randomwalks/dj

Sen. Clinton gave a pretty astonishing interview to the Washington Post in which she appears to say she will stay in the race till the convention in August, where she will take her fight to the credentials committee to have the delegates from the non-sanctioned Michigan and Florida primaries seated.

The convention of course starts on August 25th, roughly five months from now.

The key quote from the interview is this one: "I know there are some people who want to shut this down and I think they are wrong. I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention -- that's what credentials committees are for."

So she's promising to remain in the race at least until June 3rd when the final contests are held in Montana and South Dakota and until Florida and Michigan are 'resolved'. Now, that can have no other meaning than resolved on terms the Clinton campaign finds acceptable. It can't mean anything else since, of course, at least officially, for the Democratic National Committee, it is resolved. The penalty was the resolution.

The Obama campaign has always been willing to 'resolve' the matter by splitting those states' delegates down the middle. But of course that's something the Clinton campaign can never accept since splitting them down the middle is the same as not counting them at all. It leaves both campaigns right where the started, i.e., with him ahead and her behind.

That leaves two real possibilities: seat the non-sanctioned January primary delegates or hold the primaries again, a revote.

I don't know many people who've ever thought possibility one was going to happen. And the consensus seems to be that the time window on possibility two has closed (though it's not completely clear to me why it couldn't be reopened if everyone agreed they wanted to do it.) So that really does sound like she's saying she wants to take this to the credentials committee at the convention at the end of August, regardless of the outcome of the next ten primaries and caucuses.

So there it is. Since neither side now seems to think revotes are likely and the Obama campaign and the DNC will never agree to seat the delegates from the non-sanctioned primaries, Sen. Clinton seems to be saying pretty clearly that she plans on taking her campaign all the way to Denver.

By saying she'll continue through the remaining ten contests, regardless of the outcome, and implicitly, I take it, regardless of any superdelegate declarations over the next two months, Sen. Clinton is saying it's no longer about pledged delegates, or superdelegates or popular votes. It's about Florida and Michigan. Period.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on March 29, 2008 7:50 PM

Interesting story in the NY Times about a lawsuit being brought by two men in Hawaii that think that the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole that would eat up the Earth and possibly the universe. I don't know much about quantum physics, but the argument is that the collider could create a micro black hole that would grow and eventually swallow the earth. According to research published by Stephen Hawking in 1974, these micro black holes would rapidly evaporate and pose no threat. But no one has witnessed a black hole evaporate. My favorite quote from the story:

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”

Man-made (induced?) dragons or black hole -- either would be a poetic ending to life as we know it.

This is actually a nice animated explanation of what a black hole (I found it by searching for "black holes for dummies").

Curious about quantum physics? You better like math.

Originally posted on alaina.vox.com

Originally posted by Alaina from alaina browne lives here, on March 29, 2008 2:02 PM

Just testing out to see what broke in moving to WP 2.5…

update: amazingly enough, nothing broke, even a bunch of old plugins I still use.

Originally posted by Matt Haughey from A Whole Lotta Nothing, on March 29, 2008 1:44 PM

The portrait is of Ken Menzies and was placed in the "piazzale flaminio" near the "piazza del popolo", in Roma.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Wooster Collective, on March 29, 2008 11:18 AM

Examiner column for March 31.

    Teachers’ voices need to be heard. That’s been the subject of my last two columns, but I never explained how I know the effect those voices will have. I know because I’ve heard from you, the reader.

    No resource is more valuable than our children, so naturally anything parents can learn about the classroom—even someone else’s classroom—is welcome knowledge. That is reason enough to have at least one teacher writer in every newspaper and online journal in the country. Would that it were so!

    What I have discovered is that the voices of teachers reach more than the intended audience of parents, students, and other teachers. Before email, I never knew who read my sporadic pieces for the Fairfax Journal. Occasionally someone would bump into me and mutter, “Saw your column.”

    But for the past four years, my weekly Examiner column has received many emails--never a deluge (after all, the subject is education, not politics or celebrities!) But the ones that trickle in are from people of all walks of life.

    High school students don’t normally read print news, but at least one does: Leslie wrote, “I beg my mom to bring home” the Examiner each Monday. Yet high school students, the subjects of most of my columns, are not my main readers.

    Joan, a foreign service worker, commented on my column “The End is in Sight”: “It describes leaving post in Foreign Service to go to the next one. Your best friends pick fights because it makes it easier to say ‘farewell.’”

    Joseph, an Administrative Law Judge, wrote that he graduated from high school in 1943, but still reads “your column in The Examiner regularly…keep them coming.” Grace, who works in The Examiner building, sometimes misses a Monday paper on holidays, and “stops by the 5th floor to ask for a day-old copy.”

    Clearly all columnists have as many or more readers than I do; otherwise, they wouldn’t be writing. But teachers think no one wants to hear what they have to say, and my experience tells me that simply isn’t true.

    Teachers face daily exhaustion—mental and physical. We face the frustration of not knowing whether our work is taking effect, or falling on deaf ears. We have difficult first years, and feel nostalgia and regret as we head into the last years of our careers. We may be bullied or supported by supervisors. I’ve devoted more than one column to each of these subjects, and they reach far beyond the school classroom.

