Mmm, science and skepticism. 2007

I've got some good podcasts episodes from my many subscriptions for you today.

I've really been enjoying Point of Inquiry. Check out these two interviews:
Garrett G. Fagan - loads of fun hearing this author of Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudo-archaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public rip apart a whole bunch of false science about the past. This one is worth it for the incredibly long litany of proposed locations of Atlantis alone.

Peter H. Gilmore - this was a very surprising one. Turns out the Satanists don't believe in Satan as a god. Also, they call themselves a religion without believing in the supernatural at all. And their high priest turns out to be quite charming in interviews. I'm not drawn toward their church, but this interview cleared up lots of assumptions I'd made.

From the Science & the City podcast, this session with Oliver Sacks reminiscing fondly about his favorite parts of the table of chemical elements is just plain sweet.

A more recent session from this one was Alan Walker on the Search for "the Missing Link". Yum! Physical anthropology!

60-Second Science continues to be reliably rewarding. Check out this simple little news story about what does and doesn't work in health education: Abstintence-Only Programs Fail.

I've unsubscribed to a couple podcasts that I mentioned before, Science Update Podcast weekly edition (too fluffy) and This Week In Science (too much like annoying morning talk radio shows like Sarah & No Name on Alice), and subscribed to a new one, The Skeptics Guide To The Universe.

Setting up a home bar 2007

I put together the following tips for a friend, but thought others might find them interesting too:

Starting (snob-friendly) bar supplies:

good fresh ice (you can store fresh cubes in tupperware in the freezer so they don't pick up flavors from other things)

shaker
I have both a lidded kind and the combined glass/metal kind. I haven't got the hang of shaking with the latter yet, but the big metal base is great for stirred drinks. My lidded one is kind of like this one but a bit more squat

cocktail strainer

measuring cup
I much prefer these little cups to traditional jiggers. As with all your mixing gear, just rinse right after you serve the drink and they stay clean and nice (sticky liquors are a pain to scrub later when they've started to dry).

bar spoon
e.g. something like this

channel knife (for making twists)
e.g. something like this

(And you'll also want to have on hand a cutting board for citrus, a good paring knife, a bar towel to wipe spills, and some means of extracting the juice from fresh fruit).

The booze.
Think about your & your most frequent guests' favorite drinks. You'll want to start your cabinet around these.

Say, for example, the drinks are Manhattan, Martini, Margarita, Lemon Drop, and Cosmopolitan.

The Manhattan is most usually made with bourbon and sweet vermouth with a dash of bitters, but the correct spirit for it is rye which really makes a much better drink (IMNSHO). It is garnished with a cherry.

The Martini can be made with either gin (traditionally) or vodka, a breath of dry vermouth, and garnished with an olive, onion, or lemon twist.

The Margarita calls for tequila, triple sec (preferably Cointreau), and fresh lemon and lime juices. It is garnished with a lime wedge or wheel.

The Lemon Drop calls for citrus-flavored vodka, fresh lemon juice and simple syrup. It is garnished with a lemon wheel.

The Cosmopolitan is made of vodka, triple sec (preferably Cointreau), cranberry juice, and fresh lime juice, with a lime wheel garnish.

So here's the shopping list (to be accumulated as funds permit in order of frequency with which you'll want your handful of featured drinks).

1 bottle bourbon - Maker's Mark or Wild Turkey 101 will do, Knob Creek is preferable.
***upgrade: Bulleit
***variant: Old Overholt rye

1 bottle sweet vermouth - Martini & Rossi is good
***upgrade: Carpano Antica

1 bottle bitters: try to get Orange Bitters (preferably Fee's) but settle for good ol' Angostura
***trick: a few dashes of bitters in a pint glass of soda water will settle an upset stomach

1 jar cherries: the best you can afford, ideally getting as far from those alarmingly bright colored ones for Shirley Temple drinks toward the less sugar & red dye #2 end of the spectrum.
***upgrade: Luxardo brandied cherries (We got a jar of these at Dean & Deluca and they are the bee's knees).

1 bottle gin: I favor Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray.
***variant: Hendricks (with which you should garnish martinis with a cucumber slice rather than an olive or onion for best results).

1 bottle dry vermouth: Noilly Prat
***variant: Lillet Blanc

1 jar cocktail olives: quality helps, but you can be less fussy about these than the cherries
***variant: cocktail onions

1 bottle tequila: Herradura Silver

1 bottle triple sec: Cointreau. Yes, it's pricey, but nothing else is as good and you'll use little bits in lots of drinks.

1 bottle vodka: given the Lemon Drop in our hypothetical list, I'd start with the Citron version of your favorite vodka. Absolut is always safe, but if your crowd is label conscious, buy the damn Ketel One.
***variant/upgrade: Grey Goose unflavored, for martinis with a lemon twist.

Small bottle cranberry juice

Simple syrup? Make it in small amounts & store in the fridge, it's comically easy:
(I don't agree with Alberta all the time, but this is a good video to show just how damn simple this syrup is).

Fruit? Buy it fresh, with a good-looking rind for zesting & garnishes.

Where to go after these? Try cocktails from good bartenders and see what else you like. Also note what your guests ask for. Probably some scotch is the next on the list; I recommend the Balvenie Doublewood as a good place to start with single malts.

