Fake bacon, or, facon
As a cut of “fake-able” meat, bacon’s an interesting one. It’s got a few things going for it—for one, it’s usually crisped in a lot of fat under high heat, and that charred flavor and crispy texture is something relatively easy to achieve by frying your favorite material. On the other hand, perhaps bacon’s dominant…
On Meatless Meat
I’ve got to admit—from keeping ourselves fed to revamping our crossword site, full-blown adult life is busier than I expected! In keeping with the newfound freedom of adulthood, this post marks a bit of a topical shift, or expansion, for the blog. I’ll keep posting about stats and data when I find them interesting, but…
Ballots & Bookies
Swing states, mail-in votes, litigation threats… there was so much to keep track of as the election news rolled in this week, and it was hard to contextualize it toward results. It looked like Trump’s victory before Biden’s, but how convincing were those hints? It seemed like none of the news channels would give us…
Quick thought: Letter frequencies in crossword puzzles
Just a quick follow-up on my last post about Crossword puzzles and our new website, CrossWorthy.net. (New puzzles there every Sunday! Check it out if you haven’t had a chance.) Our crossword-filling algorithm works in such a way that it maximizes the remaining possibilities left by each word, based on the other letters in that…
Crossworthy Combinations
Wow, it’s been busy lately! May and I are in the middle of moving across the country to Berkeley, California, where I’ll start a new job in an entirely new industry. We’re also finalizing May’s immigration paperwork, while I’m trying to get a last paper out the door to close out my public health research.…
Slow and steady… gets published eventually?
Lately, I feel like I’ve been talking about fracking nonstop. I’ve been researching fracking as a public health scientist since January 2018, but in this transitional time for me—graduation looming, the job search ever continuing—it seems that the last two and a half years of fracking research are all flashing by one last (?) time.…
Some AI transcriptions of popular song lyrics
Amazon Transcribe is a Siri-like tool that can write down text from an audio recording. It’s probably useful for closed captioning, etc. I thought I’d have some fun by feeding it a few famous songs: Shake It Off (Taylor Swift) “people, people, but people, people. Hey, just think you’ve been getting down and out about…
Coronavirus, Disease Burden, and the New York Times
So, UChicago just canceled their entire spring term, migrating all classes to online platforms and sending students home after we take winter quarter finals next week. Suddenly, I have one week to say bye to all the friends and acquaintances I’ve made over the last four years. And graduation? Senior week? The concerts and shows…
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