    Joyce summed it up best in a recent email. She wrote, “I am not a teacher, not a parent, nor a student in school. Yet I read your articles frequently and derive from so many of them a message that speaks to me personally.”

    I know there is a wide audience for teacher writing, but too few teachers believe it. Flaubert said of his most famous fictional character, “Emma Bovary, c’est moi [that’s me.]”    

    I have discovered that we are all teachers—of our children, of our co-workers, of our friends. As Flaubert recognized, human experience is universal. A teacher, like Emma Bovary, is all of us.

   

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on March 29, 2008 7:11 AM

catastrofe:

faster, my ants, faster!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org Tumblelog, on March 28, 2008 8:08 PM

How uncanny is her valley? Very. Never has one of those Flash move-your-mouse-around applets been this creepy.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on March 28, 2008 5:09 PM

This a bit old but the dude that runs the stylish cameron i/o site (who is coincidentially named Cameron) built a trumpet-like bell for the iPhone out of a used toilet paper tube.

I wanted to listen to my music in the shower but the iPhone's speaker would get lost in the noise from the shower. So I directed the iPhone's audio straight towards me. Worked pretty well. Just ask my neighbors.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on March 28, 2008 4:24 PM

Updated 7:52 p.m. ET Friday:

This community will be relaunched as the MLBlogs Network in the coming hours, and we here at Major League Baseball Advanced Media are excited to start a new Major League regular season with a new blogging environment just as we have relaunched MLB.com, team sites and more.

Here are some details you will need to know, so here goes...

It will be free to blog here. No more subscription. For the record, the last person in history to pay for an MLBlog was Yes The Cubs Won't Win. Maybe that's how you reverse a Billy Goat Curse.

There will be an outage of service starting at 1 a.m. ET Saturday, and at that point no MLBlogs (or software) will be visible to the public until a targeted relaunch of 2:30 p.m. ET that day. So if you are thinking of blogging right now, just keep in mind that no one is going to see it overnight and for much of the day on Saturday, in case that matters. Please pardon the construction while we migrate everything into a new environment and new host.

The old Typepad app we've used since the April 2005 launch of MLBlogs will be replaced by a robust Movable Type software app. You'll like MT much better.

This will be the first phase in gradual rollouts of cool enhancements to the overall MLB community. You'll see a lot of things you've waited for, and there will be some other things you'd like and chances are they are on deck for coming days/weeks.

There will be some glitches and bugs and headaches as with any other relaunch. Normally we at MLBAM are launching things where we are the proprietors and WE are the ones going through the pains of getting it perfectly right. In this case, YOU are the proprietor and just expect that there will be some snafus along the way. We'll be working with you on it.

Going from pay-to-free is a good thing. It's the opposite of how it usually works on the Internet. Still, there may be some questions about refunding. There will be a link within your new MT to email our Customer Service, where someone will help you. But here is what you need to know:

REFUNDS

• Any annual subscription is nonrefundable if it was placed before 2008. Any annual subscription placed on or after Jan. 1, 2008, will be fully refunded by Customer Service.
  
• Any Blog created in the month leading up to the relaunch would be fully refunded, whether monthly ($4.95) or annual ($49.95).
• If you are owed a refund, then just email Customer Service here.
  

The MLBlogs.com landing page is being updated and will be a place for us to post any updates as warranted regarding the coming outage of service. That page will continue to exist through the migration/outage, and then at relaunch it will give way to a new landing page with more functionality including tag clouds, which also will exist on all blogs.

Right now QA testing is ongoing. Here are Saturday estimates:

1 AM ET: Shutdown of the entire existing MLBlogs community occurs to backup and give a database and file dump. (This is not an estimate. Expect that timing.)

No blogs will be visible during the outage. Everyone will see a placeholder page. Enjoy MLB.com or get some sleep or partake in weekend fun.

1 PM ET: We begin our test on the new platform.

2 PM ET: We signoff on testing and make the new MLBlogs Network public-facing.

Give it about 10 minutes for updates to propagate and then we're live in the new blog world.

Again, these are all estimates after blogging capability/visibility disappears. Will do our best to keep you updated as warranted.

Once MLBlogs return, there will be a lot of questions by bloggers. We're learning the MT software, too. Dive into it when it's available and try things out. There will be a customer support email link (as listed above) if you are at wit's end. It's Opening Day weekend and just expect some time for response on this end. You also can post comments here, and your fellow users may be able to reply swiftly in answer to your questions about functionality. There will be a lot to get used to, and we hope you will enjoy the new season and new blog network.

There also will be a link in your software to report/flag any bloggers/commenters for abuse/spam. There will be a more sophisticated method for this in a subsequent phase, but in the meantime, feel free use that email link and we'll monitor it. That is only for abuse/spam reporting.

Get ready for better, more fun templates...lots of tagging...preapproval of comments...lots of things you expect and some more excitement at the start of a Major League season.

Any constructive feedback (email preferred) about the new MLBlogs Network after the relaunch will be appreciated, added to any known issues. Thanks to everyone who has helped grow this community over the last three years, and here's to a great season.

