Subzero Blue

10 Unconventional Diet Tips

Kyle from LifeHack has published a list of 10 diet tips, that aren’t what you’re used to reading in diet programs. I think the list is quite interesting and could work for a lot of people looking to lose some weight.

The list goes as follows:

– Buy a digital scale
– Weigh yourself everyday
– Drink 8 glasses of water everyday
– Make your diet public
– Don’t diet on the weekends
– Don’t sacrifice your life for your diet
– Make the small changes
– Gain perspective by understanding the fractions
– Rationalize your workouts
– Have a red flag weight

For more details, check the full post: 10 Unconventional Diet Tips: How to lose 50 pounds in three months.

The Guardian

Upon recommendation from my friends at the DVD rental store, I saw the movie “The Guardian” last night, featuring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher.

Personally, I wasn’t planning on renting the movie until they told me what a great movie it was. I’m a big fan of Kevin Costner and his movies, I actually think he’s one of the best actors out there, still some of his latest movies haven’t been as good as I expected, and always quite long. With that in mind, and the fact that I wasn’t expecting much from a movie about coast guards, I didn’t feel that keen on watching it.

Fortunately, the movie turned out to be a lot better than I expected, and I really enjoyed it. It is long too, but it’s good enough that you don’t really feel the time.

The movie is about two interesting characters: a legendary rescue swimmer and a high school swim champion with a troubled past who enrolls in the U.S. Coast Guard’s “A” School, how the relationship between them develops and how they both learn some hard lessons about loss, love, and self-sacrifice.

My score for this movie is: 7.5/10

Want To Be A Manager?

After some years of work experience, some people’s natural professional progression or aim is to become a manager, sometimes it’s a decision they have to take, and some other times it’s something that the company wants because they believe in them, even though it wasn’t something they were planning for.

Erin Malone from Boxes and Arrows shares some excellent insight and ideas about the various things you need to consider when moving into management.

The post is from a designer’s point of view, but it applies to everyone from every field really. I’ll try to sum it up for someone from the IT field, with my experience in management in mind.

– You can

Racists Have Lower IQs

Studies going back over 50 years have repeatedly arrived at the same conclusion — racists have lower IQs than non-racists. The average intelligence quotient (IQ) of all members of the human race is 100 on the Stanford-Binet scale, as illustrated in the bell curves in the figure below. The average IQ of racists is up to 4 IQ points less than this.

The reasons this is true are not entirely clear. Does racism attract the unintelligent or do the unintelligent default into racist mentalities?

[Source: Students and Youth Against Racism]
[Via: Hou-Hou Blog]

BBC Plans Online World For Children

CBBC World The BBC, through CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, will be launching an online virtual world for children, quite similar to Second Life.

CBBC World, as it will be called, will offer youngsters a safe environment to explore, and provide them with different zones offering CBBC content.

As in Second Life, children will be able to create virtual versions of themselves on-screen, called avatars. Their characters can then move around CBBC World.

They will also be able to take part in games, animations, videos and music, create their own content and send their work to other CBBC World users or upload it to a gallery, where the best will be used on the CBBC TV channel.

It is expected to go live in the summer with a full launch in the autumn to coincide with the CBBC relaunch.

I’m not quite sure how successful this project will be, but it could be good to have a children’s alternative to Second Life, still there has to be a lot of work to ensure the safety of the children using it.

[Source: BBC News]

What My Birth Date Means?

I came across another one of those thingies that tell you what this or that means based on nothing but pure bullshit, and here’s what it says my birth date (March 11) means:

Spiritual and thoughtful, you tend to take a step back from the world.
You’re very sensitive to what’s going on around you, yet you remain calm.
Although you are brilliant, it may take you a while to find your niche.
Your creativity is supreme, but it sometimes makes it hard for you to get things done.

Your strength: Your inner peace

Your weakness: You get stuck in the clouds

Your power color: Emerald

Your power symbol: Leaf

Your power month: November

Whatever, whatever, whatever!

