JovialJman - Alcohol (What Does It Do?)

I may or may not be eyeing out that cold glass of whiskey.

From drinking and driving to breaking the seal, we know there are somethings that will happen when we drink but how and why do they happen. Let's talk about that.

There are a lot of people who drink to get a slight buzz, while others never really drink any alcohol. Islam consider the consumption of alcohol sinful, while Jainism forbids it completely. Christianity uses a form of alcohol in their religious practice, (during mass christians take a sip of holy wine which is a representation of the blood of Jesus Christ). Buddhists also tend to try stay away from it as it goes against the fifth of their Five Precepts.

If you have ever gone out with a group of friends in their 50's or younger then you should be familiar with the myth "breaking the seal". The meaning behind that is, when you start drinking alcohol, for this example I shall use beer, you can drink 3 or 4 before needing to go to the restroom to relieve yourself, But as soon as you do, you need to then go to the restroom more and more often, not being able to hold it in. Most of the time this is the case, so the myth was born. Now what would happen if you went earlier on?

Well as it turns out, this is just a myth. But you do go to the restroom more often, how come you may ask, well there is a scientific way to say it, but I shall try my best to put it in a way to explain to your next drunk encounter. There is this hormone called ADH, now this hormone tells your kidney to absorb water and put it into the blood so everything stays hydrated. When eating salt for instance, it absorbs salt, so your body will try and get more water to counteract this, so you will have less pee. Now what alcohol does is it starts inhibiting these hormones from reaching the kidneys effectively, (in other words they are chatting to ADH and getting them to waddle off to the next bar and forgetting about the kidneys.)

This image shows some sciency thing of how alcohol reacts in the body

Now since the Kidneys do not know that they need to absorb water they simply filter it to your bladder, and the more alcohol you drink, the more this will happen. So since you are drinking a lot of liquids and the fact that your body is not absorbing water, you need to pee more and more. But now another consequence of this happening is the dreaded hangover. If you have ever drank too much, you will know how awful you feel the next day, and if you haven't gotten there before, either you haven't been passed out drunk, or you have supermans kidneys.

The reason for this is since you are getting rid of all this water that your body needs, it is starting to dehydrate your body. Now when things do not get what they need, they start acting like a child throwing a tantrum. You begin to feel ill, this is to try get you to stop putting the poison in your body, (yes ... alcohol is a poison), and making you dizzy and lightheaded, this is to save energy. You start becoming thirsty, to try and replenish all this lost water. now if you do not get any of this and choose to sleep it off, in the morning, you feel nauseous and have a headache, these are also symptoms of dehydration.

Some of the things you can do to try and make sure this does not happen is; do not drink too much, but if you are insistent on doing that, then listen up. If you slow your consumption of alcohol your body will be able to deal with it a bit more effectively. Since your stomach has less surface area then your intestines, keeping the alcohol there, slows down the absorption of it as well. One way of doing this is to have a full stomach, there is a valve between your stomach and your intestines, and when your tummy is empty, the alcohol goes right through, so more of it gets absorbed more quickly, but when your stomach is full, that valve stays shut while your stomach dissolves the food.

Something that is know to work is eating something greasy before drinking helps you stay sober longer, this is true since that valve at the bottom of the stomach  will stay shut until the food has been dissolved, and greasy food, in general, take longer to break down then other food. Now all of these things slow down the absorption, and not stop it, so you may be more likely to over do it even more with out realising it, so lets say you still wake up with the infamous hangover, what should you do?

This image shows a lady trying to survive a hangover in a place most do.

Well a general rule of thumb is to drink water, or any liquids that do not have alcohol to replenish that missing water in your body. If you were unfortunate to leave your dinner on the side of the pavement, you should try your best to replenish those missing nutrients as well, so something greasy in the morning may also be a good idea. Stay in bed if you can as this will allow your body to sort itself out, and if you are craving something then you should try and get it as cravings are the bodies way of letting you know what it is missing. Bloody Mary's are some's solution to the hangover as well. 

This image shows one of the variations of the Bloody Mary

The Bloody Mary is a cocktail with many variations but almost all contain tomato juice, vodka, and salt or something salty. Now the liquids help replace the missing water, the salt replaces the missing electrolytes and the Vodka numbs the aches and pains temporarily while you start to replace everything that is missing and causing the hangover. Many people have said that this is the only solution that works, while others say it does not work at all. I am in favour of the former a bit more since it does replace some of the needed missing agents but there are others that help as well.

