Stupidfool.org

Vintage

From our Gatsby afternoon, some drinks, from the left (and not counting the lovely Hendrick's gin at the far left):

• mix (orange juice, lemon juice, grenadine) for a Ward Eight cocktail
• water x2
• root beer
• sangria (red wine, brandy, sugar, triple sec, lemon, orange, apple)
• ginger ale
• more sangria
• mint tea punch x2 (mint tea, mint, lemon juice, orange juice, sugar)
• lemon juice for Aviations

I also made fried chicken, the morning of the event (though I placed the chicken in a brine the night before).

I kept reading about how difficult it is to regulate the temperature of the oil, and I scoffed: amateurs, surely! Well, no. It's really quite difficult, and it took me a couple of tries to get it right (those tries resulted in blackened crust, but still pretty tasty chicken). Thankfully, I had a lot of tries, since I was frying twenty pieces of chicken, two or three at a time.

But overall, the chicken--and the rest of the food, and the drinks--traveled well to the picnic, so the preparations and work paid off. A lovely event.

Pirates: they're just like us!

From an absolutely delightful New Yorker review of Peter T. Leeson's The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates comes this relevant quote:

[Even] in piracy's golden age people were aware that an unregulated marketplace invites predators. During the South Sea Bubble of 1720, speculators claiming to be able to make wealth out of debt fleeced British investors and ruined many banks. Pirates who spent that year killing and plundering, Nathaniel Mist grumpily wrote, could salve their guilty consciences, if they had any: "Whatever Robberies they had committed, they might be pretty sure they were not the greatest Villains then living in the World."

Better with iPhone 3.0

Here's a site I'd really like to see: a showcase for software that takes advantage of new developer features for the Mac OS and iPhone platforms (and maybe others, too).

The recent software updates for both the iPhone and Mac OS are heavy on features for developers, like Core Location & Grand Central Dispatch in Snow Leopard, in-app purchases on the iPhone, &c. (this is a key part of Apple's marketing, even). And when browsing the iPhone app store, applications that've been tested in the 3.0 software are specially flagged as "tested on iPhone 3.0". But what about applications that actually make use of all of the new developer features? That is, applications that are optimized for the new platform?

The promise of an update like Snow Leopard--and, to a lesser extent, the features in the new iPhone 3.0 SDK--is the types of new applications that can be built upon the new platform. Reviews of the new operating systems are heavy on information about the new developer features, but light on actual examples of applications making use of those features. And, as a potential developer for these platforms--but even moreso, as a very interested user--those are the apps that I'd love to see.

My current favorite example of such an app: Clarke, an app for updating your location on Fire Eagle, will soon support the Core Location framework for gathering location data (currently, it uses Skyhook data). That's almost neat enough for me to gather the courage to upgrade!

Does a site like this exist?

Ghostface Killah - Cherchez La Ghost

via www.youtube.com

My iPhone selected "Cherchez la Ghost" to lead off its "Hip Hop" genius mix as I walked to work this morning. Good choice, iPhone!

iPhone 3.1 walkthrough

On the fence about downloading iPhone 3.1? Wondering what’s changed since iPhone 3.0? Need a handy link to send your friends who may have questions? TiPb’s got your back with our complete iPhone 3.1 Software Walkthrough.

via www.theiphoneblog.com

Given that it took me nearly half a day to figure out how to activate Genius Mixes on my iPhone, I figured this might be useful to someone else in determining what's new in the iPhone 3.1 software.

... falling down, falling down

Bridge officials said they did not know how the crack occurred but said the eyebar did not fail because of strain from the project that necessitated this weekend's closure.

"There's a lot of rust in the crack, so it's been there for a while," Forner said.

via www.sfgate.com

That's reassuring.

Cranberry beans

Unshelled Cranberry Beans, originally uploaded by QuintanaRoo

Cranberry beans are beautiful and so tasty! They were one of my favorite late-summer/early-fall meals last summer, and somehow, I love them even more this year.

I've made them into a shell bean ragout as described in the Lucques cookbook--recipe online at the Amateur Gourmet, as well--and a shell bean risotto, optionally with sea bass with gremolata butter, also from Lucques. They make everything better.

Next up: braised pork belly with shell bean ragout.

Wildfires

The Big Picture has photos of the wildfires in Southern California. I like this shot for the scale, but many of the others, like this one of two teenagers on a rooftop looking up at the fires, show the impact.

Jaguar Shark

I was reading an article about Auguste Piccard and the Mariana trench this morning, and it made me want to watch the Jaguar Shark scene from The Life Aquatic. I love this scene.

Lobster Rolls at Spring

via Serious Eats

These lobster rolls look delicious. They're making me far hungrier than I should be at 11pm in the evening.