We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
On Wednesdays we usually focus on general conditioning (fitness for life) and rarely on training for specific athletic endeavors. That's for a reason.
However, tough hiking is just an extreme variant of walking. A question might be "If you had three months to prep for a ten-day backpacking hike in Denali, or the Bob Marshall, or the White Mountains, or, like us, mountains in the Highlands, what would you do?"
I should modify that a bit. "What would you do, assuming you had a day job and little free time on weekends?"
I asked an exercise expert friend, a competitive athlete who can do several reps of 300-lb deads, that question. She said, given just an hour daily, the emphasis should be on lower body endurance and intense cardio. She said she would do two days/week of the usual powerlifts, but replace her other exercise routines with an hour of stairmaster with a 20-lb weight vest, and an hour of calisthenics with a 5-10-lb weight vest. She correctly observed that hill/mountain hiking is not mostly about strength but is about stamina, agility, and endurance. A person can be very strong without good endurance (and vice-versa). She said an hour of intervals on the bike would be fine, but an hour walking on treadmill with a 20-30 -lb weight vest at a high incline would be better for the purpose.
She also said that, from her experience, daily 7-hour mountain hiking with packs over 10 days can not really be duplicated in normal life. Best approach, when actually doing the trip, would be two to three days on, alternating with one lighter day for recovery. In fact, that is roughly what our guide had planned for our mixed group - two days hard, then one day lighter, and so on. By day 6, I felt eager to tackle anything. Pumped up and ready to go. Too soon, it was time to go home.
Those of us who have long equated the left with opposition to Western civilization are vindicated. We didn't need Beinart and Fallows -- we already had innumerable examples, such as the University of Pennsylvania English department removing its longstanding poster of William Shakespeare because he was a white male -- but in their explicit articulation of the left's view, they are immensely helpful.
Shakespeare is read in every language that has an alphabet not because he was white or European but because he is regarded as the greatest playwright who ever lived. But the leftists who run that English department place race (and gender) above excellence -- a thorough rejection of Western values...
Correlation is not causation. Two daily glasses of wine also reduces risk of early death. Still, it's worth considering. Anyway, coffee is a good thing in life.
Over the past few years the iCamera (aka iPhone, etc) has largely replaced regular cameras. People don't want to carry even small cameras around unless for special situations, and full-sized cameras are rapidly disappearing except for professional shoots.
If you are old-fashioned like me, you carry a pocket point and shoot when you go places. Smartphone cameras can be temperamental in cold weather, and do not like to be dropped on rocks or soaked in rain.
A well-loved, loving, well-trained (but overly-exuberant as a hunter-retriever - could never train that excess out of him as some of my bird-hunting pals know) dog, dead at 13 after enriching our family life in countless ways. From a line of hunting Standard Poodles. Sad for the Bird Dog clan, leaves a hole. Many dogs in my life, and each one was the best pal. I train the heck out of them, and they repay it in all ways. Never needed a leash until he got half-blind and entirely deaf in the past year - responded to me, at least, promptly to voice, whistle, and hand commands until then, even if there was a rabbit to chase.
That is Paco sitting watch over a napping Mrs. BD at the Farm a few years ago after a swim in our trout stream. Kept watch over all of us, I guess. Loved to swim with us at the Farm and on Cape Cod. Like all of us, a Cape Cod-lover who was invigorated by the salty air.
As the West de-industrialized, the enforcement of labor laws have fallen away. Masses of helot labor brought over from Asia into Silicon Valley, for example, worked under agreements they struck with the business owners. Tech companies love open borders as it gives them a loophole to avoid some of the constraints of the Servile State. The same is true at the unskilled end, where companies rely upon masses of labor from Latin America.
This is an untenable situation in its own right, but the coming automation of the American economy will result in an evolution of the Servile State. ..
We took a surprise trip to the NJ/PA border to look at some apartments for a friend. She lives in Georgia and is thinking of relocating. We decided to use this as an opportunity to go bike riding along the Delaware Canal, and make a day of it.
Bike rides aren't all that interesting but are great exercise both physically and mentally (riding gives you tons of time to concentrate). I spent a great deal of the ride thinking about a person we'd met at one apartment. She said was a writer and a professor. A writer of anything I might attempt to read? Why yes, it turns out. She is a 'futurist' and writes about Artificial Intelligence. A topic which is changing my job on a daily basis. I told her I knew quite about AI, and look forward to the day it replaces me. She looked at me quizzically and said "Really? That's strange, most people would fear it. Besides, we have to hope it comes with a Universal Basic Income."
I simply looked at her and said "No, I don't fear it. I've studied history enough to realize change is good. The Industrial Revolution destroyed some jobs, it's true. But it created many more, and those jobs paid better. It also created new industries altogether. I see the same thing with AI. After all, AI is great, but it will probably always be better with humans working in tandem, rather than as a standalone, though some standalone items may exist. Overall I see more jobs coming from it, not fewer. Training is what needs to improve, not payoffs to those who don't want to learn."
