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Sunday, 28 December 2008
Monday, 15 December 2008
Bartle
Richard Bartle, who I've mentioned before, rises yet more points in my mind. Why?
"I'm not growing a vagina (I checked)."- Richard Bartle, responding to trolls
Friday, 28 November 2008
Microsoft is getting creepy. From their malicious software removal tool:
...listed and periodically updated by family? Am I the only one whose first thought was "please don't try to pretend like you're family, Microsoft, I'd rather keep you at arm's length"? Or does nobody actually read licence agreements but me? The best part is that no software is listed at that link, let alone categorized by family (which is, I assume, what they were trying to say.)
"Malicious Software Removal. Before execution of the software, the software will check for and remove certain malicious software (“Malware”) from your device, which is listed and periodically updated by family at www.support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830."
...listed and periodically updated by family? Am I the only one whose first thought was "please don't try to pretend like you're family, Microsoft, I'd rather keep you at arm's length"? Or does nobody actually read licence agreements but me? The best part is that no software is listed at that link, let alone categorized by family (which is, I assume, what they were trying to say.)
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
I'm amazed at how productive I can be when I'm at work and waiting for a compile to finish. Something to do with the huge code restructuring we've recently had broke my build entirely, and I've spent the last four or five hours trying to get it to work - and it takes at least five minutes to test every attempted fix, but those five minutes aren't really enough to get into a problem, so I've been working on little things. Once those ran out, it was time to check emails! So I'm proud to say that from the day's start of just over 1700 unread emails in my inbox, I'm now down to 1565! Woo.
Sunday, 16 November 2008
http://vancouver.ca/electionresults2008/ has the yesterday's municipal election - particularly interesting, to me, is how the mayoral vote maps across the city.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
MUDs turn 30
Today marks the 30th birthday of MMORPGs. No, EverQuest isn't that old.
Richard Bartle, of the infamous Bartle test, comments on it briefly.
If you've never played a MUD or a MOO, I highly recommend it. My first exposure to one was in grade 8, when some politician gave a 'speech' to a bunch of educators and students in one, and I was building (M**-speak for writing the code and descriptions that provide rooms, characters, objects, actions, etc. that populate a text-based virtual world) that week, if not the very next day. The good ones are strange, fascinating places populated by wild people who act in-character the whole time (and the best ones have some extraordinarily strange characters). The worst are mere hack-and-slash, with no room for expression amongst the players (vs. participants). There's a middle ground, where direction is provided by challenges and advancement but where you're not stuck fighting orc 1, orc 2, orc 3...
Anyways. Happy birthday, MUD1.
Richard Bartle, of the infamous Bartle test, comments on it briefly.
If you've never played a MUD or a MOO, I highly recommend it. My first exposure to one was in grade 8, when some politician gave a 'speech' to a bunch of educators and students in one, and I was building (M**-speak for writing the code and descriptions that provide rooms, characters, objects, actions, etc. that populate a text-based virtual world) that week, if not the very next day. The good ones are strange, fascinating places populated by wild people who act in-character the whole time (and the best ones have some extraordinarily strange characters). The worst are mere hack-and-slash, with no room for expression amongst the players (vs. participants). There's a middle ground, where direction is provided by challenges and advancement but where you're not stuck fighting orc 1, orc 2, orc 3...
Anyways. Happy birthday, MUD1.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Elections stock market!
In a wonderful example of synchronicity, I was pointed at the UBC Elections Stock Market today. This is an amazing little thing - when I was a kid I worked this market hard for three or four elections, back on that monochrome computer in the basement, and then on my 386 when I got my first computer. I never lost money; once I only barely broke even, and once I roughly doubled my initial investment, and the rest varied. They used to have a $100 investment cap unless some conditions were met, iirc.
The method is straightforward: a stock for a given party in the MP market will be worth, after the election, the %age of the seats that that party got. A stock in the majority market is worth $1 if that guess is correct (eg. if it's a minority, then all majority stocks are worth nothing except for the 'no majority' option). This means that you can always buy a block of all parties or of all possible majority outcomes.
Unfortunately, my best former strategy - buy loads of blocks of majority stocks, sell the ones that are very unlikely whenever they spike, then in the last day or two as that gambler's choice becomes more and more certainly false, buying them back at fractions of the price (and cashing whole blocks back in before the actual election, not that it matters either way once a set is held) - doesn't work very well when the majority options are reduced to liberal, cpc, and neither. C'mon, if people will give me 4% odds that the NDP will take a majority, let me take those people's money!
