Adam's Helium Articles

$5K a week passing out special presents in the form of coupons

2007-07-24T21:13:00.001-07:00

Everyone has seen the commercials and heard the advertisements that seem too good to be true. Those little ads in the corners of many websites that promise big bucks for relatively little work are the same sort of scam. We as human beings would love anything that involves sitting all day and making money doing nothing. But this is not the case, you have to be either extremely lucky (the lottery) or incredibly smart or have the skills to make that sort of money.

Hard work and determination is the only way to make money these days. Even sites like this that allow people to make money that seems almost too good to be true still require time and effort put into the articles that we write. The way our society has evolved has put the importance over money over many key values and now people can create these scams and use the information you submit for their own little plots for making a quick buck. Work is work, it is time that could be better spent but in the end we are able to reap the rewards after a hard day of work.

Difference between the Swedish mil and UK mile

2007-07-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

Standards for measurement have been laid down to increase the precision and standardization of materials, roads, among many other things. Time for instance has been standardized so that we can easily measure the passage of time and is uniform throughout the world making it so that a person only needs to get used to the time zone difference instead of a whole new 'second' or 'minute'. Like time, distance has been standardized but it still varies from place to place.

UK mile vs Swedish mil:
The standard metric system with the meter, kilometer, nanometer, and so on is becoming commonplace around the world. Though this is the case, the UK, US, and many other countries are still clinging to their standards of measure. The UK (Imperial) mile is labeled as 5280 feet while the Swedish mil is now using a variation of the standard metric system with a mil being a equivalent to exactly 10 kilometers.

Standards of measurement help to increase precision and make life easier for people moving from one region to another. Also, it helps people understand similarities between measurements when speaking in the same terms such as 'this stick is 1 meter' instead of having to convert one distance into another. They help support internationalism and have many economic as well as societal benefits.

Resources:
http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian/Swedish_mil

How killer whales got the name 'orca'

2007-07-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

The Orcinus orca or Orca (Killer Whale) is the largest of the dolphin family. It is a large predator that ranges from the artic ocean to the tropical seas. Their diet varies from fish to large whales and this very act of predation on large whales gave them the name "assassin whale" or "whale killer" by the Spanish. The Killer Whale like many of its dolphin brethren have such sophisticated behaviors that it may preclude culture. For more information about Orcinus orca, please visit the resources below.

Common names:
Orca
The name Orca came from the ancient Romans. The word may have been adopted from the Greek word: and is used to refer to a species of whale. Later variations of the word may have ended up to be "Orc" used to describe a large fish, whale, or sea-monster.

Killer Whale
The 18th-century Spanish sailors first called the creatures Killer Whales because of their tenacity to attack large whales. When translated into English, it changed to was mistranslated to "Killer Whale" and the name stuck.

Orca and Killer Whale:
The name "Killer Whale" is now used in English, however, the original name "Orca" has grown in popularity since the 1960s. "Orca" is still used in several other languages as well and as the amount of international research on the species increases, the names have converged to represent the creatures.

From Wikipedia:
Supporters of the original name point out that the naming heritage is not limited to Spanish sailors. Indeed the genus name "Orcinus" means "from Hell" (see Orcus), and although the name "Orca" (in use since antiquity) is probably not etymologically related, the assonance might have given some people the idea that it meant "whale that brings death," or "demon from hell." The name of this species is similarly intimidating in many other languages, including Finnish, Dutch, German, Haida, Japanese and Chinese.

Conclusion:
The name Orca and Killer Whale have come to represent the same creature and it will be interesting from a linguistic standpoint to see if the name "Orca" comes to dominate "Killer Whale" or vice versa. The name Killer Whale and Orca seem very fitting for these creatures and the roots of these names are quite interesting as well.

Resources:
http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=84
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca
http://www.whalesbc.com/

Plant species with sequenced genomes

2007-07-24T21:03:00.001-07:00

With the advent of genomic mapping, there has been a rush to sequence organisms to better understand them, their genus, their phyla, and their domain in hopes of genetically engineering them to create better organisms that will aid us. With plants being just as important as all the other domains and serving as a food source, building material, oxygen source, and many other purposes they us with great capabilities. Understanding and using them could provide us with even more. Sequencing plants is of utmost importance as the number of humans increases and the theoretical carrying capacity is approached. The first plant to be completely sequenced was the Thale Cress, a model organism, just as important as the mouse for genetic experimentation.

