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Education /ˌejəˈkāSH(ə)n/: The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university. An enlightening experience. Making a meaningful contribution to any given field requires a lot of education. The quest for knowledge uncovers nuance. Nuance intrigues us. Nuance confuses us.
Confusion /kənˈfyo͞oZHən/: A lack of understanding; uncertainty. A situation of panic; a breakdown of order. The state of being bewildered or unclear in one's mind about something. Confusion can be the foundation of both curiosity and depression. This site is inspired by confusion.
The Tiger and The Bonsai
Your body has two ways that it can move. Like a tiger and like a bonsai plant. Tigers move quickly, striking their prey. Bonsai plants move slowly, over time, growing towards the Sun.
Humans do both. We run, jump, try new things, sing, and play music we already know. We enact these movements from instinct and muscle memory like a tiger. We are most comfortable with the satisfaction of these quick movements – we understand their outcomes better and can see the results immediately.
We also go into a calorie deficit to lose weight, we lift weights to stimulate muscle growth. We do Yoga to increase our flexibility. But, each of these changes is slow like a plant.
These movements are inextricably connected. If you run a mile, 50 times, over six months, you will, over time, slowly get faster. Same with weights – you will get stronger. Same with diet – your body composition will change. Same with education.
The fast actions influence the slow actions, and the slow actions affect the fast actions. Over and over and over until we grow towards the Sun, or we are eaten by the tiger….Read More
Three Unexpected Benefits of Losing 35 lbs
About a year and a half ago, I started on a journey to loose 35 pounds. When I started, like many people, I just had this nagging feeling that I needed to loose some weight and do more for my health. I had no idea how far this would go to changing my life forever. I want to quickly share a few unexpected thing that happened:
1. Everything is more fun. I am way more flexible. Bending down doesn't bother me anymore. Getting up off the ground is way easier. Walking for an hour in the mall doesn't hurt my back anymore. Pull-ups are way easier. Squats are easier. When I am snowboarding, it's so much easier to do jumps, etc. I just have more fun doing anything physical, even workouts.
2. It's changed my view on aging. I feel younger. I am less scared to try new things. My posture is better. My gait when I walk is better. I look better – and my clothes actually fit me. I noticed that I am more playful during physical activity – watch young people, they trip their friends, they make unnecessary moves when walking, they throw rocks and bang sticks – that's back. People tell me I look younger. I rather like that part 🙂
3. I have a renewed sense of being able to change things in my life. It's difficult to admit, but I remember looking down at my stomach as it slowly grew year after year, thinking to myself, I guess this is just part of getting older – I guess I will just never look and feel like I did when I was younger. I was resigned to it. Sure, I had seen "before & after" photos of people loosing weight, but that seemed distant and unreal. About a year into my journey, I had lost 4″ off my waist and 30+ lbs. I realized I needed new shirts, pants, and suits – which startled me. I hadn't planned for that. Let that sink in. I hadn't planned for it because, when I started, I didn't really believe I could loose the weight. That hurt when I realized it. I don't know what new goals I will set in the coming years, but I have a stoic feeling I can achieve unknown things.
All of these little things add up. Together, they have made me feel a lot happier day to day. So, if you felt like I did and you are sick of it, here's how I started my journey. For me, it started as an experiment – now I know I will do this for the rest of my life. I never want to gain the weight back – ever.Read More
Armchair Quarterbacks & The Florida School Shooting
So, you think you know what you would do in a school shooting? You think that Sheriff should have ran into that Florida school without thinking right? Yeah? You'd do some kinda John Mcclane shit from the original Die Hard? Let me tell you why you have no idea what you would do. There's a lot more to tactically assaulting a building than what you think.
Before I go on, let me tell you, I don't know shit. The more I learn, the less I feel like I know for sure (see full disclosure at the end of this article). That said, I have learned a few things about guns, and terrorism over time. Also, when the Florida school shooting happened, I happened to be in the middle of reading a book called Terror at Beslan about the Chechen terrorists who took over a school in North Ossetia (part of Russian Federation). It was a shitshow with 1000+ kids taken hostage, 300+ people dead, hundreds of children, and like 800 wounded. A..complete…shit show. Worse, it could happen in America – but I digress.
If you think the Sheriff was a total pussy and should have ran in guns a blazing, let's start with some background information to frame this question right.
Tactics for Assaulting Buildings with Terrorists and Active Shooters
First, there are two main tactics for assaulting buildings. While in the West, we have these things called civil liberties, the Russians see no need for that. They are a bit more stoic, pragmatic, and nihilistic.
- Western special forces and law enforcement generally follow a philosophy which can be summed up with the phrase, "speed, surprise and violence of action" – you will find that this language is common in any discussion of tactics. Generally, it means, train like a mother fucker so that a whole team of law enforcement or special operators can move into a building quickly, organized and overwhelm the enemy. This will minimize casualties for civilians and operators, minimize the time to take control, and maximize casualties of the terrorists.
- The Russians generally follow the above philosophy as well, but they add some stuff that doesn't sit well with Westerners. First, they LOVE gas. They will use paralysis gas, sleep gas, all kinds of gas. Even when terrorists have gas masks, it knocks out all of the hostages so that they can't be used as human shields, nor get in the way of friendly fire. Second, they will shoot through hostages. The Russians generally consider you "already fucked" once you have been taken hostage. If you survive, great, but if not it's because you were already dead anyway. Third, they like to take the terrorist's families hostage and use them as bargaining pieces. Kinda interesting.
What The Sheriff's Deputy Probably Knew and Didn't Know
Now let's move on to some shit the Sheriff might have been thinking. I don't know for sure, but it's reasonable to think that almost any law enforcement officer would know this stuff…
- An AR15 is loud as fuck. People know when somebody is shooting an AR15 or AK47 (which is even louder). This gives you an indication of what you are facing if you hear one firing in a building.
- AR15s are WAY, WAY, WAY more accurate than pistols. They are frighteningly more accurate. The first time I ever fired one, I could hit hard drives (like 3″ X 5″) from like 100 yards away – without my reading glasses on. They are fucking terrifyingly accurate.
- AR15s will shoot through anything in a school, ANYTHING. There is nothing that would provide cover, so you have to move, fire, move, which most average cops don't know how to do very well. Here's a video of an AR firing through cinder blocks – this isn't like the movies where you duck around the corner and you are fine.
- It's possible he had no idea who was shooting. Could have been a trained terrorist (yes, they are well trained, read Terror at Beslan and you will never feel safe again)
- It's possible he had no idea how many shooters there were
- It's possible he had no idea if there were hostages
- It's possible he had no idea if there were bombs
- It's possible he had no idea about anything
- It's possible he was following local department policy on SOLO ENTRY AND "CONTACT TEAMS" which are all over the map depending on police force
- If he ran in by himself, he would not be following best practice for assaulting a building
- He waited 4 minutes
- The investigation still isn't complete so we don't know a lot yet
- If he would have ran in, and shot a kid by mistake he would be fucked
- If he ran in, and got shot to death, he would be fucked
- If he ran in and the shooter had a kid hostage, he would be fucked
- He didn't received any clear commands that we know of
- The shooter is responsible for killing the kids – he is not
The Actual Solution
After reading Terror at Beslan, I have realized that nobody in the USA is talking about the real solutions.
- More guns is not the answer. Arming teachers is retarded. The average cop qualifies once a year and fires like 60 rounds. That's not enough, and they don't do more because it's expensive. No teacher is going to have the time/money to train enough. Furthermore, it's tactically useless in like 99.9% of all scenarios. In Terror at Beslan, there was an armed guard, and an armed police officer. Both were taken hostage by terrorists, gave up their weapons, and were summarily executed because they could be a danger later. If you are telling me that a teacher wouldn't give up in a heartbeat if given the "hostage" choice, you are crazy. As an aside, never take the hostage option, it's a ruse. Always fight to the death. My two cents.
- Less guns is not the answer either. Banning guns only takes them away from normal people. The Charlie Hebdo Attack and the Bataclan Attack happened in France where people can't easily have guns. Taking guns away does not stop terrorists or crazy people (who are almost always smart). Technically, we could probably stop stupid, crazy people by taking guns away, but I don't think it would help enough that it's worth the political battle.
- The Russians learned from the Beslan attack. The citizens had a shitload of weapons, including rocket launchers and machine guns, but they still didn't assault the school (but armchair quarterbacks think the Sheriff's Deputy should have with a 9mm pistol). The terrorists did, however, gather intelligence on the school for weeks, maybe months.
- So, the main thing we can do is wake the fuck up, and keep our eyes open. Terrorist typically build intelligence, just like special forces. This is just like child molesters, so when you see the crazy looking dude in the white van sitting outside the school, say something!!!
- Active shooters are similar but different. But, they usually post stuff on social media, so again if you see something, say something!!!
- I think the gun restraining order is a good happy medium, it adheres to every fact we know about active shooters and terrorists. Terrorists probably don't buy all of their weapons, but they will often give away telltale signs while gathering intelligence. Also, following the money stream is useful, which the FBI already does.
