Behold the SUN

Photo released by Nasa earth Observatory on June 7, 2011 and taken from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Some Sleeping Tips

I stumbled upon an interesting LifeHacker article about a recent study that suggested that sleeping in hammocks rather than beds is more effective. In fact, it goes on to state that "the gentle rocking motion not only puts you to sleep faster, but the sleep is just plain better." Participants of the study all fell asleep faster in the rocking bed and their brain scans ( all were hooked up to EEG machines ) showed deeper sleep. I don't see hammocks replacing beds ever, but the results are pretty fascinating. On a side note, I'd also like to see a study on the effects of sleeping in hammocks on one's posture.

I found another useful article about calculating the perfect bedtime to where after a few nights you will naturally wake up without the use of an alarm. ( I wouldn't suggest going without an alarm altogether though ) The suggestion goes as follows:

To find your perfect bedtime, you should count back 7.5 hours from your typical wake time (the average person has 5 sleep cycles that last 90 minutes long, so that's why we should start with 7.5 hours). If you wake up within 10 minutes before your morning alarm after three days, that's your target bedtime. If not, move your bedtime back by 15 minute every three days until you do wake up before your morning alarm.

Monkey Business

It all started with a nightmare. Jyothi Raju dreamt one night that he was plummeting from an enormous stone structure. As he hit the ground, huge rocks began falling onto him, crushing his body to death. He had little idea how momentous this phantasm would prove to be.

The nightmare intensified, and began haunting Raju every single night like some horrible incubus from a myth. It weighed on his mind, driving him into a deep depression and pushing him to the verge of insanity. Extremely troubled, he left his home of Tamilnadu, India for a town called Chitradurga.

Despite hopes of a new beginning in Chitradurga, the nightmares continued. One day, Raju came across the famous Chitradurga fort. Feeling helpless and troubled by his harrowing visions, he decided to commit suicide by throwing himself off the giant stones of the fort.

As he began climbing the massive rocks, a strange feeling came over him. He soon realized that this was the very same stone structure that been terrifying him in his nightmare. Like a man possessed, he scampered up the entire stone wall, nearly 70 feet to the top. Upon reaching the top, Raju saw a crowd of tourists smiling and cheering at his remarkable act.

Touched by this experience, Raju rejected the idea of suicide and climbed down the wall. He went home. The same nightmare appeared again in his dreams that night, but miraculously, he was not frightened by it. On the contrary, he felt relieved and rejuvenated.

The next day, he returned to the fort, where he observed the local monkeys and studied how they climbed the walls. From that point on, he climbed the walls of the fort every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Later on, with the help of a spiritual practitioner, Raju realized that in an earlier incarnation, he was the leader of a monkey clan at Chitradurga fort. One day while climbing, a snake had bitten him and he died. As fate would have it, however, Raju’s monkey antics were not yet destined to end. 

Today, Raju entertains countless numbers of visitors with his amazing acrobatics. It is truly a magnificent sight to behold. Raju can effortlessly scale a wall using just his toes and fingertips. He hangs upside down from his feet like some fabled storybook bat in a cave. He gyrates and scurries about with primal simian instincts. He frolics with his monkey companions and even buys them food with the money he earns. In short, he is the Monkey King.

Weinergate Amish Style!

Stumbled upon a funny article about an Amish 21 year old who was caught sexting a 12 year old.

Police in Indiana say they arrested an Amish man who arrived in a horse-drawn buggy for a presumed rendezvous with a 12-year-old girl to whom he had sent sexually explicit cell phone messages.

Talk about a technology explosion; using a cell phone to meet up with a person in a horse-drawn buggy. If only he had not broken the cardinal Amish rule about technology, he would not have gotten himself in such a mess. Now he'll most likely be banished or excommunicated.  The horse-drawn buggy scene must have been a sight to see. Speaking of which, I'm sure Chris Hansen would have been licking his chops to be undercover for this dude.

The Future of Jet Travel?

Paris to Tokyo in two and a half hours? New York to Dubai in two hours? Cutting flights this short may seem like a fantasy, but after this weekend's Paris Air Show, these once out-of-reach feats will eventually become a reality.

Read the article from CNN for more details on this amazing story.

University of Phoenix Students --- Errr Wait.. Funded by You and Me?

Want to know an easy way to make lots and lots of moolah? Start a for-profit university just like good ol' DeVry and University of Phoenix! Yes indeed, these schools are publicly traded entities on the New York Stock exchange, and bring in revenues in the billions. How do these acclaimed universities make their money and provide such an incredible education to thousands of students? I shall explain.

