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bloglets
stuff too small to warrant individual blog entries on their own
I saw Iron Man at the nearby theater last weekend, in glorious
DLP. The promise of this technology is that by projecting a digital
image (like a mega-sized version of typical home/business projectors),
the movie will never suffer the scratches that real film does, or
judder, or whatnot. And in fact, this was true, and moreover I never
noticed any digital noise. But it turns out that such a clean image
only helps you notice how imperfect the screen itself is...
Power output for home theater receivers (aka "amplifiers", but that's
not really technically correct, though we are only speaking of the
amplification part of the component) is rated in watts, but there are a
host of ways to use misleading measurements to arrive at
impressive-sounding wattage ratings.
The most obvious and shameless is to not use RMS watts, but
instead "peak" or "dynamic" power, which can be 2x or more than RMS.
Another way is to rate amplifiers as a certain per-channel wattage given
a constant 1000 Hz signal, rather than the more honest (and demanding)
20-20000 Hz rating.
Another common deception is to rate amplifiers' per-channel wattage at
1% THD (total harmonic distortion or worse.
One slightly less common deception is to pick a nonstandard inductance.
Most speakers are rated at 8 Ohm inductance; an amplifier can achieve
higher ratings when driving 6 or 4 Ohms to the speakers.
The last way is to rate a home theater (surround) receiver based on only
driving one or two channels rather than all five (or seven).
30 Rock is the best show currently on TV.
I like Trader Joe's for the food they have there, but it's not much of a
store for cooks. There's a tiny meat aisle and a tiny tiny produce
section. Most of the food at TJ's is stuff to reheat, not ingredients
to cook with.
posted at: 01:12 Mon 12/May/2008 |
/misc |
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pan-fried tofu dessert
This won't be a regular recipe since it's not a finished dish. Anyways,
while at a Taiwanese place for lunch, my co-worker ordered a fried tofu
dish, which was reportedly delicious, and "almost like a beignet": crisp
exterior, creamy interior.
I have very little interest in tofu flavor-wise, but this description
certainly did make it sound like something I would like to try once. The
results were OK, but not perfect. I'll list what I did in regular text
and ideas for improving the dish in italics.
continue reading...
posted at: 02:02 Wed 30/Apr/2008 |
/food |
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ink and other obsessions
It seems to me that I pick up new obsessions frequently, and drop them
almost as quickly. Well, I don't fully drop them -- I retain my
fascination for the subject -- but it ceases to be anything I think
about twelve times a day.
For example, recently I've been attending some life drawing sessions.
I've been unsatisfied with some of my hesitancy during sketching with
pencils, so I picked up a marker. At this point, I saw a book at work
full of Scott Morse's sketching (Amazon link, where he
produced terrific sketches with a brush pen.
So, after some web research, I got a fountain brush pen, and a regular
fountain pen too. This has led me into a world where ink choice is
crucial, pen care and maintenance is non-trivial, and so forth. As
well, my pen technique has always been unorthodox; I hold the pen in my
right hand, but hooked around in the fashion of many left handers. But
at least I'm learning to write with minimal pressure applied to the
fountain pen. (and if I wreck it, no worries -- it was less than $4.)
Anyways, that's what's currently fascinating me.
As it turns out, I'm feeling a little under the weather and might not
get a chance to use my new inky toys this week, but I have high hopes.
posted at: 23:37 Mon 31/Mar/2008 |
/journal |
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Obama Speech: 'A More Perfect Union'
If you haven't seen Obama's speech "A More Perfect Union" yet or
at least read the entire transcript, let me urge you to do so
right now.
posted at: 21:01 Tue 18/Mar/2008 |
/politics |
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Food resolutions
I've never made it a habit to make New Year's resolutions, but these
have come to organically over the course of the last couple of months.
I gotta get a bathroom scale. (This is obviously food related.) I want to try a new cheese once a month, preferably from local
cheesemonger extraordinare the Milk Pail Market. (They sell other
stuff as well.) Failing that, the local farmers' market, or Whole
Foods. Safeway is the last resort here; their cheese selection has an
awful lot of barely-aged pasteurized cheeses.) I want to achieve more wok hei. I want to continue learning to braise. Eric prodded me into
attempting a braised short rib dish, which I made this January, and it
was awesome. (Thanks, Eric.) Once I get a more heatproof handle onto my new Dutch oven, I want to
try out that No-Knead Bread dealio. This year I hope to harvest more of my herbs instead of letting them
go unloved on the balcony. Same with the tomato plant.
posted at: 10:00 Mon 10/Mar/2008 |
/food |
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