Enough Armchair Quarterbacking
I get that people think things should be a certain way, but they're not. They're just not. There are practical constraints to the possible solutions.
- Cops ought to train to fire while moving, have body armor, practice with ARs, and be physically fit.
- In reality, they qualify once a year, firing 60ish rounds and many are overweight and out of shape
- We always want what ought to be vs. what is
- We need to live in reality vs. fantasy
- We need to think about how to fix things vs. get mad and rant
Full Disclosure on My Background
- 42 year old, white male – 168 lbs 5'9″
- College degree in Four Field Anthropology. Minor in Computer Science. Took a special topics 300/400 level sociology class on terrorism after 9/11.
- Market and sell free software for a living
- Have shot AR15s and plenty of handguns, semi-automatic and revolvers
- Train at gun range once per quarter – typically fire 200 rounds – do drills like a martial art
- Train 4-7 times per week – weight training, jump rope, rowing, running in weight vests, basically nutty
- Personal records: 360 lbs X 3 deadlift, 315 lbs X 4 squat, 205 lbs X 2 bench, 130 lbs X 1 overhead press. No other exercises matter.
- Grew up very poor, have been in plenty of physical fights
- Trained in high school in a private fight club – fought every day – every day – boxing gloves, no kicking in the privates, no gouging eyes, no other rules – lost plenty – won plenty
- Have been kicked in the head – three times to be exact – same fight – it sucked
- I don't believe more guns are the answer, I don't believe less guns are the answer either
- Radically neutral politically, always looking for the logical fallacies on both sides (I hate Libertarians too)
- I have never been in the military, been a law enforcement officer, or shot at anybody, but I have empathy for these jobs….
Brooding About the Duality of Man (and Woman)
Pogue Colonel: You write "Born to Kill" on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
Sergeant Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
We all struggle with duality, when I watch or read the news, sometimes I think I am a Nihilist. But, then I am on a mountain peering over the edge, realizing how close death is, and I realize I am not a Nihilist.
Another duality that strikes me is the concept of sexual dimorphism among primates – particularly humans. We seem to want to emphasize it more than ever, yet neutralize it at the same time. Men wear big, masculine watches and tight shirts to show off biceps, while woman wear makeup and show off cleavage. At the same time, there is a trend toward deemphasizing sexual dimorphism, even letting children choose their own gender, yet children don't have much sexual dimorphism until they hit puberty, which is based on biology, not culture. It seems absurd.
Lastly, there is a trend toward eating natural foods, Paleo and Primal Blueprint claim you should steer clear of "processed" foods. Yet, almost everyone which is into these diets eats processed MCT oil from Coconuts and suppliments with protein shakes made from processed powders.
The point is, duality is all around us and it's interesting what causes our brains to emphasize one or the other. Just remember, nobody ever blames the gun when a cop shoots an innocent person, and nobody ever blames the shooter in a school shooting. Anyway, that's what I've been brooding about.Read More
One Year of Body Hacking in Ten Minutes
Most of my adult life, I've had this nagging feeling that I needed to do more to maintain my health. I had a lot of excuses – work stress, travel, email. I even told myself that I just loved pizza, french fries, craft beer, and brie too much.
Well, that all changed. It is possible, and I am going to show you how. I lost 30 lbs over the last 12 months, lost four inches on my waist, got stronger, got faster, and increased my V02 max to 55 – a number many cyclists and runners would kill for, but more importantly, it's the number one indicator of how healthy you are – and perhaps more importantly, it likely indicates how healthy you will be the last ten years of your life. When most people are in old folks homes and hospitals, I hope to be out snowboarding like my friend Thom, who is in his mid seventies.
First and foremost, you CAN do this. It's just going to suck because it requires change, and change is painful. The good part is "the suck" goes away after about a month. Oh, and I am 42, you are probably younger, so this should be easier for you 🙂
Here are the steps, in order…
Lie to Yourself
Do whatever it takes to get yourself to do this program for one month. That's what I did. I told myself, let's just "try" this for a month. Here I am a year later, and the journey has been life altering.
Most tech people and business travelers have a set of priorities similar to:
- Family
- Work
- Life
- …
This needs to change. It needs to be:
- Health
- Family
- Work
- …
This is going to be painful. Remember the old financial saying, "pay yourself first?" This is just like that, but your health is way more important than money. Without it, you cannot raise your children, work, or live life. Diet and exercise are the key to health. So, prioritize them above everything else. You might feel "selfish" at times when you dedicate time to work out, but it's not. It's what you have to do. You can pay someone to help with your lawn or your house, but nobody can put the time in at the gym for you – nobody can eat healthier food for you, except for you.
Diet is actually quite straightforward. Follow these three steps and prioritize them in this order. Missing the macros or micros some days isn't going to kill you, but consistently eating too many calories will hinder your weight loss.
Track your calories with an app like MyFitnessPal. Actually, just use MyFitnessPal, it's the best. MyFitnessPal has great listings for packaged or restaurant food, but when cooking at home, weigh everything. Weighing food is the most accurate and it will teach you how many calories are in many types of food.
As for diet, target 10 calories for every pound of desired body weight. If you are 200lbs like I was, and want to be 170 lbs, then target 1700 calories. This is your baseline. This is what you will burn for just being alive and sedentary. Just know this as a general piece of information – use it as a subconscious tool when thinking about calorie consumption.
The good part is, MyFitnessPal will track everything – your calorie intake, steps and exercise. Starting with your baseline, it will add calories for exercise and subtract calories to help you lose weight. But, you absolutely have to track every drop, dab, chunk, piece, nibble and drink of food that goes in your mouth. Also, tracking your food as you eat it trains your subconscious mind – it turns out that the act of recording a log of bad habits trains your subconscious mind and helps you make better choices (I only recently learned this).
You will find that as you get closer to your target weight, you might have to reset the numbers and go a bit lower. MyFitnessPal can do this automatically. Target 1/2, to 1 pound per week, never more. Never more – if you try to go too fast, it will not be a lifestyle change and you will probably loose muscle.
Before starting this program, I found that my calories could be as high as 6000 or 7000 on a a day with three meals, and drinking with friends that night. This is WAY, WAY, WAY too many. Once I tracked my food intake, I corrected this very quickly.
People talk about food quality, nutrient rich and non-GMO. These are buzzwords and I didn't pay ANY attention to any of this. I consider ALL of these buzzwords noise which does nothing to help me get to my goal. Instead, eat a balance of carbohydrates, fats and protein. Period. Make the pie chart in MyFitnessPal look balanced. That's it.
If you want to get fancy, you can go with a formula. I used:
- 1 gram of protein per pound of desired body weight. In my case 170
- 1/2 the grams of protein in fat. In my case 85. Yes, 85. That's crazy high by what you have probably heard. Go 1/3 if you are really scared.
- The rest in carbs. When loosing weight, my carb number was pretty similar to my protein number.
Just eat a balance. When I started, I found that my carbs and fat were way too high, and my protein was way too low. Once I corrected that, things fell into place. There have been days that I ate a piece of cheesecake that was 780 calories – I balanced it by chugging 400 calories worth of protein shakes and eggs (roughly 80 grams of protein). The bottom line is you "can" eat whatever you want, it just makes it really, really hard to balance out your macronutrients while staying under your calorie goal. Just remember, if you eat cheesecake and chug protein shakes, you will be starving later in the day – STARVING. It's best to balance out healthy foods throughout the day and slide right into your calorie and macronutrient goals by the end of the day.
These are things like vitamins and minerals. They are the easiest of the three steps and generally fall into place. Try to target the recommended daily intake in MyFitnessPal.
I only had trouble with three:
- Sodium – to this day, my sodium is often double the recommended intake. It didn't stop my weight loss at all. And, my blood pressure is phenomenal, but check with your doctor.
- Potassium – mine is still a bit low most days, but WAY better than when I started.
- Vitamin D – most of the people in the US have a vitamin D deficiency and don't know it. When I had my blood panel done, I was low.
Work with a doctor and supplement where recommend.
Diet Hacks
I work and travel a lot, so eating at home is not an option. Also, I am tired and lazy at home, so I eat a lot of packaged and easy to make food. Here are some hacks that I used. You will also find your own based on your taste preferences:
- Protein Shakes – these are the number one hack. I was constantly high on carbs and fat because even if I can only eat a small portion, I still like eating what I like. There are days I ate cheesecake -annoyingly 780 calories 🙁 – and I balanced things back out with protein shakes. Also, thesr shakes make you full and help you eat less. So, slam them all the time. Vegan, Whey, Casein, I drink them all at for different reasons at different times. I always bring protein powder when I travel which is a LIFE SAVER! Slam one before dinner to eat less. Slam a casein shake before bed to make it through the night.