I will start with some facts about the biggest for-profit university in the world, which is the prototype for almost all for-profit universities today, the University of Phoenix. The University of Phoenix,  which is owned by the Apollo Group, in 2002, had fiscal year end revenues at over $1 billion. In 2005 it was reported that Phoenix profits soared to $2 billion, equivalent to the total revenue of one of the top universities in world, MIT.  Last year alone, Phoenix spent over $130 million in advertisements; they spent more money on advertising than commercial companies such as Microsoft, FedEx, and Johnson & Johnson. I mean of course it is extremely important for a company focused on higher education to buy the name rights to the Arizona Cardinals football stadium. With such a large amount of money directed towards aspects of the company not related to improving its education, many have questioned the integrity of the company specifically in relation to recruiting. This makes sense since the for-profit model encourages schools to funnel profits to shareholders while keeping overhead low. This means fewer qualified teachers and less investment in instructional quality. Now let's talk about how these corporations dupe students into such high quality education.

Recruiting strategies of the for-profits are extremely sketchy to say the least. For-profits have been known to enforce and use quotas, deceptive tactics, dishonesty, high pressure tactics, and many more unethical procedures all to obtain as many students as possible. How do the Universities encourage such unethical behavior? Recruiters are paid commission based on the number of students they recruit. This obviously encourages recruiters to try and sign up students that they personally know would not be a good fit for the school and would most likely not succeed. Hmm... the combination of teaching recruiters unethical tactics and rewarding recruiters with commission pay seems like it should be illegal. Well after a few years, the government finally caught on and decided this was not okay. A lawsuit against the Apollo Group was filed, and while for-profit lobbyists and University of Pheonix officials insist they did no wrong, rather than go to court, the University of Phoenix quickly settled for $67.5 million. They were as guilty as Weiner.

Want to know when something is inherently wrong with the system? When people are saying it is eerily similar to the housing bubble.

In both cases loans—mortgage loans in the bank case, student loans in the for-profit college case—were made to people who were at high risk of defaulting, and in both cases “rating agencies” (credit-rating agencies in the case of the banks, college accreditation agencies in the case of colleges), were afflicted with a conflict of interest because they were paid by the institutions whose securities (in the case of the banks) or educational programs (in the case of the colleges) they were rating (Becker-Posner).

After a quick inspection on the fundamentals of each system, they do indeed sound extremely similar don't they?  To reiterate this point, loans were granted to people that certainly were not be qualified to obtain loans.  86 % of University of Phoenix revenues come from Federal Grants, aka student loans, aka tax payers, aka we are paying for this school. Last year alone, Phoenix made over $2.6 billion in revenue, with 86 % of the revenue provided by the honest American citizen. That equates to around $2.4 billion in profit from us given to the University of Phoenix. To calculate the industry's revenues as a whole we can assume that about 90 % of the revenues come from federal loans, which means that the industry's total costs are 90 % of its revenues. The total annual costs of the industry are equal to the student loans: $26.5 billion.

Now you might be wondering why I am seemingly bashing student loans even though the majority of students nowadays have student loans because of the ever increasing cost of higher education. In fact student loan debt is so large that loans across all universities is roughly equal to all credit card debt at around a whopping $750 billion.  Increasing education costs is a totally different matter, and my argument is not to call out student loans. What I am pointing out though is the quality of student loans given to for-profit University students.  The difference in the percentage of students who default on their loans in non-profit universities and community colleges as opposed to for-profit is the cog behind the evil money making machine.

Debt load at for-profit schools is more than twice that of private nonprofit and 4x that of public school students. (Source: The College Board) These debt numbers do not represent the ever increasing interest rate that students on the loans have to pay back, increasing student debt ever more. What is more sickening is the demographic that the for-profit colleges are targeting. They aim a majority of their recruiting towards the lower income people that they know will have to take a loan, and will have to pay the higher interest rates. This increases the profit margin for the school and the tax payments on law-abiding citizens. In fact some schools reportedly targeted people housed in shelters, halfway houses, safe houses, and homeless shelters. Schools have been known to recruit former prostitutes, drug addicts, and convicts. I am all for education for the betterment of our society, but isn't it quite obvious that these organizations are preying upon and misguiding these people? If you ask me, prostitutes and drug addicts are not exactly billed for higher education.

