Thursday, December 04, 2008

study, study ,study

OK only two courses but I am soooo sick of studying I cannot tell you. My brain is so going to explode and I don't want to clean up the mess!

Why do they pound all this stuff together in one week. What insane illogical point is the university trying to make? When someone figures this out let me know, it makes no sense.

Back to studying now, but I'll put a drop cloth down first.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Back Off Jack!

I believe Jack Layton is part of this coalition to further his desire to be Prime minister of Canada. This coalition he is a part of may have a place in the constitutional possibility of government in this country, but it has no place in our traditions. We voted, your party didn't win, leave them alone or topple the government, don't go slinking around the back door and place all this pressure on an appointed official, the Governor general. Maybe, Mr. Layton should get a taste of his own medicine.

I live in Jack Layton's riding and this is how things came out, from the official elections Canada website:

    Layton, Jack NDP 20,416
    Lang, Andrew LIB 13,291
    Howarth, Sharon GRN 5,934
    Perreault, Christina CON 5,274
    Crawford, Marie AAEV177
    Richardson, John ind 129
    Rodden, Marcell M-L 98
    Yazdanfar, Bahman CAP55

you can easily see that Mr. Layton though winning a substantial portion of the vote, did not win the majority in his riding, unlike the other leaders who I believe, all won with landslides. I would like my local Liberal, Conservative and Green party candidates to draft a coalition agreement to share Mr. Layton's seat. We'll see how he likes these types of antics and whether he feels its fair.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Welcome Our New Government

and its the one we deserve. We will only ever get the government we deserve, the one we demand and the one that makes the collective we happy. Unfortunately, the average we just wants average things. We don't like politicians to stand out too much or for that matter to stand for anything solid and concrete. Our collective middle of the roadness creates middle of the road politicians that listen to the pollsters, who tell them what the "average" person wants on average, 98% correct ± 5%. When you look around the world, there is a rash of countries with minority or coalition governments. Everyone is voting in the middle for candidates that are all only fractionally off centre. During the election, the various candidates would have you believe that their competitors are way off on the other end of the political spectrum, with the Bloc on an adjacent, non-intersecting, spectrum. So why do we deserve this? For whatever reason we don't ask the really tough questions, or we ask for what is essentially impossible. No one brought up food safety in a real way. We are in the middle of figuring out the listeria issue and China is the new leader in melamine for consumption export. What we do ask, "Fix the economy". In the over 200 year history of industrialism and growing global trade, no government has figured out how to do this with any success. Please don't answer Marx. He never held a job, and his co-author Engels looked after his finances, fixed his writing and took blame for his dalliances. Besides, look how that experiment turned out. I don't have the answers, but I know that none of the heads on the signs have it either.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

So in history class yesterday, our prof was talking about the development of the medieaval legal institutions and to illustrate a point, he asked if medicine was a science or an art. We and he together agreed that it was both. The distinction being that medicine had to deal broad truths that hold in general, ie. over large populations, but when applied to individuals can break down and therefore can require a more "creative" approach. This got me to thinking about why this is. I realized that it has to do with math.
In hard science, the hardest of which is arguably pure mathematics, variables, that is the things in an experiment that we want to change or control, are few. The unknowns, that is the thing we are investigating, are even fewer and ideally in a scientific experiment is one. For example, in finding the acceleration of an object, we can use the equation F (force)= M (mass) x A (acceleration). If we know, or control any two of these variables, we can find the third value. Simple, straightforward, very scientific and highly reproducible.
In medical science we use another phenomenon, that is statistics, to control and reduce our variables when carrying out studies. We do this through the power of large numbers. Humans are wonderful in our averageness. Simply stated, on average, we are average. So when you give a medication to a large number of people, you will generally see "a" response. This is the average response, but due to the large number of participants, one can predict that on average, this would be the response. The large number of participants effectively reduces the huge number of variables that exist in the interaction of one person with one medication, to a much smaller number of variables. This is why medical experiments are often double blind and the data is then examined for correlations between effect and age, kidney function, prior disease states, etc, etc. to ensure that the average remains the average and none of these other factors effect the results. If one of these other factors does effect the results, it becomes another variable. The averaging of a large number of people also averages the unknowns and effectively limits them to the question of the effectiveness of the given therapy.
So where is the art part. Well, when doctors apply their knowledge of science to an individual, on average they will see either the disease in a "classic" (average) presentation or a medication will work as predicted, but because the individual is just one and has no average, all their variables and unknowns are in play. Doctors must apply their experience, their knowledge and their intuition to a problem in order to achieve the results they desire. Hence the art.
The fewer the variables and unknowns the more scientific the pursuit, the more variables and unknowns the closer to art something becomes. In the end, the difference is between what we know and can control, and that which we do not yet fully understand enough and are unable to control. It's a spectrum of mathematics with science at one end and art at the other.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Vote Swapping

There's a guy telling people to vote for anyone other than the conservatives cause Stephen Harper is so evil.

I'd like people in my neighbourhood to do the same, but to vote for not for anyone, but for the Liberals to remove Jack Layton from my riding. The reason: I want representation. I want someone to call when I have a problem that can actually get something done. I want one level of government to hear my voice. In my riding, Toronto-Danforth, our municipal, provincial and federal representatives are on the outs, ie. not part of the ruling party. Jack Layton being the leader of the NDP, is hardly ever even in this riding. But because he is the leader of the NDP, the other parties, particularly the Conservatives, do not field any decent candidates. As a result we are stuck with this guy, who for many reasons I do not in any way shape or form support. This goes back to when he was a municipal politician, primarily for the reason that he loves to talk but never carries through.

