Food, Art, Science and Technology

Folklore of Apricot

2011-10-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

The apricot flower is symbolic of doubt in the “language of flower.” Also, the apricot has been used to symbolize female genitalia, similar to the peach and other stone fruits.

In ancient times, the Persian called apricot “seed of the sun.”

Chinese legends ascribed prophetic powers to the Confucius is said to have worked out his philosophy under an apricot tree.

In Hunza, a small kingdom on he Himalayas, the long life and the robust health of the people to be due to apricots.

Throughout the world apricot is considered to be among the most delectable of all fruits, with flowers, fruit and tree playing parts in various traditions of diverse human culture. Fruits are used in both fresh and dry form, canned or otherwise preserved as jam and marmalade or pulp.

Wines and distillates made from both cultivated and non-domesticated apricot are traditional beverages in parts of both Europe and Asia.

As with all stone fruits, apricot leaves, flowers, and especially seeds and bark contain toxic compounds that generate cyanide, which is of course toxic or lethal in large doses.

However, in the plant tissues, the cyanide concentration is low enough to be considered therapeutic, particularly for cancer (tumor) treatment has been used for this purpose since at least 25 BC.

Apricot oil was used against tumors and ulcers in England in the 1600s. Apricot seeds contain the highest amounts of these cyanide-generating compounds and the controversial cancer drug laetrile is derived from this source.

Treatment is based on the theory that the apricot pit extract breaks down to release cyanide but only when in contact with beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme active in tumor cells.

The cyanide is released preferentially at tumor sites, killing cancerous cells.

The apricot tree was called by the Romans ‘Armeniaca’, the tree of Armenia, where it originated. And the Latin also named the apricot ‘praecocia’. It was because it ripens at the beginning of summer before other fruits.
Folklore of Apricot

Shamanism in American Indian

2011-09-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

North American Indian medicine men and shamans have played a large role in the the older literature on North America. The nineteenth century saw the first anthropology description of American medicine men and shamans.

By definitions, all shamans would be medicine man but to all medicine men would be shamans.

Shamanism means traditions of prehistoric origin that are characteristic of Mongoloid peoples, including the American Indians.

They believed and acknowledge one supreme, all powerful, and intelligent Being, or Giver of Life, who create and governs all things.

The Shaman functionary in the chief place in all religious and ceremonial activities, thus making shamanism synonymous with religion.

It is the shaman rather than the priest who is called upon to treat the sick, to foretell the future.

Medicine power is often attributed to a fetish or charm adopted to typify a tutelary demon, or mystery guardian and the superior performance of one “juggler” over another is often attributed to the fact his medicine is the stronger.

Medicine is also associated with magic numbers. The usual sacred number among Indian is four, signifying the cardinal directions, but sometimes six, adding the up and down directions.

The Medicine bundle was perhaps the most important. In the thirties the medicine bundle cult still survive among the Potawatomis along with the more recent religion or drum dance, and peyote religion, as one of the three curing cults still extant.

The medicine bundle was usually made of an animal skin as deer tails, dried fingers, and often the maw stone of a buffalo.

Characteristically, the shaman is a healer, a psychopomp (who guides the souls of the dead to their home in the afterlife), and more generally a mediator between her or his community and the world of spirits (most often animal sprits and the spirits of the forces of nature).
Shamanism in American Indian

History of Opium

2011-03-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

Alcohol may have been the most frequently consumed drug history, but the most effective medicinal drug available before the dawn of the twentieth century was opium obtained from the poppy, Papaver somniferum L. – one of the oldest cultivated species known.

The use of opium dates back further than written history.

The first people known to have used opium are the Sumerians who lived in lower Mesopotamia, now western Iraq, in 3500 BC. The Sumerians are best remembers as the culture that invented writing.

The Sumerian used opium medicinally. Some historians contend that opium was not used recreationally.

By 1300 BC the Egyptians were cultivating poppies for the production of opium. The opium they produced was an extremely popular commodity. They traded it as far away as Greece and central Europe.

The Egyptians listed opium along with approximately 700 other medicinal compounds in the famous Ebers Papyrus.

Claims that opium was used in the Neolithic period should be viewed with extreme caution.

They are based in the finding of seeds of the closely related P. somniferum subsp. Setigerum in Germany at the Danubian settlements, the location of the first central European farms around 4400 – 4000 BC.

