LISP, anyone?
I had this bright idea to teach my son LISP, since (A) he’s interested in robotics, (B) AI is important for robotics, and (C) LISP is supposed to be a good language for AI. But I don’t know LISP, and indeed, aside from some very rudimentary knowledge of Basic, I don’t know jack about programming languages. In spite of my shortcomings, Jake is picking things up rather well, and frequently I surprise myself that I’m able to help with his homework.
BUT it would be nice to have someone out there whom we could ask the occasional LISP question. Does anyone out there LISP?
More later. Governor Mark Sanford has to be worth some snark, after all.
D.
Good riddance to bad rubbish
One week ago, the FDA issued a warning regarding three Zicam products: Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel; Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs; and Zicam Cold Remedy Swabs, kids size. The long overdue warning stems from the FDA receiving 130 reports of anosmia (loss of the sense of smell) since 1999. (You can count on that 130 number being the tip of the iceberg; our legal friends are interested in finding others who have been similarly affected.)
Because homeopathic products are regulated in a similar fashion to dietary supplements and not as drugs, prior FDA approval was not required for the Zicam “remedies.” But Zicam is more than a homeopathic treatment — it contains hefty amounts of zinc gluconate, which might be the culprit in these cases of anosmia.
While I’m not a huge fan of the FDA, I do think the loophole for dietary supplements and homeopathic products is ridiculous. These things get marketed as remedies, so they should be subjected to the same standard of proof as any other medication. Homeopathic agents have escaped this level of scrutiny because we docs tend to view them as placebos — sugar pills — which they often are. You see, the idea behind homeopathy is this: poisons which cause particular symptoms can, in diluted form, be used to treat diseases that have those same symptoms. The dilutions are usually so extreme that none of the poison’s molecules remain. No matter — that compound’s vibrations (or whatever) are still present. Spray this on lactose beads and you have yourself a cure.
Yup. Lactose. Milk sugar.
So, yes, we’ve winked at homeopathy all these years because we figured that snake oil salesmen will always be among us; better that our patients take a sugar pill than some tonic that might do them some harm. But this Zicam story makes me question that belief.
The AP story is worth reading, as is the excellent Quackwatch article, which includes the math demonstrating that not a single molecule of the original substance remains after a typical number of homeopathic dilutions.
What I learned on The Colbert Report tonight: Zicam is one of Rush Limbaugh’s big sponsors. Watch it here.
D.
More food: Blueberry-Rhubarb Crisp
AKA Rhuberry Crisp. Adapted from About.com’s Southern Food section’s rhubarb crisp recipe.
Ingredients:
* 1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats
* 1/2 cup melted butter
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 3 cups blueberries
* 2 cups sliced rhubarb
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 2 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1 cup water
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
The problem with blueberry crisp is that it’s too overwhelmingly sweet. The problem with rhubarb crisp is that it’s too damned sour. The combination works as well as chocolate and peanut butter . . . hey, I wonder if anyone’s ever done anything with that idea?
Here’s what you do: preheat the oven to 350F, then
1. Combine the brown sugar, flour, oats, cinnamon, and melted butter, and mix well with a fork. Take half of this mixture and use it to make a bottom crust in an eight-inch-square baking dish.
2. Combine the water, corn starch, and white sugar in a sauce pot and whisk well. Cook over medium-high heat until thickened and nearly clear. Stir in the vanilla. Alternatively, you can mix the vanilla in with the remaining oat/flour mixture. Doesn’t seem to matter.
3. Put the mixed fruits over the bottom crust, then pour the corn starch/water/sugar/vanilla mixture evenly over the fruit. Finally, layer the rest of the oat/flour/butter/brown sugar mixture evenly over the top.
4. Bake for 55 minutes. Let it cool until it is warm, not hot, and serve with vanilla ice cream. Or not. Tastes great either way!
And now the recipe becomes eternal, at least until the next hack.
D.
Father’s Day
Images of fatherhood we grew up with, which never quite jived with the real thing:
In residency, we occasionally spoke of taking our junior residents “to the woodshed.” No spanking involved (though some might have deserved it). Just a lot of hot air which sometimes met receptive ears, sometimes not.
In my family, spanking was not a sign of love. It was equal parts intimidation and dominance ritual. I was unusually apt at worming my way out of spankings . . . and look how I turned out!
Here’s another.
Robert Young was insufferable. His Jim Anderson was the kind of dad you’d want for all of about twenty minutes, and then you’d find yourself putting dog crap in his loafers just to see if you could get a rise out of the guy. Hugh Beaumont, he seemed human like the rest of us.
Ward Cleaver always had an answer for everything.
Happy Father’s Day, all you fathers!
D.
Atahualpa
I’m trying out a new theme, Atahualpa. It allows me to customize my left and right sidebar widgets (though why it doesn’t give unlimited ability to shift widgets from left to right and vice versa is beyond me), and most importantly, I’ll be able to customize my header image. If this theme plays well, expect frogs soon um, NOW*.
What do you think? I’m bothered by the three cubes near the blog title, and I’m really bugged by the listing of pages at the top. Unfortunately, many themes have this same quirk. At least Atahualpa lists the pages in a pale, small font. Does anyone know how to fix these things?
Anyway, let me know what you think of Atahualpa. I think it has potential.
Edited to add . . .
I fixed my own problems . . . to quote Fredo Corleone, I’m smart!
D.
*This really is a customizable theme.
