Supersets 3 x 10 + 10
Front squats with uncrossed arms 60kg + touch floor tuck jumps
Did front squats properly 50kg will go up next time.
and there is stopped. Dizzy and locally sore head. Seizure on the way, not happy.
28 November 2013
26 November 2013
Intervals 26-Nov-2013
Well I was able to give more with my legs not being as tired as last week, delayed squats session to go to a Narnia experience with family.
This meant my legs felt it less and my lungs had unreasonable demands placed on them. Despite this the session was fairly consistent which I was pleased with.
Meaningless stats below. Pleased with this and going to suffer for it, as I deserve.
3.5 miles in 32:28 average pas 6.48mph.
This meant my legs felt it less and my lungs had unreasonable demands placed on them. Despite this the session was fairly consistent which I was pleased with.
Meaningless stats below. Pleased with this and going to suffer for it, as I deserve.
3.5 miles in 32:28 average pas 6.48mph.
25 November 2013
Running 25-Nov-2013
Cool clear air, still aching a bit from deadlifts but nothing at all major.
Run was hard work but the result feels so worth it. Still may get an 8mph by the end of the year.
5.38 miles in 40:50 7.9mph so close, would need to be around 30 seconds quicker.
Run was hard work but the result feels so worth it. Still may get an 8mph by the end of the year.
5.38 miles in 40:50 7.9mph so close, would need to be around 30 seconds quicker.
23 November 2013
Deadlift 23-Nov-2013
Using super sets first two batches 3 x 10 + 10 then something different to finish.
Deadlifts with walk handles 60kg + narrow grip chins
High pulls with fat grips 50kg + seated row 60kg
Deadlift switching through all 4 grips 3 x 20 (5 on each grip)
Deadlifts with walk handles 60kg + narrow grip chins
High pulls with fat grips 50kg + seated row 60kg
Deadlift switching through all 4 grips 3 x 20 (5 on each grip)
22 November 2013
Running 22-Nov-2013
Better than yesterday, legs felt like they would move voluntarily this time.
Really starting to doubt the distances though as yesterday and today should be the same, as with every standard run I do.
5.44 miles in 42:33 pace 7.67mph
Really starting to doubt the distances though as yesterday and today should be the same, as with every standard run I do.
5.44 miles in 42:33 pace 7.67mph
Bench 21-Nov-2013
Supersets 3 x 10 + 10 on first 2 pairs, and like the squats session the title exercise is notable by it's absence.
Incline bench 60kg + alternate kettle shoulder press 16kg
Alternate push throughs on suspension trainer + standing overhead extensions 20kg disc
Press ups totally clean and strict 3 x 20
Incline bench 60kg + alternate kettle shoulder press 16kg
Alternate push throughs on suspension trainer + standing overhead extensions 20kg disc
Press ups totally clean and strict 3 x 20
21 November 2013
Running 21-Nov-2013
Not a happy bunny. Gave it all but was seriously shattered and didn't have enough to give. There are excuses, seizure on the way, previous training but the first doesn't usually affect running and the latter is just something I refuse to accept anyway.
Would have been less unhappy if gave all and got a good pace but I didn't so cheesed off.
5.37 miles in 43:07 pace 7.47mph.
Would have been less unhappy if gave all and got a good pace but I didn't so cheesed off.
5.37 miles in 43:07 pace 7.47mph.
19 November 2013
Intervals 19-Nov-2013
Ideal weather, cool clear some icy patches but nothing to make it unsafe.
End of 7th interval feeling like this may be a bad idea, end of 9th nice stitch that took most of the 2 minute recovery to fade, the final recovery meant that I was still shattered for about half the cool down jog back.
Thoroughly enjoyed it and logging the summary, even though it means nothing of course. Speed spikes showed more consistancy than before which has to be good I guess.
3.45 miles in 32:22 average 6.39mph
End of 7th interval feeling like this may be a bad idea, end of 9th nice stitch that took most of the 2 minute recovery to fade, the final recovery meant that I was still shattered for about half the cool down jog back.
Thoroughly enjoyed it and logging the summary, even though it means nothing of course. Speed spikes showed more consistancy than before which has to be good I guess.
3.45 miles in 32:22 average 6.39mph
18 November 2013
Squats 18-Nov-2013
Supersets 3 x 10 + 10
Front squats with uncrossed arms + touch floor tuck jumps
Did front squats properly 50kg will go up next time.
Goblet squats, full range depth, on bosu + single leg squats (not pistol) on bosu
32kg kettle on goblets, bodweigth only on singles.
Jump squats + overhead squats holding plate
Jump squats 70kg, overhead 25kg plate
Front squats with uncrossed arms + touch floor tuck jumps
Did front squats properly 50kg will go up next time.
Goblet squats, full range depth, on bosu + single leg squats (not pistol) on bosu
32kg kettle on goblets, bodweigth only on singles.
Jump squats + overhead squats holding plate
Jump squats 70kg, overhead 25kg plate
Running 18-Nov-2013
Wet, cool and relatively still today.
Quite happy with this, back up at the sort of pace I would like to see more of. Only just over a month to get 8mph this year, not likely but must keep trying.
5.38 miles in 41:40 pace 7.75mph
Quite happy with this, back up at the sort of pace I would like to see more of. Only just over a month to get 8mph this year, not likely but must keep trying.
5.38 miles in 41:40 pace 7.75mph
15 November 2013
Deadlift 15-Nov-2013
Using super sets first two batches 3 x 10 + 10 then something different to finish.
