Archive for November, 2017

Yesterday was filled with uni work and volunteering with Anxiety Leeds, so not the most productive of days.

However, I did write two new newsletters for Worfolk Anxiety. One was my weekly newsletter, this one looking at tryptophan and cognitive reappraisal, and another that is reminding people to register for Mindfulness for Social Anxiety.

Metrics on Udemy have been promising. More people signed up for the new course yesterday and three people wrote reviews of my courses yesterday, too.

If you know what a canal lock is, you can probably work out what Bingley Five Rise is.

It’s quite a climb on a bike. I’m not pretending that it’s long, or it’s anything like what the professional racers are tackling on grand tours (for kilometres at a time). But, compared to the rest of the canal, the 18 metres of climbing is a lot. Wikipedia pegs it at 20%.

Indeed, having done around Eccup and the airport, I would say it’s as short, steep and nasty as anything that Leeds has to offer.

I haven’t been beaten by a climb yet, though, and this one was no exception. A bit of first gear and some riding out of the saddle and bingo, you’re at the top.

Except you’re not at the top. Because, when you get to the top, you run into a gate. Still on the hill, so you can’t just comfortably put your foot down and wheel yourself through. You’re still on the climb, trying to navigate this stupid wooden fence.

And yet, if I were to take a chainsaw to that wooden fence, in the eyes of so-called British justice, I would be the one in the wrong.

I studied law at high school and I was very good at it. But one thing I could never get my head around was the six aims of sentencing. When it came to punishing people, what was the point of any of it, other than rehabilitation? Surely that was our only job?

Times of changed and now I am older and wiser. My idealistic view of humans has taken a kicking at the hands of Steven Pinker and Michael Shermer. So, here are the other five aims of sentencing and why they are important.

Reparation

Never had a problem with this one. If you can make it right, you should. I don’t think that view would be in any way controversial.

Protection

A necessary evil. Sometimes we need to lock people up to stop them hurting other people, or even themselves.

Detterence and denunication

I’ll put denunciation in here because there is a lot of overlap with general deterrence. Specific deterrence is making the individual criminal think twice before doing it again; general deterrence is making wider society think twice before doing it in the first place.

Both of these are important. Why? Because people are not inherently good. They’re not evil, either. They’re just people.

And, ultimately, people weigh up the consequences of their actions. And if the risk is worth the prize, they risk it.

So, you need carrot and stick. You need to give them a job and a place in the community to give them something to lose if they commit a crime. But you also need to make the deal not worthwhile with some stick, too.

Retribution

This is the most contested aim of sentencing: punishing people because they deserve to be punished.

Why do we need to do this? Because people want to live in a fair world. And it causes us distress when that view is broken. When you find out there has been wrong-doing, you feel bad. You physically feel it. It makes us sad when we hear about unfairness.

So, crimes have to be punished. Just for the sake of adding an extra wrong, because, as we adults know, two wrongs do genuinely make a right. When someone is punished, it restores a sense of fairness to the universe and we all feel better.

I was so busy smashing the inaugural Go Tri: Temple Newsam today that I had little time for business concerns. But here is what I’ve done…

I’ve scheduled the release of week 7 of my course, Running for Anxiety.

I’ve completed all of the captions for my new course, Mindfulness for Social Anxiety. Those are now live. Yesterday, I invited some of the loyal fans of WAM to be the first to sign up for the course and the first six people already have.

Recently, Elina and I bought cycling helmets. You may think that they would just be one design for everyone. After all, men and women have basically the same head. Sure, men have larger heads, on average, but that isn’t a reason to gender them: just make them in a variety of sizes.

But that isn’t how it works. Men, who presumably spend more money on such gear, get a range of sizes. And features. Mine, for example, has MIPS. This is the latest safety standard to protect my head in the event of a crash.

Sounds good.

Elina on the other hand, bought a woman’s helmet. Here is what hers has:

Yep, it has a little hole where you can put your hair through. It’s not even special. I can do that with my helmet.

Weekends are family days. So, today I did Parkrun, met up with Fonze, Sarah and Zara for a family trip to Tropical World, had a quick pint with Bogdan and Dobson, and then had Chris and Christina over for dinner. Now, I’m tired.

But, while I am still clinging on to consciousness, and while I was waiting for Parkun this morning, I’ve been adding subtitles to my new course. Three modules done, two to go.

After much hard work, I’m pleased to announce the launch of my new course, Mindfulness for Social Anxiety. It follows on from the free 5-Day Mindfulness for Anxiety that already has thousands of students registered.

Back to the grind today. Development psychology and statistics were on the schedule. I have finally polished off two of the books I have to read, thus reducing my stack to about eight.

Meanwhile, in terms of progress…

Mindfulness for Social Anxiety is now live and available to buy on Udemy! I’ve scheduled an email to go out to my list tomorrow inviting them to join the course.

I’ve finished the first round of editing on my book and done a full spellcheck, too. It’s now been passed to my editing team (Elina) for further review.

And I’ve finished the HTML version of the personalised reports for Worfolk Anxiety. Next up, adding PDF capability.

Today has been a write-off. Venla is not too well, so I had to take her to the doctors. Except that the earliest appointment was 11 am. So, I was stuck with her all morning. And then the doctor was half an hour late.

Still, my degree’s loss is my book’s gain: while I couldn’t study because there was a noisy baby in the room at all times, I was at least able to organise some of the photos for my new book. Most of these are done now.

I also hit the button on Mindfulness for Social Anxiety and sent it for review. I have drafted the announcement email to my mailing list, too, so that is ready to go when the course has been approved.

At 0-9 this year, some would say that things are looking pretty bad for the San Francisco 49ers.

But all hope is not lost. Indeed, there is still a chance we can make the playoffs. Here is how:

1. The 49ers win all of their remaining games, taking them to 7-9. Not a likely result for playoffs, but possible. I think it was always Kyle Shanahan’s plan to build dramatic tension before going on a winning streak, anyway.
2. The LA Rams, currently at 6-3, go on to lose all of their remaining games. This takes them to 6-10.
3. The Seattle Seahawks, currently at 5-3, go on to lose all of their remaining games except for one (they have to beat the Rams). That takes them to 6-10, too.
4. The Arizona Cardinals, currently 4-4, go on to lose all of their remaining games except for two (they have to beat the Rams and the Seahawks), which also takes them to 6-10.

Thus the division ends with San Francisco on top with 7-9, and everyone else below at 6-10.

It’s a fair bit to ask, I’ll admit. First, we need to win all seven games. Then there are another 16 games were not involved in that need to go exactly our way. Which is every other game that everyone else in the division is involved in with no margin for error.