Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Food that will either tickle your tastebuds or make you shake your head

            Good Day World!

Yesterday’s post on unusual liquors was so popular that I decided to expand the subject to include food.

Wasp Cookies (left) are popular in Japan, believe it or not. Read more about this culinary curiosity here.

Chocolate-covered port fat

Ukranian Chocolate Pork Fat,"It's salty on the inside and very sweet on the outside.

It's unusual yes, but it's completely disgusting," says Dasha Khabarova in a BBC article.

Pierre Javelle & Akiko Ida (see their site Minimiam) make very special food landscapes (below) where little people go around their business among the tasty morsels we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Utilizing the variable depth of field, their photography is exceptional in creating the illusion of a miniature world.

 

(images credit: Minimiam,)

Love your favorite anime characters?

Have them with rice!

Asian creativity is put to good use in Hong Kong's fast-food establishments(right).

 It seems no matter how old we are, people worldwide like to play with their food!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

As It Stands: Strange Brews: I’ve got some strong drinks to share with you!

Good Day World!

Are you ready to sample some of the more unusual and occasionally bizarre alcoholic beverages from around the world today?

(top image via)

Just about every culture in the world has a traditional alcoholic drink made from the plants and other ingredients that could be found locally and some of these beverages are very old indeed.

Mead, often referred to as honey wine, can range from mild ale to strong wine in terms of its alcohol content. The origins of mead are lost in the mists of time, but it appears in the history of cultures throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. Some regard mead as the ancestor of all fermented drinks.

(Polish Mead, images via 1, 2)

Chicha, a drink derived from maize in several South American countries is one of the oldest beverages on the planet.

Chicha has probably been around for thousands of years, and was consumed by the Inca, but today traditionally prepared chicha is only produced in a handful of small towns and few villages in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica.

(images via 1, 2)

Although maize is most commonly associated with chicha, throughout the Andes the word can also refer to numerous fermented drinks, made from other types of grains or fruit.

Another old drink is pulque, a traditional Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of the maguey plant. The drink has a long history and this monkey pulque jar dates from the Aztec period. (images via 1, 2)

Lizard wine from China might not sound too appealing, but apparently tastes a little like brandy, improves eyesight and as a bonus can protect against evil spirits.

Another wine with supposed medicinal qualities, helping with everything from coughs and colds to liver disorders, is baby mouse wine from Korea (left). (images lizards & baby snakes via)

Yes, it really does contain newborn baby mice, which are drowned in rice wine, before the bizarre mixture is stored somewhere dry and dark for up to a year before it is considered drinkable.

Just like baby mouse wine, snake liquors from South East Asia are also considered cures for a variety of ailments, including impotence, back and muscle pain and hair loss. These drinks usually contain highly poisonous snakes, such ascobras.

(image of snakes in bottles via)

If snakes aren’t really for you, how about scorpions and spiders?

This distilled rice grain vodka from Thailand, complete with a farm raised scorpion (left), is banana flavored and sweetened with sugar cane.

This Thai rice whiskey (photo left – bottle left) contains a large non-venomous spider (above right) and is apparently an acquired taste. Or how about this Mekong River Eel Wine from Laos (below left image)? (images of Eel Wine & Rice Whiskey via)

If you prefer your liquor devoid of creatures of any kind, Bau Da Vietnamese rice whiskey is made from plain boiled rice and comes in this rather attractive container (right).

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Monday, September 30, 2013

Obamacare goes into effect Oct 1st – I’ve Got the Skinny if You Have a Question!

    Good Day World!

Despite this being the time of year for the annual return of the Screeching Tea Party Loon, Obamacare goes into effect tomorrow.

 If you already have insurance, nothing will change. It’s that simple. No sneaky Democrat is going to force you to cancel your insurance. So take a deep breath. 

 Already have Medicare? You’re golden. Already have a company health insurance plan? You’re good.

Don’t have any insurance plan and are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy? Guess what? This new law is going to help you! Even if you have a pre-existing condition.

If you are uninsured, the key to complying with the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare, could be the new online health insurance marketplaces, which will open tomorrow  - Oct. 1 - for shopping.

(You can window-shop here now but you can’t buy until Tuesday). Policies will go into effect Jan. 1. Seven million Americans are expected to find coverage there.

Many people will qualify for subsidies to make coverage more affordable You can find your state’s marketplace at www.healthcare.gov.

