Let’s talk real talk about cannabis 🪴 concentrates and... why some old-school hash makers call rosin pressing straight-up blasphemous 😤 Traditional hash (dry sift, bubble hash, charas, hand-rubbed) has one sacred rule: NO HEAT. Why? Because the trichome heads — those tiny, glittering resin glands — are fragile masterpieces. Heat, even “low” like in rosin pressing (180–220°F), starts degrading the delicate terpenes that give hash its soul: the citrus, pine, funk, floral notes. Volatile compounds evaporate or break down. Cannabinoids can shift. The color darkens. The purity that cold mechanical separation preserves gets compromised. Purists see it like this: • Dry sift or bubble hash? Cold water + gravity or gentle sifting → untouched, full-spectrum resin in its natural form. Full melt, clean burns, layered flavors that evolve on the palate. • Rosin? You’re forcing the trichomes with heat + pressure to “bleed” out. Sure, it’s solventless and convenient, but you’re thermally altering the very thing you’re claiming to honor. It’s like cooking a perfect raw diamond into something else entirely. In the eyes of traditional artisans, rosin isn’t elevating the plant — it’s rushing it, changing it, and losing what makes hash legendary: that pristine, unaltered expression of the cultivar. Respect to all methods, but if you’re chasing the purest, most authentic resin experience… go cold, stay traditional. What side are you on? Heat or no heat? 🔥❄️ #Solventless #HashCulture #TraditionalHash #RosinDebateshow more

The hash-consuming culture in Afghanistan is one of the... world’s oldest and most fascinating cannabis legacies — a 1000+ year saga of mastery, mysticism, and ingenuity. Afghanistan is widely regarded as the cradle of hashish (chars in Dari/Pashto). Cannabis likely originated in Central Asia, with Afghan landraces (like Mazar-i-Sharif & Hindu Kush) producing some of the most resinous plants on Earth. Hash culture dates back to antiquity, intertwined with Sufi mysticism. Legend credits Baba Ku (or Baba Kuhandan), a Sufi saint from Balkh, with introducing hashish to Afghanistan. He and his followers consumed massive amounts as a divine sacrament & medicine. Today, “hashish babas” still honor him in smoking fraternities, puffing giant hubble-bubbles in his memory. For centuries, hash was mostly local — used socially, medicinally, and spiritually. A unique custom: eating melon with hashish to amplify the high & reduce side effects. Consumption often happened in chillum bars or via naysha (sucking vapors through a straw with water in the mouth like a human bong). The real revolution came with production techniques. Unlike hand-rubbed charas (common in India/Nepal), Afghan hash pioneered dry sieving — a method likely refined in the 19th century (possibly earlier roots in the Middle Ages across northern Iran/Afghanistan). The process is pure artistry: Dried cannabis plants are beaten or shaken over fine cloth/screens. Trichomes (resin glands) fall as golden powder (garda/kief). Multiple passes through progressively finer sieves remove plant matter, yielding ultra-pure resin — up to 40-60% THC. This dry-sift method suits Afghan landraces perfectly — their large, sticky trichomes separate cleanly. The powder is then hand-pressed (often with a touch of water/tea) into elastic, aromatic bricks or balls. The result? Legendary Afghan Black — dark, pungent, and incredibly potent. What makes it fascinating: generations of refinement. Farmers select for resin-heavy plants, creating “terroir” in every valley. From Balkh’s famous Shirak-e Mazar (dark brown, earthy) to premium Panjshir varieties — each batch reflects local soil, climate, and family secrets. The 1960s-70s Hippie Trail exploded global demand. Western travelers flocked to Kabul for world-class Afghan hash, turning it from local tradition into international legend. Afghanistan became the top source, outshining even Morocco’s soap-bar era with higher quality. Afghan innovation didn’t stop at sieving. Modern refinements include static electricity techniques — using electric charge to attract pure trichomes while repelling plant debris (a “Static Tech” cleanup that boosts purity even further). It’s a bridge from ancient craft to advanced solventless purity. Despite wars, bans (since the 1970s), and eradication attempts, the culture endures. Hash remains more common than opium in many areas — a daily ritual for some, a social bond for others. Experts judge quality by 5 traits: purity, bubbling (when heated), aroma, taste, and “bite” (that scorpion-sting buzz). Fascinating fact: Afghan hash can store for years without losing potency thanks to gentle sieving that preserves trichomes. And the diversity? One valley to the next yields wildly different flavors — spicy, earthy, almost incense-like — all from the same ancient plant. Afghanistan’s hash legacy is more than a product — it’s living history: Sufi sacraments, masterful sieving, static wizardry, and unbreakable traditions. In a world of modern extracts, the old ways of Afghan chars still produce some of the finest resin humanity has ever known. 🇦🇫🌿 What’s your favorite hash origin story? Drop it below! #AfghanHash #CannabisHistory #CharsCultureshow more

