Animatronic Presidents … Robots!

Robots are becoming more and more realistic. When you watch this video, be sure to take note of how the hands and eyes move. It’s effortless and to be honest, very humanistic. Even when his arm falls at 1:43 and then again at 2:12, it’s in the exact same way you’d expect to see a real human’s arm fall. It’s pretty astounding.

Robots! Hooray.

Oh man. What I wouldn’t have given to have this toy as a child — it’s way cooler than those furbies who looked cute at first until you related them to gremlins and realized that they would for no reason start moving and talking like they were plotting against you until you were so freaked out you stuffed them in a plastic bin because you were afraid in the middle of your sleep they would axe you. Ahem. Anyways…

This technology is absolutely fabulous. It not only is a small object that has been finely engineered, but it responds to voice commands and in a surprisingly fluid manner no less. Notice its greetings and how familiar they are and how easily they are done. The running and jumping movements are the most noticeably robotic, but the other movements? Relatively flawless. That’s quite impressive.

Android!

Android is seriously making me rethink my iPhone. … :{

Why must you be so awesome Google?

Coming soon to Post: Take on Google Chrome (AMAZING)
If you are using anything other than Chrome. Stop it. Now.

Download Chrome Here

Building a Computer: Part 1

Intro
I am building a computer! Why? It’s infinitely cheaper and you can get a really awesome machine for about $600-800 cheaper than if you had Dell, HP, or Gateway build it. Have I ever built a computer before? No, but I’ve learned a lot already about compatibility and my thoughts walking away from Phase 1: Ordering parts is that there should be a bit more standardization.

Why build your own computer you might be asking yourself? Well, here are my reasons…

1. I wanted a deeper understanding of how the hardware comes together on a computer. I’ll get into this a bit later.
2. I build a computer from Dell for $1500 and then built the exact same one on Newegg.com and it only cost me $800. Since I had a budget for $1500 I was able to upgrade parts and find better deals on parts which led me to only spending $978.08, only $19.01 on shipping since most items on Newegg.com have free shipping.
3. Having a computer of your exact specifications. Your exact desires.

Phase 1: Ordering Parts
This is probably one of the toughest parts of this entire experience I must say. Here are things to keep in mind when you are ordering parts:

1. Make sure socket types line up. All Motherboards (Mobo), Heatsink + Fan, and Processors will list the type of socket they are compatible with. Be sure these line up. In my case, my Mobo, Heatsink + Fan, and Processor is a 1366 Socket.

2. Make sure your pins match with your Power Supply and your Graphics Card. Mine is a  6 pin.

3. Make sure that your Ram matches up to your Mobo. Mine supports 6×240 pin DDR3 1600. What that means is that the ram must be DDR3 and have 240 pins. It also means that the maximum speed of my ram for my Mobo is 1600, so when I’m ordering RAM I should try to hit that number. You can go over that number but your Mobo just wont be able to process it and will still process at 1600. If you go under it you will fail to get your peak performance.

Those are the biggest considerations when it comes to compatibility and if anyone reads this and begs to differ, please let me know. I’m not claiming to be an expert, I’m a novice, and I’m sure I’ll run into a few mishaps and shennanigans, but this is a novice taking other novices through their first PC Building experience. It’s a time to learn, ho ho!

Checklist
Motherboard
CPU
Heatsink + Fan
Memory (RAM)
Thermal Paste/Grease
Power Supply
Graphics Card
Case/Chassis
Hard Drive
CD/DVD Drive

So this is kind of how I chose my parts…

1. The biggest decision and the one I felt everything revolved around was the Motherboard. The Motherboard is the brain, the center component, and the heart of your computer. So it was highly important to base everything around it’s specifications. It was easy after I chose the Mobo because now I knew what parts to look for to fit for it compability wise. I knew my socket type, I knew what it supports, and the size of the Mobo so I knew what chassis (or case) I could get. I ended up getting the

EVGA 121-BL-E756-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 Micro ATX SLI Micro Intel Motherboard

2. After that I moved onto the Processor. I knew I needed one with a CPU Socket Type: LGA 1366. Thanks to Newegg I was easily able to view all Processors that supported that socket type. I found the Intel Core i7.

