I (almost) won the brownie contest

The brownie contest was this past weekend at MIT, sponsored by the MIT chocolate club. Pardon me, the Lab for Chocolate Science. There were about twenty entries. There were five judges who rated each brownie out of ten. I got second place. I missed first place by half a point (half a point!) and only because one of the judges changed his rating of the brownie that won first place. The judges complained that the acidic taste of the cherries was a little jarring, but I think it was because my brownie was one of the last ones to be tasted, and when you only take a little nibble of my brownie, it can be a bit jarring. You need a full bite so that the cherries and the chocolate blend.

And now, for my next trick, I would like to make a caramel brownie. I think that it will be interesting to make a light caramel out of the sugar which is destined to go into the brownie. And then, make a thicker caramel for a caramel swirl, which would go in at the last minute. This brownie sounds like a lot of work, and it might be, but I am going to try anyway. I would also like to make a mint brownie. My first attempt at a mint brownie was only modestly successful, and I think that the addition of a number of different sources of mintiness would add (mint extract in the brownie, crushed mint hard candy, etc). I think that my cherry brownie, substituting the cherries for almonds, and half the flour for almond flour, makes a very nice almond brownie, as is.

In other news, my thesis proposal was rejected AGAIN. On the day I found out it was rejected, I almost made a post here with lots of swearing and cursing f*cking Andy f*cking Lippman. But I decided not to. And this time, he might not even be the culprit (although last time, I am sure it was him). This time, they are complaining that my application sounds too simple. I think that's because they don't know any better. The application(s) I had proposed were a paint/illustrator program, and a model building program where you could pick up and place blocks. Most of the complexity comes from the distributed nature of the application, not from the application itself. I was really mad about this for like five days. But on Tuesday, I met with members of my committee, and David Cavallo had a really good idea: what if I kept the Paint concept, but I added animation! So this sounds good, and I am going to try to think more about how to do this.

I have been more productive lately than I have been in quite some time. Last week, my goal was to put my old tracking functionality into a new software framework that would be conducive to the distributed tracking. Despite all my anxieties about this, it only took me about 4 hours of actual work. If you don't count the time to fix the new networking code. And if you don't count the time I spent writing and thinking about the new software framework. This week, my goal is to get the "distributed" part of the "distributed tracking" working. So far, I am on track to acheive this. The tiles are communicating about what they see, and they are grouping tracks from different sources correctly, unless I do stuff to mess them up. Like hold up two balls of the same color, at the same time.

Last weekend, Mike and I went out with our crazy friend Nuno. We went to Chili's in Burlington, and there was a 45 minute wait. So, we went to the Barnes&Noble next door. Mike bought a magazine called "Make" which had instructions to make a guitar out of a cigar box. I bought a book about Needlcrafts. I think its called "Michael's guide to Needlecrafts" (The store, Michael's). It has stuff and patterns for crochet, knitting, and embroidery.

So, the next day, Mike and I are shopping for our respective things we want to make. We head to Home Depot to get supplies for the cigar box guitar, and while we were there, we picked up some other supplies to make a little workbench. Then, we went to Michael's to get me some circular kitting needles, a cable needle, and some yarn. (I had decided that I was going to make a hat for Mike, using this knitting-in-the-round pattern with cables, to practice some new skills). I think I am on my third or fourth try with this hat. The circular knitting needle was too long, and the yarn was too thick. So, I switched to double pointed needles, and they are a pain in the butt! Last night, I found a website that showed techniques for knitting small pieces using a large circular needle. I think I will try that with some easier yarn.

I went to this IAP class yesterday, called Women's investing for Retirement. It was mostly a bust, but I learned the difference between a growth stock/fund and a value stock/fund. A growth fund is one where the stocks are already performing well, and the future earnings are banking on the current good fortunes of the stock. A value fund is where stocks are undervalued, and they are bought based on their potential for future earnings. So, if a pharmacuetical company just got FDA approval for a new drug, then that is (most likely) a growth stock. But, the same company was just rejected by the FDA, but will soon be approved, that is a value stock.

This weekend, Mike and I are going to Maine. I'm not sure if Barb knows this yet, but now she does!