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So why keep smoking, if it’s so bad?

One reason people keep smoking is because tobacco contains nicotine which is addictive.  There’s support for the idea that smokers that are motivated to quit smoking for health reasons will have a slightly better chance of succeeding if they use a nicotine replacement such as nicotine gum or a nicotine patch. [Real-World Nicotine Gum and Patch Quitting Rates].  If you’re a smoker trying to quit you might be alarmed to find out how many smokers relapsed within six months.  However, I know first hand of several successful ex-smokers (it is possible to quit smoking for good).

Electric Cigarettes – safe alternative or gateway to addiction hell?

It’s possible that using electronic cigarettes could prolong a smoker’s addiction to real cigarettes. There’s also a good chance that e-cig users could remain addicted to electronic cigarettes.

Nicotine is poisonous and can kill an adult if too much is consumed at once.  This nicotine delivery method is a relatively new technology; e-cigs appear to have been invented in Hong Kong about five years ago.  They consist of a battery, a vaporizer and a cartridge filled with ‘e-juice’ (propylene glycol, nicotine, and artificial flavouring).  Sucking on one will open a valve that triggers the battery to vaporize the liquid which produces what looks and feels like smoking real cigarettes.  Pictured here is a USB e-cigarette with no battery, it can be plugged into a computer USB or into an electrical outlet and puff away.

Almost the same as smoking, but not quite..

A smoker will notice right away that electronic cigarettes are not on fire and don’t actually burn anything and so there’s no need for a lighter or matches.  The burning part adds quite a bit to the overall smoking experience (both good and bad).  Once lit, a cigarette races towards its end.  There’s only so much time to consume a cigarette before it is gone.  This isn’t the case for e-cigs, they’re always on and ready to use; unless the battery needs re-charging.

The vaporized propylene glycol ‘fake smoke’ has about the same density and mimics the sensation of inhaling real tobacco smoke.  Blowing it out, the vapor will dissipate more quickly than real smoke but it looks quite convincing.  The taste is similar to tobacco but is slightly sweet.  The available flavours include artificial tobacco, menthol, strawberry, chocolate, rum, cola, clove, coffee, watermelon, and so on.

The amount of nicotine in each ‘puff’ varies depending on the e-cig brand.  This is by far the most confusing aspect of electronic cigarettes.  The high nicotine levels that I have tested are indeed much stronger than smoking a strong cigarette.  A few puffs in a row will go straight to your head, and can make you feel sick in the pit of your stomach even if you’re used to smoking.

Also available are e-cigs without any nicotine just propylene glycol.  They taste and feel the same but there’s no nicotine buzz, (except for what you imagine).  From the smokers I’ve talked to about vaping, some are anxious to give it a try, while others are not interested at all and don’t plan on quitting.

Health Canada advises not to use electronic cigarettes.

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An active edge user interface includes dynamically configurable flexible touch areas positioned near the perimeter of a display to support interactive communication between a user and a user environment for flexible active touch areas surrounding a display. The interface allows for multiple levels of sensitivity, texture, key travel, and varying widths of active touch areas based on the user environment.

As a bonus, the Active Edge UI contained piezo-electric plates to simulate effects such as physical bumps or accelerating scrolling. Alas, Nortel decided not to build this.

Today, Apple is granted a patent on essentially the same invention – 12 years after our original filing! Their ‘touch sensitive bezel’ is described as

An electronic device has a display and has a touch sensitive bezel surrounding the display. Areas on the bezel are designated for controls used to operate the electronic device. Visual guides corresponding to the controls are displayed on the display adjacent the areas of the bezel designated for the controls. Touch data is generated by the bezel when a user touches an area of the bezel.

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Most of us are used to the rather lack-luster experience of drying our hands with one of those old school hot air hand dryers you find in public washrooms.  You stand there rubbing your hands around and eventually they become slightly less wet than they were when you started.  However, as I understand, drying your hands with an electric hand dryer costs up to 90% less than using paper towels. The only problem is that most of us would prefer towels over waiting for a slow hand dryer to do the trick.  I often choose to wipe my hands on my pants or shirt instead, although I would agree that this is not ideal.

Well, that is where Dyson’s new hand dryer comes in to speed up the process (only 12 seconds to get your hands dry) and save even more money with 80% less energy costs than a traditional warm air hand dryer.  This unit will wipe the water off your hands like a windshield wiper using purified air traveling at a whopping 640km/h.  Now that’s fast and efficient.  I want one in my house!

Well, I’d better try one out first, so I’m looking for the whereabouts of the first airblade hand dryer installed in the Ottawa / Gatineau area.  If any of you spot one of these at your local toilet please let me know where it is and what you think.  Um, this YouTube demo, pretty much gives you the idea of what to expect.