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

3. Then I moved onto the heatsink + fan. Now, here’s a sticker. The Intel Core i7 does come with a Heatsink + Fan. However, I went ahead and bought another one just incase I was disatisfied with the standard. According to a friend of mine, they aren’t usually impressive. Since my system is rather intense in heat, I want the best cooling device I can get. So I went ahead and found the oh so compatible…

ZALMAN CNPS9900LED 120mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

4. So I wouldn’t forget, I went ahead and bought the thermal paste next. Some heatsinks + fans will come with it, but this didn’t read that I did. Thermal paste is cheap, only like $6.99, but I must stress that  YOU MUST USE THERMAL PASTE. You absolutely 100% have to. You will destroy your processor if you do not. So do  not forget to buy it.

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

5. Next I made the choice of a Power Supply. Now, I already have a Graphics card. This might be the step where you choose to get a Graphics Card. The one in my current computer I bought for $79 not too long ago and it’s a

PNY GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI
Unfortunately I don’t have a link to it! However, a lot of these links will probably break so I’ll be taking pictures at a later data and writing down specifications.

It requires 6 pins according to the manual. So! I went with the following 600W PS. I had to take in account total voltage of all my parts, but 600W should suffice just fine.

COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 600 RS-600-AMBA-D3 600W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

6. Great. What does ATX mean? You may have noticed that popping up repeatedly. That involves case type. Which leads us into case selection! Most cases are ATX, but some cases are BTX. BTX was supposed to be the “new standard” rushed in by Intel (who also rushed in ATX), but it really hasn’t taken hold. As a result, ATX is. So what this means is the following;

A full size ATX board is 12 in × 9.6 in (305 mm × 244 mm). This allows many ATX form factor chassis to accept microATX boards as well.

It’s about fitting your Mobo in and coincidently making sure your PS is compliant with ATX standards.

This led me to getting this case!

XCLIO A380BK Fully Black SECC 1.0mm thickness ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Now, as a newbie, I have reservations about this case. The plus sides is that it’s Aluminum and thus will disperse heat better as opposed to a plastic case. It also has 2 very large fans. Tip: Large Fans = LESS noise. So it was another perk that it already came with 2 really large fans. However, I’m timid of a side mounted fan because that could potentially lead to problems with my rather ginormous graphics card or my rather ginormous heatsink. However, I also read that it has plenty of mounting holes in it which is a perk. This way my Mobo should mount no problem.

Lets take a second to review and recap the parts I’ve gone through…

Checklist
Motherboard
CPU
Heatsink + Fan
Memory (RAM)
Thermal Paste/Grease
Power Supply
Graphics Card
Case/Chassis
Hard Drive
CD/DVD Drive

So that leaves us with the last 3 parts.

7. Next I had to decide on a Hard  Drive. Now, I already have a HD in my computer, but it’s only 250gb and I honestly can’t remember anything about it. I decided that it was time to up the bet and move on.

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive – OEM

HD’s are relatively easy.  They are pretty standardized, so when choosing when you will just want to take into consideration the size of it, what you will be using it for, and the speed at which it transfers data (RPM) as well as the cache which temporary memory storage and 32MB of temp. memory can be stored via this HD. That means information will be accessed quicker.

8. RAM! So, the important thing to note here is that you need to pair up the pins to your Mobo and also the speed. So my Mobo supports 240-Pin DDR3 and it also supports up to 1600. So, as you can see, the RAM is 240-Pin DDR3 and it maxes out it’s speed at 1600. Perfect! Easy as that!

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8 G

9. A CD/DVD is really up to you. In fact, there are multiple parts you can add at this point — for instance a SD Card Reader or multiple drives … depending on what you want to build. I happen to be taking the CD/DVD drives from my old computer. There’s really nothing special about them. This is really an <insert anything else you want>.

10. Don’t forget to buy an OS. I happen to have one already, but you may need to remember to do this! For instance, you can get a free OS like Linux, but you’ll want an OS. I bought the $20 Windows 7 from my school.

So at this point, my computer is ready to be built — that is, once I get the parts!

In total this cost me: $978.08!

In the next installation “Building a Computer: Part 2″ I will take you step by step through the process of building a computer. Have I ever built a computer before? No. So this should be very, very interesting. I’m either going to do it in a series of videos or a step by step guide or perhaps both! Depends on the quality of camera I can get my hands on.

