We had so little activity on days 4 and 5 that I was starting to worry this batch of starter wasn’t going to take off. But this morning we’ve got lots of bubbles and froth. Very pleased.
Notes:
Day 4—transferred to another container, cleaned the crock. Returned 1/2 cup of starter to crock, added 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour.
Day 5—in the morning, same as day 5 (except the transfer/clean step). In evening, activity had been so flat all day, I decided to feed again. This time I added a tablespoon of pineapple juice along with the flour and water, just to help discourage the growth of undesirable bacteria while the good ones are getting established.
Day 6—a.m., removed almost a cup of starter, added 1/2 c water, 1/2 c whole wheat flour.
Huck: I don’t like yogurt OR sandwiches.
Rose: Do you like complaining?
Huck (tilts head, considering): I don’t know. What’s complaining?
“How I Learned a Language in 22 Hours” — Joshua Foer describes how he used Memrise.com to learn Lingala, an African trade language, in 22 total hours of study (over a three-month period). Memrise uses visual memory techniques and modern computer gaming incentives to make such a feat possible.
If five million people can be convinced to log into Zynga’s Facebook game Farmville each day to water a virtual garden and literally watch the grass grow on their computer screens, surely, Ed believes, there must be a way to co-opt those same neural circuits that reward mindless gaming to make learning more addictive and enjoyable. That’s the great ambition of Memrise, and it points towards a future where we’re constantly learning in tiny chunks of our downtime.
Naturally, I leapt straight from that article to the Memrise website and, two days later, am happily up to my eyeballs in German vocabulary. The kids and I are working our way through a course on the trees of England. (I always wondered what yew and rowan looked like.) Highly, highly, highly recommended.
