Time of the bugs
Soon it will again be the time of the bugs.
Here’s an
interesting page that talks about the usefulness of catnip oil and other
oils, and also has a lot of information about approved pesticides.
posted at: 17:09 |
path: /living |
link
Adventure on Openogo Lake
Here’s
an entertaining read about one person’s experience canoing on Openogo
Lake. The person had some challenges figuring out how to canoe with wind,
and has some funny remarks to make about the motorboat traffic.
posted at: 11:49 |
path: /living |
link
Back to the future
Check out
these slang
terms
from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
posted at: 23:44 |
path: /living |
link
Recursion is kicking my butt.
Yes. Yes it is. When I was learning how to do it, I developed the required
knack for it, but now I have forgotten all of my tricks. Here
is a page which might help bring some of them back.
posted at: 15:12 |
path: /school |
link
Damp Days
I have felt colder in the last day or two than I have all winter. Why?
Because it’s been damp. But why does that make it feel colder? According
to this
page, “(t)he faster we lose heat to a substance, the colder it feels
to us.” Since wet air conducts heat better than dry air, we lose heat more
quickly to the air when the air is damp, and thus the air feels colder to
us. And, more to the point, it’s not just the air that feels colder to us-
we ourselves feel colder too. Now, you might want to argue that, since the
temperature is still the same, as measured by a thermometer, it isn’t
*really* colder, but I think that’s wrong. The important measure here
really *is* how fast we are losing heat, since that’s what determines
whether or not our body can maintain our core body temperature, and that’s
what’s really important. When we feel cold our body is saying “you are
losing heat at an uncomfortably high rate. Do something about that”.
Personally, I like to listen to my body- which explains why I am wearing
my polar fleece winter hat inside a 68 degree house today.
posted at: 17:32 |
path: /living |
link
Good foods and bad foods… or what?
As regular readers of my blog know, I am constantly doing research on
food. At this point, I feel like I have done research on almost every
category of food, and I have come to realize that every food has it’s good
points and bad points. There is no ideal food. I know, I know- maybe
that’s obvious, and that’s why the nutritionists always say that we need
to eat a wide variety of foods.
To illustrate, however, let’s consider some of the propertes that are often associated with food these days, and then figure out how this fits in with various types of foods:
Now- any food I pick is going to fit somewhere on each of these
categories. Let’s take beans as an example to illustrate this. Beans are
a medium calorie, low fat food, with a low to medium glycemic load. They
are somewhat high in certain nutrients (like folacin), but they inhibit
the absorption by the body of various other nutrients (like iron). They
might be considered filling, but they also can be hard on the digestive
system and on their own they aren’t that tasty. So would I only want to
eat beans? No. Would I want to include them in my diet? Yes.
posted at: 13:28 |
path: /living |
link
Using Convex Hulls for other things
While doing all of this work on convex hulls, it occurred to me that I
could also use convex hulls to define the shapes of my perceptual fields.
Then I could test whether or not an agent is within another agent’s
perceptual field by checking to see of the point (or points) representing
the agent was in inside or outside the convex hull Here’s a
response that suggests how to do this- figure out which side of each of
the planes of the hull the point is on. And here’s
another summary of a bunch of posts on this topic. I find the replies a
bit heavy going, but for now I am satisfied to know that it is, in fact,
possible to determine whether or not a point lies inside or outside a
polyhedron.
posted at: 12:38 |
path: /school |
link
More on Convex Hulls
/school |
link
Volume of Convex Hulls
Okay- now that I have a way to define the convex hulls themselves, how do
I determine their volume?
Here’s site on
molecular shapes and surfaces that is a bit too detailed for me at the
moment, but that is interesting nonetheless. Wikipedia provides
the
information that in 3 dimensions, a convex hull is a type of convex
polyhedron.
