Author: Mark Linton

You Are How You Eat

Sadly, according to fans of the low-carb mania that is sweeping the United States, the Italian gastronomic landscape is the equivalent of a minefield. Our diet of pasta, rice and an abundance of fruits and vegetables is loaded with evil carbs.

So why is it that Italians are shrugging off America’s latest dietary obsession?

For one thing, the mere idea of giving up pasta would be cause for severe depression in an Italian. I experience withdrawal if I go more than four or five days without it.

And why is it that the number of Americans who are overweight or obese continues to increase at an alarming rate while here the percentage of overweight or obese people is half of what it is in the United States? After all, those trim and fit Italian men with flat bellies and women with hourglass figures are all sitting in restaurants eating pasta, polenta and crusty bread.

Artificial Sweetener May Disrupt Body’s Ability To Count Calories, According To New Study

Professor Terry Davidson and associate professor Susan Swithers, both in the Department of Psychological Sciences, found that artificial sweeteners may disrupt the body’s natural ability to “count” calories based on foods’ sweetness. This finding may explain why increasing numbers of people in the United States lack the natural ability to regulate food intake and body weight.

Yo-Yo Dieting

Contrary to popular opinion, research published about 10 years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows weight cycling does not have negative effects on body fat, metabolism, or the success of future weight-loss efforts. The National Task Force on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity reviewed 43 studies on the effects of weight cycling on metabolism, psychological functioning, and health. According to the report, there is no compelling evidence that weight cycling is riskier than remaining obese. “While the notion that weight cycling has negative effects on metabolism and health has become accepted by many, careful review of studies in humans does not support this conclusion,” said Dr. Susan Z. Yanovski, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. In addition, weight cycling does not appear to have negative effects on risk factors for illness, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

On the Hops Trail

This would have been improbable except for a factoid in the long-forgotten history of beer: Upstate New York grew 80 percent of America’s hops beginning in the mid-1800s.

Now a group of professors, preservationists, farmers, brewers and assorted beer nuts are working to restore the Empire State’s beer credentials as a grower of heritage hops.

Zen Koans

These koans, or parables, were translated into English from a book called the Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the thirteenth century by the Japanese Zen teacher Muju (the “non-dweller”), and from anecdotes of Zen monks taken from various books published in Japan around the turn of the 20th century.

XHTML Validator to RSS

The w3c’s XHTML validation service is tremendously useful, but it’s a pain to be continually checking it for breakages, and then working through the errors when they occur. Their user interface leaves a bit to be desired as well.

Personally, I like nice to-do lists and automatic checking of my pages. So to combine the two, I’ve made a widget to create a XHTML Validation Results RSS feed from any page.

Longevity increased dramatically 32,000 years ago

Researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of California at Riverside have discovered a dramatic increase in human longevity that took place during the early Upper Paleolithic Period, around 30,000 B.C.

In their study of more than 750 fossils to be published July 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, anthropologists Rachel Caspari and Sang-Hee Lee found a dramatic increase in longevity among modern humans during that time: the number of people surviving to an older age more than quadrupled.

Fast Rollovers Without Preload

When using CSS image rollovers, two, three, or more images must be loaded (and often be preloaded for best results). We’ve got one image for each state (normal, hover, active, visited etc). Putting all states into one image makes dynamic changes faster and requires no preload.

Fowler, H. W. 1908. The King’s English, 2nd edition

The plan for the second edition of the classic reference work The King’s English was dictated by the following considerations: (1) to pass by all rules, of whatever absolute importance, that are shown by observation to be seldom or never broken; and (2) to illustrate by living examples, with the name of a reputable authority attached to each, all blunders that observation shows to be common.

Low-Carb Diets Take a Punch

The Partnership for Essential Nutrition, led by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop’s Shape Up America! group, cautions that studies show the low-carb approach can starve the brain of carbohydrates, produce constipation and other gastrointestinal problems, reduce energy levels and cause difficulty concentrating.

