Game of Thrones Season 4 Trailers and commentary
First, the trailers and previews for Season 4 of Game of Thrones...
More trailers and previews are coming - but what they do show is that season 4 of Game of Thrones will be...
The most action packed.
The most anticipated.
The most dragons.
The best yet.
And what is even more amazing, is if you know what is coming because you read the books. Huzzah! We cannot wait! ;)
More trailers and previews are coming - but what they do show is that season 4 of Game of Thrones will be...
The most action packed.
The most anticipated.
The most dragons.
The best yet.
And what is even more amazing, is if you know what is coming because you read the books. Huzzah! We cannot wait! ;)
Thor's, err, I mean Chris Hemsworth’s Workout and Diet
Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Workout
Chris Hemsworth used a 4 day on, 1 day off training split:- Day 1 – Chest and Shoulders in the morning. Boxing and Abs in the evening.
- Day 2 – Back and Arms in the morning. Boxing and Abs in the evening.
- Day 3 – Surfing in the morning. Legs in the evening.
- Day 4 – Abs and cardio in the morning. No evening workout.
- Day 5 - OFF
Chest and Shoulders Workout
- Dumbbell Flyes – 3 sets of 12, 10 and 8 reps
- Barbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 12, 10 and 8 reps
- Bent Over Lateral Raise – 3 sets of 15, 12 and 12 reps
- Side Lateral Raise – 3 sets of 15, 12 and 12 reps
- Arnold Press – 3 sets of 12, 10 and 8 reps
Back and Arms Workout
- Chin Ups – 3 sets of 15, 12 and 10 reps
- Deadlift – 3 sets of 10, 8 and 6 reps
- Barbell Curl – 3 sets of 10, 8 and 6 reps
- French Press – 3 sets of 10, 8 and 6 reps
- Leg Extensions – 3 sets of 10, 8 and 6 reps
- Leg Curls – 3 sets of 10, 8 and 6 reps
- Squats – 3 sets of 10, 8 and 6 reps
Abs Workout – Performed on Days 1,2 and 4
Performed as a circuit. Repeat each circuit three times. Rest in between circuits.
- Plank – 60 second hold
- Side Plank – 60 second hold
- Roman Chair Leg Raise – 20 reps
- Cable Crunch – 20 reps
- Oblique Crunch – 20 reps
- Speed Bag – 5 rounds, 3 minutes each.
- Focus Pads – 5 rounds, 3 minutes each.
- Jump Rope – 5 rounds, 3 minutes each.
Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Diet and Supplementation
A main priority for Chris Hemsworth was adding more daily protein. Protein staples for Thor included:- Steak
- Egg Whites
- Chicken
- Fish
- Potatoes and rice were eaten earlier in the day.
- Broccoli and spinach were eaten at night.
- Amino Acids prior to his workouts.
- Whey protein post-workout.
The Real Thor Workout and Diet
Chris Hemsworth used a 4 day on, 1 day off training split. The real Thor doesn’t take days off because he is a Norse god and is totally awesome.- Day 1 – Lift Mjölnir, the Might Hammer of Thor. 50 sets of 50, 100, and 150 reps.
- Day 2 – Eat two oxen, chug two casks of mead.
- Day 3 – Swing Mjölnir, the Might Hammer of Thor. 50 sets of 50, 100, and 150 reps.
- Day 4 – Abs: Stare into mirror, Abs Assemble.
- Day 5 - Eat a school of salmon, all of Thyrm’s wedding cake, and chug two casks of mead.
- Day 6 - Hit things with Mjölnir. 50 sets of carnage.
- Day 7 - And on the seventh day God ended his work
which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made (Genesis 2:2).
However, Thor is not a Christian god. And on the seventh day, Thor deflowers a 100 virgins with the other “Mighty Hammer of Thor”. Then he eats a herd of bison and washes it down with more mead, lots more mead. (TwoScoops 2:2)
Superhearing - Why is it considered such a wimpy superpower?
