Sometimes, on a Friday after a long week, you just want to rest your eyes on a beautiful, powerful, historical man.
Welcome to the Tsar Nicholas II appreciation post.
You’re welcome.
Batfort
Style reveals substance
Month: August 2017 (page 3 of 4)
When I first heard that the guy who wrote the Google Memo was fired, I was not surprised. I work in a very similar psychological environment; if I ever hinted that I thought facts like that were true, I would immediately become a pariah.
I read people speculating about his motives and his plan.
“He knows what he’s doing — he totally knew he would get fired”
“Such a poor sacrificial lamb — he clearly had no idea this would happen”
“He wrote an open letter for other companies to hire him for upper management”
At this point, I became worried for him. It was becoming clearer and clearer that he’s not an alt-right scrapper, but a niceguy nerd with an unwavering commitment to the facts. I thought he might get eaten alive.
I’m not worried anymore.
via Peter Duke
James Damore, whether he likes it or not, is going to become a figurehead for the fight against ingrained leftist groupthink in the workplace. And it’s very clear that he has some heavy hitters on his side.
Already, he has some weapons-grade memetic photographs out, courtesy of our friend Peter Duke.
His brand-new Twitter handle is @Fired4Truth, a punchy battlecry that sums up his symbolic martyrdom. It’s the 30 second elevator speech version of him — “Who are you again?” “I’m the guy who got fired from Google because I told the truth.”
Some of his first post-firing conversations online were with Jordan B Peterson and Stefan Molyneux, both solidly committed to reason and evidence.
Wesearchr is taking care of his fundraising. (And I suspect Chuck C Johnson is behind his Twitter and periscope dealings, as well.)
Cernovich has started referring to the battle against the “Diversity Industrial Complex.”
Even congressman Dana Rohrabacher is stirring the waters of Twitter on this issue.
I hope James is ready for his crash course in memetic warfare. It’s clear from his memo that he’s a very logical guy; now we see if an intelligent coder can learn how rhetoric works.
This is shaping up to be a very interesting next set of battles in the meme war. We’ve moved from the streets of Berkeley to the boardrooms of Mountain View.
STAT News covers another instance of citizen-funded research, this one for a major kidney disorder:
Then, three years ago, the parents of a 1-year-old girl in Brazil with nephrotic syndrome reached out to Riella. The girl’s condition had failed to improve with conventional treatments. Her parents had read that modified diets had helped others, and wondered if their daughter’s disease might be related to food sensitivity. They asked a doctor in Brazil to guide her through a new diet.
Within two weeks, the girl’s kidneys all but stopped leaking protein, and she effectively went into remission. Her parents were ecstatic, but they also wanted the medical community to better understand the mechanisms of this intervention, in hopes that doctors would embrace it as a treatment.
They were prepared to anonymously fund a research trial, but they wanted it done quickly.
As in this summer.
And apparently, it’s really happening. Somehow, some way, a bunch of MDs, PhDs and RDs from Harvard/Brigham and Women’s Hospital are studying dietary effects on autoimmune disease. I’m a little shocked.
Though I’m less shocked after reading the family’s statement on the study’s website.
We believe that reaching the real cure can only be achieved through love, dedication, and pursuing the unknown with a true belief and faith. […]
Since we understood the Nephrotic Syndrome (FSGS) and how difficult it is to treat it, we started to focus on different approaches. In this way we received a gift when we realized that food is the basic building block of life,so we knew we had to pay attention in the deepest way possible to know what we are giving to our child in terms of a daily diet.
Understanding that relationship,we started to work on the right diet, which was key to improving our daughter’s condition.
The link between several autoimmune reactions such as the inflammatory condition that we see in some cases of Nephrotic Syndrome (FSGS) is related to food intolerance and allergies that were present in our own case and could be present in many other cases that are difficult to treat.
The Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free diet has changed our daughter’s life, reducing her proteinuria levels by almost 90% since she was diagnosed and giving us the ability to see all the changes, and allowing us to reduce the amount of daily drugs that we had administered for the prior 3 years, including the complete elimination of steroids.
Love, independent money, and sincere belief in the truth. Those three things are going to get us more usable data than the last 100 years of dietary studies combined.
As someone who has struggled with an autoimmune condition for most of her life, and who knows how much diet plays a role in how our bodies function, I see a vast swath light opening up over this field of research. So much of what we know about diet is shrouded in the dark, swirling clouds of political policy, lobbying, and corporate interest.