FACT CHECK: Here at the first trial, the Commonwealth’s... own expert witness, Ian Whiffin, confirms the necessity & importance of hash values for the sake of “hash verification”, a necessary step in authenticating the data & being able to verify that it hasn’t been altered or manipulated. In fact, Whiffin actually gives this testimony in response to a question about when the data have been altered or tampered with, if there’s a way for the forensic examiner (him) to detect it, and/or verify its authenticity and integrity. Remarkably, despite the DFIR industry standard methodology of hash verifying a digital forensic extraction, like that of Jen McCabe’s iPhone, prior to conducting any analysis on it with any forensic tools, Ian Whiffin testified that notably, for his work on this case, not only did he abandon this standard methodology, but he also admitted that the forensic extraction of Jen McCabe’s iPhone, which he received from the Commonwealth, was stripped of its hash value. Perhaps more remarkably, this stunning fact apparently didn’t raise any red flags for Ian Whiffin when conducting his analysis in this case, where he’s providing testimony in a murder trial. One must ask themselves why that is? However, defense expert Richard Green, in his affidavit, states that: “Typically, forensic examiners are provided with the raw image file and the associated: hash value documentation together. After validating the hash value, I would then accept that the data has not been manipulated. Here, however, the hash documentation was not provided with the raw image of the cell phone. Instead, it was withheld from the defense. As a forensic examiner having received hundreds of imaged phones over the course of my decades-long career, this was unprecedented.” Contrary to Mr. Whiffin’s approach, upon initially receiving a purported extraction of Jen McCabe’s iPhone without a hash value to authenticate and verify the integrity of the data, Mr. Green promptly requested the hash value and corresponding GrayKey supplemental files from the Commonwealth in order to conduct his analysis. After making this demand, and when the Commonwealth had to produce the hash verification data for Jen McCabe’s iPhone, remarkably, the Commonwealth also produced—for the first time, and over a year later on February 8, 2023—the Full File System Extraction of Jen McCabe’s iPhone (see “Notice of Discovery VIII,” attached). Unlike the initial purported “extraction” produced by Trooper Nicholas Guarino, this one contained Jen McCabe’s incriminating 2:27am Google search and all of the manual deletions of her communications, among other incriminating evidence, surrounding the murder of Officer John O’Keefe (see defense’s Rule 17 motion from April 12, 2023, attached). So, this begs the question: If Ian Whiffin knows the importance of hash verification in validating the authenticity of the data he’s working with in the first place, then why didn’t he take the same actions as defense expert Richard Green did to responsibly and reliably provide analysis in this case? If Whiffin ought to be deemed an expert, qualified to provide analysis and testimony at trial, then why did he abandon his industry’s standard methodology of hash verification in this case? Even Cellebrite knows this is a no-no! What say you? #KarenReadTrial #Cellebrite #DFIRshow more

