Google Drive Delight

Since using Crostini ¹ as primary working environment it has worked out to be better for me to host on Google Drive. After the transfer there were synching issues that looked like Google Drive having trouble handling the [folder] construct. Blot support helped me through it. The tag folders had to be removed and rebuilt, but now it works as expected.

Perhaps inline math $Ax+By=C$ now works? Well, let’s see how ${\displaystyle \frac{b^2-4ac}{2a}}$ works and looks. A concern expressed in dealing with KaTeX has been addressed and the rendering now looks correct. Even the sf font in a previous post looks more sf than before.

${\displaystyle i\mathrm{\hslash }\frac{\delta }{\delta t}\psi (x,t)=[-\frac{{\mathrm{\hslash }}^2}{2m}\frac{{\delta }^2\psi }{\delta x^2}+V(x,t)]\psi (x,t)}$

-from Wikipedia

Equipment:

• Stockpot large enough to easily accommodate two litres of milk

• Whisk or wooden spoon

• Thermometer (optional, but extremely helpful)

• Glass containers for culturing and storing the yogurt

• Bowl for whisking yogurt starter

• Tools for incubation according to incubation method: heating pad and towels, cooler or large stockpot, food dehydrator, etc.

Ingredients:

• 2 litres (approx. 8 cups) milk

• 1/2 — 1 cup yogurt starter culture — this can be a cup of yogurt from your last batch, a cup of plain store-bought yogurt with no gelatin or other additives, or a packaged yogurt starter

Making Yogurt

There are four parts in the yogurt-making process: warming the milk, cooling the milk, inoculating it (culturing it), and incubating it.

Sterilize: Make sure all equipment is very clean. If possible, sterilize your jars or containers in a pot of boiling water.

Warm the Milk

Place the milk in a saucepan or stockpot large enough to comfortably accommodate the milk with a bit of room for whisking. Preferably choose a heavy-bottomed pot with a lip, as this will reduce the amount of milk that scalds and will help make pouring the milk later drip-free.

Heat milk to 180-190°F, whisking occasionally, especially once the milk passes 160. (This is when it begins to foam and scald — latte anyone?) If you don’t have a heavy-bottomed pan and your milk does begin to scorch and stick to the sides of the pan, don’t stress about it. Just take a bit of extra care when you’re whisking so that you don’t scrape off any of the scalded bits into the milk — you can just clean them out later. Also, a note about why you’re heating the milk — regardless of whether you’re using raw milk or conventional milk, gently heating the milk in this manner physically changes the molecular structure of the milk proteins which will result in a decidedly firmer yogurt.

Cool the Milk & Inoculate

Once the milk has reached 180°F or so, cool it to approximately 115°F. [If you don’t have a thermometer, I’ve heard it said that the milk is cool enough when you can hold your (very clean) little finger in the milk for 10 seconds.] You can cool your milk in a number of ways; just choose which works best for you. an ice bath cools the milk quickly and safely place it in the refrigerator (if you’re doing a large batch, such as a gallon or more, this method is not preferable as it will heat the refrigerator too much as it cools) in the winter, you can cover it and place it outside away from pets, other animals, or anything that could knock it over or fall in it just cover with a cloth and let it sit at room temperature until it’s cool — this will typically take a few hours

Have your starter culture ready in a bowl. When the milk has reached approximately 112°F degrees, whisk some of the warm milk into the starter culture, then whisk the warmed culture into the entire pot of milk. After the mixture is mixed, pour the prepared milk into your containers.

Incubate

At this point you have your choice of how to incubate it. The yogurt culture needs to sit at 108°-112°F degrees for 6-8 hours, so however you can come up with to keep it at that temperature should work just fine. (My sister even successfully set her jars outside for a number of hours covered with a towel when she lived in sub-tropical climes. That definitely wouldn’t work in my more northerly location!)

Here are some of the most popular methods:

Food Dehydrator: If you have a food dehydrator with removable trays, such as Excalibur, LEM, or Weston, remove all the trays, set your containers inside, replace the door, and set the temperature control for 112. Come back in six hours and your yogurt should have set perfectly! Note: don’t open the door unless absolutely necessary during the incubation time, as it may change the temperature inside the dehydrator overmuch.

Oven overnight: Preheat your oven to it’s lowest temperature — basically turn your oven control dial just until the indicator light comes on. If you’ve got touch buttons, set it as low as it will go. You just want the temperature to be around 112 without being much warmer than that. When the oven is preheated, turn the oven off, turn the oven light on, set your prepared containers in the oven, and leave them there for 6-8 hours — overnight is great. Remove them when the yogurt is thick.

Water bath: Set your prepared containers in a large pan with warm water as far up the jars as possible and cover with towels all around. Check the jars every couple of hours to make sure the water temperature hasn’t dropped. If the water is too cool, change the water to return it to the proper temperature. I used this method for quite awhile, but I found it to be a hassle, and it also disturbs the yogurt when you change the water, which can make the process not as effective. Remove the jars when the yogurt is thick after about eight hours.