- Cottage Cheese – I always thought this was bad. I was so wrong – it's high in protein, low in carbs and is great in 2% or low fat form. Replace ricotta cheese, mayo, or even regular cheese with cottage cheese. Use a blender and put it in almost anything. It makes any food creamier, and tastes great. Put flavored granola in it and it tastes totally different, almost like a bowl of cereal (cinnamon, raisin, chocolate granola, etc).
- Healthy Choice Steamers – There are like 10 different options for steamed Chicken – Parmesan, Marsala, with potatoes, etc. They are mostly between 200-300 calories and they take 5 minutes to make. They are very filling and almost always balance the piechart.
- Atkins Bars – low carb diets like Atkins, IMHO are ridiculous, but they make awesome protein bars. They are between 150 and 300 calories – I target the peanut butter ones that are 150-170. They are super high fiber, have decent protein, use sugar alcohol which is actually good for your teeth like Dentine, and taste like candy bars. These are a work of art and science.
- Low Sodium V8 – these small cans helped me with my Potassium deficiency and they are only 30 calories which makes them easy to drink.
- Supplements – work with your doctor, but Vitamin D, Creatine, Beta-Alanine, EGCG, Fish Oil, Glucosamine, and a Centrum are all in my repertoire.
Exercise cannot overcome a bad diet. Stated another way, your mouth can eat more than your body can burn off. Stated one more way, you will literally wear your joints out trying to burn off the calories your mouth ate too much of – so, stop eating too much!!!!
About 10 years ago, I did Couch to 5K. The app made it so easy and I made "some" progress. But, I stalled. I just never changed my body composition in a meaningful way. It sucked because running takes SO FUCKING LONG too.
This year, I found strength training and conditioning (which is different than "cardio"). Strength training takes WAY less time, and the progress is WAY more precise, which made it addictive, more like a game with your body.
I still run today, and ironically, I can run a faster 5K now then when my exercise was focused around running. I will explain….
Everything I do is built around a strength training program – this is the core. One year ago I started with StrongLifts 5×5. The app is awesome, and the progress of a linear strength training system like this is addictive.
After about six months, I started to stall out. It got hard, really hard. That's when I moved to a Wendler 5/3/1 program – there's also an awesome app. You could probably start with either, but 5×5 is dead simple – life changing.
Just remember to pick a program focused around big, complex, multi joint exercises – these work the most muscles and give you the most progress. Focus on a program that is centered around squats, deadlifts, bench press and overhead press (sometimes just called "press").
StrongLifts 5×5 and Wendler 5/3/1 are both "Powerlifting" programs. I had no idea when I started. I never thought of myself as a Powerlifter. But, what I have found is that Powerlifting is very technical and most of the people that develop the programs are essentially hackers/nerds. You will see these HUGE dudes that are very precise in their diet and programming. Since I am a nerd, this helped.
Pick one program, stick with it for 6 months. Do NOT program hop. As you progress, you will learn a ton and add accessory work, but take your time. Even get a personal trainer for a couple months to learn the lifts and movements if that helps.
As I lifted weights more and more, something very unexpected happened – my cardio got better, way better. I was a decent mountain biker and a decent snowboarder, but I never thought my cardio was all that great – and it probably wasn't – until I discovered conditioning. Little did I know, I was already doing a bit of conditioning with the weights. Conditioning is like cardio, in that it improves your cardiovascular system, but it takes WAY less time. Seriously, like 10 or 20 minutes versus hours and hours. Think of it as intense cardio with a bit of strength mixed in.
I started with jumping rope between my warm up lifts and then a bit more with my accessory work (the other strength training you do, like pull-ups, or dips). Little did I know, this was the beginning of my conditioning program.
Now, I jump rope, swing kettlebells, sprint, do bear crawls, and a multitude of heart pounding exercises between my warm up sets and accessory work. Basically, do anything that gets your heart rate up high. This is conditioning. Tabata is a very specific, optimized version developed by the Japanese and the science is showing that intense heart training increases your vO2 Max, and VO2 Max is the number one indicator of health. Don't get bogged in the details, just slowly add a cardiovascular component to your accessory work.
Exercise Hacks
- Lie to yourself. I used to tell myself that I was just going for the sauna or steam room. Then, once I was there…
- Powerlifters will tell you not to do conditioning mixed with your lifting days because it will slow down your progress of lifting heavier and heavier weights. Who cares, I don't want to compete in a powerlifting competition. I want to live as long and healthy as possible and mixing them takes way less time. The lifts already get your heart rate going, I just drive them even higher after the lifts.
- Get a weight vest. Trail run in it for one mile. It will suck worse than anything you have ever done. When complete, the entire world will be back in perspective and going to the gym will be easy.
- Change accessory work often, but stick with a program for your core work.
- Have fun. I know this sounds crazy, but try new stuff. Don't be embarrassed. Most other people at the gym have no clue what they are doing either, or they only know the few things that they do. I have found that my flexibility is WAY better one year later and it makes life more fun.
Quantitative Methodologies
- 10 calories for every pound of desired weight
- 1 gram of protein for every pound of desired weight
- 1/2 gram of fat for every pound of desired weight
- V02 Max – This can be done at a local facility, but usually the more "sciency" ones. I went to Amp Fitness in Cleveland, but there are facilities in any large city. Basically, they make you run on a treadmill with something akin to a gas mask on. It sucks bad, but it tells you what your VO2 Max is.
- RMR – Resting Metabolic Rate – This can be done at a local facility to determine how many calories you burn per day doing nothing. Check the same places that do V02 Max as the machines are the same.
- Blood Panel – this is done by your doctor and will tell you about your cholesterol, vitamin deficiencies, etc
That's it. Go out and do it. I believe in you. I will leave you with a couple more hacks:
- Don't be intimidated by all of the crazy vocabulary in the fitness world. You will learn about Hypertrophy, Hyperplasia, Accessory Work, Energetic Systems like ATP, Glycolysis and Oxidative, but they don't matter to get started.
- Forget the "everybody is different" line. Forget it right now. It is never an excuse for something not working. Generalized diet and strength programs work for almost 99.9% of people except where they have actual health conditions. Everyone is different when squeezing out the last 5% or 10% – this is optimization, but you can absolutely get started with a general program.
- Much of what you read, and even personal trainers will ask what your goals are – I struggled with this the first year because I didn't even know what goals were possible. I just wanted to be "healthier" – but, that is a bad goal because it is way too general. Come up with a simple goal – something like "lose 20 pounds" or "lose 4 inches on your waist" – these will seem crazy, but you can do it.
I will leave you with some final prose. Much like today, it was a November day in Ohio – the Fall leaves were Burnt Orange and Brown, Red and Yellow. I knew I hadn't exercised much the preceding summer and I had also been eating pizza, chicken wings, and drinking without care. I told myself it was part of my job – meeting with customers, conferences, airports, etc. I told myself that I had to be social which makes it difficult to eat right.
That November day, I was scared to step on the scale because I knew "scale don't lie!" Well, scale told me it was 202 lbs. I was heartbroken. I had never broken 200 lbs before. It was some magical level which thou shalt not cross. I am only 5'9″ on a good day, so this was too much. It hurt when I sat at my desk too long because my stomach pushed on my organs. My back hurt if I stood too long. I would get chafed when I walked too long in the city. Minor things in the big scheme of things, but I couldn't deny it any longer.
If you are anything like me, you are having the same struggle – work, life, kids, eating out, packaged food, alcohol, whatever. It all makes it difficult. I love pizza, chicken wings, and beer – LOVE it. But, you can change, you can follow this program. You can learn all of the things I learned. It might sound cheesy, but I know anybody can do this and I hope this article helps.Read More
The Basic Model – How I Tackle Everything
This is my definition for becoming a hacker and achieving desired outcomes in the modern economy….
The Universe
- Things perceived to be completely under your control: OK
- Things perceived to be somewhat under your control: OK
- Things perceived to be out of your control: ERR
Things Perceived to be Somewhat or Completely Under Your Control
Forget things that are out of our control. If the company is getting sued for $5T, it's in the lawyer's hands, not the engineers or salespeople. But, there are things we can control, this is what we get paid for. Sales, Marketing, Engineering. Achieving results with things perceived to be, at least somewhat, under our control. Same applies to kids, house, relationships, etc.
How We Achieve
We leverage and obtain knowledge in three main ways. We do this to achieve desired outcomes – building things, selling things, suing people, defending people, healing people, making war, etc:
- Things that are commonly known: Google it or use other specific knowledge bases
- Things that are known by peers: Ask a peer
- Things that are unknown: We figure this out ourselves, then make it common knowledge (write blogs, books, teach) or share it with peers (possibly too nuanced, complex or specific for knowledge bases aka tribal knowledge, wisdom, or mentoring).
