Chris Aldrich | Chris Aldrich

Later today, Jared Pereirah will be interviewing me about my website BoffoSocko.com as part of his course Learning with Personal Websites within the Hyperlink Academy.

Join us this afternoon on a live stream at 3PM EST / 12PM PST to chat and ask questions about my website, how I use it as a digital commonplace book, and the IndieWeb movement.

RSVP and Zoom link here: https://www.mixily.com/event/2998111357898639657

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🎧 Fifty ways to cook a carrot: More than a snack, Jack | Eat This Podcast

Listened to Fifty ways to cook a carrot More than a snack, Jack by

Jeremy Cherfas from Eat This Podcast

A rainbow handful of carrots graces the cover of Peter Hertzmann’s new book. But, as I discovered when I spoke to Peter, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Or even, apparently, by its title: 50 Ways to Cook a Carrot. Because although all the methods (not recipes!) feature carrots in one form or another, they’re intended to offer techniques that, Peter insists, you can apply to many other vegetables, fruits, and even meat and fish.

There is, indeed, much to be learned from the book, even for an experienced cook, and I have already successfully applied one of the methods to some leeks. The UK edition of the book, published by Prospect Books, is available now, but it won’t be available in the US for a couple of months. However, Prospect kindly agreed to send a copy to one lucky winner.

Next Monday (28 October) I will pick someone at random from all of those who subscribe to Eat This Newsletter. If you’re already a subscriber, you don’t need to do anything, although I would appreciate if you spread the word and thereby diminish your own chances. If you’re not a subscriber, do sign up now, and feel free to diminish your chances too by persuading friends to sign up.

Notes

Peter Hertzmann’s website is à la carte

You can order 50 Ways to Cook a Carrot directly from Prospect Books.

Banner photo by Dana DeVolk on Unsplash

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This podcast always sparks such joy for me. Sadly I love it so much that I can not just consume it in the same gourmand way I do the vast majority of the podcasts I listen to. I always feel the guilty-pleasure-need to carve out specific time to sit down and listen to it so that I can be a far more active listener than not. The worst part is that it means I’m not listening to it as frequently as I’d like. Sometimes you just can’t win.

I have to say that I whole-heartedly agree with Peter Hertzmann’s view of cooking pedagogy. It’s NEVER about the recipe, instead it’s all about the method. If you have the knowledge of the methods of cooking and know some ingredients then you’re set. Now of course when it comes to baking and a few other small sub-areas then having the proper ratios of ingredients becomes useful too. The rest is just taking the science of cooking and bring it up to the sublime level of art.

I’ve got a copy of the book on pre-order for it’s release on January 14, 2020 and based on Jeremy’s interview I suspect it’ll take up residence on the shelf right next to McGee’s On Food and Cooking and Ruhlman’s Ratio.

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Checked into Rose Bowl Aquatic Center

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Checked into Dr. Domotor's Animal House Veterinary Hospital

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Checked into Dunsmore Park

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🎧 Mindscape 68 | Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence and the Challenge of Common Sense

Listened to Mindscape 68 | Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence and the Challenge of Common Sense by Sean Carroll from preposterousuniverse.com

Artificial intelligence is better than humans at playing chess or go, but still has trouble holding a conversation or driving a car. A simple way to think about the discrepancy is through the lens of “common sense” — there are features of the world, from the fact that tables are solid to the prediction that a tree won’t walk across the street, that humans take for granted but that machines have difficulty learning. Melanie Mitchell is a computer scientist and complexity researcher who has written a new book about the prospects of modern AI. We talk about deep learning and other AI strategies, why they currently fall short at equipping computers with a functional “folk physics” understanding of the world, and how we might move forward.

Melanie Mitchell received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Michigan. She is currently a professor of computer science at Portland State University and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research focuses on genetic algorithms, cellular automata, and analogical reasoning. She is the author of An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms, Complexity: A Guided Tour, and most recently Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans. She originated the Santa Fe Institute’s Complexity Explorer project, on online learning resource for complex systems.

One of the more interesting interviews of Dr. Mitchell with respect to her excellent new book Dr. Carroll gets the space she’s working in and is able to have a more substantive conversation as a result.

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