The latest Team Fortress 2 update now allows you to use bottles of piss as a weapon. Jarate ftw.

Hybrid Cutlery - I want a Knork, a Spife, and Splayd. (via Kottke)

I helped kill 6 ships in Eve last night, including a Typhoon battleship.

I can lead a nation with a microphone...

I never had a good way to cold smoke meat since I have a traditional hot smoker. I stumbled into the site of my new friend Nick Dawson and saw his design for a cold smoker from a trash can. I liked the idea and was one step ahead since I had a top vented hot smoker already.

I had pork belly curing to make bacon in the fridge, so I decided to build a cold smoker.

Here is a diagram of the idea behind a cold smoker.

Basically the smoke is made in the hot smoker, then sent via hose into the cold smoker where the meat resides.

I bought most of the gear at the hardware store, trash can, grill, duct take offs, duct adapter, duct collars, foil tape, vent, bolts & washers, and hose ducting.

The top vent of my hot smoker is 6" in diameter, but the duct takeoffs are 4", so I had to use an adapter to make a good seal. Fairly easy to do with the foil tape.

Next, I used tin snips to cut a hole in the side of the can to mount the duct takeoff. The snips cut through the trash can like butter...

Making sure I was wearing gloves, I fit the takeoff into the trash can and used foil tape to seal up the junction and cover any sharp edges.

The vent was mounted on the lid. I used the snips to cut down the vent shaft and make tabs to hold it in place. Again, the foil tape was perfect to seal things up.

Long bolts with washers were installed on the four sides to use as a rest for the grill that will hold the meat. I made a mistake and used carriage bolts, which didn't give me an easy way to tighten them. I should have used hex bolts.

With pretty much everything in place, I did the last step and connect the ducting from the hot smoker to the trash can. Doesn't look great, but it is functional.

The moment of truth. I fire up the hot smoker and hope to see smoke actually enter the cold smoke chamber. After about 15 minutes the wood chips finally catch and smoke appears. I was greatly relieved.

I put the lid ont eh trash can and sure enough, smoke slowly left via the vent. Success!

Here is a short video of the cold smoker in action.

Here is the pork belly in place, being cold smoked. Everythign was workign great.

The bacon turned out great. You can read about making bacon from scratch here.

Here is inside the cold smoker after the cooking. A little smoke residue and moisture, as to be expected. Otherwise, in perfect condition for my next charcuterie experiment.

If you want to to this yourself, my advice is to be sure to wear good work gloves when cutting the metal and joining pieces. The edges are sharp and you could get a nasty cut if you aren't careful.

This is a pork belly.

Bacon is made from pork belly. To be clear, American bacon is cured and smoked pork belly, British back bacon is cured pork loin. I am American, so I make bacon from pork belly.

The first step is curing the pork belly with a dry cure of salt, sugar, and pink salt (sodium nitrite). The main purpose of the cure is to prevent any bacterial growth on the meat and draw out some water.

Let's remember that refrigeration is a relatively new invention. In the past, a big life problem was finding ways to preserve meat for use long after it was killed. Curing by salting, smoking, and drying are methods to prevent meat from spoiling. Making bacon was a way to save the pork belly for later use. Pork belly was also the main ingredient of salt pork, a mainstay of the military diet for centuries.

I triple bagged the meat and put it in the refrigerator to cure for a week.

After a week, I pulled the now cured pork belly out and washed it well. I patted it dry and prepared it for a smoke.

Traditionally, bacon is cold smoked. The goal is to apply smoke to the meat without cooking it. That means keeping the temperature well under 150° F. That's not easy to do in a traditional smoker. So, I built a cold smoker unit from my regular smoker and a trash can. I'll post more about that project.

Here is the cured pork belly being smoked. The goal is to get a good amount of flavor into the meat without cooking it.

I smoked it for about 3 hours. I measured the temperature and it didn't get above 120° F. I pulled it out and let it rest a bit and then put it in the fridge to cool.

After cooling down, I started slicing. Sure enough, it had the look, feel, and smell of bacon.

The real test was cooking it. I fried up a few slices and eagerly took a bite. Sure enough it was bacon.

I am very happy with the result. It's a lot of work to make bacon, from the curing time to the smoking, but I enjoyed the process. When I make it again, I'm going to try a maple syrup cure process to get a bit of a sweet flavor.

Give it a try, you'll have fun.

Here's the recipe.

Dad's Easy Lasagna

1 box (1 lb.) penne pasta
1 jar (24 oz.) pasta sauce
1 tub (15 oz.) ricotta cheese
1 tub (6 oz.) feta cheese
1 bag (8 oz.) shredded parmesan cheese
1 bag (16 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup chopped spinach

The main prep is cooking up the penne pasta in boiling water until it's cooked. This is the longest part of prep.

I also put the pasta sauce and chopped spinach into the blender to reduce the spinach into the smallest particles I can.