Thus perhaps it is no surprise that "super hearing" isn't really considered to be that great of a superpower when it comes to comic books.
For example Superman can fly, is super stronger, can shoot lasers from his eyes, has X-ray vision and a lot of other awesome powers (eg. super fast healing whenever he is in the yellow light of the sun). His super hearing isn't really a central part of his character. (Same goes with Supergirl and any other Kryptonian.)
Another character with Super Hearing is Aquaman - but he only has super hearing when underwater. He also has super strength underwater, super swimming, the ability to breathe water, etc. So his ability to hear really well underwater is a lesser ability.
Spider-Man - Yada yada yada, you know the drill. Super reflexes and strength vs his spidey-sense hearing.
Wonder Woman - On the long list of Wonder Woman's powers, yes, she also has super hearing. Yeehaw!
Daredevil - You were probably wondering when I would get to Daredevil. Yes, Daredevil's super hearing is basically his main forte. His hearing is so good it is basically radar. He also has a super sense of smell, touch, balance - and despite being blind, apparently can match red colours with matching red colours so his outfit looks normal.
But Dare Devil's enhanced senses are really just designed to counter his lack of sight. Yes, he has super hearing. Yes, it is amazingly good - like radar. But it really is kind of a wimpy super power.
But here is the interesting thing.
You could also combine adrenaline with hearing aids and other electronic devices to give yourself unusually powerful hearing. So much that you could be "Super Hearing Man!" or "Super Hearing Woman!"
eg. The tech toy on the right is a mere $62 USD on Amazon.com.
Call it part of the whole "why is there no superheroes" problem. The problem isn't really the issue of having access to tech toys so you can become Batman, the problem is being able to find criminals and stop them in the act.
Anyone with enough money and wherewithal could train themselves to become a proverbial Batman - but having the ability to find criminals, that is the true challenge. Vigilante crime fighters are as rare as female Navy Seals (there are no female Navy Seals currently, but the Pentagon recently changed their policies and are hoping to have the first female Navy Seals trained by 2016).
There have been people who wander around at night, in costume, masquerading as vigilantes. But they are the superhero equivalent of firefighters who rescue kittens trapped up trees and boy scouts helping elderly people to cross the street.
Yes, you could go out and spend lots of money on audiologists, visiting hearing clinics, buying the most high tech hearing aids that money can buy, but even if you did have superhuman hearing, what would you even do with it???
Dragon Queen
It is digital artwork, but it is still very impressive. "Dragon Queen". I am getting a Game of Thrones vibe.
Secrets of the Viking Sword
While the swords have rusted and eroded, the viking swords known as Ulfberht swords were made from far superior steel known as "crucible steel", which was heated and melted at 3000 degrees to remove impurities known as slag. Removing the impurities plus adding carbon made the swords significantly stronger, less brittle and more flexible.
According to historians the Vikings probably didn't have the knowledge of creating such pure steel themselves, but instead gained it by trading with the Persians (Damascus steel) via the Volga trade route, taking steel ingots back to Scandinavia and then crafting their Ulfberht steel blades there.
The vikings also tapered the tips of their blades to better pierce chain mail of the era and crafted their swords with special techniques.
Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy
Say hi to Lucy.
Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late
1970s and the mid 1990s. She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes
up a large portion of Gen Y.
I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group -- I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.
So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing:
Lucy's kind of unhappy.
To get to the bottom of why, we need to define what makes someone happy or unhappy in the first place. It comes down to a simple formula:
It's pretty straightforward -- when the reality of someone's life is
better than they had expected, they're happy. When reality turns out to
be worse than the expectations, they're unhappy.
To provide some context, let's start by bringing Lucy's parents into the discussion:
Lucy's parents were born in the '50s -- they're Baby Boomers. They
were raised by Lucy's grandparents, members of the G.I. Generation, or
"the Greatest Generation," who grew up during the Great Depression and
fought in World War II, and were most definitely not GYPSYs.
