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is-this-really--life · 6 months ago

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"I think a major part of my generation’s declining mental health is growing up in a culture that has lost the language of defiance. For Gen Z, it has become almost offensive to suggest someone can overcome their struggles. We are inundated with stories of defeat and disadvantage, but so few of defiance.

What happened to overcoming the odds? Defying expectations? Rising above it? Now we obsess over barriers—we talk endlessly about what diagnoses we have, what discrimination we face, the obstacles in our way. We wrestle over who has it worse.

A telling example of this is how Gen Z talks about mental health online. We know by now that young people are not only identifying more and more with their mental illnesses, but glamorising them like never before. “Hot Girls Have ADHD”, apparently! We have fun flavours of autism! You’re not neurodivergent anymore; you’re #neurospicy!

But it’s gone further. We aren’t just identifying with and glamorising our mental illnesses. Now we seem to be competing over who is more mentally ill. Those without autism and ADHD are said to enjoy “neurotypical privilege”. Then there’s competition within mental health communities. Oh you struggle with your gender identity? Well try struggling with mental illness and gender identity issues, like those who are “autigender” or “neuroqueer”! You’re autistic and that’s hard? Have you tried being an autistic person of colour? Sure, you have ADHD, but have you considered how much worse it is to be neurodivergent without pretty privilege, or someone who isn’t “neurotypical passing”? And don’t you dare say you have Asperger’s and still succeed. Sounds like “aspie supremacy”.

I’m not blaming Gen Z. Of course we compete over who can cope the least. We grew up in a world with every cultural, commercial and technological incentive to do so. A billion-dollar mental health industry pushes us to pathologise normal negative emotions. Universities extend our adolescence and treat us like children. Consumer capitalism indulges childlike dependencies. Social media platforms trap us in feedback loops that become self-fulfilling. Virtual reality and AI technologies allow us to avoid risk and discomfort like never before in history. Meanwhile we have a progressive movement that sees strength and stoicism and confuses it for privilege, that takes tough love and calls it stigma, that promotes hyper-vigilant parenting and pretends it’s love. And so if you’re a 14 year-old who does struggle or is disadvantaged in some way, of course you want to capitalise on it. “When you reward victimhood, weakness and suffering with praise and attention, you get more of all three,” Konstantin once told me. “Incentives are everything.”

This is not to say that Gen Z aren’t suffering. We are in a mental health crisis; the modern world is chaotic and confusing. But a major part of this crisis, I think, is our loss of resilience. Yes, we have all these comforts and conveniences—but we also have a constant cultural message that we aren’t capable. Yes we have it materially easier in many ways—but it’s harder to develop resilience when you were raised on screens, without play and risk and danger. And I think the trouble with growing up in a world of incredible technologies and instant gratification is you do, inevitably, end up feeling entitled to a life without friction and discomfort. You expect the world to bend for you; to relieve you of the burden of being human. We demand the world makes us comfortable and call it discrimination or a diagnosis when it doesn’t.

To parents and older generations, please: stop incentivising this. You can be compassionate toward young people struggling with the pace and demands of the modern world without immediately diagnosing them or affirming their every anxiety. Without coddling or infantilising. Without denying them the chance to see what they can do. The message Gen Z is receiving from every corner of culture is that we are not capable. That it’s okay not to be capable. We have to hear something different. We must be told we can be more.

Because a culture that rewards victimhood is not compassionate. It’s cruel. Compassion is not rewarding suffering until it slides into self-indulgence. Compassion is not belittling Gen Z until we lose belief in ourselves. Compassion is recognising that previous generations got through war and poverty and deprivation and came out stronger—and we are capable of the same.

And to Gen Z: these might be good incentives in the short-term. You might get attention on TikTok and get out of doing hard things—but you won’t grow. The more we depend on and define ourselves by our diagnoses, the less resilient we will be, the more we will need to rely on them. Of course I’m not talking to those with severe mental illnesses. But I am talking to those of us being tempted to label our laziness as “ADHD executive dysfunction”, to hoard and hang onto our every painful experience, to compete over who has the most difficult collection of disadvantages. I’m saying that when you are 25 years old and too scared to talk on the phone and telling yourself it’s social anxiety disorder, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Even if it’s true! Maybe you do have it worse than someone else. Maybe making a phone call is harder for you. Maybe you are neurodivergent or do have an anxiety disorder or did face childhood trauma. But when someone tells you that you can overcome these things, or that you can handle them with grace and dignity and become stronger, they are not necessarily saying they aren’t real. They might be real. But you might also be more resilient than you realise.

Life is hard, for everyone. Nobody gets through it without cruelty and injustice and hurt and illness and rejection. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what privileges you have, life is hard. But one thing is for sure: we will make it a lot harder with all this self-pity.

And here’s the truth: there will be something in your life one day that brings you to your knees. That floors you. And you can either stay down or get up. You can be someone who complains and pities themselves, and insists that their pain is more important than everyone else’s. Or you can be someone who does have a challenging diagnosis or was dealt a bad hand and still overcame the odds. Who somehow held it together. Who managed to serve other people. Who conjured up some strength from God knows where. Who did suffer and still demanded more of themselves. Forget earning the respect of older generations. This is about earning respect for yourself.

Or we could continue as we are. Our culture can go on pretending that 20 year-olds are children, funnelling them endless empty mantras like it’s okay not to be okay without any caveat to pull themselves together at some point, and indulging whatever labels we invent and depend on. Keep calling that compassion, if you want. Meanwhile members of Gen Z can take offence when told they can overcome their struggles, and remain feeling powerless as a result.

I’m done with that. Let’s bring back the language of defiance. All of us. Older generations can sympathise with the struggles unique to Gen Z, but then talk about overcoming them. Talk about what’s next. They can expect their children to become capable adults, trust them to try and to fail, and refuse to comply with a culture that insists they are weak. This is not about ridiculing or punishing vulnerability—it’s about not rewarding victimhood. Not rewarding it in our children. Not indulging it in ourselves.

If we do this, things will change. Gen Z will still face challenges, perverse incentives will persist, but we can see ourselves as more capable. We will learn that we can overcome the odds. That we can surprise ourselves. That we can each become someone who says yes, this world did its best to break me but look: I’m still standing.

Let’s bring that attitude back. And start defying anyone who tell us otherwise."

-Stop Rewarding Victimhood and Bring Back Defiance! by Freya India

#substack #Freya India #resilience #mp

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un-enfant-immature · 4 years ago

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Kaia Health gets $26M to show it can do more with digital therapeutics

Kaia Health, a digital therapeutics startup which uses computer vision technology for real-time posture tracking via the smartphone camera to deliver human-hands-free physiotherapy, has closed a $26 million Series B funding round.

The funding was led by Optum Ventures, Idinvest and capital300 with participation from existing investors Balderton Capital and Heartcore Capital, in addition to Symphony Ventures — the latter in an “investment partnership” with world famous golfer, Rory McIlroy, who knows a thing or two about chronic pain.

Back in January 2019, when Kaia announced a $10M Series A, its business ratio was split 80:20 Europe to US. Now, says co-founder and CEO Konstantin Mehl — speaking to TechCrunch by Zoom chat from New York where he’s recently relocated — it’s flipped the other way.

Part of the new funding will thus go on building out its commercial team in the US — now its main market. He says they’ll also be spending to fund more clinical studies, and to conduct more R&D, including looking at how to supplement their 2D posture modelling with 3D data they can pull from modern, depth-sensing smartphone cameras.

“We use the smartphone camera to give you real-time feedback on your physical exercises. We are already pretty good at that but there are a lot more sensors in the iPhone so we’ll build out the computer vision team to start with 3D tracking,” he tells TechCrunch. “Including the depth cameras of the latest Samsung and Apple devices — mixing that with the 2D data we basically get from all the devices to see what we can do with these two data sets.”