Thale Cress:
Mapping the genomic sequences of plants had it first major breakthrough in 2000 and was the result of 4 years of study by the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. This project include over 100 scientists from around the world and the total cost was estimated to be around $78 million. The Thale Cress serves as the model plant for genomic sequencing because of its ability to reproduce quickly (about 6 weeks), easy growth, has a small genome, and offers insights in all other plants.

Rice:
After the success of the Thale Cress, plants were sequenced readily and rice became an important goal since it serves as a staple in many countries and is also a model organism. As the number of plants with sequenced genomes increased, scientists set their sights on more complex plants in hopes of understanding plant biology better and provide new insight into genetic engineering.

Balsam Poplar:
The Balsam Poplar represents the first woody plant to be sequenced. Being a woody plant provides us with information about other genomes of this nature. Since wood is of economic importance, this information is key to creating superior wood products.

With plants being readily sequenced, the importance of this genomic mapping will only increase. We will be able to utilize the information that plants have in store and understand more complex organisms. The plants that have been sequenced so far offer insight that will have economic, cultural, and societal benefits becoming increasingly important as we dive deeper into the realms of plant biology and genetic engineering.

Completely Sequenced Plants and the Date Completed:
Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale Cress) December 14, 2000
Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica (Rice) April 5, 2002
Cyanidioschyzon Merolae (Red Alga) April 8, 2004
Oryza sativa ssp. japonica (Rice) August 11, 2005
Ostreococcus tauri (Green Alga) August 1, 2006
Populus balsamifera trichocarpa (Balsam Poplar) September 15, 2006
Ostreococcus lucimarinus (Green Alga) May 3, 2007

Resources and helpful articles about genomic sequencing in plants: http://genomesonline.org/gold.cgi?want=Published+Complete+Genomes&pubsort=Domain http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/resources/sequenced_genomes/genome_guide_p1.shtml
http://www.jyi.org/news/nb.php?id=401 http://www.mindfully.org/GE/First-Complete-Plant.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_eukaryotic_genomes

How do you use the internet

2007-07-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

Being in the generation that has gone from dial-up to cable has greatly changed consumption of the Internet. From the old days of basic news sources, chatrooms, and newsgroups to social networking and Web 2.0 and connectedness, the Internet has changed with its consumption.
In the good ole' days of the 90s

The Internet was painstakingly slow compared to today's standards. The amount of time it took to do anything was beyond reasonable but it still offered a great outlet to find information and increased the speed of communication immensely. E-mail and instant messaging started becoming popular as more and more people got connected to the World Wide Web.
Fast forward to today when the Internet is faster than TV for news.

Today, we can pull up our favorite Social Bookmarking site and find out what is popular and not only find it on YouTube but also the second generation of that online video. The connectedness has greatly increased and the ability to hold conversations with people from around the world is amazing. With Facebook and MySpace, it is even easier to stay in touch with friends and 'enemies'. We are able to find the latest gossip just with the click of a button and if it isn't "Facebook" or "MySpace Official" it just isn't true.

The consumption of the Internet has gone from email, instant messaging, news, newsgroups to online TV, videos, social networking, and up-to-the-second news. Internet consumption is undoubtedly going to change in the future and it will be amazing to see what happens in the coming decade.

How to get your articles more views and traffic

2007-07-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

Writing articles is easy but it is much harder to get high constant traffic with people coming back to read the material you write. The people coming to read your articles should be able to easily find the information they want and this involves a few tips that will help search engines and people find the right information.

1) Titles get the attention

The title and opening paragraph is key to hooking the user into your content. Titles should be well thought out and concise. This helps a search engine format your title and keywords correctly. The user who is browsing a search engine will most likely click on a title that they can read and understand and answers their most basic questions abot the information they want. The title and opening paragraph help to grab users' attention and point them in the right direction so a nice little summary at the beginning will help a user get a gist of the article.

2) Key points should be well laid out

Larger blocks of text could use breaks that point out key points of the article. This is as easy as putting a sentence between points in your article and could also involve a short little paragraph about upcoming points. This helps the user find the specific information they want much quicker than them having to read large blocks of text. The average user will not read large articles without some guidance and most likely skip the points they are looking for if the key points are not adequately marked.

3) Linking helps users find more information

The goal of an article should be to provide a user with the information they want. The user is the consumer and they will not read your articles if you do not supply the content that they want. Though it is impossible to read the consumer's mind, it is possible to show them what you have to offer and then trying to help them along in their quest with more sites that may offer the information they want. The resources you used to create an article are great places to start for users to find more information. This also helps other people with their articles by helping to promote their content. Sometimes people who are gracious enough for the traffic from your site will provide a link on their site to yours promoting your traffic as well. This is great way for writers to help each other and can create strong bonds between sites.

