Alright boys, getting fat all over again and need to get out of this slump. I’ve had several fitness swings in my life and have had a lot of success in losing/maintaining weight when I “gameify” exercise.
In the past, I’ve done bankstanding skills (like herbalore and fletching), NMZ, and collecting skills (e.g WC, fishing, mining) while on stationary bike as well as some NMZ- all on mobile. Some felt better than others in terms of balancing “afk” time and engagement/distraction from cardio. Anything relying loadout changes (like slayer tasks) are kind of a pain on mobile (for me at least).
I’ve got access to a stationary bike, free weights, and yoga mat at home as well as a well-equipped work gym. Also have a decent neighborhood to run and walk the dog in especially now that it’s getting warmer.
I know everyone here also has a lizard-brain that salivates when numbers go up, so I’m calling for ideas:
What are different ways you’ve gamified your exercise with OSRS?
Open to any and all ideas. Thanks!

• Taking Sodium Bicarbonate (0.3g/kg bodyweight) 60 to 180 minutes before exercise improves time to fatigue and power output.
• Combining with Beta alanine may produce additive effects.
• Higher doses (for e.g 0.5g/kg) produce undesirable side effects.

https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-021-00458-w

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) stand as a formidable giant in the dynamic landscape of cloud computing, where agility and scalability are supreme. Organizations worldwide have embraced AWS to power their digital infrastructure, leveraging its vast array of services to drive innovation, enhance customer experiences, and accelerate growth. However, amidst this technological marvel lies a critical challenge- cost management.
As businesses scale up their AWS usage, the associated expenses can spiral out of control, impacting profitability and hindering strategic initiatives. Let’s explore some insights on AWS cost optimization and how to transform your cloud expenditure into a strategic advantage. Whether you’re a startup, a mid-sized enterprise, or a global corporation, these insights will empower you to make informed decisions, streamline operations, and propel your business forward.

AWS cost optimization: Top tips and best practices to reduce your bill
Optimize your AWS cloud investments with cost optimization services & tools. Learn AWS cost optimization best practices & tools to reduce costs, improve performance & avoid unexpected bills.
Read More

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Here are some key cloud statistics:

• According to the Flexera State of the Cloud report, 82% of 750 cloud decision makers consider managing cloud spend as their primary challenge, ranking security second at 79% and lack of resources/expertise third at 78%.
• Migrating your business to the public cloud can lead to a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) of up to 40%, according to Accenture.

Moreover, organizations adopting AWS report significant advantages:

• 27.4% reduction in cost per user
• 67.7% increase in terabytes managed per administrator
• 56.7% decrease in application downtime
• 37.1% reduction in time-to-market for new products and services

5 Common mistakes that increase cloud bill and how to avoid them

1. Unmonitored AWS Instances

Failure to monitor unused AWS instances can lead to unnecessary costs in cloud infrastructure. Neglecting to track idle, aging, or inactive AWS instances results in poor resource utilization, known as cloud sprawl. Organizations face inflated AWS bills due to uncontrolled instances from development testing or shadow IT projects.
How to tackle: To tackle this, a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) can manually track AWS instances or use automated cloud management software, such as AWS Config or AWS Trusted Advisor, to identify and decommission unused instances regularly, optimizing resource utilization and reducing unnecessary expenses.

2. Lack of instance size management

The challenge of improper instance sizing in cloud computing disrupts budgets and performance. Over-provisioning wastes resources and costs, while under-provisioning leads to performance issues. Efficient instance size management involves analyzing workloads, automated scaling, and continuous optimization to align resources with actual needs, ensuring cost-effectiveness and optimal performance.
How to tackle: To tackle instance size management challenges, IT teams or CCoEs customize AWS instance configurations, implement scheduling using AWS Auto Scaling, monitor performance metrics with Amazon CloudWatch for continuous optimization, and leverage AWS offerings like AWS Reserved Instances for cost-effective scaling and predictable billing.

3. Failure to implement a multi-cloud strategy

Failing to implement a multi-cloud strategy means missing out on opportunities to optimize costs, performance, and resilience across various cloud platforms. It limits the ability to compare services and pricing models from different providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Without a multi-cloud approach, organizations may face vendor lock-in, higher costs, and reduced flexibility in adapting to changing business needs.
How to tackle: To address the challenge of not implementing a multi-cloud strategy, organizations should prioritize evaluating services and pricing from various providers. Embracing a multi-cloud approach allows for cost optimization, improved performance, and reduced dependency on a single vendor, ensuring flexibility and resilience in cloud deployments.

Suggested: Cloud migration guide: Your strategic path to AWS migration

4. Neglecting orphaned snapshots

Neglecting orphaned snapshots, which are created when instances are terminated without properly managing associated volumes and snapshots, can lead to unnecessary charges in cloud environments. These orphaned volumes and snapshots continue to incur costs even though they are no longer actively used, contributing to wasteful spending and inflated bills. It’s crucial to regularly review and clean up orphaned resources to avoid unnecessary charges and optimize cost management in cloud infrastructures.
How to tackle: To tackle the issue of neglecting orphaned snapshots, implementing backup strategies is crucial. This includes taking snapshots before deleting volumes, which reduces costs by billing only for snapshots at lower rates rather than full volume charges. Additionally, it’s essential to monitor orphaned snapshots regularly and manage them efficiently to avoid unexpected cost surges. This proactive approach, coupled with leveraging AWS services like Amazon EBS Snapshot Lifecycle Manager, ensures optimal cost management and prevents unnecessary expenses in cloud environments.

5. Lack of automation

Not embracing automation for tracking cloud resources hinders efficiency, especially at scale. Manual methods are time-consuming, prone to errors, and often lack real-time insights. Automation streamlines resource management by automatically monitoring, provisioning, and optimizing cloud assets. It reduces human intervention, ensures accuracy, and enables quicker responses to changing workload demands, leading to improved operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness in cloud environments.
How to tackle: Tackling the issue of not embracing automation involves leveraging automated tools and workflows to streamline processes and improve efficiency in cloud operations. Automation enforces best practices, maintains consistent performance standards, and reduces the burden on operations teams by handling repetitive tasks and ensuring accuracy. This enables teams to focus on critical aspects of cloud management, such as optimizing costs, enhancing security, and supporting business innovation, with the assistance of AWS services like AWS Lambda and AWS CloudFormation.
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Explore the best strategies to migrate to the AWS cloud

The cloud serves as a tool, not a destination. For insights on leveraging AWS services and cloud migration strategies, explore the whitepaper on migrating to AWS cloud.
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The strategic benefits of AWS cost optimization

It is imperative for modern organizations to leverage, cost optimization in AWS since it isn’t merely a tactical exercise – it’s a strategic imperative. As businesses harness the power of Amazon Web Services to drive innovation, enhance customer experiences, and scale their operations, understanding the profound impact of cost optimization becomes paramount.

Let’s delve into the benefits of cost optimization that resonate across organizations, from startups to multinational corporations:

1. Enhanced profitability
At its core, cost optimization is about maximizing value. By meticulously managing AWS expenses, organizations free up capital that can be reinvested strategically. Whether it’s funding R&D initiatives, expanding market reach, or fortifying the balance sheet, every dollar saved contributes to the bottom line. In a competitive business landscape, profitability isn’t a luxury – it’s survival.
2. Agility and scalability
Cost-optimized architectures are inherently agile. They allow businesses to scale up or down seamlessly based on demand fluctuations. Whether it’s handling a sudden surge in user traffic or accommodating seasonal spikes, optimized AWS resources ensure operational flexibility. Agility isn’t just about speed; it’s about adaptability – the ability to pivot swiftly in response to market dynamics.
3. Strategic resource allocation
Cost optimization forces organizations to scrutinize their resource allocation. It prompts questions like: Which workloads are mission-critical? Where can we consolidate? What’s the optimal mix of reserved instances and on-demand capacity? By aligning resources with business priorities, organizations optimize performance, reduce waste, and drive efficiency.
4. Competitive edge
In a digital economy, time-to-market is a critical differentiator. Cost-optimized AWS environments expedite development cycles. Whether it’s launching a new product, rolling out features, or responding to market shifts, streamlined costs translate to faster execution. Organizations that move swiftly gain a competitive edge – edge that can make or break success.
5. Sustainability and corporate responsibility
Cost optimization isn’t just about financial gains; it’s about responsible stewardship. By minimizing resource consumption, organizations contribute to environmental sustainability. Efficiently managed AWS workloads reduce energy consumption, carbon footprint, and e-waste. In an era where conscious consumers and investors prioritize eco-friendly practices, cost optimization aligns with corporate social responsibility.
6. Empowering innovation
Lastly, cost optimization liberates resources for innovation. It fuels experimentation, encourages risk-taking, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. When teams aren’t bogged down by unnecessary costs, they can focus on ideation, prototyping, and disruptive solutions. Innovation isn’t a luxury – it’s the lifeblood of progress.

AWS cost optimization best practices

• Use the right-sized resources
• Use Spot Instances
• Use Reserved Instances (RIs) and Savings Plans
• Use Auto Scaling
• Use AWS cost management tools

How Softweb Solutions can help organizations with AWS consulting services

Softweb Solutions specializes in crafting personalized AWS cost optimization strategies tailored to your business needs. Our expert team analyzes your AWS environment, identifies cost-saving opportunities, and implements efficient resource management practices, ensuring maximum ROI and performance optimization for your cloud infrastructure.

Ready to optimize your AWS costs? Reach out for personalized cost optimization assistance today!

Talk To Our AWS Experts

Navigating the cloud cost horizon

Optimizing cloud costs is crucial, especially with AWS dominance. This blog highlighted common mistakes and provided solutions like addressing unused instances, improper sizing, and lack of automation. The strategic benefits include enhanced profitability, agility, competitive edge, and innovation empowerment. By following best practices like using right-sized resources and AWS tools, organizations can drive long-term success.
So, let’s reduce AWS costs and optimize not just for today, but for the tomorrows we envision. Together, we’ll sculpt a future where innovation thrives, sustainability blooms, and your business yields exponential returns.
Originally published at softwebsolutions.com on April 12, 2024.

So as I need to get more exercise in and I’m limited on time because of my 2-4 yr old girls I’ve been thinking about commuting by bike to work. I’ve done it a few times in the past on my old diamondback insight and there is now more of a bike trail so I can stay off the heavy traffic roads. I’m looking to lose weight so I want to put some effort in pedaling wise. I’m 6’ 240lbs. With the new sale I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on the soltera.2. Any reasons on why this won’t do the job? I’ve never ridden an e-bike before. The safest route is 20 miles each way. The shorter route but heavily congested road saves me a few miles but I think just because I’d rather be safe I’ll always take the longer route. Thanks for any advice or info!

