Octopodial Chrome

In Britain 46% of families have only one child. This is a truly disturbing development, not just for demographics but for the moral and ethical development of future British subjects. I know from my own experience as an only child and as the oldest of four just how important it is to have siblings (and not just one: there’s a clear difference between those who only had a single brother or sister and those with several). You’re forced to learn how to tolerate others; you’re forced to learn that you’re not the centre of the universe; you’re forced to deal with your parents not always paying attention to you. These are all Good Things.

Plus, of course, there’s nothing better as an adult than spending time with one’s siblings.

I was unable to run yesterday due to the blizzard. Instead, I used my push-up program as a guide for chin-ups, using the very lowest level of 13 chin-ups in sets of 2, 3, 2, 2 and 4. Today I did 112 push-ups in sets of 13, 13, 15, 15, 12, 12, 10 & 22 (should have been 30) and 177 sit-ups in sets of 18, 18, 22, 22, 18, 18, 15 & 46. Tomorrow I’m going to be doing a max test to see how I shake out.

I did 92 push-ups in sets of 18, 20, 14, 16 & 25. Was supposed to get up to 40 on that last set, but it simply wasn’t happening. I may have to repeat this week.

Then I did 214 sit-ups in sets of 27, 27, 30, 30, 21, 21, 24 & 34. Should have gotten to 60, but as above it wasn’t happening. Will probably repeat this week.

I’m a day late posting this. Went out running yesterday just as the cold snap hit. Not at all fun. Also, I forgot to turn my phone on when I started. If my first ½ mile was like the rest, I turned in a fairly shabby 24-minute 2½ mile run. Kinda a bummer, since I’d done so well Saturday and Monday.

I won’t be able to run tomorrow due to the snow (we’re in the middle of a blizzard), so maybe I’ll do some other exercise instead.

Two days late on my update. I did a mere 48 push-ups today, in sets of 28 and then 20—and then I simply could do no more. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I was bombing out so really, really horribly (for reference, on Thursday less than a week ago I could do 140). Then I realised: I’ve been doing pull-ups, chin-ups and that thing in between with the hands perpendicular to the body all day long: my arms are worn out.

I’m a moron.

Then I proceeded to do 231 sit-ups in sets of 54, 52, 38, 33 and 54.

Charles Fountain has a great article on how subsidised spring training is basically welfare for wealthy teams. Yes, there is a positive impact to communities where spring training takes place (after all, the rich players come into town and spend money, and so do ball fans who want to see them), but is it worth the cost? Moreover, what’s the opportunity cost of that tax-based investment in spring training subsidies? Could that money be better spent by the communities themselves? Could it be better spent by the individual taxpayers? I can’t help but think that would be the case. For one thing, not all taxpayers care about sports; perhaps they would rather spend their money on ballet or opera. Or maybe just food.

Charles Murray argues that it’s a good thing that America has not followed Europe’s example. I tend to agree: my perception of Europe is that is a once-great but now-hollow civilisation, unable even to maintain itself, much less spread its ideals. It’s sad, really.

The Guardian uses lots of free software to run their website. Recently, they discovered a bug, tracked it down, fixed it and submitted the patch to the developers. Were it proprietary software, they would have discovered it, but would have been unable to track it down or fix it, and the odds are that their vendor would not have considered it a high priority.

Free software rocks.

I think most of us remember the cool Mandelbrot set images that were popular back in the ’90s. Well, this guy is generating Mandelbrot images as ASCII art. Geeky and fun.

Warning: do not view the source in your browser. It is huge.

I didn’t update (or exercise) on Friday, since I knew that I’d be PTing during drill on Saturday and wanted to be rested & ready. Which I was, managing to do more sit-ups and run longer than the rest. Saturday’s PT was tough: it was lots of warm-up stuff (which burns energy, obviously), plus a mini-PRT with push-ups, sit-ups and running, plus a whole bunch of stretches and yoga. The best thing I can say about it is that—as hard as it was—I was in no pain at all on Sunday: that’s how good the stretch regimen was. LTJG Benham knows what she’s doing.

Today I ran 2½ miles, with these times: ½ mile, 4:12; 1 mile, 8:11; 1½ miles, 12:32; 2 miles, 17:24; 2½ miles, 21:39. I then walked a further ½ mile; by the end of this week I’d like to be jogging it a bit, and next week I’d like to increase my run to 3 miles.

I also bought a pull-up bar and got a push-up aid for free through my company’s award programme. We’ll see if either is useful.

