Came by this articlewhile google was down and I tried to busy myself with other stuff. It held me entralled at the possibilities that lies behind this kind of research. Quote the article : "At this moment, there is very little hard evidence that a bone marrow stem cell can turn into anything but blood or that a skin stem cell can become anything but skin." ESCs, on the other hand, have the potential to develop into practically any type of tissue.My mouth went agape thinking about the possibilities that lies behind this statement. If this kind of technology was perfected, how far behind would the ability of humans to play or be a God ?
Won't this just be great for the main isp provider in my place... to increase their customer hold time.
Better Business Marketing found that message-on-hold systems reduce call abandonment rates by almost 90% and increase hold time by 500%
Wow a hold time increase of 500 % ! I am really pondering if this is something that you should be bragging about. Isn't the goal to decrease the amount of hold time of your customers or clients by providing better service ? Many a time, I have been subjected to the waiting queue of a phone line, and no matter how great the hold tune I still end up cursing the service provided by the company. At the end of the day wouldn't better service win you more customers ? How about an automated phone service ?
.... said that 88% of its callers prefer on-hold messages over other options
Hmmm ... did they also mention that 99.9% of people put on hold would prefer to live their lives rather than hold on to a stupid phone line and listening to some add or jingle at the other end of the line. Sometimes the articles they put in the tech section really gets those grey cells pumpin' ... sigh !
I read this one with mixed emotions. I am torn between
Applauding these fellows for their balls or gonads of steel going after these fast food giants
Feeling somehow their ladder of fighting this war is leaning against the wrong wall
It's really common knowledge that all fast food joints don't give two hoots the heath of their patrons. Take a look at the amount of oil pouring out of your servings of KFC nuggets or McD's fried chicken and you don't even have to think twice how high a priority these fast food industry places your health. For the amount of money these companies make from the public everyday, you would think that they would at least try to take our health during the preparation of their daily food. Do you seriously believe that putting that translucent plastic box infront of that counter asking for donations for orphaned kids will make us blind to the fact that you are selling death in your food ? A cute little nemo cartoon and beautiful and bright internal deco can't mask the fact that eating at your place will clog up your arteries faster than you can say "Ronald Mc Donald wears Big Shoes" !
Then again all of this still doesn't change the fact that these lawyers are fighting a right war for the wrong reasons. It's not all the food that is sold by these establishments that are the enemy. Countless research has been done into the area of how high content carbohydrate food is causing cardiac problems among humans by people like Dr. Barry Sears and the late Dr Atkins. The results of these findings are still frowned upon by the so called medical establishment and promptly discredited, thrown out the window and regarded as "extreme" diets. All these while Americans, Chinese and Malaysian are swilling down high carbohydrate food down their bellies like there is no tomorrow. All this is done with the safe knowledge that their diets are endorsed by their family doctors or other doctors. Now, the question that really should be running through the heads of these people while choking down that plate of fried kuay theoy or stuffing their faces with that fresh roti mawar is that if these recommended diets are so good for the health of humans why the heck are the number heart attacks and cardiac related diseases rising exponentially year after year ? If we really should be eating the way we are eating why are the number of obesity cases on the rise ? Can your health actually wait while the medical establishment admits and accepts that the food pyramid is wrong and make changes to it ? Is the santan the only thing bad for your health when you eat our old favourite nasi lemak ? My habits and characters have often been outside of what people would call the norm of the so-called "society" but then don't these valid questions actually shake the faith of even the most hardcore carbohydrate advocate ?
So while I would applaud the step of the lawyers in US going after the fast food industry giants for their callous disregard of our health, I would prefer if they did their homework and made sure the ladder of their was is leaning against the right wall to begin with. After all, if they really do succeed in bringing these giants to their knees, then what is next ? Going after Mr. Tan the hawker selling yau char kuai in our local pasar because his food is endangering the public ?
Nicknamed the Walrus of Lurve because of his imposing girth, the 165kg White, 58, produced a string of '70s hits including Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe and You're The First, The Last, My Everything.
Wonder if this news has any relations with nick choice of the other walrus. He he. But as far as I know that walrus is not a soul guy. He is more of the dance revelutions fellow ... hehehe
Finally !! There are more players in the isp industry coming out according to this article by one of our local daily. This could only augur well for internet ( or more spesifically broadband ) users as the competition that this industry so sorely needs is finally going to be here and services will definitely improve due to the competition that will be generated due to the extra competition that our current sole ISP will face.
also claims to have solved the prennial "last mile" problem of telekom where you have to be at certain distance from the base station to have b/band coverage. No more grunting and calling up telekom every two days to find out wether your area is currently covered by them .. I am personally keeping my fingers crossed hoping that these two companies' businesses will take off as it will only be good for the consumers !
Finally reading slashdot is good for something more than killing time. I saw this article about a patch for gtk+ that will enable gtk+ apps to have shadows. I saw the screenshots and was like "choool !!". So I went and promptly changed my gtk+ spell to include that patch and sure enough it works as well as the screen shots !! L33t !! Is that power or what ? I can just take a wrench and start tinkering around with my sorcerer and not be afraid to fsck it up .... and I don't even have to rely on some other dude to come up with rpms for it ... Choooollll !!!
P/S - I guess I don't have to provide screenshots suffice to say it works perfectly .. =)
