CresentCityRon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Good moods prevent colds?

Submitted by

duguk

on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @03:11PM

duguk writes: "As most of you will probably end up ill over the winter season, it might be best to keep happy over Christmas. A new scientific study suggests that people who have a positive outlook are less likely to catch colds. Psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University exposed more than 300 healthy adults to a cold virus and interviewed them about their emotional state. Those with "generally positive outlooks... reported fewer cold symptoms than were detected in medical exams.

From Science News:

"We need to take more seriously the possibility that a positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk," Cohen says.

Those who displayed generally positive outlooks, including feelings of liveliness, cheerfulness, and being at ease, were least likely to develop cold symptoms. Unlike the negatively inclined participants, they reported fewer cold symptoms than were detected in medical exams.

The new study, which appears in the November/December Psychosomatic Medicine, replicates those results and rules out the possibility that psychological traits related to a positive emotional style, rather than the emotions themselves, guard against cold symptoms. Those traits include high self-esteem, extroversion, optimism, and a feeling of mastery over one's life."

Keep happy and you might not get ill?"

Submission + - WarGames Sequel Now Filming

Submitted by

iluvcapra

on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @02:40PM

iluvcapra writes: "This news is a little late, but on November 20th WarGames 2: The Dead Code began filming in Montreal, produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (distributor of the original WarGames) and directed by Stewart Gillard (apparently the director of such gems as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3.) Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, the team behind the original film, are not involved, and the plot revolves around a hacker breaking into a terrorism-simulation computer.

I only became aware of the new production when I read MGM was suing the rightful owner of WarGames.com for his domain name."

Human Sense of Smell Underestimated 278

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @02:31PM from the we-got-something-of-a-hounddog dept.

Benjamin Long writes to note a study, by a team of neuroscientists and engineers, that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail — an ability that most had assumed only animals possessed. Furthermore, the study demonstrated for the first time that humans make use of differential information from the two nostrils. The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail. Here is the abstract of the paper in Nature Neuroscience. From the article: "The humans, however, still sniffed much more slowly than dogs, which may partially account for canines' greater efficiency at scent tracking. [A commentator] says that despite their relatively sluggish speed, the fact that subjects improved with training is noteworthy. 'I think that shows the effect of our distinctively different behavior in actually using this sense,' he says. 'The dog [has] been doing this its whole life, and humans [were] just asked to plunge in the first time they've ever done it.'"

Journal Journal: MSN Groups is Dying

Journal by Roanna on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @02:25PM

One of the social internet's healthiest and most innovative cultures is threatened because MSN Groups is dying.

Journal Journal: Nintendo has a winner. 9

Journal by nocomment on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @01:19PM

Nintendo is the winner of the 'next-gen' wars because they have managed to do the impossible.

My. Wife. Is. Now. A. Gamer.

My wii number thingy (that I"m not usre how to use yet) is:
2658 5111 1778 2819

Submission + - Web programming development environment?

Submitted by

umdenken

on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @01:13PM

umdenken writes: "I'd like to know how other slashdotters do their server-side web programming: We have dozens of perl cgi scripts, and are currently doing development by editing these production scripts in place on the web server. (!!) Our sysadmins have finally installed the svn client on the server (Solaris), and have offered to create a new virtual host that we can use as the development server. I'd like to have an idea of what some best practices currently are, for organizing this kind of set up. Thanks!"

Skype, Sony Working to Offer On-Demand iTunes Rivals 43

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @10:45AM from the more-competition dept.

The field of on-demand video services continues to grow. Both Sony and Skype have announced their intentions to challenge the dominance of iTunes via download services. Sony is going to be offering movie downloads via the PSP, no doubt as a partial rebuff to Microsoft's entry into the field. Meanwhile, Skype is planning to roll out a broadband television service they are calling 'the Venice Project'. Funded with the money made when Skype was sold to eBay, the beta version was apparently launched last week. From the article: "On his blog, Mr Friis said the partners had been 'quietly testing with a small circle of people' for a few months, and that they would now expand the circle. The service will offer high-quality programs through an ad-supported platform. The project aims to bring quality TV programs free to consumers who have a broadband internet connection, the spokesman said."

Google Updates AdSense Rules, Still Working on Radio 66

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @09:58AM from the your-love-won't-pay-my-bills dept.

Photocritic writes "The practice of placing images above or next to adsense banners has been around for a while — the idea is to trick visitors into thinking that the Googe Ads are clickable image captions. Unsuspecting visitors click on the ads, and the webmasters make money. Now, Google has officially announced that the practice is no longer allowed. Meanwhile, the Marketwatch site is reporting that the company's previously discussed move into radio advertising is getting a mediocre reaction. Google, as yet, does not have enough access to airtime for the project to be profitable. The company plans on purchasing more airtime to expand the program, and is reportedly also looking to begin selling television ads as well." From the article: "Until Google can strike a deal with CBS, or some other radio giant, 'there will be no significant impact until mid-2007' on Google's bottom line, or the radio industry in general, [analyst Jordan] Rohan said in his research note. 'We believe a critical mass of advertisers is interested in testing the platform,' Rohan said, based on his interviews with his own sources. 'However, there is simply not enough radio inventory in the Google Audio system (yet) to enable buyers to run campaigns.'"

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