The Mr. Shipley Experience

Infinite (2021) So for the past year I've been learning a lot about machine learning, algorithms, and generative AI. Studies often look at recommendation systems for reaching the basics of different types of algorithms. One of the issues I have with these systems is that the recommendations can vary widely between systems. This can happen from a number of factors, the most obvious being that the systems providing the recommendation have access to different data. They are recommending based on your preferences and the preferences of others that the algorithm has associated with you. So a new system that knows nothing about you will recommend different things than a system that has more data on your preferences and activity.  Another trait I have noticed is that recommendation systems usually come with one flavor. By that I mean when you're looking at ratings and reviews on Amazon Prime, you can only see them as they are modified by the Amazon process and algorithms. ...

Ingredients 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon lime juice 1 tablespoon mandarin segments, finely chopped (optional) 1 tablespoon sugar 2 tablespoons sweetened Greek yogurt (in place of the egg) 1 tablespoon butter, melted 1/4 cup milk 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon baking powder Pinch of salt Combine, separately, wet and dry ingredients. Then combine them together. Put it in a bowl (buttered or oiled) and steam in a trivet in a pot until it reaches 190+°F  Top with whipped cream or a confection sugar drizzle.

So these oat cakes are a little less "chunky" than other recipes, but still have a bit of soft tiny pebble texture in them when they are done. If you prefer even less pebble texture, you can try to grind the oats into a dry powder before starting. You may need to increase the amount of oats of you do that, I'd start with another 20g. Ingredients: 80g rolled oats 1/8 teaspoon baking powder (about 0.5g) 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (about 0.5g) Pinch of salt 60ml unsweetened applesauce ( or a 4oz by weight container) 30ml milk (dairy or non-dairy) 15ml lemon juice (about 1 tablespoon) 15 ml melted honey (about 1 tablespoon) 1 egg oil for frying Instructions: Combine Ingredients: In a tall blending container, add all the ingredients. Blend: Using an immersion blender, blend all ingredients until smooth. You might pulse a few times for a slightly chunkier texture. (Food processor or beverage blender also works)  Cook: Heat a pan over medium heat until you can pass the water t...

1 lb baby carrots 2 Clementine oranges 3 tbsp dark rum 3 tbsp honey  1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp butter 1 tsp ground cinnamon  2 tbsp olive oil Handful of wineberries (sub with raspberries) Salt and pepper to taste Parsley In a skillet, heat the oil and butter to medium high heat. Add the carrots. You'll cook these for and 7-10 minutes. While they are cooking, make your glaze. You'll zest and juice the clementines into a bowl. Add the honey and dark rum, mix very well to incorporate the honey into the mix. Add this to your skillet after the initial 7-10 minutes. Cover, then cook for another 10 minutes. Then, take cover off before adding in your wineberries to finish it off - your want the glass to thicken. You can season at this step as well with salt and pepper. For the wineberries, leave them in for about 3 minutes. Double that if they are frozen. Put them in your serving dish and top with some fiber chopped parsley (I used dried parsley).

Maybe you've heard of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe you've heard of an author or two that has written novels and game materials. MAYBE you'd think it's fun to watch these authors and their real life friends transported into the Forgotten Realms and encountering some of the very characters and situations they wrote about. Now needing to worry: will I work to make my stories stay on cannon or do what I feel is right - the thin fine edge? Enter: Isekai Realms at the Dungeon Scrawlers. This particular gameplay has a special place in my heart. I've been playing the DM's home game since he relaunched in July 2010. We've been going strong about twice a month for nigh on 13 years now, with some "mega sessions" peppered in there.  He tends to run everything within his own verse, so even when he does one shots or adventures outside the home group, they are related and do threaten to, at times, overlap. Back ...

So I'm heading to my first Magic Con Philly 2023 - I've played Magic the Gathering at cons (like 2022 GenCon) but this will be my first Magic-focused con.  And oh boy, did I decide to just dive down the rabbit hole.  The first thing that struck me about the available events were...  the staight out number of formats available to compete in and play at this con.  What even is Grand Melee?  Did you say Pioneer Sealed - I can get one booster from each legal set to make a 60 card deck?!  Wow, some formats I never knew I'd ever see, or even thought existed. I don't think I have enough money to try absolutely every format they have competitions for.  So I'm saving the cash I have on hand to go for attempting to qualify for the pro tour!  There are 2 opportunities with Sealed format Phyrexia, All Will Be One.  I think I have a shot at prizing, just not so sure I have a shot at the top 4 to get the invitation.  But I'm going to give it a couple ...

 One of the biggest issues I have with drafting online is the experience.  In MTGO, it's just the entire client.  There are a lot of cool features I'm just never going to get into because I'm just never going to use that software in it's current state. In MTG Arena, there are no features to just draft with a pod you put together and then play in that pod for prizes.  The matching algorithms are horrible for a player like me.  There's also no interaction across the table, I like chatter.  Frankly, the Gathering part of the game us just as fun for me.  Also, you can't just simulate a Sealed Draft by opening 6 packs in the client and sharing those results, they aren't equivalent. So there are a lot of ways you can draft cards outside of Wizard's of the Coast-provided games.  You can draft in websites and then bring those draft results into MTG Arena - provided you have the cards in your collection already.  Some of htese require you to install s...

