Like I mentioned in a recent post, the time I spent in British Columbia was blessed with rain and constant overcast skies.  We were wise in taking our umbrellas on the trip with us so that we could enjoy a few extra hours out-of-doors on walks down new trails and a few trails long ago visited.  This photo still retains traces of rain that had recently stopped.   This is a Japanese Maple which has a slightly different leaf structure that what I would call the traditional Canadian maple that is featured on the Canadian flag.

Variation comes to mind when seeing the abundance of types of flora and fauna while outdoors in British Columbia.   For me, to see that variety and note its relation to the environment is most intriguing.  All of this works as a catalyst for me and my understanding of how humans react differently to the environment, a difference rooted in typology, especially in the attitudes of extroversion and introversion.

Although it is true that everyon orients himself in accordance with the data supplied by the outside world, we see every day that the data in themselves are only relatively decisive.  The fact that it is cold outside prompts one man to put on his overcoat, while another, who wants to get hardened, finds this superfluous.  One man admires the latest tenor because everyone else does, another refuses to do so, not because he dislikes him, but because in his view the subject of universal admiration is far from being proved admirable. (Jung, CW vol.6, par. 563)

This is a way of understanding how our human variation based on introversion and extroversion provides some rooted awareness of differences is not based strictly on intention.  I think perhaps the introvert understands this idea better.  That said, it doesn’t mean that the introvert understands the extrovert any better than the extrovert understands the introvert.  Perhaps it is more that the introvert has more tolerance of the differences.  Relationship between the two attitudes is often more about a comedy of errors than it is of complementary balancing.

A variation of the tale goes like this. “Hello,” said the newcomer to the world. “I’m just passing through.” “Don’t worry about it,” said the world to the newcomer. “I’ll be around.”

Periodically, I’ll be posting short blogs about cards (usually errors or variations) that are listed in the major price guides like Beckett and SCD that I have yet to confirm whether they actually exist or not. There is a pretty lengthy list but since I’ve recently been able to confirm the existence of another 1990-91 Fleer Basketball variation, I figure that this card deserves some focus tonight:

1990-91 Fleer Dan Majerle #150A with “award in 1988.” in text on back.

(corrected version #150b)

The Beckett annual price guide lists this card, yet I have never found one in all my travels. I’ve always checked the back of this card whenever Ive come across one and they always say “award in 1989″ on back. Several collectors have messaged me over the years asking if I have a copy for sale and many more have had it listed in their wantlists that they would email to me – this is usually an indicator of one of two things: It doesnt exist or exists in such low quantity (if in any quantity) that it may possibly be a proof or it’s just that rare. To add to the mystery, I’ve purchased several copies of this card from dealers via beckett.com, naxcom (sportsbuy), etc and a refund for them always followed shortly after.

Can anyone confirm this card exists? Maybe a Majerle collector has some info on it? If you have a scan of one, please send me a message or post a link in the comments section, I’ll gladly repost it in this blog with a “Confirmed by” credit to you.

From A. G. Sulzberger’s “City Room” column (“Sewer Alligators? A Legend’s Roots”) in the New York Times of November 24:

There was Teddy May, the colorful former superintendent of city sewers, working a mouthful of tobacco with what teeth he had left while spinning his implausible story.

And with him was Robert Daley, the writer, asking the questions that would give new life — and credibility — to one of the great city legends.

“I says to myself, ‘Them guys been drinking.’” Mr. May began.

“I’ll go down there,” he continued, “and prove to youse guys that there ain’t no alligators in my sewers.”

That conversation, on a Hell’s Kitchen stoop, about where giant reptiles patrolled the city sewers was made public 50 years ago in Mr. Daley’s 1959 book, “The World Beneath the City,” …

Daley reported May as having found “alligators averaging two feet long paddling serenely around the city’s sewers”. And so began the great Sewer Alligators urban legend. Who’dathunkit: fifty years already.

What’s linguistically interesting here is the representation of May’s demotic speech, Damon-Runyon-fashion. It sounds so New York. But in fact it’s not uniquely New Yorkish; the features represented here are almost all general demotic American, common to working-class speakers across a wide geographical and ethnic/racial expanse and enduring, at least in broad outlines, over fairly long periods of time.

