Archives for January 2015

Okay, You’ve Got Super Powers. Now What?

January 29, 2015 by Bill McCormick

No Smoking areas are a pain in the ass for her.

Admit it. If you were a guy who went through puberty there was that one night, when no one was around, when you thought “Gee, I wish I could turn invisible. I’d freaking live in the girl’s locker room.” Or maybe you thought “If I had super strength I’d show that bully Tommy Thompson a thing or three.” I don’t know what pubescent girls dream of, I’ve never been one. Maybe that would be a cool super power. Change into anyone at any time, ala Mystique, but with the ability to truly feel what that person feels. I’m not sure if that would be enlightening or would drive me completely insane. What if, in your time as a teenage girl, you suddenly discovered that you really, REALLY, like teenage boys? What does that revelation do to you when you become a man again? Because, let’s face it, once the ‘WOW’ factor of your new powers wears off you have to live with this shit. You have to worry that the next time you pass gas you might kill someone. Which brings me to a question I’ve had for years; “Does Superman fart?”
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The Road to Hell and All That

January 27, 2015 by

You can always count on WNC for a nice piece of tail.

Today I am gong to share with you an idea that was lifted directly from the Staggeringly Bad Ideas Handbook. This is even worse than Montana’s “Kill it and Grill it” law which allows people to eat, possibly diseased, road kill. This is dumber than North Carolina’s attempt to outlaw gay marriage. They ended up stripping the rights of any unwed couple, gay, straight or mixed. One of the laughably predictable unintended consequences of that are that kids of divorced parents now have no rights since their parents aren’t married. You might want to avoid North Carolina for a while until they sort that out. Every single example I cited is what happens when stupid people try to do ‘important’ things. They can’t count from 1 to Z so they just kind of punt and claim they’re working for, as Heinlein put it, “dawillodapeepl.” Before I share with you why the idea I am talking about is so poorly thought out as to be the beginning of the end times, first allow me to share with you the idea itself.

Jennifer Kay, over at ABC News, reports that British scientists want to release millions up millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida.

You knew it was going to be Florida, didn’t you?

Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases.

Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential U.S. neighborhood.

“This is essentially using a mosquito as a drug to cure disease,” said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which is waiting to hear if the Food and Drug Administration will allow the experiment.

Dengue and chikungunya are growing threats in the U.S., but some people are more frightened at the thought of being bitten by a genetically modified organism. More than 130,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the experiment.

Even potential boosters say those responsible must do more to show that benefits outweigh the risks of breeding modified insects that could bite people.

“I think the science is fine, they definitely can kill mosquitoes, but the GMO issue still sticks as something of a thorny issue for the general public,” said Phil Lounibos, who studies mosquito control at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory.

Mosquito controllers say they’re running out of options. With climate change and globalization spreading tropical diseases farther from the equator, storm winds, cargo ships and humans carry these viruses to places like Key West, the southernmost U.S. city.

There are no vaccines or cures for dengue, known as “break-bone fever,” or chikungunya, so painful it causes contortions. U.S. cases remain rare.

Insecticides are sprayed year-round in the Keys’ charming and crowded neighborhoods. But Aedes aegypti, whose biting females spread these diseases, have evolved to resist four of the six insecticides used to kill them.

Enter Oxitec, a British biotech firm that patented a method of breeding Aedes aegypti with fragments of genes from the herpes simplex virus and E. coli bacteria as well as coral and cabbage. This synthetic DNA is commonly used in laboratory science and is thought to pose no significant risks to other animals, but it kills mosquito larvae.

Oxitec’s lab workers manually remove modified females, aiming to release only males, which don’t bite for blood like females do. The modified males then mate with wild females whose offspring die, reducing the population.

Oxitec has built a breeding lab in Marathon and hopes to release its mosquitoes in a Key West neighborhood this spring.

FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman said no field tests will be allowed until the agency has “thoroughly reviewed all the necessary information.”

Company spokeswoman Chris Creese said the test will be similar in size to Oxitec’s 2012 experiment in the Cayman Islands, where 3.3 million modified mosquitoes were released over six months, suppressing 96 percent of the targeted bugs. Oxitec says a later test in Brazil also was successful, and both countries now want larger-scale projects.

