2021 Little Easy Bean Network - Bean Lovers Come Discover Something New !

[flowerbug]

...utility programs....linus....interface.....sounds like martian to me... lol

linux not linus, Linus did start Linux but that's a different story. the operating system i use is based upon Linux and not Microsoft. all data inside computers is stored as ones and zeroes. how you look at what you have stored as ones and zeroes is an interface also known as a program or in modern lingo and app (application), if the interface sucks you can't really see what you're looking at or it makes it difficult to find what you're looking for in all those ones and zeroes. utility programs let you get at the ones and zeroes using a different way than using the original program. this all let me take the e-mails from 10 years ago and put them in my more recent e-mail program where i can actually see what i'm looking at and also find what i'm looking for.

 

[heirloomgal]

linux not linus, Linus did start Linux but that's a different story. the operating system i use is based upon Linux and not Microsoft. all data inside computers is stored as ones and zeroes. how you look at what you have stored as ones and zeroes is an interface also known as a program or in modern lingo and app (application), if the interface sucks you can't really see what you're looking at or it makes it difficult to find what you're looking for in all those ones and zeroes. utility programs let you get at the ones and zeroes using a different way than using the original program. this all let me take the e-mails from 10 years ago and put them in my more recent e-mail program where i can actually see what i'm looking at and also find what i'm looking for.

What a strange coincidence we're talking about this - today in on-line school my son needed some help becasue the teacher was AWOL for some reason. He brings me to the computer, and the screen says 'crack the code' and there are six different numerical figures, quite long, all made of 0's and 1's.

I was like 'huh'? Is there really an earthly possibility to solve this? Seemed a stretch.

 

[flowerbug]

What a strange coincidence we're talking about this - today in on-line school my son needed some help becasue the teacher was AWOL for some reason. He brings me to the computer, and the screen says 'crack the code' and there are six different numerical figures, quite long, all made of 0's and 1's.

I was like 'huh'? Is there really an earthly possibility to solve this? Seemed a stretch.

it always helps to know what you are looking for. numbers, characters, pictures. as a starting point. i'm actually not much into cryptography or decoding secret messages but most the time things are stored using certain patterns and once you have any chunk of something it might even have a code right in the beginning of the chunk which tells you what the rest of it is telling you. however, for a homework assignment the teacher probably has provided some clues.

 

[Zeedman]

What a strange coincidence we're talking about this - today in on-line school my son needed some help becasue the teacher was AWOL for some reason. He brings me to the computer, and the screen says 'crack the code' and there are six different numerical figures, quite long, all made of 0's and 1's.

I was like 'huh'? Is there really an earthly possibility to solve this? Seemed a stretch.

An appropriate question for bean counters. If the 1's & 0's are in groups of 8 (and given the "crack the code" comment) my guess would be a message encoded in ASCII. If so, you could translate it with this table:
ASCII table

 

[capsicumguy]

haha, i love beans rather plain and never pre-soak them when cooking. [...] i like them plain or with a bit of butter the best.

You have a discerning palate, to be able to honour the beans as they are. I do like the flavour of beans, but I like them way more as a vehicle for Mexican, Italian, Greek, Lebanese etc flavours.

Delicate question: when you don't presoak the beans, don't you find they... ahem, cause more 'music' later on?

Good advice on freezing -- we do it pretty similarly, just cook up a big ol' pot and stick them in yogurt containers. Sometimes I overcook them and they get mushy, so there's no air gap between the beans... those usually end up as hummus.

 

[capsicumguy]

I put Fort Portal into the internet, and got both a geographic and altitude map.

Ha ha, you gave up a great opportunity to preserve the mystique of your superior bean knowledge there We're all just googlers ultimately...

I did receive some kidney-shaped, mottle-shaded beans in my packet of Bantu too. I didn't bother growing them out, cuz what I really wanted was all those beautiful little multicoloured jelly beans. Still, there's something that feels really authentic about the variability -- somewhere in the world, these are people's normal cooking beans and they don't make a fuss about it. I like the idea of ones that "fell into the pile and went along for the ride".

And there is actually a "lost color" in the Bantu/Fort Portal Jade group. I already mentioned that I found a purple seed in my Fort Portal Jade (and that got planted with, and possibly incorporated into, the Bantu population.) What I DIDN'T mention was that there was also a steel blue one. But I lost that seed before I could plant it.

Oh! I got some steel blue ones from my harvest; can't remember if I planted any that looked like that. They also have a copper dot on them, I think on the 'back' opposite the eye. There are very few, but I'm willing to send some your way at the end of this growing season!