Here
is a javascript implementation of a polyhedra volume calculator. However,
it needs to know not just the vertices, but also which vertices go along
with which sides of the polygon. Mathworld provides some
further
information about convex polyhedrons, including the somewhat
disheartening news that there is no general formula for the volume of a
convex polyhedron. However, it does say that there is an algorithm for
determining faces of a convex polyhedron and, as we have seen, there is a
way to figure out the volume once you have that figured out. Which then
seems to suggest that there is, in fact, a general formula for the volume
of a convex polyhedron but the, what can I say, I’m no mathematician.
posted at: 12:19 |
path: /school |
link
Convex Hull Algorithms
And finally,
jackpot.
A page with four algorithms for calculating convex hulls in 2 and 3
dimensions.
posted at: 11:57 |
path: /school |
link
Herve Bronniman’s Papers
Looking for convex hulls, I came across Herve Bronniman’s
page of papers on
this subject.
posted at: 11:51 |
path: /school |
link
Convex Polygons
Reading that last page led me to think about vertices. Another thing that
might help me get going is if I could find the vertices of a shape that
would completely surround on the points. Another google search led me
to this
page, which provides an algorithm for doing this in 2d- The
Three-Coins Algorithm for Convex Hulls of Polygons. Now I just
need to find an algorithm to do this in 3d.
posted at: 11:48 |
path: /school |
link
Molecular Surfaces
I’m still trying to find a way to measure the density of my 3d aggregate.
I’m sure someone out there, in some discipline, has solved this problem,
and I have no desire to re-invent this wheel- especially since it might be
a difficult wheel to invent. The main step in the process is finding the
area of space in which the agents are sitting. Then it’s a simple matter
to divide this by the number of agents to get the density. But before I
can figure out the volume of the shape involved, I need to figure out the
shape itself. It occurred to me that people doing computer graphics might
have to deal with this problem when they try to wrap a surface around a
bunch of points. A google search on that topic lead me to
this
page on generating molecular surfaces. This seemed promising, so I
found
this
page on physical molecular models, which has a section on molecular
surfaces. Check out
this
super cool graphic.
posted at: 11:40 |
path: /school |
link
Mortgage Payment Math Problems
Learn how to do mortgage payment calculations. Check out
this problem. And
take a look at
this
neat site, Debtsmart, that has various “household math problems”.
posted at: 14:32 |
path: /work |
link
Compound interest questions
Do you remember doing compound interest questions in high school?
Here’s
a
few more to give you a walk down memory lane. And
here’s
another page.
And yet
another page.
And
here’s
another one.
posted at: 16:23 |
path: /work |
link
Childhood animation favourite rediscovered
For several years now, I’ve been searching the internet, trying to find
some information about an animated movie I used to watch on video as a
child. The movie was strange and compelling, and I’ve wanted to
find it again for quite some time. I thought it was called something like
“The King and Mr. Crow’. Every once and a while, I would search
again, hoping to find a new page that would lead me to it. Searching again
just now, I finally hit pay dirt. I found
this list of all
the animated features that had been released in the states between 1937
and 1980, and bingo- there it was! Originally known as
La Bergere et le
ramoneur, the title was variously translated into English as “The
Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird” or “The King and Mr. Bird”. I must have
known it with the second title.
posted at: 18:52 |
path: /living |
link
Phone Cards
I’ve been planning to buy a phone card for long distance calls within
Canada, because the rates are generally much better than the rates the
phone company provides, and you are not stuck with one long distance plan.
The magazine stores down the street sell them, but the people working at
the stores were not at all helpful when I went in to buy one today. They
couldn’t tell me anything about the cards themselves- brand names, rates,
where they were good for, etc. All they could say was that I should give
them a number and they would print out a card for me. At least the second
person had a list of numbers with mysterious words beside them that he
could give me. It turns out that the words make some reference to the
brand of phone card. Fortunately, I found an online seller of phone
cards that has some useful information about the different types of cards.
posted at: 17:29 |
path: /living |
link
Why I like camping
My last camping entry led me to think hard about why I like camping. The
immediately obvious answer is that I like to be outside. A lot. Which is
to say, I like being outside a great deal of the time, and I like it a
great deal. Not surprisingly, that’s a major factor in my enjoyment of
camping.