Each plan covers 10 “essential health benefits,” which include prescription drugs, emergency and hospital care, check-ups, maternity and mental health services, rehabilitation and lab services, among others.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

the last time Republicans caused a government shutdown in 1995..

View image on Twitter

Sunday, September 29, 2013

McDonald’s WTF Menus Around the World!

    Good Day World!

 If you think McDonald's sells the same burgers and fries everywhere in the world, think again.

 Concessions to local tastes is the way McDonald’s has been able to become the biggest fast food business in the world. Here’s just a few examples: 

In Singapore (Left), the national obsession with rice extends to having rice cakes in your burger! Try taking a bite out of this towering concoction!

When in McDonald’s Japan, try some Seaweed Flavored Fries and don’t forget to taste their yummy tentacle snacks! (Right)

Perhaps the biggest WTF menu item (Weird and Troubling Food) that can be found at a McDonald's is in the Philippines (Left).

They have McSpaghetti on the menu, which of course you’d expect in Italy, and the way they make it is rather unusual.

 A Filipino friend explained to me that it was incredibly popular and basically consisted of spaghetti soaked in sugar.

 Ewwww.

(McSpaghetti screen grab, Philippines)

Let me repeat this: Spaghetti - Soaked In - Sugar!

Peas and potatoes make up the patty in the McAloo Tikki at McDonald's in India. Mickey D’s knows that cows are sacred, so they simply adapted. Let nothing stand in the way of making money! 

There’s a great travel site called Trifter which shows more international Mac food variations: among them guacamole (avocado paste) McPollo burger in Chile.

(McAlooTikki image via) (McPollo image via)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Concussions & Football: Is the risk for your child really worth it?

     Good Day World!

Friday means high school football.

Saturday means college football.

Sunday means professional football.

Football is only rivaled by baseball in popularity. It’s entwined into the very fabric of our society. Children begin playing at ridiculously young ages.

Last year, 3 million kids from the ages of 6 to 14  played organized youth tackle football, according to USA Football. Even some 5-year-olds are in helmets playing in the Tiny Mite division of Pop Warner (which insists that its gladiators weigh at least 35 lb.)

Tomorrow I’m going to watch my 12-year old grandson play football. He’s a defensive end. Because I’m aware of the dangers involved I’m going to be nervous throughout the game – praying nothing happens to him. He wanted to play football. His parents didn’t push him into it.

I use to be a football fan, only recently losing interest in following college and the pro games. I admit it has a lot to do with the research I’ve done on football-related concussion injuries. They scare the hell out of me! I’ve had two serious concussions in my life, and feel lucky to be typing this piece right now.

The following articles illustrates what I’m talking about. It’s sad. And it really makes you think:

 It was a question with no right answer that tugged heavy at the hearts of Damon Janes' teammates when the 16-year-old died after a hit in a high school football game: Should the season go on?

Should the players rally and play every game for their star running back, whose motto was "Giving up is simply not an option"? Or should the teenagers forget about football and take time to mourn their friend?

The Westfield-Brocton Wolverines' varsity players took a paper-ballot vote and decided that the pain was too great, that their season would end after just two games.

"I wanted to play, I love the game," said teammate Stevie Wisecarver III, a 16-year-old quarterback who has played football since third grade. "But it just wouldn't feel right without him. The team just didn't feel right." Damon took what hospital officials would later describe as a "helmet-to-helmet" hit during the third quarter of Westfield-Brocton's Sept. 13 game against Portville, a 32-6 loss. He was able to get on his feet but lost consciousness on the sidelines. He died three days later at Women & Children's Hospital in Buffalo.

Concern about increasingly hard hits among the 1 million boys who play high school football has brought renewed attention to concussion management and a national initiative to teach the "Heads Up" tackling technique. An average of 12 high school and college players die annually, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Damon's was at least the fifth high school football death this season, but his was the only team to cancel the season because of it. Read whole story here

Related:

* Last month, in one single Pop Warner football game, five preadolescent players on a team from Tantasqua, Mass., suffered serious head injuries.

* The Problem with Football: How to Make It Safer

* Concussions and Our Kids

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Friday, September 27, 2013

I’m not being snotty, but what’s with growing noses on foreheads?

A new nose, grown by surgeons on Xiaolian's forehead, is pictured before being transplanted to replace the original nose, which is infected and deform...

          Good Day World!

Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face?” For some bizarre reason it came to mind when I read about noses grown on foreheads yesterday!

