Mindconnection eNL, 2010-07-04

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Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Product Highlight | Thought for the Day

How you vet and source your information is critical as to whether you are informed or disinformed. Few people have the discipline or knowledge to properly vet and source information, which is why most people are disinformed. They then reach conclusions based on this disinformation.

This does not have to be. Let's look now at how you can protect yourself from being disinformed.

Your first line of defense is to not "do media." Instead, look at primary sources, then secondary sources, then tertiary sources. Do you know what these are?

• Primary sources. Experts involved in original research. For example, a medical researcher who is specializing in experiments with conjuguated linoleic acid (CLA).
• Secondary sources. Peers of the experts, who draw from and understand the original research. For example, a PhD specializing in lipids research might read in Lipids Magazine an article posted by another PhD doing CLA research.
• Tertiary sources. Non-experts, drawing (and filtering) information from primary and secondary sources. For example, an author who writes a book on dietary fats. This person would review and reference the primary sources, and draw on secondary sources to make sense of it all.

Another type of source is an original source. If, for example, you want to know what US Grant thought about Lincoln's War, you can read Grant's Memoirs (he called that war "the war between the states" rather than a civil war, because by definition it was not a civil war).

Another type of unimpeachable source is the obvious expert source. Be careful here, as poor sources can convincingly disguise themselves as experts. Look at the person's accomplishments to determine if that person is an obvious expert.

• My friend Mike Holt is an international champion in barefoot waterskiing. He's an obvious expert on the sport.
• I got a phone call from Joshua Haney, wanting to know if his dad could send me an article for our fitness site at www.supplecity.com. His dad is 8 time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney. There is only one correct answer to this question.
• The downhill ski debutante isn't an expert in Mike's area, and the fat guy with bad form who pushes a lot of weight on the bench press at the gym isn't an expert in Lee's area.

What if you don't have any of these sources available for a given question, opinion, or fact? Then, you simply have unsubstantiable sources. This doesn't make the information right or wrong, it just means you can't tell either way.

Many people will say, "Well, with my life experience I get a feel for these things. So I don't need an expert source." This fails the test of logic, because people with equivalent life experiences profoundly disagree all of the time.

I prefer to limit my "information diet" to the "good sources" per the above, as if I'm always doing research for a debate and don't want to build my case on something that can't be readily defended as verifiable fact.

Some people object to this "constricted" exposure to information. They want news. My first response is, "For what purpose?," and my second is "Whose version of the news?"

In our homes, most of us have a dishwashing machine and a clothes washing machine. No problem, there. The problem arises when you use the brainwashing machine. To put it bluntly, television makes people stupid. The higher your exposure, the more stupid it will make you. If you watch television regularly, you now have a great opportunity. Turn that sucker off. Leave it off for 90 days. See how much smarter you are when the time's up.

What about blogs? Well, if you want to waste your time with nonauthoritative sources that spew unsubstantiable bits portrayed as fact, go ahead. But what will this accomplish?

A little news is OK, like a little pepper on your eggs. But you can't have pepper all day long and it can't be the main ingredient of your meals. In my own case, I read a compilation-style magazine that gives me an overview once a week. This way, I'm not totally isolated from current events but am still protected from a direct daily injection of disinformation, illogic, and wild assumptions.

Facts do matter. Be selective as to where you get them.

• Federal agencies have budgets and nearly always stay within budget. They actually do a pretty good job of financial management.
• Each of the 50 state governments has something the federal government does not: A binding Constitution. While the federal CONgress, judiciary, and White House treat the national constitution as a list of things not to do, the states take their constitutions seriously. Not one of the 50 states does deficit spending. All of them make hard choices to make ends meet.

Does your household financial situation share that "hard choices" thing with state governments? Unless you, like the Federal Reserve, have a license to steal, you do share that.

Side note: I really hate calling the Debt Slavery Corporation the "Federal Reserve." It's not federal, because it is private (federal would mean it's state-owned). It's not a reserve, because while you can reserve (set aside) wealth, you cannot reserve debt. And this criminal enterprise, which stole 50% of the world's USD-based assets between 1998 and 2008, is debt-based. That was one reason JP Morgan was so against this monstrosity. Four months after he died from slow poisoning, we were inflicted with the Debt Slavery Corporation.

The good news on this hard choices thing is you also have many easy choices. These are often hidden behind a veil of cultural brainwashing. So, let's list a few.

• Shop in the produce aisle. This is a really easy choice. First of all, real food costs less because you haven't paid someone to destroy its nutritional value and add toxins like hydrogenated oil and corn syrup. Second, you save big bucks on medical bills by not eating the processed stuff that is basically disease in a can (or box, as the case may be).
   
