Chicken Noodle Soup
By Kevin Berardinelli
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 30 Min
Cooking Time: 2-3 Hours
Description
I’ve never made chicken soup from scratch before, so I figured it was about time. Looking at a few different recipes online, it seems one can get as creative as desired and there is no way to really mess up – perfect guidelines for a first time recipe!
Ingredients
1 Whole Chicken
Chicken Stock
Baby Carrots (half a small bag or so)
Yukon Gold Potatoes (a few small ones)
Egg Noodles (1/2 lb or so)
1 Large Sweet Onion
Fresh Parsley
Grated Parmesan Cheese
Marjoram, Rosemary, Thyme, Garlic Powder, Salt, Fresh Ground Black Pepper (to taste)
Directions
1. Rinse off the whole chicken (make sure innards bag is removed from inside). Place whole chicken in large soup pan/pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a very low/slow simmer. Cook the whole chicken as slow as possible to keep tender.
2. When the chicken is mostly done, you have a couple options. The first option is to drain all the water and leave just the chicken – replacing the liquid with chicken stock after fat & bones are removed. The second option is to skim the fat off the top of the water and keep the chicken stock you have made, using that as your broth. Either way, you’ll have nice chicken flavor. I went with option #1 to start fresh and remove excess fat from the liquid.
3. Chop all the vegetables and potatoes and add to the pot of broth/stock. Keep on a low simmer. Keep in mind you can add whatever vegetables you want here – mushrooms, squash, peppers, celery, etc – you choose the combo that best fits your appetite!
4. Remove all the bones and fat/skin from the chicken and break the meat into small shreds and chunks. Put all the meat back in the pot.
5. Add all the spices, including fresh chopped parsley. Keep at a low simmer. You can control the thickness by adding more water if necessary, covering the pot, and/or turning up the heat a bit to steam some out.
6. Add the egg noodles when you think you have about 20-30 min left.
7. Keep stirring and on a low simmer. Add some parmesan cheese towards the end for the best flavor in the entire universe.
8. Garnish with fresh parsley leaf, fresh ground black pepper, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Serve with a cold glass of milk (duh!).
Understanding personal finance requires more than a regular checking of balances and a paying of bills. It requires:
- Conscientious recognition of all inputs and outputs of your
personal financial system - Analytical recognition of the internal and external factors that contribute to changes in your personal finance system
- Deliberate manipulation of the controllable factors when your short and long-term financial strategies dictate necessary change(s)
- Careful planning for and reaction to the uncontrollable factors in order to mitigate risks to your system and strategy
Personal finance can be depicted as a system because, well, it’s a system. There are inputs and outputs to your system. You make and you spend. You gain and you lose. There are internal and external factors that can change its overall state. Markets fluctuate. Rates change. Job success merits a wage increase. A loss of a job diminishes income. A health problem or car accident can lead to unintended expenses. The state of your system is directly affected by the collective impact of both controllable and uncontrollable factors.
Fortunately, this system is quantifiable and is readily measured. Through various ways and means, you can determine the state of your system at any present moment. For the oh-so-organized, you can determine the state of your system at any moment in the past. And for the oh-so-very enabled (I think you know where I’m going with this), you can peer into the state of your system for any multitude of moments in the future.
With this notion, there should be an overall strategy to your system – a place where you want to be financially and how you aim to get there. Your aim will be based on the financial knowledge you have built over time, with regards to the controllable and uncontrollable factors contributing to your system. And to your benefit, your knowledge will only increase over time, making your strategy more targeted and the desired future state that much more accurate and achievable.
So you recognize that there’s more to understanding your finances than the ATM and your wallet. Where should you start? Perhaps with what I call “reasonable economic fasting”.
What is your financial baseline? In other words, how can you determine the bottom line steady state of your system? Without needless purchases and expenditures, how much do you have, how much comes in, and how much goes out? Spend as little as possible, and organize your bottom line financial system.
