That's the first time I've seen a site that resists the zooming so stubbornly. From what I can tell, it has style="font-size: XXX%" attribute right on top of the <html> element and dynamically recalculates the percentage on every resize event to keep the visual font size almost exactly constant. Thankfully, even this can't resist Firefox's Reader Mode.
Why do web developers sometimes go out of their way to degrade the experience on their web pages?
This isn't a bug, this is a deliberate choice to disable a browser feature that some people might actually need for accessibility purposes.
It's especially infuriating on mobile. Whoever decided that websites should be allowed to disable zooming on a web page needs to never be allowed to touch a computer again.
In terms of epistemology, not all information falls into pure true and false values. Sometimes the truth is fuzzy.
In terms of phenomenology, it's possible to have a uniquely subjective experience such that something is true for you and not for others. (Maybe Gordon really does get a better sear everytime he takes the steak out early, due to some hidden variable. Maybe hes falsely perceiving a perfect sear. Maybe he has different criteria of what that means)
In terms of communication, language is imperfect and the true message might get lost in translation. Maybe you intended to convey sarcasm but it was perceived as authoritative.
In terms of social dynamics, this resembled a reverse prisoners dilemma - cooperation is hard but ideal, meanwhile there's personal gain in bullshitting others.
Further there are positive reasons to distort and omit the truth such as discretion, dignity, social cohesion.
As for whether Ramsey's culinary entertainment is a positive justification, I think it's said best by the Prestige:
"Now you're looking for the secret... but you wont find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled."
Traditionally a lot of hate for traditional advice here but I would like to note that it could be the case that the justification is incorrect but the end result is nevertheless better for other reasons. Kenji (the food lab p. 291) tests the justification (internal temperature of the steak) but not the quality of the end result (how good it tastes). Maybe there are other mechanisms at play such as, idk, moisture on the surface, or something.
I've been trying to learn how to cook with stainless steel without everything sticking all the time. My present understanding is to find the sweet spot between hot enough for the Leidenfrost effect to keep the food up off the surface while still below the smoke point of the oil you're using.
The temperature of the food you're dropping into the pan has a very real effect on this, and I've found that everything works better at room temp vs right out of the fridge because it reduces the amount of heat pulled from the pan in the first few seconds.
So, to your point, there are a lot of factors involved and some of them have nothing to do with the core temp of the meat.
it's mostly the same on cast iron too. the seasoning helps, but you still either need to use a decent amount of oil, or cook things until they want to naturally release from the surface.
> This list could be much longer—most “experts”, in every industry, say some amount of bullshit
Gordon Ramsay is perhaps a perfect example of an entertainer that people mistake for an expert.
His job first and foremost is to entertain. That’s what he does.
Many people will jump to defend entertainer “experts” like this because they are actually good in their field and they share a lot of accurate advice. They’re making an effort to do the right thing and share the correct advice most of the time because doing anything too obviously bad too frequently would shatter the illusion.
But entertainment comes first. If it comes down to being pointedly correct and consistent versus being entertaining, they’ll choose the latter when they can get away with it. Praising a terrible grilled cheese is a perfect example.
This happens a lot in the workplace, too. Every company I’ve worked for has accumulated a few people who were very charismatic, loud, and entertaining, but everyone who knew the subject could see they didn’t know what they were doing. These people can persist for a remarkably long time, coasting on charisma alone. My clue that it’s time to leave a company is when those people start getting promoted and put in charge even after a year or two of consistent underperformance. Fortunately the better companies I’ve worked for have eventually caught on to the bullshitters and pushed them out, but it can take a painfully long time.
Ramsay really knows how to cook. Ramsay has managed restaurants and studied his craft and perfected his technique in the kitchen. He thereafter became an entertainer to share his love of cuisine with others. So yes, his expertise does often take a backseat to the entertainment value of whatever he's doing. But I believe that this is part of the thesis of the article we're discussing here: that Ramsay's extensive expertise does not prevent him from conveying bad information.
