Wine Olympics 2017 – Derby Themed

by Nick Merlino, posted in Random

Live Results

 

Grand prize: (1 per teammate)

prize

Corn hole

  • 2 vs 2, play until 21
  • On the board – 1 point
  • In the hole – 3 points
  • Rebuttal – Only for the team that went 2nd to start
    • If they get it, back to 15 points

Kan-Jam

  • 2 vs 2, play until 11
  • Assisted hit, doesn’t stay in – 1 point
  • Unassisted hit, doesn’t stay in – 2 points
  • Assisted hit, stays in – 3 points
  • Unassisted hit, stays in – automatic win, no rebuttal
  • Rebuttal – Only for the team that went 2nd to start
    • If they get it, back to 15 points

Relay race

  • 4 laps, split up decided by team
    • 1st lap – Unhindered sprint
    • 2nd lap – wheelbarrow race
    • 3rd lap – 20ibs carry
    • 4th lap – ping pong ball on a spoon carry
  • One “lap” – From the porch to the pool, and back

Flip cup

  • 2 vs 2, each person goes 3 times
  • The liquid can either be water or their wine, up to the teams

Sharp shooting

  • Using airsoft rifle, alternate taking shots at can across the yard
  • First team to hit wins
  • Rebuttal only if it’s the second team to start

Crochet

  • First team to have both teammates finish wins

Spike Ball

  • Game until 11
  • First serve is determined by which team has less wine in their bottle at that time
  • Serve is determined by last point
  • If the ball hits the tramp twice, the team who it was hit to gets the point

Scoring / Active Event

  1. 1st – 16 points
  2. 2nd – 8 points
  3. Semi finalist – 4 points
  4. Quarter finalist – 2 points
  5. Participant – 1 point

Finishing the double bottle (Passive event)

  1. 1st – 32points
  2. 2nd – 16 points
  3. 3rd – 8 points
  4. 4th – 4 points
  5. 5th+ – 2 points
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Fun Things to Do

by Nick Merlino, posted in Random

Do you find yourself sitting around with your friends, where you all want to do something but you have no clue what to do? Welcome to pretty much every Thursday-Sunday night for my friends! Here’s a list of things that are definitely worth looking into:

Trending Board Games

by Nick Merlino, posted in Trending Items

Cards Against Humanity – $25

Speak Out – $21.99

Heads Up – $19.26

Classic Jenga – $7.48

Hungry Hungry Hippos – $8.67
hippis

  • Need I say more?

Trending Quadcopters

by Nick Merlino, posted in Trending Items
Below are a couple of the best quadcopters in a few different tiers that you should definitely consider.

DJI Phantom 4 – $1,199

  • Ultra 4K HD camera (Eight element)
  • Internally mounted 3 axis gimbal
  • Top speed of 45mph
  • Signal range of 3 miles!
  • Flight time of 28mins!
  • Automatically avoids obstacles (Such as trees, telephone wires, etc)
  • Can lock onto and track anything (Great for active videos such as snowboarding)
  • Live streams HD video to controller for first person view
  • I personally recommend this as the top-tier drone to capture the best quality footage possible

DJI Phantom 3 Pro – $949

  • Ultra 4K HD camera
  • 3 axis gimbal
  • Top speed of 35mph
  • Signal range of 1 mile
  • Flight time of 23mins!
  • Live streams HD video to controller for first person view

Parrot Bebop – $399.99

  • HD 1080p camera
  • Return home functionality
  • Controlled by Flight 3 app
  • Controlled by with Free Flight Pro app (iOS, Android, Windows 8.1)

Hubson X4 – $48.65

  • 720p HD camera
  • 4-ways flip (left, right, forward, backward)
  • Lightweight airframe with nice durability
  • I personally recommend this as a great starter drone, just to make sure you are interested before diving into a more elaborate drone!

