💪Finkel's Fast Five - Issue 108 (February 21, 2020)

Welcome to Finkel's Fast Five #108. Thanks for reading and subscribing! - Jon

ONE

MOVIES - I had no idea who Willy T. Ribbs was until I watched the documentary, Uppity, and now I'll never forget him. Brash, cocky, awesome, unbeatable... He was the Jackie Robinson of auto racing.

Ribbs overcame death threats, hatred, engine sabotage, hostility from other drivers and all the awful racism Jackie Robinson faced in competition, only he was whipping around a track in a half-ton race car with other drivers who wanted him dead. You will love this. It's on Netflix now.

TWO

PODCASTS - I think Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss are two of the more interesting writers/media people we have. Both are multiple-time NYT bestselling authors. Both practice Stoicism and are constantly looking for ways to improve their lives and outlook and mindset.

So when Holiday was a guest on Ferriss' podcast, but the roles were reversed (Holiday interviewed Ferriss, not vice versa) my interest level was high. I probably listen to one out of every six or seven of Ferriss' pods at this point, but I enjoyed these two guys shooting the shit about careers, how to choose a place to live, how to make big decisions, pets, and more. If you're a fan of either of their works, you'll like this pod (or you can watch on YouTube here).

THREE

SPACE - "What would a wheel of space-aged Parmigiano-Reggiano, a loaf of space-risen sourdough bread, or a tube of space-fermented salami taste like?" These are questions posed by Maggie Coblentz (no relation to you, Eddie), the Space Exploration Initiative's gastronomic lead researcher.

I love reading about space and space travel and space ships and this piece in Wired by Nicola Twilley about the need for appealing, appetizing food for astronauts on an eventual trip to Mars is riveting (if you're into this stuff). She's doing everything from figuring out how to make real pasta to what kind of space garden astronauts could tend to growing organic algae caviar. Loved this piece.

FOUR

HABITS - My most popular blog post this week was about a term I'm confident that I coined called 'Intentional Reading'. It is the opposite of the following, which is 'Unintentional Reading': You pick up your phone. You just want to see what's up... You swipe... You scroll... You surf... You look at the time... 25 minutes have passed. What the hell???

I've been experimenting with ways to stop this, from small little changes in reading habits and phone usage to larger scope habits like resubscribing to magazines and other things. I boiled it down to 5 Big Tips here. Would love your feedback on this. How do you avoid smart phone quicksand?

FIVE

A great quote about space:

"We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth."

- Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders

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