2 comments on "This week in history: Table push-ups and jogging in place; Beta readers; Catching Fire"

Table push-ups and jogging in place

As you know, I’ve been trying to get a bit fitter, so I’ve been working some exercise into my routine in-between all my ass sitting and TV watching. So far, it’s been working out pretty good for me 🙂

I do about 200-300 push-ups a day — my sissy table push-ups, since I’m not willing to go down to the floor with my dog ready to stomp on my back. I don’t do them all at once, since I’m not secretly Superwoman, but I do groups of 40-40-20 within a ten minute period. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. I’m thinking about adding another two groups in there to get it up to a round 500.

I’ve already lost one pound since I started and my arms are getting toned and that annoying waggle has disappeared.

Tonight I added five minutes of jogging in place, which science tells me should have burned 45 calories. It got my heart rate up and I could feel it working my legs, so I’m going to add that to my routine as well. I don’t really like running, since my feet are a little flat and it starts feeling like the skin is tearing right at the arch, but the jogging in place wasn’t bad at all.

I figure 30 minutes of jogging in place (272 calories according to MyFitnessPal’s calculator) and 500 push-ups a day should see some serious results within a month. At the very least, I’ll honestly be able to say that I’m trying to get healthier. Plus, I’ll have me some serious arm guns.

* * *

Beta readers

I am on the lookout for some beta readers. I’ve made myself a little side-site and I’ve gotten some very helpful concrit, but I’ve always been of the mind that a few more eyes never hurt anything.

Projects I’m working on and will be posting:

  • Tuesday Night
  • The Brand
  • The Panic Pure
  • Paradigm Shift
  • Franz Caulder: Rescue Position
  • Faizel 02
  • Doggy Style
  • Residual Blue
  • Fiends
  • Spores!

So if you’re a cash-strapped fan of my work willing to read some stuff and offer some feedback, let me know. The rewards include clean copies of the ebooks once they’re ready to go, your name listed in the acknowledgments*, and my eternal gratitude.

I’m good at spelling and grammar, though I do occasionally double up words when wordwrap defeats me (it mostly seems to be “the the”). I had Seth finish eating the same sandwich twice. Solar’s clothes changed during a scene and no one noticed it. And sometimes it helps to have someone tell me “More details” when I don’t realize I’m glossing over a scene.

* I realize that some people don’t like to be associated with m/m stuff, and that’s totally cool. You can be listed by your first name and last initial, or your non-profane nickname (Ass Monkey Ball Licker will not receive a dedication, though A.M.B.L. will get a big thank you).

* * *

Catching Fire

I finally saw Catching Fire, the second movie in the Hunger Games tetralogy (there were three books, but there’s four movies, it’s weird). Jennifer Lawrence is my heterosexual girlcrush; fuck anyone that hates her, she’s adorable.

I watched the movie with my dad, and while The Hunger Games didn’t move him, I think Catching Fire has sealed the deal and he’s become a fan. I’ve loaned him my copies of the books and we’ll see what he thinks about them. (I expect there to be some bitching about the first person narrative, but I’m hoping he’ll be able to get past it.)

Phillip Seymour Hoffman played the Plutarch (game master guy) and he already filmed the first part and most of the second of Mockingjay, though he died with one week of filming left. I guess they’re going to CG him into his last scenes, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out. Anyways, Catching Fire was a good movie, and it was brilliant on Blu-Ray. Though Liam Hemsworth’s face looked ginormous and I can see why he grows that beard between movies. I mean, I wouldn’t say anything, but I was seriously startled.

Heroes & Villains at Amazon
Allies & Enemies at Amazon
3 comments on "Why is PeerBlock blocking CloudFlare all of a sudden?"

Okay, so I run PeerBlock all the time. Not because I download a bunch of stuff off torrents or anything, but because I don’t want to end up going to the wrong site and having my world wrecked. It works for me, and whenever there’s a problem loading a page I can take a quick look and see what’s going on.

