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for fruit trees, is it better to plant a single multigrafted tree, or multiple trees in one hole? | the question is where you want the competition for resources to take place. on multi grafted trees some of the grafts may grow faster due to their position or vigour. i have seen trees like this where one of the grafts fails but you are still getting fruit from the others. by planting three trees in one hole you are putting the competition for nutrients and water at the root level. if one fails you still have the others. these are solutions for gardeners with limited space who have the time and interest to work with trees that are higher maintenance. if you have lots of space plant one tree of each type at the usual spacing. if space is at a premium and you don't mind the cost of buying three plants then plant them all in the same planting hole. if you don't have space or enough money to buy three trees then try one multi graft. edit: the advantages of multi graft or multi stem apple trees is that the different types can pollinate each other. if you only have room for one tree or one clump and there are no other apple trees around this is real advantage. both types of grafted trees require more skill and time to prune. you have to ensure that all parts are getting enough light. a clump of different apple types could get a bit tricky to prune but nothing out of the ordinary. i don't think the yield of fruit or quality will be any different between the two types so it comes down to space available and price. | comparison |
is it better to pick herbs from the top or bottom of the plant? | i would take basil by pinching whole stems off. the new growth is the best tasting and the plant will sprout multiple new stems from the old one. you have to be careful not to overdo it which is why you might want more than one plant to produce enough basil on a regular basis. most herbs will respond to this treatment, i can't think of any exceptions, but i am sure there are some. | comparison |
plastic pots or ceramic pots, which is better in terms of plant health? | you've only asked about ceramic versus plastic pots from the plant point of view, so that's what i'll answer. if the ceramic pot is glazed, then the water retention will be about the same as a plastic pot, but because the material might be thick walled, they may be slightly more insulating against heat and cold than plastic, but the difference will be negligible. in truth, it doesn't really matter to the plant - what matters is that it has sufficient room for its roots, that the roots don't freeze in winter nor bake in summer (as in metal pots), and that the pot has good drainage and is watered as and when necessary. | comparison |
is rain water better than tap water for plants? | your tap water will have particular properties depending on where you live, the source of your water, and whether you have some sort of water softener or filtering system. my tap water, for example, is from the public system and is considered 'hard' because it has a high mineral (calcium and/or magnesium) content. if i use tap water consistently on certain plants, i can see white rings of calcium deposits sitting on the soil surface; this can change the chemical properties - such as the ph - of the soil which can affect plant growth. softened water has higher levels of salt than plants prefer, and these salts can build up in the soil. i've never seen the chlorine in public water causing any ill effects on my plants, but if you have sensitive house-plants you can let chlorine-treated water sit out for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate. as long as you live in an area that isn't subject to extremely acidic rain, rainwater is preferable because it's missing things like excessive minerals or disinfectant chemicals. | comparison |
which is preferred: worm castings or worm casting tea? | if you're talking about leachate (worm castings steeped in water), some gardeners say that this tea will have approximately the same benefit to plant growth as the pure composted worm castings themselves. but studies have shown that, in the long run, using the castings directly in the soil will produce better plant growth, often far better, than does leachate obtained by steeping the castings in water. some of those studies were carried out by ohio state university, mississippi state university, colorado state university, cornell and others. (citation needed) but if your main objective is speed of results, then the teas solution will find their way into the plant’s system more quickly than waiting for the dried casting to be "watered in" over time. castings tea can also be used as a foliar spray/wash for even faster results. but "tea" production methods vary — so consider, if your tea is "aerobically brewed", you're also increasing the diversity of beneficial microbes and adding to the soil the environment needed to keep the beneficial organisms alive and multiplying in your soil; more so than can be typically obtained from the castings themselves. the best solution to this argument is to do both — to receive the full benefits of worm casting, apply it directly to the soil as both as an admendment and an occasional top dressing around the base of the plants. then give them a good drink of tea however often as you see fit — weekly would be ideal, depending on your supply — neither the tea nor the castings will burn your plants. | comparison |
is mulch or topsoil better for new lawn in clay soil? | not sure where you're from but in the usa you can send a soil sample to your local university extension office and for a nominal fee they will give you a report on the soil that you can use to improve it for your intended purpose. two key things to look for is the existing organic matter content and cation exchange capacity. this is always a good thing to do before doing major work for a lawn or garden. when you say "mulch" i assume you're talking compost and this is what it's called in your area? compost is pretty much the closest thing to a silver bullet when it comes to improving your soil. it can fix all sorts of problems. the only time compost will burn the seed or the seedlings is if it has not been composted properly. this is more of a problem with composted manures which are "hotter" or more nutrient rich. a good blend of compost from different sources such as manures, leaves and other plant materials that has been composted completely shouldn't be a problem. tilling your soil causes problems but if you need to seriously amend your soil it's the quickest option. a couple of issues are tilling will wind up leaving your lawn uneven and you'll need to fill in areas in the future to level it. tilling will also bring up a ton of weed seeds that were buried too deep to germinate before so before you plant your grass seed water the soil and give the weeds a couple of weeks to germinate then deal with them before putting down your grass seed. clay soil isn't that bad for your lawn as long as you have a decent amount of organic matter already in the soil. you may not want to go to the expensive and effort of tilling in a lot of organic matter (2-6") into your soil all at once. another option if your soil has at least 5% organic matter and decent cation exchange capacity you can just top dress with about a 1/4" layer of compost. this would require 1 cubic yard of compost per 1,000 sq ft. do this every year for the next 3 years or so and then start doing it less frequently if you are happy with what you're seeing. time, worms and other organisms will help work it further into the soil. you should also do a percolation test to see how well the water drains. see: [ref] [ref] | comparison |
are citrus trees better grown using containers or in the ground? | i've seen many citrus trees in pots. in fact where i live that is all i see since they'd have to come inside during the winter. i'd think that the trees would do fine in a pot. if you get a decent size pot they will grow to fill that pot. i'm not sure what you mean by stunted by being in a pot. the tree size will be limited because of the pot, but if removed from the pot it should grow like normal. so it will not be permanently affected. | comparison |
what are the pros and cons of rubber vs wood mulches? | rubber mulch is a better insulator which may be important in very hot or very cold climates. it also doesn't absorb or retain water which helps keep it weed free since weed seeds won't germinate in it like they can in some other types of mulches. it will last a long time. different agencies and labs have tested the use of rubber mulch in playgrounds and found it to be safe to people and the environment. i have seen some sources state that rubber mulch used approved for playgrounds may be safer but i'm not sure. it will eventually break down in 20, 30 maybe more years. when/as it breaks down the stuff the tires are made from i guess would wind up in the soil which i can't imagine is good. also, some chemicals used by some tire manufacturers may leach into the soil. i did find this one account of health issues from rubber mulch along with this linked report. this other well-referenced document discusses some issues with rubber mulch. it's still fairly new and i wonder if people are pushing it because they don't know what to do with all these used tires. natural mulches feed the soil and increase biodiversity. that's one of the main reasons i use it. i didn't use mulch in the past and i notice a big difference in the soil now compared to years ago. some people have an issue with shotgun fungus (aka artillery fungus) with wood mulch. it appears to be more of a problem with wood instead of bark mulches and cedar, redwood and cypress do not appear to be affected because they decompose slower. i believe licorice root mulch is also less prone to shotgun fungus. i like to use cedar mulch. it's a little more expensive but i like the look and smell plus it lasts longer every spring i fluff it up and spread it out evenly. every 2 or 3 years i may need to add a little more. after the first season it turns grey. i don't mind the color but i've been thinking about using mulch dyes. i really want to switch to compost as mulch looks like black dyed mulch (which i like) and is even better for the soil. i'm not quite making enough compost to use in the garden yet and have left over for mulch. i might have to buy the initial compost and then hopefully be able to replenish it with what i make. | comparison |
is xp mode in windows 7 better than a regular virtual machine? | edit: is it better? hard to say, it's rather subjective. does it work? yes. windows 7 has the microsoft virtual pc xp mode windows virtual pc requires a cpu with the intel™ virtualization technology or amd-v® feature turned on. this feature must be enabled in the system bios. for details on how to enable, visit the configure bios page or check with your computer manufacturer. the great thing is that if you download the windows xp mode you only have to fill in a password and the system is good to go (fully licensed as well, though you need a valid windows 7 or rc installation). i'm not really into vms, but i know this one has usb support out of the box. plus: publish and launch applications installed on virtual windows xp directly from the windows 7 desktop, as if they were installed on the windows 7 host itself. cut and paste between your windows 7 host and any virtual machine. access your windows 7 known folders: my documents, pictures, desktop, music, and video, from inside the virtual windows environment, such as windows xp mode. worked very well for me! copied from the running xp as a virtual machine - suggestions wanted question. | comparison |
what filesystem to have on my usb-harddrive; fat32 or ntfs? | you need to make sure that any device that will access the hard drive can read the ntfs file system. with windows it's not an issue as all versions from xp onwards can. the question then becomes can the ps3 access a ntfs drive? judging from the first link (admittedly from 2007) that turned up from a search for "ps3 ntfs" i would say not. | comparison |
is it better to use a laptop on battery or on ac power? | it won't make all that much difference. what will shorten battery life is temperature: if it gets hot, it will shorten the battery life. best thing to do, if you are able, is to remove the battery while you're at home and keep it somewhere cool. if it's a li-ion battery, then they don't like to be completely discharged, so make sure you charge them regularly. wikipedia: lithium-ion batteries should not be frequently discharged fully and recharged ("deep-cycled"), but this may be necessary after about every 30th recharge to recalibrate any electronic charge monitor (e.g. a battery meter). this allows the monitoring electronics to more accurately estimate battery charge.[26] this has nothing to do with the memory effect. more tips can be found here: [ref] [ref] [ref]#guidelines_for_prolonging_li-ion_battery_life [ref] | comparison |
what is better for gpg keys - rsa or dsa? | the gpg maintainers are thinking of changing the default to rsa (source: dealing with weakness in sha-1 [lwn.net]). so, it seems they think rsa is currently the better option (and they should know more about it than you or me). | comparison |
what's the difference between wifi and bluetooth? | wikipedia has good articles on both 802.11 wifi technologies and bluetooth technologies. wikipedias quick summary of the differences: bluetooth and wi-fi have many applications in today's offices, homes, and on the move: setting up networks, printing, or transferring presentations and files from pdas to computers. both are versions of unlicensed wireless technology. wi-fi is intended for resident equipment and its applications. the category of applications is outlined as wlan, the wireless local area networks. wi-fi is intended as a replacement for cabling for general local area network access in work areas. bluetooth is intended for non resident equipment and its applications. the category of applications is outlined as the wireless personal area network (wpan). bluetooth is a replacement for cabling in a variety of personally carried applications in any ambience. so basicly, 802.11 is an addition to the networking and connecting of computers & smartphones supporting high-bandwidth, and covers large areas. bluetooth is a ad-hoc wireless technology which works at low distances, making it perfect for file tansfersing and remote-control hardware. | comparison |
p4 thinkpad with 1gb (max) ram - windows 7 or windows xp? | all the older computer i have running xp seem to run better with windows 7. these computers include: p4 1.8 ghz with ht and 1gb ram celeron 1.6 ghz 1gb ram give it a try. | comparison |
