Love Chocolates?? Are they really a health booster?? Find out

• ·         “Chocolates are good for health” This statement is like flower to our ears but scientific research has not reached to an extent that we can conclude if chocolate is really good for health.

• ·         Flavonoids, a component of some chocolate has antioxidant property which means that it can control diabetes, heart attacks, strokes  and cancer and improves brain function and slows the effects of aging.

• ·         The existence of flavonoids in chocolate is restricted to dark chocolate only. So you’re out of luck if you love only white chocolate, milk layered chocolate or candies. White chocolate or any other light chocolate adds nothing to your health but add a lot to your calories.

• ·         Flavonoids are found in cocoa beans. The outer layer of cocoa beans is very rich in flavonoids.  

• ·         All the chocolate packaging indicates the amount of each ingredient being added to the chocolate. Be proud to see if flavonoid or cocoa is one of them.  A chocolate made out of 100% cocoa is beneficial.

• ·         Some chocolate companies pay up for chocolate surveys. These surveys underline that chocolate is beneficial for health only to help boost the sale of the companies. Most of the chocolate survey are sponsored by chocolate companies itself thus putting suspect behind the famous saying, ‘chocolate is good for health’.

Chocolate maybe good for health

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HDTV, HD channels. . . Don’t get cheated, learn the basic of HD before you switch to anything that is HD.

Image Source: jcprovideo.com

With a number of commercials about HD Channels, HD Recorders, HDTV etc   people are tempted to go for HD without much knowledge about it. Hence some of them complain about poor picture quality even though their TV set is HDTV. Why is it so?

HD or high definition is the top tier of DTV i.e. Digital TV. Digital TV unlike analog TV works on digital signal of zeroes and ones whereas analog works on wave principle.  Remember that to experience HD you will at least need the following.

1     HD broadcasting station: The signal coming into your TV must be HD, for that the signal transmitted from the broadcasting station must be HD. When a particular channel has a HD tag then you can be sure of the fact that the broadcast of that channel is of HD mode.

2     HD Receiver: Either your cable operator should have a HD receiver i.e. a HD set top box or you yourself must have a digital signal receiver at home to decode the digital signal being broadcasted.

3      HDTV:  This is where the necessity of HDTV clicks in to see the progressive scan image of the received signal. 

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Next, we learn the basic difference of an analog TV and   HDTV.

An analog TV works on interlacing. The pictures we see in our television set are a set of frames of images which are moved very fast to create a motion of picture, hence a moving picture results. Interlacing increases the frame rate by consuming the same bandwidth of received signal.  Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) is capable of displaying interlaced signals.

Digital TV uses progressive scan technology. In interlacing the frames are created by alternate odd and even line of pixel whereas in progressive scan technology all the pixel line are created sequentially. Analog TV has a standard aspect ratio of 4:3, 16:9 for digital TV. Aspect ratio is the standard width by height ratio of the image in a television.

You must have seen the tag 1080i or 1080p. It means that the screen resolution is 1920 X 1080 interlaced or progressive. Such a high resolution is available in HD transmission alone. When an analog broadcasting signal is viewed in a digital TV, then a poor picture quality is witnessed, that is because the broadcasted signal is in the ration 4:3 viewed in a TV of ratio 16:9.

The GNU/Linux Legend, Richard Matthew Stallman on the take of Free Software

Richard Stallman, developer of GNU/Linux who recently visited Gauhati University stressed on use of Free Software citing its advantage and attacking propriety software (Non-Free Software) for its evil deeds in society.

Following are some of his conclusion drawn from the lecture.

• Facebook, according to Mr. Richard is a surveillance, which is abusing its user and gaining lots of personal information to pass on it to the intelligence bureau.

• Microsoft Windows is a malware, so is Apple’s Mac and its software. That’s because they install software having malicious codes without the users consent. He further adds that once you install an OS from Microsoft or Apple to your computer, that particular computer becomes sole property of the said company because they obtain all the rights to play with any of your file in your computer. This is true and dangerous.

• Some websites when visited can install malicious program in your PC and track down your personal information including the place where you are living. This is basically achieved by websites running propriety JavaScript. Mr. Richard stresses on use of free JavaScript.

• Free Software unlike the paid ones respects your freedom. It will do what you want the program to do and let you modify it too. Further more, you can redistribute free software among your friends, it’s all legal. What happens in paid software is that they rarely allow the freedom to use the program as the user wants. According to Mr. Richard, propriety software makes a user dependent over it, over that, it can’t be redistributed and its source code is kept secret, all this going against the spirit of good will.

• Free Software will merge with Open Source anytime in near future.

• Mr. Richard objects that he is not the father of open source, he says, “If I am the father of open source then it would be like stealing my sperm and artificially inseminating it”

• Schools from Nursery to Post Graduate level should use free software, because it saves lots of investment of the schools and provides full freedom to modify the source code of the program student’s use. Some company ties up with schools to provide Computer knowledge, but what actually these companies do is against the well being of the society. These companies prompt the school student to use their software, but if some of the student out of curiosity wants to know how those program works then they are bound NOT to know it because the source code of those propriety programs are kept secret by the same company, thus defeating the purpose of good will and learning.

Mr. Richard Matthew Stallman concluded his lecture by appealing to use free software and spread the message of merits of free software. Answering to a question he said that free software can permanently come in the mainstream and rule over paid software once people learn about its internal advantage and start using them.