Culture – Page 78 – St. Eutychus

Mythbusting in the Kitchen

Kenji Lopez-Alt is an online cooking superstar. He’s the guy who reverse engineered Maccas fries and so owns a special place in all our hearts.

He combines science and cooking and writing like a chef combines ingredients…

So when he says “these are the six biggest myths in food preparation” then I believe him. And I post a link to them.

Some surprises, like the idea that you can flip steaks over and over again during cooking (I’m of the only flip once school).

Common backyard know-how dictates that burgers and steaks should only be flipped once, half way through cooking. But has anyone ever bothered questioning why we do this? Does it actually create a noticeable improvement in the way your meat comes out?

Turns out the answer is an emphatic no! Flipping your meat multiple times produces meat that’s noticeably more evenly cooked (there’s about 40% less overcooked meat in a burger flipped every 15 seconds vs. one flipped once), browns just as well (just don’t expect distinct hash marks), and to top it all off, ends up cooking in about 2/3rds of the time. Faster and better? You betcha!

October 13, 2010

Females of Fiction Flowchart

This Overthinking It flowchart is cool. Maybe slightly PG.

October 13, 2010

Mapping the Internet

This XKCD map of the internet is cool. Click it to make it bigger.

October 11, 2010

Online dating service Ok Cupid has a blog. A lot of users. And truckloads of data on those users. They also have a pretty gifted statistician/interpreter who makes that blog one of the most interesting things online.

This post explores the preferences of various racial groups, collated from the data on public profiles and presents it in little interactive graphics. I’ve included the white people graphics as images for your viewing pleasure, but the post itself is worth a read.

As for the interests of white women, you have romance novels, some country music, and a broad selection of Good Housekeeping type stuff. It’s also amazing the extent to which their list shows a pastoral or rural self-mythology: bonfires, boating, horseback riding, thunderstorms. I remind you that OkCupid’s user base is almost all in large cities, where to one degree or another, if you find yourself doing much of any of these things, civilization has come to an end.

If I had to choose over-arching themes for white people’s lists, for men, I’d go with “frat house” and for women, “escapism.” Whether one begot the other is a question I’ll leave to the reader.

White Men:

White Women:

October 11, 2010

Breaking up the band

I used to be a Weezer fan. Well I still am, but in Regurgitator’s classic words “I like their old stuff better than their new stuff.” In fact, I haven’t listened to anything since the Red album. I think they’ve released a couple since. I don’t want them to break up, but some people on the internet are trying to raise ten million dollars to buy them out. That’s right. $10,000,000 to force them to retire. Here’s the open letter (Weezer’s drummer responded and said they’d do it for 20. Deluxe style).

I have never been a fan of this band. I think that they are pretty much horrible, and always have been. Even in the early 90’s.

But this isn’t about me. This is about the Weezer fans. They are our brothers and sisters, our friends, our lovers.

Every year, Rivers Cuomo swears that he’s changed, and that their new album is the best thing that he’s done since “Pinkerton,” and what happens? Another pile of crap like “Beverly Hills” or “I’m Your Daddy.”

This is an abusive relationship, and it needs to stop now.

I am tired of my friends being disappointed year after year.I am tired of endless whimsical cutesy album covers and music videos.

I’m sick of hearing about whatever this terrible (and yes, even if you like the early stuff, you should be able to admit that they are wretched now) excuse for a band is up to these days.

If all 852,000 of you (really?) who bought “Pinkerton” pitch in $12, we will meet our goal.

I beg you, Weezer. Take our money and disappear.

You can donate here. You only have to pay if they raise the cash.

October 8, 2010

What to do if you are involved in a dud movie

It seems that if you want to salvage some dignity after being involved in the production of one of the movies voted the worst of all time that your only recourse is to write an open letter to a major newspaper. That’s what J.D Shapiro, the guy who wrote the original screen adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth, did.

“My script was very, VERY different than what ended up on the screen. My screenplay was darker, grittier and had a very compelling story with rich characters. What my screenplay didn’t have was slow motion at every turn, Dutch tilts, campy dialogue, aliens in KISS boots, and everyone wearing Bob Marley wigs.”

