• I have smoked ribs about four times in the last couple years. I’ve been fortunate enough to have my father’s MasterBuilt smoker. It is a box about the size of a dorm fridge, and can readily smoke two racks, each…

  • I turned the freezer up to 7. I’m sure yours goes to 11, but I am not so lucky. After being turned up to 7, the resulting mean temperature is still too high at 18.8°F. And with that, we bid…

  • The last few weeks our ice cream sandwiches have been awful. I’m throwing away ice cream sandwiches, and I’m only marginally pickier than my dog. They’ve been gummy, almost squishy. We have been suspicious of the refrigerator since we smelled…

  • Evidence is mounting that closing the blinds can reduce the rate of heat decline—at least when the wind is mostly still. The figure compares the heat loss rate to the indoor-outdoor contrast. Higher rates are bad. Closing the blinds keeps…

  • I’ve been collecting various sets of data with my Arduino-based RIMU.1 environmental data logger. In particular, I have seven nights worth of overnight records showing both indoor and outdoor temperatures. The data were all taken with the recorder in the…

  • Since the RIMU’s creation I’ve logged two noteworthy data sets along with several that are not yet ripe for sharing. I logged the refrigerator’s internal temperature overnight (using the thermistor) and I logged the oven’s internal temperature for a few…

  • I don’t remember where I first heard of the Arduino programmable microcontroller platform. An Arduino Uno, the variant I have, is about the size of a box of Altoids mints. It has a port to receive DC power, a USB…

  • In San Francisco, on the wharf, you can buy a hollowed-out loaf of sourdough bread, filled with New England style clam chowder. You can buy it from street vendors, or sit down in a restaurant and eat it. Sourdough and…

  • I have been trying to organize my collections photos. One key part of that is transferring content into the computer where tagging, captioning, and annotation is easy. Getting the photos into the computer satisfactorily has proven to be a challenge.…

  • Tonight we made a sushi dinner, and for the first time included kid-specific items. I used sweetened egg, tamago, sheet cut and pressed with rice in cookie cutters. We made stars and sushi boys. They love the California rolls, shrimp…

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