The Altantic culture gap, through cooking shows

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is a hysterically funny show where sweary Gordon Ramsay goes to crap restaurants and tries to fix them. There's a UK version and the mandatory licenced copycat US version.

Differences:

• American version is censored. Americans really are terrified of naughty words, aren't they? On Youtube in the comments people are shocked - shocked! that it goes out on free-to-air TV in the UK with 'fuck'. In America, one must pay for 'fuck'.
• 'Chef Ramsay' - He's referred to this in the US one, for some reason. I've never seen 'chef' used as a title like that before.
• Cleanliness - A few of the US kitchens are absolutely filthy. Whether this is due to actual lower standards or just being less inclined to remove the cockroaches from the fridge before appearing on television, I am not sure.
• Pre-prepared food - Some of the UK restaurants use a bit of it, and are duly given out to; Ramsay refers to 'plastic sauces', which I quite like. Most of the US ones are ALL pre-prepared food. Whether this is due to actual difference or selection criteria, I am, again, not sure.
• Stupid owners - The owners in the US are very much more likely to be indignant when told that their veal with rasperries or whatever insanity is a silly idea. Sometimes, they will try to reintroduce it to the menu while no-one's looking!
• US version generally more scripted-looking, like a drama.

Have any of these UK shows licenced to the US ever turned out well?

BBC article "iPhone ad rapped as 'misleading'" rapped as 'misleading'

The BBC has a lovely article on an ASA finding against Apple concerning Apple's claim that "all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone", because the iPhone does not support Flash or Java.

From the article:

The iPhone employs a web browser called Safari, which is built on freely available software. Many webpages, however, employ small software programs like Flash and Java to display graphics and animations.

Those programs are proprietary software, and Apple opted not to enable them on the iPhone. The result is that pages viewed with Safari may look different to those same pages viewed on other browsers.

Now, it is true that Safari is built partially on freely available software. It is also totally irrelevant. It is true that many websites use Flash for graphics and animations, and that at least two or three from the late 90s use Java in that role. It is true (but irrelevant) that Flash player is proprietary software. It is most certainly not true that Java is proprietary software; Java is a language and a virtual machine specification. There is a (formerly, sort of) proprietary reference virtual machine distributed by Sun Microsystems, but one is under no obligation to use it. It is not true that pages will lack Flash and Java in Safari, merely that they will lack them in Safari on the iPhone.

Apple has its own reasons for not allowing Flash and Java on the iPhone, but they most certainly have nothing to do with proprietary or free software. Quite likely, in the case of Flash, it's just as Apple said; it'd cause unacceptable performance loss for marginal gain.

Why am I going on about this? Well, because IT reporting in the mainstream media bothers me. IT has for some time been considered important enough to report on, but not important enough for just about any mainstream media producer to employ someone with sufficient knowledge to report on it. This doesn't happen with any other sort of news; finance news is generally written by people who know about finance, for instance, and even normal science and technology news usually at least makes sense.

IT news is special, however; if the reporter doesn't know what is going on, the correct action is to make something up, using words contained in related articles. I particularly liked the article in the Wall Street Journal that said that the 4th generation iPhone (they meant 3rd generation, but were thrown off by the current 2nd generation model being '3G') would have flash memory, and thus support Adobe Flash.

I was particularly surprised by this one, though, because it is not from some purveyor of half-truths and misinformation like Fox News or the Daily Mail or similar; it is from BBC News. They are generally among the most reliable. If even they can't manage IT news, what chance does Murdoch's old crap have?

Saving the world with kitchen products

An Australian plans to deflect that asteroid that may or may not be hitting in 2029 by wrapping it in shiny cling film, brushing with lemon juice, and cooking at gas-mark 6.

Rather cool, really. The idea is that the shiny would act as a solar sail, and push the damn thing away. Very Big Science.

Apparently, we'll have a better idea whether it will hit in 2011. I really do wonder what the public response will be if it's going to; I am imagining scary religious people sabotaging the cling-film-spreading satellite on the basis that it is god's will, here.