Big dawg El Niño coming this summer and fall!... This is a bit science-y… but easy I promise. So follow along. You are looking at a vertical cross section of the tropical Pacific Ocean at the Equator with depth downward deep into the ocean. Left side is west near Asia. Right side is east near South America. It’s where we measure El Niño, the king control knob of the climate. One main way we know it’s coming is “subsurface heat”. See the dark red shades moving east under the surface and rising upward? That’s the El Niño developing! El Niño is a build up of hotter than normal water on the surface Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean. What’s cool (or hot) is that the water comes from the West Tropical Pacific. During cool La Niña years it’s like a piggy bank. The West Pacific hoards and stores the heat near Asia. Then every couple-few years that warm water sloshes back East. It first appears under the surface where we measure it. It surfaces in late spring and El Niño grows in Summer to fall. You can tell by the magnitude of warm subsurface water that this looks like a biggie! So how will it impact us? For one, it typically subdues Atlantic hurricane season. That doesn’t mean no storms - just less active than it would have otherwise been. Also it releases lots of Heat… so it super charges heat waves around the planet and floods too - it all tends to be more immense and intense. And you can bet Earth will experience its hottest days on record coming later 2026 into 2027. El Niño is one of the biggest climate forces on Earth and it has a profound impact on world-wide weather because of all the heat released into the atmosphere from the ocean.show more

This is what I’m talking about. This isn’t to... highlight Bentancur. It’s how 90% of teams and players behave for I’d say 70% of the game. But what are we trying to achieve here? The best thing that can happen from any phase of play, is to score a goal. So that’s the overall objective. To do that, the ball at some stage has to go behind every single opposition player and space has to be exploited whether it’s big or small. But Bentancur here is waiting. Waiting for players to move. Waiting for opposition to move. But why would Newcastle move? They don’t need to break from their shape. But imagine what would happen if Bentancur travelled with the ball into those open spaces. Newcastle and spurs players aren’t just going to watch, it’s going to instigate a chain reaction of movement from both sides. And that will in turn break up shapes which creates gaps. Then it’s if you are confident and able to exploit. But just waiting doesn’t achieve it. Imagine the disruption you will cause if both the ball player, and off ball players look to provoke the opposition as opposed to rigidly stand in shape. It’s just logical. If you stay still. Why does the opposition need to move? So what pictures are changing? What gaps are you opening? What gaps are you exploiting? So how do you expect to score when to score a goal, gaps have to be exploited? It’s why when people say “it’s harder in modern football, there’s less space”. No there isn’t. There’s always space. You’re just seeing players less willing to provoke it and attack it.show more

🚨 THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE 🚨 🚨NOBODY UNDERSTANDS... WHAT THEY JUST TRIGGERED. 🚨 🚨 People always talk about Iranian oil in terms of barrels, but rarely about what’s actually inside them. That’s the key difference—and the reason Western refineries have quietly relied on back-channel networks through places like Dubai for years to keep getting it, even under sanctions. Crude oil isn’t all the same. It’s a mix of hydrocarbons with different molecular weights, and that mix determines how easily it can be turned into the fuels refineries actually sell—like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and heating oil. The main measure here is API gravity. Higher API means lighter crude that’s easier and cheaper to refine, and it produces more of those high-value fuels. Lower API means heavier crude that takes more energy, more processing, and more expensive equipment, while producing more low-value leftovers. Iranian Light crude sits right in a sweet spot, with an API gravity around 33–36 and moderate sulfur levels. It’s light enough to produce a lot of gasoline and middle distillates without high costs, but not so light that it limits what refineries can make. In industry terms, it’s close to an ideal blend. Now look at the alternatives. Venezuela’s Merey crude is much heavier, with very low API gravity and high sulfur. Refining it profitably requires specialized, expensive equipment like cokers and hydrocrackers. Some refineries are built for that—but it’s not interchangeable with Iranian crude. It’s a completely different type of input. On the other end, US West Texas Intermediate is very light and low in sulfur. Sounds perfect in theory, but in practice it’s almost too light. Many refineries—especially in Europe and Asia—are designed for medium-grade crude, so they can’t just switch to WTI. They often have to blend it with heavier oils to make it work. That’s where Iranian crude stands out. It fits right into the middle of the system. It doesn’t need the heavy-duty processing of Venezuelan oil or the blending adjustments required for ultra-light US shale. That balance is why it’s consistently in demand and often priced at a premium. It also explains why countries like India kept buying it despite sanctions, and why those complex trading networks through Dubai existed in the first place. The Strait of Hormuz isn’t just a route for oil—it’s a route for this specific kind of oil that global refineries are optimized to process. If that flow gets disrupted, it’s not just about losing supply. It’s about losing the type of crude the system runs most efficiently on, forcing refineries to adapt with less suitable alternatives. That’s what’s really baked into oil prices like $82—not just how much oil is available, but what kind it is.show more

