Fuel just leaped over $4
Apr 12, 2012 ~ filed under: English & USA & Well-informed ~ 0 comments »Okay – this entry is just for the record:
Tonight on Thursday the 12th of April 2012 the fuel price in the Waterville Maine area went over four dollars the first time. 
4!
That’s a lot for around here…especially in the poorer Central Maine.
I also already feel that this is a high price although I have been here in Maine only since last July, but since then the price just rose so fast! Shortly after I bought my super-Subaru fuel was at $3.17. Only three months later it is at $4. That’s a quick rise! 
I should add that the fuel price in the US is measured by the gallon, which is 3.8 liters.
While $4/gallon is still “cheap” compared to German fuel, which is around 1.70 Euro PER LITER (= $6.45/gallon!!), most people in the US, especially in rural areas like Maine, drive their car a lot more than in Germany. There is no public transport in about 90% of Maine and people often drive one or two hours to work. mr.Natey drives 1.5 hours to his work with a heavy duty Volvo wagon (which uses less fuel than my light Subaru…which really annoys me).
First I thought gas is so cheap here…compared to Germany, but I only get 300 miles (483 km) to the tank (60 liters?) and paying around $55 to fill it up. My beloved car gets 22 miles/gallon, which is a bit low (the mister and his Volvo get 28 miles/gallon, newer cars can get up to 50 miles/gallon).
Oh and yes, my car is also an automatic (I hate automatics…grrr), but I could not find a manual car that ticked all the boxes. Manual cars are way more fuel efficient…at least the older models. My car is a 92, good old boy, but I guess I still need to break him in a bit more to reach the estimated 24 to 29 miles per gallon. But even the latest 2011 model of the Subaru Outback Wagon (the one I was going to get), the fuel economy is not much better than mine; almost worse with only 18 to 25 miles per gallon. Now think of those heavy duty trucks and SUV’s that are driving around everywhere….I don’t understand how people are willing to afford them.
Well, imagine a carved wooden board that is hanging on Planet Cola’s header saying “we’re at 4 dollars per gallon”…knowing that the only way is up and tomorrow is Friday the 13th (by the way).
Does someone drive a hybrid or electric car yet?
Who rides his/her bike to work?
I never see people on bikes here. There are no bike lanes around here and the mister said riding a scooter is even too dangerous…sigh…I need a horse and a cart!!!! And I HAVE seen those in people’s yards! Yes, a little bit old Wild West is still alive, I tell ‘ya!
I want that magic sugar pill…but don’t tell me!
Apr 11, 2012 ~ filed under: English & Well-informed ~ 4 comments »10 interesting facts about the placebo effect:
1. Given a sugar pill (which has no physical effect) people with certain conditions not only report feeling better, but see actual improvements in their condition.
2. Given two sugar pills, people report more benefit than one sugar pill.
3. If someone believes a placebo has a negative effect, they can experience that negative effect. This is called a nocebo.
4. If a sugar pill is described as a muscle relaxant it will cause muscle relaxation. If the same type of sugar pill is described as causing muscle tension, it will produce muscle tension.
5. Placebos can produce the same side-effects that the real drug the person thinks they’re taking would also produce.
6. When conducting a study, it is an error to assume that your treatment produced the improvement and everyone seeing improvement under the placebo are “only” experiencing placebo effects. It could very well be that everyone who experience an improvement were experiencing a placebo effect.
7. Saltwater placebos administered via syringe are more effective than sugar pills.
8. Pacemakers can improve heart function after they’ve been put in, but before they’ve been switched on.
9a. Give people a sugar pill and tell them it’s a stimulant and they get stimulated.
9b. Give people a relaxant but tell them it’s a stimulant and they get more stimulated than anyone in 9a or 9c.
9c. Give people a relaxant, tell them it’s a relaxant: They have more molecules of the relaxant in their blood plasma than the people in 9b.