Junior vs. Senior
- Junior people use Google a lot
- Junior people ask people around them a lot
- Junior people figure out things that are unknown, but these are typically things that could be figured out by most other junior people
- Junior people are productive, but do not tend to contribute a lot of "knowledge" in quantity or quality compared to a senior person
- Senior people use Google a lot
- Senior people ask other senior people around them a lot, especially experts in other fields
- Senior people figure out things that are unknown as well as things that are TOUGH to figure out quantitatively (specific skill) or qualitatively (wisdom). Junior people cannot typically figure these tough things out in an efficient amount of time, nor in a way that would provide proper risk/reward. These things can be so hard that perhaps, even other senior people cannot figure them out. Imagine sending a newb to lead 1000 tanks in Iraq – not going to happen efficiently.
- Senior people are productive, and they are expected to contribute to mentoring (peers), as well as creating knowledge bases which can be used commonly (building their brand)
- Unicorns are senior people that can also force themselves to do things for which they have no passion
- They understand the psychological principle that you like what you do, not you do what you like
- These people will become passionate about almost anything and hence, can do almost anything well
Contribution Velocity
Being able to achieve desired outcomes by figuring things out at an efficient velocity and sufficient quality is important to becoming senior. Essentially, this is my definition of hacking. Whether it's breaking an encrypted hard drive, figuring out how to program something in a new language, program something you have never programmed before, selling a specific dollar amount of goods and services, losing weight and gaining muscle, or leading 1000 tanks in Iraq, these are all hacking.
When you are good at hacking, you are good at figuring things out that are both unknown and quite difficult, then quickly leveraging these new things to acheive your desired results. When you gain this skill in any specific discipline, you are a hacker. When you have been hacking for 20 years, and have achieved mastery in 5, 10, 20 or 30 "technical" disciplines, you may be considered senior. The more disciplines you master, the quicker you master new ones, essentially increasing your rate of mastery in new disciplines. When your skill of mastering new disciplines achieves a certain velocity, say one a year, it will be difficult for the job market reward you with appropriate financial compensation. Most technical disciplines lead to a financial ceiling on compensation in the job market. Hence, when people become very senior, they look for other rewards. Great and productive people, lax lifestyle, free time, free food, notoriety (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) whatever. This can lead to laziness.
That is, of course, unless you choose the disciplines of entrepreneur, salesperson, or bandit. These disciplines are basically unlimited in financial compensation or reward. Your ability to contribute is not limited, so your ability to garner a cut is also unlimited. A salesperson can sell $100M, then sell $200M, then $1B year after year. A bandit can steal as much as he likes. An entrepreneur can grow the company as big as his skills allow. Your ability to achieve is only limited by your hard work, creativity, quality of product, and ability.
That is, at least, until you bump into things that are out of your control (cancer, global war, macroeconomic problems, etc)……
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Today We Brought You Home From The Hospital
It's just before Midnight on September 26th, 2017. Today your mother and I brought you home from the hospital. Someday, when you are ready, I will share this letter with you because I think that reflection is important for personal growth. As the clock ticks past midnight, I am reflecting about a conversation that I had today with my mother, your grandmother, about what childbirth means. She said, that to her, giving birth to another human being is about the past, the present, and the future. I found this intriguing – she explained, that when you look at a child, you can see the past. Some of a baby's physical features come from their grandparents – this is a looking glass into the past. Also, some of a baby's characteristics come from each of the parents, who also experience the birth, in the present. The parents and the baby will continue to live in parallel as the baby ages and matures. Finally, the baby will grow into it's own individual person. The baby will be a mix of new characteristics, different from the past, different than its parents and grandparents, yet carrying a piece of the past forward. Sort of a way for the parents to live on – in part. Old and new together as one.
So, from this, I want to share with you three reflections today. One for each of – the past, the present, and the future. I hope that these might be useful to you in your life.
The Past
It was recently discovered that modern human beings have been around for at least the last 300,000 years. If most of our ancestors reached maturity around 15 years old, which is reasonable up until the last few hundred years of human history, you and I both have approximately 20,000 generations of ancestors. Let that sink in. Even with my best efforts to search ancestry.com, while your mother was pregnant with you, I could only find names for perhaps 4 or 5 generations at best. That means we have approximately 19,995 generations of ancestors for which we have no information, not even their names. Little is known, much is not.
This puts things into perspective. The things that we think are important, stressful or even joyful today, will become insignificant in the immenseness that is the past. Individual people, the generation that they are part of, the politics of that day, and even entire millennia will fall by the wayside to time. When life seems hard or difficult, try to remember this – think about how difficult it must have been for our ancestors 5,000, 20,000, and 300,000 years ago. Day to day life had very little convenience – it strikes me that the word "convenience" may not have even been invented until perhaps 5000 years ago.
I think about this every time I change one of your diapers 🙂 Our ancestors didn't even have disposable diapers, much less the Munchkin STEP Diaper Pail (so that they wouldn't have to smell your poopy baby butt).
The Present
Life is better now than it has ever been. This is, of course, a double meaning. Technology is better than it has ever been, but there is also a trend in 2017 toward doing Yoga, meditation, and practicing mindfulness (whatever that means) – basically focusing on the present as opposed to the past or the future. And what way is better to focus on the present than by controlling your breathing (a bit of sarcasm) – which is normally handled by your autonomic nervous system along with your blood pressure, but I digress…..
As I write this sentence, I can hear you squeak, coo and cry in the other room – I can hear one of the cats run up the stairs, and Christopher come in the room and nail the Moroccan Pouf in my office.
These moments are precious. Raising you is going to be amazing, watching you grow, seeing you become your own person, separate from your mom and me.
Tonight, before I wrote this letter, I ran to the store, picked up the Munchkin STEP Diaper Pail, then went for a two mile run, took a shower, and changed your diaper – I believe for the fifth time. Today is never easy – the only easy day is yesterday (David Goggins, my 2017 man crush), because it is done.
The Future
The future is constantly happening – it's a constant barrage of decisions. Keep running or quit – stay in college, or drop out – lift the heavier weight today, or change the programmig because it's too tough (a concept from weight training), procrastinate, or take action? This is the set of decisions that you will be bombarded with. We all are, but the sum of how you make these decisions will take your life in small, incremental course changes that will add up to a huge amount by the end of your life. They will be difficult to see day to day – like heartbeats, breaths, and steps, they will seem small, but will add up to huge consequences, not only in life itself, but in the way you look at life and engage with it.
Park far away and walk two minutes instead of spending that exact same time driving. Save $5 a week instead of spending it on frivolous things. Finish the book before playing the game. Finish the homework before watching TV. These are the drills that are not enjoyable today, but create a happier life in future – which in turn makes it easier to do the new drills. In the end, you can end up with the same one year of experience five years in a row, or five years of new experience. Either way, you will be five years older.
Decide what you want and make small incremental steps towards it because five years from now, you will be five years older whether you do it or not. The small incremental steps build upon themselves. This can end with feeling either content or regret. Primates are not very good at imagining the future, much less deciding what they want. Practice that skill and you will be happier over time instead of less happy as you age.
I can tell you with 100% certainty, I feel better today than I ever have. I have you sleeping in the other room with mom and the cat (Christopher) driving me nuts licking the Moroccan Pouf. I feel this good because I am content with the choices I have made to get here and I am confident that we can raise you with a better life than I had growing up.
You will face challenges in life, but I hope you will have immense opportunity as well. I want to take you to the tops of snow covered mountains, the centers of huge metropolises, and the coves of tiny islands in the middle of huge oceans because growth comes from seeing, learning and experiencing as much as possible. I will do my best to show you all the beauty that the world has to offer.
The future is bright….
Love You
DadRead More


text:
Is there a way to select multipal IP's (not in a the same subnet) and Tag them?
Hi Elaine,
Yes you can create a static tag and drag that onto the IP addresses that you wish to give that property, or you can create dynamic tag criteria and each host that matches will inherit that tag.
Is there a more specific use case you had in mind please ?
Hi Elaine.
When I need to do that, I do an 'Asset Search' for the specific IP's, then in the 'Asset Search Results' screen I select all ip's and click on 'create tag'.
Hope that helps.
Retrieving data ...

subset: commoncrawl


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Last night I caught the end of the program on the Greatest Comedy Films. I don't know whether the films were chosen by some sort of poll or not, but it seems they may have been when I look on the web.
The list is okay when you work from 50 towards the top; there are some oddball films there, but that's probably good. But as you get into the top 15, things take on a curious turn. I caught up with the list at Groundhog Day, which isn't just a comedy, it's a philosophical statement about life and repetition and the order of things. The Blues Brothers, which comes next, is mayhem personified. I've never managed to see all of it, but it looks like an odd combination of lots of car crashes (Americans seem to find this amusing for some reason - maybe they actually hate cars rather than love them) and some interesting uses of music.
Annie Hall is next on the list, with Woody Allen at his neurotic best, and then we come to This is Spinal Tap, a film I've barely heard of, and which, from the clips they showed, may be worth a look. It was hard to tell. But it seemed a strange choice to be so far up the list.
