Random Rambling Blog Thingy

Signs of the Apocalypse

2011-05-28T01:44:30Z

Recall the doomsayers of last week, predicting THE END? Yeah, we might as well get used to it, 2012 is going to have a bumper crop. Still, this could be a sign; Mark Zuckerberg actually did something I respect.

The funny thing is the tone of misunderstanding and disgust the act of being responsible for your own slaughter garners. You can, of course, take that stance if you're an honest vegetarian. But if you ain't meat free, then comments like "OMG, he killed his own dinner" are laughably hypocritical.

We talk about food, a lot. If I talk about meat, the conversion might come around to particular cuts, animals, butchering, etc. Sometimes people, even people who prepare food, get squeamish about this. If you don't eat meat, you get a pass. However, if you do eat meat, you should respect the sacrifice and not go running about with hands over ears.

Even a Big Mac demanded a life. Granted, only a small portion of one, with lots of filler, but technically some dead animal was involved. If that doesn't sit well, I recommend Morningstar Farms. They honestly taste like some burgers I've had that claimed to be meat, so you're not really missing much there.

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Meat Loaf

2011-05-27T02:05:59Z

The other night I made meatloaf. It got good reviews and second helpings, so I figured I should write it down.

This recipe is entirely gluten free. That may sound strange, given it's meatloaf, but GF soy sauce is hard to find. Depending on your level of intolerance, oats prepared in the presence of wheat could also be an issue. I would have done the same recipe without a GF audience... Well, I probably would have used the cheaper soy sauce.

A quick note about measurements here; I'm just guessing. I never really measure anything, so quantities of liquid and oats are pretty subjective. They'll also vary with the type of meat and type of oats you're using.

Meat Loaf
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2 lbs beef
1 lb pork
2 onions
2 eggs
3 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup water ( aprox )
1 tsp salt ( optional )
2 tsp olive oil ( optional )

You can't do a whole lot about how meat loaf looks, so taste is all you've got. It should taste like meat (dammit!), not be dry, not be a brick. Meat flavor comes, of course, from meat. But just meat can get lost in the oven. The addition of browned onions and soy sauce will help to enhance meatiness. Oatmeal solves both bricking and drying dangers. It has texture and a hydroscopic quality that makes it an ideal filling.

Begin by rough chopping the onions and sweating them in a pan. Add a pinch of salt here. You don't need to fully caramelized them, but you do want some browning. When brown forms on the bottom, add a some water. You may have heard never add water when caramelizing onions; this only partially true. Onions in a pan of water aren't going to brown. However, if you let them stick a little and add water, the brown will come off the pan into the onions and you'll avoid burning. The trick is adding a little water and letting it steam off as you go. When your onions are cooked, you want about a cup of liquid in the pan.

Crush the rolled oats up a little. We want them to disappear into a batter that will carry all the other elements through the loaf. Turn off the heat and add the oats. Stir, add the soy sauce, stir a some more, then let this mixture sit.

In another container, break the eggs and whisk them together. We want to add the eggs to the oat mixture. If the mixture still too hot, we need to temper the eggs. That is, add some mixture to eggs, mix together, add more, mix, then add everything together. This avoids scrambled eggs. Our current product should be wet but batter like. We can adjust after we bring in the meat.

Meat! Unless your butcher ground it for you just so, it's hard achieve and maintain the ideal texture. Have no fear, that's what our oat batter is for. Combine meat and oat mixture together thoroughly. You should now have a rather disturbing looking meat batter. We want it a little wet, kind of oozing. If it's running, you can add some more oatmeal. Too dry, more water. Don't worry too much; it's meat loaf. Now, put it in the fridge for a half an hour, or as long as you like. ( Until is starts to smell funny, then you have to start over. )

When ready, remove cooled meat batter from fridge. You want to form it onto a pan, much like beefy sand castle, but more regular. You want are smooth lump of uniform size in the middle of your pan. Some shapes will cook faster than others; use common sense. I usually go with the pushing up daisies kind of shape.

