Book Review #18

RuleBook for argument
Anthony Weston

By chance, I picked this book up at a college bookstore. I was just shopping for the regular textbook, and I saw this little book. I was intrigued, and picked it up. In truth, I have learned all the rules described in the book, except I didn't have names to them. This book not only outlines the logic behind the rules, but also the fallacies that people use to fool you.

Nowadays, everytime somebody used any of the fallacies, instead of commenting and explaining their errors, which can take a while and may involve heated words, I simply say, for example, "ad populus" or "ad hominem" or "circular reasoning." And unless the other person corrects the error, I always leave the conversation. It has save me a lot of time in avoiding wasteful conversations with idiots.

The book was out of print for a while. I'm glad that the book has gone at least four printings, with the latest including a small treatment for the internet generation. I have since found that the wikipedia has a much more comprehensive set of logical rules and fallacies, but this book remains the gold standard not only in what it includes, but also what it excludes. It has that magic balance of not too much, not too little. Highly recommended.

Cooking Journal #18

Chicken Leg and Thigh

I usually cook my rice with hot dogs. However, I do like to get fancy from time to time. So, I'd go to the local supermarket and raid their chicken section. I usually grab their legs and thigh section. In the old days, I'd grab their boneless breast section. Nowadays, though, after reading Modernist Cuisine, I decided that cooking bone-in is the way to go!

It's a simple enough deal to cook these. Once the oil is warmed up in the pan, I set it to medium, and put a leg and a thigh into it. Wait 20 minutes, and turn them over. Wait another 10 minutes, and take the leg out. Wait another 10-15 minutes and take the thigh out. Total time: 25-30 minutes for the leg. 40-45 minutes for the thigh.

The only problem with this is that last 5 minutes. I have to watch over them. I have the pan with glass lid, so I can actually watch them fry. However, I still go by smell.

The end result is delicious! Not as good as KFC, because I simply don't care about spices, but the meat is tender and juicy. Just the right amount of cooking.

Nintendo Journal #18

Dremel Tool

Dremel tool turns out to be very useful and versatile. On the other hand, unless your craft projects includes sanding and cutting, it has limited usage. I'm going to try and see if I can do some craft projects with it. Mostly trying to make a case with Raspberry Pi, though. We'll see.

Petit Computer Journal #18

Letter from Japan

Remember last time I told you about Coral Maze being nominated in the competition? Well, I have a nice surprise in that I got a package from Japan via Air Mail! It's from SmileBoom sending all of us nominee a nice care package for being nominated.

It has some stickers, a CD, a nice letter. The picture above is an illustration on how the selection is done: By RANDOM! (not really).

Apparently, entries that aren't nominated only receive the stickers, and no CD. I saw the award ceremony on YouTube. It's pretty fun, but really, I don't speak Japanese. Still, the fun spirit is there, and I appreciate the letter very, very much!

Raspberry Pi Journal #18

Installing MTPAINT

After my disastrous experience with GIMP, I tried a different tack. I downloaded mtpaint.

sudo apt-get install mtpaint

And it installed no problem. I see mtPaint under Graphics menu. So I set out to use it. It's pretty simple to use.

Oh, look! Colors! I can do coloring with this program! Okay, so maybe that's not a big deal, but I was having trouble with GIMP, remember?

And adding text is not a problem either. Looks like I mastered this program already, and it's not even 15 minutes. That's my kind of program!

Now that I've done experimenting, let's see if we can do something nice. Let's put a picture on an AbiWord document. Create new picture.

Do a quick classical masterpiece. Add some text. Put colors in. All in all, a great and wonderful new art work. Done in less than 5 minutes! What a deal!

There it is in AbiWord. Looks like adding a picture is not a problem at all. There's only one thing to do now, and that is print it out.

Ta-da! That's how I want it done. Too bad my laser printer isn't color, but I don't expect miracles. There's always crayon if I want color, right?

Adding picture to word processor: Done!