Food for Thought
Compiled by Shane Drew November, 2010 - Vol 20, Issue 11 |
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| Greetings! | |
Welcome to the November edition of Food for Thought.
Anyone following my newsletters for a few years would know that October is a big month for my family.
Not only was it the 27th October my wife and I have experienced together in wedded bliss, but it was also a milestone year in that I turned the big five zero.
I know this will come as a tremendous shock to my female readers, but it is true.
Of course, we don't actually celebrate birthdays in the Drew household, which is probably a good thing. I mean, what would you give someone who is only a few short years from being called a retiree.
That said, I'd be happier being called a retiree and not 'that old bloke in the hat', but that is probably something that will come with time.
My cousin's wife got him a one way ticket in a plane for his fortieth. On hearing that, my wife thought it was a great idea too.
.... read more |
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| Pidgeon faster than internet.... |
A South African information technology company chose a novel way to prove how slow the country's leading Internet service provider Telkom was, they strapped a memory card to a pigeon and had a data transfer race.
When the time it took to transfer the data to and from the memory card was added to the flight time, the total was two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds. At completion of the pigeon-carried transfer, the Telkom download was only 4% of the way through
Winston, an 11-month-old pigeon flew from Unlimited IT's Pietermaritzburg offices to Durban, a distance of 80km. The flight took one hour and eight minutes.
[Source weinterrupt.com]
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| Eating Survey.... |
News.com.au reported recently on a Queensland University of Technology survey by PhD researcher Kyoko Miura, who surveyed 903 Queenslanders aged 25 to 64. She found 40 per cent consume takeaway meals at least once a week, with young men tucking in the most.
The survey found that young men and those with the least education eat the most takeaway food.
At this point I'd like to point out that the estimated total resident population in the March quarter 2010 for Queensland was 4,498,900, so those surveyed probably represent 0.02% of the population.
The survey went on to find that just over 60 per cent of 25 to 29-year-old males bought pre-made food regularly.
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| Is your dog an optimist or a pessimist?.. |
If your dog destroys the furniture when you are away, it could be a pessimist, researchers have concluded.
A study has found that some dogs are natural gloom-mongers while others have sunnier dispositions.
"We know that people's emotional states affect their judgments and that happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively," said professor Mike Mendl, an author of the study and head of animal welfare and behavior at Bristol University.
"What our study has shown is that this applies similarly to dogs."
To measure canine psychology, researchers trained dogs to recognize that bowls on one side of a room contained food, while bowls on the other side were empty. They then placed the bowls in "neutral" locations between the two sides.
Just as happy people tend to see the positive in any situation, so optimistic dogs sprinted toward the bowl, expecting to find food, while pessimistic dogs hesitated or ran more slowly.
The study, published in Current Biology, which looked at 24 dogs at two UK animal centers, found that dogs' temperaments correlated with their behavior when separated from their owners.
Dogs that saw the bowl as half-full were calmer when left alone, sure their owners would return, while pessimistic dogs were more likely to worry, bark and misbehave.
About half of the 10 million dogs in the United Kingdom show "separation-related behavior" at some point, Mendl said.
Instead of getting rid of anxious dogs or ignoring them, owners should recognize that their dogs may have emotional issues and seek treatment for them, he said.
(Source: Reuters) |
| Local couple scammed out of $7m |
A GOLD Coast couple have lost about $7 million in what police believe is Queensland's biggest individual online financial scam.
The couple, who declined to be named, went from living in a luxury high rise apartment and owning millions of dollars' worth of properties to having everything repossessed.
The husband and wife aged in their late 50s, who sold jewellery and furniture to pay scammers in Australia and overseas, have been living on Centrelink benefits since early this year.
``There was one day we did not have a cent. There was nothing in the fridge,'' the husband, who has suffered ill health as a result of the stress, said.
Queensland fraud detectives are investigating the scam and the couple, who paid about $30,000 to the scammers before losing everything, have joined an online scam victim's self-help group. Superintendent Brian Hay, of Queensland's Fraud and Corporate Crime Group, said he believed it was the largest individual ``wholistic loss'' by Queensland scam victims.
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| A quote to remember |
Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, "A house guest," you're wrong because I have just described my kids. - Erma Bombeck
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| Finally... |
I'm pleased to inform you that we are in the process of updating all our sign making machines.
It is a huge investment on our part, and I'll be able to tell you more next month, suffice to say, the new technology affords us the opportunity to offer a wider range of services and of a higher calibre than our present machines are capable of.
Stay tuned for more news in our next newsletter.
Keep in touch via my blog site at http://shanedrew.com/ . You can submit comments (keep them clean as the site is moderated) or post it to your facebook wall. Until next time, take care Shane Drew
3M Accredited Applicator - Silver Level, Certificate Number AUS1028 |
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Shane Drew
Drews Sign It Pty Ltd
4 William Street
Waterford West Q 4133
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