The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
This one is notable because it’s one of the first I’ve read that’s really well balanced with looking at balancing health, environmental impact, and worker welfare, but also taking into account taste and the fact that people really like to eat foreign foods:
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Kitchen Confidential Updated Edition: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)
The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
]]>
http://www.nasaimages.org/index.html
Museum of Natural History:
http://images.library.amnh.org/photos/index.html
400+ forms used by the NSA:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/2008/07/over-400-nsa-forms/
London Bananas:
How to make an inkjet print that will last 10000 years:
http://blog.longnow.org/2008/07/24/edward-burtynsky-the-10000-year-gallery/
]]>http://fearlesscook.blogspot.com/2008/07/unfancy-is-new-fancy-grace-interviews.html
]]>“Overall, a single PS3 performs better than the highest-end desktops available and compares to as many as 25 nodes of an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. And there is still tremendous scope left for extracting more performance through further optimization. More on that soon.”
http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html
Tags: ps3, cluster computing, gravity
]]>“On Standard-Def DVD, there are essentially only two competing sound formats to choose from: Dolby Digital or DTS.[...]The reality of the situation is that both Dolby Digital and DTS are capable of delivering very good, sometimes even exceptional sound quality on DVD.[...]The advent of Blu-ray and HD DVD has brought a dramatic increase in picture quality from Standard Definition to High Definition.[...]High Definition video deserves High Definition audio to go with it.”
And thus begins the litany of the seven different options for audio tracks on HD discs, and how they’re supported on HD DVD vs. Blu-ray.
]]>Go read that for a while:
Tags: marc andreessen, technology, blogs
]]>From the press release:
New Logged-in Homepage
Log in and check out ‘your new homepage.’ Above ‘your conferences’ is the new ‘your network,’ a bird’s-eye view of bulletin board messages from within your network (more on that below), your online Confabb connections and any messages sent to you by those within the Confabb community. Click on ‘My Account’ to see the full range of search and connection possibilities. Post your own messages for everyone to see on “your bulletin board,” which will be broadcast globally—Confabb pings no fewer than 68 of the major alerting services—or have a one-on-one discussion with other Confabb members. You can also see what others are talking about and invite new people, either from within or outside of Confabb, to join your network.
New Search!
There are two new forms of search on the site (you’ll all remember that the search function was Confabb’s Achilles Heel when we launched). There is now an advanced search for conferences which drills down into multiple parameters such as location, keyword, location, category and when the show date starts and stops. That nullifies one of the biggest knocks we got at launch. People will love it. We’ve also added a “User Search” which lets Confabb users search for and connect with other Confabb community members. Of course that sets us up for connecting people within the community and that’s the best part.
MY Connections (or “buddy lists”)
Just as you keep a list of people with home you correspond daily, the “My Connections” tab is your gateway to the personal contacts you’ve made within the Confabb community–people with whom you’ve connected before and want to stay in touch with going forward. This is your personal network; friends, colleagues and other contacts whose whereabouts and doings you want to follow as they prepare for and an attend events. Attendees can view a list of other conference participants, check out their profiles, invite them into their personal network and email them directly through Confabb’s personal messaging feature.
Personal Messaging
This is the Confabb community’s personal email service. We respect everyone’s right to privacy so messaging within the community is handled by us; simply use the “contact” link to jot a note to the person of your choice and we’ll send the message to the email that person has registered within our system. Responses are handled by us as well so your information is never revealed unless you choose to do that outside of the community.
Media
This is cool. “Media” is just that: everything that interests you from across the web, from text-based articles and links to photos, RSS feeds for breaking information and even full blown videos. The content comes from the web’s leading sources of open information, including Technorati, Google and Yahoo!, Feedster, Flickr and YouTube. Simply click the “Media” tab at the top of the navigation bar and find information on just about anything by searching for the subject’s name or the subject’s tag in the desired content source. The Media tab lets you experience the conference through everyone else’s eyes, and they experience it through content you create, find and share with them.
Bulletin Boards
Confabb now provides all of its users with their own personal blogs, or bulletin boards, from which they can share their thoughts, opinions on the issues and experiences. This is the community member’s space; it’s intensely individual, consisting of the member’s content and comments from their readers. People can also read the musing of others within their network by clicking on the “Bulletin Board Posts within My Network” tab, which shows what others within their network are saying too.
Each board–the individual blog and the personal network bulletin board–are completely searchable by the major search engines. You will build traffic from within the community as well as anyone from around the globe with an interest in what you have to say!
