noun : an accumulation of loose stones or rocky debris lying on a slope or at the base of a hill or cliff.
Karōjisatsu — Death from Overwork – IT Revolution
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Normally, I “pull quote” things and then include a link. But for this one I’m just going to say that this is a 5 minute read about burnout in the tech sector by John Willis.
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Ideally, this is going to be an effective conversation. You have a topic you want to discuss that will likely result in a decision or two. You are confident in your version of the truth and you feel no matter what happens in this conversation, you’ll be able to adapt.
Problem is, there is another person in this conversation and from the moment they open their mouth, it’s no longer just about the topic, the conversation is now about how we are having it.
~ Rands from, An Ideal Conversation – Rands in Repose
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In this particular study, individuals engaging in the ‘high intensity interval training’ (HIT) sprinted on a exercise bike with maximum effort for 30 seconds at a time with 4 mins of rest in between. 6 sessions were performed over a two-week period, with 4-6 ‘sprints’ in each session. I was interested to read a recently published study which used an identical exercise schedule. The focus here was not on fitness benefits, but on the impact HIT might have on individuals’ ability to handle sugar.
~ John Briffa from, «http://www.drbriffa.com/2009/01/30/short-bursts-of-high-intensity-activity-found-to-improve-bodys-ability-to-handle-sugar/»
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One of the insidious things about the distraction habit is that we often don’t even realize it’s happening. It sneaks up on us, like old age, and before we know it we’re addicted and powerless.
But actually we’re not powerless. The power we have is our awareness, and you can develop it right now. Pay attention to what sites you visit, how often you’re looking at your phone, how long you’re spending in front of a screen all day.
~ Leo Babauta from, An Addict’s Guide to Overcoming the Distraction Habit – Zen Habits Website
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Instead of specializing someone who is specialized in something else, we need to un-specialize them. We need to give people what they don’t have at the foundational level first. …
Once that foundation is established we’re able to move into almost any specialized activity, and that’s the goal. Not just to be good at exercising for a while, but to have bodies that are capable of doing whatever we want without injury in the real world, for the rest of our lives.
~ Matt Malloy from, «http://roguedenver.com/variability-fitness-training/»
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A while back I mentioned I’ve been experimenting with a FitBit HR and an intentional, designed, fitness program. I’ve been playing with this more. I originally didn’t like that I couldn’t just redefine all the zones to the HRs that we’re targeting.
Most, tradition/common workout programs I’ve seen have just 3 heart rate (HR) zones based on a maximum HR which is simply computed based on your age. The plan I’m working with from Mike, is significantly more complex. (Details for another post I suppose.) Anyway, the plan calls for very specific workouts, for example: “17 minutes in Z1”.
I noticed on day one, that the FitBit only has one “custom zone” that you can configure. So, I’ve begun manually setting the “custom zone” to the goal HR before some of the workouts. Once I plug in the specific Z1 lower/upper numbers, I can then set off on the workout.
On the device, there is an icon-based display that shows you quickly if you’re below/in/above the target zone. Normally, the icons refer to one of the FitBit’s built-in zones. But it turns out that if you set a custom zone, then the icon status is for your custom zone. Ok, now THAT’S useful!
The above screen grab is from a morning run where I had the custom zone set to my specific Z1 values. The graph shows the FitBit’s default zones (blue/”under”, yellow/”fat burn”, orange/”cardio”) and it overlays my custom zone as the hatched band. The bar graph even adds a value for the time in the custom zone.
In this example I set out to perform, after warming up, for 17 minutes in Z1. …and BAM! 16 minutes in Z1 by it’s measure. Now that’s a targeted workout.
Aside: The tail end of the graph was a strong-run-out, 1/4 mile. My opinion is that the FitBit sucks at picking up highend HR. Either that, or I’m a machine, and can run an 8 minute mile pace at a 151HR. …and it’s not the latter of those two.
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It’s a shame that it generally takes a tragedy to remind us how short and unexpected life can be, and that we need to enjoy every day. The stark realization is that inorder to live our lives fully and happily, we have to remember we have no extra lives.
This is it.
Did you enjoy your story?
