GUT #7: The Three Ages Of Marx

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, 1844

The Holy Family, 1844

The First Age Of Marx

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, 1844

Afterword to the Second German Edition of Capital (1873)

The Second Age Of Marx

Manifesto of the Communist Party

Manifesto of the Communist Party

Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

The Third Age Of Marx

Last Words Are For Fools

Finally, at the end,  Marx is credited with:

And,most telling of all:

1 and 2

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1858

Marx To Ferdinand Lassalle In Düsseldorf

Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 268;

G.U.T. Revealed

Hegel’s philosophy of dialectics was in itself synthesis. It represented the response to Protestantism’s attack on the foundational Catholic philosophy that had shaped Germany and Europe for the millennia. Identifying the imperative behind this response is key to understanding the dynamic of history since the 18thC.

Marx’s battle with synthesised Germanic philosophy forced  him to decamp to England, but retreat provided only temporary respite. Hegel’s dialectic and the problem of moral choice would lay siege to Marx in London and force Marxism  as far west as it was possible to go- America. There was no peace for Marxism even there.

Everywhere the synthesised German philosophy held sway was hostile ground to Marxism. Everywhere synthesised German philosophy ruled, Marxism was forced to flee. Marxism could only thrive specifically where synthesised German philosophy did not. These are the true material conditions that determined the success or otherwise of Marxism in any particular time or place. It is not random chance that  Marxism proliferated wherever synthesised western German philosophy failed –  Russia, China, parts of the Far East and now, the modern developed nations. That’s right- Marxism rules in the west now. Marxism gained a foothold when synthesised German philosophy began its decomposition in the western world..

The Definition of Tragedy

The purpose of GUT is to describe and understand the relationship between Marxism and historical reality as we have experienced it over the past century. Was Marx essentially just an opportunist Victorian radical whose work was a reaction to the development  of industrial capitalism? Or is the Marxist claim that Marx was chosen by the zeitgeist to define a new era and a new conception of history, closer to the truth?

Or is it even possible that the history into which Marxism fits points to something different but even more profound than the claims made by Marxists? I will argue that this is the case. Marxists as a whole have FAILED to understand the specific (as opposed to ‘true’), importance of Marxism and failed to communicate this specific importance to the populations of German societies.  The irony is that this failure is  tragedy and genuine disaster precisely for those sections of German societies who came to perceive it as victory. It is a tragedy whose magnitude and depth is only now becoming truly apparent. Defeat perceived as victory is as good a definition of tragedy as any..

The key to understanding and defining  Marxism  lies in the context in which Marxism came to be and in which it operated. With this in mind I will briefly survey the most important global powers around 1850 and their relative positions in the world.  Foremost among the Empire powers would be the British Empire comprising of the British Isles and attendant colonies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It had an outer core of non white populations controlled by Anglo Saxon colonial elites as in South Africa and India etc. At this time the British Empire was  somewhere around the peak of it’s power.

Seconded to the British Empire is North America, about to be transformed by the American Civil War of 1861.  The third tier of world powers at that time consisted of western European Latin colonisers such as France, Spain and Portugal. France was clearly fundamentally flawed internally and the other Latin nations; Spain and Portugal  were  heading towards military, social and economic exhaustion. As a consequence their  ability to successfully exploit empire in  South America and elsewhere was rapidly fading.

The Struggle To Be Last

Behind the western Europeans around 1850  is Germany- finally gaining pace in its development as a scientific and social power. The reasons for Germany’s late development as a capitalist nation state are a fundamental part of GUT. And bringing up the rear of the pack, the two wild cards that would actually shape the detailed course of the 20thC –  Russia and Japan.

The two most fraught battles in any race are the battle for first and just as importantly, the battle for last place. While England and Germany fought for first, Russia and Japan were fighting to see who would come last in the league table of developed WHITE nations. Russia and Japan were in a desperate battle to see who was the most or least, ‘white’ among them. This battle would produce the Russo Japanese War and this war in turn would produce the modern world.

The two most dynamic world powers driven by the pressure for change, were heading for inevitable conflict with each other. This  is the context for Marx’s prediction that capitalism would collapse. The attitude of  British  and German state and society to Marxism only truly makes sense in this context. Consider the viable active content of Marxism, in particular the collapse and revolution that Marx predicted.  What would be the actual process of collapse? Would it be some textbook abstracted ‘workers revolution’ or would it present itself in a complex, tangential real world way?  And what about the consequences of that collapse? Would the post revolutionary nations simply stop dead at the moment of revolution? Wouldn’t new forces IMMEDIATELY start to fill the vacuum left by collapsing capitalism, long before the point when it could legally be declared dead?

In truth there could never be a direct revolutionary confrontation between  workers and capitalists because the forces that led to revolution would have caused each class to decompose partially or fully, before they ever got to the point of terminal confrontation! Workers are the product of capitalism not socialism. If workers really were to be the ‘gravediggers of capitalism’- who would be there to pay them? Who would be there to tell them where to dig the hole? If they could do these things without instruction and payment, they would no longer be workers. If you think about it, a ‘workers revolution’ is by definition a nonsense.. Here is a new revolutionary definition of a worker: A worker is a person who cannot think for themselves.

Marx’s analysis predicts increased international competition among various competing national bourgeoisies first economic and then military, finally leading to open conflict.. This is what happened.  But both Germany and England, the two powers that would acutely express this process of competition leading to war were Germanic powers and this is fundamental to understanding the unique character of the historical developments that took place. This is not history as some abstracted map where A N Other ‘nation state’ competes with A N Other  ‘nation state’, but the actual specific course of historical events in all its evidentiary detail.

Why The Russian Revolution Succeeded And Why It Failed

It is in this context that the only significant contribution to Marx’s critique of political economy outside of Marx himself was the theory of Imperialism developed by Lenin. It was his intellectual accomplishment in understanding the crisis of capitalism in its specific historical terms that led to the success of Lenin and Bolshevism. This was why the Russian revolution succeeded where so many others did not. The success of the Russian Revolution was based concretely on understanding that the crisis of capitalism was to be a specifically German crisis. Lenin’s astounding insight was realising that above all else, capitalism was German. The price that Slavs were to pay for this proclamation of historical truth came twenty years later in the Second Germanic War.  Germans, both Anglo Saxon and Continental,  tried to murder them all.

The First ‘War To End All Wars’

Around  fifty years after the publication of Das Kapital in 1867 the two Germanic powers were plunged into the First World War or more accurately; the First Germanic War. This war fits into the very definition of ‘mutual ruination’ that Marx spoke of in the event that revolution should fail. The two leading capitalist powers at that time were effectively destroyed by the war they started.  The war resulted directly in the Russian revolution and  America’s consequential rise to leadership on the world stage. However, this was only the beginning. Over the subsequent  two decades  Germanic nations descended into madness and horror. And this historical perspective we have absolutely brings us to a clear understanding of the significance of Marxism.

Once we understand that the growth and collapse of capitalism as an economic force was to be framed within the historical context of the rise and fall of German culture and society we can understand the history of the past two centuries. The socialist struggle to avoid ‘mutual ruination’ (Marx) and ‘barbarism’ (Rosa Luxembourg), was specifically a struggle to avoid German ruination and German barbarity. It was in fact a struggle to avoid an inter Germanic war between the two poles of German culture; the Anglo Saxon and the Continental.

It was clear from Marx’s analysis that the capitalist elites of each side could never reach accommodation. They were driven to compete to the death by the very same forces that had given them social and economic life! The only way fatal competition  could be avoided was if some other force in society took over and forced co-operation.  Who could that be?  Who could Marx and the other socialists  find among the respective populations of both continental Germany and England that was so ALIENATED from existing society, so abused, and so disenfranchised that they could abandon culture, history and identity and forge a new TRANSGERMAN alliance and identity?

The answer was of course, the working class

This is what socialism actually is: a plea to the ALIENATED of both poles of Germanic society to ABANDON CULTURE, IDENTITY AND HISTORY and make common cause to avoid war and mutual destruction. A program for carrying out the seizure of power would be necessary to avoid destruction.

This endeavour is best described as German Unification Theory. or G.U.T. for short.

GUT#5: The Philosophy Refugee

Marx waged war on classical German philosophy and failed. He failed because he could not claim to be inheritor of the western tradition and its destroyer at the same time. That method of attack; infiltration and then rebellion, had been open to Luther in his assault on the Catholic church, but not open to Marx; Hegel had seen to that through his development of dialectics.

German philosophy (civilisation), learned a lesson from the fate of the Catholic church in the German Reformation and was ready and armed for the day when Marx or another like him emerged. Marx, who saw himself as the ultimate anticipator, had been anticipated by Hegel. The newly emergent political economy as practiced by Smith and Ricardo was not so prepared and payed the price accordingly; it was overrun and devastated by Marxism. Failure in the field of philosophy and success in the field of economic theory defines the nature of Marxism and the relationship between Marxism and capitalist society.

Marx set political economy a trap from which it could not escape; a running noose that progressively tightened the more the victim struggled.  Hegel did the same with Marx. Should Marx chose to be  revolutionary, he would be forced to accept the arbitrary nature of power undermining the idea of inevitable historical progress he was advocating.  Although he liked to think of himself as Lucifer in the Abrahamic tradition, Marx is more like ‘Thor’ the German ‘god’ of thunder whose power mainly consists of a form of ‘Sturm und Drang’ – sound and fury ultimately signifying nothing. Every moment across the earth’s atmosphere there are countless micro electrical discharges from air to earth, returning the air to equilibrium charge. In the same way every time one of countless choices or accommodations is made by ‘proletarian’ or ‘capitalist’, Marxism is grounded by a force it cannot account for. A charge builds up and is then dissipated. Every so often a major lightning strike does occur, but these are rare and only a danger to anything that gets between charge and earth. Mostly these electrical storms only serve to frighten children.