But critics accused Oxitec of failing to obtain informed consent in the Caymans, saying residents weren’t told they could be bitten by a few stray females overlooked in the lab.

Instead, Oxitec said only non-biting males would be released, and that even if humans were somehow bitten, no genetically modified DNA would enter their bloodstream.

Neither claim is entirely true, outside observers say.

“I’m on their side, in that consequences are highly unlikely. But to say that there’s no genetically modified DNA that might get into a human, that’s kind of a gray matter,” said Lounibos.

Creese says Oxitec has now released 70 million of its mosquitoes in several countries and received no reports of human impacts caused by bites or from the synthetic DNA, despite regulatory oversight that encourages people to report any problems. “We are confident of the safety of our mosquito, as there’s no mechanism for any adverse effect on human health. The proteins are non-toxic and non-allergenic,” she said.

Oxitec should still do more to show that the synthetic DNA causes no harm when transferred into humans by its mosquitoes, said Guy Reeves, a molecular geneticist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute.

Key West resident Marilyn Smith wasn’t persuaded after Oxitec’s presentation at a public meeting. She says neither disease has had a major outbreak yet in Florida, so “why are we being used as the experiment, the guinea pigs, just to see what happens?”

First, some good news. Even if a female mosquito escapes the lab and bites you, the amount of tainted blood you could receive is ridiculously low. Your body filters out more toxins when you eat a burger.

But, you see, not one person in this article talked about the real concern. And you know why? Because they don’t give a fuck, that’s why.

The problem isn’t that you or I will be ravaged by Franken-Skeeters, the problem is that wildlife eats mosquitoes like I eat spicy food.

So while the scientists involved can, truthfully, say that no humans have been infected by a modified mosquito, that really isn’t the issue. The issue is all the other bugs and birds that will eat the Franken-Skeeters and then, in turn, be eaten by larger animals and then, eventually, be eaten by us. That process can take many years to play out. After all, entire eco systems don’t just crash in a day.

A great example would be fertilizer. On the plus side, it makes plants grow healthier. On the down side, it pollutes the water table so severely as to render it undrinkable. That is further exasperated by the whole process of making commercial manure. Massive quantities of potash and phosphorus minerals are mined and treated and used to ‘enhance’ the manure. Those mining processes are very unfriendly to the environment and the waste they generate also seeps into that water table you were counting on.

You know, to keep living?

People, now, almost 50 years later, see the issues and are acting to make corrections.

Not in Texas or Florida, of course, cause science is only a theory there, but most of the rest of the world is giving viable alternatives a chance. Simply put, unless you’re scooping up behind a horse or cow to get your fertilizer you’re probably part of the problem.

The thing is no one, not one single person, tested for consequences. They just tested the one thing they cared about, did it make plants grow better, and moved on. And the average jamoke still trusts the process enough to think “Of course they tested for the obvious stuff.”

Well, they didn’t and you can plainly see, if you read the comments from the scientists above, they have no intention of doing so. That kind of forethought no longer occurs to scientists who are punching a clock and feeding the coffers of their corporate masters.

Another great example is fracking. A safe and easy way to inject water, our old pal H2O, into the ground and use the pressure to bring out natural gas or petroleum.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, when you put that much pressure on the mantel of the earth, something’s gotta give.

So, we end up wit this stat; # of earthquakes in Ohio pre fracking = 0 / # of earthquakes in Ohio post-fracking = up to a dozen per day and the number is growing.

There are also earthquakes in Oklahoma, Texas and any place else that fracking occurs.

None of those locations are on any major fault lines. Well, they weren’t until the frackers started making their own.

I’ll sum up simply. Every zombie movie you’ve ever seen is a great example of how everything from diseases to bad ideas can spread.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Super Duper

January 23, 2015 by

Did you really expect ME to use a pic of Thor or something?