This is a turbine blade from a 571 MW... General Electric gas turbine. It sits inside the hottest part of a machine where combustion gases can reach roughly 1,600°C, while the turbine rotor spins at 3,000+ rpm depending on the grid. At that speed the blade tips are a couple of metres out and the centrifugal load is in the range of something like 10,000+ g or more. And yet this blade isn't bolted to the rotor. It’s root slides into a precision Fir-tree groove machined into the turbine disc, spreading the enormous centrifugal load across multiple contact surfaces instead of concentrating it through a fastener. The hottest first stage buckets are single crystal nickel superalloys like Rene N5 or similar. No grain boundaries, which is what would fail first under the heat and creep The blade is also cooled internally and protected by thermal barrier coatings, allowing the metal itself to remain far below the temperature of the gas flowing around it. At full power you’re looking at 571 MW and about 93 tonnes of natural gas burn rate an hour, that’s roughly a tonne and a half every minute. And the exhaust still contains enormous amounts of usable heat. In a combined cycle plant, that heat is recovered in a heat recovery steam generator, which boils water into steam. The steam then drives a second steam turbine, extracting energy that would otherwise disappear out of the exhaust into the environment. The result is more than 64% thermal efficiency, compared with about 44% for the gas turbine operating alone. For a sense of scale, A single gas turbine installation of this scale can supply electricity equivalent to roughly 600,000+ homes. What’s still odd is that, the blade carrying all of this load can still look like a simple piece of metal being hammered into a slot to the untrained eye. Source, 1989alibekshow more

Baby talk vs “parentese” - what’s the difference? Often... in my replies I see parents explaining why - as a method of promoting language acquisition - they never use “baby talk.” I generally agree with this sentiment, but there are some important distinctions to be made here. If by “baby talk” you mean using cutesy nonsense words (like wa-wa for water or ba-ba for bottle) you’re on the right track. There’s no need for you to make up incorrect or overly simplified vocabulary on your child’s behalf. Use real words, even if your child isn’t quite ready to do so themself. It’s how they learn. But sometimes I see confusion between “baby talk” and what is known as “motherese” or “parentese” - which isn’t nonsensical, but simply slower and more varied in intonation. (Think of Ms. Rachel’s sing-songy voice.) And this isn’t something you need to shy away from at all. In fact, research suggests that parentese - with its prolonged vowel sounds and expressive facial expressions - can be a social hook that attracts children’s attention, encouraging them to attune not only to the language to which they are being exposed but how it is produced. Importantly, it’s complete and grammatically correct… just a little more performative than you might use elsewhere. This lovely video, shared to IG by tommypadula, is a nice example. Everything mom says is 100% correct… it’s simply exaggerated in ways that are clearly capturing her daughter’s rapt attention. Just look at the smiles and eye contact it’s attracting. This isn’t baby talk. It’s parentese. And it’s fantastic.show more

