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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Have You Hugged Your Fish today?
46 comments:
- Jackietex said...
My husband is originally from Wheaton and so I got to visit the Shedd Aquarium once, about fifteen years ago, but I remember enjoying it a lot. My kids went back to school last Thursday and I have to say I was pretty happy about it. I like having them around but I don't enjoy the arguing or the lack of alone time.
- January 8, 2008 at 1:57 AM
- Kristy said...
great pictures! i really enjoyed them! looks like yall had alot of fun. thanks for sharing them with us. the whale?dolphin? pictures were awesome!
- January 8, 2008 at 2:11 AM
- Serial Mommy said...
i lived in chicago for almost two years and there is something that i've never quite understood about the windy city, why on earth do they dye the river green on st. patty's day when it's already green every other day of the year?
- January 8, 2008 at 2:58 AM
- Kati said...
My son got a beta fish from his scout leaders to get a stupid badge. Yah...I said it...stupid! He had to keep it alive for at least 2 months. It has been 6. Am I am bad mom for wishing the thing would just die already? If I have to clean that stinkin' bowl one more time!
I am kind to animals. Really, I am.
- January 8, 2008 at 3:34 AM
- roseys madhouse said...
I love the slideshow I have been on picture trail trying to work out how to do that with some of my pictures but it wont work grrrr. Our kids have another three weeks off.................. we are off bowling on thursday morning, which will be fun lol.
- January 8, 2008 at 3:40 AM
The kids are all in T-shirts... I thought it was supposed to be winter over there??
Great pics by the way, I was at the aquarium back in 1992 and the dolphins did the exact same show...
Brings back good memories!!
- January 8, 2008 at 3:55 AM
- Debbie @ Three Weddings said...
Mine went back to school yesterday, too!
- January 8, 2008 at 6:44 AM
Your kids JUST went back to school on January 7? What kind of crazy school systems do you have out there? We go back on the 2nd here on the East Coast, unless it falls on a Friday...I think I'd implode if everyone were home together in the house for that long! I have even more respect for you now!
- January 8, 2008 at 7:18 AM
Those are some great pictures! And from two posts ago, we have similar tastes in toys for our kids. The messy room shot was sooo similar to my girl's room because we also have the doll house and kitchen which are soooo cute, but such a pain!! Gotta love it!
- January 8, 2008 at 7:35 AM
- Unknown said...
This isn't so much a comment about the 'whale jail', but on many of our new year's resolutions of dropping a few dozen pounds in '08. Many have written about feeling starved - you need to find the right kind of calories that will fill you up.
Do a google search on the Abs Diet. This diet isn't really a diet, but a way of life. I've tried it and lost 10 pounds without feeling starved. It really does work - honest. Though you put the weight back on if you indulge 24/7 on Christmas cookies like I did - so I'm gain a few pound back.
Serioursly though, check it out. And the smoothie/shakes are a must!
At first I thought the whole idea of not counting calories was a joke, but it really is about the types of food you eat...well, you can't realistically eat a whole bag of almonds, but a handful when you're getting hungry does the trick.
- January 8, 2008 at 7:54 AM
- MaBunny said...
Wow Dawn, looks like you had a great time at the aquarium. I haven't been back to Chicago since 1995, and know I've never been the Shedd Aquarium. Hoping to get up there with Nicole and Chris someday and show them around. Show Nicole where her papa and great auntie grew up.
Nicole didn't go back to school till today, so for her last hurrah, I let her run around the park for almost 2 hours yesterday with some of her friends..
Have a great day Dawn:))
- January 8, 2008 at 8:01 AM
Even with the fog, New York has NOTHING on the Chicago skyline. I miss it!
- January 8, 2008 at 8:29 AM
- Lisa said...
I saw your name mentioned in Redbook Magazine and wanted to say congrats on the success of your blog!
- January 8, 2008 at 8:33 AM
- Brenda said...
I went to Shedd Aquarium once. Great place. Chicago has much to offer!
- January 8, 2008 at 8:42 AM
- Unknown said...
Hi Dawn, I love your blog! Been reading since the Pokemon Card auction but have not posted. You just seem so bogged down already, and if I just read the comments most of the time my questions are answered. But now I have a question about Chicago. I saw your reply to the last person that asked so I am giving you plenty of heads up. I am coming with my son (6) and my baby girl (8 months) to Chicago to visit friends, but none of my friends up there have children. So I was hoping for some more family oriented tips? And of course the general must see's of Chicago. Thank you so much for any advice you give. Have a wonderful day.
- January 8, 2008 at 9:08 AM
That must be quite an adjustment having all the kids at home and then gone again--I hope it went well for you all!
- January 8, 2008 at 9:10 AM
- Unknown said...
Me again (the traveler with two kids), forgot to say I will be in Chicago in March.
- January 8, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Great pictures!!!! Thanks for sharing! I love visiting all the museums downtown and seeing the Chicago skyline.
- January 8, 2008 at 9:15 AM
- MaryLu said...
What fun pictures! Thanks for sharing with us. You sure have some cuties, especially "sleepy girl", who would have thought she could get into such a mess with blue paint! Hee hee.
- January 8, 2008 at 9:29 AM
I have to say Dawn those are some pretty cute and beautiful pictures...i especially like the chicago skyline one...so being from mn and having never lived anywhere out of the state as an adult before, how would you rate the cost of living down there by you, if you dont mind me askin??
- January 8, 2008 at 9:41 AM
- Hoffman Family said...
Cool pictures. My home is 1000 sq. ft. as well and we have 4 living in it. Can't imagine haveing twice as many people living in that space.
- January 8, 2008 at 9:54 AM
- C-Rah said...
Looks like fun!
- January 8, 2008 at 9:58 AM
- rose said...
oh that looks like fun, but maybe not with a bus load of kids...
and we got a gold fish a while ago, and my 2 year old son named it "bird". he says "good morning bird!", but it's a fish so i always laugh.
- January 8, 2008 at 10:11 AM
- Nicki said...
Great pictures! And you had a pretty good day to go downtown. Maybe a little foggy, but at least it was warm. I can't believe the weather we've had. I enjoy going to the aquarium. It looks like the kids had a great time. Our you enjoying the return to a normal schedule? I sure am.
- January 8, 2008 at 10:21 AM
- Just your everyday average married momma... said...
Ugh, the UFO looks awful! My husband and I went to the last bears game (where they won central division - the last year there was a central division) before they ripped apart soldier field.
I miss living near the city.....
I was up on Oct. and drove all over downtown and felt so at home again... I'm a sick individual b/c I just love traffic and honking horns and panicking when you are in the wrong lane.... Maybe my career when I finally decide to grow up (I'm 28 and mom of four btw)should be NY Taxi driver?!
- January 8, 2008 at 10:38 AM
- AutoSysGene said...
How fun! Hope's favorite place to visit.
- January 8, 2008 at 11:17 AM
- Rick said...
Yes, please do Hug your fish! In today's economy you never know. They might end up being tomorrow night's dinner.
- January 8, 2008 at 12:22 PM
- MaNiC MoMMy™ said...
Your daughter's face! It's not blue or green or brown... it's precious pink and cream! SLeeping beauty!
- January 8, 2008 at 1:07 PM
what great photos!!! if you don't mind my asking, how many did you have to take to get such an awesome slide show? i am so bad w/ a camera, i would've taken all 745 photos that my camera's internal memory would allow....& i'd STILL be sorting through them next summer trying to come up w/ enough good ones for a show!
- January 8, 2008 at 1:25 PM
Why is it so many people comment on how happy they are to get away from their children? Don't get me wrong, I like a break now and then too, but God has blessed us with these beautiful children and we all seem eager to have them only to give them away every day to someone else to take care of. I'm a homeschooling mom to 5 beautiful and challening children and I can't imagine shipping them off every day for someone else to raise them. . . .sorry for the rant :p
- January 8, 2008 at 1:54 PM
Oh how I love a fun afternoon at Shed Aquariam!
- January 8, 2008 at 2:23 PM
My daughter went back to school yesterday, too. I thought 2 weeks was pretty standard for Christmas break, but apparently it would make some people implode!
Oh, and I'd like to explain why I always comment as "anonymous." It's because you don't know me, and so even if I signed my name as "Lisa" or "Becky" or "MamaDolphin," I'd still be anonymous to you!
- January 8, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Hi Dawn, I have never visited Chicago, other then driving around it. I live on the west side of Michigan and my (Now) husband lived in Madison Wi. He use to drive 350 miles one way every weekend to see me. Must have been Love. I Moved to Madison with him after we married. Now we are home again in Michigan. My son's fifth grade class is taking a field trip to Chicago in April. Kristine in Michigan.
- January 8, 2008 at 3:17 PM
Wow, great pics, Dawn! I saw the one of Soldier Field and mentally did a "oh sure, she takes a picture of the good side of Soldier Field. Don't show everyone the UFO they built on top of it on the other side" but then the next picture made me laugh as you had the UFO and aptly labeled it.
So cute to see the baby sleeping. I bet you wore her out with all the activity!
The "whale jail" comment cracked me up. Does that make me a bad person?
For the person who's visiting in March, a couple kid friendly suggestions: Lincoln Park Zoo (free except parking), Navy Pier (tons to do, including the Ferris Wheel beautifully pictured by Dawn), Kohl's Children's Museum (one on Navy Pier, bigger and better in Glenview if you can get there), go on the architectural tour if it's warm enough, etc. Chicago is just fun!
- January 8, 2008 at 3:39 PM
- Jodi (Landals) Landry said...
Love the slide show, but could you slow it down a little? Gonna need to break out the dramamine to watch. :)
- January 8, 2008 at 4:17 PM
- LunaMoonbeam said...
Ooh...that looks like fun!
Curious, and I think this was kind of addressed in your last Load o' Answers blog:
I might be in Chicago, possibly with my 16 month old baby, at the beginning of February. What do you do with a 16 month old, when it's freeze-your-butt cold outside, in Chicago??
