Some Knowledge

A nanoscale electrical device that changes resistance with an applied voltage has been fabricated by engineers at HP labs.  Announced in a paper published in the April 30 issue of Nature, the memristor is considered to be the fourth type of basic electronic component.

It is believed that the  memristor will revolutionize computing, as it retains its memory of state even when the supply voltage has been removed from a circuit.  Use of memristors in  memory circuits will allow the circuits to lose power without losing data, as well as save energy consumption.

First theorized by Leon Chua at UC Berkeley 37 years ago, the memristor was fabricated by Stan Williams at HP Labs in Palo Alto, California.  Formed from a 5 nanometer thick strand of semiconducting titanium dioxide sandwiched between two platinum slivers, the memristor changes resistance with the application of a certain voltage for a given amount of time.

The memristor opens the door for the creation of non-volatile memory and computers that do not need to be booted up when they are started.  The memristor only operates because of the unusual properties of matter at the nano scale.  It remains to be seen what new technology will evolve from this discovery, but the possibilities are great.

This blog has gotten quite a few hits in the last week or so.  Most of these come from a single post about a candy company Shockwave game.  I guess there are a lot of people interested in playing games.  I don’t think I want to turn this blog into a game journal.  It might be nice to have a theme, however.

I have gotten a lot of page views from articles on various diets and health fads.  Also, there has been a bit of interest in what I write about blogging and internet business.  Mostly, however, what I see traffic on is articles I write about stuff that’s popular on Google.  I guess if you want people to read your writing, you have to write about something that interests them.

There are many people in the world.  Last time I checked, about a billion of them had access to the net.  A billion people is a big audience.  If I ever get a thousand page views, that would mean one in a million net users have visited my blog.  I guess that’s not so bad.  If I met two hundred or a thousand people in a given day I would be a very busy man.  The fact that even a few people have found this blog is cool.  I also like the fact that a blog is basically free.  You don’t have to buy a copy of a magazine to read the random stuff I write on any given day.

I’ve been getting some good comments to some of the things I post here.  It’s always nice to get feedback on work I’ve done.  Even if it’s only two or three comments a day, it still tells me that I did not just sit here wasting time as I wrote some post.  It might be more interesting if I traveled around the world and wrote articles on different strange places and cultures.  I could always just look stuff up online and write articles about what I find.  Still, it would probably not be as interesting as a first hand account of some tribal dance.

I’ve spent most of my time so far this week looking into various aspects of Internet business.  It would be nice if I could find a good way of getting paid to write online.  All these posts are like practice or storing up energy for some great project that I haven’t yet implemented.  I am concerned about the way the world is going these days.  Prices keep rising and resources keep getting more scarce.  There might be a catastrophy on the horizon if people don’t plan ahead.  It would be nice to be able to do something to help avert hard times.

I have to do some thinking on where I am going to take this blog.  I enjoy writing about many different things.  It’s a challenge to try and stay objective about some of the things I write about.  It’s also a challenge to find subjects to write about.  I see little point in writing much about news stories.  I only know what I read as far as the news goes.  News stories are not even the best things to post on a blog.  Once people lose interest in a story, that’s it, as far as traffic goes.  I have to do some analysis on what draws sustained attention.

So, it’s been a busy week for this little blog.  I really did not expect so much attention from the net in such a short time.  I have a couple other blogs that get minimal traffic.  I think I have one page view on my personal blog this week so far.  My sci-fi blog, well, I don’t even think that has had a single page view, and it’s been up for a couple years now I think.  WordPress seems to be a good platform for getting traffic.

I’ve thought about posting some photos to this blog, but that would mean I would have to go around and take some pictures.  I don’t feel comfortable just ganking a jpg off the net and posting it as if I owned the thing.  I know people do this all the time, but still, it’s probably not defensible if you were making money off other people’s copyrighted photos.  I want to keep all of the content here original and retain rights to anything I post here.  It’s probably futile thinking I can retain rights to what I write, given that this blog has been scraped a number of times, but the scrapers usually leave me a nice comment in the spam filter, so who cares?

I’ve started to look around more at other people’s blogs, and have found a few good ones here and there.  It’s always cool to read something intellectual with a lot of intelligent comments.  There are a lot of smart people in the world.  Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people who act like idiots.  There should be some sort of computer application that helps sort them out.  Still, it’s interesting to see the diverse nature of humanity as expressed in their unbridled blog posts.

So, I’ve had a busy week with Some Knowledge, and spent a lot of time reading random stuff on the web.  Hopefully, more people will notice this site and maybe give me some ideas to write about.  Some day, perhaps in the near future, I will hook up the money making function of this publishing business and become a salesman of random stuff.  Some day, who knows what will happen.

