#i was waffling about whether to record or not but even if it's just audio i've Gotta now. do it for her dot jpg

[supercantaloupe]

aw my old oboe teacher is busy running auditions the whole day of my recital and can't come :( well i'll simply have to record it now and send her the audio/video

[dailyaudiobible]

10/13/2019 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 22:1-23:20, 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12, Psalms 83:1-18, Proverbs 25:11-14

Today is the 13th day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a joy and a pleasure to be here with you today beginning a new week. And, so, we just reach out and collectively grab the threshold and swing the door open and walk into this shiny, sparkly week that's waiting for us to tell the story and waiting for us to live into. And this is the middle of the month, we’ll be crossing through the center of this month as we…as we journey through this week. And, so, let's dive in. We’ll read from the New Living Translation this week and we’ll continue our journey through Jeremiah and when we get to the New Testament today, we’ll be beginning another letter from the apostle Paul. Same people, the Thessalonians. This letter is known as second Thessalonians, but we'll talk about that when we get there. First, let's read from Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 1 through 23 verse 20.

Introduction to second Thessalonians:

Okay. So, as promised, we’re gonna begin another letter today, called second Thessalonians. So, it's Paul's second letter to the church in the city of Thessalonica, a church that, as we remember from the previous letter, was born in persecution and had actually never experienced peace. Like, they were never…they were never free from persecution. So, over the years some biblical scholars have questioned whether or not Paul wrote this letter. And that's really a theological thing because there are theological nuances in second Thessalonians that aren't found in any of the other letters that Paul wrote and the tone is a bit different. But even so, the majority still except this as an authentic letter of Paul. Certainly, the earliest of church fathers in our long and illustrious church history certainly affirmed and quoted this letter. So, it has a long, long history. And Paul probably wrote this second letter to the Thessalonian congregation really just a short time after the first one because it seems as if you wanted to further clarify and broaden what he had been saying previously in the other letter. And he also felt the need to correct specific things, some inaccurate assumptions. For example, Paul wanted to emphasize the importance of people working to provide for themselves, right? Working to provide for their families and the community because some were quitting their jobs and just living idly, waiting, waiting for Jesus to come back and meddling in everybody else's business. And, so, Paul ended up in this letter as we’ll see, telling the brothers and sisters that if they weren’t gonna do their share of the work then they weren’t going to get their share the food. Like, they couldn’t just leech off each other. But to make it even more complicated and certainly more confusing for the Thessalonians, there'd been some misleading communication that was going around and it was going around in Paul's name. And the idea was that Jesus already came and they just missed it. So, for a church that's been persecuted for and on behalf of the name of Jesus to find out you missed it, he already came, like, that’s horrible to even think about. So, Paul sets the record straight. He never said that. He would never say something like that. This is total false…totally false. But Paul's not writing this letter only just to make corrections. The believers in Thessalonica were…like Paul had a special place for them because he rolled into town under persecution, the church was formed in persecution, he had to flee persecution. Like, these people had never known anything but pressure. So, Paul cares a lot about what happens to their faith and he thinks a lot about them, and they needed to be encouraged because they had plenty to discourage them because were always under fire. So, Paul wrote that their endurance wasn't being overlooked, like it wasn't going unseen and it was doing something, and we need…we need to hear this. Like, even right now, we need to hear this. It does something. It was making them worthy of the kingdom of God and he encouraged them that in the end justice would prevail. So, the second letter to the church in Thessalonica, just like the first one, gives us a clear view of people who were pretty seriously under pressure but who were remaining faithful to God and in love with Jesus and enduring. And this is a fine enough time to say it, this idea of endurance, this is just gonna come up so much. Like we are not gonna be able to escape it as we continue through our year, And, so, we begin. Second Thessalonians chapter 1.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and as we move into this new week we…we have anticipation, we have an expectancy that You will speak to us in ways that we need to know that as we’re moving through this week and we are…we are encountering things that we weren’t prepared for that Your word will already be speaking into those things. And, so we pray Holy Spirit that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear, and that we would obey Your prompting. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it’s where…it’s where you stay connected and how you stay connected and how you find out what’s going on around here. So, be sure to check in, check out the Reece's…Reece’s…the resources that are available on the Daily Audio Bible shop full for this year-long journey that we take each and every year.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Rebecca in Michigan and it’s October 8th today. You know what I’m thinking, I was thinking about birds and flowers. I know that’s so weird there’s a verse in the Bible that says God sees the birds and he calls __ the flowers and you are and more important than either one of them. So, you know, I stopped and watch these little birds and I throw bread down to them and one time I threw a waffle down to them and when I’ve thrown these pukes is of waffle to them, this one little bird he dived down to get it and this big bird started __ dive down to them and get it too and that little bird was just like flapping his wings and trying to take off with that __ from that big bird so he could eat that waffle. The waffles must’ve been good if a bird wants to eat it. But then if you stop and look at flowers and how beautiful they are and even the honey, the hummingbirds come and suck out of the nectar of the flower and it’s like…it’s amazing and then you’ll see the bigger birds like the eagle or the hawk looking for pray and something to eat. And just stop and think, you are more precious than a bird and you’re more precious than a flower. Your heavenly Father wants to provide for you, and He will supply all your needs according to your riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So, I pray today Father that…that everybody out there, that all their needs will be supplied according to the riches and glory in Christ Jesus because they are more important than a bird or a flower and yet You feed them and You cloth them….

Hello, my DAB family this is Mark Street from Sydney Australia today is Wednesday the 9th of October and I’m just calling because I was really excited at the end of the podcast today. I heard Sinner Redeemed. Sinner Redeemed, I certainly remember you and I’m excited to hear that you’re back on the prayer line again and I’m hoping that we will all hear you a bit more. And I want to pray for you because you said that you wanted some prayer as well. So, heavenly Father, der heavenly Father we come to You offering Sinner Redeemed up to You. You know what he needs, You know what he wants, and You know what’s best for him Lord. So, we offer him to You, that You will help him the way that You want him to be helped Lord. Lord we ask this in Your name. Love you family. Talk to you again soon. Mark Street from Sydney Australia. Bye.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Dorothy from Dustin and I just listened to the podcast this morning on October 10th and Brian’s prayer at the end, “don’t mistake challenge for abandonment, challenge spread the gospel.” And I’m thinking today particularly for those who are going through a struggle or difficult time especially for Carl and John and anybody else. And this is something that I read in a book and I want to read it to you. It’s called my identity in Christ. “Because of Christ’s redemption I am a new creation of great worth. I am deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted by God and absolutely complete in Christ. There has never been another person like me in the history of humankind nor will there ever be. God has made me an original, one-of-a-kind, really somebody.” And this verse Jeremiah 31:25. “For I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish.” God bless you everyone. Thank you, Brian and the Hardin family for this wonderful podcast. Have a wonderful day.

Hello, my name is Mary Jane I’m a Pilipino nurse calling from Saudi Arabia. I’ve been here for almost 7 years. I’ve been listening to Daily Audio Bible for one year now and I finally caught up with the daily readings. So, I just wanted to call and say that I think this this program is really, really good. It gives you encouragement for every little thing that you need strength with, strength in life. I wanted to ask for prayers from everyone. I’m trying to get back home to Hawaii. I got deported back to the Philippines when I was maybe 25. And, you know, I did a bad…I did lot of bad things when I was young, didn’t know of the Lord, nothing. I guess when you get older you realize what you did was really, really wrong. And I’m asking for prayers to reapply back to Hawaii so I can be with my family. I think this program really helped me a lot to give me strength. And if I could ask for prayers when I refile again. Thank you.

Hi this is Andy from Birmingham I’d like to leave a message for Cindy the Sinner from Seatle. So, I heard you went through the performance management or performance improvement process recently and you’re still in it right now. And I went through that back in 2016, 2017 and it got me to some of the lowest points in my life, points I’d never thought I’d get to, places I never thought I’d get to sort of mentally. It was awful in many ways. But the main point is, I was told by boss to stop work because what I was doing was so bad. Ironically what I was doing has ended up being something which now I’m using and actually only using in my job. So, it was…I felt there was a spiritual element to it all but more importantly than that, when I was told to stop where I spent a lot more time with the Daily Audio Bible, three times a day listening to the Daily Audio Bible, praying on the Prayer Wall and watching Him literally give me things for my job when I was doing nothing and that…that really blew me away. So, I just wanted to encourage you. That was it. And I want to say keep going. Just wait for Him. Wait for His…the doors He’s going to open for you in your life and watch how He blesses you despite what seems like a really awful time. Just…just hold on and know and that people like me are praying for you. So, God bless.

[uosexplorationbmc]

Preparing Final Presentation

Preparing the Presentation:

We got together on Teams to start putting together the presentation. A week or so prior I started to put together a presentation with a slide for every possibility. I transferred these slides onto Google Slides so that we could all see and work on the presentation together. We also picked back up an earlier discussion on whether the demo should be at the start or at the end of the video. After some discussion on both sides of the argument, we came to the consensus that as this was a pitch, we should have the demo at the start. We are selling this project to the client, so the sooner we can wow them the better. 

