fcukin.com

If you think Zylotrim is the elusive magic pill that will allow you to eat whatever you want, never exercise and still shed the pounds, you may as well stop reading now. In fact, you may as well stop browsing the web, because it doesn’t exist.

Of course, you’d never think so reading the advertising hype for Zylotrim. Anyone gullible enough to swallow their claims would swear they’d uncovered the holy grail of diet aids.

The dubious makers of Zylotrim is a company by the name of Obesity Research Institute LLC. They also make Fiberthin, Lipozene and Propolene all weight loss products. Obesity Research Institute LLC was recently fined 1.5 million dollars for making misleading weight-loss claims. The federal trade commission has received numerous complaints about the products manufactured by this company. And hundreds of consumer complains file with the Nevada Better Business Bureau.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/06/fiberthin.htm

What Is Zylotrim?

It is very diffiuclt to tell what is actually in Zylotrim. The ingredients in the product are not found anywhere on the website. Even when you call their customer service number, you can’t get a straight answer. The only thing they can tell you is that the ingredient is a compound derived from a yam in Latin America. This compound is supposed to increase fat burning enzymes in your body to increase your fat burning potential by 200%. There is “clinical evidence” in Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals magazine. Unfortunately, there is no information on this magazine or that this magazine even exists. It seems that this company is up to its old tricks that landed them in hot water previously.

What Diet Pills Are Truly Effective?

If you shop for such products in a health store or pharmacy or on the Internet, you’ll find hundreds of different brands containing a confusing array of ingredients. You may be tempted to experiment with different diet aids until you find one that works. But this approach may be expensive. The health magazine Consumer Health Digest had a great review on diet pills and their actual effectiveness in a recent feature, the results are quite surprising . Click on this link to read their review:

There are hundreds of weight loss products on the market today. Just turn on your television or flip through any magazine and you will get bombarded with ads for products that claim unbelievable weight loss results. With all of the hype, it’s impossible to tell what’s what and which products are based more on marketing hype rather than true effectiveness. There is no question that some of these products offer the potential for real weight loss benefits. The scientific research on the association between supplements and weight loss is accumulating rapidly.

Unfortunately, unfounded or exaggerated claims leads to confusion for the consumer. Having adequate information about the efficacy and safety of weight loss products is paramount to making a well-informed decision.

With those facts in mind, realize one of the most important facts is if you’re overweight, you probably eat too much. By “too much,” we mean more than your body needs. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to keep itself going, and if you eat more than that amount, you will gain weight. For an effective weight loss product to assist you in making weight loss occur faster and easier, it would need to increase lipolysis and/or fat oxidation. It would also need to aid in reducing one’s appetite.

In this article, we offer our readers a comprehensive list and evaluation of those diet supplements which we feel have the greatest potential to help you burn off the fat quickly, effectively and safely. We looked at hundreds of weight loss products from the most popular name brands to the nondescript one’s. We focused on each products’ ingredient quality, metabolic enhancing potential, and the ability to safely suppress one’s appetite and we ranked each product accordingly.

Despite their popularity - not all weight loss supplements are equal or equally effective. Many times it is hard to differentiate which product offers the best overall weight loss potential - that is unless you have done your homework. Because many of the ingredients used in products marketed for weight loss can differ drastically in efficacy, we scrutinized the most current, comprehensive and well-respected supplement and herb information sources to find those products that had key ingredients that boosted metabolism, suppressed appetite and had the greatest overall weight loss potential on the market today. See our evaluation below of the top 20 products that we feel are your best options for maximizing your weight loss potential.

Question: I saw some information on a product called Zylotrim on television. It is sold by a company called The Obesity Research Institute. The Obesity Research Institute state that 80% of the weight that was lost was pure body fat and can increase your fat burning potential by 200%. How can this be possible? Does it really work? Do you recommend it? Answer: Not much information is available about Zylotrim. I can tell you that it was very difficult to find the active ingredient in this product. It is claimed to have the “Rated #1 Weight Loss Active Ingredient”. What this active ingredient is, however, is not disclosed anywhere on their website. Discreetly hidden within their FAQ section they do state that this “anonymous” ingredient is derived from a Latin American yam but nothing more.

Zylotrim will “increase the activity of fat burning enzymes up to 10 times their normal level so you can burn excess body weight”. Yet, the makers do not describe how exactly this is done nor do they make reference to any study or other pertinent research that validates these claims. The consumer truly has no idea what it is he/she is purchasing. The website claims there is “clinical evidence” in Functional Foods & Nutraceuticals Magazine but I could not find any such magazine anywhere.

