These aren’t really Quebecoise Dumplings. This the Czech dumpling recipe I used to have as a kid, but instead of the usual butter and Brown sugar mix you put on them, or the gravy you can eat them with, I thought I would try something new and make them a bit quebecoise since I’m here. So here’s my recipe.

Quebecoise Dumplings

Czech Dumplings (8 good sized dumplings)

Requires: 1 cup water, 3 eggs, 1 tsp salt, 4 cups flour, 4 tsp baking soda.

Mix Water, eggs and salt in bowl throughly. Add flour and baking soda slowly, mix & knead until smooth, but no further (otherwise dumplings will not be fluffy. Split Dough into 8 equally-sized balls. Boil in large pot of water for 15 minutes.

Water should be boiling before dumplings are put in. Proper Czech dumplings can be cut with a string, but if you can’t do that don’t worry, a knife works as well.

Quebecoise variation

Add 1/4 cup butter, and about 1/3 can of Maple Syrup to a frying pan. Heat until butter is melted. After cutting up dumplings into round disks, or just chunks, place as many as you can into the frying pan. Add maple syrup and butter to taste. Repeat until all dumplings are used, or your guests are absolutely stuffed.

As a note to people who know what czech dumplings are and how good they are, this is an excellent way to use left over dumplings.

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Here is the salmon recipe Joe and I used at the party:

Create a salt brine by filling a bowl with water, and putting a potato into it. Add salt to the brine until the potato starts floating.

Place the Salmon into the brine for 30min-1hour

Take salmon off brine, and brush liberally with a 50/50 mix of Islay whiskey (Laphroaig or Lagavulin) and honey. Place on cold smoker for 7+ hours, put on warm smoker until salmon is cooked (and thus smoked.) Place on a plate, and splash with some Islay whiskey.

This recipe works well with trout, and other fishes as well.

I’ll put the "Quebecoise Dumplings" and the "Alberta Pork Ribs" recipe up as I get time.

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Here’s a peek at our new logo:

and some of our swag you’ll be able to get (it’s a sticker you can use to clarify what hedonism really is ^_^ ):

And… we should soon have an operational site for the party at http://www.hedonist.ca within the week. Go Hedonists!

More details to come:

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The title of this entry is a quite important lesson most people should learn. It’s a basic fact of life and society as a whole. No one person believes themselves responsible for either being the cause of something great, or incredibly destructive. Yet, perhaps the title isn’t quite correct. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say no one drop believes itself responsible for the storm. From this second variation, let us analyse how this is a basic fact of society, and perhaps how people can take it to heart to help mankind, and actually change things that do bother them without resorting to violence.

The first meaning, which is expressed in the title, is that a storm can be disasterous, can be a flood, washing away all that many people have spent their lives building in one fell swoop. Just as a mob of people can be disasterous, even harming themselves. But, it’s fun to ride on emotion, it’s human nature to be easily riled up by a few select "case studies." I find people who use case studies as a "scientific generalization" especially interesting. They are used in Psychopathology to examine select individuals who "differ" from the norm, and thus are _not_ representative of the majority. If the majority of people are being studied for psychology, a completely different type of experimental study is used, since there is no need to study "specific cases." A case study is to examine a single individual and cannot be used as a "generalization" of a situation. If someone argues that an entire group of people or organizations are bad based solely on "case studies," you should beware. Commonly it is a sign that what they are describing is not a symptom of the majority, but they want to spin the few facts they have to influence your feelings.

To be specific (from http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/social/psych/designgl.html ):

"Case Study:

Detailed investigation of a single individual. Case studies are often used in medicine, psychiatry and neurology to illustrate the factors, development and consequences of a disease or injury. Case studies can provide useful insights into normal brain functioning due to the damage sustained to a (what was assumed to be) once normal brain. There is the problem of generalisation given that it�s only the study of one particular individual."

These are commonly used to sway people towards doing things that one person or group thinks is right. This becomes especially dangerous when not combined with a reasonably peaceful solution.

And the funny thing is, after the flood (if there is one), very few people will claim personal responsibility for their actions. They will pass it on as "everyone was doing it," or even more common, there will be one person or group of people they can point their blame at. Suddenly, no one drop believes itself responsible for the storm, and we return to a state of relative ignorance. This is a bad state to be in, especially since if we don’t claim responsibility for our own actions, we won’t learn from them, and thus we will make more or less the same mistakes in the future.

Now, onto the other side of the coin. Large groups of people can do amazing good, and can do it peacefully — if the system they are operating in permits it (for example: in a democracy, or in a corporate hierarchy (w/ unions)). Yet, this isn’t as exciting (or as potentially quick) as forming a new revolution. So, unfortunately, many people fall into a few groups of people who either do not care for change and improvement, or are only interested in change at the expense of other people;

- the disillusioned — basically the people who think the organization failed them because what they wanted didn’t happen exactly the way they wanted. Commonly this group is the group isn’t incredibly upset (otherwise they’d be the next group the distraught).

- the distraught — those who refuse to use the methods of the institution, preferring to rely solely on violence to acheive their goals (unfortunately, this becomes necessary in some systems where the majority or a significant minority is violently held down.) The reasons for this can range from pure anger at the system, and disillusionment as to how the system works, to just frustration with the speed the system moves.

- the complacent — those who are happy with the system the way it is (These people usually upset the ‘revolutionaries’ in democracies, since a democracy is by definition supposed to be decided by the majority). This includes everyone from the very happy, or people just content to live out their lives.

- and the perpetually pissed — the group that no matter what the situation is, they won’t be happy with it. Surprisingly, this group commonly gets confused with the distraught.