For a specified period of time (a week, two weeks, one month, etc), don’t make those needless purchases. Do carry on with your basic grocery, health care, and sufficient living expenses. But don’t get those Don Mattingly rookie cards off eBay (although I would call them a basic need), trade a book with someone rather than buy a new one, and cook your own steak and potatoes rather than dish out $35 for a nice plating. Find your financial baseline, and I guarantee you’ll gain some new knowledge with regards to your personal finance system:
- The Value of Money – How much is a dollar worth to you? How much is a dollar worth to you compared to yesterday?
- The Value of Saving – How much is a dollar saved worth to you? Given your baseline, what is your maximum savable amount per pay period (the least hopefully not being less than $0.00)? A dollar can go a long way if it goes away for a long time.
- The Value of Spending – How much is a dollar spent worth to you? Do all your baseline expenses amount to what you pay for them?
- Controllable & Uncontrollable Factors – At your financial baseline, you should be able to determine which fluctuations in your bottom line are a result of uncontrollable factors versus controllable ones. Which expenses sustain your desired lifestyle, and which are a result of it?
In the end, it comes down to simple recognition and organization. Take the time to understand what goes in and comes out of your personal finance system, and try to analyze the impact of key controllable and uncontrollable factors affecting that system. If needed, find your financial baseline as a starting spot, and use some intuitive planning to craft your strategy. After all, thought planning is free.
“You can’t light the fire of passion in someone else if it doesn’t burn in you to begin with.” – Thomas Friedman
In his The World Is Flat, Friedman speaks to the growing need for curiosity and passion in today’s job market. Core intelligence, as historically measured by the Intelligence Quotient (IQ), is and will always be important, but in a flat world it’s the curiosity and passion that will matter most.
Friedman references a Curiosity Quotient (CQ) and a Passion Quotient (PQ) that purportedly parallel the common IQ framework for scoring a person’s intelligence. More specifically, he expresses a comparative relationship between the three variables: CQ + PQ > IQ. But can curiosity and passion be measured like intelligence? More generally, can other individual characteristics be measured?
Traditional measurement is the process of obtaining a magnitude for a quantity. Things are measured by counting, and not by observation or estimation. It’s supported by strong criteria that support that measured value, such as a universal frame or scale of reference. By traditional measurement, we cannot really find CQ, PQ, or even IQ. However, there are other types of measurement…
In representational theory, measurement is defined as a correlation of numbers with entities that are not numbers. In information theory, measurement is actually a component of estimation with the uncertainty reduced infinitesimally to zero. Measurement means estimating through support of any number of measurable or unmeasurable parameters, and reducing uncertainty through various means until reaching a high-confidence end value. By the extended definitions of measurement, we can practically quantify anything!!!
So what do we get by measuring traditionally-unmeasurable human characteristics, emotions, abilities, and qualities? What do we get by identifying any new particular Qualitative Quotient (QQ) such as the CQ or PQ? Well, Friedman is on the right track here. 
We become smarter by surpassing our current understanding of intelligence. And as our QQs surpass the IQ, so does our ability to flatten the world, innovate, grow and succeed as a civilization and society.
The process of trying to quantify characteristics helps us realize the underlying factors that contribute to a specific quality. What makes someone passionate? How can we tell if someone is curious? Is it genetic, demontrated by experience, and exhibited sub-consciously? Can it be determined through the collective interpretation of dreams? Examining the underpinnings of qualities makes us more intelligent as individuals, organizations, and societies. Once quantified, we can look for patterns and trends in our data across different geographies, demographics, and slices of traditionally-measurable data.
What we’ll learn then, well, I’m curious to find out.
No, I’m not talking about daydreaming although I have previously expressed my love for and interest in daydreaming as a necessary practice. But here, I’m talking about education and the internet.
It is well understood that education as a discipline has made positive strides in recent decades, but still has many leaps to take. There exists an issue of a profound educational gap between demographics, an issue of comprehensive standards through which student understanding can be measured, and an issue of standards and processes by which teachers can be evaluated for feedback and professional growth, to name a few.
But for this topic, let’s set these issues aside and assume internet access is available for all students and schools. How can the internet be leveraged as an enabler of quality education? How does the existing cyber framework and status of collaborative tools enable efficient and effective education?
Key Themes
- Writing/typing enables memory and understanding: As stated in my previous post “Spectrum Logic”: “To put something on paper and organize the information as to make visual sense – in words, lines, colors, and curves – is to recognize some understanding and to create a basis for new insight and discovery.”
