What I did today

I discovered a typography joke embedded in the very grammar of the Slovak tongue.

So, there's a rule, which I will call The Vowel Lengthening Rule, in which the last vowel of a word becomes longer. This rule only applies to one noun case: the genitive plural. So if the word is a different noun case, such as locative or genitive singular, the rule does not apply.

There's a second rule, which I will call The Great Slovak Vowel Shift Rule, in which some (but not all!) lengthened vowels get raised in height. So, e and o (both high-mid vowels) go to i and u (high vowels), and æ (a low-mid vowel) goes to i as well.

Now, it's really easy to explain these as two rules. But they kind of occur in the same place at the same time, which often means they can be explained with a single rule!

*time elapses*

Oh, hm. I tried combining them into one rule and it turned out really complicated and bad. I wonder why? Why can't I stick the Great Slovak Vowel Shift Rule into the Lengthening Rule?

You can't shift within the lengthening rule because it's case-sensitive.

Going through my notes from last year, found this picture

Sannakji - Sam broadens his culinary horizons.

I had originally planned to go to Mindshare LA tonight with some friends, but that fell through because you have to be 21 to enter and we are not 21. Tragic! So, change of plans. We went to Masan, a really authentic Korean joint, and ordered live octopus tentacles.



Sannakji is the Korean answer to the age-old question, "what's the best way to squick out foreigners with food?" And you know what? It's pretty tasty, and it's a lot of fun to eat. It's probably 100 times better with alcohol, which explains why the Masan menu was about equal parts food options and liquor options. I cannot wait to come back to this place when I'm of drinkin' age and load up on soju before octopus consumption.

The little tentacle segments continued to wriggle in a lively fashion for upwards of 20 minutes, crawling off of the chopsticks and suction-cupping themselves to everything--plates, tongues, teeth, even upper lips:



Yep, that's me wearing a wiggly octo-stache and making the creepiest face I could muster. I feel a little bad about insulting Korean culinary culture with my white-boy antics, but it's impossible not to play with your food if the food wants to play with you!

A post about cake that is not on my cake blog?

Okay, backstory. Long time ago, I learned about a cake called torta tre monti, a cake from the Most Serene Republic of San Marino. From the Wikipedia article on the cake: "It is similar to other layered desserts common to San Marino, this one being representative of The Three Towers of San Marino."

I misinterpreted this sentence. You see, I thought it meant the torta tre monti actually resembled a geographical formation, like a topo map. That is an exciting prospect, because San Marino is a jagged, mountainous land, and a cake that looks like this would be pretty badass:

Source: http://brianakira.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/september-3rd-will-mark-the-1707th-anniversary-of-the-worlds-first-christian-state/

Tragically, that is not the case! The cake actually looks like this:

Source: http://www.laserenissima.sm/torta_tre_monti_caffe.asp

That is not a cool looking cake! It's probably tasty, but it's not topographical at all! Something had to be done. Something...excessive.





That is my torta tre monti, the result of four days of labor. It covers all of San Marino and a chunk of Italy that surrounds it. Each gradation is 20 meters higher than the one before it, with the highest one being 700 meters. I didn't get the lines from a geological survey or anything; I stitched together screenshots from Google Maps (terrain mode) and traced them by hand using my trackpoint mouse.

(That's a point of pride. I did all this with a trackpoint. You are not allowed to complain about my trackpoint use.)

Trouble is, I don't know what to do from here. If I want an actual topographical cake, how should I do it? I can make a negative image and mill that, to use as a cake pan; I could do the whole thing with a RepRap and a Frostruder; I could cut out wafers in the shape of each layer, and glue them together with chocolate, like in the original! I could also change what area I use for the actual cake! I could use the whole rectangle there, or just the boundaries of the nation of San Marino, or just Monte Titano. I could make so many cakes.

I'll supply the files to anyone who asks, by the way.

Foodie followup

So, in two earlier posts I professed my desires to eat real wasabi and breadfruit. Well, last night, I got to eat both. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Hon-wasabi: Served in the same paste-blob as regular wasabi paste, the hon-wasabi had a darker green color and more fibrous bits floating around. The taste was remarkably similar to plain ol' wasabi paste, but with noticeable sweet, floral overtones that made the whole thing so fantastic. I almost ate the whole lump.

Breadfruit: The breadfruit was served in a mash, like potatoes. Perhaps this is part of the reason why I thought it tasted the same as sweet potato. Anyway, I continue to hold that breadfruit would taste different if prepared differently, so I need to perform more tests somehow.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO