Hard Boiled Eggs

Originally uploaded by jkwoertink.

So the next experiment has been completed. The eggs were hardboiled. They were first boiled for ten minutes then cooled for two in ice cold water. Julia and I both did blinded tests and the result; NO DIFFERENCE. We could no consistently tell the eggs appart. We even tended to rank an egg very high then in the next test rank it quite low. So if you are just going to hard boil your eggs then just buy the cheap ones.

Protests are the political equivalent of antibiotics. They used to be a magic bullet but now overuse has weakened them dramatically. My thoughts on this came about due to current visit of President G. W. Bush to our campus which was unannounced. He was not here to give any speeches he was just here to consult with people at the Hoover Institute. Of course the news got out at the last moment and there was a race among the students to organize some type of response. Of course it will do little good. Our President is protested everywhere he goes and it seems to have little effect. The over use of protesting in politics as created of highly resistant strain of politician that remains uneffected by them. Of course this has lead to the development of more dangerous forms of protests that often include burning cars.

All the eggsOriginally uploaded by jkwoertink.

I have always wondered if you could tell the difference in eggs in baking. So I bought a few eggs and did some experiments. I took each type of egg used them to make some cupcakes and used Julia as the blind taste tester.

The Eggs:

There were five varieties of eggs. The first was your standard store bought eggs, in our case it is Lucerne brand the general local brand that handles eggs and dairy products in the area. The second brand was the non organic but “fresh” brand. It has a cover that looks like an old timey orange crate label. The third brand is the socially conscious organic egg with the bright modern graphics that aim at the progressive liberal in all of us. The fourth brand is a basic organic egg. Safe, boring with an organic egg cover that you would take to see your parents. The fifth egg is also organic, but has the type of cover that says “We were organic before organic was invented, if fact I remember in ‘06 I needed a buckle for my shoe. So I went over to the next town…zzz”

General Procedure

I get the basic yellow cake mix. Follow directions on the box with each type of egg and make cupcakes. Then feed them to Julia in a blinded circumstance and vice versa. Unfortunately we cannot double blind the experiment easily without a third person. So single blinding will have to do.

Results

No single egg was an amazing winner. None of them was clearly better than the rest. How ever a there was a weak tendencies towards the third and fifth eggs. So the old time organic and new and hip ones seemed to be slightly better. Interestingly they are also the only brown eggs in the in the mix.

Conclusion.

The cost differences between the organic and non organic eggs was pretty trivial, about 10 cents a dozen. So you might as well get the organic eggs and get the slight advantage. But don’t expect any type of egg related catharsis.

Future Studies:

The abundance of leftover eggs will be prepared in other ways and will be reported as well.

picture from ‘the wonder book of science’

Originally uploaded by maraid.

This is a great picture. An actually accurate picture of chemistry. Except most of the time I am running things at 1/100 smaller scale than this.

Geek Test Results

You are 75% geeky.

You’re the ultimate geek. I’d write that in Klingon, but you’d probably correct my grammar. Get a girlfriend.

I have been playing with the themes option to work on a new look. I think I like this one.