Knowing this, I then tried to come up with scenarios that I would or would not like, to see if it would help me figure out what other factors are important to me. I considered a situation where I just walked along a trail and then stopped each night, wherever I happened to be, at a house with clothing, prepared food, nice beds and such waiting for me. Now, I would not rate this as a horrible experience, but I wouldn’t consider it ‘fun’. At best I might consider it to be serene and pleasant. At worst I might consider it to be boring.
What would be required to make this experience fun for me? For one thing, mode of transportation is relevant. If I were biking or canoeing or skiing in the same scenario, it would start to get hugely more fun, definitely, even if everything else stayed the same. Another thing that would make it fun, even if walking, would be if the houses were spaced a good distance apart, such that it was a bit challenging to get from one house to the next each day. That little bit of challenge would make the situation more fun.
Basically, for me, I guess it boils down to the fact that I like being outside, and I like being outside in moderately challenging circumstances, because it keeps things interesting. More specifically, I like moderately challenging situations with immediate non-judgemental feedback built in. Basically, when outdoors, I have met the challenge if I am warm, dry, happy, not hungry or thirsty and I know where I am. Mind you, in camping, there are additional things that I like, as well- like cooking over fire (gas or coal) and sleeping in a tent. These are also fun things, with a little bit of challenge involved to keep them interesting.
I think it also helps that I’m not too put off by certain elements of the
outdoors that other people find un-fun, or disconcerting. I found a great
list of these things on
this
wilderness trip website. Specifically, the company provides customers
with a pdf document that reassures them about what to expect on their
wilderness outing. Based on this document, their arrangements sound quite
pleasant and enjoyable, which I have no problem with. I’m not really into
discomfort for discomfort’s sake.
posted at: 11:20 |
path: /living |
link
Fuel Weight Calculator
I’ve come across this
camping stove fuel weight calculator before, but I don’t think I
linked to it at the time.
posted at: 13:50 |
path: /living |
link
Some odds and ends- complexity and social psychology
A while back I wrote a note to myself to make a blog entry about a few
things. First
I wanted to put in a link to
The Center for the Study of Complex
Systems at the University of Michigan. They’re doing a bunch of
interesting stuff there. Second, I wanted to make a note about
the existence of the
study of
groups in social psychology, because I think it’s a very interesting
subject area. Generally speaking, I find the field of social psychology
very interesting.
posted at: 12:09 |
path: /school |
link
Camping Philosophy
I love camping, but the more I learn and think about it in its modern day
form, the more perplexing and perverse I find it. Much of my perplexity
centers around camping food, although camping shelters also come into
play. Camping is often espoused as a way to get ‘back to nature’, and in
some ways has implicit in its image the idea of returning to the wild and
living more naturally. At the same time, as far as I can tell, there is
very little that is traditional about camping.
Consider first two groups that camping might be related to- nomadic lifestyles and voyageur or woodsman lifestyles. In the first case, that of nomadic cultures, people did (and still do) live in more temporary structures. However, people remain in one place, in these more temporary structures, for fairly extended periods of time, living off of food available in the environment (e.g. their own herds of animals, or local plants and wild game). People like voyageursbehaved a bit more like modern day campers, especially with respect to carrying foodbut I’m not sure that the voyageur experience is really what most modern day campers are looking for. As well, voyageurs would at the very least not have carried their own fuel, or worried too much about providing their own sources of warmth, since they would have had cooking and camp fires.
According to wikipedia recreational camping didn’t appear until the beginning of the 1900’s, with backpacking also appearing as a popular activity at this time. As camping and backpacking became more and more popular, however, environmentalists became more and more concerned, and eventually a bunch of the them came up with the whole “Leave No Trace” idea.
Now, in principle I agree with this idea, but I think it has resulted in camping being far from either a back to nature experience or an experience at all similar to that of nomadic people or woodsmen. Modern campers must carry all of their food, all of their shelter, all of their cooking fuel and all of their ‘other items to keep warm and dry and happy’ on their backs. Under the leave no trace principle, none of their needs, except, perhaps, drinking water, may be met by nature at any time or under any circumstance. Indeed, the camper must remain as disconnected from nature as possible, while still technically being ‘immersed in nature’.
