findingDulcinea

Boxing: The Key to a Marathon PR?

I’ve been running off and on since high school. But for a 10-year stretch, there was more “off” than “on” going on. Law school at night, 80-hour weeks at a law firm, launching a dot-com, and three kids left me little time to run. Around 2000, I rejuvenated my routine. As I previously wrote, between 2004 to 2007 I ran three marathons. I struggled to finish the first two in just over 5 hours and was pleased. On my third try, I finished in 4:54 and suddenly realized that I was capable of much better.

This year, I trained harder and smarter, lost 31 pounds in four months and went to the start far fitter than before. My final time was 4:18, a 36-minute PR. Part of my success can be attributed to eating better and training more consistently. But a major boost came from an unexpected source: boxing class. Yes, two to three mornings per week since July, I have risen at 5 a.m. and participated in a boot camp-style boxing exercise workout, the apex of which is a three-minute sparring session with the instructor.

The short-duration, high-intensity style of boxing works your heart, lungs, and arms and legs in a much different way than a series of long runs. At the first class I attended, the instructor tried to talk me out of it. In the final class, my heart and lungs were stronger than they had been since high school, and the instructor extended our sparring session by 30 seconds because I had so much energy left.

Adding a different element to your fitness routine lets you work new muscles and extend the duration of your workouts without overtaxing the muscles you rely on to run. The Cardioblog explains how to add boxing to your own routine.

Mark Moran
Founder & CEO

Earlier this year we published an article on findingDulcinea on the benefits of cross-training: "Cross-training: Variety is the Spice of Sport."

Five Must-See Lectures

TED.org, which is full of free lectures.

You no longer have to attend expensive conferences or tune in to a live broadcast to experience the intelligence and expertise of the world's brainiest economists, reporters, authors and entrepreneurs. Below are five recent talks that will enrich your mind from the comfort of wherever you and your computer are sitting.

1. Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success

The author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point" returns with "Outliers," an inspiring look at how upbringing, personality, fate and thousands of hours of hard work commingle to create the world's most successful people. This lecture is that book in a nutshell.

2. This American Life: The Giant Pool of Money

In audio rather than video format, this talk between This American Life producer Alex Blumberg and NPR's business and economics correspondent Adam Davidson is credited around the Web as one of the best explanations of the subprime mortgage crisis and how it connects to Wall Street's recent failures.

3. The New Yorker Festival: The Next Generation of Fashion

At the 2008 New Yorker Festival, three top graduates from three design schools talk about their own work, their inspiration, and the future of fashion.

4. TED Conference 2008: Samantha Power: Shaking Hands With the Devil

At the 2008 TED Conference, Power, who heads Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights, gives a lecture on genocide based on her book about Sergio Vieira de Mello, a UN diplomat who worked with dictators to protect human rights and was killed in a bombing in Iraq in 2003.

5. FreedomFest 2008: Charles Murray: "Real Education"

Murray, author of "Human Accomplishment" and "The Bell Curve," discusses his book about the American education system, including proposals about how to improve it.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Toyota's "Saved By Zero" Flub: A Lesson in (Honda) Civics?

This autumn, America is standing united. Democrat or Republican, vegan or cattle rancher, yuppie or hipster, three words are binding the country tighter than duct tape on a college student’s wallet: “Saaaaa-ved by Zeeee-ro!”

Toyota’s current ad campaign, featuring a remake of the refrain of the 1983 hit by The Fixx, combined with the commercial’s heavy airtime, has inspired media critics and the public to cry for change (of the channel).

Zero-percent financing on 12 different Toyota models may indeed speak to some looking for a vehicle during this credit crunch. Yet several Facebook groups have joined thousands in rank against the commercial, calling for its demise.

But while Toyota’s “Saved by Zero” ad campaign is uniting America for change, some car dealerships have cut out that intermediary grassroots campaign phase and gone right to the source.

Earlier this year, a spokesperson sharing more than a few mannerisms with President-elect Barack Obama rallied the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metroplex with a “Yes You Can!”—be approved at Central Kia.

