jamiefixit's posterous

The origin of the word Snob

Etymology: snob - from the Italians c13th. Around that time the newly abundant nouveau riche were trying to buy their children into the best schools which was considered at the time crass and without nobility or as they came to know them "sensa nobilita" as their behaviour showed them acting without even the instincts of nobility. Eventually it became shortened to snob. This trivia has been bought to you by my OCD.

How big is a Trillion again?

I love trivia! So if you had to guess, how long would it take for a thousand seconds to pass? No don't try and work it out, just guess approximately. OK? Well it's actually eleven and a half days or thereabouts. OK so if a million seconds takes eleven and a half days how long does a billion seconds take? Again don't try and work it out just guess based on the previous answer... Well perhaps surprisingly it's actually over thirty-seven and a half years. Now maybe a little easier, what about a trillion seconds? Well that's easier as it's thirty-one and half thousand years. These are all based on the US and current financial definitions where a billion is one thousand million or a one and nine zeros and a trillion is a thousand times that or a one followed by twelve zeros. Something to bore them with in the pub tonight.

A Change, at least = or > A Rest - Apparently?

Today I went to an ‘active Pilates’ class, which is essentially what Pilates would be like if it were performed whilst weight lifting in your car during a Road Traffic Accident (or an ‘RTA’ as we in the know prefer to call it) because there is a lot more sweating, a lot more pain and a deeper and much longer sense of lingering bodily trauma after the event.

It was great even though I’m still reeling from it several hours later, even though my face turned purple about 5 minutes in and stayed purple for the duration of proceedings, even though I just went to sit on the couch and halfway down became aware that because I have destroyed my stomach muscles (core muscles in Pilatien, the language of Pilates speakers everywhere) during my rabid flexing there is nothing left to guide the descent and ultimately to stop my back and head flopping back into the seat like a crash test dummy. I think I might have whiplash as a result.

But! And this is a big one… I feel invigorated, firstly because I’ve had a new and interesting workout, but also because it was nice to do something different. OK that’s what my mantra currently is all about, but goodness me, if a change isn’t as good as a rest after all! I’m sat here working on my computer when ordinarily I’d be sat vegetating in front of the TV by now, though admittedly the only really good thing on tonight is The Good Wife at 10. Hm.

After this bodily abuse we went to North Laine and tried a coffee shop we don’t normally go into for a change. Excellent cake for lunch, which is the sort of wild, out of the box thinking that I can get used to and an alternative route home.

It’s a weird thing but I’ve really only challenged my routine a little bit and already the little voice that immediately says ‘No’ and then after a few seconds embarrassedly shuffles out a cautious ‘Sorry, well perhaps we could consider it?’ whenever something new is suggested to me, has finally shut up. Neural reprogramming would seem to be underway…  I have high hopes…

Dehabiting...

I’m tired and have not much in the way of wit to amuse you with tonight, probably a little introspective because I’ve spent the last couple of days contemplating what it is to break habits as I’ve been reading the ‘No Diet Diet’ which is all about that sort of thing. The more I read the more I’m aware of how powerful routine is in restricting our lives and our freedom of thought and movement. How easy it is to slump onto the couch and get lost in some TV for a while. As someone constantly challenging my own perceptions of the world for professional and personal development, I’m finding it an interesting place to be as I feel the resistance of my comfort zone gently notching up to dissuade me from making any changes.

However, we took the dogs for a twilight walk tonight and it was new and exciting, though that might sound a little sad but it was nice just being out and about at a time when ordinarily we wouldn’t doing something we wouldn’t normally be doing.

I also tried a gentle challenge and watched some youtube footage of old classic custom choppers or ‘bobbers’ as mine is referred to, though admittedly it’s not that old and that seems to have calmed my brow, been enjoyable and also given me my quota of having done something a little bit different at least. However I’m also aware that if I’d watched something I normally would not have been interested in, I might have got something more out of it in new stimulus.

Tomorrow I get to play with my bike for the day. Can’t wait. What a saddo I feel like saying that, but it’s therapeutic and it’ll be different when I’ve changed it about again. New handlebars, swap the tyres about and get the Pillion situation sorted out for Barb. Roll on spring.

Doing Something Silly But Different for Proven Scientific Reasons...

