Thu, 30 Mar 2006

Automatic Irrigation System
Here’s a nice d.i.y. page on setting up an Automatic Irrigation system. It looks fairly straightforward. It even looks like it would be posible to set it up with a rain barrel. That would be great.

posted at: 13:42 | path: /living | link

Tue, 28 Mar 2006

Body Burden
An interesting concept that has been around since the 1950’s is that of a person’s ’ body burden’. This is the amount of harmful chemicals, either of a certain type, or more generally, that a person has in the ‘long term storage areas’ of their body- mostly in their fat and bones. I think it is important for this idea to be given a name because giving things names allows us to talk about them and generate interest in them. It also allows organizations like governments to get a handle on them, and take action.

Also, on a smaller scale, personal level, it helps us to understand that some substances move through our bodies relatively quickly, whereas other substances tend to stick around. This is relevant when we are trying to make informed choices about exposures to various substances (both good and bad) in our environment.

posted at: 16:08 | path: /living | link

Scorecard’s Guide to Health Risk Assessment
I was thinking today that we often hear levels of pollutants or toxins like mercury (in connection with fih) or aflotoxin (in connection with peanuts) reported in ppm (parts per million). I think this can be a bit confusing to us ‘laypeople’ for two reasons. First of all, as soon as we hear parts per million, we think “Wow, a low number is a teeny weeny weeny amount”. Second, we don’t really have a good understanding of how a particular toxin affects our bodies, so we don’t really understand the implications of it being x ppm or y ppm. In some cases, 5 ppm would be absolutely negligable, and in others it would be relevant, depending on the interaction with our bodies.

All of this lead me to want to understand this better. First, I found this useful page on wikipedia that gave ppm and ppb some grounding in everyday life. For instance, 1 ppm is one drop of ink in a 150 litre drum of water. Second, I found a site that presents information on chemicals in the context of toxicity and environmental risk.

posted at: 14:59 | path: /living | link

Mon, 27 Mar 2006

Chi Squared
And before I misplace it, here’s a useful page about the chi squared test.

posted at: 00:28 | path: /work | link

Statistics, take two
Okay- sadly, that last statistical test only works for three or more groups, and I’m only dealing with two groups. So now, here’s a link for the Mann whitney test, which compares two groups.

posted at: 00:22 | path: /work | link

Statistics! Exciting!
Here is an online Kruskal Wallis test which can be used to determine if two groups of unknown distribution are the same or different.

posted at: 00:09 | path: /work | link

Thu, 23 Mar 2006

Going for the burn
While looking up the concept of ‘personal best fitness’, I came across some interesting information about how our bodies get energy for exercise. What I find most interesting is that our bodies use different energy sources depending on how hard we are exercising. If we exercise with a relatively low intensity- up to 50 or 60% of our maximum intensity- we burn fat, but if we exercise at a higher intensity, we burn carbohydrates. This finally explains something which I have never fully understood, that being why it is possible for some people to run for days and days on end, while others experience what is variously referred to as “hitting the wall” or “bonking”- the situtation where you suddenly run out of energy and sometimes literally can go no further. Basically the answer is that if you are exercising at a low intensity, you have a lot of energy available to you, because as humans we have good stores of fat energy (several days worth, according to the article!). However, if you are exercising at high intensity, you have a fairly limited amount of energy available to you- only about two hours worth- since we can’t store very many carbohydrates.

I think this also explains why, when I bike in my usual slow and somewhat slacker-ish manner, I don’t have any great difficulties biking for long periods of time. I’m going slowly enough that my muscles can be well supplied with the oxygen they need, they don’t get overly tired, and I’m drawing on fat for energy rather than those limited supplies of carbs, so I can keep going and going and going. This also explains why, when I’m running, quite the opposite is true. I’m exercising at a much higher intensity, so before too long both my muscles conk out, and I get hungry and need to eat something. The advantage to exercising over time is that your highest level of intensity gets higher, power or performance wise, than it was before, and that means you can exercise at a higher level of performance before getting into the relatively short term carbohydrate burning zone.

posted at: 21:13 | path: /living | link

Professor Mean
I still seem to know an embarassingly small amount about statistics. Here’s an enteraining stats Q&A site, presided over by “Professor Mean”.

