The running Lifehack thread

[bayonetbrant]

https://www.healthination.com/health/adhd-morning-routine

Don't watch the video; read the checklist below it - same info

I can't do #4 b/c the wife is still in bed for another hour or three after I'm up

I really ought to make #5 more of a priority in the morning

[trailrunner]

When I used to drive to work, I could get out of bed at 0445 and be at my desk by 0530.  That included a shave and shower, putting on a tie, and driving 15-20 minutes to work.  I would eat my breakfast (which is usually small) and have my coffee at my desk.

[mirth]

[mirth]

[Sir Slash]

NASTY! But funny.

[bayonetbrant]

Faux Pelini is a national treasure...

https://theathletic.com/350663/2018/05/11/dear-faux-pelini-shoulds-mashed-potatoes-fork-or-spoon/?source=grogheads

Dear Faux Pelini,

Should a person eat mashed potatoes with a fork or a spoon?

Mark F.

Dear Mark,

I know you're hungry, and I'm going to help you. But I need you to put down the utensils while we revisit the concept of Shouldness for a moment.

There are two categories of Shouldness:

Other-Shouldness: Comes into play when you're doing a thing that impacts other people.

Self-Shouldness: Comes into play when you're doing a thing that impacts yourself in some meaningful way.

There is an endless list of Other-Shouldness situations. You should loan your friend $20 if he forgot his wallet, you should get your girlfriend a birthday present, you should hold the door for a lady carrying a box of delicious chocolate cupcakes (sorry, I forgot you're hungry). Now, you don't have to do these things. It's a free country — you can be an a-hole if you want to be. But you shouldn't.

Self-Shouldness situations are usually more obvious. You should exercise once in a while, you should bring an umbrella if it looks like rain, you should avoid shooting baskets in your driveway wearing underpants and a football helmet so people don't think you're insane.

But the best part of Shouldness is that if a situation doesn't fall into either of these two categories, then you have entered the realm of Non-Shouldness, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do because it doesn't matter.

Now, back to your potatoes. Nobody else is going to be affected by your choice of utensil, so you're clear of Other-Shouldness. And because both a fork and a spoon are socially acceptable choices for mashed potato consumption, it's doubtful that your reputation will take a hit based on your choice. No Self-Shouldness, either.

So Mark, we have great news: Your mashed potato conundrum is steeped in Non-Shouldness, so you can enjoy the liberating feeling of choosing whatever utensil you want to use, without consequences. I won't care, and neither will anyone else.

If it were me in this situation, I'd follow the thickness rule — if a fork can stand on its own in the bowl of mashed potatoes, use it; otherwise, choose the spoon. But I'm not going to say you should follow my rule, because there is no Shouldness involved here. Even though I'm right.

his advice on dating was also pretty solid, considering he's a twitter parody of a now-unemployed coach

[bayonetbrant]

Holy hell...  the rest of the column this week is equally awesome :)

Dear Faux Pelini,

How far is too far when a public display of affection (PDA) is concerned? I see it happen everywhere and I want to tell people to stop, but I don't know when.

Steven K.

Hi Steven,

I hope you were paying attention to our carbed-up friend Mark, because we're going to talk some more Shouldness.

But before we do, let's break down your question. You asked me how much PDA is too much PDA, but I don't think that's what you really meant. What you really want to know is, how much PDA should people be allowed to display in your presence?

Remember those two categories of Shouldness that we introduced to Mark? They come in handy when you're not sure how to act in a given situation. But the bad news for you and your PDA obsession is that these categories only apply to one's own decisions. You aren't allowed to insert yourself into other people's Shouldness, unless you are an old bearded man with stone tablets and a knack for parting large bodies of water, or Charlton Heston, or both. The rest of us aren't allowed to dictate what other people should or should not do.

So the short answer to your question is that as long as the PDA isn't really affecting you, it's none of your damn business.

OK, I can already hear you whining that the PDA is affecting you, because it's bothering you. But Steven, do you really think it's a good idea to prohibit people from doing something simply because it's annoying? Of course not. If that was the rule, it would be illegal to be a Texas fan.

As long as other people aren't being truly impacted, people can do pretty much whatever they want to do. Now, if the PDA morphs into full on groping, then yeah, we will have an Other-Shouldness violation. But a couple of smooches? C'mon.

Steven, don't get involved with other people's Shouldness. Just because you can't get another person to PDA with you doesn't mean the rest of us can't have a little fun.

Dear Faux Pelini,

My apartment building shares a single washing machine and dryer for laundry, and many residents are not timely in removing their clothes when done. What is the correct thing to do when their clothes have been abandoned for hours? I have gone multiple days without clean underwear because of this.

