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unbreakablepodcast · 5 years

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159. Intro to Three Simple Things: Leading During Chaos

Three Simple Things is written in the manner of old story telling. Real stories told around a campfire, where people gathered to learn from the warriors and leaders of the tribe or village. The words are intended to be read as if you and I are next to each other talking frankly without political correctness. The stories are also meant to feel urgent and necessary. I ask you to integrate each chapter into your life.

We humans make our lives painfully complex. Relationships, which are fundamentally simple, now swim with complexity. The boring simplicity of being physically tough and in shape drowns in a swamp of exciting complex and lazy actions. The pursuit of wealth evolved away from simple work and simple teamwork to a virtual devaluing of hard work into hacks and overindulging actions that have no value. The simple act of learning is now mired in politics and debt. Spiritually, we are void of meaning to the point a simple prayer or meditation signifies depression and loss of soul.

There are five areas in each of your lives that demand simplicity and abhor complexity: Spiritual, Relationship, Wealth, Physical, and Intellectual. To win, you need only do Three Simple Things in each. Success is simple, but not easy!

Achieving a 6-hour baseline during our day-to-day lives may be the most important objective we have. I have spent my adult life, as a Navy SEAL, developing and honing the only five measurable areas of life as the baseline for sustained growth: physical health, structured learning, wealth creation, meaningful relationships, and spiritual connections. Over the past 6 years, I have trained leaders and athletes and coaches in order to produce a baseline of three simple things in their lives, so that they lead teams or companies toward success. The process is rather straightforward; the various methods are definable and clear. The effort is simple, but not easy. As you learn the process and method, you will achieve measurable outcomes by just maintaining the baseline. The maintenance of the baseline is non-negotiable.

Thom Shea, 207

To my children:

Three Simple Things is for you! The older I get the more I realize the limited time I have to prepare you for life. My deepest wish is to pass on everything I have learned in my life to add some measurable value to yours. Many of my SEAL brothers did not return home from war. Many who did return are injured, many have post-traumatic stress; many have brain injuries and cannot pass on to their families the vast knowledge and experiences acquired in their lives. Read these reflections so all the combined knowledge will be useful to you. I write this as if I was sitting and talking to you with no pretenses or formality, yet with urgency.

To the readers I have never met:

I am a fan of the human experience of growth and have spent 50 years thriving in the chaos of war and the chaos of everyday life. We all have vast stores of experiences and knowledge we want to pass on to friends, family, and others. Thank you for your willingness to absorb my experiences and your desire to breakthrough your own chaos to find “Three Simple Things” in your own life.

If you are interested in sustained, high level performance in the five measurable areas of your life, called pyramids, then the processes and methods I will describe are for you? If you are only interested in comfort; only excited about one pyramid; or, only want to learn a short-term hack, then this is not for you? We humans have arrived at the most abundant time for wealth creation; the deepest pools of opportunity to achieve physical goals; the furthest capacity to learn; the most profound ways to relate to each other; and the clearest sense of spiritual connections in our evolution. When you are interested in tangible success, Three Simple Things is for you!

Any of us willing to put in to practice the fundamentals of learning, practicing, and maintaining a baseline will achieve levels of performance far beyond what we now think possible. Like all great endeavors all you need do is commit. Commit before you know the end result. Commit without the notion that you can exit when it gets chaotic. Commit because without commitment nothing measurable is possible. Once you are committed, then there is just “work” to do. During the process of working on the 6-hour baseline, don’t give up on yourself. Quitting or giving up has no place in this life. Quitting has killed more marriages, cut short more athletic endeavors, caused more business failures, and always separates each of us from divine access.

The baseline is not about balance. For some strange reason there is a movement to balance life. Balance in any sense literally means, taking bits from one and putting into another or even getting rid of those bits to have balance. Time cannot be balanced, energy cannot be balanced, and, life or passion cannot be balanced. The pursuit of balance always leads to the inevitable conclusion where you have to avoid one thing to have another; and at the extreme part of balance is the notion that stress is bad and to avoid stress. The absence of stress will destroy you. Embrace stress and stop negotiating with what matters and doesn’t matter. Instead I offer a non-negotiable life!

You can live in a bubble with no gravity, with no negative stimuli, which is where the pursuit of balance will take you. In the bubble after a short time your body will deteriorate and so will your ability to think. You will never find balance; the notion is folly and simply a sales pitch from a scared child who has quit on their life.

I offer a simple truth: do three simple things in the five pyramids of performance and carve out six, non-negotiable, hours and activity a day as the foundation for truly living life. You will not balance time to achieve the baseline; nor will you give up one category for another. You will literally create a baseline to think and grow. From the 6-hour baseline, I have seen men and women run ultra-marathons, grow their wealth by 2x in a year, turn around a failing marriage, and start a new life and thrive.

For the past 6 years of sustaining my own 6-hour baseline while training and witnessing my clients struggle through a life of not having the non-negotiable baseline, but instead overweighting one pyramid while destroying the other 4 areas of life, I am very clear the value of sharing the process and method with you. I noticed businessmen and women work a 12-hour day and produce millions while neglecting family and health. I witnessed great athletes training for 7 hours a day and produce number one status while excluding relationships and lacking the ability to find a dollar in a bank. I have seen parents spend up to 6 hours a day shuttling kids around while giving up their own health and ambitions. Negotiating with life, always adjusting to the changes without having a non-negotiable baseline causes epic long-term failures. The baseline will allow you to achieve much more in each of the five pyramids.

Shocking as that may seem to you, the conditions I just described are found everywhere in our society. The new norm as it seems always ends badly. But everyone seems to be on this railroad leading to a cliff of destruction. And, trust me, the cliff where the train falls off going full speed was happening for every successful executive, every top athlete, and seemingly every marriage.

The executives literally worked with the thought process to build a business to make money to support their family and lifestyle. Twelve-hour workdays, as I began to notice, were killing the family because there was no family time or activity. The extreme focus on work excluded health and created a horrible eating, sleeping, and activity cycles. As I continued to notice over time what was occurring in this over weighted life paradigm, the inevitable outcomes of running the train off the cliff became predictable.

