CrookedHouse http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/ What happens in the Crooked House. en Copyright 2013 Sun, 14 May 2006 12:08:01 -0600 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.31-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Knives I have a knife set and it generally works well for me. The cooks knife though, could be sharper, have a better shape. This has led me to look for alternatives. First I tried a Japanese cooks knife. It works different than the German knife I started with, in some ways nicer, in some ways not. It too could be sharper. Both those knives are made of stainless steel which just won't take a really sharp edge. People like them though because they look good and require little maintenance.

I want to try a carbon steel knife. They are hard to find. No local store has one. On the web I see some Sabatier knives, and in some of the food fora folks talk with fondness about their old French Sabatier blades. Solutions? Get a Sabatier knife.

Not so fast. What is a Sabatier knife? Some vendors talk like there is only one, but I have found the truth not so simple.

]]> http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/2006/05/knives.html http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/2006/05/knives.html Cooking Sun, 14 May 2006 12:08:01 -0600 The College of Continuing Education Sucks The College of Continuing Education Sucks. I paid them thousands of dollars for a course on UNIX system administration and C/C++ programming. I was out of work at the time and wanted a certificate telling potential employers that I knew at least a little about the work I was applying for. The class was half administration and half programming. The administration portion was competently taught, but on obsolete (SCO) software. Ok, UNIX is UNIX, even if it is a few years out of date. The programming half of the class, however, was taught by a math professor from the University of St. Cloud who barely knew C and knew less about C++. And UNIX completely baffled him. After an initial attempt to work with UNIX, he tried to teach the class UNIX programming on Microsoft Windows. This made me unhappy. I complained to the program administrator and asked for a refund. He refused. He did offer to let me repeat the course, but by then I had gotten a job (no thanks to that program) and didn't have two months to devote to what may too have been a waste of time.

Oh, did I mention that the cce.umn.edu Sucks?

]]> http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/2006/05/the_college_of_continuing_education_sucks.html http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/2006/05/the_college_of_continuing_education_sucks.html Life Thu, 11 May 2006 21:02:21 -0600 Sad Non-memories Years ago I was in line to check out at a department store and a man came up to me and said "Hi! We used to go to junior high school together. We were inseparable. Best Friends! I lost track of you when you moved away. Tell me everything."

His face rapidly moved from joy to confusion to anguish as he realized that I didn't recognize him.

In fact, I had no idea who he was. He obviously did know me. I believed him that we were buddies in junior high. Realizing that made me a bit sad that my weird memory had cost me a part of my past, but what really got me was the pain in that man's face.

I discovered a few years ago that I have a ... well a neurological difference. One manifestation of that difference is a weird memory. I can remember some things, I can't remember others. It doesn't seem to matter how important the remembered events, things, people were. Maybe I remember, maybe I don't. It doesn't really hurt me, except for a vague sense of loss. But it obviously can hurt others.

]]> http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/2006/05/sad_nonmemories.html http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hokan/crookedhouse/2006/05/sad_nonmemories.html Life Wed, 10 May 2006 19:41:38 -0600