субота, 28 березня 2009 р.

Educational: Simple Ways to Super Charge Your Brain

Have you ever felt exasperated when you bumped into someone at the store but absolutely couldn't remember their name? Sure, it happens to all of us.

Despite being the strongest computer on the planet, our brains do lapse. It's hard to blame them really. As humans, we spend much of or existence stuffing our brains with stuff. Some stuff is worthless, some of it's meaningful, some of it, well, it's just stuff and there is an endless amount of it.

No matter how powerful our brains are, they need recuperation time, to be kept in shape, and even an occasional charge. Think of it as a tune up for your brain. Skipping brain maintenance is as silly as the person wandering the parking garage because they forgot where they parked. Is that you? Are you that person? Sure. We all are at some point. No worries, there is hope.

Now I am not a brain surgeon and I am not going to suggest you do anything surgical or dangerous. I am however an astute student of human behavior, so I always look for simple ways to super charge my brain.

Here are some things you can begin doing as soon as today to begin the great brain tune up.

1. Eat Almonds
Almond is believed to improve memory. If a combination of almond oil and milk is taken together before going to bed or after getting up at morning, it strengthens our memory power. Almond milk is prepared by crushing the almonds without the outer cover and adding water and sugar to it.

2. Drink Apple Juice
Research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) indicates that apple juice increases the production of the essential neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in an increased memory power.

3. Sleep well
Research indicates that the long-term memory is consolidated during sleep by replaying the images of the experiences of the day. These repeated playbacks program the subconscious mind to store these images and other related information.

4. Enjoy simple Pleasures
Stress drains our brainpower. A stress-ridden mind consumes much of our memory resources to leave us with a feeble mind. Make a habit to engage yourself in few simple pleasures everyday to dissolve stress from your mind. Some of these simple pleasures are good for your mind, body and soul.

* Enjoy music you love
* Play with your children
* Hug a stranger
* Appreciate others
* Run few miles a day, bike or swim
* Start a blog
* Take a yoga class or Total Wellness routine

5. Fast for a day
Fasting cleans and detoxifies our body. It is known fact that heavy food not only causes stress on our digestive system but also drains our brainpower. Fasting relieves toxic emotions such as anger, grief, worry, and fears - before they accumulate and cause disease. By cleansing toxic emotions, fasting strengthens metal clarity with increases memory, concentration, creativity and insight.

6. Exercise your mind
Just as physical exercise is essential for a strong body, mental exercise is equally essential for a sharp and agile mind. Have you noticed that children have far superior brainpower than an adult does? Children have playful minds. A playful mind exhibits superior memory power. Engage in some of the activities that require your mind to remain active and playful.

* Play scrabble or crossword puzzle
* Volunteer
* Interact with others
* Start a new hobby such as blogging, reading, painting, bird watching
* Learn new skill or a language

7. Practice Yoga or Meditation
Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster. With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower.

8. Reduce Sugar intake
Sugar is a non-food. It’s a form of carbohydrate that offers illusionary energy, only to cause a downhill slump once the initial burst has been worn off. Excess intake of sugar results in neurotic symptoms. Excess sugar is known to cause claustrophobia, memory loss and other neurotic disorders. Eat food without adding sugar. Stay away from sweet drinks or excess consumption of caffeine with sugar.

9. Eat whole wheat
The whole wheat germs contain lecithin. Lecithin helps ease the problem of the hardening of the arteries, which often impairs brain functioning.

10. Eat a light meal in the night
A heavy meal at night causes tossing and turning and a prolonged emotional stress while at sleep. It’s wise to eat heavy meal during the day when our body is in motion to consume the heavy in-take. Eating a light meal with some fruits allows us to sleep well. A good night sleep strengthens our brainpower.

11. Develop imagination
Greeks mastered the principle of imagination and association to memorize everything. This technique requires one to develop a vivid and colorful imagination that can be linked to a known object. If you involve all your senses - touching, feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing in the imagination process, you can remember greater details of the event.

12. Sex
Our sexual imagination often empowers our ability to daydream, which strengthens our brainpower with greater imagination, visualization and association.

13. Control your temper
Bleached food, excess of starch or excess of white bread can lead to nerve grating effect. This results in a violent and some time depressive behavior. Eat fresh vegetables. Drink lots of water and meditate or practice yoga to relieve these toxic emotions of temper and violent mood swings.

14. Take Vitamin B-complex
Vitamin B-complex strengthens memory power. Eat food and vegetables high in Vitamin B-complex. Stay away from the starch food or white bread, which depletes the Vitamin B-complex necessary for a healthy mind.

I don't believe these are that tough. If you find yourself increasing stumped, give a couple of these a try.

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пʼятниця, 27 березня 2009 р.