At some point in time the leader would give up half of the income to the spouse. Divorce cuts income by half, let’s not quibble. After all those hours, all those years, of working a 12-hour day the money would be cut in half not to mention the exhausting process of a divorce. It was predictable. After two years of seeing all the indicators and developing a series of questions, I began to realize I could even “short the market” and bet against the companies’ success simply because the boss’s, male or female, work to family life ratio was off.

The most disturbing aspect of the over worked leader became deadly clear looking at the lack of any tangible commitment to physical health. I will describe later the details, however, neglect in physical health didn’t lead to going over a cliff, but it led straight into a brick wall. The twelve-hour normal workday eventually kills the leader. Yes, they die or get so sick they can no longer work, or, die within two years of retiring. As it were, they were losing everything at the end. Leaving a trust for the kids seemed to be the norm because most had a trust fund set up by 50 and knew they were sick and not doing well. The scary part is everyone was doing this. We all seemed to be in a rat race no one could avoid or get off of the flywheel.

The leaders and top performers had negotiated themselves out of sustainable performance in the five pyramids. More of one pyramid is alluring. Being number one is too. Yet, without a baseline, without the rest of your life being on-point none of the accumulation of stuff is sustainable. The 6-hour baseline of doing three simple, non-negotiable things in each of the five pyramids of life literally make success easier and much more sustainable. The rest of the book is stories about the detailed processes and methods to follow in order to set up and maintain a 6-hour baseline.

Moderation is for cowards!

#navyseal #leader #businessleader #podcast #performancecoach #adamantinealliance #onboarding #embeddedleaders

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mealha · 5 years

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How does Google's Pixel 4 smartphone camera compare to the iPhone 11 Pro?

Shot through a shop window, the Pixel 4 handles the shiny, golden surfaces and contrasty pools of light very nicely. (Stan Horaczek/)

At its recent product announcement event in New York City, Google showed off a handful of new gear. But, the company dedicated considerable time—and presumably money spent to hire iconic portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz—showing off the Pixel 4 smartphone’s new camera. That emphasis makes sense. Consumers still indicate that photo quality is one of the most-important factors they use to pick a new device. And Google is coming off of a very strong showing in the Pixel 3, which was (at least as far as I was concerned at the time) the absolute best smartphone camera.

The Pixel 4 adds some more AI-powered smarts, relying increasingly on its software to determine the overall look of the final image. And while the camera has some moments where it’s truly excellent, I ran into a few growing pains as Google tries to calculate its way to perfect photos.

What's new?

The Pixel is about average when it comes to quickness in capturing photos. It took me roughly five tries before I got the timing right and caught the person up front with a punch extended. (Stan Horaczek/)

On paper, the Pixel 4’s camera doesn’t seem all that different from the hardware that came before it. The primary exception is the notable addition of a telephoto lens, which Google intends to improve performance specifically when it comes to zooming and portrait mode. The shooter’s competition, however, is stiffer this year: Apple seems to have corrected some the over-zealous HDR tech that made iPhone XS images look unrealistic and unnatural at times, and the Cupertino company promises to further improve the iPhone 11 Pro’s already-very-good camera when its detail-enhancing Deep Fusion tech arrives in the next iOS update.

Image quality

This scene is a great space to test HDR. There's natural light coming in through the archway and artificial light overhead. The Pixel 4 does a really excellent job of bringing up the shadows near the door while keeping the colors accurate to the scene as it looked in real life. If you wanted to edit the photo, it's a great, neutral starting point. But, it also looks fine the way it is. (Stan Horaczek/)

Google doesn’t pull punches when it comes to computational photography, which relies more on processing power and algorithms than pure hardware performance. The company makes it abundantly clear that the software magic that happens during and after you press the shutter has become extremely important in determining the look of the final image.

Like almost every smartphone camera at this point, pressing the shutter doesn’t simply take one photo. Instead, it captures a burst and combines information from those images into one finished file. This “smart HDR” tech does a lot of good: It can prevent highlights from getting blown out, or flatten out a super-contrasty scene that could lose crucial details. But, as with iPhone 11 Pro, it can be unpredictable.

These Bananas at Whole Foods illustrate the difference between the Pixel 4 (left) and the iPhone 11 Pro (right). The Pixel's image doesn't crank the contrast as much and the tones look smoother overall. If you weren't comparing them side-by-side, however, they're both totally acceptable. (Stan Horaczek/)

In good conditions shooting with the main wide-angle camera, I prefer the images that come out of the Pixel 4 to those from the iPhone 11 Pro. It’s close, but the Pixel’s camera still feels more neutral and natural to me. I don’t notice the HDR effect that can make subjects look unrealistic—and sometimes even cartoonish—as much as I do with the iPhone. This is especially useful for users who edit their photos after taking them (something very few typical users do).

The focusing on the Pixel 4 is impressive. It grabbed onto the pizza cutter through this window reflection. (Stan Horaczek/)

Google made a few welcome improvements to its overall HDR experience as well. When you tap the screen to focus on an object in the image, two sliders now pop up for adjusting the brightness of the scene. One slider affects the overall exposure (how bright or dark everything looks) in the scene, while the other simply affects the shadows. That second slider is extremely useful. It allows you to do things like taking silhouette photos in which the subject is virtually blacked out while the background (usually the bright sky) stays properly exposed.

The first shot in this series was the default with no adjustments. In the second shot, I raised the overall brightness, which drew out detail from the leaves, but blew out the sky. In the third shot, I used the shadows slider to raise the shadow levels to bring up the leaves a bit while the sky remained mostly unchanged. (Stan Horaczek/)

You can also achieve the opposite effect in which you can brighten up a dark foreground subject without blowing out a bright sky in the background. In a situation like the one pictured below, you’d typically lose some of those nice yellow leaf details to shadow unless you brightened the whole image and blew out the sky. Adjusting the shadow slider allows you to bring up the exposure on the leaves while leaving the sky alone.

