Today, I made yeastless bread. The word technically is unleavened, but not really in this case. I still rose the dough. I just didn't use any yeast.
The chemical principles behind it were pretty easy, they came to me last night when I was studying Japanese. Normal household vinegar is diluted ethanoic acid. I had 5% ethanoic acid, and some baking soda(sodium bicarbonate).
Now, before I get into this anymore, maybe I should explain what happens with NORMAL breadmaking. You add yeast and sugar to your dough, cover it, and leave it somewhere warm. After a couple of minutes, it rises, and voila, leavened dough ready for the oven.
The dough rises because the yeast(which is actually alive), uses the sugar in respiration to produce energy. The byproducts of the yeast respiring, are alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide escapes into the dough, and makes it rise. As for the alcohol, them amount of it produced is so small, that it all evaporates away during baking, and you can't get drunk off it. (Sad, but true =[)
So, if sodium bicarbonate(baking soda) + ethanoic acid(vinegar) produces carbon dioxide, and yeast+sugar also produces carbon dioxide, and we know that carbon dioxide makes the dough rise, common sense says that we could use the baking soda and vinegar as a substitute for yeast and sugar, right?
Yup, I'm here to tell you that it works, but there are a few details you need to take into consideration.
First of all, you need to store the vinegar at a cold temperature (the reason for this will become apparent later). It would also be nice if the baking soda is at a cold temperature too. Also, although I said you don't need to add yeast + sugar to the dough, you may want to add a LITTLE bit of sugar (and salt) to the dough, just to help the bread to taste like bread, instead of saltwater on flour(a LITTLE, not American little, but Third World™ little).
So, like any Good Christian™ (forgive me, I just learnt how to use the trademark symbol today =]..lol), you make your dough with all the traditional ingredients, minus the yeast. Now, you need a pretty big pan to pull this off. You're also going to want something small to mix the vinegar and baking soda in, such as the cover of a peanut butter bottle(...ghetto, right? I know, homey, I know. lol). Don't mix it yet, here's some more info for you.
Put the dough to one side of the pan. On the other side, put your cover or whatever small object you're going to store the baking soda in. DO NOT FILL IT COMPLETELY. In fact, just shake a LITTLE bit of the baking soda into the bottom of the container, about half or a quarter teaspoon full. Remember people, Third World™ little. :P
Now, cover half of your pan with a dishtowel/teatowel/whatever you wierdly accented people want to call it. I'll stick with the word dishtowel, thank you very much.
Make sure the half you've covered is the half with the dough in it. Now, take your vinegar out of the fridge(hopefully its cold by now, but not frozen), and pour a SMALL amount into the cover. Don't pour a lot, because there's going to be a bit of effervescence, from the carbon dioxide being released, and it might spill out and make your dough wet and sloppy.
As soon as you add it, cover the entire pan quickly, so the carbon dioxide doesn't escape.
The reason we kept the baking soda and the vinegar cold is because the chemical reaction is pretty quick under normal circumstances, so most of the carbon dioxide would escape really fast. Chemical reactions(in general) are slower at lower temperatures. Hence, the reaction would be slowed down a bit, so not a lot of carbon dioxide would escape before you get to cover it.
Now, you're almost done. Check back on it in half an hour, and empty the small container where you mixed the baking soda and the vinegar. Refill it like I just described above and leave it for another half an hour.
After that, remove the container with the mixture and dispose of it. Then, bake the dough that's left over like you'd bake bread normally.
I'm no chef, but the end result when I did it was pretty tolerable. I still admit that it would taste better with yeast though, but then again, my baking skills have room for improvement.
Scratch that, they have a STADIUM for improvement.
Maybe I just need some practice.
Okay, I'm lying a bit....the bread wasn't tolerable. It tasted like crap. That was mostly my fault, due to not adding enough salt and sugar to the dough(hence the reason for me warning you earlier, so you don't make the same mistake).
The point is, my dough rose, due to sound scientific techniques...heheheh. Maybe someone with a better baking technique than me could pull it off using the baking soda and vinegar method.
Anyway, I'm done blogging for today, just wanted to let you guys know what killed me, so you can tell the coroner, if you ever get called to identify my body at the morgue.