- Differing opinions and verbiage, on any topic, provide full-spectrum input, fuel discussion, and parallel what’s to be expected in the professional world.
- Technical skills are essential. This includes understanding technical concepts, the digital organization of information, social networking, and collaboration.
- Relationships are a key to happiness and provide a medium for professional growth. Digital relationships formalize relationships and provide concrete structure between multiple people, enabling this growth in an organized manner.
- Exploring and understanding the depths of the internet and related technologies forges new intellectual connections, and more importantly, personal interests.
Core Components
Blogs – As a central medium for information exchange, blogs can be used as a fantastic teaching tool. Imagine a class where after each lesson, different students memorialize class notes, in their own words, in blog posts for the rest of the class to see. Posts can be categorized, commented on, and used as a fantastic medium for discussion. Come test time, the notes are in there for all to see and use as study material.
Wikis – At their core, wikis provide a semi-structured environment for the capture of knowledge. Yes, Wikipedia seems complete, but that’s not the point. Imagine a class that started with a blank wiki, and had an objective to create a new knowledge framework around class material. This would not only prove to be great study material, but would also teach students a good deal about Web 2.0, digital organization of information, and parallel the growth and interconnectedness of new knowledge through links, references, and version control.
Social Networking – Private and/or public, social networks establish relationships, organize contact information, and provide a framework through which individuals can learn about other individuals and interact with them. Whether on a similar interest or topical matter, social networking for a class could be incredibly useful for building new relationships, and easier interaction with peers and professors. You can never replace a hallway conversation or a whiteboard tutorial, but this could better enable those circumstances to take place.
Personal/Team Websites – Personal and/or team websites enable individuals to provide some level of scope to their interests and personal attributes while teaching hands-on technical skills. Building a website teaches organization, visualization, data management, marketing, and a whole boat load of other concepts. Whether as a class or as individuals, website creation forges new intellectual connections and practical skills that directly translate to the professional world.
In the end, there’s a world of opportunity on the web, and as education tackles its outstanding issues as a whole, it’s only beneficial to use and leverage the internet as a medium to foster new learning and create new opportunity for students across the US and the world.
Links
- What Is Cloud Computing Anyway? (Information Management Online, 2/10/2010)
- What Cloud Computing Really Means (InfoWorld, 5/2009)
- Cloud Computing (Wikipedia)
- The Internet and Education (Pew Research, 9/1/2001)
- Accessibility of the Internet in Post-Secondary Education: Meeting the Challenge (WebAIM, 10/31/2000)
The visual representation of information is critical 
for both learning and teaching. To put something on paper and organize the information as to make visual sense – in words, lines, colors, and curves – is to recognize some understanding and to create a basis for new insight and discovery.
Logic is the study of reasoning, the systematic approach to reaching a conclusion, or the examination of competing arguments with regards to a central issue or question. Logic can be broken down into deductive and inductive reasoning, one drawing conclusions from specific examples and the other drawing conclusions from definitions or axioms. Logic can also be broken down into analysis and synthesis, one examining individual component parts and the other combining component parts into a whole. In any event, logic is a way to get from questions to answer, disbelief to belief, and data to insight.
One such type of logic is visual logic, or what I’ll call “spectrum logic”. It’s the combination of the visual representation of information and the many realms of logic. The reason I use the term “spectrum” is two-fold. First of all, it’s by definition the representation of a full range of possible values/conditions for a given topic. And second of all, it suggests continuity along its range and therefore implies a high level of seamlessness and efficiency.
So in the world of analysis and problem solving, how do we apply spectrum logic? Well, just follow every possible visual path from any origin within your visual space and try to optimize your path to the result. Place your problem in the center of a sphere/cube and run the full spectrum of paths to that center point. Left to right and right to left, bottom-up and top-down, outside in and inside out, spiral inward and spiraling out. Think about the component parts that make up the visual space, and the conditions that fall along each path. Why is your problem so complex? What makes it so complex? Can you qualify your problem in color, words, shape, and text? Can you quantify it and its components? Is it made up of many unknown dimensions or a few known ones? Picture your problem, logically break it apart, and put it back together. Take a diverse set of paths to and from your problem, and find out which one gives you an optimal set of insights in return. Hopefully, if the answers and conclusions are not clear, you’ll at least have learned something in the process.