That slider is one of my favorite additions to the Pixel 4 camera, and it’s a trend I’d love to see continue as we go forward into the future of HDR all the time on everything.

When the shooting conditions get tricky, however, the Pixel 4 has some real quirks.

The flickr effect

Most artificial lighting flickers, but your brain does a good job of making the glow seem continuous. The pulsing effect, however, is more difficult for digital cameras to negate, and the Pixel 4 seems to have more trouble in this arena than its competition.

In the video above, you’ll notice some dark bands going across the image. This kind of thing isn’t out-of-the-ordinary with artificial light sources, which have a generally imperceptible flicker to coincide with the 60 Hz electrical current flowing through them. Dedicated digital cameras, however, typically have “flicker detection” to help combat it, and even the iPhone 11 Pro does a better job of mitigating the effect.

The effect isn't always so pronounced. In this image, you can clearly see dark bands running across the map in the center of the image that's illuminated by the artificial light overhead. Light coming in through the window and door pushed the shutter speed to 1/217th of a second, which is too fast to negate the banding effect. (Stan Horaczek/)

With the Pixel 4, I noticed it in a variety of locations and artificial light sources. It’s subtle, most of the time, but if you have a bright light source in the frame of the picture or video, it can push the shutter speed faster than 1/60th of a second, which is when the bands start to creep in.

When I switched to a manual camera mode in the Lightroom app and used a slower shutter speed, it disappeared. In scenes like this, the iPhone seems to use its HDR+ tech to keep at least one frame in the mix with a shutter speed slow enough to stop this from happening. Once I figured out the circumstances that brought it on, I shot the example below, which shows it very clearly.

The image on the right came from the iPhone 11 Pro Max, while the image on the left—which very clearly displays the banding problem—comes from the Pixel 4. Looking at the metadata, the iPhone claims a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, where as the Pixel's shutter speed was faster than 1/250th of a second, which explains why it's so visible in the Pixel photo, but not the iPhone frame. Presumably, this is the kind of thing Google can fix down the road by adjusting the way in which the HDR capture process works. (Stan Horaczek/)

The flaw isn’t a deal breaker since it only appears in specific circumstances, but it’s very annoying when it does.

White balancing act

Shot on a cloudy day in the shadows with lots of yellow in the frame, I'd fully expect this picture to come out too blue. The Pixel did a solid job, however. (Stan Horaczek/)

Another area where our brains and eyes routinely outperform cameras: color balance. If you’re in a room with both artificial light and a window, the illumination may look fairly consistent to your eye, but render as orange and blue, respectively, to a camera.

Smartphones often try to split the difference when it comes to white balance unless you mess with it on your own. The Pixel 4, however, analyzes the scene in front of it and uses AI to try and recognize important objects in the frame. So, if it notices a face, it will try and get the white balance right on the person. That’s a good tactic.

Under artificial light, the color balance changes frequently when the camera moves subtly. (Stan Horaczek/)

Generally, I think the Pixel 4 does an excellent job when it comes to white balance, except when it gets it very wrong. Move around the iPhone 11 Pro camera, and the scene’s overall color cast tends to stay mostly consistent. Do the same with the Pixel 4, and its overall white balance can shift drastically, even when you only slightly move the camera. Above, the grid-style screenshot show a series of photos I took in succession under unchanging conditions. I moved the phone subtly as I shot, and you can see the really profound color shift. Again, this primarily happens when shooting under artificial light.

As long as you pay attention and notice the change before snapping the shot, it’s totally fine and the Pixel does a great job. It’s also easy to correct later on if you’re willing to open an editing app. But, on a few occasions, I ended up with a weirdly yellow photo I didn’t expect.

Telephoto lens

Portrait mode and a backlit beard make for quite the scene. (Stan Horaczek/)

The new telephoto lens is roughly twice the focal length of the Pixel’s standard camera, which effectively gives you a 2x optical zoom. It has an f/2.4 aperture, compared to the improved f/2.0 (lower numbers let in more light) portrait lens on the iPhone 11 Plus. It’s only a fraction of a stop, however, so it’s unlikely to make a huge impact, but it’s a reminder that Apple has been doing telephoto lenses for some time now and is already refining while Google is just getting started.

You get more accurate colors and more details out of the Pixel 4 (left) then you do out of the iPhone 11 Pro (right) when zoomed in to 8x. The iPhone actually allows you to go a little more to 10x if you don't mind the lower-quality image. (Stan Horaczek/)

Like we said earlier, the telephoto lens counts zooming as one of its primary functions. The phone gives you the option to zoom up to 8x by combining digital and optical technology. Google claims pinching to get closer now actually gives you better image quality than simply taking a wider photo and cropping in, which has historically provided better results. I found this statement accurate. “Zooming” has come a long way on smartphone cameras, but you shouldn’t expect magic. You’ll still end up with ugly choppy “artifacts” in the images that look like you’ve saved and re-saved the photo too many times as a JPEG.

When you peep at the images on a smaller screen, like Instagram, however, they look impressive, and that’s ultimately probably the most important display condition for a smartphone camera in 2019.

If you zoom a lot, the Pixel beats the iPhone on the regular. It’s even slightly easier to hold steady due to the improved images stabilization system when you’re zoomed all the way to 8x.

Portrait mode

The Pixel 4's portrait mode really shines when you shy away from the standard up-close headshot. (Stan Horaczek/)

The other big draw of the telephoto lens comes in the form of improved portrait mode. Even with the single lens on the Pixel 3, Google already did a very impressive job faking the background blur that comes from shallow depth of field photography. Predictably, adding a second lens to let it better calculate depth in a scene improves its performance.

If you really want to notice the jump, try shooting a larger object or a person from farther back than the simple head-and-torso shot for which portrait mode was originally developed. Using portrait mode for larger objects is a new skill for the Pixel 4 and it does a good job of mitigating the inherent limitations of the tech. Any weirdness or artifacts like oddly-sharp areas or rogue blobs of blur typically tend to show up around the edges of objects or in fine details like hair or fur. The closer you get to your subject, the harder you’re making the camera work and the more likely you are to notice something weird or out of place.

