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(This is the twelfth entry in The Modern Library Nonfiction Challenge, an ambitious project to read and write about the Modern Library Nonfiction books from #100 to #1. There is also The Modern Library Reading Challenge, a fiction-based counterpart to this list. Previous entry: The Golden Bough.)
"Either this world, my mother, is a monster, or I myself am a freak." — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I was a sliver-thin, stupefyingly shy, and very excitable boy who disguised his bruises under the long sleeves of his shirt not long before the age of five. I was also a freak.
I had two maps pinned to the wall of my drafty bedroom, which had been hastily constructed into the east edge of the garage in a house painted pink (now turquoise, according to Google Maps). The first map was of Tolkien's Middle-earth, in which I followed the quests of Bilbo and Frodo by finger as I wrapped my precocious, word-happy head around sentences that I'd secretly study from the trilogy I had purloined from the living room, a well-thumbed set that I was careful to put back to the shelves before my volatile and often sour father returned home from the chemical plant. In some of his rare calm moments, my father read aloud from The Lord of the Rings if he wasn't too drunk, irascible, or violent. His voice led me to imagine Shelob's thick spidery thistles, Smeagol's slithering corpus, and kink open my eyes the next morning for any other surprises I might divine in my daily journeys to school. The second map was of Santa Clara County, a very real region that everyone now knows as Silicon Valley but that used to be a sweeping swath of working and lower middle-class domiciles. This was one of several dozen free maps of Northern California that I had procured from AAA with my mother's help. One of the nice perks of being an AAA member was the ample sample of rectangular geographical foldouts. I swiftly memorized all of the streets, held spellbound by the floral and butterfly patterns of freeway intersections seen from a majestic bird's eye view in an errant illustrated sky. My mother became easily lost while driving and I knew the avenues and the freeways in more than a dozen counties so well that I could always provide an easy cure for her confusion. It is a wonder that I never ended up working as a cab driver, although my spatial acumen has remained so keen over the years that, to this day, I can still pinpoint the precise angle in which you need to slide a thick unruly couch into the tricky recesses of a small Euclidean-angled apartment even when I am completely exhausted.
These two maps seemed to be the apotheosis of cartographic art at the time, filling me with joy and wonder and possibility. It helped me cope with the many problems I lived with at home. I understood that there were other regions beyond my bedroom where I could wander in peace, where I could meet kinder people or take in the beatific comforts of a soothing lake (Vasona Lake, just west of Highway 17 in Los Gatos, had a little railroad spiraling around its southern tip and was my real-life counterpart to Lake Evendim), where the draw of Rivendell's elvish population or the thrill of smoky Smaug stewing inside the Lonely Mountain collided against visions of imagined mountain dwellers I might meet somewhere within the greens and browns of Santa Teresa Hills and the majestic observatories staring brazenly into the cosmos at the end of uphill winding roads. I would soon start exploring the world I had espied from my improvised bedroom study on my bike, pedaling unfathomable miles into vicinities I had only dreamed about, always seeking parallels to what the Oxford professor had whipped up. I once ventured as far south as Gilroy down the Monterey Highway, which Google Maps now informs me is a thirty-six mile round trip, because my neglectful parents never kept tabs on how long I was out of the house or where I was going. They didn't seem to care. As shameful as this was, I'm glad they didn't. I needed an uncanny dominion, a territory to flesh out, in order to stay happy, humble, and alive.
The maps opened up my always hungry eyes to books, which contained equally bountiful spaces devoted to the real and the imaginary, unspooling further marks and points for me to find in the palpable world and, most importantly, within my heart. I always held onto this strange reverence for place to beat back the sadness after serving as my father's punching bag. To this day, I remain an outlier, a nomad, a lifelong exile, a wanderer even as I sit still, a renegade hated for what people think I am, a black sheep who will never belong no matter how kind I am. I won't make the mistake of painting myself as some virtuous paragon, but I've become so accustomed to being condemned on illusory cause, to having all-too-common cruelties inflicted upon me (such as the starry-eyed bourgie Burning Man sybarite I recently opened my heart to, who proceeded to deride the city that I love, along with the perceived deficiencies of my hard-won apartment, this after I had told her tales, not easily summoned, about what it was like to be rootless and without family and how home and togetherness remain sensitive subjects for me) that the limitless marvels of the universe parked in my back pocket or swiftly summoned from my shelves or my constant peregrinations remain reliable, life-affirming balms that help heal the scars and render the wounds invisible. Heartbreak and its accompanying gang of thugs often feel like a mob bashing in your ventricles in a devastatingly distinct way, even though the great cosmic joke is that everyone experiences it and we have to love anyway.
So when Annie Dillard's poetic masterpiece Pilgrim at Tinker Creek entered my reading life, its ebullient commitment to finding grace and gratitude in a monstrous world reminded me that seeing and perceiving and delving and gaping awestruck at Mother Earth's endless glories seemed to me one one of the best survival skills you can cultivate and that I may have accidentally stumbled upon. As I said, I'm a freak. But Dillard is one too. And there's a good chance you may walk away from this book, which I highly urge you to read, feeling a comparable kinship, as I did to Dillard. Even if you already have a formidable arsenal of boundless curiosity ready to be summoned at a moment's notice, this shining 1974 volume remains vital and indispensable and will stir your soul for the better, whether you're happy or sad. Near the end of a disastrous year, we need these inspirational moments now more than ever.
"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery." – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Annie Dillard was only 28 when she wrote this stunning 20th century answer to Thoreau (the subject of her master's thesis), which is both a perspicacious journal of journeying through the immediately accessible wild near her bucolic Southwestern Virginia perch and a daringly honest entreaty for consciousness and connection. Dillard's worldview is so winningly inclusive that she can find wonder in such savage tableaux as a headless praying mantis clutching onto its mate or the larval creatures contained within a rock barnacle. The Washington Post claimed not long after Pilgrim's publication that the book was "selling so well on the West Coast and hipsters figure Annie Dillard's some kind of female Castaneda, sitting up on Dead Man's Mountain smoking mandrake roots and looking for Holes in the Horizon her guru said were there." But Pilgrim, inspired in part from Colette's Break of Day, is far from New Age nonsense. The book's wise and erudite celebration of nature and spirituality was open and inspiring enough to charm even this urban-based secular humanist, who desperately needed a pick-me-up and a mandate to rejoin the world after a rapid-fire series of personal and political and romantic and artistic setbacks that occurred during the last two weeks.
For all of the book's concerns with divinity, or what Dillard identifies as "a divine power that exists in a particular place, or that travels about over the face of the earth as a man might wander," explicit gods don't enter this meditation until a little under halfway through the book, where she points out jokingly how gods are often found on mountaintops and points out that God is an igniter as well as a destroyer, one that seeks invisibility for cover. And as someone who does not believe in a god and who would rather deposit his faith in imaginative storytelling and myth rather than the superstitions of religious ritual, I could nevertheless feel and accept the spiritual idea of being emotionally vulnerable while traversing into some majestic terrain. Or as Pascal wrote in Pensées 584 (quoted in part by Dillard), "God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden, is not true, and every religion which does not give the reason of it, is not instructive."
Much of this awe comes through the humility of perceiving, of devoting yourself to sussing out every conceivable kernel that might present itself and uplift you on any given day and using this as the basis to push beyond the blinkered cage of your own self-consciousness. Dillard uses a metaphor of loose change throughout Pilgrim that neatly encapsulates this sentiment:
It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
This is not too far removed from Thoreau's faith in seeds: "Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." The smug and insufferable Kathryn Schulzes of our world gleefully misread this great tradition of discovering possibilities in the small as arrogance, little realizing how their own blind and unimaginative hubris glows with crass Conde Nast entitlement as they fail to observe that Thoreau and Dillard were also acknowledging the ineluctable force of a bigger and fiercer world that will carry on with formidable complexity long after our dead bodies push against daisies. Faced with the choice of sustaining a sour Schulz-like apostasy or receiving every living day as a gift, I'd rather risk the arrogance of dreaming from the collected riches of what I have and what I can give rather than the gutless timidity of a prescriptive rigidity that fails to consider that we are all steeped in foolish and inconsistent behavior which, in the grand scheme of things, is ultimately insignificant.
Dillard is guided just as much by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as she is by religious and philosophical texts. The famous 1927 scientific law, which articulates how you can never know a particle's speed and velocity at the same time, is very much comparable to chasing down some hidden deity or contending with some experiential palpitations when you understand that there simply is no answer, for one can feel but never fully comprehend the totality in a skirmish with Nature. It accounts for Dillard frequently noting that the towhee chirping on a treetop or the muskrat she observes chewing grass on a bank for forty minutes never see her. In seeing these amazing creatures carry on with their lives, who are completely oblivious to her own human vagaries, Dillard reminds us that this is very much the state of Nature, whether human or animal. If it is indeed arrogance to find awe and humility in this state of affairs, as Dillard and Thoreau clearly both did, then one's every breath may as well be a Napoleonic puff of the chest.
Dillard is also smart and expansive enough to show us that, no matter where we reside, we are fated to brush up against the feral. She points to how arboreal enthusiasts in the Lower Bronx discovered a fifteen feet ailanthus tree growing from a lower Bronx garage and how New York must spend countless dollars each year to rid its underground water pipes of roots. Such realities are often contended with out of sight and out of mind, even as the New York apartment dweller battles cockroaches, but the reminder is another useful point for why we must always find the pennies and dare to dream and wander and take in, no matter what part of the nation we dwell in.
Another refreshing aspect of Pilgrim is the way in which Dillard confronts her own horrors with fecundity. Yes, even this graceful ruminator has the decency to confess her hangups about the unsettling rapidity with which moths lay their eggs in vast droves. She stops short at truly confronting "the pressure of birth and growth" that appalls her, shifting to plants as a way of evading animals and then retreating back to the blood-pumping phylum to take in blood flukes and aphid reproduction more as panorama rather than something to be felt. This volte-face isn't entirely satisfying. On the other hand, Dillard is also bold enough to scoop up a cup of duck-pond water and peer at monostyla under a microscope. What this tells us is that there are clear limits to how far any of us are willing to delve, yet I cannot find it within me to chide Dillard too harshly for a journey she was not quite willing to take, for this is an honest and heartfelt chronicle.
While I've probably been "arrogant" in retreating at length to my past in an effort to articulate how Dillard's book so moved me, I would say that Pilgrim at Tinker Creek represents a third map for my adult years. It is a true work of art that I am happy to pin to the walls of my mind, which seems more reliable than any childhood bedroom. This book has caused me to wonder why I have ignored so much and has demanded that that I open myself up to any penny I could potentially cherish and to ponder what undiscoverable terrain I might deign to take in as I continue to walk this earth. I do not believe in a god, but I do feel with all my heart that one compelling reason to live is to fearlessly approach all that remains hidden. There is no way that you'll ever know or find everything, but Dillard's magnificent volume certainly gives you many good reasons to try.
Next Up: Richard Feynman's Six Easy Pieces!


