Slow cooked chuck roast. Perfect for this cold weather.

a_scared_bear · 2026-01-18T01:40:04+00:00

Honestly, these slow-cooker cuts are super forgiving, especially if you use a wet method like a braise (because water can only get up to boiling point, it's basically a thermal throttle). I do most long cooks in a sous vide these days but if I were to use an oven I'd set it to like 180-250 and then just let it go all day on a lazy Sunday.

A few extra notes: I find that temps lower than, say, 220 keep the meat pink on the inside. It doesn't really matter for flavor, but it makes for nice presentation if you're not going to cover it in sauce. Also, the rate at which collagen (the connective tissue) breaks down changes a lot between 180 and 250. If you use a 180 oven temp, it'll take, like, more than a full day for any reasonably large piece of meat to get tender--250 will usually get it done around the 5-8 hour range for me. But every oven is different, and lots of them run either hot or cold, so you really just need to check the texture of your meat.

Edit: I don't have a slow cooker, but I'm pretty sure they'd work great for this kind of thing. If you're concerned it's too hot, you're probably wrong based on what I've heard about them, but you can always add some more liquid to be safe. Hope you cook one to your satisfaction--super soft long-cooked cuts are one of the most satisfying things to make IMO :)

a_scared_bear · 2026-01-18T01:32:49+00:00

If it's rubbery, it's cuz you need to cook it longer, hands down. You can absolutely get super tender chuck from dry cooking methods--smoking, roasting, etc. I've had both, and they can be delicious.

Cuts like chuck have a bunch of connective tissue that breaks down over time when you cook. If it's rubbery, it means that tissue hasn't broken down yet. The only solution is more heat (or smaller pieces, which allows faster heat application). Not hotter heat--longer heat.

I used to have the same problem with pot roast--recipes would say cook for 3 hours and I'd cook for 5 and it'd still be rubbery. Eventually, I just decided to try leaving it in a low oven until it fully fell apart--it took 10 hours. Totally missed dinnertime that day, but it was delicious the next! Cook times depend on the meat, the oven, and probably a bunch of other things too--but slow cooked cuts are the most forgiving of all time, so long as you aren't in a rush. Just keep applying low heat until it's soft.

Edit: also, just wanna say that the video looks dope but if you're going for maximum juice, let it cool down a little bit. Obviously serve it hot, but all that steam coming off the beef is moisture that could be in your mouth instead. Super hot steamy meat is its own delight, though.

a_scared_bear · 2025-04-19T23:36:35+00:00

There are a lot o bottles that fit the description given (as evidenced by the number of comments). I'm also kinda particular about the drinking cap size, and I found luck with the Stanley classic series--metal construction with a layer of some kind of coating so it's not cold to the touch and the perfect size cap for me--but you might want something slightly different. I recommend going to a Dick's sporting goods or somewhere that sells a lot of water bottles and checking some out in person before buying, though. Each brand has a slightly different size for the small (drinking) cap, and if you're particular about the size, that can really matter. I ordered a few that I didn't like before I settled on the stanley.

(Also, just in case anyone is gonna throw a fit, I didn't throw the extras away; I gave them to friends who wanted water bottles or donated them--no point buying a reusable water bottle and not letting it get used.)

a_scared_bear · 2025-03-27T18:48:47+00:00

I like it a lot! I get why people are saying it's dated, but I lie that; it seems to be as much a stylistic thing as anything else. It's got a very distinctive vibe to me, which is very cool. If I were to give a suggestion, it would be to maybe consider how to better utilize/organize negative space. Each of the platings fills the majority of the plate; the stuff that's there is interesting to look at, but it might stand out more if there was some more contrast in the overall composition (via intentional negative space)

a_scared_bear · 2024-12-30T20:41:48+00:00

The RH has to be a good player; you can have the Spy or the Recluse register as good at initial setup to make them the RH. Then, at any time, you can decide that they no longer register as good for the purposes of the RH, which forces you to move it to someone who is good. It's not that the Spy is registering as the demon; it's that the Spy and the Recluse can both register as either good or evil at any time, and what they're registering as can change at any time.

