Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Still I struggle to live
Myspace photos leaked online
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Work stress link to heart disease
LONDON (Reuters) - Work really can kill you, according to a study 
on Wednesday providing the strongest evidence yet of how on-the-job stress raises the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal systems.
The findings from a long-running study involving more than 10,000 British civil servants also suggest stress-induced biological changes may play a more direct role than previously thought, said Tarani Chandola, an epidemiologist at University College London.
"This is the first large-scale population study looking at the effects of stress measured from everyday working life on heart disease," said Chandola, who led the study. "One of the problems is people have been skeptical whether work stress really affects a person biologically."
Heart disease is the world's leading cause of death. It is caused by fatty deposits that harden and block arteries, high blood pressure which damages blood vessels, and other factors.
The researchers measured stress among the civil servants by asking questions about their job demands such as how much control they had at work, how often they took breaks, and how pressed for time they were during the day.
The team conducted seven surveys over a 12-year period and found chronically stressed workers -- people determined to be under severe pressure in the first two of the surveys -- had a 68 percent higher risk of developing heart disease.
The link was strongest among people under 50, Chandola said.
"This study adds to the evidence that the work stress-coronary heart disease association is causal in nature," the researchers wrote in the European Heart Journal.
Behavior and biological changes likely explain why stress at work causes heart disease, Chandola said. For one, stressed workers eat unhealthy food, smoke, drink and skip exercise -- all behaviors linked to heart disease.
In the study, stressed workers also had lowered heart rate variability -- a sign of a poorly-functioning weak heart -- and higher-than-normal levels of cortisol, a "stress" hormone that provides a burst of energy for a fight-or-flight response.
Too much cortisol circulating in the blood stream can damage blood vessels and the heart, Chandola said.
"If you are constantly stressed out these biological stress systems become abnormal," Chandola said.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Blog review
Pretty Star a blog of personal thoughts and daily random blogging. Started as a new blog hosted on Wordpress server is a new beginning into the world of a Pretty Star. Anywhere there is a sky beyond that Lise's a Pretty Star
Monday, January 21, 2008
Little Cambodia, Bronx NY
Little Cambodia, the home of many Cambodia living and working in the Bronx, Ny. The population of Cambodians living in the Bronx is steadily decreasing since the early 90s. With many Cambodians that still resides in the Bronx happen to live in and around Fordham , University heights, Bronx park east, and south east sections. The population is steadily decreasing and many Cambodian family moving out of the Bronx. With the cost of living in New York so expensive many families are moving out of state to other populated Cambodian cities. Long beach, CA. which is considered the most populated Cambodian city in United States and Lowell, MA. comes in second. Many Cambodian refugees settle in urban city which dwells with gangs, drugs and crimes find them selves involved in gangs as a social status of sort. In the late 80s and early 90s Cambodian gangs were rampant. It was very common to here stories of gang wars from OGs and their soldiers while hanging out in front of ones building or territory. Many Cambodian gang member grew up and had a family of there own and simply moved away from the gang life. Unfortunate ones are locked up in prisons or are laid to rest. Every Cambodian family has a story to tell for the ones still living in Little Cambodia, Bronx,NY. it is still a constant struggle on the battle field.
Cops block drug dealer lotto ticket
ELLSWORTH, Maine (AP) -- His lottery ticket was a $1,000 winner, but police have seized it saying it was bought with proceeds from an illegal drug sale. A judge will decide whether a man will keep a $1,000 lottery ticket police say was bought with drug money. Michael David, who had been staying at an Ellsworth motel, sold four 10-milligram methadone pills for $15 each last week, Police Chief John Deleo said. He then went to a convenience store and bought lottery tickets and other merchandise and went back to his motel room, where he was busted. "I guess it will be up to a judge to decide, but it's in our possession right now as proceeds from a drug transaction," Deleo said of the winning ticket. David, 46, remained in custody Monday in the Hancock County Jail on drug trafficking charges. An official at the jail said David was not available for comment.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Ny Giant going to superbowl xxxxii
With the adrenaline rushing and all eyes on Lawrence Tynes to make the field goal with two opportunines, Tynes missed twice. The NY Giants and Green bay packers are going to overtime. Tynes came back on the third try and with a beautiful kick lead the NY Giant with 23, 20. Tynes came through! We're going to super bowl xxxxii, w00t! Superbowl 42, here we come!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Got faith?
