Steroids

Ever since the topic of Lance Armstrong and doping came up my opinion has been “of course he was on the gear”. I have been under the impression that the Tour de France was something in which athletes needed steroids to effectively compete.

People need to stop viewing these charges from the perspective of a spectator who dabbles in the art of cycling occasionally. A world class cyclist (or any sportsman) has a huge incentive to take performance enhancing drugs. During Armstrong’s peak he enjoyed several years of being a cycling god, he was paid incredible amounts of money, had world fame and won the game that is life.

If the other option was to die a nobody then I know what option I would be choosing.

Remember that guy that gave up? Neither does anybody else.

Please keep in mind that every cyclist at that level is on some form of gear. Those who are not finish last.

So even though he was doping, it wasn’t a case of unfair advantage. It wasn’t first place on steroids and everyone else competing fairly because everyone was on them yet he was the most effective at incorporating them into his training.

Steroids are really taboo and the lame man’s consensus is that the second any ordinary person touches anabolics they become a world class athlete. In reality Lance Armstrong followed an incredibly strict diet, trained 6 hours a day every day, had unwavering willpower, never let the pain overcome him and pushed his body further than any other cyclist (then on top he took performance enhancing drugs).

Steroids: Synthetic forms of testosterone, anabolic/androgenic in nature, which, when researched, scrutinized, and applied correctly via the oral, injectable, or transdermal routes in combination with a well-planned and executed diet, consistently intense and strictly methodical gym work, and regular sleep patterns, will, to varying degrees and depending largely upon genetics, produce a physique possessing a state of musculature seldom witnessed outside the realm of hormonal enhancement. – Urban Dictionary

People need to stop viewing this as the “biggest scandal in the history of the Tour” because the rules of the game are completely different to the amateur cyclist’s opinion.

2012
10/13
CATEGORY
Fitness
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Sleep

When one wakes early he is given a full day of sunlight, which is amazing because it feels like the day is longer and the you have the ability to do more. But it is also important to remember that sleep is very important.

So a balance needs to be struck, where you get enough sleep to function correctly whilst not oversleeping. It starts to become difficult when you incorporate weightlifting and training into the equation because sleep is so important to recovery.

It really is a tough balance to find and everybody will have a different tolerance to how effective their sleep is to their recovery.

2012
10/12
CATEGORY
Fitness
productivity
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Raspberry Pi

Today I received my new Raspberry Pi, the credit card sized PC, and I am feeling really giddy. The reason I bought it is to teach myself about lower level computing concepts, like how does the operating system work and how does the computer communicate with all its different resources (Because this computer is so small and theoretically more simple than a full sized PC).

You receive this thing and it comes with no instructions what so ever. There is just it, in its box, and you get told nothing. Granted there are dozens of manuals on the internet but I like the idea, “This thing has many uses, you don’t need to be baby fed information, figure it out yourself”. Too many things these days come with more warnings and instructions than necessary (Mostly to reduce a companies liability) but it makes you feel like the designers don’t think you are capable of using basic items correctly.

But I am really excited, I haven’t been this excited over a “thing” in ages. But I must pace myself, I still am half way through my Ruby on Rails tutorial and I need to finish that before I let myself play with this new toy.

2012
10/11
CATEGORY
IT
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Do stuff everyday

Something I firmly believe is that if you do something every day eventually you will be comfortable doing it. It will become a natural part of you. If you selectively choose simple things that make you a better person then eventually you will make everyone around you look ordinary and unimpressive.

This article conveys this message perfectly and recommends a lot of those simple activities. I am a really big fan.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle

2012
10/10
CATEGORY
productivity
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Excessive Hygiene Concerns

We are lucky enough to live in a country where the water that comes out of our taps is as clean if not cleaner than bottled water. We live in a country where trash doesn’t pile up and attract vermin (and there super disease carrying ability). Where toilet water is cleaner than the ice we put in our drinks.

In Australia it is pretty hard to get sick from the environment, this means that caring about hygiene more than what is  common sense is unnecessary and pedantic.

A person who fusses about washing themselves several times a day, or keeping their house in sparkling condition 24/7 is redirecting precious time towards an endeavour that has minimal extra benefits.

Keeping clean is important, body odour is nasty and so are sinks that are piled up with dirty dishes. But the main causes of sickness in developed countries are poor diet’s and lifestyle habits, plus the fact that other people are sick around you (High population density means there is a good chance that someone will give you their cold).

Many countries don’t have the luxury of clean environments and they survive, our need to excessively clean our super clean houses is pointless.

2012
10/09
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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Them vs Us

George Carlin wrote a lot about how the ‘big world’ is messed up beyond repair, how the system is so bad that it actually isn’t fixable..

And you know what, he is right, there is no way for an individual to fix anything that is wrong with our big world (The social problems) without burning themselves out before prior to making any impact at all. But he phrases it like it is us vs them. Like somebody decided that this is the way it should be because it works out better for them.

I disagree with this point, I think that the ‘system’ that is jerking us all around is a manifestation of some of the less popular human traits. Things like our tendency to go for short term gains rather than long term progress, our selfishness, and our own stupidity.