I would say that a lot of these examples fall under the category of "cargo culting". There is a lot of cargo culting in the culinary arts. Since a kitchen is basically a chemistry lab where biological miracles happen several times a day, no housewife or chef can be fully versed in the actual biochemical sciences that are governing what they do every day. There is so much "institutional knowledge" and "traditional know-how" that can't be written down or codified; it's merely handed on from one expert to the next. It's like Zen Buddhism, which has no formalized doctrine, but there's a lot of expertise to transmit from one master to the next!
Therefore a lot of cargo-culting intervenes here. Everyone has their idea of how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs. Everyone wants to show you exactly how to season a cast-iron pan. Everyone has one weird trick that will make the perfect roasted vegetables.
And I've found that nearly all these recipes online leave out vital information. If you don't already know how to cook, don't try learning by following online recipes. You'll fail bigtime. Also, any recipe on the side of a container, like the ones which come with your spice bottles or a box of yeast or something. They're omitting valuable expertise that only a seasoned chef will know. You'll always need to re-inject your experience when following someone else's instructions, because even if they intend to comprehensively explain the process, they'll always assume that you know how to get from Point A to Point B. Not everybody does.
I don't know the motives for passing along bullshit like that "room temperature steak" tidbit. Perhaps it's just to honor the people who taught him how to do it. Perhaps it's better safe than sorry. But oftentimes it's just cargo culting -- they've done it before this way, it turned out great, don't mess with perfection, just keep following the ritual correctly.
the answer is of course not to somehow convince society to devalue entertainment, but it is the responsibility of the educators to become more entertaining.
That's traditional knowledge, forever a pain in the ass.
And you are the weirdo for believing that that the Moon is not related to the Day/Night cycle, that the rainbow is a gradient, that butterflies are not X-shaped but rather a triangle.
It's weird that people dying is an effective way of moving knowledge forward. Intuitively, you'd think the longer people live the more they can learn and retain.
Although, the rainbow is discrete colors as opposed to a continuous gradient [2]. Hence how you can get a monochrome rainbow [1] (it only splits the colors present).
A "monochrome" rainbow is still a continuous decomposition of low temperature (warm) sunlight. A truly monochromatic "rainbow" requires a spectral light source.
Rainbow is a continuous gradient as opposed to discrete colors. The picture of the red rainbow is not a counterexample, it's just the light is red (a continuum of red) in the air during sunset/sunrise.
Do an image search for "rainbow drawing" and you will see what I'm talking about. People will draw a number of monochromatic segments with contour lines between them.
Agreed. The two important things with a grilled cheese are
1. Crusting up and cooking the bread. You want a good texture and maillard reaction for the bread flavor to come out.
2. The cheese to be warmed up and softened to bring out it's flavor.
You don't actually need to cheese to _melt_ fully. That is just aesthetics. And the bread in the video was only just a touch overdone, really not meaningful. I'm not sure the video actually is a mistake at all.
I didn't think the grilled cheese looked that bad. A little bit of char on the one side of the crust hardly makes it unappetising. Tbh you can't really tell how melted the cheese is. Sure it's not oozing, but you're never gonna get there directly over a fireplace with thick slabs of cheese. I wonder if this is a UK Vs US thing? It's not too uncommon for cheese in a burger to only be semi-melted in the UK.
That's the first time I've seen a site that resists the zooming so stubbornly. From what I can tell, it has style="font-size: XXX%" attribute right on top of the <html> element and dynamically recalculates the percentage on every resize event to keep the visual font size almost exactly constant. Thankfully, even this can't resist Firefox's Reader Mode.
Also a text only site that is blank with js disabled. Impressively hostile for a site that doesn't nag the users with popups, cookie banners and ads.
It's great when you can wield an accessibility feature as a hammer against anti-accessibility features. Let me zoom everything if I want to.
Why do web developers sometimes go out of their way to degrade the experience on their web pages?
