Fri, 27 Jan 2006

Lactate Threshold
My friend Hilary (hi Hilary!) is planning on running the May 27th marathon in Ottawa. I think this is cool and it sounds like a lot of fun. Gruelling, challenging fun, but fun nonetheless. She recently sent an e-mail around encouraging other people to participate, and I must admit I’m tempted. Not to run the marathon- there’s no way I have enough time for that- but to participate in the race weekend in some way. While reading about training options, I came across the concept of the lactate threshold, which I find quite interesting. The idea is that this is the point at which production of lactate in the muscles starts to exceed the body’s ability to remove the lactate. You need to stay under this point to succesfully stay active for long periods of time. Pretty interesting.

posted at: 17:55 | path: /living | link

Thu, 26 Jan 2006

Building an Acrylic Aquarium
All the details. Hopefully it won’t come to this, since I’m pretty sure my technical skills aren’t up to par. Mind you, I’d still try it, if it was standing in the way of getting my thesis. With that said, I dont’ know if the results would be too pretty… or water tight.

posted at: 14:55 | path: /school | link

Minimum depth for fish tanks
I’m trying to find out the minimum approprate depth and width for fish tanks. According to the RSPCA page on fish care the minimum depth for an outdoor pool is 30 cm. Similarly, when I looked at an online store, few tanks were less than 12 inches in hight and then they were usual more than that in width and depth (it’s a bit confusing because water depth is usually ‘how deep the water is’, but that corresponds with the height of the tank, not the ‘depth’ of the tank, which would usually be how far back it goes). So, based on that admittedly limited information, if I had a tank that was 16 inches x 16 x inches however long I wanted, that should be okay.

posted at: 14:43 | path: /school | link

Dealingn with large aquariums
I was thinking about the size of aquarium I will need for the fish school experiment. I read up on dealing with large aquariums at this site which also usefully gave me a feel for what is considered to be a large aquarium. I realized from reading it that I don’t necessarily need a large aquarium in every dimension for my perception experiments, I just need an aquarium that is long in one dimension. This is along the lines of Krause et als 1994 experiment, where they kept the water very shallow.

posted at: 14:21 | path: /school | link

Seeing through glass using IR
I want to use my IR video setup through the glass walls of the aquarium, rather than dunking the (waterproof) video camera in the aquarium. It occured to me, however, that perhaps infra red light does not succesfully pass through glass. I found this interesting article which explains that relatively high wavelength infrared light (just a little bit longer than red light) does pass through glass, but low wavelength infrared light doesn’t. I’m pretty sure that’s okay. Based on this person’s discussion, most commercial products use light from the higher end, and these seem to pick up fish just fine.

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

Fish researchers using infrared video
Here’s a brief description of fish researchers using an infrared camera to observe reef fish. Interestingly, they say that the fish they observed- damselfish- mainly use olfaction to locate night resting spots.

posted at: 12:54 | path: /school | link

Dedicated fish hobbyist/researcher
I think I’m going to have to observe my fish in the dark, for my fish school experiment, so I was searching the internet for tips on how to do that when I came across this article about a dedicated aquarium owner who spent two years researching the behaviour of their new nocturnal catfish species using an infrared video camera. Now that’s what I call a serious researcher.

posted at: 12:50 | path: /school | link

Wed, 25 Jan 2006

Emoticons
Wow- emoticons have gotten so much cooler and complex since I first encountered the simple :). I particularly like the Anime style ones: (^_^)

posted at: 21:19 | path: /living | link

Mon, 23 Jan 2006

More on the database of happiness
Okay, I had to make another post on the database of happiness, because it is really massive, and kind of hard to understand and use, but also totally fascinating. I’m going to make a note of how to use it, so I don’t forget.

How to use the world database of Happiness: The link above leads to a page that is the master page for information on ‘things that correlate with happiness” (I got to that page using the flowchart link on the main page).

This page gives a classification of subjects on the left hand side (e.g. how one lives, with whom one lives), which open up to provide subcategories (e.g. activities, work). Eventually, if you go through enough enough levels of subcategories, you get to links at the bottom level that are the correlation codes (e.g. P10 POSESSIONS). When you click on one of these, an option appears on the right of the page to open a new printer friendly window. This is definitely the good option to take.

The new window lists various studies. Each study has three sections: Study, Measured Correlate, Observed Relation with Happiness. The Observed Relation with Happiness has useful links explaining what the statistics mean.

