jen's everyday blog

Going Canoeing

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:15:46 -0500

I'm currently planning my first canoe trip of the season- and no, this is not an April fools joke. During my research into the trip, I found this nice list of canoe trip logs for Algonquin Park. However, based on previous years' ice out date Algonquin was possibly still going to be iced up, so we're going to teeny tiny Frontenac Park instead.

Systems design

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:17:30 -0500

Here are a variety of interesting papers relating to system design.

Some alternatives to google

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:56:56 -0500

Lovely as Google is, I thought it might be nice to have a few alternatives. Here is an article that lists some alternative search engines- 100, in fact. And here's an alternative to google apps. And here's a list of alternatives to youtube.

Karaoke Beatles

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:04:03 -0500

Having a bad day? Try karaoke beatles.

Tents and Stoves

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:22:52 -0500

I like the idea of camping in cool weather, but I'm not really up for efforts to stay warm using only my body heat. I just don't have that much to go around. I think humans are essentially tropical animals, and my philosophy is- when the weather gets cold, bring on the fire (or other heat source). Preferably next to where I'm sleeping. Which is why this site interests me. It sells walled tents, and stoves that fit in to the walled tent.

Examiner's First Questions

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:24:35 -0500

The end of the thesis approaches. Looking for some inspiration for my conclusion today, I ran across these cute slides from someone in the U of T computer science department. I particularly liked the slides on the Examiner's View (Uh oh, not another thesis to read...).

And a few more videos while I'm at it

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:45:28 -0500

Feist counts to 4. And, you've got to love rogue muppet skit creators who have Beaker meeping Ode to Joy and Beaker, Chef and Animal doing Habanera (Thanks to Dan for this one).

Hey- Where my bees at!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:23:37 -0500

This was a featured YouTube video- the Bee-Boy dance crew, spreading the word about disappearing honey bees. Love it. And some of the comments are funny too!

Internet Radio

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:51:44 -0500

I've been listening to a lot of internet radio recently, and it has me all excited about music. I love that I can hear a song on an internet radio station, get the name of the song and the artist off of iTunes, and then immediately look the artist up on the internet. More often than not, their music is on YouTube. In honour of this, I've created a new category in my blog- the music category. I'll use this category to post about songs and artists I encounter on internet radio. Latest find: A track billed as 'Rumpelstiltskin' by Alan Hawkshaw, on Secret Agent Radio. It appears that Rumpelstiltskin is the name of a band, though, so not sure how I'll find this particular track. Edited to add: I found the album name on the Secret Agent Play list: Mo'Hawk - The Essential Vibes & Grooves 1967+1975

Soccer Stategy

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:45:14 -0500

I'm trying to learn more about soccer strategy, particularly with respect to attacking. Here's a nice page with basic principles for attacking and defending. And here's a page from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America that talks about different systems and how to match them to your team.

Randomized block experiments with multiple replicates

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:34:45 -0500

Unlike many experimental situations, with computer modelling the problem tends to be an embarrassment of riches. There is no problem with amount of data. You can gather scads and scads of data. So much so that it can be hard to find statistical tests that deal with what you've got. Right now, I have data that can be set up and analysed as a randomized block (or repeated measures) experiment. Here is an excellent description of randomized block ANOVA and how it works. The problem is, I not only have randomized blocks, I have multiple replicates within each block. Psychologists should be so lucky, right? But no one seems to cover this case, because usually people are lucky to get enough subjects to do a randomized block experiment with a single value in each treatment of each block. So, what to do now? I could take the average of the values and test those, or I could randomly pick one of my replicates to compare. Both seem plausible. But what is the 'officially right' thing to do? That's my dilemma.

Randomized Block Anovas with SPSS

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:14:36 -0500

Here's a pdf that lays it all out.

Testing Matched Data

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:05:35 -0500

My modelling setup leads to a need to test paired data, probably using a t-test for paired observations. Here's a page on how that works. Cheers! Jen

ANOVA with matched samples

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:25:51 -0500

And here's a page on an ANOVA with matched samples, or in this case, repeated measures.