- January 8, 2008 at 4:21 PM
I couldn't help but think of you Dawn when I heard the alli TV ad [sorry OT] it starts out by saying "other diets make your head spin and your heart race" ---umm, yeah, sounds pretty good compared to the "oily, gassy, crapathon"!
- January 8, 2008 at 4:46 PM
- Wineplz said...
doesn't serial mommy know that the river just STAYS green after St. Paddy's day? Just joking. :)
thanks for sharing those pictures, Dawn...they were great...so who was flying down LSD while you were taking those shots? Or were you driving and taking pictures? :)
- January 8, 2008 at 4:47 PM
- mrscyborat said...
My hubby has been to Chicago and would love to take us all there. We've talked about it being our very first real family vacation! A girl can dream... (We've spent several years camping with his family in Arkansas in the summer...but I don't count camping as a family vacation...just a Dad one! heh)
- January 8, 2008 at 5:14 PM
- Unknown said...
It looks like a great time! I can't wait to put the kids in the car and drive up to Atlanta to the aquarium up there.
- January 8, 2008 at 5:18 PM
Hi Dawn, great pics. I live in North Carolina and away from one of the largest zoo's in the country. To walk this thing it is 5 miles! Anyway, we only live about 15 minutes from it so we have a family membership and I take my little guy who is 3 up all the time. It's nice when the kids are out of school too, so we can all go, but I really enjoy taking Reece as he finds it fasinating everytime we go, which is usually once a week.
That 5 mile walk though can get old though, but I love it, I need to lose about 40 pounds anyway.
- January 8, 2008 at 5:48 PM
Do you remember the STAPLES commercial they have every year just before school starts again in the fall?
It usually portrays a parent dancing down the aisle filling the shopping card with school supplies to the background tune of "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" (replace Christmas with school-time)with the kids sulking behind.
Well, the first line of your blog reminded me of how I used to hum that tune every time a break was over and it was time for my son to return to school.
My son is now a senior at Tufts.
This holiday break will probably be the last time we spend such a long length of time together.
I'm already missing him; he's not returning until the end of the week.
I know how INSANE it must be having 6 kids, but take what every moment you can to give each one an extra hug anytime they are within arms reach.
Blessings to the Avery Family.
You, my lucky friend have 6. It will be a long time before you have a completely empty nest.
But I guarantee as each one leaves the nest ...... a little piece of your heart will leave with each one.
- January 8, 2008 at 6:07 PM
hi , i also have a brady bunch 6 pack. 3 boys 14,12,8 and 3 girls 18,14,2. we are a combined family . i got 4 stepkids when i married and then we had a baby. do you have great ideas to be more frugal in the new year? my friend just told me about restrauants.com gift cards, and you can get a coupon code off the net to save money. i think it is a great deal fro big families. also, i did find you by Redbook
- January 8, 2008 at 8:19 PM
- Kim said...
My SIL lives in Chicago and the last time we went there Kailey fell and knocked out her two front teeth while looking at the sea otters! Yes, I know there is only a small piece of wood in front of the tank but that is what she hit. She was 18 months old. Will be funny to see her with teeth someday. She only has one back so far. So, we will never forget our visit to Shedd aquarium. :) And, yes can I get a whoo hoo for the kids going back to school! Mine had off two whole weeks. How do we ever survive summer?
- January 9, 2008 at 7:35 AM
- Kim said...
I just noticed another post...I live on the east coast and we do not all go back on the 2nd. Mine were home until the 7th also. Craziness I tell you!
- January 9, 2008 at 7:37 AM
I forgot to say, I loved the "got butter?" title on your lobster slide! Yes, I watched the whole slide show! I don't really understand the UFO thing, though. I wish I could pause the slide show to see it better. It just looks like part of a stadium to me. Is there a story?
- January 10, 2008 at 12:37 AM


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Insider trading leads the news again, casting a cloud over Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors $14 billion hedge fund.
The SEC charged Mathew Martoma, who used to manage a SAC Capital division, with using inside information about tests on an Alzheimer's drug to trade stock of the company working on it.
The media love this stuff. I imagine reporters sitting around saying: "The SEC finally will punish greedy Wall Street! These tycoons rig the game — cheating is how they acquire $14 billion — and now noble government prosecutors will bring justice."
But this is nonsense. Government prosecutors are as ruthless and greedy as anyone.
It's easy to hate the rich — and in our bailout economy there are reasons for suspicion. But capital doesn't find the best outlets by itself. Hedge funds spot promising opportunities and quickly direct capital that way. Their reward is profit. When government interferes with that, we all suffer.
Under current law, insider trading still happens. Stock prices routinely rise before takeovers.
The line between research and felony is very fine. One famous investor asked visitors, "What do you know that others don't?" Active funds like Cohen's may get information first because they trade frequently, so brokers want their business. One stock picker even calls CEOs and then buys stock based on the tone of the answer. What's legal? Even the lawyers can't agree. The SEC says it is illegal to trade "securities after learning of significant, confidential corporate developments." Aha! The "insider" has more information than the rest of us!
But people in a stock trade never have the same information. One does exhaustive research about a company, another does less, and a third trades based on some market theory. In no way are these three "equal" in what they know.
Yes, you say, but the prosecutors allege inside information. One trader may be an employee of the firm. Why should he be free to use that information to buy or sell a stock?
Because America should be a free country.
Investors say the law persuades more people to invest. "It makes markets more robust. That gave us biotech, Wal-Mart, Microsoft," says hedge fund manager David Berman. "Companies raise capital in U.S. markets because of that confidence."
Sure. But in America, a free market would take care of that. If a stock exchange or company wants to have a rule against insider trading, fine. Some of us will invest only in those companies or that exchange. But imprisoning select people who catch a prosecutor's attention stifles the flow of information.
Think about the role of prices in a market economy. They aren't arbitrary numbers. They are bearers of information that guide people in buying and selling. Prices are never perfect, but whenever government regulation stifles this information function, it leads market participants astray.
In an actual free market, a company's stock prices embody traders' expectations about its future. Information confirms or upsets expectations, and that is reflected in prices. The sooner relevant information gets built into the stock price, the better for everyone.
As economist Warren C. Gibson writes: "When the dissemination of significant news about a company is blocked by insider-trading restrictions, that company's shares are mispriced relative to where the price would be if the news were out. If the news is bad, investors will buy at prices they would not have paid had they heard the news. Movement of capital toward more productive uses is inhibited. If it is good, some sellers will let go of their shares at prices they would not have accepted. … In either case, there is a net loss to the economy."
Vague anti-insider trading laws distort prices. Prohibiting people from profiting from their access to information makes the economy less fair and less free.
Also, these laws, like all regulation, create a false sense of security. They lead people to think stock traders play on the same level field. Far better to encourage investors to be wary — not complacent — when they buy stocks. For every buyer, there's a seller. What does the other party know that you may not know?
If you object to insider trading, avoid companies that permit it.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "No They Can't: Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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Comparison between Avalanche, Cosmos and Polkadot
Cosmos is a heterogeneous network of many independent parallel blockchains, each powered by classical BFT consensus algorithms like Tendermint. Developers can easily build custom application specific blockchains, called Zones, through the Cosmos SDK framework. These Zones connect to Hubs, which are specifically designed to connect zones together.
The vision of Cosmos is to have thousands of Zones and Hubs that are Interoperable through the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC). Cosmos can also connect to other systems through peg zones, which are specifically designed zones that each are custom made to interact with another ecosystem such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. Cosmos does not use Sharding with each Zone and Hub being sovereign with their own validator set.
For a more in-depth look at Cosmos and provide more reference to points made in this article, please see my three part series — Part One, Part Two, Part Three
Polkadot is a heterogeneous blockchain protocol that connects multiple specialised blockchains into one unified network. It achieves scalability through a sharding infrastructure with multiple blockchains running in parallel, called parachains, that connect to a central chain called the Relay Chain. Developers can easily build custom application specific parachains through the Substrate development framework.
The relay chain validates the state transition of connected parachains, providing shared state across the entire ecosystem. If the Relay Chain must revert for any reason, then all of the parachains would also revert. This is to ensure that the validity of the entire system can persist, and no individual part is corruptible. The shared state makes it so that the trust assumptions when using parachains are only those of the Relay Chain validator set, and no other. Interoperability is enabled between parachains through Cross-Chain Message Passing (XCMP) protocol and is also possible to connect to other systems through bridges, which are specifically designed parachains or parathreads that each are custom made to interact with another ecosystem such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. The hope is to have 100 parachains connect to the relay chain.
For a more in-depth look at Polkadot and provide more reference to points made in this article, please see my three part series — Part One, Part Two, Part Three
Avalanche is a platform of platforms, ultimately consisting of thousands of subnets to form a heterogeneous interoperable network of many blockchains, that takes advantage of the revolutionary Avalanche Consensus protocols to provide a secure, globally distributed, interoperable and trustless framework offering unprecedented decentralisation whilst being able to comply with regulatory requirements.
Avalanche allows anyone to create their own tailor-made application specific blockchains, supporting multiple custom virtual machines such as EVM and WASM and written in popular languages like Go (with others coming in the future) rather than lightly used, poorly-understood languages like Solidity. This virtual machine can then be deployed on a custom blockchain network, called a subnet, which consist of a dynamic set of validators working together to achieve consensus on the state of a set of many blockchains where complex rulesets can be configured to meet regulatory compliance.
Avalanche was built with serving financial markets in mind. It has native support for easily creating and trading digital smart assets with complex custom rule sets that define how the asset is handled and traded to ensure regulatory compliance can be met. Interoperability is enabled between blockchains within a subnet as well as between subnets. Like Cosmos and Polkadot, Avalanche is also able to connect to other systems through bridges, through custom virtual machines made to interact with another ecosystem such as Ethereum and Bitcoin.