So, looking at the POSESSIONS page, I found a study done by Morrowitz D., in 1977, that looked at how having or not having a phone was correlated with happiness. The subjects of the study were people living in two villages in Israel. Morrowitz did the study by asking participants a question intended to measure their general level of happiness. The finding was that the possession of a phone was not correlated with happiness (in other words, the level of happiness or unhappiness of a person was not predicted by whether or not the person had a phone).

posted at: 17:28 | path: /living | link

More on Happiness
I’m also enjoying the bibliography of happiness. Here are some sage words from the introduction to the bibliography:

“The term happiness is used to describe the state of an individual person only: It does not apply to collectivities. Thus a nation cannot be said to be happy. At best, most of its citizens consider themselves happy. Happiness denotes a subjective appreciation of life by an individual, therefore there is no given ‘objective’ standard for happiness. While a person who thinks s/he has a heart-condition may or may not have one, a person who thinks s/he is happy, really is happy.”

posted at: 12:02 | path: /living | link

Wikipedia- QoL
As usual, wikipedia has some useful general information on quality of life. The wikipedia article also led me, through various links to the world database of happiness. Now how could I not link to that?

posted at: 11:56 | path: /living | link

Going with the flow
I think I’ve written about flow in my blog before. It’s a concept that was introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to describe a certain type of experience people have when they are doing activities that generate a high level of satisfaction, along with a feeling of mastery and control. Looking for quality of life information, I found an interesting article on flow, posted on the Quality of Life Research Center (Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University) website.

posted at: 11:20 | path: /living | link

Quality of Life
As I was making my last blog entry, I got to thinking that if we want sustainable living to maintain or improve our quality of life, it would be helpful to have some information on what is relevant to quality of life. I found this site- the quality of life research unit at the university of Toronto- that talks about it a bit. They have a model that identifies three life domains: being- who one is, belonging- connections with one’s environments, and becoming- achieving personal goals, hopes and aspirations. They then break each of these domains down into three subdomains. Being is broken down into physical being, psychological being and spiritual being. Belonging is broken down into physical belonging, social belonging and community belonging and becoming is broken down into practical becoming, leisure becoming and growth becoming. They also give examples of each of these subcategories. Kind of neat!

posted at: 11:19 | path: /living | link

Improve quality of life, reduce ecological footprint
I think that improving people’s quality of life, while at the same time reducing their ecological footprint is the goal we need to go for. But how to do that? I like how the global renaissance alliance puts it:

“To move towards sustainability requires improving many people’s quality of life while reducing humanity’s footprint. Impossible? No. Three complementary strategies can reduce footprints while not compromising our quality of life. We can: (i) improve sustainably the bio-productivity of nature. Our harvests and services per hectare would increase. Examples include: permaculture, agricultural infrastructure such as terraces on mountain slopes or careful irrigation, reforestation or the use of solar energy on unutilized roof areas; (ii) better use the harvested resources by using less input to produce the same output as in the example of energy efficient lamps, heat pumps, recycling or climate adapted architecture. (see also the box on industrial eco-efficiency); (iii) consume less by consuming less per person and by being fewer people. For example we can avoid car use or the purchase of disposable products — at the same time we will save money and may afford more leisure time. This simpler lifestyle may also put less strain on our health and help us enjoy more the quality of our lives. Remember, all these strategies have to be used in a way, that the affected people feel more satisfied.”

posted at: 10:19 | path: /living | link

Sun, 22 Jan 2006

Redefining Progress
I arrived at the redefining progress website because it was referenced as the source for the footprint factors provided in Jim Merkel’s book, “Radical Simplicity”. It turns out that redefining progress is an organziation dedicated to providing measures of sustainability. I think this is a great idea. As they put it:

“Local debates over what, how much, and where to develop, along with what form development should take, remain highly politicized, and, as such, cry out for impartial analysis.”

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

Area converter- how big is one acre?
I’m working on my eco-footprint workshop for the upcoming OPIRG public interest school. I’m trying to find good ways to help people visualize the size of the acre. In aid of that, I found this useful converter, which lets me take something, figure out it’s size in one unit, and then convert it to number of acres.

In related news, I’m giving an ‘overcoming envrionmental guilt’ workshop for my department, and it finally motivated me to put up my environmental consultant and advocate website. Yay!

posted at: 14:41 | path: /living | link

Batgirl. A lot.
There was a draw batgirl meme on livejournal, where possibly over a thousand people drew their version of batgirl. For some reason, I am obsessed with looking at all of the different versions. (small warning- there’s one in the first 200 or so that isn’t ‘work friendly’ i.e. salacious nudity. The rest seem okay for that.)

posted at: 00:49 | path: /living | link

Wed, 18 Jan 2006

Environmental Action without Guilt
As people know, I’m all about the whole “environmental action, not environmental guilt” thing. All the time, however, I realize how hard it is to make this a reality. For instance, I just posted a comment on Colin’s blog entry where he talks about global warming. In the comment I said something along the lines of “If you already do some of these things, give yourself a pat on the back and feel good.” At the time, I thought it was an innocuous comment, but now I think people could easily hear a remark like that as having the add on “and if you aren’t doing these things, you are bad, bad bad!” So there’s an example of how even a comment that is, on the face of it, positive might cause that unwanted guilt.

