The Frying Pan

I never ever give permission to programs that try to install add-ons from outside Firefox, unless they explain very well why they need this and what it does.

Mien

I didn't know it was an add-on

I wanted a torrent from a B-movie; a friend of mine linked me a page on which I could download the torrent.

But first I misclicked, and did a small part through a small program called OneClickDownload :p

I soon saw it and continued downloading through my normal torrent client.

But apparently, OneClickDownload installed also an add-on.

Cerberus

Oh dear.

Mien

:D

I know.

Cerberus

Did you have a virus scanner installed?

Mien

1:36 PM

No, it's certainly not a virus.

I've Microsoft Security Essentials and let it made a scan. It was clean

And I've got the standard Defender etc. as well.

Hello @rumtscho

Look! I'm talking!

rumtscho

hi @mien

congratulations

Mien

Thank you very much.

Cerberus

@Mien Ah OK, good.

Mien

It's not that bad if I had a virus I guess.

All my important files are backed up on several places.

Cerberus

Yeah most viruses are fairly innocuous.

Do you automatically back up to the Internet, with Dropbox e.a.?

Mien

1:40 PM

@Cerberus Yes.

@rumtscho we have a Belgian version of your 'rouladen', we call it "blind chaffinch" or "bird without head" or a related name. It's minced meat packed in a thin piece of beef.

rumtscho

Dropbox is not a backup

@Mien you can wrap different things in rouladen here

Mien

Slavink

Een slavink is een rolletje varkensgehakt omwikkeld met spek. Dit wordt zo in de boter of olie gebraden in een koekenpan en als vlees bij de lunch of de avondmaaltijd gegeten. Het is belangrijk dat het braden op niet te hoog vuur gebeurt, anders is het spek aangebrand voordat het gehakt gaar is. De slavink is een van de meest gegeten kant-en-klare vleesproducten in Nederland, dat ondanks de prijs, want omgerekend per kilo betaalt men bij de slavink het meest voor gehakt. Oorspronkelijk was een goede slavink omwikkeld door drie plakjes spek. Vanwege het kostenaspect en de productietijd ...

rumtscho

it is mostly vegetables.

Mien

But I don't think we've ever had it with bacon.

rumtscho

but my ice cream machine arrived today. I'll go to the post office to fetch it.

Cerberus

1:42 PM

@rumtscho Excuse me?

I use Dropbox to back up files.

It even has a 30-day version history.

I have 24.7 GB.

rumtscho

@Cerberus If you have a backup software using dropbox as a target, OK.

Mien

Ah nice @ ice cream machine.

Cerberus

By the way, make sure you connect your Dropbox account to your university address!

rumtscho

But if you are just syncing, then accidentally deleting a file from your current folder will delete it from your "dropbox" too

Cerberus

You get double the space for referrals.

Mien

1:44 PM

I also have box (similar as dropbox, but 50 gb).

@Cerberus Ah yes.

I only have 5 GB I think on Dropbox.

rumtscho

and also, good luck retrieving 24 GB worth of backup restore over a home DSL connection.

It is better than no backup at all, but in general, sync =/= backup

not if you have a mirroring RAID, and not if you use a Dropbox

Cerberus

@Mien Does it have a usable desktop client?

Mien

Why wouldn't you consider Dropbox a backup plan?

Cerberus

I have another 25 GB in my MS Skydrive.

Mien

@Cerberus I don't know, I don't have a lot of experience with it. I prefer dropbox.

I think it's only in a browser.

Cerberus

1:47 PM

@rumtscho What's wrong with that? Of course it will take some time, but you can restore the files you urgently need first.

Mien

box.com

Cerberus

@rumtscho It has a 30-day version history, so you can revert anything you accidentally delete.

@Mien Ah OK.

@Mien Hey, it says I have only 5 GB in Box.com! I already had an account, apparently.

Mien

@Cerberus Do you have a smartphone?

If you link it, you'll have 50 GB

Cerberus

Ahh I see.

My phone is too old.

And it doesn't have 50 GB of free space, strangely.

But I guess I could uninstall it from my phone again.

Mien

I don't have one either, I just have a nice bf ;)

Cerberus

1:55 PM

Ahh.