Only if everything in life would seem to fall into place just like how you would what them to. Sometimes things do fall into place, only if you don't expect them to work out the way that you want them to. Do you ever wonder why when you need that something you can never find it? When you don't look for it, it appears. This is true in life. A reminder to be calm patience and humble. Things will work out for you and have some faith. It is hard now and it will continue to be hard. Recently, I have been offered a job and it is a true blessing! It is everything I want and more, Thank you Lord Jesus!
Below is a funny video of a Thai beer commercial. Cheers!
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Antimatter discovered in the universe
Antimatter, which annihilates matter upon contact, seems to be rare in the universe. Still, for decades, scientists had clues that a vast cloud of antimatter lurked in space, but they did not know where it came from.
The mysterious source of this antimatter has now been discovered — stars getting ripped apart by neutron stars and black holes.
While antimatter propulsion systems are so far the stuff of science fiction, antimatter is very real.
What it is
All elementary particles, such as protons and electrons, have antimatter counterparts with the same mass but the opposite charge. For instance, the antimatter opposite of an electron, known as a positron, is positively charged.
When a particle meets its antiparticle, they destroy each other, releasing a burst of energy such as gamma rays. In 1978, gamma ray detectors flown on balloons detected a type of gamma ray emerging from space that is known to be emitted when electrons collide with positrons — meaning there was antimatter in space.
"It was quite a surprise back then to discover part of the universe was made of antimatter," researcher Gerry Skinner, an astrophysicist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told SPACE.com.
These gamma rays apparently came from a cloud of antimatter roughly 10,000 light-years across surrounding our galaxy's core. This giant cloud shines brightly with gamma rays, with about the energy of 10,000 suns.
What exactly generated the antimatter was a mystery for the following decades. Suspects have included everything from exploding stars to dark matter.
Now, an international research team looking over four years of data from the European Space Agency's International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) satellite has pinpointed the apparent culprits. Their new findings suggest these positrons originate mainly from stars getting devoured by black holes and neutron stars.
As a black hole or neutron star destroys a star, tremendous amounts of radiation are released. Just as electrons and positrons emit the tell-tale gamma rays upon annihilation, so too can gamma rays combine to form electrons and positrons, providing the mechanism for the creation of the antimatter cloud, scientists think.
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Demonoid back online?
Apparently the two new servers are in Sweden, which is considered as a relatively safe heaven for peer to peer file sharing. If Deimos is able to solve his other problems we might (hopefully) see Demonoid back online soon.
Having said that, The Pirate Bay has had its share of legal issues. The police investigation after the infamous 2006 raid have come to a close and the prosecution has sent 4000 pages of legal paperwork to TPB admins. Admins are confident that TPB is not breaking any Swedish law. Even if they lose the court case, it's is highly unlikely that the site will shut down. After the raid, TPB admins took precautionary measures and added redundant servers in multiple countries to prevent any future downtime and disruptions of service. Over the years the number of servers has grown and the site has spread across many countries thus making a court order in a single country technically useless unless the admins themselves are jailed. This was confirmed by Brokep himself in a recent interview with Slyck.com; Slyck.com: Let’s assume a worst case scenario for a moment. If The Pirate Bay loses the initial trial round, what does that mean to the end user? TPB: Nothing. The Pirate Bay is not in Sweden any more. We don't know where ourselves, so it's gonna be hard to prove where the site is. For the sake of file sharing community, let's hope Brokep is right.
