Thursday, February 09, 2006

news 2-9-06

So ynet is not my favorite source for reliable news, but......
sometimes I can't help but read it.......
Demographic threat a myth The Jewish majority west of the Jordan
River will remain strong Yoram Ettinger Here's an earthshaking fact:
Now that Israel has pulled out of Gaza, there is a clear, firm Jewish
majority in the territory west of the Jordan River. 67 percent, in
fact. In contrast to popular notion, this majority is assured to
continue well into the future, in light of a shrinking Arab
population in Judea and Samaria (1. 8 percent), a rising Jewish
population in Israel (2.1 percent), large scale Arab emigration since
1950 and Jewish aliya (immigration to Israel) that began in 1882.
Hamas' victory will spur on Arab emigration (especially amongst PA
employees and their families), and growing anti-Semitism in France
and the former Soviet Union will spur aliya (Jewish immigration).
http://tinyurl.com/b32sr

Celebrities juggle stardom with army service For most celebrity
performers who make it big by age 18, taking a break from their
careers to serve in the army is the furthest thing from their minds
Jenny Hazan For most celebrity performers who make it big by age 18,
taking a break from their careers to serve in the army is the
furthest thing from their minds. But what if Kelly Clarkson or
Britney Spears had to temporarily retire from concert tours to do a
tour of duty? What if the Backstreet Boys were asked to drop their
mics and pick up guns instead? This is precisely the dilemma that
young pop icons face - in Israel.
http://tinyurl.com/9wk9y

THE SELF HELP SECTION:
20 Ways to Stick to Your Workout
http://tinyurl.com/892mu

AND SCIENCE:
More Muscle: Why Do Workouts Work? Most machines don't improve with
use. Old pickup trucks don't gradually become Ferraris just by
driving them fast, and a pocket calculator won't change into a
supercomputer by crunching lots of numbers. The human body is
different. As weightlifters know, the more that people use their
muscles, the stronger they become. And unused muscles do not remain
preserved; neglect causes them to waste away, or atrophy. It's a
remarkable response, one that scientists don't fully understand.
Somehow, muscle cells "sense" how they're being used and then remodel
themselves to better fit the task. How does this happen? And what
exactly is it about exercise that triggers the changes?
http://tinyurl.com/8qser

AND YOUR DAILY DOSE OF PSUEDO SCIENTIFIC BULL$#!+:
Study Proves that the Heart Responds to Future Events The phone
rings and the person calling is an old high school friend who you
were just thinking about the day before. You spontaneously decide to
take a different route home and later find out that your usual route
was closed due to a big rig accident. What a coincidence! Or is it?
Were those happenings coincidences or were you, unknowingly,
exercising intuition? Coincidence or Intuition? Intuition has often
been thought of as a mysterious sixth sense. However, a new research
study conducted by the Institute ofHeartMath helps to solve some of
the mysteries that surround intuition, revealing the role the heart
plays in processing and decoding intuitive information. We’ve all
heard of a mother who feels the need to check on her young son, only
to find that he has left the yard and wandered into the street. Many
of us have had our own intuitive experiences, yet there has been a
longstanding dilemma in the scientific community over whether
intuition is based on memory of a past experience, or whether it
involves an actual perception of something that lies ahead.
http://tinyurl.com/8ngvp

AND ENERGY/ENVIRONMENTAL STUFF:

Green Conference to Hold Public Forum February 9, 2006 08:24 AM -
Mairi Beautyman, Florence, Italy
The Building Energy Conference and Trade Show, to be held March 7-9,
in Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center, is a big one for green
building professionals. Sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy
Association, the sustainable forum features a wealth of current
information on ecological construction issues. On Tuesday, March the
show will feature Energy: Crisis or Opportunity, a free event, open
to the public. The panel, to be held at 6:00pm in the Amphitheater at
the Seaport World Trade Center, will be moderated by Jim Braude,
anchor for cable station NECN. Braude will lead seven New England
energy experts into discussion on the "Energy Gap;" how businesses
can work to deliver profits to the private sector; and how
individuals can enhance their quality of life and reduce energy
costs. More information about the show, and additional events is
available online. ::The Building Energy Conference and Trade Show

http://tinyurl.com/c8rny

Distributed Energy Stock Index (DESI) February 9, 2006 07:15 AM -
John Laumer, PhiladelphiaCould it be that Wall Street is taking the
path of TreeHugger-dom? Anecdotal evidence is looking good. From a
recent press release: "The Index Committee of the Distributed Energy
Stock Index (DESI) approved the creation of a new segment focused on
alternative fuels and fuel cells and the inclusion of 12 new
companies into the DESI (see below fold for list)". "The Distributed
Energy Stock Index (DESI) was created because in the post Sarbanes-
Oxley, brokerage houses have reduced research activities and there
are only a few analysts covering this sector". It seems that
renewable energy stocks in particular, but also distributed power-
related stocks have suddenly become more fashionable.

