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.
Stairmaster intervals provide possibly the most efficient and intense cardio exercise. Your heart rate jumps up to max immediately.
You can do 30 seconds of high-speed anaerobic intervals then slow down for 60 seconds, and repeat at the speeds that work for you. If you can do two steps at a time on the higher speeds, so much the better. Another approach which I am using now is to do 3-minute stairs at the highest speed I can handle for that long, then get off and do a one-minute plank and another minute to breathe, then back on. Thus a 20-min cardio work-out which also beats the hell out of your quads.
What is it good for? It's for intense cardio training, lower body endurance, core stress. It doesn't build strength per se the way squats and deadlifts do, but it does work for lower body "toning" at the least.
Because it is very low-impact, about the same as walking, it is also a cardio recommendation for people with bad knees, hips, and lower back.
(Readers know that we believe that two 20-30 minute cardio stress sessions weekly is enough cardio, if combined with the other weight and calisthenics routines.)
Five hours or less per week of weights, calis, and cardio is all it takes for general Fitness for Life. Then throw in some sports or hiking or yoga or golf or swims or whatever for fun, plus some Cokes or beers as rewards, and you've been a darn good steward of your body, which is your most important real estate. Anybody can find time for that. Just avoid any distance running or you will regret it.
I'm busy moving into my new digs today, so no time for a fresh post. Here's an oldie but goodie.
Spanning the spectrum of mankind's achievements, there are certain key moments that stand out in each field. I'm going to cover a few here, and if you have any additions that you think I might be interested in doing a future post on, leave a synopsis and maybe a link or two in the comments.
When it comes to the heading of 'Inventions', I think the sublime moment is this:
The main character in the marvelous book 'River God' is the head slave of the imperial palace. He's one of those do-all kind of guys; physician, astronomer, architect, inventor, etc. But, as exciting as his long life is, there is one moment that surpasses all others.
The enemy has invaded and their war chariots, with long razor-sharp blades coming out of the hubs, are slicing the Egyptian legions to ribbons. The horses and riders are both covered with armor and are almost impervious to the Egyptians' weak spears and arrows. This devastating new weapon panics the remaining Egyptian solders and the battle, and finally the kingdom, is lost.
On a hill high above the battle the slave takes all of this in, but what has him reeling with shock and despair isn't the fearsome war machines before him.
It's the wheels the chariots are mounted on.
I admit, it must have been stupefying to the first Egyptians who saw them. After veritably a lifetime of rational, scientific endeavor like the hero in the book; to suddenly see something so obvious must have come as the most mind-altering, ego-shattering blow humanly imaginable.
Not to mention civilization-changing.
As I note in the piece, what's particularly baffling about it all is that we have natural axle-ready 'wheels' around us in nature, i.e., an eroded pebble in a stream bed or a sawed-off piece of tree trunk with a knot in the middle which pops out. So you'd think it would have evolved naturally, like fire, without any historical point of reference you could point to. But nope.
So, if you had to boil it down to one single moment, the great architects of the Egyptian empire seeing the wheel for the first time gets my vote.
Our current exercise regimen is 2 days/wk of mostly weight work, 2 days/wk of cardio, and 1 day/wk of calisthenics. In the fall, will switch to 2/wk of calis and one of cardio to mix it up, but when we can we put in one additional day of cardio on a weekend if there is no physical outing planned. This fits, because church in summer is 10 AM instead of 9.
What we call "cardio" is really endurance-maintenance and endurance-building for people with sedentary (ie less than 6 hours/wk of short-of-breath exertion) lives. The idea is to keep heart rate far above walking or recreational biking, with sprints of max heart rate, for 1 hr+. At this point, I can tell how hard my heart is pounding without looking at any gauge.
Our current cardio routine gets us moving with vigor and lots of sweat, and the time flies:
- 15 minutes elliptical, moving resistance up and down the scale from 3 to 15 - 30-60 second sprint on assault bike - 15 minutes treadmill at incline of 4, moving speed up and down from fastest walk possible to moderate walk (3.2 for me). I willnot run anymore - I ran enough in past years with great pleasure, but the thrill is gone. - 2 minutes Jacob's Ladder semi-sprint - 15 minutes stair machine, moving the speed up and down the scale (I just go from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 then back down. At 5, I sort of need double steps - 200 meter sprint on ski machine - 3 sets of 1-minute jump rope with 30-second plank/rest between sets. Sometimes the heavy rope, sometimes a speed rope.
