Stuff on the Internet

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One of my daily habits (alright, multiple-times-per-day habits) is to open google reader and scan through the blogs that interest me. Google reader is an incredibly efficient way to browse sites that have a decent signal-to-noise ratio. It means that I don't have to have a list of 100+ bookmarks for all the sites that I like to read. I simply point google reader at it and it keeps track of all the stories. What this lets me do is stay on top of what's going on in fields that interest me the most. Anyway, one thing that I think I might start doing a little more of is posting some links to stuff that I've found that are cool. So here's what I've found this past week or so.

All of these were stuff I shared with google reader. You can see these items and more on this shared page: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/heraldk.

Heraldk

Home Made Pizza

in

So for my first content post of the year, I'm going to start with what I plan is a series of posts showing various cooking exploits. It kind of intersects a couple of my interests: I love food, and I love to take pictures -- so why not do both? Back when I lived with my roommate Mike a few years ago, we both liked to cook a little bit, although he was a bit more ambitious in the projects he came up with. Something he introduced me to though was the something awful recipe collection: Goons with Spoons. That's not where I got this recipe, but it is the style that I'm going to mimic. In each recipe, photos are taken along the way to illustrate how the food is prepared. Maybe it isn't all that necessary for those experienced in the kitchen, but it is encouraging to know you're still on track.

So, here is today's recipe, like you can see in the title: home made pizza. This recipe comes from the Good Eats television show, and is published on the web here. My version only differs from his by taking the amount of salt down since I found the original recipe a bit too salty for my taste. This recipe has been a standby of ours for the last few months. Since the first time we made this at home, I don't order pizza home, and I don't often have pizza in restaurants either anymore. This is simply that good. The other thing is it really isn't all that hard. With a little foresight, you just make the dough earlier in the day and let it rise over the afternoon. Then when dinner time rolls around, roll out your dough and pop it in the oven.

So, with all that said, let's begin. Here's what you need:

  • 2 tbsp sugar

  • 1 tsp salt

  • 1 tbsp olive oil

  • 1 tsp instant yeast

  • 2 cups strong/bread flour

  • 3/4 cups warm water

The only "special" ingredient here is the bread flour. You can use all purpose flour too, but your crust won't be as chewy.

The process isn't terribly complex. Just add the ingredients in roughly the above order, and you'll be fine. Note that unlike normal yeast, you don't have to bloom instant yeast in warm water before mixing it in. It works just fine this way. So after some mixing you'll start to get a ball of dough. Make sure your water is warm though -- if it is too cold the yeast won't be too happy and your dough won't rise much.

Alright, the only trick is extra flour. You'll probably find that your mixture is pretty sticky after mixing it all together. You're going to need to add more flour and exactly how much takes a bit of practice. It's not game breaking, so don't sweat it. What you're looking for is to add enough flour that the dough no longer sticks to your hands and is easy to knead. Make sure to give the dough some kneading - it is this process that makes the starch bonds stronger and will make your dough nicer at the end. I find though that as long as I take my time and add flour slowly as the dough accepts it, that it turns out pretty good. When you're done, make it into a ball kind of like this:

Now cover with a towel and let sit. You're done! Go relax for awhile. For this particular day, I went and played Shadow Complex on the xbox for awhile. A great game, by the way! The good eats recipe has you refrigerate the dough overnight, but I haven't found that to be necessary. Just let it rise for a few hours over the afternoon and by dinner time you'll have dough you can work with.

Now preheat your oven to 500°F/260°C (you want your oven HOT for pizza). If you have a pizza stone, it should be in your oven while it heats up.

This amount of dough works really well for two restaurant-sized personal thin crust pizzas. If you want a thicker crust, then this will make one pizza I guess. Personally, I much more enjoy thin crust, so it works really well for my wife and I. So if you go this route, cut the dough in half and flatten out on some flour on the counter. Then pick it up and start stretching it out into a disc. What you're looking for is to maintain a ridge on the edge of the dough to make sure to keep the sauce on the pizza and not spilling over the edges of your pizza.

