The TV show Better Off Ted is hilarious! Anyone who has worked in the consumer products industry should find this show very funny and apt. (Although I'm sure it applies to many other industries/companies as well)
From abc.com
"Need cow-less meat grown in a test tube? Done.
Need pumpkins that also double as weapons of mass destruction? No problem.
Better Off Ted is a satirical office comedy about successful good guy, Ted, who runs research and development at the morally questionable Veridian Dynamics. No achievement is too far-fetched and no invention too unorthodox for Veridian. Ted's a single dad to a seven-year-old girl, and he loves his job, but he's starting to take a closer look at the company's extremely dubious practices. Do you manufacture the best teeth whitener ever if it could also kill off all of the planet's fish? Probably not, but... "
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Ukraine's Varying Past
Phrase from a BBC news article about the Ukraine:
"Locals will tell you about the typical 20th Century Lvivite, who was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, grew up in Poland, got married under the Nazis, had children in the Soviet Union, and retired in independent Ukraine... all having never left the city. "
Wow, that's a lot of regimes to live through...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7966317.stm
"Locals will tell you about the typical 20th Century Lvivite, who was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, grew up in Poland, got married under the Nazis, had children in the Soviet Union, and retired in independent Ukraine... all having never left the city. "
Wow, that's a lot of regimes to live through...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7966317.stm
Canine Joint Supplement
At my request, Ari's swim therapist highly recommended the supplement "Joint Strong". 1.5 weeks after starting Ari on Joint Strong, Ari was a total powerhouse during her swim session. I was elated and decided that if she swam that well two weeks in a row then it definitely was the supplement.
Today was her second swim session while on Joint Strong and she was again stronger and had more endurance. So we are now going to order the 7lb bag from k9power.com who has cheaper prices and free shipping!
Today was her second swim session while on Joint Strong and she was again stronger and had more endurance. So we are now going to order the 7lb bag from k9power.com who has cheaper prices and free shipping!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Home Internet is Working!!
Thanks Dad for getting my internet working! Now I can do a better job keeping up with my blog.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Ari's first swim therapy session
Ari had her first swimming therapy appointment on Saturday. It went very well and she did an excellent job of swimming away from the scary therapist and towards me = ) (The therapist was actually very nice and good)
The therapist had me walk in front of her and call her to swim to me and she stayed to the back/side of Ari to help her if need be. The first few laps she would stop Ari in the shallow end and stretch/massage her muscles. It was a good workout for Ari and wore her out so that she let a little girl pet her (a lot) in the lobby ; p
Last night I was watching Ari's movements and assessing her mobility. It does seem a little improved. Maybe the warmer weather is helping as well. I had her sit a couple of times for a treat and she didn't seem to have as much of a difficult time lowering to the sit/squat position. And her ability to turn while standing on the bed (soft surface that requires balance) was better as well.
Maybe after a month or two of once weekly swimming therapy, we can go down to a once or twice a month maintenance schedule. That would be great!
Driving through rural CA makes me dizzy
Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and Northern CA is very very flat. When most of my view is sky, I get dizzy. Over 2/3 of the pictures below is sky. Imaging seeing this for a few hours and you'd get dizzy too!!
Dogs are more intellegent due to human interaction
Dogs can read emotion in human face
Excerpts from the above website
"Dogs are the only animals that can read emotion in faces much like humans, cementing their position as man's best friend, claim scientists.
When humans look at a new face their eyes tend to wander left, falling on the right hand side of the person's face first.This "left gaze bias" only occurs when we encounter faces and does not apply any other time, such as when inspecting animals or inanimate objects. A possible reason for the tendency is that the right side of the human face is better at expressing emotional state.
Researchers at the University of Lincoln have now shown that pet dogs also exhibit "left gaze bias", but only when looking at human faces. No other animal has been known to display this behaviour before.
A team led by Dr Kun Guo showed 17 dogs images of human, dog and monkey faces as well as inanimate objects. Film of the dogs' eye and head movement revealed a strong left gaze bias when the animals were presented with human faces. But this did not occur when they were shown other images, including those of dogs. "Guo suggests that over thousands of generations of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our emotions," New Scientist magazine reported.
"Recent studies show that the right side of our faces can express emotions more accurately and more intensely than the left, including anger. If true, then it makes sense for dogs - and humans - to inspect the right hand side of a face first." Surprisingly, when the dogs in the study were shown an upside-down human face, they still looked left. In contrast, humans lose their left gaze bias altogether when shown an inverted face. "
Dogs have a sense of right and wrong
Excerpts from the above website
"Dogs have become more intelligent, and even learnt a sense of right and wrong, through spending time with humans, a study shows.
They possess a moral compass too, in order to negotiate the complex social world of people, adds Prof Marc Bekoff from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
He argues that the fact that rough-and-tumble dog play rarely escalates into full-blown fighting shows that the animals abide by rules and expect others to do the same. In other words, they know right from wrong.
Dr Friederike Range from the University of Vienna, Austria, has found in experiments where one pooch was given a treat and another denied it that dogs possess a sense of fairness too, though she stresses that the data are not yet published. "Dogs show some aversion to inequity," she says. "I prefer not to call it a sense of fairness, but others might."