That's just a bit over an hour if you take very little rest to breathe - which you are not supposed to do.
A friend sent along this video from a recital for a music store in Los Angeles. Holy cow she's only ten years old. Double-plus good: That's her mother accompanying her on the piano. Cool choice of music, too. "Sicilienne" by Maria Teresia von Paradis. She was a blind musician and composer who had Salieri for a teacher and Mozart for a friend.
I don't know about you, but when I was ten years old, I was still eating earthworms I found in the playground, and my mother only played the radio. There's some hope for the human race yet.
USA Today said in a phone call on Sunday, Mr Trump and Moon Jae-in, his South Korean counterpart, “affirmed that North Korea poses a grave and growing direct threat to the United States, South Korea and Japan, as well as to most countries around the world”."
Little Kimmie better not work outside in the yard too often. Shame if something fell on him.
Scientists have adapted the ice cream by injecting it with polyphenol liquid extracted from strawberries. Polyphenol liquid has properties to make it difficult for water and oil to separate,” Tomihisa Ota, a professor at Kanazawa University, was quoted as saying.
Mmm. Polyphenols. If I recall my chemistry correctly (I bet I don't), Polyphenols are called "anti-nutrients." I don't go out of my way to eat anti-nutrients.
Across southern Europe, from the choked boulevards of Gaudi's Barcelona to the swarms of cruise liners disgorging passengers into Croatia's mediaeval Dubrovnik, residents are complaining that a sharp rise in tourism is making life intolerable. The backlash has sparked concerns for one of the region's biggest economic drivers and prompted authorities to act.
It appears that everyone in Europe is a French waiter now.
As wrangles over the peace treaty to officially end the war were reaching a climax in Paris, the German commander, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, believed that his ships were about to be seized as spoils of war and divided up between the victorious Allies. He felt duty-bound not to let that happen. Von Reuter's flagship, Emden, sent out the seemingly innocuous message - "Paragraph Eleven; confirm". It was a code ordering his men to scuttle their own ships.
If you scuttle your ship, do you have to keep up the loan payments? I'm asking for a friend.
The sighting is the first living record in the area since about 1982 and the first confirmed record since 1993, when a skull was found. The pine marten arrived in Britain after the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. They made their home in the woods that covered the country and at one point were the second commonest carnivore, with an estimated population of 147,000.
The digitization project currently focuses on discs that are less likely to be commercially available--or available at all in digital form--particularly focusing on underrepresented artists and genres. Digitization will make this less commonly available music accessible to researchers in a format where it can be manipulated and studied without harming the physical artifacts.
Neato. I wonder if they have a copy of Good Old Shoe?
The company has spent more than six years planning and building Apple Park to precise specifications. From a 100,000-square-foot fitness and wellness center, to meticulously designed fire exit signs, the company spared no expense in getting the details right — except, perhaps, when it comes to employee workspaces.
The national preference for cash, then, seems to be the flip side of aversion to debt, which, in turn, can be interpreted as a sign of deep-seated doubt about the future. (German businesspeople are also notorious for their pessimism about the future.) And fear of the future, of course, is rooted in the past.
I would have answered, "Because, unlike Greeks, they have some."
CEO Bob Iger told CNBC's Julia Boorstin Disney had a "good relationship" with Netflix, but decided to exercise an option to move its content off the platform. Movies to be removed include Disney as well as Pixar's titles, according to Iger. Netflix said Disney movies will be available through the end of 2018 on its platform. Marvel TV shows will remain.
I love the term "cord cutters." People who used to pay one cable TV bill and a small internet bill will now pay seventeen streaming service bills and a giant internet bill for bandwidth. You know, to save aggravation and money.
‘There is but one way to defend Samoa,’ he lectured them. ‘Hear it before it is too late. It is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and, in one word, to occupy and use your country … If you do not others will.’
Bannon’s basic argument, as he has outlined it to people who’ve spoken with him, is that Facebook and Google have become effectively a necessity in contemporary life. Indeed, there may be something about an online social network or a search engine that lends itself to becoming a natural monopoly, much like a cable company, a water and sewer system, or a railroad.
I think they misunderstood him. I think he was just referring to hanging them all on telephone poles.