posted at: 11:28 | path: /work | link

Wed, 22 Mar 2006

Chicken Stock vs Chicken Broth
Here’s an interesting discussion on the difference between chicken stock and chicken broth. Apparently, the difference is important if you are making sauces.

posted at: 20:21 | path: /living | link

Stats tests for non-parametric data
I have to do some statistical analysis of small groups, so I went looking for statistical tests that will work with small groups that may not be normally distributed. I found this useful page that lists some non-parametric tests that test for the same things as common parametric tests that require large sample sizes

posted at: 13:27 | path: /work | link

Tue, 21 Mar 2006

Casserole?
Okay- so after all of that defining of other left over related foods, I am left with still another question. And that is- what the heck is a casserole? After some thought, I can provide two properties of a casserole. First, a casserole must have a certain level of cohesion, at least to the extent that it can sit on a plate in a blob or mound, if not a block. If the food in question can be easily spread out into a single layer, over another food, for example, then I don’t think it is really a casserole. Second, a casserole must have a a combination of foods in it- a mixture of some combination of meat, vegetables, and usually a grain food. It is the grain food which tends to provide the required/desired cohesion. Based on these two properties, a casserole is basically a soup which is baked until all of the water is removed, and the food sticks together. Hmmm… This could explain my general suspicion of casseroles. However, if this is the case, it should be easy to include casseroles in the left-over-food usage plan, and to perhaps even incorporate some of the ‘already compiled’ dishes directly into a casserole. Basically mix cooked rice with stuff, cooked macaroni with stuff or cooked other noodles with stuff and… have at ‘er!

posted at: 17:35 | path: /living | link

Savory Bread Puddings
Aha- now I’m really starting to get somewhere. You can make savory bread puddings too.

posted at: 16:37 | path: /living | link

More on Bread Pudding
Here’s an entire site dedicated to bread pudding, with many variations on the theme.

posted at: 16:30 | path: /living | link

More On Leftovers
I’m still thinking about leftovers. Some progress is being made with the soup plan, and I think it is having positive fringe benefits. Soup works for using up vegetables, meats and grains. Breads are also coming along. I haven’t resorted to putting them in the soup yet. I’ve been making melba toast, and I think I will branch out to making croutons and bread pudding I am still, however, being foiled by prepared dishes (by which I mean already assembled dishes that are left over) and fruits. I see two main options for the fruits- fruit smoothies, and fruit soup. However, I’m still not quite in the right frame of mind for either of these. As far as I can tell from various webpages like this one, fruit soups are, in many respects, just smoothies in a bowl. Not that this is necesarily a bad thing. It just requires a bit of a change in thinking. And as for the ‘already compiled’ foods, I think the only solution is to figure out how to add more things to them, or incorporate them into something else, so that they seem like a slightly different dish. This avoids the “I am eating the same dinner two nights in a row” feeling, which is often not so desirable. We humans definitely like to have diversity in our food.

posted at: 16:24 | path: /living | link

Sat, 18 Mar 2006

Lamb Stock
Here’s a page with links to recipes that use lamb stock.

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

Fri, 17 Mar 2006

Conflating Factors… Grrrrr
One thing that is greatly irritating me in reading about this stuff is that people in North America, when doling out their statistics, seem to be conflating three things that are, to me, quite distinct. The three things are: activity level, diet and body weight. These three things are not at all the same, but people talking about preventable causes of death in North America seem to regularly mix them up. And that is really too bad, because I believe that there is too much emphasis on body weight. Really, it is quite possible to be small and weak and sickly and unfit and also to be large and strong and fit. Here’s a quote: “One of the largest studies on the topic was undertaken in 1994 and repeat results were reported in 1999. Researchers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, an organisation that studies health and fitness, traced about 20,000 men and determined that mortality rates went up as fitness levels dropped.