Before I go into the Return to Dark Tower  (by @RestorationGames), I'd like to return to my childhood, when I played the original game with my sister and cousins ...  back to the early 1980's Yeah, there's the box I remember!  So this was my favorite game in the early 80s, from when I was 7 through 8 years old.  I showed so much affinity for the game that my grandmother, who bought the game for all her grandchildren to play at her house, let me take it home (I'm sure I likely asked/begged multiple times - and tried not to fidget in church so I could cash that goodwill in).  Some kids in the neighborhood also had it, so I played a LOT. Well, my sister also enjoyed it and I was the luckiest brother at 8 years old when she and I scrounged up enough money to get some new batteries to play the game.  All we had to do was pick up the batteries - can DO.  We lived less than a mile from a CVS pharmacy and I had a bicycle.  EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY, KID! s...

 I played a little Pioneer today for a Degen Supporter Event.  I had a good time, got completely lost with renting a deck from cardhoarder.  But I got that completed, sadly they didn't have 4 cards I needed for the list I chose, so I made a last minute replacement and it didn't go so well: 0-3 so I dropped out after match 3.   I ended the night, after getting frustrated with a Bant Angels deck (not a lot of interaction with), I thought what the heck, I might be able to make an Explorer deck... I'm going to WAR! The deck kind of came to me as I recall reading some article about how Opt was a good mechanic in Explorer/Pioneer so I started there.  Then thought, What kind of cheaper CMC planeswalkers could I try?  Enter: Wizard's Aren't Reasonable (or WAR). This should have in no way grant me any sort of wins - so I'm not gonna be upset if I just lose 3, but I did really well in Standard Unranked matches.  So I thought, what the heck, I'll take it i...

(tldr; forgot my wallet at home, asked Lowe's staff if I could use mobile app for curbside pickup, used app to ring myself out and paypal to pay - web had unit listed for $80 cheaper than the store did) So I'm in this one bedroom loft situation, but like a real loft with an open bedroom above the living room/kitchen.  Not the "lofts" they offer in cities, which are basically closets-turned-apartments at 500 and less sq feet.  I'm very luck to have it!  It was constructed in the late 90s and at that time, someone had made a decision to install an air conditioner through the wall, so there's a cut-out in the wall for a unit.  Back in the late 90s, Sears and Kenmore were a good bet.  They'd installed a unit that could be purchased with a wall-mount cabinet or a window-mount kit.  It died sometime in 2019. So this year, I finally got around to removing the old unit so I could replace it. Well, it's not the current standard size as the cutout is 24" W ...

So last night I decided I'd give a try to win a token to enter into the Arena Qualifier this weekend!  WOOO, let's get it!  The Qualifier Play-In was Best of 3 Streets of New Capenna Sealed Format.  OK, not bad - I don't normally practice sealed because it's very difficult to get rewarded, you have to win all your matchups to get your entry fee back.  Anyhow, I figured this time was worth it, and the rewards are a lot better on the Qualifier than they are in the regular sealed format. So yeah, I only lost 1 of all of my games, and won every match.  With this deck here: I was pretty stoked!  Nice draft, decent action in the games, many were very close.  I thought I might even get into Day 2 of the Arena Open!  I woke up early, fairly excited.  All up until I opened my packs.  I ended up with some pretty mediocre decks to be able to play, and the whole Arena Open play today was a total bust at 0-2!  It was demoralizing hahaha, a nice ...

The Reality Chip So I've been brewing up a fun deck for the Degen Supporter Event on May 1.  I've been calling it Reality Bender and my theme is that nothing is quite right with it.  There are ninja's, ravens, dragons, and demons.  Even a sketchy merchant or two.  Here's the deck I'm running, fairly proud of this brew.  It's doing well on the ladder.  I might want to call it something else - Maybe Nightmare Reality?  Or Reality is A Nightmare?  I haven't seen this in the meta, and it will only live for a couple days in it's current form until New Capenna is released, but I'm having a great time with it.

Today, I went to a local store to Join the Maestros  play the Streets of New Capenna Prerelease event.  This being my first in-person hosted event ever, I was pretty excited.  In the event, you chose one of 5 families.  they gave you sealed booster packs plus some cards specific to that family and you were let loose to build your deck.  We had 4 rounds today and I went 2W-2L, which netted 2 extra booster packs.  I definitely chose the Maestros (UBR), for I have some experience playing Grixis (UBR) decks. I ended up with some really sweet cards, but some of the best I had were in Green/White.  Reading Twitter today, I was reading about how weak U (Blue) was turning out, and I agree at least with the cards I had.  I lost the worse to an Obscura (Esper) deck that had the Sanctuary Warden : With the Shield tokens it comes with, removal for me wasn't much of an option.  I had 2 removal spells that would work for most other creatures: Murder and M...

