Furthermore: April 2006

(I also had some posts on saving for retirement, but I think I shall pull those out to a separate group)

April 26, 2006

Physio

I had a second appointment with Dr Speed last Thursday, where she put me on a treadmill to observe me running. The thing that was immediately clear to me on the video was that the front of my right foot splays out as I land, which inevitably forces the knee in and contributes to the PFS. Anyway, Dr Speed thought I should try physio first, rather than seeing the podiatrist about orthotics. Just as well, as the podiatry appointments are pretty expensive, and not covered by my insurance. I’d go anyway if I thought it was necessary, but best to leave it in reserve.

Anyway, I saw the physio, Jane Warrington, on Monday. She focused a bit more on the muscular imbalance between the outer and inner quad muscles - she reckoned this was pulling the kneecap out of alignment. So I have exercises to strengthen those muscles, and my glutes. They’re quite subtle exercises, but when you isolate the muscles you realise how easily they tire. The other interesting thing to me that I’ve noticed doing the quad exercises is that if I lunge / squat down the way I’m supposed to, with my knee over my second toe, it tends to put my weight more on the outside edge of my foot, and I realise that the fact my feet are quite flat may also be causing my knee to roll in. So I think when I start running again I’d better have a look for some motion control in my shoes. Not sure what make and model to go for yet - I’ve used Asics for a long time, so I guess I’ll look at their range first.

April 23, 2006

Last week or so

Nothing very exciting happening. I saw the consultant about my knee again on Thursday, and I’m seeing a physio tomorrow - I’ll talk about that after I’ve had the appointment. It’s strange really - I watched the marathon this morning and I didn’t really feel bad that I wasn’t there, but I do miss running.

Doctor Who was too scary for L last night. She watched about 15 minutes then asked to go to bed. Fortunately she was already in her night clothes and just had to be tucked in. Smart decision, as I think it was one of the most scary episodes so far. L also seems to have suddenly gone to another level in maths - she’s started telling me things like “3+2+1 = 6. Because 3+2 = 5 and one more makes 6″. I don’t think I could do that when I was 4.

Oh, I’ve started a “my adorable family” post haven’t I. Oh well, while I’m at it, I may as well add that L is currently planning to be a ballet dancer for her hobby, and a private investigator for her job. She’s going to live in a pink house near to us. And she’s decided that since her house will be pink, no boys will want to live there, so she’s not going to get married. Except possibly to a girl.

Smallest of all has learned how to throw her arms up in the air and go “raaaargh” like a monster. Kawaiiii desu ne!

April 20, 2006

East Africa Famine Appeal

From the Oxfam email:

East Africa is in the middle of a serious food crisis. Water is scarce.


Food is running out. People have died and more will die if sufficient aid

is not delivered fast. Nomadic herding communities are most at risk, with

over 70 per cent of the animals on which they depend already dead in many

areas. Recent rains, far from solving the crisis, have actually increased

the risk of disease and are hampering the transportation of relief.

To donate to the Oxfam appeal, you can:

• Donate online


• Call 0870 333 2500



• Donate at any Oxfam shop

April 16, 2006

Finance Links

• Composing Contracts: An Adventure in Financial Engineering - Simon Peyton Jones - MSR paper on a combinator library for valuing financial derivatives. Looks very interesting.


• LexiFi - company set up to capitalize on the research in the MSR paper above.


• Review of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat - Edward Leamer - more than just a review. It’s a jumping off point for looking at economic geography, and what globalization means for the US economy.



• The Volatility Smile by Don Chance - helped me to understand this concept.

April 14, 2006

Fixing my knee

So I got a referral from my doctor, and by the power of private medical insurance I saw Dr Cathy Speed at the Lea hospital on Tuesday. She was very good - she runs herself I think - and she seemed to think I do have PFS, and that it is fixable by a combination of physiotherapy, and possibly orthotics.

She’s referred me on to a physio Jayne Warrington and a bio-mechanics specialist, Sophie Cox. Plus I have to see Dr Speed again next week and she’ll put me on the treadmill to confirm what she thinks is causing the PFS - she reckons its lack of core stability, basically causing my leg to collapse inward as it lands.

All pretty hopeful really. It’s the marathon next weekend of course, so it would be nice to get going again around that time.

April 10, 2006

Links

• SF Futures - my friend Jonathan Cowie runs an SF website which I helped set up a long time ago. He’s just launched a new section with short, short stories from Nature. Some good authors in the initial selection - Ted Chiang, Charlie Stross amongst others.


• Global Imbalances: The New Economy, the Dark Matter, the Savvy Investor and the Standard Analysis - Barry Eichengreen [pdf] - good survey article of the standard analysis of the problems of US Budget deficits compared with recent ideas on why things are different this time.


• Edge Magazine - Kevin Kelly on the future of science. I like the triple blind experiments - collect lots of data upfront and you can mine it later to test hypotheses you hadn’t even thought of when you started.



• b3ta.com - reasons for getting sacked. Pretty funny.


• Boohbah - great site for very young children. Much easier to navigate and more intuitive than CBeebies. My 4 year old still gets something out of it, but it’s probably a bit babyish for her.


• Our place in the universe - remarkably precarious.


• via Making Light - painted room illusions



• Deadprogrammers cafe - how to advertise on your blog. Interesting stuff on using Amazon associates etc. I’ve kind of given up on that here.

April 4, 2006

Self Motivation Links

While I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with myself, I’ve accumulated a number of useful links, which I’m posting here.

• Paul Ford on Good and Bad Distractions - trying to make the difficult distinction between being distracted by something you need to know about, vs aimless fact-gathering. There’s too much to know, and it’s now too easy to know it. Make it harder for yourself to be distracted pointlessly.


• Michael Nielsen on Tough Learning - how to learn difficult material. The key points of the talk are that you need a purpose or meaning to get you started, a vision of where you’re going, and a social environment that promotes the behaviour you want to achieve.


• Steve Pavlina on Self Discipline - six part, thorough account of building up your ability to do what you tell yourself you will.


• Richard Hamming - You and Your Research - interesting talk on what it means to dedicate yourself to your work. A bit like the Tough Learning talk, but more hardcore.



• One Quality of a Leader - interesting comments thread on what makes a good leader.


• AskMe thread - on soul searching, and knowing what you’re looking for.


• How to stop procrastination - very interesting psychological account of different types of procrastinators and what the underlying causes are.

April 2, 2006

Bits and Bobs

Just a quick summary of what I’ve been up to:

• been to visit my parents just outside Lincoln, taking Smallest of All with me. H told me afterwards that L said she missed her little sister, even though she didn’t think she would. She’s actually been nicer to her since then as well, so perhaps it was a good thing for them to have a day or two apart.


• wireless goodness now infuses both machines in the house, and I’ve also got a workgroup network set up, although I think there are still some glitches with that. Installed Google desktop search too, and it’s worked really well - I have thousands of files and emails that I’ll never be able to organise in any other way than search.


• Jay babysat for us on Saturday night, so H and I went to the Peking restaurant on Burleigh Street. Really good food. I highly recommend it - it’s not cheap, but I’d say it’s the best Chinese I’ve had - certainly in the UK.



• disappointment - the John Crowley Little, Big 25th Anniversary edition hasn’t got enough subscribers yet, so I have to wait another year to find out if they’re going to produce it or not. I’m kind of annoyed that if they were not getting the sales in quickly enough, that they didn’t publicize it a bit more - I’m sure a lot of the subscribers would be keen to recruit other suckers, ah, customers.