In Austria, 'Krampus night' is December 5, or St. Nicholas eve.
One of the ways to witness the spectacle is to attend a
Krampuslauf or 'Krampus run'. You remember Krampus, according to
folklore he is the devilish sidekick of St. Nicholas, and his
duties include throwing naughty children into a sack or basket,
beating them with a whip, and carrying them off into the night.
One of the largest
events on Krampus night is held in Klagenfurt am Worthersee,
near the Austrian-Slovenian border and takes place along almost
a mile through the city center. It begins with a troupe of young
men who strap 45-pound bells around their waists. They are
called called Krampusglocken or Balkenglocke, the instruments
make a thunderous boom as the men march together, smacking the
bells with their thighs. Most of the hundreds of performers wear
elaborate wooden masks and fur costumes, some use painted masks
with LED lights and other modern accessories.
A great way to have a
fun parade and usher in the holiday season.
Incidentally,
the day after is St. Nicholas day, when he
comes to leave coins or candies in good children's
shoes. Growing up, someone would toss little
bags of candy on our porch. The American Santa Claus,
as well as the British Father Christmas, derive in part from
Saint Nicholas and in part from the Dutch Sinterklaas, the
saint's name in that language.
There is happiness all
around us.
Increase your share by celebrating a Happy Friday!
For many the day after a holiday brings
guilt from holiday feasting, but do not fall into this myth
trap. Myth: There is such a thing as "calorie-burning" foods.
If you have spent any
amount of time researching diets on the web, you probably read
articles about 'miracle foods' that are filled with negative
calories and foods that have such a low caloric count that the
stomach expends more calories digesting them than they contain.
In addition to these negative-calorie foods, you can also find
lists of other healthy foods that burn fat and some that
magically target belly fat. Lately there are various diets which
insist spicy foods will burn fat by magically heating up your
metabolism. If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is.
There is no such thing
as a diet that burns more calories than it provides. There are
only diets that specifically cause you to lose weight through
reduction in caloric intake. Food
cannot reduce fat on its own.
Foods that are called
negative calorie lean toward fruits or vegetables. Much of the
weight loss you experience eating these foods is water weight,
which returns when you start eating normally again.
The only reason you
lose weight by eating these foods is that the diet plan they
come with requires you to consume less calories. Those
fat-burning supplements work on the same principle. You lose
weight because you are starving yourself.
Bottom line, the
only miracle performed by so-called 'miracle foods' is that
they allow you to trick yourself into believing it is
the food, not the reduction in calories.
Misleading by "telling the truth" is so pervasive in daily
life that a new term has recently been coined to describe it:
paltering.
It is so widespread
that some are trying to determine insight into the grey area
between truth and lies. We lie all the time, despite the fact
that it costs us considerably more mental effort to lie than to
tell the truth.
Researchers were
looking at how often politicians dodge questions during debates
and soon realized something else was going on. By stating
another truthful fact, they could get out of answering a
question. They could even imply something was truthful when it
was not.
Individuals who had been deceived do not distinguish between
lying and paltering. Although communicators think that when
disclosed, it will be ethical, but listeners still see it as a
lie.
Beware if someone
does not answer a question directly. Be doubly aware if they
state any fact (related or not) rather than answer a
question. A preponderance of politicians palter!
Caput, is a Latin word meaning literally 'head' or 'top'. It
has been borrowed in a variety of English words, including
capital, captain, and decapitate. The Italian surname Caputo
comes from the appellation used by some Roman military generals.
A variant form has surfaced more recently in the title Capo, as
in head of La Cosa Nostra. The French language converted 'caput'
into chief, chef, and chapitre, later borrowed in English as
chapter.
Caput was also the name of the council or ruling body of the
University of Cambridge prior to the constitution of 1856 and
remains the presiding body of the Senate of the University of
Dublin. Caput is also used in medicine to describe any head like
protuberance on an organ or structure, such as the caput humeri.
The German word kaputt means destroyed, broken, ruined, or
dysfunctional. From German kaputt "destroyed, ruined, lost"
(1640s). Maybe is a misunderstanding of an expression from
card-playing, capot machen, a partial translation into German of
French faire capot, a phrase which meant "to win all the tricks
(from the other player) in piquet," an obsolete card game.
The words may be
similar, but are not related.
An avocado
never ripens on the tree, so farmers can use trees as storage
and keep avocados fresh for up to seven months.
