I've argued before about the value of a periodic fitness test. These are the current United States Army standards, perfect and passing, for each exercise, courtesy of Outside Magazine. Deadlift Lift the heaviest weight you can three times. Max (100 points): 340 poundsPass (70 points): 180 pounds Power Throw Launch a ten-pound medicine ball over your head … Continue reading Army Fit
Category: articles
Observations on the Long Take
"It is thus absolutely necessary to die, because while living we lack meaning, and the language of our lives (with which we express ourselves and to which we attribute the greatest importance) is untranslatable: a chaos of possibilities, a search for relations among discontinuous meanings. Death performs a lightning-quick montage on our lives; that is, … Continue reading Observations on the Long Take
Carnival Cosmology
"Fear is a freeze on the future, the filter or floodgate that stops our imaginings; something within us that stops us from becoming more powerful and loving, rather than fearing those things that are more vivid than our fantasies, more powerful than our magic, more mysterious than our own mysteries."-Gary Warne, "Carnival Cosmology." SuicideClub.com. January … Continue reading Carnival Cosmology
Under Control of Your Smart Phone
Open Question: Are smart phones primarily an information technology or a control technology? "What the phone promises you psychologically is not content as such, but a space on the screen that is totally obedient to you. This translates into the illusion that the world, seen through the screen, will be equally obedient. I think any … Continue reading Under Control of Your Smart Phone
An Introduction To Data Science On The Linux Command Line
...provide[s] the reader with a brief overview for a number of different Linux commands. A special emphasis will be placed on explaining how each command can be used in the context of performing data science tasks. The goal will be to convince the reader that each of these commands can be extremely useful, and to … Continue reading An Introduction To Data Science On The Linux Command Line
Older and Living Apart Together (LAT)
Open Question: Does living alone position people for having a broader social support network? "I don’t want to take care of anybody. I want to take care of me,' said Nadell, who divorced her second husband two decades ago. 'You want to be friends and get together, when I say it’s okay to get together? … Continue reading Older and Living Apart Together (LAT)
Suckin’ at Something…
“Every winner begins as a loser,” ...But not every failure leads to success...It turns out that trying again and again only works if you learn from your previous failures. The idea is to work smart, not hard. 'You have to figure out what worked and what didn’t, and then focus on what needs to be … Continue reading Suckin’ at Something…
The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
"Scientific and technological progress might change people’s capabilities or incentives in ways that would destabilize civilization. For example, advances in DIY biohacking tools might make it easy for anybody with basic training in biology to kill millions; novel military technologies could trigger arms races in which whoever strikes first has a decisive advantage; or some … Continue reading The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
100 (or more) Gays
"Annotate your books, but please, make it good. Make it like the anonymous owner of 100 Gays, who signed their notes only ‘R.’, but gave us everything else they had. On the spare pages at the front and rear of the book, R. has added their own notes, remarks, poems and theories......This is a whole … Continue reading 100 (or more) Gays
The Worth of Defeated Valor
"...yes, you may be up against a monster that creeps in the night and eats people, you may be up against a dragon far stronger than you, you may be up against the bottomless pit of student debt and climate change anxiety, you may be up against whatever it is you're up against... and truth … Continue reading The Worth of Defeated Valor
Moab Truth
"But if at this stage of the game, given what we know about how social media work and about the incentives of the people who make TV, you’re still getting your dopamine rush by recycling TV-news clips and shouting at people on the Internet, you’re about as close to beyond hope as a human being … Continue reading Moab Truth
OpSec is for Everyone
"Every image you post online is a clue. Aggregating this information can provide a clear picture not only to your pattern of life but also an insight into your location and home address and even clues to passwords."—Stuart Peck, "Why OPSEC Is For Everyone, Not Just For People With Something To Hide – Part II." … Continue reading OpSec is for Everyone
The Four Songs of Humanity
"In a specific society, songs differ depending on the context in which they are sung, such as lively celebrations or calmer events. But across all cultures, the team could identify four distinct, recurrent song types: dance tunes, healing songs, love ballads and lullabies."-"Vast musical database reveals common threads in songs around the world." Nature.com. November … Continue reading The Four Songs of Humanity
The Secret Ingredients of ‘Superforecasting’
"From 2011 to 2015, the US government-funded online initiative pitted the predictive powers of ordinary people against Washington, DC intelligence analysts on the most significant geopolitical questions of the day. Over successive rounds, Tetlock and Mellers identified the very best prognosticators from the 25,000-strong participant pool and shunted them into elite teams. Despite the fact … Continue reading The Secret Ingredients of ‘Superforecasting’
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