The USDA messes with our basic food guidelines. Big Sugar funds studies that somehow, and no one knows why, declare sugar innocent of all possible wrongdoing. And people everywhere are killing themselves unwittingly, because they trust the authorities in “Science.”
Knowing what I know about the gluten and casein proteins, I have no doubt that The Genie Study will be successful. I can only pray that it will open further avenues of investigation, and open more eyes in the Medical Establishment to the true utility and beauty of a good diet.
If you’re interested in this type of research, check out NequalsMany.com, because participating in citizen-sourced, citizen-funded research is fun.
We’re enrolling participants until August 12th!
K-pop group NCT Dream has finally come out of hiding with a comeback next week!
Teasers are being released, starting with the illimitable Mark Lee.
The vibe of the image is so relaxed and beachy (and basically guarantees that my new styling trick of tying a bandana around my neck will continue through the rest of the summer). Sand, Vans, hammock. Sunny, bright, and relaxed.
I find that to be a curious contrast with the video teaser. The animation style reminds me of Terry Gilliam animations, which tends to skew the feel a lot more dark and intellectual than I would guess from the photo. The color palette is also a lot darker, and the little flying pixie silhouette children make me think of Peter Pan and Edwardian-era decadence.
Perhaps this is where Korean/American cultural differences come in. I’m interested to see how these two competing visual styles marry in the video. SM Entertainment has been doing some interesting things with animation and live action in the recent NCT 127 and Red Velvet comebacks, so I’m sure the video will be a visual feast regardless.
And based on Mark’s rap performance on “Cherry Bomb,” I have high hopes for the NCT Dream album.
We shall see!
I’m going to completely ignore the Antifa/Alt-Right riot that happened in my city over the weekend and talk about something that literally nobody has an objection to: children’s books.
Oh wait.
There are plenty of left-leaning children’s books that I find offensive and propagandic, and I’m sure they feel the same about this one.
Straight from the subreddit that caused Bernie Bros to stay up all night frothing at the mouth, we have The Adventures of Pepe and Pede. A heartwarming tale, I’m sure, of friendship, law and order, and hopefully a really big wall.
Quick refresher for those of you who didn’t obsessively follow the “Can’t Stump the Trump” series on YouTube:
- Pepe is the (friendly) cartoon frog adopted by Trump fans and the Alt-Right. Pepe is especially beloved because he was once retweeted by the God Emperor himself, and Pepe has ascended to the August Ranks of Hallowed Memetics by triggering his very own creator to disown and kill him in an attempt to reclaim his character. Didn’t work. We love Pepe.
- Pede is short for “centipede,” a term of endearment on /r/The_Donald for other Trump supporters that spawned from the use of Knife Party’s song “Centipede” for the intro to most of the “Can’t Stump the Trump” videos.
“Cant’ Stump the Trump” itself provided the seed for a whole host of spinoffs of this syntax, such as “Can’t Barrage the Farage,” which is itself quite hilarious but also completely off-topic for this post.
Back on topic, but not really, I appreciate that the illustrator is from Eastern Europe, which is probably-not-but-I’m-going-to-pretend-it-is-anyway a nod to the #SlavRight.
Anyhow, the cover is adorable, and the back cover is as well. I like the mix of blocky watercolor shapes and the expanses of watercolor that let the the colors blend more naturally, or that show the brush strokes. The color palette is bright and fun, but avoids being obviously patriotic (RED WHITE AND BLUE, WHAT) or annoyingly young (RED YELLOW AND BLUE PRIMARY COLORS OBVIOUSLY KIDS LIKE THEM). It looks like a fun book, and the Right needs to have more fun.
Now that I’ve written so much of this post it seems somewhat silly that I’m posting about this book without having read it. Perhaps it will turn out to be absolutely schlock. At this point, however, it seems worth it to support any and all explicitly Trump or right-wing art endeavors, since there are so few of them.
It’s my blog I do what I want.
Or, “why I, your author, need a routine.”
One of my motivations for exploring the Book of Hours is the idea of the routine, or the daily practice, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve long felt that my own routine is suboptimal (although it is clearly enough to keep me as a functioning human being) and while I chafe at the idea of “rules” a more structured life has its allure.
I’m attracted to the idea of building prayer and spiritual practice into the daily routine as a matter of course. Rather than keeping it on the edges as an optional add-in, or a leisure activity, building it into the daily practice will keep it structurally sound. I believe this is one of the reasons that systemized religion will never really die out–it keeps the practice alive even when the burning desire isn’t there.