I recently discovered Craiglook, a mashup which adds a nifty search interface to Craigslist. For example, all bikes for sale within 20 miles of Denver. Might be more useful than the normal Craigslist.

Ugh…managed a very difficult 140 push-ups (25, 29, 25, 25 & 36) and ended up only managing 66 sit-ups in sets of 36 and 30. I really wish I knew why my performance is reversing itself. Diet maybe? Time of day?

Today I decided to do something different: instead of pacing myself to run 2½ miles, I ran the best 1½ mile time I could, then ran/walked the rest of the way. I managed half a mile in 4:11, 1 mile in 8:28, 1½ miles in 12:45, 2 miles in 18:54 and 2½ miles in 24:44. Not too bad, considering that I had worn myself out a mile previously.

I spent the past weekend in Telluride, staying at the nicest home I’ve ever been in ever. It’s owned by some real estate tycoon from Florida; my buddy Martin’s sister is friends with the woman who designed the interior of his mansion in Telluride Mountain Village, and he liked her work enough to let her use the house. To use it for free. A house which normally goes on the market for a max of $12,500 a night. This is the sort of place that some of the bigger celebrities stay at, and we were there.

It was nice, very nice. Really nice. Really incredibly nice.

To start off with, it’s huge (17,300 sq. foot interior, 3,000 sq. foot exterior, over an acre lot). It’s surprisingly cool to just have space for stuff. And all that space is definitely full of stuff: there’s a game room with pool and poker and backgammon tables; there’s a grotto with two pools and a waterfall; there’s a widescreen TV in every bedroom and most other rooms (complete with a library of thousands of DVDs); there’s even a stocked wine cellar. The kitchen is enormous, with four ovens. Oh, there’s also a private theatre in the basement with an excellent sound system (I watched Top Gun).

This place is so large that the kids could be in one end of the house playing in the grotto while the rest of us were lounging in the den listening to classic rock and no-one was bothered in one direction or another.

I have to say that the interior designer was brilliant: the house is extremely attractive and does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century park lodge, which was the owner’s intention.

All in all, it was one of the most fun, most luxurious weekends I’ve ever spent. I want to do it again this weekend!

No updates for a few days, as I've been out of town (about which more later). While I was out I went cross-country skiing every day: it's supposed to be an extremely good workout, so I did that instead of my usual exercises. Today I resumed my usual exercises, repeating last week; thus I did 120 push-ups in sets of 21, 25, 21, 21 & 32 and 184 sit-ups in sets of 32, 38, 32, 32 & 50.

CNN has discovered probiotics (that is, supplements of beneficial microbes). It seems to me that rather than taking supplements of saccharomyces cerebisiæ boulardii, one could just drink beer brewed with it; rather than taking supplements of lactobacillus acidophilus one could just eat sauerkraut. Or pickles. Or sauerkraut and pickles. With sausages (dry sausages are alive—how many people know that?). And a beer.

Or you could, you know, pop pills. ’Cause that’s healthy.

Writing on ethnonationalism, Jerry Z. Muller raises a really interesting point: we tend nowadays to regard nationalism as outdated and discredited, but in Europe it won. From the multi-ethnic British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires have emerged relatively homogeneous nation-states, and in fact there are now only two European states without a dominant nationality: Switzerland and Belgium.

A really, really good and thought-provoking read. The US, of course, is predominantly American, which is to say English-speaking, more-or-less theoretically Christian, paying at least lip service to liberty, but each of those attributes is rapidly changing: we’ve a growing non-English subclass; our churches are emptying but atheism is by no means dominant enough to be the state religion—and liberty has few friends these days. I wonder what that bodes for our future.

I did 122 push-ups today, in sets of 21, 25, 21, 21 & 34. Then I did 182 sit-ups in sets of 32, 38, 32, 32 & 48. Ouch.

I ran 2½ miles today; times were: ½ mile, 4:19; one mile, 8:51; 1½ miles, 13:16; two miles, 18:54; 2½ miles, 23:36. Oddly, I ran slower than I ran/walked last Friday. Maybe it was the cold? Or maybe I’m just an old man…every day I seem to run more slowly.

Today I did 124 push-ups in sets of 22, 30, 20, 20 & 32. I also did 181 sit-ups in sets of 33, 42, 30, 30 & 46.