Mark/MLB.com

Originally posted by Editorial Producers from MLBlogosphere, on March 28, 2008 3:00 PM

It took a while but the second Soul Sides boxset is finally available. The first one was an in-depth look at Aretha Franklin and this latest tackles one of my favorite genres: Latin boogaloo.

Included are a full, downloaable playlist of songs, a selection of compilations, a small set of videos and recommended other reading. All annotated in an edutainment tradition by yours truly. Now that this boxset is finally launched, I'll use it as an excuse to get back to a few boogaloo themed posts here on Soul Sides.

What I need from ya'll is to help support the Boxset series by posting comments there (not here!). The more interactivity I can generate, the more I can justify my future work for Uber on the Boxset series.

Originally posted by O.W. from soul sides, on March 28, 2008 2:46 PM

The top five reasons why "the customer is always right" is wrong. I like the idea that a company should be as ready to fire bad customers as they are to fire bad employees.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on March 28, 2008 2:38 PM

When I first saw the above photo taken by Charlie Fu of Clayfood, I thought they were some variety of donuts. They're definitely fried, but far from a sweet bread: those plump ring-shaped monsters are the "World Famous Beer Battered Onion Rings" from Stone Brewery in Escondido, CA. At least, I think there's some onion in there. Charlie said, "These were really thin onions that were so oily I felt the pimples growing on my face as I cut into it. I don't think the four of us had more than 1 each." Thumbs down for the onion ring of doom. [via TasteSpotting]

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on March 28, 2008 2:15 PM

View an enlarged version of this map

Together at last: Pre-congestion pricing short-term transit enhancements and MTA capital projects in one map! The graphic comes courtesy of the Regional Plan Association, which made the map for an insert touting pricing [PDF] placed in the Legislative Gazette this Monday by Environmental Defense, TWU Local 100, and the Straphangers Campaign. This is what's at stake in Monday's City Council vote.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on March 28, 2008 1:53 PM

Philippe Starck says that design is dead and that he's retiring. Says Starck:

I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact. Everything I designed was unnecessary. I will definitely give up in two years' time. I want to do something else, but I don't know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself ...design is a dreadful form of expression.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on March 28, 2008 12:13 PM

Updated 7:52 p.m. ET Friday:

This community will be relaunched as the MLBlogs Network in the coming hours, and we here at Major League Baseball Advanced Media are excited to start a new Major League regular season with a new blogging environment just as we have relaunched MLB.com, team sites and more.

Here are some details you will need to know, so here goes...

It will be free to blog here. No more subscription. For the record, the last person in history to pay for an MLBlog was Yes The Cubs Won't Win. Maybe that's how you reverse a Billy Goat Curse.

There will be an outage of service starting at 1 a.m. ET Saturday, and at that point no MLBlogs (or software) will be visible to the public until a targeted relaunch of 2:30 p.m. ET that day. So if you are thinking of blogging right now, just keep in mind that no one is going to see it overnight and for much of the day on Saturday, in case that matters. Please pardon the construction while we migrate everything into a new environment and new host.

The old Typepad app we've used since the April 2005 launch of MLBlogs will be replaced by a robust Movable Type software app. You'll like MT much better.

This will be the first phase in gradual rollouts of cool enhancements to the overall MLB community. You'll see a lot of things you've waited for, and there will be some other things you'd like and chances are they are on deck for coming days/weeks.

There will be some glitches and bugs and headaches as with any other relaunch. Normally we at MLBAM are launching things where we are the proprietors and WE are the ones going through the pains of getting it perfectly right. In this case, YOU are the proprietor and just expect that there will be some snafus along the way. We'll be working with you on it.

Going from pay-to-free is a good thing. It's the opposite of how it usually works on the Internet. Still, there may be some questions about refunding. There will be a link within your new MT to email our Customer Service, where someone will help you. But here is what you need to know:

REFUNDS

• Any annual subscription is nonrefundable if it was placed before 2008. Any annual subscription placed on or after Jan. 1, 2008, will be fully refunded by Customer Service.
  
• Any Blog created in the month leading up to the relaunch would be fully refunded, whether monthly ($4.95) or annual ($49.95).
• If you are owed a refund, then just email Customer Service here.
  

The MLBlogs.com landing page is being updated and will be a place for us to post any updates as warranted regarding the coming outage of service. That page will continue to exist through the migration/outage, and then at relaunch it will give way to a new landing page with more functionality including tag clouds, which also will exist on all blogs.

Right now QA testing is ongoing. Here are Saturday estimates:

1 AM ET: Shutdown of the entire existing MLBlogs community occurs to backup and give a database and file dump. (This is not an estimate. Expect that timing.)

No blogs will be visible during the outage. Everyone will see a placeholder page. Enjoy MLB.com or get some sleep or partake in weekend fun.

1 PM ET: We begin our test on the new platform.

2 PM ET: We signoff on testing and make the new MLBlogs Network public-facing.

Give it about 10 minutes for updates to propagate and then we're live in the new blog world.

