Chris Powell of ‘Extreme Weight Loss’ on the Diet and Exercise Mistakes Most People Make

If you’re trying to get rid of some of that extra weight – whether it be 5 pounds or 50 – fitness expert Chris Powell says one factor trumps all else.

“When it comes to weight loss, diet is at the foundation for everything,” said Powell, the host of ABC’s “Extreme Weight Loss.”

So while healthy foods form the basis, exercise accelerates the results. And it might be surprising to know that cheating on your diet, a quick workout and even the dreaded carbs are all part of Powell’s plan, outlined in his second book, ““Choose More, Lose More.”

“Losing weight is an everyday choice,” said Powell. “It is about rewiring your mind, retraining yourself and looking at weight loss from a totally different perspective so that we make it an active decision every single day.”

Diet

Powell said the single biggest diet mistake lies in thinking you have to accomplish it all at once.

“People will say, ‘Diet starts Monday so that means I have to restrict, restrict, restrict, restrict,’” said Powell. “Just make one or two tiny changes. Maybe just take the soda out of lunchtime. Or maybe try eating breakfast. You know, just those tiny little changes that are truly attainable.”

Reward yourself for sticking to healthy foods by scheduling one or two cheat days in between.

“If I say to you, ‘Look, you can't have pizza anymore,’ what is it that you want?” said Powell. “Your body is naturally going to crave what you can't have. You want pizza and ice cream, and as you are losing weight, you're naturally going to crave all these things. So it is nice to know that in a few days you can have it. You can reward yourself.”

A reward means carbs, but they come with a stigma. So Powell not only recommends “carb cycling” but says carbs are actually good for a healthy diet. It’s a method that dietitians have recommended for the last few decades, alternating high-carb and low-carb days.

“On the low-carb days, you get the results of a low-carb diet,” explained Powell. “But on a high-carb day, you actually boost your metabolism, you build muscle. So you get this beautiful offset of fat-loss and then metabolic boosting. You eat high-carbs on the days you want to boost your metabolism and build some muscle. On low-carb days, you burn a lot of fat.”

Exercise

When Powell was a child, he was the smallest in his class and a target for bullies. But his parents surprised him one day when he was 14 and came home from school. They had replaced all the living room furniture with a gym that included a little weight stand.

“That's when I first found exercise, and it changed my life,” Powell recalled. “It empowered me. It made me feel good about myself. And that is why I am so excited about this stuff, because I know what it can do for people.”

And just as with diet, Powell – who prefers to work out in the mornings -- said the biggest mistake when devising a fitness plan is trying to tackle too much. An hour of cardio every single day is just not necessary.

“You've got to start small and just begin moving,” said Powell. “We're talking maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Because if you say 45 minutes, sure enough a day's going to come where you simply can't fulfill that promise to yourself. It's not just about the exercise. It's about making promises and keeping promises to yourself.”

And Powell said that kind of promise can be fulfilled in less than 10 minutes every weekday. He calls them “9-Minute Missions,” doing as many rounds of high-intensity exercises for 2 minutes and taking the next minute off, then repeating the cycle twice more. For example, a mission targeting the lower body might include 30 high-knees, 20 back lunges and 10 bridge-ups. A total body mission includes something which Powell calls “Five Alive”: 5 burpees, 5 twisters, 5 marching soldiers.

Powell’s top exercise: the burpee, a combination squat thrust-pushup-jumping jack.

“The best thing about the burpee is it’s totally scalable,” explained Powell. “The people that I work with who are 400 to 500 pounds, they simply put their hands down and crawl down to the ground and slowly lower their belly down to the ground, they push up, and they walk it forward. As long as you start it standing, put your chest and thighs on the ground and then stand back up, you've got a burpee.”

And coming in second for top exercises are squats and lunges. Whether a burpee or a lunge, these workouts are the gifts that keep on giving because they increase the body’s metabolic rate, burning calories even while you’re sitting at a desk.

“You know the beauty of it is, there’s some magic that’s happening inside our body when we do these short-term, high-intensity work outs.”

Bert and Ernie Come Out

Who Were The Greeks? left out naked frolics in the gym in favour of an artefact study

Dr Michael Scott presented Who Were The Greeks? (Picture: Catherine Abbott)

If ever there was a show crying out for a spot of dramatic reconstruction, it was Who Were The Greeks? (BBC2). Ferocious battles, whippings and infanticide, naked frolics in the gym, and a spot of teenage seduction could have vied for our attention. This was a full-frontal Spartacus-style Starz drama waiting to happen.

Instead, we got super-enthusiastic Dr Michael Scott describing the past and fingering artefacts. It was like radio on TV or wandering around a museum with a headset on – you didn’t really feel like you were there. Scott made the odd effort to throw himself into the action, eating gruesome pig-blood Spartan soup with some Hairy Biker lookalikes and taking part in Ancient Greek martial arts called pankration. But he didn’t even don the special costume, which wasn’t playing the good sport.

