botwerks

i really don’t know how i would use this implementation of vim on the ipad given that it doesn’t appear to have dropbox support. but i really like the fact that it exists and it’s getting downloaded instantly. i’m more of an emacs guy myself, but i’m perfectly conversant in and happy to get stuff done in vim. particularly given the sad state of editors on the ipad. i do fear however that the inability to ship vim with an external binary will limit its ability to support cloud filesystems. sigh …

kudos to the applidium guys for simply doing this and putting it out there. well done.

#1 with a bullet – mandate facebook as the authentication mechanism.

seriously, i’m looking at you spotify. i would like to like you. the reviews are pretty consistently positive, the pricing seems reasonable and the music selection appears to be pretty good.

but i go to sign up and you require that i link to a facebook account. no. i would like to moderate my interaction with that petri dish, thankyouverymuch. that’s a deal breaker for me. you know, i’d even be willing to pay a bit more to not have to use facebook auth. howsabout hooking a brother up there?

i had this in my instapaper favorites from my reading queue a few months back. with the recent santorumism in the news as of late, this popped back into my noggin.

• Rightist extremism: My right to say abhorrent things | The Economist.

the real nuggets here are in the linked research and the robin hanson posting which is referenced in the body of the article. both are worth the read. in short, hanson surmises that you have a lot fewer opinions than you think and that a lot of shit is just made up on the fly.

personally, this reinforces the notion that you have to work really hard to avoid confirmation bias. the knee jerk reaction being to simply ack what you’re surrounded with or you’re brought up with or what you surmise is the right solution. subjecting information to scrutiny, and your opinions as well, is hard. further, it’s consistently uncomfortable.

perhaps a better (but psychologically more difficult) response is to just say, “i don’t know.”

i wonder how much better off we’d be if we just copped to our individual and collective ignorance and thought really hard about stuff before opening our word holes.

if you’re physical about your cooking this is the only way to make brussel sprouts.

tools

• cast iron frying pan (what? you don’t have one of these? WTF is wrong with you? go get one and come back when you’ve come to your senses)
• tongs
• stovetop capable of getting that frying pan really hot

ingredients

• brussel sprouts – 1-3 lbs.
• kosher salt
• pepper
• chili powder
• onion sliced – 1 large
• garlic sliced (4 cloves)
• walnuts
• olive oil
• dijon mustard (optional)

instructions

1. clean and halve the brussel sprouts. halving them is important
2. get that frying pan hot, like really frickin’ hot, but not so hot that your oil smokes
3. pour in enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the frying pan
4. put a layer of brussel sprouts in the pan, cut face down
5. let the brussel sprouts sear
6. liberally salt and pepper the sprouts while cooking
7. add onions and garlic
8. let onions soften and start to scorch
9. add walnuts
10. toss the whole concoction with a few passes of chili powder
11. if stuff falls out of the frying pan, STFU and eat it.
12. when the mixture has reached the appropriate level of badass sear remove from heat and serve with dijon mustard on the side
13. evaluate offers of baby-daddy-hood from consumers of these sprouts

additional notes

i will acknowledge that it is indeed possible to improve upon this recipe through the judicious application of bacon. however, bacon use is widely regarded as cheating.