The Body Fat Setpoint, Part IV: Changing the Setpoint

Prevention is Easier than CureExperiments in animals have confirmed what common sense suggests: it's easier to prevent health problems than to reverse them. Still, many health conditions can be improved, and in some cases reversed, through lifestyle interventions. It's important to have realistic expectations and to be kind to oneself. Cultivating a drill sergeant mentality will not improve quality of life, and isn't likely to be sustainable.Fat...

it's the weekend....be girly.*images courtesy of v., coco and kelley, eileen kathryn boyd, raina kattelson, mrs. blandi...

On MRF factorization

Recently, I figured out I didn't understand two simple things about MRFs:When we are talking about MRF factorization, in the formulation of the likelihoodshould we consider all the cliques in the network or only maximal ones?Generally, why do we have a right to factorize the likelihood this way?I asked some folks, and it turned out that nobody understood this basic property clearly (In spite of Dmitry...

camouflage

there is a paint color by ben moore that i am totally in love with called camouflage (2143-40). it is a beautiful soft green without screaming "green". i used it on the exterior of a beach house along with the accent color, alexandria beige (HC-77). these images remind me of how pretty this color is.*images courtesy of mod girl, martha stewart living, house and home, southern acce...

"me time"

have you ever suffered from pregnancy meltdowns (where you turn completely crazy for no apparent reason)? i had one last night....it was caused by the library calling to tell me to return "elmo's potty time" for the second time. i sat on the couch and shed some tears and said i need some "me time". it lasted about ten minutes...then i felt silly and ate ice cream.ha....being pregnant- isn't it...

The Body Fat Setpoint, Part III: Dietary Causes of Obesity

[2013 update: I've edited this post to remove elements that I feel were poorly supported.  I now think that changes in the setpoint are at least partially secondary to passive overconsumption of calories, particularly low quality calories]What Caused the Setpoint to Change?We have two criteria to narrow our search for the cause of modern fat gain:It has to be new to the human environmentAt some point, it has to cause leptin resistance or otherwise...

On image labelling

Labelling data is a labourous side task that arises in most computer vision projects. Since the developers usually don't want to spend their time for such a dumb work, there exist a number of workarounds. Let me enumerate some I've heard of:At Academia, the task of labelling is usually being endured on [PhD] students' broad shoulders. The funny part is the students are not always enrolled in the relevant project. At Graphics & Media Lab, students...

OpenCV bindings

If you are a computer vision researcher or an engineer, you cannot miss OpenCV library. Even if you are not, it could be useful to you. For example, here is a funny application: camera shots a programmer's face when a merge fails. If you are not familiar with the library, I recommend you to look through the list of its features on Wikipedia.OpenCV is written in C to be extremely portable (for example, to DSP). The fact is C is not very popular nowadays....

just because

i really like these images....i'm off to get my weekly shot. it's loads of fun but it's keeping my little man safe and sound and hopefully (fingers crossed) preventing me from going on bed rest.*images courtesy of aubrey road/ martha stewart, everything fabul...

Krauss's New Article on Saturated Fat Intervention Trials

Dr. Ronald Krauss's group just published another article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, this time on the intervention trials examining the effectiveness of reducing saturated fat and/or replacing it with other nutrients, particularly carbohydrate or polyunsaturated seed oils. I don't agree with everything in this article. For example, they cite the Finnish Mental Hospital trial. They openly acknowledge some contradictory data,...

*sigh*

i'm not typically one to hang out in a field w/ just a blazer and some rain boots on, but this picture is just about the cutest thing ever....and makes me long for spring....*images courtesy of sweetie pie pumpkin noodle, tracery interiors, design sponge, port...

for those interested....

i have officially started the designer's attic again......maybe i'll see some of y'all over there :)today's deal: ralph lauren wallpaper....*images courtesy of the desk of annie, the designer's at...

Canadians Break Records at H.U.R.T. 100

100 Mile Finishers:-Gary Robbins North Vancouver BC 20:12 1st Overall; new CR (photo)-Tracy Garneau Veron BC 24:06 3rd Overall; 1st Female; new CR (photo)-Jamie Nott Calgary AB 31:40 17th Overall-Monica Scholz Jerseyville ON 32:02 18th Overall; 2nd Female-Matthew Session Burnaby BC 32:10 19th Overall-Charlotte Vasarhelyi Breslau ON 32:28 22nd Overall; 3rd Female-Tasha Nott Calgary, ON 35:50 46th Overall;...

