Salmiakpastiller

Strong candy, beautiful Finnish packaging

If you hadnt guessed from my Piparkakut recipe, I enjoy Finnish food, culture, and people. I had a chance to visit in 2003 traveling from Helsinki to Mantyharju to Rovaniemi to Pyha in Lapland and back. A beautiful trip filled with lakes, trains, reindeer, hiking, coffee, beer, and lots of great food. My travel companion and I stayed with Jaakko Matilla who led us berry picking in the countryside. Afterwards I pulled together a blueberry pie with the small blue berries (like the Maine variety) that no one has ever forgotten. The rest of the trip was filled with herring (creamed, pickled, fried, and stuffed in bread) and lots of liquorice treats.

Lapin Kulta, a not so fancy beer I enjoyed in Finland, 2003

Jaakko is visiting NYC this week, and Ive been treated to an impressive ring of ruis rye bread from Nordic Breads NYC. Im told is better than the kind in Finland. Jaakko also brought a bag of Salmiakki, or should I say Super Salmiakki candies. Salmiakki contains ammonium chloride (salmiac) which gives the already aggressive flavor of black liquorice a salty flavor. The candies are beyond chewy. The texture is more like a hard gummy candy that clings to your teeth and tongue with a vengeance. The flavor is only slightly sweet, nearly savory, liquorice with a bite of table salt taste and an unexpected menthol minty flavor. Im eating them in small quantities. The flavor lingers on for an hour or more, jammed in my molars.

Reindeer in Lapland.

I havent traveled abroad in a few years now. Jaakko has made it clear that NYC and Americas new foodie tendencies toward organic foods, CSAs and sustainably produced foods would be welcome in Finland. Ive been elected to help. I cant make promises but its a thought to grow on. Finland must be doing okay. Jaakko tells me that you can split a whole or half reindeer meat share.

Strawberry Towers

Heres a couple of pictures of phase 2 of my greenhouse aquaponics system. Ill give credit to Synaptoman for his strawberry tower design....and Ive made a few tweaks to the design.

Heres the entire system. I dont have a open pit for the drain, so there are caps on the bottom of each tower with a 3/4" tapped fitting thats drain to the discharge pipe. I was afraid to have each tower hang since this greenhouse isnt really designed to hang that much weight in it. So I took a piece of 3" PVC pipe and made little stands to carry the weight, then strapped each tower to the cross brace to keep them balanced. Each tower has its own ball valve to regulate the supply water flow.



Last week I chiseled out a few strawberry plants out of the frozen ground and planted them. Theyre already sending out new growth...early berries this year!!! This setup will hold a total of 48 plants which takes up about 5 square feet.



I had some problems with the water escaping at some of the pockets. The surface tension was just enough where the water would flip off the curve. I took some scrap pipe and cemented a lip to each opening. If this drained into an open pit, it wouldnt have mattered, but I wanted to keep my floor somewhat dry.



This is how the drain from each tower is connected to the discharge pipe. I just cut a bunch of holes in each stand and ran a 1" pipe through it. Also, you can see part of an oval piece on the floor. This goes into the bottom pocket to help prevent the stone from getting stuck in the drain fitting.



After a few weeks, there are now new leaves and they are starting to blossom!



Im really hoping this setup will work. Strawberries are a lot of work in a regular garden. Plus, just when the berries are ripe, the chipmunks steal them. Ill keep you posted on the progress....

The Thing About of IPTV

Date:  Oct 4, 2015

I learned something new the past week.  And I would like to share it here.  This article is for advance users.  Means, you are capable of Google for a topic, such as How to Install XBMC, or Kodi or TVMC, and you are able to understand and execute the instructions found.  :)  If you can do so, I am sure you are about to open up a brand new world of Steaming TV entertainment.

1.  IPTV is to

         a) watch Live TV,

         b) Video On Demand,

         c) Your own collections of videos, be it Home Video, or downloaded videos,

         d) Listen to music,

         e) Watch Youtube or Vimeo,

         f) Play Games,

         g) Watch Podcast, etc on your TV. 

