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Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
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11:16 pm - Symphony of Science
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The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it,
but the way those atoms are put together - Carl Sagan
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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2:18 pm - In which I am mad at McDonalds
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[From this form]
Dear McDonald's Corporation;
Yesterday (Oct 13th) I purchased a "Fruit & Walnut Snack" at the McDonald's at [removed]. A grape was quite rotten and several slices of apple touching it looked bad as well. The code on the front said "10/14/09" so it was not yet expired. Several months ago I also purchased a Fruit & Walnut Snack from this same McDonald's which was inedible; that time not only was the fruit rotten, but the yogurt had turned bad as well.
I would also like to comment on this Customer Feedback form. I find it disturbing that you ask for my physical address and my phone number. I do not understand why that information would be necessary for registering my feedback about your restaurant.
In addition, while you notify users in text on this form that submission of it constitutes acceptance of the "McDonald's Customer E-mail Center Terms and Conditions", you do not provide a hyperlink to that policy. I had to search for it and it was not easy to find.
And finally, it seems completely unreasonable that my attempt to give feedback necessitates my agreement that you may use my contact information to "inform [me] of new products or promotions at McDonald's".
I feel the sum total of your presentation of this form and the conditions to which I am bound in order to use it are not conducive to encourage productive feedback from your customers.
I do not wish to be on your mailing list, e-mail list, or to be contacted by phone.
Thank you for your time.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, August 20th, 2009
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10:48 pm - Riff Trax Live!
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Went and saw "Plan 9 From Outer Space" being mocked live in a broadcast to our local theater.
Mike, Crow and Tom Servo of MST3K - now the proprietors of the fine comedy at Rifftrax.com - did the mocking. Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla was there as hostess, and musical guest was Jonathan Coulton, who performed "RE: Your Brains" and "The Future Soon".
It was an unprecedented meeting of Things I Like From The Internet, as if all of the Celestial Tubes has aligned for one great night!
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, July 19th, 2009
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10:11 am - Mmm feesh
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This is what I cooked last night, which was loosely based (as usual!) on a recipe.
Sauce:
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Rice Wine with just a dash of Balsamic Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon filled half with Honey, half with Brown Sugar
2 Cloves Garlic (I cheat and use the refrigerated squeezy tube)
2 Tablespoons minced Onion
Fish:
2x 6oz Salmon Fillets with skin on one side
Salt
Pepper
Old Bay seasoning
Container:
Bowl
Oven-Safe baking dish as small as possible (to keep sauce deep)
Place the Salmon skin side down in an oven-save baking dish and gently sprinkle both sides with the salt, pepper, and Old Bay.
In a bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients until smooth and then pour over salmon.
I can't tell you how long to bake it at 350, as mine was in a weird half defrosted state. It took me 15 minutes to cook throughout, and then I took it out, scooped up all the sauce and onion I could and put it on top of the fish, and then broiled it for 5 minutes to get the onions nice and caramelized/toasty.
This was a lot different than the original recipe, particularly my 'substitution' of rice wine and balsamic vinegar for rice vinegar. I thought I had rice vinegar, but I was out and the fish was already half defrosted so I was past the point of no return. I think it actually added a nice kick with the balsamic vinegar. The onions worked out really well too. But by far the star of this was the fish - I bought it at Whole Foods, it was the Whole Foods brand in a blue matte plastic bag with 2 shrink-wrapped wild Alaskan fillets, and while it was $8 for 12oz, I would say it was really worth it. This salmon was a deeper pink than any I have ever seen and extremely flavorful, and it came out very moist.
If you're going to make this you'll probably want to make an extra batch of the sauce and reduce it on the stovetop, to use on rice and vegetables. The sauce in the pan with the fish got somewhat burnt at the edges during the broil phase. You could also, gasp, marinate it ahead of time although most people said it didn't really penetrate much.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 25th, 2009
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10:50 pm - Tasty Spinach Dish
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I made this tonight. It's vaguely based on All Recipes Spinach Pie.
Preheat oven to 350.
9 oz dry, chopped spinach
6 oz feta cheese (resist urge to simply eat cheese plain)
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Mix together in a bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice to spread evenly. Put in oven-safe dish.
2/3 cup Italian bread crumbs
1.5 tablespoons butter
Mix together, sprinkle on top.
Cover with foil.
Cook for 25 minutes. Uncover during the last 10 minutes to toast top.
This was a pleasant surprise; it doesn't look like much but it has a really nice taste. It's like a spinach pie but with a green onion flavour.
I would improve it by adding a bit more lemon juice. The topping needs a little help too - it's just dry crumbs, albeit tasty ones.
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, June 5th, 2009
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7:20 pm - Do you know what time it is?
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Yes, it's an add for the new "Hammertime" show on A&E, but it's still a lot of fun. I particularly like the older gentleman with the sweatband around his head. Woah, Woah!
