You probably received an e-mail asking for your help to transfer several million dollars on behalf of the daughter of an important Nigerian head of state.  This is a social engineering scam that takes advantage of your gullibility and greed.

Another message in your mail box probably says that your on-line bank account has been canceled and that you need to verify the account data to restore access.  This type of scam is called “phishing” and it is generally linked to a fake or “spoof” web site designed to steal your account information.  If you fall for the scam, you will become a victim of identity theft and your compromised bank account will be drained.

The majority of spam e-mail in your inbox is most likely about how to get drugs without prescription.  The drugs can be sedatives, diet pills, or medications like Viagra for improved sexual performance.  Here is a small sample of typical junk mail.  Many of the spam e-mails are purposely misspelled to try to avoid spam filters and guarantee that they land in your mailbox.

Woodrow Hanson, Need any of the 3?..ViagraXanax vicodin valium?, 4:01 AM 3KB
Elba Sheridan, Ambien, Soma, Phentermin, and more without a prescription!, 3:58 AM 2KB
Mildred Thorpe, tips that are good for bed, 3:50 AM 2KB
Leroy Rutherford, We have great anti anxiety medications!!, 3:42 AM 3KB
Maria Cunningham, Much bigger, than you used to have it!, 3:35 AM 2KB
Adela Britton, Get all the medications you want online!, 3:15 AM 3KB
Dee Amos, prosolution pill, 3:13 AM 2KB
Joan Carson, good news for the bed, Tue, 7/21/09 3KB
Raymond Rollins, Get Vicodin Online - NoPRESCRIPTION Needed!, Tue, 7/21/09 3KB
Young Spears, Buy Hydrocodone Online from a US Pharmacy, Tue, 7/21/09 3KB
Leigh Trent, Acai Diet, lose weight without impossible diets, Tue, 7/21/09 4KB
Harriett Park, ORder ALL YOUR favorite meds online NO_PRES needed!, Tue, 7/21/09 2KB
Rich A. Robison, great web offer, Tue, 7/21/09 3KB

What is likely to happen if you respond to one of these messages?  One possibility is that you will get bilked.  You send your money to buy some drugs and you never see the drugs or your money.  To whom are you going to complain?  Will you complain to the police or some government agency that you did not get your illegal drugs?  Not very likely.  Another possibility is that your e-mail address is harvested by mass marketers to send you some more spam e-mail.   A third possibility is that the drugs that you get are fake and not what you expected.  The best thing to do is just to delete the junk mail.

The United States is the largest market for illegal drugs in the world.  America’s great hunger for drugs is what keeps the Mexican and Columbian drug cartels in business.  Many of the contacts for the distribution of illegal drugs start through the Internet using spam e-mail.

Learn about Drug Addiction

In the spring, I planted seeds for radishes, broccoli, tomatoes and turnips in the pots of the penthouse.

Some garden vegetables and herbs sprouted from seeds that dropped from the plants that I had last year.  When I harvest lettuce, I only take the side leaves and let the center stem grow.  Eventually, the lettuce develops blooms like dandelions and, if I leave it alone, I get a pot full of lettuce the next year.  When I harvest dill, I always allow some of the yellow flowers to develop into seeds, and it comes back year-after-year.  The sunflowers that sprouted from dropped seeds had to be thinned out because there were just too many for my small pots.

I already had a nice crop of radishes this year, but the broccoli does not want to bloom.  I saw some small florets, but they were too small to pick and they opened into tiny blue flowers.  I have been eating some of the broccoli leaves.  They are thick and chewy like cabbage.  The turnips really surprised me.  They grew very fast, and I chopped the greens and diced the roots to make vegetable soup.

Yesterday, when I walked by the balcony, I saw a rainbow that was so close that it seemed to be growing out of one my planters.  I did not try to reach for it because it is a 20-story drop to the ground.

I am not a great gum chewer, but I do chew gum when I drive at night on the highway.  The chewing action and the taste of the gum provide sensory stimuli that keep me from falling asleep at the wheel.

I recently bought some Wrigley’s spearmint gum which has a nice refreshing taste, and looked at the ingredients.  Big surprise!  After buying a product for years, you develop brand loyalty and you keep buying the same thing because you know what it is.  Or at least, you think you know.

Wrigley’s and many other manufacturers have changed their chewing gum formulations and added artificial sweeteners like aspartame and acesulfame potassium (acesulfame K).  I looked at a whole aisle of gums, including Eclipse which is also made by Wrigley, and Stride made by Cadbury Adams USA, LLC.  I could not find a single pack of mint-flavored gum in the whole drugstore that did not have artificial sweeteners.  I do not have much objection to acesulfame K, but I would rather avoid aspartame.  Aspartame is considered safe in the small amounts needed for diet foods, but it leaves an unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth.

