Obesity facts

About 30 percent of American adults are obese. For a 5-foot-4 woman, for instance, this means she is 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight...The United States spent $75.1 billion last year on medical expenses, such as drugs, doctor visits and hospitalizations, related to obesity, according to a study published this month in the journal Obesity Research...obesity-related health problems accounted for 5.7 percent of the nation's total medical expenses...obesity-related costs were about 10.6 percent, or $21.3 billion, of total expenses for Medicaid, the government's health program for low-income Americans...the costs represented about 6.8 percent, or $17.7 billion, of expenses for Medicare, the government health program for senior citizens and the disabled. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Survival kit for the IKEA-trip

"There is no known treatment for IKEA addiction. The best you can do is learn to survive." The Non-Expert is educating exhausted men whose spouses and girlfriends is dragging them around the local IKEA.

The Non-Expert is presenting an IKEA Walkthrough, seeing the IKEA-experience as a game and getting through the five worlds: the parking lot, the showrooms, the marketplace, the self-serve warehouse and finally the checkout. One wrong turn in the WAREHOUSE could cause you to lose precious hours trying to find your way out. So take items off the shelves as you travel, place them on the floor, and make a map as you go. That way, if you make a wrong turn, you will be able to backtrack.

The Tamagotchi is back

I wonder how old the oldest surviving Tamagotchi became. Is there maybe some still alive outthere? The Tamagotchi-story is continuing - Bandai Tamagotchi or Tamagotchi Plus is released in March this year.

The original Tamagotchi has sold in 40 million small digital pets. The new Tama is older and the new features are that the Tamagotchis can date, marry and have children with the help of an IR-interface. I wonder how they procreate...

Don't trust the cover

Have you expected the #14th song on Lauryn Hills "Miseducation..."-album to be the last? No way - there is another one: a cover of "Can't take my eyes of you".

The The Hidden Song Archive is one of this sites you didn't know you needed. Or you might not be needing it but it's rather fun. They have listed all this hidden tracks that artists is putting on their records as Easter Eggs. Another example: At his album "Anti-Christ Superstar" Marilyn Mansson have 99 songs. Tracks 17-98 is blank but the 99th track is called "Revelation 99" and where Manson is doing strange sounds and in some instances they are in reverse.

Ballot your way

In the ever on-going story Stupid Sites the BESTandWORST.com is a new chapter. It's filled with more or less frantic ballots. The possible answers to vote on is often huge and sometimes rather stupid. One of the most frantic is
Ballot No. 2639 - Should I kill Bush

The human fascination on lists, balloting and speed-answers is always present. And this site is just one of these that is taking our fascination seriously and let the visitors make ballots.

Most wanted g33k

This is the most dangerous man of the world. The world of copyright and musicbiz. It's Justin Frankel, the guy who both invented Winamp and later on he founded Gnutella. And all this surely did evolved the use of p2p. The latter he did in secret when hired by AOL which is put a Robin Hood-feel on the story. Born as a kind of 'white trash', living on the road in a mobile home and from a family stuck in the hippie-era his ways in the programming biz was the punker's.

And once a punk, always a punk and Justin Frankel is having new ideas, and since both the Winamp, and Spinner as well as his self-made Shoutcast is owned by AOL and since this company is slowly dying, Frankel is leaving.

1984 and 1984

Marcos.Kirsch.com is putting the old version of the Apple-ad "1984" adjacent to this year's version, run at Super Bowl. It shows the fact that Apple is the world's most intelligent advertising-buyer.

The glorious history of the Mac

The 20 Macs That Mattered Most, a historical article since the Apple's totally revolution in design and the GUI is truly a story worth telling. And as this flic wasn't enough The Folklore is a huge site with the stories of the glorious past of the company of design, geekish ideas and Jobs.

And at the Super Bowl this year Apple did celebrate their twenty years with putting up their classic TV-ad "1984". But hey... there's not Apple if they didn't use the opportunity to show their constantly on-going development: see for yourself.

Fad or trend: girls kisses girls

The newest trend for teen girls isn't wearing the latest designer jeans or driving a cool car, but declaring themselves to be bisexual. - the trend is called 'Bisexual Chic' or 'Faux Bisexual'.
"Girls go for the whole mystery thing. And guys usually think it's attractive. It's a turn-on. It's more of a teasing thing. At parties, girls randomly kiss, and guys are like, `Oh! That's awesome!'"

At one point this might be a proof that there is a more open mind on the bi- and homosexuality but it also somewhat "it ticks men on" - the sexuality is fixed on the males.

Worst cars of sixty years

"You don't want to talk about the Pinto," said a Ford official. . Forbes is listing the worst cars of all time (well 'all time' is rather limited scope of time when coming to cars).

Interesting is that many of the cars is "Couplandish" - a couple of them is playing important roles in some of his books. The AMC and the Pinto as well as the Honda Hatchback.

Of course the Trabant and the Yugo is on the list too but that was no surprise.

What goes around comes around

In the ever ongoing quest for justice for all there are some that use better ideas than other.

Karma Banque is one, bills itself as a web site for political activists who want to combine the civil disobedience of Gandhi with the financial savvy of George Soros to help change the economic and political landscape of the world.

Dying in the air

"A 19-year-old British woman died Monday on board a Virgin Atlantic flight from Miami to London's Heathrow Airport, the airline said. A day earlier, two passengers on a British Airways flight from Miami to Heathrow"

Some mystery deaths have occurred on London Flights. There are a couple of people who died from viral meningitis at some that have died from still unknown reasons. They haven't been old or with known disabilities.

Viral meningitis isn't deadly for grown people with healthy immunesystems.

Matrix for real

It sounds like the plot of the Cohen Bros: "MATRIX — Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange — is an intranet database regarded as the nation's largest cyber-compilation of personal records. It is touted as an efficient crime-fighting tool that allows agencies to access information with just a nimble fingertip. Searchable databases allow law enforcement agents to probe for people using Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, property records, motor vehicle information and credit history. The information is collected by states and forwarded to a database in Florida, where a private company, Seisint Inc., builds and manages the database. The program essentially cross-references government records from both public and private databases, putting together a dossier on individuals for use by law enforcement."

The people of Utah is, without their own knowledge, participants in an experiment where everything about the inhabitants is put in the rolls of the Big Computer.

TV-ads nails Bush

At Bush in 30 Seconds you can look at the winners of the competition for TV-ads against Bushs presidency. And there is not some amateuristic flics taken with the handheld DV - it's professional and surely edgy as hell.

The judges was a large group of well-known artists, writers and actors with Michael Stipe from R.E.M and Michael Moore as members. And the fact that the organisation behind the competition have bought a lot of spot-time to run the ads.

But a place on the TV-advertisings most expensive but best covered mediahappening Super Bowl they didn't get. CBS told them that they don't run interest-driven ads at the Bowl. As dabitch is writing on ad-rag: "Are anti smoking ads 'issues' by the way? Just wondering. How about anti-terrorism ads? Is that an 'issue advocacy advertising'? Don't litter? Is that 'advocacy advertising'? Whats an issue? Someone help me out here.... ". Read more at the texturl-blog.

Gates made it famous

Houston Chronicle.com is telling the story that the guy who used a couple of minutes to write that code that saved a lot of people from behind mad, killing their computer and catch a heartattack. David Bradley is leaving IBM, Big Blue, after 28 and a half year. At 55 he is retired but will be remembered not only by his code but also his remark at the panel celebrating the twenty year celebration of the PC:

"I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said.
Gates didn't laugh.