Consensus vs Robert's Rules

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:09:08 -0500

Here's an interesting article on consensus and Robert's rules. And here is an excellent page that compares three different approaches- Robert's rules, Consensus and Dynamic Feedback.

That's a lot of beef

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:32:21 -0500

I'm looking into buying a side (half a cow) of beef. Originally I was thinking a whole cow but... well... that's a lot of beef. Here's a blog entry about one guy's experience buying an entire side of beef for him and his wife.

Linear Regression

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:07:30 -0500

A simple summary of linear regression.

Volume to Weight food conversion

Fri, 09 May 2008 14:39:38 -0500

There are some things, like butter, that I much prefer to measure by weight. Here's a useful volume to weight conversion chart. Unfortunately it isn't in metric, but it's still useful.

Nice discussion of 2 way anova

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:29:48 -0500

Here's a nice discussion of the various results you can get with a 2 way ANOVA and how to interpret them.

Vietnamese Desserts

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:26:24 -0500

I saw a picture of a dessert on the LJ food blog that Colin subscribes to and had to learn more about it. It turns out that there are a whole slew of wonderful sounding Vietnamese Desserts called 'che' something- for example Che Ba Ba, or Che Ban Lot, or Che Thap Cam. This blog has a nice explanation of what's involved. Coconut milk. That's what's involved. And lots of gummy, chewy stuff.

Social Role Valorisation

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:04:44 -0500

I'm quite interested in the fact that different people are valued differently in society and that certain properties of individuals influence their value in one direction or another. Here's the wikipedia entry on Social Role Valorisation, a theory which seeks to explain how valuation occurs and what the effects of being assigned low societal value are on individuals.

Chi square challenges

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:24:21 -0500

Here's a discussion of what to do if your contingency chart has columns with zeros in it.

Oh yes- I love pasta

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:42:54 -0500

Here's an all encompassing page on how to do what with all different kinds.

Carbon/Silicon- The News

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:17:59 -0500

I heard this song on an indie internet radio station, and there was something about the chorus that really got to me.

Good morning here's the news- and all of it is good.
Good evening here's the news- and all of it is good.
And the weather's good!

What can I say, I have a soft spot for old school punk, and punk rockers. Keep an eye out for the slipper shot.

Making International Calls

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:58:07 -0500

For some reason the details of making international calls occassionally elude me. Or sometimes the person who supplies you the number gives you extra digits or information that you need to drop when you call internationally. While looking for information to call Colin, I found this neat website. You put in where you're calling from, where you're calling to and it gives you the proper codes, up to the city code. It also gives you time zone information. Nice!

Points on a sphere

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 11:30:18 -0500

I've been avoiding working this out for a while, but I need a way to generate points on a sphere of a certain radius. That's because my agents are composed of spheres, and I need to set their perceptual fields at points on the outside of the spheres.

It's easy enough to figure out the general formula for points on a sphere- it's all points that are the radius away from the center of the sphere. The problem I'm having is getting actual points out of that equation. Picking x and y points randomly is likely to lead to a situation where there is no z value that fits on the sphere. I'm sure there's some easy way to do this but, as usual, my complete lack of education in 3d geometry is not helping me out here.

I found this sphere FAQ which might provide some helpful info. I also found this discussion about how to convert spherical coordinates into cartesian coordinates. And, doing a bit more searching, I think this will probably do the trick.

Major Cities and Agglomerations of the World

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:04:04 -0500

What are the major cities and agglomerations of the world? Sometimes I wonder about these things.

More information on grains

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:06:22 -0500

This article on grains edible by people with celiacs has a very comprehensive list of grains consumed by humans. By the way, according to wikipedia, cereals or grains can be defined as "mostly grasses cultivated for their edible grains or fruit seeds (i.e., botanically a type of fruit called a caryopsis)."

Tasty wheat alternatives

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:55:55 -0500

Always nice to mix it up when it comes to food. I eat a heck of a lot of wheat. Nothing wrong with wheat, per se, but a diet composed largely of wheat might be going a bit too far. Here are some tasty wheat alternatives.

