finally they noticed. What a relief!
But someone at Joburg Water obviously had their pride injured. Because I started getting Direct Messages on Twitter. The first was to request the location of where my home is. Maybe they just wanted to turn off the water for a while, or dig up the road or something.
But I didn't get the gastro from home, because I drink bottled water or boiled water. I only drink tap water when I'm at the gym. (Not any more!) Then the officious tone kicked in. Nice of them to make up a new name for me:

So here we are. They want to sue me for ruining their "reputation" by using their logo in a tweet. I think they are over-reacting now to cover up how they failed to react before. Perhaps its time to get my City Councillor involved?

How much sugar in "All Gold" Tomato Sauce? 36 spoons!

All Gold Tomato Sauce has been a family favourite for years. They claim there are 36 tomatoes in every bottle, but that's just advertising lies. Only recently have I asked the question: how much sugar is in the sauce?
Today I obtained the answer: 21.3g of sugar for every 100g (or was it ml?). So that means that a 700ml bottle has 150g of cane sugar, i.e. 35.5 teaspoons of sugar (4.2g). Ouch! Not so healthy after all, even though there are no preservatives. Still, it's better than "ketchup" which has all kinds of other nasties.
They have a version with artificial sweetener instead, but I think the health risks of that concoction must be pretty toxic. One has to ask why they need to put so much sugar in the product. To counteract the taste of the vinegar? The mind boggles. I mean, there's a teaspoon of sugar for every tomato in the bottle! I guess they had to "work hard to cram them all in".

Update: According to the label (which uses a very small font) there are 27g of carbs per 100g serving. That means that in a bottle there are 40g of carbs not comprising cane sugar. Divide that by 36, and you get some very small tomatoes, unlike the giant ones shown in the TV ad below. According to Answers.com: "One medium, whole, red, ripe, raw tomato, 2 3/5 inches in diameter and weighing 123 grams contains 5 grams of carbohydrates, on a year-round average." That means there would be 8 tomatoes in a bottle of tomato sauce, not 36. Since they actually use "reconstituted tomato paste", the ad agency claims about tomatoes have been all lies from the beginning, whichever way you look at it. I don't understand why food companies think it is OK to mislead the public like this.