Saving Premature Babies' Eyesight

Dr Arnall Patz, an ophthalmologist who discovered and eliminated a major cause of blindness in premature infants -- passed away from heart disease on March 11. He was 89.

In 1954, Patz proved that treating premature babies with pure oxygen could destroy their eyesight. At the time, this was the most common cause of blindness in premature infants.

As was a young physician at Washington DC's Gallinger Municipal Hospital (now known as DC General Hospital), Patz observed that a new incubator, sealed all around to contain an inner climate, was enabling doctors to save premature babies. "But something was wrong," he told the Baltimore Sun in 2004 profile. Patz noticed that the advance coincided with an epidemic of infant blindness, and that most of the victims were "preemies" who lay for weeks in an atmosphere of near-total oxygen.

"In a question that outraged physicians at the time, but later won their admiration, Dr Patz wondered whether there might be a connection: Was it possible that oxygen was robbing babies of their sight?" the profile read. "It had become standard practice to put babies in incubators and crank up the oxygen," Patz told the Sun. "[I] could hardly blame the doctors who did this because it turned struggling babies from blue to pink."

Unable to secure grant money to prove their hypothesis, Patz and his colleague Leroy Hoeck funded their early tests with money borrowed from Patz's brother Louis, later receiving a small grant after promising to turn on the oxygen at the first sign of troubled breathing.

Their hunch was correct: Almost immediately, doctors stopped automatically giving oxygen to premature infants, ending the epidemic of blindness because of retrolental fibroplasias, now known as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). By the time the practice of providing pure oxygen to premature infants was stopped, more than 10,000 of these babies had had their eyesight destroyed.

To prove their theory, the pair of doctors conducted what is widely believed to be the first randomized controlled trial in ophthalmology. In the early 1950s, they divided 120 premature babies at Gallinger into two groups. In the first group, which received concentrated oxygen constantly, 12 infants went blind. In the second group, babies received oxygen only if they were in respiratory distress, and only one became blind.

Elevated oxygen levels, it turned out, destroyed the arteries of the eye. That in turn caused abnormally wild growth of blood vessels, irreversibly damaging the retina. It was discovered that oxygen caused blood vessels in the back of the eye to constrict. In a doomed attempt to compensate, the eye sprouted twisted vessels that would eventually bleed and destroy the retina.

"Never in the history of ophthalmology has a blinding condition become so quickly widespread and equally rapidly been abolished," wrote Scottish ophthalmologist Sir Stewart Duke-Elder in the 1970s.

The results of a subsequent larger trial led by biochemist Everett Kinsey and involving patients at 18 hospitals substantiated the earlier findings at Gallinger. Although the new understanding came too late for thousands of people who were made blind by oxygen -- including the singer Stevie Wonder.

Patz operated a ham radio from his home on behalf of the Maryland Eye Bank. According to The Wall Street Journal, Patz erected an 80 foot tower at his home and became known to amateurs across the country for putting out the word on the airwaves whenever corneas were needed for transplant.

In 2004, President George W. Bush presented Patz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, calling him "the man who has given to uncounted men, women and children the gift of sight."

- from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun for some information

How to Cool Off - Tips About Anger

Most anger-management programs use techniques borrowed from cognitive-behavioral therapy to help people deal with anger.

Here are some strategies to help keep negative emotions in check.

• Reframe the situation. Instead of seeing every inconvenience or frustration as a personal affront, imagine a benign explanation.

• Find a constructive solution to the issue at hand. "Ask yourself: what do I need to be okay right now?," suggests Rich Pfeiffer, a psychologist and board president of the National Anger Management Association, a group of about 300 practitioners. "That shifts the focus from how the other person needs to be punished to how I need to respond in a healthy way."

• Keep an "anger log" to monitor what makes you angry. Learn to identify and avoid your triggers.

• Be aware that anger tends to rise in increments. Learn to evaluate yours from 1 (frustration) to 10 (rage). If you can catch yourself at 3 or 4, you can think more rationally about the situation.

• If you feel a blowup coming on, give yourself a time-out before acting on it. "Wait 15 minutes before you say something, or an hour before you send an email. Keep your options open," says Pauline Wallin, a psychologist in Camp Hill, Pa., and author of "Taming Your Inner Brat." "If it's not going to be important in an hour, then let it go. It's not worth getting angry about."

• Get a health checkup. Medical problems such as diabetes, chronic pain, low testosterone and low estrogen, can make people very irritable. Anger, either repressed or unleashed, can cause medical problems too. Some 30,000 heart attacks each year are triggered by momentary anger, according to a 2004 Harvard study.

• Be aware of how you talk to yourself. "If you keep saying how awful this is and making yourself feel alike a victim, you will get more angry," says Dr. Wallin.

• Don't ruminate on past affronts or injustices.

• Recognize patterns. "So often, people will say, 'I'm just like my father—my father got angry'," says Dr. Pfeiffer. "You don't have to go back into their childhoods and deal with that. You just have to work on how to respond effectively now."

