McDemos – For Easy Protesting

protest!Ever wanted to tell people what you think but can’t find the time to fit into your busy schedule? I know I have! Well, we’re in luck because a group of artists have created quick and painless demos in the heart of the Old Empire (you know, the one that the sun never sets in). Introducing McDemos:

Ever wanted to bring capitalism crashing down but can’t get time off work to do it?

Wanna force liberal parliamentary democracy to bow it’s corpulent head in shame but have to take the car into the garage AND do the shopping?

Do you get the urge to jab John Prescott with a stick till he cries like a fat girl but can’t find a stick?

Then McDemo’s is for you, we’ll find the stick and do the jabbing! Let us demonstrate for you!

In this busy 24/7 world you often don’t get the time to make your voice heard, so isn’t it about time you contracted your protesting needs out?

We’ll ruin multinationals while you relax with a cocktail by the pool. We’ll force MPs from office while you catch up with Desperate Housewives on E4. Let us demonstrate for you!

Vaccine to Quell Wanting Nicotine

Smoking is obviously very bad for your health, tobacco cultivators, and even the environment. WIth that in mind, it’s great to see that research into a nicotine vaccine is underway and is seeing some success.

Rennard said patients who produced the most anti-nicotine antibodies were also the ones most likely to stop smoking for longer. And if they did not quit, they smoked less — 10 cigarettes on average a day, compared with 20 before they got the vaccine.

“This development is key for the field of smoking cessation research and could have a significant impact on how we treat patients with nicotine addiction,” said Rennard, who presented his findings to a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida.

Chocolate Good for the Earth

Here’s some good news for all you chocolate lovers out there: a chocolate byproduct can provide fuel!

North western English firm Ecotec has taken waste from the chocolate manufacturing process, turned it into bio-ethanol and mixed it with vegetable oil to produce biodiesel.

Some biofuels have come under fire for either diverting much-needed food crops or leading to massive deforestation as land is cleared to grow crops specially for biofuel production.

NaNoWriMo 2007 Begins!

runnerNational Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon was again!

Get your plots out and your writing hands ready to write your novel in one month – remember that it’s quantity not quality!

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

We also mentioned NaNoWriMo last year.

Free Rice and Free Vocabulary

FreeRice is a site that will improve the world and your mind. The site gives you a word you need to define and if you get it right you have successfully donated rice to a hungry person somewhere in the world!

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

Thanks Craig!