Tablet Comparison

Grocery Syndication

A standardized Xml format for describing supplied produce and groceries, including cost and location.
Syndicated using RSS
Collated by centralized grocery shopping web sites
Enter your shopping list, generates best price and allows you to edit manually.
Allow small producers to compete with market heavyweights Tesco, Asda, etc.
Cut out middle men and fund local produce directly without the inefficiency of driving about or remembering to visit farmers marker
Automatic increased visibility of small producers
Decentralize food production, sales and distribution.
Retire hellish supermarket eyesores.

Add standard Xml format for food recipes.
Internally measurements stored as metric, localize to US and old money via translation
Recipe sites now syndicate their recipes as well.
Grocery shopping sites now allow you to choose your shopping list via what you want to cook as well.

Filter by organic or no gm
Calculate and filter by food miles
Enforce dietary requirements

I love Xml.

Batch convert WAV to MP3 with LAME on the command line in Windows

FOR /R "." %G IN (*.wav) DO LAME.EXE --preset standard "%G"

Useful links for getting serial access to a home router, used for de-bricking

Basically bookmarking these for myself, as the layout for the OpenWRT documentation is... convoluted.

The useful bit from the OpenWRT docs

Custom cable manufacturer with apparently reasonable prices

Chilli mix No.2

Chilli mix No.2:

2 tbsp Cumin powder
1 tbsp Corriander powder
1 tbsp Crushed dried red chilli
1 tbsp Cayenne powder
1 tbsp Onion powder
1 tbsp Smoked paprika
1 tsp Garlic salt

Makes enough for Chilli made with 1kg beef mince.
Mix together, blend with the chopped tomatoes.

Numbledenumps

Numbledenumps

A take on the recipe for rumbledethumps on the BBC website.
Basically, I just used what was available in the local shops and what was in the fridge that needed using up

Ingredients:

750g potato, peeled and diced.
500g parsnips, peeled and diced.
50g butter
A bit of cooking oil of choice
1/2 white cabbage, quite finely sliced into 2cm lengths (sliced one way, then turn it a quarter and chop it again a couple of times)
1 onion
salt and pepper
a bunch of cheese, grated (i used up some mozzarella and mature cheddar)

Method:

Put the potato and parsnips in a pan, cover with water and add a teaspoon of salt.
Put a lid on, bring to the boil, remove lid, turn down and simmer until very tender.
While that's cooking, hear the butter with a bit of normal cooking oil in another pan with that has a lid.
Turn it up high, fry the onion until golden.
Turn it down, add the cabbage and stir.
Put a lid on and sweat it for 5 minutes. Don't over do it, they must still be quite firm.
Drain the veg. Return them to the pan.
Add the onion, cabbage and butter mix.
Mash, season with salt and pepper to taste (about 1/4 tsp salt and 10 turns of pepper)
Transfer to a lidded casserole dish, cover the top with the cheese.
Put the lid on and put in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes.
After that, remove the lid and put back in the oven for a further 15 minutes.

Nom the hell out of it.
Lie down and wonder why you tried to eat so much.

How to configure unattended upgrades in Ubuntu

Here's a useful page on how to configure unattended upgrades in Ubuntu:

http://www.richud.com/wiki/Ubuntu_Enable_Automatic_Updates