Google will auto-complete search requests as you type them in. I assume this is based on the most popular search phrases, and so it makes for some kind of gauge of what humanity (at least the part with internet access) is interested in. I just started a search request with "How to" and Google popped up a list of the most common things people have sought instruction on. The list is an intriguing look into human priorities in the year 2009.
I now present, THE TOP TEN THINGS HUMANS WANT TO KNOW HOW TO DO:
1. tie a tie
2. kiss
3. get pregnant
4. lose weight
5. lose weight fast
6. make a website
7. write a resume
8. solve a rubix cube
9. get rid of fruit flies
10. draw
Some of these are encouraging, some are surprising, some very unsurprising. I can say with certainty that I know how to do 5 of the things on this list. I am pretty sure I know how to do 2 more. 2 others are very difficult and 1 is probably impossible.*
* certain: 1,3,4,6,10
pretty sure: 2,7
difficult: 5,8
impossible?: 9
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
How to make your own instant coffee that tastes just like real fresh-brewed coffee
I tried that new Starbucks instant coffee they call "Via." They were doing a taste test thing where if you guess correctly you get a coupon and a free cup of coffee. They've been advertising this stuff as instant coffee that actually tastes just like real coffee. I was incredibly skeptical.
So, does it really taste like brewed coffee? Short answer: NO.
However... I was in a group of 4 people who tried it and all 3 of the others got it wrong. I picked the instant one, but to be honest, I used probability and logic as much as my tastebuds. I tried sample 1 and it tasted like a real cup of coffee. I tried sample 2 and it was too weak to be sure, so I said sample 2 was instant and I was right.
I got a free sample so I got to try it again later. It is not exactly the same as brewed coffee, but it is about a hundred times closer than anything else called instant. In fact, if they had just switched the regular stuff for this Via, I probably wouldn't have seriously doubted it. I might have thought "they using some kind of different roast?" or maybe "did I get decaf?" I started thinking maybe it would be a good idea to have some of this on hand for emergency situations. You know, driving through the night, getting sleepy, and the only stop is a gas station with some vile brown stuff simmering on the burner... You could just grab some hot water (usually free) and have a decent coffee to keep you going.
So how does Starbucks do it??? I guess they just grind up real coffee super-fine, which makes one wonder why no one else has done that before. But the Via stuff costs $1 per shot, which makes 8 oz. of coffee, the same price as real coffee in a Starbucks! So I got to thinking, which brings me to the point of this post:
YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN INSTANT COFFEE THAT TASTES JUST LIKE FRESH-BREWED COFFEE.
Because... it IS fresh-brewed coffee. It's this simple: 1.Grind some coffee beans. You can do this in advance, maybe keep them in a ziplock bag. 2.Put one teaspoonful of grounds into a cup or mug. Then add a teaspoonful per 8 oz. of water. 3.Pour hot water in with the grounds. Hotter will work better. 4.Wait. Maybe give it a little stir. When the grounds sink, your coffee is ready.
Seriously, it works. It's basically the same as a french press, you just don't press it. You may worry that you will get a mouthful of grounds, but you won't. Just don't drink that last swallow with all the coffee grounds at the bottom. They sink once they're brewed. Try it. You'll get a cup of coffee that's just as good as the Starbucks instant (provided your grounds are reasonably fresh) and about 100 times better than any other instant coffee.
By the way, you can use the same method with tea leaves to make tea. It's actually the recommended method.
UPDATE: I just tried this on my job last week and the results were - eh - not amazing. It involved more stirring and waiting than I remember. I think boiling water works much better than water-cooler-hot water. Some of the bigger pieces of coffee bean never sank. I was sad that it actually turned out inferior to the Starbucks Instant, but I think with better grinding and real boiling I could pull off a great cup this way.
So, does it really taste like brewed coffee? Short answer: NO.
However... I was in a group of 4 people who tried it and all 3 of the others got it wrong. I picked the instant one, but to be honest, I used probability and logic as much as my tastebuds. I tried sample 1 and it tasted like a real cup of coffee. I tried sample 2 and it was too weak to be sure, so I said sample 2 was instant and I was right.
