MindcraftMods

My son took to Minecraft like fish to water. He started playing not long after it was first released. He would have been maybe 5 years old. Very soon he, playing as Steve, was mining and crafting very elaborate structures, portals and other contraptions. He was also fighting Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons and wolves.

I came home from work one day and he was excitedly showing me his latest work in Minecraft. I sat there and watched this elaborate machine where you drop balls and they would move and drop to some designated containers that obviously meant something. After a few minutes of watching, I asked him what does it all mean, and he replied that it’s a binary adding machine and the containers designate powers of 2 and if the ball is in the container it means 1, otherwise 0. That left me scratching my head especially because the little guy hasn’t even mastered multiplication tables yet…

Fast forward to present, he’s about 15 now and has discovered programming. He still plays Minecraft and is creating much more elaborate things using Redstone and command blocks. For the uninitiated ones, command blocks execute commands. Assembling them together allows for running multiple commands in a pre-defined order. This is analogous to executing a program. These days, however, it is more fun to play on a server with friends.

I asked him if it were possible to use command blocks and redstone to give Steve (or create some other character) artificial intelligence so that he would replicate and form societies? My son rose to the challenge but said that it would be very difficult. I said, son, if you pull this off, you can rename Steve to Adam and call yourself god 🙂

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I have always wandered what it would be like to be like superman – fly through the air, be super strong, have x-ray vision and laser eyes…

But enough dreaming, let’s get back to reality. For me, the definition of superhuman would be to take the most intelligent and talented person on the planet, combine with a champion in every sports discipline and you’d have someone as close to be super human as possible. Now, theoretically possible but in practice not very likely to happen. Human lifespan is not enough to dedicate to more than one or two interests and master them to world-class level. Furthermore, it would also take someone with an immune system able to withstand the onslaught of all the nasty viruses and bacteria plaguing our society, as well as avoid all the modern lifestyle diseases. Oh, and let’s not forget the looks 🙂

Anyway, the sedentary lifestyle, terrible diet, stress, electronic equipment and other radiation all take toll on our bodies and diminish our health, lifespan, intelligence and energy. This puts us further and further away from the ideal. Again, it would be impossible to focus on every aspect of life and try to correct it. However, there is one thing you can do to have very tangible benefits.

By avoiding sugar (sucrose), or more specifically fructose, in the diet, you will gain better health, more energy and therefore sports performance, even more brains. Yes, you will be smarter for longer, or should I say, keep your wits till the old age. According to Dr Perlmutter and Dr Mercola, Alzheimers is directly linked to the blood sugar levels. Of course, not just sugar but all carbohydrates contribute to this, and especially grains. Sugar also causes some inflamation in the body which in turn destroys cells faster and speeds up aging.

So do yourself a favor and cut the sugar from your diet. Your body does not need it. You can go one step further and avoid the grains as well. Your body, and brain, will thank you for it for years to come.

If you wish to get some inspiration, you can read about my year-long adventure without sugar here.

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