Geir Harris Hedemark wrote in message ...
Rob Halgren writes:
Messy, a bit. Unsanitary? I strongly doubt that horse manure is
a vector of human disease.

It is. Tetanus and other nasty germs thrive in more or less all kinds
of soil and manure.


Indeed, the tetanus bacterium is a normal part of a horse's intestinal
flora.

This is also true for many other animals.

Curiously, horses themselves must be immunized against tetanus. The
situation is analogous to that involving humans and --E. coli--; as
long as the bacteria stay where they belong, they aren't a problem.
Introduced to other parts of the body, they cause trouble.

J. Del Col

Geir Harris Hedemark wrote in message ...
Rob Halgren writes:
Messy, a bit. Unsanitary? I strongly doubt that horse manure is
a vector of human disease.

It is. Tetanus and other nasty germs thrive in more or less all kinds
of soil and manure.


Indeed, the tetanus bacterium is a normal part of a horse's intestinal
flora.

This is also true for many other animals.

Curiously, horses themselves must be immunized against tetanus. The
situation is analogous to that involving humans and --E. coli--; as
long as the bacteria stay where they belong, they aren't a problem.
Introduced to other parts of the body, they cause trouble.

J. Del Col

Geir Harris Hedemark wrote in message ...
Rob Halgren writes:
Messy, a bit. Unsanitary? I strongly doubt that horse manure is
a vector of human disease.

It is. Tetanus and other nasty germs thrive in more or less all kinds
of soil and manure.


Indeed, the tetanus bacterium is a normal part of a horse's intestinal
flora.

This is also true for many other animals.

Curiously, horses themselves must be immunized against tetanus. The
situation is analogous to that involving humans and --E. coli--; as
long as the bacteria stay where they belong, they aren't a problem.
Introduced to other parts of the body, they cause trouble.

J. Del Col

Geir Harris Hedemark wrote in message ...
Rob Halgren writes:
Messy, a bit. Unsanitary? I strongly doubt that horse manure is
a vector of human disease.

It is. Tetanus and other nasty germs thrive in more or less all kinds
of soil and manure.


Indeed, the tetanus bacterium is a normal part of a horse's intestinal
flora.

This is also true for many other animals.

Curiously, horses themselves must be immunized against tetanus. The
situation is analogous to that involving humans and --E. coli--; as
long as the bacteria stay where they belong, they aren't a problem.
Introduced to other parts of the body, they cause trouble.

J. Del Col

Geir Harris Hedemark wrote in message ...
Rob Halgren writes:
Messy, a bit. Unsanitary? I strongly doubt that horse manure is
a vector of human disease.

It is. Tetanus and other nasty germs thrive in more or less all kinds
of soil and manure.


Indeed, the tetanus bacterium is a normal part of a horse's intestinal
flora.

This is also true for many other animals.

Curiously, horses themselves must be immunized against tetanus. The
situation is analogous to that involving humans and --E. coli--; as
long as the bacteria stay where they belong, they aren't a problem.
Introduced to other parts of the body, they cause trouble.

J. Del Col

"Geir Harris Hedemark" wrote in message
...
"Ted Byers" writes:
The ONLY way your keyboard is going to be really safe is if a) you ban
liquids from within a metre of the keyboard, or b) you install a
keyboard
condom (a flexible plastic envelop molded to the shape of your
keyboard -
flexible so that you can type with it in place, but guaranteed to keep
liquids out of your keyboard unless it is torn or punctured).

Keyboards are inexpensive. I keep a spare, and this one get to take a
shower
with me (no, really) once in a while. When it dies, it will get a
proper burial in the dustbin before I break out the new one.

Yes, keyboards are inexpensive, but a keyboard failure due to shorts caused
by liquid can prove to be quite expensive. I gave one example in which
precisely such a failure destroyed every printed circuit board in the
machine. In such a failure, everything that is in the computer needs to be
replaced and in such a case, the cost can run to several thousand dollars.
The reason this is a problem is that the circuit in the keyboard is
connected to circuits in the motherboard which in turn is connected to
everything else, and the mere existance of such connections puts everything
in the box at risk. NB: there are multiple ciruits in most of these
devices, so there is a random element in that a given spill may not affect
some ciruits and therefore some devices might escape damage in some spills.

Keyboard condoms are only an option in kitchens where you want your
keyboards to be _clean_. But why are people typing when they should be
cooking my food?

