Fair warning

I'm not sure if I am happy about this or not.

Oh, and another warning. If you want to display a rating like this, I suggest you check the HTML code they provide before posting. Here is what I got:

    <a href="http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx">
        <img style="border: none;" 
            src="http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/readinglevel/img/postgrad.jpg" 
            alt="cash advance" />
    </a>
    <p>
        <small>
            Get a <a href="http://www.***************.com">Cash Advance</a>
        </small>
    </p>

Which would embed a link to a cash advance site (URL removed). Not nice at all, guys.

Toll Lab Cookies

I ran across this while looking for TexMex recipies.

A & M Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1. 532.35 cm³ gluten


2. 4.9 cm³ NaHCO₃


3. 4.9 cm³ refined halite


4. 236.6 cm³ partially hydrogenated tallowtriglyceride


5. 177.45 cm³ crystalline C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁


6. 177.45 cm³ unrefined C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁


7. 4.9 cm³ methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde


8. Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avianalbumen-coated protein


9. 473.2 cm³ theobroma cacao


10. 236.6 cm³ de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size#10)

DIRECTIONS:
To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogenous.

To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of anexothermic reaction.

Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

For all you non chemical engineers, you have now made Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is why engineers should never write a cookbook.

I think I'll stick to the recipie on the back of the chocolate chip package.

I couldn't resist

I could not resist taking this test -- the results are published here as fair warning.

Nobody expects the Orissan coconuts . . .

There are some stories you simply cannot resist. BBC News today today tells of a temple in India that gets 15,000 coconuts a day for it's ritual, by a unique volunteer relay system:

Hold a coconut in your hand on a highway in Orissa and the next bus will surely stop to pick it up to take it to the temple in Ghatgaon in Keonjhar district.

The drivers' faith in the goddess Maa Tarini is complete - it is common to find the space behind their seats stacked with coconuts.

Even if the bus is on a different route, the driver will make sure to drop the coconuts in a collection box en route or pass them on to a bus headed for Ghatgaon.

"If I refuse to carry coconuts to the goddess, I may face various odds on my way," says Arun Sahoo, a bus driver.

The drivers believe that carrying the coconuts to the deity ensures a safe journey.

They tell stories of bus drivers who failed to pick up coconuts from devotees and met with engine failures or accidents.

"No one can refuse to carry a coconut," says shop owner Rabindra Patnaik.

The buses usually dump their coconuts in collection boxes across the state, from where other buses or devotees headed to the temple pick up them up on their final journey.

Temple officials say coconuts land up from neighbouring states like West Bengal and Bihar through this amazing network.

"The coconut changes hands like batons in a relay race before reaching its destination," says devotee Bijay Laxmi Rath.

I love it. The priests at the temple break open a few hundred coconuts each day as offerings -- the rest of the thousands of coconuts are sold inexpensively, which has helped build a local coconut candy industry.

The assumption seems to have been over the last century or so that when a country modernizes, religion should just fade away -- and India is modernizing rapidly. It doesn't work out that way. Faith is hard to kill, and finds it's way through some very small cultural cracks, sort of like kudzu. Bags of coconuts behind the driver's seat . . .

Approved by the Kringler Rav

The Internet is a big place, and I'm always bumping into interesting or entertaining things that have been around a while, but that are new to me. The Jewish laws of Xmas (Hilchos Xmas) have been around for at least four years, but I just followed a link to them yesterday. What a hoot!

Akiva and Ilene Miller (he's a programer, naturally) put these together both to demonstrate some aspects of Jewish law while creating a lovely parody of the cultural side of Christmas in America. The Millers explicitly avoid the religious side (hence Xmas) but wonderfully skewer so much about the season. To wit:

1. PREPARING FOR XMAS
1. PREPARATIONS FOR XMAS MUST NOT BEGIN (1) BEFORE (2) THANKSGIVING.(3) THIS APPLIES TO PREPARATIONS WHICH AFFECT THE HOLIDAY MOOD, (4) BUT NOT THOSE WHICH ARE DONE IN PRIVATE. (5)
(notes)
1 This contrasts sharply with Shabbos, for the mitzva of honoring Shabbos applies all week long. For example, if one finds a particularly good food during the week, one should save it for Shabbos even though it is now only Sunday and Shabbos is a week away. However, Xmas preparations may not begin too far in advance, in order to fulfill the dictum, "It's beginning to look a lot like Xmas."
2 This is because of the principle that two festive occasions should not be mixed into each other. Note the decree of the great R.H. Macy, who established that Santa Claus may not appear in the Thanksgiving Day parade until after all the other floats have passed.
3 There are some who begin preparing for Xmas as early as Halloween. This is wrong, and they will be called upon to account for their evil ways.
4 Such as setting up the Xmas tree (some say even buying one,) or playing holiday music on the Muzak.
5 Such as buying gifts or buying the Xmas dinner turkey. Cooking the turkey may not be done before Thanksgiving because it will appear to be a Thanksgiving turkey.

This is wonderful, gentle, perceptive, and dead on. Go read this and recognize an family argument you've had over "the right way of doing it."