On the research front, Kaia published a randomized control trial in the journal Nature last year — comparing its app-based therapy with multidisciplinary pain treatment programs for lower back pain which combine physiotherapy and online learning. “We have another large scale trial which is currently in the peer review process,” says Mehl, adding: “There will be a couple of interesting clinical trials getting published in the next six to nine months.

“We already have clinical studies that look specifically at how accurate the motion tracking technology is at the moment and how fast patients can learn exercises with the technology and how correct it is compared to when they learn it with real physical therapists — I think that’s an exciting study.”

He also flags another published app study which examined the treatment link between sleep and chronic back pain.

“We right now have nine clinical studies ongoing — part of the studies have the goal to compare our therapy apps against a lot of care treatments,” he goes on, fleshing out the reason for having such a strong focus on research. “The other part of the studies specifically look at AI features that we have and how they increase the quality of care for patients.

“Because a lot of startups say they have AI for healthcare or for patients but you never know what it exactly means, or if it really helps the patient or if it’s just material for the pitch, for investors. So that’s why we’d really like to do a lot more effort here, even if we already have nine studies ongoing — because it’s just a very powerful way to show how the products work. And it also helps to get more credibility as an industry.”

Kaia retired an earlier direct consumer subscription strand of its business to focus fully on b2b — chasing the “holy grail” of having its digital therapies fully reimbursed via users’ medical insurance.

Though it does still offer a number of free apps for consumers, with a physical trainer type function, as a way to gather movement data to feed its posture tracking models.

Overall it claims some 400,000 users across all its apps at this point.

“Back in Germany we have the majority of the population that can get the chronic pain app reimbursed already so there we do b2c marketing but the insurances reimburse it,” says Mehl. “In the US we mostly sell it to self-insured employers — the big employers.”

“Our goal in the end is always to get reimbursed as a medical claim because if you think back to our strong clinical focus, it just adds credibility — if you do the full homework,” he adds. “In medicine the holy grail is always to get reimbursed as a medical claim, that’s why we focus on that.”

So far Kaia offers app-based therapy for chronic back pain; a digital treatment for pulmonary rehabilitation treatment targeting at COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease); and is set to launch a new app, in about a month, tackling knee and hip osteoarthritis.

It calls its approach ‘multimodal’ — offering what it describes as “mind body therapy” for musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders which consists of guided physical exercises, psychological techniques and medical education.

Unlike some rivals in the same digital therapeutics for MSK space — notably Hinge Health, which recently raised a $90M Series C — Kaia’s approach is purely software based, with no additional sensor hardware required to be used by patients.

Mehl says it has steered clear of wearables to ensure the widest possible accessibility for its app-based treatments — a point it seeks to hammer home on its website via a table comparing what it dubs a “typical sensor-based system” and its “health motion coach”.

Competition in the digital health space has clearly heated up in the almost half decade since Kaia got started but Mehal argues that major b2b buyers now want to work with therapy platform providers, rather than buying “point solutions” for one disease, giving this relative veteran an edge over some of the more recent entrants.

“We now have three therapies against three very big diseases so I think that helps us,” he says. “We we started 4.5 years ago it was pretty unsexy to start something in digital therapies and now there are so many startups getting started for digital therapies or digital health. And what we’re seeing is that the big b2b customers now move away from wanting to buy point solutions, against one disease, more towards buying a couple of diseases — in the end they want to work more with platforms.”

“The important thing here is we never invent any therapy — we just digitize the best in class therapy and that’s important because if not you have very different requirements of what you have to prove,” he adds. “Now we always just prove that the digital delivery of the best in class therapy works as good or better than the offline role model.”

A key focus for Kaia’s business in the US is working directly with health insurance claims payers — such as Optum — who manage budgets for the employers providing cover to staff, with the aim of getting its digital therapy reimbursed as a medical claim, rather than having to convince employers to fund the software as a workplace benefit.

“We focus on working directly with these payers to be reimbursed by them so that we help them reduce the costs and stay on budget,” he explains. “We already have some really interesting partnerships there — obviously Optum Ventures invested in us, and Optum is the biggest player with [its parent company] UnitedHealth… So we have a very big partner there.

“Once you get reimbursed as a medical claim, the employer doesn’t really have to pay you anymore out of the separate benefits budget — which includes all kinds of other benefits, and which is relatively small compared to the medical claims budget. So if you’re reimbursed it’s a no brainer for an employer to basically buy your therapy. So it’s a fast-track through the US healthcare system.”

The team is also positioning the business to work with the growing number of telemedicine providers — and its app-based therapy something those services could offer as a bolt on for their own patients.

Mehl argues that the coronavirus crisis has transformed interest in digital care provision, and, again, contends that Kaia is well positioned to plug into a future of healthcare service provision that’s increasingly digital.

“Our goal is to not only have a therapy app that works in parallel to the healthcare system but to integrate in a full treatment pathway that a patient goes through. The obvious first thing is that we integrate more with doctors — we are currently talking with a lot of different players in the market how we can do that because if you use one of the many apps where you can talk to a doctor, what do you do afterwards?

“If they prescribe you in person physical therapy or even surgery you can’t really do that at the moment. So to have this full treatment pathway in the digital world just became mass market now. Before the crisis it was more like an early adopter market and now people have no other choice or don’t really want to go out even if the restrictions are lifted because they just don’t feel safe.”

#TechCrunch

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wristwatchjournal · 4 years ago

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Interview – Nirupesh Joshi, Founder of Bangalore Watch Company, on Building a Watch Brand in India

Nirupesh Joshi and his wife Mercy Amalraj founded Bangalore Watch Company in 2018 with the goal of representing 21st-century India with exciting and high-quality watch collections. Neither worked in the watchmaking field prior to this, as both had successful tech and consulting careers. Nirupesh is an aviation and watch enthusiast and grew frustrated by his home country’s lack of desirable watch brands. His latest collection, the MACH 1, celebrates the Indian Air Force MiG 21 Type 77 with multiple design elements and perfectly encapsulates the brand’s ethos. The limited MACH 1X (21 pieces) even has a dial comprised of aluminium alloy from a MiG 21.

I recently talked with Nirupesh about India’s watchmaking history, his thoughts about in-house production, the inclusion of Swiss movements in current and future collections, and much more. This burgeoning brand from Bangalore is certainly one to watch.

Nirupesh Joshi and his wife Mercy Amalraj, founders of Bangalore Watch Company

Erik Slaven, MONOCHROME – Can you tell us a little bit about India’s watchmaking past?

Nirupesh, Bangalore Watch Company – We’ll have to get through a small history lesson to understand this background. India has always had a taste for high-quality watches. The Royalty of India and their penchant for fine watches and jewellery from Cartier or Van Cleef and Arpels is well documented. This trend of high consumption continued throughout the period of British occupation of India – the story of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso concept, born after a polo match, is well known. After the British occupation ended and India gained independence, Nehru – a forward-thinking political leader and the first prime minister of independent India – brought forth industrial reforms in the 1950s modelled after the Soviet system of Autarky. HMT (Hindustan Machine Tools) was set up in the mid-1960s and was tasked with producing the first indigenous wristwatch brand in the country. Using technology transfer and training from Citizen Japan, some estimates put HMT at producing about 115 million watches during its lifetime.

The Bangalore Watch Company MACH 1, proudly representing the modern side of Indian watchmaking.

In the 1980s, India’s economic stance changed. We opened our economy to the world and laid the foundation for what is today a fully globalized economy. Import duties, which were extremely high for luxury goods, were also reduced by a significant margin. This brought an influx of Swiss and international brands to India.

In the recent past, the rising middle class made room not only for Swiss luxury brands but utility brands like Titan and Fastrack. Fossil and its portfolio of contemporary fashion brands like Armani, Michael Kors, etc… have also found a strong foothold with the rise of e-commerce and ‘shopping mall’ culture. Today’s wristwatch market in India is truly a buyer’s market and the customer is king with a multitude of options.

With well-known Indian watch brands (past and present) like HMT, Titan and its sub-brand Fastrack, how does Bangalore Watch Company distinguish itself from these larger, more familiar brands?

