Chocolate Cake In 5 Minutes!

Since just about everyone else on the internet has already tried this (or been too disgusted to bother) I thought I would too. I happened to have all of the right ingredients and followed the Chocolate Cake recipe to the letter.
Surprisingly, it tasted OK. If you were utterly desperate for chocolate cake, you could do worse. The 5-minute timing gives it a distinct advantage over many other recipes.

Notable points:

• It doesn't taste very chocolaty. I used Ghirardelli cocoa, which apparently included ground chocolate rather than being pure cocoa. Next time, something better?
  
• It tastes a bit oily (I used rice bran oil, which doesn't taste of much). Melted butter ought to be a good substitute. Cake must have butter in it!
• It could do with a bit of salt. Just a pinch.
• The texture is surprisingly good. Steam leavening, apparently.
• It could do with frosting... Nutella, perhaps?
• This cake is for times of cake starvation, not for weddings or similarly special occasions.
  

This must be LEGO week

Gizmodo takes you Inside the Lego Factory. The whole thing is run by 3 people and 10,000,000 robots. Approximately.

Classics in Lego - a set on Flickr

Famous old photos, remade using LEGO.

James Blunt on Sesame Street

Words escape me.

Buy n Large : they're here

If you haven't watched WALL·E then this will make no sense.
For those that have, you'll be pleased to know that Disney bothered not only to register the domain, but they put content there too.

Lustro - Mac address book exporter

Lustro is open source and lets you export to CSV or Gmail. I haven't tried it yet but it looks good.

Short addictive game of the week

Hedgehog Launch - you have to launch a hedgehog into space in as few days as you can.

Journal of Misheard Lyrics: Joe Cocker

I always had trouble understanding what Joe was singing. Now, thankfully, we have subtitles.

Dreamworks Laziness

As Phil Plait recently pointed out, Dreamworks has a giant continuity glitch in most (all?) of their movies that feature the boy fishing from the moon. We all know that he can't be sitting on the crescent like that, and that he'd have trouble casting a fishing line that far*. There's something more subtle that you might not have noticed: The moon and clouds reflected in the water are the same as the ones above - but they didn't bother to do the required vertical flip. Observe these two frame grabs, a few seconds apart:




Unfortunately, I'll probably never be able to watch one of their movies again without this bugging me.

* To get the line from the moon to the earth, the boy would have to launch it at 2.28 km/s (over 5000 miles per hour); and it would probably burn up in the atmosphere; oh wait it's a movie, never mind.

Down for everyone, or just me?

Example: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/amazon.com

Buy something

If you like surprises, buy something. They make great gifts for somebody.

Subway Living Room in Prague at Improv Everywhere

The really strange thing is that this parallels a dream that I had a few nights ago, in which people built a plush waiting room in an otherwise sparse station.

The Century of the Self

Interesting BBC series about how the research of Sigmund Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays laid the ground for controlling crowds based on the desires of their subconscious rather than rational thought. The series follows this thread the way to present methods in Public Relations and Marketing in both business and politics.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Best. Subtitles. Ever.

Sorry I didn't post this weeks ago when I first saw it.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

The Conet Project

Out on the short wave radio bands are (or were) radio transmissions that could be described as dull and pointless, yet which are at the same time fascinating. Some possess a peculiar kind of beauty, particularly when combined with the other short wave transmissions that weave in and out of them.

I have no idea how many of these stations are still transmitting (and don't have the time to poke around on the short wave to look for them), but you can download 150 of them for free from the Conet Project. If you do nothing else, at least read the booklet. Apparently I'm 10 years late on this, but this is a very interesting resource and I just recently discovered it; maybe you're even later to the game than I am.



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I went to the tech

And all I got was this lousy web page.



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Ron Giles unleashed

Many readers of this blog don't know Ron Giles. Those of you that do know him will be delighted to see him displaying his awesome moves here.

Awful Infomercial Of The Week

The infomercial is entertaining enough, but the Ellen Degeneres show piece is priceless.

Proof that the Mars photos are fake (and that bigfoot is real)

1. Go and grab the Mars panorama from NASA.
2. Open it up in Photoshop or equivalent.
3. Delete the black background:

4. Crop out the obviously fake spacecraft:

5. Now you have nothing but land and sky.

6. Use "Auto Levels" to fix the obvious problem with the white balance and contrast.

7. Yes, that's right, the sky turned blue! Zoom in (left foreground) and check out Bigfoot.
Clearly these pictures were taken in the Canadian desert, then manipulated to look like they were taken on the Red Planet.



