Feeling down, feeling pretty? · Monday February 12, 2007 by colin newell
Fashion models feel less happy and less fulfilled than people in other careers, researchers in London said.
Other characteristics models tend to exhibit include low self-esteem, loneliness and suspicions of others, Sky News said Monday.
The findings, released as London Fashion Week begins, were the results of interviews by City University researchers with a group of models and other workers.
In the study, models on average scored lower on several questionnaires, particularly when asked about their psychological need satisfaction. PNS measures a person’s need to feel connected with others, their ability to feel comfortable making independent decisions and their need to feel competent in daily work.
Bjorn Meyer, the researcher who led the study, told Sky News, “These results do not mean that models are mentally disturbed but they are nevertheless concerning, and point to a potentially serious issue.” link
I don’t know – I think this scenario would describe most bloggers, would’nt you agree?
I feel pretty, oh so pretty...
Anna Nicole Smith dead at 39 · Thursday February 8, 2007 by colin newell
Reality TV star and former model Anna Nicole Smith was pronounced dead Thursday after being taken to a Florida hospital, a law enforcement source told CNN.
Smith, 39, collapsed at a south Florida hotel, according to news reports.
Love or hate celebrities, I cannot help but feel the loss of an interesting human being.
Anna Nicole had become a fixture on Entertainment Tonight, the prime-time gossip vid that has crept into our lives. Everybody shared the loss of her son and her never-ending battle with depression and grief.
And although she was a product of another World, totally foreign to my own, her raw and genuine humanity did show through the glamour and glitz.
So today I offer a toast to Anna Nicole.
You gave us something that the likes of Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson could never give us; a window in the painful reality that is the life of the celebrity.
You were real. And now you’re gone.
Happy journey Anna Nicole Smith!
Bonus: Bob Harris’s take on Anna Nicole in the news
Tech to the rescue · Friday February 2, 2007 by colin newell
I work as a technician at a local University. Sometimes I need to parachute into tense situations where technology has failed…
Yesterday I was sent me into a classroom (in session) with
specific instructions to cut into a cable
and replace the DC Plug with an Audio Plug.
Anyone with any electrical or electronics knowledge knows that cutting into anything live is usually a bad idea.
I advised my contact person that it was probably not a good idea
but I went anyway –
Off I went to a lecture in the Womens Studies faculty
...in full swing. Trust me. Facing 35 or 350 sets of eyes with the clear intention of solving a tech problem in less than 5 minutes is challenging at the best of time.
Sure enough, there was some kind of power cable on the top of the counter that I could not identify.
The room was near dark as the class was in progress
with the Video Data Projector on and about 3 or 4 people talking to a class of about 35 ladies.
As I fumbled around the a/v cabinet, I realised that this
cable on the counter top was indeed NOT an audio
cable. I had no idea what it was or what kind of voltage was waiting to bite my ass.
Annoyingly, every 2 minutes or so, someone in the group would
introject: WHEN the audio problem is solved, we
will continue with the AUDIO presentation…”
Within about 15 minutes I was able to find and isolate
the audio cable in question (it had been stuffed into the
tech cabinet and force plugged into the back of the DVD player
RCA input!) The class was back in business and I quietly excused myself to limit the interuption to the learning process.
I think in the future, under circumstances like these, I will put off these kind of re-wiring tasks til the classroom is illuminated and safely cleared out. It is just better for everyone. We used to do service to VDP’s while classes were in progress – but it is just too dangerous. The very thought of dropping a VDP 15 to 30 feet from the ceiling to the floor or onto the head of a student is just too much of a risk to take.
Anyway. I got the job done today.
Ironically, the classroom topic being discussed was
about how useless men are and how poorly they treat
women.
Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.
Owning a fully automatic home coffee machine · Thursday February 1, 2007 by colin newell
Super-Auto or fully automatic coffee makers are all the rage now. But you have to ask yourself one question: “Can you control yourself?”
Upside With a standard Super-Auto machine, you add coffee beans and water. You push a button. That’s it. Really. That’s it.
Downside Buy one of these units and you will drown in great coffee. On the evolutionary scale, there are few genetic upticks between the human and, say… the gerbil.
Or a hamster. You know what a hamster is, yes? My point: It takes very little stimulus to cascade from civilized beings to caffeine-pellet gobbling rodents.
Anyway – a true story: A wealthy uncle of mine bought a swiss made fully-auto coffee maker.. about 1700$
for his kitchen. A Solis Master 5000 digital.
He loved it. Perhaps a little too much. Heck, I borrowed it for 5 days for use in my lab. And the 4 normally adult male techs in my shop quickly morphed into human/hummingbird hybrids. The more they buzzed around the Solis for yet another shot the more hummingbird-like they became. Go figure.
The Solis is a good machine and the after-sales support is top notch. So, after a year, the sales/service centre that
sold it to him suggested a free check-up.
They were so amazed when they got it in the
shop… and they called me. I can remember the call…
Within 365 days of us, he has clocked in 14,000
servings of coffee. They thought he was running
a restaurant.
This Uncle, who is in his 60’s has a wife who is 32.
He has (or had at the time…) a 3 year old.
He claims: “I put my coffee maker on at 5AM and
I make one or two Americanos coffee every hour til
when I turn it off at 10 PM!”
Do the math. He pressed the brew button over 10,000
times in the space of one year.
Now THAT is coffee drinking!
Personally, I drink about 8 fluid ounces of coffee a day.
Not 8 fluid litres. If I drank coffee like this, my head would explode. Or maybe my bladder would go first.
Either way, if you think you can handle one of these units, go ahead an try. But keep a support group handy… or a life-line or something.
You have been warned.