Deadlifts with walk handles + narrow grip chins
50kg plus handles each side body weight only on chins
High pulls with fat grips + seated row
40kg + 50kg
Deadlift switching through all 4 grips 3 x 20 (5 on each grip) was target. Got 2 sets in full 3rd was only 12 reps
Deadlifts with walk handles + narrow grip chins
50kg plus handles each side body weight only on chins
High pulls with fat grips + seated row
40kg + 50kg
Deadlift switching through all 4 grips 3 x 20 (5 on each grip) was target. Got 2 sets in full 3rd was only 12 reps
14 November 2013
Running 14-Nov-2013
Not my best run by some way but considering I am not feeling totally well, have had a lay off and did squats last night I am pleased to be above my minimum.
Give it a week and I will be back to considering such performances as pathetic.
5.38 miles in 42:53 pace 7.53mph
Give it a week and I will be back to considering such performances as pathetic.
5.38 miles in 42:53 pace 7.53mph
Squats 13-Nov-2013
Well I got fed up with waiting to get well and started training anyway.
Not awe inspiring and cut short due to feeling below par but I couldn't wait any longer.
YThe more observant will notice a slight irony here, my squat session has no standard squats in it. Yes it is deliberate, I fancied doing something different.
Sessions are supersets 3 x 10 + 10 so quite endurance biased. Trying to throw in movements I haven't done in a long time too for fun.
Front squats with uncrossed arms + touch floor tuck jumps
I am pretty sure I am doing the front squats wrong, the idea as I remember is to have elbows high when doing these, mine were beside me.
Sets 1 & 2 tried 70kg on front squats and didn't get it right dropped to 50kg on set 3 and a lot better but will look into technique, or rely on someone telling me I am doing it wrong.
Goblet squats, full range depth, on bosu + single leg squats (not pistol) on bosu
32kg kettle on goblets, bodweigth only on singles.
Jump squats + overhead squats holding plate
Jump squats 70kg, overhead 25kg plate
Not awe inspiring and cut short due to feeling below par but I couldn't wait any longer.
YThe more observant will notice a slight irony here, my squat session has no standard squats in it. Yes it is deliberate, I fancied doing something different.
Sessions are supersets 3 x 10 + 10 so quite endurance biased. Trying to throw in movements I haven't done in a long time too for fun.
Front squats with uncrossed arms + touch floor tuck jumps
I am pretty sure I am doing the front squats wrong, the idea as I remember is to have elbows high when doing these, mine were beside me.
Sets 1 & 2 tried 70kg on front squats and didn't get it right dropped to 50kg on set 3 and a lot better but will look into technique, or rely on someone telling me I am doing it wrong.
Goblet squats, full range depth, on bosu + single leg squats (not pistol) on bosu
32kg kettle on goblets, bodweigth only on singles.
Jump squats + overhead squats holding plate
Jump squats 70kg, overhead 25kg plate
12 November 2013
Reflections and General Nonesense
There was a silly thing I saw recently that made me think it could be amusing to reflect on some things that have worked out strangely over time.
The spur was a visual joke showing a picture of an eighties brick phone and a more conventional sized phone from 5 or so years ago saying 'I remember when phones were that big', then another showing a phone from 5 years ago and a smartphone from today saying 'I remember when phones were that small. The joke amused me partly because it showed how what most thought would be an eternal quest for the smallest mobile has become anything but and I started thinking what else has gone that way.
Part of the amusement I have witnessed has been due to period revivals. The seventies I saw mocked relentlessly in my early teens for the ridiculous platforms and flares made a comeback and soon all the sheeple who had been mocking these fashions were wearing them. Currently in the UK there has been an eighties revival, the period known at the time as the decade style forgot has been remembered, though without seeming to see the joke. This was a time when men could proudly wear a fluorescent pink sock and be considered masculine, as long as the other one was a different fluorescent colour, matching was not good. There were many who took the fashions seriously in the eighties but most of us just saw it as an opportunity to dress like clowns and laugh at each other.
There is something incredibly strange seeing people trying to capture the effect of a period I remember well in a serious manner when the fashions were commonly accepted as a joke.
Second hand clothing was the realm of those too poor to buy new. Jumble sales were so etched in my mind for the amount of bullying the purchases would bring my way I haven't been to one as an adult. I used charity shops to get smart clothes when broke and needing a respectable job and kitted myself out nicely for £20 top to toe with spares.
I went into a charity shop a couple of years ago and got the shock of my life. The term retro has become very big and with it the price of pre-owned clothing, to such an extent I could buy new clothes cheaper. Not quite sure how that happened but you certainly wouldn't be bullied for wearing the jumble sale gear anymore, in fact you may get more grief if your clothes are too new, I don't know totally out of touch really.
When I went to school there was a computer class, I never took it because I was reliably informed it was basically secretarial training. The machines had slots for the genuinely floppy disks and the rigid 3.5 inch floppy carrying a whopping 1.33Mb of data at a time. Home computer needs more ROM no problem just switch the C60 tape to a C120 instead, instant doubling of ROM if the computer had the RAM to cope with such vast data. Storage of computer data was serious business, and even Windows 95 came on floppy disks, 35 of them. Now USB flash drives that will hold gigabytes of data, a term people in the eighties would never have known let alone considered using, are made in novelty shapes and given away as trinkets.
