16

Social network | SEO - Social network / Re: Another way to log in this forum -- OpenID

« on: May 19, 2016, 11:58:00 PM »

I noticed this the first day it was put into service. As I've mentioned before I'm sort of an odd ball when it comes to ads and datamining. That's just me.

To explain why I won't use the feature, I go back to my early days of computer usage. Used to be I used the same nick in all places. After seeing a few guessed passwords others experienced I started changing passwords for every account. So that getting the password for one place didn't open you up to some one accessing every place you went on the net.

Then started the datamining and government snooping. At this point after 20 years of using the same nick, I dropped it and never used it again. Today, on purpose, I never, ever, use the same nick nor password twice. So linking where I go on the global net or accessing my accounts through hacking, if you are successful, will only gain you access to one site.

With the start up of Doxxing, I began to use VPN as a method to hide my IP. I've been threatened with doxxing before. Either they weren't that good or maybe my measures are sufficent to the task at hand. At any rate where they were successful with others they weren't so successful with mine. That's not to say it can't be done. It would be the fool that thought that. But I won't make it easy for them.

The last mistake many make is putting their personal info in a databank. Sooner or later the databank gets hacked and all that lovely data gets taken to be sold on the dark net to enterprising young scammers. I prefer to keep my data myself and not put it in an area sure to be targeted sooner or later.

I'm sure all this reads like a tin foil hat wearer's dream. I can say it has resulted in very few problems on the internet with ID theft, money theft electronically, or as in the case of doxxing, success. All of these measures are for self protection and too late later to wish you had after an event. There is an old saying that if you won't safe guard your privacy, no one else will do it for you.  I can't block everything but I can sure make it tougher.

17

Food / Re: Making a Roux

« on: May 19, 2016, 12:07:46 AM »

It's precious (when someone post recipes from the area s/he knows well and experienced well)!

I'll support this recipe with some roux definition:

Roux /ˈruː/ is flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. The fat is butter in French cuisine, but may be lard or vegetable oil in other cuisines. The roux is used in three of the mother sauces of classical French cooking: béchamel sauce, velouté sauce, and espagnole sauce.

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License}

Btw, the bell peppers are very good -- pretty, tasty, healthy.

The combination of sauted onions, bell pepper, and celery, are commonly called "the trinity" in Cajun cooking. It's used so much in various recipes that it has it's own name.

18

Philosophy / Re: Words of wisdom, wise quotes, inspiring words...

« on: May 17, 2016, 01:14:46 PM »

My mother loved children - she would have given anything if I had been one. ~ Groucho Marx

I have six locks on my door, all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three. ~ Elayne Boosler

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. ~ Bill Watterson

Love your enemies. It makes them so damn mad. ~ P.D. East

Naturam rerum cognoscere primum.
"First know the nature of things" or "Get your facts straight first. " ~ Socrates

Keep a diary and someday it will keep you. ~ Mae West

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned most people die of natural causes. ~ Author Unknown

If you cannot answer a man's argument, all it not lost; you can still call him vile names. ~ Elbert Hubbard

19

Food / Making a Roux

« on: May 17, 2016, 01:02:56 PM »

Making a Roux

You will find that I from time to time post a good bit of Cajun recipes. Mainly because I lived in that area for a time and collected many recipes from the area. A goodly portion of them start out with a roux.

⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯⚯

Ingredients

3/4 c oil (canola or vegetable)
1 c  flour, all purpose

Directions

Heat a heavy skillet and add oil. Once oil is heated, slowly add flour. Stir constantly until it is all blended. Lower heat and continue to stir constantly until it takes on the color of dark copper or a penny. The longer you cook, the darker the roux. Don't rush cooking the roux, allow it to develop at it's own pace. Transfer to a  cooking pot and add the amount of water for the desired thickness.

If you rush the roux, it will be come burned and that will ruin it. The roux can be used as a gravy base, its used for most gumbos, and for flavoring by adding other items, such as sauted onions, bell pepper, celery, or a combination of all of them.