Peace and Love,
Gavin™
P.S. Technically, I simplified the chemistry a bit. The baking soda + vinegar doesn't produce carbon dioxide directly. Instead, it produces carbonic acid (H2CO3), which then breaks down to produce carbon dioxide and water. I suppose my hot tropical climate was partially responsible for the reaction being so quick. Who knows?
Now go make your own bread and go to hell.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Some Cartoon Theme Songs
Today I was flipping through the channels of a local TV station, and I came up on an episode of X-Men Evolution. Of course, we all know and love X-men, but my mind didn't turn to them. Instead, it turned to the topic of cool cartoon theme songs.
I like the X-men evolution theme song, so I started thinking about OTHER cartoon theme songs I liked. Here are 8 of my favourites (not in any particular order). Note that I haven't included anime's since I've watched like a bazillion animes, and I can't bother to think of anime songs now. I'll deal with Western style cartoons in this post alone:
1)X-Men evolution theme song:
2)Thundercats Theme Song
3)Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
4)Galaxy Rangers
5)Defenders of the Earth
6)Pink Panther and Sons
7)Jayce and The Wheel Warriors
8)Transformers: Robots In Disguise
Yes, I still watch cartoons.
And I was bored when I came up with this.
And I'm going to stop making an ass of myself now.
Peace,
Lord Robinson
I like the X-men evolution theme song, so I started thinking about OTHER cartoon theme songs I liked. Here are 8 of my favourites (not in any particular order). Note that I haven't included anime's since I've watched like a bazillion animes, and I can't bother to think of anime songs now. I'll deal with Western style cartoons in this post alone:
1)X-Men evolution theme song:
2)Thundercats Theme Song
3)Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
4)Galaxy Rangers
5)Defenders of the Earth
6)Pink Panther and Sons
7)Jayce and The Wheel Warriors
8)Transformers: Robots In Disguise
Yes, I still watch cartoons.
And I was bored when I came up with this.
And I'm going to stop making an ass of myself now.
Peace,
Lord Robinson
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Twitter, Japanese and Mathematics
No, I guarantee you that none of the nouns in the title of this blog post are linked, I'm not that far gone yet. However, I'm blogging about them right now since they're significant. First, onto the issue of Twitter.
Yes, I've been a lazy BASTARD lately. I haven't been updating my blog, but I have been updating my Twitter feed. As I write this, I'm on the eve of my 100th Twitter post(For those of you retards who don't know English, it means I'm at 99 Twitter posts...dumbasses.) If you got to this link via Twitter, it means that you just clicked on my 100th Twitter post, WOOT!!! That's right people, my 100th Twitter post was a link to my blog...wow!!
Everyone knows how AWESOME Twitter is, so I won't waste my time regurgitating what you can find all over the web. So instead, I'm going to talk about the useless crap that has been going on in my life.
First, one of the obvious facts of life. I, Gavin Robinson, r teh HAXXORS!!
Why?
Well, within 3 weeks, I have managed to acquire a functioning knowledge of Japanese, including knowing the entire Hiragana and Katakana tables, knowing basic conversational Japanese, knowing how to conjugate regular Ichidan and Godan verbs (the two main categories of verbs in Japanese, similar to ar/er/ir verbs in Spanish), and learning 12.5% of all Japanese Grade 1 Kanji, as well as the on-yomi readings, kun-yomi readings and the radicals associated with the Kanji.
Yes, I'm boasting. So what? Bite me.
But then, what sort of blogger would I be if I didn't use this to spread free information?
So how did I do it?
Well first of all, get some oxygen to your brain. I'm not advocating the usage of hyperbaric oxygen chambers, but some cardiovascular exercise (in my case, skipping) does help to improve memory (at least it helped mine). I don't seem to be getting any fitter (yet), but at least I'm not getting any fatter.