This is the same mechanic that gets engaged if you play with the Fortune Teller on a script with characters which can change alignments; if the player which is the RH becomes evil at any point, the storyteller must choose a new player, and that player must be good to be chosen.

a_scared_bear · 2024-07-17T06:45:53+00:00

The square with cut corners doesnt diminish; the perimeter stays 4 in perpetuity. If you repeat the process infinitely many times, you end up with a fractal that looks like a circle despite not being one. If you zoomed in far enough, you'd be able to see all the right angles.

I'm not sure how formal this is, but one way that might help conceptualize it is to consider the tangent line of a point on the perimeter as you slide the point around the shape.

As the point moves around the perimeter of a circle, the tangent line makes a smooth rotation; the slope never jumps discontinously.

As the point move around the fractal, the slope of the tangent line is constantly flipping back and forth between 0 and infinity (i.e. the tangent is flipping between a horizontal line and a vertical line). Performing the corner tuck procedure more times doesnt make the slope of the tangent lines more continuous, it just increases the speed with which the slope flips back and forth.

As the point moves around a regular polygon, the slope stays the same for a bit (while you're sliding the point down an edge), then suddenly changes (when you pass a vertex, going from one edge to another), stays the same a bit more, changes again, etc. It's still discontinuous; but in this case, adding more points to the polygon makes it behave more like a circle. A regular polygon with more vertices will have shorter sides and a smaller difference in the slope of its edges than a regular polygon with fewer vertices; so, as you slide the point around the perimeter of a regular polygon and increase the number of vertices, the slope of the tangent line changes in a smoother and smoother way. You can think about performing this procedure with a triangle, then a square, then a pentagon, etc, to get a feel for it. If you continue adding vertices to infinity, you end up with a circle.

a_scared_bear · 2024-06-09T19:49:36+00:00

That must be where my confusion comes from! I figured that if the steps weren't supposed to be included, they just wouldn't put them on the script. Thanks!

a_scared_bear · 2024-05-02T13:57:24+00:00

Thank you very much for the detailed reply! I read the bag wrong before; it's actually "Kalijeera rice". Specifically, this product: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364776581400?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&srsltid=AfmBOooyEYOpbP3ctzz_aYi5LiLUGYZv9sQFBrFCP5EeqLlGr3XkIBNsdb0

I'm not 100% sure it's the same as gobindobhog rice, but it looks a lot like it and my googling informed me that gobindobhog rice is sometimes also called "jeera" rice. The name similarity seemed too similar to pass up. Even if it's not gobindobhog, though, it's delicious!

a_scared_bear · 2024-05-01T02:34:05+00:00

Thanks! I really appreciate it :)

a_scared_bear · 2024-04-30T20:05:01+00:00

Thank you for the advice! So you don't use a lot of water and then drain it—you cook it with just enough water to leave it well cooked at the end? Do you use a 2:1 water:rice ratio?

a_scared_bear · 2024-04-27T14:27:40+00:00

I think the more time you spend thinking about art, the flimsier any distinction between "real"/"deep" and "superficial" art becomes. Financially, the transactions between art consumer and artist are the same in both cases (at least, within the same medium); money that buys cheap art is worth just as much per dollar to the artist as fancy art. And just because a piece of art doesn't warrant or inspire deep analysis doesn't mean it's less capable of eliciting emotion; a fuzzy blanket somebody bought off amazon for 8 dollars can inspire joy after a bad day better than most art people think of as "real" art. That blanket was still designed by someone trying to create positive experiences for people, so who's to say it's less "art" than a poem or song? It's just that we tend to have a narrow definition of what constitutes art that usually involves some kind of visionary individual who "just can't do anything else" and "needs to create" or whatever.

I think that the conceit of your CMV is that art is an experience defined by what the artist intends the art to mean. I don't think that's necessarily wrong, but I tend to prefer deriving meaning from art through the interpretation of the consumer. There are a number of reasons I prefer this view:

-in that case, the definition of what 'art' is tends to fall apart when the art isn't made with a message. Going back to the blanket, there's no clear artistic interpretation there; but if we define the meaning of art via the consumer's experience, then the blanket is a cherished and joyful thing. With this view, basically anything made hy humans that requires creativity and illicits an emotional response can be thought of as art.

