I've got a dumb question that needs answering, and I hate to start a whole new thread for it, so I'm figuring this can be a general Random Small Question thread for other people too.

My question.. I'm trying to write a statistics problem that centers on whether a particular exercise regimen can reduce high blood pressure in high-risk people. This is to be measured in terms of whether people who do the special regimen experience a drop of more than X points in their blood pressure.

The problem is that I need that number X. But I can't remember a thing about blood pressure, so I don't know what a reasonable number would be. Can someone more in tune with their health than I help me out?

(For comparison's sake, in a similar problem about exercise and weight loss, the threshold for significant loss was 10 pounds. So we're looking for a small but significant change, not a big drastic one.)

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

Answers

Stacey,

I'm not sure if any of this helps, but I did a search for +"significant change" and +"blood pressure" and found the following links:

here here here

There is such a thing as "statistically significant", which that first paper talks about. But I don't think that's what you're interested in (in other words, something that might be statistically significant might not make a difference to one's health).

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2002

My Random Small Question goes like this:

I found out last night that my fancy schmancy digital cable converter cannot be programmed to switch channels if I want to tape a show on a VCR. I am without a VCR at the monent and was planning to buy a new one, but now I'm thinking it would be better to invest in a TiVo recorder. I've been checking out ones on sale through EBay, which I have never used before.

Has anyone here ever bought electronic equipment through EBay? Any tips? Or should I just bite the bullet, go to Best Buy and get a new one already? A 30 hour recorder is running around $399, I was hoping to pay no more than $299 (plus tax).

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Don't get tempted by the knock off ones. We got the one that works with the Dish receiver that we have, and it sucks bananas. I mean, it's fine for what it does, which is work with the Dish guide, but it's no TiVo. Get the real thing.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Yeah, we have the Dish one too. In many ways, it sucks. I mean, it basically works OK to tape stuff, but has none of Tivo's cool features. In addition, twice now it's deleted everything on the hard drive. I think this could be due to the Dish network itself being lame since every so often the receiver freaks out and we have to unplug it and plug it back in and have it download everything again. It's caused me to lose all of Buffy season 6. Which really, isn't any great loss. But still.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002