Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Bike Snob NYC: This Just In: Riding A Bike Makes You Special!



So what heroic exploits did you undertake on your bicycle this weekend? ?Did you sit on the saddle? ?Did you pedal the bicycle? ?Did you make the bicycle move forward? ?Did you do all of this alongside other people wearing similar clothing and riding similar bicycles, or did you do it all by yourself?

More importantly, how did you share your ride afterwards with the rest of the world? ?After all, that's the whole point of riding a bike. ?Whether you ride alone or with others, it's crucial that everyone have access to details about your ?inspirational life-changing recreational pursuits, because of course while plenty of people have bicycles, nobody rides them as interestingly as you do.

It's like singing "The Wheels On The Bus," only for grown-ups.

One good way to share your ride and have a great big sing-along is by using social Fredworking sites like Strava. ?Another way is to get sponsorship from some energy drink (or "douche juice") company and make a video of yourself using the wrong bike for something, like the rider known as Seabiscuit, as forwarded to me by a reader:


We've seen Seabiscuit's work before, and this time he's going over the Galibier or the Telegraphe or both of them or neither or who fucking cares on his track bike with the following ratio of who cares x who cares:
I'm sure someone out there who badly needs to get a life can tell you exactly how many skid patches that yields without even consulting their iPhone.

Anyway, thusly decked out in his charity ride chic outfit and astride his?N?-Fred fixie mountain meh-chine, he narrates the ride for us:


"I'll go through hell, I'll crawl through several layers of hell," he explains.

Oh, save it. ?You're not going on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, you're going for a bike ride. ?You won't crawl through any layers of hell. ?You'll go through a recreational bike ride, and you'll crawl through several layers of recreation--slowly, because you picked the wrong bike.

"The point is to achieve something by my very own means, and against myself," he continues. ?"Just by the power of will and physical strength. ?That's my nature."

Right, just himself. ?And his sponsor. ?And his support vehicle. ?And his film crew. ?And his Garmin:


If you need to tap into your "will and physical strength" in order to engage in your hobby, you should either find a new hobby, or else you should recalibrate your sense of "will and physical strength." ?If going for a bike ride draws from his reserves of "will and physical strength" then having a bowel movement must be off the charts. ?(I can't wait for that video.) ?And smile once in awhile, for chrissakes:

You're riding a freaking bike, not brokering a cease fire between warring countries--though you'd never know that by listening to him. ?Consider this rhetorical question, for example:

"This mountain. ?Is it my friend or is it my enemy?"

Maybe the mountain is neither. ?Maybe it's your "frenemy." ?Or, even more likely, maybe it's a millenia-old geological formation that doesn't give a flying fuck about you or your gear ratio.

Of course, it's perfectly normal to engage in some self-indulgent introspection while you're riding, though you should be worried if you start asking yourself dumb questions like this:

"Why is this road here? ?What is it doing here?"

The combination of thin mountain air and a thick-headed rider is a dangerous one indeed--though it makes me even more excited for that epic bowel movement video:

("Why is this toilet here? ?What is it doing here?")

Eventually, he grinds his way to the top of the mountain, at which point he commences with the descent and the idiotic skidding:

By the way, if you look closely you can see there are some skidmarks already on the road, which leads me to wonder just how staged this video actually is. Here's another shot in which you can also see earlier skidmarks immediately to his left:

I hear the skidmarks in the bowel movement "edit" are going to be sick.

Most amazingly, we're well into 2013 now, yet people are still attempting to impart spiritual significance to fixed-gear cycling:

"Cycling on a track bike certainly has deep spiritual aspects. ?It's repetitive to an extend that I achieve a trance-like state of mind."

That's actually called "boredom," and he's managed to convey the sensation very convincingly in the film.

And this is called "d?j? vu:"

Yes, no fixie downhilling video would be complete without the obligatory ruined rear tire shot. ?Could Red Bull buy this guy a road bike already? ?I wonder if the bowel movement video will feature close-ups of blown-out toilet paper squares. ?

In any case, with this landmark video, Seabuscuit has cemented his reputation as the David Blaine of fixies, in that he is a shadowy, wispily-mustached figure who resurfaces periodically to perform some outsized stunt nobody really cares about anyway.

After his positive test last year, Anthony offered some insight into the amateur's motivation to cheat, saying his obsession with winning drove him to use banned drugs. In a recent email, he said he supports all antidoping efforts, but wonders whether amateurs will simply learn to game the system, as many pros have done, particularly by easing off performance-enhancing drugs ahead of competition.