I don't agree here. Keyboard condoms are an option in any office where
there may be liquids near the keyboard. The alternative is to ban all
liquids from proximity to the keyboard (possibly to the point of requiring
drinks such as coffee or soda to be on any other desk where there is no
electical device to even banning any liquid in the entire working area). I
KNOW, from first hand experience, that software developers (and presumably
others) are quite productive when they have their coffee close at hand, and
so if I employed other software developers (or if I had a need for office
workers), I would ensure that all of the keyboards in use had a condom in
place, just in case of an accident.

Also, I would say that computers can have a useful role in a kitchen. As an
example, I recently designed and implemented a consumer software product
that allows the user to enter and store any recipe in a database, as well as
store dietary limits for each member of his family (e.g. food allergies,
limits on fat or salt intake, &c.) and prepare meal plans that take dietary
limitations into account (and produce a shooping list that supports full
implementation of the meal plan). Clearly, unless your cook or chef has
memorized all of the recipes he or she ever uses, it is useful to have such
a product in which the recipes to be used for a given meal can be sought and
displayed. A related suite of products will involve recipe databases that
can be used with this consumer product, and of course they will be of
interest to anyone who might buy a recipe book. With such software
products, one would not want to waste paper by printing out the recipes
every time it is needed (or to print them and then have to store or file
them away for later use). It is most convenient to have such a product on a
computer located in or adjacent to the kitchen. I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best. With software
products such as those I described, it becomes easy and practical to
experiment with recipes since each variant of a recpe can be stored (and in
a planned premium version, annotated). NB: I am talking here about
supporting and enhancing processes that belong in the kitchen, not importing
tasks that don't really belong in the kitchen.

Cheers,

Ted

"Geir Harris Hedemark" wrote in message
...
"Ted Byers" writes:
The ONLY way your keyboard is going to be really safe is if a) you ban
liquids from within a metre of the keyboard, or b) you install a
keyboard
condom (a flexible plastic envelop molded to the shape of your
keyboard -
flexible so that you can type with it in place, but guaranteed to keep
liquids out of your keyboard unless it is torn or punctured).

Keyboards are inexpensive. I keep a spare, and this one get to take a
shower
with me (no, really) once in a while. When it dies, it will get a
proper burial in the dustbin before I break out the new one.

Yes, keyboards are inexpensive, but a keyboard failure due to shorts caused
by liquid can prove to be quite expensive. I gave one example in which
precisely such a failure destroyed every printed circuit board in the
machine. In such a failure, everything that is in the computer needs to be
replaced and in such a case, the cost can run to several thousand dollars.
The reason this is a problem is that the circuit in the keyboard is
connected to circuits in the motherboard which in turn is connected to
everything else, and the mere existance of such connections puts everything
in the box at risk. NB: there are multiple ciruits in most of these
devices, so there is a random element in that a given spill may not affect
some ciruits and therefore some devices might escape damage in some spills.

Keyboard condoms are only an option in kitchens where you want your
keyboards to be _clean_. But why are people typing when they should be
cooking my food?

I don't agree here. Keyboard condoms are an option in any office where
there may be liquids near the keyboard. The alternative is to ban all
liquids from proximity to the keyboard (possibly to the point of requiring
drinks such as coffee or soda to be on any other desk where there is no
electical device to even banning any liquid in the entire working area). I
KNOW, from first hand experience, that software developers (and presumably
others) are quite productive when they have their coffee close at hand, and
so if I employed other software developers (or if I had a need for office
workers), I would ensure that all of the keyboards in use had a condom in
place, just in case of an accident.

Also, I would say that computers can have a useful role in a kitchen. As an
example, I recently designed and implemented a consumer software product
that allows the user to enter and store any recipe in a database, as well as
store dietary limits for each member of his family (e.g. food allergies,
limits on fat or salt intake, &c.) and prepare meal plans that take dietary
limitations into account (and produce a shooping list that supports full
implementation of the meal plan). Clearly, unless your cook or chef has
memorized all of the recipes he or she ever uses, it is useful to have such
a product in which the recipes to be used for a given meal can be sought and
displayed. A related suite of products will involve recipe databases that
can be used with this consumer product, and of course they will be of
interest to anyone who might buy a recipe book. With such software
products, one would not want to waste paper by printing out the recipes
every time it is needed (or to print them and then have to store or file
them away for later use). It is most convenient to have such a product on a
computer located in or adjacent to the kitchen. I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best. With software
products such as those I described, it becomes easy and practical to
experiment with recipes since each variant of a recpe can be stored (and in
a planned premium version, annotated). NB: I am talking here about
supporting and enhancing processes that belong in the kitchen, not importing
tasks that don't really belong in the kitchen.