Akiko Takaoka from Kyoto University, Japan, played dogs recordings of unfamiliar voices - both male and female - with each voice followed by a photo of a human face on a screen. If the gender of the face did not match that of the voice, the dogs stared longer, a sign that the image did not match their expectations and yet more evidence that they have been honed to communicate with people.
Meanwhile, Dr Juliane Kaminski at the University of Cambridge has examined how dogs can use human gestures such as pointing and gazing to find hidden food or toys and concludes that dogs do understand that we are trying to tell them something. "Domestication seems to have shaped dogs in a way which enables them to use these gestures from as early as six weeks," she tells New Scientist."
Excerpts from the above website
"Dogs are the only animals that can read emotion in faces much like humans, cementing their position as man's best friend, claim scientists.
When humans look at a new face their eyes tend to wander left, falling on the right hand side of the person's face first.This "left gaze bias" only occurs when we encounter faces and does not apply any other time, such as when inspecting animals or inanimate objects. A possible reason for the tendency is that the right side of the human face is better at expressing emotional state.
Researchers at the University of Lincoln have now shown that pet dogs also exhibit "left gaze bias", but only when looking at human faces. No other animal has been known to display this behaviour before.
A team led by Dr Kun Guo showed 17 dogs images of human, dog and monkey faces as well as inanimate objects. Film of the dogs' eye and head movement revealed a strong left gaze bias when the animals were presented with human faces. But this did not occur when they were shown other images, including those of dogs. "Guo suggests that over thousands of generations of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our emotions," New Scientist magazine reported.
"Recent studies show that the right side of our faces can express emotions more accurately and more intensely than the left, including anger. If true, then it makes sense for dogs - and humans - to inspect the right hand side of a face first." Surprisingly, when the dogs in the study were shown an upside-down human face, they still looked left. In contrast, humans lose their left gaze bias altogether when shown an inverted face. "
Dogs have a sense of right and wrong
Excerpts from the above website
"Dogs have become more intelligent, and even learnt a sense of right and wrong, through spending time with humans, a study shows.
They possess a moral compass too, in order to negotiate the complex social world of people, adds Prof Marc Bekoff from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
He argues that the fact that rough-and-tumble dog play rarely escalates into full-blown fighting shows that the animals abide by rules and expect others to do the same. In other words, they know right from wrong.
Dr Friederike Range from the University of Vienna, Austria, has found in experiments where one pooch was given a treat and another denied it that dogs possess a sense of fairness too, though she stresses that the data are not yet published. "Dogs show some aversion to inequity," she says. "I prefer not to call it a sense of fairness, but others might."
Akiko Takaoka from Kyoto University, Japan, played dogs recordings of unfamiliar voices - both male and female - with each voice followed by a photo of a human face on a screen. If the gender of the face did not match that of the voice, the dogs stared longer, a sign that the image did not match their expectations and yet more evidence that they have been honed to communicate with people.
Meanwhile, Dr Juliane Kaminski at the University of Cambridge has examined how dogs can use human gestures such as pointing and gazing to find hidden food or toys and concludes that dogs do understand that we are trying to tell them something. "Domestication seems to have shaped dogs in a way which enables them to use these gestures from as early as six weeks," she tells New Scientist."
Collection of Interesting Articles
Animals
Mouse bites Venomous Snake to Death
Dog Owner Punches Shark After Pooch Bitten in Florida in Weekend Attack
Sea Otter from "famous youtube video" dies. Was survivor of Exxon Valdez oil spill
Kenyan Elephants Text-Messaging Rangers
Rare footage of only venomous mammal caught on camera
Chinese Pandas Fed Homemade Chicken Soup to Fight Off Holiday Stress
HELP! HELP! Pony's blue eye turned YELLOW! (Scroll down for pics)
Medical
"Divorce gene" linked to relationship troubles
Playing Tetris Good Treatment for Trauma
NASA Test Subjects Paid to Stay in Bed Three Straight Months
Girl's Disease Turning Skin to Stone
Brittan's Fattest Teen
The wonder pill that may stop dieters putting weight back on
Other
Frightening - Researchers in Disguise Successfully Commit Bank Heists
Even More Frightening - Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months
See, LA really is hell - Southern California Hot Spot Hits 812 Degrees, Baffles Experts
I hope they don't have kids...
Mouse bites Venomous Snake to Death
Dog Owner Punches Shark After Pooch Bitten in Florida in Weekend Attack
Sea Otter from "famous youtube video" dies. Was survivor of Exxon Valdez oil spill
Kenyan Elephants Text-Messaging Rangers
Rare footage of only venomous mammal caught on camera
Chinese Pandas Fed Homemade Chicken Soup to Fight Off Holiday Stress
HELP! HELP! Pony's blue eye turned YELLOW! (Scroll down for pics)
Medical
"Divorce gene" linked to relationship troubles
Playing Tetris Good Treatment for Trauma
NASA Test Subjects Paid to Stay in Bed Three Straight Months
Girl's Disease Turning Skin to Stone
Brittan's Fattest Teen
The wonder pill that may stop dieters putting weight back on
Other
Frightening - Researchers in Disguise Successfully Commit Bank Heists
Even More Frightening - Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months
See, LA really is hell - Southern California Hot Spot Hits 812 Degrees, Baffles Experts
I hope they don't have kids...
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