Hand Coding

I ate dinner at a Greek restaurant this evening (in Greece? go figure!) where I ordered “rusks with tomato” as an appetizer. It’ a bit like bruschetta (an Italian dish made with tomatoes and basil on bread).

Like bruschettra, rusks are also made from bread, but baked a second time to dry the bread (to the extent that it’s crunchy). In this case, the bread was about 3/4” wheat bread. It’s then topped with crushed tomatoes and feta cheese. With the thick crunchy bread, I had to use a fork. But i was delicious.

PS (Internet cafes — so handy.)

Well, I’m off to the airport for Greece. Updates may be a bit sporadic until I return, Tue June 10th.

From time to time, Robert Reich (former Secretary of Labor for Clinton) has an opinion piece on the NPR show Marketplace.

During yesterday’s show, he commented on the usefulness grad degrees:

Applications to law schools, business schools, medical schools and Ph.D. programs continue to rise, but as commentator Robert Reich says, college grads may be making a big mistake. “If you think another degree is worth the extra cost because it will win you a better-paying job when the economy turns up, think again,” says Reich. Since the economy went sour, grad schools have been flooded, but demand for graduates has cooled. […]

The short summary really doesn’t describe his commentary very well, and the full audio version is similar but not exactly as the description would lead you to believe. (The description makes it seem like he’s saying that a low-end job is a better idea than going for a grad degree, but most of what he’s saying focuses on the current demand for grad degrees vs the demand for undergraduate degrees.)

Two small studies in the New England Journal of Medicine showed additional evidence that Atkins may not be so bad. Because the studies were small, an editorial in the same issue of the Journal notes that conclusions couldn’t be definitive (there were 132 people in one study and 63 people in the other).

In both studies, the Atkins dieters generally had better levels of “good” cholesterol and triglycerides, or fats in the blood. For example, in Foster's study, people on the Atkins diet had an 18 percent increase in HDL cholesterol — the good cholesterol — compared to a 3 percent increase for people on the conventional low-fat diets.

And Atkins eaters had a 28 percent reduction in triglycerides. The conventional dieters had no change. Experts have said the Atkins diet could be harmful, warning that the large amounts of dietary fat would lead to high blood-fat levels. There was no difference in "bad" cholesterol or blood pressure. […]

I’ll admit that I was skeptical about Atkins when I first heard about it three or four years ago. And though I’m not specifically on Atkins these days, I can’t disagree that Atkins might be suitable for some people (or, at the least, an improvement over their current eating habits).

There’s also a segment on All Things Considered (NPR) about the studies. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I look forward to their take on it.

PS I’m still looking for a ride to the airport on Saturday, if anyone would be able to help me out there.

I made some chocolate-covered Twizzlers for Saturday’s Luau-party and I promised a few people that I’d post the recipe here:

Chocolate Covered Twizzlers

Ingredients:

• At least one bag of Twizzlers (I used the bags around 12oz)

• Twice as many bags of chocolate chips as bags of Twizzlers (assuming a bag of around 12oz). For instance, if you have 2 bags of Twizzlers, then you’d need 4 bags of chocolate chips.

Preparation:

The tricky part to this recipe is that the chocolate is melted over a double-boiler — except that a double boiler isn’t that tricky at all :). If you already know how to make a double-boiler, then you can skip the next section.

Setting up a Double Boiler:

A double boiler is simply a metal mixing-bowl set on top of a pot which has barely-boiling water (picture) such that the steam heats the contents of the mixing bowl. First, select a pot that has a diameter no larger than the burner. Then, you’ll need a metal mixing bowl since it has to be heat safe (though heat-safe glass may work as well).

The idea is to have boiling water in the pot — the bowl sitting on top of the pot — and only the steam heating the bowl. So, fill your pot with about an inch of water. Then, while the stove is still off, place the mixing bowl on top of the pot. Then lift the bowl off the put and check if the bottom of bowl is wet — if it is, you’ve put too much water in the pot and you’ll need to empty some out and try again.

