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    World's Most Advanced Everything
    World's Most Advanced Everything
    World's Most Advanced Everything
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    World's Most Advanced Everything

    By Lisa Wilson

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    About this ebook

    What is the world's most advanced running shoe? What is the world's most advanced country, car and camera? What sort of wit lies beneath our greatest intellectual achievements? How can we [as individuals] benefit from thinking smart and creatively, and where do we start? What is the nature not only of the evolution of things, but adaptation as a functional trait? What is the essence of intellectual fitness?

    When we examine our most innovative ideas as is done in this narrative, we find something humbling behind the glittering tech. We find the most exciting project of all is us, and conquering our symbolic Everest is how we get to become our most advanced, our most authentic selves. How do we recognize and strengthen our mental muscles? It starts, the narrative suggests, by imagining there is no spoon, that there is no us. There is just the germ of an idea and a curious fire burning to do something with it.

    WORLD’S MOST ADVANCED EVERYTHING is not your average gadget guide; it’s not just about shining machines at the cutting edge of technology and human inventiveness. It's not merely about being at the top of the list, but the journey and the process behind these innovations and innovators. It’s about those magical moments that spark revolutionary changes. This narrative interrogates the ideas that awaken us and the struggle to bring them to life. It’s about asking simple questions and remaining open to unexpected paths.

    It begins with freelance photojournalist and triathlete, Nick van der Leek, asking a simple question: what is the world's most advanced running shoe? At the time, he had no inkling he was about to embark on not just the search for one specific answer to one specific question, but a search that would lead to meeting with world famous scientists culminating in a series of popular magazine articles.

    In WORLD’S MOST ADVANCED EVERYTHING you’ll learn about cutting-edge technology from bicycles to submarines. In the shadow of those innovations lies the true heart of this story. This narrative is equally about what it means to be human, what it means to grow into the best versions of ourselves, and our ongoing journey of adaptation along the cutting-edge of time itself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLisa Wilson
    Release dateMay 14, 2016
    ISBN9781310886980
    World's Most Advanced Everything
    Author

    Lisa Wilson

    Nick van der Leek is a professional photographer, freelance photojournalist and avid sportsman residing in South Africa. In addition to writing books, he regularly produces features for GQ and Country Life and is currently writing the biography of a well-known Olympic athlete. Lisa Wilson resides in California USA and is a freelance journalist with a background in marketing and event management. She's known for her popular blog, Juror13, which was inspired by her experience serving as jury forewoman for an attempted murder case in 2012. After connecting in 2014, and collaborating on the Oscar Pistorius case, Nick and Lisa formed a partnership titled #SHAKEDOWN under which they've taken on the task of conducting deep investigations into many high-profile cases.

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      Book preview

      World's Most Advanced Everything - Lisa Wilson

      WORLD’S MOST ADVANCED EVERYTHING

      By Nick van der Leek

      Copyright (c) 2015 by Nick van der Leek

      All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. 

      Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The author would be grateful to be notified directly of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.

      Cover design: Nick van der Leek

      Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction

      WALK

      The World’s Most Advanced (Extraterrestrial) Rover

      The World’s Most Advanced Submarine

      The World’s Most Advanced Car

      The World’s Most Advanced Country

      The World’s Most Advanced Camera

      The World’s Most Advanced Wristwatch

      RUN

      The Barefoot Revolution

      Cutting-Edge Eyewear

      The World’s Most Advanced Bicycle

      The World’s Most Advanced Aircraft

      The World’s Most Advanced Building

      The World’s Most Advanced Cinema

      Kodak Dies, Fujifilm Thrives

      LEAP

      The World’s Most Advanced Everything

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      Introduction

      There is no spoon. – Neo, The Matrix

      Like all great adventures, this one started with a simple question:

      What’s the world’s most advanced running shoe?

      I remember some brief research into the Porsche Bounce, an award-winning shoe that apparently exemplified a hybrid of "technical sophistication with a futuristic aesthetic". It was spring-loaded and lightweight and supposedly a marvel of human invention. Or was it?

      Little did I know that this simple question would take me into the offices of a personal hero of mine – Professor Tim Noakes – as well as preeminent sports scientists like Dr Ross Tucker and Professor Mike Lambert. Several shoe companies sent me their products – Puma, Nike, Innov8. I tested them all. I wandered through the actual warehouse of Vibram [the makers of Fivefingers] and left with a complimentary pair just as that company was going stratospheric.

      I didn’t know then that I’d eventually read a book which would lead me on a sort of treasure hunt across South Africa, from 24 time sub 4 minute miler Ray Wicksell in Pretoria to the verdant valley of Noordhoek, in Cape Town, where I’d interview an enigmatic genius called Louis Liebenberg. Liebenberg had run with the bushman, and his first-hand knowledge had been so unique, McDougall had written about Liebenberg at length in BORN TO RUN. So I went to meet him too.

      Meanwhile, as big as everything seemed, I still had no idea the enormity of the wave tsunami building in the running world. McDougall’s BORN TO RUN was asking something besides who we are and what we’re capable of; for the first time there was an acknowledgement of who we were in evolutionary terms. And this raised quintessential existential questions: who are we really? How have we been designed to move on the Earth, what are we supposed to eat, how should we live?

      I had no inkling then that I was about to embark on not just the search for one specific answer to one specific question, but that this search would lead to a series of articles in leading magazines. It also sparked a personal quest. I was about to get sucked into an enormous new narrative and this personal journey would reshape my life. It would shake my attitudes to myself and the world to its very foundations.

      All this from: what’s the world’s most advanced running shoe?!

      I think some of that genuine curiosity was driven not just by passion, but also by frustration. It had felt like another life when I’d run 37 minute for 10km inside triathlons, or a sub 100 minute half marathon and sub 4 hour marathon – when I lived in Seoul, South Korea after 2000. I wanted to get back into that kind of fitness, and do better. Could I?

      The 2011 Two Oceans half marathon would answer that. I wanted to at least run the world’s most beautiful marathon in under two hours. My preparation had been imperfect, and so at the end of March that year, I missed my goal by a whole 11 minutes. I was over half an hour slower than my personal best set in Seoul seven years prior, and I wasn’t happy. In retrospect, running with a small camera in one hand hadn’t been wise; over the last 5-6km the Sony Cybershot had felt as heavy as a brick. To add insult to injury, I discovered after the race I’d run the entire 21.1km with my gym card in my shoe. Rookie mistake!

      Yes, I felt I was learning to run all over again. After the half marathon, my legs and feet were shattered. I remember wondering what sort of impact the 1mm thin bar-coded piece of plastic may have had on my foot. I doubted it could have been much, especially since both feet hurt. I couldn’t

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