Feasibility aside, I think this has some implications regarding the
practicality of camping in the modern day and age.
posted at: 00:40 |
path: /living |
link
Procrastination Equation
Some more thoughts on procrastination. In my last blog post, I said that I
thought that procrastination was the result of some irrational beliefs-
but not the beliefs that people usually pointed to when they talked about
procrastination. This lead me to think about how people decide to do
various things, and how this might play into procrastination issues.
Generally speaking I think the action decision equation goes something
like this: If current pain + future pain > future gain, don’t do it! To be
more precise I think that current pain should be read as ‘currently
anticipated pain’.
Now, where I think the cognitive distortions come into play is in the evaluation of this equation. I’ve already said that I think that future pain might be rated as being very high (a.k.a. severe punishment!) by procrastinators. I also think, if there is some “pay attention to the negative, ignore the positive” cognitive distortion going on, future gain might be rated as low (or perhaps even non-existent). What’s more, I think there could be a few things going on with respect to the anticipated current pain, as well. First, I think it is probably that procrastinators (myself included) over-estimate the amount of pain and unpleasantness involved in the current endeavour. Second, perhaps we are somewhat intolerant of discomfort, which could also lead to a higher ranking of the immediately anticipated pain.
So, when I look at all of that, I might
ask myself why I ever
end up doing any projects at all! I think this might be explained by
adjusting the equation somewhat to read: If future pain of doing task +
current pain of doing task > future gain of doing task + future pain of
not doing task, don’t do task. In my case, as the deadline approaches, the
anticipated future pain of NOT doing the task seems to loom larger and
larger. Eventually, usually about 12 hours before the deadline, the right
side of the equation begins to out balance the left, and I start to do the
task.
I’m not sure why it doesn’t out balance the right hand side at the
beginning of the situation mind you- maybe the painful
anticipation of the bad
outcome only increases over time, and that eventually outweighs
the current pain of doing the task all together. Maybe.
posted at: 22:52 |
path: /living |
link
My Theory of Procrastination
I was talking to Andrew about procrastination the other day,
which in turn led me to do some further
musings about the topic. As I was saying to Andrew, one thing that gets my
goat is the tendency of people to treat procrastination like it is a
trivial problem, which should be easily eliminated. This is connected to a
tendency to characterize procrastination as an irrational
behaviour- which seems to make people think it should be easy to eliminate, once a person has acknowleged this fact. It is characterized as irrational because procrastinating
tends to make a situation worse, not better, and it seems strange that a person would make such a choice.
I do agree that there are no doubt some perplexing beliefs underlying procrastination, but I don’t think the irrationality of procrastination lies at the point where a person decides to put off doing the task. People who play the irrationality card often make it sounds as if there are, in fact, no tasks which a rational person would postpone. However, I can think of several situations or tasks where postponement would be a rational choice.
Execution, for example. Postponing your execution has many benefits, and few detriments. It is similarly the case with revealing an unpleasant truth. It might be argued, for example, that someone who has had an affair has no good reason to reveal their behaviour as soon as possible (if ever!). Basically, in any situation where the occurence of the event in question will only serve to make your life worse rather than better, it does not seem irrational to choose to have the event occur later, rather than sooner.
Now, I’m not saying that this works as a precise analogy for a situation where a person is avoiding doing something that they need to do for school or work, but I think it is at least relevant. It also leads to another analogy that may be more in keeping with the actual situation. Imagine a scenario where you are instructed to create the instrument of your doom- for example, where you are instructed to make the noose for your upcoming hanging. In this case, it hardly seems surprising that you would not put all of your time into creating the noose. Nor would you probably be motivated to do an especially great job on the noose itself. Again, in this case it is mainly to your benefit to put off making the noose, and, even if pressed to do so, put as little effort as possible into making the noose. And similarly, in the case of the revealing of the affair, it would be unlikely for someone to put a great deal of effort into making a power point presentation of the details of the affair, complete with photos, in preparation for revealing their infidelity. Making that sort of effort in such a situation could hardly be seen as a personally beneficial use of time and energy.
