indian food

Lets start today with one of my favorite subject.... FOOD (bet you thought i was gonna say environment). I especially love Indian food. I was about to say that I meant the kind with curry not the kind with buffalo but in truth I enjoy buffalo steak much more than regular steak so i guess I kinda like both. Anyway, the NYTimes is running an article on Chaat, an indian snack food that sounds fantastic, even if I do hate cilantro (tastes like soap to me, turns out that its a genetic trait, to some people it tastes good, to others it tastes like soap). More on food (indian and otherwise) later.

and now..... The ENVIRONMENT (sorry, couldn't pass it up)

It seems that melting of the northern pack ice at the (north) pole may be a normal natural cycle and NOT related to global warming.... sortof. If in the next 5 years it does not increase in thickness and duration, then we 'know' we have a problem.

Brazilian rain-forest and all its problems.

In the pacific northwwest, Mt. St. Helens is erupting! And the BBC is running an article on what to expect if there were a 'super eruption' in yellowstone. Such an eruption would cool the earth somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius. (a lot). COurse that accompanies blocking the sun, choking ash and smoke, and lots of raining hell-fire.

Ummm... i just found the Mt. St. Helens webcam... and it don't look like its erupting but everyone is reporting that it is... wonder what the dealio is.

In the space arena, a launch site has been secured for space tourism, now all we need is a reliable vehicle and a few thousand wealthy thrill seekers.

NASA it seems is taking a page from the movie 'Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control' and is building robots for exploration that don't cost too much and can be lost without worry...

Bird Flu Time and it seems the first human carriers have been found, that is people who have the virus but show no signs of it, allowing them to pass it to others.... sorta like typhoid mary who had typhus with no symptoms and worked in a cafeteria giving it to everyone she served food to.

In other health news, America's love afair with the quick fix continues, this time in the form of a pill that ends smoking addiction..... Ok so this is the one (probably more than one) time I think a quick fix is a good thing.

How many things can you do at once? I can chew gum and walk... or watch and ... um... I can't do anything while watching tv. I can drive and talk, think, or on occasion sleep at the same time! The American Psychological Society has released a report on exactly how many things the average human can do at once.... not many.

EA, the huge software/game company that has come under fire for terrible employment practices like no overtime pay and endless required overtime work has announced that they will pay overtime... but anyone who wants it has to give up their bonus and stock options. Thats kinda silly....

The US government is finally paying up for walking away with gold,art, china and cutlery that belonged to the Jews of Hungary prior to WWI. the settlement is worth about $25m, not much in the grand scheme of things but its nice to see them say "oops".

Literacy as a tool against corruption.... i wonder if it will work.

Some Gizmag links:
Shirt Ironing machine
Lie detecting glasses
3-D printing
rotary crank for boosting pedal power on bikes
amazing treehouses to order
survival pod This one points to something I was saying earlier, the need for cheap easily distributed instant shelter. this is at least one step in that direction

Some other cool stuff from elsewhere:
Build it yourself laser tag. I saw this one a few days ago but not until i read the details did I think it worth mentioning. this system is supposedly easy to build, cheaper than the ones you buy from commercial setups, and has amazing abilities.

Some idiots out there wish to build a floating city(on the ocean not in the air). While floating cities are all the rage in sci-fi/fantasy novels but they tend to be rather tricky and icky in real life. Think about al the garbage a normal sedentary city creates. Now think of what we do with it. Now think instead of simply dumping it out the back door. Hell even the cleanest ships trail oil and fuel and incidental garbage. This thing will be a floating cesspool in my humble opinion. Plus what happens if it moves into an area where whales/dolphins/turtles often live... they will be unable to surface beneath that thing and will suffocate if they head in the wrong direction.... it would have its own ecology and basically bring invading species with it where-ever it went... no its an all around bad idea. Freedom or not, its a bad idea.

Now back to indian food:
some recipes:
Papri Chaat
Potato Chaat
Chatpati Channa Chaat Recipej

thats all for now