I’m renaming this segment “The Not-So-Weekly Rapport” since I clearly do not write this weekly but rather whenever the wind blows my way and I feel like writing an article. Well the wind blew my way this week, so enjoy my tidbits of time-draining things:
Book I’m Reading
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
If you’re deep in the fitness/motivational podcast world of Joe Rogan, Rich Roll, Jocko Willink – or you’ve read Jesse Itzler’s Living with a Seal (an awesome and hilarious book by the way) – then you’ve probably heard of David Goggins. If not, then let me introduce you to possibly the hardest motherfucker on the planet.
He grew up broke in Buffalo and Indiana, his dad beat him, his stepdad was murdered, he couldn’t read until he was 14, had no self esteem, went to the Air Force, dropped out became a Pest Control Exterminator, hated himself, and weighed 297 pounds. So instead of sitting around and moping about it, he decided to change.
He lost 106 lbs. in 3 months, taught himself to swim, started going on long walks, then long bike rides, eventually leading up to long runs coupled with push-ups and pull-ups. Then he went to BUD/s, the training school and try-outs to become a Navy SEAL – the toughest, most elite military unit in the universe. He went through not one, not two, but THREE Hell Weeks, became only the 36th African American SEAL in history, ran 100 miles in 18 hours despite never having ran more than a marathon in his life, became an ultra-runner, IronMan, triathlete, went on to become an Army Ranger because he was bored, had three heart surgeries, and became one of the most decorated recruiters in Navy SEAL history. Oh, and he set the Guinness World Record for most pull-ups done in 24 hours.
He’s now a motivational speaker and best-selling author. Talk about no excuses. Read his book and get a god damn fire lit under your ass.
TED Talk We All Should Watch
If you’re like me, you knew next to nothing about American politics until November 2016. Hopefully, you’re not like me and actually paid attention in school.
I literally never paid one ounce of attention to politics until I was 24 years old. I know, it’s stupid… But since late 2016, I’ve been devouring books, podcasts, and interviews to understand as much as I can about politics since the stuff we learned in school was basically a tampered down, politically correct, positively biased version of our system.
We ALL know our political system is broken. Literally any human being in America you ask right now will tell you that. Yet that’s not what they teach us in school. They teach us that the founding fathers did this, that, and the other thing and it’s all workingin accordance with each other blah, blah, blah. Hence why I didn’t focus too much on it.
But in this TED Talk, Lawrence Lessig breaks down just how incredibly broken our American political system is and the different ways we can fix it. I won’t spoil it for you, but almost all of it boils down to the corrupt (yet, totally legal) practice of private candidate funding, lobbyists, and raising money for campaigns. Check it out and learn yourself a thing or two.
Insane Stats I’m Still Wrapping My Head Around
1. 44 reasons Barry Sanders’ 1988 is the greatest season in football history
Barry Sanders 1987 Heisman Year stats at OSU may very well make him the greatest college football player to ever live. I’ve read this article twice and still don’t get it. Barry Sanders, Ken Griffey Jr. and Michael Jordan were my first favorite athletes when I was 6 years old. I cried when Barry Sanders retired at his peak. But now I get to enjoy Saquon Barkley, the second coming of Barry, on the New York Football Giants every week. No one will ever match that agility though. Look at that picture. INSANE.
Yes, of course I’ll provide a link to Barry Sanders highlights!
2. We all know Steph Curry is good at shooting threes, right? Yea, but he’s actually WAY better than you even think he is… by A LOT.
Great Reads Across the Internet
- The Amazing 30 Year Odyssey of a Counterfeit Saudi Prince: My buddy Pat sent this to me the other day and it’s nuts. A young American kid pretended to be a Saudi prince almost his entire life by putting on a false front and spending unheard of amounts of money. It’s basically a modern day Catch Me if You Can combined with the Wolf of Wall Street, but with a Saudi prince as the main character, not Leondardo DiCaprio (weird how he’s the lead in both of those movies).
- Should We Be Worried About Computerized Facial Recognition?: “Faces, unlike fingerprints or iris patterns, can easily be recorded without the knowledge of the people they belong to, and that means that facial recognition can be used for remote surveillance. “We would be horrified if law-enforcement agents were to walk through a protest demanding that everybody show their identification,” Garvie said. “Yet that’s what face recognition enables.” Computer-vision systems potentially allow cops and employers to track behaviors and activities that are none of their business, such as where you hang out after work, which fund-raisers you attend, and what that slight tremor in your hand (recorded by the camera in the elevator that you ride to your office every morning) portends about the size of your future medical claims.”
And lastly, here’s my favorite song of the week by Lake Street Dive, a blues-y rock band from Boston.
Happy Holidays
-KB
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