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  Seven Myths About Grilling a Steak [Grilling]

  

  Cooking instructor and author of Planet Barbecue Steven Raichlen knows a thing or two about grilling a steak, and today he's debunking a few grilling myths that'll help make your weekend barbecue that much better. More »
  
  
  
  Barbecue - Cooking - Home - Outdoors - Barbecue grill

  

  

  2 months on
  
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  Video of the day: Michael Shermer on “the mind of the market”

  
  
  

  Really interesting talk from prominent sceptic (some misunderstanding over my recent post about stupid atheists. I’m actually a fan of scepticism as a tool, I just find many self-proclaimed “sceptics” to be nothing of the sort) Michael Shermer held at Google HQ:

  How did we evolve from ancient hunter-gatherers to modern consumer-traders? Why are people so irrational when it comes to money and business? Bestselling author Dr. Michael Shermer argues that evolution provides an answer to both of these questions through the new science of evolutionary economics. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business.

  Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. Employing research from complexity theory, Shermer shows how evolution and economics are both examples of a larger phenomenon of complex adaptive systems.

  Along the way, Shermer answers such provocative questions as: Do our tribal roots mean that we will always be a sucker for brands? How is the biochemical joy of sex similar to the rewards of business cooperation? How can nations increase trust within and between their borders? Finally, Shermer considers the consequences of globalization and what will happen if nations allow free trade across their borders.

  3 months on
  
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  Blood on the ball

  Today a pointless one dayer had a moment of pure cricket goodness.

  Johan Botha got a leading edge into his face.

  This leading edge had enough force on it to wedge itself between three hard places, the grill, the lid of the helmet and the Robotic Kevin Bacon face of Johan Botha.

  Just the ball getting wedged in the grill is a great scene, but for him then to take off the helmet, with ball still wedged, and reveal his now bloody face, that is just awesomeness wrapped in just more awesomeness.

  This was the proof I didn’t want, that Johan Botha is human.

  Blood on the face of a batsmen is about my favourite place for blood to be.

  And this was oozing out of his eye at a decent rate.

  Usually the best part would be the blood on the pitch, but Botha took it to new extremes.  The dude got blood on the ball.

  I’m sure it has happened before, but generally that would be on a red ball, one day cricket finally made sense to me when that ball just had a dollop of red stuff on it.

  Botha retired hurt, and the ball was replaced.

  The story doesn’t end though as Botha’s face was kept together with sticky tape and chewing gum and he was sent back out.

  But here is where the script writers fucked up, the ball didn’t come back.

  If I was Botha I would have walked back out and demanded that the bloody ball be re-introduced.

  Even if it was just for one ball.

  Imagine the story, dude gets smacked in the face, loses blood on the ball, comes back without any bandages only a few overs left and the fast bowler is using the ball that is soaked in his blood.

  That is my kind of cricket.

  

  3 months on
  
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  Fuck you Tesco

  
  
  

  The Devil’s Knife/Kitchen has an excellent write up on why the “coalition government” is just more lies and bullshit.

  It also highlighted a quote from Tesco regarding the minimum pricing regulation that I hadn’t seen before:

  Supermarket chain Tesco says it wants to see curbs on the sale of cheap alcohol during this Parliament.

  Tesco has welcomed a promise by the coalition government to ban below-cost sales of alcohol in England and Wales.

  The UK’s biggest retailer goes further, saying it would back the more radical step of introducing a minimum price.

  I wrote about this before here, but I made the mistake of not including politically connected superstores. The point is rather easy to copy  & paste over to any business or industry though. So I will do that now:

  If Tesco are in favour of X regulation, it will always be because it is IN THEIR BEST INTERESTS. Why would alcohol minimum pricing be in Tesco’s best interests you might ask? Well there are several reasons but here’s my best guess:

  Because Tesco are already one of the largest sellers of booze in Europe they already gain massive advantages from economies of scale. They can buy in huge quantities and therefore compete well with competitors. They’d like to sell at a higher price, of course, but due to the magic of competition they find themselves forced to keep prices low, or risk losing business to the ASDA’s the LiDLs or the thousands of smaller businesses that try to compete on lower markups.

  But because Tesco have already positioned themselves into thousands of prime locations nationwide (often due to being able to secure planning permission that other’s can’t from councils they can easily buy off) a minimum price on alochol would help them more than it would smaller more competitive businesses. Whilst they already have mass distribution and convenience in their favour it would be hard for them to lose business to anybody if this regulation came into effect.

