Who is Kim Siever?

My six-year-old daughter was playing on Strudel Doodle this morning. It’s basically an online drawing application where users can submit their drawings for a prize.

So my daughter arrived at the page and clicked on “GO DOODLE!”.

Then she clicked on the redundant “START DOODLING” button on the following page.

Then she clicked on the “START DOODLING!” button on the next page.

When she was done drawing, she clicked on the “SUBMIT DOODLE” button. Doing so asked her to fill out a form.

The first question asked for her initials. At first she was going to enter her first and last initial. I told her that it doesn’t say that; it asks for her initials. She started to enter all four of her initials (she has two middle names), but it forced her to enter no more than three. She kept hitting “Shift+S” to get that last initial in and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t going in. There was no indication anywhere that the form would only accept three characters, nor was there any notification that she was entering more characters than was allowed. If I wasn’t there to tell her the problem, she wouldn’t have realised what it was. I told her to enter her first and last initials.

The rest of the form was pretty easy to use. Before she pressed the “Continue >>” button, however, she read the reminder that stated the contest is open to children 8–12. she thought that meant she couldn’t save her doodle. Despite the fact that the button had said “submit doodle” she interpreted that to mean she would save it by pressing on it. Now the reminder seemed to say she could not save it because she was not between eight and twelve.

I told her that since it allowed her to enter her birth year (1999 instead of 1997), then she should be able to press the “continue” button. When she pressed it, however, a red pop-up window came up with a warning sound and the words” Sorry! Please enter a three-letter nickname.” She had no idea why it was telling her to enter a nickname when it never asked her for one. She had no idea where to enter this nickname. I told her it was telling her she couldn’t use just her first and last initials. She needed to arbitrarily choose between her second initial and third initial. She needed to determine which of her two middle names she preferred more.

She gave up and simple pressed “Back to Doodler”.

We have all been there. Someone sends us text to add to a website, but it’s all in uppercase. To make my job easier, I made the following bookmarklet that uses JavaScript to convert uppercase characters to lowercase characters.

Lowercase Bookmarklet 1.0

Just right click (Ctrl+click) on the above link and add it to your bookmarks. I keep mine in my Bookmarks Toolbar for easy access.

I do not know if there is a text limit for this, but every string of text I have entered has worked.

Let me know of any suggestions you have to improve it.

I keep receiving visitiors coming to my sites looking for information on hot peppers. They look to see what makes hot pepper hot, which of the peppers are the hottest, and so forth. I thought I should make at least one post on the information. If I ever get around to it, maybe I’ll dedicate a site to hot peppers.

The information below is adapted from Wikipedia.

What makes hot peppers hot?

The Scoville scale is a measure of the hotness of a chile pepper. These fruits of the Capsicum genus contain capsaicin, a chemical compound which stimulates heat-receptor nerve endings in the tongue, and the number of Scoville heat units (SHU) indicates the amount of capsaicin present. Many hot sauces use their Scoville rating in advertising as a selling point.

It is named after Wilbur Scoville, who developed the Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912. As originally devised, a solution of the pepper extract is diluted in sugar water until the ‘heat’ is no longer detectable to a panel of (usually five) tasters; the degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale. Thus a sweet pepper, containing no capsaicin at all, has a Scoville rating of zero, meaning no heat detectable even undiluted. Conversely, the hottest chiles, such as habaneros, have a rating of 300,000 or more, indicating that their extract has to be diluted 300,000-fold before the capsaicin present is undetectable. 15 Scoville units is equivalent to one part capsaicin per million. The greatest weakness of the Scoville Organoleptic Test is its imprecision, because it relies on human subjectivity.

Later analytical developments such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (also known as the “Gillett Method”) have now enabled the Scoville rating to be determined by direct measurement of capsaicin rather than sensory methods.

How hot are hot peppers?