Things You Never Knew had Names

1. AGLET - The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.
2. ARMSAYE - The armhole in clothing.
3. CHANKING - Spat-out food, such as rinds or pits.
4. COLUMELLA NASI - The bottom part of the nose between the nostrils.
5. DRAGÉES - Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.
6. FEAT - A dangling curl of hair.
7. FERRULE - The metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.
8. HARP - The small metal hoop that supports a lampshade.
9. HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER - A 64th note. (A 32nd is a demisemiquaver, and a 16th note is a semiquaver.)
10. JARNS,
11. NITTLES,
12. GRAWLIX,
13. and QUIMP - Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.
14. KEEPER - The loop on a belt that keeps the end in place after it has passed through the buckle.
15. KICK or PUNT - The indentation at the bottom of some wine bottles. It gives added strength to the bottle but lessens its holding capacity.
16. LIRIPIPE - The long tail on a graduate's academic hood.
17. MINIMUS - The little finger or toe.
18. NEF - An ornamental stand in the shape of a ship.
19. OBDORMITION - The numbness caused by pressure on a nerve; when a limb is 'asleep'.
20. OCTOTHORPE - The symbol '#' on a telephone handset. Bell Labs' engineer Don Macpherson created the word in the 1960s by combining octo-, as in eight, with the name of one of his favourite athletes, 1912 Olympic decathlon champion Jim Thorpe.
21. OPHRYON - The space between the eyebrows on a line with the top of the eye sockets.
22. PEEN - The end of a hammer head opposite the striking face.
23. PHOSPHENES - The lights you see when you close your eyes hard. Technically the luminous impressions are due to the excitation of the retina caused by pressure on the eyeball.
24. PURLICUE - The space between the thumb and extended forefinger.
25. RASCETA - Creases on the inside of the wrist.
26. ROWEL - The revolving star on the back of a cowboy's spurs.
27. SADDLE - The rounded part on the top of a matchbook.
28. SCROOP - The rustle of silk.
29. SNORKEL BOX - A mailbox with a protruding receiver to allow people to deposit mail without leaving their cars.
30. SPRAINTS - Otter dung.
31. TANG - The projecting prong on a tool or instrument.
32. WAMBLE - Stomach rumbling.
33. ZARF - A holder for a handleless coffee cup.

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Everything I Know About Women . . .

As a single man in my mid-thirties, I’ve spent 20 years trying to understand women, with mixed results. It wasn’t until six months ago, however, that I was given a clear insight into how the female mind works.

It came in the form of Lou-Lou, my two-year-old niece. I know, as a grown-up, that the onus is on me to teach her useful stuff rather than the other way around, but in this case, the instruction was mutual. I taught her how to wink, blow raspberries, burp and count to 10, sort of. “One, two, three, seven, nine, ten”, which is good enough for me, as, personally, I’ve always thought the numbers four, five, six and eight were overrated.

In return, I learnt more about women in two months than I had gleaned on my own in two decades. This does not mean, by the way, that I think women are like two-year-olds and should be treated as such. I love my niece. I respect my niece. I’d dive on an unexploded grenade for my niece, and not just to amuse her. I would only dive on it if there was real danger of it exploding and hurting her. Women are all individuals and I’m making generalisations, but in the two-year-old Lou-Lou is the undiluted, unaffected essence – the “id” – of womanhood. Here’s what I’ve learnt.

1. Ignore them

1If I come into a room and bounce up to Lou-Lou like a clown, trying to amuse and entertain, she blanks me completely. It’s as if I don’t exist. If I walk straight past her, however, I guarantee she will call out my name and want to play with me.

2. Bribe them

Gifts work. Preferably something noisy or sparkly. With Lou-Lou, that means stuffed animals that sing or sequined hair grips. With grown women, I suppose that equates to, say, cars and jewellery.

3. Compliment them

I’ve mistakenly always held that compliments are like diamonds: valuable only for their scarcity. Flood the market and they lose all value. Not so. Lou-Lou poos in her nappy, everyone cheers – as if she just came up with a workable solution to world hunger – and she beams like a lighthouse. The same works with grown women, although, of course, only the general principle applies rather than the specific example given here. (I learnt this one the hard way.)

4. Listen to them

I’ve spent my life trying to preempt what women want. I needn’t have bothered. If I just pay attention, Lou-Lou will tell me exactly what she wants: eat, dance, doll, jump, run, sing, play, read. Then all I have to do is organise it. How much simpler my life would have been if I had listened and acted accordingly.

5. Apologise

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you don’t even know what you’ve done. I might have slighted Lou-Lou by putting the wrong doll in the pram. What seems to you or me like a minor infraction is, to her, on a par with genocide. The best policy is to throw yourself on her mercy and beg forgiveness. But you must sound sincere. You don’t have to be sincere, just sound sincere. This is so elementary, yet how many men ignore this advice?

6. Let them do it

Whatever “it” is. No matter how ridiculous it may seem to you, let her do it. When Lou-Lou gets an idea into her mind, there’s no talking her out of it. In fact, be supportive, encourage her even. Then sit back and hope she discovers for herself that it was a stupid idea. The downside is that she might decide it was an excellent idea. One day, I found myself playing dolls’ tea party for two whole hours and drank so many cups of imaginary tea, I was imaginary peeing all afternoon.

