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Chipilo is a small town of about 3-4,000 people in the state of Puebla in the central highlands of Mexico, where the traditional mother tongue of the townsfolk is not Spanish, nor any of Mexico's indigenous languages like Nahuatl, but actually Venetian, from the north-east corner of Italy. Or rather, their version of it: Chipilo Venetian dialect, which locals often just call Talian (emphasis on last syllable; means "Italian" in Venetian).Source: Italosiblings at ChipiloDuring the 19th century, a lot of European colonies and white-ruled former colonies around the world actively encouraged and supported European immigration to increase the white-to-native ratio. Mexico was no exception to such racial policies, especially under the unabashedly Europhile dictator Porfirio Díaz. (For a few examples of Europhile architecture during his era, the Porfiriato, see my answer to What-North-American-city-feels-the-most-European?)In the second half of the 19th century, life for the peasants of the Veneto region (Venice's hinterland) was hard: crushing poverty, extortionate rents, and recurrent famines and malnutrition* (oh, and every decade or so it seemed to become a battleground for Europe's military powers). So in 1882 some families from the town of Segusino (with which Chipilo is now twinned, as seen in the sign above) and surrounding villages in the Province of Treviso (TV) grouped together to take advantage of the programme for emigration to Mexico. (By the way, Treviso and the Veneto is now one of the richest parts of Italy, indeed the world, home to enterprises like Benetton, De'Longhi and Luxottica.)Source: Google Maps. PS: It took slightly longer than 18 hours 15 minutes to travel the 10,000km between Segusino and Chipilo back in the 19th century.As was so often the case, the promoters of the emigration programme oversold it and the emigrants arrived to find themselves in a situation that was nowhere near their expectations nor what they were used to. But they persevered, and changed from growing crops (hard in the dry and never-before-ploughed land they were stuck with) to raising cattle and specializing in dairy products.Source: Chipilo Puebla. Products of Chipilo: cheese, cheese and more cheese.Over the next couple of decades, some more veneti came and they kept on building up despite the tough circumstances and the community even survived a close call with Emiliano Zapata's forces during the Mexican Revolution (a multi-sided, decade-long civil war when roving armies of all sides would often rape, loot, rape, murder and rape (did I remember to mention rape?) to the extent that many small communities didn't recover; just the sort of thing the Veneti had left Europe to get away from). In fact, Zapata's approach helped preserve the Venetian language in Chipilo, as residents "circled the wagons" in defence and closed themselves off from the surrounding community for years to come, preventing assimilation with the society around them. (At the time, most of the villages around Chipilo still spoke Nahuatl rather than Spanish.)Emiliano Zapata (black suit): revolutionary, martyr, preserver of Venetian!I've been to Chipilo a couple of times (sorry, no photos of my own at the moment, so I'm raiding Flickr). While in many ways it looks like many other small towns in rural Mexico, there are some differences: Italian flags dotted about, occasional signs in Venetian or Italian, young people zipping around on motor scooters (just like in Italy but much rarer elsewhere in Mexico) and then going down the side streets (all paved, unlike many rural side streets), lots of narrow strips of property that extend far, far back from the street, with barns full of cattle. The smell is... significant :) And further back, fields of alfalfa and other feed crops for that cattle. Nowadays many of the employees of the farms are of ancestry more usual for central Mexico (like mestizo mixture of Indigenous and Spanish) who speak Spanish as a mother tongue, although apparently some learn a bit of Venetian for work.Source: Chipilo Pizzeria. Pizzeria overlooking the town square.Source: 0434-Mmmm que rico.... One of the many long lines of cows to be found in the long strip lots off the side streets of Chipilo.And when I was teaching at university in the city of Puebla (about a half-hour drive from Chipilo), I had a fair number of chipileño students: many with blonde or light brown hair, often with green, hazel or blues eyes, with surnames like Minutti and Schieveninni. Fluent Spanish though, as veneto is spoken in the home and with fellow chipileños but everywhere else they use Spanish, with some exposure to Italian from things like satellite TV and DVDs. (The Venetian language doesn't have any official status at a state or federal level, so no govt schools, exams etc in Venetian. And as for media, there's not a lot in Venetian even in Italy, let alone Chipilo Venetian in Mexico.)Source: Chipilo, 02-07-08. The Chipilo ethnic mix.Source: Untitled. Ital-Trek: The Next Generation.When my dad came to Puebla, I told him there was a town full of Venetians half an hour away. After he recovered from the shock ;) (not really, he