Yum! Candy that fights cavities
July 28, 2008
Children everywhere may have scored a major coup this week in the eternal battle with parents over the consumption of candy, after new evidence found sweets made with the sugar substitute xylitol could actually reduce the risk of cavities.
But the findings are already creating some worry among leaders of Canada’s dental industry who are concerned candy companies could overstate the limited advantages of the sugar substitute to boost their products.
Although xylitol has been found to reduce the bacteria that cause cavities and tooth decay, some experts fear the evidence could dilute messages children receive about the critical importance of brushing, flossing and a proper diet.
Randy Pausch, 47
July 25, 2008
PITTSBURGH – Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.
University spokeswoman Anne Watzman said Pausch died early in the day at his home in Virginia, where he and his family moved last fall to be closer to his wife’s relatives.
Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September, 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September, 2007, garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.
In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.
“The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful,” Pausch wrote on his website. “But rest assured; I’m hardly unique.”
globeandmail.com: Randy Pausch, 47.
A tremendous loss.
Oil tumbles below $130 a barrel
July 17, 2008
NEW YORK — Oil prices fell below $130 (U.S.) a barrel for the first time in more than a month Thursday, as a dramatic slide entered a third day along with a sharp selloff in natural gas.
The declines accelerated amid growing concerns about the weakening U.S. economy.
“The entire buillish scenario … is starting to crack,” said James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery dropped $5.31 to settle at $129.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen more than $15 in just the past three days.
Socially awkward? Hit the books
July 10, 2008
globeandmail.com: Socially awkward? Hit the books
For a good chunk of the summer, 17-year-old Charlotte Spafford plans to hole up in her room so the words of author Toni Morrison can transport her deep into the American South. Not exactly a sure-fire way to enhance her teenage social life – or is it?
A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills.
Their years of research – summed up in the current issue of New Scientist magazine – has shown readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts. And follow-up research showed that reading fiction may help fine-tune these skills: People assigned to read a New Yorker short story did better on social reasoning tests than those who read an essay from the same magazine.
globeandmail.com: Obese men have lower quality sperm, study
BARCELONA, Spain — Researchers in Scotland have found yet another reason for men to avoid becoming overweight.
Besides the usual bogeymen such as heart disease, high blood pressure and the like, add lower quality sperm.
In research presented Wednesday at a meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, scientists found that obese men have lower levels of normal sperm.
Start your day with a square of chocolate
July 5, 2008
globeandmail.com: Start your day with a square of chocolate
It seems there’s truth to the proverb “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper.” At least when it comes to losing weight.
According to researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., starting the day with a big breakfast packed with protein – and yes, carbohydrates – can lead to significant weight loss.
Most studies indicate that low-carbohydrate diets (think Atkins and South Beach) worsen carbohydrate cravings, slow metabolism and result in weight regain. It’s estimated that only 5 per cent of low-carb dieters are successful after two years.
In this latest study, presented last month at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, researchers tested two low-calorie diets to see which one did a better job at helping people drop pounds and keep them off.
Ninety-four obese and physically inactive women followed either a 1,085-calorie, very low-carbohydrate diet or a 1,240-calorie, modified-carbohydrate “big breakfast” diet.
This is misleading. If you just consume 1,240 calories a day, you’re almost guaranteed to lose weight. It wouldn’t really matter what you are eating, because whatever it is, it’s not very much. The average calorie intake for a healthy individual should be about 2000-2500 calories a day.
What’s in a name?
July 3, 2008
globeandmail.com: What’s in a name?
All you need is $100,000 to be master of your own domain
The plan was foolproof.
It started fermenting in our heads after a radical online shakeup was announced this week. As of next year, it seems, we’re going to be freed of the shackles of .com, .net, .org, and their cronies. To date, every Internet address has had to end in such “top-level domains,” be they generic like .com, or country-specific domains like Canada’s .ca. Under the new rules, however, every top-level domain under the sun will be up for grabs.
The top level domains will reportedly cost upward of $100,000, one of those funny numbers that’s either two years’ salary or pocket change, depending on where you find yourself. Someone with the wherewithal will be able to buy the .dog domain, and then rent out subdomains to anyone wanting to put up their poodle site in style. Someone else could snap up the .camera domain, and hive off chunks of it to camera makers and photography sites alike.