This comparison between Lucifer and Thor is instructive. It was central to Marx’s conception of himself and his project that he would  lead opposition forces – i.e. be Lucifer, with all other socialist variants subordinate to Marxism after the form of ‘Paradise Lost’. This struggle to dominate opposition would characterise much of the explicitly political activity that Marx and Engels undertook  in the years in which they engaged in active organisation of workers movements. But as Thor is merely one of many German ‘gods’, so Marx is one of a pantheon of 19thC revolutionaries, one whose main job was to scare with lightning and thunder while others sought to pursue a quieter course. Marxism fitted into a niche within Germanic socialism as a whole- as the extreme that less radical elements could use to prompt concessions from bosses and governments and with which bosses could scare workers. Again we return to the idea of Marxism itself being  co-opted, and leveraged in a way that Marx was not able to control. The idea that workers, trades union leaders, churchmen and even finally capitalists could choose to pick up or lay down Marxist thought and rhetoric as it suited them, never seemed to seriously occur to Marx.

But again, this is not to deny that where Marxism is blocked in the philosophical sphere it rebounds with double the destructive force against political economy.  Despite his philosophical shortcomings, Marx was if anything, a victim of his own intellectual success in the field of economics. Marx saw modern industrial capitalism emerging from the womb, saw the defect on its face at the moment of  birth, and realised that the significance of this inherent deformity was that it presaged the inevitability of capitalism’s death, even if Marx could not predict the time and place. And it was not just capitalism itself but one hundred disciplines born out of capitalism that Marx cursed. Sociology, Psychology, Economics, Criminology, were  all doomed in the crib  by Marx, like the Bad Fairy in Sleeping Beauty.  If this is true , how did this curse have power? What was the nature of that power? Where did this power come from?

Marxism is flawed in the sense that it does not belong to mainstream western tradition at all. It is more in the tradition of  Diogenes and Socrates, which like ‘democracy’ are claimed by the western mainstream tradition in name but denied in action.  Marx’s rhetorical devices are Zen like koans whose purpose is to short circuit thought (philosophy), and lead to action.  This shrinking of the philosophical horizon to the impetus for action is fundamental to the revolutionary impulse. In a similar vein, in his ‘Meditations’ Marcus Aurelius’ Stoic philosophy  reduces the essence of man’s conscious perspective to the span of a fraction of a fraction of a second because the Stoicism he advocated  finds no consolation in the past and no hope in the future.  All Stoics have is the moment they are in and the same applied to Marx. His purpose was to maintain balance over the abyss between revolutionary antithesis and post revolutionary synthesis. In the same way a tightrope walker uses a pole, Marx used projection into both past and future as a means of giving himself stability.. For a tightrope walker, the longer the pole the better it works to balance the tightrope walker. Through historical materialism, Marx incrementally balanced both distant past and distant future over time only as a means  to stabilise his existence in the present. Marx had no serious interest in the past or the future outside of how they might serve him from one second to another. This is a fundamental insight into Marx and Marxists. They are happy to burn the doors and window frames to heat the house for the week. They are happy to mortgage the gutted building to buy groceries for the day.

Analysis of Marx’s philosophy has brought us to consideration of Marx’s material facts, in particular why Marx decided to spend the bulk of his intellectual career in London. Simply put, in philosophical terms Germany could create a Marx but not sustain him. whereas England could sustain a Marx but not create him. Like a tadpole becoming a frog and moving from water to lilly pad, Marx changed internally according to environment and  changed environment according to the dynamic of his personal transformation.

Marx’s defeat at the hands of continental philosophy had brought him to London as a philosophy refugee but  it has never been clear by what means Marx could successfully live in London, not least in freedom from the attentions of the British state. Marx’s physical existence in London was characterised by poverty and insecurity. It was only through the sponsorship of Engels that Marx was able to undertake his research. Living in London was not materially advantageous to Marx and it is also clear that London was no more advantageous in terms of the likelihood of revolution occurring there. Anglo Saxons had already clearly emerged as the people in Europe least likely to revolt against the processes that characterised the development of capitalism and the people most likely to compromise with them . In ‘The Condition Of the Working Class in England’ Engels noted the process by which Saxon capitalism was transforming itself through modifying extreme aspects of its development.

Despite the fact that there was no imminent danger of revolution, there would surely have been some desire to remove Marx as a supposedly dangerous revolutionary, and if not that at the very least to neutralise any threat he may come to pose. Or if not even that, then to make him serve the interests of the British state either actively or passively.  Since Marx was allowed to remain  unmolested we can deduce that the British state clearly felt there was no threat in Marx or saw a positive advantage in having Marx in the capital city of England.  We can reasonably draw the conclusion that at some level Marx served the interest of England against the interest of Germany in that England felt it had nothing to fear from Marx’s philosophy whereas it felt Germany had.  Germany was increasingly seen by the English state and elite  as a competing  and potentially dangerous foreign power, but one whose potential weakness for continental radicalism presented both danger and opportunity for England. And here is the kind of irony and humour that Marx would appreciate.

Marx came to England precisely because no-one understood philosophy there. Nobody in England even understood the significance of philosophy.  Because no-one understood philosophy in England, no-one understood how Marx had been already been defeated by classic German philosophy by the time he got to London. In as far as they took him at his word, the English elite accepted to a greater or lesser extent the nature and  extent of the threat that Marx could pose to the emerging German power. They were happy to have Marx in London on the basis that he could provide advantage to them  with regard to destabilising Germany and posed no significant threat to the stability of England. But in fact the exact opposite was true. In actual fact Marx posed no threat to the German elite and every threat to the Saxons…

G.U.T. #4

Marxist Theory Is The Hallmark Of Capitalist Development

Marx noted that capitalism is innately unstable  leading to periodic crisis. It is on this prediction of crisis that  his analysis is built; this makes his critique ‘scientific’ in character as opposed to ‘moral’. Marx’s  economic analysis of the development of capitalism is  powerful, accurate and overwhelmingly borne out by observed events. As a consequence it has become the de facto fulcrum that divides modern from  premodern. In line with Marx’s analysis the undeveloped world has the ‘freest’ markets, the developed world the most regulated.. ‘Development’ itself has come to mean the development of regulatory government structures to predict and ameliorate the effects of periodic crisis. Comprehensive global regulation of economy also divides the world in time from pre crisis to post 2008 watershed. The co-ordinated post financial crisis response was the first time all major economies in the world  acted in unison. It was the first example of true globalism- and it was the global triumph of Marxist analysis.

For Marx the fact that he was thinking what he was thinking was evidence in itself  that what he was thinking was happening was already happening- as he was thinking it!  A bit like Artificial Intelligence in science fiction  – all at once his conscious analysis of capitalism was aware of itself.

‘The entire movement of history, as simply communism’s actual act of genesis — the birth act of its empirical existence — is, therefore, for its thinking consciousness the comprehended and known process of its becoming’.

Private Property and Communism (1844)

But when Marx actually got down to the practical business of how his consciousness might finally manifest outside of Marx in the real world, how it would be made flesh so to speak, he found he was creating a parody of what he increasingly referred to as generic ‘religion’. Even though the specific observations Marx made about crisis were new and the specific conclusions they led to were new, the framework within which he was forced to shape his thought began to look increasingly, disturbingly familiar.

 ‘The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property”.

‘The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism’.

The Communist Manifesto

Marx realised he could not  explain the origin of  his intellect and his theory from within the terms of that theory itself. Fundamentally, Marx could not think of a new, original reason to explain why new, original Marxism came to be… At times Marx argued that his thought was the product of the present ‘zeitgeist’. At other times he implied it came from the future i.e. he was the first to express this new form of thought. If his theory was totally new, (and it must be because capitalism was supposed to be new), and socialism was new as was Marxism new, how come the core elements of the conclusions it reached were so similar to what had gone before? Why wasn’t the practical conclusion of Marxism as different from everything else as it should be?

The key to understanding Marx’s problem lies in the relationship of Marxism to  Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s critique of Hegelian philosophy is central to the Marxist  project and centres on Hegel’s presentation of Thought as an abstracted absolute – a logical preposition.  Given any specific thought or conception, Hegelian philosophy describes how that particular thought is modified and developed. Marx used Hegelian dialectics as both starting point and justification for Marxism by modifying the Hegelian dialectic to produce Marxist dialectics and historical materialism.

Whereas in Hegelian philosophy The Thought is the starting point for describing how intellect is developed and subsequently changes, in Marxism The Thought is the end point for describing WHY people think as they do at any given point. Marxism seeks to invert the question form: How do people change their minds from one particular thought to another  to: Why do they have any particular thought in the first place? In Marxism, Thought is the product of a process, the end not the means. Adapting dialectics in this way served a two fold purpose for Marx. Firstly it allowed him to locate his own intellectual identity within the historical process of capitalist  unconsciousness/false consciousness spontaneously becoming conscious and secondly it allowed him to explain the conscious nature of Marxism as a separate entity.

None Dare Call It…

Marxism is a revolution against Capitalism, Political Economy, Moral Socialism and ‘unconsciousness because once you become conscious you can never again be unconscious. If Marxism is not against all these things, it is not revolutionary. By definition, it can leave nothing untouched. Revolutionary Marxism is the antithesis to every thesis.. Revolution must annihilate what has gone before and seeks to replace old knowledge with new knowledge. Which  means even replacing the knowledge of how the revolution itself came to be. Revolution must in the end deny it’s own arbitrary character -even though arbitrariness is it’s prime justification!- and proclaim things were always meant to be this way and therefore things have always been this way. The revolution was inevitable – it took the revolution to make us see that.  In order to be successful every revolution must finally, inevitably revolt against revolution itself..

