Some find this former NBA athlete's latest career move shocking. He just wants you be happy for him.

What took Vin Baker from NBA all-star and Olympic gold medalist to proud barista and aspiring Starbucks store manager?

Vin Baker is known as the greatest basketball player to come out of the University of Hartford.

In 1992, Sports Illustrated dubbed Baker "America's best-kept secret" because of his widely overlooked stardom at the smaller Division I school. At 6'11", he was an imposing defensive player and had scoring chops to boot.

Photo by Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images.

During his 13-year NBA career, Baker logged some stats that are not to be sneezed at.

He averaged 15 points and 7 rebounds per game. And while he never won a championship, he did make four all-star teams and won an Olympic gold medal with Team USA in 1999.

Photo by Jamie Squire /Getty Images.

But his career teetered as off-the-court drinking unfurled into full-blown alcoholism.

Addiction didn't just drain Baker's health and ability to perform. It drained his finances. He earned nearly $100 million over the course of his career, but most of it was lost to reckless spending and shady relationships.

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images.

"I just didn't want to think about the success that I wasn't having that I had in the beginning of my career. It would just be a situation where I would try to numb myself to all the expectations."
— Vin Baker in a 2003 interview with the Boston Globe

Today, Baker is proud to say he's been sober for four years and has found a new career off the court.

With a helping hand from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (a friend and former team owner during Baker's time with the Seattle Supersonics) he's being trained as a barista and future store manager at a Starbucks in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Photo by George Frey/AFP/Getty Images.

Some people are shocked when they hear what he's up to nowadays, but Baker isn't looking for sympathy.

"For the people on the outside looking in, they're like 'Wow,'" Baker told the Providence Journal. "I'm 43 and I have four kids. I have to pick up the pieces."

Photo by George Frey/AFP/Getty Images.

To see Baker's story as a tragic fall from grace is to assume his story is over. But it's far from it.

He aims to make a positive impact every day both as a minister and as a mentor to young professional athletes who'll face a lot of the same struggles that come with money and fame. And that, to me, is the stuff of a real all-star.

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Allsport.

“To summon the strength to walk out here and get excited about retail management at Starbucks and try to provide for my family, I feel that's more heroic than being 6-11 with a fade-away jump shot. I get energy from waking up in the morning and, first of all, not depending on alcohol, and not being embarrassed or ashamed to know I have a family to take care of. The show's got to go on."
— Vin Baker

This story was originally reported by the Providence Journal.

What most people have missed about the poaching of Cecil the lion: There's someone else to blame.

The lion killer doesn't deserve all the blame.

By now, you may have heard about the killing of Cecil, a popular lion in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park.

All GIFs from "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

Cecil was killed by American dentist, poacher, and narcissistic primate Walter James Palmer.

Palmer is no stranger to poaching, though he wouldn't call it that. "I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt," Palmer told CBS News.

"Legal hunt"? Here's what local officials had to say about Palmer's "professional guides":

"In this case, both the professional hunter and land owner had no permit or quota to justify the offtake of the lion and therefore are liable for the illegal hunt."

The story has spread quickly and angrily across the web.

And Palmer has, for a moment, become one of the most detested people on earth. But not just by those you'd expect, like conservationists.

People who don't expressly take issue with hunting are upset by this story, including folks like Jimmy Kimmel, whose July 28 monologue included an emotional denouncement of Palmer and, presumably, other hunters without a purpose.

"But if you're some a-hole dentist who wants a lion's head above the fireplace in his man cave so his douchebag buddies can gather around it and drink Scotch and tell him how awesome he is, that's just vomitus."
— Jimmy Kimmel

Even life-long hunters are up in arms over the unsportsmanlike killing.

Via minnpost.com commenter Rachel Kahler (emphasis added).

In an interview with ThinkProgress, hunter and author Jonny Miles called what happened "an abomination" because of how Palmer and his guides carried out the purely trophy killing:

“On the specifics of the hunt, with baiting, with using lights, and also killing a lion that has a pride — all of it just adds up to an incredibly unethical, unscrupulous way of going about this. ... Hunting shouldn't be about ego. It should be the opposite. It should be about awe at the natural world."

But should blame rest squarely on Palmer's sadistic shoulders?

Sure, if he were even remotely concerned with the most basic ethical code of hunting, he wouldn't be preying on a protected, soon-to-be endangered animal to begin with. But one man's bloodlust doesn't explain why the opportunity to kill Cecil was ever presented to him.

