Sissy and Friends / Sissy et ses amis

Sissy & Friends

Certains d’entre nous profitent des derniers rayons du soleil d’été.

Music Composed for the Birds – I Mean BY the Birds

Thanks Carla!

A Little Math from Seth Godin for a Change…

I like Seth Godin (who doesn’t?) and I read his posts everyday. Today he tickled our minds with a simple math problem. Think about it…

Several people seem confused with the mathematics involved in his post:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/not-so-good-at-math.html

Not so good at math

A simple quiz for smart marketers:

Let’s say your goal is to reduce gasoline consumption.

And let’s say there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

.        Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.

.        Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

Trick question aside, the answer is the first one. (In fact, it’s more than twice as good a move).

We’re not wired for arithmetic. It confuses us, stresses us out and more often than not, is used to deceive.

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Actually it is very simple:

The Suburban gets 100 miles for 10 gallons

The Prius gets 100 miles for only 2 gallons

With option A the Suburban gets 130 miles for 10 gallons or 100 miles for 7.69 gallons. A saving of 2.31 gallons per 100 miles

With option B The Prius gets 100 miles for only 1 gallon. A saving of 1 gallon per 100 miles.

Option A is 2.31 times better at reducing gasoline consumption.

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But please don’t get a Suburban! Don’t forget this assumes 50% of the people are using Suburban and 50% are using Prius. To reduce gasoline consumption it would be immensely better to get  the Suburban drivers to switch to Prius each saving 8 gallons per 100 miles. This is 3 times better than Option A!

Sex and the Country – at a Field Theater Near You

This is the season. Hundreds of coleopteras are copulating on Wild Carrot or Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus Carota) flowers.  The flower “nest”  has a tiny dark red flower in the middle. It is said the function of that anthocyanin flower is to attract insects. In flowers, bright reds and purples are adaptive for attracting pollinators. You can see all the pollen on the two insects below. It must be very successful for the plant because all the Carrot flower tops in my area are filled with various insects – mostly coleopteras. On this picture it seems to be the Flower Longhorn Beetle (Trigonarthris minnesota) but I am not an insect specialist.

At The Farmers Market Today

In spite of daily rain in Mont-Saint-Hilaire this summer, strawberries are exceptionally sweet and colorful this year. We bought two large trays this afternoon and Guylaine is transforming some of these wonderful little fruits into a strawberry shortcake as I am writing this. The house smells great!

Strawberries

The first harvest of corn is already out as well. The kernels are small with this early variety but the taste is surprisingly satisfying. When I traveled in Central America, I had the opportunity to eat red, blue, green, white, yellow, purple, dwarf, gigantic, sweet, hard, soft… corn cooked in myriad of ways – boiled, roasted with salt and lime, in soups, as a cream for breakfast , as tortillas, tostadas, delicious tamales, etc. It is such a versatile grain. Here in North America  we almost only eat the corn-on-the-cob varieties.  We ate a dozen ears for dinner – well actually 11 ears. Someone stole the twelfth one…

Butterfly ID anyone? Vous connaissez les papillons?

This butterfly was on the ceiling of the kitchen last night. I had never noticed this species before. I do know very little about butterflies. Would you know which species this is? It does measure (+-) 3/4 inch or 1.5 cm from head to tail. (Update – I believe this may be the Small Magpie – Eurrhypara hortulata L.)

Ce petit papillon (3/4 pouce ou 1.5 cm environ) était au plafond dans notre cuisine hier soir. Je n’avais jamais remarqué cette espèce auparavant. Je ne connais pas bien les papillons de nuit.  Le reconnaissez-vous? (Note – je crois qu’il pourrait s’agir de la pyrale de l’ortie – Eurrhypara hortulata L.).

A Spittlebug in the Lovage Plant (Philaenus spumarius)

We’ve all seen this – it looks like white frothy spit on the plant’s stem. Within that bubbly saliva-like mass there is a bug, or rather an immature nymph feeding on the plant juice. It is appropriately called the Spittlebug.

Lovage plant with Spittlebug froth

We were doing the first harvest of our lovage plants when we noticed few of them were “under attack” by these bugs. Lovage is one of our favorite herbs, it is great in soups and adds a distinct flavor somewhat similar to celery leaves. It grows easily and abundantly and we harvest it 2 or 3 times per summer in our backyard. Here is what this little guy looks like when it comes out of its hiding bubbles:

Spittlebug - Philaenus spumarius

This is How I Saw My Dad! Happy Father’s Day To All Great Dads In The World!

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Pat Bagley – Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com – Email this Cartoon