This isn't a bug, this is a deliberate choice to disable a browser feature that some people might actually need for accessibility purposes.
It's especially infuriating on mobile. Whoever decided that websites should be allowed to disable zooming on a web page needs to never be allowed to touch a computer again.
I wonder if it's that simple.
In terms of epistemology, not all information falls into pure true and false values. Sometimes the truth is fuzzy.
In terms of phenomenology, it's possible to have a uniquely subjective experience such that something is true for you and not for others. (Maybe Gordon really does get a better sear everytime he takes the steak out early, due to some hidden variable. Maybe hes falsely perceiving a perfect sear. Maybe he has different criteria of what that means)
In terms of communication, language is imperfect and the true message might get lost in translation. Maybe you intended to convey sarcasm but it was perceived as authoritative.
In terms of social dynamics, this resembled a reverse prisoners dilemma - cooperation is hard but ideal, meanwhile there's personal gain in bullshitting others.
Further there are positive reasons to distort and omit the truth such as discretion, dignity, social cohesion.
As for whether Ramsey's culinary entertainment is a positive justification, I think it's said best by the Prestige:
"Now you're looking for the secret... but you wont find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled."
Traditionally a lot of hate for traditional advice here but I would like to note that it could be the case that the justification is incorrect but the end result is nevertheless better for other reasons. Kenji (the food lab p. 291) tests the justification (internal temperature of the steak) but not the quality of the end result (how good it tastes). Maybe there are other mechanisms at play such as, idk, moisture on the surface, or something.
I've been trying to learn how to cook with stainless steel without everything sticking all the time. My present understanding is to find the sweet spot between hot enough for the Leidenfrost effect to keep the food up off the surface while still below the smoke point of the oil you're using.
The temperature of the food you're dropping into the pan has a very real effect on this, and I've found that everything works better at room temp vs right out of the fridge because it reduces the amount of heat pulled from the pan in the first few seconds.
So, to your point, there are a lot of factors involved and some of them have nothing to do with the core temp of the meat.
I've been throwing frozen skinless salmon into a pan at 450, and it doesn't stick. Mostly you just have to wait.
I have found the easiest way to cook on stainless steel without it sticking is to replace the stainless steel with cast iron
it's mostly the same on cast iron too. the seasoning helps, but you still either need to use a decent amount of oil, or cook things until they want to naturally release from the surface.
The searing steak thing doesn't have any real consequence though, except maybe save you a bit of energy when doing the searing.
Compare this to the same tradition-repeating bad advice in self defense/martial arts and it becomes suddenly more sinister.
> This list could be much longer—most “experts”, in every industry, say some amount of bullshit
Gordon Ramsay is perhaps a perfect example of an entertainer that people mistake for an expert.
His job first and foremost is to entertain. That’s what he does.
Many people will jump to defend entertainer “experts” like this because they are actually good in their field and they share a lot of accurate advice. They’re making an effort to do the right thing and share the correct advice most of the time because doing anything too obviously bad too frequently would shatter the illusion.
But entertainment comes first. If it comes down to being pointedly correct and consistent versus being entertaining, they’ll choose the latter when they can get away with it. Praising a terrible grilled cheese is a perfect example.
This happens a lot in the workplace, too. Every company I’ve worked for has accumulated a few people who were very charismatic, loud, and entertaining, but everyone who knew the subject could see they didn’t know what they were doing. These people can persist for a remarkably long time, coasting on charisma alone. My clue that it’s time to leave a company is when those people start getting promoted and put in charge even after a year or two of consistent underperformance. Fortunately the better companies I’ve worked for have eventually caught on to the bullshitters and pushed them out, but it can take a painfully long time.
Ramsay really knows how to cook. Ramsay has managed restaurants and studied his craft and perfected his technique in the kitchen. He thereafter became an entertainer to share his love of cuisine with others. So yes, his expertise does often take a backseat to the entertainment value of whatever he's doing. But I believe that this is part of the thesis of the article we're discussing here: that Ramsay's extensive expertise does not prevent him from conveying bad information.
