Mon, 27 Jun 2005

Animal Behaviour Psychologist
Catherine Plowright is an animal behaviourist studying bumble bees at Ottawa U.

posted at: 15:59 | path: /school | link

Rehydrating
As I said in my sauna entry, I love the heat. As I have also mentioned in my blog, I am stupid about the heat. I really don’t know how to take care of myself well when I am hot. Of course, even I know to drink more water when I am sweating- as long as I notice that I’m sweating. But what about salt intake? Here’s an article on rehydrating and the role of salt in helping you stay rehydrated. It’s a bit harder to find information on how an individual can know how much salt they really need during a hot spell, and if the salt in their regular diet is sufficient. That’s probably because it is hard to figure this out. I did find one page that said that people lose about 2.25-3.4 grams of salt per litre of sweat. That’s quite a bit! Bring on the Gatorade.

posted at: 14:27 | path: /living | link

Fri, 24 Jun 2005

Lovely Saunas
When I was a kid, I loved the Sauna at our local sports center. Loved it! Anyone who knows my appreciation for the heat should not be surprised by this. In our new house, we have a cedar closet, which immediately brought back the memories. Then, ironically, while doing a search on heavy metal poisoning, I came across… that’s right…. saunas! So, here’s a site with lots of links to other sites about building saunas.

posted at: 17:19 | path: /living | link

Storing books
Here’s some information on the proper way to store books, photographs and newspaper. It also has some advice on how to remove the musty smell from books that have been exposed to high humidity.

posted at: 13:07 | path: /living | link

Thu, 23 Jun 2005

More on Continous Models
/school | link

Difference Equation Tutorial
In my area of research models can generally be categorized as continuous time models or discrete time models. Discrete time models can be thought of as models where time moves in steps. So, just as you can’t be between two steps on a flight of stairs, you can’t be between time step 1 and time step 2. In the case of continous time models, time moves continuously, in a line. So, just as you could, in theory, divide the space between two points on a piece of string into smaller and smaller lengths, forever, in the case of a continuous model, time can also be divided into smaller and smaller quantities, like time 1.5 and time 1.25 and time 1.125, etc.

I’m mostly interested int discrete time models, but I want to learn more about constructing continous models, so I can compare them to the discrete time models. This difference equation tutorial will hopefully help me to get started.

posted at: 21:56 | path: /school | link

Wed, 08 Jun 2005

X-Men
Last night, I watched both X-men movies, back to back. In high school, I knew some people who followed the comic book, but it seemed a bit excessively soap opera-ish to me. Still, after watching the movies I found myself curious about the storyline. Here’s a site that has the info.

posted at: 11:48 | path: /living | link

Tue, 07 Jun 2005

More on Social Skills
A while back I posted some links to pages on social skills. Here’s another link on adult social skills, in keeping with the current ADD theme.

posted at: 09:58 | path: /living | link

Mon, 06 Jun 2005

International Phone Calls
It seems that I often have to make international phone calls, and it’s a challenge to figure out what exactly I need to dial. Here’s a website that figures it out for you, from any country to any other country.

posted at: 15:03 | path: /living | link

Fri, 03 Jun 2005

Back to ADD- some more controversy
There is considerable debate about whether or not various physical and mental conditions are a) a disability b) just the way some people are c) a product of our weird, modern environment. Here’s an informative discussion on this topic, with a slant towards options b) and c). I found the discussion of the effects of doctor’s beliefs on patient behaviour quite interesting. Here’s a quote from that section:

“Interestingly, there were never any drugs involved in the study whatsoever: at all times, the pills passed out were placebos. But when the doctors were certain that all of the pills they were passing out were drugs, the patients began to react much more strongly to the sugar pills than they had when the doctors were unsure about whether the pills contained drugs or were merely placebos”

posted at: 18:54 | path: /living | link

NetLogo FAQ
Here’s the Netlogo FAQ, including how to convert an agentset to a list.

posted at: 17:50 | path: /school | link

Overseeding
I’ve been doing some research on lawn maintenance recently. One useful concept I’ve come across is lawn overseeding. This is where you give your lawn a boost by chucking a whack of grass seeds ontop of the existing grass. This would also probably be effective combined with some safe methods for killing weeds like vinegar, booze or boiling water.

posted at: 15:28 | path: /living | link

All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.