I've found that a good happy medium is to put something in the microwave for half the recommended time, then move it to the oven for half the recommended oven time.
Do you think I could get rid of my electric stove in my kitchen, then use that plug and buy a 4000W microwave to get it to heat up even faster instead?
what? whether it's a great or only a good pancake is decided in the batter phase. bad pancakes come from whatever that flavor of instant cake mix is called, cake-plasticine.
Yeah, if you've ever heard jokes about "the first pancake"[0] or burnt your pancakes when you get distracted by the rest of breakfast, do yourself a favor and set your griddle to 325F/160C.
Your pancakes can sit at 325F for a long time before they burn, and that alleviates the fear of burning that leads you to flip that first pancake too fast.
I always make "test pancakes" until my griddle is just right, as I don't have a fancy temperature control. A drop of batter will behave just like a full-size pancake if you know what to watch for, a teaspoon if you don't.
I don't have a fancy temperature control, but I had just moved from gas stove to glass top electric* and and I got tired of waiting sooo long to hopefully get to a good cooking temp, only to ruin things by finding out the answer was no.
So a bought a hand-held laser-pointer-temperature gun at the hardware, wow, it's fantastic. Now I know what temps are for what (it's remarkably similar to the oven, 325 to 450) and I know how to find them and how quickly on my stove.
*what is with Miele appliances, they all suck, range, convection oven, microwave. the UIs are impossible.
there is no first pancake problem if you only use your griddle for pancakes, that comes from having to use a pancake to get off whatever horrible things you've put on there in between uses. (and btw, your eggs will cook much easier if you dedicate an egg pan)
325's a good number but I prefer a 350 to 375 with a little urgency, it better gets that "deep fried crispy" around the outside, and stops the already flipped side from just getting steamed to death.
Ah yeah slow heat for longer trick. Like if I cook a steak in the oven for an hour at 250 then throw it on the grill people think I’ve become some master chef.
Once I figured out that cooking is mostly optimizing water while hitting the desired through-doneness and char points, my food markedly improved. Everything about low and slow makes a lot more sense then!
whhaaat? i cook a steak for 1/2 hour in the oven on 200, and sear it in a pan (don't have a grill, am jelly) and sometimes risk over-cooking it?
with pancakes, while you don't want it tooo too hot, you do want a hot pan to sizzle fry some crispy edges on there. i like a little "crack" of the crust, not a steamy on the outside cake.
That's pretty much the space Wordpress thrives in, isn't it?
How shit the product is for Wordpress is a matter of debate, but the documentation and ecosystem around it is robust enough to make it fairly easy to hack and use/abuse to do what you want it to.
I often think of markets in pseudo-evolutionary terms. The types and sizes of companies that survive are those that fit the environmental pressures.
One common trend in evolution is toward gigantism in places of intense competition. Whales, for example, may be as large as they are to avoid having to compete or be eaten by smaller animals. Being bigger means they eat more, leaving fewer resources for competitors.
It can be quite the winning strategy.
At least so long as the environment can provide enough stability to feed such large organisms in the manner in which they are evolved to exploit.
For companies, being large means you can always buy the competition or make sure the barrier to entry is too high for competition (thinner profit margins, "free" services, regulatory capture, etc.).
It works, and quite well. These large corporations can withstand enormous financial shocks, and if they can't, they get purchased by those that can.
For most mature markets this generally seems to shake out to most of the product area being divided between two or three big players and a host of smaller companies at the edges.
Oddly enough, when things are stable being large may be a winning strategy, but it is also very fragile and if the whole system gets disrupted, can be the first to fail when things change too much.
"Art that doesn't sell is just a storage problem."
Had an artist tell me this once and it stuck with me ever since. He was referring to paintings, but has generally held for every other artistic endeavor.
Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes.
For music, musicians who got paid used to be focused on the tastes of just the wealthiest folks who liked to go and be seen at symphonies. Nowadays, it's the artists who can fill stadiums (and get fans to buy lots of merch) that make the most bank. As such, it is often those musicians who provide a sellable brand that do best. To many, this can feel fake and plastic. But like any product designed for mass consumption, it's essential.
