Just so you know, Jason Thibeault (The Lousy Canuck) is going to do the cunning work of transferring all of my files from the dying Scienceblogs site to the thriving Freethoughtblogs site. At some point in the near future there will a sudden surge of old content, so I thought I’d mention a few stats before they get bumped upward. Pharyngula on Freethoughtblogs has 986,224 comments on 11,009 articles; if all goes well, Jason will be hauling in 831,367 comments (that number is low; Seed Media butchered the comments in their last major update) and 14,387 posts to add to that, so we’ll kind of double in size.

Do you realize that the commenters here have written so much more than I have? And here I thought I’d blocked and censored everyone.

We have this thing called The Minnesota Goodbye — if you lived here, you’d know what I’m talking about. You’re at a potluck where you brought your hot dish or jello salad, and you want to go home, but first you have to find the host and compliment them and have a conversation about the weather and comment on their wallpaper and maybe promise to have lunch sometime which means you’ve got to compare each others’ calendars, and there’s a line of people trying to do the same. It’s agony. My wife, descended from Minnesotans, has this trait. It’s a moral obligation. You cannot leave without chit-chatting first.

Meanwhile, I must have some Irish in me, probably from my father’s side of the family, which means I favor The Irish Exit, so I feel a moral obligation to get out of everyone’s way and stop intruding on my host. If I could, I’d like to snap my fingers and instantly make a twinkling vanishment to reappear at home — not because I dislike the party or the people at it, but just because we’ve all got better things to do than linger.

Now I want to know how native Swedes and Norwegians handle this problem.

In case you want to start your day with a nice story for a change, go read this one. You’ll feel better afterwards.

You may have heard that Scienceblogs is being shuttered at the end of this month, which is a real shame. I have a massive pile of data over there, and I’d like to bring it over here.

So I used the export tool to move all the Sciblogs Pharyngula data to an xml file. It was quick, too quick. I ended up with a 245mb xml file, which seems too small to contain all of the images, text, and comments. But OK, text is small, maybe it’s all there.

Then I go to my FtB dashboard to import the file. It tells me there’s a 10mb file limit! Wait, what? That makes no sense.

I stopped right there. I know that when Scienceblogs made their upgrade to WordPress, way back when, they made an utter botch of it, losing about 2/3 of the comments and messing up all the internal links. I don’t want to wreck this site, too.

Is there a simple solution to this dilemma?

Is there a complex solution that I can execute to do this job?

If there is a complex solution that I would probably screw up, are there any pros who can help me out? And how much will it cost?

I’m keeping up with the news from Ireland, where Ophelia is rushing up the west coast. Hurricanes and fierce winds and massive storm surges just aren’t what I picture when I envision Ireland.

I hear our national stockpile of thoughts and prayers were seriously depleted by hurricane Maria. Maybe that means we’ll actually have to give appropriate aid where needed.

Just like we’ve been doing in Puerto Rico.

I made a curry tonight, and was asked to share my recipe. I was a little reluctant, because this is a really easy recipe, and explaining it will erase my mystique as a cook. But I’m a scientist, not a chef, and we believe in exposing all the mysteries, dammit. So here it is. Bonus: it’s vegan!

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Take some extra firm tofu and let it rest under a weight for a while, until it’s extra firmerer.

You’re going to need a small pot. Put a cup of coconut milk in it, and then a couple of healthy dollops of peanut butter, and a variable amount of red curry paste. You get to control the final heat here: add a spoonful or two if you you like it mild, throw in half a tub of the stuff if you want to set the world on fire. Let it simmer until all the chunky stuff melts and you’ve got a nice brownish sauce with rivers of red like blood threading through it.

Now rescue your tofu from the crushing weight and cube it. Slice it into small bits, about the diameter of the tip of your little finger. Use a sharp knife, and maybe you’ll get a finger tip as a standard — you’ll only get to do that twice, so learn fast. Heat up some olive oil in a pan, and fry the tofu cubes up for a while, until they’re getting a toasty brown around the edges. This gives ’em a little more texture. Tofu needs it.

Sad confession. I’d like to add some of those tasty little red dried chilis at this point, and simmer them in the oil with the tofu, but I haven’t yet found any in Morris, so I usually don’t. I should check the Mexican grocery next time.

When the tofu looks good, throw them into the peanut butter/coconut milk/curry paste sauce. Simmer a while. They’ll absorb the flavor and get nutty-spicy.

Get a big white onion and chop it fine. Go ahead and let your tears spatter into it to add a personal touch. Saute in your cooking pot in some olive oil for 5 minutes or so, and then add a healthy dose of grated garlic, like a couple of cloves worth. Add some grated ginger, a bit more than the amount of garlic you added, and swirl it around in the hot oil and onions. Add peanuts. How many peanuts do you like? I throw in a couple of handfuls. Saute some more.

Time to add some spices. If you’re as lazy as I am, just get that yellow curry powder and toss in a couple of big spoonfuls. OK, add another spoonful. Maybe more. To taste. If you don’t have the curry powder, add turmeric and cumin and a bit of ground coriander. Swirl it around until everything is coated and hot, and dump in your coconut milk plus pepper plus peanut butter and tofu. You should get a nice blast of delicious steam in your face.

Really, that might be the best part of cooking this stuff, that moment when you get to breathe in the spices. Sinuses now all clear.

OK, now add a splash of soy sauce, and a couple of splashes of rice vinegar. If you think it’s not robust enough, spritz in some sriracha sauce to invigorate it.

Now we might diverge a bit: I use an instant pot pressure cooker. I just need to zap it at high pressure for 3 minutes or so to turn it into liquid gold. If you’re using a slow cooker, you might need to let it cook for an hour or more. Do the experiment! Do frequent tastings to see how it’s coming along!

Somewhere in here get your rice cooking. I like jasmine rice with this curry.

Final step: add pineapple chunks and simmer for a few minutes. I just use a whole large can of the stuff, but if you want more sweetness, add more (I think Mary wants me to add a couple of pineapples worth). Put it on rice and consume.

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Curries are surprisingly easy to make — it’s all in the spices, and they’re easy to come by. I also have a red curry I make with lentils and potatoes, but I’m not telling because I have to keep some secrets.

We need some of these now and then. I know I was reading about the possibility of the Yellowstone supervolcano destroying us all, and it took me a few minutes to figure out if that was a bad thing or a good thing.^*

Anyway, go read this story about David Bowie and an autistic little boy. It cheered me right up, I say while wearing my nifty new invisible mask.

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^*The article ends by saying the yearly odds of a supervolcano eruption is 1 in 730,000. Still not sure if that’s good or bad.

Apparently, he looks like a drunk balding white man drinking a Bud Lime-A-Rita and yelling racial epithets on a train. You learn something new every day.