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The downside is that it’s still a bulky, heavy, full featured laptop. Pretty cool for a mod though. You would think that Apple would wage war over this – but quite the contrary. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Apple registered “TabletMac” in 2005. It was granted in 2008, but Apple transfered ownership of the brand to Axiotron.

We can safely say that ‘TabletMac’ will not be unveiled next week! Some have suggested the iPad (due to a trademark battle) or the iSlate… Personally, I hope that Apple drops the silly ‘i’ thing.

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1. POWER MANAGEMENT CIRCUITRY AND SOLAR CELLS – Are shiny solar cells going to be the ‘new aluminum’? This invention describes a clever mechanism of virtually re-ordering cells to produce constant voltage in the case that certain cells may be obscured by usage of the device. Production of this technology would certainly enhance Apple’s ‘green cred’, as well as being a great convenience for users.

2. PARKING & LOCATION MANAGEMENT PROCESSES & ALERTS – your iPhone becomes your parking valet. Seems a bit silly. Shouldn’t this just be a dollar app? The patent also alludes that it can tap into public transportation data to facilitate commuting.

3. LIGHT SENSITIVE DISPLAY WITH PRESSURE SENSOR (+2 other variants) – further proof that Apple will introduce dual touch screen with capacitive and resistive capabilities. This means a finger or a stylus for your new iSlate!

4. SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MONITORING DATA AND BANDWIDTH USAGE – an indication that Apple wants to own web content delivery. This content will be served up from the company’s watermelon patch: the new immense data center being built in North Carolina.

Custom Macbook image via Jorymon

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In this tech world of abbreviated texting it’s no wonder some want to cash in. Here is the ‘Sarc Mark’ – a special symbol meant to denote sarcasm. Download it for 2 bucks. But it’s quite uninspiring, and I doubt anyone would catch its meaning.

So what’s sarcasm? According to Webster: “a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain” That’ll be 2 bucks, buddy!

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The first improvement – the controls are contained in one pane – no floating tools! Image import is flawless – enlarge, move, spin… The drag and drop effects have built in tools for scaling angling, etc. Each effect is created as a layer. LAYERS – the most loved and infuriating feature of Photoshop. Each effect (layer) has a transparency slide bar and a delete control!

The original image can also be easily adjusted for contrast, color, contrast, and saturation. I’m expecting that ’saturation’ for most users of this site will be an exploration of what saturation means!

Incredible design taming some incredible complexity. Have you zombified yourself? Send us the picture!

BTW – yes, that’s me on a bad day. On top is my son’s frog ‘Frogger’ on an especially bad day!

Zombify yourself here!

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The Sociology Lab at the prestigious Toys-R-Us Institute recently published some definitive research on gender differences. The study concluded that females were perfectly satisfied with magnification power of 90x in telescopes and 600x in microscopes. Males on the other hand suffered severe magnification envy, requiring at least 250x in telescopes and 1200x in microscopes.

This proves an old adage. I just can’t recall which one.

via Sociological Images

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via Shoebox

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Someone right now is probably putting the finishing touches on the Android app ‘Google Air’.  Just point your camera phone out the airplane’s window to identify the streets below.  An overlay of street names will be pulled up and displayed, including bus stops marked with click-able icons.  Why would you want to know street names as you’re flying over them at five thousand feet?  Well, I’m not sure, but cool that’s for sure. Watch how 2D reality can be converted into 3D virtual reality:

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No, no, folks, Parliament was prorogued so that the proper amount of time can be taken to consult with Canadians!  Yes, that’s right, prorogued Parliament means listen to the people.  The Conservatives want to know what you think the Government should be doing in the next phase of the economic recovery.   My vote is that we make more ‘Action Plan’ signs to help out the economy (sorry, it turns out the signs are made in the United States)

Well, the debate is on and if you’re like most of us Canadians, you probably have something to say about this prorogued business.  Since the Conservatives are taking some time off to listen to your opinions, here’s your opportunity to share your thoughts in the comments below!  If you wish you can also send Mr. Harper a tweet directly.  Tell us about it, and we’ll re-tweet your tweets!

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The hands down winner as you’ll see from the video is Smarty Kat organic catnip.  The other brand smells like mint.  Maybe it was just a bad bag, but it didn’t fool the cats.   Organic catnip, means no pesticides and no chemicals are used which makes it that much better.  Catnip is easy to grow, so long as your cats don’t know where it is in your garden.

There’s a plant named cat mint which cats also like.  Not all cats like catnip, some cats will just walk away.  The active ingredient in catnip is Nepetalactone which probably mimics cat pheromone.  Everything you need to know about catnip.

