The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by jon singer:

Once again, I must stress that this is NOT my algorithm (!). It was worked out by the late Mike Fellinger, and should be attributed to him.

Cheers --
jon

Once again, I must stress that this is NOT my algorithm (!). It was worked out by the late Mike Fellinger, and should be attributed to him.

Cheers --
jon

In response to A. J. Luxton's comment of April 17th:

Zott!! We have one coffee plant in the greenhouse right now that appears to be a tricot [if you've ever grown coffee from seed, you will understand why I say "appears to be"; screwiest-looking cotyledons I've ever observed], but I believe that's our only current example. OTOH, we don't have a linac. OTTH, access could maybe be arranged: I do know someone who works at a facility with a linac, and I know someone who is building himself a cyclotron, which would probably do about as well.

I should, btw, have been more clear in my own statement: while I don't have time or energy to count the leaves on most seedlings, a tricot amid dicots stands out like a sore thumb.

I have a proprietary interest in the possibility of Certain Particular Mutations, particularly in Rosa, but it's hard to say "put it here" to a relativistic electron or a molecule of some nasty mutagenic dye.

One has to wonder, btw, why 200-300 rads would cause an increase in sprouting. That's truly wacko. D'you know whether anyone has ever followed up on it or observed the effect? (If you don't want to get into it here, please feel free to send email. My address is on almost all of my pages.)

Cheers --
jon

On April 10th, you mentioned that I melted your head once by telling you that I had a seedling that was tricotyledonous. You went on to say --

"It turned out, when I asked him, that he'd merely meant the seedling was now far enough along that it had three leaves. Foo."

Uhhh, no. That's not a mistake I'm likely to make, and it's decidedly not what I meant; the item in question was something that should have been a dicot. While this apparently happens once in a while it is not at all common, and I thought it worthy of note. In any case, why on earth would I bother mentioning that I had a seedling that was old enough to have 3 leaves? I have at least a hundred seedlings right now, for example, and I'm too busy worrying about where I'm going to put them to bother counting their leaves.

Cheers --
jon

It is my sad duty to disillusion you. As much as I would love to take credit for that algorithm, I cannot in good conscience do so. It was developed by Mike Fellinger, of Boulder, Colorado, lo these many years agone.

As far as I know, it does work, but these days I usually tend to follow methods developed by the people at Cook's Illustrated. We really like Cook's Illustrated.

Back to basting (we're running a day late here) --
jon

Hi, Michael.

No “ñ”; “habanero” is correct — it means a person or thing from Habana (which we usually spell “Havana”). Long story; wild relatives of Capsicum chinense were apparently found in Cuba in 1986. (I’m not sure anybody really knows why the specific epithet is “chinense”.)

Note also: “haba”, not “habe”.

I don’t like jalapeños either, and they give me a bad gut, so I avoid them.

When you say that fish sauce will trap the taste and the heat, do you mean “moderate”, or “bring out”?

Best —
jon

http://www.jossresearch.org/special/tecnu.html

Ahem.

Cheers --
jon

Oh, I forgot — yes, Naga Jolokia. Would like to see either confirmation (and seeds for sale) or denial, but there doesn't seem to be any firm word one way or the other.

Sigh...
jon

Hi hi.

I am abashed. G of P just seemed ...well, _right_. You know.

[I haven't been able to read through the entire comment stack in detail, so the following may replicate something that someone else has suggested; if so, please accept my apologies.]

It occurs to me that Tecnu [tm], which cuts through the oily resin of poison ivy, might be just the thing for removing chile oleoresins as well, and/or for protecting one's hands under the gloves or if one cannot find gloves. I have not tried this, so it remains merely a conjecture for the moment. (Let us not get into "just a theory" here -- I am too angry about people who think that common speech is the same thing as scientific terminology, and who want to dumb us all down to that level, to be coherent on the subject.) I actually have some Tecnu, and the local groceries have Habaneros, so I may just make a test. If I do, I'll report results here.

Cheers --
jon

My own "Beware!" story is calmer than T's — when I was living in the Seattle area I once brought home perhaps half a dozen habas, intending to chop and freeze them. I had sliced them open on the cutting board but hadn't gotten any further when my stepdaughter came to the door of the kitchen, easily a dozen feet away, and choked. She couldn't even get into the room.

Someone said in an earlier comment that bonnets were hotter than habaneros. None of my references agrees with that. The difference isn't huge, but habas are generally listed as being slightly ahead. (Bonnets also have a distinctly different flavor and aroma, which I am not particularly fond of, but that's another story.)

Most of my info, btw, indicates that a regular habanero will probably clock in at 75K to maybe 150K Scovilles, assuming that it was grown under the correct conditions; it's only the fancy cultivars that get insanely higher, with 'Red Savina' maxing out at 577K if I recall correctly, and something called 'Francisca' not far behind it. Near as I recall, though, from what I've read, only occasional fruits are higher than about 350K Scovilles.

Then there was the claim, a couple years back, about a chilli from India (which is why I've used the variant spelling) that supposedly went as high as 855K Scovilles; but I've never seen it substantiated. I think it was stated to be some sort of _C._frutescens_ var, but that's hazy memory, so don't quote me.

Just by the bye, I'm currently growing 'Aji Dulce de Puerto Rico', one of at least 4 entirely nonhot habanero vars. (Why, you ask? Because it lets me adjust flavor and heat independently. More parameters! More degrees of freedom!)

jon

PS: T, are you putting Grains of Paradise into the oil you're doing up for Beth?