Elvis Presley's manager sold "I Hate Elvis" badges as a way to
make money from people who were not buying his merchandise.
Tsundoku is the act of acquiring books and not reading them.
New York's Central Park lampposts contain a set of four numbers
that can help you navigate. The first two tell you the nearest
street, and the next two tell you whether you are closer to the
east or west side of the park (even numbers signal east, odd
signal west).
In Great Britain and Japan, black cats are perceived as
auspicious. In the English Midlands, new brides are given black
cats to bless their marriage, and the Japanese believe that
black cats are good luck—particularly for single women.
Some languages refer to colors differently. For instance,
Russian and Japanese, have different words for light blue and
dark blue, treating them as two distinct colors. Some languages
lump colors English speakers see as distinct, together, using
the same word for green and blue. Japanese is one of those
languages. While there are now separate terms for blue and
green, in Old Japanese, the word ao was used for both colors.
In modern Japanese, ao
refers to blue, while the word midori means green. Officially,
the “go” color in traffic lights is called ao, even though
traffic lights used to be green. This posed a linguistic, the
lights are ao in official literature, but they are really
midori.
Since 1973, the
Japanese government, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom has
decreed that traffic lights should be green, but that they be
the bluest shade of green. They can still qualify as ao, but
they are also green enough to mean go to foreigners.
The US Federal Communications Commission has approved a new
standard for OTA (over-the-air) antenna TV broadcasts. ATSC 3.0,
or Next-Gen TV is supposed to prompt big improvements for
antenna users, including 4K HDR video, better surround sound,
interactive features, and easier access for mobile devices.
In addition, the DRM (digital rights management) portion of ATSC
3.0 is designed to allow broadcasters to provide value-added
services like On-Demand and Pay-Per-View content on a
subscription basis to complement Over-the-Air TV, which will
remain free.
It is in testing now and Phoenix is serving as a model market
for ATSC 3.0. Phoenix currently has more than 20 percent of its
1.8 million TV viewers receiving OTA (antenna) television. Ten
stations in that market will deploy the next-generation TV
standard before April 2018 to demonstrate the viability of the
next-gen system while at the same time continuing to serve
over-the-air viewers with current ATSC 1.0 digital television. Testing
organizations have been testing the standard for a while and
more are expected.
Next-Gen TV also has a bad downside: For the first time, it
allows local broadcasters to lock down content with digital
rights management (DRM), potentially preventing people from
recording free, over-the-air channels. Some stations in South
Korea, for instance, are already using ATSC 3.0 to broadcast 4K
video, and those feeds are encrypted to prevent unauthorized
copying.
All this will require
new hardware to view ATSC 3.0, because the standard is not
backward compatible with current tuners. That could mean another
round of converter boxes or dongles, only without the government
subsidies that helped push the analog-to-digital transition a
few years ago.
Bottom line, all of
this means interactive 4K TV over the air, no internet provider
required. Obviously content will be restricted by the big guys,
but cord cutters will finally be able to go back to the old days
of free, but limited TV, with a few extra goodies and excellent
sound and picture quality thrown in. Stay tuned, it will be a
few years before we experience it in our living rooms
Myth: Different types of alcohol make for different
types of drunk. Can you imagine a person drunk on tequila and
another person who is drunk on fancy red wine. Do you imagine
them acting the same? They conjure up an image of the tequila
person running naked
from the cops in Tijuana, while the second is getting sleepy and
dialing his ex.
For a fun
sports-related buzz, grab a beer. For telling sad stories or
intellectual debates, go for gin. If you are feeling loose, but
fancy and it is your one night off from the kids, order some red
wine. If you want to burn your whole life to the ground, order a
bunch of whiskey or tequila. You will be trying to fight a
stranger in no time.
Researchers have not
found any meaningful difference between types of liquors, in
terms of affecting mood. If we do behave differently when we
drink a certain type of booze, it is most likely all in our
head. There is a psychosocial effect of drinking - we behave
how we think we behave when consuming that type of alcohol. "I
think tequila makes me awesome, therefore I am awesome when I
drink tequila."
Many experiments have
been conducted. In one experiment, patients were given either
bourbon or vodka while living at an inpatient lab for nine days.
Researchers noted an increase in hostility, anxiety, and
depression across the board. Yet there was no discernible
difference between the bourbon and vodka drinker moods.
Different alcohols have
different ethanol and congener contents. Different alcohols have
different alcohol content. Also, different alcohols are usually
paired with different mixers. None of these factors explain or
make for different types of drunkenness.