What is slightly more awesome is that Bill Murray has come out recently to announce that the only reason he signed on to be the voice of Garfield in the recent animated movie was that he thought it was a Cohen brothers movie.

“No! I didn’t make that for the dough! Well, not completely. I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I’d never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, “So-and-so and Joel Coen…

I don’t know if I should even tell this story, because it’s kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It’s interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, “That’s the line? Well, I can’t say that.” And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, “Okay, you better show me the rest of the movie, so we can see what we’re dealing with.” So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, “Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the @#$% was Coen thinking?” And then they explained it to me: It wasn’t written by that Joel Coen.”

So, if you’re ever involved in the production of an awful movie the key is to wait at least six years and then deliberately, but gently and in a self-deprecating manner, bag it out and walk away.

October 3, 2010

Bringing back Pluto

A bunch of kids in third grade took exception to the decision to withdraw Pluto’s planetary status. So they did what people taking exception have done for generations. They wrote complaint letters. To the astronomer responsible. The curator of the New York planetarium.

There are more here.

Including this rather conciliatory missive.

October 3, 2010

How Japanese knives are made

If I were to become rich and famous I would buy nice watches and nice knives. You can take your nice cars and put them in your nice garages… knives and watches. Cutting stuff into paper thin pieces and telling the time while looking classy. That’s what my life as a rich person would look like.

I’m not likely to become either, so I’ll settle for the cheapo knock-off fob watch that I bought in the Turkish Bazaar this week, and my Thai Kiwi knives bought over the internet for $7 a pop.

But Japanese knives are the cutting edge of knife technology. And this article shows how they’re made. In pictures.

“A piece of hard steel will provide the razor-sharp edge Sakai’s knives are famous for, and a piece of soft ferrite, containing more carbon, will prevent the knife from breaking. A combination not unlike reinforced concrete, where the concrete provides resistance to compression while the iron grid prevents the material from breaking when pulled.”

Knives made this way retail for $400 Euros a pop.

October 3, 2010

The inner workings of a bank robber

This is a fascinating account of the life and times of a successful bank robber from Wired. It’s fascinating. It’ll doubtless become a movie one day. Unless Oceans 11 is this guy’s story played by 11 characters (which it’s not, because it’s a remake of a rat pack movie).

Blanchard also learned how to turn himself into someone else. Sometimes it was just a matter of donning a yellow hard hat from Home Depot. But it could also be more involved. Eventually, Blanchard used legitimate baptism and marriage certificates — filled out with his assumed names — to obtain real driver’s licenses. He would even take driving tests, apply for passports, or enroll in college classes under one of his many aliases: James Gehman, Daniel Wall, or Ron Aikins. With the help of makeup, glasses, or dyed hair, Blanchard gave James, Daniel, Ron, and the others each a different look.

Over the years, Blanchard procured and stockpiled IDs and uniforms from various security companies and even law enforcement agencies. Sometimes, just for fun and to see whether it would work, he pretended to be a reporter so he could hang out with celebrities. He created VIP passes and applied for press cards so he could go to NHL playoff games or take a spin around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with racing legend Mario Andretti. He met the prince of Monaco at a yacht race in Monte Carlo and interviewed Christina Aguilera at one of her concerts.

Read the whole thing, it’s worth it.

October 2, 2010

How to know if you’ve had too much to drink

If you start trying to give long dead animals mouth to mouth resuscitation it’s probably time to give up drinking.

Hopefully this guy in America learned his lesson.

Pennsylvania police have charged a man with public drunkenness after reports that he tried to resuscitate a long-dead opossum on a highway…

State police said several witnesses had seen Donald Wolfe, 55, tending to the roadkill about 65 miles (105 km) north-east of the city of Pittsburgh.

One reported seeing Mr Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance.

Another reported seeing him give mouth to mouth resuscitation to the carcass.

State police Trooper Jamie Levier said the animal had been dead a while, the Associated Press news agency reports.

October 2, 2010

How to stop street preachers

Ask where the pancake mix is…

EDIT: I should clarify that the preachers being heckled in the video were apparently Westboro Baptist style preachers so I think this is a case of meeting nonsense with nonsense.

September 26, 2010