It never entered my wildest thoughts. Noses that were destroyed by various means could be reconstructed and grown on one’s forehead. Whoever heard of such a thing?

Apparently, according to the following article, it’s not that uncommon. Where have I been then? Have you ever seen anyone walking around with a nose on their forehead? I sure haven’t. Maybe people wear floppy hats to hide the misplaced proboscis while it’s growing. Will wonders ever cease?

Despite his perhaps bizarre appearance, a man in China who is growing a new nose on his forehead is the beneficiary of a rather common nose reconstruction technique.

The man suffered damage to his nose and an infection after a traffic accident, and the infection had eaten away at the cartilage in his nose, making it impossible to for doctors to fix his original nose. There was no alternative but for doctors to grow the man an entirely new nose on his forehead, according to Reuters.

But despite its extreme appearance, this method is not that different from plastic surgery techniques used all the time, said Dr. David Cangello, an attending plastic surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital and Manhattan, Eye Ear and Throat Hospital in New York. read the whole story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Playground Terrors! Some real creepy places where kids play

           Good Day World!

 Like most children worldwide, I had an active imagination when I was young.

 I use to watch scary movies on television and spend the rest of the night with the light on in my room and wondering what kind of monster might be lurking in the closet!

 The little girl in the photo (left) doesn’t look too concerned that she’s sitting on a lap of a hideous H.P. Lovecraft-like gargoyle. Probably because she doesn’t know what a gargoyle is and the sculpture doesn’t move.

I may be wrong, but I think it takes a lot more to scare kids nowadays. They’re flooded with images in our society of monsters and the like via television, games, and movies.

The following creepy masterpieces of sculpture and landscaping can be found in playgrounds not only in Russia (even though this is where the majority of photos come from) but also in China, East European Countries, and even in the US - anywhere the grass-roots creativity goes bad and the bad taste gets promoted, often unintentionally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the bizarre stuff for kids, and some of the sculptures here are downright fascinating; but others are... well, ugly as hell.

Not only kids, but some more impressionable adults are in danger to become psychologically scarred from thinking too much about these monsters and letting them into their dreams.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Finger-Print Scan Hacked within 72 hours – what took so long?

meme-lol.com

  Good Day World!

It took three days. 72 hours.

On Sunday, after the iPhone 5S went on sale, a German hacker collective became the first to claim victory over the gadget's much-buzzed-about Touch ID fingerprint security system.

And they did it pretty much the same way Bane's flunkies breached the biometric passcode on Bruce Wayne's stock exchange account in "The Dark Knight Rises," — using a copy of Batman's fingerprints (created by Catwoman after she did some light dusting around Wayne Manor).

Even before the Chaos Computer Club, one of the largest and well-known hacker collectives, crowed victory via the tried-and-true "fake finger" method, Apple's first foray into biometric security wasn't getting a lot of respect. Amid concerns over privacy — Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked if Apple might share stored fingerprintswith third parties or the government, the way tech companies do with other customer info — and hacking, the jokes kicked in.

A cat's paw, a nipple and a crowd-sourced bounty to the first person to hack Touch ID are likely just the beginning of a running gag at Apple's expense. In this day and age no gaffe gets by social media.

When I first heard about the fingerprint idea I knew that it was stupid idea, and it would only be a matter of time before being exposed. Who would want to voluntarily give up such a personal ID marker for “convenience and supposed security?” Well I guess there were some naïve consumers out there and they’re probably feeling kinda sheepish today!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

OUCH! The Financial Pain of Childbirth in 2013

  Good Day World!

It’s just capitalism at work the financial experts explain.

But when I look at the rising cost of childbirth in America I have to wonder why we lead the world in this category?

With Congress battling over defunding Obamacare, the future looks bleak for a resolution to this problem. There’s thousands of Americans without insurance and unless we do something about it healthcare costs will continue to cripple families in this struggling economy.

My wife and I had three children from 1975 to 1980. During that time, my job provided healthcare insurance and we had one less financial challenge to contend with as young parents. Parents today are faced with sky high medical costs and many are not insured because they’re self-employed. The result can be a cash catastrophe to a family’s finances. 

Over the last 15 years, the cost of vaginal deliveries has practically doubled in the United States, shooting up from $4,918 to $9,294, while the cost of C-sections has increased 70 percent from an average of $8,268 to $14,055, according to Truven Health Analytics.