"Resting and vesting" is when an employee, typically an engineer, has an easy workload (if any job responsibilities at all) and hangs out on the company's payroll collecting full pay and stock. Stock is often the bigger chunk of total compensation for a senior engineer than salary. Once the engineer was in rest-and-vest mode, this person spent the days attending tech conferences, working on pet coding projects, networking with friends, and planning the next career move.
Harrumph. Back in my day, sonny, we just married the boss's daughter.
Well, there are the links for today. I hope you're all ready for another grueling day of resting and vesting, or being henpecked, or maybe even working if you can't avoid it.
The project attracted Blanchett and Sorkin two years ago. “Lucy and Desi” will center on Ball’s 20-year marriage to Desi Arnaz. She eloped with the Cuban bandleader in 1940, and the two created the massively successful sitcom “I Love Lucy” in 1951 through their Desilu Productions. She won four Emmys for the role.
Lucille Ball? That Lucille Ball? Cate Blanchett is pretty enough to play Ethel Mertz. Maybe
The fish, a variety of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), is engineered to grow faster than its non-genetically modified counterpart, reaching market size in roughly half the time — about 18 months. AquaBounty sold its first commercial batch at market price: US$5.30 per pound ($11.70 per kilogram), says Ron Stotish, the company’s chief executive. He would not disclose who bought it.
UBS estimates the industry could save $35 billion and pass the savings along to passengers through lower fares if airlines could operate pilotless planes. The technology to do so could be developed by 2025, according to the report.
"And pass the savings along to passengers." Pull the other one. It has bells on
Richard and Tatu argues that differences in national income are correlated with differences in the average national intelligence quotient (IQ). They further argue that differences in average national IQs constitute one important factor, but not the only one, contributing to differences in national wealth and rates of economic growth.
No one brings the potato salad to the Mensa meetings in Equatorial Guinea
So email doesn't necessarily support social patterns, group patterns, although it can. Ditto a weblog. If I'm Glenn Reynolds, and I'm publishing something with Comments Off and reaching a million users a month, that's really broadcast. It's interesting that I can do it as a single individual, but the pattern is closer to MSNBC than it is to a conversation.
Poor Glenn. What did he ever do to this guy to get compared to MSNBC? Shoot his dog?
This video compilation is awesome. The awesome screen capture on this awesome video is awesome, but not nearly as awesome as the awesome video clip it’s so awesomely standing in for.
I remember the good old days when we called it "gnarly" instead of "awesome"
If you’re heading east on the 105 freeway to go from LAX to Pasadena, it’s just a few miles to the Beach Boys Historic Landmark in Hawthorne, California. It’s near the freeway at 3701 W. 119th Street. The monument marks the site of the childhood home of Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, the core members of the Beach Boys.
I remember the good old days when surfing was gnarly
France is world famous for its nudist beaches and its topless sunbathers but there are some rules or customs you need to abide by when it comes to taking your clothes off this summer. Here's what you need to know about dropping your top (or bottoms) on French beaches.
I think I'm supposed to warn you there's some naked people if you follow the hyperlink. The way the internet is going, pretty soon we'll have to warn you when there aren't naked people at the link
Swedish-Turkish writer Hamza Yalcin, 59, was arrested while holidaying in Spain, after Turkey accused him of plotting terror acts against the country, according to reports.
You have to admit, that headline is right up there with Headless Body In Topless Bar.
The ordinances (called visitationszoner in Danish) allow police to stop anyone within a predetermined area and search them for weapons without having probable cause. Copenhagen Police’s zone, set up last month, covered areas of Nørrebro, Husum, Brønshøj and Tingbjerg, where several shootings and stabbings have occurred in recent weeks.
Wow. That kind of fascist policing wouldn't fly in an enlightened country like the USA. And shootings and stabbings in Denmark? Must be fake news
The premise is familiar: Six young strangers live in a house—the first one’s located in Tokyo—and interact as relationships form. That’s where comparisons to American reality TV basically end. Terrace House is different from other reality shows in almost every way.
Who could have predicted that Japanese youngsters would be better behaved than Americans?
The results of the research showed that on average German firms had 26 employees per supervisor. In Switzerland this ratio was 13.6 to one, in the UK it was 10.3 to one, and US firms had 7.1 workers for every superior.
Baylor played for the Orioles, Athletics, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox and Twins over a 19-year career. He was an All-Star and the MVP winner with the Angels in 1979, when he led the majors in RBIs and runs and also set career highs in home runs and hits.
