Can 10 Cent Earplugs Improve Your Learning & Memory

Can Ten-Cent Earplugs Improve Your Learning, Memory & Reading Speed?
NASA's Astronauts could not use their pens in space so they spent ten million to invent a special ink-flow device. The Russian space cadets had no dinero, and solved the same problem by writing with pencils, which worked like a charm.
Earplugs are not exactly high-tech, but work instantly to eliminate unwanted noise. The first earplugs written about were wax and used by the crew of Odysseus to ward off the Siren's Song and a shipwreck. How old? 8th Century, B.C.
Who cares?
Have you even been studying in your school library and lost your attention and concentration because some dumbos at the next table were whispering, giggling, and dropping books? Ten Cent earplugs tune them out, and your mind inward.
Distractions
Students and career executives suffer from noise, movement of people, and constant interruptions. Fact: we are interrupted at work - an average of once every three-minutes. Fifty-percent of the time we interrupt ourselves by responding to emails the telephone, and answering questions.
Our mind get used to being diverted from focused attention and deep concentration.
Distractions break our train of thought, and actually reduce our personal efficiency. Some research concludes habitual distractions cause a drop in our IQ up to 10%. Get this: Every time your mind is diverted from your present task, it takes up to 10 minutes to get back into your original Zone (flow).
It is called Regressions, is habit-forming and dumbs us down.
Soon you become a subconscious procrastinator, and lose up to 25% of your Attention-Span. Paying attention to everything is the same as concentrating on nothing. What is a practical, easy and cheap solution? Maybe earplugs?
Mind Wandering
Are you aware of how often your mind wanders off your target of concentration? Neither was I. The researchers at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, headed by Dr. Michael Kane, concluded college students are distracted and lose their attention span, one-third (33%) of the time they spend in school.
They are thinking off-the-subject at class lectures, while reading, and when studying for exams. Students suffering mind-wandering up to 90 minutes in the morning, and another 90 minutes in the afternoon of a six-hour day. What are they wandering about? Sex is number one, fear of the future, and personal relationships top the bill.
So what?
Distractions lead to chronic stress, which affect our long-term memory, inability to comprehend complex text, and loss of self-esteem. Many complain of a negative state-of-mind, bad mood, and loss of productivity. What about our competence?
Stress and distractions cause your executive competence to drop up to 15%, enough to lose out on your next promotion. Students at college complain of fade-out on exams, anxiety and the agony of Information-Overload.
Stopples a/k/a Earplugs
Earplugs immediately improve your attention span and concentration up to 33%. That is a noticeable change from distracted thinking to being in your Zone focused on learning, remembering, and being creative.
Earplugs have the power to turn your mind inward instead of permitting you to listen and react to random sounds in your environment. Ideas appear to reward those wearing stopples (plugs) and avoid folks who are easily distracted

You have heard that one picture is worth a thousand words; we suggest that one well thought out Idea, is worth a thousand pictures. Implement good ideas.
Secret Revealed
White Noise. When you slip on your plugs you do not get sleepy and disoriented, but move into deep Beta consciousness, between 7-14 cycles per second. Your brain rhythms vibrate to screen out noise, and to trigger (cue) your PFC (Prefrontal Cortex) for analysis, synthesis (combining ideas), and connectedness.
White Noise
Technically White Noise is a frequency produced by electronics. It is a combination of all the tones into one. Wait! White Light takes all the color frequencies (rainbow) and combines them into one. Same idea.
Earplugs close the auditory canal and leave us with our personal Zone of silence. Best of all, there are no side effects from using plugs up to 16 hours daily. Just wash them, remove the wax from your ears, and concentrate.
Buy Them Now
We recommend silicone or foam plugs that you mold to fit your ears. Polyurethane stopples cost a dollar for a pair, and have an unlimited life. The biggest problem is losing them after a good night's sleep, or a study session.
Variety
There are electronic earplugs that produce a calming sound (anti-stress) costing $187.95 called SleepEze. No comment. We recommend disposable plugs that will not make us cry when we lose one. PVC Foam come in a six-pack and cost just $2.95.
Factories buy them in volume from the Earplug Super Store for about 10-25 cents each. They reduce chronic stress from ambient factory noise.
Reading Research
We have tested over one thousand students and executives - half speed reading text wearing plugs, and half unaided. After 21 days of practice, the students using earplugs improved their reading speed an average of 100 words per minute, and added up to 12% in comprehension.
Non-users showed 40 words per minute increase in reading, and no improvement in comprehension. They were distracted by their surroundings.
Close Your Door
Seeing other folks moving around is a visual distraction, one that breaks up your attention and comprehension. Music - Classical to Elevator tunes - cause us to lose our mental focus. Group study works only when everyone agrees to be silent and productive until the end of the session.
Our Mirror Neurons cause us to want to imitate the activities of those we watch. It is a bio-distraction. Learning requires silence and the lack of activity around you. Google: University of Calgary, Dr. Tim Welsh, and Journal of Human Movement Science, 12.2007. Earplugs are a great investment in your personal growth.
Endwords
"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk a sign?" Albert Einstein
Would you have a major competitive advantage if you could read-and-remember three (3) books, articles and reports in the time your peers can hardly finish one? Ask us how because knowledge is king. Call us now.
copyright © 2009 H. Bernard Wechsler

