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My first blog, for the longest time, I could not find. But, despite naming it a very obscure reference to Radiohead’s liner notes from the song “Paranoid Android” on OK Computer, I tracked it down! AND I even remembered the password.

Unfortunately, the riddle of “7yuczhd2” has yet to be solved, and my blog is the top google search result.

edit: re-opened my old blog (formerly called: “Your Blood (Honey)”) and privated a lot of it—meanwhile imported both of my old blogs on livejournal “alloftheoptions” and the aforementioned. Hooray for combining the archives of my history.

 

EDIT EDIT: Just because this is the first internet trail that comes up on Google, I’m adding my current page and stickying this post. The previous entries are imported from tumblr, private journal entries, or miscellaneous posts that were on this blog prior to my switch to tumblr. Again, here’s the current page (this site is pretty much abandoned, proudly, but without deletion, like my previous blogs/journals/etc):

http://mudl.us

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Anatomical illustration from Edo-period Japan, this one’s supposed to be of a human skeleton and is dated to 1732. Wowzers.

Halloween is coming up, i’m getting in the spirit!

Luke Ramsey

The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will feel even faster than it does now.

Douglas Coupland’s guide to the next ten years.

There’s something comforting about this story: even Nobel-winning economists procrastinate! Many of us go through life with an array of undone tasks, large and small, nibbling at our conscience. But Akerlof saw the experience, for all its familiarity, as mysterious. He genuinely intended to send the box to his friend, yet, as he wrote, in a paper called “Procrastination and Obedience” (1991), “each morning for over eight months I woke up and decided that the next morning would be the day to send the Stiglitz box.” He was always about to send the box, but the moment to act never arrived. Akerlof, who became one of the central figures in behavioral economics, came to the realization that procrastination might be more than just a bad habit. He argued that it revealed something important about the limits of rational thinking and that it could teach useful lessons about phenomena as diverse as substance abuse and savings habits. Since his essay was published, the study of procrastination has become a significant field in academia, with philosophers, psychologists, and economists all weighing in.

Later: What does procrastination tell us about ourselves? in The New Yorker via Nellie

Off Modern

An artist collective based out of South London (Elephant & Castle, if you’ve ever taken the brown line to the southern most stop).

Just listened to this weeks Fresh Air featuring Harold McGee. The podcast is chock-full Some really fascinating things about the science and chemistry of cooking. Some interesting points:

  • Salt actually helps the flavor of food by encouraging foods to release aromas.
  • Vegetables and thin fish are actually cooked in microwaves very efficiently, and if done well, more efficiently than cooking them on a stove.
  • (One of my favorite food anecdotes) MSG is meant to imitate the flavor the Japanese call Umami, which is sort of an aged salt flavor that usually is restricted to foods like expensive aged Parmesan cheeses. (It’s definately in the chips at Jimmy Johns).
  • -It’s actually better to put spice and herbs on when the dish is at serving temperature in terms of bringing out that flavor, instead of just letting the herbs and spices meld into the dish and cooking them for a long time.
  • The way that meat is cooked in Chinese restaurants, by cutting it into small pieces and cooking it at extremely hot temperatures in a Wok that cook the meat through within 15-17 seconds, is actually probably the best way to bring out the flavors of meat.

There are even more tips on the website and in the podcast, so check it out. You can also find the book by clicking here.

Let’s LEGO!

Kai Krause: The True Size of Africa

Food for a Dollar

What!? Blueberries, even in multiples of ten, for a dollar.