#timfoley

[penelopecat]

Still behind on @bigfinishprod’s Torchwood stories, but I’m trying to work through the post-TV series sets since there’s another one of those coming out soon. Like the show, these episodes are incredibly compelling and I have no idea where the story is going. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed these guys! #thismakesmehappy #bigfinishproductions #bigfinishtorchwood #torchwood #torchwoodaudio #audiobook #audiobooks #audiodrama #audiodramas #godamongus #johndorney #timfoley #guyadams #jamesgoss https://www.instagram.com/p/Co0CMfcPgHH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nathzzi]

Descanse en Paz Tim Foley (24/09/23)

[tryerofpods]

Welcome to the North West Footwear Database, please remove your socks and shoes. Let's talk about the North West Footwear Database. North west Footwear Database is a spec-fic, weird fiction podcast about a warehouse that houses all the shoes, shoe prints, and footprints that have (and possibly will) ever exist. They're ostensibly affiliated with the police, but...no one ever meets the director...ever. And much like the halls of Kakos Industries, there are some unmapped and unexplored sections of the facility. And it's rumored that some have gone mad looking for the mythical printless shoe. Located in a remote area of the Peak district in the UK. It's told in a single, first-person POV (much like Sayer or The Lost Cat). You are there for an audit of the warehouse, and as such get glances through many of the areas off limits to other people. 8, 15-30 minute episodes to reveal some of the inner mysteries of this secretive facility. I'm really enjoying it and it's unique vibe and fun concept. So, if you'd like a music-less combo of Sayer and The Lost Cat, odd facilities with cults, lore, and occasional Lovecraft vibes, then North West Footwear Database is for you! #speculativefiction #specfic #police #policeprocedural #weirdfiction #strangefiction #lovecraft #horror #horrorpodcast #mystery #mysterypodcast #firstperson #pov #Fictionpodcasts #podcastsunday #trypod #podcasts #podcast #podcastrecommendation #podcastrecommendations #recommended #podcastsunday #audiodramasunday #nwfootwear #northwestfootwear #timfoley https://www.instagram.com/p/CmqRE8QOe6c/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sistersatan]

Oh Great They're Putting Guns On Robodogs Now

[timfoleyphotos-blog]

Lewis Lake, Yellowstone

[steticcris]

Desse modelo... Bom dia amorec@s do meu coração ❤ #Empreededor #GoPro #MMN #DiamantesDaBeleza #Amway #MenteEmpreendedora ##Alticor #GoDiamond #GoCrown #VidaDeDiamante #TimFoley #SteticCris #AmoSteticCris #InfluenciadoresDigitais #RádioCris #Cristo #Jesus (em Bessa - João Pessoa/PB)

[timfoley-blog1]

Eight

There’s one more myth I want to bust before we move on to the next topic. The myth of talent.

But before I do… a brief explanation. This stuff isn’t my opinion. It's the result of many long term, peer reviewed studies.

I’m not saying I’m right and… if you disagree with me… you’re not. All I’m saying is this is the current state of the information. So… obviously, I’m right. (C'mon guys... that's a joke)

Look, I understand that the absolute worst strategy for challenging someone’s beliefs is to show them facts… so obviously, I’m not trying to change your mind. Whatever you choose to do… or not do, with this information is entirely up to you.

I’m hoping that it creates that gnawing feeling inside of you… as it did in me, that says… “maybe I’m wrong.” And if you find that you are… wrong that is. Well... good. That’s where learning begins.

We humans have been wrong for our entire history. From the earth being flat. To the sun revolving around the earth. To John R Brinkley's 20th century cure for male impotence... goat testicle transplants (I don't make this shit up). And I’m quite sure that what I’m reporting here is wrong too. But it’s less wrong. Because learning is iterative. Each discovery a step closer to the light.

And this is why the skill of improvement requires an open mind.

Anyway… about talent.

