It's allegorical... it's about the suffering man inflicts on one another. It expresses both physical suffering, as well as the emotional anguish we cause one another. It also evokes the all-seeing eye.
Quite brilliant post-modern imagery, really. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case with exotic energy weapons, I just can't shake the nagging feeling that.22s or even compressed gas propelled sub-.22 rounds almost certainly pack more punch...
Yeah, but this was made by some guy in his basement or something. Fairly impressive, actually.
And, I gotta say, you're right... for a DIY ray gun, the aesthetics of this are remarkably cool. And, really, what's to say someone with more resources won't scale this up to something with a bigger power supply? The laser howitzer or something.:-P
Practicality aside, I'd say this guy deserves mad props for doing even what he's done. That's not something you see every day.
How in the world are new devices developed and approved for production that ignore the possibility of EMI from portable devices? There are no excuses for such negligence.
Having worked in the airline industry for a while... these things take years to work their way through because there's so much regulation around it.
Order a plane now, and it will take a couple of years to get your new plane. That plane and the components it uses have been through an exceedingly long design cycle in order to get all of the components working as they need to.
In this case, I suspect it's a combination of the fact that it would probably take some number of years to design, test, and get approved new devices... and the fact that since such things have been disallowed on aircraft for a long time, they continue to assume they will be disallowed. They also design these things for 20+ year lifespans, so they have different design goals than making sure you get to have wi-fi.
Why is it so hard to understand that something as complex as an aircraft has a very long engineering cycle? Are you under the impression that making an airplane is a simple task?
Hell, the Space Shuttles run/ran on computers that we'd mostly laugh at nowadays. I bet some medical devices don't do so well in the presence of such things either.
first he has to sucker the world+dog into believing it's something they must have and no other cookbook is useful because the recipes are incompatible. Using exotic equipment is a good start at making it incompatible.
Not really. First off, he even says that most of the recipes can be done with standard kitchen equipment.
A lot of the value of what's in that book is that it's a fairly exhaustive coverage of the actual science of cooking -- what's actually happening at the molecular level, why putting vegetables into cold water doesn't stop the cooking process, information on brining... all sorts of things.
While he definitely does a lot of high-end science-based cooking, it would appear that he's also covered the theory of pretty much the rest of cooking as well. For example, the PDF of the index lists no less than 24 places where he discusses the Maillard Reaction, which is basically how we brown food with heat.
As someone who actually owns On Food and Cooking and the books used at the Culinary Institute of America and the Cordon Bleu schools... these books look really interesting. Food porn meets lab science.
Fascinating stuff if you're into that kind of thing.
1) He writes an (admittedly large) expensive $625 cookbook. 2) He gets free advertising on slahsdot. 3) Profit ($$$)
No need to question any steps here...
Well, those who wouldn't ever ponder buying this book won't be swayed by the 'advertising' on Slashdot. And, I doubt it's likely to be a significant number of people.
Those who might buy it are actively drooling over it. And, if you read his account of supply shortages it sounds like a large number of people are already trying to get hold of it. And this was mid February, so long before Slashdot posted anything about it.
The market for this kind of book is pretty much high-end cooks and food geeks. And, it covers more than just the people on Slashdot, though there's likely a few here who are pondering it.
And, if you read the article, he's got two people who worked with Blumenthal onstaff:
As the scope of his writing project expanded, so did Myhrvold's team and his digs. His first hire was Chris Young, who holds degrees in biochemistry and math and opened the experimental kitchen at Chef Blumenthal's legendary Fat Duck restaurant in England. Young then recruited fellow Fat Duck alum Maxime Bilet.
And, the guy himself has some pretty respectable credentials in the world of food:
Myhrvold worked for two years as a stagier at Rover's, a top French restaurant in Seattle, and he trained at the Ecole De La Varenne. Myhrvold's culinary adventures also include a stint as Chief Gastronomic Officer for Zagat Survey, which publishes the Zagat restaurant guides.
So, it's not like he's some putz off the street who doesn't know his way around a kitchen, or that he doesn't have some exceedingly talented people with him.
The more I read about this series of books, the more I wish I could afford it. And, at 50lbs of heft, this is an enormous set of books. But, it seems to be chock full of the science covering absolutely all aspects of how food cooks and what happens under what circumstances.