~ Steve Kamb from, There are no extra lives. Make this one count. | Nerd Fitness
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Here’s what it boils down to: Human beings are simultaneously individuals and members of society, not fundamentally one or the other. Some issues (like free speech) are easier to understand from the individual point of view, while others (like traffic) require a social point of view.
~ Doug Muder from, The Individual and the Herd | The Weekly Sift
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This is a long read and it’s *gasp* “thinky.” It’s also about *swoon* vaccination, but it’s really about individual rights and social responsibility. Repeat this phrase over and over, “an intelligent person can consider an idea without accepting it,” and give this a read.
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He replied that although the drug did dissolve gallstones, it didn’t treat whatever the underlying problem was causing the gallstones in the first place. Patients who took the drug, got rid of their stones, but as soon as they went off the drug, the stones redeveloped. He said the only effective permanent treatment of gallstones was to remove the gallbladder.
Over the next few years of my medical education, I learned this was the common wisdom on dissolving gallstones. It can be done, but what’s the point? The stones will simply come back.
Turns out, however, that there may well be a way to avoid surgery, get rid of gallstones and, most importantly, keep them gone.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/get-rid-gallstones-without-surgery/»
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Meta: This is post number 1,001.
I’m glad I took the time to post this stuff. Aside from my obvious use as a soap-box, it’s a constant source of wonderful memories as I dredge up old, and capture new photography, as well as a place for me to ruminate.
Mmmmmmmmm, first use of ruminate.
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There’s no right answer. The present self usually wins, because he controls the action and so his interests are more important. But the future self actually has a stronger case: he’s actually a bunch of future selves (you in 10 minutes from now, an hour from now, a day from now, three days from now, a year later, and so on). So shouldn’t a thousand future selves outweigh the current self’s interest?
~ Leo Babauta from, Savor Discipline: Merge the Interests of Your Future & Present Selves – Zen Habits Website
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Not claiming I have this one all figured out. Just claiming you should read everything Leo writes…
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The idea of what parkour can be and the current reality of what parkour is are not the same as far as who participates. The issue of gender can’t be ignored in parkour. You hear a lot based around the idea of ‘parkour is for everyone!’, well theoretically yes, but if all you really see is young guys then if you are not a ‘young guy’, it many not occur to you that it could also be for you. Parkour as an activity is not alone in this.
~ Julie Angel from, «http://www.goseeanddo.com/parkour-the-inconvenient-truth/»
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We’re supposed to be thinking people. We’re supposed to be able to question everything.
There are things that happen in the world that are bad, and you want to do something about them. You have a just cause. But our culture is so war prone that we immediately jump from “This is a good cause” to “This deserves a war.”
You need to be very, very comfortable in making that jump.
~ Howard Zinn from, «http://www.progressive.org/zinnjuly09.html»
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During the course of our conversation, I told these researchers about my practice and about the success I was having with patients on low-carb diets. I explained how my patients lost weight fairly easily and experienced significant and rapid changes in blood pressure, lipids, fasting insulin and blood sugar levels. They became intrigued since these changes pretty much mirrored those seen over time in caloric-restriction studies on lab animals. It set them to wondering whether humans following low-carb diets would manifest the same enzymatic changes as calorically-restricted animals. They proposed an experiment.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/inflammation/can-your-food-make-you-fit/»
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I hear it all the time from people. “I’m passionate about it.” “I’m not going to quit, It’s my passion”. Or I hear it as advice to students and others “Follow your passion”.
What a bunch of BS. ”Follow Your Passion” is easily the worst advice you could ever give or get.
~ Mark Cuban from, Mark Cuban – Don’t Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort | Genius
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If you have to understand the law to read a book, we have failed. If you have to enter into a contract – any contract, even a ‘‘good’’ contract – to read a book, we have failed.
These are cultural, not industrial activities. It’s insane to ask people to sign contracts to read books. Seriously, who actually thinks this is a good idea?
Maybe we do need rules for culture, and maybe we even need laws for culture, but they shouldn’t – and can’t – be the rules we designed for industry.
It’s not always easy to tell the difference between culture and industry, but there are plenty of cases where it’s totally obvious. For those fuzzy cases in the middle, come up with some guidelines and let the courts apply them.