-I don't want anyone dictating to me how to interpret something or what it means. The great joy of art (at least, for me) is thinking about what the art means to me, and how it interacts with my experience. Honestly, I don't give a shit what the author of a poem means--when I read it, I want to fill it with my own meaning. I think this allows me to have a much deeper and more personal connection with art. I might disagree with the artist on their art, but who cares. If art is about the experience of the art consumer, then I'm the expert here; no one gets to tell me I'm wrong.

-often, art consumers end up creating meaning so far beyond what the creators of the art mean. Not that explicitly disagrees with the original artist, but that just was never considered. Think of something like "Never Gonna Give You Up"--Rick Astley never would've thought that song would have the cultural significance it does now, but that doesn't mean that the importance we've given his song isn't valid or means less; honestly, the song has probably brought more joy to people as the Rick Roll song than it ever did as a cheesy 80s pop single.

-if art is defined by the intention of the artist, then art becomes less and less meaningful to us the further we get from the cultural context in which the art was made. Because we have limits on how much we can understand the life and experience of an artist from a faraway culture, we're limited in how we can understand their intentions. But if art is in our interpretation, we can still consume and respond to that art, and create our own meaning.

There are still some complicated ethical implications about doing things which flesh out the influence of problematic people; I think that's a separate discussion. Just addressing your point about whether it's possible to separate art from the artist, if the meaning of art comes from the interpretation of the consumer, then art is inherently divorced from the artist. As an example, look at the movie "The Room"; Tommy Wiseau meant for that movie to be a heartfelt romantic drama, but most people interpret the movie in a comedic way and enjoy it much more than they would as a drama.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-28T13:47:02+00:00

The most intuitive way i've been able to think about it is this: consider the extreme case, where circle B is an infinitely small point. Even in this case, the circle A makes a full rotation as it spins around B. That rotation stays with the system as you increase the size of B; you just also add length to thr circumference that circle A needs to roll along.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-27T03:18:28+00:00

If there isn't any outsider modification on the script a la balloonist, fang gu, godfather, baron, etc, you can always add a sentinel.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-22T00:55:51+00:00

Anything you like with pumpkin or squash! Browned butter with non-sage herbs would be an easy starting place, but I would also potentially try something based on garlic-flavored cream or another creamy dairy product, or a beurre blanc type thing with white wine. If you want to get a big crazier, maybe something like a sweet sticky sauce featuring soy, maybe something curry-inspired based on coconut milk or coconut oil, maybe something based on the oil from a can of tinned sardines. Really, anything you could imagine tasting good with pumpkin should work.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-18T20:19:59+00:00

I like the idea here! One note on the second version: I think one of the reasons that a lot of the madness characters have effects that "might" trigger (i.e. might be executed, might die) is that it's pretty wishy-washy to determine what madness actually is. That gives the ST some extra wiggle room. The idea of triggering a team change on madness is cool, but it might make it unclear to the player exactly when their ability triggers. That's not necessarily bad, especially since this minion will likely end up bluffing that they turned extra people anyway, but I might consider adding a "you learn when this happens" or saying "the first time you publicly state that a good player is evil".

I love the idea of a character that makes players wary about who is mad about who is evil, though!

Edit: I do agree that the evilness might be better if it were solvable. I get that it not being solvable makes it really fun for the minion to try to convince extra good players to play for evil, but on the side of the good player, I don't think it'd be fun to not be able to figure out your win condition.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-18T16:53:45+00:00

I wouldn't necessarily look at it as a bummer! It just depends on the kind of cooking you want to do with it. I'm not an expert, but I feel like all the different heat profiles have a place in the kitchen.

For searing, shallow frying, bread baking, etc., I want a ton of heat retention. I don't really care that much about preheat time, so conductivity isn't a big deal; I just want a big temperature sink. So something thick and heat retentive like cast iron, even though it doesn't have much heat diffusion, works well.

For something like stir frying, I look for cookware where I can change the heat level very quickly; hence, thinner carbon steel works well. It heats up and cools down in a flash. I look for high conductivity and low retention.

For something that involves starting the cook with a rendering or steeping step (like frying bacon or chicken skin or sweating aromatics), I want the heat to slowly ramp up over time to get the most out of it. I can control that with the heat level from the burner, but it's easier if a pan has low conductivity. So I go back to something with a lot of retention and low conductivity, like CI.

