23
September

TLT 2006 Conference

UPDATE: The conference is over, a massive thank you to everyone who attended, contributed and helped organise the event. See you all next year!

The 5th International Treebanks and Linguistic Theories conference is happening in Prague on the 28th November 2006.

The focus of this conference is on treebanks – a part of languages that provide notations at the different structural levels – sentence, phrase, word. Many projects are underway to work on identifying and compiling treebanks in languages that are currently missing them. This includes the languages of denmark, portugal, turkey and spain, among others.

Workshops and submissions are aimed at obtaining information and data descriptions that are more complex and better documented. The organisers are seeking submissions from people that a suitable to the topic of linguistics and tree banks – how they can be applied, how better knowledge of linguistics can be obtained, quality control, discovering, recording and managing them and suggestions for quality standardisation.

Some submitters will be invited to present their findings at the conference in the format of a thirty minute workshop. Please keep in mind that completed papers need to be less that twelve A four pages.

Two keynote speakers are Palmer, Martha UC at B http://verbs.colorado.edu/mpalmer/palmer/

and

Bourma, Gosse of the Groningen Uni http://www.let.rug.nl/~gosse/

The conference will be held at MFF UK School of Computer Science, Czech Republic

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11
December

My Journey Into Frugal Living

The first time I heard about being frugal……I was at a friends house and she had a newsletter called “The Tightwad Gazette”. I was fascinated that you could reuse items and make food from scratch. I read all of her copies and then discovered older ones were in a book. I then went to the library and read all that I could on frugal living. I took so many notes, years later I’m still taking notes!

Frugal living has touched my life…..in so many ways. When I was a single mom, I had no tools or previous knowledge of these things. I thought everything had to be bought retail. I had no idea how to cook. It wasn’t until years later that I learned these things, after I remarried. I could have stretched my dollars so much further.

I wasn’t raise to be frugal, ….My parents never taught us anything about money. Meals consisted of hot dogs, fish sticks and beef soup from a freeze dried mix. I’ll tell you that my kids shop second hand and use coupons.

being frugal with a verizon promo code

The joy of frugality

My new husband hasn’t been frugal at all. We’ve spent 11 years fighting over money. He would spend and spend and go into debt. I tried to get him to use coupons and shop at thrift stores but he said why, we can afford it. Well, his job of 16 years closed this last December. The new job is at half the pay. Getting out of debt and staying out is now his new goal. Yay! We use coupons (got a great deal with a straight talk promo code recently), shop second hand when we can, eat out once a month, watch movies from the library and have more fun being together as a family.

I also shop for holidays months in advance. I buy gifts at half price or lower. The recipient doesn’t care how much I spent, just that they receive something that they wanted or needed! A “gift box” is something all frugal minded people need. I try to keep it stocked for any occasion and never have to run out and get that last minute gift. It’s also great at Christmas, at work when you receive a gift from someone you weren’t expecting to, you always have a small gift in your bag! he he

 

I subscribe to all the big coupon sites and visit them regularly too. These days (especially when you shop online like I do) you can find promotional codes and coupon deals for practically anything that you buy. Even if you are buying a new phone or changing to a new cell plan you can use a verizon promo code to spend a lot less money.

 

Frugal isn’t a dirty word! Embrace it, change your lifestyle accordingly and enjoy your financial freedom.

 

 

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2
December

Reminiscing about holidays and weddings

When I was eight years old, my family and I took a summer vacation to the beautiful tropical paradise of Maui, one of the islands that makes up the state of Hawaii.  My parents, brother, grandmother, and I all piled onto the plane and were extremely excited for our trip, during which time we would be celebrating my mother’s birthday, my brother’s birthday, and my parents’ wedding anniversary.