The iPhone 11 Pro (left) does a better job with the tricky edges in the subject's hair, but the Pixel 4 (right), produces a more natural image because it's not adding any simulated lighting effects like Apple does. (Stan Horaczek/)

Overall, the Pixel 4’s portrait mode looks more natural than the iPhone 11 Pro, but it struggles more with edges and stray hairs. In headshots, the areas around the hair typically give away the Pixel 4’s tricks right away. (The iPhone 11 Pro gets around those edge issues by adding a “dreamy” blur across most of the image.) The Pixel’s overall colors and contrast are generally better because they don’t try to emulate different types of lighting like the iPhone does. But, when you get a truly ugly edge around a subject’s face or hair with the Pixel 4, it can quickly ruin the effect.

Here are some portrait mode shots (and a dedicated camera picture) edited with Lightroom. The iPhone 11 Pro (left) raised the blacks on the sweatshirt as part of its simulated lighting mode. The Pixel 4 (center) had some trouble with the whispy edges of the hair. The dedicated camera (right) was a Sony A7R with a 50mm lens and preserves the highlights in the hair better and blows the fake bokeh effect out of the water. (Stan Horaczek/)

If you’re only posting your portrait mode shot on Instagram, those rough edges may not really play for your followers. Viewing them on a laptop screen or larger, however, makes them obvious.

The 100 percent crop (screen captured from Lightroom) shows how differently the iPhone 11 Pro (left) and the Pixel 4 (right) handle tricky, but attractive lighting conditions. This kind of light is amazing with a dedicated camera. (Stan Horaczek/)

The Pixel 4 does give you almost immediate access to both the fake blur images and the regular photo in your library. Portrait mode takes a few seconds to process, so you can’t see those immediately. Considering the amount of processing it’s doing, that’s understandable—and also the case with the iPhone—but if you’re trying to nail exactly the right expression, you can’t really check your results in real time.

Night Sight

Night Sight brightened up this extremely dark scene and kept the colors—the greens bushes in particular—from looking cartoonish and oversaturated. (Stan Horaczek/)

When Google debuted its impressive low-light shooting mode, Night Sight, in the Pixel 3, it was incredibly impressive. Google has clearly continued to refine its performance and, even with the iPhone 11 Pro adding its own version of the tech, the Pixel 4 still maintains a considerable advantage.

You’ll still have to swipe over to the Night Sight mode in order to enable it, as opposed to the iPhone, which springs it on you automatically when it thinks the conditions are right. I like having more control over what I’m doing, so I prefer the Pixel’s approach, especially since these night modes require long exposures that can result in blurry photos if you—or the objects in the scene—can’t hold still.

Compared to the iPhone’s Night Mode, the Night Sight’s colors are more accurate and the scenes just look more natural. Ultimately, this one will come down to personal preference, but I prefer the Pixel 4’s results over the iPhone 11 Pro’s.

During the camera presentation, Google flat-out said that it hopes you’ll only use the camera “flash” as a flashlight. I abided by this rule. The flash is not good, just like every smartphone camera flash photo that came before it. It’s useful if you really need it—especially if you don’t mind converting images to black and white after the fact—but you can ultimately just leave it turned off forever.

As an addition to Night Sight, Google also added functionality that makes it easier to shoot night sky photos that show off stars and the Milky Way—if you know what you’re doing. I didn’t test this feature because I didn’t have access to truly dark sky, and the weather hasn’t really cooperated. If you’re planning to use this feature, you should plan to use a tripod—or at least balance the phone on a stable object—since it still requires long exposures. Ultimately, I love that the company added this feature and I look forward to seeing what people create with it, but it’s a specialized thing that I imagine most users won’t try more than a few times.

The case of the missing super-wide-angle lens

The regular wide-angle lens is good for walking around shots like this one, but there were instances when I really missed the super-wide that the iPhone 11 now offers. If I were to finish this photo, I'd straighten it and probably make it black and white. But, since it's a sample image, this is the unedited version. (Stan Horaczek/)

When the Pixel 3 shipped without a telephoto lens, I didn’t really miss it. I do, however, have to wonder why Google would ship the Pixel 4 without the super-wide lens found on the iPhone 11 Pro and other high-end smartphones.

The super-wide is easy to abuse if the unique perspective blinds you to the inherent distortion and overall just kinda wacky perspective it offers. But, there are times when it comes in really handy. If you’re trying to shoot a massive landscape without creating a panorama, or you’re just taking a photo in really tight quarters, the extra width makes a tangible difference.

Ultimately, I advocate that people do the vast majority of their shooting with the standard wide-angle camera no matter which phone they choose, because the overall performance and image quality are typically far better than the other lenses. But, I like options, and a super-wide lens lets you achieve a perspective you physically can’t get by simply backing up.

So, what's the best smartphone camera?

If you're curious what the Pixel 4's actual bokeh looks like, check out the blobs of blur on the right side of this photo. (Stan Horaczek/)

The Pixel 4 has left us in a tough situation. The image quality, color reproduction, and detail are really excellent—most of the time. The quirks that pop up, however, really do have a tangible effect on the overall usability of the camera as a whole. If you’re the type of shooter who is careful to pay attention to your scene and edits your photos after you shoot, then the Pixel is the best option for the most part. The more neutral colors and contrast take edits better than those on iPhone files, which come straight out of the camera looking more processed.

Ultimately, though, we’re in a time when smartphone camera quality has largely leveled off. I haven’t mentioned the Samsung cameras in this review for the most part, because I find their files overly processed with too much sharpening and aggressive contrast and saturation levels. But, a large contingent of people like that. At this point, there isn’t enough difference between overall performance and image quality on the Pixel 4 to jump ship from your preferred platform—only to eek out a slight edge on images that come straight out of the camera.

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smoothshift · 5 years

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Bought my dream car, Porsche GT3 via /r/cars

Bought my dream car, Porsche GT3

Pic:

https://i.imgur.com/dwoAoRv.jpg

Took delivery of my GT3 today. Black, track seats, track app, red belts, NAV, free options, nothing else.