Now we consider a nursery class without at least one computer to be neglecting our children's education. Your washing machine will have a higher spec computer than the best home PC from thirty years ago. Data storage on something we hold in our hands is old hat anywhere but in cameras and antique music players, that's what the cloud is for. I wonder how long it will be before a company starts selling portable hard drives in the shape of a 3.5 inch floppy disk for the retro image.
I have watched the young rebels become rose tinted has-beens talking of how wonderful things were when they were younger and how much respect they had to show. No mention of how little they did of course. The truth is I would say there is less crime on the streets now, young people are barely out of the house away from the TV and computer games. With less people out and about there is more fear because people feel isolated walking around, but in truth they aren't at any greater risk.
Smoking has become something only the working or non-working classes do. While it used to be a luxury now it's become a stigma and label to show that you are spending money you almost certainly don't have to spare. Growing up you felt ostracised if you didn't smoke now this has swung full circle.
Cars were a luxury for many as I grew up. The idea of a two car family was almost seen as showing off even if it was essential. Cycling was the poor man's transport and often the more realistic alternative to the second car.
Now owning a car is seen as a virtual human right and cheap runabouts can be picked up for less than a week’s minimum wage. By contrast you can spend thousands on a bicycle and gear enabling you to look like a technicolor yawn as you glide past the traffic jams. The car has become the norm to such an extent the cyclist is to be envied as he passes and the car driver knows they will not catch them back up. Two, three and often four car families are common as parents give their children a vehicle to get themselves to school or out of their way in general.
The school run. There were plenty of parents taking their children to school in cars when I was growing up, especially when they were in secondary education, now called high school, when schools could be many miles away but this seems to have become so much the norm now that insurance companies have recognised it as one of the areas where accidents are most common. The distance that many are prepared to walk to school has dropped to a level I would never have believed when younger, with more people willing to sit in cars for a half hour round trip battling in traffic than allow their offspring to walk 20 minutes to school. Where once the car was deemed the fast and efficient method it is now considered so essential that sense has evaporated.
Gambling, once the reserve of the bookmakers clientele is now in so many homes I am almost deemed foolhardy for not buying a weekly glut of lottery tickets. What was once a mugs game is now expected to such an extent people will ask what you would do with a lottery win as if no-one would not be buying tickets.
There was an expression that to see the UK in 10 years look at the US today. We got our own back to some extent by sending them brit pop, but it seems to have become an expensive and dangerous competition of who can have more obesity, diabetes, heart disease and ignorance than the worst stereotypical American you could possibly imagine. Homer Simpson seems to have been viewed less a comedy character, more a role model.
We have bought into a lot of the convenience ideas and there was certainly a demand, but for some reason too few seem to have observed what happened to the US when this lifestyle became the norm. Watching US TV has given many the impression junk food and inactivity will make them look like Cameron Diaz rather than Rosanne Barr despite all evidence point to the contrary.
Terrorism. When I was young the fear was from a group of very professional terrorists known as the Irish Republican Army IRA for short, funded legally and publically in the US these guys weren't into suicide bombings, they made sure they were well out of the way so they lived to do it again. For some reason we are supposed to be more in fear now than we were then, despite the current rather amateur versions having been easily stopped at Glasgow airport by a handy Scotsman who decided a man on fire needed to be knocked out rather than feared, not heard from them since.
I do understand that a lot of the fear is due to the undeniably horrific tragedy that was 9/11 or 11/9 in the UK an event that no single terrorist cell has yet taken responsibility for. However I find it bizarre that we in the UK fear groups who haven't harmed us or looked likely to on our soil in years, while in my youth there were attacks a few times a year.
Communication has become massive in my lifetime and made us ironically far more isolated by doing so. I was not a popular kid at school and remember the excitement of us getting a phone line to be able to contact the few friends I did have, usually to organise going to meet them in person. The idea of being able to meet up with people via computers of mobile devices that lived anywhere in the world made us all think the world would shrink and we would become more open minded and universally tolerant as you would expect from someone well-travelled.
Truth is that people have found themselves groups of likeminded from all over and are doing online battle on a daily basis with anyone whose views oppose theirs. The fact they are able to find others in the world with the same view has made them more likely to cling to these rather than listen to anyone else as they would have to if the arguments were more localised. It has also made people bolder about what they will say than they would elsewhere too. Face to face it is unusual to be referred in many of the ways that are common online. Anonymity has made people behave in ways they wouldn't dare to in the real world.
I will often deliberately play devil's advocate in a debate to make people think or take both sides in to confuse people and spur them to consider their viewpoint seriously. The internet forums have generated a new form of this with far less thought known as the troll, far from wanting people to think they just want people angry and will portray a version of a character so ridiculous only the most ignorant will believe it, unfortunately there are plenty of them around. So you get pseudo-muslim extremists who have no idea about the muslim faith but will provoke anger in others who are afraid of the genuine extremists the Daily Mail and other irresponsible news media tell us are around every corner. Christian extremists declaring God will avenge us all for our heretic belief in evolution, anti-theists declaring religion as the source for all evil and preaching theirs is the only true path. This in itself wouldn't be an issue if these muppets weren't overshadowing the billions of genuine decent people from the groups they are impersonating for fun.
I have my own way of dealing with a lot of these things and have been told that I must be gay among other things. In these instances I simply tell them how right they were and ask if they were hoping to get some action. Usual response is a string of profanity and they disappear realising not everyone is fooled by such surface nonsense. Taken seriously these guys are dangerous, but treated as a joke they can be fun to play with.
