Demo

Demonsrtatsia na performancing (pic taken with Dimity's new Razr):

Lots of fun suggestions to try on a unicycle

Fun things to try with your unicycle

Hopping up stairs Idle/hover parallel to the steps, and hop up sideways, one at a time Rotate either direction while hopping. Crush coke cans by hopping. Try to do several in a row, hopping from one to the next. Juggling There are many possibilities here - anything you can do with juggling, you can try on a uni - except maybe picking up clubs with your feet! Hills - up or down. Short, steep hills can be a challenge to climb - see if you can get up enough speed to power to the top before losing momentum and falling off. Snow! Snow and Hills! Uni basketball Especially fun with a giraffe on each team. Uni diving, etc.

Random things heard on the radio

-many countries of the Commonwealth, e.g. South Africa and Barbados do not have indexed pensions, which means that retried people get paid in local currency, but without the conversion taking iflation into consideration. However, if they go to the Phillipines or Jamaica or back to the UK, they'll be all right.
-retirement villages' contracts can be pretty harsh on their residents: e.g. you may move in with your pet, but if it dies you don't get to have a replacement; you can't resell you retirement appartment at the market price, you have to sell it back to the village organisers at the price you bought it; you may get kicked out to a nursing home if the village organisers decide that your "condition" is no longer good enough for the village; privacy is out the door, since people can just waltz in your appartment to "check for things that need repair"; etc.
-the new Wembley stadium will cover 2million square feet. It will have "something for the whole family": museums, bars, gyms, restaurants (including the 4 biggest ones in London consisting of 800 to 2000 seats each).
-a theory has been proposed to use the socio-economically disadvantaged schools in Australia as the proverbial cannary in the mine. If they are not coping then the whole thing is about to explode.
-aggression in children is observed at ages as early as 17 months old. Since such traits seem to be unavoidable, the suggested approach to combat onset of violence is to teach kids (as early as possible) to control the aggression in order to communicate better with their peers, i.e. a form of emotional intelligence.
-word of the day: excoriate: to express strong disapproval of; also, to flay.
Hopefully the word of tomorrow will be flay.
-quote of the day by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking." and so we keep watching our TVs. Also let's not forget that looking is not seeing. I wonder where seeing rates in his scale. I think that it's close to thinking, so we've gone a full circle.

Tennis balls for resistance training in canoeing

World of Endurance | | Article

So how does one go about resistance training? The traditional resistance device was like a small parachute, made from canvas or plastic, which was hung off the back of the boat (tricky if the boat has an understern rudder!). This created the required drag off the stern of the boat, but pulled the boat off trim. The modern thinking has evolved to tennis balls slung under the hull on a piece of string or elastic. This transfers the drag to the centre of the hull under the paddler, and is far more effective. Simply take three tennis balls, drill a hole right through the balls, and thread then onto a piece of string or bungee cord, which is then tied around the hull behind the cockpit, with the balls directly underneath the hull. The drag created by these balls is quite surprising. Three balls is a tough resistance training session, two balls is moderate and one less demanding. So adjust the number of balls according to your needs. It is also a clever way of training a group of paddlers of differing abilities. For example, a good senior male paddler, with three balls resistance, could have a junior boy with two balls on one wave, and a junior girl towing one ball on the other wave, quite easily. Set up the training session so that 75% of the training time is done under resistance, and the final 25% without the resistance, when you can really appreciate the speed, power, and, importantly the “feel” of the water. As you get closer to competition, cut down the resistance portion to 50%.

Braindance

New Scientist Do the brainwave boogie-woogie - Features

Hinterberger straps electroencephalograph (EEG) electrodes to their heads to read the jumble of electric signals produced by their brain activity. The signals are then filtered and processed by a computer to isolate low-frequency brainwaves. Hinterberger has developed software that converts these brainwaves into a visual representation such as a movable cursor on a computer screen, so that patients can use this visual feedback to learn to control their brain waves and move the cursor. A few have learned to surf the web in this way.

Brain areas deactivated in women during orgasm

New Scientist Women's orgasms are a turn-off for the brain - News

As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity decreased in many more areas of the brain.
The findings appear to confirm what we already know: that women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries and distractions. Looked at from an evolutionary point of view, it could be that the brain switches off the emotions during sex because at such times reproduction and survival of the species become more important than survival of the individual.
The team has already done a similar study with 11 men, which revealed far less deactivation during orgasm than in women. However, Holstege says the results are probably unreliable because PET scanners measure activity over 2 minutes - and in men it's all over in a few seconds.