Don Baylor was a blast to watch. He'd stand in one batters box and lean over the other one. RIP, big fella
There were lots of them. German immigrants nurtured a boom in brewing. 1880s Manhattan was a beery paradise. NYC still has plenty of beery pubs, but fewer per block than back then.
My Meindl "Light Hikers" have over 100 miles on them by now, and are as comfortable as sneakers. Although they are lighter than the Meindl hikers, they are not exactly light (3 lbs). My old Adidas hikers are lighter, but not as tough on rocks so I will keep them for ordinary hikes without steeps, scree, or boulders.
What those Meindls have, besides excellent stability when tied properly, is a velcro-like grip on steep and wet rock, gravel, and mud. I tried many times to see at what point they would slip, and they just would not. That is very cool.
For serious Alpine stuff, I'd go for their regular "Perfekt Hiker", but I have no plans for that.
A couple of points:
- I use liner socks with these boots. Probably don't need to, but why not?
- Since my feet are not used to long hikes day after day, I go prepared for dealing with hot spots and blisters. Didn't have a single problem with that.
- Nothing is waterproof with heavy rain and wind. "Waterproof" boots do nothing for rain pouring in from the top, or from having to cross water that is over boot-level. Fortunately, human skin is waterproof.
- Word to the wise: In Europe, "walking" adventures typically means off-trail steep hill and non-technical mountain hiking with cliffs and boulders. It's not what I call "walking."
Perhaps the author has not read about what Manhattan was like in the David Dinkins era. You can keep that kind of gritty if you want it with the muggings and the morning dead in the parks from gunshot and ODs. What is most obnoxious about the false-sentimentality of it is that the author seems to see Manhattan as NYC.
The author needs to get off the magic island and hike around like the Forgotten New York guy does. There are a lot of neighborhoods in New York, most not Dinkins-era gritty anymore but many fairly rugged and ungentrified. Regular people live there. Millions of them.
Bird Dog has gone fishing for the week. His Raja Isteri figured his audience would bridle at seven full days without a little touch of Bird Dog in the night, so she kindly sent me a picture of him up to his old angling tricks. Bird Dog isn't much of a fisherman, truth be told. Just between you and me, he jacklights great whites. He even tried a salt lick once, but it didn't work all that well. I'm not sure why. Anyway, as you can see, Bird Dog is just another square old man who wears his shoes when he goes swimming.
The invention suggests employing a super tall chimney to facilitate heat exchange in the atmosphere as a remedy to Global Warming. Calculations show that if we can construct a chimney 5 kilometers (3 mile) tall and 20 meters in diameter out of flexible fabric material. Such Chimney will be sturdy enough to stand upright and withstand side winds. We will need as many 25,000 of such chimneys to stop global warming.
Little-known fact: The best jokes are unintentional
It had been a hectic news day. In one of the shrillest moments in
America’s infamous anti-communism “red scare,” husband and wife Julius
and Ethel Rosenberg were both found guilty of conspiracy to commit
espionage.
Apparently little-known fact to some people: The USSR is no longer operative. We've read their files. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were guilty, guilty, guilty
The report suggests new types of leadership will emerge. Rather than aiming to become a professional manager (“to take expert bricklayers, so to speak, and make them managers of other bricklayers”), top talent would shift to contribute directly to a company’s service or product and communicate directly with each other rather than through managers (they should be”guilds of bricklayers”).
Little-known fact: You can hire bad writers who shotgun quotation marks and parentheses into everything to pretend to be impartially reporting on a newsworthy trend just to get a link back to the company that hired them, because the FTC isn't paying attention to the internet. Yet
Little-known fact: My parents produced an emotionally intelligent machine using nothing but a bottle of Mateus, a Bobby Darin record, and some private school tuition
There is no such thing as EQ. Let me repeat that: "There is NO SUCH THING AS EQ." The idea was popularized by a journalist, Daniel Goleman, not a psychologist. You can't just invent a trait. You have to define it and measure it and distinguish it from other traits and use it to predict the important ways that people vary.
Little-known fact: You can't mention this at Google, either
Have a great Monday, everyone. If you can manage it, you should go fishin'.
AVI reminded us that the Cape Cod National Seashore turned 50 this week. That Sponge-headed Science Man loves the Cape as much as we do. The Farm is wonderful, but being inland has always made me feel a little claustrophobic. I like access to sea and sky.