“The fact is, if you’re fit, it doesnt matter what your BMI is in terms of mortality,” says Dr Steven Blair, an epidemiologist and president of the institute recently told the Los Angeles Times.”

posted at: 16:30 | path: /living | link

Disconcerting Statistics
I came across an idea while looking up my adequate exercise information that I find surprising. And that is that ‘not exercising’ might actually be as bad for a person as… smoking. That’s what this article wants to claim, citing a Chinese study. It’s probably hard to conclusively prove something like that, but the thought is still disconcerting.

posted at: 15:39 | path: /living | link

Adequate Exercise?
Well, I have to say that, despite a few okay biking days in there, this winter was pretty crap when it came to outdoor activities, and I’m left feeling unfit, and suffering from a ‘lack of physical activity’. Note that I use the word ‘suffer’, there. That’s because when I have been unable to obtain sufficient physical activity, I don’t sleep well, I have a poor appetite, I feel tired and run down, and I am mentally sluggish and grumpy. In short, I suffer. I have been endeavouring to remedy this suffering this past week with some ‘cardio-vascular activity’ (which others might call running or jogging, but since I don’t really like doing such things, I’m not calling it that).

All of this led me to wonder just what ‘adequate physical exercise’ actually is? How much exercise, and what sort of exercise do I need to do to in order to avoid this suffering I succumb to? I have recently come up with my own exercise level metric, which is that I must do activities that cause me to sweat and breath vigorously (for cardivascular exercise) or lead to some muscle fatigue (for muscle exercise).

But how much of this sort of exercise is enough? And how much is too much? To find out, I looked for some information on adquate exercise. The first site I found was what you might describe as a tough love adequate exercise site, that argued that the typically recommended amounts of adquate exercise are too ‘namby-pamby’. For instance, he argues that the ‘20 minutes of light physical activity a day’ (i.e. walking) is not enough. And, according to this guy, “the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine recommended 60 minutes or more exercise daily for preventing weight gain and achieving adequate fitness”. But what sort of exercise? And how hard? I find the whole thing confusing because runners sites clearly say that you shouldn’t over train, and that means taking at least one day off a week. And probably not running hard or long on all of the other days. So this information seems fishy and confusing to me.

Okay- Here’s something from the July 1996 Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health:

-Moderate physical activity for an average of at least 30 minutes a day at least 5 days a week. Examples include walking briskly, shoveling snow, washing and waxing your car, gardening, social dancing, stairwalking, sports, or (sic)

-Vigorous exercise (physical activity that makes you sweat and breathe hard) for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week.

Now, that kind of makes sense and fits in with the running site advice. Basically that works out to: three days of ‘sweaty exercise’ (i.e. cardio-vascular), three days of low level (but not too low level) exercise, and one day of no exercise, to let those muscles rebuild. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t take me too long to reach the sweaty level. 5 minutes of jumping jacks and I’m there!

posted at: 13:54 | path: /living | link

Thu, 16 Mar 2006

Wiki Engines by language
Here is a list of wiki engines by language. I’m kind of hoping Colin will ‘assist in’ (i.e. do, while I hover, and bring tea) the installation. Perhaps this list will prove helpful.

posted at: 14:05 | path: /living | link

Comparison of wiki software
I want to resurrect my wiki. My original wiki was destroyed by spammers, and needs to be taken down. I’m looking for one that has an option for people to either type in an identifier or one that uses a simple password system- not to prevent people from using it, just to prevent automatic spammers. In looking for a new wiki program, I found this useful chart, comparing features of different wikis.

posted at: 13:59 | path: /living | link

Wed, 15 Mar 2006

Association of Municipalities of Ontario
So far, I’m learning that there are interesting sub-layers to this whole municipality thing, in addition to the provinces and the municipalities themselves. For instance, there is the Association of Municipalities of Ontario who seem to want to represent Ontario municipalities more generally, and who seem to put pressure on the Provincial government to do various things. The people on their board of directors are members (councillors, mayors, etc.) of various cities and counties in Ontario. I can’t decide how I feel about this.

posted at: 16:40 | path: /living | link

What are cities allowed to do?
I was having an interesting discussion with Dave about the municipal election and it led me to become curious about the jurisdiction of cities in Ontario- i.e. what cities have the power to do, and what they don’t have the power to do. I found a number of relevant documents on-line, including the Ontario Municipal Act, and the City of Ottawa Act.

posted at: 15:31 | path: /living | link

Erasing stubborn whiteboard marks
We have a whiteboard in our tutoring room which is severly stained. While looking for information on how to remove whiteboard marker marks, I came across this page, with a list of possible whiteboard cleaners at the bottom. Being the AD&D playing sort myself, I was also entertained by the purpose of the page, and thought a table and walls covered with white board material sounded like a great idea. Perhaps others may mock me for my enthusiasm on this particular topic, however.

