Thursday, April 30, 2009

NY Times Reports on Ultimate Frisbee


Women's Ultimate is undoubtedly getting exponentially more recognition, as proven by the NY Times' interest in reporting on the sport.

Indeed, it is true that this sport beautifully combines gracefulness, agility, endurance, and speed- qualities that draw top-notch players, making the sport a much more intensely athletic activity than most envision.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/fashion/30fitness.html?_r=1


In response to some of the concern that ultimate has become "too competitive" in relation to what started out as a very laid-back, informal activity, I'd like to point out that Frisbee can be played in a variety of settings and manners- that's one of the great aspects of the sport.
The highly competitive level of play, however, does not at all degrade from the original mentality that the sport was created on. Refer to the UPA's description of the "Spirit of the Game" to see that the sport is solidly founded on the notion that players are required to play with positive spirit. The fact that no referees are involved in the games ensures that teams are fair and honest, treating each other as they wish to be treated.
http://upa.org/spirit

One of the best parts about Frisbee is that the level of intensity of the game can raise to an adrenaline-racing level, where you're running through your last breath, laying out and hitting the ground hard to grab that almost-out-of-reach pass, and soaring through the air to snatch a disc high above your defender, and do all of that without ever physically bullying your defender (which is the case in many other sports: basketball, soccer etc. where games quickly turn into a "bullying" contest instead of an athelticism, teamwork and skill competition)

:) :) :) *sigh* Frisbee!

Monday, April 27, 2009

Number One!

MIT:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/usnews-grad-0423.html

OSU:
http://osu.okstate.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1461&Itemid=1

Our team's airplane last year was much cooler (and more innovative!) of course, but I'm still proud to see OSU dominating the DBF competition :)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Get your genome sequenced

If you have $68,000, you can put in an eBay bid to get your genome sequenced.

XPrize at work again!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/genome.ebay/

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Out with the old, in with the new

Everybody knows that I'm a cheap-o, but recently I've been forced to make a couple new purchases.

The backpack I was using for a long time started falling apart. If you can't tell from the picture, one of the straps was hanging on by only a few strands.
It lasted through hiking the Alps and up Half Dome in Yosemite, so I guess a new backpack was deserved.In its place, I got a Patagonia Half Mass Messenger Bag (got a sweet deal on it), which is moving me one step closer to completing my transformation into a true urbanite (HA!). It's made out of recycled material, came with a laptop insert and water bottle holder unlike the Timbuk2 bags that everyone else buys.


The other major purchase was a new laptop!!! After several difficulties with the Acer I got 3 years ago (which I was holding onto dearly, since it was my main form of payment from my internship in Taiwan that I worked so hard on), it crashed for the second time and I decided it would be more beneficial in all aspects to just buy a new system.
I bought basically the cheapest thing I could find that wasn't a mini.
Dell Inspiron 1300
13.3" screen
4.9 lbs
160 GB hard drive
Processor: Celeron 560, 2.13 GHz
Need to buy more memory for it

Nothing fancy, but should hopefully prove to be cheap and reliable. It's also thinner and sleeker than most Dells, so that's nice.


Next up: Buy a new bike. Mine has been stolen, despite the fact that it was locked to a rack with a heavy duty U-Lock.....

Buy a new violin. More details on that to come!

My cheap-o ways are being forced out of me at the moment..............

Saturday, April 11, 2009

My First New England Winter

I guess it is officially spring now, so perhaps it is time to reflect on my journey through a "real" winter for the first time.

Before starting school here, I viewed the idea of a harsh Boston winter very negatively, going so far as to even consider not choosing this school because of that fact alone. However, having survived one round of it, I've learned a few things.

- As long as you wear enough layers (not just on your upper body), most of the cold feeling goes away. (Amazing how I wasn't aware of this simple concept)
- Experiencing different seasons is a wonderful thing! (I didn't understand this until I experienced it myself.....)
-Learn to go skiing early in the winter season. It's great to have something to look forward to in the winter months (ice hockey and ice skating are also great fun)
-Feeling crisp air on your face as you walk to class can be quite a refreshing way to start the day.
-People (myself included) wear shorts on the first day that 50 degree weather arrives.



Now, having said those positive things, I must admit that I am quite ready for warmer days to come now. Seriously.... it is April and I still have to wear gloves and a hat at night. Not to mention, at our frisbee tournament today in Rhode Island, it SNOWED. The conditions were far more rainy and cold than I have ever experienced while playing frisbee. I'm not used to this: in Oklahoma it might unexpectedly start raining, but nothing there (in weather terms) lasts more than a couple hours. This was unrelenting.

Ahhhh sweaty summer months, hurry up and get here so I can start wearing T-shirts outside again and play frisbee under the SUN.

Friday, April 3, 2009

New NASA Policy

"NASA has taken action to rebalance the aging workforce and adopted a policy and goal that 50% of all new civil servant hires will be fresh-out hires."


http://www.opennasa.com/2009/04/02/balancing-nasas-workforce/