nice platinum rings

Platinum Rings

Because I was quite young when we took that summer vacation together, I really don’t remember much.  What I do remember has been aided by pictures and the recounting of tales by my other family members.  I know we went to a luau and I learned how to dance the hula on stage in front of the entire audience, and I also remember the warm water that crashed against the shore every morning.  My brother and I used to run down to the water’s edge right at dawn, when it was still quiet and the rest of the city hadn’t woken up yet.  We would surf and play in the warm ocean until the sun came up, and then run back home, famished, where breakfast would be waiting.
One of the memories that sticks out most in my mind, though, is the night we went out as a family to celebrate my parents’ wedding anniversary.  They had already been together for a long time when I was that age, and we went out to dinner at what I thought was a very fancy restaurant, because it was so dimly lit.  You could barely even see your plate of food in front of you!
Oddly enough, on the night of their anniversary, my mom lost her wedding ring.  Somehow it slipped right off of her finger, and who knows where it went– we never did find it.  However my mom was not that devastated from losing her wedding ring because it meant she could get a newer, bigger, and better replacement.  She decided to go with stunning platinum rings to adorn her left ring finger, and she couldn’t have been more elated.  She told me she had always wanted a platinum wedding ring, but that they weren’t really available when she and my father had gotten married.  I guess they just hadn’t come into style yet.

tungsten wedding bands

Nice example of a tungsten wedding band

Even though my mother was happy to get a replacement ring, she did feel bad that she lost the original ring from her wedding.  To make my dad feel better about it, she decided to pay for him to get an upgrade too.  He picked something out from a collection of tungsten wedding bands.  Tungsten is a metal that is not only beautiful but totally durable, too.  In fact, tungsten is regarded as a heftier ring; the ideal metal for men because it has so much weight.  Between the quality of metals and the beauty of the rings, it goes without saying that neither one of my parents’ rings has fallen off in the many years since our Hawaiian vacation.

 

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2
December

Coffee maker on my Christmas wish list this year.

With Christmas and my birthday coming up soon, many friends and family members have been asking me what is on my wish list.  Normally I feel silly coming up with things that I want.  It feels so materialistic; not to mention it is extremely hard for me to think of tangible things that other people could buy for me.  Most of the time all I want in the world is to be able to take a two-week vacation from work and travel, but that’s not really something you can turn into a stocking stuffer!

 

This year, however, I know the perfect gift not only for others to get me, but for me to get for other people.  Let me explain: I am usually not such a heavy coffee drinker, but in the thick of the winter I find myself drinking several cups a day.  I love the taste of coffee, of course, but lately I have been needing it to soothe my bones and warm me up.  It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is (I mean there is always decaf!), coffee is the perfect thing to drink to help brave the coldest of the winter months. And in the summer, iced coffee is a delicious treat while relaxing in the sun, poolside.

beans spilling wont happen if you use k cups
That’s why this year I am asking for someone to buy me the latest and greatest in coffee makers: the Keurig coffee maker, with an assortment of cheap K cups to go along with it.  The Keurig is the perfect gift because it is affordable yet totally useful.  The lucky people to receive this present will literally use it every day– if not multiple times a day, depending on their addiction to caffeine!

 
You might be wondering why the Keurig is so great.  The easiest way to explain the magic that is a Keurig coffee maker is the fact that each cup of coffee is individualized for the person who makes it.  That means if you want an extra bold cup, your husband wants medium roast, and your kids want decaf, you can do it without having to wait twenty minutes– or throw the extra coffee down the drain because you accidentally made to much.  All you have to do is choose which of the many cheap K cups available you want to drink that day, pour in 8 ounces of water, and press the button.  Twenty to sixty seconds later you’ll have exactly one cup of exquisite hot coffee, just to your liking.  Then your husband and children can brew their own, right after you.

 

I can’t imagine spending one more year without having this magical coffee maker sitting on the counter in my kitchen, and I don’t want to have to.  I must own a Keurig! So if any of my friends or family members are reading this, please get me one for my upcoming celebrations– and then come over for a cup of coffee so I can show you what all the fuss is about.

 

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2
December

Combine an energy efficient dishwasher with green power to really save the planet!

For those out there who think they are doing the environment a favour by hand-washing their dishes rather than using the dish washer… I’m sorry to say it, but you’re doing the opposite. According to the Home Depot’s Fall magazine entitled “Eco options,” “today’s dishwashers trump hand-washing every time. The provide a consistently hygienic wash and use about 37% less water.” Even better, “Energy Star-certified washers are at least 41% more energy efficient than the minimum government requirement and use less than half the energy of a 10-year-old model and one-third less water.”

 

how to make solar panels to power your dishwasher

How does yours rate?