In the long run, the groups warn, the regimens can stress the kidneys and increase the risk of liver disorders, gout, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and several types of cancer.

Wi-fi sensor net aids wine makers

Bill Westerman, an associate partner at hi-tech consultancy Accenture working on the project, said wireless was a natural choice for the grape growers.

“It’s prohibitive to run cables through the growing fields,” he told BBC News Online.

Fat: The Secret Life of a Potent Cell

They are the building blocks of flab, the wages of cheesecake, the bloated little sacks of grease that make more of us — more than we can fit into our pants. Scorned and despised, they are sucked out surgically by the billions from bulging backsides, bellies and thighs.

But they are not without admirers.

“Fat cells are beautiful cells to look at,” said Dr. Philipp E. Scherer, an associate professor of cell biology and medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “I’ve been working with them for 10 years and I still enjoy looking at them.”

Returning Farmland to Wetlands

Persistent flooding of their corn and soybean fields led Robert and Verneel Noerrlinger to return 535 acres to wetlands. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is urging other landowners along the Missouri River in Nebraska to consider doing the same.

Last week, the Noerrlingers’ property was the site chosen by the USDA to announce a project that makes $26 million available through 2007 to restore 18,200 acres of wetlands along the river from Ponca to Rulo, about 200 miles running the entire length of the state.

[Ed.: Guy from “The River” finally figures out that corn likes it dry!]

New York Barbecue: Ribs, via the Far East

New York does have its own thriving barbecue tradition, but it’s more about star anise than smoke. At places like Big Wong King and Kim Tuong in Chinatown, pit masters turn out hundreds of racks of magnificently glazed ribs every day, with the moist meat, salty-sweet perfume and burnt edges so beloved of barbecue fanatics across the land. And at other Asian restaurants up and down the dining scale, from Nam and 66 to Big Wong and Pig Heaven, chefs have capitalized on New Yorkers’ passion for Chinese spareribs by developing their own styles. With judicious spicing and steaming, a glaze here and a dry rub there, Asian ribs have evolved into a hybrid Asian-American-New Yorkese barbecue. They may not be authentic anything, but they might still hold their own at the Jack Daniels invitational.

For Raspberries, Ubiquity (at a Price)

Red raspberry canes are normally planted in late winter and produce two crops.

Second-year canes, called floricanes, bloom from late spring to early summer, and first-year canes, called primocanes, from late summer to fall.

Walking long rows of canes on trellises rimmed by strawberry fields and lemon groves, Mr. Reiter explained how Driscoll is able to produce in the months when the canes usually do not bear fruit. The growers dig up dormant plants from northern nurseries, hold them in cold storage, then plant them in Southern California from April to September. The discombobulated plants then bear fruit from late fall to early spring.

A Party on a Stick, a Breeze in the Kitchen

My panic-banishing program is straightforward: concentrate on food that can be prepared in advance. In the summer, you might automatically, and understandably, think of providing plates of salads and cold tidbits, but they do not stand up well in the heat. Nor, actually, am I keen on canapés. I want to give people food that they can pick at while they talk to one another but that will also provide sustenance.

I am a complete convert to skewers — or kebabs, whatever you want to call them. You marinate the meat overnight — which ensures it will be tender as well as flavorful — then grill or broil the skewers as you need them. And because of the moisturizing marinade, you will find that if you leave the skewers out after cooking — food does not have to be piping hot in the summer — they will not harden and become tough.

