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 our way driving over and up up to Lake Garda from Milan in our cool Costco International Benz, we stopped to check out Bergamo for a few hours. We had read that it is undeservedly overlooked, a hidden treasure. Home of Donizetti.
The medieval citta alta overlooks a clearly prosperous modern town. We parked the car and took the funicular up to the old hilltop town. We strolled around the town and had a great lunch. Most of my pics are food, classic Lombardy cooking.
When I discuss fitness and conditioning, I use the categories of Strength Training, Endurance Training, General Athleticism Training, and Nutritional "Training."
Naturally, different regimens address each fitness category with some specificity but with some overlap. To get stronger, you have to stress nerves and damage muscle fibers by moving weight. For endurance training, 20 mins of intense interval exercise seems to beat out longer low-intensity aerobic cardio. All categories feed into General Athleticism which is most peoples' real goal - Fitness for whatever life brings - but we address it specifically with calisthenics and by playing recreational sports and other outdoor vigorous activities.
These categories of activity use different combinations of energy systems. Animal bodies have three energy systems, each with different purposes.Just as nerve pathways can improve with stress and challenge, cellular energy systems can be bolstered with stress. When you think about it, a fair amount of stress is good for both body and soul.
Your energy systems are the Phosphagen System, the Gycolysis System, and the Aerobic Oxygen System. In a balanced Conditioning regimen of Strength, Endurance, and General, all three energy systems adapt to being stressed and, ideally, exhausted. Your body will build up those systems, over time, to meet the challenge. That is called "more energy."
For one example, the Phosphagen metabolic system can be stressed or depleted by ten heavy ball floor slams or by a 30-second full-out sprint. That system is for quick bursts of maximum power.
This site, The Three Metabolic Energy Systems, explains the basic physiology of the three energy systems with a discussion of how each is best stressed (but unfortunately that discussion only addresses things like running rather than the other exercise categories which also make specific demands on the 3 energy systems).
They claim that patriarchy and toxic masculinity cause men to cut off their emotions, but the moment that men sincerely try to express any emotional pain, they are derided as tiny-dicked man-babies whose “male tears” are cause for endless sadistic joy.
Anybody with the Y chromosome can be male, but it's not easy to be a man. It is, in fact, a lofty goal depending on your definition. Like most guys, I measure myself against my father and my peers in terms of success, strength, integrity, religious progress, friendships, knowledge, good cheer, self-restraint, seeking responsibility and independence, courage, etc. Not saying these are distinctly male aspirations, just that it's hard to be an adult person and it is not easy to become a man.
So, movies are important. We talked a little about one movie yesterday, and it elicited a discussion of many. What do movies mean?
Movies are stories. Some people think movies and other forms of visual entertainment like TV shows are inferior to reading books. I think that's sort of true. If your mind is forced to picture something that has been transmitted to you by the written word, the gray-matter horsepower it takes to make the picture in your head improves its effect somehow. Even a story spoken to you is like that a little. Having all the visual work done for you dulls the effect. It attenuates other effects, though. It's a form of mind control. You'll see my story the way I want it seen, or you won't see it at all.
It's the same for writing. Writing a word with a pencil on paper makes you understand it better than selecting it on a tablet computer. That's one of 6,176,158 reasons why is our children not learning.
Movies aren't more sophisticated than text. I think movies are actually closer to the normal way our pit-scratching, mammoth-pestering ancestors communicated ideas and feelings. The parts that work are a throwback. A pantomime by the firelight. Show, not tell. Or at least, tell, not labor over commas. People are affected by movies and television. Or more to the point, people are influenced by movies and TV.
There's a reason why everyone wears their hair like Laura Petrie one day and talks like Dirty Harry the next. There's a reason why the same people we used to treat like lowlifes -- because they are -- get made into griots and petty Caesars, raised on a pedestal of their residuals. There's a reason why colleges had toga parties in the early sixties, and then again in the eighties when Animal House reminded everyone of reminding everyone about sword and sandal epics like Ben-Hur. Our behavior, mores, speech, and appearance are affected by what we see on the screen. Unfortunately, right now, what we see is pandaemonium.
Wow, there are actual male humans on that list. I thought it would be Audrey Hepburn 10 times. It's a little light on Clint Eastwood, though, isn't it? You had to wear Dirty Harry glasses in the '70s. It was like a law.
Go figure. Kevin Costner's name in the same sentence as "fraud." Must be a day that ends in Y. Of course, he's on the receiving end for a change, instead of the audience. He always sounds like he's reading a phone book with a bite from a peanut butter and Seconal sandwich in his mouth to my ear.
Actually, he was. Two-and-a-half hours of suspense, with Bernard Hermann banging away like a tinknocker, and then the bad guy trips on the stairs and dies like an actor in a kindergarten pageant.
Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Vivian Maier: artists who received the recognition they deserved only after their deaths. With the uproar that echoed across the internet with news of its death, it appears Vine will be joining their ranks.