The reason I am so obsessed with not making people feel guilty is that I strongly believe that guilty feelings actually lead people to NOT taking environmental action. In other words, I think making people feel guilty might actually be bad for the environment. When people feel guilty, they feel overwhelmed, so they don’t do anything at all, except feel like crap.

I think one of the things that compounds this situation is that whenever there’s a list of ‘things you can do to help x’, people feel that they should be doing those things or they are bad. And the lists themselves don’t help with this since they are filled with the dire consequences of what will happen if you don’t do the things. But then people get inundated with 20 different lists, all telling them to do 20 different things, and then they think that they have to change their whole life in order to make environmental action worth while. And then they do nothing instead.

I want people to get to the place of picking a particular aspect of the environment that is important and meaningful to them, and then not getting drawn a-stray when 20 other lists for 20 other environmental issues appear. So I think the people who are producing the lists need to take some responsibility for this by not trying to freak people out all the time and recognize that different people have different environmental priorities.

So now, with that in mind, let me rephrase my comment from Colin’s climate change entry:

Is keeping our climate cool and stable a priority for you? If so, there are a number of actions that you can take to contribute to the stability of our climate. If you already do some of these things, congratulations. You are contributing to the stability of our climate.

-Turning out lights, using energy efficient bulbs
-Turning heat down in the winter and air conditioning up in the summer.
-Keeping your house energy-efficient by eliminating drafts

-Investing in a carbon exchange program, like terrapass
-Walking or biking short distances
-car-pooling
-taking public transit
- choosing alternative transportation methods over airplane travel

-planting trees or creating or maintaining other green spaces (lawns, gardens, etc.)
-preserving existing green spaces by using recycled paper and buying wood products from responsibly managed woodlots.

posted at: 13:38 | path: /living | link

Mon, 16 Jan 2006

Adventurous Living
I’m intrigued by jobs where traveling and doing interesting things are somehow ‘the job’, or where work and leisure are conveniently combined. For example, consider being an air courier, or being a housesitter. I even think that WWOOF falls under this category, although not everyone might consider working on a farm to be interesting or fun.

posted at: 18:09 | path: /living | link

French with the BBC
I was listening to the Gaelic audio files available on the BBC and wishing there was something similar for French. I typed ‘learn french’ into Google and- surprise surprise- BBC popped up again. Here’s their page devoted to learning French. Magnifique!

posted at: 00:18 | path: /living | link

Sat, 14 Jan 2006

Ukulele Tuning Page
It turns out that there are a number of different ways to tune a ukulele. Fortunately, the chording patterns are the same, no matter which ukulele tuning you use. The only difference is the key and inversion of the chords that are produced.

posted at: 21:11 | path: /living | link

Thu, 12 Jan 2006

Non-dimensional equations
Now that I’m keep an eye out for them, more math terms are popping up. Here’s some information on nondimensionalization.

posted at: 15:00 | path: /school | link

Wed, 11 Jan 2006

Drat- too much complexity
I thought I would sneak in the back door of model analysis by pretending that my model was just another complex system and then search for ways to analyse complex systems. But what did I find? Lots of suggestions to analyse complex systems using…. computer models. Doh! Now there’s a good idea- create a complex system to analysis your complex system and then analysis your new complex system by…. uhoh. I did come across this cool looking course that at least lists some relevant topics. I also started having more luck with the search ‘analysis complex systems’. I found The center for the study of complex systems, which notes: “The mathematical techniques of the complex system approach include: nonlinear dynamics, especially differential equations, difference equations and cellular automata, game theory, Markov processes, genetic algorithms, graph theory and time series analysis.” I guess that’s a start.

posted at: 19:55 | path: /school | link

More Analysis!
Following up on my cluster analysis post, I’m just wading right in to more types of modelling analysis, and seeing what I find. I’m totally ignorant in this area, so even stumbling across new words connected with modelling analysis will help to point me in the right direction.

Clustering is very spatial in nature, which is why I initially thought about it. Aggregation is a spatial phenomenon, so it makes sense to look for what I think of as visual analysis techniques. At the same time, I would love to get to the bottom of some of those math heavy physics models. I think having the math chops helps build credibility.

Looking for information about multi-agent model analysis on google, the first new term I came across was ‘multiscale analysis’. But what is this multiscale analysis? So far, that remains elusive. Mostly I’ve found pages that have only introduced more new terms. For instance this site talks aobut multiscale analysis of Markov Decision Processes. This site is the syllabus for a math course that talks a bit about multiscale analysis. Meanwhile, the Bath Institute for Complex systems has BICS, a summer school that teaches people about multi-scale analysis. Unfortunately, after all of that, I still have no clue what multi-scale analysis actually is!