"And get a free waterproof TV!"

Weird ad phrase of the day. Apart from the goat thing, of course.

Odd shampoo ad

Apparently, L'Oreal something-or-other has 'cashmere feel'. For when you want your hair a bit goat-y, I suppose.

Complex systems and stupid people

I just saw this rather fascinating thread on a food website. The issue at hand is that of a hypothetical restaurant customer who wants to switch tables. On the one side you have people saying that the customer's wish must always be granted, and on the other site you have people saying that the customer should at least give a reason why they want to switch, and that if it's not valid it may not be granted.

Of course, the second view is the correct one. As is described in some detail in the thread, seating in busy restaurants is a complex business, and messing with it is likely to make things worse for the staff and the other customers. And yet there are many people who, having been informed of this, still think that they should be able to do exactly what they want, because 'the customer is always right'. I'm a little alarmed that so many people can be given a perfectly sensible, valid argument for why breaking a complex system is a bad idea, and then say that it must be broken for them anyway, because they are the almighty customer.

I'm also most amused by this post, where someone takes offence that a hostess (the person who choreographs restaurant seating) talks about the requests of mad customers in a disrespectful way on an Internet forum. I just don't understand the thought pattern here; is he saying that people who work in restaurants must not only be polite to mad customers to their face, but must actually think well of them privately, as well?

It's interesting, incidentally, that people are inclined to have the 'customer as god' attitude in some places far more than others; the customer who insists that a restaurant's seating (and thus its waiter and cooking schedules) must be fiddled with for his benefit would (hopefully) not insist that, say, a plane he was on be diverted away from a city because he doesn't like the view, or that his ISP should only assign him IP addresses which are prime numbers. This is, I suspect, largely because the (dim) customer knows that he doesn't understand planes or routers, but incorrectly believes that he understands restaurants. He's wrong; scheduling, whether it's done intuitively by an experienced person, or through a science such a queueing theory, is inclined to be rather complex and fragile.

I wonder do high-end restaurants use scientific scheduling? I wouldn't be terribly surprised; they use consultants for various things, and seem to be willing to spend rather a lot on getting things right.

Unfortunately, it seems likely that part of the problem is that this sort of mad customer is quite often given their way, thus making them feel more entitled; the whole thing, then, gets worse and worse as the customer feels that they are the center of the universe.

More RAM, sir?

A company is, rather cleverly, making composite DIMM units, so that one can fit more RAM into a given machine. Apparently, it'll allow normalish Intel machines with up to 288GB of RAM.

Ah, RAM. The first proper programming job I had, the servers, expensive for their day, tended to have a gigabyte. Now, that's a little skimpy for a midrange desktop. I remember being amazed at an Intel (actually AMD) server I was using with 32GB of RAM, ironically just months before 32GB servers became relatively cheap and commonplace. 64GB seems to be the new silly amount.

Where does it all end? How much RAM is just silly? Database servers, in particular, seem able to soak up as much as you can throw at them... Fortunately, it'll be a while before 64bit machines become unreasonably cramped, as 32bit ones did a year or so ago and 16bit ones did a few decades ago, just as they became standard... I wonder will we ever see 128bit address busses?

Sysco. Not like Cisco

So, there's a company called Sysco. They supply most of the restaurants in the US. With what? Well, cleaning products, rice, oil, bla bla bla. So far, so boring. Ah, but that is not all. Oh, no, that is very much not all.

Fancy some pseudo-chicken?

Our fully cooked Classic Brand SmartServe glazed chicken breast fillets have the appearance, taste and texture of a whole chicken breast at a much lower cost, plus they offer better portion control, consistent quality and easy preparation.

Boneless, skinless, 100% chicken breast pieces shaped into natural breast fillets. Glazed flavoring.

Unique 3-D technology gives you the look and texture of a solid muscle chicken breast, at a fraction of the cost.

