Purdue scientists to use wasps against ash borer
We're importing a non-native species (or three) to try to control the emerald ash borer.
I don't like wasps.
PyObjC, you are so helpful:
"Expecting instance of reply_fixer as self, got one of reply_fixer"
That doesn't seem like a reason to throw an exception to me.
I'm pretty close to just giving up on python for this and using Objective-C instead (even though part of the reason why I'm doing this is to play with python some more).
I've been suffering from progressively worsening achilles tendonitis since sometime around 2002. In 2004, I was fitted for orthotics (since I over-pronate) and it made things better, but I didn't heal fully. In late 2006/early 2007 I started getting worse and decided to stop fencing competitively, not practice as much, and let things heal. Achilles tendonitis is an over-use injury, so rest seemed to be the best idea.
However, I while the day-to-day pain went away, any activity would cause the problem to flare up again. After an appointment with my new doctor (since my previous one retired), I'm now going to a physical therapist to try to help my achilles tendonitis (which wasn't healing by just resting).
So far, the results are really good. On the first day, I had cortisone delivered via therapeutic ultrasound and electrical stimulation on both tendons.
The second visit started with some warm-up and then some exercises. Since the previous visit had made me fairly sore, we skipped the electrical stimulation and just did the ultrasound treatment.
On the third visit, we did some exercises, noted that the swelling in my tendons had been dramatically reduced, and tried iontophoresis. Which was what my new doctor had originally recommended (he also advised me to get some night splints, since they are fairly cheap and help a good portion of the time. I ordered a pair of Strassburg Socks after being unable to find something similar locally).
Today was visit 4. The night previously, I had a fencing lesson which went fairly well (and I was able to do a moderate level of activity which didn't result in lots of pain the next morning). Again, we noted the the swelling had gone down (even more) in my tendons and the physical therapist noted that they felt looser. Since the iontophoresis had resulted in a little pain/discomfort, we decided to just do the ultrasound treatment after the exercises. We added a couple of new exercises to the routine this time.
That brings things up to date. My tendons currently feel much better than they have in the past two years, which is pretty exciting.
You must click this:
The Michigan supreme court makes another bad decision.
I at least some of the uninformed people who voted for that craptacular state constitutional amendment realize what a stupid mistake that that was.
Things completed:
- Filled the bird feeder for the first time since last fall
- Prepare snowblower for off season (siphon fuel back to can, run snowblower dry)
- Change lawnmower oil
- Sharpen lawnmower blade
- Mow the lawn
- Clean up piles of leaves near driveway, air conditioner, and back porch steps (and put them in our new compost bin)
- Take hoses out of garage and hook them back up
- Change tires on the IS300 (store snow tires, put on summer tires)
Things yet to be completed:
- Pick up my roto-tiller from my sister
- Prepare garden area behind garage (till, mix in new soil, fertilize)
- Purchase garden fence and install it
- Plant seeds
- Water
- Purchase new mulch and spread
- Use the tiller in 'edger' mode to clean up the edges of the lawn near the driveway/sidewalk
- Trim bushes
- Trim trees (and call a tree trimmer to allow more sunlight by the garden and trim the maple away from the house)
So, CNN is reporting that a study shows single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion.
Of course, the observant reader will notice that the "... work was sponsored by four groups ... the New York-based Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest of Redmond, Washington, and the Georgia Family Council, an ally of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family."
As you might expect, when advocacy groups (of any political persuasion) support any kind of study, the outcome is strangely correlated with their agenda.
There is a good discussion of the particular trick used to achieve the result with this study in this post (at the Freakonomics blog).
Summary:
"But the first law of advocacy science coincides with a well-known economic principle: any cost-benefit analysis that only looks at one side of the ledger will always come to a reliable conclusion."
Mail.app has been acting a little strangely for me on 10.5 (incorrect unread message counts for mailboxes, occasionally stalling for a minute or so before displaying a message - especially while synchronizing).
Some searching online led me to suspect that the Envelope Index sqlite database was in in need of a vacuum.
Procedure:
1. Quit Mail.app
2. Run $ sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum
3. Wait.
4. Launch Mail.app
So far, it seems to have helped immensely. (In a year or so, I'll probably need to search for this post to do it again - it might make sense to turn on auto_vacuum, but it looks like it needs to be turned on before the tables are set up).
Sorry, no pictures (to protect their shame).
I recently gave both cats (Boris and Viktor) a bath. They did not entirely enjoy the experience, but they are both much softer and smell nice. As you might expect, Boris eventually realized that he wasn't going to be able to escape the bath and let me finish without too much struggle. Viktor never stopped trying to escape.
If you've ever visited my house, you know that of the two cats, Viktor's fur is significantly coarser feeling than Boris'. I had assumed that this was just a reflection of differences in their hair.
It's not.
After bathing both of them, Viktor's hair is as soft as Boris'. Viktor is just much worse at cleaning himself.
I guess this means that somewhat regular baths are in their future.
(Maybe I'll take wet cat pictures next time.)
I've switched MT from running under mod_fastcgi to run under mod_fcgid, as MT seems to get 'confused' (and leak memory) after running for a while and I don't see a mod_fastcgi option to restart things run as FastCGIServers. (mod_fcgid defaults to restarting things on occasion and has a knob that allows me to tweak it).
mod_fastcgi stays around to run the WebObjects adaptor, for now at least, though.
So far, things are looking good, but as usual, let me know if you notice any problems.
Update: I switched things back to mod_fastcgi as fcgid seemed to have a problem with how MT does image uploads.