Okay, time to get your geek on. As some of you may remember I’ve got a buddy who’s working on the Batman -vs- Superman flick. She loves me like a puppy and STILL won’t dish any hot gossip. However, the couple of things she did share all proved true. Right now she’s admitted that Batman will be wearing armor and not just tights. Which makes sense if he’s going to fight Superman. The fight, which has to happen to justify the title, should be near the beginning of the movie. She said they are basing it on this clip from the Dark Knight Returns animated movie. I specify “based on” because the plots of the live action and the animated versions are going to be totally different. But, if you click the link, it will give you a taste and you’ll understand the whole “armor” thing much better. One dude, named Alex Luthor (yes, really) has created a fan made trailer using the cartoon as his template and cutting together footage from existing movies and adding a few special effects. Click on his name to read all about it and watch it yourself. It is pretty fucking cool if you’ve got your geek mojo rocking. While we’re on the subject, Henry Cavill, the dude playing Superman, says that the movie WILL NOT be split into two parts. That rumor began when a cell phone pic of the trailer’s header was leaked and it showed a movie titled Batman -vs- Superman Part 1: Enter the Knight being released in October of this year. Despite Mr. Cavill’s blunt assertions it may still happen. They shot a ton of footage, some of it here in Chicago, and may simply need to do it that way to tell the whole story.

So what don’t we know about this film or these films, as the case may be? Quite a bit. For example, we know that Scoot McNairy, of Gone Girls fame, has been cast, has shot all his scenes and still can’t tell us who he plays or what he does.

Adam Holmes at Cinema Blend has the whole non-story.

Although details surrounding the plot of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are being kept under wraps, we know who most of the main players will be – ranging from Jesse Eisenberg’s antagonist Lex Luthor to Gal Gadot’s Amazon demi-goddess Wonder Woman to Jeremy Irons’ butler extraordinaire Alfred Pennyworth. Among the few roles that are still a mystery, however, is the character being played by Scoot McNairy – Ben Affleck’s costar from Argo and Gone Girl. Despite his casting being announced five months ago, the production has kept his character’s identity locked up tighter than Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. But now the actor has offered fans some new clues for us to mull over.

McNairy was playfully vague with his answers about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice during a recent interview with USA Today, saying that while he would love to talk about who he’s playing, that might result in him not being able to score a film role again. However, he did give us some new clues to who he is playing – specifically that the part is unlike anything we’ve ever seen him play before. Said McNairy,

“It’s definitely 100% a character I’ve never played and I can’t speak too freely on it, but yeah, getting into that thing was definitely something I had to wrap my head around emotionally in order to play that character. But with that being said, I had a lot of fun doing it when I was in the process of shooting on it — my head was in a different place but I’m really excited to see how it turns out and what they do with it and see the film.”

Not having played this type of character doesn’t narrow things down much, although if you spent enough time browsing his filmography, you might be able to exclude a few options. McNairy’s recent roles include starring as Gordon Clark on the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire and as Tommy O’Hara in 2014’s Gone Girl, so computer expert and former boyfriend of a kidnapped woman must be off the list. The only visual clue we have so far is a leaked picture of McNairy on the set wearing green-screen socks over his calves.

It was these photos that led some fans to speculate that he might be playing The Flash, though Ezra Miller being cast a few months ago as the Scarlet Speedster put that idea to rest. Other guesses have ranged from Superman’s cyborg nemesis Metallo to an older version of Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen. There’s also the possibility that he’s playing someone original to the film, and those socks will be used in post-production to make it look like his legs have been injured. Since McNairy described the role as putting his head in a whole different place, I’ll assume that my theory that he’s the hot dog vendor camped outside The Daily Planet is incorrect.

Damn! I was looking forward to an epic hot dog vendor scene.

Okay, all silliness aside, everyone working on this film had to sign a nondisclosure agreement that made hardened lawyers tremble in fear. While my friend has snuck me a nugget here and there they have all been nuggets that were slated for public release shortly thereafter. She’s being very careful, which isn’t really like her. How tight is that agreement she signed? So tight that it includes a provision preventing people from talking about the agreement. That, boys and girls, is tight.

The other monster comic book based movie that’s due to overtake the universe is The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Our homie H. Shaw-Williams over at Screen Rant has done the digging on that for us, so I’ll share what he knows.

As the third highest-grossing movie of all time (and the highest-grossing comic book movie full stop), The Avengers left a big legacy to live up to. Next year director Joss Whedon will attempt to match (or even beat) his own record with sequel The Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which the titular superhero team will face off against a new threat: the indomitable android Ultron (James Spader).

Concrete plot details are currently scarce, but the powerful sibling duo Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) will be joining the fray, as teased in the mid-credits scene for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Filming began in worldwide locations earlier this year and production is currently focused in London, with the release date for The Avengers: Age of Ultron now less than a year away.