Michael H.

Dear Michael,

I could have gone multiple days without reading your last sentence, but I'm glad you emailed me, because we have hit a Shouldness trifecta! Please join Mark, Steven and me up here on the stage. What a Friday to be alive.

You are the victim of a clear Other-Shouldness violation — a deranged laundrist has sucked you into his Shouldness vortex and you have been personally impacted. So what can you do about this?

We have a simple term for a person who violates his Other-Shouldness obligations: rude. Human beings don't have to be nice to each other, but they shouldn't be rude. And when you find yourself on the wrong end of an episode of rudeness, you are allowed to Rude-Back a proportional amount.

The amount of Rude-Back that is appropriate in a given situation depends on the extent of the original rudeness. If a guy accidentally steps on your toe on a crowded bus, an appropriate Rude-Back is to say, "Dude, that's my foot." If a drunk guy stomps your foot at a club, an allowable Rude-Back is to elbow him to another part of the dance floor.

(Keep in mind that an excessive Rude-Back is itself an act of rudeness, which entitles the original rude guy to deliver a Rude-Back-Back, and so on and so on. College football rivalries are based on this principle.)

Michael, in this situation you are entitled to deliver a Rude-Back as follows.

Rude-Back Guidelines for Unattended Laundry (One Washing Machine; Apartment Environment):

45 minutes: Acceptable grace period

46-75 minutes: Carefully place offending laundry on cleanest available horizontal space

76-120 minutes: Place offending laundry on nearest horizontal space (regardless of cleanliness)

Over 120 minutes: Throw offending laundry on top of machine, into a random basket or any other space convenient to you

Oh, one more thing — please buy some more underwear, or at least don't mention your underwear shortages to other human beings ever again. Those mental images violate all conceivable Shouldnesses.

Dear Faux Pelini,

What are your thoughts on schadenfreude?

Ed M.

Well Ed,

The German language has given us a handful of vaguely amusing words, like "doppelganger" and "foosball" and "Hasselhoff." But "schadenfreude" is the weirdest one.

It's odd we have to borrow this German word in the first place, because there really should be an English word for feeling happy when other people are sad. There is nothing more American than deriving joy from others' pain.

Think about it — there's no German word for "Topeka." Why? Because there's no Topeka in Germany. So when Germans talk about Topeka as I'm sure they do, they just use our word "Topeka," because Topeka is ours and ours alone.

But there is a lot of schadenfreude in America, so why don't we have our own word for it? Do we not want to admit that it's a fundamentally American idea? Or maybe deep down we recognize how useless and stupid schadenfreude is and we don't want to sanction an English version of it?

Schadenfreude is the opposite of envy, which is just as useless and stupid, because it also requires a worldview that is based on meaningless comparisons and rankings. Your neighbor bought a shiny new car? Envy makes you feel sad. Same neighbor wrecks his new car? Schadenfreude makes you feel happy again. And so you go, up and down the ladder based on the actions of a guy who happened to buy a house on your street that you are watching through your living room window while you sit on the couch eating mashed potatoes with a fork. There has to be a better way.

The problem with ranking yourself against others is that there will always be lots of people above and below you on the ladder, so you can never really win or lose the game. To paraphrase Joshua in War Games: In the strange game of social rankings, the only winning move is not to play.

Ed, if you ever start to feel schadenfreude, remember that you're playing a pointless game. Keeping score is for sports, like football. And foosball.

[mirth]

https://twitter.com/i/moments/994946087097073664

[bbmike]

https://twitter.com/i/moments/994946087097073664

Ha! Love the look on Leia's face.  :P

[Windigo]

Now I have an excuse to buy a Lego set.   :bd:

[bayonetbrant]

Faux Pelini is still awesome

https://theathletic.com/367996/2018/05/25/faux-pelini-graduation-speech-class-of-2018/?source=grogheads

Over the past several months, you have entrusted me with your important life problems in this space. I've learned several things along the way (including that there are many people who believe that a fake football coach on the internet is a proper source of life advice). I will now pass along the lessons I've learned to the graduating Class of 2018.

Graduates of the Class of 2018,

Congratulations, you did it. You didn't fail out of school.

And now you're getting a diploma, because that's what happens to college students when they avoid failing classes long enough to pile up the magic number of credits.

The good news is that this was all good practice — much of life is about not failing. Most days are about just surviving and piling up credits.