In any case, there isn't much time left, but if you've always fancied yourself a good political analyst and you'd like to give day-trading a shot, I used to have a *lot* of fun with this, and I highly recommend it.
Monday, 6 October 2008
ATDT 1992
Imagine it's 1992, more or less. It's five AM, and it's a wet Canadian winter; it's pitch black outside, but a thirteen year old boy sits in a desk chair, not feeling the chill of the drafty house, mesmerized. Folders, sheafs and scraps are stacked monstrously high in a miniature cityscape; skyscrapers brush the bottom of the desk, tottering dangerously in the breeze from his unconsciously swinging legs, and the valuable real estate surrounding the chair has been parcelled off. There is a screen, glowing amber, and letters and glyphs stream across it at roughly reading speed.
This morning, like every morning, the boy made sure to silence the modem's squeals and squelches, and he dials out to dozens of other homes, trying them in rapid sequence until he finds one that doesn't ring busy, and the machines connect. Information! This is no library; this is raw, chaotic information. Libraries don't have sections for some of these topics. Opinion and fact mix, chemistry and politics and ad hominems swirling crazily from across the globe, and he swims in it, no more aware of time or the dusty-smelling room than he is of the colour of the letters on the screen. He's a curiousity junkie who's found a never-ending hit.
Even the games enthrall him: he is a space trader, surviving like a mouse that darts from hungry owls; he is a brute who fights magical creatures daily in the forest, looting their corpses for coins to pay healers and to buy tougher leather to protect him, sharper weapons to let him slaughter faster; he is a survivor in a fallout-stricken world, where desolate outposts of sanity wall themselves from expanses of radioactive wasteland populated by humans driven violently mad and by dangerous and unpredictable mutants.
Before this, he used to write programs for a computer that saved software with a tape deck onto cassettes, often transcribing line from line from books, but those games held nothing to vivid depictions of mothers gone insane, clutching rolling pins like clubs, of inns where a bard and a wench flirt, but not with each other, or of the creation of a new world in an empty solar system. How could making a car dodge other cars compare to the desperate hope that no pirates or ransackers would stumble across your new home planet, fertile and green? How could copying lines from books compare to recipes for pyrotechnics, descriptions of how to distill banana peels, and stories of secret government organizations?
But eventually he'd be startled as grey light brightened outside. He'd snap up, turn everything off in a hurry, and run to get dressed for school in a rainy world that somehow had less colour than those monochrome words.
(Two points to anyone who understands the post title. Yes, this is obviously a story about me, but I doubt first-person would've worked at all. No, I don't think it's all that good, but I do need to write more to get back into the swing of it.)
This morning, like every morning, the boy made sure to silence the modem's squeals and squelches, and he dials out to dozens of other homes, trying them in rapid sequence until he finds one that doesn't ring busy, and the machines connect. Information! This is no library; this is raw, chaotic information. Libraries don't have sections for some of these topics. Opinion and fact mix, chemistry and politics and ad hominems swirling crazily from across the globe, and he swims in it, no more aware of time or the dusty-smelling room than he is of the colour of the letters on the screen. He's a curiousity junkie who's found a never-ending hit.
Even the games enthrall him: he is a space trader, surviving like a mouse that darts from hungry owls; he is a brute who fights magical creatures daily in the forest, looting their corpses for coins to pay healers and to buy tougher leather to protect him, sharper weapons to let him slaughter faster; he is a survivor in a fallout-stricken world, where desolate outposts of sanity wall themselves from expanses of radioactive wasteland populated by humans driven violently mad and by dangerous and unpredictable mutants.
Before this, he used to write programs for a computer that saved software with a tape deck onto cassettes, often transcribing line from line from books, but those games held nothing to vivid depictions of mothers gone insane, clutching rolling pins like clubs, of inns where a bard and a wench flirt, but not with each other, or of the creation of a new world in an empty solar system. How could making a car dodge other cars compare to the desperate hope that no pirates or ransackers would stumble across your new home planet, fertile and green? How could copying lines from books compare to recipes for pyrotechnics, descriptions of how to distill banana peels, and stories of secret government organizations?
But eventually he'd be startled as grey light brightened outside. He'd snap up, turn everything off in a hurry, and run to get dressed for school in a rainy world that somehow had less colour than those monochrome words.