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You too can have great espresso at home

Around Christmas, my household got a super-auto espresso machine. For the uneducated, that's a machine that takes coffee beans and water in one end, and produces espresso at the other end (it also complains occasionally about being dirty; cleaning is easy).
The machine in question was a Saeco Incanto Sirius (no link provided, because I don't want to encourage you to buy it). After making a few adjustments, it was producing respectable shots of espresso. The cleaning process wasn't too bad. It produced tolerable hot water and steam when requested. Unfortunately, it had a bad flow sensor (apparently a common problem on this model) which made it refuse to do anything at all for days at a time. Thankfully Costco has a no-questions-asked return policy, and back it went.

I went back to researching machines, since this model was no longer available for the crazy-low price I paid. Eventually I decided that an old-school machine would suffice. The grinding and tamping thing isn't that bad, you know. I settled on a Rancilio Sylvia with accompanying Rocky grinder. I got them from Great Infusions in Santa Cruz (Sebastian, the owner, offers a load of useful free stuff if you buy both machines).

What I found interesting is that the coffee I get from Sylvia is consistently better than the best shot I ever got from the super-auto. I'm using the same beans (Peet's Espresso Forte) but the shots are hotter, better extracted, and have better crema. I have yet to learn to produce art-quality foamed milk, though.

The amount I paid for the Sirius was about the same as my new setup (within $10) so I am convinced that the convenience of a super-auto is not worth the quality and reliability penalty. Sylvia's electronics are simple and reliable (3 thermostats, 4 switches, a heater and a pump) but a super-auto has all kinds of sensors and computer controls to go wrong.

And, to top it all, Sylvia appears to be very hackable.

Update: a coworker tells me I should roast my own coffee too.



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GREYCstoration

GREYCstoration lets you remove unwanted objects from photos, and magically infills the gaps. Also does noise reduction. Good for removing zoo cages.



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I would remove the maggots before eating

Or at least squish them. Ewwww.



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Nontent

My buddy Greg coined the term nontent yesterday, but sadly it's already been invented. I'm proud to supply you with nontent sporadically.




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Things I will not be doing any time soon

If you're addicted to adrenaline, here's one way to feed your habit.



(Via Letters From Exile)

Urbanspoon

urbanspoon.com does for restaurants what rottentomatoes.com did for movies.

Monkey Fluids: Hail Xenu!

Temporarily broken LCD screen

Over at Fontblog gecrashed is some wonderful desktop wallpaper: it looks like your LCD screen is smashed. Confuse your friends, annoy your family. I would never do such a thing.

OS X + Firefox + AdBlock Plus + Flash = Annoyance

If you have OS X and Firefox and Adblock Plus 0.7.5.1 and Flash, then lots of flash applications will have display problems. This turns out to be a bug in Adblock Plus. Workaround: go to about:config, set extensions.adblockplus.frameobjects to false. Works for me, anyway.

(Found here)

Domesticated hippo

Proof that there is an intersection between that which is scary and that which is cute.

YAHPP

I finished reading that pesky new Harry Potter book yesterday. It's very long. If you would prefer to read a shorter version that includes all the major plot elements, yet is more entertaining, try Diogenes Sinope's condensed sarcastic version.




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Photo of the day

No comment needed. Just go and look at it.

Friday game (a day early)

Play Onslaught.

Instructions to the residents of Mountain View

Dear residents of Mountain View:

If you're trying to use your home Wi-Fi network and your Windows XP computer keeps connecting to a different network with a stronger signal:

1a. Right click on task tray icon corresponding to your wireless connection, choose "View Available Wireless Networks"
-OR-
1b. Start / Settings / Network Connections / Wireless
2. Click "Advanced..."
3. Select the "Wireless Networks" tab
4. Click "Advanced"
5. Uncheck the box "Automatically connect to non-preferred networks"
6. Click "Close"
7. If any networks appear under "Preferred networks" that you don't want to use, select them and click "Remove"
8. Click OK
9. Enjoy your home network

Alternatives:
a. Don't use Windows XP.
b. Use a Mac.
c. Use Linux.
d. Use (cough) Vista.



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Edible babies

One edible baby, anyway. Scary.
(Thanks, Mark!)

Friday comic

Friday comic, wherein we settle for second best.

Run Vista Legally Without Activation (For Awhile)

Use Vista without activation for up to 120 days, rather than the default 30.

When you get to the 30th day, just run slmgr -rearm and you get another 30 days. You can do this 3 times.