Back to cars again. I remember the main things anyone cared about when I was younger was how a car went, and would it get you home again. MPH as a priority has shifted to MPG for many. Carbon was, and still is in fairness, an element on the periodic table, no-one cared how much of it came out of the back of the car as long as it went well. Electric windows were flash, power steering amazing and ABS something not to trust.
Now a car without air conditioning is considered too basic, it should connect to your music player stop you dying if you hit a truck at 70mph and travel several hundred miles on a tank of fuel while entertaining the passengers with the latest film and directing the driver home via a few railway lines.
Music has always been the arena for rebellion. Every generation wants music their parents don't approve of, which has become a bit strange now in many ways purely by the way it still manages to succeed.
How exactly people who grew up with punk rockers in see-through trousers, metal heads wearing chains and hurling abuse or sexual invitation down the microphone manage to pretend they have moral high ground I don't know but they do it.
Music itself hasn't really changed that much, the rhythms are similar, the acts are coming off a production line and most of the songs are covering things that have been covered before. We have protested injustice, declared love, danced provocatively wearing as little as legal for generations, it's not new anymore, but somehow people are still being shocked into protest.
The recent passing of the date Back to the Future went forward to has shown how priorities are rarely what you expect them to be. We have no hoverboards, I couldn't skateboard so didn't care, our TVs have grown but we tend to watch one channel at a time and the world is all about mobile tech now.
30 years ago when the film was released the idea of an internet was something only the biggest geeks would care about, and having a device that enabled talking to each other on the move would surely be far more impressive than one needing us to type our comments.
But the minutes on a mobile phone tariff are almost irrelevant for many, the unlimited text messages and web browsing is what we care about as well as how trendy the phone itself is, even if we have no idea how to use it. Smart phones for dumb people are the big hit the hoverboard was expected to be.
More than anything I find the way we get things so incredibly wrong amusing and wonder what we are totally misreading now. My music player is becoming out of date as more people use online radio stations instead, geeks are now cool as long as they buy the right second hand clothes but with more people going geek they aren't really the cool exception anymore, revival has been the fashion so long I wonder what happens when we catch up with the initial revival.
The future is a mystery but one thing we can guarantee is some of the things that will define it are those we sit looking at thinking will never catch on.
The spur was a visual joke showing a picture of an eighties brick phone and a more conventional sized phone from 5 or so years ago saying 'I remember when phones were that big', then another showing a phone from 5 years ago and a smartphone from today saying 'I remember when phones were that small. The joke amused me partly because it showed how what most thought would be an eternal quest for the smallest mobile has become anything but and I started thinking what else has gone that way.
Part of the amusement I have witnessed has been due to period revivals. The seventies I saw mocked relentlessly in my early teens for the ridiculous platforms and flares made a comeback and soon all the sheeple who had been mocking these fashions were wearing them. Currently in the UK there has been an eighties revival, the period known at the time as the decade style forgot has been remembered, though without seeming to see the joke. This was a time when men could proudly wear a fluorescent pink sock and be considered masculine, as long as the other one was a different fluorescent colour, matching was not good. There were many who took the fashions seriously in the eighties but most of us just saw it as an opportunity to dress like clowns and laugh at each other.
There is something incredibly strange seeing people trying to capture the effect of a period I remember well in a serious manner when the fashions were commonly accepted as a joke.
Second hand clothing was the realm of those too poor to buy new. Jumble sales were so etched in my mind for the amount of bullying the purchases would bring my way I haven't been to one as an adult. I used charity shops to get smart clothes when broke and needing a respectable job and kitted myself out nicely for £20 top to toe with spares.
I went into a charity shop a couple of years ago and got the shock of my life. The term retro has become very big and with it the price of pre-owned clothing, to such an extent I could buy new clothes cheaper. Not quite sure how that happened but you certainly wouldn't be bullied for wearing the jumble sale gear anymore, in fact you may get more grief if your clothes are too new, I don't know totally out of touch really.
When I went to school there was a computer class, I never took it because I was reliably informed it was basically secretarial training. The machines had slots for the genuinely floppy disks and the rigid 3.5 inch floppy carrying a whopping 1.33Mb of data at a time. Home computer needs more ROM no problem just switch the C60 tape to a C120 instead, instant doubling of ROM if the computer had the RAM to cope with such vast data. Storage of computer data was serious business, and even Windows 95 came on floppy disks, 35 of them. Now USB flash drives that will hold gigabytes of data, a term people in the eighties would never have known let alone considered using, are made in novelty shapes and given away as trinkets.
Now we consider a nursery class without at least one computer to be neglecting our children's education. Your washing machine will have a higher spec computer than the best home PC from thirty years ago. Data storage on something we hold in our hands is old hat anywhere but in cameras and antique music players, that's what the cloud is for. I wonder how long it will be before a company starts selling portable hard drives in the shape of a 3.5 inch floppy disk for the retro image.
I have watched the young rebels become rose tinted has-beens talking of how wonderful things were when they were younger and how much respect they had to show. No mention of how little they did of course. The truth is I would say there is less crime on the streets now, young people are barely out of the house away from the TV and computer games. With less people out and about there is more fear because people feel isolated walking around, but in truth they aren't at any greater risk.
Smoking has become something only the working or non-working classes do. While it used to be a luxury now it's become a stigma and label to show that you are spending money you almost certainly don't have to spare. Growing up you felt ostracised if you didn't smoke now this has swung full circle.
