Asking the Right Questions (Demanding Actual Answers)

Many years ago there was an organization in which I was involved that was not related to “Law Enforcement” (though it could and did ‘Aid the Public’ etc.) and one or two of the members were employed as police officers. All well, no issue. But I recall once someone asked about ticket quotas (which were something of an issue at that time.. or at least a seemingly new issue.. or maybe it had just come ’round again). The fellow replied, “No, we can write as many as we like.” which, while admittedly humorous, is a deflection and needs to get a followup question – or should have had he said it in court.

And that question? “But can one write as FEW as he likes, too?” Yes, it turns it around, but not really. The initial response did the actual turning around from “Is there a minimum” to “there is no maximum” (which means the deflection-of-an-answer fails to fit the question) and the followup simply puts the initial, still unanswered question actual query BACK into play.

That is but one example. But every time someone “official” says something, think about if they are truly answering the question, or just deflecting it – even if humorously. All too many ‘answers’ are nothing of the sort. Some are transparent, as when a Talking Point is robotically repeated as if the actual question hadn’t even been asked. The Talking Point is not important – that it demand robot-repetition tells you that it’s nothing more than utter craptacular propaganda. The deflection away from any actual answer is the important thing.

There ARE humorous responses that thwart an an assumption while actually answering the question. The ultimate example of this is Reagan’s response to the criticism of his age in one of the 1984 debates[1]. He so thoroughly countered the accusation of his being too old that you could almost see Mondale realizing the issue he had meant to exploit had, at absolute best, evaporated.

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[1]:

It’s Not *Quite* That Hot… Yet

How To Win Chocolaholic Friends WithOUT Working TOO Hard

Alright, it’s easy to bake some brownies. It’s easy to bake a chocolate cake. And doing both seems like doubling the work, but given the resulting.. nigh worshipful.. adoration, that’s NOTHING. No, really. You bake a couple things, frost them, and get adoration that if you are not careful could lead to intoxication (heck, they might even buy you booze). And the ‘trick’ is so simple even Ox can do it!

First, a trip to the store. Sure, you could go “from scratch” and if you wish to, more power to you, but mixes are just fine. Go with name brand or store brand. If it’s truly “off brand” then reconsider. You will need:

Brownie mix – enough for TWO 8 (or 9) inch round pans

Cake mix – one box should do.

Anything the mixes require (butter or oil, eggs…)

Two canisters/tubs chocolate frosting

Optional additives (mini chocolate chips, mini M&M’s, caramel bits, etc.)

I presume ready access to water, cooking spray (and/or parchment paper), and that you have at least two 8 (or 9) inch round cake pans.

If using parchment paper, cut out circles to fit in the bottom of the pans, otherwise “let us spray.” Mix one box of brownie mix (for an 8×8 pan) and add any additives. Pour into prepared round pan. Repeat for other pan. Bake. An 8 inch round pan is less area than an 8×8 square pan, so go with the maximum time or even just a bit more – but do NOT be afraid to end things “early.” Bake, let cool, extract brownie rounds from pans.

Prepare cake mix as if making a layer cake (you are, sort of…) pour into (cooled and cleaned and prepared) round pans. Bake. Let cool. Extract. Set one round aside – this is yours to keep and eat or whatever.

If you have a ‘cake leveler’ use it to level the brownie rounds, if need be, and one of the cake rounds. Place a brownie round on/in a cake tray/holder/container. Apply frosting. Put the level cake round atop that. Apply frosting. Put the second brownie round atop that. Apply frosting. Cover. Deliver (or wait.. whatever).

Use any left over frosting on the remaining cake round and the bits from leveling (if you’ve not already eaten them, or had them eaten..)

Be prepared to be greeted with far more worshipful reaction than you deserve when you go to collect the cake cover thingie. Yes, it’s kinda like a giant sandwich cookie, only the cookie bits were brownie, the filling was cake, and there was frosting between and around all of it. Now, try to remember that despite claims, you are NOT actually a God. You do NOT want any actual Gods coming after you. They get …upset… about that sort of thing. And, yes, I am putting it oh-so-mildly. Despite that movie about ghosts, ALWAYS deny that you are a god, and ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS deny that you are a God. Yes, the capitalization has meaning. Heck even if you ARE a (minor or even Minor) god/God, you might be best off denying it. The Majors… they have NO sense of humor. NONE. Better they demand you accept godhood than they demand otherwise.

