Cyber Monday Madness

TheTechHearld.com

A/S/L anyone? memba that? (for my geriatric readers that stands for Age, Sex, Location)

Online sellers are stretching what they call Cyber Monday promotions all week in an effort to attract more shoppers after the holiday shopping rush.

"We're expecting the biggest Cyber Monday. We're seeing double-digit growth rates, and we don't expect it to stop," said Jerry Storch, CEO of Toys R Us to The Los Angeles Times.

This year, top Internet retailers are offering deep discounts on popular items such as HDTVs, smartphones, GPS units, headphones, laptops and more.

BestCyberMondayDeals lists some of the greatest sales from Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, AT&T, Staples and Target.

Online research firm comScore Inc. reported late Sunday that online spending in November through Friday rose 13 percent to $11.6 billion, compared with the same 26 days a year ago.

Cyber Monday got its name from the National Retail Federation when computer shopping gained popularity. People returning to work after the holiday weekend would shop online from their office computers.

If you plan to engage in Cyber Monday, here's my security tip when shopping online: Since online shopping requires the use of your 16 digit credit card number as well as your social security number. Ok, not your social security number but sometimes shopping online poses serious security risks. ALWAYS make sure that when you're about to enter your credit card information that the website starts with 'https://.' The 's' stands for 'secure' and lets you know that the page is secure from fraudulent sites that pose as the retailer's website in hopes of obtaining your credit card information.

Happy Shopping!

Black Friday from the comfort of my warm bed.

www.opposingviews.com

Most retail stores offered the same in store deals online in order to minimize the early morning retail traffic.

It was a record day for spending, with consumers buying $10.69 billion worth of merchandise at brick-and-mortar stores, a 0.3 percent rise over last year, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a research firm that monitors spending at more than 50,000 retail stores according to The Los Angeles Times.

Consumers were also very savvy about what they wanted and where they wanted to get it. Shoppers viewed 18 percent fewer products on sites than they did last year, suggesting that they were shopping with a specific item in mind and quickly moving on, Coremetrics said to The Los Angeles Times.

Black Friday shoppers swarmed online for convenience and deals this according to Paypal. The company reported a 27 percent increase in total payment volume and a 310 percent increase in mobile shopping on the day after Thanksgiving compared with the same day last year according to The Los Angeles Times.

Why not sleep in and take advantage of the same in-store deals online with free shipping?

Invasive pat-downs by TSA are all the rage this holiday season

www.weaselzippers.us

In an effort to prevent terrorist attacks, the Transportation Security Administration has progressed their pat-downs to '2nd base' level.

The TSA this month began more aggressive pat-downs, including checking sensitive areas such as the groin and breasts, for signs of weapons or explosives on some travelers according to The Los Angeles Times. The searches have sparked outrage, as has the TSA's alternative — greater use of full-body scanners that the American Civil Liberties Union has said amounts to a "virtual strip search."

"Clearly, it's invasive; it's not comfortable," John Pistole of TSA said to The Los Angeles Times of the pat-downs in an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley."

But he said the agency was trying to strike the right balance between privacy and security to protect the nation from potential terrorist attacks, such as the failed bomb plot last Christmas by a man who authorities said had explosives hidden in his underwear.

www.weaselzippers.us

Here's an easy concept: take everything OUT of your pockets and you most likely won't get pulled aside for a pat-down.

Jupiter-like planet found at a close distance

www.Damego.com

A Jupiter-like planet is orbiting a red giant at a close distance according to The Los Angeles Times and scientists say it's remarkable that it exists at all.

The planet, about 2,000 light-years away from us, is orbiting an unlikely star at an unlikely distance.

The planet, called HIP 13044 b, appears to be a gas giant about 25% 1.25 times more massive than Jupiter. Its orbit is closer to its star than even Mercury is to the sun, and it circles the star in a mere 16 days according to The Los Angeles Times.

The discovery of this planet gives hope that Jupiter might survive when the sun becomes a red giant - a large, old, luminous star - 5 billion to 6 billion years from now.

Well, now we have to think of a new acronym that helps us remember the order of the planets. My-Very-Educated-Mother-Just-Served-Us-Nine-Pizzas.

Apparently, It's 'Movember'

ovember is taking over. I heard a little about the Movember madness but did some digging to find out exactly what it's all about.

During the month of November, the idea of Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of Men's health by encouraging them to grow a moustache.

But did you know that the idea originated in Melbourne, Australia in 2003 as a joke to "bring the moustache back"?

Fast forward six years- In 2009, global participation of the event had over one million donors raising $42 million U.S. equivalent dollars for Movember’s global beneficiary partners.