My initial impression is ... WOW! And that's coming from someone who's been very skeptical of the car since the beginning.

Some specifics:

Steering wheel isn't as lively in the hands as the 997, but it's fine. And overall, the steering response is very telepathic, wired to my brain. Can't feel the RWS at all, it just works.

The car communicates its weight transfer beautifully. Damping of the suspension in both modes is outstanding, and the ride quality is good enough even in the stiffer mode. In fact, I'd say it's even better than my Cayenne GTS.

Leaving it in auto with sport mode off is a good way to keep the car under 4200 rpm. The power below 4200 rpm is better than I remember, should be enough to get through the break-in period without feeling tortured. I tried manual mode also, with both paddles and stick, and both are good. Upshifts with the paddle were sometimes surprisingly slow, as though something's not working right, but I'll give it more time. I like being able to toggle between auto and manual mode at will.

The car is effing fast. Can't see how it's going to be much fun reasonably close to speed limits. Different story at 2x speed limits, but I have the track for that.

Brake pedal feel is excellent. Bite is fairly strong, yet not difficult to modulate very precisely.

The track seat fits me nicely, and range of height adjustment is large (electric for both seats). I can get a perfect seating position by putting the seat all the way down, and no issues with cutting off circulation in my legs. Lumbar support could be a bit more, but I think it's going to be fine, even on long drives. Lateral support could be better, with deeper bolsters, but these aren't full-blown track seats. Driver's seat has the hole for crotch belts, but passenger's seat doesn't (though the cushion does have a gap for the belts to pass through). WTF? I don't know what Porsche was thinking on this, and I'm annoyed that I need to find a workaround for seats that cost almost $5K.

A little intermittent rattling in the dash area. Hopefully, it'll go away. Not worried about it, it'll get resolved.

I'm not sure the car sounds right. Kind of 'truck-like' at idle. There are a bunch of 991 GT3's at my local cars & coffee, so I'll compare with one of those. Looking forward to hearing how it sounds when I can let 'er rip.

Wing interferes with visibility, but I can deal with it.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the car, and pleased with my decision to buy it. Unless the GT4 is irresistible, I can see this GT3 being a keeper, so I'm not too concerned about depreciation.

Need to get rid of the Aston. Thinking of a 488!

#reddit #autonews #auto #cars

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newstfionline · 7 years

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Meet the People Who Listen to Podcasts at Super-Fast Speeds

Doree Shafrir, BuzzFeed, November 12, 2017

Rachel Kenny started listening to podcasts in 2015--and quickly fell behind. “As I started subscribing to more and more podcasts, they started stacking up, and I couldn’t keep up at normal speed,” the 26-year-old data scientist in Indianapolis told BuzzFeed News. “I also had to listen to the backlist of all the podcasts when I subscribed to them.” So Kenny began listening faster: first at 2x, then she worked her way up to 3x. She stopped only because “that’s just as fast as the Downcast app allows.” She estimates that she listens to five to seven hours of podcasts a day (which equals 15 to 21 hours at normal speed), “so maybe 20 to 40 episodes a day or 100 to 250 a week,” she said. She tracks her listening habits on a spreadsheet.

Kenny’s listening habits may be extreme, but she’s not alone. Meet the podfasters, a subset of podcast obsessives who listen to upward of 50 episodes a week, by, like Kenny, listening extremely fast. They’re an exclusive group: According to Marco Arment, creator of the Overcast podcast app, only around 1% of Overcast listeners use speeds of 2x or higher. (An app called Rightspeed, which costs $2.99, allows you to listen at up to 10x.)

Podcast consumers listen to an average of five podcasts per week, according to a recent study, which seems like a nice, manageable number: enough time to listen to a true crime podcast or two, a long comedy podcast, maybe a dash of politics. But for some people, that’s just not enough: Over 20% of podcast consumers listen to more than six per week, and podfasters--well, they listen to a lot more.

You could read these tendencies as a symptom of our sped-up culture, of a listening population too impatient or distracted to listen to anything for longer than, say, half an hour. But also, in the same way that peak TV and streaming has led to a culture of bingeing shows, we’re now in peak podcast--there are a lot of good shows, and not enough time to listen to them.

Sam Borley, a 28-year-old charity shop worker in Felixstowe, England, listens to his 56 weekly podcasts at different speeds, calibrating each one depending on the content and how fast or slow the hosts speak, though he said he listens to most at speeds between 2x and 3x. When he finds a new podcast, he makes a point of listening to the entire back catalog. “I have often, when finding out about a new podcast with a large back catalog, made myself a 100-hour-plus playlist to catch up, and then set my favorites to automatically jump the queue and play next so I can catch up on some without falling behind on others,” he said.

Laura McCavera, a second-year medical student in Vegas, said she started out listening to her medical school lectures at faster speeds before using the practice with podcasts as well. When she starts a new podcast, she begins at normal speed “to get a sense of the cadence, and then I increase it as necessary,” maxing out at 2.5x. She compared listening to a sped-up podcast to skimming a book, explaining that podcasts are easier than lectures to listen to casually, “so it’s less stressful to try to make sure you get every word.”

In fact, according to behavioral neuroscientist Stephen Porges, because recordings played at higher speeds are at a higher pitch, they are actually easier to hear. Low-frequency noises, like street noise, vacuum cleaners, or airplanes, get in the way of our understanding of people talking; by playing podcasts at a higher speed, the listener is creating a greater acoustic differentiation between the words and lower-frequency background noises. According to Porges, the muscles in the middle ear help to dampen low-frequency sound so we can hear speech more clearly--but if we don’t exercise those muscles (by, say, not having much human interaction), then they don’t work as well. Thus, listening to things at a higher frequency, and speed, could be helpful.

