From my personal experience, nothing scientific or proven here.
I sit in a small office since last few years. A year or so ago I started to get less mentally active, as in things were going on in automatic mode.
And I did not feel good in general, a friend who practices Yoga advised me to do breathing exercises.
15-30 mins of deep breaths in open space in early morning, after shower, before breakfast. Followed by 3-5 min of rapid breathing. And finishing with taking as much air as I can and holding it for 30 sec to a min and repeating it for 2-3 times.
I do feel active after that, I wonder if it's related to these studies.
I encourage you and everyone else interested to attend a Holotropic Breathwork session to truly grasp the profound impact your breath can have on your mind. This is nothing like your regular five-minute yoga breathing exercise, boxed breathing, or even the Wim Hof breathing. It's a completely different level. These sessions typically last 3 to 5 hours and take place in a safe, supportive setting with a dedicated sitter and experienced facilitators.
For several years in a row, I was living every day suffering from severe sleep deprivation. I was not merely homeless, but living on the streets, and I became really intent on walking around all night, rather than trespass or sit down for a rest, in someplace where I didn't belong. Or I would sit in the IHOP, and drink 2 pots of coffee and stare, zombie-like, until the Sun rose. So I lost a lot of sleep and I dozed whenever possible, and not in a bed, but often seated at a table, with my arms folded, and my face buried in those folded arms, while others made chit-chat and the music played around me.
Well, I'd get into an enclosed space with lots of people, and I'd begin to pass out. It happened a lot in church. We'd be singing and standing and sitting and kneeling, and I'd be just ready to conk out and go to sleep. And I would do crazy things like, lunging for the thermostat because it felt so warm and close in there. I thought everyone was feeling the same stale, stuffy air as I was. I don't know. It would also happen in the coffeehouses, but sleep was guaranteed to overcome me during liturgies.
But I came to believe that it was a CO2 buildup sort of situation. With a lot of human bodies in a closed space, and we were all vocalizing for an hour or so, and it was winter so perhaps the heat was on, or the air conditioning was turned off. And so CO2 buildups were the most likely thing.
Once I was housed, and able to catch up on sleep, it doesn't happen anymore. I did complain to my doctor and I asked him if I may have COPD. He insisted that I breathed better than he did. He brought in two young Medical Assistant ladies to do this breathing exercise so that he could prove there's nothing wrong with me. Of course we didn't get to that point of discussing sleep deprivation, because you can't medicate that. Well, a psychiatrist could try, with extra-drowsy meds. And they did try. I resented that.
They've shut down redundant data centers, fired countless engineers. They've slimmed down into a more efficient, cheaper service that can't handle curve balls, but at least the website is overrun with neo-fascist morons.
The notable discovery is that, where the evidence a few decades ago was that the bison were breeding in their historical herds (so multiple, smaller genetic pools), they now appear to be breeding between herds (so a single larger, more diverse genetic pool).
AIUI with small populations, more variation in breeding between groups is a good thing, because it spreads genetic diversity across the whole population.
You probably mean inbreeding. Interbreeding is good. It is good that the bison herds mingle and interbreed.
Anyway, for mammals an initial population of a couple dozen individuals (assuming they're reasonably genetically diverse in the first place) is plenty enough to produce a population of any size without problems.
There's a general guideline called the 50-500 rule. You need at least 50 animals to avoid immediate inbreeding (and also stochastic extinction from a fire or flood or disease etc), and about 500 to have a genetically healthy population. That varies some after a bottleneck event since your genetic population will be functionally less than your actual physical one, but it's a decent way to approach the problem.
> Bison like those in Yellowstone once suffered a population crisis that conservationists call the "population bottleneck" of the 19th century. By the early 1900s, American bison numbers had been reduced by 99.9% across North America and only 23 wild bison were known to have survived poaching in Yellowstone.
So at their worst this particular population only had 23 individuals left. Interbreeding is bad insofar as it increases the chances of passing harmful recessive genes to younger generations.
Compared to the alternative of the species not surviving at all, it seems like the better option :)
Besides, it seems like they think it's genetically healthy, so doesn't seem like a problem. I'm assuming they've verified this somehow.
> Today, the Texas A&M researchers report that the Yellowstone bison population appears to be functioning as a single and genetically healthy population that fluctuates between 4,000 and 6,000 individuals.
Biology is not my area of expertise, but: Interbreeding is bad when it’s a small population interbreeding for a long long time. From the article it sounds like they aren’t worried about the genetic diversity of this 6k bison herd. I’m sure it would be better to have more diversity, but that’s hard to achieve with animals brought back from near-extinction.
There are a lot of private herds. But a lot of them have been bred with domesticated cattle and do not have the pure bison DNA in them. They can be used as a last resort. The solution here would be to slowly start separating herds to more locations away from Yellowstone. Over generations, the genetic makeup will separate enough to be considered separate populations.
