Which Foods Are Good For Me?

This is often a question we ask ourselves when we're trying to be healthy. Often we have to search for advice. Sure we have Canada's Food Guide, but even though it was recently revamped, it is still short on details. And it doesn't really explain the benefits of the foods we eat.

I have an answer for you. That answer is The World's Healthiest Foods. This website contains a wealth of knowledge which can help anyone eat well. The showcase of the site is it's WHFood List. This list contains all of the foods that fit a set of criteria as healthy foods, including that the food must be a whole food and that is must be widely available, affordable, and tasty. From this list, you can link to pages
which explain the benefits of each of these foods. This information is based on scientific and medical studies and does not make any claims it cannot back up. That list alone has helped me change my diet and has got me eating things I never thought I would eat.

The usefulness of the site does not end there. There are also over 100 recipes on the site among the many other helpful tips to eat healthy. You can also browse the foods by what nutrients they contain.

The site contains this blurb on who they are - the people who maintain the site - and why they exist:

The George Mateljan Foundation is a non-profit organization free of commercial influence, which provides this website for you free of charge. Our purpose is to provide you with unbiased scientific information about how nutrient-rich World's Healthiest Foods can promote vibrant health and energy and fit your personal needs and busy lifestyle

All in all, this site has helped me change my diet and I have never felt better – when I'm eating well that is. I would suggest checking this site. I am fairly certain they keep the information up to date and they list their sources at the end of every article or page.

Pimping Your Firefox Part I: Finding Cool New Sites

To my dismay, I've noticed most of my viewers do not use firefox as their web browser. I debated giving a long rant about why Firefox is better, but I thought showing you would be the best way (the teacher in me is thinking about how we all learn better by doing). If you don't yet have firefox, you can use this nifty link to get you started. Firefox is completely free (it's Open Source Software) and it is actually safer to use than Internet Explorer – sorry Mac users, I'm sure Safari and Opera are great, but I still think Firefox is better.

One of the things that makes Firefox so great is that there are hundreds of little “extensions” you can add to “pimp it up.” Today I am going to talk about two of themselves

The first is StumbleUpon. Once you download this extension and you make an account with StumbleUpon and the internet opens up for you. It works in several ways. One way is that you can rate sites (thumbs up or thumbs down). StumbleUpon keeps track of all the votes for and votes against to help recommend sites to others. It also keeps track of the sites you like and the sites you don't like. Another feature is that you can “tag” sites with different words. For example, this post could get the tag “Firefox” or “Computers.” You can similarly attach tags to yourself of things you like. This is where it gets neat. When you hit the “Stumble!” button, StumbleUpon takes you to a site that fits your preferences. It doesn't always get a site you'll like, but if you hit it often enough, you can find something that interests you.

The second extension came to me from my involvement in BzzAgent. This is a site that tells me about certain products or programs in exchange for me talking about them. The extension in question is free (as are all Firefox extensions) and it's called Me.dium. It works similarly but the interface is different. It opens up a sidebar and shows you sites floating around that are similar. It also has little people to show you which other Me.dium users are at those sites. You can make “friends” with Me.dium and is especially good when trying to share websites with your “friends.” In essence, Me.dium is for people who want to surf the web with someone else. You could use this for things such as shopping, planning a trip, or doing research. It sounds complicated, but once you see it, it makes much more sense. One thing I should also note is that it won't show other people sites that are password protected, and you can turn it off whenever you don't want people to see what site you're on (for whatever reason).

So this is just the first part of many where I'll tell you about great Firefox extensions in my bid to switch a few of you over. I hope you try out Firefox and you'll see why everyone is raving about it!

One of the Best Sites on the Internet

A few months ago, a friend and colleague of mine told me to check out a site called Lifehacker. I took his advice and I was blown away by what I found. Essentially, Lifehacker is a blog full of tips to help you with everything from making your computer work more for you to improving your socials skills. Every day, the authors of the blog add many posts. One feature that I have used profusely is their Dowload of the Day posts. Every day (and often more than once a day), the site profiles a small program that usually happens to be quite useful. For example, yesterday (March 28^th), one of their profiles was of a program that will allow computers that have wi-fi to link up to each other without any internet connections.

