Leon Atkinson's Blog, page 11

The 7-Minute Workout

This sounds a lot like Body by Science. Instead of 5 exercises done every 7-10 days, it’s 12 exercises done three times a week. It’s roughly the same time per week. My understand of the aforementioned book, though, is that exercising more often will slow strength gains. The 7-minute workout might be optimizing for something other than strength, of course. Of course, how it works for you matters more than any results from a study.

The Scientific 7-Minute Workout – NYTimes.com

In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.

Does mental illness really exist?

We all know first hand that mental anguish exists and that at least a hug or an hour of someone listening to you offers relief. Beyond that, knowledge in the field is clouded by entrenched interest groups each preaching the solutions they find most profitable. Rigorously applying the scientific method is the only way forward.

Medicine’s big new battleground: does mental illness really exist? | Society | The Observer

The latest edition of DSM, the influential American dictionary of psychiatry, says that shyness in children, depression after bereavement, even internet addiction can be classified as mental disorders. It has provoked a professional backlash, with some questioning the alleged role of vested interests in diagnosis.

Antibiotics for Chronic Back Pain

The hyperbole of the reporting sets off my skepticism alarms.

Antibiotics could cure 40% of chronic back pain patients

Up to 40% of patients with chronic back pain could be cured with a course of antibiotics rather than surgery, in a medical breakthrough that one spinal surgeon says is worthy of a Nobel prize.

Related articles

Antibiotics for Your Back Pain?

Richard Nikoley on Resistant Starch

Interesting hack.

Resistant Starch: 4-Letter Word? Nope. Goal: Create Mashed Potatoes A Diabetic Can Eat Every Day | Free The Animal

Here’s the reference: Prepare for the “Resistant Starch” Assimilation; Resistance is Futile. It started off slow, rather as I’d expected, because: STARCH! (Fingers raised across face in the sign of a cross.) But, comments began picking up and even though the post is quite a ways down in the scroll, it’s what’s getting the most play currently. And…

Staples to Sell 3D Printers

 

Staples First Major U.S. Retailer to Announce Availability of 3D Printers | Business Wire

Staples, the world’s largest office products company and second largest e-commerce company, today became the first major U.S. retailer to announce the availability of 3D printers. The Cube® 3D Printer from 3D Systems, a leading global provider of 3D content-to-print solutions, is immediately available on Staples.com for $1299.99 and will be available in a limited number of Staples stores by the end of June.

Thinking hard makes you hungry

This rings true.

Thinking hard and its effect on appetite

This looks like an interesting study:

Thinking hard makes you hungry…..so you eat more.  Yet thinking hard doesn’t burn calories.  So if you are going to think hard then eat, well you better do something to burn the calories that you are going to add.

Download Ian Rubbish and the Bizzarros

Incidentally, if you missed it, Armisen is done with SNL.

Fred Armisen releases EP of 70s punk parody outfit, Ian Rubbish and the Bizzarros

Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live and Portlandia has posted free downloads of the music from his SNL parody of 70s/80s British punk with Ian Rubbish and the Bizzarros. The “band” starred in a faux documentary in the now famous style of films about 70s and 80s-era British punk.

 

Scientific Cat Name Generation

This is one of the most interesting little projects I’ve done recently. I got to apply some of my interest in randomly generated content to a real marketing purpose. The Scoop Away brand is whimsical, which offered a great opportunity to build a complex engine for recommending cat names. The stakes were low as far as making recommendations. After all, it’s hard to argue definitively about the right name for a cat. Regardless, I built a system that allowed non-technical folks work their creative magic and mixed in some rules to make it seem like a very scientific name generate that produces consistent results. That is, if you answer the questions the same way, you will get the same results.

Configuration for the generator is done through two CSV files, one that outlines all questions and answers and one that contains all the recommended names. The first file has one row per question. After the text of the question, pairs of columns contain the answer text and an answer image filename. For example, the first question is as follows.

gender
What gender cat are you naming?
Male
male.png
Female
female.png

The second file lists one name per row with the text answers in following columns. A truncated example row follows.

Ace
Female
Other
Chocolate
Pretty high

We have the name “Ace” as suggested for female cats with primarily brown fur (among ten other dimensions). This second CSV file is a big matrix that allows me to match an input set of answers to sort all the names based on how many answers match. All questions are treated with equal weight. This does produce some times. The tie-breaker is a pseudo-random number seeded by the current month number. This produces the same results for the same answers for a span of a month. Next month, the answers will be in a different order. A year later, the order will be same again.

One key piece that made this possible was a jQuery plugin for reading CSV files. I found Evan Plaice’s jquery-csv on google code. The docs are great and it was easy to get it going.

I implemented the generator as a jquery plugin itself. You can check out the code here: . Next, I hope to adapt this technique for a more serious product selector. Hopefully that exercises the code in way that shakes out any bugs in the logic.

Is life older than the Earth?

Math is fun.

Moore’s Law and the Origin of Life | MIT Technology Review

Sharov and Gordon say that the evidence by this measure is clear. “Linear regression of genetic complexity (on a log scale) extrapolated back to just one base pair suggests the time of the origin of life = 9.7 ± 2.5 billion years ago,” they say.

And since the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, that raises a whole series of other questions. Not least of these is how and where did life begin.

IRS targeting the LDS?

Amit Ghate compares Obama’s use of the IRS to the Nazi SS. Boom! Godwin’s Law detonated!

THE IRS SCANDAL IS MUCH WORSE THAN ANYONE REALIZES

This IRS scandal was aimed at Jewish Pro Israel groups, beloved Christian ministers and men of God (Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, James Dobson), groups that believe in the U.S. Constitution, and even groups that help wounded veterans. Why is no one calling out this pure blatant religious profiling?

After my commentaries were published a month ago about this IRS scandal, I was contacted by a Mormon who told me that everyone in his circle of friends and neighbors had received audit notices since Obama’s re-election. He believed Mormons were being targeted to punish Mitt Romney’s biggest supporters.

But how could the IRS identify Mormons? He educated me that all Mormons tithe 10% of their income to the Church of Latter Day Saints. That charitable donation is clearly visible on every Mormon’s tax return. It’s actually easy for the IRS to target and persecute Mormons.