• Calculate what your anger is costing you. Many people with anger problems think anger gives them an edge, and establishes superiority. "Instead, you just look like an idiot," says Leon Ingram, founder of Chicago-based angermgmt.com.

• Don't use alcohol to "calm" yourself. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions so you are more likely to do or say something you'll regret later.

• Get physical, without fists. When your primitive brain senses a threat, it sets off the "fight or flight" cascade of hormones. Opt for flight instead of fight and burn off the extra adrenaline and cortisol with exercise. Even a brisk walk will help calm you down.

• The ultimate lesson: Pay more attention to the important things in life and recognize that most frustrations, inconveniences and indignities are trivial and temporary.

from WSJ.com

Obsolete Department: 8 Track Tapes Honored in New Museum

Last fall, more than 200 people crammed into one of this city's premier contemporary art galleries for a three-day show.

The show? Eight Track Tapes: The Bucks Burnett Collection. "It was packed," says gallery owner Barry Whistler.

Presiding over the affair was James "Bucks" Burnett, a portly fellow with long gray hair and a white beard. He wore a tailored brown suit covered with images from the album cover of Led Zeppelin's 1973 Houses of the Holy. Strangers showed up offering boxes of eight tracks, which Mr. Burnett happily pawed through, plucking out dusty rarities and putting them on display.

The positive response "led me to think maybe I'm not insane," says Mr. Burnett. But it also helped him realize that a brief gallery show simply can't contain his vision for the hard plastic tapes, one of the clunkiest and most short-lived music formats of all time.

He wants to open an eight-track museum. "There are only two choices. A world with an eight-track museum and a world without an eight-track museum," he says. "I choose with."

Shortly after the show, the planners of a music conference in Denton, a music-loving college town about 40 miles north of Dallas, made Mr. Burnett an offer. They would find him a vacant space and pay $4,000 to build a temporary museum for a one-month run beginning Friday.

Mr. Burnett accepted and is readying his collection for another display, this time in a former lingerie factory in Denton. He plans to showcase and play a few hundred tapes, including a baby-blue copy of The Who's "Tommy," a copy of the "Easy Rider" soundtrack with sun-bleached cover art signed by Peter Fonda and a rare copy of Lou Reed's 1975 avant-garde homage to noise called "Metal Machine Music."

This isn't the first time that Mr. Burnett, a long-time record-store owner, decided to venerate something the world was ready to forget. He edited the now-defunct Mr. Ed Fan Club newsletter for a decade. He managed the ukulele playing vibrato singer Tiny Tim and produced his final album.

At 51, he hopes to find a permanent home for his beloved eight-track collection. He has assembled a board of directors and is preparing to incorporate a nonprofit organization. "There are certainly lesser topics that have museums," Mr. Burnett says.

Peaking in popularity in the mid-1970s, eight-track tapes—about five by four inches—were made to be stuck in a back pocket and carelessly flung onto the vinyl seat of an AMC Pacer. They are the music version of cockroaches, hard to destroy. A 40-year-old tape can still sound rich and full.

Eight tracks were also revolutionary. They were the first truly portable music format, able to be played in a car, and therefore the forerunner of the Walkman, the boom box and even the iPod.

William Lear, better known for his eponymous jet, invented them in the early 1960s in part to provide music in the air. The format never quite took off above the clouds, but it did on the ground. In the 1960s, the eight track was a breakthrough in automobile music. It provided a much fuller sound than the sonically limited AM radio signal.

But the eight track's time atop the music-format food chain was brief. Its downfall was the cassette, which was smaller and ran longer, but was initially dogged by poor sound quality.

Companies poured research into cassettes, developing new coatings and tape material. In 1972, the famous "Is it live or is it Memorex?" advertising campaign began the process of convincing the music-buying public to give up their eight tracks.

When a cassette recording of Ella Fitzgerald, in a famous commercial, smashed a wine glass, the slow decline of the eight track had begun, says Jim Anderson, a professor at New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music.

Of course, the cassette was soon overtaken by the compact disc, which had superior sound quality. And today, the CD is giving way to digital downloading. Last year, Americans purchased 301 million compact discs and downloaded 78 million albums. They also downloaded 1.2 billion songs. Vinyl records sold 2.5 million. Only 34,000 albums were sold on cassette, according to Nielsen SoundScan, down from 105 million a decade ago. Nielson doesn't track eight-track sales.

Some brand new eight tracks are still made and sold. From her house in Arlington, Texas, Kathy Gibson, owner of KTS Productions, can crank out 10 an hour by hand, if the splicing machine isn't acting up and friends don't call on the phone to chat.

Last year, Cheap Trick, an American rock band that still performs but had its heyday in the late 1970s, placed a small order for its new album. It was popular enough that they asked for a second—and third—batch, she says. They are currently on back order, says the band's manager.

Eight tracks still show up on eBay and can command a premium. A quadraphonic eight track tribute album to the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin recently fetched $152. Mr. Burnett says finding some tapes—anything by trumpeter Miles Davis for instance—is really tough.