 

2.  IPTV is about three things.

         a) Hardware - such as Amazon FireTV, Apple TV, Xiaomi, Android TV box, Minix, ViewQwest TV2, etc etc.

         b) Software - the Apps or Apks that allows you to watch the TV shows

         c) Contents - the web site that holds all these contents

   

3.  In the past, I have posted a lot of TV boxes, a lot of Apps that you can run to watch TV.  The false impressions is China has done a pretty good job in this.  All you need is to load nice simple desktop, and run the Apps from the Desktop.  As simple as that.

 

It is easy to use.  Once you launch an app, you get to see all these wonderful shows.  Almost every apps has similar shows and setup.  However, what differentiate them is where there place their contents and how they stream it to us.

Every ISP has different IP upstreams and different ways to get to these contents.  That is why some users complaint slow and buffering all the time, cannot watch.

It has nothing to do with these contents.  It is the ISP who decided what they allow you to watch.

Always remember the basic concept… ISP who owns TV channels are afraid that you no longer subscribe to their TV channels.  So, somehow, watching IPTV is not an enjoyable experience on these ISP networks.  These ISP afraid that if users start watching IPTV it will cannibalise their TV channels revenues.  Otherwise, these super rich ISP who always earn profits in Millions or Billions, don’t tell me they can’t hire the right people or find the right solutions to solve their network problem.

The main point here is, I and some of the friends agrees that China is pretty advance in these IPTV streaming business.

We do not know what is their business model.  Or do they even have any business model, how they make money, etc etc.

But we enjoy so much.

Until the China Government started to come in to regulate these part of the business.

They start setting up a lot of rules.

All the software cannot be installed into the TV.

All the software running on the TV box cannot display on the TV without approval from the government.

It is a Cat and Mouse chasing game.

One by one, we see them (the TV apps) go down.  Then they come back up again, then, they go down.

So, what about the Western community.  We did not see any TV apps coming out from these western community such as US.

The only thing we cheered is Youtube, and Podcast.

So, I always thought that the Western world is lagging behind.

Until the last few weeks, when I start playing XBMC, Kodi & TVMC.

 

4.  What is XBMC?

XBMC stands for Xbox Media Centre.  I believe it is originally an application on Xbox which is the Media Centre to play your videos and music files.

Later, when it is open source, developers come up with various versions that can do many things.

To me when I look at it, it is like GOPHER. 

Hey, how many of you knows GOPHER?  The text base browsers.  The one like directory based navigation where you need to navigate inside to find information.  

XBMC is just like that.  I believe is a set of XMLs for people to display thumbnails, and contents, once selected, it link to the media player.

Kodi seems to be the new name for it.  So, we will use Kodi from now on.

And TVMC is a special customised version that loads all the common, and popular IPTV streaming onto Kodi.

 

5.  So, when I take a look at it, and google it.  There are tons of information out there to teach people how to customise their Kodi.  And all these developers, customised Add-Ons to easily access a certain content providers to get the video streaming.  You can watch almost everything you want.

For example, let’s say I want to watch Doctor Who latest episode, what will I do?

And the videos playback is very good.  It stream from Akamai.  The quality s at least 720p.  And it all depends on your ISP network too. 

 

6.  There are many Add-ons out there.  This is similar to the APK we found from the China Shafa App Store.  The Kodi/TVMC is like the Shafa Desktop.  The biggest different is, Kodi reads the XMLs informations and thus, it is easy to customised the Kodi Add-On contents.  As for the APK from Shafa App store, all those are APK, means software by itself.  If the developer need to change anything, they need to write the software to change it.  As for Kodi, it is a consistent platform.  All you need to do is to change the feeding information to him.  It is very simple, not so fancy too.  May need a lot of navigation clicks, but it does the same thing.  And the whole world is using it.  You can get Spanish show, you can get Korean movies, etc etc.

 

7.  As CartoonHD APK got shutdown.  This is my new way of watching English movies and TV streams.  I am still trying to understand it too.  TVMC somehow does not work on my Xiaomi, so, TVMC runs on my Amazon FireTV.  The Live TV somehow does not work on Xiaomi TVbox too, only have sound no video.  Something to do with the hardware.  But it support others Android platforms (True Android).