knows Italians get everywhere) we visited Chipilo and conversed in Italian with some of the shopkeepers. (My grandmother was from Friuli, next door to the Veneto, but neither my dad nor I speak any Venetian or Friulian).Source: Italosiblings at Chipilo. The shop where we bought some cheese and sausage and spoke with the owners in Italian. Next door, "The Italian Coffee Company". Background far right, the volcano Popocatépetl.Some famous companies in central Mexico have been started by chipileños, building on their Italian heritage or dairy expertise or both:Topolino, a chain of ice cream and coffee bars, whose name means 'little mouse' in Italian and is also the name of Mickey Mouse in Italy (which I guess is why Disney failed to trademark it in Mexico).Source: Topolino - San Baltazar - PueblaThe Italian Coffee Company, a Starbucks-like chain/franchise which feels like it has become ridiculously ubiquitous in Puebla and is spreading throughout the centre and south of the country. Apparently founded by members of the same family as Topolino who broke away to set up their own thing.The eponymous Chipilo brand of dairy products (butter, cream, cheese).La Piccolina De Chipilo, a small chain of Italian-style delis specializing in meat & dairy products from the town.Source: La Piccolina de Chipilo - Huexotitla - Puebla (Looks like the website has rebranded but for now the shops that I pass still have the old branding like the photo above.)In fact, the people of Chipilo and dairy products became so synonymous that in the city of Puebla people used to joke that if you had green eyes, then your mother must have cheated with the milkman (traditionally a job held by Chipileños).Chipilo even has an honorary Italian consul, who can handle things like visa applications. Not many villages in the middle of cattle and fields can say that!So there it is: the language enclave of Chipilo. A little bit of the Veneto, in the shadow of the volcanoes.Source: VolcanesenChipilo. A view from the edge of Chipilo, over the feed crops, to the volcanoes of Popocatépetl (left, active) and Iztaccíhuatl in the distance.Links with more info on Chipilo and its use of Venetian:IDENTITY, LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN CHIPILO: THE PERIODIC (RE)CONSTRUCTION of A VENETO COMMUNITY ALL’ESTERO. Great article on the history of Chipilo (the town even supported Mussolini and fascism in the 1920s!) and how the Venetian language has been preserved there (while other Italian communities in Mexico assimilated linguistically & culturally) and Chipilo Venetian's characteristics and interaction with Spanish and Nahuatl. Authored by the linguist who created an orthography for Chipilo Venetian. (Speaking of Mussolini, Benito Mussolini was named after the Mexican president Benito Juárez because the reformist Juárez had defeated the conservative Austrian Maximilian, echoing the desire of many Italians to kick out and keep out the Austrians from northern Italy; the Veneto had still been under Austrian rule a mere 16 years before the emigrants left Segusino for Chipilo.)In Spanish: Chipilo, el México italiano. Mentions that people in modern-day Veneto think chipileños, even young ones, talk "old-fashioned" Venetian, like their grandparents used to.chipilo - YouTube - videos on Chipilo, mostly in Spanish, some in Italian. I can't find any in English, I'm afraid.With the above video, you at least get to hear some Chipilo Venetian (with subs in Italian) after the introduction in Italian.*Ironically, one factor contributing to the emigration from the Veneto (including to Chipilo in Puebla state) was its reliance on Maize, a crop domesticated in the southern part of the state of Puebla about 5,000 years ago. The plant itself had made it to Europe as part of the Columbian Exchange, but not so all the knowledge & traditions related to it. So while people in northern Italy came to depend on it as the mainstay of their diet (e.g. Polenta), they didn't process it the way Mesoamericans had done for millennia, by nixtamalization (first soaking and cooking the maize in an alkaline solution), which chemically locks in and even increases key nutrients like niacin and tryptophan.Without this nixtamalization process, a steady diet of maize eventually leads to health problems like the disease pellagra, whose causes were not then understood and which was a major problem not only in the Veneto in the 19th century but also in other heavily-maize-reliant societies that didn't have a millennia-long tradition of maize cultivation, including the southern US well into the 20th century and even southern Africa to this day, where maize is often still not nixtamalized. The poverty compounded by problems like maize-related pellagra was a major spur for people to emigrate from the Veneto... to the very place that had the solution to the problem and had domesticated maize in the first place.Source: Untitled. A sufferer of the disease pellagra, displaying the classic symptoms of skin lesions on the hands, dementia and 'hamster cheeks'... Just kidding! A young chipileña having fun at a kids' party.You can do a web search if you really want to see images of pellagra... but I wouldn't recommend it.

