The Perfect 4th of July Mini-Burger
random July 1st, 2009
This really belongs over at http://phoneticsmellings.com, but I’m choosing to post it here, for no real reason.
Mini burgers are all the rage, and great for a 4th of July barbecue, or any time you’re having a bunch of people over. They cook fast, so you can get something in hungry peoples stomachs quickly, make more if need be, and even hold on to them if you don’t end up using it all. It’s also great for the inevitable “I’m craving a burger, but watching my red meat intake, so I don’t want to eat a whole one” guest.
Ingredients
1 lb ground beef. (80% lean is best, but you can use leaner if you like, just note the special instructions)
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon total of mustard or hot sauce (or 1/2 tablespoon of each)
2 cloves well minced garlic (or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder)
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon teriaki sauce
1/4 teaspoon savory
1/4 teaspoon dill
1/4 teaspoon pepper
12 pack King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls
What do I do with it?
Mix it all up. If you chose to use extra lean ground beef, you’ll want to add about 2 tablespoons of fresh bread crumbs to the mix. The best method is in a big bowl, digging in with your hands getting them nice and dirty. If you’re afraid of gunk, throwing it all in a gallon Ziplock bag and mashing it through the protective plastic works, and keeps you safe from amoebas.
Mash out (or roll out) the well mixed beef mixture into a rectangle a little bit larger than the size and shape of that 12-pack of rolls. They will be fairly thin, and don’t be surprised if they aren’t as “firm” as the burgers you usually make. Blame the egg for it, but note that they’ll cook up perfectly fine. Chop it up into 12 small burgers, and throw on the grill for about 3 minutes each side. They don’t take long, and try not to move them until its time to flip! With these burgers, you don’t even need any fixins, they’ll be nice and juicy and already seasoned, but some grilled onions go nicely with it, if you must.
Have a happy fourth of July everyone!
The iPhone is NOT a computer.
cell phone, development June 24th, 2009
The iPhone is NOT a computer.
The iPhone is NOT a computer.
I’d repeat it a few more times, but let me be perfectly clear: Comparing the iPhone to your home or office computer is a waste of time.
I see and hear thing like this constantly, and I’d like to address and put an end to some of them.
1) The iPhone is a mini-computer!
Sure. It is like a mini-computer. It has many of the capabilities that a computer has. It computes, and can run applications. However, this is true of Blackberry devices, Palm devices, and Windows Mobile devices. The multitasking capabilities of a Windows Mobile device bring it slightly closer to being a “computer”, but not quite far enough. The limitations place on all of these devices for either corporate or practical purposes still leave all of these devices to be one thing: A phone with advanced PDA features.
2) Software distribution for computers should be just like the iPhone app store!
No. Dear God, no. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, the app store is designed to deliver applications to a single type of device, running a single type of operating system. The app store build on the age old model of the software repository, which many linux distributions today follow. Sounds fantastic, right? It is.
Here’s the problem. Every single piece of software on that store is managed by Apple. Apple collects profits for every sale. They also have, under their sole discretion, the option to remove any piece of software from the store at any time. The store is censored, and does not allow for free (libre) knowledge, speech, or software. It is a backward step in software freedom, and a pain in the ass for developers. It has now been 2 weeks since submitting my first iPhone app, and it is not yet available, nor has their been any feedback yet. I could have been selling the same piece of software on my website for two weeks now if Apple allowed it.*
3) I can send e-mail, pictures, do calculations, schedule appointments….
If your iPod a computer? Most people would say no. The iPhone has a lot of great applications that take full use of the iPod Touch system. Did you know that nearly the only difference between the iPod Touch and the iPhone is the wireless radio, and phone application that go along with it? I have a Windows Mobile phone (that I hate), and it does a lot more than the iPhone ever could (including multi-tasking). I would never even consider to say that it’s a “tiny computer”… Yet it has Office Mobile, Google Maps, and many other usefull applications.
It is however, a phone. A telephone. A telephone with a lot of useful features. Just like the iPhone.
* Apple does allow this. It’s in a little footnote like this, they charge $300 a year for the right to do so, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single iPhone owner that knows about it.
PHP Elapsed Time Function
development June 19th, 2009
After a time searching the internet, I couldn’t find a good function to return “human” elapsed time, so I wrote one. I’m sharing it with you in hopes that you’ll find it as useful as I did. This will give you a result that ends up looking very similar to the way Twitter shows time elapsed, and exactly the way I display it on AnonTwit. Syntax highlighted code available at http://pastebin.ca/1466334 for those interested.
function elapsed_time ( $start, $end = false)
{
if ($end == false) //if you don't pass a second parameter,
$end = time(); //we assume you're comparing to now.
$diff = $end - $start;
$days = floor ( $diff/86400 ); //calculate the days
$diff = $diff - ($days*86400); // subtract the days
$hours = floor ( $diff/3600 ); // calculate the hours
$diff = $diff - ($hours*3600); // subtract the hours
$mins = floor ( $diff/60 ); // calculate the minutes
$diff = $diff - ($mins*60); // subtract the mins
$secs = $diff; // what's left is the seconds;
if ($secs > 0) {
$returnval = "$secs second".(($secs>1) ? "s":"")." ago";
}
if ($mins > 0) {
$returnval = "$mins minute".(($mins>1) ? "s":"")." ago";
}
if ($hours > 0) {
$returnval = "$hours hour".(($hours>1) ? "s":"")." ago";
}
if ($days > 0) {
$returnval = "$days day".(($days>1) ? "s":"")." ago";
}
$return = "About "; //change the wording to what you like
return $return . $returnval;
}
Viniki getting ready to launch private beta
development June 19th, 2009
A whole new level of social wine drinking
I’m currently. preparing myself for a very big moment. Viniki has been in development for close to a year now, and I’m working on putting the finishing touches on it in preparation for a small private beta launch.
We’re only allowing 100 users in at first, and those spots are very likely to fill up quickly. If you are a wine drinker, wine connoisseur, or even just a fan of new internet technology, this is for you! This small launch and the feedback we receive will make a big difference in the final product, so get in quickly if you want to have a say! Visit Viniki.com to put your e-mail address on the short list, or contact me via the Google Chat box on the right, and you might get bumped up a spot if you ask nicely.
If you don’t make it into the initial private launch, don’t worry. Viniki will go live to the public soon.
The launch date and time of the beta is yet undetermined, but “this coming week” is looking like a pretty good estimate…
Tags: site launch, viniki, wine
Dreamweaver PHP OOP Display Issue
development June 19th, 2009
Dreamweaver, thou hast failed me agian. As if your multiple, daily, unexplained, unrelated crashes weren’t enough, now you want to tell me you don’t understand object oriented PHP code?
This blew my mind for a while. I had a piece of code that looked like:
$gdi["header"] = username($update->username) . ' u.......
in a php include file. For some reason, Dreamweaver decided to interpret the “->” in my object as a “?>” when in design view. Now, I very rarely use design view, but I’d seen this happen enough that it bugged me. The internet was no help, as those search terms most often relate to something different.
Today it struck me. Even though the closing “?>” tag is optional for PHP files, and is even recommended against by many to alleviate the issue of extra white space, Dreamweaver gets confused. Once I threw a closing tag in my document, Dreamweaver confirmed that there was, in fact, no html in my file.
And now I can sleep easy. (and go back and remove my closing tags. I don’t give a shit what Dreamweaver thinks)
Tags: dreamweaver, oop, php, tips