  Imagine a working class family that makes their weekly shop at their local Tesco superstore. What possible reason could that family have to shop around for their alochol purchases if they know for a fact that the alcohol products that compete on price (the unique selling property they most look for, as a low income household) now cost the same everywhere? As companies like Bargain Booze (recommended) immediately find themselves going out of business, much of those lost pounds will inevitably find themselves instead going to the established convenience stores. Tesco is making a hefty bet that enough of it will come their way to make the regulation profitable.

  When a business is in favour of regulation of this sort never fool yourself into thinking they care about whatever issue the politicians are grandstanding on (the politicians don’t care either by the way). Tesco are not interested in cutting down on binge drinking, they are only interested in their bottom line. There is nothing wrong with caring about your bottom line, of course, when it leads you to compete on price and quality in the free marketplace. However, when you openly advocate the iron fist of the state to regulate in your favour to improve your margins, then we are talking about something quite different… something quite nasty and violent.

  As a libertarian I am going to, whenever possible, stop shopping at Tesco when there is a nearby alternative. I don’t know what Asda’s official position is on the minimum pricing bollocks, if anybody knows please post in the comments. Until I hear that they are saying the same things Tesco are saying I will be going there for my weekly shop instead. I urge anybody else who cares about this to do the same.

  Fuck you Tesco.

  3 months on
  
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  The Hour: Eddie Izzard

  I liked a YouTube video: British comic Eddie Izzard on "Believe," his award-winning biopic.

  3 months on
  
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  Stalemate: PR and PR, Ice Cream, Bananas and Fudge

  Shared by Stephen
  Stephen Fry is particularly pessimistic about the current political situation...

  Hermeneutics

  One of the most puzzling features of the current unstoppable wave of political punditry that is flooding all channels and outlets at the moment (including this one of course) is the peculiar propensity of commentators to feel qualified to extrapolate from the election results the Manifest Will of Britain.  “The people have voted for change”, “The people have told Gordon Brown that he has got to go” , “The people are saying that they don’t really trust any one party”, “The people have said that they want Parliament reformed, the tea room in the House of Commons redecorated, new carpeting in the women’s lavatory of the House of Lords and a vegetarian option in the canteen.”  What fevered branch of electoral hermeneutics allows any such interpretations on the basis of the summing of millions of individual’s single votes I cannot imagine. It is possible that people do want real change, but a single cross next to a single name is no way to deduce it.

  PR

  We only get one vote, one cross to put next to one name. If you put your cross next to Victoria Tory’s name you declare that want her to be your MP, representing you constituency, although it is perhaps also permissible to assume that you are up for her party and her party’s leader winning an overall majority in the Commons in Westminster as well. If the cross is next to Fabian Labour’s name or Libby Dem’s one might be justified in assuming the same there too. There really is almost nothing more nuanced or sophisticated that one can infer from our recent general election except to say that that of the 68% who voted there weren’t enough who wanted Conservatives to win to allow Cameron to claim first prize, and even fewer who wanted to vote for candidates from the other parties. One could deduce a huge amount more if voters were allowed to express their preferences in an intelligent way that reflected how they really feel and think. The Electoral Reform Society is a good place to go for information as to how precisely such a form of voting could be implemented, as it is all round much of the civilised world. My friends at Vote For A Change have also been campaigning for the same thing. Proportional Representation is the prize that many of us hope this “confusing” election will deliver. But there is an obstacle. An obstacle so huge that I cannot see it being overcome.

  The Sitch

  Here is the situation as I read it.

  1. David Cameron’s Conservative Party elders and backbenchers will never allow him to seal a pact with Clegg that guarantees electoral reform in the shape of proportional representation.
  2. Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrat Party elders and backbenchers will never allow him to seal a pact with Cameron that that does not guarantee electoral reform in the shape of proportional representation.
  3. Cameron will spring an obvious trap by saying, “We’ll see. We’ll look into it. You can have concessions on schools and hospitals.” Children who want an ice cream know that when their parents say “We’ll see, but you can have a banana” it means no ice cream. The Lib Dem and PR pressure groups are perfectly aware of that too. Any talk of “an independent enquiry … a Royal Commission … a committee to look into it” will be treated for what it is. Fudge.
  4. Stalemate

  It comes down to this: the Conservatives believe that under a PR system they will never achieve full supremacy in the country again. This would mark a sharp reverse in their ambitions. Their manifesto commitment to a 10% reduction in MPs and a consequent redraft of constituency borders would necessarily gerrymander massively in their interest, all but guaranteeing Tory power for the foreseeable future. The idea that they will for one moment countenance PR reform that will see them reduced, as they would interpret it, to the role of Euro-style hedgers, compromisers and pragmatic consensus inclusionists is more than a bitter pill, it is a suicide pill and Cameron knows that he could never induce the party to swallow it.

