Cooking for Engineers

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Posted by michael on Friday September 10, 2004 @01:12PM from the fold-spindle-mutilate dept.

gbjbaanb writes "It's not often I post about a website, but this one is different. It is Cooking For Engineers. No big deal, you'd think - a web site about recipes and cooking. But go look at how he's presented it. Most recipes are designed for women, and their funny way of looking at the world. These are very different and instantly understandable for tech geeks like us. Oh yes, although he's been affected by firefox, he blames Microsoft. :)"

19 of 432 comments (clear)

Poor guy... by ack154 · 2004-09-10 13:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Kind of ironic that todays post was about traffic:
All I can say now is: WOW!

On Wednesday, my readership started to increase from 20-40 hits per day to over 150 hits. I was starting to approach 1000 total hits and was pretty excited about that, when on Thursday I received almost 2000 hits. Right now, (a little past 2:30pm Pacific Daylight Savings Time) I have received almost 6000 hits for Friday.

Yesterday, with less than 2000 hits I exceeded by bandwidth traffic limitations for the MONTH. Thursday's transfers were in excess of 1 GB. I immediately upgraded the service from doteasy.com's free service to the highest tiered pay service, but that only gives me 20 GB per month. So, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I'm guessing the 20 GB will last only through the weekend.

So, I need suggestions on low cost HIGH traffic (I guess I'll need about 10 GB per day) servers that I can move my website to. I don't need too much space (100 MB will last a long time) because the site is currently only 8 MB.

As a warning this website might go down, but I'll do everything I can to keep it up and running.

I'm also thinking about putting up a paypal donation thing, but that isn't going to help unless I can find a host that will be able to allow enough monthly traffic for the website to survive.

You can post comments here or e-mail me at cooking@cookingforengineers.com.
Poor guy... already having bandwidth troubles and then someone slashdots him...
1. Re:Poor guy... by dschl · 2004-09-10 15:05 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  >Use coral. In the articles I've submitted (0/2 posted) my links were coralized.
  The real question is, why don't the editors do it? Would it take too much time out of his busy, busy day for Michael to add nydu.net:8090 to a posting? If Perl is such a kickin' language, why doesn't Taco make links default to Coral if they are not submitted with it in the first place? That's largely what Coral was set up for - they even mention the /. effect by name on their site.
  
  --
  Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
Charts by keiferb · 2004-09-10 13:15 · Score: 5, Informative

Those charts are genious.

I can't count the number of times I've gotten lost following a recipe in a real cook book, but these things take a lot less time to read, and look like they'd be a lot easier to follow throughout the process.

Plus, they're a lot more compact than a written-out recipe. That means I can fit more of them in my recipe bo...

aw, who am I kidding?
1. Re:Charts by Methuseus · 2004-09-10 15:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So, are you saying that the average joe, who can follow a table recipe instead of a standard recipe, won't make anything that tastes as good as a frozen meal?
  
  I agree that the average person won't make an excellent chef, and that it takes more than a recipe to make excellent food. But to make good food that most people will eat merely takes a recipe and someone who can follow it.
  
  --
  Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
Alton Brown... Is that you? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-10 13:15 · Score: 5, Funny

I thought there was already a Patron Saint chef of geeks... Alton Brown!
My favorite engineer recipe. by Daleks · 2004-09-10 13:19 · Score: 5, Funny

1. Find a woman who can tolerate you.
2. Enter the kitchen with her.
3. Do whatever she says.

Actually, if you leave out step 2 the other steps nearly always apply.
1. Re:My favorite engineer recipe. by kfg · 2004-09-10 13:43 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  3. Do whatever she says.
  
  Mine always says, "Feed me."
  
  I'm a much better cook than she is. That's ok, she's a much better welder. These are modern times. I make the Pad Thai, she makes the locomotives. It works for us.
  
  I read recipies, but I don't "follow" them. I read them to get ideas, just as I use engineering manuals to get ideas, not find solutions. The books never have the questions I'm working on in them. When we ride on trains she'd be happier knowing I had designed it, I'd be happier knowing she'd built it. We don't ride trains much. We know too much.
  