You can optionally rub some olive oil on the outside and sprinkle a little salt. This will theoretically give it some yummy crust, depending on moisture and how your oven works. It may not. It doesn't hurt.

Now just cook until the juices run clear. As much as I like my steak bloody, there is no such thing medium rare meat loaf. We want it entirely cooked through. You can take all the juice and make a gravy, but the meat loaf shouldn't need it.

Let it rest a little before you cut into it. ( Given the structure, you probably don't have to rest it, but it doesn't hurt. ) Slice and serve.

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Don't cross the streams...

2011-04-24T00:54:34Z

Still playing with streaming video services. Forget the Amazon thing I posted; Netflix puts it to shame.

Of course, Netflix has issues, but they're geek issues. Doesn't play with Linux. It claims can't play with Linux, but runs fine on numerous Linux based embedded devices. One of these devices, recently granted access to the inner circle is Boxee. I currently have two little digital video devices; the Roku and the Boxee box.

The Boxee does pretty much everything I want. Of the available devices I've seen, it's the most friendly with home networks, playing any media it finds without complaint. And the format that media is in doesn't much bother it. Any codec, any container, any time. It supports Netflix and most content providers ( though, notably, doesn't have direct Amazon support). It does allow the installation of a general purpose web browser that will get you around to the places that don't have a spiffy "App" icon. Adding third party "Apps" is relatively painless. The iPhone remote control app is really handy. It takes both USB and SD cards for external data. It's wireless support is hassle free.

On the downside, the Boxee is, well, boxy. While quiet, there is a slight hum. You'll want to turn it off when not in use; it seemed to get confused when I left it on too long. Boot up time isn't great. There are some bugs that occasionally pop up, but no show stoppers. I've actually yet to see one of these things that's entirely bug free. It's one of the more expensive of the breed, coming in at $200.

The Roku is a cute little thing. No moving parts, quiet, leave it on forever and not notice, doesn't even sport a power button. It plays online services well and if you're looking for a dedicated Netflix appliance, this one is for you. The low end is a mere $60, with the high end being only marginally more at $100. The $100 model adds a USB plug and "Extended-range Wireless-N", among other things. Its "Apps" are "Channels". You can actually search around the internet for "private" channels that you have to register via their web page for more content.

While it handles supported online feeds well, that's the extent of Roku's power. The number of channels you can have active are limited. There is no built in way to stream your own content to the thing. There are a few third part addons that will do it, for a fee. There are some free projects that will do it, but you essentially have to jailbreak the thing. It's crashed a bit, so I don't want to taunt it.

The Roku "wifi" is a joke. The $100 model with "extended range" sometimes lost connection even when sitting on top of the wifi access point. Network discovery is hit or miss and it will often lock up during the process. Even after it's discovered a network, you still have to kill a chicken to get it to initialize and even then you don't know how long you'll keep it. If you plug it into wired connection, all these issues go away.

The Roku USB serves mostly to taunt. The number of formats supported are sadly wanting and even supported formats may not work if not encoded just so. Those third part streamers are really just hacks of this mechanism, so the files have to be encoded even if coming off a home media server.

If you want an efficient little Netflix box and have a wired connection, Roku is great. If you have your own stuff you want to play, or pretty much need to do anything beyond Roku's canned channels, I'd go with the bigger Boxee.

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Toys!

2011-04-17T15:50:45Z

Went to a toy store yesterday. It's in Princeton, but unlike most of the oppressively yuppie town, it's a bastion of happy. Manic, over priced, kid happy; but happy. In addition to the kid purchases ( I'll reveal one later ), I, of course, needed a toy. For some reason, what immediately popped into my mind was a Rubik's Snake. It's not really a puzzle so much as a fiddle device. I find such things soothing.