  There can therefore be only two outcomes. Either Clegg blinks and accepts a “We’ll see, dear” fudge which would cause outrage in his party and his own political death or Cameron refuses the deal, demands a new general election and watches grandly, nobly and in a “statesmanlike manner” from the sidelines as Labour attempts to cobble together something with both the Lib Dems and the requisite number of independents and nationalists required to form a majority who could push through an Emergency Budget. Cameron would calculate that the press and public might well see him as the iron man of principal, with the most votes and the most ‘authority’. Clegg would be painted as an opportunistic spoiler: after all his party actually lost ground in the election. Brown, if he stayed, would continue to be portrayed as forlorn, desperate, blundering, out of touch, cynical, greedy, lame and fatally wounded. The media would, I think, successfully raise Cameron and the Conservatives in public estimation: “What principle! What courage! They were not squalid smoke-filled room negotiators, they didn’t strike ugly deals behind closed doors… they deserve the chance to run a stable administration without all this sordid horse-trading. They made handsome and significant issues about things that really matter, hospitals and schools, yet instead of seizing this historic opportunity to do something for the country the Lib-Dems insisted, at this time of economic crisis, to fuss about cosmetic changes to the constitution that no decent Englishman understands anyway… nasty European nonsense. Now we see Clegg for what he really is…”  You can write the Telegraph and Mail leaders for yourselves. They will argue furthermore that if the Lib Dems and reformers get their way, then the kind of deal-making, compromise and gridlock that we are seeing now will become the norm after every general election and that, they will declare, is no way to run a whelk stall.

  A Prophecy

  Within three months I imagine that any Lib Dem/Labour/Others coalition will fall, a General Election will be called, the Lib Dem vote will be decimated, the Conservatives brought to full power and Electoral /Constitutional Reform will be nothing but a wistful memory as those of us with distaste for conservatism hunker down for the duration. Demos, riots, overturned cars in the streets, many more homeless, infrastructure decay, a rise in crimes against the person and property, a happy time perhaps for the City and the secure middle classes, a dreadful time for the vulnerable, the disabled, the physically and mentally ill, the homeless and the poor. I remember the main feeling induced by living under Thatcher was shame. It was shaming to live in a country that could be so proudly, gloatingly unkind, so vulgar, shabby and ungracious in its attitudes to the outsider, the weak and the destitute. Goodness knows the Labour administration has been very, very far from perfect, but I think we will only appreciate the unheralded and uncelebrated good it did when the props it built up for the poor, the disabled and the disadvantaged have been kicked away.

  Reform

  This is the first occasion in my lifetime when true electoral and constitutional reform has seemed a possibility. We could, if Clegg keeps his nerve, guarantee a political system in which yoyo-ing between right and left ends and with it all the vindictive, ideological revenges and pendulum overcompensations wrought by the major parties each time they return to office. We could have a proper second chamber that is more than a clique of rubber-stamping apparatchiks. An Upper House should be composed of those who think long term. The Commons might vote to put up some smart wallpaper and do some attractive repainting, but the Upper House must be there to look at the damp coursing and the structure, to eliminate the ravages of short-termism. We could also conceive a constitution into whose genetic code a profound and thoughtful understanding of the competing demands of privacy and openness is written – for that surely is the issue in citizenship and government which will most demand attention over the next fifty years? Nobody intelligent or competent appears to be looking at these issues. The Digital Economy Bill shows how pitiful is the politicians’ understanding of the changes that are coming our way. I want to write soon about Digital Inclusion, which I hope will become a great cause to which some of you might ally yourselves. These and many other issues are structural, deep and important yet consistently ignored by mainstream media: it is to a properly constituted Upper House that one looks for that kind of vital strategic planning. Of course such root and branch reform in governmental structures and electoral methods would require proper debate which would take up parliamentary time and a great deal of (no doubt necessary) public consultation. Working parties, fact-finding missions, amendments, variations, filibusters and vacillations will make it intensely difficult even to make the issue one for referendum.  The Conservatives would throw all impediments that could be found in the path of reform at the best of times, the current economic crisis can so easily be used as an excuse to do nothing constitutional. It is hard to be optimistic, even thought there are clear arguments for a simple implementation of the Australian system of preferential voting, also known as Instant Run-Off, that would hardly need a referendum or two years of committee. Australia has had their system since 1918 and it has worked well — infinitely better than ours has. But if there is one thing the British are good at it is shaking their heads and saying that a thing can’t be done. They forget that political will and commitment can make any problem disappear. Depression and War have proved that there is nothing we can’t do properly, amicably and promptly if we set out minds to it. But history has also shown us that our civil servants and politicians can outdo builders when it comes to sucking in breath, shaking their heads and saying that they can’t get the parts and that frankly it just can’t be done.