Hahaha they want you to pay € 15/m for the desktop client! box.com/business/features/box-sync

Pathetic.

lifehacker.com/5881692/…

You could try this to get more Dropbox space (5 GB free). It worked when I did it, a few months ago.

Mien

2:44 PM

Ah yes, I thought it was only on smartphones

Oh no :(

I misread

I just copied about 450 MB of pictures into my dropbox map

But that won't work, will it?

Cerberus

Nope.

Do you have any USB device?

Or a virtual drive (as with Daemon Toolz)?

@Mien Make sure you have lots of files on any kind of thing that Windows recognizes as a "drive". So put a large video on your USB key or something.

Mien

And then what?

Cerberus

You also need to install the special Dropbox version first for it to work.

Mien

Oh.

Cerberus

That is, if it still works at all.

Mien

2:54 PM

Cba.

Cerberus

What version do you have now?

Mien

It worked two weeks ago.

Cerberus

Cba?

It worked? You have already done this?

Mien

My bf did.

I've got Dropbox 1.4.7

Cerberus

Oh, that would probably be the new version. Still I can't tell whether the beta is over or not.

yossarian

3:02 PM

@rumtscho, @derobert, so after all that history of underlining versus italics and the reasons not to underline the 'why', it just ended up having no formatting at all? ;o)
For the two follow up posts, what kind of timeline will you plan on posting them?

Every other weds?

Sobachatina

@Mien- The bacon suspense is killing me.

The contest ended an hour ago.

I'm impatient. I should go think about something else. Like work.

Cerberus

bacon

Mien

3:19 PM

@Sobachatina Oh I forgot about it :p

It should be over by now indeed.

I think the bacon week was a small success. Compared to some previous contests at least.

Mien

3:31 PM

I keep refreshing every other minute now :(

Sobachatina

@Mien I believe I had 5 and you have three so it is neck and neck.

Of course a couple other people had one so they could win as well.

I've won more recently than you have though so I don't begrudge you beating me.

And I promise not to gloat too much if I win.

I've been saving up questions for the food preservation topic.

derobert

@yossarian lol, the wonders of copy & paste. I'll fix it.

@yossarian Well, our publishing schedule is every other Wednesday, but I think we have another post scheduled...

rumtscho

3:47 PM

@derobert we don't yet

derobert

@yossarian Actually, we don't have anything scheduled for Jun 20

@yossarian yeah, what @rumtscho said

rumtscho

@yossarian NBR just arrived in the mail

I leafed through it aimlessly and now I am putting the ingredients for a Southern chicken pot pie on a list

Also, my new ice cream machine came with a booklet with lovely-looking recipes

I resent the 24 hour waiting period for first freeze

so, I'm off to the supermarket

Mien

I just discovered that we have a bunch of ground elder, herb gerard, bishop's weed, goutweed or snow-in-the-mountain

I don't know what term you use :p

rumtscho

mmm elder flowers

I should get some cordial and make elderflower ice cream

Mien

You can eat the flowers?

I thought only the leaves.

But I also think it's a bit too late now.

Oh, it's not the sambucus plant.

yossarian

3:59 PM

@rumtscho, that pot pie is really good. Great comfort food.

Mien

I've never had a chicken pot pie.

Nor any meat pie.

yossarian

it's really good.

It's best when it has a pastry topping and not an actual pie.

Mien

4:16 PM

What's a pastry topping?

yossarian

like a pie topping on the top, but not a full pie crust.

Also sometimes use a biscuit type topping.

rumtscho

@yossarian I was planning to make the biscuit

yossarian

I think I prefer the other one, but they're both good.

rumtscho

@yossarian is it better in one big dish, or in individual dishes?

I think I will rather bake it individual

yossarian

I've only ever done it as one.

the only thing that will be different though is the topping.

The rest of the 'pie' won't care if it's in one dish or 4.

Mien

4:19 PM

Heh, it's the first time I think of the similarity between your chicken pot pie and our vol au vent:

Cerberus

@yossarian Do the crumbles in an apple crumble count?

Mien

It's a puff pastry filled with chicken ragout.

rumtscho

We'll see. I have enough pork roast from the weekend, I'll make it tomorrow or the day after.