chinese ime: microsoft or google? | april 2016 update: qq ime is merged with sogou, so now they use the same engine. the input quality of sogou imo is still second to none, but after these years, sogou has got even more bloat. google pinyin hasn't been updated since 2014. it is virtually dead. the windows 10 stock ime, microsoft pinyin, is probably a good bet, it is quite lean even compared with its predecessors, plus you don't have to install anything. some people vouch on 中州韵. it's an open source solution. besides pinyin, it also supports a world of input solutions. i've tried it some time ago and it may have some quirks, but you get a totally free ime - how cool is that! below are the old answer. some of it no longer holds but oh well. -- never ever use the default windows imes for inputting simplified chinese text, they totally suck. sogou pinyin is the father of all modern chinese imes. it has the largest market share in china. it has a hell of a feature set, but current versions included lots of useless bells and whistles (who the heck needs a custom theme for an ime?), of course you can disable them, but you have to dig into the settings menus. google pinyin is an excellent ime. it copied many ideas from sogou, even stealed the word and phrase database for once, but it has been improved for quite a bit. due to the awkwardness of google's position in china, it doesn't have much market share here, except for some die-hard google fans. qq pinyin is another one on the rise. it is the last one joined into the competition, and i'd say it copied many ideas from sogou as well, but its market share is drastically increasing due to the popularity qq (the im) in china. the features of the 3 imes are quite similar. you wouldn't have problems switching from one to another, by far i still like sogou most. if you want a solution from microsoft, try mspy 2010. it originally came out with the release of office 2010, and now you can get it as a separate download. it's not as cool as the other three. the only advantage you get is the hit rate of long sentence input. as saf123 mentioned, it's probably the only ime which doesn't gather user information. and finally, the google trend chart: the blue one is sogou, of course. all of the above imes support the input of traditional chinese texts, but since they all use gbk charset, if you are accustomed to the big5 charset, i.e., you are from hong kong or taiwan, some of the characters might come out a bit strange to you. | comparison |
what are the differences between windows 7 rc and the rtm? | paul thurrott has a full breakdown of the features included in windows 7 rtm. i know that the guest mode feature has been removed from windows 7. | comparison |
should i choose 'format' or 'format (quick)' when installing windows xp? | it depends. if it's a disk that has been working fine, just use the quick format, otherwise i'd do a full format, which also scans for bad sectors. more info here: kb302686. | comparison |
westell vs. linksys - which one should i keep around? | i've had a westell 7500 for one day, and so far, i don't like it. one workaround that i have discovered for dyndns: if you use mac os x, there is a dyndns widget that will update dyndns for you. [ref] | comparison |
why firefox on linux looks different than windows/mac? | apparently, it's because linux users want it that way: the reason linux isn’t shown above is that all of the feedback we’ve received so far indicates that linux users would be happier with a theme that uses native gtk icons in the navigation toolbar, which rules out this type of customized visual treatment. | comparison |
internet connection sharing (windows vista/windows 7 or windows vista/ubuntu)? | to set up connection sharing between your two computers: connect the two computers' rj-45's with a cross-over ethernet cable open the network and sharing center, find your network connection, right click on it and go to properties in the "advanced" tab, check the box to allow other users to connect through this computer.. select the networks you would like to share with and you should be on your way. i'm sorry if its not exact, i'm doing this from memory on an xp machine. i have setup connection sharing on my laptop over wifi so i can connect to the internet on my ipod touch through my laptop's edge network card. pretty nice | comparison |
what are the differences between itunes on the mac and on windows? | since the 7.6 upwards release the only difference between the two versions is the language they are written in. itunes on the mac is written in objective c with cocoa and the windows version in c++. however functionally and otherwise they are the same. osx has always rendered fonts differently from windows. all other features across the two are the same. i use itunes on both windows and osx everyday and apart from the preferences menu being in a different place have yet to find examples of how they are different. i manage my iphone and my complete music library with it as well as running it for a shared library across my home network with absolutely no issues. | comparison |
what is the difference between sleep and hibernate? | sleep is commonly known as standby in windows systems or s3 in acpi. in sleep mode, the power supply to non-essential and non-critical components is withheld, and most system operations are shutdown and stopped. all data in physical memory (ram) is still kept in internal memory, and the whole system is placed in a standby mode, which can be woken up and used almost immediately. in sleep mode, the power load reduces considerably, saving energy. however, the power to the machine must not be cut off completely. if power is lost, the system state will also be lost and the computer will behave as though just booted from a powered-off state. hibernate, or s4 in acpi, meanwhile will save the data in physical memory to the hard disk drive first, and then power off the computer. in hibernate mode, a file named hiberfil.sys, which has the same file size as the amount of system memory, will be created on the local disk. when the user restarts the machine, it will boot up and load back the system state at the point of the last hibernation. the advantage of hibernation mode is that no power is wasted. in hibernation, no electricity is consumed by the system so a computer can be kept in this state indefinitely. also, restoring from hibernate is generally faster than a computer reboot. it is also different from a reboot in the sense that users can return to the exact state of the last hibernation with all running programs and open documents intact, instead of booting to an empty desktop. the disadvantage of hibernation is that after a period of time, there may be fragmentation of the hiberation file. users may need to defragment the volume that stores the hibernation file frequently. answer adapted from here | comparison |
should i use vfat or ext3 for a 1tb external usb hard drive? | definitely ext3/4 over vfat. ext3/4 are journaling file systems, which means no fragmentation issues. read/writes will be significantly faster with ext. vfat has a 4 gb maximum file-size, which can come back to haunt you when you need to store a large file on it after you already have it loaded up with data. | comparison |
should i choose 32 or 64 bit for linux? | you should install 64-bit linux. even though there are ways for the 32-bit kernel to address more than 4 gb the applications will still have a 3 gb limit. | comparison |
if i visit los angeles, am i better off renting a car or not? | rent the car! los angeles is built for cars. it has some of the worst public transportation imaginable, ever since general motors conspired to eliminate the city's trolley system. yes, there are buses and taxis, but you will find that buses take forever (and get stuck in the same traffic) and taxis are hard to find and expensive. only 11% of los angeles residents get to work by public transportation (compared to, say, new york with 54%). there are plenty of cities where public transportation is an option (new york, chicago, san francisco) but la is not one of them. update 2015 since i wrote this answer, the rise of ride-sharing services like uber and lyft has, for the first time, made it more reasonable to get around in los angeles without your own car. you may want to compare the cost of ride-sharing services vs. renting a car (and paying for parking) depending on how much you want get around. if you are going to a lot of different parts of the city, a rental car is likely to be cheaper, but if you're staying mostly in one neighborhood and not moving around a lot, you may find ride-sharing services to be more affordable. | comparison |
is it best for canadians to get an egyptian visa in advance or at the cairo airport? | normally it is not required to have visa tourist in advance for usa, canada and most of europe. but this is only for tourist visa, any other visa (work, businesses, diplomatic, ...) should be arranged in advance. also this is for normal passports, official or diplomatic passports need advance visa. tourist visa can be stamped in all main airports for: uk citizens: £15 us citizens: us$15 australian citizens: a$45 canadian citizens: c$25 other countries: $15 lately there are talks in egypt about needing arranged visa for solo-travelers. which means that people travel in tourist groups will not require arranged visa. to be sure, i think it is better to give a call to egyptian embassy in canada. | comparison |
car rental in sydney - airport or town? | most reputable car hire companies will let you pick up from the airport, although i'm not exactly sure where the pickup point is as i live in sydney and have never needed to do this. it is absolutely unnecessary to head into the city center from the airport, so just forget about that. from the airport you're pretty much heading in the opposite direction from the traffic flow to the city if you are heading west towards orange, so the likely (not promising) situation is light traffic. you'll be traveling out west on the m5 whereas any morning traffic will be heading east towards the city. just be careful not to miss the right hand turn onto the m5, the light set up at the end of marsh street is a bit dodgy, but once you're on and into the tunnel just keeping heading along the m5. note this is also a toll road so make sure you have a handful of aussie coins (currently $3.80 until 24 november, $4.40 after then). so to answer your question, how far are you from open road? about 5 minutes away. when i did a google search it suggested going via richmond, another option is to go via katoomba. my uneducated guess is that via katoomba is more direct, however i can't get google maps to show me the calculations or the correct route for katoomba. the problem with going through bells line of road (via richmond) you are a little way from civilization so you may have the odd feeling of being lost every now and then whereas via katoomba you are driving through towns and can always stop and ask directions. | comparison |
car rental vs. buying a car for 1 month, when visiting the usa? | buying option for a one-month trip, i do not recommend buying and selling a car. although it probably could be done, let me address some of the complications with that first, then i'll discuss rentals: a $3000 car will be old, and probably not very reliable. i would not trust a car in this price range to get me safely around the country without thorough inspection, or a long test-drive/break-in period first. certainly you could get lucky, and have absolutely no problems with a $3000 car for a month of road trips. but it would really ruin your vacation, i expect, if the car broke down in the middle of arizona, or wherever. selling a car takes time. if you're willing to lose $2000 in the selling process, though, it would be easy. you could probably unload it at any car dealership for $2000 less than you paid a month before. registration is a pain. typically when you buy a car, you will get a temporary tag, and then have 30 days (although in some states fewer, i believe) to get an official registration. if your stay is 30 days or less, this may not be a problem, since you would not be required to get an official tag. but if you have the car 31 days or longer, you'll have to stop by a dmv (department of motor vehicles) in some state, and get a license plate. and doing that typically requires proof of residence of that state, which you probably won't have. it will likely also require a vehicle inspection, at minimum to ensure the car is not stolen, and in many states, to ensure it passes environmental regulations. if you register the car in the same state where you buy it, it will probably pass environmental regulations. but if you register it in another state, it's anybody's guess. it may be difficult to find a company that will provide you (affordable) insurance for a car you just bought, if you are not a u.s. resident. depending on the states where you buy and sell your car, it may actually be impossible to sell your car so quickly after having bought it, because you may not have the title in your possession yet. and even if you have a title signed over to you, that may not be sufficient to sell it--you may have to get the state dmv (wherever you register the vehicle) to send you a new official title in your name before you can sell it again. selling the car in another state may be difficult, but i don't know. if you sell it to a dealership, they will likely take over most of the paper work involved--assuming it's possible. rental option there are much cheaper options for rentals than the one you quoted. a quick look at kayak.com shows that a rental from lax (los angeles, ca) and drop-off at lga (new york city, ny) a month later can be had for as little as $1792 including tax. of course that does not include fuel, and likely does not include extra insurance. you also may or may not be able to take this vehicle into canada. different rental agencies will have different policies (and possibly extra costs) for taking it into canada. you'll just have to ask. this rental option may take you over your $2000 budget, but you might be able to cut corners by renting multiple vehicles at different times during your stay. if you'll be staying in l.a. for a week, for instance, maybe use public transport while you're there, and only rent a car at the end of your stay for the next leg of your journey. you can also count on a more reliable car. if you pick a nation-wide rental company, they might change your car along the way in agencies and you have customer support if you have any mechanic problem. you also drive a quite recent car. | comparison |
when i have the choice should i choose traveling on an airbus 340/330 or a boeing 777? | this is going to vary strongly from carrier to carrier because as far as i can tell what really matters is how long it's been since the interiors were refurbished (a process airlines do one plane model at a time) and whether the route is considered important by the airline. sure, you can make some overall opinions about narrowbody (one aisle) vs widebody (two aisles) but not much else. power, inflight entertainment, and even just the upholstery are all going to matter as much as layout. if i was travelling alone on aircanada, i would go with the 330 because two of the three banks of rows have no "middle seat". if i was travelling as a family of three, that same difference would cause me to reject the 330. i guess maybe a family of four would prefer the 330 since you could get two rows of two and have two windows and a little family cluster. however i'm only 5'4" and my shortness is all in my legs, so a 31" pitch doesn't scare me. it might be more of an issue for you. | comparison |