7. Don't tell them what to do

The best way to guarantee that she doesn’t do what I want is by telling her to do it. The clever thing is to make it seem like her idea – and make it seem fun. One of my proudest moments was convincing Lou-Lou that watching the rugby World Cup final would be more fun than playing in the sandpit.

8. Don't complain to them

This is a tricky one. What I mean by this is, don’t burden her with your petty problems. When I complain to Lou-Lou about a bad meeting or a sore back, she couldn’t care less, but if there’s genuinely something wrong, she will instinctively sense it and, with one hug, pick me up more than I thought possible.

9. Don't argue

There’s simply no point. You will never win, and if you do win, it will be a hollow victory because of the mood she’ll be in for a long time afterwards. Quite frankly, who needs the aggro? This leads to my final and most important point:

10. Don't make them cry

There is nothing more distressing than watching Lou-Lou’s enormous, innocent brown eyes overflow with tears, while her mouth becomes a gaping, drooling, mournful air-raid siren that pierces through to the core of my heart. I’m utterly defenceless when she cries. And there’s no known antidote. Food? Monkey impressions? A pony? Stabbing myself in the eye with a chopstick? I will agree to anything to stop her crying – and doesn’t she.

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четвер, 26 березня 2009 р.

The Most Ridiculous Domains, I've Ever Seen

The domain name you choose for your site is uber-important.

Pick a really good domain name and folks will remember you for it.

Pick a really bad one and folks will remember you for it too, but for all the wrong reasons.

These poor, unfortunate companies who in real life offer completely innocent products are being remembered for the latter reason. They picked a domain name that made sense to them, but they obviously didn't consider hard enough what the URL would look like to your average stopper-by.

Entrepreneurs, let us learn from their mistakes, shall we?

This list comes from Independent Sources:

1. A site called ‘Who Represents‘ where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name… wait for it… is
www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at
www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at
www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at
www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then of course, there’s the Italian Power Generator company…
www.powergenitalia.com

6. And now, we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:
www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you’re looking for computer software, there’s always
www.ipanywhere.com

8. Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church. Their website is
www.cummingfirst.com

9. Then, of course, there’s these brainless art designers, and their whacky website:
www.speedofart.com

10. Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe? Try their brochure website at
www.gotahoe.com

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середа, 18 березня 2009 р.

What a great way to get customers, morons!

Companies do tricky shit and then wonder why their name gets beat up...

For instance, the last Java update. I clicked through it because it's Java. Sun wouldn't do shit just to be stupid and make a cheap buck yeah? Next thing I know, piles of F^cking Yahoo search bars are on my computer.

Fuck you SUN, Fuck you Yahoo. Normally I just ignore them but now I think I'm going to go to Yahoo and search for shit related to Google just to bump their word volumes around.

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Mac Upgrades [COMIC]

Let's be honest, Macs are good computers, however people buy macs for the wrong reasons. They buy them because they are "trendy." If I had a dollar for every time I saw a douche in Starbucks using a Mac and doing absolutely nothing productive other than trying to be a douche, I'd be a rich man.

That said, I still use a PC. I wouldn't mind a mac for purposes of learning more about them, but there is really no reason for me to have one since ubuntu and openbsd do all the jobs i request from my current PCs.

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неділя, 15 березня 2009 р.

Victory for the Topless Front

Feminism some men may argue, has its downsides - particularly when it means they have to share the housework.

But few would protest against the latest victory for women's rights.

Ladies in Copenhagen will now be allowed to swim and walk around topless in public pools.

Victory: Ladies in Copenhagen will now be allowed to swim and walk around topless in public pools

The decision is the result of a year-long campaign by a pressure group, the Topless Front, which says women should be treated the same as bare-chested men.

Campaign leader Astrid Vang, 20, who took her shirt off with others to protest at a leisure centre at Christmas, said: "We women would like to decide by ourselves when our breasts should be sexual and when not.

"In swimming pools they should not and that is why the breasts should not be covered - We will bathe topless just like men."

The Danish campaign was inspired by a Swedish group called Just Breasts, which was formed after two women were asked to cover up their breasts by a lifeguard at a public pool near Stockholm.

Swedish protesters carried out several full-frontal marches in their country but are still campaigning for bare-chested equality.

One of their leaders, 22-year-old Ragnhild Karlsson, said: "We want our breasts to be as normal and desexualised as men's, so that we too can pull off our shirts at football matches."

Activists expect a flurry of similar campaigns-across Europe, including in Britain.

Authorities in Vancouver, Canada - often considered to be a bastion of Victorian values - have allowed topless women in swimming pools and on beaches for several years.

The only protest against the move came from lifeguards who said they had problems knowing what to hold when rescuing swimmers in difficulties.

In Copenhagen yesterday, the city's Culture and Leisure Committee voted overwhelmingly to allow topless bathing.

Frank Hedegaard, of the Socialist People's Party, said: "I cannot understand what some people find so offensive about women's breasts.

"This decision is important in order to stop the idea that women's bodies are only sex objects."

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