Saturday, November 02, 2013

Training.

11/2 - hyperextensions, lunges, leg press, leg extensions, leg curls, hip thrusts, calf press -- light stretching

Fighting a sore throat, a pulled lower back, elbow tendonitis and some kind of minor flu bug.  Help me out, Morgan Freeman.
Thank you, sir.


Friday, November 01, 2013

Today's Internets - "Boop."


"Fatima’s psychic studio, which has been offering a Romani form of fortune-telling to tourists for two decades, was caught violating a city ordinance which states that psychics may only forecast the future and read the past. Warding off evil spirits and protecting patrons from bad auras is strictly forbidden...

In response to the allegations, Christian Day, a local warlock who owns two fortune-telling shops and has appeared on Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, said: If they’re a fraud, then we’re all frauds, and all religion is a fraud. They’re not regulating the priest who absolves you of your sins and tells you to put some money in the collection basket, or the old lady who sends all her money to Pat Robertson."


Hey look!  Stupid, completely unnecessary rule finally ended.  Now let us all thank them for years of enforcing a policy which was arbitrary nonsense. The Use of Approved Electronic Devices Is Now Permitted - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
 "Was there any real basis for this concern about interference to begin with? In a 2012 survey of people who had flown in the previous year, 40 percent admitted that they had left their electronic devices on throughout the flight, while 7 percent said they had not even bothered to put their phones in airplane mode... even though many passengers have routinely disobeyed the restrictions on electronic devices for many years, as far as I can tell no one has ever cited an actual mishap related to such infractions. The ban on using phones for voice communication remains in place, but there does not seem to be a safety rationale for that rule either."



"It’s almost impressive how comprehensive the federal system’s technical failures are. Just about every part of the system that has been reported on seems to have problems, many of which are quite serious."


"I like a little whiskey. It’s got the nice burn going down, and then the warm belly. Then I’m invincible, too, that’s also a great thing about it, is that nothing can hurt me and I know everything." — Paul F. Tompkins

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Today's Internets - "He-Man is more powerful than Jesus Christ."










"Alyssa Milano was on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and she confirmed that she made a sex tape. At first, she tells Ferguson she destroyed it ("burned it"), but then admits that it might be out there somewhere. She says it was in her early 20s. So if you had sex with Alyssa Milano between December 19th, 1992 and December 18th, 1997, please collect all your VHS tapes and begin throwing them in and pressing fast forward until you find it. If you do not have a VHS player, here is a link to every VHS player available on Ebay. They are inexpensive and this is your civic duty."


Religion in the 1980s and its particular variation of being totally fucking nuts.  Remember kids, Yoda has three fingers, which means Satan is Lord. -  Seven insane minutes of people explaining how '80s toys are satanic
"Dear fellow children of the '80s — remember how we all turned into Satanists? If only we had listened to author Phil Phillips and Pastor Gary Greenwald back then, two men who realized the demonic agenda in everything from He-Man to the Smurfs. Someone assembled this video of their greatest hits, and it is mesmerizing. My favorite bits: Darth Vader looks almost exactly like the Norse god Odin • Dungeons & Dragons "game pieces" scream when you set them on fire! • Smurfs are blue with black lips... just like corpses..."






Robin seems different.  Donnah Pham - Timeline Photos
"Hello to Batman's new sidekick!! Happy Halloween everyone!!!"

Batman approves.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Training.

10/31 - hyperextensions, deadlifts*, pulldowns, seated rows, barbell curls -- chins

*Had to call it a day on deads after my first work set.  Tweaked my lower back doing squats last week, thought moving deads & squats til the end of this week, working lots of hypers and a good warmup would make it okay... but it was clear that after that first work set I was aggravating it and making it worse.  Also means squats are probably out for tomorrow.  Bah.  Hammer the assistance/accessory work and try to heal up.




Today's Internets - "Teenagers aren't Rated TEEN."

And never have been.  Via Kieron Gillen @Another Way To Breathe



"You realize how much better the world would be if we all just treated each other the way black dudes treated magicians?"

"...for those who wonder what it might be like in a nightmare world without efficient and sensible state-provided justice protecting our lives and property...

...while the department has deemphasized homicide investigations, it has made drug cases — including minor drug arrests — its top priority. OPD's crime lab, in fact, has no backlog for narcotics evidence and processes 95 percent of all suspected drug cases within 24 hours, while allowing homicide case evidence to languish for years without being examined."



Yeah, this is like a face tattoo.  You've got to be all in.



I still miss The Secret Six.


Training.

10/30 - hyperextensions, db curl, drag curl, 21s, concentration curls, wrist curls, rv wrist curls, wrist roller, calf raise, kneeups, ab wheel, hip thrust, band pullaparts

10/29 - 45m foam rolling



This is impressive as hell for a guy who's primarily a bodybuilder.

Ross Enamait is a BEAST.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Today's Internets - "I don't want your future."

"Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." - Rainer Maria Rilke








San Diego Police About to Teach Local Teens How Awful Authorities Are in Sexting Case - Hit & Run : Reason.com
"Taking naked selfies on your smartphone and then sending them out through texts can lead to personal and professional problems. The police in San Diego want to make sure teenagers understand this. So, in order to ‘teach’ minors not to sext naked photos to each other, they’re going to reach out and destroy some lives. NBC’s San Diego affiliate reports:
 San Diego police say criminal charges will be filed in a sexting ring involving dozens of students from several high schools and one middle school...