Cars were a luxury for many as I grew up. The idea of a two car family was almost seen as showing off even if it was essential. Cycling was the poor man's transport and often the more realistic alternative to the second car.
Now owning a car is seen as a virtual human right and cheap runabouts can be picked up for less than a week’s minimum wage. By contrast you can spend thousands on a bicycle and gear enabling you to look like a technicolor yawn as you glide past the traffic jams. The car has become the norm to such an extent the cyclist is to be envied as he passes and the car driver knows they will not catch them back up. Two, three and often four car families are common as parents give their children a vehicle to get themselves to school or out of their way in general.
The school run. There were plenty of parents taking their children to school in cars when I was growing up, especially when they were in secondary education, now called high school, when schools could be many miles away but this seems to have become so much the norm now that insurance companies have recognised it as one of the areas where accidents are most common. The distance that many are prepared to walk to school has dropped to a level I would never have believed when younger, with more people willing to sit in cars for a half hour round trip battling in traffic than allow their offspring to walk 20 minutes to school. Where once the car was deemed the fast and efficient method it is now considered so essential that sense has evaporated.
Gambling, once the reserve of the bookmakers clientele is now in so many homes I am almost deemed foolhardy for not buying a weekly glut of lottery tickets. What was once a mugs game is now expected to such an extent people will ask what you would do with a lottery win as if no-one would not be buying tickets.
There was an expression that to see the UK in 10 years look at the US today. We got our own back to some extent by sending them brit pop, but it seems to have become an expensive and dangerous competition of who can have more obesity, diabetes, heart disease and ignorance than the worst stereotypical American you could possibly imagine. Homer Simpson seems to have been viewed less a comedy character, more a role model.
We have bought into a lot of the convenience ideas and there was certainly a demand, but for some reason too few seem to have observed what happened to the US when this lifestyle became the norm. Watching US TV has given many the impression junk food and inactivity will make them look like Cameron Diaz rather than Rosanne Barr despite all evidence point to the contrary.
Terrorism. When I was young the fear was from a group of very professional terrorists known as the Irish Republican Army IRA for short, funded legally and publically in the US these guys weren't into suicide bombings, they made sure they were well out of the way so they lived to do it again. For some reason we are supposed to be more in fear now than we were then, despite the current rather amateur versions having been easily stopped at Glasgow airport by a handy Scotsman who decided a man on fire needed to be knocked out rather than feared, not heard from them since.
I do understand that a lot of the fear is due to the undeniably horrific tragedy that was 9/11 or 11/9 in the UK an event that no single terrorist cell has yet taken responsibility for. However I find it bizarre that we in the UK fear groups who haven't harmed us or looked likely to on our soil in years, while in my youth there were attacks a few times a year.
Communication has become massive in my lifetime and made us ironically far more isolated by doing so. I was not a popular kid at school and remember the excitement of us getting a phone line to be able to contact the few friends I did have, usually to organise going to meet them in person. The idea of being able to meet up with people via computers of mobile devices that lived anywhere in the world made us all think the world would shrink and we would become more open minded and universally tolerant as you would expect from someone well-travelled.
Truth is that people have found themselves groups of likeminded from all over and are doing online battle on a daily basis with anyone whose views oppose theirs. The fact they are able to find others in the world with the same view has made them more likely to cling to these rather than listen to anyone else as they would have to if the arguments were more localised. It has also made people bolder about what they will say than they would elsewhere too. Face to face it is unusual to be referred in many of the ways that are common online. Anonymity has made people behave in ways they wouldn't dare to in the real world.
I will often deliberately play devil's advocate in a debate to make people think or take both sides in to confuse people and spur them to consider their viewpoint seriously. The internet forums have generated a new form of this with far less thought known as the troll, far from wanting people to think they just want people angry and will portray a version of a character so ridiculous only the most ignorant will believe it, unfortunately there are plenty of them around. So you get pseudo-muslim extremists who have no idea about the muslim faith but will provoke anger in others who are afraid of the genuine extremists the Daily Mail and other irresponsible news media tell us are around every corner. Christian extremists declaring God will avenge us all for our heretic belief in evolution, anti-theists declaring religion as the source for all evil and preaching theirs is the only true path. This in itself wouldn't be an issue if these muppets weren't overshadowing the billions of genuine decent people from the groups they are impersonating for fun.
I have my own way of dealing with a lot of these things and have been told that I must be gay among other things. In these instances I simply tell them how right they were and ask if they were hoping to get some action. Usual response is a string of profanity and they disappear realising not everyone is fooled by such surface nonsense. Taken seriously these guys are dangerous, but treated as a joke they can be fun to play with.
Back to cars again. I remember the main things anyone cared about when I was younger was how a car went, and would it get you home again. MPH as a priority has shifted to MPG for many. Carbon was, and still is in fairness, an element on the periodic table, no-one cared how much of it came out of the back of the car as long as it went well. Electric windows were flash, power steering amazing and ABS something not to trust.
Now a car without air conditioning is considered too basic, it should connect to your music player stop you dying if you hit a truck at 70mph and travel several hundred miles on a tank of fuel while entertaining the passengers with the latest film and directing the driver home via a few railway lines.
Music has always been the arena for rebellion. Every generation wants music their parents don't approve of, which has become a bit strange now in many ways purely by the way it still manages to succeed.
How exactly people who grew up with punk rockers in see-through trousers, metal heads wearing chains and hurling abuse or sexual invitation down the microphone manage to pretend they have moral high ground I don't know but they do it.