The site caters to both relative beginners to computer experts. They have many readers who comment on the posts and offer up more advice (if you're willing to read the comment threads). This is one of the sites that I check multiple times daily, and I would suggest that others check it. I have no doubt you'll find something helpful if you check it every once and a while.

Making Our Cars More Environmentally Friendly

Following the release of the 2007 budget by Stephen Harper and his party, my roommate, Meg, and I got to talking about the controversial car rebate/surcharge initiative. For those of you who missed that, the Tory government has offered rebates of up to $2000 for new fuel efficient vehicles, while at the same time added up to a $4000 surcharge on fuel inefficient vehicles. Read what Treehugger had to say about it here. It's all good right? Well, not quite. Meg explained what her economics professor, Peter W. Kennedy, had to say about it in class. Apparently, the rebates and surcharge may actually lead to more greenhouse gas emissions. Bear with me while I try to explain how.

By raising the price of gas guzzlers, you decrease the number sold. That part is simple. It gets complicated when you look at what happens in the used vehicle market. Those people who want, for example, a Hummer, won't buy a new one because it's too expensive. Instead they will buy a used Hummer which does not have the surcharge. On the flip side, by lowering the price of Smart Cars and Prius's, you allow people who couldn't afford to buy a car to be now able to afford one. This would increase the number of drivers on the road. Meg and I discussed this idea for a while, with me still contending that it didn't mean FOR SURE that emissions would increase, but that it could. The main issue that we saw from this part of the budget was that it didn't encourage decreased use of gas. The only real way to deal with that would be to bring in something like a carbon tax, which would encourage people to drive less in order to save money. I'll leave it at that for now (no doubt I will talk about a Carbon taxes, but if you're interested in them until then, try reading Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce, which explains carbon taxes and many other great ideas!).

After this discussion I also thought a lot about cars and how we can make them more efficient and less of a burden on our atmosphere. I had two ideas which I'm surprised are not in widespread use. The first is actually pretty obvious (and after doing research found that it has been used in many places). We could put solar panels on cars to help with energy needs. Note that I am not suggesting that we make solar cars like the ones used in the World Solar Challenge. I'm suggesting we add solar panels on cars to help out with such things as heaters, air conditioners and in the case of hybrids, running the car. I found an article on treehugger about Steve Lapp, a Canadian engineer who outfitted his Prius with solar panels in 2001. All the links to his project unfortunately don't work. The Treehugger article, along with this article, claim that there is a 10% increase in gas mileage in converted hybrids.

My second idea is to use wind power to generate electricity. I'm sure all of you have been riding in a car with the windows down and have felt the wind hit your face hard. Why not find a way to use that energy to generate some electricity? Perhaps a pipe could be put somewhere on the front of the car that could turn a turbine which could then generate some electricity. Apparently I am not the only one to think of these ideas, as I found a similar suggestion here. I also found this car, which may not be the most practical, but it did have something to use wind power.

So those are my ideas. Though I'm not quite an engineer, I think something like this needs to be done with cars. If our society is to keep on functioning, we will need to either drive less (and we'll need incentives like taxes to make that happen), make our cars more efficient (with hybrid technology and alternative energy sources), or both.

We're All the Same. Or Are We?

Today is Tuesday and that means I'm talking about teaching related stuff. My subject of the day is gender differences – do they exist? And if so, why do they exist? I used to think that boys and girls were the same (besides the obvious physical differences) and all of our behaviour was determined by how we were treated. But recently my mind has been changing.

Are boys and girls fundamentally different? According to Dr. Leonard Sax (and a lot of studies that he references), yes. In his book, Why Gender Matters, Dr. Sax discusses many biological differences between males and females that are present at birth. For example, one of the biggest things he talks about (and it's something that is widely supported by research), is that girls hear better than boys. He says that this is a very important fact that many teachers do not know. Therefore, if little Johnny is acting out, maybe he's doing so because he can't hear where he is sitting at the back of the class. The reasoning goes that a female teacher will talk in a voice that is appropriate to her, but not loud enough for a boy at the back of the class. And the reverse of this is that girls at the front of the class often think male teachers are yelling at them. This is all in the book, and for anyone who works with kids – or plans to have them one day! - this is an excellent read. The book covers topics from drugs and sex to discipline.

