Monthly Archives: January 2009

Get fit with running, sit-ups, and push-ups

Posted by on January 30, 2009 1 comment
Uploaded by: Frank C.
Image via Wikipedia

This past fall I started this running program.

If you’ve done a lot of walking, but you’ve never run before, you might feel a bit intimidated to get out there and start running. This 8-week plan will help you ease into the sport. Before you get started with running, get familiar with how to do the run/walk method.

I’ve been idly looking for something else to do during the cold weather. Via Lifehacker I recently came across these two programs which I’m going to try implementing simultaneously.

one hundred push ups

If you’re serious about increasing your strength, follow this six week training program and you’ll soon be on your way to completing 100 consecutive push ups!

two hundred sit-ups

Think there’s no way you could do this? I think you can! All you need is a good plan, plenty of discipline and about 30 minutes a week to achieve this goal!

No doubt some of you can already do 100 consecutive sit-ups, but let’s face it, you’re in a big minority. Most of you reading this won’t even be able to manage 20 sit-ups. Actually, I’m sure many of you can’t even do 10.

I’ll update with some info as I try to implement these. This quote holds so true for these sorts of goals.

Three events do not an “issue” make.

Posted by on January 28, 2009 No comments
Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
Image via Wikipedia

Referring to a few stories they’ve done about violence associated with gadgets, in this item on Gizmodo, Sean Fallon asks:

In the last few months we have seen a runaway teenager die after having his Xbox 360 taken away, a teenager kill his parents over Halo 3 and 30-year old brothers stab each other over a PS2 controller. Naturally, this begs the question—what the hell is going on here? Is this a parenting issue, a social issue, or a scary psychological disorder that needs to be taken more seriously?

This paragraph seems to imply there’s some sort of pattern to analyze here.  Three examples don’t show a pattern.  Especially given the hundreds of millions of gadgets out there.

“I told you so” is stupid.

Posted by on January 24, 2009 No comments

Everything is a probability.

When I say Event X is going to happen, I of course don’t know this with 100% probability.

When you say “No, Event Y is going to happen.”, you do not know this with 100% probability, even if you think you do.

If Event Y happens, the fact that it happened says little about your “rightness” at the time of your prediction.  If I think Event X has a 75% chance of happening and Event Y has a 25% chance of happening, but Event Y is what actually ends up happening, that doesn’t mean my estimates at the time were wrong.

This is why “I told you so” is stupid.  It doesn’t increase your stature as an accurate predictor.  The only things that should increase your stature as an accurate predictor is a history of predictions that match with events that happen.  For bonus points your predictions calibrated probabilities should match the real events.

As an aside, the problems related to this include our societies reliance on ‘pundits’.  There is no central clearinghouse for recording well-defined predictions which matches those with their results.  Such a mechanism would help us better pick our leaders and those who advise our leaders.

For love of reading

Posted by on January 12, 2009 No comments

she really did read the impossible-sounding 462 books in 2008. Those 462 books marked a personal record — she’s been keeping a formal list since 2005. Below, she explains what it’s like to be a super-speedy reader.

From the LA Times.

462 books in one year.  Pretty impressive to me.  Granted, she’s a book reviewer so she has more time to read than some of us, but that’s still over a book per day.

One of my goals for this year is to read more.  Bare minimum, I’d like to read one book per week.  Since the 1st of December I’ve read the following:

  • Consider Phelebas by Iain M. Banks
  • The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds
  • The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbet and Kevin J. Anderson
  • The Machine Crusade by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
  • The Battle of Corrin by Brian Herbet and Kevin J. Anderson

I need to step up the pace a bit…