Most of us did the Ancient Greeks at some point at school, so this wasn’t exactly an undiscovered story. So Scott, in best new kid on the historian block style, set out his stall: it wasn’t all philosophy, drama, art and physical culture in Ancient Greece, no sirree, there was a seedy underbelly to society, too.

The Greeks liked a good scrap, weren’t averse to getting tipsy and shouting the odds, and they were a bit saucy on the sexual front. Well, knock me over with a Doric column.

It made for a decent primer to Ancient Greek studies if, by chance, you’d never heard of them. Scott whisked us friskily enough through the Greeks’ unique take on the rites of sexual passage – the mentoring of young teenage boys by older men (actually only in their twenties) – but it felt like we were skimming the surface when picking one topic and digging into it could have told us something new.

Sorry Scott, having a young smiley bloke in chinos striding around old ruins and pontificating doesn’t really cut it. You just haven’t urned it yet, baby. (Today’s gratuitous Smiths reference.)

Protein Mocha Coffee

 

Introduction

For those of you who need a little assistance waking up, this is a great substitute for your regular cup of coffee.

Minutes to Prepare: 5

Number of Servings: 1

Ingredients

1 cup brewed coffee 
Half a scoop of Pure Protein® Natural Whey Protein Powder, Rich Chocolate Flavor 
1/2 cup milk

Tips

Directions

Mix together and enjoy. Or, alternatively, take cold coffee, add a few crushed ice cubes and drink as an iced coffee beverage.

Serves 1.

Constantine The Great

The Shadow of the Tower - Henry VII - 1972 BBC

The Shadow of the Tower is a historical drama that was broadcast on BBC2 in 1972. It was a prequel to the earlier serials The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R. Consisting of thirteen episodes, it focused on the reign of Henry VII of England and the creation of the Tudor dynasty.

The Other Boleyn Girl - BBC

The Princes In The Tower

The Six Wives Of Henry VIII (1970)

How to customize the new Start screen in Windows 8.1

You can more easily tweak the Start screen in Windows 8.1.

(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

The Windows 8 Start screen is largely a love-it-or-hate affair. But even those who aren't too keen on the screen may welcome the new ways you can customize it in the Windows 8.1 Preview.

Right off the bat, Windows 8.1 offers a dedicated Customize button for the Start screen where you can tweak a variety of settings. Right-click anywhere on the Start screen to display the app bar and click on the Customize button. You can also right-click on any tile to open the Customize view.

The screen dims slightly. You can now drag and drop any tile to another spot on the screen. Moving a tile by dragging and dropping is nothing new. But in this Customize view, you can't accidentally open an app by clicking on or tapping its tile.

You can select multiple tiles by clicking on them, and then drag and drop all of your selected tiles en masse to another spot. There's an array of other options that can be run on multiple tiles.

You can unpin them from the Start screen, uninstall them, resize them, turn off any live tiles, or just clear the selection. You also have more tiles sizes from which to choose. Certain tiles offer a choice of small, medium, wide, and large. You can enlarge the tiles for your favorite apps and shrink the ones for apps you rarely use.

If you organize your tiles into distinct groups, you can more easily name them. In the Customize view, simply click on the text box for Name Group and enter a name.

To get out of Customize view, just click or tap on the Customize button on the app bar.

What other tricks will you find in the new Start screen? Less clutter for one.

In Windows 8, any app you install automatically takes up residence on the Start screen, easily turning it into a crowded and disorganized mess. In Windows 8.1, apps don't make their way to the Start screen unless you pin them there.

After you install a new app, click on the down arrow in the lower left corner of the Start screen. That takes you to the App screen where you'll see any recently-installed apps highlighted with the word New. Right-click on the tile or tiles of any apps that you wish to appear on the Start screen and click on the Pin to Start button. Windows 8.1 then transports you back to the Start screen to reveal the new tile.

Finally, more choices are available for you to change the color and background of the Start screen.

Hover your mouse over the small dash icon in the lower right corner of the screen to display the Charms bar. From there, click or tap on the Settings charm and then select the Personalize option. You can pick background and accent colors from the on-screen palette or choose a specific background image. Best of all, you can pick the same background image used by your desktop. That option makes the visual trip between the Start screen and desktop less jarring.

The Start screen may still seem like an unnecessary annoyance to many Windows users, especially those working with a non-touch PC. Windows 8 does offer a boot to desktop modewhere you can bypass the screen entirely. But the latest tweaks in Windows 8.1 do make the Start screen a bit friendlier and decidedly easier to manage.

How To Prevent The Mid-Day Sugar Crash At Work

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider.com

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You had a good lunch, maybe a sandwich or a salad, at noon and you felt satisfied. Well, you were for about an hour, but then around 2 p.m. you find yourself craving something else.