Time magazine's Nash Jenkins writes:

"Zimbabwe was once celebrated as the 'breadbasket of Africa,' whose fertile earth supplied the world with abundant tobacco, corn and wheat. Today, 76% of its rural population lives in abject poverty, dependent on foreign food aid and desperate measures — like the poaching of the wildlife ... or rendering assistance to those who want to hunt or poach."

Jenkins points out that 80% of Zimbabwe's safari wildlife population died between 2000 and 2003. He blames notorious kleptocrat President Robert Mugabe, whose land reforms in 2000 gutted property rights, transferred plots to his cronies, and essentially negated the country's once-robust wildlife regulations.

A cocksure dentist killed a lion in a morally fucked up sport. Systemic political corruption made his task easy. The world generally sucks.
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) July 29, 2015

All that said, Walter James Palmer is, as Kimmel eloquently puts it, an "a-hole."

And while he may not be the only one, he is without question a criminal.

Killing #CecilTheLion was not hunting. It was killing a protected animal for thrills. Critique hunting, but don't equate it with this crime.
— Matthew Savener (@msavener) July 28, 2015

Thumbnail image by Christof Koepsel/Getty Image.

When a pilot with no arms met a 3-year-old girl with no arms, the world's best hug occurred.

It was an incredibly heartwarming moment.

Jessica Cox was born without arms, but that didn't stop her from fulfilling her dream of becoming a pilot.

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

In "Right Footed," a documentary about Cox's incredible accomplishments, she attributes much of her confidence to an older woman named Barbara Guerra, who mentored her.

Guerra, who is also missing both arms, helped Cox on her journey to realizing that her disability didn't have to hold her back. It was the first time Cox had met anyone who looked like her, who was completely independent and doing all the things that Cox had been told a person needed arms to do.

"It's really incredible how one person can be that difference for someone," Cox says in the trailer.

At the premiere of "Right Footed," Cox met a 3-year-old girl who was also born without arms.

Cox wanted to show her that you don't need arms to do the things that are most important to being human, just as she had learned many years ago.

So she gave her a hug.

Heartwarming photo of young girl and pilot shows you don

According to Nicole Pelletiere of ABC News, hugging is extremely important to Cox.

"The top question I get as a speaker is 'How do you hug?,'" [Cox] said. "That picture clearly showed that you don't need arms to embrace someone. It was special that we could feel the same, mutual feeling — what a hug is without arms."

Cox travels constantly speaking up for people with disabilities and advocating for equality. She's currently urging countries around the world to support the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the United Nations, an agreement that aims to promote inclusion of, and prevent discrimination against, people with disabilities worldwide.

But giving out hugs is just as important. It shows each and every person born with her condition that they can live a life that's just as happy and full of love as anyone else.

As Cox puts it in "Right Footed": "All it takes is one person."

Thumbnail photo by Nick Spark, director of "Right Footed," which recently won "Best Documentary," at the Mirabile Dictu Film Festival in Vatican City. Give them a follow on Twitter!

Here's why pot advocates are loving D.A.R.E.'s recent Internet flub.

Just say ... yes?

You remember D.A.R.E., right?

If you're anything like me, this throwback serves as a haunting reminder that, no, middle school was not a nightmare, and yes, it did in fact happen in real life. Photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images.

D.A.R.E. stands for "Drug Abuse Resistance Education." I'm guessing this rings a bell.

D.A.R.E. is a program run by police departments and it aims to keep kids away from harmful drugs, gangs, and violence. It launched in Los Angeles in 1983 in the throes of the "War on Drugs" and still operates in schools across the U.S. today, meaning millions of Americans have had the D.A.R.E. experience over the past few decades.

(D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness has been questioned, but that's a topic for another time.)

Do you remember D.A.R.E.'s mascot, "Daren the Lion"?! Here he is shaking hands with actor Erik Estrada in 2002, because, why not? Photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images.

D.A.R.E., unsurprisingly, has never been a fan of marijuana — that is, until this week, apparently.

With its strong anti-drug mission, it makes sense D.A.R.E. has always been against legalizing marijuana. But on July 27, 2015, D.A.R.E. posted an op-ed from The Columbus Dispatch to its website that implied otherwise.

The article, which was written by former deputy sheriff Carlis McDerment, was titled, "Purchasing marijuana puts kids at risk." And while it may sound like it's an anti-pot essay ... it's not.

Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.