Mr. Burnett, who got his first job at a now-defunct Dallas record store in 1974 after winning an Alice Cooper-look-alike contest, didn't start collecting eight tracks until 1988, when he found an odd looking copy of the Beatles' White Album at a flea market. He decided to build a complete eight-track collection of the Fab Four, an endeavor that took more than two decades.

Along the way, he started selling eight tracks at his record store—by accident. He displayed a tape of the British punk band the Sex Pistols that he had bought for a dime on the wall near the cash register of his store.

"To ward off potential purchases and because I didn't want to sell it," he put a $100 price tag on it. "Then one day this girl came in and pulled a c-note out of her purse and bought it."

He recently sold off a good chunk of his CD collection to raise money to buy a few hard-to-find eight tracks for the gallery show. He hopes the permanent museum, whenever and wherever that might be, will be self supporting. He plans to charge a $5 admission fee.

Until that day, he continues working part-time jobs as a cashier at a local bakery and record store. His love of music—mostly classic rock—is keeping him going while he tries to turn his dream of a museum into a reality.

by WSJ.com

You Know You're Getting Old When...

You throw your back out on the toilet.
You shave your ears.
Your second wife calls your first wife “ma’am.”
You're genuinely excited when your prescriptions arrive in the mail.
You read the obits in the newspaper to check the ages of the dead people.
You read a newspaper.
You're bummed out that the smokin’ hot chick from Body Heat now looks like William Shatner in drag.
You say “bummed out.”
Women your age have real breasts and artificial hips.
Masturbation leaves you winded.
You try to amuse the kid hooking up your Blu-ray player by telling him about Betamax.
You pee in morse code -- dots and dashes -- and have to look down to see when you’re done.
Your car radio is set to “classic rock” so you have something to switch to during NPR pledge drives.
Your doctor says things like, “that’s normal for a man your age” and “consider yourself lucky.”
Beneath your chin is what appears to be a neck skin hammock.
Beneath your penis is what appears to be two ping pong balls hanging from a flesh-colored bolo tie.
You choose your new car because it offers great lumbar support and convenient cup holders.
Watching “The Who” perform at the Superbowl made you inconsolably sad.
You wonder if the orgasm you're about to have will actually end your life.
Your doctor tells you a new medication will reduce the amount of semen in your body and your only response is, “so what.”
Your car radio is set to “classic rock” so you have something to... oh, wait, I already did that one.

http://www.chucklorre.com/index-bbt.php?p=280

IPhone Battery Replacement: DIY or Not?

Apple may be known for making easy-to-use products, but when it comes to the iPhone, it doesn’t make products that are easy to repair.

As iPhone owners learn, when their phone’s battery dies, it can be replaced; but unlike with a BlackBerry, it’s not a simple task. Apple will do it for $86 and a three-day turnaround. But there are less-expensive third-party providers as well.

Can devoted tinkerers do the replacement themselves? It depends on whom you ask. While researching Thursday’s article about ways to improve the battery life of portable devices, I got two different answers from two companies I interviewed that sell iPhone replacement parts and services.

According to ifixit.com, a company that provides parts for Mac computers, iPods and iPhones, the answer is yes. For about $32, it will sell you a new battery, plus the tools you need to crack the case and separate the various screws and connectors to get at the dead battery. The battery is guaranteed for six months.

One of the best things about the company is its detailed instructions on how to perform the task. Its Web site has step-by-step clear photographs, and comments on each task from customers who have already done the work, offering tips and pitfalls one could encounter.

While I haven’t tried it, I did use its instructions to replace a keyboard on an old Mac laptop and a battery in an iPod, and in both instances the instructions were perfect and simple to follow.

But iPhone battery replacement is a job you shouldn’t even try, according to Milliamp LTD, a competing iPhone replacement company. While Milliamp does offer tools and instructions for do-it-yourself battery replacement for an iPod, the company says that replacing the battery in an iPhone is simply too difficult to try at home.

It will sell you an iPhone battery for $20 if you want to do it yourself, but it won’t tell you how to do the job. Their solution: send the iPhone back to them at your expense and for $39, they’ll install it and return it to you, postpaid. Or you can pay $49 total, and it will send you a shipping label to send it to the company as well. The battery is guaranteed for 10 years, considerably longer than you’re likely to keep your iPhone.

from New York Times

A "Tablet PC" Pioneer Wins The Pregtigious Turing Award

A Veteran hardware developer at the Xerox Corp.'s PARC and Microsoft, Charles P. Thacker, has won the prestigious Turing Award with a $250,000 prize, given by the Association for Computing Machinery.

If a pioneer can be described as a person with arrows in the back, Charles P. Thacker may qualify, because his contributions to computing, although brilliant, often flopped initially. Many of his accomplishments, however, were later successful.

The technical award is granted by the Association For Computing Machinery. Named after British mathematician and cryptologist Alan Turing, the prize is given annually "to an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community."

