food system thoughts

A friend and I were email-discussing this Sunday’s NYT magazine piece by Michael Pollan, whose recent work on food and the American food system is really superb. But he stops short of real policy recommendations to create the “right” incentives instead of the perverse ones currently on offer. Here's an excerpt of what I was saying (at the beginning, I qualify to his suggestion that we need to retrain many farmers in order to reduce the massive surplus of commodity corn, wheat, and soy).

I don't know – I actually disagree some about "retraining" because don't we actually need more farmers of smaller size, producing more diverse crops in more places?

If anything the human cogs in the monsanto / cargill / adm machine should be retrained in managing sustainable farm ecosystems (on their own). So we should create systematic incentives for consumers to want high quality local, sustainable, seasonal food; for distributors to make it available to consumers; and for producers themselves to disperse so as to reduce, if not strictly minimize, distance from field to table for most of what we eat.

For me as a consumer, the only incentive I need is sublime fresh food. Fresh green zebra, black cherokee, and brandywine tomatoes in august keep me from buying tomatoes the rest of the year. Two caveats: I know I am an anomaly in that level of zealotry (or devotion to tomatoes), and I do feel somewhat hypocritical with respect to geographic-heritage foods like Parmigiano-Reggiano.

But I think Pollan shares my problem: not eveyone is, shall we say, enraptured by food as I am (and I would venture he is). I hope you read his last article in the nytm. It feels like he, though much more knowledgable and eloquent than I, still quickly reaches the point of, "Doesn't the food just speak to you??" — if it doesn't, then where do we start to change the food system? It's very frustrating.

There's still a market, senseless to some of us, for out-of season shit from far away; for factory farmed meats (truly don't get how anyone could shop at a grocery store after having anything fresh – the time from slaughter is at least several more days, not to mention the other problems); for any and all the products of preservatives and new!improved! marketing.

compression algorithms

compared!

upcoming treats, egg article

exploring baked eggs: with leek in my pretty glasses, and with chorizo and pimentón (to serve with delectable primitivo! – A Mano has long been a go-to pizza wine, but I'll have to try to find this other one.)

Vanilla chocolate bread

Vanilla chocolate bread Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet.

things to make

• long bean and ground pork prik khing curry with sticky rice
• Kao Pad Gkai Gkaprow (also with shrimp)
• pasta with anchovies and tomatoes
• lamb vindaloo
• jeweled rice
• creamy polenta, topped with sautéed morels (yes, glorious fresh morels, $9/4oz!)
• leang thai soup with random vegetables, beansprouts, and sticky rice
• paneer makhanwala
• blue cornmeal pancakes, bacon, eggs, etc

absurd^2

No, that is no more apt a description of wine than type. Seriously. (otherwise lovely article via Jessica).

In his photo-heavy book Helvetica, designer Lars Müller praises the titular typeface for its “understated self-assurance” – describing it as if it were an especially pleasing glass of shiraz.

lawsee!

Uncle Ben is a rare survivor in the once-crowded world of racist spokescharacters. Most of his contemporaries were fired a long time ago. … Today, no company would be dumb enough to build a brand around a black servant, but the ones now in supermarkets have been grandfathered in, rendered innocuous by the passage of time, image overhauls, and judicious wardrobe adjustments. But it's worth remembering what these spokescharacters truly are: a final, living vestige of Jim Crow America.

useless

slate on skymall:

The issue also features the "upside-down tomato garden," the "remote controlled robotic hammerhead shark," the "pop-up hot dog cooker," the "million-germ-eliminating travel toothbrush sanitizer," the "window-mounted cat porch," the "world's smallest indoor remote control helicopter," the "Turbo-Groomer® COBALT" nose-hair trimmer, the "Sudoku glass tabletop set," the "Solar-powered mole repeller," (what, no handcrank in case of nuclear winter?), the "versatile mock rock in five sizes." (For those unaware of the purpose of a "mock rock"—since real ones are not in short supply—they are designed to "hide problem areas in your yard or garden.")

nyt discovers underwear

“There’s been an explosion in printed underwear, low-rise underwear and different kinds of boxer briefs,” said John Sievers, an owner of International Jock, who said that his business has doubled in three years. Underwear by C-IN2 and Andrew Christian, artfully constructed with seams or straps to make the most of a man’s, um, profile, has done extremely well, he added.

open formats for open government

A legislative staff employee who would lose his job if he were quoted here by name said, "By the time those lobbyists were done talking, it sounded like ODF (Open Document Format, the free and open format used by OpenOffice.org and other free software) was proprietary and the Microsoft format was the open and free one."

