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DIY hot sauce reaching the top of hacker news. Are we really that predictable? http://catb.org/jargon/html/food.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/food.html

morkalork 3y ago
Yes. It's also good timing since I've got way too many hot peppers from my garden ripening right now and no idea what to do with them!
tptacek 3y ago
In that this is the peak season for putting up peppers (and late summer produce of all kinds), yes, it's pretty predictable. Fermented chili sauce is probably the highest ROI home fermentation projects and easy enough that anybody can do it, so if you've got access to interesting peppers, take a whack at it. It's a really good way to use peppers that are too hot to eat on their own, since it's much easier to control the dosing in a dish as a sauce.
- OJFord 3y ago
  I was going to disagree with that on the basis that almost anything is on par, but then I thought of sourdough starter/levain, which is surely the easiest, cheapest, most versatile, most useful (almost everyone eats at least one kind of at least slightly leavened bread) home fermentation project. Once you get going it's very easy to always make your own bread, and it be lot better & cheaper (a sliding scale between them depending what you bought, but almost certainly both to some extent regardless) than what you bought before. Beer is trickier than hot sauce for sure, but more differentiable, versatile, and satisfying (if you drink beer) perhaps to make up for it on an RoI basis? Certainly worth trying if you like this sort of thing anyway, I think. Yoghurt is even easier than hot sauce, more versatile, though not really as interesting or variable. Such low investment though (milk, few chickpeas or chilli crowns) that if you use it at all it would be hard for it not to do very well on RoI basis.
bookofjoe 3y ago
Yes. Anything featuring vitamin D is guaranteed double figure karma. Others: quantified self/self-tracking; fermentation
Telemakhos 3y ago
DIY hot sauces are fine for kids and enthusiastic amateurs, but it's past time for major, open-source hot sauces to be produced with a memory-safe language like Rust.
- peteradio 3y ago
  Finally someone with some courage to say whats necessary.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Wouldn't the entire sauce have to be labeled unsafe, thus rendering the advantages of Rust moot?
  - tux3 3y ago
    As long as the hot sauce isn't strong enough to induce amnesia, it should be memory-safe. At worst you might panic.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  Jokes aside - but there is so much knowledge out there made by passionate geeks that it begs to be gathered together. On any topic. And eventually kill the "lifehacks" videos with real stuff. Fermentation of hot peppers, photography, homemade shawarma, woodworking, burn barrels, how to roll cords without tangling, bitters with soda when too full. All of those I looked up in the last month for one reason or another. And on some I improved but there is no organized way to give back the knowledge.
  - cosmojg 3y ago
    > bitters with soda when too full Can you expand upon this? How does mixing bitters with soda help with being too full?
    - ReptileMan 3y ago
      Bitters were digestives before they become cocktail flavoring, by soda I mean club soda aka carbonated water. You just need a ordwr of magnitude more bitters than go in a cocktails - like a teaspoon to tablespoon. If you feel bloated after a meal - a glass of this really helps.
demondemidi 3y ago
With the success of "Hot Ones", hot sauce is the new identity craze. I know, this is HN, so a dozen people are gonna say "Well, -I'VE- like hot sauce since insert year." I get it. You're badass. But this is just the latest trend. Which I enjoy. Sriracha is sugary syrup in my opinion, and lousiana style is just blah ... the Hot Sauce craze has led to some really tasty alternatives. See: Torchbearer. But when the trend finally fades, we'll all go back to enjoying Sambal Oelek, the OG hotsauce.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > I know, this is HN, so a dozen people are gonna say "Well, -I'VE- like hot sauce since insert year." I get it. You're badass. I know this is the internet, and it's traditional to invent people to be mad at, but in this case the person you're mad at is .... someone who has liked hot sauce since before Hot Ones?
  - OJFord 3y ago
    I don't even know what Hot Ones is, bizarre thing to say, as if 'hot sauce' is in any way a new concept or even just newly commercialised. I loved Tabasco hot sauce and chilli peppers in general as a small child (and forever since). Of course that doesn't mean it can't be or isn't a current craze, but it's hardly been a niche interest since.. idk, some time not too long after Portuguese colonialism brought chillies out of South America ca. 16th-18th C.s?
    - demondemidi 3y ago
      Thanks for proving my point.
      - OJFord 3y ago
        Your point is absurd nonsense, at least without making any attempt to explain why/back up the claim that any significant number of people were somehow unaware of hot sauce until whatever Hot Ones is happened.
asveikau 3y ago
This is a good observation (and the username checks out), but I just want to point out there are issues with the Jargon File and its occasional projections of ESR's odd views on interpersonal issues. The "portrait of J Random Hacker", in addition to being outdated, has a lot of weird stuff. Look at the "Gender and Ethnicity" section for instance.
1-6 3y ago
"hackers consider Cantonese vaguely déclassé" Eric Raymond obviously doesn't have great taste in everything.
dharma1 3y ago
We like open sauce

morkalork 3y ago

Yes. It's also good timing since I've got way too many hot peppers from my garden ripening right now and no idea what to do with them!

tptacek 3y ago

In that this is the peak season for putting up peppers (and late summer produce of all kinds), yes, it's pretty predictable. Fermented chili sauce is probably the highest ROI home fermentation projects and easy enough that anybody can do it, so if you've got access to interesting peppers, take a whack at it. It's a really good way to use peppers that are too hot to eat on their own, since it's much easier to control the dosing in a dish as a sauce.

