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Do kids play too many video games?

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.

A prominent feature of the Xbox 360 is its integrated Xbox Live service that allows players to compete online and download content such as arcade games, game demos, trailers, TV shows, and movies. Major features of the console include its Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities, mandatory support of high definition in all games, movie rentals and game downloads from its online marketplace and the ability to watch HD DVD movies with an add-on drive.

The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan, and, as of August 27, 2009, 31 million units have been sold worldwide, according to GameSpot’s interview with Greenberg. The Xbox 360 is currently available in two configurations—the “Arcade” and the “Elite”—and each has its own selection of accessories. A former model, the “Pro,” was discontinued on August 28, 2009 but units will continue to be sold until the supply is exhausted.

Known during development as Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS, Xbox Next, or NextBox, the Xbox 360 was conceived in early 2003. In February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft’s Vice President J Allard. That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, Washington to recruit support for the system. Also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12, 2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, a deal which was publicly announced two days later. Before the launch of the Xbox 360, several alpha development kits were spotted using Apple’s Power Mac G5 hardware. This was due to the system’s PowerPC 970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBM’s Xenon processor. The cores of the Xenon processor were developed using a slightly-modified version of the PlayStation 3’s Cell Processor PPE architecture. According to David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, the IBM employees were “hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba.”

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$500 In Groceries For Voting

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Are you a good cook?

Cooking is the process of preparing food by applying heat, selecting, measuring and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor, appearance, texture, or digestibility of food. Factors affecting the final outcome include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual doing the actual cooking.

The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, social and religious diversity throughout the nations, races, creeds and tribes across the globe.

Applying heat to food usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, consistency, appearance, and nutritional properties. Methods of cooking that involve the boiling of liquid in a receptacle have been practised at least since the 10th millennium BC, with the introduction of pottery.

When heat is used in the preparation of food, it can kill or inactivate potentially harmful organisms including bacteria and viruses.

The effect will depend on temperature, cooking time, and technique used. The temperature range from 41°F to 135°F (5°C to 57°C) is the "food danger zone." Between these temperatures bacteria can grow rapidly. Under optimal conditions, E. coli, for example, can double in number every twenty minutes. The food may not appear any different or spoiled but can be harmful to anyone who eats it. Meat, poultry, dairy products, and other prepared food must be kept outside of the "food danger zone" to remain safe to eat. Refrigeration and freezing do not kill bacteria, but only slow their growth. When cooling hot food, it should not be left standing or in a blast chiller for more than 90 minutes.

Cutting boards are a potential breeding ground for bacteria, and can be quite hazardous unless safety precautions are taken. Plastic cutting boards are less porous than wood and have conventionally been assumed to be far less likely to harbor bacteria. This has been debated, and some research has shown wooden boards are far better. Washing and sanitizing cutting boards is highly recommended, especially after use with raw meat, poultry, or seafood. Hot water and soap followed by a rinse with an antibacterial cleaner (dilute bleach is common in a mixture of 1 tablespoon per gallon of water, as at that dilution it is considered food safe, though some professionals choose not to use this method because they believe it could taint some foods), or a trip through a dishwasher with a "sanitize" cycle, are effective methods for reducing the risk of illness due to contaminated cooking implements.

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iPhone 3G For Voting

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Do you text while driving?

Text messaging, or texting is a colloquial term referring to the exchange of brief written messages between mobile phones, over cellular networks. While the term most often refers to messages sent using the Short Message Service (SMS), it has been extended to include messages containing image, video, and sound content, such as MMS messages. Individual messages are referred to as "text messages" or "texts".

The most common application of the service is person-to-person messaging, but text messages are also used to interact with automated systems, such as ordering products and services for mobile phones, or participating in contests. Advertisers and service providers use texts to notify mobile phone users about promotions, payment due dates, and other notifications that were previously sent by post or left as voicemail. There are internet services available that allow users to send text messages free of direct charge to the sender.

Many companies have claimed to have sent the very first text message, but according to a former employee of NASA, Edward Lantz, the first was sent via a simples Motorola beeper in 1989 by Raina Forteni from New York City to Melbourne Beach, Florida using upside down numbers that could be read as words and sounds. The first SMS typed on a GSM phone is claimed to have been sent by Riku Pihkonen, an engineer student at Nokia, in 1993. The first deaf person to send a text message was in April 1995 by David Jackson, a Deaf researcher working at the Centre for Deaf Studies within the University of Bristol; the research project he was involved in was a joint venture between the university, Orange and Nokia.

Initial growth of text messaging was slow, with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 messages per GSM customer per month. One factor in the slow take-up of SMS was that operators were slow to set up charging systems, especially for prepaid subscribers, and eliminate billing fraud which was possible by changing SMSC settings on individual handsets to use the SMSCs of other operators. Over time, this issue was eliminated by switch-billing instead of billing at the SMSC and by new features within SMSCs to allow blocking of foreign mobile users sending messages through it. By the end of 2000, the average number of messages per user reached 35.