Recipe: Raspberry-Topped Mini Cheesecakes

Time: About 40 minutes, plus 2 hours’ refrigeration

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs (8 ounces graham crackers, finely crushed)
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 to 3 teaspoons lime juice, or to taste
• 2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jelly
• 24 small mint leaves, optional
• 24 (about ⅜ cup) fresh raspberries.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor or mixer, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter. Process until mixture clumps like wet sand.
2. Place a tablespoon of crumb mixture in each well of a pan for 24 mini-muffins. Using a spoon or fingers, press mixture on bottom and up sides of each well to make a tartlike shell for filling. Refrigerate pan while making filling.
3. In a clean processor bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, egg, sour cream, vanilla and lime juice. Process until very smooth. Adjust lime juice to taste, and mix again to blend. Spoon enough filling into each muffin well for just the top edge of the crumb shell to show. Bake until cakes are set, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and cool in pan on a wire rack. Transfer pan to refrigerator, and chill 2 to 3 hours.
4. To remove cheesecakes, turn pan upside down, and rap firmly on back with a spoon. Place cheesecakes on a serving tray.
5. Place jelly in a small pan over low heat until melted. Put a dab (about ⅛ teaspoon) in center of each cake. Place a mint leaf on jelly and a raspberry on top. Refrigerate.

Yield: 24 cheesecakes.

Tonight’s MBNA Fitness Center workout:

1. Incline Press: 12@35, 10@45, 8@55, 6@65, 7@50, 6@35
2. Lateral Raise: 12@40, 10@50, 8@60, 4@75, 6@60, 8@40
3. Compound Row: 12@70, 10@85, 8@105, 6@125, 12@105, 12@70
4. Triceps Extension: 12@25, 10@30, 8@35, 6@45, 12@35, 12@25
5. Biceps Curl: 12@25, 10@35, 8@40, 6@50, 12@35, 12@20

The biceps curl machine seems to have a problem with the 5 and 10 pound weights on the side, so I am going to have to adjust the workout next week to use only the 15 pound plates.

Breakfast was a bowl of pineapple and banana slices and two cups of coffee. I weighed 155 pounds.

Lunch was a garden salad with red wine vinegar and oil salad dressing, two strawberry jam bar cookies, and a banana. Afterwards, I went for a three mile walk through campus.

Dinner was also a garden salad with red wine vinegar and oil salad dressing along with a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale. Afterwards, we went to our in-laws house for cherry pie with vanilla ice cream and to meet some distant almost-relatives visiting from England.

Breakfast was a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.

Lunch was Cape Cod Potato Chips and salsa and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

Dinner was grilled tuna, boiled new potatoes with parsley and brown butter, a small Caesar salad, and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

FDA Clears Medicinal Leeches for Marketing

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has for the first time cleared the commercial marketing of leeches for medicinal purposes.

Leeches can help heal skin grafts by removing blood pooled under the graft and restore blood circulation in blocked veins by removing pooled blood.

Leeches have been used as an alternative treatment to blood-letting and amputation for several thousand years. They reached their height of medicinal use in the mid-1800’s. Today they are used in medicine throughout the world as tools in skin grafts and reattachment surgery.

Flatland: A romance of many dimensions

I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows — only hard and with luminous edges — and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said “my universe”: but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.

Colours on the web – color theory and color matching

Colours have always been a very important part in graphic design, architecture and interior design. People working in these and other fields often put a lot of effort into getting the exact right colours. On the web, however, this is often not the case.

My hope with this site is that some of you who happen to stumble upon it will gain a better realization of the importance of colours — and perhaps learn that there is more to colours than you once thought. This will be a step in the right direction for colours on the web.

Math That Makes You Go Wow

“Math that Makes you go Wow” is just that. We hope that by using a multi-disciplinary approach to something as abstract — and yet very “cool” — as non-orientable surfaces, students who are otherwise uninterested in more traditional algebra will be enthused by math. Few things are worse, either for the teacher or the student, for a child to sit through a boring math class utterly uninterested in understanding. Too many math classes teach the “how” and not the “why.” For those not necessarily mathematically inclined, there is nothing fascinating about memorizing the cosine of 30°; we challenge even the least mathematically-inclined student not to find beauty in a Klein bottle or be fascinated by the idea of living on a Moebius band. A student who sees math all around — in music, in literature, in art — will use her interest in those subjects as a door to the world of mathematics.�

Good Experience – The Page Paradigm

On any given Web page, users will either…

• click something that appears to take them closer
  to the fulfillment of their goal,
• or click the Back button on their Web browser.