There is a certain romance about HMT. They’re really affordable watches with an average price of $30 to $50 and are from a bygone era. The Indian government officially announced the closure of HMT in 2013 and all overstock items are being sold now. Titan and Fastrack are utility brands and almost everyone in India starts with a Titan and quickly grows into other brands.

If you’re a young executive in India, there’s very little in the wristwatch space that excites you. How much longer are you going to pretend to be excited about a watch dedicated to a US flight training school or a US space mission?

Bangalore Watch Company has a clearly defined audience. Our customers are upwardly mobile, well-travelled, well-read, executives and business owners, and excited about the idea of wearing well-built watches that are inspired by stories from India. They’re also aware that they’re buying a product that’ll last a lifetime and won’t cost them their next international holiday.

Therefore, we never see ourselves competing with a Titan or Fastrack.

I previously asked you about in-house movements, which are not part of your near-term roadmap, but are there any plans for in-house production of components – cases, dials, hands, etc.?

We’re always on the lookout. Our hands (and perhaps dials in the future) are produced by our partner company in Bangalore. They are very reputed in the hands and indices business and supply many well-known Swiss brands as well. Cases, however, are a no.

Authenticity is a big part of our brand ethos. We’ll never pretend to do something that we know we’re not good at. We’ll play to our strengths and use the best partners we can find for things we need help with. The wristwatch manufacturing ecosystem in India is at a different level. The quality and workmanship required to execute high-quality watches like the ones we want to make are just not available in the country. The pursuit of “Made in India” sounds fancy, but it’s futile given the ecosystem today.

Your watches have been relatively affordable to date. Are you considering more luxurious, expensive watches that rise well into four figures (EUR/USD)?

Our aim was to create a brand with authentic storytelling and decent quality at the sub-$1000 price point. We are just two collections into that journey now and are excited about the huge opportunity that lies ahead. We have a ton of exciting stories we want to bring out through our future watch collections as we did with the MACH 1.

We also recognize that there is an opportunity and appetite for watches at a higher price level, both in India and overseas. If we do pursue that, however, it’ll be under a different label.

As a self-confessed aviation enthusiast, would you revisit the IAF and other aircraft for a future collection? Perhaps the HAL HF-24 Marut fighter from the 1960s, the first Indian jet (just as an example)?

The only other story that came close to being the inspiration for a pilot watch collection was the HAL TEJAS LCA (Light Combat Aircraft). This fighter plane is entirely developed in India, including the avionics by our ADA (Aeronautical Development Authority). Multiple squadrons of IAF are now scheduled to induct this plane for light combat roles. Very cool fighter jet and a very cool story!

You mentioned an expensive watch you almost purchased in Hong Kong but ultimately passed on as you never really connected with it. Could you share what brand and model it was?

There were two watches. First, the Omega Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon. I was never into the Speedy as it was just not my style. But, when I first tried on the zirconium oxide ceramic case, I was smitten by how it felt on my wrist. Second was the IWC Pilot’s Watch Top Gun Chronograph. Obvious for a guy that’s into planes, eh?

Your new Mach 1 series have Swiss Sellita automatics. Are you exploring other Swiss movement options for future collections – ETA or Soprod, for example? Would you return to Miyota or use a Seiko calibre?

Sellita has turned out to be an outstanding choice for us. They were very flexible with our requests, deliveries were on time and the movements are very easy to service. We’ll continue using Swiss movements for all of our projects as long as they can meet our pricing goals for what our customers are willing to pay. If we use an ETA or Sellita mechanical chronograph, it’ll push the prices beyond what our customers would be comfortable paying. So, it all comes down to that.

Are there any Indian companies you would collaborate with for a watch or collection? Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki or Air India, for example.

Seven out of ten owners of BWC watches are from India. For a large majority of India’s young people, mechanical watches aren’t as exciting as their next new smartphone or 65-inch flat-screen television. We’re trying to make high-quality watches exciting again, hence the storytelling. Tata, Maruti or Air India are all seen as ‘legacy’ brands, and may not serve our cause. On the other hand, collaborations are always fun and allow us to widen our customer base. We have a couple of projects that are in the works, but I have to be tight-lipped about them now!

Exotic or labour-intensive dial materials are definitely popular these days, such as meteorite, enamel or even wood. You used aluminium alloy from a MiG 21 for the Mach 1X dial. Are there any plans for more speciality dials?

I mentioned earlier that we don’t like to follow a trend just because it is cool. For us, it’s all about the story. If a material adds more authenticity and excitement to the story (like the MACH 1X), we will try our best to get it done. There are a couple of exciting stories in the pipeline, so you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled.

The MACH 1X model with aluminium dial

Have you been inspired by either a watch brand or specific individual in the industry in regard to design, technical specs, etc.?

There are many, so here’s a list of what inspires me most.

Jean Claude Biver for his clarity of thought, Christopher Ward (watch brand) for its business model, Oak and Oscar for its community, Konstantin Chaykin for its innovation and Hajime Asaoka for his modesty.

With Covid-19 dominating the news and causing global disruptions to business and daily life, do you see a potential angle for watches? A model that donates a portion of sales to the medical effort, etc.? And just as a side note, you’re in the “Silicon Valley” of India and Samsung’s Research Institute in Bangalore just developed an app for their Galaxy smartwatches to remind wearers to wash their hands every two hours. They developed and published the app within two weeks. Cool stuff!

Mercy, my wife and business partner, and I contributed to a few charities from a personal capacity. We don’t see a business angle here. Right now with the shipping delays and lockdowns, our goal is to ensure all our deliveries are on time and letting our customers know they can reach us if they need us.

For more information about the brand or to make a purchase, visit their website.

The post Interview – Nirupesh Joshi, Founder of Bangalore Watch Company, on Building a Watch Brand in India appeared first on Wristwatch Journal.

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#watches #luxury watches #wrist watches

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connorrenwick · 6 years ago

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Sonar by LAUFEN: Pushing the Boundaries of Bathroom Design

The following post is brought to you by LAUFEN. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

Known for co-operating with some of the best designers of our time, Swiss company LAUFEN continues to show how its heritage and thirst for innovation sets it apart in this market. Once again, through its use of the game changing material SaphirKeramik, it has shown just how far it can push the boundaries of bathroom design.

Launched for the first time in 2013, this groundbreaking material has opened up fresh design opportunities in ceramic that the likes of Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, Konstantin Grcic, Toan Nguyen, and now Patricia Urquiola have been able to exploit in the creation of lighter and smoother bathroom design collections.

The material, resulting from five years of extensive research by LAUFEN, has many revolutionary and high-tech attributes. Not only does it allow thinner and lighter products than traditional ceramic, it boasts extraordinary hardness and strength, making it extremely resistant to bending. These properties have been achieved through the addition of the colorless material corundum, which is also found in sapphires, and has the same bending strength as steel.

Designers who have had the opportunity to work with this state-of-the-art material have discovered that there are almost no restrictions in creating wafer-thin products with the smallest radii with this uniquely hard ceramic. It allows them to completely rewrite the rulebook of what has traditionally been achievable in bathroom ceramic design.

For its latest collaboration, LAUFEN has worked with the internationally acclaimed and eclectic designer Patricia Urquiola to reveal the third generation of SaphirKeramik. The new collection, which is already the winner of a 2018 iF Award and Interior Design’s Best of Year Award 2018, is called SONAR and offers various options in washbasins, WCs, a bidet, new bathtubs and a suite of bathroom furniture.

Talking about whyLAUFEN chose Urquiola for this collaboration, Marc Viardot, Director of Marketing and Products, says, “We had huge admiration for her work but also for her personality. I think this is key for a collaboration, to ensure that the relationship works well and you create something that is bigger than the initial brief.”

Viardot was impressed with Urquiola from the get go so decided to start with a smaller project. Urquiola was brought in to design the LAUFEN showroom in Madrid. What she created was an informal setting that is perfect to welcome industry professionals, architects, interior designers, and developers. It was a new showroom concept, like a creative collaboration space, where creatives, architects, and technicians can meet and work together.