(Two points to anyone who understands the post title. Yes, this is obviously a story about me, but I doubt first-person would've worked at all. No, I don't think it's all that good, but I do need to write more to get back into the swing of it.)
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Atwood on the Arts
Sometimes one of the mailing lists I'm on sends a gem my way. This is one such item:
MARGARET ATWOOD
From the Globe and Mail, September 24, 2008
What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?
At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we've been punching above our weight on the world stage - in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it's a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada's cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an "estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined)."
But we've just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called "ordinary people" didn't care about something called "the arts." His idea of "the arts" is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I'm one of them, and I'm no Warren Buffett. I don't whine about my grants because I don't get any grants. I whine about other grants - grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they'll be millionaires.
Every single one of those people is an "ordinary person." Mr. Harper's idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that's attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures - cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. "Ordinary people" pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for "the arts" in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. "The arts" are not a "niche interest." They are part of being human.
Moreover, "ordinary people" are participants. They form book clubs and join classes of all kinds - painting, dancing, drawing, pottery, photography - for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw their own graphic novels. "Ordinary people" have other outlets for their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks; gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging, and on and on ... Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they like appreciating things that are made.
They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their art galleries and for countless cultural festivals - I think immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung up all over the country - volunteers set them up and provide the food, and "ordinary people" will drag their lawn chairs into a field - as in Nova Scotia's Read by the Sea - in order to listen to writers both local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt.
I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is "ordinary." It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It's the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of "ordinary people." He's the "niche interest." Not us.
It's been suggested that Mr. Harper's disdain for the arts is not merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear - that it is "ideologically motivated." Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000 arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians. What's the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don't all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario - $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers' money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in - and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland.
Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn't like the competition for media space.
The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour has it that Mr. Harper's idea of what sort of art you should hang on your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room - including John A. and Dief the Chief - and their replacement by pictures of none other than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him. In communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality. Mr. Harper is a guy who - rumour has it, again - tried to disband the student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college. Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It's an impulse that's been repeated many times since, the list is very long. Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big statue of yourself. Now that would be Art!
Adapted from the 2008 Hurtig Lecture, to be delivered in Edmonton on Oct. 1
MARGARET ATWOOD
From the Globe and Mail, September 24, 2008
What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?
At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we've been punching above our weight on the world stage - in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it's a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada's cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an "estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined)."
But we've just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called "ordinary people" didn't care about something called "the arts." His idea of "the arts" is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I'm one of them, and I'm no Warren Buffett. I don't whine about my grants because I don't get any grants. I whine about other grants - grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they'll be millionaires.
Every single one of those people is an "ordinary person." Mr. Harper's idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that's attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures - cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. "Ordinary people" pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for "the arts" in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. "The arts" are not a "niche interest." They are part of being human.
Moreover, "ordinary people" are participants. They form book clubs and join classes of all kinds - painting, dancing, drawing, pottery, photography - for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw their own graphic novels. "Ordinary people" have other outlets for their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks; gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging, and on and on ... Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they like appreciating things that are made.
They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their art galleries and for countless cultural festivals - I think immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung up all over the country - volunteers set them up and provide the food, and "ordinary people" will drag their lawn chairs into a field - as in Nova Scotia's Read by the Sea - in order to listen to writers both local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt.
I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is "ordinary." It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It's the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of "ordinary people." He's the "niche interest." Not us.
It's been suggested that Mr. Harper's disdain for the arts is not merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear - that it is "ideologically motivated." Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000 arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians. What's the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don't all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario - $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers' money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in - and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland.
Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn't like the competition for media space.
The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour has it that Mr. Harper's idea of what sort of art you should hang on your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room - including John A. and Dief the Chief - and their replacement by pictures of none other than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him. In communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality. Mr. Harper is a guy who - rumour has it, again - tried to disband the student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college. Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It's an impulse that's been repeated many times since, the list is very long. Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big statue of yourself. Now that would be Art!
Adapted from the 2008 Hurtig Lecture, to be delivered in Edmonton on Oct. 1
Saturday, 20 September 2008
Monday, 8 September 2008
Bacon in the news
Bacon strikes again, this time in alcoholic form. Yes, bacon-infused Vodka. Genius! Or something. Possibly genius.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Today's bacon link: Celebrity Canned Bacon. Makes me wonder which celebrity has sunk to canning bacon for a living.
