I initially came to the same conclusion. Though I lifted in accord with decent training principles regarding reps and sets, I didn't track for years. As I entered middle age, I started keeping a training log (just one big org file in emacs), mostly out of curiousity. As I entered my 50s, I experienced what Haruki Murakami references in "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" --- Fat is easy to gain and hard to lose. Muscle is hard to gain and easy to lose.
Now I track a couple of critical metrics and it's working great. I weigh first thing every day, track all kcals (even if I overeat), plan and track workouts. I write my own plans pulled from principles in these books (don't work for the company, just a satisfied customer) https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/
I don't use the vast majority of the info in those books as I'm just a hobbyist who wants to be healthy and strong.
The biggest shift came from learning I was doing waaay too much training volume at the gym while trying to lose fat too quickly; a fine recipe for injury. Now, when I'm in a fat loss phase, I try to lose it as slowly as possible while still making progress. Strength training and fat loss is a very long very slow marathon, not a sprint.
Perhaps paradoxically, the awareness that's come from tracking has helped me relax. No need to major in the minors; pretty good is pretty good.
The tools I use are a scale, loseit, and org-mode.
I realize you likely mean your comment as a kindness and I appreciate that intent.
However, as the son of a mother who slowly died from early onset dementia, I can attest that just because the ego self has fractured and scattered into a million pieces does not mean that the afflicted person is in some peaceful state of not knowing. That they are somehow not suffering or in pain. It is just that the afflicted can no longer articulate their suffering in ways understood by the rest of us in consensus reality. If one pays close attention, the reality of their suffering is bright and clear.
One of many many examples was when my mother would compulsively pick up a pen and make rhythmic circles on and off for hours. I would watch her and wonder why. Turns out she had a severe (brutally painful) urinary tract infection and was trying to soothe her pain. She was a much beloved English teacher and writing was her refuge. She was doing her level best to alleviate her suffering.
The thought that a person dying from Alzheimer's is not having a painful existence is radically disconnected from reality.
I respectfully ask you and any caregivers for dementia patients to avoid conflating your own understanding of reality with the actual reality of your patients.
> The thought that a person dying from Alzheimer's is not having a painful existence is radically disconnected from reality.
While I understand your point I think you're talking from a perspective of the other extreme, the one where there indeed was a lot of pain but the person couldn't communicate it. Still, Alzheimer's itself mainly works in your head and it's probably more likely to assume that in most cases caregivers will have at least some means to see if patients are suffering.
The person you're replying to does probably have a lot of experience with sufferers, although, obviously, he also just states his anecdotal experience.
> I respectfully ask you and any caregivers for dementia patients to avoid conflating your own understanding of reality with the actual reality of your patients.
IMHO this would not help, but maybe even create a bigger gap between patients and caregivers. We are humans in the end, and the only thing we can do is to try our best to give them the best care and make the rest of their lives as good as possible. I think, what makes the difference, is being aware that any patient with Alzheimer's or some other kind of dementia could be in a position of not being able to communicate their pain in any way. But it doesn't help to generalize this, stopping to trust your feeling and assuming the worst.
That said, I’m truly sorry for the loss you experienced, and I hope you and your family find some measure of peace. I know how it feels. I hope I don't sound too rude or harsh, it definitely wasn't meant in that way.
You nailed it with this comment. Yes I was giving a generalized statement. I do believe the majority of patients are blissfully unaware and not suffering. They laugh and joke and tell the same story they enjoy telling over and over lol. There are some cases where they seem scared or panicked. In those cases you work on routines that they can fall into and communicate with the doctor and if possible use medications to make them more comfortable.
I worked in a advanced dementia facility for years. Ops mom having undiagnosed UTI is unfortunate but in facility it is much easier to spot for those who are experienced. The frequency of bathroom trips and believe it or not you learn the smell of a persons urine and bowel movements. So when things smell off you investigate.
I can't say I know exactly what the patients are experiencing but I have had years providing care for dementia patients and a huge part of that is family members. I really teach them about burnout and not to feel guilty asking for a break. I praise them for what they do. I am watching family members just as much as I am the clients (I am currently not in facility but work out in the community). Many of the family members are elderly also so may lack full understanding of everything. If they are crying or yelling things like that I discuss with the team strategies how we can make it easier for them.
So much to say here but your comment hit a lot of very good points. Many people genuinely care and want to help. Nothing is perfect and some cases are very hard to manage. I too am sorry to hear op struggled with his mom it is one thing to see it in a client and another to see it in a family member. I wish anyone experiencing it the best.