Music itself hasn't really changed that much, the rhythms are similar, the acts are coming off a production line and most of the songs are covering things that have been covered before. We have protested injustice, declared love, danced provocatively wearing as little as legal for generations, it's not new anymore, but somehow people are still being shocked into protest.
The recent passing of the date Back to the Future went forward to has shown how priorities are rarely what you expect them to be. We have no hoverboards, I couldn't skateboard so didn't care, our TVs have grown but we tend to watch one channel at a time and the world is all about mobile tech now.
30 years ago when the film was released the idea of an internet was something only the biggest geeks would care about, and having a device that enabled talking to each other on the move would surely be far more impressive than one needing us to type our comments.
But the minutes on a mobile phone tariff are almost irrelevant for many, the unlimited text messages and web browsing is what we care about as well as how trendy the phone itself is, even if we have no idea how to use it. Smart phones for dumb people are the big hit the hoverboard was expected to be.
More than anything I find the way we get things so incredibly wrong amusing and wonder what we are totally misreading now. My music player is becoming out of date as more people use online radio stations instead, geeks are now cool as long as they buy the right second hand clothes but with more people going geek they aren't really the cool exception anymore, revival has been the fashion so long I wonder what happens when we catch up with the initial revival.
The future is a mystery but one thing we can guarantee is some of the things that will define it are those we sit looking at thinking will never catch on.
4 November 2013
Religion versus Science (the most pointless of debates)
I have been seeing a lot of things lately relating to atheism and some other faiths, predominantly Christian due to seeing stuff in english, but the trend has been consistant.
The majority of people posting are very much on the side of science or religion as if this is a choice you have to make.
As an atheist I am automatically supposed to be on the science side as if having studied and formed the secure belief that there is no deity responsible for our creation or lives instantly means I am anti-religion.
As Christians or Jews people are supposed to be totally anti science and believe there is no such thing as evolution and to mention anything in contradiction to any story in the bible is heresy.
The very idea that you have to be one or the other shows a massive amount of ignorance from both sides that has really started to get on my nerves. Some of the most infuriating things I will post here.
First and foremost a massive amount of the money invested in science has and still does come from various religions around the world. So those who love their science need to show some respect and give thanks to the people who saw fit to spent church, synagog etc. money on furthering mankinds knowledge.
Some of the greatest scientists in the world are or have been religious and their faith has helped them in their work. Two examples of this I am constantly annoyed about being forgotten are Darwin and Newton, both of whom were born and died Christians who never declared their discoveries disproved the presence of a god. Newton declared the universe as so intricate and complex that it could only have been created by a divine being and Darwin struggled to understand how his discoveries fitted into his god's plan.
Basic level misunderstanding.
Evolution is just a theory is a classic example, scientific communities require evidence to take something from the status of hypothesis to theory and that is as high as it goes. Science doesn't deal in absolute truth as such because it understands that knowledge is our understanding of the facts we have at a given time. New discoveries disprove old so the most proven theory is still just considered a theory. We have absolute proof of evolution not just from fossil records but having observed it happening in recent years, usually as a response to damage we have caused.
The gospel doesn't say it's the gospel truth. The religious writings in the old testament are bible stories to enforce faith and give people answers to questions they had when they were written some are even written as stories told by key figures to explain why we should live a certain way or be thankful for what we have. The bible doesn't mention electricity or computers it doesn't mean we shouldn't have them just that they had no knowledge of such things at that time. The same is true in many religions where stories are used to illistrate points not be treated as the ultimate in truth.
There are a lot of basic knowledge gaps on both sides. I like many others thought one of the commandments said thou shalt not kill but in truth it's thou shalt not murder so with church approval you can kill all you like, I actually saw this error posted by a person declaring themselves an authority on the biblical texts, something I am not. There are a terrifying number of people who believe Darwin promoted the idea 'survival of the fittest' but this was said by people discreditting him he actually said ' it is not the fittest, strongest or smartest who survive but the organism most suited to its environment' not as catchy I'll admit but a more accurate explaination of natural selection. These gaps lead to people assuming to know the other side with very incomplete knowledge or utilising the oppositions ignorance to use partial quotes without any of the background.
See and touch versus faith argument.
I can see, smell and touch grass, trees etc. so multiple sense tell me these exist. The moon, sun, stars and some planets I can see with my naked eye but have never touched, other things I have seen photos of like astral phenomenon but will likely never get to even see for myself. I have no absolute proof that when I look up at the sky I am not seeing an elaborate facade that revolves around the earth changing as it goes like a slow kalediscope. I do know for absolute certainty that most of the photos I have seen of astral phenomenon have been enhanced to make them understandable to those of us who can't decipher the blurred mess that actually is detected by astro physicists.
I have faith in the people enhancing the photos, expalining the shape of the solar system we are a part of and in the information my own senses provide for me. This may not seem too far fetched but when you break it down it starts to look almost foolhardy. I am aware that the brain fills in most of the detail of the world around us, so our sense provide more of a guide than true reflection of the world around us, and I know how easily my sense can be fooled. There are symptoms like ghost limb from amputees etc. that show trusting our senses is not totally reliable. I know the world revolves at 600 miles an hour but if I spin a ball at a fraction of this with an ant on it it flies off rather than staying put, so have to believe in a weak universal force known as gravity to combat this, a force so weak I overcome it by breathing stops me fallng off a fast spinning ball of dirt with a molten metal core. The crazy part is most will read this and think it's perfectly reasonable but now consider how you would explain it to an infant and how much it relies on faith.