Next, bite into your lower lip, and prepare for pain while you learn the hiragana and katakana syllablaries. Seriously, this is painful. It's like one of the hardest things (next to memorizing Kanji). This is especially true if you're a natural English speaker like me (or most of the people that come to this blog T_T). It may feel unnatural drawing symbols to represent syllables, but you'll get over it soon. Personally, I found it easier to start with katakana and move on to hiragana. The way I learned it was by learning the katakana/hiragana in sets of 2-5 at a time, then writing each character out about 12-25 times (yes, WRITING them). Then I learnt some vocabulary that used them, and practiced writing those words from memory (its easy to remember words in romaji). I kept this up until I could write the whole Katakana/Hiragana table from memory. I highly recommend these lessons:
Kanji Kafe's Complete Katakana Lessons (also contains incomplete Hiragana lessons)
Hiragana Exercises
Joyo Kanji Up To Sixth Grade Level
Next, go and learn some basic conversational Japanese vocabulary. About.com's Japanese lessons are a good place to start. Don't get ahead of yourself and try Kanji now...you will be in PAIN!!(as in eternal damnation style pain)
After you've soaked up enough conversation vocabulary, check out verb and adjective conjugations (also on About.com's Japanese lessons). Yes, adjectives can be conjugated in Japanese too. Thankfully, adjective conjugations aren't very hard. Neither are verb conjugations for that matter. You'll see once you reach this stage. While learning about verbs, you should also learn basic sentence patterns such as how to say that one noun is another noun, or a certain adjective describes a noun.
By now, you should probably have run into a few difficulties here and there with little oddities in the language. This is why I recommend getting a friend who is DAMN good with the language. Preferably a HOT one.
Sadly, my search for a hot girl that knew Japanese was an EPIC FAIL =[. The one I found was a nice enough person though, and relatively smart. (I'm kidding Shrewy, please don't kill me '^_^ ). In all honesty though, I consider myself fortunate to have found a friend who fit all the criteria for a J-sensei. =]
But seriously, a good friend who knows the language and/or a friend who is interested in learning the language is a great help. The wise friend who knows the language can always help you when you're stuck, and the friend who is interested in learning provides a source of rivalry...so you always feel motivated to work. Then again, that's just me...and lots of my friends say I'm overcompetitive...balls to you all!!! (some friends they are T_T).
By this time, you should know the basic sentence structures, so take a day (as in a 12 hour day) to make some basic sentences using the verbs, tenses and sentence structures you know. You may periodically need to refresh your knowledge of the kana tables by trying to write them down from memory. Personally, I find the hiragana for the syllabes "mu", "yu","ne" and "nu", as well as the katakana for the syllables "mu" and "ne", a bit hard to remember.
Do a refresher on everything for the better part of a week (about 4-5) days, and then go and try some learn some Japanese Grade 1 Kanji. I guarantee you that this is the hardest part.
You can now go and try to read some Japanese websites. I recommend getting the Rikaichan browser plugin for Firefox first though, because there are going to be quite a few phrases/Kanji you don't know. I also recommend getting the Denshi Jisho bookmarklet, for quick reference.
Tada...you now know enough Japanese to find the bathroom if you ever find yourself in the middle of a Yakuza conference by accident (although in all honesty, I think you'd have bigger problems than wetting yourself if you found yourself in the middle of one of those O_o).
Next...up..Mathematics.
Yes, I bet some of you cretinous proles have looked up on some AWESOME people such as myself at times in the past, and wondered, "How can he multiply such large numbers, mentally, so QUICKLY?!"
Well, all your human sacrifices have pleased the I, so the I has decided to reveal to the thou how the I dost do it. Keep in mind that everyone is different, and this is just MY personal method, so other people may tell you different stuff. Mine works fine for me though, so I'm cool with it.
Look at this:
369 x 69
You could do it mentally, but it would take a lot more than 15 seconds. Using my method, you can do it in less than 8 or so. Of course, doing mental arithmetic also depends on how well I slept the night before...some days were just NOT meant for Mathematics.
You split up the numbers first.
369 to 3 6 9
69 to 6 and 9
Now, here's what you do. Normally, you'd multiply 369 by 9 and multiply 369 by 60 and add them, using conventional mathematical methods (If you're confused about multiplying by 60, think about it, you put a 0 at then end, then multiply 369 by 6 to get the second number you use to add. This is equivalent to multiplying by 60. If you're still confused, just think about it a bit.)