Worcestershire Sauce Recipes and Cooking Tips

Worcestershire sauce has its roots in India, but was actually created by accident in its namesake town of Worcester, England in 1835. As the story goes, Lord Marcus Sandy had returned home to England to retire after successfully governing Bengal, India for many years. He so missed his favorite Indian sauce that he commissioned drug store owners John Lea and William Perrins to come up with a reasonable facsimile. The original intent of the chemists was to keep some of the batch to sell in the store, but the fish and vegetable mixture had such a strong odor that they decided otherwise and stored it in the cellar. It lay forgotten for two years, until it was rediscovered during a clean-up mission. The batch had aged into a wonderfully flavored sauce which was bottled and quickly became a hot item with customers.

TheStar.com – Post-war cake mixes gave rise to packaged food industry

“Cooking is easy,” said Laura Shapiro, a food historian who is the author of Something From The Oven, published this month by Viking. It is about how in the 1940s and ’50s the food industry tried to convince American women that cooking was difficult in order to persuade them that they needed newly developed packaged and frozen foods and cake mixes.

The jonnycake is historic Rhode Island staple

It was the winter of 1620, so the legend goes, and the famished Pilgrims of the New World were scavenging for something to eat. A friendly Indian introduced the white man to a new grain — corn — and showed how its kernels could be ground by stone into powder, mixed with water and cooked over an open fire.

Four centuries later, jonnycakes — flat, gritty pancakes — remain a staple for some Rhode Islanders, and a major point of culinary pride in this tiny state…

Historians tend to agree that the settlers perfected the cooking with iron skillets they had brought with them from Europe. The cakes’ durability made them a hit; the colonists would cook the cakes in the morning, and put them in knapsacks to eat in the fields, out hunting, or while traveling to another settlement.

The simple, filling food became known as “journey cakes.”

Macworld Editors’ Notes Weblog: Apple Mac and Cheese

Many of us at Macworld are fans of Alton Brown, host of the funny and educational Good Eats on TV’s Food Network. (He also hosted the recent Iron Chef USA revival show.) But AB is also a fan of Apple and the Mac. So when I mentioned to him in January that we were trying to do a yearlong celebration of the Mac, he offered to whip up a brand-new recipe incorporating apples and “mac” — macaroni, that is.

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | My wartime menu

An Adult’s Weekly Rations

• Bacon and ham – 100g/4oz
• Butter – 50g/2oz
• Cheese – 50g/2oz
• Marg – 100g/4oz
• Cooking fat – 100g/4oz (often dropping to 2oz)
• Milk – 3pts/1800ml (but not always)
• Sugar – 8oz/225g
• Preserves – 1lb/450g every two months
• Tea -2oz/50g
• Eggs – one shell egg a week if available
• Dried eggs – one pack per month
• Sweets -12oz/350g a month
• Plus monthly points scheme for fish, meat, fruit or peas

Kobayashi wins hot dog eating contest, again – (United Press International)

Takeru Kobayashi of Japan won Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island, N.Y., Sunday.

For the fourth year, Kobayashi was named the world’s top hot dog eater for eating 53-and-a-half hot dogs in 12 minutes.

Made in America: Hope, happiness, cheese-in-a-can

America deserves a lot more respect than it gets. But we aren’t a country of whiners. We aren’t going to beg the rest of the world to appreciate us. But it might be timely on this day to point out some of the great inventions and achievements America is responsible for (in no particular order).

• The microwave oven. This revolutionary way of cooking allowed home chefs to elevate cooking to new sophisticated heights.
• Microwave pork rinds. With this invention, microwave cooking reached its zenith.

Snakes–Snakes provide good pest control in the garden

Gardeners should be glad to see snakes around the garden, according to Oregon State University snake expert Bob Mason. These much-maligned reptiles consume garden pests including slugs, grubs, mice, voles and rats. But he knows that snakes startle or terrify many folks.

“The vast majority of snakes in Oregon are very beneficial,” said Mason, a professor of zoology at OSU. “Some, like garter snakes, eat slugs. Others, like the sharp-tailed snake, eat slugs and grubs, including the pest Japanese beetle grub. Rubber boas specialize in eating mice and voles, going down their tunnels after them.”