Search for simplicity.
Usually the stone cast at the religious group who clutch their chosen book declaring all answers reside within, but in truth something scientists want just as badly. Most of us know the formula E = MC2 though most would be unlikely to even tell you what the letters represent. Keeping things simple makes people feel they understand it and therefore belive it. We have disproven some Newtonian principals but they are acurate to a level most of us would ever care about and so much simpler than the standard model that they are stil in use. Scientists are happy using things that are not totally accurate for the sake of simplicity as long as tolerance is acceptable.
Truth is religion presents more complexity than many accept. For this example we will stick to Christianity as it uses old and new testament which I know some of. Jonah and the whale who can't swallow anything larger than an orange and many other stories are evidently not totally true if they are even partially so, which we don't really know. So unless you are willing to be a blinkered muppet who beieves every word in a book even despite simple proof that some of it is false you have to give it a lot of thought and filter through the stories to find the true meanings behind them, not so simple anymore is it.
Need to enforce ignorance. This has become more heartfelt since I have home educated. A couple we met who had their relationship saved by the husband becoming a Christian decided that the bible was to become their world, before they'd even read it. Subsequently they wouldn't teach science, history and even geography because there were things in thes topics that went against the word of the good book.
Even before this however I remember telling work colleagues that my son was starting to attend church and having one ask why I didn't just tell him this was nonesense and how I would be glad when he grew out of this.
We need to understand all aspects to form real understanding which is why we should try to teach as evenly as possible. Like most occupations those teaching are generally religious and teach faith as truth with conviction of belief then have to teach science disagreeing with some of the stories, which the students will find confusing but should hopefully start them asking questions.
Physcology is deemed a science, though some don't like to consider it such. Part of this states that if enough people believe something and it affects their lives, their belief makes it real. I am paraphrasing badly here but bear with me. When an entire community live a set way because of a faith the effect on their life is real and in some way this makes the object of their faith real because of measurable effects on them. As such the sheer number of religious people in the world and their impact on our world as a result of their respective faiths means that at some level their deities have measurable effects so must be real. This is one I love presenting to atheists who condemn religions so heavily to make them think a bit or at least change colour.
There are so many examples of how the power of the mind can affect our world and lives that dismisisng something so many hold dear as nonesense without a second thought is a sign of absolute stupidity.
The last one which is my least favourite from the science camp. By definition scientific thinking means never closing your mind to anything. Therefore dismissing all religions as nonesense without any factual basis is not scientific thinking. When scientists stop questioning themselves they cease to think deeply enough to be of value. Some great historical discoveries have been made following religious texts and the gaps in the theology have inspired many to search for answers beyond the pages of their scriptures, as such we have benefitted from people studying faiths and research it led them too.
Those of us with IQs above our shoe size won't be on either side in a debate like this because we will have seen both used well and badly and accept that neither will ever provide all of the answers.
It constantly astounds me how many are too ignorant to accept that both have a place in the world and likely always will.
The majority of people posting are very much on the side of science or religion as if this is a choice you have to make.
As an atheist I am automatically supposed to be on the science side as if having studied and formed the secure belief that there is no deity responsible for our creation or lives instantly means I am anti-religion.
As Christians or Jews people are supposed to be totally anti science and believe there is no such thing as evolution and to mention anything in contradiction to any story in the bible is heresy.
The very idea that you have to be one or the other shows a massive amount of ignorance from both sides that has really started to get on my nerves. Some of the most infuriating things I will post here.
First and foremost a massive amount of the money invested in science has and still does come from various religions around the world. So those who love their science need to show some respect and give thanks to the people who saw fit to spent church, synagog etc. money on furthering mankinds knowledge.
Some of the greatest scientists in the world are or have been religious and their faith has helped them in their work. Two examples of this I am constantly annoyed about being forgotten are Darwin and Newton, both of whom were born and died Christians who never declared their discoveries disproved the presence of a god. Newton declared the universe as so intricate and complex that it could only have been created by a divine being and Darwin struggled to understand how his discoveries fitted into his god's plan.
Basic level misunderstanding.
Evolution is just a theory is a classic example, scientific communities require evidence to take something from the status of hypothesis to theory and that is as high as it goes. Science doesn't deal in absolute truth as such because it understands that knowledge is our understanding of the facts we have at a given time. New discoveries disprove old so the most proven theory is still just considered a theory. We have absolute proof of evolution not just from fossil records but having observed it happening in recent years, usually as a response to damage we have caused.
The gospel doesn't say it's the gospel truth. The religious writings in the old testament are bible stories to enforce faith and give people answers to questions they had when they were written some are even written as stories told by key figures to explain why we should live a certain way or be thankful for what we have. The bible doesn't mention electricity or computers it doesn't mean we shouldn't have them just that they had no knowledge of such things at that time. The same is true in many religions where stories are used to illistrate points not be treated as the ultimate in truth.
There are a lot of basic knowledge gaps on both sides. I like many others thought one of the commandments said thou shalt not kill but in truth it's thou shalt not murder so with church approval you can kill all you like, I actually saw this error posted by a person declaring themselves an authority on the biblical texts, something I am not. There are a terrifying number of people who believe Darwin promoted the idea 'survival of the fittest' but this was said by people discreditting him he actually said ' it is not the fittest, strongest or smartest who survive but the organism most suited to its environment' not as catchy I'll admit but a more accurate explaination of natural selection. These gaps lead to people assuming to know the other side with very incomplete knowledge or utilising the oppositions ignorance to use partial quotes without any of the background.