There are some self-propelled feelings that are in a world of their own: accepting a new job offer, graduating from school, winning an intramural championship, and the first drive in a new car (among others). By self-propelled, I mean that they take a lot of individual effort (in addition to that of several friends, teammates, colleagues, and family members) to make happen. In more obvious words, it’s the toughest goals that feel best when attained.
With that, buying a car is NOT EASY. It takes a lot of time to research, compare, test drive, communicate with dealers/sellers, and work the numbers. When the numbers are worked, they’re usually big. It’s a major financial commitment that can’t be made in a vacuum. There are tons of options out there. How do you know that the car you get is the perfect car for you. When all is considered, it’s a lot to consider.
But in the end, the reward is great. The feeling is awesome. I’ll start with the end product, then give some advice…
I ended up with a 2007 Lexus IS 250 with 19K miles on it. It’s AWD, 6-Cyl, 22/28 mpg, 201 HP, nav system, keyless ignition, backup camera, blue exterior, black leather interior. I got it from CarMax with an extended 6 yr / 72K mile warranty. I LOVE IT. It’s sporty, practical, and very much me. My picture above kind of stinks given the storm we had this weekend, but when cleaned and washed… wowzas. That feeling of pulling out of the lot all registered and complete was accomplishment, happiness, and relief all in one.
I started my research months ago on both the types of new cars and the available purchasing options and incentives. My first realization was that it can get confusing fast and it would take the good ol’ organizational toolbox to best assess my options. Spreadsheets, calculators, and lots of notes…
In general, here is some advice for a car buyer:
1. Be open to everything. Don’t convince yourself that you like something to make the process easier. It’s a lot better to back-track and get frustrated now than to be unhappy with a purchase later. I started with wanting a gas-guzzling, new SUV and ended up with a small, used sedan.
2. Do the math. Don’t believe anything til you have proven it to yourself. If you need to make a decision for a dealer within the next 10 minutes, don’t. It will be your car, and there’s lots of them out there. Most times, the numbers are the best truths on paper. Set limits, estimate expenses, and make your car fit your budget.
3. Diversify your sources of advice. Many people have purchased cars before and therefore have lots of (different) lessons learned. As with many choices in life, the best advice you can get is a lot of different advice from credible sources. Thanks especially to Dad and Christine here though.
4. Last of all, but most importantly, make your purchase with both your brain and your gut. It’s a “One Brain” purchase, requiring logic and everything non-logical. Aside from making the numbers work, you need to find the right balance between power, style, comfort, fuel efficiency… and happiness. When you see you car, you need to be happy it’s your car.
So when it feels right, you’ll know. If you don’t know, then it won’t feel right. How’s that for logic?
“Dreams are nature’s answering service – don’t forget to pick up your messages once in a while.” – Sarah Crestinn
Of all the things that affect humans on a near-daily basis, how many remain as mystical as dreaming? The nature and purpose of dreams have been debated since the beginning, and yet, we still have no conclusion or consensus.
In his published essay on Enron (and now in his book What The Dog Saw), Malcolm Gladwell makes reference to National Security expert Greg Treverton’s famous distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Mysteries do not have simple, factual answers. And although puzzles really don’t either, they are by process and intelligence, well, solvable. When the right amount information is found, puzzles can and will eventually be solved. Mysteries on the other hand, “require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much.”
Dreams are a mystery. Dreams are not a puzzle. We will not one day realize the complete physiology and meaning of dreams to its fullest extent so that we can close the text book on dreams. They are a mystery and will remain a mystery. Yes, we may continuously add new findings and hypotheses – either through scientific research or epiphanies, but I believe dreams are inherently a mystery. They are not meant to be fully discovered.
That being said, there are plenty of facts out that characterizing dreams and their nature. Here are some:
- We dream on average of one or two hours every night. And we often even have 4-7 dreams in one night.
- One third of our lives is spent sleeping. In our lifetime, we will have spent about 6 years of it dreaming. That is more than 2,100 days spent in a different world.