Cheers,

Ted

"Geir Harris Hedemark" wrote in message
...
"Ted Byers" writes:
The ONLY way your keyboard is going to be really safe is if a) you ban
liquids from within a metre of the keyboard, or b) you install a
keyboard
condom (a flexible plastic envelop molded to the shape of your
keyboard -
flexible so that you can type with it in place, but guaranteed to keep
liquids out of your keyboard unless it is torn or punctured).

Keyboards are inexpensive. I keep a spare, and this one get to take a
shower
with me (no, really) once in a while. When it dies, it will get a
proper burial in the dustbin before I break out the new one.

Yes, keyboards are inexpensive, but a keyboard failure due to shorts caused
by liquid can prove to be quite expensive. I gave one example in which
precisely such a failure destroyed every printed circuit board in the
machine. In such a failure, everything that is in the computer needs to be
replaced and in such a case, the cost can run to several thousand dollars.
The reason this is a problem is that the circuit in the keyboard is
connected to circuits in the motherboard which in turn is connected to
everything else, and the mere existance of such connections puts everything
in the box at risk. NB: there are multiple ciruits in most of these
devices, so there is a random element in that a given spill may not affect
some ciruits and therefore some devices might escape damage in some spills.

Keyboard condoms are only an option in kitchens where you want your
keyboards to be _clean_. But why are people typing when they should be
cooking my food?

I don't agree here. Keyboard condoms are an option in any office where
there may be liquids near the keyboard. The alternative is to ban all
liquids from proximity to the keyboard (possibly to the point of requiring
drinks such as coffee or soda to be on any other desk where there is no
electical device to even banning any liquid in the entire working area). I
KNOW, from first hand experience, that software developers (and presumably
others) are quite productive when they have their coffee close at hand, and
so if I employed other software developers (or if I had a need for office
workers), I would ensure that all of the keyboards in use had a condom in
place, just in case of an accident.

Also, I would say that computers can have a useful role in a kitchen. As an
example, I recently designed and implemented a consumer software product
that allows the user to enter and store any recipe in a database, as well as
store dietary limits for each member of his family (e.g. food allergies,
limits on fat or salt intake, &c.) and prepare meal plans that take dietary
limitations into account (and produce a shooping list that supports full
implementation of the meal plan). Clearly, unless your cook or chef has
memorized all of the recipes he or she ever uses, it is useful to have such
a product in which the recipes to be used for a given meal can be sought and
displayed. A related suite of products will involve recipe databases that
can be used with this consumer product, and of course they will be of
interest to anyone who might buy a recipe book. With such software
products, one would not want to waste paper by printing out the recipes
every time it is needed (or to print them and then have to store or file
them away for later use). It is most convenient to have such a product on a
computer located in or adjacent to the kitchen. I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best. With software
products such as those I described, it becomes easy and practical to
experiment with recipes since each variant of a recpe can be stored (and in
a planned premium version, annotated). NB: I am talking here about
supporting and enhancing processes that belong in the kitchen, not importing
tasks that don't really belong in the kitchen.

Cheers,

Ted

"Ted Byers" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
.. .

I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best.

I am really trying hard to picture this, Ted. Pizza dough on my fingers,
pizza dough on the screen, chocolate frosting on my fingers...well, you get
the picture. ;-)
--
Reka

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html



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"Ted Byers" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
.. .

I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best.

I am really trying hard to picture this, Ted. Pizza dough on my fingers,
pizza dough on the screen, chocolate frosting on my fingers...well, you get
the picture. ;-)
--
Reka

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.573 / Virus Database: 363 - Release Date: 28.01.04

"Reka" wrote in message
...

"Ted Byers" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
.. .

I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a
touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best.

I am really trying hard to picture this, Ted. Pizza dough on my fingers,
pizza dough on the screen, chocolate frosting on my fingers...well, you
get
the picture. ;-)

;-)

You must make some wild pizza! Chocolate frosting? Never heard of THAT on
pizza. And my sister learned how to prepare real Italian cuisine from her
mother-in-law (my brother-in-law's family is from the area near Galabria
(sp.?))! She has made some strange stuff, but nothing quite like that. ;-)
You DO have running water and a sink and towels (or a granny apron would do)
in your kitchen, don't you? ;-)

Cheers,

Ted

"Reka" wrote in message
...

