December 28, 2017

Asking "how."

Google put out a glossy video based on the Google searches beginning with "how" that people did in 2017:



I watched it this morning because there was a Metafilter post about it, here, where people said things like:
When I type "how" into Google, the first auto-complete which comes up that I know isn't mine is, "how to hard boil eggs".

Thanks, Google. I know that some of my other searches may put me into "can't tie his own shoes" categories, but I do know how to hard boil eggs. I'm slightly less useless than that.
But there are fine points to hard-boiling an egg. You might want to check unless you already know whether to put the egg in at the beginning or only after the water boils. Do you really know the exact number of minutes to go after the water boils and is that with the water continuing to boil or with the heat turned off? Now that I think about it, I bet if you Google, you'll find your method of tying your shoes called into question.

Speaking of which... "how to tie a tie" — along with "how to make slime" — is one of the most common search completions on Google. Another Metafilter commenter said:
Top three "how" autocompletes for me are:

"how to tie a tie"
"how to lose weight"
"how to kiss"

I think Google has a misapprehension about me. I bloody hope so.

I blame the fact that I'm on the Internet connection at my parents' new vicarage where they've only just moved in, so maybe this is a picture of the single vicar who was here before?
So I did my own "how to..." search, and Google gave me:
how to tie a tie
how to make slime
how to buy ripple
How to buy Ripple?! You mean how to stumble into a low-rent liquor store?



I prefer this song about Ripple:



And for you "Sanford and Son" fans, here's a full glass.

Ah, but I'm living in the 1970s. Google is right now, kicking 2017 to the curb and moving on to 2018. And Ripple, I learn this morning, is another cryptocurrency, that is, another subject that fails to convince me to ground myself in the present.

"Ripple is huge in Japan and Japanese interest in crypto currencies in general has skyrocketed (based on trading volume) over the past six months... Ripple has been one of the first cryptos to really recover from the Christmas doldrums... Ripple is still a buy-and-hold.... Disclosure: I own some Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether."

Ether... to get back to the 70s....
This is the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel ... total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue – severence of all connection between the body and the brain. Which is interesting, because the brain continues to function more or less normally ... you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control it.

42 comments:

rhhardin said...

Use old eggs for hard boiling. Age makes them easy to peel.

Eggs last months beyond their sell-by date so there's no reason to live with hard-to-shell eggs.

rhhardin said...

I myself use a microwave egg poacher that substitutes for hard boiled eggs. It takes 5 minutes (lower the microwave "power" so that's the total time).

Steve said...

Well, my "how" autocompletes arec boring

How t
How d
How meaning hindi

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Cover the eggs with 1 inch of water, bring to a boil, take off heat and cover, let stand for 10 minutes. Over cooking a boiled egg makes them rubbery and gives a greenish cast to the outside of the yolk.

A tip for frying eggs that keeps you from having to turn them over, put a lid on the pan. Keep on eye on the eggs though, its easy to over cook them.

Chris of Rights said...

I don't Google.
In Bing, if I start typing "how to", my top 3 responses are:
how to get rid of
how to write a resume
how to buy ripple

I'm not sure what it is that I'm getting rid of, and apparently buying ripple is a big deal out here in the midwest.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Oh, and never use hot water when cooking anything. Hot water comes from the hot water heater tank and is full of scale and tastes nasty. I always thought this was common knowledge, but a fellow student in a cooking class I was taking asked about getting a jump on getting something boiling by using hot water from the faucet instead of cold.

tim in vermont said...

Six minute egg. Peel it under cold water so you don't burn your fingers, and serve it hot on a piece of toast or hash or whatever. Learned that on the Google. Also learned it's called an oef mollet.

tim maguire said...

"How to sleep in in the morning," which is right on point for me as an insomniac.

There are different ways to hard boil eggs. Even if you know one or more of them, you may not know the way that makes the egg just as you like it.

tim in vermont said...

Ron, use a clear cover on the frying pan and they are perfect when the yolk turns pink.

Phil 314 said...

Professor, you are a net peripatetic.

Phil 314 said...

In the google "how" video I note that Trump got a 2 second glimpse, the same as Macron, less than the guy from Hamilton, and much less than #metoo.

Voted for him or not, Trump was a huge event in 2017 and certainly featured in many "how" searches.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@Tim at large

Thanks for the tip.

I left out the last step for how I cook hard-boiled eggs. Transfer them to an ice-bath after the 10 minutes have passed to stop the cooking process.

Ralph L said...

I read somewhere that you shouldn't actually boil them, just get them to the little bubble stage for 15 minutes and then cool quickly.

I thought everyone peeled under a stream of water.

I've had 2 water heaters emptied this year. Absolutely disgusting crud.

lonetown said...

Jacque Papain did a fascinating show on boiling an egg. I'm going to soft bile some right now and have them on toast with sausage.

Ralph L said...

Google is creepy.
This summer, I typed e d i c, got about 5 choices, then mistyped q, and it singled out Edict of Nantes, which is what I wanted.

David said...

"How to squander the rewards of your enormous talent."

--Johnny Depp

David said...

"How to select an on demand water heater."

Wince said...

Funny, when I typed in "how" up popped a picture of Elizabeth Warren.

AllenS said...

EDH!

AllenS said...

Have you ever noticed how much fun the comments are before Inga and Chuck wake up?

Ralph L said...

Laughing about Fauxcahontas is a good start to the day.

Fernandinande said...

"How to be evil."

Ron Winkleheimer said...
Oh, and never use hot water when cooking anything.