What would you have done? Merge right and let... it play out? Hold your ground? Exactly what a Preventable Crash Really Looks Like. You’re driving a semi. Three-lane highway. You're in the center lane. Left lane is ending. Right lane is completely empty. Convex mirror shows no one beside you on the right. Three cars are pacing you in the left lane… and they’re about to run out of road. So Why are you still in the center lane? You’re not boxed in. You’re not blind. And you’ve already seen the sign telling you the left lane ends. You could’ve merged right a half-mile ago and cruised on. Instead, you’re now stuck in the lane of most resistance. That car flying up on your left? It’s doing what 80% of cars do when the lane end, they punch it. They try to get ahead. Not smart. Not courteous. But absolutely predictable. And that’s the point. You’re the professional. They're not. You know how this goes. You should know exactly what to expect. Textbook behavior. So when that car forces a merge in front of your bumper with 20 feet left of asphalt, are they wrong? Yep. But when you don’t lift off the gas, don’t merge right, and don’t anticipate what’s clearly unfolding, that’s no longer just their problem. Now it’s yours. And it’s preventable. What happens next👇 ✅ You plow into the car. ✅ You get to sit roadside for 3 hours explaining it to law enforcement and doing paperwork. ✅ You spend another 3 months Data Q’ing it, defending it in court, or arguing it with claims adjusters. ✅ It’s on your CSA now. ✅ Your insurance premium goes up. ✅ The carrier eats the deductible. ✅ And you get labeled as someone who “could’ve avoided it but didn’t.” Being a truck driver isn’t just turning a wheel. It’s a chess match. It’s anticipating the next three moves. When you choose not to play defense, you’re the one who loses, even when you’re “not at fault.” Some stats to chew on👇 👉Lane change/merge crashes account for nearly 10% of all large truck crashes. 👉FMCSA's Large Truck Crash Causation Study consistently shows "decision error" and "recognition error" as top contributing factors in preventable crashes. 👉The average post-crash litigation process? 3–6 months minimum, and that’s before settlements, audits, or nuclear verdicts.show more

Blake Lively’s Met Gala Moment Was Deeply Tone-Deaf Blake... Lively showing up at the Met Gala this year, smiling like nothing happened, honestly felt surreal. Not in a good way. More like… are we all just expected to pretend the last two years didn’t happen? Because that’s what it looked like. A reset. A clean slate. As if everything that went down with Justin Baldoni just evaporated the moment she stepped onto that carpet in a Versace gown. And I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to be at the center of a situation that serious, with that much damage done to someone’s reputation, and then just reappear in full glamour mode like it was all some minor inconvenience. Whether people want to admit it or not, that whole situation left a mark. On him, on the project, and on how people see her now. What makes it worse is the timing. Walking into one of the most visible events in the world right after everything wrapped up just feels… off. There’s no reflection in that. No pause. No sense that any of it actually mattered beyond being something to get past. And then there’s the bigger issue. When something tied to a story about domestic violence turns into this kind of public spectacle, it cheapens it. It stops being about the message and starts being about ego, control, and image. That’s the part that doesn’t sit right. You can call it strategy, you can call it PR, but to a lot of people it just reads as tone-deaf. Versace dressing her? That’s their choice. But let’s not pretend fashion houses don’t pick sides when they do that. They know exactly what kind of attention it brings. Same with the Met Gala. They don’t “accidentally” invite people. Every name is a decision. So yeah, people are going to question it. They should. Because this didn’t feel like a comeback. It felt like someone stepping right back into the spotlight without acknowledging the weight of what just happened. Like the expectation is that the audience will move on simply because she has. Not everyone will. And honestly, they shouldn’t have to. PS: That’s the only soundtrack that actually fits that red carpet. moment.show more

When a spacecraft leaves Earth, it doesn’t just fire... its engines and head straight to its destination. In many missions, especially those going beyond low Earth orbit, there’s a more subtle and elegant strategy at play, one that uses gravity itself as part of the navigation system. This is often called a gravity assist, or a slingshot maneuver. But in the case of missions like #Artemis II, what’s being used is a closely related idea known as a free-return trajectory. At first glance, it might sound simple: the spacecraft goes to the Moon, loops around it, and comes back. But the physics behind it is anything but simple. Instead of relying on continuous propulsion, the spacecraft follows a carefully calculated path through the gravitational field of the Earth–Moon system. It is launched with just the right speed and direction so that, as it approaches the Moon, the Moon’s gravity bends its trajectory. The spacecraft is effectively flung around the Moon, redirected onto a path that naturally brings it back toward Earth. No major engine burn is needed for the return. Small trajectory corrections may still be required, but gravity does the heavy lifting. That’s the key. This kind of trajectory is not just efficient, it’s also safe. If something goes wrong with the spacecraft’s engines or onboard systems, gravity itself ensures the return. It’s an inherent backup plan, built into the trajectory from the very beginning. The same fundamental idea appears in gravity assists used across the Solar System. When a spacecraft flies past a planet, it can gain or lose speed by exchanging momentum with that planet. From the spacecraft’s point of view, it’s as if it has been accelerated without using fuel. In reality, it has borrowed a tiny amount of orbital energy from the planet itself. That’s how missions like Voyager reached the outer planets, and how probes continue to explore regions far beyond what their onboard fuel alone would allow. But there’s an important distinction. An interplanetary gravity assist is typically used to change speed and direction, often increasing the spacecraft’s energy. A free-return trajectory, like the one used in Artemis II, is designed for something more specific: a path that naturally loops back to Earth without requiring additional propulsion. It’s less about gaining energy, and more about shaping a trajectory that guarantees a return. To understand why this works, it helps to stop thinking in straight lines. In space, motion follows curves defined by gravity. The spacecraft is constantly falling, first toward Earth, then toward the Moon, and then back toward Earth again. What looks like a loop is really a continuous free fall through a changing gravitational landscape. This way of navigating space reveals something deeper. We tend to think of engines as the drivers of motion, but once a spacecraft is on its way, gravity does most of the work. The art of spaceflight is not just about thrust. It’s about knowing when not to use it. #GoodLuck #Artemis NASA Artemisshow more

