"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam" - I will find a way or I will make one.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
See, playing games isn't just a waste of time
I've always thought that gaming was something that enhanced my ability to ride DH faster, being able to spot and run cleaner faster lines. Of course, I couldn't really prove that, I just suspected that gaming was something that helped develop a certain skill-set when it came to quick line detection from an otherwise random array of rocks. Turns out I was right, as recent research has shown gamers can consistently outperform non-gamers with regard to several areas of cognitive processes.
So... I'm not wasting my time, I'm exercising my gray matter. ;)
Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York have been looking at exactly how continued videogame-use influences our visual processing. The Rochester researchers intended to see whether habitual game-playing improved the visual skills of gamers, and they came up with a number of tests to measure this against nongamers. They reported that “videogame players were found to outperform non-videogame players on the localisation of an eccentric target among distractors, on the number of visual items they could apprehend at once, and on the fast temporal processing of visual information.” Or, in common-speak: gamers are better at using their eyes, and better at understanding what they see and doing something about it, than non-gamers.
We spent this last weekend with our old neighbors at their cabin up at Shaver Lake. It was really cool of them to invite us and we had a great time playing in the snow and hanging out. And while the girls are great, they do on occasion spontaneously start screaming or fighting, but I guess that's just a part of having kids. My wife tells me I need to keep my mouth shut more often however as I apparently don't hold back with my comments sometimes. But when one kid walks into the room and smashes the other in the face with a handful of legos for no reason and a loud tear-fest ensues, I'm reminded of how quiet my dog is. Oh well, we had a lot of fun anyway. :)
I thought I'd throw my wet weather riding setup out there in case anyone else is looking for a reasonable way to stay dry without shelling out a grand for a custom suit. I know the preferred and really the ideal setup is an Aerostitch, but at about $750 for the one piece suit and about $800 for the two piece, it is a tad excessive for me as when the weather is good I just wear a leather and "riding" jeans so it would see limited duty.
My current setup is a 2-piece arrangement with a total cost of just over $100. To keep my legs dry, I wear a black Carhartt rain bib and because it is pretty heavy .5mil PVC over a polyester fabric, it does a fairly good job of cutting down/out windchill in addition to keeping me dry. The Carhartt rain bib goes for about $40 pretty much anywhere and has pockets in the knees which you can use to insert knee protection and it comes in yellow, orange or black, I happen to have the black ones.
For the top, I have the matching PVC rain coat which has a double storm flap arrangement where it buttons up and does a good job of keeping you dry. If I want to ride with protection, I can wear that over my textile or even leather jacket if I wanted, although it has no reflective tape so I'm not afforded any extra visibility. You can also get it in yellow, orange or black.
When I don't want to double layer the raincoat and or am not concerned about adding crash protection, yeah say what you will, I think we've all done triple digits in a t-shirt a few times... I wear a LaCrosse Industrial Mountain Pass jacket which offers pretty good warmth, neck protection from the wind and rain and extreme visibility. I wear this when I'm concerned with being seen, but not so much about high speed crash protection as I'm generally under 60mph on the DS.
The LaCrosse Industrial Mountain Pass jacket goes for about $75.
LaCrosse Industrial also offers a non-insulated jacket that is more like the Carhartt PVC styled one that has the same ANSI approved bright yellow with super reflective tape if you wanted to put something bright over your textile or leather and they generally go for about $50
The items above can be found almost anywhere and a quick Google search will yield several online vendors. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw out an alternative to the high priced 'stitch in case anyone out there is riding wet because they either don't have one or plan to get one. And while a $10 plastic rainsuit from Wal-Mart will likely keep you dry, I wouldn't expect to get much use out of it.
I've always thought that gaming was something that enhanced my ability to ride DH faster, being able to spot and run cleaner faster lines. Of course, I couldn't really prove that, I just suspected that gaming was something that helped develop a certain skill-set when it came to quick line detection from an otherwise random array of rocks. Turns out I was right, as recent research has shown gamers can consistently outperform non-gamers with regard to several areas of cognitive processes.
