Unplanned Power Interruption

I'll have to admit that I was as surprised as anyone to find out the site was unavailable over the break.  It turns out that Scott decided to disconnect the UPS to save power while we both gone.  It wouldn't be a huge problem, but the router computer was kernel panicking on boot, meaning that when I got back I had to dig around to try and find an x86 boot CD that would read ReiserFS so that I could retreive the PPPoE logon password from the hard drive.  Doing so lead to the realisation that, while I have lots of Linux CDs, most aren't terribly useful — being either rather old, or for niche platforms (PPC, m68k, SPARC).  But all that is in the past, so we're back now.  Expect an actual entry sometime later today.

Yet Another Recipe

Tea/Shortcake Biscuits

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 T white sugar
• 4 T vegitable oil
• 1 egg, beaten until frothy
• 2/3 cup milk

Combine ingredients in bowl and mix well.  Knead several times.  (Mixture will be sticky, so it may be necessary to coat hands and kneading surface lightly with flour.)  Form into biscuits using cookie cutter/glass, and place in pan (I find a pie pan works well).  Bake at 425°F-450°F for approx. 15 minutes.

Pain Leads To Anger, Anger Leads To Hate, Hate Leads To Suffering.

I just finished Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and let me proclaim that the ending sucks!

(Long winded rant, with some minor spoilers, follows.  You have been warned.)

 Continue reading Pain Leads To Anger, Anger Leads To Hate, Hate Leads To Suffering.

The Ex's Sweet Potato Pie

For the full effect, you should imagine this recipe being shouted by a male voice with a thick Dutch accent.

Take:

• A 1lb sweet potato,
• A 1/2 cup of butter, softened,
• A cup of white sugar,
• 1/2 a cup of milk,
• 2 eggs,
• 1/2 a tsp of ground nutmeg,
• 1/2 a tsp of ground cinnamon,
• A tsp of vanilla extract,
• And a 9" unbaked pie crust.

Boil Sweet potato whole, in skin, for 40-50 minutes, or until done.  Run cold water over the sweet potato and remove the skin.  Break apart the sweet potato in a bowl.  Add butter and mix well with mixer.  Stir in the sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla extract.  Beat on medium speed until the mixture is smooth, and pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.

Bake at 350°F/175°C for 55-60 minutes, or until knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  The pie will puff up like a soufflé and then will sink down as it cools.

The rest of the song goes on about the various methods in which you can throw the pie (and the lyric sheet, which omits the above recipe, pairs this track with a picture of Bill Gates after his run-in with a member of les entarteurs).  However, that's really just a waste of food, in my opinion.

The pie itself isn't bad, tasting a lot like a sweeter version of a pumpkin one, and was probably a good use for the extra sweet potato I had lying around from the last time I made stew.  It does, however, have to rate as the oddest place I've ever taken a recipe from.

Ils Sont Fous, Ces Romains

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for me to clean up my bookmarks, which means massive link dump.

Ouch! Researchers tackle Tintin's traumas:  I find this amusing because it confirms the one fact that always stuck in my head about Tintin (well, besides the horribly-dated stereotypes): Tintin always seemed to spend large parts of the stories either knocked out, or in the process of being knocked out.  (16 out of 23 stories, for a total of 50 times he went down for the count.)  It also makes me wonder what the Canadian Medical Association would have to say about Astérix and Obélix.

Coulter: Canada is "lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent":  You know, I just find it hard to get worked up about Ann Coulter anymore.  She's just such a complete and utter whack-job that I just sort of yawn and go "Oh?  Her again?"  But it does provide some workings in to how her mind works.  Why does she hate Canadians?  Oh no, she doesn't hate Canadians, only the ones who speak French; if you speak English you're fine.  Of course, she falls victim to the fallacy of creating a false dichotomy:  speaking English isn't mutually exclusive with speaking French.  But, then, did anyone really expect her to notice that she was basing her argument around a logical fallacy?  I thought not.

BNP snub black DJ:  Normally I'd avoid linking to The Sun, but I had to post this one.  Basically, the British National Party is the far-right extremist party in the UK, usually with allegations of racisim and neo-naziism thrown around as well.  All the article needs is a photo of the stunned looks on some of the party members' faces when the DJ showed up.

Professionals at Work:  Somebody needs to explain some basic physics principles about levers to these folks.

My Pet Fat:  For the deiter who needs a little visual incentive.

And finally, as much as I hate Flash, I found this Bruce Lee mixer to be quite entertaining.

Monitor Troubleshooting

There aren't any electrical engineers that read this (that I know of), so this request will probably be useless.  Basic idea:  I've got a monitor.  As is, the picture is shifted up maybe an inch to an inch and a half from the bottom of the screen.  I can stretch it so that it moves down into there, but then the picture goes off the top of the screen.  The problem is that no matter what I do with the vertical position option, the picture does not move.  All the way to the top?  Nothing.  All the way to the bottom?  Also nothing.

I'm looking for any ideas on how to get this working properly (as it would be some extra cash if I could get it working.)  The monitor is a TVM AS6S, and every other option appears to work.  Anyone?

The Ice Age Is Coming, The Sun's Zooming In

Somehow today I ended up at the website of a group called EnviroTruth (Slogan: Promoting truth in enviromental activism).  More importantly, I ended up at their page on "Myths and Envirotruth Regarding Climate Change".  Now, ignoring the fact that someone should be taken out back and shot for making up and using the word envirotruth, the list is actually kind of amusing.  More specifically one particular item is kind of amusing: Myth #11: 'Those Who Question Whether Human Activity Contributes in Any Significant Fashion to Climate Change are Secretly Funded by Coal, Oil, Gas and Other "Smokestack" Industries.'

The response is a wordy bit of spin that doesn't do much except pay the salary of whoever typed it up.  (It certainly doesn't provide any hard evidence to back up its claims.)  But that's not why it's interesting.  Why it's interesting is that they're saying that it's a myth that those who doubt the concept of global warming are funded by companies involved in oil, coal, gas, &c.

Now, if you look down at the bottom of the page, you'll spot this line: "Sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research".  So far, so good.  Unfortunately, the National Center doesn't state who funds them anywhere on their site.  (I don't suggest visiting it, unless you enjoy having every other link you click opening in a new window.)  That's fine though, as there're plenty of other places where you can find this sort of stuff.

Anyways, among the funders listed on the appropriate page:  ExxonMobil.  More importantly, the funding from ExxonMobil wasn't just given carte-blanche.  It was given for a very specific purpose that's even listed in ExxonMobil's 2003 giving report  (page 44 of the PDF).  The conditions?  That $30,000 of it was for the "global climate change/EnviroTruth website".  Whoops.  No wonder the about page at the EnviroTruth website doesn't contain the usual spiel about being an independent group, instead prefering to toss around loaded words like 'terrorism'.

It would appear that someone has a large amount of egg on their face.