Again, these are all estimates after blogging capability/visibility disappears. Will do our best to keep you updated as warranted.

Once MLBlogs return, there will be a lot of questions by bloggers. We're learning the MT software, too. Dive into it when it's available and try things out. There will be a customer support email link (as listed above) if you are at wit's end. It's Opening Day weekend and just expect some time for response on this end. You also can post comments here, and your fellow users may be able to reply swiftly in answer to your questions about functionality. There will be a lot to get used to, and we hope you will enjoy the new season and new blog network.

There also will be a link in your software to report/flag any bloggers/commenters for abuse/spam. There will be a more sophisticated method for this in a subsequent phase, but in the meantime, feel free use that email link and we'll monitor it. That is only for abuse/spam reporting.

Get ready for better, more fun templates...lots of tagging...preapproval of comments...lots of things you expect and some more excitement at the start of a Major League season.

Any constructive feedback (email preferred) about the new MLBlogs Network after the relaunch will be appreciated, added to any known issues. Thanks to everyone who has helped grow this community over the last three years, and here's to a great season.

Mark/MLB.com

Originally posted by Editorial Producers from MLBlogosphere

Originally posted by David Jacobs from randomwalks/dj, on March 28, 2008 12:00 PM

A solar furnace is a structure used to harness the rays of the sun in order to produce high temperatures. This is achieved by using a curved mirror (or an array of mirrors) acting as a parabolic reflector to concentrate light (Insolation) on to a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may reach up to 3,000 degrees Celsius, and this heat can be used to generate electricity, melt steel or make hydrogen fuel.

Whoa! Here's a great photo of a solar furnace in Uzbekistan and an even better photo of said furnace melting aluminum (close-up).

If you've got an old TV, you can use the Fresnel lens to make a solar furnace of your own. Caveats apply:

DANGER! This device is extremely dangerous. It should not be constructed or operated by anyone who does not observe proper safety precautions. It will instantly destroy flesh. It will melt metals, ceramics, and most any other material. Always wear welding goggles when operating this device! DO NOT leave this device unattended.

This DIY solar furnace is capable of melting brick (!!) and will "boil" a quarter in ~25 seconds.

Solar furnaces and the like have been around for centuries. In the 3rd century BC, Archimedes allegedly used a mirror to burn up the entire Roman fleet during the seige of Syracuse:

When Marcellus withdrew them [his ships] a bow-shot, the old man [Archimedes] constructed a kind of hexagonal mirror, and at an interval proportionate to the size of the mirror he set similar small mirrors with four edges, moved by links and by a form of hinge, and made it the centre of the sun's beams--its noon-tide beam, whether in summer or in mid-winter. Afterwards, when the beams were reflected in the mirror, a fearful kindling of fire was raised in the ships, and at the distance of a bow-shot he turned them into ashes. In this way did the old man prevail over Marcellus with his weapons.

This assertion was tested at MIT and on Mythbusters with mixed results. (via delicious ghost)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on March 28, 2008 10:26 AM

Via Alaina Browne, Gourmet has a great conversation between Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea, and Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck.  A lot of the conversation revolved around the Alinea Book that Achatz and crew are self-publishing through Ten Speed Press. Blumenthal asked Achatz if self-publishing is helping to keep the price of the book down, and the response is worth quoting at length...

GA: Yeah, basically—you are the one controlling costs, and you have the power to hire the photographers you want and the writers you want. But ultimately we wanted it to be approachable on the price scale. If we make less money we make less money, but I wanted people to be able to pick it up. I think it would be great if we could get aggressive amateur cooks, and even people in the industry—it's priced at that point where it might infiltrate the market a bit more. It might educate people on what this cuisine is and why we do what we do. We focus in the book on dispelling some of the myths and some of the negativity that swirl around this type of cuisine. The critics are saying this is emotionless cuisine, it has no soul; so we're trying to combat those kinds of critiques, and when people get their hands on the book and read what we have to say, they might actually understand our cuisine a little better. It's worth the effort.

There's a lot to chew on in this discussion (ed.: seriously? chew on? bad pun), from the economics of publishing to the interpretation of the term "molecular gastronomy." Go read.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on March 28, 2008 10:25 AM

Via Alaina Browne, Gourmet has a great conversation between Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea, and Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck.  A lot of the conversation revolved around the Alinea Book that Achatz and crew are self-publishing through Ten Speed Press. Blumenthal asked Achatz if self-publishing is helping to keep the price of the book down, and the response is worth quoting at length...

GA: Yeah, basically—you are the one controlling costs, and you have the power to hire the photographers you want and the writers you want. But ultimately we wanted it to be approachable on the price scale. If we make less money we make less money, but I wanted people to be able to pick it up. I think it would be great if we could get aggressive amateur cooks, and even people in the industry—it's priced at that point where it might infiltrate the market a bit more. It might educate people on what this cuisine is and why we do what we do. We focus in the book on dispelling some of the myths and some of the negativity that swirl around this type of cuisine. The critics are saying this is emotionless cuisine, it has no soul; so we're trying to combat those kinds of critiques, and when people get their hands on the book and read what we have to say, they might actually understand our cuisine a little better. It's worth the effort.