Either way, once my parts arrive — it’s computer building time! Woot.

Windows 7: Not too shabby.

Today, thanks to Twitter and Shawn, I became aware to the fact that my University was selling Windows 7 for $20. Yes, the full installation, a whole 2 months early. Of course I went and bought it (Windows 7 Ultimate: 64bit V). Now, I am a skeptic and I refused to buy Vista and have been running Windows XP until about 2 hours ago, but I have been following Windows 7 closely and while I did not partake in the beta test, I have seen Windows 7 in action.

My thoughts now? FINALLY MICROSOFT, FINALLY. You get it.

It has become an Operating System once more. A real operating system. It isn’t Vista that dresses up in a slutty (want-to-be-Mac) barmaid costume that continually asks you want beer you want over and over again while asking if you are sure that you really want that beer until finally you threaten to slap a ho and it listens.  No, it runs in the background like a good little system and while it does want to be the almighty Administrator (and thus to do a winsock fix you’d still have to run cmd in Administrator Mode <gag>) it is quite a bit less annoying.

My favorite part about Windows 7 GUI is that it now has the “Active Panel”.

And look what it can do!

Shiiiiiiiiiiiny.

You can actually hover over the Active Panel (in this case Chrome) and select between the two open windows. It’s visual gloriousness since we are such a fantastically visual society.

And because I can’t help myself, get a load of the new Paint interface!

That’s right! The old paint is a thing of the past and it looks like they’ve incorporated a bit of their Microsoft Suite ideology behind it. You notice a lot of the icons and functionality of Word is appearing all over the new and improved paint! Including a much needed, quick and dirty resize and crop tool!

They didn’t stop there, though. Look at what they did to Calculator!

Isn’t that clever? They finally put in a way for you to see your previous numbers. No more mistakes for me! I’ve been victim to putting in wrong numbers and wondering where I went wrong oodles of times! Now I can track!

Windows 7 thus far proves to be similar to Vista in design. It still aims to be a “pretty” operating system selling itself similar to the beautiful Mac OS X, but they finally understand that people want something that runs quick and smooth in the background and not a RAM hog.

The only redeeming feature I ever found in Vista was the Search Bar which as of course been carried over in Windows 7. It reminds me of Finder on a Mac. I don’t even have to look for files anymore, I can just type in a name and it quickly searches it out for me.  The nice thing about Windows 7 though is while it takes a lot of good ideas from a lot of different places, it managed to still be Windows and that’s what I like about it. I like Windows OS, I really do, and Windows 7 is user friendly and overall has a more approachable and easy to navigate feel without bogging you down.

Other neat features:

Pressing this button will bring you to your desktop, closing all open windows. You could shortcut it and press Windows + D, but for those who aren’t shortcut savvy, windows finally thought of you!

Anyone who is a Mac user is a friend and lover of Notes! Windows finally snuck this idea right into their OS giving you — Sticky Notes! (Kind of like their fingers when they took the idea from Mac! Oh ho!) No, but really, a good idea is a good idea and it’s great that Microsoft incorporated it. It’s about building a usable OS in the end, so if you take some ideas, you take some ideas. This was a good one to use and it’s definitely helpful and makes sense to have available!

Now if only they could fix IE…

However, since I have an unfaltering loyalty to Google (until the refuse to hire me…) I must stick with the almighty Chrome which has turned out to better than my beloved Firefox <3 and IE put together.

The AIM Coho Bot (aka: TheGreatHatsby)

I had the strangest thing ever happen to me last night. I was sitting on my computer watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Yes, I still watch SS and my favorite episode involves the Sea Bear! Anyways…

I suddenly get a pop up on AIM from this “CountryCoho” and since I get random messages from people all the time, I assumed it was a friend. Only for the conversation to end up along these lines;