Check out this video.

Graphic warnings on cigarette packages...

www.chicagobreakingbusiness.com

...Because words aren't enough.

In the first major change to cigarette packaging in a quarter-century, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it would require graphic warning labels that cover half a package's front and rear and the top 20% of all cigarette ads according to The Los Angeles Times.

The labels will feature either drawings or photos illustrating graphically the dangers associated with smoking and will be accompanied by text stating that smoking is addictive or that it kills.

The pictures feature such things as a diseased lung, a corpse and a man smoking a cigarette through a tracheotomy tube. They are not quite as grim as some used in other countries, but regulators hope they will be sufficiently frightening to keep young people from beginning to smoke and to strengthen the will of those who are attempting to quit according to The Los Angeles Times.

To this day, I still have the image of a poster about the dangers of chewing tobacco my 7th grade science teacher Mrs. Justin had hanging in her class room. It was of a dark-haired, healthy and handsome looking young man on the left of the poster and on the right was the same man but what he looked like after using chewing tobacco. In the picture on the right, his jaw was almost completely disfigured and his once wholesome looking appearance was now irreversibly tarnished. After searching the Internet for the poster, I wasn't able to find it BUT I did find his name and the back story that led to the poster. The unfortunate face on the poster was of Sean Marsee. He was only 19-years-old when he died from mouth cancer.

Thank you Mrs. Justin for scaring me with your poster. It worked.

Happy 235th Birthday to the U.S. Marine Corps!

www.Galsguide.com

Happy Birthday to an honorable organization that continues to fight with the core values of Honor, Courage and Commitment.

Thank you to all the marines who have served and continue to serve.

Your grateful citizen,

Kristen

P.S. Happy (early) Veteran's Day!

Love is the New Painkiller

www.leloveimage.blogspot.com

A recent study at the School of Medicine suggests that love may alleviate pain in the same way narcotic painkillers do. Subjects in the early stages of a romance, nine months or fewer into a relationship, were shown pictures one at a time of their significant other or of a platonic friend while receiving pain in the form of intense blasts of heat to the hand according to the study. As comparison, the study also measured pain relief that subjects felt when they were given a word-distraction test while experiencing pain.

Turns out that the reward centers also known as pleasure centers in the brain were activated and responsible for the pain relief. These reward centers are the same ones activated by drugs of abuse, sex and eating savory foods.

I learned in a Psychology class, with the amazing Professor Wagoner, the importance of the 'facial feedback' hypothesis, which states that facial movements can influence an emotional response. So, when frustration takes over in the form of a scowl on your face, if you force yourself to smile your mood will improve. Or maybe you'll laugh at the absurdity of how it feels but, hey...at least you'll be laughing :)

"Your love is my drug." - Ke$ha (can't believe I just quoted Ke$ha. It won't happen again, promise)

Nobel Prize awarded to Robert G. Edwards for inventing In Vitro Fertilization

www.LAtimes.com

British biologist, Robert G Edwards, 85, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine for his contribution of technology for in vitro fertilization.

Along with Dr. Patrick Steptoe, Edwards took a mature egg and fertilized it in a test tube before implanting it back into the mother.

Steptoe was not named as a recipient of the $1.5-million prize because Nobel rules require that an honoree be alive at the time of the award according to The Los Angeles Times. He died in 1988, 13 years before New York's Lasker Foundation awarded Edwards its top award, which is often viewed as a precursor to the Nobel.

Edwards' first attempt at fertilization was in 1969 where he was able to fertilize an egg in a laboratory petri dish but the egg would not go beyond the first cellular division according to The Los Angeles Times. Edwards reasoned that the egg needed to develop in the womb. Next, he contacted Steptoe, a gynecologist who was one of the pioneers in laparoscopy, in which a thin telescope inserted through the vagina is used to observe the ovaries and manipulate eggs.

Together they turned out to be quite the pair.

The first child to be born via test tube was Louise Brown in 1978. Brown's birth demonstrated the success and safety of Edwards' and Steptoe's efforts and opened a whole new world for infertile couples.

Currently, 10 percent of couples are unable to conceive naturally according to The Los Angeles Times and an estimated 142,000 IVF procedures are performed each year in the U.S. at a cost of about $4 billion. The success rate is about 1 in every 5 procedures, about the same rate as conventional attempts to become pregnant.

If you live in California and you frequent the beach, you might want to read this

www.Esquire.com

Our beloved California beaches are at risk.