Much greater quantities of poppy seeds have been found in northern France and farming settlements on the shores of lakes in Switzerland and surrounding areas, which date back to 3700 – 3625 BC.

Both P. somniferum and its species setigerum produce morphine and related narcotic compounds, though the former generates greater amount.

However, the seeds of both plants contain insufficient amounts of active alkaloids to produce any narcotic effect.

The seeds from the Neolithic period were probably used for the production of oil, as they certainly were in later times.

The first mention of opium by the Greeks was made around 330 BC by Hippocrates the father of medicine, about opium’s usefulness in curing a number of diseases, especially diarrhea.

A small portion of the current opium crop (possibly 5%) is used for pharmaceutical medicines; most opium is destined for the illegal drug trade, but the nonmedical.

Opium was always the most essential in both Eastern and Western medical prescriptions until the US government began strictly enforcing its worldwide prohibition during the 1940s.

By then approximately eighty percent of all medications sold in America and Europe contained some form of opium or opium derivative.
History of Opium

History of Medicine of Anise

2010-07-28T01:44:00.000-07:00

History of Medicine of Anise
Anise has been cultivated in Egypt for over 4000 years. Pharaonic texts show that even then it was used as a digestive herb diuretic and for toothache. The Greek used it too.

Greek Botanist Dioscorides wrote in the first century AD that anise “warms, dries and dissolves” everything from an aching stomach and a sluggish digestion to excessive “winde” and a stinking breath.

In the sixth century BC, Pythagoras, the mathematician and philosopher, apparently spent some time contemplating the use of anise. He believed that simply holding this herb could prevent seizures in epileptics.

One century later, Hippocrates prescribed a more reasonable use for anise. He recommended it for coughs.

Anise is mentioned in the seventh century BC works of Hammurabi the sixth king of Babylon and author of the Code of Hammurabi, one of the first legal treatise in recorded history.

The Pimpinella in anise’s botanical name derives from the Latin dipinella, or “twice pinnate,” in reference to its leaf form, and because of its pungent, licorice sweetness, anise saw broad medicinal application across all cultures it touched, but particularly for respiratory and digestive ailments.

The Roman scholar Pliny stated that anise “removed all bad odors from the mouth, if chewed in the morning,” a use that is still recommended today.

Pliny also believed that the herb helped to maintain a youthful appearance and he may have been the source of the idea that anise could prevent bad dreams of kept near the bed at night.

The Romans widely cultivated anise for its fragrance, flavor and medicinal properties. They mixed the seeds with other savory spices and with meal to make a cake called mustaceum.

The practical; Romans got two benefits from this mustaceum: it was a digestive aid and a flavorful dessert, and anise contributed to both uses. Mustaceum was often served after heavy meals including wedding feasts.

Because of the value of anise, it became one of the species used by the Romans to pay taxes. In England, in 1305, King Edward I did the Romans one better and levied an import tax on the herb itself.

Despite its popularity, it was not cultivated in England until the middle of the sixteenth century.
History of Medicine of Anise

Computer Hacking

2010-06-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

Computer Hacking
The phrase computer hacker has changed over the last forty years. In the 1960s, hackers were perceived as skilled computer wizards who curiosity would lead to technological advancement.

Today , the term hacker has a more negative connotation and invokes the image of malicious kids who get a thrill from defacing websites or professional criminals who break havoc on the net.

Although the term hacker still has both positive and negative connotation, hacking does not. Hacking refers to the trespassing or accessing of a website without authorization.

Unauthorized entry can led to legal consequences, particularly if a hacker is deliberately violating the website’s right to privacy.

Whether the hackers damage the content or leave the site untouched, their ability to infiltrate secure systems is powerful and disturbing. One study asserts that 59% of all company owned websites were hacked during 1997.

Some hackers who penetrate secure websites subscribe to the belief that all information should be free and accessible. Others see themselves as taking an important role in protecting websites and feel that by gaining access to a site, they are identifying vulnerabilities in the security program.

Still, others, motivated by border and seeking entertainment, engage in recreational hacking and leave the sites they visits unchallenged.
Computer Hacking

Search Engine Secrecy

2010-05-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Secrecy
The search engines tell you a lot, but not the whole story. Search engines claim that the secrecy surrounding their algorithms is necessary because of malicious spammers, who would alter their sites deceptively for the sole purpose of higher rankings.