is it cheaper to get to cuba from miami or cancún? | be aware that for the most part, you can't go from the us to cuba, unless specifically authorized by the government. most people go to canada or mexico and fly from there. from wikitravel: jose martí international airport outside havana is the main gateway and is served by major airlines from points in canada, mexico, and europe. there are also regional flights from other caribbean islands. cuba's national carrier is cubana de aviacion, connecting the island to a handful of destinations in mexico, south and central america, canada and europe. flights from miami to cuba are offered to authorized american passengers. try calling cuba travel services (cts charters). they offer daily non-stop flights between los angeles and miami to cuba. there are also regular holiday charter flights to resorts such as varadero, and these can sometimes be less expensive than those going to havana. please note that if you have purchased a oneworld ticket then further flights into america within that year will be disallowed through american airlines. as for what is the cheapest, that's hard to answer as airlines change their prices and can't be answered objectively and accurately as they're subject to change. in addition, it’s not possible to search for flights on large booking engines (such as kayak) due to united states travel restrictions. as a result, you need to be creative: use european booking engines or go directly to the airlines’ websites. on a large european booking engine (skyscanner) you can find flights from cancun to havana on combinations of cubana and/or aeromexico flights,. the flight time varies from 1 hour 15 min to 13 hours, depending on connections. | comparison |
is it cheaper to buy a tour to the galápagos islands at home or when in ecuador? | first off, it's never going to be 'cheap', unfortunately. there are a few reasons for this. (*these prices correct as of november 2010) the base if you fly, there's no way around the fixed fare of usd$420 to fly return from quito or guayaquil. then there's the $100 national park entrance fee. and another $10 for taxes. so we'll ignore all that and just call that the 'base', and focus on the rest being cheaper... a lot seem to focus on the cruise you'll "need" to do. that's not always the case. from this site: the airport beside santa cruz is on a small nearby island in the north side called baltera, and from here you must get a 50 cent ferry across, then a $3 bus down south to the town. once in town, it's very easy to set yourself up with a $20 private hotel room with a/c and tv, and even wifi! even out here in the middle of the pacific ocean you remain connected to your facebook wall posts! (or globenotes obviously!) the volcanic island of isabella is about 2 hours by boat from santa cruz, and boats leave daily for only $25-30. bear in mind that boats only leave santa cruz at 2pm, and then leave isabella only at 6am, so an overnight is required. many people have told me that, with these two islands (isabella alone being 52% of the total galapagos landmass) you can actually see most of the wildlife that you see on the far off islands that require cruises, the main exception being red-footed boobies and a few other bird species which are only found on the remote islands. giant-tortoise, sea lions, penguins, and tons of iguana. you name it.. you can see them all within about 15 min boat ride from the coast of either isabella or santa cruz. score! it's worth noting that according to wikitravel: if you are planning to visit the galapagos islands, guayaquil is the cheapest place to take a flight from. there are three air carriers that will take you across the galapagos islands as well as the ecuadorean mainland, lan-ecuador 3, aerogal 4 and tame [5] have non stop daily flights, departing from guayaquil is cheaper than leaving from quito(is closer and most of the quito flights do make an stop at guayaquil's airport for refueling and picking up passengers. international departure airport tax was just recently increased in guayaquil and is exactly $29.75 (january 2010). about 15$ cheaper than quito airport. now, once you're in quito or guayaquil, there are two sides to consider with tours. one - the travel agents will often claim the best tours are gone months in advance. certainly some will be, but i've never hard of a person disappointed with their tour, no matter when they booked it. however, i have heard of some fantastic deals bought on the ground in quito. when staying at the secret garden hostel in quito, the carpedm tour company downstairs was very closely linked with the hostel, offering free city tours and salsa lessons and the like. in addition, they were able to advise people about galapagos options. i heard of people getting final berths on 5-star boats for the equivalent of paying 2 days for 7, others getting discounted meals, and they were all booked in quito or guayaquil. so in conclusion, it's hard to say for certain whether things are cheaper on the ground, but from anecdotal opinions, my experience, and the very reason tour companies exist in these cities, is that it is possible to beat prices when on the ground. and of course, this will flex with seasonal trends - more likely to get bargains in low season. | comparison |
should i book thailand rail tickets online (pre-trip) or at the station when i arrive? | i have not used that web site, but always bought the tickets a day in advance at the station or even just when getting on the train in thailand. for sleepers i would recommend to buy in advance, just to be sure. whether you should buy before your trip really depends on how sure you are about the dates. what if you really like a place and want to stay a few extra days. booking them while you are there gives you much more flexibility. rather than going to the train station you can still book online while you are in thailand, there is internet access everywhere. | comparison |
last minute flight bookings - better to book online or at the airport? | i might contribute some inside knowledge since i am working for a company which contributed the software for a major cheap-flight company. generally the prices are determined by offer and the demand but there is another major variable (in fact several) in the game for short-booking. statistics show that most (80%) last-minute bookers are in an important need for the short booking and therefore willing to pay more. so the function which generates the price for short-bookings is not a complete function of offer and demand any more like it was years ago. if you want to know what's the deal do the following: go to your online bookers homepage. search for a flight which is taking off today and try to book that ticket. with this you firstly know how short you can book online and secondly if the prices are acceptable for you. your question is also highly location dependant. in the country i live (switzerland) i get the cheapest flights through a friend who works at the airport and calls me when a certain flight is available. i can only recommend trying both the online and physical approach. | comparison |
is it cheaper and/or easier to buy a cheap tent and sleeping bag in turkey or bulgaria? | i live in turkey and travel to bulgaria regularly. (~20 times now). my general idea would be that this might be easier to find in bulgaria as long as you were in one of the major cities. turkey doesn't seem to have this stuff just anywhere. that being said, it's cheap-ish generic gear can be found at some major markets in turkey, so i'd be inclined to hit up a few stores and pick something up before i hit the road. | comparison |
is it better to travel by train or plane when there is risk of snow in the eastern us? | here's my take, which isn't actually based on anything empirical as much as about a decade living on the east coast: if you're along the acela corridor, served by the acela express and the northeast regional lines, your best bet is probably the train. this is rooted by two experiences: boston logan is built out in what is essentially the atlantic ocean. it also has delays and closures at the drop of a hat. i hated flying out of logan in the winter. during the massive snow emergency last year (winter 2010) in the eastern u.s., the trains kept running long after the airports shut down. one train i was on was indeed crowded with people from canceled airline flights trying to make it to their destinations, and it was so apparent that amtrak actually ran a print ad campaign in some east coast cities about it. | comparison |
is it better to book a car rental in advance, or once i'm in south africa? | it is definitely better to book a car in advance, even in lower season. i would not take the risk of arriving there and not finding a suitable car. moreover, when you book your car at home you can rent it through a broker. this way you will get a good price. and i have some doubts that you will find a better deal by pounding the rental desks at o.r. tambo airport. | comparison |
why is a nonstop flight sometimes more expensive than multiple connections? | i think the answer has to do with competition. if you want to fly from madrid to rio de janeiro with one stop, you have lots of options. you can fly tam (via sao paulo), tap portugal (via lisbon), american (via new york or miami), klm (via amsterdam), air france (via paris), etc, etc. (i found these with kayak.) there is a lot of competition and this will tend to drive fares down. however, if you want to fly from madrid to sao paulo nonstop, your only choices are tam, iberia, and (somewhat surprisingly) air china (though only twice a week). there is less competition, so fares may tend to be higher, and this may exceed the effect of the cost of the extra flight gru-gig. as a more exaggerated example, from my home airport of ithaca (ith), i've often seen ith-ewr-sfo (a total of 4400 km) priced lower than ith-ewr (which is only 275 km). there are three different airlines providing one-stop service ith-xxx-sfo, but only one that flies ith-ewr nonstop. this effect is why hidden city ticketing can sometimes be advantageous, and why airline policies usually forbid it. | comparison |
suitcases: hard or soft? canvas, polycarbonate or something else? | there is no one right answer for this. either kind of suitcase could serve you well for this trip. in my experience, the quality of the workmanship seems much more important than which type of sides your suitcase has in regards to its ability to protect its contents. you'll want strong sturdy zippers with big teeth that won't break easily, nice thick fabric that won't rip easily or sturdy solid sides that can handle impacts without breaking, sturdy pulls on the zippers, wheels that glide easily, handle that telescopes easily, etc. you can tell the quality fairly easily from a physical examination. looking at a suitcase from a big box retailer vs. somewhere that carries name brands (samsonite, liz taylor, tommy hilfiger, etc. etc.) you will notice a large difference in the quality of the materials, and generally, you get what you pay for, however if you have a store that specializes in one off and overstock merchandise from designer brands (sorry, don't know any of the names of places down under to suggest), sometimes you can get a better deal for the quality. certainly, there are other features to consider, like whether the suitcase has dividers and zippers to keep clothes separated or organized, or expansion zippers to add space for unexpected souvenirs. weight is definitely a consideration, the heavier the suitcase, the less weight left for luggage and the heavier it is lugging it up and down stairs to your lodging, etc. for that same reason, picking a size as large as needed but not larger is helpful too...if you only need a medium roller-bag, don't get a large one! some suitcases are designed with lighter-weight materials than others. depending on what you are carrying, if the suitcase is flimsier, you will lose less weight of baggage allowance, but the innards will be less protected. how much protection you need clearly varies considerably by what you pack and how you pack it. many canvas-like rollerbags have stiff sides on 2-5 of the six sides, so you could pack your more delicate items nearer to the stiff sides, and put more clothes closer to the softer side for adequate protection. the type of items you describe needing to transport, the protection provided by a regular rollerbag is probably sufficient, and you don't have the excess weight of a totally hard-sided luggage, and as you said, quite versatile! if you're anticipating transporting your scuba gear in this suitcase regularly, i'd probably pick differently because my primary considerations would be different. ps: perhaps this question would have been better framed as an exhaustive list of the pros and cons of getting hard sided luggage vs a roller bag? | comparison |
should i buy an around the world ticket from australia or a nearby country? | depends(tm). for star alliance rtw tickets, which are probably the single most popular choice (but not necessarily the cheapest), prices do vary considerably by country, although this is largely due to currency fluctuations and you need to do a bit of legwork to figure out how much you can actually save. here's a thread discussing the prices, including a handy spreadsheet showing the prices equalized into us dollars as of jan 2011: [ref] so a year ago, a yrwspcl (the cheapest option) would have cost you us$3282 in australia, but us$2646 from malawi. problem is, it'll cost you a lot more than $600 to get to malawi and back, and as far as i can see none of the countries you can cheaply reach from oz have much of an edge: nz is only marginally cheaper at us$3059 and eg. malaysia, singapore and thailand are all more expensive. edit: here's a nifty tool that shows current prices for a crapload of rtw fares from points around the world: [ref] | comparison |
what is preferable, eurail pass or buying pass on the spot? | a rail pass, like the eurail, is not always cheaper than buying tickets separately. it depends on your age and on how much and how far you want to travel. if you book in advance you can get more or less important discounts. the drawback is that you have to commit to an itinerary in advance. a pass gives you much more flexibility. also note that if you are using a pass, you have to pays extra fees for compulsory seat reservations. you can find an overview of the tariffs on the "train seat reservations" page of eurail.com. now you see that the definitive answer depends on you and your plan. you can easily check the prices and book the tickets via the following websites: tgv-europe, for train travel in france, as well as between england and france and italy and france. don't be misled by the name of the site. it is not confined to tgv trains only. trenitalia, for train travel in italy and between italy and france. the man in seat 61 for train travel in england. i have quickly done the exercise for a hypothetical trip in may. i managed to find all the individual tickets for around 160 eur if you travel in the 2nd class. note that you will have to book as soon as possible and that you will certainly have to incur fees if you change your itinerary afterwards. the eurail pass costs 228 eur if you are less than 26 years old or 348 eur if you are older. add to these prices the reservation fees. note that the "adult" (26+) eurail pass entitles you to travel in the first class. if flexibility and 1st class comfort are important, go for the eurail pass. otherwise, i would try to book the legs individually. for long distance travel in france you can also refer to a previous question on our site: "are there ways to keep long-distance land transport costs down in france when not planning in advance?". | comparison |