"People like me, and other advocates of marijuana legalization, are not totally blind to the harms that drugs pose to children," McDerment wrote in the op-ed. "We just happen to know that legalizing and regulating marijuana will actually make everyone safer."

In the article, McDerment argues that legalizing and regulating weed would actually help in keeping kids away from marijuana, as dealers in the illicit market (which would cease to exist should pot become legal) don't care if a customer is under 18 years old. Legalizing marijuana would mean creating an industry that could be regulated to enforce age limit laws similar to the ones we have for alcohol.

The apparent endorsement of legal weed was a complete 180° flip for D.A.R.E. But, alas, it was also a complete accident.

After outlets like New York Magazine reported on the organization's change of heart, D.A.R.E. removed the article from its website.

When The Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham reached out to the group to learn more about its stance, D.A.R.E. clarified the article's publishing was, in fact, a "mistake."

DARE clarifies that they do not actually condone marijuana legalization. idk why he called me "Scott" http://pic.twitter.com/odhemQD88Y— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) July 30, 2015

It's a bummer to hear that D.A.R.E.'s not on the legal weed bandwagon, though, because the op-ed they shared is onto something.

In the past, conventional wisdom led some to believe that loosening marijuana laws would send the wrong message to children, but lots of research tells us that's not the case.

A June 2015 study, for example, found that in states that have passed medical marijuana laws, the legalization didn't increase teenage use of the drug. In fact, the study spotted a decrease in use among eighth-graders after the laws went into effect.

Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.

There's also plenty of evidence telling us legalizing weed would do society good...

...like providing funds for important things.

If weed is made legal and the industry regulated, taxes generated from sales could go toward things like public education.

Legal weed could also lower the incarceration rate. Some believe that decriminalizing "victimless" crimes — like the ones often related to minor marijuana offenses — would decrease the prison population without sacrificing safety.

And legal weed might even save lives. As I wrote about in July, it looks like people who seek out painkillers to ease chronic pain are turning toward legal weed instead, thereby reducing the number of deaths from overdosing on prescription painkillers.

For an organization that claims to have everyone's best interests at heart, D.A.R.E. might want to consider actually reading that op-ed they posted.

It might just change their program for the better.

Thumbnail photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images.

Top 5 signs your your ancestors were geniuses at beating the heat

We're dealing with the climate now. But it's not the first time...

Before air conditioning in the latter half of the 20th century, humankind didn't just suffer in the heat. We met the heat with creativity and a whole lot of cool.

Let me just say it: I love AC. I even own a T-shirt with an AC unit on it. I love my AC that much. Yes, AC feels good, but the fact is, it isn't all that great for the environment.

That's why I was so impressed to discover that the generation before AC was implementing lifestyle climate hacks and wide-scale architectural and infrastructure changes that truly give me and all of us AC addicts a run for my air-conditioning-loving money.

Our ancestors were smart! Here are my favorite five tricks from the past for dealing with climate, aka...

The top five signs your hot weather ancestors were complete geniuses at beating the heat.

#1: They planted trees!

Image via Ken Lund/Flickr.

There's a strategic way to do it. A 1984 paper from the University of South Florida discusses the Southern tradition of intentional planting when it comes to keeping cool:

"Southerners would always try to plant theirs on the east and west sides of their homes, to protect from the rays of the rising and setting sun."

#2: They built things in special ways.

We're not talking small-scale here — these are huge changes. These are engineering feats to create ventilation, to avoid interior heat buildup, and more.

William Cooper, a professor at Louisiana State University, told the Boston Globe about some architecture techniques, such as building houses specifically for air circulation:

"People with the means to do so used to construct homes that stood several feet above the ground, in order to get air circulating under the floor. ... They had long halls through the middle of the house, so if you opened a door at each end, you got a breeze coming through, and you'd have windows on the sides so you'd get cross-ventilation.'"

Image of the Marcella Plantation in Mileston, Mississippi, via the Library of Congress/Flickr.

And here's a nice equality moment. Fancy folks and non-fancy folks alike benefitted from these feats of engineering. Note how this more humble abode above has both a porch and ventilation underneath!

More architectural feats include huge, wide eaves and awnings for shade, high ceilings for the heat to rise, and huge porches to block out sun and heat. Even in the North, folks would open the basement and top-floor windows of the home to create a vertical airflow that acted like a chimney, but for heat. Hot air comes in the basement and escapes out of the top floor!

These lifestyle climate hacks from past generations weren't just green before it was cool — they were beautiful.

