John W. Cornwell Beer Launching Fridge
Have you ever gotten up off the couch to get a beer for the umpteenth time and thought, “What if instead of ME going to get the BEER, the BEER came to ME???” Well, that was how I first conceived of the beer launching fridge. About 3 months and several hundred dollars later I have a fully automated, remote controlled, catapulting, man-pit approved, beer launching mini-fridge. It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. It is controlled by a keyless entry system. Pressing unlock will start the catapult rotating and when it is aiming at your target, pressing unlock again will stop it. Then the lock button can be pressed to launch a beer in the selected direction. Thanks to Randy Marks, who doesn’t even have a TV to use this invention with.
Month: March 2007
Safety Message Poster Pictures
U.S. study tips scale in favor of Atkins diet
U.S. study tips scale in favor of Atkins diet | Health | Reuters
They were Atkins, the lowest in carbohydrates for the four; the Zone diet, also low in carbohydrates and based on a 40:30:30 ratio of carbohydrates to protein to fat; the Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitudes, Relationships and Nutrition (LEARN) diet which follows U.S. government guidelines for low fat but higher carbohydrates; and the Ornish diet, which is very high in carbohydrates but very low in fat.
The study randomly assigned a group of 311 overweight, post-menopausal, non-diabetic women one of the four diets. All attended weekly diet classes for eight weeks and were given books to follow. Their weight and metabolism were then checked for the following 10 months.
Women assigned to the Atkins group lost an average of 10.4 pounds (4.7 kgs) compared to 5.7 pounds (2.5 kgs) for LEARN, 4.8 pounds (2.1 kgs) for Ornish and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kgs) for Zone, the study said.
The women on the Atkins diet also had the most improvements in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure, added the study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Video Game Helps Find Depression
NIMH: Virtual-Reality Video Game Helps Link Depression to Specific Brain Area
Scientists are using a virtual-reality, three-dimensional video game that challenges spatial memory as a new tool for assessing the link between depression and the hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub. Spatial memory is the memory of how things are oriented in space and how to get to them.
Earlier studies showed that people with mood disorders tend to have smaller hippocampi than nondepressed people. Other studies showed that depressed people have memory problems. This study strengthened the evidence of a link between the hippocampus and depression by showing that people with hippocampus dysfunction — as revealed by spatial memory problems detected by the new video game — are more likely to be depressed
Predisposition to Addiction Found in Cocaine Study
Scientific American: Predisposition to Addiction Found in Cocaine Study
The findings suggest that a lack of D2-family receptors may predict both the risk of anticipatory impulsivity as well as a predisposition to behaviors like drug and other addictions such as compulsive gambling and shopping. “This is probably one of several ‘vulnerability’ markers, for future drug addiction,” Dalley says. “What determines the final ‘tipping’ point is obviously very complex—[involving] genes and environment, etc.”
The real value of the new research may be that these receptors can provide new and more effective therapies for current addicts, says Michael Nader, a physiologist and pharmacologist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. “This identifies a target,” he says. “If you have low D2 levels you’re more vulnerable; if you change the environment, you can increase those levels.” He suggests that treatments that stimulate production of D2 receptors could be beneficial.
“Most licensed treatments are substitution therapies”—such as methadone in the case of heroin addiction—”so they maintain the addicted state, but more safely,” says Dalley. “We feel that newer treatments should aim to prevent relapse.” He notes that the behavior of the impulsive study rats normalized after they went through withdrawal from cocaine. “The potential here,” he says, “is [in] treatments that retard the return of impulsivity in post-cocaine addicts, [which] may be an important contributor to relapse.”
Ex-Apple Employee’s Firing Makes For Great YouTube Video
InformationWeek Weblog: Ex-Apple Employee’s Firing Makes For Great YouTube Video
Some say that revenge is best when it is served cold, but for former Apple Inc. call center employee Erik Ott, revenge may be best served about a million times a day on YouTube.
Ott, who moonlights as a poet with the handle “Big Poppa E,” was fired from the computer company’s Canadian customer service call center back in November 2005, two days after delivering an ode to the hilarious — and fictitious — life of a call center employee.
The 6 minute and 43 second video entitled “why i got fired from apple computer” features Ott in character complaining about rude Americans, overly polite Canadians, and a FedEx delivery woman with eyes the color of chocolate pudding whom he pines about while the customer is left on hold.
The video isn’t new. The file has been seen in rotation in various forms since late in 2005. Ott said he tucked the video deep in a corner of his site to show to friends but someone got hold of and posted it on Google Video in 2005. It has since made the rounds on Digg last year and currently started playing on YouTube on Friday as a Featured Video.