Court Reporters, Cinnamon Sticks, Gelato and the Lakers

I tried and tried and couldn't get these 4 topics to work together. Oh, well.

Court reporters: During my 2.5 week jury duty, I spent much time watching the court reporter use the stenotype machine. Needless to say I was intrigued. First, how can she hear what these people are saying and second, how does she type all that so fast with only 22 keys? Nothing a little wikipedia can't answer. They describe a stenotype as a phoenetic chorded keyboard which means you press multiple keys at the same time to create the phoenetic sounds of the words. The result is up to 300 words per minute. Amazing. Check out the keyboard layout:

Cinnamon sticks: Recently we attended a wedding that had a fantastic setup for the coffee. Good coffee, whippped cream, and cinnamon sticks! We were unsure exactly how they created cinnamon from cinnamon sticks. The answer isn't that great...they just grind up the bark to get the cinnamon. What is also interesting to note is that it's really cassia or "bastard cinnamon." Real cinnamon costs more. (LINK)

Gelato: Over in Italy, we ate a lot of gelato. It's fantastic! But one thing that we never settled was what the critical difference is between ice cream and gelato. It's cream! Gelato uses milk, not cream, and is supercooled to reduce air content and make it more dense. Ice cream uses cream (I guess that makes sense). (LINK)



Lakers: The preseason has begun and Lakers took their first win against Utah last night, 94-79. Kobe didn't play (sore knee), but Sasha Vujacic made the big plays in the game (here's a picture of him turning into Teen Wolf). Lamar Odom was the high scorer with 18. AND, Jordan Farmar (UCLA) made his debut scoring a field goal and a free throw after 4 minutes of play time. Go Lakers! (LINK)