I just so happen to be currently reading about this in The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. He says:
"From predator-prey models (the so-called Lotka-Volterra type of population dynamics), I knew that populations experience [potentially high] variability, hence predators will necessarily go through periods of feast and famine. That's us, humans--we had to have been designed to experience extreme hunger and extreme abundance.
... So where on earth does this idea of "steady" exercise come from? Nobody in the Pleistocene jogged for forty-two minutes three days a week, lifted weights every Teusday and Friday, etc... Not hunters. We swung between extremes: we sprinted when chased or when chasing (once in a while in an extremely exerting way), and walked about aimlessly the rest of the time."
Are you sure? My understanding is that hunting requires a lot of tracking, where you are following perishable clues, which means a moderate sustained pace. And sometimes you are invisible to prey, but sometimes you just need to keep up. Notably when you have injured your prey but not yet killed it. On top of that there's persistence hunting, which is more like an ultramarathon than a sprint.
Also, when gathering you often need to move quickly. My chickens don't just move lazily all day, they often move around quite frenetically. When you find some good stuff, it behooves you to move quickly to gather as much as you can before others catch on. And when you're moving through barren areas it also makes sense to not waste time.
The idea that early humans rarely spent 40 minutes jogging seems like quite a bold assertion to me.
And anyway, even if we never jogged, we certainly migrated. An hourlong walk several times a week is a reasonable exercise regimen too.
> "So where on earth does this idea of "steady" exercise come from? Nobody in the Pleistocene jogged for forty-two minutes three days a week, lifted weights every Teusday and Friday, etc... Not hunters. We swung between extremes: we sprinted when chased or when chasing (once in a while in an extremely exerting way), and walked about aimlessly the rest of the time.""
Based on my own experiences, I agree with the main point, I find steady exercises like jogging much less exhausting than dynamic exercises like playing football (soccer) where you're frequently switching between exertion and rest. This also seems to tie in with High Intensity Training (though I've never formally tried it):
However, isn't weightlifting a couple of times a week an example of exercising to extremes? At least if you prioritise weight over repetitions. This is purely anecdotal, but I've heard from various sources that free weight exercises like squats and deadlifts are some of the best exercises you can do, as they work out your whole body and the proper form relies on getting different muscle groups to work well together.
One more data point about steady but intense exercise versus very dynamic exercises: I find 20 minutes of serious HIIT scarier than running for an hour at 160 bpm.
Even in the Pleistocene humans were hunter-gatherers, and signs point to a lot more gathering than hunting. Gathering food is a remarkably steady exercise. Have you ever tried picking berries for a day? Have you ever tried doing so while 'walking around aimlessly'?
Something that I've been learning lately is that balance is vital to survival.
I'm a student, and I had a burnout a couple months ago. Thankfully, I was able to learn important things about myself, namely certain limits of mine (and I was studying limits at the time for calc class). I was far behind and yet I was struggling everyday to grasp the material. I ended up having to drop two out of three classes and managed to save the one I didn't drop.
I had been ignoring other parts of my life, like social interaction, and with my thoughts always running I eventually developed delusions(I have mental disabilities also). Since then I've put away social media and have been making time to go outside and around people to try to make connections, as well as yard work (can be therapeutic).
Now I see imbalances in my life more clearly than before. So, like a problem solver, I'll see what I can do about it. :)
We plebs are fully aware that the odds are stacked against us. I don't expect it to change soon, if ever. And if anything, it just makes us harder than our marshmallow-like upper-class counterparts.
Yeah, I want to be successful and make "fuck you" money; but that's not the only reason I study hard.
Rich kids have to constantly compete with each other for status, this is very much like water polo. It's pretty nice and eye pleasing above the surface, but the stuff underwater, that's not so nice. Yet that's something you have to be adept at too to win.
So, in less metaphorical terms, rich kids learn soft power (social) skills. They are little politicians, backstabbing scummy princesses. This comes very hand for them later in life.
I'm just another chronic procrastinator and from what I've experienced there is no single "cure". Here's where I stand in trying to solve my own procrastination problems:
- Removed myself from things that enable procrastination; I installed software (Coldturkey) that blocks websites and programs on my computer(games), and I won't be able to change the configuration of Coldturkey for another couple weeks.