Incoming presidents aren’t the only political figures to declare that citizens only need small change for a down payment on 2009 models. Even the most avid Revolutionary War buff is likely unaware that the Founding Fathers once took rap lessons from the likes of Vanilla Ice in order to inform the Tri-State viewing area of great Presidents Day leasing deals at New York-Long Island Honda.

That’s history I can believe in.

Anne Szustek
Senior Writer

For the full story behind Toyota’s ad campaign, see the findingDulcinea story “Viewers Fed Up with Toyota’s ‘Saved by Zero’ Ad.”

A Few Indispensible Social Web Tools

A screenshot of just a few of the Web 2.0 sites tagged "social" on Go2Web20.

Some say the social Web is just a passing fancy. True, many of the thousands of socially-inclined startups out there might just be flashes in the pan. But some have allowed us to forge friendships in new ways, and what are friends for but to share links with? Here are four recommended social sites that will help you do that.

Tumblr may seem like just another blog platform, but in practice it looks and feels great to use. It's minimalistic, clean, and perfect for anyone who wants to share links, videos and pictures. And its declaration that you can “sign up in 10 seconds” doesn't hurt.

Flock is a social browser from Mozilla. It incorporates accounts from all your favorite social sites, like Facebook, Digg and YouTube, as well as your blog account. Share links easily, see what your friends are up to and best of all, install any of the add-ons you use with Firefox (you can also import your bookmarks).

Shareaholic is a browser add-on that lets you share whatever page you're browsing by selecting a social media tool from a drop-down menu located next to your browser's address bar. Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Delicious and Twitter are among your options.

Diigo's tag-based bookmarking component might remind you of Delicious at first, but Diigo is better designed, more user-friendly, and has technology to let you highlight Web pages and attach sticky notes to them. Brilliant.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer & Audience Development

Check out our Web Guide to Social Networking for tips, tricks and portals to more sites like the ones above.

Beat the Rush During Passport Season

If you plan to travel abroad next year and need to apply for a passport, do it now, says Kristin Jackson of the Chicago Tribune. Because of the new U.S. law that will require passports for travel to Mexico and Canada, passport applications are expected to increase during the winter and spring of 2009. But now through the end of the year is considered the slow season for passport applications, so act quickly and yours could be processed in just a few weeks.

Visit the U.S. Department of State’s Web site for application details and forms, or call (877) 487-2778. First-time passport applicants and children under age 16 are required to apply in person at a passport acceptance facility, which you can locate by visiting the Passport Acceptance Facility search page.

Sarah Amandolare
Senior Writer

Getting Healthy Online

The colder weather often brings with it coughing, sniffling, aches and fevers. Avoiding germs or getting a flu shot may offer some protection. But if sickness strikes and you turn to the Internet for self-diagnosis or remedies, choose your Web sites wisely.

WebMD, one of the most popular health Web sites, is a good place to start. It offers the latest health news, authoritative information on diseases, topical health guides, a family health center and more.

MedlinePlus helps you sort out the good from the bad health information reported by the media. The site also instructs you how to evaluate health sources to find information that is unbiased and up-to-date. Along similar lines is Quackwatch, a nonprofit whose mission is to "combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct."

Although the Web is a treasure trove of health information, it is always a smart idea to get offline and visit a medical professional. But once you return home, use the MedTerms medical dictionary to decipher those long words the doctor used to diagnose your ailments. The site provides easy definitions for more than 16,000 medical terms.

Soojung Chang
Senior Writer

List Love

It’s hard to say why, but as a culture, we adore lists. They’re easy, natural and fun to make. You can make lists of places you want to go, lists of people to invite to a party, lists of things you need to do before the end of the week (OK, maybe that’s not so much fun … but still.) At findingDulcinea, we’re kicking off our own series of lists to keep you in touch with Web resources. To get you in the mood, we’ve found a few unique lists from around the Web.

1)    The Village of Joy Blog lists “50 Strange Buildings of The World.” Maybe strange isn’t the right word: these buildings are universally architecturally awesome. A variety of shapes, styles and colors make each one of these buildings, new and old, entirely distinct.

2)    Each year, Time magazine collects the 50 Best Inventions. Some of them are probably as structurally magnificent as the buildings, and many of them have great potential to alter culture as we know it. (The iPhone was once on this list.)