Now, here comes the problem, in a perfect world, the complacent would be the majority in a democracy (such as Canada), but since the disillusioned don’t participate in the system anymore, and the distraught feel that the system has failed them, it is easy for this conclusion to fail. Especially because people forget the important axiom: No one drop believes itself responsible for the storm. In a democracy this is most important. If the majority of people strongly disagree with how things are going, they have the option to vote for someone who agrees with them (shares their viewpoints (ie. Green Party)), they do not however have the option to force their beliefs onto other people because they feel they are superior either morally or religiously in a democracy, and if the majority are _happy_ with someone else, well tough bananas. If there isn’t someone your group thinks is worth elected who is running, run someone in your group, if your group is large enough, you’ll win.

Now perhaps though, there are other ways to keep the majority of people happier… without resorting to violence. but that will be for another article.

The most important thing is though, in the end take responsibility for your actions, and in turn the actions of the group you are part of. It will force you and you group to learn more about what you are really doing rather than just read one book, or watch one movie and suddenly develop strong feelings towards something. Hopefully it’ll also encourage you to read/watch viewpoints which opposing groups support, and maybe in the end it will accomplish the goal which some of us (and maybe most of us) are aiming for — to better the rest of mankind without the expense of harming any one person or group.

Just some thoughts that have been on my mind, ^_^

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SOCE 101 LAB, LEC, TUT 0.50

Fundamentals of Social Engineering

Introduction to organizational behaviour, introduction to propaganda, basic electoral techniques, political and ethnic analysis, voter simplification techniques, media control components, the dynamic of groups, analysis of media control, game theory, history of social engineering, machivellian techniques, linguistics as a method of control. Labs alternate weeks.

[Offered: W,S]

Prereq: Psych 101, PSCI 101A,; 1B Social Engineering, Psychology, Political Science, or professor consent.

Coreq: SpCom 224

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Now, the day I see that in an undergraduate calendar would be a good day in my opinion. In my humble opinion I think we (society) tries to hide ourselves from some of the more darker aspects of our behaviour. We all socially manipulate eachother in some way, and without it there would be probably be a lot of fighting (for example "Does my butt look fat in this?") Yet, social manipulation or in my words "social engineering" is looked down as a bad dark thing that should be ignored at best, and hidden from complete sight at worst.

Perhaps this is essence of social engineering. If someone knows you are doing it, it suddenly becomes considerably more difficult. Thus, the real social engineers perhaps want to keep the concept hidden. Personally though, I think it should be embraced as an applied science. Something which applies the science of psychology and the arts of management studies and political science. So personally, I think while the "true" social engineers may want to keep their identities secret for the purposes of making their jobs easier, I don’t see why we can’t embrace this science and actually develop it in a clean methodical manner. Especially since the essence of social engineering is getting a group to reach a consensus (Which by coincidence happens to be yours.) Therefore, while you are changing their minds on various subjects they are also happy about it. (if you are successful, which if the science were studied further, success would be more and more common.) The final goal isn’t just getting what you want, but making sure that everyone is still happy about it at the end. How can that not be a noble motive?

Now, the obvious second argument that arises is fairly obvious, "Couldn’t it be used for bad things as well?" Well, that’s a silly reason not to study anything. For example, medicine can be used to kill as well as heal. Chemical engineering has created some of the most devastating weapons ever, but also has created plastics and materials we use in every day life. The most obvious example is that physics led to the atom bomb, but it also led to transistors and computers, without which I wouldn’t be typing this up right now. Using the argument that something can be used for evil to prevent research is a moral argument, and not a good one at that. Sure, social engineering could be used to advance the goals of a small elite, but it could also be used to avoid wars, to decrease crime, or to increase jobs (in theory, of course.) Advertising would become more effective because that is what advertising is in essence. People would generally be happier (if the science progressed the way I envision it, with the goal of acheiving large scale consensus.)

Now, the final major argument I’ve run into is the fact that sometimes people feel guilty after being convinced to do something they originally wouldn’t do. They don’t feel "true to themselves." Personally, I think this is not a failing of social engineering, but rather a failing of the engineer. If the engineer is truly good at social engineering, part of the process would ensure that after the fact that subject(s) who had engineering applied to them would not feel guilty. This is obvious for two reasons.

1. If the subjects are guilty, it implies that the next time you perform any form of engineering on them it will be more difficult.

2. If the subjects are guilty, and feel bad, you have broken the main tenet of social engineering. Which is that you not only want to convince people to do what you want them to do, but to be happy with their decision in the first place.

Perhaps someday soon we’ll see Social Engineering degrees. But, first, we need to get over our fears of ourselves, and the idea that if we do something that someone else wants (even though we did it without any "coercion (beating, etc)"), then it’s a bad thing.

Social Engineering, it’s a legitimate science which deserves to be studied.

I will probably write more on this topic in the future, incl. courses/books that would be useful for people who desire to learn more about social engineering from a scientific/engineering standpoint.

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So, here I am. I an empty apartment, just my laptop, wireless card, and me… oh yeah, and someone with an open wireless node. If there is the class definition from the movies, I should be expecting the police to barge in soon, and then we’ll do some sorta kung fu fight and then… well you know the old story. Either way, it’s pretty funny to me that people still leave their wireless hubs open like this, you’d think by now that LinkSys and the other brands would’ve smartened up and set the defaults to something a bit more sane and secure… but that would require foresight, something I’ve found is surprisingly lacking in this world.

Oh well, it’s still pretty cool nontheless to get free wireless internet.

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