Tarly Tries to Take Over the World

[Scaly Freak]

25 minutes ago, Chris Tarly said:

Also, this happens a lot when I'm dieting. It seems like my tolerance drops right along with the number of calories I consume, and my susceptibility to hangovers increases in similar if not greater proportion.

 

 

I have actually observed this too. I wonder if our the metabolic processes change in weird ways, that might explain this?

[Stronkey Kong]

4 minutes ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

I have actually observed this too. I wonder if our the metabolic processes change in weird ways, that might explain this?

 

Without a doubt... and psychology...

 

Less food in stomach... absorb alcohol faster

Fewer metabolic resources available to breakdown the alcohol

Wine and beer (especially) feed your hungry self, derail sound judgement, and cause you to overconsume out of hunger

And similarly fewer resources to deal with the hangover

[Scaly Freak]

3 minutes ago, Chris Tarly said:

 

Wine and beer (especially) feed your hungry self, derail sound judgement, and cause you to overconsume out of hunger

And similarly fewer resources to deal with the hangover

 

Good point. There's definitely a behavioral component in there as well.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

2 hours ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

I have actually observed this too. I wonder if our the metabolic processes change in weird ways, that might explain this?

The thought occurs to me as well a big part of hangover pain is dehydration. Low-carb diets=less water retention=lower threshold for dehydration. Maybe.

[Scaly Freak]

5 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

The thought occurs to me as well a big part of hangover pain is dehydration. Low-carb diets=less water retention=lower threshold for dehydration. Maybe.

 

Well, I have always assumed that was one of the main reasons sports drinks like gatorade are so effective at making the worst hangover symptoms subside.

[Stronkey Kong]

6 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

The thought occurs to me as well a big part of hangover pain is dehydration. Low-carb diets=less water retention=lower threshold for dehydration. Maybe.

 

1 minute ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

Well, I have always assumed that was one of the main reasons sports drink are so effective at making the worst hangover symptoms subside.

 

Dehydration and often electrolyte depletion.

 

Usually, the process that cures my hangovers... bowel movements. Yup. I can rate the severity of the hangover by the number of BM's it takes to alleviate all the symptoms. Yesterday's hangover was probably a level 2, but I only got one BM in before work so my day was shot because of that. Level 3 hangovers are the worst.

[Scaly Freak]

2 minutes ago, Chris Tarly said:

Dehydration and often electrolyte depletion.

 

Hence the gatorade. Yep.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

2 minutes ago, Chris Tarly said:

sually, the process that cures my hangovers... bowel movements. Yup. I can rate the severity of the hangover by the number of BM's it takes to alleviate all the symptoms. Yesterday's hangover was probably a level 2, but I only got one BM in before work so my day was shot because of that. Level 3 hangovers are the worst.

 

[Stronkey Kong]

10 minutes ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

Hence the gatorade. Yep.

 

... and the fact that the colon's job is to absorb water and minerals from poop...

[Scaly Freak]

6 minutes ago, Chris Tarly said:

 

... and the fact that the colon's job is to absorb water and minerals from poop...

 

On the assumption that we are talking anatomy and not punctuation here, I'm still not entirely sure how this reduces hangover symptoms, but I am willing to take your word on it.

[Stronkey Kong]

I just mixed:

 

4 oz. of all purpose flour

a pinch of salt

1 egg

 

... for a fist size ball of my first homemade pasta dough. I'm just sipping some (moar) wine while I let it "relax".

 

I had no clue homemade pasta was this simple. Is this the start of something good... or bad... or both.

[Snarkyfishguts]

2 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

I just mixed:

 

4 oz. of all purpose flour

a pinch of salt

1 egg

 

... for a fist size ball of my first homemade pasta dough. I'm just sipping some (moar) wine while I let it "relax".

 

I had no clue homemade pasta was this simple. Is this the start of something good... or bad... or both.

(Holds out empty plate)  I'll save you from your delicious homemade pasta too.   

[Stronkey Kong]

2 minutes ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

(Holds out empty plate)  I'll save you from your delicious homemade pasta too.   

 

Here you go:

 

 

No worries, I got the sauce:

 

 

Yeah. I'm done with pasta in box.

 

Also, there's onions, mushrooms, and veggie italian sausage in the sauce which is storebrand garbage to which I added fuck loads of italian herbs, red pepper, and wine with a tsp or so of sugar to balance it out. Fuck yeah.

