Gyms are generally priced in a way that makes sense if you visit them several times a week, but if you like me just want to do fifteen minutes once a week, they’re horribly overpriced.

I spent the past week in Paris (or rather, Champs sur Marne) with Phyllis, Marcel, Charlotte, Léon, Anna and Amaia; I was working the entire week at a local company while Phyllis dragged the kids round Paris.

One day we noticed a tiny open-air gym on our way to the RER station.

It was tiny — just four machines — and made in cast iron painted yellow and green (see the photo).

For real gym aficionados, it would be useless, but I wish East Renfrewshire would put up equipment like this in our parks — I’m sure it’d be good for the general health and well-being!

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However, I’ve just discovered there are now sites that can help.

For instance, here is the same photo of Anna processed in three different ways by Colour Blindness Simulator:

From left to right, that’s the original, then the way it’s seen by people with protanopia, then deuteranopia, and finally tritanopia.

This is of course really useful if you’re designing user interfaces so that you don’t unintentionally create designs that are confusing or unreadable to colourblind people.

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Den nuværende dille med at nedlægge de små sygehuse og erstatte dem med nybyggede supersygehuse er en international tendens, ikke kun en dansk.

Jeg vil spå, at om en årrække vil det blive set som en af vor tids største fiaskoer.

Idéen om at samle specialerne, så fx hjertekirurgerne kan operere på hjerter hele tiden i stedet for et par gange om året, er jo i og for sig udmærket.

De to hovedproblemer er flg.:

For det første bliver afstandene alt for store. Patienter ligger jo som hovedregel ikke alene på sygehuset, men bliver fra tid til anden besøgt af deres familie og venner. Det giver alt for meget besvær for dem, hvis de skal rejse i timevis hver gang.

For det andet bliver hospitalerne alt for store. Det betyder for det første, at de for personalet bliver meget svære at identificere sig med og tage ansvar for, og for det andet, at de bliver umulige at lukke ned, hvis der opstår et problem (fx infektioner).

P.g.a. disse problemer vil jeg tro, at man om et årti eller to vender rundt på en tallerken og begynder at erstatte de store sygehuse med en masse små lokalsygehuse, som de specialiserede læger så enten rejser rundt til eller hjælper på afstand v.h.a. internettet.

Små sygehuse (fx ét i hver kommune) vil få kraftig lokal støtte, og det vil være nemt at sætte navn på eventuelle problemer, så de ansatte vil føle et personligt ansvar.

Det bliver naturligvis lidt træls for overlægerne at skulle rejse land og rige rundt, men jeg vil tro, at videokonferencer og fjernstyrede skalpeller og den slags vil kunne minimere det.

Jeg gad vidst, hvad de nye supersygehuse vil blive brugt til i 2030 – lagerhaller?

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Som jeg sikkert har nævnt tidligere, skal Phyllis efter planen føde den 9. januar.

Det betyder, at afstanden fra skambenet til toppen af livmoderen gerne skulle være 28-29 cm.

Men da de målte hende i dag til et rutinetjek, var afstanden 34 cm.

De sagde først, det sikkert bare var for meget væske, men de sendte hente til scanning for at tjekke.

Men nej, det er rent faktisk pigen derinde, der er kæmpestor: De vurderer hende til at veje mellem 2500 og 3000 gram på nuværende tidspunkt.

Anna vejede 3500 gram ved fødslen, så det lyder jo umiddelbart ret stort.

De regner med at tjekke Phyllis for sukkersyge i næste uge, men der er ingen tegn på noget i urinen, så hvis ikke det er årsagen, er det sikkert bare en meget stor baby.

Det kan selvfølgelig godt være, at hun vokser meget langsomt fra nu af og altså kommer til at veje ca. det samme som Anna ved fødslen, men det kan man ikke sige noget fornuftigt om på nuværende tidspunkt.

Jeg er i øvrigt meget imponeret over billederne fra scanningen. Phyllis er aldrig blevet scannet så sent i graviditeten, og det gør altså en stor forskel.

Se blot, hvor tydeligt man kan se hendes profil på billedet øverst til venstre.