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Flickr pro!
Thanks to Diego, Leigh, Lisa, and Leon I've now got a flickr pro account. If you're reading this blog, you've probably got too much time on your hands; head on over to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tothefront/ and check out some shots in full rez, or look at some of the ones that had been pushed out of the normal flickr account by newer shots.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
You'd think you wouldn't need an introduction if you were presented as the discoverer of Stigler's law of eponymy. Poor Robert K. Merton.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Wikiquote: Gra/ey
From the "things that only wikipedia would have under 'gray' and 'grey', and yet this once saved me from going on two hours of website bugs" category:
Web colors
There are several shades of grey available for use with HTML and CSS in word form, while there are 254 true greys available through Hex triplet. All are spelled with an a: using the e spelling can cause unexpected errors with outdated browsers (this discrepancy was inherited from the X11 color list), and to this day, Internet Explorer's Trident browser engine does not recognize "grey" and will not render it. Another anomaly is that "gray" is in fact much darker than the X11 color marked "darkgray;" this is because of a conflict with the original HTML gray and the X11's "gray," which is closer to HTML's "silver." The three "slategray" colors are not themselves on the greyscale, but are slightly saturated towards cyan (green + blue). Note that since there are an even (256, including black and white) number of unsaturated shades of grey, there are actually two grey tones straddling the midpoint in the 8-bit grayscale. The color name "gray" has been assigned the lighter of the two shades (128 also known as #808080), due to rounding up. In browsers that support it, "grey" has the same color as "gray."
Also, I'm now working for Zeugma Systems. No link, because I like to keep life and work seperate in a way that trackbacks would never understand - and they they are actually looking at those, since they have a contest going between some of their HR guys as to who can get the most links from their blogs. Still, that's just for now - they've just released their first major press release, and beforehand it wasn't really clear what they were doing, and HR just finished working as hard to get "the good word" out. It's a decent looking product too, for sure ahead of the market, but nothing world-changing.
Web colors
There are several shades of grey available for use with HTML and CSS in word form, while there are 254 true greys available through Hex triplet. All are spelled with an a: using the e spelling can cause unexpected errors with outdated browsers (this discrepancy was inherited from the X11 color list), and to this day, Internet Explorer's Trident browser engine does not recognize "grey" and will not render it. Another anomaly is that "gray" is in fact much darker than the X11 color marked "darkgray;" this is because of a conflict with the original HTML gray and the X11's "gray," which is closer to HTML's "silver." The three "slategray" colors are not themselves on the greyscale, but are slightly saturated towards cyan (green + blue). Note that since there are an even (256, including black and white) number of unsaturated shades of grey, there are actually two grey tones straddling the midpoint in the 8-bit grayscale. The color name "gray" has been assigned the lighter of the two shades (128 also known as #808080), due to rounding up. In browsers that support it, "grey" has the same color as "gray."
Also, I'm now working for Zeugma Systems. No link, because I like to keep life and work seperate in a way that trackbacks would never understand - and they they are actually looking at those, since they have a contest going between some of their HR guys as to who can get the most links from their blogs. Still, that's just for now - they've just released their first major press release, and beforehand it wasn't really clear what they were doing, and HR just finished working as hard to get "the good word" out. It's a decent looking product too, for sure ahead of the market, but nothing world-changing.
Sunday, 18 May 2008
FOR SCIENCE!
*** NEW! In advance celebration of the firstborn sale (expected gestation period: long enough for interest to have made over a pound of chocolate be worth far more than the trivial price of $14.99), Anderson Porcine Industries is proud to announce our new Premier Porcine Partnership Plan with no less than Google. Which is to say that there's now google ads on the page - and if you "Want a chance to win movies at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards!" or feel a burning desire to "Check out Chocolat Solutions From A Trusted Source" or have been hunting for a "Healthy Chocolate Home Business Turn Key Automated Marketing System", well, I guess now's your big chance. ***
*** NEW! Anderson Porcine Industries' Deluxe Choco-Porcine Culinary Kit, Mark I is for sale! ***
*** NEW! Someone has bacon-related data that's under a creative commons license! ***
Experiment time!