It’s too early in the afternoon for a coffee break, but that bowl of Snickers and bag of Skittles you stuck in your drawer yesterday start calling your name.

You just need a little pick me up. You convince yourself you will be able to work better if you have a little sugar. A little sugar never hurt anybody right (well, except those kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)? So you break down, have a little snack, and it works! For 20 minutes you feel like you have the energy to run the company and do a SoulCycle session at the same time. Then comes the crash.

It suddenly becomes too tiring to hold your head up. The words on the computer go out of focus. Your phone at the corner of your desk seems miles away. You went from feeling like Superman to Dorothy in that poppy field scene in The Wizard of Oz. You get a little bit of energy back eventually, but you feel pretty groggy the rest of the afternoon. What just happened?!

You were just the victim of a classic afternoon sugar crash, except you victimized yourself. Registered Dietician Annie Herzog broke down why we feel like Superman around cryptonite after we have a little sugar:

When we eat carbohydrate-containing foods, our bodies release the hormone insulin to pull sugar out of the bloodstream and onto our cells. This is a good thing. However, when the carbs we eat are in the form of simple sugars and highly processed, we digest them very quickly and they enter the blood rapidly. This causes a huge insulin release, because glucose (sugar) in the blood at very high levels is toxic and the body is trying to lower the levels as quickly as possible. Hence the sugar “rush” and then subsequent “crash”. After insulin takes all that glucose out of the blood, we are left with hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and feel hungry and tired. And so the cycle continues.

This happens to the best of us. My previous office had a vending machine with Skittles in it. That was a problem for me to say the least. I would remember how lousy I felt when I came down off my sugar high and yet everyday I would buy a pack. If you looked up sugar crash in the dictionary, there would literally be a picture of me with my head on my desk next to it.

So should I just eat carrots instead? Herzog says it isn’t so much about eating the right snacks, but by eating right throughout the day.

This keeps blood sugar stable because carbs are absorbed slowly and insulin is released more gradually. The foods that slow digestion and absorption are fats, protein, and high-fiber complex carbs. Someone eating a combination of healthy fats, proteins, and complex carbs from unprocessed foods for meals and snacks should not have that afternoon slump.

Herzog suggests the following diet tips for having a crash-free day:

Breakfast

Try mixing up your breakfast routine with eggs and whole wheat toast, oatmeal and fruit with greek yogurt, or a banana and peanut butter.

Lunch

Put down the Chipotle burrito and enjoy a turkey and avocado sandwich on whole wheat bread with an apple or a spinach salad with walnuts, chicken breast, veggies and balsamic vinaigrette instead.

Snacks

Greek yogurt with almond slivers, apple and peanut butter, cheese and whole grain crackers, veggie sticks with hummus, whole grain cereal with blueberries and milk, or a handful of mixed nuts are all healthy, and delicious, alternatives to a pack of Skittles.

Herzog also gave us her list of foods to stay away from. This is going to be tough for me.

The No-No List

Processed foods are a no-no because they give you a lot of unnecessary chemicals. This includes, protein bars, shakes and energy drinks. To my surprise, this also includes candy even if it is in the shape of fruit! ”You can trick your body for a while into thinking it’s getting what it needs to stay alert, but eventually the crash comes and it sucks. Nothing can replace real nutrition from REAL food,” said Herzog.

Sex In Ancient Greece

High-carb meals pique cravings for more, study says

Tucking into a breakfast of buttermilk pancakes and maple syrup, or a great bowl of white pasta for lunch, not only sends your blood sugar soaring--and then, suddenly, plummeting. Four hours after you've put down your fork, such a meal makes you hungrier than if you'd eaten one with more protein and fiber and fewer carbohydrates, a new study finds.

The study also demonstrates that four hours later, the echo of that meal activates regions of the brain associated with craving and reward seeking more powerfully than does a meal with a lower "glycemic load."

The result: At your next opportunity to eat, you'll not only be hungrier; you'll be looking for more of the same.

The study, conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, was published this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The team was led by Dr. David S. Ludwig, director of Boston Children's Hospital Obesity Prevention Center and author of Ending the Food Fight: Guide Your Child to a Healthy Weight in a Fast Food/Fake Food World.

And what's the result of repeating this cycle meal after meal? The Harvard researchers surmise that the striatum, a key node in the brain's reward circuitry, may lose its sensitivity to the neurotransmitter dopamine, increasing a person's drive to eat high-carb foods and disrupting his or her ability to control that impulse.

The team saw many of those processes at work in a lab where on two separate occasions, 12 overweight or obese young men were offered one of two meals: one high in glycemic load (including refined sugars or carbohydrates) and the other, a meal with a low-glycemic load. The meals were equal in calories, as well in their relative protein, carbohydrate and fat content, and were rated equally tasty by subjects. But while the high-glycemic load meal contained such ingredients as corn syrup and Lactaid milk, the low-glycemic load meal contained corn syrup and regular low-fat milk.