It’s in the search engine; best interests to keep their method a secret; after all, if they publish a list of dos and don’ts and just what what their limits and boundaries are then the spammers, would know the limits of the search engines’ spam catching techniques.

Also secrecy leaves the search engines free to modify things any time they need to. Google changes their algorithm frequently. For instance in just six months in 2007, Google’s algorithm changed 450 times.

No one knows what changes, how big the changes were, or when exactly they occurred. Instead of giving out the algorithm, search engines merely provide guidelines as to their preferences.

This is why that SEO is an art, not just a science: Too many unknown factors are out of your control, so a lot of finesses and intuition is involved.

Other factors can complicate rankings as well. Here’s a brief list of factors that have nothing to do with changes in the web sites themselves that can cause search engine rankings to fluctuates:

The search engine changed its algorithm and now weighs factors differently.

The search engine may be testing something new (a temporary change).

The index being queried is coming from a different data center. Google for instance, has more than 100 data centers in different locations, which may have different versions of the index.

The search engine had a technical problem and restored data temporarily form cache or a backup version.

Data may not be up-to-date (depending on when the search engine last crawled the web sites).

Search Engine Secrecy

What is tablet computer?

2010-04-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

What is tablet computer?
A tablet computer is a portable computing device featuring a touch sensitive screen that can be used as a writing or drawing pad.

A slate tablet configuration resembles a high tech clipboard and lacks a built in keyboard (although one can be attached).

A convertible tablet computer is constructed like a notebook computer, but the screen folds face up over the keyboard to provide a horizontal writing surface.

Tablet computers shine for applications that involve handwritten input. Most tablet computers are also configured to accept voice input.

These capabilities are particularly useful for insurance adjusters who do most of their work at the scene of accidents and natural disasters, real estates agents who need access to data while out with clients, and healthcare workers who are moving quickly from one patient to the next.

When tablet computers were first introduce in 2002, they were priced significantly higher than notebook computer with similar processors and memory capacity.
What is tablet computer?

Mobile Web and Desktop Web

2010-03-25T21:31:00.001-07:00

Mobile Web and Desktop Web
Fundamentally, there is one web. Its content is standardized markup, styles, scripts, and multimedia viewable using web browser.

It is what the people surf in Firefox or Opera or Internet Explorer on the desktop, laptops and netbooks.

The web is the vast collection of servers linked by TCP/IP computer networks. Many of these servers known as web servers implement the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to share document and files.

Web servers provide access by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to text files, markup documents and binary resources.

In an HTTP request, the client sends web server the URI is the desired resource and a collections of request headers, one of which contains a list MIME types that advertise the content types supported on the client.

The Mobile Web uses the plumbing of the Desktop Web and adds new MIME types markup languages document formats and best practices to provide web content optimized for the small screens, resource constrains, and usability challenges of web browsers on mobile devices.

The mobile Web introduces new components into web ecosystem, including;

Markup languages and styles optimized for mobile devices

MIME types that differentiate mobile markup from desktop HTML

Browser clients with a wide variety of capabilities

Network provides that further adapt your content to cater for those

If the Mobile Web is the Wild West, then the Desktop Web is an island paradise. The Desktop Web is a safe and well understood development environment driven by client technologies steeped in established standards.

Desktop browser clients are public, free, freely available and frequently update. Only a handful of software vendors and open source projects produce the dominant web browsers in use today, reducing the testing burden for cross platform web development.

In the desktop ecosystem, if a web page reaches the destination browser, its markup is almost always left unaltered en route by intermediary servers on the internet.

Network owners and Internet Service Providers are not interested in optimizing and improving the web experience though automated markup adaptation and content repacking.

Mobile Web development is a new discipline for these reasons;

The Mobile Web ecosystem is totally new

The Mobile Web user is totally new

The Mobile Web browser is totally new

Mobile Web and Desktop Web

Anemia

2010-03-03T01:19:00.001-08:00

Anemia
Anemia is a general term for conditions characterized by an inadequate oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, and therefore an insufficient supply of oxygen to the tissues.

The classic symptoms include fatigue paleness, general breathlessness, difficulty breathing during activity and heart palpitations.

Dizziness, headache an unsettled stomach, poor appetite, insomnia, irregular heartbeat and heart murmur may also occur.

Anemia can come about from a variety of causes. Oxygen is transported in the blood by means of molecules of hemoglobin, a red pigment found in red blood cells.

Each healthy red blood cells circulating in the body carries between 200 and 300 molecules of hemoglobin.