I got a free sample so I got to try it again later. It is not exactly the same as brewed coffee, but it is about a hundred times closer than anything else called instant. In fact, if they had just switched the regular stuff for this Via, I probably wouldn't have seriously doubted it. I might have thought "they using some kind of different roast?" or maybe "did I get decaf?" I started thinking maybe it would be a good idea to have some of this on hand for emergency situations. You know, driving through the night, getting sleepy, and the only stop is a gas station with some vile brown stuff simmering on the burner... You could just grab some hot water (usually free) and have a decent coffee to keep you going.
So how does Starbucks do it??? I guess they just grind up real coffee super-fine, which makes one wonder why no one else has done that before. But the Via stuff costs $1 per shot, which makes 8 oz. of coffee, the same price as real coffee in a Starbucks! So I got to thinking, which brings me to the point of this post:
YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN INSTANT COFFEE THAT TASTES JUST LIKE FRESH-BREWED COFFEE.
Because... it IS fresh-brewed coffee. It's this simple: 1.Grind some coffee beans. You can do this in advance, maybe keep them in a ziplock bag. 2.Put one teaspoonful of grounds into a cup or mug. Then add a teaspoonful per 8 oz. of water. 3.Pour hot water in with the grounds. Hotter will work better. 4.Wait. Maybe give it a little stir. When the grounds sink, your coffee is ready.
Seriously, it works. It's basically the same as a french press, you just don't press it. You may worry that you will get a mouthful of grounds, but you won't. Just don't drink that last swallow with all the coffee grounds at the bottom. They sink once they're brewed. Try it. You'll get a cup of coffee that's just as good as the Starbucks instant (provided your grounds are reasonably fresh) and about 100 times better than any other instant coffee.
By the way, you can use the same method with tea leaves to make tea. It's actually the recommended method.
UPDATE: I just tried this on my job last week and the results were - eh - not amazing. It involved more stirring and waiting than I remember. I think boiling water works much better than water-cooler-hot water. Some of the bigger pieces of coffee bean never sank. I was sad that it actually turned out inferior to the Starbucks Instant, but I think with better grinding and real boiling I could pull off a great cup this way.
Friday, September 4, 2009
How can brilliant people think really dumb things? PART 1
I'm a physics groupie. I follow ideas and developments in theoretical physics, I read physics books (for the layman - or for the advanced layman if I can) and I follow some physicist bloggers.
One of these bloggers whom I've come across is the rather notorious Lubos Motl from the Czech Republic. He is a legit String Theorist who has taught at Harvard and is, in many ways, a very smart physicist. I'm not a physicist, but this is what I gather. He also appears to be full-blown, mad-scientist insane.
For a while I took his strange and sometimes off-putting writing as a combination of English-as-second-language and poor internet etiquette. Surely when he casually dropped terms like "feminist bitches" followed by a ;) emoticon, he was just painfully unaware that this language could be considered highly offensive, right? He consistently refers to anyone who disagrees or even questions him as a "crackpot" or "stupid." In an example of borderline self-parody, Motl regularly uses terms like "isomorphic" instead of "the same," "unity" instead of "one," etc. Rumor has it that a character on the sit-com The Big Bang Theory is based on Motl.
Oh, and he also denies that global warming is real or anything to worry about, proudly trumpeting the discovery of anyone who agrees with this position, which is, of course, given greater weight than the 99.9% of climatologists who disagree. This fact alone had earned him a place in my internal musings on "how brilliant people can think really dumb things."
Still, one could just barely write it all off as the idiosyncracies of an eccentric scientist with an awkward grasp of English and social conduct. Just barely... But a recent blog posting of his takes things WAY over the top. I will link to it HERE - However, I would encourage others to follow my example and NOT give his blog any more traffic than necessary. I am now unsubscribing myself.
Motl's post is entitled "Why Lee Smolin is an immoral double-faced fraudster and liar." Okay, really? REALLY?
This doesn't need a rebuttal at all. Even without knowing anything about the people named, or the physics being discussed, any sane reader could deduce from the writing itself that Motl is bonkers. In fact, the people mentioned in his posting have - wisely - completely ignored this. At least a couple of them maintain their own blogs and they have not mentioned it. There's no need because it speaks for itself. So why am I taking the time to write about this? Well, it made me think. Besides, I am not a physicist and no one reads this anyway, so I can vent my thoughts without stirring up the situation any further.