Oh, brother. That little piece of purple prose is appended to a ranking of the best 6-second video clips on a defunct service cancelled by a soon to be forgotten caterwauling service. That's Remembrance of Things Past to a Millennial.
I think America has thousands of dedicated teachers, thousands of time-servers, thousands of cynical and discouraged teachers, thousands of low-IQ teachers who "love kids" (which I have never believed or understood), and thousands of teachers having a great life nurturing kids.
Only Prussians could have designed the industrial, military model that American public education has applied since the mid-1800s. Then head-in-the-clouds John Dewey screwed things up even more in the US.
One of the fallacies is that kids are passive recipients of something called education. Another fallacy is that all kids are "creative," curious creatures who can be excited about "learning."
The industrial model focuses on curriculum, as it were a nutritional plan. Of course a curriculum matters, but everybody has his own opinion on what every citizen ought to know. I know I do. However, curriculum planners like to pretend that 50% of students have below-average IQs.
I've never really understood movie lists. They're always curated under titles like, "The 40 Greatest Zombie Love Stories," or, "Four Dozen Julia Roberts Legal Thrillers You May Have Missed." The ones I really don't get begin with, "The 100 Greatest...
I don't know about you, but I don't think there are 100 movies, total, worth watching twice. A list of 100 Greatest Movies wouldn't need any additional qualifiers. There are maybe a hundred great movies, period. Even a good movie is pretty rare. Office Spaceis a good movie.
It's good because it played small ball. It used offbeat actors and looked at mundane things in a fresh way. Your job sucks and you're lonesome and your boss is just going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Saturday. Galaxy Quest came out the same year, and had the same fresh feeling despite the subject matter being pretty well picked over already.
If I had to explain to an alien what the American cultural and business landscape looked like when the clock was about to strike the millennium, I'd show them Office Space. Since they were aliens, I'd have it dubbed in Spanish. The movie is a Swiss army knife of quotes, too. There's one for every occasion. Let's look at the business news today, and see if the little world Mike Judge invented between the lo-pile carpeting and the drop ceiling of Initech still holds up:
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
I'm thinking I might take that new chick from Logistics. If things go well I might be showing her my O-face. "Oh... Oh... Oh!" You know what I'm talkin' about. "Oh!"
Milt, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?
Exercise science is clear that the recovery phase from intense exercise is when the benefit is obtained.
Intense exercise (meaning resistance) is designed to damage and deplete nerve and muscle and to stress bones. This is why I only do each of the big exercises (deadlifts, barbell squats, pull-ups, bench press, rows, military press) once per week. (nb: Those exercises are for women too.) 5 sets of each after a light-weight warm-up, increasing weight, once a week. I do 3 of those exercises one day, 3 of them 3 days later. That is enough frequency for a strength-building or maintenance program. More is not always better.
Like most fitness-oriented people, I do auxiliary strength exercises too but those are not so essential, like arm exercises and core exercises for my tennis and my skiing. Those more focal exertions do not need much recovery.
It is generally accepted that most cardio and calisthenics do not need more than a 24-hr recovery. Hybrid programs like Crossfit deserve a couple of days of recovery unless you are age 18-25. My middle-age fitness regime is 2 days/wk of heavy weights plus a little calisthenics, 2 days of cardio intervals (25 mins only), and one or two days of calisthenics (maybe 45+ mins), depending on my sports schedule. I play lots of sports but recreational sports, and even things like mountain hiking, are not really exercise. They are for fun even if you play hard.
Recovery days for a strength-building program can and should include cardio and calisthenics, but no heavy weight on the movements which need repair.
Good recovery entails a decent amount of sleep and hydration, and an above-normal protein intake in a normal diet. Your muscles, nerves, ligaments, and bones will be grateful for that reward.
"There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means. The primitive exercise of the political means was, as we have seen, by conquest, confiscation, expropriation, and the introduction of a slave-economy. The conqueror parcelled out the conquered territory among beneficiaries, who thenceforth satisfied their needs and desires by exploiting the labour of the enslaved inhabitants. The feudal State, and the merchant-State, wherever found, merely took over and developed successively the heritage of character, intention and apparatus of exploitation which the primitive State transmitted to them; they are in essence merely higher integrations of the primitive State.
The State, then, whether primitive, feudal or merchant, is the organization of the political means. Now, since man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion, he will employ the political means whenever he can – exclusively, if possible; otherwise, in association with the economic."
Albert J. Nock, Our Enemy the State, 1935 (h/t Reader)
I get this weird vibe when I read the newspapers. I'm looking for things to amuse or delight this audience. Nothing seems amusing and delightful to me. Lots of things are funny, but Will Ferrell funny, not Mark Twain funny. Lots of things are delightful. They still publish the obituaries, after all, and there's always people you don't like in there. You have to take your amusements where you find them.
The vibe I'm referring to doesn't really have a coherent theme I can point out. Just the opposite. I'm pointing out the lack of a theme. It reminds me of the interlude just after a trip to Chipotle. You know what's going to happen. You just don't know if that trip to Costco for toilet paper was enough to handle it.