By contrast, the average cost for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery last year in Switzerland was $4,039 and the average cost in France was $3,541, according to the International Federation of Health Plans (IFHP). That's nearly half to a third of what it cost in the U.S.

In fact, the United States is the most expensive place in the world to give birth, according to the IFHP. The reason, experts say, has to do with the way hospitals calculate our bills.Worse yet, there was a huge variation in costs for the same services from hospital to hospital. Estimates for the cost of a C-section, for example, ranged from $6,000 to $28,000.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Monday, September 23, 2013

Human Pixel Art - Monumental Camera Shots Before WWI

                                                Good Day World!

I’ve got some photos for you this Monday that are really impressive. You may have seen some modern versions of people art by artists like Spencer Tunick who makes his artistic formations from thousands of naked people. But the vast scale of these early group photos is really awesome. And just think how crude the cameras were back then! They used a 11x 14” camera. No special lens or settings like we have now. Enjoy…

"The Human American Eagle, 1918" -12,500 officers, nurses and men; Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Ga.

Just before the World War One the country needed patriotic images, aiming to recover national identity with the help of the rising art of photography. Arthur Mole (1889-1983) together with John Thomas used their 11 x 14-inch view camera to create the so-called "living photographs", done on a monumental scale.

By arranging thousands of soldiers (reservists, or nurses) in various patriotic symbols and photographing them from above, they were able to use lines of perspective to transform meaningless masses into artistic shapes and even portraits.

(Left) Living Emblem of the United States Marines, 1919"

(Right) "A Living Flag, 1917" (Mayhart Studio, Chicago)

Based in Zion, Illinois, Arthur Mole visited many army, marine and navy camps across the country, carrying out his inspired & monumental work.

He was clearly influenced by the patriotic spirit of his fellow Americans during a "life during wartime", as well as driven by his personal spiritual convictions. In the end, Mole and Thomas donated the entire income from their endeavors to the families of the returning soldiers and the government's efforts to re-build their lives.

(Right)"The Zion Shield, 1920".
All images courtesy Chicago Historical Society.

(See more images at the Library of Congress gallery, not copyrighted)

One of the most notable photographers of "living people groups" was Eugene Omar Goldbeck.

Along with the large scale work, he also took photographic portraits of important personalities, such as Albert Einstein.

A detail of larger group, made as late as 1947:

Photo-Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland

Air Base San Antonio, TX, 1947

 Time for me to walk on down the road…

Sunday, September 22, 2013

There’s No Such Thing as ‘Black Dog’ Syndrome !

20130815_134402

    Good Day World!

 See the adorable little pug on the left? Her name is Molly, and she makes my wife and I very happy. She’s only one-year old and we look forward to having her company for many years to come.

Just look at this little scamp. She’s always ready to play. Yet if you listen to some people, if she were in a shelter her chances of being adopted wouldn’t be as good because she’s black!

That’s right. Some call it puppy prejudice because black dogs are supposedly more likely to be the last picked in an adoption situation. I never heard this before. So I did a little reading.

It’s myth busting time! Don’t believe those sad shelter stories. The ones about black dogs being the first to go isn’t true:

It’s a common story animal welfare workers will share: Black pets are often the last left on the shelter floor and the first to be euthanized. The idea is so pervasive there’s even a name for it — black dog syndrome.

“It’s not news to people who have been in animal welfare for a while that black cats and dogs are a little harder to place,” Brenda Barnette of Los Angeles Animal Services told TODAY.com.

“I think it’s for the very simple reason that they’re harder to photograph.”

Nonprofits have been founded specifically to find homes for black animals, and several shelters across the country have made special efforts to promote the adoption of black animals, from providing them with better lighting to running special promotions.

But despite much media attention and anecdotal evidence from shelter staff, recent research suggests that coat color, be it black, white or brown, has little impact on an adopter’s decision.

“New pieces of research have found that there is no indication that they are less likely to be adopted,” ASPCA Vice President of Shelter Research Dr. Emily Weiss told TODAY.com. “We just conducted a piece of research looking at various traits that drive people to adopt and color did not play a role at all. It busts this myth completely.”

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Saturday, September 21, 2013

During this Weekend of Peace Let’s Stop the Violence in our Cities

   Good Day World!

On this Peace Day Weekend (see Learnist board to the right) I thought I’d point out how violent our world is in the United States. The rest of the world is also embroiled in wars and crimes continue to take a deadly toll.

