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Fun Box
Chicken 65
May 12th
Chicken 65 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today, when we were ordering ‘Chicken 65′ at a restaurant it struck me – How did this popular, deep fried chicken dish get its name? I first wanted to brainstorm independently and come up with a handful of possible theories. The first theory I thought of was that – Actual preparation of the dish must have required a mixture of 65 ingredients. That was the first and last thing I could come up with before my phone popped out. While the dish was getting cooked inside, I started going through a lot of literature online. It was disappointing to know that there isn’t a single, known reason for that peculiar name (the number 65). There are a couple of possible theories like:
1. Actual preparation of dish took 65 days to complete.
First looks: 65 days for a single dish to get ready sounds a bit fictitious. Even at the slowest cooking rates, 65 days would turn anything into charcoal. Moreover, today we see chicken 65 stalls dotted all over the city who cook it up in a matter of minutes (Given they have those pre-made lumps of chicken).
Why it could be true? Preparation time of a dish doesn’t just indicate the cooking time. It also includes the time taken to ‘prepare’. Some popular Indian dishes do take a long time to prepare. Such long times are usually to soak up the traditional raw spices used in these dishes (may be 65 or lesser days of soaking up in this case). Commercial stall shortcuts do not affect the final product in a great way but it might give connoisseurs a reason to crib about.
2. It is an easy way to append numbers to make the naming easier. (and confusing)
First looks: This theory actually makes sense, but where are all those other dishes with other numbers? It sounds too simple to be true.
Why it could be true? It is generally known that the dish came into existence during the early 60′s. It must have been the year 1965 when it was first made and as an easy way to deal with names of dishes, the cook decided to add the number 65 to the name.
A theory bolstered by this Wikipedia statement: “Chicken 65 is alleged to be a dish introduced in 1965 by the Buhari Hotel restaurant in Chennai. They also offer Chicken 78, Chicken 82 and Chicken 90, introduced in 1978, 1982 and 1990 respectively.” Maybe it was also the 65th item on the menu. The Buhari hotel is famous for its experiments with chicken recipes. [Most probably the real reason. Read the 'Chicken 65, a tale' part in that article]
3. The chicken used for making ‘Chicken 65′ should be 65 days old.
First looks: A 65 day old chicken doesn’t really taste any different from a 64 day old chicken (I don’t claim to have tested this).
From left to right (chicken's face): 65 day old chicken, 64 day old chicken. (Photo credit: Allie's.Dad)
Why it could be true? It couldn’t
The Best TED talk ever
Mar 9th
This was the latest mission of a New York based collective known as Improv Everywhere. It has to be the best video of all the TED talks you have ever seen. Just watch it. The Spinning beach ball of death…
Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents.
To name a few their other interesting mass events include:
Frozen Grand Central, the Food Court Musical and the famous No Pants Subway Ride.
Brain Hack – Spinning Girl
Mar 4th
The spinning girl is very common illusion. If you have never come across such a thing, I bring to you: The Spinning Girl (echos).
As the name suggests, it is a GIF image of a girl spinning. But take a look at it. What do you see? Is she’s spinning in the anti-clockwise direction for you? I always see her going anti-clockwise. If you keep staring, she might suddenly change the direction. It isn’t very easy to visualize for everyone. One method works for me always (described below). During the first few tries you might have trouble getting a hang of it. Soon it will be a breeze to make her spin in the direction you like.
The method:
1. For Anti-clockwise direction – If she is already doing it, skip to the 2nd point. Otherwise, look away from the monitor preferably on the right side of your monitor. Now using your peripheral vision concentrate on the image and think of it spinning in the anti-clockwise direction. Don’t look directly. Now when she starts doing that slowly change from peripheral to direct vision. Done. If it doesn’t work, try shifting from peripheral to direct vision suddenly.
2. For Clockwise direction - If she is already doing it, skip to the 1st point. Otherwise, scroll down till the point where you see only the lowest part of the image (the end of her shadow). Her shadow must have already started to spin in the clockwise direction. Concentrate if it is not happening. When it starts happening, keep staring and concentrating on the shadow and very steadily start scrolling up. Now slowly start focusing on the girl. She’ll be doing clockwise circles.
With enough practice and two of these images kept side by side, you’ll be able to see both directions at the same time. This will take time.
note: Since people everywhere are fascinated by brain hacks and optical illusions, online articles claim it as a test to find if you are right or left brain do it to gather attention. It makes no sense. It is a plain optical illusion based on how your visual cortex sees it. It has nothing to do with hemispherical dominance.
Related articles
- Peripheral vision (marciokenobi.wordpress.com)
- That Was Hard (dna100.blogspot.com)
Running AOE2 smoothly on Windows 7/Vista
Feb 15th
I’ve been playing quite a bit of AOE2 of late; and one recurrent problem while running the (now dated, but still going strong) game on Windows 7 (or Vista) has been an issue with map colors. The colors on the map look muddled, grainy and ugly on 7 and Vista, kind of as if they have been inverted. After a bit of research into the issue, I finally arrived at a working solution.
No, updating the graphics driver or Direct X does not work. First, what you need to do is navigate to the ‘age2_x1.exe’ or whichever exe file is associated with the game for you, right click on it, go to the ‘Compatibility’ tab and select ‘Run in compatibility mode for Windows XP (SP2), ‘Disable Visual Themes’, ‘Disable Desktop Composition’ and ‘Disable Display Scaling on High DPI Settings’. This might just do the trick, if you’re lucky. But if you’re not, like me (which is quite a high possibility), read on.
For some people, minimizing the game just after it starts up and then maximizing it again sets the colors straight. But it didn’t for me; what worked for me instead was to open up Process Explorer with Ctrl+Alt+Del after starting the game up, ending the process ‘explorer.exe’ and switching back to the game with Alt+Tab. This did the trick, and should work for most people.
This solution can also be automated without the need for having to go through the process of terminating explorer.exe before starting the game and rerunning it each time the game ends; this can be done by creating a batch file with the instructions fed to it. To do so, create a new notepad file with the following content:
taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
EMPIRES2.EXE
Start explorer.exe
{if you have the regular AOE2, or)
taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
age2_x1.exe
Start explorer.exe
{for AOE2 Expansion}
Then save it as a batch file, say ‘AOE_fixed.bat’ and then copy it to the folder where the EMPIRES2.exe or age2_x1.exe file exists. Then you may create a shortcut for the batch file on the desktop or elsewhere and then double click on it to launch the game whenever you want. Cheers 
Original post at: http://smnitb.blogspot.com/2010/02/running-aoe2-smoothly-on-windows-7vista.html
