iAm Lazy.

Technological advancements are awesome. I love the laptop and the digital camera, and I will admit i favor Macs over PC's. Apple is overly expensive, but I get no viruses and it works for me. But sometimes the company really shocks me on their pointless newer technologies.
Case in the point...the iPad.
Or as I like to call it the iAm Lazy or iHave Money to Blow For No Reason.

Below is a video of the first official opinion on the iPad...



"It's not a piece of hardware...the hardware brings us a whole new thing in life".
Wise from Apple's Co-Founder Steve Wozniak on the iPad/iTablet...whatever you want to call it. I'd really like to know what the new thing in life is, cause as far as I can tell it's giant iTouch or a really flat laptop that I can't really do very much with.

Apparently, according to the above video, the iPad will be "revolutionary to the media". Well that's great, I mean we all love technological advances right?

Like the fact that it could be better than laptop, because you can carry it around. Um...last time I checked I'm perfectly capable of carrying around my laptop (which is a Mac btw).
 But he says basically, it could be used as a giant ipod, but he doubts it'll be used like that. It could be used for directors of movies, but he doesn't see it "having any role in video editing or music production".

Oh, and as revolutionary to the media as it can be, he talks about Ebooks and how it could even be used to upload magazines. Won't that like put a lot of companies that sell magazines, like ya know the old fashioned kind with pages and stuff,  out of like business. I mean yeah great everything I need is in front me of for double the price and if it breaks...well I guess I'm screwed.

And as for the whole Ebook thing, I'm sorry but I like books. They smell like books and I can write on them if it's for school or keep them on my bookcase. No wonder Borders is at the verge of filing for bankruptcy. Maybe I'm just a stickler for not letting technology take over certain aspects of life that make me feel like I'm really lazy.

I'm sure this is something that is talked about on the daily among bloggers and critics, but seriously the point is has our society gotten THAT lazy. I mean we think about the future and the possibility of flying cars and living on the moon, that's all fine and dandy, but does it come at a higher cost in which we lose motivation that comes from studying from an old textbook and buying a CD, not just downloading music, because it's easier. Will we all just give up the stuff that we grew up with, and not realize that future generations will have no idea where all of that techonology started from, because at least the generations that are living now still can appreciate the advances.

What happens when we lose that appreciation?
I'll tell you what, useless technology. Shame on us.

Count me in.

Eating is quiet obviously  a necessity, being human and all food is what use for energy. But with food comes the temptation to eat more of it then we may need sometimes and while some people (like me) could care less how much of something I'm eating and when it can actually make me gain weight, there are the calorie counters out there and this one is for you.

My friend is an avid calorie counter and she telling me about some little tricks she's picked up over the years about losing calories without working out or excersizing everyday (let's face it between low motivation and how time consuming it can be, we all can't catch a break to drop and do 50 or run a mile on the treadmill).

So here are three tips she had mentioned to me, which I proceeded to write down and google later on.

Do you smell that?... Lets get pumped up!

 You can loose wait simply by using your senses, and in this case sense of smell.

According to fitflex.com,

 "Researchers found that inhaling certain pleasant scents such as strawberry or popcorn drenched in butter can actually help aerobic exercisers bum more calories than either bad odors or the absence of any scents".

 Scents have the power to influence our moods. Think about it...when was the last time you smelled chocolate chip cookies in the oven and wanted to punch someone in the face? (Unless your like a psychopath that shouldn't happen). 

The website also said that...

"Researchers theorize that pleasant smells may put people in a more alert, positive mood for exercise,  or they may work directly on the brain to increase workout efficiency. 'We're not suggesting that you  set a bucket of buttered popcorn beside the StairMaster "but slathering some strawberry lip balm before exercising can't hurt".

Not a bad idea.

 LMAO...what a workout.

Loosen up and laugh a little it's very good for you. In fact, you can burn calories from laughing your ass off (in the non literal sense of course). Laughing is an excellent source of excersize.

Think about how after you hear or see something and it's followed by your hysterical laughter to the point that it hurts...it hurts because there are certain muscles in your body that are being used.

Fun Fact: 15 minutes of laughter a day will burn 10 to 40 calories!

Stay cool...literally.

There is a certain type of fat that is found in babies and other mammals that burns calories while keeping your body temperature up. 