Now that you have the right amount of water in your pot, leave the mixing bowl off the pot (for now) and turn the stove to about medium. Once the water is just-boiling, turn it down to about one-quarter heat. You want the water to remain steaming or just-boiling and not reach a rolling boil. Then, put the mixing bowl back on the pot.

After the Double Boiler Setup:

Before we get to melting the chocolate, be sure to set aside some cookie-sheets covered in wax paper. Twizzlers tend to be rather bulky when laid flat, so you may need three or four cookie sheets. The wax paper prevents the Twizzlers from sticking to the sheet after they’ve cooled, so don’t skip the wax paper.

So, your double boiler is setup. Now, pour all the chocolate chips into the bowl. I made my last batch with two bags of chips, and it went fine. In many ways, the dipping-process is even easier with more chips since you can submerge the Twizzlers.

As the chocolate chips heat, stir them with a metal spoon (an everyday flatware-spoon is fine). The melting-process may seem to go slowly at first, but it goes more quickly at the end. Once the chips are melted, you'll need to “whip” the chips: hold on to the metal bowl with an oven mit and whip the chips using the spoon in your other hand (as if you’re beating an egg in a bowl). The idea is to get the chips free of all clumps and evenly melted. (Be sure to leave the stove on during the entire Twizzler-dipping process so that the chocolate remains fully melted.)

With the chocolate ready, set the spoon aside on a saucer (you’ll need it again in a moment). Take a Twizzler and hold it by one end in your non-dominant hand. Then, dunk it about two-thirds to three-fourths the way into the chocolate. With your dominant hand, use the spoon to push the Twizzler into the chocolate and spoon-over the chocolate to ensure that the three-fourths (or two-thirds) of the Twizzler is properly coated.

Pull the Twizzler out and, while holding the Twizzler above the double-boiler, use the back of the spoon to smooth out the chocolate and brush off any excess chocolate back into the bowl.

Then, carefully place the Twizzler on the cookie sheet to cool. And, repeat the process (whip the chocolate, dip the Twizzler, set Twizzler to cool) for the remaining Twizzlers. If your mixing bowl is at a perfect heat, the chocolate may stay smooth enough and you may not have to whip the chocolate between each Twizzler-dipping; that’s up to you.

Once you're done, you’ll need to allow the chocolate to cool and harden: I would give this at least an hour, or preferably two or three hours. You may find that, towards the end, there’s not enough chocolate to fully cover a Twizzler but nonetheless some chocolate still left in the bowl — this goes quite nicely when spooned onto some graham crackers and allowed to cool (the chef’s treat — wink wink, nudge nudge).

A quick note on white chocolate vs dark/milk chocolate. Technically speaking, “white chocolate” isn’t chocolate at all (since it has cocoa butter but no actual cocoa). So, it doesn’t behave like chocolate, cooking-wise. I’ve tried both white and dark chocolate and both can work out fine. However, white chocolate tends to not melt as evenly and, if you’re undecided about whether to use white chocolate, I would recommend dark or milk chocolate instead.

Variations:

The classic combination is, of course, dark chocolate on strawberry Twizzlers. However, there’re also chocolate Twizzlers and white chocolate, leading to these possibilities: white chocolate on strawberry Twizzlers, white chocolate on chocolate Twizzlers, dark chocolate on chocolate Twizzlers and dark chocolate on strawberry Twizzlers (the original).

I needed a search-and-replace tool just now (to make global changes to a website). So, I searched the Developer Tools section of WebAttack and found ReplaceEm. (WebAttack is a great resource for freeware and shareware, especially since each program is rated.)

Anyhow, ReplaceEm worked so flawlessly that I thought I’d mention it here. It’s freeware, of course, and supports ordinary search-and-replace and regular expressions. It even allows for a separate destination directory for the modified files (which can be very handy if you need to be cautious).