Talent is one of those slippery words that we all think we've got a handle on… but don’t. Even Webster’s has a hard go of it: “A special ability (power) that allows someone to do something well.” Not exactly a concrete definition. In fact, it sounds more like the definition of a fucking Superhero than a skill.

I think that coaches and sports commentators substitue the word talent for "I don’t know". Which makes some obvious sense if you think about it… because when you’re getting payed for your “expertise”… well, which sounds better?

“Golly Coach… why is Barry so good?” “That’s called "talent” Bobby.“ Or- "Golly Coach… why is Barry so good?” “Geez Bobby… I don’t have a fucking clue.”

Trust me… I know that coaches don’t like admitting that they don’t know.

Talent also does double duty as an excuse. A way of explaining others excellence without having to admit your own laziness.

Beyond that… talent doesn’t exist.

We often hear that the most difficult act in all of the sporting world is hitting a round ball with a round bat. The best major league hitters like Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, and Alex Rodriguez say they can hit anything thrown by anyone… and they’ve got the data to back up the claim. Consequently, we describe them as very talented individuals.

Enter Jenny Finch. For one year the legendary female softball pitcher traveled from major league ballpark to major league ballpark… humiliating the best of the best.

Here’s the setup. Finch pitched softballs (much bigger than a baseball) from 45’ away. That’s a little over 14’ closer than a baseball mound. But since she throws around 65mph (that’s around 20mph slower than your average major league pitcher), the end result… was that the interval between release and crossing the plate was the same as a major league pitcher.

Pujols was worried about hurting her. He needn’t have worried because… as you can see here he didn’t even come close to touching the ball.

Bonds wasn’t worried about hurting her. He threatened as much… saying that if she didn’t throw to him from behind a net, he’d hit her. But his threats were as hollow as Pujol’s worries. He never made contact… until she told him which pitch was coming. Even then he barely fouled it off.

As for the mighty A Rod… well, after standing in the batters box for a few pitches he refused to take even one swing. "No one”, he told her… “will make a fool outta me.”

(Actually... knowing A Rod, he probably referred to himself in the third person.)

So much for talent.

Yeah… you’re right. The arm angle was different. The release point of the ball was different. The distance was different (same interval however). All that’s true. But those adjustments should within reach of “a person born with a special power”.

The inability of these superheroes to adapt and hit anything thrown by anyone… moves their skills from the realm of the mystical (talent)… to the world of the more easily explained (a highly refined skill that’s been developed through many hours of deliberate practice.)

When we think of talent what we’re imagining greater returns per hour of invested time… which compound to levels of performance unavailable to those without it.

In other words, if I were to add up someones knowledge of their discipline and divide it by the amount of time they’d spent acquiring it… we could call that number their learning speed. You’d expect that those who we believe to be talented would have a high learning speed. And that increased speed would daily add to the distance between them and us.

But… it’s not the case. Studies conducted on elite performers… in every field sports, business, music… etc, tell us a very different story. That the elites have on average invested thirty percent more time into their skills than their above average colleagues. And more than 60% more time than their “average” colleagues. Which would mean they actually have a rather low learning speed… but a great work ethic.

Now… if you want to claim their work ethic as their talent: that special power that allows them to do something well. It’s fine by me. As long as you’re willing to admit that you can do the same.

[thecervezachronicles-blog]

School is Dead

The American school system is a dream killing, soul crushing enterprise that every child is mandated to attend. Because, you see, indoctrinating the youth is the best way to regulate adult thinking. School wasn’t created to educate you. It’s purpose has always been to convince you to dedicate the majority of your “one wild and precious life” to that “which pleases the predominant power”. In our case labor and consumption.

And it works. After several years of sitting in straight rows, raising hands to speak, controlled bathroom breaks, and being told what to think for eight hours a day. The gatekeepers no longer have to worry about you straying too far from the herd.