See and touch versus faith argument.
I can see, smell and touch grass, trees etc. so multiple sense tell me these exist. The moon, sun, stars and some planets I can see with my naked eye but have never touched, other things I have seen photos of like astral phenomenon but will likely never get to even see for myself. I have no absolute proof that when I look up at the sky I am not seeing an elaborate facade that revolves around the earth changing as it goes like a slow kalediscope. I do know for absolute certainty that most of the photos I have seen of astral phenomenon have been enhanced to make them understandable to those of us who can't decipher the blurred mess that actually is detected by astro physicists.
I have faith in the people enhancing the photos, expalining the shape of the solar system we are a part of and in the information my own senses provide for me. This may not seem too far fetched but when you break it down it starts to look almost foolhardy. I am aware that the brain fills in most of the detail of the world around us, so our sense provide more of a guide than true reflection of the world around us, and I know how easily my sense can be fooled. There are symptoms like ghost limb from amputees etc. that show trusting our senses is not totally reliable. I know the world revolves at 600 miles an hour but if I spin a ball at a fraction of this with an ant on it it flies off rather than staying put, so have to believe in a weak universal force known as gravity to combat this, a force so weak I overcome it by breathing stops me fallng off a fast spinning ball of dirt with a molten metal core. The crazy part is most will read this and think it's perfectly reasonable but now consider how you would explain it to an infant and how much it relies on faith.
Search for simplicity.
Usually the stone cast at the religious group who clutch their chosen book declaring all answers reside within, but in truth something scientists want just as badly. Most of us know the formula E = MC2 though most would be unlikely to even tell you what the letters represent. Keeping things simple makes people feel they understand it and therefore belive it. We have disproven some Newtonian principals but they are acurate to a level most of us would ever care about and so much simpler than the standard model that they are stil in use. Scientists are happy using things that are not totally accurate for the sake of simplicity as long as tolerance is acceptable.
Truth is religion presents more complexity than many accept. For this example we will stick to Christianity as it uses old and new testament which I know some of. Jonah and the whale who can't swallow anything larger than an orange and many other stories are evidently not totally true if they are even partially so, which we don't really know. So unless you are willing to be a blinkered muppet who beieves every word in a book even despite simple proof that some of it is false you have to give it a lot of thought and filter through the stories to find the true meanings behind them, not so simple anymore is it.
Need to enforce ignorance. This has become more heartfelt since I have home educated. A couple we met who had their relationship saved by the husband becoming a Christian decided that the bible was to become their world, before they'd even read it. Subsequently they wouldn't teach science, history and even geography because there were things in thes topics that went against the word of the good book.
Even before this however I remember telling work colleagues that my son was starting to attend church and having one ask why I didn't just tell him this was nonesense and how I would be glad when he grew out of this.
We need to understand all aspects to form real understanding which is why we should try to teach as evenly as possible. Like most occupations those teaching are generally religious and teach faith as truth with conviction of belief then have to teach science disagreeing with some of the stories, which the students will find confusing but should hopefully start them asking questions.
Physcology is deemed a science, though some don't like to consider it such. Part of this states that if enough people believe something and it affects their lives, their belief makes it real. I am paraphrasing badly here but bear with me. When an entire community live a set way because of a faith the effect on their life is real and in some way this makes the object of their faith real because of measurable effects on them. As such the sheer number of religious people in the world and their impact on our world as a result of their respective faiths means that at some level their deities have measurable effects so must be real. This is one I love presenting to atheists who condemn religions so heavily to make them think a bit or at least change colour.
There are so many examples of how the power of the mind can affect our world and lives that dismisisng something so many hold dear as nonesense without a second thought is a sign of absolute stupidity.
The last one which is my least favourite from the science camp. By definition scientific thinking means never closing your mind to anything. Therefore dismissing all religions as nonesense without any factual basis is not scientific thinking. When scientists stop questioning themselves they cease to think deeply enough to be of value. Some great historical discoveries have been made following religious texts and the gaps in the theology have inspired many to search for answers beyond the pages of their scriptures, as such we have benefitted from people studying faiths and research it led them too.
Those of us with IQs above our shoe size won't be on either side in a debate like this because we will have seen both used well and badly and accept that neither will ever provide all of the answers.
It constantly astounds me how many are too ignorant to accept that both have a place in the world and likely always will.
Bench 01-Nov-2013
Logging this, better late than never.
Missed deadlift and ended up not using fat gripz as this session was at the gym my wife trains at and I forgot to take them.
Been ill most of the weekend, including during this session, still feel lousy. May need to extend the block by a week to get in 8 weeks worth of actual sessions.
Bench
10 x 40kg, 10 x 70kg, 8 x 75kg, 2 x 85kg
Two Arm Kettlebell Clean and Press on Bosu
2 x 10 x 16kg a side 6 x 20kg a side
Push ups with clap feet on TRX
3 x 10
Missed deadlift and ended up not using fat gripz as this session was at the gym my wife trains at and I forgot to take them.
Been ill most of the weekend, including during this session, still feel lousy. May need to extend the block by a week to get in 8 weeks worth of actual sessions.
Bench
10 x 40kg, 10 x 70kg, 8 x 75kg, 2 x 85kg
Two Arm Kettlebell Clean and Press on Bosu
2 x 10 x 16kg a side 6 x 20kg a side
Push ups with clap feet on TRX
3 x 10
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