Tuesday, December 20, 2005

news 12-20-05

BE HAPPY:
The Sweet Smell of ... Happiness? 
MONDAY, Dec. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Worried about how to succeed in life? 
Don't worry, be happy. 
That's the take-home message from a major new review of studies on the downstream benefits of personal happiness. 
While everyone knows that successful careers and relationships make people happy, new research suggests this process works both ways. 
"Perhaps happy people also have a lot of good things come to them because of their happiness, their sociability, their energy," said lead author Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. 
Her team's 53-page review of more than 225 epidemiological, longitudinal and experimental studies strongly suggests that happiness is literally its own reward: That it breeds success, just as success can breed happiness. 
"It's clear that the relationship is bi-directional," Lyubomirsky said. "It's an upward spiral." 



PC and Mac applications that every gamer should have
With the next-generation of game consoles just around the corner, the line between PC and console gaming is becoming increasingly blurred. Consoles like the Xbox 360 are borrowing standard PC features like media playback and packaging them in an appealing box, at a lower price than an equivalent PC or Mac. The Xbox 360 is also standardizing features like online game purchasing and wireless controllers. It’s easy to see a future where game developers stray away from the PC as a games platform and stick exclusively to consoles with their simple interfaces and standard features. However, there are still several areas in which the PC has the advantage over game consoles. Some things you can’t do with a game console: create machinima exclusively on the console, download cheat codes, take and share screenshots and chat with large groups of people simultaneously.



Robot Saves the Day at Radiation Lab
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday December 19, @11:28PM  from the johnny-five-is-radioactive dept.  An anonymous reader writes "Nature.com is reporting that records released this week by the US defense department read almost like a bad movie plot. Back in October a high-security radiation lab had a cylinder filled with radiation get trapped in its delivery tube network. Fortunately a specially designed bomb-disposal robot was able to retrieve the canister before the radiation was able to eat its way free.



New breed of super maxis to tackle Rolex Sydney To Hobart Yacht Race  (link to this articlePage: 1 2 3 4  December 19, 2005 When Sydney businessman Neville Crichton built Alfa Romeo I a few years ago, the advanced design made the world take notice – the remarkable yacht dominated international ocean racing for 18 months and won an incredible 74 consecutive races, including every major ocean event – a yachting grand slam the likes of which has never been seen before and which is unlikely to be repeated. Wealthy yachtsmen the world recognised the advantages of running with the very latest technology and the “arms race” has resulted in a flotilla of new advanced super maxis currently preparing for the Rolex Sydney to Hobart yacht race. When they set off on Boxing Day, the world will be treated to a spectacle of technological wonder but skipper Neville Crichton believes that the deciding factor in which boat takes line honours will not be technology, but traditional sailing skills.



Carbohydrates, good or bad? SINCE the Atkins Diet returned to the health spotlight in the nineties, weight watchers all over the world have become partial to eating meat, avoiding sugar-rich foods and refined carbohydrates. The late Dr. Robert C. Atkins, purveyor of the weight-loss diet, upheld that calories and carbohydrates trigger the production of insulin, a hormone that stimulates the storage of calories as fat. His diet therefore restricts the consumption of these foods, while it encourages the intake of foods containing protein and fat.


COOL MENORAH'S:



NEWSWEEK PREDICTIONS OF WHO WILL BE BIG IN 2006:



Maybe 'Munich'  Patrick Goldstein details Spielberg's opus — and handicaps the best picture race.  Surely it tells us all we need to know about today's overcaffeinated media universe that the backlash against "Munich," due in theaters Friday, began in earnest nearly three weeks before the movie's release. For months the Steven Spielberg drama has been viewed as the prohibitive favorite in the Oscar race, based on its filmmaker pedigree and weighty subject matter — the bloody manhunt for the Palestinian terrorists who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.  Until recently the entire project was shrouded in secrecy. Spielberg's only comment, a two-sentence prepared statement, was released last summer, Solomon-like, to an Israeli paper, an Arab TV station and the New York Times. Even as the film reached completion, Universal Pictures and Marvin Levy, Spielberg's longtime publicist, insisted that the filmmaker was turning his back on a cascade of interview requests and would avoid any overt Oscar campaigning.

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