I rather expect that regardless of how many pages he's filled, Myhrvold has more to learn from Adria than Adria has to learn from Myrhvold.
So? Learning from the pioneers and exhaustively documenting everything is part of science -- and, make no mistake, this is about the science of cooking.
Hell, look at the index which he's made available in PDF. It's 60 pages, and as someone who cook a fair bit, I'm reading through it and see all sorts of interesting teasers and how-to's that extend beyond just molecular gastronomy. It seems to cover the entirety of cooking -- hell, it's got an index entry for Mathematica.:-P
I don't think any of the reviews of this book are just "quid pro quo back scratching, friendly overture, or pure puffery" -- looking at the information on this book, I really do think it's exactly what those quotes say. This is like Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, but for food. Yes, that sounds like hyperbole, but I've never seen any books which have all of the stuff he's got in there, and I've got some cookbooks that are used in culinary schools.
Except, every person you cite here (and pretty much everyone else of importance in this kind of cooking) are saying nice things about this collection.
This guy didn't just walk in off the street and say "me too", he's got some credibility on this one. He's really done actual research and documented things, and it sounds like this goes deep into the science. And, yes, it sounds like his recipes have been put in front of some world class palettes and passed muster.
Ignore the fact that he's former Microsoft... reading about this, I get the impression he's done everything right and deserves respect on this one.
Seriously, I really hope he actually wrote and did not copy-paste texts from Bing (i.e. Google). Cook book authors tend to reuse others' recipes.
I see you've already visited the web page by your comment below, but for anybody thinking you could just grab these kinds of recipes from a web search -- this stuff is more like a lab experiment than your standard recipe.
This is the research-science branch of preparing food. When you read just who is praising this book you quickly realize these are the guys who are doing this in high-end restaurants.
I'd love to flip through this set, but, alas, I fear the pricetag is a little more than I'm willing to spend for something I likely will never be able to employ most of the techniques.
For anybody who doesn't know what this is, it's pretty much an awesome text on the science and chemistry of food. Pretty much covers the gamut of the actual processes and reactions that happen when you cook.
Brilliant book, and definitely something for every food geek. I also recommend Herve This or looking into molecular gastronomy.
I can't see a lot of people actually using liquid nitrogen for cooking, but it's definitely on the cutting edge of some really cool science-based cooking techniques.
Because, something like the GPL confers an obligation that your code be under the same license, that you will tell people it is using code under that license, and that you will make the code (and changes made by you) available for a 'reasonable' amount to cover shipping and media (for example).
Taking the code, using it, pretending you never did, and failing to comply with the license is considered to be a breech of the licensing terms.
This is why commercial software companies can find FOSS problematic since your own code can end up being interpreted as needing to be under a free license.
Contrast this with something like th BSD or Apache licenses, which more or less say "have at it", and if you want to bundle it into your app, go ahead.
I don't see any reason to suspect that I wouldn't be able to hear a difference between the HD650s / DT880s and a set of HD800s or Tesla T1s.
I believe intellectually someone might be able to distinguish from one of those alphabet soup things which might impress me if I knew (or cared) what it was.
However, as a practical matter, I just find it unlikely that everybody who claims to have such golden ears actually does. It's just hard not to believe that there's a bunch of people who have shelled out crazy amounts of cash for something which neither they, nor anybody else, can actually tell the differences between.
And, really, if you're not aware of why the rest of the world is looking at your zillion dollar audio purchase and going "WTF" by now, you have likely not been paying close attention to your friends and family when you tell them about this stuff.
We've all heard the snake-oil pitches -- this cable is made of super-conducting miracle material which was formed from the exfoliated skin from the inner-thighs of virgins at extremely low temperatures, and which is guaranteed to make your music sound smooglier and parumphier than before.
Sounds good... but is it real? To those of us who can't hear this supposed difference, there's just a degree of incredulity at the notion of paying $2k or so for headphones or $100k for speakers.
As an example from another of my hobbies, the price of this card would get you halfway towards a top-of-the-line set of headphones... not counting of course the top-of-the-line amp to go with it... which put together are WAY cheaper than an equivalent speaker setup
And, of course, the rest of us are convinced you're daft to spend that much money on a set of headphones.
You may actually be able to hear the difference, or at least believe you can. To most of us, it seems like you're spending several times more, for a tiny, almost non-existent difference.