Well, today I couldn’t load my own site because I use CloudFlare and all of a sudden PeerBlock has decided to see it as the enemy. What’s up with that?

I’ve run all kinds of Google searches trying to see what’s going on, but the only ones that seem to have had a problem with CloudFlare was Malwarebytes, and that was back in 2012. (The issue was that CloudFlare does not police the sites that use its services, and some of the sites they were serving were ones that give how-tos on creating malicious software and hacks. Malwarebytes objected; CloudFlare rebutted with “free speech and the rights of the users,” as the sites themselves weren’t producing the viruses, they were just giving instructions on how to make them.)

This is incredibly frustrating to me because I’m a big PeerBlock fan. It, along with WOT and Ghostery, has saved me from going to some truly skeazy sites because of reckless clicking. And now, if it’s not even going to let me go to MY OWN SITE, then I guess I can’t use it anymore. But what makes me worried is that other people using PeerBlock won’t be able to reach my site.

I have no idea what I’m supposed to do :/

I know that I can right-click and allow certain IPs for 15 minutes, 1 hour, or forever, but I don’t want to allow for forever, because while I use CloudFlare, I’m a paranoid person and I refuse to give any IP carte blanche. Just because they’re okay today doesn’t mean they’re going to be okay tomorrow. Plus there are some sites that really deserve a second thought before being clicked on.

These guys are located on the P2P iblocklist. Starting range to ending range. For some reason the Search doesn’t work for me. It’s a hassle, as the scroll on the side will jump down by hundreds of numbers, so you have to highlight one and page up or down.

CloudFlare IP: 108.162.192.0 – 108.162.255.255
Amazon Technologies IP: 54.224.0.0 – 54.255.255.255

It is possible to go into the iblock lists and edit them, but the only options are allowing them for a set period of time or allowing them forever.

What is Peerblock? PeerBlock lets you control who your computer “talks to” on the Internet.  By selecting appropriate lists of “known bad” computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been “hacked”, even entire countries!  They can’t get in to your computer, and your computer won’t try to send them anything either. – Peerblock.com. Basically, while PeerBlock does not make you anonymous — that’s what a VPN or proxy service is for — it does keep your ISP from throttling your massive amounts of downloading (PORN!).

What is CloudFlare? CloudFlare is a content delivery network and distributed domain name server service marketed as improving website performance and speed and providing security. – Wikipedia. Basically, these guys stand between you and DoS attacks. When someone decides to start banging your servers to crash your site, CloudFlare is the one taking the hit. Though if your bank or other supposedly secure networks are using CloudFlare, you might want to look at banking elsewhere, as they should be able to afford a real firewall and not something you can tack on for free.

What is Amazon Technologies? A Reno subsidiary of Amazon. Amazon rents a lot of their servers to other services in the cloud. Basically, they take a snapshot of a page, and that’s what they’re serving to you when you visit those sites. It saves on load time, and if the site is down you won’t even notice because you’ll still be receiving a page to view.

I’m already leery of constantly seeing “Detected AP2P on Amazon EC2 Cloud” popping up in my PeerBlock window, as it makes me wonder what exactly are they taking from me while I’m visiting sites using their cloud services. Which is why I’ve refused to right-click and allow Amazon forever in PeerBlock, as I can’t know who they’re renting their servers to and for what purpose. Plus there’s always the concern that someone might be hijacking their IP, which I guess is totally a thing 😛

(AP2P = Anti-Peer-to-Peer. They keep watch to make sure you’re not using torrents to download illegal [copyrighted] materials. The Internet police, keeping you safe and jamming up your traffic logs.)

The only thing that seems to work on keeping CloudFlare, CloudFront, and Amazon powered sites visible while running PeerBlock is to disable the P2P iblocklist when surfing the Internet. Unless you’re actively torrenting, I don’t think it will be that much of a problem. And at least you’ll be able to see why The Oatmeal loves the mantis shrimp (which is a crazy awesome sea creature by the way).