Week 3: Limericks and the Art of Humor
Day 1: Decoding Limericks - Activity: Analyze classic limericks for rhythm and humor. - Lecture: Discuss the AABBA rhyme scheme and distinctive rhythm. - Discussion: Share favorite humorous poems and discuss elements that make them funny.
Day 2: Crafting Limericks with Wit - Activity: Write limericks individually, focusing on humor and rhythm. - Lecture: Explore the balance of humor and structure in limericks. - Discussion: Share and discuss individual limericks, highlighting successful elements.
Day 3: Understanding Free Verse - Activity: Analyze free verse poems for structure and expression. - Lecture: Introduce the concept of free verse and its flexibility. - Discussion: Discuss the liberation and challenges of writing without a strict structure.
Day 4: Writing Exercise - Expressing Emotions in Free Verse - Activity: Explore emotions and write a free verse poem. - Assignment: Craft a free verse poem exploring a personal experience or emotion. - Vocabulary Words: Enjambment, Cadence, Anapest.
Day 5: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for free verse poems. - Lecture: Discuss the artistic freedom and impact of free verse. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' free verse poems.
Study Guide Questions for Week 3: 1. What defines a limerick, and how does its rhythm contribute to its humor? 2. Discuss the importance of the AABBA rhyme scheme in limericks. 3. How does free verse differ from structured forms of poetry? 4. Explore the challenges and benefits of writing without a strict form in free verse. 5. Reflect on the emotions and experiences expressed in your free verse poem.
Quiz: Assessment on limericks, the AABBA rhyme scheme, and the principles of free verse.
Week 4: Free Verse and Acrostic Poetry
Day 1: Embracing Free Verse - Activity: Analyze diverse free verse poems for individual expression. - Lecture: Discuss famous free verse poets and their impact on the genre. - Discussion: Share personal reactions to the artistic freedom of free verse.
Day 2: Crafting Emotion in Free Verse - Activity: Write a free verse poem expressing a specific emotion. - Lecture: Explore the role of emotions in free verse and the use of vivid imagery. - Discussion: Share and discuss individual poems, highlighting emotional impact.
Day 3: Understanding Acrostic Poetry - Activity: Analyze acrostic poems for clever wordplay. - Lecture: Explain the concept of acrostic poetry and its various forms. - Discussion: Share examples of creative acrostic poems.
Day 4: Writing Exercise - Personal Acrostic - Activity: Craft an acrostic poem using your name or a chosen word. - Assignment: Write an acrostic poem exploring a theme or concept. - Vocabulary Words: Strophe, Stanza, Consonance.
Day 5: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for acrostic poems. - Lecture: Discuss the playfulness and creativity of acrostic poetry. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' acrostic poems.
Study Guide Questions for Week 4: 1. Explore the role of emotions in free verse poetry. How does it differ from structured forms? 2. Discuss the impact of vivid imagery in free verse. How does it contribute to the overall message? 3. What defines acrostic poetry, and how is it different from other forms? 4. How can clever wordplay enhance the impact of an acrostic poem? 5. Reflect on the creative process and thematic exploration in your acrostic poem.
Quiz: Assessment on understanding free verse, emotional expression in poetry, and the principles of acrostic poetry.

22M, 5'8 I started having low testosterone symptoms on november last year, such as intense chronic fatigue, no libido, brainfog, difficulty losing fat. Got myself checked and my T levels came at 120 ng/dL. Since then I have improved to about 260 ng/dL without taking any drugs but can’t seem to get better, my symptoms improved a lot compared to before but I still struggle with low energy levels e low to non existent libido mainly (no ED thankfully).
At the time I started having symptoms I was dieting down to get lean, went from 80kgs (176,4 lbs) after bulking to 66,5kgs (146,6 lbs) in about 6 months, training 4-5x a week at the gym to keep as much muscle mass as I could.
I decreased my fat intake by a lot during that time, and I suspected it was the cause of my low T since fats are needed for hormone production. Was at roughly 20-25 grams of fat a day and increased to about 80-90 grams a day since january, which improved my symptoms, but my testosterone levels are stagnated at 250-290 ng/dL since then. In the past it was always in the 500-600 ng/dL range and I can’t seem to get back to normal.
Despite the slight increase in testosterone, my LH and FSH are still low, and my estradiol is also very low. I got diagnosed with secondary hypogonadism, which supposedly means my pituitary gland is not secreting enough LH and FSH in for optimal hormone production.
I got and MRI and everything came back normal, no pituitary abnormalities, my other blood tests are completely fine such as fasting insulin, prolactin, cortisol, thyroid hormones, cholesterol, liver function, etc. Got a thyroid ultrassound and my testicles checked as well, both also normal. My sleep schedule is good, I still exercise regularly and have been tracking my macros for a more balanced diet, currently at 154 lbs with decent bodyfat. I have never taken any kind of steroids, I don’t drink and don’t smoke.
I got prescribed Clomid (Clomiphene Citrate) as treatment but I’ve searched about it and doesn’t seem to be helpful for everyone, besides having some potential nasty side effects.
I thought I would get back to normal by fixing my diet, gaining some weight and waiting for my hormone production to “kick in” over time, but my test is still very low compared to what it once was. I wanted to make sure I tried everything I could before going on Clomid or maybe even TRT as some doctors suggested. I’m still young and I dont’t want to be dependant on drugs to be able to feel normal again, but I truly don’t know what to do anymore, it’s been almost 6 months having low testosterone now.

Apple TV+ is one of the strangest streamers out there, with almost no licensed TV or film content and a small number of originals. That makes the best movies on Apple TV+ easy to find. There simply aren’t that many! Apple is clearly taking a “quality over quantity” approach, with its money spread across genres and targeted at making its subscribers (many roped in with a deal that came with one of the company’s tech products) treat it like a real contender. It also helps that it’s only $4.99 a month, or free for a year if you’ve just purchased a new (and eligible) device.
With films from up-and-comers like Minhal Baig, arthouse favorites like Sofia Coppola and Werner Herzog, some A-list music docs, one of the best animated movies of the 2020s and Martin Scorsese’s latest, Apple TV+ is actually making the case that it belongs in the conversation alongside the more established services. As long as it keeps adding good movies to its roster, that is. It recently snagged a few critical darlings like Killers of the Flower Moon and Wolfwalkers.

10. The Pigeon Tunnel

For a documentary about one of the most celebrated writers of spy fiction, The Pigeon Tunnel can seem—at first glance—deceptively placid. Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, the film features an extended conversation between David Cornwell, AKA John le Carre, and Oscar-winning docmaker Errol Morris. It’s just that. Two people talking, with Morris off-screen, their parrying question-and-answers broken up with archival images and re-enactments of Cornwell’s past, as well as snippets from the classic movies or TV adaptations based on his spy universe: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and A Perfect Spy.

9. Hala

Writedirector Minhal Baig’s Hala is an intimate coming-of-age drama held up by its personal writerly touches and a star-making turn from Geraldine Viswanathan as the title character. Hala’s struggling with the same kinds of things we normally see high school characters struggle with: What to do after graduation, how to manage a relationship with her parents that’s not quite adult and not quite childish, and (of course) boys. Viswanathan’s understated quiet and the warmth in which the situations are shot (almost always centered on her face)—be they at a family dinner or a walk in a Chicago park or a reading of a high school English assignment—make the dramatic ricochet of Hala’s minor rebellion rattle us all the harder.

8. Boys State

The tendency to read too much into Boys State as a representative of American politics—contemporary, functional, broken and otherwise—doesn’t quite line up with the event itself, in which every year the American Legion sponsors a sort of mock government sleepaway camp in Texas for high school boys (girls get a similar program of their own), where attendees join parties, run for office, craft platforms, run campaigns, hold debates, then ultimately exercise their right to vote.

7. On the Rocks

Sofia Coppola’s new movie On the Rocks starts out as a story of possessive fatherhood, with Felix (Bill Murray) narrating to his teenage daughter, Laura: “And remember, don’t give your heart to any boys. You are mine until you get married. Then you’re still mine.” The girl laughs off the declaration as a jape, which turns out to be a catastrophic tactical mistake. In her womanhood, Laura (Rashida Jones), does indeed get married to a man, Dean (Marlon Wayans), and they have two beautiful daughters of their own, eldest Maya (Liyanna Muscat) and youngest Theo (Alexandra Mary Reimer).

6. Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You

The black-and-white behind-the-scenes documentary accompaniment to Bruce Springsteen’s album of the same name, Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You is a beautiful and companionable tour through the music and its making from an American master. Director Thom Zimny buys into the album’s concept, which focuses on just how long Springsteen’s been at this thing. Poignant juxtaposition with archival footage and pictures emphasizes just how long the E Streeters have been at this—and reminds us of who and what was lost along the way.
Also Read: The Last Duel

5. Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds

Werner Herzog will show you multiple clips from Mimi Leader’s Deep Impact for no other reason than because he likes them, he finds them well-done and evocative—he says as much in that even-keeled, oddly accented voice over—then soon after chastise “film school doctrine” when complimenting a field video shot by a South Korean meteor specialist in Antarctica. Like Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, his documentary from earlier in the year, Fireball (co-directed with Clive Oppenheimer, with whom he made 2016’s Into the Inferno) is less about what it’s about (meteorites, shooting stars, cosmic debris—and the people who love them) than it is about Werner Herzog’s life, which is his filmography, which is a heavily manipulated search for ultimate truth.

4. CODA

Sometimes a movie so successfully plunges you into its world that it completely engulfs you in a lived-in experience. From the gorgeous, scenic opening moments of CODA, you can almost smell the Atlantic salt air and pungent scent of the daily catch. The movie transports you to Gloucester, Massachusetts and lovingly drops you into the life of one family. Seventeen-year-old Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is what the title of the movie refers to—a child of deaf adults.

3. A Charlie Brown Christmas

We could get into plenty of arguments over which Charlie Brown animated special is best, but A Charlie Brown Christmas is my favorite pull of the bunch. Charlie Brown’s confrontation with the Christmas season’s commercialism (back in 1965 no less) and a sad little fir tree make this a cartoon classic, as the ultimate funny-pages shlimazel suffers endless social indignities (no Christmas cards) and the holiday blues.

2. Wolfwalkers

Wolfwalkers is filmmaker and animator Tomm Moore’s latest project out of Cartoon Saloon, the animation studio he co-founded in 1999 with Paul Young, and the capper to his loosely bound Irish folklore trilogy (begun with 2009’s The Secret of Kells and continued with 2014’s Song of the Sea). At first blush, the film appears burdened with too much in mind—chiefly thoughts on everything from English colonialism to earnest portraiture of Irish myths, the keystones of Moore’s storytelling for the last decade.

1. Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Scorsese has made a career telling stories that tackle issues of justice, retribution and betrayal. From his overt and poetic crime films, through to his dark comedies, religious parables and character pieces, he has long been drawn to stories where the ambiguities of life collide with the complexities of survival, and where day-to-day choices result in consequences sometimes obvious, and sometimes far more subtle and insidious.

TL;DR - Here's what I'm asking

I'm brand new to pre-workouts and quite new to strength/resistance training. I'm curious to hear from those of you with much more experience, how you personally define a successful pre-workout ("this one is really working well for me") And, conversely, what signs do you look for to indicate that you need something stronger for your pre-workout? ("This one really isn't working out for me because I XXXX") Also, how long should you give yourself to get 'settled in' to the experience of taking a particular pre-workout before considering an alternative?