  There are many golden prizes that might be extracted from the strange situation we are witnessing in and around Westminster at the moment. I am pessimistic only because I can see how from the Tory point of view there is a case for the legitimacy of a conservative administration and why they will never concede on PR and because I can see how easy it is for them to scupper any chances of it while yet looking reasonable and magnanimous and authentic and responsible. The gamble of staying aloof and making sure another election comes along soon seems a small one. A fair voting system is not in Tory interests, and it is a fundamental of conservative politics that everyone should act in their own interests. Only the twittering classes and high-moral-ground hugging smug media liberal wankers like me would vote or act otherwise. Therefore the Tories will never budge, a consensus will not be built and Clegg’s brief moment in the limelight will be over and he and his party will be a forgotten blip as we return to the same old dance of death while the world changes ineradicably around us. Britain will be shown to be incapable of evolving in its own interests as a nation, as a smart, adaptable, imaginative and diverse community of people who can respond to a changing world. Where once we were in the vanguard (rarely first, but usually early and sound) in areas like universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery and child labour, the institution of votes for women and many other important freedoms and civilised reforms, the unsuitability of our political machinery for the modern world will mean that we will soon be seen as a haggard oldie in a broken down old jalopy coughing and shaking our fist at the fast electric cars that zoom past us on the highway. What a pity, what a terrible pity.

  So…

  If what I prognosticate comes to pass and a second general election is called (and it most certainly won’t because I’m crap at this kind of prophecy) – then I think those of us that really care about the kind of change I’ve alluded to will have to mass together and demand it with every democratically viable tool at our disposal. We will have to stop the media from shifting the rhetorical ground and erecting Cameron as some kind of hero of the people. Because believe me that is what they and their PR people will do. It is hard to see how Clegg and whoever leads the Labour Party (Alan Johnson or Ed Milliband, one assumes) in three months time will be able to counter such tactics. It’s fun now to see the manoeuvrings and courtship dances but it will soon enough become boring, then irritating and finally enraging. The victims of our displeasure are more likely to be the Lib Dems than any other party, which is why I fear they may swallow their pride, lose their moment, accept the ‘We’ll see’ and end up with lots of fudge and bananas and no ice cream.

  3 months on
  
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  Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect

  

  Are you a perfectionist? Do you spend a lot of time “perfecting” your work,so everything comes out the way you want it to?

  I believe all of us are perfectionists in our own right. I’m a perfectionist, too. We set high bars for ourselves and put our best foot forward to achieve them. We dedicate copious amounts of attention and time to our work to maintain our high personal standards. Our passion for excellence drives us to run the extra mile, never stopping, never relenting.

  And a dedication towards perfection undoubtedly helps us to achieve great results. Yet, there is a hidden flip side to being perfectionists that we may not be aware of. Sure, being perfectionists and having a keen eye for details help us become excellent. However, as ironic as it might sound, perfectionism at its extreme prevents us from being our best.

  How so? Here are some examples:

  1. We become less efficient. Even when we are done with a task, we linger on to find new things to improve on. This lingering process starts off as 10 minutes, then extends to 30 minutes, then to an hour, and more. We spend way more time on a task than required.
  2. We become less effective. We do little things because they seem like a “good addition”, without consciously thinking whether they’re really necessary. Sometimes, not only do the additions add no value, they might even ruin things. For example, overcluttering a presentation with unneeded details. Jam-packing a blog layout with too many things.
  3. We procrastinate, as we wait for a “perfect” moment. Our desire to “perfect” everything makes us overcomplicate a project. What’s actually a simple task may get blown out of proportion, to the extent it becomes subconsciously intimidating. This makes us procrastinate on it, waiting for the ever “perfect” moment before we get to it. This “perfect” moment never strikes until it is too late.
  4. We miss the bigger picture. We are too hung up over details that we forget about the bigger picture and the end vision. It’s not uncommon to see better jobs done in pruning the trees than growing for the forest.
  5. We fuss over unfounded problems. We anticipate problems before they crop up, and come up with solutions to address these problems. It becomes an obsession to pre-empt problems. As it turns out, most of these problems either never do surface or they don’t matter that much.

  However, the problem isn’t perfectionism. Well, not the normal form of perfectionism anyway. Perfectionism helps us to continuously aim for higher standards and become better. It’s a good thing.