Pic above of a stretch of South Beach, with our group of intrepid birders. We hopped down from Wellfleet to Chatham last week to catch a Mass. Audubon birding trip out to Monomoy Island (about which we posted recently). Monomoy is designated a National Wilderness. The size and shape of Monomoy is constantly in flux, as is its intermittent connection with Chatham's South Beach (which is an extension of Nauset Beach - the Cape's southern barrier island group which now reaches down towards Nantucket.
We ended up boating down to lower South Beach instead of Monomoy proper, due to tidal water depth. Our guide du jour, Ellison, an expert birder, led us on an arduous 4 mile barefoot (watch for sharp shells) hike through mud flats, soft sand, and sharp-edged marsh cordgrass - and non-stop biting marsh bugs - to check out the early migrants and the breeding shorebirds. Ya gotta be tough to be a birder.
The guys began work on one like the one in the photo but with fieldstone not cut stone. It will be on the edge of our bluestone patio. Have to keep up with the Joneses.
Actually, I like any reason to be outside, day or night. On these global cooling summer evenings, a fire, a cigar, and a little whisky make for the perfect contemplative moments. And the smoke keeps the bugs away.
I might decide to learn to make home-made pizza too. How difficult can it be?
Life isn't fair. We all know that. We also know that everybody has "issues," from the mild to the severe. While I would advise most people to try to address their issues, my first advice would be to try to conceal them in public.
That starts with behaving "appropriately" at all times, dressing well, getting a good hair style or haircut or whatever, and, if a guy, shaving before going out in public. I've been out and about quite a bit lately and see some women going to work almost looking like bag ladies or schizophrenics and guys looking like alcoholics. Maybe they are, but they should not advertise it. Odd and unstylish (relatively-speaking) appearance is only a good idea on Halloween.
Whatever people have going on inside, looking together and making a good social presentation makes a big difference in life. I do not mean to be superficial but first impressions carry a lot of weight. Like Peterson's "start by cleaning your room and getting rid of old stuff", acting and looking like you have got it together is a good first step. If you or your living environment look a little "off," that's an unfortunate impression. It's off-putting.
14:13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
14:14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
14:15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."
14:16 Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."
14:17 They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."
14:18 And he said, "Bring them here to me."
14:19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
14:20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
14:21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
A service guy asked me to clean out my dishwasher drain filter because it grossed him out. That was a humiliating experience. Clean your own once in a while to avoid that unpleasant experience. Chances are that it is full of gunk.
Hello again. Roger here. Bird Dog's off to get wormed, or get his nails clipped, or something, so you're stuck with me. I can't do nearly as good a job as Bird Dog when it comes to assembling links for you fine people. My lips get really tired reading all those stories. However, he's started me off on Saturday. It's a smart strategy. Nothing much happens on the weekends, so I can't get into too much trouble. Of course George III is reported to have written "Nothing of importance happened today," in his diary on July 4th, 1776, so maybe I better scan the papers for you just in case. On to the links!
France is nominally secular, but just like Britain and #ourNHS the French have a state religion - its famously strict labour market. Gallic politicians of left and right are cursed the second they touch the subject of reforms but it looks possible that is about to be confounded. President Macron won his landslide victory earlier this year while advocating far-reaching reforms of labour laws, against the protectionist and dirigiste Mme Le Pen. And on Tuesday the Assemblie Nationale voted through a bill allowing the government to fast-track changes to the labour code.
Dirigiste? My French is rusty. She's not that fat, is she?
Thus the authors’ fatuous pronouncement that: “In recognizing the central role that the medical profession can play in reducing firearm injuries, the court’s ruling highlights the opportunity that physicians have to reduce firearm violence.”
Just plug the holes, doc, and mind yer own business.
The new Doctor Who is a woman. “All the cool humans are thrilled,” cooed Mashable; “Pissboys Are Melting Down,” added Dorkly (when did nerds start talking like bitter drag queens?). The Telegraph was slightly more sober and wrote off the whole thing with “Who cares?” It doesn’t matter to the establishment left because we’ve already established that men are exactly the same as women—especially when it comes to fiction. They see nothing wrong with female superheroes and action stars.
You know, you could turn it off. It sounds crazy, I know, but you could. Smart people never looked at it in the first place.
Stairmaster intervals provide possibly the most efficient and intense cardio exercise. Your heart rate jumps up to max immediately.
My 
The guys began work on one like the one in the photo but with fieldstone not cut stone. It will be on the edge of our bluestone patio. Have to keep up with the Joneses. 
The 