No idea whether this is appropriate, nor whether it's compatible with the things you're already taking, but it's worth looking into: go to PubMed and type the words

carnitine lipoic

into the search field. Most of the work has been in rats, but recently some studies in humans are coming up, and they look pretty good. Remember, though, that you have to take GRAMS of acetyl-L-Carnitine per day -- a few hundred milligrams isn't going to do a thing; that plain-ol' Carnitine is NOT the same, and won't do what you want; and that you have to balance the amounts of ALC and Lipoic Acid. (I think I recall something about 600 mg of ALA/day, but don't trust me on that.) Seth Breidbart has just mentioned K-ALA (the potassium salt) to me, but I haven't had a chance to look into it yet. I think the deal is that it's more stable.

Hope this is helpful, or at least interesting --
jon

Hi!

Before I get too far into this, I would like to suggest to Anne that although the peel of blood oranges probably isn't as bitter as the peel of the usual things people make marmalade from, my bet is that they'd be just wonderful. (I think Teresa has actually done this, and can vouch for that.) The trick is to get the right variety -- all I see around here (I'm outside Washington, DC) is 'Moro', which is sweet and bland, and doesn't have much peel or pulp color. I think there are at least three others.

On the main track:

A few of these, at least, may be fairly easy. As Christina Schulman mentions, Whole Foods has been carrying 'Buddha's Hand' lately. (Had I but known, I'd have grabbed one for you when I saw them, a couple weeks back. Sigh.) If that doesn't avail you in the short term, we will hope that the ants don't deflower Rich and Linda's tree again. Argh.

[Many thanks to Rich, btw, for mentioning Four Winds. Sounds like they have some things we've been looking for.]

One other easy item -- my buddy and boss has a chinotto bush in his greenhouse, which currently has one fruit on it. He has just given me permission to pass it along to you, and I will call you to arrange logistics. [He had a 'Buddha's Hand', too, but the heater failed last winter, in a particularly noxious manner, and that pot now contains a bouncing baby rootstock plant about 5 feet tall.]

I've seen citrangequats and limequats at Uwajimaya, in the Seattle area, and you may want to have someone out there keep an eye out for them. (I believe that citrangequat appears twice on your list, btw, and you may want to swap one of them out for limequat unless you've already tried those.) There's also the ichandarin... seems like citrus are altogether too willing to cross-fertilize, dunnit?

I have a funny suspicion that the Korean 'yuja' mentioned by Joy is the same as the bizarro variant 'yuzu' I tasted in San Diego, back in March -- it was largish and orange, and it had a flattened shape. My seedlings are only 2 or 3 inches tall, though, so you'll have to wait a while unless you can find another source.

I should also mention something called 'sudachi' that is much beloved of sushi chefs, who usually use it green. Seems to be yet another species.

At the variety level, you may want to look into 'Golden Bean', which is apparently the smallest kumquat. I'm not sure I've ever seen them; they're apparently about the size of a very large garden pea.

I had two 'Lavender Gem' seedlings once, when I was living in Sunnyvale, but some moron placidly weed-whacked them. If you find these, I'd love to have some fresh seed. Ditto anything interesting that you even suspect I might not already have. (Blood limes?? Blood limes?!!)

You know about why citrus typically come true to type from seed? (Not entirely obvious, and pretty cool if you're into botany.)

Cheers --
jon

PS: Here's a URL that mentions quite a few citrus items --

http://www.defra.gov.uk/hort/hmi/euregcitr.htm

I seem to recall seeing mention of two tropical rose species, so I'd guess it's only a matter of time. As someone pointed out here already, Rosa is a relatively young genus. (I just looked, and I don't find anything obvious about tropical rose spp on the Web. Sigh.)

On other fronts:

R. acicularis is indeed, as far as I know, found into zone 2, and there is a rumor that the ploidy tends to increase with latitude -- that plants native to temperate regions are typically diploid or tetraploid, while plants from the Arctic are sometimes hexaploid or octoploid. I haven't had an opportunity to test this conjecture, and I don't recall seeing any confirmation of it, just the naked claim. Makes me wanna learn how to do chromosome counts (and DNA fingerprinting), y'know?

I was going to blather more; but maybe I should let it go at that, unless someone wants the names of more extremely hardy spp, or wants to grow roses in bogs, or....

Cheers --
jon

Turns out that Erik is not necessarily correct about the lifetime of the drive after you open the case -- a buddy of mine at Apple had one on his desk that way for at least a year and a half. You just don't breathe on it (or turn it off if you can avoid doing so), and you don't let anyone smoke in the room. The rotating platters generate enough wind to keep the dust away, and anything that actually reaches them probably gets swept off by the heads.

Mind you, this was with the drive technology of a decade ago, and things might be different now. OTOH, higher RPM probably means more airflow, so my guess is that it's still true.

One other possibility, btw, is that the power supply in the drive box has a problem. You can test that by taking the drive out of the box and putting it into an IDE Mac that can handle an extra drive (not the Beige, unless you have the special ROM).

Good luck, one way or t'other --
jon

PS: If you do put the drive box into the freezer, put it into a ziploc bag first. You can leave the cable ends out, but you may want to put them into another ziploc while the thing is actually inside the freezer.

Comment statistics for jon singer on the Making Light blog

Total: 14 comments. View all these comments on a single page.