Scott's Blog

At the duty free store I bought these noise cancelling earphones for the plane. It's not perfect, but it does a great job of cancelling most of the noise. Now I walk around town with these things (I know, I look like a dork), but it's wonderful not having to crank up the volume to 11 just to hear podcasts. The batteries last a very long time (weeks for me) unless I forget to turn them off.

I went and bought a scale So that I can keep track of my Shangri-La Diet (SLD). I also wrote a little python program, using Matplotlib to draw a chart showing my progress as well. I don't know what my real starting weight was, since I bought the scale a week later. I thought it might be 100kg but 99kg produced a nicer graph. My target is about a kilo a week (2 pounds). I'll post new graphs every few weeks.

Somewhere I saw a post mentioning The Environmental Paradox of Bicycling (pdf), hinting that bicycling may not be the the best solution of our environmental woes. So I read the article and it's conclusion was that bicycling may not reduce the environmental impact because -- people will live longer . In other words, bicycles are more efficient than single occupand vehicles and it's better for people, the problem is that when people get exercise they live longer, and people who live longer use more resources than those who die off earlier. I suppose that Bush save the environment even more by encouraging everyone to take up smoking, so that they die off sooner.

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user scott_kirkwood Non-Errors in English -- tagged as: [english language grammar reference] SourceForge.net: GTK Ora -- Free Oracle frontend tagged as: [gnome opensource oracle tools] Python Web frameworks, Part 2: Web development with TurboGears and Python -- TurboGears tutorial on IBM's developer network tagged as: [article programming python tutorial] Istanbul - GNOME Live! -- Create a screencast in python (creates Ogg & Theora) tagged as: [flash graphics gnome linux opensource screencast python] Javassist -- To do metaprogramming in Java tagged as: [java library opensource] Video Encoding - FlowPlayer -- Encoding FLV files on Linux tagged as: [linux flash video]

It's been less than a week and I'm already seing some improvements. I noticed that my pants were a little too loose, so I tighted my belt. It was a belt hole that I had never used before! So these are other things I've noticed: Eating less sometimes it's like 1/2 other times or like 2/3rds from normal. I find that the healthier foods are suddenly a lot more appealing to me. Perhaps since I crave less calories I'm not diving for the meats as much. I'm drinking a little less. Normally I would drink two glasses of wine, now I'm happy with just one. I'm eating slower than before. I normally ate more than everyone else and finished first, now I'm eating less and finishing almost last. I'm chewing and savoring the food more. I'm not more tired or groggy and I'm sleeping normally. I would have expected eating less calories would make me tired, but it hasn't at all. I prefer the oil to the sugar water. I take the sugar water at work, b...

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user scott_kirkwood Sugar - OLPCWiki -- This is the interface to the OLPC project. tagged as: [olpc graphics] Mondo Rescue - GPL disaster recovery solution -- I really need to do a backup..... tagged as: [backup dvd linux tools] http://nexgenwars.com/ -- Digged, look at the console sales in real-time? Unfortunately, only XBox 360 is selling (PS3 & Wii to come). tagged as: [games toread] Edgewall Software: Python Sidebar -- tagged as: [development extension firefox python reference] kbarcode.net: Home -- Print barcodes, may be useful if I get a barcode scanner. tagged as: [linux software barcode util] TAZ Forum :: A Computer, Gaming, and Social Network Community of Friends :: View topic - Tutorial - Spiffing Up Ubuntu 6.06 -- Alright, maybe I'll finally try out XGL tagged as: [graphics linux setup ubuntu] http://everythingisnt.com/hosts -- hosts file to block adds etc. tagged as: [computer linux security] DropTeam Current News -- Has t...

I've started my first ever diet. Of course, I have been trying to eat well but never followed a diet in a book before. The Shangri-la Diet appeals to me (as a programmer) since it's more like a brain hack . The idea is that there is a trick to lower your " set point " the point a which you feel full and at the weight that your body wants to be. If you lower that point you eat less, if you eat less you loose weight. You'll never feel hungry because you are eating until you feel full, as you would normally. This diet has a lot of advantages: There no restrictions on what to eat It's cheap (practically free) You simply add something to your daily intake, sort of like taking a medicine It's perfectly safe You never feel hungry You can choose how much weight you want to loose you can adjust things as you go along It's fast, you'll notice a change in eating habits in a day (or two). If you go off the 'diet' you wont bounce back to your old...