Tag: Zombies

Confirmation bias, Daily Life

It’s Not What I Thought

Every once in a while, a book manages to surprise me. A great example is “World War Z“. I saw the movie first, so when I started the book imagine my surprise when I realized the only thing the book shares in common with the movie is the title. Seriously. Someone bought the movie rights to a great book and said, I love it. Let’s change everything. I don’t get that. Interestingly, it was written by Max Brooks. Son of Mel Brooks.

This week I found another gem to surprise me. Someone suggested “Starship Troopers“. I was very reluctant as the movie was awful. It couldn’t decide if it wanted to be campy, a spoof, or an actual science fiction flick. The end result was just stupid. Like World War Z, the novel version of Starship Troopers shares the name with the movie and that’s about it. It’s a great read with some pretty deep insights. In a nutshell, the book covers societal structure, the morality of war, and moral breakdown.

First published in 1959, it’s eerie how closely it parallels some of the issues society today is facing. At one point I had to go look up the publish date because I didn’t believe it wasn’t written recently.

And since this seems to be the week of surprises, I had another one yesterday. I had a preconceived notion of someone’s political leanings, and was gob smacked to find out I was completely wrong. If you haven’t followed cartoonist (creator of Dilbert) Scott Adams’ controversial blow up this week, it’s a doozy. On his live stream he made some controversial statements. You can listen here. I had just assumed he leaned towards the right side of the political spectrum. When he made those comments, I thought oh great – more ammo for the left to claim republicans are racist.

After making his comments, Adams sat for a long podcast interview, and I was shocked. He’s very left-wing. Contributed to BLM, supports reparations, and strongly believes systemic racism is the cause of many issues. The exact opposite of what I assumed his beliefs are. It’s a good interview and worth listening to. His rational for making those comments are certainly not how the media is portraying them.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his premise, he intentionally risked everything to say it. Within a day his comic strip has been dropped from every newspaper in the country and his book publisher canceled him. It takes guts to throw yourself on the sword in the name of starting a national discussion about race.

It’s only Wednesday. If there are any more surprises coming… I hope they’re good ones.

Daily Life, Health

Bro, Do You Even Keto?

Crisis, noun

a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, especially for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.

As I’ve mentioned before, my health has been in a downward spiral for a while now. I can’t point to any particular reason, other than general sloth. In September of ’20 I hit my goal weight and climbed Mount Whitney. I felt fantastic. All health markers were exceptional. I decided to take a “timeout” from the strict diet for a short period. Fast forward 14 months and I put all that weight back on, plus a few. While I’m generally physically active, as the weight increases my frequency and intensity of activity drops. Basically, I feel like crap. Tired all the time. Sore after every attempt at working out. Depressed because I can barely run a mile, when a little more than a year ago I was comfortably doing 8-10 mile trail runs at 7,000 feet. It’s truly frightening how fast you go backwards.

Some weeks prior I started trying to turn this ship around. Increased workouts, trying to run a bit again, and half-assed paying attention to my calories. And then a number of days ago the ship ran aground. I wasn’t making much progress. And then an event happened that hit me hard. In a nutshell, vanity and embarrassment at how I look prevented me from doing something fun. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I finally had the courage to step on the scale again and measure BP, HR, and blood sugar. [cue blaring klaxons and flashing red lights]

I don’t remember the exact statistic, but over a three year period, something like 95% of all diets fail. That’s why the experts generally don’t want you to “diet”, but rather make small, incremental healthy choices that are sustainable over the long term. Unfortunately, in crisis management you don’t have the luxury of long term planning. You need to make choices to solve the immediate, critical issues in front of you. When the crisis is over you can revisit plans and recalibrate your long term path forward. That’s where we’re at today… crisis management.

So, say hello to my old friend the ketogenic diet. I really didn’t want to go back to keto. I was on it for almost two years. I found it very restrictive and do have some concerns about long term heart health. Back in my peak health I was just about to do some advanced calcium tests to get the true picture of my heart, and then the pandemic hit and everything was shut down. So I really don’t know what the full impact of almost two years of keto was.

But, for me keto worked. I don’t think it has anything to do with ketogenesis – there are too many studies showing equal weight loss and health results with other diets. I don’t believe insulin/sugar/carbs/inflammation, etc… are the great drivers of fat loss/gain (note – when I started keto I went hard down that rabbit hole and was a rabid convert. Like the old joke, how do you know if someone is vegan/keto/paleo/Crossfit? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.) Don’t misunderstand – I think controlling blood sugar is massively important. But you can achieve the same blood sugar control with exercise and being lean in most cases. Keto is not a magic bullet for this… but it can jump start the process.

