The Golden Casket factory in Greenock produces thousands of tonnes of confectionery each year.
Managing director Crawford Rae gave the BBC a behind the scenes look at the production line, where sweets such as toffees, sour plooms and humbugs are manufactured for sweet-toothed customers around world.
This seems like an appropriate link for Halloween. Even though we don’t have these candies on this side of the Atlantic, it is always fun to see this much chocolate or sugar in one place at one time. The video is less than 2 minutes long.
Did you know the current martini glass is much bigger than they were back in the “3 martini lunch” days? But then, even the small ones are at least a shot of booze, so that would still be ridiculous.
The PBS Ideas Channel talks to Brooklyn bar owner Ivy Mix about all the different kinds of glassware that cocktails are served in. The most interesting bits are about how factors other than taste influence how people enjoy drinks, as with wine. Men in particular seem to have a difficult time enjoying themselves with certain types of glassware and drink colors.
In the last few years, some bands have been bringing up audience members during a concert to play a song. I don’t know if they do anything to make sure the person knows how to play but I have seen videos of people that didn’t know how to play and the road crew pulls them out immediately. But sometime it works out.
The Foo Fighters are one of those bands that does this. The featured video today (link) has an audience member who was well prepared. He even had his own pick ready when he put the guitar on.
While the band, and especially Dave Grohl, know how to put on a show, there is a joy that I believe is real when they realize how well Kiss Guy can play. And how much Kiss Guy clearly enjoys being up there with them.
Part of what is appealing to me is watching people that haven’t played together before, play something. Watching them work together. The section in the middle and the end are not part of the record so Kiss Guy couldn’t just have been playing from the original recording.
They were making it up around the prearranged song. And that is part of the magic for me.
Unknown Fan ready To step up on the big stage Impressing the Band
The entire Music Is Magic playlist can be found here.
We are flooded with data and we don’t understand most of it. While the below HBR tip of the day has specifics about communicating outside the company, I think that the basic concept — helping people understand the data — is a fundamental part of being a Business Analyst.
The standard mantra you hear is “too much data, not enough information” or “information is data made actionable”. These sayings are all getting at the fact that looking at data does not convey everything that we can learn from the data. Understand what is being looked at, understand the limitations of the data, understanding the assumptions in the data, understanding the cleanliness of the data. That is critical to having a business leverage the data they have.
But data can steer you wrong if you don’t know the information around the data.
When someone is looking at a report, is it easy to see the metadata? When someone looks at a spreadsheet or a PDF output of some sort, can they see where the data comes from and what assumptions are in place?
It is easy to simply slap a report out for the requester to get what they want. Too often, the requester and the report writer miss the fact that someone else is going to use this report six months from now and not have the same background the requester had. Or think differently from the requester.
So when writing reports or creating spreadsheets or otherwise presenting DATA that is meant to be understood, consider adding this information (automatically updated, of course) to them:
metadata (date of data, all the parameters, specified and implied filter and sort parameters)
Where did the data come from? Can you provide a link back to the original data for detail reports?
What are the calculated fields and what are the calculations?
Who is responsible for the data?
Who do I talk to if I have questions?
Do the field names make absolute sense to everyone looking at the report?
Help People Understand Your Data by Making It Relatable
People can’t use data to make decisions if they don’t understand what the numbers mean. To help colleagues wrap their heads around a data point — how big or tiny it is, how important it should seem — compare it with something concrete and relatable. When you’re talking about lengths of time, frame your data in terms of flights between cities, TV episodes, or how long it takes to microwave a bag of popcorn — whatever your audience will know. When you’re talking about size, use places and things that are familiar to listeners. For instance, if you were trying to show a San Francisco audience what 1 million users really looks like, you might mention the San Francisco Giants baseball field, which has 41,915 seats: “Our users would fill the stadium almost 24 times.” Articulating figures this way can keep the narrative from getting lost in the numbers.
My son plays the sport called Ultimate. He got involved in college when he lost interest in soccer and baseball — his two high school sports. I had heard about it, but didn’t know a thing about the sport. It was some sort of game that involved a frisbee and was like soccer, basketball, and football.
Photo from Wikipedia: Adam Ginsburg Pictures from an Ultimate Tournament in Dallas
Naturally, I expressed interest in seeing one of his games. His response was clear: “No parents.”
Explored the West Side on this ride. It’s a place I’ve been many times to eat, drink and celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but sporadically on my bike. Therefore I’m familiar with many of the main roads on the West Side – Concord Street, Cesar Chavez Street, Smith Avenue, and of course Robert Street (with which I’m so well acquainted that I call it Bob Street.) But the bulk of the West Side is new to me and stocked with discoveries.
It takes some pedaling, and a stop or two, to get to the
West Side from my house. One pause of note was on Benhill Street, a
Mac-Groveland thoroughfare that curves down among the bluffs and has gorgeous
and large old homes.
An ode to A.A. Milne in the form of a intricate tree carving greets all who pass 15…
With that in mind, for my first column on cooking and science for The New York Times, I decided to undertake my greatest egg-peeling experiment yet, and I have finally come up with some answers.
Ninety-six volunteers came through my restaurant, Wursthall, in San Mateo, Calif., in August to peel and taste more than 700 eggs, cooked with various methods, making this — as verified with a cursory search online — the largest-ever double-blind egg-boiling-and-peeling experiment in the history of the universe. (If anyone from Guinness is reading, I have pretty extensive documentation.)
How many of us have stood by the sink cursing at the hard boiled eggs that won’t peel easily? Ok, if not actually cursing, then grumbling. In my limited survey, 100% of people who have cooked and peeled hardboiled eggs have not been successful in peeling all the eggs cleanly. All have grumbled out loud about it while peeling.
Finally someone scienced this and gives us answers. Yes, answers, plural. No silver bullet here…
