Now this is hardly a hi-tech subject, but I recently heard a horrible truth about Ribena.
For those of my three readers who don’t know what Ribena is, in the UK Ribena is virtually an institution. A healthy alternative to nasty pops and soda’s which is claimed to be rich in Vitamin C and oh, it’s like the very drops of rain on the finest day on earth.
Oh my it’s so good…
We laboured under the illusion that Ribena would give us healthy teeth and bones… make us strong, and good, and wise…. Oh such joy it was to drink such a wonderful fruity beverage.
It was yummy, and who couldn’t feel good about drinking a soft drink made by a huge chemical giant like Smithkline, or is it Beechams… oh wait, no that’s Smithkline Beecham, ah… merger… it’s GlaxoSmithkline… our good friends… GSK.
Each and every advertisment that I can (casually) remember, reminded me that unlike other drinks, Ribena would be (at the very least) chock full’o goodness (and Vitamin C) … and so, dilligently I have drunk lots. (and lots)
So it was a tremendous, earth shattering shock to find out that, not only are claims that Ribena “contains (over) 3 times as much Vitamin C as a glass of orange juice” are in fact bogus, worse than that, it seems that it contains precisely 5% fruit juice. So not exactly bursting with goodness, just a bunch of sugar and water.
I wonder how many people noticed this cute feature of the weekly calendar? I have to admit, I only realised today after seeing a clever little graphic of daily drug dispenser in a piece on Consumerist.com …
Apparently the New York Times is examining doctors who take money from drug companies, to make what are termed Educational speaking engagements. These are simply used to pitch the various drug products the contributing company manufactures.
This comes as little suprise, using opinion leaders to move products is a staple of the marketing industry, and in itself isn’t specifically un-ethical, so long as the speakers are firmly of the belief that these new drugs & products offer new benefits, and progress the medical profession.
It’s now a long stretch of the imagination that firm belief might possibly be swayed by a nice fat cheque, that might be a little skeptisism on my part.
However the article goes on to state that…
“When honest human beings have a vested stake in seeing the world in a
particular way, they’re incapable of objectivity and independence,”
said Max H. Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School. “A doctor
who represents a pharmaceutical company will tend to see the data in a
slightly more positive light and as a result will overprescribe that
company’s drugs.”
In my previous post I talked about switching my home setup to Intel Mac’s. There has been only one major problem and that was with my 32” Lexsor LCD. In the end, and trust me I tried many options, I bit the bullet and accepted there was a fairly serious incompatability problem with the 2 devices.
In the end I would say that neither the Mac Mini or the Lexsor was specifically to blame, the Lexsor talks to everything else I hooked it up to, although interestingly not via it’s DVI input. Then again the Mac Mini also displays on everything else I connected it to, I didn’t try hooking it up to a kettle, but then that would have been quite seriously dumb.
Ultimately drastic measures had to be taken, I went off to the local emporium of large screen LCD TV’s. Dragging the Mac Mini along to test for further incompatabilites before I shelled out some serious wong for a replacement screen.
I was pleased to find that all the screens I tested worked fine, so I was able to pick out the one with the best range of resolutions, aspect ratio’s etc… To be fair I’d been less than completely satisfied with the Lexsor, for one, aspect ratio’s of only 4:3 style resolutions are supported, and there is little in the way of general audio out (a headphone socket with independent volume control only accessible via a menu). In a word I had all the excuses I was looking for to get a new screen, and hell, it was my birthday the day before, so… to be really adult… Boo.
So I came away with a (very heavy) 42” LG LCD got it home, set it all up, and grinned exhausted, but very relieved that I now had the Mac mini running the home theatre.
Moral of the story, it’s all good if your equipment is compatible.
This is quite simply the finest, most incredible piece of footage ever committed to any medium.
(the fact the little guy has the exact same head as James Brown really says something to me.)
Ok, this isn’t real but a clip from a BBC 2 show called Time Trumpet, a retrospective show with a difference, it’s set in 2031, and looks back at the years 2006 onwards…
Tesco’s war on Denmark is the funniest thing I’ve seen for quite a while…
Subscribe...