I ordered 2 Burning Man tickets. They recently arrived and it had an Atomic Fireball in the envelope. I love the sentiment, thank you!
It would be much appreciated if I had received one Fireball per ticket. That way, both my partner and I could have our Fireballs. Last year I ordered two tickets and received just one Fireball as well.. :-(
You spent the effort (and used that big envelope) to include a Fireball, having one per ticket is only right. :-)
Here was the response from Frog at Burning Man
Hi Lee. The secure mailing option as required by the post office says we need to have our envelopes 3/4 inch thick so your package can be signed for. We thought it would be fun to send something useful that keeps the envelope 3/4 inch thick for the post office requirements, but we found that if we sent more than one fireball the flap on the envelope has a tendency to come open and tickets have been stolen in the mail. So, as much as we want to make people happy by sending a piece of candy to each and every one of you, we would rather you have your tickets safe and sound.
I did a little digging and.. yup, the least expensive way to send a letter that requires signature confirmation at the receiving end is to make sure the letter is at least 3/4″ thick. That way you can call it “First Class Package” and get Signature Confirmation service for $2.20. Total price for a 3 oz letter is under $4. Otherwise, you’d have to use Priority Mail with Signature Confirmation for $7.15.
So it looks as though if you give USPS a letter that can’t be machine sorted, it’s less expensive than if it’s machine sortable. Hmm.
worked for Rich H all day. We figured out the majority of running an LDAP server for user authentication (it’s amazing how something so straightforward can be so convoluted!)
This evening
had a good conversation with Charlotte
and with SWARM..
picked up a shelving unit that Erik S donated to SWARM (and had an adventure “stealing” it back from its former basement home
chatted up about robots with my SWARMie friends
helped install lighting Michael donated to SWARM for the container. It looks great!
installed the shelf in the container. It’s amazing how much stuff fits on a shelf :-)))
made some hooks with Jon to hang stuff on the walls of the container.
Last night I picked up my phone and pushed the Menu button. The phone flickered on for a split second and then fell dead black. The phone was completely unresponsive. I googled a bit and found a reset command: Hold down the power button and Menu button for 6 full seconds.
The phone came back to life. But hmm… every phone call I made today had poor cell phone reception :-(((. I uninstalled all the apps I had installed over the last couple days just in case those contributed to the problem. Those programs include: Falling Balls, UStream Viewer, PAC-MAN Lite, and iEphemeris Lite.
I tried pushing that reset sequence again today and the iPhone crashed or something such that it said that it would only make emergency calls. I left the phone off for 1/2 an hour while I went shopping (rather miffed and paniced that my expensive toy might be broken), turned it on again and it gave me a message like “iPhone activated [Ok]”. And now it seems to work fine.
Tiltshift photography is so super-nifty! It, of course, reminds me of so many old Japanese monster movies done with models and incorrect camera lenses. Tiltshiftmaker.com applies a filter to your images to make a nice tiltshift effect. To do the real thing you need to build yourself a tilt-shift camera.
Here is my new favorite bread recipe. I started with the Best Recipe recipe for “Rustic Bread” and simplified it because I’m lazy. It comes out terrific.
It takes less than 5 minutes work. Yes, really.
Put 6 cups all purpose flour, 2 tsp salt, 3 tsp yeast in big bowl
Mix
Add 2 3/4 c water or so. 2.5 – 3.0 cups is fine
Mix with one hand until it’s gloopy, about 2 minutes. No, don’t kneed it
Cover the bowl with aluminum foil for 2 hrs in a warm place
Flour a baking sheet
Grab 1/2 the dough and plop it on the pan
Roll it around a tiny bit so it looks more like a loaf
Grab the other half of the dough and do the same
Turn on the oven to 450
When the oven comes up to temperature (10-20 minutes) put the pre-bread in
Take out the finished bread 45 minutes later
Eat it!
Here is “Bread Making Level 2”. If you want a really nice thick crust do this:
Put a heavy, oven safe pan in the oven below the bread. (cast iron is good)
Just before you put the pre-bread into the oven, pour some boiling water in the pan
The steam will give the bread a thick “meaty” crust.
That recipe comes from Cook’s Illustrated’s “Best Recipe” cookbook. It’s a rustic country bread recipe. I find it interesting that, first, one can distill their full-page recipe down to this, and second, this excellent recipe is so gosh darn simple.
Here are some comments on the recipe:
Yes, I just mix it until it’s goopy, like 3 minutes of stirring with one hand in a bowl. The dough will be very wet and it sticks to everything. There’s no point in getting any utensils all gooped up. And I didn’t “work” the dough at all.
There’s all kinds of yeast treatments, like letting it develop for days on end, sourdough starter and the like. I guess they do a little something but feh, just add yeast. And I’ve seen all kinds of yeast: instant, nearly instant, super instant, wet, slimy, goopy. I’ve never tasted or witnessed much of a difference. I used Fleishmann’s #2139 Instant Dry Yeast in a 1 lb vacuum sealed bag.