Wulong is one of the Chinese words for oolong tea.  Oolong tea is a partially-oxidized tea that is between green tea and black tea in color and flavor.  Many companies are selling so-called Wu-Long tea as a diet aid and claiming it can help you lose weight.  Reading some of the literature on websites that sell this tea, I can see exactly how this works.  You drink the tea, and eat a sensible diet, and exercise.

Tea contains many different phytochemicals.  Caffeine, theophylline, tannins, theobromine, flavonoids, and many others.  For a short analysis of tea chemistry, try this site.  Some of these chemicals are stimulants, some are anti-oxidants, some have sedative properties, some are smooth muscle relaxants.  When consumed, tea has a combination of stimulant and sedative properties.  It wakes you up and calms you down all at the same time.

There have been some studies done linking consumption of green tea with weight loss.  Since green, oolong, and black tea all come from the same plant, this research could just as well apply to other varieties of tea.  There are other health benefits to drinking tea, such as boosting the immune system, positive effects for diabetes, and possible anti-cancer activity.  Tea has also been shown to boost mental alertness and promote higher levels of activity, as it is a stimulant due to the caffeine it contains.

Now, should you pay extra for special slimming teas?  Some of the Wu-Long tea products sell for ridiculous amounts of money.  I have seen 60 tea bags go for $97 on the Internet.  This is an astronomical price for oolong tea.  I don’t believe there is anything special about a tea just because the label says it will help you lose weight.  The bottom line is that tea is tea, and despite the many varieties, it all comes from the same plant.

If you want to try oolong tea for weight loss, find a Chinese market in your area.  These stores usually sell a great variety of teas, oolong tea being very popular.  Oolong tea is also available at health food stores, but the price will tend to be much higher.  You might also try Whole Foods if you can’t find an asian market in your area.  As a last resort, look for low-cost oolong tea on the Internet.  You will have to pay shipping, but the price will be reasonable.  Two low-cost brands to look for online are Foo-Joy and Sea Dyke oolong tea.  These are also the brands commonly sold at Chinese markets.  A good retail price for oolong tea is $2.99 for 100 tea bags.  You may have to pay as much as $7.99 if you buy these online.

It’s entirely possible that oolong tea may aid you in losing weight.  You will also have to watch your diet and get some exercise.  Do not be mislead by claims for expensive products you see advertised online.  Oolong tea is a common grocery item that can be purchased locally in most areas if you know where to look.  Paying exorbitant prices for some magical tea brand is not necessary.

With the price of oil and gas going up daily, there have to be ways to cut back on use.  This will not only save limited supplies of fuel, but will also cut back on the costs a person faces in paying for this fuel.

Driving is one of the top uses for fuel.  We all need to drive to get around this modern world.  Stores and places of work may be at considerable distance from home.  You might have to travel a long distance to your job or other places.  The biggest thing you can do to save on fuel costs is to drive an efficient vehicle.  This means you might have to sell your Hummer and get a nice fuel-efficient four cylinder engine car.  The lighter the car, the less fuel it takes to accelerate.   When you drive a heavy vehicle like a truck, it takes a lot more energy to get it going and slow it down.  Consider getting a hybrid vehicle, if you have the extra cash.  Hybrid technology makes cars more efficient.

Aside from transportation, heating and cooling are the next biggest consumers of energy.  Heating your home in winter and running air conditioning in summer can add up to big expenses in maintaining a home.  You will want to have efficient, well-sealed windows and doors.  Extra insulation can save on both heating and cooling.  Efficient furnaces and air conditioners can go a long way in saving on heating and cooling costs.  It’s a trade off though.  More efficient appliances cost more initially, but save in the long run on operating costs.

Electricity is another major energy cost.  You can save some energy by turning off lights when they are not needed.  Some appliances like televisions draw energy when they are turned off to supply power to clocks and memories.  It might be cost effective to plug these items into switched plugs and disconnect them when they are not in use.  Of course, this may disrupt the clocks or channel memories, so look into buying the most efficient products and think about energy consumption before you purchase things.

We live on a planet with limited fossil fuel reserves.  With current increases in demand for these fuels, prices are going to go up.  Until alternative energy sources are implemented, like renewable wind and solar technologies, we will be forced to conserve energy or spend more purchasing it.  People need to think ahead and decide what is important.  In the long run, the food supplies will be affected, and our ability to afford heat, light, and transportation may also not be met by current supplies of energy.  If we think ahead and start conserving now, and provide for continuous energy supply from the sun, we will avoid a possible worldwide crisis.

There is a hormone found in the urine of pregnant women. This hormone is called hCG or human choriogonadotropin. 

In 1954 a British doctor, A.T.W. Simeons, published a report on the use of this hormone in weight loss. The diet did not catch on very quickly. Over the years interest in this hormone-augmented weight loss method has peaked and ebbed. Recently, there has been renewed interest in this diet.