This system does not only hurt the tax payers and the government, but also the students of these for-profit universities.  Students that are duped into a phony education and monstrous debt, and are not able to pay back default on federal student loans. The key point is that the unpaid balance of the student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. These students are hounded for life. In other words, this pretty much ruins the person's life. For the rest of their lives they will have collectable debt, garnished wages, get sued in court, and be ineligible for both federal and non-federal employment. This also doesn't include the myriad of benefits that these colleges provide to the students. Aside from shoddy teaching and education, most students are not ready for their specific occupations, and have extreme difficulties in obtaining a job. Because of lot of the universities focus is on occupational education, the worthless degrees are seen as even more worthless in the eyes of the potential employers.

On average, according to lobbyists from these for-profit universities, only about 10 %  of students default on their loans. This figure is only about 2x that of the default rate of regular university students. This number though is significantly lower than actual figures when changes to the default period are not limited to the small window that lobbyists cleverly created to base their figures on. A more accurate number is about 50 %. To give you a better picture, for-profit students represent about 10 % of all college students, but about half of the total defaults that occur. A total of $20 billion in federal grants is funneled to the universities each year, so for-profit universities account for $10 billion of that $20.

Now the next question you may be thinking is why is the default rate significantly higher than at other Universities. There are a number of factors, but the main reason is because the dropout rate from for-profit colleges is so high.  The dropout rate of for-profit colleges exceeds 50 %, much higher than the overall college dropout rate of about 33 %. Overall the federal government is likely to lose about $275 billion on its college loans over the next decade. While small in comparison to the financial collapse created by the housing bubble, the education debt will hurt the economic recovery and increase the federal deficit. So the next time you are laughing at one of the many ridiculous DeVry or Phoenix University commercials, just know it's actually them with the last laugh. The money spent to create and broadcast the annoyingly incessant commercials was paid for by you and me.

Life in the Fast Lane

Remember your 21^st birthday? Probably not.

But I’m sure you heard stories about how funny you were, how many shots you took, and how much you puked. You may have even gotten lucky and made out with someone. After that, any time some one questioned how much of a badass you were, you could always say, “Dude, you should have seen me on my 21^st….”

Guess what? You’ve got nothing on this guy:

Paragraph 10. “At the time of the collision, Defendant was going 85 miles per hour.”

Paragraph 12. “At the time of the collision, Defendant was having sex with a female.” (Ouch!!!)

Paragraph13. “At the time of the collision, Defendant was driving admittedly drunk.”

Paragraph 14. “At the time of the accident, Defendant was partially or totally in the backseat of the car.” (WTF?)

First of all, how do you even have sex in the backseat of your car and drive at the same time? Do you put it into cruise control? Do you steer with one hand as you make your way to the backseat? I can’t even begin to imagine what you do with a stick-shift.

Granted, he did eventually crash the car. And I'm not condoning drunk driving, for the record. Still, you've got to admit, this guy was doing some serious multi-tasking.

And check this out: there was a third person in the car while all of this was going on. What the fuck? What do you think he was saying while all of this was going on? Don’t you think he would have spoken up and said something, like:

“Um…hey man, I know it’s your birthday and all, but if it’s not too much to ask, is there any chance you could perhaps stop drunk driving at 85 fucking miles per hour and having sexual intercourse next to me as I sit here in the back seat. Thanks bro, happy birthday!”

The plaintiff, a cab driver, is seeking $75,000 in damages. According to the story, the defendant now insists that the third guy was driving at the time of the crash, but the third guy denies it. The defendant’s lawyer, Frank Prior, said there was “no statement by anyone that they were driving on the Beltway having sex” and “no facts on it.” Someone’s obviously lying.

Although it’s interesting to note what the plaintiff’s attorney said:

“Having sex at 85 miles per hour while drunk on a freeway is willful and wanton negligence.”

Notice he never mentioned “driving” specifically. Weak case, perhaps? Either way, some funky shit was going on in that car.

Keep an eye on this trial. Should be exciting.

You're Killing Me, Smalls!

Is Sandlot the best childhood sports movie of all time? I have it ranked up there with with a lot of classics including Hoosiers and Space Jam. Everytime I watch this, it brings me back to the good old days where I'd be roastin' 'mallows outside with my friends on a Friday night, not worrying about school/work/real-life like I am now. Nostalgia at it's finest.

Ham Porter: Hey, you want a s'more?

Smalls: Some more of what?

Ham Porter: No, do you want a s'more?

Smalls: I haven't had anything yet... so how can I have some more of nothing?

Ham Porter: You're killing me, Smalls! These are s'mores stuff. Now pay attention. First you take the graham. You stick the chocolate on the graham. Then, you roast the mallow. When the mallow's flaming, you stick it on the chocolate. Then you cover it with the other end. Then, you stuff. Kind of messy, but good!