Keto worked (in my opinion) because it forces you to pay attention to macros which lends itself to being aware of calories. High protein and fat is much more satiating, which helps curb cravings. And when you really can’t eat/drink carbs, those in-between meal snacks tend go away. Keto, for those of you who haven’t gone down that road, has another benefit. When you first enter ketosis, for a while you tend to dump a ton of water weight. The result is seeing the number on the scale plummet rapidly. You see progress and that’s self-reinforcing to keep going with the diet/exercise. Positive feedback loops are a good thing.

So here we are. Crisis management. Keto. Officially day 4. Peeing like a racehorse. In ketosis (via blood test). Down 3.6 pounds (mostly water weight). As an interesting anecdote, I am a believer in teaching your body to be fat-adapted. We evolved cycling between high protein/fat and then long periods of plant based carbs and intermittent fasting. Our ancestors had to go long fasting periods, running down antelopes, fueled only by stored fats. When I first attempted keto it took several weeks to just edge into ketosis and several more weeks of dropping in and out before I was solidly in ketosis. Throughout the next year and a half I took three or four calculated one week breaks from keto (but maintained the same caloric intake). Each time I restarted, it took shorter and shorter amounts of time to get back into ketosis. Even after a 14 month break, I was (barely) back into ketosis after only a day and a half. No fasting, just high fat/protein. Your body remembers what to do. I find that fascinating.

  • Side note for those who don’t know. Generally “in ketosis” means blood ketone levels greater than 0.5 mmol/L. After a few days I’m hovering around 0.8. At my peak 14 months ago I was generally between 1.5 and 2.3 mmol/L daily.

I’m not sure what the long term eating plan is. I originally quit because of how strict keto is. Eventually, I want to be able to have a beer now and then. My favorite food is Mexican. I freaking love potatoes. Nachos are my kryptonite. None of those are compatible with keto or my current weight. When things are back in control, I’ll need to figure out a lifestyle plan that works. The weight cycles are so incredibly unhealthy, I can’t keep doing it. I’d love to hear what you diet experts feel is a sustainable eating plan?

Besides, when the supply chain / economic collapse / zombie apocalypse finally hits, anyone not fat adapted is going to struggle. As the movie Zombieland stated, there are 53 rules for surviving. Number one is cardio. And you can’t run from zombies if you’re feeling woozy from lack of carbs. But that’s a post for another day.

