Sandwich bread

For a long time, I’ve been scorning sandwich bread, and my loaf pans have gone unused. I can think of several reasons. For one, I’m addicted to hot bread. For two, I try not to rely too much on sandwiches. But sandwiches have their place, especially on busy days. And especially in the winter, there’s nothing like hot toast at breakfast. Sandwich bread is very convenient for making toast.

To me there are really two basic types of bread dough. First is the type of dough that leads to French bread. It has a complex crust and a stretchy texture. To get French bread, you need only flour, water, yeast, and salt. There’s nothing like French bread when it’s fresh. But it soon becomes useless. The French have a saying that goes something like: On the first day it’s bread, on the second day it’s toast, and on the third day it’s a doorstop. French bread must be used pretty quickly, or it becomes chicken treats — though it can be converted to bread crumbs, or used in certain puddings. The French call it pain perdu, or lost bread. In some French recipes, pain perdu is like our French toast — stale bread dipped in a sweet batter and fried.

The dough for sandwich bread is different. For sandwich bread you want milk in the dough, and butter or oil. This changes the crumb and the crust of the bread. The bread stays more moist. It’s more cake-like. It is tender and slices much easier. And it’s good for toast or sandwiches for three days, maybe even four. Sandwich bread, though, is not nearly as good when you want warm fresh bread to serve with supper.

As regular readers know, I almost never list recipes. This is because I never obey recipes. I find a recipe that I like and trust as a starting point, and I modify it to suit myself. Here is a good starting recipe for sandwich bread from King Arthur flour. I use olive oil instead of butter, I use a little less oil than they call for, and I use about two-thirds whole wheat flour. I also put it in a hotter oven for the first 10 minutes, then reduce the heat and adjust the baking time. I find that bread rises better in the oven if the oven is hot enough to give it a quick pop. Then lower the heat. Oh what I would give for a commercial bread oven, with steam. Actually that’s not true. I wouldn’t give what they cost — thousands of dollars even for a small one. So we have to do the best we can with the ovens in domestic ranges.

A new Verizon tower: major big deal


The top of the tower

When someone puts new communications infrastructure in a data-poor rural place like northern Stokes County, it’s a big deal. Verizon is finishing up a new tower in the Lawsonville area, and it’s exciting for the folks around here.

When cellular towers started popping up in the countryside 10 and 15 years ago, I scorned them for their ugliness. Now I overlook the ugliness, because in rural places where we’ll probably never see fiber optic or cable, wireless services are our best hope. Those of you who live in places with good celluar coverage don’t need to care about where the towers are, but here in the sticks we need to know.

My present Internet connection draws on a Verizon tower about 4 miles away. I have a directional antenna in my attic that is aimed at that tower. The antenna plugs into a Verizon “air card,” and the air card plugs into a WIFI router. On a good day, I can get speeds of 1.25 Mbps down, enough to stream a Netflix or Hulu movie on the Apple TV. At other times, the connection is slower, around .75 Mbps down. This is much, much better than it used to be, after Verizon bought Alltel and continued to expand its rural coverage. But that is pathetically slow by urban or international standards, and it also costs more than much faster service in urban areas.

The new Verizon tower is about 15 miles away over the crooked roads we have in these parts. Yesterday I went out on a mission to have a look at the new tower and record its latitude and longitude, so that I can calculate its actual distance and make a guess about whether the new tower will help me get faster Internet. I also hoped to catch some engineers at work so that I could annoy them with questions. I’ll also make this into a little tutorial on how to find your nearest tower and calculate its precise distance from you.

First of all, you have to know where the towers are and which carrier the towers belong to. It may not be easy to get this information. Here in northern Stokes, the easiest way to track new towers is to follow the meetings of the county commissioners. Permits for new towers are always on their agenda. At last Monday’s meeting of the commissioners, it was mentioned that the new Verizon tower is expected to “light up” in a couple of weeks. If you don’t have local political intel on where the towers are, you often can identify them by searching the Antenna Search database. That database may not always be up to date, but it’s a start.

Then you drive to the tower and use your iPhone or a GPS device to record the latitude and longitude of the tower. The coordinates of the new Verizon tower at Lawsonville are longitude 80.223695 west, and latitude 36.496175 north.

A word about the notation used for latitude and longitude: There are two ways of doing this. There is a decimal format, which I used above and which your GPS device probably uses by default; and there is the traditional format that uses degrees, minutes, and seconds. You must always be aware which notation is being used and convert between them if necessary. There is a calculator here for doing this conversion. The Lawsonville tower’s coordinates, converted to traditional notation, are longitude 80 degrees west, 13 minutes, 25.302 seconds; latitude 36 degrees north, 29 minutes, 46.23 seconds. This can be represented as -80° 13′ 25.302″, +36° 29′ 46.23″.