Tags: confabb, social networking, conferences
]]>Tags: apple, open letter, design, medical
]]>http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/03/google_to_anony.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/taking-steps-to-further-improve-our.html
http://216.239.57.110/blog_resources/google_log_retention_policy_faq.pdf
]]>The science of politics is changing, and these are the people who are doing interesting things about it.
You can browse information about the conference (news, events, sessions, speakers, and more), and register from the site. You can use your existing Confabb login, if you have one (OpenID is coming, but not yet).
(Disclosure: I’m one of the co-founders of Confabb.)
Tags: pdf2007, personal democracy forum, politics, pdf, confabb
]]>Most Windows and Mac machines will auto update if allowed to do so. If you have a unix box, you probably already know about this.
Don’t forget to also update your Palm and other handhelds that are DST-aware.
If you have a network-aware Palm device, you can do this over the air, with this:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/dst_palmos.html#ota
Tags: dst, daylightsavings, palm
]]>http://themachackers.com/2006/12/19/zfs-on-mac-os-x-105-a-closer-look/
Tags: apple, leopard, filesystem, zfs
]]>This is pretty extraordinary.
Tags: jim gray, amazon mechanical turk, lost
]]>The description is painful to read, a horrible ironic reminder of the awfulness:
“In a recent episode, the host, Saad Khalifa, reported that Iraq’s Ministry of Water and Sewage had decided to change its name to simply the Ministry of Sewage — because it had given up on the water part.”
“Mr. Sudani, the writer, said he has lost hope for his country. Iraq’s leaders are incompetent, he said. He fears that services will never be restored. The American experiment in democracy, he said, was born dead.
All anyone can do, he said, is laugh.”
Via Perry Metzger:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/middleeast/24show.html?ex=1319342400&en=1bf22396b7ede7a3&ei=5090&
partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Tags: iraq, daily show, awful, nyt, humor
]]>Open source, cross-platform, extensible media player based on Mozilla to browse, collect, and play web and local media files. Sure.
]]>http://www.simplehelp.net/2006/09/27/how-to-use-your-pc-and-webcam-as-a-motion-detecting-and-recording-s
ecurity-camera/
Tags: warrantless wiretapping
]]>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1869074,00.html
Tags: shaming search engines, wikipedia, china, censoring, not
]]>http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
Tags: aaronsw, wikipedia, social dynamics
]]>http://www.designbyfire.com/?p=30
Tags: typography, open source, john warnock, adobe
[Update: I've been informed that John Warnock is no longer the CEO of Adobe.]
]]>Either they didn’t think this through, or this is the best way they could think of to raise a public outrage.
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200608/msg00027.html
Tags: privacy. data security, search, aol
]]>“It was an extremely gentle and intimate experience. The animal does not have a gag reflex. They always waddled away perfectly happy and full and ready for a nap.”
]]>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKI_w_VBoTQ&search=d.r.m.%20crap
]]>And also, it’s about Snakes on a Plane.
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2006/060706_mfe_August_06_Klosterman.html
Tags: snakes on a plane, populism, community
]]>http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/doc/rh-gentoo.html
Tags: gentoo, redhat, conversion, badass
]]>http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/television/2826881.html
Tags: troubleshoot, HD, popular mechanics
]]>You all know how I feel about diagrams. This rocks!
]]>http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/29/mark_pilgrims_list_o.html
Tags: cory doctorow, apple, linux, mark pilgrim, ubuntu, switch
]]>There are some truths in there:
“Telling Pilgrim that he’s making a mistake because Ubuntu doesn’t have as refined or cohesive a UI as Mac OS X is like telling someone who is switching from a Chevy Tahoe to a Toyota Prius that he’s not going to have as much cargo room. He knows it.”
“If your reaction to Pilgrim’s announcement was a snap judgment that he’s lost it, or that he’s being an asshole who’s just looking for attention as the guy who switched away from the Mac just at the time when it (the Mac) seems poised to become more popular than ever, or that he’s an open source fanatic who just can’t be reasoned with or trusted — are you sure that the zealotry at play is his?”
“I’m deeply suspicious of Mac users who claim to be perfectly happy with Mac OS X. Real Mac users, to me, are people with much higher standards, impossibly high standards, and who use Macs not because they’re great, but because they suck less than everything else. Pilgrim, to me, is a quintessential Mac user in that regard; and what he’s doing is wondering if maybe things might suck less somewhere else.”