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

Alter vs Anti
As most people who know me know, I am not into ‘anti’ things. It’s just not my style. I much prefer looking at positive alternatives and giving people positive options. This might explain my lack of interest in ‘anti-globalisation’, even though I don’t disagree with the anti-globalisation beefs about the globalisation movement. However, while reading articles in the french wikipedia, I came across a discussion of ‘altermondialism’ or alterglobalism, which is the current french term for anti-globalism. The idea is that it’s important to offer positive alternative positions to the positions taken up by the globalists. This is much more appealing to me.

posted at: 12:40 | path: /living | link

Mon, 13 Mar 2006

Prunning a hedge
Our backyard hedge is quite unruly at the moment, so it needs to be pruned. It’s too bushy, and also the wrong shape in some places. Here’s a page that has some ideas on pruning hedges. It notes that you need to know what sort of hedge you have in order to know when to prune it. I think ours flowers in the spring, since I didn’t notice any large numbers of flowers by the time we moved in last year. Here’s another page with information on when to prune, and a picture of a very trimmed back hedge. This page has a lot of information, and a very informative picture (fig. 9) that shows the difference between good pruning and bad pruning of an overgrown shrub. Based on this picture, our shrub has suffered from a lot of bad pruning.

posted at: 16:04 | path: /living | link

Thu, 09 Mar 2006

More Desserts… Mmmm…
I have two desserts coming up, a chocolate pate and a creme brule. Hey- looks like we’ve got a rhyming french dessert thang going on.

posted at: 15:36 | path: /living | link

Tue, 07 Mar 2006

French to English Dictionary
Here’s a French to English dictionary that give both the meaning of the word and the meaning of phrases that contain the word. Very interesting and useful when you are reading terribly sophisticated and literary things like… Elle Online in order to improve your French.

posted at: 16:34 | path: /living | link

Mon, 06 Mar 2006

Evil Environmentalists
It’s always good to be open to new viewpoints. For example, the viewpoint that environmentalism is EVIL. Here’s a quote:

“Many people are willing to give environmentalists the benefit of the doubt and help them maintain their public facade as well-meaning idealists. But whenever the naked consequences of their actions are made clear - when they are confronted with the reality of diseased babies and starving children, of crushed automobiles and disintegrating spacecraft, of sweltering apartments and blazing forests - and when even then they fail to recoil in horror and repudiate their agenda, such people may be called many things. But “idealist” is not one of them. And I, for one, mean for the world to know that.”

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

French Book Reviews
Continuing with my efforts to read things in French, I found this page of french sci fi book reviews. Hopefully at some point I might move on to reading the books.

posted at: 20:04 | path: /living | link

Proof that the diagonals of a parallelogram bisect
Here’s one, but it seems a bit elaborate. Here’s a useful hint from Doctor Math. As suspected, it is also possible to prove using similar triangles.

posted at: 12:36 | path: /work | link

Mathematics across the curriculum
I enjoy hearing about math programs and courses like the ones offered by dartmouth college.

posted at: 12:17 | path: /work | link

Sun, 05 Mar 2006

Ferezangenbowle
Wooee! How can I resist the lure of the feurzangenbowle? The idea is that you put hot punch in a fondue pot type thing, put a little grill over the top of the fondue pot, lay a cone of sugar on top of that, douse the sugar cone in rum, and then set it on fire. You repeat this process until the sugar has completely melted into the punch, and then you drink the punch. I must try this.

posted at: 18:13 | path: /living | link

The Reluctant Gourmet
As the reluctant gourment notes, we all have to eat, so chances are pretty good that we are all going to have to cook sometime. I liked the recipe for red lentil soup I saw on his website.

posted at: 17:29 | path: /living | link

All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.