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subset: commoncrawl


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Hello lovelies and Happy September!
If you'd like to join me in spreading a little kindness this month, here's September's Kindness Calendar:
To download your free copy, please click on this link:
Kindness Calendar September 2018
(Please note if you subscribe to my blog and are receiving this post by email, please click here to come through to the main site and you can download it easily from there.)
Have a Sensational September and thank you so much for spreading a little kindness.
Love+hugs, Helen 💚


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This list is dedicated to Ronnie James Dio and Peter Steele, two irreplaceable, top-tier members of the metal pantheon, and Paul Gray, who set me on the path to extreme metal.
Debut of the Year
What better place to start the list than with the best debut? Kvelertak defeated the competition soundly with their self-titled album, an incredibly energetic and fun blend of black metal, sludge, thrash metal, stoner metal, hard rock, hardcore punk, and just about everything else out there. As recently as May, nobody had even heard of this band, but now they're impossible to miss. I was one of their earliest champions, giving them a perfect score back on July 16.
Honorable Mention: Castevet's Mounds of Ash is an arty but entirely satisfying blend of black metal and hardcore.
Best Comeback
Glenn Danzig had been off his game for the last 16 years, but he came back strong with Deth Red Sabaoth. In my original review I mentioned how it combined some of the best elements of the first four Danzig albums. It's catchy rock-and-roll played with a thunderous heavy metal sound. Anyone who stopped buying his albums needs to seriously consider this one.Honorable Mention: Fear Factory's Mechanize is easily their best since 1998's Obsolete, proving that the core lineup is Bell and Cazares, and they know the futuristic industrial/death/groove metal style best.
Biggest Disappointment
Soilwork should have come back stronger than ever. Their hook-writing skills had just reached their peak, and guitarist Peter Wichers came back to lend his capable hands to the mix. But Bjorn Strid put in his wimpiest performance ever on The Panic Broadcast. It's still not a bad album, but it should have been amazing. It wasn't. Read my review here.Dishonorable Mention: Nevermore (The Obsidian Conspiracy) also put out a mixed-bag album marred by weak vocal performance from someone who is capable of much better. And Mastodon's Jonah Hex soundtrack, well, I won't even go there.
Worst Album of the Year
Periphery's self-titled debut is djent metalcore, and it would have been a pretty good album if it weren't for annoying radio-metalcore vocals and the cheesy joke they threw in. It's sadistic the way it draws you in with some cool instrumental work, and then, instead of rewarding you with better things, spits in your face. It was kind of like that M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie The Village, which started out really cool, but when the twist came it ruined it. But it's worse, because after this album was ruined, they promised it would get cool again, and then ruined it again, and kept repeating this cycle. For more on this one, don't read my brief review: Read the Wikipedia article on the cycle of abuse. It applies equally well here.Dishonorable Mention: Anathema's We're Here Because We're Here is dull post-rock packaged up and sold to metalheads based on the fact that the band used to be one of our own. I had to mainline some Behemoth after listening to this. East of the Wall's Ressentiment is another pile of crap being sold to metalheads, although it would have been listenable if the tracks weren't so long.


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Tula Blanket Set - Just Chillin
Tula Blanket Set - Just Chillin' is filled with animals exuding the cool vibes across a gray dotted background. Each hip critter is dressed in cozy accessories as they chill, literally. This ultra soft blanket comes as a three blanket set, which includes two jacquard weave blankets, one in teal with an adorable eyeglasses design and one in lavender with a bow tie pattern.
Versatility is essential for new parents. That's why our silky soft Tula Baby Blankets (made from specially produced 100% viscose from bamboo) aren't just for swaddling; cuddle them during your baby's coos, giggles, and zzz's. And with a variety of stylish designs, you'll find that you adore the way they look and feel!
About Tula Blankets:
Tula Blankets are made from 100% viscose from bamboo, making them cozy yet breathable. Each blanket measures 47"x47". They will make the perfect addition to your collection for snuggling, swaddling or gifting. There are 3 blankets in your set.
Made of 100% Viscose, which is produced from specially processed bamboo pulp that gives our blankets a plump, fluid softness that maintains a light feel while being ultra-soft.
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Shipping Information
In-stock orders are processed within 72 business hours after you receive your order confirmation email. We ship from Buffalo, New York in the USA, and Mississauga, Ontario in Canada.
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Designed by Luke Voit, the LV-5 is the perfect transition bat! It offers a larger barrel than the 2 1/4" Little League barrel size, as well as offering a manageable drop 5 weight.
These models come in 30", 31" and 32".
If you need a larger barrel but are not quite ready for a full size adult bat, this is the model for you.
USA Baseball Approved


text: I just started one of the books on Treeleaf's "recommended for beginners" book list: Thich Nhat Hanh's "Understanding Our Mind". I plan to read through it once to get an "overview", then read it again in more detail. I'm sure I will post many questions/issues that come out of this reading. I am posting this in case anybody else out there has been considering reading this book and would like to read it at the same time. I'm not really proposing a "study group", but thought it might be convenient for others who might want to read the book to do so at the same time - it would probably contribute to the overall discussion.


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Biddle, Mary Duke
By Robert F. Durden, 1979
16 Nov. 1887–14 June 1960
Mary Duke Biddle, philanthropist, was born in Durham to Benjamin Newton and Sarah Pearson Angier Duke. Educated first in the public schools of Durham, she was graduated from Trinity College in 1907. She traveled extensively in Europe, was presented at the Court of St. James, and was frequently in New York even before her father acquired a Fifth Avenue home there soon after the turn of the century. A lover of opera, she became a serious student of vocal music and patron of the arts. In June 1915, shortly after her brother, Angier Buchanan Duke, married Cordelia Biddle of Philadelphia, Mary Duke married Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., Cordelia's brother. Anthony and Mary Biddle had two children, Mary Duke II (later Mrs. James H. Semans) and Nicholas Benjamin Duke; they were divorced in 1931. Until her death, Mrs. Biddle maintained homes in New York City, Durham, and Irvington-on-the-Hudson, N.Y.
Continuing a philanthropic tradition begun by her paternal grandfather, Washington Duke, and long sustained primarily by her father, she began making substantial benefactions to Trinity College in the 1920s. In 1931 she purchased the Washington Duke Homestead and gave it to Duke University, which transferred title to the State of North Carolina after the homestead was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968. In 1938, Mrs. Biddle gave the Sarah P. Duke Gardens of Duke University as a memorial to her mother, and shortly after World War II she met an especially critical need of Duke University with a gift of $1.5 million for expansion of the main library. Numerous other gifts went to North Carolina College in Durham, Lincoln Hospital in Durham, and various institutions elsewhere in North Carolina and in New York.
In 1956 she established the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation in order to continue to support, after her death, those institutions and activities in North Carolina and New York that had long been of interest to her; by her will she left her residuary estate to the foundation. She directed that at least half the income of the foundation should go to Duke University. Between 1956 and 1972, the foundation disbursed nearly $5.6 million for projects at Duke University, elsewhere in North Carolina, and in New York. Because of her love for art and music, the foundation has been especially, although not exclusively, interested in the arts.
A lifelong member of Duke Memorial Methodist Church in Durham, she was buried in the Duke family mausoleum in Maplewood Cemetery in Durham. There are portraits in the Rare Book Room of the W. R. Perkins Library and in the Mary Duke Biddle Music Building at Duke University.
Robert F. Durden, The Dukes of Durham (1975)
Durham Morning Herald, Durham Sun, 15 June 1960
New York Times, 15 June 1960
Image Credits:
"Mary L. Duke," Photo courtesy of Library of Congress. Available from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ggbain.17698/ (accessed April 9, 2012).
1 January 1979 | Durden, Robert F.