For a more in-depth look at Avalanche and provide more reference to points made in this article, please see here and here
Comparison between Cosmos, Polkadot and Avalanche
A frequent question I see being asked is how Cosmos, Polkadot and Avalanche compare? Whilst there are similarities there are also a lot of differences. This article is not intended to be an extensive in-depth list, but rather an overview based on some of the criteria that I feel are most important. For a more in-depth view I recommend reading the articles for each of the projects linked above and coming to your own conclusions. I want to stress that it's not a case of one platform being the killer of all other platforms, far from it. There won't be one platform to rule them all, and too often the tribalism has plagued this space. Blockchains are going to completely revolutionise most industries and have a profound effect on the world we know today. It's still very early in this space with most adoption limited to speculation and trading mainly due to the limitations of Blockchain and current iteration of Ethereum, which all three of these platforms hope to address. For those who just want a quick summary see the image at the bottom of the article. With that said let's have a look
Each Zone and Hub in Cosmos is capable of up to around 1000 transactions per second with bandwidth being the bottleneck in consensus. Cosmos aims to have thousands of Zones and Hubs all connected through IBC. There is no limit on the number of Zones / Hubs that can be created
Parachains in Polkadot are also capable of up to around 1500 transactions per second. A portion of the parachain slots on the Relay Chain will be designated as part of the parathread pool, the performance of a parachain is split between many parathreads offering lower performance and compete amongst themselves in a per-block auction to have their transactions included in the next relay chain block. The number of parachains is limited by the number of validators on the relay chain, they hope to be able to achieve 100 parachains.
Avalanche is capable of around 4500 transactions per second per subnet, this is based on modest hardware requirements to ensure maximum decentralisation of just 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of Memory and with a validator size of over 2,000 nodes. Performance is CPU-bound and if higher performance is required then more specialised subnets can be created with higher minimum requirements to be able to achieve 10,000 tps+ in a subnet. Avalanche aims to have thousands of subnets (each with multiple virtual machines / blockchains) all interoperable with each other. There is no limit on the number of Subnets that can be created.
All three platforms offer vastly superior performance to the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum 1.0. Avalanche with its higher transactions per second, no limit on the number of subnets / blockchains that can be created and the consensus can scale to potentially millions of validators all participating in consensus scores ✅✅✅. Polkadot claims to offer more tps than cosmos, but is limited to the number of parachains (around 100) whereas with Cosmos there is no limit on the number of hubs / zones that can be created. Cosmos is limited to a fairly small validator size of around 200 before performance degrades whereas Polkadot hopes to be able to reach 1000 validators in the relay chain (albeit only a small number of validators are assigned to each parachain). Thus Cosmos and Polkadot scores ✅✅
Tendermint consensus is limited to around 200 validators before performance starts to degrade. Whilst there is the Cosmos Hub it is one of many hubs in the network and there is no central hub or limit on the number of zones / hubs that can be created.
Polkadot has 1000 validators in the relay chain and these are split up into a small number that validate each parachain (minimum of 14). The relay chain is a central point of failure as all parachains connect to it and the number of parachains is limited depending on the number of validators (they hope to achieve 100 parachains). Due to the limited number of parachain slots available, significant sums of DOT will need to be purchased to win an auction to lease the slot for up to 24 months at a time. Thus likely to lead to only those with enough funds to secure a parachain slot. Parathreads are however an alternative for those that require less and more varied performance for those that can't secure a parachain slot.
Avalanche consensus can scale to tens of thousands of validators, even potentially millions of validators all participating in consensus through repeated sub-sampling. The more validators, the faster the network becomes as the load is split between them. There are modest hardware requirements so anyone can run a node and there is no limit on the number of subnets / virtual machines that can be created.
Avalanche offers unparalleled decentralisation using its revolutionary consensus protocols that can scale to millions of validators all participating in consensus at the same time. There is no limit to the number of subnets and virtual machines that can be created, and they can be created by anyone for a small fee, it scores ✅✅✅. Cosmos is limited to 200 validators but no limit on the number of zones / hubs that can be created, which anyone can create and scores ✅✅. Polkadot hopes to accommodate 1000 validators in the relay chain (albeit these are split amongst each of the parachains). The number of parachains is limited and maybe cost prohibitive for many and the relay chain is a ultimately a single point of failure. Whilst definitely not saying it's centralised and it is more decentralised than many others, just in comparison between the three, it scores ✅
Tendermint consensus used in Cosmos reaches finality within 6 seconds. Cosmos consists of many Zones and Hubs that connect to each other. Communication between 2 zones could pass through many hubs along the way, thus also can contribute to latency times depending on the path taken as explained in part two of the articles on Cosmos. It doesn't need to wait for an extended period of time with risk of rollbacks.
Polkadot provides a Hybrid consensus protocol consisting of Block producing protocol, BABE, and then a finality gadget called GRANDPA that works to agree on a chain, out of many possible forks, by following some simpler fork choice rule. Rather than voting on every block, instead it reaches agreements on chains. As soon as more than 2/3 of validators attest to a chain containing a certain block, all blocks leading up to that one are finalized at once.
If an invalid block is detected after it has been finalised then the relay chain would need to be reverted along with every parachain. This is particularly important when connecting to external blockchains as those don't share the state of the relay chain and thus can't be rolled back. The longer the time period, the more secure the network is, as there is more time for additional checks to be performed and reported but at the expense of finality. Finality is reached within 60 seconds between parachains but for external ecosystems like Ethereum their state obviously can't be rolled back like a parachain and so finality will need to be much longer (60 minutes was suggested in the whitepaper) and discussed in more detail in part three
Avalanche consensus achieves finality within 3 seconds, with most happening sub 1 second, immutable and completely irreversible. Any subnet can connect directly to another without having to go through multiple hops and any VM can talk to another VM within the same subnet as well as external subnets. It doesn't need to wait for an extended period of time with risk of rollbacks.
With regards to performance far too much emphasis is just put on tps as a metric, the other equally important metric, if not more important with regards to finance is latency. Throughput measures the amount of data at any given time that it can handle whereas latency is the amount of time it takes to perform an action. It's pointless saying you can process more transactions per second than VISA when it takes 60 seconds for a transaction to complete. Low latency also greatly increases general usability and customer satisfaction, nowadays everyone expects card payments, online payments to happen instantly. Avalanche achieves the best results scoring ✅✅✅, Cosmos with comes in second with 6 second finality ✅✅ and Polkadot with 60 second finality (which may be 60 minutes for external blockchains) scores ✅
Shared Security
Every Zone and Hub in Cosmos has their own validator set and different trust assumptions. Cosmos are researching a shared security model where a Hub can validate the state of connected zones for a fee but not released yet. Once available this will make shared security optional rather than mandatory.
Shared Security is mandatory with Polkadot which uses a Shared State infrastructure between the Relay Chain and all of the connected parachains. If the Relay Chain must revert for any reason, then all of the parachains would also revert. Every parachain makes the same trust assumptions, and as such the relay chain validates state transition and enables seamless interoperability between them. In return for this benefit, they have to purchase DOT and win an auction for one of the available parachain slots.
However, parachains can't just rely on the relay chain for their security, they will also need to implement censorship resistance measures and utilise proof of work / proof of stake for each parachain as well as discussed in part three, thus parachains can't just rely on the security of the relay chain, they need to ensure sybil resistance mechanisms using POW and POS are implemented on the parachain as well.
A subnet in Avalanche consists of a dynamic set of validators working together to achieve consensus on the state of a set of many blockchains where complex rulesets can be configured to meet regulatory compliance. So unlike in Cosmos where each zone / hub has their own validators, A subnet can validate a single or many virtual machines / blockchains with a single validator set. Shared security is optional
Shared security is mandatory in polkadot and a key design decision in its infrastructure. The relay chain validates the state transition of all connected parachains and thus scores ✅✅✅. Subnets in Avalanche can validate state of either a single or many virtual machines. Each subnet can have their own token and shares a validator set, where complex rulesets can be configured to meet regulatory compliance. It scores ✅ ✅. Every Zone and Hub in cosmos has their own validator set / token but research is underway to have the hub validate the state transition of connected zones, but as this is still early in the research phase scores ✅ for now.
Current Adoption
The Cosmos project started in 2016 with an ICO held in April 2017. There are currently around 50 projects building on the Cosmos SDK with a full list can be seen here and filtering for Cosmos SDK . Not all of the projects will necessarily connect using native cosmos sdk and IBC and some have forked parts of the Cosmos SDK and utilise the tendermint consensus such as Binance Chain but have said they will connect in the future.
The Polkadot project started in 2016 with an ICO held in October 2017. There are currently around 70 projects building on Substrate and a full list can be seen here and filtering for Substrate Based. Like with Cosmos not all projects built using substrate will necessarily connect to Polkadot and parachains or parathreads aren't currently implemented in either the Live or Test network (Kusama) as of the time of this writing.
Avalanche in comparison started much later with Ava Labs being founded in 2018. Avalanche held it's ICO in July 2020. Due to lot shorter time it has been in development, the number of projects confirmed are smaller with around 14 projects currently building on Avalanche. Due to the customisability of the platform though, many virtual machines can be used within a subnet making the process incredibly easy to port projects over. As an example, it will launch with the Ethereum Virtual Machine which enables byte for byte compatibility and all the tooling like Metamask, Truffle etc. will work, so projects can easily move over to benefit from the performance, decentralisation and low gas fees offered. In the future Cosmos and Substrate virtual machines could be implemented on Avalanche.
Edit: Since the article was originally published, adoption for Avalanche has increased exponentially, with over 390+ projects launching in the first year, including major DeFi blue chips such as Aave, Curve Finance, Sushiswap, Paraswap, Kyber Network, Tether, USDC and many more.
The Avalanche Ecosystem is rapidly expanding — Private Securities, ILOs, DEX's, Synthetics…
It's been a busy 4months since the mainnet launch of the Avalanche Platform. Private Securities, Initial Litigation…
Whilst it's still early for all 3 projects (and the entire blockchain space as a whole), there is currently more projects confirmed to be building on Cosmos and Polkadot, mostly due to their longer time in development. Whilst Cosmos has fewer projects, zones are implemented compared to Polkadot which doesn't currently have parachains. IBC to connect zones and hubs together is due to launch Q2 2021, thus both score ✅✅✅. Avalanche has been in development for a lot shorter time period, but is launching with an impressive feature set right from the start with ability to create subnets, VMs, assets, NFTs, permissioned and permissionless blockchains, cross chain atomic swaps within a subnet, smart contracts, bridge to Ethereum etc. Applications can easily port over from other platforms and use all the existing tooling such as Metamask / Truffle etc but benefit from the performance, decentralisation and low gas fees offered. Currently though just based on the number of projects in comparison it scores ✅.