The Significance Of Marx’s Authorship

‘ …. in the end, one will be found among us who will prove that the sword of enthusiasm is just as good as the sword of genius.’

Engels, Anti-Schelling (1841)

Revolutionary Marxist dialectics must annihilate Hegelian dialectics, and Marx sought to use the very essence of Hegelian dialectics as the means with which to achieve this end, which everyone must admit is very clever. So the battle was between Hegelian dialectics; the ‘HOW’ of Thought, and Marxist dialectics; the ‘WHY’ of Thought.  Look again at Marx’s battle against idolatry religion (see parts 1-3), and you can see that Marx is using exactly the same trick in every instance.. Marx sought to use the Judaic injunction on idolatry against Judaism, and in turn sought to use Hegelian dialectics against Hegel. But just as Marx ended up creating a new form of idolatry religion so he reproduced the Hegelian process in a different form..

In Hegelian terms (Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis), you cannot abolish the ‘past’ (the starting point), you can only modify it. Add water to whisky as much as you like, you can only dilute the mixture, you cannot remove the whisky that is already there. The prime objective of revolutionaries; abolition of what is gone before, is impossible. This Hegelian problem plagued Marxists way past the death of Marx and even past the initial phase of the Russian Revolution. Trotsky finally devised the idea of continually diluting whisky in the barrel before it even got poured into the glass and claimed that this made the problem of dilution moot. He called his solution (pun intended), ‘The Marxist Theory Of Permanent Revolution’.

Revolution is antithesis not synthesis; the midway point in a process, not the end of that process. It is the contradiction of everything that presently is. But this means that Marxism is only a way station in the process of thought, not the outcome of the thought process. In Hegelian terms Marxist revolution as antithesis leads to a final synthesis that is different from the Marxist revolution itself. Revolution is not the final outcome, it is the basis for the outcome. Marx sought to specify the outcome of the Marxist revolution, but could not because in as far as Marx is truly revolutionary he could not know the outcome of the revolution he promoted. In Hegelian terms to be a revolutionary is to oppose yourself to past and future.

The Gospel According To Marx

The issue of authorship is the crucial factor that determines the  significance of everything that Marx wrote. The issue of my authorship is the crucial factor determining the significance of everything I write. And everything you write and so on.. If an author fails to maintain the narrative that supports authorship then that writing must fail. The primary purpose of all writing must be to validate the author of that writing. According to Marx, if Marxism was valid in its own terms then it  was part of the continuum of development that had to be located in the history and development of capitalism. The emergence of socialist consciousness was the inevitable consequence of the development of capitalism. This was the logic of human development. This was the logic of Marx himself. Logic is the formula for inevitability.

Two Wrongs..

This leads directly to Marx’s  critique of Hegel which ‘flipped’ Hegel on its own internal logic to produce Marxism. This flipping of Hegel produces the revolutionary Marxist antithesis of the Hegelian thesis. So as Marxism stakes its claim to be  revolutionary it must forsake its right to name socialism as a successor to the capitalism and Hegelianism it opposes-. Marxism loses it’s purchase on the outcome of the revolution it instigates.. In theory Marx can double down on revolutionary opposition and argue that Hegelian philosophy is absolutely wrong. But If Hegel is absolutely wrong then Marx’s tactic of flipping it on it’s head, using Hegel against Hegel, must also be totally wrong. If Hegel is error, error is not located in the historical process of development of human thought! (if it is, there is no  rational logical predictable march to consciousness as Marx claims…) Two wrongs, however they are put together,  don’t make a right. The more resolute Marx’s opposition to Hegel, the more firmly Marx embeds himself as revolutionary opposition within the framework of Hegel and the less grasp Marxism has on the outcome of the struggle it began. The only other option is that Marx’s analysis and its authorship does not follow on from Hegel (Error)- it is completely separate from it. Then Marx would stand alone, revealed and naked as in the Garden of Eden…

The Gates of Eden

Fundamentally Marx’s problem is the same as that of Lucifer. Marx claims to have discovered a principle that precedes the principle he begins from, just as Lucifer does. If God Were not The First, if God Had not prescribed the principles of Heaven and Earth, then Lucifer argues he would be legally, rationally  free to propose a new better framework based on a principle he discovered that precedes God. But God Created Lucifer and everything Lucifer does and could ever think. So nothing Lucifer can ever think can precede God, including the principle he claims to have ‘discovered’.  Just as lightning touches earth and is grounded, so Lucifer whenever and wherever he seeks to set foot on the earth, is grounded by this fact. So it is with Marx and Hegel. Marx claims to have discovered a principle that precedes the principle of Hegel but is forced to admit this principle is created as a consequence of Hegel.

German Ideology (1845)

Welcome To My Nightmare

Because Hegel anticipates Marxism and literally accounts for it, Marx must always be antithesis. Marx saw himself as being trapped, prisoner and victim of the order of events in the universe where he was forced to stand forever in an historical  line  behind Hegel when he should be at the head of the queue. And he complained bitterly over and over again about it.

There Is No Alternative.. Is There?

The only options for Marx were either deny Hegel entirely (including the context in which Hegel existed), or agree to be bound by him. Either to say there is no ‘law’ of historical development, just the ideas and opinions of individuals, or there is a law and Hegel precedes Marx in it.

German Ideology (1845)

Of course, if there is no such law then Marx’s claim to be the chosen inheritor of that law would necessarily be wrong. Marx would have to admit that a fundamental part of his analysis was in error. And more importantly, Marx would not be the choice of the contemporary concrete, world to further human progress, he would only be only one random voice of many. In essence, be only another opinion. Not chosen. The inheritor of nothing.

How to proceed had become a matter of intellectual courage, rather than intellect per se and Marx simply did not have that courage. Unlike Adam, Marx could only find it in himself to stand at the Gates Of Eden (cause and effect, the dialectic) cursing  God (Hegel) rather than go out naked and alone into the wilderness- to say that he himself was in essence merely a collection of opinions.. Cut off from both past and future,  Marx only could ever be Marx   if he channelled total revolution and antithesis, chaos,  whatever the consequences. From then on the point was to change it- whatever it was..

…we see how the resolution of the theoretical antitheses is only possible in a practical way (my emphasis), by virtue of the practical energy of man. Their resolution is therefore by no means merely a problem of understanding, but a real problem of life, which philosophy could not solve precisely because it conceived this problem as merely a theoretical one.’

Marx, Private Property and Communism (1844)

Rather than admit that Marx could not solve his problem of philosophy, Marx proclaimed that Marx was a problem philosophy could not solve! As could go neither forward nor back, Marx would devote the rest of his existence to digging a burrow for himself next to the Gates of Eden and here he would remain locked out from the past, unwilling to face his future. Hiding in the space between antithesis and synthesis.  Just as Marx told the moral socialists they would have to sacrifice their moral heaven for a rational one,  so he in turn would have to sacrifice his vision of rational logical, socialist Heaven and give himself over to experimental chaos instead.

Marx had been utterly defeated in the realm of rational philosophy. He was now  like defeated Napolean, traipsing across a blasted landscape of his own making, intellectually destitute- a refugee. Where was the only place in the world a man could be guaranteed asylum from the power of rational philosophical enquiry?

The first part of Marx’s analysis; ‘crisis’ (antithesis) was established. The second part of his analysis, ‘socialism’ (synthesis) could never be. Crisis was the product of reason but subsequent socialism, despite everything Marx said, remained in the realm of choice. Realising that he was powerless to remove choice itself, Marx argued to change the rationale for that choice from morality to reason. Not  choice based on right and wrong but based instead on  heading for the future whether we liked it or not. A  future of two possibilities; Socialism or mutual ruination. Marx came to argue that there is an unwritten contract between capitalists and history and workers and history. ( compare this with England’s unwritten constitution). Workers were signed on to be the gravediggers of capitalism, capitalists the occupants of the box.. If all sides kept to the terms of the agreement there would be a predictable outcome- revolution.

History is the judge — its executioner, the proletarian.

Speech at Anniversary of The People’s Paper (1856)

From this point the mission of Marxists would be to hold capitalism and workers to the contract they had with history. Capitalist would create crisis after crisis of increasing severity until workers rebelled. Marxists would encourage the capitalists with relish. But by late 19thC it was clear that both capitalists and workers had begun to vary the terms of this historical contract. In Germany social provision and welfare emerged under the tutelage of  Bismark ; a process that  spread rapidly over all the Germanic territories of NW Eurasia. The two main holdouts  were England and USA, Anglo Saxon societies and economies.  This state of affairs held until the post World War II capitulation when America and England both adopted welfarism as a consequence of   two World Wars and a  Russian revolution. In a peculiar inversion, here was the first real vindication of Marxism, capitalists themselves conceded that if capitalism was  not managed there was indeed a danger of absolute collapse.

Cultural Capitalism

The  element of choice Marx failed to destroy returned to centre stage with a vengeance. The twentieth century revealed it was possible to be morally committed to capitalism while rationally accepting it would collapse without intensive and ever increasing management. Through the ideas of Keynes pundits and economists began to modify capitalism to deal with the extremes of its operation with the express purpose of preserving it for its moral and cultural qualities. The economics of capitalism were over. Capitalism revealed itself as pure religion. A moral, cultural choice.

Capitalism and those who lived within the system became increasingly characterised by degrees of acceptance instead of absolute acceptance. From this point on Capitalism is characterised by its failure to consistently and comprehensively transform the nature of the societies it operates on. Capitalism begins with an initial phase of rapid and comprehensive restructuring of any given society.. But capitalism is unable to change the nature of societies at a deeper level. It runs out of momentum. We now are at an historical juncture where third world transformation by capitalism  still appears to be relatively rapid and large scale but first world transformation has ground to a  standstill and is moribund. When was the last time capitalism changed anything significant  in a developed nation?

Just as the ‘bosses’ choices began to splinter by degrees, so  the workers  increasingly seemed to be captured by ‘momentary diversions’. And the final developed picture of modern economy comes fully into focus.

The Marxist concept of crisis is fully universally accepted.

The threat of crisis is to be offset by government intervention.

The extent and depth of this intervention increases year on year.

The only way to limit government intervention is to…use the government to do it!

The Marxist revolution is as complete as it ever could be .

Guest Of Honour

If thy eye offend thee…

A Tale Of Two Titles

All that is solid melts into air..

For They Know Not..

Forgive them, for they know not what they do

G.U.T #2: The Roots Of Marxism

“To be radical is to grasp things by the root.”

Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

Though the vast majority of western pundits remain loathe to admit it, Marxism is a foundational strain of thought in the modern western world. In fact it could be argued that it is the intellectual presence of Marxism that precisely differentiates the modern from the pre-modern world. Western politics is entirely colonised with the ideas of Marxism, from progressive left through traditional conservative right, in the same way that the human gut is colonised by the billions of bacteria that process and digest food that the body depends on. The disconcerting truth is that the human host is entirely dependent upon these organisms although they themselves are not actually human. Without these aliens the body cannot digest  and would die. Marxism lives in the gut of Germanic capitalist society and allows it to digest information from modern reality….

From a strictly rational point of view ‘Classical’ (pre Marxist) economics has been shown again and again to fail abysmally when faced with the task of ordering and understanding the real world. The final debacle in a long and ignominious history was the failure to predict and deal with the series of calamities that culminated in the disaster of 2007. During the so called financial crisis the entire structure of the global economy and society teetered on the brink of collapse. It was only the abandonment of any last shred of faith in traditional ‘classical’ economic practice that saved the world economy from chaos and disintegration.  So now everybody is a Marxist to a greater or lesser extent. But I confidently predict that is by no means as far as this process will go. In the post modern world, the entire canon of western thought has increasingly come under sustained pressure from post modern polyglot globalism. As the future unfolds Marxism will end it’s existence, not as the haunting ‘spectre’ Marx hoped it to be but rather as a cherished relic of western tradition, like the statues of confederate soldiers presently being defended from defacement and destruction because they are part of American history for good or ill. Marxism will be transformed from an object of specific hate into a totem of common heritage.

Face Value

But that is for the future, At this precise juncture it seems the only options are either to accept Marxism at face value or to attempt to discredit and undermine it. It has become time to understand what Marxism actually is as opposed to taking part in the Punch and Judy argument that has dominated the last century. The process of real understanding begins with realising that since the moment of its creation there never has been a clear and unbiased analysis of Marxism, because it has never been in anyone’s interest to create one. Anyone’s interest. Or put another way, it has always been in the general interest to avoid creating one.

When Marx said:

Whatever I am… I am not a Marxist

He was in part observing  that no one can actually be a Marxist – until everyone is.

The German Ideology

We have to explain why this would be. In part 1 I pointed towards the central question that must be answered, even if we accept Marxism under it’s own terms: How does Marxism explain its own coming into existence and is this explanation credible from a Marxist perspective ? This is by no means a given. The Marxist narrative begins from the argument is that Capitalism is inherently unstable; an observation that is by no means confined to the left. It is one of the successes of Marxist thought that the instability of capitalism  is now generally accepted as an observed truth and as a consequence the idea of a self regulating market is completely discredited. Following on from this Marxism argues that  if thought is the product of material circumstance, then unstable capitalism produces unstable minds which process finds expression in inherent and increasingly violent contradictions within capitalism. These inherent contradictions will fight one another until a new stability supported by experience wins out. Material conditions develop and change and thus the general thought process will also accordingly be forced to change .

People will increasingly  see capitalism as illogical until it collapses. In essence capitalism will fall and be superseded by socialism because this is the logical outcome  of human development and people will be forced to become logical because human development itself is ultimately logical, even if people who make up that development are not!. In the past all societies gave expression to the objective conditions that governed them but not in a rational self conscious way. Expressing the objective conditions that give rise to  thought can only be rational in one case throughout history- that of socialism.  After the moment of enlightenment  a person becomes conscious and forever after enlightenment that person’s actions are necessarily conscious actions. Marxism argues that you cannot know something and then act as though you don’t know it. In this sense the triumph of socialism is inevitable. In 1984 Orwell argues on the contrary that knowing something and then acting as though you don’t know it is precisely the basis on which modern society is run. In other words, a certain knowledge by no means necessarily leads to a certain action.

Keep Taking The Tablets

Since the force of inevitable progress has decreed that the ideology of socialism must come into existence it will perforce need an intellect to express it- to give it form. This new Law Of Human development  will require a Moses to bring the tablets of it’s commandments down from the mountain. And it is here Marx saw himself entering the story of history -as having been chosen by the inevitable developmental forces that create history to be the one to make conscious that which was previously unconscious and concrete that which was previously without concrete form. Not only would Marx be the one to go to the mountain, not only would his be the finger that inscribed the tablets, his intellect would be the actual stone of the tablets themselves.  Marx is selected by time and place, by the Zeitgeist. the spirit of the age, to transform himself into the vessel of conscious socialism. And so for the first time ever, personality and the conditions that give rise to it are consciously fused. Through this process Man comes to know himself and through this process Man and the universe are finally one..

Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844/The Communist Manifesto

Collected Works of Marx and Engels

And of course, such a Moses would also need a people to lead out of captivity and a captivity to lead them out of.….what is the point of the tablets if you have no one to give them to….?

Capital, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production

On one level all this might be an amusing diversion  -an intellectual conjuring trick that might  gain its author enough acclaim to  purchase an entrance into society as a bete noir….. And it is possible at some level this is what Marx originally intended. In this had been the case the entirety of Marx’s thought might have remained in the realm of bourgeois intellectualism. But the component parts of the society into which Marxism came into being quickly made clear that it was not content to let Marxism or anyone else write its own story to the detriment of all around.  After all, there were greater things at stake in the debate over the new capitalist society than merely Marx’s reputation and livelihood as an author.. As I have said more than once, capitalism was unstable and as a consequence lacking confidence. In some ways the history of capitalism is the history of an ongoing crisis of confidence and every capitalist has rightly felt like an historical imposter. In light of it’s suspect claim to power, capitalism simply could not stand a critique of any kind. For these reasons and others we will see later Marxism from it’s inception was dabbling in the primordial essence of things.

Whatever else Karl Marx was, he was not a Marxist- as he himself is reported to have said. This comment is generally taken as a dig at the intellectual quality of ‘Marxists’ and one all the more piquant because it comes from the progenitor of Marxism..  But it is possible to see this from another point of view; as a typically wry observation that Marx himself understood that he could not be a Marxist according to the logic of his own position, because he was unwilling and unable to apply a strict Marxist interpretation to Marxism itself. If Marx was accusing anyone, he was accusing himself…. His favourite motto:

De omnibus dubitandum [Everything must be doubted].”

would of necessity include Marx himself of course…

Marxism as an ideology necessarily comes into existence in it’s own terms. Marxism proclaims that it derives  purpose and validity solely by virtue of it’s own content. For a Marxist, there are no questions to be asked about Marxism’s  origins or the context in which it came to existence outside of the terms of Marxism itself. At first glance his seems a bit knotty, but in fact the logic is quite straightforward. Let me elaborate: Marxism is given as the product of Marx’s intellectual development which in turn is the product of the development of the objective conditions that gave rise to it; (That would be Marx’s intellectual development and also Marxism, which are two different things, but also the same thing,,,ahem..) Let me elaborate further…

The basic idea underpinning historical materialism is that capitalism inevitably comes into existence because of mankind’s increasing productive capacity through technological advance. By the same process socialism/communism also inevitably must come into existence because of the inherent nature of capitalism. In so far as mankind’s development is inevitable, so the development of capitalism from feudalism and then socialism from capitalism is inevitable.  And since socialism is the first truly self aware social movement, it’s ideology must also inevitably come into existence at the same time that socialism itself comes into existence.(Because if it didn’t then it wouldn’t be self aware..and therefore not Marxism/socialism). You can be a functioning capitalist without necessarily understanding capitalism but you can’t be a functioning socialist without understanding socialism. On the contrary, Marxists argue that it is a precondition of being a capitalist that you do not really understand the true nature of capitalism since if you did then you would be…. a socialist!

Karl Marx

This fundamental conditionality is encapsulated in the idea of ‘false consciousness’ which, like many such concepts, is used in inverse proportion to the extent it is understood. The vulgar exposition of false consciousness is that workers believe they have a stake in the ongoing success of capitalism when in fact their best interest would be served by its collapse. But actually the doctrine of false consciousness holds that thought is ‘falsely conscious’ when it holds itself to be the product of abstracted reason instead of objective conditions. In other words a thought is conscious in that it wants to be the product of reason (which is what consciousness consists of, according to Marx),  but it is false in that it is not actually the product of reason but an expression of the social relationships that gave rise to that thought. In more prosaic, (but no less convoluted), terms; You think that you think what you think because you have reasoned it out and therefore there is no reasoned alternative to what you are thinking.  But in reality you think what you think because you have been conditioned to think it. Simply because you are unaware that you have been conditioned to think as you do, your conditioned thought is non rational. If you did understand that you have been conditioned to think as you do, then this would necessarily be the first step toward breaking that conditioning and becoming truly aware, (a socialist).

In general the first step towards becoming a socialist/Marxist is to understand that there is an historical identity to capitalism because that specific understanding breaks the conditioning of capitalism.

