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

What Greek Teachers Won’t Tell You

When it comes to the Greek Language (at QTC at least) David Allen Black wrote the book. Literally. We use his introduction to Biblical Greek as our textbook. So I enjoyed this post of things your Greek teacher won’t tell you. If you haven’t got a Greek teacher then they’re still interesting. Sort of.

I think there’s some sort of double negative going on here. The list is a mix of Greek fallacies, and truths that you might not have heard. Anyway.

Here’s one of my favourite things from Greek (and Hebrew) this year.

“Greek words do not have one meaning. Yet how many times do we hear in a sermon, “The word in the Greek means…”? Most Greek words are polysemous, that is, they have many possible meanings, only one of which is its semantic contribution to any passage in which it occurs. (In case you were wondering: Reading all of the meanings of a Greek word into any particular passage in which it occurs is called “illegitimate totality transfer” by linguists.)”

October 12, 2010

Putting Social Media in its place

I love Facebook. I love blogs. I understand Twitter. And for years I grappled with how to use them professionally. I read through a bunch of posts on Facebook’s blog the other day and I’m blown away by how powerful the platform is, and how much potential it has to connect people.

But it can never. ever. replace proper face-to-face relationships. And if the extent of your “online marketing” strategy is “be on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube” (and I’m sick of seeing those logos crop up on ads for obscure things as though I’m more likely to buy a car if it’s got its own Twitter account) then your strategy is dumb. It’s part of your brand. And it’s good to be contactable, and to be getting exposure, but if there’s one thing the stupid breast cancer awareness campaigns of this week, and earlier this year, show – it’s that for many people – Facebook “activism” and “marketing” have supplanted the real thing.

Malcolm Gladwell took a stab at this idea in a recent piece for the New Yorker. Some interesting quotes:

Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools. Facebook warriors go online to push for change.

This is in many ways a wonderful thing. There is strength in weak ties, as the sociologist Mark Granovetter has observed. Our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information.

The kind of activism associated with social media isn’t like this at all. The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could in real life.

Some of this grandiosity is to be expected. Innovators tend to be solipsists. They often want to cram every stray fact and experience into their new model. As the historian Robert Darnton has written, “The marvels of communication technology in the present have produced a false consciousness about the past—even a sense that communication has no history, or had nothing of importance to consider before the days of television and the Internet.” But there is something else at work here, in the outsized enthusiasm for social media. Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.

Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”

He makes this point about social media “activism” and where it works, citing an example of a webtrepreneur, Sameer Bhatia, who found out he had leukemia but knew nobody with the same bone marrow type.

Bhatia needed a bone-marrow transplant, but he could not find a match among his relatives and friends. The odds were best with a donor of his ethnicity, and there were few South Asians in the national bone-marrow database. So Bhatia’s business partner sent out an e-mail explaining Bhatia’s plight to more than four hundred of their acquaintances, who forwarded the e-mail to their personal contacts; Facebook pages and YouTube videos were devoted to the Help Sameer campaign. Eventually, nearly twenty-five thousand new people were registered in the bone-marrow database, and Bhatia found a match.

But how did the campaign get so many people to sign up? By not asking too much of them. That’s the only way you can get someone you don’t really know to do something on your behalf. You can get thousands of people to sign up for a donor registry, because doing so is pretty easy. You have to send in a cheek swab and—in the highly unlikely event that your bone marrow is a good match for someone in need—spend a few hours at the hospital. Donating bone marrow isn’t a trivial matter. But it doesn’t involve financial or personal risk; it doesn’t mean spending a summer being chased by armed men in pickup trucks. It doesn’t require that you confront socially entrenched norms and practices. In fact, it’s the kind of commitment that will bring only social acknowledgment and praise.

The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.

Facebook is all about people salving their consciences by appearing to care – it sets a really low bar for participation – like posting “where you like it”…

“Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. The Facebook page of the Save Darfur Coalition has 1,282,339 members, who have donated an average of nine cents apiece.”

And “Social Media Evangelist” Anil Dash agrees with him. With some reservations. One of them is that there are some things, when it comes to communicating a message and bringing about change, that the virtual world just can’t supplant.

Who are the “they”? It’s not really clear. But even as someone who’s had an “evangelist” title in the past, I don’t come to refute Gladwell’s strawman argument. His point is that today’s social networks are fundamentally unable to drive the sort of social change that fueled upheavals like the civil rights movement. I agree; As I said last year, Facebook often enables politics of the sort that convinces college kids that changing their middle name on a website is a form of activism. And the idea that the uprisings in Iran were driven by Twitter or any other social media is clearly refuted by realities such as Hossein “Hoder” Derakhshan, the father of the Iranian blogosphere, being sentenced to nineteen years in prison. The traditional method sit-in and picket-in-the-streets form of protest is clearly a failure online.