biking in arizona: homebase in phoenix or scottsdale? | it depends on whether you want relatively flat trails or mountain biking, as you didn't say. the scottsdale green belt is a paved trail several miles in length that begins just north of shea boulevard and ends in tempe. there are only a few places on the trail that require crossing a street, as there are lots of tunnels that pass below busy streets. there would be dozens of hotels located along this path, ranging from simple motel-like accommodations to pricey resorts. here is a map of the path and various connections. for mountain biking, i recommend south mountain in phoenix which is the largest city park in the world. there are more than 10 different trails in south mountain ranging from 1 mile in length to 14 miles (58 miles total). difficulty ranges from moderate to difficult. there are also several hotels/resorts in the south mountain area. you could also check for accommodations in the ahwatukee area of phoenix just south of the mountain. note that it is just starting to warm up here -- late april and it was over 100 °f (38 °c) here today (i live in gilbert, just se of phoenix). the forecast for next week is mostly high 90's to low 100's °f (35-40 °c); it's just going to gradually get hotter. so take lots of water with you. | comparison |
travelling from london to italy's amalfi coast. better to fly or take the train? | a good resource for checking train connections is [ref] there are often good deals on europe's high speed trains, though you might only get a good deal to the south of france, not all the way into italy. it will be hard to beat a budget flight. obviously on journey time but also on cost. book in time and your return journey can be as little as 40 pounds with easyjet. still, on [ref] you can see that, apparently, you can get a roundtrip by train from london to italy for as little as 115 pounds. it's a long journey, but it's a good price. | comparison |
what's the difference between vip and normal sleeper-bus from vientiane to pakse? | i was in sea at the beginning of the year. firstly, good on you for not flying south. it's a very expensive and unnecessary flight for a trip that can very easily be made on land. when it comes to vip buses in south east asia, there isn't usually a big difference, but it does depend on the price. sometimes a vip bus may give you better seating, a/c, only other tourists/foreigners on the bus and/or it could be faster, as some of the normal sleepers pick up a lot of locals along the way who sit in the aisles. however, that being said, the vip buses can be exactly the same. with the trip from vientiance to pakse i would probably just get the normal sleeper-bus unless there is a major price difference, which, in that case, probably means the normal is full of locals and will be a less comfortable ride. | comparison |
"pie" vs "tart"? | generally speaking, a pie refers to a pastry covered with a lid, like a typical apple pie. a tart is open topped, like a quiche, or a french tartes aux pommes. however, there are exceptions to this: many pies will be open topped too. usually this is a matter of depth: the deeper it is, the more likely it is to be called a pie rather than a tart. regional variations also apply. | comparison |
what are the advantages and disadvantages to using a griddle instead of a cast-iron skillet? | yes, you don't have the edge of a pan in the way when going to flip things, but it also means that you don't have a mass of metal there to add as a heat sink, which can help dramatically when pre-heating your pans, as they'll be evenly heated across their bottom more quickly (at least, compared to something of the same material, such as a cast iron skillet) more importantly, in my opinion, is that without the sides, you don't hold in moist air, so when cooking things like hash browns, you can get a better crust on 'em without steaming them. | comparison |
what is the difference between "mongolian grill" and "hibachi"? | hibachi are technically a traditional japanese device used for heating one's house. they are a basic, heat-proof container that holds charcoal. the cooking devices that many people refer to as "hibachi" are what the japanese would call "shichirin": i'm guessing that the term "hibachi" was popularized in north america because "shichirin" can be hard to pronounce for anglophones. somewhere along the way, primarily in north america, the term "hibachi" also started to be used to refer to teppanyaki: i'm not sure when or why this started; perhaps it has something to do with the fact that banihana confusingly refers to their teppanyaki restaurants as "hibachi-style". among these, teppanyaki is most similar to mongolian barbecue, in which meat is cooked on large, round, cast iron griddles: (images taken from wikipedia.) if you were to actually go to a japanese restaurant and cook your own food over a shichirin, it would likely be referred to as "yakiniku", which is believed to have some origins in korean barbecue. whereas teppanyaki has been a traditional japanese cooking method for a long time, "mongolian barbecue" was developed in the 1970s in taipei, taiwan. during that time, japanese teppanyaki was very popular in taiwan, so many people speculate that was actually the inspiration for mongolian barbecue. there are also some similarities between the japanese dish "jingisukan" and mongolian barbecue, however, jingisukan predates mongolian barbecue. | comparison |
what is more difficult to make: beer or wine? | i haven't done it myself, but i guess making beer is more difficult for one good reason: safety! grapes will ferment by themselves and will produce either wine or vinegar. the fermentation process is violent, so there's no risk. added meat will be fermented as well! beer needs to be sterilized before a yeast is added and there's a risk for butulism. now, making a good wine is something else. i guess that making a good wine is far more complicated then making a decent beer, once you overcome the safety issues, as there are a great number of steps involved in making good wine. for instance: aging in oak. commercial wines start by sterilizing the grapes and afterwards adding a certain yeast strain, but hey... | comparison |
should a pound cake be stored in the fridge or the freezer? | this is going to depend on how long you want to keep it for. if you're serving it soon (say, same day, maybe next), then don't refrigerate it at all, though some people seem to think it gives better flavor to refrigerate overnight. if you've used e.g., buttercream frosting, you'll need to refrigerate or freeze it, unless you're serving immediately after frosting. some fillings may also require refrigeration. if you're storing short term, up to maybe a week, refrigerate it. if you're going to be storing it long-term (more than a few days, up to three months), you'll need to tightly wrap it once its cooled, and freeze it. after more than 3–4 months, flavor will be lost, but it'll still be safe to eat, as long as its stayed at 0°f/-17°c or below. | comparison |
in what way is kosher chicken different from brined chicken in terms of salt absorbtion? | i explained several of the differences in my answer to brining a kosher bird and also discussed some issues relating to salt consistency in a much earlier answer to chicken comes out salty... occasionally. to make a long story short, kashering is a long process with many steps, but the part you're concerned with is similar to the "dry brining" technique some people are fond of using for thanksgiving turkeys. the meat is salted directly - no water is used - and it is left to rest for a much shorter period, about 1 hour, before finally being rinsed and packed. kosher meat isn't "juicy" like brined meat at all; in fact, all other things being equal, it will come out much drier and tougher than unkosher meat, because in the process of drawing out blood (the reason for salting in kashering), a good deal of moisture is drawn out as well. brining adds moisture to the tune of about 10%; kashering takes moisture away by a similar amount. aside from drying out, the only culinary differences you'll find with kosher birds (or other meat) are (a) less blood, uric acid, and other "undesirable" components, and (b) they are naturally saltier than unkosher birds. however, because the kashering process has nothing to do with flavouring, you can't expect any kind of consistency, and it's not uncommon to find that some parts are much saltier than other parts coming from the same bird. kosher birds are going to absorb roughly the same amount of salt and water from a brine. the difference is that because they've already been salted, you run the risk of over-brining to the point of being inedibly salty. that's the whole story. if you want flavourful and moist then get a regular bird and brine it. if you care more about flavour and want to save some time (at a significant cost premium) then go ahead and use a kosher bird, no brine. you can brine a kosher bird (see first link in this answer) but you're going to have to do a little experimenting to get it right - and if you're going to brine anyway, then why bother spending the extra money on kosher meat? don't pay any mind to the oft-repeated claims that kosher birds are "pre-brined" or similar nonsense. the inherent saltiness of a kosher bird is significant but also incidental and thus inherently unreliable. (please also note: assuming this is a follow-up to your previous question, none of this is going to make the slightest bit of difference if you're just going to plop the chicken parts into a pot of boiling or poaching water. if you're making broth, then you flavour the broth, not the meat.) | comparison |
what's the functional different between a skillet and a saute pan? | skillets are not designed to hold much liquid; as you point out, the curved sides are optimized for easy flipping and turning (i.e. with a spatula). they also normally do not come with lids; i'm sure there are some out there, but even my all-clad skillets didn't. you can really only use a skillet for high-heat searing or frying due to their low profile. don't bother trying to poach or even shallow-fry in one. sauté pans, on the other hand, have more height, and usually do come with lids. they're a little heavier, and don't make it as easy to turn, but they can also be used for shallow-frying and moist-heat cooking methods like braising or poaching. i've seen people make sauce or chili in sauté pans as well; sometimes they're more convenient if you're only going to make a small quantity, since the large exposed surface area (relative to a saucepan) makes it easier to reduce sauces. it's a no-brainer if your recipe starts out with sautéing garlic, onions, vegetables, etc., and then has you adding the liquid ingredients; if you have a large enough sauté pan then you don't need to bother transferring to a saucepan afterward. i think you've got it backwards; of the two options, a sauté pan is definitely the more versatile option. i use both, but if i only had the space or budget for one, i'd choose the sauté pan, because it can do everything a skillet can do (just not quite as well) and many more things a skillet is useless for. a skillet is really only necessary for people who do a lot of pan-searing. note that as commenter owen suggests, there are "french skillets" sold which have higher bases; these are not really skillets, and are not normally sold with lids, but assuming you can find or improvise one, they would make semi-decent multi-taskers. i maintain that cast-iron skillets, while taller, are not nearly as versatile due to their reactive material and weight - i only ever use mine for searing/grilling. | comparison |
what is the difference between grape and cherry tomatoes? | the difference in their name is - not surprisingly - because of their form. cherry tomatoes are round, while grape tomatoes are more oblong. wikipedia mentions that grape tomatoes are 'sweet as cherry tomatoes', so not much difference in flavour according to this. perhaps grape tomatoes are more similar to small plum tomatoes. this site claims grape tomatoes to be sweeter, having a thicker skin and a lower water content than cherry tomatoes. interestingly, it also says that grape tomatoes are a cross between cherry tomatoes and other tomatoes. the claims of the second site are in agreement with this site ("grape tomatoes have thicker skin, lower water content and intense sweetness"). it also states "a grape tomato is half the size of a cherry tomato", so perhaps they are smaller. due to the lower water content, grape tomatoes have less chance of 'squirting' when being bitten into. | comparison |
what is the difference between caramelized onions and "crispy onions"? | both crispy and caramelized onions are cooked for a long time, and will be very brown. however, they are cooked slightly differently. caramelized onions are usually cross-cut on the onion to release its moisture, and then cooked over very low heat in a crowded pan, stirring infrequently, so that they gradually release their sugars and liquid and it turns to caramel. depending on the onions and desired result, you may even cover them, an add a little liquid and/or sugar. the end result is very soft and very sweet. arabic-style crispy onions are cut pole-to-pole in order to avoid rupturing cells in the onions. they are then fried over medium heat in an uncrowded pan, stirring regularly. this lets them dry out and become brown and crispy, even burning on thin ends. these onions should be a mix of crispy and chewy, and more savory than sweet. | comparison |
should i buy steel or ceramic knives? | in general, ceramic knives are great for what they do, but too fragile to do everything. they can shatter if dropped on a hard surface, and can easily get get notched on bone. i use my ceramics exclusively for vegetables for that reason. if you're strapped for funds, you really only need to by one expensive knife (a steel chef's knife or santoku), and one cheap one (a serrated knife for cutting bread). after that, picking up knife skills is more important and will make your cooking better than any investment in more knives. | comparison |
what's the difference between gazpacho and normal soups? | gazpacho is possibly spain's most famous chilled soup. the main difference aside form the temperature is that it's raw, meaning that the soup is not actually cooked it's just blended and chopped vegetables and occasionally bread. there is nothing inherently wrong with heating up gazpacho but it would lose its fresh texture and flavour which is why it's chilled and according to wikipedia was popular with labourers who used it to: "cool off during the summer and to use available ingredients such as fresh vegetables and stale bread" the main reason you couldn't just chill a normal soup and call it gazpacho is because gazpacho is made up of by no means just tomato. it contains tomatoes, a bit of garlic, cucumber, occasionally bread, some vinegar for tang and a drizzle of olive oil at the end. if you wanted to make it your own (after all you're the chef!) you could add some tabasco, bell peppers, spring onions or croutons at the end, basically anything you might find in a salsa dip. use your common sense for what not to add but even in spain they have variations that are not at all like what i would think of as gazpacho: in la mancha they use it like a stew and add game (usually rabbit) and even wild mushrooms! hope this helps and gives you some inspiration, if you want a recipe a quick search on google gives a multitude of results. | comparison |
