dresese

Cappuccino successes

I have some great successes in cappuccino making. But I've decided to put it on my food blog, so just pop on over and see my latest creation. Further cappuccino-related news and lessons will appear there.

How to believe

I recently have been annoyed by reading debates on global warming. Is there anything more tedious, more annoying, and more pointless than trying to convince a global warming skeptic of the reality of the situation? It is as absurd as arguing with creationists, UFO true believers, or conspiracy theorists.

There is one mistake people always make in arguing with these people: they argue about facts. This may seem like a strange thing for me to say, because a rational argument depends on facts and logic. However, arguing facts and logic is incorrect when laypeople argue about complex scientific topics. Take the global warming case for example. What often happens is that a skeptic will jump in and wave some facts around and proclaim that it's all a big lie. There's no danger, etc, etc. Someone will attempt to counter those claims. Neither party knows anything about climatology. The debate will drag on, because someone on the internet who has an agenda and is reasonably intelligent can avoid being cornered by the debate and proven wrong.

This is the way it always goes. Endless debates. But let us ponder what should happen. First of all, is a debate by parties who don't have any fundamental understanding of a complicated science such as climatology really a valid debate? Of course it is not. The skeptic will of course not admit they have no training to judge the merits of their claims. And once they start an argument, no one is going to demure to argue just because they also have no expertise. After all, if the skeptic can start it, then why can't they join in the debate? It would be better, though, if the response is to merely say that no one participating has expertise in the field, and therefore the debate is meaningless. Anyone who wishes to take issue with the scientific consensus could write a letter to a scientific journal, or go back to school to acquire the knowledge participate in the process as an equal.

To acknowledge that you cannot debate such a thing requires a certain amount of humility. You have to realize you don't know much about this subject. You are not qualified to judge the merits of facts and arguments made. The best you can hope to do is to base your beliefs on experts. This is perfectly logical to do, even though proof by appeal to authority is fallacious. The difference is that no one is trying to prove anything, merely to point to authorities as spokespeople for the scientific process, which is itself the proof. Parties that want to examine the proof can acquire training in the field, and examine the scientific papers in question. I recommend Bruno Latour's Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts for a description of the relationship of scientific process to reality.

A reasonable person should choose what to believe by examining what people who are experts in this subject believe. It might be that those experts are wrong. The status quo should be challenged. But it should be challenged from a position of expertise, not ignorance. We should all be humble enough to acknowledge our limitations and simply quit engaging in endless internet arguments.

Nightmare: Ghost stories

A few weeks ago, signs started appearing for "Nightmare: Ghost stories", which is evidently a haunted house attraction in Manhattan. I'm sure it's great.

But, first of all, "Nightmare: Ghost stories"? Isn't having a nightmare about ghost stories kind of like having a sex dream about watching pornography? It just seems a little detached.

Also, it has a ridiculous text message survey: "WHAT R U AFRAID OF: CLOWNS OR SERIAL KILLERS"? I suppose I can't complain about "R" or "U" in a message about text messaging. Perhaps that sort of thing gets us in the text-messaging mood. Maybe. But, really. Clowns versus serial killers? Serial killers, on average, kill many more people than clowns do. Couldn't they have made this a tougher choice? How about "Serial killers versus thugs holding bricks?" or, on the opposite end of the spectrum "Clowns versus mimes?"

Hotel pillows

Xema on the Straight Dope Message Board, asks a questions I've been wondering for a while now: Why are there so many pillows in hotel rooms?. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I remember a time in which a hotel bed had two and only two pillows. It seemed sensible at the time. What happened?

Lord British in space

I've always been a big fan of Richard Garriott (aka Lord British, to those of us who played the Ultima series). Looks like he's going into space as a tourist. When I imagine it, I imagine the little Lord British animated icon in a spaceship 10 squares wide by 4 squares tall...

Stupid conversation of the day

Girl taking up two seats on the subway, to me: Hey, does this train go to 43rd Street? We're trying to get to 43rd.
Me: You should get off at the 42nd Street, Times Square stop.
Two-seat girl, to her friend taking up three seats: You hear that? This guy says we should get off at 42nd street.
Three-seat girl: Naw, this is the wrong train. We're going to 43rd street.
Two-seat girl, to me: Yeah, we're going to 43rd street.
Me: I don't think you'll get closer than 42nd street. Just get off there and go up one street.
Two-seat girl, to three-seat girl: OK, I guess we'll try that.