Continuing the more general search for analysis techniques, I came across this site, which focuses on analyzing multi-agent systems mathematically, rather than using simulations to see what the system will do. This isn’t exactly what I’m after, since I want information on how to analyze my *simulation* mathematically, but the articles listed might suggest some useful modelling concepts, nonetheless.

posted at: 19:37 | path: /school | link

Tue, 10 Jan 2006

Modelling and Philosophy of Science
I need to get some references that relate to modelling and philsophy of science. After a brief search, I found Malcolm R Forster’s page, listing a number of the papers he has published on the topic.

posted at: 17:41 | path: /living | link

Wed, 04 Jan 2006

Learning Gaelic with the help of BBC Scotland
Several years ago I went through a learning Gaelic phase. What I discovered was that it is really hard to learn Gaelic without hearing it spoken. There were a few audio files on the internet but multi-media was just getting going at the time. Now BBC Scotland has a Gaelic radio station you can listen to over the web and a ton of resources for learning Gaelic. Like this great cartoon called Colin and Cumberland. And get this… the best part…. Colin is a Scot who gets a job at a radio station by pretending he can speak Gaelic- but only his dog can, so he has to fake it to everyone, and his dog actually does the radio show. Heheh.

posted at: 23:48 | path: /living | link

Montreal Bike Paths
Here’s a map of the Montreal bike paths.

posted at: 13:11 | path: /living | link

La Route Verte
The Province of Quebec has developed La Route Verte, a huge cycling network that spreads across Quebec.

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

Cluster Analysis
I was reading a book on the history of complexity today and I was thinking about my own research in this context. One of the aspects of this sort of research that I feel I need to develop are better mathematical tools for model analysis, and possibly model description, as well. One avenue for model analysis is the definition of relevant descriptive concepts that work on an aggregate level. One useful tool in this context is cluster analysis. This will let me take the agents in my model and mathematically group them into clusters.

posted at: 12:54 | path: /school | link

Tue, 03 Jan 2006

Drinking in Russian Society
I found this article on drinking in Russian Society very interesting.

posted at: 07:33 | path: /living | link

Mon, 02 Jan 2006

Bicycle Touring 101
Here’s some useful information for the beginning bicycle tourist- in particular, how far you can expect to get in a day.

posted at: 20:35 | path: /living | link

Entertaining Bike Log
Here’s an entertaining account of a Dannish guy who biked across Canada in 28 days. I think I would be lucky to bike half as many kms as he did each day!

posted at: 20:27 | path: /living | link

Le P’tit Train du Nord
I made an entry a while back about Le P’tit Train du Nord, a 200km bike trail in Quebec. I really want to bike this, this summer. Here’s the official website. It has great detailed information about each section of the trail, as you can see from this page.

posted at: 19:55 | path: /living | link

Go and vote!
I think it’s really important for people to vote. I’m not interested in volunteering for a particular party, but I would really like to work with an organization that encourages all people to vote. Related to that, I found this website for an organization trying to get youth to vote in the 2006 election.

What I think would be really cool would be an organization that, during elections, went door to door like the party volunteers, but instead helped people figure out how to vote and encouraged people to vote. Maybe something like that already exists, but I haven’t found it yet.

posted at: 18:45 | path: /living | link

Details of fluorescents
I’m going to buy some fluorescent lights with my Christmas money, so I can grow lettuce. Yes, yes, I’ve heard all the jokes before, trust me. I’m not planning to grow pot, so you can put those happy brownie thoughts out of your head right now :).

In any case, the reason I’m growing lettuce instead of tomatoes is that lettuce requires much lower lighting than tomato plants. But how much lighting does it need? this article provides some information, but is a bit confusing. Here is a nice general introduction to growing plants indoors, with some nice links to other pages talking about the lighting requirements of house plants.

posted at: 14:13 | path: /living | link

Sun, 01 Jan 2006

Ice Skating in Ottawa
Until we get more snow (hopefully some will appear this week) the only available outdoor activity is ice skating. I found this list of outdoor ice rinks in Ottawa, but the site never exactly explains how people are supposed to use the rinks. It does say that if you have a team you can book ice time, but that’s about it. I suppose this is one of those things that people from Ottawa just know automatically. I’m assuming that the rinks aren’t only for people with teams, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

posted at: 14:11 | path: /living | link

Happy New Year + Home Made Organic Fertilizer
Happy New Year everyone! My first entry for the new year is this article on various ways to make your own organic fertilizer.

posted at: 03:07 | path: /living | link

All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.