Category Archives: Music

X: New Life

Warren Ellis is posting music videos over on his blog today. Seemed like a great idea.
New Life from X. John looks his usual imperturbable self, and Exene is lookng kinda wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP3ZhUpAQeg

Is Water Really that good for you?

Spilled water Health Benefits of Drinking Water Oversold?

Do we really need to drink 8 glasses of water a day? According to Stanley Goldfarb, MD, it ain’t necessarily so. There seems to be no clear scientific evidence for either benefits, or lack of benefits, from drinking 8 glasses of water daily, for healthy people, whose kidneys function well. Dr. Goldfarb points out that people who live in hot dry climates, or engage in vigorous exercise, need to drink more water to prevent dehydration.
The article goes on to expand on 5 different claims for drinking water that have no scientific base, or inconclusive studies, including this one:

Claim No. 3: Drinking Water Reduces Food Intake and Helps You Lose Weight

Drinking more water is widely encouraged to help weight loss, the theory being that the more water you drink, the fuller you will feel and the less you will eat. “The [medical] literature on this is quite conflicted,” Goldfarb says.

“Drinking before a meal might decrease intake [according to one study], but another study found [it did] not.”

Even so, Goldfarb calls this claim one of the most promising for further study.

So, go ahead, drink water (you do need it), but don’t expect super health, and beauty, benefits from it, the jury’s still out on that.

Not enough time in the day–or the real reason no one’s buying CDs nowadays

Music CD, I’m just not that into you

In the four years from 2001 to 2005, overall time spent on these pursuits rose to 3,482 hours per person from 3,356 hours, about a 4% increase. But that didn’t benefit all forms of entertainment equally. Here’s a table I’ve created from the MPAA report showing the change in hours per person spent by activity:

Cable and satellite TV +125
Consumer Internet +52
Home video +29
Broadcast and satellite radio +26
Wireless content +15
Video games +12

Consumer books 0

Movies (at the theater) -1
Consumer magazines -3
Daily newspapers -14
Recorded music -50
Broadcast TV -65

There’s more, but the idea is that, since we only have so much money, and/or time, we spend both on what gives us more pleasure per unit.
I’m glad to see that book reading hasn’t declined (although it would be nice if it had increased), which puts a lie to the idea that we are less literate the more we’re online.