That makes sense to Josh Winn, a 38-year-old podfaster in San Diego who listens at 2.3x and has a total of 184 podcast feeds in his Overcast app. Though he can now hear perfectly, he was born mostly deaf and learned to speak with limited hearing--which meant, he said, that his speaking was “fairly unintelligible to most folks.” When he was in high school, his parents gave him an audio course from a personal development company as a form of informal speech therapy, in which the instructor said that speaking slowly is actually bad for listener comprehension. When he started listening to podcasts, he recalled this course. “Because I was able to slowly test faster and faster podcast speeds, I was able to gradually adjust until the speed became too rapid for me to comfortably listen and follow,” he said. “I knew it was too fast when I had to rewind a bit to catch what was said, or to understand the nuance of meanings.”

Neuroscientist Uri Hassan, whose Hassan Lab at Princeton studies brain responses to real-life events, has studied how the brain processes sped-up speech. He pointed out that even at normal speed, most people don’t catch every single word that’s being said. “If you make it one-third faster, it’s almost perfect--they don’t lose a lot,” he said. He also noted that the brain is able to easily adapt to different speaking speeds. “Your brain responses become slower when I speak slowly, and brain responses become faster when I speak faster.” But, he cautioned, comprehension starts to break down around 2x, and at 3x “it really breaks down.”

There’s one exception to this, though: blind people. “Because they are so used to only listening, they can speed it up faster than sighted people,” Hassan said. “They’re really trained.”

Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, who does social media for Chabad and runs an organization with his wife, Chana, called Tech Tribe, had perhaps the most philosophical view of speed listening. (He listens to the 75 podcasts in his feed at 2.8x.) When asked how he decided to increase his speed, he responded, “There’s a concept that whenever you’re striving to do something new, whatever is hard now, that’s what you should try to do. Then when you become complacent and comfortable that’s a sign that it’s time to move on. I’m applying that concept on a spiritual level. As soon as I could really hear what’s going on, I would inch it up a little bit. Just keep on moving it, more and more.”

#podcasts #podcast listeners #podfasters

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2016 NBA DRAFT RECAP / NBA Summer League Written by Jarrett Adams JULY 24, 2016

After the finals ended on June 19th there was an extremely quick turnaround for NBA fans as the NBA Draft took place just four days later on the 23rd. Due to the fact I can no longer speculate on which players are going to what franchise, I’ll try my best to sum up every pick in the lottery and discuss some sleeper picks in the remaining 1st and 2nd rounds.

1 Pick, (Philadelphia 76ers) : Ben Simmons

Surprisingly, if you were to type in “Ben Simmons” in Google these days during the opening weeks of the NBA season, most of the headlines surrounding the number 1 pick actually center around his new ShowTime documentary, “One and Done”. The documentary shadows Simmons’ lone freshman season in Baton Rouge capturing his experience coming from Australia to LSU to the NBA. I have not gotten around to watch it yet, but will soon. I can’t wait to see how it frames Simmons’ freshman season; while he definitely had his moments individually and did more than enough to warrant the no.1 overall pick, at times the LSU program struggled to remain relevant on the college basketball landscape.

For number one picks in the NBA Draft, it is extremely rare for the player’s college team to not reach the postseason. Since 2007, college basketball has produced every NBA no. 1 pick, with 8 being freshmen (Oden, Rose, Wall, Irving, Davis, Bennett, Wiggins, Towns) and one sophomore (Griffin). All 9 of those players at least reached the NCAA tournament.

None of this seemed to matter when the 76ers won the lottery and rushed to take Ben Simmons with the number one pick. Looking at his game-tape alone, his skillset, size, and athleticism reminds you of a Lebron James and Magic Johnson hybrid of sorts. On the draft board he was simply the best player available and the opportunity arose for Philly to get a franchise changing talent. To put it quite frankly, fired GM Sam “Trust the Process” Hinkie’s career died in Philly for this opportunity to draft Ben Simmons.

Simmons will likely miss a large portion of the NBA season with a foot injury. This has to be a cause for concern for Philly fans considering how the 76ers brain trust quickly shuts down their young, injured talent (Noel, Embiid both missed their rookie campaigns). However, while healthy, Simmons did show promise and ability in the 2016 Summer League, with decent mid-range and inside game and of course some devastating, jaw dropping passes we’ve become accustomed to seeing from the no. 1 pick.

No. 2 Pick, (Los Angeles Lakers) – Brandon Ingram

How about that young Lakers core post Kobe era? The Lakers couldn’t have been luckier to keep the no. 2 pick (this pick’s rights could have went to Boston, had the Lakers fell out of the top 3 draft slots), yet alone get a chance to select the lanky scorer from Duke. The selection here of Brandon Ingram was a smart one and filled a need on the wing for the Lakers. At the time of this selection, they desperately needed to balance a roster that already had Jordan Clarkson and D’Angelo Russell in the backcourt and Julius Randle at the 4. Brandon Ingram’s future with the Lakers resides at that 3 spot, despite coming off the bench his rookie campaign behind a veteran like Lou Deng. My biggest fear with Ingram right now is that he may be used as trade bait for a guy like Demarcus Cousins if the Lakers want to win now with high profile players.

As all the other scouts and pundits would agree, Brandon Ingram’s game is most comparable to Kevin Durant’s. From the slender frame, tremendous height and length to go with guard skills and endless shooting range, he’s name right now in the NBA is basically Baby Durant (until he works his way to his own nick-name). Early on in summer league and opening week in the NBA he’s shown a tendency to affect the game in other areas other than scoring, including rebounding and blocked shots. Ingram is also receiving a lot of minutes being a primary ball handler of the second unit of the Lakers. The Future is very bright for Ingram and the Lakers as they mold behind new head coach Luke Walton.

No. 3 Pick (Boston Celtics): Jaylen Brown

Boston was in an interesting position here with the number 3 pick. Jaylen Brown was not the best player available, but was the last projected lottery wing player with lots of upside. Through his game tape at his one season at Cal there was a lot to like but also some key flaws in his game. One key weakness in his game right now that’s pretty evident is his ball handling. While Jaylen Brown is very athletic, he has not been able to harness his combination of power and speed because the ball slows him down while driving. However, with a NBA frame he has the ability from Day 1 to take contact and draw a lot of fouls. From the summer league to the start of the NBA Season, he’s shown more polish that what we were led to believe. This gives me hope and promise that the Celtics brain trust made the right decision here with Jaylen Brown. With guards like Isaiah Thomas, Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, and Terry Rozier, the C’s have more talent in the backcourt then they have minutes. So this pick gives them that swing forward they desperately needed.