Over the next several hours, the men not only had their blood drawn to gauge their metabolic response to the meals; they also assessed their perceived degree of hunger, and underwent a scan focusing on several nodes of their brain's reward circuitry in a functional Magnetic Resonance Imager.

While the two meals elicited very similar reactions from subjects--they found both meals appealing--their brains and blood revealed dramatically contrasting responses. Four hours later, those who'd consumed the high-glycemic meal had lower blood glucose levels and said they felt hungrier than those who'd had the low-glycemic meal. Activity in the right nucleus accumbens and related reward circuitry, as well as in the region of the cortex that processes smell and taste, was significantly higher in those who'd consumed the high glycemic load meal than in subjects who'd consumed the low glycemic-load meal.

The combination of plummeting blood sugar levels, a greater sensation of hunger, and a memory of a meal high on the glycemic index led to the researchers' conclusion: "This combination of physiological events may foster food cravings with a special preference for high [glycemic load] carbohydrates, thereby propagating cycles of overeating."  

Cyprus

Whey! The Downside to the Greek Yogurt Explosion

You know the verse: Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating of curds and whey. … But you never really knew what whey was, did you?

Whey is the watery byproduct of cheese, yogurt, and other dairy manufacturing. It’s used by farmers as livestock feed and fertilizer, and it is an ingredient in dietary supplements. It presents a disposal challenge for dairy processors, especially those who make the Greek yogurt that has become popular in the U.S.

Yogurt is milk fermented with the aid of bacterial cultures. Greek yogurt is also known as “strained” because whey is filtered out, resulting in a thicker, creamier product. It takes a cup of milk to produce a cup of regular yogurt, but it takes three or more cups of milk to make a cup of Greek. That results in a lot of leftover whey—or “acid whey,” as it is known in the industry, because it’s acidic.

The whey can’t simply be dumped in a river “for the same reason that apple peeling can’t be dumped in a river,” says Andrew Novakovic, professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University. “It’s not that apple peelings are going to kill you, but natural systems like a river can only handle so much foreign biological material.”

The whey isn’t necessarily poisonous, although the acidity might prove a risk to fish and plant life in the immediate area of disposal. The bigger issue is that anything dumped into, say, a river would force the river to somehow digest it, which in turn depletes oxygen in the water, posing risks to fish and other wildlife.

Yogurt makers such as Chobani of Norwich, N.Y., the leading producer of Greek yogurt in the U.S., sell the leftover whey to farmers who use it mostly for fertilizer, spokeswoman Lindsay Kos says. Fage U.S.A., a Greek yogurt maker in Johnstown, N.Y., feeds its whey to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, where anaerobic microorganisms convert the waste to a renewable gas that can be used as an energy source.

Scientists at Cornell and elsewhere are exploring how protein in whey could be developed into food ingredients. Infant formula is one potential use, because yogurt whey is relatively high in the type of protein more common in human milk than in cow’s milk, Novakovic says.

At Chobani, the Turkish King of Greek Yogurt

Hamdi Ulukaya sits in a restaurant in upstate New York, waggling a rolled-up slice of pizza, making bombastic pronouncements about yogurt. As the founder and chief executive of Chobani, the brand of Greek yogurt that has stormed the stainless steel refrigerators of coconut water drinkers and ancient grain eaters, he has some standing in the matter, although he’s actually Turkish.

The yogurt that most Americans ate for decades was a travesty, in his view: too thin, too sweet, too fake. “So horrible,” he says in his Turkish accent, his eyes bright against a lean face. “Terrible.” As he sees it, we were all snookered by big food companies that cared little for our taste buds or health. Greek yogurt’s high protein content makes it more filling, and it contains little or no fat. His doesn’t have preservatives, either. “There is no reason for us to put preservatives in the food,” Ulukaya says. “I would say to the big guys, ‘Watch out. You’d better change your ways. The consumer knows now, and the consumer will punish you if you don’t do the right thing.’ ”

He has kind words for one competitor, albeit briefly. Fage, the Athens-based company that first brought Greek yogurt to the U.S. 15 years ago, “makes great yogurt,” he says. But when I start writing that down, he almost jumps out of his chair. “No, no, no,” he says, “Fage does not make great yogurt.” Then he laughs.
He can afford to pass out compliments. Chobani has made Ulukaya a billionaire, according to Bloomberg data. Five years ago Chobani had almost no revenue.

This year, the company will sell more than $1 billion worth of yogurt, says Ulukaya, who’s the sole owner. Once a niche business, Greek yogurt now accounts for 36 percent of the $6.5 billion in total U.S. yogurt sales, according to investment firmAllianceBernstein (AB). Upstate New York, with its 28 plants owned by Chobani, Fage, Yoplait maker General Mills (GIS), and others, has become something like the Silicon Valley of yogurt.

