Foods ‘n’ stuff in Mexico City

November 2, 2012 • 2:24 pm

I’ve run around like a crazy person in Mexico City this a.m., with a gazillion impressions (it’s All Souls Day, and everyone is celebrating and dancing and eating and in costume), and 185 photos, but I’ll just put up some fudz and a few other things for now.

Breakfast was suggested by a Mexican reader here, at the famous El Cardenal restaurant just down the street from my hotel (click all photos to enlarge):

First course, Mexican hot chocolate and a pan dulce, with a bowl of nata (the skin on top of boiled milk) on the side.

The nata is spread on top of the sweet bread and eaten with hot chocolate; it’s DECADENT.

After that, huevos rancheros (fried) with tortillas, fresh cheese, and refried beans.  Excellent!

Lunch from a stall in the plaza: a crunchy blue corn thingie with refried beans, fresh cheese, chili, nopales (prickly pear cactus) salsa, and coriander on top.

And on the side (I’ll post more on this later): a visit to Diego Rivera’s murals in the Governor’s Palace (they’re all over this part of the city, and I’ll see more on Sunday). Here’s a bit showing the Spanish torturing the natives and buying them as slaves. The blue-eyed baby is suppose to represent intermarriage between Spanish and the locals:

The plaza is filled with giant papier maché figures of monsters, constructed for the Day of the Dead:

Flash Anzan: an amazing new number game

November 2, 2012 • 7:18 am

The Guardian‘s science section reports on a new numbers game, “Flash Anzan.” It’s based on the Japanese abacus, or soroban, which a million Japanese kids learn to use every year.  The game requires mental representations of an abacus; the game, according to author Alex Bellos, goes like this:

. . . 15 numbers are flashed consecutively on a giant screen. Each number is between 100 and 999. The challenge is to add them up.

Simple, right? Except the numbers are flashed so fast you can barely read them.

Takeo Sasano, a school clerk in his 30s, broke his own world record: he got the correct answer when the numbers were flashed in 1.70 seconds. In the clip below, taken shortly before, the 15 numbers flash in 1.85 seconds. The speed is so fast I doubt you can even read one of the numbers.

Apparently they flash different sets of numbers at different rates, and the winner is the one who gets the right answer first at the fastest flashing rate.

Amazing. Here’s another clip,

. . . showing Sasano break the world record at 1.80 seconds. Note that the format of the competition is a bit like an arithmetical version of a spelling bee. The remaining contestants are sitting in chairs. The numbers are flashed. The contestants write down their answers and exchange papers for marking. The result is displayed on the screen, and those who got the correct answer stand up.

How does it work? Bellos explains more, but go over to his piece to see a bunch of other interesting stuff and one other amazing video in which the mental addition is done simultaneously with a word game.

Anzan was invented a few years ago by an abacus teacher, Yoji Miyamoto, who wanted to design a maths game that was only solvable by calculation with an imaginary abacus, a skill known as anzan.

When the contestant sees the first number he or she instantly visualizes the number on the imaginary abacus. When they see the second number they instantly add it to the number already visualized, and so on. At the end of the game the contestants cannot remember any of the numbers, or the intermediate sums. They only retain the final answer on the imaginary abacus.

Performing arithmetic using an imaginary abacus is the fastest way to perform mental calculations.

h/t: Michael

I have landed in Mexico

November 2, 2012 • 6:08 am

I am in Mexico City, only two blocks from the “Centro Histórico,” the historical center of the city and a World Heritage site. The plaza (Zócalo), which I passed last night, is the world’s second largest, after Red Square.

Yesterday, it turned out, was the Day of the Dead, (Dia de los Muertos), and last night the plaza was filled with celebrants—children and adults dressed in scary costumes, large skeleton marionettes, and various objects connoting deceased ancestors. I was too tired to wander about, but I hear the celebrations will continue today as it’s All Soul’s Day.

My first task, though, is to get a traditional Mexican breakfast, which I’ll do at the nearby El Cardenal (reviews here).  Pictures will be taken.

