The restaurant El Bulli is cataloguing its dishes online. I can’t stop looking and marvelling.
Above: ‘polystyrene foam macaroon of ginger with smoked coconut butter’.
More here.
August 3rd, 2011
polystyrene foam macaroon of ginger with smoked coconut butter
August 2nd, 2011
more playing with food
Far be it from us to destroy anyone’s nerdy fascination with lighting stuff on fire with a microwave—one of the ultimate proofs of commitment to your geekdom—and what better object to show off this dangerous, potentially poisonous exhibit than with a grape?
The experiment is simple. Take a seedless grape and slice it down its length, making sure not to cut all the way through (this part is important!), so you leave just a small amount of skin connecting the two halves. Put it face-up in a microwave, turn it on for 30 seconds, and presto! A ball of flame.
So what the heck is going on in that thing? Grapes are packed full of electrolytes, an ion-rich liquid (also known as “grape juice”) that can conduct electricity. Each grape-part serves as a reservoir of electrolytes, connected together by a thin, weakly conducting path formed by the skin. Microwaves produce the energy that shove the stray ions in the grape back and forth very quickly between the two halves.
As a consequence, the current that’s produced pumps excess energy into the skin bridging the grapes, heating it up to 3000 degrees and eventually bursting into flame. Meanwhile, the traveling electrons arc through the flame and across the gap, which ionizes the air around the grape creating a bright blue burning plasma (phew!).
And what about the poisonous gas tainting your roommate’s dinner? Well, he’s talking about the ozone (O3) generated when the air inside the glass is ionized (think lightning storm). While not directly poisonous, ozone in high doses can cause issues with your lungs and just isn’t the best thing you could breath. And the smell isn’t all that appealing either.
From here via reddit/askscience
July 30th, 2011
lively cuisine
A live squid with its head removed is served on top of a bowl of sushi rice, accompanied by sashimi prepared from the head (usually sliced ika (squid) and ika-kimo (squid liver)) as well as other seafood. Seasoned soy sauce is first poured on top of the squid to make it “dance”.
Possibly the creation of a chef who was chastised in childhood for playing with his food.
via kottke
July 27th, 2011
those thingies at the end of power cables
I wanted to make a joule thief (a voltage booster) for an experiment and noticed that I required a ferrite bead. I went to the electronics store but they didn’t have ferrite beads. This led me to google the term, upon which I discovered… that’s what those cylindrical components at the end of commercial electronics cables are! In a little plastic jacket.
In this particular application (power cables) they are just a simple cylinder of ferrite (metal alloy) around the cable, but they have an important and fascinating function.
Computers are fairly noisy devices. The motherboard inside the computer’s case has an oscillator that is running at anywhere from 300 MHz to 1,000 MHz. The keyboard has its own processor and oscillator as well. The video card has its own oscillators to drive the monitor. All of these oscillators have the potential to broadcast radio signals at their given frequencies. Most of this interference can be eliminated by the cases around the motherboard and keyboard.
Another source of noise is the cables connecting the devices. These cables act as nice, long antennae for the signals they carry. They broadcast the signals quite efficiently. The signals they broadcast can interfere with radios and TVs. The cables can also receive signals and transmit them into the case, where they cause problems. A ferrite bead has the property of eliminating the broadcast signals. Essentially, it “chokes” the RFI transmission at that point on the cable — this is why you find the beads at the ends of the cables. Instead of traveling down the cable and transmitting, the RFI signals turn into heat in the bead.
Explanation via howstuffworks.
Imagine how much interference there’d be in an electronics store or computer lab without ferrite beads choking the RFI transmission.
July 19th, 2011
nuke it
Here is a rather creepy web application which, using google maps and some javascript, puts nuclear blasts of varying sizes into context by allowing you to choose a location, upon which the fallout zone of your chosen blast is charted.
Via reddit.
Posted in Ha! | No Comments »
June 16th, 2011
everyday poetry
I heard the expression “lower than a snake in a wagon track” on the Big Joe Williams rendition of “Rocks in my bed”, and I googled it. Which led me to this page of colourful expressions…
I grew up in the country, on Boggs Run, in Marshall County, West Virginia. My dad, Jack Cunningham, was born and raised there and he helped me with this project in the year preceding his death on May 7, 2000.