Now we come to the level of comedy where the crude and gross excel. On screen in the documentary we had various people proclaiming how far they'd gone and how producers had actually let them get away with it. There's Something About Mary is famous for some very unpleasant use of semen and for Ben Stiller getting himself caught in his zip. Beyond that it's hard to know whether it's of any value as a comedy or not, because this is all you ever hear about it.
Blazing Saddles came next, and certainly this is a pretty crazy movie. Again, one scene has stuck in people's minds, which seems to say a lot about what people think is funny, and that's the scene in which a bunch of men eating beans fart a good deal. The film is a lot better than this one scene, though again it's pretty crude.
But crude and gross and generally offensive is about all I can say in regard to the next choice, American Pie. I'd heard that it was pretty puerile, but the clips shown last night show that I'd barely guessed at the level of puerility. It may be funny in some people's minds, but it wouldn't make my list of comedies.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is another kettle of fish. The Python gang can be pretty offensive in the sexual area sometimes, but seldom get to a disgusting level. This isn't a movie I've seen, but the clips seemed to indicate it had a typical Python sense of the surreal, and could actually be quite funny.
The last five on the list are an extremely mixed bunch: South Park, Austin Powers, Shaun of the Dead, Airplane! and Monty Python's Life of Brian.
To take the top one first. The Life of Brian has always been controversial because of its closeness to the Christian story, and in spite of what the Python clan claim, it mocks Christianity continually. For them to say that people like Malcolm Muggeridge and some Archbishop who appeared on television with them were too 'serious' about the film, and seeing things in it that weren't there is just nonsense. No one with any knowledge of Christianity could miss the constant references, and time after time it undercuts the faith and sincerity of real believers. The language is foul as well, as though the Pythons had finally discovered the F word. It's almost as common in here as in a Gordon Ramsay episode. This film would never make the top of a list of my favourite comedies.
Airplane! is absurd in every respect, and probably deserves to be on the list somewhere. Whether second place is its place is another matter.
Shaun of the Dead comes out of nowhere. A frequently brutal piece - in a funny way, according to the makers - about killing off zombies, it has its points (as far as I could tell from the clips) but when one of its makers and actors said that the other main actor had the filthiest mind he knew of, I wasn't inclined to chase up a copy of the film and watch it.
Austin Powers has some wonderful madness in it. It certainly sends up the Bond movies hugely and makes nonsense of the sexual content of them. And Mike Myers is one of the few actors who can make himself spectacularly ugly and still come back for more. Again, a possibility for a list, but not in 4th place.
And South Park. Well, I have no time for this program at all, anyway, so a movie version of it isn't going to grab me. I know plenty of people think that the offensive humour has something going for it. Not me.
Mike Crowl is the world's leading authority on his own opinions on art, music, movies, and writing.
Monday, August 13, 2007
50 Greatest Comedies? Hmmm
Posted by Mike Crowl at 10:50 pm
Labels: airplane, Bond, comedy, monty python, movies, myers, shaun, south park, stiller, woody allen
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Showing 1 - 10 of 26 posts found matching keyword: morals
As much as I love cemeteries, I hate funerals. Too many living people.
Miss Polly was my grandfather's classmate and grandmother's best friend. She deserved that I put on a tie (poorly) for the first time in nearly a decade (it is NOT like riding a bike) and stand in the frigid rain. All funerals should be in the rain, if you ask me. Suits the mood.
To mark the occasion, I had this picture taken with my phone.
It is not the vision I imagined, but I did learn a valuable life lesson: don't try giving artistic direction to mourners at a funeral.
Or maybe just don't go to funerals, period. Could be either. I have a hard time figuring the moral of a story.
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: death funeral morals watler
The National Safety Council says that the odds of an American dying from a fall are 1 in 114. That's about twice as likely as the chance of death from a gun assault (1 in 285) but five times more common than the chance of dying while going for a walk (1 in 556). The specific odds of dying from falling down the stairs is 1 in 1,662. Yesterday morning, I nearly became a statistic.
I woke up early to take July outside to go potty before the bad weather rolled in. I didn't bother to change shoes and wore my slippers in the dewy grass. Returning to the house, I wiped her wet feet but not mine. Then we both went back downstairs to return to bed. Thanks to my slippery slippers, one of us went faster than the other.
Spoiler alert: I didn't die. But I do have an uncomfortably twisted ankle and abrasions on my elbows. And I've certainly learned a valuable lesson. From now on, the dog can go potty in the rain.
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from Brave and the Bold #36 (1961)
I knew marriage was a trap!
Is it any wonder that when you let little boys read comic book stories like this they grow up to be lifelong bachelors? (That's not a rhetorical question. I'm asking for a friend.)
For the record, Mavis' determination that Hawkman should leave his wife and marry her instead would one day lead her to be incinerated by aliens. I guess there's a moral in that. Somewhere.
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: comic books marriage morals seduction of the innocent
One week ago today, a small wildfire approached my father's house in Fountain, Florida. (It's an ironic name in hindsight.) The fire ignited several bales of hay he had just that morning stored in his pole barn. The barn stood no more than 20 yards from his house and no more than 100 yards from the entrance to his cattle pen. Naturally, Dad called the fire department then jumped into action with a garden hose.
How's that for the start of a dramatic story? I'll go ahead and tell you up front that the fire department put out the fire, and the house was saved. That's not what this blog post is about.
I wasn't there at the time, but as I hear it, armed agents of the Bay County Emergency Department arrived before the fire trucks did. And the officers, rather than jump in and help, ordered Dad to put down his hose and let the fire burn. I'll give them the benefit of doubt and assume that they wanted to "protect" Dad, not "serve" the fire. Dad didn't see it that way. He had called for help to extinguish the flames not for a group of spectators to the destruction of his property. So he refused to comply.
You can see where this is going now, can't you?
When father, who moved to middle-of-nowhere Florida to get away from authority figures, said he wouldn't put his hose down until the firemen arrived, the police attempted to arrest him. Note the use of the word "attempted" in the previous sentence. Dad didn't make it easy for them. For what it's worth, I'm led to believe no actual punches were thrown, but there was certainly something of a scuffle as the police tried to drag a 72-year-old man away from a fire.
Personally, I think Dad's reaction was understandable. After all, he believed his property and his livelihood was being threatened. Understandable, I say, but also unwise. Sometimes your best option is to let the world burn.
When the Bay County fire department finally arrived, Dad was unable to see it. He was sitting far away, handcuffed, in the back of a police cruiser. And he stayed in the back of that police cruiser for the five or so hours it took them to put the fire out. (I should say put it *mostly* out. It would flare up again the next day on the neighbor's property and the fire department would be called back to complete the job.)
As I already said, the house was fine. The animals were fine. And Dad was released from the police car eventually and allowed to go home where he was now, presumably, safe. An inconvenience, sure, but at least a happy ending. Right? Wrong.
Four days later, the Bay County Sheriff's Department returned and served a warrant their fellow officer had sworn out against my father for the crimes of Preventing or Obstructing Extinguishment of Fire (Florida Code Chapter 806.10) and Resisting Arrest with Violence (843.01), both Third Degree Felonies. They served the warrant one hour after court closed for the day, ensuring he would spend at least one night in jail until bond could be set the next afternoon. What nice guys, I say sarcastically.
Dad is now home — again — after paying a non-refundable 10% of the $6,500 bond to a bail bondsman. He's facing considerably more in lawyers fees to argue against a 10 year prison sentence. All because he panicked when the cops he didn't call demanded that he not try to save his own house from a wildfire.
If there's a lesson here, it's don't ask for help in Bay County, Florida. Either way, you're going to get burned.
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Last week, my favorite pair of jeans developed a hole in the seat. You can imagine my disappointment.
They were a 4-year old pair of Levi's 527™. The 527™, in case you were unaware, is very similar to the famous 501®, but a little looser in the seat with a boot cut flare on the leg. I used to wear 501®s until I discovered a pair of 527™ in a remainder bin at a discount department store. I find the 527™ to be more comfortable, but for some reason they just don't last as long. Eventually, my butt becomes just too much for them.
But they're just a pair of pants, right? Time to move on. I've still got 2 other pairs of Levi's 527™ jeans that are functionally identical. Or so I thought until today. Now another pair of my jeans has developed a hole in the seat.
My friend Otto buys wears Levi's that are decades old that he hunts down like a detective. He says the secret to making them last forever is to never wash them. If that's the price to keep my jeans in one piece, I guess I'm just going to have to get use to replacing my jeans every few years.
Two pairs of jeans, two holes in the seats, both in one week. If there's a moral to this story, it's that jeans, like everything else in life, will always let you down in the end. And that's news that you've just got to take sitting down. I'm going to take this as a sign that I should get off my ass... and go shopping for more jeans.
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This is for Trey, who hasn't spoken to me since December 2.
Don't argue with Captain Marvel, Trey. He has the wisdom of Solomon.
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Sorry, no post yesterday, but I have an excuse.