• Drive less. A lot less. My sister lives a long way from where she works, due to zoning laws and other nonsense designed to subsidize the auto industry. She figured her situation was not unique, and sure enough some digging revealed it wasn't. Several other coworkers live out her way and were making the same commute. So she bought a van just for this commute and now all of them pool in that van. Huge, huge savings.
   
• Get used to the heat. We are seeing warm temperatures, this time of year (my apologies to readers in Kiwiland and other southern hemisphere lands that are now in winter). Amazingly, there were humans roaming the earth in the summer well before air conditioning was invented. There's no need to turn your home into a refrigerator. You can raise the temp a couple of degrees and before you know it, that will feel comfortable. But also reduce register openings in seldom-used rooms and take note of your heat-producing activities so you can schedule things for less AC load.
   
• Cook outside. One way people used to handle hot weather was by having a kitchen in a separate building. I like to use a crock pot on my back porch. I make coffee out there, too.
   
• Cook less. Summer brings fresh vegetables. I make many raw vegetable dishes, adding protein with some sliced boiled eggs. The heat load for preparing these meals isn't much. And for the eggs, I boil a big batch at one time in a big pot, then set the pot outside to cool. I dump that calcium-rich water onto my garden. I also let the eggs cool in bowls on the back porch.
   
• Turn the television, if you watch it, off. Television makes people stupid. Why use electricity for such an outcome?
   
• Unplug battery chargers. There's no reason to leave AC adapters plugged in all the time. Once a battery is charged, more charging time won't give you more run time. These adapters draw current all the time. Consider having a charging station controlled by a surge strip with an on/off switch, so you can make the energy control easy.
   
• Control fridge doors. Something that drives me batty is seeing a person holding the fridge or freezer doors open at the supermarket. This is wasteful and it can cause food spoilage problems. In your home, know what you want before you open that fridge or freezer door. Get in, get out, shut the door.
   
• Control home doors. If someone comes to your door, invite the person in or go outside to talk. Don't stand there with your door partly open. This is rude, and it wastes energy.

8-Time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney will help you detox, retune, and excel. Watch the video.

The inverse is also true. For example, it's obvious that 8-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney knows a few things about bodybuilding. Now age 51 and still looking like a champ, Mr. Haney is an obvious authority on bodybuilding.

A common point of disagreement among people who train with weights is the old "reps and sets" count thing. Most people believe that if you just keep doing more sets of sub-intense repetitions, your muscles will grow. Ore that you need to fixate on particular numbers, in lieu of making each rep count.

This violates Lee Haney's principle to "Stimulate, not annihilate."

What actually happens is the muscles aren't properly stimulated to adapt, and are also overly damaged. Muscle cells burst every time you work out, this is basic cell biology.

About 100 days before age 50

So if you're hanging out at the gym doing long sessions with lots of sets, there is a very good reason why you aren't getting stronger (you may be lifting more weight due to deterioration of your form, but you aren't getting stronger).

If you follow Lee Haney's aforementioned principle, here's what happens:

1. Your body immediately loads up with cortisol right after training. Testosterone is depressed.
2. Shortly thereafter, cortisol plummets and testosterone rises.
3. This see-saw signals your body to do more than just repair the cells that you burst while training. It signals your body to make additional muscle cells. This is basic cell biology, don't forget.

The basic thing is to get in, get done, and get out. This is how you stimulate the body to create new muscle when it goes about replacing those cells you just burst. Make every rep count and do as few as it takes to do the job.

The exact number of reps is hard to determine, but as Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "Listen to your body."

• What you are trying to do is push your muscles to their limit with intensity so they adapt.
• What you are not trying to do is tear your muscles down past the point where they can adapt.

Too much damage, and you move backward. This is called "overtraining." If you disagree with Mr. Haney and annihilate your muscles, here's what happens:

1. Your body immediately loads up with cortisol right after training. Testosterone is depressed.
2. It stays that way.
3. In this hormonal environment, your body is repairing and not adapting. This is basic cell biology, don't forget.

Photo notes

In the photos above, I was at 5.1% body fat. I dropped to 5% after the shoot and am still there several weeks later, as I write this. One reason I can be that lean is the way I have these workouts scheduled. This kind of scheduling plays off the cortisol/testosterone responses the body goes through when subjected to the kind of stress that an intense workout puts on it. It may be more accurate to say I schedule my recovery windows so they don't overlap, and thus I maximize the time during which my natural testosterone level is elevated.

Of course, eating six small meals a day and paying attention to what's in those meals is another factor in allowing a 50 year old person to be at 5% bodyfat.

At www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

See network devices here.

Do you have a small office situation in which networking would make a whole lot of sense?

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