My background / workout regimen

I started weightlifting / resistance training three months ago. Working with a great trainer 4 days/wk. My trainer breaks down each day's strength/resistance training sessions into three groups of exercises. Each of the three groups has 3 separate exercises. Each exercise has 4 sets of between 10-15 reps. With 4 sessions a week, we hit legs, glutes, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps, chest and core. Each session ends with 10-15 minute high intensity conditioning session (quickly rotating between stations.)
I also do at least an hour of steady-state cardio, on my own time, 6-7 days a week and a yoga/mobility class once a week.
I'm also spending some time with a nutritionist to figure out my macros. I've estimated them, but I have free access to a registered dietitian, so I might as well make use of it!
I'm male. Early 40s. With the usual goal -- lose fat, gain muscle. I'm also a LADA diabetic, so healthy A1C / blood glucose is of course important.

My first ever pre-workout -- Bulk Black

This is my first week on pre-workout and I'm trying to take stock of how it's affecting energy and performance on my strength/resistance days. After doing a lot of reading on here and elsewhere (including super informative posts like this one from u/naderq), I decided to go with Transparent Labs' Bulk Black (with my own addition of agmatine, per nader's recommendation)

My post-workout

In case it's of interest, the post-workout I've decided to go with is MuscleTech NitroTech Whey Protein + added Glutamine powder

The reason I'm asking about evaluating your pre-workout

My first two days taking Bulk Black have been interesting. I consider my workouts very challenging. I really have to push to get those last sets completed. And, by the end of the 10-15 mins of the HIIT circuit training at the end, I am sweaty and out of breath. I've only had two sessions with Bulk Black so far, but both times, I didn't really notice anything different during my workouts. What I did notice was that my energy was much stronger post-workout. I wasn't limping to my car, but walking quickly. And I didn't feel like I needed to take a nap after. Which is great. Just not sure if I'm experiencing an impact during my workouts... yet. Note: while this may change as the months progress, right now, none of the weight / resistance exercise I'm doing are to exhaustion, they are a specific number of sets and reps which are all to be completed.

This week's book club list is as follows (enjoy reading and comment which your favourite is below):
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1. The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering the Practice of Happiness in the Meeting of Buddhism and Psychology by Lorne Ladner: Dr Lorne Ladner rescues compassion from this marginalised view, showing how its practical application in our life can be a powerful force in achieving happiness. Combining the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism and Western psychology, Ladner presents clear, effective practices for cultivating compassion in daily living.
2. Choosing Happiness: Keys to a Joyful Life by Alexandra Stodda: Happiness lies in the passions we pursue and in the pressures we decline. It is in knowing how to work and when to play. It is in the treasured objects we keep nearby and in the ordinary moments we elevate into small celebrations. It is in the note we write to a friend and the kindness we show a stranger. It is in the colors we love and the music that transports us. It may be as simple as sunlight on your face; as sudden as a shared smile; as sensuous as a single flower on your desk, candles on your nightstand, or cookies hot from the oven. Happiness is what you make it, where you make it. Happiness is our best choice.
3. Health, Wealth and Happiness: You Can Control Your Destiny by David Singh: David Singh's dramatic journey from the jungles of Guyana to the helm of one of Canada's largest financial planning companies provides the backdrop for this guide to lasting happiness. Advocating wise investments, careful planning, and healthy eating choices, this inspirational book uncovers the secrets to a happier and more successful life.
4. What All the World's A-Seeking: Or, The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness Power and Happiness by Ralph Waldo Trine: Ralph Waldo Trine was an influential member of the New Thought movement. He was one of the first people to write about the Law of Attraction. Long before Rhonda Byrne discovered the secret that one's positive thoughts are powerful magnets that attract wealth, health, and happiness, Trine already knew it.
5. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin Seligman: I have read about 80 pages and I am enjoying Seligmen's friendly, engaging writing style so far. Also, there are interesting facts about each person's 'range' of happiness being fixed on a spectrum.Great so far. Will attempt to update review when I have completed the book.
6. Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom to the Test of Modern Science by Jonathan Haidt: Jonathon Haidt is a terrifically productive thinker about psychology. This is book is a credo and a guide book to your own happiness via an accomplished romp through the psychological literature which Haidt uses to explore the truths of ancient religion. I'm surprised it's not a wild best seller, but I think I know why - it doesn't have an singular and catchy formula for your salvation which you can learn in your lunchtime and hear about ad nauseam on late night TV infomercials. Just well written, well thought out commentary on the formula for a happy and fulfilled life distilled from the psychological literature.
7. It's All in Your Head: Thinking Your Way to Happiness by Stephen M. Pollan, Mark Levine: If you've ever wanted to have a conversation with someone on a normal level about undoing negative thinking patterns, this book is about the closest you'll ever get in written form. The style is conversational, pragmatic, and realistic. Kind of like talking to a favorite uncle or aunt who is just "on the mark" about dealing with life. The book focuses on 8 behaviothought patterns that hinder us from being happy NOW, and provides simple, easy "exercises" to do to help overcome them. It is also one of those rare self-help books that the whole family can read, enjoy, and profit from. In my opinion, this book is better than any other I've read by Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Nathaniel Branden, and many others. If you've ever thought you can be happier, YOU CAN, and this book can help you get there.
8. Handbook on the Economics of Happiness by Luigino Bruni, Pier Luigi Porta: This Handbook provides an unprecedented forum for discussion of the economic issues relating to happiness. It reviews the more recent literature and offers the interested reader an insight into the vast scope of the field in terms of the theory, its applications and also experimental design. The Handbook also gives substantial indications as to the future direction of research in the field, with particular regard to policy applications and developing an economics of interpersonal relations which includes reciprocity and social interaction theory.
9. Freeing your child from negative thinking: powerful, practical strategies to build a lifetime of resilience, flexibility, and happiness by Tamar E. Chansky: This book is excellent for those who wish to embrace Food Combining i.e. what has become known as the Hay Diet. It is where one avoids mixing starch-based foods and protein-based foods in the same meal.
10. The 7 Steps of Spiritual Intelligence: The Practical Pursuit of Purpose, Success and Happiness Volume by Richard A. Bowell: Pioneering researcher and educator Richard Bowell delivers the first and only self-help guide to the power of spiritual intelligence (SQ)-the next evolutionary stage in our pursuit of purpose, success, and happiness. He introduces the latest breakthroughs in neuro-science. Life lessons from such exceptional individuals as Nelson Mandela to Ghandi and Mother Theresa take readers on a self-guided journey to personal development and growth.

So, which one are you picking up next or have read? Let us know with a comment and upvote and share this post and our sub bodychemistry to stay tuned for more reading lists every week!
Love, marmalada