One of the things I've never participated in, mainly because I wasn't local to any large, active MTG communities when I was playing, is participating in team building.  Teams to practice with, brew with, and challenge other teams with.  Now that I've joined the streamer community, I'm eager to get started with this sort of activity. My thoughts around it are a team of streamers that will gather as schedules allow to do this type of activity.  Discord some screen shares, collaborate on deck building and analyzation, then make our own tweaks and test it in the ladder.  It would be great to have little mini tournaments with other teams as well, it helps to build our overall skills if we aren't stuck in an echo chamber, the more exposure we can have to other play styles improves our overall game. This builds content that's a little different than just solo streamer content and I believe not only viewers are interested in seeing this, but other streamers are interest...

I didn't have sour cream in order to make a banding stroganoff, and even after making this I prefer it made with sour cream.  However, this was a decent hack.  In the future, I think I'll be buying plain greek yogurt instead of flavored so I can sub that in for sour cream.  I also didn't have stew meat, which is my usual go to for stroganoff.  I did have a frozen bubba burger and some brussel sprouts.  So how did I do it?  A splash of vinegar gave it that sour taste, and using a roux thickened it up. Ingredients: Mashed potatoes (go look up how to make those, I'm not doing anything special, use instant if you want) 5 large brussel sprouts (double for two - I just sliced, oiled, salted, then roasted these for 15 minutes in my air fryer at 380 F) 1 medium onion, diced 1 tablespoon oil (i usually run with canola) 1 clove garlic, minced 1 frozen bubba burger (This was also in my air fryer, I took it out after 10 minutes because it was cooked partially and all d...

So today I played my first tournament through the MTGMelee website, hosted by Degenerate Gaming and sponsored by Ultra Pro  (use checkout code  DEGEN  for 5% off).  It was open registration, had a low entry fee ($3 USD total) and was a well run event through the Degenerate Gaming discord server and the MTGMelee website. When I started the tournament, somehow my MTG Arena game client lost the deck I'd submitted!  Ouch!  Luckily, backend tournament support was able to help me by sending my my submitted decklist in a DM on Discord (shoutout to IcedYoshi  for being quick on the support)! All of my opponents were good-mannered players, which is always a bonus when playing MTG.  I ended up in spot 22/41 with 3W - 3L and while I was watching the coverage between tournament rounds, I was lucky enough to win a door prize as a player!  $25 gift card to Ultra Pro, which I may try to give away in my stream, I'll touch base with the Degen team to see if...

I'm not entirely sure how to properly attribute this delicious curry properly for all of it's cultural influences, but I know at the very least we must give praise to India and Japan. Here's how I go about it:   Curry Ingredients:  2 tablespoons canola oil (or other neutral oil)  1 medium onion, diced  3 cloves garlic, minced  2 tsp fresh grated ginger (I use paste)  2 carrots, diced  2 small potatoes, diced  2 cups frozen green peas  3 cups vegetable stock (i like better than boullion)  2 tablespoons soy sauce  2 tablespoons honey  1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce  1 crispy chicken breast/patty (veggie substitute, maybe some shrimps, whatever you like for protein)  Roux:  3 tablespoons flour  4 tablespoons butter (or canola oil if you're cooking vegan)  garam masala (see below)  2 tablespoons yellow curry powder Garam Masala:  I can't find any garam masala premixed blends in my local grocer...

For Thanksgiving we only had 4 people. so instead of cooking the whole bird I separated it and put a bunch in the freezer.  Now that it's extra cold up here in New England, it's a great time to take some of those parts and make a turkey dish with rice and gravy.  I'm going to stream this on Twitch  and then I'll push to YouTube and make a link back on this blog.  I may also change the recipe as a I go, and if I do I'll update it here. Equipment: Big ol pot for the turkey (I'm using my 7 quart dutch oven) 2 quart pot for rice Tongs Strainer (for pulling out the bones) Spoon or ladle Cutting board (for vegetables) Chef/chopping knife Ingredients Cooking oil of choice (Canola?) 1tablespoon butter Water Onion Celery Carrots  (I ran out) Garlic Peas (frozen, fresh, or canned - some other veggie, I like peas) Corn (see above) Mushrooms  (I prefer a crimini/baby bella for flavor, I just happened to have some left over) Brown rice (or white, whatever you have, I te...

So sometimes I've found that knowing what pans, knives, equipment etc people were using in their recipes and kitchens would have been helpful.  So when I write recipes, I like to consider even things like a spatula or a chef's knife.  There are plenty of lists of "kitchen essential" pieces of equipment out there and I'm not here to put my spin on those.  But I am open to dialogue on my posts about equipment use and substitution.  That pictured right up there is a 7 qt Misen Dutch Oven  I picked up when it was still in Kickstarter.  I asked my gf to carve up the silicone lid a little for me so I can use it as a sous vide bath! I'm not a huge fan of single-use gadgets, so I try to learn multiple uses for things or how to accomplish the end result in a different way.  Let's take rice cookers for example.  First, they aren't just for grain cooking - you can use them for a lot of things.  But if all I ever did was make rice in one, I'd still consi...