There’s also a world of difference between using social media platforms to coordinate action, and using them to stage action or report on action. Facebook is terrific for organising events – social and political – and it is a wonderful way to disseminate information – but it is not a place to stage a protest or to bring about real change. Participating in “awareness raising” on Facebook can not be the only string in the activism or communication bow. It just won’t work. It doesn’t bring about change in the world – it aids the process.

That is all.

October 12, 2010

Mad Skillz Round Two

Getting other people to write content for one’s blog is an awesome strategy for blogging regularly, and before Ben’s book review Wednesday there was Mad Skillz week.

I’d urge you to contribute a book review for Ben’s sake (I haven’t told him yet, but I’m going to review something really exciting).

But I’m also wanting to tap into your repository of awesome, but possibly as yet undiscovered, skills that can be of benefit to others. Have a read of some of the old posts – examples included how to take low light photos, how to play roller hockey for Australia, how to argue with me, how to survive in regional ministry, how to write Christian parody songs, how to be poetic, how to supply teach, how to do graphic design, how to appreciate opera, and how to make an animation story board.

So if you’ve got a niche skill, or just something that’s generally awesome, that you’d like to share with a very small segment of the world, and google, and you’d like to write a guest post, just hit me up by email at nm dot campbell at gmail.com.

October 12, 2010

Calling all blogs

Are you in my blogroll (it’s down the bottom of the page). If you’re not, you should be. And now’s your chance. If you are, then this post is for you too.

I’d like to be more Web 2.0 (which means more “social”) with this little corner of the web. And I’d like to include a little one or two sentence bio/description of your site in my list of links. But I’d like you to write them for me and leave them in the comments on this post.

I’ll also do nice things for you if you’re in it – like posting links to you from time to time and visiting your site. I’ll even comment there.

Apparently (in an article I read today) the one sentence bio (or 140 character bio) was the foundation on which such Web 2.0 luminaries like Facebook and Twitter were built on. So it is an exercise in webness for all of you.

As an incentive – if you don’t participate I’ll probably relegate you to some impossible to find corner of the site (I won’t remove you, because if you’re there already I like what you have to contribute).

October 12, 2010

iTypewriter

Want an iPad but prefer a tactile experience? Don’t want to pay for a MacBook? These reconditioned USB typewriters from etsy are interesting if not practical.

Did I mention that they’re $US700.

October 11, 2010

Mapping the Internet

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

October 11, 2010

Ikea recipe book brings Allen key to the kitchen

Good news for those looking to completely assemble their lives IKEA style. Everybody’s favourite Swedish retailer has produced a cookbook. Here are some of the photos of the ingredients for dishes therein.

October 11, 2010

Stuff White People Date

October 11, 2010

Mario Furniture

If I had this Super Mario theme in my house I’d spend a lot of time running around bashing my head against bricks and trying to jump into drain pipes. So it’s probably a good thing I don’t…

From Neatorama.

October 11, 2010

Why Cycling is incredibly cool

It looks, to the uninformed, like an individual sport. But check out these quotes from the Aussie guy who came fourth at the Commonwealth Games after essentially sacrificing his energy, and his lead, to help a fellow Australian take gold. Chris Sutton won’t get paid for his sacrifice, nor does he get a medal.

“I never got a medal, but I came here to lead Allan Davis out and that’s what we did, he won,” Sutton said.

“I was so happy when he won because that means we did our job perfect.

“The reward is to represent your country, it’s such an honour, and to be part of a gold medal like that is incredible. Allan Davis, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

This would be an awesome photo, though it has to be described in words because I can’t find it on google images, or any of the stories…

“I saw him put his arms up and I put my arms up and looked to the sky and just went ‘that’s great, that’s what we came here to do’.”

Here’s the SMH story. The SMH seem to understand cycling a little better than the ABC who ran this picture with the story, cropping Sutton out…

October 11, 2010

Insanity prevails

The internet is atwitter (it’d be abuzz if Google’s social networking effort didn’t suck quite so much) with news that the Insane Clown Posse, famously shocking shock rockers who fuse professional wrestling, abhorrent lyrics about sex and gangster violence with clown make up and circus garb, have been covert Christians for 20 years, trying to bring people to Jesus through the power of gangster. If true they are the poster boys for “contextualisation” gone wrong.

Read a couple of articles… like this one, and this one, tell me what you think. There are lyrical clues in some of their songs. But they are alongside such gems as:

“She hit me in the balls. I grabbed her by her neck. And I bounced her off the walls. She said it was an accident and then apologised. But I still took my elbow and blackened both her eyes”

Which is apparently satire.

Or:

“Barrels in your mouth/bullets to your head/The back of your neck’s all over the shed/Boomshacka boom chop chop bang.”

Here’s their testimony in a newly released single to clear up years of “mystery” surrounding the clues they’ve dropped over the course of their career, including a six album series.

“F*** it, we got to tell.