Findings from a group of 12 study patients showed that vitespen vaccination (trademarked as Oncophage) was effective in stimulating the patient's immune system to attack the tumor cells, a function that is known medically as tumor-specific immune response. All the patients had recurrent, high-grade glioma, and all showed the immune response. The vaccine is made from the patient's own tumor.

grad school is absurd

We have a make-up class to schedule for Bayesian, meaning coordinating among the class and with the professor, whose schedule can be tricky:

Sorry, but the time we chose (4/30 at 4:30) won't work for me. I've got out-of-town company, and I'm taking my first Pilates class at that time.

vodka

The Eurocrats in Brussels are paid princely salaries to decide whether feta has to come from Greece (yes) or how curved cucumbers can be (Class I cukes are allowed a bend of 10 millimeters per 10 centimeters of length, according to Commission Regulation No. 1677/88). My beef is with the whole brouhaha over a liquor whose greatest, and only, virtue is that it is colorless and tasteless.

i love wine

NYT wine columnist:

“What I’m about to propose is a do-it-yourself method that has a lot to offer to just about anybody who loves wine, or wants to learn about it. In fact, if you’ll join in with me, we will take this home wine class together and be the better for it. Let me explain.”

to this I would add, go to good free tastings at the same wine shop. People ask how I know lots of interesting wine, or how I can manage to pair pretty well (or at least thoughtfully, rather than randomly) with food— and for me a good deal of the experience has been at free or inexpensive tastings of some truly great wines that I certainly can't afford. It's also taught me a lot about those overpriced (though sometimes not) bottles.

stereotypes r fun

A few years ago, Meghan Daum, an op-ed contributor to The Los Angeles Times, wrote about a promising first date with a man that never led to a second one because, she later learned, the guy saw that she drove a Subaru Outback station wagon and concluded she must be a lesbian… “It’s not a choice. It’s the way we’re built.” (subaru ad with martina!).

You better believe I will celebrate this mf

And while there are several eggs Benedict creation myths, some of which may be the subject of discussion among aficionados on National Eggs Benedict Day, a little-known observance celebrated on April 16, they share decidedly genteel roots: rich and distinguished New Yorkers, fabulous New York restaurants and an adventurous 19th-century dining culture unfettered by contemporary concerns about trans fats and cholesterol.

trivia!

Some of the mysteries of easter explained: As it turns out, chicks have little to do with Jesus and a lot to do with spring.

New! Peep surgery!

mobilization and technology

Protests Move From the Streets To YouTube

I hate america

Religion is dumb. Americans believe in religion. Americans are dumb.

hmmm

NeoOffice/J is really slow and cumbersome, and buggy in a few important ways. Openoffice itself is also slow... and now we're at OOo 2.2. I may try to build the Aqua alpha and see how that goes.

Powerpoint is evil

and hinders learning. (Also: previous Wired piece by Tufte, my hero).

cool bayesian image labeling

Supervised Learning of Semantic Classes for Image Annotation and Retrieval (see also here)

more e voting

Finally, it requires that the source code for e-voting machines be made publicly available. (we can hope!)

haha

So I was just stopping by iusethis.com (mainly to see if anyone else had picked up on the beauty of catdoc/xls2csv) and the top like new item is this. I laughed. Especially at the icon!

good design

It's good that people notice it, and think a little bit about it: NYC Condoms mentioned again in nyt.

rabbit ravioli

rabbit ravioli
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet.

i meant to post this over here. ravioli stuffed with: rabbit braised in white wine and chicken stock, with fennel, shallots, goat cheese, and herbs, served with toasted pine nuts and browned butter.

nyt gay boys

[more on why i don't get people who came out later]. Now, as a 17-year-old 11th grader, Zach has passed through phases that many gay men of previous generations didn’t get to until their 20s, 30s, even 40s. “Eighth grade was kind of his militant time,” Mr. O’Connor says.