There's a lot to chew on in this discussion (ed.: seriously? chew on? bad pun), from the economics of publishing to the interpretation of the term "molecular gastronomy." Go read.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on March 28, 2008 10:25 AM

Related to yesterday's post about online media archives, Footnote is compiling an gigantic archive of historical documents and photos and invites you to do the same...your shoebox + the world's archives = let's make history together. For example, their collection from the US National Archives is exclusive to the web.

Footnote also recently launched an interactive version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that allows anyone to annotate names on the wall.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on March 28, 2008 9:33 AM

Get inside the mind of chef and restaurant owner Thomas Keller by watching his recent interview on Charlie Rose. It's 22 minutes long, but the most celebrated chef in America should have a lot to say—about his restaurants, his love for roast chicken, his greatest inspiration, and more. [Thanks, dvchurch!]

Charlie Rose Interviews Thomas Keller

Related

Thomas Keller [Wikipedia]
Charlie Rose [Official Site]
Thomas Keller's Favorite Simple Roast Chicken
Sliders at Bouchon Bakery
15 Courses, $210, and One Hot Dog

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on March 28, 2008 8:00 AM

When I heard that Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin died recently, I couldn't help but think of this scene from The Wire (language NSFW):



Here D'Angelo is teaching his idealistic co-workers a more cynical view of business. He argues that the inventor of McNuggets is probably still slaving away in the McDonald's basement while the people at the top of the company are raking in money from McNugget sales. The Wikipedia page about Chicken McNuggets doesn't mention a specific inventor, so it could be true. Or, maybe more fitting, the McNugget was invented by committee. I've had my share of both McMuffins and McNuggets, but if I had to choose one over the other it'd be the McMuffin without question. (Though I'm trying to quit, honestly.) Sounds like Herb did ok.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from onfocus.com, on March 28, 2008 7:47 AM

0.9.8 is getting closer and closer to release tag, and today we're publishing the next release candidate. The feature freeze finally happened. Since RC1, 0.9.8 branch is only getting bugfixes; this is the list of changes that RC2 introduces:

• fixed extended2 issues with filtering performance; proximity queries; reject-only queries; quorum queries; certain kinds of duplicate-keyword queries;
• fixed extended1 phrase queries;
• fixed extended query parser issues with N-grams and proximity/quorum lengths;
• fixed highlighting (uses 256 words by default now instead of former 10);
• fixed index-weights vs. multi-queries;
• fixed Python API id64 handling and error handling in Query();
• fixed non-working "exceptions" directive ("synonyms" worked fine);
• fixed ordinal-related issues (in cases of duplicate document IDs and overlong ordinal values);
• fixed building on BSD family (now properly including signal.h).

0.9.8-rc2 source and Win32 binaries are available from Downloads page. This time I'm also including Win32 binaries with PostgreSQL support, and Win32 MySQL+SphinxSE binary.

But of course we did not spend three weeks on just bugfixes. Major new features are already being added to 0.9.9 branch. We've implemented 64-bit attributes support and per-query attribute overrides there. The things that are in progress include support of arbitrary expressions for groupby keys, and long-awaited config reload on SIGHUP (that should eliminate the need to restart searchd). Going to publicly release 0.9.9 once those are finalized; but even earlier beta testers are welcome as always.

Also it's about time to finish preparing my talk on Sphinx for the MySQL UC 2008.. not to mention the demo for MySQL Expo. Meet you there!

Originally posted by shodan from Sphinx search engine news, on March 28, 2008 6:17 AM

I’ve wanted to put a list of chef blogs in the right column of this page for ages but a number of posts and articles about chefs who write have forced me off the couch.  Mario and other chefs have decried blogs, viewed them with scorn at best (mainly chefs who own restaurants maligned by bloggers or commenters, often anonymously, a practice I find pathetic and regrettable and I hope short-lived). It’s an understandable response to this new anarchy.  But what about chefs themselves who’ve embraced this new medium, whether by blogging or by reading and responding to blogs? 

It’s exciting.  Especially when done by Eggbeater and Ideas In Food, two blogs by chefs, pictured here, whom I have great respect for, Shuna Fish Lydon, whom I first met while she was piping gougeres onto silpats at The French Laundry (she stared at me with unconcealed disdain when I confessed I hadn’t read Jane Grigson, a situation I would go on to remedy--perhaps she's a mystic), and Alex Talbot, whom I just met at the offal dinner (he blogs with his wife and fellow chef Aki Kamozawa).  Shuna, based in San Fran, writes visceral emotional poetical (often instructional) posts about her work and life as a pastry chef; Alex and Aki, now based in NYC, write posts about ideas and experiments in cuisine.  These are exemplary blogs.

Shuna recently wrote about responsibilities attending chefs who blog, and food writer and editor Regina Schrambling, herself a blogger, wrote a general story about chefs who blog in the LATimes.  I’ll note many of the links Schrambling and Shuna mention below.  And I’ll link some that I like.  I’ll no doubt leave many out.  But I’d love to have a comprehensive list—so if you’re a professional cook who has a blog, feel free to let me know and mention your blog in a comment.  One of the most rewarding things I’ve done has been to chronicle the life of the chef, generally, to hang out in the kitchen and return with story.  Now the chefs have a vehicle to tell their own stories, to indulge their own obsessions and, importantly, to teach.

