Stupid TA's Annoy Me

TA's are our Teaching Assistants. We get about 3-4 for every course, all of them post-graduates.

And far too many of them are incredibly stupid.
I've experienced some extremely good TA's, which is why the stupid ones baffle me so much. What's their purpose? They seem to know little about the course, or about basic troubleshooting and debugging. Some of them seem to have their act together, but the moment you deviate from their well-rehearsed path, they fail.

One thing about such TA's that really irks me is how they get nervous around Linux.
One guy went around handing us .exe setups of Wireshark and told us to install it for the lab session. Okay, except that roughly half the population was running Linux. A doubt was raised, the TA said - "Some people in the other lab have run this on their Linux machines."
"Are you sure? This is a .exe file, Linux cannot install this."
"Yes, I don't know how, but they've done it. Even I know this cannot run on Linux."

If he really knew this, he'd have been slightly more curious about people installing Wireshark on their machines using the setup he handed out.
Turns out, Wireshark is available on the Ubuntu Software Centre, and that's where they got it from.

Today I ran into a problem installing MySQL on my laptop. I had spent almost 1.25 hours looking up solutions online when I finally gave up and asked a TA.
"This is Windows? Oh it's Ubuntu."
"Yes."
"Have you tried installing it on Windows?"
"No. I want to install it on Ubuntu."
"Oh. Hmm. Go online and read a tutorial."

I showed him the 15 tabs open on my browser and went back to searching for more answers since the TA was so incredibly stupid. I got it running about 15 minutes later. Cheers.

It's not just limited to utilities by the way. Last semester, in any course that required programming knowledge, the average TA was unable to debug as systematically as some of my classmates could. It was so incredibly frustrating, because it seemed like they couldn't even interpret basic error messages.

One lesson I've learnt from all this is that your classmates know about 10 times more than the average TA when it comes to tech help.

I'mma Been Baking Breads From Scratch Yo!

Modern Bazar, I love thee so much.

Last to last time I went there, I found stacks of cupcake cups in More colours and patterns! So I promptly bought a stack of each type. These weren't the imported, Rs. 4 apiece cups, so you don't feel bad buying so many of them. And once you've bought so many of them, you obviously will use them up. You will spend time carefully thinking over what kind of cupcake will go with which cup and what frosting should be put on it. You will, hence, bake more cupcakes! 

So this time, it was motivation in the form of buying a packet of active dry yeast.

I wanted to try out a few different recipes, so I made one basic white bread dough and divided that up for the different types of breads. 

Things You Need For Basic White Bread (Courtesy: The Purple Foodie)

1.5 tbsp active dry yeast

1 3/4th cup warm milk

6 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
5 1/2 tsp sugar (eeps, I just saw: the recipe says 5 1/2 TABLEspoon sugar!)
1 egg

The ingredients above differ a bit from the recipe on that link because I didn't strictly stick to it. For example, I used active dry yeast instead of instant yeast. So follow my recipe at your peril.

Here's how I proofed the yeast:

I warmed the milk up in a cup and divided it into two. I dissolved the yeast in one and dissolved all the sugar in the other portion. Then I combined the two and let it be. After about 5 minutes, a layer of foam covered the top of the milk. I used only half of the milk to dissolve the yeast because they are mule-headed bitches. It takes a bit of patience to get it all to dissolve. The yeast then feeds on the sugar in the milk and starts producing the bubbles of carbon dioxide.

Sieve together the flour and salt and mix the egg in.

Add the milk and start kneading it until it forms a slightly sticky ball of dough. I wanted to keep my dough a little sticky so I added some water afterwards. Don't knead too hard, all it needs is a bit of love.

Cover the bowl and leave the dough in a warm place (such as inside an oven --but make sure it's turned off!) for about an hour. It should've doubled in size. I started with that ball of dough above, and by the time it was almost 45 minutes, the dough was touching the cover. The instructions said to butter the bowl you leave it in, but I had been kneading in that buttered bowl so I don't think much of that butter remained by then.

Next, you punch the dough.

It makes a little, muted whoop sound and it deflates as you push on it. Don't punch too hard, just push on the dough firmly. The general idea is, you can now use the dough in whatever you want, to make whatever shapes and rolls. Then you again leave it to rise for about 30-40 minutes before popping it into the oven. So this is where the interesting part comes. 

Divide the punched dough into two. I have two fillings for each of these two halves.

*drumroll*

Bread #1: Garlic Herb Bread Twists (courtesy: The Purple Foodie)

A good sprinkling of dried herbs that come in little plastic bottles and you use in pasta

1 sachet oregano from any pizza company

2 tbsp sliced olives chopped up into teeny bits

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

3 garlic cloves chopped up nicely

As much of Mozarella cheese as you'd like

Preheat oven at 200 degree Celsius.

In a pan, heat the olive oil and stir in the garlic, olives, salt, pepper, oregano and dry herbs until the oil begins to sizzle. Turn off the heat immediately.

Flatten the portion of punched dough into a rough rectangle with a rolling pin. Using a spatula, slather the herby galicky oil all over the surface of the dough. Then grate some cheese over it.

Fold the long edges of the rectangle towards each other so that they meet in the middle. Slice it width wise and twist each length.

Take any oil that remains and spread it over the top once. 

Then you can pop it into the oven until it turns golden-brown in colour and develops a crust on top.