“We’re a meat family,” my dad would proudly tell strangers. He’d wait for the quizzical look, then launch into detail, starting with how many freezers we had, how long we could sustain ourselves on the contents. It was just his way of starting a conversation, which made sense when you considered that raising and home-killing animals for food was, for want of a better term, his life-long hobby. His prize possession was one of those industrial-sized vacuum sealers: you could put half a pig inside and wrap it in plastic so tightly that every wrinkle and skin fold waxed unreal with shiny detail.
If we hadn’t lived in a rural area, albeit semi-urbanised, I guess it would have been pretty weird. But the mostly farming-stock locals only found his extra enthusiasm a little bit odd.
When he wasn’t being a bit embarrassing talking about it, I never really paid much heed to his hobby. I had a child’s vaguely grateful awareness that though our family went through some lean financial times, our stomachs never suffered like some of the families around us. All the beef, pork, ham and bacon in those big old chest freezers passed down from his dad really could have fed us for years.
I should preface all this by saying that I wasn’t a particularly bright kid, though neither was I dumb. I didn’t fail badly at anything in school, I just never achieved beyond a pass. I didn’t know it yet back then, still quietly dreaming about being a ballet star or a dressage champion, but mediocrity was my destiny. And I think that’s why I got on so well with my Aunt Liz.
Liz was my dad’s live-in youngest sister. She was one of those women who get described as ‘bubbly’ — not really pretty, not really smart, not a lot going on besides just being… well, all Liz. But she was salt of the earth; kind, caring, and great with kids. She was the only person who would willingly mind my two older brothers, who fought like hellcats and caused more trouble than the whole last generation of my family combined. People would privately lament to my parents that it was a shame Liz didn’t have kids of her own, but dad would just shake his head and say Liz liked it that way – that all the fun of looking after kids is being able to give them back to their parents.
I guess she was like me; nice, but mediocre. Lovely, but somehow forgettable when she wasn’t doing something for you.
But when Liz left us, I couldn’t forget her.
In hindsight, it was pretty weird timing that we had a big fortieth birthday party for Liz right before she disappeared. She was radiant that night; she’d hired a local girl to do her hair and makeup, and it was honestly the first time I’d ever seen her look pretty. She’d even worn a push-up bra under a tight red dress, which flattered her very plump curves well enough that the neighbour’s farmhand was spotted disappearing into the woolshed with her for a snog. In my dawning awareness, that gave a plain girl hope: if Aunty Liz could get a guy at forty, maybe things would turn out okay for me.
Anyway, I couldn’t forget how her pink cheeks, her eyes, her whole self, glowed that night before Liz went to bed. She said it was the best birthday ever, and that she was very much looking forward to the next stage of her life.
Would I have done anything different, if I had known? If I had realised what, exactly, that next stage was?
The week after the party, Aunt Liz said she was going on a little holiday up north, to visit some old school friends. She packed her things – she didn’t honestly have that many – and drove her little orange mini out onto the main road. And with a wave of one fleshy hand, she was gone. Nobody really thought much of it when she didn’t call, because nobody rural had cellphones back then. And Liz was, as I said, somehow kinda forgettable when she wasn’t right in front of you.
When we hadn’t had contact for six weeks, Dad tracked down the land line numbers for their old school buddies. They were surprised to hear from him — Liz had never arrived, so they had just assumed she’d cancelled her visit. No-one had thought to check. I eavesdropped on the conversation, and it sounded for all the world like *they* had forgotten about Aunt Liz, too.
From there it became a missing person case. The local cops came and talked to all of us; the farmhand who’d been seen snogging her was briefly detained, then let go, dad got grilled at length, even my hellion brothers were questioned thoroughly to see if this was one of their wild and dangerous pranks gone wrong.
But everything was a dead end. Nobody knew where Liz was, or what had happened to her.
The remains of her old mini were found halfway across the country, burned out on a beach, on a derelict stretch of ragged, rocky coastline. The police assumed murder and combed the area for remains. But even the most expert divers couldn’t conquer the incredible undertow and fast-shifting seabed of that coastline to look for evidence, so none was forthcoming.
Eventually the cops collectively shrugged and said that there was really nothing more they could do unless more information suddenly came to light. The locals knew nothing, no witnesses had come forward, and the trail was cold. As far as anyone knew, poor aunt Liz had been murdered on some desolate beach, far away from her home.
It didn’t feel fair to me. She’d once mentioned wanting her remains buried on our farm, in the graveyard plot beside grandma and grandad.
So, in my grief, I went into her room to look for something of hers to bury beside them.
Like I said, Liz didn’t have many things. Her room was pretty spartan, and her wardrobe was mostly sensible farm stuff. There was one exception: she, like me, did like to read, and she had a pretty good collection of well-thumbed books. I think it’s the escapism – even the most mediocre girl can lose herself in the plot of some trashy romance novel, imagine there’s still hope of being swept off her feet by that handsome stableboy, his inexplicable yearning for chubby plain girls.
So I set myself the task of going through the books, to find the right one to bury in the graveyard plot.
Most of them were exactly what you’d expect, but some of them were racier than I was used to. I felt various parts of my body flushing and tingling, as I read breathless prose about calloused hands touching the softest flesh of the protagonist. Okay, if I’m honest with myself, I might have got a little *too* invested in my project at that point. But that was also why I persisted going through her entire collection, until I found the ragged paperback from 1970, entitled Tawny Sands. And inside that trashy cardboard romance cover, I discovered not the tale of Tawny Sands, but some carefully hand-cut, stitched-in pages. A handwritten story in my Aunt’s rounded penmanship: Memoirs of a Long Pig.
I read her story twice in a row, utterly gripped.
Aunt Liz was no Stephen King – heck, she wasn’t even the Goosebumps guy – but her story was gripping and compelling, and I couldn’t put it down. Even if I hadn’t known her, I think that would have been true.
The gist of it was that Liz, when she was sixteen, had discovered that our family had a very long history of eating what she described as ‘Long Pork’. It’s an antipodean term, anglicised from the Pacific Islands: human meat.
Like me, young Liz still had some hopes and dreams. In one of her many failed attempts to find a special talent, she’d taken up cooking as a hobby. Naturally, with our family’s overabundance of meat, she’d scoured the freezers in the shed for ingredients: the racks of ribs and stacks of pork chops, butcher-paper wrappings all neatly labelled with the first letter of the name of the animal they came from.
She found familiar meat from Rodney, one of the pigs that had been recently slaughtered, emblazoned with an ‘R’ in her father’s strong, blocky lettering. There were cutlets labelled ‘M’ for Mary, from one of the lambs she’d hand-reared, and ‘F’ for Ferdinand, the steer they’d killed the month before. But she couldn’t explain the many, many curious parcels of meat on one side of the huge freezer, all labelled ‘J’ – at least, not until she took it all out and assembled it as well as she could on the scoured concrete floor of the killing shed. A big, frozen jigsaw puzzle without the box, her best attempt to discover what kind of beast the pieces had come from.
The animal, she quickly realised, was a Long Pig. Her own Aunt Jenny, who had died the month before – just after her fortieth birthday.
Fortunately, or perhaps not, for Liz, her father entered the shed right at that moment and realised his daughter had discovered the family secret. He sat down calmly on the lid of the freezer, and explained to her that this was a long-running family tradition, dating back to at least before his grandfather had been born.
“There are always people in life, Liz,” he’d said, “who won’t really amount to much. They want to be useful, want to be more. They strive and they strive, trying job after job, hobby after hobby, trying to hit on something they’re really good at. Something that makes them special. Those people can waste their whole lives, chasing dreams that never come true. Eventually they die unfulfilled, knowing that all their time has been wasted. That what they leave behind will fade quickly.”
His voice was oddly gentle as he leaned down and patted one of the neatly wrapped cuts of Aunt Jenny, still sitting frozen on the shed floor.
“Your Aunt Jenny was one of those people. So was my Aunt Irene.” He paused to gaze at his daughter, his next words peppered with emphasis. “But you see, my sweet Liz, they did find a purpose in life. They did find a way to be special, and they left this world utterly certain of their gift.” He stood up, stretched his back. “Let me show you.”
Liz waited while my grandad meticulously stacked the meat back into the freezer, all but one J-marked parcel that looked for all the world like a thick venison steak. He took her back to the farmhouse, and reverently unwrapped the deep red, heavily marbled meat to let it thaw. Then he laid it in the family’s ancient, cast-iron pan, basting it with butter and rosemary until a heavenly scent filled the kitchen, and Aunt Liz couldn’t stop her mouth from watering.
“Just try it. Let her show you. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.”
Even though she knew it was her aunt, Liz couldn’t stop herself from taking that first bite. There was something transcendent about the smell, overriding her natural revulsion that this was human meat, not one of their farm animals. For the first time, she truly realised it: we’re just another kind of animal. And weren’t her memories of Mary the lamb almost as fond as her memories of Aunt Jenny?
Liz explained then, in her curly handwriting, the explosion of taste that had assaulted her when she tried the steak. It was tender, it was succulent, it was rich beyond imagining. The fats melted on her tongue, lingering somewhere between pork and beef, but oddly neither. The flavour of the meat defied identification; something familiar, yet not.
But one thing she couldn’t deny; it was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten. Tears dripped onto her plate, mingled with the juice, the grease — not grief, but a pure, real, giddy delight.
“You’re tasting your aunt’s love for this family,” my grandad explained. “Her entire life was carefully curated, to eventually make unforgettable moments for us, just like this. This was her way of being special. This was the greatest gift she could possibly bring to our world – and because she realised that, she died with not a single regret. She knew her life had purpose. She was perfectly, completely fulfilled.”
I felt those words. I felt them lodge in my own belly, settling uncomfortably deep. I knew Aunt Liz, probably better than anyone else in the family. I’d seen how fucking happy she’d been on her fortieth, how goddamn fulfilled she was, despite apparently being a *nobody* and achieving *nothing*. Somehow, in the space of a single day, she had gone from being a forgettable background character to becoming the *main character*, immortalising herself in our family’s history with her sacrifice. Quite literally becoming part of all of us, forever.
I went to the killing shed after I finished with the book. I looked inside the freezers.
But there were no vacuum-sealed packages labelled ‘L’, no matter how deep I dug into the frozen stacks of plastic-wrapped flesh. Panicked now, not sure if I wanted to connect all the dots or unconnect them, I tried to think back over the last few months, recall any meals that had been unusually good. A few Sundays ago, we’d had a stew that really hit the spot and left me craving more. And I realised that the family had a really good night that night; my brothers behaved themselves, my parents didn’t fight, and grandma and grandad had been there. Hadn’t they looked far more… expectant than they should have?
I strained my brain, trying to recall if I’d seen the homekill bag on the kitchen bench – if I’d registered what letter it was. I knew it wasn’t an L. I would have remembered if it was an L.
And then it hit me, the memory, the connection, sizzling as if branded with a hot iron.
It had been an ‘E’.
E for Elizabeth. Not for Edward the pig.
I snorted at my own stupidity – of *course* Liz was short for Elizabeth – and as I comprehended my lack of smarts, I felt something give inside me.
I wasn’t clever, and nothing, nothing would ever make me smart. I had no big talents. I wasn’t beautiful, or even cute – and even if I had a million plastic surgeries, it still wouldn’t fulfill me. It wouldn’t be real.
I was a Liz.
I was a Jenny.
I was whoever the first aunt had been, the aunt who had dedicated her life to making her flesh as delicious as possible, who had worked every damn minute to be the best Long Pig she could ever be.
I wondered how many magical family evenings had been spent eating Aunt Jenny. How many glorious, satisfying, memorable dishes had been made out of her.
And… I wanted that. I wanted to finally know I had a *purpose* in life. One so simple, and so easy to achieve.
I wanted what Aunt Liz had.
***
It's my fortieth birthday today and I’m so fucking excited. For the last twenty-four years, I’ve dedicated myself to this moment; I’ve eaten exactly what I needed to, I’ve exercised just enough, but not too much, to maintain that perfect balance of marbling vs tenderness. I’ve relaxed and meditated to keep all those amazing flavours inside of me. I’ve researched all the greatest meats in the world, from prime Angus beef to A5 Wagyu. I really think I may have outdone myself.
I’m having my hair and makeup done at the local salon this afternoon, and I’m going to look so pretty; all prize piggy on show at the fair. I’m even going to have a big red ribbon in my hair, in memory of Aunt Liz.
Maybe there’ll be a cute boy I can snog in the wool shed, maybe there won’t – I don’t really care; because the most important, most certain thing is that I’m going to be the most delicious Long Pig in the history of our entire family.
I’m going to make everyone so damn happy, and I’m just so glad I can share my story with you all, instead of hiding it in a grubby book like poor Aunt Liz.
My only real disappointment? That you won’t get to taste me.
Reader, I have loved, loved my life. My Long Pork will be out of this world: once tasted, never, ever forgotten.

The Scriptures seem to imply that the kingdom of God isn't exactly synonymous with what is called "the Church." The Church was a temporary eschatological community of believers that existed on earth in preparation of a kingdom where God Himself would reign, and said community had Christ reign over them in the meantime. The head of the Church was Christ, with the Father serving as his head (1 Cor. 11:3). The Scriptures teach that, when all Christ's enemies were to be made his footstool, he was to give back all authority to the Father (Psa. 110:1, 1 Cor. 15:22-28), and it is this page's belief that this happened in 70 AD.
The following quotation is from the above hyperlink:

As for the "1000 years" mentioned in Revelation, they are apocalyptic metaphor for the 40 years Christ "reigned" (triumphed) over his enemies both human and spirit, with the final triumph being the judgement of apostate Jerusalem. The "1000 years" began with his ascension, and ended with this judgement.

Thus, the community to replace the Church on earth was to be the kingdom of God. But, what even is the kingdom of God, and why did God have to reclaim authority of His own creation in the first place?
To be as succinct as possible: man sinned, and so the great level of authority God initially granted us ourselves over the creation was stripped. As a result, the human condition has suffered and it must be redeemed for God to allow us to reign with Him in the way that He originally intended for us. God has always been sovereign, of course, but He seeks the good of man to make us stewards over His world with Him, as that was His original plan and this was His original view of what a kingdom of His truly looks like: a kingdom characterized by man's love for Him and love for others.
A Biblical understanding of Adam's sin, contrary to popular thought, isn't that we are guilty of what he did personally. We simply inherit his fallen nature and a fallen world as a result of his sin, the same way a baby could leave the womb already addicted to certain substances because the mother abused said substances while pregnant. It's not the baby's fault for its condition, it was the parent's. But the baby is born with this condition and enters the world like this nonetheless.
The implication of this is that we are all only guilty of our own sins, and whether or not we ever seek to treat (or possibly cure) our condition in the first place is on us. We were dealt a bad hand due to Adam, sure, but God doesn't hold us responsible for what our forefather did. God only holds us responsible for what we do, and whether or not we seek to be liberated from the dark forces which keep us in bondage to our sinful condition (Gen. 4:6-7, Deut. 24:16, Jer. 31:30, Ezek. 18, Matt. 9:9-13).
The whole Old Testament is essentially a record of God's people constantly breaking their covenant(s) with Him. There are individuals mentioned throughout that were, of course, commended by God and the Biblical authors for their righteousness in honestly pursuing to remain faithful to their covenant with Him. But even the best of these people often faltered and, in fact, did rather heinous things in their lives at one point or another. One of the greatest examples of this is king David, who was literally called by the Scriptures "a man after God's own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14, Acts 13:22). Yet, this same man at one point committed adultery and then murdered the man he stole the wife of to try and cover it up. This was a heinous thing, and David repented of what he did with genuine sorrow and guilt toward God. God ultimately forgave him, but not without a heavy hand of chastisement and earthly consequences for his actions.
All throughout the Old Testament, you see various men of God who were deemed righteous, but these same men were usually shown to have some major flaw that prevented them from living a life that could be characterized as consistent obedience to the commandments to love God and love others as themselves. There is something deeply wrong with man's heart, according to the Bible. Something so wrong, in fact, that a whole prophecy had to be given that promised to address the issue of man's seeming incapability to accomplish fulfilling the commandment to love consistently on their own without some sort of divine help from above:

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."-Ezekiel 36:26

Naturalistic philosophies see the physical world as all that exists. Humans beings are the result of mindless, chance causes and processes. Humans are essentially animals – highly evolved, but no different in significance than any other living thing. Thus naturalistic views demote humans. But this view leaves a lot unexplained. Why do humans practice altruism, benevolence, or acts of heroism? And what explains acts of incredible evil? Sure, naturalistic arguments have been made that true altruism doesn't exist, and that "unconditional love" is really just an illusion that's been disguised very well by our survival instincts that we've developed over a long period of time at certain stages of our evolutionary process. However, many people have found such arguments to be unpersuasive and naive when compared to their actual experience of the world as they mature in their lives and have what they know to be truly meaningful experiences that can't simply be reduced in the way that the naturalist wishes them to be. This realization was ultimately why I transitioned from hard atheism to agnostic spiritualism at one point or another.
On the other extreme of these things, transcendental worldviews and philosophies say that the physical world is illusory. Only the spiritual world is ultimately real. Humans are an expression of the divine spirit that is the essence of all things. If naturalistic views demote humans to the level of animals, transcendental views promote human beings. God is not “out there” somewhere; we are God. God is all, thus God is us. But this view doesn’t explain real evil. Why are people selfish? Why do they hurt others? What accounts for personal acts of evil like rape or terrorism? If we are all truly "God," then why would we ever do such things to what is ultimately "ourself"? And why can't a person who practices the belief that we are all actually "God" be only loving? There are so many people who adopt this view of reality who are constantly, day by day, finding that they struggle to be as truly loving as they wish to be because they will still sometimes find themselves thinking and doing rather evil and selfish things. I can speak from experience here, remembering throwing myself into the New Age movement when I was desperately seeking what I did not know at the time was forgiveness for and redemption from my sins because of who I was as a person up until that point. I was seeking the mythic "ego death" that promised me that I could truly be loving and find the forgiveness and redemption I was searching for, because I thought that if only I truly realized I was "God" all along, I could then accomplish these things all at once and simultaneously. I eventually found even this philosophy unsatisfactory when I came to the aforementioned conclusions concerning our great capacity for evil, and also realized that forgiveness can only exist if there are two parties: forgiver and forgivee. Such a thing is impossible if there is only really one being at play at the bottom of reality, and I knew deep down that forgiving oneself (at least, on its own) will never satisfy one's pursuit for redemption that we all inherently take part in whenever pursuing to mend even our own relationships with each other as humans. Further, love would be an illusion in this philosophy too, being that there is only really one party behind and in all of existence if "everything is God." Such an idea would make true altruism a farce, as well. There would be no such thing as real sacrifice for another, because there is no "another."
The French mathematician and Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “Man’s greatness and wretchedness are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach both.” Any philosophy that cannot fully account for human greatness and human depravity at the same time should be abandoned because it misses something obvious about the human condition. The religion of the Bible has a valid explanation for human greatness: people are made in God’s image. Thus we have dignity, value, and capacity for good. The Bible also explains human evil: the image of God has been defaced by sin. Our great capacity gets used for the wrong purposes. Our creativity is placed in the service of evil and our best intentions twisted for selfish gain. Something has gone terribly wrong. While other worldviews unduly demote or promote humanity, the Bible gets the tension just right.
Thus, human nature is puzzling and conflicting. Other worldviews—both secular and religious—struggle to account for this enigma, and don't offer satisfying solutions to the problem itself. The Bible, however, explains what happened when it tells us that man rebelled against God in the paradise that was prepared for him called "the Garden of Eden." We fell into temptation and estranged ourselves from God by tarnishing the image we were created in, and now are born with a natural proclivity to do evil, despite our best efforts to do good (that is, to do good consistently).
And so, the Bible promised a solution in the prophet Ezekiel that God will literally change our natural human condition, if we simply choose to humble ourselves before Him in faith to allow for such a change. While as unbelievers our inner disposition towards God is often rebellious, we at least still have the capacity to choose to do the righteous thing in seeking God that He may change us and forgive us if we so let Him. This is one reason why Jesus, (the one who made the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy even possible by his coming, sacrifice, ressurection, and outpouring of the Spirit upon his ascension), said that only faith the size of a mustard seed was required for something so miraculous as moving a mountian to happen, because so little is required from us to allow God to change us into the kind of person He's always wanted us to be, and yet changing the condition of our own heart can be compared to literally moving a mountain if we were to try and do so on our own strength alone. The mustard seed was the smallest of seeds, and yet if one simply planted it and nurtured it, it could become a bush so large that it was comparable to a tree with branches that stretched to the heavens for the very birds of the air to rest on.
It was when I came to these realizations that I prayed to God for the first time again, having been years since I did so, going so far back as to when I was a little child even. I prayed in the dead of night in my room, and asked God to show me the truth and to reveal Himself to me if indeed these things were true, and in an instant I felt His very presence in my room, and my heart was changed. To describe such an experience would be like trying to describe the taste of something to the man born without tastebuds, the color of something to the man born blind, or the sound of something to the man born deaf; there are no words, and it is only something you can know by experiencing it for yourself. Suddenly and all at once, I knew right then and there that Jesus really was who he said he was, that the one true God is the God of the Bible, and that I have been forgiven. As the time of this post, it's been 5 years since then, I'm 23 now, and I'm still walking with God.
My prayer for anyone reading this that may not know God for themselves yet is that one day, you will too.
Back to the topic at hand.
When Adam sinned, we fell under the tyranny of death, corruption, evil heavenly powers, and sin itself. When Jesus came, Jesus was the new and exalted human, the new Adam, through whom humanity could now realize their original destiny that was laid out for them in the Garden of Eden. Because Jesus, being a man, obeyed unto death, he has defeated the powers which held us so long under bondage; we are now promised liberation so long as we simply place our faith in his sacrifice to wash us of our sins and receive the Spirit of God that is also promised to all who exercise this faith.
We often think of ‘the gospel’ as the part that brings the forgiveness of sins (and of course, that is part of the idea), but ‘gospel’ is the announcement that everything has changed in the coming of Jesus and it leads us to a new kind of living.
The gospel Jesus preached and the gospel the apostle Paul preached were different, in that Jesus preached of a kingdom where God reigns directly and with all His faithful subjects as participants in that reign. The gospel Paul preached was about the exaltation and reign of Christ, and because Christ reigned, the consummation of the kingdom of God with earth could now finally take place (Col. 1:12-13). This consummation was put on hold during Christ's "millennial" reign, which transpired between his ascension and his return. However, the consummation has come to full fruition since that return.
We will be arguing for some of these claims by pointing out how central the kingdom of God actually was to Jesus' earthly ministry and message, and demonstrate what Jesus taught about how it actually looks like.
The term 'kingdom' appears 53 times in 42 places in Matthew, 17 times in 13 places in Mark, and 41 times in 29 places in Luke. When the 'kingdom' is qualified, Luke always refers to the 'kingdom of God' (32 times) and Mark follows this pattern (14 times). Matthew, on the other hand, prefers the term "kingdom of heaven" (31 times), using the phrase to refer to the same idea "kingdom of God" only four times: 12:28, 19:24, 21:31, 43.
The Gospel of Luke records an event where Jesus responds to the population that lived near Simon Peter's house who believed in him after he had done his miraculous work there, but saw that he was leaving them:

"And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore [i.e., for this pupose] am I sent." (vss. 42-43)

The Greek word euangelion is often translated as the word “gospel.” In the Bible, this word is always used whenever it concerns the announcement of the reign of a new king. And in the New Testament, the Gospels themselves use this word or the phrase "good news" to summarize all of Jesus’ teachings. They say he went about “preaching the gospel [good news] of the kingdom [of God]” (Matt. 4:23).
There’s this beautiful poem in the Old Testament, and it’s in chapter 52 of the Book of Isaiah. The city of Jerusalem had just been destroyed by Babylon, a great kingdom in the North. Many of the inhabitants of the city have been sent away into exile, but a few remained in the city, and they’re left wondering, "What happened? Has our God abandoned us?" This was because Jerusalem was supposed to be the city where God would reign over the world to bring peace and blessing to everyone.
Now, Isaiah had been saying that Jerusalem’s destruction was a mess of Israel’s own making. They had turned away from their God, become corrupt, and so their city and their temple were destroyed. Everything seemed lost. But the poem goes on. There is a watchman on the city walls, and far out on the hills we see a messenger. He’s running towards the city. He’s running and he’s shouting, “Good news!” And Isaiah says, “How beautiful are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings [news]” (vs. 7a). The feet are beautiful because they’re carrying a beautiful message. And what’s the message? That despite Jerusalem’s destruction, Israel’s God still reigns as king, and that God's presence is going to one day return with His city, take up His throne, and bring peace. And the watchmen sing for joy because of the good news that their God still reigns (vs. 10).
Jesus saw himself as the messenger bringing the news that God reigns. Jesus also claimed to be the Son of man. This was Jesus' favorite self-designation, being used some 80 times in the Gospels. Notice, not just a son of man, but the Son of Man. Jesus was directing our attention to a vision described by the prophet Daniel:

"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him:"-Daniel 7:13-14a

At Jesus' trial, the Jewish high priest accused Jesus: "Art thou the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed [God]?" His answer left no room for doubt. "I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:61-62). Because Jesus' was rejected and killed for threatening the power the religious authorities had over the people, the consummation of God's kingdom with earth had been put on hold until all of Christ's enemies would be put under his feet after his ressurection and ascension.
But again, what is the kingdom of God? What does it look like exactly?
Well, the way that Jesus described God’s reign surprised everybody. I mean, think about it. A powerful, successful kingdom needs to be strong, able to impose its will, and able to defeat its enemies in physical combat. But Jesus said the greatest person in God’s kingdom was the weakest, the one who loves and who serves the poor (Matt. 23:11-12). He said you live under God’s reign when you respond to evil by loving your enemies, and forgiving them, and seeking peace (Matt. 5). To us, this is an upside-down kingdom. But to God, it's right-side up. This was what God had originally planned for us: a kingdom where God reigns in our hearts.

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."-John 3:3

Jesus was being quite literal here. You can’t see the kingdom until you’re born again and have the life of that kingdom. When you’re born again, you start 'seeing' differently. You see what others don’t see, you hear what others don’t hear, you know what others don’t know. And yet you may be physically in the same earthly location as they.
The kingdom of God is the totality of God’s influence that covers the world and heaven. It’s everywhere, but its manifestation isn’t everywhere. It manifests on earth wherever there are those who are born again and live as if God reigns in their hearts.
Before Jesus, John the Baptist announced to all people, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt. 3:1-2), as he saw a soon coming kingdom of God that would be ushered in by the Messiah. Notice that John the Baptist didn’t say that something “like” the kingdom would come and he didn’t say that the real kingdom might be thousands of years away. He said over and over that THE kingdom was at hand! Do you believe him? Did God inspire him to give a clear and accurate message or a mistaken one? If we dare to believe him, things might become surprisingly clear, simple and exceedingly optimistic.