On the paper, there's a clear count of how... many times fans tilted their heads toward Ling (L), toward Orm (O), or toward both (LO) while taking photos during the first FMT in Bangkok. And when you look at Orm’s numbers, it's painfully low 🙂 First of all, I completely disagree with and feel very disgusted by this kind of behavior. What pisses me off even more is the double standard. Why is it that when Orm is the one being hurt, people tend to stay silent, as if it’s normal? Yet when it happens to someone else, suddenly the outrage is everywhere. Why is that? Because Orm is humble? Because she always smiles and pretends to be okay, so people think it’s fine to overlook her pain? Orm has been enduring this kind of treatment since the very beginning. It’s not something recent. It’s not something that happened once. It’s been happening again and again, and it’s still happening now. None of Orm’s fans are okay with this, I am not okay with this too, honestly sick of it. But I’ve accepted that, with a fandom this big, we can’t control everything. Still, there are many people who respect both of them, and that gives me a bit of peace But let’s be clear, accepting pain doesn’t mean it’s justified. So to those out there playing the “victim card” while turning a blind eye to everything Orm has been through.... You want to talk about fairness? Then let’s talk about Orm first 🙂show more

I want parents to really think about this. Imagine... paying good money for lessons because you care about your daughter’s long-term development… and the first thing you’re told is that “swinging down isn’t correct.” Instead it’s barrel depth, elite path, and swinging up because “that’s what the pros do.” That’s where development goes backwards. Most young athletes aren’t broken they’re underdeveloped in movement. They don’t understand shoulder angles, how to get on top of the ball, situational hitting, or how the body actually organizes a swing. That’s not their fault. That’s instruction skipping steps. In my cage, athletes do not swing up first. They have to earn the right to swing up by first owning the down. We stay at the top of the zone, learn how to find the down, and teach how the shoulders orient the swing. The up isn’t cued or forced it’s a byproduct of correct movement. What floors me is how often kids, especially in softball, are taught to swing up immediately. How do you start middle-down and swing up in a sport where the ball is traveling on an upward plane? It makes no sense. Baseball and softball mechanics are the same the body doesn’t change. But instruction must start differently because pitch plane is different. Baseball breaks down. Softball rise spins up. If a softball hitter can’t control the down out front, they’ll never handle elite rise. Once control is there, the femur turns down, the torso gets pulled up, and the natural up shows itself. No forcing. No manipulation. I can post videos like this all day. I’m not teaching a “style.” I’m teaching how the body is designed to move. I’m demanding because parents invest real time and money, and I won’t waste either. If you want game swings that hold up to velocity and plane find the down!show more