what is the difference between good quality chocolate and cheap chocolate? | the short answer is that good quality chocolate has a high proportion of cocoa constituents with little or no substitution. what to look for: high cocoa solids content. chocolate with less than 50% cocoa solids will have little real chocolate taste and those with more than 70% will have a much more complex and fine chocolate taste. cocoa butter content. chocolate makers tend to substitute vegetable oil in place of cocoa butter to reduce costs. cocoa butter prices have increased in recent years due to demand in the cosmetics industry. smooth texture. this comes from the cocoa spending a longer period being crushed in the concher. conversely, these are indications of a poor quality chocolate: low proportion of cocoa solids use of vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter chocolates with low cocoa solids content, such as milk chocolate, are usually inappropriate for baking due to their proportionally low chocolate flavor. baking cocoa powder itself is in fact just another word for cocoa solids, and this is why it is favored when baking: it is the pure chocolate flavor. the milk constituents of milk chocolate may also go rancid, giving the chocolate a'bad olive oil' taste as described here. in this image the cocoa solids go up from 0% in white chocolate to a maximum of 100% in the highest of quality chocolates. as white chocolate contains no cocoa solids, look instead for cocoa butter and vanilla in place of vegetable oils and vanilla extract. | comparison |
what is silken tofu compared to regular tofu and how do you use it? | yes, silken tofu is undrained tofu. in japan it is often eaten raw, in dishes like miso soup or even simply dipped in soy sauce. however, you can certainly cook it as well - it is especially useful as an egg substitute in vegan cookery (any number of recipes online). firm tofu is probably better for frying with as it holds its shape. if you have the time, patience and equipment (some form of weight and some muslin) you could press silken tofu to make firm, but firm is just as readily available. | comparison |
what is the difference between quick bread and cake? | this question has become blown out of proportion. i was just curious- then i started getting answers that quickbreads and cake are the same thing- which they "obviously" aren't. so i started doing my own research. wikipedia says that the term quickbread was probably invented in the us after the discovery of chemical leavening. the wikipedia references and some dictionaries corroborate this definition. basically anything leavened with soda is quickbread. this doesn't work. there are a great many things leavened with soda that can't be called quickbread. a good example is plain old white cake. obviously this is a semantic issue but one that needed solving. two american cookbooks that i consider canonical recipe resources, the joy of cooking, and the better homes and gardens cookbook, both have a separate quickbread section. in it are a variety of fruit breads as well as some biscuits and scones. on food and cooking muddied the water a bit by differentiating between quick breads such as biscuits and batter breads such as banana bread. these were grouped together, however, and contrasted against cakes. this book says that cakes are higher in fat and sugar and have a more delicate texture. ratio, as linked in this answer, confused the terms a bit more also including a term "quick cake" but it differentiated between the different products with distinct ratios for the flour, fat, and sugar. with several competing definitions i decided to take an unscientific poll. i called 6 friends in washington, utah, georgia, and texas. i tried to find a variety of american cultures. obviously it is biased by the fact that i know all of them. when asked "what is quickbread to you?" without exception all of them replied "banana bread" when i followed up with: "what is the difference between that and cake" i received the following answers: "it is eaten at breakfast" "it has less sugar" "it is loaf shaped" "it is more dense" "it has a more open texture" my conclusion is that the historical definition of "anything with soda" is no longer useful. in cookbooks it seems to now be applied to chemically risen baked goods that: have as a rule of thumb a particular ratio of flour, fat, and sugar have less sugar than cake refers in particular to fruit breads, biscuits, and scones generally has an irregular vs uniform texture the popular definition (among my extremely limited, unrandom sampling) adds: tends to be loaf shaped and now i can sleep easily again. | comparison |
what is the difference between risotto rice and paella rice? | 'paella rice' is not actually a variety of rice, but a category suitable, as the its name suggests, for making paella. some common varieties are: bahia, balilla, bomba, senia, and calasparra; the particular variety should be indicated on the packet that you choose. these varieties differ from risotto rices, such as arborio and carnaroli, in not creating a creamy 'sauce' around the rice. paella rice should stick together, but be distinct and not in a creamy 'sauce'. arborio rice has a creamy, chewy texture due to its higher amylopectin (one of two components in its starch) content. paella rice absorbs more liquid than risotto rices, however it too would become 'creamy' if you stirred it like a risotto, since it also has a high starch content. | comparison |
what's the difference in baking bread in a loaf pan vs. in a dutch oven? | there's two important distinctions: the dutch oven is preheated, so the oven conveys a lot of heat, rather quickly. this causes some steam to be pretty much immediately made. the dutch oven is covered. this traps the steam previously made. this is trying to replicate steam injection and the goal of most methods that cover the loaf. steam keeps the crust from hardening and promotes better oven spring and crisper crust. the steam basically allows the bread to 'swell' more in the oven. steam also gelatinizes the starches in the crust and formes a better 'shine' and 'crisp' on the finished product. the dutch oven is then uncovered after awhile and the crust hardens. | comparison |
what is the difference between pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce? | red pizza sauce is often (but not always) two things: thicker. thinner sauce will tend to run in the oven and also steam the pizza crust as it cooks - if loaded with toppings, otherwise thin is fine. depending on the crust, the heat of the oven, the toppings above sauce, and how watery it is, this may not be needed. if you've just got some crushed tomatoes and a few bits of cheese in a super hot oven - the sauce should be fine without reducing beforehand. if you've loaded up a bucket of sauce and a pound of cheese, precook and reduce the sauce. it's often simpler. many pasta dishes like spaghetti highlight the sauce and hours of simmering happen for the sauce to bring it to perfection. they're all about the sauce. pizza is really about the crust and what highlights it. many of the best pizzas are simply topped. crushed san marzano tomatoes (sometimes) reduced with a hint of salt is often all i do, and franky, it's enough. i'm not talking about the jarred varieties here, but what you might cook at home. jars in the store, the main difference is just how thick it is. | comparison |
which method of preparation would produce a more tender and juicier steak, grilling or broiling? | if by 'grill pan' you mean something heavy (cast iron) like: or then it would be your choice as to whether you want to heat them on top of your stove or under your broiler. if your 'grill pan' is less heavy duty (say aluminum) then it is unlikely to be capable of with standing the heat required to 'best' cook a steak. when the weather here does not favor outdoor grilling i get great results out of placing my cast iron griddle/grill (similar to the second picture) inside of a half-sheet pan and under the broiler to preheat. once the iron reaches 500f i will add the steak for about 3 minutes per side (for a med-rare) i would also suggest wiping the iron with a little oil first. | comparison |
benefits of vinaigrette vs. pouring oil and vinegar separately on salad? | a vinaigrette is not a stable emulsion so it will eventually separate- however it will stay together long enough for the salad to be immediately served and eaten. i find that pouring the oil and acid separately creates a salad with a mouthful of olive oil coating the leaves and pool of vinegar at the bottom of the plate. it's true that the oil in a vinaigrette will eventually wilt the salad but that is why it should be added at the last minute or even after the salads have been portioned. | comparison |
what are the pros and cons of coarse and fine coffee ground? | mainly the grind types have to do with how long the grounds are going to be in contact with the water during the brewing of the coffee. finer grinds for espresso (quick brewing) and medium grinds for drip, etc. this chart will give you an idea of what grinds go with which preparations [ref] | comparison |
what's best: boil eggs in advance or just before use? | by your definition, i would cook them all at one time. from there you have a couple options. leave them in the shell and peel when needed. this keeps out a lot of the air which extends the shelf life to 2 weeks, but can dry them out a little making the texture a little harder. immediately peel and dry them as best as possible. put them in a zip lock along with a dry paper towel on the bottom to catch any extra water and condensation. remove as much air as possible. the texture is much better, but your shelf life if approx. 1 week and is a little smellier. (also can put zip lock into a covered container) lol. food stores now sell eggs this way. either way you may want to let them sit on the counter long enough to take the chill off, so it's not as hard. for me it doesn't matter, i can eat them any old way. love em! | comparison |
to refreeze or to refrigerate? | tldr; if you defrosted the chicken in the fridge, go ahead and refreeze it. if you thawed it on the counter, cook it, then freeze it. i was always taught: do not refreeze uncooked meat! but, i did a search and found this somewhat contradictory statement from a reliable source: "refreezing once food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to refreeze it without cooking, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing. after cooking raw foods which were previously frozen, it is safe to freeze the cooked foods. if previously cooked foods are thawed in the refrigerator, you may refreeze the unused portion. freeze leftovers within 3-4 days. do not refreeze any foods left outside the refrigerator longer than 2 hours; 1 hour in temperatures above 90 °f. if you purchase previously frozen meat, poultry or fish at a retail store, you can refreeze if it has been handled properly." [ref] there's also this: how long will uncooked chicken keep in the fridge? which says 1-2 days for raw chicken in the fridge. | comparison |
basil - to wash or not to wash? best practices? | people generally wash fruit and vegetables (organic or not) to remove surface contamination ,and the bacteria it may host, from the farm and supply chain this includes soil (ground based animal faeces), compost (rotted vegetable matter), airborne dropped bird faeces, road dust (often high in animal faeces), and other surface contamination that can host bacteria a short and simple wash by hand in a bowl or sink of cold tap water will remove large amounts of these surface contamination from most fruit and vegetables. some may require light brushing or scrubbing. and for best results rinse in running cold tap water after washing. shaking water off usually works better than trying to blot it off with a tea towel gentle washing will not remove any significant flavour or aromas. think about what happens when it rains :-) | comparison |
what is the lesser evil, degassing too early or too late? | in my experience (and i'm only an amateur baker), you could leave this until you get back and knock it back then. if you leave it really long (e.g. 24 hours), you might find it just doesn't have enough life left in it to rise again properly after, but an extra hour or so will probably improve it - i've always found that recipes err on the side of speed. for a 2 hour prove time, i'd keep it slightly cool but not fridge-cool. since you're using a very wet dough, you will find it gets a little stickier the longer you leave it, so might need slightly more flour when shaping. having said that, i've recently been experimenting with really long rise times (12-24 hours, for ciabatta) - i just haven't found a happy medium yet that suits me. | comparison |
what is the difference between a wilted salad and a massaged salad? | i've only heard of massaging kale. if you rub the greens together they get softer, darker and more tender and useable in a salad. never done it with anything else. wilted is steamed or blanched greens. wilting definitely changes the texture and can make the greens more palatable and less bitter. i won't eat raw collards. i also always salt and squeeze my cooked spinach before using as it knocks out the bitterness. | comparison |
to achieve maximum flavour is it better to cut or tear basil leaves? | tearing is for artistic effect some people will claim tearing does not damage the cell of the plant as much as cutting, a simple look under a basic microscope will show you otherwise. not sure how this would affect basil in particular. what dish are you preparing? if you want more basil flavour and smell, cut it more finely, or bruise it (back of knife or rolling pin) to release more oils just before serving | comparison |
turkish delight: cornstarch or gelatine? | if you want to make real turkish delight, use cornstarch and only cornstarch. nowhere on the balkan have i seen a gelatine-thickened turkish delight. no turkish person will recognize a gelatine-thickened candy as lokum. i would go as far as to insist that aromatzied sugar syrup+gelatine = gummi bear, while aromatized sugar syrup+cornstarch = turkish delight, although some people will feel that this is pedantic. beside authenticity, gelatine-containing recipes are prone to weeping, i have seen questions about that around here. bottom line: i would always make it with cornstarch. this doesn't mean that candy made with gelatine can't be tasty; it is just that if you want what you get in a turkish shop, you can't do it with gelatine. | comparison |