The following expressions were used in everyday conversation by my dad, uncles and grandfathers and were a part of our culture. While crude, vulgar and possibly offensive to some, I believe they should somehow be memorialized. I have heard variations of some these old sayings and I fear the originals are being lost…
While these “sayings” are said in all parts of the country, I believe they originated in the populations of the early pioneers…the country people. (Any other facts or theories regarding the origin will be appreciated!)
Some choice examples:
“Handy as a pocketful of paper assholes”
“As full of shit as a cat is frollicks”
“Workin harder than a funeral home fan in July”
“Ugly enough to scare buzzards off a gut wagon”
June 13th, 2011
seeing red
Nearly all blood is removed from meat during slaughter, which is also why you don’t see blood in raw “white meat”; only an extremely small amount of blood remains within the muscle tissue when you get it from the store.
So what is that red liquid you are seeing in red meat? Red meats, such as beef, are composed of quite a bit of water. This water, mixed with a protein called myoglobin, ends up comprising most of that red liquid.
In fact, red meat is distinguished from white meat primarily based on the levels of myoglobin in the meat. The more myoglobin, the redder the meat. Thus most animals, such as mammals, with a high amount of myoglobin, are considered “red meat”, while animals with low levels of myoglobin, like most poultry, or no myoglobin, like some sea-life, are considered “white meat”.
Myoglobin is a protein, that stores oxygen in muscle cells, very similar to its cousin, hemoglobin, that stores oxygen in red blood cells. This is necessary for muscles which need immediate oxygen for energy during frequent, continual usage. Myoglobin is highly pigmented, specifically red; so the more myoglobin, the redder the meat will look and the darker it will get when you cook it.
June 8th, 2011
medieval dentistry
I like this medieval illustration of dentistry.
Miniature on a initial ‘D’ with a scene representing teeth (“dentes”). A dentist with silver forceps and a necklace of large teeth, extracting the tooth of a seated man.
From Wikipedia.
June 5th, 2011
yes it was my camera, and there was very little they could do about it
Woody Allen taking the cake for smartassery in a 1971 interview.
May 31st, 2011
the simian hunch
The European Space Agency has some insights into the unglamorous practical details of daily life as an astronaut. Snip:
Once stirred, the astronauts tend to adopt a foetus-like posture as they move weightlessly about the station. Sometimes referred to unflatteringly as the “simian hunch”, it seems to be the natural human attitude in microgravity; perhaps it really is an echo of the weightless months that every growing embryo spends floating in its mother’s womb.
The crew dress as quickly as they can: no easy task when your limbs float out at odd angles. They wear disposable clothes, replacing them once every three days: there are no washing machines in space. But the ISS does have a shower. Water squirts out of the “top” to be sucked down by an air fan at the “bottom”. The shower has to be used sparingly to conserve water, but it is a luxury item that earlier space pioneers would have envied. and today’s astronauts cherish.
More on the ESA website (via reddit)
May 24th, 2011
pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop
Pop Pop Boats are toy boats that run on a very simple heat engine. Instructions for how to make a copper coil (as opposed to boiler tank) pop pop boat here.
April 16th, 2011
a tremendous mess of light
I posted about these Richard Feynmann clips before but I somehow missed this one amid that first spate of videos. In this one Feynmann describes the way we perceive light, and he does it in such a way as to inspire (to me at least) new wonder regarding the matter.
April 15th, 2011
a typical spring-loaded solder sucker
A desoldering pump, colloquially known as a solder sucker, is a device which is used to remove solder from a printed circuit board. There are two types: the plunger style and bulb style.
I got my own soldering iron and it came with a desoldering pump. It’s alarmingly satisfying to suck solder. And the noise it makes: Creak, Sklunk!
I’m only posting this because I like the caption for the above image on the wikipedia page for desoldering (“a typical spring-loaded solder sucker”).