[Snarkyfishguts]

1 minute ago, Chris Tarly said:

 

Here you go:

 

 

No worries, I got the sauce:

 

 

Yeah. I'm done with pasta in box.

That's awesome! (high fives) Woot woot! 

[Scaly Freak]

14 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

Also, there's onions, mushrooms, and veggie italian sausage in the sauce which is storebrand garbage to which I added fuck loads of italian herbs, red pepper, and wine with a tsp or so of sugar to balance it out. Fuck yeah.

 

An easy way to make a good sauce without spending a day mincing, chopping, and simmering.

[Stronkey Kong]

 

@oromendur ... my MIO Slice fitness tracker arrived today!

 

How to setup your MIO Slice:

1. Remove packaging -- note the sticker that says "PAI app no longer supported, please download..." and realize that the one unique and interesting feature that made you think this $30 fitness tracker had something to offer is no longer supported.
2. In your internet browser, navigate to the setup website indicated on the card inside the box... BAM! GOTCHA! there is no setup instructions, but check out these slick ads for our new products.
3. Maybe the instructions are in that other booklet... nope... it's just 30 pages of warranty information in two dozen different languages.
4. Maybe the app will have the instructions... enter a bunch of info... then get stuck where it searches for a device that won't power on a produce a signal.
5. Dude, there's one button and a usb charger cable, you got this... press button, nothing. Hookup charger... nothing.
6. Find the manual on a third party website... yup it's hooked up... it should indicate that it's charging... maybe wiggle it around and make sure the pins are making contact.
7. Use the multimeter you have handy to see if there's a voltage coming from the pins... Nope!
8. Under the 'orders' tab on amazon.com, click on the item and select return.
9. Select 'refund' as opposed to 'replace item'
10. Print label and follow return instructions.
11. Accept the fact that any device you use is only a vague indicator of your activity levels and just keep doing what you were doing because you were making progress anyway and you don't need more data to over-optimize your fitness experience.

[oromendur]

Heh. Told you it sucked

 

I fully support your decision to tell the thing to [BLEEP] off and carry on with your life.

 

That said, if you do decide you want to try one last thing, you could plug it in and leave it for half an hour or so to charge blindly. Then take it off the cable, hold the button down for fifteen to twenty seconds (this resets it), and see if it wakes up. If it shows S L I C E on the screen, release the button, wait until it shows the wrong time, and put it back on the charging cable. If you then see a blinking empty battery, you're golden -- let it charge until full and then try to pair it.

 

Thirty bucks, huh? Maybe I should buy another one (you know, just to drag out my clinging to this non-supported technology for a bit longer). They're not quite to the level of consumable items, but they're not far off...

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Chris Tarly said:

 

@oromendur ... my MIO Slice fitness tracker arrived today!

 

How to setup your MIO Slice:

1. Remove packaging -- note the sticker that says "PAI app no longer supported, please download..." and realize that the one unique and interesting feature that made you think this $30 fitness tracker had something to offer is no longer supported.
2. In your internet browser, navigate to the setup website indicated on the card inside the box... BAM! GOTCHA! there is no setup instructions, but check out these slick ads for our new products.
3. Maybe the instructions are in that other booklet... nope... it's just 30 pages of warranty information in two dozen different languages.
4. Maybe the app will have the instructions... enter a bunch of info... then get stuck where it searches for a device that won't power on a produce a signal.
5. Dude, there's one button and a usb charger cable, you got this... press button, nothing. Hookup charger... nothing.
6. Find the manual on a third party website... yup it's hooked up... it should indicate that it's charging... maybe wiggle it around and make sure the pins are making contact.
7. Use the multimeter you have handy to see if there's a voltage coming from the pins... Nope!
8. Under the 'orders' tab on amazon.com, click on the item and select return.
9. Select 'refund' as opposed to 'replace item'
10. Print label and follow return instructions.
11. Accept the fact that any device you use is only a vague indicator of your activity levels and just keep doing what you were doing because you were making progress anyway and you don't need more data to over-optimize your fitness experience.

 

While I'm sorry you had to deal with this bullshit, the way you told it was hilarious. Thank you for sharing.

[Stronkey Kong]

Weekly  Summary:

 

Nutrition: Well I'm pretty squarely off the blood type diet. The tomato sauce on the pasta from yesterday and today made sure of that. Plus, I made hummus today... and chickpeas supposedly contain a lectin that interferes with insulin signaling... and I don't care, the hummus was delicious... actually a little too garlicy... but mostly delicious.

