Quiz me: Mac or PC?

You Are a Mac

You are creative, stylish, and super trendy. You demand the best - even if it costs an arm and a leg.

Are You a Mac or a PC?

Well, I just had to take this quiz... clearly as an Apple fanatic since 1984, I am a Mac. :)

water is good, but "bisphenol-a" is bad?

A few months ago, my parents sent me a somewhat alarmist email about plastic. The concern? They ran across an article on the internet stating that hard plastic water bottles marked with recycle symbol #7 contained Bisphenol A and that this could cause all sorts of health problems.

So I did a little research of my own. A little browsing around the internet and journal searches turned up a few things...

First of all "#7" plastic doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. This label means "other". 1-6 are all specific types of plastic, everything else is 7. Ok. So just because my two water bottles are labelled #7 doesn't mean I'm doing any harm.

However, Lexan (a GE brand), also polycarbonate, plastic, which I do know at least one of my water bottles is made from, does contain Bisphenol A. *Most* clear hard colourful plastics marked #7 are Lexan.

Searching around some journals, I found a few articles expressing some degree of concern about the effects of Bisphenol A in rats. Nothing terribly conclusive as far as I can tell (I am not a biologist, I know very little about physiology, or the kinds of methods used in those studies), but the authors consistantly called for further study, and advised caution.

While this is a whole other issue, it should be noted that whether you absorb enough Bisphenol A to do yourself damage, in the kinds of large doses which can be released into the environment during manufacturing, humans and other organisms in the area can be affected significantly. That in mind, it is up to you whether you choose to buy a new Lexan bottle or avoid doing so for environmental and social reasons. I bought mine years ago now and was unaware of any of this at the time. I might have considered choosing something else had I known, though I suspect most plastics manufacturing has similar consequences.

Back to the health issues... Being uncertain, I have more or less left my water bottles in the kitchen cupboard for the past few months. Usually, a lack of conclusive data leads me to ignore the cries of the internet and carry on whatever I was doing before. However, given the small amount of data indicating reason for concern, and consequences like birth defects, infertility, and breast cancer, I decided that drinking city water in a mug at work is a reasonable alternative to taking a water bottle of Brita filtered water from home. If I'm heading into the wilderness (a rare occasion) or a long day around the city, I'll take one of my bottles.

But today I read this: ScienceNOW: Common Plastic Ingredient May Be Cause for Concern

A federal advisory panel meeting here today concluded that a hormonelike chemical found widely in food containers, bisphenol A, could potentially be causing neurological effects in fetuses and children. Although the group's conclusion, based on a wealth of animal and human studies, falls short of supporting any kind of ban, the panel expressed "some concern" about the chemical and noted that people may want to reduce their exposure.

...

Still, critics accused the panel of ignoring many other relevant studies. They point out that 38 bisphenol A experts and other scientists who met at a workshop last November concluded that people are exposed to doses that cause many other effects in animals, such as enlarged prostate and larger body size. The consensus statement of the November group, which is in press at Reproductive Toxicology, describes "a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans."

I think I'll be leaving those bottles on the shelf awhile longer. Maybe it's time to replace them with an HDPE or aluminum bottle.



Here are some other references:

• Nalgene product specifications - find out which plastic is which


• American Chemistry Council: Plastic packaging Resin codes [PDF], or get them from Wikipedia: Resin identification code


• Wikipedia: Lexan


• Wikipedia: Bisphenol A


• Some of the kinds of articles that are bringing out concern and muddying the waters, so to speak: Bottle Racket: On plastic water bottles, CityTV news: Water Bottles, The Bisphenol-A Debate: A Suspect Chemical in Plastic Bottles and Cans
  

What language am I?

Like the lemmings, I leap off where others do in my procrastination...

Your Score: Hieroglyphics

You scored

You are Egyptian Hieroglyphics! Monumental, ornate and even in technicolour! Your users contributed virtually all ancient knowledge on inks, dyes and writing surfaces - to the point where the popular reed of Papyrus became the universal name for organic, manufactured writing surfaces in the western hemisphere for thousands of years. Proud, upstanding and dignified.

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

seen here, there, and everywhere

time to try some motivational techniques again

Inspired by the (attempted) motivational techniques being implemented over at Dr. Brazen Hussy's place I've attached a list of things that ought to be done in August to my sidebar. I'm trying to keep it realistic (ok, so maybe even some of that isn't), so it's only 14 items long (for now) rather than 50!

Don't know if this kind of public accountability thing will help this time around, but at least Dr. Hussy can be amused and spy on my to do list!

Ravelry... because I need more internet communities to distract me

yarn diet?, originally uploaded by physics*chick.

So, I've signed up for Ravelry, a knit and crochet online community thing, that looks like just so much fun. You can show off your projects, browse around other peoples' projects, list your stash yarns (stash? what stash? i don't have a stash... achem), search for patterns to match yarns and see what other people have done... why, it's going to be like Flickr, but for knitting, maybe even better! :0

The catch is they're still in beta, so they are sending out invites as fast as they can handle new users. I waited too long to sign up:

Found you!