- Five minutes after the end of the dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 90% is lost.
- Dreamers who are awakened right after REM sleep, are able to recall their dreams more vividly than those who slept through the night until morning.
- Men tend to dream more about other men, while women dream equally about men and women.
- Everybody dreams. Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you did not dream.
- If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.
- Studies have shown that our brain waves are more active when we are dreaming than when we are awake.
- Blind people do dream. Whether visual images will appear in their dream depends on whether they where blind at birth or became blind later in life.
- Back in the Roman Era, striking and significant dreams were submitted to the Senate for analysis and interpretation.
- The word dream stems from the Middle English word, dreme which means “joy” and “music”.
References/Links
- Dreams (Wikipedia)
- Dream Facts (Spiritual.com.au)
- Dream Quotes (ThinkExist)
- “Dreams Are A Tune-Up For The Brain” (NY Times)
- Ask The Expert: What Are Dreams? (PBS NOVA)
- “Dreams: Night School” (Psychology Today)
- The Power of Daydreaming (Psychology Today, Amy Fries)
In today’s society, gaining an inch can be like gaining a mile.
Soccer takes a lot of skill and athleticism. You need 
to be able to dribble, pass, shoot, tackle, communicate, see, sprint, etc. But as I’ve stated before (“mind bend it like beckham” – 2/11/2009) it’s just as much a mental game as it is a physical one. You need to think like your opponent and play somewhat of a guessing game, connecting dots before there’s any visible relationship between them. You need to forecast outcomes, intellectually seeing into the future guided by the data that’s available.
This sort of anticipation is an imperative ability for success in the future – within any endeavor. In business, anticipation means a gaining a leading edge on the competition. For defense, it means preparation and contingency plans for what might be likely to occur. In decision-making its gaining threshold confidence in your decision – using as much relevant information to guide a range of actions, opinion,s and ultimately, outcomes. And not to mention, it helps us grab our umbrella when running out the door.
Predictive analytics, although a seemingly new, hot topic today, has been around forever. Prophets, Mayans, Nostradamus, Pythia, lunar calendars, and the Akashwani – in a historical sense the predictions were informed by a variety of sensory stimuli coupled with intuition and a variety of other external factors. Nowadays, it’s really not that different. Today, we have data and semi-sophisticated mathematical processes that parallel conscious perception and intuition. We can quantify much of what could not have been quantified in the past.
“Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics, data mining and game theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events.
In business, predictive models exploit patterns found in historical and transactional data to identify risks and opportunities. Models capture relationships among many factors to allow assessment of risk or potential associated with a particular set of conditions, guiding decision making for candidate transactions.” (Wikipedia)
It’s imperative that people embrace predictive analytics to inform decision-making. Math doesn’t have to make the decision – that’s mostly for humans – but the math can give a comprehensive picture that outlines components of the decision and also tells us what the decision may lead to (or may have led to in the past) in terms of primary, secondary, and tertiary outcomes. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a great example of this, using computer algorithms to predict world events of the future – war, proliferation, conflict, etc. Decisions are not made by computer models, but humans are briefed of probable scenarios in order to make better-informed decisions.
I’ve said this before – math can be simple when it’s made to be simple. It’s a toolbox of problem-solving techniques and thought processes to help guide real-world decisions and understanding. It’s important to not be afraid of the math – start small and grow your mathematical toolbox over time. Take it head on and don’t be overwhelmed. We all have something to learn and we all have something to gain by embracing prediction and anticipation.
So whether it’s sport, meteorology, national security, or adding garlic to the pan, find a way to anticipate. In doing so, my prediction is that you’ll be better off…
Links
In celebration of my 100th post coming earlier this week, I figured I would discuss the number 100!!! I know, what a way to celebrate…
Applications
The number of yards in a football field.
The minimum number of yards for a par 3 hole in golf.
The number of years in a century.
The number of cents in a dollar (or pence in a pound sterling)
The boiling temperature of water at sea level, in Celsius.
The atomic number of fermium which is made by blasting plutonium with neutrons (named after the great nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi).
The number of senators in the United States Senate.
The number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set.