These pictures are considered child pornography, so imagine what might happen to whomever the police arrests. Furthermore, according to the NBC report, there’s no hacking or coercion going on here. The girls sent out the naked pics themselves."




Today's Internets - "The grumpier you are..."






"In a recent article, "Evaluation of Very Large Treatment Effects of Medical Interventions," in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ioannidis and his colleagues combed through 85,000 medical interventions collected in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews seeking to uncover highly effective treatments. What they found is that treatments that supposedly produce very large benefits (odds ratio greater than 5) were almost always found initially in small studies and that when they were replicated in larger studies the benefits became relatively modest. In the end only one treatment was found to provide a major benefit, e.g., supplying extracorporeal oxgyen to premature babies with severe respiratory failure. Last year, Nature reported the shocking finding that nine out of 10 preclinical peer-reviewed cancer research studies cannot be replicated."


"There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias."



"“Free speech is important, but…” Oh no. Here we go again. This time, the issue is the criminalization of revenge porn. Much of the media narrative characterizes revenge porn as a new, runaway technological scourge too disruptive to be fall under any existing law, but that is simply untrue. A number of legal remedies against both vengeful exes and website operators already exist: civil tort actions, DMCA takedowns, criminal statutes against extortion, and even a federal law that could give the FBI authority to go after the sites...

The exploitation of women and children has always been the Trojan horse of internet regulation, from the now old-and-venerable Communications Decency Act of 1996, to more recent attempts like the ridiculous and ineffectual California ballot initiative Proposition 35 (which attempted to address human trafficking by, among other things, requiring registered sex offenders to disclose their internet handles to the authorities). At each turn, such efforts have been confronted with the inconvenient existence of the First Amendment...

The point is that a new criminal statute paves another way to put a human life on hold and a human body in prison...  There are unintended consequences to overbroad laws, and failing to take that into consideration when advocating for increased criminal liability is irresponsible...

We do not need to choose between the internet and women, or between free speech and feminism. These are false and unnecessary dichotomies. Refusing to criminalize revenge porn would not make us misogynists. It would instead make us prudent."



Monday, October 28, 2013

Today's Internets - What's Your Excuse?


A 'bully'? What soft-headed, nonsensical, weak-willed whinging. - Exercise-loving mom Maria Kang branded a 'bully' | Mail Online:

From the comments:

"Ridiculous how many crybabies are out there. Excuse me for not considering your sense of self-worth while I strive to be healthier."

"...exactly what part of "i'm a healthy mother of 3" is offensive and hurtful?"

"The funny part, is this picture was on HER facebook page. It wasn't on a billboard, or a magazine ad. It wasn't forced on anyone that didn't want or need to see it. These people went out of their way to go to HER page to offend themselves."


"I have just read 'Back to Normal: Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior Is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder,' by a psychologist, Enrico Gnaulati, who works with children alleged to have psychological problems in school, usually meaning boys...

...they have turned normal boyish behavior, such as enjoyment of rough-housing, into psychiatric “personality disorders.” They are doping boys up, forcing them into behavior utterly alien to them, and sending them to psychiatrists if they don´t conform to standards of behavior suited to girls. The result is that boy children hate school and do poorly (despite, as Gnaulati, says, having higher IQs). This is no secret for anyone paying attention, but  Gnaulati  makes it explicit. As a galling example he cites one Robert, an adolescent responding badly to classes and therefore suspected by his teacher of having a “personality disorder.”  From the book:

“She required all forty students in the class to design Valentine’s Day cards for each other. She was emphatic about wanting them personalized. Names had to be spelled correctly and compliments written up genuinely.” Valentines? This was eight-grade English. Students, who by then once knew grammar cold, should be reading literature or learning to write coherently. In my eighth-grade class, we read Julius Caesar: “I want the men around me to be fat, healthy-looking men who sleep at night.” Valentines? Compliments? This, the author assures the reader, did not take place in an asylum for the mildly retarded, but in one of the ten best high-schools in California. What must the rest be like? Of course Robert was having trouble putting up with the girly drivel, this feminized ooze, devoid of academic content. ”Oooooh! Let´s have a warm, emotional bonding experience...

In the schools this means that wrestling and dodge ball are violence, that tag might lead to a fall and scraped knees, that a little boy who draws a soldier with a rifle is a dangerous psychopath in the making. This is hysteria. (Stray thought: If I wanted to create a murderous psycho, I would Ritalinate him into a little speed freak, repress his every instinct, and humiliate him by having the police drag him away. It would work like a charm. In his trial, his defense would be justifiable sociopathy.)

...everything becomes a “disorder.” Among these absurdities are things ilk Intermittent Explosive Disorder (appropriately, IED), and Temper Irregulation Disorder. These disorders have only been discovered since women took over the schools.

...women simply dislike men. Saying this causes eruptions of denials. If you believe these, I´d like you to meet my friend Daisy Lou the Tooth Fairy. Check the endless portrayal on television of men as fools and swine...  In the schools this hostility takes the form of the passive aggression behind the predatory niceness. “We´re boring him to death, keeping him miseable, and sending him for psychiatric reprogramming because we care so much about him.” Uh, yeah...

 Outside of the US, fewer women buy this. My stepdaughter Natalia, Mexican, is working on a degree in clinical psychology, and sees students—read “boys”—sent to her by teachers to determine whether they have ADHD. “They don´t have ADHS,” she says. “They´re bored.”"




I sense... deception.