• 7 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 12th, 2023

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  • Wait, so if I were to import a csv with data that would normally be interpreted as a date by excel, but preceded that data with an apostrophe, it would still recognize that as a date? I’ve never tested this, so I’m not sure.

    Relatedly, I know someone who was working some ssn data. Unfortunately, if an SSN started with a 0, it would drop that 0. It was a mess for them. I think there was a recent release that allowed you to not ignore leading 0’s.







  • Last night, I watched Chinese Cooking Demystified’s most recent video where they trace the history of mapo tofu to the best of their abilities. It was a fascinating watch where they had a particular recipe incarnation that defied their old definition of proper mapo tofu. At the end of the video they note how it’s transformed over the years noting that there’s an obsession these days for an authentic way of preparing dishes often using this point as a reason to criticize a dish. They aren’t against criticizing a dish, but call for specific ciriticisms such as flavor balance or shape which is important in Chinese cuisine.

    So I went looking though some critiques looking for something about how cream makes it too heavy or hides the flavor of this ingredient or that. What I found was something more exciting. This academic did a quick historical gloss of carbonara and found that several iterations of early carbonara included cream and other taboo ingredients like butter. It wasn’t standardized into its canonical form until the 1990s.

    Growing up in a traditional household, my parents never worked from recipes, but regularly made delicious dishes beloved by their friends and family members alike. Technique, ingredients, and interests ruled the day. Knowing how to bring out the flavors of the ingredients you had on hand to match each other made delicious food. And the lanes for dishes were much wider because the ingredient lists weren’t as rigid. Obviously, a biriyani without rice be confusing if you dared serve it. But do you need kokum or can you use lemon juice? Is a carbonara still a carbonara with cream, with bacon instead of guancole, vegetarian? I don’t know. Maybe I care less about the words coming out of my mouth than the food going in it.












  • I think every dad has this story. I remember having my boy talk at me for almost 10 hours straight. I was solo parenting during the pandemic. His mom got home, I served dinner, and he kept talking at me.

    Somewhere in my mind, I thought, “His mom’s home. He’ll talk to her.” Nope. I had a quiet explosion. My wife noticed and graciously turned conversation to her.

    With that said, several years later, it’s a delight to see how he’s piecing information together in meaningful, insightful, and surprising ways. Still obsessed about a few things, but more interesting observations.



  • I don’t know how you support the statement that “their first instinct was war, not trade”. Even the war you referenced was because trade negotiations broke down. For about 80 years they had been granted trading rights by the Mughal Empire. Skirmishes during that time were with other European powers and not with the Mughal Empire. What events transpired that support their role as colonists and not trade partners?

    My second issues is claiming that these activities were for the crown. They were not “founded to make it easier for the crown to colonize and control those colonies.” You are regularly ascribing intention to the founding by flattening activities across 100-150 years.