Looking at the symbiotic dance between artist and viewer/reader/listener is really something special, and helps to provide context for changes in trends.
You could be the best guitar player in the world, writing the best guitar solos of all time, but if you can't get people to pay for it, it's just a storage problem for your guitar.
>Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes.
Well, not exactly in the same way. Commercial is not about "catering to an audience", it's about catering to mass audiences, and the compromises that entails.
For example, an "artistic" indie group catering to just a tiny minority is not just "as commercial" as a pop production, unless we stretch the term beyond recognition).
There's a huge difference in attitude and approach. The artistic group would rather lose money than incorporat some elements that aren't in their vision. A pop artist on the other hand would more often than not just do whatever the producer or writing team wants to get on the fads of the day and sell more.
It's not just the audience that changes, but the methodology, the marketing involved, the perception of their work by the artist, and most importantly the lack of the kind of defiance that characterized artists who'd rather lose lots of money and stay poor than compromise on their vision (or who even made a point of not selling out on purpose).
> For example, an "artistic" indie group catering to just a tiny minority is not just "as commercial" as a pop production, unless we stretch the term beyond recognition).
But that indie band is not necessarily more artistic.
I know the phrase "mass-marketed commercial pop by committee" produces a visceral reaction, but nothing about it is inherently inauthentic.
"Mass-marketed" just means that something is widely promoted. Many of the most creative, influential, and authentic musical groups are "mass-marketed".
"Commercial" doesn't really mean anything in this context, as presumably everything that you listen to on the radio/streaming services is commercial.
"Pop" is descriptive of the style of the music, not how it's produced (there are indie pop groups).
"by committee" means that multiple people contributed to it. Do you think the only valid creative process is one where somebody works in isolation? If so, that disqualifies pretty much every band / non-solo act from meeting your standards for authenticity.
> "Commercial" doesn't really mean anything in this context, as presumably everything that you listen to on the radio/streaming services is commercial.
It means dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It means being told that instead of deeply personal, complex, and potentially offensive lyrics you're just going to repeat a word or small phrase over and over and over because that sells better doesn't alienate anyone with difficult words or things that might offended them, or might discourage the use (and sale) of that song in commercials, grocery stores, overseas markets, or film soundtracks.
Commercial interests (the desire for as much money as possible at the expense of all else) overrides what would have been deliberate artistic choices in order to maximize profits leading to a landscape of homogenized bland overproduced and unchallenging art.
We've seen many changes in music as a direct result of commercial interests overriding the preferences of artists (and listeners) including the loudness wars, the end of the album as a cohesive work to favor itunes downloads of single tracks, and the lengths of songs getting shorter and shorter to the point where bridges and entire verses are removed.
Not everything you hear on the radio has been fully compromised by commercial interests, but it's a good bet compromises were made and commercial interests have had more influence over what gets heard on the radio than any other factor (talent, skill, popularity, artistry, etc.)
> It means dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
It literally doesn't though. Like, that's not the meaning of the word "commercial" in any sense.
Your favorite indie band is commercial. Your friends who charge $5 for their shows are commercial.
Your issues aren't with "commercial" musicians, they're with musicians who prioritize commercial success over artistic expression.
I don't think is a new phenomenon, and actually think it's a lot less prevalent now than it was in the past. With free streaming services, most people have easy exposure to a much wider range of music, and aren't relying on the radio to dictate their tastes.
There have been dozens of albums from the last few years that have had huge commercial success, and also taken big artistic risks. Happy to provide a list of recommendations if you're having trouble finding good new music.
"Artistic" in the sense "more concerned about art" not "having more art in their results" (which can't be measured anyway).
So, like "arthouse movies". An arthouse movie could be much worse done than a mainstream good movie (like, say, the Godfather). The art in the term is not about the level of artistry, but about the approach.