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Who knows, maybe there’s some pattern to the trends that will enable you to predict future trends.  (wasn’t there a movie about this?)

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If you have difficulty viewing this page, you can try this alternative link:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=wakefield%20quebec&w=all

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…but you know, the darn button doesn’t do anything!  So you have to then hit the back button until you run into the next window with the same question.  It’s loopy and loopiness is a waste of time.  The UI drives me up a tree but maybe it’s also because I’m using Mac Safari when I should be using Opera.  Who knows?

Ok, so Facebook’s UI is supposed to be in your face.  I just wish there were a simple ‘old school’ mode for Facebook.  Well, it turns out that there is such a thing as ‘old school’ mode, it’s called Facebook lite!

I’ve switched to this as my default Facebook eXperience.  I know, you’re asking “How could I miss out on all that other stuff?”  Well, I’m sure there will be plenty opportunity to switch back some year in the distant future.  Perhaps when the Facebook 3-D dépêche (hurry) mode comes out in 2012.

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Trope is best described as interactive aural yoga. Strokes on the screen build the composition. I use Trope when writing – it’s a background. When the urge hits, I hit the screen to create a more frenetic sound.

What was your favourite app this year?

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“It is believed to be a protective talisman, a color of deep compassion and healing, and a color of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky. Through years of color word-association studies, we also find that Turquoise represents an escape to many – taking them to a tropical paradise that is pleasant and inviting, even if only a fantasy.”

Tropical paradise? Hardly. When I think of turquoise I try to control a gag reflex. I think of old Chrysler K cars. I always wondered what made people buy turquoise cars? I also think of Hillary Clinton who spent much of 2008 parading around in turquoise pantsuits. On sale at Winners, presumably.

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It has been decided by the SensoryMetrics marketing advisory sub-committee (SMMASC) that Google Adsense will be turned off on this site.  Um, that is, turned off and deactivated, (just as soon as we figure out how to close our account).

I know, so many of you will miss our colourful random meaningless [-ful] ads provided by Google Adsense.
Well to remember them by, here’s a post to say goodbye [thank you] to Adsense, it’s been nice! but, bye, bye.

I know, you must be wondering, “Why would we turn down free cash?  It’s delivered in the mail for crying out loud!”

Well, there are a few [two minor and somewhat insignificant] reasons.  For one, Google Adsense seems to exist in a weird unconnected business silo bubble or black hole.  We have never [not yet] been able to resolve linking Google Analytics to our AdSense account.  The Analytics support won’t talk to the Adsense support or is it the other way around?  Who knows, we give up on it.  It’s funny [been useful] to read the posts in the Google support forums, a bunch of people have this problem, but no one from Google Adsense support seems [has had the opportunity] to read this stuff.  Um, is there an Adsense support group?  Do they even exist or are they just virtual Google bots?

I guess the second reason, is that we’re sick of fat chick [weight-loss] ads.  Go away, leave us alone with the fat chick “how to lose a ton of weight through a secret we will sell you” [lose weight] ads.  Enough’s enough.  [We'll happily endure more crazy ads since we like weight loss advertisements as much as the rest the ads].  It’s just not [so] worth the free money to put these annoying [fun] ads on the site! [Thanks, for the tips, yes, logging into our account and blocking the ads we don't want is just too obvious a fix, thx.]

If you are a member of the Adsense support team and just can’t live without our participation in your business.  Here’s what it will take to win us back:

Please help us fix our broken account link between Adsense and Analytics.  Then we’ll update this post with joyous praise or delete it as you wish.

Forever in your debt-itude. Your humble servants @SensoryMetrics.

Posted on behalf of the SensoryMetrics marketing advisory sub-committee (SMMASC)

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Ages ago we wrote about the wonder of a little java app called Wordle – which creates stylized word clouds from text or urls. This year we got the idea to use Wordle to create a family game for our upcoming Christmas gathering. Simply search the lyrics of your favourite xmas tunes and create Wordle clouds for each. Print them out individually and number them. Have people guess the name of the song from the wordled lyrics! BTW, ‘wordled’ is not YET a word in the Urban Dictionary…

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Graphical User Interface Having Sound Effects For Operating Control Elements and Dragging Objects

Abstract
Systems and methods for providing an enhanced auditory behavior to a graphical user interface are described. Control elements portrayed by the graphical user interface on a display are associated with at least two states. When transitioning between states, a sound effect specified for that transition can be provided to provide further user or designer customization of the interface appearance. Movement of objects can be accompanied by a repeated sound effect. Characteristics of both sound effects can be easily adjusted in volume, pitch and frequency.

As annoying as this sounds in an iPod, imagine how annoying Microsoft will make it for the Zune??? {shiver}

Fade to black. Cue sound effects. Blurrrp.

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