[Side note: we don't, of course, have any idea what May actually said to Daley, only the record of how Daley chose to transcribe this. May might well have said something transcribable (in ordinary orthography) as "Dem guys been drinkin'", but Daley chose not to indicate these phonological features (or r-lessness) in his report. That would have no effect on my critique, though, since these features are widespread.]

Here I’m revisiting a topic of a 2004 Language Log posting, “The curious grammar of Ohio: The Local Color Illusion”, in which I looked at a reviewer’s claim that a set of short stories set mostly in eastern Ohio reflected the linguistic peculiarities of (largely working-class) speakers in the region. It turned out that the linguistic features represented in the stories, though certainly common in the speech of these people, are almost all widespread in the working class of the U.S. The reviewer was suffering from what I called

the Local Color Illusion, the impression that non-standard features, largely to be heard in the vernacular of the working class, in some area are what make the language of that area special, and colorful — this despite the fact that the non-standard features that are most likely to be noticed are those that are not particularly regional.

The features of vernacular New York City speech that Daley represented above were indeed frequent for such speakers, but they were (and still are) widespread elsewhere.

(My 2004 posting went on to speculate about the Local Color Illusion and its relationship to several bits of language ideology.)

It happened again. My wife asked me to hand her the mayonnaise, and I did. As soon as I did, I sensed her exasperation, and realized I’d messed up again.

“I mean, Miracle Whip,” she said, handing back the mayo. I handed her the Miracle Whip, and as she spooned it into the bowl of tuna, I knew she was wondering how, after thirteen years of marriage, I could still be thinking she wanted mayonnaise when she asked for mayonnaise.

Well, I’m sorry! Just because it’s white and you spread it on bread for your sandwiches doesn’t make it mayonnaise. I know from unpleasant personal experience that mayonnaise and Miracle Whip are quite different things.

Still and all, I guess my wife figures I can learn to accommodate this feature of her vocabulary. After all, she learned long ago that I want margarine when I ask for the butter.

أليس الإختلاف رحمة ويولد التوازن

Winckel, Fritz. Music, Sound and Sensation: A Modern Exposition. Trans. Thomas Binkley. New York: Dover Publications, 1967. Print.

Fritz Winckel’s Music, Sound and Sensation provides a scientifically rooted though easily accessible analysis of human interaction with sound.  Some of the more interesting and relevant concepts are discussed in the final chapter of the book, “The Effect of Music on the Listener.” One such concept is that music (and sound) only exists through variation—disturbances and modulations.  An example Winckel provides for this concept is the fact that “A continual monotonous hum of a machine in a factory disappears from the consciousness and is noticed only when it is turned off” (157).  This same idea can be applied to Ulysses—if the lyrics to a song appear later, they are inherently linked to the previous occurrence, yet the fact that they have been “turned off” (like the factory noise) only to resume later is also significant.  The fact that certain episodes (Sirens) were so reference-heavy made them overwhelming to pick apart, which following this theory of music as variation, means that each specific reference in Sirens is less significant on its own than a similar reference in a more musically barren episode.

Winckel also provides a differentiation between speech and singing.  He states that: “Singing is the development of utterances of speech into a cultivated sound through the extension of the vowels in time, mostly on a higher pitch level” (159).  There are, of course, more than just two states (singing and speech) present, and the further variation and extension of vowels as well as other factors advance normal speech in varying degrees towards the singing end of the spectrum.

Going back again to Bloom’s concept of “Musemathematics” it turns out that my previous understanding of musical notation, at least in terms of how notes come to sound like notes, was a bit off.  According to Winckel: “. . . the written note value never corresponds accurately to a defined vibration frequency, but rather to a ‘frequency band’ of vibrations, where the written note simply indicates the average pitch” (161).   This would explain the variation in songs as well as understandings of songs, as there exists on the scientific level distinct variations within each note, which is also compounded by acoustical variations both in the environment of the listener, and also within the listener.  This probably would not serve to explain the differing perception of the bells by Stephen and Bloom in Ithaca, but it does bring instances like it into question.