‼️🎙️ Great interview from Carlos Alcaraz today at the... Princesa de Girona CongresFest in Murcia, where he spoke a lot about consistency, discipline, and the daily work that goes into the trophies: ❔ “Today we’ve been hearing people talk about research, innovation, exploration… You revolutionized tennis at a very young age. What do you think is behind that ability to keep improving constantly?” 🗣️ Carlos: “Well, I think it’s the desire to learn. When you realize there’s still so much for you to improve, so much for you to learn, in my case, in the world of tennis… in the end you’re competing against players who also want to improve in order to beat you, who want to put themselves in the best possible position. And that’s what motivates you, or at least what motivates me, to keep improving, to keep up with the level of tennis and also keep up with the rate at which my rivals are improving.” ❔ “In elite sport, just like in science and entrepreneurship, a very important part is knowing how to push beyond your own limits. So my question is: what values have been most important in helping you develop that throughout your journey?” 🗣️ “I think consistency. Day-to-day consistency, trying to give your best every single day. “In the end, people probably see the matches, the tournaments, the victories and defeats, but you also have to place a lot of value on what happens behind the scenes: the work you put in every day. “I think that’s the most important thing: going every day, in my case, to the tennis court or the gym with tremendous excitement about trying to give the best of myself, trying to improve so that later it shows on the court. “That consistency of taking things day by day, of trying to control everything necessary to be in the best possible condition when it’s time to compete - that’s what motivates me. And it’s what I value most now in the position I’m in. I’m grateful to the version of myself from six or seven years ago for having done everything possible every single day.” ❔ “People see the trophies and the victories, but they don’t see the work behind them because it’s invisible. What advice would you give to young people, and to all of us, about discipline and consistency, so we can understand how someone like you keeps going?” 🗣️ “Above all, patience. “When I was 14 years old, I had zero patience. I wanted things overnight. I wanted results immediately. Personally, I hate losing at anything, even back there. So I always wanted to win, I wanted everything to work out perfectly, I wanted things to go exactly right. But I think what I’d tell young people is to have patience. “The beautiful thing is the process. It’s the journey. It’s going to a competition or doing something that truly fills you with pride and then seeing that it doesn’t work out. “You fail but what matters is how you get back up, how you come back the next day and try again. “That’s the beautiful part, and that’s the advice I’d give to young people: be patient, enjoy the journey, enjoy what you’re doing, because one day you’ll look back, value it, and feel proud of it.”show more

"Pros won’t use generative AI, and when the bubble... pops, nobody will ever talk about it again." No. That’s delusional. 1/ Generative AI is already being used professionally at the level of big studios like Disney ($1B to OpenAI), and there’s zero doubt that studios like Industrial Light & Magic, Netflix, Hollywood VFX experts, etc. are already experimenting with it too. Or do you think they’re idiots? They’re not idiots at all. They have the experience and, more importantly, the DISTRIBUTION POWER. The point is: someone with taste, judgment, and storytelling experience, basically from their living room, will have access to (almost, or not even almost) the same capability as the big guys, because the pure "making stuff" skills have been commoditized, and the new way to create is just NATURAL LANGUAGE. What hasn’t been commoditized is good taste, the ability to create great stories that move people, and the ability to get them in front of people. So in the end, what wins is story quality and distribution. Having good taste, making a name for yourself, and owning strong IP (Marvel, etc.) will still matter. That’ll be true right up until AI is genuinely opinionated and can create by itself: if it comes to that, with zero human direction, stuff as good as (or better than) the very best human experts today, and on top of that, interactive in real time... Because yeah: there’s nothing in this universe that actually prevents that from happening. BUT WE’RE NOT THERE. For now, generative AI is a tool that needs direction and taste to make anything decent. And I hope it stays that way for a long time, because otherwise that’s going to be a brutal hit to humanity’s ego. 2/ On the "bubble": you have to distinguish between a stock valuation bubble (possible, I actually believe it) vs a bubble like some people imagine where it "pops" and we never hear about AI again. That obviously makes no sense given how insanely useful it is. It can only grow, and it’s going to grow fast, regardless of any stock market drawdowns (the internet kept growing even when valuations got nuked in 2000). Either way, the near future is going to be extremely interesting.show more