Am I going too fast? Sorry. I’ll slow it down a bit.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the labor forces of American factories were commonly children. But kids had this nasty habit of… well, behaving like kids. Industrial accidents ensued. It sounds harmless when you put it that way. Like machines running into each other. But it wasn’t. Often parts of children were lost in the mayhem. Even way back then people frowned on kids coming home from work with fewer parts than they started with.

People assembled. State legislatures tried to change the rules. But if there’s one thing you should know about America it’s this: what’s good for business is good for America. And what was good for the businesses of the day was cheap child labor. The rules didn’t change.

By 1918 attendance in school was compulsory across the United States. What caused the factories to willingly relinquish their cheap labor to the schools? A promise from the schools to provide something of even greater value. An endless supply of obedient labor… that’s also trained to consume. (No point in making a bunch of stuff if there aren’t any buyers.)

To be fair, they thought they were helping. It was obvious that the future of America was giant factories. The population needed to know how to assimilate.

Think of all the hundred plus year old thinking we’ve gotten rid of. Horses to cars. Telegrams to smart phones. Boats to airplanes. Bloodletting to medications. Boring classrooms to well… boring classrooms.

People cite statistics today, like the fact that 25% of Americans believe that the sun rotates around the earth, and say that schools are failing. They’re not. They weren’t designed to solve that problem.

Our schools are great at what they do. The proof of their success lies in the number of you who willingly exchange the majority of your years for a minority… with which you can supposedly do whatever the fuck you want. (Now that your gum line matches your hair line, and you can’t get a boner anymore) Never once recognizing that you could have done that with all of your years. Yes, even the good ones.

My Dad worked his ass off. He never got those years. A lot of people don’t.

I never wanted to send our kids to school. But… there’s a lot of educators in the family. I thought it might bring peace. It was a dumb idea. Peace was never an option.

We watched Wyatt become less curious and more dependent on direction. School bored Carson. That’s how it was for me too. He just ignored it and did his own thing. It’s also what I did. It’s a shitty thing to have to tune out a big chunk of your life.

One night at dinner Wyatt… our resident outspoken personality, raised his hand for permission to speak. That was it for me.

If you want to keep their dreams alive I strongly urge you to bring both feet into the 21st century. There’s Khan Academy, YouTube, and at least two dozen other very good resources offering tens of thousands of lessons, given by great instructors. All free.

If you don’t believe that kids can or will self organize and take responsibility for their learning, I’d like you to meet Sugata Mitra. His “Hole in the Wall” study pretty much put the subject to bed. Perfect? I’m sure not. Nothing is. But it’s certainly an indicator of what we can do.

One last thought on school… here’s a study conducted by Jake Halpern that I lifted from Seth Godin. When asked what job they’d like to have when grown up, over forty three percent of school aged girls chose being the personal assistant of a celebrity, over being the head of a major company, a US Senator, a Navy Seal, or the president of a major university.

Mission accomplished. Dreams killed. Souls crushed.

[todaysmoustache]

Today's #moustache prepares for a night of debauchery with #timfoley #todaysmoustache #mustache

[theearthwormbook]

The #RandomFolk plays the #Casbah with #TimFoley #LovelyPrevin

[penelopecat]

Catching up on some of the @bigfinishprod audio dramas I’ve listened to over the last few weeks. I continue to love the ninth Doctor stories starring @christophereccleston. There’s just something about his performance that’s just a bit special. I think it’s because his Doctor, without an idiosyncratic outfit, actually carries himself with an air of authority that isn’t undercut with a silly outfit or false arrogance or whatever. So the essential Doctor-ness needs to come out more subtly through the performance. He’s definitely the Doctor, and just as definitely this specific Doctor. I also really like how these episodes are told more from the POV of other characters, not the Doctor himself. And as great as all these stories are, Auld Lang Syne really takes the cake as a particular favorite. #thismakesmehappy #bigfinishproductions #bigfinishdoctorwho #doctorwho #bbcdoctorwho #doctorwho_bbca #doctorwhoaudios #audiobook #audiobooks #audiodrama #ninthdoctoradventures #ninthdoctor #christophereccleston #chriseccleston #backtoearth #robertvalentine #sarahgrochala #timfoley #helengoldwyn https://www.instagram.com/p/Co0BeY0vFgZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[quotepixel]

Forget Those Things That Aren't Worth Remembering.