Red fish, blue fish

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:15:06 -0500

I wasn't sure whether or not to put this in the school or living categories. Here's a story about using animated fish schools to understand cultural differences. Cool. Here's a quote: "Ellsworth proposed a hypothesis of "universal contingency"--if people from different cultures or roles appraise a situation in the same way, they will feel the same emotion. If they feel different emotions, it is because they have interpreted the situation differently in one way or another."

Proper Disposal for Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:59:03 -0500

I have some reservations regarding compact fluorescent light bulbs. Without saying any more about that, I encourage everyone I know to follow these safety guidelines if you break a CFL. The main one you need to know right off the bat is: "Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more." Another important one to know is: "Do not use a vacuum cleaner to clean up the bulb (even if it lands on carpet)." Read on for more on how to deal with a broken CFL.

Comparative Calorie Burning

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:20:37 -0500

I found this nice calculator that calculates how many calories you burn for a particular activity. It lets you put in your weight and how long you've done the activity. What I find most interesting is comparing activities. In particular, I find it interesting that doing pretty much *anything* other than simply sitting burns way more calories than sitting. I wasn't expecting that. I thought there would be more of a gradual curve. But simply switching to typing burns 50% more calories than just sitting alone (or sitting on the bus, or sitting reading). Standing burns 225% more calories than sitting. Walking burns 375% more calories. This explains why, when you're lost in the woods with no food they say- don't move! Stay still until you are found. And no typing!

Clear Sky Clock

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:47:28 -0500

So- I'm on this little quest to see the moon when I'm outside at night. So far, I haven't had success. Where is the moon? I'm sure it's out there. Colin pointed out that part of the problem might be that the sky is cloudy when I'm looking. Good point. So here is the Ottawa Clear Sky Clock.

Implicate and Explicate Order according to David Bohm

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:44:26 -0500

Read all about it right here.

The Elf Project- Divine Comedy, Wizard of Oz and more

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:06:10 -0500

Every once in a while I come across a website that makes me go- "Wow, the internet is really, really cool." Not that there isn't a lot of cool stuff on the internet regularly, but there are some things that seem really unique to, and made possible by the technology of the internet. This week I've stumbled across two sites like this- the first being the zebrafish imaging site, and the second being the Electronic Literature Foundation website. I came across ELF when I was looking for an online verison of Dante. The website's Dante section has 3 different English versions (along with Italian, German and Finnish) and lets you compare all the different translations side by side. The ELF site has a host of other authors' works available as well, including The Arabian Nights (two English versions) and The Wizard of Oz.

International Association of Color Consultants

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:37:53 -0500

I think I wrote a while back about how I liked colour and thinking about how different colours go together, and affect things. I may have already linked to this already, but if not: the International Assocation of Color Consultants page (linked to their blog).

Moon Rising Info and other events

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:27:34 -0500

I like to keep track of when the sun rises and sets, and since we checked out the moon in my dad's telescope I've been interested in moon rising and setting as well. I realised the other day that although I often know when the moon is rising and setting, I've never thought about where it rises and sets. I noticed this when I was looking for it the other day. Here's some info on where it rises and sets. I also came across this page, which has a calendar of astronomical events that are visible to the naked eye and binoculars. I've become more aware of such things since my dad is into astronomy these days, and keeps buying binoculars.

Fish Database

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:23:23 -0500

And also, a fish database that I came across a while a go but forgot to add to my blog. It has a page on zebrafish, with know information gained from research. It's interesting what sort of information has not been published on the zebrafish. For instance, there appears to be no information available about how fast zebrafish move, or how they move through the water. This is data that I have, so I may be able to publish it, and contribute.

Zebra fish anatomy

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:20:40 -0500

I've spent some time trying to find out about the physical characteristics of zebra fish, but I've never had much luck. This seemed really strange to me, because everyone is all about the zebra fish these days. Suddenly, today, the phrase 'zebra fish anatomy' popped into my head. Jackpot. My first hit- the Zebrafish anatomy project. Sweeeet. Also exciting- a zebra fish anatomy poster.

Diagram of zebrafish eye

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:58:28 -0500

this article has a diagram of a zebrafish eye. I'm not sure how useful it will be, since it's just a picture of the eye, not where it is in the head, but it could be useful.