coquina

As we have discussed, there are various ways that math & music go together - let's address one aspect at the time: The concept of "in tune" vs "sharp" or "flat". Everyone in the orchestra tunes to "concert pitch" or A440. The wave for the note "a" (above middle c) vibrates 440 times a second. If you are flat, the note you play vibrates slower, if you are sharp, it vibrates faster. If you are out of tune, when you listen to the two notes played together, you will hear "beat waves", defined as: If you look at the waves of the two tones, overlapping one another, every so often the waves will peak at the same time. When they do, you hear the "beat". The farther apart the two notes are, the farther apart the beats, the closer together, the faster the beats, until the two waves overlap exactly, and you don't hear them any longer. Incidentally - this not only works for tuning instruments, but for synchronizing engines as well. If you have a twin engine boat, you want to be sure that both engines are turning at precisely the same RPM to get the most efficiency (and RPM meters aren't that accurate). If you don't have an electronic engine synchronizer, you put one engine at the rpm you want to run, and the other significantly lower. You listen for the "beat waves" and bring the slow one up to speed until you can't hear them any more. When it comes to mathmatical ability - I'm good at geometry and trig, 'cause that's what I use all the time. What about these "musical waves", would someone care to write the mathmatical formula that describes them and explain it?

Thanks - very interesting and informative. Not to minimize CBT, but it does sound as though if a person has a good friend whom they can "bounce things off", it would accomplish many of the same goals. Problem is - they don't come along very often. Do you remember the movie "Crocodile Dundee"? The Mick goes with Sue to a party and makes a crack to an older woman about people being crazy. Sue tells Mick the woman used to be really messed up but has a great shrink, then asks Mick if people don't have psychiatric problems in Walk-About Creek. Mick says, "Yeah, I tell Wally, Wally tells all my mates, pretty soon, "No problem". Sue says, "Yes, we all need more mates" Simplistic - yes, but true, I think. Good friends are invaluable.

Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, a moderate amount of seafood, poultry,& low fat dairy products. Avoid starches like bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta, (avoid high fat items - once you give up the starches it's easy, you don't have anything to put them on) & eliminate refined sugar. In this manner you can eat a sufficient volume of food to get all the vitamins and nutrients you need, without becoming overweight. If you're already overweight, you can get back to a normal size in about a year. It's not called a diet - it's called "eating right". I lost more than 100# solely by changing my eating habits. Bottled vitamins are not the answer. Your body doesn't readily absorb vitimins in pill form. Excess water soluble vitamins are flushed through your body - however, one can overdose on fat soluble vitimins. There ain't no free lunch.

My favorite "mom" story. Her first name was Muriel, she was 21 and very naive. When she got off the ship in NYC, she saw a neon sign flashing in the distance, "MURIEL-MURIEL-MURIEL". She thought, "How nice, they're giving a "Welcome To America Party" in my honor, so she decided to track down the sign. Right off the bat, she stepped off the curb after looking the wrong way, and almost got run down by a cab. The cabbie rolled down the window and yelled at her, "Look out there, sister, are you trying to commit suicide?" She was appalled that a stranger would speak to her in such a manner. Any way, she continued her quest, only to eventually find a cigar store. http://www.altadisusa.com/cigar/muriel.asp

Neither a 10 gallon tank nor a cardboard box is a suitable habitat. It's just not big enough. Can you wire off a corner of your yard with chicken wire and fix it a pond and a place it can burrow under loose leaves? They really don't make good "pets" anyway, and, as I said before, they carry salmonella.

The scariest horror story I know is quite true. People believe everything they read in the media, and every "Conspiracy Theory" website on the net, rather than research and figure things out for themselves. (Guess what, folks - research ought not to be limited to science.)

Remember that in WW2 the oil supplies in the North Sea had not been discovered. Britain had no fuel supply of its own and very little got through the U Boat packs. Desperate times call for desperate measures, even if they're not economically sensible.

This should help you: http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/eastern_box_turtle.htm The scientific name for the eastern box turtle is: Terrapene carolina carolina Terrapene carolina triungis is a three-toed box turtle: http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/jd/jdweb/Herps/species/usturtles/Tercartri.htm The ones around here are T carolina carolina. I expect the diet is about the same in both. The links says they are omnivorous and eat snails and vegetables. I can attest to the fact that they are a vegetable gardener's nightmare. They love tomotoes and cantelopes, and will take one bite out of a melon or tomato and move on to the next one. (You have to throw the whole thing away, because they carry salmonella). SO BE VERY CAREFUL TO WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER YOU HANDLE IT, IF YOU DON'T WANT THE CASE OF FOOD POISONING FROM HELL

Have any of you ever had them? When a person has had a terrible experience, the vision comes into their head unprovoked. My husband died peacefully in his sleep, and I sometimes "see" him, but it's not awful. My mother died less than 6 months later, she got sepsis from hip replacement surgery. The flashback of her death is horrible. She died of a massive GI bleed. I was in the room alone with her when she began to vomit blood. She was even weeping tears of blood, and I could see she knew what was happening and was terrified. So was I. I can't understand why my mind wants to make me keep seeing that. You'd think it would be more self-protective for me to block it out, but I'll be doing something entirely different, and thinking of something else, when all of a sudden that vision just pops up in my head. It will have been two years in February, and I don't have them as frequently, but I still have them.

how does "cognitive-behavioral therapy" work? It sounds like the therapist talks to the patient to help them understand why they are acting as they are, and then helps them modify the behavior that causes them to see the world as they do. Is that correct? Are other techniques, such as hypnosis, used to help people get to a point where they can understand their own behavior? I wonder if people who practice meditation or yoga prior to experiencing depression are less likely than the general population to develop it.