Well, the one I had as a kid was called a "snake". I think they only came in black and white initially. They were big beefy things that could take a considerable amount of punishment without complaint. They felt solid. Each future iteration seems less solid. The current thing is called the twist. It is a smaller, flimsier, cheaply made particolored thing. One of the elements on the one I got doesn't sit entirely true. Still, I'm amused enough by it and wishing they made things like they used to. Damn, I sound old.

New techie, non retro toy: roku! It's in the mail. I decided to purchase Amazon's Prime service. No, not for the shipping perks, though that's nice. Rather, for the TV! Amazon offers a ton of TV free to prime accounts, most of which is from BBC America. Doctor Who (classic, modern, Torchwood), Red Dwarf, Black Adder! Also, specials and things like Farscape that I never caught all the episodes of.

I've tested the browser service out on stuff the other house viewer doesn't want to see. It's not perfect, since free means streaming. One internet burp and you can fall into pause purgatory. But, when the bits are flowing it looks fine. I'm hoping the roku is more intelligent with caching.

The Amazon buggers don't offer support for Boxee, but you can browse to the content and it will work. People have been bitching about this for a while and I may have to write an app. I was surprised that the streaming content doesn't seem to use a tunnel. I could conceivably sniff and store it. Something that would doubtless give media execs fits.

So, if I post even less ( hardly possible at this point, I know ), I'm probably watching a streaming boob tube.

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More Movies and what is "scifi"

2011-04-15T00:47:14Z

The last film throw down post was partially the result of a search for decent scifi in recent years. In general, not a great showing. There was only one I could honestly recommend from the last batch.

For the last year, 2010, I only think of one "good" scifi movie. And it was a mass market success: Inception. Really, 2010, anything else? Really, I want to know.

2009 had a few. Surrogates was a mass release, panned but I thought well done. District 9 was the small film everyone got to see. Moon, the best of the lot, you probably missed. You might be thinking Avatar! While I enjoyed the epic eye candy, don't think too hard extravaganza, I don't actually put it in the scifi category. I guess I should explain.

Science fiction, or speculative fiction ( it sounds silly, but does seem closer to the idea ), requires more than just space garbage. There should be something that doesn't yet exist, but could theoretically exist. New technology or a new application of technology that hasn't been seen. More importantly, that thing is required for the tale told. If it's magic, you better have a good explanation; blaming some unseen "force" is just a cop out.

My rules mean that avowed "fantasy" is NOT science fiction. Lots of things that pretend to be science fiction are really just action movies in a period setting.

Back to Avatar. For scifi categorization, it really is Dances with Wolves. None of the tech is required for the recycled modern man prodigy taken by savages story. Star Wars is classic space opera. It's a western with magic that found its way into a galaxy far far away.

Moon. It's brilliance is the reason you may not have heard of it. A very simple premise is explored, but telling you that premise will ruin the early part of the film as you're trying to figure out what's going on. So I can't tell you a lot about it. It's slow, thoughtful, and not particularly violent. While not perfect, it's close. The viewer isn't assumed to be an idiot and no scientist ex machina shows up to explain things. Rather, the story is adeptly told and the viewer gets to figure out all the elements. Often before the main character. If you haven't seen this, find it.

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Movies and stuff

2011-04-11T01:10:28Z

Working my way through the "stuff to watch" list.

I thought I had a theme running about halfway through. Either post apocalypse or simply dystopia. While that's indeed there, an unexpected theme emerged; emotional awakening. This is, of course, a required element in most stories. But in the bleakest stuff, it seems to be the only theme. Sometimes it's the only thing saving a piece from just being violent, narcissistic, porno.

The Walking Dead - Ooo, Zombies. Not generally my favorite genre, but some friends were taken by it. The world ends in a plague of moaning, necrotic, infectious, mostly dead, cannibals, as we follow the last of struggling humanity. You know the drill. It's well done, tense, and at times honestly scary. Our heroes are those who hold on to hope, even though it's not clear why.

The Road - Apocalypse grey. A bleak, miserable, dead world thing. A man and his son navigate the waste land, mostly just looking for food. Suicide is a strong, constant, disturbing element here. Human monsters are far more scary than anything undead. There is a desperate need to hold on to not just hope, but compassion. Slight spoiler: In the end, the movie isn't a total downer. I felt a little robbed by this, actually.