So here's what you do, multiply the first separate set of numbers (thats 3, 6 and 9) by the 9 from 69.
So, this gives you:
27 54 81
Now what you do is add these numbers together as follows:
2700
0540
+ 81
------
3321
That's the first number.
You find the second number in a similar manner, but multiply your result by 10.
So, for the second set, you'd have:
18 36 54
This produces:
1800
0360
+ 54
------
2214
which you then multiply by 10 to get 22140. You then add this and the previous number to get:
22140+3321 = 25461
This principle works off the fact that its faster to break up the different parts of the number and add them than it is to try multiplying the WHOLE number by something else. In this way, it's a simplification of traditional multiplication, although the basic principle stays the same.
Still, this has been a LONG post, and I don't want to bore you people now (as if you aren't bored already). So, I'm going to say:
ざまたガャビン
(Later,
Gavin.)
P.S. My friend's an artist btw, and I figure one of the best ways to thank her would be to link to her DeviantArt profile...so I'm putting it here for the WHOOOOLE world to make fun of:
Laugh away =]
EDIT: Added a link to a site containing the Kanji up to Grade 6 level.
Yes, I've been a lazy BASTARD lately. I haven't been updating my blog, but I have been updating my Twitter feed. As I write this, I'm on the eve of my 100th Twitter post(For those of you retards who don't know English, it means I'm at 99 Twitter posts...dumbasses.) If you got to this link via Twitter, it means that you just clicked on my 100th Twitter post, WOOT!!! That's right people, my 100th Twitter post was a link to my blog...wow!!
Everyone knows how AWESOME Twitter is, so I won't waste my time regurgitating what you can find all over the web. So instead, I'm going to talk about the useless crap that has been going on in my life.
First, one of the obvious facts of life. I, Gavin Robinson, r teh HAXXORS!!
Why?
Well, within 3 weeks, I have managed to acquire a functioning knowledge of Japanese, including knowing the entire Hiragana and Katakana tables, knowing basic conversational Japanese, knowing how to conjugate regular Ichidan and Godan verbs (the two main categories of verbs in Japanese, similar to ar/er/ir verbs in Spanish), and learning 12.5% of all Japanese Grade 1 Kanji, as well as the on-yomi readings, kun-yomi readings and the radicals associated with the Kanji.
Yes, I'm boasting. So what? Bite me.
But then, what sort of blogger would I be if I didn't use this to spread free information?
So how did I do it?
Well first of all, get some oxygen to your brain. I'm not advocating the usage of hyperbaric oxygen chambers, but some cardiovascular exercise (in my case, skipping) does help to improve memory (at least it helped mine). I don't seem to be getting any fitter (yet), but at least I'm not getting any fatter.
Next, bite into your lower lip, and prepare for pain while you learn the hiragana and katakana syllablaries. Seriously, this is painful. It's like one of the hardest things (next to memorizing Kanji). This is especially true if you're a natural English speaker like me (or most of the people that come to this blog T_T). It may feel unnatural drawing symbols to represent syllables, but you'll get over it soon. Personally, I found it easier to start with katakana and move on to hiragana. The way I learned it was by learning the katakana/hiragana in sets of 2-5 at a time, then writing each character out about 12-25 times (yes, WRITING them). Then I learnt some vocabulary that used them, and practiced writing those words from memory (its easy to remember words in romaji). I kept this up until I could write the whole Katakana/Hiragana table from memory. I highly recommend these lessons:
Kanji Kafe's Complete Katakana Lessons (also contains incomplete Hiragana lessons)
Hiragana Exercises
Joyo Kanji Up To Sixth Grade Level
Next, go and learn some basic conversational Japanese vocabulary. About.com's Japanese lessons are a good place to start. Don't get ahead of yourself and try Kanji now...you will be in PAIN!!(as in eternal damnation style pain)
After you've soaked up enough conversation vocabulary, check out verb and adjective conjugations (also on About.com's Japanese lessons). Yes, adjectives can be conjugated in Japanese too. Thankfully, adjective conjugations aren't very hard. Neither are verb conjugations for that matter. You'll see once you reach this stage. While learning about verbs, you should also learn basic sentence patterns such as how to say that one noun is another noun, or a certain adjective describes a noun.