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About this event:
Discover Brick Wonders at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, an amazing wonder from around the world made entirely from LEGO® bricks!
This event is suitable for: All ages
This event costs: Please check the site for prices
From an ancient Egyptian pyramid to Old London Bridge, and from the natural wonder of a coral reef to the modern marvel of the international space station, travel through history and explore over 50 models made using half a million LEGO® bricks.
Build your imagination at the interactive play areas, and don't miss two special models of Horniman icons created especially for the show.
More than 50 models will be on show, from individual pieces that will inspire visitors to build them at home, to awe-inspiring dioramas and mosaics. Visitors can build their own brick wonders in interactive play areas – including a graffiti wall, a tower-building challenge, a magnetic mosaic puzzle and big bricks for little hands – and the exhibition includes a mini-cinema showing short LEGO® animations.
Price: Please check the site for prices.
Telephone: 020 8699 1872
Email the team here!
Website URL: www.horniman.ac.uk
Location: Horniman Museum and Gardens, 100 London Road, Forest Hill, London, SE23 3PQ
Details are subject to change so please make sure you check with the venue before setting out. Thanks!


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Understanding Stride Rate and Stride Length
Speed= Stride length X Stride frequency
This simple equation is a staple in sprinting and biomechanics material. It simply means that to see a change in speed you've either got to increase the ground you cover (stride length) or increase your turnover (stride frequency) or some combination of the two. The bottom line is that something has to change. But what is it that changes when we go faster?
If you are a Chi Running proponent, your answer will be stride length, as Danny Dreyer says to keep the frequency constant while only changing length. In the real world though, the answer is that it depends and that limiting yourself to only being able to change one or the other is a mistake. Let's look at what the elites do.
One study looked at the stride length and frequency of the top 3 finishers in the 10k at the 2007 world championships. This included Bekele (1st) Sihine (2nd) and Mathathi (3rd). They calculated their individual speed, frequency, and length for every 400m lap of the 25 lap race. The graph below depicts their speed, stride length, and stride frequency:
The first thing you notice is that these three different athletes ran the same speed until the last 2 laps or so. That's to be expected, but what is interesting is that they had different strategies to do it. Bekele had a low stride frequency with a long stride length for the first 9,000m. On the other hand, Mathathi had a small stride length and a very high frequency to run the same speed. Sihine was somewhere in between these two. What is also interesting is that Mathathi who is 1.67m tall and Sihine who is 1.71m tall both had considerably smaller stride lengths than Bekele who is only 1.60m tall. So, all you shorter runners complaining about how your height keeps you from having a long stride, just look towards Bekele. The point is though that we have three runners all employing different strategies to run the same speed.
It gets even more interesting when we look at the last 1km when the pace changed dramatically. For reference they went from hitting around 2:42-2:45 for each km to final km of 2:30, 2:33, and 2:36 respectively, and had last laps of 55.51, 58.66, and 62.16 so the pace picked up considerably. The question is how did these athletes do it?
Bekele did it by changing his stride frequency from roughly 190 strides per minute to an astonishing ~216 strides per minute, all while keeping his stride length about the same. So he went from having the lowest stride rate to the highest by far, thus using an increase in stride rate to increase his speed, while maintaining stride length. On the other hand, Sihine showed an interesting pattern. On the 3rd to last lap, he picked up his pace slightly with an increase in stride frequency. But then on the last lap, he increased his speed dramatically with an increase in stride length. The exact opposite approach of Bekele. Lastly, Mathathi, who had the shortest stride length, increased his stride length on the 3rd to last lap to increase his speed. What is really interesting is that on the last two laps, Mathathi's stride frequency, which was the highest during the race, decreased slightly, while he increased his stride length significantly on the last lap. What this tells me is that he was suffering from the most fatigue and to compensate for the drop in stride rate, he tried to increase his stride length. The net result on the last lap was a maintenance of speed, not the giant increase like in the other two.
What does this all mean? Three different runners all had different ways of running at there race speed and then chose different methods of increasing speed when it was time to do. Interestingly, they seemed to increase the one factor that was lowest during most of the race. In Bekele's case he had a low stride rate, so he increased that dramatically. Mathathi who had a small stride length tried to increase that during the final kilometer. And Sihine who was in between both during the race in terms of rate and length, did a little bit of an increase in both. It's almost as if the runners subconsciously chose to rely more on rate or length for most of the race, to "rest" the other factor, and then went to the other factor when it was time to increase the speed.
This opens up a lot of questions, but before delving into those let's look at one more study.
Sprinting- Stride length and Frequency
The above examples showed that there are several different ways to maintain a steady pace and different ways to increase the pace. But what about during maximum speed? Obviously when we sprint all out we are trying to maximally optimize the rate/length combination. Rate and length have an interesting relationship in that at max speed increasing one will lead to a decrease of the other, so it's balance between the two that matter.
Which brings us to a study Salo et al. (2010) entitled: "Elite Sprinting: Are Athletes Individually Step Frequency or Step Length Reliant?"
In this study they looked at world class 100m dash competitions and calculated the individuals stride length and rate to see what the best athletes did. What they found was very interesting.
Individual athletes seemed to favor either longer strides or higher cadence. Just as we saw in the earlier study where Bekele versus Sihine and Mathathi adopted a different combination of length and frequency, it seems to occur in sprinters too. In the study, they found that individual athletes differed in their reliance on stride length. Some were very heavily reliant on having a large stride length, while others trended more towards relying on both, and even one athlete being reliant on stride frequency.
What's interesting about this is that the author's speculate that perhaps differences in the nervous system or power generation explains why some athletes rely on a longer stride or higher frequencies. For sprinters who are powerful athletes and can generate a large amount of force through their stride, they are more likely to cover more ground with each stride, thus being stride length dependent. On the other hand, some sprinters seem to rely on the nervous system's ability to rapidly turn the legs over and contract and relax the muscles extremely quickly, thus making them more reliant on stride frequency. Driving this point home, the author's stated that "Thus, it is possible to reach the absolute top level of sprinting in the world (run under 10.00 s) with widely varying pattern of SF and SL reliance."
In recent years there has been a trend towards focusing solely on maximum force production as a way to train sprinters. It was fostered by Weyend et al.'s early 2000's study that showed sprint speed was partially determined by vertical Ground reaction forces. Some coaches took this to mean that the only way to increase speed was to increase force production. In the Salo et al. (2010) study they mention that increased ability to produce force has been shown to be a determinant of stride length in animal models. What the current study shows us though is that for some athletes the limiter is not force production, but how quickly an athlete can contract and relax the muscles and ultimately turn the legs over faster. The author's conclude by saying:
"Overall it is reasonable to conclude that SL is related more to increased force production, and SF is associated with faster force production during the contact and quick leg turnover requiring neural adaptations. Higher SF requires cross-bridges within the muscles to be built at high rates, and thus these need a high rate of neural activation.
Consequently, it is proposed that the SF reliant athletes are required to concentrate on neural activation in their final preparations for the major races and have a nervous system ready such that they can produce the quick turnover of the legs. On the other hand, the SL reliant athletes need to keep their strength levels up throughout the season and have the required flexibility in the hip area to produce long steps. Naturally, athletes cannot totally forget the non-reliant variable, as any disproportionate reductions in one variable cannot be generally compensated for by the other variable."
Another interesting fact, which we saw in the 10k study too, is that the height of the athlete did not impact whether or not they would take longer strides or have a higher cadence.
Putting it all together
The point of this is to show you that there are many roads to running the same speed, whether it is sprinting or running a 10k. What the above studies show is that perhaps it is highly individual. Runner's like Bekele may have adaptations that lead to him being able to hold a massive stride length for a long time, and then switch and be able to hold a large stride rate during the latter stages of the race.
The question is should we individualize based on our preferred method of running? Stride length dependent athletes might need to do more strength/power work, while stride frequency athletes might need to do more turnover work/neuromuscular work. Or should we work on our weaker side of the equation? The ultimate answer for us distance runners may be that we should be like Bekele and be able to run submaximally with one strategy and then be able to switch strategies when fatigued. Maybe this is why he can kick so well? He's able to run both ways.
The great Hungarian coach Mihali Igloi was a big fan of what Bekele seems to have done in the 10k. Igloi believed that runners had a natural stride they preferred, but then should use their "unnatural" stride during heavy fatigue. He called them short swing and long swing strides. Short Swing would be equivalent to a shorter stride length with a high frequency, while long swing would be a long stride with a reduced frequency. His contention was that you needed to work on going back and forth between these two stride types during practice. If you could become adept at using both strides, then you could run the majority of your race in your preferred stride style, but when fatigue started to happen, you'd switch to the other stride style. His contention was that by switching, you are changing the muscle fibers that are recruited slightly, and you are also changing how they work (powerful as in a long swing stride, or rapidly as in a short swing stride). In essence, this is what Bekele did. He went from a long swing to a short swing style in the final kilometer.
Hopefully this mini stride frequency versus length topic makes you think a little bit. In particular it should be obvious that there is no magic stride frequency that everyone should run. It depends on the athlete and their speed. Some rely more on stride length, while others will rely more on frequency like Mathathi. But you have to be able to change but frequency and length throughout the spectrum of running speeds. If you, like Chi running advocates, try to hold one constant, you'll reach your limit in increasing the opposite one before you should, and thus will be slower. In an ideal world, you should train to be able to do both when needed. Perhaps that's what makes Bekele the man to beat on the kick?
Salo et al. (2010) Elite Sprinting: Are Athletes Individually Step Frequency or Step Length Reliant? Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise
Enomoto et al. (2008). Biomechanical analysis of the medalists in the 10,000 metres at the 2007 World
Championships in Athletics, New Studies in Athletics
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32 Comments
Excellent post, especially through reflecting upon the diverging running tactics of Bekele, Sihine and Mathathi. The conclusion, that we're all different and that we utilize different stride length / cadence strategies depending in part on our fatigue is consistent with Matt Fitzgerald's book "Run: The Mind-body Method of Running by Feel" which I recommend.
216! That is insane. Excellent post.
Another great and informative post Steve. Towards the end it did get me to thinking. Which method of increasing speed generates less impact force with the ground, and increase of stride rate or an increase of stride length?
Thanks for your expertise!
Do they do this explicitly ie are they conciously aware and thinking "now I'll increase my stride length/ frequency" Or are they less conciously aware of the mechanics and just aiming to run faster and doing that in naturally different ways? "Tactics" was mentioned which hints that it's a concious decision. What do you think Steve?
Back in my cycle racing days the book I read by Eddie B [ ex national US coach]recommended a cadence of 86-92 revs per min for time trials, this I followed until I started doing road racing as well.
Due to the changing pace and much faster speeds of road racing my cadence often reached 120 Rpm and more!
The side effect of this was, I found that in Time trials my average cadence increased so i felt more natural at holding higher revs around 95-100 rpm.
End result was faster 10 and 25 mile TT's.
We often here that a turnover of 90 is best, but is it?
Often new runners and cyclists will have a much slower turnover of 60-70 but with training can quickly improve into the 80-90 range, I guess my question is would training for even higher average cadence lead to greater performance.
Arthur Lydiard used downhill strides with his runners, should we be adding this type of session to our workouts?
Did arthurs runners have a higher leg turnover than the other runners of that time period? -
Agreed. Excellent post. I've increased my stride frequency from 160 to 176. Getting there slowly 🙂
I'm a Chi Running instructor and a competitive runner. I enjoy reading your blog to get a scientific perspective on training.
I'd like to clear up the misconception that Danny Dreyer suggests to ALWAYS keep the stride rate the same. Danny suggests an increase in cadence while sprinting, kicking and potentially other situations such as running down a really steep trail hill. So while Danny does suggest keeping the stride frequency constant in *many* situations, this is not *always* the case. Please bear in mind that Chi is mostly training runners who are not elite and have no intentions of being, or training like an elite. Many runners have benefited greatly from getting their cadence up and running at a steady frequency. You'll note that elite runners make up a very small percentage of the entire running population.
