Monthly Archives: April 2005

you know when you’re a geek when…

Ignoring the obligatory Dilbert references, I think I might qualify when I found myself using this line to write my age:

<?php echo floor((time()-gmmktime(6,41,0,6,21,1971))/(60*60*24*365.242)); ?>

Must check if it was 14 or 41 past, though…

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apollo 13: the real story

Apollo 13: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/wonews/apr05/0405napola.html

Although I was unexpectedly impressed by the film, this is a rundown of the real events without any ‘added drama’, which is much more satisfying for geeks :)

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actually useful, or washing their hands ?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Digital switchover firm launched: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4441079.stm

So does this mean that we’ll have an educated, ordered and event free switch over, with dates being advanced and held back per region, acurately refelcting local takeup ? Maybe I’m jaded, but I feel it’s just a move to allow whichever government is in power to deny any wrong doing in switching over early, as there’s an easy target to blame. Of course, selling off the spectrum early would not be the govt. idea. Oh no. I bet SwitchCo will come up with that one in the next four years…

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Macworld: News: Nine Inch Nails releases GarageBand 2 project

Macworld: News: Nine Inch Nails releases GarageBand 2 project: http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/04/15/thehandthatfeeds/index.php?lsrc=mwrss-0405

Wow – that’s more than just one better than releasing music online; now we just need to wait for the first live fan based remix via the internet…

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Macworld: Editors’ Notes: Au revoir, Rendezvous

Macworld: Editors’ Notes: Au revoir, Rendezvous: http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/04/bonjour/index.php?lsrc=mwrss-0405

That’s just fine by me: when typing in IM I could never spell rendezvous correctly: I stand a much better chance with bonjour :)

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cinnamon raisin bread

A slightly modified Spicy Fruit loaf from page 26:

400g Strong White flour (Tesco)
100g Strong Wholemeal flour (Hovis)
1tsp Yeast (Allinsons)
1 1/2 tsp Salt
2 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1tbsp Sugar
1 1/2 tbsp Milk powder
350ml Water
100g Raisins

I placed all the ingredients except the raisins into the mixing bowl, and set the machine for a Bake Raisin, Large size, Dark crust. The raisins were put into the dispenser and the whole bake took four hours.

I’m looking at doing a faster bake and manually adding the raisins – if it works then I’ll post my method, but it would appear that just adding the cinnamon and raisins to any normal recipe ought to be just fine.

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a note about fat in the bread recipes

After some more experimentation (I’ve already mentioned that I’d swapped 1g of butter for 1ml of virgin olive oil) I’ve stopped putting any extra fat in the bread at all. On the smaller loaf setting (400g) the top generally breaks a little, but on the 500 or 600g bake the top crust is fairly smooth.

It seems that (in this bread machine at least) the fat just gives a non-craggy top, and so looks more like pre-packed sliced loaves. I prefer the more broken look anyway, even if it can make it slightly more crumbly around the top edge when cut, so feel free to add back in the fat/oil if you want a smoother finish. The basic amounts are:

400g of flour: 15g butter or 15ml virgin olive oil
500g of flour: 25g butter or 25ml virgin olive oil
600g of flour: 25g butter or 25ml virgin olive oil
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