Posts by James Butler

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  • Feed: A scientist researches restaurants,

    Cazador has been revamped, so should we finally actually try it?

    I tried the revamped Cazador the other night, and I quite liked it overall. However the main dishes on our set menu all seemed to be variations on "here's a pile of game meat roasted rare and sliced thinly" which is nice, but I don't think does enough to show off the differences between the meats. The hare just tasted like... meat.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: Sponsored post: Speed and Safety, in reply to Brent Jackson,

    Quite true.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: Sponsored post: Speed and Safety,

    In the relativistic case, the entire mass of the car would be instantly converted to energy at the rate of mc^2, which for a 1.5 tonne car would be an explosion equivalent to several gigatons of TNT. That would be one incentive to drive safely.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: Sponsored post: Speed and Safety, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    Not four times as bad? Or some other even higher number? I’d have thought driving/crashing at 100km/h was much more dangerous than driving/crashing at 50km/h.

    In terms of released energy, yes, it’s four times as bad thanks to the “squared” in the theory of relativity.

    *cough* Not quite - it's all Newtonian. A car's kinetic energy is 1/2(mv^2). So one car hitting a perfectly strong wall at 100km/h will release four times the energy of the same car hitting the same wall at 50 km/h; but two identical cars hitting each other head on at identical speeds will only release twice as much as one hitting a wall at the same speed.

    Think of it this way - in both the car-hits-wall case and the car-hits-car case, each car decelerates from v to zero during the collision, so the total energy is e * (number of cars).

    (Russell - how about LaTeX parsing for comments?)

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: A law gone awry,

    Power-crazed-high-school-headmaster state

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Feed: My Life in Curry, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Fruit in curries was quite clearly a thing.

    My one really dud experience at Satya was when once several years ago I ordered the "Navratan Koorma", described in the menu as "Fruits nuts and veges cooked in koorma", and was served what seemed to be their standard vegetable korma with half a tin of Watties fruit salad emptied over the top, complete with a few pale bits of cherry. Since then I've tried almost everything else on the menu and loved it all.

    I've never quite had the nerve to order Navratan Koorma again and discover whether the one I had was some kind of aberration. Or perhaps tinned fruit salad is a common ingredient in southern India, and I'm just being precious.

    Also, everyone's talking about sausage curries with sultana and apple etc., but am I the only one here whose standard childhood curry was mince curry with fruit?

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Feed: My Life in Curry, in reply to Ben Chapman,

    Are things different in other cities? Are there regional Indian restaurants?

    Satya is South Indian, but as you say they have a few of the northern/Anglo Indian fall-backs just in case. There are a few good Sri Lankan places around: 7 Siri in Sandringham has excellent food (try the Lump Rice) but the service is indifferent; and there used to be a really good one in a dodgy foodcourt in East Tamaki, I forget the name.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Feed: My Life in Curry, in reply to Ben Chapman,

    I seem to recall sultanas being de rigueur in my granddad’s sausage curry.

    "Sultanas the size of boiled eggs" as I believe Terry Pratchett termed it.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Feed: My Life in Curry, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,

    butter chicken [...] has a safe English name involving two ordinary Pakeha ingredients

    There's an amusing family anecdote about my grandparents being broadsided by "Butter Chicken" pies from their local dairy. Amusing to us; they were livid.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Holiday Music: Pop TV Lives, in reply to JacksonP,

    Look how hard Stephen Morris is working in that last one. No wonder he was so early on the drum machine bandwagon. And Curtis trying to get his dance on, but the audience is giving him nothing. Not that it would have helped.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

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