Says an ex-teammate of the NFL star who died this week of a self-inflicted gunshot wound: "Junior played for 20 years. That's five concussions a game, easily. How many in his career then? That's over 1,500 concussions. I know that's startling, but I know it's true. I had over 1,000 in my 15 years. I felt the effects of it. I felt depression going on throughout my divorce. Junior went through it with his divorce." (USA Today via @scanman)— Xeni
Anna and a friend undertake a breathtaking longboard freeride down a winding mountain road (possibly in Maryhill, Washington, home to a full-size Stonehenge replica). It's really something to watch, though my inner worrywart kept wanting to stop the proceedings and equip the riders with protective clothing for their bare skin. I was a little disappointed that we didn't see the dismount, because the whole way down, I kept wondering, how the hell do you stop?
AJ's ToyBoarders are a line of toy soldier-style toy snowboarders, in classic green injection-molded plastic.
Our roots are skate, surf, & snow so when we design each rider we use real moves that would be used by todays riders. Each Artwork Figure is hand molded with attention to detail and style.
Any kid can enjoy these riders. They can make a skatepark out of anything around the house, take them wherever they go & use their imagination for hours of enjoyment. We are very proud of this first of many series. Stay tuned for more skate, surf & snowboard riders that are in the works.
Nat sez, "You're on a racing yacht, 650 miles from the finish line of the fifth leg of an around-the-world race. Your mast breaks, you send a team member up to cut free the sail. He slashes at the rigging but also himself, and blood drips down the mast. He comes down white with blood loss and with a massive wound. What do you do? 'After talking to our team doctor we decided to staple him together. We took out the staple gun and put five staples in him and now he's as good as new, I think.' Nope, that's not what I would have reached for either. I wonder whether the team doctor is also the ship's carpenter?"
Groupama completed leg 5 last night with 20 points for third place, ensuring they remain in contention for the overall prize.
The French boat leapfrogged leg 5 winners Puma into second place overall, 20 points behind Telefonica, who are facing a hearing into allegations they carried an extra sail on leg 4 into Auckland.
Here's a POV video of a fourth grade girl psyching herself up for her first run down an intimidating ski-jump. The tension mounts as she narrates her anxieties and checks in with her instructor for comfort, and the payoff -- a successful run and delighted cheering -- is all the better for it.
Writing in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, China Mieville blazingly describes two Londons: an exuberant, organic place that has been lived and built over and remade, bursting with energy and vitality; and a fearful, banker-driven collection of megaprojects and guard labour, where billions of pounds can be found to surround the Olympics with snipers and legions of police, but nothing can be found for the library on the corner, where the center of town is being purged of anyone but the super-rich, and where rioting has nothing to do with stop-and-search powers and poverty, and is the result of mere "pure criminality."
The Olympics are slated to cost taxpayers $14.7 billion. In this time of “austerity,” youth clubs and libraries are being shut down as expendable fripperies; this expenditure, though, is not negotiable. The uprisen young of London, participants in extraordinary riots that shook the country last summer, do the math. “Because you want to host the Olympics, yeah,” one participant told researchers, “so your country can look better and be there, we should suffer.”
This is a city where buoyed-up audiences yell advice to young boxers in Bethnal Green’s York Hall, where tidal crowds of football fans commune in raucous rude chants, where fans adopt local heroes to receive Olympic cheers. It’s not sport that troubles those troubled by the city’s priorities.
Mike Marqusee, writer and activist, has been an East London local and a sports fan for decades. American by birth, he nonetheless not only understands and loves cricket, of all things, but even wrote a book about it. He’s excited to see the track and field when it arrives up the road from him in July. Still, he was, and remains, opposed to the coming of the Olympics. “For the reasons that’ve all been confirmed,” he says. “These mega-events in general are bad for the communities where they take place, they do not provide long-term employment, they are very exploitative of the area.”
Stratford sightseers are funneled into prescribed walkways; going off-piste is vigorously discouraged. The “access routes,” the enormous structures are neurotically planned and policed. For the area to be other than a charnel ground of Ozymandian skeletons in 30 years, it will have to develop like a living thing. That means beyond the planners’, beyond any, preparations.
I don't think these hot color-dipped baseball bats will do much to improve your swing, but I do like the idea of a batting practice that looks like the big box of Crayolas.
The Texas-based Warstic Wood Bat Company knows that "there are very few secrets to making a great wood baseball bat," they say. "It's about sourcing and selecting the best wood, craftsmanship, attention to detail and knowing how to achieve the right feel." But Warstic does the process one better by adding a dash of style, and even color, with their lines of Half Dip and Full Dip bats made from ash and maple.
Kevin sez, "Schuyler Towne is a competitive lockpicker and professional security researcher, but mostly he's a charming geek who knows a lot about locks. In this video, Schuyler talks about his passion for locks, demonstrates simple lockpicking, and tells the story of the time he made it to the final match of the world lockpicking championship (spoiler alert: he lost). Schuyler Towne recently spoke at the DEF CON 19 Hacking Conference."
Upcoming Appearances • April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP. •April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP. • April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs • April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere. • April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum • July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA
[Video Link]
A pre-race prayer at the NASCAR Nationwide series race in Nashville Tennessee, on July 23, 2011.
"We want to thank you, Lord, for these mighty machines.... Lord I want to thank you for my smokin' hot wife.... Boogity Boogity Boogity. Amen."
(via Tabitha Hale on Google+)
The Texas-based Warstic Wood Bat Company knows that "there are very few secrets to making a great wood baseball bat," they say. "It's about sourcing and selecting the best wood, craftsmanship, attention to detail and knowing how to achieve the right feel." But Warstic does the process one better by adding a dash of style, and even color, with their lines of Half Dip and Full Dip bats made from ash and maple.
, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.