Heating Pad: Set your prepared containers on top of a heating pad, invert a large stockpot over them, and cover the pot with towels. Turn the heating pad to “high” or “medium,” depending on your particular heating pad. Mine doesn’t get very warm, so “high” is definitely necessary. Also, be careful to note if your heating pad has an automatic shut-off feature. Mine turns off every half-hour, so when I use this method I have to make sure I turn the heating pad on again every 30 minutes. Remove the jars after 7-8 hours.

Yogurt Maker: This typically only works for a litre or so at a time, as yogurt makers tend to incubate in one-serving size cups (which is great if you’ve got kids and your mornings are rushed — just pass them a little cup with some fruit and whole grains and they’ve got breakfast!). Spoon your prepared milk into the yogurt maker’s cups, set the lid in place, and turn on the machine. From that point, follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

At the end of 6-8 hours, the yogurt should be somewhat firm and pull away from the side of the container with only a bit of whey (extra liquid). The yogurt will continue to firm up in the refrigerator, so for the best flavor and texture, refrigerate at least six hours before serving.

Yogurt Troubleshooting: If you’ve got too much whey, you likely incubated longer than necessary. If the yogurt is too thin, the temperature was too high or too low, the milk wasn’t fresh, or your starter wasn’t sufficient, either because you didn’t use enough or because the culture was old. Yogurt culture can degrade over time due to the introduction of foreign bacteria so using a fresh starter every few batches is recommended. So, now you’ve got a fridge full of inexpensive, delicious, nourishing yogurt! And even better, if you are able to do this regularly, it will become second nature and an easy part of your kitchen routine.

https://nourishingjoy.com/how-to-make-yogurt/

A Mortgage Story

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

We are closing on a condo somewhere next week. Once everything is in place we will sell our current condo which should more than cover the new one. The lending bank was told this. The payments on our loan will be less than 20% of our income. The bank knows this. I provided some checking account statements to verify my income from SSA survivorship and pension from public service. The bank seemed happy.

My spouse provided some checking account statements to verify SSA survivorship benefits and quarterly deposits from her family trust fund. The bank was not happy. The bank asked for her 2021 Schedule K and it was provided, but it did not make the bank happy–the bank wanted 3 years of 1040s up to the Taxable Income line. We gave them both sides of the pages. Still, the bank was not happy. The closing date was seven business days away.

The mortgage wizard insisted on a copy of the family trust. Now we were not happy. The mortgage officer was not so happy either. I suggested that trust income was being held to a higher burden of proof than employment income–does the bank insist on an employment contract or look into the financials of the employer? No, the mortgage wizard just looks at pay stubs and deposit statements–so what’s the prejudice on trust income? Emboldened by this argument, the mortgage officer (bless her heart) drew back the curtain and found the mortgage wizard wrapped in this cloak from Fannie Mae:

After chanting “Fannie Mae, twenty-oh-eight!” several times, we pointed at the word “or” and provided the wizard with a secure letter from the trustee that addressed amount, frequency, and duration.

The casual reader can hear the ruby slippers clicking and imagine that the story ends, but no, we are walking in a strange land.

The mortgage underwriting wizard was still not happy, but a little nervous with this hole in his curtain. The plucky mortgage officer gathered her friends and determined that better than a broom, better than a brain, or a heart, was the courage to propose 3 years of Schedules B & D.

The mortgage wizard finally left in a balloon throwing buckets of money overboard for us to get to Kansas, well, somewhere.

Hope to see you there.

KaTeX mathsf vs default

${\displaystyle \frac{\mathsf{1}}{(\sqrt{\mathsf{\varphi }\sqrt{\mathsf{5}}}-\mathsf{\varphi }){\mathsf{e}}^{\frac{\mathsf{2}}{\mathsf{5}}\mathsf{\pi }}}=\mathsf{1}+\frac{{\mathsf{e}}^{-\mathsf{2}\mathsf{\pi }}}{\mathsf{1}+\frac{{\mathsf{e}}^{-\mathsf{4}\mathsf{\pi }}}{\mathsf{1}+\frac{{\mathsf{e}}^{-\mathsf{6}\mathsf{\pi }}}{\mathsf{1}+\frac{{\mathsf{e}}^{-\mathsf{8}\mathsf{\pi }}}{\mathsf{1}+\cdots }}}}}$

${\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\sqrt{\varphi \sqrt{5}}-\varphi )e^{\frac{2}{5}\pi }}=1+\frac{e^{-2\pi }}{1+\frac{e^{-4\pi }}{1+\frac{e^{-6\pi }}{1+\frac{e^{-8\pi }}{1+\cdots }}}}}$

${\displaystyle {\left(\sum _{\mathsf{k}=\mathsf{1}}^{\mathsf{n}}{\mathsf{a}}_{\mathsf{k}}{\mathsf{b}}_{\mathsf{k}}\right)}^{\mathsf{2}}\le \left(\sum _{\mathsf{k}=\mathsf{1}}^{\mathsf{n}}{\mathsf{a}}_{\mathsf{k}}^{\mathsf{2}}\right)\left(\sum _{\mathsf{k}=\mathsf{1}}^{\mathsf{n}}{\mathsf{b}}_{\mathsf{k}}^{\mathsf{2}}\right)}$