@mien the pot pie is "pot" because it is not a filled pastry crust

It is baked in a non-lined dish and covered with pastry on top only

Cerberus

Interesting.

Mien

Is that enough crust? :p

rumtscho

4:21 PM

I think I will make my ice cream base today and keep it in the fridge

that way it will be chilled tomorrow and I can start churning it as soon as I am home

I don't feel like waiting for it to chill tomorrow morning

derobert

@yossarian I looked at the rest of the draft document, but it seems like you're not really done writing the last two reviews?

yossarian

@derobert what do you mean? It's a final draft of all three in one post. I'll split it up in to two new ones, but wondered if y'all had any comments so far. Essentially all I'll do is add an intro and maybe a conclusion.

derobert

4:38 PM

@yossarian well, for one, the other two are shorter. They also don't seem to say what you learned from the books. E.g., you've got a list of topics for Ratio, compared to NBR where you have examples of what you learned from the book

yossarian

hmmmm, ok.

derobert

So, I wasn't sure if you were done, or if you'd just stopped writing those parts due to exhaustion/hitting the deadline/etc.

yossarian

They definitely are shorter.

Which I said they were going to be.

Mien

What books did you review?

Ratio is obvious :)

yossarian

I can look at updating them with some of that.

New Best Recipe, Ratio, The Flavor Bible.

Mien

4:40 PM

Never heard of NBR

But looking forward to your reviews

yossarian

It's great. You can read all about it tomorrow.

Mien

I will!

rumtscho

@mien I already bought it based on what he wrote about it.

I think it was worth it.

If nothing else, it can be used for bludgeoning your enemies to death

It is slightly bigger than The Professional Chef

I was quite surprised when I picked it up at the post office.

Mien

I was thinking of buying the flavor bible one day.

rumtscho

Yes, I thought of it too

derobert

4:42 PM

@rumtscho yes, but much cheaper. So when you get a small bit of bludgeoned enemy marring the cover, you don't mind as much.

Mien

But I prefer baking over making 'real food'

rumtscho

@derobert Hmm, I paid something like 23 Eur for NBR.

TPC is 36 Eur converted - OK, 33% difference

derobert

Its double here...

rumtscho

OMG I need eye bleach

Just visited amazon.de

Mien

:D

what did you see?

derobert

4:44 PM

NBR is $19.78, Professional Chef is $40.59

rumtscho

There seems to be some soccer event going on - I have seen soccer fans wearing stuff around, and some promotions

And today, on the main page of amazon, there is a black-red-gold Kindle.

Mien

Yes, there's the championship starting in a few days.

rumtscho

Not as design elements, just striped.

derobert

Yes, I see that. Why do you all get colored Kindles?

Oh wait, if you click it, the colors go away.

rumtscho

I got a metallic red sony reader because when I bought it they were so rare, I was happy to find a store which had some in stock at all. I would have gotten the black one if they had had it.

By now, i have grown to like the color.

Not that I notice it while reading, but it makes my electronics collection look less boring.

There is a book on my wishlist I didn't get, because it is just too much money

amazon.de/Advanced-Bread-Pastry-Michel-Suas/dp/141801169X/…

Compaared to that, the NBR looked amazingly cheap.

derobert

4:48 PM

Wow, its $65 on Amazon US, you've got a nice markup there...\

rumtscho

Really?!

derobert

amazon.com/Advanced-Bread-Pastry-Michel-Suas/dp/141801169X/…

rumtscho

Look at the list price

I think that they must have sourced it at the list price

and not downpriced it when the price went down in America.

derobert

I don't know if anyone pays list price....

rumtscho

ACtually, there is a law for book prices in Germany.

derobert

4:50 PM

Certainly not Amazon.

rumtscho

New books can't be sold at below list price.