“Once the inner connection is grasped, all theoretical belief in the permanent necessity of existing conditions collapses before their collapse in practice
Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (July 11, 1868)”
Selected Letters: The Personal Correspondence 1844-1877

From this whole cloth the historical materialism I refer to above  is created. Historical materialism holds that the emergence, development and demise of capitalism is part of an ongoing historical process. On the contrary, modern capitalist ideology holds that capitalism itself is the end point of that process. (The ‘End Of History’ a la Francis Fukyama).

A brief word to clarify what is meant by conditioning here. This is not necessarily a directed process in the Pavlovian sense of training a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, but rather a natural outcome of interaction with the world as it presently is. To a Marxist, thought is the contemporaneous state of the world mediated through the minds of the people that inhabit it.

Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy

As a consequences of this perspective, Marxism understands thought as a PRODUCT not a cause in distinction from capitalists who regard thought as a means to an end instead of an end product in itself. Thought is unconscious ( falsely conscious), to the extent  of being a product and not a cause. Thought is actually conscious to the extent of being a cause and not a product. ( hence the famous Marx quote:

Eleven Theses on Feuerbach

These prophetic words are inscribed upon Marx’s grave. Irony.

Marx argued this in direct contradistinction to Hegelian philosophy although he claimed Hegel in part as inspiration. In fact, Marx characterised his materialism in exactly this way as the contradictory argument that refines Hegelian philosophy. Hegel starts from the process of thought and goes on to explain the thought process but Marx ends at thought. In this way Marx directly contradicts Hegel and yet claims though this contradiction to be his successor! This startling conception of the thought process gives rise to a problem however. If a given thought process is the product of the conditioning that created it, surely it is trapped by that very same conditioning. How can such a thought process ever realise that it is the product of conditioning? How can you modify your own thought process just by thinking about it? How can you lift yourself up by your own shoe laces? It is clear that for the argument to work some outside force becomes necessary to break into the conditioning/thinking feedback loop and produce a change.

Luckily as it turns out, capitalism just happens to contain within itself that agent of change!


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Nice 63 acre recreational tract adjoining US Forest Service lands located on Highway 176 just south of Union. This tract has open areas, hardwoods, pines, and a power transmission line running through the back side that allows for long range shooting. Wildlife is aboundant and allows access to thousands of acres of public land to hunt and recreate on. This tract is priced to move. Small tracts that ajoin the USFS usually sell pretty fast so do not hesitate on this one.


Evaluating the U.K.’s ‘Active Cyber Defence’ Program:

In November 2016, the U.K. government its Active Cyber Defence (ACD) program with the intention of tackling “in a relatively automated [and transparent] way, a significant proportion of the cyber attacks that hit the U.K.” True to their word, a little over a year on, last week the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published a (over 60 pages long) of their progress to date. The report itself is full of technical implementation details. But it’s useful to cut through the specifics to explain exactly what ACD is and highlight its successes—how the program could benefit the United States as well.

There are three defining features of the ACD program: government-centered action, intervention, and transparency.

(Via Lawfare – Hard National Security Choices)

Read the article for a nice summary of the report, including the section towards the end that talks to potential benefits for the U.S.


Serial: 8 Things to know about Season 2 (AUDIO)

Dec 10, 2015 at 7:07 p.m. ET

It's been over 14 months since Sarah Koenig and the rest of the Serial team cut us off cold turkey from the podcast's addictive first season.

Fans were left shaking their collective fists at the sky and yearning for more episodes that gave closure to Adnan Syed's case when Season 1 ended last October. We were given little information — or hope — for a second season other than, "Serial will probably return sometime in 2015."

Until today.

The image of a dark landscape and barbed wire is ominous, but doesn't give away too many hints as to what Season 2 is all about. Will it be anything like the first? Here's what we know so far.

More: 7 Things we need in Serial Season 2

1. It doesn't seek to solve a murder case

The real-life case involving the death of Hae Min Lee and Syed, who was convicted of her murder, was so riveting in Season 1, many listeners are having a hard time picturing a new season of Serial that doesn't unravel another murder mystery.

However, Season 2, unlike Season 1, will not be a "whodunnit" series, but rather unpacks the story of Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was subsequently captured and held by the Taliban. Bergdahl was charged with desertion upon his release, and is the subject of an active military case in court.

Koenig will explore why Bergdahl made the curious decision to abandon his post and the strange events that unfolded after his capture and release.

2. It's an inside look at captivity

The Taliban held Bergdahl captive for five years, which, according to the Serial website, is longer than any other American in history has been imprisoned by the radicals and lived to tell the tale. Episode 1's voice recordings of Bergdahl describing the harrowing details of his captivity are chilling — and we can only imagine there's more to come.

More: 7 Books for Serial fans now that the podcast is over

3. Bergdahl is a complicated dude

"Bergdahl, by the way, is such an interesting and unusual guy, not like anyone I’ve encountered before," Koenig writes on the Serial website, which is a bold statement coming from the woman who had many an intimate conversation with Syed.

And her statement is definitely founded. Bergdahl was homeschooled as a child and received his GED in his early 20s, after which he studied fencing and ballet, even dancing the role of the Nutcracker in a local production, according to The New York Times. He also pursued Christian missionary work in Uganda in 2003 and spent time in a Buddhist monastery in 2007 and 2008, just one year before joining the Army and disappearing, according to

4. Koenig goes deep

"That's me, calling the Taliban," Koenig says in Episode 1. That's right, one show in and she's already seeking to communicate with one of the most feared organizations in the world. Makes knocking on Jay's door seem like no big deal.

5. Koenig explores controversial feelings about the military

Season 1's story was basically confined to Baltimore and the students who were in high school when Lee was brutally murdered, but Season 2 will go far and wide.

"It reaches into swaths of the military, the peace talks to end the war, attempts to rescue other hostages, our Guantanamo policy," writes Koenig. "What Bergdahl did made me wrestle with things I’d thought I more or less understood, but really didn’t: what it means to be loyal, to be resilient, to be used, to be punished."

One of the most intriguing aspects of Season 1 was how it made us question our judicial system, so having Koenig poke into the United States military in a similar fashion is exciting.

More: 13 Questions Sarah Koenig had better answer to end Season 1 of Serial

6. The Serial team will have a larger social media presence

As a result of Season 1's success, the Serial team expanded and announced that they will be interacting with fans more on the Internet. Week by week, listeners are encouraged to ask questions on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

7. Pandora

Exciting news: The music streaming giant has taken on Serial and you can listen to both Season 1 and new episodes of Season 2 through the service. You can continue to listen to the weekly podcast through its website, iTunes and Stitcher as well.

8. The MailChimp girl is still in full effect

New season, same old sponsors! And the poor MailChimp girl still can't get it right.

Take a listen to the first four minutes of Serial Episode 1 below, but proceed with caution: It only takes four minutes to get hooked.


Printing Terms Dictionary

Page Formats: The standardized sizes used accross the the industry:

Format Inches Metric (mm)
A3 11.69 x 16.54 297 x 420
A4 8.25 x 11.75 210 x 297
A5 5.83 x 8.25 148 x 210
B5 6.93 x 9.84 176 x 250
Executive (Monarch) 7.25 x 10.5 184 x 267
Legal 8.5 x 14 216 x 356
Letter 8.5 x 11 216 x 279
Magazine - Broad 10 x 12 254 x 305
Magazine - Narrow 8.125 x 10.875 206 x 276
Magazine - Standard 8.375 x 10.875 213 x 276
Magazine - Wide 9 x 10.875 229 x 276
Periodical 10.25 x 13 260 x 330
Tabloid 11 x 17 279 x 432

See also standard Envelope Formats.

Parallel Interface: An interface between a computer and a printer in which the computer sends multiple bits of information to the printer simultaneously. Parallel and Centronics interfaces are the same type.

Parallel Transmission: Sending dtat from a computer down several wires simultaneously, the pulses in one wire being precisely synchronized with the pulses in the other wires.

Parity: Used in error correction. A separate bit _ the parity bit _ is added and manipulated so that the number of 1s is odd (for odd parity) or even (for even parity). If the number of bits sent don't conform to the parity, the software detects and error.

Partition: A partition is a portion of a physical disk that functions as it were a physically seperate unit.

Partition Table: The partition table contains entries showing the start and end point of each of the primary partitions on the disk. The partition table can hold 4 entries.

Paste: To transfer the contents of the clipboard (˜) to an application. Many applications have a Paste Command that performs this task.

Pattern Matching: A computerized search operation whereby input values are treated as patterns and matches are sought in a search database. Whenever exact matches occur, this is called a hit, the results of a search produce a list of hits for further investigation.

PC: Short for IBM Personal Computer. Used to indicate an IBM or compatible. sometimes used more generally to indicate any personal computer.

PCI: See Peripheral Component Interconnect.

PDL: Page Description Language.

Peaking: A common expression used to describe the electronic manipulation of gray tones to increase contrast in an image.

Perl: An interpreted programming launguage developed by Larry Wall, Perl offers superb string-handling and pattern-matching capabilities and is a favorite among CGI programmers.

Photomultiplier (PM): A photo cathode having extremely high stability and capable of reading low level light measurements in the entire part of the visible spectrum (as well as some non-visible radiation). PM's are capable of reacting to extremely short duration exposures of light as well as continuously changing conditions of light values. These PM's can read, disseminate, boost up signal and pass the information along (in microseconds) to the color computer where these signals are adjusted to conform and create the necessary color balance and depth of color to make the final separation. The photomultiplier is located in a group of four in the scanners head and measures the light transmitted through or reflected from the original copy and through corresponding color filters to create the color printers.

Photoshop: A Macintosh-based software program created by Adobe Systems, Inc. for the manipulation of scanned images for PostScript output.