I find myself thinking the same thoughts often as I struggle with switching my desktop away from Windows to Linux. I’ve done it in the past, but the simple fact is that there are things on Windows that need in order to get my work done that don’t exist on Linux yet. Someday. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.
http://daringfireball.net/2006/06/and_oranges
Tags: mark pilgrim, john gruber, switch, linux, ubuntu, mac, osx
]]>http://www.gnr8.biz/product_info.php?products_id=182
Tags: coffee, cups, coffee cups, rings, logos, floral, pattern, lucent
]]>Tags: paul mccartney, beatles, 64
]]>Tags: nyc, restaurant, reviews, subway
]]>These are the rules for pictures in the group:
]]>Every photograph tells a story. Some photographs capture a photographer trying to tell a story, and in doing so tell a completely different story.
This group is for those different stories.
Please be encouraged to add comments about why you felt compelled to capture the photographer capturing something else and what that means to you.
All shots must 1) have another photographer in the shot, 2) also include at least some of the subject of that photographer’s shot (no pictures of just photographers, and no pictures where you are the other photographer’s subject unless they otherwise meet the qualifications), and 3) tell a story different from the one that the photographer is telling. If the shot does not show what the other photographer is taking a picture of, this is the wrong group for it. Gratuitous pictures of public asses and/or nudity are acceptable, if they meet these qualifications. However, pictures may be arbitrarily deleted from the pool without comment at the discretion of the admins. Keep it tasteful and interesting. You have been warned.
http://www.milinkito.com/los80.php
Tags: 80s, videos, iwantmymtv, youtube, totally
]]>The Italian expert has used the robot surgeon for at least 40 previous operations, some of which have been described in detail in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The novelty of this latest experience is that the robot was able to conduct the entire procedure by itself. In the past it needed specific orders from its operator along the way.
http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-05-18_1186367.html
Tags: robot surgery, future, heart surgery, arrhythmia, holy crap
]]>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/dnnl-bmr051206.php
]]>“Ideal Homes built the first zero energy home in the country priced under $200,000. The modest one-story, three-bedroom, two bathroom home produces as much energy as it consumes in a year, achieving net zero energy consumption.”
http://www.housingzone.com/article/CA6332828.html
Tags: zero energy home, efficient, housing, environment, photovoltaic, geothermal
]]>One doesn’t.
Awesome.
http://web.mit.edu/zacka/www/midas.html
Tags: mit, automation, midas, party
]]>http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/trailer/
Tags: global warming, al gore, aninconvenienttruth
]]>Tags: dual monitor
]]>http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/05bootcamp.html
Tags: apple, windows, xp, dual-booting
]]>http://backspace.com/notes/2006/03/28/x.html
Tags: subway, NYC, direction, compass, navigation, compass rose
]]>It’s an encrypting proxy for SIP calls using pre-existing software. I don’t know enough about how the protocol works to say if this would work with things like Vonage or not.
“In the future, the Zfone protocol will be integrated into standalone secure VoIP clients, but today we have a software product that lets you turn your existing VoIP client into a secure phone. The current Zfone software runs in the Internet Protocol stack on any Windows XP, Mac OS X, or Linux PC, and intercepts and filters all the VoIP packets as they go in and out of the machine, and secures the call on the fly. You can use a variety of different software VoIP clients to make a VoIP call. The Zfone software detects when the call starts, and initiates a cryptographic key agreement between the two parties, and then proceeds to encrypt and decrypt the voice packets on the fly. It has its own little separate GUI, telling the user if the call is secure.”
Zfone has been tested with these VoIP clients and VoIP services:
VoIP clients: X-Lite, Gizmo, and SJphone.
VoIP service providers: Free World Dialup, iptel.org, and SIPphone.
http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/zfone/index.html
Tags: sureveillance, encryption, voip, sip, phil zimmermann, zfone
]]>http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/03/14/google.hearing.ap/index.html
Tags: Google, privacy, search, records, surveillance
]]>Asking for complaint forms in Flordia Police stations gets you harassed and threatened:
http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_033170755.html
Greek cell phone taps of high officials were enabled by embedded surveillance tech:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/more_on_greek_w.html
Zogby poll shows 72% of troops want to get out of Iraq in the next year, but also that 85% of them think they’re there to retaliate for Saddam’s attacking us on 9/11. So, there’s that:
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=35385
Human rights abuses in Iraq are worse than under Saddam (oops, Freudian slip – I typed Bush there first):
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3696105.html
Daily Kos is mumbling something about State-initiated impeachment:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/1/235828/9378
And, a kitten:
http://www.dailykitten.com/archives/340-Poppy.html
Tags: outrage fatigue, news, depressing, makeitstop
]]>