I'm better off for being a mess

I knew it!

nerdy roundup

I found more cool/nerdy tshirts. I made myself an Iusethis account. I've discovered a lot of cool apps there. And, exciting progress from mydreamapp (cookbook!). Last, documentation of the subetha 'see' tool.

slovak election law

this post is to hold a bunch of stuff i find that i'll need to refer to later

• http://www.legislationline.org/legislation.php?tid=57&lid=301&less=false
• awk 'BEGIN { FS=","; } {if ($1 != "\"\"" ) print $0;} ' partyvote-by-obce.csv > partyvote-no-pct.csv

surprises to no one

Whole Foods would pay $565 million, or $18.50 a share, for Wild Oats, a 23 percent premium over the average share price the last month. The company would also assume $106 million of debt. Shares of Whole Foods jumped as much as $2.24 in after-hours trading to as high as $47.94

Also:

Wednesday night, in a short, ambiguously worded statement, the companies said they would dismiss all legal action against each other regarding the trademark and that Apple could use the name [iPhone] for its device, which it plans to start selling in June.

Jobs wouldn't have walked out there and called it the iPhone if he weren't damn sure he could get away with it. Expect AirPort hardware to be made by cisco (or its consumer brand Linksys) if it isn't already.

food(*2)

Next week is mardi gras, meaning no market – soulard will be full of drunk stupid people instead, so I had to think about two weeks of food. I also have stuff in the freezer I sorta forgot about so it helps to list them here and thoughts on what to do with them.

• macaroni and cheese with whole wheat penne, cheddar, and bacon; salad
• fettuccine all’alfredo
• ma po tofu (need ground pork)
• chicken with scallions, black bean sauce
• risotto with zucchini (end of last batch of chicken stock; also time to make more of that)
• polish “hunter” sausage and sauerkraut with apple
• more pizza (left over cheese! yay!)
• tofu pad thai
• paneer makhanwala
• chicken vindaloo
• orechiette with spinach, peas, mushrooms; goat cheese pink sauce
• seared tuna

bizarre.

The house next to my apartment – a single-family structure on a street of 6-unit buildings mostly – has been as far as I know empty for the entire time I've been here. There was, however, a mean foreign (german or eastern european of some variety) woman who I learned owned this place. She has a daughter, but I only saw them rarely. She thought it was appropriate to yell at me about something involving trash and the dumpster one time; I kind of went off on her.

So, sometime last year or the year before, she and her man-folk, working on the weekends, built a detached, unheated garage out back (in addition to a strange cement-slab back yard with a cesspool, or birdbath the size of a kiddie pool).

Today, I see a crew of men (not hers) knocking the thing down. WTF?!

pollan nyt mag piece

Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

…
Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health. Perhaps what we need now is a broader, less reductive view of what food is, one that is at once more ecological and cultural. What would happen, for example, if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?

Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in good soils — whether certified organic or not — will contribute not only to your health (by reducing exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of the farms where it is grown.

food

• thai red curry with chicken and okra
• bacon and spinach quiche, salad, and bread
• roasted-vegetable and goat cheese crêpes, and salad
• dirty rice with lamb andouille, maybe some ground buffalo
• pork tenderloin (courtesy of Alex)
• leang (fishy) curry with tofu, mushrooms, babycorn, and sticky rice

on bathrooms

"Flushed with Pride" from Slate

new soup to try

"more different than better"

Better Than XP
I could keep bringing up examples, but I think you get the idea. At the UI level, the human level, Vista is different far more often than it is better. Even so, I think it must be said that Vista is indeed an improvement on Windows XP. Honestly, I think that's the only metric that really counts when you think about it: Is Vista better enough than XP to be worth the upgrade? I'll say yes. This may be more of a comment on how bad XP really is more than how good Vista is.

food

• asian salad with rice timbale, orange, crisp noodles, and baked tofu with hoisin
• polenta with some sort of lamb stew
• apple-lamb bratwurst and sauerkraut
• salmon with gingery mashed sweet potatoes and blood orange beurre blanc
• pasta with ricotta and cinnamon (sorry, Atlantic subscription req.)
• matzo ball soup (mostly for scott to freeze)
• chicken paprikás
• ricotta pancakes (NYT)

yay for paint!

paintedapt5
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet.

we have color on the wall in our apartment now! orange hallway, blue wall, purple under the bar… go see!

oat muffin recipe

Once when searching for a quick breakfast (out of yogurt, only one egg, not-so-fresh milk) I found the easiest oatmeal muffins – I've made them plain, with apples, and with fresh cranberries (for any of those, add ½–1 cup or so chopped). Now Scott has a muffin pan (a nifty silicone one, at that) so this note is mostly for him.