Bread #2: Onion Pull-Apart Rolls (Courtesy: marthastewart.com)

Salt

4 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp melted butter

2 onions (but you probably need a lot more. I'd suggest about 5 onions)

1 tbsp olives

A pinch of grated nutmeg

A pinch of grated cinnamon

First you need to caramelize the onions. That means, you melt 4 tbsp of butter in a pan and fry the onions in them until they turn golden-brown. On the site, it says it should take you about 30 minutes. Add the nutmeg, olives, cinnamon and salt. Cook for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat.

Butter the pan in which you'll be baking.

Take the punched dough and flatten it with a rolling pin. It should be a rough rectangle. Spread some melted butter all over the surface. Add the caramelized onions and roll it up into one tight roll.

Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius.

Slice off pinwheels and sit them in the buttered pan for about 20 minutes. Leave space between them for them to expand.

 When the dough rises, you will have a pan full of fat, squat rolls sitting snug and cozily. Put it in the oven until the top turns slightly brown and becomes crusty in places.

I wasn't sure if it was done when I took it out (it was only slightly golden) so I turned it over.

Look, beautifully browned and crusty!

And it had a nice bread-y texture too. I doubt much can be seen in the photo. I took these pics with my crappy phone camera because my much beloved is khao-ing some bhav after that post I wrote on it.

The fruits of my toil. They tasted great btw. But I didn't much fancy the smell that yeast gives off once it starts fermenting. It's tolerable, but I'd like to do without it. Now I understand what Purple Foodie meant when she said instant yeast isn't as stinky as active dry.

I loved that part of bread-baking where the dough increases in size :D

Then I get to punch its daylights out!

The Love Of My Life

I lost my camera yesterday.

Playing with a Galaxy Note had me so caught up in it, that I absentmindedly left the brown paper bag that I was holding (with my camera in it) on the counter and walked away.

Now here's the thing about my camera: it's bloody good.
I've never, ever seen a better digital camera than the one I own. Perhaps it's familiarity, that I know just which settings to tweak for that desired hue, focus and exposure. Perhaps it's the big lens that makes the photos come out so good (someone suggested that as a possible reason). Perhaps it's not the camera but the photographer*.

Over time, I have developed a steadier hand too, accustomed to the weight of my camera, that allows me to take far clearer photos in low light conditions than other people can take with their cameras, or even what they can take with mine.

With my camera gone, I had only my phone as a photo-taking device and its crappiness disgusted me. It worked well only in sunshine, there was no flash (not that I ever use flash, even in my camera), it cannot take macros and I just cannot have that kind of control over it that I have over my camera.
Though that article tells you that the camera does not matter, I believe that it does, to a certain extent. A photo-taking device must at least be able to Focus on objects!

The happy ending of the story is that after a few shed tears, nearly an hour of 'I hate this day, everything sucks' and walking around and around refusing to come to terms with the fact that my camera could actually be lost, I found it**.

This camera, a 4-year-old, Rs. 9000 Samsung S85, with none of the flashy features that you find nowadays in most digital cameras, not even slim enough to fit into my pocket, with a frustratingly long 5-second flash recharge time and a little on the heavier side, is the love of my life for taking such good photos for such a long time, occupying hours of my time while I experimented with it, capturing so many embarrassing photos and memories and earning me so much appreciation for some of the things I clicked with it.

I leave you with a photo I took with it yesterday.

* that's something my dad used to say whenever people marveled over his photos and asked him about the camera he used. This was before he bought his dSLR, and he used a Nikon film camera.
** we asked at the Samsung Galaxy Note stall. They said they hadn't seen any bag of that description. But little did they know that during their lunch break, I had lost that bag and the guy standing in for them had kept it safely inside. Hah. I found it. Sweet, sweet recovery.

Tis The Season For Warm Cakes

You know what that is? It's a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate cake, extra moist and extra gooey.

It's not a very good photo, but you take my word for it (you have no other option at the moment xD) that it is indeed a very good cake!

I was a little worried that a cake without baking soda/powder will not rise, so I went ahead and added a bit (about 1/2-3/4 teaspoon) and I see no reason to regret it so far. I also had to increase the time to 25 minutes. This might differ from oven to oven, so bake for the 13 minutes time that's given in the recipe and add on a few minutes as needed.

The cake is beautiful! (I'm eating it as I write)
It's just the right amount of salty, sweet and bitter chocolate goodness. Sigh.

I think I'm in chocolate heaven.

Die, child, DIE

Or, as our professor said - "The parent can wait until the child has finished the task. The child comes back to the parent and says that it is done. Then, the parent kills the child."*

My last post was written in a moment of sheer frustration. Don't children get it when someone just does Not want to play with them or listen to their crap?
That said, now that my cousin has finally left, I Shall miss coming home to her and her little plans of curling up with me and watching The Big Bang Theory. It is cute when they look forward to their little time with you so much that they actually Plan it. :')





*Footnote - We did this in one of our courses last semester.

Little kids are annoying.

New Desktop!

I came across a tutorial for Rainmeter and well, gave in to the temptation and created that.

What did I use?

1. Wallpaper from deviantart.

2. A skin called Omnimo 4.1.

3. And a few hours of time that could otherwise have been utilised studying for the end semester exams. Gah.

Still, I have a very pretty desktop now.

It might make me use Windows more now.