So, I am appealing to the people of Toronto-Danforth. Please, if you plan not to vote NDP, please vote Liberal. The Liberals are the only ones with even a marginal hope of displacing this man. I typically support the Conservatives and support Stephen Harper but until they support me with a viable candidate, I must vote Liberal. I believe the NDP serve the purpose of keeping the other guys honest, though with Layton at the helm this continues to be a challenge. He has done nothing for the city of Toronto, does nothing for Canada and serves only his ego as head of the NDP. He may have charisma, but he has no substance.

Please lets pull together for both representation in the riding and for the long term success of Canada. Let's dump Layton!

Monday, September 08, 2008

Ra, Ra Ra, Olympics and Academics @ UofT

Well the front page at UofT is about how great our returning Olympic athletes are. I agree that they are great and I offer them congratulations. I admire their accomplishments and I am a great fan of the fortitude, perseverance and hard work all the athletes display.

Ok that's done with. What annoys me about this article is the last sentence, "The challenge now is to take our facilities and programs up another notch, so that they can do even better in London in 2012." Um, excuse me but this is Canada. We don't give athletic scholarships and I truly hope we never do. There is a reason for this. We value academics for academics sake. We don't allow our institutions of higher learning to generate funds via athletics. I am proud of the fact that our football team sucks so bad. These guys have to hit the books and don't have time to play ball (as often as maybe they'd like). And what is it about a medal count that everyone is so hung up on. What does the number of olympic athletes at UofT say about me or my education (I have a previous degree B. SC. Phm 1987 and an currently working on another one part time). I want to receive an education at an institution that puts its academic programs first and doesn't waste money and effort trying to achieve a goal of no instituitonal value.

The same goes for a country as a whole. How can the number of medals a country gets say anything about the country.

The most fascinating nation at the Olympics was India. With only a slightly smaller population than China, India sent only 55 athletes to the games. What does this say about India. Mostly, I think it says they just don't care, neither about the Olympics, nor what anyone else thinks about their level of competition. I say go India! Cause when all the rest of the countries jump off the bridge, India will have the rest of the planet all to themselves.

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Prefect (Gollancz SF) The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds


My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
Good solid science fiction and a not too mysterious mystery, I read the end shortly after starting so no mystery ever holds much. The characters were worth caring about. The broader ideas of democracy, electronic humanity and the ability of people to choose their way of living was interesting too. Enjoyed it immensely.


View all my reviews.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

A Great Movie in disguise.

HANCOCK!

An action movie with laughs and a great big heart. There is a villian, but he's pretty secondary. There real story is in the really great characters. Will Smith does a great job with the lead role and Jason Bateman is wonderful as the ever optimistic PR guy. Charlize Theron does a great job as well. I loved the framing of the some of the camera shots and the special effects are great too. I really, really enjoyed this movie. I think a lot of people will be surprised by this one.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Last Friday night, hubby and I went out for dinner at a restaurant called "Globe". It was beautiful inside and very adult. There were no families or children as far as I could see. We knew that before we went and were sans enfants. We decided, the evening being beautiful, that we would dine on the patio. It seemed it had a lighter, more casual menu than the main restaurant. There were sandwiches, salads and a build your own charcuterie board. We started with a four item board with two meats and two cheeses. We'd had something similar at the Drake Hotel, which was amazing and huge. This was ok and tiny. The really fun (hysterically funny at the time) item was the honey with the honeycomb. The honeycomb was crumbled up in the honey so you had to eat it. We dubbed it adult wax lips. Couldn't figure out the appeal as a kid, can't as an adult. I then had the lobster blt, which was yummy. Nice big chunks of perfectly cooked lobster, yellow tomatoes and boston lettuce. The atmosphere was good and we had a brilliant time, so all in all a pretty good night. Maybe the full pint of beer before the food showed up helped.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

New Skis

I skied on 185 cm narrow Head Radial skis for the last 15 years or so. I am now 43 and my knees are not so good and my stamina is not what it used to be either. A couple years back my husband switched to the parabolic skis and said he loved them. His skis are still fairly straight but hugely different from the old straights. I was finding that it was getting harder to turn my skis especially if it was sloppy or in the spring. I finally decided to make the change and get new skis.

Well trying to wade through all the techno babble about all the amazing things skis can do for you now was a little daunting. Did you know that a ski can redirect the forces exerted on it in such a way that if you are leaning too far back the ski will compensate and redirect the forces so it will ski as though you are properly positioned forward. Yes, and hair conditioner magically knows which part of your hair needs the most conditioning. I also got a lot of , oh you need a woman's ski, since you may have difficulty skiing on a men's ski since they are designed for men and require manly things. Blah, blah, blah.

I got men's Head Monster skis. They are fabulous. I am skiing like when I was 28 (that was my skiing high point before kids happened.)

I would highly recommend the switch if you haven't already, but forgo all the nonsense, get a ski that matches your level of expertise based on the description pros give in reviews. The shorter length alone will make a world of difference and everything after that is gravy.