Digg = Google News

TechCrunch originally reported earlier this week the Google is in the final steps of acquiring the beloved social news site Digg.com. Digg.com was founded by Kevin Rose and now has upward of 26 million unique views every month. In spring there was also a rumor that Google was buying Digg, but the CEO of Digg immediately wrote a blog post discrediting the rumor, there has been no such blog post this time around. The rumored price for Digg.com is 200$ million, it’s not known if that is cash or stock or both. The deal if it exists should close within the next couple of weeks to a month. While it’s always sad to see an independent success such as Digg consumed by the 800 pound gorilla like Google, this will give them the power they need to fight the Digg copy cat, Yahoo Buzz. Better Google than Microsoft, which at one time was rumored to be considering a shot at Digg.

Microhoo Still Hasn’t Happened

In the last few weeks it has been revealed that Microsoft along with billionaire investor Carl Icahn are trying to again take over Yahoo, again, actually its like the third or forth time. But they are going about it a different way, this time around the deal goes something like this: Microsoft will buy the search part of yahoo for 31$ dollars a share, the rest will be given to Icahn, he will not own it; instead he will be put in charge of finding some other company to buy it. Some companies that are reportedly being considered as buyers are News Corp and Time Warner. The later of the two is still trying to sell off AOL, there was, for a time, a rumor that AOL would be packaged with part of Yahoo and sold to Microsoft or another company. Then Time Warner (which owns AOL) realized that no one wants to be seen anywhere AOL’s ISP business, and Time Warner wants to keep AOL’s web properties which include Engadget and Web Blog’s Inc. Then to make the story even crazier Carl Icahn -the one pushing to overthrow the Yahoo board of directors and Yahoo’s CEO and founder Jerry Yang- accepted a position on Yahoo’s board, so while serving on the Yahoo board he’s still pushing fellow stock holders to vote for its removal at the end of the summer. Yahoo’s stock holders meanwhile have made it clear to Microsoft that they will not sell for 31$ a share, but they will sell for 33$. At the same time Microsoft has made it clear that they are not willing to change the price they are offering, 31$. Does anyone else get the feeling that neither of these companies have ever done this before? Doesn’t it feel like a super awkward first date? You’d think that they would just hire some pros who would stop leaking stuff to the press, and who knew how to keep their companies image from crashing while in merger talks.

A Few Different Weight Lose Tips

Ok, so we’ll start with a few basic steps that will help in the long run. Buy a digital scale that displays to the tenths place. It can be depressing if you diet for a day and the scale says the same weight it said yesterday. But if it registers .2 pounds lower, that’s a good weight loss, for one day. If you continue on that rate you will lose 1.4 pounds a week, which is a good rate of weight loss.

Drink a glass of water before every meal. Water has no calories and therefore will not add to your weight, but it will help take the edge off you hunger. Eat a lot of salad with low fat dressing (that’s key), salad dressing can contain 100 calories; which is huge for such a small thing. If you eat salad which is mostly lettuce -a calorie negative food- and you eat it with low fat dressing, an apple (another calorie negative) and water that’s a perfect light lunch, with very few calories.

The average soda contains upward of 250 calories, which means that two sodas a day and you will be putting on a pound every week. So at all costs avoid sodas, I’ve heard of people who’ve lost 20 pounds from simply not drinking soda. Addicted to Coke (and I mean the soda)? There are always diet sodas which contain no calories, though some people cannot stand the taste of anything diet.

People are always saying that to lose weight you need exercise and diet. Most people don’t like the sound of exercise, I suggest walking. If you walk 5 miles a day you will burn over 500 calories (you burn 100-120 calories a mile). 5 miles sound like a lot? At 4 miles an hour (which is a fast walk) five miles will take you 1 hour and 15 minutes. This is not body building and it is not a “good” exercise for the entire body, but it will help you lose weight.

Keep track of your weight in a journal and graph it, then you can see yourself losing weight which will be a huge confidence booster. Take before and after pictures so you can see the physical pay offs of your diet.

Take 1-2 days off your diet a week. This will give you a much needed break in your diet. This is especially important in the first months of your diet, as this is the time period you are most likely to give up and quit. As you diet progresses you may get rid of these days if you can.

Get plenty of sleep, this is crucial. Recent studies have linked lack of sleep with overeating (along with pretty much every other bad thing in the book).

Your diet is not you life, remember that. If you at a birthday party have a piece of cake, just don’t have three. You are still allowed to have fun while you lose weight, this is why it is widely recommended to make you diet public to everyone you possible feel comfortable telling.

Any changes you make in your lifestyle to accommodate your diet should be made slowly. If a diet is implemented quickly you are likely to gain all that weight you just lost and you will have to start over.

If you don’t feel hungry at meal time, don’t eat the meal, simple. Don’t get pressured into eating the meal because it’s the “normal” thing to do. But also make sure you’re not skipping meals frequently, as this has long lasting negative effects.

Use an online BMI calculator to see if you are overweight or obese, if you are not ask yourself: why am I dieting? If you don’t have a good answer or it’s a stupid one, stop dieting.

Now we hit the issue of weight loss pills, a booming market. I have no idea about the success rate of prescription weight lose pills, but the over the counter pills are almost always crap. The only one that seems to be getting any traction at all is Alli, which was the first of its kind to get approval from the FDA. I usually say that weight loss pills are not worth it, that the cons out weigh the pros, but if you would like to try them there is a wealth of information only a google search away.

Have a goal weight then when you reach it; stop focusing on losing weight and focus on staying at that weight, congratz you made it, now for the hard part, staying there.

Good Luck

Just a side note, chewing gum has been proven to be a stress reliever, and you burn about 9 calories an hour!!! If you chew gum 24 hours a day, you will lose one pound every 16.2 days!!

Is Joox Down For Good?

The popular (and illegal) video sharing site, Joox.net has gone down, and it may be for good. The site, which allowed users to watch or download TV shows, movies, documentaries and much, much more (though no porn) is totally inaccessible. At first, Joox got its movies from stage66.com, but when divx, (which owned stage6.com,) shut down the website, Joox had to look elsewhere. Joox was just getting back on its feet when it went down earlier today. Joox would be illegal if it were based in the US. Joox is probably based in Sweden; this way, it would fall into the same legal loophole that The Pirate Bay falls into, that is, since they only link to illegal material, and don’t actually host the illegal material, it’s legal. We will all hope that the site will be up soon, but for now, joox.net remains dark.

Just an update I have corrected my error from stage66.com to stage6.com. Stage6.com will be shut down on feb 28 2008, it was shut down for a short time earlier this year, but due to public outcry it apears to be back, divx brought it back for a limited time.