Photograph by Brian Finke for Bloomberg Businessweek

Near the restaurant, trucks rumble by, headed to a Chobani plant 5 miles away in the hills of South Edmeston. Most days, more than 150 come at all hours to deliver milk or haul away fresh yogurt. The plant’s 1,300 employees work around the clock to produce more than a million cases of yogurt a week—the equivalent of 12 million 6-ounce containers of

Chobani plain, strawberry, blueberry, peach, pomegranate, passion fruit, blood orange, and a dozen other flavors.
Ulukaya, 40, lives with German shepherds named Panja and Cedric in a modest house near South Edmeston. He says he’s building a man cave with a pool table and big-screen TV. On a recent day he puts on a white smock and blue hairnet and saunters through his factory like a kid on a playground full of pals. Workers offer hugs and handshakes while calling out, “Hamdi,” and “Boss.” He snatches a Chobani six-pack from a pallet destined for a Costco store. “This is for people who wanted to buy too many cups to carry,” he says. “It’s for heavy users, or actually now”—he smiles—“average users.”

For all of his cheerful swagger, there are no sinecures atop the dynamic yogurt market. Dannon, Yoplait, and smaller rivals are churning out their own Greek products. Ulukaya’s payroll has almost doubled in the past year, and he has built plants in Idaho and Australia, offices in Manhattan and Amsterdam, and a retail store in New York City’s SoHo. His ex-wife is suing him for $1 billion, saying she helped fund Chobani and is entitled to at least 33 percent of the shares. (Ulukaya says the suit is meritless.)

Sitting in his small office, surrounded by photos of dairy farms, Ulukaya says he worries most that he or his employees could forget how they succeeded in the first place. “We focus on the one cup of yogurt,” he says. “We stayed close to the plant. We are very good food manufacturers—that’s who we are. We are makers.” He gathered key staffers a while back to emphasize this point. He told them that if they detected unwelcome changes in him, they had his permission to punch him in the face. “I was serious,” he says.

The 10 Ways That Men Text

In general, men don’t know how to text. We’re slow learners. Even though we’re a full decade into the Texting Revolution, our tiny missives are sometimes rude, sometimes girly, and always confusing. We text when we should call. We forget to reply. And we’re behind the curve when it comes to texting like thissss. 

This is all the more embarrassing when you consider that, with some exceptions, men prefer to text. (Phone is too invasive, e-mail is too taxing, IM is too 2003.) Part of the problem is structural. Texting is an awkward medium, stripped of the nuance of eye contact, body language, or even written elaboration; there’s a fuzzy line between friendly banter and cutting insult. Women have solved this. If a woman garnishes a text with an exclamation point or emoticon, this can lighten the tone, sell a joke, and transform caustic to playful. The smiley face, for all its ridicule, is a useful tool. 

We’re not sure how to use such tools, and when we do, it often looks foolish. These are our ten moves. None of them are ideal.  

The Tweener
Sample texts: “lol!”; “you got the tickets?! omfg!”; “thanks cutie! :)”

He’s so afraid of sounding passive-aggressive that he overcompensates. Plus, it’s artifice. A 36-year-old lawyer, who usually dates much younger women, told me with a straight face, “Yeah, when you’re texting girls in their early twenties, you need to throw in lots of smileys and shit.”

Recipient: Often younger than the guy. This is blatant pandering.

The Passive-Aggressive Texter
Sample texts: “okay.”; “that’s fine.”; “if you want.”

The default. Causes endless misunderstandings. The confusion (usually) stems from an asymmetry of information, not malicious intent. We’re oblivious. When we text, “Okay,” we mean, “Okay,” not, necessarily, “Okay, but I’m going to sulk in my corner and daydream about how good it’d feel to be single.”

Recipient: All recipients — even fellow Passive-Aggressive Texters — can be thrown by these. Texts can be cold. Terse. Brutal. A period in a text carries more weight than a period in an e-mail. Sometimes I receive these from a male friend and catch myself thinking, Why is he being such a prick? before realizing that that’s exactly how I sound. Which is why I often use the following tactic:

The Cliff-hanger
Sample texts: “sounds good ... ”; “i know what you mean … ”; “hope you have a good night … ”

It strikes me as the least awful option — neither curt nor effeminate — and the tone is friendly but not saccharine. I now overuse the Cliff-hanger, so most of my texts sound like I’m about to say something else, and then ...

Recipient: Often left bewildered, as the texts are loaded with different shades of subtext. Do you reply to “I know what you mean … ” or is that the end? This shifts the burden to the recipient. It’s sort of dirty pool.

The Gusher
Sample texts: “I should probably look for a new job, but if I do that, I might lose my discount at the gym. Plus, at my current gym I have a locker, where I can store my protein powder. What do you think?”; “On the one hand, Maury has a right to know about the drug problem, but on the other, shouldn’t we respect his roommate’s privacy?”; “Space is good. We need that space. But how much is too much? You had a really good point last night about—(3 of 7).”