Uhmmm.... I don't think concrete is the ideal material to subject to millions of tons of water pressure... even if the information I got came from a site for concrete sealer, the sealer only coats the outside - it can't penetrate all the way through the material. http://www.concretesealer.com/porosity.htm

No, I have never been to your country before, what with running a family business, we could never get away long enough. I wouldn't be going over now, except that airline tickets are cheap enough that I don't feel like I will be wasting a ton (tonne? ) of money by just staying a week. Some day I hope to be able to make a longer trip and see the places my mother knew. She was born in Leyland, Lancashire, moved to Bridge of Allen Scotland when she was 5, and to Ballymena, NI when she was 10. She came to the US when she was 21. Her maternal grandparents were from Harrogate, Yorkshire, and she spent a lot of time there too. One of these days....

Yes - I'm really looking forward to it. They live in a village called Bawdsey - where radar was invented. Another thing I found interesting is that Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the founders of Jamestown, was from Suffolk, England, very close to where my cousin lives. Jamestown, VA is very close to where I live. The towns and counties of southeast Virginia are named after the areas the first settlers called home. We have a Norfolk, Suffolk, Isle of Wight, New Kent, Yorktown, & Gloucester, just to name a few.

Here is one of the best sources of information on hurricanes I have found: http://www.ems.psu.edu/~nese/ch11sec2.htm There are several sections - climatology, mechanics, and a case study of Andrew. With regard to your question about the wind - the speed of rotation has to be considered in conjunction with the speed of forward movement - in the northern hemisphere, the right front quadrant is the most dangerous. With respect to storm surge - as the hurricane reaches shallow water, the waves encounter the bottom and begin to peak and break - so they get higher - similar to a tsunami - when it is at sea, it is barely noticable - the trouble comes when the bottom of the wave connects with the sea floor. The power of the waves picks up anything loose and carries it along - boats, piers, pilings and even houses become battering rams. The waves also wash away the sand from beneath structures, leaving them even more vulnerable. Also, in a large hurricane with a clearly defined eye and a very low barometric pressure, the lower pressure actually allows the sea water to rise higher - as if it were being sucked up a straw. The area where I live was hit by Isabel last year. I didn't suffer any property damage - either from storm surge or wind. The housing development next to me was severely damaged - several houses lost every tree - some on their roofs. Houses less than a quarter mile from me had 5 or 6 feet of water in them and had to be condemned. My property was high enough to be above the storm surge, and I didn't lose so much as a shingle or a branch. I was very lucky.

Thx for info. A cousin is getting married and I'm going for the wedding. They live close to Ipswich, in Suffolk.

Your cartoons are hilarious. Have you ever been to Jefferson Lab, in Newport News, VA? I do machine work for them.

Considering that the coffin was sealed at ground pressure, and the inside of the plane is only partially pressurized, the pressure on the inside of the coffin would be greater than the outside at altitude. I wonder if the coffin seals are adequate to compensate for this? If dogs indeed do become deranged, maybe it's from the embalming fluids, rather than from the smell of the dead body. Under reduced pressure maybe they vaporize and when the dog inhales them it permanently damages its brain - sort of like "glue sniffing" does to humans.

The way that number was originally derived was that it was that the tempertures of many people were taken and the numbers were averaged. You can find out the normal range of your temperature by taking it on several occasions when you feel fine and haven't recently consumed anything hot or cold. One of the old remedies was to "break a fever", put the patient to bed and pile on the covers. It doesn't feel uncomfortable because one is usually having "chills" (another question - why do you feel cold when you are hot?) Anyway - you have to be careful, you don't want the fever to go dangerously high, but if it "breaks" you will start to sweat profusely. If it's a run-of-the-mill virus or flu, it very well may not come back. I guess it works because raising the body temperature kills more pathogens faster.

Regarding tuning and pitch - you might find this interesting: http://www.uk-piano.org/history/pitch.html By the way - I mentioned earlier, I'm crossing the pond at the end of the month - just curious - will my cell phone work on your towers?

First off - I like your attidude - you do not speak of the parrot as a "pet". You regard it as a "non-human companion". Yes, parrots are very intelligent, and they are built to fly - they have a very high metabolism. Caging them and keeping them confined makes them neurotic, if not downright psychotic. I have stated before that I don't think people give animals anywhere near enough credit for their intelligence. If people who live with animals spent as much time trying to learn their communication systems as they do trying to force human language on them, they would have a much more enjoyable relationship.

