Does a Roomba actually vacuum the whole floor? Yup:

(via simple complexity)

The best trailer in front of Inglourious Basterds was for Youth in Revolt. Also, while it wasn’t long enough to contend, the Inception teaser (Christopher Nolan) is enticing.

Inhuman. Usain Bolt breaks the unbreakable record again, by a ton. 19.19 in the 200m. The gap he opens up in this race, oh my.

Here’s the trailer for The Cove, a documentary that looks to be equal parts thrilling and profoundly depressing. (via kottke)

Here’s an HD video of Usain Bolt crushing his own world record in the 100 meters. 9.58! Tyson Gay turns in the third-fastest time in history at 9.71.

Goddammit, I thought we were done with this shit.

I’m sure I’m catching this on the tail end of the wave, but Bobby McFerrin’s audience-based demonstration of the pentatonic scale is fantastic.

From the same guys that did that fantastic chocolate bunny apocalypse video:

I’ve sung the praises of Tabata intervals many times, so it’s only fair that I include this interesting reality check from Lyle McDonald.

The winners of caption contest #197, plus my losing entry:

Thought I had this one. Looking at some of the others that didn’t make the cut, I just don’t know what passes for funny with the editor who picks the finalists. New gatekeeper, please!

If you read rec.sport.disc via Google Groups or some other spam-laden interface, I worked up an alternative with Yahoo Pipes. Here is a spam-filtered pipe of new RSD topics, and here is a spam-filtered pipe of all RSD messages.

Both those pages include various other subscription options, including RSS, e-mail, and others. Clicking any headline will bring you to the post in Google Groups, where you can read as usual. If there are certain authors you want to filter out you can use my Toadless script.

Another cool thing—and this is key—look for the “Clone” link on the filtered results above. This feature allows you to make your own version of the pipe (it has a nice, non-technical interface) should you want to filter out particular authors, or if the spammers change habits and stuff starts sneaking through. You can customize it to fit your own needs, and then use your cloned pipe instead of mine.

So far, the above plus Toadless pretty much fixes RSD for my purposes.

P.S. What you REALLY want is to subscribe to the pipes above using a newsreader. They are great for keeping up with various Ultimate weblogs and RSD at the same time (and any other sites that offer newsfeeds, for that matter). Google Reader is a great one, here’s a little intro from Google.

I have no idea if this works, but awhile ago Jason Ferruggia was touting Jon Hind’s Power Jumper. Hind is the former strength coach for the LA Clippers. It wasn’t enough to get me to buy the product, but I am playing with a homegrown version that uses a couple Iron Woody bands I already had on hand tied together, plus a couple NRS straps for attaching them to my feet. Works great. Hinds' jump training program (PDF) is available online.

The other interesting thing I came across was Andrew Darqui’s Iso Extension Stims. I tried these yesterday for the first time, using a Glute Ham Raise machine instead of one of those 45-degree things, making sure to point my toes, while pulling on a band to pile on the resistance. I followed the protocol described in section 5, “Example Usage & Session”, but for vertical leap, and I did gain two or three inches between my first set and my last. Since my vertical is pretty meager, this is a big percentage gain (but also means I have more room for improvement). LOTS of disclaimers though: I used a different machine, I’m not a very good jumper so it’s not hard for me to get better, I’m not sure I did it right, maybe I got better just by being more warmed up, etc. But I’ll keep working ‘em in and see how it goes.