Perhaps spurred on by xkcd, Eliza and I began to talk about pig, chocolate, and deliciousness. A quick google reveals that we're not the first to conceive of such an idea, Vogel's chocolate actually makes some, and some guy experimented a bit. But the spirit of experimentation lay within us, and we could not deny its power. Also, Eliza is a genius: she brought that most explosive weapon in the culinary arsenal, Pop Rocks. Just as steel superceded iron, we are certain that bacon, chocolate, and Pop Rocks shall soon replace bacon and chocolate in both industry and the household. In these annals we shall present a process as well as clinical results.
This is so not our fault. Science agrees!
At the decreed time, we convened in the alchemist's lab (colloquially known as 'the boghouse kitchen') and assembled the calorie-laden raw materials that would be transformed into succulent culinary gold.
Step 1: gather components. 500g smoked bacon. 304g Callebaut milk chocolate, 282g Callebaut dark chocolate. 9.5g Tropical Punch Pop Rocks, 9.5g Wild Berry Pop Rocks (35% more!). 5.7g sprinkles. One helluva good idea.
Mouths watered, eyes gazed longingly, and hands were washed in a manner conveying hunger. We were read for step 2: prepare the bacon. We gingerly breached* the bacon containment system, then watched and waited, but it rapidly became evident that we would actually need to do something to spark the alchemical process; some form of application of energy to meet the activation energy needs of the reaction. (Note to chemists: your godless electron-worshipping graphs with activation energy humps and reaction energy results have no place in our bacon-fearing world. Conversion of tasty to golden deliciousness is a zero-order reaction, proceeding at the speed of hunger, that is beyond your simple mechanical tricks.)
The radioactive material in the smoke detector was immediately ruled out; the mighty power of pork would surely set the detector off, and we had serious concerns about initiating pop-rock fission chain reactions. We'd been told that matter is energy, so we put the bacon in a pan made of matter. But twice the power is twice as, er, powerful, so we cranked the oven and threw 'em on. Pink and... frothy? Must be extra-special bacon.
Makin' bacon: possibly the single most important thing I did that day.
Step 3: refine the process.Process engineering is important. Parallel bacon processing results in fewer bottlenecks and greater olfactory output. We deemed conveyor belts inappropriate, partly because we didn't have enough toilet paper tubes to really get a good line going.
The bacon is ready when it's crispy but not burnt - it must have enough cohesion; if it disintegrates into bacon bits, you'll end up with bacon-chocolate sprinkles, which makes the actual sprinkles unneccessary.
Placing a crucible over a cauldron filled with boiling water increases bubbling but reduces burning, toil and trouble.
Step 4: Stir mercilessly. The chocolate is ready when it has all given in, at which point it is easy to mold to your will.
Melted chocolate can cause tasty workplace accidents. Be sure to keep melted chocolate well seperated, or scrumptious but entropic mixing may occur.
Step 5: Insert bacon into chocolate. Cackle maniacally.
Step 6: Cover the bacon in chocolate. Allow to cool.
Of course, while it's cooling... more experimentation! Premade "pizza spinaci" seemed like such a good idea... but the pizza appeard to have once been pictured on the box, long long ago, long before the zombies came and ate the tomato sauce and passed the zombie disease on to the pizza itself.
And there's only one thing that could make pizza better.
Spinach pizza with milk chocolate. Verdicts:Eliza
Mmm... do you want to help me finish this?Dan
Ah, I guess I will if I need to.
Mmm... do you want to help me finish this?Dan
Ah, I guess I will if I need to.
Spinach pizza with dark chocolate. Verdicts:Eliza
This... isn't so good.Dan
It's ok, I guess. It tastes like chocolate mostly. Too rich.
This... isn't so good.Dan
It's ok, I guess. It tastes like chocolate mostly. Too rich.
Final conclusion: avoid mixing spinach pizza with chocolate in your mouth.
Delicious, dipped-once bacon. All that's missing is the second dipping and the crown popping jewels.
Step 7 and 8: dip a second time. Post-secondary-dip, apply Pop Rocks. Be careful, it's easy to get excited and overpour.
Step 9: allow the bars to cool while eating ice cream. A most critical step. Besides, due to the No Chocolate Left Behind law, there is no such thing as an acceptable chocolate loss. It must be vigorously applied to all foodstuffs. Our chocolates are our future, after all.
Ice cream conclusion: simple, tasty and cold.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of blue pop rocks, I shall fear no taste explosion.