• You signed up on July 20, 2007
• You are #19118 on the list.
• 11687 people are ahead of you in line.
• 2401 people are behind you in line.
• 33% of the list has been invited so far

*sigh*

My first sweater experience... to be continued...

riiiip it?, originally uploaded by physics*chick.

So there it is, the beginings of my first sweater. I'm starting to wonder if my sweater attmepts are to be forever cursed. I set out to make this design by drops my first sweater. I got the yarn (drops alpaca in a lovely burgundy colour). I finished other projects before starting this exciting venture. I swatched. Oy. My gauge was completely off, I changed needle sizes, and well, I was just dismayed by the fabric created when I actually got gauge. I packed the yarn up and shoved it to the bottom of my stash (I'm starting to consider other ideas for this yarn now, maybe Arisaig which I've had my eye on since picking up knitting again), and set out to knit this instead. After such a success (bulky yarns are great for confidence aren't they?), I set out after another first sweater attempt...

The details:

• "Cable cardigan" from instant expert: Knitting (I'm still on the fence as to whether this book is good or not. The patterns don't have "sizes" persay, but rather suggest changing gauge, which is strange, and not so good, and I've found several errors already, but the patterns are good for inspiration and there is a nice stitch library and some decent how-to for beginners...)
  
• Plymouth yarns Galway Highland Heather in colour 705 (a nice navy) and it is lovely and soft and springy (bought from kpixie, a quick and pleasant experience ;) )
  
• now using 4.5mm needles (less than the recommended for the yarn), 4mm for ribbing
  

So, now to explain why the heck Pistachio Frog is sitting contemplating my sweater progress. Well you see, the sweater the back piece is sitting on top of is my very smallest sweater. Infact, that sweater is almost too small when worn over anything of any bulk. So as I headed into the arm shaping, I started to contemplate frogging the whole damn thing and starting over. Oh sure, it sounds extreme and reactionary... but I did set it aside for two months and think about the consequences of finishing a sweater that I couldn't wear and would be too small to give to anyone either. Ripping it out and starting over didn't sound like a bad option in comparison.

But did I mention that this is my very first sweater, and that actually I don't know what I'm doing? And the pattern doesn't have sizes? That would mean having the time to sit down with a calculator and rework all the increases and decreases required including the neck shaping which is something that terrifies me because I just don't understand it. So I finished some socks instead (more on that later).

Finally, I posted this photo to Flickr, where there are many supportive knitters, and I experimented with blocking my swatch (oh yeah, I swatched baby), and so deciding that blocking can solve anything (well, at least with this yarn) I am plowing ahead. Hopefully there will be no more catastrophies. Right? Somehow I doubt it...

At least for now, I have some knitting to do.

more film, life in colour this time

lone sailboat, not lonely, originally uploaded by physics*chick.

More photos from out west and trip home, this time taken with the Olympus. First colour roll of film. I chose a pro film that was supposed to have high saturation and cool tones which worked out well for the Ferry. Unfortunately many of the scans lacked the saturation and good tone depth that the prints had, so I tinkered with them in iPhoto. Anything that looks a bit strange is likely a result of my over processing the scans... except for the japanese maple, that one looks just as trippy in the print! :)

Specs:

• Olympus OM-1
  
• Zuiko OM 50mm/f1.8 lens
  
• Fujicolor pro 160C color negative film (ISO 160)
  

I ♥ this camera.

my iPod deserves the best, right?

I've been eyeing these iPod cases for awhile now. Handcrafted leather by Vaja. They actually make beautiful handcrafted cases and bags for many things besides iPods, and if I won the lottery, my laptop, and any other electronic gizmos I had or desired would probably be outfitted with slick, beautiful and functional homes as well. But maybe possibly I could splurge on my iPod and get it one of these customizable beauties to replace that little black faux-suede case it came with....

drool.

one talented cat

No, I haven't been hanging out at Jazzfest too much and started calling everyone a "cool cat". No, I mean an actual feline with musical talent. For a laugh, and a bit of amazement check out Nora the piano playing cat.

My violin teacher had a cat who knew scales and studies and used to meow when students made mistakes, but nothing matching this kind of musical aptitude.

vacay is a good thing

big BC sky, originally uploaded by physics*chick (aka saburke).

So we recently went out west (to what I often call the "wrong side"... being a east coast sort) for a summer school, a wedding, and a wee little vacation.

Some comments about Victoria BC:

• People drive 35km/hr. No joke. We were almost late for the wedding. 35 people!!! THIRTY-FIVE!
  
• The weather is adjusted for optimal comfort in the summer. Warm, but not too warm. Dry, not muggy, but not too dry either. Everyday as we exited the hotel and I wondered if I'd dressed appropriately for the weather, a giant smile just crept up onto my face as I realized that it didn't matter, because I was just going to be comfortable all day.
  
• Downtown gets pretty empty in the evening. Don't try to find something to eat after 9pm. It will be difficult.
  
• J.J. Wonton Noodle House is still amazing. And according to their fortune cookie I will have "good money-luck next month". Here's hoping for that.
  

We had fun just relaxing and wondering around for a few days in a place we both briefly called home.

Vacation is good.

Best of digital photos are up on Flickr now, and my film should be ready, I just have to pick it up and post those.