A million page-views a month is not much, honestly, and nothing a well written Node application cannot handle easily.Linkedin[1], Microsoft, eBay, and Walmart[2], are some of the better known brand names using Node but the published list of companies[and projects is quite long[3].The main caveat I can think of is that it takes discipline to write a performant, well structured Node application. It's easy for a Node project in the hands of the uninitiated to spiral into an unstructured, non-performant mess. To best avoid the pitfalls there's a wealth of well-established patterns and best practices out there to use as examples. Just scan Github, Stack Overflow, Quora, etc. for examples.A year ago I was apprehensive about using Node for our production systems due to its maturity at the time. I said I'd give it a year and I did. Now we have Node backing at least one very high traffic application that's in the works and are using it for critical subsystems of other high traffic applications.[1] - Exclusive: How LinkedIn used Node.js and HTML5 to build a better, faster app[2] - Why Walmart is using Node.js[3] - https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Projects,-Applications,-and-Companies-Using-Node

Image source: fasting mimicking dietThe fasting mimicking diet (FMD) was at the center of this year’s anti-aging conference in Las Vegas. This was the 25th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas, Dec. 14-16, 2017. Dr. Valter Longo, PhD reviewed some of the research he had done on longevity in yeast cells, worms and mice.Fasting mimicking diet relevant in humansDr. Longo pointed out that this type of research has relevance in humans. If there was a cure for cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, we would live 13 years longer. But if we stimulated longevity with this pulsed calorie restricted diet, we would live on average 30 years longer. There is a rare genetic abnormality where people are deficient for IGF-1, a growth factor produced in the liver. These genetically IGF-1 deficient people live longer and do not develop cancer. Observations like these and detailed mouse experiments inspired Dr. Longo to develop a new diet plan. Patients would receive a fasting mimicking diet on 5 days per month. The rest of the month would consist of a normal, balanced diet. 5 days of the month the person would consume a low 600-800-calorie diet. This is enough to ensure adherence to the diet, but low enough to lead to enormous metabolic changes including youth-preserving stem cell stimulation.Clinical Application of fasting mimicking diet in cardiovascular healthDr. Joel Kahn, Prof. of Medicine at the Wayne State University School of Medicine lectured later that day. He is also the Director at the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity. His talk was entitled “The Fast Track to Slow Cardiac Aging: Fasting &Targeted Nutrition”. He mentioned that a fasting mimicking diet was a powerful tool in cardiology to prevent heart attacks and hardening of arteries. He explained in detail the complex aging pathways that involve three components, IGF-1, mTOR and PKA. When lifestyle choices stimulate these genetic markers, accelerated aging is a consequence. But with the inhibition of those markers longevity can happen. He added that researchers looked at heart cells, where the same principles apply. Dr. Kahn pointed out that the basic research of Dr. Longo enables clinicians to see positive results in patients who follow caloric restriction for 5 days in a month on a regular basis.How does the fasting mimicking diet work?It is best to let one of the users of this diet explain how it works. Once per month you eat calorie-restricted food with only 600-800 calories per day and you follow this regimen for 5 days. Some patients consume 1100 calories for the first of these 5 days, if they have difficulties switching from normal food to the boxed food. Dt. Longo has developed boxed food, called ProLon (from L-Nutra). ProLon stands for “pro longevity”. Dr. Longo and Dr. LaValle mentioned at the conference that these prepared meals make it a lot easier for patients to stick to the low calorie diet. Three hundred dollars for the boxed food for 5 days are a stiff price, and this may well be out of reach for