Therefore, anything that causes a lack of hemoglobin or of red blood cells can lead to anemia.

By far the most common form of anemia is nutritional anemia, although it is often not diagnosed as such.

Like all types of anemia, it is characterized by the inadequate production of red blood cells, and it causes all the classic symptoms.

Nutritional anemia is directly caused by a lack of sufficient quantities of all the nutrients mentioned here – iron, folic acid and vitamin B12.

This condition is common in older people, who often eat poorly and also may have absorption problems, and in people whose diet consists primarily of fats food and junk food.
Anemia

Wal-Mart Success

2010-02-17T05:06:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart Success
Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the United States and in the world in terms of revenues and number of employees.

It keeps growing at a rapid pace, showing no sign of letting up. In the first decide of the twenty-first century it appears as if no other company has a chance of catching up to it.

What is the secret of Wal-Mart’s success? Its philosophy, first set its motion by its founder, Sam Walton, is to offer the lowest prices to its customer, thereby undercutting all of its competitors.

Wal-Mart’s basic approach is to minimize margins and maximize returns (i.e., it emphasizes the speed with which goods more through the store over the profit it makes per unit).

Wal-Mart manages to keep its prices low by keeping its own costs down. This is achieved by abstemious management practice (limiting lavish spending by managers) and by keeping down the wages of its workforce (called “associates” by the company).

The low wage policy is maintained by providing weak benefits (for example, relying on spouses’ health care coverage) and by a fierce anti-unionism.

Wal-Mart has used very trick in the book, legal and illegal, to keep unions out.

For this reason along, it has become the prime enemy of the labor movement in the United States and elsewhere.

Wal-Mart is noted for its logistics excellence. It has been a leader in revolutionizing logistics processes, creating a form of just in time (JIT) retailing by developing high tech coordination with its suppliers.

In part for this reason, an in part because of its sheer size and power, the company has gained a dominance over its supplier, putting constant pressure on them to lower their prizes, sometimes with the consequence of pushing them to lower throe production off shore to lower wage countries such a China.

Indeed, its helps to play a role in maintaining and perhaps even driving down the low labor standards of poor developing countries.

In addition, the company puts pressure on it service providers, including transportation and warehousing companies.

These relational processes also cut the company’s costs, enabling it to offer lower prices.
Wal-Mart Success

Brussels sprouts Juice Health Benefits

2010-02-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

Brussels sprouts Juice Health Benefits
The juice of Brussels sprouts combined with that of carrot, string bean and lettuce furnishes a combination of elements which helps to strengthen and regenerate the insulin properties of the pancreatic functions of our digestion system.

For this reason, it has been found of inestimable benefits in cases of diabetes.

This benefit, however, has been derived when all concentrated starches and sugars were avoided altogether and when colonic irrigations and high enemas were used regularly to cleanse waste matter from the system.

Brussels sprouts belong to the cruciferous family of vegetables that protect the body from cancer - especially colon and stomach cancer.

The research show that’s that eating Brussels sprouts detoxifies aflatoxins (carcinogens found in contaminated peanuts, corn, and rice and linked to liver cancer).

Brussels sprout juice may help protect against colon and stomach cancer and estrogen related cancers such as breast uterine and endometrial cancer.

It contains considerable amounts of calcium, potassium, phosphorus, folate, and vitamin A and C.

Fresh Brussels sprout juice contains twice as much vitamin C as an equal portion of orange juice.
Brussels sprouts Juice Health Benefits

Albert, Wilhelm August Julius

2010-01-25T21:24:00.000-08:00

Albert, Wilhelm August Julius
He was born on January 24, 1787 in Hannover Germany. He was German mining official successful applier of wire cable.

After studying law at the University of Gottingen, Albert turned to the mining industry and in 1806 started his career in mining administration in the Harz district, where he became Chief Inspector of mines thirty years later.

His influence on the organization of the mining industry was considerable and he contributed valuable ideas for the development of mining technology.

For example, he initiated experiments with Reichenbach’s water column in Harz when it had been working successfully in the transportation of brine in Bavaria, and he encouraged Dorell to work on his miner’s elevator.

The increasing depth of shafts in the Harz district brought problems with hoisting as the ropes became too heavy and tended to break.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century iron link chains replaced the hempen ropes which which were expensive and wore out too quickly, especially in the wet conditions on the shafts.