Not only does the Gusher think his life is more interesting than it really is, but he’s the over-texter (or, alternatively, blatherer). He hates the phone, and he fails to grasp that texts should be used primarily for: (1) Logistics; (2) Friendly banter; (3) Flirting. They are not a substitute for real conversation.

Recipient: Girlfriend, friend, co-worker, mother. Anyone. It’s more about who is sending it.

The Buy-a-Voweler
Sample texts: “K, cu l8r”; “TU”; “Ur 2 funny!”

He types as if every letter costs a dollar. Not only is this lazy, it’s selfish: The seconds he saves by typing “k” instead of “okay” (or, Jesus, even “ok”) are unloaded to the reader, who is forced to spend more time deciphering the gibberish.

Recipient: Happily, there’s a silver lining: Now you know there’s no reason to waste your time on a date.

The Vanisher
Sample texts:

If you ask him a direct question, he’ll answer, but if it’s anything that can go either way? He’s gone. He views texts the way an Army radio operator views transmissions: Once the mission is complete, there’s no need for chitchat. Over and out.

Recipient: Maybe you texted him something funny, hoping to start some conversational pitter-patter. No response. Is he blowing you off or did he see your text, chuckle, and just not realize that he should keep the ball rolling?

The Exclaimer!
Sample texts: “thanks!!!”; “dinner sounds good!!!”; “hope you had a good time at the funeral!”

A subset of the Tweener. As a friend of mine said, “Yeah, I overuse exclamation points. I’m not proud of it. But if I don’t use them, I sound like a dick.” So he, and many men, litter their texts with exclamation points in a misguided attempt to sound friendly! 

Recipient: When someone texts with an Exclaimer!, he or she, subconsciously, becomes more likely to also overuse exclamation points. This causes Exclamation Inflation.

The Shouter
Sample texts: “SEE YOU SOON!”; “YES. SOUNDS GREAT.”; “I’M GOING TO TAKE A NAP. TALK TO YOU LATER.”

There’s a good chance that he’s actually 57. Have you met him in person? How old are those photos on OKCupid?

Recipient: Wonders how, exactly, to tactfully bring this up in conversation. (Is there a way to do this? Please tell me.)

The Carver
Sample texts: “Movie. I’ll get tickets. 8pm. see you there.”; “I had fun.”; “I liked meeting your parents. good people.”

Models his texts after Raymond Carver short stories. Pithy. Choked of emotion. Stops just short of being rude.

Recipient: Probably overcompensates; asks her friends “what it all means.”

The Sexter
Sample texts: “What are you wearing?” “What are you doing right now?” [at 2:07 a.m.]; more?

No straight guy has ever texted “What are you wearing?” curious whether the answer is Betsey Johnson or Alexander Wang. For the Sexter, maybe not every text is a sext, but he skews NC-17 and reveals too much, too soon. Creepy at best and Senatorial Scandal at worst.

Recipient: The only true difference between whether something is Creepy or Sexy is whether the recipient likes the guy. If there’s good chemistry and he’s hot? You’ll probably give him more rope. If you’re lukewarm? Then the exact same text will be viewed as sketchy.

Hellenistic Barberini Faun

The life sized sculpture is Edmé Bouchardon’s (French, 1698–1762) marble copy, gracing the Louvre in Paris, of the original ancient Hellenistic Barberini Faun, now in the Glyptothek museum in Munich. Little is known about its origin or creator as the statue was found in the 1620’s at the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The piece was submitted for restoration in 1628 and had been severely damaged, missing parts of both hands, legs and feet. Historical documents note that in 537AD during the siege of Rome, statues that had adorned the Castel (previously Hadrian’s Mausoleum) were thrown down on the invading Goths and given the location of it’s discovery it is presumed that this was the origin of the damage.

So You Still Think Homosexuality Is Sinful?

Now I'm going to tackle some of the most common and apparently most perplexing arguments against gay marriage.

1) Marriage is a sacred Christian practice and redefining it impinges on Christian freedom.

First of all, Christians didn't invent marriage, so you don't own in; however this is irrelevant. The day that secular governments (Governments that constitutionally recognize the importance and freedom of separation of church and state) adopted legal ramifications as a consequence for marriage, religion is immediately forfeited from getting a say in what is done with the "institution of marriage".

More so, Christians can still conduct their homophobic marriages, no one is forcing specific pastors or churches to endorse a ceremony. 70% of marriages in Australia over the last ten years have been conducted by non-religious affiliated celebrants. So gay's can still marry, and Jesus can keep hating fags.

2) This country was founded on Christian values, that means one man and one woman in marriage.

You know what else this country was founded on? Killing Aboriginals. You know what else America was founded on? Slavery.