As a final note, the chapter provides an explanation for why music or sound is perceived in a unique way due to interior differences within the listener.  He states: “. . . impulses are not only sent forth through electrochemical transformation, connected with the nerve fibres, but also exist in the form of electrical fields, which go beyond the limits of the individual neurons and influence their excitability positively or negatively . . . which is further influenced by the hormone regulation of the synapses in the transmission network of nerves” (165).  Although this was a long quotation, I found it necessary to include as I lack a firm grasp of anything scientific outside of what I’ve read for my obsession; but what I gather from this is that the experience of a song or sound is absolutely unique to the listener, and in this logic Bloom’s experience in Sirens (recalling past events, etc.) makes perfect sense in that it was patently different from anyone else’s.

The Building Amendment Act 2009 introduces three new things.

First, a new type of approval is introduced.  It is called a National Multiple Use Approval (NMUA).  This is approval from the Department of Building and Housing to a set of plans and specifications that confirms compliance with the Building Code.  It is directed at volume builders and, once an approval is held, will enable a builder to replicate the same design throughout the country many times over.  A building consent will still be required where a NMUA is held, but a territorial authority will only need to consider site specific matters in processing that consent, thereby cutting down the processing time for building consents.  A NMUA will not be cheap to get.  The Department of Building and Housing estimates that for a simple dwelling the price for a NMUA will be between $5,500 and $9,000.  The NMUA regime starts when an order in council is passed, likely early 2010.

The second change is the removal of the mandatory requirement for a project information memorandum to be obtained prior to or with a building consent from 31 January 2010. 

Thirdly, the Building Act 2004 will now allow you to make a minor variation to a building consent without going through the full application process for a new building consent.  A minor variation can be dealt with in writing between the relevant territorial authority and yourself, without all the forms and without the need for an amended building consent to be issued.  It is not clear yet what the scope of a minor variation will be as we are awaiting regulations but expect it to be a quite a narrow definition.  This will be law once an order in council and the relevant regulations are passed, likely early 2010 as well. 

The above is a very brief explanation of the three new changes from the Building Amendment Act 2009.  Let us know if you would like to know more.

So, my sister’s friend showed her something that she showed me.

You guys know about Pandora Radio?

Link to Pandora

I’ve loved Pandora for quite a while, but alternatives are always nice, too.  Pandora throws music at you, and you rate it.  Depending on your ratings, it adjusts your radio station to play music that you like.  And only music that you like.  You can skip a song, keep it from playing for a month, or make it never play again.

Pandora is a fantastic way to expand your musical horizons and find more music that you like.  But, sometimes it gets repetitive, that’s one of its flaws.  Sometimes it plays songs so often that you’ve memorized them unwillingly.  I know my station plays Depeche Mode so often I’ve grown sick of the entire band.

This is something sort of the same, but different.  It’s called Radio Paradise.  It’s run by a couple and it plays all sorts of pop/rock.  You can find out the names of any of the songs it plays, and because it’s so varied it replays songs rather seldom.

I thought you might like it.  It runs off of any music player you have on your computer (i.e. iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.)

Radio Paradise Link

The year 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of
Darwin’s “Origin of Species”
The original title was: “On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life“

Read the new version here:
Charles Darwin – Origin of Species – 150th Anniversary Edition

by Christian Thibaudeau

Rarely do you see someone changing their workout at an optimal frequency. They either change their workouts too often (the “I want to try that program I read about today” phenomenon) or not often enough (the “I can stay on the same routine longer than the same woman” phenomenon).

Both of these knuckleheads have it wrong.

If you don’t change your program often enough, your body will fully adapt to it and as a result the workout won’t represent a challenge anymore. When it stops being a challenge, there’s no need for the body to adapt, change, and grow.
A Weekly Dose – December 15th 2008

If you change it too often, then you never actually give your body a chance to progress from a program. The one universal rule of gaining size or strength is progression. Every week you must become a bit better and work a little harder. But it’s kind of hard to show progress when you never stick to a program for more than one week.

As a rule of thumb, you should stick to a program for four to six weeks. After that, switch to a new one. There’s no need to change every single training variable, though. Generally, the less progress you’re making at the end of your current program, the more changes you should make on your next one.

The November 7 New Scientist article “Inject cells to stop body attacking self” (by Jessica Hamzelou) twice refers to cells (regulatory T-cells) that “dampen down the body’s immune response”. I would have used damp down or plain dampen (without the particle down), or even plain damp. Dampen down struck me as overkill.