After he had experimented for six years using counterbalancing iron link chains, which broke too easily, in 1834 he conceived the idea of producing stranded cables from iron wires.

Their breaking strength and flexibility depended greatly on the softness of the iron and the way of laying the strands.

Albert produced the cable by attaching the wires to strings which he turned evenly; this method became known as ‘Albert lay’.

He was not the first to conceive the idea of metal cables: there exist evidence for such cables as far back as Pompeii; Leonardo da Vinci made sketches of cables made from brass wires and in 1780 the French engineer Reignier applied iron cables for lightning conductors.

The idea also developed in various other mining areas, but Albert cables were the first to gain rapidly direct common usage worldwide.
Albert, Wilhelm August Julius

Study of relationship between green tea and cancer

2010-01-18T20:49:00.000-08:00

Study of relationship between green tea and cancer
Studies conducted in China revealed that green tea users had an approximate 50% reduction in risk for both esophageal cancer and stomach cancer.

Inhabitants of tea producing districts in Japan have a lower mortality from stomach cancer, possibly the result green tea consumption.

In addition to a regular tea drinking, this population consumes green tea all types of products, including candy, gums, bread, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, etc.

Contrary to the preceding, however to recent studies found no association between green tea consumption and stomach or colon cancer.

Green tea was linked to a reduced risk of oral cancer in northern Italian and a Chinese population, esophageal cancer in Chinese women, gastric cancer in Swedish adolescents, pancreatic cancer in residents of a retirement community in the United States, and colon cancer in retired male self defense official in Japan.

Cohort studies suggest that there is a protective effect of green tea for colon, urinary bladder, stomach, pancreatic and esophageal cancer.

In Japanese survey, an overall protection by green tea was observed, together with slowdown of the increase of cancer incidence with age. The effects were more pronounced when the tea consumption was more than 10 cups/day.

In another Japanese study, consumption of 7 or more cups per day of green tea significantly decreased the risk of cancer of both the stomach and rectum (by 31% and 54% respectively) compared with non-users.

Regular tea drinkers in China experienced a lower incidence of cancer of the colon, rectum, and pancreas compared with non drinkers of tea.

A case control study from Poland reported a significant reduction in risk of pancreatic cancer with increasing lifetime tea consumption.

Increased green tea consumption was closely associated with decreased axillary lymph node metastases among patients who were premenopausal with stage 1 and 11 breast cancer and overall decreased recurrence of stage 1 and 11 breast cancer.
Study of relationship between green tea and cancer

Thalassemia

2010-01-14T18:18:00.001-08:00

Thalassemia
Thalassemia, a hereditary group of hemolytic anemias, is characterized by defective synthesis on the polypeptide chains necessary for hemoglobin production. Consequently, red blood cell synthesis is also impaired.

B-thalassemia is the most common form of this disorder. It result from defective beta polypeptide chain synthesis and occurs in three clinical forms: major, intermedia and minor.

The resulting anemia’s severity depends on whether the patient is homozygous or heterozygous for the thalassemic trait.

The prognosis for B-thalassemia varies. People with thalassemia major seldom survive to adulthood; children with thalassemia intermedia develop normally into adulthood, although puberty is usually delayed; people with thalassemia minor can expect a normal life span.

Thalassemia major and thalassemia intemedia result from homozygous inheritance of the partially dominant autosomal gene responsible for this trait.

Thalassemia minor result from heterozygous inheritance of the same gen. In these disorders, total or partial deficiency of beta polypeptide chain production impairs hemoglobin synthesis and results in continual production of fetal hemoglobin, lasting even past the neonatal period.

Thalassemia is most common in people of Mediterranean ancestry (especially Italian and Greek) but also occurs in blacks and people from southern China, Southeast Asia and India.
Thalassemia

Utilization of Fish

2009-12-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

Utilization of Fish
The need for better management and utilization of the world resources which are available only at a growing cost for the necessary equipment and energy has encountered more careful and sophisticated handling and preservation of the catch on board to keep the fish longer in the state of prime freshness, to extend the shelf life and to reduce losses due to spoilage.

In many specialized fisheries, it also proved justifiable to utilize the by products, which until recently had been discarded overboard.

On the other hand, very high prizes, paid for top quality fish of prime freshness, have made it possible to apply individual treatment of such resources and air freight the catch to distant quality markets.