Here are some Youtube videos to bring back the memories:

You Want S'more?

You play ball like a GIRL!

Hamilton "The Babe" Porter

The Great Baaaambbbiinooo!

Interesting headlines in the past week

Below are some interesting headlines I've encountered in the last week.

China: Teenager 'sells kidney for iPad'

Man with dead weasel accused of assault

Bus company shut down after officials find people traveling in luggage compartment -- again

Mountain lion killed outside New York City

Californian Hunts for Bin Laden's Body in the North Arabian Sea

A Californian named Bill Warren is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to help locate Osama Bin Laden's body at the bottom of the Arabian Sea in order to prove his death. With the help of investors from Chicago, Scotland, and New York, he has purchased expensive SONAR equipment that was used to help find the Titanic. With the aid of this "side-scanning" SONAR, will Mr. Warren be able to locate the notorious criminal's body? While many say the body is decomposed by now, Warren says that the body should be preserved by the rubber-lined and zipped Navy burial bag in which he is presumably wrapped.

If the body is found, Warren says he will take videos, photos, and retrieve DNA to help prove Bin Laden's identity. While this may seem like a reach, Warren has pretty good confidence that the body will be located. In his phone interview with CNN, he says he has an "approximate location" and will begin the hunt soon.

When asked why he is conducting such a search, Mr. Warren replied, "...because we are patriotic Americans and feel that President Obama failed to provide the proof."

World's Shortest Man

A Filipino 17 year old will be named the world's shortest man once he turns 18 on June 12. He is only 23 inches tall. The world's previous shortest man is just over 26 inches tall. Celebrations will ensue in his hometown of Sindangan!

Get a 11% Discount When Shopping

For people that do not do all their shopping (clothes and food) at Costco warehouse aka the greatest store ever, this article I stumbled upon courtesy of Lifehacker could prove to be quite useful for you retail shoppers.

Ask for a Tourist's Discount Card at Retail Shops for About 11% Off Your Purchases - Lifehacker

Apparently whenever you shop, you can ask for a Tourist's discount card whether or not you are actually traveling in order to save 11 % off your total purchase. I've never actually tried this, but comment back if this actually works.

Fresh Kid C

The 2011 Tornado Outbreak (so far)

First and foremost, I will say that I am not one to ride the so-called "Climate Change Train," attributing nearly every extreme weather phenomenon to anthropogenic warming...so I'll try to steer clear of that talk and simply say this: While humans are definitely having some sort of effect on climate, the extent to which it's occurring is unknown, and anyone who positively and scientifically attributes humans to significant global warming (and thus, our recent severe weather) needs some more facts.

The tornado outbreak of 2011 has been fascinating for both weather fanatics and the general population alike. Preliminary reports from the National Weather Service has the United States at a little bit over 1400 tornadoes for the year so far. That's already higher than the total for 2010, and we're only halfway through this year. With all this dangerous weather, many wonder why this is happening. It can't just all be a coincidence, can it?

Well, no it can't...there's a reason behind all of this rhyme: the combination of a weakening La Nina (causing a more intense jet stream), and warmer (~1 to 2 degrees) than normal Gulf of Mexico waters. In short, what is happening is this "weakening" La Nina weather pattern is causing the jet stream to dip farther south than normal, nearly reaching the Gulf of Mexico and it's abnormally warm waters. Low pressure systems are developing in the Plains states (near where this "dip" in the jet stream takes place). Colder Canadian air trails these low pressure systems, while warm, humid air from the Gulf is ahead. This essential mixture of cold, drier air and warm, moist air creates instability, a measure of the volatility of the atmosphere. When instability is high, severe storms are more apt to develop, and, thus, tornadoes as a result.

St. Louis, MO. Raleigh, NC. Tuscaloosa, AL. Joplin, MO. Springfield, MA. These are just a few of the places we have seen this Spring get hit with very strong tornadoes. While the footage may be awesome to see, we have to realize the power of these phenomena. We need to understand that while we may enjoy watching a 3-4 minute clip of a EF-4 tornado ripping through debris, people's lives are at stake. Learning more about how tornadoes form and predicting where they will form will hopefully save many lives in years to come.

Great creature, or GREATEST creature?

I’ll go out on a limb and say it: the octopus is the most impressive creature on the planet. That’s right, humans. The octopus puts you to shame.

Aristotle once proclaimed, “The octopus is a stupid creature, for it will approach a man's hand if it be lowered in the water.” That’s because Aristotle was jealous. Sure, he was a smart guy. But he couldn’t cope with the fact that an octopus’s brilliance trounced his own.

