Chess legend Bobby Fischer is dead at the age of 64.

1. Fischer was a schoolmate of singer Barbara Streisand when both attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.
2. Fischer later dropped out of school in 1959 when he turned 16.
3. The movie Searching For Bobby Fischer is not about Bobby Fischer, but actually about the life of another chess prodigy, Joshua Waitzkin. Fischer only appears in the movie in the form of archival news footage.
4. Fischer learned how to play chess from instructions found in a chess set that his sister bought at a candy store.
5. Fischer remains the youngest ever United States Junior Chess Champion.
6. Fischer played in eight United States Chess Championships, each held in New York City, winning every one. This string includes his 11-0 win in the 1963-1964 championship, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament, and one of only a handful of perfect scores in high-level chess tournaments ever. Read the rest of this entry »

10. It’s not another American version of Godzilla. (Thank God!)

Let’s get this out of the way first. This movie is not 1998’s Hollywood version of Godzilla. Nor is it the movie that Godzilla should’ve been. Really, aside from the fact that both films feature a gigantic creature thrashing about New York, they’re so different in style and intent that any comparisons beyond that should be immediately disregarded. In other words, forget Godzilla. That movie sucked. Cloverfield, meanwhile, is something different entirely, and warrants all the hype it’s gotten thus far.
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This is a chart showing the current delegate count amongst the GOP candidates, after last night’s Michigan primary.

Tongue very much in cheek, but very funny.

1: Online gaming is serious business:
So, you finally got your game hooked up and are ready to play. Now, you may be forgiven for thinking that online gaming is about having fun. You are very wrong and you will learn this in due time. Because we gamers are too physically weak to pick random fights in bars, we must assert our alpha male dominance another way — by twiddling our fingers around on buttons until virtual representations of people we don’t know simulate death.

This is your life now, and you are connected, physically and emotionally, to your in-game avatar. When they frag you, do you not bleed? Well, no you don’t but that’s not the point. You will mourn him for every second of that respawn countdown. His digital death just killed a little piece of you, and you will avenge with the fury of a thousand angry Gods.

In team games, if you are losing, remember to berate your teammates and tell them how much they suck. You won’t be making a fool out of yourself for ordering them around and reminding them that your side is losing and nobody’s helping you win. Also, you must use words like “alpha,” all the time, just like you’re a real army man!
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Know this: “You’ll be able to comfortably work out longer and harder if you’re cool,” says Len Kravitz, PhD, coordinator of exercise science at the University of New Mexico. “Being too hot stresses your body out, so you don’t perform as well.” Translation: You burn less fat.

Do this: When exercising at home, put a fan in front of your workout area. Hitting the gym? Wait to use the treadmill that has a fan built into the console.
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Newsweek has a fascinating article up about Alcides Moreno, an Ecuadorian native who survived a 500-foot fall off of a Manhattan building. Most people don’t survive a 4-story fall. It’s a great article that I encourage you to read. But I was interested in summing up the physics and the lessons of surviving such a fall, based on the details of the story.

How To Survive A 500-Foot Fall:

1. Find a way to increase the air drag on your body. In Moreno’s case, he clung to his window-washer’s platform as he fell. The flat plank increased his surface area and could have slowed his descent somewhat. Anything you can do to increase your surface area and slow you down is a plus. Also, Read the rest of this entry »

Step 1. Visualize

Where have you been in your life? How did you get to where you are today? How will you get where you want to be tomorrow?

It is important to understand where we’ve come from and how we are going to get to the next step in our lives. By visualizing where you want to be, you start helping your mind formulate ways to achieve that next goal in your life. It’s a powerful tool and one that many successful people have used to find their own happiness in life.

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Myth #1: “I can’t afford to have kids”

It’s true that a baby brings with it an assortment of expenses you once would have never considered. The funny thing is, though, you will find a way to make things work. You have to.

Now that I am a parent I am more motivated to succeed than I once could have ever imagined. This motivation has led me to sort out my finances, simplify my life, attain a higher paying job and, perhaps most importantly, establish multiple streams of income. Expenses will inevitably rise when you have kids, but use this as motivation to increase your income and simplify your life.

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