“From that project it became evident that we wanted to take this relationship further and offer Patricia the opportunity to work with our SaphirKeramik,” says Viardot.

As far as the brief goes, Viardot says that he allowed Urquiola more freedom than he has done in most of previous briefs for a design collaboration. “We wanted to take this to another level and explore something that was not already there. Thinking in new dimensions requires you to go beyond the usual process so the relationship has to be very close. For me the relationship is more important than any brief.”

The brief was SaphirKeramik 3.D. Viardot explains that it was not only the third generation of SaphirKeramik, but it was also about exploring a third dimension. “We had had some experience working with Konstantin Grcic on texture, tactility, and reliefs, but I wanted to explore this 3D aspect further. I also wanted to explore another dimension in terms of typologies and application. And Patricia delivered on both tasks very well.”

The resulting collection is characterized by a ceramic surface with ribbed texture and a slimline profile that lends the products an attractive lightness. In recent times, the washbasin appeared to have reached its natural design limits – the traditional ceramic materials used in bathrooms could be fashioned into only a restricted range of shapes, which imposed constraints on applications. But Urquiola was able to use SaphirKeramik to come up with typologies for the washbasin that did not exist before.

“Modern living spaces aren’t getting any bigger and this is particularly true of the bathroom,” says Viardot explaining that even in the premium living sector the small proportions in bathrooms have been somewhat overlooked as we have continued to fill our spaces with bulky sanitary ware and furniture.

The SONAR collection, thanks to the innovative properties of SaphirKeramik, has given rise to a 1000 mm double bowl washbasin that is no wider than a large single washbasin. Double bowl washbasins can now be installed even in small urban bathrooms without adversely affecting either bowl capacity or the bathroom layout.

The collection also features a floor-standing, all-ceramic washbasin, which, despite its small footprint of only 41cm wide, conceals all of the plumbing. For another basin Urquiola pushed the boundaries even further and came up with a washbasin bowl only 340 mm wide. With the help of brackets it can be mounted in front of the wall, so it looks like it is floating, and therefore does not necessarily require a washbasin top.

A further innovative detail to note is the marginally sloping base of the washbasin bowls, which gently channels the water into a transverse recess and from there to a conventional outlet concealed beneath a removable SaphirKeramik cover.

What unites the whole collection though, apart from the slim profile and small footprint of many of the pieces, is in fact the distinctive D-shape that Urquiola has used throughout. Many of the pieces are tapered to the front, which adds a pleasant visual lightness to the design.

“Rounded corners make sense in small spaces,” says Viardot. “Everything had become very square, very architectural and linear, to hide the bulkiness. But in this product we have the advantage of a geometric shape with a rounded front.”

The final aspect that really sets the SONAR collection apart from any other sanitary ware on the market is of course the three-dimensional texture on the external surface of the washbasins. The inspiration for this element of the design was provided by the way in which sound propagates in water.

“The relief is completely new,” says Viardot. “I don’t know any other ceramic washbasin on the market that has relief carved into the molds like that. We had to develop a new production process to achieve this. It is a nice feature because of the material and gives it a personal touch. People always like to touch SaphirKeramik products because they can’t believe it is so thin and actually ceramic.”

Texture in the bathroom is not necessarily a new thing, after all, we’ve seen textured tiles gaining in popularity over the past few years. But never before have comparable ceramic surfaces appeared in a bathroom environment.

“I think that people are starting to crave tactility in the bathroom also,” explains Viardot. “In that space you are usually naked with no layers between your skin and the product. The surfaces are also normally quite cold in this environment. So we asked ourselves how we could make it more tactile and sensual.”

And the SONAR collection certainly achieves that. Working with Patricia Urquiola, LAUFEN has managed to bring together the two, sometimes conflicting, souls of the company: traditional craftsmanship and avant-garde technology, in order to launch a collection that is really revolutionary in terms of bathroom design.

Stacey Sheppard is a UK-based freelance writer and author of the popular award-winning blog The Design Sheppard. She specializes in writing about interior design. She has a particular penchant for kitchen and bathroom design but also has a keen interest in surfacing and materials. When she’s not working she can be found manically pinning inspiration for her own home renovation project. You can follow Stacey on Twitter @StaceyJSheppard and Instagram @StaceyJSheppard.

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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The GOP Is No Longer A ‘Conservative’ Party

To most Americans, conservative is interchangeable with Republican Party. After all, the GOP has usually been the more conservative side of a two-party system for a century. We also tend to understand who a conservative is based on the root of the word: someone who is cautious and respects the status quo, or, put more strongly, someone who is resistant to change.

But the term has philosophical roots, too, separate from the party. Political parties are fundraising organizations attached to a policy platform. Over time, platforms change. The Republican Party has been around more than 160 years and has changed directions many times, as has the Democratic Party. At its founding, the GOP was abolitionist (a radical position at the time), pro-Union (that is, for big government over states rights) and for the expansion of individual rights. The GOP became firmly conservative only in the 20th century.

From a European perspective, however, both U.S. parties have been conservative since World War II (that is, both are on the right end of the spectrum of most modern parliamentary democracies), and at the same time, both parties have always been liberal, as inheritors of Enlightenment notions of citizens rights, individual liberty and representative government.

But gradual shifts in the GOP over the last two or three decades that culminated in Donald Trumps election in 2016 have changed all that. The GOP is no longer a conservative party in any meaningful way. It is instead something else, and it needs a more accurate description.

Why should we care what European political philosophy has to say about U.S. politics? Because our politics arose out of that philosophy, and going back to those roots brings clarity.

Most knowledgeable philosophical conservatives today will tell you how unhappy they are with how far the Republican Party has drifted. Some prominent conservatives leaned toward Democrats in the 2000s, such as Catholic conservative commentatorAndrew Sullivan, and more have become never-Trumpers, including former Republican strategist Ana Navarro. This is because the GOP of Trump, House leader Paul Ryan and Senate leader Mitch McConnell has become a radical right. That may sound like a contradiction, since radical is usually shorthand for the far left, but the seeming contradiction demonstrates how restrictive our notion of the right-left political spectrum really is, and thats perhaps the most important thing we can learn from looking to our European roots.

The Battle Between Reason And Unreason

The best way to understand these roots is a historical survey of the long 19th century (from the French Revolution to World War I) and the short 20th century (encompassing both world wars and the Cold War), descriptions coined by historian Eric Hobsbawm. When I teach this period, I frame it somewhat facetiously as an epic battle between reason and unreason. In other words, the Enlightenment posed a question to Europe: What happens if we use reason (over tradition or religion) to govern ourselves? Of course, the debate was rarely that stark. Few rationalists were purely so, while proponents of the old ways pointed out how much rationality there was in tradition. Rather, I try to show students how modern European history has been a struggle between these impulses within movements as well as in opposition to each other.

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The French Revolution established notions of rights, individual liberties and the primacy of a secular state. But it also brought two centuries of reaction to the revolution.

The French Revolution can be seen as a rousing crescendo in the symphony of support for the rationalization of government and society in Europe. It established the notion of rights, individual liberties and the primacy of the secular state. From there we can draw a line to todays liberal democracies. Both major U.S. parties and most of postwar Western politics have been in this tradition until very recently. But the two centuries following the French Revolution were filled with jockeying over peoples reactions to the cataclysmic event, from reactionaries who wanted to turn back the clock to centrists who wanted to keep things as defined in the revolutions early stage to Jacobins, the leftist radicals who wanted to push rights still further by any means necessary.

This is where our right-left spectrum comes from: three broad categories of responses to the French Revolution. Most of modern Western politics is descended from the center-left responses that accepted rights as natural and argued only about who was included, the best ways to translate political rights into liberties and to what degree. On this spectrum, any conservatism within a democracy is already a centrist position because it accepts rights and representation, though in a more limited way.