I didn't get into a deeper discussion, since I wanted to ride my bike. She seemed amazed I was so nonplussed. Actually, I think she was surprised to meet anyone willing to discuss the topic but shocked at my indifference to her perceived negative consequences. My reasons are based on economics, but also her personal story, which made my ride a mental exercise.. She espoused a point of view which may seem to make sense, but her behaviors told a very different story.
It's good to be back in the land of Dunkin Donuts. The Scots are tea-drinkers. Well, tea, ale, and whisky drinkers. You can't get a cup of coffee until, at the very earliest, 7:30. Utterly unacceptable. Europeans do not seem to be early-risers.
Many thanks to our occasional (too-occasional) contributor Roger de Hauteville, the one-time Viking King of Sicily, for his unique morning links over recent days. Roger has a gift. Now back to my usual.
Seriously, when I read the transcript of Trump’s speech yesterday, I thought it was pretty ordinary stuff. The American president saying Western civilization is good and worth defending? This is controversial? And as I’ve said a couple of times in this space, it’s eye-rolling to hear Donald Trump talk about the importance of strong families and strong values. Still, if you’re going to go to pieces every time a politician says something hypocritical, you’ll never be able to get out of bed in the morning.
If you take a nice hike from the center of Florence across the Arno and up the hill to San Miniato (an active abbey), you will walk past and even clamber over some of the defensive walls designed by Michelangelo. The monks at San Miniato are friendly fellows, and they can sure chant the vespers.
Pic above is one of our hikes in heavy rain through the higher terrain of Scalpay along the Hebrides Way.
- I'll post a few more photos when I get my over-200 photos organized and edited (mostly taken with Gwynnie's waterproof Olympus pocket camera - man, that was necessary), but a few introductory comments with some photos - below the fold -
I need a funny quote about Saturday. I have to paste something in here. You fine readers deserve more than just a few links to digital fishwrap. You merit inspiration. You're worthy of something stimulating. The day itself warrants an attaboy.
Quotes about Saturday are thin on the ground, however. It's the day of rest of days. Saturday is for putting on go to hell pants and painting the fence. Mucking out plugged gutters off rickety stepladders. Going to the dump. Wags and deep thinkers alike have given Saturday a pass. The Saturday sojourn of sol across the firmament just doesn't move the apothegmatic meter.
I say no! Saturday must get its due. Let's see what we can find to tickle our Saturday intellect, and send us to the transfer station with a spring in our step:
Most of the time you're too busy to think about it. But every now and then you say, "I work at 'Saturday Night Live,' and that is so cool. -- Tina Fey
No, it isn't.
Satire is what closes on Saturday night. -- George S. Kaufman
See: Fey, Tina.
I'm blessed by the fact I only need five hours of sleep on a daily basis. I do tend to regard Saturday and Sunday as work days. -- David Rubinstein
David strikes me as the kind of person who mentions his SAT scores to everyone he meets, even though he's 54. I don't know about you, but I'm not inspired by this quote. I don't want to add any weekend toil to the good, solid, fourteen hours of work I perform during the week. Let's move on.
Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath. -- Lyndon Johnson
Oh, dear. Old Lyndon Baines wasn't exactly Cicero, was he? I get the impression that this quote is an adulteration of a quote from Lady Bird Johnson, "Lyndon, every man has a need for a Saturday night bath, whether he's president or not."
I enjoy Saturday night racing. -- Dale Earnhardt
Sorry Dale, but by Friday afternoon, I feel as though I've hit a wall.
Wait, that came out wrong. Never mind. Forget the whole thing. Here are the Saturday links. You're on your own for inspiration:
More good dad goodness. Now that I think of it, Saturday is a dad kind of day. I can guarantee that this dad gets comped at Disney five times over. The video is more viral than the doorknob at an Ebola clinic.
A worthy topic, and the article isn't entirely fanciful or stupid. There's no way the surveys aren't skewed to the boneheaded side of the ledger. This fellow seems to think Generation Z are all Bernie supporters, face painters, and sign holders. Not hardly. Let me sum up the generational divide from my personal experience. Millennials have wasted their useful working and reproductive lives with childish agitation and untenable social and work situations. They're already toast if they haven't cashed out their failed startup stock options. Generation Z has learned to be circumspect, won't answer surveys, don't like Millennials, and will make Eisenhower look leftist.
Anecdata: I was in the phone store on Wednesday. I had to choose a phone to go along with my new plan. I said, "Anything but Apple." Clerk said, "Everyone says that now."