- I have a calendar next to my work area, I get a red X on days that I do a reasonable amount of work; I got this from Jerry Seinfeld's method of getting better at something, "Don't break the chain!" of red X's.
- I often ask myself "what sort of person do you want to be? Do you want to be remembered as someone that did a half-assed job most of the time? Or do you want to be remembered as someone that killed it any chance he got?"; that sometimes gives me a little push to get stuff done.
- I am always behind in my mind.
- I've been working on making a habit of following through to the end anything that I am tasked with; I have unfinished stuff but there is less than there used to be.
This is just what I've come up with for myself. It's just come down to not trusting myself, so I try to make it so I don't have to.
> It's just come down to not trusting myself, so I try to make it so I don't have to.
Very wise words in my experience. I think of it more as understanding yourself and setting yourself up for success. Make it hard to do the things you want to avoid and easy to do the things you want to embrace. If I have healthy food premade on hand I'm more likely to eat it rather than pick up a cookie from coffee shop down street. If I'm meeting my buddy to work out or surf I'm way less likely to skip it. Recognizing that you're unlikely to change established behaviors easily and having a plan to reward behaviors you want to cultivate and reduce the ones you want to get rid of.
Having kids particularly drove this home. Setting them up for success with good sleep, good food and a good environment of activities makes a world of difference for them and turns out same is true for myself.
What about mixing things you like with things you don't like? For example, you have to build a web app. So you start implementing a little framework (things you like) and then use it to finish the project. That way it takes more time but you enjoy it. I found out over the years, taking into account all my good, mediocre and bad results, that I did my best work when I enjoyed it, as silly as it sounds. It doesn't matter that I waste 50% of the time if I get the job done and enjoy it. The alternative is to do it even slower and disgusted.
I think procrastination is a kind of anxiety. We enjoy the creative parts and fear the complexities of debugging that monster when it's 99% done. We need to switch back to enjoyment to get in the flow. That means doing things you like, instead of things you should do, but we can be smart and try to combine the two things.
Another example: I had to work on an old script that was really ugly and messy. I took a day to refactor the old codebase, clean it up, just so I don't see it as a scary monster any more. Then I was much more likely to work on it.
Going off the calendar thing -- some years back I managed to lose a ton of weight and be super productive; I had this little system where every day I would try to keep the number of vices I had that day to less than half.
For example, if I smoked a cigarette and ate poorly, to keep that day at 50% I'd need to exercise and do (home or project) work done. If there was a day where I didn't want to exercise, I'd have to do at least 2 of the other things.
Like most people in this thread, I know I can't trust myself to be perfect, so I give myself outs. I can do whatever I want, so long as I pay for it elsewhere.
Those help but the thing that helps me most is to actively engage my rational brain instead of autopilot brain. Try to make it a habit to trigger your rational brain when your autopilot brain is making the decision to procrastinate, and then analyze the situation. OK, I have a choice between browsing news sites and working on the VPTree. What are the pros and cons of each choice? Could I delay browsing news sites by 10 minutes and look into that VPTree first?
Recently I've had success with imagining myself as having finished whatever task it is I'm avoiding, and how good it will feel to be onto the next task. If that's too vague, I will break it down into a task that I can imagine finishing, and envision myself finishing that task.
I think I'm realizing I bite off chunks that are too big, then freeze up when I feel overwhelmed
The "always feeling behind", is actually helping me personally. If I'm not just a tiny little bit stressed, I start procrastinating. I need to have something to lose, otherwise I'll never get going. So I tend to work myself into situations, that require me to put in an extra effort.
It's just how I work, and I've forgiven myself for it.
I think that may work well for me when it comes to work. I'm not sure it would be sustainable when it comes to food or exercise, but there's no reason I can't get a reasonable amount of work done every day at work.
I bought the pro version a couple months ago and I'm sure it's already paid for itself.
In the past I couldn't even have games installed on my computer for fear of getting sucked in for hours on end. Now I don't have to worry, I can be productive and still enjoy games at the end of the day.
Highly recommended for people that work from their personal computers.
I'm a vet with a security clearance. When I heard about the breach at OPM I obviously wasn't happy but figured there was not much to do about it.