Why are these artificial sweeteners added?  Look at the ingredients of Wrigley’s spearmint gum: sugar, gum base, dextrose, and corn syrup account for 98% of the ingredients.  The sugar, dextrose, and corn syrup are all very sweet, but they dissolve very fast when the gum is chewed.  The artificial sweeteners stay around and give a long-lasting sweet sensation.  A stick of gum weighs 2.7 grams; sugars account for 2 grams (74% of the weight) and provide 10 calories.

Everything changes with time.  Nothing is the way it used to be, and it is unlikely that things will go back to the way they were.  I suppose that is progress, but I miss the gum with no artificial sweeteners.  Maybe I will switch to carrots and celery sticks.

Learn how to read food labels

I recently mentioned the interesting digital human modeling work being done at the University of Washington.

From a published video, I was able to get images corresponding to several important BMI points for a male model, but the video did not have a full range of proportions for a female going from a very thin body to a very fat body.  I contacted Professor Brian Curless at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at UW and he kindly provided female images for BMI points corresponding to the start of anorexia, minimum normal BMI, middle normal BMI, highest normal BMI, obesity, and morbid obesity.

Although every individual is different, the pictures provide representative images of how a person with a specific BMI might look.  When you compute your BMI, you can refer to the pictures and ask yourself: “Do I really look like that?”  The answer is usually “Yes.”

Try the Body Mass Index (BMI) Calculator

In web design, you often have to display a table that is too long and ruins the aesthetics of the page.  The ideal thing to do is to scroll the body of the table while leaving the headings fixed.  The design of the HTML didn’t quite get it right.  You would think that the following code would solve the problem by just scrolling the body enclosed within the <tbody> tags.  It almost works in FireFox, except that a horizontal scroll bar is added, and it is ignored in other browsers.

This code does NOT work:

<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" border="1" width="300" >
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>col 1 heading</th>
      <th>col 2 heading</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody style="height:48px; overflow:auto;">
    <tr>
      <td>col 1 data 1</td>
      <td>col 2 data 1</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>col 1 data 2</td>
      <td>col 2 data 2</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>col 1 data 3</td>
      <td>col 2 data 3</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

There are solutions posted on the Internet that solve the problem by using JavaScript to cope with browser idiosyncrasies, but they are not general solutions.

It is possible to have a table with a scrolling body and fixed header with only HTML and CSS. The solution is to use three tables.  An outer table consists of two rows.  The top row contains a table for the heading and the bottom row contains a <div> containing the table for the scrollable body.  The outer table and the <div> container  have to be 25 pixels wider than the tables for the heading and the body to allow room for the vertical scroll bar.  The column widths of the tables are defined through CSS.

The following code works for all browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera):

<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="325">
  <tr>
    <td>
       <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" border="1" width="300" >
         <tr>
            <th>col 1 heading</th>
            <th>col 2 heading</th>
         </tr>
       </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
       <div style="width:325px; height:48px; overflow:auto;">
         <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" border="1" width="300" >
           <tr>
             <td>col 1 data 1</td>
             <td>col 2 data 1</td>
           </tr>
           <tr>
             <td>col 1 data 2</td>
             <td>col 2 data 2</td>
           </tr>
           <tr>
             <td>col 1 data 3</td>
             <td>col 2 data 3</td>
           </tr>
         </table>
       </div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Look at the code for the table above

We hear a lot about the “Mediterranean Diet” and its positive effects on health.  A study published in 1970 found that people from Crete had exceptionally low death rates from heart disease, despite moderate to high intake of fat.[1] The Cretan diet consists mostly of olive oil, bread, abundant fruit and vegetables, fish, and a moderate amount of dairy foods and wine.

Many other Mediterranean countries follow similar diets with variations depending on the local resources.  In general, these diets include high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits, and vegetables.  There is moderate consumption of cheese and yogurt, moderate consumption of wine and fish, and low consumption of meat and meat products.  The total fat in this diet is 25% to 35% of calories, with saturated fat at 8% or less of calories.[2]  In addition, people with low rates of heart disease participate in regular physical activity.

Mediterranean cuisine can be very tasty.  You can make your own ravioli with whole-grain flour stuffed with cheese and spinach filling.  Serve the ravioli topped with some marinara tomato sauce garnished with fresh basil, and accompany the meal with a tossed salad dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Pour a glass of red wine and enjoy.  This seems much better than taking Lipitor or other cholesterol-lowering drugs.  Don’t you think?

Learn how to make Ravioli

[1] “Coronary heart disease in seven countries”. Circulation 41 (4 Suppl): I1–211. April 1970. PMID 5442782
[2] Willett WC (01 June 1995). “Mediterranean diet pyramid: a cultural model for healthy eating”. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 61 (6): 1402S–6S. PMID 7754995