Many "top 1%" benchmarks are flying around on social media, and they're pretty arbitrary. People are going to chase them anyway, but trust us: Don't read into those viral checklists. Plus: Have we already invented the best possible way to shave? Experts say yes, but that hasn't stopped the shaving industry.

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Don’t Trust the Internet’s Viral Fitness Checklists

BY TANNER GARRITY

Lately my algorithm’s been feeding me a diet of “fitness checklist” content. Basically, wellness influencers post a list of 10-12 benchmarks paired to a grand claim: if you can knock all of these out, you’re an elite athlete. One I saw the other day went further than that, writing “you’re in the top 1%” if you can complete each task. In the comments section, various users celebrate being “in the 1% club.”

These checklists typically feature a grab bag of diverse challenges. For instance:

• Do 10 pull-ups
• Run a mile in under seven minutes
• Bench press 1.25x your bodyweight
• Play a sport for over an hour
• Sprint for 10 seconds four to five times

And so on and so forth. The idea is simple: complete the list, and you’ve proven yourself. But proven what, exactly? That’s where things start to get murky.

If You’re a Camera Guy (or Gal), You Need This Watch

The center of the Venn diagram between “watch guys” and “camera guys” is almost larger than either side of said diagram. Indeed, attend a Hodinkee event or Watches and Wonders and you see almost as many Leicas as you do Speedmasters. Beers and Cameras founder Juan Martinez is clearly one of these guys, so much so that he patented a special complication for photographers. His patented Exposure Gauge system — which uses the famous “Sunny 16” rule to help shooters adjust their shutter speed — has been integrated into the bezel of a Nodus dive-style watch. The result is a handsome mechanical timepiece that film lovers should find genuinely useful. And it’s just $650.

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The Shaving Industry Thinks It Can Fool Men Forever

While your average second-century Roman would be dumbstruck by your car or your smartphone, there is one piece of daily gear he would likely fail to be impressed by: your razor. For all of the industry’s vaunted technological advances, a sharp bit of metal is precisely what he might use to tame his whiskers, too. Surely by the 21st century, we should be shaving with lasers, he might propose, had he any idea what a laser was.

Laser shaving is an idea that’s been considered since the 1970s, first dismissed for the obvious safety challenges, and, a decade ago, proposed again, this time using the light traveling along an optical fiber to do the cutting. It’s still just a concept, great for the next Star Trek movie perhaps. All the 21st century seems to have offered in the shaving department is, well, more sharp bits of metal stacked on top of one another.