Point to Point Protocol (PPP): The industry standard that is implemented in dial-up networking. PPP is a line protocol used to connect to remote networking services, including Interet Service Providers. Prior to the introduction of PPP, another line protocal, SLIP, was used.

Port: A socket, usually at the back of a computer, allowing the computer to be connected to other devices.

Portrait: A page whose width is shorter than its height.

PostScript: A page definition language (PDL) developed by Adobe Systems. When a page of text and/or graphics is saved as a PostScript file, the page is stored as a set of instructions specifing the measurements, typefaces, and graphic shapes that make up the page.

Prepress: The preparation work required to turn "camera-ready" artwork into the printing plates needed for mass production, i.e., making negatives, "stripping" or placing the negatives in place, and etching the plates.

Primary Colors: Additive primaries are red, blue and green. The subtractive primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow. (see additive and subtractive primaries.)

Process Lens: A highly corrected photographic lens for the graphic arts used to record linework, halftones or color separations when using the direct screen method.

Protocol: A set of rules that define how computers communicate with each other. Protocols are used between instances of a particular layer on each computer. Windows 95 includes NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and IPX/SPX-compatible protocols.

Pull-Quote: Style of taking a short phrase in the text and repeating it in larger text.

Push, Pull: In photography, the deliberate manipulation of the film speed in order to achieve exposure and operative controls beyond the normal range and limitations of the film. By pushing (over development) the effective speed (ASA) can be increase. By pulling (under development) the effective speed (ASA) of the film can be reduced. Note: pushing and pulling film create undesirable results such as grain, contrast and color shifts.

Push Installation: A method of installing software automatically accross a network.


Kornprodukter, belgfrukter og avledede produkter

Komité: CEN/TC 275 (Food analysis - Horizontal methods)
Sluttdato: 5. jul 2018
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This document describes a procedure for the determination of phomopsins in lupin seeds and lupin-derived products based on liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Several phomopsins exist, i.e. phomopsin A, B, C and D, but the method only deals with the quantitative measurement of phomopsin A due to lack of commercially available analytical reference standards for the other phomopsins. The method has been validated for phomopsin A in naturally contaminated lupin seeds, lupin flour and crisp bread at levels ranging from approximately 5 µg/kg to 60 µg/kg.


Tea Time in Russia

Typically, people in the U.S. consider England to be the major tea drinking country in Europe, but in 2005 a study found that 82 percent of Russians drink tea daily.

(Interesting side note: evidence shows this is causing an iron deficiency among women and children. Tea contains tannins, which reduces iron absorption into the body).

Normally, black tea is the tea of choice for Russians, but green tea has been growing in popularity.

Tea drinking in Russia dates back to 1638 when Mongols introduced the drink to the area. Since then, most likely thanks to Russia’s cold climate, tea has remained a popular drink Russia.

In Moscow, there is even the Moscow Tea Museum. There, a “tea master,” hosts tea ceremonies for visitors. A team master is responsible for knowing how to prepare the water. Also, they need to know all about the six different kinds of teas – where they grow, how they are gathered and how they can influence people.

Most importantly, the tea master is in charge of creating the necessary tea atmosphere. The goal is to immerse the tea drinker in the ambience, and to create a strong emotional reaction while drinking the tea.

What separates Russian tea culture from others is the brewing process. They use a two-step brewing process. The first step involves brewing a portion of dry tea in a small teapot. The second step involves pouring the brew into teacups, allowing each drinker to add as much or as little water as wanted (so each drinker can make their tea just as strong as they would like to).


Truth Be Told: How Much Protein EXACTLY For Vegans? The Point On Protein Supplements and One Vital Factor No One Talks About!

If you are a long term vegan, or someone who has done their ‘nutrition homework’ throughout their transition into veganism, you will most definitely read a few articles about the protein deficiency myth.

Most vegans are aware that if they follow a varied whole-food vegan diet, consisting of a good amount of pulses, nuts, and greens, combined with a sufficient calorie intake, protein deficiency is something they do not need to worry about. Still, I have decided to post a more detailed analysis into the subject and take into consideration a few factors that may vary from person to person. Again, I will stress that too many vegans are trying to prove a point of ‘no supplements needed’ without taking into consideration the fact that each body is different and there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer for a question concerning each individual’s body and health.

Clarifying Protein Needs

In summary, although protein is a key nutrient, responsible for ‘building’ our organs, including skin, hair, nails, and muscles, we don’t need huge amounts of it. The RDA recommends that we take in 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram that we weigh (or about 0.36 grams of protein per pound that we weigh) (1). This recommendation includes a generous safety factor for most people. When we make a few adjustments to account for some plant proteins being digested somewhat differently from animal proteins and for the amino acid mix in some plant proteins, we arrive at a level of 0.9 gram of protein per kilogram body weight (0.41 grams per pound). If we do a few calculations we see that

The protein recommendation for vegans amounts to

Truth Be Told: How Much Protein EXACTLY For Vegans? The Point On Protein Supplements and A Few Deciding Factors No One Talks About!

close to 10% of calories coming from protein. For example, a vegan male weighing 174 pounds could have a calorie requirement of 2,600 calories. His protein needs are calculated as 174 pounds x 0.41 g/pound = 71 grams of protein. 71 grams of protein x 4 calories/gram of protein = 284 calories from protein. 284 divided by 2,600 calories = 10.9% of calories from protein.

If we look at what vegans are eating, we find that, typically, between 10-12% of calories come from protein 3. This contrasts with the protein intake of non-vegans, which is close to 14-18% of calories.

So, in the United States it appears that vegan diets are commonly lower in protein than standard American diets. Remember, though, with protein, more (than the RDA) is not necessarily better. There do not appear to be health advantages to consuming a high protein diet. Diets that are high in protein may even increase the risk of osteoporosis (4) and kidney disease (5). Overconsumption of protein may cause problems for your hear.t It may also promote the growth of cancer cells, cause digestive problems, and harmful mineral imbalances.

 Sample Menu Showing How Easy It Is To Meet Protein Needs
Protein (grams)
Breakfast: 1 cup Oatmeal 6
1 cup Soy Milk 7
1 medium Bagel 10
Lunch: 2 slices Whole Wheat Bread 7
1 cup Baked Beans 12
Dinner: 5 oz firm Tofu 12
1 cup cooked Broccoli 4
1 cup cooked Brown Rice 5
2 Tbsp Almonds 4
Snack: 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter 8
6 Crackers 2
TOTAL 77 grams
Protein Recommendation for Male Vegan 63 grams
[based on 0.9 gram of protein per kilogram body weight for 70 kilogram (154 pound) male]

Additional food should be added to this menu to provide adequate calories and to meet requirements for nutrients besides protein.

Also Check out The 14 Highest Quality Sources Of Vegan Protein (Plus Recipes)

What about combining or complementing protein? Doesn’t that make the protein issue much more complex?

12 Essential Vegan Basics You’ll Be Amazed You Didn’t Know! (Or Put Much Thought Into)

The ‘protein combining’ rule has been discredited as misleading by various institutions, and you may inform yourself as to why that is in this concise, but super informative video here.

Also check out 9 Surprising Protein-Packed Foods To Further Enrich Your Vegan Diet

Another important point to consider is that

Amounts of Foods Providing Recommended Amounts of Essential Amino Acids

12-3/4 cups of cooked corn OR 8 large potatoes OR 2-1/2 cups of tofu OR 15-1/2 cups of cooked brown rice
Any one of the above foods, eaten in the amount specified, would provide the recommended amounts of all essential amino acids for an adult male. Women would need about 20% less of each food due to lower recommendations. This concept is illustrated below:
Adult RDA,154 lb male (1) 350 1400 1330 2940 2660 1330 2310 1680
12-3/4 cups corn 437 2527 2527 6801 2679 1824 5339 3629
8 large potatoes 646 2057 2033 2990 3277 1723 3971 3134
15-1/2 cups cooked rice 907 2569 2962 5773 2660 2418 6237 4111
Source: USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 24, 2011.
Notes: Amounts of amino acids are in milligrams. Try=tryptophan, Thr=threonine, Iso=isoleucine, Leu=leucine, Lys=lysine, Met+Cys=methionine+cysteine, Phe+Tyr=phenylalanine+tyrosine, Val=valine

One Factor No One Talks About

Before looking deeper into this point, I would like to stress the following – this information is valid for vegans and non-vegans alike! A vegan diet is not necessarily responsible for the following phenomenon! This is just an important piece of information everyone should be aware of.

Nutrient Absorption

I started looking into this topic, because I have always considered myself as a healthy eating individual. I eat huge amounts of nuts, fruits, veggies, and all the good stuff we are supposed to. I have also limited my intake of refined sugar and gluten over the last few years. My blood tests are perfect, and I don’t have any deficiencies. Yet, after making close observations to my body, I discovered that with the amount of physical activity I do, I cannot make it without a protein powder supplement. This is despite the fact that I am clearly getting enough calories and protein from my food alone! I spent a few months without a supplement, and I was feeling chronically fatigued, unable to complete my workouts and my physical strength plummeted quite visibly. On the contrary, within a few days of taking a high quality protein supplement, my physical condition changed quite noticeably.

This led me to the idea that our bodies absorb nutrients in different ways

Before I present some scientific facts on this topic, I will share some personal observations. Have you noticed that certain people go to the gym, eat right, and take protein supplements, and their muscles are still hardly visible? While others, who barely exercise and don’t watch their diets nearly as much, have lean well defined muscles and strong bodies? This led me to the idea that we all process nutrients in different ways, and therefore we must make close observations to what is happening in our system – even if physical and blood tests show that everything is balanced (including hormones).

What Makes the Body Not Absorb Nutrients?