Companies will spend millions snapping up domains for their own trademarks. Pornographers will deploy the genius for clever names that’s become the hallmark of their profession (besides the porn). And opportunists will pounce.
Hmm, interesting. I posted a story on this a week ago, but I didn’t realize you could actually buy outright the entire top level domain. When you consider that some domains have sold for a few million dollars each (vodka.com anyone?), $100,000 doesn’t look too bad.
I want .lyndon so I can use lyndon@lyndon.lyndon as my new email address. vain? maybe. pure genius? damn right! I wish my name was shorter though, oh like my three letter named friend (you know who you are).
Bell undercuts iPhone plans with unlimited Instinct
July 3, 2008
globeandmail.com: Bell undercuts iPhone plans with unlimited Instinct
The smartphone that has been hailed as “the iPhone killer” by online pundits is coming to Canada on Aug. 8.
The Samsung Instinct, which has many of the same features as the Apple iPhone, differs from the iPhone in one major way: Its monthly price plan, which will dramatically undercut the iPhone plan announced last week by Rogers Wireless.
A subscriber can buy the Instinct for as low as $149.95 and then pay less than $40 a month for a modest voice plan accompanied by an unlimited data plan on Bell’s high-speed data network.
In contrast, Rogers Wireless’s cheapest iPhone plan costs $60 per month, and includes only 400 megabytes of data.
$10 unlimited data on EV-DO (excluding voice). Damn it Rogers! Get it together.
I hate it when they label something the [insert Apple product] killer. It never is.
Sweden tops world’s most wired countries
July 2, 2008
globeandmail.com: Sweden tops world’s most wired countries
European countries, including other Nordic nations Denmark and Iceland, occupy most of the top 10 spots
Sweden may be better known for cars and couches than computers, but when it comes to access to broadband and cellular networks, it’s tops. The Scandinavian country leads the world in “technological readiness,” according to the World Economic Forum.
To rank high on the list — one of 12 included in the WEF’s annual Global Competitiveness Report — countries need to have tech-friendly government policies as well as high tech usage.
Yay! Now, they should just get rid of that new wiretapping law.
I’ve been looking into their network data plans (thanks Google Translate) and they offer unlimited 3G at 7.2MB/s for $33 a month (cell phone or computer). That’s faster than a lot of people’s home Internet connection! Unheard of in North America.
globeandmail.com: What’s Twitter doing right now? Investors would like to know
For an upstart Internet company, one couldn’t ask for better endorsements than Barack Obama using your service to update his supporters or NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander utilizing your network to declare to the world that it has found evidence of ice on the Red Planet.
That kind of exposure is helping Twitter Inc., a quirky micro-blogging service that has become a staple within the tech community, to attract the attention of mainstream users and investors.
Investors, however, want to know whether Twitter has what it takes to become the next Internet darling capable of an initial public offering, or whether it is simply the latest in a long line of Internet startups that are long on potential but prove short on real-world value.
Venture capitalists, hoping to discover the next social networking phenomenon like MySpace or Facebook, are investing heavily in companies such as Twitter that they believe can translate rapidly expanding user bases into cold, hard advertising dollars.
Prediction: location-aware Twitter on the iPhone/Blackberry will be a big hit (a la Twinkle). I also like the idea behind a new Twitter-like service called nrme (near me).
Here are some Twitter users worth following.
10,000 Canadians petition for iPhone rate relief
June 29, 2008
FORTUNE: Apple 2.0 10,000 Canadians petition for iPhone rate relief «
It’s taken more than a year for the iPhone to make its way across the world’s longest undefended border, which may help explain why so many Canadians are upset this weekend.
On Friday, Rogers Communications (RCI) — Canada’s largest mobile carrier and the only one with a contract to sell Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone north of that border — announced the details of its voice and data plans. They struck some would-be customers as unreasonably high and unnecessarily restrictive, especially when compared with those in the U.S. and the U.K., and thousands of angry Canadians have made their feelings known in various homegrown websites, including eh Mac,GeekCulture, and blog.r4nt,.
But the largest and most pungent protest is a petition whose original name was unprintable, but which can now be found at ruinediphone.com. Its stated goal is to gather 10,000 names — accompanied by to a letter to Steve Jobs — by July 11, the date when the iPhone 3G goes on sale in Canada. By Sunday morning it had already gathered more than 10,400.