The far-right position in the 19th century was known as Reaction. Reactionary religious philosophers like Joseph de Maistre prioritized Gods law over mans, arguably leaning toward theocracy. Reactionary statesmen like Klemens von Metternich primarily wanted to save or return to traditional power structures and were in this sense conservative, though their violent attempts to put down any perceived threat could be described as more paranoid than cautious. Konstantin Pobedonostsev a statesman and tutor of the future Alexander III, Russias most reactionary tsar made strong rational criticisms of democracy. He warned that representative government diluted power and that the press not the people or their representatives, who have little say in what writers and editors do had the power to make or break a democratic society. (Some members of Americas alt-right profess allegiance toward Reaction, though it can be hard to tell when they are sincere and when they are praising autocracy for the shock value.)

As monarchies increasingly failed to stem the tide of Enlightenment secularism, Irish statesman Edmund Burke took de Maistres place as a figurehead for mainstream conservative philosophy. Coming from the British tradition, he accepted rights and representation but wanted them limited to a (wealthy white male) few. This was an easier position to accept in a monarchy that was already limited and had inherited the liberal philosophy of John Locke. Burke was appalled by the vulgarity of the French Revolution and yet supported American independence. Though Burkes name is most strongly associated with conservatism to this day, he was a contradictory figure who does not best exemplify the post-Revolution conservatism that dominated propertied classes in Europe and North America in the 19th century.

Most mainstream conservatives were ordinary people who enjoyed some wealth and social position, and didnt question the systems they were born into. Their priority was to protect what they had.

Take the example of Russian provincial nobleman Andrei Chikhachev, who inherited serfs but recognized it as a system that couldnt last. He worshiped knowledge, working to expand education for serfs, and he welcomed technological advances so long as they were introduced cautiously. Rather than fearing revolution like a reactionary, he pitied decadent, urbanized Westerners from a place of complacency with his own more orderly (and unequal) rural idyll. If Chikhachev had been born in Boston instead of rural Russia, he probably would have accepted representative government as unquestioningly as he did monarchy, because it was there. He could have been just as pious, just as cautious, just as uncritically patriotic in either system, as indeed most propertied white men were then, whether they lived in a rising democracy or a failing autocracy.

The right wing, in other words, is not one thing. As it has changed over time, it has also varied greatly in degree and emphasis, and in context. There are multiple philosophical sources that inform different streams of thought, many of which end up in surprising places. There is a clear continuity from even the most liberal conservatives to extreme reactionaries(as American political theorist Corey Robin stresses), but there is also a meaningful difference between acceptance of representative government and social change (even if regretfully, cynically or pragmatically) and violent, organized opposition to either.

The Right And the Radical

What can it mean to be both right (resistant to change) and radical (pursuing extreme change)?

One answer has to do with nationalism.

Civic nationalism is a liberal compromise that ties voting and citizenship to the nation and state order, as in the modern U.S. or Britain. Ethnic nationalism, in contrast, offers as natural and timeless something that was constructed in the middle of the 19th century. To build a tribal identity around ethnicity, language, history and religion and use that identity to justify a state (as opposed to a monarchy justified by God) was new.

ullstein bild via Getty Images

Prussian Foreign Minister Otto von Bismarck’s mix of nationalism and power politics laid the foundation for World War I.

Germany is a tragic example of ethnic nationalism run amok. As foreign minister of Prussia in the mid-19th century, Otto von Bismarck added the element of nationalism to the drive for power he inherited from Metternich. Bismarck asserted that German speakers, then spread across principalities and empires, should be united into one German state. He achieved the unification of what we know as Germany in 1871, then acquired overseas colonies and helped perpetuate an arms race with Britain, leading to World War I. The militarization of Germanys government in this period, along with colonial atrocities, such as theHerero genocide,chillingly presaged the Holocaust before ever Adolf Hitler was rejected from art college.

Nationalism took its strong and ugly grip on Europe during a period of industrialization, expansion of middle classes and the entrenchment of large, bureaucratic governments that consolidated the principles of the French Revolution despite reactionary challenges (the long 19th century). Property-owning men increasingly wielded power and accumulated wealth through professions, business and government more than inheritance. But working classes and minorities saw their conditions deteriorate with few gains in political representation. Socialism, developing in response to industrialization, recognized that the liberal focus on rights and the free market was liberating only for some. This led to the idea that only economic equality could bring real liberty an idea that terrified the haves and intrigued the have-nots.

Nationalism emerged as a story that could unite whole populations regardless of vast disparities in wealth. And by defining us, nationalism also defines who is the other, providing someone to blame who is coincidentally not the people enjoying power and wealth. A system that was threatened by the poor and minorities told the poor to hate minorities, leaving minorities to fear the poor.

A system that was threatened by the poor and minorities told the poor to hate minorities, leaving minorities to fear the poor.

Nationalism called to our irrational impulses to assuage wrongs brought by (rational) technology and economics. By the 20th century, technocratic, largely secular nationalists used both pseudo-science and appeals to tradition to promote a genocidal agenda to aggrandize their own tribe (Nazism was one variant of fascism). Other fascists in Romania, Croatia, Portugal and elsewhere were explicitly religious and allied themselves wholly with the counter-Enlightenment, harnessing fears of change and difference to unite their nations. These political religions are another subtle variation on theocracy.

Where liberal democracy focuses on equal rights and opportunities for individuals to do what they want, short of imposing on others rights, socialism focuses on harnessing the productivity of all for the benefit of all, a collectivist perspective. Nationalism is also inherently collectivist because the nation is held above its component parts: the people. The core idea all fascists had in common was the supremacy of the nation over the lives or liberty of its citizens, as well as their nations superiority over others. The Nazi use of socialist in the full form of its party name, National Socialists, implied this collectivism but, by adding national, rejected everything else about socialism that made it socialism: its aim of economic equality without regard to divisions by ethnicity or religion. This appealed to voters who might have been tempted by the economic promise of socialism but recoiled from its rejection of their identity and traditional values.

Fascism And The Right-Wing Fringe

So, was fascism conservative? It had its roots in right-wing movements and appealed to counter-Enlightenment, reactionary values, albeit with a veneer of scientific-sounding rhetoric. It violently opposed both liberal democracy and socialism and strongly favored social hierarchy (inequality defined by race). But fascism was also radical because it embraced a strong bureaucratic government rather than inheritance as the basis for power and embraced technological progress (for its military and economic advantages). Therefore, it was not reactionary, unless we use that term so loosely it no longer defines the people it was coined to describe. But fascism also cannot be called conservative without losing that terms original meaning, since it sought drastic changes by means so vulgar as to be unimaginable to conservatives like Burke. So fascism was both right-wing and radical.

In other words, the left versus right terms we use to describe our politics (and the political compass variation on it) fail to take into account one of the most important political debates of the 20th century: individualism versus collectivism, with nationalism as the key concept within that debate. Those of us born to the Anglo-American tradition often miss this because our experience is of the seemingly easy compromise position of civic nationalism.

Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Evangelical support has pushed the Republican Party toward theocracy. Here, students at Liberty University pray for Donald Trump before his inauguration.

But 2016 has forced Americans to pay attention to virulent nationalism and everything that goes with it. America has always had a resentful, white-supremacist nationalism based on hating the other and rejecting liberalism. What changed in 2016 is that a major party embraced this fringe, handed it power and is now refusing to check that power with anything more than a furrowed brow. Whether motivated by cynicism, greed, fear, delusion, helplessness or true belief, by its inaction the Republican Party has abandoned the last vestiges of a conservatism that is skeptical of change, values individual liberty and accepts the premise of representative government. This Republican Party is a radical right containing elements of theocracy (Education Secretary Betsy DeVosand the evangelical base) and fascism (the extreme alt-right, who remain unrenounced by the president and who are represented in the White House by Chief Strategist Steve Bannon).

Whether motivated by cynicism, greed, fear, delusion, helplessness or true belief, by its inaction the Republican Party has abandoned the last vestiges of a conservatism that is skeptical of change, values individual liberty and accepts the premise of representative government.

