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There’s an article in the New York Times that attempts to stop people from lecturing other people about skipping breakfast by pointing out that basically all the research and messaging is flawed, and that we probably need to start over.

The headline tells us that breakfast is not magical, but I’m here to tell you that indeed it is magical.

If I don’t get breakfast of some kind, you get nothin’

That’s right. If I don’t get breakfast of some kind, (and as far as I’m concerned, coffee counts as breakfast), you get nothin’. No code, no support, no accessible all the things, nothin’. I stay completely unmotivated until something goes in my face hole. That something could be just coffee, or coffee with some food. But they’re both breakfast, and since this is what keeps me (a) doing all the things and (b) not murdering everyone around me, breakfast is therefore still magical!

Seriously though, read the article.

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I keep a browser open all the time. And in that browser I have any number of open tabs going at any given moment. The only thing that’s inconvenient about this by default is having to move from one tab to another single file. There are shortcut keys for the first ten, but anything past that becomes “What’s behind door number three!” This makes supporting my tab habbit cumbersome. But thanks to this little addon for Firefox, I get all my tabs in a neat little menu that I can access with alt+a, and then cycle through at will. This warms my little efficiency-driven heart. Now all I have to do is remember to close the ones I’m no longer using.

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Blindbeader wrote an excellent peace critiquing the use of privilege by blind people, which is definitely worth a read, especially if you consider yourself a part of what’s known as the disabled rights movement. I agree completely with what she’s saying, but for me, the post brings to mind a few other points. First, that we all have privilege of some kind, and second, while we should be careful about letting our own allow us to forget the lack of it by others, I think we need to look at how we encourage others to “check theirs”, as it were.

I’ve never been a fan of the phrase, “Check your privilege,” not because I don’t think all of us need to be aware of how our upbringing, the environment we were raised in and live in, or the advantages we have in life can’t influence how we perceive others’ situations, but because of what it implies. To me, it implies that the person that phrase is being directed at has never looked outside their own bubble to consider what the speaker of that phrase may be going through. In some cases, I’m sure that’s true. After all, if we were all masters of empathy, the world wouldn’t be in the shape it’s in. But sometimes when we’re advocating, our self-righteousness gets in the way, and we mistake it for righteousness instead. I think we all should take a step back from time to time and look in the mirror. None of us can be perfect, but I believe if we displayed a little more empathy when advocating for our favorite cause, whatever that is, we’d get a lot more done with a lot less rancor attached. And we might even end up with a better society in the process.

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So I got on the scale this morning like I usually do, and found that I’m only 9.9 pounds away from my overall current weight loss goal. Plus, i have a pair of jeans, “college 1.0” jeans, that now fit. College 1.0 jeans! I left college 1.0 in 2002.

These are a pair with nice, deep pockets. Useful pockets. Pockets that would probably fit an iPhone 6S, when I finally decide to bite the bullet and upgrade.

Happy Valentine’s Day to me, from me. I’ll treat myself to a beer later I think.

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It is not normal to obsess over the calories you eat and the exercise you do in a day no matter what society tells you. Yes, a balanced diet is important. Yes, getting some exercise is important. No, spending all day on an app that takes over and controls your life and makes you preoccupied with food, exercise and weight is not okay.

Source: MyFitnessPal is Not Your Pal | Mental Illness Talk

This is something to keep in mind as we all start paying more attention to our fitness goals in 2016. Yes, quantifying data using an app and other technologies can be helpful when it comes to reaching our goals, but all of us who rely on these technologies need to remember to keep a balanced view when it comes to quantifying ourselves.

We and our health are more than just data.

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Total steps: 2375
Floors climbed: 0
Calories burned: 1652
Elevation gained: 0 feet
Traveled: 0.99 miles
Sedentary minutes: 884
Lightly active minutes: 175
Fairly active minutes: 0
Very active minutes: 0
Yep, I was pretty much completely lazy yesterday. I’m supposed to go work out today, so that will definitely increase the step and activity numbers, but yesterday neither myself nor the friend I go work out with felt good, so no trip to the gym. We’ll see what happens today.

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One of the playlists I maintain on Spotify is one called “Tired of Stupid.” I made it public and am allowing others to collaborate on it, so of course Wil and Denise joined in and have added to its greatness. It’s become quite respectable by this point. I started with twenty or so tracks, and it’s now up to seventy-seven as of this writing.