It’s a wildly imperfect system, but at the very least, it isn’t the grossly Kafkaesque idea that you should have to enter into a 22,000-word agreement with Apple, AT&T, and Random House audio in order to listen to a 15,000-word novella.
~ Cory Doctorow from, Cory Doctorow: A New Deal for Copyright – Locus Online
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The truth is, that wherever we are in life, we all have pockets of time that we own, and that we could be doing more to actively shape and make the most of. It’s just that so often we default to the path of least resistance. Unbelievably, Americans only use 51% of their paid vacation and paid days off. When we’re not working, and do have free time, rather than pursuing a constructive hobby or side business, we’ll often plop in front of the TV or mindlessly surf the internet. Instead of seeking out good books to read to feed our minds, we default to consuming whatever information happens to pop up in our Facebook feeds. The ironclad rules that governed our childhood are long gone, and yet we still don’t feel fully in control of our lives. We feel swept along by the currents of our responsibilities, so that our lives seem to go by in a unthinking haze – a fog that is ever so often perforated by the question: “Why haven’t things turned out the way I had hoped?”
~ Brett McKay from, Become the Author of Your Own Life | The Art of Manliness
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Say yes whenever you can and overcome the inertia of rigmarole. One of the greatest impediments to adventure as an adult is the number of your responsibilities, and how said responsibilities sap your willpower. Psychologists have shown that we have a limited supply of willpower each day, that if we use it for one thing, we have less it for another, and that when our willpower runs low, our default answer to everything becomes “no.”
~ Brett McKay from, How to Be More Adventurous | The Art of Manliness
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Creating an awesome adulthood involves using your imagination to create a story for yourself, and then taking ceaseless action to bring that narrative to life. It’s like riding a stationary bike that powers a film projector: to create a new world — to project your chosen narrative on the screen of your life — you must pedal continuously.
~ Brett McKay from, Churchill’s Advice on How to Be an Adult | The Art of Manliness
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This is a rather large, long (and I think, well written) series of posts from Brett over at Art of Manliness. Well worth a read in my opinion.
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There has been much written about past debt bubbles and collapses. The situation we are facing today is different. In the past, the world economy was growing, even if a particular area was reaching limits, such as too much population relative to agricultural land. Even if a local area collapsed, the rest of the world could go on without them. Now, the world economy is much more networked, so a collapse in one area affects other areas as well. There is much more danger of a widespread collapse.
~ Gail Tverberg from, The Problem of Debt as We Reach Oil Limits | Our Finite World
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Most of the US and Europe are too far north to get enough sun exposure to generate the production of adequate vitamin D during a large part of the year. And, second, most parents are so fearful of sunburn that they slather their kids with sunscreen if and when they let these children play outside during the part of the year they can make adequate vitamin D. Since a sunscreen with an SPF of only 8 reduces the synthesis of vitamin D by 95 percent, think of how little vitamin D children with sunscreens of SPF 30 or 45 are making. Zero.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/supplements/sunshine-superman/»
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Memorize this: “8,000 at 20”
That is: “8,000 steps at a 20-minute-mile walking pace.” I’ll explain below, but first…
The researchers involved in this study then looked at what levels of activity appeared to be associated with BENEFITS for PHYSICAL and MENTAL health. What they found was that improved physical health was seen in individuals taking 8,000 steps a day at [a certain] intensity.
The threshold above which there was an associated benefit for MENTAL health was lower: only 4,000 steps a day at [a certain] intensity.
~ John Briffa from, «http://www.drbriffa.com/2009/06/05/walking-may-be-ideal-exercise-as-we-age/»
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It’s not about how far you walk; Don’t worry about how long your legs are. It’s about how hard you are working when you walk. Basically, you need to do the steps at a level of exertion that is roughly 3 times you base metabolic rate; That is to say, the rate at which your body burns energy when you are sitting still doing nothing. The intensity this research points at is roughly a 20-minute-mile walking pace for average height/legs. This is faster than “I’m strolling” but well below “I’m late! speed walking”.
Just go walk for 45 minutes every day.
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