After deciding this, Will and I proposed an idea we had been discussing over FaceTime the night before, should we present just talking over the video as standard, or should we present from in AltSpace? At first I was apprehensive, having seen Manuel try and take a group session in AltSpace I was very aware of how much could go wrong. In addition to this from a production perspective, I suggested that we needed to think of an alternative to recording audio if we did want to present in AltSpace. Audio in AltSpace can become heavily pitch shifted downwards when somebody's internet is struggling, and in Teams a small lag over a few words is far from uncommon. Audio imbalance was one of our criticisms from the first Presentation so I was keen not to repeat this. I tried to think of solutions to this while we discussed. We decided in the end to present in AltSpace, using the Media Player feature to display our presentation. We decided on this in the end because we wanted to show off the power and capability of AltSpace from the get go, and the fact that we are presenting from our chosen software pragmatically shows the client that we are confident in our chosen solution, giving them confidence in it. From here we decided that we would present from Wills shared space, before showcasing the portals as a means to go from room to room. As we enter each room, the group member who developed that space explains their thought process on their development, in very much an MTV cribs style. We would pre-record these demonstrations before recording the rest of the presentation to avoid repeating ourselves. We worked over a few hours adding in the content for the presentation, I will run over some of the main slides and our reasoning for them briefly.

- Slides transferred to Google Slides

- Transferring Keynote Slides to Google Slides

We had a slide just after the demonstration where we state what softwares we have used. We go on to discuss one individually and how they work with one another, so we thought it best to outline what we were using from the start.

- included pros + cons for transparency

Once again we included a pro’s and con’s section in this presentation. Before we had used this to compare A-Frame to AltSpace, but now we had chosen AltSpace solely, we used the pro’s and con’s section purely for transparency. We are exploring practicality on behalf of the client, so they should be informed of negatives as well as positives.

- refined user journey

We refined our user journey visual to show the simple, cyclical setup of our spaces. The portals made it really easy to do this, with the main room acting as a directory, and student spaces simply having a next or back option. We wanted to keep this as simple as possible as the audience attending could fall in any demographic. 

- Means of implementation

We also had a slide which I would like to present discussing the implementation options. We have managed to dissolve this down to four possibilities. More than likely, more than one of these options will have to be used at the same time. But cross course collaboration is a possibility, partnering 3D modelling courses to help produce the spaces. Then we could give students lessons, this could be as broad as 3D modelling or as simple as adding the images to materials in Unity. Lessons is one such example of an option that would work best alongside another, like cross course collaboration example. As I have stated prior, I think the most realistic means is by producing a variety of templates, students could then choose the space which fits their needs most closely, adapting the space if they need to. This would also probably work best with students having lessons on how to add content to a Unity space. The final option is a 3D scanner, whereby students could scan 3D work into a space, or even produce a small model of their space, which they could scan and scale up digitally. I want to present this slide as I think it needs a clear, concise explanation and I think out of the group I can be the most selective with my word choice. 

Of course we looked at a number of other slides including the branding, how we followed a user-centred approach as well as what would we liked to have done next, where I will discuss problems with the transparency in AltSpace and elements of my space. I think we are all really happy with the slides in the presentation, we should be able to cover a good range of content and use up the full 20 minutes without waffling. Visually also I think using the same gradient we used for the branding brings a nice consistency to it. Next, we had to record the demos before recording our voice-over of the slides. Recording the Demonstrations: So we decided we would be recording the demo’s and presentation in AltSpace. As I mentioned I was worried about the production quality we could achieve through this means. To avoid any inconsistencies in audio, I suggested that we all record our own audio from our iPhones. Synchronising the recordings didn't matter for our individual demo’s, as these would be recorded separately and then edited in, so all we had to do was press record and stop on iPhone voice memos. But for the slide portion of the presentation, to synchronise the audio I just followed the movies. I got everyone to press record then, ensuring I was playing out of everyones speakers, I clapped loudly so that it could be heard across all of the recordings. Then it was simply a case of matching the clap across the different audio files in post, once that was done we could easily cut different peoples audio in and out for their sections. This avoided any laggy audio and as we were all using Iphones, the audio was pretty consistent aside from any acoustic differences in our rooms.  To record the Demo’s in our personal spaces, one person used Quicktime screen record, using their screen as though it were the camera, following round the hosts while they discussed their space. Anyone who wasn't talking or recording just interacted with the exhibits to add some realism. An example of this can be found below where I am recording Matty talking about his space. I think the outcome of these demo’s had a really laid back feeling which lent itself really well to the atmosphere we could feel in the showcase. Once we had recorded each others demo’s we uploaded them to our shared Google Drive so we could access all of the video and audio files easily in post.

- Demo Recording Example

Recording the Slides: When recording the voice over for the slides, as I have mentioned we used a clap and iPhone voice memos to produce synchronised audio. As we were presenting in AltSpace, as we wanted to have our avatars visible for that humanistic aspect, we needed to get the slides to work on the Media Player in Wills Shared Space. To do so, we had to paste a link from our google slides into AltSpaces Web Extension for its media player. In AltSpace I was able to click through the slides with a HUD connected to the Media Player. This all went a lot smoother for us than it did for Manuel thankfully. We had sectioned up the presentation in our last call and gone away and made some notes on what each of us would say. Will logged in to AltSpace on a second pc to set up as a still camera to record the presentation. From there, we stepped into view when it was our turn to talk. 

- Still Camera View

Editing the Presentation: When it came to editing the presentation I suggested that me and Will both produce a version. My computer has been having a lot of trouble with rendering throughout this project, so I didn't want to put all of our eggs in one basket. So we worked together to produce our own versions. I was thankful I did suggest this as, when I rendered my version, one of the clips had audio but no video, thankfully Wills export was fine so we decided to use that one. As soon as this was done there was a strange aura in the call. We had spent hours together almost everyday for the past few weeks working on this project, and now all we had to do was upload it to YouTube and wait for the clients feedback. Honestly though, now I could see all of our work in one place in the presentation, I was really excited to hear what people had to say. It might have taken us a while to get going with this project but I think we have produced a really great response to the problem and in doing so, we have all delved deeper into our own 3D experiences than ever before. 

[avaantares]

My thoughts on Torchwood: Aliens Among Us

Minimal spoilers. I’ll discuss themes and events, but try to avoid any major reveals.

Putting the rest after the jump for length and spoiler protection.

I debated whether to even post this, because I still haven’t quite made up my mind whether or not I actually like S5. I mean, the production values of the episodes are excellent, as usual (Big Finish knows what they’re about in that department), and the performances are great, and even the ongoing series hook is interesting -- but I think the problem is that I’m not actually enjoying the direction the series is headed. It’s done well, but it doesn’t quite feel like Torchwood to me. And that’s not just because more than half the original cast is missing; it’s a shift in something vital and central to the series. Its purpose, perhaps. I’m still digesting the episodes I’ve listened to. (More on that in a bit.)

Anyway, I’ll start with my take on the characters and their new roles:

Jack - Apparently having exhausted all his potential development in previous stories, Jack is relegated almost to the background of this series. He makes the usual lewd jokes and sleeps around and dies when the plot demands it, but he’s practically a cardboard cutout, doing Action Things when necessary and coasting on listeners’ affection for him from previous stories. After four episodes, there’s still no evidence that he’ll have anything resembling a character arc, which is massively disappointing.

Jack also shows some disturbing behavior here -- namely, he pseudo-stalks and seduces a man he’s considering hiring on at Torchwood just to get more information about him, which is not only dishonest and manipulative, but is a REALLY FREAKING CREEPY thing for a potential boss to do, especially if the hiring had gone through.

But no worries on that account, since Jack then bars said potential employee from Torchwood because he made a mistake in the field and got civilians killed. Jack cites the Doctor’s “no second chances” line and pontificates about how he won’t tolerate people dying on his watch. This seems out of character coming from the man who forgave Gwen for unleashing an alien gas that killed dozens of civilians, forgave Ianto for betraying them all and getting two innocent people killed in the Hub, forgave Owen Harper for rebelling and putting a bullet through Jack’s brain, etc.... not to mention Jack’s own tendency to shoot first and apologize later, for which he was often criticized by both Gwen and the Doctor. Even if he’s changed his views on violence in the meantime, I can’t imagine him drawing such a hard line in the sand without at least turning it into a teaching experience. Jack is the king of second chances; it seems hypocritical for him to deny one to a panicked newcomer.

Gwen - I’ve seen several other people say that they didn’t recognize Gwen until the character identified herself at the end of the episode, and I had the same experience. Her Welsh accent seems much stronger than it was in the TV series. There may be plot reasons for that, or it may just be an inconsistency. (EDIT: I’ve since read that, due to plot reasons, Alexandria Riley is actually performing most of Gwen’s speaking parts, so the difference is definitely intentional.)

Gwen doesn’t seem to serve a significant purpose in the stories until the extreme end of episode 2, when she conducts the major reveal of what will be (I suspect) her ongoing story arc for the whole series. That subplot is by far the most compelling thing about this new series, and honestly is probably the only thing with enough hook to keep me listening.

Mr. Colchester - The spiritual successor to the conspicuously absent Ianto Jones, Mr. Colchester is the dry, longsuffering general support. In many ways he’s the most complex and developed of the new characters, and while it took me a bit to warm up to him, I quite like him now. (Of course, since he’s basically replacement-Ianto, that may explain why I enjoy his commentary so much.)

We’ve learned a bit about Mr. Colchester’s personal life, as well as just a sliver of backstory, and I hope that is setting up for some kind of series-long arc for him. I think he has a lot of undeveloped potential. I’m very curious to know exactly how he came to Torchwood.