Clearly the old schemas always imperfect cannot capture the tectonic shift in American politics institutionalized by Trumps election. They are products of the Industrial Age, and so one way to begin mapping our new landscape is to consider how the current information revolution should be central to our understanding of todays politics.

We could start by appropriating the name Know-Nothings for the modern Republican Party, since its characterized by its denial of reality (the original Know-Nothings, who took their name from their secrecy, were anti-immigrant nativists). This term highlights a peculiarly postmodern twist this radical right has put on the big lie propaganda that Hitler famously recommended. Alternative facts dont just offer an unsubstantiated, and often absurd, narrative; they destabilize the idea that truth exists or matters. Political lying is nothing new, and even lying on this scale has precedents (though only in the worst regimes). Todays right goes a step further to undermine the value of any knowledge, education or evidence, for a receptive audience that cares only whether the script plays to their teams advantage or serves as a strike against the other team.

An Anti-Government Government

Liberals and conservatives, in the proper sense of those words, are now both uncomfortably covered by the shade of the never-Trump tent. Both accept the premise of rights and representative government, and watch in horror as norms are flouted daily. A party that used to represent limited government encroachment on individual lives moved through a religiously motivated drive to control womens bodies into a new present, where the president, Cabinet and Congress explicitly oppose the government they run in every respect but their personal domination of it. Their voting base largely white and evangelical cheer the undermining of democracy through voting restrictions and boo defenses of traditional American values, such as freedom of the press, separation of church and state, the right to protest, and checks and balances. These elected officials and their base voters are not conservatives in any sense that doesnt warp the term beyond recognition.

They are a radical right that recalls earlier radical right movements such as reactionaries, fascists and theocrats. But they are also a new phenomenon. They were elevated to power through hacking, bots, gerrymandering, voter suppression and PACs. The information revolution made it possible for the least knowledgeable and yet most extreme to push themselves to power to dismantle government from within, despite losing the popular vote and continuing strong popular opposition.

We will need new words to describe this, as it continues to develop in unpredictable ways. But one thing is sure: The familiar days of the right as cautious men in suits and the left as hairy hippies are over. The Cold War, with its comforting clichs about authoritarianism happening to other people, is over.

Were living something else now.

Katherine Pickering Antonova is an associate professor of history at Queens College, City University of New York, and author of An Ordinary Marriage: The World of a Gentry Family in Provincial Russia and A Consumers Guide to Information: How to Avoid Losing Your Mind on the Internet.

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verymerynice · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Top Auto Blog

New Post has been published on http://topauto.site/fisker-promises-a-revolutionary-electric-car-on-graphene-supercapacitors/

Fisker promises a revolutionary electric car on graphene supercapacitors

Danish designer and entrepreneur Henrik Fisker is the author of appearance of a number of successful sports cars: the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9, Aston Martin V8 Vantage. But his own automotive business the successful way: the first copies of the hybrid sedan Fisker Karma, will go on sale in 2012, suffered from battery issues (even had to declare revocable campaign). The firm Fisker Automotive went bankrupt three years ago (although now the Chinese investors Karma modernized and re-sale).

In recent years, Henrik Fisker is included in the guide tiny firms VLF Automotive, which reworks of Karma on diesel traction and release Force 1 sports car at the coupe Dodge Viper. But not so long ago the restless Dane announced a new project: his company, Fisker Inc. is developing its own electric car, which is still marred in the form of teasers. According to him, we are waiting for the sequel to Karma: streamlined sedan with a distinctive design and sash doors. However, instead of traditional batteries, it will use a fundamentally different method of energy storage — supercapacitors based on graphene!

On this technology the team is working Fisker Nanotech in the state which a team of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles. For example, Maher al-Kady and Richard Kaner, working on Nanotech Fisker, have several patents in the field of supercapacitors with graphene electrodes.

Graphene is a two — dimensional crystal of carbon: a layer with a thickness of just one atom. After physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from Manchester University were able to synthesize this material and conducted a series of experiments in science started a real boom associated with the study of graphene. In 2010, Geim and Novoselov even got for his experiments the Nobel prize. Graphene has high strength, heat conductivity and highest electron mobility among all known materials.

The main feature of ultracapacitors (or supercapacitors) is a very high speed of charging and discharging, which is why they were used on a racing Toyota TS030 hybrid and the Toyota TS040, designed for marathon “24 hours of Le Mans.” But the energy density they are much inferior to the traditional batteries. The use of graphene electrodes allows you to dramatically increase this figure, although in this case the capacitors are seriously inferior to modern lithium-ion batteries. Typically, these supercapacitors have an energy density of 15-35 WH/kg — about how lead-acid batteries. The best laboratory samples of these capacitors are now capable of providing an energy density of about 83 WH/kg Theoretically possible growth approximately doubled, but the modern lithium-ion batteries have energy density of over 200 WH/kg.

The ideal crystalline structure of graphene is a hexagonal crystal lattice (photo wikipedia.org)

The head of Fisker Nanotech Jack Cavanaugh says that their company has the technology, allowing to significantly increase the energy density capacitors with graphene electrodes, but does not go into details, citing the uniqueness of our own know-how. In the company promise that the power reserve on a single charge will exceed 600 km.

Another problem of technologies based on graphene, the lack of industrial plants for its production and, consequently, high price. But Cavanaugh and Fisker say that the Fisker specialists Nanotech already designed the installation, which will allow to obtain graphene with a cost of 10 cents per kilogram. Company executives even expect to sell supercaps their production to other manufacturers.

“Fisker Inc. will lead a revolution in electric cars that will shake the market and change the world!” — said Henrik Fisker. Promises too good to be true? Details will have to wait another year: Fisker plans to introduce its electric car in the second half of 2017.

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phaelosopher · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://www.phaelosopher.com/2017/02/20/rebooting-ultimate-journey/

Rebooting Myself: The Ultimate Journey

I didn’t watch President Trump’s speech yesterday, so I don’t know what he said, and have no opinion about it, other than we got what we were willing to bet on, and that he remains the lesser of the “two evils” that Americans were given the illusion of choosing.

Mr. Trump is not our problem, nor our solution. Irrespective of who caused, or is still causing our problems, they are ours to solve, not Trump’s. The Solution has always been, and remains within each of us; so the Journey must begin there.

This is not a “prayer” thing. It’s about conscious awareness, gaining self-knowledge, knowing what works, what does not work, and why, and then applying said knowledge to change our own life.

That’s why I’m writing now.

With Dr. Konstantin Korotkov in Sedona (2011).

The picture above was taken from an interview that I did with Dr. Konstantin Korotkov in May 2011. Dr. Korotkov developed a technology referred to as electrophotonic imaging, which is able to detect, visualize, and analyze subtle energy emanations that are naturally given off by people, plants and animals, materials, and substances such as water.

He has also authored several books on subtle energy, including The Energy of Consciousness, The Energy of Space and Light After Life.

Subtle energy, which is known by other terms, such as Chi, prana, ka and ether, actually represents the foundation that is of iceberg proportions to everything that we see, feel, and experience. HOWEVER, generally speaking, the vast majority of us can’t see, or feel it, and science can’t measure or meter, and thereby control it. So the subtle reality is considered by science to be a speculative or conjectural factor at best. At least, that’s what they teach, and want us to believe.

Dr. Korotkov’s technology, as well as his research, tells, confirms, and helps us to better understand a very different scenario. It allows people who presently can’t see such things (which makes it easy to dismiss or “dis-believe” them), to see correlations that are affecting our lives, while yet being invisible.

Here’s how the human energy field looks to people who can see them. Please note that you hear, and are taught nothing about this, the iceberg of you, in school. Doctors are worse. Not only are they taught nothing about the human energetic nature, they are conditioned to respond to the subject and anyone who brings it up with dismissal and disdain.

I can’t speak to the purposes and functions elucidated by the source of the above image, but the representation is consistent with that of many other modern and arcane authorities on subtle energy.

As such, the representation shown by Dr. Korotkov’s electrophotonic imaging systems can be a great help to offer insights into this little known, and even less regarded, part, not only of ourselves, but of all life.