Daily habits are a way of getting things done–this has been quite the drumbeat in the self-help circles as of late–and certainly will help advance schemes and projects. I’ve typically approached routines in this way–that they’re for helping you better yourself. Get from 0 to 1.
What I’ve never really considered is that a daily routine is necessary for our brains to process the world. This isn’t just for self-improvement, but for baseline human life.
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson explains.
In an different video, Dr. Peterson remarked of building a daily routine: “Your brain will thank you for it — stabilize your nervous system.”
So not only are routines and micro-habits needed to propel you forward, they’re also needed to keep you stable and grounded as a human being. In order to set yourself up for success, and keep anxiety and other less-than-helpful brain handicaps at bay, a well-ordered routine is necessary.
This idea puts my inner libertine on edge, as it wants to do what it wants when it wants any day of the week…but let’s be real, few of us always listen to our inner libertine. We know better.
I like the idea of calling it a “daily structure.” Less focus on mundane and more focus on the scaffolding of life.
Spotted: memes bleeding into real life, somewhere in Seattle.
Deus Vult. God wills it. One of the battle cries of the alt-west faction of the alt-right. Nearly inevitable, considering the amount of Islamic terrorism that takes place on Western soil. The jokes will surely happen; jury’s still out on an actual crusade.
What’s heartening to me about this photo is that 1. the graffiti doesn’t suck too badly, and that 2. its very existence means that there are people who are young and dumb enough to go out tagging (albeit in a designated tagging zone) but who are familiar with and like the concept enough to put it on a wall.
Leftists get so comfortable in their claimed territory–the cities–that they assume that none of their fellow city dwellers think out of lock-step with them. The alt-right is still fairly obscure, and Deus Vult even more so, but I hope that a few leftists walk by and get the shudders seeing a reminder that not everyone thinks like them. (And some of those people might be their neighbors–gasp!)
The Chalkening was a lot of fun, but Deus Vult gets a lot closer to the heart of the matter. Trump can’t, and won’t, fix our fallen world.
I also love how there is “pork” all over this wall. Reminds me of that joke–eating 2 strips of bacon every morning reduces your possibility of becoming a terrorist by 100%.
Continuing the journal series, we’ll move from the postmodern to the pre-modern. Books of Hours have long fascinated me, as they are largely visual yet instrumental to spiritual life in the medieval church. They were not diaries, per se, but did break the day up into pieces.
+++
Matins: The wee hours
I’m sleeping.
Lauds: Dawn
6am. My bowels wake me up after an uninterrupted night’s sleep, before my alarm. This is a new development in my body’s inner workings, which I suspect benefited greatly when I finally quit coffee last week. This makes me sad, because I truly enjoy drinking coffee, not just the physiological effects of it. Ever since I went full carnivore, I’ve been slowly losing my taste for it and now it’s just…gone.
Prime: Mid-morning
Because I woke earlier that usual, I arrived at work in time to clock in like a civilized person before heading to a morning’s worth of presentations. It’s a beautiful morning, not quite hot yet but still sunny and full of promise. The view that’s normally part of my commute is obscured by the hazy, settled smoke from nearby wildfires. I love what it does to the low light, filtering it like a sieve, but I don’t love how hard it is to breathe.
Terce: Late morning
We take a break from presentations and I make sure to assert myself, to validate the very reason I went to these in the first place. My lack of coffee and still-too-little sleep schedule has led me to almost nod off in a few of the presentations, so I try to overcompensate by forcing myself to be extra outgoing. This is not my favorite thing in the world, but I think I do an okay job at it. I’m recruiting the presenters. We’ll see how the conversion rate is in a few years.
Sext: Noon
Still in presentations.
None: Mid-afternoon
I’m just now getting around to eating lunch. At work, I’ve perfected a pseudo-mac-n-cheese adapted for the carnivore: sliced grilled chicken off the salad bar, topped with a few bacon bits and some cheese, then microwaved until the cheese is melty. No doubt it’s fake cheese; no doubt I need to stop eating it; no doubt it’s delicious.
Vespers: Sundown
This week, I agreed to go on a date. We end up at an under-air conditioned dive that’s wallpapered for books and set for destruction in the next month. It’s a victim to a wave of rent hikes that have happened all across the city, forcing out the longtime businesses in favor of short term, capitaled-up disney-style establishments. All style, no soul. I’ve never been to this one before, but I’m a little nostalgic on its behalf anyway.