Another problem that Zylotrim has is a credibility issue. After further research online, it was found that Obesity Research Institute, LLC was recently fined by the FTC for making false and unsubstantiated claims about some of their other weight loss supplements. These unreliable claims violated federal laws and eventually, they would settle with the FTC to the tune of a $1.5 million fine. Although Zylotrim was not one of these supplements in question, the claims made about Zylotrim without any valid evidence is certainly reason to believe they are making false claims a habit. This doesn’t bode well for Zylotrim.

If you do shop for a weight loss product in a health store, pharmacy or on the Internet, you’ll often find hundreds of different brands containing a confusing array of ingredients. You may be tempted to experiment with different diet aids until you find one that works. But this approach may be expensive. Jennifer Berniello, a respected nutritional writer from Health News Minute did a fantastic review on diet pills and their actual effectiveness in a recent feature, the results are quite surprising.

Dude!:

Via wiki:

In June 2007, a sex tape of Noelia and former boyfriend Yamil started circulating on the Internet, which caused a media hype around her person. In August 2007, Noelia accused her step-father and former manager, Topy Mamery, of sexually assaulting her back in 2003; she claimed to have filed a lawsuit, calling singer Ricardo Montaner as a witness. However, Mamery says he has not received any lawsuit, and Montaner says he has never been called to testify. During an interview with Primer Impacto Montaner was asked about this and he said, “I have never seen anything weird (between Noelia and Mamery). Mamery is a gentleman that has loved Noelia as her daughter”.

According to Mamery, he’s not the first person Noelia has accused of sexual assault. He claims that in the last five years the singer has pointed the finger at Guillermo Santiso, former president of Fonovisa (her old record label), and singer Alejandro Montaner, son of Ricardo Montaner.

In October 2007, Mamery went to the FBI with evidence that allegedly incriminated Jorge Reynoso with the distribution of Noelia’s sex tape. Weeks later, Mamery sued Noelia and Jorge Reynoso in Federal Court for defamation and libel. In February 2008, Noelia’s lawyer decided to quit representing Noelia in the defamation lawsuit against her.  In May 2008, the judge José A. Fusté did an annotation of defiance to the singer Noelia and to his partner and manager, Jorge Reynoso, in favor of the petition presented by Mamery, who sued the couple for defamation for declaring knowingly that it is false that he sexually assaulted Noelia. However, on June 13, 2008, Fusté dismissed the case by declaring that there was no defamation and libel since Mamery is a public figure. Fusté concluded that “although it is true there might be some indication that Reynoso could be connected to the website where the video was sold, the court could not say for sure if he was the one that put it. Fusté also reprimanded both sides for airing publicly their personal issues

Dude!:

Via Wired.

Perhaps the biggest sign of an all-geek family: we had GH4, aka Guitar Hero World Tour, pre-ordered; and it was the GeekMom who was the impetus behind it.  Indeed, it was she who went down to GameStop at 9am this morning to pick up our set, and bless her heart for reminding me to take some un-boxing pictures to share with the GeekDad community.

This is our first all-band game in the house.  We started out with Guitar Hero on the PS2 (all Wil Wheaton’s fault), and have stayed true to the series, eschewing Rock Band, even when we had fun playing it at some friends’ house.  And especially when we heard the newest interation of the GH franchise would be full-band, we held out.

It was worth the wait.  The set is really, really nice - incredibly good build quality.  I think it’s safe to say that they’ve learned a lot from the previous iterations of the GH and RB franchises, and put together a durable set of instruments.  The new guitar feels so solid, and looks smokin’!  We’ve only played a few quick songs so far, so we haven’t had a chance to try out the new touch-pad buttons on the top of the neck, but they look cool.

The drums feel great.  The pads are a nice solid rubber that dampens the clicking, but gives a good feedback.  The bass pedal will still creep a little, but you get used to it.  And I love the little flip-ups to hold the sticks.

The mic has a good weight, too, but isn’t wireless.  It plugs into the Wii’s USB port (with ample cord), though, and I was suprised to learn that you can use any USB mic.  I wonder if using my Samson C01U condenser mic would improve my scores?

We’re just getting started, so no full-fledged review today, other than to say we had a great time with our first four songs: Band on the Run, The Joker, The One I love, and Up Around the Bend.  Check out the rest of the pictures in the extended post below.

Also note - if you pick up the full kit at GameStop, they’ll include a code that’ll let you unlock all the 84 songs immediately (for the lazy amongst us who just want to play the music, rather than working to win the game).  And GameStop is running a contest to with the chance to be a playable character in a future edition of Guitar Hero.  You can check it out here.

Dude!:

Via: Wired.

Last week Nintendo announced a new iteration of their highly successful DS handheld and, while many mainstream outlets had a field day, the response from the gaming community – and, for that matter, the Japanese stock market – was a resounding “huh?!”

With the impending release of this system upgrade being something of an open secret, it wasn’t so much the device itself that seemed to cause the head-scratching as it was the odd specifics of its new features and the strange direction in which Nintendo elected to present it.

