Results matching “log”

Last night's 'Re-inventing the Body' episode of The New Inventors took a look at the fascinating Epoc Headset. Essentially it identifies the type of thing you're likely to be thinking about (based on the amount of electricity being produced by various parts of the brain), and translates it into a virtual action.

Many, many uses; though initially it will be used as a gaming control (gamers may have already seen an early version at the last GDC). Personally, I'm looking forward to see the plethora of Wii Fit-type games which will undoubtedly appear.

How long do you have to wait? It should be out later this year.

Know your proximal from your distal? Adduction from abduction? Laree Draper has compiled a handy reference for a number of these terms. Definitely one to bookmark.

I like the look of this - especially in that size. What do you think?

Target Focus Training explores. Very interesting.

Via Running Down a Dream : at 98, Abe Weintraub is still leading the pack. Here he is winning his division in the WABC Father's Day Fight Against Prostate Cancer 5-Mile. Not bad at all.

Via Rif's Blog : the Dane of Pain gets ready to do it all again. Great clip.

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No truck? No car? Try pulling a golf cart.

Go for the oddity - it'll stick with you for the depth. Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a well-made film a little off the beaten path that offers something the blockbuster fare can't - the rich intellectual and cinematic treatment that only comes from an independent director with personal passion for a national subject.
Watching Bigger, Stronger, Faster is like being inside director Christopher Bell's head as he's writing an essay. He uses the same cinematography techniques its producers used in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 - bits of dialogue interspersed throughout his narrative; narratives illustrated by phantasmagoria blending pop culture, ironic images and charming graphics. The rhythm of the movie is similar, too - moving in sections from one large point into the next, drawing conclusions at each stage that tie into the overall thesis. He introduces himself and his family, visits the gym scene, the supplement manufacturing scene, to Arnold, Congress and the political backstory, and eventually ties it all together in a complex yet admirably tidy package. The production value is high, the research deep, and the editing nimble. And oh yeah - there are some pretty funny moments.

Bell has an ambitious vision behind this project, and he succeeds. While mainstream movies are generally simple and formulaic, with just one message to deliver, this film tackles a complex subject and reveals it to be more complex than you ever thought it was. It offers you the constructs to explore several messages that already exist, with the catch that you must consider them with respect to all of the other choices. This is not a simple anti-steroid rhetoric piece. There are darker, more graphic places he could have taken the film had that been his intention (incidentally, if that's what you're looking for, read Muscle by Samuel Fussell or Chemical Pink by Katie Arnoldi). While the director tells you he's tried steroids and is against them, and treats their use as unsavory, he respectfully tells the side of each of his subjects, from athletes who passionately endorse steroids as legitimate performance enhancers to medical patients who endorse them as necessary for survival, to varieties of anti-steroid vigilantes. He's giving you the tenets for intelligent discussion of the issue.

The lens he uses to examine the hubris of steroids is perfect - his family of three athletic brothers, and their wholesome, traditional parents. His parents represent the American mindset of success in the 1950s, right before steroids entered the stage. The mother is loving, innocent, and adorable, using cookie metaphors to teach life lessons to her dear sons. The father is a pragmatic 9-to-5'er who provides for his family and rolls out pearls of wisdom and insight, who is aware of his sons' flaws yet accepts them. Without their sons, it would be unthinkable that this mother and father would be connected to steroids at all. But the boys represent the American mindset of today, competing in environments where they are pushed to be above average - beyond natural, even - and to identify themselves by contrasting their parents' iconic identities. But they are forced to be tied intimately, even moreso through their filmmaker son forcing them to confront the issue through his three-year-long project.

Via Triathlon Training Notes : Edmund Burke notes some of the physiological benefits of altitude training. A good read.

A great week here at Straight to the Bar. The highlights :