Lee Smolin is another physicist who has written some books for the general public. He also happens to be very critical of String Theory and has made a public case in one of his books that its domination over physics' marketplace of ideas is hindering progress. He works on a rival theory called Loop Quantum Gravity, but he has also done work on String Theory. I have read his books and enjoyed them all. I think his motivations and guidng principles are well-founded, although I do think some of his scientific theories and hunches are very wrong-headed. (A post for another time)
So what is the great crime which Motl accuses him of? If any casual observer were to read Motl's writing, which includes the lengthy "incriminating" quotes from Smolin, they would probably be baffled. They would certainly be hard-pressed to find anything "immoral" within. To summarize, a decade ago, Smolin suggested that his pet theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, had some real testable predictions - unlike String Theory (according to Smolin). Specifically, different energies of light might travel at very slightly different speeds through the vacuum of space. This very slight difference might accumulate as light travels through space and it could be detectable in light from distant supernova explosions or similar events. Well, just recently there WAS a rather clear observation of just that, a distant gamma ray burst - and it would appear that the energies of light in fact arrived at the same time - and thus traveled at the same speed. Bad news for Loop Quantum Gravity? Maybe - but now Smolin says that prediction was not definitive and the theory is not absolutely ruled out.
Fraudster! Liar! ... Wouldn't you say that "Smolin is the ultimate symbol of the complete absence of the scientific integrity and, indeed, the very basic human ethical values."?
No? You wouldn't? Me neither, but apparently Motl would. If I were to be particularly hard on Smolin I might say that he is "waffling" or that his previous statements were "misleading." Motl however, says of Smolin that "what he's doing and saying ... simply exceeds all the limits that could be tolerable for a person who should be allowed to freely walk on the street." If Obama were guilty of a similar transgression, I think even his harshest critics would, at worst, accuse him of "flip-flopping," not representing the absence of basic human ethical values! (okay, maybe Rush Limbaugh would)
I should point out that making claims of testable predictions, then changing or retracting those predictions, is something that String Theory has been widely accused of for a long time. In fact, that was one of the points Smolin had made in his book. ("The Trouble with Physics") So this criticism of Smolin is especially rich coming from a hard-line String Theorist. It seems to me that the worst thing you might be able to say about Loop Quantum Gravity is that it now looks "no better than String Theory."
I would also like to point out that what all of these physicists are trying to do, develop a Grand Unified Theory, is really hard. Really, really hard. No one on Earth can be certain about how to proceed. It would be insane to demand that any physicist should be able to avoid all wrong ideas or never need to revise their theories.
But wait, Motl goes on: "Everyone who tolerates this disgraceful liar and demagogue as a part of the scientific community is an immoral bastard. ... the internet crackpots - the likes of 'Marcus', 'Peter Woit', 'Sabine Hossenfelder', and similar subjects from the moral dumping ground of science"
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that Sabine Hossenfelder helped me get some freelance web-combing and data entry work on a project of hers. This gives me neither insight into her moral character, nor her abilities as a physicist. I invite you to judge for yourself based on her blog, Backreaction, which I do personally recommend. (in fact, reading it is how I found out she needed some data entry help) She has also weighed in on that gamma ray burst observation with a post here, which seems very sober and sensible to me. I also hadn't spotted this before now, but Hossenfelder has also written a post on Lubos Motl here, which explains her experiences in dealing with him, and why she discourages giving him more web traffic.
Peter Woit also maintains a blog which I read, entitled Not Even Wrong, found here. He is also a String Theory skeptic, and in fact plays the role of general physics skeptic in his blog. From what I gather he is also opposed to reasoning that invokes a multiverse, although I personally tend to believe that some form of multiverse must logically exist. (another topic for another post) Still, I think his viewpoint is necessary and refreshing, and though occasionally sarcastic, I've never noticed his writing to be personally insulting to anyone. He has several times mentioned Motl's objections in a very calm and charitable tone.
To sum up.
Backreaction and Not Even Wrong are recommended physics-related blogs that are readable by the layman. Lubos Motl also writes a physics blog, but may be insane. Please don't take his criticisms of other people seriously. More physics reading recommendations in future blog posts...
-M.P.
One of these bloggers whom I've come across is the rather notorious Lubos Motl from the Czech Republic. He is a legit String Theorist who has taught at Harvard and is, in many ways, a very smart physicist. I'm not a physicist, but this is what I gather. He also appears to be full-blown, mad-scientist insane.