No. 4 / No. 8 picks (Phoenix Suns): Dragan Bender / Marquese Chriss

The Phoenix Suns had an interesting draft night as they used their two top ten picks to select two players that play the same position. With so much money wrapped up in their backcourt, they used this draft to upgrade their frontcourt by taking two power forwards. Drafting another guard here while already having Bledsoe, Knight, and Booker could have been a disaster. TJ Warren has shown promise as a young wing scorer. So on paper, drafting two Power forwards gives the Suns two new projects at the 4 they can build upon. As of now Dragan Bender is an enticing international prospect as he’s the first non-NCAA player chosen. He can shoot from three and can also make a pump fake-two dribble-score move effectively. Think of a taller and slender Toni Kukoc. The question is can he ever make an impact defensively in the NBA? Just looking at his frame, it’s going to take him some time to adjust to the physicality of the NBA season.

Marqueese Chris on the other hand has shown some flashes to have impressive hops and raw athleticism. Unlike Bender, the Suns view Chris as a young player that can contribute from day one. He’s the prototype four-man that is best utilized for pick and roll opportunities and finishing plays over the defense. I think both players can contribute buckets on the offensive in, but their defense is very questionable. Whether these two picks pan out will be on their hard work in the gym and the Phoenix suns organization.

No. 5 (Minnesota Timberwolves) – Kris Dunn

Kris Dunn was easily my favorite player to watch leading up to Draft Night. I was really hoping he would fall to no.6 to the Pelicans, but the Timberwolves snatch him up here at the five spot. Dunn is a cross between John Wall and Eric Bledsoe. He’s able to use his physicality on defense and his steps wisely while driving like Bledsoe, but from baseline to baseline he’s more John Wall. Really fun player to watch play the point guard position. He’s a strong leader, determined and relentless scorer, not much of a shooter but makes up for it with his length and discipline on the defensive end. He’s going to be the type of guy that’s going to make an immediate impact from day one in Minnesota.

Minnesota made the right decision here for their franchise. While Ricky Rubio brings a lot of different things to the table, Kris Dunn can do Rubio’s job better as a better playmaker and defender in the starting point position. He’s a polished college player and the 2x Big East player of the year. This guy is the real deal, and I can’t wait to see him pair up with Minnesota’s young talented core of Zach Lavine, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl Anthony Towns.

No. 6 (New Orleans Pelicans) – Buddy Hield

This pick came as a bit of shocker to me, considering the roster the Pelicans are trying to build around Anthony Davis. Not to say Buddy Hield didn’t have the pedigree coming out of Oklahoma – he was the Naismith College Player of the Year, Sporting News College Player of the Year, First Team All American, 2x Big 12 player of the Year, and won the John Wooden Award last year. The pure slasher and shooter from Freeport, Bahamas is coming into the NBA with a lot of pressure to deliver with such accolades and high selection, considering the need for this pick to work out for GM Dell Demps.

Looking at the Pelicans roster, Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans are both entering the last year of their deals this season. In a perfect world, if Dell Demps wanted to completely rebuild after letting Holiday or Evans walk, pairing up Kris Dunn with Anthony Davis would have been a match made in heaven. Instead, Dunn is off the board, so you can’t blame Demps for taking Hield here. After the draft process was over Demps confessed that Buddy was “the player the Pelicans wanted all along”. Looking on bright side, if Buddy Hield lives up the hype of the number 6 selection, then this is a great pick. He can shoot the basketball and can score in bunches. It’s going to take time for him to adjust to the speed and athleticism of the game. As a four-year senior, Buddy Hield is under immense pressure to produce for the Pels considering Holiday and Evans will both start the season out of the lineup. This pick also could have been a way to replace Eric Gordon’s tenure with the team, as the sharpshooter joined the Houston Rockets in the offseason.

No. 7 (Denver Nuggets) – Jamal Murray

The Nuggets slip in here at the No. 7 slot and pick the best player available and a backcourt mate for Emmanuel Mudiay in Jamal Murray. The combo guard out of Kentucky easily had one of the most impressive seasons as a freshman last year as he displayed a knack for shooting 3’s, ability to get to the rim, and an impressive pick and roll game. I like this pick for the Nuggets simply because Murray is a scorer who also is a selfless passer. There were many times last season at Kentucky where the offense ran through Murray to make decisions to either score or get others involved. Also, Murray is a fierce competitor and displayed that many times when the games were big and the lights were the brightest.

Murray also has plenty experience in FIBA/ International play balling for Team Canada. His point guard skills are very Tony Parker–esque. He has great handle for a guard his size (6’5) and ran the point fluently for Canada in FIBA play. He won’t beat you with speed or athleticism but is extremely crafty in his movement and is underrated as an athlete overall. In my opinion, I was shocked the Pelicans did not select him at 6, as they went with Buddy Hield. Murray is much younger, has more experience in international play, can shoot just as good, is a better passer and ball handler, is about the same size, and can play multiple positions. Great pick by the Nuggets and I am looking forward to seeing how the Mudiay Murray backcourt matures in a few years.

No. 9 (Toronto Raptors) Jakob Poltl

After making the Eastern Conference Finals last year and having the best season in franchise history, they decided to give a raise to DeMar DeRozan and let Bismack Biyombo walk in free agency. In the playoffs last year, the Raptors prize center Jonas Valanciunas went down with an injury, making the way for Biyombo to step up (and cash in this offseason). This meant GM Masai Ujiri now has to use this lottery draft pick to get some more size in the paint and another backup for Valanciunas. They got that here with Jacob Poltl.

The 21 year old sophomore from Utah showed some fleshes of being a big physical presence inside with a good understanding of how to actually use his size to his advantage. I think Masai Ujiri recognizes Poltl’s skillset as a guy that can one day be a legit starting center in this league, which is probably his plan just in case the Raptors have to part ways with Valanciunas via trade years down the line. For now, Poltl will be relied upon to come off the bench of a veteran playoff team, making an impact defensively and in the rebounding battle.

