While at the JotSpot office two weeks ago, I was introduced to the addictive toy/exercise device known as the PowerBall. Here’s a photo of me giving it a whirl. Note the poor form – my pinky finger is slipping. Later in the week I started to get better at it, and eventually broke 11K RPM, which got my name onto the PowerBall high scores section of Reuben’s whiteboard.
update: A commenter noted that even after going to the powerballs.com website he had no idea what a PowerBall was. Here’s some background information. The PowerBall is a gyroscopic device that you spin by rotating your wrist. With a little practice, you can really get it humming, but it’s hard work since the gyroscopic forces tend to pull it out of your hand. The part that makes it really addictive (and competitive) is that there’s an LCD on top that displays your max RPMs. Using the PowerBall quickly becomes a contest to see who can get it to spin the fastest, and for each person to top their current high score.
Do Not Taunt Happy PowerBall!
What is this thing? The website is filled with ugly images of musclebound marketing and little fact.
I’ve updated my post to be more informative, and to point to the ThinkGeek powerball product page.
We used to have the pre-LED version, the “Dynabee”, some thirty or so years ago. These days, my suspicion is that these things are guaranteed carpal tunnel syndrome aggravators.
Oh, yeah: http://www.dynabee.com . Thirty years ago, they didn’t have a website :-)
But now, there’s a wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrotwister
I don’t know whether it’s the truth or a clever “big lie” marketing ploy, but the PowerBall claims to actually prevent carpal tunnel.