How to: Purchase Domain and Hosting
I have had a number of people ask me how to build a website, and what they need to buy to do so. Most recently many of these have been rooted in the interest of buying a domain and owning XYZ.com. I typically suggest to people that they should avoid purchasing their domain from a host all wrapped up in one package. The reason for this is it restricts you the option to switch one or the other later on when they decide, “Hey, Mr. loyal customer you aren’t going anywhere so the next year will cost you $100 rather than the $10 we charged you to start.” If you decided at this time to switch to another company, they can restrict you from doing so for a period of time by taking hold of your DNS Lookup address. However when you purchase the domain from one company and host from another one its easy enough to switch one or the other at any time and just update the address manually on either end without much hassle as both are trying to keep you a happy customer rather than a dopey loyal one.
Lastly, I am often asked for recommendations, though obviously biased as they are who I have been happily using for the past 2 years for multiple domains, I use 1&1 for Domains and JustHost.com for Hosting. Good luck and happy building.
[via: Ximfinity.com]
Why Doctors Die Differently
Very interesting article on the reasons why a patient driven healthcare system has caused a rise in death preventative medicine which in turn has caused increased suffering to patients rather than improved life expectancy with a significantly high level of quality in life.
[via: WSJ.com]
Why you Should be Afraid of Your Child’s Math Textbook
This is what is educating the next generation of Americans. Not only does this type of material fail to educate students on math and science, it fails to inspire or excite students about learning these topics on their own.
[via: Annie Keeghan @ Salon.com]
Grow Your Own Fresh Air
Interesting TED talk on houseplants and office plants allowing occupants to grow fresh air. This links into the growing concept of biology and the built environment. This is the concept of providing a cleaner living/working environment by managing the biology of the surrounding environment within the HVAC system rather than forcing the system into sanitation. When forcing the system into sanitation it creates ideal breeding grounds for the types of bacteria that humans are susceptible to. By managing and purposefully allowing the bacteria that do not harm humans, the bad ones have to compete to survive and therefore are not nearly as successful at surviving host to host transmission. Interesting stuff, much more to come from other sources I believe.
[via: TED]
OXO Paper Towel Holder

[via: Amazon.com]