Of course I would never say that everyone fits into a certain mould. The book also talks about the boys and girls who do not fit this pattern (though it also says that they are in the minority). The other great thing about this book (and he even says it somewhere at the beginning) is that this book is written entirely based on research. Everything he says is backed up by something. Another important thing that Dr. Sax stresses is that he only mentions that males and females are different. They are both equally capable of the same things, but they take different paths to arrive at the same definition.

Since reading the book, I've tried to use the ideas it talks about when dealing with my students. It is really too early to say whether or not it's working, but nothing has gone horribly wrong. Either way I think it's an interesting read and certainly opened my eyes to a different way of thinking about gender.

So here is all the information you might need about the book:

• Author and Book Site
• ABE Books (where you can buy the book)
• Listing for the book at the Greater Victoria Public Library
• Listing for the book at the Hamilton Public Library

Sorry if you're not from Hamilton or Victoria, but that's where most of my readers are from...

Featured Musician: The New Amsterdams

While reading this post, keep in mind I have never really written about music before, and don't really follow any mp3 blogs (except my sister's – which hasn't been updated since November 2006).

Back in December I pestered my sister for any good music she had and she gave me quite a few CD's to listen to. Of those I found several to my liking, including The New Amsterdams' Worse for the Wear. I had never heard of the band before, but the music spoke to me and had a nice feel to it. I think a big part of my liking of them is their use of a piano and strong beats. The two features combine to create songs that feel classy and fun at the same time.

The disc is filled with many great tracks, including my personal favourites: “Hover Near Fame,” “From California,” and “Hanging on for Hope,” “Poison in the Ink,” and “All Our Vice.” As with any music, whether you like it will depend upon your tastes (and there are tracks on the CD that I think are not as great as the others), but there is a chance you will find some songs that you enjoy.

So who are they and what's up with them? When I had first heard them sing I had thought the singer sounded familiar. It turns out, the lead singer, Matthew Pryor, is the former lead singer of The Get Up Kids. The band is from Lawrence, Kansas and has been around since 2000. Worse for the Wear is actually their third (of five) albums. When doing research for this entry I found information about their upcoming album, Killed or Cured (due out April 10^th). They have several of their tracks available for listening for free (yay for free music!) on their myspace page. I gave the four available tracks a spin on my computer and I'd have to say I am fairly impressed. I enjoyed both “Strangled by the Thought” and “Heaven Sent” the most.

Here are some other places you can read about them:

• Vagrant Records
• Lawrence.com (I'm assuming this is from Lawrence, Kansas)

Try out the free tracks on their website and let me know what you think. If you want to purchase their CD's, please look for them online (sorry, I don't really do this, so I wouldn't know which sites are best – if anyone wants to make recommendations they would be more than welcomed), or buy them from a locally owned Music Store.

I hope you can enjoy The New Amsterdams as much as I do.

A Compromise?

I thought I should write about this subject since it came up on Saturday. I think we can justify it by saying it's Social Commentary on Sunday.

I get the Globe and Mail six days a week and the following headline appeared on the front page: "Lift face veils or don't vote, Quebec tells Muslims." I read the article and had several conflicting thoughts about what went on. Until recently I did not know the purpose of any coverings (whether it be a burqa or a niqab). I was given a great article (whose name I cannot remember, but maybe one of my readers could post the name or a link to it online) in a class of mine explaining the reasons (mainly so that woman are judged on what they say and do and not by how they look - it was described as an empowering thing to wear) why women cover themselves up.