[timfoleyphotos-blog]

Canyonlands National Park

[cobaltcranes]

[timfoley-blog1]

Seven

If you read this page on a regular basis… the reverse chronological order of a blog is probably more efficient for you. But if you’re new to these parts… I recommend scrolling down to “One” and starting there. It’ll make more sense.,

Now… back to our regularly scheduled programming.

People are crazy. Me. You. Everyone.

We’re crazy because we think of ourselves as mostly rational actors. But our favored method of decision making is going with what feels right.

Huh?

In five and six we started exploring our cognitive biases. That’s geek speak for illogical thinking.

Choosing your coaches by what you reckoned they knew. Instead of how likely they were to be able to teach you what they knew was one example.

Here’s another that’s more subtle. If you’re a product of the western world you’ve been convinced that tomorrow is the point of today. Maybe you’ve never thought about it in exactly that way… but your actions say othrwise.

The point of first grade… second grade. The point of school… college. The point of college… a good job. The point of the good job… retirement. Which basically brings you full circle to where you started… with a few more bucks and a lot less time.

To state it simply, your actions of today are routinely directed towards some future event.

That makes you a betting man… betting today for tomorrow.

A betting man should know that reality trumps fantasy… EVERY time. That’s why the future is a suckers bet. It’s a maybe, an I hope so, a ghost. The only reality that you have ever and will ever know is the present.

While that sinks in… here’s an easier… more immediate example of the curves your mind throws at you. A bat and a ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much is the ball?

Raise your hand if you got ten cents. You can put your hand down now… you’re wrong.

Remember the bat costs a dollar more than the ball. If the ball was ten cents the bat would cost $1.10. That’s $1.20.

If you got the wrong answer… well, don’t feel too bad. The majority of graduating classes of our major universities share your pain. And if you did think it through and get it right… I’ll bet you dollars to donuts the first answer that came to you was ten cents.

Our thinking is littered with these biases. I won’t enumerate them all here… a quick internet search will do that for you. But I will give you a brief explanation of where they come from.

We often analogize our brains with computers. It’s a poor comparison… they’re nothing alike.

When Deep Blue… the computer, barely beat Gary Kasparov… the chess Grand Master. Deep Blue was analyzing something along the lines of 100 million possibilities… per second. Kasparov was choosing between fewer than ten… per turn.

The requirement for Deep Blues capabilities… power. A lot of it. The computer required the energy equivalent of an entire building to make it’s calculations.

Kasparov, by contrast, played the game unplugged… completely powering himself. He also didn’t compute possibilities. He reduced them.

Your brain achieves it’s remarkable energy efficiency by automating large parts of your thinking. Which is a fancy way of saying that it frequently jumps to conclusions… as you discovered in the bat and ball question. It’s in these jumps that our biases lie.

All of this is the subject of your next reading assignment… Daniel Kahneman’s amazing book, “Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow”. It’s an excellent read on a topic that’s vital to all who want to improve.

What’s even more interesting… to me anyway. Is that in addition to jumping to the wrong answer for the bat and ball question… your brain also created the sensation that made you feel it was right.

Which certainly highlights the problem with making decisions by what feels right.