The basis for percentages (100% represents wholeness, purity, and perfection).
In China, tradition holds that the naming of a newborn panda must wait until the cub is 100 years old.
Pythagoreans considered 100 as divinely divine because it is the square (10^2) of the divine decad (10).
Nostradamus’ work titled “Centuries” contains 10 chapters of 100 verses each.
There are 100 squares in the 10×10 Euler (Latin or Graeco-Roman) Square. A Latin square consists of sets of the numbers 0 to 9 arranged in such a way that no orthogonal (row or column) contains the same number twice. See the image above for an example of a colorful Gaeco-Roman Square for n=10 (the capability for which was discovered by E.T. Parker of Remington Rand in 1959, disproving earlier Eulerian conjectures that a 10×10 square was impossible).
In Language
“Cem” – Portuguese
“Cent” – French
“Cento” – Italian
“Cien” – Spanish
“Honderd” – Dutch
“Hundert” – German
“Hundra” – Swedish
“Hundre” – Norwegian
“Hundred” – English
“Hundrede” – Danish
“Hyaku” – Japanese
“Miyya” – Arabic
“Sad” – Farsi
“Sada” – Estonian
“Sata” – Finnish
“Sto” – Croatian, Czech, Polish
“Száz” – Hungarian
“Yibai” – Chinese
“Yüz” – Turkish
Note: “Cent” is the largest number in the French language that is in alphabetical order. And funny enough, when you spell out 2*5*10=100 in French, it’s all in alphabetical order too! (deux*cinq*dix=cent)
A Mathematical Investigation
100 = 2^2 * 5^2 (factorization of 100)
100 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4)^2
100 = 1^3 + 2^3 + 3^3 + 4^3 = 1 + 8 + 27 + 64
100 = The sum of the first nine prime numbers (2+3+5+7+11+13+17+19+23)
100 = The sum of four pairs of prime numbers (47+53, 17+83, 3+97, 41+59)
100 = The sum of the first ten odd numbers (1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 + 11 + 13 + 15 + 17 + 19)
100 = 2^6 + 6^2 making it a Leyland Number.
100 can be expressed as a sum of some of its divisors making it a semi-perfect number.
100 is divisible by the number of primes below it (25) making it a polygonal number.
100 is divisible by the sum of its digits (in both base 10 and base 4) making it a Harshad Number.
100 is the 854th to 856th digits of pi.
100 is the 3036th to 3038th digits of phi.
In numerology, 100 equals “I LOVE WISDOM TRUTH BEAUTY”
(9) + (3 + 6 + 4 + 5) + (2 + 5 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 7) + (5 + 9 + 1 + 4 + 6 + 4)
Sources / Links
- The Number 100 (Wikipedia)
- Number Freak: From 1 to 200 (by Derrick Niederman)
- On The Number 100 (Wisdom Portal)
- Euler (Latin) Squares (Wolfram MathWorld)
Earlier today, The Guardian DataBlog resourcefully provided a link to USGS earthquake data. The table lists all individual earthquakes that have caused 1,000 or more deaths, since 1900. Data elements include date, location, latitude, longitude, deaths, and magnitude. Below are some summary tables and a map that visualize this data. You can also click here for some USGS maps of the Haiti earthquake.
Map of Deadliest Earthquakes, 1900-2009
Dot Size = Total Deaths,
Dot Color = Average Magnitude
Summary of Deadliest Earthquakes by Year, 1900-2009
Summary of Deadliest Earthquakes by Month, 1900-2009
Investigation of Relationship Between Earthquake Magnitude and Deaths, 1900-2009
As a note for the right-side plot, I’ve cut out the earthquakes causing more than 20,000 deaths to just look at those causing between 1,000 and 20,000 deaths. Looking at the entire data set, the correlation coefficient for earthquake magnitude and total deaths is about 0.286 which represents a weak positive relationship between the two variables. Obviously, the existence of a relationship does not imply that a higher magnitude earthquake causes more total deaths, but it is insightful to identify a relationship between the two variables to inspire more investigation. Moving forward, one might investigate the data for clusters based on geo-location, decade, or season (controlled for hemisphere).
My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the Haiti earthquake.
Links