Yeah, some editors come with global search-and-replace utilities built-in, but I don’t think I’ll need that after finding ReplaceEm.

I saw this story on Marketplace’s website that many guacamole dips contain little avocado:

The group says the guacamole dip made by Kraft contains less than two per cent avocado. Instead the dip is made of mostly water, partially hydrogenated coconut and soybean oil, corn syrup, whey protein concentrate, potato and salt. […]

I’m a bit surprised, as I didn’t expect common guacamoles to include such little avocado. So, I suppose I’ll just avoid brands such as Kraft, Herr’s, Dean’s and Marie’s (the prime offenders listed in the article).

From Media Bistro’s mailing list, I saw this article on AdAge.com about the decline of reality programming that also happens to include the schedule for the 2003-2004 television season.

The article itself doesn’t have much new insight (“reality tv on the decline”, and so on) but I was interested with the television schedule as it includes the projected television-share for each show as well. And after giving the schedule a closer look, I see that — once again — That ’70s Show conflicts with Enterprise on Wednesdays.

I only have a single-tuner TiVo, so I can’t record both. And, I’m usually still at the gym when they air, so I’m not able to watch-one-and-record-the-other either. So, I guess that's one more season that I won’t be able to watch That ’70s Show :(.

As I mentioned earlier, my family is going on vacation to Greece for two weeks, leaving on Saturday. We’re first going to Crete for four days, then San Torini for three or four days, and then Athens for a week.

We’re flying via Boston on the way there and coming back to Boston for my brother’s graduation at the end of the trip. Here’re my bookend-flights in and out of Boston:

To Boston:

• Flight: Delta Air Lines flight 2100
• Depart: Dallas/Ft Worth, TX (DFW) - Terminal E
• — Sat May 24 at 12:55pm
• Arrive: Boston, MA (BOS) - Terminal C
• — Sat May 24, at 5:39pm
• Airplane: McDonnell Douglas MD80
• Meal: Snack/Brunch (ooh! But I hope it’s not pretzels)

Back to Dallas:

• Flight: Delta Air Lines flight 1181
• Depart: Boston, MA (BOS) - Terminal C
• — Tue, Jun 10 at 5:00pm
• Arrive: Dallas/Ft Worth, TX (DFW) - Terminal E
• — Tue, Jun 10 at 8:23pm
• Airplane: Boeing 737-800
• Meal: Snack/Brunch

Anyhow, would anyone be able to give me a ride to or from the airport? I should probably be at the airport around 11:00/11:30am on Saturday (leaving my apartment around 10am or so) since it’s an international flight. On the return, the flight lands at 8:23pm, but it’d probably be 8:30 or even 8:45 after retrieving my luggage and so on.

IT publication The Inquirer reports that Doom III won’t include multiplayer, apparently as an economc measure (as in “if there’s not enough time to do it right, don’t do it at all”).

In other games with a deformable/destructible environment the graphic technology was not in place so the modeling was much easier. In older games a plain-jane texture could be applied to the box, it could split into several chunks and dissipate into the air, and that was acceptable to the gamer as previously shot bodies disappeared, blood did not spray and the list goes on. Because of the realistic nature of Doom 3 (and I saw a preview video. Hold onto your hats.) id decided to leave anything out that would detract from the overall game. First to go? Multiplayer.

Because of the nature of multiplayer games, where individuals have to be able to traverse a map in any direction, often times level designers make several changes to enhance the multiplayer experience. With Doom 3, because of the workflow, an artist would create a room and it would take a week and a half to program. Any changes to the room would require reworking so id chose the economical route. […]

I was disappointed to read that, as I really enjoy multiplayer FPS games — and id makes the best. Then again, I’ll probably buy it anyway ;). And, perhaps I’ll just have to try Return to Castle Wolfenstein for id multiplayer goodness.