Whenever rational people are making fun of the “Noah’s Ark” myth, it’s inevitable that someone points out that Zheng He‘s treasure fleet was cooler than the biblical ark, and had the virtue of actually existing.
What I didn’t know is that the Chinese don’t mess around when they decide to build a reproduction.
Making incense is fun and easy. It does, however, require a sacrificial grinder (so be forewarned)!
Whenever I make my incense I find myself pondering how the ingredients would be worth their weight in gold two thousand years ago. When the “three wise men” in the bible allegedly brought jesus frankincense and myrrh, they were bringing him valuable bling. Nowadays, I suspect it’d be an iPhone, bluetooth headphones with Swarovski crystals on them, Louboutins,* Louis Vuitton luggage, and a Lamborghini.
I am disappointed by America’s Test Kitchen Podcast. Not deeply, but slightly.
Listening to a few back-episodes there was a brief mention that the problem of making hard-boiled eggs that peel perfectly “is not understood.” These are the people who do experiments on all kinds of stuff – but perhaps the experiments they do in the test kitchen are all just a cover-project for eating lots of cake and spare ribs, or something.
After tackling this problem using science I wrote ATK a quick explanation, but I’m sure they don’t care. Because, if they did, they would have done some thinking and figured it out themselves. For the record: I don’t care either. I eat a lot of hard-boiled eggs, so it was an easy experiment to perform.
My dad, the real historian in the family, used to say that the history of a time cannot really be told until all the bodies are buried and the forgotten memoirs come bubbling to the surface. When he first told me that, as a kid, I wasn’t really ready to understand him.
How do you win an election?
September 26, 1983, I was a sophomore, which meant that the day probably passed in a blur for me. I had a routine: coffee and donuts at the snackery in the student union, then to the computer terminal room to check my email.
Other than “don’t use the internet”* the best thing you can do is: your backups. I’ve covered that elsewhere. The second best thing you can do is to get out of the password business. The third best thing you can do is segregate some of your computing.
Today we learn that Yahoo!’s user database appears to have been compromised: 500 million accounts plus associated information including (apparently) hashed passwords.
We desginate, by this name, remains or remaining body parts or clothing of a personage included, after death, by the church, in the blessed.
Back when the National Geographic “Genographic” program kicked off, I did it (2005) and it was – interesting. It confirmed, for me, stuff I already thought I knew, which was pretty good. I have long since lost the access code for my sample so I can’t check their database any more.*