"Surprise out-of-competition tests seem more effective as a deterrent," Anthony said. "That would have likely made me think twice."

Well said. ?Yes, it's everybody else's job to save you from being a complete douchebag and cheating at your pathetic hobby. ?

The article also makes a good point, which is that amateur cyclists want to be tested so they can be just like the pros:

That cyclists are leading the push to test amateurs is likely no coincidence, considering the large number of pros in that sport who have cheated, most notably Lance Armstrong, who late last year was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and who has since acknowledged doping during his cycling career.

Once you've paid for the crabon bike and the crabon wheels and custom team kits and the power meter and the coach, what's left but to pay for someone else to take your pee in a cup after a race? ?Of course, at the same time, amateur bike racers are always looking for a discount, which is why they've only managed to raise a paltry $5,000: ?

Following suit, the New York bicycle association has raised $5,000 for testing, the same amount raised so far by the Bicycle Racing Association of Colorado. By all accounts, that is far from enough to adequately police amateur riders.

Indeed, $5,000 is not going to pay for an anti-doping program. ?In fact, $5,000 is the retail price of a typical New York City Cat 4 racer's wheelset. ?What they really should do is work with the manufacturers to introduce a surcharge on all this stupid equipment. ?This surcharge would then be used to fund drug tests on the purchaser. ?In fact, I think there should be mandatory drug testing on all purchasers of ridiculous crabon equipment. ?Here's how it would work:

1) Fred presents his USA Cycling license when he buys a Zippp Spud Wankery Firecrap Crabon wheelset with drug testing surcharge built into the already ridiculous price:

2) This surcharge is applied directly towards testing Fred's pee-pee throughout the season:

3) Fred's weenie-ism is thus completely self-sustaining and self-regulating, and anybody who doesn't want to pay for the stupid wheels or the stupid testing can just buy reasonable and durable equipment that they use year after year. ?(And as a bonus, the Freds who suddenly and inexplicably "downgrade" will be easily identified as dopers.)

Meanwhile, drug testing is poised to be the new must-have accessory for Freds, and the real winner in all of this is Usada, who get paid to do the tests--even on ballroom dancers:

Since cycling is an Olympic sport, Usada has the power to test at all sanctioned races, even amateur events. But Travis Tygart, chief executive of Usada, said elite events have traditionally taken priority. Tygart said amateur track and field competitions, archery events and even the Pikes Peak marathon have paid to have Usada testers on race day.

"We've even done ballroom dancing," Tygart said. "Athletes are stepping up and saying even if we're weekend warriors, we don't' want to be cheated."

Sure, cyclists may be bad, but there's no athlete more crooked than a dance floor Fred:

(Fred. ?Get it? ?Of course you do.)

Lastly, even though some people apparently find it flirtatious, there are few things more irritating then strangers chiding you for not wearing a helment:

Tompkins at Myrtle

You said, "Nice helmet." I made up some excuse about not wearing one...but maybe I should have ridden with you to safety instead of pedaling off. Thanks for looking out for me regardless.

"Nice tits" is generally the appropriate response in cases like these.

Source: http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2013/03/this-just-in-riding-bike-makes-you.html

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Monday, March 25, 2013

Skydive instructor, student killed in Florida jump

(Reuters) - Two skydivers from Iceland, one an instructor and the other a student, were killed in a skydiving jump on Saturday, Florida media reported.

The two men were part of a group of 22 skydivers who jumped from a plane in Zephyrhills, about 30 miles northeast of Tampa, according to the Tampa Tribune newspaper.

When only 20 of those who jumped returned, authorities launched a search and found the bodies of the two men a few hours later, Florida media said.

The two men were from Iceland, according to Skydive City, which planned the jump, the Tribune reported.

Their identities were not released.

A spokesman for the Pasco County, Florida Sheriff's Office could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-die-skydiving-florida-said-iceland-042023396--spt.html

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Sunday, March 24, 2013

4 musts when hiring a home improvement c | Houston and ...

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Source: http://elw351.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/4-musts-when-hiring-a-home-improvement-c-2/

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RolePlayGateway?

One will live,
One will fall,
One will Surpass them all.
For the other it's too early to tell,
but all four shall go through hell...

~Coven Prophecy

Your world is nothing as it seems. Not at all. Ever since the beginning of time, we supernaturals-that is, Werewolves, Vampires, ShapeShifters, Fae (Fairies, Faeries), and Sorcerers have thrived on this earth. Most of us live in covens, which are scattered around the globe; we certainly do not get along.