So basically what I’m saying is that, in some situations, so called ‘procrastination behaviour’ is just the behaviour you would expect. Therefore, I think the question we procrastinators need to ask is- why do we view the procrastination situation as similar to these other situations? First of all, I think that, for various reasons, which may vary from person to person, procrastinators view the completion of the task, or handing in of the project, as somewhat analogous to the reception of some kind of corporal punishment. In other words, you will be judged, and you will be judged severely! In such a case it makes sense to put off the judgement and punishment for as long as possible. Second, I think that procrastinators tend to view the project itself as the noose that is going to hang them, which hardly leads them to want to spend a lot of time working on it- the instrument of their doom. For one thing, said instrument just reminds them of their impending doom, and for another, even if done well, it’s just going to be used to hang them.
So, the question we must ask ourselves, I think, is why do we view these
situations as being analogous to corporal punishment situations, or, more
generally, situations which change our life for the worse? And what
can we do to change that view? I don’t have an answer for that one yet! In
the meantime,
here’s a link to
the procrastination research group at Carleton. Lots of fascinating
information and research articles on procrastination!
posted at: 22:04 |
path: /living |
link
Bookkeeping
At one point I bought a book at the Staples for keeping track of my
business income and expenses. Since I haven’t learned to use it yet, you
can imagine how active my business has been! However, better late than
never. Here’s
some information from the Government of Canada on basic bookkeeping.
posted at: 15:55 |
path: /work |
link
Walking while you work
After spending the night hunched over on the couch writing a report, I was
feeling more than a little stiff and achy. Colin suggested that I try
working on my computer standing up- something that had been recently
suggested to him- and promptly constructed a stand up computer desk for me
using a shelf and boxes. So far, I must say, I’ve been liking it, and it
does feed into my secret desire to get a treadmill for my office. Here’s
an article about working on your computer while walking on a treadmill.
posted at: 16:06 |
path: /living |
link
The Bwain!
I often enjoy reading the
Beyond Vegetarianism website- mainly because the writers of the site
are prone to the occassional entertaining outburst against the more exotic
beliefs put foward by some groups of vegetarians. While reading their
article on human adaption to diet, I found some fascinating (at least to
me) information about the energy requirements of the human brain.
According to references on
this page, while non primate brains generally use about 3-4% of the
total energy coming into the animal, and primates about 8%, a whopping 25%
of total energy consumed by people goes towards their brains. Basically,
the brain is like “Feed me! Feed me!” all the time.
posted at: 22:08 |
path: /living |
link
Reporting Statistics
And, now that I know how to interpret chi square statistics, I need to
know how to
report chi square
statistics.
posted at: 15:25 |
path: /living |
link
Interpreting Chi Square
Now that I’ve done the chi square tests, I need to be sure that I am
correctly interpreting the results.
Here’s
a nice discussion of how to interpret the results.
posted at: 15:15 |
path: /living |
link
Plant iron uptake- the practical upshot
I’m not an expert, so don’t take any of these calculations too seriously and especially don’t make eating decisions based only on this information.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s see what we can figure out.
Based on various
studies, it sounds like, as long as ‘enough’ vitamin C is
consumed, plant sources of iron- including those containing phytates- will
be absorbed at a rate of roughly 15-20%. 1 cup of orange-juice seems to
mitigate the effect of about 50mg of phytates, so let’s assume that’s
enough
to cover one meal’s worth of phytates, and let’s go with 15% absorption to
be on the
conservative side. Now let’s consider the amount of vitamin C available in
different non-meat foods.
