I would like you to present my new passion that I discovered 6 months ago. I
hope it will be interesting for you.
What is Kung-fu ?
Most people think that Kung-fu is a word (words) that means a fight, martial arts or something like that. Unfortunately this is not true. In Chinese “kung-fu” means “to achieve perfection/high level of
mastery”.
To be honest ,kung-fu very often isn’t even about the fighting. Of course, I know that when someone
will hear “kung-fu” he will see in front of his eyes: Bruce Lee, Jackie Change, Jet Li, Chuck Norris (and his powerful kick !!). But what with Taijiquan (better known as T`ai-Chi) ?
It is an internal Chinese martial art style but it is very heavily related with your health, sport,
meditation. You don’t train T`ai-Chi to fight but you need to know that forces generated are very big. My Si`fu (master) who also trains Taijiquan has shown me how deadly it can be. It is all about the precision of the move, the understanding of the move.
Kung-fu is about creating yourself, about perfection, about your internal peace, about creating life
not taking it away. It is a martial art (and the word “art” is very important !) that can be beautiful.
Why do I hear Wushu ?
At the moment wushu is one of the most popular sports in China. Wushu means exactly “martial
arts”. Wushu at the moment is divided into 2 disciplines:
-> Presentation of the forms with and without weapons. This is like a fight combined with acrobatics. It often looks amazing !!
[http://www.omei-wushu.com/images/aboutWushu.jpg]
-> Sanda is something like a Chinese version of boxing. It is a pure fight. There are different schools of Sanda and each of them has its their own way to learn it. In some schools you learn a style based on other styles, in others you will learn only one style with specific elements for Sanda. In Poland, for example, most of the schools teach a different version of kickboxing and call it Sanda.
Styles
There are numerous styles in kung-fu. Many of them are long gone and forgotten, some of them are restored, some of them are new, some of the restored are not full systems because they are just too old. Most popular that you can learn in Poland are:
-> Taijiquan
-> White Crane Style (Bai He quan)
-> Mantis Style (Tang Lang Quan)
-> Long Fist Style (Chang Quan)
-> Wing Chun
-> Hung Gar
Remember that each style can have a different version. For example, there is Wing Chun and Ving Tsun – two similar but different styles. We can say that there are about 200 quite complete kung-fu styles that you can learn
Imagine opening your eyes in the morning and experiencing an image of pitch-blackness halved with pure blue horizon through your window. That is the sight that usually meets International Space Station expeditions’ astronauts in their wake-up call. What do you do then?
International Space Station
Launched in 1998, the International Space Station serves as a microgravity and space environment research lab. Because it’s a laboratory, it has to be habitable. It has been continuously occupied since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000. As of now, 215 individuals from 15 different countries (sorry, no Poland here yet) in total have set feet on the ISS throughout 42 expeditions. There can live 2-10 people in the station simultaneously.
Earth, Moon and Soyuz
ISS resides at an altitude of 220 miles and orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, which accounts for 16 sunsets and sunrises each day. It’s a unique opportunity to take just as unique photos or videos of the Earth from the orbit’s perspective.
Currently, the only way to get to ISS (or return to the Earth) is through a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, owned by (surprise) the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). Since the 2011 closure of American Space Shuttle Program astronauts have been left with no options. The “hitch” ride in Soyuz costs about $71 million per person and takes 6 hours.
So, what’s the plan?
A typical day of the ISS inhabitant looks like this:
7 AM -- Wake up
7:10 AM -- Conference
7:30 - 8 AM -- Breakfast and prep for work
8 AM - 12 PM -- Doing assigned experiments
12 - 12:30 PM -- Lunch
12:30 - 6 PM -- More experiment work
6 - 6:30 PM -- Conference with ground crew to review that day's activities and discussing the next day
6:30 - 7:30 PM -- Dinner while watching the news taped by the ground crew from the day before and beamed up to the station
7:30 - midnight -- Clean up and reading of the procedures for the next day, family time and time to look out of the window to see the glorious views outside.
