Italian Meat Sauce

Ingredients
2 Finely Chopped Onions
1 bottle Tomato Sugo (sp) or passatta (a type of Sauce made from blended tomatoes and almost nothing else)
500 grams Heart smart/premium grade beef mince
1 Can Italian tomatoes
2 Cloves Garlic

(Optional)
Mushrooms
Wine
Basil / Herbs

Method
1. Brown onions, garlic and meat in a large pot
2. Add a tin of Italian tomatoes and tomato Sugo
3. Add Optional extras
4. Cook the sauce down for a long time until thick enough to stick to pasta (an hour at least)


----------
To make this sauce good for Tacos, add Taco sauce mix (Old El Paso).

It is simple to make, tastes good and can be used in so many ways, on its own, in lasagne, tacos, a very long list.

Dads Pancakes

Source: The Commonsense Cookery Book

Ingredients
1 Cup Plain Flour
1 Egg
1 1/4 Cups Milk

Method
1. Sift flour and make a well in the middle
2. Break egg into the well and stir in some flour from the sides
3. Add milk a little at a time. When half of the milk is used all the flour must be moistened
4. Beat well to removed any lumps and make light
5. When quite smooth, add the remainder of the milk gradually
6. Mix until it is smooth
7. Pour onto a prepared frypan
8. Use an eggflip to loosen the edges and flip when bubbles no longer are showing at the top.
9. A quick flip onto the top will cook it through, put it onto a plate and serve immediately.

Serving suggestions
Maple Syrup
Sugar and Lemon


Serves 4 -6

My Dads apple sponge, the main reason for me writing these recipes out so that I can access them from anywhere. The recipe is simple, but easy to forget.
This recipe is also part of the reason that I have now purchased about 4 copies of "The Commonsense Cookery Book" including one in hardcover.
Source: The Commonsense Cookery Book

Recipe
--------------------------
Apple Sponge

Ingredients
6 Cooking Apples
1 cup Water
4 tablespoons Sugar
2 Cloves

Cake Mixture
2 tablespoons Butter
1/4 cup Sugar
1 Egg
2/3 cup Milk
3 drops Vanilla Essence
1 cup Self Raising Flour
Pinch Salt
Icing Sugar

Method
1. Have a moderate oven in readiness. (180 C)
2. Peel, quarter and core the apples.
3. Place in a saucepan with the Water, 4 tablespoons Sugar and Cloves
4. Cook until the Apples are tender.
5. Pour into an ovenproof dish.
6. Beat the butter and 1/4 cup sugar to a cream.
7. Add beaten Egg gradually, and beat until the mixture thickens.
8. Add Milk and Vanilla.
9. Sift Flour and Salt, stir in lightly and quickly.
10. Pour the mixture over the hot stewed apples.
11. Bake in a moderate oven (180 C), for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Optional Serving Advice
Sprinkle icing sugar on top
Serve with custard, cream or icecream.

--------------------------------------
It is best with Vanilla icecream, and still excellent the day after when cold and to be had as breakfast.

With the idea of posting recipes I have enjoyed (both to share and to have somewhere online for me to always be able to find them), I will be posting more as I find them and if they are really worth keeping forever and ever.
- Sidenote: Cilantro = Coriander
Original Website:
http://ourchocolateshavings.blogspot.com/2009/04/yogurt-spiced-chicken-with-cilantro-and.html


Recipe
----------------------------------------
Yogurt Spiced Chicken with Cilantro
2 skinless chicken breasts
1 cup of plain yogurt
1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
2 teaspoons of cumin seeds
1 tablespoon of grated ginger
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons of curry powder
2 teaspoons of kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 lime
1/4 cup of sour cream
A handful of cilantro, coarsely chopped
Naan bread

Toast the seeds in pan (without oil) and toss until fragrant. Then, grind the spices until you obtain a powder. Mix the yogurt, spices, ginger, garlic, curry powder salt and pepper in a bowl. Cut the chicken breasts into bite size cubes and add to the yogurt mixture. Toss to coat all the pieces, cover with plastic wrap and marinate for 2 hours.

Preheat your oven to 350F. Remove the chicken from the bowl, shaking off any excess marinade. Place the chicken on the grill sheet that goes in your oven, and place a an aluminum-lined sheet below (marinade will drip down as it cooks). Place the chicken in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Turn your oven to broil and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the chicken is golden brown and just cooked through.

Serve with warmed Naan bread, a dollop of sour cream, a good drizzle of fresh lime juice and garnish with a small handful of cilantro. Enjoy!

Just reading through the comments on a BBC article about file sharing/P2P and the internet. The comments are intelligent and speak a lot about the way I feel, and obviously most people.