Orr - Orr manages to be interesting despite the fact that their introduction scene feels a bit too much like Discourse(TM). (I described the scene to a friend as “Tumblr: The Audio Drama.”) As a gender- and biologically-fluid being, Orr can psychically tune in to entities to acquire information in a way I’ve never seen done before, and that leaves open a potential gold mine of story opportunities and mystery resolutions. However, since the two episodes in which Orr features are largely spent establishing their abilities, there’s still not much sign of a dynamic arc. It’s strongly suggested that they will become a full-time Torchwood operative, which should be... interesting, given that crew and their proclivities.

Tyler Steele - Let me put this on record right now: I do not like Tyler. At all. I wouldn’t mind if he got flattened by a spaceship.

Now, that doesn’t mean he’s a bad character -- sometimes the most compelling characters are ones you despise, and Tyler’s role in the story seems to be going in that direction -- but it does bother me that Jack seems intent on carrying on an ongoing sexual relationship with a character who is so morally questionable, disrespectful, self-serving, and generally kind of a jerk. I can’t imagine Jack putting up with that, no matter how good Tyler is in bed, unless we’re just going to undo the past ten years’ worth of Jack’s character development and kick him all the way back to the way he was with Captain John Hart.

Tyler himself is the only one of the new characters who does seem to have the setup for a dynamic story, which could be more interesting if they turn him into a villain or boost his moral grayness to have him play both sides. (Personally, I’d really like to see him waffle for a while, then cross a line and become unredeemable, forcing Jack to have to stop him. That would provide a nice characterization moment for Jack, too.)

Other Characters: Rhys and Mary Cooper (Gwen’s mother) get cameos, but that’s about it. At least two other named characters (Andy and Billis Manger) are coming back for the next set, so we’ll hope for an expanded cast next time.

Before I get critical, I do want to mention a few specifics that this series does well:

It’s implied that either there is no coffee allowed in the Hub, or no one is allowed to use Ianto’s coffee machine. Which is heartbreaking, but also gratifying, as it implies that Jack can’t bear to let that one piece of Ianto be replaced. Many of us were worried that Ianto would be forgotten or just garner a token mention, as he has in most series/publications set post-MD, but it’s nice to see actual evidence that they remember and mourn him.

It’s also suggested that Jack is still thinking constantly about Ianto, even years after he died. Which is small comfort after we’ve had to witness Jack getting it on with that creep Tyler multiple times, but at least Ianto hasn’t been erased completely.

The reveal of the subplot surrounding Gwen came as a complete shock to me. I often work sneaky plot things out beforehand, but I’ll confess, I did not see that one coming. (Others have pointed out that this plot element may have been foreshadowed in a previous episode...? But we’ll need more information about what’s actually going on before confirming that.)

I like that they’re operating out of the literally collapsing ruins of the Hub and are completely broke, even though it does raise some questions about EU continuity (we saw the Hub cleaned up after the explosion in Long Time Dead, and Gwen was trying to rebuild it in Forgotten Lives). It’s nice -- and thematically appropriate -- to have them huddling in a broken ruin of the past while trying to come to terms with the future.

Now, some thoughts on the story itself:

I’m really not sure how to approach this new world, where aliens populate Cardiff and are so far from secret that there are human protest groups lobbying in the streets to remove them. It acknowledges the events of Exodus Code and the Titan Comics series (I have major issues with that, too, but that’s another conversation entirely). At this point the series has split so far from the known Whoniverse that it has more in common with awkward American stepchild Miracle Day than with its own BBC parent series. I feel like we’re now trapped in a bubble universe that is never going to resolve with the original series of Torchwood.

Anyway... Cardiff is overrun by aliens, and apparently instead of Torchwood trying to protect humanity from alien threats, in this brave new Cardiff, Torchwood is trying to protect... the aliens? For motivations that remain unclear to me, in episode 2, Gwen and Mr. Colchester spend a whole night repeatedly putting their lives on the line to protect an alien from capture after they witness her eating innocent humans. Reluctantly, she claims, but the extremes they go to to protect her (including endangering human civilians and hospital staff) just don’t seem justified when she and her family are actual threats to humanity.

The ongoing story of S5 centers around the economic and political takeover of Cardiff from a particular race of aliens. It’s sinister enough, and provides a backdrop for multiple villain-of-the-week episodes, but there’s really no soul to it. Maybe that will change with future episodes, but I think this points to the main reasons I’m not really getting into this series as much as previous Big Finish Torchwood dramas:

Classic Torchwood was a character-driven series set against a dramatic (and often camp) space fantasy backdrop. At the end of the day, we didn’t care what kind of aliens were attacking Earth that week; we worried how Ianto processed his grief, wondered whether or not Owen actually had a heart under his flinty exterior, cheered the little moments when Jack opened up to his friends, and mourned when characters we had grown to care for sacrificed their lives in defense of the people of Cardiff and the world. The character development was the hook, and the episode plots, for the most part, were secondary.

This is one reason so many fans were disappointed in Miracle Day, which was more an American political thriller than space fantasy, and introduced new characters who were wooden and lacked compelling character arcs. The premise of Miracle Day was fascinating, but we couldn’t engage with the story the way we did with the gripping bureaucratic drama of Children of Earth because we were put off by MD’s flat, unlikable protagonists.

AAU, as well, is missing some of those critical elements that let the audience engage deeply with the story. While there are complex things happening in the political sphere, we come into S5 knowing nothing about the new characters, and the characters we do know seem too static. Gwen does get an interesting story hook, but not until the halfway mark of this boxed set.

In short, I just don’t care enough. I miss the depth and complexity of the original characters, and I miss the ongoing growth that made Jack and Gwen interesting. I don’t know the new characters well enough to feel strongly about what happens to them, and there is little indication that they will become dynamic over the course of the next few stories.

It’s a shame, because I love Torchwood and want more of it, but I just don’t feel like I’m getting proper Torchwood with these stories. I’ll probably give the next part of Aliens Among Us a try, but I’ll wait to see how it goes before deciding on the third set. it’s hard to justify the high price of the box set for a series I’m basically ambivalent about.

[alexstrick]

Language Learner's Journal: Increasing spoken fluency

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.]

Another cycle is coming to an end – my eight-week Sijal evening course will soon finish, which means I'll be cobbling together a mixture of private lessons, independent study and activities, and perhaps a language partner again in the upcoming weeks and months. In these recent weeks taking evening courses and private lessons, I've been very glad to have guidance from Alex about how to structure my free study time – doing a single textbook, like we did at my previous course at Qasid, gave us a routine and filled our evenings with homework, but switching to a more self-directed study has given me both the freedom and responsibility to use it productively.

I feel that my weakest area is my ability to chat and that my speaking is trailing my listening and reading comprehension. Two points Alex has driven home to me is to make time to read out loud and to practice "shadowing," lip syncing to a recording and trying to imitate its intonation. I remember this being a wake-up for me when I was learning Portuguese in Brazil – somehow, not thinking "I am Taylor constructing the best sentences I can after semesters of Portuguese classes" but instead "I am imitating how a Brazilian would emphatically say this" both greased my confidence wheels and led people to pay attention and understand me, because it "sounded right." When I review my Anki cards over breakfast, I both read my sample sentences out loud and, when I've included an audio clip on the back of the card, try to say it in real time along with it. I've also worked on "shadowing" with the Colloquial Palestinian Arabic textbook, which includes nice long dialogues (some of which are too fast for my level, or, I can't lip sync speedily enough to them!)

I still feel like I have something like a "deer in the headlights" reaction when someone speaks to me and I don't have a response ready. Practicing when I know I have a certain phrase coming up, even if I just run through it once in my head (what Alex has called "planned spontaneity"), makes all the difference.

I generally have ants in my pants (hence going on seven years freelancing and fleeing office work), so I've been taking advantage of any interesting Arabic events or activities that come my way. For the past few weeks I've gone to a Thursday evening Evangelical church service, which has blown me away by how accessible both its sermons and songs are for my Arabic level. There's so much to be said for knowing one's context and making educated guesses at the words we're hearing – that's how I picked up that the ١٢ تلاميذ must be disciples and the word مجد repeated in our songs seemed to mean glory or glorify. It's also a nice mix of dialect and fusha, seemingly varying on whether the song leader/pastor is going for a charismatic or reverent tone.

Alex has also encouraged me to not let reading go to the wayside even as I focus on speaking, and he suggested I work with a play from Tawfiq al-Hakim, since the dialogue structure of a play is nicely accessible to a learner. It makes all the difference to have a lengthy text with a coherent story – there's many words I would not spell correctly or I'd waffle if asked to produce them on my own (or I wouldn't recall them at all), but a story full of coherent clues leads me to understand a pleasantly surprising amount. I've been reading الأيدي الناعمة, which is nice social commentary with easily recognizable themes and characters.

As my current Sijal course comes to a close, I've also been thinking about what kind of activities I want to take on next. I'm game for all things athletic, and the pocket-full-of-tricks coordinator at Sijal gave me a nice playlist of workout videos from the program دنيا يا دنيا.

I've also decided I want to give a language partner another shot. It helps that I met someone, a store clerk, whom I thought would be great – for several weeks after we first chatted about each learning Arabic and English, I thought about how dynamic and fluid our conversation was, and decided to return to the store to ask if she's like to meet up for an exchange. Some lessons I learned from my last attempt at this: choose a very quiet place (some coffee shops are not!), be stickler on dividing English and Arabic speaking times, decide on some topics beforehand, and be patient and resist the urge to finish someone's sentence for them, because very often we can find another path to express ourselves.

