Cooking Journal #6

Chicken Nugget

Well, if you're like me, you probably like to eat chicken nuggets. Truthfully, I don't cook them all that often. Too much hassle! Still, from time to time, it's okay.

And it's not that big of a deal. I simply slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces and deep fry them. What I like to do is do it on medium heat. This particular batch was actually done on low heat. The chicken brown fine, but they came out dry. Very dry.

The heat convection will need to penetrate the meat, so be careful that you cook it all the way through. Low heat yields nice, well-cooked chicken, but unless you do sous-vide, it's best to use medium heat. That way, the meat outside will be nice and crispy, while the meat inside is still tender and juicy.

Another thing, is that I didn't put anything on the meat. Just the chicken and the cooking oil. You can see that I put enough oil to cover the meat. And I have a special drying rack for the meat to drip free of oil. So, the sensation is pure. I understand that people, in general, would prefer condiment to go along with it. If you go to some fast food restaurant, then you have some idea what kind. I usually go with BBQ sauce, although Sriracha is plenty good also.

Misc #1

Miscellaneous #1

If you have been following my blog for a while, you see that my posts are rather uneven. This makes it hard for you to follow my posts. The only regular schedule that I have is Cooking. I post them every Sunday. Well, no more! I'm now going to post them every Monday.

The reason is that I do my cooking on my "rest" day, which is Sunday. So, I thought that it would be natural for me to post them on Sunday. Except, it isn't. So, I will be doing special cooking on Sunday, and post them on Monday. That way, if you're like me, and do your special cooking on Sunday, you'll have the whole week to prepare.

Another thing that I want to do is to start making regular schedules on features. This means that specific topics will get specific days. I have the mnemonic done:

Meal Monday: Cooking
Tech Tuesday: Raspberry Pi + other project
Write Wednesday: How tos
Review thuRsday: Review books (movies?)
Fun Friday: Petit Computer Journal and other gaming.
Super Scramble Saturday: News, Nintendo, and other extras

I'm leaving Sunday out, as it is my rest day. My day to do nothing. I'm thinking of making it Sermon Sunday, though. Currently undecided since all my preaching stuff goes to ramstrong blogspot. But that may change in the future.

You haven't yet seen my How-tos. That will change soon.

The only problem I have is time. How am I supposed to keep up with all these postings every week? I may not be able to keep it up every day, but what that means, is if I can't, then that day will be skipped. I will post ETAs in the directories, so you can check the directory pages if some more entries are incoming.

Book Review #3

Algorithms in C++

Robert Sedgewick

This is a very old copy of the book. Robert (Bob) Sedgewick has been writing this book in various languages over the years. Some of them are rather thick! The one copy I have is an old, out-of-print hardcover edition, Algorithms in C++.

How old is the book? The book came out when C++ has just come into being. The majority of computer programmer were still using plain old C. The programs in the book are written in C. Only the data structure is written in C++ format. The year was 1992.

I like to think of it as the layman's guide to Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming books. Every time I read Donald's book, my mind went blank. The farthest I can read was 5 pages. That was on bubble sort algorithm, a subject in which I know intimately. Obviously, the professor has his head in academia world, because the rest of us do not read or write like that! Thankfully, Robert Sedgewick distilled the essence of it, and put forth the content the rest of us can decipher.

I have read a few more algorithm books, but I think this one stands a mention. The rest pales in comparison. If you have this book, and supplement it with special purpose procedure/math formulas book, then you should be prepared for most eventualities.

You do need to know C, but I assume those of you who knows C, Objective C, C++, C#, and other C variants will have no trouble understanding it.

Unlike, say, a special-purpose, non-existent, artificial assembly language. Really. I think it's easier to teach the readers the whole C language, than reading a single program written in assembly language.

Raspberry Pi Journal #29

BASH Scripting

As you may know, Python is the officially supported programming language of Raspberry Pi. What you may not know is that the Raspbian shell is bash, Born/Bourne Again Shell. Bash is a more sophisticated version of sh. There is also csh, and other flavor, if you're interested.

That's why, you frequently see "#!" shebang format for script language. That has special meaning to run the program specified and feed it the content of the file. That's right. A Python script is just a program that interprets the file's content. Pretty convenient, eh?

So, what does that have to do with bash? If you're used to Windows shell, probably not much. But if you look at the documentation for bash, man bash, you'll see that it is rather involved.

Shell scripting isn't strictly computer programming, although the nuance may be lost to inexperienced coder. If you know Perl, that language was designed to act as a glue language for various programs. So, the relationship would be bash-perl-program.

And Perl is very convenient to use. I use it a lot in the past. However, sometimes you don't need the full brunt of full-featured scripting language. bash is a viable lightweight alternative.

I'm not that good of a coder with bash. Still, it is something you should learn. There was a job description that says something like:

The applicant must know Unix shell programming, but sufficiently advanced enough to realize that it is not an achievement.

In other words, shell scripting is not a proper computer programming. It is a "convenient" tool.

Let me just point to you a nice resource that I found on the web, and I happily read it. I hope you do too.

http://tille.garrels.be/training/bash/

You need to know Linux already, but for those of you who do, this is a great resource.

Raspberry Pi Journal #28

Trademark Rule

If you noticed, the Raspberry Pi directory page now sports the disclaimer that Raspberry Pi trademark is owned by the Foundation. It's actually common sense, but just to clarify, this site is not affiliated with the Foundation in any way, and the posts here are my posts. So, any mistakes I made here is my responsibility. What goes on this are strictly my opinion, etc.

The full trademark rule can be found here:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/trademark-rules

I'm at odds here. It's too inconvenient for me to put the disclaimer on every Raspberry Pi posts, and yet, this blog has more with common, everyday, accessible technology than focusing entirely on Raspberry Pi. How else do you think Cooking is included?

In the end, I decided to just apply it to Raspberry Pi specific page, and that is the directory page. I hope that is enough.

Come to think of it, there is a rule that says:

(ii)         use the Raspberry Pi Word Mark as part of the domain name for your website;

And there are actually several web/blog sites that does feature the word "raspberrypi". The obvious one would be

http://www.theraspberrypiguy.com/

who did several excellent video tutorials regarding the device, but no trademark disclaimer anywhere.

Anyway, I hope I make it clear that I'm not affiliated with the Foundation in any way, except as a happy customer.

Nintendo Journal #6

Does it matter if you're black or white?

Raspberry Pi Journal #27

Cheap Transparent Case

I was browsing the web when I ran into a description on how you get those tupperware as cheap Raspberry Pi container. Well, I think I did well. This is one of those removable sticker case. They come in all sizes, and are usually too small. However, this reload pack is a perfect fit!