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The folks at  Symphony of Science have put out another video.  This time it is the poetry of science.  A wonderful job fellas!

National Bookmobile Day is almost upon us and the American Library Association has published a collection of resources to help celebrate the day.  They include fact sheets, printable fliers, and a bunch of other stuff interesting stuff.  Check out their page right here.

Wizards of the Coast has new social network for gamers, The Wizards Community.

While before, I have had no use for WOC and hated them for their insidious product Magic: The Gathering–the scourge of my college days–its seems my opinion may have to change.  With its new social network, at long last I can find a group to play in.  Meetup.com also does gaming, and was my site of choice to look for folks, but I’ve found their selection of groups to be rather hit or miss; and the need to pay to organize a group–while understandable–was a bit of a barrier for me.

Ingredients

• oil (olive, veggie, or even butter would work)
• boneless pork chops, defrosted
• spices:  onion powder, turmeric, pepper, oregano, curry, bouillon
• a chopped onion
• a chopped garlic clove
• some potatoes
• some baby carrots
• a big can of chick peas (aka garbanzo beans)
• a can of black beans
• a can of cream of mushroom soup
• a handful of spinach
• other stuff you might have in your fridge

Equipment

• Cast iron skillet (although you should be able to use any old skillet)
• Stock pot
• A good knife for cutting
• Kitchen scissors
• Can opener
• Cutting board
• Fork or spatula
• Ladle
• Blender

Directions

Chop onions, spinach, and garlic.  Think belatedly about ways to not cry when chopping onions.  Cry.

Cook a decent amount of olive oil in a large cast iron skillet, on a medium highish heat.  When oil is heated up, add pork chops.

Sprinkle pork chops with onion powder, turmeric, oregano, and pepper on both sides, and keep flipping them to avoid sticking or burning.

Meanwhile, heat up some more oil in a stock pot.  Once heated, add onions and garlic.

Let a a little piece of pork chop cool off, and throw it over towards the puppy.

Chop up the potatoes into whatever size you like, and throw them in with the garlic and onions.  Fry up for a bit.

Don’t forget the pork chops are still cooking.  If they aren’t done yet (nice and browned), switch the heat to low while you concentrate on the stock pot.  Also, remember to stir the potato mix occasionally.

Chop up some baby carrots and add them to the mix.  Ignore the puppy’s intent stare.

When the pork chops are done, remove them from heat and let them cool enough for you to chop them up or shred them into little pieces.  Scissors work well for this!  Set them aside for now.

When the potatoes are a little bit browned, add some water to the pot – about enough to cover the potatoes and then some.

Add some bouillon of some kind in there (I like Better Than Bouillon) and let it heat up, stirring occasionally.

Add in the chick peas and black beans – don’t drain the water first – use it in the soup!  There’s got to be some flavor in there.  Put about half of the pork chop bits and half of the spinach in there.  Save the rest for later.

Get the blender ready.  Meanwhile, keep stirring the pot occasionally until the potatoes are tender.  This might be a good time for a smoke break.

Add a handful of curry powder and throw in the pork chop pieces (wait!  give one more taste of pork chop to the puppy!).

Let the soup cook on high for a while until the potatoes are cooked through.  Test this by taking one out, letting it cool off, and taking a bite.

Once done, remove the majority of the chunky stuff from the soup and mix it up in the blender.   You might have to do this more than once.   Then, add the cream of mushroom soup and the remaining pork chops and spinach (set aside a tiny bit of spinach for topping later) and stir.  Last chance to give puppy one more bite.

Check the fridge for any last minute items that could be used up in here.   For example, I had a bit of leftover gravy from Sunday’s biscuit and gravy breakfast that I threw in there.  Makes for interesting tastes!

Let it sit on low heat until ready to serve.   Serve with pita bread to dip, and sprinkle some chopped spinach over the top of bowls.

Servings: Feeds a family of four, one dinner guest, and plenty for leftovers.

Inspired by:

Moroccan Chickpea Soup

Curried Potato, Spinach, and Garbanzo Bean Soup

Crossposted from The Chaotic Chef

YouTube launches  a site redesign on the video page.  To check out this new look people can opt-in. YouTube helpfully provides a link to check it out. Click on this link to take a look.

At the moment anyone can opt-in, but page elements are only available in English. To revert back to the old video page, use the opt-out link at the top of the new video page or opt out via this link.

If you like YouTube and videos you might also check out the CLNN Video Channel

Google Buzz is the hip new thing, and is being met with a mixture of puzzlement over its function and outrage over its perceived privacy problems.  Things are hopefully being fixed but for the moment, the big issue is the viability of the  following/follower lists.

The whole thing is tricky to follow when you get down to the whole opt-in/opt-out social network function, so I made a couple of examples.

In the ideal world, this is how it should work.

Famous rock star and social activist Zoe has a Buzz feed.  Dave and Sue are huge fans of Zoe and want to know whom Zoe listens to, so they check out Zoe’s Following list and find some cool and interesting folks.

It is kind of like Twitter, you might say, and people follow other people on Twitter all the time, right?  The big problem is, Buzz makes your contacts and their emails addresses into an ad-hoc public social network–whether you want them to or not.  Buzz starts with users automatically agreeing to share their data in an opt-out rather than opt-in privacy policy and setting users up with an automatically suggested list of followers.  I may email my boss or landlord a lot, that doesn’t mean I want to be their Buzz-Buddy.

Bob might not have a Google Profile set up or have activated his own Buzz; but if Alice has mailed him, chatted with him via Google Chat, or contacted Bob in some other way Carol, Charlie, and Dave could look at Alice’s Following list and see that Bob (and his email address) was there.  Alice also mails Isaac, and now his email address is out there for the world to see–the problem, Isaac is Alice’s twelve-year-old son.

In the online world email address are almost like the magical True Names of old.  Know someone’s user name and a world of data unlocks.  People leak a tremendous amount of data around online, and spilling the beans on an email address can lead to unpleasant side effects.  I’m not one to assume malice lurks everywhere, odds are nothing will happen.  However, it is possible something can happen.

Ultimately, I think Buzz can be useful, but for the moment, it needs a lot of work.

For the moment here is how to hide your followers/ Following.

If you do not want your contacts to be a matter of public record, you can hide your following/follower list by going to your Google Profile, choosing Edit Profile, and unchecking the Display the list of people I’m following and people following me box.

Some Helpful Links

• PC World has a fairly good article on controlling Google Buzz
• Google has published a set of user controls for Buzz

If you want to chuck the whole thing here is how to turn it off.
Turning Buzz off

1. Delete your Google profile. Here’s how.
2. Block all of the people following you. Here’s how.
3. Turn off Buzz at the bottom of Gmail. Here’s how.

Jonathan Coulton – Fun Winter – Music Video

You can never have enough storage space, especially if you’re a book lover. This clever hack turns the unused space between rafters into book shelves.

via Lifehacker

“Puckman bookcase is made of shining varnished wood.  The Colour is yellow to remind the famous character of the 80ies cult videogame “the Pac-man”.  It is a solid structure easy to build on. It is possible to hang it by a practical Wooden hang.  The Puckman bookcase present a little distance from the wall to allow TV wires or other wires to pass it through.”

Goes well with their Ghosty lamp.

via TechXav