Computer Vision: Fact & Fiction

I was surfing the web today and came upon Stanford CS 223B course (Introduction to Computer Vision), which is said to be fucking hard. The first course homework is to watch the series of films "Computer Vision: Fact & Fiction" where computer vision stars (like David Forsyth and Andrew Zisserman) analyse computer vision technologies featured in Hollywood movies. The videos require no background in Vision and might be interesting to everyone. To...

The Body Fat Setpoint, Part II: Mechanisms of Fat Gain

The Timeline of Fat GainModern humans are unusual mammals in that fat mass varies greatly between individuals. Some animals carry a large amount of fat for a specific purpose, such as hibernation or migration. But all individuals of the same sex and social position will carry approximately the same amount of fat at any given time of year. Likewise, in hunter-gatherer societies worldwide, there...

it's the weekend....

don't work late, enjoy a fire, have a dinner party w/ friends, sleep in on saturday, eat breakfast in bed, pamper yourself to a long shower....whatever you do, enjoy it! and i'll see you next week :)*images courtesy of coco cozy, high street market blog, style swoon, bippity boppity boo, katy ell...

The disruption of scholarly publishing [in Russia]

You know, I am relatively new to the big science. The first 2-column paper I read was Antonin Guttman's paper about R-Trees.1 It was about 2.5 years ago. So, I've never used published journals or conference proceedings. I have been wondering why do they spend money to printing journals if the researchers usually publish their papers on their home pages. Recently, I've read the article about the disruption of scholarly publishing by Michael Clarke....

New Saturated Fat Review Article by Dr. Ronald Krauss

Dr. Ronald Krauss's group has published a review article titled "Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease". As anyone who's familiar with the literature could have predicted (including myself), they found no association whatsoever between saturated fat intake and heart disease or stroke:A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant...

love....the contrast you get with a dark grout and a classic, white subway tile. *images courtesy of torie jayne, city sage, marley and lockyer, inspiration for everyday liv...

Testing machine learning algorithms

Tests are the only way to estimate the quality of a machine learning algorithm in practice. In order to prove your algorithm is usable, you need to design good tests. To design test you should collect the data and split them into the train set and the test set.Machine learning theorists say that the train and the test sets should come from the single probability distribution (unless they are talking about transfer learning or some kinds of on-line...

future makeover...

i want to add some charm to our front porch....the first thing that would make it cuter would be wonderful ferns and great potted plants by the door, but considering it's january, i am starting by thinking about the front door. I have been in love with the front door from martha stewart forever. Our door is red and I plan on keeping it that way but I thought it would be fun and inexpensive to paint...

Paleo is Going Mainstream

There was an article on the modern "Paleolithic" lifestyle in the New York Times today. I thought it was a pretty fair treatment of the subject, although it did paint it as more macho and carnivorous than it needs to be. It features three attractive NY cave people. It appeared in the styles section here. Paleo is going mainstream. I expect media health authorities to start getting defensive about it any minute now.[2013 update.  Did I call...

baby it's cold outside...

it's suppose to be super cold this weekend so here are some things to ponder if your bored:1. have you seen 500 days of summer? soooo good and the guy is really cute in it...you should really watch it and then google and see where you recognize the guy from (it will make you laugh).2. feeling like cleaning? i have a huge obsession with mrs. meyers (kind of funny since i am not good at cleaning)...geranium...

my color or lack of...

lots of people have been asking to see pictures of the house...believe me, you will definitely see pictures, as well as projects that i hope to be starting soon...but right now, i feel like it's lacking my favorite color and that i am swimming in a sea of khaki....i like khaki, don't get me wrong, i just like it combined with other colors!*images courtesy of creature comforts, massie color, sweetie...

you know, i'm not one to stick to a resolution....and now that i think about it, i don't think i really make a point of making them....does that make me a terrible person?!! but i will say that when i saw that 'love life' pic, i immediately thought 'that's pretty cool'- a great motto to live by....*images courtesy of copy cat chic, harper and harley, high street market, lotus b...