you.Alternative way to make your own 600-800 calorie food at homeNevertheless, this should not stop you. You can look at the ingredients online and copy the boxed food by creating your own balanced 600-800 calories per day food at home. It is true: you have to do some research! But counting calories and finding information about the caloric content of food on the Internet is not difficult. And preparing these very, basic, small and simple meals does not require a degree in nutrition. Here is another testimony from a user of the fasting mimicking diet.Effect of the fasting mimicking diet on the metabolismIn the past it was thought that only ketogenic diets or periods of fasting would trigger longevity genes. But the basic research of Dr. Longo and others has shown that a low calorie diet for only 5 days can achieve the same thing. Longevity genes are activated; the negative aging pathways including IGF-1, mTOR and PKA are suppressed. The immune system gets activated from this. It also leads to lowering of LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, insulin resistance, and diabetes improves. With the fasting mimicking diet the stomach sees some food, but the cells are fasting. According to Dr. Kahn this combination down regulates the body’s key nutrient-sensing pathways, which activates cellular regeneration and rejuvenation.Clinical observationsDr. Khan observed a high compliance rate with 3 cycles of the fasting mimicking diet. 94% of a group of patients were compliant over 3 months. Mild fatigue, mild headaches and mild weakness were present, but improved with each cycle. In addition to the above findings Dr. Khan found that there was weight loss, abdominal fat loss and waist circumference loss. There was also a reduction in IGF-1 levels, a reduction of the C-reactive protein and stimulation of stem cells.Inflammation reduced, autoimmune diseases improvedThe reduction of the C-reactive protein proves that semi-fasting reduces inflammation. The finding of stimulation of stem cells explains that regenerative processes can take place. Pain disappears, people report more energy and are generally feeling better.There are other clinical findings. The positive effects from following the fasting mimicking diet last for several months. Also, when patients are on chemotherapy for cancer, the FMD will protect the healthy cells from the side effects of chemotherapy.Dr. Kahn and Dr. LaValle noted that autoimmune disease responded to FMD. This was shown in both animal experiments using mice and in clinical case reports. Dr. LaValle described a 46-year old former Olympic athlete swimmer who had multiple sclerosis. After FMD she lost all of her muscle aches and cured her optic neuritis. This was something conventional medicine could not do for her.Clinical applications of fasting mimicking dietHere are some of the conditions that will respond to it.Obesity, because of the weight loss effectDiabetes: insulin resistance becomes lower and blood sugar levels drop.High blood pressure reduced: many patients were able to reduce their medications or discontinue themPrevention of heart attacks and strokesPain conditions will improve as all kinds of pain disappears, an effect for which at this point is no explanationAutoimmune diseases like MS and rheumatoid arthritis improve, likely because of the effect of increased stem cell circulationPrevention of heart attacks because of reduction of LDL, triglycerides and CRPCancer cure rates improved by protecting normal cells and bone marrowLongevity improved in mice with a 3-fold increase of their life span. Telomere length in humans was increased. Increased stem cells will find defective areas that need repair. This effect will open up a new chapter in medicine.Maintaining the achievements of the fasting mimicking dietAt this point the implications of this new approach to weight loss and metabolic rejuvenation can only be estimated.Limiting calories for 5 days triggers a metabolic change, which is permanent. You can experience the full effect of this rejuvenating low calorie treatment. You can do it every month without having to fear vitamin or mineral deficiencies.Here is another link to the website of Dr. Axe where the fasting mimicking diet is also recommended.More info: fasting mimicking diet