Far be it from me to try to define art, but at some point I imagine an artist must stop and ask him/herself "Is my work an original thought? Am I telling a story here, sending a message, engaging with an idea, being provocative, being honest, making my audience feel something, or is my work... mass-produced background mall muzak? A soulless sculpture for some corporate headquarters?" Pop music has always been right in the middle, toeing close to that line between "mostly art" and "mostly commercial product". Where the difference between what the artist wants to say and what the audience wants to see/hear is blurry. I'm sure when you enter that world, surrounded by producers, business people, investors, execs, marketing, focus groups, event organizers, you feel the pressure to go along with the flow and just build a formulaic consumer product.
I don't think art that doesn't sell is lesser than art that does sell. I know, tell that to an artist who wants to make a living... but I really think you have to measure a work along more than one axis. How good something sells is a different dimension than how good something is. If that wasn't true, Thriller would be the best music ever and the Toyota Corolla would be the best car in the world.
> "Is my work an original thought? Am I telling a story here, sending a message, engaging with an idea, being provocative, being honest, making my audience feel something, or is my work... mass-produced background mall muzak?"
One of your questions aligns with my personal definition of art. Art is 100% subjective i.e. personal. For me music needs to touch me emotionally, and since i love to dance it is a huge plus if it makes me move too. Visual art needs to astonish me, in one word: Wow!
Music is entertainment, if we leave music for spiritual rituals. Some of the highly revered classical music of Bach or Händel was background or dance music for parties hosted the nobles who employed them.
As many of these companies base their projections on a relatively small number of outside sources, it often strikes me as a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Big business and financial firms have been signaling a belief in a downturn for a while now -- including while posting about record profits.
I've started hearing from non-tech people complaining about the spammy results in google results.
Feels like "trust" that they're actually seeing the best results are going down.
That said, many of these same people rarely actually google things outside of simple factual information that Google does okay at (e.g. height of the eiffel tower). Their experience of the internet is mostly through various social media filters (e.g. Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc.)
I also suspect this is part of the reason Google is giving worse results. Most of the actual content being generated on the internet is now occurring in various walled gardens that either pollute search results (Pinterest!) or don't show up (Facebook).
It's a tough problem for a company built on the open web that web mostly resembles a late-game Risk map with just a few big players.
You joke about nukes, but since they're such an "unthinkable" weapon they've become almost useless for most people who have them. You need them so that others with fewer compunctions are not able to steamroll you, but as an actual help to the kinds of conflicts currently going on and likely to happen in the future, they're just not as effective.
Whether that's fast cruise missiles, more powerful drones, more disposable drones, robot warriors, cyber-warfare, etc. militaries are trying to find the technology that breaks the stalemate caused by MADD.
Humans are regularly surprised to discover that the preponderance of evidence strongly suggests the universe was not created exclusively for themselves.
> The hurdles for starting up in the US market are astronomical, and there's only one contract manufacturer Perrigo Nutritionals which not surprisingly has a large minimum order size. ByHeart became the 4th brand to have its own factory, first in 15 years.
The regulatory hurdles for starting a brewery are even more intense (likely one of the most regulated of any consumable product short of marijuana), yet there's not been a shortage of new ones of those starting even during this current pandemic.
I think the article leans too heavily on "heavily regulated" as a blame for lack of new players in the game and ignores the economic aspects are probably the bigger player.
That division of a mature market seems fairly standard for a consumer food product. I suspect you could say much the same about peanut butter or cream cheese (both of which have had some shortages).
"The regulatory hurdles for starting a brewery are even more intense"
What I was able to find just now says that's a qualitatively different thing, mostly pertaining to Prohibition and its end and taxes, and does not require a proctological safety exam of your supply chain, manufacturing, etc.
As in, get a lawyer and jump through various hoops, as well as maybe some lower level government food safety licencing. It obviously makes a difference when you're selling something that's intrinsically poisonous to microbes by what a chemist once told me was merely the least toxic alcohol. Plus the difference in risks we're willing to have adults vs. babies take.
And of course this is just one of many issues in the market, some of which I outlined, see also the subthread starting with a _Reason_ Volokh Conspiracy column and its links.
4. Learn how to use the power setting of the microwave to ensure even heating.