3)    7summits  is a shorter list, but the seven items on it are of far greater magnitude: the highest mountains on Earth. Look at pictures, read stories and legends, or even consider making a trip to visit one—the site can help you figure out how much training you’ll need to make the climb.

Whether you’re inspired to go climb a mountain, or complete the equally arduous journey of heading home for the holidays, check out our own top 5 list, 5 Sites for Last-Minute Travel.

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

Site of the Day: The Week in Rap

A new Web site from the creators of Flocabulary.com, a music project initially intended to expand students’ vocabulary by teaching them rap songs, is now also making current events more accessible by rapping about them. The new site is called The Week in Rap.

In their recent election edition, the rappers riffed about the day’s importance from a historical perspective, explaining how far America had come. In the next beat, however, they touched upon the challenges ahead, such as the country’s soaring unemployment and the divisive issue of gay marriage in California.

The listener’s experience is enhanced visually with a montage, and links embedded in the song lyrics lead to articles and videos that explain the stories in more detail. Cofounder Blake Harrison told CBS that kids want to learn but many students lack access to news that engages them: “It’s hard to care about something that you don’t know about.”

Shannon Firth
Writer

Inauguration Day Travel: Get a Glimpse of History

Workers build a viewing stand for the Inauguration Day parade.  (Gerald Herbert/AP)

With the exception of the coming holidays, the biggest event in the next few months will be the inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama. Always a historical and wildly popular happening, the significance of this year’s election has made January 20th one of the hardest tickets to get. Reports already show virtually every hotel in Washington, D.C., booked for the event, months in advance.

However, there are always cancellations and last-minute openings. With this in mind, we set off in search of the best ways to enjoy Washington, D.C. this January.

Triphow offers an Inauguration Day primer, complete with information about where to find tickets for the event, where to watch the ceremony, where to stay and what to do when you’re not watching the swearing-in.

Travel CUTS is the perfect resource for the student traveler heading to D.C.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Big Blog has a post with useful information on snagging tickets to the inauguration.

Expedia, the budget travel site, has gone all out and created an entire page dedicated to the swearing-in of our next president, with sections dedicated to hotels, events, tourist destinations and package deals for individuals or families.

Chris Coats
Senior Writer

For more inspiration, visit findingDulcinea's Travel Tale on Washington D.C.

Video of the Day: Coconuts of Steel

How Not To Break A World Record - Watch more Free Videos

Attempting to shatter the world record for coconut breaking on live television, this Danish martial artist unwittingly demonstrates the necessity of practice. Watch his failed attempt for glory in this video from Break.com.

Check out findingDulcinea's Must-See Video section for more videos of the day.

Site of the Day: Fanprice

On Fanprice, fans state the price they are willing to pay for tickets to a particular event, be it concerts, sporting or theatre shows. Search for an event by artist or team, specify your preferred seating zone, and set your price. Once a seller accepts your offer, the tickets are shipped to you.

Fanprice

Visit findingDulcinea's Site Spotlight section for more sites of the day.

Sasha, Malia and the Unnamed Dog

The Obamas heading to the polls on Nov 4, 2008 in Chicago (Jae C. Hong/AP)

During Barack Obama’s election night speech, he mentioned two subjects of potential media fodder in the same sentence: his daughters and the family dog.

“Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House,” Obama said before the crowd at Grant Park in Chicago.

The next day, the Times of London posed an important question, one that will no doubt be illuminated over the coming months: “How are those two little girls going to have any semblance of a normal life when their father is not just the American President, but also the first black American President?” The media tends to focus its critical eye on female appearance, which could make Sasha and Malia especially vulnerable, argued the Times of London article.

Case in point, Chelsea Clinton, who has emerged essentially unscathed from years of media scrutiny. The worst of which, perhaps, was a nasty joke about her told by John McCain.

But perhaps the media’s overwhelming focus on personal matters only made Chelsea stronger and more able to defend herself. While out on the campaign trail with her mother, Chelsea fielded questions from the crowd, at one point brushing off a Monica Lewinsky-related query with confident poise.