[To learn more about coaching with Alex, click here. To learn more about 'Master Arabic', a guide for intermediate-level Arabic students, click here.]

[dominicalhambra-blog]

On Video Essays

On Video Essays

With recorded video and audio, the written word has diminished in responsibility and power. In a movie, a text can be read aloud or focused on by the camera for the audiences to glance over. In video games, text is part of ammunition counts, loading screens, and instructional content. But writers have resigned themselves in subservience to audio and visual delights, and we can see this within YouTube video essays.

The two most important aspects of text are accessibility and portability. Accessibility: unlike 100 years ago, it is a given that just about everyone in the United States is able to read and write text. Unlike 150 years ago, it is rather affordable to purchase the tools to write text. And unlike 200 years ago, it is trivial to print and disseminate that text for others to read. I will compare this with the video format later in the essay, whose timeline is much more recent and compressed. Portability: a contributing factor to the ease of disseminating text is that the format is highly portable. It can be transferred from the palm of the hand to a sheet of paper to a stone tablet. Now digitized, text is the medium upon which people, machines, and software programs run; portability means compatibility.

These two aspects of text contribute to one overarching idea: that the normal person is able to easily write their ideas and disseminate them among people. They have the ability and they have the means of production. This idea was realized in the late-90s through mid-2000s with online discussion boards and blogs. There didn’t seem like any reason for a person with internet to not write and share their ideas with others in textual form.

But we have seen in the last 2000 years that illiteracy brought a different form of idea-sharing and creativity: theatre was the visual-auditory alternative to text-driven entertainment and literature. In the last 150 years, printed photos and projected videos eclipsed the importance of theatre. In the last 100 years, recorded video and audio eclipsed live projection. In the last 20 years, digital video has now challenged the textual form as a primary means of idea-sharing. And evaluating each of these periods, the accessibility and portability of video leads to one question: why should anyone with internet not record and share their ideas in video form?

The question of this essay is whether or not the fall of the written word is coincidental or integral to the rise of inhabiting others’ copyrighted works — to relay criticism/exploration of themes or technicalities of that given work.

With YouTube, it was trivial to upload copyrighted materials, either audio or visual; for years YouTube was an asylum for free, copyrighted entertainment. At the same time, it was also trivial to record, edit and upload homemade videos, and this is where YouTube built its legacy: entertainment by the masses, for the masses, a role that was initially immortalized by text and its accessibility and portability.

But then something happened: the text-based critique of a movie, taken for granted by newspaper publications for a century, began to transport itself into the movies it critiqued. It was a match made in heaven: why would one not show the film’s weaknesses and strengths in order to make a more salient point? Here, in the intersection of homemade media and copyrighted, institutional entertainment media lies the video or film essay.

The video essay explains its concepts through visual and audio forms, infrequently interspersed with textual elements. With over a century of copyrighted but available visual and audio content, editors have found that expressing their ideas and themes through familiar images would increase the essay’s impact on the reader; instead of relying on the audience’s prior understanding of a given work, the essayist could display the excerpt in its entirety.

The excerpt is displayed without the context of the original intent: the essayist recontextualizes prefabricated content to fit their worldview or argument. To compare with text, the essayist must describe the idea of the excerpt and then recontextualize. The reader would have to access their own memories and ideas about that excerpt and then apply the essayists’ own interpretations on top. This may muddle the intended message of the original creator and the essayist, but it also encouraged an active “connecting the dots” within the reader’s mind. Thus, the reader provides the third context to a given work.

Issue Number One: The audiovisual medium is a medium that encourages passive consumption rather than active consumption.

In other words, the audience, or consumer, is incentivized to take in the content and its message rather than to synthesize it with their own values. As a result, a video essay can easily become more of a monolog, or a one-sided lecture rather than a dialogue of ideas. In moralistic terms, an unthinking audience is also one that will not dynamically absorb the essence of the film essay but rather simply its contents. The unthinking audience may as well have had a forgettable dream in the timespan of a video clip.

This is not to say that text does not have its own authoritarian pitfall: the finality of the textual statement appears as if it were fact, and would require aesthetic “waffling” words in order to reduce the perceived conviction of each sentence. The essayist assumes authority by way of simply having the reader’s attention, even if the writer shouldn’t deserve it.

Issue Number Two: The video essayist has given up the rights to their ideas by displaying the legally protected content of others.

Perhaps in the future, publishers will relinquish their right to harshly protect copyrighted content, but at the moment, sites like Vimeo and YouTube must actively work in accordance with the law and take down any videos that incorporate copyrighted material for monetary gain. This means that video essayists have given up their ideas and potential direct revenues in order to insert their ideas in the works of others. If the essay may go too far, if the law is slightly changed, or if the essayist receives money, the publisher can move to take the video essay down.

We arrive at a harsh reality: by relinquishing our ideas to the will of others, we also give up the right to protect these ideas, their accessibility, and their portability. To express oneself in the works of others is work within a system that seeks only to take and sell, rather than give and pay. The transience of YouTube as a website and the legislation of copyrights, paired with the proprietary nature of .MP4 versus .AVI or .MOV makes videos into a highly risky territory of sharing ideas.

In one sense, the audiovisual format inherently works against the preservation of creativity and thought-provocation. Another interpretation finds that video is a highly portable and accessible medium that zooms through the internet at the speed of light, and perhaps that makes it worth the ephemerality. But caution should be in the wind as one puts their blood, sweat, and tears into making video essays; our works should be thoroughly our own, and text continues to be key to such a reality.

[asfeedin]

Coronavirus will change how we create cars, say top designers, Auto News, ET Auto

“We are working toward the idea that the car could actually take bad things out of the air, almost clean the air,” Wagener said. “It’s an opportunity to address the sustainability issue that we have already been considering.”

Gorden Wagener has spent a good amount of his coronavirus quarantine thinking about waffles.

Daimler’s head of design, who created such iconic cars as the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and Vision Mercedes concepts, wanted to bake bread during his pandemic free time, but soon found the bread maker he wanted was out of stock. So he ordered a waffle iron from Williams-Sonoma instead, and the German and Germany-based designer has been perfecting his at-home recipe for the delightfully dimpled grid of syrup holders ever since.

That’s how he landed on the idea for a glove-box waffle catapult.

When I heard he’d become a waffle master, I asked whether he could do deliveries. “The car is easily smart enough to launch a waffle accurately—you could write smart messages on the waffle and then throw it!” Wagener suggested on a recent phone call. A paperboy tossing waffles instead of the morning news, he would do it from the new GLE Coupe.

Wagener, of course, spends the bulk of his workdays thinking about things rather more serious than breakfast, but the time at home has spurred him to think outside the traditional box in a lot of ways. While the pandemic is tanking global markets and has pushed the automotive industry to a standstill, Wagener has been exploring what Covid-19 means for the future of design.

“The pandemic will change our perception of how we experience safety and luxury in the future,” Wagener says, predicting that the two will become much more intimately intertwined. “This can be a challenging but an exciting time.”

The new normal for safety.

Across the car world, designers remain among the relative few in the industry who can continue their daily work uninterrupted, more or less. While factory stalls everywhere from Volkswagen AG to General Motors Co. sent thousands of line workers home, the men and women who work to outline your car’s roof or orchestrate the feel of the lambswool carpets beneath your feet can gather virtually to push projects forward.

Conversations among their lot have long centered around the notions of safety and luxury—how they intersect and how they’re evolving. What’s different already during the time of coronavirus—nearly 50 days since most factories in Italy closed, and Day 38 of self-isolation for this journalist—is that new ideas about safety inside cars have emerged.

“The future more than ever will be about the freedom of going places safely—and these cars will be more than ever about their interior,” Felix Kilbertus, the head of exterior design for Rolls-Royce, said on a Zoom call on April 21. “An interior has always been a safe space—people will do all kinds of things in their car they won’t do on their own front lawn,” like hold business meetings, apply makeup, and, uh, pursue romance.

“The idea of the interior as a grand sanctuary has become very relevant,” he explained. “I believe it is a transformation that this current situation accelerates.”

“People want to feel protected, and now with the pandemic, even more so,” agreed Adam Hatton, the creative director for exterior design at Jaguar Land Rover, speaking by phone the same week. “We are working on the idea of Jaguars being a big, beautiful sanctuary—like a spa. It’s even more relevant now than ever.”

Indeed, where safety concerns in luxury automobiles have typically centered around, first, protection from collision and, in countries like Mexico, Russia, and Brazil, protection from attack, robbery, or kidnapping, now safety concerns include a medical element both mental and physical.

“The most important thing for a long time has been to know that you and your family are safe,” Wagener says. “The important question now is how to protect your health.”

Now More Than Ever.

The idea that a vehicle can be a protective cocoon from harsh elements has always excited, of course, dating back to the coach-built Packards and Continentals and Rolls-Royces of the previous turn of the century and, before that, to the gilded and decadent confines of horse-drawn coaches. The concept of car-as-spa these days means calming mood and ambient lighting, state-of-the-art sound systems, massaging seats, warm and plush trims—all of which already exist in cars from the BMW M850i to the Porsche Cayenne Coupe to the Mercedes AMG CLA 45.

