April 2013 – Page 2

How To Create A Mind

April 15, 2013Books, Entertainment, TechnologyLeave a Comment

Fascination in the mind led me to read Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Though Revealed. The first part of the book goes into compelling detail about how the human brain stores and analyzes information.

The later half philosophises artificial intelligence. It questions and eloquently investigates the ethics behind the artificial mind. If a computer had the same power as human brain, should it be considered conscious? Kurzweil thinks it should be and makes many references to the Jeopardy winning robot, Watson.

He also questions free will, making allusions to the fact that not all human decisions are done of free will. Often we confabulate to make it seem like something was done on our free will. For example, our decisions are often made based on our past experiences. Therefore our past is influencing our decision and free will is one devoid of influences. It thought this was a quite perplexing thought.

Kurzweil explained that Watson (and even iPhone’s) Siri is able to learn from the environment and as technology grows they will be able to learn things the same ways as humans do. If that happens, would we treat computers like humans? Only in time can we truly answer that question.

For anybody who’s interested, here is a lecture Kurzweil did at Google on the topic:

Someone’s Spying On Me

April 14, 2013Art, Pets, Photography, TeddyLeave a Comment

I was trying to read over the weekend. However every time I retreat to the couch in the other room this happens:

Learning to Crochet

April 13, 2013Art, Crafts/DIY, Crochet/KnittingLeave a Comment

I decided to teach myself how to crochet (again). I had started last year but then I became busy and forgot all about it.

I purchased a set of crochet needles from Ebay, where you the entire collection cost $5 with shipping included! It’s ridiculous how cheap you can get supplies like yarn as well.

I inherited Debbie Stoller’s The Happy Hooker from my best friend when she moved out of Toronto. It’s been sitting on my shelf for quite some time. This is a test ball of white yarn I bought at the dollar store ages ago. Half of it I used to learn how to knit.

I made these square coasters with the yarn as I learnt how to do some of the basic stitches; double crochet, half double crochet, and single crochet. I’m hoping to eventually learn how to make some adorable Amigurumi animals!

We Remember The Sound Of Our Keys

April 10, 2013April 10, 2013Books, Inspiration, Life, MusicLeave a Comment

People are able to distinguish between songs through earworms. However, there’s also a whole world of sounds and soundscapes we are exposed to on a daily basis. In Murray Schafer’s A Sound Education, he explores these every day sounds through 100 exploratory exercises.

I had the pleasure of meeting Schafer in my third year of University. Our class delved into a few of these personally with Schafer. The most memorable was this particular exercise involving keys. A group of five people put their keys into a pile. Schafer then jingled all of the keys behind their backs and asked the participants to identify their own. Everybody had the right keys.

The sound of our keys is not something we really think about but we hold them every day, listen to them jingle in our bags and pockets as we look for them and open our doors. Personally, my keys are pretty boring. I don’t own a car or a bike so I only have one key on my chain with a Dine Alone beer opener and a Johnny Cupcakes oven mitt. Instead of nice jingling, I hear simple clanking.

What do your keys sound like? I dare you to try this exercise with a few of your friends and I’m sure they will guess the right keys!

Side note: This book seems to be hard to find, so if any of my Toronto friends want to borrow this I have a hard copy!

Come and Get Poutine

April 9, 2013Food, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Come and Get It is a pop-up restaurant located in a little space on Spadina (close to Queen) where Ackee Tree used to be. The restaurant is very temporary because soon it will disappear to condo developments. This could be a few months or years, so who knows.

The place itself has a very 90s-punk atmosphere with graffiti style bathroom stores. They also love vintage 90s stuff like lunch boxes, N64 and New Kids on the Block.

The menu has four options that can be prepared as either a sandwich, salad or poutine. Besides the herbed-crusted green beans, it was really hard to choose.
I opted for the Hawaiian Pork Belly poutine. I really liked the BBQ sauce and the pork belly. There was even crispy pork crackling that reminded me of the skin on Chinese roast pig, the ones you see hanging in the windows in China Town. That was one of my favourite things growing up as a child.

Nash really wanted the jerk chicken, but they ran out so he tried the Chipotle Short Rib as a poutine. There were crispy onions on top. The meat was melt in your mouth, but I didn’t really find it spicey which I would imply in something labeled Chipotle.