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."-Matthew 6:10

Jesus taught his followers of his generation to pray that God's kingdom come and that His will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Why pray for something that will just inevitably come by force, unless it was actually through our willing participation? That is, unless God's will is carried out through us "in earth, as it is in heaven"?

"Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel."-Mark 1:14-15

It's very telling that these are the very first words the Gospel of Mark chooses to record Jesus as saying.
The kingdom is NOT something to wait for. Jesus says the kingdom is NOT something visible, and it is NOT something in the sky. The Kingdom Jesus taught is a spiritual reality that comes into the world through us. Considering that Jesus even said the kingdom was in and among the Pharisees in Luke 17, which seems almost offensive to consider, perhaps it is like a spiritual seed that has been planted inside each of us, and that activating faith in God makes it grow.

"Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it."-Luke 13:18-19

Jesus talked about the kingdom as if it would be a present reality, yet one that was growing in the world like a seed grows into a tree.

"And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."-Luke 13:20-21

To Jesus, the kingdom was something growing in us like yeast through dough, increasing in effectiveness.

"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."-Romans 14:17
"For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power."-1 Corinthians 4:20

Paul says the kingdom isn’t something you taste or touch like physical food. It’s not even saying the right words. But rather the kingdom comes in the realities of righteousness, peace, joy and power that flavor our lives when we live empowered by the Spirit of God and God's Spirit in us.
Since Jesus the Messiah returned only 40 years after his earthly ministry, putting all enemies under his feet, the complete consummation of earth with the kingdom of heaven has finally taken place.
The kingdom of God has come, and it continues to come through us as believers. It makes progress like light shining into the world and dispelling the darkness.

"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."-Matthew 5:14-16

As a non-EU national, here are some notes from my personal VFS experiences:
Online appointment

1. You don't need to provide all docs when booking a Schengen visa appointment. You can do it parallelly i.e. secure an appointment, and use the days leading up to it to gather and print all necessary docs + copies of everything including expired passports + visas.
2. Be careful NOT to keep refreshing the page (no matter how tempting it is) because there's a limit and if you cross it, you will be penalised. You will be asked to refresh your browser cache/cookies and/or wait for 2 hours. You can try to use a dummy email for the refreshing so that when you see a slot open up, you simply log in with your real one and then book the slot. Sometimes when you log in repeatedly, it doesn't let you log in for a while. Don't be alarmed. Try using multiple devices or network connections.
3. Slots open up randomly and it's hard to predict the pattern. I noticed it opened up 1x every 15-17 days in the evening around 6 pm. If you can afford to go to another city, you may be able to find slots at other VFS centres in the country that receive less volume. I had been checking everyday for an entire month and a half before I managed to get a slot.
4. It will NOT show you all available slots but they do exist (!!!). Don't fall for this terrible UI/UX dark pattern. The moment you see it a slot is available on XXX date. Click on the button because they actually have more slots in a calendar once you progress to that page. A lot of people don't realize this and wait for all dates to show up on the first screen. So even if you are not sure about the date it shows, that's fine. You will be able to see calendar availability for the next ~2 weeks and also be able to choose the time slot in the morning, afternoon, etc.
5. Appointment confirmation takes time once you reach the payment page and you may not get an email right away. The first attempt was rejected and no money was deducted thankfully. But it told me to check in 5 hours. When I did, I had no confirmation on my Dashboard. I tried again and used another payment method which deducted my money. But still not confirmation. After about 2 hours, I checked my dashboard and it was confirmed. Still no email confirmation. I had to manually re-send the booking confirmation.
6. The DOB on my appointment confirmation on VFS portal was incorrect even though I put the right one. The code is messed up because it showed the date of booking minus 1 year as my DOB. Don't worry if this happens. Go to your appointment. (All the money they take and they can't fix this bug). This happens if you don't book their Insurance - and I didn't. The poor design might make it seem like that's a required step, but it's not.
7. Once you get an appointment, the window to reschedule is small but you will not lose your existing slot if you do click the button to explore the options.

At the centre

1. Poor design extends IRL where they don't have clear signages making people think that the Premium Lounge is the only option. The person told me that I would have to pay a horrendous amount of about 155 EUR / 168 USD (which wasn't listed on the website). I said no thanks. They tried to convince me by saying that lounge doesn't have a queue. I told her to tell me where the regular booth was. Surprise surprise. There was no queue there either. It's just a trick for you to pay as much money as possible.
2. Queues for uncommon or less mainstream countries like Luxembourg, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland were practically empty for the first 2 hours in the morning and less crowded. Popular countries like France, Italy, and Germany were packed by 10.30 am with only a few seats available. This is also the section that has more seats and more booths due to the volume of applicants.
3. Even if you have all copies and all documents, be prepared for them to stump you because it's unlikely the experience will be frictionless. Your photo won't work if you are wearing glasses or the background isn't white etc etc etc. It seems like their mandate is to not accept applications on the first go. Even when I have had all the documents and all copies, there's been something that they bring up. Eg. "the visa processing time is 60 days" but when I booked my appointment, it was 15-20 days on the website (I still have 45 days though). The person told me that they would have to ask the manager (but that never happened). They made me write a declaration stating I was made aware of this by the personnel. I mean, it's a bit ridiculous. As it is, you barely get an appointment, when you do the instructions differ from when you actually go there. So, there's really no winning.
4. Apparently their Trustpilot feedback is fake. Even if you write something, chances are it will get overshadowed by bots. There was a case about how they manipulated this overnight.
5. Make sure your docs and bookings have YOUR NAME on everything, dates, locations (with addresses for accommodation), and phone number and email of the places. Once you submit this, they will "verify" and make you wait. I literally saw one of the dudes behind the counter playing with my passport smh.
6. Your name will be called and you will get a slip (this means they have accepted your application) which includes tracking information etc. You will need to go make the payment. After this, go BACK TO THE COUNTER where you submitted docs. Collect your folder and proceed to the biometric room. Don't sit, give the person your receipt/slip and wait in the queue. Your name will be called to do the biometric stuff. After this, you have to, once again, GO BACK to the counter and submit your folder with your documents and passport. Then, we wait and hope for the best.
7. Do your research and get receipts and printouts of EVERYTHING because I wouldn't trust the people behind the counter to do their due diligence. I mean EVERYTHING. If you intend to take an internal train or a public bus, print out the train schedule and put it in there. If you intend to go to another country that allows visa-free entry for valid Schengen visa holders, take a printout of that Embassy's notice and put it in. I can't stress this enough. Get proof and documentation for everything you possibly can.
8. FYI Some countries say it has to be your "first" port of entry and/or "main destination". Some countries will only accept if it is your MAIN destination i.e. longest duration of stay. Check relevant sites and be careful!

IDK if this goes to show how cumbersome the process is but it is almost always unpleasant and borderline traumatic. I feel for the people who don't know any better, who have to rely on some agent, or in general are unable to see through the BS. The monopoly enables them to play God and while their job should be to pass on your docs and application, they seem to exercise their own discretionary power to make it hell for people who don't know better. Meh.
I have never left a VFS appointment feeling good about anything. I don't think the Premium Lounge would have helped to solve this either. I hope the VFS monopoly dies and the Schengen Visa digitisation makes this easier. Good luck and hang in there.

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Hello, i’ve been trying to do dumbbell presses for the first time in a long time, however my rotator cuffs and overall stability are still very lacking. I shake when having the weight up in the air ready to press down, and overall my arms can flair a bit and my shoulder tends to interfere with my reps. I have already corrected my form and press with an angle around 45 degrees and i do have my hands nearing the ends of the dumbbells going inwards. I also do warmups for rotator cuffs every session both free weight, cable and bands. I had a prvious injury but my old PT just said i have to keep strengthening my weak cuffs. I havent been to my PT since summer but I have been doing the exercises he gave to me. Any tips? also i havent been doing freeweights for a good amount of time, i.e doing smith machine and stopped doing overhead presses.

I would like to colour the vowel ◌็อย of a given Thai word ผล็อย, part of which is the diacritic ◌็ on the consonant ล, without highlighting any of the consonant parts.
I have tried to do the following which should work based on Google searches but doesn't colour the diacritic (at least on AnkiDroid): ผล็อย
I have also tried inserting the COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINER (U+034F) before the which people online have mentioned helps the renderer to treat the base character and diacritic as separate pieces before formatting and combining, but this doesn't seem to make a difference.
Does anyone have anything else I can try?

Saturday 18 May 2024
Today in Philosophy of History
Further Elaborations on the Coming Coeval Age
My essay “The Coming Coeval Age” has appeared in Isonomia Quarterly for summer 2024. Last year I contributed an essay to the initial number of the journal. As with my recent paper in the Journal of Big History, “A Complexity Ladder for Big History,” this most recent essay isn’t narrowly about philosophy of history, but there are many philosophy of history themes in it.
The journal’s interest in the theme of isonomia was my point of departure for considering the institutional structure of civilization at the largest conceivable scales. What is isonomia? There is a passage in Book III of Herodotus known as the constitutional debate in which three speakers argue for the best form of government, with these three being monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. Here is the first of three speakers in Herodotus advocating for isonomia:

“Otanes urged that they should resign the government into the hands of the whole body of the Persians, and his words were as follows: ‘To me it seems best that no single one of us should henceforth be ruler, for that is neither pleasant nor profitable. Ye saw the insolent temper of Cambyses, to what lengths it went, and ye have had experience also of the insolence of the Magian: and how should the rule of one alone be a well-ordered thing, seeing that the monarch may do what he desires without rendering any account of his acts? Even the best of all men, if he were placed in this disposition, would be caused by it to change from his wonted disposition: for insolence is engendered in him by the good things which he possesses, and envy is implanted in man from the beginning; and having these two things, he has all vice: for he does many deeds of reckless wrong, partly moved by insolence proceeding from satiety, and partly by envy. And yet a despot at least ought to have been free from envy, seeing that he has all manner of good things. He is however naturally in just the opposite temper towards his subjects; for he grudges to the nobles that they should survive and live, but delights in the basest of citizens, and he is more ready than any other man to receive calumnies. Then of all things he is the most inconsistent; for if you express admiration of him moderately, he is offended that no very great court is paid to him, whereas if you pay court to him extravagantly, he is offended with you for being a flatterer. And the most important matter of all is that which I am about to say:—he disturbs the customs handed down from our fathers, he is a ravisher of women, and he puts men to death without trial. On the other hand the rule of many has first a name attaching to it which is the fairest of all names, that is to say “Equality”; next, the multitude does none of those things which the monarch does: offices of state are exercised by lot, and the magistrates are compelled to render account of their action: and finally all matters of deliberation are referred to the public assembly. I therefore give as my opinion that we let monarchy go and increase the power of the multitude; for in the many is contained everything’.”

