Parr

Symphony of Science

2009-10-28T03:23:20Z

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it,
but the way those atoms are put together - Carl Sagan

In which I am mad at McDonalds

2009-10-14T18:24:00Z

[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.

Riff Trax Live!

2009-08-21T03:12:10Z

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!

Mmm feesh

2009-07-19T14:21:53Z

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.

Tasty Spinach Dish

2009-06-26T02:57:50Z

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.

Do you know what time it is?

2009-06-05T23:21:40Z

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!

Japan Weirdness Maintenance Video

2009-05-25T19:47:48Z

The Case for Working With Your Hands

2009-05-22T22:30:38Z

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.

Squeeze Bacon

2009-05-20T17:18:23Z

Just in case you missed this on April Fool's Day.

Light Art Video

2009-05-16T03:23:20Z

Photos by LAPP - Light Art Performance Photography. The music is by Mr. James Stark.

Cute Animated Stuff

2009-05-05T02:48:48Z

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!)

Failure

2009-05-02T15:48:11Z

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"?

Free Comic Book Day

2009-05-02T15:15:58Z

I probably do not need to tell any of the people that are going to take advantage of it, that it is Free Comic Book Day.

Tapir Toes!

2009-04-29T16:25:40Z

Tapir Toes!

This one isn't supposed to be hard

2009-04-25T17:13:41Z

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.

Candid White House Shots

2009-04-25T02:23:48Z

I enjoyed these 'slice of life' shots of the beginning of Obama's administration.

Songsmith

2009-04-08T06:15:11Z

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 :)

Boke!

2009-04-05T01:56:51Z

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.

Ant Slaves Rebel!

2009-04-02T15:01:53Z

Stolen as larva, ants of another species serve the slave-taking colony up to a point. They raise the larva of the slavemasters, but then as those larva mature, their slave caretakers end up killing most of them either violently or through neglect, decimating the numbers of the slavemasters.

Why then, do they take slaves at all? And how can this behavior of ants that themselves will never reproduce be an influence in the evolution of the taken-captive species of ant?

This one's for Amho

2009-04-02T14:53:25Z

parrhesia @ 2009-03-30T20:16:00

2009-03-31T00:43:45Z

I can't remember if I've posted about this before, but North Korean Propaganda is interesting to see.

This site has a nice selection, my favorites are All the peoples of the world praising Kim Il Sung and his war hero mom Kim Jeong-Sook.

There are also excellent exmaples here. Everything from happy farmgirls raising goats, to angry soldiers smashing the US, as well as evil Americans throwing a baby down a well.

Of course if you want some fresh (textual) propaganda you can get it straight from the North Korean News Agency.

Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal (sometimes)

2009-03-26T03:41:53Z

Great talk. This is not only about understanding the rationalization behind the act of cheating, but also about intuition and perception, and ultimately how we interact with each other.

Highly recommended, well worth 16 minutes of your time.

Catagorize

2009-03-10T15:15:27Z

All you science peeps should be proud of me. In an attempt to sort and categorize my wildlife photo collection last night, I made a Artiodactyla folder. I know I'm always going to have to be looking that up to remember what all fits in it, but hey, it's learning!

Next up I need to figure out what to do with my "Insects" folder, I feel guilty putting Spiders in there but I don't want to give them their own folder.

Piggieee Pt.2

2009-03-01T06:55:49Z

You will get lead poisoning.
You'll go slowly mad.
Awake: Pig Chewing On Face.
- Amho

Meatless meat!

2009-02-28T19:04:00Z

I look forward to the day when we will grow meat in vats.
Until that day comes, I'm morally conflicted about it, mostly because of the cruelty aspects of the meat industry. But I do like meat.

I've tried a lot of meat substitutes and most of then made me sick to my stomach. I'm happy to say I've been liking a few things I've tried from Morningstar lately.

Morningstar corndogs are fabulous - they're even better than the real thing because they've got so much less fat that they feel less heavy. And the texture of the 'hotdog' is just right.

I just tried their fake ribs, and they seem to be quite good too. It's surprising to me how well they emulated the slightly stringy texture of rib meat, but (for better or worse, depending on how caveman you like to be) no bones to knaw on.