At different times in his career, Thacker, now 67, seemed to be everywhere. He was the lead hardware developer at the Xerox Corp.'s PARC Palo Alto Research Center where so much of the PC's early innovations were developed including:

- the Alto computer's bit-mapped WYSIWYG test display,
- the mouse pointing device,
- he was the co-founder of Ethernet, still computing's workhorse LAN.

Thacker created and collaborated on what would become the fundamental building blocks of the PC business.

The Alto computer, developed in 1974, incorporated bitmap (TV-like) displays which enable modern graphical user interfaces (GUIs), including What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors. These components have dominated computing during the last two decades.

Thacker was the co-inventor of the Ethernet local area network, introduced in 1973, the “interconnection fabric” that allows multiple digital devices such as workstations, printers, scanners, file servers, and modems to communicate with each other. Today’s Ethernets, which are thousands of times faster than the original version, have become the dominant local area networking technology.

At Digital Equipment Corporation’s System Research Center, Thacker designed the Firefly multiprocessor workstation, an innovation that has new relevance in the current multi-core world. These systems are widely used across many domains for their ability to improve productivity and create performance advantages, with applications for embedded architecture, network systems, digital signal processing, graphics, and special effects.

Thacker went on to Microsoft Research in 1997 to help establish its Microsoft Research Cambridge laboratory, where he also oversaw the design of the first prototypes on which most of today’s tablet PCs are based. Described as the most significant recent advance in the PC hardware platform, they enable faster, more powerful operations and they offer fundamentally new capabilities for direct interaction with users that are fast becoming part of the mainstream of computing. After joining the Tablet PC team to help shepherd the product to market, he returned to Microsoft Research in 2005, and is currently engaged in computer architecture research at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus.

But Thacker always seemed to be ahead of his time, producing early-stage innovations, only to watch his contributions be embodied in later successful products.

The tablet PC that he developed for Microsoft is a case in point. It debuted in 2001 and logged sluggish sales, but many of its concepts have been taking off lately. Apple's iPad tablet, due to ship in a few days, may be the latest example.

Thacker has been collecting awards in recent years. He won the IEEE's John von Neumann award for "a central role in the creation of the personal computer and the development of networked computer systems." He is a technical fellow at Microsoft.

http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2010/turing-award-09

Get Your Sleep

Sleep deprived are more likely to be obese and have medical problems

Millions of Americans only get five to six hours of sleep each night, not knowing that maintaining such sleep patterns can cause them to be dangerously overweight, resulting in many medical and health issues.

If you're sleep deprived, you're more likely to be overweight, and if you're both, you're more likely to be at risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, elevated cholesterol and cardiovascular complications.

But it doesn’t end there. “If you sleep less than six hours a night, you are 15 to 20 percent more likely to be overweight or obese,” says Pete Bils, Director of Clinical Research for Select Comfort, who has conducted 15 sleep studies on quality of sleep.

A healthy sleeping pattern means going to bed at the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning, without an alarm clock, approximately seven to eight hours later.

“If you can lie down in a quiet, cool dark room anytime during daytime and fall asleep, especially within 5-8 minutes, you are sleep deprived,” says Bils.

And if you’re already significantly overweight, you may be at higher risk for sleep deprivation, according to Dr. Carol Ash, medical director of the Sleep for Life Program at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, NJ. “Obese people tend to be too warm [body temperature] and that can interfere with restful sleep.”

Moreover, Ash says people who are continuously tired may tend to eat more to try to stay energized or eat more simply because they are awake more hours of the day, which can lead to weight gain. But there is also a growing area of research to suggest that being sleep deprived affects your weight issues on a hormonal level. “Without sufficient sleep, leptin, a hormone that suppresses appetite is reduced in the body while grehlin, a hormone that stimulates appetite, is increased,” she says. Some studies have found that these hormonal changes may also increase cravings for high carbohydrate sweets and salty foods.

Bils says often times society views people who sleep less and work more as more productive or successful, but that quite the opposite is true. “That’s what I call societal sleep deprivation — sleep deprivation by choice,” he says.

“There’s a state of denial, and people think it’s normal until it gets to the point that it negatively affects your daytime functioning. And if that happens when they are behind the wheel, you don’t know what could happen.”

When the experience of sleep is that only minutes have passed between sleep and waking is healthy. If you’re aware of the sleep process, such as waking often during the night or tossing and turning, you’re not getting totally restorative rest.

Ash says the United States is a “nation in a sleep crisis.” She cites the primary social reasons for sleep deprivation as the advent and technology and increased time at work. “Before electricity was discovered, most people wound down their daily activities when darkness fell because they had no real choice,” she says. “Today we live in a 24/7 society, and TVs, computers and video games are competitors for our time.”

There are also biological reasons for sleep deprivation including sleep disorders like sleep apnea and insomnia, both of which may need medical treatment.

The side effects of sleep deprivation can also translate into other kinds of problems in the bedroom—and we’re not talking about sleep. It can have negative effects on your sex life. “A sleep deprived person does not have the energy to tend to the needs of his or her partner,” says Dr. Joyce Walsleben, head of Behavioral Sleep Medicine at New York University. She says the mental stress that goes along with being sleep deprived should also not be overlooked and can lead to depression and mood changes.