I just tell myself that there's not much point in worrying about something you have little to no control over. I know for a fact that my shit is out there now, and I hope I don't get screwed over, but what is there even to do?
Are you using a recent version of Windows (8, 8.1, or 10)?
Do you have automatic updates enabled?
Do you have standard Windows features such as User Access Control enabled?
Do you use the computer with a standard user account as opposed to an administrator (root access) user account?
If the answers to all these questions are yes, I'd say you don't need an antivirus solution. Don't listen to the scaremongers. Microsoft has got you covered.
Honestly, I haven't had antivirus in 10 years and I haven't had a problem (although my windows usage has declined over the years... I mainly just stick to steam now.)
Run updates, don't use browser plugins, stick to applications you trust, and stay away from seedy looking sites when downloading common software. (Sourceforge comes to mind.)
I agree, but only if one uses noscript and requestpolicy, never torrents software, etc.
It's not that MS has you covered, moreso that AV vendors don't really catch new malware that has been mutated, packed, or whatever. So a more in-depth defense is better.
Not to mention that hilariously enough, AVG is literally selling user data now, which is what antivirus is supposed to protect against in the first place.
Depends what you're doing. If you like to play with a lot of risky torrents, then Windows Defender may not suffice. I also don't think Windows Defender does a great job at protecting you against infected removable media either. Avira seems to be pretty good at all of that and light weight.
For risky websites, a combination of Chrome, WOT, ublock origin, HTTPS Everywhere and Sandboxie and/or Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit (zero-day protection) should suffice.
Using a Standard (non-Admin) Windows account and being up to date goes without saying.
if you don't, and you don't do webbrowsing from inside windows then I can't imagine the need for anti-virus.
90% of attacks are trojan horses (fake/embedded pirated software usually) and the remaining 9.9% is browser attacks.
I doubt anyone is defeating your firewall/NAT box to get a direct connection to your windows machine, and even if they did they'd have to find a service they can exploit.
What are you using to run the VM? I've always had issues integrating the host and guest VM nicely in Windows - getting copy-paste working properly, resizing the window, etc.
How is this the same as having to run anti-virus software because the system's (i.e., Windows's) security model is broken?
> jailbreak iOS
Not sure why iOS is even relevant to my comment, since it isn't built on Linux (or even Unix).
> Security starts with the user.
This is true; a user who is bound and determined to hose their system can do it no matter what protections are in place.
But that's irrelevant to the point under discussion, which is how people who do not want to hose their system can keep it secure. On Windows, you have to run anti-virus software (and even the protection that provides is not foolproof), because the system's security model is broken. On Linux, the system's security model is functional to begin with, since unlike Windows, the system was designed that way from the ground up. So you don't need to run anti-virus software, and hence you don't have to worry about what information that software, which has a privileged position on your system, might be sending to others.
> Windows security is pretty good when running as a normal user and having UAC turned on on its full level and binaries validation.
Do you still need to run anti-virus software in this configuration?
> UNIX does have a better security model configuration out of the box, but is just as unsafe for the regular users that just dump stuff into their PCs
Again, I agree, if a user wants to hose their system, Unix won't prevent them. But anti-virus software won't prevent them either.
My point is, what about the user that doesn't want to hose their system? On Linux, it's very simple: use your package manager to install software, and don't run anything that wasn't installed that way.
You don't need an anti-virus if you are only running software from trusted sources, just like in Linux.
Just that trusted sources in Windows means not installing pirated software or that thing a friend gave because it was so cool. Or going to shady internet sites.
All things that will hose a Linux system as well.
Linux package managers are nice until one needs something it isn't there, like it happens to most average users that don't care about about FOSS and forcing themselves to alternatives.
And I never saw a UNIX that would allow to prevent users to install software locally, as Windows does with Active Directory group policies. Although I bet there are some third party commercial offerings for that.
> You don't need an anti-virus if you are only running software from trusted sources
What does "trusted sources" mean in the Windows world? Microsoft itself has shipped virus-infected CD-ROMs in the past.
> Linux package managers are nice until one needs something it isn't there
My sense is that, while this can happen, it's less likely to happen with the major Linux distros than it is with Windows. Major distros have tons of software in their package managers.