Sometime within the day, 5-6 days a week – A two-hour exercise (30 min. on the treadmill and 70 min. of resistance exercise)
Fridays -- Astronauts work on personal projects and watch movies together as a crew
The day consists of usual lab-work (and a bit of space-walking) in an unusual environment which leads us to the question - what abnormalities could astronauts encounter in space?
Space closet
Rapidly-decreasing bone mass for instance. Humans in outer space lose calcium 10 times faster than a 70-year-old man. The same goes with muscle mass. That is the main reason why astronauts have to exercise at least 2 hours almost every day to decrease these losses.
Another health issue is receding vision experienced by most astronauts, which is supposedly caused by elevated pressure levels in the human’s head because of zero gravity in space. It is also linked with “space sickness” (nausea, dizziness) and a swelling face which happens during the first few days of exposure to zero-g and accustoming body to the body fluids going upwards.
You could also grow an inch taller, because the spine elongates in space.
Taking care of yourself
Between sleep, work and exercise, one has to maintain their looks and hygiene, eat and have a little pastime. How does it work in the zero-gravity environment?
A morning shower is basically a sponge bath here, as the water cannot quite fall down on your body and you do not have a luxury of having bubbles of water floating around. Tooth brushing is less of a challenge, but you have to swallow the toothpaste afterwards.
Vacuum might come in handy when you’d like a haircut done and if one needs a shave, a special shaving gel is also available at the station (no electric shaver allowed though).
Space toilets are a peculiar invention. They use a suction system to collect all the wastes, which are then stored in dedicated bags, stored inside aluminum containers. When these containers fill up entirely, they’re thrown to the Earth atmosphere and they burn upon re-entry. The tricky part is that space toilets, designed by Russians, were not designed with women in mind. A funny fact - urine goes its own way into the water recycler, which then serves drinking and food-rehydrating water to crew members.
Food is packaged for consumption and the menu is quite broad (in contrast to what we’re used to seeing in films). Some of the meals need rehydration to be edible (remember space-toilet-recycling?). The only catch here, is that astronauts have to prevent crumbs from floating inside the station, as they could get into the equipment.
Pastimes consist of watching pre-recorded movies, TV, shows, music or books but being in space gives the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to admire the amazing views from the windows. Some beautiful shots have been taken by the crews in recent years.
In 2013, thanks to NASA, the ISS has gained a broadband Internet connection (max downlink speed - 300Mbps), so the crew can do all the things that we do right here on Earth without experiencing significant connection latencywhich they had in 2010.
Sleeping takes a little practice at the beginning, as members have to tie themselves to the wall and they do not use a pillow or a quilt. But after the learning period - sleeping in space is a form of pure relaxation, that is what every astronaut says (no shoulder pains or messy hair in the morning!).
Astronaut-turned-social media superstar
One ISS expedition member took a great advantage of the Internet broadband to connect with the public on Earth through social media during the famed Expedition 34.
A former Canadian Air force pilot, (now retired) Commander Chris Hadfield has provided some unforgettable social media highlights during his 6-month tenure at ISS on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and tumblr. Most of them were beautiful photos - see the selection of 30 below:
While he was launched on December 2012 he had about 20 000 Twitter followers. Since he landed in May 2013, he has already passed 1 million followers count.
He was active on Twitter almost every day of his expedition, providing us with some of the most spectacular photos of the Earth, while also sharing a lot of knowledge (and generally cool stuff) about zero-g phenomena via YouTube videos, Reddit AMA or live student conferences.
Check out some of his most spectacular YouTube acts below:
Chris has been only retired for barely more than a year and has already been dubbed as the most famous astronaut since Armstrong and Gagarin by BBC.
Questions:
What is the most bizarre daily activity in space in your opinion?
Which space picture did stun you outright?
When will humans be able to permanently inhabit Mars? :)
Hipsters’ time has ended The world’s most mainstream newspapers (including The New York Times and The Guardian) have already announced the end of the hipsters’ era. Similarl opinion has been recently expressed by Dov Charney - the CEO of the American Apparel, which is considered a top choice clothes brand among young and alternative people. It is easy to find numerous anti-hipsters websites, where the internet users make fun of hipsters’ style, beards and the specific lifestyle of people who blindly follow trends. A perfect example of such websites is an online game hipster-or-homeless.com where a player’s task is to consider whether the character is a hipster or a homeless.