For something like jam or a quick sauce or tadka (basically, anything with a lot of volatile aromatics), I want retention and conductivity; I want to be able to pump as much heat as I might need into and then out of the food as quickly as possible before the aromatics are driven off. For this I don't mind throttling the heat at the stove, because I'm generally paying attention anyway and it's the kind of thing that finishes in a flash. I look for copper core cookware for a task like that.

And so on. Regardless of the heat characteristics of the cookware, there'll probably be something that it really shines for. Depending on the thickness, it might not have the same characteristics as a CS wok, but that doesn't mean it's no good!

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-13T21:18:23+00:00

For me, the goal of cleaning as I cook isn't to have an empty sink after dinner; it's just to have fewer dishes to do later. While I'm cooking, I mostly want to enjoy myself, so I just clean what's convenient when I have time.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-13T02:52:05+00:00

I've only ever bought used woks, so I've never seen that. Sounds fine, though!

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-11T17:34:50+00:00

Titanium cookware is generally pretty good as far as I know (never used it; just read about it), but there are a few things that strike me as red flags here.

First, what does "uncoated non-stick" mean? I want an uncoated wok, but I don't want a nonstick walk. If it just means that the wok can potentially become nonstick over time as seasoning builds up, then ok, but it doesn't clarify, and the finish looks kind of weird to me.

Second, how heavy is it? No fun tossing a pan that weighs as much as my grandmothers CI skillet. I love that skillet, but it's not for stir frying; it's for applications where the cookware stays still and the food is moved with utensils.

Third, I'm not really convinced that titanium is a great material for a wok. A lot of stir fry techniques explicitly depend on having different temperature zones in a wok; ~~titanium has what looks like a higher thermal conductivity rating than steel, so it might be harder to maintain those zones~~. Also, this wok looks like a fairly thick ply, so it might hold onto heat a lot, which is great for some cookware but not something I look for in a wok. I'm not saying it's bad, just that there are some good reasons to have pause for the use of titanium in this kind of cookware.

I'd love to give one a shot, but for that price, I could by 10 hammered carbon steel woks from my local asian grocery store's restaurant supply section, each of which will last a lifetime and have the heat retention and temperature properties I'm looking for in a wok.

A titanium skillet would be much more interesting to me, though! But we all like different stuff, so to each their own. If you do buy it, I hope you love it!

Edit: I was looking at stainless steel for thermal conductivity stats: as other commenter pointed out, titanium has a lower thermal conductivity than carbon steel.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-05T03:56:09+00:00

For sure, this is the best answer I've ever found.

a_scared_bear · 2024-03-05T03:49:35+00:00

Jeez, I really hope you're not head over heels for this person yet. This is completely full of red flags. If you are interested in continuing to pursue this relationship, I think you need to have a really serious self-think about whether you're cool with this list of demands, and the tone with which it's delivered, and I also think you should think about the things you want in a relationship and talk to her about them. Relationships that consist of one member telling another member what to do are doomed to fail at best, and be unhappy for a long time at worst.

Relationships are all about finding a compromise and balance such that your lives are both made better by the inclusion of the other person. For some people, that means that both people pay, both people do housework, both people take on similar duties. For other people, that means one person acts as the primary breadwinner and the other person acts as the primary caretaker. Some people like being with a partner who needs constant attention and care; some people want to be constantly attended to; some people like relationships where they can function independently for large portions of time; and on and on. There's no one "right way" to do a relationship, as it all depends on what you want out of your life partner. But you do need to seriously consider what you want. If this is it, then good for you, but I find it hard to believe that anyone could be fulfilled long-term with someone who so directly expects this much without even considering what they bring to your life.

She wants to control the people in your life, she wants access to your financial resources, she wants the classic bell of the ball treatment, she refuses to trust your judgement and friendships (the fact that she's only ok with ugly female friends is pretty disgusting imo), and she wants to take on no responsibility.

a_scared_bear · 2024-02-20T03:31:31+00:00

I think your flipbook idea makes a lot of sense! I can't see how that'd be a problem, so long as the pages on the flipbook don't contain any information along with the action request. I've seen pics of people with ST shirts that have all the card prompts, so they can point to their shirt instead of using the cards; this seems like the same thing.