It is to protect the writers from greedy bookstores reducing their royalties or some such stuff

Fixed Book Price Agreement

The Fixed Book Price Agreement (FBPA) is a form of resale price maintenance applied to books. It commonly takes the form of an agreement between publishers and booksellers which set the prices at which books were to be sold to the public. An example of FBPA was the former Net Book Agreement in the United Kingdom. The key idea of the FBPA is to promote non-price competition between booksellers in order to promote the sale of little-known, difficult or otherwise culturally interesting books rather than catering only to blockbuster readers. To do so, the FBPA is deemed to ensure that the boo...

derobert

@rumtscho Wow. Even our corrupt government hasn't accomplished that yet.

rumtscho

@derobert I think that the market is OK.

I think that the list prices here are similar to what the "reduced" prices are in other countries.

At least for books published here.

derobert

Maybe, certainly wasn't on either of those titles. But I suppose they weren't published in Germany.

rumtscho

But when we import books from countries with high list prices, maybe the seller can sell the book at list price without the customers complaining.

No, I don't think that English-language books are printed in Germany at all.

German publishers tend to publish translated books only.

If one wants to read a book in English, it gets imported.

derobert

4:54 PM

Not surprising. I doubt many American publishers print books in German.

Spanish, though, is probably a different story.

@rumtscho It'd be quite surprising, honestly, if price fixing doesn't raise prices. So I'm pretty sure you wind up paying more as a result of that policy.

rumtscho

@derobert Possible.

But they also can't raise prices for blockbusters.

And of course, there is a second-hand market, which is not price-regulated.

Also, there is less VAT on books.

I think that a current softcover book, for example the latest Terry Pratchett, retails for €8.95

derobert

@rumtscho But no one would, anyway. At least, it doesn't happen here (and we don't have any laws against it)

rumtscho

No, Snuff is 7.80

Hmm, there is no paperback in America yet, hard to compare.

Mort is $7.99

And it is normal for prices to not get converted between dollars and Euros

So, I don't think we really pay much more for books.

derobert

Well, ₠7.80 is $9.72, Google tells me. So...

rumtscho

On the one hand, most economists ((Canoy, van Ours & van der Ploeg 2006) for an overview, (Ringstad 2004) for a specific discussion) are skeptical on the cultural merits of the FBP or and

underline its distorting effect. One the other hand, other economists ((Rouet 2007) on the French case, (Backhaus & Hansen 2003) on the German case) and the book industry argue that the FBP is the only tool that allows difficult, high-brow and culturally significant books to be published. Therefore, they say, the distortion should account for the much larger cultural externalities of meaningful cultural works.

@derobert as I said, prices don't get really converted.

This is just a normal case where the dollar has more purchasing power at home than the Euro

This citation is interesting

derobert

5:09 PM

@rumtscho That's weird. Is the dollar/euro PPP rate really that much different than the market rate?

rumtscho

@derobert Not always

But sometimes it is - I think there was some kind of electronics which gets sold for 599 Euros here and 599 Euros in America

Also, there is a different price structure on books

I think you avoid paying sales tax when you buy from Amazon, right?

So the $7.99 price includes no sales tax?

derobert

Sales tax would be around 5% here, depending on the item. You're supposed to pay it anyway (but yeah, its not shown as part of the price)

rumtscho

Because our €7.80 include VAT.

derobert

so, you add that, and you're at $8.39, still less...

rumtscho

VAT is normally 20% here, but 7% for books

derobert

5:13 PM

but even if you add 7% to the US price, you're at $8.55, still a good 12% lower.

rumtscho

Uff, if I knew how they have translated Mort, I would look it up in German.

Maybe it costs less.

Hm no, the reprint costs 9.95 for some reason

But there are lots of good quality used ones for 0.99 Eur

And of course, the marketplace sellers are allowed to sell new books published outside of Germany for less than list price

So the confectionery one is available for 35 Eur + 3 Eur shipping, instead of 45 Eur Amazon price

Still higher than the 40$ on Amazon.com, but when you take into consideration that they are shipping it from overseas, it seems that the price has to cover part of the shipping too

derobert

@rumtscho How nice of the German government to create that opportunity for them.

rumtscho

@derobert Yes, I agree that we are probably paying more for books than you are. This is the point of the whole thing.