Hopefully, Sasha and Malia won’t have to endure what Chelsea did. At least they’re off to a good start with the new puppy. The Oregonian reports that the Obamas will be adopting a dog from a shelter—commence media hypothesizing over breed, name, etc.

For a rundown of presidential children, the blog Upstairs as the Whitehouse provides a brief biography of each child of an American president.

Grab more post-election coverage from our Election 2008 section.

Sarah Amandolare
Senior Writer

Video of the Day: Doggie Cage Rescue

Prison Break (Canine Edition) Dog breaks out of his cage and springs his friends.

Leave no dog behind. Watch this Boston terrier's brave rescue of his (or her) caged comrades in this LiveLeak video hosted by I Am Bored.

Site of the Day: Wallstrip

While Wall Street hardly seems like a laughing matter these days, Wallstrip might surprise you. The site produces informative and surprisingly entertaining videos showcasing the latest in “business” news. Find Wallstrip episodes on everything from market news and stock spotlights to the “business of love” and the “Hollywood Recession” community to discuss videos and news with other members, and vote for the video “stocks” you think are on their way up (or down).

Wallstrip

Check out findingDulcinea's Site Spotlight section for more sites of the day.

Video of the Day: Virtual Base Jump

Explore your inner daredevil right from the comfort of your seat. Take a walk on the virtual wild side with this amazing base jump video from eBaum's World, shot from the perspective of the jumper.

Check out findingDulcinea's Must-See Video section for more videos of the day.

Site of the Day: Eons

Designed for those born between the years of 1946–1964, the network has a more sophisticated feel than that of Facebook or MySpace, but still has all the fun features. Registered members can create profiles and personalize them with skins, blogs and “LifePaths.” Read the most popular blog entries, join groups or challenge someone to a brain game.

Eons

Check out findingDulcinea's Site Spotlight section for more sites of the day.

The Election's Over. How Will the Media Cope?

Once our commander in chief has been chosen, media coverage of politics will undoubtedly continue, with pundits scrutinizing every last presidential detail en route to the January inauguration. But once we’ve had our fill of White House fodder, what will we shift our focus to? There are many worthy subjects in need of media attention. Here are a few options:

Africa’s Humanitarian Crises

Darfur has become a popular celebrity cause, but according to New York Times journalist Nicholas D. Kristof, world leaders are still too slow to respond to strife in the war-torn region—most recently, the late October attack on a refugee camp in North Darfur.

In Somalia, violent clashes involving Ethiopia and sectors of the Islamic Courts Union have reached a boiling point. Clouded in religion and politics, the conflicts are decades old, but now have distinctly anti-American undertones. Late last month, a typically peaceful area of northern Somalia was hit by five suicide bomb attacks within 15 minutes. Blame fell on a group with possible al-Qaida affiliations.

Piecing Together the Economy

Whether we blame Fannie and Freddie, Wall St., Reaganomics, President Bush or Alan Greenspan for the economic downward spiral, the bottom line is that it must be fixed. To Steven R. Weisman of The New Republic, “This has been the Great Incomprehensible Recession of 2008. Incomprehensibility was at the root of the problem, and it is at the root of our difficulty getting out of it.”

Bolstering Environmental Awareness

Will environmental policies fall by the wayside in the wake of economic hard times? In Europe, the global financial crisis has already threatened “plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions” in Germany and Italy. But French president Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing the EU to maintain “the fundamental framework” of its environmental policies, despite the burden it could infringe on companies, reports Agence France-Presse.

Understanding Islam

Islam is often a central issue in African and Middle Eastern conflicts, and many Americans are uninformed on the subject. Without a basic understanding of the complex religion, how are we to establish progressive diplomatic relationships with Muslim countries, and with practicing Muslims at home? Mahnaz Shabbir, a second-generation American Muslim woman, raised the issue of the media’s portrayal of Muslims in a talk at Kansas State University last month, and emphasized the cruciality of education. “Knowing about other people and other religions starts with how you’re taught,” she said.

Sarah Amandolare
Senior Writer

Election 2008: The Temperament Factor

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Temperament has played an important role in this year’s election. Whether you’ve been struck by Obama’s poise and apparent calm, or riled by McCain’s facial gymnastics, there has likely been a point at which a candidate’s temperament overrode what he was actually saying.