This week Chicago earned the title of being the nation's murder capital in 2012, according to the FBI. Chicago had more than 500 homicides in 2012, according to FBI data, more than any other American city. Chicago's total exceeded that of New York City, which recorded 419, and Los Angeles, which saw 299. Both cities have populations greater than that of Chicago.

The murder rate in Chicago in 2012 was still higher than the murder rate in 1929, the year of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, when Al Capone was the city’s crime kingpin and the streets were awash in blood as gangsters battled over illegal liquor sales during Prohibition.

The 1920s saddled Chicago with international image for murder and violence that we still haven’t shaken off. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was so shocking it led the nation to reconsider whether Prohibition was worth the gang warfare it caused.

Today Chicago has more than just a bad image – it’s sliding into a sinkhole of crime and poverty with no end in sight. the really scary thing is, there’s numerous other cities that are only slightly better!

The city of Chicago registered more homicides than any city in the nation in 2012, surpassing even New York — despite the fact that the Second City has only one third as many residents as the Big Apple.

But residents of Chicago and New York were much less likely to be victims of a homicide than residents of Flint, Mich. Sixty-three murders occurred in 2012 in Flint, a city of 101,632, meaning one in every 1,613 city residents were homicide victims. Detroit, which experienced 386 homicides in 2012, was almost as unsafe; that’s enough murders to account for one in every 1,832 residents.

Fifteen cities reported more than 100 murders in 2012. Alongside Chicago, New York and Detroit, Philadelphia (331), Los Angeles (299), Baltimore (219), Houston (217), New Orleans (193), Dallas (154), Memphis (133), Oakland (126), Phoenix (124), St. Louis (113), Kansas City (105) and Indianapolis (101) had the busiest homicide departments.

Washington, D.C., which once suffered some of the worst crime rates in the nation, reported 88 murders in 2012. If we could see some gun bills passed in Congress these numbers may start going down – or at the very least stabilize. But that, sadly enough, is as unlucky as the Democrats and Republicans making peace and working for the people of this country instead of their parties!

Peace!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Friday, September 20, 2013

TV Zombie: Are you lost in the TV Viewing Hole?

Aaron Paul (left) and Bryan Cranston in the binge-worthy "Breaking Bad."

          Good Day World!

 I recently got Dish TV. It comes with a thousand channels. At least it seems that way. I haven’t counted them yet.

 They threw in a 90 day FREE premium channels preview, and now there’s even more choices for me to make. Help…

  I’ve been hooked up for two weeks and have used  maybe six channels. I’ll never use all of them. I’ve tried surfing through them, but after awhile my eyes blurred along with my brain cells. I keep asking myself if it’s possible people actually use all those channels?

Apparently it is. More and more TV viewers are escaping into those channels…never to be the same again. They turn into TV zombies. Reports of people disappearing down the rabbit hole of made-for-TV-movies keep coming in.

This following article proves my assertion: 

"Breaking Bad" didn't turn us into binge-watching TV addicts, and neither did mobile devices, or even the Internet. Just ask anyone who bought the Special Edition "Twin Peaks" Box Set on VHS in 1993. Many a lost weekend were spent in the Dark Lodge, absorbing all 29 episodes, when David Lynch's six-tape set of noir surrealism hit the Blockbuster shelves.

Yet as with many things, advances in technology have only made it easier to crawl inside the TV viewing hole, allowing us to spend more time in an alternate universe of someone else's fiction.

Videotapes gave way to DVDs, and DVDs gave way to video on demand. Cable television forced us to chose whether we'll spend Memorial Day watching ABC Family's "Special Harry Potter Event" or TNT's "Law & Order: A Very Elliot Stabler Weekend."

And Netflix is in the business of building buzz-worthy original shows and making the entire seasons available via streaming right at the premiere. We're left with little choice but to lose whole days to "House of Cards," "Arrested Development," and "Orange is the New Black," lest we see spoilers in the Twittersphere. Whole story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Learnist Brings Its “Pinterest For Learning” To Android

My wife was really pleased with the brand new Android app for Learnist that she downloaded today.

She said it had great graphics!  It’s available to everyone at Goggle apps. As a consultant for Learnist, I’m thrilled to see that my boards are going out to a wider audience now!

