Italy

A lot of people, eager to see more than just Baedeker country, have kindly asked me what they should strive to see on their first trip to Italy. Over the years, I ended up giving enough advice that I should have made me an expert, so here you are with my thoughts.

What’s Italy all about?

Each country has its own ideal of its reason for being. The United States of America, say, calls itself the Land of the Free; Japan ended up being the Land of the Morning Sun. Italians call their home “the Beautiful Country”.

Weight Table - Perl

The Perl Version

I really liked the Tcl version, but at some point I didn’t want to stick to an application any more. A web interface would have been much better for my needs.

This change by itself would not have prompted a new implementation, but I realized that there would be no GUI interface, and that hence the tables and graphs would have to be built on the fly. Tcl’s sluggish response and the need for external software made me wonder whether that was the right approach.

Weight Table - TCL

Weight – The Tcl Version

Ok, the real name of the program is gewicht.tcl, and it is correctly TCL, since it’s an acronym. Now that we’ve got the FAQ done, let’s move on to greater things…

The only external package used is TkTable. The weight input is a table, so that you can see past dates and modify the data there, or even input many days at the same time. If TkTable is not available, don’t despair – you’ll still be able to input today’s weight (but not the bodyfat) very conveniently.

Weight Table - The Table

This is the current chart of Marco’s body fat. (Click on picture to see other views)

Software - Overview

This section deals with the public domain software I’ve written or collaborated with. The major projects, all accessible from the menu at the left, are:

• HTML Tree – a way to generate a static site from an XML file and a directory structure. Essentially, HTML Tree applies a template to a set of files and adds navigation based on the XML file structure. If you want a (fast) static site instead of a dynamic site, this might be the tool for you.
• Weight Table – an implementation of a weight table. Started as a tool to help me lose weight, and became then a challenge in itself. The first thing I implement when I am faced with a new programming language is the weight table. Currently, implementations are available in Tcl/Tk, Perl, Java (not published), and PHP/Joomla.
• Polar HRM – I used to ride my bike all over the place, and it annoyed me that I had to use the (quite horrible) Polar software to get graphs of my workout data. Thanks to Dave Bailey, who created software to read Polar data, I added my own twist and started generating my own workout graphs, integrated into HTML Tree above.
• Passwords – com_passwords is a component that allows you to store secure content on your site. You can add notes, and all content that is in bold face (strong or bold tags) will be obfuscated in plain view. A separate, encrypted copy of the content is stored and can be retrieved by presenting the correct passphrase. Don’t lose the passphrase, or your data is lost for good!
• Joomla Synchronization – frustrated with having to be online to edit my site, I started thinking of using Blogg-X to do the deed. That caused more frustration, as the current version doesn’t work on Linux, while the previous version doesn’t work with Joomla 1.0.15. So I started thinking about a different tack: use Joomla to edit a Joomla site!

Traveling - Overview

{moscontentlink:Italy|Alternate display text}

Computers - Overview

A geek like me needs a whole section on computers. I tried to categorize my current public work in two general sections:

1. {moscontentlink:Software} where I discuss software projects I have been or am currently working on. All of these are in the public domain, typically licensed using some variant of the GPL v2 appropriate for the circumstances.
2. A general section on Computers, technically a blog, in which I put everything else – including hardware reviews, Linux tips, etc.

Escape from Alcatraz

{moszoomimglink:dynamism}Somehow ever since Louie told me he liked ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, I had a fondness for the men and women who attempt this gruesome race. You have to swim from Alcatraz to Baker Beach (don’t forget the white sharks on the way!), then cycle around the Presidio forever, and finally run up and down the cliffs.

Not a fun thing to do, if you ask me. But quite a few people like it, and I happened to stumble across them on a Sunday ride to Marin. I was wondering why I wasn’t allowed to park at the Bridge, until the friendly park ranger told me Escape from Alcatraz was on. I stopped and took a few pics, and reminded myself I had to be better prepared next year.

Download

Generics

While both versions are under source code control, I have not set up external CVS access. If I ever get enough interest, I shall definitely either get that going, or switch to SourceForge. For now, though, you’ll have to download a .tgz file and install from there.

Please note: the current version of the PHP/Joomla component is not available here, since the project is hosted at joomlacode.org!

Tcl version – [download]

I ran the Tcl version both on Windows and Linux. All recent development occurred using Linux, though, so your milage on Windows (and/or on other platforms supported by Tcl/Tk) may vary.

How I Lost Weight

Who doesn’t want to lose weight? Well, I am actually fine with mine, it’s just that if I don’t keep it in check, it goes on a journey skywards. I used to be very fat, lost the weight, but to this day it is really easy for me to put it back on again.
A diary of weight over time is a good start to keep track of things. You start understanding the interaction between food, exercise and pounds much better when those numbers are written down. You know better how your weight ranges between Christmas and Labor Day (my respective top and bottom).	| 12/25/2000 | 184.3 | | 9/9/2001 | 165.0 |
—
Since I had a computer and a little spare time, I took the table I had and made a chart out of it. It looked really very random, and it didn’t add much value. Other than giving me a chance to use some nice technology.
The breakthrough came as I started wondering what my average curve would look like. It was easy enough to compute and plot, the most interesting task being correctly working around empty spots where I didn’t record my weight. The yo-yo effect was clearly visible in a sine curve that moved up and down. Instead of starving myself on one day and overeating the next, I started thinking of my average weight as the metric of relevance.
The next major step came much later, when I bought a bodyfat-measuring scale. I am big time into cycling, and I knew that my bodyfat was a major issue on climbs. So I watched the two curves (weight and bodyfat %) very closely. Unfortunately, both curves tended to oscillate widely.
I started thinking the scale was not as smart and accurate as it said, since bodyfat and weight were swinging so randomly. Fortunately, I didn’t stop thinking there, but put two and two together and looked at how the total amount of fat varied over time. And there I had my Eureka! moment. Total fat was far more stable, and was ultimately the correct indicator of how I was doing. While drinking a gallon of water would have pushed my weight up eight pounds and my bodyfat accordingly down – the total amount of fat would have stayed the same.

Of course, all of this wouldn’t have been possible without my chart program telling me all these things. So I am grateful for its role, and want to share it with you, so that you can enjoy the pains of weight monitoring with me. 🙂