Things change, for the better. Get the fuck over it.

3) If we allow gay marriage, what next? People will want to start marrying their dogs!

The reason people are not or never will be allowed to marry their dogs, or any other animal for that matter, is that a dog can not give consent to be married. However, two grown men or women can both consent for a willing marriage. So you can be sure that there won't be any marriage between adults and animals, or adults and children any time ever, because both parties have to give consent, and children and animals can't do that.

So there you go. Please share this article with your ignorant/retarded relatives or acquaintances, so that they can understand why they are wrong, and homosexual marriage is the future, whether they like it or not.

Evolution of Man

The 2 Easy Ways to Make Your PC Run Like New

One of the most frustrating things in life is a slow computer.  

Every few years, we buy an expensive new PC and love how fast it starts up, runs programs, and loads websites. Inevitably though, it starts to slow down until eventually we are pulling our hair out waiting for it to do routine tasks.

Why is this?  It turns out the answer is actually quite simple and you don't even need to be "technical" to understand the causes and solutions.

The good news: It's not the computer hardware that's the problem. In most cases, the hardware you have is perfectly capable of being restored to its original glory and kept in fast running condition with minimal effort.

Rather, the problem lies with changes that occur to the PC's software. The two most common causes of slowdown (along with easy solutions) are:

1. The most common problem: registry errors
Every time you (or your kids) load a program, game, or file, your PC's software registry is updated with new instructions needed to operate that item. However, when the item is removed, these instructions usually remain on your PC. Every time you run your computer it tries to execute these instructions but, because the related program can't be found, it causes a registry error. Your PC is doing a lot more work than it should be, and the result is a significantly slower computer.

One of the best ways to manage this is with a neat little tool from Support.com, a Silicon Valley based company. It's called ARO 2013 and it scans, identifies, and fixes registry errors —resulting in a computer that's a lot more like it was when you first bought it. On top of the amazing results it offers, it's so easy to install and use that it was recently awarded a coveted 4.5 star rating (out of 5) by CNET's editorial staff, and has been downloaded more than 30 million times.

You can now get a free working version of the software, which will quickly scan your entire PC and identify all of the registry errors that may be bogging it down. The free version also scans for junk and checks your PC's baseline security status. It will eliminate the first 50 errors for free, and if you have more errors that you want to clean up or want to set the program to run on a regular basis (which is recommended), you can easily upgrade to the full version for just $29.95.  After that, registry errors will no longer be a problem.

To get the free version, simply click here.

2. Spyware and viruses

Spyware and viruses are software programs that are loaded on your computer without your knowledge or permission. They have various purposes, including:

• Changing the default search engine in your browser
• Tracking your Web surfing habits and showing you targeted advertising
• Using your email program to send out spam to other email addresses
• Stealing your personal information

Most spyware and viruses get onto our computers through files that we download from the Internet or as attachments to emails. They tend to take up a lot of computing power and, as a result, will significantly slow down your computer.

The simple rule of thumb to follow is to never download any free software programs from companies you do not know and trust, especially screensavers, emoticons, and the like. In addition, you should never open any attachment to an email unless you are 100 percent certain you know and trust the sender. Having a good anti-virus/spyware removal software running at all times will also help.

Follow the above advice, and your PC should stay fast and safe.

Ancient Egypt: Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep

Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep

As Africa was the birthplace of civilization it should come as no surprise to find that the earliest known reference to same-sex marriage in history can also be found there. Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were royal manicurists in the court of Pharaoh Niuserre during Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty. The artwork in their tomb leaves no doubt that they were viewed as a couple. The men are depicted in near constant embrace. They are shown with their noses touching (the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time, a form of kissing). Even their names speak to the intensity of their bond. When the names Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are put together, it translates into "joined in life and joined in death."

Relief depicting Achilles dragging Hector behind his chariot.

After Hector’s slaying Patroclus, who had disguised himself in Achilles’ armour and led the Myrmidons and the rest of the Achaeans into battle, Achilles renounces the wrath that prevented him from battling, and chases the Trojans back to Troy. While his men seek the refuge of the city walls, Hector remains outside, waiting for Achilles, but upon seeing his foe, is stricken with fear, and turns to flee. Achilles chases the Trojan prince around the city three times until Hector manages to take charge of his fear and face the Greek hero. After an unsuccesful volley of spears on either side, Hector grasps his sword, his only remaining weapon, and charges Achilles. Remembering the weak spot in his old armour (that Hector was now wearing after killing Patroclus), Achilles thrusts his spear through the armour and into Hector’s neck, fortunately missing his vocal cords. Here, Hector begs for an honourable burial, but Achilles has other plans. Hector dies, foreseeing that his killer will soon follow. After the Trojan’s death, the victor slits Hector’s heels and passes a girdle through, tying the body to the back of Achilles’ chariot. He then proceeds to ride back to the Danaan camp, dragging the fallen hero’s body behind through the dust.

