3 rounds:
30 KBS (2 pood)
As fast as possible
1 min rest
Daily report
- Body: Fine. Funny story; so last night I was lighting the grill to throw on a few t-bones and the damn match wouldn't spark the gas to get 'er goin. Of course if it doesn't light with the grill closed, it will probably start with the grill open, right? Wrong. Very wrong. The second I opened the grill with a lit match in my hand the gas erupted and I cinged all of the hair off of my right side. Arms, facial hair, eyelashes, and a bit of my buzz cut. Very embarassed, but okay. FML.. propane grills suck anyways. Next time sticking to charcoal.
- Sleep: Enough.
- Nutrition: Pledging this week to stay clean.
- Notes: Solid workout. Last set very challenging, but unbroken. 1 minute rest felt short.
- Oh, and by the way. Finalized my trip to the games. YEEAA BOOIII
- Good books:
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace -- Just finished this book on Thursday of last week. It has been a goal of mine to read this book for awhile now, and I am very glad that I plowed through it in only one month. It was a fairly long read, coming in at close to 1200 pages. That said, it kept my interest throughout the entire read. DFW 'gets it', I'm not sure how else to put it... he has a gift for witty humor and precise description unlike any author I've read before. I learned a ton reading this book, but it is difficult for me to recommend it -- this isn't a book you can just pick up and casually read. The premise of the book is best understood by learning about the title... "Infinite Jest" is a line from Hamlet (Act V, Scn 1) where Hamlet is holding the skull of Yorick, a jester. He says "Alas, Poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times and now how abhorred in my imagination it is!" Yorick lived his life a a jester... worshiping vanity and escape. He lived for nothing, and now is nothing... Hamlet will end up like him no matter what, but what will his legacy be? Interestingly, "Infinite Jest" is also the title of a "cartrige" or video in the novel known as "the entertainment" which is rumored to be so compelling upon watching it that after its viewing, the person watching gives up all else in order to watch the film. It is difficult for me to sum up the book, as I can tell from how long this rambling is going.. but in short, the book covers everything. I have also recently picked up a set of DFW's essays which were fantastic (Consider the Lobser.) David Foster Wallace is for the moment my favorite author and I plan to go through as much of his work as possible before the summer is out.
- On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins -- I read this at the very end of the school year, and I consider it one of the most interesting discussions of the human thought process I have ever read. I really enjoy books like this because I find it very facinating how mysterious the human brain is... there is nothing quite like it in the universe. Yet, as powerful as it is, it cannot figure out itself. Anyways, the main premise of the book is to compare artificial intelligence to human intelligence. What it boils down to is that even the best artificial intelligence boils down to the same three components: A processor, rules, and memory. An interesting thought experiment brought up in the book is to imagine someone sitting in an empty room, with only a tiny slit in one of the walls. Through this slit comes a reading test, i.e. several books of chinese, a sheet of rules (in English) for the chinese and a sheet to record answers. Given enough time, the English speaking person would be able to manipulate the chinese characters and get correct answers. What this demonstrates is that computers may be able to converse in 'human' language, no matter what they cannot 'understand' human language. Looking deeper into what it means for a human to 'understand,' Hawkins demonstrates that what sets us apart is the ability to predict. For example, when a person hears a certain series of notes in a song, we are always in our minds completing the different musical phrases. Also, when conversing with others, we are always seeking to complete other people's sentances in our heads. A well told joke has a punchline that was not predicted, evoking a breaking of tension or 'laughter.' Lastly, think of if you were to come into your room and the door handle was shifter only two inches higher than it usually was. Immediately, you would know that something was wrong. Why? Because you are always predicting your environment. These examples all showcase the fundamental difference between humans and computers; you could never program a computer to detect changes in the environment without programming every possible scenerio -- a seemigly impossibe task. Anyways, it was a great book and anyone else interested in brain books should check it out.
- Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer -- I sort of have a knack for memorizing things, so when I saw this on the bestsellers list at school I had to pick it up. This book follows Joshua through a training regime for the world memorization championships which includes events such as memorizing two decks of cards as fast as possible and being shown 300 faces and names and having to recall the names with only the faces 5 minutes later. What really stuck out to me in this read was an ancient memorization technique documented in a latin text called the Ad Herennium. The method is called the method of loci (loci=places in latin), which says that in order to memorize something, 'rerum' (things) must find their 'loci) in your mind. For example, there is a paradox known as the "Baker-Baker paradox" that was demonstrated by an experiment where 100 people were shown a person and were told that their last name was "Baker", another 100 people were shown the same person and were told that they were a baker (the occupation). Later, the experimenters asked each group to recall what they were told about the person. Overwhelmingly, the people remembered the occupation compared to the name. I used this in the last part of my latin course to memorize vocabulary... I have to say it is extremely helpful. Each word I break down into a neumonic device. I tell myself a story, and the more outrageous the better I remember. For example, one of our words was 'ingens' which means huge... my story was (pretending I am a bodybuilder) "if i keep mak"IN' GAINS" ... I'm gonna be HUGE." I dont know. Just some food for thought.
- Thank you blog, for helping me get to sleep. I'm sorry if you read through all of that, just thought I'd share some things I've been thinking about.