Please do not expect substantial posts in the next few days: I’ll be busy at the workshop and sightseeing. Plus my brain still hurts.

A chat with the director of Henri, Le Chat Noir

November 2, 2012 • 5:25 am

I am off to Mexico City today [this was written yesterday] for seven days to attend and speak at the second annual meeting of the Mexican Atheist Association (the list of speakers and topics is here).  Posting may be light as I wander the city seeing the sights and finding the local comestibles.

Reader “Smokedpaprika”  put this video in the comments associated with the last “Henri Le Chat Noir” video, but it deserves to be above the fold. It’s a chat with Will Braden, the director of the dolorous existentialist cat that we love so much. Braden also created Henri’s persona and the four films that I’ve posted. One of the Henri videos, “Paw de deux, you’ll recall, won the “Golden Kitty” award, beating out Maru and others for the best cat video on the internet.

As the reader noted:

Love what Will Braden says about his French accent. LOL!

It’s 23 minutes long, but worth watching.  Henri has become, as one might expect in America, an enterprise.

The Los Angeles Times has an article on Braden and Henri, which includes this:

[Braden] has signed his first book deal. “Henrí Le Chat Noir: The Existentialist Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat” will be published by an imprint of Random House next year.

He gets about $1,000 a week in revenue from his online store, selling Henrí mouse pads, mugs and T-shirts to the existentialist cat’s devoted fans.

Braden, 32, used to work as a wedding videographer, but he is no longer accepting wedding gigs. He doesn’t need to.

“These past few months I’ve transferred to Henrí full time,” Braden says. “I know how crazy it sounds to have this depressed French cat be my primary source of income.”

Ah, America! But will Henri lose his panache if he goes commerical?

Stuffed polar bear for sale on eBay. Buy now, only £28,750.00

November 1, 2012 • 11:05 am

by Matthew Cobb

If you are a bit tipsy when you read this, do NOT click on this link, for it will take you to eBay where there is a genuine stuffed polar bear for sale (not on auction – buy it now only. Also includes the interesting button ‘Add to Basket’. Here are some pics of the poor beast:

The site says:

Polar Bear – Taxidermy – Full Documentation Provided

£28,750

This beautiful beast stands at 7ft ( with Iceberg mount) and 21 inches wide. Has a ferocious glare that contrasts his soft and cuddly exterior. 

we are fully compliant with DEFRA/AHVLA regulations and possess full documentation on this specimen.

Contact Seller for delivery options. 

This item is not covered by Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, or the Schedules to the Wildlife Acts 1976-2000, or listed on Annex A of the EU Wildlife Trade Regulations.

All items are carefully logged with full documentary evidence of provenance.

An Ethical Audit

Please note no animals were killed in the making of this shop. All creatures are long dead historical relics of another age, or zoo / pet / road kill deaths. Et rien n’est plus belle que la nature.

As committed vegetarians we believe that far more cruelty went into the manufacture of a pork sausage than into the manufacture of anything for our shop.

No “Drunk Ebaying” please, we take all all time wasting very seriously and we will pursue any prank purchasers with great conviction – thank you.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
h/t @alicebell and @olivia_solon on Twitter

Great book on paleontology, really cheap this month!

November 1, 2012 • 10:19 am

Don Prothero’s great book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, is on sale for this month only (Nov.) at a tremendous reduction. Regularly $23.99, it’s now only $3.99 (click the link above). This is one of the five evolution books for the layperson that I recommended in my Browser interview and it’s really good.

Don’t pass it up.  But wait—there’s moar!  Reader James, who brought this to my attention, says that if you use his Associates tag “gumbercules-20” he’ll donate all the admittedly small referral fees to Doctors Without Borders (and add $25 of his own).  To do this, he says;

To make sure that everyone uses the tag, you can just append “/gumbercules-20” without the quotes to the URL: then the referral fees would automatically be generated.

If you want a readable but thorough book on the paleontological evidence for evolution, and how it makes hash of creationist claims, this is the book for you. I give it two thumbs up, and the price is amazing.

