Seen, Heard, Said

I don’t read The Onion on a regular basis (although I really should). Jeff Staples sent me a link to this really funny article, probably because I rant on obese people so much.

WASHINGTON, DC–America’s morbidly obese are hungry. For years, the processed-food industry has desperately tried to placate them with empty-calorie foodstuffs with a satisfying texture, but their appetites have proven insatiable. A new report released Monday by the National Health Council, however, suggests that the answer to morbidly obese Americans’ problems could be standing right behind them in the buffet line.
America’s Obese: A Food Source For America’s Even More Obese?

Dr. Harmon Kressler, one of the report’s authors, said that the nation’s “Category 1 obese”–persons with 25-40 percent body fat–are an excellent source of the trans fats and lipids that even fatter Americans require to sustain themselves.

“‘Regular-obese’ people are loaded with the triglycerides, butyric acids, glucose, and rich buttery lard that the ‘mega-obese’ would otherwise have to derive from two or three food groups,” Kressler said.

According to Andrew Weinstein, the study’s lead researcher, this development could offer the solution to the obesity epidemic in America.

“Obesity is a problem that we thought could only be remedied by diet, exercise, or more realistically, expensive gastrointestinal surgery,” Weinstein said. “But this method would not only provide the mega-obese with a seemingly never-ending supply of sustenance, it would also slash obesity rates in this nation by more than half.”

Although some experts worry that the mega-obese will be reluctant to consume other obese humans, Kressler said palatability will not be a problem.

“Through incessant eating, most of the mega-obese have worn down the sensitivity of their taste buds, and respond only to the most intensely salty, oily, or sweet foodstuffs,” Kressler said. “The dense, high-viscosity oil that oozes out of the pores–or ‘flavor crannies’–of deep-fried obese flesh is sure to stimulate the voracious appetites of the mega-obese.”

Despite the millions of regular-obese people and the thousands more that join their ranks every day, Kressler conceded that “once the mega-obese polish off the regular-obese, they may start feeding on the slightly overweight, a sector that comprises all but 0.1 percent of American adults.”

Wow. This is amazing. A woman from Oregan is countersuing the RIAA for illegal computer trespass in a “Jane Doe” lawsuit they started against her. This really goes to show how powerful the RIAA thinks it is. They (the RIAA) needs to quickly understand that they will always be at the mercey of democracy. ALWAYS!

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Probably the two greatest quotes from Family Guy, found from Quinn’s Facebook Profile:

“Ha! I got your hat! Take that, hatless! Now go back to the quad and resume your hackey sac tourney! I’m not gonna lay down for some frat boy bastard with his damn Teva sandals and his Skoal Bandits and his Abercrombie and Fitch long sleeved, open stitched, crew neck Henley smoking his sticky buds out of a soda can while watching his favorite downloaded Simpsons episodes every night! Yes, we all love “Mr. Plow”! Oh, you’ve got the song memorized, do you? SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE! That is exactly the kind of idiot you see at Taco Bell at 1 in the morning! The guy who just whiffed his way down the bar skank ladder!”

“How you uh, how you comin’ on that novel you’re working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you’re working on there? Your big novel you’ve been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yea, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? (voice returns to normal) No, no, you deserve some time off.”

From Alan.Blog-City.com:

1. The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
2. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
3. One of the biggest leap in search usage came about when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the “Did you mean…” feature. This instantly doubled their traffic, but they had some interesting discussions on how best to place that information, as most people simply tuned that out. But they discovered the placement at the bottom of the results was the most effective area.
4. The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
5. Orkut is very popular in Brazil. Orkut was the brainchild of a very intelligent Google engineer who was pretty much given free reign to run with it, without having to go through the normal Google UI procedures, hence the reason it doesn’t look or feel like a Google application. They are looking at improving Orkut to cope with the loads it places on the system.
6. Google makes changes small-and-often. They will sometimes trial a particular feature with a set of users from a given network subnet; for example Excite@Home users often get to see new features. They aren’t told of this, just presented with the new UI and observed how they use it.
7. Google has the largest network of translators in the world
8. They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced Preferences’.
9. They have found in user testing, that a small number of people are very typical of the larger user base. They run labs continually and always monitoring how people use a page of results.
10. The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’
11. Gmail was used internally for nearly 2years prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
12. They listen to feedback actively. Emailing Google isn’t emailing a blackhole.
13. Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.
14. This wasn’t a technical talk so no information regarding any infrastructure was presented however they did note that they have a mantra of aiming to give back each page with in 500ms, rendered.
15. Quote: Give Users What They Want When They Want It
16. Quote: Integrate Sensibly

Google came to the Mines campus last year and it was an awesome presentation to go to. I was also able to snag a free Google shirt and have started Google Friday’s (where I wear my Google shirt of Friday’s). Also, I heard of a different naming story for Google that involved one of the VC’s spelling the name wrong on the check.