I am sorry to hear you had such an experience with your mother. Of course I made a generalized statement and that can not be true for everyone. There are also multiple types of dementia and dementia like conditions. Some forms do leave the person confused and scared and calling out and in rough shape for the caregivers perspective. But in general the vast majority of the clients I have worked with did not appear to suffer or be aware of their situation. I worked in an advanced stage dementia facility for almost 8 years.
When a population can not express what is wrong yes sometimes health issues get missed like your moms UTI. But with a lot of experience those things get noticed much faster. Having worked with someone for years as many clients did stay with us for years you get to know their routine very well. Suddenly they are using the bathroom non stop you question UTI. They suddenly start acting very strange - check for UTI. The system is not perfect but there are people out there that care and are doing their best to help those. I advocate for my clients and use my experience and knowledge to help these people get into the best situation possible.
When working with dementia patients you are not just working with the client but his family as well. I currently work in a community setting so see people at home and when I see the wife crying or yelling at the client I sit and ask how they are doing. I let them know that they are a good wife or husband and that getting upset does not mean they are bad. I then tell them that it is however important to recognize when they are burning out and getting frustrated. Thankfully for most of my clients there are services that can let the family get a break. We will do respite visits and the family can leave the house and get some errands done or just have lunch or relax. In those upset moments I help them through the situation and then discuss it with my team to try decide how to best help. Sometimes that means increased service. Sometimes it means they go to a respite facility for a week. Sometimes it even means they get placed into long term care facility.
I am drifting off on this post so again I am sorry about your mom. Dementia is cruel. Care is not perfect. But I genuinely feel for the majority of those who have dementia they just lack much insight as to what is happening.
Thank you for such a thoughtful, considered – and considerate – response. I appreciate your diligent attention to what is surely a highly demanding job. Thank you for your service.
> Every time I imagine climbing the Eiger in hobnail books, my palms sweat.
My guess is that they were using Tricouni [1] nails in their boots, by all accounts they work well over a different range of conditions to a rubber sole and crampon combination.
Some Yedlin links. I found his process to be methodical, precise, thorough and definitive. The question as to whether there is any perceptible visual difference between film and video that has been post-produced by an expert was definitively answered for me.
Pet peeve, by why do people persist in using wide aperture closeups to test resolution? If almost everything in the frame is out of focus, then duh, you're not going to notice much difference between 'high resolution' and 'very high resolution'.
past f8 on full frame (and wider on smaller frames) you run into diffraction, so you actually do get more detail with a slightly wider aperture. i only glanced at the links but it seems about right.
Sure, but why not shoot a subject at infinity? (I said "wide aperture closeups".) It's hard to even know which tiny part of the face is actually in perfect focus. And at the resolutions tested, you will need perfect focus to see any difference.
I used (and use) a similar approach to develop the habit of writing everyday.
For example, if I'm scheduled to write for 3 hours and I feel too much resistance, I write for less time. Maybe 2 hours. If I'm super resistant, I invoke the 'nuclear option' and write for no more than 30 mins, or even less.
Much more important than hitting some predetermined target is writing everyday no matter what. To be forthright, it's not particularly difficult once I get going. The writer in me wants to write; that guy just needs a little coaxing sometimes.
I learned of the 'nuclear option' from an unfortunately titled book by Jerrold Mundis called 'Break Writer's Block Now'. The title is pretty cheesy but the book is gold. It's designed to be read (and applied) over an afternoon, perhaps 3-4 hours. It works. The proof is me. I've been a professional screenwriter for several years now as a result of daily effort.
I guess the most important thing I've learned is that punishment doesn't work (at least for me). But gentle, consistent practice does.
This advice is gold. It's not just about writing. Anything you want to accomplish long term, you need a consistent "at least a little step every day" approach. No matter if it's a new language or fitness goals or learning an instrument or whatnot. A step every day. Consistency is key. It doesn't help to make one big chunk of time once in a full moon.
Time aggregate is a huge leverage and immensely undervalued.
Yes, I've definitely read and used them both. I think your understanding of the difference is well-conceived.
There's some conceptual stuff in the Mundis book that provides a framework for understanding the why of his approach, but the majority of it is a 'Do this' and 'If this happens, do this' type of pragmatic approach.
What I found is if I followed the book's suggestions, I got a lot of writing done. That simple. Same for a good friend who is a comics artist, except for the obvious fact that he draws.
I found the Pressfield book somewhat useful but the simple fact is, I just don't turn to it anymore. I didn't find it skillful to anthropomorphize an abstract concept like 'Resistance' that I had to wake up and defeat everday. I think it's possible to have a really productive and fulfilling creative life without thinking of it like some kind of a daily fight.