Check out this turret, designed to give airflow to the hotter top floors of this old home (remember, heat rises!)...

Kinda gorgeous, right? But you know there's a nice breeze up there for those hot Kansas summers. Image via the U.S. National Archives/Flickr.

...and this two-story porch!

Beautiful AND functional. Image via the Library of Congress/Flickr.

This generation was creating BEAUTIFUL, reusable things out of necessity. While we walk around complaining about rising temperatures (but not really doing anything to stop it — cough, cough, climate deniers!), a look at our grandparents shows us how smart and environmentally friendly we can be when we put our minds to it. At least, that's what they did.

#3: Windows weren't just for gazing.

They're for airflow — and a scientific understanding of hot vs. cool air.

Have you heard of a transom?

Image via the U.S. National Archives/Flickr.

I hadn't, but I had seen them. They're those windows above your door that allow hot air to circulate to higher floors in the house. On exterior doors, transoms even had special hardware. This wasn't just a life-hack — it was a full-on craftsman tradition, complete with special engineering.

In addition to transoms, double-hung windows are another innovation.

Image via JustyCinMD/Flickr.

These are a huge staple for warmer/scorching climates. They open from the top to let heat out during the day and from the bottom to let in cool night air when the sun sets.

#4: Reflective roofs.

These guys were doing fancy roofs waaay before it was cool. Their roofs were made of reflective materials and were lighter in color.

Tin roofs! Image via Florida Memory/Flickr.

Imagine that in contrast to the darker asphalt roofs that are so common now.

#5: They adapted their habits (and had fun).

Older generations didn't lean against the winds of climate — they walked with it, adapting in myriad ways.

From the huge, thick drapes to cover their big windows during the day, to the way they changed the way they opened those windows, to even just carrying a fan everywhere ... they were adapting and making newer things the norm as they found creative solutions to dealing with climate.

And let's not forget the best adaptation: hanging out on the porch. Some folks would even sleep on screened-in porches in the summer.

You could also knit and flirt, like these folks from the early 1900s. Gotta prepare for winter in similar creative ways! Image via State Library of New South /Flickr.

My family's hot weather tradition involves a HUGE iced tea on the porch.

To me, this is heaven. Image via Melissa Doroquez/Flickr.

Not a bad adaptation. Very fun, and so chill.

These old traditions got me thinking: If they managed to find ingenious ways to cope with climate, we could all get together again to deal with it, right?

The fact is, we can't all run out and build a second story on our porch or cut a hole in the wall above our door. But individually, we can make small changes and adaptations to our habits. And generationally, we can work together and innovate to find new ways to deal with our climate that are just as beautiful and fun as our grandparents did.

Not sure if anyone will ever invent anything better than a shady porch and cold iced tea on a hot day, but I'd like to see us try.

H/t to this SolarCity article, "How homes kept cool before the age of AC," which I first saw on my friend Michael's Facebook page.

First we had windmills. Then wind turbines. Now it's time to meet the Windwheel.

Those delightfully zany Dutch have done it again!

Picture this:

You're waking up in your beautiful new apartment, looking out on the canal it's situated upon. You sit at your kitchen counter with a cup of coffee, grab the stack of envelopes waiting to be opened, and peruse the invoices within to be paid. But one is missing.

It's the electricity bill.

You frantically search through your mail — and then you remember. You don't have an electricity bill. Because your new apartment is part of a giant circular "Windwheel" that not only generates enough power for your complex, but enough to power your whole town.

Waking up in this building would be such a trip! Image from Dutch Windwheel.

Does a giant Windwheel you can live in sound like a fantasy? Well, it's actually closer than you think.

It's a plan that's so zany it just might work, and its itty-bitty prototype is expected to be easily scalable to the sizes required for the head trip we just went on to become a reality. And it could be ready to operate and live in within 10 years.

How does this Windwheel thing work?

Here's a glimpse of the concept from the Dutch Windwheel company and the Deft University of Technology. Mary Beth Griggs explains in Popular Science:

"Horizontal beams will stretch across the center of the Windwheel. Thousands of nozzles located along them will spray positively charged water molecules into the air. When wind pushes the droplets against the beams' high-voltage electric field, it will create a negative charge.

The negative charge will form a current as the electricity discharges, much like when the negative charge that builds up in thunderclouds discharges to the ground via lightning strike. The electricity will then be converted from direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) for use in the Windwheel or storage in an industrial battery."

