Udaipur READ MORE Varanasi - City of the Hindus READ MORE The Storm King's Thunder and the Dragon's Bane READ MORE Beijing and the Great Wall - Our final days in China READ MORE Basho rewrites: Rime of the Frostmaiden - Destruction's Light. READ MORE Things Will Change - a Basho travel film READ MORE Jawbreaker - Ultimate AI Upscaled 4k edition READ MORE Varanasi City of Gods - Special Edition READ MORE Yaks for tea and Tibetan Temples. Living the high life in Shangri-la READ MORE Basho's bonus modules: Rime of the Frostmaiden – an Adventure with Pirates READ MORE “Morgan” – Digital Watercolour READ MORE Mount Wudang and the Meaning of Life READ MORE What is Daoism/Taoism? READ MORE Basho rewrites: Rime of the Frostmaiden - Defeating Auril, DM's guide and ending READ MORE Children of the Red Rose READ MORE And so I went for a walk... READ MORE Basho rewrites: Rime of the Frostmaiden – Sunblight READ MORE "The Backroad to Bures" READ MORE The day I met the Buddha, and killed him READ MORE The Purpose of Travel - Now Published! READ MORE OMEGA Speedmaster Professional “Moonwatch” review READ MORE The Iron Church - Why Do People Quit Fitness Training? READ MORE You're the Pretender - a Tier 1 tribute READ MORE Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, green tea and finding inner peace READ MORE Remembering Catherine READ MORE Announcing my new book: Trials & Tea Ceremonies: Misadventures in Far Away Places. READ MORE The Alam Clock Lesson READ MORE A Wild Sheep Chase READ MORE The Iron Church: Why Most 'AI' Fitness Apps Are Just Marketing (And How I Built One That Actually Works) READ MORE The Hidden Context in some Great Movies READ MORE
Welcome to the Outside Context Homepage2025-10-28T11:33:16+00:00

About Outsidecontext.com

Articles and films from Outside Context have been licensed for use by airlines, featured in Webby award winning phone apps, published as degree level English exam questions, played on Indian evening news and in global advertising by Google.

The Iron Church – Why Do People Quit Fitness Training?

And what the science — and AI — say about how to stop them. I would leave work after a long, hard day in the city and simply have no energy to attend my GoJu Ryu Karate training. I’d call my wife, as though for permission to quit, and she would always talk me into going. So, I did. I would always call her back after the lesson, almost high from how awesome it felt to use my body. She knew exactly what to say to get me to go, always motivating and tailoring her advice to me. So perhaps people quit fitness because the system they are using treats them like the average of their demographic — just a spreadsheet entry saying “Male, 28, Intermediate” — rather than a unique athlete whose capacity shifts from week to week. Life intervenes on us all, and real psychology is incompatible [...]

The Iron Church: Why Most ‘AI’ Fitness Apps Are Just Marketing (And How I Built One That Actually Works)

7 AI Pipelines ? 5 AI Prompts, 2 Deterministic Engines. Discover the technical strategy behind building The Iron Church—an AI fitness trainer defined by periodisation science, multi-prompt architecture, and serious consideration of your real equipment. This article is the technical deep dive for anyone who wants to understand what “AI-generated workouts” actually mean when you refuse to cut corners. Introduction This isn’t a story about prompts. It’s a story about why real AI products need state, constraints, and domain logic. There is a specific kind of professional irritation that arises when you spend your working life directing and building real AI systems, only to encounter something that treats AI as merely a marketing feature. AI on the box, we call it. Once you are trained to notice it, you spot it immediately, with telltale signs and vague claims. Such as “personalisation” claims, which amount to little more than a [...]

Announcing my new book: Trials & Tea Ceremonies: Misadventures in Far Away Places.

A hilarious and heartfelt journey for anyone who has ever wondered: "Is this it?" What happens when the life you've built no longer feels like your own? For Basho, turning thirty felt less like a milestone and more like "a splinter in the mind." A series of personal crises convinced him and his partner, Cesca, to make a radical choice. They walked away from their careers, put their lives in storage, and set off on a year-long, unscripted adventure across a dozen countries to answer one question: Is there a better way to live? Their path takes them from the rugged shores of Australia to the spiritual heart of India and the serene temples of Japan. But between the moments of transcendent beauty, a deeper, wilder journey unfolds. They must face down spitting alpacas, chaotic farm hosts, a terrifying encounter with the world’s largest spider in a Laotian toilet, [...]

A Wild Sheep Chase

**Caution this post contains spoilers for The Wild Sheep Chase!** When I was a child, I had no one to play Dungeons and Dragons with, it being the 80’s and the game not being popular here in the United [...]

Udaipur

Udaipur is famous for many reasons. To those in the west it is mostly known for its gleaming white Jag Niwas hotel found in the middle of one of its many lakes. To the Indians [...]

The Storm King’s Thunder and the Dragon’s Bane

There follows the campaign we have played all through the 2020 lockdown. It has helped us all resist the mental anguish of the COVID virus, recover from the infection itself and be a beacon of bright enjoyment for all. Truly the great value of this magical game cannot be overstated when played with attentive and imaginative children. So, I present the chronicle of my son, my daughter and my wife playing their first campaign after the starter set, Storm King's Thunder!

Remembering Catherine

"Remembering Catherine" by Basho Today, on the anniversary of her passing, I present a new painting; a present for my mother in law. This digital portrait was painted in Rebelle 5 Pro.

The Alam Clock Lesson

Early in my leadership career, I had a junior member of staff who was late to work. Nothing unusual about that, you may think, for are we not all occasionally late into the office? Most of us commute and moreover [...]

The Storm King’s Thunder and the Dragon’s Bane

There follows the campaign we have played all through the 2020 lockdown. It has helped us all resist the mental anguish of the COVID virus, recover from the infection itself and be a beacon of bright enjoyment for all. Truly the great value of this magical game cannot be overstated when played with attentive and imaginative children. So, I present the chronicle of my son, my daughter and my wife playing their first campaign after the starter set, Storm King's Thunder!

Tokyo Marui Pro Goggle Review

After coming home from my travels I accessed my secure shipping container and got out all my airsoft gear. GZ is coming and I wanted to do a ops check and full clean so I would be ready. My old, fantastic, HFC mesh mask had seen better days. After considering the risk of using rusty mesh, I benched the mask and started hunting around for another solution. There was something else too. My team now play 24h milsim games. As I was going to join them, I needed a face rig that would enable me to eat and sleep in the field, but not be a compromise on safety.

Operation Zulu

The DA’s have played some unusual games over the years, but this was a first for us: this was the first time that we were asked to be a scripted opposition. The idea has a lot of merit if you think about it. Firstly, games often ebb and flow randomly. One side may gain the upper hand in an attack, but they loose too many men to reinforce the position and soon are driven back and it is the other team who are then on the offensive. Similar to a game of football. However, sometimes a team simply hammers all opposition to such an extent that the suffering team cannot fulfil their objectives at all. Sometimes they cannot get out of their safe zone. The game suddenly becomes unbalanced, tempers raise, cries of cheating go up and no fun is had at all. Well, at least none by the team getting a kicking.

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