Language: English

How much is too much when steeping tea for health benefits?

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„Steeping your tea allows you to impart the nutrients found in the tea leaves to the water or liquid you are steeping the leaves in; however, over-steeping imparts more nutrients and flavors from the tea leaves, according to a study published in a 2007 issue of the „Journal of Chromatography.” Over-steeping your tea may result in bitter tea, but this can be avoided by utilizing a proper temperature to brew the tea. This means 106 degrees Fahrenheit for green tea and 200 degrees Fahrenheit for black tea, according to Planet Tea. Over-steeping imparts more of the antioxidant properties of the tea into the liquid you consume. These antioxidants, such as ECGC, have been researched in regards to cancer prevention. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine states that this research has shown that green tea drinkers have decreased risk of cancers such as breast, stomach and skin.” (Health Benefits of Over-Steeping Tea | LIVESTRONG.COM) Also, 175°F = 79.4°C 195°F = 90.6°C 205°F = 96.1°C 208°F = 97.8°C

Small WordPress trick to change from small letters to big letters

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Let’s say you use WordPress.

You may know, for SEO purposes, it’s better to redirect a user visiting:

site.com/BigLetterURL to:

site.com/bigletterurl

You should be enforcing small URLs to all users, for SEO.

Note: there is a high likelihood that this script will give errors on very big web sites and old web sites (asking for a Big Letter CSS file, and receving a small one). Try to use it on new web sites, where you can instantly see if anything goes wrong.

You also have the option of implementing rel=canonical, which give you 70-80% of the results of the current solution

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Fury (2014) – a philosophical movie of war heroes preferring to chat rather than fight!

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I just saw Fury (2014), at a recommendation of a friend. Most reviews focus on the military aspects of fighting, the implausible scenario of fighting, some on the cruelty of the characters, some on the cliches of the characters of their behaviors. My focus is on something else – the lack of pragmatism in an American soldier: A battalion of SS fighters are coming their way, and they spend around 5 minutes deciding – „should we stay? Yes, I stay! I don’t know! Should I stay”. They prepare a little and then they finally enter the tank. And they talk about 10 minutes. „Isn’t this great? Let’s drink. Life is good. Haha, this is so funny!”. It was unbelievable. At some point, the rookie of the team tells them „Hey, the Germans were coming!”. They thought they were about to be killed, and they forgot to check if the Germans were coming. They weren’t even looking. All this while being pretty sure that they are about to be killed. Then there’s the final scene in the fights, where Brad Pitt enters the tank and they talk for a while. Nothing much, just philosophies. He says he’s sorry. This is happening with the tank being surrounded by Germans, guns firing, and all. And two characters talk about war. (they could be shot any minute with anti-tank weapons) I didn’t think they were at war. We, Romanians, have a song called „Miorita”. It has been translated. Anyhow, the poem is about giving up life, and considering death like a wedding. …

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How to „sell” your crowdfunding project?

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Let’s say you have an idea, and you need some financing. You consider the project you have will benefit more people in the society, and it has a social aspect. You want to get people involved, to find out about your project and to make them invest in you, in the hope of your project being successful and benefiting even more people.

For example, let’s say you invent a cool gadget for mobile phones, you have all the basic details setup, you know how the end product will look like, but you need money to produce it and distribute it. You call for help on the Internet, you write a project and you plan to post it online (hint – 6 Top Crowdfunding Websites: Which One Is Right For Your Project? – Forbes).

How will you promote this?

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Postponing the buying decisions for technology items

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Let’s say you want to buy a monitor. If you have any option of buying that item later, postpone the decision. For example, if you know you will use the monitor only rarely, and you don’t need too perfect graphics, you could buy a second-hand big monitor. In one or two years, you could sell that monitor, and get some of your money back, and within those years, some new technologies will likely appear. Or, let’s say you only bought Microsoft keyboards, and you had only problems with them, and you want to try some new stuff. It’s better to buy a second hand Logitech keyboard, see how it goes, and, when you’re happy with the decision, you’ll take a much more informed decision. Or, let’s say you have the option of buying a cheaper smartphone. You should jump to the occasion of testing the water, buy that smartphone and see how it fits your needs. Of course, there are counter-arguments. All the examples above are of poorer quality and some of them might break more easily, leaving you without the warranty. Buying second-hand implies some risks. Yes, you will get a better monitor and smartphone two years from now, but what will you do during those years? Will you be as happy with the second-hand item as you would have been with the new item? Anyhow, if you can postpone a technology item for some years, it’s likely you’ll be able to get a better deal in future years. It’s just that the wait …

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„I want to start something online, but I lack an innovative business idea”. Well, actually, the innovative idea is *nothing*, you can be innovative with an *old* idea

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I hear this quite a lot. People looking for the perfect idea, for the perfect circumstances and the perfect wind. And not only the perfect circumstances don’t come, but people tend also to have difficulties in coming up with «good» ideas.

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Dumb and Dumber To (2014) – very nice movie!

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I liked this movie a lot: Dumb and Dumber To (2014) – IMDb. Some thoughts? It’s funny (pun intended) to see the consequences of joking. You don’t see this at first, but it’s nice. Humor has lots to do with either surprise or creativity (getting an idea). The first D&D was more on surprise, this one was more on getting some creative insights. A welcome change. It played well on „how should you see the new D&D, based on the fact that you already saw the previous version” (for example, what happened during the time between the movies, or what happened to the car?”. The smart people tend to have less courage. The stupid ones called, interacted, were friendly. At times, the characters said some pretty smart things. I really loved the pain the characters went through to have a bit of laugh. The effort to enjoy themselves, the pain they put for this. They didn’t play by the rules, they were creative. In the movie, they had not too much courage, but they were good people. They were reckless and cute in the same time. All-in-all, it was not extremely smart, but it was a pleasant watch. Good prevails. Their good intentions were better than their lack of capacities and abilities in solving things. I recently saw Beauty and the Beast (1991) – IMDb and Beauty and the Beast (2014) – IMDb, but I got much better insights & ideas from D&D to. Very fun to watch. :)

How to be better against Chessmaster software

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If you play at Chessmaster‘s highest level, it is likely you will never win a game. But, Chessmaster has a mode allowing you to pick the level of your opponents. So, let’s say you play against someone with 1200 level. The trick to win the game is the following: At the beginning, there are lots of pieces on the table. The computer needs a long time to start calculating possibilities, because each piece has lots of options to move. So, the trick is to gather some good advantage material at the beginning (a rook, two minor pieces). Then, force him to make exchanges, queen for queen, rook for rook. You’ll end up in the endgame with big advantage and, even if the computer can calculate much better now, with fewer pieces on the table, he won’t be able to beat you. The alternative – avoiding confrontation at the beginning and just exchanging the pieces can get you in the endgame with relative equilibrium and it won’t be long until Chessmaster will be able to play on your mistakes and beat you with ease.