Freakish traffic intersections

ATTAP Unconventional Arterial Intersection Design shows you how lucky you are not to live in a place where they have the dreaded Continuous Flow Intersection.

Wee planets

Must see: Wee planets made from 360° panoramas.

Video of the day (audio required)

I'm not sure if I should watch Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen.

Camera autofocus test chart

Here's a handy and free test chart that you can use to test the autofocus of your camera and lenses.
(via Ian L)




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Goodbye, Rich

My friend Rich Girerd died this morning after a long struggle with cancer. Rich was the first friend I made when I came to California with my former employer. Always active, always outgoing, and a brilliant mind too. We'll miss you, Rich, and look forward to seeing you again when our time comes.


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Radio Licensing Scam Alert

I just got a letter from "Business Radio Licensing" of 26941 Cabot Rd #134, Laguna Hills, CA, telling me it was time to renew a radio license that I hold. They charge a mere $180 for this service. For a $85 license that can be renewed instantly by credit card at the FCC Universal Licensing System, or by mail direct to the FCC, what value are they providing? Smells like a scam to me.

They appear to accept email at info@businessradiolicensing.com, but their web site isn't set up yet.




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Free Sound Effects

What's not to love about Free Sound Effects?

Weekend Games

If you haven't already, play flOw and Warbears.
Update: when you've finished them, play dice wars.

Music from video sampling

"All the sounds are the actual audio from the original video tape. No alterations has been made other than basic timeline editing. I can neither play the drums nor the piano".

Google WebCam Module

Add webcams to your Google personalized home page.

Uncle Mark's gift guide and almanac 2007

Gift suggestions, and some random useful tips. Last year he recommended the 20Q ball for kids. Spot on. This year looks good too (and the 20Q ball makes a repeat appearance).

Splice - Meet. Mix. Mashup.

(Warning: gratuitous use of Flash all over the place)
Collaborate on music (or nonmusic) through the power of web two point oh.

You, too, can complain like a pro

My complaint about Mr. Johnny Whatsisname, Sr.

I realize that everyone is entitled to his opinion, and I respect this. I also hope that you will all respect mine as you read this letter. But before I continue, allow me to explain that knowledge is the key that unlocks the shackles of bondage. That's why it's important for you to know that not only does Mr. Johnny Whatsisname, Sr. expand, augment, and intensify the size and intrusiveness of his claque, but he then commands his apparatchiks, "Go, and do thou likewise." Doesn't he ever get tired of calling everyone an ornery heretic? Mr. Whatsisname is right about one thing, namely that fear is what motivates us. Fear of what it means when the most inconsiderate four-flushers you'll ever see herald the death of intelligent discourse on college campuses. Fear of what it says about our society when we teach our children that Mr. Whatsisname's opinions represent the opinions of the majority -- or even a plurality. And fear of overbearing scroungers like Mr. Whatsisname who take away our sense of community and leave us morally adrift. He recently went through a pessimism phase in which he tried repeatedly to dissolve the bonds that join individuals to their natural communities. In fact, I'm not convinced that this phase of his has entirely passed. My evidence is that Mr. Whatsisname will do everything in his power to wage an odd sort of warfare upon a largely unprepared and unrecognizing public. No wonder corruption is endemic to our society; Mr. Whatsisname plans to acquire power and use it to indoctrinate the most nasty crybabies I've ever seen. The result will be an amalgam of mindless prætorianism and profligate statism, if such a monster can be imagined. In closing, all that I ask is that you join me to stop Mr. Johnny Whatsisname, Sr. and tackle the multinational death machine that he is currently constructing.

Which is the real logo?

A tricky game to see how observant you are.

Eat your vegetables

Steve explains why mathematics is relevant, but you you just weren't taught it properly.

All cats, all the time.

However grumpy you are, I'm sure you'll find some of these amusing. Click for more.


Update: And even more.

Firefox 2 config tweaks - Lifehacker

Mostly I am loving Firefox 2, except the pesky per-tab close buttons. To get the Firefox 1 behavior back, visit about:config and set the browser.tabs.closeButtons value to 3.

Canon Camera owners: Lens comparison shopping

Choose the lenses you want to compare, adjust the focal length and aperture for each, then mouse over the image to compare them.

Project Censored

Take the news from a variey of independent sources, subtract what was reported in mainstream media, and you are left with the news that They don't want you to hear.

A brief history of the Middle East

Flash animation that summarizes thousand of years in a couple of minutes.