Once you have the coordinates for the tower, get the coordinates for your home. For convenience, record the locations in both decimal and traditional notation. Now you can use a calculator to derive the distance and the direction (also called the azimuth) between the two points. Here is a link to the FCC’s calculator. The FCC kindly puts these calculators on line because calculations like this are often done in radio work. Use the FM-type calculation, since we’re talking about FM radio. (Digital brats still wet behind the ears like to quarrel with me and say that cell phones are not radios — they’re phones. Digital brats also like to deny that there is anything analog in the process. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s radio, and radio is always and forever analog, even when carrying signals that are digitally modulated. Digital brats like to think that radio is obsolete. They are laughably wrong. Their digital lifestyles are dependent on radio.)

When I did these calculations for the new Verizon tower, I found that it is 7.6 miles from me. That’s a good bit closer than I had expected, and it’s probably close enough to improve my Internet and cell-phone coverage, even though there’s a second Verizon tower about 4 miles away. One nice thing about Verizon’s CDMA technology is that a single device such as a smartphone can actually pull from more than one tower to increase its data bandwidth. I am not absolutely certain that this is true of Verizon’s new LTE 4G technology, but the engineer I spoke with yesterday up at the tower seems to think it’s also true of LTE 4G.

Speaking of LTE 4G, Verizon continues to say that their rollout of LTE 4G nationwide will be complete by the middle of 2013. The engineers I spoke with yesterday said that the LTE 4G cabinets for the new tower have been ordered but that they have not yet been received or installed.

There is no fiber optic connection to the new tower — it’s too remote, just as I am too remote for fiber or cable or even DSL. For “back haul” of the data, the engineers tell me that a microwave link will be used to another Verizon tower that does have a fiber connection. The other end of the microwave link is almost certainly the Verizon tower that is 4 miles from my place (on Mission Road), since that tower does have a fiber optic connection to “back haul” the data to urban civilization.

The engineers I spoke with yesterday were hard at work, finishing up the job of installing equipment on the new tower. Two or three guys were actually up on the tower, working on the antennas. Other guys were working in the equipment shack and even doing landscaping work. I’m glad I drove the Jeep yesterday rather than the Smart car. The tower is up a steep hill on a ridge, on an access road newly cut. Verizon has done an outstanding job of doing erosion control on the new road and around the tower site.

It’s nice to see Verizon spending money here, since I’ve spent so much money with them in the last four years.

Verizon plans to make money, of course with the new tower and the LTE 4G rollout. In rural areas which have been converted to LTE 4G, Verizon is offering a new service called “HomeFusion.” It will be pricey but fast. As I have learned, you can’t get decent Internet over wireless out in the sticks without a good antenna, properly placed. The Verizon HomeFusion service will include professionally installed outdoor antennas.

My data bill is now my highest bill — higher than my health insurance, higher than my county taxes, twice as high as my energy bill. Out here on the fringes of the digital world, there’s no other way.


There are three guys up there.


I believe the tower is 199 feet high.


The equipment shack


Erosion control


The new tower is in the background, left of center

Merlin

Hulu and Netflix, plus an Internet connection that is faster than it used to be (but still slow by civilized standards), her permitted me to check out older television shows. I’m now about seven episodes into Merlin.

Merlin is not a high-budget production, and it’s probably aimed at least partly at children. But the BBC has an amazing ability to do a lot with small budgets. Plus I understand that because Merlin became popular, its budgets and quality rise in future seasons (of which there are five).

These are not the standard King Arthur stories out of Malory. Rather, the stories were written for the series and focus on the doings of teen-age Prince Arthur and the teen-age Merlin, who in this series grow up together at Camelot. It’s good — if not dazzling — television for lovers of fantasy and period pieces.

Competition


No crowded aisles today at Whole Foods

A few weeks ago I mentioned that a new Trader Joe’s has opened less than a mile from Whole Foods. Yesterday, on a Monday morning, Trader Joe’s was busy. But Whole Foods was as un-busy as I’ve ever seen it. It’s interesting that Trader Joe’s seems to siphon off so many customers from Whole Foods, because they’re not the same kind of store.

For one, Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry a lot of stuff. If you read up on the grocery business, you’ll learn that the bigger grocery stores may carry up to 50,000 items. Trader Joe’s carries only about 4,000 items, and 80 percent of them are Trader Joe’s own brand. Trader Joe’s is a nice supplement and cost-reducer for grocery shoppers, but most people are going to have to shop somewhere else as well.