Now I know you’re already skeptical of my claim. That’s understandable. Just work with me here.

How about we start with what Michael Crichton wrote in his great book Sphere:

In fact, an octopus is so smart that the biggest limitation to its behavior is its lifespan. An octopus lives only three years, and that’s not long enough to develop anything as complicated as a culture or civilization. Maybe if octopuses lived as long as we do, they would long ago have taken over the world.

The octopus does things as a three-year-old that you and I could never dream of doing.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this 600 pound octopus squeezing its entire body through a hole the size of a quarter. A 600 pound human could barely fit through a doorway, let alone a hole the size of a goddamned quarter.

Check out this guy, who figures out how to unscrew the lid off of a jar and devour a crab. Without ever being shown how.

Then there’s the Indonesian mimic octopus, an amazing shape-shifter with the uncanny ability to copy the physical likeness and movement of more than fifteen different species, including sea snakes, giant crabs, flounders, stingrays, and jellyfish. This animal is so intelligent that it will impersonate the creature that presents the greatest threat to the predator that’s hunting it. When scientists saw the mimic octopus attacked by a damselfish, the octopus mimicked the banded sea snake, the damselfish’s sworn enemy.

That’s all great, you’re thinking, but the damselfish sounds like a pussy. Not to worry. This octopus destroyed sharks at his aquarium on a regular basis.

Other octopuses astonished their caretakers in different ways. At the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California, one octopus disassembled a water recycling valve and directed a tube to spew water out of the tank for about 10 hours. It flooded the place with 200 gallons of seawater.

In another story, an octopus in England got out of its cage one night when no one was watching, went to the tank next door, ate a lumpfish, and went back to its own tank. Several more lumpfish died before the aquarium workers discovered the culprit.

While in Bermuda, psychologist Jennifer Mather observed an octopus catch several crabs and then return to its rock den to eat them. After its nice meal, the octopus gathered four stones and stacked them in front of the entrance of the den so it could sleep safely.

If that’s not enough, octopuses also show distinct personality traits. Yeah, you read that correctly. Some of your friends don’t even have personalities, for crying out loud. Scientists found that octopuses confronted with the same threat alerts and food stimuli react in different ways. Some were timid, others were aggressive.

Octopuses also engage in play — "the deliberate, repeated, outwardly useless activity through which smarter animals explore their world and refine their skills." When given a pill bottle to play with, one particular octopus propelled it back and forth at least 20 times, as if bouncing a ball. Another spread her mantle and "bubble surfed" on her tank's aerator jets. Others have been known to squirt their caretakers in the face with water for fun.

Consider this: a young octopus learns on its own with minimal contact with its peers and no influences of parental care or sibling rivalry. Scientists have found that octopuses can learn how to navigate their way through mazes, solve problems quickly, and then remember those solutions.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, octopuses are also fucking psychic. Remember Paul the Octopus? He correctly predicted the winner of each of the German national football team’s seven matches in the 2010 World Cup and the outcome of the final match.

Think about that. Paul got 100% of his predictions right. He was two years old. Other animals tried to make predictions and failed miserably. The animals at the Chemnitz Zoo in Germany were wrong on all of Germany's group-stage games. A parakeet named Mani got some publicity for making several correct predictions during the World Cup, but foolishly chose the Netherlands over Spain in the finals. Paul picked Spain. Paul was right.

Oh, and by the way, here's an octopus that can turn fucking invisible:

That's all for now, folks. See you next time.

Improving your Web Experience

For some reason, I used to think that apps were solely limited to smart phones and iPads, but I recently found out that they are available on any platform (PC, mac, smartphone, tablet) for Google's web browser, Chrome.

If you were in the same thought boat  as me, you shall be enlightened. The most useful app that I've stumbled upon so far is Read Later Fast. I'm sure most of you have a habitual problem of maintaining twenty plus tabs at once, and have tried to solve this problem in a number of ways, like creating a long list of bookmarks. Obviously this can make your bookmark list quite disorganized and cumbersome. This app solves the problem of too many tabs in a highly organized way.

Some other useful apps that I have installed are Large Document, Google Reader Extension, and of course, Angry Birds. The Large Document app is particularly useful to upload large documents and files. It is extremely easy to use and upon uploading, the app gives the link to the URL where anyone can download the uploaded file. Additionally, there are Chrome extensions that can be downloaded to improve one's overall web experience.  For example: Ad Remover for Gmail. All these can be found at the App Webstore, so enjoy what Google has to offer, and post a comment if you find more useful apps!

Curb Season 8

Thank God this is coming back. (July 10th)