It was a big leap when Learnist came up with it’s first IPAD app. Now, with the launch of this new Android app Learnist is reaching out to the rest of the world…

VIA TechCrunch

When Grockit first emerged back in 2008, it had set its sights on building a full-service, social learning service that would give students a better way to study for standardized tests, among other things. It enabled students to study solo or in groups by connecting with live instructors or perusing its library of video content.

Yet, five years later, Grockit found itself in survival mode, never quite finding the explosive adoption that could justify the $25 million in capital had raised over the years from big-name investors like Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman. Last year, the team began to experiment with new tools, chief of which was Learnist, a digital clipboard that was later dubbed its “Pinterest for education.”

Over the next six months, Learnist took off and, eager to ride the wave, Grockit put all of its efforts behind the new product, selling off the Grockit name, test prep business, technology and platform to Kaplan in July.

Today, as it looks to expand its international reach and support the fastest-growing mobile platform, the team is bringing its learning network to Android. With the launch of its new Android app, users will be able to find multimedia learning experiences and expert knowledge in areas that interest them, collaborate with like-minded learners, and connect and share content across social networks.

Backed by a fresh $20 million from Discovery, Summit, Atlas, Benchmark and others, Learnist is eager to ride the growing adoption of mobile learning tools both in and outside of the classroom and bring its network to a wider audience.

Learnist was initially developed for K-12 teachers and students, allowing users to create “learn boards” for everything from reading assignments to Common Core-supported Math lessons, but the founders have since expanded that scope in an effort to attract a wider set of life-long and casual learners. In much the same vein as Coursera, Learnist is looking to create a network that applies to both formal and continuing education and can be used alongside classroom tools like Schoology and Edmodo to create a more holistic classroom learning experience, for example, while giving casual learners a place to store and view their various learning projects.

Since launching its iPhone and iPad apps last year, the knowledge-sharing network has attracted more than 1 million users who are now using the platform to aggregate and share their projects across a range of topics. Grockit/Learnist co-founder Farb Nivi says that, long-term, he wants Learnist to become a “smart RSS feed for learning,” allowing anyone and everyone to share pieces of content and discover topics and lessons that are relevant to them. The goal, he says, is to build a library of quality crowdsourced content, surfacing content that matches users’ browsing patterns and areas of interest.

In the day or so that Learnist has been on Google Play, China has quickly become the largest source of downloads (outside of the U.S.) for the app. It’s this kind of international reach that Learnist hopes to tap into, adding to the 40 countries that its users represent today. Nivi believes that Learnist is now well-suited to provide a solution in regions where the demand for online learning is being pushed forward by growth in digital publishing and distribution tools and the rapid adoption of smart mobile technology.

With its new Android app, Learnist users can embed 40 different types of media in their learn boards, and with the recent launch of “Learnist SmartRSS,” users can now tap into content uploaded from the hundreds of media companies that have created profiles and are now publishing to Learnist. Looking ahead, users can expect Learnist to continue to hone its search and discovery tools, as it quietly becomes yet another entrant (see Noodle, for example) into the race to build a better search and discovery engine — with, in Learnist’s case, a digital clipboard in tow.

New start-up? Limited funds? Get more Bang for you Buck with Ads on Porn Sites!

                 Good Day Word!

It’s a porn… porn… porn world these days! You can’t escape the word – picture porn, marijuana porn, nature porn, and so on.

The word porn once simply meant pornography. Dirty photos. Nasty stuff. Naked people having sex in a whole myriad of ways. It had a bad rap. No one wanted to admit they read porn but it’s been around since…well forever!

Egyptians poked fun at penis sizes and dirty old men have sold it in dingy alleys since cities sprang up across the planet.

Porn now enjoys a prominent place in our economy. It’s presence on the internet is powerful. So powerful, that someone finally got around to exploring how to incorporate porn sites in advertising for their business – which by the way was food!

So here you have it…the X-rated truth: 

When you're a self-funded start-up, you have to be creative … and perhaps a little less straight-laced when it comes to advertising.

A food delivery business called Eat24 is boasting that it has gotten a lot of bang for its buck by placing ads on porn sites. According to ExtremeTech, "It's probably not unrealistic to say that porn makes up 30 percent of the total data transferred across the internet."

Eat24 management reports in a blog called "How to Advertise on a Porn Website" that, "When it comes to spreading our brand message, we usually take the road less traveled." Since the company claims it has taken absolutely no money from outside investors, it was trying to find ways to spread its message on a big scale for little money. "The Solution: Porn, the Internet's Unicorn."

