Month: January 2025

Alchemy

Finished this book, and it is a gem! It is better than expected and very funny. The author is an advertising executive and the book goal is to teach you to think in a non-logical way. As an engineer, I feel that everything has to be logical and reasoned but Rory gives plenty of examples all over the book about logic not being always the only answer. I have highlighted so many lines that I think I can copy the book. It refers to behavioural economics (state agent showing 3 places, so you pick the ones they want you to pick, how to make a train join faster without faster trains (sol: make it more enjoyable)) and politics (Trump 1.0 victory, Brexit victory, etc)

So the two lessons from the book is to understand how the marketing works (as a consumer so you can understand it and it doesnt have to be logical…) and how you should be less logical so you can find different and still valid solutions.

Even this is mentioned to relationships, something that actually hit me…

Some videos from Rory (that I would like to watch)

The lost genius of irrationality

Behavioural Economics, Humas and Advertising.

Chocolate Salami

This is a typical sweet from Portugal too and I wanted to make it for some time, and this was triggered by chance via this video. And then I checked this one for getting an idea about the quantities

Ingredients

  • 250g maria biscuits (dont try to hard biscuits…)
  • 150g dark chocolate chopped
  • 50g cacao powder
  • 50g pistachio chopped
  • 70g butter

Process

  • Smash the biscuits, but dont make it powder!
  • Add the pistachios
  • Melt the chocolate and butter
  • Add to the biscuits
  • Mix well, like a dough
  • Pour the mix over clean film, try to roll like a chorizo
  • Let it cool down in the fridge.

Then you can decorate it like a salami if you wish

Obviously, it doesn’t look like in the videos (although it was tasty). My main mistake was using oat biscuits that are quite hard.

2nd Attempt. A bit better but still not as I would like it:

Chickpeas Chocolate Cake

I was curious about this cake and tried it.

Ingredients
800g Cooked chickpeas (2x cans)
200g peanut butter
120ml maple syrup
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2g salt
100g chocolate 90% chopped roughly

Decoration
150g melted chocolate 90%
150g peanuts crushed

Process:

  • Pre-heat oven at 190C
  • Put all ingredients together but the chopped chocolate in a food processor.
  • Once it is all mixed (it is like a very dense peanut butter), add the chocolate chips and mix with a spoon.
  • Pour the mix into a mold of 25x10cm with parchment paper.
  • Bake at 190C for 40-45m
  • While it cools down, prepare the decoration. Melt chocolate using “mary bath” (you can add a bit of butter to make more glossy).
  • Add the crashed peanuts to the chocolate and pour it over the cold cake. Spread in all sides.
  • Let it cool down again.

Before getting into the oven

After letting it cool down:

To be honest, it is not very sweet. I used 90% chocolate but still is tasty. So you can put a bit more maple syrup and 70-80% chocolate.

It goes great with a glass of milk or even whipped cream!

This cake is a protein bomb!

AusNOG 2024

A bit late to review, but some interesting talks. Agenda.

Arista: Practical AI Networking Innovations:

rail optimized
all reduce

low entropy, 2-3 flows per nic, elephant, bursty

JCT job completion time
TSN time spent networking

overprovisioning 1:1.2

Nokia: NUTS python network testing:

It looks quite nice, it is based on pytest and nornir/napalm. It looks similar to batfish?

Measuring Starlink:

High jitter, each 15sec change satellite -> micro-loss. BBR (non-loss sensitive) is the best flow protocol protocol with Starlink. ECN.

A Dangerous Fortune

I read this book a second time without realising. The first time was several years ago, I think it was one of first English books bough in paper. The second time was a cheap deal at 99p for the ebook.

And, I enjoyed it. The thrill, the twists, really engaging. It reminds to “The Pillars of the Earth” It is funny how this reminds me to all the bank crashes we had in 2008/9 and even last year in Silicon Valley. We don’t learn.