Author of Speed Learning for Professionals, published by Barron's; partner of Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating two million, including the White House staffs of four U.S. Presidents.

The Most Important Guitar Effects Pedals for Aspiring Rock Musicians

There are a mind boggling amount of guitar effects pedals about and they come in all different shapes and sizes. What is an effect pedal you may ask? An effect pedal is a device that is put between your guitar and the amplifier to alter the output sound. A pedal is made up of numerous components put into a case. The sounds that you can achieve from various effect pedals are quite extraordinary.
Guitarists today use more effects than ever and are evident to the sounds of bands such as Pink Floyd and U2. Numerous effect pedals are used in succession to complicate the sound. There are two main pedals out there. One is the multi effects processors and these contain numerous built into a single device. Alternatively, individual pedals focus on giving you one sound and not more than two. Such pedals involve you playing around with settings in order to get your intended sound. Many amplifiers these days have built-in sounds for you to use but they are not as versatile as pedals. This is because it is hard to utilize more than one sound simultaneously on amps.
Pedals cost from $60 or £40 upwards and include a broad range of prices. Specialist brands include Boss, Marshall, Pete Cornish, Electro Harmonic, Yahama, Dunlop and Digitech. As a budding guitarist, you could easily wipe your bank account clean upon purchasing guitar effects pedals due to the countless variety out there. What I recommend is that you only purchase one pedal for each main sound.

Recommended guitar effect pedals
Delay and Reverb sounds give a strong echo sound and is great if you are really playing live. This sounds professional like and is very convincing. Distortion and gain guitar effects pedals are widely used with electric guitars and are certainly used in lead and solo guitar playing. This adds crunch and meat to your sound and certainly does sound sweet. As stated previously, multi effects processors are a great for beginners as they have access to all the different possibilities right in front of them. All of these mentioned are the essential pedals that you must have in order to sound great.
After you have gotten hold of the main pedals, you may want to look for a few more to sound even great! A wah-wah effect allows the sound pitch to be constantly changed through the use of a pedal. This was heavily utilized by Jimi Hendrix. Added effects include Flanger, Chorus and Phase shifter also know as a uni-vibe. These pedals sound slightly similar to each other, however they do sound beautiful. Chorus and Flanger pedals sound very sweet and made famous by David Gilmour and created the sounds of Pink Floyd. Most of these sound best with little to no gain or distortion.

Description of the Different Types of Effect Pedals

Electric guitarist seldom just use the amp along and play, they make use of different types of effects to make good music. Some effects that i will talk about include distortion, chorus, phase shifter, pitch shifter, digital delay, wah-wah pedal, reverb and tremolo. A good multi effects pedal brand is ZOOM.
Distortion
This effect makes the sound driven too hard for the amp. Most guitarist will make use of this effect because it creates a musical pleasing way. Distortion can be anything from fuzzy to a screaming chain-saw fuzz used by bands who play metal.
Chorus
This effect makes the overall sound sound fatter, which sounds like the sound of many guitarist playing all at one time.
Phrase Shifter
This effect allows you to play in harmony alone through splitting the signal into two paths. It is really useful when practicing a song alone as it allows you to play in harmony.