Breakfast was a quarter of a cantaloupe, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.

I did not have any lunch, but at some point early in the afternoon, Gretchen and I had an apricot slush. Later in the afternoon, we had a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

Dinner was a a spinach salad with cucumber (from the CSA), grated Parmesan cheese, and a red wine vinegar and oil salad dressing. We also took the opportunity to try out some Mile High Biscuits (★★★★☆ — paid subscription required) as recommended by Meat Henge. I had three, with strawberry jam. They were delicious. I also had another bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

• 11.369 Gallons
• $1.759/Gallon
• $20.00
• 282.6 Miles
• 24.9 Miles/Gallon
• 7¢/Mile
• 12 Days

Happy Independence Day, folks!

What is “Real” Ramen?

Instant ramen noodles are popular in the world, but “real” ramen eaten in Japan are different from instant noodles. Raw Chinese egg noodles (Chuka-men) are used instead of dried noodles to make ramen. Even though Chinese noodles are used in ramen dishes, ramen is a typical Japanese food. There are so many ramen shops in Japan, and ramen is a kind of Japanese fast food.

MIT OpenCourseWare

A free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT’s mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT’s values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.

Men’s Fitness: Stretches for carpal tunnel syndrome – Fast track: the active man’s guide to damn near everything – Brief Article

Whether you’re a cubicle jockey, a welder, or a pal gow dealer at a casino, the repetitive movements your hands make daily put you at risk for developing carpal tunnel syndrome — a painful and annoying neurological condition caused by the compression of a nerve in the wrist. Treatments, including surgery, can be costly and drawn out, but taking the time to do the following five exercises — specially designed for the desk driver on a tight schedule — may be the best preventative medicine.

Lynton & Barnstaple Railway

The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in North Devon, is one of the world’s most famous and picturesque narrow gauge railways. Passengers can now travel by steam train along part of the original route within the Exmoor National Park above the Heddon Valley near Parracombe. The opening of this first phase of the new line now allows visitors to experience a taste of what will eventually become one of the ultimate heritage railway experiences of the world! Here on this website you can gain a feel of our railway, and learn more about this exciting project.

Thirty-eight dishonest tricks

Thirty-eight dishonest tricks which are commonly used in argument, with the methods of overcoming them.

Language Log: The sixteen first rules of fiction

I must say I was surprised, though, when I went to check via Google that this really was the First Rule of Fiction and found, with a search on “first rule of fiction”, that in fact there are at least sixteen (16) First Rules of Fiction. In addition to Show, don’t tell, which is mentioned on two or three sites, I found these (they are roughly paraphrased; often the rules are only hinted at).

Suggestions for critical thinking

Some basic steps in critically analyzing arguments (with links to web pages on informal fallacies).

Kids Do Much of Their Munching in Front of TV

Duh! You needed a study to tell you that?

Breakfast was a quarter of a cantaloupe, a glass of orange juice, and three cups of coffee. I weighed 157 pounds.

Lunch was two grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale

We went to a Third of July Picnic for dinner. It was a BYOB/covered dish affair. We brought pizza pinwheels and strawberry jam bars. I had some of each, as well as two hot dogs with chili, mustard, and onions, some potato salad, a vegetarian pasta salad, and… oh… innumerable beers.

A long time ago, somebody at the University decided to pick a young man out of the coal mines and sponsor him for a college scholarship. That young man went on to get a degree and helped found an engineering firm. In the heyday of such firms, they were bought out. He took his profits and bought himself a restaurant, where he installed himself as bartender. One day his nephew came in and asked him to pour him a beer. He decided to teach him a lesson and pulled him a draft of the heaviest beer they had, a porter from America’s Oldest Brewery. The boy loved it. Today, that boy is the master brewer at a New England brewery. The father of the boy — who is now a father himself — put on a very nice fireworks display for all the folks at the picnic. Isn’t it funny how events are connected?