Because of lead.

Hot water comes from the hot water heater tank and is full of scale and tastes nasty.

If you have chemical build-up in the heater, the chemicals came from the water and the hot water will have less of those chemicals than cold water would.

tcrosse said...

Before cooking, put a pin-hole in the fat end of the egg. That makes it easy to peel.

Ralph L said...

hot water will have less of those chemicals than cold water would.
That would be true if the hot water were used only for cooking.
Consider the water from melted freezer ice. Yuck, compared to tap. Stagnant water tastes bad.

SeanF said...

Ralph L: Google is creepy.
This summer, I typed e d i c, got about 5 choices, then mistyped q, and it singled out Edict of Nantes, which is what I wanted.


You mistyped g, not q - t and q aren't anywhere near each other on the keyboard, so that would've been a heck of a typo.

Google autocorrects "edicg" to "edict" (because g for t is a very common typo) and so gives the same autocompletes for "edicg" as it does for "edict". "Edict of Nantes" is the most common search starting with "edict" (after "edict" itself).

Nothing really creepy about it.

Meade said...

This how-to video was very popular at Meadhouse yesterday.

Ralph L said...

Sean, it's possible about the q-g, though I can do odd typos, but there were a bunch of edic-- before that. Duck-duck does way different. I switched after the Damore kerfuffle (but still using Chrome).

tcrosse said...

Henri IV has freeway named after him in Québec, Autoroute Henri-IV.

Ralph L said...

What a rack!

Mine quit filling once. After an hour of fiddling below, I stuck my head in the tank and saw a spoon under the float.

Wilbur said...

My mother's method for perfect soft boiled eggs: Place the eggs in cold water covered by about a half-inch. Leave uncovered. Bring to a rolling boil, remove pan from the heat and cover for exactly two minutes. Pour off the hot water and cover with cold water.

Result: solid white, soft yolk. A beautiful thing.

John Evans said...

I’ve used numerous methods for boiled eggs, but the following one I now use is the best, I think.

From Cooks’s Illustrated:

Easy-Peel Hard-Cooked Eggs
WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS
Boiled eggs that start in cold water are hard to peel because the proteins in the egg white set slowly, which gives them time to fuse to the surrounding membrane. When you try to remove the shell, parts of the white cling to the membrane, and the surface of the egg is unattractively pockmarked. Instead of a cold-water start, we place cold eggs directly into hot steam, which rapidly denatures the outermost egg white proteins, causing them to form a solid gel that shrinks and pulls away from the membrane. The shell slips off easily to reveal smooth, unblemished hard-cooked eggs.

6 large eggs

Be sure to use large eggs that have no cracks and are cold from the refrigerator. If you don’t have a steamer basket, use a spoon or tongs to gently place the eggs in the water. It does not matter if the eggs are above the water or partially submerged. You can use this method for fewer than six eggs without altering the timing. You can also double this recipe as long as you use a pot and steamer basket large enough to hold the eggs in a single layer. There’s no need to peel the eggs right away. They can be stored in their shells and peeled when needed.

Description Text
1. Bring 1 inch water to rolling boil in medium saucepan over high heat. Place eggs in steamer basket. Transfer basket to saucepan. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook eggs for 13 minutes.

2. When eggs are almost finished cooking, combine 2 cups ice cubes and 2 cups cold water in medium bowl. Using tongs or spoon, transfer eggs to ice bath; let sit for 15 minutes. Peel before using.

lonetown said...

tcrosse said...
Before cooking, put a pin-hole in the fat end of the egg. That makes it easy to peel.

Actually the pin hole will keep it from cracking. Fresh eggs are harder to peel. As the egg ages the pH increases and the shell becomes easier to peel (at least that is what Harold McGee says in his book "On Food and Cooking"). If you want to know the age of your eggs, the date of packaging is stamped on the end as the day of the year, i.e. if packed today it would have 362 stamped by the plant code (the number that starts with P).

lonetown said...

Wilbur said...
My mother's method for perfect soft boiled eggs:

Jacque Papain's way: pierce the air cell int he fat end and place eggs in boiling water, 6 mins. (for lge, 7 for jumbo) cool under cold water, peel and eat. Perfect liquid center, solid whites.

Darrell said...

You can put eggs in the oven, too--either in an aluminum pie plate or a water bath. Cook at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or so. 10-15 minutes longer doesn't matter. The worst that happens is a minor amount of discoloration on the outside. Why mention this? Because sometimes you are heating something up in the oven and a "hardboiled" egg would go nicely with it.

David said...

"You can put eggs in the oven, too--either in an aluminum pie plate or a water bath."

It makes for a great story if they explode, as sometimes happens.

tcrosse said...

It makes for a great story if they explode, as sometimes happens.

Hence the pin hole in the fat end.

Ralph L said...

The best-tasting pound cake my mother ever made (and she made good ones) had exploded in the oven.

Darrell said...

Explode? You are thinking microwave oven. I am thinking gas oven.
I've never seen an egg explode in a gas oven. Or even the shells crack, for that matter. The heating is gradual.

Darrell said...

I've never see a pound cake explode, either.
Did she lose her butane lighter by any chance?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“Funny, when I typed in "how" up popped a picture of Elizabeth Warren.”

Solid gold.

Ralph L said...

I think there was an air pocket in the batter, and I'm not talking about Darryl S's skull.
Quitting smoking was part of the bargain when my parents married.

Anonymous said...

I bailed on the Google video at 1:20, when it got to "how to be a strong woman."

Sometimes people expect too much fom Google.