nerd news

Beer of the week: La Fin du Monde, brewed by Unibroue in Canada....

Sat, 23 May 2009 22:06:41 -0700

Beer of the week: La Fin du Monde, brewed by Unibroue in Canada. Absolutely delicious. La Fin du Monde means “The End of the World”, and if I was drinking this beer, and it was the end of the world, I don’t think I’d mind.

Beer of the week: Moylans Kilt Lifter. I have a new favorite...

Sun, 10 May 2009 15:33:17 -0700

Beer of the week: Moylans Kilt Lifter. I have a new favorite beer. This stuff is amazing. A rich and malty scotch ale with tons of flavor and a smooth, crisp aftertaste. Be careful though: it goes down easy and packs a punch.

Jambalaya

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:32:55 -0700

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately but I keep forgetting to write it up. Over the next few days I’ll try to work through the backlog.

Last week’s cooking project was an Emeril Lagasse-inspired jambalaya. That was definitely one of the best dishes I’ve ever made. So so delicious. I used chicken and sausage, though I’m sure it would be equally tasty with shrimp.

The secret to this dish is patience with the rice. It’s very similar to making a risotto. You need to add the stock 1/2 cup at a time, slowly stirring and waiting for the rice to absorb the liquid. The wait is absolutely worth it. The rice is amazingly tender and flavorful.

I’m going to include the recipe because this one came out so well.

CREOLE SEASONING (about one heaping tsp each)

paprika
salt
black pepper
onion powder
cayenne pepper
oregano
thyme

INGREDIENTS

1 medium yellow onion
1 large bell pepper
2 large cloves garlic
2 small tomatoes
1-2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1-2 tbsp hot sauce (franks, tabasco, etc)
1 cup rice
4 cups chicken stock
some meat (chicken, sausage, shrimp, etc)

DIRECTIONS

Chop up the vegetables and meat into bite-size chunks.

Mix up creole seasoning and toss with meat in a large bowl.

Heat some oil in a large pot. Add garlic, onion, and bell pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes.

Add tomatoes and sauces. Cook for another minute or two.

Stir in rice. Add chicken stock about 1/2 cup at a time until rice is tender. You probably won’t need all 4 cups. After each dose of stock, stir it in and wait for the rice to absorb it. This will take at least 15 minutes, maybe 20. Patience is key in this step. (Have beer handy)

Add the meat and stir, adding a little more stock if necessary. Cover and cook for 10 minutes or until meat is done. Remove the cover to stir once or twice so the meat cooks on all sides.

Serve and enjoy!

Beer of the week: Firestone DBA (Double Barrel Ale). Straight-up...

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:25:00 -0700

Beer of the week: Firestone DBA (Double Barrel Ale). Straight-up delicious. Not quite an IPA, but just hoppy enough to have some bite. I love it.

(via catbird)

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:56:49 -0800

(via catbird)

mariereich: getthatlook: Oh nooo as close to a Calvin as i...

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:35:48 -0700

mariereich:

getthatlook:

Oh nooo
as close to a Calvin as i have ever seen.

http://pressflip.com/user/kyle

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:01:25 -0700

http://pressflip.com/user/kyle:

kyleshank:

pressflip now has sharing everywhere.

sign up and follow me on pressflip!

http://pressflip.com/user/matt

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:53:45 -0700

http://pressflip.com/user/matt:

Follow me on pressflip!

http://www.mtvmusic.com/

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:02:37 -0700

http://www.mtvmusic.com/:

Online video archive from MTV. They also have an API. Yes yes yes yes yes.

kyleshank: Found via pressflip (yes its a video. and pressflip...

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:19:45 -0700

kyleshank:

Found via pressflip

(yes its a video. and pressflip found it. its on youtube. connect dots PLZ)

RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:30:22 -0700

RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later:

Well said. Via pressflip

Sweet and sour pork

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:05:05 -0700

This week’s Chinese cooking project was sweet and sour pork. Previously I’ve tried sweet and sour chicken, and sweet and sour shrimp, but the pork came out the best. I made the pork pieces nice and crispy, and the sauce was my best sweet and sour yet.

