The Marcato 150 is a fine pasta maker whose manual is small enough that we lost it within five minutes of it entering our kitchen for the first time. Oops. We found it later, nestling within the pages of a cookbook, but not before discovering that where can I download a Marcato 150/180/Atlas manual? is a bit of a FAQ.

Below are the most important paragraphs. If you'd prefer to have the complete manual (containing more text, a dough recipe, lots of pictures, etc), have a look at the Marcato FAQ.

How to prepare the machine for use

Fix the machine onto the table with the clamp provided and insert the handle into the roller hole. When using the machine for the first time, clean it with a dry cloth to remove any excess oil. To clean the rollers, pass a small quantity of dough through them and then throw the dough away.

Hwo to prepare the dough and the pasta with Atlas

Set the machine regulator to position 1, pulling it outwards and turning it so the two smooth rollers are completely open (approx. 3mm). Pass a piece of dough mixture through the machine turning the handle. Repeat this operation 5-6 times, folding the dough over and adding some flour to the middle if necessary. When the dough has taken a regular shape, pass it through the rollers once only with the regulators set on number 2, then once again on number 3 continuing until you obtain the desired thickness (min. thickness at no. 9 approx 0.2mm). With a knife, cut the dough crossways in pieces approximately 25cm long. Insert the handle in the for the curring rollers, turn it slowly and pass the dough through so as to obtain the type of pasta you prefer. Note 1: If the rollers won't cut, this means the dough is too soft; in this case you should pass the dough through the smooth rollers, after adding some flour to the mixture. Note 2: However when the dough is too dry and cannot be caught by the cutting rollers, add a little water to the mixture and pass it through the smooth rollers once again.

Place the pasta on a tablecloth and leave it to dry for at least an hour.

Maintenance of the machine

During use, clean the scrapers underneath the smooth rollers every so often with a piece of kitchen paper. Never wash the machine with water or in the dishwasher! To clean the machine after use, use a brush or a wooden rod. To clean the inside of the machine, remove the plastic protectors. If necessary put several drops of vaseline oil on the ends of the cutting rollers. Do not insert knives or cloths in between the rollers.

I've wanted more RAM and a third monitor for a while. Upgrade time. I hate upgrading hardware, it's the worst of chores.

The new hardware is a Zotac Fusion ITX A motherboard including a Radeon 6310 graphics blah, a passive Radeon HD5450 graphics card (actually a 5430 chip), and the rest is from from the previous libertango: (more…)

My neighbour is putting up another concrete building and I don't like noise.

For the past few days I've used a Nuforce μDAC-2 together with Bose QC15 headphones. I tried the QC15s alone, but they don't suppress the construction noise very well on their own. They do better when fed music.

The μDAC-2 does well. It's not exactly highend (for context: I think Musical Fidelity makes highend gear, and I consider most Bose devices to be overpriced beep-beep gadgets). But it also doesn't offend me like most computer audio gadgets. It's pleasant, and allows me to work in complete disregard of the $#$@# concrete mixers. Well worth the price.

The Amazon Prime game is an odd kind of game: The players are Amazon and myself, but the winner is usually either DHL or UPS.

The rules are as follows: (more…)

I have a new bicycle. A marvellous new bicycle. It has front and back lights that work well enough to not annoy me, a gear shift that's just as good (as well it should be) and brakes that stop me when I want to stop, even when I'm pedalling 160kg.

Why is this marvellous?

But the true wonder is the manuals. (more…)

Leaving the offices of customer.com today, I pressed the button half a dozen times. (For some reason, customer.com's planners thought it best to litter the offices with giant TVs, most turned on, all muted. There's a corporate espresso bar with seventeen corporate television sets. Really makes one wonder.) Walking to the hotel, I pressed the button a few more times.

Just as I was entering, I saw one last TV, reached for my tv-b-gone and... nothing. An employee had turned the TV off as part of closing for the day.

I'm not sure how I feel. Puzzled to have seen someone turn a television set off. Happy to have seen it happen. And somehow cheated.

Update: What a pity the TV-b-gone is too slow for drive-by actionism.

After a few years of service, my ReadyNAS NV+ broke one day. The hardware was fine, but the software had painted itself into a corner and didn't want to boot at all.

Googling showed that lots of other people have been bitten by the same bug. I phoned support. The support person told me that my box was out of warranty, and would I please post to a web forum and I'm sure someone will help you. I could tell from his voice that he didn't really believe that.

I eventually moved the drives to a linux box. LVM (on ubuntu 10.04) recognised the drives automagically and ext3 let me mount the file system, so I bought a new Synology NAS and copied the data to it.

When I did a factory reinstallation (the hard way) the ReadyNAS booted without problems. From now on I'll use it to back up other devices, nothing more.

A neighbour is noisily tearing down one of its office blocks. I'm sure a new unpretty office block will then be noisily built in its stead, so I bought a Bose QC15 to work in peace meanwhile.

Summary review: It handles the construction-related noise well, but it does really badly with respect to human noises such as a telephone conversation or a crying baby.

Both of the employees I spoke to in the Bose shop here in Munich were sloppy, arrogant and ignorant. Not a good combination. I walked out, and bought the headphones elsewhere.