The three forms of government—monarchical, oligarchical, and democratic—are a perennial theme of Greek political thought that continues to echo through the history of Western civilization. Book III of Aristotle’s Politics goes into this in some detail.
After sending my essay off to Isonomia Quarterly I realized that one of the fundamental ambiguities about the idea of isonomia—and I would have included a footnote on this if I had thought of it sooner—is the ambiguity implicit in speaking in terms of the same law. What is it that is “the same” when we speak of the same law? “The same law” could mean that every particular law would apply to every particular person, or “the same law” could mean that the totality of the law, that is, the whole body of law, applies to the totality of the population. A body of law might involve different laws that apply differently to different persons, so that the second of the two senses does not entail the first of the two senses. If you read my essay you’ll find that I argue that the Greeks understood isonomia in the latter sense, so I won’t repeat that argument or the sources I cite for it here. But the fact that we might interpret a fundamental political idea in different ways poses the question of how these fundamental ideas outlined in antiquity apply to us today, if they do apply, and how they ought to apply now and in the future.
How will these traditional ideas be interpreted in future iterations of human society that might differ quite considerably from the world that we inhabit? How are we to understand isonomia within the context of a spacefaring civilization? For that matter, how are we to understand any classical Greek political theory in the context of future changes to society? For Westerners, this is our heritage, and how this tradition adapts or is adapted to changed conditions will give shape to the ongoing tradition of Western civilization.
In my essay I suggest that, on Earth to date, the expansion of political regimes has constituted what I call synchronic isonomia, when societies are distributed synchronically, that is to say, when they interact in the present across geographical distances. In a specifically legal context, this means the iteration of a body of law across a region of space. The possibility of what Frank White calls Large-Scale Space Migration would initially constitute synchronic expansion on a scale greater than that possible on Earth, but, if continued, it would eventually cross a threshold of diachronic isonomia, that is to say, when societies are distributed diachronically over time. In a specifically legal context, again, this means the iteration of a body of law, the same law, over a period of time. The strange, seemingly paradoxical aspect of this way of thinking is that the human scale of time could be distributed over a much larger cosmological scale of time while retaining its character as distinctively human history. I will try to explain how this could come about, but first I want to point out a peculiarity of terrestrial history that we haven’t seen as a peculiarity.
We are familiar with the idea that we see the universe form a peculiar point of view because we see it from the surface of a planet. Our planetary perspective has been the focus of the Copernican revolution, which has taught us that our apparently centrality in the universe is an artifact of our limited and parochial perspective. The Copernican revolution taught us to transcend our planetary perspective and to see the universe from a non-terrestrial perspective, but there is another aspect of the Copernican revolution that we haven’t yet explored, and that is seeing history from a non-terrestrial perspective. Part of this non-terrestrial perspective is simply to understand that, just as we are not in the center of space, we are also not in the center of time. But there’s more to it than this.
Einstein’s theory of relativity has made it possible for us to see time in a new way, and this can change the way we see history. In many of my episodes I have talked about the need to address the disconnect between philosophies of time and philosophies of history. History is constructed out of time, so a radical reconceptualization of time suggests a radical reconceptualization of history. The theory of relativity is such a radical reconceptualization of time, but many of the influences of relativity and gravity upon time are usually not noticed on a terrestrial scale, and all human history to date has occurred on terrestrial scale.
We can see the effects of relativity when we look out into the cosmos and use instruments to observe cosmological distances over which relatively is relevant, and to observe bodies so dense that they change the structure of spacetime. To date, our technologies have allowed us to measure the relativity of time under the influence of acceleration and gravitation, but we may, at some point in our history, develop technologies that allow us to interact with the universe at a scale at which relativity will change our history. When this eventuality comes to pass, we will eventually be forced to notice things about our history that hadn’t previously been problematic.
Our history to date has been the simplest possible history because it has all transpired on Earth. Earth is our sole inertial frame of reference for all historical events. There are relativistic effects within this inertial frame of reference, but they can only be detected by instruments of extreme precision because the influence of relativity lies below the threshold of human perception. For example, every planet drags its spacetime around with it as it rotates, which is known as frame-dragging. And even the relatively crude instruments of the nineteenth century could detect the perihelion precession of Mercury, which is an observable relativistic perturbation of the orbit of Mercury. This was first observed and noted to diverge from Newtonian predictions in 1859. These relativistic effects are, however, well below the threshold of impacting human history.
Technologies could change this. Relativistic space travel would be such a technology. This has been made famous by the so-called “twins paradox.” The twins paradox is invoked with greatest effect by the use of individuals to illustrate the difference between two clocks in different inertial frames of reference—usually a set of twins. This was called a paradox because it was initially thought to be impossible. We also saw this use of individuals to demonstrate the poignancy of time dilation in the film Interstellar. Here it is a father and daughter who are separated, with the father experiencing an accelerated inertial frame of reference, so that he returns, still a young man, to find his daughter dying as an old woman. This is great for drama, but this isn’t how any relativistic space settlement effort is going to play out, unless someone purposefully arranges something like this as a stunt.
Let us consider a simple example of what is more likely to occur. Suppose a settlement on another world established by several thousands of individuals, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands, like a small city, who travel to another planetary system, tens or hundreds or thousands of light years from Earth. The passengers on the starship in their accelerated inertial framework will experience time dilation, and they will preserve the cultural milieu of Earth has it was upon their launch. When they establish their settlement, there will be two human histories that bifurcate at the point in time when the interstellar settlement initiative was inaugurated.
However, the larger population on Earth will continue to drive cultural evolution at a far faster rate than in the settlement, while, in the settlement, human beings will be subjected to radically different selection pressures than prevailed on Earth, and they will also be a small community likely to retain the cultural milieu they possessed when they left Earth. We would then have two human histories, offset in time by the discontinuity of the relativistic travel time from Earth to the location of the settlement. For example, if the Earth and the settlement are a hundred light years apart, there would be a temporal discontinuity of a century. Life would go on at Earth, and a century later things would be different, but a century later the settlement would just be founded on the basis of Earth’s culture of a century before. This is a kind of historical complexity that we do not have today, but which could happen in the future.
Now imagine not one settlement, but a hundred or a thousand such settlements, each representing a temporal discontinuity from Earth’s history. A hundred settlements of ten thousand persons each would be an effort involving only a million persons, which is a very small proportion of the total human population; Earth wouldn’t even notice the absence of a million persons. Further, imagine travel among these settlements by relativistic spacecraft, and then the history of those who travel between settlements will be even more complex. In this context, depending upon the location of settlements relative to each other, and the date at which the settlement initiative was undertaken, an individual could effectively time travel into the past by traveling outward from Earth to a settlement that preserves the historical milieu at Earth at the time of its departure. You could not return to Earth without finding yourself accelerated into the future, but you could travel further outward to a settlement established from earlier in Earth’s history.
We get a similar, if slower result, if we substitute sub-relativistic spacecraft in conjunction with artificially induced torpor or hibernation—space arks, if you will. A slow boat to the stars would likewise preserve the culture of Earth from the time of its departure, with settlers being roused and resuming their lives once they reached the end of their journey, effectively cut off from a return to their familiar terrestrial milieu, but they would be able to visit other historical peer milieux if they take another slow boat further out into the cosmos.
The kind of distributed temporality that I am describing would achieve its greatest extent, and its greatest historical complexity, in the case of interstellar expansion. However, something similar could be realized on Earth at a smaller scale. Imagine a large scale hibernation project on Earth, such that about 10,000 persons are involved, enough so that there could be a rotating crew of a dozen or so that stays awake to tend the rest to make sure this continues to operate as intended. At some appointed time in the future, the whole community could be brought out of their hibernation and they would bring with them the culture of Earth from their date when they entered into hibernation, now displaced into the future. This would make it possible for temporally distributed communities to appear on Earth, without travel to other worlds or the use of relativistic technology. There are several science fiction stories with something like this as their approximate premise.
Whether through relativistic travel or human hibernation, historical communities could be preserved from all eras into some indefinite future, and in that indefinite future, these distinct historical communities would be synchronically present. This is what I call coevalism, when all ages of history are equally accessible. The idea of coevalism occurred to me many years ago, and not in connection with relativistic travel; I was thinking about the increasing fidelity of recording technologies. Written language is the most rudimentary form of recording technology, and is allows us the most rudimentary form of time travel, by being able to share the thoughts of those long dead. Since the industrial revolution, technologies have become much more sophisticated, with photographs, film, and sound recordings, with always-increasing fidelity to the original.
The rapid growth of computer technology and telecommunications in recent decades has made us aware that, if this arc of technological development continues, we will have nearly-perfect fidelity recordings. But in addition to recordings, we could generate states-of-affairs that never existed in fact, as in fantasy and science fiction, or we could generate the milieux of the past, both with a degree of fidelity equal to that of the present. Computers are already sufficiently sophisticated to generate simple films, and the reconstruction of past milieux can be done without computers as well.
In the original Westworld film on 1973, a past milieu was re-created using robots. Robotics hasn’t yet achieved this level of realism, but we could do this today with human actors, and we may yet do so someday with robots. In fact, we do this in a limited way. Theme parks re-create fantasy worlds populated with actors who make fantasy characters come to life. So coevalism can be realized at smaller scales than sparefaring civilizations, but it would be in a spacefaring civilizations with relativistic space travel in which the possibilities of coevalism would come to their fullest expression, and in which history would achieve its greatest complexity.
History is already extraordinarily complex, but I said earlier than our terrestrial history is the simplest history possible given the spacetime structure of the universe. It is when we begin distributing our civilization in cosmological time that historical complexity will cease to be a single linear continuum. The possibilities of spacefaring histories will be both facilitated and limited by our technology. These possibilities will also be facilitated and limited by the actual spacetime structure of the universe, which is a function of the distribution of matter in the universe. Just as terrestrial history has been shaped by oceans, mountain ranges, and rivers, cosmological history is shaped by stars, gravitation, and expansion, and human history that takes place within this cosmological context will be shaped by these forces. The point I want to make is that, while human history is complex, we are not necessarily limited by the complexity of the single inertial frame of reference of our homeworld.
When multiple inertial frames of reference are available to us, and travel between then is possible, the possible structures of history will dramatically expand, and with these possibilities human experience will dramatically expand, and I hope you can see how this can give a whole new meaning to the idea of speculative philosophy of history. In the conventional distinction between analytical philosophy of history and substantive philosophy of history, analytical philosophy of history is, according to Danto, “…philosophy applied to the special conceptual problems which arise out of the practice of history,” while substantive philosophy of history is a philosophical account of the historical process itself. This same distinction has also been called the distinction between critical and speculative philosophy of history by William Dray, and the distinction between formal and material philosophy of history by Maurice Mandelbaum. Here I emphasize speculative philosophy of history as that which reflects uon the actual historical process.
In addition to the speculative philosophy of history that considers the historical process, we can also imagine a speculative philosophy of history that concerns itself with the implications of speculative states-of-affairs upon history yet to come—historical processes not yet realized, but which may be realized someday. Many of the speculative states-of-affairs I can imagine involve human exploration and expansion into the cosmos. The speculative states-of-affairs we might encounter in the wider universe could involve scientific discoveries not yet made and technologies not yet constructed, the histories of life on other worlds and the histories of alien civilizations, as well as the histories that we will create for ourselves. It’s a big universe, and we might discover any number of unlikely or unprecedented existents.
In my episode on a complexity ladder for big history I argued that there may be distinctive emergents from historical knowledge, that is to say, the quantitative growth of historical knowledge may pass a threshold to become a qualitative change in historical understanding. What kind of emergents could these be? For example, an increase in the knowledge of our own history can change our understanding of ourselves. We are seeing this with the use of the genetic record to reconstruct the sequence by which human beings distributed themselves across Earth. In this way, epistemic emergents reshape our past and our understanding of ourselves.
In addition to these emergents from knowledge of our past, there may yet come emergents that arise from a temporally distributed civilization and the advent of coevalism. A temporally distributed civilization could also give rise to emergents in historical knowledge. The dawning realization of epistemic emergents yet to come in the future will shape our conception of what we can become (in contradistinction to increased knowledge of the past shaping what we are), reshaping our future, and we will need these epistemic emergents from a history of a greater order of complexity so as to understand the more complex world coming into being, and which our descendants will inhabit. Without these epistemic emergents we would not be able to understand the more complex world arising out of these novel technologies and the world they will bring into being. The future of philosophy of history has never been brighter, as we see that it will come to grappled with ever-larger and more complex problems.