The new companies added to the DESI include (with the DESI segments
identified in parenthesis after each company):
Applied Film Corporation, AFCO, (Enabling Technologies)
ATS Automation Tooling Systems, ATA.TO, (Enabling Technologies)
DayStar Technologies, DSTI, (Renewable Energy)
Electro Energy, EEEI, (Power Quality and Storage)
Emerson Electric Company, EMR, (Demand Management, Metering and
Controls)
Environmental Power Corporation, EPG, (Alternative Fuels and Fuel Cells)
International Rectifier Corporation, IRF, (Enabling Technologies)
Medis Technologies, MDTL, (Alternative Fuels and Fuel Cells)
Metretek Technologies, MEK, (Demand Management, Metering and Controls)
Maxwell Technologies, MXWL, (Power Quality and Storage)
Power Integrations Inc., POWI, (Enabling Technologies)
Spire Corporation, SPIR, (Renewable Energy)

http://tinyurl.com/dquek

AND TECH STUFF:

uBrowser is an simple Web Browser that illustrates one way of
embedding the Mozilla® Gecko rendering engine into a standalone
application using LibXUL. In this case, the contents of the page is
grabbed as it's being rendered and displayed as a texture on some
geometry using OpenGL™. You are able to interact with the page
(mostly) normally and visit (almost) any site that works correctly
with Firefox® 1.5.

http://tinyurl.com/84als

Damn Small Linux 2.2 has been released. From the changelog: "Updated
dmix - added sync button for easy volume control; updated
Wallpaper.lua now has color chooser for background color; updated
pcitable to correctly support Broadcom b44 module; new extension
check upon exit, will remind user to save extensions downloaded to
ramdisk before shutdown; updated French keymaps; for maximum hardware
support on older computers, kernel and modules were changed back to
2.4.26 including legacy SCSI and ZIP drive support; Calcoo replaces
Xcalc; updated and enhanced index.html for Money websever; USB 2.0
boot time detection added to isolinux version...." Download:
dsl-2.2.iso (49.2MB, MD5).
http://tinyurl.com/bdjk8

Apple still at work on true video iPod?
Posted Feb 9th 2006 10:02AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video


It's essentially what everyone's expected and speculated by this
point (us included), but ThinkSecret's latest iPod rumor plays into
everyone's hopes that Apple's got a proper video iPod in development.
According to TS, they can confirm that Apple's next device will have
a 3.5-inch display (the current 5G iPod has a 2.5-incher) and will
shed the clickwheel entirely for a virtual UI with input via a
touchscreen. We know they've got their Mac tablet patents together on
this kind of tech and have presumably been doing the dev work to make
it happen (their last patent specifically showed an iPod-like virtual
clickwheel touch interface in spec). Will this strange new device
support Portal Player's new all singing all dancing WiFi / Bluetooth
A2DP chipset for the killer 6G video iPod everyone's been hoping for?
We can't say, sonny, but the rumor mill's tilt is that we could find
out in late March or early April, when Apple celebrates its 30th
birthday.
http://tinyurl.com/b2x4m

AND THE IMPORTANT STUFF:

Sex Tips For Geeks: On Being Good In Bed

Like being sexy and picking up women, and dating successfully, being
good in bed is a skill that will never develop if you fear failure
too much. Rather, it feeds on its own success. So the most important
thing you need to know about being good in bed is that it's not
really very complicated or difficult at all.
Oh, sure, if you're an accomplished sexual athlete/aesthete you can
pore over the Kama Sutra and try exotic positions and dabble in sex
toys and scented oils and variations for more than two people. These
things have their place and you'll get to them. But they are really
the last 10% of the experience; the first 90% percent consists of
learning how to have basic satisfying sex face-to-face with one
partner, factory equipment only.
Guys, a few simple techniques and the right attitude will get you
most of the way to that goal. And, by the way, part of the reason is
today's girls; it has been long enough since really effective and
easy contraception was first deployed in the early 1960s, and I doubt
that so many women have ever been more sexually sophisticated or less
inhibited in the whole prior history of the world than they are
today. You have it easier than you know. So begin with confidence...
http://tinyurl.com/ceuv9

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