Or here's another way of looking at that.

We know we can harness energy through mechanical conversion via windmills and wind turbines, like so:

GIF via TU Delft.

But these Delft University of Technology geniuses wondered if they could get the energy without the mechanical part. (Short story — they can.)

"We wondered whether it is possible to produce energy from wind without the conversion via mechanical energy. It is! By letting the wind move charged particles against the direction of an electric field. How does that work? This is an electric field and a positively charged particle. This can be any object that can hold charge. For example, a ping pong ball. But for the EWICON, we use water droplets. The electric force of the field moves the particle toward the negative electrode. Now when we let the wind push the particle toward the positive electrode, the potential energy of the particle is increased — similar to pushing a rock up a mountain against gravity."

GIF via TU Delft.

They're already using this technology on a much smaller scale and looking to improve its efficiency. Researchers think that with funding and more work on the design, it can be ready to go, in an affordable way, in a decade. And they're betting that making it a design that actually provides housing — yes, actually being able to live in one of the magical Windwheels — is a win-win economically.

Imagine going night-night in this place. Image from Dutch Windwheel.

It's also proposed, as shown in this diagram, that the Windwheel could have solar panels to enhance its energy production capacity.

Image from Dutch Windwheel.

It's not clear if this technology could eventually be retrofitted to benefit existing apartment buildings, and we're a bit too far from the actuality to start putting in a rental application for the first Windwheel apartment just yet, but...

2025 is the projected year that the Windwheel could be up and running.

Photo by Brendan Wood/Flickr.

And for people who are looking forward to seeing their electric bills go down (not to mention switching to cleaner energy), it won't be a moment too soon.

Thumbnail image from the Dutch Windwheel Co.

President Obama wants the U.S. to build the world's fastest computer. And he's not asking.

Every president gets one moment to encourage America to do something really, really impressive.

JFK inspired us to go to the moon.

And Stanley Kubrick really made it look like we did! Photo via Pixabay.

George W. Bush pitched putting people on Mars by 2030.

15 more years! 15 more years! Photo by NASA.

And President Obama finally had his moment this past week when he challenged all Americans to come together as one and...

...build a really, really fast computer.

One that can run Oregon Trail and WordPerfect at the same time. Photo by Cornellanense/Wikimedia Commons.

OK, so it's not as flashy as going to the moon or Mars. But it's still a pretty big deal. Possibly an even bigger deal.

'Cause Obama doesn't have just any computer in mind.

He wants America to build the world's fastest computer. By 2025.

He issued the challenge in the form of an executive order to boot. So, technically, he ordered us to build the world's fastest computer.

Second term, balls-to-the-wall, IDGAF Obama, FTW.

According to Chris Baraniuk at the BBC, the kind of computer Obama has in mind could actually be a pretty big technological leap forward.

And not just in a highly-technical-scientific-techno-I-don't-totally-understand-this-but-OK way, but in some pretty neat, tangible ways that affect lots of folks' daily lives:

"The US is seeking the new supercomputer, significantly faster than today's models, to perform complex simulations, aid scientific research and national security projects.

It is hoped the machine would help to analyse weather data for more accurate forecasts or assist in cancer diagnoses by analysing X-ray images.

A blog post on the White House website also suggests it could allow NASA scientists to model turbulence, which might enable the design of more streamlined aircraft without the need for extensive wind tunnel testing."

A computer that will give us better weather and climate data? That's awesome. It could even legit help us rescue the planet.

A computer that will carry out super-advanced cancer screenings? That could save lots of real human lives.

And turbulence is ... really, really annoying. I'd sign up for having a giant supercomputer design planes that can move through it like it's NBD.

All good.

Which raises the question...

Can we actually build it?

It's probably going to be pretty expensive, requiring an annual electricity bill of around $90 million per year. And it's going to require a lot of really smart people thinking really smart thoughts for a lot of hours to get us there.

But think about it.

If we could go from this:

OK, so this isn't the plan for 2025 after all. Photo by Cornellanense/Wikimedia Commons.

To this:

Photo by Pablo Cuadra/Getty Images.

In the span of a little more than 20 years...

It's pretty cool to think about how much further we can go in the next 10 years.

Photo by Alistair McMillan/Flickr.

OK, we might have to wait another few decades for the Enterprise computer.

But with POTUS backing the project, I bet those fancy future weather forecasts are gonna be pretty neat.

Thumbnail image by William Hook/Flickr.