How Does Tattooing Work?

Beauty & Personal Care

Getting a Tattoo

If you are thinking of getting a tattoo then it is a good idea to know a bit about the theory of how tattooing works and how the ink actually becomes permanently embedded into the skin. There are some basic ways of having tattoos done – for example in Thailand tattoos are sometimes applied using a bamboo cane sharpened into a point, but for this article we are just focusing on the usual manner of applying a tattoo by machine.

Of course the whole process is quite complicated but what we are concentrating on here is the basic process of tattooing and how the ink remains permanently on the skin so that the tattoo does not fade away.

The tattoo is inked on by the tattooist using an electrically powered needle that acts in a manner similar to a dentist’s drill. The electronic drill has a hollow needle at the end that inserts ink underneath the skin. The needle moves up and down at a speed of between 50 and 3,000 times each minute, and on every movement it punctures the skin and leaves the ink in the 2nd layer, the dermis.

Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The top layer of the skin as you probably know is the epidermis and that is the layer that frequently loses skin cells so that they can be continually replenished over time. The dermis is much more stable than the epidermis and so the reason the ink is inserted in that layer is that it will remain in there and not be removed by the continual shedding of the outer skin layer.

So initially the tattooist will mark out the outline of your chosen design on your skin either by using a stencil or by freehand drawing, particularly if it is a custom design. They will then start tattooing in the design with the electronic needle with some black ink (depending on the design) before shading it in with thicker ink of whatever colour or colours you might choose. Once this is done they fill in any blocks of colour in between.

How Painful Is Having a Tattoo?

Inserting a needle into the dermis is to a certain degree going to be painful so you should be prepared for this. People have different pain threshold levels so it may not feel as bad to some people as it does to others. Also some areas of the body are more painful than others and this may depend on a number of factors including the nerves around that area and the amount of fatty or muscular tissue there. However, if you get a tattooist with a gentle hand it should not cause too much pain! I have to say that when I had my tattoo done it was pretty painful (on my lower back) but then maybe I am just a wimp!

I Forgot to Deauthorize My Computer for iTunes

Computers & Electronics, ,

OK, so this happened to me, not just once, but a few times. I had an old PC, 2 old laptops, maybe 3, that became defunct and I either gave them away or ditched them depending on what state they were in. But I forgot to deauthorize my computers in iTunes. Urgh, and now I have hit the 5 computer limit of the number of machines that iTunes will let me play my songs on.

If this is you, and maybe you have already hit 5 and can’t authorize your new machine, then do not fear, there is a way round this. I discovered this when I set up my latest new PC and wanted to load iTunes on there. Luckily it was the 5th machine that I had authorized but I knew that only one of the other machines I still had in my possession so I also knew that there would come a point where I would likely want to authorize another new machine and I wanted to preempt that.

itunes-deauthorizeSo basically what you need to do is to go to your account info page and you can deauthorize all of your computers – yes it is all or nothing! Then you can reauthorize the ones you are actually using.

You just need to enter your apple id and password to get to the account settings page so make sure you know this info.

Then you will get the option to deauthorize as shown below. Now you don’t see the actual deauthorize option on my screen shot below (that is why I have added it manually in the place you would normally see it) – because you are only allowed to do this once a year (at least I assume that is why you don’t see the button here – it may also be because I only have one PC authorized right now and I can do that from the store menu, so that may be it.

deauthorize.bmp

 

 

London Sightseeing – Tower Bridge

Travel

Tower Bridge in London has to be a must see place for tourists. This is the most beautiful bridge and the one that lifts up to let the boats through, a must see!

Tower Bridge is in the east side of London next to the Tower of London. Quite often people who have not visited London before think that this is actually London Bridge, but London Bridge is a very plain old bridge a bit further along the river. Actually I think the original London Bridge was sent over to somewhere in the US hundreds of years ago, brick by brick, but I digress!

The main point of interest of Tower Bridge (apart from the fact that it is a spectacular looking bridge) is that the two sides of the bridge open up to let large ships through. If you are around to see it do this then you are lucky. You can see a twitter feed of the when the bridge opens and closes here. It opens and closes approximately 1000 times a year so you may well catch it.

towerbridge

The bridge took 8 years to build and was finished at the end of the 19th century. The design was open to a public competition which elicited 50 submissions, with the winning design being submitted by Horace Jones (who was also one of the judges!).