Still, I doubt that Whole Foods is hurting. They have one of the highest pre-tax profit margins in the grocery business, 4.3 percent. The average for the grocery industry as a whole is closer to 1 percent. As for Trader Joe’s profits, very little is known because the company is privately held.

Iambus, King of all the North


King Iambus slays an anapest (Arthur Rackham). OK. Actually it’s King Arthur slaying a dragon.

As an editor with lots of friends who are writers, I have lots of conversations about writing. When talking about writing, sometimes it’s important to talk about the rhythm of language. To talk about the rhythm of language, one needs a handle on the terms that describe rhythm in language. One also needs to understand the simple methods used to examine the rhythm of a sentence. These methods are more commonly applied to poetry, but they’re just as valid for prose. These methods are very similar to the way we talk about rhythm in music. Every good writer is aware of rhythm, at least unconsciously, just as every musician is aware of rhythm.

Once upon a time, high school students got at least a taste of this in English class. They all learned that Shakespeare wrote his plays in iambic pentameter (also called “blank verse”), though most students probably didn’t pay much attention. It also used to be that every college student in English 101 and 102 learned how to scan verse and describe its rhythm. Nevertheless, as an adult, I don’t recall ever having met a single person (other than English professors) who had a grip on this. Let’s review!

Which brings me to this little piece of doggerel:

Iambus, King of all the North,
Sucking trochees ventured forth.
Galloping dactyls emerged from their nest,
But he struggled and conquered this anapest.
Spondee!

Before we’re done here you’ll understand the genius and usefulness of the little verse above.

Here are the words that are used most in describing rhythm in language. The two-syllable rhythms are iambic and trochaic. One also speaks sometimes of an iamb or a trochee. An iamb is a unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. Say the word, “omit.” That’s an iamb. A trochee is an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable. Say the word “writing.” That’s a trochee.

oh-MIT

WRITE-ing

The three-syllable rhythms are dactylic and anapestic. One also speaks sometimes of a dactyl or an anapest. A dactyl is an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables. Say the word “ignorance.” That’s a dactyl. An anapest is two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. Say the word “understand.” That’s an anapest.

IG-no-rance

un-der-STAND

Say the word “understand” five times in a row, aloud. Your rhythm was anapestic pentameter. All language has rhythm, for better or for worse.

I should mention one other two-syllable rhythm — spondaic. One also speaks sometimes of a spondee. A spondee is two accented syllables in a row. Say the words “bad breath.” That’s a spondee.

BAD BREATH

Let’s return to Shakespeare for a moment, and hopefully to something that you remember from high school. Here is the opening line of Sonnet 73:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

If you read that line in a sing-song voice to exaggerate the rhythm, it sounds like: ta-DAH ta-DAH ta-DAH ta-DAH ta-Dah. If you count them, you’ll see that this line of poetry consists of five iambs. Hence, iambic pentameter. We might also speak of five feet of iambic.

There is a shorthand notation for this, used on blackboards in English 101 and 102. Iambic pentameter: ˘ ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ′

Iambic: ˘ ′

Trochaic: ′ ˘

Dactylic: ′ ˘ ˘

Anapestic: ˘ ˘ ′

Spondaic: ′ ′

Dactylic is the waltz rhythm: ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. It’s also a sort of galloping rhythm. Anapestic rhythm also can sound like a gallop:

gid-dy-YAP, gid-dy-YAP, gid-dy-YAP, LET’S GO!

That was three anapests followed by a spondee.

Scan this famous (and beautiful) quote from Star Wars and note its rhythm:

Young fool. Only now do you understand.

The shorthand of its rhythm is: ′ ′ . ′ ˘ ′ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ′ . “Young fool” is a spondee, and “Only now do you understand” contains a dactyl followed by an anapest. The most powerful and memorable sentences often have a compelling, poetic rhythm. In music, this juxtaposition of a dactyl and an anapest would be called syncopation. Syncopation is an unexpected disturbance of the rhythm, but a disturbance which has a meaningful musical effect. If you happen to be an English major and a Star Wars fan, then you know that a dangerous disturbance of the rhythm in the emperors’s speech also signifies a dangerous disturbance in the Force.

Wasn’t that easy? Now that you have the tools, let’s look at some English prose, starting with some very bad prose, and examine the rhythms. When you read these sentences, instead of actually saying the words, just say “dit” for each syllable and listen to the sound:

There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men’s hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. — Rev. Jonathan Edwards, 1741

I can think of few rhythms in English prose that are uglier than the rhythms of preaching. Enough said.

One of my greatest pleasures is to heap scorn on Ayn Rand — not only for her putrid ideas but also for her putrid prose. Remember, just sound out the syllables:

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. — Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand oftens falls into hammering, machine-gun rhythms. I wonder why.

