Brittle and prone to failure →

Published April 22, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 22  ·  

Together, these approaches comprise “complexity.” They tend to make the economic system less resilient. At least temporarily, they pass fewer of the higher costs of energy products through to current citizens. As a result, the economy can temporarily withstand a higher price of energy. But the system tends to become brittle and prone to failure.

~ Gail Tverberg from, Spike in energy prices suggests that sharp changes are ahead

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I don’t know whether to say you’ll be better, or worse, off—but I absolutely recommend reading everything Tverberg has ever written. I’ve a number, (nowhere near all of her stuff however,) of things quoted here on the blog; All those posts are tagged Gail Tverberg. History shows many examples, over thousands of years of recorded history, where economies, (empires, civilizations, and the people,) grew slowly and ended precipitously. There’s yet to be an example of a gradual decline. The open question is for how much longer—possibly very very much longer—can humanity continue to incline? (And to be clear, I don’t have an educated opinion about that question.)

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Weakness →

Published April 21, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 21  ·  

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

~ Victor Hugo

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What actually is the problem →

Published April 21, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 21  ·  

Every obstacle that we normally think of as a problem to be fixed … every “flaw” in ourselves or others that we judge as something to be fixed … what if we can pause, find stillness, and get curious instead of trying to fix?

~ Leo Babauta from, Stillness & Curiosity

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Any day that Babauta gets me thinking is a good day. (If that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.) I’ve gotten pretty durn good at the “pause”, and the “find stillness”, parts. I also believe I have the “wait but why” curiosity bit figured out, since it has always been with me. It’s that “trying to fix” part upon which I’m perpetually stuck. And I get “particularly stuck”— “particularly stuck” aren’t the right words… if I could find the right words or word, I would use it instead. “Ensnared” is close. Or, have you ever gotten caught by a single thorn while out walking or hiking? That one thorn isn’t going to do too much damage if you stop quickly. In an instant, that one thorn becomes the laser focus of all of my attention. I really feel like I should be able to find the right word to fix that sentence.

Well, that’s curious.

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Competition →

Published April 20, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 20  ·  

I would like to remove all competitions in outdoor sports. The competition is not the important thing. The important thing is to learn to behave with wild nature.

~ Reinhold Messner

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Pasteur’s Quadrant →

Published April 20, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 20

The core idea of Pasteur’s Quadrant is that basic and applied research are not opposed, but orthogonal. Instead of a one-dimensional spectrum, with motion towards “basic” taking you further away from “applied”, and vice versa, he proposes a two-dimensional classification, with one axis being “inspired by the quest for fundamental understanding” and the other being “inspired by considerations of use”

~ Jason Crawford from, Pasteur’s quadrant

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I’ve put a bit of thought into research. I’ve certainly considered the two properties of “research for understanding” and “research for application”. But I’ve never thought of them as two dimensions. Click through and check out the simple but illuminating quadrant graph.

And I’m immediately wondering: Can I think of a third dimension upon which to plot research? (Field-of-study comes to mind. Time; The thing being studied, is it something that happens in micro-time like particle physics, or macro-time like geology?) I’m also wondering: what other activities could be plotted in a quadrant? (Writing: insight versus length? Coaching: net change in performance versus time spent training?)

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Pleasure →

Published April 19, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 19  ·  

Moderation is the pleasure of the wise.

~ Voltaire

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Core temperature →

Published April 19, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 19

Interestingly, regardless of exercise intensity, exercising in the cold has been shown to reduce and delay the typical [human growth hormone] response to exercise, leading to the speculation that the increase in core temperature may be the more important regulator of growth hormone release.

~ Brad Pilon from, Heat and Growth Hormone

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Human growth hormone is involved in a lot of the body’s signaling, and I was instantly curious about “hacking” exercise to raise core temperature… and then I remembered all the classic “boxers training in sweat suits”—drenched in sweat! It’s right in the name of the clothing. Boxes know a lot about training, muscle and getting into shape.

But then I got completely distracted reading the Wikipedia page. First off, I remember when we didn’t know what the actual shape of molecules were. Then along came mathematical modeling, protein folding… and I think there’s even a “folding at home” project where you can “donate” your computer’s free time to help figure out how proteins fold. Anyway, Human Growth Hormone seems to be solved. It has 192 (!?!) amino acids. The thing is enormous— except it’s actually not that big as far as proteins go. And the folded shape is as important as the chemical composition of each molecule. And you begin to realize the insane complexity of proteins that have hundreds of amino acids… And then you eat food and your body needs enzymes to disassemble these huge molecules into . . . sorry. I got excited. Ahem.

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Riches and power →

Published April 18, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 18  ·  ,

To have what we want is riches; But to be able to do without it is power.

~ George MacDonald

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Accounting →

Published April 18, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 18

Understanding an entity’s metabolism is fundamental to understanding its role within an ecosystem of competing entities and the selective pressures it is under. An entity with a successful metabolism survives and grows; one that fails in its metabolism is eliminated. Over time, through natural selection, an ecosystem becomes dominated by the entities with successful metabolism. Different entities can have different designs and make different choices, but the laws of nature decide which of them thrive.

~ Jason Crawford from, Organizational metabolism and the for-profit advantage

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There’s good and evil, and moral and immoral. There are associations [in the most general sense of the word] of people working in a myriad of structures, trying to achieve many different goals which are good, evil, moral, and immoral. The first thing I had to get straight in my head was that the variety of the association doesn’t tell me anything about the goals, or the morals, of the people. Because it’s those people that matter.

People can use, or abuse, any structure. (Just like they can any tool. A structure of association isn’t magical; It’s a tool.) So what is the difference between “non-profit” and “for-profit”? …which tool is better at enabling people to work towards their goals?

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Dreary and repellant →

Published April 17, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 17  ·  

All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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