This doesn't mean that mistakes are bad, though. A mistake is only stupid if you ignore the lesson. That's why the best mistakes are the ones that other people make — you pay nothing for those lessons, so don't ignore them. The road to Moronville is paved with little bricks that say "That could never happen to me."

Don't be afraid of mistakes, but at the same time, don't make the Big Mistake. Luckily, it's easy to avoid the Big Mistakes because they mostly involve not doing something, like driving drunk or taking a selfie on a cliff or hiring Charlie Weis.

~~

A lot of you will soon hit the streets looking for gainful employment.  When you sit down for an interview, tell your future boss why hiring you will be good for him or her, not you. And don't ask them about advancement in the company — interviewing sucks, and they don't want to envision going through it again as soon as you find something else to do at the company.

When you do get a job, do that job. Just be the new guy for a while. The job will be boring at times, because the new guy gets to do the boring stuff. It's just how it works. Don't worry about your career yet — a career is something that mostly exists looking backward, not forward. It will work itself out.

Figure out what keeps your boss up at night, and do things that make him less worried about that. That's your Real Job.

You'll eventually get asked to do more stuff. Do all of it. But be indispensable, not irreplaceable; irreplaceable people rarely get promoted. Give great presentations, but don't be the only one who knows how to work the projector.

Most of all, don't become great at something you don't like doing. That's a cruel trap. But if you do hate your job (or your shirt, or your car), get a new one or shut up. There's nothing more boring than a person who complains about his own decision.

~~

All of the people you come across during your life will be people, so you need to start figuring people out.

Like, don't trust a person who lies when the truth would do just fine. That person will lie about anything.

Liars lie, babies cry, hamsters die. These things will only bother you if you expected something different to happen. So set your expectations for others as low as you can — they will rarely disappoint you.

Stay away from people who brag, because bragging is a sign that a person has reached the end of his potential.

If a person's justification for doing something is that he has the "right" to do it — like booing college football players because he bought a ticket to the game — don't be his friend, because his brain is very small.

Don't compare yourself against neighbors or colleagues or acquaintances. There will be an endless supply of people with bigger/smaller boats, bank accounts and brains. People-ranking is a game you can't win or lose, so don't play.

If you want to eventually get married, don't date people you know you won't marry. It's a waste of everyone's time. And if you're not sure whether you should keep dating someone, stop dating them. Sometimes you answer a question just by asking it.

~~

If someone asks you something and you don't know, a useful thing to say is "I don't know." Many people are afraid to say these words — I don't know why, but I do know that they are exhausting.

If you realize you're wrong about a thing, change your mind and you immediately won't be wrong anymore.

There are going to be lots of reasons you should apologize for something, but never apologize just because someone is mad.

Never tell someone "It's only a game." People get to decide what is important to them.

~~

Don't clutter your brain with a list of things you really should be doing, like cleaning the garage. If you want a clean garage, clean it. If you don't, don't. There's no "should" about it, because you are the boss of your garage, not the other way around.

Never eat a bad cheeseburger. If you're going to do something that's bad for you, make sure it's worth it.

Try doing stuff that interests you even (especially) if you might look ridiculous. The only people who will make fun of you are the losers who can't do it anyway. And if you are drawn to something even though it's hard or scary, it might be your Thing.

Don't worry about things you can't control. If you worry something bad will happen and it happens, you will have suffered it twice.

Play fantasy football, but always remember that nobody gives a shit about your fantasy football team.

~~

Today you feel like friendships are permanent, but many of them won't be.  Friends will come and go (and some will come back). When a friendship ends, it doesn't mean it failed, it just means it ran its course — it served its purpose for a time and place.

And anyway, all friendships have a beginning and an end — you'll either go to your best friend's funeral or she'll go to yours. Just because something ends doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile.

Sometimes supporting a friend means demanding more of him. Learn the art of being on a friend's side without taking his side.

~~

Don't worry about getting old, because mathematically you can never actually get old: "Old" will always feel like your age plus 15 years, and that number conveniently changes with every birthday.

Life is full of parts — some good, some bad, most somewhere in between. When a good part comes along — like a graduation, for example — pause and celebrate it completely. If you don't squeeze all the juice out of the good parts of life, what are you even doing on this planet?

Congratulations. You're living the Good Ol' Days right now. Don't take them for granted.

[Toonces]

This...is...BRILLIANT!!!

What would I do without you in my life, Mirth?   

[mirth]

What would I do without you in my life, Mirth?   

Be forced to endure sobriety.

[Toonces]

That's just crazy talk right there.

[bayonetbrant]

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/18-urban-and-wilderness-survival-hacks-that-would-make-macgyver-proud/