See, I was going to go to the UGA game versus Florida Atlantic University with Trey. However, I simply couldn't make myself care about spending 5 hours in a car (not to mention the $40 in gas and $20 for parking) to witness the Bulldogs beat a 43-point underdog. The only draw for the game was the ceremony to officially declare Russ, the UGA fill-in mascot for the past 3 years, as the official UGA IX. I'm not really big on ceremonies, so at the last minute, we decided not go.
Our plan was instead to sit around the house with Mom and watch the Florida/Tennessee game on one tv and stream the GA/FAU game on the computer. It sounded like a good plan. Unfortunately, the football gods frowned on my passing up stadium seats for the couch, and the cable went out. Since we have a cable modem, we couldn't watch football on television or the web. What a disappointment.
I don't think I'd do anything differently in repeat circumstances. Georgia went on to win 56 to 20 without my participation, I still have those 60 dollars in my bank account, and I'll definitely be back in Sanford Stadium next week when an actual SEC team finally comes to town. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned in this experience, but I guess like any good bulldog, I'm too stubborn to learn it.
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It has been extensively reported that tomorrow DC Comics is publishing the comic in which Superman and Wonder Woman finally get it on. This isn't exactly the first time this has happened. What makes this time different is that DC says this time they really, really, really mean it.
Comic book relationships are like comic book deaths: both are very temporary situations. Dating in superhero comics amounts to little more than a brief series of one-night stands. Eventually the romantic-interest character is killed off-panel, becomes the hero's arch-nemesis, or disappears abruptly when the book changes writers. If your hero doesn't have a love interest in his origin story, don't bother learning the names of the girls he goes out with between adventures.
However, if you do know the names of those supporting characters, isn't removing the hero from the romance akin to stealing what defines that hero? The love interests of Superman and Wonder Woman, Lois Lane and Steve Trevor respectively, both shared time in their partner's first comic book appearance. They are as much a part of Superman and Wonder Woman as heat vision and golden lassos. Is it the aspect of infidelity to their partners that makes this story so enticing to the non-comic book reader?
If there's a moral here, it's that sex sells. It even sells funny books.
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Movies for the second week in May. I'm getting really close to 150. When I get there, should I stop tracking, or should I try to see just how many I can watch in 2012?
141. The Innocents (1961)
Typically, I'm not much for ghost stories. In addition to relying heavily on maudlin sentimentality, their internal logic is always a necessary few steps out of sync with reality. I have a hard time "buying in," so to speak. But this film has great atmosphere, truly achieving a creepy vibe. Less is more, and the director knew it. I can respect that.
142. The Wolfman (2010)
Oh, my. This movie is bad. The original Universal Wolfman looked like a hirsute garbage collector. In trying to pay homage, this "update" so desperate for "realism" suffers all the worse for not updating this unrealistic looking monster in any significant way. It compounds this sin by making the transformations cgi! Hugo Weaving easily steals the film from both Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins his small role, but I'm used to that by now.
143. The Hangover Part II (2011)
I thought this was better than the first, but Trey thought it was more of the same. It is indeed more of the same, and maybe I just enjoyed it more because I knew the formula already.
144. Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
Twenty minutes of screen time are spent using a ham radio to deliver a message of good will in what passes as dramatic tension in this film. Another few minutes are spent hiring the domestic help, or haggling over a contract to buy a car. Riveting cinema! Forget watching paint dry, from now on, I'm going to use the expression "more boring than watching Andy Hardy."
145. Hanna (2011)
The best part about this action/revenge fantasy film is its European sensibility. It starts with an interesting premise and some pretty entertaining action scenes, but by the end of the film it has become just another action movie. The film is not helped by Cate Blanchett's disappearing/reappearing Southern accent.
146. The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
Trey had started watching this while I was in a conference call, so I only caught the last half of this action/romance movie. As you would expect, I find the "shadow government so big it controls the actions of everyone in the world but so secret no one has ever heard of it" concept ridiculous. And who doesn't love a movie whose moral is that if we are all just pig-headed enough, The Man will reward our asshole behavior with our heart's desire? Matt Damon seems earnest enough (as a politician!) that I begrudge this film no ill will.
Comments (1)| Leave a Comment | Tags: 150 in 2012 family morals movies trey
Today is Leap Day. That makes it Superman's birthday. And anything good enough for Superman was good enough for Captain Marvel to steal, so it's Captain Marvel's birthday as well.
When the wizard Shazam turned Billy Batson into the world's mightiest mortal, he created a bit of a problem. See, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel are two different people, at least as far as the world is concerned. Therefore Captain Marvel couldn't just have the same birthday as Billy Batson, because then the good Captain's enemies would be able to discern his secret identity by threatening all 6,000 or so people born on the same day as Captain Marvel. (Back in the Golden Age, super villains had a lot of time on their hands.)
Rather than select a "birth" date completely at random, Captain Marvel chose a date just to cheese off his arch-nemesis, Dr. Sivana. Perhaps behavior like this is the reason that he has an arch-nemesis.
So if you learn just one thing today, perhaps it should be not to go out of your way to remind your adversaries of their failures. That's not a good way to make friends.
Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: birthday captain marvel comic books holidays leap day morals


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Accenture conducted a global study—spanning nearly 600 public service professionals in 10 countries—to assess how agencies are driving government innovation. That included a closer look at how agencies are planning, managing and measuring the impact and benefits of government innovation.
We discovered that government innovation is delivering targeted benefits that generally fall into four categories:
- Improved service delivery to citizens ("great place to live"). Almost half of respondents (49 percent) told us that innovation helped them discontinue services or programs that were not performing well or meeting objectives. Nearly as many cited better outcomes in citizen-facing programs (48 percent) and a reduction in human errors (46 percent).
- Improved employee/citizen services ("great place to work"). Fifty-one percent pointed to increased employee engagement—and 50 percent to improved service delivery—as benefits of government innovation.
- Improved productivity and efficiency with the funding available ("efficient service delivery"). Almost half (49 percent) said innovation helped improve employee skills. Forty-seven percent pointed to improved shared services as a benefit of government innovation.
- Better results at lower costs ("value for money"). Fifty-seven percent reported more efficient systems and processes as an impact of government innovation. Almost as many (56 percent) told us that innovation helped reduce the need for capital expenditures.
RELATED: Unleashing innovation: A closer look at impacts & benefits
Follow the government innovation leaders for impact & benefits
Accenture analysis and experience point to practices that can help improve the way agencies plan, manage and measure the impact and benefits of government innovation:
- Create a solid business case for each innovative idea. Be clear about what each innovation is intended to achieve. Be rigorous in specifying and measuring the intended improvement. If the business case isn't being met, don't be afraid to stop working on the innovation. At the same time, be open to discovering unintended benefits and revise your business case accordingly.
- Hard metrics are important—but they aren't all that matters. Tailor your metrics based on what the innovation is meant to achieve. Metrics may be "hard" or "soft." Just be clear on intended goals from the beginning.
- Create a reinvestment plan. Determine what you will do with benefits achieved. Reinvest all benefits in the agency mission and try to find ways to keep money saved within the agency budget or another enterprise program the agency will benefit from. Stay focused on reinvesting dividends to maintain momentum—and drive continuous government innovation.
While 95% of agencies reported using metrics, many of those are "soft" metrics. Only 15% report using both "hard" and "soft" metrics to evaluate government innovation.
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Inertia while important in physics, isn't especially helpful when one wants to start a new career after, say 15-20 years or more doing the same thing. Commonly referred to as Newton's first law, the concept of inertia says, "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."
We all know people that have come before us who picked a career and hung on for dear life for 40 plus years. Hopefully, these are the truly passionate people who have found their life's calling; or they're especially good at concealing moderate discontent; or they're miserable to be around.
But for the rest of us who got into one career for one reason or another then slowly start to feel themselves dying inside, change is the only way to go. Fighting inertia does take concerted effort, energy, and attention, but it can be worth it in the end to achieve change.
It can feel daunting, scary, and downright overwhelming. Whether you have to quit a job, sell a company, or go back to school, fear is an inevitable component, like a toddler who won't let go of your leg and head into the kindergarten classroom.
When do you pull the plug? Will your spouse and parents approve? Will your friends think you're crazy? Maybe, probably, but the rewards in finding and following your true passion can be worth more than any kind of financial gain.
Listening to our lives
In his profound work, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker J. Palmer writes, "Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am." We tend to discount our previous life and work experiences, thinking that we must scrap it all, throw the baby out with the bathwater, and begin anew. Not so.
There is a philosophy expressed by Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, which suggests that nothing is wasted in God's economy.
I started out my career in public relations, after enjoying and completing a glorious English literature degree. I wanted to get out of school fast, in order to get married (needed a full-time job, hubs wasn't quite done with school yet).
But as I look back, there are things I loved about studying literature that remain unmatched in anything else I've done. I also let my desire for songwriting and performing music die a slow death until a church friend gave me her piano years later.
Fast forward, ahem, 19 years, a husband, four kids, and several businesses later, it seems like of days of discussing plots, themes, and women's literature are long behind me.