Image

In Sicily, Italy: The Equinox Coven
In Montreal, Canada: The Coven of the Eclipse
In London, England (they also control Ireland, but don't live there),: The Rainfall Coven
In Redwood Forests in California: The Coven of Forests

The Supernaturals

Vampires: Have light shades of skin, red eyes, usually darker shades of hair. They have ability to drink blood, have immortal life, and are much stronger than humans. The younger you are, the worse you are at controlling your thirst.

Werewolves: Have average or tanned skin, and gold eyes. They have the ability to shift between human and wolf form. (not involved with the moon). The younger you are, the less control you have. As you age, you can learn to control it. They are also stronger and have better senses than average humans.

ShapeShifters: Have any skin tone, and any eye color. They have the ability to transform into any animal, but to turn into a new animal you must have interaction (see, smell, touch) with it. Once you do this, you can learn to change into that animal without ever interacting with it again. However, you are born with a birth animal, which you need to have no interaction with. This is the animal you first shift into after birth, and the first animal you learn to control yourself to change to.

Faeries/Fairies: Faeries and Fairies are very similar but have some differences; Faeries have feathery wings and have the ability to use charms, spells, and illusions. Fairies have wings like actual butterflies, and have the ability to control a certain element (water, fire, air, earth, lightning, nature, etc). They both have the ability to transport through Gates of the Fae, which enable them (and anyone touching them) to travel anywhere. They have the same light hair, candy color eyes, and fun, trickster personalities.

Sorcerers/Sorceresses: Sorcerer(s/esses) have normal hair color, skin tone, and shocking blue or purple eye colors (depending on gender). They have the ability of spells and magic tricks, but do not use wands. They control their powers through their hands. They also have the power of Transport, which enables them (and anyone touching them to travel to anywhere).

The Covens

The Equinox Coven: They Consist primarily of Vampires, and some sorcerers. They're camp (A huge, old mansion with outlying buildings) is in Sicily, but they control the whole Italy.

Leader:
Leader's spouse:

Healer:
Healer's apprentice:

Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:

Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:

The Coven of the Eclipse: They consist only of Werewolves. Their camp (A large group of houses in a forest) is in Montreal, Canada. They do not control the whole Canada, only the green section. They are the only group with an Alpha warrior, like a general in a human army.

Alpha:
Alpha's spouse:

Healer:
Healer's apprentice:

Alpha Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:

Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:

The Rainfall Coven: They primarily consist of Shapeshifters, but also have Sorcerers/esses and a few Vampires. Their camp (A fenced off group of old, Victorian houses ) is just out of London, England. They control the entire England and Ireland.

Leader:
Leader's spouse:

Healer:
Healer's apprentice:

Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:

Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:

The Coven of The Forest: They consist of a majority Fae. However, they also have a good number of sorcerers/esses and ShapeShifters, and a few werewolves. Their camp (A long string of large, normal home-like tree houses connected with bridges) is in the Redwood Forests in California.

Leader:
Leader's spouse:

Healer:
Healer's apprentice:

Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:
Warrior:

Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:
Apprentice:

If you want to join, follow the guidelines. For now, you can only have up to 3 characters.

Code: Select all
Name:
Age:
Appearance: (pics are best :) )
Coven:
Species:
Personality:
History:
Family: (if any)
Mate:( If any)

Keep in mind, you can mate and find a partner in-game, not necessarily by planning before hand!

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway

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Two teens charged with shooting death of Ga. toddler

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) ? A pair of teenagers was arrested Friday and accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll through a leafy, historic neighborhood.

Sherry West had just been to the post office a few blocks from her apartment Thursday morning and was pushing her son, Antonio, in his stroller while they walked past gnarled oak trees and blooming azaleas in the coastal city of Brunswick.

West said a tall, skinny teenager, accompanied by a smaller boy, asked her for money.

"He asked me for money and I said I didn't have it," she told The Associated Press Friday from her apartment, which was scattered with her son's toys and movies.

"When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They're expensive. And he kept asking and I just said 'I don't have it.' And he said, 'Do you want me to kill your baby?' And I said, 'No, don't kill my baby!'"

One of the teens fired four shots, grazing West's ear and striking her in the leg, before he walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.

Seventeen-year-old De'Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said. It wasn't immediately clear whether the boys had attorneys.