None the less, after the day is out you should start to feel better, and may face it all again next weekend. Thank you for reading today's post, and if you have any ways to get out of a hangover or remedies for them the morning after, please share them with us along with any drinking stories that you may have, down in the comments below or on Facebook/Twitter. If you know of anyone who likes to learn, or needs a way to get over a hangover, please share this with them as I am sure they will thank you for making them read this post when they have to stare at the bright gleaming screen to find the answer, trust me they will enjoy it, (teehee). If you would like to see more posts as they are published, please like us on our official Facebook page and follow us on Twitter, using the associated buttons on the bar to the left. I hope you have/had a fantastic day and that future hangovers do not occur, or are in effect for a very small duration in time.

Stay sober my drinking friends.

JovialJman - Simulations (Computerised Reality?)

Flying simulations are there so pilots don't have to crash a real plane, how nice for the passengers on it.

Simulations are something that is used everyday by some and have allowed so many things to have been made without the trial and error method which would have costed billions upon billions, let's talk about that.

Sipping my coffee and writing this blog, such an event is able to be simulated on the computer and in other ways, but the purpose for it will be non-existent beside for the fact to show you that it can be done. Simulations are not always on a computer, you can have a mechanical simulation. A simulation is the act of recreating a set of circumstances, around which it can be looked at or learnt from. So you can get a mechanical horses that simulates the way it would feel for a rider, and the same example can be made for bull riding, but that is also used for fun.

With all of these types of simulations, where do I begin? Well since I enjoy playing games, I guess that is a good place to start. Sims must be the most popular of this genre of games but there are others like Simcity and most Tower defence games. Sims is an abbreviation of simulation,(who would have seen that), and this series of games have taken many days from those who play it, as deciding what people do and when they do it can become quite addicting. The YouTube channel Escapist, has done a video review under their series Zero Punctuation of the Sims 3 game and what he says makes sense if you think about it, but you must watch his language.

There are many other games that use an aspect of simulation in them like those used to simulate flying or car driving. So games such as Need For Speed (NFS), and Call of Duty (CoD) would technically be simulations. These games simulate different things, NFS simulates how a car would drive, and you control the way it goes, where as CoD simulates warfare and you point and shoot, both of these games are really popular as they have an aspect to them that makes it very entertaining, and an advertising team behind it as well.

Now there are Simulations that can help teach people about things without doing it for real, like flight simulators, (like the one in the header image). This wonderful machine tries to replicate how it would be flying a normal aircraft, pilots have to train many hours in these as it helps them learn and react to things in the sky before putting them in the pilot seat and risking many lives on board. They replicate the inclination of the entire cockpit to let the pilots feel what it would be like when they are inclining or declining, the front window is a screen that displays an image like the one that you would see in a real plane. These machines are really accurate and are really complicated machines.

There are also computer simulations that simulate environments so scientist can see the affect of certain things on that environment instead of performing the experiment themselves. This has helped the science community as there are some experiments that they cannot perform as it is too expensive, too much danger that may accrue or it is very unethical. Some of these can be nuclear plants to generate power, the implantation of synthetic parts into the body, the study of the human body. They have been able to improve the medical community as well with such simulations.

Companies can simulate how certain aspects of designs will fair in the real world before initiating the plan to build it. Planes are designed on a computer these days and are tested under some conditions to see if it is possible to fly under some conditions, to see the fuel consumption, and see if different materials can help get better performance with more profits before actually spending money and building these planes and finding out it will not work out and costing the company a lot of money. They can also simulate how the environment can be affected by producing a certain product, with the waste materials and the gasses that are realist into the atmosphere. These are also responsible for telling what the weather should be for the coming days, and the only reason it can be inaccurate, is due to unknown variables that the people did not expect.

With that, it draws a close to a slightly lengthy post, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share this with anyone who likes simulations or would be interested in reading about such things, as I am sure they shall thank you for it. If you would like to see more things like this, or have any opinions on the matter please leave them down in the comments below or on Facebook/Twitter, as we here at TCSA love to hear from you. Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, is you like what we here at TCSA talk about and would like to show your support, please like us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left. Hope you have/had a wonderful day.

Happy simulating guys.