Blog - foXnoMad

Being Bilingual Delays Onset of Dementia

by Anil Polat | Jan 17, 2007 | Culture, Health and Fitness | 0

Yet another good reason to learn another language and teach your kids. If you don’t have kids, make some, and then teach them.

Canadian scientists have found astonishing evidence that the lifelong use of two languages can help delay the onset of dementia symptoms by four years compared to people who are monolingual.

“There are no pharmacological interventions that are this dramatic,” says Dr. Freedman, who is Head of the Division of Neurology, and Director of the Memory Clinic at Baycrest, referring to the four-year delay in onset of symptoms for bilingual patients.

Those of you not in school no matter what language you learn go with immersion classes, the best way to learn and retain lingual information.

You can start with these dirty French words. Learning a language will not only help you remember your name when your 85, but also encourage you to travel before then. You’ll get more out of Egypt if you know Arabic, catch my drift?

Personally I wonder if knowing 3 or more languages provides an added protection against age-related brain decay. Guess we’ll just have to wait for that study in a few years.

Kirk Cameron Proves There is A God

by Anil Polat | Jan 16, 2007 | Travel | 3

…in less than three minutes. No, really.

Find the Cheapest Airplane Tickets: FareCompare

by Anil Polat | Jan 16, 2007 | Advice, Air, Travel | 0

It’s rare that such an online tool gets me this excited and if you fly (like, ever) this is a great tool for you. FareCompare lets you set any international home city, and they lists the cheapest prices to any city in the world you can imagine. It even gives you a 12 month history of the ticket prices. FareCompare goes through all of the major online ticket retailers for you.

Personally, I thought the Google maps it creates with a price next to each city was very cool indeed – and this Firefox extension.

Before you fly, check it.

Thanks Winky!

Woman Overdoses on Water

by Anil Polat | Jan 16, 2007 | Health and Fitness | 0

For a radio contest. If you are wondering how water can kill you, the BBC has a nice little write-up. Here is the jist:

Jennifer Strange had taken part in the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” game, which promised the winner a Nintendo Wii. Afterwards she reportedly said her head was hurting and went home, where she was later found dead. Initial tests have shown her death is consistent with water intoxication.

Drinking too much water can eventually cause your brain to swell, stopping it regulating vital functions such as breathing, and causing death.

Today’s Terror Alert Brought to You By the Letter ‘W’

by Anil Polat | Jan 16, 2007 | Security, Travel | 0

iPod Nano vs. Video iPod for a Gypsy

by Anil Polat | Jan 15, 2007 | Advice, Travel | 0

I had quite a dilemma with this choice a few weeks back, but thanks to your good advice and some money I was able to settle on the 30Gb video iPod. The nano might be practical for the run of the mill gym rat, but for those of you gypsies and hardcore travelers out there the 30Gb video iPod is the way to go.

For the same price you get 30 gigs instead of 8 gigs for the best iPod nano. Now both hold a ton of songs, but on that flight from New York to Hong Kong you’ll wish you could use some of that memory for something else other than music.
The nano is smaller and other than the reason that I just like to have something solid in my hand, you could easily lose it (the nano) amongst your junk while in a hurry at the airport.
For business type travelers or those who can’t stand watching fuzzy porno in hotels across the world, you can plug in your video iPod to almost any TV using a A/V cable. (I always travel with extra USB, A/V, and Ethernet cables and if you think that is dorky, I can’t list how many times they come in handy 🙂

Click here to find out how.

The video iPod can double up as a significant capacity second hard drive. Some places (for example Israel) are well known to confiscate electronic devices such as laptops and blackberries. If you must travel with a (work or otherwise) laptop, you can store sensitive information on your video iPod just in case. Imagine how cool you’ll be at that business meeting 😉
Video Podcasts. There are some very good free ones, they make long flights, train rides, etc. easier to digest – trust me. The best free one I’d recommend is the series by Ricky Gervais (which also happens to be the most popular podcast downloaded). Want to laugh? Get it here.

Have DVDs you want to watch? Convert them to the right format using Videora.

Thanks to everyone who commented and emailed me about this. If you’ve got other things you’d like to add, or completely disagree with, let us know in the comments! 😉