Food Inc. Everyone should see this!

Food Inc. is one of those documentaries that can change the world. It asks the questions, you’re too afraid to ask, when it comes to food and while we can’t watch it on PBS here in Australia it is available on youtube and I’ve put the 9 parts that make up the movie below.
Food Inc. Shows us why it is cheaper to by a fully cooked hamburger than a head of broccoli. – in other words, ‘Why is junk food cheaper than healthy food?’. Everyone is focussed on the HOW when it comes to mass producing our food but no-one is asking WHY? And you’re going to see that ‘because it’s cheaper’ is not a great answer.

Your going to see how your food is controlled by a tiny handful of companies that have taken the farming out of farm and the implications from this are pretty serious.

In short, grab a coffee – the full show is below although split into parts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4: – told you it was rivetting stuff didn’t I?

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8: I can’t embed part 8 so you have to watch it at youtube – I’ll pop it up in a new window for you.

Part 9:

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and I also hope the links still work and PBS haven’t taken them down.

How an engineer loses weight

We’re constantly bombarded with ads offering the latest scientific way to lose weight – usually when you add the word ’science’ in your claim then you know there’s going to be money involved. Wired.com has a fantastic article on how to lose weight mathematically . . .

Want to drop 10 pounds in two months? All you have to do is the math, says Autodesk founder and Hacker’s Diet author John Walker. Here’s the skinny:

1. Multiply the pounds you want to lose by the number of calories in a pound of fat: 10 x 3,500 = 35,000.
2. Divide the total by the days you’ll diet: 35,000 ÷ 60 = 583.
3. Calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate 100 calories per ten pounds of body weight
4. Calculate your calories expenditure from exercize
5. Then use the formula (BMR+Exercise)-diet=total allowed calories

Or stated more simply: if you can eliminate 100 calories per day, that can add up to about 11 pounds a year, says Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating. 100 calories – that’s less than the calories in a can of Coke! Substitute one glass of water for one can of soda a day, and you’re well on your way to permanent weight loss.

Obviously exercise can help but eating less also makes sense. And how do you know if you’re over-eating?

One night, eat only half the amount of food on your plate. Wait 30 minutes, assess your feelings of satiation, and then wait 90. If you’re still not hungry, you’ve probably been overeating. Most people grossly overestimate the amount of food they need to feel full, says Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating

You can read more of this article at wired.com

The world is amazing

I don’t know why, I just love this video – makes you realise the world is amazing:

A whole new way of seeing the world

Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling’s hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.

Rosling developed breakthrough software which animates trends in incredible ways showing you that most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did. This has UNBELIEVABLE impacts on the world as you and I might know it.

Bring a tear to your eye

Cleaning up the bookmarks in my web browser I found this gem. At the time of this clip, Paul Potts used to be a salesman at ‘carphone warehouse’ … just shows you never to judge anyone by their job. Turn your speakers up, and try not to cry.

The story of a sign

Cool short film that won the NFB online competition at Cannes 2008. With a change of words, a stranger transforms the afternoon for a blind man:

5 dangerous things you should let your kids do (

An inspiring talk from Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talking about how kids are overprotected and the 5 dangerous things you should let them do and why:

Kids not doing well at school

A teacher attaches McDonald’s application forms to kids’ failed test results… nice way to motivate them to do better next time.

via Neatorama

Curing lane-merge traffic jams

It amazes me what a waste the channel 10 traffic helicopter is. It gives detailed traffic reports to people who are in front of a TV… which doesn’t help any of the cars actually stuck in traffic. This isn’t news at all… what they should do is show us how to speed things up and luckily we have a computer modelled solution for you:

A computer geek works out a great way to solve those stopped or slow lanes in rush hour traffic. He stumbled upon this by accident when he was driving into a city in rush hour and found that leaving a large gap in front of himself actually helped traffic speed up behind him and clear the congestion in front. Read more on this fascinating subject that affects us all at amasci.com but below is a neat animation and some great tips:

MERGING-LANE TRAFFIC JAMS…

A SIMPLE CURE

ON THE LEFT: normal drivers who close up the gaps whenever the traffic slows down or comes to a stop. Nobody can merge except at the end of the jam… traffic travels very slowly

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ON THE RIGHT:Drivers behaving unusually… they encourage others to merge ahead of them and they leave large spaces ahead of themselves EVEN if traffis slows to a crawl. merging is easier and they travel much faster.

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Traffic jams on highways are often triggered where two lanes must merge into one. Lanes of cars cannot merge if there are no large gaps between cars. Therefore, drivers who create large gaps between cars will ease this type
of traffic jam.

To CURE this type of jam:

• Maintain a large space ahead of your car.
• Encourage one, two even three cars to merge ahead of you.
• If traffic slows to a complete stop, KEEP TWO CAR-LENGTHS OF SPACE OPEN AHEAD OF YOU.
• Never “punish” merging drivers by closing your gap.
• Other suggestions

Amazingly enough, it is not necessary that EVERYONE do this. If only a
few drivers will maintain large gaps during heavy traffic, then merging
traffic is not forbidden, and the situation in the left-hand diagram can
be prevented.

the bear who loved vodka

One of the cutest cartoons I’ve seen in a while. Based on a true story about a bear that was abandoned by his rich owner when he went to jail and was raised to be an alcoholic by a drunken servant.

for the small video which loads pretty quick go to potapych – the bear who loved vodka