Compline: Late evening
Now I’m curled up on my bed, attempting to force words out of my head and onto this blog. Trying to understand the mind of men never works, but I try to anyway. My mind is still fixed on the date, on what I want (or don’t want) to happen next. I’m not sure. I do know that I’d rather be home learning about Books of Hours than out dancing. This blogging ritual is starting to grow on me, but sometimes I have very little to give. Perhaps I should move blogging from compline to lauds.
I quite liked this article today, on design thinking in a hospital setting.
The trauma area at my hospital is similar to thousands of others. When a patient with a gunshot wound or a motor vehicle accident arrives, a bed is prepped, the right supplies are on hand, and up to 20 nurses, respiratory therapists and physicians are ready to spring into action.
There is one difference: The leader of our trauma team now wears an orange vest.
The easy-to-spot garment, called the trauma team leader identification vest, clearly identifies who’s in charge. It’s a simple yet effective innovation created by a nurse after a hectic gunshot trauma simulation, in which a huddle of highly stressed emergency room staff members spoke over one another and there were no clear roles. In particular, no one knew who was leading the trauma code. The orange vest became routine part of emergency care at our hospital earlier this year, and the trauma team reports it has helped clarify who’s in charge and strengthened communication among members.
Really it’s just process-thinking, but at the heart of it, I believe that good design is not just aesthetics but is the consideration of what a Thing is for. Its quiddity, if you will allow me to indulge in one of my favorite words.
I’m trying to learn more about “design thinking” because, unlike process improvement, it seems to encourage people to think from first-principles and to not too caught up with words or other peoples’ models of things.
One of the things that trips up intelligent people on a regular basis is an overreliance on language. If you’re thinking about simply the design of something, of how it’s constructed, you’re more likely to go simple: an orange vest.
As opposed to, say, some sort of verbal cue or a sign or an org chart hidden in some closet somewhere.
Our brains recognize shape and color first, then language and other more subtle forms of visual communication, so an effective communication system will rely on that–the fewer words needed, the more they can be spent on really important things, like the proper dosage of a drug.
I’ve been learning about various process improvement strategies in my day job, and while it’s fascinating to learn about all the different ways men have come up with to classify and describe systems, ultimately most of it is total crap. You don’t need any of their conceptual models to strip away the fluff, break down your system into its necessary parts, and ruthlessly examine what could (and should) change.
What you need to do is break down your ego and all the “reasons” why you won’t do stuff like that. Maybe you feel like you’re too good for that, or you made the system in the first place and don’t want to admit that it’s broken.
Most of the “change management” concepts that I’ve learned are really people management concepts, softening the blows to people’s egos and stroking their pride, making them feel smart and included, to get them on board with your project.
If you can get around all that, you don’t need somebody else’s model to validate your own thinking.
You can look at what you have, and put the orange vest on the team leader.
Last week I had drinks with a (liberal) friend who made a passing swipe about how badly Trump treats women. I said that I’d seen much worse. That was not, perhaps, the best comeback — though it’s true.
What I should have cited was the fact that he surrounds himself with extremely competent women. Beautiful, well-dressed, well-spoken competent women.
Witness Hope Hicks, White House Director of Strategic Communications. She’s clearly good at her job, considering that someone bad at it will get canned in only 11 days (RIP, Mooch), and the fact that she worked for Trump during the campaign and during his presidency.
Let’s be real. This woman dresses like a BOSS. Of all the women surrounding Trump, she is the best dressed in my eyes. Young, fresh, showcasing her beauty, but with enough toughness to stand out.
Unlike Melania’s elegance, Ivanka’s carefully-curated blank slate, and Kellyann’s “exuberant mom” style, Hope Hicks presents a fresh look with a point of view.
You really can’t go wrong with a fur-collared coat. Her image of competence is bolstered even more by the sheer contrast between her sleek, black silhouette on inauguration day and Kellyann’s display of patriotism in coat form.
(Not that there’s anything wrong with coats.)
Ignoring the fact that these candid shots seem to always catch her facial expressions at the exact wrong moment, Hope Hicks still manages to look glamourous. And somehow, she makes taupe suede pumps look good, too.
I suppose that the plain shoes and bag, tidy hair, and simple silhouette of her shift dress are what keep her looking pulled together despite the fun print on the dress. I wish she would add a little more jewelry, but that might pull the look more in the direction of fashion than in the direction of “I know what I’m doing.”
So let’s revisit this whole “Trump hates women” idea. Here’s Hope Hicks, part of Trump’s woman-hating team of Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and Stephen Miller, clearly having a laugh and enjoying herself.
She outlasted Priebus.
She could probably outlast you.
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