If we were paying market prices for books, Thomas Mann would have had to work at a day job instead of writing the Buddenbroks.

derobert

Well, your next thing to investigate would be if any of that actually makes it to the author.

rumtscho

@derobert I suppose it does. Creators' unions are stronger here than in other lands

We didn't have spotify for ages, because GEMA wouldn't agree to their terms of 1/1000 cent for the author per stream

Cerberus

5:25 PM

Yuck, GEMA.

They are also the reason you don't have normal Youtube.

rumtscho

@Cerberus It's not perfect, but it is a bit better for authors.

derobert

I donno. We have people who claim to be creators unions, but they mainly seem to represent the interests of the people who are already big.

rumtscho

@Cerberus Lol, you believe all that Google propaganda?

Cerberus

That is, half the videos that people link to in chat can't be viewed by Germans.

No, it is true.

My friend always complains how he is the only one in the room who can't see the videos.

rumtscho

The point is that YouTube wants to show the videos for the same pittance price it pays in other countries.

Cerberus

5:26 PM

And rightly so.

Oh, well.

rumtscho

GEMA says that the authors should get a bit more

derobert

So, does GEMA do a better job of actually paying said authors than, for example, ASCAP?

rumtscho

but Google doesn't agree. So they make this animation with a sad face "The evil GEMA doesn't want you to see this video, so we won't show it to you".

@derobert It is still shockingly low when you compare it to what others get.

Cerberus

@rumtscho No, he would sell a hundred times more copies at a much lower price, probably resulting in more revenue in total; and he would make money through other means, like public readings and such.

rumtscho

Others in the retail chain I mean, not other authors in other countries.

Cerberus

5:28 PM

@rumtscho The volume is huge.

rumtscho

@Cerberus First, it depends on who the author is.

Second, the GEMA agreement isn't binding.

Cerberus

And any Youtube view is just free profit for GEMA: it will represent hardly any lost sale.

rumtscho

An author who wants their videos to be available on YouTube can agree to Google's prices, and then his videos are available.

Cerberus

Then GEMA will send a take-down notice to Youtube. And they won't even know that they did it. And they don't even know which authors they are supposed to represent.

derobert

Yes, GEMA is rather famous for that (and ASCAP, and BMI, and...)

Cerberus

5:29 PM

SABAM!

SABAM are the silliest.

Oh, if only you spoke Dutch! There is this Belgian show that is so incredibly funny.

derobert

But their name isn't as silly as ASCAP. Though close.

Cerberus

Haha oh God, never thought about that.

The problem is that the guilds who consider themselves representatives of artists do what their lawyers tell them, instead of what is good for business in the long term.

They ignore a few facts: 1.) price elasticity and the data available from real-world experiemnts; 2.) the fact that a version obtained at no cost does not represent a lost sale, but often even increases sales. And more.

rumtscho

derobert

@rumtscho anyway, we should figure out what articles we're going to run on the blog over the next month

rumtscho

This is what the authors get for one album. 2.34 per CD, or 1.79 from Apple, or 0.0013 from Spotify.

This is for songs, I don't have it for books.

"Künstler" are the artists who perform the songs, "Autoren" are the people who compose the music and write the text, and "Produzenten" are the producers.

@derobert yes, that's right

I am thinking of writing two more posts in the next weeks

One to run in mid-July, about preserves

And another one to pad the backlog.

derobert

5:37 PM

I should write another one soon, not sure what about though.

But of course, we need authors other than us....

rumtscho

I could either make a follow-up to Martha's cheese balls

Or a comparison of ice made without a machine but with whipped cream for overrun, and machined ice cream.

The second one is only interesting if the whipped-cream-ice-cream approaches machine ice cream in quality, which I will know tomorrow.

derobert

Hmmm, if I did a followup to your cookies (we'll see if I ever get around to it), and you do a followup to Martha's, we could put those together. Then just have one followup post, instead of several

rumtscho

Why constrain it to one followup?

We need all the posts we can get

If you want to write a followup to me, you can do it as a separate post

So, we have Yossarian's posts now

derobert

Well, it'd be weird to have so little topic coverage, that a full third of our posts are followups.

Wish we had someone lined up for 4th of July

rumtscho

And Sobachatina is actively experimenting on tofu coagulants, but doesn't want to commit himself to a date.

