No caffeine for two months

Two months ago, I stopped drinking caffiene. I’ve stopped in the past, mainly due to my belief that caffeine over the long term is bad for you. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good caffeine buzz, but I feel that when you are under stress or at risk of being ill, it’s the makes matters worse.
The basic mechanism of caffeine is to block one of the chemicals that tells your brain that you are tired. Caffeine fills the receptor and so you brain stops getting the tired signals. If you take caffeine for a long time, you body responds by making more and more sleepy chemicals (adenosine). This leads to caffeine tolerance where you need more and more to stay alert and feel terrible if you aren’t drinking caffeine.
I’ve never been a huge coffee drinker, usually having a cup in the morning and sometimes a cup in the afternoon. Never the less, after a while, I notice an bad effects from caffeine. So I stop for a while.
Good things about not drinking caffeine:

  1. I don’t feel drowsy in the morning
  2. I sleep better
  3. I have dreams. I can’t remember them, but I notice that I have them
  4. I don’t have to go to the bathroom as often
  5. No coffee breath
  6. Less money spent on drinks

Bad things about not drinking caffeine:

  1. The 2PM food coma
  2. Decaf coffee does not taste as good as regular coffee
  3. Finding diet, caffeine free soda is difficult
  4. I eat more

Overall, I feel better, but at the same time, I do want the cool buzz in the morning again. Also, caffeine has a postive effect on asthma, acting as a mild bronchodilator. In fact, a couple cups of coffee is a effective backup treatment for an asthma attack when an inhaler is not available.
So no simple answer about if I should stay caffeine free or not…

Making ice cream in a plastic bag

A while I ago I saw a Howtoon in Make Magazine about making ice cream in a plastic bag by Saul Griffith. I met Saul at Foo Camp a few years ago and had heard of about Howtoons then.
Yesterday, the girls had some friends over and I wanted something for them to do that didn’t involve watching a screen. So I decided to make ice cream in a bag.


The ingredients are fairly simple, and I picked them up at the supermarket. (Full recipe at the bottom)

In it’s simplest from, ice cream is just basically milk/cream, sugar, and vanilla flavor. For the first run, I tried using half & half. The trick is freezing it while all mixed up.

After mixing the ingredients, I poured them into a quart sized bag. Once the mixture was sealed, I put it in yet another quart bag for security. Then I put a bunch of ice into a gallon sized bag, added about a cup of rock salt, and placed the ice cream mixture bag inside.

Next, I had the girls go outside and make the ice cream. I have to admit, they enjoyed it for a few minutes, but shortly lost their enthusiasm and I ended up doing the majority of the shaking.

After about 15 minutes, we gave it a try. The consistency was like soft serve ice cream. I was able to simply pour it out of the bag and into small bowls for testing.

The ice cream met with great enthusiasm and was quickly devoured by the four girls. It was not as creamy as traditional ice cream. Tasty, but not exactly what I think of as ice cream.

Of course, Cruft Labs didn’t stop there. The next attempt was with making chocolate ice cream. I used Ovaltine as the flavoring, hoping to get a little more creamy mouthfeel.

After a good deal more shaking of a plastic bag, out came chocolate! It looked better than that previous vanilla, but stuff had a slightly watery feel. The girls didn’t care, they ate every bit.

Not satisfied with the previous attempts, I ran out and picked up the real deal, Heavy Whipping Cream. If this didn’t taste creamy, nothing would.
Sure enough, the whipping cream made all the difference in flavor. The texture was smooth and the girls ate most of the bag immediately, commenting that it was an improvement. Success at last.

I took the remaining ice cream and froze it overnight. The result was amazingly good. Everything was perfect after a full freeze. The flavor, the texture, and the mouthfeel were all outstanding.
Here is the final recipe:
Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag
2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Large bag of ice
Box of rack salt
Several Quart sized plastic bags
Several Gallon sized plastic bags
Combine Cream, Sugar, and Vanilla. Put mixture in quart sized bag. Partially fill gallon sized bag with ice. Add about 1 cup of rock salt. Place bag of ice cream mixture in ice bag. Shake vigorously for 15 minutes. Enjoy.
For extra goodness, freeze over night.
Of course, this is just the beginning of my ice cream experimentation. I see possibilites in both making an automatic shaker and different flavor combinations.
Good luck in your own dessert making!

