If you're not sure about this particular group, then consider a donation to Médecine Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders in the US). They're in Darfur as I type...
Erk. When we went to NCT classes before the first one, they'd gone all 'encounter-groupy', much to the disgust of the woman who ran our class who was forced to keep saying 'and how does everyone feel about x/y/z' after every new nugget of information.
She obviously didn't want to, so she just churned out the same stock two phrases over and over again — it drove me up the wall, although I think I managed to restrain my eye-rolling instincts.
Maybe they've gone back to being more 'normal' since, but at the time it felt like being in group therapy, which wasn't exactly what we were after.
It's the NCT bring and buy sale events you want :)
Congratulations!
Hmm. Baby stuff: Try not to rush out and buy *everything* all at once. There's a huge informal parent network out there that cycles stuff round and round -- if you don't have any friends who already have children then go along to the nearest NCT event.
You might find that a full 'travel system' doesn't really fit your lifestyle; they tend to be heavier than dedicated pushchairs for a start, so if you're going to be lugging the thing up and down steps (into the house say) then you might want to consider getting a separate car seat and folding pushchair. We bought a Jane Matrix & a Maclaren Techno which made a good combination (the Jane goes flat in the car, so if they're asleep you can just take them out in the seat and carry them straight inside).
I guess I should evangalise cloth nappies: especially if you plan on having any *more* children after this one they'll save you a ton of money for a small amount of extra effort (washing and drying the things basically). Again, the parents network (or ebay) can be a great source of cheap second hand nappies if you don't want to buy new (or just want to try them out).
Charity shops are a great source of pristine clothes for babies; toddlers tend to wear stuff out so you end up buying new for them but babies just sit around :)
(I'd like to evangalise breast-feeding support too, but this can be a touchy subject for blokes to get involved in! Bug me if you {or your partner} want any references.)
PigAlien: "but the truth is, for all the people I know who've lost money in real estate, I know far more people who've done well."
People who lose money tend not to talk about it as much as those who make it.
Property can be a good investment. But do your sums first: at the very least, make sure you price in a rental income that includes some void time between tenants, insurance, agent cut if you're going to use a rental agency. Add in the longer term costs of house ownership if you're really intending to do the 'buy a house for life' thing that PigAlien has suggested: new roof at some point, repointing the brickwork, that kind of thing.
Over the long term, stocks have given a better return than property. However, the ability to gear your investment in property more easily than in stocks means that return can be multiplied. However, gearing multiplies the downside as well as the upside: get your sums wrong & you'll lose more than your original stake.
Do your own research...
Haven't watched the first episodes yet: they're sat on the mediabeast. We do have some major Who fans as friends (they have a full size Dalek in the living room...) so will be interested to see what they think of it.
Yup, the epinions people seem to like our breakmaker.
(Actually, there's a newer one than that which has a little tray you can fill with nuts / whatever & it will drop them into the mixture automatically for you at the appropriate moment. You probably want that one...)
OK, we're obviously the exception here, but we use our breakmaker three, four times a week & have done ever since it was given to us about five years ago.
It helps that a) it makes decent brown / wholemeal bread (not all breadmakers can manage this I'm told: we have a Panasonic one which always seems to get the best reviews in Which?, Good Housekeeping etc etc) and b) we need to make gluten-free bread as well. We also spent a while using it to make cow's milk-free bread (most supermarket bread contains some kind of cow's milk product) when my wife was breastfeeding & any milk in her diet would cause the baby to have major stomach cramps in the night.
No, the breadmaker doesn't make bread as good as a decent baker, but it does make bread that's miles better than ordinary supermarket bread & since we don't have a bakery within anything like a reasonable distance, I'll take the breadmaker bread over the supermarket bread any time.
The Diamond book claims that a lot of different archeologists have looked very very hard for fish bones precisely because it seems so unlikely that the Greenland norse refused to eat any fish & they never found any. Obviously me quoting this to you third hand via Diamond isn't necessarily going to be convincing though.
Jared Diamond's 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed' talks a lot about the Greenland norse. Apparently there are no fish bones to be found in any of the archeology, leading some archeologists to eventually conclude that the Greenland norse refused to eat fish for some cultural reason. Needless to say, eliminating a major source of protein from their diet didn't do their long term survival chances much good...
Dreadnought: The jurabib package defines a \footcite{} command which DTRT I believe. Jurabib is described as "enabling automated citation with BIBTEX for legal studies and the humanities." See the documentation for the gory details.
The footbib bibliography style & opcit package are also possibilities.
petebeast: The reason people design in firefox rather than IE is that firefox follows the web standards much more closely. It's generally much easier to take something that works in firefox (and by extension any other standards compliant browser) and tweak the CSS for IE than the other way around.
If you're not sure about this particular group, then consider a donation to Médecine Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders in the US). They're in Darfur as I type...
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "Curious, George: Your favorite media player sucks."
mplayer?
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "[Curious George] Dad-to-be?"
