Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 10:02 pm

Use Baking Soda to Strip Paint, Shampoo Your Hair : Planet Green

More stuff I didn’t know. Gonna have to try both. Cool! 😎

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 9:58 pm

Soak in Epsom Salt : Planet Green
Who knew Epsom salt packed such a wallop of health benefits? Also known as hydrated magnesium sulfate, Epsom salt is a powerful source of magnesium, an element the National Academy of Sciences says most Americans are deficient in, resulting in high rates of ailments such as heart disease, stroke, migraines, osteoporosis, arthritis and joint pain, digestive maladies, stress-related illnesses, and chronic fatigue.

I’ve used it from time to time for sore muscles and skin infections but had no idea it had any relationship with most of the above ailments.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 9:16 pm

Moderate alcohol consumption in middle age can lower cardiac risk
The study also identified a subset of new drinkers who consumed only wine. When comparing non-drinkers to wine-only drinkers, drinkers of other types of alcohol, and heavy drinkers, the wine-only drinkers had the most significant reduction in cardiovascular events. Drinkers of other types of alcohol also had an advantage over non-drinkers, but the difference did not reach statistical significance.

I’ve been seeing more and more studies showing the health benefits of limited alcohol intake, especially red wine. While at the health food store the other day I noticed several supplements that were supposed to be the good stuff from red wine without the alcohol. And priced higher than several bottles of wine. 🙄

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 9:05 pm

Is a cup of tea really the answer to everything — even anthrax?
A new study by an international team of researchers from Cardiff University and University of Maryland has revealed how the humble cup of tea could well be an antidote to Bacillus anthracis –more commonly know as anthrax.

Tea, it’s good fer ya…

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 9:02 pm

In Chicago, a secret garden cools a concrete jungle

Cool! In several ways… 😉

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 8:42 pm

Archaeologist Finds Oldest Known Gold Artifacts in the Americas
The site Aldenderfer and the others excavated included a burial that contained a necklace made of turquoise and native gold that had been hammered into shape, and may have belonged to someone with an elevated rank in the community.

Carbon-14 dates for Jiskairumoko range from 2155 to 1936 B.C., making the necklace about 4,000 years old, and some 600 years older than the previous earliest known gold artifacts in South America, or anywhere else in the Americas.

Since the Egyptians were building the pyramids and working all kinds of metals at that time it really isn’t that surprising. I suspect the more we dig the more we’ll find on this side of the pond… 😉

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 8:09 pm

Microwave your foods safely
Bucknavage offers the following recommendations for good microwave cooking:

8) Continue cooking immediately after defrosting or precooking food in the microwave. Storing partially cooked food in the refrigerator may allow harmful bacteria to grow within the product.

Microwaves work real well for warming or reheating cooked foods but I like to cook most stuff (meats especially) on the stove.

#7 is a REAL good tip. I’ve also found that small containers (just larger than the food being cooked) with a loose lid and a SMALL amount of liquid will cook much quicker and better than a larger container or one with a large amount of liquid. When cooking beans, peas, corn or the like, I drain all but one to two table spoons of the liquid and they will cook much better in a quarter of the time than if all the liquid is used.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 7:58 pm

Music file compressed 1,000 times smaller than mp3
“This is essentially a human-scale system of reproducing music,” says Mark Bocko, professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-creator of the technology. “Humans can manipulate their tongue, breath, and fingers only so fast, so in theory we shouldn’t really have to measure the music many thousands of times a second like we do on a CD. As a result, I think we may have found the absolute least amount of data needed to reproduce a piece of music.”

This seems to be more of a MIDI type of process than an MP3 compression technique. It’s quite an interesting process but methinks that the writer/editor went for the sensational rather than factual reporting.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 7:47 pm

Evidence lacking on health benefits of drinking lots of water

Guess it’s another one of those “but everyone knows” kinda things. Some days I do and some days I don’t. In the summer I may drink more than that, in the winter probably lots less. I figure as long as I’m still peeing I’m taking in enough liquids… 😉

Comments (1)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 7:41 pm

ATV Jules Verne automated ship docks to the ISS
ATV Jules Verne, the European Space Agency’s first resupply and reboost vehicle, has successfully performed a fully automated docking with the International Space Station (ISS). This docking marks the beginning of Jules Verne’s main servicing mission to deliver cargo, propellant, water, oxygen and propulsion capacity to the Station, as well as ESA’s entry into the restricted club of the partners able to access the orbital facility by their own means.

Getting closer to Skynet every day… 🙄 😉

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 7:04 pm

Green tea helps beat superbugs
Green tea can help beat superbugs according to Egyptian scientists speaking today at the Society for General Microbiology’s 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Tastes good and is good for what ails you. 😉

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 6:59 pm

BBC NEWS | Americas | ‘Pre-Inca’ temple found in Peru
Archaeologists in Peru have discovered ancient temple ruins that could predate the Inca empire.
The video shows quite a bit but has no commentary so it’s rather hard to tell what you are looking at. Would like to see the area in person.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 6:48 pm

Gene ‘knockout’ floors tobacco carcinogen

An interesting first step anyway.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 6:41 pm

Boomerang works in space: Japanese astronaut

I’m assuming this was inside the space station rather than outside.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 6:36 pm

Jeremy Fish’s Barry the Beaver toy – Boing Boing

Love the comments! And it “might” be legal in Alabama. 😆 😆 😆

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 1:36 pm

Linux.com :: OOo Basic crash course: Creating a simple game using strings in a database

And a bit of OpenOffice frivolity to waste some time..

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 1:28 pm

Brunel cement find is world first

Interesting archaeological find pushes back the date of the first major usage of Portland Cement.

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 3, 2008 8:54 am

Groklaw – Ubersoft on ISO, “voting irregularities”, and Groklaw

Help Desk cartoon on the above subjects. LOL funny (warning geek humor)… 😉

Comments (1)

By Dave, April 2, 2008 9:54 pm

Don’t know whether to credit the Ribose with my productivity or not but I do seem to be coming out of my do nothing but sleep or sit and read slump. So far it’s one day with 2 doses and 2 days with 3 doses. Seem to have less muscle pain and lots more mental clarity. If it weren’t for the pollen induced sinus headache I think I’d feel pretty good, and even with it I feel better than I have in months so guess it’s doing something positive.

Have started going through the enormous backlog of unread feeds and posting about a few of the more interesting (to me) ones. Downloaded 2 distros and burned them to cd. Fixed the power supply board for a pinball machine and read a bit. Not in that order. 😉 Still got over 3000 posts to scan to clear it all out but am gaining on them. I think there were over 5000 when I started. Haven’t read them all, just skimmed the more interesting stuff and deleted a lot including several feeds that didn’t live up to my expectations.

Looks like I’ll be out and about tomorrow. Got to take the power supply board and reinstall it in the pinball machine and see what else is gonna need fixed on it. Also got a cleanup and repair to do on a commercial radial arm saw that I will look at and see what the deal is on. So should be a varied day at the very least. Tis about time to call it a night. Till tomorrow… 😎

Comments (0)

By Dave, April 2, 2008 9:20 pm

Main Page – Business Edition Linux

Gonna have to set up a machine with this on it just to play around with. Looks like what I have been looking for in a home server.