I just realized today that Trump’s hair reminds me of Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal.
I prefer discing.
Why? Because I can.
I’ve taken on a challenge to do 30 days of cardio and weight training exercises. The challenge was put on by Jenny Ford, an avid YouTube home workout producer. So far I’m at day 11 and absolutely loving it!
The challenge consists of a mix of cardio one day and weight training the next day. There are six days of workouts and then one rest day. Generally the sixth day is more laid back doing yoga stretches. The only required equipment for the challenge are hand weights (I have 3lb, 5lb and 8lb weights), a step aerobics board or a surface to step up on, and a balance ball. None of the equipment is really required however – you can adapt any of the exercises to use soup cans for weights or just the floor if you have no board.
My goal for this challenge is not weight loss. I want to commit to six days of working out but really what I’m looking for is familiarity with adding in strength training to my normal workouts. During the winter I primarily only do cardio – step aerobics (to Jenny’s videos) and my treadmill desk. Adding strength training should help me get past my weight plateau I’ve been at for about a year.
Jenny encourages people to post sweaty selfies on Instagram and Facebook, tagging #jennyfordfitness. She takes a very active approach in involving herself over social networks to bring encouragement and a sense of community.
Jenny Ford’s 2016 30 Day Fitness Challenge
In case you didn’t know, moobs are “man boobs.”
Sometimes the hardest part of being a teacher is figuring out what your students DON’T know. It’s relatively easy to teach a subject to an entire group when you’re following a prescribed curriculum. The problem comes when the teacher doesn’t realize everyone is learning at a different rate or figuring out what some students may already know. Maybe the needed skill is empathy – knowing when students are lost/misdirected – and to foster less resistance to ask questions.
Students also have to realize that sometimes teachers don’t know absolutely everything. Just because they’re not understanding something doesn’t mean they’re stupid – the teacher may have simply missed some details you’re not aware of.
Two weeks ago I made the proclamation that I’m going to try Dvorak again. Re-training the fingers didn’t take much time and I was doing well the first couple of days. I found myself being more thoughtful about what I was typing and overall I think I had less hand muscle fatigue. Everything seemed honky-dory and I was just waiting for a words per minute increase with more use. Then my coworkers came back from vacation.
My effective speed was really low and when I’d get frustrated my brain would flip back into QWERTY. My error rate was high and I realized after my coworkers came back online from the holidays that this caused my thought processes to stall. Even at 100wpm with QWERTY I was always behind my brain – being super slow made my thoughts come to a halt to wait for the fingers to catch up.
I know that given more time I’d be able to adapt to Dvorak better. Being remote and super dependent on Slack/live chat conversations I need to be able to dump out ideas quickly and move onto the next task. I might give Dvorak more time on my personal computer where I’m usually requiring less throughput.
I don’t count this as a failure – it’s simply providing more insight into how I think and interact with computers.
I love that you can add energy to anything at Sonic. I am feeling a bit run down today – still have a cold – so I juiced up a Cherry Limeaid with Energy!
My coworker Alex reminded me of the Kickstarter project by the electronic music artist BT where he would use an orchestra in a live performance to replace most of the electronic components of his top songs. Well, the album was released! The music is great. Check out the Kickstarter campaign video below, the wrap up video, and links to the album.
Kickstarter project
WHAT IS ELECTRONIC OPUS?
Electronic Opus is a unique and immersive Electronic Symphonic album project featuring the most popular songs from the award winning, world renowned, multiple platinum artist, film composer and technologist BT. BT is considered one of the people who transformed modern music forever and is widely acknowledged as the godfather of trance.
Start with the power and excitement of electronic dance music (EDM), blend in the emotional and classical tones of a symphony orchestra, and the result is Electronic Opus, a first-of-its-kind, high-energy album and live concert experience arriving in March 2015.
Produced by BT and the award-winning composer and Video Games Live creator Tommy Tallarico, Electronic Opus features BT’s signature EDM hits re-imagined, re-arranged and remixed with a full orchestra.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/445474695/electronic-opus
Wrap-up video
The finished album
- Apple Music – https://itun.es/us/BfXD-
- Spotify – http://open.spotify.com/album/1e5B41rHQZHstoi1dfApIo
Those aren’t grey hairs, it’s beard tinsel!
A majority of the selfies I see being taken are usually taken wrong. Well, let me clarify – most selfies should never be taken. The remaining ones are taken incorrectly because people tend to look at the camera wrong. What do I mean? Take a look:
Looking at the screen
In this example I’m looking at the screen when taking the picture. It feels the most natural since I’m looking at myself and then the picture snaps my eyes looking downward. Now look at the picture when I look at the actual camera lens:
Looking at the camera
Much better, right? Next time you’re taking a selfie make sure you tell yourself and whomever else is in the frame to look at the camera lens, not the screen!
Camera on an iPhone 6s
If you’re not using an iPhone you’ll want to dig into the specs for your phone to determine which sensor is the camera. You can also just put your finger over each of the sensors while the camera app is running to figure out which one is the camera.
When you’re using a selfie stick the aiming of the eyes is less important.
Don’t use a selfie stick.
We’ve been using Slack at Automattic for about two years now. One of the biggest challenges I had with it (and any other chat system really) is losing my place. I will frequently read activity in a room, quickly determine it is not immediately relevant, and tell myself to not forget to come back to it later. In reality I never remember and the idea is lost to the ether of my ADHD brain.
Slack has a feature to handle this issue – you can mark a room unread at any position in history!
Hover over any message, click the ellipsis (…), and click Mark unread.
Yay!