Welcome to BigFatDave's Online Home!

Okay, so my personal home page is back online again. Happy? You won't find any of the old stuff here anytime soon, though, since dave2 hasn't yet recovered from a fractured motherboard suffered last year over the Atlantic.

In other words, if you're here looking for my Mutt pages/configs, my GNU Screen pages/configs, or my Dvorak keymaps, I'm sorry to report that they're not here. (I still haven't forgotten the facts, I haven't stopped using GNU Screen (nor am I likely to ever stop using the Dvorak keymap), and (since mboxfs died along with everything else on dave2) I now use Mutt again (with a brand new but fairly similar config), so I can still answer any questions you might have, and/or provide current copies of my configs. Feel free to hit me by email if you have any questions.) BTW - If anybody knows a source for obtaining a working Q-lity XPGS-DS (or equivalent) motherboard, I would appreciate a heads-up. Few things would please me more than restoring dave2.

On the bright side, I've already got some fun stuff that I'm working on here.

I'm rebuilding my Daveglish dictionary; it never should've been called Daveglish to begin with, so I've renamed it English. Anyway, the dictionary is here. I've also started using my dialect to summarize articles.

For those of you who absolutely must hear every stupid thing that goes through my mind, I've put together a prehistoric blog.

I've put together a shortish discussion of a few small changes to the American governmental system that I believe to be necessary.

My mom likes solving Kokuro problems, so I built her a helpful table so she wouldn't have to build it manually, as she currently does. Please note that the table has a few bugs, so don't try to use it without adult supervision ;-)

I'm attempting to build up a list of tutors. Feel free to scan it and/or to add yourself.

I've decided to put up a little bit of info about the situation in Israel and Some Facts About Palestine, since it seems that most people are very badly misinformed, primarily by the media. Apparently, journalists don't really believe in Honest Reporting. . .

I've also decided to link to a number of interesting resources; it appears that the man behind the murder of Yitzchak Rabin was actually Shimon Peres - yep, the same guy who's now (as of 20070218) running for President of the State of Israel ... go figure. . .

If you like cars, you may (or may not) enjoy what's in my cars section.

I've written a short paper about Defending Freedom.

I have a few notes that may be useful in my FreeSWITCH section.

I now have a small section dealing with DJB's daemontools package.

I now maintain a Smarty FAQ, primarily intended to save traffic on #smarty.

I've decided to hack together a skeleton for an image-less CAPTCHA implementation. Aside from loading ten gazillion times faster than any image-based CAPTCHA, we don't screw over Lynx and Elvis users. I think if we ask context-relative questions in this type of CAPTCHA font, robots and CAPTCHA recycling systems will have to make some adjustments. Additionaly, because the code for this system is extremely accessible, we've just lowered the barrier for anybody who wants to use this system to be able to modify the data and/or logic on a case-by-case basis. Attackers will need to attack each type of modification separately, and if we see epidemics targetting broad categories of changes, we can always update our own system to make those changes standard while keeping the system as a whole very easy for individuals to hack in new ways, so interested parties can always stay a step ahead of the attackers with relatively little individual effort. Additionally, the primary CAPTCHA lies in the context-relative questions, not in the funny font; the funny font is simply intended to add a bit of a wrinkle in any small-time attacking operation, encouraging attackers to consolidate their own codebases. If innovation on the attacking side is limited to only a few companies supplying solutions/services while independent innovation on our side can easily be done by every member of the community, we have the evolutionary edge.

I've finally finished writing a short essay On the Natural Rights of Man, exploring the role of government in our society. I've also put together the beginnings of a new section, the Meritophobia section.

I now have a religion section. Enjoy :-)

I've started a list of quotable quotes that I've heard.

I've also started a list of fortune(6) quotes that I really liked.

My high school reunion took place a few days ago. I have some tidbits about it in the Frisch area.

I've started up a Do Not Donate registry.

If you're reading this (i.e., if I haven't yet managed to thoroughly bore you to death), I'd appreciate the opportunity to take one more shot at it, with my Boredom Section.