I return to the Mundis book time and time again.
Finding the way into a healthy self-discipline is such a personal and creative act. The process that ultimate worked best for me is to give an approach a sustained trial (30 days or so) and then reflect on how it went. Assess and try again. After going through a lot stuff that didn't work (for me), I found the thing that did.
James Somer's excellent blog post (and mcphee-draft-no-4) provoked a fundamental shift in the way I rewrite. Can't understate its effect. Not the least of which is that I now turn to the 1913 Webster's several times a day.
Agreed that the UI on the present iOS app is less than ideal. That said easy mobile access to those sublime definitions is super helpful. Gratitude to the dev.
Will definitely be using Wordnote (great work!) and I echo the wish that the 1913 Webster's be incorporated somehow.
I bought a 1st gen Freewrite back when it was the Hemingwrite on Kickstarter, I'm pretty embarrassed to say. I still haven't forgiven myself.
I've wasted waaay too much thought on that thing: why won't the founders just release an API like they originally promised, why did they delete the entire Freewrite forum full of many complaints right before a new model was released, why... and here I am... sucked in again, whining... publicly. Jeez.
Anyone out there thinking of buying one these things, my gentle suggestion is don't. Really just don't. I'll let you borrow all my wasted time so that you don't have to waste yours.
The most gracious thing I can say is that wasting my precious time and hard-earned cash on a Freewrite taught me a very important lesson... do not be seduced by slick marketing and a new device to solve what is at its heart a self-discipline problem.
On a positive note, it got me into exploring the dead art of writing on actual typewriters. A typewriter is a good deal more useful than a Freewrite, version control on the page for example. I can edit and rewrite with a pen. Good times.
I'm a professional screenwriter and often use a typewriter for first drafts or when I'm super stuck on something or procrastinating on a hard deadline. It's a good way to get things moving. I OCR the pages into emacs and fountain-mode to rewrite until the inevitable time comes when production needs the script in Final Draft... which is a sad moment, but so it goes.
I took an unfortunate road filled with regret that led to way of working that I love. So there's that.
I've been having a joyful time exploring art tools lately and - in a turn similar to switching back to a classic typewriter, I recently realized that ballpoint pens, the same kind I doodled with in school, are, in fact, great sketching pens. The oily ink in most of them isn't made to last, and they have a nasty habit of spurting out dabs of ink at random when you move the pen, but they let you make thin, faint, precise lines and add layers of shading and texture, and they're stingy with ink usage and don't saturate the paper. So I can sketch with ballpoint and then use my "nicer" pens to add finished lines.
I have a decent enough digital art setup, but I really find myself drawn to traditional lately. Like, the input just isn't as good in digital for doing characterful lines. There are pretty good stylus systems now, but they have a handful of different shapes and nib frictions, the raw output is always a little bit too aliased to be satisfying, and it always ends up going into software that stabilizes it into a generic swooshy line. So you have to work at it to get something like an analog result. And most of the things you really benefit from in digital happen either at the beginning(edits to help with planning) or at the end(corrections and layered treatments).
But the two things that help the most are also there in traditional: use references, and make straight ruler lines and take measurements to help get the initial shapes in proportion. If you're mashing the undo a lot you're still wasting time that is mostly accounted for by good planning and use of technical drawing tools.
And writing really is the same way. Good command of language isn't really restricted by slow writing speed.
I do a similar thing with my own typewriter, the in-phone OCR with the iPhone is remarkably good now, only a few minor mistakes when I use it to scan in typewritten pages. It’s nice to have a different way of working when I want to. Usually I write longhand then type it up later.
Yes - you can still get a great reliable workhorse typewriter and have it professionally serviced for less than the cost of a Hemingwrite. I have 3 at home and use one regularly.
Point of information: (W)ish (O)utcome (O)bstacle (Plan) is a deeply researched and effective approach to working with goals, habits, et al.
More info here: https://woopmylife.org/en/home
In org-roam v2, file names are definitely not random.
For example, when calling org-roam-node-find to create a new note, say I type "This is My New Note". The file created is named "this_is_my_new_note.org".
A super reductive way of explaining it is it's because a lot of state actors (including NSA) have a lot of skin in the game through active, deep investment in the cyber weapon market. State actors strongly incentivize the 'attack' side of the market while companies historically disincentivize the 'defense' side. A solid elucidation of the system (for laypeople like me) can be found in Nicole Perlroth's book "This is How They Tell Me the World Ends": https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb22352302__STh...
