trogon

North American megafauna

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:44:29 GMT

Now:

Back in the day:

Way back in the day:

Roddenberry would have loved this

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:57:09 GMT

Astronauts watching the new Star Trek movie, FROM SPACE.

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/real-live-astronauts-are-watching-star-trek-in-outer-space-right-now/

(I haven't seen it yet. Please don't discuss the content of the new movie in comments here.)

Iowa???

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:06:14 GMT

So Iowa, of all places, has become the third state where marriage equality is currently the law of the land, beating both Vermont and New Hampshire (where measures are making their way through the state legislatures) to the punch. I hereby apologize for every Iowa joke I ever made as a kid growing up in South Dakota.

Not that this will matter for anyone reading this, but I'd urge any gay Iowans considering marriage to (1) remember you're on a deadline, and that if Prop 8 is any guide marriages that predate a constitutional amendment may be allowed to stand, and (2) (and this one goes for straight allies in Iowa, too) take your opponents seriously, and don't fall victim to the complacency that some Californians did of thinking "it could never pass".

Um.

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:31:12 GMT

From a Washington Post article about the new White House garden:

With the Obamas as role models, it could also be a turning point in their battle to overturn the perception of organic food, farmers markets and gardens as the preserve of the elite.

If the President of the United States isn't "elite", who the hell is? I think this is a great idea, but I find that sentence utterly baffling.

Look what I made

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:12:55 GMT

Also

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:50:57 GMT

As I remarked to L-M last night, this is the first time since I've been able to vote that not only did the guy I voted for for win (which happened the first time I voted in a Presidential election, for Clinton's second term) but the guy I voted for in the primary won. And the first time in a long while that I got to vote FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone. It was a nice feeling.

I am a real American.

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:31:47 GMT

I am a real American.

I'm a lesbian, newly and happily married to my wife though we've been together for almost 8 years.

I'm an atheist.

I have a PhD in astronomy.

I live in California.

I eat sushi, enjoy the occasional latte, and read the New York Times.

And I am every bit as much a real American as Joe the Plumber, either the real Republican shill or the non-existant construct, or as my late and much-missed grandmother, who lived most of her life on a farm or in a tiny town in rural South Dakota and who always went to church except when she was caring for my grandfather in his last years.

And I am getting really, really tired of Republicans saying that because of my choice of newspapers, or my religious beliefs, or my taste in coffee, that somehow I am not a real American. They don't get to define that word.

Data love, again

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:24:42 GMT

Via Bitch PhD comes a lovely and exceedingly geeky electoral-college and poll-watching site, Five Thirty Eight (named, of course, for the total number of electoral votes.)

I love it.

So far, I really love this post, about the Bradley Effect and the so-called "Reverse Bradley Effect" (summary -- the former doesn't exist anymore. The latter -- Obama substantially outperforming his polls, in a way correlating with African-American population -- appears to, but only in the South), and this one which is a real thing of beauty analyzing the potential effects of increased turnout among young and African-American voters.

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:43:05 GMT

It's about time.

WOO HOO!

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:47:27 GMT

The CA Supreme Court just ruled that the law banning same-sex marriages is unconstitutional.

CA already has a good DP law, so this is specifically repudiating the separate-but-equal status of DP or civil unions -- the legislature isn't going to be able to get away with that here.

More later. Reading decision now.

Things younger than McCain

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:32:27 GMT

http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/

"Dirt" is not on the list. The Golden Gate Bridge, Cheerios, and both of Barack Obama's parents are, however.

Data love

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:30:43 GMT

The NYT had an amazing graph today on the breakdown of spending of the average American household:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/05/03/business/20080403_SPENDING_GRAPHIC.html

You can zoom in to find that, for example, the average household spends 0.3% of their income on beer at home, and 0.5% on alcohol (not further subdivided) away from home, or that while the price of eggs has skyrocketed in the past year the prices of fresh vegetables has gone down sharply.

SO COOL.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:51:07 GMT

Not content with going after street vendors of Sonoran hot dogs, the City of Angels has turned its sights on an even more iconic institution, the taco truck.

Bastards.

