The Best Paper Airplane?

Visit the site and build The best paper airplane in the world!.

This is similar to a design I used to fly as a kid, and that one worked very well. This one adds a few extra folds to move the center of gravity low and forward, which improves stability and hang time.

Nestle in the news again

From Spin of the Day:

Nestle’s Christmas Gift to Ethiopia
Faced with a “mounting public relations disaster” over its attempt to sue the famine-stricken country of Ethiopia for $6 million, the Nestle corporation has promised to donate the money to hunger relief. But Justin Forsyth of the hunger organization Oxfam calls the offer a “half measure” and calls on the company “unambiguously to drop the claim and allow the Ethiopian government to spend the money on famine relief. … Nestle has had lots of opportunities to back down over the last year. Sadly it has taken Oxfam and the Ethiopian government exposing them to public outrage to make them see sense.” Source: The Guardian (UK), December 23, 2002

Trends in Playboy Models

Centrefold models getting more androgynous

Based on 577 consecutive montly issues of Playboy, researchers graphed trends in height, body mass index, and waist to hip ratio. Wow, that would be a fun job; we always joke about scientific excuses for looking at naked women :-). Anyway, they discovered that:

• BMI is dropping (20 to 18), making models skinnier
• bust size is dropping, and waist to hip ratio is rising, making models less “hour-glass” shaped and more tubular
• height is increasing, while weight remains constant

The net result; models are becoming less “classically” feminine, and more androgynous.

Small conumdrum

So I have to decide what to do over Christmas, what with all the parties with good food, and sitting around doing nothing, and frantic trips to malls, and so on.

The three options are:

1. Continue to lose weight normally
2. Be slightly less conscientious, and take a small break until January; don’t lose more but don’t gain any either.
3. Throw caution to the wind, and enjoy the holiday season. Gain lots of weight.

I don’t like the last option; I’ll be really depressed in January if I do that. But I’m torn between the first two. On the one hand, I have a Goal, and reaching it sooner would be cool. On the other hand, I’m ahead of schedule, and I want to eat all that good food that’s around.

Today’s Peeves

We interrupt this program for two annoyances:

• People who stand on narrow escalators (where there’s no room to pass) so that everyone else has to wait for them. I make exceptions for people who obviously have trouble with stairs, but watching someone walk 500m and then stand on an escalator really bugs me.
• People who are perfectly able-bodied using the elevators on the subways and GO train platforms. Those elevators are supposed to be for people in wheelchairs; I’ve also seen people with strollers and carts use them, which is ok by me. However, I’ve also seen a mother with a child in a stroller have to wait for three or four elevators, because they are full of selfish S.O.B.s who are too lazy to take the stairs (or even worse, the escalators).

WALK, PEOPLE! IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!

Out of the mouths of babes…

[ Talking about Advent at breakfast this morning. ]

M: What are we waiting for?
C: Jesus’ birthday?
M: Do you know why?
C: No…
M: Why do we celebrate Jesus’ birthday and not Elvis’ birthday?
C: (with “the look”) because Elvis is an alien!

Much laughter and giggling ensued…

Placebos

A humourous little tidbit from the Quote Of The Day mailing list:

[In regard to the varying effectiveness of different kinds of placebos], capsules containing colored beads are more effective than colored tablets, which are superior to white tablets with corners, which are better than round white tablets. Beyond this, intramuscular saline injections are superior to any tablet but inferior to intravenous injections. Tablets taken from a bottle labeled with a well-known brand name are superior to the same tablets taken from a bottle with a typed label. My favorite is a doctor who always handled placebo tablets with forceps, assuring the patient that they were too powerful to be touched by hand."

Toronto Island Airport

So Toronto City Council voted last night to allow a bridge between the Toronto Island Airport and the mainland. Existing access is via a ferry across the western gap; a (possibly small and vocal) group has been arguing for at least 20 years that building a bridge would improve utilisation of the airport and revitalise our city.

Personally, I’m skeptical on that particular rationalisation. This only works if you can fly to other downtown airports in nearby cities; so far that’s New York, Boston, and Chicago (Ottawa and Montreal don’t really have downtown airports, but I guess we could count them too).

Birthdays

Sunday was my birthday.

On Saturday, several friends came over, and we had a fajitas party. 9 people; a large bowl of chicken; a smaller one of beef; two large bowls of veggies; about a pound of cheese; a half litre each of sour cream and salsa; and almost a half-litre of guacamole. Some wine and lots of candles to complete the mix.

Wow, that was fun. We stayed up until almost 2 in the morning drinking (various combinations of scotch, brandy, grand marnier, martinis, and other liver-damaging substances), and watching the candles burn out one by one.

Heart Monitor

I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and experiencing what are probably stress related symptoms (e.g. sporadic chest pain and palpitations). I had the worst attack while in Dublin two weeks back (naturally I’d have scary health trouble while travelling!). I’ve had a cardiac stress test (which was normal), and my doctor says my resting EKG looks marvelous. My subconcious is not convinced, and likes to respond to symptoms with anxiety attacks. Whee!

Bilbo!

60’s goodness

Leonard Nimoy did a music video for a song called “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”.

I’m speechless.

(URLs are constantly changing; Search Google! for a copy.)

We’re still getting fatter

The CDC says that Weight Gain in US Continues Upward Trend.

I’m not sure how you conclude that “children 2 to 5 years old” are overweight. But the study confirms what we already know, that generally speaking, the whole population is getting fatter, from a combination of too much to eat and too little exercise. This in turn is greatly increasing the prevalence of Type-II diabetes and heart disease, particularly among younger adults and adolescents where the problem didn’t exist before.

Weight Watchers

Well, Weight Watchers appears to be working for me - 6 weeks, 12.6 pounds weight loss.

I like the system. It’s simple enough to carry around in my head. It’s not a “fad” diet, so there are no food restrictions; anything goes as long as it fits into my daily points allottment. This cannot be under-emphasized: the combination of knowing which foods are “expensive”, combined with the ability to plan in advance for those expensive foods, is what is working for me.

Home Ownership

Owning a home is so much fun…

When we moved in to our current house two years ago, we were warned by our home inspector that our flat roof would probably leak, and our furnace was on its last legs.

Our flat roof had been “repaired” in 1998, so we weren’t too worried about getting to it right away; it was October (almost winter), and so not a good time to be doing roof repairs.

Escher Lego

Even after reading the “how we did it” section, I’m still impressed by Escher’s “Ascending and Descending” in LEGO.

Running

Six

I used to run, as a kid; I loved it. Some of my friends are (now) runners. I’d been thinking about taking it up again, when along comes this post…

Becoming a runner is actually not that difficult. Not surprisingly, it involves running. There’s other stuff, too, eventually, but running is the important part. If you can run a mile, run a mile. If you can only run around the block, run around the block. Tomorrow you’ll run around the block, and the next day you’ll find you can run around two blocks. And next week you’ll find you can run a mile. Then one day you’ll run a mile, then stop to catch your breath, then get invigorated and run another mile.