Quadcopters

by Nick Merlino, posted in TED Talk
In a robot lab at TEDGlobal, Raffaello D’Andrea shows off his quad-copters (A flying device with four propellers). This is ridiculously amazing. They can recognize space locations, balance objects, and even function without proper propellers! They are designed with algorithms that allow them to think like athletes, solving physical problems with algorithms that help them learn. I want 10 of them. My ranking: 11/10.

Interested in quad-copters such as these? Check out a few trending quadcopters!

Top Tech Tips

by Nick Merlino, posted in TED Talk
David Progue points out that for every new thing in your life, someone teaches you how to handle it… except technology. The purpose of his TED talk is to share some helpful tips on how to save time while using technology. I’ve taken his list, modernized it, and added a few additions of my own. Hopefully at least one of these tips can help you.

On a computer:
  1. On Chrome, add the extension Honey to automatically search for and apply the best PROMO code for any purchase you make.
  2. Tap space to scroll down a page (Shift + Space to scroll up).
  3. On most applications, to get bigger text press ‘CTRL’ and ‘+’ and to get smaller text press ‘CTRL’ and ‘-‘.
  4. To get to the desktop (minimize all open windows), press the Windows key and D at the same time. To reverse the effect, press Windows+D again.
  5. Change between applications by pressing Alt+Tab. Aiming for an application’s little button on the taskbar is a hassle.
  6. Double-click a window’s title bar to make it go full screen. Editing in little windows on the screen is a hassle and requires unnecessary scrolling.
  7. Tab between text entry fields (When there is a pop-up menu for your state or country, type the first initial repeatedly).
  8. Find/delete large files that are taking up space on your hard drive using Windirstat.
  9. Computer starting up slow? Disable auto-startup for those rarely used programs by going to the ‘startup’ menu under task manager (Access by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC).
  10. Trying to traverse a long line of words? Hold CTRL and then use the arrow keys to move word-by-word.
  11. To restore any previously closed tabs from your browser, simply press CTRL+SHIFT+T.
  12. To browse without storing history or using cookies, type CTRL+SHIFT+N to open a new incognito window.
  13. Press SPACE while watching Youtube (or most other online streaming services) to pause/resume the active video.
  14. On Google, you can “define: ” any word and it’s a dictionary.

On an iPhone:

  1. To end a sentence, press ‘space’ twice instead of searching for the ‘.’ and then capitalizing the next word.
  2. To call the last person you called, simply hit the ‘call’ key.
  3. Deleting old/terrible photos is a pain, especially since we all have seemingly thousands of them on our camera roll. Utilize the app Cleen to filter out the unwanted photos in an easy “swipe left to delete or yes to keep” fashion.
  4. Interrupt the voice mail instructions by pressing a key. (Verizon-‘*’, AT&T-‘#’, T-Mobile-‘#’, Sprint-‘1’).
  5. To extend your battery life, open settings and open the battery category. There you can enable the battery percentage icon as well as enable a “battery saver” mode. You can also discover which applications are using most of your battery! For more battery saving tips, check out my post here.
  6. If your phone is sluggish, you might have too many applications running! Double click the home button and swipe up on any programs that you aren’t using.
  7. Assign titles to contacts in Siri. For example, say “Mike Gallant is my plumber” to Siri and whenever you reference your plumber from now on Siri will know who he is!
  8. Jealous of Android users being able to swipe their finger to type? There are many third party keyboards out there that let you do that and more such as Gboard.
  9. Tired of trying to describe what you’re seeing to Google? With CamFind you can search by taking a photo of what you’re looking at!

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are

by Nick Merlino, posted in TED Talk
Amy Cuddy explains how body language is crucial to how others perceive us, based off of emotions and confidence. Her TED talk explains how “power posing” before an important meeting or event can raise make you more confident and ready for whatever you face. Power posing is standing in a position of confidence, such as with your hands up and out to the side, even when you don’t feel confident. It works because it raises testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain. Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions, and even our own body chemistry, by simply changing body positions.

Along with thinking about your own body presence, by watching the above video you can have a deeper physiological understanding of what others are feeling or thinking.