It's called "brown fat" and it's a type of strange tissue that through research has proven that adults also have and it works to help you burn calories when you're cold so that you can stay warm. I wouldn't recommend staying out in the cold for hours on end, but keeping your thermostat down (which can also save on the heating bill) will actually help you out in the long run as well. 

Not everyone has brown fat, and those that are older and use heart medications probably are less likely to have much of it, but those who DO have it are younger and leaner than those who don't. 

Take it even further and while you are working out, keep the air around you a bit cooler than normal so that your body can work harder to keep you warm and in shape. The extra energy that people with relatively large brown fat deposits can burn is about 500 calories, and although if you don't have a lot of brown fat... a little bit can go a long way.

Happy calorie counting! 

Magic Ducks?

Whenever I get really bored and theres nothing to do, a fun little website to try is stumbleupon.com.
While stumbling around on sites from the internet I found a website about ducks, and figured it would be the basic facts about our fine feathered friends....I was mistaken.

Get this...duck's quacks don't  echo. WTF?!

The myth was first mentioned on BBC radio in the spring of 2003 and it has been confirmed.
I came across a full experiment that was intent on proving whether or not this myth is true.

Experiment:
Here is they recorded an "anechoic" duck's normal quack (click the link!)
Then they recorded the duck in an echo chamber. (click it again!)
Then they recorded the duck flying past a cliff. (one last time!)


The second recording obviously had an echo...hello this isn't science fiction here, one animal in the world can't possibly not have an echo. But the last one is i'll admit harder to hear, but that's only because nature doesn't provide the right acoustics (...fail on mother nature). Ducks are small creatures therefore because their sound is small, the echo is even smaller which is why we don't normally hear it.

So myth is officially busted, ducks DO echo and they are not magic.


But I can guarantee the next time you see a duck, you're gonna listen a little more closely to the quack.
Oh the simple things in life

Coconuts That Save Lives.

Yesterday I had been talking to one of my friends about a local blood drive and I mentioned that I couldn't participate because I pass out whenever they take my blood. We ended up somewhere off on a tangent as most people do in deep conversations and were talking about how awesome it would be if there was anything, with all of our medical and technological advances, that could naturally replace human blood without humans actually giving blood. It went from robots to plants and out of sheer boredum the art of googling then commenced.

And then I found this fun fact....
Coconuts water (that liquid inside a fresh coconut) can save lives!

It's apparently good for the body in three essential ways.

1. You can drink it!
 And it's a naturally healthy and diet friendly drink. So when summer time comes along and you really want to pick up that diet coke, just remember coconut water is 10x better for you.

2. It'll flush out those damn kidney stones!
Medical researchers in the Philipines have found that coconut water is a natural kidney stone cleanser and when it's fresh and young it can even help dissolve them.

3. Last but not least, coconut water can be used in blood transfusions!
And so it seems my friend and I were able to find proof that there is a natural substitute. It was used way back when in WWII, but then again the world made many mistakes in that era, but that's besides the point. Basically, the glucose in the coconut water is similar to that of human blood. In emergency situations it can be used as intravenous hydration fluid instead of regular IV fluid.

Then I got even more curious and wanted to see what else can be replaced with blood in emergency situations and got all these "artificial blood" articles and proceeded to get creeped out by the fact that scientists can actually make fake blood...lovely. I'd rather stick to the natural stuff, thanks though.

Freeze.

There is something to be said about the world, and looking at the most abstract picture, life as we know it. Everyday I find that I am constantly amazed at how much we know and how much we only think we know. There are the more complex ideas that can confuse even a rocket scientist and the more simple ones that seem to boggle our mind.

I knowone thing we've all learned through experience as kids are simple ideas...take ice for example.

Ice is frozen water. A very cold solid. When its heated up, it melts and becomes a liquid.

Simple. Or is it...?

Apparently scientists have been able to freeze water with heat. 

Wait..what?!

Yes. At a certain level between hot and cold, water can be "supercool" which is where its basically freezing but still a liquid and as it heats up it solidifies. 

Well I know one thing for sure if it is anything like dry ice I would not want to confuse supercool water with regular cool water, because that would probably suck.

What does this all mean?

Well we're closer to being cryogenically frozen and control the weather.

Cool. Supercool. Get it? ... Anyways, the point is...don't think be fooled by thinking you really know what you think you know.