RIDING LOG

it was warm and the woods were all melty and me/elf/seniormost went out on stjarni/ljufur/gemini and had a FANTASTIC ride. the horses were all full of yayas. at one point ljufur had galloped ahead and stjarni galloped after him without my asking him to, took awhile to get him to whoa, and i was reminded of when stjarni ran away with me a year ago to cut off ljufur's running away with a student. (ljufur wasn't running away with elf my elf, they were just having fun, and the elf needs to remember to tell other riders his plans....) anyway we also did a little gallop towards the end of things (and quite a lot of tolting, some trotting, some walking on the hilly bits) and it was all kinds of great. i hope the whole world doesn't ice right over again, though i suspect so looking at the forecast :/ stjarni was all up about the going-out-riding thing, he was quite dancy when we got back near the barn, even. not going riding is so much less fun for both of us.

RACE/GENDER ISSUE

the other night it was really cold out, and i was on my way home from the gym. i crossed at a crosswalk and ended up in the middle of a group of young black and hispanic men, and as i walked among them (i was going faster than they were) i couldn't help but overhear their conversation -- one of them had apparently been to minnesota, and he said it was *always* this cold there, this mild massachusetts was having just one night of serious MINNESOTA cold :)

later it occured to me that this was the antithesis of what they tell every woman to not do, being out walking alone after dark and getting into other people's space, particularly the space of men of color. but is this really keeping me safer, versus entrenching racist and sexist rules of behavior? i mean, these guys were just walking along talking about the freakin' *weather* before i came on the scene, and it's not like they suddenly turned into demons upon my arrival, they just went right on talking about the weather, you know, like people do.

this is just to say that i bow down forever before yagagriswold and her miraculous toffee.

OMGTHATWASGOOD. i stretched it out by keeping the box by the door and having only a little treat of this or that on the way out, and the other stuff was tasty tasty too, but it'll be a heck of a good night if i dream about that toffee :)

new things i am working on:

. bench press, 45#, 10 reps (barbell)

. front splits. (i think my side split has improved a little bit)

in general i think i am lifting a bit more weight than i had been, which may be me getting stronger or just getting used to the motor programs it takes to do these things efficiently.

incidentally i weigh just about the same amount as i did when i started. i have been eating a great deal of festive food, though :)

i was back at bsc today. the one thing i really miss from planet fitness is the torso-turning thingy, which really gave a nice stretch to my chronic-pain areas in my side. i tried to replicate that with some spine-twist yoga poses, but it didn't quite work out.

ETA planet fitness is having a one-year-for-$99 sale until the 31st. i will probably end up grabbing that if only for the sake of the torso machine. i am not planning on joining bsc (which is at minimum $73/month) until after my healthworks trial, b/c i don't think i can afford more than one non-cheapass membership, and i should give healthworks and its many classes a try. (i should also see how i feel about the all-womenness of it, which at first glance i dislike, but it may be different to experience.) i do really appreciate bsc's closeness though, it is very amenable to even the most minimal i-could-go-to-the-gym thought, and then suddenly it's two hours later and i have worked out and stretched and lifted and am happy. food for thought.

elf my elf is the only person i've ever met who not infrequently wakes up laughing from dreams :)

from a dear friend and former classmate:

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reinvention_of_the_self/

i'm particularly interested in what must be going on in the brain in the research sessions i've been following -- talk therapy is a peculiar environment indeed, but perhaps very deeply enriched at a linguistic level even while taking place in a small room with limited companionship. whereas a common naturalistic setting -- say a rave with a lot of physical motion and sound and light and toys and fellowship -- is also highly enriched, in a totally different way.

marching on....

i got this one from my friend oxkrissy -- you ask me five questions in a comment, i ask you five questions back!

1. Where is your favorite place? Why?

on stjarni's back. i am always happiest there, most relaxed, most engaged. together we are a sort of centaur, and i love being that :)

2. If you had to chose one person to be the only person you could see for the rest of your life, who would it be? Why?

elf my elf. because he is brilliant and amusing and loving, and yet if i need time-by-myself i can also feel like i get it with him around. loves the elf :)

3. What is your most embarrassing moment?

i stopped counting years ago. but back when i did count, it was probably when i was nine years old and riding a bicycle in the park, and my shoelace wrapped itself around the crank and i fell into a mud puddle in front of the only bench with a lot of teenagers on it in the park!