Walsleben says that despite the numerous negative effects of sleep deprivation, it’s something that can be changed with some minor life changes. “Sleep deprivation can be prevented by giving sleep as much importance as food and water,” she says.

“Start adding 15 minutes of sleep each night for a week, then another 15 minutes the following week until you feel better. Small nightly additions help over time without disrupting schedules.”

Tips on how to get a better night’s sleep:

* Gradually dim your atmosphere, mimicking the onset of night in the time before our homes had electricity.
* Create a quiet environment. Abrupt changes in sound will disrupt your sleep.
* Don't try to sleep with the TV on. It’s bright and loud.
* Keep humidity at 65 percent.
* Keep it cool: your body must be “thermally neutral” for optimal sleep, in 65 to 70 degree F temperatures.
* A good air purifier will help.
* Don’t eat before bed. Digestion raises body temperatures, resulting in poor sleep.
* No caffeine for seven hours before bed! (It has a half life of seven hours. Wow.)
* Get a better pillow and mattress. Your spine should be naturally aligned.
* Get a new pillow. A pillow too thick or two thin will give you pain and bad sleep.

from Weight Watchers.

Amendments to Murphy's Law

** Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch & you'll have to pee.

** Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

** Law of Probability - The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

** Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal & someone always answers.

** Law of the Alibi - If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

** Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

** Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

** Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

** Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

** Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

** Law of the Theater & Hockey Arena - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet & who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies & stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

** The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

** Murphy's Law of Lockers - If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

** Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness & cost of the carpet or rug.

** Law of Logical Argument - Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

** Brown's Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they're ugly.

** Oliver's Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet.

** Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy - As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

** Doctors' Law - If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you'll feel better.. But don't make an appointment, and you'll stay sick.

...with thanks to Wendi W.

Early Jefferson Airplane Video

...Link (below) is a video from Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Take a look at the early psychedelic graphics...

...quite advanced since it was the '60s.

please click here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1cfTMdjkYM

Add More RAM to the Lenovo IdeaPad S10

When it comes to adding RAM, Lenovo's IdeaPad S10 netbook is incredibly easy to upgrade. All you need is a DDR2 PC5300 SODIMM in 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB capacity, a mini philip's head screwdriver, and five minutes of spare time.

Before you go buying a new SODIMM, you should be aware that the S10 has 512MB soldered onto the motherboard and only one DIMM slot. If your S10 comes with more than 512MB preinstalled, chances are that there's already a DIMM sitting in the slot and you will have to remove it if you choose to upgrade.

The motherboard also cannot recognize more than 2GB in total, including the built-in 512MB. So, if you add a 512MB DIMM, you'll have 1GB while a 1GB DIMM will give you 1.5GB. A 2GB DIMM will give you 2GB, not 2.5GB, because the last 512MB will be ignored. Still, it may be worthwhile to spend a few dollars on a 2GB DIMM, just so you can max out your RAM.

http://www.laptopmag.com/advice/how-to/lenovo-s10-ram.aspx?

Abbott and Costello Go Computer Shopping

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac? COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office! A

BBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office..

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue 'W'.

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue 'w' if you don't start with some straight answers.. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes.. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer?

How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT! (A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on 'START'..............

Robot teachers to invade Korean Classrooms

Here comes the bots into the classrooms. According to South Korea's etnews, the country has announced plans to put robotic teaching assistants in up to 400 pre-schools by 2012, and expand to a full 8,000 pre-schools and kindergartens the following year.

Those apparently wouldn't be in charge of the class (yet), but they would be used to do things like recite stories, and could let parents check in on the classroom and send messages to their children. If that trial program proves to be successful, the robots could then be expanded to elementary schools, and the Korea Institute of Science & Technology (the folks responsible for the bots) is apparently already eyeing international possibilities.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/22/robot-teachers-to-invade-korean-classrooms-by-2012/

The Barber Pole Once Symbolized Bloodletting

The modern barber pole originated in the days when bloodletting was one of the principal duties of the barber. The two spiral ribbons painted around the pole represent the two long bandages, one twisted around the arm before bleeding, and the other used to bind is afterward. Originally, when not in use, the pole with a bandage wound around it, so that both might be together when needed, was hung at the door as a sign. But later, for convenience, instead of hanging out the original pole, another one was painted in imitation of it and given a permanent place on the outside of the shop. This was the beginning of the modern barber pole.
"Bloodletting" was the popular method of curing all ills. The clergy who enlisted barbers as their assistants first performed this. Barbers continued to act as assistants to the physician-clergy, until the 12th century. At the council of Tours in 1163, the clergy were forbidden to draw blood or to act as physicians and surgeons on the grounds that it was sacrilegious for ministers of God to draw blood from the human body. The barbers took up the duties relinquished by the clergy and the era of barber-surgeons began. The connection between barbery and surgery continued for more than six centuries and the barber profession reached its pinnacle during this time.