Seems like diminishing returns on investment.
But, hey, I've known audiophiles, and they seem to be mostly OK spending outrageous amounts of money on such things.
Slashdot Mirror
Not dumber, just far less cynical and cunning.
Strippers are more like sociopaths or sharks. It's much more predatory.
It's allegorical ... it's about the suffering man inflicts on one another. It expresses both physical suffering, as well as the emotional anguish we cause one another. It also evokes the all-seeing eye.
Quite brilliant post-modern imagery, really. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.
I'll be in my bunk.
I think Westerns already demonstrated the inverse correlation between "bad guy" and "marksmanship".
Not sure which is more sad ... the fact that you know that, or that you think we care. ;-)
He likely didn't need to ... I suspect the squeals of glee followed by maniacal laughter suffice for the time being.
Yeah, but this was made by some guy in his basement or something. Fairly impressive, actually.
And, I gotta say, you're right ... for a DIY ray gun, the aesthetics of this are remarkably cool. And, really, what's to say someone with more resources won't scale this up to something with a bigger power supply? The laser howitzer or something. :-P
Practicality aside, I'd say this guy deserves mad props for doing even what he's done. That's not something you see every day.
So? Why should reality get in the way of Slashdotters claiming to have a "simple" fix so they can run their wi-fi and text people wherever they want?
Because, obviously, the input of random geeks on Slashdot is far more informed than the people who actually make these things and have to build them.
Having worked in the airline industry for a while ... these things take years to work their way through because there's so much regulation around it.
Order a plane now, and it will take a couple of years to get your new plane. That plane and the components it uses have been through an exceedingly long design cycle in order to get all of the components working as they need to.
In this case, I suspect it's a combination of the fact that it would probably take some number of years to design, test, and get approved new devices ... and the fact that since such things have been disallowed on aircraft for a long time, they continue to assume they will be disallowed. They also design these things for 20+ year lifespans, so they have different design goals than making sure you get to have wi-fi.
Why is it so hard to understand that something as complex as an aircraft has a very long engineering cycle? Are you under the impression that making an airplane is a simple task?
Hell, the Space Shuttles run/ran on computers that we'd mostly laugh at nowadays. I bet some medical devices don't do so well in the presence of such things either.
Not really. First off, he even says that most of the recipes can be done with standard kitchen equipment.
A lot of the value of what's in that book is that it's a fairly exhaustive coverage of the actual science of cooking -- what's actually happening at the molecular level, why putting vegetables into cold water doesn't stop the cooking process, information on brining ... all sorts of things.
While he definitely does a lot of high-end science-based cooking, it would appear that he's also covered the theory of pretty much the rest of cooking as well. For example, the PDF of the index lists no less than 24 places where he discusses the Maillard Reaction, which is basically how we brown food with heat.
As someone who actually owns On Food and Cooking and the books used at the Culinary Institute of America and the Cordon Bleu schools ... these books look really interesting. Food porn meets lab science.
Fascinating stuff if you're into that kind of thing.
Well, those who wouldn't ever ponder buying this book won't be swayed by the 'advertising' on Slashdot. And, I doubt it's likely to be a significant number of people.
Those who might buy it are actively drooling over it. And, if you read his account of supply shortages it sounds like a large number of people are already trying to get hold of it. And this was mid February, so long before Slashdot posted anything about it.
The market for this kind of book is pretty much high-end cooks and food geeks. And, it covers more than just the people on Slashdot, though there's likely a few here who are pondering it.
And, if you read the article, he's got two people who worked with Blumenthal onstaff:
And, the guy himself has some pretty respectable credentials in the world of food:
So, it's not like he's some putz off the street who doesn't know his way around a kitchen, or that he doesn't have some exceedingly talented people with him.
The more I read about this series of books, the more I wish I could afford it. And, at 50lbs of heft, this is an enormous set of books. But, it seems to be chock full of the science covering absolutely all aspects of how food cooks and what happens under what circumstances.
So? Learning from the pioneers and exhaustively documenting everything is part of science -- and, make no mistake, this is about the science of cooking.
