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Islamic prayer ritual reduces back pain
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170306154230.htm
Five times a day, roughly 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, bow, kneel, and place their foreheads to the ground in the direction of the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, as part of the Islamic prayer ritual, the Salat. The ritual is one of the five obligatory elements of the faith set forth by the holy book, the Qur'an.
According to research at Binghamton University, State University of New York, the complex physical movements of the ritual can reduce lower back pain if performed regularly and properly.
"One way to think about the movements is that they are similar to those of yoga or physical therapy intervention exercises used to treat low back pain," said Professor and Systems Science and Industrial Engineering Department Chair Mohammad Khasawneh, who is one of the authors of "An ergonomic study of body motions during Muslim prayer using digital human modelling."
Islam: Relieving the Pain in Your Ass Adjacent to Your Rear
An ergonomic study of body motions during Muslim prayer using digital human modelling (DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2017.10002578) (DX)
Rectal Weed
This Doctor Would Rather You Take Weed Up the Butt Than Smoke It
It's even safer than vaping!
Which VPN Services Keep You Anonymous in 2017?
Which VPN Services Keep You Anonymous in 2017?
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U.S. Space Corps
Op-ed at War is Boring. Found at NBF.
Today is a Good Day
It wasn't looking so good to start with. I was still awake at 3:45 this morning so I shut the alarm off. But I got up in mid-afternoon, ate breakfast, showered and shaved, then went to Starbucks. Here at Starbucks I read a few pages of Benjamin Lunt's "USB: the Universal Serial Bus". I'm reading about xHCI Host Bus Adapters in particular.
That book is so detailed you could kill a man with its register definitions. Even so I managed to read 11 pages before losing patience. If I do that each time I sit down to read it, I'll read the chapter on xHCI hardware in a total of four days. That's not so bad.
(xHCI is the register-level controller standard for USB 3. It also supports USB 2 and 1.)
I bought two new pairs of pants at the mall Saturday evening. I'm wearing one of them now. I feel good, wearing brand-new clothes. I'd been reduced to a raggedy pair of blue jeans. Now I regard it as acceptable to wear worn-out jeans specifically, but these were rapidly losing ground.
I had plans to meet a friend at a restaurant tonight, but he had to reschedule for Thursday. My plan was to ask one of the waitresses out to dinner. I don't know whether she's interested in me, but she liked it when I kissed her on her hand. If she's working Thursday I'll ask her then. I want to take her to a sushi bar in downtown Portland.
I was feeling dismayed at my cluelessness about the low-level driver knowledge required to complete my next project. But the Engineering VP and their regular programmer are confident I can do it. We got together to talk about it last thursday. "I want to set your mind at ease" said the VP.
I suppose I'll take on the project. That gives me at least three more months work and enough money to buy a car.
Now I don't really know that it's safe to drive, as I was having seizures for a while. I didn't have many but they were quite severe. A couple times I lost consciousness, yet was up and walking around talking to people, but not making any sense at all, as if I was completely out of touch with reality. The first seizure I had while I was driving. I found myself driving a strange car is a strange place with no memory of how I got there - but I didn't crash, which leads me to believe the seizure was very brief, but with a big loss of memory.
I eventually figured out that I set out the previous afternoon from my Mom's place just north of Vancouver Washington, that I got pulled over by a cop for a busted taillight during the night, and that I want to a restaurant in Medford, Oregon during the very early morning. But I don't remember anything else. I don't remember eating anything at that restaurant, just sitting at my table writing a journal on Kuro5hin.
Eventually I passed mount Shasta, and I realized I was driving back home to where I used to live in San Jose.
My psychiatrist and my regular doctor both think it's safe for me to drive, but both of them want me to get checked out by a neurologist. I have a referral but haven't made the appointment yet.
There is a total eclipse of the sun visible across the United States on August 21 of this year. If I understand the map correctly the totality will be visible in Salem, about an hour south of Portland. If I buy a car I'll drive down, otherwise I'll take the bus or train.
Burning Man may have to be cancelled this year. There has been record snowfall in the nearby mountains, with the result that the dry lake bed is no longer dry. The fear is that it won't dry out enough by labor day. It would be Muddy Man.
I don't have a ticket but was thinking of buying one during the sale during the summer, when those with extra tickets have active support for selling them. We shall see.
I've been there three times before. It was lots of fun.
Black Guns Matter
Tesla Driver Saves Volkswagen Driver, gets free repairs
Tesla Owner Who Sacrificed His Model S To Save Another Driver Gets Surprise From Elon Musk
Mmmh, that sweet good publicity. It's even better than bad publicity.
A Small Victory
I lost a second button off my coat. I managed to retrieve both buttons with the intention of sewing them back on, but the sewing kit lay untouched on my desk for a week.
I am very much a creature of habit. I do certain things, I don't do things that I don't usually do. I'm not used to sewing buttons, so the prospect of doing so struck me as terribly onerous.
Even so, it's still cold here in the Pacific NorthLeft. Leaving my jacket unbuttoned was not only cold, it permitted my shirt to get rained on.
When I got out of bed tonight I was completely overcome with self doubt with respect to my next consulting gig. I wrote an email to two of the client's people to tell them so, but that I had done lots of projects that were far more difficult. That is, my self-doubt does not make sense.
I went out for coffee and started to feel better.
When I came home I was determined to sew those buttons, dammit, and I did.
It wasn't hard at all.
This is a problem I have: the prospect of doing many kinds of work strikes me - ahead of time - as far more difficult than it really is when I'm doing it. So I put off starting it.
I worked an entire quarter at AMCC without doing a damn thing, then checked myself into a psychiatric hospital where they told me I had Attention Deficit Disorder.
I have no lack of attention, but I don't do well at volitionally directing it. If I can get started at a task I have no problem carrying on, but I have a hard time getting started.
That I know this is the case doesn't make it go away.
Chevy Cruze peak range: 702 miles on 13.5 gallons of diesel
New diesel Chevy Cruze can go an estimated 702 miles on a single tank of fuel
The 52 mpg highway fuel economy numbers apply to the six-speed manual transmission diesel Cruze, which gets 30 mpg on city streets. The car also comes in a 9-speed automatic transmission version, which returns 47 mpg on the highway and 31 mpg in the city with start-stop technology regulating the engine.
I'm Too Clueless To Do My Client's Job
My client asked me to bid on a second job. It requires a deep understanding of USB. I didn't understand much of the spec, so I ordered "USB: The Universal Serial Bus" by Benjamin David Lunt.
Just now I emailed my client to tell them that I'd need to study the book before I could produce a sensible bid. I said of course I would charge them for reading it, but I needed some time before I could produce that bid and get started on the actual job.
I expect they'll respect me for being honest but I fear they'll shitcan me for being an idiot.
It couldn't be any more difficult than firewire, which I was once quite good at.