Lucy's Depression Era grandparents were obsessed with economic security and raised her parents to build practical, secure careers. They wanted her parents' careers to have greener grass than their own, and Lucy's parents were brought up to envision a prosperous and stable career for themselves.
Something like this:
They were taught that there was nothing stopping them from getting to that lush, green lawn of a career, but that they'd need to put in years of hard work to make it happen.
After graduating from being insufferable hippies, Lucy's parents embarked on their careers. As the '70s, '80s, and '90s rolled along, the world entered a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. Lucy's parents did even better than they expected to. This left them feeling gratified and optimistic.
With a smoother, more positive life experience than that of their own parents, Lucy's parents raised Lucy with a sense of optimism and unbounded possibility. And they weren't alone. Baby Boomers all around the country and world told their Gen Y kids that they could be whatever they wanted to be, instilling the special protagonist identity deep within their psyches.
This left GYPSYs feeling tremendously hopeful about their careers, to the point where their parents' goals of a green lawn of secure prosperity didn't really do it for them. A GYPSY-worthy lawn has flowers.
This leads to our first fact about GYPSYs:
GYPSYs Are Wildly Ambitious
The GYPSY needs a lot more from a career than a nice green lawn of prosperity and security. The fact is, a green lawn isn't quite exceptional or unique enough for a GYPSY. Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live The American Dream, GYPSYs want to live Their Own Personal Dream.
Cal Newport points out that "follow your passion" is a catchphrase that has only gotten going in the last 20 years, according to Google's Ngram viewer, a tool that shows how prominently a given phrase appears in English print over any period of time. The same Ngram viewer shows that the phrase "a secure career" has gone out of style, just as the phrase "a fulfilling career" has gotten hot.
To be clear, GYPSYs want economic prosperity just like their parents did -- they just also want to be fulfilled by their career in a way their parents didn't think about as much.
But something else is happening too. While the career goals of Gen Y as a whole have become much more particular and ambitious, Lucy has been given a second message throughout her childhood as well:
This would probably be a good time to bring in our second fact about GYPSYs:
GYPSYs Are Delusional
"Sure," Lucy has been taught, "everyone will go and get themselves some fulfilling career, but I am unusually wonderful and as such, my career and life path will stand out amongst the crowd." So on top of the generation as a whole having the bold goal of a flowery career lawn, each individual GYPSY thinks that he or she is destined for something even better --
A shiny unicorn on top of the flowery lawn.
So why is this delusional? Because this is what all GYPSYs think, which defies the definition of special:
Even right now, the GYPSYs reading this are thinking, "Good point... but I actually am one of the few special ones" -- and this is the problem.
A second GYPSY delusion comes into play once the GYPSY enters the job market. While Lucy's parents' expectation was that many years of hard work would eventually lead to a great career, Lucy considers a great career an obvious given for someone as exceptional as she, and for her it's just a matter of time and choosing which way to go. Her pre-workforce expectations look something like this:
Unfortunately, the funny thing about the world is that it turns out to not be that easy of a place, and the weird thing about careers is that they're actually quite hard. Great careers take years of blood, sweat and tears to build -- even the ones with no flowers or unicorns on them -- and even the most successful people are rarely doing anything that great in their early or mid-20s.
But GYPSYs aren't about to just accept that.
Paul Harvey, a University of New Hampshire professor and GYPSY expert, has researched this, finding that Gen Y has "unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance toward accepting negative feedback," and "an inflated view of oneself." He says that "a great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations. They often feel entitled to a level of respect and rewards that aren't in line with their actual ability and effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and rewards they are expecting."
For those hiring members of Gen Y, Harvey suggests asking the interview question, "Do you feel you are generally superior to your coworkers/classmates/etc., and if so, why?" He says that "if the candidate answers yes to the first part but struggles with the 'why,' there may be an entitlement issue. This is because entitlement perceptions are often based on an unfounded sense of superiority and deservingness. They've been led to believe, perhaps through overzealous self-esteem building exercises in their youth, that they are somehow special but often lack any real justification for this belief."