Dampen down turns out to be reasonably common on the web, and from a variety of  sources, e.g.:

[Times Online] Jack Straw tries to dampen down claims of a plot against Gordon Brown (link)

[Birmingham Mail] Blues felt compelled to dampen down fresh speculation about Patrick Vieira … (link)

[House of Commons debate] Will the Prime Minister dampen down the hysteria in this country about Irish-American support for violence in Northern Ireland …? (link)

[Harper's Magazine] The insurgents have made it pretty clear in a series of public statements and private communications that they’re willing to start talking and dampen down the violence if the United States commits to withdrawing from Iraq. (link)

These have the transitive verb dampen in the sense ‘dull, deaden, diminish the force or ardour of, depress’ (OED2) rather than in the sense ‘make damp’. There are also intransitive uses, as in this quotation from the Harper’s article linked to above:

… make a credible commitment to withdrawing and the insurgency will dampen down and we’ll …

The hits for dampen down are very heavily (but not entirely) from British sources — this despite the fact that OED2 labels plain dampen (it doesn’t have cites for dampen down) as “now chiefly U.S.” Of course, that was 20 years ago.

Damp down (in the relevant sense) is of course reasonably common in both American and British sources. There’s even at least one New Scientist cite:

Body’s natural painkillers may damp down phobias (link)

[Historical notes. The noun damp, the adjective damp, the verb damp, and the verb dampen all have a variety of senses, some now obsolete or used only in special contexts. The noun damp is the first attested (but only from 1480, though it has correspondents in a number of Germanic languages, back to Middle Low German and Middle High German) and the verb dampen is the most recent (17th century). All these items are historically related, in a complex way.

Because of this historical relatedness, the senses 'make slightly wet' and 'make less strong or intense' (NOAD2) for dampen are put together in a single entry in most dictionaries, even though the first seems clearly to be the adjective damp plus causative -en and the second looks like an extended variant of the verb damp -- with the result that modern speakers have trouble seeing items with such divergent meanings as being "the same" verb.]

Whenever I put up a deal, I always tend to “seed” it into the lives of others before I go “reap”. That being said, I went today to finally do my TWO transactions and they were all OUT of the 2 roll pack of Sparkle paper towel. Initially, I was not going to post about this, but I truly believe that it may help others out there that has a store that either, does not double coupons nor/or accepts pharmacy competitor coupons.

Now because they did not have the Sparkle in the right size for this deal, I substituted quite a bit of items to work this deal up to where I needed it to be. In place of the paper towels, I purchased:

(2) Soft Soap w/ Aloe, $1.29ea.
-used $0.35 MFQ & $0.50/1 Military Q

(2) Sundown Vitamins, $2.99ea. (Vitamin D, 400IU)
-used $1/1 MFQ & $6/2 Publix Q
(in the original deal I worked it up using vitamins that were priced at $3.99 to give us some room to work with in the event that the lower priced vitamins were out of stock. So before picking up the higher priced vitamins look for the Vitamin D, 400IU to increase the amount of overage you will have to go towards the paper products)

I was still able to obtain:

(2) Theraflu
(2) Dixie Paper Plates
(1) Quilted Northern
(2) Johnson & Johnson Tape
(1) Dixie Napkins (I grabbed the 160ct. pack priced at $1.99 to reduce my pre-tax OOP)

In the end, I was PAID $0.19 for each of these transactions.

I must make mention that since they did not have the Sparkle I also reduced the number of Knox coupons used on this deal to one (1). Reason being, originally the overage ($2.61) from the second Knox coupon was going to go towards the cost of the (2) packs of Sparkle. Because they did not have them, I returned those Qs to my stash to use on my upcoming Huggies’ box diaper deal instead of purchasing more items that I would have had to pay more OOP for.

Therefore, if you are ever in a situation in which you have a coupon that will provide overage and the item in which you were going to purchase is out of stock: (1) get a raincheck, if that item is not on advantage buy, as they state that they do not provide raincheck for said items, & (2) return this coupon back to your stash to use for future purchases that would require more OOP (out of pocket). If possible, grab items that, with a coupon(s), would result in receiving it for FREE. In my case, because I had my military coupons, I went ahead and grabbed my children some more toothpaste and handwash soap…can never have too much of either with the number of children Hubby and I have.