Step 10: CONSUME!Eliza
Initially fruity, spicy tones followed by a rich chocolate body with a bold bacon finish.Dan
An interesting combination of creamy and candy. Intruiging subtle notes of light crystalline sugar highlight the mellow start and body, finishing with a smooth transition to porcine.
Initially fruity, spicy tones followed by a rich chocolate body with a bold bacon finish.Dan
An interesting combination of creamy and candy. Intruiging subtle notes of light crystalline sugar highlight the mellow start and body, finishing with a smooth transition to porcine.
And in the other corner of the ring, the challenger, in pink rocks and dark chocolate... moooooooore baaaaaacon!
Dan
Hmm. Deep chocolate flavour with effervescent highlights. Very gentle hints of smoky meat and - dare I suggest? - a hint of musk. Fascinating crunchy texture.Eliza
Striking. A very complex blend of flavours: sweet berries with a breeze of smoke and salt. Decisively rounded. Held its chocolate better [than green pop rocks/milk chocolate].
Conclusion
"I'm drunk on bacon. Egads." - Eliza"The frontiers of culinary art must be pushed. Pop rocks, chocolate, and bacon make about as much sense to traditional chefs as impressionism did to romanticists. The pizza was gross, though." - Dan
NEW! More feedback!
"If you didn't tell me it had bacon, I wouldn't know it had bacon. Until later. Actually, now I'm, ah, kind of tasting the bacon. [pause] If I was stoned, I would love this. This is beautiful stoner food. It has a weird aftertaste though... [pause] ...did, did you just feed me chocolate-covered bacon?" - Rachael
Footnotes
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends," means "let’s charge into the gap in the enemy’s defenses," not "let’s reach into our pants again." - http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/breach.html
*** NEW! Anderson Porcine Industries' Deluxe Choco-Porcine Culinary Kit, Mark I is for sale! ***
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
woo
I didn't see much of the Amazon between the triple frontier and Manaus due to being reasonably ill - it's mostly passed, pun unintended, though puking and shitting my way down the river wasn't quite how I'd hoped to go. Manaus is a little sketchy but pretty cool, and I head out in a couple of hours on a new boat... this time, bank-cardless. Time to really make that budget stick...
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
border crossings
Yesterday I got off a boat coming down the Amazon and landed in Peru. I got my exit stamp, and then got on another boat, and about ten minutes later I landed in Brazil. I got my entrance to Brazil stamp, with double the days that the visa I paid for allowed, and then walked across a border to Colombia. Eventually I returned to Brazil to sleep. Now I'm back in Colombia, where literally mere meters away prices are 1/4 of what they are in Brazil, still unstamped, and I'm printing out some quick Portugese phrases, for when my Spanish just won't cut it, which I expect will be lots. Tonight I'll sleep in a hammock in a boat that's in international waters, in a way, and tomorrow I go deeper into Brazil.
Farewell, Peru, I hardly knew ye.
Farewell, Colombia, I'll miss you!
Monday, 11 February 2008
shitty deal
The last week hasn't been so great for me.
My notebook is missing. Sketches, doodles, Spanish lessons, lousy poetry and somewhat better prose, notes from museums and sketches from ones which didn't allow photography, lyrics, musical ideas including a few nearly completed pieces in letters or messy tabs or both, art ideas and thoughts, quotes from novels and nonfiction that I wanted to remember and that I wanted to think on later, project ideas, geek notes, contact information, some diary stuff (though thankfully not all of it)... all of my creative output from the last three and a half months, gone. I know where it was: I'm anal about this book, and it and one novel were left in a hostel in Otavalo, I'm sure, when I repacked before running for a bus. Two friends went back to look for it, twice, and it's not there now. Three months, gone.
The day before yesterday I got ripped off by a scamming bar manager, pushed around by an asshole statesider, then treated like shit by someone who I thought was a friend in a way that enhanced the actions of the manager and the statesider.
Three days ago I got ripped off by a guide. Promised horses that would want to run, I got a mare with a greying mane and my friend's horse refused to even trot without being switched in the flank repeatedly. My saddle had buckles in a stupid spot - I think it was a child's saddle - meaning that my thighs got bruises where they touched it, making galloping impossible and trotting only possible in an uncomfortable and unsafe position with my thighs off the saddle. What was supposed to be a three hour ride with maybe an hour of checking stuff out on food was seven and a half hours, with maybe a half hour on foot. It ended up costing so much that my friend and I didn't even have enough for our busses the next day. What I like about horseback riding is galloping and being in touch with the horse, not having to convince it to walk at all, not being able to feel it underneath me, and riding in pitch black which was dangerous for it and I.
