Real Horosho

Jamie Hyneman, of Mythbusters fame, has a degree in Russian Linguistics (from Indiana University).

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I... did not expect that.

Corn Tortillas

This was a completely accidental discovery-- no research or intent beforehand.

Dinner tonight was a simplified fish taco, which called for the traditional small corn tortillas.  The package had two sets of instructions for heating, to wit:  1) toast on a hot griddle for 20-30 seconds per side, or 2) microwave in a damp towel.  Being lazy (and the cast iron pan being unavailable), we nuked 'em¹.

When we bit into the tacos, the corn tortillas promptly split apart and started creating a largish mess.  This was a source of some surprise and no small disappointment, but we ate them anyway, for we were hungry.

After, I was not quite full, and there were plenty of leftovers, so I figured I'd try a little experiment.  I cleaned the cast iron pan, and heated another tortilla according to the other method.  And boy howdy, did it make a difference.  The tortilla was warm and soft, but not vaguely damp like the microwaved one was, and held its structural integrity with a great deal more ease.

So take it from me-- not all heating instructions are created equal.  If you don't have a flat hot surface, a toaster oven probably would work.  But whatever you do, don't microwave the tortillas².

¹It was the only way to be sure.
²Unknown whether this rule holds for flour tortillas as well.

Salsa Candy

1) This is not a food post.  2) The title will make sense by the end.

In the musical genre of salsa, there is a basic rhythmic device known as the clave.  There are two versions of it, neither one of which I can easily relate in a text-based format.  However, the "son clave" has proven to be sufficiently pervasive that it has appeared in many other genres, from jazz to funk to R&B to straight up pop. In fact, in some circles the same basic rhythm was known as the "Bo Diddley beat."

For example-- in the song I Want Candy, (which can be seen at http://youtu.be/MiiD8KeAFew as performed by The Strangeloves), the percussion is a son clave.  Three even beats, followed by two quicker ones.

The bass line of Born to Hand Jive (as seen in the movie Grease) is almost a son clave.

There's also a rumba clave, which is very similar except that the third beat is delayed by a half.  I have no other way of describing it in words, but if you search for it on YouTube you'll find plenty of examples.

Many outrageous accents

A point of information:

The French Foreign Legion is not a legion of French soldiers that serve or are stationed outside of France.  Instead, it is a legion of foreign nationals that wish to fight on behalf of France (they are in fact headquartered in Algiers, but that's beside the point).  They are technically part of the French Army, and they apparently have a reputation of being guys you really do not want to mess with.

Their marching song is "Le Boudin"-- the blood sausage.

Pizza...esque

Last night I learned that if you make a double batch of pizza dough but then forget and leave the second half in the bottom of the meat drawer for a few days, it is absolutely still "usable."  However, the extremely long rise/fermentation will do a couple of things-- it will make the dough smell disconcertingly beery, and it will super-upsize the gluten production.  It was REALLY hard to stretch out, and ended up being more of a pizza-flavored foccacia than an actual pizza.  Still tasty, though.

Dewey? Or Do We Not?

The Dewey Decimal system, though widely known of (if not actually widely known itself-- quick, anyone know the code for theodicy?  Didn't think so*) is far from the only classification system used by libraries.

Melvil Dewey himself was not an absolutist about his system, and in fact helped encourage a contemporary, one Charles Cutter, to develop an alternative called (somewhat unimaginatively) the Cutter Expansive Classification System.

At the time, Cutter was serving as a librarian for the Boston Athenaeum, a rather well-regarded institution as such things go.  It was specifically designed as a response to those who found earlier systems (some of Cutter's included) a little bit too complicated and unwieldy.  Rather than create an elaborate scheme that would include all possible subjects (a noble although clearly flawed endeavor-- after all, where did Dewey expect to classify all of the books on quantum computing?  Or, for that matter, urban fantasy featuring tough but sensitive women who like to pose with their backs to the audience holding a weapon in an outfit that does not quite reveal a tattoo?), Cutter created an "expandable" system, that could be adjusted based on the requirements of the library.