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Story of Taylor Camp: A Hippie Tree House Village Community

                                        Good Day World!

First off, thanks to my good friend Carl from the friendly City of Fortuna, California, for sending me the link to the following article. It’s about this hippie community in Hawaii who explored the world of free living. The documentary describes hippies, surfers and troubled Vietnam vets who flocked to join and built a clothing-optional, pot-friendly tree house village on Kauai’s North Shore.

Through the late sixties and seventies, Taylor Camp was the epitome of the hippie dream; free love, nudism, sex, drugs and rock & roll in an idyllic tropical setting.

Interestingly enough, when my wife and I went to Kauai in 2008, there were no signs of this little community or it’s inhabitants. They just faded away with time and age…and now you can get a feeling for what it was like back in “the day!”

Picture

“Taylor Camp“ is a feature-length documentary, set on Kauai in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The film follows the exploits of famous Taylor Camp, the Hawaiian hippie commune founded by Elizabeth Taylor’s brother, Howard, in the late sixties.
In 1969, Howard Taylor bailed out a band of 13 young Mainlanders jailed on Kauai for vagrancy and invited this rag-tag tribe of men, women and children to camp on his oceanfront land, forming an hippie tree house village that lasted until 1977.
 The whole story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Bitter News for Chocolate Lovers, & Racist Comments for a Beauty Queen

Good Day World!

The crowning of the latest Miss America has stirred up the ugly side of social media.

Miss New York, Syracuse native Nina Davuluri, won the crown recently, and as soon as she did, Twitter lit up with comments suggesting she was an Arab, a foreigner, and a terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda.

Why the hate?

Davuluri, who aspires to be a doctor like her father, is the first Miss America whose family comes from India. Her win also happens to be the second consecutive victory for New York, but that got lost in tweets by people who couldn't look past her skin-deep beauty.

“Congratulations Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you,” tweeted "De La Rutherford," or @Blayne_MkltRain, who has since pulled down the full Twitter profile.

I think it’s really embarrassing how some Americans are so racist that they can’t see beyond their narrow noses and notions! What have we become that we vilify people because of their nationality? America is a melting pot remember? Everybody, with the exception of real Native Americans -  came from somewhere else.

It wouldn’t hurt for a lot of people to remember that fact. Moving on…

 I don’t want to cause alarm, but the price of chocolate is going up soon.

 Chocoholics may have to dig deeper to pay for their favorite treat this festive season as sweet makers face sky-high prices for cocoa butter, the special ingredient that gives chocolate its melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Major sweet makers contacted by Reuters declined to comment on whether the butter price hike would lead them to raise the retail price for their chocolate bars, although Nestle said any increase in price is always the last resort.

But some smaller chocolate makers have already pushed up prices.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Monday, September 16, 2013

Yikes! Robo maggots for brain surgery!

Maggots

Good Day World!

What better way to start your Monday talking about maggots! Before you get too repelled by the subject, try keeping an open mind.

First off, maggots have been used since antiquity as a wound treatment. The interesting thing is maggots have been reintroduced into the medical field.

Here we are in the 21st century, and maggots are once again playing a vital roll in fighting infections. Their ability to eat away dead tissue is the prime reason they’re enjoying this renaissance in the medical field. They’ve been approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2004.

So what do you say? Let’s hear it for the lowly maggot, which my basic training DI called me and other trainees back in the day. We should start a maggot fan club. What do you think? Twitter trendy? 

Creepy, crawly maggots might be making their way into people's brains. Robot maggots, that is. Inspired by a TV show where plastic surgeons use maggots to eat away dead tissue, neurosurgeon J. Marc Simard of the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been developing a prototype for a larvae-esque robot that could get eat away at a brain tumor from the inside.

Initial Prototype

The bendy maggot-bot can zap tumors with an electrocautery tool, then suction out the dead tissue. It can be controlled remotely, making it possible for the surgeon to monitor the tumor and direct the robot to certain tissue while the patient is undergoing an MRI.

During brain surgery, it's often hard for surgeons to distinguish between the boundaries of healthy tissue and tumor tissue without the help of an MRI, and you can't exactly do a full brain surgery on someone when they're locked away in a cramped MRI scanner. Full story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Sorry Donny: The Epstein Files Aren't a 'Dead Issue'

On Tuesday morning Trump told the press that the Epstein Files are a dead issue. A funny way of putting it don't you think? Reporters w...