Two instantiations: good and bad politics

November 1, 2012 • 8:07 am

This is the way politics should work. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican who’s stumped for Mitt Romney, was asked by a reporter if Obama had done a good job helping out his state during the hurricane. Here’s his strong “yes”, describing how Obama facilitated government help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA):

And here’s the way politics shouldn’t work, but does. In this bit from the Rachel Maddow show, Mittens implies in a debate that he would get rid of FEMA but then refuses to answer reporters’ persistent questions about that:

UPDATE, Thursday a.m. Mittens has flip-flopped once again:

“I believe that FEMA plays a key role in working with states and localities to prepare for and respond to natural disasters,” Romney said in a statement supplied by his campaign Wednesday. “As president, I will ensure FEMA has the funding it needs to fulfill its mission, while directing maximum resources to the first responders who work tirelessly to help those in need, because states and localities are in the best position to get aid to the individuals and communities affected by natural disasters.”

Wednesday’s statement came after the candidate ducked a spate of opportunities Tuesday to personally clarify his position and the statement essentially endorsed the current disaster aid system.

The only principle Mittens has is this: “I must get elected, and will say anything to do so.” If you vote for him, you’re voting for a mustelid.

Mittens!

Breakfast in Cambridge, MA

November 1, 2012 • 6:15 am

A day in bed and a good night’s sleep have worked wonders, and I’m ready to travel again.  I’m also fortified by a breakfast foisted on me by one of my genial hosts, Andrew Berry.  Now at Harvard as an instructor and advisor, Berry did his undergraduate degree at Oxford, where he ate Weetabix three times a day for three years, except on Thursdays when he’d have a curry.

When I visit Andrew and Naomi, I always eat Weetabix, and had them for breakfast today.  For those not familiar with this cereal, it’s very good. It consists of something that looks like sawdust compressed into oval shapes:

Properly dressed, it also has sugar, banana, and a lashing of milk.

Andrew faults me for two problems here: he insists that Weetabix be eaten in even numbers (and so I get yelled at for eating three), and also insists that one use milk sparsely, while I like my Weetabix a bit soggy. It’s the combination of crunch and squish (of the soggy bits) that appeals to me.

Part of a balanced breakfast (Andrew has asked me to note that Weetabix keeps one “regular”):

Three were sufficient. I’m ready for Mexico now:

Try ’em!

Thanks to my hosts in Cambridge: Andrew & Naomi, and Tim & Betsy.

___________

UPDATE:  You might not think it possible, but I get screwy comments about everything—including Weetabix. The one below came from “Laura”, who, needless to say, won’t be posting here again. Every error and misspelling is hers, not mine.

Dear Prof and various Wheatabix enthusiast apologies for curbing your unbridled enthusiasm but I am truly surprised to see such food worship on this site of all sites. As people who appreciate the process of evolution it should be known to you that we as humans are maladapted to consume wheat and in fact grains of any type. Like most seeds wheat is protected by a series of toxins designed to decrease the fitness of those who eat it. After all the wheat berry as we call it is the wheat plant next generation. Phytates interfere with mineral absorption in the gut. Gluten and gliadins pass through our gut usually unchanged by teh digestion process because they seem to wreck our gut flora and cause gut leakiness. In the blood stream they upset our immune system promoting inflammation. Our digestibe system also struggled to handle the large amount of starch so that our insulin levels rise and stay up for a long time after a meal containing wheat.

Wheat was domesticate some 13-10k years ago. Certainly not enough time for us adapt to this relatively recent staple? Yes the number of copies of our amylase genes appear to have increased but this is all.

Basicall eat wheat at your peril as it is impicated in every disease of civilisation under the sun, from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, atherosclerosis, autoimmune diseases including MS, cancer,dementia, osteoporosis and the steady decline in fertility in both sexes as noted in recent years. Have a read of Prof Cordain the Paleo diet for more info…..

Apparently Andrew should be dead by now.