Achilles

Aeneas flees burning Troy

This painting shows a poignant episode from the tales of the Trojan War. After Troy is taken, the Trojan hero Aeneas is able to flee the city with his elderly father, Anchises. Although he also manages to save his son, he loses his wife. The drama of the family’s flight is suggested not only by the falling buildings and the narrow stairwell, but also by the visual distance between the man and his wife, which foreshadows their coming separation.

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus by Gavin Hamilton, 1760-1763, Oil on canvas, 227 cm x 391 cm, Scottish National Gallery

Achilles refuses the comfort of his Greek comrades as he grieves over the dead body of his devoted attendant and friend, Patroclus, who was killed by the Trojans. The enormous size of Hamilton’s painting conveys a sense of his ambition to depict episodes from Homer’s ‘Iliad’ in an overpowering, epic mode. His heroic compositions were designed to convey the dramatic and emotional range of the epic poem, based on Alexander Pope’s translation. Hamilton painted six canvases, each commissioned by a different patron. This one, the finest in the series, was made for Sir James Grant between 1760 and 1763, and secured an international audience through Cunego’s engravings.

Alexander The Great in front of the tomb of Achilles

This painting in the Louvre Museum is a work of Hubert Robert (1733 -1808) done around 1754.

The subject taken from the Greek rhetorician Claudius Aelianius or Aelian (Varia Historia, XII, 7), writing in the second century CE, and shows the Macedonian king having the tomb of Achilles opened in order to pay a homage to the Greek hero of the Trojan War.

Achilles’ relationship with Patroclus is a key aspect of his myth. Its exact nature has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times. Thus in 5th-century BCE Athens, the relationship was commonly interpreted as pederastic. Nowadays some see it as a love relationship of an egalitarian homosexual couple.

 It is the same case as the relationship between Alexander the Great and Hephaestion. The relationship between the Macedonian king and his dearest and closest friend and confidant, lasted their whole lives, and was compared, by others as well as themselves, to that of Achilles and Patroclus. Hephaestion and Alexander grew up in a time and place where homosexual affairs were seen as perfectly normal. 

Roman and later writers, taking the Athenian pattern as their example, have tended to assume either, that their sexual relationship belonged to their adolescence, after which they left it behind, or that one of them was older, the lover (erastes) and the other was the beloved (eromenos). Claudius Aelianus takes the latter view when he uses just such an expression when describing the visit to Troy: “Alexander laid a garland on Achilles’ tomb and Hephaestion on Patroclus’, indicating that he was Alexander’s eromenos, as Patroclus was of Achilles.” No other circumstance shows better the nature and length of their relationship than Alexander’s overwhelming grief at Hephaestion’s death. The many and varied ways, both spontaneous and planned, by which Alexander poured out his grief are overwhelming. In the context of the nature of their relationship however, one stands out as remarkable. Lucius Flavius Arrianus “Xenophon” (Arrian of Nicomedia, ca. 86 – 160), in his work Ἀλεξάνδρου ἀνάβασις says that Alexander “… flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companions.

This painting by Robert (known as Robert des Ruines) is close to Panini, who was his teacher during his long stay of 11 years in Rome, and it is considered to be one of the first productions of the French artist in that city. In the painting by the French vedutista, an architectural fantasy, we see a pyramid similar to that of Caius Cestius in Rome, the ruins of a temple with Ionic columns inspired by the temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum and a round temple, after the Roman temple of Vesta, or the temple of the Sybile in Tivoli. The statue standing at the left-hand side of the canvas is the so-called Antinous of the Belvedere, or Antinous Admirandus, the famous statue in the Pio-Clementino Museum of the Vatican. This statue, correctly identified as a Hermes in the 19th century, was long taken to be a depiction of the beautiful Bythinian lover of Emperor Hadrian, one of the great “eromenos-erastes” relationship of the antiquity.

Wounded Achilles

Famous statue Wounded Achilles in the garden of Achillion palace in Corfu, Greece.
Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the Nereid Thetis. He was the mightiest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer’s Iliad.  Thetis attempted unsuccessfully to make her son immortal. The legend says that she held the young Achilles by the heel and dipped him in the river Styx; everything the sacred waters touched became invulnerable, but the heel remained dry and therefore unprotected.

After the death of Hector at the Trojan War, Achilles continued fighting heroically, killing many of the Trojans and their allies, including Memnon and the Amazon warrior Penthesilia. Finally Priam’s son Paris, aided by Apollo, wounded Achilles in the heel with an arrow; Achilles died of the wound.

The statue captures exactly Achilles’ anguish of death, who has just been wounded by the lethal arrow.The original sculpture is located in the Achilleion Residence of the 19th century Queen Elizabeth (Sissy) of Austria in Corfu, Greece.