(3:41:53 AM) CountryCoho: Contemplari et Contemplata Aliis Tradere!
(3:42:50 AM) mikachewie: o_o Riiight.
(3:43:30 AM) CountryCoho: Who’s this?
(3:43:41 AM) mikachewie: I’m wondering the same thing. o.o
(3:43:53 AM) CountryCoho: I see.
(3:44:28 AM) mikachewie: Eh, what games have you played or what is your name or something?
(3:44:40 AM) CountryCoho: Well, most people just call me Goober.
(3:44:58 AM) mikachewie: e_e
(3:45:34 AM) CountryCoho: I haven’t played many online games in a while. Or at least, not ones where I’ve met people.
(3:46:35 AM) mikachewie: Mmk…
(3:46:46 AM) CountryCoho: I go to WPI…
(3:47:10 AM) mikachewie: Brendan?
(3:47:30 AM) CountryCoho: No.
(3:47:36 AM) CountryCoho: Real name is Chris.
(3:48:37 AM) mikachewie: Uaaah…
(3:48:52 AM) mikachewie: Guess we don’t know each other then.
(3:48:57 AM) mikachewie: So why’d you message me :3?
(3:49:21 AM) CountryCoho: I was responding.
(3:49:33 AM) mikachewie: Er. I got this from you: (3:41:53 AM) CountryCoho: Contemplari et Contemplata Aliis Tradere!
(3:49:36 AM) mikachewie: And I responded.
(3:49:41 AM) CountryCoho: Huh…
(3:49:44 AM) CountryCoho: I got “[03:41] BrattyCoho: Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam!”
(3:50:00 AM) mikachewie: …
(3:50:04 AM) mikachewie: Oh dear.
(3:50:34 AM) mikachewie: Is your username CountryCoho?
(3:50:39 AM) mikachewie: Because it’s displayed as such for me…
(3:50:43 AM) CountryCoho: It is not.
(3:50:43 AM) mikachewie: and mine is definitely not BrattyCoho
(3:50:55 AM) CountryCoho: Goober4473 is mine.
(3:51:18 AM) CountryCoho: So apparently we’re talking through some kind of server or something?
(3:51:24 AM) mikachewie: Evidently and that’s worrisome.
(3:51:45 AM) mikachewie: Because someone took both of our usernames and are not only changing them, but we are communicating through that server.
(3:51:48 AM) mikachewie: Even though I only have AIM.
(3:51:58 AM) CountryCoho: Weird.
(3:52:04 AM) mikachewie: So …. haxor, basically.
(3:52:08 AM) mikachewie: One second.
(3:52:28 AM) CountryCoho: http://jason.motylinski.com/2008/12/05/coho-aim-spam/
(3:53:02 AM) mikachewie: Oh.
(3:53:27 AM) mikachewie: Well, that’s… interesting.
(3:53:38 AM) CountryCoho: Yeah.
(3:54:39 AM) mikachewie: Well, yay. It was nice meeting you via scary bot. :3
(3:54:54 AM) mikachewie: And what does WPl stand for?
(3:55:02 AM) CountryCoho: Yeah… You too. Nice to meet people online that use grammar.

So with a little investigation, through the help of that link provided by Goober or “CountryCoho” as well as a little Wikipedia work… the following is discovered!

TheGreatHatsby is an AIM bot which instigates conversations between pairs of AIM accounts. Its name is a play on words from the book The Great Gatsby. It is a relay bot that retrieves the list of most recent LiveJournal posts and obtains the AIM screen names of their authors. It then sends users the message “i say, old bean, have you seen my hat?” from one of its screen names.

Responses from users are forwarded by the bot to another one of the users similarly contacted. These two users are paired up, and any message which one of them sends to the bot will be forwarded to the other. Thus, if neither of the users is aware of TheGreatHatsby, they will each think that the other user contacted them, and that the other user’s screen name is the bot’s screen name.

Coho bots
On September 5, 2008, users began to report being contacted by bots with names of the form “Coho”. Coho bots respond when Project Upstream’s connection request site is used. Since this Web site previously solicited a response from Salmon and Trout bots, this indicates that they’re essentially the same bot. Another suggestive factor is the fact that Coho are a type of Salmon. Coho bots are directed at Twitter updaters. More recently, there have been a few reports of coho bots contacting LiveJournal and Digg users as well.

Sometime in early January 2009 the Coho bot started word-filtering chats into old-English speech. Many common words including “I” and “to” are being substituted

So, very, very interesting indeed.

Note, if this happens to you: When messaged by one of these screen names, you can type in the words $optout and it will ask you to confirm that you wish your screen name is to be removed from the list.