And since the real world has the nerve to consider merit a factor, a few years out of college Lucy finds herself here:
Lucy's extreme ambition, coupled with the arrogance that comes along with being a bit deluded about one's own self-worth, has left her with huge expectations for even the early years out of college. And her reality pales in comparison to those expectations, leaving her "reality - expectations" happy score coming out at a negative.
And it gets even worse. On top of all this, GYPSYs have an extra problem that applies to their whole generation:
GYPSYs Are Taunted
Sure, some people from Lucy's parents' high school or college classes ended up more successful than her parents did. And while they may have heard about some of it from time to time through the grapevine, for the most part they didn't really know what was going on in too many other peoples' careers.
Lucy, on the other hand, finds herself constantly taunted by a modern phenomenon: Facebook Image Crafting.
Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling people tend not to broadcast their situation. This leaves Lucy feeling, incorrectly, like everyone else is doing really well, only adding to her misery:
So that's why Lucy is unhappy, or at the least, feeling a bit frustrated and inadequate. In fact, she's probably started off her career perfectly well, but to her, it feels very disappointing.
Here's my advice for Lucy:
1) Stay wildly ambitious. The current world is bubbling with opportunity for an ambitious person to find flowery, fulfilling success. The specific direction may be unclear, but it'll work itself out -- just dive in somewhere.
2) Stop thinking that you're special. The fact is, right now, you're not special. You're another completely inexperienced young person who doesn't have all that much to offer yet. You can become special by working really hard for a long time.
3) Ignore everyone else. Other people's grass seeming greener is no new concept, but in today's image crafting world, other people's grass looks like a glorious meadow. The truth is that everyone else is just as indecisive, self-doubting, and frustrated as you are, and if you just do your thing, you'll never have any reason to envy others.
I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group -- I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.
So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing:
Lucy's kind of unhappy.
To get to the bottom of why, we need to define what makes someone happy or unhappy in the first place. It comes down to a simple formula:
To provide some context, let's start by bringing Lucy's parents into the discussion:
Lucy's Depression Era grandparents were obsessed with economic security and raised her parents to build practical, secure careers. They wanted her parents' careers to have greener grass than their own, and Lucy's parents were brought up to envision a prosperous and stable career for themselves.
Something like this:
They were taught that there was nothing stopping them from getting to that lush, green lawn of a career, but that they'd need to put in years of hard work to make it happen.
After graduating from being insufferable hippies, Lucy's parents embarked on their careers. As the '70s, '80s, and '90s rolled along, the world entered a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. Lucy's parents did even better than they expected to. This left them feeling gratified and optimistic.
With a smoother, more positive life experience than that of their own parents, Lucy's parents raised Lucy with a sense of optimism and unbounded possibility. And they weren't alone. Baby Boomers all around the country and world told their Gen Y kids that they could be whatever they wanted to be, instilling the special protagonist identity deep within their psyches.
This left GYPSYs feeling tremendously hopeful about their careers, to the point where their parents' goals of a green lawn of secure prosperity didn't really do it for them. A GYPSY-worthy lawn has flowers.
This leads to our first fact about GYPSYs:
GYPSYs Are Wildly Ambitious
The GYPSY needs a lot more from a career than a nice green lawn of prosperity and security. The fact is, a green lawn isn't quite exceptional or unique enough for a GYPSY. Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live The American Dream, GYPSYs want to live Their Own Personal Dream.
Cal Newport points out that "follow your passion" is a catchphrase that has only gotten going in the last 20 years, according to Google's Ngram viewer, a tool that shows how prominently a given phrase appears in English print over any period of time. The same Ngram viewer shows that the phrase "a secure career" has gone out of style, just as the phrase "a fulfilling career" has gotten hot.
To be clear, GYPSYs want economic prosperity just like their parents did -- they just also want to be fulfilled by their career in a way their parents didn't think about as much.