There’s a fantastic old Rocksteady number from the early days of Ska called Masterblaster which everyone out there has heard a thousand times but most people won’t know the name of. As the kettle was boiling just now I saw myself in the big kitchen mirror and thought ‘Lets do a leapy up and down ska dance in the mirror to see what it looks and feels like.’ I surprisingly did not feel silly embarrassed but actually silly/funny about and reminded myself in the process that I can dance. The dogs however were initially nonplussed but then Lily tried to join in, adding to the fun, perhaps secretly but erroneously hoping that it might lead to a dried meat product at the end. Anyway, gone was the calm serious exterior to reveal the silly inner me. Time to call the men in white coats? Well maybe I should explain…

 

As part of the fun of living the brand as it were, I’ve been trying to live my life differently, breaking routines etc. This is not because I’m a wild uncontrollable expressionist or a rebel without a clue but for sound scientifically proven principles. Because breaking our routines and challenging our brain in different ways is a route towards fulfilment and happiness. It’s a method of fighting our own restrictive internal thought police and proving them wrong. If we amass enough evidence ultimately by continuing to challenge our own precepts and routines we have the chance of shutting them up altogether (ish) and have the freedom then, just to get on with things, despite whatever previous internal conventions have dictated up until now.  

It’s also a route to the contentment of living a life without so many internal restrictions and worries about… what if? It’s also a way of connecting with the here and now and living in the moment. I guess the only place where we truly can live is the here and now if you think about it. Alright more of my psychological claptrap? Well no again psychotherapeutic practice and science again bear all this out, so don’t get the sectioning papers ready just yet. 

Routine feels comfortable because it’s familiar. But the familiar does not challenge us. Over-reliance on routine deepens the belief through dodgy empirical evidence, as it were, that change is bad because the more we focus on routine the less allow ourselves to experience the exciting challenges of the new. If you think about it and to adopt a coaching cliché: Change is in fact the only constant. So to resist change is a self defeating exercise ultimately in self flagellation.  

If we over indulge routine, change can begin to scare a lot of us in principle because we’re not used to dealing with the unfamiliar, so instead of accepting change and trying to make it work in our favour we tend to resist and fight and entrench our position. It’s what redtop tabloids such as the Daily Mail utilize to empower their readership, if of course you interpret ‘empower’ as scare the hell out of them at the same time as disempowering them re-enforcing the belief that the world is a bad place, that change is bad and that fear, anger and dissent are the only justified responses. I’ve lived in Bournemouth and am aware of the type of community this creates. Which is why I moved to Brighton.

 

So not wanting to end up living out the rest of my life as a terrified Daily Mail reader scared to leave a house full of half empty glasses, ASBO applications and neighbourhood watch literature I’ve very much decided to follow the proven scientific route and embrace the moment. More dancing or other self liberating but perhaps seemingly odd behaviour presumably to follow.

99nudges

Well it seems a bunch of different threads of my life are weaving together to create a meaningful tapestry. Through Glen I’ve ended up a founder of a company called 99nudges.com, with both himself and the rather excellent John Baker, whose original concept it was. 99Nudges is all about motivating people with technology, and no I’m not talking about hi-tech cattle prods. It just seems like a natural next step utilising the best of my multiplicity of talents and I’m extraordinarily excited about it.

We’re at the earliest stages at present so much to do and more news as it happens from your roving (stationary in fact) reporter (even though I’m not a reporter… any more).

An infinite loop of twaddle stops the machines rising and destroying us all...

Well this is interesting… OK probably not actually. In the last couple of days I’ve linked most of my social networking sites together so that everything posts on everything else. My fear is that through this multiplexity (that’s multiple-complexities) I will in fact create and infinite loop of gibberish which you could now be reading at some distant place in the future when the machines have taken over despite DW2’s best efforts.

 

This one message might actually still be replicating somewhere filling up server after server with this message… And worst still if other people were to comment on it, their message likewise would cause exponential growth until eventually… well who knows, the internet maybe grinds to a halt in gridlock.

 

That brings about a thought though, if the machines do try to take over, all we need do as a civilisation is to create endless social networking sites that endlessly cross reference each other and suck up all the internet bandwidth… At least that’s the theory. Saved from destruction by jamiefixits infinite loop theory! You don’t need to thank me now but contributions towards setting up and developing this marvellous idea as a sort of future insurance policy are of course very welcome and will not be spent in the pub at all.

 

This by the way is what I did differently today. I wrote a blog and gridlocked (potentially) the internet.