The depletion of many species, traditionally used for making worldwide or locally popular fish products, has encouraged efforts to produce the traditional commodities from other, less suitable but abundant raw materials by properly modifying the technology.

Some resources, which were in the past regarded as raw material for fodder meal, are now being used for human consumption.

In the wake of the breakthrough made by the American invention of the fish fingers in the 1950s, many fish species of rather low traditional commercial value have made a name as raw material for various products composed of minced fish flesh.

Furthermore, the fish minces in form of bland preparations, known as surimi, have been used not only in the seafood industry, but are also being regarded as suitable for blending with other material in non fish foods.

Although much effort was spent in research on dry fish protein concentrates, the commercial application of results has not met high expectations.
Utilization of Fish

Papaya Juice

2009-11-09T06:28:00.000-08:00

Papaya Juice
Most papayas sold in American supermarkets are shipped from Hawaii, where they are grown.

Other producers of the papaya are the states of California, Florida and Texas.

Imported papayas are shipped to US markets from the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico.

The outer skin of a papaya turns yellow or orange when it is ripe, and the flesh becomes sweet and soft.

To prepare them for juicing, cut in half, scoop out the seeds and discard and then scoop out the flesh, throwing the skins away.

Then run the flesh through the juicer. Using blender, you can also freeze and then blend the papaya spears with other fresh juices to make smoothies.

To make plain papaya juice in a blender, simply blend two to four ounces of water with the flesh of one medium sized papaya.

Papaya juice is rich in vitamins A and C and contains small amounts of the minerals calcium, chlorine, iron, phosphorus, potassium, silicon and sodium.

Its nutritional highlight is its enzymes, specially papain, a protein digestant.

It also endowed with an abundance of energy boosting natural sugars when ripe.

Papaya juice strengthens the body’s blood coagulating ability. It is a fine laxative, appetite stimulant and cleanser of the kidneys, liver and intestines.
Papaya Juice

The Two Factor Theory of Love

2009-11-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

The Two Factor Theory of Love
A terrified person is potentially a person in love, as is an angry person, a jealous person, a rejected person, and a happy person.

Actually, every person who experiences the physiological arousal that accompanies strong emotions is potentially a person in love.

A woman who meets a man after the excitement of winning a great promotion in her work is more likely to fall in love with him than she would be on a routine day.

Likewise, a man is more likely to fall in love with a woman when mourning a terrible loss.

The reason, in both cases, has to do with the two components of love: arousal and a label.

The two factor theory of love is a derivation of a more general theory of emotions. According to this theory, like a car in order to arrive at its destiny needs for us to start the engine and then determine its direction, to define a certain emotion we also need two things:

One (which is analogous to starting the engine) is a general state of arousal; it is similar for all strong emotions and includes such physiological responses as rapid heart beat and fast breathing.

The second (which is analogous to steering the car in a certain direction) is an emotional label that explains the arousal – love, anger, fear, jealousy.

We learn the appropriate labels for different states of arousal (which is what we are supposed to feel in different situations) from our parents, teachers, friends, the media and personal experience.

We know, for example, that we are supposed to feel delighted when a dear friend comes for a visit, but anxious when followed on a dark street even when the physiological arousal involved in the same.

Combined effect of physiological arousal and a romantic label on the experience of romantic love can be explained:

To love passionately, a person must have first be physically aroused, a condition manifested by palpitations of the heart, nervous tremor, flushing and accelerated breathing. One he is so aroused all that remains is for him to identify this complex of feelings as passionate love, and he will have experienced authentic love.

Even of the initial physical arousal is the result of an irrelevant experience .....once he has met the person, been drawn to the person, and identified the experience as love, it is love.

Many people are personally acquainted with the phenomenon of spring fever.

This wonderful love ailment strikes during the early days of string, arriving with the sun, the blossoms and the fresh air the long gloom of winter.

But, as the personal experiences suggest every major life change causes arousal. From the exciting yet anxiety-provoking change of starting school or a new job, to a change in residence, to the painful loss of a significance person, major life changes increase the like-hood off falling in love.
The Two Factor Theory of Love

Energy Drinks

2009-10-23T02:57:00.000-07:00

Energy Drinks
Energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster and Rick Star are all the rage today, especially among younger consumers.

And when it comes to energy, any product that purports to provide it is inevitably going to be tried to endurance sports, whether substantiated or not.