A rather interesting article and good tips from an insider on how to push Best Buy sales tactics to your advantage and end up with the deal of a lifetime. This really only looks like it would work when you’re buying large items, like a new TV.

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I was on the Nalgene and came across this. Plastics tpyically have a bad rap because of what they do to the environment. However, it seems that plastics can (and are) more eco friendly then even I thought:

A study in West Germany looked at the foreseeable effects of abandoning plastic packaging (“Packaging Without Plastics,” Society of Research Into the Packaging Market, December 1987). It concluded the effects would be:

• MORE packaging waste by weight — more than 4 times greater
• MORE packaging waste by volume — more than 2 1/2 times greater
• MORE energy used in manufacturing and distribution — more than 2 times greater
• HIGHER cost of packaging — more than 2 times greater.

A detailed study done in the U.S.A. compared aluminum, glass, and plastic soft drink containers (“The Environmental Impact of Soft Drink Delivery Systems: A Comparative Analysis,” Franklin Associates, March 1989). The study concluded that the plastic alternative:

• Is the most energy efficient
• Creates the least air emissions during manufacturing
• Produces the least solid waste by both weight and volume at equal container recycling rates.

The West German government studied paper and plastic grocery sacks (“Comparison of the Effects on the Environment from the Environment,” August 1988). Comparing the manufacturing processes for these sacks shows that:

• Plastic grocery sacks consume 30 percent LESS energy
• Paper sacks produce 70 percent MORE air pollution
• Paper sacks generate 50 times MORE water pollution.

A recent study in the U.S.A. (“Resource and Environmental Profile Analysis of Polyethylene and Unbleached Paper Grocery Sacks,” Franklin Associates, Ltd., June 1990) supports these results:

• Plastic grocery sacks are more energy efficient — 30 percent less energy used compared to the paper alternative
• Plastic grocery sacks are less polluting, with 77 percent less solid waste during manufacturing and distribution
• 68 percent less atmospheric emissions
• 93 percent fewer waterborne wastes

Conservation of Natural Resources, Particularly Fossil Fuels

According to several studies compiled by the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe, the use of plastics yields large energy savings.

To illustrate, a truckload of bottled water in glass bottles is comprised of 57 percent water and 43 percent glass by weight; while in plastic, the load is 93 percent water and 7 percent plastic. The use of plastic results in an approximately 40 percent reduction in overall motor fuel consumption and the associated exhaust emissions.

Minimizing of Municipal Solid Waste Volume (When Disposed)

Disposal of plastics (compared to glass and paper) can minimize municipal solid waste volume. To illustrate:

• Plastic grocery sacks have 1/10th the volume of their paper counterparts.
• At 1987 recycling rates, 2-liter plastic soft drink bottles result in less than 1/3 the volume of solid wastes as 1-liter glass soft-drink bottles.
• A plastic ketchup bottle has less than 1/2 the material volume of the competitive glass container.
• A 1/2 gallon plastic milk jug occupies less than 1/2 the volume of the material in the same sized paper carton.

Minimizing of Food Waste Entering the Refuse Stream

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study shows that every time we increase the use of plastic packaging by one tenth of one percent, we get an estimated 1 3/4 times decrease in the amount of food waste. (“The Greatly Growing Garbage Problem,” Harvey Alter, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1988.)

Better Degradation (Instability) in Natural Environments

• Plastics degrade in the presence of sunlight. Additives can accelerate this degradation process. (The modified materials are called photodegradable plastics.)
• Some plastics degrade in the presence of microorganisms. Others can be blended with additives to create this property. These are called biodegradable plastics.

Degradable packaging wastes, however, do NOT help solve municipal solid waste disposal problems.

• Fact: landfills are designed and operated to slow down the rate of degradation of waste materials. For example, landfilled wastes are dated by reading the publication date of excavated newspapers.
• Fact: approximately 70 percent of the weight of the waste stream is vegetable and animal matter (paper, yard, and food wastes) — all are biodegradable. Yet, the U. S. has a landfill disposal capacity crisis!
• Fact: to make a plastic sack biodegradable (using additives) and as strong as a non-biodegradable sack, its bulk must increase. For example, studies show that polyethylene grocery sacks containing cornstarch have to be about twice as thick to keep the same weight-carrying capacity.

Plastics: Good for the Environment.

As you can see from the information provided above, plastics can play a significant role in the solution to solid waste management.

Though the information is offered in good faith and believed to be accurate, all statements and suggestions are made without warranty, express or implied. Adapted from materials from the Association of Rotational Molders.