Reading: Daniel Khaneman - “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow” Here’s a synopsis… you really should read the ENTIRE book though. https://erikreads.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/thinking-fast-and-slow-book-summary.pdf

[thecervezachronicles-blog]

Reinvention

When I was twelve I got busted for selling two dollar tickets to our school carnival for three dollars... and pocketing the extra buck. The school freaked. In fairness this wasn't the first... or probably even the second time we'd crossed swords. My mom freaked. She told me that I'd get what I had coming when my father came home. My dad came home. Happily... for me anyway... he decided to figure out what I deserved before he gave it to me. He asked me what I was thinking. I told him that I was doing the same thing that he did... the same thing that everyone in America did (from my perspective anyway). Charging a fee for my services. We reviewed the rules. They were clear. The school got two dollars for every ticket sold. Nowhere... and I mean nowhere, did it say that I couldn't charge extra for delivery. My dad agreed that no rule was broken. The principal half-heartedly admitted it too. Still my dad felt that my small enterprise violated the intent of the rules... and the spirit of the event. He said that I should give the money back. So I spent the next couple of afternoons giving everyone their dollar back. At the time I'd sold more tickets than anyone in our school. Maybe that's proof of what they say about the profit motive. Some people laughed and told me to keep the dollar. I didn't. I met more than one angry face that had a stern lecture for me. The whole experience threw me. I got lectures about the importance of upholding the letter of the law for operating within the letter of the law. And complaints about charging a fee from people who made their living charging fees. 100% of my life I'd been thinking that adults had their shit together. Here I was finding that my twelve year old friends made more sense. Shortly thereafter I read Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". The timing was perfect. In this character I found a partner. His adults were just as crazy and inconsistent as mine. And he... like me, found the code of pirates preferable to the rules of hypocrites (you're right... I didn't know that word when I was twelve). I decided that if I wanted my life to be a certain way... I couldn't count on anyone but myself to make it that way. So... like Tom Sawyer I decided that creativity and a thirst for adventure would be the tools I used to cobble MY life together. It was the first time I consciously chose a persona. My choice served me quite well for many years. Then I had Wyatt. EVERYONE who had children told me that I couldn't be my old self anymore. Never having kids before myself... I deferred to their "expertise" and re-invented. The physicist Niels Bohr says an expert is simply someone who's made every possible mistake in a narrow field. I wish I'd read that earlier. Only a few years later I was a gainfully employed home owner. In California the term "home owner" is positive spin for being HEAVILY in debt. In my case it was just over half a million dollars. My parent friends congratulated me by handing me a beer and welcoming me into their fraternity. It always feels great to be accepted. I sipped my beer and listened to their stories about the things they'd do with their lives... if they didn't have kids and a mortgage. I'd been bamboozled. My "experts" weren't experts at all. They were nothing more than recruiters for the local chapter of the misery loves company club. I was twelve years old again. It was like that moment in "The Shining" when Jack Nicholson's wife reads the manuscript of the book that he's spent months writing... only to find there's nothing there but the same sentence repeated over and over. I had to escape... to find a passage back to the place I was before (thank you Glen Frey). But... would I make it? Would they let me out? We ran to the one place I knew they wouldn't... couldn't go. Because it was the <i>one</i> place that they told me that I couldn't go. THE place that NO responsible parent would EVER take their family... Mexico. We looked back as we crossed the border. We could see their silhouettes gathering on the hills. Their fists were raised. But they dared come no closer. The border zone is paradox country... a foe they fear more than even bankruptcy. Like any good soul-less mob of the undead worth their salt. I knew that these guys had at least one trick left up their sleeves. I warned my tribe not to look back. Sure enough... in a last ditch effort they tried to disorient us with a giant flash of reflected sunlight from their gold cards... which they collectively held aloft. It was to no avail... we were too far gone. Thus began my latest re-invention. This time returning to the tools that have served me best in life... creativity and adventure. With three kids in tow the experience thus far has been everything that I <i>never</i> thought it would be. Filled with so many different lessons and experiences than I could have imagined would come our way. I make sure and tell our kids regularly that I won't even pretend to know what's next. That I likely DO NOT have my shit any more together than they do. And that I still prefer the code of pirates to the rules of hypocrites.