Archive for the ‘General’ Category.

French Omelettes

A friend asked why, on the TV show The Bear (a dramedy about the restaurant world) would you crack the eggs for an omelette into a fine mesh sieve, and beat them there? ?(s2e9, 21:00 in)

My answer….

I get it. It’s a version of the classic French Omelette (find some youtube videos). After about a dozen eggs, I’ve mostly gotten the technique down, which is essentially very simple whip the eggs until TOTALLY smooth (I can see how using a strainer would help!) and do some shenanigans in the pan (like in the tv show) to get the right texture. You end up with a smooth egg texture rolled up into pleasant, delicate layers.
It would be harsh and nerdy of me to note that on the show she didn’t make the best formed or prettiest french omelette on the show ????

You should totally try making a french omelette at home! If you’re (un)lucky you’ll end up becoming an egg snob like me and always asking restaurants to make it when their menu says they’ll make “2 eggs, any style”. Of course, the server will talk to the chef and come back to you with an exasperated look asking you to pick a “normal” kind of egg, you egg snob!

(the inspiration for French Omelette came from this previous adventure)

Crazy Emoji Laden %F0%9F%8C%88 %F0%9F%8E%89 URLs

Megan clicked on an ad on Facebook, it turned out to be a scam site (offering things like $25 adult electric trikes) but I looked over her shoulder and was simply amazed that the URL of the site has emoji in it! Check it out!

Here’s the important parts of the URL if you want to try it yourself. It’s a neat, little trick. :-)

https://SCAM-URL-REDACTED/collections/%F0%9F%8C%88car-bike/products/%F0%9F%8E%89factory-outlet-%E2%8F%B0limited-time-availability-%F0%9F%92%A5soon-to-sell-out…….

La Mesa RV Centers Reviews – Looking at Buying an RV

We’ve been thinking about buying an RV for about a year. We went to an RV Show in Sacramento yesterday and put down $500 on an RV. When we got home, we researched it a bit and… dodged a bullet, I believe.

The RV Show was run exclusively by La Mesa RV Center.

BBB Complaints about La Mesa RV Center – Paraphrased: “Terrible, very slow (2-12 months!) service on promised work, leaving people’s RVs sitting around for a looooong time. 100+ complaints in the last 3 years, 40+ in the last year

Yelp – All reviews are either “luv my new RV” or “I spent $200k but I got a broken RV but can’t use it because their service department keeps screwing me over”
Yelp 1 , Yelp 2 , Yelp 3

Looking for Non-Adversarial Board Games

Looking for good board games (and similar) that aren’t adversarial to play with my 8 year-old. We played Pokemon for the first time today and she understood the rule mechanics immediately but hated the threat of her creatures being killed. We played the venerable Ticket To Ride last week and with some teamwork we all had a blast!

Leading experts warn of a risk of extinction from AI

Ummm. Is this something to worry about? Those are some big words. Seen as the top story on NPR.org today…

(via)

AI experts issued a dire warning on Tuesday: Artificial intelligence models could soon be smarter and more powerful than us and it is time to impose limits to ensure they don’t take control over humans or destroy the world.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” a group of scientists and tech industry leaders said in a statement that was posted on the Center for AI Safety’s website.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed AI research lab that is behind ChatGPT, and the so-called godfather of AI who recently left Google, Geoffrey Hinton, were among the hundreds of leading figures who signed the we’re-on-the-brink-of-crisis statement…

Bay Area Children’s Theatre Closed!

After 19 years of amazing shows and dedication to kids, I am crestfallen to report that The Bay Area Children’s Theatre has closed its doors last week.

I’m terribly saddened. Our family attended several really terrific shows and events of theirs over the past several years. It is a really great institution!

  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  • Frog and Toad (5 times, if I recall correctly! Four times before COVID and once after)
  • Llama Llama Red Pajama
  • A fun open house event in Walnut Creek

Contra Costa County Fair

Megan, Abigail and I went to the Contra Costa County Fair this weekend. Abigail’s first county fair was a blast! See the vid…

How to Convert a Mediawiki wiki and WordPress Blog to Static Sites

I recently converted the OrbSWARM Blog and Mediawiki to static websites. Here is how I did it.

Download the entire wiki, minus the “Special” pages and “Help” pages

wget -k -p -r -R ‘*Special*’ -R ‘*Help*’ -E http://wiki.orbswarm.com/

-k –convert links – edit each page so the links on it link to the new static site instead of a website
-p –page-requisites – fetch all the support files too, like .css and javascript
-r –recursive – download the whole site, not just one file
-R –reject – don’t download pages with these names in them
-E –adjust-extension – make all files end in “.html”

Download the entire WordPress blog

wget -k -p -r -E http://blog.orbswarm.com/

Then just upload all those files to a web server!

OrbSWARM Project Mothballed

In 2007, Michael Prados, Jon Foote, and I co-organized the OrbSWARM art project along with 25 amazing mechatronic artists, it was a blast!

The project was active from 2007 to 2012 but the orbs are still out there, rolling somewhere! I just reorganized all the content: turned the wiki and blog into static sites, put all the sound files into one neat pile, and such.

Find the project at OrbSWARM.com

How To Install and Adjust an AOC I1659FWUX 15.6″ USB-powered portable monitor on Windows and Mac

I’ve got some portable monitors: AOC I1659FWUX 15.6″ USB-powered portable monitor

The image quality of the monitor is pretty good (update 5-17-23: my new Macbook Pro screen is much more crisp than the AOC screens!), though you can’t adjust the colors.
In Windows, you can adjust the brightness with the open source software ScreenBright or my favorite ClickMonitorDDC 6.0 or some others. :-) You can’t directly change the brightness or colors in Windows 10 or 11.

To get it to work on my Macbook Pro 2019 16″, I needed to install a driver. Without it, when I plugged it in, the startup screen would flash for a moment and then nothing.
– Go to https://www.synaptics.com/products/displaylink-graphics which is the former Displaylink.com. Download and install the driver
– plug it in and go! I’m using an Anker USB C Hub to convert the USB-A on the monitor to USB-C

To be able to adjust the brightness, I went to the Apple App Store and got the free and open source MonitorControl Lite.
Done!