The magazine offers other helpful tips such as running the dishwasher only when it is full, turning off the machine’s drying cycle and air-drying the dishes, not pre-rinsing by hand (simply scraping food off is enough), run the washer on its shortest cycle (this is usually sufficient), running the washer during non-peak energy times (late evening or before 7a.m.–we usually do it before bed), and use natural detergents such as Seventh Generation’s Free & Clear Automatic Dishwasher Detergent or liquid.

 

Are there still some naysayers out there? I bet there are. What about the material and energy needed to manufacture and run the dishwasher, doesn’t that use a lot of resources? Washing dishes by hand only requires some water, soap, a cloth, and human energy–that sounds much better for the environment. At first it does, and I thought about this. However, I then thought about the 37% less water usage. If you think about adding this 37% up every time you do the dishes for the lifetime of your washer, that is a significant amount of water. The chemicals needed to purify the water for household use and the fossil fuels needed to heat that water would probably quickly exceed the energy/raw material use of the dishwasher itself. According to a University of Bonn (Germany) study, dishwasher use only half the energy and one-sixth of the water used by hand-washers. Even the most frugal hand-washer cannot compete with dishwashers–sorry. Then if you use something like solar power to power that dish washer you are miles ahead! Learn how to make solar panels if you are on a budget or handy with tools.

 

I’m fairly convinced with the evidence I’ve collected while reading about this topic, but what if you don’t have a dishwasher nor the money to buy one? Well, the most efficient way to hand-wash your dishes is with a double-sink. Half-fill one sink with soapy water and the other sink with hot, clear water (use a dish pan if you don’t have a double-sink). Soak and scrub the dirty dishes in the soapy water, rinse them in the clean water, and then set them out to dry. Letting your dishes air-dry is actually more hygienic than using a towel and reduces laundry. It is also wise to use non-toxic dish soaps that don’t add harsh chemicals to the water system. Seventh Generation offers great soaps of this kind and can be found at many household retailers.

 

So, if you’ve been using your dishwasher to store your plastic bags or Tupperware containers, clean it out and put it to good use–you’ll be doing the environment a favour. Have a great, green weekend!

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5
August

More and More American Students Learning Arabic

Since that infamous day in September 2001 one standout change in American classrooms is the number of people learning the Arabic language.There is also increased federal assistance for the study of this subject.

This growth can be attributed to increased awareness of and involvement in the Middle East and in no small part to an initiative of GWB’s called the “2006 National Security Language Initiative”

Data shows that Arabic language instruction in US schools tripled between 04/05 and 07/08.

 

“Dora Johnson, an expert on teaching foreign languages who previously worked at the Center for Applied Linguistics, said she knows of examples all over the country. She estimates that at least a dozen Chicago public schools teach Arabic. (The district never responded to my request to get a full count.) She also pointed to examples in Boston; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Charleston, S.C., and Atlanta, among others. Maryland, as part of its federal Race to the Top plan, is also working to develop Arabic programs in local schools.

Another prime example, Johnson said, is Dearborn, Mich., however, this is something of an exception, she said, since most of the students taking the language there are “heritage” speakers of Arabic descent. They often can speak the language but cannot write it. (In Fairfax County, too, about 60 percent of the students studying Arabic last year were heritage speakers, Patrick said, but most of the recent growth is among students who are not heritage speakers.)

President Bush singled out the teaching of Arabic for emphasis when he announced the National Security Language Initiative in 2006, a multiagency undertaking to promote the teaching of “critical need” languages. In his speech, he invoked the war on terror and the nation’s needs in defense, intelligence-gathering, and diplomacy via optical cable. He especially dwelled on the last point.”

 

Full story at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/09/arabic_instruction_on_rise_in.html

 

 

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15
February

Long-forgotten Aboriginal Language Discovered

Tasaku Tsunoda is the last known living speaker of the Worrongo language – the language of an aboriginal group from Palm Island, Australia.

Tsunoda learned the language in the 70s while studying the fast-disappearing language and now remains as the only speaker of that tongue. he now hopes to teach the language to children in that area to revive it and ensure the way their grandparents and generations preceding them communicated doesnt die out forever with him.

 

“

He returned to the island as part of a program established by The Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) to teach traditional languages to Aboriginal children.

With Prof Tsunoda’s help the foundation is producing reading and teaching material to help local children learn the language.

He has even provided translations of classic children’s books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and recorded a Worrongo version of Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, to help Palm Island kids learn the language.

