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Scoville scale: chile heat via capsaicin content

The scale of spicy.…

9 Apr 2015

Heteronym illustration with the examples: present, windy, read, and close

Heteronym: spell it the same, say it differently

For a long time, I’ve kept my ear (and eye) out for heteronyms: words that are written the same but said differently. Homonyms are easy to spot - things like chip (food, processor), or bark (dog, tree) - but heteronyms are sneaky and you don’t notice them as easily. Fiddly things like windy, present, read, or close. It always strikes me they must make English a pain to learn - “what do you mean read can be said as red or reed??! How’m I supposed to know that??” A few other common ones (try to spot both pronunciations, it’s a little like the old out-cube/in-cube Necker illusion): bow, does, dove, import, lead, project, refuse, sow, tear, minute… Also known as a homograph (homo - same, graph - writing) Also see: aptronym, contranym Hat tip to Richard Stevens for his nifty vintage-style heteronym list…For a long time, I’ve kept my ear (and eye) out for heteronyms: words that are written the same but said differently. Homonyms are easy to spot - things like chip (food, processor), or bark (dog, tree) - but heteronyms are sneaky and you don’t notice them as easily. Fiddly things like windy, present, read, or close. It always strikes me they must make English a pain to learn - “what do you mean read can be said as red or reed??! How’m I supposed to know that??” A few other common ones (try to spot both pronunciations, it’s a little like the old out-cube/in-cube Necker illusion): bow, does, dove, import, lead, project, refuse, sow, tear, minute… Also known as a homograph (homo - same, graph - writing) Also see: aptronym, contranym Hat tip to Richard Stevens for his nifty vintage-style heteronym list

2 Apr 2015

Sleepy foods

Turns out a bunch of substances have the power to make you sleepy - tryptophan, vitamin B6, calcium, glycine, lactucarium and carbohydrates are some of the major ones. Some even interact with each other for maximum sleepiness. A few common foods with these compounds in good measure include: turkey, walnuts - tryptophan tuna, pistachios - vitamin B6 dairy - calcium chamomile - glycine lettuce - lactucarium So an evening turkey or tuna, walnut, cheese and lettuce sandwich with a glass of milk and a side of pistachios or walnuts and you’ll be set for a good night.…Turns out a bunch of substances have the power to make you sleepy - tryptophan, vitamin B6, calcium, glycine, lactucarium and carbohydrates are some of the major ones. Some even interact with each other for maximum sleepiness. A few common foods with these compounds in good measure include: turkey, walnuts - tryptophan tuna, pistachios - vitamin B6 dairy - calcium chamomile - glycine lettuce - lactucarium So an evening turkey or tuna, walnut, cheese and lettuce sandwich with a glass of milk and a side of pistachios or walnuts and you’ll be set for a good night.

26 Mar 2015

Vultures have bald heads to…

…regulate temperature and (maybe) to keep feathers clean while eating. Keeping the feathers clean was my inspiration for this sketchplanation - there’s something about the cold practicality of not messing up your feathers while you’re tucking into some carrion. However, it looks like it is more likely to be for the more prosaic reason of regulating temperature and keeping cool. As Dominic McCafferty, at the University of Glasgow points out: ‘…other groups of scavengers, particularly giant petrels, have feathered heads. Large mammalian scavengers also don’t have bald heads, so why vultures?’ Should you be interested, read more at the University of Glasgow’s Why do vultures have bald heads?……regulate temperature and (maybe) to keep feathers clean while eating. Keeping the feathers clean was my inspiration for this sketchplanation - there’s something about the cold practicality of not messing up your feathers while you’re tucking into some carrion. However, it looks like it is more likely to be for the more prosaic reason of regulating temperature and keeping cool. As Dominic McCafferty, at the University of Glasgow points out: ‘…other groups of scavengers, particularly giant petrels, have feathered heads. Large mammalian scavengers also don’t have bald heads, so why vultures?’ Should you be interested, read more at the University of Glasgow’s Why do vultures have bald heads?

19 Mar 2015

UK vs US date writing

It was only relatively recently that I realised that the transposition of day and month that each does, also translates to the written out form. So in the US it’s common to say April 1st, whereas in the UK most would say 1st of April. The most convenient way for most dates on a computer is yyyy-mm-dd however, so they always sort easily. You may have realised this when adding dates to filenames. Though a lot of software uses UNIX time which is, as you would expect, is “defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970, not counting leap seconds." So midday on the 12th March this year (or March 12th) at midday is of course 1426161600.…It was only relatively recently that I realised that the transposition of day and month that each does, also translates to the written out form. So in the US it’s common to say April 1st, whereas in the UK most would say 1st of April. The most convenient way for most dates on a computer is yyyy-mm-dd however, so they always sort easily. You may have realised this when adding dates to filenames. Though a lot of software uses UNIX time which is, as you would expect, is “defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970, not counting leap seconds." So midday on the 12th March this year (or March 12th) at midday is of course 1426161600.

12 Mar 2015

The importance/urgency matrix

James Clear (Jamesclear.com) has a host of ways to help make sure you focus on the importants like starting every day with the most important activities, and ruthless focus. I spent a year organising my to-do list in these boxes and it was striking just how long the important not urgents keep getting moved on to the next list. Part of the secret there is to break them down to startable tasks rather than big projects. FWIW I don’t actually recommend the really concrete action of organising the to-do list in the quadrants. More being cognizant of what type each task is. But it may help for a while. This is also known as the Eisenhower Matrix.…James Clear (Jamesclear.com) has a host of ways to help make sure you focus on the importants like starting every day with the most important activities, and ruthless focus. I spent a year organising my to-do list in these boxes and it was striking just how long the important not urgents keep getting moved on to the next list. Part of the secret there is to break them down to startable tasks rather than big projects. FWIW I don’t actually recommend the really concrete action of organising the to-do list in the quadrants. More being cognizant of what type each task is. But it may help for a while. This is also known as the Eisenhower Matrix.

5 Mar 2015

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