Police announced the arrest Friday afternoon after combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods searching for the pair. The chief said the motive of the "horrendous act" was still under investigation and the weapon had not been found.

"I feel glad that justice will be served," West said. "It's not something I'm going to live with very well. I'm just glad they caught him."

West said detectives showed her mugshots of about 24 young men. She pointed to one, saying he looked like the gunman.

"After I picked him, they said they had him in custody," West said. "It looked just like him. So I think we got our man."

West said she thought the other suspect looked much younger: "That little boy did not look 14."

The slaying happened around the corner from West's apartment in the city's Old Town historic district. It's a street lined with grand Victorian homes from the late 1800s. Most have been neatly restored by their owners. Others, with faded and flaking paint, have been divided into rental units like the apartment West shared with her son. The slain boy's father, Luis Santiago, lives in a house across the street.

A neighbor dropped off a fruit basket and then a hot pot of coffee Friday as a friend from the post office dropped by to comfort West.

Santiago came and went. At one point he scooped up an armload of his son's stuffed animals, saying he wanted to take them home with him. He talked about Antonio's first birthday on Feb. 5 and how they had tried different party hats on the boy.

"He's all right," Santiago told the boy's mother, trying to smile. "He's potty training upstairs in heaven."

West said her son was walking well on his own and eight of his teeth had come in. But she also mourned the milestones that will never come, like Antonio's first day at school.

"I'm always going to wonder what his first word would be," West said.

Beverly Anderson, whose husband owns the property where West has lived for several years, said she was stunned by the violence in what's generally known as a safe neighborhood where children walk to school and families are frequently outdoors.

Jonathan Mayes and his wife were out walking their dogs Friday, right past the crime scene, and said they've never felt nervous about being out after dark.

"What is so mind-numbing about this is we don't have this kind of stuff happen here," Mayes said. "You expect that kind of crap in Atlanta."

It's not the mother's first loss of a child to violence. West said her 18-year-old son, Shaun Glassey, was killed in New Jersey in 2008. She still has a newspaper clipping from the time.

Glassey was killed with a steak knife in March 2008 during an attack involving several other teens on a dark street corner in Gloucester County, N.J., according to news reports from the time.

"He and some other boys were going to ambush a kid," Bernie Weisenfeld, a spokesman for the Gloucester County prosecutor's office, told the AP Friday.

Glassey was armed with a knife, but the 17-year-old target of the attack was able to get the knife away from him "and Glassey ended up on the wrong end of the knife," Weisenfeld recalled.

Prosecutors decided the 17-year-old would not be charged because they determined that he acted in self-defense.

___

Associated Press Writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and news researcher Monika Mathur in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-arrest-2-teens-ga-baby-killing-204023308.html

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Saturday, March 23, 2013

WSU researchers to study effect of fatigue on attention

WSU researchers to study effect of fatigue on attention [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 22-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Judith Van Dongen
jcvd@wsu.edu
509-358-7524
Washington State University

Results could improve 24-hour operations, safety

SPOKANE, Wash. A team of researchers at Washington State University has received a three-year, $895,558 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Naval Research to study the effects of fatigue on attention, decision making and their underlying biology. The study is part of a continuing line of WSU research looking at the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive functioning.

The study may lead to more efficient staffing of Navy ships and other around-the-clock operations or safety-sensitive work environments.

The study takes off on earlier work that yielded two new findings, said principal investigator Hans Van Dongen, a research professor with the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center. He and his collaborators showed that how we respond to sleep deprivation differs from person to person, based on our biology.

They also discovered that it depends in part on the task we're trying to perform. One person may handle sleep deprivation well in one task but badly in another. The reverse may be true for someone else.

"So how do we know how someone will do on a task that is operationally relevant but that cannot be readily practiced, such as decision making under challenging circumstances?" said Van Dongen.

To find the answer, Van Dongen teamed with: cognitive scientists and longtime research collaborators John Hinson and Paul Whitney, both professors of psychology in the WSU College of Arts and Sciences; military operational task expert Bryan Vila, a professor of criminal justice and criminology in the WSU College of Arts and Sciences; and Dr. Matt Layton, a clinical associate professor of medicine at WSU and the physician of record for the study.

The research team designed an experiment that will look specifically at the effects of sleep deprivation on distinct attention systems that can be separated out.

Whitney said that when making decisions based on information that comes in over time, people generally use one of two strategies to focus their attention: a bottom-up strategy, in which they wait until they have all information and can compare the earlier with the later; or a top-down strategy, in which they use early information to make a decision and use later information to confirm the accuracy of that decision.