 

I will share more once I know more about it.  For now, I am watching all the TV series and latest movies from US on Genesis, Doctor Who on BBC iPlayer, Apple Podcast, etc.  All these add-ons available on TVMC.

 

Cloud TV APK

Date:  Sep 13, 2015

This APK can be installed on any Android TV Set Top box, i.e. Xiaomi, FireTV, 10Moons, TMall, Minix, etc etc.

You can pay for your content using this App, if you want to.

The cost of it is from US$48 to $80 like that depending on which package you want to subscribe.

For me, I just use the FREE CONTENT.

There are just too many channels to browse.  So, one way to make it simple is...

GO TO AREA menu.

SELECT Singapore.

It will list out the available Singapore Channels.

SELECT any channel you want to watch.  For example Mediacorp 5 HD.

Make sure you can run that channel with no problem, no delay, decent speed, and picture quality is good or acceptable.

Then, you go back to the channel listing, select that channel again, and HOLD your OK button on your remote.  Once you HOLD long enough, it will say “OK, this channel is in your favourites”.  So, you have just added a channel into your favourite folder.

So, you continue do this and adding those channel that works.

Go different country.  Like Malaysia, Hong Kong, United States, United Kingdom, and so on.

This is my Favourites folder.

I have all the Singapore channels, some Japanese TV channels.

I have ABC, CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg.  Also BT Sport.

I have Hong Kong TV Channels and Malaysia TV Channels.

Malaysia & Taiwan Channels.

I also have some China TV channels. 

Nowadays, I found no much different in terms of the performance from the pay content and the free content.

Some times these free contents will come and go.  But it is good enough.

At least I have a way to watch Singapore channels.

You got to have patient in browsing thru all your channels and pick the one that run best on your Internet Service Provider.

Not all channels work the same on different ISP.

So, depend on the ISP your have, you might have a total different list of channels that work best for you.

This is only one of the APK I have for watching live TV.

Let It Go Butterfly

Date:  Aug 23, 2015

One day, Blue Blue, my blue eye cat, was caught playing with “something” in his paws and mouth.

When you get close to see it, it was a bright green caterpillar, may be drop from the leaves in one of the pot in our balcony garden.

My wife thus place teh caterpillar into a plastic container.  Of course, we place some leaves and water in it.

Few days later, the green caterpillar ate quite some leaves before turning itself into a pupa.

Another few days later… which is today.

Jay suddenly shouted and say “Mommy, mommy, the butterfly has come out…."

And there you go, the butterfly that we saved from Blue Blue’s paw.

As it is just came out from the pupa, the butterfly is learning how to flap its wings.

It is actually quite a nice butterfly.  Very pretty.

She still flapping the wings.  And she is ready to fly.

So, we have decided to “let it go”.

So that the butterfly can find a new home in our herbs garden downstairs.

We let Kay Kay do it.  So, Kay Kay will let the butterfly go, and let her has her freedom.

She was a bit scare in the beginning, but as soon as she flapped a few times of her wings, she flew off.

Bye bye butterfly.

Of course, I did not waste this opportunity for Jay Jay to learn his Chinese Composition.

So, I quickly draw out my iPad and ask him and the brother to think about the Butterfly event, and write a small passage of it.

So, the journey from home to Millenia Walk is only 15-20 minutes. 

As you can see, this is what he comes up with.  Not too bad.

I recon that this will give him may be 5/10.  So, thru out the day, we discuss about the whole event.

Instead of “my cat”, I asked him to think, where is the cat?  Where he (the cat) finds the caterpillar?

Instead of “let it go”, how he fly away?

What about the conclusion, any thoughts he wanted to write down?

During lunch time, we talked about it.

After he took his Taekwondo grading, we talked about it.

While going from Millenia Walk to the Turf City, before the drawing class, we have another 20 minutes or so, for him to work on it.

And this is the revised version.  

Much longer version.

He knows learned the important thing of “describing”.

Describe our cat is naughty.

Describe where our cat found the caterpillar.

Describe why the cat is naughty?  See the caterpillar, wanted to bite it.

Describe the how he tell mommy about it.

