Serial Dining in Toronto

This sounds perfect. And the oddest thing is, I'm sure that the founder went to the same school as me. God knows it developed eccentrics.

Xmas Break

Sorry, gone till next year.

Moving to Canada, Eh? :: By Dahlia Lithwick & Alex Lithwick

One of the great frustrations of any Canadian is that well-intentioned Americans attempting to introduce other Americans to the real Canada seem to be in command of only about 12 words. Here they are in no particular order: loonies, toonies, snow, Tim Hortons, hockey, poutine, socialized medicine, DeGrassi Junior High, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Labatt, French, and the expression "eh."

But there is so much more to Canada. Just ask any one of the many Canadians who are lurking about in your midst. (We lurk because we love.) There are great reasons, beyond frostbite and pink currency, to seriously consider relocation to the Great White. But still, Canada is still not for everyone. So here's a quiz, for those of you still considering joining the Bush-dodgers relocating to Canada...

More $$ into the Blue Skies :: Slate fray

This post from an anonymous poster in the Slate fray sums up my concerns with SDI - most of which I learned from Way Out There in the Blue (well, and a tiny inkling of common sense).

Well, the SDI system works as it was intended to work.

That is, it provides defense contractors with a two or three decade development and deployment phase to set up a system that will defend against Soviet ICBMs. Or Chinese ICBMs. Or ICBMs from any country loony enough to launch one from its own soil. As long as that soil is far enough away to require a high trajectory and at least 20 minutes or so of flight time required to detect, verify and lock on to the target.

It won't defend against a cheap, makeshift, short range missile launched from a cargo ship sitting 50 miles off New York. Or Florida. Or California. Or... Well, you get the point. We have so many populated areas sitting on so many miles of coastline that an adversary could choose one of the less obvious targets, such as Charleston or Boca Raton, and still kill tens of thousands.

Want to run down some of the other things against which SDI is useless? A dirty bomb. A suitcase bomb. A cargo container bomb. A FedEx bomb. Anthrax. (Remember Anthrax? The administration doesn't, judging by the progress of the investigation into the anthrax attacks.) Poisoning water supplies. Stinger missiles. Suicide truck bombers like Tim McVeigh. The list goes on.

2004 Lists of the Year :: Fimoculous.com

If you're looking for a "Top 10", "Top5" or "Best of" list, this is the place for you.

Trade Rumour

The Raptors would acquire Alonzo Mourning, Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and two first round draft picks in exchange for Carter.
So.
As I see it, the only way this works for the Raps is if the Ewing Theory holds true. Their new roster line-up would look like:
PG - 1. Alston, 2. Palacio.
SG - 1. M. Peterson, L. Murray
SF - 1. J. Rose, E. Williams, M. Bonner,
PF - 1. C. Bosh, D. Marshall, J. Moiso, P. Sow
C - 1. A. Williams, A. Mourning, L. Woods, R. Araujo (ha!)

At best, they're like a low-rent Grizzlies, with Bosh in the Pau Gasol role. Meaning that they now look like a team that maybe gets the 8th spot in the playoffs and lose. Which is arguably better than their current - "wait for Carter to care" strategy.

The other issue with this trade is that Raptors fans would have to trust the current mgmt with the draft picks. Umm, so far, I have to say, that's not looking good for us. Araujo is a project with limited upside, whereas Boston's Jefferson and Allen have looked good as has Philly's Andre Iguodala.

Fred Kaplan :: Must we spend another US$80B before we admit missile defense doesn't work?

What Paul Martin is trying to avoid wasting millions (billions?) on without aggravating the elephant.

Let's say you're buying the most complicated computer system ever devised. It's still in the early stages. The payments are costing a fortune. The software's riddled with bugs. Some software hasn't been written yet. Several scientists doubt the thing will ever work properly. Finally, just this week, you couldn't even get it to switch on.
Now let's say you're the program manager of the Pentagon's missile-defense agency.
But I repeat myself.

The key point being:

A question for the overseers in Congress: Is it time now for a serious look at this program? Missile defense consumed $10.7 billion of this year's military budget—far more than any other weapon system.
About $80 billion has been spent on it since Ronald Reagan stepped up research and development for the mission 20 years ago. Another $80 billion is scheduled to be spent before the decade is out. It may be time to ask: Why?