4) Advertising is key

The last and one of the most important aspects of article writing involves advertising your content. Their are many different sources for this and surprisingly, most are free. The rise of social bookmarking sites has provided writers with easy access to traffic for their content. Digg.com, Stumbleupon.com, Reddit.com, Del.icio.us and many more are great sites to submit content to. It is also a good measure of how important your content is as well. The ranking tools offered on these sites help you judge what kind of content to provide and can greatly increase your article-writing skills as well. Other forms of advertisement and ways to increase your income can be found on http://www.helium.com/tm/468272/article-httpmakemone yfreeadsenseblogspotcomhi-growing-community

Though it may seem tough at first to get alot of traffic on your site, it will get easier as the content of your site increases and your name becomes more recognizable. Many people are out to do the same thing as you but writing good content is where to begin and with time, it will become easier to get the amount of traffic you want. I hope this helps at least a few people out there and that they can learn from just my few tidbits of knowledge.

Resources:
http://www.helium.com/tm/463394/people-articles-register-company http://www.helium.com/tm/466491/getting-readers-articles-quite http://www.helium.com/tm/441695/article-stand-visitors-never

Defining Just-in-time compilation

2007-07-24T20:59:00.002-07:00

Just-in-time compilation is a feature shared by Java and .Net Framework and can increase the runtime performance for computer programs. Just-in-time compilation is also referred to as dynamic compilation and has advantages in portability, flexibility, and performance. Just-In-Time compilation does however have a delay in startup time but is still a great feature to have when dealing with large blocks of repeated code.

Just-in-time compilation helps to improve runtime performance by caching blocks of code for reuse. Unlike interpreted languages that have to compile programs line by line, operand by operand. Just-in-time compilation stores blocks of code that are compiled so that if another block of code like the original occurs again, the compiler can use the already generated code instead. This helps to gave runtime performance and is often used in Java.

Just-in-time compilation is a form of dynamic compilation which compiles code in the first few moments/minutes of runtime execution. Though there is an initial delay involved, it helps to improve performance overall.

Just-in-time compilation is a useful feature to have when dealing with large programs that can be improved by runtime compilation. The improvement in speed comes from the reuse of code and is a great tool to have. Due to the improvement of performance, just-in-time compilation will undoubtedly become more important in the future.

Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation
among other Wikipedia articles.

Best websites for greeting cards

2007-07-24T20:59:00.001-07:00

I have only used these a few times and most of the time it is for little reason beside to say hello. I usually use free greeting cards that are sent to the person through email and the person gets to view a flash card of my choosing with a message.

I would say my favorite site is by far: http://www.123greetings.com/

There are variety of different cards for choosing and the topics of these cards range wildly. Today for instance July 20th, 2007 they have a card for cow appreciation day. They have some outrageous holiday cards and I feel that this site is the best way to give someone a treat.

Other than that, I would just type greeting cards or free greetings cards in your favorite search engine and you sure to get some nice site to send someone a card from or get ideas from.

The most visited websites

2007-07-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

The Internet offers so many resources for a user to find the information they want and also make their life easier. The most visited sites could be found statistically by counting the page hits or unique visitors, but that does not take into account the amount of time that people spend on the site and how often they talk about that particular site. There are many sites out there that record the amount of traffic that a site receives.

For example: http://www.alexa.com/ and http://www.compete.com/ offer a variety of resources to find the amount of traffic that a site gets. Another great resource that shows some interesting information about the Internet can be found at

The Periodic Table of the Internet: http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/ 2007-06-23-periodic-table-of-the-internet.html

This page orders the some important sites under different categories and also their ranking in terms of visits. This site is especially important when trying to find popular sites that belong to a certain category.

The top 500 highest traffic sites can be found at http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500. This site is sorted by country allowing users to find out what kind of sites are popular around the world.

For example the top ten for the United States as of July 20th, 2007 are:

1) Yahoo.com

2) Google.com

3) Myspace.com

4) Msn.com

5) Youtube.com

6) Ebay.com

7) Facebook.com

8) Live.com

9) Craigslist.org

10) Wikipedia.org

The most visited sites does not take into account the amount of popularity or other factors but it is a good way to quantitatively define the top sites on the Internet.