Video Presentation

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Podcast Edition

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Iheartradio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-today-in-philosophy-of-his-146507578/episode/the-coming-coeval-age-177527570/
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Hi Leetcoders! I wanted to share a successful profile of someone that landed jobs at Meta, Google, and Microsoft with 2 YOE and a Master's degree.
The interview journey is long and difficult. Reviewing someone else's successful interview preparation process and the interview questions they were asked could be super useful to prepare for your own interviews.
Take a break from Leetcode and let's see how they achieved it.
YOE: 2
Previous Company: JP Morgan
Highest Education: Master's
Background: Fullstack Software Engineer

Interview Preparation

Behavioral

• YT videos by Dan Croitor
• Understand various Leadership principles.
• Go through your Resume and write stories following STAR approach Your story should project at-least one of the attribute such as taking lead, resolving conflicts, dealing with ambiguity etc..
• Read, Rehearse and Repeat.

Technical
Coding

• Leetcode
  • Would recommend buying premium subscription. It's worth it.
  • Try to do daily Leetcode challenges. It helps you in being consistent and also covers variety of problems.
  • I used Explore card of Google and Facebook and tried to solve most of the problems.
  • Top 100 questions by frequency.
  • Top 75 LC curated: https://leetcode.com/list/xi4ci4ig/
• Cracking the Coding Interview book
• YT channels/videos:
  • Data Structure lectures by Abdul Bari
  • Graph Theory by Willian Fiset
• Few Tips:
  • Try to solve a problem by yourself, even if you are not able to come-up with an optimal solution.
  • Think about time and space complexity of your solution. Identify sections which can be optimised and think of a better solution/ data structure.
  • After understanding the approach, try to implement it yourself without taking a look at code. This would help you in really understanding the concept.
  • Try to beat 90% of solutions by runtime.

System Design

• Book: DDIA (MUST READ if targeting Google)
• Book: System Design Interview by Alex Xu
• System Design Primer by Donne Martin
• Courses - Groking the System Design and Groking the Advanced System Design
• YT:
  • System Design Interview videos by Mikhail Smarshchok.
  • InfoQ videos and presentations
  • Go through Architecture of popular systems such as GFS, Kafka, Cassandra etc.

Interview Experiences

Accepted: Meta, Google, Microsoft
Rejected: Uber, Atlassian

Meta

Only did Leetcode daily challenges this month and went through 10-15 FB tagged problems(sorted by frequency) before the interview. Spent 1-2 days in preparing for behavioural round as well (writing stories following STAR approach).
Had 2 coding + 1 product design + 1 behavioural round with Facebook.
In 1 coding round I had to solve 2 LC mediums and in other round 1 LC easy and 1 LC Hard was given. Solved all 4 problems. These were all variations of FB tagged problems on Leetcode and if you have solved them, it's fairly easy. Yep, FB is very predictable w.r.t. coding.I had very strong feedback for 2 coding rounds, good feedback for behavioural but my product design round didn't meet E5 expectations. This was I believe happened due to following reasons:

• Never did a mock-up before or gave any product design interview before. This was the first time for me in an interview setup so was a bit nervous a well. I would highly recommend doing some mock interviews.
• I had prepared extensively for system design which focuses heavily on the system side (Database, Schema, Partitioning, Replication etc.). In product design, you are expected to focus more on the API side and High level functionality. I was not given a choice between product design and system design round. Talk to your recruiter and see if you can schedule the round where you are strong at.

Recruiter reached out to me and offered to send my packet to HC for E4 as feedback for product design didn't meet the bar for E5. I declined as it was not worth and a down-level for my experience.

Google

I had 3 coding rounds , 1 system design and 1 googlyness round.
Round 1 (Coding): 1 ambiguous problem with follow-ups. Expectation was to gather requirements and frame the problem statement. Once the scope was defined I provided few solutions with Time/Space complexities. Coded the same. Had few follow-ups w.r.t. what changes I'd make to make it thread-safe etc. This went well.
Round 2(Coding): 2 problems were given. First was related to 2-D matrix and 2nd was a graph problem. Solved both.
Round 3(Coding): A problem statement was given related to a e-commerce website. Had to gather requirements and once the scope was clear I understood it was a graph problem. Provided solutions using both DFS and BFS approach, implemented using DFS. Follow-up was again how to make it thread-safe. Next was kind of LLD question where I was given a problem and was expected to define classes/schema and relations. I provided a generic solution which would scale even for cases outside of problem statement scope.
Round 4(System Design): Was a given a problem related to a real life scenario. Very practical but not something you'd find on any YT channel or course. Since I had never seen the problem before there were no biases or known design in my mind. Kept it simple from the beginning. After gathering functional and non-functional requirements and some back-of-the-envelope estimations presented a very simple high level design. I literally drew just 3 components: client, server and a database. Then started talking about how I can scale each layer and talked about trade-offs as well. This was 1 hr round and first 45 mins went pretty well. In last 15 minutes I wasn't sure about what to talk about more as I was not getting any feedback from my interviewer. I believe he only talked during first 10 mins when I was gathering requirements and he had to answer my queries. In last 15 mins I thought of providing an algorithm of how to implement my approach and talked about few data-structures as well (although this might not be in scope of system design round). After the interview I knew it won't be a No Hire but was also not sure whether it would be Lean Hire or Hire etc.
Round 5(Googlyness): This was the best round. I discussed about various scenarios and situations following the STAR approach. I had prepared a lot of answers w.r.t. ambiguity, leadership, conflict, strengths etc. but I was kind of surprised as he didn't ask any direct questions which you usually prepare. I guess I only used 1 prepared story and rest was on the fly. But if you had prepared enough, you'll know what to answer and how to answer and would be able to relate to it using one of your experiences/projects.
Problems asked in Google were not directly from LC or any other platform. If you had practiced enough, you'll be able to solve them.Make sure you gather requirements, ask questions before jumping to solution. Keep talking and explain your thought process through-out. This is very important as interviewer would be able to judge you better and provide hints, if required.

Microsoft

Round 1 (Coding): It was a online assessment round. I had to solve 2 problems in 90 mins time. These 2 problems were new to me and I didn't find them on Leetcode. I'll categorize them as LC medium from algorithm perspective. But I had to write a lot of boiler-plate code unlike the usual LC mediums. You are given few visible test-cases and option to add custom test-cases. When you submit, 10-12 hidden test-cases are executed which are only visible post submission. So make sure you write your own test-cases well. After talking to various folks and going through community discussions, I also focused on code quality.I was able to solve both of them in 60 mins. Spent next 15 mins in adding comments in various functions to explain what they were doing. I also mentioned time and space complexity wherever I felt it was required. This is really important as this was not the screening round for me but an actual coding round where I would be judged not just on code correctness but also on code quality/modularity.My score was 100% (I passed all the visible and hidden test-cases for both the problems)
Round 2(Coding): 2 LC mediums with follow-ups. This went really well. Since we completed the coding exercise in ~35 mins, spent next 10 mins discussing my work experience/projects.
Round 3(LLD): First 10-15 mins were spent on my work experience. I had to design a Parking-Lot. Went well. You can find a lot of example/tutorials on Youtube etc.
Round 4(HLD): This was the Hiring Manager round. First 20 mins spent on my projects and various discussions w.r.t. how I handled a particular scenario and why I chose one technology over other. Next was given a popular HLD question. I did very well here. I believe this round differentiated between L63/L64 level and given my interview performance, I was offered L64 eventually.
Round 5(Director): This was mostly project discussions and behavioural questions. Nothing technical. Went well.

Uber

Screening Round: This was rather unexpected as interviewer gave me a LC Hard graph problem!! Who expects a LC hard in screening ? Well, Graph theory is one of my favourite and kind of my strength too, so I solved the problem well within time limit. At the start of the interview she told that if I could write the psuedo-code, that'd we fine too. But since we had time, I wrote some test-cases and tried the ones she copied pasted as well. All worked, pheww.
Round 1(Coding): 2 LC medium types. 1 related to Linked-List and other binary tree problem. Solved both.
Round 2(Coding): 1 data-structure design problem with lot of follow-ups including making it thread safe. Similar to Design a HashMap with custom O(1) operations. I was able to come up with design and implemented the same with O(1) complexity. Couldn't find the variation given to me on Leetcode.
Round 3(System Design): Design Uber. (yep, LOL)
Round 4 (Hiring Manager): Mostly project discussions and Behavioural questions.
Round 5 (Behavioural) - Cancelled. I received offers from Google and Microsoft and asked them to cancel as I had a deadline to make a decision on offers.

Atlassian

I felt Atlassian's interviews are really practical and they don't ask questions which you won't be expected to solve on a daily-basis. No screening round here, just a 30 min discussion with recruiter before scheduling interviews:
Round 1(Coding) : 1 problem was given. I was expected to code the same in my preferred IDE (IntelliJ, Eclipse etc.). Focus was mostly on data-structures and code quality. The algorithm itself was really easy if you chose correct data-structures. I used HashMap, Set and PriorityQueue in my solution. Created multiple classes, methods etc. Wrote a few test-cases. You end-up writing a lot of boiler-plate code in IDE as you need to write the main class and method, instantiate everything and then create test-cases. I even used a debugger to debug one of the test-case. This round went well.
Round 2(Machine Coding): Asked to implement a Rate-Limiter. Used an IDE again. Was given 1 problem statement and was expected to write a Object-oriented and modular code. This also went well.
Feedback of both the rounds were positive and recruiter scheduled 3 more rounds for me. 1 Design and 2 Cultural fit types. But I had to cancel them all as I had a deadline to make a decision on offers.

Closing Advice

Do not try to memorize or cram anything, it's useless. Instead try to deeply understand concepts and be curious. That's the only way to make this more enjoyable. It's a difficult journey but it will all be worth it at the end!
I hope this provides some perspective on the blackbox SWE interviews and helps you prepare better!
Full Experience: Here
Candidate's Resume: Here