Martin Pease

What was the first Linux I ever installed? Back in the mid to late 90's, I remember trying to get various distros up and running on whatever PC hardware I had lying around. It wasn't so much a problem getting enough working to run a terminal, it was setting up networking and getting my display adapter configured to get more than 800x600 resolution. Mostly, I just noodled around with it. I do recall once buying a boxed copy of Red Hat Linux, and putting the sticker on my Thinkpad and thinking how cool it was. I don't remember what version of Red Hat it was, but the box looked very similar to this one. This would have been 1999 or 2000. But mostly Linux as a desktop OS was a disappointment. The quality of software was pretty low, and drivers were a persistent problem, especially those tricky networking drivers. I believe I once got an early 802.11b wireless adapter working after much trial and error, but it was unreliable. Frankly, Windows 2000 was a superior client OS at

Following up from my last post about the Anova sous vide machine, here's a recent steak I made. I experimented with a slightly higher temperature, 135°F instead of 130°F. This was a little too medium for my taste, but still tender and juicy. I bought this plastic tub, and it's a big improvement. The lid has a cutout specifically designed for the Anova to poke through. I also bought this rack which fits inside the tub and holds the food up in the middle of the water. You can adjust the spacing between the racks to fit different sized packages. Using my SearzAll gave the post-cook sear perfectly. The alternative way to get the proper sear on a steak is to take the steak out of the bag when it's done, pat it dry, and pop it into the fridge for about 10 minutes. (Helen Rennie talks about this at about 8:30 in the video above.)  Then, you can sear the steaks in a pan (with butter) without the steak losing all its liquid or overcooking. This method works great