"Ted Byers" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
.. .

I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a
touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best.

I am really trying hard to picture this, Ted. Pizza dough on my fingers,
pizza dough on the screen, chocolate frosting on my fingers...well, you
get
the picture. ;-)

;-)

You must make some wild pizza! Chocolate frosting? Never heard of THAT on
pizza. And my sister learned how to prepare real Italian cuisine from her
mother-in-law (my brother-in-law's family is from the area near Galabria
(sp.?))! She has made some strange stuff, but nothing quite like that. ;-)
You DO have running water and a sink and towels (or a granny apron would do)
in your kitchen, don't you? ;-)

Cheers,

Ted

"Ted Byers" writes:
computer located in or adjacent to the kitchen. I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best. With software

You would also need a power washer to clean the gunk off the touch
screen if you are anything like me when cooking.

We have thought along the same lines, by the way. My employer makes a
customizable XML publishing system. I had thought of using that,
interlinking ingredients and categories to make something you can tell
what you have, and get a list of possible recipes along with skill
level needed and preparation time. This would also make it possible to
get derivatives of sauce hollandaise by navigating the "genealogy" of
recipes.

I already have an old laptop I had figured on using as an LCD screen
donor. I don't want a touch screen. I want a touchpad which is easily
detached from the LCD and which can be cleaned by washing under
running water (epoxy is your friend, at least at a steady 22C), chassi
would be a homegrown fibreglass/carbon fibre molding with Daddys
Heatsink on the back, eliminating the need for a fan and the fan
opening, which is a good way for water to get inside. The recipes
would be located on the stationary box, which has a keyboard. IP
interconnection by 802.11b, which just leaves the power cord for the
laptop/webpad thingy. Power outlets are readily available in fully
sealed variants. I don't work designing military electronics any more,
which is a hassle. A handful of weatherproof connectors and a few
metres of sealing gaskets would come in handy. There seems to be no
limit to the amount of money stuff like that can cost when you buy a
few at a time.

The problem is time. The problem is always time.

Geir

"Geir Harris Hedemark" wrote in message
...
"Ted Byers" writes:
computer located in or adjacent to the kitchen. I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a
touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best. With
software

You would also need a power washer to clean the gunk off the touch
screen if you are anything like me when cooking.

;-)

When I cook, I tend to wash my hands repeatedly, every time I handle a
different food; especially meats. And I clean my work area thoroughly when
I have finished with a major step in a given recipe. I guess that is a
habit learned from Mom.

Alas, I don't do much cooking any more because I like things a little
diverse and interesting but my sister and neice and nephew prefer things I
find bland and won't eat the kinds of things I'd prepare (if I made a meat
sauce for pasta, they won't eat it if I put in garlic or chili or cumin or
mushrooms or beans or onion ...). :-( And I can't be bothered just for
me.

We have thought along the same lines, by the way. My employer makes a
customizable XML publishing system. I had thought of using that,
interlinking ingredients and categories to make something you can tell
what you have, and get a list of possible recipes along with skill
level needed and preparation time. This would also make it possible to
get derivatives of sauce hollandaise by navigating the "genealogy" of
recipes.

The single biggest benefit of my product is that it does a thorough analysis
of the ingredients of a recipe (including especially quantities) in order to
estimate the nutritional properties of the recipe (e.g. calories, fats,
protein, carbohydrates, sodium, &c.) and supports the entry of limits on
nutrient intake (e.g. at least so many grams/day but not more than this
number of grams/day) and food allergies.

I had thought of using XML, but I post-poned that since I didn't want to
take the time to develop fully fledged XML parsing code. XML is easy,
almost as easy as basic HTML, but the code to manage it isn't.

It hadn't occured to me to add the ability to search the recipes on the
basis of an ingredient list, or to add skill level and preparation time as
fields describing a recipe. I think I'll add that, as well as categories,
to the "premium" version of the product. :-) I am intrigued by the notion
of interlinking ingredients and categories, but I haven't yet done an
analysis of that kind of feature so I don't yet have a good idea as to how
to implement it.