My scarf is done!

Scott is the best!

merry christmas from the drycleaner

So when I picked up some stuff friday the korean drycleaner lady reached under the desk, beamed, "happyyy horiday!" and produced a bag… I was intrigued, then joyed to find some tasty berry wine!

is there video of this??

The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail.

attrition rocks

Ha!

a sick twisted story

“Bottle service is prestigious,” said Quinn Bradley, 25, another customer at Y Bar. “I am not a vodka connoisseur, but a higher price usually means it’s better, right?” Marketers have spent millions trying to convince consumers of just that.

Also, Patrón tequila was created by one of the co-execs of john paul mitchell hair goop. What a mess! (NYT)

crazy hungarian jews

(yum!)

Negativity Friendships

NYT: “It’s not that we enjoy disliking people,” Bosson, a social psychologist at the University of South Florida, says. “It’s that we enjoy meeting people who dislike the same people.”

Salon on Mary Cheney:

As a price for their tolerance, however, they may expect you to reexamine certain issues – e.g., your implicit countenancing of same-sex-marriage amendments, your silence in the face of outrageous discrimination against gay parents, your collusion with some of the most virulent homophobes in America's history, etc.

neato nerdiness

damn.

Well, my 5-year-old Troika keychain (in a model they seem no longer to make) finally broke. Troika keychains are by far the best designed and therefore the only acceptable key-holding devices for me. Moreover, several models allow easy removal of groups of keys from the ring, a necessity so I don't have to carry my car key with me all the time, or anything more than a house key and bike key when I exercise. The one pictured is my top choice, but now I run into the problem of trying to find someone who has them and will sell me one.

food this week

• sweet potato crusted wild caught alaskan salmon with curry spinach, OR
• broiled salmon with mexican-caribbean rub, avocado, and tequila cream sauce
• thai prik king (fragrant no coconut milk) curry with green beans and chicken
• lentil soup with polish sausage, blackbear pumpernickel
• fajitas with avocado, chicken, and refried black beans
• pad kee mao (tofu and broccoli, chili basil sauce)

the first of several

Scott's dad asks about Margaret Cho. Well, not about her – but what her name is. She is described as "that musician you used to like. The Chinese girl. She played the violin. Or the piano."

Scott's parents

The whole visit will be co-blogged over at Scott's MD-PhD Adventure. Just finished the first day.

voting machines

slashdot interview

best response is… max ε?

It may sound like chaos, but it's only the lesson drawn from one of the insights of traffic psychology: Drivers will force the accelerator down ruthlessly only in situations where everything has been fully regulated. Where the situation is unclear, they're forced to drive more carefully and cautiously.

slashdot 'fortune' quote

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley

seared tuna, ginger mashed sweet potatoes, salad

seared tuna, ginger mashed sweet potatoes, salad
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet.

from the other day :)

food for this week

• afghan chicken biryani [pdf]
• crêpes with mushrooms and parsnips (inspired by this lovely NYT piece)
• curry fried rice (nasi goreng)
• seared tuna with garam masala
• ma po tofu

too good in too many ways

Holy Rollers: The city's bicycle zealots, by Ben McGrath. This article contains quote after quote that made me grin knowingly. Some examples:

Critical Mass, according to its participants, is not a group but a recurring event. “An organized coincidence,” one regular rider told me. “No, a disorganized coincidence—a ‘happening,’ a temporary reorganization of public space.” … Others passed out buttons that read, “Please Don’t Arrest Me—This is my permit.” On closer examination, they were recycled pins made by the antiwar group United for Peace and Justice, with customized paper labels glued over “No Blood for Oil.”

I introduced myself to the masked man and asked his name. “NYMAAN,” he said, pointing to his cape, which was adorned with the words “New York Metro Anarchist Alliance.” He added, “I am an idea, not a person.” (His outfit advertised a Web site that features the heading “Notes from the global intifada.”)