A recent article by Nancy Gibbs in Time magazine focused on presidential temperament, and the fact that candidates’ people skills and disposition can distract from poor decision-making skills. “We put so much emphasis on character because of Nixon. Until Bush came along, we’d forgotten how important judgment also is,” said former presidential advisor David Gergen.

What’s needed, argues Yale historian Beverly Gage, is “the right blend of confidence and humility.” The formula is simple, but elusive. What appears at first to be a candidate’s confidence can quickly spiral into erraticism when tested.

An editorial in the conservative publication Investors Business Daily quoted several senators who bore McCain’s verbal wrath, including one who dubbed the Arizona republican “hotheaded.”

Regarding McCain, American Conservative Union chairman David Keene said, “In his world, it’s very difficult to have a simple policy disagreement. Everything becomes personal.”

Salon.com published a similar article, which quoted Georgetown University political science professor Stephen Wayne, who is studying the personalities of McCain and Obama. Wayne expressed concern over McCain’s temper, and an emotion-driven, “less rational response” to crisis.

But Wayne’s perception of rationality is just that—perception. Psychologist and Kansas City Star columnist George Harris writes, “[E]veryone seems to disagree about the set of characteristics that compose personality.” Some psychologists use a mathematical approach, but the term “temperament” does not specifically factor into such theories. Instead, “emotional stability” and “impulsivity” are measured, according to Harris.

Regarding the Time magazine article, Harris feels that despite having “a fine discussion of presidential temperament,” the piece lacks any scientific basis, relying on anecdotes and TV footage. In which case, Harris wonders, “Are our impressions really reliable and accurate indicators of who the candidates really are?”

Only time will tell.

Sarah Amandolare
Senior Writer

How to Track the Election Online

The past four years have seen great gains in snazzy election-tracking technology. For Election 2008, millions more voters and overseas observers will be able to get all their information from the Web, if they so desire. Here are some resources to get you started.

CNN’s Electoral College calculator is one of a few similar tools floating around the Web. It lets you play around with the U.S. map, clicking on states to turn them red or blue. Divvy up the swing states, look at the 2004 results and see which candidate will win under different scenarios. CNN will also be live streaming its political coverage on the site, so you can have a TV-like experience.

USA Today’s Electoral vote tracker is like CNN’s tool, but has mapped results from every election dating back to 1960.

NPR’s Election Map has four interactive maps, one each for the presidential, Senate, House and gubernatorial races.

Twitter’s Election 2008 section will be providing quick, succinct reports on Election Day results and events. On this page you can see tweets from all Twitter users talking about election topics. These include major news sources like Talking Points Memo and Time magazine.

WNYC, New York’s NPR station, will be inviting the public to blog alongside the station’s staff, which they also did for the final presidential debate.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer & Audience Development

Keep abreast of findingDulcinea's rolling election coverage in our Election 2008 section.

Voting Help for the Undecided

Ed Andrieski/AP

After a campaign that has lasted longer than some marriages, it’s hard to imagine someone not having a clear idea of which candidate they will vote for. But here it is—a Time magazine survey finding that one in seven voters is still on the fence.

With just hours to go before the polls open, we’ve cobbled together a few sites that allow you to choose your ideal candidate based on policy issues only, through a short series of questions. Log on, answer truthfully and then go vote.

Who should you vote for? provides a 30-question survey covering an array of issues, providing quick advice on who you should cast your ballot for. Some of the questions appear to provide surface explanations for very complex issues, but it should supply basic guidance on how to vote, based on your views of the candidates’ most notable policy opinions.

VoteHelp offers a similar survey of about 30 questions, but with an added option to rank the importance of each issue to you. You can request results based on 10, 20 or 28 questions, and are provided with results complete with explanations of how you differ from the candidates on each individual issue.

ABC’s Match-o-Matic skips the survey questions and instead focuses on policy statements from each candidate on a variety of topics. Offering short quotes from each, without attribution, undecided voters can chose which explanation best describes their own point of view. After about a dozen questions, the program offers you your ideal candidate.

Chris Coats
Senior Writer