In a large bowl I start mixing the pasta sauce/spinach with the pasta, the ricotta cheese and the feta cheese cheese. Why feta cheese in Italian food? Because it tastes damn good and holds up after baking.

Once thoroughly mixed, put the entire mixture into a 9"x13" baking dish.

I put the mozzarella cheese down first with the parmesan on top. I don't use the full bags of cheese. Just enough to cover in the density I think appropriate. We like a nice thick cheese upper crust. Use your best judgment.

Bake in the oven at 350°F for about 40 minutes, until the cheese starts to brown to your liking. I start checking the oven at 30 minutes.

After pulling it out of the oven, let it cool a bit. You want the give the various cheeses some time to pull together so you can make a nice slice. You can keep it in the fridge for a while, it makes a great leftover to reheat in the microwave.

Not so for the 'Ove' Glove. The 'Ove' Glove is all that and a bag of chips.

Above you see me pulling out my patented Dad's Easy Lasagna from the oven.

The 'Ove' Glove is an oven mitt, but not just any ordinary oven mitt. This one works fantastically well. The advertising says it's made with Nomex and kelvar. I don't know if it's true, but it definitely insulates your hands from serious heat. We've sued a pair over the last several months and that have dealt with everything we've tried.

Since it's a true glove and not a mitten or pot holder, you can get a good grip on things. The blue silicon rubber also helps with a good grip on hot things.

In a day of bad products and worse advertising, the 'Ove' Glove actually is worth the money. It gets the Cruft Manor seal of approval.

Yes, you are reading it right, microwavable pork rinds. In this case they are Lowrey's Bacon Curls. Also known as chicharrón, pork rinds are the fried skin of a pig. I've been known to snack on them on occasion, but have no great love. They are basically potato chips made out or pork skin. Truly a carnivores's snack.

I was baffled as to why someone would produce a version that microwaved like popcorn. Obviously it was a case for Cruft Labs to investigate.

The basic cooking method is identical to popcorn. Put the package in the microwave correct side up and cook for 2 minutes.

To be honest, I expected this to be terrible. I had almost written the blog entry in my mind until I poured the bag out onto the plate.

"Wow, they look like real pork rinds, not some mutant version.", I thought to myself. "Yeah, but they must taste horrible.", I rationalized. Then I tasted one, then another, then a third. They were good. In fact they were the best pork rinds I'd ever eaten.

I took the plate to Michele for a taste test. She tasted one, then another, then a third. We both liked them.

So let it be known that Lowrey's Bacon Curls aka microwavable pork rinds are good eating. That's a sentence I'd never thought I would write, but it's the truth.

We ended up eating the whole plate. Good thing I only bought one bag, otherwise we'd have cooked that one up too.

Acknowledgment that the writer had held opposing views in the past, but now has truly, honestly changed their ways.

More lying about the writer's new views on the a topic in an attempt to confuse the reader and convince them of a dramatic change of heart. Simple rationale based on the writing of others, using phases and terminology that have been previously mocked by the writer.

Impassioned speech regarding the new passion surrounding the previously rejected belief, going on at length to just how much the reader has been transformed into their thinking.

Image that goes further to illustrate the joke, attempted to cement it in reality.

Summary of previous explanations and final attempt to truly fool the reader into believe that the post on April 1st is true and note a joke.

I chose to use a 2.5 pound beef brisket as the meat. At the farmer's market, I had picked up a local raised, grass fed cut and wanted to use it. The recipe calls for 5 pounds, so I cut everything in half.

The basic corning of the beef takes 3 days in brine. I followed the recipe from the book, except instead of pink salt, I use saltpeter, 'cause I'm old school and I had it in the cupboard, but no pink salt. My previous attempt had been a 2 week cure, this was much quicker.

I rinsed and dried the brisket. I toasted coriander seeds and black peppercorns and then ground them coarsely. This was the dry rub I applies.

Then off to the smoker for a couple hours. I tried to keep the smoke up, but the temperature low, until the brisket hit 150° F internal. You can see what it looked like when I pulled it out. The process really changed the smoked meat. Water was pulled into the meat and the remaining fat/connecting tissue was broken down even more. I was plumped up and juicy as I moved it a cutting board.

I brought it inside to rest a bit. The pastrami smelled pretty good.

Next, I put the pastrami into a steamer. This was a new part of the technique to me. The bottom of the pot had a couple of inches of water below the steamer. I covered it and placed it in the oven for 2 hours at 275° F.

Slicing revealed a perfect color. They taste, texture, and rich mouth feel were all perfect. Michele tasted a piece and declared, "That's pastrami." High praise indeed.

Soon enough the pastrami was on some rye bread ready to consume. I only wish I had a meat slicer to get some really thin slices.

Overall, a welcome success on my path toward cooking nirvana. Looking forward I'll be making pastrami more often when I pick up some nice cuts of brisket.

