Mindconnection eNL, 2019-04-07

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Item 1. The Missouri steps up to protect basic human rights. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BXnsIU8X_o

Item 2. Hydrogen production without using fossil fuels. Read the full story here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/fuel-cells/solar-panel-prototype-splits-water-to-produce-hydrogen

Item 3. On 14 March 14, Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced S. 821 the Freedom Financing Act, a bill to prohibit discrimination against the firearms industry in the provision of financial services. Read the full story here: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190322/pro-gun-senators-introduce-bill-to-prohibit-discrimination-in-financial-services

Item 4. Even the normally "pro criminal safety" Illinois racked up a victory for law-abiding citizens. The Lake County Circuit Court threw out a criminal protection measure inflicted on the citizens of Deerfield. Read the full story here: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190322/illinois-court-throws-out-deerfield-gun-ban

Item 5. The nationwide boycott of Dick's "We hate our core customer demographic" Sporting Goods is taking its toll on the misdirected company. The anti-customer crusade led by mentally ill CEO Edward Stack has cost them $150 so far, and the tab is growing. Read the full story here: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190329/dick-s-sporting-goods-loses-150-million-on-gun-control-crusade

Perhaps the staggering loss relative to the company's valuation will cause shareholders to demand the Board fire Stack and replace him with someone sane. It would be a kindness if the Board included a year of psychiatric care in Stack's severance package. But because the dismissal would be for cause and that cause is tantamount to deliberate sabotage, Stack is not entitled to a penny of severance funds. If the Board handles this in an ethical manner, they will send a message to other CEOs that going insane is not a defense for abusing a company's core demographic. The Board itself is guilty of not having stopped this fiasco at the outset, and the stockholders should hold each board member personally and civilly liable for the damages.

Item 6. A Deepmind prototype can diagnose eye diseases. Read the full story here:
https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/613249/deepmind-has-made-a-prototype-product-that-can-diagnose-eye-diseases

Item 7. A new kind of airplane wing will save fuel and more. Researchers say it could provide a significant boost in aircraft production, flight, and maintenance efficiency. Read the full story here:
http://news.mit.edu/2019/engineers-demonstrate-lighter-flexible-airplane-wing-0401

Item 8. The Trump administration has reversed its stance on the Unaffordable Care Act (UCA), arguing in a court filing on 25MAR that the entire law should be eliminated instead of just removing provisions protecting people with preexisting conditions. This is really good news. First of all, the UCA is highly damaging and blatantly illegal. Second, the only real efforts at repealing it have included eliminating protection for people with preexisting conditions. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky swore to kill Ryancare if it got out of the House for this reason. The "preexisting conditions" excuse for fraud and abuse by the insurance industry was removed with passage of the UCA (one of the few good things about it). Both of my senators (KS) wanted that protection retained, and they joined with Senator Paul on this issue. It looks like Trump's people are saying, "If you remove that protection we will try to get the entire law repealed." And that is really good news, either way.

Item 9. The Trump administration expects the GOP to regain the House after then next round of fake "elections" in 2020. They won't push for a replacement for the UCA until after the 2020 fake "elections" for that reason. It means any replacement won't be spearheaded by Nutcase Nancy and the other retards who inflicted the UCA on us. If that's not good news, I don't know what is!

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All of these situations have a common cause and a common solution. The cause is "jumping right in." The solution is to take the time upfront (before actually doing anything to complete a task) to understand what it is you are getting into. For example:

• DIY project. Read the instructions once. Then go back through, and read again them while doing a dry run. Hold the parts in your hands and rotate them to match the instructions. Visualize how things should look as each step is completed. Doing a second dry run before commencing is usually a good idea. I save a lot of time with this approach, and my projects go smoothly.
• Using a software tool. Look a the "lay of the land" and determine the hierarchy of controls and how things are organized. See which controls have dropdowns, and glance through the options so you see where the "hidden" controls are.
• Finding your way around in another city. Identify landmarks that you can either see from just about anywhere or ask directions to. Not just one landmark, but three so you can triangulate your position.
• Doing what your boss wants. Ask questions; starting with the general ones so you know why this job is being done and what objectives will be met by completing it. Verify that you and your boss share the same understanding of the rationale for the job and the objectives of the job.

Another way to state this tip is, "Figure things out ahead of time, rather than trying to figure them out as you go."

I'm a climber, and I try to "solve" the climbing problem before I start climbing it. In my climbing group (almost 20 people), we all do this "figure it out ahead of time" thing. When you're trying to balance on a tiny foot chip that your shoe is slipping off of, you don't have time to figure out what you need to do. It's already too late.

You can see some of our climbs here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ

Homeowners insurance is another area where confusion reigns and where deceit is SOP. For example, most insurers provide "replacement cost" and you think they mean (wait for it) replacement cost. No, they mean they will pay only the depreciated value. Farmer's Insurance actually does mean replacement cost. The typical policy leaves you with all kinds of expenses and nowhere near enough money to replace what you lost. Farmers Insurance has a non-typical policy. I don't know about all other insurers, but I suspect a few are like Farmer's in this respect. If yours is not, it's time to find one that is.

One way to reduce the cost of medical, auto, and homeowner's insurance is to be a low-risk "insured". Well, OK, that doesn't apply to medical insurance; being low-risk means zero to them. But if you don't need disease care, then you save a fortune on medical costs.