Glassware
All these drinks look great served in cocktail glasses (or what is commonly called a martini glass), but they taste fine in any glass which is as wide or wider at the top than the bottom and which has about a 6oz capacity. (Yes it's more work for the bartender, but almost all cocktails should be enjoyed while still quite chilly so smaller servers are better. This is also why cocktail glasses - with their long stems keeping the warmth of your hand away from the drink - are ideal).
Joe and I are partial to the Luminarc 5oz which we were able to get in bulk at a restaurant supply place. Here's a picture 
Their 1/3 bowl, 2/3 stem proportion is very elegant and makes for a good (small) drink size and nice presentation.

Putting some spin on it:
Manhattan - make it with rye and orange bitters for a proper one; substitute scotch for a Rob Roy.

Martini - 2oz gin, 1oz vodka and 1/2oz of Lillet Blanc garnished with an orange wheel will give you the delightful Vesper, of Casino Royale fame. Or try out the ancestor of the Martini, the gin-based Martinez.

Margarita - get a bottle of light rum and you can offer Daiquiris instead.

Lemon Drop - this is basically a Daiquiri with vodka, you can also jump off from here to a Delilah by substituting gin for the vodka, adding 3/4oz of Cointreau and leaving out the simple syrup.

Cosmopolitan - described as a "juice box for yuppies", it's not actually as bad as its reputation, provided you do not put simple syrup or Rose's "lime juice" in it. Still, you could try to up the ante by introducing your guest to the Sidecar (which does require a decent cognac in your bar).

Happy hosting!

Creative ways to destroy old backup tapes 2007

The user group for the products of the company I work for had an amusing thread a while back about good methods for destroying old backup tapes from servers.

Among my favorite suggestions:
- Put them on the magnetic security desensitizer and bang them several times
- Microwave DVDs/CDs "Smells bad, but a good light show"
- Give them to your medical professional spouse to run them through an MRI scanner

But the hands down winner?
"The tape itself is great for tying plants to supports stakes in the garden.  The old 1/2" stuff was best, 2400' would handle a lot of tomatoes, but 1/4" should still do."

The anti-recommendation 2007

I do wish Yelp (and sites like it) had a way for you to mark a review as "not tall enough to ride this ride" or "not for you" or "antithesis" or something to indicate that the negative review indicates exactly the kind of person who one is trying to avoid and who will therefore not be so likely to be found at this particular place.

The reviews of Bourbon & Branch by clueless party kids ("My girlfriends and I couldn't talk at the top of our lungs or people told us to quiet down, that's soooo WACK!" "They told me the smoking area isn't inside, it's O'Farrell Street! What the hell?") are prime illustrations.

I marked a few as "useful" but then realized I might be giving props to bad writers so have stopped.

"Where you decide to put your time and attention says a lot about who you are." 2007

That's what Merlin Mann said in a great recent lecture at Google which he's kindly made available as part of his Inbox Zero series of posts.

So I was thinking about that, as well as the good practical email management advice from his talk, and I realized that one thing I really care about is science. But I have not been investing a proportional amount of my time into science compared to my interest in it.

I thought "Where do I have room in my day to fit in some science without pushing out something else that also matters to me or which I choose to make important in order to pay my bills and have some sort of career?"

Hello, commute!

And hello again, cute pink 4gb iPod which was a present from my friends Edmond & Shannon a few years back when they shared my place while escrow on their place cleared. I'd been neglecting it and only remembering about it when I was on the bus next to some incredibly banal and annoying conversation - usually one side of a cellphone conversation at that.

I'm now subscribing to a whopping 10 new podcasts in addition to the lovely 60-Second Science which I had already been enjoying on my laptop. And boy do I listen to them! Somehow even though my brain is sick of email and articles by the end of the workday (or in anticipation of it), listening to even fairly complex discourse is thoroughly enjoyable.

I've signed up for
- NOVA scienceNOW
- Ockham's Razor (the August 5th piece on Abolishing Weapons of Terror was very good)
- Point of Inquiry
- Science @ NASA Feature Stories
- Science & the City (from which I particularly enjoyed last Friday's episode with Alan Walker on The Search for "The Missing Link", a really top-notch ramble through physical anthropology. Highly recommended!)
- Science Friday
- Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American (and now I will out myself as a new huge admirer of Steve Mirsky's writing/delivery, both when he's seriously sharing knowledge and when he's barely restraining his sarcasm on, for example, people who play the lottery & their understanding of probability </fangirl>)
- Science Times
- Science Update Podcast weekly edition
and
- This Week In Science

You can get all these, as well as Merlin Manns 43 Folders podcast and They Might Be Giants podcast (my other subscriptions) most easily through iTunes, but you can also download them from some website somewhere, no doubt. Google is your friend in need for that.

What do you love? Go fit a little more of it into your otherwise idle moments and get reconnected.

And if you love science too, and have recommendations for more good podcasts, please share them in the comments.

Yum! Science!

The "tragic" story of the very very rich, continued? 2007

My uncle Larry pointed me to this Kevin Drum column about wealth and tax rates from the Washington Post from April 2005. In it he presents the figures to show that "Their incomes have tripled in the past couple of decades and at the same time their tax rates have decreased by 9 percentage points. That's a pretty sweet deal in anybody's book."

Anyone seen any more updated figures? I can't imagine it's gotten any more fair (by which I mean fairer to society as a whole instead of the current bias toward the fattest of fat cats) since then.

Banking Caveat 2007

Lest you think there is any such thing as a reliable float anymore, I wish to report that the check which I presented at the counter at 5:55pm yesterday at Bank of America cleared my account at Wells Fargo yesterday and that news plus the scan of the check appeared in my online access late in the evening.

Stunning.