ALNF founder Mary-Ruth Mendel said Prof Tsunoda received a “magical” reception.

“The children were just drawn to him, boys walked up and hugged him and parents brought their kids up to receive a Worrongo name,” she said.

“It is quite remarkable, he is the children’s professor.”

During his brief visits, Prof Tsunoda was able to teach children a few simple words including: Gamo (water), Bama (man) and Jambon (witchetty grub), and hopes his learning materials will lead to the revival of the Worrongo language.

“Language is a very important part of a people’s identity and you could see how important it was when we were on Palm Island,” he said.”

 

Read the full story at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8296613/linguist-revives-lost-aboriginal-language

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27
December

Amazing developments in AI related to linguistic theory

Now this is fascinating – Dr Daoud Clarke claims, in brand new research paper, to have devised a mathematically-based model that can determine the meaning of words and phrases based on the context in which they are found. His theory allows vectors or numbers to represent words and phrases. The implications of this for companies such as Google who are always looking to increase the relevance and quality of the search results they display to internet users is staggering and will only add to the power they have to determine which sites, articles and words are thematically related.

 

Dr Clarke says:

“There are existing techniques which can build these vectors for words by looking at the contexts they occur in, for example on the web. This works well for words or short phrases, but if you want to extend this to long  or whole sentences, you quickly run out of data, even on the web. Our theory tells you what the vector for a phrase should look like in terms of the vectors for the individual words that make up the phrase.

“For example, at the moment we may have vectors for ‘big’ and ‘cat’, but we don’t know the best way to combine them to get a vector for ‘big cat’,” explained Dr. Clarke. “There are lots of possibilities: for example you could add the two vectors together, but then ‘big cat’ would have to mean the same as ‘cat big’, which doesn’t make sense.

The value of the theory is in identifying which methods of combining vectors do make sense. Our theory will tell you if your method of combining vectors is consistent with the idea that meaning is determined by context.”

According to Dr. Clarke, most existing theories in this field are based around the idea that the meaning of sentences can be represented in terms of logic, but these cannot capture the subtleties of language, such as the relationship between the words “like” and “love”. Representing meanings of words using vectors allows fuzzy relationships between words to be expressed as the distance or angle between the vectors.

Dr. Clarke believes his theory will have many applications in , in particular helping web search engines understand the meaning of your query. “Google works by looking for the words you type in the documents it knows about,” said Dr Clarke. “If you type in a long phrase or sentence, it just tries to match as many words as possible. Imagine how powerful it could be if it understood the meaning of your query, and tried to match it to the closest in all the documents it knows about.”

 

Read more at http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-mathematical-enable-web.html

 

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23
December

What is linguistics?

Every language is governed by a set of rules that make up the structure, format and composition of the language. It includes how words are formed, how sentences and segments of speech are formed and the system of the audible sounds that make up that language.

This study of all of this is what’s known as “linguistics”

As an academic discipline linguistics encompasses many other areas of speech and language. Some researchers specialise in studying the history, origins and continued evolution of sounds, words and languages. Others concentrate on regional differences (dialects), accents and slang. Many slang words evolve and become an accepted part of that language’s lexicon – eg. recently “texting” “googling” “lol” “wtf” and thousands of other examples.

Another important aspect of the study of linguistics is understanding how meaning is communicated through the use of particular words, intonations, and larger concepts.

The variety of languages around the world is stunning. Differences in grammar, sentence structure, and sounds used to communicate in that language can be bewildering. It is exactly this that inspires linguists to understand more about how we communicate. Why is it that we all communicate so differently and how did that method of communication come to be? Many languages, especially English, have descended from a variety of older languages over thousands of years which is why our language contains so many words from languages such as French, Italian, German, Greek, Latin and more. The study of how particular, individual words were formed is known as “etymology”.

Read more about linguistics at these sites:

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/index.htm

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/

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11
December

How to build your own financial momentum

Free credit report

Manage credit cards to build momentum

There are so many popular finance-related terms that have a “nature” tie-in, especially related to debt. There’s the debt snowball, the debt snowflake, and more recently, the increasingly popular debt tsunami.  I’d imagine it’s not going to be too long before we see a debt avalanche.  It’s fun and extremely motivating to model a part of your financial approach after a powerful, growing force.

The reason these methods are successful is that they all revolve around one thing: momentum.

Momentum: Impetus of a nonphysical process, such as an idea or a course of events (what’s an impetus? a stimulus or beginning)

When an object or an idea builds momentum, it becomes more difficult to stop. It picks up speed and moves more and more quickly. Snowballs, avalanches and rock and mud slides can all be talked about in terms of momentum. These natural forces grow extremely quickly, and are extremely powerful.

Why is Momentum So Important?

It’s important to recognize momentum as it comes into play with your finances. It can either be a positive or negative force.

Negative Financial Momentum:

  • Interest Rates – continually dragging you backwards as they add to the amount you owe every month
  • Debt – adding new debts also slows your momentum
  • Disorganization – not knowing what you are spending on, which bills are due, and not having a financial plan at all
  • Fees and Charges – Add up very fast every month if you forget to pay things on time!

Positive Financial Momentum:

  • Good Financial Habits
  • Compounding Interest (from savings and investments)
  • Saving Consistently (automatically)
  • Removing Debt and Increasing Savings
  • Paying Bills on Time
  • Paying off credit card balances each month

Use Momentum to Your Advantage

Momentum can be a powerful ally in your fight for financial freedom. Building good financial habits and continuing with them will strengthen your “debt-crushing, bill-eating, money-saving” financial energy and help you to do even more and more with your money.

By removing instances of negative momentum as much as possible from your finances, you can reduce the heavy weight of the debt you’re carrying.

If you increase the opportunities for positive momentum to find a place in your financial life, you’ll be much more successful and reach your debt-free goals quicker.

Getting into good habits financially will improve your credit and allow you to have the freedom of the option of getting a big loan such as a mortgage in the future as a way to invest your money and grow your personal wealth. You may be surprised after getting a free credit report to see how poor planning and disorganization in the past affects your credit score today.

Momentum is important because with every payment you make and every loan you pay off, you’re strengthening not only your financial situation but you’re also increasing your ability and your resolve to keep moving towards a debt-free financially independent lifestyle.

 

 

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8
December

How Important Is A Good Monitor?

pc monitors

A serious multi-screen setup

As a professional day trader or internet poker player, your entire business depends on the computer.  You need a blazing fast connection, good hardware and most importantly a spectacular monitor.  Your pc monitor acts as the eyes of your computer, allowing you as a human to see all of the information it would typically display in code and numbers.  That’s not so helpful to us, so thankfully pc monitor companies have taken it upon themselves to develop these wonderful interfaces for us to connect with.

 

In the high-speed professions that I mentioned above a large and powerful monitor is the best choice.  Often times it’s not about the actual size of the screen in inches, but the resolution of a monitor.  You can have a 17 inch monitor that displays more information than a 30 inch monitor as long as it can support a higher resolution.  Of course, it’s going to be the best play to get a monitor that is both large in inches and in resolution if you have a highly visual computer job, or simply need a lot of information on your screen at once.

 

The productivity loss of switching, minimizing and maximizing different windows all of the time has been reported to eclipse 25% – a staggering amount of work that could be done.  Imagine if you were 25% more productive right now – you would literally be getting one extra thing done for every four that you completed.  Expanded over the course of a month or year, you’re looking at a lot of extra work.
This is the argument that I like to give to people who say that big, high resolution monitors are simply too expensive for them to buy.  If they can get a lot more work done and make more money as a result, the monitor will pay itself off in no time at all – sometimes as short as a week!  I know a professional poker player who was able to play four more tables at once when he switched from a 20 inch to a 30 inch monitor.  At his hourly rate of $20 per table, he was making 80 extra dollars an hour.  It only took him a couple days of playing to pay off his new purchase.

 

While not every case is this extreme, there is no doubt that pc monitors are a necessary consideration if you have any type of job that has you spending even a quarter of your working time on a computer.  The difference in productivity and overall enjoyment in the workplace is too astounding to ignore.  If you haven’t already, take a look at the market for pc monitors lately and make a decision on whether upgrading is a good choice for you.  If you have to, ask (or beg) your boss to make the switch for you – use the productivity argument – it works like a charm!  I personally know a couple people who have used that argument and then followed through with real results, and their boss went from micromanaging them to becoming their best friend.  I’m not saying it was all due to the monitor, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

 

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1
December

Pregnancy guide – week by week.