“It’s natural!”

I despise most snake owners, carnivorous lizard owners, and carnivorous fish owners. Why might you ask? Do I hate snakes, lizard, and fish? No. I love snakes, lizards, and fish. Hell, I grew up with a 16 ft. Burmese Python (reaaally big snake).  Then why do I hate the owners?

Picture this. You are on youtube looking up ‘cute fluffy hamsters’, ‘hamsters’, ‘hamsters running in wheel’ because, hell, I like to waste my time looking up really adorable things. Then, out of nowhere, you stumble across a snake eating a live hamsters, an Arowana eating a live hamster, snakes eating mice, snakes eating baby chicks, snakes eating rabbits … the list goes on and on.

I immediately comment, “What is wrong with you? How can you be so cruel?”
The response? “You idiot! It’s just nature!”

Let me explain something to you. Sticking a petrified mouse, baby chick, rabbit, hamster, and whatever else you crazy ass people feed your animals — is not nature.

If I stick you in a giant glass tank with an alligator with no means of escape or defense … is that nature?

In the case of the Arowana owner: If I stick you in a large water filled aquarium with a great white shark with no means of defense and escape … is that nature?

I imagine you just went, “Well no…” Did you know two rats can kill a poisonous rattler? Oh, you didn’t? Don’t believe me? Here’s the New York Times Article. Did you know a rabbit can chase away most snakes? Did you know any intelligent snake owner will tell you to only buy frozen rats, rabbits, and mice because it’s dangerous to feed your snake live animals? Did you know places like Petsmart & Petco carry frozen mice, etc?  Did you know a snake, arowana, and lizard will eat frozen things if you do it correctly? (Note: You don’t have to feed Arowana’s any thing like that. You can stick to standard crickets, frogs, etc …)

All this logic aside, lets throw in the logic that matters. Why on earth would you think that what you are doing is in any way, shape or form, natural?

So lets do a run down of common live food for snakes.
Rats. Rats are highly intelligent. I’ll trade your 6 year old kid for an obedient, loving rat any day. Chances are they are just as smart (hee!). Rats are highly social and any rat owner will tell you that you must always have Rats in pairs of 2. Rats who live by themselves often go CRAZY and die. So Rats live in pairs and often in colonies out in the wild. Two rats can kill a rattlesnake. Did you know they can chew through concrete? Oh yes. So lifting up a petrified rodent you bought from a pet store, away from it’s group, afraid of all the new smells (huge olfactory bulb) and again, just overall petrified, and sticking it in a tank with a snake. … Um, ok. How is that natural? You wont come up with an answer. It’s already in flight or fight mode, it’s defense have been shot because it doesn’t have it’s family with it, and it’s in a tiny enclosure that it can’t even run away in. Prognosis: It’s not natural, it’s cruel.

Mice. Mice are not quite as intelligent. However, anyone who has ever seen a mouse in their house (hah, rhyme) knows that those suckers are extremely fast. Half the time you only see a tiny brown blur because they are moving so fast your eyes can’t even register it. Their bodies are designed so that if their tiny little nose can fit in a hole, the rest of their body can fit in that hole. This, coincidently, is it’s defense. Running. When you stick them in a tiny tank with a much larger snake giving them nowhere to run and thus removing their defenses (that nature gave them, btw), you are sentencing them to death. It’s like putting a noose around a mans neck and dropping it and going, “GOOD LUCK!” There is no escape from death. How is that natural? Oh right, it’s not. Prognosis: It’s not natural, it’s cruel.

A baby chick. This has got to be the most disturbing video next to the hamster being eaten by an Arowana video that I watched. The baby chick was removed from it’s mother. If anyone has ever encountered a chicken or rooster, you’d know how bad you can get hurt if you try to harm a hen/baby chick. The snake … didn’t even see this baby chick as a threat. It ate it alive. For 5 minutes you watched it slowly being engufled, behind first, by a snake. It was chirping the ENTIRE time and trying to escape. How is that natural and how is that not the most cruelest thing you could .. ever, ever, ever witness being done to an animal? Eaten ALIVE? Are you like? I’m seriously at this point violently angry thinking about it. Humans are supposed to be able to feel compassion… why is it absent in some? That should be considered animal abuse. You should have killed it in some human fashion before you fed it to the snake. Prognosis: It’s not natural, it’s cruel.

