Finkel's Fast Five - Issue #38

FINKEL'S FAST FIVE - ISSUE #38 OCTOBER 19th, 2018

They're calling it the phone to keep you away from your phone: According to the FF5 research department, the average human in 2018 spends 23.5 hours a day on their phone and the other half hour a day charging it. Collectively, we have a phone addiction problem and to make matters worse, every app and social media platform you use is psychologically designed to suck you into a phone trance and keep you there for eternity. But what if the only reason you want a phone on you is to, you know, call someone? Or text them? Palm (and investor Steph Curry) have come up with a solution and I like it. Read the article in Fast Company here.  A fascinating, ridiculous exercise I'll never be able to do: There's a push-up called the LaLanne Push-Up named after workout pioneer Jack LaLanne. He unveiled it on his television show in the 1950s after a reader asked him if he could do a push-up using just his fingertips while also having his arms straight in front of him. LaLanne dunked on the guy by doing them one-handed. The video is 1 minute and the push-ups are at the 35-second mark.  A quick lesson on humble beginnings from Yankees icon Mariano Rivera:  When you grow up loving baseball but your family is unable to afford a glove, you improvise. In MLB icon Rivera's case, he and his friends made gloves out of cardboard in order to play ball. This video of him talking to Brandon Steiner about his childhood while he remakes one of the cardboard gloves is pretty cool.  A strange-titled book I bought on a whim that I can't put down: The book is The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness and reading it is like spelunking into an alien's brain. Author Sy Montgomery's book is part passion project, part science experiment, part brilliant novel. I've enjoyed every page of it and if you're looking for a change of pace from whatever you're reading (unless you always read about octopuses) give this one a shot right here.  A tremendously-written description of octopuses: "It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange." - Sy Montgomery  Have a great weekend and please don't attempt to pour your rigid, bony body through an opening the size of an orange!  YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST! SO MANY NEW PEOPLE ON THE FF5 TRAIN AND LET'S KEEP IT GOING! PLEASE FORWARD this to ONE person who you think would enjoy the FF5:

 THANK YOU!  - Jon