Coffee Addicts: The Calculus of Caffeine Consumption
by Muhammad on November 17, 2008
in Uncategorized
Got this from Arvind Narayan’s blog post, in which he takes us through his research on caffeine consumption from a scientific point of view (Click on his blog to read the full analysis), with pretty cool results and analysis for Coffee Addicts (which are generally the corporate riff-raff) and how to use caffeiene to your best advantage.
I’ll just cover his basic results here:
1) Caffeine tolerance builds up rather quickly (2-3 weeks) and further, is near-total. That means that if you drink coffee regularly, pretty soon you start producing more adenosine in respose; thus you need your caffeine dose just to get up to your normal level of brain activity, and you’re dopey if you don’t take it.
2) Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors in the brain (by tricking your brain into thinking it is adenosine.) A decrease in the activity of adenosine (which is a sleep chemical) increases neuron firing rate and increases focus and concentration. (see above picture)
3)The best time to drink coffee is when you are already very alert.
4) When adenosine peaks, the best response is not to fight it, but “go with the flow” and (shock, gasp) sleep. Sleep has effects on memory consolidation and is extremely beneficial in overcoming cognitive bottlenecks, making the brain maximally alert right after waking up. Thus, a possibly very effective coffee drinking pattern would be two cups a day, one early in the morning and one right after an afternoon nap. (Unfortunately, napping is stigmatized in the Western work culture, despite much scientific evidence touting the benefits. I hear that such stigmatization is non-existent in China. Good for them.)
5) Consistent caffeine consumption is as good as nonconsumption, because of (you guessed it) tolerance. a better strategy is periodic abstinence, it lets adenosine levels return to normal. With complete abstinence, it takes 5 days to reach adenosine normality; conservatively, and with imperfect abstinence, a week or 10 days may be required.
That’s about it… interesting eh? What wasn’t covered in the research and what I’m interested in is the placebo effect of caffeine. As far as I recall there was some research done where 10 people were in a room 9 were given pure caffeine and 1 was given concentrated valium (all of them were told they were being given concentrated caffeine, and in another room it was vice versa. In each case the subjects given valium in a caffeiene context and caffeine in a valium context had still manifested symptoms as the rest of the group in their particular context. Hence, both the caffeine and valium had the opposite effect in those individuals. word.
All in All, I think the above research has very interesting insights into coffee addicts planning their coffee consumption to get the most benefit. Other than that I just don’t think most people would really care.
Digital Designers Face Off in Digital Drag Race Today
by Muhammad on November 17, 2008
in Design, Marketing, Social Media
Intel’s Digital Drag Race launches today. It’s a competition in which professional digital designers go head-to-head at designing under pressure. The site also has a consumer-generated aspect for non-professional designers.
The Idea: a collection of professional designers will spend 70 minutes on a computer powered by the brand new Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Processor using Adobe Creative Suite 4 to create a 17 second motion graphic using supplied assets; video, music, vector images. The content of the videos are to center on the themes of power, speed and innovation.
After each race, judges will select competitors with the best final product. The first two digital drag races will be unveiled on the Digital Drag Race today, site visitors will be able to view and vote for their favorite designs.
There is a cool Social Media Aspect to the campaign, other designers and artistsare able to download the same tools used in the competition to create their own 17 second masterpiece which can then be uploaded to a YouTube Channel and will also be featured on the Digital Drag Race site.
Razorfish developed the program and Ignite Social Media developed the social media portion of the campaign.
Happy in Greenville
Happy in Greenville is a site with awesome interactivity and brilliant use of animation to convey both the feeling and culture of the people living in the city of Greenville, South Carolina. I think all sites which are based oncities should follow a similar concept but integrate the culture and aesthetics of each place, be it a country, city or even a small town.
I love the site, it’s very interactive (try clicking on the Moving Van under “City Secrets” or the painter which seems ot paint up the sky when you click on him). The City Secrets section let’s you find all sorts of information about the city itself as you click on different buildings. The music is pleasant and fits the theme of the whole site, it also seems to blend into the background instead of itrritate the hell out of you as with most other websites.
As you navigate the site you’ll find tons of very cute things which pop-up and add to the funtionality and aestheitcs of the site like a string of cyclists on the same bike and hot air balloon which rises when you click on it.
Ultimately the site is a Healthcare site and was created…
“To encourage Greenville, South Carolina-based users to explore the Bon Secours St. Francis Health System”
- Adrants
The site was created by Brains on Fire and Grow Interactive.
Magazine Ad- Just Do(uche) it…
This is an interesting concept and funny as hell. An international magazine (anonymous for now) is running a promotion utilising the picture above. Here’s what Adrants sources had to say about the promotion…
“We prefer to keep the publication anonymous for now but this will be going to print in the very near future and we expect it to provoke some discussion and probably some threats of legal action.”
No shit, I don’t think anyone at Nike will sit by while an ad takes a dig at them with “Just Douche It.”
Mr. Green Genes, the Glow-in-the-Dark Cat!
by Muhammad on November 6, 2008
in Uncategorized
What kind of freaks think up this stuff, I’m against all this genetic testing and playing God even if they do have the best intentions. I did notice the article fail to mention how many times they failed before they came up with this cat.
“Mr. Green Genes is the first fluorescent cat in the United States and probably the world, said Betsy Dresser, the centre’s director.
The researchers made him so they could learn whether a gene could be introduced harmlessly into the feline’s genetic sequence to create what is formally known as a transgenic cat.
If so, it would be the first step in a process that could lead to the development of ways to combat diseases via gene therapy.”
They’ve done much the same with a Goldfish as well, I’m wondering when we’ll see the next glow-in-the-dark humanoid. Fiction can’t beat reality, eh?
How cool is this? Anime USB Drives!
Antilogic covered these cool new gadgets which should be released end November, early December. Anime USB Drives! The first two which are launched are Lupin the Third and Gundam.
Obviously they’ll come with a premium, but how cool are these. I’m sure all teh g33k Anime Culture Junkies are gonna go wild for these. They hold up to 4GB of storage which is decent for a USB flash drive.