A 2010 analysis of more
than 40 studies, differences often appear to be due to the
individual attempting to compensate for the expected effects of
the alcohol.
Bottom line, if you
think to be true, your mind will help you make it be
true.qw
Life advice is like
airplane advice, "Make sure you have your own taken care of
before helping others with theirs."
I am always ready
to help others celebrate a Happy Friday!
Next Thursday November 23, many in the US celebrate
Thanksgiving. (Canadians already had their celebration on Monday
October 9.) Have fun, enjoy family and friends, and get to bed
early so you are ready for the Black Friday buying spree ahead
of Christmas.
Myth: Eating turkey makes you sleepy.
Thanksgiving is the official holiday you load yourself up with a
competitive eater's portion of hot, steamy bird meat and a
myriad of other treats. Many believe your fragile body is no
match for the turkey's almighty tryptophan, a sedative so
powerful that you wind up falling asleep before halftime of the
football game.
According to nutritionists, food science researchers, and people
who are not your grandparents, turkey is not a sedative. It is
true that turkey has tryptophan (an amino acid that eventually
becomes serotonin and melatonin; neurochemicals which play a
role in getting your brain to fall asleep).
However, turkey does
not contain enough tryptophan to have any noticeable effect on
your state of consciousness. In fact, it has exactly as much
tryptophan as other dairy, nut, and meat products do. In fact,
cheddar cheese contains more tryptophan than turkey.
The main reason you
pass out on the couch after the great meal and conversation is
the fact that you ate, on average 4,500 calories or more. You
pass out because your body is working overtime, struggling to
digest all the meat, dressing, bread, desert, and other goodies
you just consumed. A few pre and post meal alcoholic beverages
also add to the mix, increasing the desire to share a
comfortable nap with family.
Incidentally, when it comes to drinking that warm glass of
milk, there are no natural sedatives at play either. It is
simply very soothing to slowly drink a warm liquid causing a
completely calming reaction.
While we are discussing cooking, many use
aluminum foil to cover their holiday bird to prevent burning.
Myth: aluminum foil and cookware is linked to Alzheimer's
Disease.
This myth was repeated
often in the late 80s and through the 90s, and even though it
has lately not mentioned as often, mainly because it is not
true. There are still many people who believe it.
This myth has its roots
in research from the 1960s and 1970s that showed elevated levels
of aluminum in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The alarm was
sounded, and for years people were warned off of aluminum pots
and pans, and aluminum foil to store food.
Since those studies, a
great deal of research has been done into what possible
connections aluminum may have with Alzheimer's Disease. The
results failed to show any substantive link or connection
between aluminum and risk for Alzheimer's Disease. Most experts
believe any aluminum absorbed by the body is processed by the
kidneys and urinated out, and it does not pose a threat for
Alzheimer's Disease.
An ECG is an acronym for echocardiogram,
EKG is acronym for electrocardiogram, and EEG is an acronym for electroencephalogram.
An ECG is a
more advanced testing procedure in comparison to the EKG. The
echocardiogram uses ultrasound, or echoing high-frequency sound
waves, to create a visual image of your heart. This helps
doctors view the internal structure of your heart and how well
blood is able to flow through it. Doctors can also get an
accurate read on the size and shape of your heart, as well as
the level of heart valve function. Echocardiograms are typically
used to diagnosis blood clots, infections, and can be used to
detect previous heart attacks. By indicating the velocity of
blood flow as it leaves the heart, an echocardiogram can
indicate whether the heart is pumping efficiently. An ECG can be
performed with an external tranducer moved over the heart area
or a transesophageal ECG where a thin, flexible tube is inserted
into your mouth and down your esophagus.
An EKG can be
an effective diagnostic tool for measuring the electrical
efficiency of your heart. A healthy heart beats at a certain
rhythm. An EKG displays the patterns of your heart as it beats,
to determine abnormalities in heart rhythm. It can detect
changes in the thickness of the heart walls, or potential damage
to the heart muscle and tissue. It is performed by attaching
various leads to your chest area.
An EEG is a
test that also measures electrical activity, but in the brain
and nerves. The electrical signals in your brain, or brain
waves, are recorded in peaks and valleys on a graph. It can help
determine a seizure, epilepsy, a tumor, or a stroke. EEG is also
used to detect head injuries, sleep disorders, dementia, or
Alzheimer’s Disease, and more. It is performed using metal discs
called electrodes stuck to your scalp.
