Wine Olympics 2019

by Nick Merlino, posted in Uncategorized

Live Scoresheet

Active Events

  • Corn hole
  • Kan-Jam
  • Spike Ball
  • Croquet
  • Bocce
  • Disc Golf
  • Relay race
  • Basketball knockout

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 – 32 points
  2. 2nd – 16 points
  3. Participant – 8 points

Best Dressed (Passive event)

  1. 1st – 16 points
  2. 2nd – 8 points
  3. 3rd – 4 points
  4. Tried – 2 points

Wine Olympics 2017

by Nick Merlino, posted in Random

Events:

  • Corn hole
  • Kan-Jam
  • Flip cup
  • Croquet
  • Spike Ball

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

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.