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, May 25th, 2009
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3:45 pm - Japan Weirdness Maintenance Video
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| Friday, May 22nd, 2009
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6:28 pm - The Case for Working With Your Hands
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An insightful and amusing article by Matthew B. Crawford, "The Case for Working With Your Hands". Seems to be working fine for me without asking me to log in; sometimes NYT asks for that, so probably viewing it sooner rather than later would be better.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
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1:18 pm - Squeeze Bacon
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| Friday, May 15th, 2009
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11:19 pm - Light Art Video
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| Monday, May 4th, 2009
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10:47 pm - Cute Animated Stuff
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New footage from "UP" of the talking dog (<3 the talking dog!)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs trailer
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was one of my favorite books as a child. From the looks of the trailer, they're not sticking to the book very much, but then, it was a very short book. And what they've added, while a lot more goofy than the original book, certainly looks like fun - love those ratbirds (squeeaka-squeeaka!)
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
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11:18 am - Failure
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This CNN article was extremely upsetting to me. I don't think it should be hard to see why:
More than half of people who attend [Christian] services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
So I went and checked out the source. Pretty graphs here, nitty-gritty details here.
CNN did not mangle the facts, as much as I wish they had. The survey used data from 742 American adults; it specifies that the Christians were all white, it doesn't mention race for the religiously unaffiliated. (No other religions are included as it says the sample size of other religious was too small; and I suppose the sample size of non-white Christians was too small as well.)
The odd thing is how much the answer differed by denomination. Mainline Protestants - which CNN says include Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians - had a greater percentage (31%) of people who said that torture is never justified than other Christian denominations (16% for Evangelicals, 20% for Catholics) or those without a religious affiliation (26%).
However, the question presented a sliding scale of "often/sometimes/rarely/never", and when you add together the "often and sometimes" answers, those same Mainline Protestants are more in favor of torture (46%) than the religiously unaffiliated (40%). Other denominations fare much worse; Catholics (51%) and Evangelicals (62%). That's right, a comfortable majority of white Evangelicals surveyed feel that torture can often or sometimes be justified.
Now, there's not a whole lot of data here, in the sense that it's so narrowly focused by race and religion. Still, this should be not just a wake-up call, but a deafening alarm in the ear of the Nation's churches. What is going so terribly wrong that the imitation of Christ is being so gravely and obscenely rejected by His Church?
Do we need to add to Matthew 25:34-36 "I was tortured, and you rescued Me"?
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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11:14 am - Free Comic Book Day
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| Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
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12:25 pm - Tapir Toes!
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| Saturday, April 25th, 2009
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12:38 pm - This one isn't supposed to be hard
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I own shares in index funds. As a result, I get to enjoy fun voting activities on issues like "To approve updating and standardizing the fund(s) fundamental policies regarding: issuing senior securities." Each one of these items has a recommendation from the Board of Directors, which is good because honestly I don't even know what a senior security is.
However, the last one this time caught me by surprise:
"Shareholder proposal 'That the Board institute procedures to prevent holding investments in companies that, in the judgment of the Board, substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity, the most egregious violations of human rights.'"
The Board is recommending shareholders vote against this measure.
In their defense, they already have a "procedure" to "report" on portfolio companies that have a "direct involvement in crimes against humanity or patterns of egregious abuses of human rights would warrant engagement or potential divestment". Oh, and they also offer a "Social Index Fund".
But really, I think their feeling is summed up in an earlier statement that "mutual funds are not optimal agents to address social change."
I do sympathize with the fact that it would be impossible to please everyone on issues of social justice and still make money, and that making money is the purpose for which they exist. But I also think that it's both important and not financially foolhardy to go farther than they currently are. The black/white division of "Socially Conscious" vs "We Only Care if it's Profitable" needs to be fixed. And the shareholder proposal has potentially more teeth than the current policy, if the Board will actually make use of it.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Friday, April 24th, 2009
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10:22 pm - Candid White House Shots
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| Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
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2:05 am - Songsmith
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Apparently there's a Microsoft product called Songsmith that will attempt to match music to whatever vocal track you provide.
There are tons of Youtube videos of all sorts of songs redone by Songsmith. I think these are the best.
Billy Idol's White Wedding, Songsmithized:
I actually enjoy listening to this one; the intricacy of the banjowork makes it feel a lot less robotic than most of the Songsmith stuff.
Motorhead's Ace of Spades, Songsmithized:
Odn says this shows "how weak the lyrics are without the metal soundtrack".
I agree the singing seems quite comical and slightly desperate against this background track :)
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 4th, 2009
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9:48 pm - Boke!
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Boke (or as it's popularly written in order to make the pronunciation clear, "Bokeh") is the term in photography for the aesthetic nature of the way the shape of the iris of a lens affects the blurry parts of the picture. This may sound odd or difficult to grasp, but just click here and scroll down to "Real World Fun" and you'll instantly understand.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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10:53 am - Ant Slaves Rebel!
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10:52 am - This one's for Amho
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