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The FCC is currently investigating televisions stations across the US for allegedly airing video news releases (VNRs) as news stories. These VNRs came from the Bush administration, as well as several corporations like Pfizer and Mars. The VNRs usually showed the producing entities in a more positive light than a less-biased news report may have. For example, the State Department released a VNR showing an Iraqi-American thanking Bush for the fall of Baghdad, according to the article from The Independent. The State Department was one of twenty federal agencies that produced and released VNRs.

I remember seeing a story they did on this a few weeks ago. I think it may have been on The Daily Show, but I’m not sure. Basically, the television stations would air these "stories" during the evening news. In many instances, the VNRs are basically a commercial for a product. However, the sources or producers of the VNRs were rarely, if ever, disclosed.

I know that there is bias and favoritism in all types of media, but I think that it should be made explicitly clear to the audience of a news program that they are viewing propaganda or advertisements, and not news stories. The American press has a responsibilty to be forthright with their readers and watchers. I hope that any station found to have aired VNRs as news stories face the appropriate penalty.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on here. Life has been busy at home and at work. I had a couple of days off earlier this week, and that was very nice. I should actually be asleep by now, but obviously insomnia strikes again.

Here is a video I just saw of a domino demo in the game Oblivion. Someone setup books, swords, marbles and other objects from the Oblivion game using an editor and recorded a three-minute video of the dominos falling:

For those of you minding your health, you have probably heard that lactic acid build-up in your muscles is what causes fatigue and soreness when you workout. Apparently, that’s not true. Dr. George Brooks, from UC Berkeley, researched lactic acid’s effects on muscle for his PhD dissertation in exercise physiology. He found that muscle actually burned lactic acid very quickly. He first published his research that runs counter to the myth in the 1970s. After publishing it, he found it very difficult to get other papers published and obtain grants for his research. It was not until recently that other researchers confirmed his work.

"The evidence has continued to mount," said L. Bruce Gladden, a professor of health and human performance at Auburn University. "It became clear that it is not so simple as to say, Lactic acid is a bad thing and it causes fatigue."

As for the idea that lactic acid causes muscle soreness, Dr. Gladden said, that never made sense.

"Lactic acid will be gone from your muscles within an hour of exercise," he said. "You get sore one to three days later. The time frame is not consistent, and the mechanisms have not been found."

The understanding now is that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. The lactic acid is taken up and used as a fuel by mitochondria, the energy factories in muscle cells.

…

Through trial and error, coaches learned that athletic performance improved when athletes worked on endurance, running longer and longer distances, for example.

That, it turns out, increased the mass of their muscle mitochondria, letting them burn more lactic acid and allowing the muscles to work harder and longer.

So, coaches and athletes have been able to push the limits of athletic performance despite the belief in a now-debunked myth linking fatigue to lactic acid.

It’s been a few days since I’ve last posted, and even longer since I’ve posted something of substance. Quite a bit has happened in the past week. Let’s see if I remember what’s up.

I finally called Dish Network about our busted receiver. It was out of warrantee, so I had it replaced with a dual-tuner DVR box. Now, we can watch something live while recording something at the same time. And when you include the TiVo and our other Dish Network DVR, that gives us the ability to record up to four events at once. Of course, we don’t have the time to watch TV live, and we probalby don’t have enough time to watch all the things we’ll record, either.

Our treadmill is not 100% functional right now. While running one day, the treadmill started making high pitch sqeeling noises with every step. I have to call Nordic Track to see if we can get it repaired. Hopefully this won’t take the time I’ve taken to fix (or not fix, as the case may be) our bathroom.

PHS is currently looking for a Network Technician to replace Bob, who has left for another job. I’m looking forward to hearing about some new ideas and getting a different perspective from the new NT.

Saturday, Rich and I helped my mom move my sister from her dorm at ISU to an apartment in Normal. She’s got a summer internship with the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, so she’ll be living in Normal for most of the summer. Before leaving, I setup a wireless access point in her apartment so that she could roam freely without having to be tethered to the wall in her room.

When Rich and I got back to town, we went over to Mike’s house. Chris was already there, as well as Vicki, Bertoni and Gral. We ended up playing poker, after Chris crashed on the couch for a while. Mike took the final hand from me. We both had an Ace and a Seven, but he had the nut flush. I like playing poker, possibly even more so because when I’m having a good night, it’s damn near impossible for the others to read me

That’s all I remember for now. I believe there is some burger-eating going on Monday night, but I’m not sure of the details. Perhaps I’ll check out Geek Spotting for the 411.

For the film buffs out there, Amazon.com has Horror Classics Collection: 50 Movie Pack for $16.47. I don’t really know if any of the movies are all that good, but for 32 cents a movie, they’d have to be pretty bad to make this a non-deal deal. So, check it out, in case there are some good ones in there. For those of you into Sci-Fi, there’s always SciFi Classics Collection: 50 Movie Pack.

The winners of the Firefox Flicks contest have been announced. I just went through the first two pages of the top-rated flicks, and some of them are really good. I really like the winning flick, titled Daredevil. Spread Firefox and take back the web.

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but I couldn’t not post about this for those of you that I know are huge SW fans. Episodes 4-6 will be available on DVD between September 12 and December 31 of this year. I know what you’re saying: big deal, the original trilogy is already available on DVD. The unfortunate thing is that the previously released DVD edition contains the modified "special editions" of the films.

This new DVD trilogy will contain two-disc editions of the original films: the special edition and the original theatrical releases. So, I might actually be able to sit through a decent version of the original theatrical releases for once. I tried to do the VHS copies in college, but the quality was so poor from having been watched over and over again, it was unbearable.