4. Biggest pet peeve?

i keep dogs, cats, a pony, and a canary, but i do not keep peeves. dang things eat too much.

5. Why do you keep a journal on LJ? What is your favorite thing to talk about on here?

mostly to keep in daily-esque touch with friends i can't see every day (waves at solarbird as a classical example), including new friends i've never met :) i like to talk about whatever i'm thinking about, which varies. lately it is largely mathematical and probably of little real interest to others, but it's what *i'm* all about at the moment :) i admit i do love it when i strike some sort of chord and people respond a lot, but i don't seem to have much luck at causing that directly, so i simply enjoy it when it occasions.

thanks for playing! :)

( behind here )

in other news, my cat is snuzzled up under my nose and smells like perfume -- i think she may have been at my bpal stash or somesuch :)

analyzing bimodal data turns out to be a pita. did you know that? i didn't.

i decided to shove my findings into an "exposure/disease" 2x2 square. exposure's axis is "did they get mdma?" and the other axis is "did they produce a lot of the utterances i was looking for?" (i.e. were they in the 0-5 lump, or the 9-26 lump).

here is my square:

2 x 2 Table Statistics
	
						
Single Table Analysis
		Disease
		(+)	(-)
Exp	(+)	10	3	13
	(-)	1	6	7
		11	9	20

(the numbers on the right and bottom are just the totals of how many subjects are in each.)

and here are my statistics:

Chi Square and Exact Measures of Association
	Test	                Value	p-value(1-tail)	p-value(2-tail)
	Uncorrected chi square	7.213	0.003619	        0.007239
	Yates corrected chi sq	4.904	0.01340	        0.02680
	Mantel-Haenszel chisq   6.852	0.004427 	0.008854
	Fisher exact		        0.01238  	0.02477
	Mid-P exact		        0.006424        0.01285
	

At least one expected value (row total*column total/grand total) is < 5
Fisher or Mid-P exact tests are recommended rather than chi square.

							

Risk-Based* Estimates and 95% Confidence Intervals
(Not valid for Case-Control studies)
	Point Estimates		Confidence Limits
	Type	Value	Lower, Upper	Type
	Risk in Exposed	76.92%	49.06, 92.5	Taylor series
      Risk in Unexposed	14.29%	0.5322, 53.35	Taylor series
	Overall Risk	55%	34.2, 74.19	Taylor series
	Risk Ratio	5.385	0.8563, 33.86¹ 	Taylor series
	Risk Difference	62.64%	28.05, 97.23° 	Taylor series
	Etiologic fraction in pop.(EFp)	74.03%	30.17, 100
	Etiologic fraction in exposed(EFe)	81.43%	-16.79, 97.05
	

							

Odds-Based Estimates and Confidence Limits
	Point Estimates		Confidence Limits
	Type	Value	Lower, Upper	Type
	CMLE Odds Ratio*	16.48	1.674, 502.7¹ 	Mid-P Exact
			1.292, 1008¹ 	Fisher Exact
	Odds Ratio	20	1.676, 238.6¹ 	Taylor series
	Etiologic fraction in pop.(EFp|OR)	86.36%	60.12, 100
	Etiologic fraction in exposed(EFe|OR)	95%	40.35, 99.58

*Conditional maximum likelihood estimate of Odds Ratio
(P)indicates a one-tail P-value for Protective or negative association; otherwise one-tailed exact P-values are for a positive association.
Martin,D; Austin,H (1991) An efficient program for computing conditional maximum likelihood estimates and exact confidence limits for a common odds ratio. Epidemiology 2, 359-362.
° ¹ 95% confidence limits testing exclusion of 0 or 1, as indicated
P-values < 0.05 and confidence limits excluding null values (0,1, or [n]) are highlighted.
LookFirst items: Editor's choice of items to examine first.