 

Tracking: I entered in all my diet data for the week.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jag6eSOsi69is3HXipmECDZzUL6E1ryeSxoKp-Y5eJI/edit?usp=sharing

 

Daily nutrition averages were:

2276 calories

111 g Pro

268 g CHO

84 g Fat

 

Then I did my weight and body composition measurements. I added graphs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1auR9MMvqi4AdYN2afjqD33chhwSyB-TvUzmI7hVz42o/edit?usp=sharing

 

My seven day average went down 1.5 lbs. since last Saturday. My other measurements are progressing downward it seems.

 

Hamster Wheel: I had a weak week on the wheel. Only two workouts, and only 800 calories burned. I'm gonna get on there as soon as this post is up to start making up for or at least improving on last week.

 

Also, I'm working on finding ways to track my daily activities. After the MIO fiasco, I found my old fitness tracker. The downside is it doesn't have the PAI (personal activity indicator-- or something like that) score... which is supposed to be a good summary of daily activity based on heart rate at such. I figure this score is really just based on some summary statistics of HR measured throughout the day. My old tracker samples HR data periodically, and today I figured out where I can find this data on my phone -- it's in a text file -- and all I really have to do is write a script to parse it and extract the data and generate some sort of table that I can run some stats on. And I just double checked... it holds stats for HR zones like fat burning, and anaerobic... we can do something interesting with this.

 

World Domination: I have a four day weekend, and so far I've mostly wasted two days. I did work on building a low frequency oscilator (LFO) and hooked it up to the oscilloscope, but this was mostly goofing around. I need to get back on the coursework and finish week 3 and hopefully 4. The lab is mostly constructed, but I was surprised to discover that I did not have any operational amplifier IC's handy... if we're going to take over the world, we are going to need a lot of OP-amps for sure. So I ordered some... but at this point I really need to stop spending money and start building WMDs... weapons of musical destruction... yup LFO's are what you need to generate killer beats.

[Snarkyfishguts]

1 hour ago, Chris Tarly said:

I had a weak week on the wheel

This is fun to say 3 times fast. You're still making progress, and you'll be king of the Wheel next week. 

 

I don't understand the coding stuff, but it's cool you can problem solve tech you have now to work for you!

[Stronkey Kong]

 

So there's a problem. During that workout, at no point did I rest hard enough for my heart rate to plunge from 115 to 60 bpm instantly... in fact this is probably physiological impossible. I think I can fix these types of errors once I get at the data.

[oromendur]

I'm glad to hear you managed to get something working after the Slice failed you. I saw they are indeed going on Amazon new for $30; I dug into my closet to see what my stash looked like and I apparently still have a spare, so I'm going to resist buying another one for now. I think. At the moment. We'll see.

 

16 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

today I figured out where I can find this data on my phone -- it's in a text file -- and all I really have to do is write a script to parse it and extract the data and generate some sort of table that I can run some stats on. And I just double checked... it holds stats for HR zones like fat burning, and anaerobic... we can do something interesting with this.

 

This is awesome! I don't think I can do this with mine; everything goes into their fancy proprietary black box algorithm and I have to hand-code the stats I want into my own spreadsheets. I do like the simplicity of their algorithm, though -- just one number to worry about -- and I trust it slightly more than most of the other bullshit out there because there are actually decent studies (well, as decent as studies get in the world of garbage that is fitness science) that use it.

 

Is your old tracker Bluetooth compatible? If it is, and if it speaks whatever that old-school HRM protocol was (I can't remember what it's called -- not ANT+ but the other one), you might actually be able to pair it to the PAI app. I never tried with my old FitBit because I never had a FitBit that could read heart rate -- but if I unpair my Slice I am able to pair a Polar chest strap, which gives the app a steady HR input without any pauses, good especially for strength workouts. You'll probably have to close whatever app you use to control your tracker, and then on the Settings screen in the PAI app (swipe left twice on Android, no idea on IOS), click on Add device, choose OTHER, and put your tracker in pairing mode. Who knows -- it might pick it up (shrug). You won't get useful things like the sleep tracking, but you might get some PAI calculations to play with.

 

16 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

if we're going to take over the world, we are going to need a lot of OP-amps for sure

 

Yep. Necessary for gainz... 