Metropia - a grey, animated, puppet like jerky motion ride. An Orwellian exercise that's convoluted and has as much depth as it has color. To be this artsy, I expected more for having to put up with it. Any clever ideas offered just didn't seem to come together.

Repo Men - A stock cyberpunk theme; artificial body parts are reposed if you can't pay the bills. An inconsistent black comedy with lots of senseless violence and blood splatter. While mostly predictable, it does have spots of genius. I enjoyed this more than I expected to.

Equilibrium - Tying together our dystopian extravaganza, a world on Prozac where it's illegal to stop taking it. A nice totalitarian extreme, where all emotion and things that evoke it are cauterized. Reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451, our hero is the enforcer who wakes up to his world. While overwhelmingly absurd, Christian Bale owns the screen and carries us along. Some good bloody violence. There's one bit where a wing chun sticky hands dance is done with pistols.

And now, for something completely different...

The Man from Earth - I was surprised this wasn't a play. A labor of love from SF writer Jerome Bixby, this no frills independent film made completely of dialog manages to engage. It runs almost like an SF writer's workshop; accept one absurd notion and then follow all the logical implications it introduces. Pure scifi and easily the most intelligent film of the lot. Worth a watch.

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baavgai @ 2009-07-07T21:05:00

2009-07-08T01:10:28Z

I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention the weekend. Friday was an excellent Princeton crawl, with great weather, good Japanese for lunch, a fun time at the toy store, perfect timing in getting to The Bent Spoon ( best ice cream ). Figured that would be the highlight of the week, then a friend invited us to join him for fireworks on Saturday.

The company was good, our kind of geeks. I ended up spending a ton of time chatting with a girl who knew far more about string theory than I; brilliant chick. She was still in high school, made me feel old. She has a website with instructions on how to build a cyclotron and knew our master of ceremonies through a shared interest; the Tesla coil.

Yeah, a Tesla coil. Here it is lit up later in the evening.

I thought throwing obscene amounts of electricity about was the fireworks show, and indeed it was. But not all of it.

After marshalling that much juice, it only seemed proper to have a graphic demonstration of destructive force. The following is an animated image. It's what happens when you pump 30,000 amps through watermelon.

Three innocent fruits met their end this way, all with concussive force. Best firecrackers, ever.

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Doing the Books and Books

2009-06-21T23:18:14Z

Thinking of moving or just budgeting? The "Living Wage Calculator", with the cheery title of "Poverty in America", is quite interesting: http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/

In other news, I was recently looking for some clip art for a portcullis. Yes, my googling is so facinating. I wanted a logo for a X11 screen locker I'd written ( also exciting ). I'll post the source for that if I ever get around to figuring out the GNOME hook part and how I want to do it.

I also looked up halberd, thinking of crossed pole arms. Halberd didn't work to well, but the results were expected. Glaive. Remember that was the name of uber shuriken in Krull? Yeah, the name is quite popular in fantasy. Same with polearm. Spear was ambiguous at best, but when I typed it, I also saw "spears" was a more popular option. Without thinking I typed spears and was immediately bombarded with a montage of naked flesh.

I told you that to tell you this. In my search I chanced up the Gutenberg Project's edition of The Handbook to English Heraldry. I was amazed that all the images were also included in the edition. Ages ago it was just ascii. This is old news, but it was news to me.

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Duh.

2009-04-20T23:33:29Z

I'm an idiot.

Friend says, I really want an account on this new service based on LJ. I say, sounds good. They say, really want to reserve my name. Yep, I agree. Login with OpenID. Can't reserve name, bookmark for when it's open, and move along.

Get a lovely invite, fill it out, figure I'll invite friend after... oops, I can't invite anyone. Wait nervously; if name poofs I'm toast.

In the mean time, can't figure out how to browse squat. Life goes on.

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