So for those that are in an area with stores that do not double or take pharmacy competitor coupons, think of ALL the coupons that you have that would provide overage, i.e.,

(i) Rolaids, 3 roll pack, $1.89
- purchase (2) use the $4/2 MFQ (10/4RP)

(vi) Always check the clearance section! You can still use your coupons on these items. With these items being half price, you can sometimes find great opportunities for FREE plus overage items.

Due to the fact that I’m able to use my military coupons in conjunction with the manufacturer coupons, I have additional items that would be free, as well as free plus overage, however, my intent is to share this information so that everyone can benefit without the usage of them, doubling, and/or competitor Qs. Therefore, if you are aware of any other coupons in which we can use for overage please share (seed) so that we can alert others and they can benefit (reap) from this and future deals.

I pray that this was helpful to so of you…let us know how things turn out for you.

**Thanks Saving Obsession for the information in regards to Florida’s stores.

Reaping In Abundance,
Kay

Production smoothing (aggregate planning) is an important special case of supply capacity problems for firms whose demand is subject to heavy seasonal variation. The firm can typically produce enough on average, but not during peak periods. It must choose some mixture of:

• Producing in off periods, and carrying “seasonal” inventories into the peak periods
• Working overtime in the peak periods
• Hiring and laying off workers for peak and down periods
• Subcontracting

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

Today I have prepared a dish that belongs to the family of Italian timbale, but I have changed the ingredients to a considerable degree. The overall concept remains the same. The timbale is a big stuffed drum. What has inside varies, as well as its skin. 

I decided to use eggplants and zucchini in the stuffing, combined with penne pasta and ground pork meat. Here it goes.

I got the round zucchinis that I like very much and fantastic bell shaped eggplants and fried them in olive oil.

For the meat I got a nice chunk from the upper leg, that had some fat in it. I then browned the meat with onions, one red and one green pepper.After browning, I added tomato paste and two chopped fresh tomatoes.

I let the meat to simmer in low heat for one hour.

After frying the vegetables, I let them rest on paper, while I prepare the dough for the skin of the timbale. I made it like a rich bread, in order to adsorb all the juices of the vegetables and the meat without becoming excessively soft.

In parallel, I prepare the penne “al dente” so that they do not disintegrate when they cook inside the timbale.

We are now ready to integrate and compose.

Lay the dough on a bell shaped baking dish and work it with your hand so that it covers most of the surface of the dish. I added olive oil and sesame seeds in the dish prior to spreading the dough.

Add the vegetables and slices of parmesan cheese.

Add the penne.

Add the meat and make sure you have at least 2 centimeters to the rim of the dish, as the dough will expand in baking.

Add a layer of dough at the top, spread egg all over to give it a nice golden color, and bake in the oven for one hour, in 250 degrees centigrade. Stick a nice in the timbale a couple if times, to let the steam out.

Once baked, let it rest for 15 minutes, then serve on a round dish. A very sharp knife is required when serving.

Let the timbale warm your heart with its harmony of smells and tastes!

Many creationists seem to think that evolutionary biology is completely reducible to what they call RM & NS (random mutation and natural selection) and they usually mean something like point mutation only. What they ignore is that evolutionary biology is much, much more dynamic than that.

Biologist Allen MacNeill, who teach introductory biology and evolution at Cornell University in Ithaca in New York has compiled a long list of the sources of heritable variation between individuals in populations over at his highly interesting blog called The Evolution List.