Tower Bridge – How and When to Go There

The nearest tube station to Tower Bridge is Tower Hill which is on the district and circle lines and from there you can visit the bridge as well as the Tower of London which holds the Crown Jewels. Also while you are in the area, have a walk along the banks of the Thames – there are other attractions in this are that are worth a visit like HMS Belfast and the Royal Armouries.

The best time of year to visit London is in the Summer (May-Sept) but also the spring can have lovely days and you might also see some nice days in autumn. Whenever you go though, make sure that you take an umbrella as any time of the year there could be rain!

The best way to travel around London is to get an Oyster card which you can use on the buses and the underground system (the Tube). If you buy an oyster card rather than getting individual tickets you can save yourself a lot of money. Tubes and trains are frequent and cover the whole of London so you will have no trouble getting anywhere. There are also some nice boat tours that you can take along the river Thames.

Seeing the Workings of Tower Bridge

If you want to see how Tower Bridge works and the history of it’s construction then you can go to the Tower Bridge Exhibition. You can also access the Victorian engine rooms and have access to the high level walkways which give amazing views over the Thames. Entrance to the exhibition is £8 for adults or you can buy a London Pass which gives you free access to a whole host of places for one fixed price.

Other places you can visit nearby with the London Pass include HMS Belfast and the Tower of London – another must see for all London visitors!

 

How to Stop Motion Sickness

Health, Travel
My Experiences of Travel/Motion Sickness

There are many theories about the cause of travel sickness, and as someone who has suffered pretty badly from it from the moment they were put in a car as a baby, I can testify that if you suffer from travel or motion sickness then it can really affect your life.

Some say it is psychological (say this to me and my hackles rise whilst I think of as many ways to inflict pain on you as I can!), others that it is an imbalance in the inner ear. I am not a medical person, all I know is that I have tried most things out there to help prevent motion sickness and some work better than others.

I personally suffer from travel sickness in pretty much any mode of transport that you can name, be it cars, buses, planes, boats, trains to the slightly more obscure lifts (elevators), rides in waterparks and in the IMAX screen at the cinema! I also had a problem when I once went in a Formula 1 simulator car and had to get out after about 30 seconds as I thought I would throw up!

I don’t know whether travel sickness is hereditary but I do know that my Dad also suffers very badly and cannot be driven anywhere so he is even worse off than me. People say that you grow out of it but I haven’t really found this to be the case – perhaps it has got a bit better or maybe more manageable with age as I am no longer as sick as I used to be as a child – I remember pretty much every holiday that we had I would have to stop on the way to be sick.

Anyway, the truth is there doesn’t seem to be any magic cure so us sufferers just have to do what we can to manage it.

Different Methods of Motion Sickness Prevention

So here are some of the methods I have found and tried to help prevent motion sickness:

Before You Travel
Try not to eat a really heavy meal before travelling, particularly greasy or friend foods. Have something light and have some water to take with you.

When Travelling
Make sure if it is at all possible, that you have plenty of fresh air when travelling. Wind down the window slightly in a car, go up on deck in a boat and make sure the air vent director is turned on and pointing towards you on a plane. Also if you are in a car or a bus then try and sit somewhere you can see where you are going and can see the horizon. Focusing in front of you and watching where you are going really helps to stop motion sickness.

When trying to prevent motion sickness, make sure that you do not read anything, or in extreme cases don’t even look down when you are travelling. As soon as you do this (for example to send or receive a text message) and your focus is taken off the horizon, you will probably start to feel worse and motion sickness will kick in. Trying to keep your head still and going with the motion of the vehicle helps so if you can, lean your head against a headrest. I have also found on a boat that when i felt bad, if I actually lad flat on the deck I felt better but this was a last resort!

One other thing that I have found to help prevent motion sickness is to chew gum whilst you are travelling. Whilst unfortunately this may be banned on some forms of public transport I have found that it really helps on things like short car journeys where I don’t want to take a travel sickness tablet.

