Category Archives: Uncategorized

Steamed Rice Recipe

January 26, 2023creativity, UncategorizedBill Genereux

I like steamed jasmine rice. I acquired a taste for it when I was stationed in the far east. Everywhere I went, from Japan to the Philippines had rice unlike I ever had as a kid. If we had rice, which was not very often, it was the boiled kind.

I learned that the best way to cook rice is in a steamer. And if you want consistency and convenience, an electric steamer is the way to go.

The story of how I acquired my first electric steamer is kind of funny. My sister, 12 years my junior, received one as a wedding gift at her wedding. She didn’t want it, commenting we will never use that. I will take it! My wife gave me a funny look but we wound up with my sister’s steamer.

It took a little coaxing, and probably the fact that I brought home a 20 pound bag of Jasmine rice from the Asian market, but my wife grew to enjoy the steamer and it’s rice almost as much as I do.

One thing we did have when I was a kid was a television. And on that television we had commercials, one of which was about the deluxe bamboo steamer. We never purchased anything off of mail order television commercials so we never got a bamboo steamer. Until now. I ordered one on Amazon but I haven’t cooked anything in it yet. So now I’m doing research on cooking rice in it.

Here’s an article that looks promising. https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-steam-rice/

The Enemy Below (film)

January 14, 2023UncategorizedBill Genereux

Home on the Range

January 11, 2023Music, UncategorizedBill Genereux

I stumbled upon this folk song that is also the state song of my home state of Kansas.

I am saddened to learn that the musician who recorded it, Tom Raush, died recently.

Chroma Key in OBS

January 11, 2023UncategorizedBill Genereux

Sometimes I can’t remember how to do things that I don’t do frequently. The latest example is: How do you do Chroma Keying in OBS?

I searched online and found this nice tutorial that explained the process. Since websites come and go, I will put the basic steps below in this post.

Set up a chroma key (green screen) background.
In OBS, right-click on your video source and select “filter”.
Click the + symbol, add a Chroma Key filter
adjust the Similarity (300-400), Smoothness (20-80), Key Color Spill Reduction (20-200).

OBS Capture Part of Screen

January 6, 2023UncategorizedBill Genereux

What will happen with the batteries?

December 13, 2022UncategorizedBill Genereux

You know, at work we are not supposed to dispose of batteries in the regular trash. Evidently a pair of dead AA batteries could get us into hot water with the EPA if you don’t use the correct hazardous waste disposal.

A while back I replaced the battery in my Kindle 3 e-reader. While I was pleased to keep my antique e-reader going, the label on the old battery said not to dispose of it in the garbage because it could start a fire. (I pictured the truck of my poor trash man engulfed in flames.) And wasn’t there an incident a while back where people were getting injured by the exploding batteries of their laptops?

No one in the media seems to be predicting any of the bad stuff that’s going to happen when America’s millions of automobiles go electric. What’s the anticipated life expectancy of those batteries? What will it cost to get your batteries replaced?Will we just throw the car out when the batteries wear out like we might do with a rechargeable flashlight? Will anyone’s car ever spontaneously burst into flames going down the road? And what about accidents? No one ever gets into wrecks on the road, do they?

We always adopt technology with its potential benefits in mind. We always underestimate the downsides of new technologies. We are horrible at accurately predicting the future when it comes to technology.

Survivorman

September 5, 2022UncategorizedBill Genereux

We are using the theme of survival for our Digital Literacy online course this fall. It didn’t take too much searching around on YouTube to be reminded of the Survivorman series.

As contrasted with the Survivor series, which is more of a survival game show with contestants, the Survivorman show is more about the concept of man versus nature. Of course, all media are created and the same holds true of these two programs, even though one appears to be much more realistic with the scenarios than the other.

The above video clip was added to this post by using the “embed” code that YouTube provides with every video that permits the practice of embedding. Not every content creator wants their videos to be made available on every website.