See here for more.

The Versatile Disc :: 20 Great Outdoor Uses

This is too funny. Since starting to play ultimate, I've brought a frisbee everywhere. High in the Rockies, deep into Algonquin, etc...

The flying disc (FD) is one of the most indispensable tools I have at the campfire kitchen. It's size and shape make it the ideal food prep' and serve tool:
Cutting Board - few things slip off the edge of the FD cutting board. Diced onions don't tumble off the side and the juice from sliced tomatoes doesn't spill over the edge. If the cuts make the surface too frizzy, pretend it's the hull of your rotomolded kayak and shave them away with a throw-away razor.
Serving Tray - Leave those slices of cheese or pieces of fruit right on the FD for a handy serving tray. It works equally well as a serving dish for steamed items, too.
Dinner Plate - There's no better way to eat spaghetti! A buddy of mine turned me on to the versatility of the FD one night when a group of us were kayak camping. We were one dinner plate short and my friend whipped out a Frisbee™ from his pack and said, "Here, use this." Since that meal I have always carried a FD specifically for that purpose. It's great for oatmeal and especially suited for pancakes.
Stove Platform - Muddy ground, sandy soil or even a mantle of snow and ice are no match for the FD's utility as a platform base for your small stove. In fact, if you are filling your stove's fuel tank, place your stove in the concave side of the FD to contain any fuel that might leak during filling.
Wind Block - Those small stoves burn more efficiently when they are not buffeted by the wind or even a
small breeze. Support your FD so its broad side is windward of your stove and you have a great windbreak as needed.
Fan the Fire - Like to create a few glowing embers with a real fire? No problem. In fact, fanning a fire with a FD is like using a bellows to force extra air into the heart of the firey beast. The only drawback to the FD around fire is, of course, its tendency to melt at higher temperatures. Be careful.

...and others...

mental break factor

You are 26% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

The Bell Curve

Thoughts on the impact of statistical analysis on medicine. As Gawande points out, every other business is constantly driving towards these kinds of improvements. Six Sigma, ISO 9001/2, CMM, ITIL, are aimed at making business processes standardized as the first step in improving it. If it can't be measured, it can't be improved.

It used to be assumed that differences among hospitals or doctors in a particular specialty were insignificant. If you plotted a graph showing the results of all the centers treating cystic fibrosis—or any other disease, for that matter—people expected that the curve would look something like a shark fin, with most places clustered around the very best outcomes. But the evidence has begun to indicate otherwise. What you tend to find is a bell curve: a handful of teams with disturbingly poor outcomes for their patients, a handful with remarkably good results, and a great undistinguished middle.

Apparently, in order to fix medicine, we need to do two things: measure ourselves and be more open about what [we] are doing. This meant routinely comparing the performance of doctors and hospitals, looking at everything from complication rates to how often a drug ordered for a patient is delivered
correctly and on time. And, Berwick insisted, hospitals should give patients total access to the information. “‘No secrets’ is the new rule in my escape fire, ”We are used to thinking that a doctor’s ability depends mainly on science and skill. The lesson from Minneapolis is that these may be the easiest parts of care. Even doctors with great knowledge and technical skill can have mediocre results; more nebulous factors like aggressiveness and consistency and ingenuity can matter enormously.

Once we acknowledge that, no matter how much we improve our average, the bell curve isn’t going away, we’re left with all sorts of questions. Will being in the bottom half be used against doctors in lawsuits? Will we be expected to tell our patients how we score? Will our patients leave us? Will those at the bottom be paid less than those at the top? The answer to all these questions is likely yes.

LiveStrong (or possibly not) :: Wristbands a patient risk

Several area hospitals are putting the brakes on Lance Armstrong's cancer organization fundraising bracelets. It's not cold-hearted backlash, but rather a safety precaution. Patients wear colored bracelets to identify safety needs, said Lisa Johnson, vice president of patient services for Morton Plant Mease Health Care. Yellow stands for "do not resuscitate." "We wouldn't want to mistake a Lance Armstrong bracelet and not resuscitate someone we're supposed to."