By gad that webpage is a nightmare. Self-playing video that follows you around. Sidebar picture of a woman who got her makeup done at a funeral parlor hectoring you to change three sentences on your LinkedIn page to go from dumpster diving to six figures, and Jeff Bezos smiling or having a stroke, I can't tell the difference with him. You have to wade ten paragraphs in to find out anything important:
Those considered out of the labor force declined by 170,000 to 94.8 million while the labor force increased by 361,000 to 160.1 million.
People who have been shut out of the labor market since Nancy Pelosi hove into view are getting jobs again. It makes me happy to hear of it.
Everyone pretends to be angry at the airlines, but it's the TSA they hate, but don't have the nerve to confront. Making people who fight with flight crews and police into celebrities encourages more of that sort of thing. This guy probably thinks he'll be on Oprah next week, sitting next to Gloria Allred, and clutching big checks from the airline and the company that makes Ambien. I have my doubts.
DeVry University has agreed to a $100 million settlement in connection to ads federal officials said misled students about their job and earning prospects.
Oklahoma City Police Department reports show that Whyte and another man were in the living room of an apartment in the 1400 block of NW 16 Street when they began arguing if Star Wars or Star Trek was better. The victim told police he became frustrated and stated "You're just a trick" before walking back to his room.
Surprisingly, the combatants weren't pasty, obese neckbeards wearing trilbys and My Little Pony tee shirts.
It's outdoor grilling season (well, that is all year-long for many of us regardless of snow), but I want to convey our Cordon Bleu-trained chef friend's advice for oven-roasting meats of all kinds: Always 400 degrees.
Even chicken. Ignore the cookbook. Use a meat thermometer if you can't tell doneness by touch.
More meat advice from our expert:
- Remember (everybody knows this anyway) that meat continues to cook for at least 10 minutes after removing from the heat. That fact has ruined many a rare steak or butterflied leg of lamb.
- Rib-eye is best pan-cooked, no matter how thick. Otherwise many or most meats can be pan-seared and roasted. She says grills are best for burgers and hot dogs, but I disagree. I love a grilled butterflied leg 'a lamb. Possibly my favorite meat. Rare, please.
The Maggie's Farm editor ate my homework. It does that once out of every five tries or so. It keeps me guessing in the most piquant fashion. The Maggie's Farm computer console is hooked up by a leather strop to the hub of Bird Dog's Farmall, and sometimes, if the humidity is high, the belt slips. Oh well. You'll have to skip my scintillating insights for today, and just read the boring old newspapers:
But aren’t there any supercomputers that don’t require this much energy to run? Indeed there are: The human brain is a great example – its processing power is estimated at about 38 petaflops, about two-fifths of that of TaihuLight. But all it needs to operate is about 20 watts of energy. Watts, not megawatts! And yet it performs tasks that – at least up until now – no machine has ever been able to execute.
Your brain is 2/5ths as powerful as the most powerful computer ever built. It's not your brain's fault you use it to watch pro wrestling and worry about vaccines and autism. You could be doing something useful with it.
This is an instance not of judicial activism, but of judicial populism. It is, albeit in clotted legal language, a pandering to popular, or at least very common, notions of causation, such that where two notable events take place in close temporal proximity, it stands to reason that the first must have caused the second. We are not far from the Azande belief that no death is natural, and each death is caused by malign witchcraft.
Theodore Dalrymple is one of maybe five intelligent persons currently writing for the internet.
The GPS measurements in the Taupo volcanic zone reveal that it is widening east-west at a rate of 6-15 millimetres per year - in other words, the region, overall, is expanding, as we anticipated from our previous geological understanding. But it was surprising to discover that, at least for the past 15 years, a roughly 70-kilometre stretch is undergoing strong horizontal contraction and is also rapidly subsiding, quite the opposite of what one might anticipate.
Real scientists observe things and ask questions. Fake scientists make pronouncements and ask for edicts. This is real science.
In the interview Eno confesses that “Roxy Music was an aberration in my life” and also intriguingly asserts that he has never owned a copy of the Velvet Underground’s third album because he does not want to spoil it by overplaying it. But the most startling portion of the interview comes towards the end, when he describes an illicit art adventure he experienced three years earlier, in 1990, when he decided to pee in Marcel Duchamp’s famous “ready-made” from 1917, a urinal with the title “Fountain” bestowed upon it.
So he stopped his car, pulled out his medium-format camera, and took a few photos using color Fujifilm. Those brilliant greens and pure blues were totally unedited when O’Rear uploaded them to Corbis, a stock photo and image licensing site founded by Bill Gates. A few years later, he got a call from Microsoft asking to use his shot of Sonoma County as the default background for its newest operating system.
How a grape blight resulted in the most famous photograph of all time.
High-end consumers are shifting toward fresher items with fewer processed ingredients while cost-conscious shoppers are buying inexpensive store brands. The makers of staples including Chef Boyardee canned pasta and Hamburger Helper meal kits failed to spot the threat and didn’t innovate in time.