OJFord 3y ago
I was going to disagree with that on the basis that almost anything is on par, but then I thought of sourdough starter/levain, which is surely the easiest, cheapest, most versatile, most useful (almost everyone eats at least one kind of at least slightly leavened bread) home fermentation project. Once you get going it's very easy to always make your own bread, and it be lot better & cheaper (a sliding scale between them depending what you bought, but almost certainly both to some extent regardless) than what you bought before. Beer is trickier than hot sauce for sure, but more differentiable, versatile, and satisfying (if you drink beer) perhaps to make up for it on an RoI basis? Certainly worth trying if you like this sort of thing anyway, I think. Yoghurt is even easier than hot sauce, more versatile, though not really as interesting or variable. Such low investment though (milk, few chickpeas or chilli crowns) that if you use it at all it would be hard for it not to do very well on RoI basis.

bookofjoe 3y ago

Yes. Anything featuring vitamin D is guaranteed double figure karma. Others: quantified self/self-tracking; fermentation

Telemakhos 3y ago

DIY hot sauces are fine for kids and enthusiastic amateurs, but it's past time for major, open-source hot sauces to be produced with a memory-safe language like Rust.

peteradio 3y ago
Finally someone with some courage to say whats necessary.
ethbr1 3y ago
Wouldn't the entire sauce have to be labeled unsafe, thus rendering the advantages of Rust moot?
- tux3 3y ago
  As long as the hot sauce isn't strong enough to induce amnesia, it should be memory-safe. At worst you might panic.
ReptileMan 3y ago
Jokes aside - but there is so much knowledge out there made by passionate geeks that it begs to be gathered together. On any topic. And eventually kill the "lifehacks" videos with real stuff. Fermentation of hot peppers, photography, homemade shawarma, woodworking, burn barrels, how to roll cords without tangling, bitters with soda when too full. All of those I looked up in the last month for one reason or another. And on some I improved but there is no organized way to give back the knowledge.
- cosmojg 3y ago
  > bitters with soda when too full Can you expand upon this? How does mixing bitters with soda help with being too full?
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    Bitters were digestives before they become cocktail flavoring, by soda I mean club soda aka carbonated water. You just need a ordwr of magnitude more bitters than go in a cocktails - like a teaspoon to tablespoon. If you feel bloated after a meal - a glass of this really helps.

demondemidi 3y ago

With the success of "Hot Ones", hot sauce is the new identity craze. I know, this is HN, so a dozen people are gonna say "Well, -I'VE- like hot sauce since insert year." I get it. You're badass. But this is just the latest trend. Which I enjoy. Sriracha is sugary syrup in my opinion, and lousiana style is just blah ... the Hot Sauce craze has led to some really tasty alternatives. See: Torchbearer. But when the trend finally fades, we'll all go back to enjoying Sambal Oelek, the OG hotsauce.

mcphage 3y ago
> I know, this is HN, so a dozen people are gonna say "Well, -I'VE- like hot sauce since insert year." I get it. You're badass. I know this is the internet, and it's traditional to invent people to be mad at, but in this case the person you're mad at is .... someone who has liked hot sauce since before Hot Ones?
- OJFord 3y ago
  I don't even know what Hot Ones is, bizarre thing to say, as if 'hot sauce' is in any way a new concept or even just newly commercialised. I loved Tabasco hot sauce and chilli peppers in general as a small child (and forever since). Of course that doesn't mean it can't be or isn't a current craze, but it's hardly been a niche interest since.. idk, some time not too long after Portuguese colonialism brought chillies out of South America ca. 16th-18th C.s?
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    Thanks for proving my point.
    - OJFord 3y ago
      Your point is absurd nonsense, at least without making any attempt to explain why/back up the claim that any significant number of people were somehow unaware of hot sauce until whatever Hot Ones is happened.

asveikau 3y ago

This is a good observation (and the username checks out), but I just want to point out there are issues with the Jargon File and its occasional projections of ESR's odd views on interpersonal issues. The "portrait of J Random Hacker", in addition to being outdated, has a lot of weird stuff. Look at the "Gender and Ethnicity" section for instance.

1-6 3y ago

"hackers consider Cantonese vaguely déclassé" Eric Raymond obviously doesn't have great taste in everything.

dharma1 3y ago

We like open sauce