Lightweight Languages

Denise writes: "'What happens if you get a bunch of academic computer scientists and implementors of languages such as Perl, Python, Smalltalk and Curl, and lock them into a room for a day? Bringing together the academic and commercial sides of language design and implementation was the interesting premise behind last weekend's Lightweight Languages Workshop, LL1, at the AI Lab at MIT.' Simon Cozens report, on perl.com, says it wasn't the flame fest you might have imagined."

Comments

Re:Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

[mdahlman]

Good ice cream sinks, but it's not because of the fat content. It's due to the air content.

In some places there's a limit on how much air can be in ice cream: 50%. There's no lower limit, but at 0% you've just got a block of ice. So there's a de facto lower limit.

Something like Ben and Jerry's has much less air. That's why it's less dense, and that's why sinking ice cream can be a measure of quality.

Re:Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

[Chelloveck]

We sometimes do this as a party trick at midwest SF cons. Take your basic ice cream recipe in a big bowl, then have one person slowly pour LN2 from the dewar while the other one stirs maddly. I'm not sure why the article recommends pouring the nitrogen into containers first.

Liquid oxygen works wonderfully as well. Last summer in Michigan we made LOX ice cream with freshly-picked thimbleberries. (And no, it doesn't burn! Not even when you put a blowtorch to it...) In a pinch you can even use dry ice. Have someone rub a block of dry ice on a cheese grater over the bowl. This method tends to leave some residual carbonation in the ice cream. Bring along root beer extract for flavor!

Other fun cryogenic tricks -- Everclear (198 proof grain alcohol) will freeze at liquid nitrogen temperatures. Small pieces chipped off evaporate marvelously on the tongue. An inverted scotch-on-the-rocks can be made by freezing scotch in an ice-cube tray and adding the cubes to a little water or soda. Winecicles are interesting, too, but beware the tongue-and-flagpole effect when you lick them!