20

Other topics / Re: What are you doing right now?

« on: May 17, 2016, 11:52:43 AM »

I had read the thread but purposely did not respond.

I've made mention before that people globally seem to get along on the internet but more times than not governments always have problems. In respect for the views of others I chose not to answer.

21

Food / Re: Baking Dish Apple Cake

« on: May 17, 2016, 11:50:22 AM »

The orange juice should be natural or something like orangeade is okay too? What do you prefer?

If your processed orange drink is similar to ours, then probably something like an orangeade would not be suitable. Processed drinks (those made by companies for commercial sale) usually are made with a lot of artificial ingredients and very little actual orange juice. The best tasting recipes always use fresh and natural as much as possible for this reason.

If the orangeade is something like frozen orange juice then that will work but if it contains things like carbonation then most likely you should avoid it for something else.

22

Other topics / Re: The Natchez Trace

« on: May 16, 2016, 12:35:55 PM »

This is a foot powered lathe. Since electricity nor steam engines had been invented yet, foot power was one of the methods used to turn wood.

Another was done by water power where a water wheel was used to supply the power. I have been in a water powered wood shop before, many years ago but sadly I can offer you no pictures of it. It had a central shaft coming off the water wheel, where many different wooden pullies were mounted. Each pully a different size depending on speed needed for the tool to be used. Each pully system went to a particular tool, had a belt that transferred the power, and an idler wheel to take up the slack when that tool was to be used.

As explained by the sign, this is the Margaret Adams Kimball Museum. I can not show you images of the inside as it was closed when we arrived.

This ends the images I will show you for the Natchez Trace Park.

23

Food / Banana Cake

« on: May 16, 2016, 12:16:27 PM »

Banana Cake

Ingredients

1 c ripe banana, mashed
1 c rava
1/4 c butter, melted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 c sugar
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 c walnuts, chopped
1/4 c oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 F. Put rava, sugar, cardamom, walnuts and baking powder in a bowl, add butter and oil, mix well.  Add banana, mix again for 10 minutes. Put in bread tin, bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Watch closely after 25 minutes of baking time. You don't want it too brown. Use a fork or toothpick to determine when it is done. When fork or toothpick comes out clean, remove immediately. If left longer after it is done, it will become hard. Allow to cool, then cut and serve.

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Social network | SEO - Social network / Re: Feedback: What do you dislike in Seo-forum-seo-luntan.com?

« on: May 16, 2016, 11:41:35 AM »

I have answered but you may not care for it. I'm an exception in that I actively block ads as well as do everything in my power to eliminate them from my life. The ad industry has become a pest industry that knows no limits.

25

Social network | SEO - Social network / Re: Advertise on SEO-Forum-SEO-Luntan

« on: May 16, 2016, 11:36:19 AM »

I understand that without money things are more difficult to do. Here in the US the advertisers have taken serious advantage of people. If there is a pet peeve of mine, it's ads. I'm probably the exception to the rule that most people don't mind ads.

For one I practice a reverse thing with ads. If they manage to make it in, when I go to the store, if I spot a product that has displayed for me since the last time I was in the store, I will buy any thing but that product.

Ads were partially responcible for me eliminating tv. It wasn't solely because of that reason but it had a heavy influance on it. I was paying for PPV tv and getting ads on my dime.

Another reason I block ads is security. I've had quite a few times over the years where I didn't get malware that others did and a few times where I had to clean my network because of malvertising. Advertisers do not check 3^rd party advertisers for clean contents. You never hear, "I'll send some one right over to fix it" nor "Here's some software to take care of that". If the fix and the hours it takes to get it out of the system is on me, so is the cure.

Now that I am facing caps, ads have become even more of a problem. Between 40% to 79% of bandwidth traffic is taken by ads and data collection on cell phones and wired connections.

It's a large combination of factors over many years that have really turned me against ads. Today there are digital billboards that attempt to identify you by your cell phone as you drive, in order to custom tailor ads to you. That's a whole bit too much. The ad industry has become a pest industry.