If you consider or are currently using an energy drinks as a supplement to your training or racing consider these points:

Many energy drinks contain taurine or guarana, ingredients about which there is little existing reputable research. Most energy drinks contain some caffeine, so oftentimes the benefits of these so called energizing ingredients are overstated.

The scientific community has not thoroughly studied the effects of combining the ingredients in many energy drinks. Researchers don’t precisely know what effect an energy drink will have on your heart, blood pressure nervous and perception of fatigue and pain during training.

Energy drinks can turn off your body’s natural physical and metal warning flags. For example, if an energy drinks revs you up so much that you feel you can go farther faster or harder than you should, it will cause you to push your boundaries, making you more susceptible to injury and overtraining.

Many energy drinks are carbonated, which most endurance athletes find intolerable. During strenuous long term aerobic exercise, carbonated beverages often lead to nausea or other stomach problems.
Energy Drinks

Google Power

2009-09-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

Google Power
Search engines are magical machines. They’re mysterious black boxes that accept our requests for information and somehow mange to locate relevant regardless of where in the Web (or in the world) it’s located.

But all too often we tend to approach search engines as we would a slot machine. Punch a few words, pull the handle, and pray for a jackpot.

Google was built by some seriously smart people and the company employs more than 200 PhDs.

Although we say were “searching the Web” with Google that’s not really an accurate statement. What we’re rally doing is searching Google – specifically, a massive database of web pages that the search engine has collected, indexed and made easily accessible though the familiar search box on Google’s home page.

Why does go to all the trouble of creating its own database of web pages, rather than simply searching the Web itself? Because searching the Web in real time is an impossible task, at least for today’s technologies.

Start with the Web it self. The Web is a loosely affiliate federation of web sites, each identified by a unique domain name. This year, there are roughly 110 million unique domains located throughout the world, conceptually residing on computer called web servers.

These web servers are home to billions of web pages, as well as other types of content such as PDF files, audio and video files and databases stuff with all kinds of information.

Consider Google. The search engine handles hundred of millions of requests per day. If Google had to simultaneously search all 45 million servers for each of the hundreds million search requests it handles each day this prodigious activity would snarl the Internet with a massive virtual traffic jam.

Instead of attempting to go out and search the Web in real time, Google takes the opposite tack, discreetly visiting as many web servers as possible of several days, collecting as much content as possible from all those servers and saving it into a single databases – in essence, a full scale copy of the Web.

When you “search the Web” with Google you’re actually searching this copy of the Web stored in Google’s data centers.

Instead of trying to solve the impossible task of real time web searching, Google’s engineers designed and built the search engine for speed and efficiency, solving the bottleneck problem by applying dozens of innovative techniques that work behind the scenes to give you high quality search results without creating an Internet traffic jam.

When you enter a query into Google search form, Google first analyses your word to attempt to understand what you’re looking for.

Then the search engine performs over 100 calculations, comparing your search terms with those in the database of web pages it has vacuumed up. Each of these calculations is designed to ferret out the web content that best matches your query and filter out every thing else found in the billion of pages Google knows about.
Google Power

Google Dance

2009-09-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

Google Dance
While search engine optimizers study every Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft patent application and search algorithm upgrade to figure out how to play it, most search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms well guarded secret so as to collect the best search engine results and outfox spammers in this ongoing game of one-upmanship.

Google updates its entire database – algorithm and the organic results once a month in a process that has become known as the Google dance.

The process of updating is known as the Google dance because pages up and down the rankings during the three days of updating computation.

While the “dance” is going on, searches are redirected to various data centers, some of which have the new database and some of which sill have the old one.

So at any point during the “dance,” the same searches could yield very different results.

While the dance has change and Google now uses several update processes, the same kind of problem can still occur at Google and the other search engines.

Many webmaster have come to fear the Google Dance. After working so hard to improve rankings (by hook or by crook or by good content), just a slight tweak by Google in their page rank or content score algorithms can ruin a webmaster’s traffic and business.

The Google dance is Google’s time of the month. The dance is a major re-ranking of web pages that occurs after the Deepbot has finished indexing content.

It manifests itself in fluctuating site positions in search results and changes in an individual site’s toolbar rank.

It is a time of great excitement for site owners as their site gain or lose toolbar rank.

The Google dance is unannounced but can be detected when results between the various data centers that Google serves results from are out of of synch.

However since the IPO Google has become much more protective of its operation and these data centers are no longer publicly visible except through their IP address.
Google Dance