Hell, look at the index which he's made available in PDF. It's 60 pages, and as someone who cook a fair bit, I'm reading through it and see all sorts of interesting teasers and how-to's that extend beyond just molecular gastronomy. It seems to cover the entirety of cooking -- hell, it's got an index entry for Mathematica. :-P
I don't think any of the reviews of this book are just "quid pro quo back scratching, friendly overture, or pure puffery" -- looking at the information on this book, I really do think it's exactly what those quotes say. This is like Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, but for food. Yes, that sounds like hyperbole, but I've never seen any books which have all of the stuff he's got in there, and I've got some cookbooks that are used in culinary schools.
Except, every person you cite here (and pretty much everyone else of importance in this kind of cooking) are saying nice things about this collection.
This guy didn't just walk in off the street and say "me too", he's got some credibility on this one. He's really done actual research and documented things, and it sounds like this goes deep into the science. And, yes, it sounds like his recipes have been put in front of some world class palettes and passed muster.
Ignore the fact that he's former Microsoft ... reading about this, I get the impression he's done everything right and deserves respect on this one.
I see you've already visited the web page by your comment below, but for anybody thinking you could just grab these kinds of recipes from a web search -- this stuff is more like a lab experiment than your standard recipe.
This is the research-science branch of preparing food. When you read just who is praising this book you quickly realize these are the guys who are doing this in high-end restaurants.
I'd love to flip through this set, but, alas, I fear the pricetag is a little more than I'm willing to spend for something I likely will never be able to employ most of the techniques.
Kudos to the authors for putting this together.
This, exactly this.
For anybody who doesn't know what this is, it's pretty much an awesome text on the science and chemistry of food. Pretty much covers the gamut of the actual processes and reactions that happen when you cook.
Brilliant book, and definitely something for every food geek. I also recommend Herve This or looking into molecular gastronomy.
I can't see a lot of people actually using liquid nitrogen for cooking, but it's definitely on the cutting edge of some really cool science-based cooking techniques.
Because, something like the GPL confers an obligation that your code be under the same license, that you will tell people it is using code under that license, and that you will make the code (and changes made by you) available for a 'reasonable' amount to cover shipping and media (for example).
Taking the code, using it, pretending you never did, and failing to comply with the license is considered to be a breech of the licensing terms.
This is why commercial software companies can find FOSS problematic since your own code can end up being interpreted as needing to be under a free license.
Contrast this with something like th BSD or Apache licenses, which more or less say "have at it", and if you want to bundle it into your app, go ahead.
I believe intellectually someone might be able to distinguish from one of those alphabet soup things which might impress me if I knew (or cared) what it was.
However, as a practical matter, I just find it unlikely that everybody who claims to have such golden ears actually does. It's just hard not to believe that there's a bunch of people who have shelled out crazy amounts of cash for something which neither they, nor anybody else, can actually tell the differences between.
And, really, if you're not aware of why the rest of the world is looking at your zillion dollar audio purchase and going "WTF" by now, you have likely not been paying close attention to your friends and family when you tell them about this stuff.
We've all heard the snake-oil pitches -- this cable is made of super-conducting miracle material which was formed from the exfoliated skin from the inner-thighs of virgins at extremely low temperatures, and which is guaranteed to make your music sound smooglier and parumphier than before.
Sounds good ... but is it real? To those of us who can't hear this supposed difference, there's just a degree of incredulity at the notion of paying $2k or so for headphones or $100k for speakers.
I'm sure I saw this in an episode of Numb3rs once. :-P
Besides Earth, of course.
I'm sure some cunning linguist will be all over the semantics of that if I don't qualify it.
Which, arguably, it was to begin with anyway.
You seriously expect people to be legitimately be selling a planet or part thereof?
Unlikely since none of us knows what "Pultoed" means.
Well, for the scientific method at least.
Being this wrong is seldom considered an 'epic success'.
Don't know about you, but I consider a "$1-3k" monitor to be exotic and pricey.
Sure, they sound absolutely awesome, but you're talking about more money than I'd be willing to spend on a computer.
Definitely 'niche' market kinda stuff.
And, of course, the rest of us are convinced you're daft to spend that much money on a set of headphones.
You may actually be able to hear the difference, or at least believe you can. To most of us, it seems like you're spending several times more, for a tiny, almost non-existent difference.
Seems like diminishing returns on investment.
But, hey, I've known audiophiles, and they seem to be mostly OK spending outrageous amounts of money on such things.