Pumpkin Seeds (pepitas), dry roasted:
33.9mg/cup * .15 = 5.085mg absorbed iron/cup
Tahini: 1.3mg/Tablespoon *
.15 = .19 mg absorbed iron/Tablespoon
Cashews, dry roasted: 8.2mg/cup *
.15 = 1.23 mg absorbed
Almonds, Dry Roasted: 6.2 mg/cup * .15 = .93 mg/cup
Apricots, dried and sulfured: 7.5mg/cup = 1.125 mg/cup
Raisins: 4.3mg/cup * .15 = .645 mg/cup
Baked Potato Skin (no salt): 4.1mg/skin * .15 = .615mg/skin
Snowpeas: 3.2mg/cup * .15 = .48 mg / cup
Fried Tofu: 6mg/10pieces(130g) * .15 = .9mg/10pieces
Cooked beans of various kinds: 3.3-2.9mg/100g * .15 = .495-.435mg/100g
So- what is the moral of this story? The very rough and approximate moral
of this story is that if you are a woman and you eat a reasonable amount
of three or four of these foods a day, combined with lots of vitamin C,
you will at least be replacing the amount of iron you lose each day, on
average. Building up depleted iron stores, however, is a different story,
which will not be told today.
posted at: 20:26 |
path: /living |
link
Plant sources of iron- The nitty gritty details
Okay- so let’s get into some more detail about plant sources of iron. I
may have already made a blog entry about this at some point, but now I
know quite a bit more, so here I go again. First of all, it turns that,
although legumes seem like they have a lot of iron in them, they actually
aren’t such a good source of iron, because very little of that iron is
actually absorbed. Less than 2% for several common types of legumes,
according to the article above. The case is apparently similar for
ssome nuts although according to the article linked to, adding
vitamin C increased the amount of absorption. Vitamin A
may also
counteract the inhibition effect of the phytates. And lastly, phytates may
to some extent be destroyed by cooking, heating or fermenting the food
containing the
phytate. (At the same time, we wouldn’t want to totally get rid of those
phytates, since apprently they are useful for
some things).
Here’s
a nice summary of all of this information.
posted at: 19:01 |
path: /living |
link
Iron Uptake math
Okay- from what I’ve read, both in that last article and
here, absorption of heme iron is between 15-35% and absorption of
non-heme iron is between 2-15% (roughly) with the high end being
absorption in the presence of something that encourage absorption, in
particular something containing vitamin C. In terms of food, meat has
about 40% heme iron and 60% non-heme iron and vegetables contain 100%
non-heme iron. Vegetables also contain stuff (phylates, oxylates, tannins,
etc.) that can reduce the absorption a further amount (possibly up to
80%).
Okay, this is all very nice, but what does it all mean? Let’s
put it in perspective. Suppose that our goal is 1.5 mg of absorbed iron a
day (which, according to the article, is how much we need to maintain our
current store of iron). Let’s also suppose that we are getting this iron
from plant sources that do not also contain iron uptake inhibitors (e.g.
not from rhubarb, swiss chard, chocolate, and spinach) and that we are
getting an abundance of vitamin C along with our iron rich plant foods.
So, perhaps that means that we are absorbing about 6% of the iron in the
foods. That means that, to get 1mg of iron, we need to eat about 17 mg of
plant iron.
posted at: 15:12 |
path: /living |
link
Iron Uptake
When I was doing my research on lead, I learned how complicated absorption
and excretion of metals could be. This true for both toxic metals, like
lead, and necessary metals, like iron. In the case of iron there are two
different types of iron available in food- heme-iron and non-heme iron-
and these are processed differently by the body.
Here’s
an article that provides some information about the processing and
bioavailability of
iron.
posted at: 13:35 |
path: /living |
link
Adapting to exercise
As suggested in some of my recent posts, I’ve been trying to do 30-60
minutes of exercise a day, 6 days a week, with three of those days high
intensity aerobic exercise (e.g. running, hard biking) and three of those
days low intensity aerobic exercise and strength training (walking,
regular biking, etc.). It’s a bit of an experiment to see how it goes.
So far what I’ve discovered is that the high intensity exercising is posing a challenge, but not for the reasons I would have thought. It isn’t that I dislike doing the high intensity exercise once I’m doing it, or find it very difficult once I’m doing it. The challenge seems to come in that, unlike with the low intensity exercise, I need to be much more organized to do it.