${\displaystyle {\left(\sum _{k=1}^n{a}_k{b}_k\right)}^2\le \left(\sum _{k=1}^n{a}_k^2\right)\left(\sum _{k=1}^n{b}_k^2\right)}$

${\displaystyle \mathsf{1}+\frac{{\mathsf{q}}^{\mathsf{2}}}{(\mathsf{1}-\mathsf{q})}+\frac{{\mathsf{q}}^{\mathsf{6}}}{(\mathsf{1}-\mathsf{q})(\mathsf{1}-{\mathsf{q}}^{\mathsf{2}})}+\cdots =\prod _{\mathsf{j}=\mathsf{0}}^{\mathsf{\infty }}\frac{\mathsf{1}}{(\mathsf{1}-{\mathsf{q}}^{\mathsf{5}\mathsf{j}+\mathsf{2}})(\mathsf{1}-{\mathsf{q}}^{\mathsf{5}\mathsf{j}+\mathsf{3}})},\text{for }\mid \mathsf{q}\mid <\mathsf{1.}}$

${\displaystyle 1+\frac{q^2}{(1-q)}+\frac{q^6}{(1-q)(1-q^2)}+\cdots =\prod _{j=0}^{\mathrm{\infty }}\frac{1}{(1-q^{5j+2})(1-q^{5j+3})},\text{for }\mid q\mid <1.}$

Not much difference and certainly not true sans serif. arev has been mentioned. Fira Math is another possibility as is GFS Neohellenic. But how to get these into KaTeX/Blot? Maybe this can be some help.

I have heard that we now have inline math $$$$ like so. This is good news. () but it doesn’t work yet.

${\displaystyle f(x)=2x+y}$

Recover from Dev Mode

So there I was in Dev Mode (esc + refresh + power) happily using Crouton. Google made a Debian VMcontainer available (Crostini) and I went for it. At a later restart I neglected to stay in Dev Mode and data was wiped.

This is a journal of the recovery. Everything will be done in Crostini (Debian 11.5 at writing.)

Items to Recover

Vim
LMTX
R
rclone
markdown

Basics

After activating the linux container in chromeos, finding the version of linux is done by:

$ cat /etc/os-release

or

$ hostnamectl

It seems a good idea to me to update and upgrade the distro right away:

$ sudo apt update

and

$ sudo apt upgrade

At this point one can install other packages as needed. I add gdebi installer right away. I will list some other packages/files as we go along.

$ sudo apt install gdebi-core

Note that one can paste into the terminal by alt-click or right-click or equivalent.

File System

Make Downloads, Google Drive, and SD Card available to linux by right clicking (or alt-click) in file manager. They are mounted in /mnt/chromeos/. Google Drive is the top-level entry, but one must go to MyDrive within it. Similarly MyFiles is the top-level with Downloads inside. One way to make these readily available is to make symlinks:

$ ln -s /mnt/chromeos/MyFiles/Downloads downloads

and so on for the others.

rclone

There is a Dropbox app for Chrome OS but I prefer to have Dropbox available like the files above.

$ sudo apt install rclone

See rclone.org for config instructions. put detailed explanation here Note that once mounted, the terminal screen kind of hangs without giving a new promt and one starts work in another window. It seems okay to close the hung window.

vim

My vimrc and vim plugins files are backed up and easily re-established. The vim included (8.2) does not have clipboard enabled, but I have found that copy and right click to paste works just fine.

R and RStudio

This is the most problematic because it is a moving target with releases and options. I will report a simple path, a more proper path, and some links of inspiration and credits.

Simple Path

At the time of writing the Crostini Debian is 11.5 and R 4.0.4 is in the repository.

$ sudo apt install r-base r-base-dev

Next go to RStudio and download the latest version for Ubuntu/Debian. (like rstudio-2022.07.2-576-amd64.deb) Click on the downloaded file in the Chrome OS file viewer and Install with Linux. I had a problem at first run which was fixed with:

$ sudo apt install libnss3

So often there is some dependency missing. Thanks to Wen for this solution.

Markdown

Markdown Preview Plus was in Extensions but did not take effect right off. I added Markdown Viewer and toggled back-and-forth. MPP finally kicked in and life is good. To adjust font size include the html tag:

<font size = 4> </font> 

Frankly, editing files in the Blot folder and previewing that way seems ok to me. I need to pull the Blot CSS over for use in Markdown Preview Plus. I don’t need syntax highlighting. MPP is looking to be a bit weak.

For yet unknown reason Chrome does NOT open .md files but again, so what if they are .txt files?

ConTeXt

LMTX is the recent version of ConTeXt that is my TeX place. It is pretty a straightforward install. My texmf-local files and modules have to be copied in. Lately to keep it simple I am using only the fonts included in lmtx. I have not needed any of the modules lately.

Remember to register texmf-local, modules, fonts, etc.

$ context --generate