1. No, I never had the experience with the second hand. What does happen to me is that I will start getting ready early to go somewhere, and time starts to "slow down" - I've done half of what I need to in order to get ready and only a tenth of the alloted time has passed. So I tell myself I don't have to rush so fast. The next time I look, I have done a tenth more of what I need to get ready and almost the whole remaining time has passed. So, in that respect, I have had experiences when time appeared "variable" rather than "constant". 2. I often assimilate something going on as I am waking into a dream. I also get confused - the telephone starts to ring and I think it's the alarm clock going off. I beat the hell out of the alarm clock and can't make it stop. The most frightening dream I ever had... a had woke up and realized I forgot to lock the front door, and thought I'd better get up and do it. Before I could move, I heard the doorknob turn and the door open and close quietly, I heard footsteps coming down the hall and into my room, I saw a shadowy figure with a knife approaching the bed. I tried to scream and jump out of bed, I was paralyzed. Just as the guy started to stab me, I woke up. I had dreamed the whole thing.

There are 3 basic learning (or thinking) styles, visual, auditory and kinesthetic or tactile. http://www.chaminade.org/inspire/learnstl.htm Most people are visual learners, followed by auditory learners. The third group, the tactile learners often find it difficult to learn in a classroom situation. I would expect that in man's earliest days, they were geared toward "tactile" learning. Ie learning about "hot" and "cold", "hard" and "soft", "wet" and "dry". They would also learn by visualization. For example, the idea of "One", "two" or "many" would have been valuable for quick assessment. Today you might compare it to "single", "couple" or "army". You don't have to count them all to know they outnumber you. The earliest histories were auditory, not visual or written. Once people obtained speech, they were able to pass on what they learned from generation to generation. There are all kinds of ways we learn and remember now. For example, most people tell me I am a great cook. I never use a cookbook, and I make up recipes as I go along. I am able to remember flavors and combine them in my head. Most of the time, a recipe I "made up" will taste very close to the way I imagined it. I can go into a grocery store and pick out one item, then decide what other items and spices go with it - for example, apples, walnuts and cheese are a great combination. So are peaches and almonds. I "compose" recipes as I go along.

Yes - I am down here on the Coastal Plain, at the mouth of the Chesapeake - which has to be, I believe, the most beautiful tidal estuary in the world, not that the mountains aren't glorius in their own right. the song continues... fat ones, skinny ones, long ones, short ones, oooey, gooey, slimy, grimy WORMS.

On the other hand, I used to think that other people were looking at me and seeing nothing but warts and pimples. I, like you, used to think everything went right for everyone else, and it only went wrong for me. In a way, that is a selfish way of thinking. Like the song we used to sing when I was a kid, "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going out and eat worms." That kind of thinking deals with the assumption that everyone else is focusing on you, seeing and criticizing your shortcomings. Fact is, if they notice you at all, they don't see anything beyond the superficial layer. The expression on your face is mirrored back at you. If you are like I was, you probably walk around with your head down, looking at your feet. If you make eye contact with someone, do you have a "hangdog expression"? For a week, try walking around with your head up. Make eye contact with the people you meet and smile. Tell them "good morning", "good afternoon", or "Hi, how ya doin'?" I will bet that more than 50% of the folks will smile back at you - and when they do, it will make you feel better.

There were lots of times I thought I wouldn't be. A lot of my problems were bouts of "situational depression" - I had plenty of reasons to be sad - financial problems, marital problems, kid problems. There were plenty of times over the years that I thought life wasn't worth living, and I'd rather be dead than put up with all the crap I was enduring. Then, things got better for me, and I was glad I stuck it out. Then, I woke up one morning, and my husband was dead in bed beside me. We had been married for 31 years. I realized that all the crap he had been worried about that didn't really matter worth a tinker's damn in the long haul were what killed him. I realized that all the crap I nagged him about didn't make a toot in the long run either. I realized that dead is dead - whether you believe in the afterworld or not, you sure don't have another shot at this life. I realized that you better make the most of what you've got. If you need help to talk things through, or medication to help get straight, get it. What helps me most is to walk. I drag my sorry butt out of the bed and walk three miles every morning. I live on the coast, and I can walk to a place where I can watch the sun rise. I spend the time mulling over my problems and deciding on ways to solve them. I know I've got a lot of years on you.... I don't mean to preach. I remember when I was your age, my mom used to tell me, "you think you have it so bad, you get to ride to school on the school bus - I had to walk 5 miles to school in the snow." It turns out all my friends got the same lines. There must not have been a house located within 5 miles of school anywhere, and it must have snowed a hell of a lot more back then than it does now. Anyway - I'm not trying to preach - I'm trying to tell you that things can be better, and they will be better, eventually, and it really is worth it to do everything you can to help yourself feel happier.