Last time I deep-fried, I dredged the meat in egg and then in flour. The coating wasn’t thick enough, and as a result, the meat wasn’t crispy enough. This time, I discovered the secret. Whisk together 1 cup of flour, 3/4 cup of water, and 1 egg in a bowl, and let it stand for an hour. Then dip the meat in the batter before deep-frying. The pieces will be nice and crispy with a thick coating.

For the sauce, the winning combination is: 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of vinegar (red or apple cider), 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of ketchup, and 2 tsp of cornstarch. Bring to a boil and stir until the sauce thickens.

To finish the dish, I quickly stir-fried some chopped bell pepper and onion, then combined those with the meat and the sauce, and served it over rice. Delicious!

Beer of the week: Shiner Bock. Not bad for a bock from Texas....

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:10:16 -0700

Beer of the week: Shiner Bock. Not bad for a bock from Texas. Still, the aroma is off-putting and the aftertaste is hard and metallic. I don’t really like it.

epic

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:27:00 -0700

epic

Boy, 7, goes on killing spree in zoo, feeding reptiles to crocodile - Times Online

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:15:00 -0700

Boy, 7, goes on killing spree in zoo, feeding reptiles to crocodile - Times Online:

(via cowsandmilk)

WTF

Pressflip gets applications

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:28:11 -0700

Starting today, you can now add applications to your Pressflip account. Applications allow you to search other sources of data in addition to our standard news and blogs content. We released applications for Digg, Reddit, Fark, Twitter and Topix today.

Add the Digg application, and Pressflip will match stories from Digg against your saved searches. The same goes for Reddit and Fark. The Twitter application follows the links that your friends share and matches those to your searches, and the Topix application matches news stories from your home town. Stay tuned! More applications are on the way.

pressflip: This is a quick explanation of how to add/remove and...

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:12:19 -0700

pressflip:

This is a quick explanation of how to add/remove and configure applications on pressflip.

Better Integration for Search

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:12:00 -0700

pressflip:

Searching for information is a pretty standard exchange: you type in your query, and the search engine gives you a list of links. That’s all well and good, and most of the time you find what you’re looking for.

But where do those links come from? Google, Yahoo, and other search engines crawl the web, following links they find on web pages to other web pages. All the links you see in your search results look the same, no matter where they came from. What about the context? Where did that link come from? What are people saying about it? If there was a long conversation about a link on Digg.com, wouldn’t you like to know?

Integrating Services to Search

Pressflip is an interesting search application because it’s not Google - our users save searches and get results over time, as they are published. Because it’s not Google, it doesn’t work like Google: Google is like a librarian who can find what you need to know, but Pressflip is like a guy who watches a news ticker and hands you what you’re looking for as it’s written.

Because it works differently, we can do some really neat things with the stuff Pressflip reads.

We have been working for the past two months, changing our backend architecture. We’ve been changing it from a plain-vanilla saved search application to a platform for saved search applications. This means that when we find a silo of information, we can write an application using the platform to read that information in context.

For example, one of the applications we’ve developed on this platform is a specialized reader for the social media site reddit.com. If a link gets upvoted to the front page on reddit and it matches one of your saved searches, we think it should be given special treatment. Maybe you’d like to upvote it on reddit. Maybe you want to go join the conversation. Now you can.

More to Come

We’re launching five applications today:

Digg: search over top stories from digg.com

Reddit: search over top stories from reddit.com

Topix: type in your ZIP code, and Pressflip will search local news stories from topix.com

Twitter: enter your Twitter username and password, and Pressflip will search links that people you follow post to Twitter

Fark: search over top stories from fark.com

Think of an application as a source you want Pressflip to read for you. Each source has some nuanced detail, so using the platform, Pressflip will tailor the result to the source it came from, and your feedback (by either reading a story or flipping it) will work just as it always did.

There are more applications in the works, so stay tuned.

Jonathan Davis from Korn covering “Got Money” by...

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:15:52 -0700

Jonathan Davis from Korn covering “Got Money” by Lil’ Wayne.

W.T.F.

SanDisk, Record Labels Announce "slotMusic" Physical Album Format

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:34:16 -0700

SanDisk, Record Labels Announce "slotMusic" Physical Album Format:

I predict failure. Via pressflip