Results from OpenEpi, Version 2, open source calculator--TwobyTwo
http://www.openepi.com/TwobyTwo/TwobyTwo.htm
Source file last modified on 05/16/2009 13:09:10


the test i (and the openepi editor ;) think is most relevant is the mid-p exact. let me just repeat that p-values for you (i see no reason not to use single-tailed tests given my a priori knowledge of the effects of mdma):

	
	Mid-P exact		        0.006424        

ETA upon further reading, i wonder if i'm more comfortable with the fisher test than the mid-p. there seems to be a lot of argument about the mid-p exact in the literature and i don't want to try to call it out, so a more-conservative test might be better. that said, like everything else, it is highly significant:

Fisher exact		        0.01238 

unless i am seriously, seriously confused (always a possibility) i am seriously, seriously onto something, and the numbers bear me out.

i had three false negatives and one false positive.

i gotta run me some numbers, but i think my model is seriously golden.

like WOW, MAN.

ETA she's been found! thanks gravitrue for the update :)

Brianna Lacey, 15, is missing. She is also known to go by the name of Brianna Wright. She was last seen Friday, December 18, 2009 leaving for school from her home in the vicinity of 80th Street and Eberhart and heading to Longwood Academy located at 95th Street and Throop, according to the Chicago Police Department.

Brianna is described as a African-American, 5 ft. 4 inches tall, weighing 110 lbs., with brown hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion. She also has pierced ears. She was last seen wearing a navy blue polo shirt, navy blue sweater, gray pants, and a brown coat. She had on black gym shoes, as well. According to police, she frequents the area near her home, as well as the area near 105th Street and Yates in Chicago, Illinois.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact Chicago Police Area Two Detective Division Special Victims Unit at (312) 747-8274.

. present to cousin

. other gifties for people

. sanding

. tiling

. ride?

my data is bimodal. i've sent my guesses off so i can be unblinded.

i know i'm not entirely right, as i have at least a couple false negatives given what i know about the study design. which is funny b/c i know that the therapists had false *positives* just in their own guesses while they were still blind.

marching on....!

i want a burlesque name! how's about "penny dreadful"?

feel free to submit other ideas in comments :)

i just deleted all my files. and then i restored them.

goooooood morniiiiiiiing........

i just finished scoring the last of my ptsd-study subject data.

next, i gotta draw some graphs.

first, i think i might go to the gym. or have a drink. or something.


(!!!!!!!!!)

about half way through last subject. it's' a *great* data source. the recording is craptastic though :/

i liked this blog:

http://dailyoats.wordpress.com/

keep on spinnin', babe :)

worked out, had fitness eval. will probably post thoughts about that under a cut at some point, so that people who don't want to hear my bodily wankage are safe. (should i use a filter?)

dug up and washed (with help) four sheep skulls. left one to soak in chlorine/water mix to see if it bleaches and/or if i like that.

twenty-one minutes to go on second-to-last subject, who is tedious beyond imagining at this point.

thought? beer? software?

free TIME! :)

a couple of my riding students have cancelled their lessons through the end of the year, what with travel and holidays and all. so anyone who's been thinking of pony riding, now would be a fine time to set something up, as i have a lot more available (including weekends! and transportation!) these days :)

lovely meetup with n and j

REALLY SUPER IRRITATING ENCOUNTER WITH CHECK-KITING DEBTOR

moderately irritating post-encounter phone call; next hearing expected in a few days

found and rehabilitated good office chair

stashed cat carriers

scrubbed bird cage and accessories


....*sigh*

in better news of the ongoing human condition, we have now filmed tool use by invertebrates!

http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid2227271001?bctid=57069207001

i truly would welcome our new octopodal overlords, but maybe i'm just in a bad mood right now....

lj is a fairly heavily woman-populated community, but i happened across this article about blogging under a recognizably female name:

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/12/14/male_pseudonyms/index.html

....and it led me to thinking about a recent brouhaha i was involved in, mostly conducted in other people's journals, since i turned off anonymous commentary here when it devolved into people saying unkind things to friends of mine. particularly notable to me is the fact that the owner of said main brouhaha is also a woman, and that when it trickled over into one of my male partners' journals (it was, at heart, about polyamory) it didn't go far, didn't last long, didn't insult any men's bodies, didn't insult any men's choices about their personal lives, &c. (it did, in case this isn't implicit, make a huge noisy fuss insulting women's.)

i'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy. meanwhile, perhaps occasional genderfuck.