Erm... Okay. Back away slowly. Popular with chain restaurants and such, apparently. Glazed flavoring! Vacuum marinated for best flavour! The chipboard of chicken. Perhaps mercifully, there is no photo of the stuff raw. Assuming you have to cook it, of course.

Ready-to-cook whole muscle. Mmm, mystery muscle! Unmatched value and excellent bite, we're told.

Pre-cooked fajitas. What does a restaurant need a kitchen for, anyway? A microwave should suffice.

And, now that you get all your raw material from them same place, complete with scary non-chicken, why not just get your restaurant's meals ready-made, to save you all that cooking stuff? Sysco can help.

It's not even all down-market crap; they've got your caviar needs covered. Scallops wrapped in pre-cooked bacon! Pre-cooked! Processed in a USDA-inspected facility! Oh, good, as opposed to one of those illegal ones. Please note that the scary pseudo-chicken makes no such lofty claims.

Let's have a look at some of the more egregious offences against food, yep? It'll be fun, I promise.

School Choice. This, it seems, means 'pre-fryed breaded apple sticks'. It's almost like it's trying to be healthy, then falling down at the whole pre-fryed breaded thing.


Vegetable appetizers. More or less at random, looks like. Luck of the draw. Just pray you don't get the deep-fried cheese-covered broccoli.

Fresh pate. Semi-cooked. Of unclear origin.

Imperial European Cake. Frozen. Pre-cut. Thaw and serve. That's cake. I kid you not.


Optimum Choice Fruit Pie. 'Optimum' is ominous here, one feels. Sweetened with SYSCO brand 'Indulge', whatever that is.

House Recipe Ketchup. For back of the house use. Good base for sauces. Now, I'm sorry, but ketchup is never a good base for sauces. In fact, ketchup isn't good for anything. Has the consistency of a 'fancy' product at a lower cost. Yay!


Aerosol Topping. Lasts 180 days. Aerosol-y.

Pizza loaf cheese. Argh!


Frozen diced eggs. I have honestly no idea what one would do with one of these. Lasts six months, though!

Economy grade swiss cheese. Often the texture is dry and grainy with off flavors.

Pre-made scrambled eggs. Mercifully, in a carton; not defrostable.

Boxed beef. It's beef in a box.

Scary green alien things, alleged to be 'wraps'. And horrid green-oozing chicken.

Chicken Kiev. Lasts forever. Can stop a bullet. May be edible. Please note that on the ingredients list, besides chicken, there is 'roast chicken' way down after yeast. Homeopathic, perhaps?


Roast beef, chunked and formed. Uniform dimensions! Old World Taste! (Eh?)

Pub burger. Pre-cooked. Great for improved yields!

Canned Entrees. Not going there. Don't want to know.

Generic fish. Doesn't taste of anything. Lock in that farm raised freshness.


Veal Mini Rack. "With SYSCO Classic Veal Mini Rack, the sophistication of veal meets the presentation of a rack." I'm not making that up, by the way; it really says it. Great plate coverage.

Import Style Hams. Old World Shape. European Flavor. "Mmm, tastes of Warsaw!" Comes in a can. Note the attractive product photo, with bricks:

Fake olive oil. Oh, joy.

Okay, that's enough of that. Just remember, these people provide this crap to most of the restaurants in the US. Probably, someone does the same here. Note the enthusiastic product blurbs. You get the idea that this is the sort of company where employees sing team-building songs as they gleefully destroy human society. All of this scares the hell out of me. Especially the cheerfulness; they should look more evil, damnit.

Oh, and take a look at their product marketing reports. Beans, paper and inflation. No idea what it means, but I don't like the sound of it.

Stereotyped much?

I just followed a link to a funny restaurant review in a Tel Aviv newspaper. Three (I tell a lie. Four) ads on the page.

All for Jewish dating services.

Oh dear.

The Horrors of Gay Marriage

I am, rather obviously, very much in favour of gay marriage. However, well, here's a piece about two irritating super-rich guys being one of the first couples to get married in California. It's just, I dunno, I wish it were saner people. Hmm. Possibly I'm picking up too much from the rather negative piece.