Enterprise Adoption
Cosmos enables permissioned and permissionless zones which can connect to each other with the ability to have full control over who validates the blockchain. For permissionless zones each zone / hub can have their own token and they are in control who validates.
With polkadot the state transition is performed by a small randomly selected assigned group of validators from the relay chain plus with the possibility that state is rolled back if an invalid transaction of any of the other parachains is found. This may pose a problem for enterprises that need complete control over who performs validation for regulatory reasons. In addition due to the limited number of parachain slots available Enterprises would have to acquire and lock up large amounts of a highly volatile asset (DOT) and have the possibility that they are outbid in future auctions and find they no longer can have their parachain validated and parathreads don't provide the guaranteed performance requirements for the application to function.
Avalanche enables permissioned and permissionless subnets and complex rulesets can be configured to meet regulatory compliance. For example a subnet can be created where its mandatory that all validators are from a certain legal jurisdiction, or they hold a specific license and regulated by the SEC etc. Subnets are also able to scale to tens of thousands of validators, and even potentially millions of nodes, all participating in consensus so every enterprise can run their own node rather than only a small amount. Enterprises don't have to hold large amounts of a highly volatile asset, but instead pay a fee in AVAX for the creation of the subnets and blockchains which is burnt.
Avalanche provides the customisability to run private permissioned blockchains as well as permissionless where the enterprise is in control over who validates the blockchain, with the ability to use complex rulesets to meet regulatory compliance, thus scores ✅✅✅. Cosmos is also able to run permissioned and permissionless zones / hubs so enterprises have full control over who validates a blockchain and scores ✅✅. Polkadot requires locking up large amounts of a highly volatile asset with the possibility of being outbid by competitors and being unable to run the application if the guaranteed performance is required and having to migrate away. The relay chain validates the state transition and can roll back the parachain should an invalid block be detected on another parachain, thus scores ✅.
Cosmos will connect Hubs and Zones together through its IBC protocol (due to release in Q1 2020). Connecting to blockchains outside of the Cosmos ecosystem would either require the connected blockchain to fork their code to implement IBC or more likely a custom "Peg Zone" will be created specific to work with a particular blockchain it's trying to bridge to such as Ethereum etc. Each Zone and Hub has different trust levels and connectivity between 2 zones can have different trust depending on which path it takes (this is discussed more in this article). Finality time is low at 6 seconds, but depending on the number of hops, this can increase significantly.
Polkadot's shared state means each parachain that connects shares the same trust assumptions, of the relay chain validators and that if one blockchain needs to be reverted, all of them will need to be reverted. Interoperability is enabled between parachains through Cross-Chain Message Passing (XCMP) protocol and is also possible to connect to other systems through bridges, which are specifically designed parachains or parathreads that each are custom made to interact with another ecosystem such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. Finality time between parachains is around 60 seconds, but longer will be needed (initial figures of 60 minutes in the whitepaper) for connecting to external blockchains. Thus limiting the appeal of connecting two external ecosystems together through Polkadot. Polkadot is also limited in the number of Parachain slots available, thus limiting the amount of blockchains that can be bridged. Parathreads could be used for lower performance bridges, but the speed of future blockchains is only going to increase.
A subnet can validate multiple virtual machines / blockchains and all blockchains within a subnet share the same trust assumptions / validator set, enabling cross chain interoperability. Interoperability is also possible between any other subnet, with the hope Avalanche will consist of thousands of subnets. Each subnet may have a different trust level, but as the primary network consists of all validators then this can be used as a source of trust if required. As Avalanche supports many virtual machines, bridges to other ecosystems are created by running the connected virtual machine. There will be an Ethereum bridge using the EVM shortly after mainnet. Finality time is much faster at sub 3 seconds (with most happening under 1 second) with no chance of rolling back so more appealing when connecting to external blockchains.
All 3 systems are able to perform interoperability within their ecosystem and transfer assets as well as data, as well as use bridges to connect to external blockchains. Cosmos has different trust levels between its zones and hubs and can create issues depending on which path it takes and additional latency added. Polkadot provides the same trust assumptions for all connected parachains but has long finality and limited number of parachain slots available. Avalanche provides the same trust assumptions for all blockchains within a subnet, and different trust levels between subnets. However due to the primary network consisting of all validators it can be used for trust. Avalanche also has a much faster finality time with no limitation on the number of blockchains / subnets / bridges that can be created. Overall all three blockchains excel with interoperability within their ecosystem and each score ✅✅.
The ATOM token is the native token for the Cosmos Hub. It is commonly mistaken by people that think it's the token used throughout the cosmos ecosystem, whereas it's just used for one of many hubs in Cosmos, each with their own token. Currently ATOM has little utility as IBC isn't released and has no connections to other zones / hubs. Once IBC is released zones may prefer to connect to a different hub instead and so ATOM is not used. ATOM isn't a fixed capped supply token and supply will continuously increase with a yearly inflation of around 10% depending on the % staked. The current market cap for ATOM as of the time of this writing is $1 Billion with 203 million circulating supply. Rewards can be earnt through staking to offset the dilution caused by inflation. Delegators can also get slashed and lose a portion of their ATOM should the validator misbehave.
Polkadot's native token is DOT and it's used to secure the Relay Chain. Each parachain needs to acquire sufficient DOT to win an auction on an available parachain lease period of up to 24 months at a time. Parathreads have a fixed fee for registration that would realistically be much lower than the cost of acquiring a parachain slot and compete with other parathreads in a per-block auction to have their transactions included in the next relay chain block. DOT isn't a fixed capped supply token and supply will continuously increase with a yearly inflation of around 10% depending on the % staked. With the high inflation rate the amount of DOT will increase significantly over the years. By 2050 the supply will have increased from 1 Billion today to over 16.7 Billion DOT and if the price remained the same today, it would already exceed Ethereum's 2050 market cap. The current market cap for DOT as of the time of this writing is $4.4 Billion with 852 million circulating supply. Delegators can also get slashed and lose their DOT (potentially 100% of their DOT for serious attacks) should the validator misbehave.
AVAX is the native token for the primary network in Avalanche. Every validator of any subnet also has to validate the primary network and stake a minimum of 2000 AVAX. There is no limit to the number of validators like other consensus methods then this can cater for tens of thousands even potentially millions of validators. As every validator validates the primary network, this can be a source of trust for interoperability between subnets as well as connecting to other ecosystems, thus increasing amount of transaction fees of AVAX. There is no slashing in Avalanche, so there is no risk to lose your AVAX when selecting a validator, instead rewards earnt for staking can be slashed should the validator misbehave. Because Avalanche doesn't have direct slashing, it is technically possible for someone to both stake AND deliver tokens for something like a flash loan, under the invariant that all tokens that are staked are returned, thus being able to make profit with staked tokens outside of staking itself.
There will also be a separate subnet for Athereum which is a 'spoon,' or friendly fork, of Ethereum, which benefits from the Avalanche consensus protocol and applications in the Ethereum ecosystem. It's native token ATH will be airdropped to ETH holders as well as potentially AVAX holders as well. This can be done for other blockchains as well.
Transaction fees on the primary network for all 3 of the blockchains as well as subscription fees for creating a subnet and blockchain are paid in AVAX and are burnt, creating deflationary pressure. AVAX is a fixed capped supply of 720 million tokens, creating scarcity rather than an unlimited supply which continuously increase of tokens at a compounded rate each year like others. Initially there will be 360 tokens minted at Mainnet with vesting periods between 1 and 10 years, with tokens gradually unlocking each quarter. The Circulating supply is 24.5 million AVAX with tokens gradually released each quater. The current market cap of AVAX is around $100 million.
Avalanche's AVAX with its fixed capped supply, deflationary pressure, very strong utility, potential to receive air drops and low market cap, means it scores ✅✅✅. Polkadot's DOT also has very strong utility with the need for auctions to acquire parachain slots, but has no deflationary mechanisms, no fixed capped supply and high inflation with supply of DOT increasing from 1 billion to 16 billion by 2050. DOT at the time of this writing is already valued at $3.8 billion, therefore scores ✅✅. Cosmos's ATOM token is only for the Cosmos Hub, of which there will be many hubs in the ecosystem and has very little utility currently. (this may improve once IBC is released and if Cosmos hub actually becomes the hub that people want to connect to and not something like Binance instead. There is no fixed capped supply and currently valued at $1.1 Billion, so scores ✅.
All three are excellent projects and have similarities as well as many differences. Just to reiterate this article is not intended to be an extensive in-depth list, but rather an overview based on some of the criteria that I feel are most important. For a more in-depth view I recommend reading the articles for each of the projects linked above and coming to your own conclusions, you may have different criteria which is important to you, and score them differently. There won't be one platform to rule them all however, with some uses cases better suited to one platform over another, and it's not a zero-sum game. Blockchain is going to completely revolutionize industries and the Internet itself. The more projects researching and delivering breakthrough technology the better, each learning from each other and pushing each other to reach that goal earlier. The current market is a tiny speck of what's in store in terms of value and adoption and it's going to be exciting to watch it unfold.
For more information see the articles below (each with additional sources at the bottom of their articles)
Avalanche Looks Set for Exponential Growth with Subnets, Enterprise Partnerships, Defi Blue Chips…
Avalanche Autumn and Avalanche Rush has officially begun with $650+ Million in incentives, the largest DeFi Blue Chip…
Why I'm so Bullish on Avalanche AVAX.