More here:

http://www.barberpole.com/artof.htm

99 Barber Still Clipping with Surgeon-Steady Hands

Anthony Mancinelli, who turns 99 on March 2, the world’s oldest barber. He started cutting hair when Calvin Coolidge was in the White House. He was 12.

“When I started, a haircut and shave cost you two bits — a quarter,” Mr. Mancinelli told a customer for 25 years. “A while later, it was 25 cents for a haircut and 15 cents extra for a shave.”

Now, a haircut from Mr. Mancinelli costs $12 and, his repeat customers say, his fingers are just as nimble.

“He’s the fastest barber I know, and he still cuts very straight,” said Mr. Mike Jaffe, 60, whose 4-year-old-grandson, Anthony Colonna, also was getting a haircut from Mr. Mancinelli. “To many of us who have been coming here for a long time, he’s like family. I hope he’s still my barber when he’s 125.”

Another longtime customer, Peter LeRose, 60, of Newburgh, N.Y., who was waiting for a haircut along with his 90-year-old father, Peter, paid Mr. Mancinelli and his surgeon-steady hands an even bigger compliment. “He might be pushing 100,” Mr. LeRose said, “but he still gives the best shaves around.”

Watching as Mr. Mancinelli worked his side of the barbershop, Antonio Mugnano, the owner, said with a soft smile: “On a busy day like today, Anthony will take care of 25 to 30 customers. He’s nonstop, has a lot to say and always has a smile on his face, which is why people here love him.”

Mr. Mancinelli, a razor-thin man with a full head of white hair who once owned his own shop on Liberty Street in nearby Newburgh, is now stationed at Antonio & Pasquale Barber Shop, where an old fashioned pole with red, white and blue swirling stripes is mounted outside the front door, and a dizzying array of Italian accents swirls inside.

“My father was only making $25 a week working in a felt mill and he had seven kids to feed, so we really needed the extra money,” said Mr. Mancinelli, who grew up in Newburgh and still lives there. “At that time, learning to become a barber was just a way to make four or five extra bucks a week.”

But Mr. Mancinelli took a liking to the craft — “I enjoy talking to people, it’s the best part of the job,” he said — and for nearly nine decades has been holding forth on topics both mundane and momentous, including the Great Depression, World War II, the Beatles and 27 Yankee championships.

“He’s like a walking history book,” Mr. Mugnano said.

After dusting off Mr. Jaffe’s neck with a brush full of talcum powder, Mr. Mancinelli seated another man, telling him how old-school barbers like himself “were once like doctors.”

“I used to have a bottle of leeches on my counter, and I would put them on people’s skin to drain blood,” he said, not noticing that half a dozen men waiting for him and three other barbers were hanging on his every word. “In those days, while giving a haircut, I would put a leech over a black eye to bring down the swelling, or on the arm of someone who had high blood pressure because the thinking was their pressure might drop.”

Joe Annunziata, one of the four barbers at the shop, called Mr. Mancinelli “my inspiration.”

“Look at the shape the man is in. I mean, he’s never worn eyeglasses,” said Mr. Annunziata, 69. “He even cuts his own hair — now that’s talent.”

Mr. Mancinelli, a widower, works at the shop two or three days a week. “I would work every day if they let me,” he said, “but we have a full staff of barbers here.” He attributed his staying power to “eating well and never drinking or smoking.”

Mr. Mancinelli walked to the back of the shop and returned with a copy of Guinness World Records 2009.

“Look here,” he said proudly, pointing to a page in the book that he shared with other record setters: John Simplot, who was the world’s oldest billionaire until he died in 2008 at age 99 at an estimated worth of $3.2 billion; Jeanne Louise Calment, who was 122 and the oldest living actress when she died in 1997; and Bill Wallace, who killed a man in December 1925 and became the oldest living prisoner after serving 63 years in an Australian psychiatric hospital before dying there at the age of 107.

Later in the day, Mr. Mancinelli gave a lollipop to Anthony, Mr. Jaffe’s grandson, patted his head and wheeled around to find the next customer in his chair.

“I’m proud to say that I cut the hair of young boys and their fathers’ hair and their grandfathers’, and sometimes even their great-grandfathers’,” he said. “I still feel like I’m in beautiful shape, so I’m not even considering retirement because coming to work is what keeps me going.”

Why All Road Trips Must Begin With ZZ Top

As any intelligent person knows, any decent road trip will start with ZZ Top

This top 100 list of rock era songs is from John Sandford's thriller, Broken Prey - featuring middle-aged Minneapolis police officer Lucas Davenport - Revealing his music-loving side, Davenport's wife gives him an iPod and he sets out on a quest to compile the best 100 rock songs recorded.