One of the songs that got added by either Wil or Denise, “Drink!” by Alestorm, is today’s work loop. It’s become one of my favorite songs from the list, and I’m in the process of discovering more from Alestorm.

Here’s the official video. Enjoy.

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I’ve been doing what I like to refer to as the “Badd Weight Watcher thing” for a while now, and have just exited a rather long period of not caring. Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s not that I haven’t cared, (I still went to work out semi-regularly, didn’t take every chance I could to binge on the naughty food, and every now and then my goal would cross my mind). I did, however, not exactly make it a point to jump on the scale weekly like I had been doing for a while.

So when I stepped on the scale Friday, expecting the worst, or at least a few extra pounds, I was pleasantly surprised.

I am now only fifteen pounds away from my goal. Fifteen! It’s taken me a long time to get here, but I’m almost to the point of maintaining instead of losing. This, of course, makes me very happy.

I’m no longer a Weight Watchers member. I couldn’t justify paying $40 or more a month just to weigh in every week. And the Weight Watchers data really isn’t easily comparable with normal data, like calorie intake and calorie burn. I have a fitbit, and I have the Aria scale, so once I got the scale, I canceled my membership.

I briefly wondered if I could keep this thing up without the weekly weigh-ins, but I’ve managed, sort of. I definitely don’t regret the decision. I loved my meeting leader, but not enough to pay that extra monetary cost.

I’m looking forward to continuing the countdown, and being able to write the “ground zero” post.

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When it comes to spoken conversation, I swear. A lot.

Sometimes, people tell me I use the word “fuck” too much.

Well, next time that happens, I’m backing that shit up with science.

Swearing can be cathartic, which can help us cope with “intolerable periods of inner conflict, repression and readjustment”.
Swearing can also help us deal with physical pain, believe it or not. One study6 tested how long participants could hold their hand in a bucket of icy water. In the first round, participants were allowed to say a neutral word. In the second round, they repeated a swear word instead. The study found that swearing helped:
Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophize.

You can read the full article here, complete with all kinds of references, and enough history and linguistics to make any nerd’s little heart skip a beat. It even contains everyone’s favorite video Well, OK, maybe it’s just mine.

But the takeaway is this: Swear early, and swear often, because fucking science.

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I tend to be suspicious of covers, mostly because the majority of them aren’t well-done in my opinion. But this one of Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.” by Jacob Collier is amazing. I think this may be Tuesday’s work loop. BTW, read that post, there’s a ton of useful info in there. And I think I found a new shiny.

Hat tip for the music discovery: Andre, who also creates some amazing stuff. You should check it out through either Spotify or iTunes.

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I’m about to sign off for Yom Kippur. Before I do so, I’d like to wish everyone who is observing a meaningful Day of Atonement and an easy fast. May those who wish to but cannot fast not feel inadequate or left out in any way. And may everyone, regardless of whether or not you observe Yom Kippur, be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good, sweet, healthy and happy 5776, full of prosperity and every good thing. Finally, I’d like to wish everyone celebrating EID a blessed and meaningful holiday.
Amanda

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I think I may have made a promise to myself at some point that there would be no code on this blog.

Well, promise broken, because I want a place to document my side projects.

My current fascination has been with metadata.

In a nutshell, metadata is the information that gets collected when you do things like take pictures with your phone. It can be information like credit, shutter speed, or location, if you have enabled location services for your camera app on your phone.

Basically, everything you do has metadata attached these days. Photos aren’t the only information with metadata attached. Photos are just the best example I can come up with that’s not too far out there in geek world.

So, I have started playing around with displaying this metadata. What if I could take the information from photos for instants, and use it to plot a location on a map. Then display that map so the people who read this blog could then look at where I am, or where I was when I wrote a particular post at least?

So far, I think I have the location part working. If you look at this post, under the content, you should have the ability to hover over the location and see a street level view.

It’s not perfect, and it’s not exactly the way I want it, so I will continue playing around. And of course, I will document the whole thing here, complete with code examples.

Augusta, Georgia, United States
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This was in my Twitter stream.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and oured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous ‘yes’.

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else—the small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

‘Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents.
Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18.There will always be time to clean the house and fix the
disposal. Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.

The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.’

I have no idea who it’s by, but definitely something to keep in mind when life gets hectic.