No. 10 (Milwaukee Bucks) Thon Maker

Thon Maker is one of the most polarizing figures in this draft class considering how unorthodox his story is compared to other prospects. First, his audition for the NBA came through showcasing his talent at different AAU camps. He’s an international prospect that did not play overseas or play college basketball. By 2014, he was becoming an internet sensation for his draw dropping plays in basketball camps and AAU circuits. For NBA GMs and Scouts, Thon Maker had to be extremely difficult to scout considering the jump from prep school to the NBA and the higher level of competition Maker had not faced.

None of this stopped the Milwaukee from drafting him here at the number 10 spot. I thought it was a ballsy pick, but I pick worth making considering Thon Maker’s upside. He’s a big that can guard multiple positions and be a threat to score when he touches the ball. He lacks polish right now of an actual NBA player, but this should be expected. He has the length and speed to really affect the game on a game changing level on defense. When you look at some of the new age NBA big-men like Anthony Davis, Karl Anthony Towns, and Kristaps Porzingis, Thon Maker probably has the most upside in this draft to turn into a player that can impact a game along those same lines. The Bucks probably drooled at the prospect of adding a prospect with a lot of upside with their already talented core of Giannis Antetekuompo, Jabari Parker, and Kris Middleton. Look out for Thon Maker, because in a few years he could be the secret weapon to a playoff team coming out of Milwaukee.

No. 11 (Traded to OKC in Draft Night Trade Sending Serge Ibaka to Magic, Victor Olapido to Thunder) Domantas Sabonis

And finally a draft night trade of some substance! When OKC made this trade to send Serge Ibaka to the Magic, it was a move that would try to help entice free agent Kevin Durant to stay long-term. If you look at it from that angle, it’s a very risky trade, to trade away a veteran like Ibaka for a younger talent in Oladipo, another ball handler, taking away more time of possession from a player like Durant. However, with Durant gone, this trade makes even more sense, as OKC now becomes a team solely built around Russell Westbrook. Now Olapido gets a new start in OKC as Westbrook’s sidekick, and gets to benefit from learning from him every game and every practice.

I still can’t believe the Thunder convinced the Magic to also give up a first round pick in this trade – on paper Serge Ibaka for Victor Oladipo is a fair enough trade for both sides. If you’re smart, the Thunder still make that deal without the first rounder. But instead, I think being able to oversell the Magic on Ibaka’s value is key here in this deal. Ibaka at this point in his career was an overpaid role player (like a lot of players in the new CBA deal) whereas Oladipo still has room for improvement. That alone to me gives Oladipo way more value than Ibaka. Thunder GM Sam Hinkie has had a lot ups and downs – I’m still pissed at that James Harden trade – but I’ll give credit when its due and this was a great trade for the Thunder.

The 11th pick, Domantas Sabonis, son of former Trail Blazers center Arvydas Sabonis, was a reach pick here in my opinion. Does Sabonis really offer more upside then guys already on the roster, like Enes Kanter, or even Mitch McGary? I understand the need to fill the depth chart now with the departure of Serge Ibaka, but I don’t see any stardom for Sabonis in the near future. It will be interesting how he can contribute to this Thunder team built around Russell Westbrook. He has the skills to stretch the defense with his shot, and can make a few impressive moves off the dribble as a stretch four. But other than that, I don’t see a lot of upside in this pick. Only time will tell!

No. 12 (Jazz Traded to Atlanta Hawks) Taurean Prince

The Atlanta Hawks grab the second senior taken in Taurean Prince, the energetic rebounder and fierce competitor from Baylor. I measure Prince’s ceiling around a Gerald Wallace in his prime years as a Charlotte Bobcat. At worst, I think he can at least be the new Demarre Carroll for the Atlanta Hawks that they desperately missed since his departure. One thing Prince does not lack is his motor and effort, and in basketball, if you combine that with your athleticism, then you’re halfway to being a decent defender. If Prince is willing to ride the bench early and learn, he’ll end up a decent player based on his motor at Baylor.

No. 13 (Sacramento Kings via the Phoenix Suns) Georgios Papgiannis

Who? Sacramento trades back in this draft to pick another center that serves as a potential stash pick either in Europe or the D League. This pick got Boogie Cousins hot, as he took to twitter to question the Kings strategy plan specifically as it pertains to building around him. The Kings have had some really tough luck with picks over the past 10 years, and this one adds to the head-scratcher that has become the King’s brain trust. Looking at some Papagiannis highlights, he’s a hefty big man with decent footwork and good hands. He plays textbook back to the basket like an old school big man. Seems to me like a security policy to have another big man in case the Kings decide to move Cousins at this years trade deadline.

No. 14 (Chicago Bulls) Denzel Valentine

The Bulls round out the lottery with senior guard and swingman from Michigan State in Denzel Valentine. I’m a big fan of Valentine’s do it all game. He’s able to impact the game with a little bit of everything – long distance shooting, passing, ball handling, rebounding – Valentine is truly a jack of all trades. NBA scouts and pundits have doubted his athleticism and whether he can be effective at the next level. He may not even emerge on this Bulls roster, but when Valentine gets his opportunity, I believe he will prove to be an effective player and starter on a playoff team. I think that’s this guy’s ceiling.

No. 20 (Indiana Pacers) – Caris LeVert

A versatile wing scorer and Senior from Michigan, undoubtedly a lot of talent, but may not get a lot of minutes with the Pacers. Look out for Levert, he has a good ball handling ability for a guy that is 6’6.

No. 29 (San Antonio Spurs) – Dejounte Murray – Murray is a silky guard that uses explosiveness to get where he wants to on the floor. Could be a sleeper pick under Greg Popovich.

No. 33 (New Orleans Pelicans) – Cheick Diallo - Cheick has a lot to like and even more that you just can’t teach. He lacks polish at the NBA level but that has not stopped him from contributing put-backs, offensive boards, and instinctive blocked shots.

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