I mean, those women who were the first to get a civil partnership in Northern Ireland; they seemed nice. You could feel properly happy for them. These two... not so much.

I hope that when we finally get around to legalising it here, we have better representatives going first...

Time to panic?

So, today, the US sent a fleet towards their client-state Georgia, lately invaded by the Soviet UnionRussia, to provide aid. Hmm. Getting a little scary. May be time to locate the nearest thing you can use as a bomb shelter.

Are we watching the opening rounds of World War III?

(Note; Before you react, I am joking. Really. You're allowed do that on the Internet.)

Le Pamplemousse Diabolique!

Grapefruits. You can make juice out of them, have them as a hard-to-eat breakfast item, or, if you're weird and European, make boiled sweets flavoured with them. But did you know that they can kill?

Apparently, besides aiding breast cancer, they interact with just about every drug on the planet. Antidepressants, Valium, Viagra, Codeine... the list goes on. I wonder how long before they are required to bear large red warning labels advising against eating them with Neurofen Plus (over-the-counter painkiller with Codeine) or antihistamines? Some of the interactions are quite nasty, and at least one drug has been pulled specifically because it has nasty interactions with grapefruit.

I wonder which other fruits are silent killers? Frankly, I suspect kiwis. Weird furry green bloody things. I always think I like them, until half an hour after I've eaten one; they cause mouth pain.

Particularly pathetic nightmares

I've been having a lot of nightmares lately, as I tend to do when I'm stressed. Most of them have been general unpleasant scary dreams, but of late they've been getting, well, sillier. I still have a horror response out of all proportion to the (imagined) situation, though.

The last couple of nights were particularly silly; I dreamed that I was in a train station I didn't know, and couldn't find my way home (silly; even Irish Rail at least has maps and schedules), and I dreamed that I weighed 10 kilos more than I expected.

The strange thing is that the level of shock and discomfort is much the same as that in proper nightmares. Hmm. I wonder what silly situations I can find to be scared of next.

Deep truths on the credit crunch

From comments on an article about how everyone thinks that their house is still worth a fortune:

Quality construction, contemporary interior finish, and an attractive lawn will add value to my home that tax assessors may have little time to consider.

 So there! Bubble collapse be damned, that lawn'll add a few hundred K.

Wikipedia oddity of the day

"A wooden spoon is a spoon made from wood, commonly used in food preparation. The wooden spoon is also sometimes used in soap making and discipline."

I think I need say no more...

New hope for Young Earth Creationist loonies!

Apparently, an artificial genome produced recently contains, amongst other things, various coded messages, including the name of the institution which produced it, coded in its DNA as a watermark. In millions of years to come, this will no doubt confuse the hell out of geneticists.

So, if you are the sort of mad person who complains on Wikipedia that 'Origin of life' redirects to 'Abiogenesis', all is not lost. Despite the wealth of scientific and historical evidence pulling apart the idea that your vicious and genocidal god created life a few thousand years ago, you still have a chance.

Simply look for coded messages in Hebrew (which, it seems, many Jewish scholars believe the Abrahamic god actually spoke) or Aramaic in human genetics. Obviously. Go on, get going at it! I expect a 50% cut of the profit that your favourite scary evangelical religion cons out of its followers, of course. And a sainthood.

Well, assuming that the very idea of genetics, with their troublesome tendency to abet change and mutation, isn't in itself offensive to these idiots, of course.

Sick

Spent today with horrible headache and disorientation. A bit like a hangover without the compensation of having had alcohol recently. Yuk.

Horrible pun of the day

"Apparently, gold is finally falling."

...

"Gravity hasn't been affecting it for months!"

Okay, so I won't be a stand-up comedian anytime soon.

Old crap heard on a TV ad...

[Said in tones of great surprise] "Learning new things is actually in your genes!"

Well, indeed.