If you've been through everything and I still haven't managed to bore you to death, I give up; you win. Your reward is a batch of homemade (kosher, of course) egg nog. Just drop me a line, so we can work out logistics. If you prefer to make it yourself, it's really easy:

• Put two cups of milk, half a dozen large eggs, a quarter cup of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and a hand blender rated for high temperatures into a pot.
• Run the blender for a bit, to mix everything together nicely.
• Put the whole business on a burner at a medium setting; come back 3-5 minutes later, and run the blender again for a bit, to keep the eggs from going all hard-boiled on you.
• Keep coming back every minute or two, to run the blender for a tiny bit.
• When the stuff turns into a custard, it's time to take it off the gas. (You have a few degrees to play around with, between when you've reliably killed Salmonella and when your egg nog turns into a hard boiled egg. After making a few batches, you'll learn to sense the egg nog's mood. While you're learning, it's easier if you turn the gas down a bit, towards the end. If you hate adventure, you can use a thermometer: you want to shoot for somewhere between 140F (60C) and 144F (62C), and you want to try to hold that temperature for about three quarters of an hour, to make sure the Salmonella is good and dead. I like to try going well over 144F, taking advantage of the fact that the egg white can stay liquid well over 144F as long as it's kept moving. In my experience, the resulting egg nog tastes better, the hotter you've been able to get it, but YMMV. For example, my wife actually prefers the taste from under 144F.)
• Immediately empty the pot into a regular blender rated for high temperatures, cover the blender, and start running it on low speed. (You'll need to stop the blender every 20-30 seconds for 5 or so seconds, to let the steam escape.) If you've already got hard boiled eggnog, don't despair: just run the blender on high power instead of low power. (I sometimes let it solidify on purpose; it ends up with a rather distinct taste, and I'm sometimes specifically in the mood for it. If you're having a party, though, my suggestion is to try to avoid hard boiling your eggnog.)
• After about five minutes, pour a cup or two of heavy cream (or milk, if you like your egg nog very light, or some combination of the two, if you like it somewhere in between) into the blender. (You can stop the blender for a moment while you're pouring the cream in, but restart it ASAP. You want to keep the mixture moving so it won't start to solidify.) The blender should be at low power now, regardless of whether you ran high power (as hard boiled eggnog damage control) earlier. Also, don't forget to leave some room in your blender above the eggnog line, since it'll expand (especially the cream) when you flip the blender back on.
• After another couple of minutes, add half a bottle (3-4 oz) of fake vanilla extract. If you're really crazy about vanilla, you can even add a full bottle; if you do, you'll probably want closer to two cups of cream, to keep your eggnog from getting too light.
• After another minute or two, add some nutmeg and cinnamon. (Don't stop the blender, to avoid letting the spice grains stick together.)
• Turn the blender up to high power, and wait another few minutes for everything to blend together nicely. (I like to run it for about ten minutes, here. Your blender may not be rated for such long high power runs, though. When in doubt, RTFM. FWIW, I run a very cheap ($20) model (can't remember which, off-hand, but I still have the box and manual, so just email me if you want to know the exact model; it's the B40, manufacturer product code 54615; anybody have experience with the model 53155?) from Hamilton Beach, and other than the stupid "Wave-Action System" taking away half the jar's capacity and creating a scaffold for large pieces of things to escape the blades [1], the thing works amazingly well. My experience with Hamilton Beach equipment usually tends to be quite positive (heavy duty components, no stupid functionality compromises for the sake of design, and unbeatable pricing), but this particular blender deserves special recognition for years of outstanding service, even by Hamilton Beach standards. If they'd only remove their stupid (patented!) "Wave-Action System," I'd call it the perfect blender. I sometimes wish manufacturers would stop innovating, and just stick to what works best.)
• Turn the blender off, and put your egg nog in the fridge overnight.
• Wake up, and smell the egg nog. Enjoy :-)

Footnotes

[1]

