February 2019
This newsletter is a collection of things I have found in the last month that I enjoyed, found interesting, or simply wanted to share.
You can follow me more closely at my personal website or if you or someone you know is looking to buy or sell a home, you can point them to my real estate website.
“Is my brain intact?”
The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber
Honnold is twice as sensation-seeking as the average person, and fully 20 percent higher than the average high sensation seeker. The most likely explanation for his flatline amygdala activation in the scanner, Joseph says, is that the tasks she set for him simply were not strong enough tea.
Honnold also scores as exceedingly conscientious, associated with the ability to concentrate, remain focused on a task, and see things through. He also surveyed high in premeditation, his typical modus operandi, and very low in neuroticism, making him unlikely to ruminate over unlikely outcomes or risks that are impossible to manage. “If you don’t have any fear to begin with,” Honnold says, “there’s a lot less to control.”
“He has the traits that enable him to be incredibly focused, and incredibly patient, but at the same time totally sensation seeking,” Joseph says.
Honnald’s most acclaimed climb is being the first free solo (climb without ropes) El Capitan. The documentary featuring this achievement, Free Solo, was recently nominated for an Oscar.
The movie is a 97 minute stress test.
Putt-Putt
Analysis: Putting with the Flagstick In
As part of the USGA’s 2019 Rule changes, there is no longer a penalty if a ball played from the putting green hits a flagstick left in the hole.
TLDR; You should leave the flagstick in.
- The flagstick slows the ball by a greater factor than it decreases the time the ball spends suspended over the hole.
- Unless you have exceptional distance control, effective capture speed can remain about the same.
- Hitting the ball more firmly allows for a larger margin of error. It also reduces the tendency of a slow-moving putt to “wobble” or be moved off-line due to imperfections.
- Players, particularly poorer putters, leave a lot of putts from 6' to 15' short. This change would let them be more aggressive.
- The situations where the flagstick should be removed (it leans too much, it’s moving around a lot in the wind) almost never occur.
- The flagstick offers an aid - it gives the player yet another point or two at which to aim.
Bryson DeChambeau, the most scientific player on tour (at least boastfully), says that he will almost always leave the flagstick in because of the “coefficient of restitution”. Good to know.
“Cable Guy!”
I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America.
I can’t tell you about a specific day as a cable tech. I can’t tell you my first customer was a cat hoarder. I can tell you the details, sure. That I smeared Vicks on my lip to try to cover the stench of rugs and walls and upholstery soaked in cat piss. That I wore booties, not to protect the carpets from the mud on my boots but to keep the cat piss off my soles. I can tell you the problem with her cable service was that her cats chewed through the wiring. That I had to move a mummified cat behind the television to replace the jumper. That ammonia seeped into the polyester fibers of my itchy blue uniform, clung to the sweat in my hair. That the smell stuck to me through the next job.
Links
- The Most Meaningless Game of Major League Baseball in 2018
- Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old
- Inverted Grand Canyon
- G-y-l-l-e-n-h-a-a-l
- The Speed of Light on Earth
Sign Off
Do not hesitate to reply to this months email to share links, wisdom, or thoughts.
Thanks for reading. Have a great month,
Clay
How kind of you to make your way down here.
A bit about me: I can be interested in anything, for better or worse. I love photography, travel, golf, and baseball. My latest pursuit is learning the guitar. I write a rad newsletter that I publish monthly.