Erk. When we went to NCT classes before the first one, they'd gone all 'encounter-groupy', much to the disgust of the woman who ran our class who was forced to keep saying 'and how does everyone feel about x/y/z' after every new nugget of information. She obviously didn't want to, so she just churned out the same stock two phrases over and over again — it drove me up the wall, although I think I managed to restrain my eye-rolling instincts. Maybe they've gone back to being more 'normal' since, but at the time it felt like being in group therapy, which wasn't exactly what we were after. It's the NCT bring and buy sale events you want :)
posted by pharm 17 years ago
I had to go and look that word up...but no, turning breasts "inside out by eversion of an inner surface" wasn't really what I meant!
posted by pharm 17 years ago
Congratulations! Hmm. Baby stuff: Try not to rush out and buy *everything* all at once. There's a huge informal parent network out there that cycles stuff round and round -- if you don't have any friends who already have children then go along to the nearest NCT event. You might find that a full 'travel system' doesn't really fit your lifestyle; they tend to be heavier than dedicated pushchairs for a start, so if you're going to be lugging the thing up and down steps (into the house say) then you might want to consider getting a separate car seat and folding pushchair. We bought a Jane Matrix & a Maclaren Techno which made a good combination (the Jane goes flat in the car, so if they're asleep you can just take them out in the seat and carry them straight inside). I guess I should evangalise cloth nappies: especially if you plan on having any *more* children after this one they'll save you a ton of money for a small amount of extra effort (washing and drying the things basically). Again, the parents network (or ebay) can be a great source of cheap second hand nappies if you don't want to buy new (or just want to try them out). Charity shops are a great source of pristine clothes for babies; toddlers tend to wear stuff out so you end up buying new for them but babies just sit around :) (I'd like to evangalise breast-feeding support too, but this can be a touchy subject for blokes to get involved in! Bug me if you {or your partner} want any references.)
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "Raising the Dead:"
I read an article in the Observer about this a while back. It shook me up for days afterwards; just reading about watching the video was bad enough.
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "What Statistics on Home Sales aren't telling us."
PigAlien: "but the truth is, for all the people I know who've lost money in real estate, I know far more people who've done well." People who lose money tend not to talk about it as much as those who make it. Property can be a good investment. But do your sums first: at the very least, make sure you price in a rental income that includes some void time between tenants, insurance, agent cut if you're going to use a rental agency. Add in the longer term costs of house ownership if you're really intending to do the 'buy a house for life' thing that PigAlien has suggested: new roof at some point, repointing the brickwork, that kind of thing. Over the long term, stocks have given a better return than property. However, the ability to gear your investment in property more easily than in stocks means that return can be multiplied. However, gearing multiplies the downside as well as the upside: get your sums wrong & you'll lose more than your original stake. Do your own research...
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "Guinevere Project cancelled"
Haven't watched the first episodes yet: they're sat on the mediabeast. We do have some major Who fans as friends (they have a full size Dalek in the living room...) so will be interested to see what they think of it.
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "Curious Bread Making George"
Yup, the epinions people seem to like our breakmaker. (Actually, there's a newer one than that which has a little tray you can fill with nuts / whatever & it will drop them into the mixture automatically for you at the appropriate moment. You probably want that one...)
posted by pharm 17 years ago
OK, we're obviously the exception here, but we use our breakmaker three, four times a week & have done ever since it was given to us about five years ago. It helps that a) it makes decent brown / wholemeal bread (not all breadmakers can manage this I'm told: we have a Panasonic one which always seems to get the best reviews in Which?, Good Housekeeping etc etc) and b) we need to make gluten-free bread as well. We also spent a while using it to make cow's milk-free bread (most supermarket bread contains some kind of cow's milk product) when my wife was breastfeeding & any milk in her diet would cause the baby to have major stomach cramps in the night. No, the breadmaker doesn't make bread as good as a decent baker, but it does make bread that's miles better than ordinary supermarket bread & since we don't have a bakery within anything like a reasonable distance, I'll take the breadmaker bread over the supermarket bread any time.
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "The Fate of Greenland's Vikings"
The Diamond book claims that a lot of different archeologists have looked very very hard for fish bones precisely because it seems so unlikely that the Greenland norse refused to eat any fish & they never found any. Obviously me quoting this to you third hand via Diamond isn't necessarily going to be convincing though.
posted by pharm 17 years ago
Jared Diamond's 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed' talks a lot about the Greenland norse. Apparently there are no fish bones to be found in any of the archeology, leading some archeologists to eventually conclude that the Greenland norse refused to eat fish for some cultural reason. Needless to say, eliminating a major source of protein from their diet didn't do their long term survival chances much good...
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "Furious George"
Dreadnought: The jurabib package defines a \footcite{} command which DTRT I believe. Jurabib is described as "enabling automated citation with BIBTEX for legal studies and the humanities." See the documentation for the gory details. The footbib bibliography style & opcit package are also possibilities.
posted by pharm 17 years ago
In "Stealth campaign of super-wealthy to repeal U.S. federal estate tax revealed."
There wouldn't be much point paying for all that lobbying if the rewards didn't exceed the costs involved...
posted by pharm 18 years ago
In "Woman misunderestimates Internet."
The link to the dating site is via "Commission Junction". ie it's an affiliate link. Could be a very neat bit of marketing...
posted by pharm 18 years ago
In "Curious George: CSS & browsers"
Tweaks to avoid IE bugs. See, um, http://glish.com/css/ for some example layouts, complete with fully commented CSS.
posted by pharm 18 years ago
petebeast: The reason people design in firefox rather than IE is that firefox follows the web standards much more closely. It's generally much easier to take something that works in firefox (and by extension any other standards compliant browser) and tweak the CSS for IE than the other way around.
posted by pharm 18 years ago
In "This guy is great."
The crookedtimber crowd discussed this a while ago. Basically they thought the NYT was full of it.
posted by pharm 19 years ago
(limited to the most recent 20 comments)