 

[capsicumguy]

...utility programs....linus....interface.....sounds like martian to me... lol

Well, we Linux afficionados may as well be Martians

I like to think of Linux as the 1960s farm truck of the computer world. If you want to crack open the hood and get your hands greasy, when it breaks you can usually fix the thing with a bit of chewing gum and nylon stocking.

Fortunately it's also gotten a lot of attention from big tech, so it doesn't guzzle gas like a '60s farm truck. And it now has power steering too. Quite different from when I started using it 20 years ago...

 

[meadow]

Oh! I got some steel blue ones from my harvest; can't remember if I planted any that looked like that. They also have a copper dot on them, I think on the 'back' opposite the eye. There are very few, but I'm willing to send some your way at the end of this growing season!

How exciting!! I hope pulsegleaner takes you up on your offer. This is such a coincidence that it seems more like Fate.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Ha ha, you gave up a great opportunity to preserve the mystique of your superior bean knowledge there We're all just googlers ultimately...

I am of the opinion that keeping knowledge to yourself to provide an air of mystique and superiority ultimately is detrimental to the general quest for knowledge. Learning correctly about the world is hard enough without egos making it harder.

I did receive some kidney-shaped, mottle-shaded beans in my packet of Bantu too. I didn't bother growing them out, cuz what I really wanted was all those beautiful little multicoloured jelly beans. Still, there's something that feels really authentic about the variability -- somewhere in the world, these are people's normal cooking beans and they don't make a fuss about it. I like the idea of ones that "fell into the pile and went along for the ride".

Something like 90% of the interesting seeds I have probably came around that way. In fact, besides Owl's Eye, off the top of my head the only other two cases were the seed I ended up growing and saving was the dominant seed in the bag (or at least, reasonably common). are the Indian Sky-Pointer cowpea (a small red cowpea whose pods have the odd trait of having extreme negative geotropism, so they grow pointing straight up!) and the Thai/Vietnamese greenheart cowpea (black skinned green cotyledons).

Pretty much everything else was a rare one or two seed inclusion, Sugarpod (speckled cowpea with very sweet tasting pods, am working on developing it into a snap). Coals In The Candle (black eyed on black cowpea with dead white waxy pods, but it has reverted to green for the moment, so it needs more breeding), Little Workhorse (another cowpea, and very productive. Though to be fair the only different about it versus the normal beans in it's bag is the Little Workhorse has mottled seeds, not plain). ALL my non red azuki beans and rice beans (though I have since learned that, if you go outside of China, non red rice beans are not all that uncommon.) The mottled English pea I use (it's super tiny but also super fast, so it can actually make it in our rather short spring.). And of course, all of the wild and weedy seeds as well.

Oh! I got some steel blue ones from my harvest; can't remember if I planted any that looked like that. They also have a copper dot on them, I think on the 'back' opposite the eye. There are very few, but I'm willing to send some your way at the end of this growing season!

Doesn't really surprise me. Based on it's appearance I believe that Fort Portal Jade is just the result of someone picking green seeded beans out of the Bantu population and letting them grow amongst themselves. So any color that showed up there should show up in Bantu.)

 

[flowerbug]

You have a discerning palate, to be able to honour the beans as they are. I do like the flavour of beans, but I like them way more as a vehicle for Mexican, Italian, Greek, Lebanese etc flavours.

we use them in a lot of different ways. Mom, however, is very spice intolerant so any culinary explorations i have to do on my own. she doesn't even like plain hummus or chickpeas in general. i make it for myself once in a while. fresh garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, i skip the tahini (a bit of peanut butter is ok if you really do want something as a substitute).

Delicate question: when you don't presoak the beans, don't you find they... ahem, cause more 'music' later on?

i've found that my body adjusts to them if i eat them regularly and i don't notice any increase. what they do provide is fiber and making me feel full longer which is a big help (especially this time of the year when everything looks edible including shoe leather).

where i think beans get a bad rap is from all the spices, meats and fats that people add to them when cooking. those for sure do increase the fragrance of the poots.

and no worries about being delicate, both of us are very earthy people, we will get pretty raw around here at the house at times just for good laughs. i'm not offended by human bodies or biology or what they do or what happens to them.

Good advice on freezing -- we do it pretty similarly, just cook up a big ol' pot and stick them in yogurt containers. Sometimes I overcook them and they get mushy, so there's no air gap between the beans... those usually end up as hummus.

i used to mash up beans and use them on pizza crusts instead of tomato sauce. the best usually turned out when related to more of a corn meal type thick crust so that it was like corn bread and beans, then the cheese and other toppings. i don't cook like that any more but eventually in the future i'll probably get back to it. it was all good basic food.