Why you should not shut down your Windows PC

2007-07-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

This is often a debated point and is important when trying to get the most out of a machine. I find that turning off my computer is almost necessary during the night. A computer should be turned off at night for a couple of reasons. The first is that it saves energy. The second is that it helps to cool off parts of the system and make your computer last longer.

A computer often draws a variable amount of power. During peak usage, the amount can be 250 watt according to http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html . Even when idling a computer can consume alot of energy over a period of time. This energy not only goes into the computer but it also has to come out. Certain smaller rooms may feel a significant increase of temperature due to a computer. Thus leaving a computer on for a long time may be detrimental to your room's temperature and energy bill.

Another reason why a computer should be turned off during the night increases the longevity of the components of the computer. This may not seem big but it does require alot of energy to leave a computer on for a long period of time. During this time, even though the computer is doing little work, it is still running processes and using the fans to stay cool. Over time all things wear out and this is troublesome for computer users who do not wish to buy new computers. Turning off your computer is a great way to keep your parts from degrading too quickly.

A computer should be shut down often so that it has a chance to cool down, and will help to keep your computer young and fit. Not only that, it does help to save money. The amount of power that your computer can end up being significant and shutting down a computer does not take too much effort. A computer will last longer if you shut it down.

The advantages of watching TV on your computer

2007-07-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

I find that saving money and pinching pennies wherever possible can greatly increase the amount of money you have but you lose some of the luxuries of modern living like the TV for instance. There are a number of sites and way to see your favorite shows over the Internet, but there is a price to pay in most cases. The sites are just getting their archives created so many of the shows are not up to date, though there is a flip side. These archives can have great treasures in them, for instance, many TV shows of the 80s and 90s or earlier have found their way onto the Internet and are free to download. As for legality, that is a grey area so it is best to take some caution.

Saving money is where the Internet comes in handy, I have not paid for TV since summer of 2005. The Internet has many great sites that can be found by searching for them in many common search engines. The only problem is it is hard to find a good site that keeps itself updated and has many people submitting new content. It would be best to start with a blog from a person that has been in your shoes. They will be able to point you in the right direction and tell you about sites or programs that exist to get free TV shows. Blogs are a powerful tool for finding information by people who have spent time looking for the same content.

Another advantage of TV on the computer is that the archives of many sites have TV shows from all across time. Some sites allow you to view TV shows from even before the 80s and old time favorites are still great to watch every so often. Aside from old TV shows, many sites also have the archives of your favorite current shows including that one show you missed early in the season. This is rather helpful if you are a die hard fan for a series. Like you, many other people are the same they help you by providing content.

The Internet has come far since its conception and it is sometimes scary what you can find on this network but if you know some tricks you can find these TV shows, movies, music, and much more for practically nothing. Many people are out there doing the same thing you are so it helps to seek their advice to find the content you want.

Some Free TV Resources:
http://www.tv-links.co.uk
http://www.videostored.com
http://tv-video.net

Should restaurants be required to list calories and fat grams on their menus?

2007-07-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

I think that restaurants should list calories and fat grams or as close to an upper bound of these two as possible. It is almost impossible to determine the exact quantity of fat or calories in a dish at a restaurant since food preparation can vary. It is also good to at least have these facts because of people on diets. Many people are so concerned about their diets that without an estimate about how bad they are eating, that the restaurant could lose business. Though certain meals may be weened out by this menu technique, restaurants could keep track of statistics to help eliminate meals that are not consumed after the addition of the nutritional information.

Obesity is a primary concern for millions of Americans these days and strict diets are popping up everywhere. Without restaurants being able to show the their nutritional information they may be helping to make this epidemic worse. Thus if restaurants weren't listing this information, it may curb some appetites. Without listing the information, people who are on diets may not end up spending any money at a particular restaurant because they do not know what they can eat. If everything is deep-fried and there are no healthy alternatives, people who are health-conscious may choose another restaurant resulting in loss of sales for the restaurant and furthermore loss of other potential customers. These potential customers may here from just one person that the food is not healthy and lose their appetite for that place. So in the interest of the restaurant, it may be best to show the information for people who are dieting.

Restaurants could also benefit from this move to include nutritional information. If they change their menu to include this information, they could start tallying what people eat and survey the customers to find which food is being eaten. With this information, restaurants could trim their menu and perhaps decrease the prices of other foods. Raw materials for certain dishes could be eliminated with this technique and the restaurant could save a few bucks and help boost sales by decreasing the prices of other menu items.

All in all, it is a tough decision. Restaurants should show the information for the benefit of people on strict diets and the for potential for increased sales. This will not be my decision to make, I think it is worth a try for businesses though.