What happens to us as adults?
The trajectory from high school into college seems so promising. We might even find a passion and pursue a calling – yet the calling changes even fades. The tasks at hand of paying bills and raising families alongside workplace demands, difficult bosses, leaking roofs, and cars that break down – all the minutiae of life can easy entrap us if we're not careful.
It's like the proverbial frog in the pot coming to a slow boil or culture around us that persists in depleting us of depth and vulnerability.
We have to intentionally make space to keep digging into ourselves and listening to our lives speaking to us.
Life begins moving fast as we move from childhood to adulthood, then it picks up with lightning speed if we let it. It's all-consuming, overwhelming, overtaking–if we don't stop it. It is possible to slow down the effects of age and time, but it's incredibly counter-cultural.
Slowing down our lives
There are a few good books I've been blessed to come across that have stopped me dead in my tracks and taken me out of "the grind" long enough to delve into the part of my psyche that needs to be heard.
For most of us, the inner self that doesn't get much play time, but is always clambering for attention whether or not we listen.
The problem is, of course, the longer you ignore, deny, and disregard that inner voice, that inner child who still needs attention, the deeper you can sink into that feeling of despair – that you'll never hear them, you'll never feed them and watch them grow.
No one enjoys that feeling of stunted growth – you wouldn't treat your own child this way – ignoring them and leaving them to starve in the back of your closet, yet we willingly do this to ourselves.
We unknowingly leave ourselves unfed, unloved.
How do we get back?
How do we get back to our desires that we know are there? How do we quit doing something we hate and more on, through faith — in ourselves and in God to direct us — to get back to what we most want to be doing? How do we make time and space to lean into those inner passions and desires which God has placed before us – deep down inside?
Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart."
For me, the desires of my heart led me slowly away from being a public relations consultant, back toward more authentic writing, with a side of music. Getting to this point, however, took lots of introspection and slowing down.
If you speak with artists and musicians about the creative process, many of them will often talk about 'living light' or creating a life that has some freedom and margin in it. Most people can't create when their backs are pressed up against the wall to produce, earn, or have every moment of their lives scheduled.
Slowing one's life down is key.
Finding your way
On a visit several years ago to my parents' house near Dallas, I slept on the guest bed in my mother's office, surrounded by bookshelves. I took an old copy of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron off the shelf. I was a junior in high school when this book became all the rage. My mother bought a copy and worked through the first few chapters, leaving notes in the margin.
Fast forward 25 years.
I asked her if I could take the book with me back to my home in California. The book pretty much changed my life and gave voice to so many desires that had lain dormant for so long. While I never gave up personal writing, poetry, and songwriting, the book became a tool that gave me the strength to start heading in the direction that I originally began in.
It's never too late to make a change. It's never too late to shift; to adjust; to morph. People do it all the time. There's no reason to stay stuck or to lose hope.
As you contemplate your "do over" (another great book worth a read by Jon Acuff, Do Over: Make Today the First Day of Your New Career), I challenge you to go deep down and do the dirty work of listening to yourself, to your God-given passions, and to hear what your life has to say about yourself.
It's not easy, but you will never regret changing the inertia of your life for the better.


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This section describes other mashing methods than the one given in the chapter on Mashing. The method described in the chapter on Mashing employs flaked maize, which is much easier to mash than undispersed forms of corn such as corn meal or corn flour. Undispersed grains require a full decoction (i.e. boil) to completely disperse their starches in the mash water, where flaked grains do not. Also discussed here, is the mashing of other cereal grains than corn.
All flaked grains can be mashed the same as flaked maize. Flaked maize was chosen as the example simply because corn is the subject matter of this text. Examples of other flaked grains that are used to make whiskey are: flaked rye; flaked wheat; flaked barley; and, flaked oats (i.e. rolled oats). Flaked oats (not popular as a whiskey grain) are called "rolled oats" and are probably never referred to as "flaked oats".
To mash cereal grains that are not flaked, they need to be boiled in order to disperse their starches in the mash water. To do this, the grain mash needs to be liquefied with some of the malt enzymes or the mash would turn to a thick porridge that would not boil but would burn on the bottom of the boiling vessel. Examples of widely used cereal grains for making whiskey are: corn meal; rye meal; wheat meal; and barley meal. The flour of the same grains can also be used, but requires mixing with cold water prior to adding to hot mash water to prevent clumping.
• a large plastic or wooden stirring spoon
• a floating dairy thermometer, graduated from 0oC to 110oC (32°F to 230°F)
• tincture of iodine
• measuring spoons
• 23L of fairly soft municipal tap water. E.g. hardness level of 4; almost no iron; 100 ppm calcium; pH 8.5.
• 7L cereal grain (e.g. cornmeal, rye meal, wheat meal)
• 11 L crushed 2-row or 6-row pale barley malt
Prepare 23L of pH 6 to 7 mash water as described in the chapter on Mashing. Turn the stove on high, cover the pot, and let the water heat up to the conversion strike temperature, 73oC (163oF). You will have to frequently stir the water thoroughly and measure the temperature as the water heats up until the strike temperature is reached.
When the water is at the strike temperature, turn off the heat, and stir in the cereal grain. The temperature should come to rest at about 66oC (151 oF) and the mash will become a thick porridge. At this point, it's only important that the mash is under 71oC (160oF). Next, stir in about 100-ml of the crushed barley malt. Cover the pot and leave it for about 20 minutes. It's helpful to stir the mash every few minutes.
At this point, the mash should be liquid and easy to stir. Turn the stove back on to high and stir continually while the heat is on to avoid scorching the grain on the bottom of the pot. It may be necessary to set the stove to a lower heat to avoid scorching if the pot doesn't have a thick aluminum plate bonded to the bottom. A mechanical stirring device is very helpful for this stage.
Continue heating and stirring until the mash comes to boil. This will take about 40 minutes with the stove set on high.
When the mash is boiling, cover the pot to the extent that it doesn't foam over, and leave to boil for about 20 or 30 minutes. If the pot is a pressure cooker, secure the lid in place as per the pressure cooker instructions. Under pressure, the mash will only require 10 or 15 minutes. There is no need to stir during the boil, as the rolling motion of the boil will rouse the mash enough to prevent scorching.
After the boil (or pressure cook), turn the heat off and allow the mash to cool, or force cool with an immersion chiller, to the conversion strike temperature, 66.5oC (152oF).
Next stir in the remainder of the 11L of crushed barley malt and the 5-ml (1-tsp) of gluco-amylase. The mash temperature should rest at about 65oC (149oF). Cover the mash pot and leave it for 90 minutes or longer to convert. It's helpful to stir the mash every 15 minutes or so during the 90-minute conversion rest. The mash can even be left for eight or ten hours (e.g. overnight) to cool to fermentation temperature (i.e. under 38oC (100oF)). An immersion chiller can be used to force cool the mash to fermentation temperature any time after the 90-minute conversion rest is complete.
After the conversion rest, the starches should be completely converted to sugars. This can be tested for by the iodine starch test described in the chapter on Mashing.
The mash is now ready for fermentation as per the chapter on Fermentation.
Millet is a cereal grain that is very commonly used in home whiskey making, and is contended by many distillers to make the best whiskey of all the grains. Millet is a very soft grain compared to the other grains discussed above, and for that reason doesn't require a full boil.
To mash millet, use millet meal and mash it by the same method described above for cereal grains, except that when the liquefied mash comes to boil, skip the 20 or 30-minute boil. The mash can then be cooled straight away to the conversion strike temperature and converted.
Another method is to bring the mash water to boil, turn the heat off, stir in the millet meal, and cool or force cool the mash to the conversion strike temperature. Then proceed as per the method for cereal grains.
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This formula is for those who feel that they have had their energy drained, taken, or withheld from them and are working toward re-establishing their sense of self. Borage essence gives us courage to take action, and Pine calls in self-forgiveness and rooted tenderness. Rosemary helps us return to the body in a way that feels grounded and empowered. Mullein draws scattered energy towards the center of our bodies, creating a focused strength from within. Rose is the warrior of the heart, helping us hold our blossoming selves with compassion and clear boundaries.
Suggested Use: 3-13 drops taken 3x a day taken on the tongue, in a glass of water, or in your bath.
Ingredients: Essences of Rose, Borage, Rosemary, and Mullein in a rose and honey brandy.
Meet the Maker: Liz Migliorelli, founder of Sister Spinster, is a western herbalist and magic maker who believes in affordable, accessible, community-based health care and the healing power of plants.


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Physics HL
Part of the IB subject group 4, Sciences, Physics HL is the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, as it seeks to explain the universe itself from the very smallest particles to the vast distances between galaxies.
Themes covered through the course
The course covers the following topics: physical measurement, mechanics, circular motion and gravitation, thermal physics, energy production, waves, electricity and magnetism, fields, electromagnetic induction, atomic, nuclear and particle physics, and quantum and nuclear physics.