Avalanche is a platform of platforms, ultimately consisting of thousands of subnets to form a heterogeneous…
Avalanche, a Revolutionary Consensus Engine and Platform. A Game Changer for Blockchain
Avalanche Consensus, The Biggest Breakthrough since Nakamoto
Why Avalanche (AVAX) has the potential to be an incredible store of value
Setting Up an Avalanche Node with Microsoft Azure (Cheaper than AWS)
Cosmos — An Early In-Depth Analysis — Part One
Cosmos — An Early In-Depth Analysis — Part Two
Cosmos Hub ATOM Token and the commonly misunderstood staking tokens — Part Three
Polkadot — An Early In-Depth Analysis — Part One — Overview and Benefits
Polkadot — An Early In-Depth Analysis — Part Two — How Consensus Works
Polkadot — An Early In-Depth Analysis — Part Three — Limitations and Issues


text: by David Crane david (at) defensereview (dot) com May 19, 2006 In our article Defrev Quick Hits 4 from SHOT Show 2006: More Tactical Goodies, we included information about the SOPMOD AK, a modernized AKM/Kalashnikov rifle/carbine with 4-sided/quad-rail Mil-Std-1913 rail system/forend rail tube. This weapons package will soon be offered by Blackheart International, L.L.C. (BHI), which looked like a pretty slick …Read More »


text:
Introduce yourself!
Posted 12 December 1999 - 03:43
As you may have guessed by my user name that my real name is Dennis David. I was born in 1953 (ouch) in Hilversum, The Netherlands and have lived in the United States off and on since 1958. Never got around to becoming an American citizen though I did serve in the US Army 1972-1976 in Germany. I currently work as a Manager/Developer for a small software consulting company.
As everyone else I mad about racing of all kinds and have full respect for other racing series including even the IRL! I have had the opportunity in my life to do a lot of traveling and have been to many Grands Prix, which I have followed since 1962. I currently have a website called Grand Prix History and have started writing various articles, reviews on that subject. I am embarking on writing my first novel, which is a bit of historical fiction and should take me a year or two to complete.
I am not a big poster and AtlasF1 is the only BB I even visit. Don Capps started this new Nostalgia Forum as an area to talk about cars and racing, a place where we can pull up a seat and just shoot the breeze. I am extremely pleased with the direction that this forum is heading and the quality of the posts. I will continue to add my $.02 but maybe less frequently as I do have that book to write!
Ok now it's your turn, Ian, Dr?
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
[This message has been edited by Dennis David (edited 12-11-1999).]
Posted 12 December 1999 - 12:08
As usual, you seem to have all the Great Ideas!
As can be guessed, I am the Moderator of this Forum and love it!
I am just a motor racing junkie and love virtually all forms of the sport. I am a long-time racing nut, seeing my first race at the Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, GA when I was about three years old. Hooked ever since! Been hooked on to the Grand Prix circus since 1954, and saw my first GP in 1955.
I was an Army Brat and spent most of my life as a youngster in Europe returning to the USA in 1961 when my Dad retired.
With just a few exceptions, I have been in the Army since I was 19 - and I am still serving at the ripe young age of 52. I plan to get out in about three years and get a real job.
I am an Army historian among other things, plus a professor, high school teacher, Ranger, researcher, and a few other things here and there. I tend to be the sort of like the ready brigade at Fort Bragg: I get to jump into all sorts of interesting situations! Currently I work with training technologies and simulations for the Army.
My great Unfinished Project is a book on the South Carolina Militia and National Guard. And then the one on real history of racing in the 20th century....
Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,
Don Capps
Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we'd have the solution already…
Posted 12 December 1999 - 13:57
My only real exposure to F1 history is from Don Capps and a video series called, F1 Saga, by White Star video. I have a lot to learn about the history of the sport I love. I'm a Scorpio so that makes me all at once; stubborn and eager to learn new concepts. I tend to latch onto other concepts people bring to me that ring true to my heart and soul, and make them my own.
My experience at atlasf1 has been very, very rich indeed. From the bad moments to the greatest moments. I truly love all you people who have the patience to teach me something...a skill that I don't have for other people like me. I am fiercely loyal, and there are more than a few of you here that I would lay it all on the line for.
I like F1, CART, NASCAR, and increasingly, the IRL. I really like the sound of the new 3.5 litre engines, and the Panther car looks like a yellow version of the Jaguar and I think that is just plain NEAT!!
I am fascinated by history in general, and have digested volumes and volumes of text on the Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires. I am looking forward to discovering the rich history of F1, including the days prior to 1950. I am currently looking into this Nuvolari character.
I hope you will all treat me like a sponge. Because in this case, that is exactly what I am!!
Forza Ferrari!!
Posted 12 December 1999 - 15:02
Posted 12 December 1999 - 15:57
Im Jason, and im an Raceaholic
Im 16, born and currently live in Toronto Canada.
50% of my thought proccess is made up of F1. I love it, along with many other forms of motorsport, including CART, BTCC, and Rally. My favorite driver is Jacques Villeneuve, with MS shortly behind. My favorite non F1 drivers, are Patric Carpentier (one of my favs overall) and James Thompson.
I also follow football (go Niners) and somewhat baseball, hockey, and boxing.
I spend most of my time at home investing in the stock market, and talking on here. And its safe to say that I am addicted.
As if many of you didnt notice, I am very proud to be canadian, and make no secret of it.
I play on getting into karting once I convince my parents its no more dangerous then hockey.
And thats about it, im actually quite boring.
Id tell you what music i listen to, but then you would all think less of me ;0
Thank you, and good night.
Posted 13 December 1999 - 01:02
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 02:09
Yeah, When Eddie left the whole front office went up in flames, and now they are in over there head with all these cap debts.
Gary Plummer said it best, when he said that aside from the select few, the players on the Niners right now are not real 49ers, there just temps, picked up off of waivers, who will be here today, gone tomorow.
Worst part is, the managment thinks they have the talent to get out of this drout, and I think there just gonna sink deeper.
Posted 13 December 1999 - 02:35
BTW Wish they had picked up Jake Plummer or at least kept Detmer.
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 04:29
Posted 13 December 1999 - 04:39
Posted 13 December 1999 - 05:40
Go DC United!
I had to say that....
Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,
Don Capps
Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we'd have the solution already…
Posted 13 December 1999 - 06:52
I blame it on the front office, for dumb moves, and obvious ignorance as far as the cap goes. I agree it would have been great to see Plummer, but ofcourse we got stuck with DRUNKENmiller. Walsh wanted Plummer, but I gee, the guy wins 4 superbowls for you, what does he know? Then ofcouse we have the Phillips move, and the Vardell trade. Dont know what they were thinking with those two. Edwards was a rising star at FB, now Vardell is benched.
Btw, I said at the begining of the year that Garcia would be a great pickup, I saw him play in the CFL. People called me a moron for suggesting that he could be the QB of the future for the Niners.
Team benched him for Stenstrom, which I said was incredibly dumb. Stenstrom sucked, didnt score more then two TD's in 5 games. they bring Garcia back last week, the O has there best game of the year, and as the score stands now, its 19-0 Niners.
I was right all along about Garcia, the kid can play.
Posted 13 December 1999 - 07:27
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 07:48
ONe of my earliest childhood memories was asking my dad how the Niners were doing as he read the paper. I never watched there games, didnt know a single player. I was just kinda born a fan. But then as I grew older I actually transfered my mysterious love for the team into actually following them closely.
Weeeird, ehehe
Posted 13 December 1999 - 08:35
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 08:48
Born in 1962 in the tiny mountain kingdom of Swaziland, I knew nothing of racing until, one day in late February 1971, my father came home from work and said 'Okay, kids, we're going to Kyalami to see the Grand Prix next weekend.' I had no idea what he was talking about, but my brother (8 years older than me) was literally speechless with excitement, so I had the feeling that this was going to be 'a good thing'.
Well, suffice to say that when those twenty-odd cars came past on the first lap (we were sitting at Crowthorne) and my head literally spun with the joyous shriek of the Matra V12, I was hooked. Mario Andretti won that race, but Emo and JYS became my firm faves.
Each year, we would attend four Kyalami meetings - the GP, the Nine Hour and two others. In those days, South Africa operated its own F1 circus, although there were only three or at most four F1's at any time, with the rest of the field made up of F5000's.
Over the years, my interest in F1 grew, and no other form of motor sport holds my interest like F1 does. Sure, I love watching bikes and sports cars, BTCC and junior single-seater formula, but there's just something about the glamour of F1 that is still unmatched in my opinion.
Over the years, I had to stop dreaming about being an F1 driver, and decide on a real career. I'd always loved the movies, and television was taking off in SA in a big way. So that's what I chose. Currently I write, produce, direct and/or edit, depending on the needs of the programme. It's the only industry I've ever worked in, and I love it too much to ever consider leaving.
Although rugby and cricket are my country's national sports (and I follow both keenly), I am also a Niners fan. But don't ask, it's a looong story...
Posted 13 December 1999 - 09:30
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 10:57
Posted 13 December 1999 - 12:11
Occupation: Lawyer by training, VP and Title Officer of a multi-state title insurance agency.
I enjoy most forms of racing...F1, CART, GT and sports cars, etc. I tend to get nostalgiac about 60's F1, and my personal racing heroes are Jim Clark and Dan Gurney.
Hope this gives some context.
Posted 13 December 1999 - 12:38
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 12:45
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 13:31
Posted 13 December 1999 - 14:20
BTW Remember when Ferrari and Ford took turns fininshing in formation? I'd like to see Jaguar do that in F1, boy would that stir some feathers!
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 15:18
My first introduction to racing was at a quarter mile speedway near my home in the western suburbs of Sydney, but I saw that only as a step along the way to the real stuff, road racing, which at that early age (I was 14) was a train trip away at Warwick Farm. At 16 I started going there, and until 1983 I basically went to every meeting I could wherever I could. This frequently meant 1200-mile round trips for the weekend, but it was great fun at the time.
I therefore have seen racing in every state of Australia, seeing up to 32 meetings a year in the mid sixties, maybe 25 or so most years until 1983, after which I had a cutback to about ten a year, then from 1988 almost nil for a few yeas. Now I am in Brisbane and see very little racing, but so much is televised these days I don't feel to bad about it.