For those who can’t bear the wait, however, JoBlo claims to have a small collection of plot and character tidbits from a “trusted and proven source.” There is nothing that could be really be considered a spoiler, but those who would prefer to remain totally in the dark about The Avengers: Age of Ultron until the trailers are released may want to give the following details a miss.

–

[Warning: Possible mild SPOILERS for The Avengers: Age of Ultron ahead.]

–

Iron Man leads the pack

It’s no secret that Tony Stark is currently the figurehead of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man was Marvel Studios’ first movie and Iron Man 3 was second only to The Avengers in its total box office gross. According to JoBlo‘s report, the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier means that Tony will be picking up the tab for the Avengers in Age of Ultron. The former Stark Tower is left with its single “A” and becomes the new HQ for the team, as well as the central hub for global security. Tony uses his seemingly bottomless wealth to fund new costumes, a new Quinjet, and new tech.

That new tech will include an army of Iron Man drones similar to those used in Iron Man 3, which allow Tony to “keep the peace” since he’s not able to be everywhere at once. There is something a bit unsettling about an army of robots being used as a police force around the world, governed by a single man. Maybe it’s just the impending release of X-Men: Days of Future Past that’s soured the idea a little, though. Either way, we already know from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that Stark has “privatized” the remaining forces of S.H.I.E.L.D., so these ideas seem reasonable enough.

In addition: having been plastered all over international news during the attack on New York, the Avengers are officially out of the superhero closet and have publicly made clear their intention to keep the world safe. It won’t be an easy task.

The Avengers assemble

According to JoBlo‘s source, The Avengers: Age of Ultron won’t waste time retreading the exhausting process of getting the group of strong personalities to work together as a team again. An opening battle near the start of the film will provide the first “hero shot” of everyone together as they take on Baron Von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) and encounter the twins for the first time.

To symbolize their status as a proper team, Tony Stark has designed costumes for everyone that all feature an Avengers logo (this detail seems to be true, based on set photos of Captain America’s new uniform). Black Widow has been gifted two new batons with the ability to shock enemies into submission, Hulk has been given some stretchy pants to help preserve his dignity, and Hawkeye will sadly be covering up his guns with a long-sleeved jacket, also seen in set photos.

Explicit android-on-android action

Why have one Ultron when you can have three? There will apparently be three different versions of Ultron featured in The Avengers: Age of Ultron as he transitions from a rudimentary original state to something much more advanced. He is coated in Vibranium and spends much of the movie seeking out more raw materials in order to continually upgrade. At least one version of Ultron will be mo-capped by Spader.

Paul Bettany, who has played Tony Stark’s friendly artificial intelligence system J.A.R.V.I.S. in the movies so far, will be getting an upgrade in this movie to become Vision, an android and member of the Avengers in the comics. According to this report, Vision will not make his appearance until the third act of the movie, suggesting that he may be something of a secret weapon for the Avengers when all their usual methods of attack fail against Ultron.

Although all these details are rumor for now, they definitely do seem to fit with the glimpses of The Avengers: Age of Ultron that we’ve seen in set photos so far. It makes sense that Marvel would want to maintain Tony Stark as leader, and it will be gratifying to see the Avengers organizing themselves now that they’re out from under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s thumb.

Which, when you add it all up, gives us more to go on that we might have hoped.

If you click on all the links provided you’ll get all of the background info that was referenced. We’re all cool like that.

Now, admit it, you want them make me adult size superhero Underoos don’t you? Well you’re in luck, at least if you gender identify as female that is. Super Hero Stuff, yes, that’t a real company, has a complete line of superhero underwear including see through lace Super Girl panties.

Who says I’m not here to help?

By the way, if you click on my email below you’re welcome to send me pics of you trying some of this stuff on.

Feed Me & Crystal Fighters – Love Is All I Got from Us on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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U NO B STOOPID

January 22, 2015 by

You've been naughty! Now go to my room! — You’ve been naughty! Now go to my room!