This newly christened DSi is an obvious member of the DS family, with its stylus and minimalist clamshell design, but Nintendo would seemingly like us to believe that it is a wholly different animal.

Even amid insistence that the system has a place alongside the DS Lite on American retail shelves, at least for the foreseeable future, I’ll wager that many, like me, can’t help but wonder if this device will prove to be the new face of mobile gaming. And, if so, wouldn’t it be prudent to get onboard early?

Well, I guess that depends on how these new features stack up. Let’s take a look, shall we?

• How about the camera? The most highly touted modification to the DSi is the inclusion of two – count ‘em: two – digital cameras. In addition to the one visible on the exterior of the unit, the DSi also boasts a second camera on the inside of the system continually pointed at the player. Sadly, these cameras weigh in at a scant .3 megapixels, and pictures are saved at a mere 640×480 resolution. So, while it might be fun to warp and scrawl atop your pics via the touch screen, it’s doubtful whether the image quality of your DSi photographs will be superior to those taken with the camera already integrated into your current cell phone. [EDIT: While several sources have reported that the DSi cameras were both 0.3 megapixels and others said 3 megapixels, Electronista has cleared up the confusion: the interior camera is a 0.3 megapixel VGA camera, while the external camera is a 3 megapixel.]

• What about the bigger screens? Of more interest to gamers is the increased screen size of the DSi. Its 3.25 inch diagonal screen width stands out as a noticeable increase from the 3 inches of its predecessor. However, despite this enhanced physical real estate, the screens are virtually indistinguishable from a technical standpoint, as the DSi still boasts twin TFT LCDs of identical resolution to those of the DS Lite. You can, however, expect these bigger screens to burn through your valuable battery charge at an increased rate.

• What about backwards compatibility? While the screens are larger -– requiring an increase in system length and width –- the DSi is slightly thinner than the DS Lite. It is of note that this slim-down comes at a cost: in this case the removal of that old standby the GBA cartridge slot. (Yes, this means add-ons like that the knuckle busting fret board attachment for the recent DS Guitar Hero title will be incompatible.) Instead the DSi features an SD card slot in addition to the standard DS game cartridge slot.

• Will it play MP3s? One purpose of the addition of this SD slot is that the DSi will also act as a music device. Notice that I said music device and not MP3 player. Rather than MP3 playback, the handheld will instead support AAC files. While the AAC file type is often described as having superior sound quality to the ubiquitous MP3, it certainly lacks its familiarity. And while the addition of functionality like speed and pitch control for songs sounds interesting, it’s also doubtful that the machine will be replacing your iPod when it comes to music playback.

• So what can I download? The system also features on-board flash memory for use in storing titles procured from the newly revealed DSi Shop. This little brother of the current Wii Shop channel will likely have both the strengths (the potential for lots of interesting new titles as well as for a backlog of games from earlier systems) and the weaknesses (slow rollout and a lack of sufficient demos) of its older sibling. So, while you’ll be able to play these new offerings as well as your current collection of DS titles on your DSi, all DS/DS Lite owners will really be missing out on is the downloadable love.

All things considered, the DSi seems to be a mixed bag. It certainly adds some functionality, but much of it appears mediocre at best. Picture and music support seem incidental as opposed to integral, and info concerning features like superior sound quality and the promised integrated web browser seem scarce. (And, as anyone who’s used the app can corroborate, saying that the browser will be superior to the original DS Browser cart is dubious praise.)

From Nintendo’s insistence that the system will be the company’s “third platform” –- a role previously filled by the recently abandoned GBA -– to statements like those of NOA’s Cammie Dunaway to our own Game Life blog in which she announced that the DSi would continue in the tradition of Nintendo’s handhelds by not being region locked … maybe … even the Big N seems a little unsure why we should be excited about the product. And yet, for some reason, I am.

In recent years Nintendo has taken to revamping systems with features that should arguably have been integrated from the get-go, and summarily wowing us with their newest flavor of shiny plastic. And, at least with regard to their handheld lineup, the trick has been working. There are gamers out there chomping at the bit to hand the company money for devices that, in one form or another, they already own. I know this to be true because I am such a gamer.

I was an early adopter of both the original DS and the DS Lite, not to mention its forerunner the Gameboy Advance. Hell, I even imported a GBA SP just to get it a few months before the North American release. To my mind, I do this not because I’m a totally rabid Nintendo fanboy (although that’s an accusation I’ve faced in the past) but merely because I’m an avid gamer-on-the-go with a unique love for Nintendo’s robust portables. Even when they’re slightly less robust than I’d like.

So now, after this lengthy diatribe about how the DSi may well not be worth the $180+ they’ll be asking for it on American shores, I will admit to you that I’ll probably buy one anyway.

As a fan of Nintendo, a handheld gamer, and a gadget guy, I simply can’t resist the allure of new plastic.