This course also covers Option D: Astrophysics.
Activities and assessment
Students will undertake a variety of activities in the Physics course, ranging from classroom-based discussions, practical investigations and group work to online interactives, formative assignments and journals. Students are assessed through regular summative quizzes and teacher-graded/assessed assignments and activities. The course provides lessons and activities that support the externally assessed components of the program: Internal Assessment and Group 4 project. The course also provides an exam preparation unit to familiarise the students with the format of IB examinations and the cross-topic nature of questions.
Advice from our teachers
In order to succeed in Physics HL, we recommend students commit four hours per week. How much of the course material is covered in the classroom and how much via independent learning is flexible and to be decided by the school teacher.
Benefits to students
Taking Physics HL will enable students to:
- gain an understanding of the Physics principles underpinning both the physical environment in which we live and all biological systems
- develop their observational, analytical and collaborative skills
- consume course content outside of the classroom, including formative exercises and interactive activities
- become independent learners and develop time-management skills
- experience a wide range of online learning tools
Course availability
This course will be available for use by schools with enrolments from:
- August 2019 for May exam sessions
- January 2020 for November exam sessions
Next steps
Request a demo
Get in touch
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Watch our short video to find out how flexible School Taught courses are and how they could save your teachers time on course preparation.
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Apple iPad, Samsung Tablet Accessories online Online Electronics Shopping store in Qatar
No listings have been added yet. Post Free Classifieds ads on Qatar Mark Classifieds & Marketplace. Find Cars sale, Properties rentals, Qatar Jobs, Qatar online shopping stores, Cars showrooms, Real estate agents, Qatar top companies list & more on QatarMark.com


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For other uses, see Freeze.
The Freeze Arrow (フリーズアロー)was introduced in DDRMAX -Dance Dance Revolution 6thMIX- in 2001. It can be described as a long green arrow. These notes must be held its entire length in order to score points. Freeze Arrows can vary in length; they can be as short as a 64th note long (Trip Machine Jungle Mix X-Special would know about that!) or as long as a whole song (not that any freeze arrow in any official chart is that long). If held the entire length, an "O.K!" is awarded. If a Freeze Arrow is not held the entire length, then an "NG" (No Good) is given. Freeze Arrows add to the Freeze value on the Groove Radar.
If two Freeze Arrows appear simultaneously, jump and keep your feet on the corresponding panels.
Freeze Arrows have been worth different amounts since they were introduced.
DDRMAX→DDR EXTREMEEdit
In the Dance Point system, Freeze Arrows give 6 points for an O.K. and 0 (zero) points for a N.G. This may affect the grade a player receives on a song.
DDR SuperNOVAEdit
The number of Dance Points was changed in DDR SuperNOVA. An O.K. on a Freeze Arrow awards 2 Dance Points instead of 6. N.G.'s are still worth nothing.
DDR SuperNOVA2Edit
The Dance Point system was removed in DDR SuperNOVA2. An O.K. is worth the same amount as a Marvelous which is 1,000,000 / (number of notes [jumps are one step] + number of Freeze Arrows [a pair of Freeze Arrows with the same start and end are counted as one O.K])
DDR XEdit
The scoring is the same as SuperNOVA2 but now a N.G. scored on a Freeze Arrow breaks the current combo.
DDR X2→DDR (2013)Edit
Same scoring as DDR SuperNOVA2 and DDR X. In addition, during Extra Stage, if a N.G is scored on a Freeze Arrow, a life is lost. Also, N.G.'s count towards Misses in the results screen.
DDR HOTTEST PARTYEdit
The scoring is the same as in DDR EXTREME. Freeze Arrows are still counted as one.
DDR HOTTEST PARTY 2→HOTTEST PARTY 3Edit
Same as HOTTEST PARTY, except two Freeze Arrows are counted as separate items now.
DDR (2010)Edit
Instead of O.K.'s, Perfects are rewarded for successfully holding a Freeze Arrow. Freeze Arrows also give out misses if not held successfully. So, New York EVOLVED (Type A)'s maximum possible combo would be 573+85=658.
See DDR HOTTEST PARTY 2→HOTTEST PARTY 3. However, the N.G. judgment has been renamed to Not Quite.
DDR IIEdit
Same scoring as DDR SuperNOVA2 and DDR X. However, like with HOTTEST PARTY 2, Freeze Arrows are counted as separate items. N.G. is still Not Quite.


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Corporate site
We're creating a more connected travel industry, underpinned by sustainability and long-term investor relations.
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Press release
Amadeus and Air Canada today announce a contract extension that will see the airline continue to use Amadeus technology to power its consumer and agency websites. Under the terms of the new contract extension, Air Canada will continue to benefit from Amadeus' advanced technology to power its websites and the faring behind its global call-centre and airport operations.
• Contract extension follows a successful partnership which began in 2004 and has seen Air Canada develop one of the world's most advanced online strategies
• Air Canada will benefit from Amadeus' e-Retail Booking Engine, web design services and innovative Flex Pricer faring solution
Madrid, Spain/ Chicago, United States, 31 January 2011: Amadeus, a leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry, and Air Canada, the flag carrier and largest airline in Canada, today announce a contract extension that will see the airline continue to use Amadeus technology to power its consumer and agency websites.
Under the terms of the new contract extension, Air Canada will continue to benefit from Amadeus' advanced technology to power its websites and the faring behind its global call-centre and airport operations. With a strong presence across 15 countries, Air Canada has one of the world's most innovative online strategies that include flexible travel date searches, 'a la carte' ancillary services, third party ancillary products, such as insurance, and online services including re-booking and upgrades.
Air Canada's website, aircanada.com, also offers innovative pricing that allows customers to customise their travel experience by choosing only the options that they wish to pay for. At the same time, the flexibility of Amadeus' e-Retail booking engine and Flex Pricer faring allows Air Canada to provide total transparency to its travellers and simultaneously increase yield for the airline.
Lise Fournel, CIO, Air Canada, commented: "We have worked in close partnership with Amadeus since 2004 and its flexible approach has allowed us to bring new technologies and techniques to market for the benefit of our customers. By extending our relationship further, we plan to continue our leading role in e-Commerce, developing new techniques and applying the latest technology to meet our commercial objectives - whilst offering an intuitive online experience for our customers."
Dwayne Ingram, Executive Vice President Americas, Amadeus commented: "Air Canada has demonstrated its commitment to innovating online since the early days of the commercial internet. The pace of innovation is paramount for all airlines in order to bring airline brands to new markets, improve online sales and exceed the expectations of increasingly sophisticated online shoppers."
He continued: "Amadeus has worked side by side with Air Canada during the implementation of online enhancements including ancillary service sales and advanced merchandising techniques. We are fully committed to continuing this work and being flexible when supporting Air Canada's future objectives."
Amadeus provides e-Commerce technology to over 70% of the world's top 25 airlines. During 2009 Amadeus' e-Commerce Solutions generated approximately €10 billion of revenue for airlines.
Air Canada is Canada's largest domestic and international full-service airline providing scheduled and charter air transportation for passengers and cargo to more than 170 destinations on five continents. Canada's flag carrier is the 15th largest commercial airline in the world, serves 31 million customers annually and is a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's most comprehensive air transportation network serving 1,167 destinations in 181 countries.
Air Canada recently won five top honours in Business Traveler's "Best in Business Travel" award programme including Best Airline Web Site. This is the most first place awards won by any airline in the world in the influential magazine's annual reader survey..
- ends -
Notes to the editors
Amadeus is a leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry.
Customer groups include travel providers (e.g airlines, hotels, rail, car rental, ferries, etc.), travel sellers (travel agencies and websites), and travel buyers (corporations and individual travellers).
The group operates a transaction-based business model and processed more than 670 million billable travel transactions in 2009.
Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters and marketing), Nice (development) and Erding (Operations – data processing centre) and regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires, Bangkok and Dubai. At a market level, Amadeus maintains customer operations through 72 local Amadeus Commercial Organisations covering 195 countries.
Amadeus is listed on the Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia stock exchanges and trades under the symbol "AMS.MC". For the year ended 31 December 2009, the company reported revenues of EUR 2,461 million and EBITDA of EUR 894 million. The Amadeus group employs over 10,200 employees worldwide, with 123 nationalities represented at the central offices.
To find out more about Amadeus please visit www.amadeus.com
To visit the Amadeus Investor Relations centre please visit www.investors.amadeus.com
Contact details
Corporate Communication
tel: +34 91 582 0160
fax : +34 91 582 0188
e-mail : firstname.lastname@example.com


text: This chair is specifically designed for Ford, Chevy and Dodge Class C Motorhomes and Vans. Our Captains Chairs offer you the finest in automotive styling and ergonomic comfort. The cushioning is made of high resiliency polyurethane foams, which provide an even distribution of pressure for extended riding comfort. The 517 style offers a firmer, more lateral seat for those who prefer more solid support.