I rode in the Tour de Sewer, a local ride down in Bell Gardens run by the Lions Club. There were 15, 30, and 62 mile routes. I chose the 30 mile. I had never ridden more than 12 miles before and was nervous about the distance.

The map below shows what I rode.

You'll see at the bottom of the map, a part where I rode down to Lakewood. Yes, I missed a turn and kept going South for several miles. I finally had to stop and look at where I was on the phone and then angrily back-track to the turn. 7 extra miles than I had planned on.

Things I learned on my first long ride:

• Riding with a group is easier than riding solo.
• I need to get pedals and shoes to clip in, regular pedals are bad for long rides.
• A ham sandwich at the rest stop is a delicious treat, even after sitting in my back pocket for 20 miles.
• Going up a 'moderate' hill climb had me sucking wind by the top.
• Some people love to chat while riding, like non-stop chatting.
• I like long rides.

I feel pretty good today. My muscles aren't sore at all. My left knee hurts a bit, probably from not being clipped into pedals. Today I did a short 6 mile round trip to the bike store in my sexy new Captain America jersey that Michele bought me and felt good.

Consider me sold on road biking as my new hobby.

#sxstarwars

I got involved to 'act' in a live reenactment of the run on the Death Star in Star wars via Twitter. That link should take you to the start and allow you to read forwards (Newer) to see how it played out.

Jay Bushman organized the whole thing. He even built a wiki to show us actors what to do. Within an hour, the #sxstarwars tag went from nothing to the #3 trending search topic on Twitter Search. Seeing everyone join in was great fun! Here are some photos of us during the event.

Always Be Charging

I'm honored that the guys at SxSWBaby liked my phrase ABC - Always Be Charging and even built an alwaysbecharging.com site.

Causing Trouble

Those that know me, know I can get passionate about things. Here's me causing trouble in the LA Tech Scene discussion.

Hotel Room

And for the sake of tradition:

I went to go see Jonathan Coulton play a show at Antone's I had heard his music before, but never been to a live show. I walked down to the joint and waited in line to buy a ticket. The show was general admission, but with seating, so I was relieved to find I wouldn't have to stand all evening. I had fun chatting with people in line and with a nice Austin couple sitting behind me.

The show started pretty promptly and Paul and Storm came out. I had never even heard of them before and was blown away. Their stuff was great. The music was part of it, but the banter with the tech saavy geek crowd was hilarious. I highly recommend their show. During the break after their set, I bought the pack of their CDs.

Jonathan Coulton, or JoCo as he is known to fans, took the stage and was fantastic. Not as into the funny banter with the crowd, he has a more rock presence or charisma. Great song choices, swinging from tech anthems to more introspective songs. He definitely drove the crowd the way he wanted rather than bending to their will. I really liked the show. My favorite moment was his cover of They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in your Soul. JoCo's version is much more soulful, touching on the need of those that watch over others to feel love in return. He did this not by changing the lyrics, but with his musicianship and voice. I found it remarkable.

So, go see JoCo and Paul & Storm if you get the chance. You won't regret it.

I agreed with the general points of her presentation, especially some of the timing aspects. The coordination of standards is HARD and will take time. I think this point was lost on some of the SxSW crowd.

Here is her presentation on Slideshare.

Here are my notes, in case you just want to read and not flip through slides.:

Future of Social Networking

Charlene Li
Altimeter Group

Three things to makes social networks like air:

1. Identity - who you are
2. Contacts - who you know (depth of connection)
3. Activities - what you do (your history)

And it's still very early, so patience is important

Technologies

Facebook Connect

-vs.-

The New Open Stack
Open ID
XRDS-Simple
OAuth
PortableContacts
OpenSocial

Identity
Context - work, family, etc.
Struggle to maintain separation between context

Friend Management is tough today
Filters and groups are available but laborious to use
Filter make friends and news feeds more manageable and valuable

Implicit social data fills in the gaps
Closeness
Calendar
Call
SMS
Facebook
Twitter
Address Book

A "social algorithm" will make privacy and premissions easier to magae
Context make content privacy easier
Community based privacy
Based on what your trusted friends do

What will get everyone to open?
Money
Most digital activity resides OUTSIDE of the top social networks and portals
Tying content and discussions to social network via data exchange

Leverage social relationships to target ads based on relationships
Most social ads require explicit action

Media6 maps network neighbors
Use for targeted advertising

Rise of the personal CPM
Understanding the value of the influence role
Based on social graph instead of behavior

1) Evaluate where social make sense
Identify where social network data and content can/sould be integrated in the experience
Leverage existing identity and social graphs where your audience already is
Get your privacy and permission policies and processes with an open strategy
Find your trust agents

2) Get your backend data in order
Remove multiple sign-in

3) Prepare to intergrate social networks into your organization
Social networks will disrupt traditional information flows
Where are customers in the org chart? Top or bottom?