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:10:20 GMT

Six Maasai warriors from Tanzania are running (by now, probably have run) in the London Marathon to raise money for clean drinking water for their village. Currently 40% of children in their village die before the age of five because of the water. It doesn't get much more elemental than this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7338122.stm

This being the 21st century, they of course have a website and a PayPal account:

http://www.maasaimarathon.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_pages.showPage&pageID=1

Help them meet their goal, and please spread this around. Just remember the donation is in pounds (basically $2 = 1 pound right now), so you don't end up donating twice what you expected.

Anyone job-hunting?

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:53:08 GMT

I have specifically been asked if I know anyone looking for a job at Hooray!. The position I was asked about is here in Burbank and I know the team is a good bunch, but we're also getting extra referral bonuses for any position at any Hooray location. So ping me if you're at all interested or know someone who is.

2008 New Recipe #10: Potato Tacos

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:16:59 GMT

Yeah, we've been a bit negligent lately.

Last night's new yummy was potato tacos. Details of the recipe mostly invented.

A bunch of potatoes
Two small red peppers
Half a large onion (I should have used the whole thing)
Crema or sour cream
Two chipotles from a can of chipotles in adobo
Queso fresco
Peruvian yellow pepper sauce, or salsa
Avocado

Corn tortillas

Chop and boil the potatoes. While they're cooking, roast the red peppers and finely chop and saute the onion. Once the peppers are roasted and you've removed the skins, chop finely and mix with the onion. When the potatoes are done, coarsely mash them by hand -- a pastry cutter works FABULOUSLY for this -- and stir in the peppers and onions. Add some crema and the finely chopped chipotles. I should have added salt at this point, too.

Put a big spoonful of the filling onto a tortilla, then add a little queso fresco and some sauce. We used an astonishingly yellow Peruvian pepper sauce, sort of like something we'd had with potatoes at the Peruvian restaurant in Tucson, that looked amazingly like French's yellow mustard. Close up your taco, and cook it in a frying pan with a little bit of oil. Serve with sliced avocado and hot sauce.

We had a ton of filling left over, but fortunately we have lots of tortillas left over too.

L-M says these were as good as the potato tacos we had at a taco joint nearby. I'm flattered.

Spreading a word

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:34:37 GMT

I realized that I have not yet blogged about the extreme usefulness of a word L-M and I coined several months back.

The word is "helpy", a backformation from the also-coined "helpiness", which was created by analogy to "truthiness"; the analogy should make the meaning fairly clear.

Something which is helpy has the outward appearances of being helpful, while not actually being at all helpful and usually being actively detrimental. Ever baked cookies with an enthusiastic three-year-old, and noticed that the more the three-year-old did to "help" the more work it meant for you? The three-year-old was being "helpy".

L-M's sister has already started using the word. This word actually serves a useful purpose -- spread the joy. I'd love to see it become popular.

I'm leaving this post unlocked just so there's a record on the off chance it DOES take off.

Jitlada Thai: Respect the Curry

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:31:41 GMT

All right, chileheads.

Once you've been out to San Gabriel to have the chicken at Chung King, the next trip to LA should include a swing in to Thai Town for Jitlada Thai, which has very hot and very good Southern Thai food. (Well, mine was very good. livewire_monkey was less impressed with hers.)

No review of Jitlada would be complete without telling the story:

So back in the day, Thais and foodies dismissed Jitlada as just another mediocre strip-mall joint serving the same-old same-old generic Thai food. It got bought by new owners and started offering a specialty menu, but nobody noticed. Then one day a Thai-speaking food blogger from Chicago was in LA and noticed a block of untranslated text on the back of the takeout menu from Jitlada in his hotel. It turns out they were a bunch of Southern Thai specialty dishes, many of which he'd never seen outside Thailand.

Working with the owners over the course of the next while, he translated the menu and praised the specialty menu. Word got out, and reached Jonathan Gold, the LA Weekly's Pulitzer-Prize winning food critic. Soon Jitlada was the new favorite of Thais and foodies (and Thai foodies, presumably), known for incredibly hot specialty dishes.

Jonathan Gold's review is here, and his list of the top ten dishes in LA in 2007, including one from Jitlada, is here.
(On an unrelated note, I adore that that list juxtaposes a hole-in-the-wall taco stand, Spago (one of those insanely expensive Famous People restaurants), and a donut shop.)