Yammykins
The wife and I prefer sweet potato pie to pumpkin pie, candied yams to mashed sweet potatoes. Yes, I’m pretending yams and sweet potatoes are interchangeable, and I know they’re not. This is a garnet yam:
Garnet yams. Note the red skin and orange flesh.
And this is a sweet potato:
The sweet potato: light brown skin, yellow to orange flesh.
If I slip and say “sweet potato,” I mean “garnet yam,” AKA “the tasty one.” And that goes for sweet potato pie, too: when I make it, I use garnet yams. Similarly, my version of pumpkin ravioli in sage brown butter sauce uses garnet yams, not pumpkin (although I have used canned pumpkin in a pinch).
(more…)
Let’s test this out
Hmm. Has my audience flown the coop? The only way to find out is to enable comments. Protected Static thinks it’s coincidental that the hacks stopped when I closed B&W to comments, but I’m not so sure. Here’s what I’ve done: I’ve subjected all comments to moderation. I’m not sure that will protect me from code injection hacks, but I’m about to find out.
I’ve backed things up first, just in case . . .
In other news: we watched The Dark Knight on TV last night. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one movie do so much damage to Newtonian physics. Batman gets to fly like a bat, you know, thanks to these itty bitty bat wings in his suit (and I’ve got news for Batman: titanium is heavy). (Oh, and speaking of heavy, the Batmobile must harbor a small black hole in the trunk. That’s the only thing I can figure, since when it collides with the Joker’s semi head-on, it sends the semi flying backward.) And when the love interest, played by oh-so-bland Maggie Gyllenhaal, plummets from a 40-story building, the Bat dives after her, catches up to her, and breaks both their falls . . . how, exactly? Wind resistance on those batty wings, which aren’t even fully deployed?
The script is lifeless. What the hell does this mean? “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” It gets said twice, so it must be important. And then there’s the movie’s big closing line: “Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll hunt him because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.”
WTF? My bogosity meter is stuck in the red zone.
We liked Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, and had a split vote on Heath Ledger’s Joker. I liked the performance but Karen thought he was too over the top. Definitely better than Jack Nicholson’s Joker, though, which brought back fond memories of Cesar Romero. We both felt the writers could have done more to show “the making of the clown”; as written, we’re given precious little insight into the character.
The movie needed more Julie Newmar
Oh, and while I’m kvetching, Christian Bale’s Batman is lifeless. The voice he provides for the man behind the mask is, what? Some aged rocker after he’s effed up his vocal cords? That got old fast.
My overall rating: three out of four Mehs. I didn’t hate it, but I do feel like I wasted my time watching it beginning to end. I want Michael Keaton back, but I guess that won’t happen. Not unless some production company decides it’s time for an “old Batman” movie — old Batman appeared as a well conceived character in one of the animated versions for TV.
And while we’re on the subject of TV, nothing cinematic compares to
Batman: The Animated Series.
Okay, ready to post. Time to see if fully moderated comments can kill my blog. Of course, y’all will have to make some comments to test this thing out.
D.
Home sweet home
We have a verbal agreement on our offer! The relocation company didn’t even haggle, which of course makes us think, “We didn’t go low enough.” But who knows . . . if we had gone lower, perhaps they would have split the difference and we’d have ended up at a higher strike price.
If this sale goes through, the new home will be our nicest yet. We’ll have a pool and a guest bedroom, so if you and your spouse have ever looked deeply into one another’s eyes and said, “Honey, let’s vacation in Bakersfield this year,” now you have a place to stay.
Just think: you’ll be centrally located. Bakersfield is two hours away from the San Simeon coast, the Sierra Nevadas, and Los Angeles. It’s the ideal staging point for countless adventures.
You’re only imagining that I’m whistling “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” I’m looking forward to this. Really I am!
D.
Now, this is special . . .
We came back from Bakersfield today, and along the way we passed a huge fenced area on the western side of the highway, near the Fink Road exit (Exit 428?) I mean, we’re talking huge, with what look like 15-foot-tall or higher fences, as if they feared being overrun by giraffes. There’s some sort of factory in the middle of all that land, but no signs. Very mysterious. If you do a Google Map search for “Crow’s Landing Fink Rd.”, click ‘satellite,’ and pan left, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
So I googled “Fink Rd. I-5 gated” and came up with this very odd invitation . . .
Perfection
In a perfect world, we would rent a place for a few months, meanwhile checking out homes for sale in a leisurely fashion. But we don’t want to move twice, which means we decide things quickly, make an offer, and hope things move through escrow ASAP.
We have to find a home we’ll be happy with, of course. That’s proving difficult. The current front-runner is at the high end of our price range, but its kitchen is close to being acceptable, it has a huge master suite, and there are lots and lots of fruit trees in the backyard. It doesn’t croon “home” to me, but few homes do. Put a couple of cats and ferrets and a couple dozen tarantulas in there and THEN it’ll croon home. Maybe.
The ideal situation is when you’re so filthy rich you can get a home built to specifications. We’re not that lucky. You have to wonder about the wisdom of that path, though, since folks rarely get the money out they sunk into such a venture. Far better to settle for something less than perfection and realize that over time, you’ll arrive in a space of comfort. Home-buying as arranged marriage, I guess.
Remember . . . email me at malmerkin at gmail dot com since, for the time being, comments are disabled. (Is it possible that hack-proofing my blog could be so easy? Too bad it leaves me with a semifunctional blog!)
D.