Stupid is as stupid does, goes the modern aphorism. Or, as Ron White famously put it, you can’t fix stupid. But, God help me, I am going to try. Let’s get some of the obvious ones out of the way. There are no Nigerian princes, or princesses, hanging on to a couple of mil that they just need to deposit in your bank account. Quit encouraging them. Also, bonus, if you do fall for that scam you can go to jail for money laundering, among other crimes. So, yes, it is now a crime to be stupid. Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, you need money. We all do. That said, going to an online loan site and turning over your banking info and social security number makes you an idiot. The same crimes apply as for the Nigerian money scam so you and your loved ones may not see each other for a while. Additionally, if you get an email from a bank you don’t use or have never heard of, just delete it. Save yourself years of hassle. Russian brides? I actually know a guy who went for that one. $100,000 and three years of court filings later he was allowed to give her half of his money and property. On the one hand that may have been a cheap price to pay to get rid of the bitch but, on the other, this was pretty avoidable. Kind of like, if the gates are down or the lights are flashing, don’t go on the train tracks. This stuff is easy if you take a minute to think first.

On that note, let’s take a look at you. Yes, you. You have a computer. You use it to catalog grandma’s recipes and search for porn. To protect all that valuable stuff from falling into the hands of the terrorists of the week you need a password. Olivia B. Waxman, from Time Magazine, has some advice for you.

Make sure your password isn’t on this list

SplashData, which makes password management applications, has released its annual list of the 25 worst passwords based on files containing over 3.3. million passwords leaked in 2014.

“123456” and “password” hold the top two spots, as they have every year since the company started producing this round-up in 2011. New passwords appearing on this year’s edition include “696969” and “batman.”

Here is the full list:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345
4. 12345678
5. qwerty
6. 123456789
7. 1234
8. baseball
9. dragon
10. football
11. 1234567
12. monkey
13. letmein
14. abc123
15. 111111
16. mustang
17. access
18. shadow
19. master
20. michael
21. superman
22. 696969
23. 123123
24. batman
25. trustno1

Cyber-security experts often say that the harder the password is for you to remember, the more secure it is. If your password is on this list, consider this smart and easy tip TIME recently received from security expert Bruce Schneier:

Come up with an entire phrase that’s easy for you to remember, and then use the first instance of each letter, number and symbol from each word in the phrase, keeping punctuation intact as well.

By the way, #19 is most popular with women who like 50 Shades of Grey. You might want to talk to your mom about safe cyber practices. That will be a fun conversation, I can promise you that.

“Mom, we need to talk. I know you’ve been having unprotected encounters.”
“Oh, honey, dad and I stopped doing that stuff years ago.”
“Mom, no, ewwww…..”

See? I promised you fun.

In other news, quit being an asshole and vaccinate your kids. Even Fox News, which has a habit of finding experts who actually don’t have a freaking clue what they’re talking about, actually broke down and asked real doctors about the risks involved with vaccination. The unanimous result was that parents should vaccinate their kids. And, if they won’t, then the government should do it for them.

Yes, I’m still talking about Fox News here.

Measles and whooping cough, two diseases that were almost completely eradicated 20 years ago, are now infecting people and claiming lives at an astonishing rate. In 2012 over 48,000 kids, in California alone, came down with whooping cough and some of them are died.

Needlessly.

The reason that Fox’ guest doctors advocated government intervention is that none of these kids needed to get sick; and wouldn’t have if they were properly vaccinated.

I’ll make it simple for you.

THERE IS NO FUCKING LINK BETWEEN VACCINES AND AUTISM!!!!

Simple enough?

Justine Alford, over at I Fucking Love Science, says that the Gates Foundation is using art to hammer home the concept.

photo credit: Alexia Sinclair, via The Art of Saving a Life

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On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner performed a now famous medical experiment on an 8-year-old boy named James Phipps. He was testing out his theory that people who had been infected with the mild disease cowpox could not contract smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in human history. To do this, he cut the boy’s skin and inserted the pus from a cowpox sore. A few days later, he challenged Phipps with smallpox, but he never succumbed. Phipps had become immune to the disease.

This experiment marked the first important step towards the global eradication of smallpox, which was officially achieved almost 200 years later, and is represented in the image above. (If you’re wondering where the beautiful woman fits in, she is highlighting the fact that the disease does not discriminate between the rich and the poor).

