Tried to lift 175 pounds on the bench last night. Couldn’t do it. But got a good workout anyway.
Next time I think I’ll get it. I was lifting at the wrong time (against my admittedly-minimal circadian rhythm) and I wasn’t feeling all that strong.
Month: February 2019
Realate
by treating animals (and plants) as things rather than conscious entities worthy of respect we have fucked ourselves so badly that we are in danger of driving our own species to extinction.
Ethical stances have practical consequences.
— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) February 6, 2019
And people tell me philosophy is not important, when in reality without philosophy you have nothing, not even reality.
Bad Eq
I really hate how these days if you want to have a decent job you are restricted to about 10 cities, especially if you are young.
Yeah, sure, it’s not an iron rule but it’s becoming more that way all the time. This isn’t really good for anyone, despite what “economists” claim. It’s good for fake GDP only.
Meaty Ochre
Tech companies are always looking for “rockstar geniuses” and such. The reality is that for most tech jobs and jobs in general, someone who is mediocre with decent social skills and who is not a jerk is better than someone who is the proverbial rock star but is a total prickbag.
Sure, you need some minimum level of skills. But like in most areas of life, putting your head down and working concertedly on a problem is good enough and being able to ask for help (giving and receiving) is a key ability.
And if you are a “rock star,” you can go much further and have a much better life if you lift people up rather than crushing them beneath you. That stuff is remembered and you never know who you are going to work with again — or for. Sometimes those people do become your boss and that will indeed be painful for you.
Eternal Now
so apparently google groups helpfully removed half of their usenet archives at random because they may contain "malicious software"
but NOT TO WORRY, whoever was the admin of said usenet group back in 1983 can post a request with google to get their archive reinstated
— โฃโฃตโกโฃตโขโฃฟโฃซโขโกโฃต (@zarawesome) February 4, 2019
Our history is disappearing, or rather it is being disappeared. This is (partially) what the HTTPS push is about, to force us to live in an eternal now of consumerist desire, disconnected from all knowledge of the past, unaware of our potential and our origin.
It’s better for sales, dontcha know.
MFA
I’m not only for Medicare for All because it’s morally the correct action, I support it because it’ll also be vastly cheaper than what we do now.
US healthcare is an extractive industry, and even with the fact that Americans are more unhealthy than most Europeans (which is also a consequence of not having decent health care), MFA would save trillions of dollars over the next few decades.
The only reason to oppose MFA is if you like making pharma and health companies richer for some reason. If you like $5 worth of insulin to cost $1,000, then the current system is for you.
Bom
What Do You Want to Know About the Electra Meccanica Solo?
Absolutely nothing, because that is a horrible abomination from the depths of hell most heinous.
Weight Weight Don’t Tell Me
Don't think I've found a greater release than dancing freely to good music
Hopefully not the only weirdo that does this in my spare time
What's your outlet? And why?
— Emily Painter (@cosimia_) February 3, 2019
My outlet lately has become lifting heavy weights.
Why? Because the goal is to fail, and you’re only competing with yourself. No one can tell me what to do or even how to do it. It is a sport of one and I excel only on my own terms.
Or, as has been better said by Henry Rollins.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that youโre a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
I first read that essay in the 1990s sometime. I’d forgotten how good it is and not because I agree with all of it (the idiot’s definition of “good”) but because it succinctly and pithily articulates a worldview. As all good essays do, it unleashes someone’s mind inside yours.
This is also a favorite part because is resonates in a different realm.
I had done something and no one could ever take it away.
Diverging a little here, but that feeling for me didn’t come first from lifting. It came from graduating airborne school. I was grievously sick most of my time there and barely made it. But I fucking did and when I got those silver wings pinned to my chest that was the first time I felt like I’d earned something that no one could ever take from me. I pressed through on guts and sheer will and after that no one could tell me I was weak or unworthy. I knew the truth; those silver wings were still silver.
Bench
New personal record (at least since the 1990s) of 170 pounds on the bench press.
In the army I got up to 250 pounds. Not sure I will get there again, but my current goal is to hit 200 pounds.
Finding
I don’t need to find myself. I did that the first time I fought back against a bully.
320
New personal record of 320 pounds on the deadlift tonight!
The long slow crawl to 400 continues….
Puzzles Upon Puzzles
Netflix will prob want to use this video in an upcoming movie, like it did with the Lac-Megantic train crash footage in #BirdBox, disrespecting a tragedy where 47 people perished – it really shouldnโt https://t.co/dCWLAgXTWO
— Milena Rodban (@MilenaRodban) February 2, 2019
I have no idea what the problem is in using real footage in disaster movies if it doesn’t show people actually being killed in reality. This is a relatively-new concern and is puzzling to me. There must be thousands of movies that use footage from real disasters in some manner. I can think of 50 or more off the top of my head, and even more TV shows.
I guess this is a novel part of offense culture? Where it’s imagined if something is offensive to anyone, anywhere, it shouldn’t be done? I can’t buy into that or endorse it as literally everything is offensive to someone, somewhere.
Lifted
February’s Fitness Challenge Is: Core Exercises That Aren’t Planks.
Do some fucking deadlifts, avoid wasting loads of time.
Bet the Pharm
Hereโs how dangerous it is to be even middle class in this country. I have a great job with good, but high-deductible insurance. This is insulin, which I need to live. A 90-day supply is more than my mortgage. pic.twitter.com/Vf4Jcj8jOE
— Utility Monster Sooner (@frozensooner) January 26, 2019
I don’t think it’s the solution, of course, but one reason to avoid obesity and to work out is that it greatly decreases your chance of getting diabetes and thus one can forego the highway robbery of the pharmaceutical companies.
The real solution is to nationalize or at least heavily regulate all of this and jail all pharma execs for their crimes, but in the meantime the above is better than nothing.
PA
I’m pretty awesome at this IT shit. I just solved two problems the vendor of the software itself could not solve — with some hacking, a bit of cracking, and then some outright whacking and then a little smacking.
Anyway, that was fun.