Author: JP

Musing about food and diet

I love food. I was brought up in a home where we really enjoyed eating, aided and abetted by our having fairly good metabolisms. I learnt to cook at an early age: early dishes were concentrated around potatoes, chillies, eggs and onions, all of which i still love. Over the years I’ve learnt to experiment more and more, and today I’d feel confident about cooking most things. With some glaring exceptions, of course. I couldn’t cook pasta to save my life, just never been interested; and the same goes for most puddings or desserts. That’s a bit strange I know, I can’t quite figure out why: I enjoy eating pasta, I enjoy eating puddings, it’s just something about them that makes me not enjoy cooking them. So I don’t.

The years have been kind to me; I’ve had a good constitution and largely been well; I’ve had jobs that have allowed me to travel and sample foods from many nations; and I’ve been able to afford to go to many restaurants and meet many chefs, really engage them in conversation, learn from them. At least one of them, Richard Corrigan, I count as a personal and close friend; he is just such a fantastic cook and such a nice man. If you haven’t been to Lindsay House…… more of that later.


More recently, what with the heart attack last December, the weight loss that followed, the pharmacological and lifestyle responses needed, the weight gain that followed, I’ve been needing to think harder about weight and diet and nutrition. And in that frame of mind I came across this photoset:

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I am told the photos are taken from a book called Hungry Planet: What The World Eats, which you can buy here. My thanks to the authors and photographers for making the set available. Really made me think about what I eat, above and beyond what nutritionists or dietitians have told me.

What do you think?

Of sacred cows and barbecues

I’ve maintained for years that the core of my understanding of opensource came not from Richard Stallman or Eric Raymond but Jerry Garcia, that my understanding of open markets and democratised innovation came not from Yochai Benkler or Eric von Hippel but Jerry Garcia and his cronies. It goes beyond pure opensource, I think my understanding of the Because Effect was also stimulated by Garcia and by the Grateful Dead. Their commitment to live performances, the very concept of taping rows, the sheer size of the bootleg market for Dead recordings, all these bear powerful witness to my thesis. In fact, trivial as it may sound, my collection of over 50 Jerry Garcia ties is probably another simple example of the Because Effect. [If you want to know more about the Dead’s taping rows, you could do worse than start with this book.]

Bearing all that in mind, I was sure to take delight in this poster:

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My thanks to Paul Downey for the poster. You should really go to his flickr site and view the poster there, tags and all. Tag by tag.

I spent quite a while gently navigating the poster, viewing the tags that came up, occasionally doing myself an injury as I sought to harrumph away my laughter and continue sipping my green tea. There’s probably something there, within the intricacy of the poster, to raise an objection from pretty much every person who reads this post. I’ve rarely seen such an open barbecuing of sacred cows. Delightful, helps me remember not to believe in my own propaganda.

I also love the tagline.

The Web is agreement.

My thanks again to Paul.

Of bridges and troubled water

Would you believe this? I find it fascinating. Particularly when you consider that we only hear of successful experiments, that there must have been a deluge of failures before this. “So what did you do at work today, Daddy?” “I tried to make a bridge out of water, between two beakers, by shocking the water in the beakers.” 

Stuff I’m reading, part 142857

I’m really enjoying reading quite an unusual book right now: Maynard & Jennica, written by Rudolph Delson. I’d never heard of the book or the author before; I’d stumbled across it while looking for Mark Andrejevic’s iSpy while shopping at the MIT Coop bookstore earlier this week. And the reason why I went looking for iSpy? I’d seen a recommendation by Daniel Solove somewhere or the other, while researching him as part of re-reading The Digital Person. I’d strongly recommend all three books, actually.

Why do I like Maynard and Jennica so much? I guess I’m a sucker for well-written monologue and dialogue, particularly where there’s a fresh voice. Delson manages much more than that, there are so many narrators, each with a rich and distinct voice, you lose count after a while. Every voice stands out. Delightful. Thank you Rudolph Delson.

What else am I reading?

Queenpin by Megan Abbott : Never heard of her before, picked up while meandering around a bookstore in Coronado Island. Picked up as a result of reading cover reviews by Ken Bruen and Allan Guthrie, two authors I like. Unstarted.

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami: Heard about the film, haven’t watched it though. Wanted to read the book, took time for me to find a decent English translation. Started, unusual, a bit stilted so far.

The Creation by E.O. Wilson: Been reading Wilson ever since he got into Consilience. Read this before, gently re-reading it.

The Design of Future Things by Donald A Norman. Read the predecessor Everyday many times, didn’t know he’d brought a sequel out, looking forward to reading it properly on the plane to Denver en route Defrag. Skimmed once.

The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz. Again a “directed” pick at the Coronado Island bookstore. Picked based on reading cover reviews by Robert Crais and Dennis Lehane. Unstarted.

Code Version 2.0 by Larry Lessig. Read the original, not had time to read the updated edition, now reading it.

[An aside. Why part 142857? Well, 0.142857 (recurring) is the decimal representation of 1/7; I should really have a dot over the one and the seven in the decimal part, but I can’t find a way of doing it. It’s what is called a “circulating decimal”, as opposed to a “terminating” decimal or a “recurring” decimal; so, for example, 2/7 is 0.285714, 3/7 is 0.428571, and so on. The same six digits, gently moving around. Circulating.

Circulating decimals are strange beasts. If you take the string 142857 for example, you get some very unusual behaviours. 14 plus 28 plus 57 equals 99. 142 plus 857 equals 999. 1 plus 4 plus 2 etc etc equals 9. You get my drift.

The length of the circulating string of numbers, as in 0.142857, is called its period; so 1/7 is a circulating decimal with a period of 6.  There are many circulating decimals. For example, 1/97 is a circulating decimal, with a period of 96.

A nested aside: You may enjoy proving to yourself that you cannot have a circulating decimal with a period equal to or greater than the denominator of the fractional representation.]

Freewheeling about Facebook news feeds

I’ve been very taken with what the people at School of Everything are doing, so much so I had to meet the people behind it; we had dinner together some weeks ago, and I’m convinced they’re really on to something. More on this later, or as they say Watch This Space.

How did I come across them? Through Seedcamp, which I heard about via Facebook, more particularly  as a result of things said on news feeds by Saul Klein and Sean Park, two people whose opinions I trust.

So where was I? Oh yes, meeting Mary Harrington and Paul Miller and Dougald Hine for dinner. One thing led to another, and Facebook relationships were established. As one does.

And that meant their antics now appeared on my news feed. Which is how I came across this video of the Long Johns, posted by Paul earlier today. A fine subprime cut indeed. Enjoy! And my thanks to Paul.

I think people underestimate the value of personalised news feeds of the Facebook variety; they are simple and effective tools to apply a form of collaborative filter on the torrents of information that flow by.