Author: doodledweller
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A Rose from Homer’s Grave

This is the third installment of my experiment to leverage machine learning for creative writing. In the first installment, the RNN model was utilized to train text prediction based on characters. In the second installment, the pre-trained T5 model was fine-tuned on a range of sequence length, from 1 to 512 words. For the third,…
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Parachuting

I had composed a list of spaceflight animations for my kid since he was a toddler. They mostly run at ~5 minutes, but his favorite was the longest one, depicting the Space Launch System’s exploration missions to the Moon and to Mars. Recently, all the excitements around the launch of Artemis-1 got him interested in…
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Thank You

Americans say “thank you” more than anyone else, and “sorry”, too. In America, “sorry” hardly means being ashamed or regretful about what happened. It usually just means ”too bad” in a passive, polite manner. Americans also smile more. We smile, and say “thank you” and “sorry” all day long. You may be amused to know…
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Flakes, IV: The Biscuit

The biscuit is fluffy, soft, and flaky. That it should be flaky puts it in the flakes catalog. And unless we use lard or shortening for a flaky dough, they are flakes of butter strewn among flour that should only melt when they hit the oven. If you run a search for how to get…
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Salt Cured Cod Roe

Salt cured fish roe is appreciated across the world for centuries. It is bottarga in Italy and surrounding regions, karasumi in Japan, eoran in Korea, and wuyutsu in Taiwan. It is considered a delicacy and correspondingly expensive. Making salt cured fish roe is not difficult, but of course, provided that you have access to unprocessed…
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Fermented Tofu

During the 2nd century BCE when soybean was being fermented, it was also made into curds, aka tofu. Tofu, then being fermented, was known as stinky tofu. As it ages, fermented tofu becomes pungent, fruity, and cheesy. Unlike fermented soybean, fermented tofu has not gained world-wide popularity, however remains a staple food in China. Doufu-ru,…
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Fermented Soybean

Fermented soybean originated from China during the 2nd century BCE. By the year 200 CE, it had become a staple condiment. Though losing its place to soy sauce by the year 1600 in China, thanks to Buddhist monks, its popularity had spread across East and Southeast Asia and westward as far as North East India.…
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Fall Footage

**************************************** **************************************** October 11th is Indigenous Peoples’ Day – Dance Reel by Sewam Dance ***Pictures taken at Filoli Garden
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Keep It Classified

In high school, I dated a tall and handsome boy from Pakistan. He was well-spoken and soft-spoken, studious and focused. He knew that one day, he was going to become a doctor, a plastic surgeon. We got along well, but I knew it couldn’t amount to much. I was just 17; the world was too…
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Salt Cured

To preserve fresh fish by fermenting it with carbohydrates has been a long-time tradition for both Northern Europe and Asia regions. The original form of sushi was narezushi, made with rice and carp. As sushi means to sour, bacteria digests rice to produce acids to not only protect the fish against spoilage, but also to…