This comment in particular I find fantastic

"I too would dispute the claims of damages and jobs losses put forward by the industry pundits. However the talk of damages is a bit like the talk of Iraq and and weapons of mass destruction. Even if there had been some weapons I think it would have still been wrong to go there. The point is that making war on the file sharers is not the solution and the various bodies are shooting themselves and the artists they claim to represent only in the leg by keeping this up. The P2P goes on because it is an unparalleled service. If I had access to all the TV shows/movies in the world for maybe $2-3 per TV episode w/o DRM, I might spend 500-1000 dollars per year on this. This is new business, money I would not spend on DVDs. I think DVDs and CDs clumsy things and don't want them but want access to the content and all of it and with no restrictions. Industry parcels access by country and by continent and they do not work together to create the services people want. People vote with their digital feet. "

If I could get pretty much any dvd/cd for $2-3 per episode, without DRM (possibly with the ability to download it again and have a list of my files stored at the place - AND it didn't count towards my download cap) I would spend a fair bit from something like that.

Well, it has been a while since my last post, things have been rather good although nothing really changing. But things are just about to get very busy.
Over the Easter weekend we will be moving house, everything will need to be moved and set up, things purchased and so on. I'm glad we have the holiday for it, should be enough time with no problems. Getting the heavy furniture up 3 flights of stairs could be interesting as well.
Jarrah desk will be the heaviest of all.

A few days after we move in my parents will be down in Perth as well, bringing a lot of their old stuff. Slightly more than a month after that we will be traveling over to Finland - and so far I haven't packed anything.
That's for this weekend.

I feel like my life has taken that big, deep breath before diving into cold waves. Should be interesting though.

- Past Gibber territory.

Meri, my girlfriend from Finland, has arrived and has been here for almost a month now. We are getting settled in and looking at getting our own place, still have the real estate agent to get back to us about it.
She is here for good and so far things are going well, we have gone to most of the touristy things I can think of, with the weather being what it is we haven't gone for long walks outdoors though.
- AQWA (really expensive, but she did get to pet a shark)
- Museum
- Kings Park (sunrise)
- City Beach (sunset)
- Fremantle markets
- Caversham Wildlife park (expensive also, but they have a kangaroo enclosure that you can go into and pet them, its pretty good)
- Perth Zoo

hmm, thats all that I can think of for the moment. It is a very different type of feeling, to live with someone. To live in the same house, to see them every day, every night.
It is good though.

That is all, saying any more and I will start to gibber.
Tomorrow should be interesting.

Australian Internet Censorship is starting, pilot testing of six ISPs
Primus Telecommunications, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1.


"The live pilot will provide evidence on the real-world impacts of ISP content filtering, including for providers and internet users. It will provide evidence to assist the Government in the implementation of its policy."

Testing with each ISP will take place for a minimum six weeks once filtering equipment has been obtained and installed. It will look at the efficiency and effectiveness of a range of technical solutions, as well as other issues such as the ease of circumvention, impact on internet speeds and user experience.

Customers of participating ISPs will be able to choose whether they want to be included in the pilot trial (note: all WebShield customers already receive a filtered service).

ISPs were invited to put forward proposals to participate in two pilot streams:

* Filtering the ACMA blacklist of prohibited URLs.
* Filtering the ACMA blacklist of prohibited URLs, as well as additional content filtering solutions that may be offered as optional services by ISPs.

http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/005



So, it seems that there are only 5 ISPs that are actually going to be having it put on them, with webshield already having some level of filtering. Of those five they get to pick if they want the minimal blacklist, or the proposed filtering. Oh, and its Opt-In.

I can almost already see the results, happily tailored to say that there is minimal disturbance and very few complaints on some of the filtering tests, and so it would be a great idea to put all of the filtering in place, plus some more.



rant
and check your mail as well, .. and your phone ... you now need to give your citizen number if you want to call an adult phone number, or anything to do with that side of things, maybe even certain grocery stores, just to be sure. Oh, and pharmacies, they sell adult things too. This will Definately solve all of our problems.
/rant

But the point is that it isn't a good test, any more than the trial filters they had before that blocked at least 1% of valid sites and let through a reasonably large amount of unwanted material.


http://www.primus.com.au/PrimusWeb - Opt in


http://www.omniconnect.com.au/ - Can't find anything on their website about the filtering
http://www.tech2u.com.au/ - Can't find anything on their website about the filtering

http://www.netforce.com.au - Can't even see that they offer internet except maybe after digging a bit, and even then I can't find any idea of costs, provisions or anything else. I don't even know if this is the right website. Also, no information about filtering.

http://www.highway1.com.au/ - Also no information about the filtering.

So, if it is all opt-in, there aren't going to be a whole lot of people that know about it, and anyone that does opt in is going to want themselves to be filtered. Maybe they can't control what they look at with a google search?

Now my search results have spam.
Its ugly and stupid, the quality of results from my google account compared to when I'm not signed in is amazing.
Searching for google earth and I find about 7 web results that most definitely are not what i'm looking for.
Wikipedia articles have also been hijacked and put up by places with urls such as
"www.dealgrabberau.com/fuel-efficient-cars.html"

The google earth search result is 19, just above "GTA 4 Liberty City Map"


Even searching for wikipedia ...
The url for the english wikipedia en.wikipedia.org doesn't come up, nor the wikipedia.org url - at least not within the first 70 results.
Simple English was shown at the 8th result, but is different to the English Wikipedia.