When I got pregnant for the first time there is no doubt that I was overwhelmed.  There I was, a 24 year old woman with not a clue in the world of how I was going to make it through the nine month ordeal.  Of course, looking back on it now I see how naïve I was to the whole process and how much easier it actually was.  But as they say, hindsight is 20/20.  If you have just become pregnant for the first time, know that I completely understand where you’re coming from and would love to help you break down the process of pregnancy.

 

Researching pregnancy week by week is the best option for you.  If you look at everything at once you will get overwhelmed in a matter of minutes and probably break down into tears.  Did I mention that your hormones will be out of whack for the next nine months?  Enjoy it though, as you now have a license to do some very strange stuff and eat some weird combinations of food with no judgment from anyone else around you.  Your husband must simply sit there and understand, because he truly has no clue what you are going through on a personal level.
The second trimester is the period of pregnancy that I see the most questions about, as well as the most excitement.  Women want to know what happens during this time and how they can “get there faster.” It’s important to realize that pregnancy is not a sprint.  It’s a marathon that requires a lot of patience and tolerance, as well as a strong dedication towards doing only things that will help your baby be born healthy.

week by week pregnancy stages
During the second trimester you are likely to experience a lot more energy than you had during the first trimester.  This is partly due to the fact that you’re not running into that dreaded problem of throwing up every morning at even the slightest smell of anything around you.  This was by far the worst part of pregnancy for me.  I couldn’t wait until it ended, but it was about three months of morning sickness before it actually did.  The second trimester is like the calm after the storm.  You’ll find yourself with a lot more energy throughout the day simply because you are not throwing up in the morning.  It’s shocking how much that simple act will sap you of your life force right off the bat and taint your day with a low-energy vibe that carries throughout the months.

 
This is why the second trimester is my favorite period of pregnancy.  It’s not early enough to not see any progress, and it’s not late enough that you begin to worry about delivering your baby.  All you have to do is treat yourself well, keep a positive outlook and enjoy the days as they pass you by.

 

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15
November

Three Workout Tips for Massive Growth

If you’re like me, you’re always looking for new and exciting ways to get in shape. And by get in shape, what I really mean to say is, get shredded. There are a ton of ways to do it – there’s no one method that is better than any others by leaps and bounds – but there are definitely some things that you should never do if you’re looking to pack on the pounds and look like that underwear model you see in the magazines.

Ripped muscles thanks to Isoflex

Want to look this good?

The first tip is to lift heavy and short. Think about it this way: your muscles are used to you living your daily life. You might pick up a box here and there, but let’s be honest – in today’s society, there is really no challenge that a machine, tool, or other person who is more suited for the job can’t do already. Back in the days of the caveman, if you wanted to get over that mountain you had to climb it. If you wanted shelter, you had to build it. This constant exertion and use of muscle fibers caused them to adapt, as they are designed to do. Over time, anyone doing these kinds of activities over and over is going to have to compensate by growing more muscle mass and muscle fibers in all of their muscles. Lifting heavy is the best way to shock your system into thinking, “Wow, I need to adjust if he’s going to be doing THAT to me all the time now!” And when you lay down in bed that night, your body is already fast at work to improve your musculature – like clockwork.

Hydrowhey makes you this much stronger?

The strong usually win

Of course, you’re not going to get as far as you normally would if you’re not eating correctly. The short summary is: high protein, medium fat, low carb. That’s going to get you where you need to go. It’s kind of tough to go high protein and medium fat these days without pounding down a whole chicken and a half every single day. Some of us just have to eat that much food to see any kind of result at all. So, you’ll need to grab some protein powder supplements and get going on that as soon as possible. Hydrowhey and Isoflex are a few solid examples of protein powders that have been on the market for quite a while now and have proven themselves to be worthy of all of the praise that they get.

The final step to explosive growth is going to be how you live the rest of your day when you’re NOT at the gym. Are you getting all of the sleep you need? What about your levels of stress, and all of the activity you could be doing outside of the gym for fun? Surfing, volleyball, skating…any of these is going to help your body get used to being more active on a daily basis and more ready for any challenge that you might throw at it.

 

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11
November

Why is a credit score so important?

