For many, computer code is like Latin and complex physics all in one—but technology boffins and futurists in Silicon Valley see things differently. With new technology comes a need for skilled workers able to drive and operate the emerging high-tech hardware. It’s a need that will draw today’s blue-collar workers to roles in tomorrow’s high-tech industries. Social media as trend forecaster The popularity of social media platforms—most recently brought to a head during Snapchat’s recent IPO—offers an inkling into a …
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From its savage beginnings, Cage fighting has come a long way. Since 1993, the mongrel conglomeration of fighting arts—known as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)—has undergone something of an image refit. It’s a reinvention largely down to the efforts of the sport’s main organisation, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)—a group that wrote the rulebook for the sport we see today. Twenty-four years ago, when it started, the sport was a convenient whipping boy for politicians and lawmakers of all stripes looking …
Originally featured in Outer Edge magazine. On a beautiful autumn weekend earlier this year, Brendan Davies ran 100-kilometres through Australia’s Blue Mountains faster than anyone had done before. Outer Edge caught up with the Australian trail running marvel to discover how he, a humble teacher and relative newcomer to the sport, developed the weaponry to run faster than Kilian Jornet, the poster boy of world ultra-trail running. Of all extraordinary feats achieved in sport, nothing provokes incredulity quite like the efforts …
Originally featured in Outer Edge magazine. The Blue Mountains, like many world famous wilderness tourist attractions, are extensively criss-crossed with walkways and viewing platforms. Despite this, local trail runner Beth Cardelli has little time for sightseeing. “The views and all that are often spectacular,” Beth says, “but the course directors who design the races want to make you work for it; they want you to feel pain a little bit as well,” she explains cheerily when asked about running while …
Originally featured in Outer Edge magazine. A mass of chattering eight-year-olds guided by a gnarly looking crusty blonde dude with skin the colour of aged oak run down the beach with lifesaving caps tied in neat bows under their chins. They head straight in without hesitation; duck diving under a vicious shore break before popping up out the back, one-by-one, easy as penguins. Like prodigies put in front of a piano to recite Beethoven, kids who instinctively love the ocean quickly learn to …
Originally featured in Outer Edge magazine. On a clear day the snow-cloaked mountain peaks near Gulmarg in northwest India rise into the blue sky exactly like the Alps near Lugano in Switzerland or those of Squaw Valley in California. This simple epiphany struck American freestyle skier Lel. C. Tone as she paused to survey the world from 14,000 ft, propped up on ski poles and with goggles pushed up on her head on the slopes of the Kashmiri Himalaya. “To …
Originally featured in Outer Edge magazine. Many years ago, when the Easter Offshore music festival raged through what was then the relatively sleepy surf-coast hamlet of Torquay in Victoria, Australia, local paddler Tim Altman had something to do with the land on which the festival was held. We were junior members of Torquay surf club down from the city doing our mandatory beach patrol duties. Tim was one of the club’s senior gun paddlers. The girls – it’s always girls …
Originally featured in Outer Edge magazine. In a way, the ultra-distance trail runner is a mongrel breed of athlete. A Frankenstein’s monster combination of runner, trekker, wilderness lover and cardiovascular freak all stitched into one unearthly continent-striding phenomenon. Mike Le Roux’s story begins with multi-sport legend Brad ‘The Croc’ Bevan’s nickname. Locals began calling Brad after Australia’s favourite man-eating reptile because of his apparent fondness for regularly training in the crocodile-infested Johnstone River, just beyond the southern border of Cairns …
Originally published Outer Edge Magazine. Two of adventure racing’s biggest stars recently rolled into the offices of Outer Edge to chat about running and paddling, riding through the world’s remotest regions and their lives lived together, in love. Individually they don’t stand out from an after-work crew of ski paddlers and stand-up boarders milling about on a windy Port Melbourne beach car park one November Thursday afternoon. It’s just after knock off time and people are pulling fibreglass watercraft of …
Tweet Entry price was $140. Thankfully my ticket was free. For this you got a free bar between 1 and 3pm. After that there was a strange Bernie Maddoffian system involving small cardboard $40 drink coupons. Thirsty punters were funnelled over to a cash register to buy these cardboard coupons. Most were laying out hundreds of dollars for several at once to save the hassle, I suppose, of repeating the process while pissed, later on. They licked fingers and unfolded …