News Blip: Marathon, Apple Tech, and Felines

Athletics: Roger Bannister, born almost 80 years ago, in 1929, was the first human ever to run a mile in under four-minutes. He accomplished this amazing feat in 1954 during a track meet in Oxford, UK. The winds were high at first, died down, Bannister ran, and when the announcer announced his time of "3..." the crowd went mad. His official time was 3:59.4.
That's a great achievement but what was even more fascinating that the psychological barrier was shattered. Instantly after Bannister did a sub-4, other runners believed it was possible and consequentially more and more sub-4 miles were accomplished. John Walker went on to run 129 sub-4 miles, alone, and Daniel Komen of Kenya, in 1997, doubled up Bannister's original record to run a sub-8 minute 2-mile (two sub-4 miles back to back). So all this "breaking the barrier" business in athletics -- or any arena of accomplishment -- has a big emphasis.

Certainly, three sub-4 miles back to back resulting in a sub-12 minute 3-mile race is certainly a goal for some, but an even more prominent goal is the sub-2-hour marathon barrier. People have gotten close, but no one has ever run a marathon in an amount of time that begins with "1-hour"...x minutes, x seconds. Right now, the person to do that most likely is Gebrselassie, an amazing Ethiopian runner. You can read the full article, but basically prior to Haile Gebrselassie's race in Berlin about 2 weeks ago a 2-hour 4-minute marathon was a barrier. Gebrselassie went on to break that with a 4:44 mile pace to get 2:03:59. There are skeptics and optimists of the 2-hour marathon barrier, but if anything, Gebrselassie brought the world a whole lot closer to the accomplishment of shattering such an outstanding barrier.

Bottom-line: Gebrselassie pushes the sub-2-hour marathon record.

Bizarro News: I normally don't cover the disturbing or unsavory news, but this murder trial of a former "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" actor was just too, well, bizarre. He lured some yacht sellers out onto the boat and apparently tied them to an anchor, plunging them to a watery death. I'd like to know how they discovered his guilt, maybe they had Angela Lansbury on the case, and frankly this sounds like something out an episode of Murder She Wrote, as opposed to real-life!.
And for some comic relief from the above incident "SNL's People getting punched in the face just before eating!".

Technology: I know I covered Apple's "iBrick" rumors last week, but frankly, I just love this IT company. New news with Apple is that they've released an LCD screen designed for it's simplicity in connected with a macbook notebook and a new macbook notebook, sleeker and more polished in its appearance, making it someone visually similar to a miniature macbook pro. Personally, I liked the sturdiness of the older version macbook, which was built like a tank. But nothing can beat the humor of the iBook version 1 which has become notoriously known around the mac community as the "toilet seat notebook" because of its uncanny, um, hardware design.

Kudos for Apple's release of the new macbooks, but honestly I think the LCD was a bit overkill. Apple has released some incredible monitors and LCDs for high-end graphics, those are only mainly used for high-end graphic designers; the typical consumers will just vie for a cheaper LCD screen to connect their macbook to a desktop environment. But it's certainly excellent to know that the LCD option exists for die-hard apple fans (like myself).

Miscellaneous-Home: One of the things I like most about this guy is that he's not special, certified trainer. He's just a normal bloke who seemed to have taught himself how to train a cat! The scientific theory behind all of the conditioning is fascinating as well as nostalgic. I remember training a rat to tap a lever and visit different corners of a box for a psychology class. It's just amazing watching the cat -- over the course of a very short period, no doubt -- slowly get the gist of the "light switch gimmick". Over the course of the operant conditioning period, you can almost just envision that cat saying to itself:"Well, I don't really know what this is about, but if I bump that white thing...how do I bump it again?...oh alright, I flick this stupid thing and I get food, so works for me!"

Works for me, too. Clicker-training has a fascinating background and Skinner's operant conditioning functions as its fundamentals. It's fun for the pet; fun for you, and simply illuminating (pun unintended) to see the applications of science in your pet from turning on a light switch to other tricks!

Bottom-line: Operant conditioning applies to household pets.

Real estate: Apparently there's some discrepancies in data that show southern californian homes being some of the most expensive, and now, they apparently look as though the prices of plummeted, resulting in a greater number of house sells in recent months.

"Last month's median home price in the six-county region fell 33.2 percent to $308,500 in the six-county region, compared to $462,000 in September 2007, San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said"

. Interesting, well high or low-priced, still a great place.

Bottom-line: House prices decreases, causing house sales to increase.

Good Times:  At least the Aussies still know how to have fun  Graduating 12 years from Xavier College allegedly streaked through their school wearing the ties as g-strings, set off fire works, and caused a ruckus like no other on their "Muck up Day" as a graduation prank.  It's hysterical if you read the readers comments.  Some woman apparently got her her gnomes beheaded and bird bath tipped!  And another '68 alumni praised the pranksters! Ah, the life down under! hehe.