We were almost the only people there when we arrived. Reviews covered the walls and the table had a helpful list of recommended dishes from various sources. I opted for one that J. Gold had mentioned and the chef recommended, the "spicy stir-fried sator beans with soft-shelled crab." L-M had a tofu curry (substituted for the shrimp that were on the menu) with young tamarind shoots, both from the Southern menu.

J. Gold says the heat at Jitlada laughs at rice, at beer, at Thai iced tea. We didn't try the beer, but can vouch for the truth of the other two statements. The plate of raw iced veggies they brought, strange as it seems, did an excellent job, however.

My crab was good. Amazingly good. It's a strong contender for the spiciest food I've ever eaten, probably coming a close second to the Pakistani food I had in London, and it was a combination of flavors totally unlike any I'd ever had. I'd never had soft-shelled crab before, either, and WOW was it good. If the mussels are even better then I have to start planning how to get L-M to agree to go back because I have to try them. Bribery may be required. The crab was crispy on the outside and sweet and soft inside and a wonderful contrast to the incandescent heat of the sauce and the hard-to-describe flavor of the beans. L-M asked me at one point if the strips of peppers were bell peppers or hot peppers, and I had to admit I couldn't tell -- the sauce was spicy enough to swamp the difference.

The homemade coconut ice cream was the perfect antidote to burning mouths and stomachs at the end of the meal, too.

Oh, and if you need one more recommendation, on our way out we noticed a drawing of Homer Simpson on the wall, saying "Mmmm, Jitlada" -- blown up from Matt Groening's doodle on the back of a receipt (also posted on the wall) from when he had eaten there. Perhaps the only "celebrity ate here" endorsement that's actually impressed me.

2008 New Recipe #3: Middle Eastern Savory Pies

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:14:00 GMT

This is a bit of a placeholder since I don't have the cookbook at hand and can't actually transcribe the recipe.

#3: Middle eastern Savory Pies from Sanaa Abourezk's "Secrets of Healthy Middle Eastern Cooking".

Some of the best Middle Eastern food I have ever eaten is from a restaurant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It's run by a Cordon Bleu-trained chef married to a former senator, and somehow it's in South Dakota. When I learned that the chef and owner had a *cookbook* I pounced on it.

Then I gave our copy to my mom for Christmas and couldn't find a replacement for a year since it was out of print, but that's another story.

Anyway these are from Sanaa's cookbook. L-M made these -- she made basically everything for the Middle Eastern munchies party we had on Sunday.

One recipe "pie dough" (basically enough for two big loaves of bread -- a yeast dough with eight cups of flour) made enough of these for ten people with lots of other munchies and lots of leftovers.

Each of the two pie recipes we made -- the tomato/feta and the spinach -- called for half a recipe of dough, divided into little balls and rolled flat.

Tomato-feta pie:
1 cup diced tomato
8 oz. feta
oregano
salt

Combine and put on the dough circles, then close up.

Spinach pie:

2 lbs. fresh spinach, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
1 cup pomegranate seeds
sumac

The recipe didn't have you cook this beforehand, but I did. Combine and put on the dough circles, then close up.

I have no recollection whatsoever of how long these baked, but they were GOOD.

Digital camera recommendations

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:20:43 GMT

I'm going to buy a digital camera, and I'm looking for suggestions. (I know about and am using Dave's Picks, but I'd like more personal stuff as well.) I suspect nobody will have experience with exactly the type I'm looking for but general brand-level stuff would be helpful as well.

I'm more concerned with optical zoom than with megapixels; my main use would be to take pictures of birds when I'm out birding, so I'm looking at the 10x (and up) optical zoom models. Besides, past about "Burst mode" would be nice, as would the ability to take AA batteries. Almost all the models in this category have image stabilization, which is essential at the long-zoom modes. It looks like the market is dominated by Panasonic, Canon, and Olympus. The Panasonics sound nice but require expensive proprietary batteries which may be a deal-breaker. Anyone have anything to say, positive or negative, about the other brands?

What's wrong with this article?