What’s more, in parts of Asia notorious for pollution, Volvo, Hyundai, and Nissan have long incorporated air quality monitors and filters into their cars. (Volvo, the Swedish brand owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, has often made in-car air quality a selling point.) In 2010, Infiniti equipped its M line with a plasma cluster ion generator called “Forest Air,” which it said could sterilize pathogens while a sensor blocked polluted air and particulate matter from the cabin. In 2014, a joint venture of Peugeot-Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot Citroën Automobile even installed air conditioning systems in Elysée model cars that could filter out 90% of pollutants; the cars come with a negative-ion generator that kills mold and bacteria, as well as dissolves harmful gases in the air.

In the US, vehicles such as the Mercedes GLE AMG and Volvo’s XC90 and S60 include built-in air purifiers and/or fragrance disseminators set in the glove compartment. Tesla offers a HEPA filtration system in the Model S and Model X with the claimed capability to reduce pollution levels in the vehicle to “undetectable” levels.

Rolls-Royce and Bentley offer high-end air filtration systems throughout their lineup to help remove particulates and pollen. Such systems work through the car’s ventilation and climate systems to scent and cleanse the cabin; some brands even offer a layer of active charcoal inside the car that can remove odors and ground-level ozone.

But the notion that a modern car should totally purify any significant amount of air outside the car is relatively new.

“We are working toward the idea that the car could actually take bad things out of the air, almost clean the air,” Wagener said. “It’s an opportunity to address the sustainability issue that we have already been considering.”

Judging from past history at Mercedes and its competitors, the system would be similar to existing processes that work to remove airborne allergens like car fumes—but would also work on a broader level than just the car itself, effectively and significantly cleaning the air immediately surrounding the exterior of the vehicle. Mercedes has been exploring such options for decades: In 1989, the Mercedes Benz SL roadster was the first serial production model to come with a standard cabin air filter. By 2017, Mercedes was the first car manufacturer to achieve the asthma- and allergy-friendly certification for its interior cabin air filters from Allergy Standards Ltd. and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).

Mental health as primary concern

Along with physical health concerns like clean air, coronavirus has prompted designers to consider more closely the idea of mental and emotional health as it relates to your vehicle.

Again, this idea has been out in the ether for a bit. Models such as the GLE Coupe already offer “energizing comfort” settings that run through light mindfulness exercises to help promote circulation, breathing, and inner calm. Their 10-or-so-minute routines encourage deep breathing, meditation, and gentle stretching. Meanwhile, six-figure luxury vehicles like the Rolls-Royce Cullinan and Bentley Bentayga already offer nearly instant Wi-Fi and audio settings, and recording-studio levels of quiet to help consumers feel safe, protected, and in-touch—all technologies that help busy and anxious consumers remain sane.

But mental health during and after the psychic trauma of an historic pandemic will mean a whole new level of concern. Future drivers will expect total efficiency and total isolation—for their own safety, says Alister Whelan, the creative director for interior design at Jaguar Land Rover.

“My young designers keep reminding me that safety isn’t always about size—people will want privacy,” Whelan says. That means unremarkable, discreet, and even forgettable exteriors (like, say, the indecipherable and ubiquitous Tesla Model S), which are all the better for staying under the radar. It also means superior alarm and security systems that can detect potential nefarious movement even before it happens. (The market for armored vehicles, by the way, has recently reached sky-high proportions.)

It could even mean an invisibility cloak. If that sounds far-fetched, it’s not. Mercedes was experimenting with one made from LEDs and a camera back in 2012; Toyota patented a cloaking device in 2017 as a way to help drivers see through those pesky A-pillars that can hamper visibility. (Toyota at the time said the device would use mirrors to bend visible light around the A-pillars to allow the driver to “see” through them. This would give drivers a wider view of the road and their surroundings.) This time, though, the application could be way more serious. It could hide the car from governmental officials or thugs, during security breaches on public roads, or help avoid an outright attack.

The folks at Rolls-Royce talk like they’re already working on it.

“The word ‘invisibility cloak’ comes to mind, certainly,” Kilbertus says. “It’s a car that could move so quietly, so discreetly, that it would go undetected from outside threat.”

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[imsohealthy1]

My Top Ten Favorite Podcast Episodes and a BIG Announcement!

Wow. Stacy and I have been podcasting for almost 8 years! And co-hosting a weekly podcast has been the most amazing experience, and a key driver of my personal and professional growth over that period of time.  Not to mention, even 400 weekly episodes in, I still love it!  I love researching new topics spurred by listener questions; I love getting to nerdy chat with my friend every week; I love the connection with you.

How did this podcasting adventure begin?

I don’t actually know how I ended up on a reviewer list for Eat Like a Dinosaur by Stacy Toth and Matthew McCarry of RealEverything (then Paleo Parents) way back in early 2012.  It was probably thanks to my website name making my compatibility obvious, in addition to having achieved a critical mass of social media followers in my first 4-5 months of blogging.  It was a Big Deal!  I mean, someone actually wanted my opinion on their book!  They even sent me a free review copy! Weeeeee!

I took my inaugural book reviewing duties super seriously.  I cooked a ton of recipes out of the book (even buying kitchen equipment to make the waffles, which rocked my world), I read the children’s story within to my kids and got their feedback, and I crafted my review.

Good thing I loved the book.  Stacy reached out to me on social media and we had our first phone call.  We ended up talking for well over an hour, hitting it off.  Stacy had been thinking for a while about creating a podcast and asked if I would co-host it with her, with Matt producing the show.  We talked about her vision for the podcast, discussed possible names, and formats…  I was in!

And, The Paleo View Podcast was born.

I wish I could say that it was a strategic choice to align myself with established bloggers through our podcasting collaboration.  Nah, I just really liked Stacy (and still do!) and thought that podcasting sounded fun.  But, jumping aboard this ship ended up being awesome for the continued growth of my blog and brand.  I was able to meet other Paleo bloggers through Stacy and Matt, and plug myself into the community in a new way.  And, communicating now in two media, written and audio, helped me to find confidence in my knowledge base and to hone my voice, something I was still struggling to solidify.

The experience of podcasting has been key to my professional evolution from mommy blog to health authority, utilizing my science research background and personal health history to create evidence-based, contexted and nuanced resources, clearly communicated in an accessible, relatable and engaging way. And I found my mission: to reverse the current epidemics of chronic illness by improving scientific literacy on health topics.

Just as my approach to resource creation evolved, so too did the podcast.

We started off tackling many parenting topics, having a guest nearly every week, and keeping the science behind each week’s topic contained to a short “Science with Sarah” segment.  While we settled into the swing of things, we unintentionally fell into the traditional podcast formula, becoming interviewers rather than experts in our own right, another stop on the virtual book tour.  Some episodes were great fun, and some were not.  We adjusted our format, bit by bit, to try to achieve that fun and informative vibe every week.  But we didn’t really realize what was wrong until we had a couple of experiences of interviewing someone who made a claim that we (and the science) resoundingly rejected, but felt trapped between wanting to be polite and respectful podcast hosts while also caring deeply about the quality of the information communicated in our podcast.  The last of these interviews was so bad that we opted to record a new podcast and not air the interview.  And that was when we had an epiphany.  We could do our podcast differently.  We could share our own hard-earned expert knowledge and not rely on unpredicatble guests to bring value to our listeners.  Our listeners love science and we could incorporate nerdtastic information (including tons of mythbusting) with how-to, mindset, emotional topics, real life, quips and puns.

For the last few years, we’ve really come into our own.  Hours of planning and research go into every episode. We record an episode every week with a fast turnaround so that every episode can be topical and current.  We record with 7-8 pages of notes, including links to scientific references, in front of us.  We carefully vet sponsors and match them to show topics so you can get discounts on products we both personally use and love and for which there’s science to support.  We rarely have guests on the show and only when we have an expert friend who can add value to our listeners by discussing a topic that neither Stacy nor I can speak to. And, our respective teams are critical for the creation of the podcast.

We’ve taken a holistic approach and broad perspective to addressing every topic.  We aim to provide the full picture on the current state of scientific evidence, including what questions remain to be answered by the research and where conflicting data might imply context, while also addressing practical aspects, implementation, emotional health, and family challenges, and sharing our own experiences, lessons learned, and hurdles yet to overcome.  We’re keen to ditch diet dogma and fad diet mentality, in favor of a balanced and sustainable approach to health backed by scientific consensus. In short, we’re no longer just providing a Paleo view, we’re providing a whole view.

Drumroll please.

We’ve decided to rename our podcast. Not to change what we’re doing, but instead, name our podcast to better reflect what we’ve already been doing for the last few years.  We are now The Whole View Podcast.

Let me again emphasize for a long-term listeners, we’re not changing the podcast, just the podcast branding to match what the podcast has already grown into.

So, to celebrate, I thought I’d share my top ten favorite podcast episodes with you, in no particular order!  And, if you’re new to the show, here’s ten great episodes to start with!

My Top Ten Favorite Podcast Episodes

1. Episode 210: “Everybody Out” Moments – I love how uncomfortable it makes Stacy to talk about poop!  It’s always easier for her to talk in euphemisms, hence the episode title! Lots of me giggling over Stacy’s discomfort with the conversation, LOL!

2. Episode 280: Yo-Yo Paleo – This episode talked about the science behind on-the-wagon-off-the-wagon diets, how bad these are for our bodies, and why they make it progressively harder to lose weight. Tons of great information and an “aha” moment for Stacy!