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The Scotsman claims today that the government is planning to vaccinate the entire UK population against swine flu.

That might turn out to be a wise decision, but I’m a bit concerned about the timescale:

The last people won’t get their flu jab till November 2010.

I’m not sure it can be done any sooner, but if it turns out to be a fast-moving pandemic, I presume half the population might be dead before the government gets a chance to save them.

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This will probably make most readers of this blog envious, but I am curious to find out whether I’m unique in this respect.

I seem to be unable to get a headache.

Even when I have a hangover, I only have the other symptoms without any headache at all.

I had some kind of mild headache a couple of years ago, but that what as part of some viral infection that caused pain in most of the body, too, so I’m not sure that counts.

A google search for unable headache seems to return only pages about people who can’t get rid of their headaches rather than being unable to get them in the first instance.

So am I a mutant, or is this actually pretty normal?

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Jeg havde da haft lidt ondt i halsen i længere tid, men det var da ikke noget alvorligt.

Men så eskalerede det pludselig torsdag aften – mit hovede blev varmere og varmere, og min krop koldere og koldere.

Jeg gik i seng, men jeg sov elendigt – jeg vågnede hele tiden op med den samme meningsløse drøm.

Fredag morgen var jeg slet ikke i stand til at gå på arbejde, og jeg sov næsten uden afbrydelser til sidst på eftermiddagen.

Så stod jeg op, spiste en banan, så lidt TV, spiste en sandwich og lidt is, og så gik jeg i seng igen.

Kl. 5 om morgenen vågnede jeg brat op, feberfri og klarhovedet, men meget, meget træt.

Det tog mig så det meste af lørdagen at komme til kræfter igen, og først i dag har jeg været mig selv igen.

Og stakkels Phyllis ser ud til at gennemleve samme sygdomsforløb, blot med et døgns forsinkelse, så hun har ikke været meget værd i dag.

Nu håber jeg blot ikke, alle børnene følger efter på rad og række!

Opdatering (17/12): Jeg var ved lægen i dag og fik antibiotika (cefalexin).

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I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the first two thirds, although the book is a tiny bit out of date. It’s one of those nice examples of popular science that actually gives you a feel for how things happen in the engine room, rather than just presenting the results.

However, towards the end he starts writing fictional stories about the seven “clan mothers” of Europe, and this is definitely the weakest part of the book.

He assigns hair colour and other physical characteristica to them, although he obviously doesn’t know this.

Also, to make the descriptions seem realistic, he strays into areas about which he clearly has little knowledge.

For instance, he writes about one of them that their “language was not elaborate, but quite sufficiently developed to impart [...] basic information.” As a linguist, I know this is nonsense. All human languages, whether spoken by hunter-gatherers or by invest bankers, are equally elaborate and highly developed.

So read the first part of this book, but skip the seven fictional chapters.

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Dominic Lawson has a good rant about water in The Independent today.

He’s questioning why so many people are drinking so much water:

This organised panic about dehydration seems to stem from a misreading – quite possibly deliberate – of guidelines from the US Food and Nutrition Board in 1945. These stated that “a suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 litres daily in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is one millilitre for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.” As Shapiro notes, the last sentence of that advice is always left out, leading to the idea that we need an extra eight glasses of water over and above our actual requirements.

Apart from that, I’ve never understood why the same amount of water is recommended everywhere. If I’m in a really hot place, such as walking around in the midday sun in July in Spain or Georgia, I naturally drink lots of fluid. However, during winter in Scotland, I simply don’t feel the need to drink as much (which is natural given I sweat much less), but the water fanatics still claim I should drink the same eight glasses as in the Mediterranean summer sun.

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For some time, I’ve tried to avoid multi-blade razors because they’re very bad at creating sharp edges such as at the end of sideburns or mustaches. Also, they often are difficult to clean when one hasn’t shaved for three or more days because the hairs get stuck between the blades.

However, I’ve now discovered Gillette Fusion which not only has five blades; it also has access to the back of the five blades, making it feasible to flush out all hairs, and it has an extra single blade on the other side for precision shaving.

It’s not perfect, but it’s the best razor I’ve used yet. Nice.

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