Energy field reading from Dr. Korotkov’s Bio-Well system.

While I had met and interviewed Dr. Korotkov several years before, I never did get around to producing or releasing the video, for when I saw the footage, I was shocked to see this:

Is that Man Pregnant?!

What was I packing?

Call me what you want, but with regard to the appearance of health, the contrast was between the my sense of myself and how I actually looked, was too to take. Even though I could mask my extra “load” by zooming in during editing, I simply closed the file. It remains unfinished to this day.

We’ve grown accustomed to being shamed into loving ourselves just as we are, telling ourselves, or letting doctors tell us we’re “healthy” if we don’t feel pain at that moment. And to be clear, I do love myself, just as I am. I am well practiced at that. But I am also honest. Being honest doesn’t mean not being loving. It simply means acknowledging when change is appropriate, and then committing ourselves to changing. This generally requires acquiring knowledge that we don’t presently possess. That becomes the first commitment… not to “believe,” but to know.

We are generally ignorant (1) of the long-term price we’re paying for loads that of some very fundamental and changeable customs and practices that will and are taking us down the slippery slope to degenerating health, which the Medical Industrial Complex is more than happy to service us for, if we can pay.

Source: MHADegree.org

Programmed to Not Only to Fail, but to Not Try

The psychological consequence of present methods of dealing with the increasing intrusion of pathologies is the general assumption that one can do little (1) without the “help” of a doctor’s pill (or other wonder remedy) or (2) a LOT of grueling “gerbil” work (exercise, etc.).

What we remain even more ignorant of, are the causes of said pathologies, how avoidable and reversible they can be without anyone else’s help or great expense, and how synthetic drugs, which exacerbate an already artificially compromised system, are not the remedy.

Wake-up calls are rarely pleasant. Most of the time, we don’t even notice them, permitting ourselves to continue our slumber. Sometimes, doing nothing is all we can do because, while we may know what Kim Kardasian did to make her stretch marks disappear, how many pounds an NFL football is supposed to be inflated, or think the evidence is valid that the earth is actually flat, we have no clue of who and what makes us sick (and how). Until we change this for ourselves, we are ill-prepared to change our situation.

That’s not who, or how I wanted to be. If I really cared about health and healing, then it was clear that I needed to apply what I learned, to me.

No Quick Answers

If you asked me, my lifestyle was a “healthy” one. I had learned much about nutrition, although there was, and are always areas of disagreement from various experts. I proudly considered myself an omnivore. Occasionally a beef eater (enjoyed a good burger or bison), fish, pork (barbecue), (meat lovers) pizza, and poultry… with a deceptive fondness for sweets.

Needless to say I’ve done many videos since that afternoon with Dr. Korotkov, and although these years have passed, I will eventually finish it, as the information remains relevant today.

Source: Metro UK

Not wanting to vie for a competing role on “My 600 lb Life” (what people won’t do to get a TV show), I took steps to remedy the situation by “eating better.”

For me that meant adding more “live” foods to my diet, green leafy salads, smoothies with all sorts of healthy additives, even raw eggs.

It helped some, but the results weren’t getting me anywhere near where I wanted to go.

The picture below was taken in August 2014, at Phoenix airport as I left for a month in Europe that included stints in London, France, Spain, and Amsterdam. While my belly didn’t look as bad from that angle, it still protruded enough for me to vow to “come back home without it.” Whether I believed it was possible, I definitely wanted to.

2014: Still carrying more “baggage” than I wanted.

When I returned home, I still had a “belly pack.”

A bigger than wanted belly and extra weight were only visible indicators of other anomalies that might have easily been dismissed, or passed off to “getting older.” The nails on my big and “pinky” toes grew abnormally thick. However, in 2012-2013 my scrotum had suddenly grown abnormally large. While not painful, it affected activities a man would rather not feel the need to apologize for.

After speaking with a number of healthcare people, and having learned enough to appreciate the importance of balance, I made a conscious decision to not seek medical remedy, which would have been surgery or some drug regimen as long as there was insurance to pay for it.

Through extensive observation and research, including the knowledge gained publishing books on health, my involvement with “the Miracle Mineral Supplement” (better known as “MMS”), and discovering the power and nature of water, I knew it was possible to restore normal function.

I was determined to do it for myself.

This led me to discover and try many more modalities and technologies, which we will not be itemizing at this time.

A Fair Question About MMS

Someone wrote me the other day and asked me why I didn’t and don’t talk about MMS, which I have some knowledge about, but chose not to consider in endeavoring to address my situation. The solution that is made from a small amount of sodium chlorite (NaClO2), to which a light acid is added, has helped many people (including the recovery of over 200 children who had been diagnosed with autism), improve their conditions. If you’re not aware of anything else, then it’s definitely worth using. I have absolutely no regrets for the time I spent learning about, then writing, interviewing, and producing videos about MMS.

My friend Daniel Smith still serves time in federal prison for “trafficking” MMS and intent to defraud the government (not for harming anyone). I shudder to think of the suffering that the people who found MMS, used it and benefited from that decision might have gone through had Daniel (and others) not done what they did. As it presently stands, history writers aren’t telling a kind story about MMS. But as it presently stands, “history” still celebrates people who have done humanity a great disservice.

Not Product, but Environment, Balance, and Process

Any disease pathology that forms is an issue of environment, its balance, and process. Balance gets a lot more attention than the environment, and process is ignored altogether. We talk about “pathogens” as though they are “bad” and must be killed off to “save” the patient, but don’t acknowledge that the environment that the pathogens formed in was right and ripe for said formation. We never look at the process which brought the environment into the condition it was in. Certain pathogens are only pathogenic under certain circumstances, such as when there isn’t sufficient oxygen in the environment for normal respiration.

Some “pathogens,” such as streptococcus and Escherichia coli, are actually essential for health, if the environment itself is balanced. If it is not, such as when oxygen levels are low, they have the ability to change their method of respiration, so as to continue living. However, they too are now under stress. They too are not healthy. But guess what? If they couldn’t change themselves in the now more hostile environment, the host would be dead already.

What does the medical practitioner say needs to be done? Kill the pathogen by any means necessary, generally by antibiotics. Because we have been taught that “germs” are bad, we permit a holocaust inside our own temple.

Though they tended to dismiss this interpretation when I was involved, MMS is a novel way to make more oxygen available to an environment that has, by certain process, become oxygen-deficient.

Oxygen is Special Among Gases for Life

From Paramagnetism: Discovering Nature’s Secret Force for Growth, by Philip Callahan, Ph.D.

Oxygen has a very special quality among gases of having what are termed paramagnetic properties. It is, by a wide margin, the gas (vapor) with the highest paramagnetic properties in all the Periodic Table. Paramagnetism, which is not well understood in mainstream science, is essential for the life; including that of plants, animals, and people.

If we understood these simple truths, we would not allow any vaccines to be given or taken, because they immediately and effectively lower the life-sustaining availability of oxygen. But scientists persist in telling (lying to) us that vaccines are still the best thing since sliced bread, and that its use must not just be maintained, but intensified.

Only if we don’t know better.

So I have made the understanding and restoration of balance my main objective. Products can certainly help, but product isn’t the only factor; not even the main one.

If I hadn’t decided to “live with” this anomalous condition and use it as motivation to learn, I shudder to think where I’d be now.

The Journey is Still Just Beginning

I have learned of, and tried many modalities beyond MMS. ALL of them have their merits, and can boast of phenomenal results. Few if any are “FDA approved” or evaluated. We no longer need to ask ourselves why.

This is not to diminish MMS either. The results that people report is a far more reliable indicator of the potential efficacy of method than any that may be published in “peer-reviewed journals”. Why? Money, reputation, tenure, pride, professional status. Pick your vice. All of these factors are at play when a bunch of elitist ivory tower types get together and decide to tell us what color the sky is supposed to be, thinking that we don’t have the ability to figure it out ourselves.

