Tag Archives: Life

A-ha! Aerobics and sleep!

When it comes to curbing hunger, aerobic exercise, like running on a treadmill, is more effective than non-aerobic activities, such as weightlifting. So says a study in American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Actually, sleep has a lot to do with ghrelin too. Previous research reveals not getting enough sleep boosts ghrelin levels and increases hunger and appetite, which can contribute to weight gain and obesity. Just another reason why getting sufficient sleep is a good idea!… -->

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xkcd on pickup artists, negging and life

Excellent:

You look like you are going to spend your life having one epiphany after another, always thinking you’ve finally figured out what’s holding you back, and how you can be productive and crerative and turn your life around.
But nothing will ever change. That cycle of mediocrity isn’t due to some obstacle. It’s who you are.
The thing standing in the way of your dreams is that the person having them is you.

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Социотипы стран

Многие соционики занимаются тем, что пытаются определить так называемый “интегральный социотип” страны. Это, в общем, не такое уж невинное занятие состоит в том, чтобы попытаться определить, каковы общие характеристики поведения населения в целом той или иной страны, а потом присвоить социотип, соответствующий этому наблюдаемому социотипу.

Естественно, возникает множество споров и разногласий. Просто потому, что люди по-разному представляют себе общие поведенческие черты других культур. Это вообще сильно напоминает Жванецкого: “Давайте спорить о вкусе бананов с теми, кто их ел! До хрипоты! До драки!” Здесь примерно то же самое: чтобы получить минимальное представление о стране, надо в ней хотя бы немного пожить, а не посмотреть клуб путешественников по телевизору.

Всё бы ничего, если бы не одна проблема. Когда нам навязывают определенный “социотип страны”, мы автоматически начинаем её воспринимать сквозь призму характеристик этого навязанного типа. Просто потому, что мы знаем соционику. Это приводит к созданию стереотипов на пустом месте. А потом эти ложные стереотипы подтверждают собственно и навязанный стереотип. Самоподдерживающийся самообман.… -->

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Quote of the day

Plato says:

Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong … And so the rhetorician’s business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe.
Then the case is the same in all the other arts for the orator and his rhetoric; there is no need to know the truth of the actual matters, but one merely needs to have discovered some device of persuasion which will make one appear to those who do not know to know better than those who know.

How true, how true… The whole point of any public speaking, be it on TV or in a meeting room, is not to bring the enlightenment but merely to convince. And this simple truth takes years to discover. Some may think that reading Plato in the young age may spare us some difficulty and suffering but I disagree. One must become ready through experience to accept such simple truths.

The obvious consequence should not escape our attention: any public speaking should be seen as an attempt to convince you, not to make you better off. Simple, neh?… -->

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WiFi on WD TV Live Plus

It is a very rare occasion when I want to endorse a product in a public way. However, now I am just in such a mood. I bought a WD TV Live Plus box a couple of months ago to hold my videos and photos at home. Unfortunately, it did not come with a wireless network connection so it had to stay off-line until yesterday.

And yesterday I had a crazy idea to stick a nano-WiFi (whatever that means) USB stick into it. The box has two USB slots to connect two USB hard drives. So I just put the wireless network stick into the second slot. I expected nothing, I was sure it would check that it is not a disk and then I would just put the WiFi stick back to the desk drawer whence it came. Imagine my surprise…

I open the settings menu and I see the wireless network settings staring back at me. To say I was dumbfounded does not even begin to describe my state at that point. After recovering my thoughts and a cup of tea I went about setting it up and 30 seconds later the thing was happily connected to my home network.

This is brilliant. I sincerely congratulate WD engineers on this piece of hardware. Not only it works great as a video player and a photo viewer but it recognized and used a piece of obscure hardware thrown at it without so much as a backward glance. Way to go, guys!

P.S. If you go and use it, make sure you have the HDMI interface, the “normal” video quality sucks.… -->

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