That being said, I'm not even sure why it is necessary to bring Chi Running into your blog posts. You have mentioned it several times now, and many times have included a snide remark ("pseudo guru style" "in the real world")
I'm not sure I understand what exactly your issue is with Chi Running/Danny Dreyer, and why the need to mention it in so many posts?Finally, my main point in posting here is to clear up the misconception that Chi Running is promoting some dogmatic – one size fits all program that never changes and is professed to work for all people in all circumstances. This is entirely not the case. Danny has helped me and many others to break away from a lot of the dogma in the running community and explore other options outside of the conventional discourse. In all of his material, workshops, and interviews he practically pleads with people to listen to their own body and find what works for them. He often says "don't take my word for it, go out and try it for yourself." The last thing Danny wants is to become an expert on running that people listen to blindly without personal experimentation. This is part of the reason why he named his book "Chi Running" as opposed to "The Danny Dreyer Formula"
While there are several physical suggestions, guidelines etc…the main point of Chi is to find a comfortable, efficient running stride that will help each individual runner meet there goals and objectives. We are working to find principles that work for about 80% of people. We fully acknowledge there are things that will not work for some people. Based on the huge positive reception to Chi Running, massive amounts of emails/testimonials and passion behind it, I'd say we are off to a great start.
It's certainly beneficial to dissect and analyze different teaching methods. I welcome the discussion. I do think you could improve in your approach as you seem to be more emotional about Chi than scientific. (basing that on your sarcastic comments)
Hopefully, this clears up some of the ideas you have about what and how we teach. I think a further exploration into Chi Running will help you find that a lot of instructors are very similar to yourself. Runners looking to break from the dogmatic conventional paradigm and find evidence based practices that enhance the overall experience of running whether it be running for pleasure, speed, or both.
Speed=stride lengthX frequency/running gauge measurementsXdrift rate.
Stride and frequency are determined by skeletal efficiency and how easily the entire body moves. If optimum running form isn't measured or described, then optimum speed will never be achieved.
One's running gauge measurement reduces the body's ability to even run straight. If it isn't measured, then the original formula can't be right.
If two runners run at the exact same speed, the runner that runs straigher will cross the finish line first.
If your stride and frequency push you further off a straight line course, then optimum speed measured in linear distance travelled will be negatively imacted.
Sport Jester
If drift is "minimal" then why are track events held in counter clockwise rotation and not the other way around?
Sport Jester
"within .03seconds of qualifying for NCAA Cross Country nationals as individual"
Drift rate may be minimal, but it adds 20-40 seconds to your 5K times…
Your drift rate cost you a chance for National competition…. And you think it was minimal?
Sport Jester
I'm definitely not a "SOMAX" guy…
Clinical studies show a 3 meter drift rate per 20 seconds of running if uncontrolled (gladly link the studies). The reason little literature exists is because its a mental skill, not physical one so coaches exclude it from any training routines.
Right handed runners (and the majority) as athletes drift to the left because of side dominance in strength, so that drift is taken advantage of to maximize times.
Left handed athletes have to be trained completely different in technique to overcome the right handed drift that's natural to them.
How do you train for the side dominance advantage to track running as pertaining to speed? It has nothing to do with stride length or frequency.
It also applies to street running when corners are in opposite to a runner's natural drift tendencies as technique has to change since increasing speed during the curves of any race is impossible to do.
And for elite marathon runners, are measured at 29-31 miles and amateurs at 36 miles, in physical distance travelled calculating in drift rates.
Cutting 20 seconds of a 5K is easy when the biomechanic factors which induce drift are eliminated in track competition.
For cross country runners, without the physical visual guidelines of a track lane to give drift reference, a 40 second cut in time is easy…
Sport Jester
Do you actually believe what you are saying? If this was the case, then running a sub 2 hour marathon wouldn't be that hard. Just work on drift and they can run 1:50 or under.
Your logic baffles me.
What's your opinion on the recently Salazar/Ritz article discussing his form changes? There is an accompanying video with the article that shows a comparison btw Bekele and Ritz. Have you seen the video? Is the hip angle/separation legit, I see you mentioned SOMAX in your above post and they describe a similiar hip angle comparison btw Sammy W. and Hall & Ritz, SOMAX also has another article describing hip angle with various UK runners showing that Coe and Cram had the 100+ degree as oppose to their recent runners that were in the 85-90 range. Does this concept of hip angle/separation really mean proper hip extension?
Ken -
Great, honest post and very interesting. KEep it up. You are helping lots of runners. Thanks Steve.
From my own personal experience, increasing stride rate at the end of a race is easier for me than increasing my stride length. It seems like I rest the neural component for most of the race because in most races I can turn it over quickly in the last 600-800m.
I wonder if there is a way to "feel" whether your body prefers a longer SL or a faster SF? I know that when I'm finishing a race and trying to sprint, I tend to focus on the fastest turnover I can – rather that a more forceful muscle contraction which will give you a longer SL.
Great post Steve and I love the pictures you linked to. Cheers!
Hi Steve,
This post is one of my favorite topics about running and IMO one of the most misunderstood. Speed = Stride Length x Stride Rate is an incorrect and outdated equation. Stride Length and Stride Rate are the results of increased speed not the causes of speed. Your mention of the 2000 Weyand et al study of faster running speeds is only partially correct, "sprint speed was partially determined by vertical Ground reaction forces." What you neglect to mention is the fact that the study also concluded that rate of force delivery and ground contact time available for force delivery are also determinants in faster running speeds. To me, the rate of force delivery and the onset of fatigue are the critical issues affecting speed. I'm not certain how trainable rate of force delivery is, but improving muscular force and ground contact time have training applications.Coach Doug Robinson
Hey Steve,
I was wondering about anaerobic work and its effects upon the aerobic system. Say I wanted to do start introducing sessions such as 20x200m or 10x300m in say January once a week at about 60s 400m pace to prepare for indoors (for a sub 14min 5k guy). Do you think this hurt the aerobic development that would need to be had for later in the year? I understand that too much anaerobic work can alter the blood ph; esp if one was to do that kind of work for a long amount of time. But I'm wondering how much is appropriate to be implemented. thanks. -
When I run workouts barefoot on the grass, it seems that my stride frequency naturally increases. Does anybody else believe the same happens to them? If so, why do you think that might be?
Frequency and stride length seem to be inversely proportional. whenfrequency of stride increases the length gets shortened. when the length of stride increases that puts a premium on stride frequency. It all depends on how good the athlete is in combining both to produce optimum performance. because of the room for improvement within limits this writing has good implication on training. As a coach i experimented a longer stride length by putting 2+ meters line marks on the track so that athletes keep this interval of stride for running. I mimicked frequency with a computer generated beeps with which athletes adjust their stride frequency by hearing. There is improvement but there is also a risk of body injury (such as the groin)with higher stride length.
Love the post! I think Usain Bolt is a great example of how speed is derived from a combination of stride length and stride frequency. His stride frequency is about equal to his competitors, but his stride is so much longer thanks to those long legs of his. When you watch him run you can tell that he covers so much more ground with each stride, but he still manages to keep his stride rate high.
I searched dozens of posts to find any with actual numbers for the stride length. I have heard for years I should increase my stride rate, but what if I was already fast? This is the only post where you can see what other good runners actually get for stride rate and length – thanks. Now I know where I stand in relation to other runners.
Steve, this is very useful and practical material. I've been searching for my ideal walking and running pace since I run my first marathon in 2011. Your article has set me on a more sensible track; to vary my strategy for different stages of the run and to get the right balance between length and frequency for each stage. The example of what the top runners do was a great help. Thanks.
Nana -
Thanks for a great article. I've been trying to increase my walking speed and I'm experimenting to see if the stride rate affects my speed. I'm using a click generator (metronome) on my mp3 player to keep a constant rate and Fitbit to check it. So far, I don't have any conclusive results.
What I can say with certainty is without the click generator, I tended to slow my rate going up mild hills and increase it going down the same hills. When I started using the click generator, my speed increased.
Great food for thought, thanks for sharing.
Preference may be more a product of what one is accustomed to doing rather than best built for. There may be other ways of running we cannot execute right now, but could be conditioned to master, and do better with.
Also, Bekele might be more efficient in long stride when he's mainly aerobically. His high-frequency finish may not just be what he uses when the "preferred" technique fatigues away, he may simply not be able to reach such speeds at a relatively low frequency.
His relatively low cruising frequency might not point to raw strength after all. It may well be much more complicated than that, or result of a lazy technique when just running along. More study necessary 🙂If an athlete's height is no factor to stride frequency, perhaps calf length or girth is?
I am 6ft4 and have switched from 145spm to much higher, while getting rid of heel strike which ruined my body and had me given up by a sports doc. No treatment for my louzy feet. But when I changed my running, I quickly bested PB's in a big way.
Anyway, my frequency is often higher than even lightweight girls and women around me. Watching myself jog in the shop windows' reflection is looks silly and weak. My strides are tiny for my height. Thus, my range of motion is tiny. If I'd open up the range of motion, I'd look like doing high knee drills when just running along. Not exactly efficient.
If cadence is not height related, then range of motion is inversely related to height. That does make us wonder why the given stride frequency for a given speed (or should we think intensity?) is so relatively constant.
Lots to think about… -
Great article, thank you!
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Monday, January 29, 2018 / by Sean Zanganeh
Happy Neighborhood, Happy Home
Having a good relationship with your neighbors can have a big impact on how happy you are in your home. If you get along and have an easy rapport, it can truly add to your good feelings. On the other hand, if your interactions with neighbors are tense or negative, it can make you uneasy and unable to truly relax.
Part of having a good relationship with your neighbors is being a good neighbor. Here are some ideas to help you build a feeling of community in your neighborhood.
Get outside
It's hard to know your neighbors if you never step outside the front door. Say hello to people walking by when you collect the mail. Do a little gardening in the front yard or spend some time sitting on the front porch. Go for regular walks in your neighborhood. You'll be surprised at how friendly people can be, and it's a great way to get to know the people living in your neighborhood.
Welcome newcomers
Being the new guy can be tough. Make the transition a little easier for new neighbors by taking the initiative and introducing yourself. Bring them a little gift like some cookies, a plant or a favorite goodie from a neighborhood store.
Be aware of your behavior
Nobody wants to move next door to someone who throws loud parties, plays their TV at an obnoxious level, or blares music late into the night. Don't be the one who does it. Keep noise levels low before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m. – this goes for music, outside conversation, pool filters, lawn mowers and leaf blowers. If you're throwing a party or planning some renovations, do your neighbors a favor and let them know about it in advance.
Keep pets in check
How people deal with their pets can be a real bone of contention for some. Bring barking dogs inside, keep dogs on a leash and always clean up after your dog when out on a walk. If you have more unusual pets, like chickens, let neighbors know about them and share some fresh eggs now and then. Let neighbors know they can come by if your pets are causing a problem, and be kind if you are approaching a neighbor about their pet.
Deal with problems in person
Do you like getting passive aggressive notes on your car's windshield? No? Your neighbor probably doesn't like getting them either. Instead of solving problems, handling an issue this way usually causes more. If you are having a problem with a neighbor, address it directly with them. It may make you feel uncomfortable or awkward, but it gives both parties a chance to be heard.
Respect common spaces
If you live in a condo or apartment, be aware of shared walls and keep common spaces like hallways and lobbies clear of personal items. If street parking is normal in your neighborhood, try to only park in front of your own house and don't block a neighbor's driveway.
By extending a little courtesy and friendliness, you can turn neighbors who were once strangers into friends. Living in a neighborhood where everyone is looking out for each other contributes greatly to your overall happiness, so it's a good investment of your time and energy to nurture those relationships.
Compliments of Virtual Results


