Tuesday, August 13, 2002

At the wedding we went to in Iowa city I sat next to a woman named Emily who is a dietician.  I asked her about the recent New York Times article about the Atkins Diet and the possibility that it is carbohydrates that cause obesity and not fat.  She had a lot to say about it.   There a number of studies underway right now to check out low carb diets but the only diet so far to show a reduction in heart disease was a diet that was high in fiber and skipped the simple carbohydrates.  Aitkins claims that his diet would show the same thing but that he couldn't get any funding for studies  (He makes enough money selling his books to fund any number of studies).  The Atkins diet appears to be pretty great for losing weight but that people put the weight right back on as soon as they are off.  She also said that the Atkins diet has become less strict over the years and is allowing for more complex carbohydrates and so does not induce ketosis.  She didn't really know who was right about ketosis and its effect on the efficiency of the brain.  10:19:10 PM    comment []

One advantage of JSP is that multiple form fields with the same name always show up in the called page code as an array and you don't have to mess around with naming form fields with brackets like name= "address[1]" as I do in PHP.    Now that I think of it, that would make it pretty hard to use javascript on a form like that.  I guess now I have a question for tomorrow's class.  Update:  I learned today that all of the above is a lie 10:09:53 PM    comment []

Second day of Server Side Java training at Intertech, inc.  in Eagan.  The instructor is excellent.  He taught us how to make servlets and then from there learned about JSP.  I didn't realize that JSPs automatically get compiled into a servlet when they are run.  This is the power of compiled objects vs scripting.  Of course for PHP there are vendors like Zend that make PHP compilers. 6:22:40 PM    comment []

Layoff slips are being delivered at the DNR today.  The pain is enhanced because those with seniority can bump others who haven't been in their positions long enough.  12:18:41 AM    comment []