But something else is happening too. While the career goals of Gen Y as a whole have become much more particular and ambitious, Lucy has been given a second message throughout her childhood as well:
This would probably be a good time to bring in our second fact about GYPSYs:
GYPSYs Are Delusional
"Sure," Lucy has been taught, "everyone will go and get themselves some fulfilling career, but I am unusually wonderful and as such, my career and life path will stand out amongst the crowd." So on top of the generation as a whole having the bold goal of a flowery career lawn, each individual GYPSY thinks that he or she is destined for something even better --
A shiny unicorn on top of the flowery lawn.
So why is this delusional? Because this is what all GYPSYs think, which defies the definition of special:
According to this definition, most people are not special -- otherwise "special" wouldn't mean anything.
spe-cial | 'speSHel |
adjective
better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual.
Even right now, the GYPSYs reading this are thinking, "Good point... but I actually am one of the few special ones" -- and this is the problem.
A second GYPSY delusion comes into play once the GYPSY enters the job market. While Lucy's parents' expectation was that many years of hard work would eventually lead to a great career, Lucy considers a great career an obvious given for someone as exceptional as she, and for her it's just a matter of time and choosing which way to go. Her pre-workforce expectations look something like this:
Unfortunately, the funny thing about the world is that it turns out to not be that easy of a place, and the weird thing about careers is that they're actually quite hard. Great careers take years of blood, sweat and tears to build -- even the ones with no flowers or unicorns on them -- and even the most successful people are rarely doing anything that great in their early or mid-20s.
But GYPSYs aren't about to just accept that.
Paul Harvey, a University of New Hampshire professor and GYPSY expert, has researched this, finding that Gen Y has "unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance toward accepting negative feedback," and "an inflated view of oneself." He says that "a great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations. They often feel entitled to a level of respect and rewards that aren't in line with their actual ability and effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and rewards they are expecting."
For those hiring members of Gen Y, Harvey suggests asking the interview question, "Do you feel you are generally superior to your coworkers/classmates/etc., and if so, why?" He says that "if the candidate answers yes to the first part but struggles with the 'why,' there may be an entitlement issue. This is because entitlement perceptions are often based on an unfounded sense of superiority and deservingness. They've been led to believe, perhaps through overzealous self-esteem building exercises in their youth, that they are somehow special but often lack any real justification for this belief."
And since the real world has the nerve to consider merit a factor, a few years out of college Lucy finds herself here:
Lucy's extreme ambition, coupled with the arrogance that comes along with being a bit deluded about one's own self-worth, has left her with huge expectations for even the early years out of college. And her reality pales in comparison to those expectations, leaving her "reality - expectations" happy score coming out at a negative.
And it gets even worse. On top of all this, GYPSYs have an extra problem that applies to their whole generation:
GYPSYs Are Taunted
Sure, some people from Lucy's parents' high school or college classes ended up more successful than her parents did. And while they may have heard about some of it from time to time through the grapevine, for the most part they didn't really know what was going on in too many other peoples' careers.
Lucy, on the other hand, finds herself constantly taunted by a modern phenomenon: Facebook Image Crafting.
Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling people tend not to broadcast their situation. This leaves Lucy feeling, incorrectly, like everyone else is doing really well, only adding to her misery:
So that's why Lucy is unhappy, or at the least, feeling a bit frustrated and inadequate. In fact, she's probably started off her career perfectly well, but to her, it feels very disappointing.
Here's my advice for Lucy:
1) Stay wildly ambitious. The current world is bubbling with opportunity for an ambitious person to find flowery, fulfilling success. The specific direction may be unclear, but it'll work itself out -- just dive in somewhere.
2) Stop thinking that you're special. The fact is, right now, you're not special. You're another completely inexperienced young person who doesn't have all that much to offer yet. You can become special by working really hard for a long time.
3) Ignore everyone else. Other people's grass seeming greener is no new concept, but in today's image crafting world, other people's grass looks like a glorious meadow. The truth is that everyone else is just as indecisive, self-doubting, and frustrated as you are, and if you just do your thing, you'll never have any reason to envy others.
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