The hierarchy of urban piety is ever delicate. Still another Villager, a biking enthusiast, railed against the unctuousness of the anti-bike pedestrians. “I’m tired of joggers using the bike path, getting in the way,” he said. “They tell us to get off our bikes and jog because it’s more environmentally sensitive. To them bikes are manufactured things. The metals that go into them are mined. And there’s the plastic, too . . . made from oil.”

neato

the new mobile gmail is supercool.

yay for winter bike!

so I found a bike on craigslist a while ago – a beat up fixed gear for $150. I didn't feel like driving up to north county a month ago, but then I saw it posted again for $110. That was too good to pass up, especially because I've been riding around on my good bike the past couple days in the fucking rain and it's all yucky and needs to be cleaned again… pictures soon.

“Hacking Democracy” (Salon.com)

on Salon:

It’s a nice thought, one you want to believe: If only Americans could be made to understand the true, gut-sinking atrociousness of just about everything involved in U.S. elections – from the gerrymandered districts to the undemocratic distribution of electoral power to the enormous influence wielded by partisan officials to the underfunded, overwhelmed local offices to, finally, the insanely dangerous technology we use to run the whole thing – well, then, maybe folks would actually do something about the problem.

myth commercial detection

Applies a series of score for the scene based on looking at all three factors in relation to one another, especially taking timing and patterns into account. Based on the final score of a scene, it's either (essentially) dropped into the show bucket or the commercial bucket. It's not a black/white type thing. Because of the scoring, there are a whole range of grays in the middle. You end up with scenes that looks "more" like commercials or "more" like show content, and they are then flagged as such.

in other words, it's a Bayesian update! I'll look into this more…

i love the market

• stir fried tatsoi with teriyaki
• sautéed beet greens with roasted beets, salad
• prik khing with tasty long beans, sticky rice
• risotto with zucchini (on chicken stock day)

complete darwin online!

darwin-online.org.uk

me too!

Pollan in the NYTMag sunday:

The week of the E. coli outbreak, washed spinach was on sale at my local farmers’ market, and at the Blue Heron Farms stand, where I usually buy my greens, the spinach appeared to be moving briskly. I tasted a leaf and wondered why I didn’t think twice about it. I guess it’s because I’ve just always trusted these guys; I buy from them every week. The spinach was probably cut and washed that morning or the night before — it hasn’t been sitting around in a bag on a truck for a week. And if there ever is any sort of problem, I know exactly who is responsible. Whatever the risk, and I’m sure there is some, it seems manageable.

Yogurt is not a big truck

Yogurt is not a big truck
Originally uploaded by mathowie.

• friend rice (nasi goreng)
• fennel soup with saffron and tomato, pumpernickel
• chicken filet al ajillo, baked purple potato
• pad kee mao chicken and broccoli
• bacon and spinach quiche

keyboard consistency fix

…how to move from word to word. This is ⌥← and ⌥→ in all the Mac applications I use, except Terminal. Until now.

movie to see

Salon review of Shortbus: “Group sex may be a beautiful thing, man, but it's also a jumble of wobbly lines and arms and legs heading the wrong way.”

GMBO: giggling my butt off

Check out the handy list of everyday acronyms so you can decode your kids’ IMs with congressmen.

if only we could make expensive, synthetic fish oil…

NYT: The fact that heart patients receive such different treatments in sophisticated hospitals around the world highlights the central role that drug companies play in disseminating medical information, experts said.

med.stat

from slate:

Developed by epidemiologists in 1988, the NNT was heralded as a new and objective tool to help patients make informed decisions. It avoids the confusing distinction between "relative" and "absolute" reduction of risk. The NNT is intuitive: To a savvy, healthy person with high cholesterol that didn't decrease with diet and exercise, a doctor could say, "A statin might help you, or it might not. Out of every 50 people who take them, one avoids getting a heart attack. On the other hand, that means 49 out of 50 people don't get much benefit."

Country Girl Pie House

Country Girl Pie House
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet.

(and other pictures from a biketrip)

that's amusing

Daily Express:

David Bridge, pictured, stunned locals in the sleepy market town of Axbridge by donning a long flowing dress, high heels and jewelled tiara to appear as the carnival queen.

Misguided

From NYT today:

“For me, there’s anger and paranoia and fear for others — for the safety of food we get that’s supposed to be monitored,” Ms. Krause, 47, said. “I don’t know what to trust. Should we grow it all ourselves?”

No, and you probably shouldn’t feel guilty about being part of the mainstream American foodchain (or even the élite wholefoods version thereof). But there is something you could have done – know your farmers, preferring local to faraway and in-season to convenient. That represents a massive shift in the way most people buy produce.