The thought-provoking piece, which was shot by Australian photographer Alexia Sinclair, is part of a wider collection of art by more than 30 world-renowned photographers, painters, sculptors, writers, filmmakers and musicians. The idea behind it is to share with us the stories behind the success of vaccination, which are stories of “risk and bravery, the passion and dedication of scientists, the love of parents, and the determination of health workers.” Of course, there is a wider message that the artists hope to convey: vaccinations save lives, and they’ve helped change the world for good.

The compilation is called The Art of Saving a Life, and it will be unveiled throughout January in order to promote the importance of vaccination during the run up to a huge fundraising meeting at the end of the month. The event, which will be held on January 27^th, is organized by Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, who are seeking $7.5 billion over the next five years to deliver vaccines to 300 million children. If they are successful, they believe 6 million lives could be saved.

Here is a sample of the evocative work, which we can thank the Gates Foundation for as this philanthropic organization commissioned the work:

Flowers—The Beauty of Vaccines, by Vik Muniz

While this may look a bit like wallpaper, the image was actually created using cells. As Muniz explains: “The artwork is a microscopic pattern of liver cells infected with a smallpox vaccine virus. After infection, the virus turns the cells a reddish color which allows scientists to visualize infection.”

Vaccines as Love Serum—Mauro Perucchetti

Using pigmented resin, Perucchetti has combined two of his most famous sculptres: Jelly Baby Family and Love Serum, which could “inoculate the whole world.” The idea is to bring a smile to children and remove both the fear of needles and parents’ skepticism of their effectiveness.

The Girl Who Kicked the Ball—Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

This digital animation is “a metaphorical portrayal of the poliovirus as aliens and the human spirit that defeated it by creating the anti-virus in a ‘vaccine.’” Mehra hopes that the film portrays the power of immunization and shows us a brighter future if we take a stand against disease.

By the way, Edward Jenner, mentioned above, got the idea by watching milk maids. They would get the mild disease of cow pox and never suffer any further ills. So, basically, some dirty old man ogling women is responsible for saving billions of lives.

In other words, if anyone asks, you’re searching porn to try and cure cancer.

Girlicious – Stupid Shit from Daneille on Vimeo.

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This Sounds Like Fun

January 20, 2015 by

Before we begin today, I need to take a moment to stare goggle eyed at Florida. At St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach a kid, and I mean teenager, passed himself off as a doctor. Not just any doctor either. He pretended to be an OB/GYN. That’s right, a young man, who turns out to be off his meds, was presenting himself to patients as a doctor. Fortunately he was too incompetent or scared to actually to treat a human so no harm was done. But how does this happen? When I was in the hospital last October every doctor I met had an ID card hanging on their shirt and knew the other doctors in the room with me. How many doctors do they have down there that no one noticed him? By the way, he didn’t do this once or twice. He was there every day for a month before a real doctor got suspicious. Just one more thing to worry about I guess. Maybe they didn’t know that Doogie Howser was fiction. It’s the only thing I can think of.

Speaking of your health – I am the segue king, after all – a new study has come out that may make you want to change the way you shower.

Phil Dumontet, over at Entrepreneur, posted this a couple of days ago and I decided to try it before I posted it online. While bracing in the extreme the first time you do it, you get used to it. And, yes, I did feel a hell of a lot better when I was done.

You’ll spend about 4,000 hours of your adult life showering — possibly more time than you spend reading, exercising or watching TV — but chances are, you’ve been doing it wrong.

If you take a morning shower, you probably think it energizes you for the day, but it can actually have the opposite effect.

In fact, a hot shower or bath is what many doctors recommend for people who have trouble falling asleep — to help them fall asleep. The reason: Emerging from a hot shower into cooler air brings a sudden decrease in body temperature, leading to a tranquil state of mind. This is helpful when you’re looking to fall asleep but not what you need before you start your day.

If your goal is to wake up in your morning shower, then you need to make a 90-second tweak.

The secret lies in the contrast. Here’s how to do it:

Once you’ve finished your normal cleaning ritual, crank the nozzle as cold as it goes, and stand under the water for about 30 seconds. Feel free to gasp or scream if it helps (some say it does).

After 30 seconds, turn the water up as hot as you can stand for another 30 seconds. This opens up the capillaries, increases blood flow and provides an all-around sense of stimulation.

Finally, cap it off with one more cycle of icy cold. Always end on cold.