what's the difference between pink tea and other types of tea? | it's hard to know exactly what you're referring to without any context of the event, location, or what you remember it tasting like, so i'll give you my best educated guesses. if your pink tea sweet and fruity or floral, it was an herbal tea - tisane, and not true tea. ("tea" actually refers to the plant whose leaves are used the beverage. anything that is not made from the tea tree is usually called a tisane.) some varieties of tisanes that produce a pink liquid include hibiscus, rose petals, rose hips, strawberry. if the above is not the case, i suspect you're referring to kashmiri pink tea, sometimes called noon chai. disclaimer: i can't find any authoritative sources about kashmiri online; my knowledge of the subject is anecdotal from my own travels in india as well as stories from people i know who have lived or traveled in south asia. my understanding is that, like masala chai throughout south asia, pink tea has some general guidelines but everyone customizes it according to taste or local custom. the basic distinguishing factors of kashmiri pink tea compared to a "regular" black, green, oolong, or white tea are twofold: color and taste. as you mentioned, this tea is pink in color, which other beverages made from the tea tree are not. the pink color comes from the addition of baking soda. as for taste, pink tea tends to elicit mixed opinions about taste because it is salty; most people around the world typically drink tea unadulterated, or sweetened, but rarely with the addition of salt. pink tea shares many ingredients with masala chai, often including some or all of the following: ginger cardamom cinnamon peppercorns milk or cream sugar (or other sweetener) unlike masala chai, which is normally prepared with black tea, kashmiri pink tea uses green or oolong tea leaves. ingredients included in kashmiri chai that are not included in most other chai recipes: baking soda (just a pinch) ground pistachios and/or almonds salt white poppy seeds the final major difference is in the method of preparation. masala chai can be made in a matter of minutes by boiling the water, then adding tea, milk, spices and boiling it all together for a few minutes before straining and serving. kashmiri chai, on the other hand, takes 1-2 hours to prepare (i believe the long boiling time is required for the baking soda to accomplish its task of turning the tea pink). i don't know the exact process and couldn't find any sources that seemed reliable. | comparison |
what is the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate? | short answer: yes, milk chocolate differs from chocolate by the milk its manufacture. real chocolate (as opposed to many other confections) is made from chocolate liquer, which despite the name, is not alchoholic, or even liquid at room temperature. the fruit of the theobroma cacao tree contains seeds, known as beans. the harvested fruits are allowed to ferment, bringing many flavor and chemical changes to the beans, as well as removing the pulpy fruit. the beans are then husked for the seeds inside, the nibs. the nibs are the first true chocolate product, although they are not sweet. the nibs are roasted, and then ground. this is chocolate liquer, a solid colloid of cocoa fat and solid particles. it would be solid at room temperature, but the grinding process melts it. the cocoa liquer can be pressed to separate out the cocoa butter (as for use in the cosmetics industry), leaving cocoa powder, but that is not the point of your question. instead, to manufacture chocolate, the liquer is conched, a mechanical process that makes the suspended particles much smaller, part of what gives chocolate its smooth mouthfeel. various products can be made from chocolate liquer, or cocoa butter, including: baking chocolate - essentially, just chocolate liquer, hardened and tempereded. may or may not be fully conched, so may not be as smooth as chocolate intended for eating. chocolate or dark chocolate - chocolate liquer, possibly extra cocoa butter, and sugar. minor optional ingredients often included are vanilla or other flavorings, and lecithen, an emulsifier. milk chocolate - same as dark chocolate, with the addition of condensed milk or milk solids, depending on whether it is made via the swiss method or the hershey method white chocolate - cocoa butter, plus sugar and other flavorings chocolate chips - another form of chocolate in a particular shape. many manufacturers don't make these from true chocolate, but rather substitute another fat which doesn't melt as easily as cocoa butter, for economy, and so the chips hold their shape in the oven chocolate bunny - chocolate molded into the shape of a bunny, then tempered and cooled german's chocolate - a brand name of quite sweet dark chocolate chocolate labels which list "cocoa percentage" are saying what proportion of the chocolate is cocoa liquer or additional cocoa butter or cocoa solids--that is, stuff from nibs, as opposed to sugar or other flavorings. the cocoa percentage for milk chocolate tends to be much lower than that of dark chocolates, although not every milk chocolate has a lower percentage than every dark chocolate. see this question for information on tempering chocolate, which gives its snappy mouthfeel. edit: on dairy products in dark chocolate: i was very surprised at lemontwist's comment, so i did some googling and found this article at go dairy free: a good quality dark or semi-sweet chocolate will only have sweetener / sugar in some form added, and may also include a touch of soy lecithin as an emulsifier. these brands are milk-free by ingredients, but keep in mind that most brands of chocolate are made on shared equipment. that is, an inherently milk-free dark chocolate may be made on the same equipment as milk chocolate. see below for my note on cross-contamination issues. the complications arrive as some brands of dark and semi-sweet chocolate do include milk ingredients for a “smoother” end result. this is particularly true in mainstream brands like hershey’s. some ways that you may see milk listed in the ingredients include milk solids, milk, milk powder, whey, butter oil or butterfat (see the ask alisa post on butter oil), or even casein. if milk is in the ingredients, it should be listed in a clearly identifiable manner per the labeling laws, but still, use caution. this is still in line with the information i provided, as i did mention "other flavorings" in dark chocolate, and it is not a universal or even common practice as far as i know. for people with strong allergies, the cross-contamination issue may be more of an issue. vegans would have more of an issue, as lecithen is a very common ingredient in chocolate of all types, and may be animal sourced. vegans would specifically need to reseearch and obtain chocolates that meet that standard. googling will find many such products, but i did not find an easy single reference list. | comparison |
would using milk powder better than fresh milk when poaching? | poaching is a gentle process - the milk isn't boiling so there is no risk of it burning or the like. it will of course not spoil in the sense of it going off, that's a totally different process. fresh milk is better because, well, it's fresh. powdered milk would probably work, but if you have fresh, use that. | comparison |
why does chinese food reheats better on stove than in microwave? | i believe it has more to do with how a microwave cooks or reheats food vs. the way a conventional stove top does it. when you put something into a microwave to reheat it, it does not apply heat the way a stove does. microwaves use their namesakes -microwave radiation- to jostle the molecules contained within the food, causing friction, which in turn causes heat, and heats up the food, from the inside out. this means that food with a higher density, such as meat or veggies, will heat up more quickly than liquids, which are less dense. also, microwaves don't just heat up the food, but also the container, be it plastic, foam, or the stereotypical white paper boxes. when this happens, the particles within the container (which are being heated) will give off various chemicals, which can alter the taste of food. when you reheat food on a stove top, you are using a container that is much more resistant to heat (a pan) and you are applying heat evenly, from the outside of the food, regardless of it's density. this means that the pan (90% of the time) will not alter the way your food tastes, and because everything is being heated at the same time and rate, your food tastes more like it did yesterday, or whenever it was that you brought it home. | comparison |
is it easier to play on a grand piano than an upright piano? | in my experience, it is usually easier to play a grand piano. a grand piano responds better in many ways, for example: the dynamic scale is bigger. i find it much easier to get a good relaxed fortissimo from a grand. the notes just ring longer. this makes cantabile playing easier and it's also easier to play slowly. combining the previous two, it's easier to separate layers of sound, like background, middle ground, foreground. (actually it's often initially easier to separate layers on an upright because the sound is not so rich and thus doesn't get muddy so easily. on a grand you have to do bigger contrasts to get a good sound. the point is, though, that you can make the contrasts big and then the layers really sound differentiated.) for me, when i've played only on an upright for a long time, this is what takes most time to adjust. the bigger the instrument, the bigger you have to make the contrasts. this all of course depends a lot on the acoustics of the room, too. using the soft pedal on a grand actually makes the sound different (the hammers are hitting fewer strings). so, yet more possible variation in sound. the action is also different. on a grand the hammers hit the strings from below so gravity plays a bigger role. perhaps for this reason for me a grand piano often feels heavy while an upright feels stiff. (another reason might be psychological -- a grand piano has massive sound, thus the action feels massive). i like a heavy action, but hate a stiff one. as for how heavy/stiff, that varies very much between individual pianos. there are both light and heavy uprights and grands. it's easier to play fast repetitions on a grand piano. also in general a grand just seems to respond quicker. with the exception of the lowest notes, you can usually get shorter staccatos out of a grand. this is all assuming that we're comparing instruments which are in similar condition. if course it will be easier to play on a good upright than a bad grand etc. | comparison |
why is a grand piano better than an upright piano? | it's all about the size, and therefore the length of the strings and the size of the vibrating surface of the wooden soundboard. even a baby grand at ~5 feet is longer than a typical upright is tall. a concert grand at 7-10 feet is much, much longer. i can't do any better than what wikipedia says, so i'm going to quote wholesale: all else being equal, longer pianos with longer strings have larger, richer sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings. inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partials or harmonics) sound sharp relative to whole multiples of the fundamental frequency. this results from the piano's considerable string stiffness; as a struck string decays its harmonics vibrate, not from their termination, but from a point very slightly toward the center (or more flexible part) of the string. the higher the partial, the further sharp it runs. pianos with shorter and thicker string (i.e. small pianos with short string scales) have more inharmonicity. the greater the inharmonicity, the more the ear perceives it as harshness of tone. inharmonicity requires that octaves be stretched, or tuned to a lower octave's corresponding sharp overtone rather than to a theoretically correct octave. if octaves are not stretched, single octaves sound in tune, but double—and notably triple—octaves are unacceptably narrow. stretching a small piano's octaves to match its inherent inharmonicity level creates an imbalance among all the instrument's intervallic relationships, not just its octaves. in a concert grand, however, the octave "stretch" retains harmonic balance, even when aligning treble notes to a harmonic produced from three octaves below. this lets close and widespread octaves sound pure, and produces virtually beatless perfect fifths. this gives the concert grand a brilliant, singing and sustaining tone quality—one of the principal reasons that full-size grands are used in the concert hall. smaller grands satisfy the space and cost needs of domestic use. really tall uprights do exist, but they're not very common. they are sometimes referred to as upright grands. of course, whether inharmonicity is good or bad is purely subjective. that classic "pub piano" sound, fits perfectly with some kinds of music. it's the sound of an upright, and probably couldn't be replicated on a concert grand. | comparison |
what are the differences between coated drumheads and clear drumheads? | here are some key points about coated drumhead vs clear drumhead: coated drum head: coated heads are warmer in tone easier to tune more controlled than clear produces more bounce when hit by the stick muted and more focused clear drum head: the tones are a bit higher in pitch produce brighter and less controlled sound more attacks than coated louder tone and more sustain clear heads are more recommended for the resonant side for toms and snare. coated heads are better for the batter side of the snare. for the batter side of the toms, it depends on the personal preferences of the drummer as well as for the type of music to be played. these links have more discussions about drumhead. [ref] [ref]#.uzwtxki3bmw | comparison |
pushing a tube amp : better use the channel volume or master volume? | a possibly more direct method to solving your problem would be to use "hot-plates". if you're familiar with paul gilbert, he uses hot-plates to basically heat up the tubes of his amp to get the desired tone, without of course, increasing the volume. you might be able to use something like this to help your situation. to quote the description: "it lets you get your amp's full of distortion at any volume." | comparison |
which interface to choose for connecting my electric guitar to the computer? | from the options you gave i suggest the first one. to connect to the 3,5mm input is not a good option. there are several disadvantages & problems that might come up, the worst are latency, low sound quality and physical limitations with the 3,5 mm input. latency means that when you play/record the audio interface might have a delay, late answer, in timing; which can be very annoying and frustrated when you are recording. it will make you play/record worst. the sound quality, sampling rate, conversion from analog to digital are also weak/poor quality and are also a downside that will make you disappointed. i would go for a usb audio interface and avoid something too cheap. i suggest this product/price range as a starting point. | comparison |
guitar practice: more often but less time or once in a few days but for a few hours? | what's better: pick up a guitar every day for a few minutes or play more rarely, but having a longer session? neither. it's not length of time, but what you do with it when you have it. if you spend your time playing the same three songs over and over again, you'll not likely improve save to be able to play three songs endlessly. that's a simplification, but it serves to illustrate a point. if you're not spending your time working on things that you have trouble with, or working with tools and methods that help you improve, whether you do it for 10 minutes or 10 hours doesn't really matter. lets say you have an hour to dedicate to practicing (as opposed to just playing) your instrument, here is how i would suggest you break it down: 5m - warm up, stretching exercises 10m - modes, scale runs (try to work in things like string skipping) 15m - chords, inversions, arpeggios 15m - sight reading (i'll pick a new chart from the real book) 10m - general wanking 5m - musical meditation (listen to something new, play blindfolded...something to connect the soul to the music) always with a metronome all of it. the combination of continually stretching your knowledge and your technique and the use of devices like a metronome to ensure you're performing consistently and measuring your success so you can push your limits on the next practice session are what yield results fast. | comparison |
