Kenny Smith (doesn't) jump over an Aston Martin!

This is one thing I love about the guys on the TNT Post show. They're very funny. Check out this clip which spoofs Kobe's latest Nike commercial. Very funny.

How We're Wrecking Our Feet With Every Step We Take -- New York Magazine

I try to walk for 30 minutes everyday. It feels good to have this walk. Turns out though that the highly padded shoes I've been wearing could be hurting me more than helping. Check out this article in the NY Magazine. Here are some alternative shoes to going barefoot:

MASAI BAREFOOT TECHNOLOGY

The thick sole mimics the soft, unstable ground on which our ancestors walked. But your foot won’t roll through each step—the sole does the rolling for you.

NIKE FREE

After decades of gimmicky shoes, Nike released the Free: light and flexible, and available in various stages, with Free 5.0 pitched as halfway to barefoot.

VIVO BAREFOOT

Basically a leather slipper with a 3-mm.-thick puncture-resistant sole. It’s thin enough to feel pebbles underfoot and flexible enough to fold in half like a wallet.

VIBRAM FIVE FINGERS

This fabric-and-rubber sock with individuated toes is primarily for outdoor sports like kayaking—though at least one entrant wore them to run in the Boston Marathon.

How We're Wrecking Our Feet With Every Step We Take -- New York Magazine

FoodFeed.us and Twitter

When twitter first came out, I thought I wouldn't want to know what my friends were up to all the time. Well, that was one misconception I had about twitter. Twitter is pretty cool, when I have time to pay attention to it.

This new service foodfeed.us looks interesting. It allows you to post from twitter, updates on what you're eating. I'll use it as a food tracker for now but part of me wonders if this is like TMI (too much info). [Btw, if you're mind immediately wonders if there will be feeds for other necessary body functions, then please drop me a line so I know I'm not alone ;-) .]

FoodFeed.us

Sync your Facebook contacts with Outlook & Windows Mobile

Just tried this and the outlook integration is pretty cool. I don't have a windows mobile phone but I'll try to see if it works with the Treo. In my case the app did crash but it does work in importing the pics to outlook. Check out the demo from the developer here:

Sync your Facebook contacts with Outlook (and Windows Mobile)

Educators Corner: Stanford Videos/Podcasts

My iPod has been playing these great Stanford talks from industry professionals. These podcasts talk about entrepreneurship, leadership, etc. Well worth listening to:

Educators Corner: Top 20 Videos

Tennis Lookalikes: Rafa, Novak, Roger, Marat, etc

Plan vs Planning

I saw an article on goal achieving (yet again) and one of the items it mentioned was planning for the next day, week, etc. I casually asked my friend if he planned his days. He sent me this interesting quote from Eisenhower:

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

I asked him what he thought the difference between plan and planning meant and I like his explanation:

ME: "Does he mean it's more important to go through the act of planning and then dump the plan which comes out of it?"

Friend: "not dump the plan, but not to treat the plan as a set of instructions. Circumstances often invalidate the plan, especially longer term plans, but the act of planning prepares the planner for the future even when they have to stray from or abandon the original plan."

Anyway's, as a little reminder to myself to go through the act of planning, I've posted this entry. Thanks goes to my friend Drew.

Lessons from the zoo – applied in the bedroom

I once visited UC Berkeley in the 90s with my friend Sumit. We met up with Sumit's friend, Bunty, who lived just off campus in a shared house with 3 other guys. Now Bunty was a nice and down-to-earth kind of guy. Even while finishing up his Phd and working on some cool eye technology at the time. What was surprising was the other three guys in the house. They were completely reclusive. Not very friendly, communicative, etc. When I asked Bunty how he could live with these guys who were so closed off/anti-social, he said that it was even worse when he first met them. Bunty said that he had to train them to change. So I was like WTF. In my younger days this was crazy thinking. That you can change somebody. But what he meant was that you can encourage people to change. Of course the change still comes from within but positive reinforcement towards the desired behavior is the key. This article below describes an animal trainer's approach to this type of encouragement to change behaviors:

The rules are simple. Reward the behaviour you want. Ignore the behaviour you don't want

globeandmail.com: Lessons from the zoo – applied in the bedroom