So if you're looking for a theme in today's links, you're bound to be disappointed. It's a burlecue out there, people:
The average person in the United States in unemployable. They are unable to concentrate on anything but a cellphone. You're only hired because they can't get anyone better, and they can't wait to get rid of you. You must become freelancers because there's no other way to force you to pay attention to your work, or starve.
When the nanofibers are embedded within flooring, they’re able to produce electricity that can be harnessed to power lights or charge batteries. And because wood pulp is a cheap, abundant and renewable waste product of several industries, flooring that incorporates the new technology could be as affordable as conventional materials.
Look high. Look low. Go around back. Dig a hole and look at the underpinnings. A number of any kind never appears in that story. I wonder why that is. Wait a minute. No I don't
Google made its money completely by accident. They had a rock in their pocket that kept away tigers in Palo Alto, and they think it will work in the Punjab.
Remember the crack "epidemic" of the 90s? Politicians said prison or midnight basketball would fix it, take your pick. Neither did, but they both took credit. The problem disappeared only after it had utterly destroyed everyone it touched. Cellphones are just like that.
The tech industry is incredibly sanctimonious about imaginary slights to any aggrieved minority. Except anyone older than 35, the hell with them. I have no sympathy. Ten years ago, the aggrieved parties here were snickering in conference rooms about an adult who applied for a job at their startup. Welcome to the wonderful world of freelancing! Now put down the phone, or starve.
Estimated at more than 600,000 people, France has Europe's largest Chinese community. But they have not been in the country as long as more prominent migrant groups, including those from Africa.
There are 600,000 Chinese people in France? Who knew? Say, I was wondering. Are there any French people left in France? I hope they keep at least one around to insult Americans on vacation. It lends a certain charm to the place.
Say, isn't that about the same age as the two people currently applying for George's old job? George retired eight years ago. Ten, if you count when Pelosi took over the country. Is president listed on Old Geek Jobs?
A 28-year-old man leaving the Dancer's Royale strip club on East Colonial Drive fell out of his truck while it was moving, and it ran over his leg, the Florida Highway Patrol said. The incident was reported to FHP at about 2:41 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities said he left his driver’s license behind, and he is known at the strip club.
That's such a wonderful formulation: He is known at the strip club. Are you known at the strip club? Out of the way, peasant! I'm known at the strip club. How do you get known at the strip club? Do you bring quarters instead of dollar bills?
Well, it's Wednesday, people. You might as well swim to the far shore. You're already halfway there.
I am all in favor of tuning into the feelings of another person when it makes sense to do so. It is an act of intimacy, and builds connection with others. However, I believe that most expressions of empathy are phony. We all want to appear virtuous and caring.
Well, they do get lost. Animals with home territories tend not to get lost because they learn their area from childhood. However, animals that range widely as they mature often end up in wrong places and pay the price (eg bears, mountain lions, etc).
Bad science is ubiquitous, and bad science writing even more so. I have no confidence in any science journalism, and I approach any scientific results with deepest skepticism. The more hyped the "Studies show..." articles are, the more my skepticism grows.
So, someone knocked on my door yesterday. That's rare. It was a quiet knock, I barely heard it. I spotted a car I didn't recognize in the drive. Also rare. I answered the door. There was a young, soon to be importunate young woman at the door. She was wary and pushy at the same time.
She pushed a garish pamphlet in my hand. She called me by name, which I found very mildly unpleasant. "Have you made up your mind to vote for so-and-so?" I looked at the circular while I wondered about the parsing of the sentence I just heard. It sounded like someone who had rehearsed the wrong line for a play, and delivered a joke during a death scene.
"No," I said. That's all I said.
"Great, I'll put you down as undecided." She produced a small clipboard from behind her back and made a mark. I thought it was fairly rude to record an answer to a question that wasn't put to me as a survey question.
She then asked for my wife by name. I said she was busy. She sort of demanded to see her. I said no. She said, "I'll put her down as undecided, then, too," made another mark on her clipboard, turned abruptly, and hustled off.
I had answered the question put to me truthfully. I had not yet made up my mind to vote for so and so. If he was on fire, I wouldn't piss on him, and if he died, my wife would attend his funeral in a red dress, but no, we had not yet made up our minds to vote for him.
Like most things in the news, I quickly came to the conclusion that everyone in the story and everyone involved in the production of the story was an idiot.
I have a habit now. When I want to find out something about any news story in the United States or elsewhere, I go to the Daily Mail. It's an awful newspaper, but it publishes all the info it can get its hands on. Great pictures. An amazing find.
The Bench is one of the Big Five strength-conditioners. To make your time on the bench more productive and more of a multi-muscle stress, do not just muscle the bar up with your arms. Engage your back muscles too.
You do this by arching your upper back and raising your chest (while keeping butt on bench) as you lower the bar to your chest, then flattening your upper back against the bench during the press. While this will help you move more weight over time, what matters more is that it stresses more muscle groups in the same exertion.
A 
