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Customized cutlery
I bought a Forschner chef's knife because it's $30 and favourably
reviewed by Cook's Illustrated, because I wanted to customize it and
thought starting from an affordable knife with good performance would be
better than an atrocious knife. The steel is the one thing I really
can't fix, after all.
My intended changes:
1) File down the spine of the knife right near the handle, to facilitate
more comfortable handling with the 'pinch' grip, as described here.
2) File the edge down from its standard 20 degree edge angle to a
sharper 15 degree angle, probably with the 'mousepad
trick' system of fine-grit sandpaper and a mousepad that produces a
naturally convex edge. (another description here.)
3) (less likely) hand-hammer out the half of the blade nearer the spine
to produce a "tsuchime" finish, partly just to see how it'd look
and partly to produce a less sticky surface on the knife.
posted at: 00:07 Mon 31/May/2010 |
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Think twice (or why pop ev-psych might not be on the most solid foundation)
The evolutionary psychologist Dr Satoshi Kanazawa is (in)famous for his
provocative claims: atheist liberals are smarter than religious
right-wingers, black people are cognitively inferior to whites,
beautiful people have more daughters than sons, feminism is evil, and so
on.
There are, as you might expect, some criticisms of his work's technical
quality. For example, Echidne here (pts 2, 3,
4), here, and here (pts 2, 3). Or
Andrew Gelman here (PDF) and with David Weakliem here
(PDF again). Or Culture Evolves (see the many links in the third
paragraph). Or Crooked Timber here.
Then too, there are signs that his facade of political neutrality is
either idiocy or lies (see also Cosma Shalizi).
Looooong story short, whether his provocative claims reinforce or
challenge your biases, you might just want to find a more credible
source than an evolutionary psychologist who proudly notes he hasn't
studied biology since high school and gets statistics wrong to boot.
Which is why I'll just wrap up with Daniel Davies:
We can see the modern descendant of this primeval behaviour in the
struggle in our comments section over the evolutionary psychologist,
academic racist, genocidal fantastist and general-purpose
embarrassment[1], Satoshi Kanazawa, on the general subject of everyone
with a perceived national, institutional, disciplinary or academic
connection to him desperately trying to backpedal and claim that he's
one of you lot, not one of us lot.
The Americans are pointing out that he works at LSE; the Brits that he
did all of his studies in America. The sociologists want to make it
very clear that he's a psychologist - the psychologists that his PhD is
in sociology. I have noticed that he actually works in the Managerial
Economics and Strategy Group (ie he's a business school type) and am
staying bloody quiet about it in the hope that nobody else will twig.
There might be something to this evolutionary psychology lark after all.
posted at: 04:20 Mon 01/Mar/2010 |
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Repeat the HST
OK, so, let me start this off by saying I've been reasonably persuaded
that the HST is a good thing for BC in the long run. And I think Bill
Vander Zalm is an ass, and Bill Tieleman I'm pretty mixed on.
But that said, the way the HST was implemented is absolutely inimical
to democracy and should be defeated for that reason alone.
It is unacceptable for a party to deceive the province into "what's
best". Make your case to the people and then govern with an actual
mandate. Don't say you're not going to bring in an HST and then do it.
posted at: 18:39 Fri 05/Feb/2010 |
/politics/canada |
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another joke
{discussing how X should set up a reunion website.}
{X}: I only have contact info for like 2 or 3 of the people though
{X}: but I suppose one can start somewhere
me: Yeah, friends of friends of friends.
me: Only problem is that you're guaranteed to find jerks within 4 degrees.
me: Maybe you could make it a FB app or something. Or just a FB group.
{X}: well, jerks are people too
me: You're so tolerant.
[...]
me: ah, here's where I last said something like [what we were just talking about.]
me: Wow, I sound like a jerk.
{X}: no kidding
{X}: and only 0 degrees of seperation
posted at: 08:46 Thu 08/Oct/2009 |
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a joke
in IM. (Context: "X" is Asian.)
me: how are your parents?
{X}: they are fine
{X}: I find them very difficult
me: Well, study hard, I'm sure you'll do fine.
{X}: haha
{X}: funny
{X}: or would be if it weren't so ironic
me: Yes, it has layers.
posted at: 03:23 Thu 08/Oct/2009 |
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