Government

The Hive Revolution
  • We’ve had four generally accepted industrial revolutions. Coal, Gas, Electronics and Nuclear, and the Internet. The deep thinkers and Wall Street analysts have been trying to predict what the fifth revolution, or 5IR as it’s known, will be. I postulate that it will be the advent of the Hive and that this pandemic will be looked back on as the catalyst that catapulted 5IR forward. The Hive is the collective, distributed workforce. It’s a gig economy. It no longer matters where you live. Virtually all labor can be sourced online. The pandemic forced companies to allow “work from home”. Many companies are dumping their expensive real estate, realizing it’s no longer needed. Remote workspace companies sputtered, but will roar back once humans can interact again. Every possible labor specialty is now available online – billions of individuals busy producing their specialized skill, available to everyone from anywhere at all times. Businesses are increasingly becoming simple aggregators of the hives collective work.
  • The problem with the Hive is the Queen. Hives exist to serve the Queen. If the Hive were a true distributed system we’d have capitalist bliss. Unfortunately we have a few Queens in the form of Amazon, Google, AT&T, Disney, Microsoft, Fox, Twitter, and Facebook. These few bemouths collectively control most of what you purchase, watch, read, and your work environment. They actively shut down and censor any opinions they don’t agree with. They’ve made it impossible for a small mom and pop retail store to compete. Microsoft has implemented “productivity measuring tools” in all its software. Workers are not to be trusted. These companies literally know everything there is to know about you. Where you go, the time of day you went, how long you spent there, your search habits, reading habits, shopping patterns, how much you earn, what you watch, and most importantly – your political thoughts and opinions.
  • You can’t blame the Queens. Queens are just doing what Queens will do. The ability to rein in a Queen rests with the collective voice of the people in the form of their elected officials. Our government is intended to represent us, to step in when a Queen gets a little too rambunctious. Therein lies our problem. The government has become a little too enamored with the power they wield. They see themselves as a Queen, a new ruling class of elites. They’ve stopped protecting the Hive. Us folks in the lower classes have been the proverbial frog in the pot of slowly boiling water, blissfully unaware. This pandemic and the election suddenly lifted the skirt a bit and gave us a peak. Our elected officials are drunk on power, printing money, trillions out thin air to distribute to their friends and donors. They’ve shut down hundreds of thousands of business, gone forever. Meanwhile they’ve allowed the Walmarts and Home Depots to stay open. You can’t go to your local coffee shop or to get your hair cut, but you can happily go to Target to score some Black Friday deals. You’re not allowed to eat in a restaurant, yet you can go to Costco and wander around eating hot dogs from the food court. The Hive outnumbers the Queen but at some point critical mass is reached and the majority of the Hive become zombies of the state. China and North Korea come to mind. The people of those countries have become mindless puppets. The ability for free thinking people to express an independent thought has disappeared. The collective Hive will turn on anyone who resists the state. The government has used the Queens to frighten the Hive into submission. Don’t believe me? Try to go shopping without a mask on. Try to post an unflattering news story about the Bidens, or question climate change on Twitter or YouTube and watch it get taken down. Facebook will flag it with a fact checked as untrue label and the commenters will pounce, labeling you a flat earther.
  • So is it too late for our Hive? We’ve allowed the state to shut down business, mandate face coverings, and limit interactions with other humans, including members of your own family. Airlines and countries are actively pursuing a Covid passport that will be needed to travel. Spain will be keeping databases of people who refuse the vaccine. Officers of the state shut down business at will. Airlines eject families because two year olds aren’t wearing masks. Theaters have police remove a disabled child for not wearing a mask. Surfers are arrested for surfing alone, in contradiction to pandemic law. The state is changing election and immigration laws as fast as they can go, all to improve their ability to stay in office. How long do you think it will be before a social credit system is in place that will impact your ability to get a job, travel, or post your thoughts freely on the internet? I fear it may be too late already. However, there is unrest. You’re starting to see daily acts of rebellion, of pushing back against the state. Roughly four million people became first time gun owners this year. All available ammo has been scooped up. The lockdowns are beginning to produce pockets of resistance. Will it be enough? Will the thinking Hive start driving out the elites, or has critical mass already been reached? Americans are a unique group of people. It will be interesting to watch.
  • Speaking of the pandemic that shall not be named, take a look at this graph of the case curve of all 50 states. Notice anything? The curves are almost identical in shape for every state. Lockdowns, no lockdowns, masks, no masks, it doesn’t seem to have made a difference in the outcome. The virus is going to do what viruses do. We could have printed that same several trillion dollars, used it to protect the elderly and nursing homes, shore up hospital capacity, and kept our economy flowing. But hey, at least you’ll get $600 dollars.

Song of the day: Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen

Daily Life

What’s Your EDC Bro?

EDC. Every Day Carry. Crazy popular right now. Tons of sites and YouTube channels dedicated to EDC. What started out as primarily referring to daily conceal carry firearms and self defense paraphernalia (as opposed to your regular duty weapon and gear), EDC now encompasses everything on your person.

Most EDC YouTube channels will feature everything in your pockets, purse, and backpack. All the crap you carry around everyday. I’ve been hooked on these channels because I like gear and they have tons of neat stuff. Push button key organizers, titanium slim wallets, ultra-mini led flashlights, pocket knives, mini pepper spray dispensers, etc… I love it. And, I never buy any of it.

I’m cheap and I’m simple. My EDC consists of the following:

  • Old, very thin wallet with 4 cards and zero cash (I don’t remember the last time I carried cash).
  • Key ring with: car key, house key, mailbox key.
  • Handkerchief. What can I say? My nose runs. Constantly.
  • Phone.
  • Mini single blade pocketknife.

That’s it. I can’t fathom why you’d need anything else? When I worked in an office environment I added a small bag with a laptop and a few pens and a phone charger. When I go to work now the only additional thing I bring is a water bottle to hold myself accountable for drinking enough H2O. I laugh when I see my coworkers walking in with a full backpack or tote, a lunch bag, and a giant purse. What the hell is in all those bags that you can’t live without? And women, for gods sake what do you carry in those giant purses? Do you really need all of it EVERY DAY?

To the original EDC concept… I’m not opposed to conceal carry and have thought about it from time to time. Then I remember I’m exasperated when I have one too many keys on my keychain. I can’t imagine how annoyed I’d be remembering to put on a holster every morning to run an errand. Then again, I live in a very safe city. If I lived in Atlanta, Houston, LA, New York… maybe I’d change my tune. And when the zombie apocalypse hits, I’m definitely SOL.

So – what’s your EDC and why? Is it time I become more adult and ramp up what I’m carting around with me every day? I have to admit that titanium push button wallet looks very cool. And I’m enamored with the North Face Access pack. I just don’t know what I’d put in it. Like the Seinfeld episode, just crackers and a newspaper probably.