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Flash and UPnP security flaws
Security researchers have released code showing how a pair of widely used technologies could be misused to take control of a victim's Web browsing experience. The code, published over the weekend by researchers Adrian Pastor and Petko Petkov, exploits features in two technologies: The Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol, which is used by many operating systems to make it easier for them to work with devices on a network; and Adobe Systems' Flash multimedia software. By tricking a victim into viewing a malicious Flash file, an attacker could use UPnP to change the primary DNS (Domain Name System) server used by the router to find other computers on the Internet. This would give the attacker a virtually undetectable way to redirect the victim to fake Web sites. For example, a victim with a compromised router could be taken to the attacker's Web server, even if he typed Citibank.com directly into the Web browser navigation bar. "The most malicious of all malicious things is to change the primary DNS server," the researchers wrote. "That will effectively turn the router and the network it controls into a zombie which the attacker can take advantage of whenever they feel like it." Because so many routers support UPnP, the researchers believe that "ninety nine percent of home routers are vulnerable to this attack." In fact, many other types of UPnP devices, such as printers, digital entertainment systems and cameras are also potentially at risk, they added in a Frequently Asked Questions Web page explaining their research. Cross-Platform Attack The attack is particularly worrisome because it is cross-platform-- any operating system that supports Flash is susceptible-- and because it is based on features of UPnP and Flash, not bugs that could be easily fixed by Adobe or the router vendors. Users could avoid this attack by turning UPnP off on their routers, where it is normally enabled by default, but this would cause a variety of popular applications, such as IM (instant-message) software, games and Skype, to break and require manual configuration on the router. Adobe could make changes to Flash to mitigate the problem, but attackers could most likely also launch this attack using another technique, known as DNS pinning, said Aviv Raff, a researcher who has also blogged about the attack. "This is a critical issue," he said in an IM interview. "People should turn off UPnP in their devices, and vendors should put UPnP disabled by default in the devices they deliver." Although this could make life difficult for nontechnical users, Raff believes it would be worth the effort. "It's better than having your traffic owned by malicious people," he said. However, another security expert said that turning off UPnP would be overkill, considering that online criminals have not even begun using this attack. "Look... if you get hit by a meteor, it's devastating," said Roger Thompson, chief research officer with Grisoft, via IM. "But no one goes around building meteor shelters."
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Friday, January 11, 2008
Is that a harley Davidson?
Oui the frog sits on a miniature motorcycle in the eastern beach town of Pattaya January 10, 2008. Oui's owner says Oui loves playing with human toys and posing for photographs. I wondered if Qui is on sale on ebay?. It would be neat to show him around.
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Benny Hinn resigns as regent of ORU
Benny Hinn resigns his regents position at ORU (Oral Roberts University)following the resignation of Richard Roberts, the chairman of ORU in November 2007. The debt-ridden school is involve in a financial scandal of it's former president, Richard Roberts. The university on Thursday also settled with one of three professors who filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the school. Benny Hinn and I.V. Hilliard resigned as regents, where they were involved in making major school decisions, university spokesman Jeremy Burton said Thursday. Burton declined to say why the two resigned, but said both wrote the board to express their support for the school's mission. Hinn and Creflo Dollar are among six televangelist who are being investigated by Iowa Senator, Chuck Grassley. The Iowa Sen. want to investigate whether the accused use there organization tax exempt status to live lavishly on the backs of small donors. The resignations follow that of Richard Roberts, who stepped down as university president in November amid allegations he misspent school funds to bankroll a lavish lifestyle. Roberts, the son of school founder Oral Roberts, held the position at the 5,700-student school since 1993. ORU former regent Harry McNevin, resign 20 years ago over what he says was excessive spending by Oral and his son, Richard the resignation couldn't come any sooner.