A $15M novella paid for by me and you

Thanks to John Barber's Saturday column in the globe for this link. Now his column (and the other Globe worthies) are now out of circulation, I'll quote some of the highlights:

This "executive summary" of the whole MFP scam cost more
than $2M to produce. It is... a blazing indictment with every loose detail
obtained over years of evasive testimony nailed tight into place, every
ridiculous alibi demolished by rifle shots of hard facts and and the clear,
obvious truth about a complicated scam set out in the brightest light (like the
denouement of a good detective novel, only true).

And Mr. Barber is good enough to highlight the damning indictment of the two best known individuals in the whole sad story, ex-hairdresser-turned-IT salesman (and also Tie Domi's brother) Dash Domi and former City of Toronto Treasurer and 2003 mayoral candidate, Tom Jakobek.

i) Jakobek and Domi had an inappropriate and otherwise inexplicable relationship
ii) Jakobek and Domi repeatedly denied or minimized their relationship
iii) Domi and Jakobek went to extraordinary lengths to deny or minimize the extent of their relationship:
a). Jakobek recalled only a handful of conversations with Domi; the evidence proved over 100 cellular telephone conversations; ...
iii) ...Domi and Jakobek both relied on family members to provide alibis for their suspicious banking transactions between November 1 and 3, 1999. Both alibis shared remarkably similar fundamental elements. Both men relied on:
a. the purported repayment of long-standing imprecise family debts, which had never been documented;
b. family members to fill obvious gaps in their own stories;
c. family members’ willingness to handle thousands of dollars of cash;
d. family members having thousands of dollars in cash in their homes;
e. spontaneous, extraordinarily generous gifts of money from less wealthy to more wealthy family members that were apparently treated as if it was pocket change; and
f. incredibly tight-knit, loyal, and protective family members.

There's lots more - including an $11M dollar Oracle contract signed with no business or presentation to management. There's Wanda Liczyk's affair with a consultant of record, followed by her 'close friendship' with Dash Domi. Really, it's like a soap opera - only acted out by real people and not actors.

Recapping PM the PM's First Anniversary :: Inkless Wells

A caustic put-down of the big guy by a columnist who was way ahead of the curve in understanding his limitations (umm, here's the shorthand: usual critique of the guy — that he's indecisive, disingenuous, stunningly naive, yet had managed to knife a winning leader and endanger his own party for no other reason than to park his heinie in the big chair):

"Each of those years will look like the one we've been through. Making history? Fixing health care for a generation? Why even bother rebutting any of it? History's entry for Paul Martin will resemble the entry for Earth in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 'Mostly Harmless.'"

Cool personal technology

An mp3 player that updates you on your speed while you jog...

Obesity due to chronic sleep deprivation

Two new studies, published today, show that too little sleep can lead to higher levels of a hormone that triggers appetite, and lower levels of a hormone that tells your body it's full and has enough fuel.

The result: The less you sleep, the more you eat -- and the more weight you gain.

In the paper, published in the medical journal Public Library of Science Medicine, researchers speculate that sleep loss has an impact on several hormones related to appetite and food intake. They said two such hormones -- ghrelin and leptin -- are thought to play a role in the interaction between short sleep-duration and high body-mass index (an approximation of body fat based on height and weight).

Ghrelin, which is primarily produced by the stomach, triggers appetite in humans: The more ghrelin you have, the more you want to eat.

Leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells, tells the body that its energy stocks are low and that there is a need to consume more calories. Low leptin levels are a signal for starvation and increased appetite.

Dr. Taheri and his colleagues found that people who normally slept for five hours nightly produced 14.9 per cent more ghrelin than those who slept for eight hours. They also produced 15.5 per cent less leptin. The results held regardless of gender, eating patterns or exercise habits.

A second, unrelated study, published in today's edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, also found a link between sleep and hunger hormones. Researchers at the University of Chicago took 12 healthy young men and allowed them to sleep only four hours nightly. The result, after only two nights of sleep deprivation, was a 28-per-cent increase in ghrelin and an 18-per-cent drop in leptin. In addition, participants reported not only being hungrier, but craving calorie-dense, high-carbohydrate foods such as chips and cookies.