[Stronkey Kong]

28 minutes ago, oromendur said:

I'm glad to hear you managed to get something working after the Slice failed you. I saw they are indeed going on Amazon new for $30; I dug into my closet to see what my stash looked like and I apparently still have a spare, so I'm going to resist buying another one for now. I think. At the moment. We'll see.

 

 

This is awesome! I don't think I can do this with mine; everything goes into their fancy proprietary black box algorithm and I have to hand-code the stats I want into my own spreadsheets. I do like the simplicity of their algorithm, though -- just one number to worry about -- and I trust it slightly more than most of the other bullshit out there because there are actually decent studies (well, as decent as studies get in the world of garbage that is fitness science) that use it.

 

Is your old tracker Bluetooth compatible? If it is, and if it speaks whatever that old-school HRM protocol was (I can't remember what it's called -- not ANT+ but the other one), you might actually be able to pair it to the PAI app. I never tried with my old FitBit because I never had a FitBit that could read heart rate -- but if I unpair my Slice I am able to pair a Polar chest strap, which gives the app a steady HR input without any pauses, good especially for strength workouts. You'll probably have to close whatever app you use to control your tracker, and then on the Settings screen in the PAI app (swipe left twice on Android, no idea on IOS), click on Add device, choose OTHER, and put your tracker in pairing mode. Who knows -- it might pick it up (shrug). You won't get useful things like the sleep tracking, but you might get some PAI calculations to play with.

 

 

Yep. Necessary for gainz... 

 

I see what you did there... and I like it.

 

You might want to snatch up as many slices as you can if you're sticking with it, I'm betting they're going the way of the 8-track.

 

I tried to download the PAI app and sync, but it doesn't seem like it will work as it doesn't recognize my device and I didn't see an option for 'other' ... and where's the fun in that. Now I get to see if I can hack this thing and make my own PAI algorithm.

 

My device doesn't have a clever name... it is a $35 tracker made by a Chinese company. The app is fairly terrible... it is called VeryFitPro... an upgrade of VeryFit 2.0... it has already gone the way of the 8-track.

 

I know where the data are that I need, I just need to figure out a clever way to quickly search the data, then get into Python 3's libraries for dealing with JSON data and I'm golden.

[miss_marissa]

On 5/21/2020 at 2:36 PM, Chris Tarly said:

 

SMH

 

Now I have it, but I realize I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do with it... I think I"m gonna have to build a low frequency oscillator this weekend just to test it out.

 

===================================================

 

I was stalling on weight loss this week. Then I drank 5 glasses of wine, and four pounds fell off overnight.

 

I've got 62 pounds to go, so I need to drink 62 lbs x 5 glasses  / 4 lbs = 80 glasses of wine...

 

Seriously, though, I'm dehydrated and I woke up to the leg cramps that prove it.

 

K. Now one more night of work and then four day weekend with books to read and stuff to solder

 

this math checks out

[Stronkey Kong]

 

Sunday and Monday got shitty real fast. The pasta, the hummus, then a bunch of wine on Sunday. It was a combination of the wrong foods, too much food, and the combination of it all and it made me sick. It just knocked the shit out of me, but not literally because I wound up getting gassy and constipated. I barely slept Sunday night, then was incapable of doing anything Monday.

 

Well, I guess I did get on the wheel before I went to bed, but I was not happy while doing it. I went in to work yesterday groggy as fuck because I was overslept though caught up on some sleep. And I still had no stomach for any food at all. I skipped breakfast. Lunch was three veggie meatballs, with mixed vegetables, and a bowl of grapes. Then I ate raw oats with soymilk walnuts and blueberries. So I think I barely made it over 1000 calories yesterday.

 

And it got hot. It's been pushing 90 the last few days.

 

And last night when I got home, I buzzed all the hair off my head with my beard trimmer... well not all, but I went from 8 inch long locks of curly corona fro, down to about an inch of hair all over. Except that it needs a bit of cleanup around the edges it doesn't look terrible. I realized I could have given myself a mullet if I was not thorough about the back

 

Ugh.

 

I feel better now though. And my weight hit a new low at 262.2 and my weekly average is dropping again... it shot up over the weekend and I was worried it'd stall.

 

I'm wondering if there is something to the garbanzo bean lectin thing. Cuz I think that's what sent me over the edge. But, there could be an issue with pasta and fructans at play here... also onions. Perhaps even the tomatoes and cheese as well... and wine. Or perhaps just the quantities of these foods. I'm going to have to carefully test these out next time I make them.