Faizel 02 at Amazon
0 comments on "Thursday, March 6th: Locks of Love; exercise; Arunachalam Muruganantham"

Locks of Love –

It’s that time of year again. My hair is getting long and once I have 12-inches I will be chopping 10-inches off and sending it away to Locks of Love.

What is Locks of Love?

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

How to donate:

  • 10 inches measured tip to tip is the minimum length needed for a hairpiece.
  • Hair must be in a ponytail or braid before it is cut.
  • Hair must be clean and completely dry before it is mailed in.
  • Place the ponytail or braid inside of a plastic bag, and then inside of a padded envelope.
  • If you wish to receive an acknowledgment for your hair donation, please fill out the hair donation form, or write your name and e-mail address or mailing address on a full size separate sheet of paper and include inside the envelope. We cannot acknowledge donors who do not send their name and address according to these instructions.
  • All hair donations must be mailed to Locks of Love at:
    234 Southern Blvd.
    West Palm Beach, FL 33405-2701
  • **IMPORTANT** When mailing your donation, please make sure that you are sending it with adequate postage. The U.S. Postal Service has notified Locks of Love that many donations are being sent without enough postage, and these packages will be returned to sender! To ensure adequate postage, please take your donation to your local post office.

Go check out Locks of Love: http://www.locksoflove.org.

It’s a great organization that helps kids, and if you’re giving a hair donation it doesn’t cost anything more than postage. So why not help someone out?

Exercise –

I spend a lot of time on my computer, and as everyone knows, that’s a good way to become flabby around the middle and thighs. Type, type, typing for hours at a time doesn’t exactly build the muscles and get your heart pumping.

I run around the yard with my dog and I walk a lot, which goes well with my calorie counting to keep my weight in check. It’s unfortunate, but while my sister was gifted with the body of a sylph, I got a healthy dose of my grandmothers’ genes — both sides of my family had a tendency for heavyset ladies — so I know I have to keep an eye on myself or I could be looking at diabetes and heart problems in the future.

Exercise is something I need to fit into my schedule, but I’m lazy. All the walking and running are great for the legs, but I want to tone my arm muscles. So whenever I make tea I’ve started doing jumping jacks until the water boils, then I do push-ups against the kitchen counter while my tea steeps.

I can see the benefits in my arms already, which are losing the hanging flab, and I’m very pleased with my decision to start working out a little. Not too much (as I’m still very lazy) but enough that I can known I’m doing something beneficial for my health above cutting back on sweets and eating more veggies.

* For jumping jacks I alternate between the regular slap my hands over my head kind, and the kind where my arms go straight out, up, straight out, and back to my sides while my feet go out, back together, out, and back together in four jumps.

* For push-ups I do table presses against the kitchen counter, as I don’t relish my dog jumping on my back when he gets too excited. A table push-up involves pushing away from a table or chair that’s secure against the floor.

Arunachalam Muruganantham –

This guy is an amazing man. Seriously. I heard about him from Dear Author, who gave this link to the BBC article.

A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads.

and …

There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can’t visit temples or public places, they’re not allowed to cook or touch the water supply – essentially they are considered untouchable.

TL;DR, this man loved his wife so much that he wanted to make her life better once he discovered how terrible conditions are for ladies on the rag in India. They’re not allowed in a lot of places and a lot of women have died due to the unhygienic way they have to deal with their periods since sanitary napkins are so expensive.

Being a cool guy, he came up with a framework machine that is being used in over 1300 villages in 23 different states. And instead of using his machines to make a bunch of money for himself, he teaches women how to use the machine and make their own sanitary napkins — which has led to them creating their own businesses and brands.

He keeps to a humble life and doesn’t believe in being wealthy, while at the same time he makes the lives of others better.

This man is a hero. Go read the article: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978

Muruganantham seemed set for fame and fortune, but he was not interested in profit. “Imagine, I got patent rights to the only machine in the world to make low-cost sanitary napkins – a hot-cake product,” he says. “Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty – everything happens because of ignorance.”

He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. “A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it,” he says.

I wish more people dreamed of being butterflies, versus settling on being mosquitoes.