3. Episode 315: The Scoop on Red Light and Infrared Therapy – There’s so few biohacks out there that are actually backed by science and live up to the hype.  This was an opportunity to geek out about a notable exception, sharing the impressive science behind red light therapy, and get Stacy hooked on a new health tool.

4. Episode 322: A Healthier Visit With Aunt Flo – Tons of knowledge bombs about women’s health, and one that changed my own personal care habits in response to the science I researched and Stacy shared.

5. Episode 283: Handling Critics, Conflicts and Vegans – This mindset episode is a fan favorite, sharing how to respectfully talk to the people in our lives who don’t see eye-to-eye with us on diet and lifestyle choices, and when to stand our grounds versus refuse to engage.

6. Episode 377: Common Misconceptions about the AIP – This is a great up-to-date introduction to the AIP while discussing common pitfalls and myths about the Autoimmune Protocol.  We also talk about the 3 stages of the AIP, and how important it is to progress through them.

7. Episode 365: Does Paleo Cause Heart Disease? – This episode was in response to a new study that hit mainstream media and garnered an defensive response from our community as a whole that wasn’t openminded to the very important information within this study!  Let’s respect science and continue to adapt our recommendations as important studies shape our understanding of optimal diet.

8. Episode 381: Is Breakfast the Most Important Meal of the Day? – Another one that I changed something in my life in response to what I learned researching the episode.  This is a pivotal podcast to listen to if you’re thinking about intermittent fasting or alternate day fasting, or if you’re a person who just isn’t hungry in the morning.

9. Episode 392: Are Mushrooms Really Magic? Part 2 – The sequel usually isn’t better than the original, but this second mushroom-focused podcast benefited from new science and the research I did for my upcoming gut microbiome book.  So much great information, and if you aren’t already eating mushrooms in some form daily, this podcast will change that!

10. Episode 394: Covid-19 – I’ve worked hard to earn your trust as a Go-To information source by maintaining high-integrity, transparency, and quality in everything I do, and by keeping every recommendation rooted in current non-cherry-picked science. So, this podcast was about living up to that role and providing you with non-fear-based, science-rooted actionable information about the covid-19 pandemic, with a strong focus on the small changes we can all do to support our immune health during this unprecedented time.

A Veggie-Filled Bonus!

One of the long-running themes of our podcast is the important of high vegetable consumption for human health.  Whether we’re busing myths about low-carb diets or talking about the gut microbiome, the benefits of eating tons of veggies and as much veggie variety as possible keeps coming up again and again (and again!).  So, honorable mention, here are my favorite veggie-focused shows. Stacy and I are ready for part 5, so submit your veggie questions!

Episode 152: All About Vegetables

Episode 304: What’s Better: Raw or Cooked Vegetables?

Episode 335: How Many Vegetables Part 3: Souping vs Smoothies

Episode 373: How Many Vegetables Part 4: Powdered Veggies

  The post My Top Ten Favorite Podcast Episodes and a BIG Announcement! appeared first on The Paleo Mom.

7 Day Detox Plan

[thisdaynews]

Warren’s blasts at tech leave Biden in the shadows

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/warrens-blasts-at-tech-leave-biden-in-the-shadows/

Warren’s blasts at tech leave Biden in the shadows

Pressed for a statement on the issue, Biden’s campaign told POLITICO that the former vice president is broadly concerned about economic concentration and would “aggressively” use antitrust law and other tools to ensure that “all corporations” do right by their workers and customers. But Biden views Warren’s singling out of tech as misguided and doesn’t think a president should tell antitrust enforcers which companies to go after, his campaign said.

A close adviser said Biden’s camp is reluctant to become drawn into what it views as Warren’s “weird litmus test.”

“It’s easy to say you want to go after ‘Big Tech’ and break them up,” said one senior economic policy official from the Obama White House who remains sympathetic to Biden. (The person spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss tensions that go back to the days of a presidency that Warren also served in.) “It’s a heck of a lot harder to come up with a coherent theory of the case of why that’s a better outcome for consumers, prices, and innovation.”

The Warren campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

But Warren’s approach looks to be working for her. Even where it might be least expected: In the last quarter of fundraising, she raised nearly a quarter-million dollars from employees of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, some of the very companies she has pledged to break up.

Sally Hubbard, the director of enforcement at the Open Markets Institute, an advocacy group deeply involved in the push for antitrust enforcement on tech companies, argued that Biden is carrying on the Obama administration’s light-touch approach to the industry. Meanwhile, Warren is tapping into Americans’ emerging sense that something is not quite right with Silicon Valley.

“People are understanding that it’s not just some technocratic, boring area,” Hubbard said of the antitrust debate Warren has helped ignite. “It’s fundamentally about equality and freedom, the American way, the American dream. It’s at the heart of capitalism and what we think of core American values.”

Hubbard said she sees the Silicon Valley workers who give to Warren as acting in their own interests: Corporate breakups mean more employers to compete for their labor. Another factor is tech employees’ agreement with Warren’s push to fundamentally restructure the U.S. economy, said Peter Leyden, who runs a public policy-focused Silicon Valley media startup called Reinvent.

“It’s not contradictory or weird,” said Leyden, a former managing editor of Wired. “In general, tech workers in northern California, they’re roughly down with it — that we have to rebalance the economy from a grossly unequal society.”

The different tacks that Warren and Biden have taken on this massively powerful industry go back before the Obama era, to at least 2005, when the pair battled over bankruptcy reform.

That year, the Delaware senator and the Harvard law professor debated back and forth in a tense, substantive Senate hearing. At one point, Biden offered Warren the mixed compliment that she was making “a very compelling and mildly demagogic argument.”

The same phrase could capture the case Warren has made for breaking up tech, starting with a Medium post in March that said “it’s time” to break up Google, Facebook, and Amazon — pledging that when she becomes president, her administration will do just that.

And Warren has hardly let up on the issue.

She posted a billboard in San Francisco, near a train station frequented by tech workers, blaring the message “Break Up Big Tech.” More recently, after leaked audio recorded Mark Zuckerberg saying his company would be forced to sue a Warren administration if it went ahead with a breakup, Warren has leaned into the fight — tweeting again and again her disdain for Facebook. She even ran a deliberately false ad designed to jab Facebook over a newly announced policy on misleading ads, which she and other critics say lets President Donald Trump get away with running lies on the platform.

Biden, meanwhile, has said little. But in response to repeated requests, his campaign sent along a quote from a campaign spokesperson outlining his thinking.

“Vice President Biden is running for President to rebuild America’s middle class and a critical element of getting that done is ensuring that all corporations — including tech giants — are treating their workers and customers fairly,” read the statement from campaign spokesperson Mike Gwin. “To accomplish this, a Biden administration will aggressively use all the tools available — including utilizing antitrust measures — to ensure that these corporations are behaving in a responsible manner and contributing to a greater prosperity for our economy and middle class.”

People close to Biden say the former vice president is reined in by his reluctance to dictate targets and methods to regulators in a future Biden administration. By a combination of both tradition and statute, the country’s chief antitrust enforcers — the Justice Department’s antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission — operate at a distance from the White House.

Recent history offers at least one example of a vice president-turned-presidential candidate paying a political cost for refusing to dictate to regulators.

In 2002, then-Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore balked at speaking out against an airport planned for the edges of the Florida Everglades, in part over worries about corrupting an ongoing Air Force analysis of the project. Gore instead called for a “balanced solution” — prompting some Florida environmental activists to endorse Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who accused him of “waffling as usual.” Nader wound up getting 97,000 votes in Florida, far exceeding the 537-vote margin that delivered the state and the White House to George W. Bush.

That said, in the Trump era, political norms aren’t once they were.

As a candidate in 2016, Trump declared that his administration would block AT&T’s attempt to buy Time Warner, saying the deal would put “too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” After Trump won, his Justice Department indeed sued to stop the sale. And while a judge let it go through, AT&T couldn’t get traction with the argument that the president had inappropriately meddled in the DOJ’s decision making.

Biden is arguably in the mainstream of the Democratic field: No candidate has come close to Warren’s call for breaking up Google, Facebook and Amazon, even though the Democrats in Tuesday’s debate took turns detailing a wide range of complaints about Silicon Valley’s behavior and effect on society.

The candidates proposed various solutions, including more aggressive taxation of tech companies, requirements for transparency on social-media ads, and a redefinition of the major online platforms as publishers. But none agreed fully when asked point-blank whether Warren’s breakup proposals were right.

Instead, several responded that as president, they would install strong antitrust enforcers to go after monopolies in multiple industries. “We need a president who has the guts to appoint an attorney general who will take on these huge monopolies,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said. Former HUD Secretary Julián Castro called for “cracking down on monopolistic trade practices.” New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said, “I will put people in place that enforce antitrust laws.”

Only two candidates clearly objected, in whole or part, to Warren’s proposal: Entrepreneur Andrew Yang argued that “competition doesn’t solve all the problems.” And former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke lodged the strongest rejection of the Warren plan: “I don’t think it is the role of a president or a candidate for the presidency to specifically call out which companies will be broken up. That’s something that Donald Trump has done.”

Biden didn’t get a chance to answer. But the divide between Biden and Warren is helping to define the terms of the debate, and it is shaping how an eventual Democratic president might navigate its relationship with the powerful and deep-pocketed U.S. tech industry.

The source close to the Biden campaign said the topic remains a “live issue” inside that operation, meaning the team is still working through how to talk about the way he would handle Silicon Valley.