Digital delay
This device produces a repetition of the sound, just like echoes. It also created rhythmically timed repeats of the notes you play. One famous band that uses this is Guns N' Roses.
Wah-wah pedal
This effect plays with the frequency. You can control the sound by raising and lowering the pedal. The world famous dragonforce makes use of this pedal to make all sorts of weird sounds.
Reverb
This effect reproduces the natural echo sound produced. It is sometimes included in amps. While the ones include in amps are not bad, having reverb as a separate will give you more variety and control.
Tremolo
Similar to reverb, it is included in many amps. Tremolo is the rapid wavering of the volume that makes your guitar sound as if you are playing it through a slowly moving electric fan.

My Quest For a Quiet Air Compressor Has Finally Ended

I had great hopes for my Thomas T635-HD air compressor after I got it a number of years ago. At the time, it was considered the most quiet compressor in its class. When it came time to purchase a rebuild kit, I was SOL. Appears like the company went out of business or merely stopped providing support for the line. While I am generally good about obtaining a difficult to find part, I made the decision it just wasn't worthwhile trying to bring a well used air compressor back again. I do what I typically do and checked out Sears, Home Depot, as well as did some research online.
Introducing the Rolair JC10
Shortly after doing my homework, I selected the JC10 to replace the Thomas and WOW am I amazed. Initially I assumed it was my error as it made so little noise. You really have to (not) hear it to believe it. The compressor oozes quality. This unit gets to full capacity (125psi) in about a minute and recovers in mere seconds. This really is by far and away the quietest 1HP unit you will find. I am not going to tell you that one could run it underneath the dining room table while you eat and never detect it. Having said that, I will say that it runs below my work bench in my garage as I happily tinker away without annoying me in the slightest.

It isn't quite as ergonomic as the DeWalt 55141 I had been also contemplating and a little bit more heavy but produces more air flow and I am hoping it will fill the gap that I've had for 8 years between light, portable and quiet and a do-everything compressor. Very good quality guages and fittings. Effortless enough to transport upstairs and no-one will complain if you utilize it inside their house. The grip on the handle needs an upgrade, and I've already fitted a 90 degree brass elbow so the pressure gauge points up in order to see it without tipping the compressor on its side, yet it is certainly a keeper. Only time will tell if it does almost all I need. It isn't a shop or 2 man compressor though.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7997835

Guitar Multi Effect Pedals: Finding Your Sound With One Pedal asdasdas asdasdasd

Like they always say, you get what you pay for. Except in this case, you get more. asd asd as asdasdasd
Just saying "multi effect pedal" a few years ago would have got you thrown out of most bands, but oh, how times have changed. My first guitar multi effects pedal was the Zoom 505. Honestly, it was a piece of hissing, digital crap, but it made me realize the potential that lay there within its cheap, semi-transparent blue housing. I actually brought it to one of my band practices, and I can tell you, that pedal combined with the roaring power of a cranked, 70's Fender Twin Reverb was painful to say the least, especially for my band mates. So I went back to my "snake pit", home-made pedal board consiting of the usual guitar pedals (distortion, tuner, delay...).
Then, last year I started researching new guitar pedals on the internet, and found a new opinion developing regarding multi effect pedals. Experienced guitarists, with a large collection of expensive, boutique single effects pedals were starting to sing the praises of multi pedals by brands like Digitech, Line 6 and Boss. Either these players had reached an advanced stage of hearing loss, or they really liked these multi effect pedals!
I was particularly surprised with reviews of the new Digitech RP line of pedals (RP500, RP1000). Guitarists were going off about how great the sound was, the quality of the effects, and the ease of use. None of these qualities had previously been associated with a multi effects pedal. These pedals (and others by Line 6 and Boss), have such a wide palette of great sounding effects, that its hard to understand why you would buy single guitar effects any more.
With this thought in mind, I did a little research on single effect pedal prices. I picked 9 of my favourite single effects, that are also produced by most new multi effect pedals, and priced them out. This is what I found:

Dunlop Crybaby 535Q multi wah: $125.44 Visual Sound Volume Pedal: $139.95 Proco Rat Distortion: $67.49 Boss CH1 Super Chorus: $89.00 Boss FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb: $129.99 Boss DD7 Digital Delay: $169.00 Boss RC-2 Loop station: $189.00 Boss TU-2 Tuner: $99.00 MXR M-102 Compressor: $69.95 Total price: $1077.83
This would give you a pretty impressive pedal board! Especially in size. My old pedal board had half this many effects, and it was a beast to deal with. You would be looking at 11 patch cables, 9 power connections, and the board itself.
I now own the Digitech RP500. It has all of these effects built in, with a total of 125 effects, a looper, all metal construction, and stereo output. But honestly, the best thing of all is its ability to shut off all digital modeling, and simply become a pedal board. This feature, through my old Fender Twin Reverb tube amp sounds awesome. Better than any single pedal, or combination thereof I have ever owned. The only thing that sounds better than my RP500/Twin Reverb combo, is an RP500 through two Twin reverbs in stereo! Huge, lush, shimmering sound. All that, for $300 bucks (the pedal that is).
So if your looking for a single, or multi effect pedal, do your research. Despite their digital sounding names, the latest in multi effect pedals can produce amazing sounds, at a reasonable price. They simply allow you to explore more creative sound ideas

Best Guitar Multi-Effects Pedals For Live Use

The first digital multi effects pedal that I became familiar with was the old Digitech RP1. Very few dared to play live with these without a guitar amp, I mean through a PA. They had the proper settings for different types of power amps, but the sound they produced in this manner was not very exciting.
That left many of us tainted, but in the last few years I've seen many live performances, mainly at bars, where multi-effects pedals are connected straight to a PA without a guitar amplifier. And the sound was actually very good in my opinion.
In my experiences these are my top 3:
The Vox Tonelab LE: at a party dedicated for the 25th anniversary of 'Appetite For Destruction' I friend of mine played a whole set with one of these pedals straight to a PA. This pedal in my opinion is the fattest sounding when connected to a PA, even though it might not be the most versatile.
The Digitech RP1000: used straight to a PA by a friend of mine that plays in a punk rock band. When Digitech came out with the DNA chips my interest in this brand was rekindled. I had completely lost faith with the RP series, but this pedal has impressed me lately.

The Boss GT8: used by a cover band that I use to sell instruements to. The sound of Boss GT Multi-effects straight to PA's is not my favorite, but this guitar player surprised me by carefully using EQ and setting suitable presets for every song.
To play live with a multi-effects pedal you just have to set the right output for one of these 3 possibilities:
*Plugging it in to the front of an amplifier, "No Amp or Cab Emulation Should be used".
*Plugging into the power amp of a guitar head or combo, "No Cab Emulation Should be used".
*Plugging straight to a mixer in a PA or a powered monitor, "Cab Emulation Should be used".
An affordable ways to play live with a multi-effects pedal and have plenty of volume is with a live powered monitor.

Best Distortion Pedals - Boss DS1 Review

Boss DS1

This is a true distortion pedal, coloring the guitar sound a lot more than a Tube Screamer. The tone of this pedal is great, the range of distortion can cover from the lightest to the heaviest rock. And the tone is thick, specially of help to those with Fender Stratocaster guitars.
This pedal's sound quality is superb considering how inexpensive it is. Many famous guitar players have used this pedal professionally. Some that I know are Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and the late Kurt Cobain.

Ibanez TS9 Review

This is a pedal that has been around for decades now. It's main characteristic is that it doesn't color your sound in an obtrusive way, retaining most of the dynamics of the clean guitar signal. The TS9 is a modern version of the original, the 808 is a replica of the classic design, and there's a TS9 Turbo version with extra gain for more of a true distortion sound.

Let's remember that technically this is an overdrive pedal and not a distortion pedal, even though many don't differ these 2. In my experience, tube amps that might not have the best distortion, like the Fender Hot Rod series for example, benefit greatly from this pedal.

Boss Metal Zone Review

This is one of the best alternatives for those interested in heavier guitar sounds than those offered by a Tube Screamer or a DS1. Apart from offering a massive amount of gain it offers a simple yet very flexible EQ section that helps to tailor the sound more precisely.
In my opinion this is the best way to get a very good heavy metal sound regardless of what guitar or amp you might have. The only thing I would personally advice is to be careful using this pedal with single coil pickups, this amount of gain can create a lot of hum.