Chicken Teriyaki Bowl #7

I love making things and learning how things are made.  Right now I am making sourdough baguettes.  They contain:

• Flour (didn’t grind my own, but I have before)
• Water
• Salt
• Starter (leftover from last batch)

The simplicity of it blows me away every time.  Throw the ingredients together, knead, let it bubble up and apply heat and the result is something far different than the ingredients I started with.

Knitting is similar.  Start with fiber - sheep, llama, dog, cotton - spin the fiber into yarn, dye it, knit it and you have transformed it into something completely different.

I suppose this is all a metaphor for life, but right now I’m just blown again by my baguettes.

tags: bread, knitting

How to Save the World pointed me at this text document by a schoolteacher John Taylor Gatto.  He basically says that the US educational system teaches:

• Confusion, incoherence and disconnection (by teaching without context),
• Know and stay in your place,
• Don’t care too much,
• How to be emotionally dependent,
• How to be intellectually dependent (wait to be told what to do and think),
• Your self-esteem is provisional on what others think of you,
• You can’t hide, even long enough to think for yourself.

He further says that “the system was designed to produce compliant industrial workers, but now operates on its own momentum”.

This is what I learned in K-12 which I use in my daily life:

• How to multiply and add in my head
• How to sound out words
• I before E except after C
• How to use a library
• How to type
• What a devil’s advocate is (thanks to a fabulous civics teacher my senior year)
• Boolean logic (I learned to program in Basic)

School is basically a place to send kids to grow up, where incidentally they are taught a few things they need to know.

tags: education, school

“…But the moon is more that just a big globe in the sky.” No, really!?

“The truth is, the moon has been slowly slipping away from us.” Don’t leave me, moon! We can make this work!

“But scientists say there’s no cause for panic.” The evening news says otherwise…

“You’ll be amazed where a pen can take you!” Didn’t Spitzer pay cash?

“You can’t see sludge coming!” You didn’t notice that big bucket above your car?

“More than 1 million people have made the call!” If you don’t, you’re an idiot!

“A sinister way of life…and no end in sight.” A documentary on programmers?

“When only red or orange light reaches the lunar surface, the moon appears red.” What, not blue or fuschia?

Footer overlay on program: “Own the universe on DVD.” Wow, what a deal!

“We’re forever tied to our neighbor, but we know so little about our dependence.” Sounds like the plot of an Ann Rule true-crime book

I just read a post from Robert Scoble that convinced me to follow him again.

I stopped following him when the majority of his posts turned into podcasts and videocasts.  I just don’t have the time to listen/watch.  The remainder of his actual posts seemed boring to me.

I didn’t add him when I joined Twitter because I was afraid his Twits would be the same - teaser links to audio/video.

Today, while following a series of links from FriendFeed through Twitter to blog posts, I found Robert’s post about Twitter and this part resonated with me:

But what does following a lot of people say?

1. You’re trying to learn more.
2. You’re trying to meet more people.
3. You’re trying to be a better listener.
4. You’re communicating to the world that you’d like to be listened to (golden rule: treat people how you’d like to be treated).
5. You’re trying to find out about more stuff. More events. More stories.

I’m adding him to FriendFeed because I don’t want to miss any more of his kick-in-the-head posts.

tags: friendfeed, robert scoble, twitter

3oz of Maker’s Mark
1oz  Southern Comfort
Tiny splash of Maraschino Cherry juice.

Shake with ice until frosty.  Serve with 3 maraschino cherries.  Repeat until prime time television is funny.

I’m a huge, geeky Wil Wheaton fan and I love this behind-the-scenes view of the captain’s chair on STNG:

Fun fact: when we weren’t rolling, nobody ever sat in the captain’s chair except Patrick. Sure, we’d get visitors who would want to have their picture taken in the chair, and it was a popular stop for studio executives who wanted to impress people, but for all of us in the cast and crew, there was a very real reverence for the captain’s chair.

I’m getting tired of the current look of this blog.  It is intended to be a laboratory anyway, so I’m going to be messing with it over the next few days.  Apologies in advance to my 2 or 3 readers…

Great musician recommended by Wil Wheaton (@wilw).  I admire his entrepeneurial spirit too!

Does the Web Deserve The Power It Gained To Influence Politics?

I’ll make the obvious WTF comment here.  You might as well ask does the mainstream media deserve the power?

Those enlessly played clips showing Rev. Jeremiah Wright making controversial racial statements, Sen. Obama told an interviewer, aren’t representative of the man. “I don’t want to suggest that somehow, the loops you have been seeing typifies the services all the time,” Sen. Obama said. “That is the danger of the YouTube era. It doesn’t excuse what he said. But it gives it some perspective.”

I’d submit that a majority of Americans don’t even know what YouTube is.  Take the people who do know about YouTube, subtract all of the people who haven’t seen the video and then subtract the non-voters.  You’ve got a very, very small number of people who have seen the video and care.

Contrast this with, say, Fox.  How many people have see the tiny soundbite of the Rev. Wright on Fox or another mainstream media outlet?  Now tell me who has the power.

The web does have power, I’ll give you that.  But MSM is being disingenuous when it questions that power without looking at their own.

tags: obama, rev. wright, wright, WSJ