Experimental results

Test #1. Partial success. The idea of maple ice cream has been vindicated strongly, as has the overall functionality of the ice-cream making machine. (Cuisinart, btw, and quite recommended based on this limited test)

The recipe in question, derived from reading through a lot of other recipes and trying to merge them, is a complete failure. For reference, the basic idea was to make a creme anglaise – boil the milk, cream and flavor mixture, whisk it in to eggs, hold it at 170F for a few moments, strain and chill – and then freeze it. The resulting flavor is hard to describe, and best not thought about too closely, especially this close to lunch.

Test #2 will use a lighter recipe, perhaps one omitting the eggs altogether. If anyone has a favored category of ice cream recipes that they think may be worth using in future tests, please let me know.

Published in: on November 3, 2003 at 12:35  Comments (2)  
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Wahahahaha…

I am now the owner of an ice cream maker.

I also now have a list of experiments planned. Maple, several flowers (esp. Jasmine), fresh spearmint and peppermint (to be served together, sitting in chocolate shells), port wine, smoked salmon (to be served sitting inside half an avocado, together with very thin toasted slices of baguette), cucumber sorbet (to be served in the middle of a bowl of gazpacho), sundry fruits (maybe apple sorbet floating in some real apple cider? i.e. the good very dry Bretagne variety, not the artificially flavored shite they’ve been selling in the supermarkets lately…), nuts and spices (Hazelnut, nutmeg, clove & allspice, and so on) and so on…

This will be fun.

Those of you in the area may be unexpectedly dragooned into acting as guinea pigs for various of these, at various times in the near future.

Also, on a completely different note: the band ‘Paris Combo’ is excellent. French jazz with lots of Spanish and Gypsy influences. Highly recommended to anyone who likes any of those categories.

Published in: on October 26, 2003 at 18:41  Comments (8)  
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Protected: Sync pulse

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Published in: on October 26, 2003 at 18:28  Enter your password to view comments.  

The Lord’s our shepherd, says the psalm, but just in case…

[politics]

And now, for your latest Nerve-Wracking News from the Near East!

<Cut to anchorman in plaid blazer with synthetic grin>

The rumor has started to circulate – (Confirmed by UPI, denied by the governments involved, no clear word yet from other journalistic sources) – that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have concluded a deal by which Pakistan will station nuclear weapons on Saudi territory, offering them an (Islamic) nuclear umbrella to replace the American defense which has been increasingly pulling out of the country since this past summer. The deal is apparently a straight oil for nukes swap. Linked story above has good overall analysis, or see Google News reports for other stories.

In sync with this, Iran has agreed to permit nuclear inspections. While definitely a step in the right direction, there are fairly widespread concerns that this is too little, too late – the program may already be at the point where it is easily concealable. Israel’s chief of military intelligence advised the Knesset today that their program could reach the “point of no return” in bomb development within ten months, even given this inspections regime.

Combine this with heatups in politics [the Palestinian attack on American officials in Gaza a few days ago, various kinds of increased tension in Iraq, new pronunciamentos from bin Laden, the start of winter (and the corresponding drop in temperature to humanly sustainable levels), and even things like Malaysian PM Mahathir‘s and American LGEN Boykin‘s respective bits of brilliant statesmanship], it looks like it’s going to be a hell of a winter…

Published in: on October 21, 2003 at 10:23  Comments Off on The Lord’s our shepherd, says the psalm, but just in case…  
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Strange.

I just spent an hour or so coding to the tune of Rossini’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa. Excellent music, but very clearly liturgical music. Catholic liturgical music, to be precise.

That leaves one in a strange frame of mind.

Published in: on October 17, 2003 at 16:53  Comments (4)  
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Your random language thought for the morning:

A slip of the finger could transform an odometer, which measures distance travelled, to an odimeter, which measures the intensity of hatred.

A Google search on “odimeter,” however, only returned a handful of people who misspelled odometer. There are apparently no plans to market such a device, perhaps from lack of consumer interest.

On a completely different, note, the Supreme Court today refused without comment to hear a key case on medical marijuana, letting stand a ruling of the 9th circuit court of appeals that doctors may discuss its use with their patients without fear of reprisal. This was unexpected, as both sides had expected the court to take the case; the decision is likely to be interpreted as agreement by the court that the right of physicians to dispense medical advice supercedes the right of the federal government to make health policy. (Which is how the DEA phrased their case) The fact that nine states have independently passed laws to this effect may have had some impact as well.

OK, back to work for me…

Published in: on October 14, 2003 at 10:14  Comments (2)  
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Easily amused…

Reading the Unicode standard for text encoding is surprisingly fascinating. The proposal for the encoding rules for Egyptian Hieroglyphics bring up all the points they’ll need to consider when encoding Mayan Hieroglyphics and various kinds of runes; the proposals for Tengwar and Cirth are just as serious.

OK, I realize this is a strange thing to be doing on a Friday night. But it’s strangely alluring…

Published in: on October 11, 2003 at 00:39  Comments (3)  
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Oh, fsck.

[politics filter]

News of a protest in Baghdad. Large numbers of Shi’ites, angered over the deaths of two Iraqis, apparently at the hands of American forces, the day before. (n.b. I have no idea about the actual circumstances of death of these people; I don’t think that’s relevant at this point)

Israeli experience tells me: This sort of protest is a sign of a sudden spike in the anger levels, and a lot of trouble about to happen. Combine with the general increasing friction between Shi’ites and the rest of the Iraqi population, and a possible perception among Shi’ites that Americans aren’t doing enough to safeguard their interests – [whether or not there is such a perception now, such a thing can very easily grow in a very short time, and there are several people with strong incentive to make that happen] – likely portends a sharp escalation in violence in the near future, possibly up to and including major engagements with mobs.

Furthermore, this could be the signal for the start of large-scale trouble between Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds; time will have to tell on that.

Either way, here comes amusement….

Published in: on October 10, 2003 at 15:42  Comments (1)  
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Protected: Things I learned today

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Published in: on September 25, 2003 at 23:34  Enter your password to view comments.  

A moment ago, after having some remarkably bizarre bit of code explained to me, I walked back to my desk, saying “I am not taking nearly enough drugs to understand this.”

Or at least, I would have said that, but I was interrupted halfway through “understand” by noticing that my screensaver was showing a rendered 3D cow bouncing up and down as on a trampoline, doing interesting flips.

OK, I stand corrected.

Published in: on September 23, 2003 at 10:53  Comments (12)  
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