The Iron Yuppie

Nasty, brutish and not that short

Very cool article in The Economist about the actual history of medieval warfare (via Kottke.org).

But my favorite tidbit in the article comes from something not at all related to warfare:

Bone grows in response to strenuous muscular activity, particularly if exercise starts in childhood. For instance, the serving arm of a professional tennis player has as much as a third more bone in it than his non-dominant arm.

What a cool stat. 

I guess humanity had a pretty decent run of it. It was good, not great, but I think it's time we called it a day. The object of our undoing? The Quadrocopter.

I (for one) welcome our new Quadrocopter overlords.

Here’s the news on that – you can’t. I don’t care what you say or do, what recipe has worked for you in every time you’ve had a cold since you were five, you cannot beat it.

However, to minimize the pain of the symptoms, here’s a recent story I heard which covers your best bets:

Take two single ingredient drugs every 12 hours, at the start of the scratchy, continue until symptoms are clear

• Ibuprofen/Naproxen - Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, helps to easy the feeling of malaise, cough, sore throat.
• Anti-histamine - first generation, make you drowse, Benadryl or Chlor-Trimeton, take care of runny nose

Plus:

• Salt water gargle - to relieve sore throat
• Lemon mint throat lozenges - to relieve cough

NOTE: these do not make you better but help you feel better while you're sick.