Describe how the butterfly is scare and don’t want to fly out.

Tell who is the one brought the butterfly downstairs.

Describe how he touch the butterfly and make it fly away.

Describe what was his feeling?  Happy.

Describe why?  Because he let the butterfly regain his freedom.

This is a very short event.  But writing it down involves constant thinking and asking questions about the 6 “Ws”.

Who?

Why?

When?

Where?

What?

How?

And after we have done with the Chinese composition, I will let him speak out from his mind in English.  Again, asking him to “describe”.

He won’t learn it straight away. 

But I am sure, thru the training, and exercising, he is more confident and grabs the concepts of writing.

Writing is about describing.

Writing is about asking the 6 “Ws”.

Why I love to read the Hardy Boys Junior Files for them every night.

That is because these Hardy Boys books focus in asking the 6 Ws to solve crime.

Hardy Boys: http://miniliew.blogspot.ch/2015/07/hardy-boys.html

And I show him a way how to use technology, the Dragon Dictation to quickly jot down the chinese sentence thru speaking.

First you learn how to pronounce things correctly.  Second, you quickly write down the Chinese senates.  For words you don’t know, as long as you can read, you can use the Han Yu Pin Yin to find the words.  In P3 Chinese composition, they are allow to use the dictionary.  Be it hard copy or electronic.

Hopefully, thru these methods, I can help my boy to improve his writing in both Chinese and English.  Yeah, Dragon Dictation can change the languages to English or Mandarin.

Quite cool.

Dragon Dictation:  http://miniliew.blogspot.ch/2015/08/learning-chinese-composition.html

And lastly, you notice that the brother Kay Kay is sitting besides.  Do it in front of the siblings so that he or she can be inspired and wanting to follow his brother.  :)

????My sons, if you guys can make it for your Chinese, don’t forget about the efforts your daddy put in to teach you guys.  :)

Angry Bird Activity Park

Date:  Apr 11, 2015

Two weeks ago...

Teachers in LWPS all went to training courses, the pre-school is closed for a day.

I asked in the WhatsApp group where are all the kids going?

Some parents says “Go Angry Birds Activity Park in Johor Bahru”.

And here we are ….

The theme park is located at JBCC.  It is in a new mall beside City Square.  

I parked my car at the same building.

Within the building, there are signs indicating where is the park.  Look for “Angry Birds”.

Unfortunately, some of the signs are not obvious.  The park is located on a different sections in the same level 3.  So, you have to cross the car park to reach there.

Watch out for these sort of uneven steps.  Very annoying.  Almost fell down.

And we finally made it.  10am open.  Take some pictures outside the park.

We bought the tickets.

Here come Sofie.  One of Kay Kay’s friend.

More friends arrived.

It is important to go outing with friends.  This will make the kids remember the event very clearly.  This is their childhood, and we should give this nice memory to them.

It is not so big.  But have many things to play.

You can ride a car.

You can go up and come down from the tubes.  So happy.

Or you can jump down from 2-3 Meter above on to a landing pad.

At first, scare.  Don’t want to jump.

After the first jump, let’s do it again.

And again...

And again.  This is the fun part.

Swinging on a rope.

It has a mini trampoline park too.

You jump like an angry bird.

There are shooting game.  You play against each other.  Who ever shoot down all three piggy wins!

The park is quite decent.

You can ride bike together.

Or watch movies together.

They are showing Angry Birds of course on the TV.

There are lots of gaming station for you to play, Angry Birds of course.

Do you like the Angry Birds Park?

Yes!  We like!

It is better than the Jurong Bird Park.

While you are here.  don’t forget to checkout the food at the food court.  Nice!

It is not mandatory, but it is nice to wear something Angry Birds.  HaHaHa...

The best time to go may be is during holidays for Singaporean kids but not for Malaysian kids.

Park at the same mall, level 3 is the best.

Playing time is 2-3 hours.  Can be very tiring, after all these jumping and running.

The gift shops is not so exciting.  Not much merchandise surprisingly.

There are restaurants in the mall or you can go shop in next door City Square.

Go in on Sunday, as Sunday is Johorian’s school day.  So, lesser crowds.