I write principally about the 'good old days,' even days before I existed, so I am frequently in touch with people who raced in the fifties, forties, thirties and even twenties to find out about the cars, the circuits and their circumstances. Hence the P3 request, and I do thank Dennis Davies for putting me in touch with AtlasF1.
That was a few days ago, I find it great, if a little time-consuming while I'm still catching up.
My main personal pursuit is circuits, which I love. I've mentioned Lobethal on one forum here, but there have been some 110 road racing circuits in Australia, of which I've seen about 43. They've ranged from the fantastic to the dreadful, from the plastic to the very real, from airstrips to real mountain road stuff.
Our great days in racing in Australia were, naturally enough, the Tasman Series years - 1964 to 1969, with some good stuff through to about 1974/75. Touring cars dominate now, and the same disease that afflicts the sport world-wide - extreme cost - hurts it here.
But we do have a World Championship race here, and have had since 1985, and the Indy race on the Gold Coast, which keeps us in touch to some degree.
And I think I would rather there be no talk about football, basketball, baseball, cricket, tennis or anything on this bulletin board.
Posted 13 December 1999 - 19:39
But every so often a word here a mention there will bring back a flood of memories and maybe even something that we had not known before or had somehow forgotten. That's how it is when you join a forum, they can be a messy lot.
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 08:29
I am a racing fan since I was a child, my favorite track is the Nürburgring, which is also closest to my home. Unfortunately I never saw a Formula1 race there, but many touring car and veteran car races, sometimes by chance when I visited my sister and took a small detour through the Eiffel mountains.
Old cars are my real passion, not only race cars. My favorite is quite the opposite, it's a 1960 red and white BMW Isetta, 12 hp, 250 ccm. (The Italian Iso Isetta was in the Mille Miglia )
I restored it myself, which was alot of fun, and it will not be the last car to be restored. Currently there is a 1971 VW waiting for caring hands, I chased it to the polar circel this summer, now, after this 3000 km trip, I will finally rejuvinate it. (don't say it's not worth it, it's my very first car, I own it since '91)
Since I missed the largest part of history I have to make up with what is left, and so I try to collect old photographs, books, model cars. Sometimes I wish I head all my stuff with me here, I could be alot more precise when I post.
best regards,
Posted 13 December 1999 - 21:07
BTW I love that area and If I am in Europe I often drive that way from Holland through Belgium along Germany's Mosel river and South into Austria.
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 13 December 1999 - 21:31
BTW Dennis,
the Mosel tour you described is probably the nicest route to travel in Germany.
[This message has been edited by Lutz (edited 12-13-1999).]
Posted 13 December 1999 - 21:46
My father is a farmer in Tennesse and an avid race fan. My earliest racing memories are of pickup camper trips to Road Atlanta to see the CAN-AM series. As I got older my father started taking me on the annual trip to the Indy 500.
During my five year tour in Germany I started following Formula One in 95 - Mainly to find out what all my German neighbors and friends were talking about. After a spur of the moment weekend roadtrip to NurburgRing in April 96 I was hooked. The site of Villeneuve holding off Schumacher for those last laps to get his first win was awe inspiring. Everyone around me waved German/Ferrari flags and checked my crude time sheets as Schumacher closed the gap. Villeneuve held on much to general dismay in the stands where I sat.
In July 96 the Army moved me to Schwetzingen, Germany about 10 miles from Hockenheim. That combined with the other american F1 fans I met in the Heidelberg military community sealed my fate. The highlight of my short formula one fan career has been bringing my dad to Europe to see Monaco in 97 and San Marino last spring. My ticket order form for next Indy next fall is in and my dad has already tested out the old pickup camper.
Looking back the lowpoint of my formula spectating was NurburgRing 97. Villenueve won again after both Hakkinen and Coulthard engines had come aparts directly in front of my seats. As the checkered flag fell, my then girlfriend/now wife urged me to join the crowd jumping the fence in front of our stands. I was too emotionally exhausted to join the rush to the podium and opted to head to the car and try to beat the traffic back to Heidelberg. She took it stoically and even joined me for Spa in summer of 98 four months pregnant to camp in the rain (and early a.m. snow). We sat directly over the first lap carnage. I missed intial stages of the wreck as I was looking left following Villeneuves pass attempt into Euau Rouge. My wife yanked me back around to see the last stages of the carnage come to a rest in front of our seats. No one there exhaled for about a minute as everyone watched to make sure all the drivers got out of their cars unhurt.
I am greatly enjoying this forum and am interested in next spring's historic races at Road Atlanta. If anyone else is interested in a weekend of camping at Road Atlanta let me know.
Posted 13 December 1999 - 22:18
I'll be 30 in a couple of days and I was born in Charlottesville Virginia. I've lived in various parts of Virginia, spent summer in Palo Alto California and went to grade school for a year in Atlanta Georgia. In 1984, I lived in Hilversum NL on a street called Leitgarteweg. I just thought I should put that in, for Dennis David's sake! I also lived on a sailboat for about a year and a half. Primarily we went around the Carribean but I also made it as far north east as Badeck Nova Scotia.
I became an F1 fan when Niki Lauda caught fire. That wasn't really the appeal, but that is when I learned the defference between this sport and the Indy 500. My father's uncle Helmut was chairman of the OAMTC for years and he is a retired motorcycle racer. My mother's father was a movie stuntman and a professional driver. He used to bring various Rolls Royces, Duesenburgs, and Mercedes around before I was born. He didn't live long enough for me to meet him, but I've mimicked his driving a car off of a cliff stunt. He used to get out first, I'm told.
Anyway, I really enjoy this forum and look forward to learning from all of you.
Posted 14 December 1999 - 01:07
Some people might know me from the few paragraphs I sometimes put together, which one would call the nostalgia column or the f1 quiz.
I also fit nicely into the subtheme of this thread as I'm also the son of an army man
Besides the history of Grand Prix racing and especially the stats of that, my greatest hobby is driving racing cars on my computer. This mainly in Grand Prix 2, with which I compete in a competition on the net called LFRS (Little Formula Racing Series).
You won't find many postings of me, as I generally don't have enough with 24 hours a day to do everything I need to do and want to do, but trust me, I'm lurking in the shadows ;)
Posted 14 December 1999 - 05:24
I am interested in racing for as long as I can remember. And when I say racing I mean racing in general and not just F1. I find that all big series that are around now have something interesting. But I have to say that F1 and sportscars are my favourites.
The reason I dont post here very often is that my knowledge of F1 history at the moment isn't very great. I would love to change that but being a student I dont have the time and the money to do so . My interest in racing history started when I heard/smelled/saw a march 707 at Zandvoort some time ago. When I found this forum I realy got interested and I have been trying to increas my knowledge since that time.
Posted 14 December 1999 - 07:35
It had about 165 bhp from its front-mounted Renault 16TS engine, a 5-speed Fiat gearbox and weighed in at under a ton. With slicks on 8" and 10" (x13") wheels it was a fair tool and I won a series one year.
These days this class is restricted to 1300cc, but they are mighty quick cars and very simple to run. Not too expensive, either, on a par with Formula Vee. But lots faster, both in straight line speed and lap speed.
Posted 14 December 1999 - 08:51
"If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face."
-Zack de la Rocha
Posted 14 December 1999 - 13:28
My first exposure to motorsports was in 1983, when my friend Robert took me to the Long Beach GP. I didn't really want to go, but I'm glad he convinced me I would love it because I did. Over the years since I have followed Formula One inconsistently - not because I wasn't really interested, but because I have had a hell of a wild life. (Long story; another time, if ever.) Since moving to the American South two years ago, I have developed a fondness for NASCAR (I have friends who race in the lower echelons), but my heart will always belong first and foremost to F1. Among motorsports, that is. I do have part of an eye on touring cars but know nothing about it as yet.
Other sports I like are American football (yet another beleaguered 49ers fan), rugby and soccer, none of which I follow very closely (this appears to be my pattern).
Closet Bugatti fiend. Well, not "closet" anymore, I suppose.
[This message has been edited by Pit Babe (edited 12-14-1999).]
Posted 15 December 1999 - 01:11
My nick is also my real name. I am a 26 year old student (vehicle engeneering) from Delft, The Netherlands. I finally registered to this forum today, after an occasional visit in the past.
I can't remember what or when got me interested in motorsport, all I know is that closely follow F1 since 1984 (yes I was 11 years old at the time). Cars were my first love anyway (my mother says that 'auto' (the Dutch translation for 'car') was in fact the first word I spoke. Over the years I've become interested in motorcycles also, and since I own one (a 1982 Honda CB900) I must say I love it just as much as cars now.
As far as Formule 1 is concerned, I never saw a race live, all I've seen is from TV. I have seen a number of motorraces though, and the Dutch Assen circuit is one of the greatest tracks to enjoy those.
For the record, my favorite drivers over the years are: Gilles Villeneuve, Alain Prost and currently Jean Alesi. I've read many books and seen a number of TV shows or videos about the early days of F1 and it never stops to excite me. It must have been great to be there in those days.
I also checked out Dennis' formula 1 history site, and I enjoyed it very much. Especially the 'great races' part I like very much.
This forum seems to be very nice, so I hope to take part in some interesting discussions soon.
Posted 15 December 1999 - 02:12
Although I work in ecology, I have a background in history including an MA in regional studies. Don, an occasional hobby is history of the Pacific War esp. the Battle of Midway.
I'm a native New Englander, and support the local sports teams in baseball, football, hockey, and hoops. My current favorite atheletes are Ray Bourque and Pedro Martinez. Drew Bledsoe is on my ^&%&^ list at the moment...
I play some pick-up sports esp. basketball, and do a lot of photography, hiking, and x-country skiing.
49ers fans, no complaints now. You guys are way overdue for a non-winning year
Posted 15 December 1999 - 02:26
Posted 15 December 1999 - 05:15
I'm glad to hear someone else, is having the same trouble biting the bullet in giving TG money. I made the same promise to myself and did'nt put in an order for tix, but my cousin, who goes up for the other two races, put in his order and offered me one. I have to admit I'm getting a little excited about it. I still gritting my teeth though.