7/6 no 3 or 13 no 3, 9, 11; which chord name is more correct (if any)? | i wouldn't go with either of the names you suggested. when you use "no" chord notation typically you are changing the intended harmony of a chord to something the chord symbol was not ment to represent. let's look at what we have: c g a bb i'm assuming the c is the bass note. it would be a stretch to call this any type of c chord because not only is there no 3rd, but there is also no 2nd or 4th. there is very rarely a chord with an omitted 3rd that is not suspend.(besides a power chord which this is not.) if we look at this chord as some kind of a chord it makes much more sense because we can stack the chord in thirds now and have it make sense: a c _ g bb we still have no 5th, but the 5th is commonly omitted in larger chords. a to c makes a minor 3rd, the g is a minor 7th and the bb is a b9. because the c is in the bass, we will have to notate the chord in slash notation so we get: am7b9/c still a lengthy name, but it describes the function of the chord better than c13 no 3, 9, 11 where it is very odd to omit 3 notes in a chord. another thing to note is it is typical in a 13th chord to omit the 9th and 11th as they are optional. so the suggested name could be reduced to c13 no 3, but still it is odd to omit a 3rd without some kind of sus. | comparison |
what are the benefits and drawbacks of active pickups? | [ref] passive pickups: passive pickups send a low output, raw signal to the amp that can only be affected by the volume and tone controls on the instrument itself. passive pickups tend to lose the extremes of high and low frequencies, but still give a very even and punchy tone. this is because passive pickups tend to push out more midrange frequencies. while passive pickups might give players less dynamic control, their smooth sound is still very unique and desirable. active pickups: active pickups have preamps that are built into the pickup housing; so they can drive the signal to the amp themselves. this preamp must be powered by a source other than the amp, so active pickups require a separate battery to operate. this allows the pickup to send a higher output signal, producing a more complete, full-range sound than most passive pickup systems and giving players more control of instrument dynamics, projection and tone. | comparison |
what is the difference between male head voice and falsetto? | falsetto and chest voice are different mechanisms. basically, falsetto stretches the vocal folds by lengthening the distance between their fixtures (the larynx mechanism is a rather complex contraption with various muscle groups changing the overall geometry). chest voice, however, also involves tightening the muscles at the base of the vocal folds themselves, so it changes the consistency of the folds, not "just" their length. that makes it comparatively easy to achieve good closure but produces a number of harmonics. the pure falsetto action, in contrast, leaves the muscles in the folds alone, leading to a rather pure tone (bad for distinguishing vowels, actually). with practice, one can achieve good closure and a rich tone even with falsetto. as this requires the "falsetto configuration" of the larynx to be close to complete, good closure works best in the high range. which means that the use of the full falsetto (rather than a more mixed head voice) works better for natural baritones or basses rather than the rare true tenor. the larger larynx and larger involved forces make it advisable not to start too early with heavy training: the cartiledge forming the respective mechanism takes decades to fully harden (ossify) after mutation. | comparison |
is the alto recorder any 'quieter' than the soprano? | the decibel level you can reach and still maintain pitch does increase as the recorders get shorter, but i agree that your main problem may be technique. that being said, playing a soprano "quietly" is not easy, esp. up above g6. altos are mellower, tenors even more so. there are tenors being made with keys (mollenhauer) that are playable by children so that might be an option for you. all good recorders can play through two octaves plus a couple of odd notes higher. there is also the mute trick. fold a very small piece of paper into a /\ shape and drape that over the edge of the windway. this cuts down on the sound output dramatically while still staying in tune. for sopranos we're talking about 1 cm or so in length, folded in half. | comparison |
what are the benefits and drawbacks of the floyd rose speedloader tremolo system? | a friend of mine had a guitar like this, and it wasn't too bad. one of the main bummers was that finding strings for the thing was pretty tricky. if you have to have special strings for the guitar, you have a lot less selection of strings and the different tones that different brands can provide, which is kind of a bummer. on the plus side though, the guitar was still very playable, you could down tune it just fine (with some limitations, but reasonable limitations none the less), and re-stringing can be done pretty painlessly. in my personal opinion, i think these guitars are kind of a waste, and more of a commodity item than anything else. if you really need to have a string replaced that fast, just have a second guitar on standby that's fully tuned and ready to go. | comparison |
what is ideal to learn first - scales or chords? | to the extent that these subtopics are very interrelated, it doesn't really matter which one you start with. whichever appeals to you is probably the best, all else being equal. chords are of course built out of scales, so you could learn some chords first, then something about scales, then analyze the scales that are used to build those basic chords. at some point, if you're doing it right, they pretty much cease to be separate areas, and just become part of your harmonic analysis arsenal. any scale can be harmonized into a spectrum of chords. | comparison |
what's the difference between alnico and ceramic pickups? | this may not help a lot, but here is one person's opinion + facts about magnetic cores: sonicwrench forum q: what is the difference between alnico and ceramic magnets? a: alnico magnets are made of an alloy of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt. ceramic magnets are made from ferrites (often iron oxides). magnetically speaking, ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico. the result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. a lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most setups. however, there are fantastic sounding ceramic pickups out there (such as the g&l “mfd” pickups), as well as our own humbuckers and p90′s. the reason ceramic has a bad rap is probably due to its use on low quality instruments, in low quality pickups. ceramic magnets are often useful in high-output pickups to help retain high end that is lost due to overwinding, and help to create crunchy sounding pickups for hard rock, heavy blues, and metal styles. so like a lot of components in musical instruments, which is "better" depends on what you want for sound output. | comparison |
what's the difference between genre and style? | these words are very dependent on the context, and in many cases, they can even be treated as synonyms. that's one reason why you see them being used interchangeably: in case there is no possible confusion, either word can be used. one way to look at it i am not completely sure if this is the correct way to look at it, but i've always seen it like this: genre is much more broad than a style. a style can be seen as a subdivision of a genre. for instance, rock music is a genre. alternative rock, progressive rock and orchestral rock are styles of rock music. this is not completely set in stone though, so don't shoot somebody when they say progressive rock is a music genre. :-) you'll see the terms being used interchangeably quite often, simply because their meanings are so closely related. another way to look at it: a "genre" is the word for a categorization, so rock music, progressive rock, etc are all genres. think of a genre as a label. a "style" is what you call a specific element of the music. for instance, david gilmour's guitar playing style is melodic with lots of string bends. | comparison |
why do wooden woodwinds sound better than plastic? | the basic answer (which applies to carbon fiber stringed instruments too) is that our current understanding of materials science is insufficient to produce a material which exhibits as "flat", i.e. uniform frequency resonance curve as wood. keep in mind that it takes a lot of skill to select proper wood -- there's a reason reed instruments are made primarily of grenadilla and not any old tree from your backyard :-) . consider, otoh, the fact that i've never even seen a wood mouthpiece. there are many different styles and types of rubber/plastic ones, and some clarinetists swear by the crystal models (and saxophonists looking for giant sound use otto link metal mouthpieces). just pointing out that sometimes there are tradeoffs made in the interest of reliability as well as sound quality. btw, i used to play a metal clarinet in marching bands. it sounded crappy but i suspect a properly designed and built model would sound fine, albeit more saxophonish. for that matter, solid metal 'brass' instruments tend to sound better than their fiberglass brethren. it's just a lot less painful to march with a lightweight sousaphone, and the delta sound quality doesn't matter a whole lot in a football stadium. | comparison |
what is the difference between overdrive and distortion? | from a sound design / sound engineer context as an effect, distortion is any process that alters the sound in the harmonic (tone, timbre) domain. overdrive is a type of distortion. it is achieved by saturating (overdriving) the valves in an amplifier (or a simulation of this dynamic). in that context, overdrive is a subset of distortion. from a guitar effect / pedal context from this page: so what is the difference between a distortion and an overdrive? to put it simply, an overdrive pedal aims at simulating the creamy sound of an overdriven tube amp whereas a distortion does not try to simulate reality and usually offers more gain and is more aggressive. from the wikipedia distortion page: the terms "distortion", "overdrive" and "fuzz" are often used interchangeably, but they have subtle differences in meaning. overdrive effects are the mildest of the three, producing "warm" overtones at quieter volumes and harsher distortion as gain is increased. a "distortion" effect produces approximately the same amount of distortion at any volume, and its sound alterations are much more pronounced and intense. a fuzzbox (or "fuzz box”) alters an audio signal until it is nearly a square wave and adds complex overtones by way of a frequency multiplier. what is the difference in tone, harmonics, etc.? are they the same? which one is better and for what? the difference is in the distortion amount. overdrive generates less amount of tone change than distortion. distortion generates more harmonics and/or the generated harmonics will have more amplitude than overdrive. overdrive will be better if you want a cleaner sound, and distortion will be better if you want a more distorted sound. we can test this by applying both effects to a sine wave and comparing the results. for these tests, i'll use the highest amount of effect possible for each device. these pics show the device's settings, followed by the harmonic content it induced in the sine wave. logic's overdrive: logic's distortion ii: guitar rig's cat (an overdrive, according to the manual): guitar rig's demon (a distortion, according to the manual): | comparison |
is true bypass better than buffered bypass? is it possible to be neither? | tl;dr which is better? that's up to your ears. both bypasses have trade-offs: true bypass is the most pure and high-fidelity, but it exposes your signal to long-cable degradation (plus it's more expensive). pedals with buffered bypass will color your tone (especially if you have many of them), but you can run long cables without worry. more explanation true bypass means that when the pedal is not engaged, your guitar's signal travels directly to the pedal's output along a simple wire. this ensures that the pedal doesn't color the signal, preserving your guitar's tone with the highest possible fidelity. in other words, when the pedal is off, it's as if it's not even there. true bypass is generally a feature on high-end, boutique pedals, in part because the necessary internal components are more expensive. pedal manufactures market true bypass as the cleanest, most faithful bypass possible. and it is, except for one thing: guitar signals are high impedance. as a consequence, if you run a guitar's signal through a long enough cable, it will start to lose some of the high end. this is why it's hard to find guitar cables longer than about 30 feet, while its easy to find mic cables that are 100 feet or more; mic signals are low impedance and aren't susceptible to signal degradation over long cable lengths. so if you plug your guitar into a 30-foot cable, plug the cable into a true bypass pedal, and then plug the pedal into another 30-foot cable before it gets to the amp, the "bypass is a simple wire" nature of true bypass means that when the pedal is off, you've effectively plugged your guitar into a 60-foot cable, and this will have a noticeable effect on your sound. the more true bypass pedals in your chain, the longer the effective cable length when they're off, and so the more impedance loss your signal will suffer. buffered bypass is designed with exactly this scenario in mind. instead of the bypass being a simple wire, the pedal runs the signal through a small buffering amp first. this solves the impedance issues and ensures that your guitar's signal won't degrade over the long cable length. but while buffering amps are very very clean, they can't possibly be as clean and true as a simple wire, and so your signal is affected, at least somewhat. the more buffered-bypass pedals in your chain, the more buffering amps your signal goes through, and so the more it's affected. | comparison |
what are the advantages of wav vs. mp3? | the executive summary of charles' very detailed answer is: use wav for recording and editing. use your audio editor's native file format with references to the wav files to keep disk space under control use mp3 for distribution. 44.1 and 160kbps is lots, unless your audience has a home stereo that is worth more than their car and ears to match. | comparison |