Throwback Thursday #11

I’ve never been much of a fan of Frank Sinatra (or as Pa would call him, ‘Sinatara’), I like Bing far more than Frank…, though I was amused by Nancy’s singing (“Theses Boots…”) but despite that, for reason I will NOT explain, this is the perfect day to go back to 1967:

Now We’re Cooking With Gas – 2

I managed to get quite a deal on this thing. I was hoping to get it “at cost” (sans retail markup, which puts the list price at about $400) and, to my surprise, I got it for even less than that. Not quite half price, but close. Sometimes the Universe is weird at me in a good way. Might have been that it was a display model, might have been that there’d be a bigger hit with an end-of-season markdown for clearance. Maybe I could have waited and possibly gotten a better deal, assuming it didn’t sell. I don’t care, I have it now and can use it this Summer.

A couple nights ago I did the “burn in” or “burn off” – run it for 20+ minutes at the highest temperature so any coatings that need to cook off or out-gas can do so without screwing up food in some way. The design is such that it uses a standard “one pound” propane bottle, but of course a larger tank with the correct adapting hose/fitting will also do, just is more fiddly. That would allow longer cooking time, if it was needed. I am unsure how long a full cylinder lasts, but Weber says a one pounder typically lasts about 2 hours and this grill supposedly uses less gas than others. Still, best to have a spare ready, just in case.

Last night I actually grilled a couple things. My first time using any grill myself, really. After looking things up, I managed to not screw things up. Might have gotten a bit more done than preferred, but not badly so. A more than acceptable result for a first attempt.

The way it folds up (or down…) is very well thought out. There’s a spot to place a foot and a release (that doesn’t work with a gas cylinder in place) and then gravity does the rest, usually. The red hanging-down bit might slide into place and lock things from unfolding until one wants to unfold it, but it’s a good idea to double check and be sure. Another interlock holds the lid closed, and with that, the grilling surface plates are locked into place inside. Unfolding is almost as easy: Undo the red latch, place a foot on the pad (hard to see in the photo as it’s mostly in shadow) and pull up, but NOT at the drop-release. The pulling up does take some lifting.

While I’ve not grilled before, I have lit grills before. And I never cared for it as there was often more *FWOOMP* than there ought to have been. Now, I might not have known the proper procedure Back When, but this doesn’t have that issue. No fiddling with matches or a grill lighter here. Just open the lid, open the gas valve and press the red button to let the piezoelectric igniter spark things off. It catches quickly enough I can watch the flames spread as the gas fills the burner. No *FWOOMP*!

Taruor Camping Stove

The wet spots are water, not fuel.

It looks like kinda like a Coleman pressure lantern, and it should. The same idea, only for heat rather than light, is at work. There’s a pressurized fuel chamber, a fuel control valve, a preheater “generator”, and a nozzle. But no mantle, nor shield for such.

This model comes with a gasoline/white gas nozzle installed, but also has a couple more. One for diesel and the other for alcohol. There’s also a bag for it, a funnel to aid in fueling, and a simple multi-tool that takes care of most work that might need to be done. Alas, the instructions are minimal – even the ones in Chinese (photo translation apps are nice, yes).

In one listing, there are pictures with added words revealing which nozzle is which, which is good for the diesel and alcohol nozzles. But a red arrow points to the wrong item, claiming it to be the gas(oline) nozzle. Whatever it is, it’s NOT any nozzle. The instructions lack detail of things like preheat times and methods, and how to actually change the nozzle. It took me longer than I care (ox slow, yes) but I think I figured most of it out.

There is a heat shield or flame spreader or preheating cup (or yes…) that is a press-fit snap-into-place thing. Removing it allows the socket in the multi-tool access to remove and replace the nozzle. Replacing the snap-fit piece required a pliers that is NOT part of the multi-tool. For what it’s worth, I had had hopes of being able to use this indoors despite warning. Thus I switched to the alcohol nozzle as alcohol would likely be the least monoxide issue. But I was wary enough to be sure to do the first firing outdoors. Good thing, too. The initial flame upon opening the fuel valve is big. The three feet of clearance asked for is a Good Idea. It did eventually settle down (warm up?) to a fairly well behaved flame. Fairly. It still did have the odd *poof* of just a bit more than might be desired.

The claim is that a liter of water will be brought to a boil in two minutes. I presume that is after fully (pre)heating and burning gasoline. I have no desire to fiddle about with gasoline, even outdoors. The diesel nozzle has me wondering if it would work properly with kerosene. I expect so, but I’d rather not be the one to find out, possibly the hard way, that the answer is “not quite.” For denatured alcohol, it seemed to take a good deal longer. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough until the (pre)heating was over and things truly stable, or maybe it’s just that alcohol doesn’t have the energy density of gasoline, or both.

One thing I do not know about, is availability of any replacement parts (nozzles, snap-in piece). That has me figuring the best thing for this is to decide which fuel to use, install the required nozzle (if the chosen fuel isn’t gas…) and then stick with it. That would minimize fiddling with the pieces and screwing up threads or running into metal fatigue.