All secrets will now be told

No more hidden messages

…Truth is we follow GOD!!!

We’ve always been behind him

The carnival is GOD

And may all juggalos find him

We’re not sorry if we tricked you.”

Interesting. Undercover gangster rapper agents might not have been quite what Paul had in mind when he spoke of being all things to all men. But here’s the rationale from the two insane clowns:

“You have to speak their language. You have to interest them, gain their trust, talk to them and show you’re one of them. You’re a person from the street and you speak of your experiences. Then at the end you can tell them: God has helped me.”

Even the journalist writing that article could spot a problem with the logic:

“Of course, one might argue that 20 years was, under the circumstances, an incredibly long time for them to have pretended to be unholy, and that, from a Christian perspective, the harm they did while feigning unholiness may even have outweighed the greater good.”

If you’re curious to see what undercover Christian gangster rappers look and sound like, here’s a video from one of their more overtly “Christian” songs. I haven’t listened to the words yet, but doubtless it needs a language warning (as do those links).

October 10, 2010

Systematics and the system

I was thinking this morning, sitting in church as Andrew preached a topical sermon, that the fruit of a generation of people faithfully preaching expositionally with sound exegesis is a generation of people who have had some of the hard work of exegesis done for them – at which point it’s much easier to systematise. Provided you trust the people who have taught you. It’s much easier to draw connections between different books and doctrines if people have done the hard work on those books and taught you from that platform already. Sometimes it can even feel intuitive when it seems to have been so hard won by that previous generation.

So my generation has to maintain the balance of faithfully working through the Bible and doing the systematics stuff too. It’s a luxury of not having to function as a corrective.

So. Thanks oldies.

October 10, 2010

Contains “adult content” (according to Facebook)

I like Facebook. I’m not one of those bandwagon jumping player-haters. I don’t get antsy about privacy issues because my philosophy is that if you don’t want people knowing you do something you probably shouldn’t be doing it. But today, Facebook went too far. They sent me this, and removed two of my photos.

“You uploaded a photo that violates our Terms of Use and this photo has been removed. Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence or other violations of the Terms of Use. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children who use the site.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page at http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=wphotos.”

These two photos.

So I sent them a complaint letter. This is what I said:

Dear Facebook Staff and Mr Mark Zuckerberg,

I love Facebook. I have been an enthusiast at both a professional and private level – defending you to my peers and potential advertisers (I worked for a membership based community service group that helped small businesses promote themselves). I think your platform is incredible. I even read your Facebook blog, and despite thinking that all night coding sessions that produce exciting new products sound a little bit nerdy I don’t tease you for it, even on the inside. Even in the face of your continued redefinition of the concept of privacy I’ve defended you and decried the decisions of my friends who have turned in their Facebook badges and ridden off into the sunset.

You were helpful when my account was once hijacked by a hacker. Which was great. So I have faith that this letter will be passed to the appropriate people and acknowledged by something other than a form letter.

But Facebook, overnight (my time, Australian time), you removed two of my photos and issued a warning. Now, I’m sympathetic to the cause of keeping nudity and smut off your servers. I think other parts of the internet could learn from you at that point. I’m an evangelical Christian currently attending seminary. If anyone is going to be in your corner, wanting to keep your service “family friendly” it’s me.

Let me explain what it is you deleted and why I think that decision was wrong.

I recently took part in a study tour in the historically significant archeological sites of Corinth and Ephesus – cities that are significant not only because they contain remnants of the Roman empire, but because they feature in the Bible (there are even books named after letters sent to the churches in the cities). The archeological sites are of interest to Christians and to Roman history buffs. Categories many of my friends fall into.

The photos removed were from a museum in Corinth. They were deemed significant enough to be placed on display at a museum run under the authority of a team of academics and archeologists from the United States and Britain – not for their merit with regards to Christianity (they don’t have much to say about the death of Jesus in the place of sinners for their free forgiveness, and his resurrection and lordship of all things). The subjects of the photos, various casts and sculptures of parts of the human anatomy, were from a temple in Corinth where sick or sad Corinthians would place sculptures representing the physical malady they were praying for. First century Graeco-Roman culture was quite sexually driven, so their prayers were often along those lines. Obviously. Based on the sculptures. So the photos were in no way titillating, and they were clearly from a museum exhibit. I’m wondering how it was that they were considered “nudity” when they were clearly made of stone and not part of a body?

Yours Faithfully,

Nathan Campbell (username nm.campbell).

Now, some of you might think there’s an inconsistency between me suggesting that innuendo laced status updates shouldn’t be put on Facebook by Christians lest they cause their brothers to stumble, which was one of my arguments against the breast cancer awareness campaign (though not the thrust of that post). If you can’t tell the difference between appropriately talking about sex, and turning sex into cheap laughs and lewd talk then we can talk about that offline, over a boxing match, in which we participate.

October 10, 2010