For example, a small local library might only need use the First Classification, which just groups books into A) Reference works and Other; B) Philosophy and Religion; E) Biography; F) History and Geography;
H) Social sciences; L) Natural sciences and Arts; Y) Language and Literature; and YF) Fiction.  Some of the libraries near me clearly still use this system as I have just realized while typing this paragraph, as it reveals that some of the books I had been somewhat surprised to find labeled "Youth Fiction" actually weren't.  Oops.  As the library size increases, other categories can be added as needed-- such as C) for Judeo-Christian matter.  Eventually, all of the letters are used.

Following the major classification codes, it gets a bit more complicated.  But basically, after that first class mark letter, you might see one or more secondary characters indicating a subclass.  Then you'll see a punctuation mark that indicates the size of the book.  Then there'll be another set of characters that are usually derived from the name of the author and the title of the book, although these are often converted to something called Cutter Numbers which I don't even but basically just serve to help fit all this information onto a book spine.

For example-- QA 76.76 H94 M88 breaks down as follows:  Before the punctuation, we have the category codes.  The first Q indicates science.  QA 76 is a subcategory; computer science.  The period indicates a normal sized book.  76 H94 indicate further subspecialties (Automation, HTML), and the final group indicates the author's name (Musciano).

So as you can see, at the top level, there's just as much possibility for complexity as the Dewey system.  But only if you need it-- otherwise, you might just see "YF.But StFr" (Jim Butcher's Storm Front).


*Knowing my friends, one of you will probably chime in with the correct number just to be a wiseacre.  That's ok, I don't mind.

Bond. Chemical Bond.

Might as well ride this puppy all the way to the end (of the week).

In chemistry, there are several ways that atoms can connect with each other to form molecules.

If two atoms each have one electron available (one that is not tightly bound to the nucleus) and one space empty which an electron can fill, a covalent bond can be formed.  In this bond, the atoms share their available electrons, so that each atom can be considered filled.  A simple example is the H₂ molecule. Each hydrogen atom has one electron, and can be filled when it reaches two (if you don't know why, don't ask; it gets complicated quickly). So by sharing electrons, each atom becomes stabler.

If, on the other hand, you have one atom with one more electron than it needs for a full set (say, for example, sodium) and one atom that is one electron short of a full set* (e.g. chlorine), the first atom can actually "give" the electron to the second, forming an ionic bond.

In a more complicated system, you might (for example) have a large number of atoms of a metal, many of which tend to be short one or more electrons.  When those atoms arrange themselves into a large structure (a block of metal as opposed to a single atom), the electrons have a tendency to un-attach themselves from their original atom and go wandering around, re-attaching themselves sporadically to other atoms.  Imagine a big parking garage, with cars pulling into and out of different parking spots but never actually leaving.  The forces that keep pulling the electrons temporarily down into different nuclei are what hold the whole megillah together.  This is called a metallic bond.

There are more bonds, of course, but they get progressively more complicated and obscure.  These are the ones you're most likely to encounter in Chem 101.

*"He's one electron short of a full orbital" is a favored insult in a certain circle of especially geeky chemists†.

†That circle being the one that exists in my head.

Bond. Gold Bond.

This has nothing to do with the Bond films, but I was on a roll and figured I'd go with it.

A gold bond is a bond that is backed specifically by gold-- that is, it is repayable only by gold, and only by gold of a specified quality.  This is contrasted with a currency bond, which is repayable in any form of legal tender.  A bond itself is basically a contract that represents a loan, from the bondholder to the bond issuer.  So issuer of a gold bond takes in some money, gives out a piece of paper, and agrees to repay the loan (usually with interest) with gold.

The specification of gold rather than any other currency meant that it was typically offered only by companies that had access to a reliable source of gold, for example mining corporations.  It's somewhat akin to investing in gold (essentially trading money for a promise of gold), so when the price of gold is relatively stable compared to the currency at large (as during a recession), it can become a very attractive proposition.

This impression of reliability and value helps explain why it was chosen in 1882 as the name of a popular concoction of menthol, zinc oxide, and various binders and fillers, often applied to people's sensitive bits.

Bond. Litigious Bond

Yesterday, I talked about how George Lazenby got his lucky break and a chance to be James Bond.  But there's also an interesting story that I didn't know about Sean Connery, or more importantly, why Connery came back in 1983 to do Never Say Never Again.

You see, Dear Reader, back in the beginning, Ian Fleming had a friend by the name of Kevin McClory.  McClory and Fleming (and a few others) would all kick around story ideas, and write screenplay treatments for Fleming's new sensational literary hero.  One of these became the script for Thunderball.