Normcore - it is unfashionable to be fashionable
According to the K-Hole trendsetting agency from New York, the newest trend is Normcore (combination of the words ‘normality’ and ‘hardcore’). It is said to be the successor of a grunge and a new unisex fashion trend, which main goal is to reject all other trends focusing on promoting naturalness. It is not just a trend in fashion or art – it is supposed to be a way to lead a successful life.The main goal of the normcore is to stop people from blindly following the recent and popular trends; and teach them how to lead a happy life in self-harmony and naturalness. It seems to be a nice alternative to the world full of labels, icons and constant longing for a perfection.
The fashion world has turned upside down
A few months ago no one would have guessed that computer geniuses such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckenberg could become fashion icons. According to the normcore setters, the most fashionable clothes are the simplest and common ones. Ordinary rubbed jeans, stretched sweaters and birkenstock flips were called the hottest and the most fashionable clothes of the last season. That is why, fashion designershave also decided to turn towards normality, refreshed their collections and rejected uncomfortable and toosophisticated forms.
Nowadays even a popular actress can be seen without makeup, bloggers around the world promote birkenatock flips, while the world famous models give up designers’ clothes and buy their outfits in the goodwill shops. It is thought that the precursors of the normcore are the Olsen twins and Ciara Delevigne, who conquered the fashion world with their effortless style and naturalness.
There will always be haters
Normcore, similarly to emo or hipster’s style, is difficult to be accept by everyone. That is why it is often mocked by the internet users. There is still a strong tendency to stand out and to be unique among the society, while the normcore seems to endeavor unification. It can be said, that normcore deprives women of sex appeal and men of masculinity, but the truth is different. It gives them a chance to be themselves.
The Lean Startup is a product development process focused on customers and
their needs, using lessons learned in iterations. It is used especially in
technology startups.
In classic case, if you start a company probably you have an idea. A great
idea in your opinion. You think that people will love your product. You create
a product based on your thoughts. After a year or so you finally made it.
Finally your product has been tested and ready to rule the market. The day of
product launch came and … nothing happened. Some people download it. Use it or not.
You don’t know why. After some time a very few people use your product.
Why? Probably, because you create a product relying only on your thoughts and
assumptions, not thinking and asking people what they really need.
And The Lean Startup comes here. It’s a development process model where you
start from an idea and verify it. Put your idea on Lean Canvas and go outside
the building to ask people about it.
Lean Canvas
Lean canvas is a simple business model on a single
paper sheet. It shows your hypothesis and assumptions very well.
The model is divided into 9 parts:
1.Problem - 3 main hypotheses of the problem which you
want to solve
2.Customer segments - 3 main customer segments
you will target with the product
3.Unique value proposition - what makes your product
valuable
4.Solution - 3 main features of your probable solution
5.Channels- ways to
reach customers
6.Revenue channels - how you will make money
7.Cost structure - all your
costs
8.Key metrics- measurable metrics to calculate growth
MVP is a version of a product that gives customers a unique value and solves the main
problem they have.
There are some definitions of MVP:
"The minimum viable
product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the
maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least
effort." ~ Eric Ries
“A Minimum Viable Product is the smallest thing
you can build that delivers customer value (and as a bonus captures some of
that value back).” ~ Ash Maurya
You go from this version of
the product you test to the real environment, measure
your growth and make changes to create the best product.
After creating a MVP you have to improve
your product. Change it every day and look how the
changes work. Work in a loop “Build - Measure - Learn” to get best results.
As you can see The Lean Startup Model is focused on customers
and their needs. Start from hypotheses and test them before creating a product. You can save a lot of money and time
using this model. This method works on continuous development, so you provide
a better product every day.
Finally it is highly probable that your product will
fit the market and make customers happy.
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