Health testing of California's beaches has slumped to its lowest level since ocean monitoring became a law more than a decade ago, putting swimmers, surfers and divers at greater risk of exposure to contaminated water, a Times investigation has found.

Those who swim in contaminated water are exposed to gastrointestinal viruses and to pathogens that can cause skin rashes and ear, eye and staph infections according to The Los Angeles Times. Ew! Swimmers are most likely to get sick in poor-circulating water near river mouths and sewer outfalls, especially after rain.

So, will the beach with the highest pollution please step forward? NOT SO FAST Santa Monica. Congrats Long Beach, you have some of the most polluted water in the state but before you start to feel like a neglected step-child, it's not your fault almost half of you isn't being tested for contamination.

As a whole, 40 percent of California beaches aren't being tested and the culprit is a familiar one: state and county budget cuts.

In 2008 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the $1 million the state had provided each year to test hundreds of beaches for bacteria according to The Los Angeles Times however, his office said beaches are still being tested at a 90 percent level despite the budget cuts.

Tourism officials have also expressed concern. They say the cost to monitor beaches is inconsequential compared with the estimated $12 billion in tourist-related revenue California beach towns generate each year according to The Los Angeles Times.

We have to spend money to make money. California beaches are a worth-while investment.

It's a plane, no it's a bird...wait...no, it's a FISH?

Flying fish can stay airborne just as well as small-to-midsize birds, a study finds. Their performance was tested after a scientist read that the fish can fly for nearly a quarter of a mile according to The Los Angeles Times.

Two South Korean scientists decided to test a fish's performance in a wind tunnel and their findings — the fruit of what they say is the first direct investigation of flying fish aerodynamics — showed that the fish could stay airborne just as well as small-to-midsize birds according to Science 2.0.

How is this possible!?

Apparently, fish are equipped with wing-like fins that they keep close to the body as they swim but spread out when they launch into the air. The fish stay airborne by periodically dipping their tail fins in the water and propelling themselves onward, similar to stones skipping across water.

The fish species they chose for the study, the Cypselurus hirai, has four wing-like fins — two large and two small — in a "biplane" formation. The scientists selected five fish of similar size, injected them with urethane foam, arranged the two pairs of fins in different positions and tested the movement of air around them in a wind tunnel to assess their flightworthiness according to The Los Angeles Times.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating findings was how well the fish could glide in comparison with other winged creatures said Science 2.0. The lift-to-drag ratio, which essentially measures how much horizontal distance is traveled during descent, suggested the fish can glide better than insects such as the dragonfly, and just as well as birds such as the petrel and wood duck.

Moreover, the tandem arrangement of the large pectoral fin at the front and smaller pelvic fin at the back of the fish's body accelerates the air flow towards the tail like a jet, increasing the fish's lift-to-drag ratio further and improving its flying performance even more.

Ca-ray-z. Click here to see them in action.

BP oil well is no longer a threat to the gulf

www.oilspillcharities.com

With a new blowout preventer in place and a 5,000-foot column of cement filling its core, the British Petroleum well is no longer in danger of leaking oil, the federal spill response chief told The Los Angeles Times Saturday — although he said it must still be plugged from the bottom for the job to be complete.

Sometime this week crews will begin drilling the final 50 feet in order to intersect the well according to retired Coast Guard admiral, Thad Allen, who told The Los Angeles Times.

The process of closing up BP's blown-out well has unfolded slowly, been marked by failures and successes, weather delays, tension between BP and federal experts, and a good deal of engineering improvisation according to The Los Angeles Times.

On April 20 a BP offshore oil rig exploded spilling over 200 millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico making it the worst oil spill in U.S. History. Clean up efforts are ongoing.

Paper or Plastax?

www.LAtimes.com

The California legislature let down it's Eco-friendly enthusiasts Tuesday when it opposed the effort to ban plastic bags. Initially, measure AB1998 passed the Assembly in June with the support of Gov. Schwarzenegger and if passed by the State's Legislature, California would have been the first state to ban plastic bags from grocery and convenient stores.

So, why not tax shoppers per plastic bag used? After all, Ireland implemented a plastic bag tax of 15 cents per bag almost 10 years ago, which reduced the amount of plastic bags used by 90 percent and generated revenue for the government.

Californians use 19 billion plastic bags a year according to the Los Angeles Times. I'll let you do the math.

What's the big deal? Well, plastic is a highly durable, non-biodegradable substance composed of toxic chemicals. There is no way to safely dispose of plastic. The only way to reduce the hazards of plastic bags, is to reduce it's use thereby reducing it's production.

Now, if I can just remember to bring my reusable bags into the store.