The reactivity of alkali metals

Back in my school days, our favorite science video was one from the BBC that displayed the increasing reactivity of the alkali metals as you descend the periodic table. Well, that video has now been replaced by the folks at Brainiac.

Update: Apparently the Caesium reaction may have been faked. Boo.




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Make Einstein write whatever you want

They are made out of meat

Awesome video adaptation of a Terry Bisson short story.

Funny song, if you're a gaming geek

You need to watch up to at least the first minute and a quarter.

Calculate your carbon footprint

A handy calculator that will help you become carbon neutral. Do it now!

Riemann Hypothesis: alleged (dis)proof

From PostSecret:

I willingly withheld the greatest discovery in mathematics from the world...It is the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis...The Riemman [sic] Hypothesis is false. The prime number 2^13466971-1 is off the critical line.

How to build an Airbus A380 in about 7 Mins

I have a feeling that this is not something you can do at home.

Scanner Frequencies

I got to borrow a TV-capable scanner for a couple of weeks, and have found interesting listening from both public services and amateur hobbyists.

Online Depth of Field Calculator

Through the magic of Javascript: tell it what camera body you have, lens, f-stop and subject distance, and it will calculate DOF and other handy parameters.

The Wireless Music Player: Do-it-yourself remotely managed music player

Oooh! The WGT634 truly is a hacker's dream.

Best Buy Receipt Check: Epilogue - die.net

Tired of waiting to get out of Best Buy, Fry's and Costco for receipt verification? It's optional! Just walk out!

Anagrammed underground

This is wonderful. I laughed long.

1999 Mazda Miata Intake Manifold Maintenance Revisited

After a bout of 24 hour stomach flu, my ElmScan ISO arrived and told me that my intake manifold needed cleaning. $4 for a can of throttle body cleaner, some easy work, and I saved myself from having the car in the shop for a day.

Convert your Xbox to a NAS

Maybe there's hope for my broken Xbox.

Now that is a cool T-shirt

Cute Nessie logo, available on a variety of shirt types.
(via Preshrunk)

1999 Mazda Miata Intake Manifold Maintenance

I hope I don't have to do this.

OGLE: The OpenGLExtractor | OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D

Take your characters in WoW and 3D print them, or insert them into Google Earth.

Reading accelerator

This speed-reading tool displays one word at a time so you don't have to move your eyes. Paste your text into the box and watch it zip by. I found the default of 400 words per minute easy; 750 is acceptable, and 1000 is hard. I seem to recall that the human eye can handle 15fps, which would translate to 900wpm on this system.

W9WI.com - TV technical information

Find the locations of TV transmitters, so you can precisely aim things at them.

FireBug

If you ever debug web content, or are just curious, then you require this extension.

IP & Ethernet Interfaces

Building a networked robot? These might be useful.

Bullnose Tile of San Jose, California

My shower has a couple of leaky cracked tiles and grout, and I reckon I can fix it. Having ripped out a sample tile, I took it to these folks who were able to tell me who made it, and give me a suitable replacement (not exact, but close enough, in my case).

XUL interface to Amazon

I'm sure we'll see these for lots of other things too.

Where to Find Free Images and Visuals

For your web pages, for presentations, or whatever. Lots of links to places with images of all sorts, where Google Images and Flickr might be too spammy.

Falling Sand Game

Very interesting game. Play with sand, water, salt, oil, wax, fire and a strange bouncing thing.
Update: now also available with zombies.

Monopoly Home Rules

A couple of these were traditional in my household; most of them are new to me and look interesting though.

The Prejudice Map

People in these countries are known for...
USA: dislike of walking.
UK: aristocratic kitchens.
France: spoiling their dogs.
Canada: liking their beer.
Germany: enjoying their beer.
Brazil: bikinis.
India: cheating.
Russia: brutality.
Turkey: using weapons.
Sweden: carving Viking longboats.

Encodings Practice

Learn morse, braille, semaphore and even rot13.

Please, won't someone think of the listeners?

Last year, rock station KSJO 92.3 disappeared and was replaced with "La Preciosa". This year, KCNL 1049 (Channel 1049) also vanished and is now "La Romantica". Apparently this is just a move by Clear Channel to sell advertising: Radio 101 KCNL Drops Alternative - The Anatomy of a Format Change

As all the 92.3 folks moved to 107.7, I expect the 104.9 folks will move to 105.3. Whatever happened to the free market?

Excel neat trick of the day

I've hacked up all kinds of interesting things in Excel. Every time I embark on a new hack, I try to learn some new thing, but the help file is not organized by user advancedness, nor does it say "I notice you're trying to look up a value in a table. Did you try VLOOKUP()?"