By now, you should probably have run into a few difficulties here and there with little oddities in the language. This is why I recommend getting a friend who is DAMN good with the language. Preferably a HOT one.
Sadly, my search for a hot girl that knew Japanese was an EPIC FAIL =[. The one I found was a nice enough person though, and relatively smart. (I'm kidding Shrewy, please don't kill me '^_^ ). In all honesty though, I consider myself fortunate to have found a friend who fit all the criteria for a J-sensei. =]
But seriously, a good friend who knows the language and/or a friend who is interested in learning the language is a great help. The wise friend who knows the language can always help you when you're stuck, and the friend who is interested in learning provides a source of rivalry...so you always feel motivated to work. Then again, that's just me...and lots of my friends say I'm overcompetitive...balls to you all!!! (some friends they are T_T).
By this time, you should know the basic sentence structures, so take a day (as in a 12 hour day) to make some basic sentences using the verbs, tenses and sentence structures you know. You may periodically need to refresh your knowledge of the kana tables by trying to write them down from memory. Personally, I find the hiragana for the syllabes "mu", "yu","ne" and "nu", as well as the katakana for the syllables "mu" and "ne", a bit hard to remember.
Do a refresher on everything for the better part of a week (about 4-5) days, and then go and try some learn some Japanese Grade 1 Kanji. I guarantee you that this is the hardest part.
You can now go and try to read some Japanese websites. I recommend getting the Rikaichan browser plugin for Firefox first though, because there are going to be quite a few phrases/Kanji you don't know. I also recommend getting the Denshi Jisho bookmarklet, for quick reference.
Tada...you now know enough Japanese to find the bathroom if you ever find yourself in the middle of a Yakuza conference by accident (although in all honesty, I think you'd have bigger problems than wetting yourself if you found yourself in the middle of one of those O_o).
Next...up..Mathematics.
Yes, I bet some of you cretinous proles have looked up on some AWESOME people such as myself at times in the past, and wondered, "How can he multiply such large numbers, mentally, so QUICKLY?!"
Well, all your human sacrifices have pleased the I, so the I has decided to reveal to the thou how the I dost do it. Keep in mind that everyone is different, and this is just MY personal method, so other people may tell you different stuff. Mine works fine for me though, so I'm cool with it.
Look at this:
369 x 69
You could do it mentally, but it would take a lot more than 15 seconds. Using my method, you can do it in less than 8 or so. Of course, doing mental arithmetic also depends on how well I slept the night before...some days were just NOT meant for Mathematics.
You split up the numbers first.
369 to 3 6 9
69 to 6 and 9
Now, here's what you do. Normally, you'd multiply 369 by 9 and multiply 369 by 60 and add them, using conventional mathematical methods (If you're confused about multiplying by 60, think about it, you put a 0 at then end, then multiply 369 by 6 to get the second number you use to add. This is equivalent to multiplying by 60. If you're still confused, just think about it a bit.)
So here's what you do, multiply the first separate set of numbers (thats 3, 6 and 9) by the 9 from 69.
So, this gives you:
27 54 81
Now what you do is add these numbers together as follows:
2700
0540
+ 81
------
3321
That's the first number.
You find the second number in a similar manner, but multiply your result by 10.
So, for the second set, you'd have:
18 36 54
This produces:
1800
0360
+ 54
------
2214
which you then multiply by 10 to get 22140. You then add this and the previous number to get:
22140+3321 = 25461
This principle works off the fact that its faster to break up the different parts of the number and add them than it is to try multiplying the WHOLE number by something else. In this way, it's a simplification of traditional multiplication, although the basic principle stays the same.
Still, this has been a LONG post, and I don't want to bore you people now (as if you aren't bored already). So, I'm going to say:
ざまたガャビン
(Later,
Gavin.)
P.S. My friend's an artist btw, and I figure one of the best ways to thank her would be to link to her DeviantArt profile...so I'm putting it here for the WHOOOOLE world to make fun of:
Laugh away =]
EDIT: Added a link to a site containing the Kanji up to Grade 6 level.
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