SMS was originally designed as part of GSM, but is now available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks. However, not all text messaging systems use SMS, and some notable alternate implementations of the concept include J-Phone’s "SkyMail" and NTT Docomo’s "Short Mail", both in Japan. E-mail messaging from phones, as popularized by NTT Docomo’s i-mode and the RIM BlackBerry, also typically use standard mail protocols such as SMTP over TCP/IP.

Today text messaging is the most widely used mobile data service, with 35% of all mobile phone users worldwide or 4.2 Million out of 7.3 Million phone subscribers at end of 2003 being active users of the Short Message Service. In countries like Finland, Sweden and Norway over 72% of the population use SMS. The European average is about 85% and North America is rapidly catching up with over 40% active users of SMS by end of 2006. The largest average usage of the service by mobile phone subscribers is in the Philippines with an average of 15 texts sent per day by subscriber. In Singapore the average is 12 and in South Korea 10.

Text messaging was reported to have addictive tendencies by the Global Messaging Survey by Nokia in 2001 and was confirmed to be addictive by the study at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 2004. Since then the study at the University of Queensland in Australia has found that text messaging is the most addictive digital service on mobile or internet, and is equivalent in addictiveness to cigarette smoking. The text reception habit introduces a need to remain connected, called "Reachability".

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Do you eat at McDonald’s Weekly?

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving nearly 47 million customers daily. At one time it was the largest global restaurant chain, it has since been surpassed by multi-brand operator Yum! (KFC, Taco Bell and others) and sandwich chain Subway.

In addition to its signature restaurant chain, McDonald’s Corporation held a minority interest in Pret A Manger until 2008, and owned the Chipotle Mexican Grill until 2006 and the restaurant chain Boston Market until 2007. The company has also expanded the McDonald’s menu in recent decades to include alternative meal options, such as salads and snack wraps, in order to capitalize on growing consumer interest in health and wellness.

Each McDonald’s restaurant is operated by a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. The corporations’ revenues come from the rent, royalties and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. McDonald’s revenues grew 27% over the three years ending in 2007 to $22.8 billion, and 9% growth in operating income to $3.9 billion.

McDonald’s primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. In response to obesity trends in western nations and in the face of criticism over the healthiness of its products, the company has modified its menu to include such healthier alternatives as salads, wraps and fruit.

The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald’s was a man with a chef’s hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald in 1963.

The first McDonald’s restaurants opened in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, France, El Salvador and Sweden in order of openings.

The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois on April 15, 1955 , the ninth McDonald’s restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers’ equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965. Kroc was also noted for aggressive business practices, compelling the McDonald brothers to leave the fast food industry. The McDonald brothers and Kroc feuded over control of the business, as documented in both Kroc’s autobiography and in the McDonald brothers’ autobiography. The site of the McDonald brothers’ original restaurant is now a monument.

With the expansion of McDonald’s into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Its prominence has also made it a frequent topic of public debates about obesity, corporate ethics and consumer responsibility.

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Do you use a Mac or PC?

The Get a Mac campaign is a current (2006–present) television advertising campaign created for Apple Inc. by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company’s advertising agency. Shown in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan, the ads in the campaign have become easily recognizable because each ad follows a standard simple template: against a minimalist all-white background, a man dressed in casual clothes introduces himself as a Mac ("Hello, I’m a Mac."), while a man in a more formal suit-and-tie combination introduces himself as a Windows personal computer ("And I’m a PC."). The two then act out a brief vignette in which the capabilities and attributes of Mac and PC are compared, with PC—characterized as formal, stuffy and overly concerned with work—often being frustrated by the more laid-back Mac’s abilities. Some recent ads have shifted focus away from comparing features of the computer systems to a more general comparison. The most recent ones, however, are mainly concerning Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista.

The original American ads star actor Justin Long as the Mac and author and humorist John Hodgman as the non-Mac PC, and are directed by Phil Morrison. The American ads also air on Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand television, and at least 24 of them were dubbed into Spanish, French, German, and Italian. The British campaign stars comedic duo Robert Webb as Mac and David Mitchell as PC while the Japanese campaign features the comedic duo Rahmens. Although several of the British and Japanese ads originated in the American campaign, they are generally slightly altered to suit local sensibilities. Both the British and Japanese campaigns also feature several original ads not seen in the American campaign.

The Get a Mac campaign is the successor to the Switch ads that were first broadcast in 2002. Arguably, the two are most similar in that actors in both campaigns were filmed against a plain white background. Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the campaign during a shareholders meeting the week before the campaign started. The campaign also coincided with a change of signage and employee apparel at Apple retail stores detailing reasons to switch to Macs.

The Get a Mac campaign received the Grand Effie Award in 2007.