These are in no particular order.
ZZ Top Sharp Dressed Man ZZ Top Legs Wilson Pickett Mustang Sally Crash Test Dummies Superman's Song David Essex Rock On Golden Earing Radar Love Blondie Heart of Glass Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit Jefferson Airplane Somebody to Love Derek and the Dominoes Layla The Doors Roadhouse Blues The Animals House of the Rising Sun Aerosmith Sweet Emotion Aerosmith Dude (Looks Like a Lady) Bruce Springsteen Dancing in the Dark Bruce Springsteen Born to Run Bruce Springsteen Thunder Road The Police Every Breath You Take Tom Waits Heart of Saturday Night The Who Won't Get Fooled Again Gypsy Kings Hotel California Tracy Chapman Give Me One Reason Credence Clearwater Revival Down on the Corner Eagles Lyin' Eyes Eagles Life in the Fast Lane Dire Straits Skateaway (Roller Girl) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Mary Jane's Last Dance Janis Joplin Me and Bobby McGee The Doobie Brothers Black Water Joan Jett and the Blackhearts I Love Rock 'n' Roll John Mellencamp Jack and Diane Pink Floyd Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) Pink Floyd Money Billy Joel Piano Man Eric Clapton After Midnight Eric Claption Lay Down Sally AC/DC You Shook Me All Night Long AC/DC Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap The Hollies Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress) Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone Bob Dylan Knockin' on Heaven's Door Bob Dylan Subterranean Homesick Blues The Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction The Rolling Stones Brown Sugar The Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK Grateful Dead Sugar Magnolia The Pointer Sisters Slow Hand Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) Elive Presley Jailhouse Rock David Bowie Ziggy Stardust Bob Seger Night Moves The Everly Brothers Bye Bye Love Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze The Kinks Lola Jackson Browne Tender in the Night The Kingsmen Louie, Louie George Thorogood and the Destroyers Bad to the Bone Metallica Turn the Page Lynyrd Skynyrd Sweet Home Alabama Queen We Will Rock You The Allman Brothers Band Ramblin' Man Led Zeppelin Rock and Roll Tina Turner What's Love Got to Do with It Steppenwolf Born to be Wild U2 With or Without You Black Sabbath Paranoid Foreigner Blue Morning, Blue Day Billy Idol White Wedding Guns N' Roses Sweet Child o' Mine Guns N' Roses Paradise City Guns N' Roses Knockin- on Heaven's Door Lou Reed Walk on the Wild Side Bad Company Feel Like Makin' Love Def Leppard Rock of Ages Van Morrison Brown Eyed Girl Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels Devil with a Blue Dress On Aretha Franklin Respect John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt I'm in the Mood James Brown I Got You (I Feel Good) The Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody Prince Little Red Corvette Chuck Berry Roll Over Beethoven The Byrds Mr. Tambourine Man Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Ohio Buddy Holly Peggy Sue Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire Roy Orbison Oh, Pretty Woman Del Shannon Runaway Run D.M.C. Walk This Way Otis Redding (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit Paul Simon Still Crazy After All These Years Bo Diddley Who Do You Love? Brewer and Shipley One Toke Over the Line Ramones I Wanna Be Seduced The Clash Should I Stay or Should I Go Talking Heads Burning Down the House Dimitri Shostakovich Jazz Suite No. 2; Waltz 2 (you'd have to read the book)

Snowmageddon from Space

NASA's Terra satellite, which just celebrated ten years in space recording climate change, took this image on Sunday, click on it to expand.

Super Bowl Dethrones ‘M*A*S*H’ - “The Super Bowl is the last big media event.”

New Orleans’s 31-17 victory in the Super Bowl on Sunday on CBS generated more viewers — an average of 106.5 million — than any other television program in United States history, defeating the 1983 broadcast of the final episode of “M*A*S*H.”

Alan Alda, the star of “M*A*S*H” and the director of its two-and-a-half-hour finale, wrote in an e-mail message: “I’m happy for New Orleans. I want to see that city come out first in every way that it can, even if it means giving up a record that ‘M*A*S*H’ held for a long time.”

For a program to attract more than 100 million viewers today is nearly miraculous. There are 114.9 million TV households now, nearly 32 million more than when the final “M*A*S*H” attracted 106 million viewers. But the media universe is fractionalized now, with many more TV channels and other ways to amuse ourselves.

CBS, ABC and NBC held 80 percent of the share of prime-time viewing in 1983 when there was no Fox; the three command 28 percent now, with Fox adding 9 percent. The average home in 1983 had 10.3 channels; it now has more than 10 times as many. And sometimes, the best thing to watch is still a “M*A*S*H” rerun.

Ratings for big events were higher then than they are now. The final “M*A*S*H” generated a 60.2 rating (the estimated percentage of TV households tuned to a program); Sunday’s Super Bowl produced a 45.0. But a larger population means a lower rating can yield more viewers.

The Super Bowl is virtually immune to the altered TV landscape.

And New Orleans and Indianapolis had the stirring story of one city’s fight to recover from Hurricane Katrina and the other city’s status as home to one of the N.F.L’s perennially elite teams.

Sunday’s game featured two of the best quarterbacks in the league, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, with the added features of Brees’s personal connection to New Orleans’s revival and Manning’s familial link to the city.

Both teams were No. 1 seeds and were undefeated until late in the season. “The national appeal of teams in any particular year is more important than the size of their markets,” McManus said.

The snow in the Middle Atlantic states kept inside some people who otherwise might have gone out.