For starters, I find that, no matter how much I enjoy exercising once I start it, it is never something that I exactly want to do prior to doing it. There’s always an inertia that I have to overcome, and anything that contributes to this intertia adds to the likelihood that it won’t happen. Things like… needing to wear different clothes for example. In the case of low intensity exercise (walking, light biking, etc.) I don’t need to change my clothes, because I usually wear pretty casual clothes anyway so they work just fine for this sort of activity. For high intensity exercise I need to put on crazy outfits like this. Okay- maybe not quite like that. The point is, I need to find my ‘exercise clothes’ and put them on. This adds to my exercise intertia.
The second thing I’m realizing is that to be able to do high intensity exercise more than once in a blue moon, you actually do need to be a bit more conscientious of your health in general, and also your eating schedule. That’s because you a)can’t exercise vigorously if you haven’t eaten in six hours and b)can’t exercise vigorously if you’ve eaten 15 minutes ago. Consequently I’m finding that I need to be better about eating regularly and eating well throughout the day (and yes, I feel like the person in that picture). Not that this is a bad thing, but it does take some effort. Again, I don’t have this issue with low intensity exercising. I just eat randomly and off I go.
And lastly, I’m finding that I need to keep a more watchful eye on my nutrient and water intake. In particular, I’m finding that I need to work to get that iron in there, which I have a hard time doing anyway. But high intensity exercise + low low iron = burnt out Jen.
So the bottom line is, I’m surprised at the extra ‘non-exercise’ effort
that I need to put in to ratchet up my activity level that extra little
bit. However, since it isn’t bad for me- especially the eating better
part- I’m going to try to do it. I now also get why people usually suggest
starting out with regular *low intensity* exercising, since that doesn’t
require any huge changes in clothing or eating for most of us.
posted at: 12:19 |
path: /living |
link
Web Chi Square Calculator
Here’sa
an online chi square calculator, with a report on the results. Very handy.
posted at: 19:40 |
path: /work |
link
Spring Garden Maintenance
I must say, it’s pretty exciting being a landowner. For starters, even if
your land is very very small, you still need to know something about it.
What grows on it, how it works, etc. In connection with that, now that
spring is here, it’s time to do some spring cleaning in the garden. I
prefer to leave things where they are over they winter, but now it’s time
to take some of it out. The question is, what can be removed as old stuff
from last year, and what should stick around so that plants this year are
healthy? Here’s a
page with some suggestions.
posted at: 16:47 |
path: /living |
link
Pearson and Spearman correlation
Here’s a page
that discusses Pearson and Spearman correlation tests.
posted at: 15:48 |
path: /work |
link
Test for Normality
It turns out that you can actually test your data to see if it is or is
not a normal distribution, which seems better than just eyeballing it and
saying to yourself “Hmmm, that doesn’t look like a normal distribution.
Wikipedia has
some
suggestions of normality tests on it’s normality distribution page.
posted at: 14:57 |
path: /work |
link
Correlation statistics
Okay- some things in statistics are starting to make sense. I think I’ve
made some sense out of the comparing two groups situation, and using the
chi squared test with the data I have. Now I need to do the same with
correlation- testing to see if one variable is correlated with another
variable. In one case, my data is sort of numerical but sort of not. Here’s an article
that gives a bit of information on that sort of situation.
As usual,
I’m also grappling with the non-normal distribution issue. Here’s a
nice page that details all of the possible things you can do when dealing
with a non-normal distribution. In brief, they are: Sub group averaging,
segmenting data, transforming data, using different distributions,
non-parametric statistics.
posted at: 14:51 |
path: /work |
link
Dessert Adventures Continue
Oooh…
baklava!. For once, I was seriously caught out by the time
requirements- the filo pastry needs to thaw overnight, and then the
baklava, once made, needs to sit a minimum of 8 hours. But everything is
under control now… I think! :)
posted at: 10:48 |
path: /living |
link
All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.