If you want to see what I'm talking about, take a honeydew and cut it into a few large pieces; put the pieces into the blender. My old Hamilton Beach (without the Wave-Action System) quickly turns the pieces into honeydew juice. In the new one, though, you run into a number of problems. First, the entire honeydew simply won't fit in the jar, so you'll have to settle for only about half. Next, when you turn the blender on, the blades splatter drops of juice all over the place, because there's too much airspace between the pieces. (In the old blender, the pieces are packed close together, preventing stray scraps from getting out.) Finally, the pieces that you've managed to fit in the jar are too big to fall to the bottom of the jar (where the blades are), since the indentations on the sides of the jar hold the pieces up, only low enough to allow the blades to scratch the pieces, throwing honeydew juice all over, but not actually moving the pieces themselves. (I compensate for these last two problems by "seeding" the mixture with a little bit of orange juice. After making a batch, I pour it all out (into my mouth, of course), leaving only a little bit in the jar. I then make another batch using the leftover bit from the first batch as the seed, and on that batch there's so little orange juice that it's virtually impossible to detect.) The next problem you encounter is the maximum usable mixture level: the wave system throws mixture way up on the two sides, forcing you to avoid high power when the jar is nearly full. I'd like to also point out something else: I've noticed that when you work with very thick mixtures, the indentations on the jar walls prevent the blades from generating enough steady torque to move the whole top half of the mixture, even at the lowest speeds. (Normally, the top of the mixture moves by friction from the bottom, which has hopefully gathered enough rotational momentum (thanks to a steady torque from the blades) to support the rest of the mixture. Think of it as a series of partially applied clutch plates, starting from the bottom of the mixture. If the bottom has a steady rotational motion, the plate directly above it will start spinning too, eventually developing enough of its own rotational momentum to spin up the next clutch plate over it, and so on.) Moving the top of the mixture is important because the top needs to get sucked into the whirlpool in the middle towards the bottom, in order to thoroughly stir the mixture, and to allow air in. The indentations on the sides divert the flow in a way that makes it easy for large pockets of standing mixture to develop. The net result is that only a small cylinder of mixture right around the blades ends up moving, while everything else remains static. Because so little of the mixture is moving, not enough suction is generated to force the rest of the mixture down towards the blades, and so you can leave the blender running for ten minutes this way (again, even at the lowest speeds) without anything changing. The easiest way to create a "very thick" mixture, incidentally, is to fill the jar with a 2:1 mixture of bananas and orange juice. Run the blender at high power for a few minutes, and then switch to low power for half an hour, to heat up the mixture (activating the natural gelatin effect in the bananas). Turn the blender off for 15 minutes to allow the mixture to cool (activating the cohesive properties of the gelatin effect), and then turn it back on again. It'll look like nothing's happening. The old Hamilton Beach handles this case with a lot of difficulty, but eventually gets the mixture moving if you stick to the slowest speeds. The new one requires outside help (inserting a handheld blender, for example) to jumpstart the process. As I said before, though, even with all these faults, the blender is amazingly effective once you learn basic techniques to compensate. (In the banana case, for example, simply avoid turning the blender off for more than a few seconds at a time. If you leave it on "dispense," it can continue spinning the banana all day. If it's too late (i.e., it's already gotten stuck), pour a little bit of orange juice on top, and then slash with a knife straight down to the blades; when the blades spin up, they'll suck the orange juice down, jumpstarting the process. In some cases where it's "almost" spinning up, simply slashing - even without orange juice - will do the trick. Freezing the bananas before starting helps to keep them from heating up too much in the early stages, giving you some maneuvering space. If you're going to put pears in whole, freeze them well, and make sure to have some freshly thawed orange juice already sitting in the blender before starting. Try running the blender from inside the freezer or fridge. Don't make the mistake of trying to make carrot juice without a bit of orange juice as a starter.) Even exactly as-is, the blender still gets a solid A+ overall, and my strong recommendation. It's powerful and very easy to operate (love the twist switch, rather than the old button approach), it has a strong and lightweight jar, it's very easy to clean, has a top-notch dispenser that's easily removed for cleaning, and an interchangeable cap for rare instances where you don't plan to dispense. I consider it the best blender available today for under $200, and quite possibly the best blender available today at any price (the only possible exception being the insanely powerful VitaMix, a very well-designed superblender - not 100% sure either way).

While we're on the topic of the WaveStation Express, it's worth pointing out that somebody is (was?) apparently considering using the thing to make peanut butter. To be perfectly honest, I have no clue whether or not that'll work. (I get my (all-natural) peanut butter from Trader Joe's.) I'm not prepared to go through the hassle of trying it just to please some Amazon forum poster, but if anybody reading this wants the answer, just email me, and I'll get it for you ;-)

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Copyright (C) 2006-2008 Dave Cohen; permission granted to modify and/or redistribute subject to the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later