This is a wonderful thread. It gives us all a chance to wax philosphically about our racing roots. I've been amazed at finding out that some of the posters who provide some very well thought out opinions are teenagers.
My father has no interest in racing at all and is amazed he raised such a fan. But he and a buddy of his took me to a drag race in Chandler, Ind when I was two, and I think I've had the bug ever since.
Posted 15 December 1999 - 22:16
My real name is Mattijs Diepraam, I'm 31 and a professional copywriter, married and father of a baby boy. My first acquaintance with motor sports came in the summer of '76, in the form of Niki Lauda's fiery 'Ring accident being televised over and over again. To an eight-year old, it made a hell of an impression. Curiously, it didn't put me off motor racing but instead I became a Ferrari fan on the spot and cheered when my father, who was working for an oil company at the time, came home with a couple of paddock tickets for the 1976 Dutch GP. Having browsed the paddock at Zandvoort I temporarily switched my allegiance to Scheckter's amazing P34 six-wheeler, then rooting for his stunning Wolf the years to come, before the two (Scheckter and Ferrari) came together for their 1979 title campaign. Witnessing Villeneuve drive a three-wheeled Ferrari halfway around Zandvoort that year made me switch my support to Gilles. At a loss for a hero after his death in 1982 I started to back Nelson Piquet after he smacked up Eliseo Salazar at Hockenheim. I was probably the only one in the world who actually thought that was funny! Incidentally, I haven't been to a race since the 1985 Dutch GP and haven't had a clear favourite since, oh, 1987. These days I sort of root for Ferrari for old times' sake, although I realise those are long gone. As far as drivers are concerned, each season I just pick one guy I to sympathize with: over the past few years these have been Fisichella, Trulli, and, this season, Ralf.
My contribution to the Web comes in the form of the 6th Gear and 8W pages on the Racer.Demon site. Really only my creation of the 8W game has turned me into a historically minded race fan, although in knowledge I still lag way behind my friend and fellow 8W editor Felix Muelas, who has been instrumental in sparking my interest for everything that happened before 1976! I also can't touch the authority of Dennis or this forum's moderator, for that matter, so I'm very proud they actually dig 8W...
Cheers, nice thread,
Mattijs @ 8W
Visit the Racer.Demon web site at http://www.racer.demon.nl
URL1" TARGET=_blank>http://www.racer.demon.nl
URL1 http://www.racer.demon.nl/6thgear
URL2" TARGET=_blank>http://www.racer.demon.nl/6thgear
URL2 http://www.racer.demon.nl/8w
and" TARGET=_blank>http://www.racer.demon.nl/8w
and play 8W, the Web's most fiendish F1 detective game!
Posted 16 December 1999 - 05:49
I like all kinds of auto racing in general. My favorite by far is F1. I used to follow the Sports Championship (when it was really worth it) and Can-Am.
My first contact to auto racing was the Mexico Grand Prix in the late sixties, a race I have attended every year they have held it at a time I have been livin in Mexico. Since Mexico is not really a good place for auto racing the only other events worth mentioning are
Italy GP 1972 (Emerson won his first WDC),
Daytona 1972 (the short 6hrs version won by Mario and Ickx in a Ferrari 312P - a real beauty)
Can-Am Riverside in 1973 (one of the last races of the great Porsche 917/30 and the venue for the very first IROC)
CART Laguna Seca 1992 (a beautiful track)
During my time in Saint Louis I became part of the Timming&Scoring crew for the Saint Louis International Raceway (now the site of a CART race, unfortunately not then).
Even I do not get to see the races live I watch as much as I can in TV but mostly I follow through printed and, more recentrly, internet material.
My other interests are cycling (I have a pair of beatiful Pinarellos and a Bianchi) and photography.
Luis Felipe
[This message has been edited by luisfelipetrigo (edited 12-15-1999).]
Posted 16 December 1999 - 09:53
Other interests include history, especially military, reading and music. I am currently editing a diary of one of Custer's Michigan cavalrymen from the American Civil War. I have too many cats, too many (British) cars, and not enough furniture!
Read the Atlas BB for a year before posting. Now I spend way too much time here, as do we all.
Posted 17 December 1999 - 12:22
Someone once asked me, since I have lived so long in the United States how come you are still not a citizen. To this I can only smile as the answer can only be known by my Dutch friends on this board. For though my body is in the States my heart resides in Europe. I try to return each year and recently bought a timeshare in Austria. The future may well see me live in both countries with a stop in Puerto Vallerta every so often.
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 17 December 1999 - 12:35
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 17 December 1999 - 22:46
...though my body is in the States my heart resides in Europe.
As you know I am not European, but I understand this statement very very well.
Experientia docet
Posted 17 December 1999 - 23:47
Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david
Life is racing, the rest is waiting
Grand Prix History
Posted 15 January 2000 - 08:15
My name is Stephen Herbert and since I found this site I have been looking around it far too much! I should take a break soon.
I live in Bedfordshire in the United Kingdom and am 19 years old.
I first became interested in motor racing in 1991, when I saw some F1 racing on the TV. I followed F1 racing on the television for about a year. I have absolutely no idea why but I used to support the Fondmetal team! From then on I started to learn about other forms of motor-sport and started to enjoy them all. I now like any form of motor sport.
Wanting to learn more I started to buy books and videos that told me about the history of this great sport and started to realise I was born a couple of generations to late. I would have loved to have been around to see racing in the late 40's-early 50's, that is my favourite era.
In terms of drivers I do not think anyone comes close to being as complete a driver as Stirling Moss. He was top class in every type of vehicle he drove, was always a sportsman, publicised his sport well and still promotes motor racing all over the world to this day.
I adore this Nostaglia Forum. It's an absolutely fabulous place to be informed and entertained about the thing I love more than any other. Motor Racing!
Posted 15 January 2000 - 08:23
"Hey there, all you middle men
Throw away your fancy clothes
And while you're out there sittin' on a fence
So get off your ass and come down here
'Cause rock 'n' roll ain't no riddle man
To me it makes good, good sense"
-Brian Johnson
Posted 16 January 2000 - 11:10
Again, a warm welcome to all our new members!
Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,
Don Capps
Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we'd have the solution already…
[This message has been edited by Don Capps (edited 01-16-2000).]
Posted 17 January 2000 - 02:34
I am the mother of four grown children, work as a nurse and am the only one in my family that watches racing.
I live in Vancouver, B.C. and am so keen for F-1 that I get up a 4:30 A.M. to watch the races live. I have been following since the sixties.
I grew up going to local stock car races and have never lost my interest. I am also a fan of CART. Open wheel racing being my favourite for many years.


text:
Next, he talked about his career and his vision for a more socially responsible restaurant that would attract people from all walks of life rather than solely catering to those who could afford a fine dining experience. After working in several high-end restaurants both in Europe and New York, in 2010, he opened Red Rooster in Harlem. He intended to include fried chicken on the menu, and he wanted to create a version that expressed his culinary point of view. That became his coconut fried chicken. The version prepared in the class was seared chicken that was then stewed in coconut milk with garlic, chiles, and lime. After being cooked through, the chicken was allowed to cool, dipped in egg white, rolled in panko breadcrumbs, and fried until golden and crisp. It was served with collard greens that had also been cooked with coconut milk. Coming back to the importance of texture in any dish, quickly blanched bok choy was added to the simmered collard greens so there would be variety in the feel of the vegetable.
The last dish of the evening looked to Ethiopia where Samuelsson was born. It was a lamb hash with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beets topped with a fried egg. The hash was seasoned with bebere which is a mix of ground fenugreek seeds, dried chile powder, paprika, salt, ginger, onion powder, cardamom, nutmeg, garlic powder, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice. The book, Yes, Chef, begins with a moving description of Samuelsson's mother and how he doesn't remember her face. Although he doesn't know what his mother looked like, he does know how she cooked. He knows she used berbere as did everyone in Ethiopia. He writes: "For me, my mother is berbere..." The berbere tinted the cooking oil a nice, reddish orange and gave the dish spicy depth. I'm thinking of recreating a vegetarian version of the hash, and I'm thinking of adding berbere to all kinds of other dishes too. The class brought food memories to life through dishes elevated with a chef's experience. For the whole story, I highly recommend the book Yes, Chef.


text:
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text:
This might be the best Kristen Stewart has looked all year. Gorgeous. On fashion then, as we move into 3 weeks of heavy promotion for Twilight 5, I am excited, especially if the people pulling for her are making great choices like these. It's Louis Vuitton from the SS2013 collection that was just presented in Paris earlier this month and, as I noted when I posted the images, click here for a refresher, I liked the LV aesthetic better than Chanel. They've styled Stewart almost perfectly too though I would have gone would a different shoe...
That shoe is a little Kardashian/Keibler, non?
So all is right in the world again. It's almost November, and that means Twilight time; Robsten has been revived, Robert Pattinson isn't sad anymore, Kristen Stewart has her boyfriend back, and the Twilight illusion is back on sale. I spoke about this during my TED Talk on Sunday on The Sociology of Gossip in the Stewart section addressing marital convention, fidelity, and the social expectation on the female in relationships: Stewart's mistake may not just be that she was cheating on her boyfriend, but that in doing so, she broke the dream of every girl raised since birth to believe that it's not the White House that's the ultimate goal but to fall in love with the Perfect Man. How dare she betray that fantasy.
But it's all good now because she's rescued back the fantasy.
Happily ever after is still possible ladies! Yay us!


text:
Friday, November 12, 2010
I knew that to make croissant dough, a whole lot of butter needed to be layered into some dough. I knew it was necessary to roll out the layered dough and butter and fold and turn. I was sure that I would fail instantly at this and there would be butter squishing out in every direction, and I would never get the dough rolled into a straight enough shape to fold properly. I was wrong. Before starting, I read the recipe all the way through about ten times. Then, I set about following each step as precisely as I could. The dough was made with yeast, flour, sugar, salt, and milk. It was made in a stand mixer with a dough hook. As instructed, I added a little more milk when the flour wasn't all worked into the dough. When it came together, the dough was wrapped in plastic and refrigerated overnight. The next day, I mixed four and half sticks of cold butter with two tablespoons of flour and pressed it into a thick oval. My oval of butter wasn't all that attractive because of the wrinkles left by the plastic wrap, but it really doesn't matter how it looks. I refrigerated the butter oval for an hour or two before proceeding.