Lastly … a hamster. They are similar to mice and rats, a combination if you will depending on the species. Syrians are large and their bites are extremely strong. Dwarves typically live in colonies while Syrians are solitary. So all of the above applies. However, there was a particularly disgusting case that I’ll make mention of. A woman held up a tiny Winter White hamster and said, “Aw, cute wiw hamster!” and then threw it in a fish tank. Hamster at this point is completely out of it’s element and petrified. Also, note, Winter Whites would never come in contact with an Arowana .. so it’s not natural at all. The second part? They would never run up to a river and dive in, so it’s not natural part two. Arowana typically eat insects on the surface of the water, or jump to eat birds.   So the hamster is swimming around terrified and the giant Arowana comes up and snaps it up. However, the hamster is too big for it to get in one gulp. So for the next minute you see it’s little head hanging out of the Arowana’s mouth and flailing and slowly drowning to death. Prognosis: It’s not natural, it’s cruel.

Yet, the owner profusely went throughout her post to all of the people slamming her, “It’s natural!” “My Arowana needs to eat, too!” She’s trying to justify her very much unnatural actions in every sense of the word and her cruelty. Guess what ma’am … there is no justification for what you did.

There’s no justifcation for what any of you did. You did a very inhumane, very cruel action that can only qualify as cruel and sick. In my mind, I can’t help but think of the phrase, “Did you torture small animals when you were growing up?”

Even then. Lets assume for 2 seconds this is natural. I mean, lets just throw all of what I said out the window, and assume it’s natural. You know that places sell frozen rats and mice and pinkies that have been HUMANELY euthanized … why would you ever not buy it? You, as a human, who are supposed to exude compassion, humanity, and understanding for all species … chose to throw a living thing in with a predator and watch it slowly suffer? Seriously? This begets a much bigger question about humanity that I could have ever thought.

I swear. The next time I look up kittens on youtube I swear I’ll find someone who fed their snake a kitten and I’ll just have to gauge my own eyes out. I almost did that with the Hamster + Arowana one. I knew I shouldn’t watch it, but I couldn’t honestly believe it. I was just like, “No way…” Most of these videos I didn’t actually watch the entire thing. I saw the beginning and moved to the end to see if it actually happened. It did.

Summary: Many snake owner’s, carnivorous lizard owner’s, and arowana owner’s are cruel (or at least doing a cruel act, don’t want to make the fundamental attribution error) and think that feeding their pets live food is natural. Feeding them live food is anything but natural because you remove their way of escape and way of defense when you put them in an enclosed space with a predator. There are more humane ways of feeding your carnivorous pets that don’t involve cruelty. Places like Petsmart & Petco sell frozen mice/rats.

I became progressively more distraught as I wrote this. I have PTSD from youtube videos, wtf?

Story of an Asthmatic

This Article strikes close to home for me. Had I only known broccoli could help my Asthma, I would have eaten it more often!

Here’s another reason to eat your broccoli: UCLA researchers report that a naturally occurring compound found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables may help protect against respiratory inflammation that causes conditions like asthma, allergic rhinitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Published in the March edition of the journal Clinical Immunology, the research shows that sulforaphane, a chemical in broccoli, triggers an increase of antioxidant enzymes in the human airway that offers protection against the onslaught of free radicals that we breathe in every day in polluted air, pollen, diesel exhaust and tobacco smoke. A supercharged form of oxygen, free radicals can cause oxidative tissue damage, which leads to inflammation and respiratory conditions like asthma.

Awesome enough, here are the side-effects;

According to the authors, no serious side effects occurred in study participants receiving broccoli sprouts, demonstrating that this may be an effective, safe antioxidant strategy to help reduce the inflammatory impact of free radicals.

None! Whee.

I have suffered from chronic Asthma for 21 years. How old am? 21.
Most children get the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and it’s frequently just similar to a cold. However, 5% of children get it “bad” and of those only 3% live.

Hi, I’m one of those 3%.

