Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

I’ve found since I started teaching Sociology that being up-to-date on local news can be useful (though it is less useful at my new school where many of the students are from other cities). This leads me to read the local paper, which is often relatively quotidian – thefts, car accidents, political debates, etc. Occasionally, however, I hear about stuff in the national media happening in my local area. There are two big stories (from the last couple of days) that have made national news. First up, the Cuban under 21 men’s soccer team came to Tampa to play for an Olympic qualifier and 7 of the players and an assistant coach defected. This isn’t all that uncommon and there isn’t anything particularly special about Tampa in this case, but it is big news and a commentary on Cuba. The second story didn’t make national headlines in the major papers, but it was picked up by a tech website that has a particular beef with Scientology: Slashdot noted the recent denial by a local judge of an injunction against protests at Scientology’s headquarters in Clearwater (which makes up part of the big three cities here: Tampa, St. Pete, and Clearwater). Again, this probably isn’t a “Clearwater/St. Pete/Tampa” news item so much as a Scientology news item, but I am always interested in things happening locally. (Also, there are supposed to be big protests this weekend at the headquarters… If I had time I’d go watch.)

On an interesting side note, how many of you, my faithful readers, have ever heard of the Dvorak keyboard? I’d heard about it quite a few times and had only ever heard that it was far more efficient and ergonomic than the traditional QWERTY keyboard. In my never-ending attempt to make typing easier on my hands (since I spend a large portion of my days in front of computers), I started practicing on a Dvorak keyboard (you can change your settings on your computer to get it working), only to get frustrated, think things through a bit, and begin to wonder how much of a difference Dvorak could really make. Turns out, not much, if at all. The Dvorak keyboard is often used to illustrate the idea that vested interests can overcome practicality and pragmatism when it comes to the adoption of inventions (in fact, Jared Diamond mentions Dvorak in this sense in Guns, Germs, and Steel). Having heard only that side of the argument dozens of times, I started repeating it (sorry to anyone who heard that from me; I was wrong and am now admitting it). But the frustration of trying to adopt the Dvorak keyboard eventually led me to search out criticisms and I ended up finding the one linked above in an economics journal (I know, it’s an economics journal…). Turns out, most of the “research” indicating Dvorak is (1) faster and (2) more ergonomic was done by… Guess who? August Dvorak, the person who developed it, patented it, and profited from it. Impartial studies indicate minor speed benefits (maybe 2% to 5%) and no difference in ergonomics. Additionally, the time required to retrain an accomplished typist (I type about 110 wpm on QWERTY) won’t ever be recouped in faster typing times – you’re better off spending more time training yourself on the QWERTY as you can actually get faster with additional training. So, if you’ve ever considered switching to Dvorak after already becoming proficient with QWERTY, don’t bother. If, however, you really think the 2%-5% speed advantage is worth it, I guess you could train your kids using Dvorak (though they’ll have a hell of time moving from keyboard to keyboard and changing settings on computers). One final note, I did buy a couple ergonomic keyboards (where the keys are split) and have noticed a substantial improvement in the pain I experience as a result of typing – the angles make a lot of sense and I highly recommend ergonomic keyboards.

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Now playing: Dave Matthews Band – Some Devil
via FoxyTunes

Here’s an interesting news item I rediscovered in the NYtimes today: raising animals for meat releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than does the entire travel industry combined. This is based on research conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. I’m sure some of my regular readers will take issue with this, but it is kind of intriguing. Add to that the growing evidence that vegetarianism is a pretty healthy diet (possibly not the healthiest – a small amount of meat may actually be slightly healthier; see references below) and the connection to IQ (though not causal) and things are looking up for vegetarianism. Maybe this is just confirmation bias, as we all have a tendency to look for evidence to support the things we believe/want to believe. But some of this is also pretty good science. Anyway, here are the references:

• Cho, Eunyoung, Wendy Y. Chen, David J. Hunter, Meir J. Stampfer, Graham A. Colditz, Susan E. Hankinson, et al. 2006. “Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women.” Archives of Internal Medicine 166(20).
• Gale, Catharine R, Ian J Deary, Ingrid Schoon, and G David Batty. 2007. “IQ in childhood and vegetarianism in adulthood: 1970 British cohort study.” BMJ 334(7587):245.
• Spencer, E.A., P.N. Appleby, G.K. Davey, and T.J. Key. 2003. “Diet and body mass index in 38000 EPIC-Oxford meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans.” International Journal for Obesity Related Metabolic Disorders 27(6):728-34.
• Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, Cees de Haan, et al. 2006. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Well, Debi actually found it… But it was my idea…

Have you ever opened a tin can only to use about half the contents? Your then stuck with either putting the rest of the contents in something else to store them in a refrigerator or doing what we’ve done for the last 6 years – putting a piece of plastic wrap or tinfoil over the can and sticking it in the refrigerator. While the first approach is more hygenic and results in better storage outcomes, it also messes up more dishes and is a little more time consuming. The second result doesn’t mess up more dishes, but isn’t very secure (easy to spill what’s inside the can) and doesn’t have a good storage outcome.

For years I figured there had to be a better solution. With the prevalence of plastic lids in consumer goods these days, someone had to have had the idea of just marketing lids for tin cans. Someone probably has, but I couldn’t find one. So, after thinking about this for several months and searching on the internet and in my local Kroger for plastic lids for tin cans, I finally decided that we’d just hunt through the Kroger until we found a product that had the right-sized lid to reseal a tin can and buy it.

So, Sunday, Debi and I went out shopping and found ourselves facing the momentous task of trying to fit a plastic lid to a standard-sized tin can (usually 15 to 16 ounces in weight). I actually assigned Debi the task of finding the lid while I did our regular shopping, but I tried on a few here and there as I went. I felt kind of odd doing so, but since I only tried a couple, I wasn’t too embarrassed.

Debi, on the other hand, got a lot of weird looks as she walked up and down aisles pulling off lids and trying to fit them to a tin can she was carrying. She tried yogurt lids, coffee can lids, etc. She must have tried 50 lids before she found it… Yep, she found the holy grail of food storage – a plastic lid that fits snugly over a regular sized tin can. Go ahead and guess where you think she found it… Come on, guess! Don’t skip ahead and peek; that’ll ruin the fun.

After searching high and low, our food storage savior turned out to be… (drum roll please)… Hershey’s chocolate syrup! Yep, that’s right. Hershey makes the plastic bottle chocolate syrup, with which most people are probably familiar. But they also distribute it in a 16 oz tin can with a plastic lid so you can reseal it for storage. Plus, the cans are less than $2.00 a piece. I’m guessing that anyone selling the lids individually would probably charge more than that for them… Anyway, we bought two! We now have a quick and easy solution for storing tin cans in the refrigerator when we haven’t used all of the contents (plus a ton of chocolate syrup). No more tin foil lids, no more spills! Halleluah! I see the light! And the light says “Hershey!”