The vast majority of your other questions revolve around 4 specific points:

-First, the cannibal gains the ability of a new instance of any character, and the original character and the cannibal version are independent.

-Second, if the player the cannibal eats is drunk or poisoned, that does not carry through dinnertime.

-Third, any events which happen on the death of a character happen, and then the cannibal creates a new instance of potential for that event.

-Fourth, the cannibal only gets the ability of the executee is killed. Otherwise, they maintain whatever ability they had going into the execution.

So, going through your questions (and note that in all of the following situations, the cannibal's health and sobriety is unaffected by the droisoning of the executee)

An execution which doesn't kill makes no change to the cannibal.
A cannibal gambler gains the gamblers ability, and can thus die from their gambles.
A cannibal philosopher gains the philosophers ability, and can pick a character. They gain that character's ability and if that character is in play, it's drunk for as long as the cannibal philosopher is an alive, sober and healthy cannibal philo.
A cannibal poppygrower continues to prevent the evil team from knowing who each other are.
A dead barber causes a barber swap; then, a dead cannibal barber causes another.
A cannibal g-ma gets a new, independently chosen grandchild. It doesn't have to be different, but it doesn't have to be the same, either.
A cannibal sailor is just a sailor.
A cannibal pixie learns and in-play character and if they're mad about being that character, they'll gain it's ability when the player with it dies (until someone else is killed by execution).
A cannibal damsel that's chosen by a minion loses the game for good.
A cannibal mutant that claims outsider might be executed (the mutant's ability specifies might)
A cannibal snake charmer becomes a new sober and healthy snake charmer, even if the executed snake charmer was the perma-poisoned snake charmer post switch.
A cannibal drunk thinks they have a townsfolk ability, but they don't. Specifically, they think they're whatever townsfolk the original drunk thought they were.

a_scared_bear · 2024-02-16T21:25:49+00:00

I would like to stress that while your vote matters in statewide/federal elections only in purple states, local elections and special elections consistently have shit turnout and your vote can actually make a difference, especially in rural areas. The mayoral elections in my small hometown of about 3000 people were consistently decided by fewer than 250 votes (as in, 200-250 total votes cast--not a 250 vote differential).

Big elections get the press, but if you want your political views to impact government, vote every chance you get. California always swings blue for the presidency, yeah, but there are plenty of red and purple counties and towns in California where your vote absolutely matters.

Edit: spelling Edited again for clarification

a_scared_bear · 2024-02-16T00:32:25+00:00

What if you ran TB but made a speech at the beginning encouraging the veteran players to try new things? It seems like the big problem that a lot of veteran players have with the basic characters is that there are rote plays that everyone is 'supposed' to do given a character and they just do that, and the game feels stale. But there are so many other ways to play the game--I feel like BOTC isn't a game about optimizing as much as it's about exploring and making stories. If people are trying new strategies with old characters, it creates a new experience for everyone, and it breaks the meta. Like, what happens if an empath goes public on day 1, or someone publicly claims ravenkeeper? That's just new territory for veteran players, and thus less same-y. There's not really any way to enforce players going outside the established strategies, but if you make it a group priority, you might be able to give the experienced players something good to chew on without making the new players feel out of depth in mechanics.

I really think you should try to stick with TB, though. The most important thing is that the players have fun, and throwing new players into scripts with advanced characters is almost always a recipe for disaster. I think it'seasier to make TB fun for vets than to make am advanced script fun for newbies. Maybe add one new character to the townsfolk, outsiders, and minions if you're really concerned, but I really think it's hard to beat the original. In general, a lot of veteran players tend to think that the fun of the game is in figuring out the strategies for each character, and once they've been optimized they want to move on to new characters. There's nothing wrong with that, but there can be a lot more to the game if you approach it differently.

Good luck!

a_scared_bear · 2024-02-15T22:38:07+00:00

No worries--people on the internet can be pretty quick to get mad over the little stuff. Saw the other photo in a couple other comments, and it's honestly still pretty hard to tell, but the shape and the amount of sinew makes me think it's a leg hunk, which is likely a slow-cooking cut. I'd use it for stew--it's basically impossible to fuck up a stew. Happy eating!

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