  The problem is when the quest for perfectionism turns into an obsession – so much so that the perfectionist becomes neurotic over gaining “perfection” and refuses to accept anything less than perfect. In the process, he misses the whole point altogether. Such perfectionists can be known as “maladaptive perfectionists”.

  The answer isn’t to stop being a perfectionist. It’s to be conscious of our perfectionist tendencies and manage them accordingly. We want to be healthy perfectionists who are truly achieving personal excellence, not maladaptive perfectionists who are sabotaging our own personal growth efforts.

  Here are my 8 personal tips on how we can be healthy perfectionists.

  1. Draw a line. We have the 80/20 rule (see #6 of 13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Productivity)where 80% of output can be achieved in 20% of time spent. We can spend all our time getting the 100% in, or we can draw the line where we get majority of the output, and start on a new project. Obsessing over details is draining and tedious, and doesn’t help us accomplish much. I used to review a blog post 3-4 times before I publish. All the reviewing only amounted to nuance changes in phrasings and the occasional typos. It was extremely ineffective. Now I scan it once or twice and publish it.
  2. Be conscious of trade-offs. When we spend time and energy on something, we deny ourselves from spending the same time and energy on something else. There are tons of things we can do, and we need to be aware of the trade-offs involved, so we can better draw a line (#1). For example, if some unimportant blog admin work takes an hour, that’s an hour I could spend on content creation or blog promotion. Being conscious of this helps me make a better choice on how to spend my time.
  3. Get a view of the big picture. What is the end objective? What is the desired output? Is what you are doing leading you to the overall vision? To make sure my attention is set on the end point, I have a monthly and weekly goal sheet for The Personal Excellence Blog that keeps me on track. Every day, I refer to it to make sure what I’m doing contributes to the weekly goals, and ultimately the monthly goals. These help me stay on track.
  4. Focus on big rocks. Big rocks are the important, high impact activities. Ask yourself if what you are doing makes any real impact. If not, stop working on it. If it’s a small yes, deprioritize, delegate it to someone else or get it done quickly. Seek out high impact tasks and spend time on them instead. Knowing the big picture (#3) helps you know the big rocks that contribute to the end goal. I used to spend endless amount of time tweaking my blog layout, which is really insignificant to the reader. These days I focus more on writing articles and guest posting which are the big rock activities.
  5. Set a time limit. This is same as time boxing (see #5 of 13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Productivity). Parkinson’s Law tells us work will take however long we want it to take. If you give yourself 4 hours, you will finish it in 4 hours. If you give yourself 3 hours, you will finish within 3 hours. If you don’t give yourself any time limit, you will take forever to do it. Set the time limit and finish the task by then. There can be a million things you can do to improve it, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
  6. Be okay with making mistakes. Part of the reason why we obsess over our work is because we want it to be mistake-free. However, trying to achieve 100% perfection is highly ineffective. If we’re busy perfecting this thing, we can’t get to other important things. Realize that making mistakes is a trade off we have to embrace. The more we open ourselves to making mistakes, the faster we can get down to learning from them, and the quicker we can grow.
  7. Realize our concerns usually amount to nothing. It’s good to plan and prepare, but there comes a time when we should let things roll and deal with problems as they crop up. Being overly preemptive makes us live in an imaginary future vs. in the present. As I grow, I’m more inclined to adopt a “roll with the punches” attitude. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. What it means that most of the things that do crop up can always be controlled on the spot, without worrying about them before hand.
  8. Take breaks. If your productivity is waning, take a break. Resting and coming back to the same thing later on gives us a renewed perspective and fresh focus. Sometimes I run out of mental juice when writing my articles, and I don’t get anywhere by pressing on. I know it’s pointless to continue, so I take a break from work. Not surprisingly when I return later, I’m able to make progress again.

  Are you a perfectionist? What are you doing to stay healthy and get things done?

  Image: doublej11

  ---

  I'm Celes and I write at The Personal Excellence Blog, where I give my best advice on achieving personal excellence. If you like this article, you might enjoy reader favorites like 101 Things To Do Before You Die and Are You Sleepwalking Your Life Away?. Get my RSS feed directly and add me on Twitter @celestinechua.

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  4 months on
  
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  This is a historic election - together, we can bring the change Britain needs

  I've favourited a YouTube video: David Cameron sets out the changes that a Conservative Government would bring to Britain.

  4 months on
  
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  Subscribed to webcameronuk I've subscribed to webcameronuk’s channel on YouTube.

  4 months on
  
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  13 years of Labour

  I've favourited a YouTube video: This powerful new film looks back on 13 years of a New Labour government.

  4 months on
  
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  Creationism Propaganda for Children Caught on Camera

  This will make you feel sick.

  (via)

  

  4 months on