For a while I took his strange and sometimes off-putting writing as a combination of English-as-second-language and poor internet etiquette. Surely when he casually dropped terms like "feminist bitches" followed by a ;) emoticon, he was just painfully unaware that this language could be considered highly offensive, right? He consistently refers to anyone who disagrees or even questions him as a "crackpot" or "stupid." In an example of borderline self-parody, Motl regularly uses terms like "isomorphic" instead of "the same," "unity" instead of "one," etc. Rumor has it that a character on the sit-com The Big Bang Theory is based on Motl.
Oh, and he also denies that global warming is real or anything to worry about, proudly trumpeting the discovery of anyone who agrees with this position, which is, of course, given greater weight than the 99.9% of climatologists who disagree. This fact alone had earned him a place in my internal musings on "how brilliant people can think really dumb things."
Still, one could just barely write it all off as the idiosyncracies of an eccentric scientist with an awkward grasp of English and social conduct. Just barely... But a recent blog posting of his takes things WAY over the top. I will link to it HERE - However, I would encourage others to follow my example and NOT give his blog any more traffic than necessary. I am now unsubscribing myself.
Motl's post is entitled "Why Lee Smolin is an immoral double-faced fraudster and liar." Okay, really? REALLY?
This doesn't need a rebuttal at all. Even without knowing anything about the people named, or the physics being discussed, any sane reader could deduce from the writing itself that Motl is bonkers. In fact, the people mentioned in his posting have - wisely - completely ignored this. At least a couple of them maintain their own blogs and they have not mentioned it. There's no need because it speaks for itself. So why am I taking the time to write about this? Well, it made me think. Besides, I am not a physicist and no one reads this anyway, so I can vent my thoughts without stirring up the situation any further.
Lee Smolin is another physicist who has written some books for the general public. He also happens to be very critical of String Theory and has made a public case in one of his books that its domination over physics' marketplace of ideas is hindering progress. He works on a rival theory called Loop Quantum Gravity, but he has also done work on String Theory. I have read his books and enjoyed them all. I think his motivations and guidng principles are well-founded, although I do think some of his scientific theories and hunches are very wrong-headed. (A post for another time)
So what is the great crime which Motl accuses him of? If any casual observer were to read Motl's writing, which includes the lengthy "incriminating" quotes from Smolin, they would probably be baffled. They would certainly be hard-pressed to find anything "immoral" within. To summarize, a decade ago, Smolin suggested that his pet theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, had some real testable predictions - unlike String Theory (according to Smolin). Specifically, different energies of light might travel at very slightly different speeds through the vacuum of space. This very slight difference might accumulate as light travels through space and it could be detectable in light from distant supernova explosions or similar events. Well, just recently there WAS a rather clear observation of just that, a distant gamma ray burst - and it would appear that the energies of light in fact arrived at the same time - and thus traveled at the same speed. Bad news for Loop Quantum Gravity? Maybe - but now Smolin says that prediction was not definitive and the theory is not absolutely ruled out.
Fraudster! Liar! ... Wouldn't you say that "Smolin is the ultimate symbol of the complete absence of the scientific integrity and, indeed, the very basic human ethical values."?
No? You wouldn't? Me neither, but apparently Motl would. If I were to be particularly hard on Smolin I might say that he is "waffling" or that his previous statements were "misleading." Motl however, says of Smolin that "what he's doing and saying ... simply exceeds all the limits that could be tolerable for a person who should be allowed to freely walk on the street." If Obama were guilty of a similar transgression, I think even his harshest critics would, at worst, accuse him of "flip-flopping," not representing the absence of basic human ethical values! (okay, maybe Rush Limbaugh would)
I should point out that making claims of testable predictions, then changing or retracting those predictions, is something that String Theory has been widely accused of for a long time. In fact, that was one of the points Smolin had made in his book. ("The Trouble with Physics") So this criticism of Smolin is especially rich coming from a hard-line String Theorist. It seems to me that the worst thing you might be able to say about Loop Quantum Gravity is that it now looks "no better than String Theory."
I would also like to point out that what all of these physicists are trying to do, develop a Grand Unified Theory, is really hard. Really, really hard. No one on Earth can be certain about how to proceed. It would be insane to demand that any physicist should be able to avoid all wrong ideas or never need to revise their theories.