I’ve been annoyed since this spinach story broke at how the news continues to cover the problem as if it is at all relevant that it happened to have come from spinach this time, as if we can run from mass-produced spinach to mass-produced bagged romaine and all will be well.

myStata?

mystata:

As web-based and other electronic data collection methods become more widely used in research, the opportunities to use statistical software in conjunction with conventional database systems are increasing. Among such systems, MySQL is particularly well suited for research purposes. For example, MySQL's ENUM and SET column types are ideal for storing data collected via the multiple choice questions typically used in social surveys. At the same time, Stata is uniquely suited for working in conjunction with a database; for example, its implementation of characteristics makes it possible to preserve (in a usable form) important information about how the database and front-end application are constructed (e.g., column types and other attributes). In this presentation, we shall describe a Python script we have developed for translating data from MySQL to Stata, and will indicate briefly how we are using it in the development of tools for the collection and management of research data.

Foodlist

• chicken paprikás, challah
• zucchini spinach mushroom lasagna (local of course, not bagged spinach!)
• masaman curry with tofu, potato, and sweet potato
• salad and Black Bear pumpernickel
• red beans and rice with Prairie Grass Farm lamb andouille
• Cuban black beans and rice

my office

I've been meaning to post a picture of my supergeeky office.

Big fucking surprise! HA

BOSTON (Reuters) — Graduate business students in the United States and Canada are more likely to cheat on their work than their counterparts in other academic fields, the author of a research paper said on Wednesday.

too much of a good thing

I am not alone in my dislike of the new blue iTunes 7 icon. My problem is only that the color blends in with other apps, requiring a good deal more visual processing than should be expended on switching apps. See how it blends in with other stuff? Not cool.

Learn or Die!

Combs Encourages Kids to Stay in School

''This is a really important time for you all right now,'' Combs said. ''This is the time that is going to dictate your future.''

The 36-year-old founder of Bad Boy Records looked the part in sunglasses and flashy jewelry. He called some students on stage and talked to them one on one about their goals. His advice: work hard and stay in school.

''Take responsibility for your future. No excuses!'' Combs said.

upcoming tasty food

• beans & tomatoes, ciabatta, salad
• pesto, fresh pasta, salad
• pad prik khing (Thai “dry curry”) beef & green beans
• okra-onion (Indian) curry
• cuban black beans and rice
• eggplant and tofu with chili black bean sauce

Center for Information Technology Policy—Voting Study

Center for Information Technology Policy Voting Study: "This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks."

Why Johnny can't code | Salon Technology

Why Johnny can't code | Salon Technology:

Quietly and without fanfare, or even any comment or notice by software pundits, we have drifted into a situation where almost none of the millions of personal computers in America offers a line-programming language simple enough for kids to pick up fast.

And yet, they are tantalized! Ben has long complained that his math textbooks all featured little type-it-in-yourself programs at the end of each chapter -- alongside the problem sets -- offering the student a chance to try out some simple algorithm on a computer. Usually, it's an equation or iterative process illustrating the principle that the chapter discussed. These "TRY IT IN BASIC" exercises often take just a dozen or so lines of text. The aim is both to illustrate the chapter's topic (e.g. statistics) and to offer a little taste of programming.

What about “try it in R”? It was invented as a free and accessible teaching language for people to not have to buy S+, and it would be perfect for elementary math texts IMO. It can be used interactively, and offers a lot of room for growth (unlike basic).

What to Expect When You%u2019re Expecting Dinner - New York Times

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Dinner - New York Times: “‘Is everything all right?’ The main course has been served, and the waiter has just asked us this question. I’ve had exactly one bite of my main course, which is just enough for me to remember that, as usual, the main course always disappoints. I am beginning to wonder whether this is a metaphor, and if so, whether it’s worth dwelling on. Now, suddenly the waiter has appeared, pepper mill in one hand, Pellegrino in the other, and interrupted an extremely good story right before the punch line to ask if everything is all right. The answer is no, it’s not.”

pictures with furniture

dining area
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet.