Gene Structure (in DNA)

1) point mutations
2) deletion and insertion (“frame shift” / “indel”) mutations
3) inversion and translocation mutations

Gene Expression in Prokaryotes

4) changes in promoter or terminator sequences (increasing or decreasing binding)
5) changes in repressor binding (in prokaryotes); increasing or decreasing binding to operator sites
6) changes in repressor binding (in prokaryotes); increasing or decreasing binding to inducers
7) changes in repressor binding (in prokaryotes); increasing or decreasing binding to corepressors

Gene Expression in Eukaryotes

changes in activation factor function in eukaryotes (increasing or decreasing binding to promoters)
9) changes in intron length, location, and/or editing by changes in specificity of SNRPs
10) changes in interference/antisense RNA regulation (increasing or decreasing binding to sense RNAs)

Gene Interactions

11) changes in substrates or products of biochemical pathways
12) addition or removal of gene products (especially enzymes) from biochemical pathways
13) splitting or combining of biochemical pathways
14) addition or alteration of pleiotropic effects, especially in response to changes in other genes/traits

Eukaryotic Chromosome Structure

15) gene duplication within chromosomes
16) gene duplication in multiple chromosomes
17) inversions involving one or more genes in one chromosome
18) translocations involving one or more genes between two or more chromosomes
19) deletion/insertion of one or more genes via transposons
20) fusion of two or more chromosomes or chromosome fragments
21) fission of one chromosome into two or more fragments
22) changes in chromosome number via nondisjunction (aneuploidy)
23) changes in chromosome number via autopolyploidy (especially in plants)
24) changes in chromosome number via allopolyploidy (especially in plants)

Eukaryotic Chromosome Function

25) changes in regulation of multiple genes in a chromosome as a result of the foregoing structural changes
26) changes in gene expression as result of DNA methylation
27) changes in gene expression as result of changes in DNA-histone binding

Genetic Recombination

28) the exchange of non-identical genetic material between two or more individuals (i.e. sex)
29) lateral gene transfer via plasmids and episomes (especially in prokaryotes)
30) crossing-over (reciprocal and non-reciprocal) between sister chromatids in meiosis
31) crossing-over (non-reciprocal) between sister chromatids in mitosis
32) Mendelian independent assortment during meiosis
33) hybridization

Genome Structure and Function

34) genome reorganization and/or reintegration
35) partial or complete genome duplication
36) partial or complete genome fusion

Development (among multicellular eukaryotes, especially animals)

37) changes in tempo and timing of gene regulation, especially in eukaryotes
38) changes in homeotic gene regulation in eukaryotes
39) genetic imprinting, especially via hormone-mediated DNA methylation

Symbiosis

40) partial or complete endosymbiosis
41) partial or complete incorporation of unrelated organisms as part of developmental pathways (especially larval forms)
42) changes in presence or absence of mutualists, commensals, and/or parasites

Behavior/Neurobiology

43) changes in behavioral anatomy, histology, and/or physiology in response to changes in biotic community
44) changes in behavioral anatomy, histology, and/or physiology in response to changes in abiotic environment
45) learning (including effects of use and disuse)

Physiological Ecology

46) changes in anatomy, histology, and/or physiology in response to changes in biotic community
47) changes in anatomy, histology, and/or physiology in response to changes in abiotic environment

So next time you hear a creationist talk about RM & NS, you go ahead and explain to him that it is not that simple and send him over to the list at The Evolution List blog.

Idea Prompt for 10/22/2009

THE SOURCE: Watching the new Ricky Gervais film, The Invention of Lying

WHAT WAS I THINKING… In the opening voiceover narration, Ricky gave away the secret of many a great movie. Many a film have begun life with the words, “Imagine a world…”

The whole movie builds upon this simple thought experiment. ‘Imagine a world that knew no deceit.’

IMAGINE… a world without something we’ve taken for granted all our lives.

…THE POSSIBILITIES:

How many ‘alternative worlds’ can you conceive of? Admittedly, his concept covers a lot of ground, for in a society built upon observational truth, there’s no religion, no Madison Avenue, no Hollywood. That doesn’t leave much left for us to consider.

So, for this exercise, we’ll stick with Ricky’s World, just without Ricky.

THE EXERCISE: Write a film treatment for this concept, but with someone other than Ricky Gervais invented the first lie.

A Criminal? Or, a do-gooder? How about an Entrepreneur? What if someone other than Ricky figured out this lie thing.

NOTE: If you’d like to develop these Ideas further, just leave a Comment and share your work.

As I’m writing this post, I notice that the number of “hits” on my blog, since I started it in February this year is 6666! More important blog statistics are shown on my Webmaths dashboard. The graph shows how many hits my site gets each day as shown below.