“I really believe a blog is for us and can be for many chefs an instrumental tool in the kitchen and outside," Alex wrote in an email.  "Even if nobody but the chef himself looks at what is written/photographed it, takes you a step back and helps you analyze food, ingredients, approach, aesthetics, etc.”

Chefs are becoming better understood for what they do rather than for empty celebrity, and blogs accelerate the process.  It's a good thing that chefs who want to write can now spread their ideas more easily and generously than they do their food.

Here are a few others, in no particular order:

Sean Brock, chef of McCrady’s restaurant in Charleston, SC

Michael Laiskonis, pastry chef of Le Bernardin, Notes from the Kitchen, serious description of the pastry chef's mind at work

Ms. Glaze's Pommes d’Amour: culinary adventures and life in paris, food cooking and life in paris but i like best her stories of life as a female cook in a Michelin 3-star in Paris.

Barbara Fisher, Tigers & Strawberries, chef at a small indian restaurant, blogs about indian cuisine, mainly.

Chad is a hotel cook in Miami trying to remain creative.

Matthew Tivy, Kitchen Confidence

Laurent Gras

My friend Michael Symon, Symon Says

Shola Olunloyo, Studiokitchen, sees chefs as artists and artisans, which I’m normally skeptical about, but he and alex and many others are beginning to justify the claim.

The Noisy Kitchen

Line cook: cooking restaurants life

In Praise of Sardines

Adventures in Dessert, Lindsey Danis’s literary pastry chef blog

Andy Little's Fresh Inspirations in Central PA

David Lebovitz

Chris Cosentino

Others?

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on March 28, 2008 5:18 AM

Friday Slide Scan #34 (wow, it’s been over a year) is from early mid-1994; views of Paris, including a couple I bet you haven’t seen.

That time I was staying in big hotel at Porte Maillot; as the view reveals, one of the few really tall buildings in Paris, which is aesthetically a good thing, unless you’re a Jane-Jacobs-ian density-is-good type, which I am.

I thought the view looking down from way up there was charming.

I was traveling around on the Métro, the only way to go. I still have a few tickets, Lord knows how many years old, in my wallet, for sentimental reasons. The Métro has its own smell, like nothing else in the world. Anyhow, there’s this one line where there a bunch of stations named after foreign dignitaries. One is called George V, after an English king of whom I know nothing. On that particular occasion, when I arrived early on a quiet Sunday, I found it was being renovated.

This was oddly visually compelling, so I stuck around and took pictures, resolutely ignoring the Parisians looking askance at the demented gringo. First, an empty frame.

Next, a subway-advertising-poster palimpsest.

Finally, the one old advertisement that hadn’t been (completely) removed.

Images in the Friday Slide Scans are from 35mm slides taken between 1953 and 2003 by (in rough chronological order) Bill Bray, Jean Bray, Tim Bray, Cath Bray, and Lauren Wood; when I know exactly who took one, I’ll say; in this case, Tim Bray. Most but not all of the slides were on Kodachrome; they were digitized using a Nikon CoolScan 4000 ED scanner and cleaned up by a combination of the Nikon scanning software and PhotoShop Elements.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from ongoing, on March 28, 2008 1:00 AM

An application that appears cluttered or illogical is harder to understand and use.

Aesthetic integrity is not a measure of how beautifully your application is decorated. It's a measure of how well the appearance of your application integrates with its function. For example, a productivity application should keep decorative elements subtle and in the background, while giving prominence to the task by providing standard controls and behaviors.

An immersive application is at the other end of the spectrum, and users expect a beautiful appearance that promises fun and discovery. Although an immersive application tends to be focused on providing diversion, however, its appearance still needs to integrate with the task. Be sure you design the user interface elements of such an application carefully, so that they provide an internally consistent experience.

From Apple's iPhone Human Interface Guidelines.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on March 27, 2008 9:48 PM

Mega Lincoln, originally uploaded by bryanboyer.

"If Lincoln, sitting on his throne in his eponymous monument, stood up and walked across the mall to check out the new Capitol Building, we would call him Mega Lincoln. He would stand 28' tall, or about 30' with his mega hat."

I kind of like the idea of Mega Lincoln standing up from his throne and walking across the mall not to check out the new Capitol Building, but instead to go wreak some havoc on the White House. It'd be like a history junky's version of that scene in Independence Day when the aliens destroy Washington (and the audience enjoys it just a bit too much).

(Oh, and in case it isn't clear, the little Lincolns are life-sized, presented for scale against Mega Lincoln.)

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on March 27, 2008 9:42 PM

I'm excited to have been invited to be part of a show opening April 4th in Raleigh, NC called Heroes. In many ways the show has a similar form and aspirations to my Celebrate People's History poster series, with dozens of artists representing their "heroes," mostly people that are under-represented in the mainstream, or completely invisible. I've been on a Sacco & Vanzetti kick lately (Italian anarchists given the death penalty by the state of Massachusetts in 1927), so I made a set of stencil and spraypaint assemblages of them with old Boston Red Sox baseball cards.

