All of Piglet's Comments + Replies

Piglet00

A good quick-and-dirty test uses the humble push-up. Periodically (every two or three days) just do as many push-ups as you can -- this will likely involve moderate discomfort on the last few -- and track the number you do over time. While there is some day to day variance, I think this is a pretty good rough proxy for general fitness and a few weeks of data would give you decent tracking of the trend, unless you are already in such good shape that marginal improvements are hard to discern.

1Nornagest
Maxing out on push-ups every couple of days is good fitness advice, but using them as a proxy for general fitness is problematic: it's very easy to exchange form for higher repetitions when doing push-ups, especially if you're not working with a trainer or gym buddy. There's a built-in incentive to do this if you're using them to measure your fitness, and it's easy to do it unconsciously. Falling into this trap gives you a false indication of progress, and also limits the quality of the exercise: you need a full range of motion to engage all the muscle groups involved. The only way to keep yourself from doing so is to consciously prioritize form: your back should be straight, your body should just brush the floor at the bottom of its motion (chest and groin more or less simultaneously), and you should straighten your arms as far as they'll go without locking your elbows at the top. End the set once you can no longer do this.
Piglet30

Also, Richard Feynman's remarks on the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger are a pretty accessible overview of the kinds of dynamics that contribute to major industrial accidents. http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm

[edit: corrected, thx.]

3JoshuaZ
Pretty sure you mean Challenger. Feynman was involved in the investigation of the Challenger disaster. He was dead long before Columbia.
Piglet80

It depends on what you mean by "criminal"; under environmental law, there are both negligence-based (negligent discharge of pollutants to navigable waters) and strict liability (no intent requirement, such as killing of migratory birds) crimes that could apply to this spill. I don't think anyone thinks BP intended to have this kind of spill, so the interesting question from an environmental criminal law perspective is whether BP did enough to be treated as acting "knowingly" -- the relevant intent standard for environmental felonies. ... (read more)

Piglet80

Hi. Long-time lurker since Eliezer was posting at OB (which candidly I find far less interesting these days). I'm 37, and am a practicing lawyer with several small children; this keeps me sufficiently busy that I don't often have time to think hard enough to post here, although the discussions are usually quite interesting. Also, I'm pretty non-quantitative due to misspent undergraduate years. I view this site as place where generally I should be listening, not talking.

Piglet100

"Face the facts. Then act on them. It's the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it's harder than you'd think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, don't buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don't give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of... whatever. FACE THE FACTS. THEN act."

--- Quellcrist Falconer, speech before the assault on Millsport. (Richard Morgan, Broken Angels)

-1[anonymous]
My personal favorite from this trilogy is the whole "They say it's not personal, it's business. Well it's personal for us. And we must make it personal for them." (paraphrased)