After some thought I came to the following conclusion: Why can't they (all the people in Quebec) just compromise. In summary, this is what the two arguments are (at least the rational people in this debate):

1. The Chief Electoral Officer is trying to avoid voter fraud. Due to what seems like many angry responses, there is a fear that the original agreement would be used to the advantage of some people in protest of the decision.
2. The women who are wearing the veils are doing so for a religious reason (I'm not here to debate whether they are right or wrong, but it's important to realize they have a strong belief in something), and it would violate their beliefs to provide the requested proof of identification. They are stuck with a choice between not voting or going against what they believe in.

Clearly, there are two very good arguments for either of the two proposed outcomes. I decided to do some research to see if I could make sense of it. The first thing I did was look up "niqab" on wikipedia. The entry did not tell me much, but it did send me to this article about a similar situation that occured with regards to wearing a veil for the picture on a driver's license. I discovered there that many muslim nations require muslim women to have their pictures taken without their veil.

I then wanted to find out WHO a muslim woman is "allowed" to uncover herself for (I use the word allow because I'm under the impression that it is different for each individual. I do not think that anyone forces muslim women into this). After much searching I found this quote which came from a much bigger web page:

A Muslimah should not uncover her adornment in front of any non-Mahrahm male. Muslimahs should especially be careful and remain covered, modest, and quiet around in-laws.

If a gay male is aware of female body parts, he should not be allowed to view a woman uncovered. And, of course, a bi-sexual male should not be allowed to view a woman without proper covering.

In addition, a Muslimah should not uncover that which she normally uncovers, in front of any non-Muslim female whom she fears may describe her to others. She may also choose to remain covered around any Muslim female whom she fears may describe her physical attributes to their husband or others.

I also looked up who qualifies as Mahrahm and non-Mahrahm males and found the answers here.

So where am I going with this?

My proposed compromise is for the Chief Electoral Officer to provide a way for women to prove their identiy which does not require them to show themselves to people they do not want to show themselves to. Perhaps arrangements could be made in each riding so that a trusted muslim woman was available to check ID's for the people running the election. One representative for each riding would probably be sufficient if it were advertised which polling station this representaive would be at. To me it is common sense, but perhaps this is just a small part of a larger problem...

I wonder if this message will find it's way to Quebec.

I bet someone has something to say about this... let's hear what you think! I may be wrong about everything and I'm open to other viewpoints (keep it nice though).

For more information, check out this blog which talks briefly about the same article and situation: http://hogtownfront.blogspot.com/

NCAA March Madness (or how I'm near the top of almost every pool I'm in)

It's always around this time of year when I have at least one friend who invites me to join a March Madness pool based on the 64 (well, 65 if you want to be accurate) team NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament. Usually I join the free pool and lose horribly. So when I was invited to a facebook pool this year, I decided this year that I would try something different. Something that would hopefully bring me from a basement dweller to the top of the pools.

What has happened this year? How am I doing? Well, through the first three rounds (56 of the 64 games), I have picked the correct winner 80.4% of the time, and earned 77 of a possible 96 points (according to Facebook). This score has me #1 among my friends; #1 in one pool I am in and #3 in the other; #15 in the University of Victoria Network; and #51 in the Hamilton, ON Network (all on Facebook). Now granted I am #52,293 in all of Facebook, but within my close circle of friends and people who live near me, I'm doing quite well.

So what is this great strategy I have been using this year? How many hours did I spend going through stats and records and obsessing over each matchup?

The answer is so simple it makes me laugh. I know absolutely nothing about NCAA basketball (except I do somewhat remember when Gonzaga used to be talked about a lot for pulling off a few upsets in years past), so I just listened to what the experts said. And by experts, I mean the smart people who rank the teams. That's right, in every game, I picked the higher ranked team to win. Every time.

I sometimes wish I had put money on this, but due to my past lack of successes I didn't think that would be a wise move. And perhaps I will not pick another game right from here on in. I would still finish pretty high in the pools and my percentage can only get as low as 71% and I'd say that's not too bad considering my lack of knowledge. I will make a note here though. Today when Oregon beat UNLV, I didn't get a point because I had picked both teams to exit earlier. Using my system I would have correctly picked the winner had I known the teams in the game ahead of time.