what are the pros/cons of the "tuning-in-slide" method of trombone design? | actually, american manufacturers (notably conn and olds) produced slide-tuning instruments well into the 1960s. the design lasted longest in bass trombones (the olds p24 and conn 7xh). s. e. shires currently produces a slide-tuning alto and makes slide-tuning slides for tenors and basses on special order. kanstul makes a slide-tuning bass in its 1662 series and 1670 series, and a slide-tuning tenor in its 1688/1608 series. slide tuning has a substantial advantage for bass trombones because it allows a longer continuously tapered bell section. trombones are roughly 1/3 tapered and 2/3 cylindrical tubing. a bb/f bass trombone with slide tuning (and no provision for bell tuning) can have a tapered tubing proportions that are approximately correct for the f side. of course, then it's too long for the bb horn. slide tuning also allows for a longer slide section. the conn 62 has an in-tune low c without worrying about going off the inner slides. other instruments (notably the bach 50) have the low c (on the f side alone) perilously near the end of the slide. shires went to slide tuning on his alto so that the instrument would have solid low a and e. other altos are notorious for having these notes almost off the slide. slide-tuning has two primary disadvantages. first is weight: including the tuning mechanism in the slide necessarily increases the outer slide's weight. more weight means more inertia means a slower slide. modern designs have much lower weight penalties than the designs of the 1960s. the other problem is slide alignment. a slide tuning instrument has more moving parts, which theoretically make it vulnerable to alignment problems. as with all things musical, it is a matter of paying your money and taking your choice. slide tuning and bell tuning trombones have different timbral and playing characteristics. having a conical bell section generally gives a warmer sound than that of a bell tuning instrument. however, the conical bell section is very open and may require more air and effort from the player at louder dynamics. | comparison |
learning guitar, start at low end or high end? | interesting question wskid. your question got me thinking, so now i'll try to give an answer that, hopefully, will be useful to you. i can see your point about playing on the higher end. in fact, most exercises would be easier to do at the higher end, because the frets are spaced closer to each other. however, i think there is a reason why most beginner books/methods start at the lower end. the reason is that beginning at the low end allows the student to learn chords quicker. these beginner books/methods usually want to keep the lessons interesting for a beginner. for most people, it is much more satisfying to be able to play a three chord song then to play scales at the 10-12th frets. also, its easier for a beginner to apply the things learnt on the lower end (open chord, open scales). as to the correct method of learning, my answer is: probably a mix of both. learn open chords at the lower end to give you something fun to play, and practice scales at the upper end to build finger strength and independence, and slowly move the scales to the lower end to increase flexibility and reach. when i first started learning the guitar, i started at the lower end, and gradually learned to move up the fretboard. but had i known what i know now, i probably would have done both. one more thing, have your guitar checked by more experienced guitarist or a repairman, to make sure the the action on your guitar is not too high. if the action is too high, i.e., the strings are too far away from the frets, it would explain why you find it difficult to to press the lower strings. quick tip: if the action is too high, or you still want learn at the higher end, then a capo would be a great tool. if the action is too high, just put a capo on the 1st or 2nd fret and the strings will be much easier to press down. | comparison |
what are the advantages and disadvantages of xponent and torq vs a traktor s4 and traktor pro 2? | i'll consider you know the basics of djing and how soft/hardware works in these cases so let's try to split this question: xponent vs traktor s4 the main advantage of the xponent is that it freakin' blinks! it has an awesome club presence, just check any youtube video to get that. the main disadvantage is that it is a piece of crap! excuse my french but there was a massive set of xponents that had cheap ass electric board with cold solders and it would break easily. it seems to be fixed, but i discovered that m-audio/avid support is terrible! so terible that i'm not buying anything from them ever. main advantage of the s4: 2 stereo outputs and a headphone output, while the xponent only has a single stereo out and a headphone output. oh yeah, it also has a mic input that xponent doesn't have. mais disadvantage: the jog wheels are small. really small. i mean, have you tried it? it makes me feel... i dunno, i fell like i'm using an old behringer or something. the number of buttons and knobs are almost the same !but! if you are into the whole custom scene, the xponent has a little feature that makes it moar awesome. there's a 1-2 switch in the front that acts as a second controller. so when you change the switch from 1 to 2 you can then remap everything on the controller. torq 2 vs traktor pro 2 i'm not even talking about torq 1 since that's no longer supported. let's talk about torq 2 vs traktor pro 2, it has only a few differences: torq 2 has a special crossfade option that adds some effects, it's a cool concept: you can mix 2 songs using a filter, so as you move from one song to the other the filter opens/closes. their website has a couple of videos on this. the auto synch across 4 decks feels more right than traktor, and it works better. this is relevant if you like to change drastically bpms between songs. and torq2 has incredible vst support. even if the vst crashes the whole software keeps running. but traktor is 100% fully customizable. i mean, you can map buttons to change to the library function to select tracks without touching your laptop. if you're into diy custom midi mapping, this is heaven. also, traktor has multiple eq choices, torq2 only has one, so instead of having a bass/mid/tremb eq you can use a bass/midbass/midtremb/tremb eq. to be completely honest, i don't have a lot of experience with the s4, i own a xponent with torq 2 - (heck i even did some lectures on using torq and exploring it's functions) - and i would not recommend using it. i had a whole lot of problems with support - torq sometimes decides that it just won't work - the application does not open under any circumstance - and all the seven times this has happened, the only solution was to format my computer. i tried using a windows xp sp3, windows xp sp2, windows 7 32 bits and windows 7 64 bits. i had problems with all of them. so, long story short: avoid m-audio/avid for the moment, go for native instruments. btw: i had some experience with traktor pro (i used it for about 6 months), i personally don't like its controls and gui interface, it fells wrong. but the audio quality, response and amount of customization is beyond awesome. | comparison |
which one has more impact on the sound, the string or the body? | on an electric guitar, the construction of the body is of limited importance. at the high end of the market, people worry about the tonal qualities of various kinds of wood, but for the most part, we worry about an electric guitar body being as rigid as possible, and the pickups are where most of the character comes from. on an acoustic guitar, the construction of the guitar itself has the most impact on its sound. you are hearing the vibration of the sound board, so what's important is the frequencies that are absorbed or reinforced by the way the body vibrates, and the way the bridge transmits vibration from the string to the body. you can put great strings on a bad acoustic guitar, and it will still sound bad. how do you know a guitar is good quality? use your ears. if you can't hear the difference, the difference isn't important! however, one rule of thumb is that plywood is the mark of a cheap guitar. you can recognise plywood by looking at the sound hole -- you can see the layers. you get a significant step up in tone from a solid wood sound board. | comparison |
starting piano - which instrument to choose? | i'm going to answer the general question so that this is not a shopping reccomendation per se (61 un-weighted key keyboard with lots of features vs. 76 graded "soft touch" key keyboard with minimal features). arguments for a 61 key, unweighted keyboard (psr-e423 in your case): this is simple and easy to play, due to the fact that: there are less keys, and the keys are completely unweighted (you do not have to develop finger strength to play this). it has additional fun features beyond being a simple piano. i know i enjoyed playing with the recording / layering abilities, which are still present in this model (and probably much more advanced now). there are pre-built "beats" / song rhythms for you to play along with, which is great for practicing new techniques or ad-libbing. the non-piano voices will likely be of higher quality than they are on the other keyboard you mentioned in my experience, the keyboards with 76 to 88 weighted keys are more focused on the piano sound. the piano will sound great, the other voices will usually sound kind of cheesy. arguments against the 76 key, graded "soft touch" keyboard (np-31 in your case): it only has 76 keys (rather than a full 88). while this is more than the other choice, i don't think it's worth the loss of the other features in your case. it uses graded "soft touch" action (rather than the more natural weighted keys). once again, this is falling short of a real upgrade, and probably unnecessary for what you're trying to do. it's not nearly as versatile as the psr. all you really get is a piano sound (and probably some less-than-stellar other voices). based on the description of what you're looking to do, i would strongly suggest 61 key keyboard with more features. you are not trying to be a professional pianist, so you don't need something that's going to be like a real piano. overall, i think you will get much more use out of this option than the other. | comparison |
what's the difference between a junior guitar and a normal guitar? | the les paul junior is not a different size guitar, it's simply an entry-level les paul model. it was originally designed to be an affordable alternative to the les paul standard, and thus is not as fully-featured. the main differences compared to a traditional les paul are: flat top instead of carved top only one pickup, usually a p90 consequently, also only one volume and tone knob wrap-around tailpiece instead of the tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece in epiphone's case, a bolt-on neck, rather than a set neck you can read more about the les paul junior in the wikipedia article. also, you can compare the specs of the epiphone les paul standard and les paul junior. as far as i can see, they both have the same scale length (629 mm / 24.75") and number of frets (22). if you start with a les paul junior, you shouldn't have any difficulty switching to a higher-end les paul model, save perhaps having to adjust to a second pickup and more tonal options at your disposal. | comparison |
what's the difference between "modal music" and "tonal music"? | "modal" and "tonal" both describe works that: have one defined "home" pitch, or "tonal center," around which the melody and harmony are based; have only one tonal center at a time, though that tonal center can change throughout a piece; and use a seven-note diatonic scale as their pitch collections. the difference between modal and tonal are in the harmonic languages surrounding the tonal center. tonality implies the system of common-practice harmony well-established by the eighteenth century that uses major and minor keys. the tonal center of a tonal work is the first note of the major or minor scale in use as the pitch collection. the harmonic implications of tonality are more than just the use of major and minor scales, as functional harmony is also a feature of tonal music. the progression from the dominant sonority (a major triad with or without a minor seventh from the triad root based on the fifth note of the major or minor scale in use, or a similar-sounding substitute such as a fully-diminished seventh chord based on the leading tone) to the tonic triad to end a work is just one characteristic of functional harmony. this characteristic is so important that, if the dominant sonority is instead a minor chord (thereby lacking the leading tone), the work no longer sounds tonal. this means that even in a minor key, the seventh note of the scale is very often raised so that it becomes the leading tone. modal music uses diatonic scales that are not necessarily major or minor and does not use functional harmony as we understand it within tonality. the term modal is most often associated with the eight church modes. the tonal center of these modes is called its "final." all the church modes use a pattern of half and whole steps that could be played on the white keys of a piano. you may notice that there are only four different patterns among the church modes; the difference between e.g. "dorian" and "hypodorian" is whether the final occurs at or near the bottom of the melodic range or whether the final occurs in the middle of the melodic range. the term "modal" has expanded in more modern music to encompass any non-tonal music that uses a diatonic pitch collection and has a tonal center. there are many types of music other than modal and tonal. some examples include: chromatic music, which uses all twelve of the standard western pitch classes instead of the diatonic pitch collection, and which may or may not have a tonal center; serial music, sometimes called "dodecaphonic," which is chromatic music that intentionally avoids a tonal center, often by avoiding repetition of a pitch class until all twelve pitch classes have been used; bitonal or polytonal music, which uses multiple diatonic pitch collections and multiple tonal centers simultaneously; microtonal music, which uses pitches with frequencies between those of the standard twelve western pitch classes; whole-tone music, which uses a six-note scale comprised entirely of whole steps; and non-western music, which uses a pitch collection outside the twelve western pitches (this is not a good classification, as there are many cultures with many different kinds of music that are very different from one another in pitch collection). i did not even touch on music that does not use pitches at all; for example, an unpitched percussion work would clearly not be modal or tonal. there are entire books on functional harmony, modes, etc., but i hope this has been a reasonable summary to answer your question. | comparison |
is it better to play the keyboard standing or sitting? | it will always be easier to sit and operate pedals - the required uneven shift in weight from one foot to the other and holding it for extended periods can become quite tiring. if your biggest concern is how it looks to the audience then yes, you'll probably have to put up with the discomfort and awkward stance of standing but there are a couple of things you can do to help: make sure the keyboard is set at a comfortable height (certainly don't leave it at sitting height!) and place the pedals relative to your playing position such that you don't have to lean excessively to operate them. if they're too far forward, you'll find yourself leaning backwards. use a bar stool or similar behind you to 'lean' against. that way, you can appear to be standing but you also have the support of a seat. make sure it's sturdy and not on a slippery floor, else it may let you down when you come to rely on it! if you're using a volume/expression pedal, get a 'balanced' one that holds its position so you don't have to keep your foot on it unless you're moving it. | comparison |