You might be asking, “Why would I put myself through such discomfort first thing in the morning?” Because it works.

Hot and cold hydrotherapy has been used for thousands of years. In Finland, the sauna isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. The country is home to 2 million saunas (for a population of 5 million) with 99 percent of Finns enjoying the stress-relieving benefits of the sauna at least once a week.

I trust the Finns and scientific research provides further confirmation. Studies have shown that it provides a full-body tune-up, including:

Reduced stress: In a study on free radicals, 10 healthy subjects swam regularly in ice-cold water and showed adaptation to oxidative stress and hardening (an increased tolerance to stress). When building a business, combating stress is crucial for achieving clarity of mind.

A stronger immune system: Another study found that taking daily cold showers increases the number of disease-fighting white blood cells. In an attempt to warm up, the body speeds up its metabolic rate and activates the immune system, releasing more white blood cells.

Improved blood circulation: When exposed to cold water, our arteries and veins constrict. This temporary tightening allows blood to flow at a higher pressure, which is great for cardiovascular health.

Increased ability to burn fat: Research shows that cold-induced glucose uptake results in the creation of brown fat cells, which create warmth, burn energy and keep you slim.

Aid in battling depression: A 2008 study found that adapted cold showers stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and increase beta-endorphin levels in the blood. They send a high level of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could produce an anti-depressant effect.

While trying out this new routine, you should fully expect discomfort but be equally prepared to start your day feeling more refreshed than ever before.

One thing I can’t emphasize enough is that the first time you hit the cold you feel like you’ve been hit with a hammer. Once you get past that you’ll be fine.

That said, if you’re taking heart meds you might want to skip this. It does make your rhythmic organ bounce a little.

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The Day Dr. King Saved Star Trek!

January 19, 2015 by

The world didn't end then either. — The world didn’t end then either.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Fox News will celebrate by pronouncing racism dead and telling everyone to move along as there’s nothing to see there. Most everyone else will recite his “I Have A Dream” speech while completely missing the point. A few of you will remember his Drum Major speech and be reminded how grounded he was. But, all that aside, Dr. King had a profound effect on our culture that you may not be aware of. If it wasn’t for him Star Trek would probably be an answer in Trivial Pursuit and not much more. I originally wrote this on February 11, 2012 but today seemed like a good time to dust it off and share it again as it’s a fascinating look at a piece of our history. In the land of unintended consequences, this is a good one.

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You read the title (orig: Thanking Dr. King for Star Trek) and figured, “Okay, this is it. The big dude has finally lost it.” Everyone knows that Dr. King had a dream and not a star ship. Well, “everyone” knows lots of crap that’s wrong. Although it is true that Dr. King did not actually have a star ship, he did have a dream that powered one. And that dream led to the unlikely event of television’s first ever interracial kiss. Think of it in the pinball reality of how the water wheel powered loom led directly to computers. Which is true. As is the title of today’s blog. You see, once upon a time in a movie lot far far away, Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnez, via their company DesiLu Studios, bought the rights to a TV show that was going to be called “Wagon Train to the Stars.” While they were trying to come up with a better name they recorded the pilot episode. It was called “The Cage” and it was rejected for being too ethereal. But, and this is where history starts to rock, there was enough good stuff there that DesiLu ordered a second pilot. That one was called “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and it aired on September 8, 1966. And thus was Star Trek born.

Star Trek featured people from several races that had never appeared on TV in strong roles before. The Chinese guy wasn’t a cook, the Russian didn’t make hats and swill vodka, the black woman wasn’t a maid and so on. But, because this was America in the early 60’s, racism was overt and cruel. And now I’m going to let Nichelle Nichols tell you why she almost quit going to work because of the diseased jerks who taunted her and how Dr. King saved Star Trek and led to her locking lips with Captain Kirk.

Nichelle Nichols’ life has moved at the kind of warp speed her “Star Trek” character Lt. Nyota Uhura took for granted.

When television writer and producer Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” science fiction series debuted on NBC in 1966, the Civil Rights Movement — under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — was in high gear, fighting the injustices of racial segregation, black economic oppression and discrimination and racial violence against African Americans.

And when Nichols landed the role of communications officer Uhura on the Starship Enterprise (see dual image below of her then and now), she had no idea that this was a breakthrough role for black women.