To reduce auto coverage, follow defensive driving principles whenever you are behind the wheel. If you haven't take a defensive driving course, correct that error before summer; you will be glad you did. And you may just save a life or two.

To reduce homeowner's coverage expenses, ask your insurance company how you can earn discounts. And then learn what you can do to make your home safe and implement what you learn. For example, what is the safe way to store lawnmower fuel? How can you reduce the fuel load of your home (reduce the amount of combustibles)? What are the kitchen safety practices everyone should know, but few people do? How do you know when to replace an extension cord? Is your range correctly wired (often, a range is incorrectly wired)? Are all of your services electrically bonded together, especially including any gas piping? How often do you check your furnace filter?

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2019/02/delete-social-media

Photo taken about one week before 40th High School Class Reunion.

Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness.

Article appears below.

See my climbing videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos

• Calorie restriction. This makes sense. Eat less, and you get leaner. That's correct, but only to a point. A small reduction in calories will probably get you the effect you want. But if the restriction is too severe, your body will react with the starvation mode response. Not only that, you're going to be very uncomfortable and you're going to lose healthy tissue (muscle and maybe bone) while also losing fat. So be very conservative with this approach. For example, buy smaller pieces of fruit and smaller sweet potatoes. Or if you supplement with protein powders, use 3/4 scoop instead of a full scoop. So you might reduce calories by only 300 a day; see if that starts having an effect after a week and if not then make another small adjustment.
   
• Skipping breakfast (or any other meal). This is an extreme variation on the calorie restriction approach. It is totally counterproductive.
   
• Altering the mix. Some people eat more calorie-dense foods (as a proportion of their total intake) in the winter, then switch to less calorie-dense foods in the spring. For example, Bob eats a big bowl of oats with meal number 5 every day during the winter. But starting in March, he eats half as much oats and doubles the spinach he eats with meal number 4. This is a moderate variation on the calorie restriction approach. It tends to be highly productive.
   
• Going on any crazy diet. Keto, or any other macro-deprivation diet, is unhealthy. Don't listen to the propaganda, reject this nonsense entirely. Fat doesn't make you fat, nor does it make you lean. Yes, you can get a short-term fat loss by following one of these health-damaging diets, but you will invariably bounce back to a higher fat level. The solution is to eat right all the time. Your initial progress might be slower than with some radical diet, but guess what? You won't be going through this fat loss cycle again. Ever.
   
• Doing long cardio sessions. This is totally counterproductive, because it trains your body to conserve fuel. If you want to have excess fat and you want it to be stubborn, do the cardio. If you want a lean body, don't do the cardio.
   
• Adding HIIT. While not necessary if you have an excellent weight lifting regimen, HIIT does work. You could add a session or two per week to accelerate fat loss, but don't do it if that takes away from your weight lifting workouts. HIIT does stimulate an adaptive response and improve the hormonal environment for lean-ness, but only if doing the HIIT doesn't push you past your recovery limits. Those limits are dictated by age, activity level, genetics, nutrition, sleep patterns, stress levels, and many other things. So if you add HIIT, start off small and see how you feel.
   
• Adding more volume to weight training sessions. This can work very well, if you do it right. Simply doing more reps per set means you're reducing intensity. That moves your workouts to being like cardio, which you don't want. There are multiple ways to do this effectively.
  
  One way is to increase the muscle isolation (through angle changes) so each rep is harder; if you end up using "baby weights" that's excellent. Then try to do 12 reps per set. Those last few should be really hard to crank out. Perform one more set than you usually perform, even if that means taking a longer rest than normal between it and the previous set.
  
  Another way is to add a complementary exercise. For example, if you do hammer curls to work your biceps peak then add a couple sets of bentover curls. To perform bentover curls, bend over the same way you do for bentover rows. With normal standing curls, your elbows point to the floor. With these, they point backwards at about 45 degrees. Instead of working the midrange of your biceps, you are working the full contraction range. Reverse the posture (lie back on an incline bench) to work the full contraction range.
   
• Overdosing on caffeine and/or other stimulants. Many fat loss supplements contain huge amounts of caffeine and little else that will affect your fat loss. The big downside from this, aside from giving you the jitters and making you dangerous behind the wheel and causing you to lose sleep, is you burn out your adrenal system. While green coffee bean extract, which is very effective, does contain caffeine, that is not its active ingredient.
   
• Consuming more black pepper and other "hot" spices. This not only helps with fat loss, it helps make your meals zesty. Go for it!
   
• Consuming L-Carnitine. This is the main ingredient of "night time fat burners" because it really works and it is not a stimulant. Take some throughout the day, also.
   
• Consuming garcinia cambogia. Yes, another fat loss supplement with a good track record.
   
• Consuming CLA. Nope, this does not help. You are wasting your money to go this route. How do I know? Conjugated Linoleic Acid is a lipid. There is a professional society of doctors who specialize in lipids, and the editor of their professional journal wrote to tell me this.
   
• Obsessing about "weight loss". This is totally counterproductive. Just take the right steps and progress will come. Thinking about it too much will increase your stress level and thus elevate your cortisol and, because you are thinking about food, cause you to eat more.

Follow the advice above, and you'll have that lean body. To keep it lean, keep following the advice above. Don't think of being lean as something you do

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

Soda (soft drinks) cause osteoporosis by multiple mechanisms, including endocrine disruption.