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Political Turbulence, Social Media and the New Populism
After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, 2016 will be remembered as the year of cataclysmic democratic events on both sides of the Atlantic. Social media has been implicated in the wave of populism that led to both these developments.
Attention has focused on echo chambers, with many arguing that social media users exist in ideological filter bubbles, narrowly focused on their own preferences, prey to fake news and political bots that reinforce polarization and lead voters to turn away from the mainstream. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded with the claim that his company (built on $7 billion of advertising revenue) did not influence people's election decisions.
So what role did social media play in the political events of 2016? There is no doubt that social media has brought change to politics. From the waves of protest and unrest in response to the 2008 financial crisis to the Arab Spring of 2011, there has been a generalized feeling that political mobilization is on the rise, and that social media had something to do with it.
Our book investigating the relationship between social media and collective action, Political Turbulence, focuses on how social media allows new, "tiny acts" of political participation (liking, tweeting, viewing, following, signing petitions and so on), which turn social movement theory around. Rather than identifying with issues, forming collective identity and then acting to support the interests of that identity—or voting for a political party that supports it—in a social media world, people act first and think about it (or identify with others) later, if at all.
These tiny acts of participation can add up to large-scale mobilizations, such as demonstrations, protests or campaigns for policy change, but they almost always don't. The overwhelming majority (99.99 percent) of petitions to the UK or United States governments fail to get the 100,000 signatures required for a parliamentary debate (UK) or an official response (U.S.). The very few that succeed do so very quickly on a massive scale (petitions challenging the Brexit and Trump votes immediately shot above 4 million signatures to become the largest petitions in history), but without the normal organizational or institutional trappings of a social or political movement, such as leaders or political parties, they fizzle out. That's the reason why so many of the Arab Spring revolutions proved disappointing.
Social media's 'tiny acts' of political participation turns social movement theory around.
This explosive rise, non-normal distribution and lack of organization that characterizes contemporary politics can explain why many political developments of our time seem to come from nowhere. It can help to understand the shock waves of support that brought us the Italian Five Star Movement, Podemos in Spain, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and, most recently, Brexit and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, all of which have campaigned against the "establishment" and challenged traditional political institutions to a breaking point.
Each successive mobilization has made people believe that challengers from outside the mainstream are viable; that is, in part, what has brought us unlikely results on both sides of the Atlantic, but it doesn't explain everything.
We've had waves of populism before, long before social media; indeed, many have made parallels between the politics of 2016 and that of the 1930s. While claims abound that social media feeds are the biggest threat to democracy, leading to the "disintegration of the general will" and "polarization that drives populism," hard evidence is more difficult to find.
The Myth of the Echo Chamber
The mechanism that is most often offered for this state of events is the existence of echo chambers or filter bubbles. The argument goes that first, social media platforms feed people the news that is closest to their own ideological standpoint (estimated from their previous patterns of consumption) and second, that people create their own personalized information environments through their online behavior, selecting friends and news sources that back up their world view.
Once in these ideological bubbles, people are prey to fake news and political bots that further reinforce their views. So, some argue, social media reinforces people's current views and acts as a polarizing force on politics, meaning that "random exposure to content is gone from our diets of news and information."
Really? Is exposure less random than before? Surely the most perfect echo chamber would be the one occupied by someone who only read the Daily Mail in the 1930s, with little possibility of other news, or someone who just watches Fox News? Can our new habitat on social media really be as closed off as these environments when our digital networks are so very much larger and more heterogeneous than anything we've had before?
Research suggests not. A recent large-scale survey of 50,000 news consumers in 26 countries shows how those who do not use social media on average come across news from significantly fewer different online sources than those who do. Social media users, it found, receive an additional boost in the number of news sources they use each week, even if they are not actually trying to consume more news. These findings are reinforced by an analysis of data on Facebook, where 8.8 billion posts, likes and comments were posted throughout the U.S. election.
Recent research published in Science shows that algorithms play less of a role in exposure to attitude-challenging content than individuals' own choices, and that "on average more than 20 percent of an individual's Facebook friends who report an ideological affiliation are from the opposing party," meaning that social media exposes individuals to at least some ideologically cross-cutting viewpoints: "24 percent of the hard content shared by liberals' friends is cross-cutting, compared to 35 percent for conservatives." The equivalent figures would be 40 percent and 45 percent if random.
In fact, companies have no incentive to create hermetically sealed (as I have heard one commentator claim) echo chambers. Most of social media content is not about politics (sorry guys), and most of that $7 billion advertising revenue does not come from political organizations. So, any incentives that companies have to create echo chambers—for the purposes of targeted advertising, for example—are most likely to relate to lifestyle choices or entertainment preferences rather than political attitudes.
Where filter bubbles do exist, they are constantly shifting and sliding, easily punctured by a trending cross-issue item. Anybody looking at #Election2016 shortly before polling day would have seen a rich mix of views, while having little doubt about Trump's impending victory.
Even if political echo chambers were as efficient as some seem to think, there is little evidence that this is what actually shapes election results. After all, by definition, echo chambers preach to the converted. It is the undecided people who, for example, the Leave and Trump campaigns needed to reach.
According to research, it looks like they managed to do just that. A barrage of evidence suggests that such advertising was effective in the 2015 UK general election (where the Conservatives spent 10 times as much as Labour on Facebook advertising), in the EU referendum (where the Leave campaign also focused on paid Facebook ads) and in the U.S. presidential election, where Facebook advertising has been credited for Trump's victory while the Clinton campaign focused on TV ads. Of course, advanced advertising techniques might actually focus on those undecided voters from their conversations. This is not the bottom-up political mobilization that fired off support for Podemos or Bernie Sanders; it is massive top-down advertising dollars.
Ironically, these huge top-down political advertising campaigns have some of the same characteristics as the bottom-up movements discussed above, particularly sustainability. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo's dictum that candidates "campaign in poetry and govern in prose" may need an update. Barack Obama's innovative campaigns of online social networks, micro-donations and matching support were miraculous, but the extent to which he developed digital government or data-driven policymaking in office was disappointing. "Campaign digitally, govern in analogue" might be the new mantra.
Chaotic Pluralism
Politics is a lot messier in the social media era than it used to be, whether something takes off and succeeds in gaining critical mass is far more random than it appears to be from a casual glance, where we see only those that succeed. In Political Turbulence, we wanted to identify the model of democracy that best encapsulates politics intertwined with social media. The dynamics we observed seem to be leading us to a model of "chaotic pluralism." This is characterized by diversity and heterogeneity—similar to early pluralist models—but also by non-linearity and high interconnectivity, making liberal democracies far more disorganized, unstable and unpredictable than the architects of pluralist political thought ever envisaged.
Perhaps rather than blaming social media for undermining democracy, we should be thinking about how we can improve the (inevitably major) part that it plays. Within chaotic pluralism, there is an urgent need for redesigning democratic institutions that can accommodate new forms of political engagement and respond to the discontent, inequalities and feelings of exclusion—even anger and alienation—that are at the root of the new populism. We should be using social media to listen to (rather than merely talk at) the expression of these public sentiments, and not just at election time.
Many political institutions are in crisis, precisely because they have become so far removed from the concerns and needs of citizens. Redesign will need to include social media platforms themselves, which have rapidly become established as institutions of democracy and will be at the heart of any democratic revival. As these platforms finally start to admit to being media companies (rather than tech companies), we will need to demand human intervention and transparency over algorithms that determine trending news, fact checking (where Google took the lead), algorithms that detect fake news and possibly even "public interest" bots to counteract the rise of computational propaganda.
Meanwhile, the only thing we can really predict with certainty is that unpredictable things will happen and that social media will be part of our political future. Discussing the echoes of the 1930s in today's politics, the Wall Street Journal points out how Franklin Delano Roosevelt managed to steer between the extremes of left and right because he knew that "public sentiments of anger and alienation aren't to be belittled or dismissed, for their causes can be legitimate and their consequences powerful." The path through populism and polarization may involve using the opportunity that social media presents to listen, understand and respond to these sentiments.
This piece draws on research from Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action (Princeton University Press, 2016), by Helen Margetts, Peter John, Scott Hale and Taha Yasseri.
This piece was first published on the World Economic Forum's Agenda blog.