This graph seems to me to be a good example of seasonal variation. It could be used as data in the Core Data & Statistics unit of VCE Further Mathematics. The graph could be “smoothed”, the seasonal indices computed, and a seasonal adjustment performed.

For the last two saturdays their has been a plunge in the graph, with the peaks coming on mid-week. Could the Saturday plunge be explained by less web browsing due to sport and other weekend activities?

Another question worth analysing is:

“Do the peaks occur immediately after a post; or is their a time lag; or are the peaks independant of posts?” Note that I had posts on the 2, 7, 11, 14 and 19th of October.

Det har nestan alltid varit de amerikanska och kanadiska tjejerna jag hämtat mest inspiration och tips från, jag har lärt mig en god del genom att kika på och läsa hur de gör upp igenom åren när det gäller både kost, träning och mentalitet. Ja vart annars tror ni jag kom på den vilda idéen om att tävla på SM i fitness utan att kunna ett skit om spagat, one-arm-pushups och straddles ..he..he, men skam den som inte åtminstonen försöker! 

Elyzabeth Lopez är en bra inspirationskälla och har gjort comeback bl a som proff fitnessmodel (tidigare fitnesstävlande) och knep nyss tredjeplatsen på sin senaste tävling WBFF PRO Fitness Model World Championships. Jag har hunnit fastna för denna tjejen på senare tid då jag tycker hon på ett mycket inspirerande sätt avviker an aning från de typiska styrketräningsrutinerna.

Genom sitt “eget” holistisk-inspirerade syn på både hälsa, kost och träning kan hon skylta med en hälsosam kropp (och sannolikt själ också) med kvinnliga former tillsammans med en trevlig mängd muskler och kondition.

Inspirerar iallafall mig till att framöver kika lite närmare på hur jag kan vrida min nuvarande “stela” styrketräning lite mer mot något liknande hennes varierade och mera påhittiga sätt att träna på.. för  visst ser det väl både roligt och varierad ut.. och styrketräningen tänker ju många av oss trots allt hålla på med resten av livet!

Kolla in några av hennes hennes video så kanske får du en aning om var jag syftar till:

Och så bjuder hon även på ett gott recept för storkok/matlådor på slutet av den här filmsnutten:

Många flera inspirerande träningsvideos från den här tjejen hittar ni på hennes YouTube-kanal

On Wednesday this week (October 14, 2009) the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 10,000.  Although it struggled out of the gate this morning, I am curious why we did not take the time to celebrate re-reaching this milestone.  Clearly, this is a sign that the economy is chugging forward again.

If we look back to September 19th, 2008, the DJIA closed at 11,388 and only days away from near free fall.  Over the next couple of days, panic would set in and the markets were paralleled to “The Great Depression.”  The DJIA at 10k represents we have recovered 70% of what we lost since September 19th, 2008.  We still have a way to go, but a little celebration might just be what we need right now.  Not much, we can’t afford the hangover, but perhaps a little toast to reaching 10k again and may we keep doing a little better every day.

Looking back…Between Oct 24th, 2007 and September 19th, 2008, the DJIA shed about 20% of its value (14,093 to 11,388).  It would then lose an additional 34.4% by March 9th 2009 when the market reached its lowest level in 12 years at 6,547.  If we start the clock at Oct 24th, in two years we have recovered about 45% of the losses we incurred during the recession of 2008 and 2009.  Perhaps not as happy a picture, but consistent progress in the right direction.  This still represents ~50% recovery in 6 months, what we lost over two years.  If the trend holds, perhaps we are back to 2007 levels within another 6-8 months, and then can continue to recover on the lost time.

The other item worth noting is the declining variation in the closing gains.  Over the last three months, the variability has diminished to levels not seen during the recession.  This is another great sign indicator of stability and overall economic health.  The market likes gains, but it loves consistency.

I love it when you can see follows who have done their research on their follow variations – and this is a great example. In the video below, Archie is dancing with Marie and they do some really awesome switches at 1:04.

Here are Stephan and Bethany performing at Frankie 95 and watch what they do at 1:24!

KS3 Summary Sheets- for all QCA topics

A pdf file containing links to great summary sheets for all the QCA topics.

Please click on this link:

KS3 Summary Sheets- for all QCA topics

Cheers

Tony