Fiber Intake

It’s also possible to have too much fiber in your diet (this can easily happen to vegans, including me). Excessive fiber inhibits absorption of certain nutrients, so make sure you get just enough without going overboard. Every 1,000 calories in your diet means you’ll need 14 grams of fiber — 28 grams for a 2,000-calorie diet, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 states.

Celiac Disease

Bowel Problems

If your bowels aren’t functioning properly, no matter how balanced your diet is, you won’t be absorbing all of the nutrients you need. Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis, inflammatory bowel disease and colitis are just a few of the conditions that lead to inflammation in your intestines. Certain foods may trigger inflammatory outbreaks, causing damage to villi and intestinal walls, although sometimes inflammation stems for unknown reasons. If you undergo bowel surgery and have to part of your intestinal tract removed, nutrient absorption becomes further inhibited, since most nutrients absorb in your intestines.

Lactose Intolerance (not applicable for vegans, but good to know!)

Lactose is a natural sugar from dairy that breaks down with a specific enzyme called lactase. If your body doesn’t produce enough lactase though, you can’t digest lactose. You’ll experience abdominal cramping, bloating and diarrhea in as little as 30 minutes after consuming a lactose-containing food, the University of California San Francisco Medical Center explains. By continuing to have lactose in your diet, the increased frequency of diarrhea could cause your body to quickly pass beneficial nutrients. Chronic diarrhea can even damage the walls of your intestines, limiting nutrient absorption.

Please take these into consideration when making a decision for your protein supplementation! Observe your body and don’t try to stick to another myth the vegan society is trying to instill on everyone – the ‘no supplements needed’ myth. I have personally discovered that I do need to use a protein powder, despite a healthy varied diet – this is what came out after experimenting with different approaches and making sure I don’t have any deficiencies. You are a different person, so this may or may not be applicable in your situation!

Keep in mind that a deficiency in Vitamin B12, or Vitamin D may also lead to nutrient malabsorption, so also make sure you are getting these right! Do review the following pieces:

6 Key Supplements You May Actually Need On A Vegan Diet

Can Vegans Really Get B12 From Intestinal Bacteria? (Sound Science Vs Financial Interests)

And if you want to make it even easier on yourself to eat a balanced vegan diet, Download The Complete Vegan Recipe Solution featuring 145 balanced delicious vegan meals that help you get all the nutrients you need for a healthy, active lifestyle!

  2. Rodriguez NR, DiMarco NM, Langley S. Position of the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine: Nutrition and athletic performance. J Am Diet Assoc2009;109:509-27.

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We’ll never forget the notable childhood memory of Mary Poppins singing, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” An emotionally dynamic film and current Oscar contender, “Saving Mr. Banks” recounts the true story of "Mary Poppins" author, P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson), as she works with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) in the production of the “Mary Poppins” movie.

After sales of her book begin to drop, P. L. Travers ultimately concedes to Disney’s request to make a movie adaptation of "Mary Poppins." She flies out to LA to oversee the adaptation. Throughout the film there is consistent controversy, as Travers fights to retain the authenticity of her book. Periodic flashbacks to Travers’ childhood reveal her troubled relationship with her alcoholic father (Colin Farrell), which inspired her to write this story.

Emma Thompson’s commanding performance made the film. Travers behaves exactly how one may imagine a stubborn and proud author would behave as the film adaptation of her work happens just before her eyes. Within the first thirty seconds of reading the script, she already has a mouthful of comments and begins making changes. She insists on being addressed as Mrs. Travers, and she always asks for her pot of tea, with the milk poured in first. Tom Hanks successfully plays the charismatic Walt Disney, who had been pursuing Travers for twenty years until she finally granted him movie rights. The comedic tone and chemistry Travers and Disney have is complimented by powerful flashbacks of Travers’ father who deteriorates before her eyes.

This was a truly endearing film, with the personal struggle Mrs. Travers faces leading to tremendous growth. She still proudly shows up to the “Marry Poppins” premiere with her driver, Ralph (Paul Giamatti), even after being uninvited. However, in the end, we see that “Saving Mr. Banks” successfully addresses and illustrates the concept of confronting, embracing, and ultimately finding a way to let go.

Grade: A

Rating & Runtime: PG-13, 125 min.

See if you liked: “Miss Potter”


Voltmeters, Physics

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Joined up data for better decisions

Administrative Data

Data derived from information collected and maintained as part of an administration system, such as health records, vehicle licensing and tax systems.

Aggregate Statistics

Statistics that relate to, and provide collective information about, an entire group and do not differentiate individuals within that group.

Freely given and informed agreement by the Data Subject for his or her personal data being processed for a specific purpose.

Data Controller

An individual, organisation or body that determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed.

Data Linkage / Record Linkage

Data linkage is the joining of two or more administrative or survey datasets using individual reference numbers / identifiers or statistical methods such as probabilistic matching. See also” Indexer”.

Data recipient

Researcher who initiates a data linkage to answer a research question.

Data Sharing Agreement

Agreement between Data Controller and data recipient clarifying: the purpose or purposes of the sharing; Who will have access; What will be shared; How the data will be transferred: Quality issues (including accuracy, relevance and usability); Data security; Retention and deletion; Review of effectiveness of sharing.

Data Subject

Individual who is the subject of personal data.  A Data Subject may be identifiable, directly or indirectly, through reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his or her physical, physiological, mental, economic, social or cultural identity.

Individual Reference/Identifier

Frequently a sequence of characters and/or numbers that is used and/or assigned by an organisation to a person to identify uniquely the person for the purposes of the organisation’s systems and operations.

Information Asset Owner

Person appointed by the Senior Information Risk Owner to ensure specific information assets are handled and managed appropriately. This includes ensuring information is protected appropriately but also that it is used within the law for public good.

A dataset of individual references that can be used for cross-referencing between sources.

Individual (or body) who receives personal data from one or more Data Controllers and determines which records in each dataset relate to the same individual (or entity).  The indexer then creates a unique reference for each individual (or entity) and a corresponding key to allow the data from the different sources to be joined.

Individual (or body) who receives datasets from data controllers and links them together using a key created by the indexer.

Longitudinal Survey

A survey in which information is collected about the same group of individuals on more than one occasion over a period of time.

Personal Data / Identifiable Data

Information about a living individual who can be identified from that information and other information which is in the data controller's possession.

Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)

A process which helps assess privacy risks to individuals in the collection, use and disclosure of information.  PIAs help identify privacy risks, foresee problems and bring forward solutions.

Population Spine

A dataset created by cross-referencing indices that allows for an accurate count of the population.

Safe Haven

A physically secure area, containing a computer, with no external devices e.g. disc, CD, USB drives or printer access, in which trusted and authorised researchers can analyse personal data.


The Global Development Crisis

A third of workers, internationally, earn less than $2 a day.

The World Bank sets the poverty line at $1.25 a day, and on that basis asserts that poverty is declining.  But is that right? Where did that figure come from?  The New Economics Foundation estimates that it should be set at $5 a day, and others suggest $10.  Rejecting the idea that ‘the poor’ need to rely on benign assistance, and that the market provides the answer, Dr, Ben Selwyn puts forward the view that the capital/labour relationship is the reason most of the world’s workers are poor, and advocates labour-centred development – where ‘the poor’ (the global labouring classes), and their own collective actions and struggles constitute the basis of an alternative form of non-elitist, bottom-up human development.


جاهل ولا ظالم؟ متفرقش

ياترى أكبر سبب للخراب اللي احنا فيه هو الظلم فقط ؟ ولا فيه حاجة كمان هي السبب و يمكن تاثيرها أكبر من الظلم كمان ؟

فيه حديث عن الرسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم بيقول فيه أن القضاة ثلاثة: اثنان في النار وواحد في الجنة، رجل عرف الحق فقضى به فهو في الجنة، ورجل عرف الحق فلم يقض به وجار في الحكم فهو في النار، ورجل لم يعرف الحق فقضى للناس على جهل فهو في النار.

أنا مش قصدي أتكلم عن القضاه بشكل خاص حاليا بس هدفي من الحديث ده توضيح إن ربنا يعاقب الجاهل نفس عقاب الظالم  بالضبط كأنهم سواء لأن تأثيرهم على المجتمع واحد. فالشخص الذي لا يظلم ليس أفضل مِن مَن يظلم لو كان جاهلاً.

الجهل والظلم وجهين لعملة واحدة، فلا تفضل إحداهما عن الأخرى.

اتقوا الله وليعلمكم الله.

Why Needmash Failed to start (For now..)

Needmash logo

Me and a group of my friends were working on a project called Needmash (Previously known as ShopekLobek) and it’s idea was simple, post anything you need and help other people with what they need. We made a prototype of it (I hope it stays up and running) during our last year of college as our graduation project and we got straight A’s.

So everything was going fine right after graduation, we knew what to do and there was not much left to do for launching the service. But what we weren’t fully aware of, is that not all of us has the same purpose and motivation for this project. I myself just wanted to make something that help people more and make their life easier, whether it’s high tech or low tech, I didn’t really care, I just wanted to help. Some other members were taking this project as an experiment to learn from it, some others changed their personal goals after graduation and it didn’t go along with starting a business and some others were just following their passion and when they lost it, they lost interest in the project. And believe me, you will lose your passion in your startup many many times, here’s how to keep it.

So it’s not always the lack of skills or resources that fails a project. You can have the right people at the right time and things eventually go wrong because they didn’t have the same goal or motive. And by goal I don’t mean that they didn’t want the project to succeed, of course they did! But “why they wanted it to succeed” was different inside each of us.