Here's the info on the show:
Heroes at Lump Gallery
505 S. Blount
Raleigh, NC
Opening Friday April 4th 7-11 pm
on display through April 26

And here is a statement/manifesto from erin o'Hara slavick, one of the shows curators:

When Laura Sharp Wilson and I first began our collaborative series of Heroes (that includes heroines), it was out of a need to name, recognize, honor and remember people who influence, inspire, change, educate and amaze us in our wreck of a world. We have grown accustomed to a comfortable disappointment in, lethargic shock of and a seemingly eternal dissatisfaction with this late-capitalist, “free trade,” global economy world that rewards corporate and military criminals and punishes the poor, the imprisoned, the victims of this system and anyone who tries to make it better, fairer, or a tiny bit more beautiful.
Exhausted, depressed and almost hopeless – or as Helen Caldicott would say, “in a perpetual and survival state of psychic numbing” - Laura and I decided to begin a series of poetic, spontaneous, simple and honest tributes to those who inspire us; who refuse to fight the rich man’s war; who sing truth to power; who write manifestoes of hope; who lead and fight and refuse to let power corrupt; who help the hungry and sick and maimed and poor; visionaries; poets; artists; historians; doctors; activists; Rachel Corrie; Josh White; Frida Khalo; Mother Jones; Paul Farmer; Ina May Gaskin.
We exhibited the first twelve or so of our heroes at the beautiful Bryce’s Barbershop Gallery in Olympia, Washington. I take my hat off to my comrade Laura Sharp Wilson for always meeting me halfway as an artist, mother, teacher, friend, activist – through thick and thin – but especially for taking this project on. Laura is the reason why the Heroes project is growing and hopefully, traveling. She invited 50 artists to respond to the idea of heroes and the heroic, to join us in our efforts to offer glimmers of hope and resistance in our dark and troubled times. The response includes a heroic wonder woman, Louise Bourgeois, Dennis Kucinich, abstractions, Marguerite Barankitse – who saved 25 children during the Rwandan genocide – among many others. While some may claim that we do not need another hero, I think we need and have many in our daily lives. If this project helps artists to focus on something bigger than themselves, gives the audience some light and inspiration amidst the gloom and desperation, then it is had done a good job.
Certainly, Heroes will not end the brutal, senseless and immoral war in Iraq, but it may help us to fight harder to end it sooner. Heroes might take us by the fearful hand to block the road to Caterpillar bulldozers on their way to destroy Palestinian homes. Heroes may open our eyes enough to see that we can be our own heroes. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a hero. For me, she is usually someone who would do something I do not have the courage to do. While I want to be a war tax resister, I am not because I do not want to go to jail (leaving my two small children). He is someone who consistently sees and shares the optimistic light despite criminal genocides, the capitalist victory of greed over community, the endless examples of cruelty, selfishness and ugliness. Heroes shine. They may have that Gramscian “pessimism of the spirit,” but they practice his “optimism of the will.”
At the time of this writing I still have not decided who my hero will be for this manifestation of Heroes – either Howard Zinn (I just want to sing his name) for making anarchy and impeachment sound like the most rational, logical and democratic things on earth, or John Berger (I just want to sing his name too) for always offering intense critique and steadfast solidarity through his generous writings, or mothers trying to protect their children beneath American bombs, or Sue Coe, Cesar Chavez, Student Action with Farmworkers, my parents, Sacco and Vanzetti, Subcommandante Marcos; Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie, Bayard Ruskin, Junius Scales, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Susan Sontag, people all over the world marching against war, people who believe that ending and abolishing war is not only possible but necessary.

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds: Blog, on March 27, 2008 5:29 PM

Hezbollah Tofu, as announced on Serious Eats:

Me: It would be really funny to veganize Anthony Bourdain's recipes.

Another person: We should make and sell a zine, then donate the proceeds to a vegan charity.

So many things are wonderful about this, perhaps most wonderful is the emergence of Serious Eats as a place for culture hackers to announce their work.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on March 27, 2008 5:02 PM

Photo of Hideki Matsui holding up a drawing of his wife by the AP

Hideki Matsui is sneakier than he looks. First, he disappears Wednesday to get married. On Thursday, it transpired that earlier this year, Matsui, while already engaged, had joined a bet with Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, two other Yankees bachelors. The three would award the prize to the one that got married first. Matsui won, tying the knot with his girlfriend, a woman he said is "a 25-year-old civilian and had formerly been working in a reputable position at a highly respected company. I cannot go into further details at this current time." Such mystery!

As for the bet, Jeter wasn't pleased he got played for the fool. “That’s not hilarious, that’s sad, that’s real sad,” Jeter said. “If he wanted the money, all he had to do was ask. He didn’t really have to do it.” Technically, Jeter has a year to get married himself -- Abreu has only six months because he has a girlfriend -- but his only hope of keeping his money is to extort Matsui. Jeter knows the name of the anonymous bride, and he said he'll reveal it if Matsui doesn't fork over the money. But he also told reporters, “I got one year? No chance. I’ll give him the money today. That’s pretty good. How do you say sneaky in Japanese?"