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The debate between J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek, both living and teaching in Britain in the 1930s, was one of the great debates of the century. Sadly, the charming globetrotter Keynes had the podium and the audience, to the point of influencing policy the world over even to the present day. Meanwhile, the quiet and studious Hayek never really did gain an audience. Like his colleague and mentor Mises, Hayek wrote in scholarly journals and was heard only by those with skeptical minds, people who doubted the theoretical and policy conventions and looked beneath the surface.
In one sense, then, the debate between these two was one of the most critical for the shape of the world over the last 75 years. In another sense, however, this debate never really occurred, for the Hayekian point of view has been systematically marginalized and kept at bay by the political and economic establishment ever since Keynes was prematurely declared the victor in the late 1930s.
The beauty of new media is its capacity for showing us what we otherwise might miss. Fear the Boom and Bust, a YouTube video made by producer John Papola and economist Russ Roberts, and backed by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, turns this advantage to the point of genius, pitting Keynes and Hayek against each other in a rap that captures a reality few have fully understood until now.
Already, the video has been viewed a half million times and has made international news. Aside from its high production values, what's remarkable about it is its theoretical accuracy and transparency. It has brought Austrian business-cycle theory from the background to the forefront of debate.
It is true that in 1974, Hayek received the Nobel Prize and thereby gained attention for work that had been long forgotten. The Nobel committee specifically cited Hayek's work on business-cycle theory. But the Hayek revival that occurred in the years following did not focus on that aspect of his work. Instead, it centered on elaborations of his evolutionary social theory, his process-based conceptions of the market order, and his studies on law.
In fact, his books and most of his articles on the business cycle had not even been reprinted since they were first issued — until last year, when the Mises Institute came out with a massive collection: Prices and Production and Other Essays (as well as Tiger by the Tail). The video, then, goes public in an accessible way with a major contribution that Hayek made to economic literature, which is essential for understanding current events.
"Aside from its high production values, what's remarkable about this video is its theoretical accuracy and transparency. It has brought Austrian business-cycle theory from the background to the forefront of debate."As with the classical music show on public radio that takes apart a symphony to explain "why it is great," I want to explain why this video is great.
The video opens with Keynes and Hayek standing at the front desk of a hotel, both in town for the "World Economic Summit." The clerk dotes on Keynes, treating him like the star he is. Keynes arrogantly announces that he needs no agenda because he is the agenda. Meanwhile, Hayek humbly notes his presence. The person behind the desk has never heard of him. This captures the ethos of the 1930s to the present: the world-famous Keynes vs. the unknown Austrians.
It's all true to life: a number of students report having sent this video to their economics professors, who report back that before seeing this, they had never heard of Hayek.
Meanwhile, the character depiction is fantastic in this video. Keynes is popular and beloved by all, promoting a high lifestyle, parties, and living it up — the future be damned. Hayek's personality here is more intellectual, sober, and even a bit puritanical, with a focus on reality and the long-term good.
Hayek makes his way to his hotel room only to find a Keynes book in place of the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. The phone rings and it is Keynes, who announces that the festivities at the Fed begin shortly. Hayek is stunned because he thought they were going to seminars and meetings.
They meet in the lobby and head out, Hayek with his subway ticket in hand. Keynes orders a stretch limousine, while Hayek shakes his head in disgust.
The theme of the party animal vs. the sober economist continues throughout the story. The terms of the argument are laid out very clearly. Hayek says business cycles are caused by "low interest rates" born of intervention, whereas Keynes wants to blame "animal spirits" loose in a market crying out for management.
Keynes then gets his turn at explaining depression. It is caused by sticky wages and can only be cured by boosting aggregate demand through government spending and the printing press. He favors public works, war, and broken windows, warns against the liquidity trap, favors deficits, brags that he has changed the economics profession, and concludes, "Say it loud, say it proud, we're all Keynesians now!" All the while, the viewer is witness to wild antics of drunken partying.
It is left to Hayek to restore reality to the discussion. He dismisses Keynes on the grounds that there is too much aggregation in his equations, which ignore human action and motivation. Hayek compares postrecession stimulus to drinking the "hair of the dog" to cure a hangover. He points out that there can be no prosperity without saving and investment, and he proceeds to school Keynes in the Austrian perspective.
He begins by changing the focus from the bust to the boom, which he regards as having planted the seeds of disaster. The boom starts with an expansion of credit. The new money is confused with real, loanable funds and is invested in new projects like housing construction.But sufficient resources to complete these projects are lacking. They are malinvestments. The "grasping for resources reveals there's too few" and the boom turns to bust. As for the liquidity trap, that is only evidence of a broken banking system. The lesson: "You must save to invest, don't use the printing press."
This entire explanation takes place against the backdrop of Keynes trying to sleep off a hangover and then hurrying to the bathroom to throw up — the aftereffects of partying the night before.
What Hayek is discussing in the video is his own theory of the structure of production. But note here that there is a structure of production working in the world of ideas too. The first pieces of the Austrian business-cycle theory were being put together 100 years ago, while Mises was working on his first book, which appeared in 1912.
Here we have the first treatise that puts together interest and production theory with the theory of money. Mises's main point is that central banking will end up causing more cycles, not fewer. Hayek followed up in the 1920s and 1930s with a series of studies on the topic. Later came Mises's own improvements in his 1949 book Human Action. Roger Garrison's studies in the 1990s provide some of the language that appears in the video. Still later, there is Jesus Huerta de Soto's book on economic cycles, which explains the role of fractional-reserve banking — a book that builds on insights from Rothbard from the 1960s.
The F.A. Hayek T-Shirt in Royal BlueWhat we see in this video, then, is the culmination of many threads of thought that began a century ago. That's a long and complex production structure for ideas, but it is precisely what is necessary to build a theory of this complexity that can be reduced to a rap video anyone can view and learn from.
A hearty word of congratulations to Russ Roberts and John Papola for putting all this together and providing a fantastic example of how economics can be communicated to every person. It was Mises's own view that economics should not be relegated to the classrooms but should be part of the study of every citizen. Roberts and Papola have taken his injunction very seriously and done something wonderful for Hayek, for Austrian ideas, for economics in general, and for the intellectual progress of the world.
That's why this video is great.