> I never saw a UNIX that would allow to prevent users to install software locally, as Windows does with Active Directory group policies
Um, you do realize that all it takes is not putting the user in the "sudoers" or "wheel" group (depending on the distro), right? This is routinely done in settings where only sysadmins are allowed to install software, such as universities. You certainly don't need anything as heavyweight as Active Directory group policies.
> What does "trusted sources" mean in the Windows world? Microsoft itself has shipped virus-infected CD-ROMs in the past.
Do you also read OpenSSH and Bash source code looking for security exploits?
> My sense is that, while this can happen, it's less likely to happen with the major Linux distros than it is with Windows. Major distros have tons of software in their package managers.
Quantity != Software X that user won't do without.
> Um, you do realize that all it takes is not putting the user in the "sudoers" or "wheel" group (depending on the distro), right? This is routinely done in settings where only sysadmins are allowed to install software, such as universities. You certainly don't need anything as heavyweight as Active Directory group policies.
I can install whatever software I want under $HOME, there is nothing preventing me to do that.
> Do you also read OpenSSH and Bash source code looking for security exploits?
I don't personally, no. But I'm confident that there are experts doing so, and that when they find an issue, it is publicized and fixed quickly, because it's considered an extraordinary and urgent event, and allowing it to continue unfixed would be unacceptable. When MS shipped virus-infected CD-ROMs, nobody thought it was unacceptable, or even abnormal.
However, if you're confident enough in Windows' security features to run without anti-virus software, that's fine. My sense is that the vast majority of Windows users are not. But the vast majority of Linux users are.
> Quantity != Software X that user won't do without.
You're going to have to give specific examples, because I just don't see this as a significant issue that users who don't want to hose their systems have to deal with on Linux. I've never come across any software I needed as an ordinary user that I couldn't find in my Linux distro's package manager. (As a programmer, I have, but that's a different case.)
> I can install whatever software I want under $HOME
Which comes under the heading of users who want to hose their systems. If you don't want to hose your system, just don't do that.
(As an aside, I think you can actually lock down executable permissions in $HOME with SELinux. But I haven't tried it myself.)
Not a given. Where I work, most of the reports I get from security admins regarding compromised hosts (found to be port-scanning, attacking other hosts, etc.) are for Ubuntu systems. You still have to secure any services you're running and take basic common-sense precautions.
And any malware maker and his dog know to bypass it before creating his new malware. How many stories have you heard of Windows Defender stopping ransomware? That's right - ZERO.
With AV you could be infected for months without ever knowing. All it takes is to get infected by anything that hasn't made it into the (often out of date anyway) definitions.
The old school Unix method works very well: Keep a list of all changes made from the base install, then periodically swap the disk out for a blank one, follow your documentation and restore non-executable user data from backup. Also has the benefit of regularly validating your documentation and testing your backups, and allows easy rollback by following the same process for major OS updates or hardware upgrades.
Why did you switch from Bitdefender? I'm forced to "sysadmin" my family's Windows systems ... and last I looked, Bitdefender seemed to do a good job. Was I wrong to recommend?
This. At the end of the day it's up to you to find/make the time to balance your life out. I've been learning a lot lately about balance, it's more important than I used to think.
That is common in Japan among jobs from office workers to mechanics.
I was stationed there for some years and when we were in port the Japanese workers on the base would all line up outside their offices, sometimes turn on a little workout music, and one or two would lead in stretching and movement exercises.
I'm sure they saw all the sailors looking and some laughing, but I think the joke was on us, ha!
"From predator-prey models (the so-called Lotka-Volterra type of population dynamics), I knew that populations experience [potentially high] variability, hence predators will necessarily go through periods of feast and famine. That's us, humans--we had to have been designed to experience extreme hunger and extreme abundance.
... So where on earth does this idea of "steady" exercise come from? Nobody in the Pleistocene jogged for forty-two minutes three days a week, lifted weights every Teusday and Friday, etc... Not hunters. We swung between extremes: we sprinted when chased or when chasing (once in a while in an extremely exerting way), and walked about aimlessly the rest of the time."
That's what he thinks anyway. We are complex, yo.