February 2012
37 posts
The Secret to Eternal Youth Unlocked? →
gizmodo.com
Although I think that in the 21st century, the best way to be healthy is to aproximate the way that paleolithic man ate and lived (minus the extensive fighting and trauma of course), I’m still pretty fascinated by the role modern technology might play in longevity. I’ve read Ray Kurzweil’s books and think the whole “singularity” concept might be a possibility, but I’m more interested in what can be accomplished strictly within the realm of biology. It’s always seemed to me that aging is an evolutionary trait that fosters species preservation—old people die so that young people don’t have to compete with them for scarce resources. But with advances in other technologies, there’s no longer any reason that people have to die, is there? So anyway, this study is pretty interesting:
Now, a team of researchers based at Umeå University in Sweden has pinpointed a protein which is vital in autophagy—the process through which cells break down to recycle themselves when they’re approaching the end of their life.
Thing is, scientists have long known that increasing the rate of autophagy leads to longevity; they just haven’t known how to directly simulate the process. Now, in experiments on mice, the protein SNX18 has been used to accelerate the process, keeping the rodents alive longer. Yes, really.
I’m at an outdoor bar in St Petersburg, Florida having crab legs and sweet potato fries. Not bad. The only downside is that instead of having sports on the tvs, they have NASCAR. Which is as boring as I suspected it would be.
Play
Damn. Couldn’t improve on my 113. Oh well. Bring on WOD #2.
CrossFit Games Open WOD 12.1: 113 Reps (so far)
I did the CrossFit Games Open WOD 12.1 yesterday and got 113 reps. Not bad, but a few short of what I wanted (120). I’m going to give it another go today, but I’m not feeling quite as sharp as I was yesterday so we’ll see what happens. I think I’m going to go out a tiny bit slower and hope my endurance holds up better. Per minute I want to get 20-18-17-17-16-16-16 for 120. If I get it, great. If not, I’m not too disapointed in my 113.
The good news of today is that Ryan Braun won his appeal
The bad news is that now we’re destined to hear sports writers that got C’s in science classes talk about how he “got off on a technicality.” First off, “technicality” is a bullshit term invented by people that lost. “Losers,” if you will. It’s a loaded term designed to make people think that justice has been cheated even though the outcome happened according to the rules.
But here’s the thing: Braun’s situation can’t even be considered a technicality in the “he’s guilty but he got off anyway” kind of sense. In law, people sometimes get off even though everyone knows they’re guilty. For instance, if the key peice of evidence against them was obtained unconstitutionally. In that case, the evidence may still prove that they’re guilty, but our society values constitutional protections more than the verdict. And the only way to deter cops from violating the constitution to obtain evidence is to declare such evidence inadmissible. But that’s not what happened here. It’s NOT a situation where it’s clear that he’s guilty and got off on a technicality. It’s a situation where there’s a strong possibility that the evidence is wrong. The safeguards that are in place to make sure evidence is right were not adhered to, so Braun could not have been ruled guilty. In this case, the safeguards aren’t there to make sure evidence was obtained properly, they’re there to make sure evidence is good.
As Many Burpees as Possible in 7 Minutes →
games.crossfit.com
That’s WOD #1 for the CrossFit Games Open Sectional. If I can refrain from throwing up, I feel alright about this. The link shows the girls that got second and third overall at last year’s games get 128 and 107 burpees respectively. I really feel like I could break 100. I think I’ll shoot for 20 a minute for the first 2 minutes, then 15 a minute after that, for a total of 115. Bold, but doable.
Have you seen those ads for “Cenegenics” in in flight magazines? The ones with the head of an old man clearly photoshopped onto a body builder’s body? Well, I think I just saw that guy in the Philly airport… and it might not be Photoshop…
It always amazes me when, once a year, otherwise reasonable people walk around all day with smudges on their foreheads. Religion really is fascinating.
The Making of Homer At The Bat →
deadspin.com
This is a sort of fascinating article about a classic episode of The Simpsons.
When The Bodyguard came out in 1992, I distinctly recall people mocking Kevin Kostner’s haircut. I just caught 5 minutes of the movie and it looks like he’s sporting the same haircut I am right now.
The real most interesting man in the world dies at 74 →
nytimes.com
At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle.
At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate. To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler.
And he also rowed accross two oceans.
Tumblr is really pissing me off right now.
Pitchers and catchers report to camp. Spring has arrived.