I already have an old laptop I had figured on using as an LCD screen
donor. I don't want a touch screen. I want a touchpad which is easily
detached from the LCD and which can be cleaned by washing under
running water (epoxy is your friend, at least at a steady 22C), chassi
would be a homegrown fibreglass/carbon fibre molding with Daddys
Heatsink on the back, eliminating the need for a fan and the fan
opening, which is a good way for water to get inside. The recipes
would be located on the stationary box, which has a keyboard. IP
interconnection by 802.11b, which just leaves the power cord for the
laptop/webpad thingy. Power outlets are readily available in fully
sealed variants. I don't work designing military electronics any more,
which is a hassle. A handful of weatherproof connectors and a few
metres of sealing gaskets would come in handy. There seems to be no
limit to the amount of money stuff like that can cost when you buy a
few at a time.

I don't normally want a touch screen. Using it is usually a royal PITA when
it comes to designing a user friendly interface that doesn't care if there
is a keyboard attached or not.

I like your design, but I don't know enough about hardware to hazard making
one of my own (plus, as a result of a diabetes related neuropathy, I am
slowly losing my manual dexterity). When it comes to hardware, I rely on my
brother-in-law to handle the details.

The problem is time. The problem is always time.

Ah yes. You ARE prone to understatement, aren't you?!?!?! ;-)

Cheers,

Ted

"Geir Harris Hedemark" wrote in message
...
"Ted Byers" writes:
computer located in or adjacent to the kitchen. I will grant that the
keyboard can be done away with (as can the mouse) by resorting to a
touch
screen, but that makes entering a new recipe tedious at best. With
software

You would also need a power washer to clean the gunk off the touch
screen if you are anything like me when cooking.

;-)

When I cook, I tend to wash my hands repeatedly, every time I handle a
different food; especially meats. And I clean my work area thoroughly when
I have finished with a major step in a given recipe. I guess that is a
habit learned from Mom.

Alas, I don't do much cooking any more because I like things a little
diverse and interesting but my sister and neice and nephew prefer things I
find bland and won't eat the kinds of things I'd prepare (if I made a meat
sauce for pasta, they won't eat it if I put in garlic or chili or cumin or
mushrooms or beans or onion ...). :-( And I can't be bothered just for
me.

We have thought along the same lines, by the way. My employer makes a
customizable XML publishing system. I had thought of using that,
interlinking ingredients and categories to make something you can tell
what you have, and get a list of possible recipes along with skill
level needed and preparation time. This would also make it possible to
get derivatives of sauce hollandaise by navigating the "genealogy" of
recipes.

The single biggest benefit of my product is that it does a thorough analysis
of the ingredients of a recipe (including especially quantities) in order to
estimate the nutritional properties of the recipe (e.g. calories, fats,
protein, carbohydrates, sodium, &c.) and supports the entry of limits on
nutrient intake (e.g. at least so many grams/day but not more than this
number of grams/day) and food allergies.

I had thought of using XML, but I post-poned that since I didn't want to
take the time to develop fully fledged XML parsing code. XML is easy,
almost as easy as basic HTML, but the code to manage it isn't.

It hadn't occured to me to add the ability to search the recipes on the
basis of an ingredient list, or to add skill level and preparation time as
fields describing a recipe. I think I'll add that, as well as categories,
to the "premium" version of the product. :-) I am intrigued by the notion
of interlinking ingredients and categories, but I haven't yet done an
analysis of that kind of feature so I don't yet have a good idea as to how
to implement it.

I already have an old laptop I had figured on using as an LCD screen
donor. I don't want a touch screen. I want a touchpad which is easily
detached from the LCD and which can be cleaned by washing under
running water (epoxy is your friend, at least at a steady 22C), chassi
would be a homegrown fibreglass/carbon fibre molding with Daddys
Heatsink on the back, eliminating the need for a fan and the fan
opening, which is a good way for water to get inside. The recipes
would be located on the stationary box, which has a keyboard. IP
interconnection by 802.11b, which just leaves the power cord for the
laptop/webpad thingy. Power outlets are readily available in fully
sealed variants. I don't work designing military electronics any more,
which is a hassle. A handful of weatherproof connectors and a few
metres of sealing gaskets would come in handy. There seems to be no
limit to the amount of money stuff like that can cost when you buy a
few at a time.

I don't normally want a touch screen. Using it is usually a royal PITA when
it comes to designing a user friendly interface that doesn't care if there
is a keyboard attached or not.

I like your design, but I don't know enough about hardware to hazard making
one of my own (plus, as a result of a diabetes related neuropathy, I am
slowly losing my manual dexterity). When it comes to hardware, I rely on my
brother-in-law to handle the details.

The problem is time. The problem is always time.

Ah yes. You ARE prone to understatement, aren't you?!?!?! ;-)

Cheers,

Ted