[ricardobeat]

This is amazing. Here's how you cook them: heat up some water and add salt. Put the rice / beans in the water. Remove from water. Eat. Can be done in 15 minutes and is not any harder than boxed macaroni.

You can do a big batch of this and then later get fancy by throwing it around a frying pan, maybe add eggs and spices, and still be below $1 / meal.

[mieseratte]

> heat up some water and add salt. Put the rice / beans in the water. Remove from water. Eat.

Sure, but how long? How much salt? How much water? How big of a pot? Do I put them both in together? Separate? What kinds of spices? How much of each?

Ultimately, I can just toss 'em in and wing it or go Google it real quick but most folks just don't even get past the part of realizing "Oh hey, I don't have to do the same thing I've done for years." Most folks don't question their day-to-day rudimentary tasks, especially when they don't have to.

Having "broken" from the rut, it's rather amazing how complacent we can get.

[TeMPOraL]

> Sure, but how long? How much salt? How much water? How big of a pot? Do I put them both in together? Separate? What kinds of spices? How much of each?

Like hearing myself arguing with my SO.

- "Can you cook some pasta before I come home?"

- "Sure honey, but which one? How long? How much salt? How much water? Which pot?..."

Ok, I figured that one out eventually (definitely with the help of some instructions on a box, but they're often not reliable; first pasta I made I boiled longer than the manual said, and it still came out al dente). But the point is, cooking has ridiculous amounts of complexity hidden in it, including quite a lot that can be only be understood through trial and error.

I'd argue this is the most common case of technical communication problem between humans. My SO asking me to "just" cook a "simple" dish would be like me telling her to "just" make a "simple" JS gallery page. In both cases, we'll eventually figure this out, but it will involve lots of googling and stress.

[mieseratte]

> But the point is, cooking has ridiculous amounts of complexity hidden in it, including quite a lot that can be only be understood through trial and error.

As I think about it more, it really reminds me first getting into functional programming. These simple, primitive concepts appeared so daunting at first but once you get accustomed to the mentality and lose that initial fear you can turn those primitives into complex, beautiful software.

[ufo]

Rice is a 15 minutes ordeal but beans take much longer than that.