  The trick is to learn your ingredients and processes, then whatever you happen to have in the house (and/or lawn. Dandelions, purslane, violets, clover, day lilies, chicory, all wonderful foodstuffs) becomes your "recipie."
  
  Recipies are great for the beginner or casual cook, but the idea really is to go beyond them, to use them as lab practicums to understand what you're doing and why.
  
  Recipies are rarely presented this way though. Read James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. It's full of recipies, but they're all there to illustrate a point, much as a good engineering manual.
  
  KFG
2. Re:My favorite engineer recipe. by kfg · 2004-09-10 17:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  That's why God invented soups and stews. You make one huge pot of something that you can eat out of at will during the week. Keep "evolving" it for variety. What starts out on Sunday as a couple gallons of lentil soup ends up as a few bowls of lentil and potato curry by Thursday.
  
  The entire art of homemade "convienience" foods seems to have died out, in fact the two are often considered antithetical, but the microwave oven makes them an more valid than ever.
  
  Rice and bean dishes are also excellent for cooking in bulk.
  
  Then when she wants to eat at 6, but you want to cook until 9, you can prepare her (or she can help herself) a quicky mini-meal with a cup of hot chocolate (or wine if her taste turns in that direction), and you're free to cook until the contentment of that wears off.
  
  KFG
I thought this was cooking for engineers.... by stangbat · 2004-09-10 13:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

At least it is in my home: How to Brew.
What is a cup? by hattig · 2004-09-10 13:27 · Score: 5, Funny

Come on ... "cooking for engineers" ... use Metric for chrissakes.

I once read a recipe : "1 cup banana" ... no kidding.

Americans ...
Cooking v1.0 for nerds by GillBates0 · 2004-09-10 13:31 · Score: 5, Funny

1. Goto store 2. Insert 12, eggs, cart 3. Insert 1lb, butter, cart 4. Mov $5.00, wallet, store_clerk 5. Goto home 6. Mov pan, grill 7. heating = 05 8. Mov 1oz, butter, pan 9. Mov 2, eggs, pan 10. sleep (1000) 11. Mov product, oral_cavity 12. end

--
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Coral Cache by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-10 13:33 · Score: 5, Informative

perhaps this might help him
courtesy of the Coral Distribution Network

http://www.cookingforengineers.com.nyud.net:8090/

save his bandwidth and use that
Phewww!! by ImTwoSlick · 2004-09-10 13:39 · Score: 5, Funny

For a second there, I thought the title said:
Cooking Foreigners
Needs more salt.
Re:It's a forgery by base3 · 2004-09-10 13:42 · Score: 5, Funny

It's just "Kelvin," not "degrees Kelvin," damn it :).</nerd>

--
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
The secret to getting a story posted on /. by bunnyman · 2004-09-10 13:53 · Score: 5, Funny

1) Point out that IE is not standards compliant.
2) Submit story.
3) Allow web server to bake until golden brown.
4) Enjoy!
Re:Chart Idea Awesome by rgmoore · 2004-09-10 13:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Perhaps you should learn a lesson from this: read everything before you do anything. It isn't necessarily just a question how long the recipie takes, either. Sometimes a recipie will call for a tool or pan that you don't have and can't improvise easily. Sometimes you'll have to time things so that two subcomponents of a recipie come are finished at the same time. Just remember that you should know the whole recipie before starting and you'll save yourself a world of grief.

--
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Re:XML by bunnyman · 2004-09-10 14:00 · Score: 5, Informative

Already beendone.
Re:It's a forgery by E-Rock · 2004-09-10 17:27 · Score: 5, Funny

I think NASA tried using both and it didn't work out so well.
Real engineers use standard units by shermozle · 2004-09-10 21:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

If this was truly for engineers, it would use metric units and wouldn't mix volume and weight units unnecessarily. Using cups for recipes is ridiculous considering the possible variations in texture and grain size.