However, both Fleming and McClory ultimately claimed rights to the screenplay, and it was promptly embroiled in a long series of legal rights battles (it was originally going to be the first film).  The courts eventually decided in McClory's favor, and he was all set to use it to launch a competing Bond franchise (can you imagine?), so the producers at Eon (Broccoli et al.) cut a deal-- McClory would get sole producer credit (and presumably gobs of money) for Thunderball if they could make it as part of the main franchise with Connery and the gang.

McClory continued to have dreams of parlaying Thunderball's success (it remains the best earning Bond film after adjustment for inflation) into his own Bond Empire, but he was unable to acquire the rights to any of the other properties from Fleming, leaving him with just the one film.  So what was he to do?  Why, make it again, of course!

So almost 20 years later he set out to remake it bigger and better.  Roger Moore was Bond now, though, and probably had little interest in the Non-Eon production, and frankly was a different kind of Bond anyway and would have been a poor fit for the script.  Fortunately, Connery was still around.  And if you'll recall, he parted company with Eon on somewhat acrimonious grounds.  When McClory approached him with the idea of revisiting his glory days (and presumably gobs of money), he was naturally receptive.  And thus we got Thunderball 2: Electric Boogaloo-- Never Say Never Again.

Bond. Brazen Bond

Back from vacation!  During which, I watched a documentary about the history of the Bond films, from which I learned some things.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for George Lazenby.  Part of it is just perversity, due to his one-off status, but I really did think that On Her Majesty's Secret Service was a pretty good film.  But there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than I ever realized.

For starters, the role of Bond was only available because Connery had walked out on a multi-movie deal with one left to go.  Connery's relationship with the producers had always been a little complicated-- on the one hand, they recruited him from more or less nowhere, and had to really fight the studio to let him play the part instead of some more established actor.  So they were his champion in one regard.  On the other hand, as a newcomer, he didn't have the leverage that an established actor would have had, so they didn't have to pay him as much, and he rapidly began to chafe under circumstances that he saw as exploitative.  Eventually, after You Only Live Twice (screenplay by Roald Dahl), he'd had enough and walked out.  So there was this movie that needed to get made, and no Bond.

According to the documentary, Lazenby had been waiting for just this opportunity.  According to him, he dressed himself up as Bond in a fancy suit and watch, and more or less forced his way into an interview, lying outrageously in order to convince the producers that he could do the job.  Basically, because (in his mind), playing Bond would mean that he'd get all the chicks.  Seriously, that's what he said in the documentary!  That was, he claimed, basically the whole point of the exercise.  The Wikipedia article about him suggests that this is a slight exaggeration-- while he didn't have much acting experience, he was a professional model, and had had some success in TV commercials, one of which may have landed him an actual interview.

And then, by the time the movie was wrapped and ready for release, he had turned into a hippie, decided that the violence of the character was inappropriate, and that the franchise was destined to be forgotten.  Oh, well.  Everyone makes mistakes.

Surfing wax

I always assumed that surfing wax (as in the infamous Mr. Zog's Sex Wax) was like wax for skis-- it's there to make the bottom of the board slicker and reduce friction.

Instead, it's actually the exact opposite.  You apply the wax to the top of the surfboard, and the waxed surface has better grip and traction for your feet.  Apparently the material that modern surfboards are made of is well and sufficiently slick on its own in the water.

Weekend random

This weekend I learned two things--

First, that if you see the abbreviation "geth." in a German music score, it's an abbreviation for "getheilt" and means "divided."

Second, Cotswold makes a damned fine grilled cheese sandwich.

It's been an odd weekend.

Mayocicle

This morning I learned not only that it is a bad idea to accidentally freeze your jar of mayonnaise, I learned why it is a bad idea.

Upon thawing, it will separate (or "break", in foodie jargon).  Bleah.

To boldly go with our full support

In 1962, the Apollo space program was looking for a manufacturer for spacesuits for their budding astronaut program. These suits would need to be strong, flexible, and supportive, with a combination of fabric and metal. Several companies put in bids, but NASA naturally turned to a company that already had experience manufacturing products with just those characteristics-- the industrial division of Playtex.

Source : Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo http://books.google.com/books?id=IT-chpAkCZ0C&pg=PA121