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Cake day: January 26th, 2024

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  • Strength training should be kept simple (I’m a former personal trainer and a current strongman competitor).

    For health 2x per week full body is plenty For strength/size/performance 3-6x (with 4x being the best for most of the time) is ideal.

    Ideally compound movements (movements using multiple muscle groups) should be the foundation of your training, and should come first in a session as they are often heavier/more complex. Examples are squats/leg press, Bench/dumbbell bench/chest press, Overhead/shoulder press, deadlift/Romanian deadlift, barbell row/seated row.

    If you are making your own “program”/ doing your own thing, first make sure it’s enjoyable, then make sure you either add reps(hard), sets (hard), or weight (easier at first) over time (daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever feels sustainable) only switching out movements when they aren’t progressing/hurt/are boring for similar ones (e.g. replace leg press with hack squat).

    And for a rule of thumb, choose exercises such that at least once a week (usually twice is better) you are doing something from each of these categories:

    • Knee Flexion (squat, lunge, leg press, etc.)
    • Hip Hinge (Deadlift, Romanian deadlift, back raise, leg curl)
    • Horizontal Row (barbell row, seated cable row, DB row)
    • Vertical Row (Pull downs, pull ups)
    • Horizontal Press (Bench, chest press)
    • Vertical Press (Overhead Press, Shoulder Press, front/side raises
    • Core (something dynamic like leg raises, and something static like planks)

    If you are new, 4 tough sets (not dying, but you have to put in effort) per week in each of these categories is plenty.

    Rare exercises are usually either pointless, very niche, or should be viewed as a fun movement or warm-up (like dumbbell snatches).

    You can use an app like Macrofactor to track food, but honestly if you track your calories over a week using a spreadsheet that might be enough for most people. Better for most would be eat more sources of protein (meat, tofu, protein powder, etc) and track your body weight every day. If you want to be more muscular, your body weight should at least stay the same, or go up slowly overtime (maybe around 1% per month), and if you want to reduce body fat your body weight should go down no more than 1% per week. These recommendations are in the context of strength training.

    Eating an abundance of plant based foods ( like fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains) is a great idea. Definitely not in the form of like meat substitutes. The bigger variety the better, there are no “super foods”. But I grow something called Cape Ground Cherries. They are a weird little fruit that grow in husks, and tast like a sweeter, more fruit like tomato (I live in a temperate zone with a shortish growing season, 130-140 days, and hot summer’s).

    I think that covers everything as generally as I can.



  • I do something similar. But I also have a huge master list organized by category (for chores it’s rooms based) and frequency (daily, monthly, etc) with a check box next to each thing.

    I have it posted up on a wall where I can’t help but see it, and next to it is a whiteboard calendar where I schedule all of these tasks. You could always try something like this (I know it’s borderline insane but ADHD gonna ADHD) or make it your own.

    The key though is to make it iterative. Pay attention to what works (for example with chores, is sweeping daily too often? Then change it. Same goes for studying) and modify it on set intervals (every 2 weeks, month, whatever).

    It gives a visual representation of what needs to be done, when, and provides accountability because you can see what you did/didn’t do, and so can anyone else who has access to it.

    It took me probably 6 hours to initially set it up, but it’s been huge for me.

    Alternatively (or as part of some organizational strategy), focus your effort on tasks you do like and subjects you do like, while doing enough to just get by on everything else. Breaks are important, but try not to interrupt any states of flow you get into.

    Bonus: Post Secondary School is hard! Be gentle with yourself. And remember it is rarely a life or death situation. Follow your syllabus, it’s there to guide you, and talk to your instructor and classmates when you can. There will never (unless you have insane physics professors like did) be new material on a test. It’s always something you have covered. It may not be a specific question/problem/topic you have solved/written about, but it will use all the same skills and knowledge you’ve developed. Plus, a lot of questions come from fairly standard question banks with digital learning software becoming nearly ubiquitous.




  • Sure there will be. Elections, especially the carefully controlled elections in the usa, are a great method of social control. If people are allowed to vote for someone it maintains the veneer of democracy, and reduces civil unrest.

    Imagine if the party funded by billionaires didn’t let you vote at all. It would be very clear that you live under a dictatorship of the wealthy owner class. But if instead you can vote for 2 candidates, both funded by the owner class, you “have a choice” and it appears democratic.

    As well, with such a stranglehold on information/media, the same donors can accept third parties as they will never get enough votes for it to change the power structure. But what happens if a third party has a bit too much support? Well you can’t have that, so the parties you fund work to get them taken off the ballot based on some law that is intended to maintain the status quo. That way you maintain “legitimacy” in the eyes of the people, remove the threat, and continue controlling the population for your own benefit.





  • Within any job, there is what your role is on paper, and what you actually do over the course of a work day. Often times what you actually do is much more than “expected”. Work to rule means that you stick explicitly to what your role is, and the way the company expects you to perform your duties. Or rather, what they expect on paper.

    An example: Unionized employees will often “work to rule” as one of the first steps aimed at putting pressure on an employer to negotiate. It’s an entirely legal thing to do, and serves to exemplify the disconnect between on paper job expectations (what you are paid for), and real expectations.

    Thus, working as per your contract/job description with minimal deviation, will minimize how much you are exploited by ensuring you only do the work out are paid for.






  • I think if you focus on your friends, neighbours, hobbies, etc. You can find peace within the enshittification. But I think it’s a bad idea to ignore the shit. Get mad about it. You should be mad. It’s bullshit. But what then? We can wallow in the shit by ourselves, or we can find groups of people with similar interests. Who knows what happens after.

    And by similar interests I mean this as an example: Are you pissed about genocide? Good! You should be! Others are too. Find them, and do something about it. You’ll build relationships that will at least help carry you through the shit.


  • According to this community absolutely yes, but no in reality.

    Just as an aside to add a fact to your statement: Marxism is a process that has been used to critique capitalism, as anyone who is intellectually honest should do. For example: if someone says "socialism doesn’t work " someone who is a Marxist might ask “okay, historically is this true?” And they would see that several socialist experiments have struggled. Then, as anyone who cares to understand would ask, they might say “okay then what happened to cause this?”. And in many cases you will see that Western Imperialism has sought to destroy these movements through various methods including assassinations, and funding groups like the Mujahideen.

    Damn. Well, then someone left might say 'well that’s Capitalisms fault". At which point it might be justified to call them a tankie. Someone else might conclude" hmm, Capitalist states do not want socialist states to succeed, therefore a socialist state should expect aggressive action from capitalist states. Thus, ONE of the problems with past socialist experiments has been their inability to withstand these external threats." Someone who doesn’t critique anything might say “SEE COMMUNISM NEVER WORKS!”

    TLDR; One of the key aspects of Marxism/Socialism/Communism is the criticism of past, current, and future political economic systems (capitalism, feudalism, socialism etc). Anyone who ignores this hasn’t read much, and should consider whether what they are consuming is state propaganda.