I am NOT saying this is a bad product. It’s rather good, just the instructions are decidedly lacking. There might well be something “obvious” that I am missing as I am just that new to this and have no experience, nor know of anyone that does. But now I have one (or is it three?) more way to cook if things go screwy for more than little while.

What IS A “Convenience Store”?

If you said or thought “A gas station with delusions of being a grocery store” don’t feel bad, that’s likely the common answer. Not quite right, but common. Back When, say the 1970’s or even at least the early 1980’s the “gas station” was a service station. That is, while you could and did buy motor fuel there, there were bays so that you could get an oil change, or have tires replaced, or have more severe mechanical issues dealt with. If you needed a snack, the candy in the vending machine might (MIGHT!) not be too far out of date.

Nowadays, the ‘service’ of the automotive sort is long gone. Sure, you can get gasoline at all, diesel at almost all, and even kerosene at that oddball place. And you can get (overpriced) “grocery” items – lousy economics if you have any sort of convenient transport, but if you are only a few blocks away and have to walk, it might be worth it for some things.

But it’s NOT about motor fuel (though that does, er, drive traffic, yes…) nor is it about grocery-oid items. In truth, what it really is, is a cigarette stand that sells other stuff on the side. I’ve worked at one (Before you raise objection, look, you’ve ALL seen FAR stranger things than a mere Minotaur in such places. If not, I envy you your mundanity, I do.[1])

Before opening, the sequence was:

1. Enter
2. Disable Alarum
3. Punch In
4. Count till(s)
5. Start COFFEE
6. COUNT cigarettes

And I might have put ‘Start COFFEE’ too late. It’s been a while. But the lesson is: ALWAYS be ready to supply humans with stimulants. Evidently if they don’t get (mild!) stimulants they get grumpy, and grumpy humans start to THINK, not necessarily very well… and that can lead to Trouble. Sometimes Genius, yes, but more often Trouble. There is a Newton or Einstein or such every few centuries. There is someone trying “to take over the world” or at least a chunk of it, almost every generation, or so it seems.

Now, strong stimulants are also a Bad Idea. Cocaine, amphetamines… things do NOT go well. As much I loathe the bitter taste of Starbucks perversion of coffee [Go Caribou. Hoofers *know* alright?], I will give them this: keeping humans swimming in caffeine is FAR better than pretty much ALL of the alternatives.

But back to the subject, THE seller at a convenience store is tobacco. The rest is details – or cover. The second seller is, of course, anything with caffeine. If an alien invader somehow neutralized the stimulant effects of caffeine and nicotine, or cut the supply, Humanity might have nasty headaches for a week or so, but after that, said aliens would be DOOMED, by their own move.

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[1] I once stopped in late at night to chat with the closer (a friend) who greeted me with one of the most improbable lines with which I have ever been greeted: “Oh, thank goodness, it’s just you. You are the most normal thing to have come through the door all night!” This was jarring, to say the least. This might well have been the night some (male) kid came in and LOUDLY proclaimed his need to..er.. excrete. “I GOTTA [POO]!” And *everyone* pointed to the restroom. Closer: “YOU ARE ALL WITNESSES! THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!” Now, maybe some might doubt, but anyone who ever worked in ANY retail position knows that there is NO, ZERO, NADA, NEGATIVE PROBABILITY EVEN need to make stuff up. This… Just Happens. Reality is a Seriously Weird probability-space. Myths have to make at least a *tiny* bit of sense. Reality has NO such constraints.

That Old Time Religion

Back in the 1980’s, there were the big satellite dishes for C-band microwave reception. One of the stranger curiosities of all that could be found on satellite of the day (pre-scrambling, and ‘backhauls’ readily watched, etc.) was “Dr.” Gene Scott and his… er… interesting.. take on religion.

Here is a video that goes into rather more detail than I recall, but it utterly and completely fits what was his style – exhaustive, or at least exhausting, and yet somehow fascinating. If you do not care to listen to the full intro and prefer to get right to the music, such as it is, skip ahead to about 10:22:

On Kerosene and Electricity and Kookhood

This is not about lighting, or heating, or not solely about either or both. I might seem like I am a kerosene junkie – and I “get” that. FWIW, there is a group of self-proclaimed ‘Kerosene Junkies’ but what they mean is Jet-A or such. Heck, $HOUSEMATE has a coffee mug that reads ‘I LOVE THE SMELL OF JET FUEL IN THE MORNING'[1] But, despite what it might seem, I not only fully understand why electricity “won” – but I am, if anything, an Electricity Junkie… just like almost everyone (not the Amish) else.