St. Louis vacation

I recently got back from a week-long trip to St. Louis with my family.

Notable good food we had: Momo's, a Greek restaurant, and An American Place. The former, Momo's, had a variety of well-prepared Greek dishes, my favorite being a grape-leaf wrapped sea bass. The latter was very special. Using local ingredients from nearby farms, it was a great meal in which everything was prepared exceptionally well. I had braised lamb on cannelloni with lamb jus. The cannelloni was a great touch, easily the best I've ever had (then again, I only remember eating it at the Pasta House when I was young). The lamb was also very well prepared, and the lamb jus, which I've never had, worked surprisingly well. Noteworthy as well was a heirloom tomato appetizer, which managed to be both innovative and simple. Service was great in some respects, but it did have a few hiccups.

The St. Louis hoosier story of the trip comes from a waitress, not from any of the previously mentioned restaurants, who repeatedly referred to desserts topped with "homemade Cool Whip". At any rate, I thought it was a hoosier story, but who knows, she doesn't seem the only one to think of the concept.

I'll make another blog post on my food blog about my last eating adventure, Mama's Coal Pit, where I had snoot & rib tips.

There was more besides food, of course. My kids spent some quality time with their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and various other relatives. I was able to get together with my great high school friends. Greta and I both had some nice lazy afternoons. A good time was had by all.

Yankee's game

Last week I went to my first Yankee's game. They say there isn't a bad seat in the house in Yankee stadium. That might be true of the view, but you can't drink beer in the bleachers, which was where I was. I kept thinking of the Simpsons episode where Homer quits drinking beer, goes to a game, and suddenly realizes how boring the game is.

The game was in fact fairly boring for the first 6 innings, because the Blue Jays got a hit in the first inning, and then not much happened. Some good double plays, but that's it. Eventually the Yankee's came back in the 7th inning. It turned out well, and we got to see Roger Clemens pitch, which is something, although he didn't pitch particularly well this game. Derek Jeter seemed like the most effective player there, getting a solid 3 hits. In fact, we saw his average go from .330 to .333 in the course of the game, which was pretty neat.

Comments are back

Comments had been broken for far too long on this blog. This is something I normally fix, but I was enjoying the lack of spam posts so much that I just never did it. Well, we'll see how it goes now.

Really, it's time to move this blog to a different system. The spam protection just isn't there. To deal with this problem, I've started two new blogs on blogger a while ago: Bimodal Eating in NYC, a food blog, and Technical Dresese, a technical blog. Posting is sparse, and I've resigned myself to the fact that I don't feel like posting a lot these days. I'll try to get better, really I will. But this blog will live on for miscellaneous and personal things.

Subway litter

New York is dirty. Crap is just strewn everywhere. The subway is the same, with the addition of regular appearances by giant rats. I used to wonder where all that litter comes from. Recently, I've seen a few things.

A few weeks ago, I was standing in the subway platform for the Jamaica Center Station. There were many people waiting with me, some talking, others like me, impatiently and slowly peering for the first signs of a train. I heard a sickening splat, the kind of sound that everyone instantly recognizes as the sound of vomit hitting the floor. I looked to see what was happening, and the only thing I saw from that direction was a man standing right over the tracks, talking on his cellphone. As I watched, he continued talking, and leans over to casually throw up on the tracks. He resumes his conversation without a pause. This routine continues until my train comes.

A week after that, I'm waiting for my train to go to work, and I happen to glance over to a woman on the other side of the tracks. She was in her forties, in business atire. She nonchalantly threw her soda on the tracks. She was less than ten feet from a trash can.

Just today, I was riding on the train, and heard an odd groan. I looked up and see a giant of a man groan again. Then he starts muttering to himself. He is holding a cup. He then announces to no one in particular that he is going to crush the cup, which he proceeds to do with his foot. He leaves the flattened cup right there. Of course, no one wanted to tell this troubled giant to pick it up. But even if it was a short, weak, psychologically stable fellow, I doubt anyone would say anything. This is New York, and no one wants any trouble.