I stopped the mid-morning bacon a few years ago and have put on 15 pounds since. A lot of variables, blah, blah, blah. I know. But still. No bacon, fewer eggs, and 15 pounds heavier, despite 10 - 20 more miles per week of running. Just sayin'.
Except that three saturated-fat-laden strips of bacon for breakfast prevents the need for lunch, leaving my daily caloric intake lower than if I had eaten a bagel for breakfast and been hungry at lunch. The longer period between meals--snack-free--afforded by the bacon also means that post-meal insulin (the energy-storing hormone) has a chance to drop off, leaving glucagon (the energy-burning hormone) a path for liberating stored energy to power physical and mental activity.
It seems the eggs improve the sleep, because after poor sleep, eggs the following day seem to have an effect on breaking the poor-sleep doom loop (which is: poor sleep elevates cortisol, adrenaline, heart rate, junk-food cravings, and the need for caffeine--all of which contribute to another night of bad sleep). Not sure if it's the choline, which eggs have a lot of, or the egg-generated satiety that helps prevent eating too much. I think it may be the choline because when I'm otherwise eating high-choline foods such as red meat, my sleep is also better.
Quality of this study aside, and n of 1 here, my own state of mind, clarity of thought, and sleep are all noticeably better when I'm eating 2 or 3 eggs a day, 3 to 5 days a week. (I might go 7 days, but an independent value placed on dietary variety prevents that--perhaps foolishly when I notice what I'm eating on off days instead of the eggs.)
Regardless, this whole eggs-are-evil thing has probably done more to harm the health of Westerners than any other dietary advice, with the possible exception of the fat-is-evil nonsense.
The monks likely have the time to think about implementation, and feeling like they’re part of an institution that transcends them and that they value for its own sake, they likely have an incentive to invest effort into maintaining and improving it.
Both of these are unlike, say, corporate environments, where the core work uses up almost all available time and where most people are looking mostly to extract something from the organization.
The rule of law isn’t based on the state’s monopoly on violence. Its entire purpose is to protect citizens from state violence by subordinating it to law adjudicated in courts.
Covid-era over-hiring was never going to end well. If there’s any silver lining to this, it’s that with the AI tools used to AI-wash the dismissals, it’s easier than ever to bone up on economics and why it’s a bad idea to hire people without a clear view of the economic margins along which the employee will be profitable for the firm.
I wouldn’t count on reduced drudgery. The assembly line automated many movements needed for manufacturing. But which work involved more drudgery—-craftsman-style car production or standing on an assembly line at Ford?
With any new technology, subsequent drudgery depends on the technology, its concomitant economics, and the imagination of the people using it.
It also seems possible that clever, young outsiders will, by creatively employing AI, displace senior devs. Because unlike with law and accounting, novices in software development can generate a lot of their own reps at low cost (mostly just their time, which will be cheap compared to senior devs).
Another possibility could be using junior devs (with AI) to come up with enormous numbers of fresh ideas and minimally working programs, with the promising ones then worked on with senior devs.
Most fundamentally, because AI lowers the cost of testing out ideas and potential software products, it seems like a tool to test notions of what you should build or continue to offer customers in the first place.
Common sense and experience inform my theory of good sleep: Pitch black, stone quiet, with noise limited to pre-sleep audial approximations of the dream-like mental noise that precipitates sleep.
Yep. In general, when you see social solutions emerge in the wild from the free choices of participants, there is an underlying logic that’s doing important work. It’s easy to think you can improve over these natural solutions, but usually you can’t.
I recall working at this place that prided itself on starting meetings a minute early, as if trying to prove a point. The early starts did prove that, yes, you could get people to scramble, but not much else.
A norm of scheduling the “start” on the hour or half hour while really starting the meeting five minutes later also works. That way, attendees have an opportunity to arrive “on time” and chat if they like, building relationships in the process. The freedom to arrive at any point during the first five minutes also helps to create the kind of ease that’s conducive to serious discussion. This second part is particularly important when power dynamics might otherwise derail real discussion.
Because five minutes of pure chitchat can feel excessive to some folks, though, a three-minute norm probably works better—-especially because the off-centeredness has the informal aesthetic that, again, forms a better backdrop for serious discussion.
You can’t afford to risk being weird anymore. Housing is too expensive. Too many weird steps in non-pecuniary directions and you’ll end up on the street or your mom’s couch.
Of course, everyone in the room has already read the same leadership tips, likely earning you plenty of eye rolls and detracting from the straightforward, honest cooperation and on-task communication that are the backbone of all successful teams and companies.