Portal

Portal is a new game that is part of Valve’s Orange Box release. Orange Box includes some great games, including Half-life 2, Episodes 1 & 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. I think Half-Life 2 is OK, but not my cup of tea.
Team Fortress 2 is fantastic, adn I have spent many hours playing since it’s release. Absolutely great stuff that breaks the FPS out of the traditional military look. But the real gem is Portal.
Portal a whole new kind of game. Based on the idea that you can create portals between two locations that not allow you to pass yourself and object through, but that momentum passes through as well. Doesn’t make sense? Watch the trailer here.
Fun gameplay with no killing. Old FPS skillz don’t apply in this game that is more about planning and less about twitch. The gameplay requires lateral and innovative thinking to succeed. It’s a complex puzzle game, but truly addicting. I finished the campaign game in two sittings, but some finish it in a single 4-5 hour sitting.
There are more challenging levels after completing the campaign and I’m sure the mod community will be coming up with many great levels to try.
Portal (and Steam, the Valve game delivery system) are PC only. But Mac People, that is the reason Steve has bestowed you with Boot Camp. Between Portal and Team Fortress 2, you won’t be disappointed.
Possibly the best part of the game is the humor of the voice that guides you along the way. By the end of the game, I was pausing just to hear all the talk. And the final song by Jonathan Coulton is hilarious.
Of course, item #1 on my Christmas wish list will be a plush Weight Companion Cube…
Finally, a good use for facebook:

Things I learned in New York City

1) The Shake Shack is a good hamburger joint, but the true appeal is sitting in the park, not the food.
2) Dave Winer is a tragic figure out of Shakespeare that would make a great documentary.
3) Dunkin Donuts are just donuts, nothing special.
4) Not having an umbrella with you in Manhattan in October is a bad idea
5) You can take refuge from heavy rain in a Borders, but your wet wool suit will smell bad, making people move away.
6) The movie I watched on the plane, The Namesake, was really good. Now I need to read Gogol’s Overcoat. Rent the DVD if you get the chance.
I was in New York for a few meetings and spoke at HD World.
This is what the audience looked like.


Notice that no one has a laptop, there’s a chance they actually listen to the speakers…

The Long, Long Arm of Google

Just over five years ago, the web hosting service provider I was using, went out of business in a bad way. In such a bad way, that there was no notice. The sites were simply gone.
I had to track down the reseller that Binaryblocks had used and pay them to get all my data off the server. Not cheap and not easy. Many people lost everything. The owner of Binaryblocks was a guy named Jason Piercy. It was all his fault. He cost me time, money, and effort due to his failure.
I was upset over this and posted about here and here. I even made a site called binaryblockssucks.com for people to discuss the problem.
By posting on the internet, Googlebot took notice. Currently, my site has a pagerank of 6, meaning that search results on Google show my site fairly high.
Fast forward five years. Imagine that you are Jason Piercy, the villain of this story. When you Google your own name, you find my post about you as the first hit. Take a look at Jason Piercy or Binaryblocks. How much does that suck?
Well, in my book that’s the effect of the long, long arm of Google. Google doesn’t forget things like this. And because Google doesn’t forget, people can find out what happened in the past.
So Jason Piercy sends me an email that explains what happened to Binaryblocks and asked me to post it.
I had to think about this for a while. He’s still a jerk and that hasn’t changed. He still screwed me over, and I really don’t care why. Rather than telling his customers what was going on and finding a way for us not to get screwed, he simply disappeared. The coward’s way out. He literally took my money and ran.
I decided that I would post his letter. I consider myself a fair person and I think it’s fair to let him say his peace. You can read it in the extended entry.
But this should serve as a reminder of the long arm of Google and how what you do will end up online. Even years later, you won’t be able to escape it.

Continue reading “The Long, Long Arm of Google”

Last five songs

Whilst my website was borked, Sean tagged me with an interweb meme. The meme came from Jason, who wants to know The Last 5 Songs I Bought On iTunes.
That’s fairly simple. I have never bought a song on iTunes.
Not that I don’t believe in electronic music, I do. I ripped my entire CD collection to MP3. Over 500 albums.
It’s the DRM I don’t like. With music, you have the option of getting a CD, where you can rip it yourself and use the music as you see fit for personal use. I place all my MP3s on a central server in the house so they can be played on any computer, Apple TV, or MP3 player.
I have bought TV shows and movies in iTunes. Why? Because for new TV shows, it’s only real option to legally watch current shows before the DVDs release. It’s the optimal solution.
The new Amazon MP3 store looks promising. I tried to buy a Daft Punks album, but the downloader didn’t download. They took my nine bucks but I don’t have the files. I haven’t heard from Amazon customer service yet.
If the question is what music am I listening to, then here’s the kinda stuff I’ve been listening too.
Making Plans for Vinyl (a mashup you can find at Go Home Productions)
Teenage Kicks by The Undertones (John Peel was right)
New Slang by The Shins (Natalie Portman was right)
Rilo Kiley – Under the Blacklight (Their new album rocks)
Beastie Boys – The Mix Up ( Michele and I saw them play their instrumental songs live last month)
Of course, it’s my wonderful wife Michele that brings new songs into my life. She listens to Woxy Radio (as you all should) and is always playing me new music to hear, like The Go Team.
Now, I get to tag a few people to continue the meme. I tap Cyril, Squidly, AKMA, OctopusHat, and Chris. If I didn’t tag you, feel free to post your thought anyways.