Keep stretching it out, and try and get it flat in the middle. This just takes some practice to get good at, but it isn't really possible to mess up. Just try to not put holes in your dough!

Now when it comes to toppings, be creative! Personally, I love BBQ sauce as a base, but you can be more traditional if you like. The real trick at this stage is to not go overboard on the toppings. If you load it up too much, your dough will be soggy in the middle and that's not cool. This particular time I went with tikka masala sauce, chicken, onions, peppers, and mozzarella cheese.

Pop the pizza into the oven. Ideally it should cook on a pizza stone, or at the very least on a pan that has holes in the bottom to let the heat more evenly cook the crust. But if not, you should do okay with a regular baking sheet. It just won't be quite as crispy.

Cook for 7-8 minutes or until your cheese starts to brown and the crust starts to get a bit darker. This looks about right:

Once you pull it out of the oven, let it sit for a minute or two. Your tongue will thank you for not burning it. Enjoy!

The Blog Plan

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This is about as close as I'm gonna come to a new year's resolution this year. I'm going to attempt to post here a little more often -- hopefully in the post-a-week range. I'm not entirely sure what I'll post about, but the general idea is I'd like to work a little harder to build some content. I won't promise that every post will be all that interesting (and the bulk of them might not be) but if I force myself to show something each week, I might learn something. So that's the plan. Oh, by the way we've got a pile of posts about our recently completed trip to Barcelona over at minor agenda. Go check 'em out!

Blogging in the New Year

in

Well I've had a hard time coming back to this blog, but I think it is more than time that I made a return to actually blogging some content here. So expect to see more of that sort of thing in the new year. I'll chat a bit more about what I plan to do with the blog in the new year, but essentially what I'm planning on doing is to start ensuring that there's an update at least once a week. I'm hoping that by doing so I'll force myself to get off the couch when I get home in the evenings and actually do something more times than not. In the meantime, I've updated the blog with a new theme that does a bit more of using the new wordpress features.

NHL Playoff Predictor 08-09 Round 4

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Alright, one more go for the predictor! Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.547 0.214 Carolina_Hurricanes 0.453 0.158

Detroit_Red_Wings 0.488 0.305
Chicago_Blackhawks 0.512 0.322

1 for 2 on the conference finals... Pittsburgh, as expected, took it down, and the Hawks really didn't give the wings any trouble -- despite several games going to overtime. It didn't look to me like the Hawks had a shot at all in the games that I did watch. Oh well, guess I can't get 'em all right. The predictor is sitting at 8/14 with one series to go. How does the last round stack up?

Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.396
Detroit_Red_Wings 0.604

It's really hard not to bet on the Wings. They've been so dominant for so long. But the penguins are going to give them a harder time than last year, I expect. It should be a great series, at any rate!

Herald

NHL Playoff Predictor 08-09 Round 3

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Well that last round didn't go to plan ... Here's the results:

Boston_Bruins 0.770 0.570 0.388
Washington_Capitals 0.506 0.166 0.072
Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.494 0.161 0.070
Carolina_Hurricanes 0.230 0.103 0.040

Detroit_Red_Wings 0.678 0.358 0.164
Vancouver_Canucks 0.405 0.190 0.073
Chicago_Blackhawks 0.595 0.337 0.159
Anaheim_Ducks 0.322 0.115 0.035

The Hurricanes play spoiler to the Bruins which makes my program off there. Not too sure how many people picked the 'Canes over the Bruins, but I don't think there were many. The Caps/Pens played an incredible series to 7 games, and it was as close as I (and my program) expected. Out west though, the program did much better with both the Red Wings and Blackhawks making it through as predicted. With this round done, giving us a 7/12 record. A couple of too close to call series, and the 'Canes pulling off a pair of upsets are a quick way to explain what happened so far this year.

What's up for the next round? The teams are quite evenly matched, but there's a bit of surprise pick for the west.

Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.547 0.214
Carolina_Hurricanes 0.453 0.158

Detroit_Red_Wings 0.488 0.305
Chicago_Blackhawks 0.512 0.322

That's right, the program likes the Hawks. This was the reason I went with the hawks and bruins in my playoff pools ... but thanks to the 'Canes, I now have no shot to win those.

