Here is a very interesting talk, that I think has a lot of insight to offer about spontaneous communities.
Talk by Dan Pink regarding what rewards creative/helpful behaviors.


Purpose... who'd a thunk it?

PS. I am sorry for your losses regarding friends. I didn't quite understand the obituary comment until now.

No worries. I keep two of them alive with my sig line quotes. A lot of people here still miss a guy named dyslexia, too.

I listened to the talk (had to multitask) and I agree with the idea of an overarching purpose. It does make sense, kinda like an electronic version of barn raising, I suppose.

I have a 5k this morning. There is still snow on the ground. It will be a mucho muddy day, methinks.

I hope your run went well
I ran a 5k once with my girlfriend.
I emphasize ONCE.

Well, I was dead last but that's nothing new. It was fucking COLD. And I use that adverb as there really is no other way to describe it. I also get pain in I think it's the adductor (inner thigh - perhaps that's the abductor?) and need to work on that some more as that is one consequence of such things.

For such a race, really, the best finish line would've been straight to the back of a van to take us all to a mental institution. It was nutty, but at least I had on tights under my shorts, and I had on long sleeves, 2 pairs of socks, a hoodie, a wool hat and convertible gloves. There were people wearing just shorts and tees, but at least no one was barefoot for this one (and I have seen that - I'm worried enough about broken glass or rocks to never do that). But through it all, I shaved off over 4 minutes in my overall time. W00t on toast.

Next one is April 27th.

Congrats on your finish.
That I believe would be your adductor.

I use this pneumonic to help remember. When you add things you bring them together. When you abduct you separate (like abducting a child).
My girlfriend is an athletic trainer with a 4 year degree in the subject. She could tell you more than you'd ever want to know on such things. She mostly trains and teaches yoga now.
Let me know if you ever want her more professional advice on such things.

Regarding barefoot running, I read Born to Run a few years ago.
That book, I think, is responsible for some of the current popularity.
I read the book because I was dating an obsessive marathon runner at the time.
She was a little kooky in more ways than one. The book is eh... in my opinion, but he does mention some interesting anthropological theories.
Such as the prevalence of persistence hunting in some tribal groups.
The evidence is a little lacking however in terms of this being an ancient adaptation influencing our anatomy/physiology.
But hey, it sells books.
Hope it doesn't lacerate too many toes.

Zactly (and thanks for the memory device - you definitely have the right body part). Yeah, lacerated toes - this barefoot business is lovely if you're not running alongside a highway in Cambridge where people occasionally toss beer bottles.

And, thank you. I don't have another one for a while, so I have a chance to improve or at least prevent backsliding. I had so many years of being in really lousy shape that I think my body wants to ask, WTF are you doing? half the time. See, I remember being winded climbing one flight of stairs, and having issues walking around the fairly long block, and the seatbelt in my car getting to be too short for me.

Things are better now but alas, as I have said, I am not a delicate little flower. I suspect the central European genes prevent me from being a tiny thing. A family reunion, particularly on my mother's side, really shows the heft. Whether it's heredity or it's how we all learned to cook and eat, I have no idea. Perhaps it's a combination. I don't blame my childhood for my choices and I can't change my genes. I work with what I've got.

My MD finds it amusing. My BMI is still obese but my pressure, pulse and cholesterol are awesome, and I work out a lot more than many of her patients who are half my age and weight. She compared my resting heart rate to Ted Williams' during his prime. It turns out I have a small kink in my left circumflex artery. It apparently keeps my pressure down (and I can sometimes get vasovagal responses if I don't have enough water or salt in me).

Not bad for 50.

I wouldn't base too much prognosis in a BMI. Especially in women this may be a very limited measure of overall health.
Regarding body image. There is a series of talks given by the Media Education Foundation.
I am typing on my android operating system phone.
I will see if I can find the videos I forced each of my sisters to watch at one time or another.... usually multiple times.
3 sisters (14, 22, 23).

Full documentary:
http://documentarylovers.net/killing-us-softly-4-advertising-women/

Thank you for that. These days, I mainly cite BMI as a rough estimate, particularly for the young girls who come on here and are perhaps 97 lbs. and are 5'9" and think they should be dieting - there does seem to be some value in appealing to even a flawed authority, to try to show them that they are not being healthy and they don't need to lose weight.

I well recall Cindy Crawford first hitting the scene - it was in the SI Swimsuit Edition if I recall correctly (maybe 1982?) and she had a mole! She had a freakin' imperfection! Hallelujah! It was something that us normal folk can look at and say, this is the real thing, even as the rest of it isn't.

Cybill Shepherd had her own sitcom for a while, and she played an aging actress, pretty close in age then to what I am now. She got herself a modeling gig for a billboard, selling sneakers. And her figure was airbrushed. So she and her pal (Christine Baranski) mounted a scaffold in the middle of the night and painted on her extra (real ) avoirdupois.


The hostility that women express at each other, particularly about weight, can be rather disconcerting. Wendie Jo Sperber was the star of a short-lived sitcom called Babes where she and two other actresses were sisters living together in the big city but they were all overweight. And she was in a locker room where young, thin model types were looking down their noses at her, and she told them, "You could be heavy. Anyone can. Look at Elizabeth Taylor." And it wasn't perfect, but the message was, even your beauty won't necessarily save you. I'm not so sure how I feel about that.

I could not find the actual scene, but am certain this was the first part of the same episode.

As usual, I am babbling, but the point, I think, is that we currently really chew women up and spit them out. I see body part ads all the time, and they kinda freak me out these days, particularly extreme close ups. It's all the perfection but it's also the slicing and dicing of human beings. The nose is good, but the ass isn't, etc. We're people, not items on a Chinese menu.

I've been busy with a move.
I dont mean to ignore. Internet access is less than reliable right now.

No rush - life's been nutty here, too.

Count me in as a member of your humble army of anti-nihilists. I detest the Ideal within the mind of someone who wishes and believes that the universe will ultimately all come down to absolute nothing. If all that we experience and know as our reality, however poorly, came from nothing, then it is quite obvious to me that nothing was quite upset with its condition, for it would not have gone to so much effort to produce something like this reality that we experience. Nihilists have a self-defeating, contradictory philosophy. To be a true nihilist one must be willing to be open to Everything. Only Something has the Power of Negation. Negation in itself has no power over itself. It is the absence of Life. Thus, nihilists are truly advocating that we adopt the position of abstaining and denying life.

I suppose then I must be a heretic from a nihilist perspective when I listen to classical music, and get a sense of enjoyment and peaceful contemplation over a piece of music I've never heard before. And also, when I eat ice cream with Jello, or open a bag of Lays chips.

Nihilists are very boring people.