Still, something else is at work. The N.F.L. had a great year. CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN had terrific seasons. Playoff ratings bordered on the astonishing. Football is engaging us more than ever.

The Super Bowl is the only sports event that many people watch entirely for the ads, giving it two natural constituencies: sports fans and casual viewers who will endure the game to watch the commercials.

nytimes.com

Flying Without a Net - The First Untethered Spacewalk

The first untethered spacewalk was by American Bruce McCandless II was on February 7, 1984, 26 years ago, during Challenger mission STS-41-B, utilizing the Manned Maneuvering Unit. He was joined by Robert L. Stewart during the 5 hour 55 minute spacewalk.

Spacewalks are dangerous for many reasons, mainly the possibility of a collision with space debris. The Velocity while orbiting 300 km above the Earth is approximately ten times the speed of a bullet. Nearly every space mission creates more orbiting debris, so this problem will continue to worsen. Other risks include an astronaut becoming separated from his or her craft or suffering a spacesuit puncture which would depressurize the suit, causing anoxia and rapid death.

22 Useful Lists of Mac Applications, Tips and Tricks

Here's a link to a boatload of Mac tips, tricks, and apps...

http://www.usingmac.com/2008/8/1/22-useful-lists-of-mac-applications

Apple's New Chip on the iPad

The fruits of Apple’s 2008 acquisition of P.A. Semiconductor finally saw the light of day when Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s iPad. Underlying the sleek user interface and minimalist hardware is the Apple A4. The A4 is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) running at 1GHz. No mere CPU, the A4 includes integrated 3D graphics, audio, power management, storage and I/O interfaces.

The A4 is actually built around a CPU core based on the common ARM Cortex A9 CPU, a 32-bit core that comes in several different flavors, with different numbers of cores. In typical cases, companies like Apple actually license the CPU design -- rather than paying $278 million to acquire the whole company! -- then are free to modify and integrate it as they see fit. It’s much different than the model for Mac desktop or laptop computers, in which the CPUs are wholly Intel products.

One of P.A. Semiconductor’s key principles was to design high levels of power efficiency into all their CPUs, which is probably one of the key reasons for Apple’s interest in the company. Getting 10 hours of continuous battery life out of a 1GHz CPU using a 25Watt-hour battery requires aggressive power management. Indeed, the entry level MacBook is rated at only 7 hours with a 60Watt-hour battery.

Apple hasn’t disclosed many specifics about the A4, so it’s unclear as to how many CPU cores it actually has. The A4. The graphics and audio components are likely licensed from PowerVR, including the PowerVR SGX GPU and PowerVR VXD for audio and video. These are all integrated into a single chip, although flash memory, networking and other components are on separate chips. The A4 is actually built by Samsung, most likely using a 45nm manufacturing process.

The PowerVR SGX is a capable GPU, offering pretty decent 3D graphics. However, the iPad’s relatively low resolution (1024x768) is probably tied to a combination of limited video memory, and the fact that the chip’s raw pixel-pushing performance just isn’t up to pushing pixels at acceptable frame rates above that 1024x768 resolution. That said, at this resolution the SGX is a solid performer, and the iPad is likely to offer substantially better gaming performance, and a more robust gaming experience, than an iPhone. It’s quite possible that gaming will be the iPad’s killer app.

The ability to integrate custom features and functionality onto a single chip is what allows the iPad to be as compact as it is. While pundits have quipped that the iPad is just a big iPhone (or iPod Touch, depending on model), that’s not far from the truth. The internals of the iPad have more in common with a smart phone than a Mac.

The iPad, which essentially replaces much of the function of a low-end PC, needs other chips as well, of course. There’s storage -- in the form of flash memory -- plus Wi-Fi networking, GPS and 3G wireless cellular network capability.

So What Does This All Mean?

Using the A4 gives Apple -- legendary for wanting to tightly control its hardware and software destiny -- even more control over its hardware. Future iPads will almost certainly use descendants of the A4.

The use of the A4 inside the iPad also strongly suggests that the next iPhone will use a derivative of this chip. Designing a custom SoC isn’t cheap, so it makes sense for Apple to take further advantage of its $278 million investment. We’ll likely see higher resolution displays and higher clock speeds in even thinner and lighter form factors over time. However, some of these advancements will also be dependent on the evolution of other technologies -- like better displays.

It’s also likely that the A4, or some derivative, will be used in the next generation iPhone. Over time, this would allow Apple and its developers to develop to a single code base, rather than having to manage multiple different versions for different CPUs.

So that’s the story on what could happen. But what’s not likely to happen? First, the A4 won’t show up in future MacBooks or iMacs. MacBooks and iMacs will still use Intel-compatible CPUs, not some version of the A4. While Apple does like to control its destiny, modern Mac applications require very high-performance CPUs and higher-end graphics than is likely capable with a system-on-chip.

Also unlikely: you won’t see an Intel Atom in an Apple system of any kind.

Breaking Out of Voice Mail Jail

Use this website to get through to a real live person...

http://gethuman.com/

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