(at last)

macosxhints.com - OS X tips and tricks!

macosxhints.com - OS X tips and tricks! : "Since they all pretty much look the same from my VNC/Timbuktu/Apple Remote Desktop window, it's hard to know where I am when I log in. I can't tell which one is an Xserve, and which is a Mac mini... "

macosxhints.com - OS X tips and tricks!

macosxhints.com - OS X tips and tricks! : "Sharing, syncing and editing iCal over WebDAV"

macosxhints.com - OS X tips and tricks!

macosxhints.com - OS X tips and tricks! : "The defacto standard in Terminal's shells is meta-b (backward) and meta-f (forward) for word-by-word movement. In every other Cocoa app, however, it's Option-left arrow and Option-right arrow. I wanted Terminal to behave the same way. "

Explaining the huge rise in teen oral sex. By Tim Harford - Slate Magazine

Explaining the huge rise in teen oral sex. By Tim Harford - Slate Magazine: "The oral-sex epidemic is a rational response to a rise in the price of the alternative."

haaa

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Method anchor: "Added to all this attention is the frisson of his sexuality and the hanging question -- hanging because Cooper refuses to address it -- of whether he is gay or not, which raises the possibility of his being America's first gay anchor."
“Possibility” indeed.

The Emmy Awards reviewed. By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine

The Emmy Awards reviewed. By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine: "Last night, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences colluded with NBC to bring us The 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, and the broadcast exceeded the widespread expectation that it would be tedious to the point of punishment. Things were looking dreary even before host Conan O'Brien had reared his ginger head: Near the end of the official preshow, summoned to dis the most egregious red-carpet fashion faux pas, Project Runway's Tim Gunn would only allow that the actresses Sandra Oh and Cheryl Hines had perhaps overaccessorized, missing a fine opportunity to suppose that Tyra Banks had borrowed her gown from an Atlantic City, N.J., production of Wicked. That's the kind of night it was; even the bitchery was on a short leash."

The winners of our Snakes on a Plane contest. By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine

The winners of our Snakes on a Plane contest. By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine: "And because no list of deliberately crass movie titles should be afraid of offending anyone, I must also mention Tim Weinmann's The Uplifting Retard and Joshua Weinstein's A Film About Black People (Made by Jewish People)."

PC World - AOL 9.0 Accused of Behaving Like Badware

PC World - AOL 9.0 Accused of Behaving Like Badware: "The report blasts the free version of AOL 9.0 because it 'interferes with computer use,' and because of the way it meddles with components such as the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows taskbar. The suite is also criticized for engaging in 'deceptive installation' and faulted because some components fail to uninstall."

Dance, Monkeys, Dance - Flash animation

Dance, Monkeys, Dance - Flash animation

Why we love the Pillsbury Bake-Off. By Sara Dickerman - Slate Magazine

Why we love the Pillsbury Bake-Off. By Sara Dickerman - Slate Magazine: "Among the finalists—each of whom had his or her recipe selected from tens of thousands of submissions—there is a truly diverse range of socially conservative white Americans. There's Sita, a kooky bank-teller-cum-silversmith; Sue, a former Deutsche Bank VP; and Richard, a lanky Kentucky man who's an avid clogger. He is so respected in his community that he and his wife are described by a neighbor as 'just like the Reagans.'"

Laptop Slides Into Bed in Love Triangle - New York Times

Laptop Slides Into Bed in Love Triangle - New York Times: "Dr. Enoch Choi, 36, and his wife, Tania, 33, who have been married 10 years, both take laptops to bed to write their blogs. %u201CI suppose I started the trend,%u2019%u2019 said Dr. Choi, a physician in Palo Alto, Calif. %u201CBut now my wife is just as much the nighty-night PowerBook key-banger, blogging away for her friends.%u201DMs. Choi, a computer interface designer, said she used to be offended by gadgets in the bedroom. %u201CI don%u2019t even have a TV in the room,%u201D she said. But now, %u201Cit%u2019s one of those weird modalities of intimacy I%u2019m just going to have to reconcile myself to.%u2019%u2019 She added:%u201CHonestly, if both of us are in there with the computer it%u2019s a good night. But if one of us wants to be left alone, we%u2019re in different places with our technology. If we want to be connected, then we both bring our technology into the bedroom.%u201D"

I try to live like a senior citizen. By Emily Yoffe - Slate Magazine

I try to live like a senior citizen. By Emily Yoffe - Slate Magazine: "'It's free!' Ann almost shrieks at me, holding out the bear. 'Look, it's adorable. It's musical. I've got great-grandchildren but I might keep it for myself.' "