And today the first version of this post got deleted because control-C, while IE claims means "copy", actually means "delete and don't allow ctrl-Z to bring back."
Also, I hate Quito.
And there's been lots of other small things that've just sucked but that aren't worth typing in.
So. I have a blog. No blog is complete without some measure of emo whining. Here's hoping the quotient is full. /whine
Sunday, 10 February 2008
photos
There's about a hundred photos up on my flickr. I haven't got time to actually write stuff up for them now, sadly. Also, older photos are apparently no longer available. Huzzah. Short version: wish I'd known that at 200 photos, old photos start being hidden. Old posts might now have links that don't work, I apologize. Anyways, new photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tothefront
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
FARC protests
Anti-FARC protests were in every major Colombian city yesterday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/world/americas/05colombiaweb.html?em&ex=1202360400&en=18b1dc0346d81a93&ei=5087%0A
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0206/p25s01-woam.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7227532.stm
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
spidernews
The Mondo Spider was on the Discovery Channel. And I have no way to watch it, as apparently if your IP is from Colombia you don't get to use that online service. I damned well hope it's still working when I get back, though.
In the meantime, the eatART opening is this Friday. http://www.eatart.org/ has some contact info if you want to go. Hint: you want to go.
Saturday, 5 January 2008
More photomabos.
In Tsuraku, parrots were the only non-bug wildlife we saw (that I can recall, at least). Then we found out that they were vaguely tame and regularly fed by the neighbours.
The other parrot that the neighbours sometimes fed. I'm really sad, I messed up the field of focus on this. I thought I'd focussed on his head, but I guess the camera refocussed afterwards, so... not bad when it's not at 100%, but not amazing.
Hiking down from one of the Banos miradors, I interrupted these two, and got a little voyeuristic.
On the coast of Ecuador there's a national park called Machililla. I rented a bike and headed there from the nearest town, down this road:
There's an archaeological reserve in the park called Agua Blanca. It's not terribly amazing, but there were about a hundred goats crossing the road to there.
I like rocks. (On the beach in Machalilla.)
This cactus seems to grow all over the place randomly. This shot was taken in Machalilla, but two days ago I was walking with some friends along a river in Colombia and we came across one with a deep red fruit on it. We plucked and ate it, and it was rich and delicious. Also, it was covered in tiny pointy needles, which were somewhat less tasty and somewhat more painful.
A shot from a cliffside walk in Machalilla:
More scenery from Machalilla:
I'm really choked about this shot. I'd been shooting birds, and thought I'd left the aperture at a setting which I clearly hadn't left it at. This was shot wide-open. At f8.0 or f11 this would've been a great shot. Damnit!
It's hard to tell (since I can't post-prod it) but this crab was practically glowing it was coloured such a bright and vivid orange.
More pufferfish shots from the Ruta del Sol. Check out his nasty looking teeth, especially:
Ruta del Sol barnacles:
There were a LOT of birds on Ecuador's coast. A bunch did this weird, oscillating dive where it looked like they turned into skip ropes being twitched. I'll put a video up eventually and you'll see what I mean. There were also pelicans, and islands.
Wreckage!
This boat fascinated me. I haven't seen many wrecked boats outside of Nova Scotia.
More wreckage:
More boat:
This washed up one night when we were in the super touristy surf town of Montañita. It had more meat, but the vultures got to it. Note the egg by it's head. The turtle was probably killed by local dogs, and the eggs were mostly dug up by crabs after dogs opened the hole.
These guys were getting dressed outside a museum in Guayaquil. I asked this one, and she was delighted to have her picture taken. The group is called Circus Taller, which in Spanish means Circus Workshop.
Monkey. Need I say more?
A fertility charm very similar to the rightmost one in this collection was part of the inspiration for the graf piece.
Carvings of shamanic figures vary wildly across S. American cultures. Some are anthropomorphic, some are humans with animalistic features, some are just strangely styled. I liked this one, particularly.
When we came out of the museum, the clowns rounded a corner and we walked right into them. They grabbed Em and started dancing with her, and I threw my camera in my bag (wish I'd snapped one of Em with them first!) and jumped into the fray. After a bit we extracted ourselves and I started snapping. In hindsight, I should've been shooting at ISO 200, since though it was a bright day and I needed at least a shutter speed of 1/200 to keep things crisp, a bit more depth of field would've been nice in many of these.