But wait, Motl goes on: "Everyone who tolerates this disgraceful liar and demagogue as a part of the scientific community is an immoral bastard. ... the internet crackpots - the likes of 'Marcus', 'Peter Woit', 'Sabine Hossenfelder', and similar subjects from the moral dumping ground of science"
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that Sabine Hossenfelder helped me get some freelance web-combing and data entry work on a project of hers. This gives me neither insight into her moral character, nor her abilities as a physicist. I invite you to judge for yourself based on her blog, Backreaction, which I do personally recommend. (in fact, reading it is how I found out she needed some data entry help) She has also weighed in on that gamma ray burst observation with a post here, which seems very sober and sensible to me. I also hadn't spotted this before now, but Hossenfelder has also written a post on Lubos Motl here, which explains her experiences in dealing with him, and why she discourages giving him more web traffic.
Peter Woit also maintains a blog which I read, entitled Not Even Wrong, found here. He is also a String Theory skeptic, and in fact plays the role of general physics skeptic in his blog. From what I gather he is also opposed to reasoning that invokes a multiverse, although I personally tend to believe that some form of multiverse must logically exist. (another topic for another post) Still, I think his viewpoint is necessary and refreshing, and though occasionally sarcastic, I've never noticed his writing to be personally insulting to anyone. He has several times mentioned Motl's objections in a very calm and charitable tone.
To sum up.
Backreaction and Not Even Wrong are recommended physics-related blogs that are readable by the layman. Lubos Motl also writes a physics blog, but may be insane. Please don't take his criticisms of other people seriously. More physics reading recommendations in future blog posts...
-M.P.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
more band name pronunciation explanations
Would you believe in that previous post I actually misspelled one of the band names?
Wzt Hearts (the pronunciation "Waxed Hearts" is still acceptable, but I'm now leaning toward "Whazzit Hearts.")
and I'm adding one more
3OH!3 (this band name is pronounced "Eee - I - Eee - I - Oh")
any other band names people are curious about?
Wzt Hearts (the pronunciation "Waxed Hearts" is still acceptable, but I'm now leaning toward "Whazzit Hearts.")
and I'm adding one more
3OH!3 (this band name is pronounced "Eee - I - Eee - I - Oh")
any other band names people are curious about?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Bands I hope I never, ever have to listen to, just based on their names.
Cute Is What We Aim For
(steering clear, just in case they succeed... or fail)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
(got it. pass.)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
(the LAST thing in the world I want to hear about)
But at least these bands come with clear warning labels, which I appreciate. As a counter-example, consider this band name that might make you THINK you want to hear this band, but you will be so sad and disappointed if you do:
The Eagles of Death Metal
(so misleading, UNLESS they are referring to the band, The Eagles)
(steering clear, just in case they succeed... or fail)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
(got it. pass.)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
(the LAST thing in the world I want to hear about)
But at least these bands come with clear warning labels, which I appreciate. As a counter-example, consider this band name that might make you THINK you want to hear this band, but you will be so sad and disappointed if you do:
The Eagles of Death Metal
(so misleading, UNLESS they are referring to the band, The Eagles)
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Radio Shock and others at Cake-Shop on May 7th
Video flyer for this show I'm playing on Thursday. It will be fun!
Friday, May 1, 2009
How to pronounce those modern band names
As you all know, bands ran out of name ideas several years ago and have had to resort to nonsensical jumbles of letters and numbers to use as band names. I refuse to follow these bands' "official pronunciations," or even pay attention to them at all, and say these band names the way I choose. What are they anyway, pronunciation nazis? I encourage everyone to follow my example. Here's how I think these band names should be said.
MGMT: pronounced "Mudgemutt"
DD/MM/YYYY: pronounced "Duh-Dummy-Yah-Yah-Yah."
Wxt Hearts: pronounced "Waxed Hearts"
Xrin Arms: pronounced "Christian Arms"
!!!: not pronounced at all, just silently raise eyebrows 3 times.
Wooden Shjips: pronounced "Wooden Shih-jips"
more to come I'm sure...
MGMT: pronounced "Mudgemutt"
DD/MM/YYYY: pronounced "Duh-Dummy-Yah-Yah-Yah."
Wxt Hearts: pronounced "Waxed Hearts"
Xrin Arms: pronounced "Christian Arms"
!!!: not pronounced at all, just silently raise eyebrows 3 times.
Wooden Shjips: pronounced "Wooden Shih-jips"
more to come I'm sure...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