Herald

NHL Playoff Predictor 08-09 Round 2

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Alright, the first round of the playoffs is in the books, so lets review how the predictor did, shall we?

Boston_Bruins 0.814 0.634 0.458 0.308
Washington_Capitals 0.649 0.321 0.117 0.051
New_Jersey_Devils 0.603 0.339 0.143 0.070
Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.495 0.209 0.084 0.036
Philadelphia_Flyers 0.505 0.216 0.087 0.038
Carolina_Hurricanes 0.397 0.136 0.055 0.021
New_York_Rangers 0.351 0.073 0.027 0.008
Montreal_Canadiens 0.186 0.071 0.029 0.010

San_Jose_Sharks 0.706 0.474 0.276 0.145
Detroit_Red_Wings 0.720 0.435 0.227 0.110
Vancouver_Canucks 0.617 0.276 0.121 0.049
Chicago_Blackhawks 0.688 0.390 0.217 0.107
Calgary_Flames 0.312 0.118 0.044 0.014
St_Louis_Blues 0.383 0.124 0.042 0.012
Columbus_Blue_Jackets 0.280 0.083 0.031 0.009
Anaheim_Ducks 0.294 0.101 0.043 0.014

In summary, the predictor didn't do a bad job, but it did get 3 series wrong giving it a 5/8 record starting off this playoffs. The biggest upset was Anaheim over San Jose -- a series that San Jose apparently didn't even show up for. Besides that, the other two series that the predictor got wrong were really close. Carolina managed to hit runner-runner to win their series by forcing a game 7, and then scoring two goals to tie and go ahead late in the 3rd period. Thanks for screwing up my playoff pools, Carolina! The other series, my predictor had Pittsburgh and Philly only a few percentage points apart, and so I'm not really that concerned that it picked the wrong side there.

Looking ahead, here's the output for the next round:

Boston_Bruins 0.770 0.570 0.388
Washington_Capitals 0.506 0.166 0.072
Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.494 0.161 0.070
Carolina_Hurricanes 0.230 0.103 0.040

Detroit_Red_Wings 0.678 0.358 0.164
Vancouver_Canucks 0.405 0.190 0.073
Chicago_Blackhawks 0.595 0.337 0.159
Anaheim_Ducks 0.322 0.115 0.035

Boston has a huge edge going against Carolina, and Detroit has a similar edge against the ducks. But the other matchups are *much* closer. The program gives the slight edge to the Caps, but given how much trouble the Caps had with the Rangers, I wouldn't totally be surprised to see the Penguins move on. The Canucks/Blackhawks series isn't quite that close, and Chicago is certainly looking like a good option.

Herald

NHL Playoff Predictor 08-09

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The NHL season is over for another year. Alas, my Oilers didn't make it, but it still is a fun time to run the playoff predictor for another season. Here's the numbers for the various teams. For an explanation, see here.

Boston_Bruins 0.814 0.634 0.458 0.308
Washington_Capitals 0.649 0.321 0.117 0.051
New_Jersey_Devils 0.603 0.339 0.143 0.070
Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.495 0.209 0.084 0.036
Philadelphia_Flyers 0.505 0.216 0.087 0.038
Carolina_Hurricanes 0.397 0.136 0.055 0.021
New_York_Rangers 0.351 0.073 0.027 0.008
Montreal_Canadiens 0.186 0.071 0.029 0.010

San_Jose_Sharks 0.706 0.474 0.276 0.145
Detroit_Red_Wings 0.720 0.435 0.227 0.110
Vancouver_Canucks 0.617 0.276 0.121 0.049
Chicago_Blackhawks 0.688 0.390 0.217 0.107
Calgary_Flames 0.312 0.118 0.044 0.014
St_Louis_Blues 0.383 0.124 0.042 0.012
Columbus_Blue_Jackets 0.280 0.083 0.031 0.009
Anaheim_Ducks 0.294 0.101 0.043 0.014