Author: Leonid Mamchenkov

Cypriots still heaviest smokers in EU

Cypriots still heaviest smokers in EU

CYPRIOTS are the heaviest smokers in the EU puffing 20.5 cigarettes daily, according to a survey conducted as part of the European Commission’s campaign ‘Ex-smokers are unstoppable.’

According to the survey – conducted by iCoach, a digital health platform aimed at helping smokers kick the habit – only one in ten Cypriot smokers have given up smoking, since 2011, and those who still smoked,  consumed the highest number of cigarettes in the EU at 20.5 cigarettes daily.

However, most smokers in Europe – 46 per cent – consume 11-20 cigarettes daily, with the EU average amounting to 14.2 cigarettes daily.

Cyprus was also ranked eighth among European countries, with 30 per cent of its population currently smoking. Ranking first was Greece at 40 per cent and last was Sweden at 13 per cent.

Metasyntactic variable

Metasyntactic variable

A “standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples” often used in the United States is: foo, bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud. The word foo occurs in over 330 RFCs and bar occurs in over 290. […]

Due to English being the foundation-language, or lingua franca, of most computer programming languages these variables are also commonly seen even in programs and examples of programs written for other spoken-language audiences.

BazQux Reader – RSS reader that supports comments

One of the first start-ups that I participated in was an effort to create a better RSS reader.  It way back a few years, before Google Reader was even launched, and the best option you had was Bloglines, which in itself was horrible at the time.  One of the things that we were implementing was the support for comments in the blog posts and articles.  Even back then many blogging engines and content management systems (CMS) supported comment feeds.  Too bad the whole thing failed.

But even with quite a few upgrades to Bloglines, and launch and redesign of Google Reader, and, in fact, launch and development of many other RSS readers, support for comments is still a rare feature to see.  Recently, I came across a web-based RSS reader that promoted comments as one of its primary features –  BazQux Reader.

I tried it and it seems to work fine.  However, it’s still too fresh for me to move all my RSS subscriptions over there.  Especially considering the fact that you can only have 15 RSS feeds in the free demo.  A full featured yearly subscription is about 25 Euro.  I don’t mind paying that for a tool that I use many hours a day.  But after using BazQux Reader for a bit, I don’t think it’s quite ready yet.  Maybe one day.

P.S.: Oh, and if you were wondering what kind of a name is BazQux – it’s a combination of two metasyntactic variables “baz” and “qux“.  Sort of like “foo” and “bar“.  You probably won’t get it unless you are software developer of some kind.