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Adobe Photoshop tutorial parody
Do you use Photoshop? This is a program where you can edit pictures, graphics, banners and many more project that involves visual display. Photoshop can make it easy to put ideals and thoughts into visual presentation. With your photo you can edit, crop, reduce red-eye and even morphing an image to your like. This program is used by many people from beginners to advance. To get your hands on Photoshop you will need to make a upwards of $200 investment into this program. You will not be disappointed because the options and service this program provide pays for it self. Below is a sample of what Photoshop can do. Remember this is only a snippet of what you can achieve. I give this program two thumbs up and a woot, woot!.
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Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Nike release Air Jordan XX3
In a photo released by Nike Inc., the Air Jordan XX3, one of three versions to be released in the coming months, is shown. The Air Jordan XX3 will be released in three hyped-up rounds from January to February, starting with a limited edition to be sent to only 23 retailers to be sold for $230 and concluding with the national launch at $185.
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Live 14 years longer with four health changes
People who ate moderately, exercise, quit smoking and eat five servings of fresh fruits and vegetable live an estimated 14 years longer than those who do not. Overwhelming evidence has shown that these things contribute to healthier and longer lives, but the new study actually quantified their combined impact, the British team said. This report is proof that even the slightest change in your lifestyle will benefit you in the future and encourage a nation to follow this healthy living.Between 1993 and 1997 the researchers questioned 20,000 healthy British men and women about their lifestyles. They also tested every participant's blood to measure vitamin C intake, an indicator of how much fruit and vegetables people ate. Then they assigned the participants -- aged 45-79 -- a score of between 0 and 4, giving one point for each of the healthy behaviors. After allowing for age and other factors that could affect the likelihood of dying, the researchers determined people with a score of 0 were four times as likely to have died, particularly from cardiovascular disease. The lifestyle change with the biggest benefit was giving up smoking, which led to an 80 percent improvement in health, the study found. This was followed by eating fruits and vegetables.
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Funny football scoring moves
Incredible moves caught on camera. These are various funny football or futbol scoring goals. Watch it below.
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Saturday, January 5, 2008
Raining cats, dogs and iguanas
Key Biscayne,Fla.- It was so cold this week that iguana fell from trees and branches. Iguana are cold-blooded reptiles and they go into a deep sleep when the temperatures reaches below 40 degrees. I get the same effect after eating 15 fried wontons. These iguana just suddenly stiff up and loses all control of their bodily functions. But it isn't sudden death: Experts said the reptiles perk up when the temperatures rises. The iguanas turn a gray hue in the meantime. Iguanas can sustain cold for between four and 10 hours before they have to wake up.
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Friday, January 4, 2008
Good bye 2007, Hello 2008
This is a recap of the popular events that unfolded in 2007. Many memorable things happen as you are about to see. There are a few that are my favorite. Also, this will incite the "Wow factor".
Fox The blast will kick start your '08
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Thursday, January 3, 2008
Quadrantid meteor shower 2008
The Quadrantid meteor shower is predicted to reach maximum in the predawn on Friday, January 4,2008. The Quadrantid is infamously unpredictable but this could be the big kahuna for 2008 which will be a brightly display of beauty. Yes, this will be the best meteor shower of 2008.The Quadrantid (pronounced KWA-dran-tid) meteor shower provides one of the most intense annual meteor displays, with a brief, sharp maximum lasting but a few hours. The timing of peak activity favors Western Europe and eastern North America. Weather permitting, skywatchers in rural locations could see one or two shooting stars every minute during its peak. This is going to be the biggest and best meteor shower for 2008. Get out your telescope, binocular and camera. This is sure to be full of eye candy and worth the effort of capturing the moment.
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Darth Vader VS. The Japanese Police
Darth Vader VS. The Japanese Police. Hilarious parody of Star War's Darth Vader. Who will win this battle of intense authority over the universe. They think of everything. What will they think of next?. I think I followed through from laughing so hard, de-licious!
Darth Vader VS. The Japanese Police
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Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Paper airplane flight over NYC
Video of paper airplane over NYC
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New Year meal
My first meal for the New Year. This tasty meal is a mildly spicy lemon grass beef. Mmmmhh good!
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