10. We’re still pretty confused about the placebo effect and it’s causes. There’s a mishmash of different things going on and we’re still picking them apart. Also, it’s really hard to design studies!
I read this on Google+ (via Dustin Wyatt) and wanted to share it here because I think there are some really interesting points. Isn’t #8 just crazy? Or #4?
Of course I was not the only one wondering about the sources for these claims, and Mr Wyatt was so friendly to add them; you can find them here.
I am so sure that our mind is able to “give” us an illness just because we “think” we are having something. Or because we are afraid that we would get ill. I’m convinced that our mind is the most powerful “mechanism” (if one can call it that) of the human body. I often think of things that could happen and then they are happening. Mostly they happen if I speak them out loud. I’m really concentrating on not speaking certain things of my mind out loud (which is hard, but I’m getting better at it, haha).
In regards to pills I actually had a similar placebo effect happening to me when I was a teenager. At a party I had a bad headache and someone offered me a pain reliever in form of a small tablet. Not even an hour later I felt fine; my headache was gone. The next day that “friend” told me it was not a headache tablet; it was just a small sugar pill. Something like dextrose. I could not believe it as it really helped with my headache. Crazy, isn’t it?
Do you have a placebo experience to share?
Ich bin ein Netz-Kind
Apr 3, 2012 ~ filed under: Deutsch & English & Well-informed ~ 0 comments »DE
Wir sind mit dem Internet und im Internet aufgewachsen. Darum sind wir anders. Das ist der entscheidende, aus unserer Sicht allerdings überraschende Unterschied: Wir “surfen” nicht im Internet und das Internet ist für uns kein “Ort” und kein “virtueller Raum”. Für uns ist das Internet keine externe Erweiterung unserer Wirklichkeit, sondern ein Teil von ihr: eine unsichtbare, aber jederzeit präsente Schicht, die mit der körperlichen Umgebung verflochten ist.
Ein wunderbarer Artikel (Piotr Czerski, uebersetzt aus dem Polnischen von Patrick Beuth und Andre Rudolph), den es lohnt zu lesen, und nicht nur, wenn man mit dem Internet aufgewachsen ist.
Wir verstehen nicht, warum wir einen festen Wohnsitz (absurd genug, so etwas überhaupt haben zu müssen) erst förmlich abmelden müssen, bevor wir uns an einem anderen anmelden können – als könnten die Behörden diese Sache nicht auch ohne unser Eingreifen regeln.
Ich habe einmal versucht, meinem Ami-Maenne meinen festen Wohnsitz zu erklaeren und habe nur einen Blick der Unverstaendnis erhalten. Verstaendlich irgendwie, wenn man mal wirklich drueber nachdenkt.
So, und nun ab und den gesamten Artikel lesen.
EN
Read the article in the English version here.
Spelling
Sep 14, 2010 ~ filed under: English & Well-informed ~ 2 comments »Why didn’t my readers let me know that I spelled my category folder name ‘Delicious’ wrong? The second ‘i’ was missing. Oh noooo! How embarassing.
Any other spelling mistakes? Please don’t hesitate and tell me. As you might know…I am a (correct) spelling junkie. 
Nothing is free? Oh yes, this (music) is
Aug 15, 2010 ~ filed under: English & Well-informed ~ 0 comments »All Smiles (guitarist from Grandaddy & Modest Mouse) is giving away a free album. A friend of mine posted this on facebook and I was curious but sceptical as usual. The download took about half an hour with my slow connection, but in the end you really get the whole album. They want you to “like” them on facebook (which I didn’t because I wanted to know if it really works and if I really like it). In a nutshell: I like their album. Good music! What is really free these days…okay, they might collect some data, but I’m not sharing my profile info with them, as I didn’t “like” them although I like their music. Making sense? Well…go for the free album if you haven’t got it yet or if you want to have some new music for free. I can really recommend it. Inspected and trusted by missycola.
When this screen comes up only click on “Download Now” and ignore the twitter and facebook stuff if you don’t feel sure about it.