Being 1337 ain't easy
Oct. 16th, 2007 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batskeetsThis is unsettling: kids taking pole-dancing classes? I don't doubt that pole dancing can be a workout--I'm pretty darned fit and I'm pretty certain I couldn't do at least some of that wacky, hanging-upside-down stuff they do--but putting children into an activity that's known for being sexual is just weird.
There are a couple of different pole-dancing studios here in Portland, and they don't seem to be taking the sexuality out of the practice when they teach their classes. If the studio in the article is really doing something *that* different from the general public's understanding of what pole dancing is, they probably ought to think about at least naming it something different.
Until that happens, I think I'll stick to my plan of growing some 1337 wushu kidlets. Or, you know, encouraging them in any of the myriad age-appropriate sports and activities that kids are offered these days.
In other news, I liked today's Coding Horror. Life *is* too short to spend it doing something you don't like. Having a direction you're passionate about, even if it seems simple or modest, brings a definite sparkle to your life, and it's cool when you can find what you love, and do that thing with other people who love it, too. I suppose that some folks determine that they love money, but that's a whole different thing entirely, heh. ;)
I think that's part of my issue with The Job: not only are the people here not particularly passionate about the web or about design, but many of them only have a cursory understanding of it. I'm in a situation where my work is a secondary by-product, and I don't even have anybody who I can relate with about it. My old job had an element of that, too: the environment was, at least, more focused on software and web stuff, so it was better in that sense, but I was still one of only a few designers on staff, so my development-obsessed co-workers got lost in the aesthetic areas that I was all obsessed with.
I guess that just highlights the point that I need to get my design company rolling, or at least get a cool design job where the designers make up more than, oh, 2% of the employee population. ;p
Speaking of Coding Horror, I recently found my way from one of their posts to the Hacker's Diet, and it's an interesting take on dieting, largely for the way it communicates the information. It doesn't give you any ubersecrets or shortcuts--it's an "eat fewer calories than you burn" strategy--but it does explain things in a way that's actually comforting, even for a non-hacker.
For all my homies who may have struggled with dieting in the past, I simply *must* point you to the section on Signal and Noise. In short, the strategy is to weigh yourself daily and track it, but do so without judging yourself. There are all kinds of variables that can change your weight by a few pounds, and if you let yourself get all despondent over a result you don't like, it'll be easier for you to slip off the wagon.
The cool thing is that, once you have a week's worth of daily weigh-ins, you can start calculating trends, and that's the real indicator of whether or not you're progressing. Even if you have the occasional high-weight day, you're still okay if the overall trend is going down. The higher weight is probably just because you didn't spend enough time on the toilet yesterday, or some other reason that doesn't reflect your actual bodyweight.
I read the section about Dexter's sample diet journal, and it sounded *just* like the kind of thing I've put myself through in the past, and the same kind of emotional rollercoaster that a lot of dieters are on. It makes a hell of a lot of sense, but we're so conditioned to expect perfection from ourselves when dieting that we don't even consider factors that we don't directly control. How much disappointment could people have saved themselves, if they were calculating trends, instead of going by daily or even weekly weigh-ins?
It also has an online tool that'll let you track your weight and calculate trends, so I've been making use of that for about a week. Just weigh, don't judge yourself, and stick to the plan, adjusting when the trends indicate that it's necessary. Makes sense, no? :)
There are a couple of different pole-dancing studios here in Portland, and they don't seem to be taking the sexuality out of the practice when they teach their classes. If the studio in the article is really doing something *that* different from the general public's understanding of what pole dancing is, they probably ought to think about at least naming it something different.
Until that happens, I think I'll stick to my plan of growing some 1337 wushu kidlets. Or, you know, encouraging them in any of the myriad age-appropriate sports and activities that kids are offered these days.
In other news, I liked today's Coding Horror. Life *is* too short to spend it doing something you don't like. Having a direction you're passionate about, even if it seems simple or modest, brings a definite sparkle to your life, and it's cool when you can find what you love, and do that thing with other people who love it, too. I suppose that some folks determine that they love money, but that's a whole different thing entirely, heh. ;)
I think that's part of my issue with The Job: not only are the people here not particularly passionate about the web or about design, but many of them only have a cursory understanding of it. I'm in a situation where my work is a secondary by-product, and I don't even have anybody who I can relate with about it. My old job had an element of that, too: the environment was, at least, more focused on software and web stuff, so it was better in that sense, but I was still one of only a few designers on staff, so my development-obsessed co-workers got lost in the aesthetic areas that I was all obsessed with.
I guess that just highlights the point that I need to get my design company rolling, or at least get a cool design job where the designers make up more than, oh, 2% of the employee population. ;p
Speaking of Coding Horror, I recently found my way from one of their posts to the Hacker's Diet, and it's an interesting take on dieting, largely for the way it communicates the information. It doesn't give you any ubersecrets or shortcuts--it's an "eat fewer calories than you burn" strategy--but it does explain things in a way that's actually comforting, even for a non-hacker.
For all my homies who may have struggled with dieting in the past, I simply *must* point you to the section on Signal and Noise. In short, the strategy is to weigh yourself daily and track it, but do so without judging yourself. There are all kinds of variables that can change your weight by a few pounds, and if you let yourself get all despondent over a result you don't like, it'll be easier for you to slip off the wagon.
The cool thing is that, once you have a week's worth of daily weigh-ins, you can start calculating trends, and that's the real indicator of whether or not you're progressing. Even if you have the occasional high-weight day, you're still okay if the overall trend is going down. The higher weight is probably just because you didn't spend enough time on the toilet yesterday, or some other reason that doesn't reflect your actual bodyweight.
I read the section about Dexter's sample diet journal, and it sounded *just* like the kind of thing I've put myself through in the past, and the same kind of emotional rollercoaster that a lot of dieters are on. It makes a hell of a lot of sense, but we're so conditioned to expect perfection from ourselves when dieting that we don't even consider factors that we don't directly control. How much disappointment could people have saved themselves, if they were calculating trends, instead of going by daily or even weekly weigh-ins?
It also has an online tool that'll let you track your weight and calculate trends, so I've been making use of that for about a week. Just weigh, don't judge yourself, and stick to the plan, adjusting when the trends indicate that it's necessary. Makes sense, no? :)