Elon Musk just said something that disqualifies most of... Silicon Valley. Musk: “If you’re gonna create a company, the first thing you should try to do is create a working prototype.” Not a pitch deck. Not a business model. Not a funding narrative wrapped in 40 slides designed to make something that doesn’t exist sound inevitable. A working prototype. That alone rules out most of the people who call themselves founders. Musk: “Everything looks great on PowerPoint. You can make anything work on PowerPoint.” That’s not a punchline. It’s an indictment. PowerPoint has no physics. No engineering constraints. No supply chain. No thermal limits. No gravity. Nothing that forces an idea to prove it deserves to exist in the physical world. It is the most effective tool ever built for making the impossible look funded. Spend long enough in that world, and the distance between something that works and something that looks like it works stops feeling important. That is the real damage. Musk: “If you have an actual demonstration article, even if it’s in primitive form, that’s much, much more effective for convincing people.” Even if it barely functions. Even if half of it is held together with tape. Even if it looks like it has no business working yet. Because a crude prototype carries something a polished deck never will. Proof. Not projected proof. Not modeled proof. Not “if we hit these assumptions” proof. The kind that sits on a table and either works or doesn’t. No narrative saves it. No charisma rescues it. No market-sizing slide covers for it. It just has to be real. That is the gap between Musk and the rest of the industry. Not intelligence. Not capital. Not ambition. He builds first. Then talks. Everyone else talks first. Then fundraises to find out if the thing could even be built. The distance between those two sequences is the entire history of why most things never get made. The professional world is engineered to produce one type of person. Someone who can describe, in extraordinary detail, what they would build if given the resources. Not someone who builds. MBA programs train you to present. Accelerators train you to present. Pitch competitions are literally scored on who presents best. The system does not reward builders. It rewards the performance of building. And the people deepest inside that system are the last ones who will ever notice. Musk landed a rocket on a drone ship in the ocean. Then caught a 23-story booster out of the sky with mechanical arms on the launch tower. He didn’t pitch that. He did it. Then the world watched and tried to process what it just saw. That is what separates someone who builds from someone who performs. PowerPoint is where ideas go to be believed. The prototype is where they go to be proven. Most careers begin and end in the first. Not because people can’t build. Because the performance felt so much like progress that nobody ever stopped to check.show more

Hawaiian sativa this is a plant. I’ve had over... 25 years. It’s still crushes it and zero degradation over that time some jerk Rod tried to tell me that this isn’t just sativa because I harvest at 60 days I do it because at 13 weeks it fully sees itself I like to pick it before it has a chance to even start. It has 100% sativa qualities.. I’d like to know do you dry trim or do you wet trim? I dry trim because it completely removes chlorophylls within the first week of hanging this bud has now been hanging 16 days in a 60% humidity room at 58 deg f being jarred today, this will be some of the most incredible smoke around. It’s gonna make you feel great. A Plant Guy Co exclusive offering I’m told I’m the only one who has kept this by the person who gave me the clone in 2002. And was on the November 2010 high times magazine cover with an article about Colorado weed.. super stoked. I’ve kept this lady around and she will always be kept. I may not always run her but she’s a stunner in every way. Hope you’re all having a fantastic day. Let me know on the comments why and if you wet trim because I used to and I will never go back. The quality of my bud has improved incredibly since I started dry trimming, only picking leaves with stems and no ‘s upon harvest day. Enjoy!show more

This is for the person who struggles with their... body image. You are not alone. All the time, I wish I had even a tiny bit of consistent confidence in my body. You know what I’ve realized? I can love myself no matter what my body looks like. I can trust myself no matter my size. I can care for myself no matter what other people think of me. Can I say how hard that is when people tear me down in comments or messages? To still love myself regardless of how I’m treated? That’s a mission. It’s actually the mission we’re all on. My body can be sacred to me even if I’m self-conscious about it. Sometimes I wear something so beautiful that it reminds me that I’m beautiful too… Because what’s on the inside is what will radiate to the outside. Every day, I focus on being kind or sharing a helping hand. My body is a vessel for what I believe to be true about the world and that’s that everyone can make a difference- big or small. In a world of unfortunate circumstances- here’s a reminder: we are not defined by our circumstances but by our courage to redefine our circumstances. Sending you love today 💕 if you’re struggling, know you are not aloneshow more