@derobert Me too. But it seems that there is no interest.

derobert

5:40 PM

Yeah, that'll be a nice post when he finishes it.

rumtscho

I think that maybe my ice cream could be a good enough topic for the fourth of July

But I wanted to have that post in the backlog

especially since I want the 18th of July for the preserves post

But we may have to improvise, if we get nothing else.

I don't know if we can bug rfusca for the steam into the oven thing, but I think he is way too busy building his new business, besides having a baby to look after

derobert

Yeah. Though maybe if we could get @rfusca a co-author, that'd work.

rumtscho

@derobert I think that the steam injector post should be entirely his

Unless somebody else did a steam injection mod too

derobert

@rumtscho well, I guess more like a ghostwriter. Though I'm not sure how much time that'd actually save him.

Or maybe we can get @Aaronut to write a 4th of July post celebrating Canada not being the 51st state, to see if he can get us a ton of angry comments.

rumtscho

@derobert I doubt that somebody who hasn't seen the setup can be a good ghostwriter.

Cerberus

5:46 PM

@rumtscho So what are you trying to say? The clue is that Spotify will have huge volumes, and so total revenue for artists will still be quite high. Alternatively, if Spotify has to pay too much to artists, they will either have to cease business or start asking consumers to pay more; in either case, volumes will drop greatly, and artists get less.

derobert

@rumtscho well, it'd have to be someone working with some notes from him, so I'm not sure how much time it'd save, unfortunately

Cerberus

So selling at a much lower price is often more profitable if you have zero marginal costs.

rumtscho

So, I think that the "least desirable plan" could be Yossarian's reviews for the next four weeks

derobert

Yeah. I don't think we should run those straight, they should be split up.

Mien

@derobert I'd read that :p

rumtscho

5:48 PM

next six, actually

derobert

@Mien exactly, it'd be fun! @Aaronut you should definitely write it

rumtscho

6.6 - 20.6. - 4.7. And me taking the 18.7.

But I agree that if we can get somebody else for the 20.6., run Ratio on the 4.7., me on the 18.7 and Flavor bible on the 1.8. is better

We just need somebody writing for the 20.6., and other people replenishing the backlog

derobert

Unless we can get an actual July 4th post for July 4.

rumtscho

Soba is a good candidate for the backlog, I think

rfusca

@derobert do you need an author?

rumtscho

5:50 PM

@derobert You are aware that our first deadline for CFP slipped, right?

@rfusca yes, we need a post for the 20.6.

derobert

@rumtscho yep, no responses as of the 1st

rumtscho

Publishing on the 20.6., so it should be ready a few days in advance

rfusca

By the 17th?

rumtscho

@rfusca yes, that sonds good

rfusca

i can do it, but it won't be a long one

rumtscho

5:52 PM

It is only 10 days, so I don't know if you want to make your steam injector for it

oh, it is 12 days

rfusca

Ya, the steam injector is fine

i'll prolly knock it out this coming weekend

derobert

Short is fine, no need for another 1700-word article

rumtscho

But if you think that the steam injector deserves a longer post, you can do something else now and the injector for some other time

rfusca

Nah, the steam injector doesn't need a thesis

rumtscho

If you can explain the whole injector in a small post, that's OK with me

derobert

5:53 PM

cooking.blogoverflow.com/2012/06/… ... is it just me, or does Martha's comment get cut off on the left?

rumtscho

@derobert cut off here too

rfusca

@derobert yes

derobert

Happens in both Firefox and Chrome. Guess its bugreport time.

rumtscho

I left a comment too, it looks normal.

derobert

0

Q: Author reply comment cut off on left

If you look at Martha F's (the author) comment on Seasoned Advice Blog: How to experiment with a dish: What I learned this Shavuot, her comment is cut off on the left. I have checked this in Firefox 12 and also in Chrome. It appears this way for other people, too: The "S" and "s" have been cut...

Good news is, every time we report a bug, we drive more traffic to our blog :-P

rumtscho

5:59 PM

@derobert Yes, I noticed that

Lots of the traffic yesterday was from that pluralization bug report which got so totally downvoted on MSO

But it is nice that the community notices we have a blog

We should build more bugs into our Wordpress :)

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