Today I ran two miles and ran/walked another half mile. Times: half a mile, 4:17; mile, 8:48; 1½ miles, 13:18; two miles 18:56; 2½ miles, 23:34. I think maybe next week I’ll be able to run the entire two and a half miles. Then I need to start working back up to three miles…

Today I did 106 push-ups, in sets of 20, 25, 20 (because I misread the sheet—there’s a lesson there!), 15 & 26. I then did 154 sit-ups, in sets of 30, 38, 23, 23 & 40. I hurt. A lot. I can’t wait until I look back on this as easy.

I just discovered this list of Anglo-Saxon words for computer terms. I wish that my old professor Raymond Tripp were alive to enjoy it, but that’s not to be. Some gems:

anchor

ancor

anonymous

uncuðlic

uncouthly

automatic

selffremmende

self-performing

bandwidth

bendbradnes

band-broadness

bells and whistles

belle and hwistle

binary

twirimlic

two-rim-ly

bug

wyrm

cable

wir, rap

wire, wrap

data

giefe

To get this, you have to know that data is something which is given in Latin…

database

gifhord

givehoard…I like that

debug

wyrmbeslean

wyrm-slaying…need I say more?

digital

fingerlic

fingerly

drag and drop

dragan and dreopan

our language really hasn’t changed all that much in a thousand years…and any German-speaker knows what those -an endings mean…

foo

nathwæt

Not-known? Or does it mean something else entirely? Regardless, I want to use it once or twice, just to annoy people.

homepage

hamleaf

home-lead

screen

leohtspeccabord

light-speckle-board?

session

gesittungwhil

while-sitting

site license

stowgeleafe

place-leave

All in all, some really good stuff. But then, I’m a language geek…

Well, that title is a bit alarmist, but it’s true: Excel corrupts gene names and Riken identifiers in spreadsheets. I have to ask: if you’re doing anything important, why are you using Microsoft software to do it?

Today I ran two miles in 18:21, which is pretty lame, albeit within reason for one of my age. I’d like to knock three minutes off of that, but we’ll see how long that takes. My split distances and times were: half a mile, 4:17; one mile, 8:43; 1½ miles, 13:11 (just out of good-high range for the PRT, two miles, 18:21. I’ll do better on Friday!

I got lazy last fall: once it got too cold to run, I quit running (which makes some sense) and then quit doing sit-ups and push-ups indoors (which makes no sense, and is sheer laziness). Well, I'm getting back into shape now and to keep myself honest I thought it might be useful to blog my progress. It's a bit embarrassing how out-of-shape I am, but

The advice I've seen is not to do the same stuff two days in a row, but instead to alternate. So on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I run according to an approved programme and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I do push-ups and sit-ups.

I ran two miles yesterday. Didn't track my time; tomorrow I'll bring my mobile phone along and use its stopwatch and see how I'm doing. Pretty badly, I suspect. Today I did Week 3, Day 1: sets of 14, 18, 14, 14 & 24 push-ups, for a total of 84. I then did the same for sit-ups: sets of 21, 27, 21, 21 & 41. Here's looking forward to Thursday!

Behold the fundamental building blocks of awesome. It’s all there, from the basis of all awesome—bacon—through beer, to sausage, to ninjas, Chuck Norris, grenades and trilobites (my favourite fossil).

Me, I think if we can get our top scientists working on combining whiskey (distilled beer), aliens, a catapult, three motorcycles and Samuel L. Jackson with a mohawk then we might possibly transcend the awesome continuum and usher in the Age of Awesomosity. Or something.

James Bach recently had a disturbing experience: the human being he chatted with over a computer seemed to be a robot due to an inflexible script. This serves as a reminder to me about the importance of flexibility in our processes. In this case the human beings used to communicate with customers are held to such a strong script that they might as well be computers. Why use humans then?

I recently had a similar experience with a state-funded, university-run telephone survey. They were asking questions about smoking but the questions fundamentally didn’t apply. I was asked if I’d smoke in the last 30 days. As it happened, I had not. Then I was asked if I’d tried to quit in the last 30 days. Ummm, I hadn’t smoked. But when I pointed this out, the questioner just asked the question again. That telephone survey was extremely poorly done in other ways (biased and slanted questions, making false conclusions from faulty assumptions and so forth), but that’s something I’d meant to blog about earlier. In this case, the problem could have been avoided by simply allowing the woman on the other end of the phone to use the brain God gave her.

If you’re going to use human beings, let them use their judgement; if you don’t want judgement, use computers. A man should never do what a computer can do; a computer should never do what a man must do.