So that's how I'm doing it. I just took the advice of the experts and left my fate in the hands of the rankings. Perhaps this year I got lucky in that there have been no major upsets (though some close calls by top ranked teams). I wonder if there are any stats about this sort of thing. I guess I could go and look back to see how many I would have had right last year with this strategy.

Well, here's hoping Ohio (that's Greg Oden in the picture) can win the big prize.... it certainly will make me look smart!

Vector, Vector, Everywhere!

Before I start talking about my breakfast cereal adventures, I want to mention another reason for putting food posts on Fridays (besides the obvious alliterative connections). Friday is the day I get my SPUD order. Every Friday I get a nice blue bin on my front porch full of wonderful food that I don't have to carry in my backpack from the grocery store. Most of the food is local and organic and often they have things you couldn't find easily in regular grocery stores. Anyway, if you live in Victoria, Calgary or Vancouver (they may have expanded further by now), then I would suggest checking it out if you like organic food and don't like carrying lots of groceries.

So now that that's over with, let me get back to my Vector. A few weeks ago Safeway had this deal where if you bought so many boxes of Vector you would get 100 Air Miles. Yeah, I know Air Miles is something of a scam, but it has gotten me some free stuff, so I'm not too concerned at this time.

Anyway, I bought several boxes of Vector because I really do enjoy it (and plus it was on sale, so why not? It's not like it will go bad). My roommates and I have had a few laughs over how many boxes I have and how long it will last (they seem to think I'll get sick of it, but I don't think they know me well enough yet).

You may also notice in the picture my soy "milk." Note that it's not really milk as there is not really a way to milk a soy bean. There is an interesting story attached to why I have this particular soy beverage. As you will probably be hearing about a lot if you read this blog, I have joined this site on the internet called BzzAgents. They give you stuff to try out and then they ask you to talk about it to other people - and you don't necessarily have to say good things about it. No money passes hands, so I'm not in it for the cash - just the chance to try new things. One of the things they asked me to try was Silk, a "fortified soy beverage." I used to drink (well, used to put it on my cereal) So Nice Organic Soy Beverage - Vanilla flavoured. Silk is slightly cheaper at the grocery stores I got to, and it tastes pretty much the same - though I'd say it's a bit sweeter. Check out their website (linked above) and you'll find they are a pretty ethical company (using wind power, and non GMO soy beans). Anyway, if you like to drink Soy "milk" I'd suggest trying this if it's in your budget.

That's about all I have for today. I promise future posts won't sound like infomercials for stuff. I wanted to post about healthy food, but since my eating habits haven't been so great lately, I thought I'd post about some other stuff related to food.

Welcome to my Blog

Lately I've been learning more and more about computers. What's that you say? I'm the techie expert? Well, yes and no. I can learn computer stuff pretty easily, but I'm not up to date on everything. But that has been changing lately. ANYWAY..... I've been getting addicted to the blogs of my friends and relatives and thought: "Hey, I can do that!" So I decided to take the splash, and this is the result.

While walking home from a grocery trip today I starting thinking about what I would talk about. I thought of a lot of things, but I'm not really an expert on any of them. So I came to a decision: I'm going to post about all of the things I know about. I'm going to try to stay on something of a schedule. Since I like alliteration, I came up with these ideas on my walk (I tend to get a little OCD about things like this):

• Music on Mondays
• Teaching on Tuesdays
• Wondering on Wednesday
• Technology on Thursday
• Food on Friday
  
• Sports on Saturday (and Sunday)

I thought I should do some sort of environmental thing, so I'll try to fit those in somewhere...

As my friends, I may also ask you to occasionally make guest posts (just because I like different viewpoints).

One thing I want to try is to use this as a learning tool. I encourage anyone who can make contrubitions to do so - even if it's exposing my lack of basic knowledge. Please be nice when commenting, and I'll be nice when posting.

Anyway, I'll probably wait until Saturday for my first all out post (which I've been meticulously planning in my head since that walk). I only hope you can contain yourselves until then...