We’re taught to think that we cannot figure this shit out. That’s what the convoluted language and narrative-building around disease schemes is about. They weave a story around complicated language, show us some data, and we let go of common sense and agree to take poisons to “fight” a bug that, itself, is actually trying to keep the body alive in spite of other stupid abuses we’ve adopted (the process factor), not knowing their stupidity, likely because some (paid) celebrity was promoting it.

No thanks…

If you want to begin getting truth, money must be demoted from its role as motivating force in the decision matrix.

Of course, there are honest health care professionals out there. Interesting, the rash of naturopathic doctors that experienced sudden departures from this reality between 2015/2016, with gunshot wounds, found floating in rivers, and other mysterious ways.

Source: HealthNutnews.com

If we don’t appreciate and understand the stress factors inherent in familiar habits (process) that cause environments to destabilize and balance to wane, we will continue taking or allowing them, which is one of the main reasons that “diseases” tend to return with great regularity.

An Obscure Source of Health (and Life) Wisdom

I recently came across an obscure, but amazing information source, whose logic is impeccable, science is comprehensible, and his command of history reveals both the progression and purpose of the current system, whose dysfunction is intentional, which means it is functioning as designed.

Source: Hilton-Hotema.com

His name is, or was Hilton Hotema, born George R. Clements (1878-1970). I included a Wikipedia link too, but don’t be surprised if it disappears. It is already flagged for having “issues,” and that the author may not meet the organization’s “notability” criteria.

Fur sure!

Hotema’s works are notable because they do something that someone has spent centuries trying to keep from humanity; they tell you exactly how we’ve been fucked, by whom, for how long, and why. In addition, he gives valuable information on physiology, and what we can do to help ourselves.

Oh… did I say that he charts the re-write of human history through the fabrication of an external “God” figure, through a publication, 1,000 years in the making, called the Bible?

Man is eternal, with no “beginning” or “end”. The Divine Presence and Intelligence that makes one, makes ALL… that powers one, powers ALL. Some excerpts from one of Hotema’s books.

Truth is stranger than fiction, especially in this world of organized fraud and ignorance, where a Teacher of Truth (or who actually help the sick to heal) is considered a dangerous person, because knowledge based on Truth sets man free of his enslavers (Jn 8:32).

It should not be thought strange that the silver cord seems to appear out of nothing, when we know that all colors of the rainbow just as seemingly appear out of nothing, being contained in the clear light surrounding the earth.

In that apparently clear light is contained all things that appear visible on earth. Simply supply the proper occasion and condition, and the forms appear on the visible plane.

From the Primary Cell composed of invisible atoms, and out of invisible substance contained in the clear light surrounding the earth, the body and its organs are produced by cells endowed with Infinite Intelligence.

It is astounding to observe that the cells, by their work, prove that they possess a prevision of the future structure and its purpose, and they synthesize from the atomic substance that appears to be contained in the plasma, not only the building material, but the builders.

The Eternal Elements of Universal Production are endowed with the properties of prevision and provision. They know the end of the beginning and the beginning from the end. These elements proceed in an orderly cycle that has extended throughout eternity. They know their purpose and their work. For they have always done it and will always do it, now and forever. ~ Facts of Nutrition (p.9)

I could go on. It’s actually hard to stop, because (1) it rings true, and (2) it feels great to discover or perhaps uncover these little known information about the nature of our being.

Here we have been thinking that “bugs” were our enemies that needed to be killed off, to fight some malicious force, only to discover that the malicious force is greed born of ignorance and stoked by fear. Both of which we can cure ourselves of.

I am reading and enjoying Clements’ work as I have that of Walter Russell and other luminaries. The insights shared in his work are as relevant today as they were when published over 50 years ago. While it was the second book of his that I have read so far (and I am now on my fourth and fifth), I would suggest starting with Man’s Higher Consciousness (which can also be found as a pdf, but the Kindle version is great if you have a tablet to read on). Before moving on, I’m going to give you one more tidbit from Cosmic Creation, Part II.

Word of God

The Bible was made, presented to the masses as the “Word of God,” and became the law of the Christian world. To question any statement in it meant speedy death for the impious offender; it was not until 1816 that a “papal bull” to torture and death (by burning) at the stake for opinion’s sake.

History states that between 1600 and 1670, the Inquisition in Spain alone roasted alive 31,912 victims for questioning the Bible.

“This mode of execution was employed to avoid the spilling of human blood.” (Wall p. 339).

Livingston states that in Spain and Italy more than seventy million victims were put to death for questioning the Bible (p. 141)

And so, the authors and historians of the Christian world from the 4th century to the 19th, fearing to incur the wrath of the Church, shaped their work to fit the biblical pattern.

There is so much more. And this is not to condemn religion, for most people earnestly believe what they are taught to believe ~ from people that they trust ~ to be true. This is also the case with most medical professionals. They do not suspect that their training was faulty on purpose, and for a purpose.

I looked, but could not find a papal bull of 1816, and you can find many sites that minimize, dismiss, or justify many of the actions taken by Church leaders, such as torture being permitted in order to obtain the truth. But here’s a link to look up some of the history for yourself.

Notice that the list is incomplete!

It becomes easy to see how, and why “believers” would be very disinclined to question the authority of the pope, the Bible, or any other self-appointed (or elected) “authority”, given the social and cellular memories that have been imprinted in human consciousness. But this is why so many still slumber, and exactly the darkness that each, in his or her own way, must awaken from.

Given the timeline that Hotema gave for ending death for questioning, it’s interesting to note that the practice of issuing vaccinations began roughly 15 years previous, around 1800, when Edward Jenner (1749-1823), sold the idea that cow pox, which was much easier to obtain and culture, was essentially a substitute of equivalent effectiveness in treating smallpox. While Jenner is lionized in orthodox medical history, his story didn’t hold scientific water either, and still doesn’t.

Source: The Truth About Cancer

It’s All Connected

I could go on writing, for there is so much to understand. This is partly why I don’t write as often. It takes time and energy to do this, yet it’s worth it.

Our first objective is to know ourselves, for the more you know who you are, the more you will love who you are. Why? Because you are amazing. We are made of magical stuff that works on our behalf and to our benefit, even when we don’t.

One other Hotema observation, is that we are designed to need nothing but the Breath of Life. In other words, matters of health, disease, poverty or well-being are all the result of acquired habits that we have come to believe, erroneously or purposefully, are necessary for life. Again, the bell of Truth rings loudly.

So I started this missive with a picture that was embarrassing, and on the basis of insights gained from the discovery of this and many other great sources of wisdom, have made some changes that, if you want to know, I will tell you about.

This is how I look now.

Noticeable, positive results in a short period of time.

Not done by a long shot, but a great start!

I didn’t have to hold my belly in for the last picture. The changes you see here happened in the course of about 2 weeks. My body went from around 209 lbs to 194. Waist size, from 36″ to 34. All I did was to simply drink water and fruit juice.

After about 10 days, I began consuming smoothies, fruits, and nuts. No meat of any kind, no poultry, no fish. Today, and unfortunately, consuming any of these items, no matter how tasty they are, also means taking in chemicals that went into their production. The cells are simply on overload with all that we allow in our innocent belief that they do little harm. We pay the price, not only in money, but the real important stuff, such as health, longevity, hopes, dreams, joy, discovery, and meaningful accomplishments, all due to lies started over 1,000 years ago that persist to this day.

I’ll share one more thing here that is really important. Just 24 hours after beginning my fast, I discovered, or re-discovered, my thirst impulse for water. I mentioned a sugar habit. What I make of this is discovery is that sugar inhibits thirst for water, as well as what it delivers, which is not just oxygen, but hydrogen too. It is, in my opinion, the number 1 gateway drug in all of society.

Not that it’s “bad” though.

Ponder that one while watching this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-u5K8f2rI0&t=4s

But I’m not done. Yesterday, I decided to go back on just water and juice for at least 30 days.

#balance #Bible #consciousness #Energy Field #Environment #Fasting #Hilton Hotema #Konstantin Korotkov #MMS #Obesity #Sugar #vaccines

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