I would say that a lot of these examples fall under the category of "cargo culting". There is a lot of cargo culting in the culinary arts. Since a kitchen is basically a chemistry lab where biological miracles happen several times a day, no housewife or chef can be fully versed in the actual biochemical sciences that are governing what they do every day. There is so much "institutional knowledge" and "traditional know-how" that can't be written down or codified; it's merely handed on from one expert to the next. It's like Zen Buddhism, which has no formalized doctrine, but there's a lot of expertise to transmit from one master to the next!
Therefore a lot of cargo-culting intervenes here. Everyone has their idea of how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs. Everyone wants to show you exactly how to season a cast-iron pan. Everyone has one weird trick that will make the perfect roasted vegetables.
And I've found that nearly all these recipes online leave out vital information. If you don't already know how to cook, don't try learning by following online recipes. You'll fail bigtime. Also, any recipe on the side of a container, like the ones which come with your spice bottles or a box of yeast or something. They're omitting valuable expertise that only a seasoned chef will know. You'll always need to re-inject your experience when following someone else's instructions, because even if they intend to comprehensively explain the process, they'll always assume that you know how to get from Point A to Point B. Not everybody does.
I don't know the motives for passing along bullshit like that "room temperature steak" tidbit. Perhaps it's just to honor the people who taught him how to do it. Perhaps it's better safe than sorry. But oftentimes it's just cargo culting -- they've done it before this way, it turned out great, don't mess with perfection, just keep following the ritual correctly.
Which is why "infotainment" is usually all entertainment and no info.
the answer is of course not to somehow convince society to devalue entertainment, but it is the responsibility of the educators to become more entertaining.
That's traditional knowledge, forever a pain in the ass.
And you are the weirdo for believing that that the Moon is not related to the Day/Night cycle, that the rainbow is a gradient, that butterflies are not X-shaped but rather a triangle.
It's weird that people dying is an effective way of moving knowledge forward. Intuitively, you'd think the longer people live the more they can learn and retain.
Although, the rainbow is discrete colors as opposed to a continuous gradient [2]. Hence how you can get a monochrome rainbow [1] (it only splits the colors present).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Monochrome_rainbow
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient
The very link you cite says it is a continuous spectrum; the gamut of spectral colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_color
A "monochrome" rainbow is still a continuous decomposition of low temperature (warm) sunlight. A truly monochromatic "rainbow" requires a spectral light source.
Rainbow is a continuous gradient as opposed to discrete colors. The picture of the red rainbow is not a counterexample, it's just the light is red (a continuum of red) in the air during sunset/sunrise.
Do an image search for "rainbow drawing" and you will see what I'm talking about. People will draw a number of monochromatic segments with contour lines between them.
Change occurs one death at a time.
Uncle Bob Martin and Clean Code is our version of this. Absolute trash code in a book so many junior devs hold to be gospel.
Ramsay’s grilled cheese video might be bullshit, but his scrambled eggs video is perfection.
I just watched that video and that grilled cheese looked amazing!
Agreed. The two important things with a grilled cheese are
1. Crusting up and cooking the bread. You want a good texture and maillard reaction for the bread flavor to come out.
2. The cheese to be warmed up and softened to bring out it's flavor.
You don't actually need to cheese to _melt_ fully. That is just aesthetics. And the bread in the video was only just a touch overdone, really not meaningful. I'm not sure the video actually is a mistake at all.
I didn't think the grilled cheese looked that bad. A little bit of char on the one side of the crust hardly makes it unappetising. Tbh you can't really tell how melted the cheese is. Sure it's not oozing, but you're never gonna get there directly over a fireplace with thick slabs of cheese. I wonder if this is a UK Vs US thing? It's not too uncommon for cheese in a burger to only be semi-melted in the UK.
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