The former Obama White House economic policy official said Biden will probably have no choice but to make that clearer. “My guess is that it will be inescapable, and inadvisable, for him to not talk about the need to have exceptional scrutiny on some of the excesses and misbehavior,” the ex-official said.

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Fracking in 2018: Another Year of Pretending to Make Money

Jerri-Lynn here. This is the latest installment in Justin Mikulka’s excellent series on the fracking beat, Finances of Fracking: Shale Industry Drills More Debt Than Profit. The industry lacks even the excuse of profit to justify the environmental costs it inflicts – yet  the mainstream media continue to swallow industry waffle. I’ve crossposted other articles in the series, and I encourage interested readers to look at them – the entire series is well worth your time.

By Justin Mikulka, a freelance writer, audio and video producer living in Trumansburg, NY. Originally published at DeSmog Blog

2018 was the year the oil and gas industry promised that its darling, the shale fracking revolution, would stop focusing on endless production and instead turn a profit for its investors. But as the year winds to a close, it’s clear that hasn’t happened.

Instead, the fracking industry has helped set new records for U.S. oil production while continuing to lose huge amounts of money — and that was before the recent crash in oil prices.

But plenty of people in the industry and media make it sound like a much different, and more profitable, story.

Broken Promises and Record Production

Going into this year, the fracking industry needed to prove it was a good investment (and not just for its CEOs, who are garnering massive paychecks).

In January, The Wall Street Journal touted the prospect of frackers finally making “real money … for the first time” this year. “Shale drillers are heeding growing calls from investors who have chastened the companies for pumping ever more oil and gas even as they incur losses doing so,” oil and energy reporter Bradley Olson wrote.

Olson’s story quoted an energy asset manager making the (always) ill-fated prediction about the oil and gas industry that this time will be different.

Is this time going to be different? I think yes, a little bit,” said energy asset manager Will Riley. “Companies will look to increase growth a little, but at a more moderate pace.”

Despite this early optimism, Bloomberg noted in February that even the Permian Basin — “America’s hottest oilfield” — faced “hidden pitfalls” that could “hamstring” the industry.

They were right. Those pitfalls turned out to be the ugly reality of the fracking industry’s finances.

And this time was not different.

On the edge of the Permian in New Mexico, The Albuquerque Journal reported the industry is “on pace this year to leap past last year’s record oil production,” according to Ryan Flynn, executive director of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. And yet that oil has at times been discounted as much as $20 a barrel compared to world oil prices because New Mexico doesn’t have the infrastructure to move all of it.

Who would be foolish enough to produce more oil than the existing infrastructure could handle in a year when the industry promised restraint and a focus on profits? New Mexico, for one. And North Dakota. And Texas.

In North Dakota, record oil production resulted in discounts of $15 per barrel and above due to infrastructure constraints.

Texas is experiencing a similar story. Oilprice.com cites a Goldman Sachs prediction of discounts “around $19-$22 per [barrel]” for the fourth quarter of 2018 and through the first three quarters of next year.

Oil producers in fracking fields across the country seem to have resisted the urge to reign in production and instead produced record volumes of oil in 2018. In the process — much like the tar sands industry in Canada — they have created a situation where the market devalues their oil. Unsurprisingly, this is not a recipe for profits.

Shale Oil Industry ‘More Profitable Than Ever’ — Or Is It?

However, Reuters recently analyzed 32 fracking companies and declared that “U.S. shale firms are more profitable than ever after a strong third quarter.” How is this possible?

Reading a bit further reveals what Reuters considers “profits.”

“The group’s cash flow deficit has narrowed to $945 million as U.S.benchmark crude hit $70 a barrel and production soared,” reported Reuters.

So, “more profitable than ever” means that those 32 companies are running a deficit of nearly $1 billion. That does not meet the accepted definition of profit.

A separate analysis released earlier this month by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and The Sightline Institute also reviewed 32 companies in the fracking industry and reached the same conclusion: “The 32 mid-size U.S.exploration companies included in this review reported nearly $1 billion in negative cash flows through September.”

NINE-YEAR LOSING STREAK CONTINUES FOR US FRACKING SECTOR

Oil and gas output is rising but cash losses keep flowing.#CSG #Fracking #Shale #Gas #FrackFreeNT #FrackFreeWA #FrackFreeNSW #FederalICAC #Auspolhttps://t.co/F3BvUBqcrw

— Carly Woodstock (@stopthefrack) 9 December 2018

The numbers don’t lie. Despite the highest oil prices in years and record amounts of oil production, the fracking industry continued to spend more than it made in 2018. And somehow, smaller industry losses can still be interpreted as being “more profitable than ever.”

The Fracking Industry’s Fuzzy Math

One practice the fracking industry uses to obfuscate its long money-losing streak is to change the goal posts for what it means to be profitable. The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted this practice, writing: “Claims of low ‘break-even’ prices for shale drilling hardly square with frackers’ bottom lines.”

The industry likes to talk about low “break-even” numbers and how individual wells are profitable — but somehow the companies themselves keep losing money. This can lead to statements like this one from Chris Duncan, an energy analyst at Brandes Investment Partners:

“You always scratch your head as to how they can have these well economics that can have double-digit returns on investment, but it never flows through to the total company return.”

Head-scratching, indeed.

The explanation is pretty simple: Shale companies are not counting many of their operating expenses in the “break-even” calculations. Convenient for them, but highly misleading about the economics of fracking because factoring in the costs of running one of these companies often leads those so-called profits from the black and into the red.

The Wall Street Journal explains the flaw in the fracking industry’s questionable break-even claims: “break-evens generally exclude such key costs as land, overhead and even at times transportation.”

Other tricks, The Wall Street Journal notes, include companies only claiming the break-even prices of their most profitable land (known in the industry as “sweet spots”) or using artificially low costs for drilling contractors and oil service companies.

While the mystery of fracking industry finances appears to be solved, the mystery of why oil companies are allowed to make such misleading claims remains.

The US shale / fracking formula… 1.) borrow billions at low interest rates 2.) lose money forcing oil & gas from marginal fields 3.) leave someone else stuck with the financial losses & environmental destruction https://t.co/47irrGJxKw

— Ryan Popple (@rcpopple) 24 October 2018

Wall Street Continues to Fund an Unsustainable Business Model

Why does the fracking industry continue to receive more investments from Wall Street despite breaking its “promises” this year?

Because that is how Wall Street makes money. Whether fracking companies are profitable or not doesn’t really matter to Wall Street executives who are getting rich making the loans that the fracking industry struggles to repay.

An excellent example of this is the risk that rising interest rates pose to the fracking industry. Even shale companies that have made profits occasionally have done so while also amassing large debts. As interest rates rise, those companies will have to borrow at higher rates, which increases operating costs and decreases the likelihood that shale companies losing cash will ever pay back that debt.

Continental Resources, one of the largest fracking companies, is often touted as an excellent investment. Investor’s Business Daily recently noted that “[w]ithin the Oil& Gas-U.S.Exploration & Production industry, Continental is the fourth-ranked stock with a strong 98 out of a highest-possible 99 [Investor’s Business Daily] Composite Rating.”

And yet when Simply Wall St. analyzed the company’s ability to pay back its over $6 billion in debt, the stockmarket news site concluded that Continental isn’t well positioned to repay that debt. However, it noted “[t]he sheer size of Continental Resources means it is unlikely to default or announce bankruptcy anytime soon.” For frackers, being at the top of the industry apparently means being too big to fail.

As interest rates rise, common sense might suggest that Wall Street would rein in its lending to shale companies. But when has common sense applied to Wall Street?

Even the Houston Chronicle, a major paper near the center of the fracking boom, recently asked, “How long can the fracking spending spree last?”

For the past decade U.S. fracking firms have been spending more than they’re taking in – by about $80 million per year at the 60 largest companies. With investors cracking down and interest rates rising, some are asking how much longer it can go on. https://t.co/ymmm7h9QZZ

— James Osborne (@osborneja) 14 September 2018

The Chronicle notes the epic money-losing streak for the industry and how fracking bankruptcies have already ended up “stiffing lenders and investors on more than $70 billion in outstanding loans.”

So, is the party over?

Not according to Katherine Spector, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. She explains how Wall Street will reconcile investing in these fracking firms during a period of higher interest rates: “Banks are going to make more money [through higher interest rates], so they’re going to want to get more money out the door.”

Follow the DeSmog investigative series: Finances of Fracking: Shale Industry Drills More Debt Than Profit

This entry was posted in Banana republic, Energy markets, Environment, Global warming, Guest Post, Ridiculously obvious scams on December 20, 2018 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/12/fracking-2018-another-year-pretending-make-money.html

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Revolution at 3.5″: Inside Vaporwave’s Mini-Boom of Floppy Disk Releases

Hot new music news!

Sterling Campbell had co-founded a cassette label and a VHS tape label in Ottawa, but needed a new creative outlet after moving back to Cornwall, Ontario, to be closer to his daughter.

“I was like, ‘I need to start something up for myself here,’” he says. “‘What’s the most ridiculous thing I could do right now?’”

The answer was Strudelsoft, the label that the 36-year-old bills as the first vaporwave imprint dedicated exclusively to releasing music on 3.5″ floppy disk.

The misty, Internet-fueled subgenre has long thrived on nostalgic physical formats. Vaporwave’s sound, often produced by slowing down and/or reverb-drenching existing songs to walk the line between the sentimental and the sinister, is a perfect match for cassette tapes, those beloved relics of hissier times. Now a boomlet of patient and creative label owners are recovering an even more esoteric medium: the Eighties and Nineties artifact once used for Windows installations, AOL trials and sessions of Doom.