I think that it is a statistical certainty that someone in our world will get lucky and own the exact resources needed for control, and once this ‘random’ person (It could be you) gets into control, they just do what they always do, promote their own self interests.

And this has caused all the awful things like global warming, wage slavery, stupid laws (see software patents) and corruption within the authorities.

Unlike Carlin, I think there is a chance that we can pull out of it. But it wont be the result of any individual or group effort. The slim chance of us pulling through and achieving eutopia will come from 2 things, technology and open source (Or maybe copyright piracy).

There has been constant increases in efficiency since humans have started innovating. The pyramids were built with thousands of people, skyscrapers are now build with dozens. We are forever needing less labour to achieve the same amount of technical difficulty. The only catch is that we need exponentially more information (Data) to finish these projects.

The thing about labour is you need people to do it, people are expensive, and they need to do things that they don’t want to do. Information on the other hand is cheap and easily copied and reused.

Eventually labour will be completely eliminated to achieve ultimate efficiency. You can see this with the 3d printers, although they are pretty ordinary at the moment, they are heading towards being able to print anything as easily as you can print a text document.

Once this happens the cost for physical things approaches zero, you can just print it out anytime. However information becomes the main cost (Buying the blueprints for your car). This is where open source comes in. If you can find freely made blueprints there will be no costs to own anything because you print them out for the price of their weight in dirt.

This changes capitalism at its core, if resources aren’t limited then there is no fundamental economic problem.

This allows every human to redirect their focus from survival to self actualisation, leading to a new age of enlightenment.

2012
10/08
CATEGORY
Future
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Mental Information Processing

Benjamin Graham created the allegory of Mr Market; he recognised the similarities between the stock market and a co-worker that comes and makes offers on your property. Graham understood that most of the time this co-worker is wrong and it is best to ignore what he offers unless you plan to take advantage of it.

I think this idea should be extended to all forms of information that a person receives in life. Unless you plan on taking advantage of information given to you, the best option is to just disregard (ignore) it.

This is opposed to dwelling on things that people say, or being stressed out by situations that are out of your control. Most of the time the things feeding you information are incorrect and they don’t impact you as much as you think. The only time you should ever let something get to you is if you plan on taking advantage of it.

2012
10/06
CATEGORY
Financial
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Learn from the experts

Long ago communities developed in isolation and if you needed advise you were forced to your local expert. This expert would be knowledgeable in his area of expertise relative to the locals, but the absolute knowledge known to him could be greatly lower than the expert in the next town over. You might be born in a town with the most knowledgeable person in the world, but it’s unlikely.

These days we have 2 awesome things, the first is the internet where all these local communities are connected. The second is a homogenous culture where people in far off lands can understand what one means relatively easily.

It means that if you want to read a book on a subject, you have the ability to read a book written by the best author in the world. Not simply the closest one.

This is such a gift, can you imagine if you needed to learn something but the most accessible source was incorrect and teaching everything wrong?

At least now you can be assured that the stuff written by a world renowned expert is thoroughly thoroughly for validity.

So take the words spoken by experts and use it as starting point. You get a rock solid foundation. But you have to start with the experts and work from there.

2012
10/03
CATEGORY
learning
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Computing Power

I have had my laptop approximately 4 years now, it isn’t a particularly fast computer (Even when brand new) but for most of the tasks required of a PC it runs faster than many of the brand new computers.

There is one reason for this: I refuse to let if fill up with crap.

It might seem excessive but I have been reinstalling the operating system monthly. It is inescapable that a computer will be infected with all sorts of random things just from casual use. These rogue processes tie up the CPU and causes the computer to run hot (my CPU’s hardly ever run over 15%) the side effect of a computer that is running hot is that it damages the hardware (Reducing your computers lifespan).

This is especially so in windows, where it seems everything you install needs to have access to the CPU from boot.

Reinstalls are only a hassle because you have to backup all your data. If you save all your important documents on-line (Or have an SD card in the computer all the time) and then keep everything on your hard disk organised (I only really have my music saved there). Then making backups is easy.

Then you are free to do a fresh install of the operating system. Your computer will run amazingly while everyone else complains about how they need to upgrade.

2012
10/01
CATEGORY
IT
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Easing Reading

I have been reading Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor for a couple weeks now, but I am only a little bit though it. It is an interesting book but it’s full of statistics and chronological references which make it hard to digest at the best of times.

Anyway so after pumping out a heap of programming work, then staying up late hanging with mates. I get in a mood where I just want to lounge about, “that’s fine” I say to myself, and all of yesterday to recover. However this morning I wake up and feel just as bad as I did yesterday.

I couldn’t allow myself another day written off, and my reading had fallen behind because of the difficulty of the intelligent investor, so I decided to try a more enjoyable book to get my head back in place..

This strategy worked like a charm, after progressing a good way through The Restaurant at the End of the Universe I was back in the game.

It is pretty amazing actually, an easy, enjoyable novel can take you just enough out of reality that you forget all the negative things that are going on.

2012
09/30
CATEGORY
books
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