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RACK SUPPORTED BUILDING STRUCTURE. A complete and independent load storage system in which the storage rack is the basic structural system.
RADIO CONTROLLED. Motor-propelled units which are controlled by an operator by means of a remote radio transmitter.
RADIO FREQUENCY (RF) IDENTIFICATION. An electronic method of assigning a piece of information to a product, process, or person with a transponder (tag) and reading the information with a reader.
RAIL. A horizontal load-carrying member running the full depth of the rack. Within each bay, two rails are used at each level.
RAIL AND SUPPORT HEIGHT. The combined height in inches of the guide rail and support bracket in a drive-thru rack.
RAIL GUIDE. A device attached to the rail for alignment of pallets.
RAIL PROJECTION. The horizontal dimension from the post to the outside edge of the rail assembly.
RAIL SPAN. The length of rail between the centerline of the uprights.
RAIL SUPPORT. A member between the rail and the upright post.
RAIL SUPPORT CONNECTOR. A device connecting the rail support to the post.
RAIL TIE. A member used to connect a pair of rails at or near the end of the rail assembly.
RAM. An attachment comprising a cantilever member, extending horizontally forward from a lift truck carriage, which is used to handle hollow core, cylindrical or similar loads, such as rugs, coils, pipe, etc.
RAMP. A sloping aisle or roadway connecting two different levels, generally not exceeding 45 degrees.
RANDOM STORAGE POLICY. A storage policy in which an incoming item is stored in any available location.
RATED LOAD (CRANE). The maximum load the equipment is designed to handle safely.
REACH TRUCK. A self-loading truck, generally high lift, having load-engaging means mounted so it can be extended forwardly under control to permit a load to be picked up and deposited in the extended position and transported in the retracted position.
RECEIVING. The function of accepting, recording, and reporting merchandise into a facility.
RECEIVING AREA. The space reserved for the receiving function.
RECIPROCATING BEAM CONVEYOR. One or more parallel reciprocating beams with tilting dogs or pushers arranged to progressively advance objects.
REMOVABLE POSTS (PORTABLE METAL STACKING RACKS). A load-carrying column that is inserted at each corner of the base by a simple mechanical means. A nesting target or plug is permanently affixed to the top of the column.
REPLENISHMENT. Re-stocking primary picking locations from reserve storage locations.
RESISTORS, BALLAST (CRANE OR CARRIER). Electrical resistance added in the motor circuit to provide reduced starting current for gradual acceleration.
RESTRICTED ARTICLES (AIR TRANSPORT). Certain articles (explosives, for example) which are either excluded from air cargo entirely or subject to stringent requirements on volume and packaging. A restricted articles tariff, giving full details on such articles, is published by Air Tariff Publishers, Inc. for the airlines.
RETARDER. Any device used to slow the rate of travel of bulk material or objects on a conveyor.
RETARDING CONVEYOR. Any conveyor used to retard the rate of movement of bulk materials, packages or objects where the slope is such that the conveyed material tends to propel the conveying medium.
REUSABLE CONTAINER. A container intended for multiple cycles of use.
REWAREHOUSING. Rearrangement of supplies from one storage area to another within the same storage activity.
RIBBON BELT CONVEYOR. (See BELT CONVEYOR, MULTIPLE RIBBON.)
RIBBON CONVEYOR. (See RIBBON FLIGHT SCREW CONVEYOR.)
RIBBON CONVEYOR, INTERNAL. (See INTERNAL RIBBON CONVEYOR.)
RIBBON FLIGHT. A conveyor screw flight proportioned to provide a space between it and the internal supporting pipe or shaft when mounted thereon.
RIBBON FLIGHT CONVEYOR SCREW. A conveyor screw in which the conveyor screw flight is of the ribbon flight type.
RIBBON FLIGHT SCREW CONVEYOR. A screw conveyor having a ribbon flight screw. (See SCREW CONVEYOR.)
RIDER TRUCK. A truck that is designed to be controlled by an operator from either a standing or sitting position.
RIGHT ANGLE STACK AISLE WIDTH. The aisle width necessary to place in location the maximum dimension load perpendicular to the aisle with a given vehicle.
RIGID BACK-TO-BACK TIE. A member connecting back-to-back racks, maintaining a constant space and adding rigidity to the complete assembly.
RIGID CONTAINER. A container with components permanently assembled.
RIGID POST (PORTABLE METAL STACKING RACK). A load-carrying column permanently attached to the corner of the base. A nesting target or plug is permanently affixed to the top of the column.
ROLLER CONVEYOR. A series of rollers supported in a frame over which objects are advanced manually, by gravity, or by power.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, HERRINGBONE. A roller conveyor consisting of two parallel series of rollers having one or both series skewed.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, HYDROSTATIC. A section of roller conveyor having rollers suitably weighted with liquid to control the velocity of objects being conveyed.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, LIVE. A series of rollers over which objects are moved by the application of power to all or some of the rollers. The transmitting medium is usually belting or chain.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, SHOCK ABSORBING. (See ROLLER CONVEYOR, SPRING MOUNTED.)
ROLLER CONVEYOR, SKEWED. A roller conveyor having a series of rollers skewed to direct objects laterally while being conveyed.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, SPEED-UP. A powered roller conveyor operating at a higher speed than its feeder to create space between unit loads.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, SPOOL TYPE. A roller conveyor in which the rollers are of conical or tapered shape with diameter at ends of roller larger than at the center.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, SPRING MOUNTED. (1) A roller conveyor where the ends of each roller are supported on springs. (2) A section of roller conveyor supported on springs.
ROLLER CONVEYOR, TROUGHED. A roller conveyor having two rows of rollers set at an angle to form a trough over which objects are conveyed.
ROLLER SPIRAL. An assembly of curved sections of roller conveyor arranged helically and over which objects are lowered by gravity.
ROLLER TABLE. A table with a surface consisting of a series of rollers.
ROLLING CHAIN CONVEYOR. A conveyor consisting of one or more endless roller chains on which packages or objects are carried on the chain rollers. The speed of transportation is double that of the chain speed.
ROLLING RESISTANCE. Force, resisting tractive effort, caused by friction losses. It is preferably expressed in pounds, or as pounds per thousand pounds of vehicle weight, or as a percent of gross vehicle weight.
ROLLWAY SKID. A roller conveyor with brakes to prevent the rollers from turning except in one direction.
ROOM. An enclosed space within a building.
ROPE AND BUTTON CONVEYOR. A series of buttons or flights attached to an endless wire rope or cable for the purpose of conveying or retarding the movement of bulk material or objects along a stationary trough.
ROTARY SWITCH. A switch with a movable inner frame containing straight and/or curved sections of track. The inner frame can be rotated to align these sections of track with other tracks for routing carriers from one track to another.
ROTARY TABLE FEEDER. A rotating horizontal, circular table to which material flows from a round bin or hopper opening and from which it is discharged by a plow.
ROTARY VANE FEEDER. A rotor of cylindrical outline with radial, spaced plates or vanes rotating on a horizontal axis for controlling the flow of bulk materials.
ROTATOR. A power-actuated attachment which provides rotary motion about an axis that is usually perpendicular to the face of the carriage.
ROUGH TERRAIN TRUCK. A wheeled type truck designed primarily as a fork truck, but which may be equipped with attachments. This truck is intended for operation on unimproved natural terrain as well as the disturbed terrain of construction sites.
ROW. A continuous series of racks.
RUNNERS. Integral rails or skids on which demountable containers are supported.
RUNNING SHEAVE. A sheave which rotates as hook is raised or lowered.
RUNWAY. The rails, beams, brackets and framework on which the crane operates.
RUNWAY CONDUCTORS. The conductors mounted on or parallel to the runway which carry current to the crane.
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Open Source | News
Red Hat has introduced a new cloud offering for developers that could emerge as an open source alternative to Microsoft's Windows Azure PaaS-based service. The company also launched new software to enable infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
The company debuted its new platform-as-a-service product called OpenShift and its CloudForms software at the Red Hat Summit-JBossWorld conference in Boston last week.
OpenShift supports Red Hat's JBoss middleware, and is designed for four languages: Java, Ruby, PHP and Python. For storage it supports SQL and NoSQL data stores, as well as a distributed file system.
"That gives us one of the broadest Platform as a Service offerings out there," said Matt Hicks, Red Hat's cloud computing guru, speaking during a press briefing at the conference. "Really, when you talk about languages and persistence, it's at a low level. We wanted to incorporate all of the frameworks that go along with that. We want to make sure this stuff looks familiar to developers because we don't want them to have to rewrite their code just to move to the cloud."
OpenShift comes in three versions, according to a company FAQ:
"Power gives you complete control down to the root system level, in the cloud, of your application's configuration," said Issac Roth, Red Hat's PaaS master. Express and Flex are in beta now, but Power is not yet available for testing.
"We are offering levels going from fully automated [but] not as much control, to lots of control with less automation, for the different kinds of developers and the different kinds of applications that are appropriate to the cloud," Roth said.
Meanwhile, Red Hat also took the wraps of its CloudForms application lifecycle management software that lets organizations build private and hybrid IaaS clouds using Red Hat's JBoss.
CloudForms supports automation, offers application management tools aimed at bringing sophisticated apps to the cloud, and includes different infrastructure services aimed at helping organizations build up capabilities such as making data persistent in a cloud or transferring data in and out of a cloud using the middleware's messaging infrastructure, according to Bryan Che, Red Hat's senior director of product management and marketing.
"CloudForms fundamentally revolutionizes Infrastructure as a Service by introducing so many more capabilities that enterprises need," Che said. "For example, because Red Hat supports the Deltacloud API as part of our compute resource management, we will be able to support resource management across every part of your IT infrastructure, whether it's physical systems, your choice of virtualization technology and your choice of public cloud providers. So you can bring the benefits in abstraction and automation that cloud provides across your entire IT organization with your choice of providers and vendors."
Available in beta now, CloudForms is scheduled for release this fall.
About the Author
Jeffrey Schwartz is executive editor, features, for Redmond Developer News. You can contact him at [email protected].
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Personalized Keepsake
Combining beautiful music and your treasured photographs, our funeral home will create a personalized tribute video that truly honors your loved one. This visual walk down memory lane is a touching and meaningful addition to any visitation, funeral or memorial service. In the days, weeks and months after the loss, many find comfort in watching the keepsake DVD at home with family and friends.
The photo tribute video program we use has more than 80 themes to choose from, as well as a large selection licensed music. Not simply just a slide show, these videos can include captions, video clips and text slides.


