4 grueling hours job hunting

In the meantime, you can always download a pdf from his website.

Because over here there's a high probability that reporters are arts graduates. If not the reporters, then the PR-droids that write the press release which is further dumbed-down by the reporters.

I am, of course, being liberal in my definition of "arts" :)

n ha scritto:

that yards, feet, etc. are :D

Ahh. :)

For fun I'm taking a culinary course at the local community college. One c lassmate knows I have a chemistry background because I made a comment about preferring stainless steel pots. Apart from that, I'm kind of undercover. It's more fun that way. :)

During our Practical Exam, I made Killer Croutons:

2-3 slices of French bread, cut into approximately 3/4-inch cubes 1/4 cup or more olive oil (the bread will absorb a lot of oil; be forewarne d) Fry in a pan with minced garlic until croutons are crunchy. Take care not to burn the garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Tastes approximately 10x better than store-bought croutons.

Michael

It's bad enough naming things for dead scientists, but even worse is naming the reciprocals for other dead scientists. Were Ohm and Siemens enemies?

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

But he had yellow booties on SNL!

I guess you've seen "Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food" by Jeff Potter. It has some recipes, but more importantly it gives some insights into /what/ the cooking techniques do and /why/ they work.

ne classmate knows I have a chemistry background because I made a comment a bout preferring stainless steel pots. Apart from that, I'm kind of underco ver. It's more fun that way. :)

I haven't, actually!

There are a ton of "myths" we were told in class that I wonder if are reall y true.

Such as... must you *really* heat the frying pan *before* putting in the *o il*?

I can see how heating the pan before adding meat would make the sizzle prev ent meat from sticking to the pan, but adding oil to a hot pan made me wond er.

Using a candy thermometer to make sure the oil was at 375F before adding ch icken wings for frying was a neat thing to learn in class, though.

Cheers,

Michael

ne classmate knows I have a chemistry background because I made a comment a bout preferring stainless steel pots. Apart from that, I'm kind of underco ver. It's more fun that way. :)

Heston Blumenthal is another of the famous chefs that do "molecular gastron omy" basically cooking using chemistry as the guide

-Lasse

One classmate knows I have a chemistry background because I made a comment about preferring stainless steel pots. Apart from that, I'm kind of under cover. It's more fun that way. :)

y

lly true.

*oil*?

event meat from sticking to the pan, but adding oil to a hot pan made me wo nder.

you always want to put meat on a hot pan, not to prevent it sticking but if isn't hot you don't get the maillard reaction that makes it taste good, instead it just gets boiled and boring

-Lasse

The geeks book will tell you why 375, and what happens if you are too hot or cold. I can remember cause-and-effect, I can't remember isolated datapoints.

Another reason is that if it is hot then the leidenfrost effect will reduce the tendency to stick to the pan.

Art doesn't matter. Food does.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Yes. We can get some of his recipes in a local upmarket supermarket chain (Waitrose). Some are nice, some .... aren't.

His programmes are fun to watch, and they are a throwback to one cooking tradition, "meals as impressive entertainment". But there's no way I'm going copy any of his recipes!

Maybe one day I'll pluck up sufficient courage to make my own sous-vide cooker.

One classmate knows I have a chemistry background because I made a comment about preferring stainless steel pots. Apart from that, I'm kind of under cover. It's more fun that way. :)

ly

eally true.

e *oil*?

prevent meat from sticking to the pan, but adding oil to a hot pan made me wonder.

g chicken wings for frying was a neat thing to learn in class, though.

Impressive.

Usually when I add raw chicken at 375 the temperature drops, sometimes all the way down to 250 or so. It cooks fairly quickly though. I'm still a be ginner at the technique.

But, John, food *is* art! Unless it's fast food. :D

Michael

How about this?

But if you make it too pretty, you might not want to eat it.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

You'll need fewer atoms per unit of bang.

things always get more and more abstract. 1950, a movie is several reels of film. 1985, it's one VHS tape. Then DVD, BluRay, now it doesn't even exist physically - it's a "digital download" or the like.

People can work from home. Our logistical prowess is staggering; I'd be very surprise if it's ever been even this energy efficient before, much less time and treasure.

Sure. A lot of things just level off for various reasons. We're pretty good at substitution.

Oh, I rather doubt that. it's a great sci fi trope, but it's useless as a theory. And human fecundity - reproduction rate - is leveling off.

I think it will, unless we go all space travel.

Good question. Here's the thing - we really do have exceptional people pop up now and again and make things that are very useful, and the probability of that is roughly proportional to the number of people in general.

Maybe that's less true now - the "exceptional" people seem less serious than they used to.

This is true. I suspect we're on a slowly decelerating path of increase in population - the second derivative of population is now approaching negative. Interestingly enough, giving women the power to say "that's enough babies" seems remarkably effective in this.

We can care all we want but things will change enough to where it doesn't matter much what we do. Most things are changing, but they have momentum and don't change al that quickly, unless they do, and to say anyone purely wills that change seems foolish.

--
Les Cargill

Interesting. Hope that wasn't prying. I can certainly sympathize - it's easy to get tangled up in BS with abstraction.

--
Les Cargill

Electronic design is about building physical things that you can sell. At the bottom level, what you ship, everything is flat, nothing is abstracted. I prefer to see the entire structure of a design or a program, top to bottom, with no mysterious black boxes.

I really dislike multi-level hierarchal schematics and deep-nested RTL designs. Especially when signal names change at every level. Some people enjoy the abstraction for its own sake; I don't.

Of course, ICs are often black boxes, and we can only guess what's actually inside, based on data sheets and experiments and generally futile calls to customer support.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

e. One classmate knows I have a chemistry background because I made a comm ent about preferring stainless steel pots. Apart from that, I'm kind of un dercover. It's more fun that way. :)

antly

hy/

e really true.

the *oil*?

le prevent meat from sticking to the pan, but adding oil to a hot pan made me wonder.

ding chicken wings for frying was a neat thing to learn in class, though.

ll the way down to 250 or so. It cooks fairly quickly though. I'm still a beginner at the technique.

You're an artist too! :D

Michael