I would like it if there was some way to cut out the crap for everyone. "giftbazaar.com.au/valentine+gifts" is not going to be wikipedia, and I would like to see them punished for it.

My Political Views
I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 6.2, Libertarian: 1.84

Political Spectrum Quiz



My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -5.44

Political Spectrum Quiz



My Culture War Stance
Score: -5.74

My family cat was put down on Friday.

Katty, 1990 - 2009

She will be missed.

With advances in science and robotics, I was wondering if your arm had been removed by a horrible accident/disease etc etc. You have the option of a robotic arm or an arm that will be grown for you.
If the robotic arm was lighter and stronger, would you take it?

For myself, I think I would, provided it had the feedback to let me feel as well as I can with my normal arm.

Listening to the chasers and stumbling around on the internet, I hear and find interesting bits of information, curious about the coverage by Fox news I googled for it, found on google video a movie called "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism".

It is pretty scary stuff. A popular media outlet being so one sided.
Might be an idea to watch it to be aware of what might happen here.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428

It is a movie, and it is a little political. Interesting though.
Hearing about the stuff that goes on... sometimes it is hard to believe it is real.

10 If you have Firefox, get Stumble Upon.
20 If you don't have Firefox, get Firefox. goto 10


http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/ComputersCantThink.txt

While stumbling online, I found this interesting text document. It is long and probably not going to hold the interest of anyone unless they find AI or psychology interesting. It is a document on the ways we think and how we might make generalized AI.
It brought me to thinking of what might happen in the future, where AI becomes so much a part of how humans think that the existence of a human born and bred without AI would be surprising.

Could be an interesting sci-fi novel.


In other news, I have 40 days to go until a rather special event. Just in case anyone is wondering what that is, I am not going to be a father and I am going to be staying in the country.

Realising that one of the hardest problems about the internet is that you have everything at your fingertips, but no real way to tell what is better or worse. I have made a list of links that contain things I find interesting

Tech articles and News
Wired
http://www.wired.com/

Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/


Thought provoking videos
FORA
http://fora.tv/

TED
http://www.ted.com/ << Technology, Entertainment, Design. Absolutely excellent.

Google Tech Talks
http://research.google.com/video.html
These range from better speaking and interaction with an audience to nuclear fusion designs, the talks are given at google, last for about an hour and are quite interesting in most cases.

The TED talks I especially recommend, they are about 20 minutes long and they never feel like there is quite enough time for the talk, the speakers are entertaining and the ideas are good.



Podcasts
TWIS
This Week in science
http://www.twis.org/
Keeps me up to date with science stuff I don't hear about through Slashdot.



Enjoy
I can't think of anywhere else for the moment, but if anyone can think of something to add, drop it in the comments please

As a side note, I recommend to Everyone - Get Firefox, Get Stumble Upon, regardless of if you are interested in science/tech there are sites you wont know about unless you manage to get them, stumble upon lets you find other places that other people have liked and is one of the best ways that i know to find good content.

If you have been reading or keeping up to date with Australias Internet Censorship, then you will know it isn't all milk and cookies. A blog was set up, possibly to put a spin on the censorship issues and to act as a bit of a press release... from the 9th to the 24th was the life of the blog, or more importantly, the comments.

Within less than a month, from Blog Introduction
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_for_business/industry_development/digital_economy/future_directions_blog

To shutting it down for comments
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_for_business/industry_development/digital_economy/future_directions_blog/topics/thanks_and_so_long

Comments are going to be turned off after 3 pm.

I recommend that if you want to exercise free speach on the government website, to do it quickly before they take the option away.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122843683581681375-lMyQjAxMDI4MjA4NTQwMzU2Wj.html

A thought provoking article about drug prohibition, and its costs.

Personally, I think that drugs should be legalised, although as to what sort of restrictions to put on them... not sure.

Post comments

Why is Corinthians in the bible and treated like it is the word of god?

From reading the quick wikipedia article it seems like it is just the start of the church and not the word of god or the life of Jesus.

From BoingBoing.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

The article is long, and for all the bits about the quarterback problem, not overly interesting. But if you skip through them to just the bits about the teachers and finance areas then there are some good parts to it.

It sounds like there are some rather interesting problems, the difference between the quality of teaching between teachers and other professionals can be quite large, and this is what most of the article is about.
The suggestion is to have more people trying teaching because it is hard to know when you will have a good teacher, and when you will have a bad teacher, untill they are actually teaching. One of the problems with this though is that although it sounds great, it is a very difficult thing to do with the number of teachers needed.

I am looking forward to the day when we can get computers to help teach people to a high percentage of thier potential.


In a slightly unrelated question, what do people think about drugs to help mental abilities?
I heard a little while ago about scientists talking about lifting bans on drugs to help mental performance.