During the experiment, study participants will complete laboratory attention tasks before, during and after a period of sleep deprivation to determine whether they tend to use a bottom-up or top-down attention control strategy. Based on the participants' performance, the researchers will predict their response to a set of deadly force judgment and decision making scenarios while sleep deprived.

The scenarios will be played out in the Sleep and Performance Research Center's simulation laboratory, which contains two high-fidelity shooting simulators. Depending on the scenario, the use of a firearm may or may not be justified.

"When people must rapidly determine whether deadly force is warranted, they may be primed to shoot or not to shoot, depending on the circumstances," said Whitney. "For those people who are top-down processors, when they make an error, we think it's going to be more likely an error of shooting when they shouldn't have shot. People who are bottom-up are more likely to make an error in the other directionthey may hold off to wait for more information until it's too late."

The researchers will use data to enhance an individualized fatigue prediction model they are developing to enable task-specific predictions of fatigue-related performance impairment. They will also look for genetic markers that explain the individual differences in how people respond to fatigue for the top-down and bottom-up control strategies.

Van Dongen said the study ties together a decade of collaborative work on different but related tracks to address questions of individual differences in vulnerability to sleep loss, all the way from the laboratory to the operational world.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


WSU researchers to study effect of fatigue on attention [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 22-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Judith Van Dongen
jcvd@wsu.edu
509-358-7524
Washington State University

Results could improve 24-hour operations, safety

SPOKANE, Wash. A team of researchers at Washington State University has received a three-year, $895,558 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Naval Research to study the effects of fatigue on attention, decision making and their underlying biology. The study is part of a continuing line of WSU research looking at the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive functioning.

The study may lead to more efficient staffing of Navy ships and other around-the-clock operations or safety-sensitive work environments.

The study takes off on earlier work that yielded two new findings, said principal investigator Hans Van Dongen, a research professor with the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center. He and his collaborators showed that how we respond to sleep deprivation differs from person to person, based on our biology.

They also discovered that it depends in part on the task we're trying to perform. One person may handle sleep deprivation well in one task but badly in another. The reverse may be true for someone else.

"So how do we know how someone will do on a task that is operationally relevant but that cannot be readily practiced, such as decision making under challenging circumstances?" said Van Dongen.

To find the answer, Van Dongen teamed with: cognitive scientists and longtime research collaborators John Hinson and Paul Whitney, both professors of psychology in the WSU College of Arts and Sciences; military operational task expert Bryan Vila, a professor of criminal justice and criminology in the WSU College of Arts and Sciences; and Dr. Matt Layton, a clinical associate professor of medicine at WSU and the physician of record for the study.

The research team designed an experiment that will look specifically at the effects of sleep deprivation on distinct attention systems that can be separated out.

Whitney said that when making decisions based on information that comes in over time, people generally use one of two strategies to focus their attention: a bottom-up strategy, in which they wait until they have all information and can compare the earlier with the later; or a top-down strategy, in which they use early information to make a decision and use later information to confirm the accuracy of that decision.

During the experiment, study participants will complete laboratory attention tasks before, during and after a period of sleep deprivation to determine whether they tend to use a bottom-up or top-down attention control strategy. Based on the participants' performance, the researchers will predict their response to a set of deadly force judgment and decision making scenarios while sleep deprived.

The scenarios will be played out in the Sleep and Performance Research Center's simulation laboratory, which contains two high-fidelity shooting simulators. Depending on the scenario, the use of a firearm may or may not be justified.

"When people must rapidly determine whether deadly force is warranted, they may be primed to shoot or not to shoot, depending on the circumstances," said Whitney. "For those people who are top-down processors, when they make an error, we think it's going to be more likely an error of shooting when they shouldn't have shot. People who are bottom-up are more likely to make an error in the other directionthey may hold off to wait for more information until it's too late."

The researchers will use data to enhance an individualized fatigue prediction model they are developing to enable task-specific predictions of fatigue-related performance impairment. They will also look for genetic markers that explain the individual differences in how people respond to fatigue for the top-down and bottom-up control strategies.

Van Dongen said the study ties together a decade of collaborative work on different but related tracks to address questions of individual differences in vulnerability to sleep loss, all the way from the laboratory to the operational world.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/wsu-wrt032213.php

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Defense Department says it will delay furloughs (The Arizona Republic)

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