So what I’ve learned from this experience and my advice to you is when you choose someone to start a business with, or hire someone in the early stage of your project, you must make sure that his personal goals and motives are the same as yours, whatever how skillful they are, you won’t get the best out of them unless you have a unified vision and personal goals. Think of it as multiple strings pulling a rock, if they don’t all have the same direction, things will fall apart.

By the way if you are a huge corporation, you may not need to worry about your employees personal goals, they work for your money anyway.

ياريتها جت عالطماطم

Imageكنت لسة بتفرج على فيلم World War Z بطولة Brad Pitt وكان بيتكلم عن ال zombies وكده.. و ضمن احداث الفيلم إن إسرائيل هي أول دولة تاخد إحتياطاتها من الفيروس ده و تبني سور ضخم يحميها من هجمات ال zombies (محامهاش قوي عموما)

المهم .. لما Brad كان راح هناك عشان يقابل شخص عنده معلومات عن أصل الفيروس و جه منين و بتاع، و لما قابل الشخص ده سأله ليه إسرائيل كانت أول دولة تستعد للخطر ده، فـالراجل رد عليه بإن بعد احداث كتيرة حصلت لإسرائيل و مقدروش يتوقعوها (و اللي منها كانت حرب 1973) المخابرات قررت طريقة جديدة في بحث صحة أي معلومة تيجي لهم، و الطريقة دي اسمها “The 10th man rule” أو قاعدة الرجل العاشر. القاعدة ببساطة بتقول إن المجلس (المكون من 10 أشخاص) لما يبحث صحة معلومة ما و يبقى 9 من ال 10 أفراد متفقين على رأي، يبقى مهمة الشخص العاشر إنه يبحث في احتمالية حدوث الرأي الاخر حتى لو هو مش مقتنع بإمكانية حدوثه، و بكده يبقوا مستعدين لإحتمالية حدوث أي شيء.

القاعدة  دي أبهرتني بصراحة لدرجة إني بحثت عنها عالنت بعد ما خلصت الفيلم و لقيت واحد على Quora بيسأل إذا كانت اسرائيل بتستخدم القاعدة دي بجد ولا لأ. المفزع إن طلع الجيش الإسرائيلي بيطبق القاعدة  دي في الواقع فعلا في اتخاذ قرارته و كانت ضمن تغيرات كتير في استراتيجية اتخاذ القرار في الجيش الإسرائيلي بعد 1973. و مصدر المعلومة دي هو كتاب “Lessons from Israel’s intelligence reforms” و اللي ألفه “Yousef Kuperwasser” رئيس قسم البحث العلمي في وزارة الدفاع الاسرائيلية من 2001 إلى 2006.

آه صحيح.. اللي مستغرب من عنوان المقال، فيه إشاعة طالعة إن إسرائيل جايبة لينا طماطم مسرطنة.

ياريتها جت عالطماطم …

Why I will never do a task again without a timer

  3. I do a better job when being watched or monitored

Why I’m Happy

I’m happy because:

(Now it’s starting to get harder to remember :D)

Nature’s processor

Time travel is useless

//This title is not meant to be catchy at all.

Yes I believe “time travel only” is useless, what you think is fun or cool or amazing or whatever.. isn’t just time travel, its time travel with your memories unchanged or altered.
The basic time travel will send you back in time for you to change some mistake you made in the past but the point is that you won’t remember that you regretted this action in the future because it didn’t happen yet, it doesn’t exist and you’ll make it again in the future, then you’ll regret it again and use the time travel to change it and forget.. and regret again… you’ll end up in an infinite loop.
But what does the basic time travel offers for traveling to the future ? well, it offers nothing (disappointing, right?)
Your memories and other people’s memories end at this moment, further in time doesn’t exist because there’s no memories to create it, its actions hadn’t been taken yet. So how the system gonna get those actions out of the people to let you see the future ? If its feasible you are most welcomed to tell me in the comments what is the next post I’m going to write on this blog.
What people want isn’t really time traveling because as we saw it offers nothing, they want transferring present memories to the past or predicting the future with 0 errors, and this I believe this is a different problem than time travel itself and even harder.
In the end I want to quote Morgan Freeman in Through the wormhole TV series ” If we can go back in time and change the mistakes we made, would we learn from it? Would we be who we are today? “


Two random (for the purposes of this post) articles that show a clear lack of understanding of numbers and reason; or, careless oversight and a frivolousness use of words.

First, from this article on natural gas production:

In other words, the EPA thinks the amount of methane leakage is only about 80 percent of what was previously thought, despite the boom in natural gas production.

That clause at the end is either: a) unnecessary (if the author is using language sloppily), or b) shows a lack of understanding of what a percentage is because it doesn’t matter how much more methane we’re producing if the amount of leakage is expressed as a percentage of production.

And there’s this much more egregious error from an article on money “buying” happiness.

bad graph

Which the writers describe this way:

What has happened here is that they’ve arbitrarily broken a single data set into two data sets. Why? I don’t know, but probably so that they could make a provocative conclusion: that income does matter for well being. Well, it’s bogus. At least, the graph is (the conclusion might not be, despite the bad data analysis, but that’s not my point). You can’t – reasonably – just arbitrarily break data sets into small data sets and form conclusions based on those. This is a common statistical error and leads to such “true” statements as 9 out of 10 dentists recommend Crest toothpaste or 9 out of 10 game-goers prefer Bud Light over Miller Light. What is one simple way to see that the dissecting of the above data set is bogus? Well, you could easily break the data set again at about 32 GDP per capita (the x-value) and then fit a line that goes very steeply downward. Your conclusion would then be that being very rich and getting richer is really bad for happiness. While this may or may not also be true, you can certainly understand why the authors did not also make this particular subdivision; it would have sharply contrasted with their desired conclusion.

-JD Cross


3 Practices of Mindfulness for Your Career

Thinking about the big picture can happen anywhere.

It’s amazing how little we discuss the practice of mindfulness in the workplace. It’s kept at a cool, photographer’s distance away: close enough to resonate with the yogi within, and yet far enough way to leave our daily habits uninhibited. If we’ve hit a stride with our team lead, our deliverables, and our skill sets, what requires a closer look?

Mindfulness is a step beyond breaking habits or building new ones; in practice, being mindful is an ethos, a way in which we do the things we do. It’s an exercise, and like any exercise, it makes us stronger, more successful, and better prepared for the next challenge.

Below, explore three practices of mindfulness I’ve witnessed in the most successful careers across industries:

  1. Remembering what it feels like to advocate. Do you know a story of an intern turned VP? A start-up turned Fortune 500? Behind every bottom-up story, I get to hear about leaders and allies who vouched for something in its budding stages. Advocating brings a sense of pride and higher purpose while building lasting relationships. Trying a daily practice of recalling times you’ve advocated for something or someone, and you’ll find your voice and confidence — both qualities valued by your teams.
  2. Thinking strategically about the small things. How does one step to the left or right inform the larger trajectory? What will you get for investing a little extra time now? Strategy can become a buzzword without the action to back it up, and implementing the details behind the design will not only inform the bottom line, but get you noticed for following through. Before you hit send on that email, take a moment to think about how it will be read by those on the other end. Before working late again, consider about how it might be impacting how other’s view your boundary setting. Reconsidering the small things is a safe ROI: Every time, a little mindfuless goes a long way.
  3. Investing money and time in your health. Career mindfulness is holistic. Every year, more research presents us with the importance of sleep cycles that work for our cycles and whole foods that aren’t cut with substitutes for the real thing. Immediate and long-term health benefits aside, choosing foods that work with your mind and body — not against it — is a moment-to-moment meditation of self worth. Each time I see someone valuing their health above all else, I see someone who consistently brings their best self to the table.

Mindfulness in the workplace can sometimes feel like battling auto-pilot mode. In many ways, we’re taught to optimize a situation until its comfortable — but the most successful careers I’ve witnessed are of those who know the difference between a rest and a plateau.

We may have mastered tasks at hand. We may have even mastered the stressors that previously felt insurmountable. The disservice, however, is a lack of mindfulness that saps your fullest potential.

Like what you read? Give Ciara Jordan a round of applause.


How can I customise CSS for each category? (as in having different design for each category)

(Panteen Pro-V) #1

Hi, I’m running a game forum and I’d like to be able to customise CSS for each category so that each category will look different with each other (example: Fallout 4 category can have more post-nuclear design, Halo category will have futuristic design,etc…) Currently the CSS customize in Admin affect all categories. Any possible way to change css for each category without affecting other category?

(Mittineague) #2

Isn’t it only a matter of using the correct selector(s)?

eg. the body tags class value should have a category specific value you could use.

(Robin Ward) #4

When you’re in a category, discourse adds the category slug to the body element. For example, on meta here when I visit the bug category I get category-bug in the body tag. If you use that as a selector you can style each category differently.

(Panteen Pro-V) #5

Thanks for the info. I will try it out


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Philippians: A 4-Day Devotional

Do you sometimes feel like you’ll never get where you’re going in your relationship with Jesus?

The people in the Philippi probably felt the same way when Paul wrote the letter we now know as the book of Philippians. In Philippians, Paul reminds us that following Jesus is about progress not perfection.

Jesus gives us what we need to take steps to become more like Him. Joy from Jesus allows us to overcome anxiety about our circumstances. Jesus helps us become humble, leading to unity in our relationships and in the church. And as we follow Jesus’ example of generosity, we move from selfish to selfless living.

Progress is often hard to see day by day, but every small step of obedience adds up. Learn how incremental changes can shape our hearts, making us more like Jesus and helping the Gospel to spread.


Modality: MRI (T2)

- “ Pancoast tumor or superior sulcus tumor is subtype of non squamous cell lung cancer that involves the apical lung and usually extends outside the ...”

Used in the following article:

View full size version of Pancoast tumour with cystic cerebral metastasis

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