One of my faves:
This guy got dragged in the same way Em did, but after a bit of protest he got pretty into it:
So cute!
Here's most of Circus Taller (which translates to Circus Workshop), though the backdrop sucks. They didn't want to move, understandably, but they wanted a group shot. Funnily enough, afterwards I was packing my bag and chatting with Em, and this little kid comes up and asks for a photo with her. Not with the clowns, jesters, drummers and stiltwalkers who are a few metres away. No, with Emily.
Aaaand that's the 38 pics I get to upload to Flickr this month. And it's only the 5th or so. But hey, highspeed and a major city.
Love ya, miss ya, and stay healthy.
The other parrot that the neighbours sometimes fed. I'm really sad, I messed up the field of focus on this. I thought I'd focussed on his head, but I guess the camera refocussed afterwards, so... not bad when it's not at 100%, but not amazing.
Hiking down from one of the Banos miradors, I interrupted these two, and got a little voyeuristic.
On the coast of Ecuador there's a national park called Machililla. I rented a bike and headed there from the nearest town, down this road:
There's an archaeological reserve in the park called Agua Blanca. It's not terribly amazing, but there were about a hundred goats crossing the road to there.
I like rocks. (On the beach in Machalilla.)
This cactus seems to grow all over the place randomly. This shot was taken in Machalilla, but two days ago I was walking with some friends along a river in Colombia and we came across one with a deep red fruit on it. We plucked and ate it, and it was rich and delicious. Also, it was covered in tiny pointy needles, which were somewhat less tasty and somewhat more painful.
A shot from a cliffside walk in Machalilla:
More scenery from Machalilla:
I'm really choked about this shot. I'd been shooting birds, and thought I'd left the aperture at a setting which I clearly hadn't left it at. This was shot wide-open. At f8.0 or f11 this would've been a great shot. Damnit!
It's hard to tell (since I can't post-prod it) but this crab was practically glowing it was coloured such a bright and vivid orange.
More pufferfish shots from the Ruta del Sol. Check out his nasty looking teeth, especially:
Ruta del Sol barnacles:
There were a LOT of birds on Ecuador's coast. A bunch did this weird, oscillating dive where it looked like they turned into skip ropes being twitched. I'll put a video up eventually and you'll see what I mean. There were also pelicans, and islands.
Wreckage!
This boat fascinated me. I haven't seen many wrecked boats outside of Nova Scotia.
More wreckage:
More boat:
This washed up one night when we were in the super touristy surf town of Montañita. It had more meat, but the vultures got to it. Note the egg by it's head. The turtle was probably killed by local dogs, and the eggs were mostly dug up by crabs after dogs opened the hole.
These guys were getting dressed outside a museum in Guayaquil. I asked this one, and she was delighted to have her picture taken. The group is called Circus Taller, which in Spanish means Circus Workshop.
Monkey. Need I say more?
A fertility charm very similar to the rightmost one in this collection was part of the inspiration for the graf piece.
Carvings of shamanic figures vary wildly across S. American cultures. Some are anthropomorphic, some are humans with animalistic features, some are just strangely styled. I liked this one, particularly.
When we came out of the museum, the clowns rounded a corner and we walked right into them. They grabbed Em and started dancing with her, and I threw my camera in my bag (wish I'd snapped one of Em with them first!) and jumped into the fray. After a bit we extracted ourselves and I started snapping. In hindsight, I should've been shooting at ISO 200, since though it was a bright day and I needed at least a shutter speed of 1/200 to keep things crisp, a bit more depth of field would've been nice in many of these.
One of my faves:
This guy got dragged in the same way Em did, but after a bit of protest he got pretty into it:
So cute!
Here's most of Circus Taller (which translates to Circus Workshop), though the backdrop sucks. They didn't want to move, understandably, but they wanted a group shot. Funnily enough, afterwards I was packing my bag and chatting with Em, and this little kid comes up and asks for a photo with her. Not with the clowns, jesters, drummers and stiltwalkers who are a few metres away. No, with Emily.
Aaaand that's the 38 pics I get to upload to Flickr this month. And it's only the 5th or so. But hey, highspeed and a major city.
Love ya, miss ya, and stay healthy.
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