Abreu already conceded. Should his girlfriend be worried about a fear of commitment? Should women in New York be even more on the lookout for Jeter?

Originally posted by Tom Boorstein from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on March 27, 2008 4:56 PM

I love this little tidbit from the Apple patent filing today...

The lifestyle companion system also can interview the user about non-health related topics, e.g., spirituality/religion, identity (e.g., sense of belonging), relationships, career, financial condition, environment, hobbies, interests, other personal information, and goals regarding the same. 

Can't wait to see the privacy policy on that one.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on March 27, 2008 3:43 PM

One question that the Wright controversy has raised is this: Did Obama see it coming?

Was the Obama campaign aware, or prepared for the eventuality, that such incendiary comments would be surfacing? Should it have been?

In an interview to air tomorrow on ABC, Obama addressed this in a strikingly straightforward way:

"I'm not vetting my pastor," Obama told "The View." "I didn't have a research team during the course of 20 years to go pull every sermon he's given and see if there's something offensive that he's said."

Obama may not be willing to do this, but you can bet that the Republicans are already doing it quite diligently, thank you very much.

To be clear, that's not a criticism of Obama. Presuming this is true, it's another sign that he's just not willing to approach this problem in a conventional political fashion, and is willing to accept the liabilities that accompany this decision -- or is perhaps confident that he can talk his way out of them.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on March 27, 2008 2:32 PM

Early Clover adopters aren't just pissed that the company 'sold out' to the man or that Starbucks has a new monopoly: they are also mourning the loss of CloverNet. The website, which will be shut down 60 days after the sale, collected data from every Clover owner in the country and was a integral tool in learning how to use the machine: "They helped the company compile data about sales, about how the machines are holding up in the field and which specific times, doses and temperatures showcased individual coffees best. Now that information is something that Starbucks — a direct competitor to every small cafe in the country — has ownership of, and soon it will no longer be available to original Clover users." [Diner's Journal]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on March 27, 2008 2:00 PM

That's a lot of Kottke heads.

Originally posted by mathowie from A Whole Lotta Nothing, on March 27, 2008 1:58 PM

Last month Barack Obama released details of a vaguely encouraging transportation platform, pledging investment in rail and "livable communities." Today the Democratic presidential candidate endorsed congestion pricing.

In town for a speech and fundraising events, Obama was introduced at Cooper Union by Mayor Bloomberg this morning.

WNYC reports:

Speaking not far from Wall Street, Barack Obama told a Manhattan audience that the US needs better oversight of national financial markets, help for financially stressed homeowners and an additional $30 billion stimulus package.

REPORTER: Later, in an exclusive interview with WNYC, Senator Obama said he supports congestion pricing.

OBAMA: I think Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for congestion pricing is a thoughtful and innovative approach to the problem.

REPORTER: Obama said congestion pricing should not replace federal funding of mass transit.

Maybe this will take some more air out of the right-wing conspiracy theory, propagated most vocally by Congressman Anthony Weiner.

In the interest of equal time (sort of), Bill Clinton has also expressed approval for pricing -- and cycling.

Photo: AP

Originally posted by Brad Aaron from Streetsblog, on March 27, 2008 1:30 PM

Finally caught up with Skullphone and had a quick conversation about the brouhaha that's been stirred up by his tag popping up on 10 digital billboards around LA. Skullphone would neither confirm nor deny Wired's report that the billboard time was purchased from Clear Channel. The firestorm began when the story was originally reported on Supertouch. I had reported that sources had told me that it was indeed a hack. Here are some sound bites from my conversation with Skullphone "The art of hacking I know nothing about. What is hacking? What is art?" "People thought Bob Dylan sold out when he went electric. I guess people weren't ready for it." "To me it's American art. The (now digital) billboard on the side of the highway." "'Skullphone digital billboards.' It was a logical fit." "Once again, it’s a matter of semantics. What does it mean to hack the system. Is getting people to think for themselves hacking?" "Skullphone has a right to be there."

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 27, 2008 1:30 PM

Serdar Yegulalp picked up on my Open Source Is Not Just a License post and highlighted it in a post to his Information Week blog. He writes:

There is indeed a great deal to gain by contributing, and while many people might sniff at the fact that at least some of it is PR (as Tim put it), it’s easy to forget that PR is a crucial ingredient in the glue that holds together a community. A person with a bad reputation as a fair player is less likely to be welcomed into any community; someone who has a track record of playing fairly — or at least attempting to play more fairly — will be welcomed and will be able to reap the benefits all the more enthusiastically. You tend to give more when you know you’ll get more in return.

He goes on:

What Tim means by open source not just being a license is reflected in all of this. Anyone can write and release something under an open source license — yes, even Microsoft — but that doesn’t mean they’ll be used, re-used, built on or well-respected. That takes time and engagement, and a sense that you need to give as good as you get.

There are times when I think I’m talking to myself in what I think. Perhaps I could be mistaken.