I like pickled eggs (boiled and peeled eggs soaked in brine), so I thought this might be an interesting way to make them. I also figured it would be easier to peel them if the shell was just a thin soft film… so we gave it a shot!

1. Egg in Cup of Vinegar

2. Post-Vinegar Egg

3. Egg in Pot

4. Boiling Egg

5. Boiled Egg

6. Post-Vinegar Boiled Peeled Half-Eaten Egg

The results…

It was indeed easier to peel. Once I broke the membrane, the egg just squeezed out.

The vinegar that soaked into the egg prevented it from solidifying as much as a normal boiled egg, leaving it goopy on the outside.

It tasted EXTREMELY bitter. Far more than just the sourness you would get from vinegar. The shell must have dissolved into the egg. I found the flavor of the white part unpleasant, even with salt–and I tend to like strong flavors. The texture wasn’t very appealing either. The yolk didn’t taste quite as bitter as the white, but it was fairly nasty, and not something I am likely to eat a second time on purpose.

At lunch today, I ordered the vegetable side without asking what the vegetable was. I was delighted (seriously) to find that it was romanesco broccoli–the fractal vegetable.

It was like meeting an inanimate edible celebrity. Until today, I’d only ever seen romanesco broccoli in pictures (which I have used as my desktop wallpaper) and read about it.

Now I can personally support the claim that although it looks like broccoli, it tastes much more like cauliflower.

I also took a picture of tobiko today.

And 8 days after:

In the tonsil on the left (my right tonsil), there is a visible tonsilolith (a white lump). Tonsiloliths are a chronic problem I have, and results in recurring infections. This is the primary reason I am having my tonsils removed.

About the time we got to the hot and stinky reptile exhibit, we decided to split up and I got to explore the zoo one-on-one with my son.

In addition to the regular attractions, we discovered thousands of tiny caterpillars climbing all over things.

We probably spent more time watching them than we spent looking at official exhibits.

While watching caterpillars, people passing by would occasionally see a caterpillar hanging from a silk strand (seeming to float in mid-air), but they didn’t seem to notice the hundreds of caterpillars on the fence. At one point, some kids noticed the floating caterpillar, yanked it down, and stomped on it. I yelled “hey!” and they scurried off without looking back. I’m not sure they even knew the “hey” was directed at them. My son and I expressed our disapproval to each other, but didn’t dwell on it long.

My son managed to coax a caterpillar onto his finger splint. (He slammed his finger in the bathroom door the night before. It wasn’t serious, and it’s fine now.)

Thom went to a game store and bought a pound of dice (I had no idea they sold them by the pound). He brought them to lunch and shared. I found many dice I really liked. There were only enough for one complete set of platonic solids for each of us, though. This is the set I chose:

I find it interesting that with the pieces in ascending order (by number of adjacent faces) with ascending numbers on top oriented so they can be read right-side-up from the front, the numbers in front are in descending order, ending on the right with a vertex representing zero. I suspect that’s more than coincidence.

Here’s a bonus picture not found on Wikipedia (but maybe I’ll contribute it), of the underside of a female sand crab. She has a protective flap covering her eggs (mostly — you can see some eggs if you look closely).

So, here it is… his first nature documentary. Hopefully there will be more in the future.

When I checked, the top hit for “clearer” on Google was a page about why there isn’t stronger evidence of the existence of a Christian god.

I read a few paragraphs of it, but it quickly degraded to Pascal’s Wager and I lost interest. The paragraph that first set off the Pascal’s Wager alarm was:

Some are tempted to apply the rule that “the more critical the decision, the clearer the evidence must be.” They demand that the evidence for Christianity must be extraordinarily and especially clear to win their allegiance. The problem with this standard is that it assumes that there are no consequences to the decision. If, however, there are cataclysmic consequences to the observer, he will have to settle for “sufficient evidence, or the most trustworthy evidence.”

Wow. If I consider a decision critical, doesn’t that imply that I believe it has severe consequences? The more critical the decision, the more severe the consequences… right?

People who argue in favor of Pascal’s Wager (believe in God just in case, because otherwise you’ll go to hell) ignore an opposite wager: Believe in no god just in case, because otherwise you risk letting a myth motivate your entire existence.

Another interesting wager: Only believe in God if you have strong evidence, because God may damn people who make critical decisions without reason.

Also worth considering: Believe in the religion with the most severe eternal consequences for non-belief.

So, I guess my point is that there may be excellent explanations for lack of evidence supporting a Christian god, but Pascal’s Wager isn’t an effective way to get skeptics to pay attention. It’s entirely focused on the perspective of a believer. It ignores the skeptic’s perspective that IF there is no god and there is no afterlife, a decision that defines her mortal life also defines her entire existence.

What is the target audience of that page?

In case you were wondering, here’s what to do with your spare Jerusalem Crickets. It’s good to know!

Here’s a picture of the power lines I took on a walk a couple weeks ago:

OK, I can’t just leave it at that.

Looking at the Wikipedia articles on hornets, yellowjackets, and wasps indicates that this is
a wasp, which is a general term that also applies to both hornets and yellowjackets… but it’s not a hornet or yellowjacket.

It looks a lot like the top picture on the yellowjacket page, but it doesn’t have the yellowjacket’s entirely black antennae. It doesn’t have the wider abdomen of a hornet, either. It appears to be a Paper Wasp or Polistes. That seems likely, because I’ve removed a number of those nests from our property.

These critters are apparently mild mannered, which explains why I was able to get a decent picture without getting stung. According to the Wikipedia article, Polistes dominulus (which as far as I can tell looks identical to the wasp in my photo) didn’t even live in the US prior to 1981.

We found a web page with a lot of information about spiders, but it seemed a little too technical and wordy for casual curiosity… so here’s my simplified explanation:

Two of the six joints in a spider’s leg are hydraulic. The spider flexes muscles that increase pressure and straighten those joints. When the spider dies, those muscles relax and the legs curl up.

Here’s the photo (from a previous post) that inspired the question:

I spotted this arachnid (technically not a spider because it only has one body section) about 50 yards from where I found fuzzy face (above). This poor little guy is missing a leg.

The full-resolution (about 700 K) arachnid is pretty amazing.