“Floppies are cheaper than cassettes, they don’t have to be tediously dubbed, they look appealing, they’re available in a lot of colors and have cool designs that people like,” says Matthew Isom, 40, of San Diego plunderphonic vaporwave label Power Lunch, who notes that floppies also cost substantially less to ship overseas than cassettes.

There are less convenient aspects to the format, of course, but floppy aficionados have found ways to work within its limits. “I discovered, after playing around, that you can actually release about 11 minutes and 38 seconds of 8-bit audio MP3 on a floppy disk,” says Campbell, who has released six floppies so far via Strudelsoft. “The first one that I did was this vaporwave artist called Cat System Corp and I had a run of like 20 floppy disks. And it fuckin’ sold out in 8 seconds.”

Campbell sourced his first batch of disks on eBay. When that proved too expensive, he sent a call to the employees at the contract manufacturer where he works in IT. He followed that up with a post on Canadian classified site Kajiji, where he offered to pick up floppies from peoples’ homes. He wagers he currently has about 400 or 500 floppy disks in his basement.

“You find some interesting stuff on them, like pictures of I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan’s Island,” he says. “People’s family photos and stuff. I found, actually, a Trojan virus on one, which was called hotguy.exe. Good thing I didn’t click on it.”

Vlad Maftei, 29, of Constanța, Romania label Sea of Clouds hit up his country’s online marketplace, Okazii. “Guys will have thousands of them in their house, and they’re giving them away for very cheap,” he says. “So I met with a bunch of shady dudes in alleyways and got a whole bag of them. … I think the biggest challenge for me definitely was some of the floppy disks were so old and written and rewritten so many times, by the time I got to them they weren’t really working anymore. And sometimes I had to try to write an album five or six times on five different floppy discs until I found one that finally worked.”

Despite – or because of ­– the obscure format, these labels’ floppy disk releases often sell out promptly.

“I released it one evening, and woke up in the morning and it had sold out,” Power Lunch’s Isom says of Eggo Jams by Sponge Person, released in a few cassette editions and a run of 20 copies on “waffle-yellow floppy disk.” “People love that release. It’s a collaborative work between a few different vaporwave artists, so it’s sort of done anonymously, but it’s probably a bigger success than any one of those single artists have ever done.”

“The thing about it is, people in the vaporwave scene love physical releases,” Campbell says. “You got guys in the Vaporwave Cassette Club on Facebook that post up these cassette tape collections that are worth thousands of dollars. It’s insane. And a lot of these people, I don’t even think a lot of ’em play the shit. They just kind of put it on their shelf.”

The original explosion of musicians releasing floppies occurred during the mid-Nineties, when discs were sometimes packaged alongside CDs as a way of providing bonus content, like for tech-savvy plunderers Emergency Broadcast Network and Billy Idol’s industrial misstep Cyberpunk. Sony’s “Music Screeners” series featured 3.5″ disks with video clips and screensavers for artists like Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson and The The. By the aughts, however, floppies were mostly the domain of European electronic acts and subterranean experimental groups.

The 2010s have seen occasional use of the format among big-name noise acts ­– Eighties cassette pioneers like the New Blockaders, GX Jupitter-Larsen and Maurizio Bianchi have all released floppies within the last decade – and experimental labels like Hungaria’s Floppy Kick. Miami Vice’s Culture Island, released in 2012 in an edition of 25, is generally regarded as the first vaporwave floppy disk – “and apparently it’s just fuckin’ insane to get ahold of,” says Campbell.

Even retro-minded jazz-funk group (and Kendrick Lamar collaborators) BadBadNotGood got in on the fun when their label Innovative Leisure wrote a 40kbps mp3 of non-album track “Up” onto 100 floppies before the release of their 2016 album IV.

“We would mysteriously place them in different locations around the world, whether it was a coffee shop, boutique, record store, and then we would take a photo of the floppy, tag the location and some lucky fans received a nice surprise,” says Innovative Leisure co-founder Jamie Strong. “Now it sells for $40-$50 online. Maybe we should do another run?”

Beyond the obvious nostalgia factor, the floppy is a natural fit for vaporwave, music that is often lo-fi even before it’s compressed down to fit into such a tiny space. “One floppy holds 1.44 megabytes of data. So, the most I’ve been able to fit on one was three songs,” says Sea of Clouds’ Maftei. “They were compressed to hell, but still very listenable. I listened to them from the floppy and I couldn’t complain. It sounds good enough.”

But floppy heads say the utilitarian aspect is important, too. “It’s even cheaper to get into floppies than it is to get into cassettes,” says Isom. “Cassette players, they’re not really manufactured anymore, and the prices are going up on used ones. They’re getting scarcer, they don’t always work. It’s a little daunting. But a floppy drive? 10, 15 bucks and they’re ready to go. Pretty much anybody can afford to get into doing this.”

The bottom line? “It takes up a lot of your time,” Campbell says of the process of collecting, ripping and mailing Strudelsoft’s catalog. “And sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. But then of course it’s worth it, you know? ‘Cause I got a fuckin’ floppy disk label.”

Music – Rolling Stone https://ift.tt/2lQYdyI

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Best Yoga Tips for Beginners

Has yoga crossed your mind? You’re informed it’s a worthwhile practice, but now what? How do you find a studio or know what style that’s right for you? What the heck is Kripalu? Everyone starts in the same boat. It can be intimidating the first couple times, but over time you will be comfortable.Here are a few “Best Yoga Tips for Beginners”

1.Where Do I Practice Yoga?

Where ever you decide to practice—whether it’s in a YMCA, a gym or yoga studio, start with an entry level class. There are many different forms of yoga and some can be quite vigorous in intensity and fast moving.

You may already be an athlete, you may already be in shape, but when it comes to yoga, form is everything. Alignment is everything in yoga. It’s important to learn correct posture for each pose and understand that feeling.

Many Studios describe their classes as “All Levels.” This means anyone is welcome. But learning the poses in a beginner class first will help you feel most at ease, when attending an “All Level” class.

Remember, even when you are a seasoned yogi, always keep a beginner’s mind. It may look just like stretching and bending, but you’ll find it’s so much more. Many years down the road, you may still find yourself discover something new about each pose and your body.

2.Understand the Names

Classes may be labeled Power, Bikram, Vinyasa, Classical, Iyengar, Kripalu or Forrest (to name a few). These are all branches off the same Tree, whose roots are Hatha. These styles can be vastly different.Try to explore a variety of classes and see what they have to offer. Fina a Hatha or Classical class, and then go from there. This way you’ll always remember your roots.

3.Invest in a sticky mat.

This may seem like a minor matter, but the security that comes from firm footing is hard to overrate. If you have never tried a mat, borrow a friend’s so that you can feel the difference it makes in any of the spread-legged postures and in the downward-facing dog pose. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll probably want your own.

4.Define your practice.

The practice routine you create depends a good deal on you. Define the time you have available for practice, the technique you would like to focus on, and the balance among meditation, breathing, and asana practices. Then consider the details. Are you clear about the order of your practice and the methods you are using? Are there aspects of an asana that need attention or that intrigue you? If a posture or any other practice seems too difficult, could you break it down, or prepare for it with less challenging techniques? What are the steps in the relaxation or meditation methods you have learned? If you have questions, make sure to ask your teacher for help.

5.Make space in your home.

By practicing in the same place at home you create a groove in your mind—the memory of past days’ experiences makes it easier to begin today. Store props nearby so that getting started doesn’t require a lot of running around. An inspiring image or statue, an Oriental carpet, or a specially selected cushion can mark this place as special.

6.Build a small library of books and CDs.

Yoga videos are invaluable. They offer experience with different styles of yoga as well as with different levels of practice. And audio recordings is a great way to internalize the relaxation and meditation practice of your choice.

In addition, a library of a dozen or so yoga-related books will provide a lifelong source of information. My choices would include two to three manual-style books offering practice suggestions and an overview of yoga; a copy of the Bhagavad Gita (Juan Mascaró’s translation is an inspiring starting version); a basic anatomy workbook; a copy of the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali (How to Know God remains a good beginning choice); a book devoted to the spirit and practice of meditation; something on yoga philosophy; an introduction to Ayurveda; and three books that inspire you. Build your library slowly.

7.Take breathing breaks.

Breathing is a powerful tool for managing stress. And while a few moments of breath awareness can definitely short-circuit a fit of anger or a moment of anxiety, you might consider extending your breathing breaks and using them on a more regular basis—refreshing yourself for a few minutes or longer once or twice every day. During your break you can close your eyes and count your breaths, or you can simply relax the tensions that have crept into the respiratory muscles. You’ll find that a five-minute period of breath awareness will soothe the subtle strain of daily thinking and recharge your mind. Place reminders (Brake for Breathing!) at one or two key places in your home or office. Better yet, don’t let an afternoon go by without using five minutes for this sort of mini-meditation.

8.Go to bed on time.

That romantic dream of getting up early for a long asana and meditation practice followed by whole-wheat waffles and a stroll around the block won’t happen unless you work on the other end of the equation: going to bed on time. Once you have whittled your late-night activities and moved your bedtime to a reasonable hour you can consider making changes in your morningschedule. But give yourself plenty of time for adjustments—months rather than days or weeks. Expect to feel better when you’re done.