[Via: And Far Away, Sand Monkey]

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Stadium Arcadium

An album, actually double-album, I’ve been listening to a lot these past days is “Stadium Arcadium” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; I’m a big fan of RHCP and their music, and this album just oozes more of their trademark cool tunes, rhymes and lyrics.

Almost four years passed between the release of their last album “By The Way” and this one, and the band recorded enough songs for three albums over that period, which explains why they went ahead and released this two-hour, 28-track double-disc collection (Disc 1: Jupiter / Disc 2: Mars).

The album is a mix between what they did on “By The Way” and “Californication” with a number of new touches and directions here and there.

My favourite songs off the album up to now are: Snow (Hey Oh), Dani California, Hey, Tell Me Baby, Desecration Smile, Stadium Arcadium, Hard to Concentrate.

A lot of people say they like the ‘Mars’ disc more, but up to now, they’re quite tied for me, each one having its strengths.

What I love about RHCP’s music is that you never grow bored of it no matter how many times you listen to the CD, it always has a fresh, cool feel to it, and this album feels the same way too. The proof is that this album is nearly a year old now, plus I still listen to their older albums a lot too.

I really recommend this album to all RHCP fans and music lovers who are into this genre.

My score for it is: 8.5/10

Back Home…

Well I’m back home in Tunis again, with my beloved son and wife; I got back from Manchester yesterday afternoon.

The trip was on Air France, an airlines I used to like back in the 80’s but that sucks more and more these days, especially on flights to and from the Arab world; it’s so tight, seating is not comfortable, the food they serve borders on disgusting, no in-flight entertainment, …etc.

I liked Manchester, not as much as I did London, but still it’s a nice city, that I wouldn’t mind living in. I wish I had more time to visit some sites and museums, but well maybe I’ll get to do that some other time.

I took some photos, not as much as I wished, and a number of them turned out a bit blurred, but I’ll be sharing some of the good ones soon.

I got a number of books that I had on my wishlist from Waterstone’s, enough to get me through a few months of good reading.

I didn’t get to get online much in the past week, just the one time to post the entry about me being in Manchester, the rest of my time was either in the workshop, shopping or hanging out with friends.
Things over here should be back to normal now though.

Manchester… Here I Am…

I haven’t blogged for a few days, and that’s because I’ve been away from home on a trip to Manchester, UK.

I’m here to attend a series of workshops that are being held under the umbrella of the Reachout project.

The programme has been pretty tiring and I haven’t had a chance to really go out and discover Manchester that much yet, but hopefully I will be trying to go out more and see more of the city in the coming days.
I’ll be taking as many photos as possible and sharing them with you once I’m home.

I miss my wife and son enormously and I wish they could’ve been here with me; I can’t help but get that sense again that no matter how great the place is, what’s more important is who you have there to share and enjoy it with.

Everybody in Tunisia told me I had to go to a Manchester United game, but as I’m not really a big football fan, I guess I’ll just pass on that; I’d rather spend more time discovering the city and all it has to offer, especially with the really limited time I have.

The weather here is quite chilly, but not anywhere as cold as I expected, I guess the effects of global warming are hitting everywhere.

Anyway, I’ll get going now, and till next time, cheers…

Doomsday Clock To Move Forward

The keepers of the “Doomsday Clock” plan to move its hands forward next Wednesday to reflect what they call worsening nuclear and climate threats to the world.

The symbolic clock, maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, currently is set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe.

The major new step reflects growing concerns about a ‘Second Nuclear Age’ marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing ‘launch-ready’ status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

When it was created by the magazine’s staff in 1947, the doomsday clock was initially set at seven minutes to midnight and has moved 17 times since then.

It was as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953 following U.S. and Soviet hydrogen bomb tests, and as far away as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 after the superpowers reached agreement on a nuclear arms reductions.

[Source: Yahoo! News]