Vigorous exercise required

A new somewhat controversial study has been performed by scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and published in Heart (a British Medical Journal) concludes that only vigorous exercise combats the risk of early death from heart disease:

‘Moderate exercise’ not sufficient

a new study published today said moderate exercise such as a brisk walk five times a week has no impact on the risk of dying from heart disease.

Sick Kids

Well, ok, one sick kid.

Charlotte got up yesterday morning and started throwing up, even with no food in her. It’s amazing how pathetic she looks when she’s sick; she looks just like her grandmother. Every time she fell asleep she would feel sick again, wake up, and vomit. When we started seeing traces of blood we took her to the local pediatric clinic…

It turns out that it’s fairly common for 4-year old children to develop esophogial tears when they vomit a lot. Still, the doctor did all the usual tests, and sent her home to clear fluids (and no school on Monday). One dose of gravol later, and she slept the entire afternoon away.

The Monty Hall Paradox

The Blog of Jvstin → Ones and Zeros → Nail Tinted Glasses → Dean’s World

The Monty Hall problem is simple:

You find yourself on a game show called “Let’s Make A Deal.” The game is very simple. There are three doors: door #1, door #2, and door #3. Behind one door is a million dollars. The other two doors contain worthless joke prizes. All you have to do is pick which door you want to open, and you get whatever is behind it. But you only get to open one door. By simple math, then, you obviously have a 1 in 3 chance of picking the correct door and becoming an instant millionaire.

Life in Space

Space Station Science Picture of the Day: High Tea

I wish NASA would do more of these “life in space” bits. They’re fascinating, and there is a lot of interesting science hidden away in them.

How do you drink tea in zero-G? with chopsticks, of course! How do you make sure your can of honey doesn’t float away? put a drop of water on the bottom, and use surface tension to stick it to the table! This, and more, can be found in the videos at the bottom of High Tea…

I’m not the only one playing with technology

In Bits and pieces [dive into mark] , Mark writes that he has installed an OpenLDAP server and software to manage his contact lists, “For fun”.

(In 1995, my dog had an e-mail address and a home page; in 2003, she was the first entry in my LDAP directory. This we call progress.)

Sounds exactly like something I would do. persephone.cfrq.net is primarily an excuse for me to play with technology, after all. (In fact, stay tuned; LAMP ganglist software is currently undergoing a security audit on my laptop…).

mini vacation

Last week we drove up to Ottawa, to celebrate Christmas with my family there. Christmas? In March? well, for a lot of different reasons we had decided to stay in Toronto over Christmas this year, instead of our usual, hectic, visit everyone whirlwind tour. Then in January my mum got sick, and this is the first chance we’ve had to visit since then.

We left Wednesday. The drive up was pleasant; good weather and less traffic than we’re used to. We stopped at Ponderosa in Belleville, and I had my first steak since I started Weight Watchers. I’d forgotten how good they tasted! The kids slept most of the rest of the way to Ottawa, a pleasant surprise!

One Year

Well, it’s been a year since I started this thing. My intention was to play with technology, and I’ve certainly succeeded in that! As with many things, this toy has taken on a life of its own; it’s kinda fun writing about the things I find interesting (even if nobody else is reading them :-). In the process I’ve met some new, interesting people, an unexpected bonus…

I started with Movable Type, but the “technology” list has expanded quite a bit:

Big Fat Pipes Don’t Make Money

Articles by Brad Choate, Tim Bray, and Doc Searls and David Weinberger talk about wanting a big, fat bit-pipe with no additional services.

I agree with the sentiment; I want to be able to buy a cheap, reasonable bandwidth, always-on, completely unfiltered and unlimited connection to the Internet. Sadly, I also believe that’s a pipe dream (pun intended).

Simply put, there’s no profit in bit-pipes. No sensible business person starts a new project knowing that they’re going to be competing on price from day one. It’s hard to make money supplying pipes, whether they’re carrying electricity, natural gas, water, or bits; the people making money are the ones selling the content of those pipes (electricity, natural gas, or bits :-). So anyone with an Internet project these days wants to be in the content-for-sale business, not the business of delivering that content.

Good Weather and Maple Syrup

Wow, what a weekend. It was +8°C on Saturday, and almost +12°C on Sunday, with lots of sunshine. Everything has finally started melting with the heat, so on Saturday I removed the 3″ layer of ice from the sidewalk, and broke up a bunch of other snowbanks and ice jams. Our driveway is now completely clear (instead of having just enough space cleared for the cars). The ice dam on the north roof has mostly melted away, a good thing since it looked heavy enough to tear the eavestrough off the side of the house.

Spell Checkers don’t?

Beware the spellchecker! From NewScan Daily for 17 March 2003:

A study at the University of Pittsburgh reveals that the ubiquitous spellchecker software may be doing as much harm as good, when it comes to writing. In the study, 33 undergraduate students were asked to proofread a one-page business letter — half of them using Microsoft Word, with its spell- and grammar-checking features and the other half using only their brains. Without the software, students with higher SAT verbal scores made, on average, five errors, compared with 12.3 errors made by students with lower scores. However, using the software, the two groups made about the same number of errors — 16 vs. 17. Dennis Galletta, a professor of information systems at the Katz Business School, says people have come to rely on spellchecking software too completely. “It’s not a software problem, it’s a behavior problem.” (AP 14 Mar 2003)

English sans French

What would English be like without French?
This Christian Science Monitor article explores the possibilities:

The Franco-American dispute falling out over the best approach way to disarming Iraq take away Iraq’s weapons has resulted in perhaps the highest level of anti-French feeling in the United States Lands since 1763.

Worth it for the humour value, at least…

The Tyranny of Email

Critical Section - The Tyranny of Email

Email is one of the greatest things the computer revolution has done for personal productivity. Used improperly, it can also hurt your productivity. This article discusses ways to use email effectively. Then it goes beyond that and talks about how to be productive, period.

Freedom Fries? Oh please…

This is getting completely rididculous. In a Yahoo! News story, we read:

House cafeterias will be serving fries with a side order of patriotism Tuesday with a decision by GOP lawmakers to replace the “French” cuisine with “freedom fries.”

The House action follows moves by several restaurants around the country to remove “French” fries from their menus to protest French opposition to U.S. military action in Iraq.

How to recognize Bad Science

Robert L. Park has written The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science:

I began this list of warning signs to help federal judges detect scientific nonsense. But as I finished the list, I realized that in our increasingly technological society, spotting voodoo science is a skill that every citizen should develop.

The list:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

Weight goal in sight?

My doctor has informed me that I can stop losing weight right now, and he certainly doesn’t want to see me below 170 lbs. His hand-waving metric is waist size; anything less than 36″ is fine by him, and I’ve dropped from having my belly hang over a 38″ pant to fitting comfortably inside a 33″. Actually, looked at that way, 35 lbs is even more impressive to me!

Sadly, my blood pressure is still slightly high; I’m not one of those lucky people for whom weightloss alone does the trick. Formal exercise come the springtime.

Trying to lose weight improves survivability

According to a new study trying to lose weight is better than not trying, even if you don’t succeed.

bq. In a study of more than 6,000 obese and overweight people 35 and older who were followed for up to nine years, the death rate was 24% lower in people who lost weight intentionally than in people who did not try to shed pounds and whose weight stayed steady. But the death rate was 31% higher in people who lost weight unintentionally, the researchers report in the March 4th issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.