Personality Plus

Outlining the shortcomings of personality tests. . . or no more Myers-Briggs Inventory...

Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s

Well, here's some DVD renting possibilities for ya!

Just strike it

Asterisks are in. If Barry cheated (which technically he didn't, because baseball is indifferent to 'roids, HGH, etc.) and people want to discount his records, then who's the new home run king (remembering of course, that chicks dig the long ball :)

Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson and Ted Kluszewski.

Huh?

Frankly, I'd love to see accurate testing in the NFL more than any other league in the world. more thoughts later.

God's favorite basketball team :: Slate

The Ontario kicker ::
"Harry Sheehy, Athletes in Action's all-time leading scorer, says Northern crowds were the toughest to inspire. When AIA played Ontario's Laurentian University, the school's French-Canadian explorer mascot keeled over just as Sheehy wrapped up his halftime testimonial. It wasn't because of the power of his message -- Sheehy could smell the mascot's boozy breath from half court."

Friday interlude

Oh, what do you think of this? I stopped by the St L market to pick up some cheeses for the dinner, and I headed to the bank machine next to the Harveys, across the street from the market first. A guy in his late 30s-early 40s, reasonably well dressed, came up to me and apologetically asked me for $1.75 b/c he'd ordered a combo and didn't have enough to pay for it. I flipped him some change from my pocket,and turned the corner to wait in line for the ATM. He walks back into the Harveys. I move ahead in line, start to key in my numbers. I hear a voice behind me, asking someone else in the line for the ATM, "I'm so sorry - I just ordered a combo and it turns out, I don't have enough cash to pay for it - could I trouble you for $2?" The guy he asks fumbles around in his coat pocket and gives him some cash. I'm slightly irked, but don't do anything. The burger-bum (as I shall now dub him) walks back into the Harveys. I cross the street slowly to the market, and get stranded on the island in the middle of Front St. for a minute or so. As I go to jaywalk south to the front door, who should be walking relatively near me? Burger bum. So I say aloud, "That's a nice scam you've got there." He looks startled, and doubles his speed and walks off along Front, while I go into the market and try to track down some raw milk cheeses.

Questions:
1. Is it bad form for him to use deception to beg for money?
2. Is it unethical?3. Is it ethical for me to judge him?
4. For me to judge other vagrants who ask for $$?
5. Why did it/does it irk me?

Weekend recap

Friday: left work and went by the St. Lawrence market to pick up some cheeses for D&C's xmas get-together. I went to Olympic, but Alex's Cheeses is just as good if not better. The cheeses were good, all from Quebec. D&C's was ok - I DD'ed. Quick oddity - as I drove home, someone in the backseat still had a beer, and popped it open as a traveler. People still do that? Not terribly cool - esp. at xmas, with the RIDE program in effect, and when you're getting a free lift from someone you don't know that well. Odd. And lame.

Saturday - some frantic cleaning. Food purchases. Bought a frame for the gift picture from the K's from months ago. Met kf to see Closer. Huh. Interesting film. Very theatrical - not in a "Birdcage" kind of way, but driven by staged, one-to-one conversations that are filled with pointed articulations of emotions. Of course, as the primary emotions in the film are guilt and jealousy, it has a corrosive edge to it. Not a fun film, but v well made, written and acted - as a series of setpieces around the emotional fallout from sexual affairs.

A couple of issues :: the ending was unsatisfactory; the relationship between Julia Roberts' character and Jude Law's character is thin and under-developed.

Sunday - hosted the book club (hence the earlier discussion on eggs benedict). The book under scrutiny was TC Boyle's Drop City.

100 Notable Books of the Year :: The New York Times

Perfect for the holidays!

Film Fest picks return - Stander & Primer

This is pretty funny - in two years, I've seen two films at the TIFF. This one, which will appeal to anyone who liked Memento or here, and Stander, a cop-gone-wrong story made interesting by its setting in 1970s apartheid-era Johannesburg. Anyway, I would recommend both movies - for different reasons - but that's not what struck me. Both films are opening in Toronto on the same day!?! What are the odds?

CBC.ca :: Test Your Greatest Canadian knowledge

OK, so I'm a geek. 20:20.

Red sands of PEI