In the modern version of the hCG diet, a person is given injections of this hormone and is put on a diet restricted to 500 calories a day. It is thought that a person can lose 1 to 2 pounds a day on this regime. If you were to skip the injections and just limit yourself to the 500 calorie diet you would undoubtedly lose weight.

The hCG diet is just an old fad diet where they try to sell you an expensive and possibly dangerous hormone treatment. hCG is not approved by the FDA for use in weight loss. You will need to get a doctor’s prescription to purchase this drug. The hCG supposedly resets the hypothalamus to allow the body to lose weight.

There is much interest in this diet recently because of Kevin Trudeau’s book “Weight Loss Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About.” This is an old diet that has not been proven to work scientifically. That is why it is not approved by the FDA. If you are looking for a diet, find something that is safe and effective.

To lose weight you will have to limit your intake of calories. This means all calories, even those from soda and other drinks. For best results with any diet you will also need to increase your activity. This means exercise. You should be sure to get adequate protein, so your body does not consume muscles for protein when you lose weight. You do not need injections of pregnant woman urine extract to lose weight. Anyone who tells you that you need some magic formula to lose weight is after your money.

President Bush suggested drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve at his Tuesday morning news conference.  It is believed that a peak production of a million barrels a day might be available from this north Alaskan coastal region, after development peaks in about 2025.  Predicted effects of the tapping of this reserve are a decrease in the price of oil by 30 to 50 cents a barrel.  It is predicted that the use of this resource will reduce American dependence on foreign oil from 70% to 66%.

The idea of drilling for oil and gas in this region has been around for a long time.  It has been known that this area has oil reserves since oil seeps and sands were found there by the first explorers in the region.  While any increase in domestic production of oil will help reduce our reliance on foreign sources, it is debatable if opening this region to exploration will do much to reduce the price of petroleum.

The supply of oil in the earth’s depths is limited.  People have been using petroleum at an increasing rate.  More and more regions of the world are becoming developed, with automobiles and high energy consumption rates.  It is certain that the price of oil will increase in the future as supplies run out.  We need to come up with alternatives to petroleum and start to conserve the amount of energy we use.  This will take a lot of planning and research.  We will need to invest in alternative sources of energy.  The resources of the earth are finite.  We should preserve what we have and not squander resources on ridiculous lifestyles.

Alright, this is a late breaking news story.  Apparently, for the last month, Britney has been working out every day at Bally’s.  It seems there may be some deal where Bally’s hires her to promote the gym.  I guess from what I read her manager is friends with one of the high officials at Bally’s.  Maybe they will hire her to promote the gym on TV commercials.

After going bankrupt last August, I’m surprised Bally’s has the kind of money they would need to hire a high-priced celebrity to advertise for them.   Still, they got a lot of free publicity just by letting Britney work out for free.  Maybe that’s their plan.  Geurilla publicity.   Still, I have yet to see much of this in the press or on TV.  News of this supposed deal has been floating around the net since early April.

From what I read in the online Daily Mail from the UK today, it seems a month of exercise is paying off for Britney.  They report she has lost 20 pounds and is now exercising up to six hours a day.  This has got to be better for her than drinking every night at the clubs.  From what I hear, she still smokes.  Maybe she could use some help quitting that unhealthy habit.

I have not been able to find out if any deal between Britney and Bally’s has been struck.  I don’t know how well off Bally’s is to be hiring expensive spokespersons.  It was just interesting to read about someone trying to get their life together.  Who knows, maybe next time I go to the gym they will be playing Britney Spears on the PA system.

I read some interesting websites and blogs this morning about how social networks are supposed to replace Google and other search engines.  I thought about this for a second.  I mean, I’ve had a Myspace profile for over two years now and still don’t use it for a lot besides keeping a personal blog.  I occasionally look up bands or entertainers and see what they are doing.  I suppose I could use Myspace to get to know random people.  That seems to be what it was designed for.

Mostly what I use the net for is to look up information on some subject.  Yesterday I read a bit about black holes and used some of this information to write a blog post.  If I want to find out where to buy something, or what’s new, or where some place is located, the search engines are perfect.  I’m not going to wait around for a friend to come online to ask them where I can get shoelaces.  The very concept of that is ridiculous.

Saying that social networks will replace search engines is like saying the movies will replace libraries.  Yes, you can use both places for entertainment, but seriously, you are going to wait an eternity for a movie to explain quantum physics to you.  Libraries and movies serve different purposes.  Social networks are for socializing with people.  Search engines are for finding out about stuff.