The serving size was very large (maybe twice the size of Poutini’s regular), and quite worth what you paid for. I hope this place remains at the spot for a little while. It is great pre-concert food and I would love to try all the options!

Board Games: King of Tokyo, Ricochet Robots and Survive!

April 8, 2013Board Games, EntertainmentLeave a Comment

I had not visited Snakes and Lattes post-renovation until a few days ago. The wall between both sides had been torn down, resulting in a much more open space. The bar became larger and the front area a big storefront for board games.
Picking completely random things from the shelves are my specialty so I chose King of Tokyo.

In the game you choose a monster and literally try to take over Tokyo. A set of die is rolled to determine what happens: gain cubes to buy cards, attack, gain victory points. The first to 20 victory points or the last survivor wins.

Ricochet Robots is like that ice maze in Mohagony Gym in Pokemon Gold:

Except with robots.
The person who solves the most puzzles in the least amount of moves wins.

This Survive! board game had a lame slogan like “A Sea Full of Dangers and Oceans of Fun”.

The game is from the 1980’s and I have to hand it to them, it was quite entertaining. The island in the middle disappears as you take turns flipping parts of it over. The premise of the game is to try and get as many of your people to the safe islands as possible with some people worth more points than others. The board is full of distractions such as whirlpools, sharks, sea monsters and whales that make life much harder for your coloured dudes.

Post-renovation, Snakes and Lattes had a few new things on the menu including a Nutella Latte.

Of course, I tried it.

Tickling Our Tastebuds at Banjara

April 3, 2013Food, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Indian cuisine is probably my favourite, but I rarely have people that are adventurous enough to eat it with me. I’ve walked past Banjara‘s Bloor West location regularly and the aromas are always so enticing so finally I stopped by with my friend Karol for lunch.
We really wanted to try as much as we could so we had three main dishes. The waiter was very helpful in recommending new things to try so that we wouldn’t just order Tandoori or butter chicken. His personal favourite was the Shahi Shrimp ($13.99). The shrimp was cooked in coconut milk, cream and green spices. It reminded me of Thai green curry, except with more complicated flavour notes.

I chose the Goat Rogan Josh ($11.95), mostly because of the weird sounding name and the mention of Kashmiri-style curry which I have never tried. Kashmiri style usually contains combine paprika, fennel, ginger, salt, cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, and cayenne pepper. It was very fragrant and the goat was tender.

Lastly, Karol wanted to try a paneer so we got the Paneer Makhani ($9.99) which is a sort of cottage cheese cooked in tomato sauce with herbs.

Accompanying all the curry we had saffron rice which was cooked just perfect (not too hard).

Oh, and you can’t forget the Naan, so we got garlic naan that tasted like fancy garlic bread.

To drink I had a Mango Lassi, a kind of mango shake made out of yogurt. It was great for cleansing the palette and cutting the heat in between the different dishes.
We couldn’t leave without also trying dessert so we shared an order of Rasmalai, described as curdled Milk balls cooked in sweet milk with saffron and pistachio flavor. Curdled milk might sound gross, but it was very light and a sweet way to end a meal. Plus, I am alive so curdled milk did not kill me.

If you’re ever looking to try out Indian cuisine for the first time, I highly recommend going to Banjara first. They have a great selection and you definitely won’t be disappointed! Don’t go to a buffet because often the spice level may not be to your tastes. When you order at Banjara, you can choose those levels. Go tickle your tastebuds now!

Our Quest to The Burgernator

April 1, 2013Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

Nested in the boutiques of Kensington Market is recently owned burgery The Burgernator. The eatery had black walls that were decorated with a Terminator / RPG quest theme.

The washroom played along with a sign that says “Duty Calls” and a Burger Manifesto took up one wall.

The menu was also inscribed on the wall with action packed burger names.

I ordered the Atomic Burger which had a deep fried herb crusted cheese, tomato, lettuce and sun dried tomato aiole on top of a patty of freshly ground beef. This was the first time I had a burger with a slice of fried cheese and the herbs added to the batter was definitely a lovely touch. The sun dried tomato aiole balanced the heaviness with something light. There was a bit of greasiness created by the fried cheese so this burger can get quite messy.