Posts by Bart Janssen
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Feed: Saints Preserve, in reply to Jos,
a gardening blog
It's called a lab book ... and people call me a crazy scientist.
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Hard News: Poll Day 2: Queasy, in reply to BenWilson,
*can you support this with a link? I wouldn’t be surprised, but I’d genuinely like to know what their methods are.
The stats chat article I linked on the first page talks more about it. And I think Michael and Andrew have it right.
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Feed: Saints Preserve, in reply to Lilith __,
flushing with nitrogen
You crazy scientists! ;-)
Hush I'm a crazy wine nut http://www.winekeeper.com/winekeeper-single-use-nitrogen-canister.html
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Feed: Saints Preserve, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’ve been wondering about how that works with olives, which you don’t bottle hot.
You don't really need it with olives. The point is to ensure sterility, with chutneys etc you need to be sure you don't let in any air because the chutney is great food for fungi and bacteria, hence hot and some kind of seal that you can monitor. Any air going in will probably carry fungal or bacterial spores.
But olives should be in vinegar or oil. Since neither will sustain bacterial or fungal growth* you should be OK with any decent seal. The one thing I might be inclined to do is to exclude air (oxygen) either by filling to the very top or flushing with nitrogen.
*In normal circumstances, I'm sure you could get something to grow on oil if you really tried but I'm assuming you are being reasonably careful.
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Hard News: Poll Day 2: Queasy, in reply to cindy baxter,
more than the margin of error
arggh I am not a statistician but this phrase drives me nuts.
The number quoted by all the news media as a margin of error is a half arsed translation of a statistical measure. If I understand it correctly, what they quote is the 95% confidence interval IF a party had 50% of the vote.
Even if the party had 50% of the vote that means by chance once in every 20 surveys the number would be wrong by more than the "margin of error" and it is entirely possible, although unlikely, for multiple surveys in a row to be wrong by that much or more.
If a party has anything other than 50% the number quoted is worse than meaningless because it implies there is some meaning where there is not.
Personally I'd be quite happy is political surveys were banned altogether and if they must be done then those reporting them need to learn to use correct language when quoting the numbers and anyone caught using sloppy language could be ...
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Feed: Saints Preserve, in reply to James Green,
I can’t see why Wellington should be a problem
Feijoa trees usually need another tree nearby to pollinate them. They can produce fruit on their own but a second tree within insect range is required to get good yields. In Auckland every second house has a feijoa tree so ...
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Feed: Saints Preserve, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yeah. Lye seemed a bit bloody scary.
Nah. Lye is fine so long as you treat it with respect. Sodium hydroxide (lye) comes in pellets or ground to a powder, it absorbs water from the air so the powdered form and the pellets need to be in a sealed container. When you dissolve lye in water it releases heat, this is the biggest hazard because you can boil water from cold by dissolving lye in it and a boiling hydroxide solution is dangerous, worse if you stupidly add sodium hydroxide to hot water* it can and will boil over explosively splashing you with caustic solution.
But after that bit of scary stuff, hydroxide solution are fairly easy to handle especially at the concentrations you are using, if you get any on you, wash with water until your skin stops feeling soapy (that soapy stuff is soap made from the fat in your skin reacting with the lye).
The one thing a would strongly suggest is wearing glasses - a spot of lye on your skin you can wash off easily - getting some in your eye would be bad.
*People add sodium hydroxide to hot water thinking it will dissolve faster. This is totally unnecessary because it dissolves very quickly anyway. -
We were driving a friend around Napa one weekend (while we were working in Davis California) and my partner saw some ripe olives hanging over a wall ... she succumbed to temptation and popped one in her mouth and bit down ...
I guess I should have had more sympathy but it really was funny to see her face as she tried to get rid of the amazingly bitter taste for the next half hour or so.
Some recipes for making olives edible call for soaking in lye! I still can't figure out how anyone discovered they could be made edible.
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Hard News: Poll Day 2: Queasy, in reply to The Ruminator,
Gower is pro-Nat and anti-Labour?
I think he appears to be (and in his job appearance is reality) pro John Key and very anti all of the Labour leaders on whom he has reported.
That is slightly different from being pro Nat anti Labour.
He is also almost always focused on the people in parliament and not the policies or business of running a country. The exaggerates the cult of personality that has come to dominate our politics - to its detriment IMO.
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Hopefully the neighbours won't have to live next door for 24 years.