Got that? Hamburger Helper is too hoity toity for poor people now.
Dramatic photos showed helmeted officers battling to keep order after 100,000 protesters poured into the city for their 'Welcome To Hell' protest against the meeting of world leaders. Police say they repeatedly asked a group of demonstrators to remove their masks and hoods but instead officers were hit with bottles and bricks - breaking the window of a riot van.
It's agitprop. Posing. The police pretend to police while the rioters wreck stuff. The world has raised an entire generation of Wild Ones: What are you protesting? What have you got?
The Hawaii Attorney General's Office noted after the ruling that the district court did not address the substance of either party's arguments and instead focused on the procedural question about which court is the appropriate forum to decide the issue.
The nonsensical rulings are over. Not because the judges have gotten religion. They just know they'll be overturned and they'll look like fools. To paraphrase Jennifer Cavalleri, Gorsuch means never having to say you're sorry.
Called the Panda Power Plant, it will be able to produce 3.2 billion kilowatt-hours of solar energy in 25 years, according to the company. That will eliminate approximately million tons of coal that would have been used to produce electricity, reducing carbon emissions by 2.74 million tons.
Goofy projects deserve a goofy design, I guess. If arithmetic isn't your strong suit, coal costs maybe $40 a ton. It cost 55 million dollars to build a solar array to avoid buying 40 million dollars-worth of coal.
She said: "When you use antibiotics to treat infections like a normal sore throat, this mixes with the Neisseria species in your throat and this results in resistance." Thrusting gonorrhoea bacteria into this environment through oral sex can lead to super-gonorrhoea.
Super Gonorrhoea? They'll probably make him into a Marvel superhero in the next edition.
After making contact with the woman, Devine loaded the scooter in his patrol car and gave her a ride home. Vehicles such as Amigos cannot operate on the expressway safely since they are unable to maintain the minimum speed limit of 45 mph. Most mobility scooters cannot travel faster than 5 miles per hour.
It was kind to help her out instead of citing her.
The four teenagers “will not be arraigned for at least six months,” Judge Robert Welsh III said on Wednesday. He agreed to delay the arraignments while the four attend a program for first-time offenders.
First-time offenders? What does that mean? They were all virgins? There's a program? Back in my day my friends just slapped me on the back and said attaboy.
I have skied Mount Mansfield countless times (at the Stowe ski area) but I have never hiked it. Hiking to the top in summertime would be quite the challenge for me but I'd love to give it a shot. Or maybe not. Mansfield is the tallest peak in Vermont. New Hampshire has higher peaks.
In winter, you can get up there on skis, cruise along the ridge, and go down Madonna Mountain into the Smuggler's Notch ski area.That's really a better ski area - fewer people.
Ace posted this painting of a guy taking a leak picnic party atop Mt. Mansfield, by Jerome Thompson (1858). I wonder how they got up there with their dresses and picnic baskets but in that era nature hiking was all the rage for the gentry.
Playing a woman's body like a violin? Wonderful. Bonded men and women ought to try to please each other as best they can in all sorts of ways. That is what it is about, partly. Fun, however, is no replacement for a spiritual emptiness.
"This is a book about how it happened," the author writes. "In particular how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since." What follows is a brick of a volume summarizing moments both great and curious in the history of science, covering already well-trod territory in the fields of cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on. Bryson relies on some of the best material in the history of science to have come out in recent years. This is great for Bryson fans, who can encounter this material in its barest essence with the bonus of having it served up in Bryson's distinctive voice. But readers in the field will already have studied this information more in-depth in the originals and may find themselves questioning the point of a breakneck tour of the sciences that contributes nothing novel. Nevertheless, to read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we mistake for commonplace. To accompany the author as he travels with the likes of Charles Darwin on the Beagle, Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton is a trip worth taking for most readers.
Adolescence became a social construct. Most of the research into adolescence, often viewed in pathological terms, began in the 1940s. Removed from genuine, real-life experiences and confined to a restrictive, artificial mass schooling environment, it is no wonder that adolescents often respond with apathy, angst, and anger. But this is not how teenagers have historically behaved, nor how they behave today in many parts of the world.
What makes it all worse is that summer jobs have disappeared with the volume of low-skilled immigration. Even relatively-prosperous kids have trouble finding the sorts of manual work they need to learn about life. I did summer "landscaping" each year during high school. It was an excellent education.
On Wednesdays we usually focus on general conditioning (fitness for life) and rarely on training for specific athletic endeavors. That's for a reason.
A riptide swept away a Florida family. 
Over the past few years the iCamera (aka iPhone, etc) has largely replaced regular cameras. People don't want to carry even small cameras around unless for special situations, and full-sized cameras are rapidly disappearing except for professional shoots.
Darn Tough Socks.
