December 15th, 2006
On December 10th, the New York Times published an article entitled Empty-Stomach Intelligence. This article goes over a research project by Yale Medical School, that has been performed to evaluate performance in mice when they are hungry. According to the research, being hungry actually makes mice smarter. Researches said this is very likely to be true for humans as well.
This is obviously true, or well at least it makes sense. If someone is hungry, they will focus all their energy into finding ways to acquire food. This is why we’ll act smarter, because we need food. The interesting claim is that being hungry helps you learn and remember better. According to the research ghrelin, a hormone produced when the stomach is empty, was binding to cells of the hippocampus (the area in our brain responsible for learning). However, all the facts have been proven for mice, who performed better in a maze because they were hungry (maybe the ones that weren’t couldn’t be bothered, everything and everyone are lazy). No specific research shows this is true for human beings, yet. Scientists believe it is very likely to be the same case.
I find it hard to believe that being hungry could actually help you learn. From experience when you are hungry, all you can think about is food. However, this is why the article recommends to not just “not eat”, but eat a little and snack a lot to keep an “edgy state”. I suppose if you are not that hungry this could work, but this theory has a lot of minds to change, since what is previously believed, is that you need to eat properly before going to school. According to Dr. Debby Demorcy-Luce, a nutritionist from the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, “Children who eat breakfast have been shown to get higher grades and are less likely to be described as depressed, anxious, fidgety, or irritable by parents and teachers.” Just like Dr. Demorcy-Luce, there are thousands of people who believe the same thing.
Due to the performance in most schools, I’d give the hunger theory a try, it will also help with the obesity problem America is facing. Imagine moms around the country telling their kids, “Hunny, if you don’t bring home an A, you are not eating today”, now this will definetly work!
December 14th, 2006
If you are a webmaster you are wondering why lately everybody and their grandmother has a web directory. Well, today I have decided to answer such a rightful question, since after all, I own a web directory too, right? Believe it or not, the answer is quite simple. Most of the directory owners are mislead by the illusion that owning a web directory is a very easy way to make money. This is false. Below I shall outline the reasons why these people will NOT make money off a web directory, until they fix up their thinking.
Owning a web directory is a huge responsibility and requires a lot of work. Most of the people who own one, fail to realize this, thus never truly achieve success. Such web directories are easily recognizable. You can identify them easily by sitewide links to totally irrelevant sites. Or if relevant, way too many outbound sitewide links. I understand a good directory can still exist with a couple of outbound sitewides, but once you link to over 5, where is the link juice for your clients? Also, linking to gambling, pharmacy, and other stuff like that, sitewide from a directory is a big no-no. People who adhere to such measures are desperate to make money off their web directory and are making their biggest mistake in the market.
Another thing I have noticed that poor quality directories do, is mass production. By this I mean the owner will usually have over 40 directories all open to the general public. None of these directories gets the attention it needs. It is not only about approval time, I understand if you sit on your computer all day and approve sites on each one of your free directories (which hope to sell some paid featured listings), you might be able to do it. But where is the marketing? For a directory to become good it has to become perhaps your #1 priority in Internet life. Have you noticed the successful directories lately? You stop hearing about the other business these people own, and all you hear is about their directory. Their one and only directory. This is how its supposed to be. Focus your concentration on your main directory. Work on it hard until it has become a success. If you have managed to lead it’s way up there, then, you can think of starting a new directory (if you think you have the time and will to go through all the work again).
The two major points are now out of the way, however, there is still plenty to talk about. In particular it has to be mentioned that accepting any paid listing is a big mistake. Just because someone offers you money you should not accept them. Make sure you accept only sites that you would actually like to visit some day if you are looking for information. Remember that if you list a bad site, this will be a potential turn off for new customers. Which brings me to my next point.
A good web directory has to keep their customers coming back. How would you do this? Well the idea is quite simple actually, the execution of it requires work (as does everything else I have mentioned above). Make your directory unique. Give your customers something to remember you by, be it a unique layout, or some special features, coupon codes, etc… Don’t rip off other successful directories (although getting inspired by some of their ideas can be good) you need your own, signature feature that people will remember you by.
