Tough Vs. Rugged

I made a decision a long while back that I wanted to grow up to be a tough old man. The old is easy, but the tough... is tough.

But, what is tough? What does it mean? Did I choose the right word to describe what I wanted to be? Did I mean rugged instead?

Tough is strong but flexible and not brittle. Not easily chewed. Characterized by uncompromising determination. Capable of enduring hardship and strain. Hard to influence. Just... hard. Tough is hiking 15 miles without water, which I do.

Rugged is shaggy, hairy, jagged, turbulent and stormy, with wrinkles and furrows. Weathered. Strong. Sturdy. Austere. Stern. Coarse. Having ability, stamina or resolution. Just... rough. Rugged is two weeks worth of stubble while ridding on a horse... like The Marlborough Man, a young lady friend tells me.



Rugged seems outward appearance whereas tough is deep inside... like character.

Me, always thinking function over form, easily chooses tough over rugged... while borrowing a couple of qualities, like strong, sturdy and austere... and understand that rugged does correlate somewhat with tough.

What I am, and how ruggedly old I look, are my real trophies in life.

I accept this comfortably.

I want to be a tough man, discipline, diet and exercise will take me there. And it will happen before I know it.


- copyright 2013 by Willy

Power Vs. Energy

Our houses are connected to the utility company. We used to call it the power company, which was aptly named. They had the power and we drew their power and paid for it in units of time. If we plugged in a coffee pot that drew drew a killowatt and it took a half an hour to perk the coffee, we used a half-kilowat-hour, a term of energy for which we paid at the end of the month. Power times time used equals energy.


The same is true in engineering. A super-capacitor can quickly discharge large amounts of power for discharging a laser but a lithium battery slowly powers cell phones for hours if not days.

In the same way, athletes have developed power-ful muscles and have power to use when running, bicycling and swimming. If they last a couple of hours, they have generated energy from their power (have done work). But athletes specifically train for either short bursts of high power (powerlifting, for which they look huge but can hardly walk) or long low-power endurance races (for which they look like skinny runts). Seldom do you see a muscular athlete doing cardio (they'd get small), or a racer lifting (too much mass to carry).

Which way is healthiest: Both. An athlete lacking power means brittle bones, and an athlete lacking endurance means heart attacks. In this age of specialization, we should worry about the quality of life rather than trophies and T-shirts.

- © 2013 by Willy

From The Noise

There is an awful lot of junk, stuff or noise out there. When watching TV, we are bombarded by ads; when driving we get the signs and billboards; when dealing with people, we deal with fakes and lies; and when reading an article or book, we read biases and opinion... when all we want to do is find content.

In dieting, we have junk food where we really should be taking in protein and high-grade carbs. In exercise, we have throw-away miles where we should be getting effective use of our time. Where's the beef?



In engineering, we call this finding the signal amidst the noise, and it's a rather difficult task. Noise makes up most of our world, by far. So much, that sometimes we can't find the signal... we have too many choices.

The real solution is an iterative one. You have to know what the signal looks like before you can recognize it, and thus many "looks" are postulated, and extraction attempted, before success can happen. We need to know what the signal looks like. We need to know the form of the answer before we can get the answer. We need to know what we need before we need it. Yes, it seems like double-talk, but it's true.

Not only that, but it is human to see something false out of the noise if we lack control. People want to react to the situation we're out of control in. This explains why TV is so effective. People feel out of control and TV talking heads helps them make sense of it, even if it's a false understanding and thus... brainwashing.

In the health and fitness area, it's about what motivation works for diet and exercise. I have found that silly goals are much better than logical goals... because silly goals are emotional and logical goals are not. We respond to emotional goals much better than common-sense goals. My current goal to trim down fat is to enter a bodybuilding contest (for which I have to show my abs). Amidst numerous logical reasons (noise) like heart attacks, blood pressure and diabetes, the possibility of embarrassment in a bodybuilding contest (signal) is working well for me.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

- © 2013 by Willy

Correlations

A good engineer analyzes and correlates... that's what we do. And when we do, funny things come up.

When engineers discuss correlation, we ask how alike are two things or variables. In a plot of two variables like age and wisdom, we expect positive correlation. For other variables, like beauty and niceness, we expect no or negative correlation (as example, look at movie actors and actresses and their behavior).

Somewhat unfortunately (1) every thing or variable is related to every other thing or variable... not just one or two, and (2) emotions and biases mess up our analysis.

It is truly wonderful to find kind and nice people. I know a few of them... just ran into one of them. They are exceptional. They make the world right for me. What is even better is that they are also athletes... for whatever reason, athletes seem to be correlated to beauty and niceness. Or maybe it's me... I do not tolerate fools, I do not really like fat people, and I think sweat is the best makeup.

- text © 2013 by Willy