Rogers totally mucked it up. The best part is how they include voicemail but force you to add the $15 value pack filled with useless crap just to get caller ID. What’s also great is the unlimited access to Rogers/Fido wifi hotspots… that is until you realize there are only two hotspots in Vancouver.
BTW, the Fido iPhone plans are a tad better because evenings start at 7pm and they bill by the second.
Update:
Globe and Mail article – 16,000+ names and growing fast
Update x2:
Think Rogers iPhone plans are unfair? Try living in Sweden
Just my luck! Though I should point out that they actually have an unlimited data plan for $33 in Sweden, which is what the big fuss is about. If you consistently go over your alloted data on Rogers (not very hard on 3G), it will easily cost much more than Telia’s plan. Oh, and Telia allows you to use their cheaper non-iPhone plans as well, unlike Rogers.
globeandmail.com: ‘Running Fan’ forces change in ethics for China’s teachers
BEIJING — A Chinese high school teacher who controversially fled a classroom before his students during last month’s devastating earthquake has compelled China to amend laws governing teacher-student ethics.
Fan Meizhong, a literature teacher at a private high school in quake-ravaged Dujiangyan in southwest Sichuan province, was branded “Running Fan” by local media and Internet users and later fired after he defended his cowardice in a lengthy online essay.
“At such a life-or-death moment, I would only consider sacrificing my life for my daughter. I would not do it for anyone else, even my mother,” Mr. Fan wrote on a popular online portal.
None of the children in his class died in the quake.
The Education Ministry had made protecting students the “moral responsibility of a teacher” for the first time in a draft revision of existing ethics regulations, Friday’s China Daily said.
“The revision … says teachers should ‘be good mentors and helpful friends’,” the paper said.
It came after Mr. Fan threatened to sue education authorities, saying chivalry was not a part of his job description.
Computers in use pass one billion mark
June 23, 2008
globeandmail.com: Computers in use pass one billion mark
HELSINKI — The number of personal computers in use around the world has surpassed one billion, with strong growth in emerging markets set to double the number of PCs by early 2014, research firm Gartner said on Monday.
Mature markets accounted for 58 per cent of the first billion installed PCs, but would only account for about 30 per cent of the next billion, Gartner said.
Man in wheelchair charged with drunk driving
June 23, 2008
globeandmail.com: Man in wheelchair charged with drunk driving
CANBERRA — Police in Australia have charged a man for drink driving in a motorized wheelchair after he was found to be six times over the legal alcohol limit, local media reported on Monday.
Police in the tropical northern Queensland city of Cairns said the man had a blood alcohol reading of 0.31, and was so drunk he was asleep at the controls of his motorized wheelchair in a turning lane of a major highway.
229 dead in Philippines typhoon: official
June 22, 2008
229 dead in Philippines typhoon: official
ILOILO, Philippines — At least 229 people are confirmed dead and at least six missing after Typhoon Fengshen ravaged the central and southern Philippines, Red Cross and civil defence officials said on Sunday.
The toll does not include those dead or missing from a ferry that sank in the central Philippines with about 747 people aboard. Four people have been confirmed dead and there are four survivors from that accident.
The rest are unaccounted for.The central province of Iloilo has suffered the heaviest losses after being hit by the typhoon on Saturday, with 101 dead, Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon said.
Other fatalities were recorded in the neighbouring provinces of Romblon, Cotabato, Antique and Capiz, Gordon added.The civil defence office recorded 26 fatalities in the southern island of Mindanao.
“This (toll) will definitely rise dramatically when we get the listings from the ship,” he said, referring to the Princess of the Stars ferry that sank off Sibuyan island amid rough seas on Saturday.
Floodwaters in Iloilo rose so swiftly that many residents were forced to take refuge on rooftops or in the branches of tall trees, said provincial administrator Manuel Mejorada.
I was born in Iloilo City and still have plenty of extended family living in the area, so I’ve been hearing a lot about this over the last couple days. This morning has been especially newsworthy when a ship carrying 700+ people capsized. The typhoon has been pretty devastating. The news was all over my Google Reader feeds. Iloilo is a relatively small city (though densely populated as any city is in the Philippines) and I don’t remember the last time it has garnered this much international attention.
lyndon. 