I’ve done electrical work, or electronics, “for hire”. I am third-generation in this. Grandpa, with business partner of the time, built an electric car by putting an electric motor and lead-acid battery bank into a Model A or T frame. Somewhere, I have a photostat (pre-xerography) of the registration for that vehicle.

But electricity “won” for a few reasons:

1. It was SAFE! No flame, no fuel in the house or the barn or such. A *child* can be trusted with a light switch. At worst, the power bill is few cents more. Sure beats a house fire!
2. It was CHEAP! Compare the price of candles, liquid paraffin, kerosene, white gas, etc. to kiloWatt-hours. kWh are CHEEEEAAAAP! Even the horrendously expensive ones (look at Hawaii!) are cheaper than the alternatives.
3. It was CONVENIENT! Just flip a switch. No need to pump up a pressure chamber, no delicate mantles, no re-fueling in inadequate light, why, you didn’t even need to hunt down a match! All hail the push-button world!
4. It was USEFUL for more! It’s NOT just light. The iron that was heated by coal or wood and could screw up the washing was no more – an electric iron wouldn’t DO that. Fans (esp. on furnace!), radios, and HALLELUJAH, PUMPS – pressurized water! Indoor plumbing! Every last sin of the early electrical experimenters might well be forgiven for that alone. And with that, washing machines! Behold, free time!

So, why do I bother with archaic lighting and heating (and perhaps cooking)? Because as much as I like and appreciate modernity, I also realize that it is fragile. An example: I went to school with a gal who did a summer internship at a State Power Company. They had two, allegedly isolated but identical computers/computer systems. One ran the grid. One was for simulations. This gal, without trying, managed to ‘tickle’ a bug that revealed that the computers were NOT isolated. She nearly took down the state grid by running an innocent simulation. Ponder what malicious actors might accomplish.

In every industry or field that I have somehow wound up in, no matter how obscure or seemingly mundane, this is the case. It’s ALL running on the ragged edge, and it’s a bloody miracle and testament of human (mostly, yes) ingenuity and cussed stubbornness that systems are kept working at all. Another example: The United States Postal Service is mocked and derided – deservedly – by the American public. And despite being a government creature (they say otherwise, but if you work for USPS, the checks are Federal with FedGov warnings. Been there. Done that.) and being cursed with at least THREE public sector unions, somehow this thing STILL has enough low-level people “giving a damn despite it all” that it’s the envy of.. well, pretty much the rest of the world. I cannot even begin to imagine how bad other postal services must be. And, having been “on the inside” seeing how screwy it is and how poorly run, this scares the [MANURE] out of me. And that’s just the mail. Imagine stuff that is more critical!

So, while electrical outages are generally rare and short, or have been so far, I do NOT count on that remaining the case. If I end up looking the fool, having prepared “for nothing” well, I consider that a WIN. I’d far rather have lamps I never truly need. Have cookers I never truly need. Having heaters I never truly need. And having food reserves I never truly need, etc. Than NOT. I do NOT dream of saving me & mine & maybe more by having prepared. My FANTASY is to be left with excess and maybe be known as an eccentric or kook. Kookhood beats starving, freezing, or having to deal with others who are freezing and starving. If you are the praying sort, please pray not that I be a hero, but that I be a kook!

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[1] I do wonder if his association of airports and good times means he is more tolerant than the average person of the… aroma… of kerosene.

Solar Electric and Dim Rainy Days

The last week or so was damp, overcast, generally rainy or threatening to be rainy. Other than being a bit irked that it never seemed to be nice when I had a night off, I didn’t give it much thought. Spring tends to be that way. April showers, and May showers as well, and all that.

Then one night I had reason to use the solar electric LED porchlight(s). And… nothing happened. Crud. Alright, found another light source and dealt with the immediate issue. Then, alright, is the remote cell dead already? How to check… I recall once having a card that I could ‘charge’ with white (likely really UV) light and it would glow if IR hit it. I might even still have it somewhere, but there wasn’t time to hunt it down. Oh, even more modern technology to the rescue. The phone’s camera can see in IR (I wonder if I can get an inexpensive IR filter for it…) and so made as if to take a photo, and aimed the remote control into the phone camera. And there was flashing on the screen when a button was pushed. The remote control was working as it ought.

Great, that means I might need to haul out a ladder and check the connections – when the weather is better and I have time, and daylight. Then, last night, I tried again after a fairly nice day with plenty of sunlight. Lights light right on up. Huh. Either there was enough moisture to screw things up and it dried out, or there wasn’t enough light to keep the admittedly minimal batteries charged. Either way, I do not need to re-check the wiring – or at least not Right Now. But it’s still good to have alternate light sources, be they different LED or something more archaic.