Humans Can Fly

Posted this a while back, but it's just so cool I need to repost it.



The track @ 1:00 is JDiz Organ & Sackcloth Fashion - Under Man. Can't find the 1st song online.

In September 2010, Shin Ito set a world record flying 10.87 miles over Davis, California. He flew for 4:57 and reached a top speed of 177 mph. THAT'S INSANE. Can you imagine flying in the air for 5 minutes? Can you imagine flying in the air period?!

Too Good to be True

I just tried this drink called Bai5. It's great. It's a sweet juice (actually it's only 4% juice so I'm not sure what to call it - it's a sweet drink). It's also supposedly good for you, as it uses 'coffee's secret superfruit.' Turns out the skin that shells a coffee bean is a fruit and its full of antioxidants, which modern marketing says is really good for me. I don't know why and it's too late to google it.

The bottle goes on to say that "Just one gram of Bai pure coffee fruit extract has the astonishing antioxidant power of 4,000 ORAC UNITS." (their all caps and bolding, not mine). I have no idea what ORAC UNITS are. It sounds like some power metric for a trading card game I would be playing if I were in the 5th grade.

What really struck me about the juice was its low calorie content. It has 5 calories per 8 fl oz, totaling a little over 10 calories for this significantly sweet 16.9 fl oz bottle. I checked the usual suspect; aspartame. It doesn't have any. The trick, ladies and gentlemen, is an ingredient heretofore unbeknownst to me: erythritol. It's now my new best friend, as through some heavy googling (i.e., ~5 minutes), the only negative side effect I could find was farts. And farting I have been. But hey. It's pleasure doing business with you erythritol.

14KT Mix by Rhettmatic

Dope mix by Rhettmatic of the Beat Junkies.

@0:52, 2:43, 7:04, 11:18

14KT BEAT MIX by Rhettmatic by jrocc

Bill Russell - Mind Games

I'm a huge Celtics fan. In honor of the beginning of the NBA Playoff season, here is a great video highlighting one of the legends of the game, Bill Russell. Russel played 13 seasons with the Celtics, and won 11 championships, more championships than any North American professional athlete in history. Not only was Russell one of the greatest players of all time, he was active in the Civil Rights Movement, for which he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama in 2011.

This video provides some insight into the 'intellectualization' of basketball that Russell was accused of by Wilt Chamberlain. I love the spiritual connotations in the discussion of Russell's playing style, such as this line at 4:10;

"Perhaps his greatest mental ability was to sift through all the mind's clutter to discover and harness purity of purpose. A distilled dedication to one goal: winning."

I also enjoyed this line from Bill at the very end; "There are 10 players, 3 refs, 2 hoops, 20,000 people, 1 ball. What's gonna happen with that ball is the most interesting thing." It may seem obvious to some, but this fact that it all comes down to what happens with the ball has been somewhat of a revelation to me. Everything else that occurs on the field or the court is a means to affect the ball.

Some other notable lines;

• Russell: "Psychologically, you have to make the opposite player question what he's doing...you have to create doubts."
• "Russell blocked shots without blocking them because people wouldn't take shots because people were afraid to take them. He changed the whole game."
• Russell: "I would block a guy's shot and say 'Yes, we did that to you. If you come back, we'll do it again. If you come back again, we'll do it another time. So you're going to have to find something else to do.'" (@2:42)

Insulation is Sexy