With sites like Facebook and Orkut and Linkedin and hundreds of others all over the web, there is definitely some growth in social media.  A lot of people are finding out how easy it is to use the net to communicate with people all over the world.  If you want to meet people you do not have to pay a friend finder.com site to post your personal advertisement.  All you need is a free account with a social network and a bit of time and a photo.

Social networks appear to have grown out of the old personal home pages that people post on AOL and other ISP websites.  Instead of being a disconnected site, you now have messaging and other interaction capabilities like adding friends and broadcasting announcements to all your friends.  It is easy to leave comments and other messages on a friend’s page and you do not have to rely on only using email to get feedback on your profile.  There is also a blog function that can be used to write down your thoughts.  Social networks are a bit more functional than a network of independent personal home pages.  Their general purpose is the same though, to meet and stay in contact with people.

With the size of the Internet and the billions of pages that are on servers all over the world, I don’t think there is any danger of social networks completely taking over the Internet.  It’s just another feature of the online world.  People are already trying to figure out how to make money off the various social media, and social media marketing is a popular feature of many new marketing approaches.  Myspace and Facebook are never going to replace Google and Yahoo.  I think it is more likely that the search engines will take over the social networks, once the spiders start crawling the networks more effectively.

I’ve spent the entire day it seems just web surfing again.  I looked into article marketing some more.  I found a lot of sites that claim to know what they are talking about, but for the most part they want to sell you an ebook.  I got a free ebook on how to make money on the net.  Basically, you set up and promote a website with a product, a blog, and video advertising.  This reminded me of a news report I saw on CNN this morning about random people making viral videos on Youtube.  There must have been a shortage of news this morning.

I looked into the Amazon.com affiliate program for about an hour or two this evening.  I read all about how to set up links to various products and what I would have to do to apply for this program.  I even read the affiliate terms of service.  That was a bit of legalese to wade through.  I would have to think about setting up an affiliate site for a while.  I don’t enter into agreements that I don’t entirely understand.  Still, it might be a way to generate money.

Every once in a while I check the rankings of this site.  It has been steadily moving up the list as I write more posts.  Still, there is a long hard way to go to get near the top.  I’ve had a surge of traffic recently, mostly due to one post about a racing game.  It’s strange that one single post can get so much traffic.  I guess it was a popular search term and my blog got listed on Google Trends for a while in relation to that search.

I’ve found some small amount of interesting information on setting up an Internet business today.  I saw on one site that credit card companies pay out some of the highest commissions on affiliate sales of card registrations.  Other financial companies and travel companies also are supposed to pay well.  My blog is not so much about finance though.  It’s pretty much about whatever random stuff is going through my head on any given day.  If I were to focus on something though, maybe I could generate some more interest.

I think I am going to spend some time looking around WordPress for something interesting to read.  I haven’t left a lot of comments recently.  I guess it’s always a good idea to leave comments where people might follow the backlink.  It’s almost like trying to trap an animal though.  Set a snare in its path and hope it walks into the tripwire.  Then again, I shouldn’t compare random web surfers with animals.  People have their own reasons for clicking on links.

I didn’t really see anything interesting on Google Trends today.  In fact, I haven’t gotten a topic from that site in almost a week now.  That list has been flooded with nonsense and NFL draft picks for the last week.  I’m going to have to find an alternate source for popular material if this keeps up.  Yahoo has a list of popular searches.  I should set aside some time to find a good popular search page or three.

This will probably be the last post today.  So far, I might have gotten three hits on what I wrote today.  I need to find a topic for tomorrow that will be a good subject for a few short articles.  The short posts seem to get the most attention.  Hopefully there will be some more interesting subjects come along.  I haven’t even gotten any comments today.  I should just use my imagination and get creative.  I almost wrote up a nice post on the beer diet this afternoon, but thought better.

eBiz-U is a company that offers Amazon.com affiliate marketing websites.  They give you a selection of online stores and host the websites.  Right now they are having a Spring special, with the usual $75 setup fee being reduced to $40.  Hosting for your site runs $19.95 a month.  You can have your own domain name or use one from the eBiz-U site.

I read over the FAQ and some of the other info and looked into what kind of store this place sets up for their customers.  It seems they set up a site that sells just about anything offered by Amazon.com.  Amazon also handles the credit card payments so you will not need a merchant account.  The site includes Google Adsense ads, and you get revenue from clickthroughs on advertising as well as commission on affiliate sales.

If you are looking for a simple way to set up an online business, this seems to be a pretty good opportunity.  You will have to handle promotion of your site and the day to day running of finances, but pretty much everything else is included with this service.  Amazon handles all shipping and returns, and unless you sell your own products, which is also possible, you will not have to handle customer service.  You will of course have to take care of taxes and the subscription costs for this service, but aside from that this seems like a simple solution to going into business on the Internet.