Credit cards and revolving creditIf you are planning on making any large purchase in the future, it is absolutely vital that you pay attention to your credit score.  Why is a credit score so important?  Well, it’s what any lending agency will use to determine your “trustworthiness” when they are assessing if you will be able to pay back the money they loan you or not. This applies not only to big purchases like houses and cars, but also to the smaller things in life like getting a rent application accepted.  Some landlords rely heavily on your credit score to figure out if you’re worth renting their apartment to or not.

Because your score affects so many different large areas of your life, it’s important to keep on top of it as you move through life.  There are plenty of ways to get a free credit score out there, and it’s recommended that you do the research and figure out where to get yours.  Think about it this way: if you spend just a few minutes making sure you know what your credit score is, you could potentially be saving yourself thousands of dollars in lower interest rates for almost any loan you might want to take out – for any purpose.  That translates into a lot of time that you don’t have to spend working at your job, which is something that everyone out there can relate to.

Let’s say you went out and found your credit score, and you weren’t too happy with what you saw.  What can you do to improve it?  This is where revolving credit comes into play.  The best example is the classic credit card.  A credit card is a way for you to either ruin or drastically improve your credit, depending on how you decide to use it and how responsible you are.  The best way to improve your credit score over time is to get a credit card and make purchases on that card.  At the end of every month, make sure you pay off your credit cards completely and leave not even a single cent on your balance.  This will signify to any lender that you’re someone who honors the agreement you signed when you first got your credit card – that you will pay back your debts in a timely manner.

If you think about what credit card companies are doing, they are giving you money ahead of time on faith that you will pay it back.  There is a lot of backlash against these companies but without them we would be at a huge disservice.  Can you imagine paying for a house in cash, unable to get a loan at all?  It would be near impossible, especially with housing prices over $200,000 in most places.  There are not many Americans out there sitting on six figures of cash, and credit cards let us cover that difference by lending us the difference, provided we pay them back in a timely and appropriate manner.

 

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24
October

Google and Facebook – No Strangers To Controversy

Google is a remarkable company and one whose services very few people, if any, could not use to their benefit in one manner or another. Their corporate motto has been a sort of abridged Hippocratic oath: ‘Don’t Be Evil’. This is largely a response to some of the corporate practices of other software companies, whose name won’t be mentioned, because I’m not entirely sure they don’t have a Death Star equipped with a laser to vaporize those who speak ill of them.

But Google’s friendly image has been under fire lately. Largely due to privacy and copyright concerns. In my opinion the copyright issue is a non-issue and won’t be of any consequence. The privacy front is a little different, but some of the concerns seem ridiculous to me.

Americans are particularly concerned about privacy. By and large, we like to be left in peace and just do our thing. The Fourth Amendment enshrines a great deal of privacy in our constitution but is mainly focused on citizen’s privacy from the government. Increasingly the privacy concerns are due to corporations and private businesses having a great deal of information about individuals. While these are legitimate concerns, I think the fuss over Google Street View is just silly.

It isn’t just street view causing privacy concerns, you cant go a day without reading some sort of story in the news about how Facebook are invading personal privacy, causing security and privacy concerns. For example this story: http://www.zdnet.com.au/facebook-goes-google-with-new-privacy-controls-339320996.htm

Google Street View allows you to take a walking tour through town and view it from, well, the street. It only is available for a few cities right now, but Google hopes to make it everywhere they have Google Maps. I’ve used Google Maps many times and found it quite useful. I’ve also used Google Earth, mainly to waste time looking up every address I’ve lived at and where my friends are but also to figure out how to hack a facebook account, but I’ve also found it useful to send pictures of where I live in relation to the nearest tube stop to my family for their visit.

The Street View is created by using a camera mounted to a car that takes pictures in a 360 degree radius. It’s possible to walk through town and zoom in on things of interest. The London Paper just had a story about people who are all hot and bothered by this. There were pictures of sunbathers in thongs in a park off Escondido road in San Francisco, the caption sensationally cried out: ‘Two Sunbathers’ Privacy Is Invaded.’ Really? Their privacy was invaded in a park off of Escondido road? Other pictures were of a fight caught on the street and a woman climbing into a truck with her thong hanging out her pants. Then there is the picture of a man coming out of a brothel, a woman who could see her cat through her living room window and a lawyer who demanded that Google remove a picture of him smoking on the street. Apparently, his wife thinks he quit.

 

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