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:20:56 GMT

The latest Scientific American has an article titled "The Forgotten Code Cracker". It's available online, and it's short, so go read it then come back and tell me what, if anything, you noticed.

Here's the article.

What I noticed is behind the cut so it doesn't prejudice you.

Notice whose name doesn't get mentioned? Someone who's widely known in certain circles for not getting mentioned in articles about the discovery of the structure of DNA?

Admittedly Nirenberg's issues are different -- it's mostly that pop-sci articles conflate 'structure' with 'code' -- but still you'd think that in an article devoted to giving DNA credit where DNA credit is due they might bother to MENTION Rosalind Franklin, rather than relegating her to an unnamed 'other'.

Ooops.

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:43:06 GMT

I was at the Caltech gym the other day (which I haven't been doing as much as I should, but that's another issue). I'm generally very lazy about noting which locker is mine -- the padlock is bright blue, and the numbers on the lockers wore off decades ago, so "the one with the blue lock, top row, just left of the bench" is about as specific as I get.

I finished my workout and went back to the one with the blue lock, top row, just left of the bench. And it didn't open. So I spun the combo more carefully. Nada. I couldn't have forgotten the combo -- Kirby Puckett's number, Kent Hrbek's, and Kirby Puckett's again, no Twins fan could flub that -- but I tried moving the middle number by 2, just in case. Still nothing.

I must have tried ten times, getting increasingly panicked. My phone was in there. My keys -- car and house -- were in there. My wallet was *not* in there -- it was in the locked car. L-M, of course, was in Chile. I was imagining pleading with the desk attendant to get a bolt cutter or call a locksmith, and identifying my belongings by my socks (not as ridiculous as it sounds -- they were handknit, with a spiffy pattern of black, blue, red, and yellow, and very distinctive. I did later realize that my gym pass, also in the locker, did have my picture on it.) I took a deep breath, trying to figure out what to do, and looked around the room.

Another bright blue padlock caught my eye.

Top row, just left of the next bench down.

It opened on the first try.

Miscellaneous fire-related stuff

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:22:13 GMT

First of all, we're fine, and far from any of the SoCal wildfires.

The main effect we're experiencing is the crappy air quality. It's worse at work, whether because of proximity or because I'm up on the fourth floor I don't know. But I'm coughing again, that same deep hacking cough I had in Arizona during whichever Mt. Lemmon fire it was in 2003, and my eyes and nose are constantly irritated.

And there was ash on our car this morning. Just a few flecks, but unmistakable and fairly surprising given how far away from the fires we are.

Greatest spammer name ever

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:16:06 GMT

"Hippopotamus V. Prayer" sent me pharmacy spam.

A purely hypothetical scenario

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:08:52 GMT

I'm too cheap to pay for an account, so this can't be a poll.

Let's say you have a toaster. It makes toast, but that's all that can be said for it -- it's a cheap, boxy, grad-student toaster with a single control for doneness. It doesn't have things like a lifter, so to get stuck toast out you need to unplug it and spear the toast with a chopstick, and the crumb tray is hinged so you once again need to unplug it and empty it over the trash. And there's some purple plastic thingy on the side from a plastic bag that melted on a few years ago and won't come off.

But it does make toast, which is really what matters.

Now say your hypothetical toaster finally gives up the ghost and will no longer make toast. So you go buy a NEW toaster. This one is shiny and red and looks like the Toaster of the Future. It has lots of options and a pull-out crumb tray and a toast lifter so your chopsticks can go back to dumpling duty. However, as you're on your way home from buying the new toaster, your partner idly remarks "I'll try one more time to fix the old toaster when we get home, and if I can get it working we'll give it to Goodwill or something". This is where, in this purely hypothetical scenario, red flags might be raised, if you were paying attention instead of thinking about something else.

Needless to say, your partner DOES fix the old toaster. So it once again makes toast.

And now we get to the point, which is this:

Which toaster do you use? Do you return the new red one with lifter, since after all you have a perfectly good old toaster, or do you keep the new one because it's after all a TOASTER and you aren't so cheap that you need to hang on to the creaky old grad-school toaster?

Keeping in mind this is all purely hypothetical, of course.