What is common when you get it bad as an infant to where you have to be hospitalized and almost die (Doctors thought I was going to, evidently… proved them wrong, bwa haha!) : Asthma.
So I’ve been suffering from Asthma my entire life. My asthma is very much what is labeled as ‘uncontrollable’. I was in and out of doctor’s offices like crazy when I was growing up until finally my physician who realized that I was allergic to allergy shots, was sick far too often, etc that he couldn’t handle it and referred me to a Pulmonologist.  I then becamse a Riley kid. If anyone knows of Riley Hospital, that’s where I spent my adolescence. I set records there! They have this machine that you blow into and it registers your inflammation levels of your lungs. Mine were so high it couldn’t register them. Fancy that? I figured, hell, if I’m suffering from Asthma, I mind as well set records for it and found it quite amusing. My mother and doctor did not. He promptly reminded me of all the dangers associated with asthma and having such high inflammation levels. Susceptible to emphysema, lung cancer, blah blah…

Source
(The yellow stuff is mucus! Yum!)

See, as much as I liked my doctor and note that he’s the only doctor I’ve ever respected, I still have this wild tendency and need to prove doctors wrong. My childhood physician told me I would be LUCKY to be 5′2″. I’m 5′3″ and 3/4 inch. So round up, 5′4″.

Once, when I had an especially bad attack in 6th grade (12 years old), I was rushed to Riley in an ambulance from another Hospital because I was too severe for them to handle.  So alas, Riley for me. I remember that certain stay particularly well because they wouldn’t let me sleep. The doctors kept waking me up to the point where they’d shake me because they were afraid if I went to sleep I wouldn’t come back out of it eyeroll. Do you know what it’s like to be oxygen deprived for over 24 hours? No? Well it makes you very tired. So being kept awake agaisnt my 12 year old will pissed me off. I still remember how angry I was. I had to a CAT scan done because they wanted to make sure that somehow the lack of oxygen hadn’t caused any brain damage and was still functioning properly — strangely enough, they wanted to do a Spinal Tap as well. I still have no idea to this day why, but I’m glad my Mother did not let them. My Mum was a nurse once upon a time, so it’s helpful to have a Nurse as a Mum when Dr.’s are wanting to do lots of tests on you.

The last thing I remember? Blood gas. Oh, my, god. If you’ve ever had a blood gas, you know that they are the most painful thing in the world. They basically puncture your artery with a needle and it is usually done in the wrist. Um. Stop. Think about that. Look at your wrist. Do you see an artery? The answer to that is no. No you do not. So the next thing in your mind should be, “How do they get to it?” … THEY DIG FOR IT!

This is just a very brief window into that hospital experience. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. A week in the ICU and then 5 days on one of the other floors when they felt I could leave the ICU. If your a child and have ever been in the ICU, you realize how terrible it is. You are not allowed to leave your room and you can only sit in your bed and do nothing. My mom brought me books and coloring books, but most of my time was spent watching TV and being tested and checked on all the time. It was the suck.

Growing up as an Asthmatic was fun. The problem is is that most teachers don’t really understand severe chronic asthma. They think it’s like, hm, you take a puff of an inhaler and POOF, you’re fixed. No.  No it is not. The best description I’ve ever heard is ‘Fish out of water’. Except a fish is fortunate enough to die eventually. No, as a human you get to feel yourself suffocating and still be conscious to realize it! Whee.
So when I alerted my Gym teacher that I couldn’t run another lap because I was having trouble breathing and he said, “God. Just walk with those girls, I wouldn’t expect you to try anyways…” I was furious. So to spite the bastard, I ran.

… Only to get halfway across the track and collapse. On the upside, I got out of Gym class for the rest of the day and he felt like a complete douche ( which he was ). You could see it on his face when people who are stressed do the grab the side of their head and go, “Shit, I screwed up…” Yeah. He did that. He was afraid he’d get in trouble. Which he could have since I had warned him and made me feel like my grade was in danger. However, I didn’t really bother as he didn’t give me any trouble the rest of the summer.

I mean, that is a case of me being stubborn and causing myself to suffer in someway, but that is frequently how a lot of my attacks happened. I refuse to accept that there is something wrong with me and even more so, use it as an excuse. I’ve brought myself to the line between death and life multiple times with this, but always managed to get pulled back.
I’m leaving out a lot of my history. To be honest, 21 years of doctor visits (every week) and being hospitalized multiple times a year (mainly September/October and Feb/March) is just too much ground to cover.