Even though already mentioned above, I’ll stress this again. Don’t forget marketing! Marketing only ONE directory, until you are successful is key to progress. And remember, it is not all about link building and getting a high PR (although its needed of course), branding is key as well. The more webmasters remember your name the better off you will be in the long run. Invest most (if not all) of your directory profit into further marketing it and you will taste success sooner or later!
I hope this post has opened a few eyes, and we’ll start seeing more quality directories pop up. It has to happen, before Google devalues all these sites into simply, link farms.
December 10th, 2006
Well it has been known for a long time that Macs are safer in many, many aspects over normal computers with Windows installed in them. Same goes for laptops, MacBooks are safer than normal laptops on Windows for the same exact reasons. This includes viruses, spyware, hacking onto someones computer, etc. But have you ever tought of a MacBook being safer than a laptop in terms of it being stolen?
You don’t believe me, I know. It is perhaps silly to say that a more expensive, better laptop is least likely to get stolen than its counterparts. However, with the Orbicule Recovery Service, your MacBook becomes a thief trap, pretty much. For only $39 (US dollars) you can protect your MacBook and in case it gets stolen, Orbicule will most likely get it back. Their recovery service installs software in your computer that sends information about the thief as soon as they connect to the Internet. It will not only tell Orbicule their IP so that law enforcement can get the thiefs’ address from the ISP, but it can take pictures of the thief, and do more advanced things if law enforcement fails to help. To see how it works, read up on their recovery story, it’s really cool.
After you have read that story, things come to mind like… “Why in the world would he connect to the internet?”, well it’s obvious he did not know about this service and probably if he knew, he would not know what to do. As I do not believe thiefs are tech savvy users that know how to format a Windows computer, much less so a Mac. Reinstalling MacOs will not help get rid of any data in the computer, so a thief is just better off staying away from MacBooks. Of course, maybe if this guy wasn’t so addicted to World of Warcraft he could have lasted a little longer, tough luck!
December 7th, 2006
Today I saw so much weird stuff on-line that I have decided to make a post with some general weird stuff I found, funny stuff. I hope you like it.
Let’s start off by mentioning this 13 year old girl, charged as a sex offender, while being a victim in the same act. It turns out this girl did inappropiate stuff with some younger lad and now they are both in court. Now this is just plain silly, why in the world do you take a 13 and a 12 year old to court? What has this world come to, can’t parents deal with anything nowdays?
What about this news report posted yesterday at BBC. “1200-year-old problem ‘easy’” is perhaps even sillier than the above one (well can’t really compare, they are both plain stupid). This man, who seems to hold a PhD in Computer Science is trying to teach little kids that dividing 0 by 0 is ok, as long as you do it his way by defining the result as nullity. Of course nullity is just a name he made up for what we know as undefined. Wow, this guy is a genius. (notice the sarcasm, please)!!
Here is another one, this place in Portlands Chinatown, is experimenting a street without a sidewalk, traffic sings or lights. Supposedly, according to this article, it makes drivers go more cauteously which makes it safer for pedestrians. Ok now, who is foolish enough to not drive as slow as possible so you don’t accidentaly scratch somebody with the side of your car? Because if you do, you’ll end up at the same place that 13 year old girl is right now. And you will have to respond to charges for giving that person a injury that had to be healed with a band-aid, and a trauma that they will keep for life.
Everyday, there are more and more worthless, silly news. But oh well, at least they are better than reading the police reports in the local newspaper. It’s much more amusing. Right?
December 6th, 2006
Seeing as I am a computer science major I could not help but laugh and share this with you. I managed to find this little story of what would happen if a electrical engineer and a computer scientist ended up in the medieval times, and the king asked them for advice. Here is the link.
If you don’t know much about computer science then you probably won’t understand the story, but the world of computers can get very complicated at times. But i’ll vouch for it and say it gets complicated for good reason, the more complicated the programming of things is, the more user friendly the end product… of course, simple is best sometimes… like in the case of this poor scientist, whose fate I would not wan’t. Enjoy the story!
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