I'm sorry folks, I know you set great store by reaching people and that ads is a way to do that to secure both viewership as well as income. This is one we will disagree on as to the importance of ads. It is not your fault the world is as it is but when it comes to this topic, I'm pretty set in my ways.

26

Food / Re: Fajitas

« on: May 16, 2016, 11:01:15 AM »

Yes it is useful for that. It has a flue dampener inside. Open the flue and the smoke goes up the chimney. Close the flue, the smoke goes out the grill area but the heat stays inside and heats the cast iron, creating a heater.

27

Other topics / Re: What are you doing right now?

« on: May 16, 2016, 01:42:12 AM »

These changes are becoming global in replacing labor with robots. Much of our manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by corporations seeking to decrease the cost of their products. Two such national hamburger chains are going to this automated setup with robots replacing labor.

Unless they do something like a national guaranteed income this is backfiring on the corporations. It's slowly gaining steam as to the effect. The offshoring of manufacturing has taken much of the middle class out of the equation as the jobs leave. The jobs left are predominately minimum wage jobs. Those minimum wage jobs have become part time in order to fall below the requirements to supply benefits and medical insurance coverage to the workers.

The end result is there is not enough discreationary income to spend beyond what it takes cover living costs. This results in the economy stagnating and not growing. So what happens then is the warehouses get stocked full and workers start getting laid off because not much is being sold. This in turn, limits the tax income returning to the government and the governments (local, state, and national) start hunting ways to increase taxes to make up for the loss. The end result is ever less for the citizens to live on, as wages don't increase. Cheaper products do not always mean more sold.

Profits come to an end when you don't sell products and services. You can see the early effects of this in action with cord cutting. When people have to trim their spending to stay within their means, something has to go. One of the first things to go is entertainment spending. This lagging economy will continue to get worse as these various factors work their way into the system.

28

Drinks / Re: Shiner Bock beer

« on: May 16, 2016, 01:22:45 AM »

This Shiner Bock beer looks familiar to me. I'm not sure where I saw it earlier online or in a some store, but it's really familiar.

The background is okay.

Spoetzl Brewery which brews the Shiner labelled beer. Shiner is not sold in all markets in the US. Locally it is promoted as it is made in Texas and Texans have a big thing for products made within the state. There's a chain of grocery stores only in Texas (of which I go to) that also promote such products.

29

Food / Re: Fajitas

« on: May 16, 2016, 01:10:36 AM »

I use a commercial charcoal called Kingsford. I usually buy two bags of it in the spring and it lasts me to the next year. The grill in this image is about 5 years old. It stays outside in the weather with the lid on and the grill rack is removed, cleaned, and brought inside after every use.

I had thought one time about making my own lump charcoal. I have the wood to do so but the real issue is starting a fire here. After spring, everything dries up and fires become a real hazard along with winds to fan it. We get weather report warnings called 'red flag' days where any sort of burning is forbidden due to the fire hazard presented with that unless it is contained in some sort of fireplace made for that. Inside the city the only approved containers to burn in are BBQ grills or containers that food can be prepared in. I have a cast iron chimenia that qualifies for this but is also a sort of fireplace and I never use it for food preparation but rather for fires at night.

We have the choice in charcoal of either brickettes or lump charcoal. Lump charcoal is basically wood from lumber or limbs that have been cut up and then turned to charcoal. The lump charcoal is hard to gauge how much you need or how hot the fire will be due to irregularities in the source wood plus the pieces are random in size and thickness.

Normally for smoking wood, I cut, dry, and make my own. On rare occasion I will purchase a bag of lump smoking wood. You can't see it in the image but there is a chunk of pecan wood on the coals to flavor the meat with pecan smoke. You have to use the lid for this to occur.

30

Food / Re: Fajitas

« on: May 15, 2016, 03:18:54 PM »

Most of the chicken has been cooked for the fajitas and there is now room on the grill for the marinaded veggies in the foil to steam cook. The chicken and the veggies were marinaded over night. Grabbed a picture while the lid was off.