At least two groups are now breeding as a single population. The genetic diversity might be more spread out over the population. As I understand the article there were two functionally separate groups as late as 20 years ago (already 100 years after the introduction of the Texas bison to the original Montana heard) and now they are recorded as being a single population.
> It's their duty to mark the road off if the bridge is broken.
Ahh… you haven’t been to the less than beaten paths of Incredible India. If the bridge wanted people to know, it’d have warned them. Also, it wasn’t broken, per se, it just wasn’t finished yet, again.
> First, you have to get clear on what the company is looking to get out of the project.
You are not just pleasing the executives. Assuming the company described in the article is a good company. Executives are not idiot that making impulsive decisions.
You need to be able to sense the company direction, communicate clearly, manage the risk, build the trust. This is not an easy task in a big company.
Such an awesome article IMO that explains the art of shipping in a big firm. I believe if any engs can master the skills described in the article, you will get promoted to a leadership role very fast. Of course, this might not be the path everyone loves.
There’s a really interesting article that I’d like to read about the “first” - ongoing stakeholder management through the lifecycle of the project, the product and your time there all allow you to ship effectively (as far as the org sees it at least).
Focusing on the tech and even product UX minutiae doesn’t typically get the headspace you need from senior management for rolling down tech debt, the headcountb you need to really ship useful and market leading software.
Each place was different in some sense and similar in some sense.
Experiences in Gulf depends a lot on what sort of people you are working with and also depends on your nationality.
Your pay scale will depend on your nationality too. (In most cases).
Sometimes you'll face racism too.
But all that depends on where you are.
In Saudi, Riyadh is a bit conservative, people are a bit reserved, but are great once they open up. Work wise, they're a bit lazy, if you want something done urgently, it has to come from the top, or high authority, things don't move on their own there. One on one meetings are a bit long as formalities are more like hellos and how are yous can last up to 15 mins. English is mostly only used in work place, and it's difficult to make clients understand complex concepts. If you have someone technical on your team who speaks Arabic, make them your friend. Management mostly will be from Saudi and they won't care to speak in English even if they know it. Same goes for any government office. Cost of living is a bit low compared to Dubai, Bahrain or Abu Dhabi. Prayers happen 5 times a day and no matter how urgent your work is, it'll be put on hold if the other guy goes for prayer, office timings are usually normal. Client expectations are usually impossible. Public transport is difficult to navigate, taxis can and will try to scam you into paying more, but after a while it'll be okay, you'll know your way around.
In Dammam and Jeddah, people are a bit relaxed, environment is more friendly compared to Riyadh.
English is spoken in work places, but overall it's less compared to Riyadh.
In UAE, Sharjah is very similar to Riyadh, but here you'll get more English speaking public. And you'll mostly not be interacting with an Emirati, wheras in Saudi you're almost every day interacting with Saudis.
Dubai, is the happening place, you'll meet people from all nationality here, work is fast pa ced, it's lack luster, but perfect in terms of aesthetics. Work is expected to be perfect. You'll almost never need to speak Arabic, unless required as you will find English speaking crowd everywhere. Public transport is easy to navigate. Cost of living is highest in comparison to other cities...
Few key points that I'd like to highlight.
- Usually the pay is better compared to the home countries.
- Don't get into credit card debt if you work in UAE, credit cards are easy to get and bills will start pouring before you know it.
- Don't cut ties with your friends and family back at home, someday you'll have to go back.
- Not everyone is racist there, but some are, avoid them, almost never get into confronting them.
- Saudi people are nice, but keep things like mails, screenshots etc, get your changes and work change confirmation in writing. They can will change the statement.
- Learn badic Arabic, it will help you a lot.
- Don't, Ever, discuss politics in front of anyone, never in public, never in private, if you find yourself in a situation where politics is being discussed then remove yourself from that situation.
- Don't be disrespectful to their royalty, their faith, their culture.
- Enjoy the food, it's great there.
- Enjoy the winters, they last shortly, but are fun.
- Get Vitamin D tablets or make sure to have some Sun, you'll always be in AC so it's difficult.
- Try not to get used to the lifestyle, It's very luxurious in Gulf, you don't get similar lifestyle at home country.
- Learn to communicate your point via graphics, diagram, flowchart etc, for people who have English knowledge but don't get complex issue will get clarity in this manner.
- Visit your country atleast once in a year, otherwise you'll not be in touch.
So all in all, it's difficult initially, but they are kind and welcoming people once you get to know them.
This is why security researchers (threaten to) release this kind of information publicly. Reporting security issues doesn't fix anything until other people learn the details.
I sit in a small office since last few years. A year or so ago I started to get less mentally active, as in things were going on in automatic mode.
And I did not feel good in general, a friend who practices Yoga advised me to do breathing exercises.
15-30 mins of deep breaths in open space in early morning, after shower, before breakfast. Followed by 3-5 min of rapid breathing. And finishing with taking as much air as I can and holding it for 30 sec to a min and repeating it for 2-3 times.
I do feel active after that, I wonder if it's related to these studies.