However, I’m passionate about research dedicated to making those who suffer from Asthma feel better and finding ways to combat it. Asthma is on the rise, folks. Your air is polluted and your lungs can’t handle it. Yet, because albuterol is a pretty easy fix for Asthmatics, evidently there are other things in the for front.

So I’m glad when I read about the research. A cure would be nice, too.

“Fish out of Water”

Women in the IT Field

Women make up about 5-7% of the IT field. Thus, I receive endless e-mails from a group on campus called the ‘WIC’ wanting me to join their gatherings and discussions; a lot of which pertain to, “How do we get more females in the IT field?”

My thought: “Why does it matter if they are female?”

To be honest, before I came to College, I didn’t think there was anything weird about me being into electronics and IT. I didn’t think I was some ‘minority’ in a vastly dominated male field. I didn’t see anything wrong with it and to be honest, still don’t. I just can’t comprehend why it is important to bring females into this field. I don’t really think gender should matter at all. It’s not like women are being barred from entering the field. That there is some sort of barrier to be overcome based on gender to get into the field.

This is not to say I haven’t faced prejudice in my life as a female in IT or as a Gamer. For instance, a friend of my ex-boyfriend said to me, “Girls just aren’t good at games. It’s a fact.” To which I responded, “Excuse me?” He continued, “Yeah, guys are just better at them. There are no girl gamers that are better than guys.” I honestly wish he was joking, but he was not. I would also like to say that I owned him in Mario Kart for PS, but that would be a lie. I had never played before and while I ultimately ended up in 1st place, it was only because I had been in last place and got a lightning bolt. In my defense, though, playing a game for the first time and having never done one of the levels before is a recipe for not being as good as the others. I didn’t know that a road that looked like it was a road would actually lead you to fall down into some sort of canyon where you had to restart. It LOOKED like road.

In programming, I’ve had a professor specifically say, “I think girls are just as good as programmers as boys. So don’t think you can’t do it because you’re a female.” I wondered why he had even thought to say this. Why would anyone think they can’t program because they are female? It’s not some magical skill men just naturally have in their brain. They aren’t wired to know programming. It’s something that is learned and while I know I am terrible at programming, I am capeable of learning it and have. I just have to get extra help, but I see tons of guys lined up next to me at office hours receiving the same help. It has nothing to do with my gender.

Other than that though, I haven’t really seen any other issues.
So perhaps someone can enlighten me. Why do we need more females and not just more IT professionals? Or better yet GOOD IT professionals? I really would like someone to explain this to me.

‘Spitting Cobra’: Nature’s Sprinkler

Source. Nothing super newsworthy, but interesting none the less.

“They found that cobras engage their head and neck muscles a split second before spitting. The muscle activity rotates the head, and jerks it from side to side and back again, producing complex venom patterns.”

I remember growing up watching animal planet. I think one of my favorite displays of the cobra was with Steve Irwin when he pulled one out of a rice paddy and held it up to his face. It spit. He just wiped it off and put some glasses on. I guess no one warned him of the sprinkler like manuever?

Here is an excerpt from the show;

Steve: (Reaching into the milky water, grabbing the snake and setting it to face him) This ‘ere is the Asian Spitting C-

Asian Spitting Cobra: HSSSSFFFKT! (spits at Steve)

Steve: (Silent for a moment, face becoming solemn. Reaches into his shirt pocket and places a pair of dark sunglasses on his face) Unfortunately, the Asian Spitting Cob’ra is one of the few indigenous animals you’re likely ta meet in the paddy.

Asian Spitting Cobra: HSSSSFFT! (again spits at Steve)

Steve: (Wiping his face, and pointing at his eyes) Stings a bit like acid!

Asian Spitting Cobra: HSSSSFFT! HSSSSFFFKT! HSSSST! HSSSSKT! (a barrage of aimed spitting ensues)

Steve: No problem at all Cob’ra back in the water you go. (Picks up the snake, which begins to defacate/urinate in his general direction). Ah, thinks I’m a predator does he? (Places snake back in the rice paddy)

The snake slithers off, a few moments of editing later, Steve is washing his face off in the same milky grey patch of rice field

Steve: I can’t decide which is worse, the venom or the water. *