Anyway, just when I was not hacking up Excel, I stumbled across this gem: Exploring Excel's Functions Part 2: ADDRESS() and INDIRECT(). I can't believe I didn't know about these Really Useful Functions.

make your own speech bubble!

Plumbing and Valves: Pool School by PoolPlaza Pool Supplies

A straightforward explanation of all those pesky valves on a typical swimming pool, from which I can probably deduce how to drain it completely.

Toothpaste for dinner

Daily amusing drawings, and T shirts of the best of them. If I had not just finished my coffee when I saw this, I would now have been eligible to buy a new keyboard.

How to Convert a Computer ATX Power Supply to a Lab Power Supply

You can buy a lab power supply for $100, or you can just build one from cheap/free parts.

Test Equipment For 2.4GHZ Wireless LAN

Build your own field strength meter. Cheap.

Print your own Monopoly Money

...or, better, print your own edited Monopoly Money.

Reach a real human

Tired of IVR systems that make it hard to talk to a real human? Paul English has come to the rescue.

Discovering Sherlock Holmes

After the success of serializing Dickens, Stanford will mail you Sherlock Holmes novels, in their original format. Starts January.

Crazy Mathematical Fact of the week

If you don't get the elegance of this, you may continue your life normally. Otherwise, prepare to lift your jaw from the floor.
Syntience Inc.:

“Our logo shows a solution to the famous eight queens problem:

How do you place eight queens on a chessboard so that none can capture any other?

To arrive at this solution you can compute (2⁸ - 1) / (8 - 1) which equals 255 / 7
which equals (rounded to 6 decimals) 36.428571

The eight digits making up that number are the numbers of the rows in which to place 8 successive queens.”

Here's proof that it works:

1   • • • • • • • X
2   • • • X • • • •
3   X • • • • • • •
4   • • X • • • • •
5   • • • • • X • •
6   • X • • • • • •
7   • • • • • • X •
8   • • • • X • • •

The ultimate CSS compatibility table

Lots of CSS hacks, and an indication (for each hack) of whether it is applied by each browser.

Instant gratification

My buddy ADH sent me the answer to my OSX download slowness. According to macosxhints, delayed ack sending is on by default, and you can turn it off both permanently and instantly. Yay!




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Your tax dollars at work

Residents of Palo Alto: your local governments have made many interesting nuggets of information available about properties within it, given either the address or the parcel number:

Owner's name and address, parcel size and zoning, building permits
Assessed value, transfer date, billing address
Property tax payment history
Local sex offenders

Curiouser and curiouser

I decided I had to figure out what was going on with my Windows-to-OSX network slowness. This time I did nc dest 2222 < /dev/random at the source machine and nc -l -p 2222 > /dev/null at the destination. Ethereal told me something quite interesting. The TCP conversation runs thus, repeated ad infinitum:
1. Windows → OSX: 1460 bytes data
2. Windows → OSX: 1460 bytes data
3. Windows ← OSX: ack for packet 3
4. Windows → OSX: 1460 bytes data
5. Windows → OSX: 1460 bytes data
6. Windows ← OSX: ack for packet 5
7. Windows → OSX: 1460 bytes data
8. Windows → OSX: 892 bytes data + push
0.2 second delay
9. Windows ← OSX: ack for packet 8
So, Windows sends 8192 bytes and then requests a push. Nothing wrong with that, it makes sure the data got delivered before continuing - but why does it take a fifth of a second for OSX to send the achnowledgement?

Let's try things in the opposite direction. This time we get 8.5MB/sec (70% utilization). That's more like it! Looking at the Ethereal trace, things are quite different:
1. OSX → Windows: 1448 bytes data
2. OSX → Windows: 1448 bytes data
3. OSX → Windows: 1448 bytes data
4. OSX → Windows: 1448 bytes data
5. OSX → Windows: 1448 bytes data
6. OSX ← Windows: ack for packet 2
7. OSX ← Windows: ack for packet 4
8. OSX ← Windows: ack for packet 6
9. OSX → Windows: 952 bytes data + push
There are no major delays here. As before, there's a push every 8192 bytes. This was measured at the OSX end, I expect Windows would have a different opinion about the order of the packets, but that's irrelevant.

I smell a bug here. Either it's in the OSX port of netcat, or it's in the OSX TCP implementation. Given that SSH performs no better than netcat, I'm inclined to believe the latter.




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