Motion Sickness Tablets
I tend to take a motion sickness tablet only if I am going on a long journey or a particularly rough one – for example by sea. I have tried many types of motion sickness prevention tablets and most of them work pretty well but they do tend to have some side effects so it is worth trying different ones to see what suits you. I find a lot of travel sickness tablets give me a dry mouth and pretty much all of them make me drowsy, which is fine if I am getting on a long flight but not good if I only have a short trip and need to be alert at the end of it. Once I took a tablet and fell asleep at my boarding gate which was not a good idea!

Travel Sickness Wristbands

These can be bought from health shops and often from airports and chemists. The way that travel wristbands work is based on acupressure points on the inside of your wrists. Each band has a semi-spherical type bead that puts pressure on this point in your wrist and so is supposed to help prevent motion sickness. I use these wristbands quite often when I am travelling in a car and also combine these with tablets when on a boat or plane. I feel that they can help a little bit but if the motion gets extreme then only the tablets can help. They do have the obvious advantage though of not making you feel drowsy or to suffer from any other side effects.

Motion Sickness Patches
OK so this is one thing that I just discovered when researching this article. I have to admit I hadn’t heard of these motion sickness patches before.  However, at present I am not able to try then out as they appear to only be available in the US and I am in the UK. So if anyone has tried these out it would be interesting to hear from you. They say they are 100% natural so this may mean that they don’t make you drowsy like the tablets do, although they do appear to have some side effects. there are a few good reviews for them but when there are less than a dozen reviews I guess you have to take them with a pinch of salt.

Ginger Tablets
Ginger has for a long time been known to have properties that help with stomach upsets. For this reason I find that they are good to take if motion sickness has already set in – they can settle your stomach and prevent the nausea. I have used these on boats and planes and they have worked for me.

You can also take them before travelling which I recommend if you think it is going to come over you suddenly as sometimes I find I am too sick to take anything so it’s too late.

Hypnosis and Subliminal Suggestion

This is something that I have not tried and I would be interested to hear from others who have tried this – feel free to leave your comments below as to whether it has worked or not. I know that there are subliminal albums available that you should listen to for at least a few weeks, but again I have not experienced these yet, although think I might well try this soon, as I feel like I have tried everything else!

Does Niche Affect CPC?

Business, Internet, Money, ,

The question does niche affect CPC was one that I asked myself after some comments I got from potential buyers on a site I was selling on Flippa.

To summarise, CPC is cost per click from advertising like Google adwords which is the amount you get each time an end user clicks one of your ads.

A couple of potential buyers of my site had said to me that they had analysed the CPC for the niche that my site related to, and that the CPC was very low – about $0.02.

So I got a bit despondent and thought that may be why, although the site had tons of traffic, maybe that was why I was not earning as much ad revenue as I thought I should. So I went to the site and had a look around and came to a different conclusion. All of the ads that I saw referred to stuff that I personally was interested in or had searched for recently. None of the ads related to the topic of the website.

I also went back over the time I had had the site (nearly 4 years) and checked out the CPC. It was way higher than the $0.02 that the buyers had told me was the going rate for that niche.

One question I don’t know the answer for is – do the advertisers bid a particular rate for their ad showing in a particular niche? – and if that is the case then the niche might well be relevant to the CPC. But if the answer is No then surely the niche does not have much effect on the CPC at all.

The key to the CPC rate therefore must surely be the type of ads that are shown to the viewers of the website and what kind of things they are interested in. So to that extent the niche may have a bit of influence on the CPC because let’s say your website is about high end finance, then your end users may well be interested in stuff that would generate a high CPC. But if your website could appeal to anyone (which mine would, albeit mostly women) then the ads could surely be from any niche?

I went in search of info about how to increase CPC and to be honest I got a lot of rubbish. Some of the advice firstly was to select a high end niche to base your blog/website on – well that’s not much good for those who already have a website to start with. But I wasn’t impressed with much of the rest of the stuff I read. More useful were some posts saying not to worry too much about CPC, but to instead concentrate on ad look and placement to increase CTR. This seemed like good advice to me, especially after I went back and checked the CTR and I found it to be pretty low. I made some changes to the site style and ad location, as well as the colour scheme of the ads and hey presto, an increase in CTR almost immediately!

So, does niche affect CPC? I would say only to a limited extent, depending on who you are targeting with your niche, but it is not eh be all and end all of increasing ad revenue on your website.