“It didn’t hit me at the time until somebody told me,” she told The Huffington Post. “I splashed onto the TV screen at a propitious historical moment. Black people were marching all over the South. Dr. King was leading people to freedom, and here I was, in the 23rd century, fourth in command of the Enterprise.”

Nichols vividly recalls how America reacted when her Uhura character first hit the television airwaves.

“Oh, man, there were parts of the South that wouldn’t show ‘Star Trek’ because this was an African American woman in a powerful position, and she wasn’t a maid or tap dancer.”

While shooting “Star Trek” episodes in the late 1960s, Nichols didn’t feel any discrimination on the set, but felt it in other parts of the studio, especially where she wasn’t allowed to enter the studio through a particular gate where the other actors could go through.

“That’s right. There were instances where I was turned away from entering the studio at the walk-on gate, and I had to go all the way around to the front gate, sign-in and come back. A guard on the set told me I had no right being there — that they had replaced a blue-eyed blonde with me,” she remembered.

“I went through crap, man. Racism was alive and rampant there. Some people said I wasn’t good enough, saying things like, ‘I don’t know how you got this role.’ And they kept waiting for me to complain and raise hell about it, but I decided to ignore it. I never went to Gene [Roddenberry] about it.”

She even said that the show photographer was a racist. “There are more pictures of me behind somebody where you can barely see me, but they also had to take pictures of me singularly.”

Unhappy with how things were going with the show, and feeling tugged to hit the Broadway stage in New York, Nichols told Roddenberry she was leaving “Star Trek” at the end of the first season. He asked her to think about it over the weekend, during which she attended a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fundraiser that resulted in a life-changing close encounter for her.

“When I turned around, I was looking into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King, walking toward me with a big smile on his face,” she said about the civil rights leader, who confessed to being a “Trekkie” and her biggest fan.

When Nichols informed King that she was leaving “Star Trek,” he adamantly urged her to stay. “He said, ‘Don’t you realize how important your presence, your character is? This is not a black role or a female role. You have the first nonstereotypical role on television. You have broken ground.'”

“He added, ‘Here we are marching, and there you are projecting where we’re going. You cannot leave [the show]. Don’t you understand what you mean?’ I told him that when I would go on hiatus from the show, I could come and march with him and he said, ‘No! You’re an image for us. We look on that screen and we know where we’re going.’ It was like he was saying, ‘Free at last, free at last!'”

Nichols stayed with “Star Trek,” and it’s a good thing she did — otherwise she may not have had a chance to make history again by being part of the very first televised interracial kiss, with Capt. Kirk, no less.

It happened during “Trek’s” third season in an episode called “Plato’s Stepchildren,” where Kirk and Uhura were under the telekinetic control of some aliens.

While the script called for Kirk and Uhura to kiss, there were early concerns at NBC over whether or not such a thing should be shown on television in 1968.

“It had been OK’ed, script-wise, and we went into production for that episode,” Nichols recalled. “After the first take, the director yelled ‘CUT!’ and came over, saying, ‘Bill, what are you doing? You actually kissed her!’ And Bill said, ‘Yeah, I can’t get her to let me do it any other way except that it was written in the script. So, what’s the problem?’ And the director said, ‘The South — they’ll kill us.'”

After it was decided that Nichols and Shatner would shoot the kissing scene two ways — with and without the kiss — they tried it half a dozen times, with Shatner always kissing Nichols at the end of the scene.

“Bill would say, ‘Just once more. I feel there’s an intensity that we’re not getting because (the aliens) are causing us to do it with their telekinetic powers.'”

In the end, NBC executives decided to leave it in the episode, and thus was born the famous first interracial kiss on television.

That kiss has become one of the most famous moments in television history. Even more than Uncle Milty’s early drag act. I know guys who still need to take a personal lube moment when they think about it. Star Trek truly captured the possibility of racial harmony and unity in that moment.

No, the world did not change overnight. It still hasn’t changed as much as rational people would like now. But it did change. Incrementally I admit. But suddenly people were talking about something that was, previously, relegated to tawdry barn stories or stuff the French tolerated.

It could happen here. Everyone knew that because they’d seen it on TV.

And, for one brief, shining, moment, everyone was right.

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