I always like to cite Tolkien’s prose as examples of fine writing and the natural rhythm of the English language:

… and a door between them and the night … (Three feet of anapestic.)

Then they all fell silent, and one by one the hobbits dropped off to sleep. (Trochees before the comma, iambs after the comma.)

The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young. (Six lovely feet of iambic.)

There’s a connection between rhythm and vocabulary. In general, writers can control their rhythm — and their mood and tone and emotional effect — by relying on words that came into the language through plain old Anglo-Saxon English. Words that came into the language through French after the Norman invasion in the 12th century are much colder words, more abstract, with rhythms that are more difficult to manage. Some examples of Anglo-Saxon words: home, hand, love, dog, dig, dirt, belly, book. Some examples of French words: affection, domicile, stratification, diminution, authorization. Not only are the French words cold and abstract, their rhythms usually work poorly in good English sentences.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I should mention here that no writer repeats the same rhythmic pattern over and over. That would soon become boring. And though it’s true that Shakespeare’s plays are predominantly iambic pentameter, there are many irregularities, many elements of syncopation, many surprises. However, iambic pentameter is often said to be the natural rhythm of English, so we can hear a lot of iambic pentameter without it becoming conspicuous or boring. In fact it has a musical effect, as in a sonnet. Good writers — consciously or unconsciously — manage their rhythms. When a writer is in the flow, the rhythms will support and intensify the writer’s mood and intent. The rhythms will strongly affect the reader, unconsciously, and in some mysterious way make the reader more receptive to the writer’s intent.

As for the bit of doggerel we started with about the King of the North, I first encountered it in Theodore Bernstein’s The Careful Writer (1965). As far as I know, that’s where it originated, since Bernstein gave no source and since I’m sure he would have given credit for it if someone else had come up with it. If you memorize this verse and know how to scan each line for its rhythm, then you’ll never slay a dactyl when you meant to slay an anapest.

Spondee!

Update: I should mention the words that are used to denote the number of feet in a line of verse:

1. monometer
2. dimeter
3. trimeter
4. tetrameter
5. pentameter
6. hexameter
7. heptameter
8. octameter

Narc'ed out by gmail


Click on the image above for a high-res version

The media today are focusing on the downfall of David Petraeus, the former CIA director. The Atlantic has a piece on how the FBI snooped on Petraeus and his mistress. It was from identifying information in the header of Google email.

All email has a header. Most email programs show only the “To:”, “From:”, and “Subject:” fields, etc. But there are other fields that give information about the computers that sent and received the email as it made its way across the Internet. In the example above, I have grayed out the parts that identify me and put a red stripe over the part that identifies the sender. (Click on the image for an enlarged, more readable version.) The email above was sent by a computer with the IP address 178.248.187.57. A “traceroute” command (any nerd knows how to do a traceroute command) shows that that IP address is in Paris.

By default, all email servers include this information, as far as I know. The only way to avoid it is to stay away from corporate email and free email services such as Google or Yahoo. There are paid email services that are more secure. For example, Neomailbox.com offers an email service that suppresses this information. Their servers also are offshore, in Switzerland. That will cost you about $50 a year.

It blows my mind that a CIA director would be so stupid as to allow career-destroying email to touch Google’s gmail servers. Not only does gmail include identifying information in the headers, Google also will happily turn your email over to any goon who asks for it — local, state, or national. And when you sign up for Google’s gmail you give Google permission to read it all — incoming and outgoing — to build a dossier on you.

You get what you pay for. Use gmail and Yahoo at your own risk.

Here are some guidelines for secure use of email:

1. Don’t use free email services such as Google or Yahoo.

2. Never use your work email for anything that would embarrass you or anyone else.

3. Don’t allow your email to be archived on someone else’s server. If you use IMAP, your email is being archived. POP3 is more secure, because the mail can be deleted off the server a day or two after it is downloaded to your computer.

4. Consider a secure, offshore email service such as Neomailbox.com.

5. Consider encrypting your email with an email client such as Thunderbird, which supports a PGP encryption plug-in. A PGP encryption plug-in also is available for the Macintosh mail program.

6. Never forget that when your email crosses the Internet, it’s like a postcard in the mail — anyone who has access to the servers and routers that handle the email can read it, because it’s clear text. A typical email may pass through a dozen or more routers on its way to its destination. It’s also commonly assumed that the U.S. government is capturing and storing a copy of virtually everything that travels over the Internet. If that’s true, encryption is the only defense. Setting up encryption is not that hard, but I’ve never been able to persuade a single person to do it.


Reuters