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Privacy Policy
logosquiz.net takes your privacy seriously. This privacy policy describes what personal information we collect and how we use it. See this privacy policy primer to learn more about privacy policies in general.Routine Information Collection
All web servers track basic information about their visitors. This information includes, but is not limited to, IP addresses, browser details, timestamps and referring pages. None of this information can personally identify specific visitors to this site. The information is tracked for routine administration and maintenance purposes.Cookies and Web Beacons
Where necessary, logosquiz.net uses cookies to store information about a visitor's preferences and history in order to better serve the visitor and/or present the visitor with customized content.Advertising partners and other third parties may also use cookies, scripts and/or web beacons to track visitors to our site in order to display advertisements and other useful information. Such tracking is done directly by the third parties through their own servers and is subject to their own privacy policies.


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Children's Boy's Pirate Ship 3D Pop Up Birthday Greeting Card
A Children's Pop-Up greeting card
Occasion: Suitable for any special occasion including a Birthday
Message: The card has been left blank with space on the rear for your own personal message
Details: A fun laser cut pop up greeting card perfect for children. The card is constructed with multiple layers of card in a flat design that transforms to a freestanding 3D Pop up card, it is designed by Alljoy Design and comes complete with an envelope.
Closed Size: 15cm x 15cm 6" x 6"
Postal Size: Large Letter


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Hi guys! A new week and the only thing I have on my mind is the countdown
to my holidays, but I suppose it's the same for most of you, right?
I's starting the week with new stuff, and today I want to show you this new jumpsuit from Style Moi that I fell in love with when I saw it on the web, and has completely stolen my heart the moment I put it on, I think it's perfect! Apart from the pattern, that I think is fresh and happy, I think the detail of the sleeves is the most. It arrived last week and I've already worn it twice and I'll be wearing it a lot more.
It has a slight boho, festival air about it that you all know I feel super comfy and identified with, very very me!
BTW! New post up on Amy's Corner, my blog in Glamour.es. Pop over there and take a peek, I'd love to have your opiniones on that look!
¡Hola chicos! Ya estamos en una nueva semana y en mi mente solo tengo la cuenta atrás para mis vacaciones, supongo que muchos estaréis igual ¿no?


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The Eagle Eye UTAV is intelligent, flies like an aircraft and takes off and lands vertically. It will fly into the toughest life-threatening conditions imaginable so human beings don't need to. It's also capable of providing the best recon reports, in the worst dynamic conditions, hour after hover-flight hour, because it uses the same tiltrotor technology as its big brother Osprey to provide a runwayless solution for the ultimate in ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance).
The Bell Eagle Eye tiltrotor Tactical VTOL unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be ready for flight later this year and Bell is confident it has the killer-app for tilt-rotor technology. Traditionally UAVs have been small fixed wing aircraft requiring either a runway or netting for retrieval. Normally runways are unavailable in the field and netting has proven to be a very hazardous form of UAV retrieval aboard ship often resulting in serious damage to or destruction of the aircraft.
Helicopters have the advantage of being able to take off and land anywhere. However, helicopter UAVs do not have the speed and range of fixed-wing UAV aircraft. Further, small short coupled tail rotor aircraft may not be stable when going through the burble experienced with landing on Navy Surface Combatants. The Bell Eagle Eye is the perfect solution. With its rotors in the vertical position, the Bell Eagle Eye can takeoff, hover and land like a traditional rotary wing aircraft.
By tilting its rotors to the horizontal position the Bell Eagle Eye can fly with the high speed and range of a turbo-prop fixed wing airplane. Also, the counter rotating design provides improved stability through the burble.
Working equally well in land or sea based environments, the Bell Eagle Eye increases battlefield flexibility by allowing military units a view of enemy territory without risking the lives of soldiers. Needing less manpower, equipment and space, this UAV lowers force structure costs with automated maintenance and operator functions. It is also highly reliable and easily supportable. The Bell Eagle Eye has the space, weight and power to carry surveillance, targeting, Electronic Warfare and lethal payloads. Offering speed flexibility as well as Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL), the Bell Eagle Eye is the most versatile UAV on the market.
Three Bell Eagle Eye unmanned tiltrotor aerial vehicles (UTAV) are under development. Under proposed funding plans, the program calls for ultimate delivery of 69 aircraft and 50 ground control stations with an expected total program value of at least $1 billion.
The Bell Eagle Eye's tiltrotor technology allows the aircraft to take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. This technology gives the Bell Eagle Eye UTAV superior speed and flexibility over a typical UAV. With its rotors tilted forward it can cruise at speeds over 200 knots, find moving targets 80-110 nautical miles away in minutes and be easily re-tasked in-flight for another mission. It also has the ability to loiter over a target 100 nm away for four hours. The Bell Eagle Eye is both land and ship deployable given its ability to operate from confined spaces.
Bell Helicopter Textron, a Textron Inc. subsidiary, is a $1.6 billion, leading producer of commercial and military helicopters, and the pioneer of the revolutionary tiltrotor aircraft.