The next step was what I thought would be the scariest. The dough was rolled into a wide oval, and the butter oval was placed in the center of it. The dough was folded over the butter, and then, the butter had to be distributed across the width of the dough. This was done by whacking the packaged dough and butter bundle with a rolling pin. Slowly but surely the butter did work its way throughout the dough, and it did not result in the squishing mess I had anticipated. One small victory was mine. After distributing the butter, and rolling a little, you are left with a big rectangle of butter-filled dough, and you give it its first fold. Excess flour was brushed off, the dough was folded in thirds like a letter, and it was placed on a baking sheet, covered with plastic wrap, and refrigerated for two hours. My first fold of croissant dough went off without a hitch.
Next, the dough was rolled again into a big rectangle, it was folded in thirds once again, and it was placed back in the refrigerator for another two hours. Then, it was time for the third and final folding. The dough was rolled yet again into a big rectangle, and this time, the dough was folded inward in quarters with the last fold closing like a book, and that double turn is known as the wallet. I loved making the wallet. I didn't have finished croissants yet, but I felt like I had really accomplished something by successfully arriving at this point. Interestingly, at this point, or after any of the folds, the dough could have been placed in the freezer to store for a later date. It should be thawed overnight in the refrigerator before proceeding with the next step. Otherwise, after the last fold, the dough should be refrigerated for two hours before proceeding, and I left it refrigerated overnight.
At last, it was time to actually make the croissants. The chilled dough, with all those folded-over layers of butter, was cut in half and one piece went into the freezer while the other one was rolled into a big rectangle one more time. That was folded in half. That double layer of dough was cut into triangles. The double-layered triangles were unfolded back out into a single layer, and the dough was cut down the center to separate the triangles, and croissant forming began. After cutting the triangles, there are two scrap pieces of dough from each end. Those scraps are used to make little footballs of dough that sit in the back of each croissant to help plump them. Or, if you're making almond croissants, which I also did, a little ball of almond paste would be used instead. To form each croissant, a dough triangle was picked up and stretched to twice its length. The football of scrap dough or ball of almond paste was placed at the wide end of the triangle. Then, the triangle was rolled from wide end down to small end, and voila, croissants were born. After filling two baking sheets with croissants, they were brushed with an egg wash, the almond paste filled ones were sprinkled with sliced almonds, and they were left to rise for three hours before being baked.
Yes, this was a project. Mixing the dough on the first day was quick and easy, but you do need to have two days thereafter during which you can come into the kitchen every couple of hours and tend to the dough and then spend the time to form the croissants and wait for them to rise. But, you already know I'm going to tell you it is absolutely worth every minute of your time. After one bite, I declared that these croissants were hands-down the most delicious things I've ever baked. The bonus to all of this is that, that last time the dough came out of the refrigerator, it was cut in half. Half was used to make these croissants, and the other half is in the freezer. I can use that to make more croissants whenever I want. When it's gone, I'll definitely make the dough again just as soon as the weather, my schedule, and the universe are all aligned once more.
I'm submitting this to Yeastspotting where you'll find some seriously well-made bread.
Posted by lisa is cooking at Friday, November 12, 2010
44 comments:
Lisa, your croissants are so, so beautiful. I'm thrilled that you made them and more thrilled that you enjoyed the process and were happy with your 'beauties'. May the universe align again.ReplyDelete
They're gorgeous! I made feuilletage at LCB but haven't attempted at home. I'm thinking about making pain au chocolat (my weakness) for breakfast Thanksgiving morning. The family would probably go ga-ga over them so it would be worth the (considerable) effort.ReplyDelete
This was an project to commit to, one that I am even more intimidated about after reading this post. These croissants are quite a labor of love, and a big accomplishment.ReplyDelete
They are beautiful! Kudos.ReplyDelete
Lisa, your croissants are works of art! I commend you for diving in to this scary task. Croissants are on my baking bucket list, and "Baking with Julia" is one of my favorite cookbooks. You've inspired me to take the plunge after the holidays. Thanks for this! :)ReplyDelete
OMG, your croissants are amazing! My list of recipes to try is so long that it can't be mental anymore, it's in a Word file ;)ReplyDelete
looks divine! well done :)ReplyDelete
Baking with Julia...Lisa, your croissants are FABULOUS!! A project worth every ticking minute. I have it on my list of things to do. Is the recipe from MTAFC?ReplyDelete
Wow, I'm impressed. Your croissants are gorgeous!!ReplyDelete
Great job, Lisa!
Deeba: The recipe in Baking with Julia is from guest baker Esther McManus. There is a recipe for croissants in MTAFC vol. 2, but it's a little different.ReplyDelete
You definitely beat me to it.... :-)ReplyDelete
After my pathetic attempt at making croissants last year, I never tried them again, but had set as a goal to get them right...
I will use this recipe next time, I have the book at home
Great job, Lisa! They look amazing!
Your croissants look perfect, seriously. Perfectly fluffy and light! Now I want one! I have not yet tried to make croissants on my own, and I am not sure that I am quite ready to try... things like this and gnocchi are still kind of intimidating to me. But maybe soon!ReplyDelete
I think its wonderful that you tried something out of your comfort zone. You must be so pleased with the way they came out, they look splendid, I am way impressed with the flaky layers on the inside.ReplyDelete
*kisses* HH
Wow, gorgeous! Are you sure these were your first croissants?ReplyDelete
How beautiful. Congratulations! I have not yet attempted croissants.ReplyDelete
One of my weaknesses, and after working in a bakery years ago along side very speedy Russian women, well I just enjoy them when I can buy them out LOL I had never seen so much dough before rolled out on the table...Yours look great. I like them with Marzipan too :)ReplyDelete
Croissants now remind me of Meryl Streep and Steve Martin making them in It's Complicated.ReplyDelete
Croissant making is absolutely on my bucket list and it's hard to tell whether I haven't attempted it yet out of fear that I'll fail or fear that I'll eat all of them. These look fantastic!ReplyDelete
You didn't! You actually MADE croissants? I am so totally impressed. Could we be neighbors???ReplyDelete
These look to die for, love them. Making your own croissants is so worth it...., I must, I must get around to doing it again...., its been ages.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousNovember 14, 2010 at 8:08 AM
Oh, just look at your beautiful croissants!! I'm so spoiled here with all the boulangeries, I don't even think about doing it at home...but just look at these homebaked beauties...wonderful Lisa!!ReplyDelete
I cannot believe those were your first-ever croissants, they look absolutely perfect! What a fun project. :-)ReplyDelete
Oh my lord - you did it! - and they're so beautiful...they look prettier than the ones at the boulangerie down the street from me. Congratulations, Lisa!ReplyDelete
These look adorable! How crispy and fluffy they are! FANTASTIC!ReplyDelete
I bow down to you! Making your own croissants is no easy feat. And yours turned out beautifully; they could rival ones in Paris. ;)ReplyDelete
I don't know if you could make any more perfect croissants - hard to believe this was your first attempt!! You must have some master french baking genes in you!!ReplyDelete
(major applause coming your way!!!)
Lisa - I salute you, your croissants are amazing. They are just incredible, and I sit here in awe and salivating at the same time.ReplyDelete
My mouth is watering - they look so perfect! I'm beyond impressed Lisa!ReplyDelete
congrats for attempting both gnocchi and croissants... and I'm glad you did, these croissants look amazing.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousNovember 15, 2010 at 12:46 AM
Wow, I'm impressed. Your folded dough shot looks like pro-level. I can't believe four + sticks of butter goes into one batch!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousNovember 15, 2010 at 2:37 AM
I just tried the Danerolls instant croissants from France for the first time. They were good, but did not look as good as these! :)ReplyDelete
Those croissants look absolutely amazing! I love the almonds touch. Almonds make everything better! I will have to go browse for your gnocchi recipe. :) Great blog!ReplyDelete
Those look just to die for! Great job!ReplyDelete
Lisa..I think you have made the most beautiful croissants I've ever seen, seriously. I cannot believe it was your first time making them! I have been hoping to blog some chocolate and almond cram croissants, but the idea of the labor at this juncture, pushes me back (although I love working with laminated doughs). I think you just gave me a littl push toward them..well, maybe after the holidays LOLReplyDelete
Oh, I forgot to mention, I own a copy of BWJ and have every one of the shows Tivo'd. Esther's recipe is/was the one I was planning on using. Now that I've seen yours, I'm realllly looking forward to making them :)ReplyDelete
Wow! That is a truly inspirational project! I don't think I'm there yet in my cooking, but hopefully in the future, i can cross these off my list too. Thanks for sharing!ReplyDelete
Looks so perfect and yummy! Great job!ReplyDelete
My list consists of a large stack of post-its on my desk. Once in a while I'll sort through them for ideas.ReplyDelete
Mmm...croissants. Love it. That's one on my list to one day make.
Beautiful croissant Lisa. Love to have this every morning :)ReplyDelete
there's such an art to croissant-making, and having done it a few times now, i have to applaud you. the texture of the innards is perfect and your rolling/flapping/shaping skills are impressive!ReplyDelete
This looks and sounds like seriously good business. Lisa that cross-section just looks AMAZING!! LOVE....ReplyDelete
Thank you for those step by step. I did not have a clue to how those coils were done.
I think I've said this before (probably many times) but I am really impressed. Croissants were on my "before I turn 40" list but I never worked up the courage to try them. I will for sure this year. Glad to know which is the recipe to use as I have several of them in my cookbooks. I liked all of your tips (I need to do more reading of recipes all the way through) and also knowing that you had such tremendous success. Bravo!ReplyDelete
These croissants are perfect! And yes, I have a list and croissants are still on them. Think the time has come to cross them off that list soon.ReplyDelete
Your addiction is fantastic:) !!!ReplyDelete